I’ve been walking on the treadmill for about six minutes now and though my thoughts are varied, nothing feels noteworthy. I guess some days are like that.

I could launch into a useless diatribe on how my family, after being somewhat successful in getting me to abandon my BAE (my iPhone SE first gen), now think they can also get me to change my tune about how I listen to music.

They want my to ditch my library of electronic files and start streaming. No matter how you slice it, it all feels like too much effort. And like writing or reading this, ain’t nobody got time for that.

Perhaps I’ll have something worthwhile to share about that when I’ve reached my conclusion.

What else?

Minute 14: I could lament about the saga of the Zebra Finches in our bird house. And how that story finally has an end. I tried to describe this to my friend Margret yesterday and decided there’s no good way. I’ll just say that we successfully found our last bird, Tennille, a forever home. And she’s with other Zebra finches which makes me happy. Or at least at peace with how her life will play out.

This weekend we’ll be doing a deep clean of the room she had as a home for about 2 years. From here on out it’s just gonna be a house of kittens and the goldfish of course. And really that’s all there is to say about that.

What else?

Minute 28: It’s Saturday and I’m thinking about how September is already almost half over and I’m already behind on things I wanted to get done this month. I haven’t kept up on anything really, kind of using the pandemic as an excuse to ignore my white board of goals.

In August I finally decided to try and write them out again. And a few days ago I took the eraser to the whole thing. Figured I’d make September a fresh start. I didn’t even make a mental note of what didn’t get done in August. I told myself that if it wasn’t done, and still important enough.. it would come to mind again when writing out this month.

And after I erased August from the white board and my mind, I decided I had to wait on September for the most absurd reason ever.. most of my dry erase markers have dried up. All that’s left is blue. I declared that my September goals would have to wait until I could secure a new set of markers. How’s THAT for excuses?! 😜

Minute 37: Looking at the calendar it’s also noteworthy to report that I officially have 13 work days left. My last day is September 30th. Perhaps that’s the real reason I’m not committing myself to any other goals for this month. I just need to finish out my work on this project and make a clean break. What’s the big plan after that?

I dunno. I think probably taking some time to adjust and figure out how my days will change. What priorities will rise above the fray. Hopefully I’ll be able to read and write more which has been lacking for a while now.

If there’s one thing that being in an MFA program does it’s forcing attention on the work. There’s a reading list and deadlines and craft papers and submitting creative work and revisions. As much as I was often scrambling to get it all done, and had a heck of a time balancing all that with the rest of my life, I was pleased with the results and proud of what I was able to accomplish.

Minute 50: It’s funny how yesterday I felt like I had all kinds of things I wanted to write about and today, I’m just empty and waiting for minute 60 to hurry up and get here so I can ascend the stairs to the kitchen to make my coffee.

It’s raining again today and dark out. A good day for lounging around in ones pajamas. I’ve got a few things to do for the GLR but outside of that, there’s not a lot that’s burning. Perhaps putting together packets for my next round of submissions. I’ve sort of fallen into a pattern where I just start to research places to submit my poetry and then just spend way too much time on that and never actually get to the part where I’m pulling some poems together for sending.

Like trying to revamp my music library or approach to listening, I feel like it’s just too much effort. I tell myself I’ll get more into it in October. I’ll buy a purple dry erase marker and write it on my white board for next month.

I convince myself that I’ll have a lot more time when I’m done with work. And that’s it.

Minute 60: Kind of a slow pace today but I still got like 7.3k steps.

Time for coffee and breakfast and whatever else comes up.

Peace and love,
~Miss SugarCookie