Got some of the stitches out today. The rest come out next Wednesday. And yes. The biopsy was positive for Myoepithelial carcinoma again. This time they increased the margins by a lot. I'll have a CAT scan in a few months to see if there's anything left. That's it.
I'm typing this single-handed and breakfast with the other. In a few minutes I begin a six hour fast before this afternoon's CAT scan. Afterwards I will be radioactive for a few hours. Creepy.
Another lump has appeared on the back of my neck which must be removed. Most likely it's the same cancer removed last summer, the Myoepithelial carcinoma. We'll know definitely, one way or the other, after it's removed and biopsied. Today's scan will tell us whether or not it's anywhere else.
For my future reference, what follows is the timeline regarding
my diagnosis and treatment for Myoepithelial Carcinoma ----------------------------------
On 25 Jan. 2019, during a yearly physical in Nevada, I mentioned it felt like I had a sea serpent in my belly. Ok, it was a wild exaggeration, but in the US most doctor's attention span is controlled by insurance companies, not people's concerns. My old doctor spent about five minutes per patient. After the allotted time, if I had a question, I had to physically plant myself in front of the door to block his exit. This was a new doctor so I wasn't sure she'd listen but she did and was very gracious about it.
Yes, gracious as in "pleasantly kind, benevolent, courteous". Dr. Nguyen was seven when she came to America from Vietnam. "We were boat people", she said in an interview for Carson Now. Her father was a doctor but, with the fall of Saigon, her parents had to leave the maternity hospital behind they'd opened together and were able to do so because of the sponsorship of a gracious church in Michigan.
Anyway, Dr. Nguyen scheduled an ultrasound for Feb. 15. I got the results on Feb. 27. They indicated a mass on my kidney so she scheduled further tests. On the 7th of March I had a second ultrasound followed by a CT scan with dye. Those tests clearly showed an 8 cm mass on my kidney. I met with a Nevada urologist on March 18. He wanted to do a biopsy.
However, at the same time, we were nearly done sorting through, tossing, donating, giving away or selling most of our possessions, selling our house, and relocating near family and friends in Oregon. Furthermore, we had plans brewing well over a year to move to Europe part time. We had to go.
The Nevada doctor gave me a referral to one in Oregon. I met with him on 8 April. Our flight to London was on 14 April. He tried to schedule the procedure before that but couldn't until 17 April. M. Lee and I decided he should still leave as planned. The plane fare and lodging was already paid. I had the biopsy on 17 April and two days later left for Europe.
I was told I'd get the results in five to seven days. After a week, I called them but they could tell me nothing. Another week went by but still no word so I called again. The receptionist didn't know anything and seemed irritated by my question. A third week passed and still no report—so I called again. This time she said the Oregon lab couldn't identify the mass and sent it to a lab in Indiana which hadn't finished their analysis yet. On 9 May, the Oregon doctor called me in Portugal with results, myoepithelial carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer generally occurring in a salivary gland. We discussed me returning to the US for surgery as it is currently the only known treatment for this form of cancer.
On 10 May, as we were in Portugal, M. Lee emailed the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, a private biomedical research foundation here in Lisbon. They immediately assigned us a personal representative we could contact at anytime and made an appointment with Dr. Miguel Almeida for 13 May. On that day, Dr. Almeida scheduled five tests, all completed the following week.
Not wanting to do a second biopsy, Dr. Almeida wanted the slides from Indiana. In Europe your body parts belong to you. You want them, no problem. In America, no. I called the lab several times, signed and sent various requests to no avail. Even Dr. Almeida personally called and spoke to the head of the lab and sent signed forms requesting samples. By the time he finally received the biopsy we had returned to the US to apply for a Portuguese visa.
The process of applying for Portuguese citizenship is many stages, very backed up, and incredibly tedious. We had an appointment in San Francisco on 10 June. It required delivering a massive amount of paperwork, including an FBI background check, Portuguese tax number, bank account, and residence address in person. We had to go.
