I Don't Like Surprises (Apparently) (Unless They Involve Puppies. Puppies are Cool)

This week has been a strange one. Actually, the month has been a little strange thus far. As per usual, I had "big plans" for January -- lots of writing, reading, and preparation for the spring semester, along with getting my household in order.

Also as per usual, too, none of that happened. Or, it has yet to happen. (I mean, perhaps I should be optimistic. We're not quite at the halfway mark, right?)

A. was told at the end of December that he was being sent to Puerto Rico for a month -- and they told him, yeah, right after New Year's, be ready to go. And then New Year's passed, and he was still here. He was happy about that, but also a little exasperated. They gave him a new date: Thursday, January 18. And then yesterday he received a call on his way to work, oh, we might leave tomorrow. Friday, January 12. Be ready.  

And, naturally, nothing was ready. So A. called me, asked me to help him with some laundry and errands so that he could pack quickly after work. I called M.S., with whom I had a Day of Class Prep planned, and had to ask her to travel an hour my way to do the prep, since I was now housebound, doing loads of laundry and, admittedly, freaking out a little.  

It's amazing how much my brain wants to shut down in cases like this, when my anxiety takes over -- I could barely think straight. (Which wasn't great for the class prep.) 

Added to this, the admissions director at one of the Really Big Name Residencies that I applied to at the end of December wrote me an email Wednesday afternoon, asking me to give her a call to discuss my application. And I'd intended to do that yesterday morning, after getting the kids off to school and before going to meet M.S. And this did happen, but it happened while my head was still spinning from the news that A. was leaving in a little less than 24 hours.

I knew my verse play was going to be  . . . problematic isn't quite the word, but it's close. This admissions director was (understandably) wondering about whether or not I'd applied to the correct genre, and she was incredibly gracious and super kind and we had a really good conversation and ultimately I left my application in the category to which I'd originally applied -- but trying to keep calm and not freak out about my chances of getting a Really Big Name Residency at the same time I was already freaking out about A. leaving unexpectedly early was . . .  difficult, to say the least.

Sidenote: Residencies! So far I've applied to five of them. Two are what I'm calling Big Name Residencies -- the kind my poetry heroes attended (god, I'm SUCH a dork) -- and one is like a Slightly Less Well Known But Still Super Competitive Residency and the last two are Not Well Known But Still Will Probably Be Super Competitive Because of What They Offer Their Residents, Like Childcare. Researching residencies and applying took up a lot of my time at the end of 2017/beginning of 2018. Then I moved into doing a kind of personal assessment (god, I can't believe I just used the word "assessment" voluntarily, I'm really the worst). Anyway, I reviewed my notebooks from the year and tried to figure out things like 1) where I went wrong (because things really went wrong by the end of 2017) and 2) how I can prevent things going wrong in this next year, because I'd really really really like it if I could avoid that. 

So back to yesterday's chaos: at the end of the day A. received word that, no, after all, they aren't going to be leaving today. SO ALL OF THAT FOR NOTHING. Or, well, not nothing. We're still waiting to hear when he's actually going to get on a plane. So I guess it's good that the laundry's done and he's packed up his tools. Because who knows what the next 24 hours could bring?

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What I'm currently reading: (like, all at the same time in fits and starts): Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones (who will be a featured reader at the SCCC Creative Writing Festival this year; Drowning in Sand by J. Marc Harding (it's really good, I just keep having to put it down); The Lives of Lee Miller (a reread, and mostly a re-look, because it's a beautiful book I've read before but received for Christmas -- thanks, Mom! -- about one of the most interesting photographers in the latter half of the 20th century. It's filled with her photographs, and photographs of her, because she was also a model/muse for artists like Man Ray.)

What I just finished reading (my first book for 2018!): Migration, an excellent chapbook of poems by Ginny Wiehardt.