mimsy and outgrabe

At the beginning of last week I sent a letter to some vice presidents, deans, and committee chairs at the college and also to the officers of the union, officially withdrawing from service at the college for the upcoming academic year. It's not a formal requirement, but it was one that I felt was necessary. I wanted to be as professional as possible, and let them know about my absence from their various committees and initiatives so that they might find a replacement for me, but I also wanted to be as clear as possible about my reasons for withdrawing from these positions. The reaction to my letter was as I expected. I received some emailed support from the committee chairs, and a long, good phone call from one of the deans, but mostly radio silence and static from the people who I'd hoped would read the letter and understand its implications, which are larger than my particular and personal set of circumstances and point to larger problems at the college. And that silenc...

Columbus is so much more glamorous than I could ever be, you guys. What is it with this place? So much art, beautiful streets with eclectic little stores, amazing food. Just amazing. Are you hungry? Get thee to Columbus. Also they have umpteen breweries around which is making A. very happy, but even he admits that the food trumps the beer in this magical little city. The line for this place was crazy long. I mean, have I left the conference strip? No. Do I have any real sense of the true Columbus, OH? Absolutely not. But these few city blocks have been really, really good to me. Oh yeah, and the art conference! SECAC is a pretty low-key, feel-good, celebratory event so far. Really cool panel topics and presenters, with very welcoming and friendly attendees, so my imposter syndrome is dissipating somewhat. It may rage back in full form when I enter the room where M. and I are presenting later this morning, but for now, I'm finding it a pretty cool experience to be ...

I took the week off from writing. More or less. It began promisingly with a lunch date with A.P. to discuss our projects (his novel, my play) and then took a big nosedive from there. After last week's frantic and frenetic push to meet deadlines (the A-form for my final promotion, a somewhat-workable draft of the play for July's script development lab) I think I needed a solid break. Not that I can afford to take a break at this point. The graduate class (and script development lab, and conference) begin July 6. I'm going to have to use this weekend, and next week, to get some serious work done. I guess there are two things that left me needing the break and also just kind of deflated me: one, I turned in my promotion paperwork and instead of feeling elated and happy because it's (supposedly) the last time I'll have to go through this process, I felt deflated and weary. And then I found out that my application was far less substantial (like, it probably wei...

First, the poem: Epiphenomenon by Karen Skolfield. I'm still in recovery from the 12 days of the Southampton Writers Conference. It was a useful experience and I learned a lot about theater and the way playwrights work and how actors approach plays . . . and I enjoyed many of the readings and panel sessions (which doesn't always happen in these things, as you don't really have choices about the events you attend)  . . . but oh my god, I'm exhausted now. More so than in past years when I've attended the same conference. It's either because the Three Kid System is far more difficult than I thought, or I'm getting really old. Maybe it's both. Maybe, also, it's because I know I have so much work to do before I finish my verse play -- in terms of revision, and as I construct the next two acts. The prospect of all that work, at this point, is a little tiring, even though I usually find writing pretty energizing. I guess the stress of the past fe...