4/21– Especially tired today. Onto 3-shot mocha, had 4 this morning. Quick meeting planned with ‘100’ students. Sending them to library… Need nap before Fountaingrove hills. Presently in Adjunct cell.. sipping this espresso, but cautiously. I’m starting to wake, and quicker than my mind can process, decode.
Still surprised I wrote 3,000 yesterday. Days off yield the unexpected, often, even though I don’t have them that often.
12:35PM. In library. Students looking for topics, researching. I’m on the fourth floor, trying to keep Self motivated, awake.. difficult to clearly think. Week 15 we’re in, and I’m ready for break, a break, of any length. What the author could really use: a nap. All the students around me, motivated by deadlines, thinking of my deadlines.. don’t want to be dead before reaching. And I remember what I looked for when I would research.. which was– Too long ago, once in graduate school. And here I am, exiled in the library. Hungry, but ignoring those impulses. Hear students laugh from one of the group study rooms to my left. The novel, my novel… under some type of construction. So tempted to rise from this chair, leave, go get something to eat, take my nap. But what if I didn’t? What if I actually practiced what I preach; “Stay in the chair,” I’ve always told them. I mean how else will the novel finish?
Around me, quiet, concentration, panic with the semester closing.. all these students facing their last days in this semester’s story.. Asking reference desks where books are, ‘where can I find, where can I find…’ There’s Life in here, pursuit of what one wants from Life.. You can build your Self here, in a/this library, in any library. But I’m here, wanting to be a student again, but I don’t want to spend all the time, money, in some institutionalized program, where I have a questionably competent professor. Am I talking reinvention? Maybe a little, but more of a simplification, separation. A “new era” for me, indeed. One of the page, constant typing, writing…
Those students in the study room, doing anything but study. Just laughs. “We were just talking about how tan you are,” just heard one of the boys say to the returning girl, back from restroom visit.
Kerouac, the poet (not my son) in thoughts.. thinking he may be my new focus, maybe something to read with students in coming terms.. ‘On the Road’. I so very much want to be on the road, just for a week at a time. Here and there. Travel, Life, seeing, observing, recording. The stationary day sets will not be permitted in this “new era”. My ‘new era’ embodies rebellion, defiance of convention… POETRY… BOOKS… revolutionizing the Self-printing platform and plight. Publishers, I’m knowing now more than I ever have, are wildly evil. And they can be defeated by Us, small presses. And my journals will be the starting salvo in this period of my Life. What in here I look for.. affirmation, not from outside sources or articles, necessarily, but some kind of lens that assures me what I’m doing is needed. 8 days, one month, till 35. THIRTY. FIVE. Time, easily my greatest enemy, but it too will suffer tremendous setbacks in this “new era”. Hate that wording.. meant to be so profound, emphatic, when really it’s hyperbole– flabby and false. Allow me to hold, “Illustrating and cementing chapter”. And it’s been in motion for some time, as I’m tired of regularity, expectation set upon my character without my permission, or any sort of negotiation. Who do you think you are, fool, devil?
1:13PM. Wrote a poem, one easily destined for reading, recital. Think I’ll submit it tonight just for laughs. The poem is meant to capture me, in this library, my moments in this place that’s supposed to be quiet. But now that I’ve finished my criticism, I’m glad, quite pleased actually, that it’s anything but quiet. Talked mySelf out of the exhaustion I felt before ‘100’ and much of my presence here. Ready for lunch, some sustenance. And I think I’ll submit the poem right now, here from this fourth floor. The volume has declined, and I’m in better mind, finally.
Not submitting from here. Have to set up some account with an online submission manager and that could take a little time, so I should leave, go home, enjoy lunch and a nap. Then, ready Self for run up hills. Yesterday’s jog, or walk/jog, through Annadel/Spring Lake was so fruitful for my thinking. Need to enjoy that same course more frequently. And now, I make the leave. Should count Self-publishing funds once home. I know I’m over $300, which I said I wouldn’t do. So I’m stopping, sealing the envelope, and not digging it up till I have my MS printed, ready to truly publish. I’ve been in this circle for years, I was reminded last night reading entries from years ago. But in these new chapters, it stops. And I finally can begin.
8:14PM… As tired as I was all day today, and after the broken nap I took once home, I can’t believe how well I did with that Fountaingrove run today. No intervals this time, but a 2.25 out then back. So 4.5 total miles. I’m pleased, and that’s all that matters. I still very much plan on sending off the poem I wrote today in the library, and I begin a new log of my submissions. Sipping a Little Sumpin’, as I always am anymore when it comes to beer. I’ll open one of my wines for dinner pairing, but I need to stay alert, sharp in this ‘new era’ of MINE– like the beat generation; rebelling, confronting conformity at it stands so bold, sure of itself, convinced it’s so witty and invincible. And I start with this poetry collection. One title I thought of, while running up one of the first hills, was ‘Oblong Ode’. But anymore, I’m beginning to have an aversion to alliteration. And how poetic is it, really, in its obvious commercialized slouch?
Sipping my Merlot, so very re-laced. My story tonight, about the moment I’m in, as will be all my work in this new stupid era. I’m in a new character’s suit, and it feels lovely. That would be the reason this writer still sips. I won’t be in my late fifties, or sixties, just celebrating the publishing of a book-length work, a novel. Why, ask you.. as I publish my Self. I only need approval from myself. And I’m not like all other Self-printed penners.. I’m fanatical, extremist, militant. Publishers kill writing, except when the publisher is a writer, and his only Artist is himSelf.
The re-inventive chapters begin.. tonight, and tomorrow.