Nice letter from California

Actually, two of em (emails) from my old friend Yvonne, whom I worked with a few years ago. Very supportive and earnest.

She's a nice Irish lady with a serious addiction to chocolate (her bumper sticker reads: "Just Give Me the Chocolate and No One Gets Hurt")...I don't know if I would've made it through this past year without her insights...she has been priceless. Add to that her MSW and years of counselling experience and I've probably saved a fortune from her good advice.

I told Tag (Dan McTaggart, a worthy poet in his own write, whom I hang with from time to time) that I would probably, after the P'cycles, only do books of that magnitude going forward...let's face it, from a marketing standpoint, I can keep doing the 60-90 poems collections that you can hide in the bookshelf and let them go for 11.95 or thereabouts...

or I can carpet bomb the universe with massive (inch thick), novel length (500-600 poems, 40,000 words +) collections that are definitely designed to be left on your coffeetable and retail for 25-30 dollars. we'll see how the media splash spins before making a final decision.

events are converging very nicely...I told M the other day that it seems whenever I have a difficult choice, something obvious and unexpected gets dropped in my lap to make it easier (the job in LA, the AEI honors, etc.) I credit that from my prayers, to be honest. I don't pray for world peace, or money or the safety of those around me. I just ask to be shown the path.

And, despite my best efforts sometimes to screw things up, I am on it, and looking for the next clue...I am tired and beaten up, but people marvel at my energy, attitude and strength, so I must have something going for me. when I get insurance again I should get a checkup...I know a couple of things that need some work, but at this point it is prohibitive, financially...

shaved off the moustache to get back to the look from my most common pr shot...might as well accept that this will be my public image for now and live with it (one person described it as "intimidating"...okay)

and yes, I am still leaning (52-56%) towards a return to Los Angeles or Monterey this fall (hearing from the grapevine that the original Panther is now loose in MY city (well she did promise me she'd move there, under different circumstances, several years ago) and my daughter lives there, too...I know the odds are long, but the thought of those two coming face to face makes me cringe.

hmmm...maybe I should move to Canada now.