You Suck, March

I had a moment this morning to reflect on the past few weeks. I haven't been feeling well lately, and I recalled that about a year ago I found myself cursing the month of March and the challenges it brought. I also recalled that I had quite a miserable March, 2007. Is it the time of year? Coincidence? Perhaps month names that are also verbs are destined to suck.

This month started off great as I rode the high of my MFA acceptance through a fantastic and carefree weekend with some friends. The day we got back, however, we had to tend to a sick Starbuck. Some non human entity had been leaving strange pukes around the house, so we isolated the chief culprit, Starbuck. We didn't catch her puking, but in two days she didn't do any eating or drinking either, so we took her to the vet.

It wasn't good. She'd lost half her weight, and had a condition that necessitated immediate care. Over the next few days we agonized on how much money to spend in search of what was wrong and then how much to fix it. There were many teary nights and harried vet trips. When all was said and done, we were able to care for her at home: she required feedings every 4 hours through a tube run through her neck, as well as several medications doled out through the day.







(Click here for more information on what was wrong with Starbuck)

For the next two weeks the Mistress and I traded off waking up at 4am to feed Starbuck. Feedings take about a half hour, all told, and by the time I would get back to bed I was too awake to fall asleep quickly. Our sleep debts quickly began to compound until the two of us looked like the walking dead. I'd stopped caring to trim my beard and mustache, and the stupid mistakes I was making at work began to garner attention.

Thankfully our efforts and attention paid off and Starbuck began to eat on her own. We could cut back her feedings in order to encourage her to eat more on her own, allowing us to catch up on precious sleep.

The increase in sleep allowed me to regain my mental prowess, which upon its return, began to focus solely on my wait to hear from the remainder of MFA programs I applied to. The two schools that accepted me, the nice one in Seattle and the nice one in Boston, have not offered me much in the way of funding. Nothing from the school in Seattle, and the one in Boston offered a Graduate Assistantship position which, generous though it is, would barely cover my living expenses. For either school I would be looking at student loans in the neighborhood of $45,000 dollars. This is more than the $20,000 debt limit I'd set in my mind, so I'd been counting on one of the other four schools I hadn't heard back from to give me a good offer.

In the mean time, on the small chance that I did choose to go to the school in Boston, I thought The Mistress and I might as well go to the open house to see what's what. That, and I've never been around Boston. This past weekend we dropped Starbuck off with mom and headed north. Raucous P. L. B. Filibuster and The Big E share an apartment in a neighborhood of Boston and were nice enough to let us crash at their place for the night.

Of course, we had a fantastic time in Boston, and I liked the school a great deal. It's made the decision much harder, and every day that goes by I wait nervously for word from one of the remaining schools. It's hard for me not to assume at this point, however, that I'm not getting any other offers. The decision I'm left with in that case is presently tearing me up.

I'm only considering the nice school in Boston, as it's given me a better offer financially than the nice school in Seattle. So what if I decide to go? For one, I get to spend the next three years focusing on my writing. The school offers classes in many genres and types of writing, and I think I might also like to take a class on writing for magazines. Oh, and there was one about writing for columns that I'd like to take. In addition, they have a very tough teaching course that is required if you want a Teaching Assistantship. Less than half those that take the course are actually awarded a position, and it's decided by an interview system. This sounds intimidating, but I respect it. I think it's more fair to the undergraduates being taught and to the new teachers than other schools who throw TAs into a freshman comp course with little preparation. Of course, I don't know if I'd like to teach, but it is the one field that I would be more qualified to work in post MFA than I am now. The pragmatic side of me is very excited about that.

Specifics aside, attending would mean three years of challenges that would push me to grow as a writer and as a person. I would have fun with some good friends, and enjoy living in a culturally rich city. When all is said and done, I might have a chance at chasing down some teaching opportunities, and maybe I'd open up some other writing opportunities that I hadn't planned on. I'd also, however, struggle to make ends meet while at the same time trying to give my writing it's due attention. That is, after all, the reason for going in the first place. Also, best case scenario, I find some teaching jobs that pay just about what I'm making now (not a lot) in a place I'd like to work. That, however, assumes a lot. Funding for liberal arts programs is waning and I presume will continue to do so so long as this economic crisis is in effect. Other than that, I wouldn't be qualified for anything more than I am now, (not much), so I'd have to find a job doing what I could, probably still making about what I do now or less. My increased loan payments would make it difficult to make ends meet, maybe impossible, and could prevent me from saving money or taking out a loan for a car or a house.

