BEATNIK BOOMER FEELS HAPPILY BLAH

Yesterday my wife and I visited my radiation treatment doctor, and he declared, "Your body's free of cancer." My wife's ecstatic, but I continue in my present calm state of one day at a time. Now, all I've got to do is concentrate on my bucket list item, but, wouldn't you know? After several days not writing that included Thanksgiving's pleasant visit of my daughter, her husband and my youngest son to eat ham and everything else vegan and to play board games, I've lost the impulse to continue writing. Even the happy PSA reading hasn't brought a poem, and the poetry contained in Up Your Ass inspired by my prostate cancer seems dull and silly. I see no opening ahead, no light of inspiration streaming in through the tunnel walls I'm walking in. I'm 79 years old and, interestingly, a hand-written rejection note from Fiddlehead was penned on my October 20th birthday, a birthday gift I just received in yesterday's mail. Will this period of writer's block pass? Who knows. I'm getting old, but the bucket's over a distant hill now, and I've a far piece to walk ahead.

BEATNIK EATS PRIME RIB AND READS POETRY OF MARY OLIVER

Yesterday, I did not write. It was my 78th birthday. For one meal I stopped being a vegan and had a prime rib, medium rare, at Black Angus. Wife, meanwhile, ordered french fried sweet potatoes and grilled asparagus. When we got home, she was still hungry because the sweet potatoes were too greasy. She ate barely one or three. Frankly, I like the homemade tomato soup I made two dinners ago more than the prime rib. Surprised me. Also for my birthday, we spent the whole day together. In the morning, we walked at the Lloyd Center, a mall, Mertie shoe shopped while we were there, then we ate lunch at the Veggie Grill, walked some more and went to see the movie Steve Jobs before Black Angus. Mertie thought the movie was depressing, but we both found it interesting.

Today, I finished rewrite of Chapter 43 of Ghoul World. Five more chapters to go, and another rewrite will be done. Walked at the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail again and came home. 

Currently reading some work by Neal Cassidy. Finished a book of collected verse by Mary Oliver. She is quintessentially a woman. I mean by that she's written some poetry that a man would not be able to write. Of course, I can no more prove my evaluation than I can high jump the Moon outside my window. 

BEACH WALKS, CHAPTERS AHEAD, CLEAR SAILING FOR WEEKS

the beaches we walked

Over the weekend, in celebration of my 76 birthday (October 20th) my wife and I spent a weekend on Camano Island, north of Seattle, walking the beaches in fog and mist with nary a sign of sunshine, except in the love in our hearts for each other. That's all sunshine. Camano Island is stuck between Whidbey Island and the Washington Coast. Hardly an island at all, a couple of dump trucks of dirt would fill in the slough and creek that separates the mainland from Camano Island. We drove to La Conner, north of Camano Island for fried oysters. In fact, I broke so free of my vegan/vegetarian regime that I put on five pounds in two days of eating, but three disappeared as soon as we returned to Vancouver. Like magic. 

Today, I roughed out ideas for the next two or three chapters of Manning, adding several mysterious deaths that will puzzle Manning and, I hope the reader too. As I've said before, I see the ending, with only one decision to be made there, but getting to that ending should be all the fun of it for the reader.