Get Out Of My House

I've got some beef with the internet that I'd like to express. And I use beef because it's something tangible. We can or cannot pick up a piece of beef. Thinking about a couple conversations I've had about writing recently, I've come to realize how much my profession depends on the internet, how much information is living on the internet, and how big and gooey the internet really is. I just recently "found" a website called jacket2.com. And I even hate to use the word "found" because all that means is hundreds of people have already committed themselves to this website and I'm the new kid showing up too late. In many ways, this website is exactly what I've been searching for in terms of a website about writing and literary theory, but at the same time, I didn't know I was searching for it in the first place. How do I know what I need until I find it? This is exactly what our culture depends on--things you don't know you need until you stumble upon them.

The reason I get so fed up with the internet in terms of writing is because I constantly need to be linked in to get published. It seems like everyday there is a new hip online journal popping up that I should submit to, or there's that old online journal that I just heard of today that I should have already submitted to, but regardless of whether I submit or not, there are hundreds of other people submitting against me. And anyone can submit! There's that guy who is actually a truck driver who thinks, "Hey, I've got an interesting life, I'm going to write about it, submit it to any journal I want because there are no limitations, get lucky and put into the editor's yes-file, and get a publication instead of that guy who studied writing for 7 years, his degree says he is a master of writing and has submitted to 50 or more journals but didn't get considered because there are just too many stories to read". So not only do we have a plethora of journals to consider, we have to find that journal where our writing will be a "good fit", and we have to fight off all those laymen breaking into our writing house. Get out of my fuckin house already! Put down that crowbar and go back to bar tending, fighting crime, saving babies, fixing furniture, or whatever you do to actually make money. You don't see me taking your blood pressure, do you?

It really is a lot to manage, and if we're not on the internet all day, we miss all that information, but if we are, we only realize how much we don't know. How is one supposed to focus in this great big digital eco-system?

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us by James W. Pennebaker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I would recommend this book to a writer, poet, intellect, psychologist, or anyone interested in human interaction. The reason I bought this was because of a cliff-hanger review on Slate.com. The hook is that this book will help you to identify a liar from a non-liar by detecting cues found in the pronouns one uses in conversation. This turned out to be so much more than that. What's interesting to me as a poet is Pennebaker's study of suicidal poet's use of the "I". In some ways I feel like he is talking to me directly, warning me against using this pronoun. I've always had a goal to write a series of poems without using the "I", but it's difficult, I'm not sure why.

Regardless, this book will make you aware of the words you use everyday, especially the really small words, but also how you interact with different people and how these interactions affect how others perceive you. And though I took Psychology 101 three times in college, I'm not a psychologist, and even I can easily grasp the jargon and data presented in this book. I've still got some reading to do, but my one gripe is how he quickly jumps from one topic to the next. Just when I'm really getting into something juicy, he drops it and moves on. This could be a positive criticism, but for a book this long, I think he could have done a bit more lingering, but perhaps the book itself is some skewed brain pattern test for the reader.



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Prairie Voles

Holidays are a disruption. I don't really need a day that's different than all my other days because that's what vacations are for. I don't like when I realize that my mail isn't coming that day or that the only restaurant that's open at 11pm is a Denny's and I have to eat a shitty meal with all the other depressed people who may wonder why the server is wearing a funny red hat, or why he's been working for 24 hours straight. It's all terribly sad and makes me feel even worse for those people who have nowhere to go, when any other day they are perfectly content being by themselves. Just like Valentines Day is a reminder that our mates love or lost us, and maybe they still love us now, but it's really not all that romantic. No one has been able to fully make sense of love, not even the poets.

This Christmas I held my grandmother up as we walked her into the house because her life did depend on me and my dad to move her. She cried because she was so grateful for us, but she also cried because she has become an infant, and yet she's so aware of her humanity and her dignity. My day ended with a call to an ambulance, not for her, but for someone we found bent over on a curb by the gas station. His sweatshirt was unzipped and underneath he didn't have a t-shirt. His chest was right up against the cold. He had trouble breathing and speaking. He was old. Whether the ambulance was the best place for him or not, I didn't want to imagine the home he would have been going back to anyway. Turns out he had just gotten out of the hospital the day before and he decided to walk to the gas station food mart to buy cigarettes and an orange soda. And this is a holiday.

What's interesting about this, and my trip back to Cleveland, is the affect it's had on my writing. I've been working on a somewhat epic poem, a poem longer than two pages, because I've decided that the good poets write long poets, and the bad poets write haiku. Yes, I said it and I mean it. Ahem, Garrison Keillor. This feels good to finally say that out loud. Anyway, by working on one poem over a course of a week and through a medley of emotions and events, the story turns into a strange one. It is also a great way of documenting my time here. Everyone will be present in my poem.

A Question of Art or a Question of Life or Both

I just started reading Miranda July's short story collection No one belongs here more than you, partially in preparation for reading her new book It Chooses You, which somehow I feel will blow me away though I have nothing other than a few relatively kind reviews to make me think that. Regardless, I can't help seeing Miranda July in every story I've read so far. That Miranda July, the person, is acting as the narrator. In some ways this makes me feel uncomfortable, because it seems like Miranda July is in my house, she's in my bed next to me telling me how to read or interpret her stories. Do they need to be interpreted? I feel like they are quirky for the sake of being quirky, which I suppose is fine because that's her way of commenting on the human condition, it is an insight into her human condition. It got me thinking about my own writing, and how much of my personality appears in my writing. I think to some extent, we don't have to meet certain writers in order to get a sense of their personality. Is this true for all writers? Do my classmates feel like I am sitting next to them in their desk overwhelming their personal space with my breath and words when they read my poems for workshop? I wonder if our personalities come through in our art, and if so, is it how we perceive ourselves or is it how others perceive us?