So what if I don't go? Well, first, I'd have to stave off the waves of depression as I think about all the fun and excitement I'd be missing. And then the waves of depression that will come as I realize I've got to either find a new job (doing what?) or suck it up and keep working at the job I have now, which feels like a prison sentence. I mentioned previously that it wouldn't be so bad to move away and start over, find a new job, a new place to live, but such a thing is much easier said than done. Especially nowadays. I dread that the truth may not be so, but I can only hope that somewhere, out there, there is a job that won't make me question whether I should wake up in the morning, and I am desperate to know what that job might be and how I can find it. Getting an MFA lets me explore one possible avenue while allowing me to enjoy life and learning for a few years before I again face that dilemma. However, it might make for a harder life down the road, and with the economy where it is, does that seem very prudent? But would it be worth it for the happiness and the personal growth?

This is the impasse at which I find myself, and I... we... are very much awaiting relief. All advice is welcome.

April, save us.

Oh, No Time for Prayer, Bob.

Just got an email from the director of School C. Said to call when I get the chance. I called, and there was good news, bad news, and advice.

The good news: he said my sample's been getting high marks and strong votes in the committee, and he wouldn't be surprised if I hear back from half the schools I applied to. I can't express how proud this makes me feel.

The bad news: many programs just don't have money this year, due to the flailing economy. Many schools are in tight spots as their endowments have shrunk drastically depending on how they were handled. On one side of the spectrum the school I work for invested very conservatively and saw its endowment take a hit that, compared to the average, is not too bad. Better still, we don't handle much of our operational budget from the endowment, so we're not feeling the pressure yet. Other schools survive by their endowment and have already seen huge chunks of it disappear. So it depends on the school.

The advice: don't go into debt for an MFA degree. If I get an offer with money, grab it and hold on. If I get an offer but there's no money, ask if I can defer for a year and hope things will look up by then. (They won't I'm pretty sure.)

Even so, I'm still reeling from the good news!

Audacity

Sometime over the break we visited Bennington and Funk. It was a great time, and I'm sad we don't get to see the two more. During the visit I had to use their restroom a couple of times, each time for more than just a minute or two. This gave me the opportunity to read their shiterature, among which was a 101 rules of writing style book. You know the kind: each page or so has another rule, each rule's a bit of wisdom or motivation to convince you, the reader, that you CAN write the Great American Novel burgeoning inside you.

I was skeptical. Not that these types of books don't offer help, it's just that the help they offer is usually used to placate rather than motivate, and really, I've heard it all before. This book, however, offered alternative takes on classic tips, sometimes refuting them. One of the tips I remember was about not writing at Starbucks. The folks who write at Starbucks want to be seen writing at Starbucks. Write somewhere where you can focus your energy into the page, not into looking cool.

He was a bit glib, but many of the things he had to say rang true to me and I hadn't heard them before. The piece of advice that stuck with me the most was this: don't talk about what you're working on. With anyone. When you get a new writing idea, it can be all encompassing. It can be the only thing you think about all week. It will fill your every idle thought. You can't wait to get started on it, except you've just got to figure one or two things out before jumping in.

So what do you do? You tell your friends. How, in this torrent of excitement, could you not? I know this, because I do this with every project I get worked up about. When someone asks "what's new?", it's the first thing that pops to mind. What the writer pointed out, and what I've found to be the truth, is that every time you talk about that idea, you're deflating it, letting the excitement go. That excitement, that pressing need, that's what's going to sustain you through the hard work of doing. Talking it out neuters the project, taking the urgency away, and allowing it to be postponed indefinitely.

It's in this spirit that I hadn't written here about my desire to write a novel. I mean, it's nothing new: I've entertained the idea of writing prose at novel length for years. This time, however, was different. I'd been sleeping, and I dreamed up a couple of fantastic characters, and when I woke up, I needed to (I do me need) write at least a couple scenes with them. I'd caught the flame of inspiration, and I didn't want to loose it this time, especially knowing now how precious it can be.

Problem is, I didn't feel ready to tackle something like this. I've tried writing stories before, and I found that I write characters and dialogue well, I set scenes up well, I can establish and draw out tension, but what I can't do is figure out what should happen next. Where should the story go? What should this tension resolve to? I don't handle the big picture well.

So I went to the library and took out as many books as I managed to find that might deal with plot or development, and I started reading them. Slowly, thanks to Fallout 3.

This book I'm reading, written in the 70's and from a very different point of view than modern "tap the inner artist inside us all" self helpers, starts with a list of qualities essential to have as a writer. Round about quality nine, they got to "Regularity and Capacity for Work: Pursuit of Excellence", which touched on the subject of finding, then taking, the time to write. This is what most books today start with, or touch on most heavily. I wasn't expecting to find anything new here.

Then I read the following:

Some publishers have been known to suggest that an author short of money "get a job" to finish a book. Some would-be writers go into the teaching profession, or editing, or journalism, thinking in this way to keep in touch with the subject in which they are most vitally interested. It won't work. Better to chop down trees, cook dinners, drive a taxi, or go hunting or fishing - anything with no carryover is safest, once you know where your true interest lies.

