Unexpected Post

    I did not expect to be writing something like this, and it really makes me sad to do it, but something has come up.  I have a brain tumor (not malignant!), a pretty big one on the right side of my brain.  After a final meeting with the surgeon yesterday (surgery is set for Friday, July 1st, but might be Wednesday), he recommended I not play golf, but I was thinking about it.  It would be too strenous, especially in the dry heat we are having in this area right now.
    So, this blog is shutting down for a while.  Don't know how long.  When I read other blogs here, I always check the date first.  If it is not recent, I usually don't want to read it.  For more recent news about my surgery and condition, I have set up a blog at caringbridge.org.  Just search for my name there: patrickswope.  Or just click this link: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/patrickswope.  My plan is to be back and playing golf and writing about my post surgery golf game as soon as possible.   Thank you for reading!

Until next time...

11th Excerpt From My Golf Diary

    In this excerpt from my original golf diary way back in 1999, Belinda and I are still on a plane to New York to go visit my brother Guy.  I record my tenth birdie ever (if I include the one at the simulator at Dave and Buster's), and I am figuring out the things that Mike, my pro, is teaching me.  Near the bottom, I have an epiphany of sorts.  I figure out...

I Get Sick, Tom at Golf U.S.A., a New Golf Push Cart and Escalating Skins with Bruce and C.J.

6-6-11
     It is lunch here at the CTX.  I have already eaten, so I am taking some time to write.  Okay, that first sentence was from yesterday.  Soon after that, I got a headache that was so bad it caused me to get sick in the bathroom, call Belinda, and go home to take a nap. 
    Now, it’s the 7th, but I have already eaten again, and I am taking time to write again.  This time, I hope I don’t get sick!  It started with

Let the Summer Institute Begin!

6-4-11
    We have completed days 1 and 2 for this year’s Bisti Summer Institute (or SI for short), and we are off to a great start!  We have a super group, a small group (7 women), but a super group, and I look forward to their writings and their progress and discoveries about how they see themselves as writers as we go along.
    Yesterday, we completed the downtown Farmington writing marathon day.  When I participated in my SI in ’07, that was my favorite day.  Oh, we get to say we are writers even if we don’t think we are?  We get to just walk around in downtown Farmington and write about whatever we see?  Cool!  Fun!  And it was cool and fun when we did it this time, too.  It was even better than the first time because I had a better idea of what we were supposed to be doing.
    Surprisingly, the place that got the best writing out of me (in my opinion), was the Spa and Salon.  In 2007, I wrote a poem about a little boy I saw there, and it was the poem that was published in that year’s anthology.