Every year, we try to make it to the Sweet Corn Festival where we eat rather shocking quantities of all imaginable foods except, strangely enough, sweet corn.

It was raining today, well a light drizzle anyway, so the festival wasn’t crowded. But boy oh boy was the food good. I dripped catsup on my t-shirt, but escaped unscathed otherwise.

And because it’s impossible to go anywhere in a 50-mile radius without seeing some of my relatives, I saw an aunt and uncle manning one of the booths. The uncle complimented me on my book and we chatted for a minute, then as Steve and I walked away, I heard the uncle say to someone in the booth, “That girl is the most amazing…”

That’s it. “That girl is the most amazing…” before we walked out of earshot. The most amazing… The most amazing eater of fried foods? The most amazing dripper of catsup? They always say eavesdroppers will never hear good of themselves, so I’m only getting what I deserve.

It’s weird to be a woman sometimes. It’s weird to be me almost all the time, but it rarely has so much to do with my sex as it does when I start thinking about sexual segregation in the poetry world.

Poetry journals, contests, anthologies, all set aside form women only. It doesn’t bother me, until I start wondering why it doesn’t bother me. And then I realize that I can’t explain it. Why would I roll my eyes at a man only journal and not at a women only one? I sent a submission to a segregated journal a few months back without a qualm. But why? Why do they exist, and why am I okay with it?

Senility is kicking in. I thought I linked to the latest Goodnight Show, but apparently I didn’t.

So here it is: Goodnight Show.

Give a listen.