Writing

2020-03-31 Crisis, Evolution, Kaczynski, and Poetry.. Oh My!

If you’re into drama and the sob-story of a broken cookie, I’m all about that today. If you’re here for the poetry, skip to the end…

Yesterday I was hoping to send my thesis preface and manuscript revisions off early in the day. You know, release myself from the hold it had on me. But it did not happen until much later in the day and once I did pull the trigger on that communication, I was not released. I could not let it go. I was still toiling in my head over certain sentences and the end and the worry that I had repeated myself too much somehow in my explanations. I need to let it go.

Even as I tried to sleep, I was plagued with ideas and little bits I want to change. It’s a good thing it was just a draft and not the final. The preface is 17 pages of elaboration about my personal journey and the internal and external influences that were important to the development of the manuscript contained within the thesis.

On one hand, 17 pages is a lot of words to string together in a succinct and organized fashion. On the other hand, it’s very difficult to condense so much into that space. It’s like saying, there’s so much more, but here’s the highlight reel. It’s not easy.

Making the cuts for the manuscript was very much like that too. Of all the hundreds of poems I’ve written, these are the very best and also the most relevant to the story I want the reader to experience.

See how I just can’t stop thinking about it or writing about it?! Insanity. I had intended to pivot this morning and write about something completely different but my brain hijacked itself. Good grief.

I was going to write about the document-drama Jim and I finished watching last night, Manhunt. It’s the story of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) as seen mostly from the perspective of the profiler and linguistic analyst who put the puzzle pieces together in order to solve the case. It’s such a well made show— I highly recommend it.

The last episode was so moving, I was on the edge of my emotional seat and teary-eyed through the last 15 minutes of the show. Some of that was the way the writers and directors set up those final scenes, but more than that it was the thought provoking nature of the entire story. Did I say I recommend it?? Yeah, put it on the list.

Thinking about it right now is giving me chills. It’s so tragic. And I’m not talking about the bombing victims (which is of course horrific). I’m talking about Ted and his life—his ideals and his misused intellect, the disturbing psychological experiments he was subjected to as an adolescent, and his subsequent lack of empathy and compassion. That a person can be so broken is hard to wrap your head around.

For me, the ideas he believes in hit pretty close to home. And he didn’t just believe them, he lived them and maimed and killed compete strangers to make a point and get his message, his manifesto out into the minds of millions of people. I know only the sliver of it that was portrayed in the two shows I’ve now watched on the subject but it makes me want to read the manifesto.

From the shows, the essence of the message is that technology is the root of evil causing a downfall of society. And that if we turned our back on it and pursued a simpler way of life, we would all be better off. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this same thought.

And who am I? Just some girl sitting on her couch watching a show. I’m so afraid of the destruction humans are causing to this planet. I’m afraid for my children and future generations that will certainly see the polar ice caps completely melted, the rainforests reduced to flatland, creature extinct, and not enough clean drinking water.

Can tech solve? Or will humans have to change? Can we invent our way out of this fix or do we need to really heed Ted’s warning and change our way of life? Will we evolve or will we die?

And just like that, I look up and see myself in the mirror. I cut my own hair yesterday and could not help thinking about how good it looks this morning. How in the world can that be? I wrote about a year ago about the same exact experience and here I am, and it’s happening again. I’m reliving that moment. That’s unnerving.

It’s an anchor poem in the final section of my manuscript. The evolution of self and the poetic voice is one of my central themes and my manuscript preface gets pretty far into describing that theme and the aesthetic aim of this particular body of work.

See, just like that, I’m back thinking about that damn preface. I’m stuck in a viscous cycle. I want to go with the flow, but when your flow seems to be circling back on itself, it’s tough.

This damn pandemic is not helping. People need people. But sometimes those people also need to be alone. For real. This morning I listened to the news on Alexa and when they started talking about what is happening in New York, I just stood there and cried. And other major cities are not far behind. Soon New Orleans will be at the same point that New York is now, the healthcare system taxed beyond its capabilities. I can’t even think about it without becoming emotional. Here I am worried about my thesis and my hair and whether or not I will actually get to go outside today and people are suffering and dying in mass. My God!

