aneeme

my girl is dragging me to my first anime convention. i imagine it will be full of shrieking teens and i had just better have my ipod fully charged. it's in brooklyn, so i will drive to assure i get home with as much time for shut eye as possible. though i'm sure i'll be a zombie come sunday when i open at six am, having left brooklyn at 10pm the night before. such is life. she tells me i'll be the conference mom, but that's how it goes.

we're taking in two concerts too, her first, which i was dying to go to, my baby's first concert a band i love and she loves, can't wait. and since i couldn't wait i got tickets for a second show in nj, it was iffy whether or not there would be a ticket for me the first time around. so nee and i will go twice, which is pretty cool. i will definitely have to bring ear plugs as prince was loooouuuud and they will be even louder.

my apartment looks like a bomb hit it. i had a packet due today which i turned in on friday because i was sick of looking at it. i'm so glad it is out of my hair. i hope my prof can see my responses are thoughtful and not just outright negation of her critique. there are reasons i do what i do. one poem she wanted me to cut off this list of things i took from my ex because "it would be interesting to end" at another point. but the whole point of the poem, it occurred to me is counting coup. i have to have that list in there. there are so many subtle tribal things that i had to explain, who knows.

i'm debating on sending my book out to a publisher, if they will take it as is, i will let it go, but if they can't i will just continue to self publish.

trying to build up the energy to do the dishes and clean my apt, but it ain't gonna happen tonight. the best i can do is rest and hope i can face the music tomorrow.

i went a very long time without a true day off since jury duty took me to the city both of my days off. though my new boss has shortened my hours considerably, i have to learn how to manage my time, i tend to cocoon a lot. who knows, maybe i need to.

curious bedfellows

i will admit something i don't say often, because there really is no point in saying it, but i will say it now, and move on. i have no idea what i'm doing. i'm making it up as i go. i find the flow and navigate from there, when i hit still water, i drift and spin in the still cool because the rapids took everything i've got to navigate. i'm in a still moment now. a deep dark cool that allows me to catch my breath and move into tomorrow with ease.

i missed seeing my tats, this has been a long cold winter, so yesterday the sun was out and i sat, tank top clad, in the sun, soaking up the rays. i closed my eyes and let everything, everyone i should say, i love go.

you are free, and you have always been free.

i have to remind myself that i, too, am free. trapped is the illusion, i believe this.

so, i stand at the precipice and wonder where the winds will carry me (to change metaphors). i do the best i know how and hear that resounding yes in my soul, the only yes i follow. i have to not let the fact that my companions dwindle in number then replenish, bother me because it has never been a numbers game. i want true companionship, not masses of noise.

that's one thing i noticed when i was on the train to the city, those with a traveling companion. i'm not sure i will ever have one besides my daughter, but she is the best company i could ask for. i have to remind myself that she, too, is free, and that i have to teach her how to let go.

she has my talent of slipping out without a goodbye and disappearing. we do this, i think it is our nature, to slip away and keep moving.

i want what matters, and i'm mired in the nonessential at the moment, though i have to work, i can't seem to shake free from the job that has become only burden to me. so i do my time, and hope i see the signs marking the exit. i need the first exit possible.

my favorite boss is gone now, she transferred out. i have been having these what are you going to do with your life conversations, and while they are very motivating, you don't know how many people i've helped leave my life, i miss them. and so, my comfort is gone. we keep in touch, sure, but there is something to being physically present to a person. to seeing their eyes and feeling their energy.

i don't really know how to describe it. i'm tired of the unknown, yet that is where i have chosen to live my life. sometimes i envy those people who are from somewhere. a woman in jury duty mentioned that she'd lived in her home her entire life. i can't even conceive of that concept. the longest i've lived in one home is seven years, in my entire life, seven years.

so, my task at the moment is to settle down. to let my roots sink in. to be here. to let these people, whomever they are, whomever they will be, know me. and to know them.

