Sorry, world...

too much going on these days--and too little internet time--to worry about blogging much.

I'm totally unpacked and settled into the new place (only a month after I move in) and getting a lot done in terms of poetry and class prep. The best part? Reading two blogger-buddies' kick-ass manuscripts.

Thinking about my family, especially my mom, tonight, and wishing I was still with them.

Going to go home now, pour a glass of wine, and stare out the window. It's that kind of night.

mashup

It's almost too hot to drink my coffee this morning. It's not actually that hot outside, but my apartment is retaining all of yesterday's heat. Normally, I would just pack up my things and go to the nearest air conditioned coffee shop with free wifi, but I'm on a budget, and that budget does not include $4 coffees (which are the only kind I like, anyway). Nor does it include three glasses of wine at the bar around the corner where I go sometimes to work on Sunday afternoons. So I'm going to suffer through the heat as long as I can. And try to drink my coffee anyway.

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Speaking of being on a budget, Kelli had an interesting post (via Tatyana) about money yesterday. She/they ask "what does financial freedom look like?" For me:

1) Being out of debt. My car is mine, my education is mine, and my money is mine.
2) Living in a home I love--this could be an apartment I rent or a place I own, just as long as I love it. And have the cash to properly furnish it. No more hand-me-down couches and dumpster diving coffee tables.
3) Being able to buy gifts, nice ones, for the people I love. No budget.
4) Vacations. To places I've never been before.

The debt is, of course, the big one. The one that looms over the next 20 years like a UFO waiting to suck me up and do bad things to me. Could I have taken fewer student loans over the last four years? Can I take fewer or be more responsible with the loans I take over the next four? I guess some people make their stipends work for them, or work 2nd jobs all through grad school, but I a) can't live on 14K when I have rent and a car payment and b) can barely keep my shit together with just my responsibilities to school--working a second job would probably lead to a complete breakdown.

I thought about selling my car & eating the loss since I don't really need a car right now. But then I started thinking long term. Right around the same time I'm going to be needing a car (presumably I'm not going to find a job in Chicago or NYC after graduation), I'm going to be having to pay back my student loans. My car will be 9 years old by then, but it will probably get me through at least the first few months post phd if I'm good to it now.

Anyway...I just thought Tatyana's question was interesting. I didn't plan on fretting about my loans.

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Rebecca Loudon is the nicest poet in blogland, I think. She did something very sweet and unexpected for me and I can't stop smiling when I think about it.

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I think, think, I have a plan for manuscript #2 (which I'm tentatively calling This is Not a Harvest [doh! I didn't realize: book 1 = weeds, book 2 = harvest. this might not work]) and manuscript #3 (which has no working title yet). I just have to decide which one to work on first (I have 5-10 drafts for each of them already). Joshua Corey is doing a visiting writer gig at UIC this fall, and I have to put together a portfolio and a little artist statement before I can work with him, so, decision time. The portfolio is due on July 15, so I have less than a month to figure it out.

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Still purging in preparation for next month's move. I've already gotten rid of 2 trash bags full of clothes, and I think there's at least one more to go. I went through my shelves but could only part with one small pile of books. And the papers...sheesh, I'm barely making a dent but I've worked on those files for hours and hours. That's probably what I'll spend most of today on.

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Geesh. This has got to be one of my most boring blog posts ever. If you read all the way to the end you should get a prize.

Went to the MCA yesterday and was wholly underwhelmed. I'd been there once before to see the Jenny Holzer exhibit (which was very cool) but didn't go upstairs to see any of the other exhibits. Well, the thing is, I didn't ever really need to go upstairs. They have like 3, 4 artists featured and I didn't really "get" any of them. The biggest exhibit upstairs was very engineering/physics heavy, and frankly, I have no interest in that sort of thing. I think they swap out the exhibits pretty regularly, so I guess I'll try again on another free Tuesday.

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I also went to look at an apartment yesterday and I am getting pretty sick of people lying about what neighborhood their properties are in. There was nothing Logan Square-ish about this place--the sidewalks were crumbling, the yards overgrown with weeds, and I'm pretty sure if I was there after dark there would be hookers and drug dealers on the corner. The agent called while I was on my way there and had to cancel, but I didn't get the message until I was standing outside of this building looking up and down the street in complete horror. If these are my options, I'll stay where I'm at.

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I didn't finish my ms revisions or get them to Jay yet. My new deadline is today at 12:00. I've got 4 hours to get this thing in shape.

One of the things I'm trying to do (I've almost decided which poems are staying and which are going) is to re-order the book without relying on chronology--primarily because I don't want a chunk of childhood poems right at the beginning. But they've been in a certain order for so long, I'm having a hard time imagining them as separate pieces again. What a strange process this is.

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Canceling netflix may have been a bad idea. Requesting movies from the Chicago Public Library is painfully slow. And now that all my TV shows are done for the summer, there are no good free episodes to watch online.

Maybe I'm just not a hard-core enough writer, but there are only so many hours a day that I can use my brain, and after that, I just want to stare at a flashing screen.