I have to stop there, you know, I’ve already gone on way to long again. I’m ending with that poem “What’s in the Mirror” which was originally written May 31st 2019 and is now a 6th draft. It certainly does not adhere to some of the “rules” that govern this craft, but it is an accurate reflection of my experience.

With Much Love and Virtual Hugs,

~Miss SugarCookie

***

What’s in the Mirror

It’s morning again and I’m looking in the mirror.

Natural curls cling to each other in fluffy waves

on top and tight, smooth spirals underneath.

I flip it forward,

check the length,

and flip it back.

I admire how it looks better after waking up

but something’s not quite right.

Something inside is throbbing

and aching—winding up and unwinding.

Could it be my heart—too heavy?

Or my mind stretching

to get around some grief

like the sky being too big

or the possibility of a world without a sky—

existence where the words “blue”

and “rain” and “clouds” have slid

away from lips

into oblivion.

What if it’s not me at all

but a different girl, Sarah,

who I barely know.

She was raped on a date last week

and wrote a poem about it

and posted it on Twitter.

I’ve laughed with her

over giving the finger to the moon.

I want to reach out to her

and stand next to her in solidarity.

Or just hug her.

But what if it’s that other girl, Kala,

who I used to know.

She died of the cancer

that crept through her body

and sank its teeth into her bones.

When she died she left

two babies behind.

They will only remember

their mom as a person fighting

for her life. They will never know

the bright, fiery strawberry blond

who hung out at Billy Frogs on Fridays

after work drinking cheap vodka crans.

We laughed at our co-workers

and split nachos. I can’t reach out

to her or hug her

because she’s gone.

It could be that it’s that other girl, Z,

who I know so well

because I gave birth to her

and she’s getting ready to fly

and the sky is impossibly vast

and could collapse in on itself at any moment—

strands of air clinging together as they spiral down

and crash into the earth

and leave her drowning in a dirty brown sea

with nothing blue or green to hang on to.

My mind flinches and stops

on that ominous dead end street.

I can’t stop time

or un-melt the polar ice caps.

I can’t save anything or anyone

from the certain doom that happens naturally

when human beings are involved

because they are inherently selfish

and sometimes only think about

how their hair looks

when they wake up.

2020-03-30 Balance and Flow

When you put in the work, sometimes it sucks. But man oh man does it feel good when you’re close to the finish line.

That’s how I’m finally feeling today after putting myself in a box for the last three days. Not only did I need to crank out some pages for my MFA thesis preface, but I also had to complete another round of revisions on the actual manuscript. The due date my mentor and I chose together was last Friday, but he gave me a pass cuz, well the whole world is in chaos for one thing.

And though it’s no excuse, I’m also now being expected to pick up as many extra hours at work as I possibly can. This is mostly because my husbands income is being reduced during this challenging time.

My boss and my team are coming out guns blazing on a new project and I put my PM hat on for the three weeks while the real project manager was wrapping up her current gig. She started last week, thank goodness. I still worked like a full time chimp but this week I’m going to dial it back.

I’m gonna ease into a support role. I love my new PM, for real. She’s a fellow princess. My nickname for her is Princess KK and hers for me is Princess SheShy. Those names were established in the 90’s when we last worked together and became friends. After that she moved on to bigger and better things while I remained in Nebraska.

She’s a rockstar at both team and project management. She can have all that shit. Imma sit over in my corner of the universe taking notes and writing documentation and adding detail to the Jira tickets and confluence. That’s my happy place, keeping quiet and only interjecting when I feel something is really important. It will be easier to keep my damn mouth shut with such a strong leader.

The other thing that starts today for real is online learning for my kids. Last week was dedicated to “enrichment learning” while the teachers figured out their plans for how to teach in their pajamas.

When I pressed my son about doing enrichment work, he just said “mom, nobody is doing that.” He spent most of the week playing video games. My co-workers tried to make me feel better by saying that playing video games was enrichment. Haha! This weekend my email in-box was flooded with tons of instructions and links from all their teachers. Sure, the kids got these also, but who do you think will be responsible for making sure they actually get up and out of bed and on the Zoom meetings? There will be assignments and video instruction and quizzes and tests online.

