code dependent

Well, one way to solve the problem of internet-based procrastination is to lose your internet access. The problem is, you also lose your access to the things you really need to do.

That's what happened to me. On Friday, April 22nd, at approximately 7pm, my computer went dead. Perfect timing--it was during spring break, and I was intending to catch up on some grading over the weekend. Plus I couldn't even get into my office because all the babysitters were out of town for the holiday weekend!And let's not even talk about the fact that the kids had two additional days of break (this past Monday and Tuesday) that FIT did not.

I took the laptop in to our IT folks first thing Monday morning. By Tuesday, I still hadn't heard anything, other than it was "work in progress." Finally, yesterday, I got connected with the guy working on it (aka My Hero). I'd somehow gotten a virus that caused my hard drive to be inaccessible. It had to be replaced, but fortunately he was able to retrieve my data files by connecting an external hard drive.

WHEW. I just got it back, four loooooong days later (and 6 and a half long days after the crash).

In the meantime, my only access to email, my online classes, and everything was during the time I was able to be in my office at FIT (thank goodness, I still have a desktop unit, albeit an old and slow-ish one).

The rest of the time I felt entirely cut off from the world, from my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my fellow writers and collaborators and partners in crime. It was like a big NOTHING. Silence. I couldn't get in touch with anyone whose phone number I didn't have. I couldn't check my bills and accounts. I couldn't even cook without looking up recipes on the web.

How did I become so dependent on this machine--this chunk of plastic, metal, and whatever other crap that circuitry and such are made of? It's a bit bizarre.

I realized yesterday that I had been going through a serious withdrawal, which was probably chemical in nature. I am a techno addict, and so it follows that my brain was deprived of the dopamine surges it was accustomed to. This reminds me that I need to read Dr. Gary Small's book iBrain, to see exactly what it up with our neurochemistry in this day and age. I've been meaning to get around to it, but now it's time to stop procrastinating and get to it.

I just found it in the New York Public Library's electronic resource, eNYPL. I'm going to download it as soon as I get home with my newly healed laptop. Because now, I can.

sisyphean

• parent-teacher conferences
• forms, endless, endless forms to fill out
• take kids to get blood/urine samples for their physicals (which happened over a month ago)
• bobby home sick two days
• stella half day tuesday
• both kids off thursday for veteran's day
• keeping up the household
• WORK: five classes. five billion ungraded written assignments. forgetting things, things slipping through my fingers. the threat of student evaluations. insane and slippery paperwork for four guest speakers' honoraria.
• a bunch of other stuff i probably forgot.
• oh, and grief slapping one upside the head, randomly. "part of the process"

ican'tdoit ican'tdoit ican'tdoit ican'tcan'tcan'tcan'tcan't

iwillnotfeelsorryformyself. no.

UGH. ARGH. AUGH. It will pass, I know it will....

weekender

NOTE: It is perhaps unsurprising that I originally drafted the following post LAST weekend and am just finishing and posting it now.

I haven't posted here in awhile (again). Mostly it's because I've been doing other things, but there is always the shadow of blogger's block. I still don't know what it's about, exactly. Partly it's the same as regular writer's block, but the other part of it is the public nature of blogging. I have a link to my blog on my email signature, it's on my facebook page, it's the first thing that comes up if someone googles my name. So there's no way I can really hide here, unless I have some "restricted" posts, and I don't really see the sense of that. If I have something to say that's private, for a small group, I either just write in my notebook or send an email to a couple of friends.

Anyway, lately I've been remembering the words of Dave Smith, who with Claudia Emerson led the workshop in which I was a fellow at Sewanee last summer. Dave really held my feet to the fire, but it was something I needed. I'd submitted a manuscript of work-in-progress (something that most of the fellows don't do, for some reason, but I thought I'd take advantage of having a thorough reading by some experts, free of charge). After my hour-long conference, I read the three-page single-spaced letter Dave had written--it was more like an essay directed to me individually, engaged, elegantly-written, and incisive. At the end, I broke down and cried because he had hit the nail on the head--not so much about the poems themselves (although his comments were useful and on-target) as about my commitment to poetry.

I think the "serious" poet is not competing against stand-up comics but against the great poems in our language. To bear that burden of competition is a killer weight, but if a poet is not trying to do the best possible work, how is he/she different from the literary week-ender?

That, dear reader, is the question, and underlying that is another series of questions: am I destined to be a "week-ender"? what would I have to do to be "serious" about poetry? something's gotta give, but what?

At the end of the letter, Dave wrote:

I think you can be a very entertaining poet, especially reading to small crowds who have every reason to like not being challenged; or you can be both entertaining and much better, the kind of poet whose language has resonance and durability.

