i don't know why there's a hole in the sky

As a book reviewer and a critic of book reviewers, I try very hard to read a variety of books. While I will not be actively accepting the "50 books by POC" or the queerlit challenges, I do want to read 50 books this year that are not written by English-speaking straight white guys. That is, books by POC, books by women, books by folk who are queer-identified, and works of translation.

First day of classes - I don't expect to have trouble with any of these three. Mondays I wake up between 8 and 9, make breakfast and extra chai, go to work at the Writing Center a couple hours, then a free hour for lunch.

Then Intercultural Communication, a 300-level course, which will be lots of work but nothing huge, very gradual and well-paced. The prof is getting her doctorate and teaching at something like four or five different colleges right now, so she knows what she's about. Apparently we'll get out at least 15 and maybe 30 minutes early every day, which means I get to be on time for Advanced Fiction Writing at 2:30p. I'm set for that class. I'll be polishing up "Three Weeks No Dreams" from the Fiction Writing class and writing and editing-like-crazy two more short stories for that class, and the only other assignment is to guide a discussion on a short story (10% of the grade). Directly thereafter, Intro to Intercultural Studies, which starts at 4 and goes til 7:15.

Wednesdays, counseling in the mornings, then Intercultural Comm and Advanced Fiction Writing, then I believe SSA, karate, and SAGE. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Honors Astronomy and Rec Station work; Tuesdays also Leader meetings and probably Lit Geeks. Fridays, just work (writing center and Rec).

Tonight I got out at quarter to six and got to spend time with Matt before he went to Choral Union. Three people asked one or the other of us today if we're engaged, which was a strange experience. I'm really glad we're comfortable enough to be able to laugh / smile at it instead of it being super-awkward or something. It just seems like a really weird thing for someone to ask - like, "do you guys happen to be planning to spend the rest of your lives together, or what?" but whatever - it was casual, just like "oh, is that your fiance?" I'm so glad he and I talked about the future this weekend, too. Goodness, what a wonderful weekend I had. (To be discussed in a friendslocked post later, sorrrrryyyyyy, casual readers.)

I still haven't discussed this with the people with whom I need to be discussing it, but I'm not going to be going on a spring break trip this year, *maybe* besides a couple days somewhere nearby in the Midwest - Madison, St. Louis, Minneapolis, you know. I want to save so that I don't have to stress too much about the summer.

Maybe you felt asexual because of your fucked-up hormones! Maybe you felt asexual because of medications! Maybe you felt asexual because you were in bad relationships / in relationships with people who didn't know what they were doing! Maybe you felt asexual because of deep psychological issues! Maybe you felt asexual because you were a commitment-phobe! Maybe you felt asexual because of your religious upbringing! Maybe you felt asexual because you weren't in a relationship! Maybe you felt asexual because you weren't able to figure out if you were queer or straight! Maybe you felt asexual because you hadn't had such-and-such a kind of sexual experience!






Well, maybe so. And maybe not. And maybe I really don't give a shit "why". Maybe I was genuinely happy with my identity when I "felt" asexual and maybe I'm genuinely happy now and you know what, maybe that's all that fucking matters. Maybe I believe in the fluidity of identity and maybe I could "feel" ace again in five years and maybe that's totally okay with me because it's not a fucking disorder and it's not a crime and it's not synonymous with being confused or ignorant and FUCK, maybe? Maybe I'm SICK of putting up with your FUCKING THEORIES, do you get this?

FUCK OFF AND MYOB, WORLD.




ETA: Five minutes later I am feeling less steamed and less passive-aggressive about this shit. But I'm leaving this here because I want people to understand that this is how I feel sometimes. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but it *does* feel hurtful when you try to explain my sexuality to me. I'm way willing to talk about this one-on-one, and I should have been doing so more often and more directly. Just. PSA.

Today I saw Book of Eli. I thought they got the post-fallout thing down solid; I liked the twists, although I called the biggest ones; I didn't mind the religiosity, which was done tastefully / wasn't preachy. It was a cool idea. And Gary Oldman was fucking badass.




Other films watched since New Year's:
1) The Rescuers. I kind of hated it.
2) "Father and Son" - Russian film, by Sokurov - I've got to get back into watching indie and meaningful film and then come back to this one; I couldn't take it all in.

Other films I want to see this year:
1) An Education
2) The Lovely Bones - I've read bits and pieces of the novel, but come on, it's Peter Jackson. I've just gotta.

A contemporary-world novel has been living in my head for about a year and a half about a commune-house of "lost girls" - late teenagers mostly, all female, runaways and escaped kidnapees who don't want to or can't go home, lead by a 26-year-old of the latter category.

