Egon Spengler once proclaimed, "Print is dead." And as much as I revere his contributions to society, I see that my life has been an unintentional riposte to that assertion. Admittedly, not always sharp, but always quick.
My reader tendencies veer from snobby (anger at e-readers) to all-inclusive (Linda Lael Miller is as valid as Frederick Exley).
The bottom line of my pursuit of a graduate degree in writing is to clamor at a huge opportunity to remedy and therefore become more familiar with my own ignorance. To learn more what all there is to be done, to try, that I never would have considered or imagined.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
10:13a
This morning I dreamt I was in a cemetery and a wedding party was gathered/walking there. It was raining, about to be a huge storm, and I believe I had some sort of marriage or engagement to my own father. Survey says:
Wedding
To see or attend a wedding in your dream symbolizes a new beginning or transition in your current life. A wedding reflects your issues about commitment and independence. Alternatively, your wedding dream refers to feelings of bitterness, sorrow, or death. Such dreams are often negative and highlight some anxiety or fear.
Wedding
To see or attend a wedding in your dream symbolizes a new beginning or transition in your current life. A wedding reflects your issues about commitment and independence. Alternatively, your wedding dream refers to feelings of bitterness, sorrow, or death. Such dreams are often negative and highlight some anxiety or fear.
Cemetery
To dream that you are in a cemetery indicates an end to a habit or behavior. You are experiencing a rebirth. More directly, the dream may symbolize sadness, unresolved grief or your fears about death.
To dream that you are in a cemetery indicates an end to a habit or behavior. You are experiencing a rebirth. More directly, the dream may symbolize sadness, unresolved grief or your fears about death.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Chatham Statement Draft 1:57p
Sheryl St. Germain's memoir Swamp Songs is an excellent example of the pride of place. No matter what your neighborhood looks like, it indelibly imprints upon a person's perceptions, beliefs, prejudices. In Senior Portfolio, Professor Robin Metz assigned Swamp Songs to be read in conjunction with students writing their authorial autobiography. One of his famous lines is, "Everywhere is the center of the world. No matter where you come from, or how unimportant, boring it may seem to you, it's the center of the world."
Monday, October 7, 2013
CYN YAY! 4:06p
Cyn just told me:
- She would write me a rec!!!
- She feels that I'm a great candidate
- My constant analysis of my place and my writings' place is great!
- My time in real world is great!
HOLY SMOKE!
Letter of Rec Instructions 3:17p
Once your professor has agreed to write a letter, download and complete the Request for Faculty Recommendation Form, or write a cover letter that explains exactly what the letter is for, where it is to be sent, and what the deadline is. (Remember to include your telephone number and email address in case your professor has any questions.)
•Attach the following to the form or cover letter (please note, specific documentation may vary among the faculty, best to ask what each wants):
◦Any forms that must accompany the letter. You should complete as much as possible on your own.
◦Any brochures or handouts that describe the program, position, or award.
◦A résumé that includes your educational and employment background, and a copy of your Educational Development Record (EDR).
◦A statement reminding your professor of all the supportive things he or she could say about you. In what ways have you exceeded academic expectations? What relevant extra-curricular projects are you involved in? What specific examples can your professor cite?
◦A statement of purpose, if you are applying for a program or position, explaining why you should be chosen and what you hope to accomplish.
◦A sample of your best work, preferably work that the professor has commented on before.
◦A stamp (faculty prefer to use envelopes with college letterhead).
In general, most of us want the following:
1) Your resume, and an EDR or unofficial transcript or list of courses taken at Knox (with faculty listed, that would be great—especially in the English Department), We need to be reminded of the work we did together and what you did while here that we might highlight specifically.
2) A copy of your statement of purpose.
3) A copy of whatever writing sample they ask you for (if this is different for different schools, note so in a list or letter somewhere so we don't refer to a story that half of the places don't have).
4) Any forms required by the graduate programs, if any. Please waive your right to the confidential letter. Schools look down upon non-confidential recommendations.
