2012: "We Stopped" ... in retrospect

The Year of
(get it how you live)
our Lord
Two Thousand
(edgy fools)
and Twelve
(cavorting and cackling)
We Stopped.

Should auld acquaintence be
(white girl wasted)
forgot
(your turn of phrase)
and never
(wake up alone)
brought to mind

We'll take a cup
(destruction or celebration)
o' kindness yet
(graduation publication)
for auld lang syne
(something about the real world)


2012 was.... an interesting year? Things happened. Things didn't happen. There were portents and omens and auspices all over the place but I never could read them so I'm not sure if any followed through. Never again did I feel the peace and control portended at the beginning of the year; mostly the opposite in fact--a mania, restlessness. Never did figure it all out, still working on it.

This year: I forgot a lot. I ignored quite a bit. I learned a few important things. I forgot a couple of those. It was at least, a different year. The past few tended to blend together, and it was only recently I realized I was breaking the pattern, or starting a new one perhaps.  Disappointingly, I missed out on Improbable Satan's party I've had a standing invitation to for a good four years now...but maybe better for that. Some mysteries should stay that way;  some stories are best fossilized.

But me, I'm still a-changin'. With the times or against them.

Attn 2013: Ready or not, here I come.

Or something along those line.


PS NO RESOLUTIONS

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / and for a hundred visions and revisions

Today is my day off. Today is the day I put my foot down for. Fought tooth and nail to be relieved from floor duty. And by fought I mean whined. And by whined I mean relied on the kindness of others. And, gods bless them, they the others came through. Working a solid week plus with no reprieve is not unheard of or even out of the question. But my sanity was seeping out through my sinus membrane and I was quickly coming up on the point of no return. After a point that stuff can not be regrown so easily.

So

The day is grey again and I love it sitting and listening to the drizzle. I am washing my comforter. I am offsetting the vague trepidation I always get when washing my comforter by putting Bailey's in my coffee. Because I can. I am fiddling with the syntax of the second to previous syntax while my cat violently shoves a book entitled The Art of Syntax to the floor. I am weighing the logistics of going to AWP 2013 in Boston.

I cannot decide today whether I feel pastoral or confessional or cannibalistic. Maybe all three? Necropastoral, anyone?

There will be time to decide. Well, maybe not that much time. But right this moment, I don't begrudge its passing. And that is the best feeling I never even hoped for.

Old Familiar Carols Play

Whelp, turns out the world didn't end after all (unless this is the advent of a very unassuming and tedious afterlife) and another Christmas is upon us. It's a grey, grey day. The sky is almost white--appropriate, no? Since, y'know, there's less than no chance of snow, what with the 70 degrees outside and all. It's quiet outside. Waking up alone Christmas morning is a new perspective. It's fitting. Still. Quiet. Nice, I think.

No one got/is getting gifts from me this year, barring a batch of white chocolate peppermint bark I have yet to distribute. It all just happened so fast; I still feel a bit dazed like a crash victim. I know the annoyance of constant carols and covers thereof weighed heavily upon me, and I've very much been looking forward to the whole day off Christmas provides, but otherwise I've registered the holidays very little. No desire to shop for gifts, not even any ideas of what to get. My mother says Christmas rushes at you faster every year as you get older. How horrid.

I want to be thoughtful,t o come up with the perfect gift for every individual. I have no knack for that, for holding people close to me and letting them know how much I appreciate their being a part of my life. I'm generally bad at relationship  maintenance. But I do love my friends dearly, as they have this habit of being their for me, even if it's been a while. I appreciate the hell out of them, and I am so lucky.

Recently my mother passed down a piece of advice she received from her mother: Just remember he's somebody's son. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to think it means, but it seems like an appropriateish Christmas meditation.

Peace and love throughout the world, y'all. May your heart weigh less for a while, and embrace the good things in the world, or at least appreciate the world for what it is. (But me, I'm still hoping for a bit of cold cash under the tree.)

The end is nigh

I can't seem to find anything inspiring to say in this the holiday season. I'm in the grips of a depressing cold  and have been spending the morning kicking back ith some soup and watching the snide apocalypse posts on facebook go by.

You'd think I'd have more to say about the end of the world/

It's beautiful weather at least.

I hope if it does make its way over this evening it's a quick worlddeath. Or at least that I get taken out in the first shock. I really don't have the energy to go post-apocalyptic right now

I did just have one thing to mention and that's how unsettled/(unidentified feeling) this sign on a nearby grade school makes me. It reads in its detachable block font:

"WE PREPARE OUR CHILDREN

FOR A FUTURE

WE'LL NEVER SEE"

Um, yes? Cheers? Just don't know.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I stand in a line of people eight deep at my local Walgreens. My position puts me right in front of the gaping maw of the Christmas aisle, with all its garlands and tinsel and boxes promising light displays heretofore only dreamed of spewing from its shelves. Now, don't get me wrong. I like my Walgreens. It is a convenient locale for all the little expenditures that get me though workaday life. I even recently signed up for a rewards card. But the Walgreens Christmas aisle is not fooling anyone. It is not a nexus of holiday spirit and cheer; it's not even a reasonably fruitful outpost. It is a corridor of grimly set seasonal determination, last-minute light strings and guilty impulse inflatable Santas. This is not your first option for holiday shopping, this is a last line of defense. Oh hell I'm already here for cigarettes and I told myself I'd put up lights this year...might as well grab some now. But forget that noise. I'm already in the damn line. Which is not moving.

I eventually realize the reason for the holdup, or at least the party attached to it. Two mom-types laugh gaily at the checkout counter, their children mulling about somewhere behind them. They do not seem to realize here that the driving force here is quiet desperation tinged with exhaustion. Their carts are littered with Christmas funthings; every sentence ends in an exclamation point. They have just come from the gym. The outfits are tight to optimize silouette. Their bodies are impeccable, despite the surrounding living testimonies that they have housed and expelled unspeakable pounds of flesh. The women laugh again. The blonde one looks around to survey at the line, where we hold our places quietly. My blank stare does not intersect whatever she sees.

"Ohmigosh" she giggles. "...responsible for the longest line in Walgreens ever!" as the cashier hauls another candy cane across the scanner. "Sorry!" she sings out towards us. She does not sound the least bit remorseful, or even embarrassed. "It's Christmas!" Her compatriot, a false brunette, laughs. Her children are fat. They grasp for the plush Rudolph in her hands.

"Ma'am." I hear a low voice from the photo counter. A clerk I recognize. He makes a furtive come here gesture, and I quickly shuffle over, head down.

I murmur some kind of think you and without making eye contact silently implore him not to judge me for my purchases. A large container of store brand moose tracks ice cream, two caramel & marshmallow Russell Stover santa candies, a similar santa with raspberry cream, and a four dollar bottle of merlot. I think about informing him that it has been a long night, but he either already knows or doesn't care, so I don't bother.

I check out, fumbling my rewards card, and hustle out the store clutching my supplies. On my way to my car I pass the holly jolly double family loading their holiday loot into the inevitable SUV. Probably one of the many festive runs of the season. One fix is never enough for these kinds of people. There is a barking dog in the front seat. The fat children are smiling under their buzz cuts. The mothers are smiling under their fake tans.  I wonder if their life is better than mine. I have no conclusion to draw.

Happy holidays let the games begin may the gods & bureaucrats bless us every one.

Thriving is just Getting By on Steroids

I've had a pretty good week. I think I've had a good week? Couple of weeks? Time oozes by in weird hunks for me, like slightly past date cottage cheese, so it gets hard to tell. But it inches by in good things-- The Poetry Brothel Rendezvous event went fantastically, bang up good time, etc, and I think I did well for myself--my skirts stayed on the entire time (dang) and did a generous handful (heh) of private readings, almost entirely to "clients" I'd never met before (almost all men, but I do look ravishing in a corset so can't blame them). I also have two pieces in the new Volume 4 of Smoking Glue Gun (GO READ), as well as work forthcoming in plain china. Also, finally got my rejection from Fairy Tale Review, not a bad thing--I wasn't sure if they had gotten my submission at all, and it was very pleasant and encouraging. I knew publication there was a pretty long shot, so it's nice to receive the positive response I did.

