Just copying this from my notebook... I've been reading all morning; Ntosake Shange, Anne Sexton, Erica Jong, Taniguchi Buson... my brain feels fit to burst.
How do you write about how full of shit everyone is?
How do you write when it's all bullshit? All pretensious crap.
One form is as worthless as another. Poem, murder mystery, whatever.
How do you write rage and fear and depression? Why add more to the tangible world?
People are such a mix of beauty and ugliness (and who says which is which). How do you represent them with any accuracy?
Writer of angst.
or
Pollyanna Saccharine.
Just write about a house and the family in it but that's just 7th Heaven. The Brady Bunch. It's been done.
It's all been done and its all meaningless. There's nothing new and nothing ever changes so what's the point?
...
My imaginary audience pins me. Stabs me. Spears me. Strangles me. Every time. I begin, and thrust! --They thrust me back with their spear of disapproval, boredom, expectation, disinterest
We want Sex in the City.
We want a hero who's a loose cannon. Arrogant oneliners.
Don't give us the same old poem we've read a hundred times before.
Why bother writing another story about *insert anything here*
It's been done! It's been done! It's all been done before and there's nothing new under the sun
it's all gimmicks and marketing. Will they read it? Will it sell? No one wants to read about that
It starts out good but it falls apart. You can't keep it together
It's not believable
It doesn't work
It's too dull even to be awful
and everyone who likes it is just shallow themselves and being taken in by the glittery bullshit.
You can't trust anyone.
They're just impressed you wrote at all.
I came to the conclusion, in my darkest atheist days, that if all we have is this time, nothing after death, if we all die anyway and that's it--then all that matters is this time. All that can give life meaning--the only thing you can do that is worth anything--is to make someone else's time better. And entertaining them counts.
So why can't I just do that?
I am a reluctant cynic. I grasp at gossamer ideas--spirituality, butterflies as proof of beauty, orgasms as proof that my body is good, the existence of civil rights as proof that humanity is getting better, albeit slowly... I argue with the sense that nothing changes--I argue desperately. I struggle against the conclusion that evil will always win because good just can't compete without losing it's essential goodness... But in the end if I wrote what is raging in my heart I would be known as the worst cynic, the darkest most angst-ridden death obsessed poem, hopeless and mired in depression and fear.
And it's all been done before/written before, and it was done better than I could ever do, so what in the world would I hope to bring to the table? Who am I to write about a pregnant black member of a girl gang? My own life is so flat--I've read it over and over in my memory, in my journals, it's lackluster now, used up.
Ideas spring to mind and die even more quickly. Who am I to claim to be a writer? Who do I hope to fool? Why does anyone else think they can fool people?
But look at Anne Sexton. Look at the blood on her pages. She's not trying to fool anyone, or is she? How can you fool someone when it's really your blood?
Why can't I seem to find my own veins, except occassionally to write an angsty rant about nothing that even matters?
How do you go from there to a poem? To a novel? It's just scribbling.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
free at last
My big news is I got my paperwork in the mail today, and I am officially divorced. That whole process was very difficult, so this comes as a huge relief. Of course, I'm a little sad, too, but mostly I'm glad. My legal name is now back to my maiden name, which is so nice. It's funny, how much my name means to me, how having my maiden name back means a new sense of my identity, and how my married name carries with it a sense of everything that went with being married. I'm glad it's behind me.
So today really feels like the first day of the rest of my life.
It helps that we're almost of of this financial wasteland we're been hiking through since May.
Sean's getting on with the next phase of his life, too. This semester he's taking a bunch of music classes at the local community college and writing his thesis. I'm also going to try to finish my thesis this semester... it may take until the end of spring semester, we'll see. Either way by the end of this school year I should finish my MA.
After that, in fall 2007, Sean is going to enroll in a second bachelors in music. He's hoping the cc classes will help get him really well prepared for that so he can shave off some of the beginning classes and get through a little quicker. Many places have it set up so that even though he doesn't have to do any general ed classes he's still stuck doing four or more years, because of their prerequisites and required classes. He plans to get a teaching credential in music. The nice thing is once he has that credential he just has to take a test to add on another, so he will probably add on a math or English credential so he'll be more marketable. He's also interested in doing a PE credential--he's always been into sports and athletics.
