Tues. Aug. 5, 2025: Effie Effect Goes Live Today!
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Waxing Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, Chiron Retrograde
“The Effie Effect” comic noir radio play goes live today, kicking off Dean Productions’ Premiere the Play series. You can listen to a trailer here, learn about the artists involved here, and find out more about the company, the season, and where to listen, here.
The Community Tarot reading for the Week is up here. We’ve switched to the Tarot de Marseilles for August. I probably should have used that in July, for Bastille Day and all, but oh, well.
Another week!
Friday was a lovely day, nice temperatures, low humidity. I took advantage of the back-to-school sales to pick up notebooks for my workshop. If we don’t use them all, they’ll go into my stash. I have pens around, I just have to test them before the class.
Stopped at a local thrift shop for a great haul that totaled under $10. I got a pair of pretty picture frames, a harvest decoration, two autumnal ceramic platters, and a silver plate tray with an interesting maker’s mark that I have not yet been able to decipher. The online “encyclopedia” that claims to have all these marks keeps popping up sketchy “ads” that won’t go away and try to capture my information. I may have to find some reference books, maybe in the Clark’s library, since they have an extensive collection of decorative arts. I think it was made around 1935, if I’m reading the last symbol correctly, but I haven’t been able to reference the first two yet. A friend gave me some leads I will follow up on. That’s the positive side of Mercury Retrograde – great thrift shop finds.
Picked up one of my mom’s prescriptions, got a few things I needed for the weekend at Big Y, did a drop-off/pickup at the library.
Home, lunch, dealt with some email, took a rest (since I hadn’t slept well), put up some transitional-into-autumn decorations (the bulk will go up in September).
Rested for a bit, then showered, put on makeup, put on festive clothes, and headed down to Future Labs Gallery to help them set up for the reception. That was a lot of fun.
The show looks terrific. They did a wonderful job with the installation. My piece is near the front, which is both pleasing and a little scary. Everyone’s work is so fantastic! I’m so thrilled to be part of it. And it was so great to see people from last year’s and this year’s cohort. And we made plans for stuff we want to do together moving forward. A bunch of people from tarot also showed up, as did some people from the library. So that was all good. I popped next door to see some of the performance members of the cohort. Talked to one of my friends about the idea for a group show for Future Labs I have for autumn 2026, and he is all in for it. I will write up the proposal in September and then talk to them about it. We would definitely need a year to put it together (the pieces I’m thinking of are a little on the complex side, because heaven forbid I stay in my comfort zone).
Sonia, from the gallery, made a tequila, lemonade, and grapefruit punch that kicked ass. I just had a taste; I rarely drink tequila anymore. I had a little wine, though.
Came home, cooked dinner, tried to get settled. Could not get to sleep. My hip and my feet were really bothering me. I’d worn the wrong shoes. I think I will get gel insoles again for my shoes, and swap them out as I switch shoes. That’s worked before.
I finally took some Valerian root to knock myself out and slept until nearly 6:30. The cats were totally freaked out when they couldn’t wake me up. But I felt much better.
Bea now lets me pet her down her back three times as part of the breakfast ritual. She’s getting there. (Tessa always insists on only 3 pets at a time, and Bea copies Tessa).
I made most of the housewarming gift for my friends. I might still look for a different frame. I’m not convinced the wood with gold trim frame I chose is right, now that I see the piece. I have two weeks. The hard part of the piece, the house blessing itself and the graphics, are done.
Slogged through a lot of email. Got out a script submission for a development workshop near the end of the year. They didn’t choose the play I submitted last year, but liked my writing and invited me to submit something different this year, so that’s what I did.
Got my act together and headed out the door for a friend’s performance at Steeple City Social. He and his collaborator created a John Cage-like piece using coffee-making equipment. There was a good turnout of people I knew, and also people I hadn’t yet met, but now have. Since a lot of the seating is large couches, one winds up sitting with strangers who then become friendly acquaintances.
The piece was a lot of fun, and then we got to sit around and have a good catch-up with A4A people.
Home, and rested on the couch for the rest of the day, except for cooking dinner. Finished the MFK Fisher biography. Didn’t sleep particularly well, although it was nice and cool. The bad hip was bothering me Friday night; the good hip bothered me Saturday night into Sunday morning. I really do need to settle on an acupuncturist and start going again.
I had a nice, long yoga session in the morning, which helped. I had trouble settling in for meditation, though. My mind kept jumping around, worrying about everything that has to get done this week. We’ve survived the first two weeks of Mercury Retrograde. We just have to hold on for one more!
I did the Community Tarot Reading for the week, and scheduled it to post. I wrote the first draft of the poem for the Mount on the coming Sunday, about my grandmother’s kitchen in Foxboro. The bones are there, but I need to work rhythms and sonics and images a little more. At least there’s something on paper with which to work. And I had to look up the name of the grocery store that was in town in the 70’s – Fernandes. Once I saw the name, I remembered it. I knew it wasn’t a Shaw’s or a Hannaford. And writing the poem brought back a lot of memories. I will probably strip it back a little, so it doesn’t meander. It also reminded me of one of my favorite books as a child, BREAD AND JAM FOR FRANCES, and that sent me down a rabbit hole about Russell and Lillian Hoban.
