Manuscripts, La Rondine

So I've been editing manuscripts for PHN (Public Health Nursing). This is to earn my keep a bit between full-time jobs. I edited a Taiwanese manuscript for English (though it was pretty good, considering--it's just that Chinese doesn't have apostrophes and things) and APA format. There was a Texas qualitative study that involved only 10 people--about self care. I thought, how can you reach saturation with only 10 people and the most open-ended questions ever? The article was written well enough, but there is the fundamental weakness. There was a light and fluffy history piece--which is fine. More please! And a slightly cumbersome but well conceived article on methods of prenatal care on preterm birth populations. I have four more to work on now.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to publish something. Something. I think if Kristin (artist) and I (writer) can collaborate on a children's book, I think--I think!--we can actually make a buck. Kristin's art (Sweet Enemy Art) is swell for this (and her paintings are amazing too, but a bit darker). Meanwhile, I am trying to get a story in some kinda magazine. I submitted "Pig Roast" to The Sun. Sending "Chicago Interval" to Green Mountains Review. Have a couple of poems that are almost ready for Poetry East. Been snubbed already by Ploughshares. And I've got to finish "Mamertinus etc." I've hit a bit of a rough spot in the story. I have the beginning and the end, but no middle. In other news, I may have to beg for a real job. One that pays. Please, please, please.... And speaking of begging--how 'bout that end of "La Rondine?"

"La Rondine" (another Met Live in HD special) was pretty good. I thought that it was going to be a comedy, but alas, it was a (light) tragedy. Made all the better by the fact that Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna are married. So even if they're bloody mad at each other, they still have to go on, and fall in love at the cafe over beer, spend all their money, and weep uncontrollably over Magda's ultimate decision to tell Ruggero the truth and go back to the unpassionate, but wealthy lover (Rambaldo) she left behind. I thought, in the first act: "boy, that kissing looks real!" And it was. By the way, the maid (Lisette Oropesa) was great. She reminded me of Annette, in Mysteries of Udolfo. By the way, Magda does not die! (Is this a spoiler?)