Jeff's sister showed me a credentialing program that would allow me to work as a full-time teacher and be paid for that work while I earn it, which is exactly the sort of thing I'm interested in doing. I've resisted getting a credential this long because university credentialing programs in California all require a year of unpaid "student teaching" which I see as the worst kind of racket. You go into debt because you're working full time (unpaid) and you have to live on student loans--it's terrible. I can't think of a quicker way to get burnt out. But this is a legitimate program--basically I'd get a job teaching in a low income neighborhood, take credentialling classes on the weekend, and in two years I'd have an official credential, the same as if I'd done a university program. The downside is that the program only exists in three locations. In one, I'd likely be teaching in a school in Oakland, and in another in Richmond (it's in the northern Bay Area). Both are notorious ghettos with very bad crime and gang violence. The third is in Sacramento, and definitely the most attractive of the three, but this is the least attractive place for Sean's music program options, since Sac State's program is the longest. So we're going to have to consider everything carefully. The program is called Project Pipeline and has information sessions, so I'm going to go to one of those as soon as I can.
In the meantime this year I plan to register as a substitute teacher at the schools here in Shasta. That should be interesting. I'm hoping I'll get some longer term work, if one of their teachers has to take a leave or something, so I don't have to deal with doing one day here and there. I figure all the typical pranking mostly happens to short term subs. But we'll see. I've got a pretty good handle on discipline so it should be okay either way.
As for the tutoring center, I've put the idea on hold. I like the idea but it intimidates me. I'd like to do it perhaps once Sean and I have settled in a place and also perhaps if I can get to know some people who would got into it with me in some capacity. If I do Project Pipeline and get a good career going as a high school teacher in a place like Sacramento, maybe a few years down the line I'll know enough about the area and all to be able to seriously consider the tutoring center.
I've put in my two weeks notice at the gift shop where I've been working. I originally wanted to work there for the entire time we'd be here. Unfortunately, some of the people I work with, notably the owner and her daughter, have created some unpleasantness which is a real disappointment. I wish people could just be mature and profession in work environments but I guess that's just not possible for some, unfortunately. Why the owner thinks it's a good idea for her 19-yr-old daughter to be a supervisor is beyond me, as well as one of the florists who is a total flake, but apparently she likes to put people in charge who she has a personal relationship with, rather than people who actually know what they are doing. With the school years starting and my financial aid check getting here, I've decided I'd rather rely on that and the subbing jobs than a $7/hr job where I'm ordered off one job to do another constantly and blamed for problems created by other people. It's a pity because it started out as such a fun place to work.
Sean will continue to work at the gym where he's been for most of the summer. He likes it there most of the time and he's happy that he gets a free membership out of it. I will also get a discount once I sign up (when the financial aid gets here) and so I'm looking forward to taking some yoga classes and going in to work out with him.
And I'll probably also sign up for a class or two at the cc. I'm hoping I'll be able to get into a creative writing class, and then there's a choral class I may take with Sean. And maybe Tai Chi, maybe yoga, depending on what I'll do at the gym, etc.
So today really feels like the first day of the rest of my life.
It helps that we're almost of of this financial wasteland we're been hiking through since May.
Sean's getting on with the next phase of his life, too. This semester he's taking a bunch of music classes at the local community college and writing his thesis. I'm also going to try to finish my thesis this semester... it may take until the end of spring semester, we'll see. Either way by the end of this school year I should finish my MA.
After that, in fall 2007, Sean is going to enroll in a second bachelors in music. He's hoping the cc classes will help get him really well prepared for that so he can shave off some of the beginning classes and get through a little quicker. Many places have it set up so that even though he doesn't have to do any general ed classes he's still stuck doing four or more years, because of their prerequisites and required classes. He plans to get a teaching credential in music. The nice thing is once he has that credential he just has to take a test to add on another, so he will probably add on a math or English credential so he'll be more marketable. He's also interested in doing a PE credential--he's always been into sports and athletics.
Jeff's sister showed me a credentialing program that would allow me to work as a full-time teacher and be paid for that work while I earn it, which is exactly the sort of thing I'm interested in doing. I've resisted getting a credential this long because university credentialing programs in California all require a year of unpaid "student teaching" which I see as the worst kind of racket. You go into debt because you're working full time (unpaid) and you have to live on student loans--it's terrible. I can't think of a quicker way to get burnt out. But this is a legitimate program--basically I'd get a job teaching in a low income neighborhood, take credentialling classes on the weekend, and in two years I'd have an official credential, the same as if I'd done a university program. The downside is that the program only exists in three locations. In one, I'd likely be teaching in a school in Oakland, and in another in Richmond (it's in the northern Bay Area). Both are notorious ghettos with very bad crime and gang violence. The third is in Sacramento, and definitely the most attractive of the three, but this is the least attractive place for Sean's music program options, since Sac State's program is the longest. So we're going to have to consider everything carefully. The program is called Project Pipeline and has information sessions, so I'm going to go to one of those as soon as I can.
