Moving on, summer 2017

My fire alarm has a feature which engages when the battery needs to be changed: it beeps and a woman's recorded voice intones, calmly and business-like, "low battery." I'm taking it as a warning for my entire existence. 

It's the last week of my job as librarian/supervisor at the Tracy Library before I take a month-long break. In August,  I start a new position as academic librarian at Modesto Junior College, a job I've long since coveted.

And damn, I have needed the break. In the past 1 1/2 years, the job has sucked the life out of me. I commute 1 1/2  hours per day, arrive at a workplace where no one seems to be on the same team & which has been ruled by a long-time toxic employee with control issues.  I can't believe grown-ass adults can't just do what they're supposed to do. Which is this: do as I say, and life will be better, because I'm magic, you fuckers. MAGIC. 

So. In the time off, I'm writing poems, start riding my new bike, planning work on the local 100,000 Poets for Change, and get some long-neglected shit done in my house. Maybe address all my deep-seated emotional issues. No big deal. 

So what is planned for the break? In between poem-writing and mom stuff, I'll be reading with poet Dana Gioa at the Carnegie Arts Center, talking to kids in a summer writing program at CSU Stanislaus, reading poems at our local UU church, and starting an oral history project with Modesto Sound. Oh, and there's this radio project I've wanted to do with the Modesto Peace-Life Center...and leaving the country would be pretty rad too. And starting a zine. And planning a poetry walk.

 I need to stay alive for all those things, so help me out, would you?