I got the tickets for Maine which means that I must write a paper. Never have I submitted an abstract without having written the paper. It's a gamble. Actually, it's not a gamble, but rather a question of getting my ass to the library. I hung up a world map in my office. It's old. It's large. It's beautiful---pastels etc. One of the charms of this map? The "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." See, it's old. But now the dreams that I have of visiting all these countries are just a little bit closer since I can see them---if only as a soft pink 2-inch part of a piece of paper. Even if the Germans are dark and demonic, they have a certain talent for drawing feelings and words close together. Wanderlust is an example. There are others, of course. It frightens me that there are feelings that don't have names. And it seems really unfair that other languages are allowed to have the names. There's no justice in language but the summer is really the wrong time to be gloomy about such things. Best to focus on swimming and let words sink to the bottom of the pool with hair ties and dead bugs.

Now, before I forget, I must send my mom's present or it will stay around my house until mother's day 2009.

OMG George Bush robbed me! I got my "refund" and it was only 300 dog bones. I blame the white house for this travesty. What a jerk. I thought we were going to get more money. Now, how am I going to buy a surfboard?? Whatever.

In other news. I went to my friend's daughter's school yesterday for mother's day. You see my friend, who is also a professor here, couldn't go because she was at a conference. Anyway, I was happy to go because I love Issy, the little girl. She's seven and adorable. But when they started singing "Wind beneath my Wings" and passing around the mic and all of the moms-with-big-diamond-wedding-ring-and-I-look-like-I-spend-all-day-playing-tennis started crying---I did feel like a mom impostor.

Thirties

I have decided that I need to create some new goals for myself. I set some life goals a long time ago with very little expectation that I would fulfill them. I wanted to get my PhD, but wasn't sure that it would happen. Same thing with the book. Now, I need to move on. So, I've been thinking. What do I really want to do that I don't know how to do? In the next ten years I want to...1)learn how to surf. 2) learn how to play guitar 3) climb Mount Everest. Climbing Mount Everest will require a lot of sacrifice and training. Who knows if I will reach my goal. I need to train A LOT. I need to gather a lot of money. I need to start climbing a lot of mountains. But, wouldn't it be just amazing if I was the first published poet to climb Mount Everest?

Officially insane but love you all,

Sandman

So a job opened in Georgia and I decided that I should actually put together my CV. I'm using prof Epstein's CV as a guideline. That shit's like 59 pages long! But I decided that I wouldn't take any shortcuts. What sort of shortcuts am I talking about? Well, my former CV was put together in 4 minutes. I just listed out all of the places where I published my poesy, listed my degrees and that was it. Not this time. I'm listing out the names (the NAMES) of all the poems that I have published, and writing a lot more into my CV. I think I would rather eat dog food than do this. Seriously. It sucks. But, on the other hand, I must do it. I just hate this sort of detail work. It's such a nice day too. I will reward myself by going swimming this afternoon.

Hello All.

Sooooo. Yesterday Craig and I went to the beach with B and Amber at Saint George Island. It was magnificent in every way, shape, form. My favorite part was trying to do headstands on the beach. B and Amber are much better yogis than I am--2 good teachers. But a funny thing happened. While Amber and B were swimming in the ocean Craig and I were chatting. I said, "Craig, wouldn't it be great if we could use all of the money that we are supposed to spend on the wedding and just go on vacation?" and Craig said "yeah, we can do that if you want to. Whatever you want." And I said, "Let's do it!" Then we talked a little more and I realized that we are both not wedding people. He doesn't want to plan out a wedding; I don't want to plan out a wedding. I think it takes a certain personality to have a good wedding. But the reality is that we are not planners. Planning gets on my nerves unless I'm planning a trip. We are, however, outdoor people. Last year in New Mexico we had so much fun hiking around. With such a limited resource that life is----we had to make a choice. We could either spend a billion dollars on stuff like linens and finger foods or we could go to the glorious western mountains. We decided on the latter. So, I'm going to hike a tall mountain---put on my wedding dress--------jump in a stream----kiss the groom----and call it a day!

How to make all pop music S-U-C-K-A-S-A-P.....

Hello Les Bloggies

It's been super boring around here of late.

The summer is my productive season though. Everything seems to change in the summer---my whole being. I feel this real freedom that I don't feel all year and then I realize how constraining it is to exist---merely exist---in an English Department. But I guess it's all in my head. In the summer I want to be rich so that I can travel around the world and write cryptic postcards to people. In the winter, I want to be poor and make leek and potato soup. In the summer I want to paint all day and write all night. In the winter I want to turn to an ice cube.

Over the weekend we went to the beach and it felt so good to soak up the sun and the salt and I didn't want to take a shower because I wanted my skin to stay salty for more than just one day.

How many adventures could one being contain?

In my dream I was hypergraphia hypergraphia hypergraphia--wrote long pythons / nylons. I would write for 24 hours as an experiment that paraded as a joke.

All of the books on my bookshelf were empty. Blank pages fluttering like birds.

You walk into an elevator and exit
completely different.

You erase R erased.