In the meantime this year I plan to register as a substitute teacher at the schools here in Shasta. That should be interesting. I'm hoping I'll get some longer term work, if one of their teachers has to take a leave or something, so I don't have to deal with doing one day here and there. I figure all the typical pranking mostly happens to short term subs. But we'll see. I've got a pretty good handle on discipline so it should be okay either way.
As for the tutoring center, I've put the idea on hold. I like the idea but it intimidates me. I'd like to do it perhaps once Sean and I have settled in a place and also perhaps if I can get to know some people who would got into it with me in some capacity. If I do Project Pipeline and get a good career going as a high school teacher in a place like Sacramento, maybe a few years down the line I'll know enough about the area and all to be able to seriously consider the tutoring center.
I've put in my two weeks notice at the gift shop where I've been working. I originally wanted to work there for the entire time we'd be here. Unfortunately, some of the people I work with, notably the owner and her daughter, have created some unpleasantness which is a real disappointment. I wish people could just be mature and profession in work environments but I guess that's just not possible for some, unfortunately. Why the owner thinks it's a good idea for her 19-yr-old daughter to be a supervisor is beyond me, as well as one of the florists who is a total flake, but apparently she likes to put people in charge who she has a personal relationship with, rather than people who actually know what they are doing. With the school years starting and my financial aid check getting here, I've decided I'd rather rely on that and the subbing jobs than a $7/hr job where I'm ordered off one job to do another constantly and blamed for problems created by other people. It's a pity because it started out as such a fun place to work.
Sean will continue to work at the gym where he's been for most of the summer. He likes it there most of the time and he's happy that he gets a free membership out of it. I will also get a discount once I sign up (when the financial aid gets here) and so I'm looking forward to taking some yoga classes and going in to work out with him.
And I'll probably also sign up for a class or two at the cc. I'm hoping I'll be able to get into a creative writing class, and then there's a choral class I may take with Sean. And maybe Tai Chi, maybe yoga, depending on what I'll do at the gym, etc.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
visitors
We have Sean's sister and her husband up from Sacramento for the weekend. They are nice people, and it's been a good time. I wonder, though, if I am a bit standoffish... I don't mean to be but once I've exhausted topics of conversation... eh. ::shrug::
The main thing is Sean has been having a great time, and I love seeing him enjoying himself. He and his bro-in-law took a long hike he's been wanting to do today. I was a bit leary--sometimes the trails around here are sketchy and I don't enjoy risk-taking. But they said it was fine so I'll probably go with Sean one of these days. Possibly tomorrow before they leave.
It's been heavenly, being up here for the summer--swimming in Castle Lake, or in the various streams that course by in secluded locations. Sean and I go skinny dipping most of the time, and there's nobody around at all, just us and the dog. She has the best time; she doesn't really understand water... she tries to bite it and she splashes around in the shallows.
I'm really grateful we've taken the time to go find these spots and make the most of them. When I think about how much my life has changed, I can't get over it. Three years ago skinny dipping in an icy river in Mount Shasta would have been unimaginable for me. I was trapped in my marriage, trapped in San Diego...
I feeling like my soul is slowly healing. I don't think it will be without scars, but I feel more and more ready to take on new challenges, like adopting a child. I hope Sean will feel ready some time in the next couple of years.
The main thing is Sean has been having a great time, and I love seeing him enjoying himself. He and his bro-in-law took a long hike he's been wanting to do today. I was a bit leary--sometimes the trails around here are sketchy and I don't enjoy risk-taking. But they said it was fine so I'll probably go with Sean one of these days. Possibly tomorrow before they leave.
It's been heavenly, being up here for the summer--swimming in Castle Lake, or in the various streams that course by in secluded locations. Sean and I go skinny dipping most of the time, and there's nobody around at all, just us and the dog. She has the best time; she doesn't really understand water... she tries to bite it and she splashes around in the shallows.
I'm really grateful we've taken the time to go find these spots and make the most of them. When I think about how much my life has changed, I can't get over it. Three years ago skinny dipping in an icy river in Mount Shasta would have been unimaginable for me. I was trapped in my marriage, trapped in San Diego...
I feeling like my soul is slowly healing. I don't think it will be without scars, but I feel more and more ready to take on new challenges, like adopting a child. I hope Sean will feel ready some time in the next couple of years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)