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.