Anyway, was thinking on all this and realized--with more than a little relief--that this feels right. I feel really good about getting my work out there, and I'm excited to produce more. Yes, this is indeed what I want to be doing.

I had lost touch with that feeling for quite a while, and it was not only discomforting but actually a bit terrifying. Because I was still doing writing stuff, submitting, reading, but without any real heart behind it--and more importantly, without making any new stuff, better stuff. Basically writing a bunch of literary checks I couldn't cash. So pushing forward and pushing forward blindly, without knowing why or how I was going to keep it up...felt like I might end up pushing myself over a cliff in the dark. But now, for lack of some less trite image, there's a little bit of light, a Tinkerbell of encouragement: Yes, this is going to be hard. No, you are not a prolific prodigy but you have your damn foot in the door and that's better than some. Use it, you can take another step here. And here. Etc.

There are no fresh starts. Keep on keeping on.

You remember the time you went into his room and locked the door.
No one knew.
You realize that somehow there are people who stringently admire you.
You take a contemplative lukewarm shower.
I have found myself in the great compost pile of stasis
where everything is reaching for a bottom that has quietly declined to exist.
You are there too on some other side.
I cannot reach you.
You wait for memories to decay into diary entries.
I wait.
You wait.
I have touched my tongue to the electrode of poetry
and blacked out.

More consumer patriotism

Yesterday got my hair dyed for the first time I'm a redhead almost now more mahogany really but managing to escape an identity crises thus far. The trip to the mall afterwards was a bit much though. I don't even know why I go to the mall by myself. I am objectively awful at shopping I have a completely lack of any eye for fashion and am easily overwhelmed by too many choices and well it's the damn mall. People-watching can be fun I notice most the boredom. The warm bodies behind the kiosks are bored so bored so desperate to straighten your hair and buff your nails and assault you with robotic helicopters. But most of all the poor bastard running the weird little train for kids. Sitting around in a conductors hat and striped t-shirt and suspenders on his iphone waiting for the one kid to come along to make him start up the whole four car contraption for a tiny brain's hopeful amusement. Fake train sounds. Headphones in all the while.

On the way out got froyo with too many toppings and ate it while reading a trashy mystery novel about a serial killer targeting stay at home moms poorly written with all the red herrings laid out nicely in a row. Later I ended up in the drive thru for Jacknthebox and wondered why I was there almost angry with the nice lady passing me a greasy bag of chicken nuggets curly fries honey mustard.

This morning I consume leftover flamin hot cheetos and greek yogurt for a breakfast I don't have the heart to throw away the sutter home bottle yet. Now to work a double then again a double.

I feel like I have never so much been an American.

And I'm upgraded daily / All my wires without traces

Today I went shopping for a smartphone.
As of right now, I have a semi-dumb phone that can make all my texts and access some parody of the internet, and even once in a while I use it to make phone calls to other real people. I have no real problem with the phone; with the exception of the inevitable temper tantrums that all the machines I own seem to throw it works quite well. However, for various reasons, I decided to take the step and move into this strange handheld collective world in which everyone else seems to be cheerfully participating.

This is kind of a big deal for me, for complicated reasons of superstition and cyborg anxiety that I hope one day to explore. Suffice it to say that watching people chat not with other people through the phone but with the phone itself makes me visibly and uncontrollably nervous. (I have several friends that find it amusing to team up with their cohort Siri to exploit this tic of mine. I love my friends very dearly.) I myself have been in the past incapable of figuring out how these devilmachines function. When attempting to use a borrowed one I'm generally reduced to helpless flailing and pawing at the screen like a sad animal until the savvy owner takes pity on me and dials the phone number or what have you.

It turns out that this is a real disadvantage when trying to be a wise consumer selecting a smartphone for purchase. If I am overwhelmed by sheer panic at just the sight of any flippy animated screen with higher resolution than the outside world that may or may not been able to read (or at least infer) my thoughts, how in the devil am I supposed to qualify and evaluate the differences among these damn things? Comparing them on a website with nice side-by-side boxes of written out specs is one thing. Holding even the 3 generation old model in my had and knowing this machine is smart enough to do anything but I am too dumb to tell it how is something completely different. Why am I doing this again? Haven't I consumed enough sci-fi to realize never to volunteer for the omnipresent, omnipotent, life-easing upgrade?

[Interesting and slightly troubling sidenote: A large part of the reviews of the HTC One X, one of the phones I was considering, are these weird exultations by former iPhone users that read like escapes from bad relationships: "i love love loooove my HTC. i used to stick with iPhones because even though i was never a big fan i figured i could never get anything better but then i made the leap with this [hone and its so great! i would never even consider going back to iphone" "This phone is great. It never gives me any problems...I never even think about iPhone anymore!"]

And how exactly am I supposed to explain all this to the pleasant young man standing at my shoulder just trying to earn his commission? I'm sorry excuse me sir I'm just having a bit of existential confusion about my commitment to my cyborg identity. No no I know I'm up for an upgrade I'm good for another two years yes. Yes no I heard you about the megapixels thing but it's just is it better? Will it make me better? How much of my soul can it capture in high def? And do I have to download it or can I stream it?

This post would have had a better punchline if I were publishing it with some wry acceptance from a smartphone. But, all things considered, I made what I thought was the best decision in the situation: retreat. Live to fight another day, maybe postpone the Singularity that much longer (ha, unlikely).

[Alternate ending: I'm secretly a robot!]


Will end by reiterating my cyborg anthem, Regina Spektor's "Machine":

Time Management requires some acknowledgement of Time

"We cannot say that time 'is' except in virtue of its continual tendency not to be" --Augustine, Confessions


I believe I've mentioned this before, but Time and I have some issues. Well,  I have issues with time and it, being a non-cognizant inevitability, takes no recognition of me. Which is how it should be, I suppose. If Time started taking special exception to me it would probably in fact be more than a little unnerving. Anyway.

I am currently living in a state of transition disguised as stasis. I feel like I'm standing still, that my grand movement has been put on hold. So it is always violently disconcerting when I realize, as I occasionally do, that this is not the case. Time is in fact moving (surprise!). All of those moments and hours and afternoons, all of the in-between times, are all sneaking by me constantly. Faster than ever, it seems. All of a sudden it is time to go to work again. Time to hide again. Time to go to sleep again. And repeat. But wait--there should be so much more wedged in there! Life! Activity and exploration! I work just under 40 hours a week. I'm no longer in school. Where the hell do I get off saying I don't have enough time?

It all gets whiled away, unnoticed. Staring at cracks in windowsills. Taking thirty minutes to iron one shirt. Wandering back into the same room three times, trying to remember what I was doing, if anything. The day is spread out before me, and then before I can realize my brain's denial of time, the rushrush to work hide sleep is upon me.

I've taken up keeping a productivity journal today, both to assure myself that time is indeed passing and to try to prod myself into doing something with it. Divide it up into neat packets, my days able to be quantified and assessed. That day I ran. That day I washed and folded clothes. Today I publish a blog post. It's almost humiliating, the banality of these little lists. But even the tiniest ,most tedious of day-lists is better than the days when I can find absolutely nothing to put down. That is what I'm trying to change, to inch away from. Today hasn't been the greatest of efforts in that direction, but even a small step a little late is progress.

Reoccurring Character of the Post-Nasal Drip

So last night I was working on this post about boundaries. How godforsaken important they are and how tangled up I am with their features/non-features and relativity and all of these other anxiety-inducing traits. It's either a lead in to or a lead out from my other anxiousness about space and spatial issues and relations &c.

