Nothing Important, Just the Rest of Your Life

I keep wanting to step in with a cliche and say that the semester is ‘winding down’, but really, I think it’s more apt to describe that phrase as a euphemism. You know, ‘ushing up daisies’ = ‘dead’.

Well, ‘semester is winding down’ = ‘the level of stress is increasing at break-neck speed and I may have to take to drinking to keep my sanity, and perhaps if I’m lucky, my GPA’.

You know, something like that. We say it’s winding down, over and over, like a mantra to keep ourselves from going crazy.

90% chance I’ll be failing Chemistry….ehh.

I’m feeling the stress, now, because one week from tonight I need to have a 10-minute informal presentation ready of my research for my final research paper in my senior seminar in literature, and two weeks from tonight the paper itself is due. I’m making myself start working, really working, on getting the whole thing done as soon as humanly possible so it doesn’t hang over my head for what remains of the semester. I’d love to have it done in a week, so I have everything polished for the presentation and then just forget it all exists until I have to turn it in; procrastination and practicality both inform me I shall, of course, use the entire two weeks remaining, but I’m hoping to get it done with a swift, sane pace.

I finished both Redwall and Smoke and Mirrors today…I’m nearly always reading two books simultaneously, so I have something to match my mood…deep, focused, thoughtful, and light-hearted and mindless. The difference I think most people supply with, perhaps, reading and TV. Not that I don’t ejoy TV in vast quantities as well, but…you get the picture.

I have the second book in the Redwall series already, but I’m not allowing myself to start reading a new book until this paper is finished, as both a form of motivation and a way to avoid distraction.

Good luck to the rest of you students as well….

11.26.2007

white flakes falling into the hair of girls, a fresh
benediction to keep on walking.

I think of metaphors about snowglobes but realize that
nothing shakes us anymore.

For a moment I can imagine motion, that snow isn’t falling but
rather we’re moving upward through a cloud, moving away. . .

* * *

I thought I was nursing a ridiculously long hangover Sunday, but I woke up today again feeling dead and accepted with indignation that I may have a cold. I am angry. I apparently have a pretty staunch immune system and haven’t caught so much as a sniffle since 8th grade, some 8ish years ago (say it with me: 22 and feeling old).

I’m probably going to fail Chemistry. I am not bothered by this. I am bothered that it does not bother me.

Colts won, Notre Dame won, Patriots almost blew it against the Eagles…it was a good few days for football. WVU and Missouri both need to lose this week so my Buckeyes can taste sweet sweet BCS championship game-ness. WVU won’t, but Missouri might if they get caught looking ahead…

Writer’s Meeting this Friday I think? I hope so…I’m eager. I hope it snows, outside those windows looking out into the city…and I will sit there with coffee…

RS

Bits

I picked up the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Poets & Writers at B&N today while picking up a copy of Frederick Douglass’s autobiography after losing my previous copy needed for an essay in a history class. They have titled it their ‘MFA’ issue, and have to say that from my first, relatively quick read-through of their MFA articles, and knowing how many of ‘us’ are planning on at least considering the possibility of grad. school, I’d highly recommend this to anyone. It even has a piece written by an MFA student on his experiences in taking a TA position to fund his stay in the program — very interesting indeed.

And really…Iowa? I understand it’s a very prestigious MFA program, but…I have an authentic fear that I’d find myself in the middle of flat nothingness in the middle of the country with nothing to inspire me. Corn? Potatoes? Other stereotypical ‘Iowa-Can’t-Really-Be-That-Boring’ things? But I think the collective articles do a good job focusing on what some people think of as the ‘MFA atmosphere’, and some people think MFA programs ‘churn out’, and then debunking them. The best idea I took from the whole thing, was that writers ad non-writers (are there such things, really?) need to both drop the idea that writing is something alien to other art forms. I’m paraphrasing here, but: “Writing can be taught. I’ve been taught, and I’ve taught others. You can’t teach talent, but you can nurture it.”

Anyway – I think the Writer’s Meetings are my church, if I can say writing and poetry in particular are my religion. I think the creative and (not to sound too sentimental) spiritual drought as of late has either been directly caused or directly strengthened by my missing so many meetings. While I was already feeling a slide back into a creative and productive mood, the meeting definitely brought it all to a boil. Refocusing efforts both on school items and artistic things.

On that note, it’s time to go write that history essay. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some good friends and artisitc colleagues last Friday, and authentically anticipate the next. Hopefully you’ll be seeing some new work up soon, and, Poetry God willing, maybe even some submissions sent, perhaps even (dare I speak the words?). . .published. Main Street Rag is target #1, for lack of a reason not to have it so.

RS

Excerpts

From something that struck me in just the way I needed to be, at just the time I needed it to arrive.

Excerpts from ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, Neil Gaiman.

“But where there’s a monster, there’s a miracle.” – Ogden Nash, Dragons Are Too Seldom

“Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It’s that easy.” – Author’s Notebook, February 1992

“Stories are, in one way or another, mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors, stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from teh things in the darkness.”

See you all at the Chicory. 1pm Writer’s Meeting!

Love-

RS

First Snow

Frantically we go,
moths to the flaming
that isn’t.

The mechanical, untiring arm of things.

The way it goes. Mischievous, nostalgic dopplegangers.

Progress for the sake of progress.

Running against the
wind as the cement hardens
around us.

Guitar solos, last-second comebacks.

The force of the motion. Untrustworthy mixtures.

Making sense of meeting all the wrong ends.

Speaking in a
language of reverberations,
going nowhere.

Secrets

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

This is art.

I want to do something even remotely as powerful….authentic.

What’s your secret?

I’ve been obsessively trying to think of what one of mine might be…though I suppose if I really nailed it I wouldn’t want to post it, usually being too open for my own good.

Besides, the ones I’ve come up with are all so tacky-emo-sounding:

“I can’t remember the last time I thought sincere, romantic love was attainable, at least for me.”

“I’ve accepted failure as a lifestyle choice.”

“My best friend died in 2002, and I haven’t let anyone in since.”

I mean, really.

Someday, I’ll find it, and the wonderful web shall be the first to know.

Love-

RS