May days

Well, so far, so good. Not having any "breakthrough" episodes of my pervasive arrhythmia has been a welcomed change since the procedure 10 days ago. That's definitely the longest period without an event that I'm used to having, especially since the first two ablations. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, since those breakthroughs are to be expected with the kind of ablation I underwent but it's been a wonderful relief to feel like I'm back to normal. I barely remember how it feels not to have to worry about my heart so this is a good change, indeed.

I do tire very easily and have been taking lots of naps, which Chiquita is very eager and happy to join me in. Nonetheless, I did finish all my grading and only a day late so my students were able to get their grades with everyone else, and I've been able to enjoy these past few days with not much on my plate work-wise to worry about. I do have pending the book orders for my new Explorations in Literary Journalism class, so I've been working on that. I've requested a few books to my public library so I can look them over before deciding whether to order them so I'll be doing that over the next week.

Meanwhile, I decided to go shorter for summer after growing my hair the longest ever, and I also went with my husband on our first joint motorcycle ride of the year yesterday to one of our favorite haunts in Logan, Ohio, where they have a buffet on Saturdays that we like.

My husband took some lovely pictures of the countryside that we rode through, and I must say that while Ohio's winter can last six months and it can be soul-killing in its never-ending cold and gray, when Ohio dresses itself for summer it is simply astoundingly beautiful. Breathtaking, even.

I also did some gardening this weekend, planting tomatoes and peppers in our huerto. Our rhubarb plant gave us enough for me to try my hand at some rhubarb "hand pies" (very much like the pastelillos or turnovers we have in Puerto Rican cooking). They're nothing to write home about but they're a good use of the rhubarb (and of my wonderfully free time!).

Meantime, I'm organizing my scholarly agenda for this summer. My essay on Julia de Burgos' "poetics of subversion" received a "revise and resubmit" and the revision is due in August. I've started to work on my conference presentation at the Hawthorne in the Berkshires meeting in June on the intersections of race and gender in The House of the Seven Gables, and I also have to expand the paper I presented on my father's novel at the Universidad de Turabo in February. I have the "South and the Caribbean" chapter for the end of the year for a collection on the Gothic, and have started rethinking my book manuscript, which got one good and one not-so-good review. The press editor wanted to send it to a third reader but I prefer to address the negative reader's comments before that work goes any further afield.

Last, but never least, my husband and I celebrate 20 years of married life in July and we've made plans to visit bourbon country in Kentucky. He has been there before but I haven't and, while I'm decidedly not the bourbon drinker in the family, I've always been curious to see what he described to me of his trip there more than a decade ago.

So, when life is good--much like Ohio summers--it can be very, very good. In those immortal words of SNL: "Béisbol haz bin berry berry gud to me."