One of the main conflicts I've had with it is my uncertainty as to whether this story is a fantasy or not. I didn't think so at first, but by the end of '08 I was pretty sure that if nothing else, the house was alive. I also suspected that a subgroup of the girls had been kidnapped by a pseudo-"organization" - a network of men - and that the reason for their kidnapping or the thing that united the network was something to do with magic.

I also suspected that the father of the leading character (she's 26 now, had been kidnapped by the network when she was 8, escaped, and founded the House) somehow found them during the book. As a matter of fact, for some time I thought the novel would be from his point of view. I'm still not sure from whose it'll be, because if it is fantasy I want that to be not more than hinted at, at first.

Anyway, I've been waiting 'til I finish Keeper to write it.

The issue is, I started writing my short-story for my Advanced Fiction Writing class last night. (We have to have a new story to bring to the first day of class.) And I only wrote a paragraph, but I think the protagonists might be two of the minor characters from this novel. Why this is an issue: our professor has told us that we are not allowed to write "genre fiction" for his class. Very clearly, we were told, "No fantasy."

So do I set this paragraph aside and allow it to become a character study for this future novel, and write something completely different for the class? Do I continue writing it for the class in such a way that I exclude fantasy elements but can later add them in? Do I write it as if the novel were realistic fiction? Do I run the risk of getting in trouble with the professor (I know him, he's not likely to be happy if he thinks I'm trying to get around his rules and write something genre) and set it near the beginning of the novel so that I can incorporate some pseudo-fantastic elements without making it obvious (e.g. the House having life of its own)? I also think doing the story for class is dangerous because I don't think it's a short story. It'll be hinting at the novel beyond, and I think that will be confusing / irritating to the class and the prof.

I'm leaning towards the first option, but both the biggest reason I do and don't want to work on this in the class is because of the extensive revisions through which I know it's going to have to go. Since I know it'll be torn apart, I don't want to get too attached to a first draft for this class, which I think I'm likely to do with this story. At the same time, it's seriously tempting to get this piece really worked on and have a good feeling when the class ends, I finish Keeper, and I move into this novel.

Guess I crossed the line today in my gluten-eating picnic; I'm sick again. :(



I've been using a digestive-enzyme supplement, Gluten Digest, to get a serving of gluteny food at a time, one per day. This is day four - I had a big sourdough roll at lunch. That was 10 hours ago, but I've been GF the rest of the day, so it's pretty clear. I'mma have to scale back again. We'll go a *small* serving, and only once every 48 hours.

Day one I had fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli, day two a small croissant, day three TACO BELL, a chicken chalupa and a caramel apple empanada (whose apples are processed enough that I don't react to them at all). It's been lovely and worked 100% on all of those occasions. I'm okay with stepping back, though; it did feel far too good to be true.

Last night I had a money nightmare. Enough is enough - I caved in, and this morning I marched into Financial Aid and took out a reduced-amount loan for Spring semester. That means this year of private college cost me just under $4,000, which is not bad.

I feel simultaneously great and terrible about this. I know that I am capable of surviving this semester without that loan. I could have done it. (I could still go back to Financial Aid right now and tell them to cancel it. Or pay it back immediately when I get it.) But I would have to worry about money then. To pay attention to it. This gives me security. It allows me to go out to eat with my friends, take the train when I want, not have to buy a 3rd-edition textbook when my professor is using 9th-ed. Maybe go on a writing retreat or a spring break trip. Hell, maybe buy a car at the end of the semester, which I really really want to do.

This is a reasonable investment, and it's not one that I'm going to have great difficulty repaying after college. The average college debt is over $23,000 now; I'm going to graduate with about $15,000. If I live a couple years after college with roommates instead of paying for rent solo, if I'm working full-time (which I could do now if I wanted; there are plenty of jobs for which I'm already qualified even without my degree), and especially if I do a year of Americorps after college - I can have my college debt paid back in full within five years of graduation.

I was raised in poverty, which doesn't mean I was raised money-stupid. It means I was raised to be amazingly precise at budgeting, to be money-conscious and look for deals, and to be terrified of debt.

Either way I decided, I was bound to feel unreasonable and guilty. This way at least I don't have to spend the next eight months also feeling the constant strain of money nightmares, guilt about things like buying a hot chocolate or a pint of ice cream, the balancing act of short-term wants (e.g. half-decent groceries) versus long-term wants (like a car).

*deep breath* Yeah, this is the right decision.

Of this year's movies, I saw (as far as I can recall) ten:

( Guess which one is first? )

And the ones I haven't seen yet, but intend to:

( I can't believe I missed some of these. )

I speak Spanish and American Sign Language with moderate proficiency - my Spanish is getting rusty this year; last summer I was able to keep up with it since I was working with children for whom it was their first language, but I was only able to half-translate the song that Luke sang as a solo for him the other night. ASL I'm still pretty fluent in - I can transliterate songs on the radio from English to ASL, anyway.