And it shook me. Not the kind of thing you want to feel right before bed. I know why I wanted to go to school: to study the craft of writing. I think it would greatly enrich my life. I feel the great need, however, to justify my actions in terms of potential utility, especially after majoring in Philosophy, then struggling to find work afterwords. There is plenty or ridicule out there for people studying the humanities, there always has been. It's impossible not to feel that pressure to lead a life that others call productive.

I think that's why, from the beginning, I imagined myself going into teaching, or editing, or managing a journal; something I could make a living from related to my interests. It's in this way that I imagined myself having the most potential for happiness and satisfaction while still being able to pay the rent. Access to these opportunities is the easiest to justify going to school. What I take away from that quote though is that, if writing is what I want to do, then I should seek to focus solely on that pursuit, and do whatever else I can necessary to survive. To get a job related to writing only provides a sense of security, that at least you're close enough to the world, that should you fail to write, that it's still some part of your life.

The alternative, however, runs counter to the common sense of our culture: to underachieve, do what you have to to get by when you're capable of more, so that your best can go to your writing. The question then falls to me: do I think I'm good enough to justify that kind of life? To what extent is it possible and practical in these times, and to what extent should that matter? Would I have the audacity to do so in the first place?

Days and Days

63 days until April 15th. Tax day, of course, but also the day when decisions are due to MFA programs. The day by which I must notify any offering programs of my decision to attend or not. 63 days, with mercy less, of hoping there will be a decision to make.

I received an email from School C on Thursday afternoon. They said that my application was currently with their review committee, and in the mean time, their director would like to give me a call to see how the application process is going and to answer any questions I might have. They wanted to know what times would be good to reach me by phone. Knowing I would be an idiot to try to hold a decent phone conversation in a crowded convention hall, I told them I'd be available any time that evening, or again on Monday, but not Friday. My heart was racing, and it was hard to stay focused for the rest of the night at work. They never called.

Up and at 'em early Friday to get to the New York Comic Con so I could take pictures for Mr. Stankfoot, who writes for a PC Gaming website. (Not PC Gaming.) I wasn't getting paid, but he did buy the tickets and food. For my part, I was just happy to be there, amidst the herds of nerds, away from the jerks of work. I also took joy in the challenge of taking photos with the Mistress's too-fine digital SLR. Adjusting aperture, shutter speed, focus... it's like I was a real photographer or something! I ended up with a handful of cool photos, which I'll share when I get motivated to resize them all.

Saturday was a good time too, with the Mistress and I getting together with Spanky and Zanzibar to play Munchkin, the most entertaining card game I've had the pleasure of playing either side of the Mississip. It's designed around a base module which can be played alone, and features 7 expansions that add different elements to the game. Sounds like a bit of a ripoff, but it surprisingly isn't. Each one changes the nature of the game and keeps things fresh. We bought Spanky and Zanzibar the base set and three of the expansions for Christmas, and now I want to pick up the rest just to take over and play. I would love to pick up a set myself, but I don't see who the Mistress and I would play with, shut-ins that we are.

Sunday we watched Fog of War, which is an essential history lesson and reflection on the nature of what it is to be human in the 20th/21st century. I don't know what it says about me, but I had a hard time not relating the ethical dilemmas Mr. McNamara evoked with those explored in Battlestar Galactica. Even though many of these philosophical pauses might go right over the viewer's heads, or be overlooked in lieu of the crazy space-drama and shaky-cam space-action, this show will be held eternally in my highest regards for not only breaching these questions at all, but for doing so with skill and grace.

Also, it was pretty hard not to both empathize with the haunted McNamara, while at the same time noticing the similarities between the handling of Vietnam and the Gulf War II. It's easy to forget how complicated these situations are, how human the players.

After the movie, the Mistress heard my phone ringing. I ran upstairs to get it, hurting my ankle in the process, only to miss the call by less than a second. I was so close that the cell phone counted it as received, not missed, while the call itself went to voicemail. It was the MFA director for School C wanting to discuss my application. He said to call back in the next few minutes if I could. I did, but the line was busy, so I left a message. I sat for two hours, like a dog watching the door for his master, but was never called back.

Though I had Monday off, there were still many inopportune times to be called. Taking a crap, arm deep in a chicken carcass, picking a wedge. It was time, however, for the tried and true, practically cliche, sudsed-up hair and dripping from the shower phone call. I turned the shower off and walked to my bedroom to get away from the loud fan, but it wasn't School C. It was School D! The excitement!

They needed Mr. Templeton's letter of recommendation by the end of the week. The letdown!

Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisor regarding my yearly performance appraisal. She had nothing but nice things to say about me, which always feels good. We were discussing areas of improvement and projects we want to tackle in the coming year when she mentioned that it's odd planning for the next year out when I might not be around to see it. I had to agree. We then discussed a letter of intent, which I will have to provide, officially documenting my plans to inform my supervisor of my decision to leave or stay by a set date. Provided I wanted to stay, which I am completely welcome to do, she added.

