Highs and Lows

It was cold as usual, this morning, in the Ingleside neighborhood of San Francisco, but the sun was shining, and Greta was pretty perky, the Rimadyl having worked its medicine on her hips. I plugged into my iPhone (my son's gift for last Xmas, birthday, and mother's day). I'm still learning how to use it.

I've got Pandora Radio, a free app that transmits your own personal mix of music -- I mean it comes up with a steady stream of songs that it thinks you will like after you give it a few indications as to your faves. I had some reservations about joining the white earbud pack -- after all, I wouldn't be able to hear the birds, not to mention the cars that were going to run us over. But pretty soon, I was bopping down the street to Dylan and Joe Lovano and Sonny Rollins and Johnny Cash and The Who and …

But I turned a corner and lost the connection. So I checked my email instead. Seventy-five new messages since yesterday, including another rejection.

So what is it with my karma lately? I've been on a bad luck streak, drought, jinx, whatever for so long I want to scream and smash things, maybe myself included. People used to like my poems. Have I started writing bad poems? I never was Miss Popularity, but is the muse just not into me? Is it because I'm not young or not MFA'd or "the red-headed stepchild" as I read on somebody's blog this morning?