July 1 we returned to Portugal. While we were gone, Dr. Almeida put together a "dream team" including Dr. Christophe Assenmacher who flew in from Brussels. The surgery was 12 July and was done using Champalimaud's da Vinci robot which the surgeon controls from a console. This is a minimally invasive form of surgery, capable of greater accuracy and, if all goes well, reduces recovery time. The da Vinci made six small incisions in my abdomen for its "hands". One held the kidney while another carefully cut off the infected part and, before removing it from my body, still others slipped the tumor into a plastic bag, sealed and compressed it and yet another hand pulled the bag out through the largest incision which was about an inch and a half or some 4 cm long. They also removed a second tumor from the back of my neck which appeared last year. I remained in ICU for three days as bleeding can be a problem. It wasn't. I was discharged on the fourth day and have been feeling fine.
Oct. 8 I had a follow up CT scan of my entire body and tomorrow, Oct. 24,I will find out if I am, at this time, cancer free or not.
Oct 24 met with Dr. Almeida. The CT scan did not detect any cancer at this time. I didn't get elated when he told me. I felt grateful and have had moments of well-being and belonging, rare anytime for me and very welcome.
I mentioned earlier that this May I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a very rare type, myoepithelial carcinoma. Less than 600 cases have been reported since its discovery in 1972. MC usually occurs in a salivary gland but was on my kidney. The thing is, about 15 years ago I did have an enlarged salivary gland removed but, at the time, it was considered benign. Now we're not so sure. Most likely, the Nevada lab doing the biopsy had never heard of myoepithelial carcinoma.
Even this spring, after weeks of trying and being unable to determine exactly what it was, the Oregon lab had to send the kidney biopsy to a bigger, better equipped facility in Indiana for identification. In July, I had surgery at the Champalimaud in Portugal. An 8 cm (3.14 in) kidney tumor and a second smaller one on my neck were removed. Both were MC. At least for now there is nothing more to do. With MC, surgery is not generally followed with any other treatment though that may change as more becomes known about it. All I know at this point is that I'm tumor free. I'll be having initial follow-up tests in October to see what's up.
Several years ago I went through a very bad time. I was living in the hills of West Virginia and would come into town now and then to open my then husband's tiny electronic repair shop. He was a whiz that way. When I got to town the first thing I'd do was buy a bag short dogs, sit in the alley beside the shop and drink a couple. Then I'd open the shop. I didn't go in very often but as I recall we never had any customers when I was there. I played a lot of country music real loud those days. It helped. Marshal Tucker's "Can't You See" was a special comfort. I'm listening to it tonight as I write this. I don't live in West Virginia anymore. I don't even live in America anymore but it's another bad time and that song is still a comfort. This coming week I start a round a tests to determine if I have cancer.
Packing, sorting, pruning and letting go of almost two decades of my life has been overwhelming but mostly it's done now and what's left tucked in boxes and ready to go. We move at the beginning of next week and then what? A new phase of my life? The last phase? I'm saying good-bye to friends. We assure one another we'll meet again but will we? Every door closes for the last time.
And then there are my beloved friends in the Bird Park. They made Nevada livable for me, even delightful . . . Maggie the 7 o'clock Magpie (7 o'clock because in the beginning she always came at 7 AM, before everyone else) and her tiding . . . the charmer Chatterbox Charlie along with beautiful Minerva and the rest of the crow congress . . . Plonk, his girlfriend, and the ensuing band of pigeons who followed them here . . . the bevy of doves with their screechy, forever melancholy call . . . the drifts of quail, generations now . . . the hilarious, head-banging quarrel of finches with their ridiculously comical, but oh yes, very serious fights . . . the tiny, mild-mannered sparrows . . . the flock of grackles with their most mellifluous song . . . Babette and Mr. Fancy Pants . . . the pool parties and dust baths . . . Old Man pigeon who came and stayed to spend his last days here and after whom we named the pile of torn out lawn turf where he rested Old Man Hills . . . Penny Robin who came for her apples so many springs, even this one . . . I will miss them all terribly but always and especially—Maggie.