In thinking about the pottery I made years ago, it was always messy and somewhat slanted to one side. However, there was still a precision to it, a purpose to the lean. I perceived myself this way, as messy, ill-functioning, yet mathematical in my motions, and still do. But is this how other's perceive me? Do we all battle to find the right place between our own notions of ourselves and the outside world's? Do I worry too much? Sometimes when I pluck one hair from my eye brow I feel good about it no longer being there, knowing that no one else would have really noticed anyway. But in the end, this, along with those other beauty secrets (ahem), add up to the body I present to the world around me. So I leave you with this: is our true being found within our own perceptions or within the many perceptions surrounding us?

How You Percolatin'?

So I'm at the cafeteria again. The friendliest cafeteria lady asks this question to everyone with a huge smile on her face. She serves chicken fingers and turkey burgers, which she likes to call "love burgers". She loves her job. The reason I like it here, the cafeteria specifically, is because of all the movement. There are freshman who are only vaguely aware of our recession. They are not yet disappointed by the state of our economy and are instead embarking upon their real adult lives, without having to act like adults. I think this sense of whimsy is lost in graduate school. Many of us are in graduate school because we can't find jobs, and yet we are told to act like adults. What a bummer place to be. At this point in my educational career I feel like many of us are just trying to "get through it" so that we can put on our grown-up shoes. Yet, we're not taking advantage of this vital system that we are a part of.

Last night I went running and after about a mile and a half my stomach start to hurt (too much dinner) but my legs felt like they could go another 5 miles, like they are little machines attached to my body. It made me think about how my mind works versus what I actually do with these thoughts. My mind is a little machine but my body is a typewriter...if that makes sense. I remember junior year of college I was still an art education major. After a conversation with a friend, it dawned on me that I will graduate with an art education degree. This would have been fine for someone dedicated to art education, but to me I thought, "I am limited to only being an art educator, really". I only got to do college once, and most literally because I only had 8 semesters of subsidized tuition at a really great university. That's when I changed to English. Hm, not much better, I know. However, it gave me more possibilities. I saw the world in a less limited way. Back to my running analogy, again, I think that I get really excited about doing something great with my life, something my university always told me in one way or another, and yet I'm writing poetry. People make fun of poetry. I even caught a glimpse of a bad sitcom, my first mistake,  and the driving school instructor says, "And I'm just proof that you can get a job with a PhD in poetry". Harumph. What's wrong with poetry, asks the poet? It doesn't necessarily create forward movement in a corporeal way. It is the mind without the flesh.

I just finished reading an article on an interesting technology investor, Peter Thiel. He also feels that Americans have lost their whimsy, their inventiveness, and that our progress in technology only happens on a micro level. He says, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters...You have dizzying change where there's no progress". Take a look at the technology of our phones against the fuel economy of our cars. I'm pretty sure my 1995 Jetta got the same or similar mileage as today's Jetta. So what if my phone can get me to the nearest gas station, but why aren't we getting to the nearest electric outlet to charge up the battery? Yes, yes, I know we have electric cars. But who can afford them? And isn't it already 2011? Shouldn't we all be driving electric cars, or even flying cars by now?

CAFE-TERIAS

I don't know what's so comforting about college cafeterias, but there are times when I crave the food. And perhaps it's just not the food. It's the whole experience. I just in fact overheard a girl say, "We're at the fresh right now", because the name of this particular cafeteria is The Fresh Food Co. I love the nicknames and the stigmas and all the young people in sweatpants and flip flops. I put on my sweatpants just for the occasion, but unfortunately, I don't own a pair of flip flops. I like being here in the corner, getting up to get food whenever I want, and taking in all the social interaction, awkward or otherwise. I saw one of the USM "hipsters" (and I use that word lightly; we're talking hipster vis a vis 2008), glance at me twice. He certainly wasn't checking me out, it's not like I'm wearing skinny jeans today, but he was almost nodding to me in a way that made me feel like he had figured out my disguise.

Part of me envisions running into one of my students, telling them that we would have been friends back when I was in college. I would have had my skinny jeans on, freshman 15 sticking out somewhere that I didn't notice then, sitting in a corner with my headphones on and a sketchbook. I would have been hopeful to run into some of the upper-classmen who seemed so cool and untouchable, someone would have rigged the jukebox to play Meatloaf over and over again (that was about the funniest thing Case kids could think of, aside from IM-ing their roommate while in the same room). I would have glared at the pretty girls and their overpowering confidence. So what's changed? Now I'm the untouchable upper-classman, I mean upper-upper. Though I don't think anyone can tell. My doctor tersely told me that I look younger than 26. I think I responded with a "thanks". Not sure if that was a compliment or not. I'm still fascinated with confident girls, though I can't say I feel threatened by them. I just like how they spin on their heels, or wear make-up on a Monday, or how they tuck their sweatpants into their tall expensive boots. Instead of a sketchbook I've got this laptop. I don't care to run into anyone I know, and chances are, the other PhD's will not be wandering into the "fresh" anytime soon.

Good News is Good News

Dear Elena,

Thank you for sending us your wonderful work. After some discussion we decided that we really love "Acquiescence" and would like to publish it in the next issue of Hayden's Ferry Review. Please let me know if this poem is still available and our Managing Editor will be in touch shortly with a more formal letter and details.

Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Dexter Booth
Poetry Editor
Hayden's Ferry Review