Yeah.. all that starts today. I have to remind myself that balance is key and also try and take my friend Michelle’s advice and go with the flow. Give myself a little slack you know, partially because it is a stressful time in the world but also because I’m only human and can’t freaking do everything perfectly all the time.

Anyway, all that time in the box this past weekend was rough but I feel great about my progress and almost ready to send those pages off to my mentor. That’s my priority this morning (besides finally getting back to walking on my treadmill and writing).

At 10am I have a two hour work meeting and so the homeschooling will be delayed for a few hours today.

That’s it. Short and sweet. Balance and flow. Time to go.

Peace and Love!

~Miss SugarCookie

2020-03-26 Climbing the Pyramid is a Struggle

My basic needs are being met, and I’m grateful for that. By Maslow’s standards, I’m probably at Safety and while that’s ok, I’m desperate to go higher. But I’m stuck.

So many of my writer friends and acquaintances are writing their hearts out right now. Amid this crisis people are inspired to create. In times when you have more time because you’re isolated you can explore and let your brain wander and maybe, definitely that’s a good thing.

I’m not. And I haven’t been. I’ve got less time now, and feel less isolated, because my sanctuary has been invaded. My time has been raided and from before sun-up to after sun-down I’ve nothing left to give back to myself.

It’s work, which I’ve praised but it has transformed before my very eyes from saving grace to marauder. It’s got to level out soon. I think (I hope) today will be the start of that.

It’s not knowing how to, at the same time, homeschool. Sure, if I was twiddling my thumbs all day I would sit with my children and play task-master, checking in on their “enrichment plans”.

I’m not there, though, you know. I’m still adjusting.. fighting with my ex about where the kids are and why and all my anger and frustration that’s built up over the years comes pouring out. I just hate my ex. After all this time I’m still angry about so many things. Does one ever get over being treated so rotten by someone they love and trust with their life.

How is that possible? How can we have hurt each other so much? And when the bullshit just continues for years and years and you have to continue to take it and try to be amiable for the kids sake, it just doesn’t go away.

Yesterday I ripped him a new one on the phone and he acted like he had no idea where it was all coming from. Like an ignorant ass, he said my yelling was unfounded and something in me has changed. “You’re different now.” He said.

No shit genius. People change and perhaps I’ve grown a spine. Perhaps I’ve also been perfecting my throat-punch and he should be grateful that there’s a pandemic because if there wasn’t I might just go to his place and demonstrate my skills. I just hate him. And that’s a world I rarely use.

My son is here with me and my daughter is at his house. She’s not being very communicative and I’m just hoping she isn’t being persuaded to stay there. Gawd. It’s an awful feeling to know that the kids are stuck in this conflict with us, probably taking shrapnel from our verbal confrontations. It’s got to stop.

So, yeah, I’m just trying to figure out how to shelter in place and not lose my mind. I’ve not yet arrived at master of the art of homeschooling.

Oh, did I mention I’m behind on the whole writing a thesis bit? Or the lit-mag startup. Or, I dunno, supporting my husband and nurturing my marriage which is still less than 2 months old.

I logged onto Facebook today and that was a big mistake. So many people posting about every freaking thing and I just don’t have a positive note to contribute. Just because I say I’m grateful, doesn’t mean I’m bathing in gratitude and finding all the beauty in every little nook and corner. Facebook just makes me feel like shit. And those things I’m seeing are being posted by friends and family who I love. Why can’t I just find joy in their accomplishments and words of encouragement? What the hell is wrong with me?

Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical.

I’ve got a meeting today with the other “co-founder” of this not-yet-a-real-thing on-line lit mag. It’s been a struggle for both of us to find the time. This is a guy I just happened to be sitting across a lunch table from when approached by one of the mentors of the MFA program about this little idea. He’s a teacher and has kids so he’s in the same boat as me trying to juggle life.

We both bring unique and needed skills to the table, but we do operate differently. I like things to be organized and well planned out and he just seems to like to roll with whatever. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just an adjustment for me. We need to get shit done and were still at step 1, which is assembling a team.

