Good News for Me, Myself and Eye!

As of this week, the fluid in my right eye is gone and I can see very clearly. While the doctor says that once AMD has gone wet it never reverts to dry, at least now I have no symptoms. No treatments! He will check every month. He smiled. I've never had a doctor look visibly happy to see improvement like this. It was very sweet. By the way, he says my theory about luteinizing protein (see blog of January 30, 2012) is, you should pardon the expression, all wet.

Nadal Triumphs (Whew!)!

Nadal beat Djokovic at Monte Carlo! Lifetime record 17-14. At Monte Carlo, Nadal has held the championship for eight straight years. Go Rafa!

Advanced Style

Not long ago, my friend Connie sent me this video trailer for a new documentary and book called Advanced Style. The women involved are all of a certain age, if not more so, all of them New Yorkers, all of them defiant of time and the tides. Their bold views of elder-fashion and their attitudes toward life are so vibrant and inspiring, we should all take a lesson or five from their bonnets and their brains. Don't miss this. It's a treasure. The right side bar on the UTube page lets you watch more in-depth interviews, which are addictive! These women are fabulous! I used to want to grow old like Margaret Rutherford, dotty and invincible, but these women give invincible a whole new meaning, and they are anything but dotty. New role models. To paraphrase Gloria Steinem, this is what 70-90 looks like! For those interested in what's happening right now, try First Comes Fashion. It's up to the minute!

Red Balloons in Bunches!

"Red Balloon Rising" has shown up on two additional blogs: Heather W. Gibson's Tigergroves blog and at Buzzwriters In addition, another small poem called "Glee Club" has been published in Jasper: The Word on Columbia Arts, a new monthly magazine devoted to the promotion and support of Columbia, South Carolina, artists and art lovers. The March/April 2012 issue is dedicated to women artists. "Glee Club" was selected by poet Ed Madden, winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize in 2007 and the Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship in 2010. Thanks, Ed!

Glee Club/ For Stan (1941-1976)/ You are the tenor singing inside me,/ making a silence beside the song,/ calling it harmony, making a charm/ to hang on my jingling bracelet of longing.

Red Balloon Rising Goes Viral!

My little poem, "Red Balloon Rising," has gone viral! Originally published in Pleiades 31.1, it was recently picked up by David Lose on his blog, In the Meantime, and then again distributed by Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry project to newspapers across the country. It has been picked up (so far) by the Enunclaw Courier Herald in Enumclaw, Washington, the Covington and Maple Valley Reporter in Tucker, Georgia, the Bonney Lake-Sumner Courier Herald,in Sumner,Washington and the Edgefield Advertiser in Edgefield,South Carolina. This has never happened to me before. What a wonderful thing, to have a little poem like this achieve such a life of its own. And kudos to Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry that makes poems available to newspapers every Monday. Poems used to be a regular feature of small and big town newspapers all over the nation. It's nice to see them there again.

Kate Winslet calls it "utterly brilliant," Tatum O'Neal says it's "completely inspirational" and Isaac Mizrahi dubs it "hilarious and moving...as engaging as any fiction." It is GUTS, Kristen Johnston's searing and uproarious memoir of her addiction and recovery. You will remember Kristen's performance as the alien Sally in 3rd Rock from the Sun, her first hit TV series with John Lithgow. Currently she is starring in the TVLand sitcom The Exes (Wednesdays, 10:30PM). I recommend the show and I recommend the book, which is terrifying and funny and profoundly honest.