part of the process of publicizing the new poetry book, e pluribus haiku 2015, involves going to all the weblogs and posting it. this year i have a poetry reading, and may publicize that as well, though i don't expect a whole lot of people to attend, outside of our own department and a few friends of friends who happen to teach and/or study italian, portuguese, german, spanish or french. these folks might be interested in haiku, and might be interested in american geography. chances are, they might be interested just to hear good performance poetry that combines the two, and if i'm lucky, i'll have a good time and learn some stuff.

absolutely stunning weather here, with clear blue skies, and cool nights, warm days, but for some reason, i've been feeling a sore back and walking like an ancient. my bones creak. my back hurts. i complain that this last third dog did it, but actually, just the totality of everything did it - four kids, three dogs, three cats, one with only one eye and huge sinus issues that makes you think she's about to die every minute. i'm glad i finally published the poetry edition (1000 haiku) because i've been working on it for years, to get it up to a thousand, and, though i envision working on / changing it every year to get a few hundred more, sometimes i just freeze up for months at a time and write absolutely nothing, and this could last for years, for all i know, which means that if i can possibly put forward a volume with a thousand, as i just did, this will be about the best i can do for a while, and hopefully will stand tall as something i did. while i was putting it together i noticed that the page, tlevs press, had over five thousand hits. Where'd that come from? apparently google just rates it high, as having stories, being genuine, sticking around for a while. i have a kind of stability. i don't know if it will translate to sales; i certainly hope so. and who knows what my own individual, personal, put-a-link-on-every-webpage marketing strategy will amount to.

with my sore back i just went to buy a gallon of milk and came straight home. but the town was hopping. it's almost time for finals, but people don't care about finals. they're out in force tonight: the weather's good, finals are three days away yet, they are afraid of being gone and/or working all summer, in short, it's time to get rowdy while one can, quickly, i suspect. meanwhile we've sold our house over a little closer to campus, and we have to do some serious moving, amongst the peaceful houses in this neighborhood, all six blocks, all that junk i was working on but unable to finish moving. some of it is supplies, camping supplies, other is just plain junk. maybe my back hurts because i'm still thinking about it.

the night settles on the wide west texas prairie. a kid is sleeping over in my son's room; they couldn't keep quiet, so i joined them. the girlies are down already. my wife, with the newest dog addition, is working on quieting down too. tomorrow is a soccer / baseball / groceries kind of day, but the weather will be beautiful, i'm sure, even though we're moving slowly but surely into the very hot season. not much dust this year. poetry reading coming. stay tuned!