Anyway when I was I "was working" on this I mean I was sitting in a bar scribbling in my notebook (with ensuing violent underlining and arrow-drawing) while other drinkinghumans glanced askance at me. And I also mean "am still working" because these boundary things/concepts are excruciatingly important to me right now and I would desperately like to string some coherent thoughts together about them. BUT! Two things keeping me from finishing & posting that and instead hedging with this:

 1) I really feel like I should finish Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet because the things she has to say about boundaries and self and others and the intimidation of all that is damn fantastic and deadly relevant. Would hate to go off too half-cocked. (Can one be too half of something? Probably)
2) I woke up this morning with some great post-nasal drip a sure sign I am about to develop some vague and debilitating seasonal sickness. Since it's my day off, I went ahead and let my body acknowledge that I was going to be sick. As soon as I did so, it shut down all non-essential functions, including motivation towards productivity, conducting myself in polite society, and developing theories of interpersonal relation.

So soup, juice and Netflix binge it is tonight. Much needed, anyway. Oh, and tea. Have tea as well.

realized / more sharply in more furious selves

Have been tunneling through the depths of a rather intense personal experience--or is is a series of personal experiences? what's the difference?--lately, as well as making a pretty solid aquaintence with some severe post-graduation blues. Not un-worth it, but still can be rough to negotiate at times. 

Still, despite being mired in my own head (but really, who isn't) for the majority of the last few weeks, it hasn't been all lack of progress. I have been writing, albeit in fits and starts, and even mustered u some material to submit to Belle Journal, this forthcoming lit journal I'm pretty excited about, centering around the modern Southern Belle &c. Really very interested to see what direction(s) they take the concept in. I'm already booked to return to the good ol' delta Highland Readings on the 18th, and another local reading series, River Writers extended an invitation to me to read as well. Unfortunately, because I work 6 days a week arcane rituals involving the sacrifice of money to even consider getting a shift picked up, I couldn't make it to read with River Writers, nor will I be able to support my friends at the first Highland Reading tonight.

BUT come hell, high water, or oppression by the System, I will be participating in the most exciting of literary opportunities: the Poetry Brothel. Link goes to the site of the original Poetry Brothel in New York, but there is a branch being established in New Orleans right this very now, and I have tossed my garter in the ring and been accepted as a founding poetry whore. I will be casting on a persona, of course, whose birthing pangs are still being felt. Progress expected on Saturday at first meeting. Seriously, I cannot properly communicate my excitement to be a part of the NOLA Poetry Brothel--at least not without using ALL CAPS A LOT, which I am rather loathe to do. Looks like I'm going corset shopping! Updates on the Brothel to follow, of course.

Aside from all these doors to word venues opening up, I'm just trying to take it one step at a time. This is a period of more than a little transition in my life and I'm still not sure which way everything is going to cut. Great amounts of trepidation and excitement and also giddiness swirling around in my head, in all of me, right now. It really gets rather exhausting at times, but better this than numbness. Everything is always beginning. Hang on tight.

Fallout

Actions have consequences.
Drastic actions can have dramatic consequences.
Drastic actions undertaken brashly can consequently perpetuate drama beyond the reaction.
Denial is not a way out.
A way out is not always a safe exit.
There cannot always be shelter for the fallout.

The best intentions can cause the most pain if you hide them under your tongue for too long.
Chew them up and swallow.

Scavenges

I am currently in an if-i-don't-think-about-it-i-don't-have-to-deal-with-it standoff with the post-Issac contents of my fridge. And so my lunch is yet again "Screw it, I'll make pasta." At least it's actual pasta I'm making this time, as opposed to the four days of Chef Boyardee from which I was previously getting my sustenance.

Anyway, to distract myself from my failure to consume a balanced diet, I will provide here a list of the assorted (and variously grody) contents of my coffee table drawer. I very much like lists. They provide a charming illusion of order and control.

• guitar tuner
• 3 dead lighters
• ticket stub to Avatar in 3D
• LED flashlight (damn that would have come in handy a couple of days ago)
• distressingly old Marlboro, broken at the filter
• my old swipe card from The Chimes
• Blockbuster Rewards pamphlet
• snowman PEZ dispenser
• 1/2 box of my wallet-sized high school senior portrait
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre playing cards
• ticket stub to Toy Story 3 in 3D
• expired copy of my driver's license
• tiny glow-in-the-dark stegosaurus, formerly a jey chain, souvenir from my sister's trip to Europe
• House of Blue wristband from Bright Eyes concert
• 5 coasters declaring "HOME IS WHERE THE BEER IS"
• detached bicycle reflector
• scratched sunglasses

And much more--in just this drawer. There are at least 3 others of a similar nature around the house. These are the kinds of items I cannot bring myself to throw away. Do I hope that if I keep them, I will remember everything, that by attaching scraps of physical matter to my anecdotal flotsam and jetsam, I will never lose a moment? Probably something along those lines. But what good does the detritus of my life do me holed up in drawers, fraying at the edges with grime until the distinctive features are unidentifiable anyway? What claim can be laid on me?

I will end on this note with part of Bukowski's poem "This Moment":


you must begin all over again.
throw all that out.
all of them out

you are alone with  now.

look at your fingernails.
touch your nose.

begin.

the day flings itself upon
you.

Prepare for the Worst, Hope for the Best.

Hurricane Issac has been teasing us all day with some fantastic blustery weather; only now is it even starting to seriously cloud over and gust. The giddy anticipation with which South Louisiana (and especially my peers) peers at an incoming Big Storm never ceases to amaze/amuse me. Hurricane supplies consist mainly of copious amounts of beer and liquor, with some food and batteries as an afterthought. The word "hurrication" has been tossed around quite a bit. It's not that people actually want a destructive force battering around their and their loved ones' property, it's just that it's a killer excuse to shut down work and party hardy in some great kite weather.

[ETA: Just realized I used the word"peers" in two completely different contexts twice in a row without realizing it. Going to let it ride.]

Gustav was the last big one to hit BR and my first real "grown up" hurricane experience. Despite massive inconveniences and property damage, I tend to remember the post-Gustav experience fondly. The nervous-making start to my college career was postponed for a week of blackout (literally) carousing, barbeques, curfew dodging, bongo playing, and face painting. (And then when the lack of A/C was just too much, I fled on a road trip to Hendrix to visit a friend. Win.)

This time around, I'm feeling a bit more Dickensonian.

I'm just not feeling up to the kind of manic decadence that hurricanes provide a perfect storm (sorry!) of circumstance for. Which is kind of a weird thing to say. But I feel like I'm going to cut the other way, into an isolation-by-force-of-nature mode. I'm just at a point where I feel very lonely right now--not in a sad, pathetic I-don't-have-any-friends sort of way (because I do, they are awesome people, and I always know they are a few steps away available for party and support. Forever grateful for that), but the kind of lonely that I get when I am out of sync with my space and my self. If I can't line that crap up, very little else is going to be fun. This isn't a sad depression thing, just the introverted part of my mood cycle; some rounds are rougher than others.

So instead of partypartyparty, I'm going to try to use the storm to pitch the yaw of my madness, to howl into the wind and the wain, to amplify my isolation enough to counteract it. I've got candles, and I've got some things to say to myself and notebooks enough in which to say them. And so by god, I'm going to get some words out. At least until my hand seizes up and my mind hazes apart enough to let me stop.


Hm. More thoughts clawing about in my head, but I'm going to put this out there before the grid goes down. I've got my pen, my red wine, my vodka, and spaghettios. Let's do this.

Chronostep

Oh no Hello another year. Chronologically I am tracking linearly like everyone else and don't I know it. But sometimes it feels like trudging and sometimes it feel like a race and sometimes I can't sort out which is which. Time that funny thing time.


And of course some Bright Eyes lyrics, because that's how I do:


And the world’s got me dizzy again
You think after 22 years I’d be used to the spin
And it only feels worse when I stay in one place
So I’m always pacing around or walking away
I keep drinking the ink from my pen
And I’m balancing history books up on my head
But it all boils down to one quotable phrase
If you love something, give it away

and my head filled with half-melted cotton candy lovely for a summer morning, morning being the time between oneish PM and five, or maybe until the sun sets. A list of errands has been marked out, hypothetical accomplishments, minor triumphs in the struggle with inertia. I think about reading On The Road again but then think it will probably just make me all titchy so nevermind but then after that think maybe I should read it anyway for that very reason. I think absolutely nothing for a while. This is irrepressible this laziness, so unrepentant, so unbecoming. There is no room there inside my head for anything but a slow ooze, a loss of meaning.

