mimsy and outgrabe

RE: FAIRY TALE REVISION Stanzas revised Tuesday: 1 Stanzas revised Wednesday: 1 Stanzas revised Thursday: 2 Stanzas revised Friday: 1 Stanzas revised (total): 29 Stanzas that need revision: 60 RE: CLASS PREP Classes met with this week: 4 Course outlines completed: 4 (finally) Courses agenda/plans that need completion: 4 Course web pages that need updating: 3 Course homework assignments that need updating: 4 RE: RUNNING Days this week I've managed to run (however small): 3 (not great, but at least it's something) Miles run: 6.7 RE: STATE OF AFFAIRS Two children, still breathing, eating well, torturing each other and the dogs: CHECK Two dogs, still breathing, eating well, torturing each other and the children: CHECK One husband, fairly confident that he has a wife somewhere, but not certain because he doesn't see her much: CHECK Brain cells remaining: 1.5  (poor little soldiers) Also, I like this poem by Mary Ruefle.  It reminds me of Ginsbu

RE: FAIRY TALE REVISION Stanzas revised yesterday: .5-1 (It was slow-going and I was a little sleep-deprived.) Stanzas revised this morning: 2-3 (I finished the stanza I was battling yesterday. I'm a little behind schedule, but at least I've been working, right?) Stanzas revised (total): 24 (roughly a quarter of the way through the poem) Stanzas that need revision: 65 I'm off to a slow start for the first day of the fall semester. Because Mondays are my non-duty days (no classes to teach), I'm trying not to panic too much. Key word is trying -- I don't know if I'm being very successful. But in an attempt to quell some of my anxiety, I'm going to get on the treadmill now and wear myself out (last week I managed to run Sunday-Friday -- not that my fleshy self is showing any evidence of the work I did . . .) and then take the kiddos to school and then go to my office and try to avoid the first-week-of-school chit chat that always results in putting

RE: FAIRY TALE REVISION Stanzas revised this morning: 1 (That's right, people. One measly stanza. Took me 2 1/2 hours and lots of breaks to get breakfast foods, various beverages, and stop the puppy from chewing on the children.) Stanzas revised (total): 21 Stanzas that need revision: 68 And, an update: dog sitter found! (And two houses down from me, too. I had no idea my neighbor was a pet sitter . . . Sometimes things work out so well it scares me. I'm definitely watching for pianos falling from the sky over the next few days . . .) RE: COURSE PREP Fall semester course outlines completed: 1 (Yup, you read that right! And why yes, the semester begins on Monday!) Fall semester course outlines that need completion: 3

RE: Fairy Tale Poem Revision Stanzas revised this morning: 2 (One of them was really ****ed up and needed lots of attention) Stanzas revised yesterday morning: 6 (because I didn't revise on Tuesday -- I prepared a submission instead) Stanzas revised (total): 17 Stanzas that need revision: 72 So there's some progress made.  Yesterday I spent a lot of time fighting with my scanner so that I could create handouts for my creative writing class; I wondered if I was being counter-productive around Hour Two of this battle, and then felt better when I realized that the time I spent reflecting on the pieces I was copying would serve me well in the classroom. It's not wasted time, it's just really slow class-prep. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.  I'm so far behind. I haven't found a puppy-sitter/dog walker yet, either, and it's getting down to the wire. Out of the two leads I received (I solicited our local pet store and my brot

RE: Fairy Tale Poem Revision Stanzas revised this morning:  3 Stanzas revised (total): 9 Stanzas that need revision: 80 That's not daunting, is it?

Well. My family and I survived the week of the Leadership Academy conference, but it feels like we did so just barely. It ended on Friday at noon -- and Friday around 8 a.m., just as I was sitting down to begin our final day, a migraine hit. Those visual disturbances called "floaters" arrived first, so I scrounged up 2 Tylenol and 2 Advil from colleagues at my table, shoved them into my face, and hoped for the best. It turns out the best did happen, and I had a minor and manageable headache for about an hour, and then I felt better. It was a huge stroke of luck -- I was afraid I'd be laid up in my car, unable to drive anywhere, unable to get my kids, unable to finish the conference  . . . but luckily, none of that happened. Crisis averted. The Leadership Academy was long and required a lot of attention and energy, but I guess I can admit that it was not without some worth. I can't totally buy into every facet of what they preached, but if anything I came away fr

Well, yesterday morning did not go smoothly. I managed to get out of the house by 7:05 a.m., with the kids, too , (they were really so good for me!) but after dropping them off at Grandma's and then driving all the way to the hotel where the conference was located, I discovered that I'd left my phone at home -- and I still had to call my neighbor about looking in on Sir New Guy during the day. Nice. I couldn't find a place to park at first and so I arrived at the conference in the nick of time and without an ounce of food in my belly. So I did the only thing a hormonal, batshit crazy girl could do -- I went into one of the very private (thankfully) bathroom stalls and had a slightly hysterical cry, which made my sleep-deprived eyes redder than they already were but went a long way toward making me feel better. Sometimes you (I) just need that kind of release. The rest of the day progressed fairly well. I didn't get in touch with the neighbor, but my mother-i

This past week I haven't accomplished much on the fairy tale revision (big surprise), but I did manage to check out the following: 1. This interview in Union Station Magazine with Aracelis Girmay. 2. This interview with Whiting Award winner and essayist Amy Leach. 3. This poem by Hailey Leithauser on the Poetry Foundation web site. This upcoming week promises to be rip-roaring fun and not at all stressful! I'm going to spend time at a "Leadership Academy Conference," (you know you're jealous) and it runs from 8 in the morning until 5 in the evening, so I'm totally dependent on the good will of other people when it comes to the care of my little circus.   I'm really wondering if I made the right choice when I said I would participate in this thing, considering I'm not feeling very much like a leader nor like a team-player. There are going to be ice-breaker activities and . . . *shudder* . . . sharing! And, I'm sure, lots of

As you may gather from this post's title, I've not made much progress since I finished scanning the fairy tale. I've revised a few lines from the first chapter only. And I'm not the most cheerful of persons today. Yet somehow -- between puppy wrangling, child rearing, and fighting off fatigue and morning sickness -- I managed to revise two lines of my fairy tale poem today. That's right -- a whopping two lines in two hours. (Probably more like four hours, since I've been up since 5 a.m. with Sir New Guy.) Also, in a fit of attention deficit, I turned the "Minor Gods" section of my full-length manuscript into a chapbook manuscript and prepared it for submission to a chapbook contest . . . even though the contest doesn't open until October and I have more pressing things to do . . . like phone calls to return and a house to clean . . .  In fact, everything feels out of focus right now. I do some task and then become overwhelmed with the