On advice from 18-year-old boys

When I was sixteen, I met a boy whose name was Nick. He was about to graduate from high school and go to USMC boot camp. For the next two years, we wrote letters to each other religiously. This wasn't "before" email exactly, but early enough that we never considered it an alternative. Anyhow, the point is, I still have the letters.

At sixteen, I was a very sad girl. My sister Carla had recently left for college, leaving me at home with mom and dad, except that mom got a job to help pay Carla's tuition, which left me at home with dad. And Dad and I were at each other's throats that year. I was also having trouble with my friends at school and in general feeling isolated and unwelcome everywhere I went. Except when I was writing or reading a letter to/from Nick. I told him how I was feeling, and being the older, wiser, 18-year-old Marine, he wrote back to give me advice. One letter went like this (and to the left, Nick and I, circa 1997):

You keep telling me how you don't know where you fit in. Don't fit it! When you make an effort to fit in, you change at least a small part of yourself to accomodate the group. Don't sell yourself out--even a little--to fit in. Have more integrity. It'll be a little lonely for a while but you'll find that there are others who don't want to fit in as well. Those are the people you want as friends.

Reading this today, it sounds a little cliched, a little trite, a little too easy. But when I read it for the first time during the spring of my sophomore year of high school, I thought it was brilliant.

I've been thinking about this letter a lot lately. About how I'm still just like I was then, wanting everyone to like me and wondering if there's something wrong with me if someone doesn't. Wanting to fit in. Grad school was the first time when I felt like I knew what Nick was talking about in that letter. My friends are odd-balls. In the real world, some of us don't look quite right: long hair, mowhawks, tattoos. Some of us don't dress quite right. Some of us get thrown out of bars. Some of us never get called for a second date. Some of our families think we're weird because we like to sit in the dark and think. But together, we fit. We make each other better.

So I guess it doesn't matter if some people still don't like me.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is *Grey*

I love premier week.

I think Grey's Anatomy is going to be okay. Even without Burke and Addison, even though George is still an intern, even though Mer & Der broke up (sort of).

People make fun of me sometimes about how much TV I watch. How connected I get to fake people and their fake lives. Grey's started 3 years ago. Same time I started grad school. On one of the first episodes, one of the interns said, "Who here feels like they have no idea what they're doing?" and everyone raised their hands. I felt like the interns. Now if only I could find my own McDreamy.

God, I am such a dork.

Slipping

Uh-oh. Last Friday, I was all caught up, so I kind of took the weekend off. (You may have noticed that from my previous posts.) So far this week, I have not done a very good job of staying caught up or building back my momentum. Yesterday, I did two loads of laundry and graded about five papers, but didn't get to cross much else off my to do list. I did get to see the folks, though, and that was a very good thing.

Today will be busy. I still have to write a poem with a foreign language, a musical instrument, and some sort of romance. I also have to finalize my lesson plan (which includes reading Philip Levine's "What Work Is" and discussing how he uses description to analyze the situation ...exactly what I'm trying to teach my students to do in their second essay). Once those things are done, well, it's hard to say what to pick up next. Next week's homework or the GRE study guide? Work on my thesis or grade papers? Research PhD programs or BOR submissions? I have very little planned for the rest of the week, so hopefully there will be time for all of it. But for some reason, I don't think there will be.

Yesterday it was almost 90 degrees, but today feels like fall. I keep saying, "this may be the last warm day of the year," and then it gets warmer. I guess that's good. If summer keeps holding on, does that mean winter will be shorter? Ha! I've lived in Ohio long enough to know that winter is always 6 months long! If it doesn't start until January, it'll still be cold in June. (Allright, there may be a slight hyperbole in that last sentence, but it feels like six months!)

Hey, did you hear? There's a new list of contributors up at the Barn Owl Review blog.

Good Morning, Mr. Sniffles.

The fall cold is upon me. I kept telling myself it was a hang over from my busy weekend of wine-drinking with some NEOpeeps on Friday and Tailgating on Saturday, but no, it's definitely a cold. That's okay. Virginia Woolf says illness is good for poets. Maybe I'll get a raging fever and write some delusional poems.