This may be a poem I bring into the residency this autumn and/or read at our reading. It’s a page and a half, so I have plenty of wiggle room for the Mount’s reading (I have 3 minutes).
I did some ironing and put a lot of stuff away, both from the ironing, and that was used for the textile project.
Whitney’s extended their “Whitney’s Bucks” through this weekend. I had “earned” some when we bought all those plants in spring, but couldn’t get there during July to use them. I thought I’d blown it, but they extended the use. We hopped in the car and headed down. It was a lovely morning for a drive. I got a large pot of black-eyed Susans, some small purple petunias, and a pair of geraniums (buy one, get one free, even with bucks). So that was all good. I put up photos on the Instagram account, if you’re interested.
Hauled them home, repotted them, got them out onto the back balcony.
After lunch, we took Willa and Charlotte out on the back balcony in their playpens. They know if they want to go out, it has to be in the playpen, so they walk right into it as soon as I set it up and open the flap. I read a book and they sat and enjoyed being outside safely. The book was by Donald Bain on his ghostwriting career, which was interesting.
Cooked a new-to-me recipe for dinner that worked pretty well, and I’d probably do it again.
Overslept this morning. The cats were not amused. Did the morning yoga and meditation, but still felt logy and unfocused. I needed to get my act together. I have a 20K revision to turn around in 3 days.
Bea threw her toy mouse at me, hitting me. I tossed it back. She caught it, threw it up in the air a few times, then batted it back to me. So I guess we play catch now.
I worked on the copy for the September newsletter, catching up on what’s been going on. I’m going to lead with the Boiler House Poets Collective reading, and then have the links for “Effie” and then do the catch-up.
It made me realize that if I think I’m going to have a holiday something-something released, I need to figure out what it is soon. AND figure out what holiday short I will have as part of the newsletter.
I did a revision of the poem, which included changing the title to “Bread and Jam (But Not for Frances)” and reworked a few things. I cut some material, but also added a stanza about Frances the badger. I tightened some images and worked some sonics. It’s not there yet, but it’s closer.
I wrote two short Llewellyn pieces. Doing those three things cheered me up quite a bit. I was feeling pretty low earlier in the day. Got out a long-shot submission, but I had to at least try. I did some work on the class prep, but not enough. Since I’m not using slides, I have to figure out what’s on the handout (more than planned) and how to do it (probably in Canva). If I could do it in original PowerPoint and then put more than one slide per page, I would, but I can’t figure out how to do that. I don’t have six or seven hours to figure it out. If it’s not easily clickable, I’ll just do it in Canva’s document feature, or I’ll just so a simpler handout with a cover sheet and do a flipbook of a few visuals. I have all the material; it’s just arranging it in the best way for this class.
After lunch, I attacked the ghostwriting revisions. I did not get as much done as I hoped, so I have to make up for it today. I just didn’t feel up to much.
I did, however, re-read Jon Hessler’s MY STAGGERFORD JOURNAL, which is the journal he kept during the sabbatical he took from his teaching job to finish his first novel, get started on a couple of others, and start the transition to his full-time writing career. I’ve had the book for ages and re-read it regularly, always getting something different from it. It’s a very short book. I still haven’t read the actual novel about which it chronicles.
I did some marketing for the Topic Workbooks. I have to re-do all the Instagram ads, which is a PITA, because resizing the landscape versions just squishes and distorts them, and it’s not letting me do the adjustment in the Instagram crop feature anymore. I did the first three, which are the ones I need immediately, and I will re-do the others as I need them.
A friend sent me her book manuscript, which I will read and make notes on as soon as I have this ghostwriting revision turned around. And then I have to make a proposal I promised another friend to help her sort out.
It wasn’t as hot as predicted, which helped, and I’d gotten the temp inside to a comfortable level. But I just was dragging yesterday.
I also have a list of information to get out to various people today. I should have gotten it out yesterday, but didn’t get it done. All I can do is the best I can do. And yesterday just wasn’t all that much. The last few months have caught up with me, and I’m tired. I think I will block off Labor Day Weekend to do absolutely nothing.
Slept reasonably well, up early for yoga and meditation. Getting back into that rhythm helps a lot. Bea let me scritch under her chin as well as petting down her back this morning at breakfast, purring all the time. Progress.
Today, I will write a couple of the short Llewellyn pieces and maybe do a couple of other things here and there, but the main focus is on the ghostwriting rewrites. I need to get them out the door by end of day tomorrow.
The air quality is terrible, so I will set up the air purifier. And they’re digging up the street, without communication, because they are jerks. I may have to decamp, if the noise gets too bad. There is zero reason for a big digger to come and rip everything up down all sidewalks. Zero. And if there was a reason, the residents should have been informed about it ahead of time.
Six more days of Mercury Retrograde. Hang in there!
Have a good one!