A couple of minutes away there is a dashing boy waiting for me in a coffee shop with some espresso and a ham & swiss croissant. Maybe some semblance of a muse is there too, maybe the legion of "writers in coffee shops" are on to something. Onwards and upwards then. A grasp towards if not meaning then at least direction.

"It's like trying to have an ungroveling feeling..."

(title taken from Chelsey Minnis's Poemland)

So I just finished reading this discussion between Kate Durbin & Kate Zambreno, posted a couple of days ago on herkind. And in the spirit of this discussion, I am embarking on this here blog post before regaining complete "control" of myself (if I ever had it in the first place, which not so much).

Had an interestingly intense rapidfire series of reactions to reading this, which I suppose I could have expected--everything brought up in their discussion was too relevant to my own experience, both "literary" and personal, for it to be otherwise.

Almost girlypeed myself when I first saw the interview posted, first off. Both of these ladies have a close link to my direct circle of influence (thanks to great CW profs like Lara Glenum & Laura Mullen; I am a lucky lgirlwriter indeed). Kate Durbin has been a figure of intrigue (and a bit of intimidation) since I saw her read at Delta Mouth Festival, and Kate Zambreno... well, actually, I've framed up more than one post about following her blog, Frances Farmer Is My Sister, and how it is exactly how I want my own blog to be. Except hers is better, what with the actual knowledge of theory and writing effort behind it, &c. In any case, both writers are pretty inspiring, especially to someone in my position. (This inspiration is coupled, inevitably, with not a little handwringing over what I could/can contribute to the generation that participates in/follows this. No pressure.)

So: eagerness to read about how the Kates here deal with issues of control & the anxiety control (and/or lack thereof) generates is joined with a nagging sense of dread: they still have to fight with this, too. In fact, their concerns about control are way bigger (more real? not sure what that means though) than mine--not in spite of, but because of the fact that they've already gotten their work "out there". They are out of the training grounds, and in the arena.

So this kind of fretting (actually, let's go with agitation; fretting makes it sound petty, which it decidedly not) from Kate Zambreno scares me even more:

 "People answered – well-intentioned – yes, you should go to an MFA program but only do it for fun or to have time to write but not for a JOB, you won’t get one anyway, and I wanted to fight with the world, and counter: but I have three books! And I have been in the adjunct trenches forever! I have been progressively making less money every year for the past ten years since I’ve become a writer and now make less than an extremely bad graduate stipend!" 

I've attempted to train myself to realize that being published is not the end-all-be-all, nor is it any kind of guarantee. I mean, I know. But still--that is the goal I happen to be striving(ish) towards at the moment... actually making money off my writing is still a flit of a concept in the back of my head. So to the idea that getting published has the potential to put me in an even more uncomfortable place than I'm in now is, will, it's nervous-making. Again, Kate Zambreno:

It seems to me, when I was unpublished, I was a lot freer as a writer. Yes, I didn’t have a community, yet, I had to invent this invisible tea party, like Sontag’s Alice in Bed, except it was with Zelda and Jean Rhys and Colette Peignot (the woman known as Laure). But I had no sense of the scene, of the climate of publishing, of who my contemporary peers were, or what genre whatever monstrous project I was envisioning would be shuttled into, or who would publish it, or how much I was going to have to struggle to get published, or what people would write or say about it. So I wrote and wrote, a girl-Darger, and dreamed and wrote in my journal and I remember this period as a magic time, like your girlhood, that I wish to get back to.

Yeah, that's where I am now. Except I am already fretting (yes, here I use the word deliberately) about launching myself and my work into that world, that scene (about which I am still virtually ignorant). The budding prematurely of the control crises. And it does make me wonder just what I could be losing by attempting to look ahead, to shape myself, the channel out a groove even before I have a have a sense of the pattern (and is a sense of the pattern even necessary?).

And then I fret about such fretting.

And so on and so forth.

I would love to be about to expound more profoundly on the actual discussion of their topic, control and fredom in (specifically women's) writing. But my own feelings about it (is it even feelings I should be guided by in this? but I suppose that that's the question exactly...) are kind of hazy and wavering at this point. Because I am, after all a woman. Kidding. (Not about the woman bit, about the hysterical stereotype bit. Duh.)

Something to mentally chew on, though. And incredibly relevant to more than one of the projects I'm attempting to work on at the moment. (Hint: cyborg theory.)


The last part, though, got me a bit choked up--their thankfulness for a supportive and like-minded (in the relevant senses) community of women writers, stubbornly making a way in their world. One last bit from Kate Zambreno:

 "Sometimes I look at myself, or some of the woman writers a bit younger than me—and I think it’s not really about talent, succeeding as a woman writer, which I think means continuing, going forth, pushing on, but it’s about whether we’re strong enough. I think we need these sorts of bonds and confidantes to assure ourselves that we’re not crazy, we’re not weak, that we’re original, that we’re brilliant, when sometimes we don’t know it ourselves."

This really hit close to home, for some reasons that are too sappy and dealing-with-other-people to get into here. I just agree with this statement wholeheartedly, that these "bonds and confidantes" are a wonderful, necessary boon I have seen flourish even (especially) in my generation. Really, the value there can't be understated. But nor can they be used as a crutch; I am currently at the juncture of realizing that. Being "strong enough" has to, in the end, rely on yourself, I guess? Ye gods, that's really after-school-specially. So instead, I'll end with a fabulous sentiment from Kate Durbin (channeling Lady Gaga):

"To me, to be a woman, an artist, and to be free, the bitch has to trust herself, has to trust her art."

What New Orleans Craigslist Told Me

Been obsessively browsing the New Orleans Craigslist apartment listings, so I thought I would make a little word-doodle




ARE YOU TIRED of DOING LAUNDRY WITH EVERYONE?
 perfect for single   on premises
NO PETS!
recently renovated // never flooded
very modern open feel    extremely efficient

elevates the essentials and introduces the unexpected
 crafted to give your everyday life a sense of wonder and surprise

doesn't open up to  private
             meticulous renovation
The Lifestyle You Desire @ A Price You Can Afford!!
  cute  details throughout
         very charming     well-maintained and quiet
available immediately
   references requested
wOWowOow!!
utility is power
stay or be removed--your choice
It's your lucky day!

Running in the Heat

Alright, a metaphor-thingy occurred to me regarding the whole writing/workaday deal that I was rather sloppily mentioning previously. It's not particularly original or anything, just two Things I'm Dealing With (/With Which I'm Dealing) that frustrate me in parallel ways.

Writing, for me, is like running. (Told you. But bear with me.) They are both activities I try to do regularly, and sometimes I even get pretty good at building up a habit. Sometimes I am compelled to do these activities, even at inopportune times. Sometimes I really just don't want to, and I feel good about myself when I make myself go through it anyway. And, of course, sometimes it's easier than others. 

We are in a brutal heat wave right now, or in other words, business as usual for Louisiana summer. Not even August and I sweat standing still. So even a sedate jog seems like an exercise (ha) in insanity, not to mention an invitation for heat stroke. I have more or less given up on complaining abut the weather, especially during the summer (i.e. 9-10 months out of the year), but now when I want to run, I have to do at least a mental rant every time. Because it sucks. In addition to undergoing suffocation in motion (I am breathing but oh god where is all of the delicious oxygen?), I am so much slower during the summer. So much. And it's really, really difficult to go out there knowing I am going to drown in my own sweat and take ten minutes longer to go the same distance I always do, especially when it was so much easier just a few months ago. In the fall/winter I actually feel good when I go for a run, all zesty and energized--like how I hear exercise is supposed to make you feel. And I get better at it, and run faster, and look all cute in my shorts. Then summer rears its ugly hot humid head and oh god why. But you know what? In the last week, I've done my usual run--the long one, 2.8 miles--three times. Three. It wasn't pretty, but dammit I did it anyway. Take that, stifling weight of summery sluggishness.

