I believe that not then, not later, but now
is when my life is beginning. I believe
that this year feels like it will suck,
so that is probably what will make it amazing.
I believe that I am not who I thought I was;
I believe that I have never been more terrified of anything
than I am of myself right now. I believe
my happiness depends on what I do to achieve it,
so I should stop sitting around, waiting for it to happen.
I believe that this is where I belong, even if sometimes
it’s a painful place to be. I believe that I am more positive
than negative, even if outwardly I seem the opposite.
I believe in magic again, and in religion, and in mermaids.
I believe in how strong I am, and in withstanding things. I believe
we can all always try harder. I believe the world will clear itself up
by the time I’m ready to conquer it; I believe I am equipped
to handle that. I believe in my friends and in how new ones
can always surprise me. I believe my friends humble me.
I believe in leaving some things behind, and I believe
I am getting better at that. I believe in my mind—I think.
I believe that holding grudges isn’t always a bad thing;
I believe that some people don’t deserve me, and that
others don’t need me, and that others I’ve pushed away.
I believe that I’ve gotten more than I deserved, but I also believe
that I don’t always get what I should.
I believe I am a bit of a harlot, and that bothers me.
I believe that I’m impatient, and I believe I’m going to have to keep waiting.
I believe that I understand language emotionally, and not cognitively; I believe that
often I get too much credit. I believe in
my bookshelves. I believe in my Facebook. I believe in
swimming pools, and I feel as if I am standing
on a diving board, bouncing, nearly ready
to take off.
Creed ‘09-’10
the living’s uneasy/summer reading #4
All day long, I either read or watch movies. I’ve started working out because I’ve gained an inconceivable amount of weight, but even then, I read. It’s becoming very exhausting, though it could just be that I need to change my contacts. When I take a break from those two things, I flit about, pretending to write or pretending to clean or pretending to pack.
And the voices, they’re getting louder. I want to talk to somebody. Really bad. A good conversation, especially one at night, makes me less uneasy. Uneasy seems a constant state for me. I wonder if I can even add the “un” if I’m so comfortable being it.
I also miss encyclopedias. I adore Wikipedia, but I also miss being able to look at something for research and be able to see it and what I’m writing at the same time, instead of switching from Firefox to Word all the time.
Here’s the latest batch of books I’ve finished.
1. Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk To Other Poems, edited by Kurt Brown and Harold Schechter. I loved this book the second I saw the title, because it’s what I love about poetry. And this collection pairs each poem with the poem it mimics, responds to, makes fun of, or expands upon, so it’s at once an anthology of those famous poems that you should know (“La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “This Is Just To Say”) and current poets (Kimiko Hahn and Meg Kearney are my favorites, since they were NBFers). And the book is just well put together, doing a good job at including writers of different genders, historical periods, ethnic backgrounds, and nationalities. It was a great vacation companion, and I read a few poems almost every night while I was away.
2. Sleeping With Schubert by Bonnie Marson. I really wanted to read this book for a few reasons: a) I wanted to read something by a local writer; b) my former boss suggested I read it; c) after seeing the play “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” I have a bit of composer fever; and d) the concept was similar to the novel I started working on recently, so when I read the blurb about this book, it sounded like it could either be a very good thing (inspiration and all) or a very bad thing (finding out my idea was already done exactly how I was going to do it). Reading it had neither of those results. Somehow, Marson never learned that whole “show, don’t tell” thing, and I just didn’t buy a lot of the story. The most interesting parts weren’t really fleshed out, and it read too much like chick lit trying to be literature. Not the best it could have been, but certainly interesting, and fun enough if you’re into classical music history.
3. Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace. I had the most beautiful old editions of these books when I was younger, and I stupidly got rid of them. Now I’m trying to replace them. So I realized that for the past few summers, I have devoted some of my reading to rediscovering children’s series. Last year, it was Little House. The year before that, it was Harry Potter (because I wanted to be prepared for the final book). Since I only ever read the first few books, when Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are all young, I have decided I’m going to start from the beginning and read all the way through. They’re some of the most fabulous children’s books of all time, and Betsy Ray definitely helped me want to become a writer, as well as made me feel at home with another child who loved to make up her own games. Plus, I need a break from all the heavier reading I’m doing.
