Somebody Back Home is Wondering, "Now Why Don't [S]he Write"

99 deg ~ today will be our 12th day of 100+ temps, with at least one more tomorrow...broiling hot...one local car dealership is baking cookies on the dashes of cars as a promotion...not even cookies would entice me out onto a concrete lot filled with oven-cars

The title of today's post is a gender-modified quote from Dances with Wolves, which I love for the sweeping images of the prairie, shot in the Dakotas.  Just in case you were wondering where I've been, here are two photos from our trip to Tensing Pen Resort in Negril, Jamaica. 

If you remember, Dear Readers, June and the beginning of July were not kind to my body.  I had an injured back and then two rounds of antibiotics for a stubborn sinus infection/bronchitis situation.  In fact, I finished my antibiotics three days before we flew to Jamaica.  I'm wondering now if simply booking a cottage at Tensing Pen wouldn't be cheaper than all the Western medicine for which I paid.  I am arrived back home fully cured of all my ills, rested, restored, and ready to rock the fall semester (which sadly begins on the 16th, although I report on the 9th).

While I took many books of poetry on our trip, C and I traveled with some of our best friends (four adults and one toddler), and it turned out that I didn't get as much reading time in as I'd planned.  I did, however, read four or five journals on the plane rides.  What I do whenever I travel now is this: I read the journal and tear out any poems or prose that move me to keep them.  Then, I leave behind the slightly lighter journal (with a note if I had to tear out a page with the beginning or ending of another piece).  I hope in this way that someone who might not ordinarily read a lit mag will stumble across it and give it a chance.  Now I have a stack of torn-out pages (with the journal credits duly noted).  In a bit, I'll go through them again for a second read and the stack will grow smaller as I recycle those that don't stick.  The ones that do will go up on the walls of my office at work.

As for the blog-o-sphere, I spent the morning with Google Reader, which doesn't count above 1000 posts.  I had the 1000+ label waiting for me as "Unread" this morning.  Sadly, I had to force myself to simply "Mark All as Read" over and over again.  I am so sorry, my fellow bloggers!  I know that I've missed births and deaths, acceptances and rejections, and some wonderful writing.  However, the slate is clean now, and I look forward to picking up the thread of our shared conversations.

The Kangaroo Rises Again.