When somebody has somebody and somebody wants someone new

We are now waiting, for the second day in a row, for the arrival of the promised repairman who will cause our oven to light again instead of making a sad repetitive clicking noise and filling the kitchen with the smell of gas. (We're not sure if it's a pilot light problem or what, because one burner actually lit at the same time, but we decided not to blow ourselves up finding out.) Last night was an epic misadventure in pizza-ordering and the night before that I made dinner in a toaster oven. This has really put a wrench in my plans to bake a lot of apples now that the weather is cool.

1. I learned only recently that hooded eyes are an anatomical feature, not an expression. I should have been picturing generations of mysterious characters looking more like Lauren Bacall.

2. I am impressed by just how much lovebird-ness this artist got into human form.

3. This poem by Richard Michelson is a knockout: "Forgiveness."

I am still sick. It's pouring rain. I just wanted the repairman to show at noon so I could go back to bed. I maintain this is not an undue thing to ask of the universe.

[edit] The repairman showed! The gas valve is broken. We can use the burners because they're on a different line, but the oven is kaput until further notice. Our property manager says it will be taken care of. If I can't bake apples, it's not my autumn.

You talk to me as if from a distance and I reply with impressions chosen from another time

My poems "Ariadne in Queens" and "A Vixen When She Went to School" have been accepted by The Cascadia Subduction Zone. The first was written shortly after seeing The Big Combo (1955), inspired by a comment of asakiyume's and influenced by a fifth-century vase painting; the second is not the story I thought of writing after the Boston Lyric Opera's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2011, but it is Hermia/Puck and I regret nothing. Both should appear in the next issue. Another good way to start the year.

[edit] And the mail brought me Carolyn Turgeon's The Mermaid Handbook (2018), courtesy of yhlee! It's full of photographs, folktales, and seaweed recipes. It's gorgeous.