4. Not a Matter of Love by Beth Alvarado. This spring, Beth earned a place as probably my second-favorite fiction teacher that I’ve had, just after Norma Fox Mazer. They have these honors for different reasons, but still. Beth was an excellent teacher, so obviously I wanted to read what she’d written. This short story collection felt first very familiar to me, and I loved that it was Tucson, because the only other Tucson book I can remember is The Bean Trees, and that was just terrible. Strangely, this was my Tucson and then it really, really wasn’t. Drugs and drug culture elude me; maybe it’s spoiled to say so. But what I really appreciated this collection for, aside from just well-written, good stories, was how Beth handled interracial marriages and relationships, biracial children, and bicultural communities. That really doesn’t happen enough in stories, and it almost never happens without it being the only (or major) plot device. Isn’t it funny how I’m always bringing that up?
those things with lots of pieces of paper bound together…
This is somewhat embarrassing.
I just counted the unread books in my room, like ones I own but have not yet picked up, and if I counted correctly, it’s about 57.
In my defense, I own many, many, many more books than that, so it’s not like I haven’t read anything. I just don’t read enough to keep up with my habit of buying books or with my habit of wanting to read books. I’m trying to catch up with classics that I never read, but I’m also trying to keep abreast of what’s going on in contemporary literature, both in YA (I try really hard to believe in the genre, though it’s hard, and I think calling it a genre is sort of stupid) and adult fiction. And then I also try to keep up with authors I like by reading more of their books, which is a sort of bad thing to do when you’re trying to read a lot of stuff. It sucks to find an author you like and can’t get enough of. :-p Then, the other thing I try and do is increase my exposure to different types of writing to work on my craft. So I need to read more short stories, because I’m terrible at those, and I like to read poetry, but it takes really long to finish just one book and feel like you’ve gotten anything significant out of it.
As if that number above isn’t bad enough, my to-read list (you can click on that link on the right that says “my bookshelf”) totals 182*. And it only gets higher every time I finish a book.
This semester burned me out so much, I can no longer remember how to just kick back with a book and read for a really long period of time. And I don’t remember how long it takes me to finish one. But I’m going to venture a guess, and I’m going to challenge myself to finish at least 30 books this summer. I have an abridged list taken from the 57 and the 182 of the ones most important to me to read now rather than later. This includes books that are being made into movies (Youth In Revolt), books by people I know and/or who have taught me in writing workshops (Not A Matter of Love, The Narrow Road Into the Interior), books that were gifts (La Hojarasca), classics/famous books (Oliver Twist, Balthazar, de Sade’s Justine), and books by Tucsonans (Sleeping With Schubert, History Lesson for Girls). So it’s a quite daunting task, but I’m excited. I will take books with me everywhere: to the science class I have to take starting on Monday, to Uruguay, to haircuts, to work, to the rec center, to my parents’ house. Reading has to be the main event for the summer, trumping friends and movies and mooning about boys who don’t like me back. It will even take precedence over writing, I think, just a little. There’s only so much honing of a craft you can do if you don’t read, and I am so, so behind in my reading. I’ve missed it so much.
I’ll take some book recommendations, if you have them, but please look and see if they’re already on my list, and only make them if they’re going to change my life. If you know me well, you know that very small, random things can change my life, but still. Recommendations with a grain of salt. And be advised that I may not be able to get to them for a long time, but they’ll go on my goodreads, and since the Internet never dies, I’ll never forget that I’m going to read them.
I’ll be blogging about my reading. And my travels. Please read. Or tell someone else to. I get lonely when I don’t feel encouraged. :-p
This starts now. Because as of about an hour and a half ago, this semester left my hands. Done. Time for grades.