Nah, I don't think I'm that sick.

*

Mom and Dad are on their way home! I get to see them tomorrow!

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My Craft & Theory of Creative Non Fiction class is really cool. I really want to write some personal essays now. I wonder how people who write multiple genres do it. I feel like if I have some time and the urge to write, it has to be poetry. If I write prose, it's a little like cheating. It's like telling your boyfriend that you only have one free night this week and you'd rather spend it with this guy you just met because maybe you like him better. Is boyfriend still going to be around when you come looking for him again?

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Now that my HFS (that's Huge Fall Submission...big doesn't cut it anymore) is out, I'm getting anxious. This morning, I was thinking "well, I mailed them on Friday, so some of them might arrive today." Like anyone is going to open them, read them, and make a decision as soon as they come out of the mailbox. Now that I'm on the BOR staff, I understand a little better why it doesn't happen as quickly as I want it to. But still. Those are my babies out there, and I want to know if anybody wants them.

Almost every poem in my thesis is out there. I feel like this will give me a good idea as to whether or not I'm ready for first book contests. Maybe I'm comparing apples to oranges (or apples to apple trees?) because obviously one poem won't make or break the collection, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and blah blah blah. But it still seems that if this submission frenzy goes well, then I can start thinking bigger. I can start thinking book.

Book....that's crazy. I have to pinch myself sometimes because I always imagined/hoped I would be a Writer...but now that I've got some publications under my belt, and a book seems like a serious possibility, it feels completely surreal.

Well, I have class plans to finalize. Best be getting to it.

Fish out of water

I went to my first tailgate party and college football game today. Yes, that's right. I'm about to finish my masters and this is the first game I've ever been to.

The surprise? I had fun. Bigger surprise? I was actually yelling. Not just rah-rah yelling, but actual "Get the ball you dumb ass" and "catch-him, catch-him, catch-him" kind of yelling. Like I cared about the game. Like after 26 years of pretending not to pay attention, I've really learned (most) of the rules to football.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I can't post any pictures of thunder sticks, bacon and egg sandwiches from the grill, or me drinking a giant screwdriver from a travel mug at 8 a.m.

I was worried about running into my students, but I didn't see any of them. I did run into some old writing lab friends and one of my intro to poetry students from my internship with Mary.

Oh, for those of you who care, Akron beat Kent State 27-20. Go Zips!

BFS update

It's not the Big Fall Submission anymore. It's the Big Effing Submission. I started working on this at 4:30. It's 7:30. Oy.

35 poems.
20 journals.

I'm sending an awful lot of energy into poetryland. Hope some comes back.

Confusion

I wish Mary would quit telling me she doesn't want me to leave Akron.

I wish my friends in Akron weren't so awesome.

I wish I wasn't such a Mama's girl. And that my sister wasn't my sounding board, my voice of reason, and my comfort food hook-up.

I want a PhD. But I don't want to leave. I love it here.

p.s. I don't really wish any of these things. I just hate making decisions.

Hickory Dickory Dock

Holy Crap. Week 4 is half-way over. My thesis is due a month from today. I seem to have lost the ability to complete anything on time. I have shit-tons of poems to get in the mail, but it is taking me for-freaking-ever to get myself organized and ready to print.

On the upside? I wrote a new Donny poem today. And I am in a remarkably good mood.

I need a day off. A real day off. Where I don't have a to-do list and I allow myself to chill out without feeling guilty. I think it will be well into November before I get one.

Aahhh, the life of an academic. What am I signing myself up for?

I think I'm going to go outside, enjoy what may be one of the last warm nights of the year, and read Baptist Confidential by Thomas Dukes. (Oh, how I love knowing people who write books. I said, "Dr. Dukes, I heard your book came out." and he said, "Yes, let me go get you a copy." )

And the survey says...