5) A list of addresses and deadlines. If you are feeling really ambitious, mailing labels would be great too! (We write a lot of envelopes and our poor hands get tired.) Increasingly, many programs require online letters, which is fine by most of us, but we still need everything in order. As well, if you are applying to different programs or different degrees, you should let us know here—for instance, if one is an MA, another an MFA in Fiction, another an PhD in Literature with Creative Dissertation—and also clarify what genre you are applying in, if the writing sample doesn't make that clear.
6) Your contact information (should we have a question or need to send something back to you). If you are traveling during the holidays, we’ll also need alternate information as many of are at work on these letters while you all are celebrating the festive months.
7) Enough stamps for the envelopes. Even if online, some of us still send a hardcopy. If you send envelopes, do not attach the stamp; most of us will use Knox stationary and it kills us to have to waste the postage.
8) Unless physically impossible, all of this should be received in hardcopy no later than six weeks prior to your first deadline. We can't get these things piecemeal. Make a folder with everything in order for all the schools. Most of us spend most of December doing this, even if you have later deadlines.
Don’t forget, too, to keep us updated as news comes in. We worry so. And, gosh, a thank you note might be nice. Or a donation to Knox College’s Department of English, in our honor. A small token. We’ll remember.
Statement of Purpose advice 3:13p
A Statement of Purpose
Your statement of purpose is, perhaps, the second most important part of your application. Please do not write about your profound love of writing, which is not only universal among applicants, but irrelevant to your success as a graduate student. Be sure to get help—the best statements go through many revisions.
In your statement, you want to communicate that you’re an excellent writer and that you can follow directions (by which we mean that you stick to the word count and answer the questions, somehow). Above all else, the statement is a writing sample. Make it a good one. This statement is a chance for you to show off your skills in a different genre than the one in which you are applying. They’re looking for how well you understand metaphor, the relationship of the writer to what is written and what is read. Take a risk with this statement—you’ve got nothing to lose. The best statements are surprising, gutsy, and honest. They answer the requisite questions through image, experience, allusion. They are often indirect, implicit, and gorgeously crafted.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Story? 11:35p
Give me an explanation of the tale of The Prodigal Son. I haven't read the bible but I know that story. I ask a lot of people about it, and it's never the same. It's either what they were told the meaning was, or the p.c. answer. What's p.c. about the bible? But I guess it's like any story. Ask two people to explain it and it's never, it's vastly, different appearances. Like two people witnessing a car accident. When I was a kid our neighbors had emus, briefly. I remember them looking adolescent, Mom remembers them as being chatty. My sister never talks about them. She barely remembers. But seriously, give me your take on that story. That story.
I'm elbow-deep in soft scrubby water, scrubbing the bathtub with my magic eraser. If I can get it as close to shine as possible I'll make Mom happy. She takes a bath every Sunday morning. Viola (sister) and I switch cleaning the bathroom Saturdays. It's Saturday, and I am elbow-deep. Got the faucet running cold water to die down the suds, but the water won't drain because V's long black hair clogs. Every goddam day with her hair. I walk in the bathroom to take my shower, there's a loose mesh of black hair on the bottom. I wipe it up and toss it. Shower. The water doesn't drain, so I stick my fingers down the drain to pick out more. I go through nail polish and Liquid Plumr a motherfucker.
The first year back from college my sister didn't speak to me because she was pissed she had to share a bathroom again. Even though she's the pig--she's got this brown, gritty facial mask. It's on the mirror, it's on the walls, in the tub, on the tile floor. Apparently this is okay?
Every Saturday it's my turn to clean I get angry at her empty bottles. Two empty bottles of contact cleanser. Old box of hair dye with the plastic gloves and empty mix bottles inside. Used tissues. Bottle of conditioner with a cunt hair's worth of product left. Open case of vaseline. We grew up in the same house, but Mom's persnick cleanliness negatively affected my sister? Or maybe Dad's laissez-faire attitude about anything next to and/or godliness was dominant. So I clean around her trash and leave it. If you can't fucking part with your garbage, you can have it.
I've thought about murdering my sister. At least, beating the shit out of her. Face to fucking face and knocking her down on the wood floors. Using her hair like handlebars, ramming her head onto the floor. Blood oozing from her mouth and coating her teeth. Kneeling on her waifish chest and ribs. Strangulation. I would watch those fucking eyes, so insolent and sneering, turn into fishbowl shape. Dilated Black Moors. Also referred to as a popeye.