My writing (and my attitude towards it) tends to follow a cycle of furious advancement followed by long plateaus. After having such a great semester of words, I fear--I know--that I am about to hit/hitting one of those plateaus, one which threatens to be impressively bleak and barren. And since my periods of good progress tend (not coincidentally, obviously) to coincide with workshops where I am being forced to read and write and interact with my peers, I am particularly nervous about this dry spell--for the first time in a long time, there are no formal workshops in my forseeable future (informal ones will be attempted, but those have a history of falling apart rather consistently). Making myself write during these times wreaks havoc on my psyche bordering on physical pain. I realized today, not incidentally on my run, that this is more or less exactly what trying to run in the summer is like (Ok I am thinking really hard but oh god where are all of the brilliant words?). Except somehow it is easier to make myself finish a run, and then start another, and another, than it is for me to keep writing. Or start writing. Or restrain from burning my notebook. But dammit, I need to keep doing it anyway. Because if I stop now, I'm afraid I won't ever start again. And I refuse to have that particular weight of regret on my (now tanned) shoulders.

So I won't. Get ready summer, because you about to get all churned up in my pigheaded determination to forge through this writing plateau. Now, take that.

Sharing Space

Up "early" (yes, 8:45 is skeleton-groaningly early for me) to spot-treat blouses and aprons, which process consists of rubbing at red wine and marinara stains with a ghetto dishsoap+water+bleach mixture and muttering under my breath about wearing whites at an Italian restaurant.  This takes place in my office, which by the way gets great morning light, especially very early (I'm almost never awake and useful enough to appreciate it).

Over the past couple months, I've attempted to transform the office from "that room where we put the crap we don't want to think about right now" to an actual functioning workspace. I think I've mostly succeeded; the desk is usually clear enough to write on (hypothetically, of course), and the futon is an appropriately cozy spot to curl up and read. Also, in addition to the good light, this is currently more or less the cleanest room in the house (albeit full of stuff everywhere). All in all, it's shaping up to be what I always intended it to be--a room where I could write/read/whatever separate from the space(s) in which I sleep, eat, entertain, etc. The restoration of this room has also proved to be quite timely; since Boy's return home for the summer, I have had to abruptly switch gears back from living in severe solitude to couples living, and the office provides a nice little retreat from video game noises or boys' night in.

Anyway, I had put together this room with writing in mind. There are no less than five separate notebooks surrounding me on this desk, plus various scraps of paper taped to the wall with journal submission deadlines and slightly threatening self-reminders to write, goddammit. And of course, my first rejection letter hangs proudly (or whatever) by the door.

But despite all of these good intentions, my writing implements and materials have quietly been gathering dust as they disappear beneath the uniforms and detritus sloughed off after a long day (or evening, or both) of being a waitron (also relegated to the office). The ironing board gets more use than the desk, and the submission deadlines go unheeded. Such a blunt and concrete representation of how quickly workaday life can suffocate creativity (passion? not really sure what the right word is here)-- if you let it. I am more than a bit weak and cowardly when it comes to this particular aspect of life. It has defeated me many times before. But I will get the upper hand again, and soon.

But yeah, now I have to go iron a blouse for a Sunday double. Life.

The everlooping Here and Now

Why do I frame so many of my poem drafts with "here" or "now" (or a combination of the two, or occasionally the variant "there")?

Why am I compelled to make a presentation of the immediacy? To convince my hypothetical/ghost reader that these jumbles of words, these linguistic confusions of syntax and body have some root, can be grounded in a world splayed out before us?

Iono, perhaps. If so, I am not even particularly convinced of that grounding myself. But I continue to do it, to insist no look it's right here. As if repeating it enough times (here, here, here, now, here) will make it factual, will make some truth manifest. (Take that "manifest" to be either a verb or an adjective, as you would.) In any case, flipping through my notebooks I see it scrawled across the top of page after page (here, now, there is, here, here); a series of snapshots. Or maybe a present-tense fairy-tale I keep starting to tell myself, one that always trails off...

Once upon a now there is a protagonist-type female who rants herself silly about the flapping of tongues. 


Probably she lives alone with her cats.


The end.

Have been a bit lax on updating; it's not that I don't have things I'd like to write about (I have about half a dozen post topics drafted, actually. Because I always follow through with drafts/outlines), it's just that I've been really busy having a pretty damn good past week.

Job: Great. I have been accepted as competent and not a dunderhead. After a feeble first couple of shifts, had a nicely profitable weekend. Yay! I can eat again!

Friends: Got to see some of these, spontaneously and planned-like. I do enjoy good people.

Writing: Haven't been doing as much of this, but have been doing notes & foundation work for a couple of bigger projects I'm salivating over.


So until a more substantial post comes along here, I just wanted to share my new favorite Tumblr ever: #whatshouldwecallpoets. I'm not even 100% on exactly how this Tumblr thing in general works or trends or reblogs or whatever (It's kind of a thing even critical literary people are talking about? I dunno, a big deal or something) but I do know I love these .gifs more than Internetslife itself.

She's got a chicken to ride

Whew! This week has been a bit hectic, what with job training and all. Actually, the training itself, though pretty intensive, hasn't been that bad...however, procuring the very specific uniform took some running around town, which had to be squeezed in between the actual training shifts. Turns out, it is really difficult to find a white, long-sleeved button-down oxford shirt (for women) with a left breast pocket and buttons on the collar. And it is impossible to find one that fits me at all well. Also, I had to learn how to iron. My mother was all too happy to pass on this piece of domestic wisdom, but turns out I am really bad at ironing. It makes me incredibly anxious; I keep freaking out about re-wrinkling what I've already ironed and have to go back and redo it. Stressful. Anyway, "graduated" from training a day early, so I get to start picking up shifts and making money ASAP. Because I am a rockstar server (warning: impending list-format post about being a server).

Sidebar: It seems like some kind of mild existential defense mechanism that the word "rockstar" gets tossed around so much in the restaurant industry, especially regarding servers. I mean, we are pretty much the opposite of rockstars--all hustle and bustle and underappreciated (I would love to meet some servers with groupies). I will admit it does take a hell of a knack for performance to pull off your third double in a row on no sleep, but the appellation seems just a tad misguided. Yeah, I'll take it, though.

My brain's in a bit of a fog right now, so I'm not sure I can keep this whole word production thing up for much longer tonight. I will close out with a mention of the awesome site Awkward Stock Photos, which I just cannot stop looking at, especially with my earlier venture into that scene. Those inexplicably random images, for me, perfectly capture what goes on inside peoples' heads. I mean, someone had to think of it, but there is just something about an image of a girl writing intently with a comically oversized pencil that smacks of an endearingly earnest attempt at faithful translation of thought. Consider all of those bizarre mental images and misheard phrases (also mondegreens) that flit through your head on a daily basis ("Wrapped up like a douche..."). The people generating these stock photos are making a valiant effort to bring these tangled mind-thread out into the world, in share-able image format. For that, they should be commended. And their results laughed at. Yay The Internet.

Heil Consumerism!

I am now (almost) employed! Beating the odds!

Yeah, it's just another job as a server, and probably less lucrative than my last one at that, but starting Monday Sunday(/today), I will have (relatively) steady money coming in again, and I am really excited. Because as much as I believe that "things" don't make you a better person or define who you are, I sure do love nice things. My bank account has managed to coordinate nicely with my college career, i.e., they both ran out at the same time, so for the last little bit the budget's been tight, as in, frayed-shoestring type tight. The delightful boon of my graduation money, therefore, is going towards keeping a roof over my head, instead of towards all the fun stuff it was meant for. But as I'm writing my rent check and paying off my credit card bill, I'm also making a list of things I want to blow my money on to spoil myself once I have disposable income again.

(Hypothetical) Treat Yo Self:

-Massage (+ Pedicure. Also probably manicure)

I am in love with this amazingly creepy stock image.