Hopefully I’ll get more insight into what that looks like from his communications (which he has not copied me on). I’m a little miffed about that. If you were starting a new project together, it’s good to have Everyone have as much information as possible. So I feel a little bit in the dark on where things stand and can’t make progress forward myself until I’ve got the full picture. I’m sure I’m overthinking and overdramatizing this as usual. Hopeful today’s meeting will actually happen this time and that all will be revealed.

I mean, if our launch date is still June 1. We gotta get in gear and go. So that’s where the “go for it” attitude is such a positive.. we just really need to engage the whole team soon. Again, just hopeful we have a complete list today on who that is. we’ll see.

For now, I have to put that out of my mind so I can get to work. No place to hide.

Stuck at Safety,

~Miss SugarCookie

2020-03-25 My Plan to Go Rogue

I’ve just written three sentences and backspaced them. I don’t think I have it in me today. It’s that little voice inside that says “go rogue”. I’m on the hook for more work and never has there been as much other stuff going on.

I don’t want to get myself all bunched up like last week when I felt so lost. So not in control over anything. Everything is happening too fast. Work gives me a feeling of order and control, but even that yesterday went wild and those west-coast people just forget that 1.) It’s two hours later here and 2.) I have a freaking life, family, school, and other responsibilities. Today I’m pushing back.

Pushing back at work means pushing a few of these long two hour meetings to a different day and blocking my calendar with spots that just say “unavailable”. Yeah, just like the good ole days.

Pushing back with my ex-husband means me sticking up for my kids and telling him what an ass he is being. I’ve got a list of bad parenting mistakes he’s making right now and I’m on the verge of just letting him fucking have it.

Pushing back at the fucking Covid rules means deciding for myself that going to the grocery store or visiting a friend is just essential. Yeah, it’s hard not to think that way when other members of this household leave all the time. Jim going to work is understandable (and they take every medical precaution to keep their staff and patients safe) but then what about the kids?

All of them have other parents and keep a schedule where they come and go. And we might have certain rules here but as soon as they are out that door, they are no longer bound by those rules.

For instance, we aren’t allowed to get fast food, takeout, or use door-dash or anything like that and can’t have people over. We’re eating what we have here at the house. That’s it.

Then I hear Jim’s son bragging about how he can’t wait to go back to his moms and his friend is going to pick him up so they can get Subway. He says “I don’t care if I get sick.” So, I get irate. What happens when he comes back to the house and starts putting his potentially contaminated hands all over the kitchen here? How is that ok?

It’s not just him. It’s my daughter too. She actually told me the biggest reason she wanted to go to her dads house was so she could drive through McDonald’s. At least she seemed a bit tentative about it and was not outwardly bragging. The arrogant bragging really, really rubs me the wrong way.

Like those ass-holes on spring break in Florida saying they don’t care if they get sick like the whole fucking world revolves around them. That’s the worst attitude to have about all this. So selfish. But thats Florida, far away from here. This attitude with Jim’s son makes me angry. This is supposed to be My house too and the health of me and my kids is paramount to me so how is it ok??!!

I feel like pressing Jim about it but I haven’t so far because he’s under enough stress. My alternative? I dunno.. going to the grocery store and visiting friends and maybe even getting my own sub-sandwich. It would be different because I’m not arrogant and I can take precautions to minimize risk. I hope my daughter is doing that too.

What else does going rogue look like. Perhaps loading up my bike and just finding a new trail somewhere to ride, all alone with nobody telling me which way to go or what to do. It’s supposed to be a nice day today. Temps close to 70. Though right now it’s kinda foggy and drizzly. I sure hope the sun comes out.

That’s all I got ya’ll. It’s enough.

Hoping to find some peace in my mind today,

~Miss SugarCookie

2020-03-24 Turning My Frown Upside-Down

I don’t have anything positive to say today it seems. My mind is cycling through points of irritation about my ex-husband, my current husband’s son, and just not having enough time to get everything that “needs” doing done. Most of this has roots in the current state of the world and the Pandemic.