But then I realized how much it would hurt my mother. How I would be the villain and V the irreproachable martyr. That boils me worse than V, herself. A lifetime of reading people's faces. Their faces a royal oil portrait of my sister: gorgeous, remote, misunderstood, beloved.
So then I thought about something happening to her. She's a stock car driver in a jankety ass Ford Focus. It wouldn't be that far off for her to crash and croak. Alas, I envisioned the same result. Mom woebegone; focus forever on her memory. And memories of the dead often fib. Enhancing, positive prejudice. I can't have that.
So ultimately my hope is that she does something so terrible, ridiculously selfish and mean that my mother would have to despise her. Of course, afterward my mother would doubtless blame herself and stick in that for eternity. But at least V would be gone.
As much as I never want a hint of harm to come to my mother, I wish her pregnancy with Viola had been so detrimental to her health that she'd have been forced to abort.
It could just be us. Me and Mom. Dad could stay, too. Even now, with my sister still very much alive and involved, it always runs better when she's out with friends or at her therapy sessions. I get time alone with Mom to talk about anything, laugh always, sit in calm quietude. But when Viola is here, she sticks to my mother like glue and gets irritated if I ever talk. She doesn't understand my life and is disinterested in the evidence of it. She's always fucking up and never taking any suggestions or careful thought. She doesn't learn.
She smokes fucking menthols. It's okay when Snoop does it, but that box of V's fucking Marlboro Menthols drives me insane. Menthols.
Of course, she could've been born a thorn in my side, or it could be that my parents equally enable her shiteousness. She gets arrested for shoplifting at Sephora? One night of anger, the next day nothing. She flunks out of school and burns up $10,000 of Dad's money by sleeping all the time and not feeling like meeting people or trying? It's unspoken. She doesn't speak to me for a year over a goddamn square yard of space? Okay. "We can't get involved; it breaks our hearts." Two car accidents in one week? "As long as you're okay, we're okay." And I get chided over exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!" in a moment of disgust.
I mean what's the worst thing I ever did? Become a rabid pro-wrestling fan. Trashy, low-rent, absurd, tacky. Watch Happy Days as a kid. Enjoy my Chirgilchin CD. Love the History Channel. You're a dork, darling. You're a nerd. Nerd. Dork. Lunatic. Loon. Buttock. I'm the son that did everything by the book, and you know what happens to him.
I mean I'm such a paranoid goodie-good I can't even smoke weed anymore. It's a rocketship to Anxiety Moon. I give youth a bad name.
Ultimately, I wish V hadn't been born. That would erase any possibility of my mom feeling pain. But wishes.
A theory: Because I despise my sister so much, there is much I have to learn from her being my sibling.
But the reality. I wish.
The Secret describes the law of attraction: that your personality becomes the average of the people you surround yourself with. This kind of claptrap certainly applies to those with a personality the consistency of sculpey. Or, to further the craft imagery--are like shrinky dinks. Look them up if you don't know. Hours of fun with your toaster oven. Draw a cartoon character on this dink paper. Microwave. Clip a hole through it and the newly-rigid plastic attaches perfectly to your keychain.
I'm elbow-deep in soft scrubby water, scrubbing the bathtub with my magic eraser. If I can get it as close to shine as possible I'll make Mom happy. She takes a bath every Sunday morning. Viola (sister) and I switch cleaning the bathroom Saturdays. It's Saturday, and I am elbow-deep. Got the faucet running cold water to die down the suds, but the water won't drain because V's long black hair clogs. Every goddam day with her hair. I walk in the bathroom to take my shower, there's a loose mesh of black hair on the bottom. I wipe it up and toss it. Shower. The water doesn't drain, so I stick my fingers down the drain to pick out more. I go through nail polish and Liquid Plumr a motherfucker.
The first year back from college my sister didn't speak to me because she was pissed she had to share a bathroom again. Even though she's the pig--she's got this brown, gritty facial mask. It's on the mirror, it's on the walls, in the tub, on the tile floor. Apparently this is okay?
