Here I sit in the little library all alone. I picked up a large coffee, some cookies, and cheezits at the gas station before I came in. The chic there asked me if I was shopping or working today. I could've sworn I said I was working, but she went on to tell me how stupid I was for venturing into the shopping crowds. I made note of her joyous, newly seasonal red blouse and lips.

Thanksgiving was boring. I missed my own crazy family. Matt's extended family were too quiet and polite (I miss my old familial drama), and what was worse was that I had to get through the day without Matt. It felt like the ladies were giving me the fish eye when I grabbed an extra helping of turkey then two cups of pink Jell-O salad. I drank too much coffee and couldn't help but to sneak out with Matt's mom to smoke. The baby was unusually grouchy given the strange crowd. She wouldn't eat anything on her plate; I had to give her a banana. Everyone seemed to have aged five years since last year. There wasn't any time during the day that some elderly individual wasn't snoring on a sofa with their mouth wide open. When I first came in the door at Mamaw's, all of the men were filled up the den amist the airing football while the women were all in the kitchen having to rub their asses together, squeezing by each other and rushing to set the table, etc. When an uncle I barely know said Grace, he thanked The Good Lord Jesus for all that they had been blessed with and mentioned the troops in Iraq - not a single thanks was mentioned for the women, for without whom there would have been no dinner whatsoever. Mamaw had been working in the kitchen since the night before and had cooked three fourths of the meal (TWO types of stuffing, mind you) -- all this while suffering from the MUMPS. When the men were done eating, they shuffled back to their designated den spots, and the women hopped up to do the dishes and shove leftovers into the fridge in Corningware dishes and CoolWhip bowls. You would have thought it was fifty years ago. When do we ever get over this shit? I wish there was some way that I could get out of having to go along with it. But then that would be downright disrespectful, eh? Bologna. I, personally, didn't contribute one damn thing to the meal (last year I'd made a sweet potato casserole). I had said that I would bring flowers, but didn't. I even wore my moon goddess necklace - as pagan as it was. Nobody kicked me out. I still ended up looking like a whiney wench when Matt was later than he said he would and I started repeatedly peeking through the curtains checking for his car. I made him a plate before they declared it all leftovers. No doubt they thought I was a wonderful wife. Sometimes, as much as I am in love with Matt, I truly hate the words husband and wife.

It has been a long week with Matt's new early mornings and all of my homework. I don't mind so much sitting in this little quiet hole alone all day. My mind was buzzing on the way in, but now that I'm here, I think I'll just go wrap books in cellophane and crank up the radio. They're already playing the Christmas Music (Elvis . . . "I'll have a blooooo Christmas . . . "). For the weekend, I have a big, fat Comm paper and a book review to write. BUT, I have almost made it. I have almost made it . . . Christmas may actually become something that I'll be looking forward to. I've been ready for the snow for a month now. I'm going to go lazy on the shopping. Who cares?

Matt headed out of the house running a good ten minutes behind (and he still had to stop for gas) and with a goatee on his chin. I woke him up this morning at 4AM, seeing as he can't even fathom the buzz of an alarm when he's sleeping. So now it's 5:30AM, and I've been up for an hour and a half. How wrong is that? I have even kept tabs on the last hour of Maximum Overdrive in all of its ACDC 1980's blood, sweat, tears, and glory on The Lost Drive-In. I've had an Apple Streusel Pop Tart (the absolute best). I've read a half a chapter in my Fiction book. I've drank a half-pot of coffee.