*And then I remembered my Amazon wishlist, and I added all the books there to my to-read list as well. 200. Hooray!
billy collins doesn’t like me
The first annual Tucson Festival of Books was this weekend. Saturday I went for pleasure, Sunday I went as a volunteer. It was a pretty great event–not perfect, but especially awesome for the first year. I, dork that I am, went on Saturday dressed in my Marcus Flutie shirt, and Megan McCafferty definitely noticed it when she signed my book. It was sweet. She also spoke for an hour about writing, and like any good author does (Megan McCafferty and Rachel Cohn are hands down the best current YA writers, though technically Megan is an adult writer–another reason why she’s an awesome YA writer, if you can understand me), made me want to get back to my writing. Too bad it’s still lost on that broken harddrive in my bottom drawer 
Still, it was a wonderful event. I now have a New York Times t-shirt. Very useful, I know. I also have a tent of a volunteer shirt from yesterday, which I promptly took off because it was too hard to move my arms in a men’s large. AND I have various other goodies, like Bookman’s tote bags. Whatever.
The Billy Collins reading was fabulous. Too bad the audience wasn’t. I have a huge problem with annoying audiences, and I feel like often, baby boomers are incredibly annoying to sit near. My parents are baby boomers, and they’re not obnoxious, but I think it’s inappropriate to continually guffaw at every other line of a poem, even if it is funny. This isn’t a comedy club, and though it’s one thing to chuckle or laugh occasionally, cracking up at everything that was even slightly funny meant a) I wanted to smack lots and lots of people and b) I couldn’t hear the next line of the effing poem. Shut up, people. But who cares, because Collins still writes great stuff, and his voice is awesome. I was wondering why it sounded familiar and then it hit me: Kevin Spacey. I’m not sure if Collins’ life is interesting enough for a biopic, but if it is, Spacey must play him. They have the exact same voice. Same monotony, same dry, wry way of being funny. Awesome.
His interjections about his poems were kind of the best part. Writers are some of the most interesting people to speak, especially poets, because you’re so used to ascribing your own voice to their work. I was actually surprised to find him so funny, not because I missed seeing the humor in his poems, but just because I read them as wry, not direct humor. He had two that I think are as yet unpublished, one called “Migraine” or “Hangover,” he said, depending on what feeling you’re more familiar with, that was hilarious, and another about the phrase that has already been kicked out of slang standing for “OMG,” which was a clever poem, but I think it needs work because he had to explain quite a lot of it before he actually read the few lines. But it was funny. Like a joke. Then it was okay to laugh. But other times, I think chuckling would have been far less annoying.
So afterwards I stood in line, which was also annoying, because it made me think of the Jason Mraz concert and about how famous people tend to get snobby and forget how to be gracious. I understand that it’s more efficient to have your book open to the page that needs to be signed, but sticking a post-it with my name in it seemed a bit much, and even more was the “volunteers” who took my book from me and opened it. I have had a book signed before, thanks. I’ve also read a book before, and I know what a title page is, thanks.
But again, who cares, right? Billy Collins. But I think he hates me. He saw my name, and he informed me that it was the same backwards and forwards, and we both acknowledged that it was a palindrome. I really like it when people tell me that about my name, because I’ve never written it before, so I would never have noticed. He said, “I’m going to show you the best palindrome,” and I was pretty excited, because a poet was going to tell me something, and not only is he a former poet laureate (I think you get to always keep the title, kind of like president) but he also has a PhD. so he starts writing “I love m–” and I go, “I love me, volume one.” (Spelled “I love me, vol. I,” it is a pretty sweet palindrome that is also the title of a book of palindromes.)
So he looks up and goes, “Oh. You’ve heard it.”
Oops. So much for being gracious. Foot in mouth, poet laureate crossed off list of future friends.
Still, a pretty wonderful festival over all. Can’t wait till I’m a guest there.
hello, muse; nice to have you back
Just before noon, I rode my bicycle back to campus for choir and French. As I got to a stoplight, I started hearing a little melody in my head, and some good harmony for it. I couldn’t tell if it was a song I just couldn’t remember the words for, or if it was something I was making up. I hate that. After I passed the light and I was on campus, lyrics came to me as well. I had all but one line for the hook I had come up with, so I put a sort of cliché placeholder in, but it may stay.
