T-minus 10 days and counting to Molly's due date. Lots of folks have been saying that babies like to come out on the full moon. Here's to hoping that our little baby will be a werewolf then. Sue's been having on again off again contractions for about two weeks now, and we're both ready for Molly to just come out already. But, fortunately, the end is in sight.
Another fortunate end in sight is semester three of grad school. All around, this has been a really rough semester for me. My Extended Critical Essay drove me to the brink of insanity for several weeks, and with all the chaos of work, and baby, and sick cat, It's been awful hard to keep focused. But the end is near.
While the ECE did take up most of my semester, I have managed to finish one story, "Deconstructing Happily Ever After," as well as start two more. The latter two have been fizzling at the moment, but I think once all the dust settles from the baby and everything else going on, the both should pick up pretty fairly. The good news is that I'm rapidly closing in on completing all of the stories for the projected setlist of Not an Autobiography. I'm planning for 13 stories and I'm sitting at about 10 right now. With a good concerted effort, I may be able to push out the final three in conjunction to my Creative Thesis and use the whole book instead of just excerpts. We'll see, though.
Recently I finished reading Opium4. Great lit mag. If you haven't been to their site, check them out, http://www.opiummagazine.com I'm also nearly 2/3 through Maxx Barry's first novel, Syrup, which is a riot. Sue and the baby are enjoying it thoroughly as well.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Finding something
Note: This is a pretty long post, and it really doesn't go anywhere. I posted it more for myself than for you.
My Good Friend, Rod, posted this blog the other day, and I attempted his suggested exercise this morning. Clearly, something is wrong with me. Let me explain, I'm enchanted the idea that someday, somehow, I will achieve a zen-like state. And, truthfully, It's happened, and it's happened plenty of times. But it's the Zen-on-demand that I want (Hey, I'm American--I was brought up to expect to get what I want, when I want, If I want it). Kidding aside, though, I'd really like to get better at the grand scheme of calming the self. I get worked up (for good reasons and bad) far too easily, and then end up wasting a lot of time running the events over and over in my head, augmenting, changing things, until I end up either winning or losing whatever situation I'm currently obsessing over. When I used to walk to work, I'd spend my whole way there running shit by--medititating on mundinaeity, if you will.
Over the years, I've noticed that repetition breeds itself, and I'm really good at repetition. At work, I've spent days, brute force manually populating thousands of table records because no one else had the patience to do it. If repetition is involved, I'm infinitely patient, but at the same time, I'm stuck on it. And more unfortunately, I'm drawn to focus upon the bad repetitive moments of my life.
I've heard that horrible events imprint on your mind more easily than happy events because your mind becomes more active to try to deal with the horrible occurrence. And by the same action, it becomes less active during happy moments because there's no stress on the system; we feel safe when we're happy, and thus don't pay much attention then.
Sue's always telling me that I need to let go of my shit and pay more attention to the present. And she's very right. We're incredibly fortunate to be soon-t0-be parents, and furthermore blessed to have more than 2 friends thanks to all the great people I met at Spalding. But the nature of repetition comes with a definite drawback--repetition must always have an end point. You're always working towards some end or means. And such an assumed end point, causes the present, or the Journey, to steal from Rod's blog, to be obliterated under the weight of "the greater plan." And that end point, is always something a little ludicrous, a little idealistic, yet plausible. I want to write books and teach the writing of books; that is my end-point at this point in time. But the problem is that the end-point becomes the universal-problem-solver in the eyes of the man overtaken by repetition. It becomes too easy to say, "life will stop sucking once I reach my end point." And to say that, is to miss out on everything going on around you during the perceived time of suckyness.
I've spent the last several years fighting to break out of this cycle of grinding the millstone till I achieve x. First it was "I need a laptop so I can write more." Then it became "I need to go to grad school so I can write better." But in truth, I'm limiting myself. And Sue's been trying to tell me all along how much I limit myself by this sort of thinking. I just haven't been listening. And I'm sorry that I haven't. She's always right, you know, and I know it frustrates the hell out of her when I don't listen.
So I tried Rod's exercise today, both on the way to work and on the way home. I turned off the AC, rolled down the window, killed my radio (despite the fact it was playing some awesome music by Scarling), and I tried my damnedest to stay focused. I wasn't really successful. Work creeped in steadily. I also thought about Sue, and wondered when the baby would come, and tried to talk myself out of worrying about whether or not work would be ok while I took my Vacation time to be with the baby (of course work will be fine, but I have that horrible dedication gene that won't allow me to stop worrying that things won't be fine. (If I had a back up, I suppose I wouldn't worry so much, but out of my hands)). I also worried about some other stupid stuff--like stupid things I did five years ago or more. Point is, while trying to focus on driving, I thought about a lot of bad things, and not enough of the good things, and even less about my supposed focus on driving. All because I was driving towards a day that I perceived to be becoming "a bad day."
But nothing bad happened to me today. It was actually a fairly good day at work--I impressed the Executive Director with my automation, assisted a friend with some testing, and scored some free lunch (because Deb Rocks!). Then I got to come home to my wife, who is beautiful and loving, and so pregnant that it hurts (her). We both independently thought up "fish and chips" for dinner and enjoyed sharing brains for that moment. We snuggled whilst watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and shared mutual relief that our sick Chu is still peeing and hopefully on the mend. Now, I'm up here writing. This is a good day all around. In fact, it's pretty great, approaching grand, even. But yet, why would I assume otherwise from the get-go?