Maggie and a bit of apple
There is no way I can tell them that I love them but I'm going anyway, no way to say goodbye other than remove the little white table where, every morning I've been here for the past seventeen years, they have come for breakfast. The Bird Park was a haven most of that time, until the hawks showed up. At least that part will also end.
"Where are you going
in such a hurry traveler"
Capela dos Ossos
One of the last things we did before leaving Portugal was visit Évora, a city that's been continuously occupied for more than 5,000 years. Neolithic tribes, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors all passed through Évora, some staying centuries before being swept away by war or the changing of the age. You might think with all the different rulers, cultures, identities, and religions that have come and gone, and Évora's 15th century Golden Age being long past, it would be an empty husk but no. Évora today is considered one of the most livable places in Portugal and, because it maintains the integrity of the past within its historic center, it is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Swami & Juan Carlos
Évora town square
under the waxing moon
We got there early and spent the day doing our usual slow crawl, me photographing everything—medieval byways, the cathedral, paintings, gargoyles, bell towers, most of the 5000 skeletons in the Capela dos Ossos (Bone Chapel), Roman ruins, and random other details along the way. We found a friendly vegetarian restaurant for lunch and at twilight, under a waxing moon, sat on a bench in the town square to people watch while waiting for our train. Just after dark, an elderly gentleman wearing a dark topcoat and carrying an umbrella hooked over his arm emerged from a covered walkway along the square's edge. At our bench, he stopped, turned and, with a pleasant smile, bowed slightly looking back and forth into our eyes then slowly, and very deliberately, wished us boa noite and smiled when we wished him boa noite in return. Then, still smiling, he nodded, turned and slowly moved on. This, above all, is what I will remember of Évora.
For the last five weeks, and until yesterday, we stayed in a small flat on the top floor of a four story building near the top of one of Lisbon's many hills. Our flat was a comfortable place on a mostly quiet street with lots of light and a lovely view of the old city and from there we moled up and down through the narrow, twisting cobblestone streets looking for a neighborhood where we might like to live as we are planning to return next spring and establish residency. It's not that we want to live in Lisbon full time, or renounce our US citizenship, it's just that we are both, by nature, wanderers and Lisbon is a good place from which to wander. As a friend from London who is in Lisbon doing the same thing put it, "There are somewhere people and there are nowhere people. We are nowhere people."
We came upon this spectacular work by Caravaggio in Dublin. Of course my photo in no way conveys its perfection. I leave this here as a note in the sand. Should you find yourself in Dublin, see it.
The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio
National Gallery of Ireland
After five days in Dublin, known in medieval times as The Pale, we rented a car and began this crazy, month long drive beyond The Pale.
Tiny Ireland is barely the size of the US state of Indiana
photo source: bleemo.com
I fell immediately under the spell of the emerald isle.
One of Ireland's 10 gazillion
such enchanted passageways
Our first base was south, in Kilkenny. It's about an hour and a half from Dublin on the main road but it took us all day . . .
because we drove the single lane back roads . . .
and stopped a lot along the way.
Centre for Peace and Reconciliation,
Glencree, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Swami & Juan Carlos
loved the dark wood.
Graveyard in Glendalough
dating back to the 10th century
Grove in Glendalough
Medieval chapel in Glendalough
We also listened to a lot of music along the way including "I Dream a Highway" by Gillian Welch which proved to be almost too much.
Later M. Lee mentioned that during the drive he'd never felt so depressed in his entire life.
300K A Poetry Anthology about the Human Race / Une anthologie de poésie sur l'espèce humaine.