we do not choose our neighbors, nor those we love. but we can give them access.

i have to remember not to close the world out as i sometimes do when i get uncertain. but to press on, to move forward, to keep going because there is something just around the bend, a curious incident that will change my life for the better, and i can't wait to know what that is. i've been waiting so long.

let it come.

happy birthday grams

i don't stop and think about it anymore, i wouldn't have today, but my sister mentioned she was going to the beach to visit my grams. now i have to write about it.

i spent the better part of the past three days in the company of a grandma who was very much like my own. she even scared away some guys she said wanted to rob me. she gave them the ojos, while i was shopping in chinatown for my girl's bday. she lectured me on being alert and looking at people who are around. she is so sweet. i hadn't thought i'd miss her, but i do. i don't have too many people who fight for me like that. who just take me under their wing and chase off a couple of bad guys. i looked at her and said,

you are my guardian angel.

and she smiled. probably thought i was crazy.

i met her because the first day of jury duty i wanted to sit by someone who smelled good. she had a look about her that said, i smell good. so i sat by her, and we talked a bit the first few hours of that first day.

i had no idea if i'd ever see her again, but when i arrived for my next stint at jury duty, there she was in the ladies room washing her hands beside me. and i said,

hi, i met you at the assembly room,

and smiled. she acknowledged me.

then we had to sign in by number, so we all lined up and i got a whiff of her again, and said,

you still smell good.

:) and smiled. she probably thought i was nuts. i think i may be sometimes. who says that shit to people?

anyway, she sat by me every chance after that, and we were two whole days on our asses in court waiting to be called for the selection process, and so when we could we would talk. we had lunch together, we bought candy and met to walk around at breaks.

she's back in the bronx now, and i'm back in my little apartment, my tiny, feels so much like home and mine i love it apartment. with the photo of my grams and grandpa looking down on me, that i have to admit, i miss her. this is not news. everyone who knows me, knows this. but i don't often stop anymore on her birthday, or the anniversary of her death to say it.

but i'm saying it now, i miss her.

happy birthday gramsy. wherever you are, i hope you're still dancing.

restless

this weekend was a blur and though i try not to be exhausted this opening after a week of closing schedule takes its toll. not much can be done about that, but i've slept a bit and feel human again.

considering a lot of revisions on my work and that is taxing in itself. it's not that the revisions are so major, many of them i even agree with and accept, it's just the poem that is slated for a major overhaul is one that i am deeply connected to. i am told to change it for the program and do what i want later. would it were so simple for me.

the thing about poetry is, it's not prose. so when i'm told to strengthen my verb (which is a phrase i am borrowing from a past critique) and then in the space of the same poem told that i am relying too heavily on verbs i wonder which words to focus on. fewer strong verbs is i guess the answer, but again, were it that simple i'd have done it.

there is a redundancy that i use, a way i reiterate. nothing. nada. zilch. like that. i say the same thing in a different way. when someone asks me to cut the nada and zilch, i flinch a bit because while the words may be the same, in the same vein, it is the repetition i'm after. i am told that a prosaic consideration is not to use unnecessary words, but this is poetry. is poetry bound to the same rules as prose? i believe not. that is my dilemma. if i'm doing something for a sound device, as i notice when i alter a verb in a line from dangling to dangle, the sound of the line changes. the cadence changes. i try to explain this, but i talk mostly with prose writers and they look at me.

just as when the fonts on the page are not doing what they could, i balk. i have this one word with accents and the accents in the chosen font disrupt the visual impact of the word. slightly mauling the word, so, to me, this is a font issue and cause for concern. a new font considered. if i use a sanserif i can fit an entire poem on a page in this particular font. however, if i go with my mainstay serif, the poem extends a foot on a second page. in a thesis when page count rules, this seems to be an easy solution, go with the sanserif to get in the pages. to preserve the layout of the poem, because when a poem kicks onto a second page, i prefer to lay it out on facing pages, so the poem is still on one visual field. (i know, i'm such a dork)

poetry, my friends, is art. we use words and negative space to create the visual impact.