So what was the point of all of this? Why have I rambled on so long? Well, I guess I'm starting to understand what Sue's been saying all along. There is something more to life than the day-to-dailies. Something more than crossing things off an index card to-do list. Something more than going through the motions. I need to learn to embrace this "something more." To experience things in the moment, allow myself the emotional space to feel my actions and not just my fuckups.
My mind isn't quiet. And I'll never say that I lived a life without regrets, but I'm learning.
Rod, thanks for writing that blog, and suggesting the exercise.
Sue, thank you for being patient, and by my side. I love you very much.
My Good Friend, Rod, posted this blog the other day, and I attempted his suggested exercise this morning. Clearly, something is wrong with me. Let me explain, I'm enchanted the idea that someday, somehow, I will achieve a zen-like state. And, truthfully, It's happened, and it's happened plenty of times. But it's the Zen-on-demand that I want (Hey, I'm American--I was brought up to expect to get what I want, when I want, If I want it). Kidding aside, though, I'd really like to get better at the grand scheme of calming the self. I get worked up (for good reasons and bad) far too easily, and then end up wasting a lot of time running the events over and over in my head, augmenting, changing things, until I end up either winning or losing whatever situation I'm currently obsessing over. When I used to walk to work, I'd spend my whole way there running shit by--medititating on mundinaeity, if you will.
Over the years, I've noticed that repetition breeds itself, and I'm really good at repetition. At work, I've spent days, brute force manually populating thousands of table records because no one else had the patience to do it. If repetition is involved, I'm infinitely patient, but at the same time, I'm stuck on it. And more unfortunately, I'm drawn to focus upon the bad repetitive moments of my life.
I've heard that horrible events imprint on your mind more easily than happy events because your mind becomes more active to try to deal with the horrible occurrence. And by the same action, it becomes less active during happy moments because there's no stress on the system; we feel safe when we're happy, and thus don't pay much attention then.
Sue's always telling me that I need to let go of my shit and pay more attention to the present. And she's very right. We're incredibly fortunate to be soon-t0-be parents, and furthermore blessed to have more than 2 friends thanks to all the great people I met at Spalding. But the nature of repetition comes with a definite drawback--repetition must always have an end point. You're always working towards some end or means. And such an assumed end point, causes the present, or the Journey, to steal from Rod's blog, to be obliterated under the weight of "the greater plan." And that end point, is always something a little ludicrous, a little idealistic, yet plausible. I want to write books and teach the writing of books; that is my end-point at this point in time. But the problem is that the end-point becomes the universal-problem-solver in the eyes of the man overtaken by repetition. It becomes too easy to say, "life will stop sucking once I reach my end point." And to say that, is to miss out on everything going on around you during the perceived time of suckyness.
I've spent the last several years fighting to break out of this cycle of grinding the millstone till I achieve x. First it was "I need a laptop so I can write more." Then it became "I need to go to grad school so I can write better." But in truth, I'm limiting myself. And Sue's been trying to tell me all along how much I limit myself by this sort of thinking. I just haven't been listening. And I'm sorry that I haven't. She's always right, you know, and I know it frustrates the hell out of her when I don't listen.
So I tried Rod's exercise today, both on the way to work and on the way home. I turned off the AC, rolled down the window, killed my radio (despite the fact it was playing some awesome music by Scarling), and I tried my damnedest to stay focused. I wasn't really successful. Work creeped in steadily. I also thought about Sue, and wondered when the baby would come, and tried to talk myself out of worrying about whether or not work would be ok while I took my Vacation time to be with the baby (of course work will be fine, but I have that horrible dedication gene that won't allow me to stop worrying that things won't be fine. (If I had a back up, I suppose I wouldn't worry so much, but out of my hands)). I also worried about some other stupid stuff--like stupid things I did five years ago or more. Point is, while trying to focus on driving, I thought about a lot of bad things, and not enough of the good things, and even less about my supposed focus on driving. All because I was driving towards a day that I perceived to be becoming "a bad day."
But nothing bad happened to me today. It was actually a fairly good day at work--I impressed the Executive Director with my automation, assisted a friend with some testing, and scored some free lunch (because Deb Rocks!). Then I got to come home to my wife, who is beautiful and loving, and so pregnant that it hurts (her). We both independently thought up "fish and chips" for dinner and enjoyed sharing brains for that moment. We snuggled whilst watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and shared mutual relief that our sick Chu is still peeing and hopefully on the mend. Now, I'm up here writing. This is a good day all around. In fact, it's pretty great, approaching grand, even. But yet, why would I assume otherwise from the get-go?
So what was the point of all of this? Why have I rambled on so long? Well, I guess I'm starting to understand what Sue's been saying all along. There is something more to life than the day-to-dailies. Something more than crossing things off an index card to-do list. Something more than going through the motions. I need to learn to embrace this "something more." To experience things in the moment, allow myself the emotional space to feel my actions and not just my fuckups.
My mind isn't quiet. And I'll never say that I lived a life without regrets, but I'm learning.
Rod, thanks for writing that blog, and suggesting the exercise.
Sue, thank you for being patient, and by my side. I love you very much.
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