Our origins are not that well known though not totally obscure. Yet, recent discoveries in Morocco have pushed our ancestry from 200.000 years ago to over 300.000. Yes, we've been that long on Earth, and yet, this is a flea's leap compared to all the living and non-living things that were there before us, some of which still are, others we have more or less slowly but thoroughly wiped out or disfigured for the rest of time. You can also refer to Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction (especially its introduction) or Yuval Noah Harari's A Brief History of Humankind. Are we doomed? I am a pessimistic person and my own personal answer is yes. That's why I want to publish this anthology as a mark, a sign, a trace of our - yours and mine - passage on this planet. Think about petroglyphs, cave arts, artifacts, all the traces we have left here and there, all around the planet. Instead of chemicals, microscopic plastic particles, soda cans, gas jerrycans, used solar cells, full of silica, that no one knows how to recycle efficiently, smartphone parts, laptop bits and pieces... why not leave a book of poetry that will probably get lost in nothingness as many other books or objects before it, but that some descendants of the human race, or one of its creations (a mobile, self-conscious, artificial intelligence) or an alien civilization might stumble upon in, let's say, another 300.000 years; who knows?
Went to the Louvre today. My favorite pieces were two unfinished sculptures of slaves abandoned by Michelangelo, beautiful work but a grim topic for sure.
The word "do" entered our language sometime before 900 CE and although it's only two letters long it isincredibly nuanced. Whatever did we do before we got do?
Quail really don't mind body contact. In fact, bumping, cuddling and squeezing in is a major part of life in the covey. If two quail are drinking wing to wing at the water bowl, a third one would just as well squeeze in between them than find an open spot. Same when they are grazing seed under the butterfly bushes. They cluster and continually bump into each other and, except when they are chest bumping and chasing each other in dizzying circles, they act like one big soft gray feathery body sharing a single mind.
Nobody else who comes to the Bird Park does this. The magpie swoop and dive each other in a semi-congenial fashion, the lordly crows and ravens have the breakfast table to themselves, the little birds either battle or ignore each other all together, and the starlings gobble like they are competing for scraps in a madhouse. Only the mourning doves and pigeons eat together without boast or incident.
This quote from Biblioklept taken from William H. Gass, his book The Tunnel. It's fabulous and daunting and I'm afraid I have to add it to my already neglected reading list.
"An Invocation to the Muse
O brood O muse upon my mighty subject like a holy hen upon the nest of night.
O ponder the fascism of the heart.
Sing of disappointments more repeated than the batter of the sea, of lives embittered by resentments so ubiquitous the ocean’s salt seems thinly shaken, of let-downs local as the sofa where I copped my freshman’s feel, of failures as frequent as first love, first nights, last stands; do not warble of arms or adventurous deeds or shepherds playing on their private fifes, or of civil war or monarchies at swords; consider rather the slightly squinkered clerk, the soul which has become as shabby and soiled in its seat as worn-out underwear, a life lit like a lonely room and run like a laddered stocking.
Behold the sagging tit, the drudge-gray mopped-out cunt-corked wife, stale as yesterday’s soapy water or study the shiftless kind, seedy before any bloom, thin and mean as a weed in a walk;
Smell the grease that stands rancid in the pan like a second skin, the pan aslant on some fuel-farting stove, the stone in its corner contributing what it can to the brutal conviviality of close quarters,
Let depression like time-payments weigh you down; feel desperation and despair like dust thick in the rug and the ragged curtains, or carry puppy pee and plate-scrapings, wrapped in the colored pages of the Sunday paper, out to the loose and blowing, dog-jawed heap in the alley;
Spend your money on large cars, loud clothes, sofa-sized paintings, excursions to Hawaii, trinkets, knicknacks, fast food, golf clubs, call girls, slimming salons, booze;
Suffer shouting, heat rash, chilblains, beatings, betrayal, guilt, impotence, jail, jealousy, humiliation, VD, vermin, stink.
Sweat through a St. Louis summer and sing of that.
O muse, I cry, as loudly as I can, while still commanding a constricted scribble, hear me! help me! but my nasty echo answers: one muse for all the caterwauling you have called for! where none was in that low-life line of work before?
