mimsy and outgrabe

This week I'm late to the blog. I was late arriving to Florida, too -- I was supposed to arrive Friday with my children but we were unable to fly out until Saturday because of the Nor'easter. Other than our travel plans being interrupted, though, we were lucky. Long Island was hit with some rain and wind but nothing catastrophic. Nothing like what's being reported in other areas of the country. It's kind of guilt-inducing how nice it is down here. Windy and a touch on the cool side, but I'm not complaining. After the oppressive cloud cover of the last week up north, it's rejuvenating to see clear blue sky and sun. A. met us at the airport, and now we're all ensconced at his parents' condominium for the next few days. On Wednesday A. and I will leave for Tampa so I can attend AWP and his parents are taking the kids to Disney for two days and a night. (They are brave and maybe foolish grandparents -- do they know what they are getting into? --...

This week has featured more reading than writing, but I'm okay with that. (Babysteps towards art-making, right?) I've vacillated between internet essays and the Bloodaxe Books' collection of Tsvetaeva essays, Art in the Light of Conscience , as well as Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. And honestly, I'm disappointed in Dark Elderberry Branch . Its subtitle is "A Reading by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine," and I'd hoped for more by two such well known and fairly well respected writers. They've excerpted bits and pieces of Tsvetaeva's poems as well as bits and pieces of her nonfiction scribbling -- from essays to letters -- but the sole commentary on these bits and pieces comes at the end of the collection in an essay/afterword by Kaminsky.  I'm left frustrated with the feeling that there's too little substance here. I really don't want to say that, because I was excited about the book when I found it, but the...

At first I thought I hadn't really accomplished much with this week, but when I look back, I've done a little bit of everything except exercise. Well, once, I dragged my ass onto the treadmill. But I walked, because I was reading at the same time (I'm REALLY not coordinated enough to read and run at the same time), so it didn't feel like much of a workout. I'm looking forward to all of this snow melting so I can run outside again.  Anyway, I managed to read more of the mad Russian lady (Tsvetayeva) -- who isn't really mad, but brilliant -- I love the way you see her working out her arguments, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, in her essays (I'm on "The Poet and Time," currently). I've also been working on the review of Paper Doll Fetus (by Cynthia Marie Hoffman), which I'll submit to Calyx later today or tomorrow for their Summer Issue (hopefully it meets their needs/specs and they like it). And I managed to ...

A quick note today. This week has been a little nightmarish at work; possibly because it's been the only complete week of classes in the semester so far. Next week we have President's Day off, however, so we'll be back to the three-day work week, thank goodness. Ha! If only having a three-day work week was good! For a while I was like, "I don't know what my colleagues are complaining about. I do NOT mind snow days. BRING ON THE SNOW." And yet, it really is putting a huge crimp in my productivity. I accomplish far more at the office than I accomplish at home, and I've been home A LOT since the semester began. On the one hand, I AM really grateful for the time and attention I've been able to give my family and my mess of a home. On the other hand, I keep getting all of these emails asking for things I haven't even BEGUN to consider. It's an ALL CAPS DRAMATIC SPEAKING DAY, isn't it? It's also a "Mommy and Me" day be...

This week's acclimation to the new semester was interrupted by "The Blizzard!!" which was not so much a blizzard as it was a really healthy amount of snow . . . enough that we'll probably be seeing it still in March, until temperatures turn somewhat warmish.  This meant my children and I were trapped inside the house with each other for two full days. (A. was trapped at work for one night and two days, so we haven't seen him much this week.) Days home with my children are lovely in some ways (baking! board games! playing in snow!) and torturous in others (fighting! rough-housing! and noise! noise! noise!).  I've still been using my mornings to read, and some of it has been applicable not just to my writing but to my teaching as well. I'm teaching "Effective Thinking" this semester (horrible title, I know; and it doesn't sound like something *I* would be an expert in, does it?) and I found this passage from Marina Tsvetayeva to Boris...

This week marks the beginning of the new semester. It may, also, mark a return to actual writing on this blog. And perhaps that writing will be ABOUT writing and about reading, and maybe/hopefully slightly less about stress and overcommitment and whatever other nonsense makes me sound (and act) like a crazy person. We can hope, can't we? Of course, part of what helps me navigate stress and overcommitment is being able to write about those problems here on the blog: putting them out into the ether and hoping that, if someone reads them, they find in my ramblings some kind of solidarity or kinship, a kind of hey-I-go-through-that-too recognition. So, I'm working my way back into a regular early-morning reading/writing schedule, as well as a regular exercise/running schedule, both of which also go a long way toward making me more clear-headed and less, you know, anxious/obnoxious. Reading regularly always helps me find my way back into writing, even if it's som...