so, the issue remains, preserve the page number though the sanserif font alters the look of an accented word or keep searching for a serif font that works.

i am going to first try a different font for the accented passage in question. fortunately, it is an epigraph and can be set in a separate font, though i do not go for any more than three fonts in a book, this would be my third font.

all i want is a clean poetic line. an image that is presented on the page the way i see it. and a font that lends itself to the poem.

these are the nerdy considerations on my mind of late. they are pressing. i had a flash of insight last night, as i had put together my poetry collection in a particular way the best i could. the final three poems were remnants and i wasn't sure how to exit the book. so last night i get this flash and had to jump out of bed to see if it is what i did with those poems, how i ordered them because the overall theme of the book is addressed, summed up, if you will, in these concluding poems. lightning strike, if i can pull it off (and if it passes my prof's muster), and sure enough, i had them in that order. sigh of relief, off to bed.

my dreams were troubling, stress dreams a friend calls them.

though i have very little to stress about, she laughs as the line falls from her fingers, i am still having stress dreams.

i'm awake now, the day is new, the task at hand will resolve itself.
and the poems will grow from revision.

one thing i said to my prof is, i don't want to end up around the corner and down the street with these poems in revision. because that is not revising, that's mining a poem for new work. if i'm going to revise this poem, let it remain true to the spirit of this poem and improve, not evolve. there is a time and place for evolution, under the guise of revision is not it.

peace.

bullsigh

the center cannot hold. i think that is a line from a william stafford poem, i am going to have to track it down. my center feels all stretched and splayed, like it is a fibrous membrane where it once was solid

how to find my center again. i hadn't thought i'd wandered so far off that i'd lost sight of everything that grounds me, but i think i have.

nursing some fairly serious wounds at the moment. but all ends well.
how does it?
i don't know.
it's a mystery.

title poem

so my prof wants me to overhaul the title poem in my manuscript. i find this deeply troubling because i don't necessarily agree with what is being requested and i'm not sure i know how to find a middle ground. i guess i just better start slashing and bleeding. trying something is better than doing nothing. but it seems to me the things i keep explaining are explained within the poem and i hate saying, don't u see that? because then i don't know if they see it only because i've explained it (that must be the case, as it was an issue before the explanation) or what.

so on top of all that, i have to navigate the city tomorrow for jury duty. may the gods favor me because i never really know where i'm going when i go. i have to just try my luck and hope i arrive on time. i would really like to be on a case but i don't know that it is wise. though i'd rather go to the city than do my job any day.

i have a cat asleep across my chest, and another at my feet. i'm going to follow their lead and snuggle in for a nap.

ssshhhh

there are still these moments i find myself calling out to you, almost in spite of my conscious mind. i don't try to stop it anymore. i don't try to ignore it anymore, i kind of consider it like when my grams died, and how i miss her still. yes, it's that way with you.

meetings today, don't want to go but i've no out. though i've made significant progress on my thesis and come to many conclusions about my work, it's been an interesting process so far, and it has just begun. i'm trying to abandon myself to the process, and by that i mean, go with it. so i've reformatted nearly every poem and i'm in the process of revising. there is much to do but i'm equal to the task and my work will be better for it. even the changes i don't think are right i might go with just to see if they will fly. my conscience roars when i do something that i can't tolerate, so i will just do it and see how much sleep i lose. ;)
what a plan.

in the way of things my unconventional life continues to right itself and i'm grateful. my sister told me a phrase,

i stay in unsafe situations too long because i'm too loyal,

and this is true. even now i struggle to find safe ground in dangerland. but sometimes comfort is what keeps me, even when i'm scared. and that's just sad.

sad or not, it is what it is. i understand that now. i must be about my life. and hope to encounter wonder today.