He went on to name some poets (all women, of course) he considered "non-week-enders" and the list included some of my personal heroes and one of my close personal friends. That was when I cried. Yes, I want to do what these writers have done. What has been stopping me? Why, if I consider my writing so central to my life, do I always give other work, the work that is for pay, more legitimacy and thus more of my energy? How can I change this?

If I don't get a handle on this I'll never have a second book. I'll never finish the memoir. I'll always be a might-have-been, an also-ran, a "but she had so much potential." I'm working on finding another way.

in need of chocolate

Here's why:
*Work stress is hitting an all-time high; I will not even begin to go into particulars.

*YAI just informed me that they can no longer pay for Krystal's in-home respite services until a Medicaid waiver is on file. Earlier in the year we were informed that the agency was having to use funds from Medicaid for the clients' services (due, I believe, to state budget cuts). I thought we had done all the paperwork for this in the spring, but apparently not. Krystal called and said her supervisor told her not to come today--I am going to pay her out of pocket until I regroup and figure it out.

*Bob is taking the kids to be with him family for Christmas. This will be the first Christmas in their lifetimes that they have not been with me. I suppose it goes without saying that divorce sucks.

Fortunately, I picked up a B.T. McElrath Dark Chocolate Bar ("our proprietary blend of European and Columbian chocolate, 70% cacao") yesterday at my Thursday morning coffee place. It is truly the smoothest, silkiest dark chocolate I have experienced in a very long time. Goes well with the Guatemalan dark roast I purchased as well.

random catchup

I've been trying to be all literary/philosophical/witty/artsy/heartfelt/introspective/creative lately in my postings. And the result is that I have a bunch of fairly self-absorbed, occasionally cryptic pieces of prose that don't necessarily tell the story of what's going on in my life.

While I can't really talk about EVERYTHING, you know, I do want to give some various thoughts and updates.

How are the kids? They're pretty good. Really. Bobby had a flu this past week he caught in PA (thanks, David!)--it started on his birthday :( and he was home from school three days, which made for some scrabbling around so Mom and Dad could work. We're having a party for him and 6 or 7 of his closest friends tomorrow at the apartment (Lord help us). My baby boy is nine. Unbelievable. Stella is her strong-willed yet adorable self. Well, the strong-willed part is asserting itself quite a bit more than usual lately. Yesterday I got a call from her teacher expressing concerns that Stella has been having tantrums and crying fits, mainly around "transition" times. Everyone keeps asking, "Is something different at home?" but it really isn't--Mom and Dad each spend about the same amount of time with her, and the routine, other than the holiday, is pretty normal. I'm wondering if it connected to a cognitive growth phase--she is able to understand thing in more complex ways, but is still not able to articulate her own thoughts and wants and needs. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be. She can still be a lovey, though, despite her bursts of temper. And she has a fetching new haircut.

How's work? Oh, don't ask. It's the end of the term, and I'm facing the usual pile (physical and digital) of student work to comment on. This semester I'm teaching an extra class for some extra bread, and it's just about killed me. Fortunately, my students are great--they never cease to amaze me with their insights and energy. I really do love teaching at FIT.

How's your writing? While my participation in the actual process of writing has been limited to therapeutic journal pages and comments on student papers (and emails, text messages, and the occasion blog post), things are definitely a-brewing on the literary front. Last week I got the page proofs and cover design for Saint Nobody. Just sent in the corrections yesterday. After all the years and tears and fears, it's really, really going to be published. And thanks to Red Hen Press, it looks marvelous. And it looks as if Denise and I may have a publisher for our chapbook of collaboratively written ABBA poems--stay tuned on that. I'm hoping to get back to the memoir in January. We'll see.

How are you? Hmmm. That's a tough one. OK. Surviving. Praying a lot. Running and doing yoga when I can. Trying not to be too much of a drama queen (and you know how hard that is for me)--sometimes succeeding at that. Grateful for friends--amazing people I have leaned on this past year, listening ears and sage advisors and fun socializers and cool and smart and solid and trustworthy. I'm so lucky. I only hope I can be as good a friend to them as they have to me. And grateful for my mom, whose birthday is tomorrow.

crunch time

It's the end of the semester at FIT, and I'm hunkered down with stacks of poems, stories, journals, and other papers--all wonderful, but a bit overwhelming all at once. One week left, and then Commencement is Tuesday the 20th at Radio City!

By the way, if anybody knows how to get tickets to the Dan Zanes concert at the High Line Ballroom on Saturday 5/17, let me know!