I woke up this morning with an odd little voice in my head telling me that I can join the ranks. It's okay. It was telling me that I can improve my crafts well enough to get a little recognition, but that no one's going to think I'm implying that I'm a genius, and that's okay. I have stories to tell and I can tell them fairly well. So, tell them. If I should ever someday get something published, I don't even need to tell anyone. Of course, my family has always acted like it was this huge deal (to get something published) . . . Bring in the pressure with the marching band. My family was in disbelief when I was writing weekly stories for the Times here in town ($20 a pop - yippee). Mom still has a copy of that one story about Harvey, the fictitious old man from Indian Springs, who told about his life in a one room school. It won me a couple of awards and then they published it in the town newspaper. I remember the weekend I wrote it. We drove up to my aunt's trailer on the river and I hung out with my beloved cousins in their dark little backroom - the floor was a foot deep with dirty clothes; walls were covered with Guns-N-Roses posters and a creepy Evil Dead 2 poster (a skull staring at you through bloody eyeballs). The assignment was that I interview an old person of what school was like for them when they were young. Of course, there wasn't an old man in sight . . . So my ever-so-cool 14 year old cousin helped me make it all up. We knew what old people said about their one room schools and the games that they played . . . My cousin had a similar assignment years before and he had half-assed interviewed his Pappy. He knew what Pappy had said and he knew what all of the other kids' papers had said. We wrote the prototype old man interview. We made his little one room schoolhouse pristine - a prototype. I told of how I interviewed him on his screened in front porch - Harvey in his bib overalls - with the sun setting behind the hills of the Bible Belt . . . or something like that . . . It was my cousin's facts and my elaborate writing. Sure, it was supposed to be nonfiction, but I let it ride. The guilt bubbles up every now and then but not without a little pride. Boy, were we clever.

I've got to clean up the short story about the Beef Processing Plant . . . I've got to make it more emotional . . . cut that "hopeful" ending that I thought I needed to add for somebody else.

I had a very interesting weekend. Somehow, I managed to get a whole helluva' lot done with my school work AND I managed to take in a movie . . . Happy Feet. And the movie did make me happy. I liked it. I almost cried when little Mambo found himself in the zoo.

Alot has happened since I last typed out a few thoughts and confessions. Matty got a promotion and a hair cut. He is now management and has his own office. We are both still in a sort of disbelief. His hours have changed, and now he leaves earlier in the day only to get home earlier. Today, instead of Saturday, he's off and gets to stay home with Jo. As far as my situation goes, I had a fellow Digital Storyteller put my name in for a Graduate Assistantship in Web Content Management and Development for the University. I interview for the job on Wednesday. It sounds like I'm in, but I'm nervous as hell about leaving the women in my present GA. They have probably been holding their breath, waiting for something like this to come up. Then again, I know that once I say I'll be leaving, they will become demonic. Now that I think about it, over the last few months, I have gotten a threat here and there about leaving them before my time is up. My boss is going to be a nervous wreck; there is way too much that I know that she hasn't a clue about. BUT, this is most definitely a good thing. I can already feel the old me (one who's actually sorta' confident) slipping back in. There's a little self-pride in the wings.

Plans are to buy a new used van come January. Next summer, I want to buy a house. My son might even move back in with me. This is an odd thing, actually feeling like we're moving forward. I've grown so accustomed to that gut-feeling of sinking . . .

What a shitty day. Have you ever had one of those days when every word that fell from your lips felt pressed and fake? Like you have to reach deep inside to find something - anything - to say, otherwise you'd just as well say nothing. Nope, not a damn thing. It was like my brain was running on neutral and wouldn't get up to gear. Maybe it was all these damn dreary clouds.

It turned out that the prof didn't hate my paper. She said that it needed to be about 1/3 of its size, but she didn't give me a horrific grade - considering the fact that it was way late. She even told me that the last half of it would make a good conference paper. She told me that I should look into this. Me, speaking at a conference? ha ha ha ha

Tonight, I have to come up with an "alpha" version of my digital production . . . I have yet to even start on it. It's been one of those things that have gotten shoved way back on the priority list for the last two weeks . . . during those days when the teacher said we didn't have to come into class. BIG mistake on his part. I had this great idea of little inspiration gadgets, but then he shot it all to shit and threw me for a loop. Now, I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't even know how to make something that looks pretty. I don't even want to have to open Flash.

Today, I was poking around Career Builder . . . I wish that the big blinking arrow would show up any day now. Ya' know the one? It points all of these other middle class youngsters in the right direction . . . Meanwhile, my house is absolutely disgusting. I won't even mention my van. Everything smells bad. I can't wait until I can have a break of some sort. Today is my anniversary and Matt and I aren't even going to see each other until around 9PM.

What is this "new" version of blogger? One that I sign in with my Google account? Did I ever mention I had a Google account?