Joanna wants me to fill out this survey. I'm not one to ignore requests, so here goes.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
I have a half-circle on the inside of my right arm from a tray of baked potatoes when I was learning how to cook at Ruby Tuesday. You have to really look for it, though. I don't scar easily.

2. What does your phone look like? List your reasons to buy it?
I'm sorry, Joanna, but this question sucks. My phone is red. I bought it cuz I like red things.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?
Various posters, framed photos, and a bulletin board

4. What is your current desktop picture?
one of the stock windows backgrounds-a branch with raindrops or something

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
I'm fine with it. Straight people can't seem to get it right, anyhow.

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
For someone else to organize my submission packets and write my cover letters.

7. What time were you born?
5:56 p.m. What's more interesting is that my sister's best friend was getting married at the same time, and my sister had to drive my mom to the hospital, so she wasn't very happy. Actually, I'm not sure that's a true story, but it's one I have always thought was true.

8. Are your parents still together?
yep. Which makes my answer to 5 not make much sense.

9. Last person who made you cry?
My nephew.

10. What is your favorite perfume/cologne?
Curve

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?
I usually like dark hair/eyes but there have certainly been exceptions.

12. What are you listening to? Why?
Star Jones's cameo on Law & Order SVU.

13. Do you get scared of the dark?
yes. often.

14. Do you like painkillers?
I take a lot of advil.

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Kind of. But like Joanna, I don't like the idea of traditional dates, anyhow.

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
A grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes and french fries.

17. What was the last person who made you mad?
Why do people who write surveys always have bad grammar? The last person who made me mad was the lady that First Merit uses on their automated help line. She wouldn't let me pay my Visa bill.

18. Name one habit you have that has the potential to annoy people?
When I get excited about something, I cannot stop talking. And I often get excited about stupid things.

19. Who was the last person who made you smile?
Joanna.

Well, I'm not going to tag anyone, but I won't be mad if you tag yourself.

Susie-Homemaker and Gracie McClutzy

I've been a cooking freak this weekend; first the pot roast, then cabbage and dumplings, and spaghetti today (okay, so that wasn't really cooking because the sauce was from a jar, but at least I didn't microwave anything). I also cleaned the kitchen, did two loads of dishes, cleaned my room, hung some pictures on the walls, and took out the trash. I'm feeling better now. For as much of a self-professed slob as I am, I realize that when I'm feeling emotionally off, a lot of times it has to do with the chaos in my physical space.

At any rate, when I wasn't playing Susie-Homemaker, I was grading papers, reading, doing some official Barn Owl business, and studying for the Lit GRE. Over all, a pretty productive weekend. I'm hoping that I can keep the momentum up this week.

An interesting development this semester is my Creative Non-Fiction class. We're required to take one workshop and one craft & theory course outside of our primary genre, and I'm finally fulfilling my C&T requirement. I'm surprised to say I am thoroughly enjoying all the essay reading. Ever since I decided poetry was my one true love, I've been playing catch-up and reading very little prose (except criticism...bleh!). Fiction (especially short fiction) lost its charm a while back, so it's nice to find something besides poetry that I enjoy reading. If I weren't all nicely tucked into bed, I'd grab my folder and list off some titles, but that'll have to wait until a day-time post.

For our final project, we have to write a memoir or long-essay proposal, complete with synopsis, character sketches, annotated bib, etc. I am thinking about doing something about the body. More specifically, my body. My inability to ride a bicycle, catch a ball, or walk and chew gum. My knack for walking into walls and falling down stairs. This is all very fuzzy in my mind right now, but I think there is something interesting about having little sense of balance or hand-eye coordination. It seems that most people have an innate ability to recognize the borders of their body, but I've never been able to. I think this is part of the reason why I'm sometimes socially awkward and definitely part of the reason I'm a writer. I really have no idea where I'm going with all of this, but it's one of my current obsessions and not one that I want to write poems about, so we'll see what happens.

Speaking of obsessions and poems, I'm thinking about taking my grandparents out of my thesis all together. I finally have enough pages to do that. It just feels forced to have those poems staying in a manuscript that has grown totally in a different direction than I expected it would. It's just a thought. I don't know yet.

