The student loan is all gone. And now I have new wheel bearings and back brakes for the van and a new well pump for the house to show for it. No trip out west to the four corners. What was once vital has been canceled. The story of my life.

For now, I have a stack of poetry to read. I'm not sure why I'm avoiding it, but I think I will. Karate Kid II is on the television in the background. The whole world must be asleep.

Here's a spot for my ego, eh? If only I could come up with something reflective of my inner being . . . Eckert Tolle is deflating my drive to draw eyes. Reality TV is deflating my sex drive. I wonder how good sex with Brett Michaels could possibly be - there in his kick-ass tour bus with band members and VIPs like paid onlookers . . . And, see? I get cornered into this shit and feel like I have to explain myself (I blame my teenage daughters). I don't even feel justified in describing my day. I can only call it "good." Okay, it felt more like "damn good." There's a little description. This is why I should write poetry. Memoir turns pointless.

I wonder if I can turn the trip to Carbondale into a poem? But then it would have to be too chronological. An exploding tire, the guy on the highway who shrugged and said, "I dunno; I guess it's just a guy thing" (how brave among a group of collegiate minded women in need - I had to fight the desire to kick him in his gut), the cop who looked like Magnum P.I., the guy who was talking to himself - hand gestures, shrugs, everything - in Wal-Mart, the short and skinny sassy girl who worked the Wal-Mart service station's desk (the way she rolled her eyes at her co-workers and flirted with the mechanics through the tiny call-window), the salted pretzel, Buzz Word, Effingham, the Motel 6, the eloquent female readers from Kentucky, the self-involved readers from ISU, Jason and the little water bottles, KFC and Reisling, Thai food (mmmmmmm), sleeping on those shitty mattresses, breakfast at Denny's, stopping for effing candy and effing coffee at Effingham . . . It was poetic, really. It was epic, really. A memory worth keeping regardless of the fact that the past may not be relevant to my present being.

Meanwhile, CEllA's moving along and seemingly taking up all of my total being. Writing? Am I supposed to be doing that? I am. I am. A little. My Literary Journalism paper is smokin' (look out, Oprah) . . . Now, that I have a better ending and a certified "A-Ha! Moment." Prof said it has finally established a "universal" sense of story.

There was a newspaper article in the Star of my ex-husband - The word "Blessed" was beside his gnarly photo, and the article read that his "work and three adopted children take up all of his time" (or something like that). He hasn't even seen his adopted children in over a year. He would have a heart-attack to see how his "daughters" have blossomed. Ash has cut her hair and likes to wear eye-liner. And Erin has grown boobs! The kids are more bitter than they were a year ago, and I don't blame myself. It has been their freedom to talk amongst themselves about the whole thing. They were more upset by the article. The site of it only made me throw up a little in my mouth - then I was over it (which is a good sign that I am awakening, really).

The High-Toned Old Christian Woman
by Wallace Stevens


Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.



("Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but do not consider the log in your own?" ~ Jesus . . . )

I managed to jumble over 8000 words for the big, fat meaningful paper. I was told in a brief e-mail that I "had a lot of work to do" but that "the story's heart is in the right place." I think that's a good thing. But, ya' know, I can't help thinking that there has to come a time when I stop relying on the feedback of college professors . . . Life experiences only goes so far when you live close to a campus, when you have so many good benefits, the freedom of a sabatical, the stressors of impressing paying parents over the world, the stressors of impressing your fellow colleagues (who come to make up the world, for example: "I'll give you this award that I made up if you'll make up one for me!").

I'm not sure where it is that I'm at right now - it's not enlightenment; it's not annoyed; it's not intellectual. I think it's more like all out fear. I guess we all have those moments when we question who it is we've been writing for, who it is that we've been doing anything for. Ego won't shut-up. I've always tried to keep a bit of myself in there - tried really hard at times . . .

It is midnight. My fifteen year old had thrown my keys in the passenger seat of the van and then crawled up on the van's roof top to lay back and look up at the stars. It is a crystal clear night and there was a little moon dog. When she was climbing down, she stepped on the lock button on the door and then shut the door behind her. Keys locked inside in one innocent moment of loss and wonderment. And, of course, I was pissed. She felt awful and cried. I made her cry. I dropped it as quickly as I could when I saw how upset she was, but the situation still stared at me. I needed a locksmith. A locksmith's house call would cost money. Money is going everywhere but where I want it to go. I will figure it out. The van will get unlocked tomorrow morning and, who knows? Maybe the cost was all worth the enlightenment she felt when looking up at the stars from the van's roof top?