No, I guess it's not really blogger's updates that are bothering me. It's bigger than that. It's more of the fact that I feel like a fish out of water. I keep wondering if my mind was physically set-up to handle some of the shit that's being thrown at me. I had a link to an article e-mailed to me this morning - the article was about how to treat those lowly humans who clean your carpets and fix your wiring, etc. etc. - afterall, once you're making hundreds of thousands a year, it will never fail that you'll need those persons on occasion . . . leave them a box of donuts - let them know that you appreciate them. Gag. Good grief - when I was of the lowly (oh, I am still of the lowly), it didn't matter if you left me a box of donuts of not, I would call you a stupid, blind, bitch anyway. I sure wish my mother had taught me more of how to handle life . . . Last night, she calls me to tell me about her twin black kittens: Midnight and Smokey the Bandit . . . she tells me about her own mother wanting to buy a two story house of which she can turn into a doll museum. Creepy . . . all of those eyes. I don't tell her much at all. There must have been some type of mother-daughter alarm going off on Friday night when I had the first seizure in my sleep that I've had in a long time. She called me Saturday morning. I didn't tell her last night either. Still, she knew. Creepy. I keep waiting for the swelling in my chewed-up tongue to go down . . .

If I get through this year without losing my mind, it will be a miracle. It's not so unusal for anybody and everybody to need a break in the looney bin. Haven't I already passed up my chance? It would be perfectly understandable if I went crazy . . .

I turned the absolute worst paper that I have written in my life to a Narrative Theory course. It was 16 pages of slop. I couldn't get my mind to focus. And Saturday after having that seizure, I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck . . . And how does one toss out a casual excuse like that to a prof who is upholding her feminine glory? a prof who is having to show every other student that just because she's a woman, it doesn't mean that she has lower standards . . . blal, blah, blah . . .

When this semester is over, I am just going to cry - all out cry . . . smoke a cigarette like it was good, sex . . . and then go get a hair cut . . .

What a stressful week . . . it's a good thing that the sun came out yesterday and cheered me up. When it comes to this Part II paper due, I just kinda' eased back on it, and I told myself "big deal" if you can't piece together el supremo academic theory. It would seem that sometimes the "theories" are dreamt up to entertain each other. For me, it's all got to be qualitative and personal. I don't want to go on to get my Ph.D. - I reassured myself of this yesterday when I realized just how many days had zipped by in which I had felt like my daughters were a pain in the ass and in which the thought of snuggling with my Matty was the farthest thing from my mind. What a miserable existence . . . and for what? That is not how I want to live and it's not how I was "set-up" to live. I know nothing of the lifestyle. Maybe in another ten or fifteen years a doctorate will come to me easily. Meanwhile, I want to tell a different kind of story than what is being promoted within this program. Earlier in the week, the big cheese tried to talk me into going into television script writing, where the money is - he said. He said "screw this creativity crap." As though script writing requires mindless droning . . . I wouldn't think that it does, but if it does, I'm not interested in the slightest.

The presentation on Tuesday was pretty good. I stumbled a little and had to stay up all night the night before, but I think that I made some good points and held everyone's interest. I'm waiting on some feedback but I was able to do some magical things with Power Point I think. I heard from another student that my presentation was "spoke highly of" in another class. This might sound odd, but I enjoyed giving the presentation. I knew the stories and characters that I was telling inside and out. I would give it again in a heart beat. Another moving thing for this week is the fact that my story regarding work in the beef processing plant was discussed in class. There is definitely something satisfying in knowing that you have communicated a story that you feel is important. It was eye-opening to me as to how many people would actually find some of my personal stories amazing and worth telling. I'm not sure if they would be as interested if I told my stories as a doctor. I'm not a doctor. If I pushed myself to this point, I would be overeducated and underexperienced (in regards to employment and academia). Telling the "gritty" stories might fall out of reach because I simply wouldn't have time for creative, therapeutic crap. I don't want to give up on it just yet.

I would be curious to know how many people have gotten their Ph.D.'s only to regret it. I suppose that it's a dedication to a different lifestyle . . . I do like scholarly topics, but I'm not really sure if I could make the balance of dedications . . . I wonder about others and how they balance such huge dedications with other huge dedications - like children for example . . . I've spent many years in school and I often wonder if it wouldn't have been wiser for me to have just gotten a steady job - one where I could be home more and more involved with my kids and their school. Now, I have a two year old who needs me, who has attached herself quite passionately to her grandmother because she's with her for more hours out of the day than me. So, when will I come to terms with my choices and actually feel confident in the direction that I'm headed? I'm still smoking and drinking coffee like some kind of fiend. I need more feedback from the rest of the world - not just about my last presentation but about everything. Why does it seem as though the rest of the world is walking around with arrows painted under their feet? Or maybe their walking around in deep, pre-set trenches and I have yet to find one. Then again, I do have my routines. I could ramble on forever - especially seeing as it's been so long since I've taken the time to ramble. I should skip work today.

