And she’s a Virginia Conger from Minnesota. In turn, because her blog is nicely presented, I’ve subscribed to hers. The fact that a stranger — not a friend (though I presume at least as much from her initiative and obvious smarts) — is the first person to subscribe to Honey & Quinine reveals a lot about my life this winter in Springfield, Illinois.
It seems I’ve drawn a curtain down on my life. It’s not the final curtain that follows the final act, what Vachel Lindsay in his poem “The Drunkard’s Funeral” calls “. . . the grand fifth act.” I blame the winter,even though all my buddies from the local visual arts community have communicated zilch to me (with one exception) and I have done the same with them. Repartee is a memory. Repartee with purt near everyone. I’m throwing myself into the AeroKnow Museum at the local airport. For the first time in a few years, I didn’t attend a regularly scheduled poetry event at a local downtown restaurant because there were things to do at the airport, and I’m interfacing regularly with that crowd. Haven’t written a new poem in MONTHS but I’ve taken a bunch of airplane pictures this week. Met people from Tallahassee and New York City.
New at the Museum office is a used laptop computer that connects via wi-fi to the Web. Unfortunately, it means I’ll be spending less time with the Museum and more time with Facebook and email. I have two articles coming together for the January Springfield Business Journal. Still no full-time employer, but now that I’ve almost completely kissed The Arts (poetry and songwrithing) goodbye until spring or I finish setting up AeroKnow Museum, I am enjoying what I’m doing a whaleovalot more than what I wasn’t doing and feeling hellish for coming up short all de lib long day.
My performance coming up Saturday from 7 to 8 p at the downtown Hilton Hotel Third Thursday Gallery — will be my last public presence in song for the year unless someone invites my guitar and me to a party, and based on the happy arrival of the first subscriber to Honey & Quinine, we can collectively rest assured there is no danger of that.
My song “Hello” ends with the lines, “You say Springfield is not a place to grow; it is only a place to hide.” That’s okay, some blossoms flower more obviously in limited light.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
Job I follow your blog using the Google Reader which doesn’t let you, the writer, know that I know when there’s a new post.
Also, I sometimes read your blog post in the Facebook Notes when I see a Wall notice that Honey and Quinine has arrived on Facebook.
There’s also a way I can follow blogs with the Google Blogger, but right now I seldom look there because the other two ways come into view more easily.
Some of the followers of my four Google blogs are unknown to me. That’s interesting. I’m always wondering how did they find me and why are they interested.
And, finally I’m a advocate of using the Comment option to give some feedback to folks who take the time to blog. I’m afraid that if I don’t respond once in a while they might just go back to talking to themselves.
Happy to be reading, Job.