I know a few phrases and a couple of songs in French - I can speak and read them but not write. I can generally understand the gist of short written French or Italian, though obviously not the linguistic nuances I so love when I learn of them (I didn't realize this ability applied to Italian until the last couple months, courtesy of the occasional Italian text message from my lovergentleman), and I know enough Latin through its influence on English to be able to determine the meaning and root words of a complex Latin-based English word or technical term, although I couldn't begin to speak Latin.


The one language I am still desperate to learn is Hebrew. Modern, not ancient; I have little interest in translations, but one of my aspirations is to write Hebrew poetry. I think it's a beautiful language. It and Irish Gaelic are up there on my list.

I feel a little guilty for wanting to learn Hebrew more than the language of my origin, especially because there's a resurgence in Irish Gaelic; there's a movement to keep it alive, and it was really interesting to see so much bilingual in Ireland, particularly Dublin and its suburbs. Particularly if I ever live out my dream of living with Izzy (or whoever my firstborn ends up being, or multiple children, or whatev) in Dalkey for a summer or a year or something, it would be great to know both the languages.

Oh man I want to go back to Ireland...I miss it so much. Eh, it looks like my spring break is going to be in Boston. And probably not Portland (ME) as was my intent; I don't want to spend the whole time in Boston, so I'll have to find somewhere else to visit for a day or two that's within reasonable distance by train. It's a shame: Portland was only $48 RT by train; I doubt I'll find any other deal that sweet. But Maine is kind of a weird dream. I have no reason for actually wanting to go there, I just do. And have all my life.

I just flipped to another window, came back and looked at those last four words - "have all my life" - and at first misunderstood the context and thought I was saying "I have all my life [to do these things]", which is true. Nice slip, brain - I've got the time to visit Maine and Ireland with and/or without my far-in-the-future children, and to learn all the languages I can, and to do the things I feel guilty about not being able to do this week because I'm too busy. Whew.

Julie:
Last year, when she was in first grade, Julie talked about John McCain nonstop, wrinkling her nose anytime someone so much as mentioned Obama's name. I usually refrain from talking with the youngest kids at work about politics because - let's face it - they're parroting their parents' opinions, so I'm not going to change their minds and if I did, I'd probably get fired for corrupting the youth. (Or be given the modern equivalent of hemlock?)
But yesterday Julie and I got onto the topic of politics, and one of the topics nearest and dearest to my heart came up - same-sex marriage. I decided to brave onwards, since I'm not blind to a teachable moment when it appears so voluntarily and I'm a little bit bolder than I was a year ago. We're discussing same-sex marriage as it relates to my disagreement with *my* parents, and previously she'd been talking about how she and her mom agreed about things. As I'm talking to her about this, she's wrinkling her nose and giving me funny looks. Finally, she says loudly, "I just don't understand why people think it's okay for straight people to get married but not for gay people."
In that moment, I had such hope for the future that I actually started crying.
(She went to get me a tissue.)

Savannah:
When we used to play Sorry, I'd stack the deck so that she would win. After a while, I realized that she was telling me it was my turn when it wasn't so that I'd win.

( Recently at work I've been feeling indispensable, )

untitled

o secret, if you were a secret of mine
I’d breathe you in silence, I’d bless you in rhyme
but you wouldn’t be very easy to keep.
I’d wrap you in sonnets and lay you to sleep.

if it is important the word not get out
then keep a safe distance, for there is no doubt
no matter how crucial its silence may be
o secret, your secret is not safe with me.

o secret, if you were my secret to share
the gossiping winds would be all too aware.
the stars and the salmon have begged me before
and secret, then you would be secret no more.

so pin me to history. make me a name
as gorgeous and galling as freestanding flame
and sew shut my lips with a black cable thread
and then kiss them soundly and leave me for dead.

(c) Teresa Doyle, 2009

I feel like a real person today, so much that I didn't realize I ever felt like a not-real person. Today my social phobias are all but gone - the last time I approached this many strangers was when I was canvassing for Obama! I have friends who instinctively understand nuances of my character without ever having to be told, and who think nothing of it, who love me, who I love, which is something I have so rarely experienced in such a complete sense. I spend time with people effortlessly. I have so many responsibilities and I am managing them in a healthy way, being able to say "no" when I need to here and there (not going to SSA and SAGE when I needed to do homework, not nominating myself for secretary of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honors society to which I was inducted last night, and telling my counselor that I had an alternate proposal to her cognitive-behavioral therapy suggestion for the week).

I am saturated in music and sun and I am so overwhelmingly thankful for so many things.