I still haven't sent out my fall submissions, which has me thinking that I ought to do an even bigger submission than I'd originally planned. To make up for all the procrastinating. I was going through my manuscript and thinking about how many of the poems have never been sent out and am starting to wonder what I'm waiting for. I think there are 30-40 pages worth that are ready to go. Or will be ready if I sit down one afternoon and do some tweaking. That's a whole lotta postage, though. We'll see.

Morning Routine

Ever since I moved into the new place, I've been starting my day on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sometimes with a book, or a note book, but a lot of times just to sit there and let my head unclutter. Today, it's 50 degrees, which was a tad uncomfortable. And it's just going to get colder. I don't know what I'm going to do when summer completely gives way to fall. It's not the same sitting in the garage.

I'm struggling this semester with keeping things balanced. Obviously, by my previous posts this month, I'm not feeling...emotionally stable...these days, which isn't terribly odd for me (or most poets, I assume, but there's another stereotype), but I can't put my finger on exactly why, and that's frustrating. I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing, but for some reason, nothing feels right.

I've barely written since I got home from Arizona, which was almost two months ago. I think I have 3 or 4 new poems. I have to get my thesis to my committee in about 33 days (but who's counting?) and I don't feel like I've written everything that I need to write. In a perfect world, I would write 10-15 more poems in the next couple weeks so I could cut out a few of the older ones. It's not that I'm unhappy with the old ones, it's just that I feel like I'm forcing them to fit. When I met with Steve (Reader #3) last week, he asked me about some of the grandfather mobster poems, thought they should be grouped together, at the beginning, and I've been resisting doing just that because I don't want my thesis to be in chronological order. But he's right--those poems don't blend well with the rest. I think if I'm going to do something with that whole family secret nonsense, I need to dedicate a lot of time to it, a lot of research. And I don't have time for that. I'm thinking second book. I know my thesis doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be ready to go in the mail the day after my defense, but I can't help wanting it to be a cohesive whole, and it doesn't feel that way to me just yet.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I'm behind on everything. Granted, I'm only behind based on the target dates I set for myself, but I'm still behind. I haven't spent much time studying for the GRE, I haven't narrowed down my PhD list, I haven't started thinking about my writing sample or my personal statement. I have only sent out one submission packet. I haven't become the super-prepared and enthusiastic teacher I imagine myself to be. And my apartment is, as always, a mess, despite my promise to myself that I would keep up with my laundry and clean on a regular basis.

People have a tendency to tell me I'm being too hard on myself when I get into moods like this, but here's the thing: I'm by nature a very slow moving, low energy person. If I let up on myself I will get absolutely nothing done. Because when I push myself like this, I still find time to watch at least 2 hours of TV every day, so just imagine what I would be doing if I told myself it was okay to relax? I've struggled with this most of my life. I'm very driven, I like to have a lot on my plate, and I'm at my best when I'm juggling. But at the same time, I love to sit around and daydream, I love to read romance novels and watch stupid movies, and there's nothing better than waking up in the morning and deciding to roll over and go back to sleep. I have a very hard time finding the balance.

Well, enough of this introspection. Time to check out the to-do list and decide what to stress myself out about today.

Yum-O

I hate when Rachel Ray says that. But here's the thing. I made a pot roast in the slow cooker today, and that's what I said. Yum-O.

I got the crock pot for my birthday last November. Today is the first time I used it. The last time I tried to make pot roast (almost 3 years ago), I did it in the oven, and the guy I was dating at the time said it was like shoe leather (he was right, but boyfriends should know that the only appropriate response to girlfriends' cooking is, you guessed it, yum-o). Anywho, the pot roast was not like shoe leather and I am very full and very happy.

Earlier today, I got to hang out with my friend, B., who lives in Washington, and the guys from sixth grade. (You saw their picture back in July) B was in town for his grandfather's funeral, so not an entirely happy occasion, but a nice surprise for me. I suppose this is part of growing up...that the only time you see old friends is weddings, funerals, and class reunions. Bummer.

