So, I enjoyed being at the Atlanta Writers Club meeting for the first time in maybe a year and a half–Memye Curtis Tucker, Amy Pence, and John Ottley were the featured poets, and then there were several “invited” readers, among whom were Karen Holmes, Andrea O’Roarke, and I.  And then there were several people who read in the open mic section.  What was nice about this AWC meeting, as opposed to most of the others that I’ve been to, was that it was focused completely on poetry.

I actually used to belong to AWC, but they so infrequently did anything with poetry–their programs seemed to focus on mainly 3 things:  “How to Get Published” (which generally was some know-it-all fiction editor or author who basically told everyone that they were stupid if they thought they had any chance to get published); fiction readings and fiction-related craft workshops; or non-fiction/ true crime.  After a year of going and the only poetry program they offered was Natasha Tretheway (which, to be fair, was a pretty great program) despite the fact that I complained and wrote a note to the then-president, I thought, to hell with this–I’m not spending $40 in dues to listen to things that held almost no interest for me.  This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy some of that other programming, but it was so generally weighted towards fiction it didn’t seem worth it to attend any more.

But of course, while I applaud today’s focus on poetry, it doesn’t appear that the Atlanta Writers Club is going to have any poetry-related programming any time soon, at least not according to their online event schedule which goes through March.  So needless to say, I don’t feel co mpelled to renew my lapsed membership…

… And all of this is by way of saying, that on the drive home, I stopped in five different groceries/ drug stores to investigate if any of them had o.b. tampons.  A couple actually did–but all they had were “regular” strength and “super” strength.  Without being too indelicate, even “super” works about as well as a band-aid on a bullet wound.  People, I need “super plus” (it has the yellow stripe)–so if you see a box of 40 super plus o.b. tampons, buy them for me, and I’ll pay you back.

In the mean time, I broke down and went to Whole Foods to buy a 20 pack of Natracare brand organic tampons (for $7.99!!!!–a 40 pack of o.b. would have been $6.42).  They are applicator-less, so that’s one point in their favor.  But I do not  have high expectations for them– after all this time, I’m set in my ways, and the prospect of trying some new kind of fem-hi product fills me with absolute dread.

I’ll be sure to let you know how the Natracare tampons work out.  I know you’re dying to find out.