This was the first time the idea that I might leave if I am not accepted into a school was acknowledged. I think she knows I'm growing restless in the position, and she soon brought up the possibility of re-evaluating my hours. She proposed that we would be able to change my schedule to regular, honest American, good ole 8-5 hours, (just like dear old dad used ta work), provided that I'm available to come in other times to monitor events that need attention.

This gave me pause. Would it be worth staying if it meant I could work regular hours? Sure, waking up to get to work at 8am sucks, but you know what? So does working on Saturday nights, precluding most chances of visiting friends. So does only seeing the Mistress for a few minutes in the mornings and for an hour or so before bed. On one hand, I know that the nature of the job itself wouldn't change. The folks who irritate me would just irritate me at different times. The mind numbing tasks would not lose their mass of banality. However, I could see something as simple as a shift change transforming a job I hate into a job I can happily tolerate. It's not as if there aren't things I like here, projects I want to see through, and it's not unreasonable to believe that changing one major fact about the job could put me in a better place, a place where I might actually enjoy what I do.

Of course, I know this is the stuff of rationalization. The reasoning that justifies toxic relationships and addictions. Things will be better when condition x is met, where x is an arbitrary condition of varying probability but ultimately minimal significance. If met, a new condition is selected to keep hope while the situation remains the same. Sometimes though, a little change can make all the difference. I'm convinced, irrationally enough, that had my bed in my college apartment been pushed against the wall instead of left to jut diagonally from the corner, two years of my life would have been significantly different. (Jeff Goldblum could explain it better, I'm sure.) Either way, I will have todecide relatively soon. Sooner than April 15th. I would love, love, love a school to call, mail, or email this decision away. Until then, I'm just counting the days.

Drive Me Backwards

"The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos." - Homer J. Simpson

Thanks to this lovely bit of internet over here, I can now keep tabs of who's heard from which programs and when. Of course, I could just not visit the site. Not torment myself with the knowledge that others have heard their good news while I sit here developing endurance in my thumb muscles. Oh, but see, that would require a modicum of will power, would it not?

My job is joyless enough that I'm committed to the idea of searching for another in the event that Calgon U fails to take me away. This, however, is a terrifying prospect. Finding a job was soul crushing enough three years ago. I shudder to think of the narrow window of opportunities available in these times o' plenty. More than not being able to find employment, I'm afraid of finding myself in the fire while yearning for the pot. What if I get out there and scrap my way into a job that's worse than this one? What if, worse still, I realize that the problem wasn't the job, it was the employee all along?

To stave off crippling self doubt I've been obsessing over the latest run of Battlestar Galactica episodes (phenomenal), and immersing myself in the post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland of Washington DC via Fallout 3 (also phenomenal). I'm also trying to read several books, but somehow, they're not getting their due love. Oh, and occasionally I'll go to work, where I'll marvel at the bizarre feeling I get in my head, the one where it feels as if the lights are intermittently, incrimentally dimming. But it's not just the lights, it's everything. I swear, I can feel the brain matter up there rotting from disuse.

It's not all doom and gloom in Camp Funk Muffington. This week is extra awesome as it contains only three working days. I'm taking Friday and Saturday off to serve as sidekick and freelance photographer for Stankfoot at the New York Comic Con.  I've never been to one of these and I have no idea what I'm in for, but I'm excited none the less.

Also, plane tickets and hotel reservations have been made, and the Dark Mistress will be accompanying me to California for a conference in April! Work picks up my bill (knock it all I want, the perks do rock), and the bonus is, we're staying the whole week so we'll get a chance to hang with the Queen of Kickassery herself, Aunt Laurie!

That should sustain me through the next few months of work. But seriously, someone freaking accept me, please? I'm a nice guy! I bathe regularly!

I'm Mike D and I'm Back From the Dead

It's been so long since I've written a substantive post here that if we've only been keeping in touch via this blog, there's no way to really catch up. The list of people this applies to is woefully long: friends, relatives, there are many folks whom I've been negligent in keeping in touch. Of course, those folks also know that this is nothing new, that I've a pattern of falling off the map with tide-like regularity.

Also, I have a half-hour, well 25 minutes now actually, before the Dark Mistress comes home and we go out to eat. We're celebrating the passing of my winter break. In the next, uh, 23 minutes, I hope to sum up what I've been up to lately.

As my previous post alluded to, I sent in all the needed materials for my MFA applications on December 8th, the deadline I'd set for myself. Ahh! I just spilled corn husker's lotion all over myself! 21 minutes!

On the beginning of my last day of work December 18th actually, I decided to pop into the English building, having seen my Professor's car in the lot. He happened to be in, and I learned that he and his wife suffered a horrible personal loss, which is why he was so hard to get a hold of this semester.