I hurt. And I am weary. Admittedly, I haven't been doing that much of physical activity in the last few days (hey, I've been sick), but immediately before that I was doing really well with the whole fitness and staying active thing, and before that I was hauling my flesh bag around a massive campus for a few years. Also, something weird has been going on with my lower back lately. Plus, I promised my feet a pedicure after Italy. Turns out I'm a liar (also I don't really talk to my feet). Time to fix that. 

-Shoes

I need. More. Shoes.

Ok, not that many.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a shoe fanatic. Nor do I enjoy in any way shopping for shoes. In fact, nothing makes me more irritable more quickly. But I am in dire need of a small but reliable assortment of practical and nice-looking footwear. I am a grown-ass woman now, and I need me some heels (tiny ones, I have god-awful balance). And I would kill (or at least put down a chunk of change) for some nice Dr. Martens.

-Yoga Pants

So I've been doing the Yogalates thing. Turns out plankjacks and one-armed frog push-ups in a heated (!) room make you sweat a lot. I mean a lot. And it's so much worse if you don't have some semblance of "correct" exercise clothing, which, being woefully underequipped for any fit lifestyle, I do not. And while I would also like some nice swanky exercise shorts and sports tops, yoga pants are exceedingly comfy. And they have the wonderful tendency to boost a lady's opinion of her own derriere.

-Nice Lingerie

While on the subject of clothing-type-things, I would like to yearn for some new undergarments. And by "nice lingerie" I do not mean "slutty" or "uncomfortable ribbons and lace." I have in mind something that is comfortable but that I know still looks cute even under probably grungy clothing. And maybe even--but let's not get too crazy here--matching. I like to keep in mind a piece of family wisdom...the wording is variable, but it has something to do with always wearing presentable underwear in case you get hit by a car. It made sense at the time. Anyway, it's pretty embarrassing to get caught out looking like a pathetic orphan-child with raggedy undies when trying on clothes with friends or whatever. I am a presentable lady. Or something.

-New Shower Curtain

The shower curtain currently hanging in my bathroom is at this point probably more mildew-cleaning spray than the original PVC.

The mildew's winning.

I was thinking something more whimsical than black mold, maybe a map of the London Underground? While we're at it, I'd like a new bathmat and set of nice fluffy towels in brick-red. Oh hell, just redo the whole room.

-----------------------------------

OKAY, I'm getting slightly horrified/disgusted at my perky justifications for why I need to consume new, ever more expensive "better" products. (That, however, does not negate my desire for the items on the above list. I do love my shiny things.) I have always been inclined to perpetually make lists, and it is ever so delightful when the items on it are concrete and can oh-so-easily be added to Amazon. However, I am less so in the habit of showing people those lists, as that tends to project less-than-desirable character traits around the 14th "I WANT THIS" list. (Exception: If I think the audience is actually going to get me the products on said list. My letters to Santa were brusque and itemized.) So, ending this. And would like to note that my attempt to fool around with free stock images was less than stellar, but hilarious for me. Really the choices are abominable, and I am lazy.

Also, just made another submission to another journal, so already this summer has been more productive than I could (based on past summers) reasonably expect! Now I can go back to reading Anna Karenina, which is the best procrastination strategy ever. "How could I be doing something irresponsible? I'm reading Tolstoy."

Pompous and Circumstantial

graduate, v. :

1. To take a university degree

2. To divide into degrees; to mark out into portions according to a certain scale.


So.
I am graduated. In both of the above senses.

Well, alright, I don't have my diploma physically in hand, as I opted to drink mimosas in my backyard instead of sitting through an excruciatingly boring ceremony. But I did it, they have the paper.

And as much as I may make noise about college being a part of Real Life, etc., it has been forced on my attention in the last week especially that we are compelled to divide ourselves and our lives; we must make boundaries starting and ending points, everything packed neatly (or rather sloppily in some cases) into little boxes. We do this in all sorts of ways: with our chronologies, our personality, our friends. For those of us in the institutional educational system, it's especially easy at this point in life. Clump it into high school, then college, with each year given a neat little label-- FreshmanSohphomoreJuniorSenior. Or maybe by major--when I was a Bio major... when I studied music...Compared to most of life it's easy, neat.

I myself am especially prone to making such divisions. Always have been. I was supreme at compartmentalization (I'm still inclined towards it, but it used to be much more severe). I had multiple groups of friends, none of whom interacted with or knew much at all about the others. And each of them saw a different side of me, never seen by the others. In a failure/success of my system, as friend from group A happened to meet a friend from group B and shared a (true) anecdote about me. No one from group B believed it and it went down as a total lie.
Now, it's not that I was a superchameleon or completely fake--all of these sides I showed off were part of me, just drastically different parts that were easier to separate than to make coexist peacefully. And easy is good. Less muss, less fuss, less confrontation. I hate confrontation.

Time periods get the same treatment from me. High school was easy; each year of high school had a different feel, some tone or theme, almost like a season of a TV show.
I am not good with dealing with time, especially the past. Ok, the future's not so good either, but the creeping anxiety I feel when I think about the future is better than the crippling nostalgia that overwhelms me when the past wafts by. As in, nostalgia that is physically painful. Part of the compartmentalization process it putting everything specifically in place, which means it's very easy to find it again, exactly how it was. I can point to any one event and instantly say, "Oh, that was sophomore year," etc. And I can remember exactly the person I was then, almost become her in that moment. All of that gets packed up in the box.
Then it hits me that that will never happen again, never ever, and I will never, ever be that girl again. (Which admittedly in some, maybe most cases is a good thing, but the realization still gives me stomach cramps)

This epiphany was highlighted rather brutally recently, when one of my best high school friends and I decided to try and contact a someone who had been a rather prominent figure in our lives back in the day. Oh, all right, it was a mutual ex-boyfriend. We thought it'd be funny, which just goes to show how straight-thinking we were at the time. Of course, we ended up, if not regretting it, at least cringing a little--he was straight-up dismissive of us, and specifically of me. Admittedly, we hadn't ended on the best of notes, but there was closure. Even so, it was hard for me to believe that someone could just leave me behind like that. Put me so solidly in the past when we had once meant too much for each other. Shocking, I know, right? Especially because I had left him behind so long ago myself. That part of my life was so vivid, so important, that it never really occurred to me (in the important sense, not intellectually) that I couldn't just open that box whenever I wanted and go back to that.

When the past is gone, it's gone, no matter how many times you and old friends tell funny stories about it over drinks.

The danger of boxes is, they're tricky. They make it easy to think you're safe, think you've got it all taken care of. But too many boxes and you're in trouble. Maybe someone opens one they're not supposed to and you get screwed, or maybe you forget where you put something, or you're just too fond of going through them. In any case, it's going to mess you up. You can't live life so neat-like, to fool yourself into thinking it's easy and you're safe.


But still, it's hard to give them up completely. And what with everybody graduating or not graduating and getting jobs/more degrees and moving away (geographically or emotionally), I expect they're freaking out about how to pack up (or not pack up) their own little boxes. Both extremes are tempting: get a completely fresh start, throw everything away and sever all ties; or, cling for dear life to old friends and places and everything you already know.

Me? I'll admit, I'm more inclined to do the former. In a lot of ways, it's easier. And I know that there is a lot of stuff, and some people, I will have to let go of, like it or not. But I'm going to try like hell to give me life some continuity, to let it continue to flow instead of stagnating in the tiny compartments I force it into.

I'm a little bit better about my boxes now. I don't put away so much in them, with myself or with other people. I let things get a little messier, spill over into unexpected places. It's more fun that way.

I said-a done, done, doneity done,ah done done doneity done!

At 11:16 PM last night, I finished and sent my last paper ever as an undergraduate student. (In case anybody is interested, it's a pretty lame essay-esque deal forcing me to cram together random facets of existentialism we happened to study in the second semester. Not my best effort, but eh.) The sending of that paper was also the completion of my finals, and thus the end of my career as a practicing student (at least for the time being).