It’s true. I’ll need all nine for what I want to do—perhaps brand new—all nine whom Hesiod must have frigged to get his way, for he first spoke their secret names and hauled their history by the snout into his poem. For what I want to do …
Which is what—exactly? to deregulate Descartes like all the rest of the romancers? to philosophize while performing some middle-age adultery? basically enjoying your anxieties like raw lickker when it’s gotten to the belly? I know—you want to make the dull amazing, you want to Heidegger some wholesome thought, darken daytime for the TV, grind the world into a grain of Blake.
O, I deny it! On the contrary! I shall not abuse your gift. I pledge to you, if you should choose me, not to make a mere magician’s more of less, to bottle up a case of pop from a jigger of scotch. I have no wish to wine water or hand out loaves and fishes like tickets on a turkey. It is my ambition to pull a portent—not a rabbit but a raison d’être—from anything—a fish pond, top hat, fortune cookie—you just name it—a prophecy in Spengler’s fanciest manner, a prediction of a forlorn future for the world from—oh, the least thing, so long as it takes a Teutonic tone—a chewed-over, bubble-flat wad of baseball gum, say, now hard and sour in the street, with no suggestion of who the player’s picture was, impersonal despite its season in someone’s spit, like a gold tooth drawn from a Jew’s jaw.
Misfits, creeps, outcasts of every class; these are my constituents—the disappointed people—and if I could bring my fist down hard on the world they would knot together like a muscle, serve me, strike as hard as any knuckle.
Hey Kohler—hey Koh—whistle up a wind. Alone, have I the mouth for it? the sort of wind I want? Imagine me, bold Kohler, calling out for help—and to conclude, not to commence—to end, to bait, to 30, stop, leave off, to hush a bye forever … to untick tock."
The Pacific ocean at dawn and a lone boat far below on the sea.
We checked out of our room in Bangkok in the morning. Our flight left at 2 AM the next morning. We arrived in LA 20 hours later or four hours later by the clock. It's now nearly 10 PM or noon tomorrow according to my body. I haven't slept since Bangkok but I'm not sleepy. Jet lag is brutal.
Of course, Duotrope is, at least in my limited experience, the best of the best when it comes to offering an "extensive, searchable database of current fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art markets, a calendar of upcoming deadlines, a personal submissions tracker, and useful statistics compiled from the millions of data points". Yes, that's their description but it is what they do and they do it well. I was a subscriber until they erected a paywall. After that I couldn't justify the expense. I seldom followed through and actually submitted anything.
I did a poetry blog instead. Poetry needs to be free. However, that means if I want to publish something elsewhere, in a "real" publication, I must find publishers who accept reprints. Annasadhorse may be one of the the least visited sites in the universe but most publishers automatically refuse anything unless they get first rights. Rock and a hard place.
Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar is one of the Culturunners, a group of 10 Middle Eastern artists exploring the ideological boundaries between the US and the Middle East. More here.
We returned from London on the 14th, spent a week in Portland and now we're back in Nevada for a couple of days. Sunday we leave for Florida. As usual, we're driving. And, as usual, M. Lee has already booked the motels and loaded the GPS with the addresses of the restaurants where we'll have dinner each night. You don't want to hit town after 12, 13 maybe 15 hours on the road and still have to find a place to eat, especially if you're vegetarian. We're not fussy though. A salad and baked potato will do just fine. But just for today, good to be home. Home—a strange and special place.
(Note: I've gone a little wild with the formatting this time so please leave a comment if this layout doesn't work on your screen. Thanks.)
Here's a list of the main places we've visited, in order since Bath, with a few photos and notes thrown in for good measure.
Chair and photo of
1960s "middling class" with
photo of parallel world look-alikes.
Parallel world look-alikes
Geffrye Museum of the Home is housed in a building that was built in 1714 as an almshouse for the poor. A series of period rooms along the hall that is the spine of the building allow visitors a peek at the homes of the 'middling class' from 17th century to the present day. In the modern section, reduced to one photo and a chair, I came face to face with a 1960s version of myself and two of my children. The likenesses between them and us was mind-blowing, definitely time shifting, parallel world look-alikes.
The Queen's Horse Guard.
The horse didn't like it
and neither did the guard.