I'm glad it's the weekend, but this is going to be a busy one. Soooo much to do!

Hump Day

Wow. This week is flying by...and I am not getting anything done! Not good.

I'm going to be meeting Kate Greenstreet in a few minutes, though, and that's cool. Have you read her book yet? It's mysterious and fragmentary and fun to read.

After that, it's off to Crave. Way classier than the usual Wednesday night destination, Pints.

**

11p.m. update

Just got home from dinner and drinks with Mary, the First Books crew, and the Greenstreets. What a great night. I needed it. Haven't been feeling myself lately.

Part of the problem? Mom and Dad are out of town. This is really pathetic and slightly embarrasing to admit, but when I don't see my parents on a regular basis, I get totally out of whack. I can't explain why. My mother just centers me. She's gotten the tough love/unconditional support balance down cold. Makes me realize when I'm not living right, helps me sort things out. I'm glad they're traveling and having a good time, but the next 2-3 weeks will be long.

Thankfully, Uncle A (not really my uncle) could tell I needed a hug.

Tomorrow, I need to be super focused. If I don't spend a day tackling my to-do list soon, it will bury me! Sometimes it sucks being a procrastinator. it's so hard to get things done when the deadlines are 3-4 weeks away.

The Light

The way we talk about our memories of 9/11 reminds me of how, when I was a kid, grown-ups always talked about remembering JFK's assassination. I can tell you every step of that day. But so can everyone else. So, instead, I'll just play this song, which I heard for the first time that day.

Whiney McWhinerson

I realized yesterday that I usually update my blog when I am grumpy. I'm not really an unhappy person, I just like to vent. I'm sorry if my blog is depressing.

In the spirit of posting happy blogs, here is a list of things that make me smile:

• My great nephew Philip. Especially when he climbs up into my arms and puts his head on my shoulder. It will be sad when he's too big for this.
• The way Lindsay Bennet and anyone from Eastern PA/New Jersey say my name. I can't even try to replicate it for you.
• Back yard parties, especially those with fires
• Color-coding excel spreadsheets
• Personalized poetry rejections
• Acceptance letters
• Flavored creamer
• When my brother-in-law gets embarrassed because my sister and I are talking about sex
• Colored pens
• Reading a book and wanting to high-light every other sentence because it's just that good
• Making my students laugh
• Cute shoes
• When Banjo (the horse) does what I want him to, the first time I tell him.
• When Banjo rubs his head against me to scratch his face, but pushes too hard and I fall over
• Puppies
• Good fall weather
• Cooking
• Finding foreign countries on my sitemeter
• Unexpected emails/phone calls from people I don't talk to often enough
• My mother
• Binder clips
• Good hair days
• When my friends and I are burnt out on workshopping and start drawing pictures to illustrate each other's poems
• When a poem comes out all at once, and doesn't need major revisions
• Car dancing

Tears & Rain

It's a soggy morning in Akron. In more ways than one.

I've always had this problem where the only way I am able to express negative emotions is by crying. Whether I'm angry, frustrated, stressed out, embarrased, or sad, I cry. This has perplexed my family, friends, and especially ex-boyfriends all my life. This morning it befuddled Nephew/Roommate, although I don't know why because he's been on the recieving end of my crying jags more than most people in my life. Once it was over whether or not to put vanilla in our french toast batter. Once it was because he wasn't playing with my barbies the way I wanted him to. (He was the only boy in the family until he was 10. He didn't have a choice.)

I knew it was coming. I've been feeling like my insides were trying to explode for about a week. I'm glad it happened over a stupid roommate squabble instead of a stressful situation at work. That's always embarrassing. Hard for people to take you seriously when you're weeping, you know.

Anyhow, I got it out of my system and I'm better now.

Any other cry-ers out there?