I’m pretty sure that this song doesn’t exist. I hope it doesn’t. I love this chorus, and at some point I will write the verses. It’s a little “The Chain”-like, but I’m thinking that’s mostly because it’s a waltz, and all waltzes sound somewhat the same. There’re just common progressions that tend to occur.
It feels good to be creative. I’m editing one of my short stories at the moment, and that also feels good. I’d rather not write my paper or read the surely crappy short stories I have to for my fiction workshop tomorrow, but as of now, I don’t have to work at Safe Ride for a week, so my nights are mine. Just two more days and it’s a long weekend, where I will be housesitting on the edge of town in a gorgeous, artistic house. I can’t wait for more inspiration to hit me. And I may go diving into old journals and old, old poems. It’s so good to be a writer again.
——
Also, a cute email I received from my uncle:
i got a man and he’s so good to me, la la la la
For once, being happy isn’t killing my writing. My knuckles ache tonight, and I’m nowhere near done with my story. I need to finish the whole thing, or at least a good chunk, to send to my discussion group for tomorrow. Procrastinating is obviously still a demon in my life, but at least I’m writing now. It’s been so long since I’ve felt like this, having so many ideas in my head I have to keep switching from this story to that journal to that list and so on… It feels so good to be overwhelmed with ideas. Ever since my computer crashed this summer, even starting to write felt depressing. I found no joy with it. Now it’s coming back.
It helps that I had a really good advising session today. My music advisor is an asshole, so I prefer to email him rather than meet with him. But I’m required to go the English office for advising for my creative writing minor, otherwise I can’t register for classes, so today I went. I had the session with the guy who was just made head of the department, and he’s also my fiction professor, and we ended up having a good conversation. As a result, I’m taking far more English classes than I originally planned for next semester. I have priority registration on Sunday, and at the moment there are about 7 classes in the Excel schedule I’ve been making. I’ll have to drop some, but I just can’t decide which ones, because they’re all great. I will also have a Tuesday/Thursday-heavy schedule for once, instead of the other way around, and I should be done really early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. All of a sudden, life is good. Even my concussion and my neck are healing.
The story I’m writing now I’ve had in my head forever. It usually takes me a good year or two to write a story I’ve memorized in my head. So I knew exactly what the interesting points were, some of the lines of dialogue, the visuals, the motifs, the theme, etc. But as I’m writing now, I’m seeing all of my anxieties transfer on. I think they still work with the story, but I’m not sure, because I feel so overcome by them right now. This is the first week I’ve been able to say this phrase, and I’m having a lot of trouble with it: “My boyfriend.” It’s on Facebook, so it’s real, and apparently when someone requests to change your relationship status, you get a message that says “[Name] requests that you add him as your boyfriend.” I beamed, as if it were a personal message from him to me. I’m a little bit of a freak.
I really want to say that phrase, because it’s like a really tempting slice of cake. A cake that you’ve seen in the window for days and you really want to eat, and then finally you get to buy it (and it’s just magically not stale, days later) and eat it. But you’re scared to eat it, because it’s probably about ten million calories. And I’m scared to say it, because I don’t want to go and rush things like I always do. I shouldn’t be, because it’s true. It has to be. He decided it to be so, and I wanted it, and when both parties want and one decides, it becomes fact. But if you eat the cake, it will never, ever taste as good as you imagined, and you’ll probably feel gross after you finish, because you just ate diabetes. I don’t want to seem overly happy or rub him in anyone’s face, even accidentally, because I hate it when people do that around me. But I’m just so giddy about the fact. On my superficial level, I just want to shout it from the rooftops because I’m just so damn happy about it. And on a serious level, I just feel good about myself and him.
I finished my Creed for this year today. It took me weeks to write, which has never happened. I don’t know what that means.
bee-tea-dubs, the title of this entry comes from a santana song featuring mary j. blige, sleepy brown, and big boi, called “my man.” and it’s actually good, so you should listen to it.
