Seven days into the new year. Mike & I are really working on the eat healthier, lose weight thing. Haven’t done too much except clean in the past week. People are returning from break, so very soon the semester will abound with craziness.
I need to figure out how to be productive with all the time I’ll have this semester. March & April will be very busy. It’s hard to believe I’ll be leaving here in six months.
En Route Punta Cana —
I just read the most amazing essay by Nick Flynn in Esquire about torture. Every word was amazing and perfect. Reminding me of the kind of essay writing I’d like to continue to write, moving in and out of different stories, places, etc. but still held together. Reminds me of the writing I did in Ireland.
The semester feels like it just began because of AWP in NYC last week. It was so much fun being in NY. I got to see Cindy, Gina, Stef — & Jaime & GTK, of course. I hung out w/ friends more than I did the conference thing, but I felt alive (when I wasn’t hungover).
Anyway, this week was an adjustment after 5 days there. Started some revision today. Really need to work on much more tomorrow. I turn [my thesis] into adjunct & Kathleen next week. Everything is winding down.
The days of you disappear. To bring back that feeling, to know I may never have to again, or never will be able to destroys me. The creation part over.
That character Big and all I see of you in him.
How you are the beloved — Am I the male gaze?
And the tulip petals were
just as beautiful as the
tulips themselves
(but she threw them away
anyway)
lips
The craziness of March begins soon. Worried I won’t get in to UIC; worried I will. What Chicago will bring? Am I ready to have kids? How to live that life that I now realize I want to live — or at least think I do?
No UIC. Found out Friday via the web. Only bc of this insane website called grad cafe — who knew? — where people post where they got accepted/rejected. Some people posted that they got rejected at UIC, so I went to their website and sure enough it said “denied.” And then I wonder why? What am I doing wrong? Tonite, I think I need a better sop — or at least one that begins better. And perhaps I’m not a good fit for an English dept since I want to focus on edu.
#16 10/12/04 — 3/4/08
32*. How life slips away…the last page. This journal starting on 0ct. 12 of that year when I thought I’d be alone forever, and you, you were not in my life, as other 0ct. 12ths, but still were in the sense that I was to still hear your voice — at least. Now, in Texas, I work on my thesis, made of you and think: weakness. To be made weak.
* March 4 is my birthday. I was 32 in 2008.
First entry of a new journal. This journal seems too beautiful for my words. Mike gave it to me for X-mas last year.
I’m in the midst of comps right now — not what I thought they’d be because some of the questions are so formal. I’m trying to write about my own work and its influence, but it’s been difficult under the contraints of these questions.
SXSW ’08 is over. I defend my thesis in one week. I had so much fun & saw so many great bands — I regret that I didn’t have my camera.
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