Ramble On!

Yesterday was hard. It's hard when you know things are bad, and that there are a few proven things that can help, but you can't get yourself to do them: take your meds, get off the couch, clean up, etc. I don't have too many days like that now that I'm on Paxil, but for some reason, yesterday hit me like a fist. The only good news is that I can recognize that it's a neurosis: there isn't really anything wrong. The bad news is that the good news doesn't help.

So let's not talk about this anymore. Let's talk about art.

Even though I'm still untenured, prospects look good for next year. Having said this, I do know the rules about counting chickens. Having said THAT, my soul is really jumping the gun to get back into writing poetry. But writing it in a more informed way. Reading more poetry. Thinking about craft. I've been gravitating toward formal verse for a while, as I've hit a dead end with my voice. Patterns and rhythms of speech need to be changed up, and the work needs to actively converse with that of others. I'm interested right now in longer iambic lines: teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM, for example. Robert Frost does these beautifully. I'll probably start there.

I feel like such an amateur, starting completely over with writing. I do think, however, that I needed to get graduate school out of my system. Like all my creative cells needed to die off and regenerate. I'd completely lost track of the whys behind my writing.

Jeff has a book-length manuscript that I'm going to help him edit over the summer. I know it will be published...maybe it will help get me back in shape.

Materialistic Swooning

Home with the babes today. We are watching "Dumbo" (best line: "Have I got a trunk full of dirt for you!") and reading. I am drinking coffee.

While the girls were at grandma's this weekend, Jeff and I went to a Habitat for Humanity Re-Sale store and bought some doors for the front bedroom. One is an old swinging door that will separate the bedroom from the kitchen. We sanded, primed and painted them before the girls came back from Santa Cruz.

And the further good news is that Mary across the street is going to loan me her piano! It's electric, so you can practice with headphones on and no one will hear you. I figure that I can see how much I really commit to it before committing to buying one of my own.

Now I just need a hot tub and a boat and my Napa life will be complete.

Tell you what, SMC folk: I will have a hot tub here for you in July. This will be my goal.