Yesterday, despite the guerilla headache, was a happy day for me. As I said in my blip-post, after months of nail biting, I learned that CavanKerry Press has decided to publish my next poetry manuscript. I can't tell you how honored and relieved I am. I like this press so much, for so many reasons: its focus on beauty and design, the company of its authors, the kindness of its staff. But CK doesn't automatically take an author's second book; plenty of press authors have needed to look elsewhere for publication, so I've spent these many months steeling myself for disappointment. Finally, I can allow myself to relax.

It's strange how such anxieties never seem to ease. When Deerbrook Editions accepted my first book, I thought I was knocking on heaven's door. If I never wrote another word, at least I would have a book, a real book, with my name on the cover and my lines on the pages. But I didn't stop writing, of course: suddenly I had a sheaf of new work that I thought was better than my old work, and. . . . Well, you can see how the cycle advances. Meanwhile, once the book appears in print, there it sits on the warehouse shelf, another unread poetry collection among aisles of unread poetry collections. A poet's melancholy is never dead.

Still, do not think I am repining. I plan to be dizzy-happy all day, even if the headache leaps out from behind its rock again.

Dinner tonight: Chicken legs stewed with home-canned tomatoes and fresh rosemary from the plant hanging in my cellar window. Roasted fingerling potatoes. Grated carrots with lemon and olive oil.