And frankly I’m so sick of thinking about it, a 7 hour workday with 4 conference calls is a welcome occurrence. What I would like to do is shift my attitude by focusing on the positive. Can I do it? Can it work? Let’s find out….

I still have a job where I can work and earn money in this time of financial uncertainty. Even if my husband was forced to stay home and had to take reductions or pauses in his paycheck, we would still be ok. Which extends to our children of course. But what about the rest of the fam?

I have one sister that manages a Trader Joes grocery store in Denver, which is an essential service so her job is secure.

I have another sister that works at a Google data center in Iowa which has also been tagged as an essential job function (by Google anyway) and in her words, “I’ll be there until I get sick or this is all over.” She’s looking at it negatively but I see that as a positive thing because she can still make moneys while some people don’t have the option. Her’s is a physical job.. server maintenance and stuff I think. It makes me wonder what the situation is with other data centers around the globe. What happens if there is nobody there to maintain the servers and we lose the internet?? 😱

My bro is also in Colorado and I think most of his job, like mine, can be done remotely. He’s an aerospace engineer for Ball. So he’s going to be ok too. His two kids are close to the same ages as mine. His daughter is home from her freshman year at college and his son is in HS and is at home for the duration too. We’re all safe in our houses, which is also a thing to be grateful for.

We have a safe place to sleep and enough food to eat. We have each other here to talk to. We can play games and watch shows and when the weather gets nice, I might even be able to convince my kids to go outside with me.

In fact. It’s supposed to be 60 today and close to 70 tomorrow. I really need to get out of the house for a walk in the fresh air. I admit I’m kind of a pansy when it comes to being outside and being cold, so the nicer weather is a prerequisite. See, I’m kinda spoiled too.

Today I do indeed have another long work day and I’m ok with that.

Well….

That didn’t seem to work. The second I ran out of things to type just now, my mind gravitated back to the situation with my ex and my son not wanting to go to his house. And just like that, back to a grumpy thought puzzle.

I can name at least 7 reasons why my son staying here is a better plan than going to spend time at his dads house. And no matter what my reasons are, my sons reasons and feelings are important too and I want to support that. He doesn’t want to go to his dad’s and that says a lot. I just have to suck it up and not be such a pushover. I also need to let it go, you know, the anger and worry. So what if C stays here? What’s his dad gonna do? Drive here and knock on our door. I don’t think so.

It’s hard for me to imagine how that would go down. I kind of start to daydream about my ex getting his ass handed to him (verbally at least) from my husband. They have met on the phone but not in person. What would it be like if THAT were their first time meeting in person??!! Priceless!! 😂

Ok.. so I guess that daydream is the thing that’s going to improve my mood so imma just roll with it.

Pretty soon now I’ve gotta get to work. I’m currently substituting jogging for Jazzercise (as long as my knees can take it anyway), so I gotta get my jog on now while I still have time.

Here’s to hoping you too can find your happy place,

~Miss SugarCookie

2020-03-23 Navigating the New Monday

I realized yesterday that just being home doesn’t qualify as time I need to recharge my battery. I need time alone. There’s a big difference between me being home while everyone goes off to work and school when I can get down with my own intentions and plans and parting ways after breakfast where I’m still on the hook for every little thing that comes up.

I’m going to resist complaining too much about dishes, but my struggle is real. And believe me, I recognize the privilege in that, but I’ll just leave it by saying, I don’t really get a day off from my other job duties as assigned.

Yesterday my writing goal consisted of two things: 1.) Not bringing Covid into the picture and 2.) Writing a poem.

I did both so.. yay me!

I’m coming into today feeling like it’s ok if this wanders into thoughts about being quarantined for like 15 days. Yeah, 15 days ago was the last time I left the house to meet a friend or do anything that didn’t involve getting last minute supplies for the house.

It could be worse. We could be in California or New York or somewhere else in the world where it’s turning from disaster into nightmare. Here in Nebraska I feel like there were restrictions and recommendations that started to happen super-early and watching the rest of the world, it feels like a good call.

