I heard this term when I was attending a Foraker Group Summit presentation a few weeks ago. I then heard it a few more times. I couldn’t figure out what it was; it didn’t seem to me to have a context. So I looked it up. The term is based on a game in which fair and carnival goers attempt to hit one of several moles with a hammer when its head pops up. The moles are made of wood.

 
I found this to be horrific. A game, based on a premise that it’s okay to kill unsuspecting moles. This made me think of marmots popping out of their holes. This game thus gives people permission to bean innocent animals. I still don’t have a context for this. . .

All I can think is that Wack-a-Mole rhymes with guacamole.

I am so tired. I can’t think of a transitional statement. Wack-a-Mole is going to remain its own dispatch entity.

Yesterday, when and after I read my three poems, I thought that I should get back to working on my book. I have, particularly of late, felt like an impostor, a wannabee writer. I really got this feeling on Easter when Pete and I visited our friends Judy and Brian, who live in Anchorage. Judy has been working on her MFA and has totally embraced the persona of a writer. Talking to her as we walked around her hood was like playing tennis – she sort of lobbed the ball in my direction. We both watched as it fell on my side of the net. The analogy is that I had little or nothing to say about my writing when she asked, “What are you working on?”

I was not prepared for the question, so I didn’t go into detail about the project-related writing that I’ve been doing. I didn’t even mention the People’s Paper articles because it reminded me of what the journalist John Reed, who wrote Ten Days that Shook the World, said to another aspiring journalist, which is, “You think that one lousy article in the Oregonian makes you a writer?” Of course, the People’s Paper, a local rag, is one step lower than the Oregonian.

No, I felt one step lower than an imposter.

Yesterday I sat down with the draft of Shelf Life, and it came to me. Have Palmer be the setting and the recycling center, meeting house, and hotel be the sub-settings. Today I reread the introduction and the recycling center chapters, and I thought, this will work. And so, in my head, as I went about my day, I began revising the introduction and chapters.

Ideas, blips, came to mind all afternoon as Pete and I consolidated two U-Haul units into one single unit.

The beauty of this book is that I am very familiar with the settings, and so I can revise accordingly.

I will be able to get this published. And after, I will be able to hold my own in playing literary tennis with my writer friend Judy.

Next: 117. 4/28/25: Observance