Buckingham Palace and, of course, no photos allowed. The tickets were pricey but seemed like a must-do, given that we've been hearing about the place all our lives. We were prepared for it to be a total bust but it wasn't. In fact, it basically fulfilled my wildest childhood fantasy of what a palace should be. And, having recently visited Brighton Pavilion, we had fun identifying treasures Queen Victoria had taken from there. Also, the highly theatrical, over-the-top decor of the music room and other less formal chambers, designed by George IV's personal architect John Nash was, simply put, mind-blowing. It was also interesting to see photos of the Queen and Prince Philip with the Obamas and other notables in the room where the state dinners are held. As for the photo of Swami and the Horse Guard, don't blame him. I put him up to it. He was every bit as uncomfortable as the horse. It was stupid of me to get so close and the guard let me know it with a masterful withering glance. Blocks later, I still felt like an asshole.
The Reckless Sleeper
by René Magritte
Tate Modern - We both really enjoyed the Poetry and Dream exhibit. It had works from some of my favorite painters, like René Magritte. And then there was the inevitable black painting and the white painting, some garbage, a broken chair suspended from the ceiling, an unmade bed in a corner, and even two sacks of sand all posing as art. I could not, did not contain myself.
"Art"at Tate Modern
Unmade bed
Stuff "art"
Tate Modern, Britain
Our art crawl through Europe has led to some interesting discussions about the current state of art or "art". This morning M. sent me two good links to articles on the subject, one at 3quarksdaily and the other at Commentary Magazine, How Art Became Irrelevant. Both are definitely worth a read if you're interested in the subject.
Toeing the old
Prime Meridian line
Greenwich to see the new Prime Meridian Line as it has moved 330 ft (101 meters) to the east. The usual crowd of people was there lined up to be photographed straddling the old line where (we thought) East met West. Then we walked over to the approximate new place where, using modern GPS technology, researchers have determined 0° longitude actually runs. According to London's Daily Mail, "it now cuts across Greenwich Park near a bin". Also we saw several deer and lots of crows, seagulls, magpies, squirrels, the lovely green wild parakeets, a grassy mound that's supposedly covering Roman ruins and walked the tunnel under the Thames.
Minerva contemplating the crows
in Greenwich Park
Swami and Rembrandt
at Kenwood House
Walked Hampstead Heathand visited Kenwood English Heritage House, a 17th-century country manor where we saw, among other paintings, a self-portrait by Rembrandt and works by Hals, Turner and Vermeer. Swami especially liked the Rembrandt and the Hals.
Winchester CathedralOf course, the cathedral is ancient and grand. Here we took the tour. Our guide, one of several volunteers, was wonderful. She delighted us all with fascinating, quirky details about the history of the cathedral. The whole town of Winchester is built on a peat bog so, over the centuries, the massive cathedral was slowly sinking into the ground. In the early 1900s, it was in danger of collapse so a deep-sea diver by the name of William Walker was hired to do the repairs. Walker's job was to go down below the cathedral's base and find solid ground. At that point, bags of concrete were lowered down to him and, every day for six years, he worked in the total and utter dark far below ground, building a foundation. One hundred years later, Winchester Cathedral still sits firm on the foundation he built and the head from his diver's suit, a photo and plaque telling the story hold a place of honor within.
Swami and Minerva enjoying a sunbeam
at Almshouse of Noble Poverty
The Hospital of St. Cross and Almshouse of Nobel Poverty is not a hospital in today's sense of the word but a medieval poor house also located in Winchester. Known as "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse", it still functions as established around 1135 by Henry de Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror. Noticing that we were a little underwhelmed by the grounds, one of the Brothers invited us to a tour of his quarters. He explained that being chosen to live at the Noble Almshouse depends "entirely on how you look, how you fit in. That's it". He started out at St. Cross as a porter and had been working there for about three years when a resident died and he was invited to become a Brother. I can see why. He was a gentleman, a singer and a member of the choir. He was also a cat lover. Several photos of his cat and cat decor brightened his tiny apartment. But the Brothers live a very simple life at the Noble Almshouse. They are not allowed pets so, these days, his beloved cat Effie lives with the Bishop. My memory of him is both sweet and sad.