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Oh, and say hello to Jen, the newest NEOMFA blogger. Jen, I'm so glad you're blogging!

oh, my achin' bones

I'm having a bit of trouble getting motivated today. Yesterday was an exhausting day. I did manage to groom all five horses in the time before Karla got home, and then I practiced posting. Posting involves core strength and inner thigh muscles and today, everything below my ribs is sore. Actually, everything is sore.

But I don't mean to whine. It's a good kind of sore, but the kind where you don't want to go teach.

Today, we're talking about Helen Keller. I'm going to make them try to describe their home without using sight or sound.

You know when you're a kid and you ask your friends really morbid questions, like would you rather be blind or deaf? I always said blind. Now I'm not so sure.

anxiety? what's that?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Holy crap! I am a glutton for punishment.

Nephew/Roommate was making fun of me yesterday because I was telling him how busy I would be and I said, "And I have to go to the bar after class." He said if I "had" to go to the bar, then maybe I shouldn't. He just doesn't get it. I have to schedule every minute of my life for the next 3 months, but that doesn't mean I can't schedule a little fun, too.

I'm behind on my BFS. I picked the journals, picked the poems, but haven't had time to sit down and write my cover letters or print things out or go to the post office for stamps. Although, I no longer know what my packets are going to cost. See, up until this summer, all my poems were one page. So I knew that I would have 6 sheets of paper in an envelope, and that costs 63 cents. Well, now most of my poems are 2 pages (or longer) so I am going to have to get everything weighed again. Hrumph. And when am I going to do that? It doesn't help that my new favorite form of procrastination is finding books on GoodReads.

Last night, before bed, I was watching the national drum corps competiton. (Really, I wouldn't have sought this out, but N/R told me it was on ESPN and thought I might be interested.) I didn't especially enjoy it, but did make me feel a bit of nostalgia. Fall has always been my favorite season, and I think that's partly because I loved being in marching band so much. In the spirit of band season, here are some pics from my days as a band rat. The first is me & my trumpet, circa 9th or 10th grade. The second one is me, senior year, getting ready to go on the field. (PJs and sweats are much more comfortable under polyester uniform pants than jeans are, and we had to tuck our pants into our socks so they didn't hang down around our ankles. I didn't just dress like that for fun.)

Updates and such

Hey ya'll. My friend, classmate, carpool buddy, and sometimes-shrink Jay has finally gotten the blogging bug. Go check out his blog, Whisper Shifter. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

Mary's been bugging me to get on Good Reads for a while, so I finally am. Do you want to be my friend?

No one guessed about my GRE question, but for those of you who were secretly wondering, sedulity is defined as blatant attentiveness or concentration, so nonchalance is the antonym.

This afternoon, I will be part of a panel discussion on "how to make the most of your graduate program." I'm the offical MFA representative. My primary advice will be: get involved, send your work out, and don't let yourself believe that 3 years is a long time. It goes by way too fast. Profound, I know.

Back to the farm tomorrow. I'm going before Karla gets home from work and she wants me to groom everyone (5 horses) before she gets there, so we can start riding as soon as she does. Unfortunately, I've only got an hour and a half, and it takes me about 45 minutes to groom one horse. I'm slow. Very slow. Never was up-to-par on my motor skills.

I'm biting my nails over the season premier of Grey's. Why do they have to wait until the end of the month to start the fall season?

The Beans

Mary spilled 'em. My exciting news is that I have joined the editorial staff of Barn Owl Review. I'm so happy to be a part of this awesome new journal. (I'm a little nervous about my upcoming editorial interview, though!)

I need to update my bio and links, but right now, I have to go to my sister's for dinner.

Clarifying

Issue #1:
I am not deleting my blog. I have never thought about deleting my blog. I love my blog. I thought my last post was stupid, and I was thinking about deleting that. Sorry for the confusion.

Issue #2:
Mary B, although a rockin' professor, does not fit into the category of "professors who are significantly older than me." Neither does Eric Wasserman. Nor does hanging out with Mary count as "hob-nobbing" as our friend Dawson likes to say. (Plus, if I remember right, Dawson is older than Mary, so...what does that mean?) : )

Anything else?

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How smart are you?