In Praise of Deadlines (I hope)

Today is the day that I will finish a draft of my manuscript--individual poem revisions, reordering, the whole deal. Why is today the day? Because I made a deal with Jay. We're trading. Tomorrow.

I can't procrastinate any longer. I can't hem and haw about which poems belong in the ms. I just have to decide. Hallelujah.

There just aren't enough deadlines in my poetry life now that I don't have a thesis committee to please. And it'll be three years before I have a new committee, so I guess I'm going to have to start recruiting friends to be deadline givers more often.

I'm feeling pleasantly frantic and urgent. Good for creativity.

Manuscript Madness

Yesterday, I sat down with my manuscript plus the 40 poems that aren't currently in it (mostly new, but some are from my MFA workshops that didn't make the cut for my thesis), and started to do some shuffling. And then I just got frustrated.

When I was ordering my thesis, I had three sub-projects that I was trying to weave together: childhood/family poems, Donny & Stella, and waitressing/working class poems. It all worked well because Stella was "my" cousin and she was a waitress, and I wrote some Donny childhood poems and he was a working class guy...at the time, it all made perfect sense.

But when I look at the manuscript now, there are about 5-10 childhood/family poems that don't fit and I'm anxious about the Stella stuff because of the chapbook--literally half of the full-length manuscript is in Flood Year. I feel like I need to do more with Stella so that folks who read the chapbook have something new to learn about her if/when In the Weeds goes out into the world. But that's a minor concern. I know that lots of poets' first chapbooks land directly in their first books. It's the poems I want to take out--they're going to need to be replaced or the ms is too short (and way too Stella-centric at that point). So, then there's those 40 unaccounted-for poems. Do they (some of them) end up in ITW? Or are they for a new manuscript(s)?

What I ended up with yesterday were three piles--which could turn out to be 3 manuscripts. And it would feel really, really nice to have a sense of the trajectory of my first three books. But I wonder if I'm drawing these lines in the sand that don't need to be drawn. Some of the poems in pile three could easily be integrated into ITW. I could even slap Donny's or Stella's names on some of them and add a few identifying details and *poof*--they're persona poems.

Right now, I wish that I wrote with more purpose. For the last year or so, I've been writing always with my thesis in the back of my mind--I knew when I turned it in that it didn't feel done to me, but everyone who read it at the time told me it was ready--so half of me thought the poems I wrote were for my second project, and half of me thought they were for ITW. I wish I'd been more deciscive, because now I'm just confused.

I've pushed back my personal deadline/goal for getting this manuscript in the mail 100 times (okay, maybe more like 10 times) and I don't know if it is truly for artistic reasons or just because I'm chicken shit. Then again, I knew my chapbook was ready and only had to send it out twice. If I know this manuscript is ready, will I have the same good luck? If I send it out when I'm still unsure, will I be wasting my postage and my reading fees?

And then there's the problem of revision--previously my favorite part of the writing process. But lately, I haven't been able to see beyond the first draft of a poem. What's missing, where is it going, how can I blow out the walls? These questions used to inspire a writing frenzy, now they just cause me to stare out the window listlessly. Eh, I think, this poem's pretty okay as is. I don't really know what else to do with it, so I guess it's done. That's not who I am as a writer! At least, it's not who I want to be. But I've lost my knack for re-visioning. How do I get it back?

Spring Break Randomness

I found this post card at the coffee shop the other day and absolutely love it. The photographer is Brian M. Heiser, and I might just have to beg him to do my cover art some day. The post card is just about the exact visual representation of my poem "The Orchard".


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Speaking of cover art reminds me of that lonely manuscript that I've been neglecting. Hoping spring break affords me some time to hammer away at it. If not, I will at least do some serious submitting. It's hard to get published when you only send work out once every six months.

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Twilight is at the top of my netflix list. I only get one movie at a time and two a month (which is often more than I have time for) so I'm trying to figure out when the best time to send back the movie I already have will be. If I mail it today, they might get it before Twilight is released. If I wait...all the teenie boppers might get it and start holding it hostage and I won't get it until next month. I'm pretty anxious to see if Edward is more charming on screen than he is in the book (I thought he was kind of a douche-bag, to be honest).

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I don't know if I've ever really blogged about this, but I'm pretty obsessed with my Italian heritage. I'm almost as obsessed with the Bulgarian side of the family (and the suspicion that we might have been gypsies), but that's not the point right now. When I was a kid, I was bummed that I didn't have a cool Italian last name (my mom's maiden name is Morelli, her mother's maiden name is Bentivegna). I was also bummed that I didn't get as good of a tan as my mother, and that my hair wasn't as curly as my sister's. Who knows genetically how "Italian" these things are, but in my mind, there was a one-to-one connection. Vanity aside, I've always loved all things Italian and all things Italian-American (although I admit, I'm not much of a mobster movie buff, and that doesn't quite make sense to me) and recently, Facebook has introduced me to someone who shares my obsessions (Hi Joey!). This is perhaps one of the first Facebook connections with someone I didn't already know that might be somehow productive. We're going to be chatting Italian-American poetry and whatnot and I'm really excited.