I have decided today that a family vacation is vital. We will never have another summer in which we can simply state "We're all going" and the children simply comply. I decided that I want to go to the Grand Canyon, Mese Verde, Canyon Hills, Devil's Peek, all that good stuff surrounding the four corners. I wanna' make the torturous drive and, in the end, show them something and make them feel something, something perhaps like what Ashleigh was grasping at while sitting on the roof of the van . . .

I guess I'm grasping for things too. I'm running away for a night to Carbondale on Friday. It's a five hour drive in a university rental car with three other women whom I only really know vaguely. I booked us a double at a Motel 6. I worried that they might think that was horrible thing to do. I'm over it now. I just hope I don't have to share the room with roaches. I don't think I could ever sleep with roaches again. I would sleep outside with mosquitoes and beetles and spiders first (ANY day). I will have to read something. Some of my poetry. And I will probably go first. I might even start off the whole damn reading. It's our humble little school and IU. I am praying to God that we read first and don't have to follow up IU. Ico has a slide show about liver patte factories mutilating ducks for crissakes. She's gonna' make tummies roll. Who knows how it will turn out? But, while my Matty is disappointed and jealous that I'm running away to spend a night in a motel with 3 other women instead of with him, I am looking forward to the whole thing and trying to vanquish my guilt. We are brave women. We haven't received much support from the university. It just doesn't come. All profs seem preoccupied, and I don't think that's unusual for a creative writing program . . . But then again, all of us students are just self-centered and lusting for attention. Their lack of attention and support has made the whole thing all the more adventurously heroic.

I need to get out of this life-long student mode. What I need to learn now isn't in the classroom. But, damn if I don't need this to get that . . . My debt could fill the Grand Canyon (but, then, I've never seen the canyon; this is likely a gross exaggeration; but then, I have yet to start paying any of my loans so I have yet to truly contemplate the extent of their being).

I'm thinking of taking a job at Meijer or Marsh when I could be doing a million other things. Where are the lists for such bigger and better things and why aren't they made presentable to graduate students out here in Indiana? . . . Oh well, tonight I'm going to bed early.

I just finished up the dishes - all of them. I actually scrubbed a couple of pans and dried them and put them away rather than letting them soak again. Old soggy spaghetti is so fucking gross. I scrubbed the stove top. Tonight, we went to Pizza King since the child support showed up in the savings account (after being 2 weeks late, I thought for sure I would never see a deposit again), so luckily I didn't have to cook (but the dishes were from LAST night). We sat in a booth at P-King and had a Royal Feast and played "Chatahochee" and "Hang on Sloopy" on the juke box. I just did a load of laundry, too. I read the Grimm version of Snow White to my toddler before I tucked her in (I think she liked it better than the movie - the "then she fell down dead" parts actually just made her laugh. Ah, simplicity.). I invited over a hundred people to befriend "CEllA's Round Trip" on MySpace.

Now, if only I could focus on the fat ass paper that I have to glue together for Literary Journalism. The story is too personal maybe, so I'm avoiding it. You can't interview people, make friends with them, feel for them and have tried to offer something, anything, without stressing over how you might portray them to others. They might as well be family. I should convince myself that I'll just be portraying them to the prof and quit dreaming of it being published in some noteworthy magazine somewhere . . . It wouldn't be a good thing. And there's that other personal little piece of creative non-fiction - "Cousin Jimmy's Onerous Services" - I am supposed to have a "finalized" version of it (along with a stamped self-addressed stamp envelope) for Literary Editing on Monday. I have to come up with an entirely new paragraph to end on . . . "I tell myself home is four hours north" sucks for an ending (and I knew this and I don't know what I was thinking). Knowing that all these things loom before me, I enjoyed cleaning the kitchen a little too much than I'm supposed to (well, than I usually do). It was escape.

On a happier note (sort of), I'm taking out more loan money here at the semester's end, and I'm feeling better about my little assistantship which was all that I had planned for the summer. Money. Money. We need more money. I was checking online the other day and we actually qualify for food stamps (having six in the household makes that easier, I think), but I'd rather not apply. I was thinking about applying to work at Meijer or Marsh . . . still am, really. Maybe I can approach such a job as "research." I can't waitress. I just can't. My shitty memory might get me smacked or my vehicle vandalized. Spending my days at home (when no one ever drops by) is depressing, and it's too tempting to keep my ass planted in front of this computer screen - especially when I've got submissions pouring in and I'm so eager to rake over them. I know I'm not filling any pre-assumptions set by my given roles. So, I'll just be the sore thumb. It's nothing new.

I should go to bed early . . . But, then I just made coffee ;) Coffee at midnight. Excellente, mon ami.