Over the course of the nest few weeks I'd get various notices from schools that they hadn't received the letters of recommendation from my professors. As of last week, I've sent 5 or 6 emails out to them (the professors), and I'm done. They're adults, they're professionals, and if emailing them doesn't work, what else can I do? It's break, so it's not like I can track them down in their offices.

After work ended, I hung up my hat for some serious and long needed decompression. It actually began with a bit of depression. Applying to MFA programs had been my sole purpose since the summer. It was incredibly stressful, but it also shut up that little voice in the back of my head that always says things like "what you're doing isn't important", "how is this bettering yourself in any way?", "you're going to end up a boring nobody that no-one cares about unless you get off the couch". (Those voices, by the way, are counter-productive)

Shit! 11 Minutes.
Well, anyway, I got through the slump by working on a craft project and ended up coming to a sense of calm and accomplishment. One of my biggest sources of anxiety in my post-college life was how hard it is to find the time to do the things that are important to me, the things that make me feel like I am doing something important. Well, for one, applying to MFA programs involved a lot of research, reading, and writing. I had to do it while also helping the Dark Mistress move in, cooking, and cleaning (though not as much as I suppose I should), and working. My life wasn't in a good balance necessarily, but I managed to find the time to do it. And it was much, much harder than doing those things I like to do, like writing.

Second, I came to appreciate how much I really do love writing and why. I won't go into it here, but it feels like the past several years of my life have I slowly worked towards realizing that I'm happiest with life, and myself, when I'm being creative. When I'm trying to make something beautiful or striking or at least fun. It's something that seems pretty obvious to my friends, I don't know why it took me so long to figure out.

Lets see, 6 minutes. Other highlights from break:
The house is driving the Mistress and I nuts. It's so cluttered. We've simply run out of room to put things, and that means there's a lot still unpacked. We've made some great progress though. The living room is slowly becoming a nice place to be, and just today I cleaned up the Middle bedroom, which was a re-god-dammed-diculous disaster, rivaled only by those people with mental illnesses who can't manage to throw anything away.

The Mistress and I watched The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Into the Wild, and finished the series Six Feet Under, the finale of which had us both sobbing for what felt like a half hour. Assholes. I cut up my first whole chicken to make a crock pot recipe that was basically chicken, spices, zucchini, and broth. (It was delicious).

AHH! I'm out of time! We had an awesome new years, I played many video games, drank a fair amount of liquor, saw old friends, and ate out perhaps a little too much, but hey, it was winter break, man.

Maybe there'll be a part II tomorrow, maybe not.

The Finish Line

I made it.

The Score

13 Days
7 Schools
7 Applications
$600 +

Fall

It's nights again.  2-11 again.  It's only been a week, but it already feels as if it's been a year.  I haven't had time to read.  I haven't had time to search for schools.  I've been focusing only on getting various parts of the house in practical functioning.  There is more than too much to do at work, and I feel overwhelmed.  It's all I can do not to let thoughts of unfinished business creep into my home time.  Especially at night, as I try to sleep.  Or first thing in the morning, when I want to plan my day. 

Even at home there's no peace, and I suspect there will be little for some time, as every task feels immediate, urgent, and just barely manageable.  I feel tired, run down, and it's the first week of the semester.  The only thing worse than the chaos is knowing it's not going to end for a long time.

What I miss most though is coming home from work, popping open a Corona, and cooking.  I think it was the best part of summer.  Cooking dinner foods first thing in the morning somehow lacks appeal, and I haven't sunk low enough to start drinking at 10am.

Waste of Human Resources

Last night I ate broccoli.  Lots of it.  Raw.  And, for whatever reason, broccoli gives me lots of gas.  It started in volume last night, but had not developed its own aroma.  This morning, however, I awoke to a stern brew.  It was intense.  Dark roast.  The shame is I have to hold it because I'll be in my office all day, and it seems every time I know I've let out a stinker, someone pops in for something.  Even though I'm leaving, I still don't need folks to realize that I'm a disgusting individual they shouldn't associate with.

I discover that in my sleepy haste I've left some questions unanswered that inquiring minds (hi Aunt Laurie!) want to know.

The Program?
I have no idea.  The advice I was given was to look for the programs my favorite writers teach at.  So far, I've only found one the fits the bill: Ohio State, home of Andrew Hudgins, who wrote a book of poetry I fell in love with.  Other than that, it's a bit taxing to search program by program for faculty, then search that faculty for any writing I can find quickly.  I don't have many favorites because I actually don't like most poetry.  It either seems to really rock me, or bore me, and it usually depends on a combination of the writer's form and subject.  I'll find something though.  I'm looking at programs anywhere in the US.  I do mean anywhere.  I'm talking to you, Fairbanks.

The Bathroom?
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

In Which I (Maybe) Get to the Point

In reading back over my posts, this month I have twice now compared favorably myself against Cylons, indicating that I have a plan. This makes me sad in two ways. One in that I have not yet finished what I started, which is explaining that plan, and two in that, c'mon, am I really that big of a nerd?