Tonight:

Cook GLUTEN-FREE RAVIOLI OMFG ENDLESS LOVE
Big Gay Gathering
Some homework
Walk on the Prairie Path before the weather passes
Write some poetry (or possibly fiction, you never know)
Some grocery shopping (which is a good thing)

I finished my Holding Back the Ocean poetry collection manuscript. About two minutes ago.

Whew. Now time to start submitting to some giant poetry manuscript contests.

Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

-- "Letters to a Young Poet", Rilke

This weekend is unendingly, one-of-the-best-ever-ish-ly spectacular. I have essentially no responsibilities (some workshopping which is like, pfft, my future profession, and a group meeting for Comp class in half an hour), LOTS of social time with Megan and Jake and John and Eric and Aleks and Matthew and OHMYGODLOOK, I HAVE FRIENDS, lots of poetry-time (my poetry collection has been compiled and I'm submitting it to an assload of contests this week!), and fun of a sleepingoverwithmygentleman variety. The weather is amazingly beautiful. I'm better than I have been in ages, health-wise. The only thing that could have gone better has been my eating habits (really Teresa there is more to life than potatoes). But the fact that the only negative thing about my weekend is AN OVERABUNDANCE OF POTATOES should say a lot.

I think I'm going to buy House of Leaves tonight and start reading. Everyone else is doing it. And I appear to be making a habit of jumping on some pretty badass bandwagons... ;)

LOOOOOOOOOVE

Life right now is pretty great. Midterms are over, weekends more productive, my friendships with my English department people going strong. And then there's also this whole thing about the gentleman in the elevator. I start my martial arts class with the kickass (possibly literally) professor (about whom I ranted a year ago as he was making educational reforms of the 1840s the most fascinating topic ever) on Tuesday. I go clothes shopping with one of the newer amigas tomorrow.

I'm finding more and more foods edible again the past few days, after a month-long drought of not wanting to eat anything ever and fainting all over the place (that is, more than I usually do). Today at Jewel I found potato skins with cheese and bacon; fatty and starchy and delicious. These are a new culinary discovery for me; I ate BBQ chicken potato skins in St. Louis and soon I'm going to make some of my own with turkey bacon and diced tomatoes, which is the closest I'm going to get to a BLT, at least in the next ten years.

I'm increasingly excited:
about J-Term, although I'm torn between three courses,
about the gigantic strides I'm making in therapy towards understanding my bizarre unconscious mental processes,
about poetry and cuddling and jackets, for the sake of goodness what a walking cliche I am and how pleasant it is,
about talking to Matt and Megan about their wedding this spring,
about the fact that despite my usual poor health karma I have thus far not gotten H1N1 KNOCK ON WOOD I'm not superstitious but I do sort of hate to jinx myself.

I'm coming up on the three-year anniversary of penning the first words of Prentice Boys. I'm expecting I'll finish the final book over winter break. It's so strange thinking of saying goodbye to these characters. Of course, I'll probably spend most of 2010 doing edits and rewrites, some of which will include inserting entirely new sequences - there's a two- to three-chapter bit at the end of Prentice that I'm really looking forward to writing - but it's still weird to be dealing with the conclusion.

I haven't been writing to Izzy lately. In a way I think I'm afraid to capture this corner of happiness I've secured. I don't feel like pinning it down and naming it. I don't want to immortalize it as a standard I won't be able to fulfill again. That sounds a little sad when I say it, but it's immensely positive in my head: I'm living now and I'm living FOR now, and if it's helping me become the person she needs, Izzy doesn't have room to complain.

I feel absolutely incredible.

-- Opted not to go up in the Arch
--->> partially cuz I'm a cheapskate
--->> partially cuz I didn't want to celebrate the means used during the Westward Expansion

-- Fell in love with Mirah's lovely haunting song "Bones and Skin"

-- Fell in love with BBQ chicken potato skins
--->> which I wasn't allergic to YAYA

-- Fell back in love with light rails
--->> was studiously NOT a fare-dodger, OH NO

-- WROTE 42 PAGES
--->> okay 6p fanfiction, but
--->> 36 PAGES OF KEEPER, MOTHERF*CKERS, THAT'S PAGE 348 FOR YOU
--->> have remaining 2 chapters of Final Battle, and then the epilogue

-- Really liked (my mom's cousin) Margaret and (her husband) Dan and (their daughter) Hannah
--->> Continue to really like them
--->> Like their neighborhood, esp. the coffeeshop

Let's Clarify, #2:

Tomorrow (Sunday) will be National Coming Out Day. I will be writing my novel and not using the internet, so I guess I just get to come out a little early.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am going to be very open and honest in this post. I want to educate people about all of the queer-spectrum labels with which I identify, which is going to include frank conversation about sexuality and relationships.

( I have identified as some shade of queer for seven years. )