All This While

 In all this while I've not posted (2019), I've gotten a lot done: for one, I've published a bit: some fiction, some academic material, a few blogs. I've continued to teach at Texas Tech University in the College of Education (I've put in my dossier for promotion to professor; will hear news at the end of February/beginning of March); I've co-edited an academic book that should be out this coming year (working with my colleagues at TTU); I've edited a YA anthology of poetry on body image called I SING : THE BODY (FlowerSong Press); and I've completed and submitted the sixth installment of the bilingual Mickey Rangel, Boy Detective series, tentatively titled A CASE IS JUST A CASE. I've also completed a manuscript called EVENTUALLY, INEVITABLY: MY WRITING LIFE IN VERSE, A MEMOIR that is out for consideration. I also laid some flooring throughout the house. Ain't that something! I'm sure I've left out a few items.

I've also gotten sick with COVID-19. It was a bad 10 days, and months later I still get winded, though that might be because I'm old and out of shape. It was the strangest time. I was good for the first part of the quarantine, up and about, though I knew not to do too much because a man I knew who'd been sick felt a bit better and decided to go out to work in his garden; he wasn't better, really. The stress took a toll and unfortunately, he ended up in the hospital, where he died. So I took it easy, even when I felt okay. Once it hit, though: boy oh boy! It was bad with my sense of smell gone, though I could still taste. Body aches like nobody's business. But staying in bed hurt, too, so I'd sit up some during the day, and I drank a lot of cranberry juice mixed with water. In that time, a friend from church died from it. So you can imagine the panic in the middle of the night, praying hard to just take my next breath, and my next, and my next. 

Anyhow, I'm back. and I'll keep posting some. About reading, writing, poetry, images and the like. I remember enjoying this blogging when I first started, and I did a lot of it.