My kids were on spring break last week and so this is technically their first day of “remote learning”. For my school system that means that I’ve now got to be super involved in what they are doing with their days, continuing to use the resources we have to continue to be engaged in all subjects. Yup, they are putting it on the parents more than the teachers at this point so just add teacher to the list of my “other duties as assigned”. Whatever.

Right now I’m up and the whole house is still sleeping and I’ve got lots of my own stuff to do: school, work, reading for workshop, and lit mag stuff. I’m going to have to really work on navigating this “alone together” scenario. Even Jim is home today when normally he’d also be going to work.

In a non-Covid world he would be in Denver for a work conference and I’d either be there too visiting family or here with just the kids. And the kids would be in school of course. So today Jim has the day off and won’t go back until tomorrow. And being in healthcare, the picture of what that looks like is changing daily.

They are shifting to a tele-health model to continue to provide patient care for non-emergent cases that can be handled by video conference. It’s likely that by the end of the week, the in-office visits will be limited and that means they only need some of the staff. Of course, this could turn on a dime and get worse. Or, it could stay this way for 4 weeks and then start to get better.

I mean, if they lock down domestic travel and keep the community spread case numbers down, it could have that curve flattening effect everyone keeps talking about. Best case would be that they do get to re-open school in May. A girl can dream right??!!

My priority today is probably work stuff. At least that’s the direction my mind wants to go now. The last few weeks things have gone wild and I’ve worked more than I have in months. On one hand it’s been great but on the other it’s really cut into my schedule. I apparently don’t have a good handle on balance. No surprise there I guess.

Things this week will probably not be as crazy cuz the real project manager / scrum master is starting and she’s going to take some of the pressure off. She’s actually a friend of mine who lives in San Diego. It’s a crazy small world and the fact that we worked together 20 years ago at Methodist Hospital in Omaha and are now back together at a consulting company / dev shop that employs less than 25 people is wild.

It just so happens that we’ve both have connections back to one of the founders of our company through different channels. Me from a job I had in Omaha at a software dev company for 5 years and her from working at a hospital in California about 4 years ago. So her and I go way back and I’m excited to get to work with her again. I also know she’s a tough cookie with high standards so she’s gonna keep those devs in line!

My role on the team will start to shift this week from PM to project support. Working on organizing Jira tickets, adding the Epics, filling in fields and helping to prepare for our formal project kickoff with the customer. It’s a greenfield project which is super exciting for all the members of the team. And so far the interaction with the customer had been really good so it’s full speed ahead.

That’s probably a good place to stop and do the mic drop. 🎤

Welcome to the New Monday,

~Miss SugarCookie

2020-03-22 Super-Sized Sunday Status

It’s Sunday again and I really need to get some steps to boost my stats and get my heart going. Plus, I’ve got a lot to say today so this could get long.

Imma start with school. Yesterday I had a two hour phone conversation with my assigned mentor for the semester and though it was a good conversation, it leads me to conclude I’m behind schedule. Those are my words and not his. He actually said I was in great shape.

However, it feels like the deadlines are coming in hot and I’m all duck-and-cover like the 16 year old me afraid of the volleyball in PE headed straight for me.

This is my 4th and final semester in the MFA program at the University of Nebraska. As such, I’ve worked with three mentors in previous terms and each has been a very different experience. Each opening my eyes to various aspects of the poetic discourse, craft, and the writers life. However different though, it’s tough not to start to compare one semester to another and one mentor to another. That’s human nature.

The mentor I have this term has been, by a good margin, tougher on me than the past three. I naturally push myself hard, trying to exceed expectation so to have someone pushing me even harder is not what I’m used to. The result, I recognize, is going farther and taking my writing to a whole new level. I feel I’ve made more progress this term already than I thought was possible and perhaps that I was also naive in thinking I didn’t have much farther to go.

Yeah, super foolish, SugarCookie! There are miles and miles to go and when you get over that little ridge ahead you will still see a mountain rising up before you.

The progress, however satisfying when you look back, is not without pain.

How many poems have I written and revised countless times. How many have I been so proud of? And how many were actually done-done? As it turns out, none.