Wow. I have truly worked my ass off. The last two days were very long. My legs ached from lack of use last night when I went to bed because I had done nothing physically aside from sitting at this table behind this computer. I am sort of stressed about the upcoming presentation but I'm okay. If nobody likes it, I'll claim discrimination. Next year, I'm immersing myself in Tahiti or the Bahamas . . .

I'll write more once I've pulled the whole thing off and might regather my thoughts - tomorrow at 11:40AM it's "Vending Fleas . . . "

i know it's a little late, but . . . ya' gotta' love Zombie font . . .

"Buddha has chosen one of the really very potential words - shunyata. The English word, the English equivalent, "nothingness", is not such a beautiful word. That's why I would like to make it "no-thingness" - because the nothing is not just nothing, it is all. It is vibrant with all possibilities. It is potential, absolute potential. It is unmanifest yet, but it contains all. In the beginning is nature, in the end is nature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? Why, in the middle, becoming so worried, so anxious, so ambitious - why create such despair? Nothingness to nothingness is the whole journey."
Osho Take it Easy, Volume 1 Chapter 5Commentary:
"Being "in the gap" can be disorienting and even scary. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of direction, not even a hint of what choices and possibilities might lie ahead. But it was just this state of pure potential that existed before the universe was created. All you can do now is to relax into this no-thingness...fall into this silence between the words...watch this gap between the outgoing and incoming breath. And treasure each empty moment of the experience. Something sacred is about to be born."
osho zen tarot . . .

(happy waxing gibbous moon)

This is an attempt to figure out why it is that I made an appointment with this creative writing professor this afternoon (when I could be heading home). I made an appointment with her last week because I was having this sort of panic moment (once again) that I was in the wrong place and heading in the wrong direction. I wanted to ask her if it would be stupid to gain my degree where I'm at now and then go on to get a second Master's in creative writing. Sure, the ideal thing would be to go on to get an MFA or PhD, but there is nothing around me that offers such a thing (as the one that I'd be interested in) and I'm not quite sure if I want to take the GRE again (given an MFA might take such scores into account more seriously, or would they?). Ya' see, this is the thing: I have no idea how these processes work. I wasn't "set-up" for them as my other colleagues and fellow students seem to be. There seems to be an underlying "intelligent" and "logical" way to go about setting oneself up for a career, a "smarter" way. Any way than my way would be assumed smarter, I guess. I had a professor tell me last year that there wasn't any point to getting two MA's and I believe him. He has to know more of it than me. And then, this week, I found myself re-intrigued with where I'm at now . . . the whole visual communication thing . . . why I hadn't referred to my interest with this term before is beyond me. Maybe I had, and I just forgot. This is a large part of my problem. I feel like the tracks keep shifting. One minute I want to be a writer. The next minute I want to delve into academia. The next minute I want to find my old paint brushes. The next minute, I'm thinking I'd just rather stay home with my kids, cook meals and help them with their homework, obsess about their future instead of my own.

I have a short story to show this prof. It's of the beef processing plant story that I squeaked out here just a couple of weeks ago. It inspired me I guess. I did fictionalize it though. I can't figure out if it needs to be in third or first person. I've even put it in present tense. As much as I've struggled with it afterwards, I absolutely LOVED writing it. I just let it all flow. Shit poured out from my fingers like it has never before. It was the way I wanted to be spending more of my time. So, with this experience fresh on my back and breathing in my ear, I made an appointment with the prof. I'm hoping for direction. I'm hoping for a little bit of mentorship. I'm sucking lately, however, at communicating. I feel like I need to be back on Paxil . . .

Today I'm feeling hung over from taking 7 kids trick-or-treating for an hour and a half. The baby kept willingly climbing up everyone's steps on her own and petting all the pumpkins. She caught on to the trick-or-treat process quickly and she loved it. The girls were almost physically attached to their buddies. My older cousin tried to be spooky and dark, fake blood smeared around his mouth and constantly smoking. I was just plain tired. Today, I'm just plain tired. I've been skipping too much sleep. I'm not sure if I can communicate my sense of urgency to the prof. I wonder what would happen if I was caught in the office cat-napping . . .