Post-breakdown post

After a nice, long weekend with my family and my bf, I'm back in Chicago and freezing my butt off. But more importantly, I am feeling a lot better about life in general and have realized that I just need regular doses of home in order to manage my new life and circumstances. I'm close enough to Ohio that a weekend trip is manageable, so I don't know why I was exiling myself for the last two months. That won't happen again...especially since I'm going home 8 days from now and again for Thanksgiving. And after Thanksgiving, only 2 weeks left in the semester.

Despite my recent emotional instability, this semester has been flying by. We're more than half-way done and it's time to start writing papers and revising workshop poems, which are two of my favorite tasks. It's weird...writing term papers is kind of agonizing, but it's the kind of agony I enjoy. Over-caffeinating, running high-lighters out of ink, sitting in my un-ergonomic desk chair for so long I can't walk when I get up, showing up to turn in my paper with a bandanna and grungy sweats... I'll hate myself for a couple of days because I procrastinated too long, and then the adrenaline will kick in and that's when I love being an academic the most. Remind me of this a month from now when I'm panicking, okay?

When I'm done here, I'll be starting on the revisions because one is due tomorrow. I love when revisions are required during the semester and not just for the final portfolio--gives me more motivation to do more than 2 drafts, which is necessary most of the time anyway. It'll be interesting to see where these revisions take me. I've written about five/six new drafts this semester and turned in a couple of older, but not polished, poems for workshop, so there's a combination of Stella manuscript-ish stuff and stuff that doesn't fit into a project yet. Maybe, as I'm revising, I'll see that they're all about Stella & co., or maybe I'll start to see a new trajectory developing. Either way, I'm looking forward to envisioning these poems as part of a series. I've found that I don't like writing poems that don't belong to something larger. They feel shapeless and meandering.

Speaking of shapeless and meandering...my blog is definitely suffering, and has been since I went on the road back in May. I certainly haven't stuck to my resolution about doing more po-biz here, and my site meter is showing that people are tired of me whining. Alas, I struggle to find something more thought-provoking to write about because my brain is just tired lately. When I'm emotionally unstable, I don't do much serious thinking, except about me-me-me. Sorry, folks. Hopefully soon. I'm regaining balance.

The Baby is Hungry

A couple of nights ago, I had a dream that I had a baby--well, a toddler--and I didn't know how to feed it. When I realized the child was hungry and I couldn't do anything about it, I was so overcome with guilt that it woke me up. So, no, I'm not pregnant...and I think the baby is a stand-in for poetry.

When I signed on for the crazy BBQ job, I imagined myself grabbing every spare minute to read or write, but I found myself doing very little of that. OK, I did read a few books this summer, but for the most part, I spent my down time sleeping, going out to eat with the crew, and on the phone with people at home. Many, many things were working against me: the 14-16 hour workdays, my crazy, spoiled, Russian princess of a roommate, the homesickness. And when I was home, well, it was usually for less than 48 hours and I spent most of it doing laundry and sleeping. The longer breaks didn't come until the end of the summer when it was time to start packing.

Anyhow, you, dear readers, are not my mother (well, one of you is) and are not my priest, so I guess I don't have to explain my guilt away like this. The point is, poetry got bumped this summer, and not because I didn't feel it was important, but because I couldn't find the emotional or physical energy to dedicate to it. And now, it's the day before fall semester begins and I don't feel like a poet at all.

I'm currently inundated with theory: Kant, Hegel, various composition texts, and still trying to adjust to this new city, which is, to say the least, overwhelming. I want to write, but I feel that other things are more pressing. I want to write, but I'm afraid I've forgotten how. I don't know how to feed the baby.

I've been joking to Boyfriend that my second ms is going to be called Lonely Country Girl in Chicago. Not a great title, and I imagine a pretty boring read...but the weird thing is that I can't even seem to eek out one of my old-style, overly sentimental poems. It's pretty bad when writer's block extends to the narcissitic, catharsis-inducing poems I've always reverted to in the past.

So, here's my question, folks: what do you do when the muse has taken a leave of absence? How do you tap into your inner poet when things like practicality and critical texts get in the way of your imagination? And, for those of you who have done or are doing the PhD thing...how do you balance being a scholar and an artist?

Prompt answers are appreciated...I have to have a new poem for workshop on Wednesday. : )

The girl who cries at the bar

Yep, that's me. Last night, I was hanging out with John (that's the new guy) and Eric (aka Little, aka Akron's poetry prodigy) and watching the Cavs (I hate sports, but it was an all right game as far as games go) and then, when Eric went home, John and I started talking about Chicago and I started weeping, right there at the bar. I cried. At the bar. For pete's sake! Get a grip...

So, I'm excited, I am...but there's a much bigger part of me that is scared and sad. I feel like I'm walking away from who I am by walking away from where I live. Is that silly? I'm afraid that nothing will feel right in Chicago and I'll fall apart. I hope I'm wrong, and I'm trying to stay positive, but last night it caught up with me and there I was, weeping.

To compound the sadness, I just turned in my office key at the UA police station. I am officially not an A-K-Rowdy any more. To think, 9 years ago when I took my first class on campus, I couldn't wait to move on--and here I am, two degrees later, wishing I could stay forever. Funny how things work out.

Tomorrow, I go to Chicago. Unfortunately, I have realized that I am apartment hunting a bit too early. The apartmentpeople won't have August listings until June. Everything else that I've found is available now/June 1, and obviously I'm not moving yet. Hopefully I get something accomplished while I'm there, besides drinking margaritas with Brandi.