I've had an amazing time these past four years, possibly/probably the best of my life so far. I've met great people whom I appreciate more than I can say, and learned and experienced interesting, crazy, and sometimes pleasantly confusing things. I have started to come into myself as a "real person." So I must admit that I pretty much have to always treasure this era of my life. But:

This is the moment for which I have been waiting sixteen years.

Pretty stoked. After I hit the "Send" button, I was like:

And then I was immediately like:

(Yeah, I just figured out how that webcam works. I now possess a lot of pictures of me making ridiculous faces with that drink. No, that is not just orange juice.)

Seriously considered just throwing my notes/printouts/notebooks just freaking everywhere around the room. Promptly realized I would have to clean that up later, and settled for maniacal cackling instead.

Now for EPIC SUMMER. And then? The GAP YEAR.

Life planning and logistics come later, i.e. after the 18th (Graduation Day).

Until then? There are still several seasons of How I Met Your Mother left for me to watch on Netflix, and there is a neglected Nord warrior who demands my attention as well. Not to mention the hefty stack of books (poetry, mostly) I've collected throughout the year and have not yet had a chance to read. While I had my nose to the academic grindstone, that stack seemed to taunt me. Now it is like a big pile of literary glee waiting for me to roll around in it. So much time is almost viscerally unspooling in front of me. I cannot enjoy this feeling of potentiality enough; it has been far too long since I've felt this eager to embark on tomorrow.

Yeah, if anyone has any plans/ideas/schemes for summer adventures, just let me know!
(Also a job and/or an apartment in New Orleans would me nice if you've got either of those handy, too)

As it ends, so it begins.

It's Procrastination, So True...

So, I have finally, finally finished what seemed like it would be an endless succession of classes as an undergrad. My last week was kind of a strange one, especially psychologically; a constant justificatory bargain with some scholastic devil: Okay, seriously, what do I really have to go to? My last philosophy class is cancelled, so if I go to Dante on Tuesday, what difference is it really going to make if I don't show up on Thursday? (Yes, I did skip my last Dante class and yes, I do feel like a worse person for doing it. I did have my reasons, but they mostly involved me acting like a spoiled child/senior in her last week of school, so there.) But now? All over. Four years stressing over the chaotic balancing act of assignments, attendence records, papers, exams, and professorial approval(/disapproval), and after all that: no harm, no foul. Now all that's left is to hurl reams of paper with words on them at my professors until someone eventually hurls back another piece of paper that says I'm graduating. So close I can smell the ink on it already.

And no, I'm not walking in my graduation.
I've gotten mixed reactions to this statement from friends, family, and teachers. My mother, the only person whose opinion would really sway me on this one, is happy with my not walking as long as I'm happy with it (I am). She didn't walk in her college graduation, and I've been unsuccessfully trying to persuade her out of this whole walking thing for every graduation since kindergarten. Really, I can't overemphasize how little these things mean to me personally and how mind-shriekingly tedious they are to sit through. About half the people who hear I'm not walking reply with "Ohmigod why not?!" (to which I respond with the points laid out above). Some of my friends just shake their heads sadly and say, "Lucky." Some (along with several family and academic figures) try to persuade me to walk anyway: "It'll be fun and it's your day and you should be proud you've done so much!" And yes, I am proud. And I know that the people that mean the most to me certainly know what I have done and how hard I've worked to get here, and they are beyond proud of me. Most of the people in the PMAC don't know me or what I've done, and couldn't give less of a flying kazoo, because there are 5000 bajillion people to graduate in my college and all they want is a.) to see their whoever walk across the stage for 7.5 seconds and b.) to get the hell out of there. Not exactly the most appreciative of audiences.
Went on a bit of a rant there, but I've been inundated with this type of question lately, and I feel quite strongly about it. N.B.: I am not knocking anyone who decides to walk in his/her graduation. I am so proud of all of my friends who are graduating and I hope they all know that, and if I could stand to drown in LSU pomp and circumstance for one minute longer than I had to, I would be right there with them.

Anyway, all of this is just my way of continuing to be excited about exiting undergrad, along with (of course) putting off actually putting together my final philosophy paper and poetry portfolio.

Speaking of which, it is slightly harder than I anticipated to find literary journals/magazines to which I can submit right this second; all too many have either just closed their submissions or have gone on hiatus or aren't reading until fall or somethingsomething. So although I was going to post here a list of the journals to which I was thinking about sending poems... I'm not. Probably going to end up sending my stuff to Diagram, and though I love their journal, I would also love to have some backup options. I know I've mentioned all this, but have to start collecting those rejection slips sooner rather than later (I'm going to make a collage; pretty excited about it). Mayhaps I'll wade through all the fliers and slips I collected at AWP and see if any of them are still reading. Hm.

In any case, this procrastination attempt is going far better than attempting an outline on my philosophy paper/essay (two pagers of notes+quotes and counting!) so better go deal with that.

There's a very certain feeling that goes along with being able to mark freedom as a specific date on the calender. It's pretty great.

There seem to be gypsies playing trombone in my soul?

Hey! May Day! A giant nexus of socio-cultural spring traditions, plus some labor stuff--huzzah! Now, my plans do not (as of now) include dancing merrily with ribbons around a symbolic pole (I kind of tend to avoid most fertility-type rites, anyway), so instead I'm constructing a small mental(/virtual) checkpoint.

Why today can be construed as good:

• Sunny happy weather (okay, I generally prefer overcast days, and okay it's quite warm for my taste but it could be a whole hell of a sight worse)
• I went to Yogalates yesterday (what? I know! I feel like a better person for it) and did not wake up in excruciating pain today (yay stretching)
• I am eating delicious Greek yogurt (raspberry + some honey)
• I have amazing friends (literally, I am in amazement of stupefying, epic proportions when I think about how good they are to me and how lucky the world as a whole is to have them around)
• I have three days of classes left in my undergrad career

Biggest project on the horizon for finals week also happens to be the one most likely to be relevant to my life after finals week: my capstone poetry portfolio. We are being forced by the will of our esteemed professor (not being sarcastic here, Laura Mullen is great) to not only compile a final portfolio, but actually send the bastard thing out into the world, i.e., submit to a journal. So even though I've already done the bulk of the creative work for the portfolio (okay, there will be some tweaks and revisions that will probably drive me crazy in the end), it will almost certainly cause me the most mental anguish out of all of my finals. Better start getting those rejection slips now, so that by the time I move to a real city, I have enough to make a wall hanging.

Actually, I'm pretty excited about it.

Went to Festival International in Lafayette this weekend, and though we only got to be out there for a relatively few hours and only saw two bands play, I had a fantastic time. Slavic Soul Party is pretty much my new favorite music thing in the world. I might have guessed that a crazy Balkan-funk brass line would rock my world, but now I know for sure that that is the case. I mean, I couldn't help but dance. Literally. I was psycho-physically swayed by the music, and my face hurt from smiling so much. I am getting them to play at my hypothetical wedding.

Anyway, I'm going to wrap this post up with what I could not stop myself from repeating all that evening (it's great when you can end two blogposts in a row like this):

"I'm so happy."

Late Night Identity

What kind of person am I?

I am the kind of person who will sleep on the futon in the office with the cat box rather than waste the first night of sleeping on just-washed sheets by not being freshly showered.

I am the kind of person who while picking a documentary from Netflix will seriously ponder the question Do I or do I not know how the universe works? for several minutes before deciding that I indeed know quite enough about how the universe works, then pass up Stephen Hawking for Elmo.

I am the kind of person who will happily eat buttered pasta for four days in a row.

I am the kind of person who discusses Dostoevsky with her cats and ridicule their opinions.

I am the kind of person who has absolutely no business attempting to paint her own nails.

I am the kind of person who builds a semi-mannequin of herself then gets creeped out having it in the house.

I am the kind of person who spends an egregious amount of time arranging a growing collection of toy dinosaurs in front of a display of poetry.

I am the kind of person who stays up just a few minutes too late writing silly blog posts on one of her last school nights.

you have stripped me down to my tongue root (in a good way)

Oh man.