Every Saturday it's my turn to clean I get angry at her empty bottles. Two empty bottles of contact cleanser. Old box of hair dye with the plastic gloves and empty mix bottles inside. Used tissues. Bottle of conditioner with a cunt hair's worth of product left. Open case of vaseline. We grew up in the same house, but Mom's persnick cleanliness negatively affected my sister? Or maybe Dad's laissez-faire attitude about anything next to and/or godliness was dominant. So I clean around her trash and leave it. If you can't fucking part with your garbage, you can have it.
I've thought about murdering my sister. At least, beating the shit out of her. Face to fucking face and knocking her down on the wood floors. Using her hair like handlebars, ramming her head onto the floor. Blood oozing from her mouth and coating her teeth. Kneeling on her waifish chest and ribs. Strangulation. I would watch those fucking eyes, so insolent and sneering, turn into fishbowl shape. Dilated Black Moors. Also referred to as a popeye.
But then I realized how much it would hurt my mother. How I would be the villain and V the irreproachable martyr. That boils me worse than V, herself. A lifetime of reading people's faces. Their faces a royal oil portrait of my sister: gorgeous, remote, misunderstood, beloved.
So then I thought about something happening to her. She's a stock car driver in a jankety ass Ford Focus. It wouldn't be that far off for her to crash and croak. Alas, I envisioned the same result. Mom woebegone; focus forever on her memory. And memories of the dead often fib. Enhancing, positive prejudice. I can't have that.
So ultimately my hope is that she does something so terrible, ridiculously selfish and mean that my mother would have to despise her. Of course, afterward my mother would doubtless blame herself and stick in that for eternity. But at least V would be gone.
As much as I never want a hint of harm to come to my mother, I wish her pregnancy with Viola had been so detrimental to her health that she'd have been forced to abort.
It could just be us. Me and Mom. Dad could stay, too. Even now, with my sister still very much alive and involved, it always runs better when she's out with friends or at her therapy sessions. I get time alone with Mom to talk about anything, laugh always, sit in calm quietude. But when Viola is here, she sticks to my mother like glue and gets irritated if I ever talk. She doesn't understand my life and is disinterested in the evidence of it. She's always fucking up and never taking any suggestions or careful thought. She doesn't learn.
She smokes fucking menthols. It's okay when Snoop does it, but that box of V's fucking Marlboro Menthols drives me insane. Menthols.
Of course, she could've been born a thorn in my side, or it could be that my parents equally enable her shiteousness. She gets arrested for shoplifting at Sephora? One night of anger, the next day nothing. She flunks out of school and burns up $10,000 of Dad's money by sleeping all the time and not feeling like meeting people or trying? It's unspoken. She doesn't speak to me for a year over a goddamn square yard of space? Okay. "We can't get involved; it breaks our hearts." Two car accidents in one week? "As long as you're okay, we're okay." And I get chided over exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!" in a moment of disgust.
I mean what's the worst thing I ever did? Become a rabid pro-wrestling fan. Trashy, low-rent, absurd, tacky. Watch Happy Days as a kid. Enjoy my Chirgilchin CD. Love the History Channel. You're a dork, darling. You're a nerd. Nerd. Dork. Lunatic. Loon. Buttock. I'm the son that did everything by the book, and you know what happens to him.
I mean I'm such a paranoid goodie-good I can't even smoke weed anymore. It's a rocketship to Anxiety Moon. I give youth a bad name.
Ultimately, I wish V hadn't been born. That would erase any possibility of my mom feeling pain. But wishes.
A theory: Because I despise my sister so much, there is much I have to learn from her being my sibling.
But the reality. I wish.
The Secret describes the law of attraction: that your personality becomes the average of the people you surround yourself with. This kind of claptrap certainly applies to those with a personality the consistency of sculpey. Or, to further the craft imagery--are like shrinky dinks. Look them up if you don't know. Hours of fun with your toaster oven. Draw a cartoon character on this dink paper. Microwave. Clip a hole through it and the newly-rigid plastic attaches perfectly to your keychain.
1:36p
Here's the thing with the love I'd like.