Cambridge - King's College Chapel and Fitzwilliam Museum
King Henry VIII
in Cambridge
King's College Chapel was built by a succession of kings but Henry VIII finished it in 1515 and, for me, his presence overshadowed the rest. That's probably because I have fairly limited knowledge of English history. In any case, it is an amazing place though it seems more a tribute to kingly glory than heavenly. Ok, a massive Ruben's masterpiece hangs over the alter but the alter itself is otherwise quite plain. And I wonder if anyone has ever counted all the swords, crowns and other royal symbols chiseled into the towering walls, pillars and ceiling.
"At the Cafe" Degas - 1876
Fitzwilliam Museum
And then there's the mile high wooden screen that separates the nave from the alter Henry had installed to celebrate his marriage to Anne Boleyn. It's stained dark red brown, I am sad to report, by ox blood and, originally contained a carving of Anne's head and another of a woman hanging by her hair. In Henry's day, hanging a woman by her hair until it separated from her scalp was common punishment for I don't know what. M. Lee suggested perhaps for cooking a bad meal. The portrait of the woman hanging by her hair remains but Henry commanded the portrait of Anne's head be removed after he had her beheaded at the Tower of London.
The Fitizwilliam was nice but only a few pieces really stood out. "At the Cafe" was my favorite but, when it comes to Degas, I'm easy.
Me, Lee and Swami
on the Tames at Limehouse
Walked along Regents Canal to the Thames we were amazed to see all the narrow boats. Until now, we didn't know about the labyrinth of waterways running through the island. There are some 2200 navigable miles of canals and hundreds, if not thousands, of hand operated locks to move the narrow boats up and over hills on their way through the countryside at 2 to 4 miles an hour. Very cool if you're not in a hurry.
Frank and the walkie talkie
I'm trying to finish this while sitting at St. Pancras International. We're leaving England now and headed to Ghent, Belgium, where we'll be for the next week. Ok. M. Lee, Swami and Minerva are here with me but this morning I feel a bit the way my grandfather must have felt on his seven voyages around the world, alone and far far away.
Besides publishing a current list of literary magazines accepting reprints, the blog Published to Death includes a link to poetry publishers accepting unagented manuscripts. And it's not just for poetry. There are listings for all genres, including visual, and their markets and includes cool links such as . . . calls for submissions by the month, paying markets etc. Yes, there are similar sites, but this is a good one.
Of course, Duotrope is, at least in my limited experience, the best of the best when it comes to offering an "extensive, searchable database of current fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art markets, a calendar of upcoming deadlines, a personal submissions tracker, and useful statistics compiled from the millions of data points". Yes, that's their description but it is what they do and they do it well. I was a subscriber until they erected a paywall. After that I couldn't justify the expense. I seldom followed through and actually submitted anything.
I did a poetry blog instead. Poetry needs to be free. However, that means if I want to publish something elsewhere, in a "real" publication, I must find publishers who accept reprints. Annasadhorse may be one of the the least visited sites in the universe but most publishers automatically refuse anything unless they get first rights. Rock and a hard place.
Winchester Cathedral Of course, the cathedral is ancient and grand. Here we took the tour. Our guide, one of several volunteers, was wonderful. She delighted us all with fascinating, quirky details about the history of the cathedral. The whole town of Winchester is built on a peat bog so, over the centuries, the massive cathedral was slowly sinking into the ground. In the early 1900s, it was in danger of collapse so a deep-sea diver by the name of William Walker was hired to do the repairs. Walker's job was to go down below the cathedral's base and find solid ground. At that point, bags of concrete were lowered down to him and, every day for six years, he worked in the total and utter dark far below ground, building a foundation. One hundred years later, Winchester Cathedral still sits firm on the foundation he built and the head from his diver's suit, a photo and plaque telling the story hold a place of honor within.