The release of Volume 54 of delta journal was nothing sort of gorgeous. The journal is beautiful. The party was beautiful. (The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra...is beautiful!) So many people were involved in putting everything together on all fronts that there are not enough thank-yous in the word to get out, but I'm going to throw at least one out into the universe anyway: Thank You! to anyone and everyone who helped support me and/or any and all rest of the staff &c. while we were scrambling to make this journal (and it's killer debut into the world) possible. So pretty. I feel bad because for the last week I've been so exhausted and kind of disengaged; seriously, it's amazing the amount of crap I didn't give. So really I should have done more to help out with last night, but turns out it wasn't necessary. Because, as stated above, everything was/is awesome.

[Let me pause here for a moment to interject: I am up way earlier than I have any right to be (8 AM) given how hard I celebrated volume 54. Instead of falling back asleep [double interjection: then I did], I have found that I unexpectedly have bacon in the fridge. YES. Made myself the most beautiful plate of bacon eggs and toast. I love my life.]

Some stunningly creativetalented people went all out to make cross-media installations from pieces in the journal, and everything came together (as you may have guess from my above raving) positively beautifully. There was just so much texture going on everywhere. I would say I wanted to roll around in everything, but really not so much literally, as various projects had things like viciously pointed screws or a lot of dirt. A lot of the stuff was interactive, though, and I really have to admire those artists for it. I don't trust people with my work near enough to let them mess with it. But that's half the point, I guess. My installation turned out great for a project I whipped up mostly by saying, "Eh, this should work." (Pictures below.  Getting wrapped up in duct tape turned out to be the easy part; the hard part was haling a 40 lb. bag of pool salt (weight to use in the stand) through Wal-Mart and parking lot. My arms are complaining quite loudly today.)

We had a short section of readings by the Matt Clark prize winners (poetry and fiction) and next year's co-editors--the crowd was well pleased. I kind of forgot I was doing one and almost didn't print off my poems; then I got to the gallery and pretty much forgot again practically until they called me up to the mic. Seth and Rachel's readings were a hoot and got several laughs, which is good because apparently my readings are borderline creepily intense. My friend Jeri in the front row told me she was praying that when I looked up from the podium I didn't look at her--apparently I had some super-piercing eyeball action going on. I was unaware. Seemed to be really well-received though. My new rule: two glasses of wine, no more, no less, before I get up to read any of my stuff. It seems to make everything go most smoothly.

 I am so proud to be poetry editor of this year's wonderful delta, and additionally pleasantly surprised to be winner of this year's Matt Clark Prize for Poetry (for "stripped, she said"). That officially means I am getting paid money for my poetry. You doubters can go doubt yourselves. Seriously though, it's an honor. And, I might add, a great way to cap off a great semester ( / year / college career). It has been so crazyhectic at times and so & mind-blowingly full of words that I cannot even describe it (with words. Ha.). So many brilliant people have entered my life and come to mean a lot in the past few months...it's going to be hard to adjust to whatever new life is coming. Awh, now I'm getting all choked up. (I must admit, I very nearly teared up when Julia and Robert handed the reins off to new co-editors Seth and Rachel. But they are going to make next year awesome.)

I have used far too many superlative and gushy adjectives in this post, and done a rather pedantic job of describing what was in fact a night of magical beauty. ...Yeah, that phrase was worse. So now I'm going to post some pictures of the excellent creations I was thrilled to be a part of.

Making of the mannequin

Finished installation: "rewrap me"

Beautiful volume 54 (on my not so beautiful tabletop, but accompanied by survivors of Jeri's installation)

So. Happy.

You Can't Take the Sky from Me.

Oh, hi, Life. Didn't see you there.

So it turns out I am graduating in a month. Graduating from college. This tidbit is only now beginning to hit me/sink in, and, looking back over the past few months I'm realizing how determinedly I have been sticking my head in the sand to avoid the reality of it. Hell--the past four years, even. Up until about last week, I've been in the mindset of oh I have plenty of time, plenty plenty. Oops.

I mean, I have my "plan," i.e., the spiel I spit out at well-meaning adults (ugh I guess I'll have to be one of those too now) when they inevitably ask brightly, "So, what do you want to do?" It goes basically as follows:

Oh, you know, I was planning on moving down to New Orleans for a year or so and just live for a while...take some time off so I don't burn out...and I'll start looking at grad schools while I'm down there...oh, no, I'm not sure what I'd go for, that's part of the reason I'm taking time off, y'know, so I don't get stuck in the wrong thing. I dunno, an MFA or something in linguistics. Yeah, I like words...Also, I really want to go out of state for grad school or whatever, really get out of here. I was born and raised in Louisiana, but I feel like if, y'know, I'm acting like a "writer" then it would be a crime not to like in New Orleans for a while...I mean, it's such a dynamic place, and I feel like I'm at the right "dynamic" time in my life to really be there, y'know?
[If they press me on the grad school issue I usually laugh nervously and mumble something about Boulder or Chicago]

Not that the above isn't true. That is, in fact, the current plan. I just have A) no idea how to get from point here to point New Orleans or B) from point New Orleans to point grad school. I know that there are plenty of resources available to me, especially regarding the grad school thing, but actually beginning to confront the looming precipice of Real Life (ha) by actually thinking about jobs and apartments (I've been looking, but I mean for serious) and then actually looking at admissions for grad programs... the latter made me physically want to vomit. Everywhere. My mind was completely filled with a horrified crescendo of I am not ready for this. I should have been publishing things. Or at least writing things. And most especially, I should have been working harder. For the future.  Looking at the linguistics programs especially made me want to faint/disintegrate. So much is necessary. Always.

Tentative new plan: Two years in New Orleans (an additional one while I wait for Boy to graduate) building my portfolio etc, then MFA (two years), then Ph.D. in Linguistics (five+ years). That puts off Real Life for as long as possible, right?

Every time I start to panic about this (which is pretty much all of the times now), I try to take a step back and convince myself that I am not, in fact, crossing some giant, scary threshold into Real Life. Actually, I have been living for about twenty-one years now, so I should really have plenty of practice at the whole life thing. And I've been supporting myself (pretty damn well, I'd say) for the past four of those years. Dammit, I've been living this whole time!

If only I could make this realization stick.

Poetic Notes

So, prepping for the back-to-back double-feature of poetry readings delta's putting on tonight-- I'm reading at Highland Coffees at 7 and still don't have my stuff put together for that (woo!), then must pick something to plagiarize (or inappropriately reappropriate, if you will) for our event at Northgate. So in lieu of typing something brand-new to put here, I present instead of confusion of notes for my review of Kim Hyesoon's book All the Garbage of the World, Unite!


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What is I? Kim Hyesoon is a woman. Kim Hyesoon is a woman poet. Kim Hyesoon is a woman poet from South Korea. Kim Hysoon is very conscious of being a woman poet from South Korea. Inside her poems, the I of Kim Hyesoon swells and fractalates to become construct of her complicated and beautiful idea of poetry (the “poesy”). “I am many inside poetry. [...] The confusion of the multiple ‘I’ is what makes me write poetry.” (x, Preface) 

Body. Garbage. Urban & urban decay. We are mutilated body & garbage & urban decay. Trashbodyhole. We are I we are womanbodymotherbabycorpse. we are geography and “whitestwhite.” Violence against children, against the I. Against/between the Ichild. Somewhere there are men. There too is water (thirstwater) and drippingslurp saliva. Also dogs maybe. Here everywhere is a phantom lady shadowladies that bleed like I like Is. Manhole Humanity! O Hole O! How much repetition? How many times “whitestwhite”? Where all the child, where all the Mommy? O uncertainty. After the slap has left the face. Is one confined if one is inside out—a body that is?

What does it mean to have a delineation. To be in something (a body? a country?) to have something be in you? What is division what is (w)hole, a part of a (w)hole? Everything here is divided, is dividingsplit, but everything is swelling and seeping out of itselfanother.