It's safe to say that, for the most part, the past two weeks were miserable. I'd been volunteered to work on someone's project at work and, being a perfectionist, I think I worked too hard on it. I took it to Atlanta with me, working on it every night in the hotel room. I've been stressing about it since mid March, but crunch time was these past two weeks. Between this project, an event I was working on, and my regular duties, I regularly came in early and left very, very late. Staying three and a half hours late after work is one thing. It's another when you usually get out at 11pm.

This weekend, even though I had to go in twice Sunday to take care of some events, felt like a vacation. No homework, no workwork to bring home. Saturday the Mistress and I went out to dinner in high fashion, treating ourselves to pricey Italian. Then we met up with some friends at another restaurant where we had dessert. For the first time in a long time I was able to indulge myself for a day, driving up to visit Stankfoot on Monday. We played video games, we hit Taco Bell, I held the ladder while he took down his Christmas lights. It was fantastic.

The following will only be funny to those following Galactica:
On our drive to Taco Bell, he turned to me and said in a mock school teacher tone: "So, what did you learn from this week's episode?"
"Um," I searched, "don't piss off Tory."
And then, with his hands cupped closed, he said "Very good. I want you to remember that as you take command..." He moved his hands toward me, opening them to reveal this:



For those not familiar with the show, he was mimicking a very touching scene from the series where father promoted son. He couldn't have done it better. Now that I think about it, that'd be a good way for two B*G nerds to propose to each other. It would have to be a private and serious moment:

"So, what do you think makes us work so well together?" A conversation of any length, as long as it's serious, introspective, and dramatically lit, should follow. Finally, the one who started should stand up, pull a jewelry box from a nearby dresser, desk, or table, and move to kneel, saying with as much throaty gravel as they can add to their voice, "good. I want you to remember that as you take command... of my heart."

Back on topic, though I'm sure reality will set in once I'm back behind my desk, it's fitting that I feel a reprieve from work at about this time when I'm thinking of how I would like to move on from it.

Class, though it's been frustrating, has done wonders for my poetry writing. In 2004, Mr. Templeton opened my eyes to the potential of verse. By 2005 I was writing like crazy, but by the end of spring I'd burnt out. I lost confidence in my ability, and distractions like "I'm unemployed and living at home all the sudden" didn't help me gain any perspective. Three years later, I'm feeling confident again. My writing has improved, though I was not notably active. I think it's because of a gain in perspective. My problem in 2005 was, looking back, I felt I'd run out of things to say. As prolific as I was in that short period of time, I'm not surprised. Though it doesn't feel like it some times, I've learned quite a bit these three years. Somehow, I've found a thing or two to right about.

It is clear to me that, though I don't know of any dream job, any path through life free of struggle, I would like to at least struggle for something that I enjoy, something that resonates with me. I've also learned that regardless of the method or the medium, I need to be creating to be happy. It's like a pressure valve. No, it's more than that. When I struggle for hours only to, in a flash, find the right word, the perfect turn of phrase, I'm filled with immense satisfaction. I am rarely more proud of myself, more accepting and forgiving of myself, then after I have made, and made well.

So, instead of crossing my fingers and hoping that through some convoluted series of miraculous and absurd events that I end up the as the new bassist for R.E.M., (sorry Mike, I'd have to), I decided I'm going to apply for creative writing programs with a focus on Poetry. This, of course, means a lot of work. I have to:

• Study for and take the GREs
• Read more poetry, become familiar with poets I'd like to study under
• Find programs that I like with poets I like who teach
• Weigh the benefits of an MA vs. an MFA,
  
• Consider where and if I'd pursue a PHD
• If applying for an MA, creating a sample of Critical Writing, something which I do not have strong experience in
• Revise my best poems for a portfolio
• Find journals I'd like to seek publication in
  
• Submit my best poems for publication in various journals
  

This is scary. This is considering moving away from places and people I love. This is moving to leave a job with steady pay and benefits to study a field with narrow options of employment upon graduation during unsteady economic times. I frequently have second thoughts, but what I have to remember is it's those second thoughts that will keep me here. If I were happy here, I wouldn't want to leave so desperately. No, it really was worse than you remember it last year, and no, it won't be better next year. I know this, but I have to remind myself regularly.

There you have it. My plan. I have about a year to make it happen.

If You Wish To Be Remembered, Die Inside a Crawl Space

The dead squirrel(s?) smells a bit riper each day. The smell has gone from cabbagy to peppery, and it's getting to the point where I've come close to gagging. The woman who's office is across the hall planned a memorial for the squirrels, but of course it was on Monday, when I wasn't going to be at work. If it happened, I missed it. Also, part of the plan was a cross, which pissed me off. Who said these squirrels were Christan? I was thinking a nice secular wreath of peanuts or something.

