The newest section of my seriel, River City Blues, is live at Troubadour 21. The whole thing is archived there. http://www.troubadour21.com/series/clbledsoe/river-city-blues-part-viii/

Had to take a break from the novella I was working on, which is a sequel to the novella I wrote over the summer. I don't think they'd work as 1 book. Anyway, 80 pages in, just a few more to go when I get a chance to get back to it. This whole work thing...

Very nice poem went up at poemeleon http://www.poemeleon.org/cl-bledsoe/

Lots going on, little time to write about it. Here's a recap:

--We were Christmas shopping for my brother at Wal Mart the other day. He's become this unemployed, morbidly obese thing. I wanted to buy him some new clothes because he looks like a vagrant, but we can't afford to buy him nice things, so: Wal Mart. But I didn't think the largest sized clothes at Wal Mart would fit him. It made me very sad because he's going to die from this weight. Then I saw a student with her mom. I'd made the student cry the day before by reprimanding her for leaving a committment and not returning. Crocodile tears. The mom wasn't happy to see me.

--Last year, I made way more students cry. Am I slipping?

--One of my favorite students, an ex-drug addict who I take to NA meetings once a week, got into a good college with a scholarship. So maybe I'm accomplishing something. Then she skipped the meeting this week.

--I was playing guitar and picked out a song my band used to play that I'd forgotten. Then I realized that I don't actually have the movie I was going to show in class tomorrow. Frantic search. New lesson plans.

--My YA novel Sunlight is coming out in a week or so. Wouldn't it be nice if someone bought it?

--When we were kids, my big sister and I stayed up late on Christmas Eve and filled our own stockings. We would put fruit from the kitchen, pennies we'd saved. Will my child have memories like that?