GRE study question of the day. Choose the word that is the antonym of this: Sedulity

1. nonchalance
2. loyalty
3. hurriedness
4. willingness
5. majesty

Dictionaries are cheating. I'll post the anwer later.

*

I have ALOT of work to do. Yesterday I did 150 practice questions and missed 39. If it were a test with a regular grade, I would have a C-. And that's just the verbal. I haven't even cracked the math section yet.

I've always thought that for a writer/English major, I have a ridiculously small vocabulary. This test is confirming that notion. However, if all goes as planned, by October 23, that will no longer be a problem.

Age ain't nothin' but a number

I'm caught between generations.

Depending on who you talk to/what you read, Generation X ends with the people born in 1977 or 1980. I was born in 1980, so I'm swinging in on the tail end (according to some). I'm no sociologist, so I won't get into the generally accepted definitions. Let's just say I'm on the cusp of something.

I'm the youngest of five girls. My oldest sister was born in 1961. So, once again, depending on who you talk to/what you read, she's on the tail end of the Baby Boomers or the beginning of Gen X.

My parents were born before WWII.

You may be wondering where I'm going with this. So am I.

There's something about the way I was raised and the dynamics of my family that has always made me feel like an outsider among people my own age. For most of my teenage years I was Baby Sara or Little Sara...everyone treated me like a little sister. I hung out with people who smoked pot and drank but no one ever offered it to me or did it in front of me because everyone was protecting me. I don't know why. (I'm not complaining. I'm glad I graduated from High School with all my brain cells in tact. I just don't know who decided to shelter me or why everyone followed along.)

I'm a loner because I was the only kid at home after everyone else started school. Then I was the only one at home when everyone else moved out or went to college.

I am extremely resentful when girl friends say I'm like their little sister. I have 4 sisters already, I don't need anymore. I want friends. I want everyone to fit into certain roles. Sisters are different than friends and my sisters are always going to be more important than my friends. I used to hang out with a woman who was about 4 years older than me and had two little girls. Within 6 months of meeting me, her kids were calling me Aunt Sara. That weirded me out.

Whoa, I'm getting way off track. I started this post because of yesterday.

Yesterday was Jana's beginning of the year MFA party. The crowd was probably split 50/50 between faculty and students. About 2/3rds of the way into the evening, I realized that most of the students had left or were about to leave and I was still talking to the profs. I gave Dawson a hug and told him I was sorry I didn't get to talk to him more. He said, "don't worry about it, you were busy hob-nobbing." Well, it may have seemed that way, but really, I was just hanging out. Cuz the profs are like my sisters; they may be significantly older than me but they're the kind of people I'm used to hanging out with.

When am I going to learn how to hang out with the cool kids?

This is the most pointless blog (ENTRY) in the world. I may delete it (this entry!) soon.

Crap. Crapcrapcrap. (Updated)

Never mind. I left it on the counter at a gas station. They had it in the safe.

Now I have to wait a week or so for all my replacement cards. That's annoying.

September

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am blogging from my back porch. Don't know why I never thought of this before.

The first week of school is over and I am feeling better. Maybe I've gotten enough sleep. Maybe I'm eating better. Maybe I was just not feeling the transition. But I'm in the swing of things now.

I haven't been writing much, what with all the class prep, phd nonsense, general stress, etc., but I wrote a nice long rough draft this morning. That felt nice.

I graded my students' first homework assignment and was pleasantly surprised. Everyone knows how to write a sentence. Almost everyone had something interesting to say, and the ones who didn't were getting close. This makes me very happy, but slightly concerned. This is the best starting point I've had...which means that I'm going to have to teach more advanced concepts to keep them challeneged and engaged. More work. hrumph. Who am I kidding? I can't think of much that would be better than a group of college freshman who actually came to the first week of class prepared. It should be a good semester.

Tonight, I'll be heading over to Jana's house for a big ole' mfa gathering. With food and wine. And a bonfire. I'm looking forward to it.

I will have some exciting news soon. I hope you're dying from suspense.