With poetry the devil really is in the details. All the information I’ve absorbed in previous semesters about image and line and juxtaposition and the signified and the signifier, the interplay between the mind of the poet, the reader, and the poem itself, as well as learning how to give in to the destructiveness of a subject is all conceptual and very big-picture.

This semester I’m down in the weeds with grammar and syntax. I’m in a cage-match with punctuation and line breaks. And I’m having to cut and slash and, at times, re-imagine where I have been to try and rewrite the scene. I’ve learned so much about what those adjectives and adverbs are doing to my work and how passive voice seems to be my default and that just wont do.

Now, I think my mentor last semester was getting to some of this with me but I just wasn’t there yet and I just wasn’t getting it. Now I think I’m getting it. It’s starting to click. I just needed someone to point out specific examples. Which I now have a ton of. Which is good, but it stings a little, you know.

Paraphrasing a comment I’ve seen several times, “I think there could be a poem hiding in all this”. Ouch!

I mean when you hand over your baby and are so proud of how wonderful she is, it’s tough to have the response be “I’m not sure that’s even a baby. It could be a puppy. It’s cute but really, go back and try again.” Ha!

That’s overly dramatic of course, but that’s pretty close to how I feel reading some of the feedback. Speaking of overly dramatic, apparently that’s another one of my problems. Some of my poems were tagged as too melodramatic, too preachy, or too clever.

Too clever? Part of me is like so what? I like clever.

Oh, clever is not one of the goals and neither is preachy. People apparently don’t like that and I need to cut that shit out. There I go… cut, cut, cut. /shrug

There are a few references in a couple of my poems to the speaker weeping. Ummmm, that actually happened and in case there’s any question the speaker is yours truly. Please tell me how I’m supposed to write about the most difficult parts of my life without the reality that I sometimes cry about it?

It’s clicking now though. I get it. I don’t have to include every detail and however sincere, I can use the images to try and evoke a feeling. So I cut cut cut. Several poems have been cut completely out of my thesis manuscript. Among those are some of those tough moments that I still can’t completely capture successfully in a poem. I may never be able to do that.

My five year relationship that failed and left me devastated was represented in a poem that’s now been cut. I’ve re-written that poem like 10 times now in 10 different ways and it’s still too raw. Instead, I’ve got a short little baby that’s about 10 lines to represent that part of the story. And that one is a play on cliche.

So, yeah, having one of the most impactful things I’ve gone through being reduced to a pile-up of cliches makes my heart hurt.

Anyway, the conversation I had with my mentor yesterday was a lot more positive than all that and I think a few more things are clicking now for me to finish out my revisions of this book. I need to get that done so I can move on to the other requirements for the thesis and also developing a kick-ass lecture to get me to the finish line.

***

One hour in and I think I’ve finally exhausted my thoughts on that topic. But I’m not done yet, yo, it’s Sunday and I’ve still got to check myself on status.

Steps and exercise are not up to par. I’m just shy of 10k steps per day and my goal is 12k.

My sleep is a puzzle. On one hand my sleep quality has gone up and holding steady at an average score of 77. On the other, the average duration of my sleep is suffering and has fallen to about 6.5 hours a night. Whatever.

Work hours went up again this week and I’m now close to a full-time work week. That’s one reason the other things are suffering. Like school and writing.

I did not submit any of my writing this week so that’s a fail.

I did not write anything new so that’s a fail.

I did not read anything new so that’s a fail.

I did finish watching Batman Begins with Jim and we continue to also watch the documentary-drama on Netflix about Ted Kazinsky (I know that’s not spelled right but “meh”). We also watched 1917 this weekend with one of the kids. I didn’t like it and would not recommend. For a war drama, it did a poor job pulling me in emotionally. And I’m typically a sucker for that shit. I often get teary-eyed during emotional scenes. I mean I cried like 4 tunes during “Onward”. But I just didn’t feel that connection with the movie 1917. We should watch Saving Private Ryan again to see how that is. I’ve seen it but it was a long, long time ago.

What else? Yeah, my healthy eating goals are still being ignored for the most part. Ha!

I think that’s it. The household is probably waking up now and I’ve got to get to rolling with the day.

Take care and be well,

~Miss SugarCookie