I've also decided (almost decided) that I want Italian to be my language requirement for my PhD. I took 4 semesters of Spanish in college, but they don't count because I got a C my 4th semester. I could take a placement test and hopefully remember enough to place me in that 4th semester again, but I think I'd rather start fresh (besides, then I'll be a tiny bit tri-lingual). Now my super-undeveloped plan is to take 2 semesters of Italian next year, then go to Italy next summer (maybe some intensive classes) and start checking out the contemporary poetry scene over there. Maybe do a little translation. Ah, pipe dreams. And credit card debt.

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I'm heading back to Ohio next week for a few days and am worried that I'm not going to get enough work done. I have to take my car to the dealership, go to the dentist, do a bunch of other errands that I can only do in Ohio because I haven't fully transitioned to being an Illinois resident, plus see friends and family...but I have about 18 books to read (that's only a slight exaggeration. It's more like 9), two paper drafts to write, a stack of papers to grade, and all the po-biz stuff I was talking about earlier. Whatever happened to relaxing?

Morning Musings

Why can't I make a decent pot of coffee? Seriously, someone, help me out!

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I had way too good of a weekend for it to be Monday already. Every day should be: sleep until 11, go out to lunch, take a nap, go out to dinner, go dancing until 4 am. Forget writing syllabi and reading Mao.

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Fellow bloggers: does your spouse/partner/boyfriend/girlfriend read your blog? BF and I had a little argument about this the other day. I think he should read it, he thinks not...but he was annoyed when Toby knew something from my blog that I'd never talked to BF about. I'm just curious how other couples handle it.

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I think I figured out poetry project #2. There's going to be mafia/ Italian Catholic immigrant themes running through it, but the organizing narrative will be about a woman observing her aging mother after her father leaves (or dies, haven't decided how morbid I want to be yet). With the exception of some details from the 1940's, this project will not be (auto)biographical. I'm feeling really good about this--I've been kicking around this idea for years, but I didn't want to write a book that had to be totally research based. The mother-daughter angle lets me get started even though I don't have time to do the library work right now.

Alas, I still need to finish ms #1. I'm clearly missing fall deadlines again, but maybe I can make the winter ones.

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Indian summer this week. It was really warm out over the weekend and is supposed to be in the 70s today and tomorrow. And I just put away all my summer clothes.

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I thought I was going to be part of history and become a Chicagoan all at once when Obama comes to Grant Park on Tuesday, but apparently, the tickets sold out in less than an hour. I guess I'm going to an election party, but I think it might be safer to hide in my apartment and avoid the CTA that day. Oh well.

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Carol asked me to talk about revision. She's finishing her thesis. I'm going to try to post something soon. Something poetic (gasp)!

Day Late, Dollar Short

I was too busy to post yesterday, but BOR (and Adam Clay) got more love from Verse Daily! This is some kind of crazy s*it. And pretty awesome.

While I'm on BOR news, the questions are almost ready, so I'll be contacting contributors very, very soon.

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I was supposed to mail my ms out today, but I'm a day late on that, too. I'm almost done proofreading, and hopefully will be ready before the post office closes tomorrow.

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Hate to tell you this, Justin, but I got no love from the University of Utah. If you're keeping track, that's 1 yes, 1 no, and 1 paperwork glitch. 4 unknowns. that's 1 yes, 2 no's, and 1 paperwork glitch. 3 unknowns. (I won't be going to WMU either). I'm crossing my fingers for at least one more yes. I want to feel like I have a choice.

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I'm going to clean and do laundry now...and then spend the rest of the weekend grading. Fun!

Manuscript Madness and "Old" Poetry

I've been fiddling with my ms for the last couple of weeks. Changing line breaks and other small details but nothing big. I have about 3 drafts that I think might fit, but they're not done and my revising isn't going very quickly. I've cut out a few poems that I don't think are right. Shuffled the order a bit.

Something tells me I am subconsciously moving very slowly so I miss the last few contests before summer. Something tells me I should make the changes I marked this morning, print the whole thing, and stick it in an envelope. Be done with it--for now. Because otherwise I will constantly tell myself it isn't quite ready until I get to the point where I hate the whole thing. And then my first book will never get published.

Goal: Print and mail by Thursday. No, Friday. Print by Thursday, mail by Friday. That's the goal.

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When I started grad school, I knew very little about contemporary poetry. I'd read a bit of Plath, a bit of Bishop, but very little newer. Since then, I've been focusing on the last 60 years or so. Now, I seem to have forgotten everything I read as an undergrad.

I don't remember anything about romanticism. I barely remember Dickinson. My new reading project is to refresh my memory on the "old" stuff. Pre-1950. As far back as I can go. Maybe start with Beowulf again and work my way back up. I want to be ready when I start school again in the fall. I don't want to have to pretend I know what people are talking about--I want to actually know it.

There is a Ph.D. in my future and I still feel like I'm faking it. Does it ever get easier? Do brains expand to hold more information? Because sometimes, I feel like I'm saturated. Like if I learn something new, I'll have to forget something I used to know to make space.