Class is a bit frustrating. We've been holding workshops for the past couple weeks or more. Our workshops are run so that everyone gets a copy of everyone else's poem. We take everyone's poems home and write up comments for them. Having been told to look for the things that don't work, the first set of comments I wrote up focused only on that. I figured they'd understand that, if I didn't mention it, it must be working. When my poem was workshopped, the write ups I received had a lot of positive comments, which made me feel like quite the ass for being so harsh.
Workshops are a funny thing. I get a thrill when my poem's the target. Hours and hours are poured into a poem that I then hold out for everyone to tear it apart every which way they can. It's like field testing a prototype of a machine. You'll find the weak spots by seeing where it breaks. The key to not being heartbroken is separating myself from the work. Once I got past the notion that they're not invalidating what I have to say, just the way I've said it, I was free and in the clear. I love picking up the pieces of a poem freshly rended. It opens up opportunities I wouldn't have noticed before, and really, isn't it just like playing with Legos as a kid? Build something up, kick it all down, then build it again, better.
Still, there's something that does drive me crazy about workshops, and it's comments like “I just don't get it...” There's one student in particular who's a pro at giving such helpful information. Now, let's suppose that a good poem has a fine mix of mystery and straight talk. The straight talk will get you through the first couple readings, make you feel as if you at least understood what world the poem creates. The mystery, however, should be there enough to prompt you to read it repeatedly, to get joy out of teasing out the deeper meanings. When I first started reading poetry, I hated how it made me feel dumb for not understanding it immediately, upon the first read. It wasn't until I realized that the pros don't understand it the first time either, and that part of the joy is in the discovery, the unfolding of the mystery, that I first felt free to enjoy poetry at my own pace (and not feel dumb).
Now, I'm not going to say that my poem struck a perfect balance, but I will say that I think it made a damn good attempt. Most people either understood it right away, or came to understand it as they read it further or as it was discussed. This one student, however, could only offer “I guess it's supposed to make that kind of sense, but I think it should really have more things in it.” (Also, they didn't like my stanza structure because it didn't contribute to the meaning, and “we learned in class that the line breaks and stanzas we choose should mean something.” I understand how they seemed so arbitrary, considering they didn't understand the meaning the stanzas were to contribute to.)
When getting a piece workshopped, not all information is going to be on the mark. But, it still might speak to a problem elsewhere, so I try not to discount any of it. And, in the end it's my choice what to consider and what to forget. However, the student I'm been bitching about seems to be phoning it in. I don't think they read my poem more than twice. It's clear to me from this (and other incidences in class), that this student just isn't committed. I understand that one class may not be the most important thing in a student's life, but really, if you can't at least fake it, you're wasting your time as well as everyone else's.
The best part of all of this is, when it came time to workshop this student's poem, I didn't understand it one freaking bit. I laughed so hard at that. I guess I expected theirs to focus on the places that gave them trouble with mine. I must have read it twenty times, just to make sure it wasn't me. The problems were grammatical ambiguities (much like the pronoun soup above) that left too much up to question. I hope though that my comments went further than “I just don't understand” and were more helpful than the ones I received.

I actually planned to use this time to talk about some bigger stuff. Like, what the hell to do with my life, etc. But I think I might try to make a quick Peter Gabriel mix for the road trip I'm taking this weekend instead. I wonder if I can throw this together in the hour I have. There's so much to work with – you could easily make a PG mix in any mood. Damn.

Ducky Fuzz

I just had class and it was actually a bit of fun. My favorite moment was when someone asked Mr. Templeton, who you should know is a man in his mid thirties to mid forties, who grew up in the south, if he had ever "heard of Hank Williams."

The five seconds of silence that followed whas what I live for.

We worked in groups today, and my classmates are actually decent, smart, and nice people, which worked to break my cynical, defensive view of them, and served to make me feel like a bit of an asshole.

Yesterday, at work, I witnessed a group warmup activity where all the participants form a circle. The activity starts when one person says "Fuzzy Ducks". The person to their left then has to say "Fuzzy Ducks", and so on, until someone elects to say "Does He?" instead. This causes the circle to reverse, and people now switch to saying "Ducky Fuzz". That is, until someone says "Does He?" again and the word and direction yet again switch. If someone mispeaks or takes too long, they are elimenated from the circle.

Try this, out loud. Your instinct isn't to go from "Fuzzy Ducks" to "Ducky Fuzz", but rather to simply swap the first letters, resulting in some foul language. I was waiting for it, eagerly, and perhaps immaturely. The highlight was a flustered young man, uttering "Duzzy, Fluzz, Fuzzy... shit."