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An update on the BBQ madness: I'll be in Jamestown, NY, June 4-7. Karen, you better come see me!

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.

It's raining, it's pouring

I love spring rain. It feels clean, and fresh, and rejuvinating, and it washes away the last of the snow drifts. What could be better?

It has been a week and a half since AWP and I am finally caught up! My apartment is semi-clean, my bills paid (only one of them late!), my grading is done, my mid-term paper complete. There is nothing big due again until the end of April (and if I'm smart, I'll start the research now). Last night, I sat on the couch and watched Grey's re-runs and American Idol because my brain just needed to not do anything. Today, I'm hoping to make some headway on my thesis and/or get some submission packets put together.

I try so hard to keep poetry a priority, but if it isn't for a class, I tend to brush it under the rug. I need to start using my thesis hours a little more wisely.

I have been obsessing (more than normal) over my future for the last couple weeks. Now that I have less than a year of this program left, and I'm reading blogs like this one about PhD news, I am approaching panic. Every time someone asks me if I'm planning to apply to PhD programs next year, my voice get's this nasaly-whine to it as I say, "I don't know...maybe." I won't go through my pro-con list since it's the same as it always was, and I've posted about it at least three times before. What's frustrating is that after this much time thinking about it, you'd think I would have a little bit more of an idea of what I wanted.

Well, at any rate, I still have several months to decide, so I guess I'm just going to continue panicking.

Like a Virgin

Every week, I rush to get my reading, grading, and class plans done so that I can focus on my poems for a day or two. I carry around a folder marked "THESIS" in big black letters. I keep an excel spreadsheet full of poem titles, revision dates, submission dates, rejections, editors, publications, themes, where they're saved on my computer...and I update this on an almost daily basis. I have become neurotic about poems. neurotic about my thesis, a chapbook, a manuscript...which is which? where do the poems belong? does everything I put in my thesis have to end up in a book? where are the rest of the poems going to come from, and when?

I don't know if it is because I am consumed by this idea of being "A Poet" or if it is an actual problem, but things are just not moving fast enough for me. Strange thing is, I've written two or three poems in the last couple weeks that I really like and think are ready to send out--which doesn't usually happen so quickly--yet I'm frustrated, tired of waiting for inspiration to strike, tired of waiting for ideas to come to me. Aren't I poet enough to make the poems come at will?

I sent out a bunch of poems at the end of winter break, and most of them have come back to me already (which is what I wanted), rejected. That's okay. I know I'm just starting out and I know that rejections are part of the gig. I'm not complaining. But, now that I'm in the business of collecting rejection letters, I also need to be in the business of sending things back out. And I'm having a terrible time deciding which poems to put together and which journals to submit to. I was just reading Kristy's thoughts on on-line vs. print journals (a debate which I was only vaguely aware of) and I'm realizing there are journals that I "should" want to get into more than others. I don't really have any heirarchy in mind--except whether or not I like the stuff I see in them. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to what is going on around me. Maybe I should know that journal A has a better reputation that journal B. But I don't. And I kinda want to keep it that way. Maybe it's altruistic, but I think if my work has merit, it will be appreciated regardless of where it is published (or where my degree is from--which is important since I'm getting my MFA from a relatively unheard of program).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm having a little "coming of age" moment as a poet. I'm still excited, more excited than I can explain, to be writing and trying to get published and feeling proud when I tell people that I write because finally I can say yes when they ask if I'm published. However, I'm also becoming aware for the first time of the politics involved, of the strategy behind submissions, and that no matter how much I want it to be, it's not just about the work. I've always been good at working the system, learning the rules and making them work for me, so I'm not worried. But I am a little sad. Just like when I was 18 and realized that my first "true love" wasn't going to last forever. It opens up a world of opportunity, but leaves behind an innocence and naivete that I'm going to miss.

Well, I think that's enough pontification before breakfast.

Back to school, back to school

You won't get that if you're not obsessed with Adam Sandler like I am...

And I thought I was the only NEOMFAer with a blog...Hi Jessica! and Amy!

Have I told you guys I love teaching? I do. Met my class for the first time today, and I'm so excited I don't want to wait 24 hours for day 2. Sadly, I haven't invented a time machine yet, so I'll just have to wait.

Two of my students want to be writers when they grow up.

One of my students is preggers and due in March. Not sure how that's going to work. I hope she doesn't end up dropping.

I told them I don't teach grammar, and one student raised his hand and asked, "well, then how are you going to grade our papers?"

On to being a student...

I am afraid of my lit class. Not because it will be difficult, but because it is more feminist theory than I expected...and for some reason, I have a problem with feminism. I mean, yeah, it's great that I can vote and own property and be anything I want to be, and I appreciate all the hard work that women of previous generations put in so that I can have those rights, but as a literary theory, I think it is...weird. Maybe I just don't understand. Maybe I will by the end of the semester.

I have to read Gertrude Stein tonight. Somehow, I've made it through six years of post-secondary education without ever doing so before. We'll see how it goes.

Still thinking about PhDs. Had a nice talk with AA about it yesterday and am feeling more optimistic.

I'm officially working on my thesis. Yikes! But I'm trying to have fun with it instead of stressing myself out. We'll see how that goes.

That's all for today. Lot's of homework to do.