A man who doesn't cotton to technology. A self-assured man with nothing to prove. An earnest man. A laid back man. An odd man. A man who challenges me. A man. Old school - not that misogyny, repressed crap. Just anti-world-in-a-big-damn-hurry type. Sees the absurdity around. Open-minded. Understanding. Humble. Laughing. Kind. Gentle. Strong. Someone who doesn't see me as a load, but as a worthwhile challenge.
In other words, a tall order.
This guy I'm kind of dating now, is just a nice guy. Attentive and occasionally humorous. Looks like a TALL little boy. Hmm. I don't see this going much of anywhere other than fun evenings.
I basically don't want to do any of the legwork to finding someone. I don't want to be looking, I just want to come upon this person. How does that sound. Who cares.
I'd just rather not hunt around blah blah blah. I don't like the whole dating game. It's so stupid. I want to run into this guy.
A man who doesn't cotton to technology. A self-assured man with nothing to prove. An earnest man. A laid back man. An odd man. A man who challenges me. A man. Old school - not that misogyny, repressed crap. Just anti-world-in-a-big-damn-hurry type. Sees the absurdity around. Open-minded. Understanding. Humble. Laughing. Kind. Gentle. Strong. Someone who doesn't see me as a load, but as a worthwhile challenge.
In other words, a tall order.
This guy I'm kind of dating now, is just a nice guy. Attentive and occasionally humorous. Looks like a TALL little boy. Hmm. I don't see this going much of anywhere other than fun evenings.
I basically don't want to do any of the legwork to finding someone. I don't want to be looking, I just want to come upon this person. How does that sound. Who cares.
I'd just rather not hunt around blah blah blah. I don't like the whole dating game. It's so stupid. I want to run into this guy.
Friday, October 4, 2013
5:00p
Hmm.
I vacuumed and shampooed my car. Yes.
I got out of work at 1. Yes.
I went to Jewel and picked up extras we need. Yes.
I have Date #2 tonight. Getting nervous. It will be okay.
I am watching Girls and therefore am feeling anxious. I come down on the side of Lena Dunham. She does an excellent job of openmouthedly documenting us. White people. Young people. Privileged people. "Intellectual" people. People. Liars. Honestly.
Going to go back to app-ing and calling Cyn.
I vacuumed and shampooed my car. Yes.
I got out of work at 1. Yes.
I went to Jewel and picked up extras we need. Yes.
I have Date #2 tonight. Getting nervous. It will be okay.
I am watching Girls and therefore am feeling anxious. I come down on the side of Lena Dunham. She does an excellent job of openmouthedly documenting us. White people. Young people. Privileged people. "Intellectual" people. People. Liars. Honestly.
Going to go back to app-ing and calling Cyn.
12:49p
Fontana and child favorites.
Went to speak with Lynne last night with painful results RE Esther Krylon's shitbag workflow. Lynne is SUCH a conniving scum. Of course, I'm a tattletale. BUT! What was I supposed to do? Let it continue? Well I suppose I could have. But that's not my style.
Went to speak with Lynne last night with painful results RE Esther Krylon's shitbag workflow. Lynne is SUCH a conniving scum. Of course, I'm a tattletale. BUT! What was I supposed to do? Let it continue? Well I suppose I could have. But that's not my style.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
4:18p
Oddddddd words from Dir. Robbins: reading O Magazine. Without eye contact he tells me that he's found the source of happiness in his life, just as O promised. O made him feel that perfect happiness. "But enjoy it while it lasts, which is only five minutes."
... I just wanted a cup of coffee. Hold the vague ersatz profundity, Buster.
... I just wanted a cup of coffee. Hold the vague ersatz profundity, Buster.
MFA Bib
BROWN//C.D. Wright (frank stanford) More Blues and the Abstract Truth
SPALDING//Silas House (Cyn Kitchen; Neela Vaswani) Clay's Quilt
MADISON//Lorrie Moore (BTS) ***find short story***
TUSCALOOSA//Michael Martone (Sam M)
SPALDING//Silas House (Cyn Kitchen; Neela Vaswani) Clay's Quilt
MADISON//Lorrie Moore (BTS) ***find short story***
TUSCALOOSA//Michael Martone (Sam M)
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
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