Like Spinning Plates

I started taking a class. Last Tuesday. Advanced Poetry writing. I was fucking nervous. I haven't been in a class since the spring of 2005. I know the professor. I was in the first class he ever taught here, which happens to be the class that precedes this one in subject matter. Which was back in 2004. The class is six other students, all undergraduates, and myself. They startle me with their youth. Their smooth skin. Their bright, eager eyes. Their carefully planned first day of class clothing choices. I'm wearing my work clothes: a sweater so I don't look like ten pounds of crap stuffed in a five pound sack. Last time I saw my mother, she noticed that I had some gray hairs on my temple and in my beard.

Our first assignment: go to our library and find twenty journals that publish contemporary poetry, and read this fifteen page article “a few times” so we can “really talk it through.” After work, I'm on the couch reading my article, and I have a moment. This whole thing feels odd. I haven't had homework in years, since I was a full time student, and with its duty and obligation come a litany of flashbacks that crash against my current surroundings. I am suddenly hyper-aware of all around me. My feet tucked into an old blanket. The napkin in my lap holding a half peeled, half eaten Clementine. The cat, ever peering from just beyond the edge of my paper. I finish my orange and decide to make some tea. Leaning against the kitchen counter, kettle warming to my left, my homework in my hand, I wonder to myself: is this what being an adult is? Dishes in the sink, tea and oranges on the couch? Bills clipped above the doorway and kitty litter to be scooped? Car payments, loans, utilities, and eight to five?

It's Thursday and I'm in class again. I ran to the library after dinner Wednesday night and lurked around the stacks in the basement, opening journal after journal and keeping a list on paper of what I found. I look around the table and every other student has typed their list up, their names and the date at the top of the paper. I feel a flash of foolishness, though I know this isn't the type of class where we'd be asked to hand this list in. I know he asked us to do this just so we'd get a sense of what our library had, what our resources were, and where to find them. We each read through our lists. Apparently, most of my classmates searched for their journals on-line. Our assignment for next Tuesday: find twenty journals in the library and to hold them in our hands.

We come to discussion of the article. It was a speech by former poet laureate Mark Strand in which he attempts to defend poetry. He starts by creating a fictional account of his attempt to write the very speech his giving, where he has a series of encounters with a student and his girlfriend. They ask him questions pertaining to the speech and poetry in general. To each he replies with an eloquent response that speaks to a certain aspect of poetry, but to each response he backs off, reflects, and determines that, to a degree, he is full of shit. The speech continues with this pattern until he decides, at the end, it is best not to give it at all.

Of course, this is meant to be cheeky and clever. People like cheeky and clever speeches. It wasn't until I read the article a second time, wrote out each argument and his reason for discounting it, that I realized that the structure of his speech was also the point: poetry attempts all these things, but is not any of them wholly. Poetry is about coming as close as you can to encapsulating an experience, whatever it may be, but it never fully recreates it. There is always a gap, a layer of mystery. And just like any abstraction will fail to capture an experience, any attempt at defining poetry will suffer the same fate.

I looked around the table again. Everyone had their articles out, and everyone's article was pristine. I was the only person at the table with my notebook out, which was full of summaries, arrows, connecting lines, and ideas, jotted in four colors. “What did you all think of this article?” Prolonged silence. At the end of the table a young lady speaks up: “I didn't like the end.”

“What about it didn't you like?”

“I don't know. How it ended like that. I didn't like that.”


There is a small panic in the other student's eyes. A furrowed brow an a pout when the professor disagrees with them. A beaming that occurs when he does. I realize that it's all on the line for them. This is what they are: students. Is this how we're different? This is their identity, and they need to succeed. If they don't, they fail more than their class. Here I am, strolling in, doing my homework before and after work, between cooking and cleaning, from the quiet comfort of my house. I could drop this class tomorrow, and if I do, so what? I still eat. I still work. I am no longer expected to succeed, and no one will come down on me. I won't come down on me. I have nothing to lose, I have nothing to fear. They have no idea what life outside of college will be like, but they know that it depends on everything they do now.

I remember what that was like. It's terrifying. It's overpowering. But it's not mine anymore. And I don't belong here. I can see how every question, every statement the professor makes, is designed to elicit a train of thought. Formed to gently massage out a response. Baby steps. I get it, and though it's entertaining to watch, it's uncomfortable. I am between two worlds here. From nine to eleven, Tuesday and Thursday, I will be an undergraduate student. From two to eleven I will be a young student affairs professional, and I don't belong there either. I see through the bullshit. I am put off by the constant dishonesty, the self serving political jockeying. I refuse to pray on the altar of my resume, and for that I will only watch others step over, pass by, as I struggle in the same position.

Maybe that's naive. Maybe I'm not so different than my class mates, only further along the curve. I've been there, and though the material may be new, the methods boring now. Maybe in ten years I'll be able to look back on this entry, on my take of home and work, and I'll see how immature I was, how much I had to learn. Still, the feeling remains. I don't belong here. I am no longer a college student. I am not a professional. I just live in limbo, playing the role of both.

I saw one of my work study students at the library the other day. He was quite unsettled. He didn't recognize me in “normal clothes.”