Sickness and Trauma Theory

My pecan pie was fine. I do want to try Carl's recipe that does not call for corn syrup ... interesting idea.

Noah is alternating sicknesses and allergy attacks and then is fine and then is getting me sick. Wahoo four day weekend of sickness!

I am also relearning trauma theory. I just diagrammed and outlined a 19-page paper of mine, a process I've advised others to do but never have done myself. Enlightening. Also makes me want to delete half of the draft and add in five to ten pages of smarter-sounding awareness of one of the subfields I'd like to study.

Which also means I'm rereading Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster. Here, so you can share the joy with me:

To read, to write, the way one lives under the surveillance of the disaster: exposed to the passivity that is outside passion. The heightening of forgetfulness.
It is not you who will speak; let the disaster speak in you, even if it be by your forgetfulness or silence.

I'm really worried about my pecan pie.

The Trouble with Grad School Applications

I'm really glad I didn't start watching Project Runway until this point in my life. Last time I applied to a graduate program, I was hooked on Prison Break. What the shows have in common is that they always end. Eventually, someone wins, someone breaks out of prison, and it happens within a season.

The trouble with the applications? They are long and complicated; they cost money, which is a terrible affront to my sensibilities; and, listen, critical readers of literature, you can't organize a website for crap.

So, yeah, I'm applying. Here and maybe here and I'll come up with some other places. Seattle because it's Seattle, Emory because two rockstars of trauma theory teach there.

Oy vey.

Things I Like

*trauma theory

*trauma theory and creative writing, and ethics, and the evaluation of creative writing in light of trauma theory

*teaching creative writing well and learning in a CW classroom/workshop

*creative writing pedagogy: the revolution, by me

*literature

*nonfiction writing about landscapes, especially western

When everything is over and done, what do I want to have done? Made things, written things, shared the making and the writing with others. Cooked and eaten things I feel good about cooking and eating. Been a positive output to the world at large. Maybe teach people, maybe directly help others to write better and communicate their ideas well.

I feel more and more strongly that it's easier to see where I don't belong than where I do or might. In example: I don't belong in a company whose product I'm not invested in (which cancels out, you know, most of everything); I don't belong in a position where I'm unable to direct my own tasks or offer input regarding a project (which is also nearly everything). That leaves ... editorships in literature, teaching things maybe, making things, freelance developmental editing, and I'd imagine that I'd be good at reviewing books for a bookseller. Scholarly work in CW, trauma, pedagogy ... volunteer work with things like 826 ...

Well, first I need to eat, and that means tempeh chili.

Well ... no Teach for America for me. They're not interviewing me further. I feel quite weird about it, but whatever reasons they may have all lead to me not working with them, and so, I will work with/for someone/thing else. Noah's job prospects are changing--another consulting firm and another chance for Seattle and further interviews with T for A--so we are quite up in the air. Way up.

I'm not wearing splints during the day anymore, and taping instead, which is great except the tape wrecks my skin and there's no way I can tape everyday. So I did yesterday, didn't today, maybe will tomorrow.

To everyone I haven't gotten back to: I love you all, and I am sorry, and I will. With no date specified. Try calling me again. I am this absent-minded.

What to give one's father-in-law for the holidays? If I could knit, it would be so easy: socks, fingerless mitts, a hat, something. If only I had some of my mugs kicking around, or something ... he and I both like tea, but he also has everything he needs ...

In general, folks, what do you see me as being good at? I am adrift when it comes to this lately. This T for A thing is throwing me off like someone punched me in the gut.

And maybe there are bigger things to worry about.

I survived driving! But I paid for it in pain. Bath salts help. So do naps and early bedtimes. Ciao, yall.

facebook format is easy

is excited about Obama but still in disbelief and will be until January 20th

is going to Springfield tomorrow night so she can go to her independent medical exam on Tuesday and ... have the most important doctor's appointment ever! It decides her entire worker's comp claim!

is nearly asleep

blow-dried her hair today for the first time in two months

did dishes for the first time in two months

wants to support etsy.com this holiday season

"...up with which we shall no longer put!"

Okay, I love Keith Olbermann (I call him Keithy) and since SNL is redeeming itself for a decade-long slump this season, I shall link to Ben Affleck's skit of Olbermann. Or Keithy. Whichever. The man does have impeccable grammar, which is at least half the reason for my love, and Ben A. does it well. I may watch it three times today.

Since everybody knows I'm moving in the summer, and looking for jobs in a very not-sure-what-town-I-should-look-in way, I will also give y'all the scoop on me. Noah and I are applying to Teach for America--not sure what will happen, not sure if it's for me, but it seems like applying is the way to find out. I'm also starting to consider applying for grad schools, e.g. PhD programs, in creative writing and other stuff. What program will let me study creative writing (my own), creative writing pedagogy, and trauma theory/contemporary poetry all at the same time? Sounds kind of like a lit program, or a lit/cw program, or a ... program in education. T for A has all these partnerships with master's and PhDs in education ... like money-giving partnerships ... I don't know, man, I don't know. I miss big words.

Other options: find a great little press that I can do everything for (hi Graywolf!); work for some arts-based initiative, company, museum, gallery, thing; freelance developmental editing and something else to fill in the gaps, like copyediting or breadmaking; dye yarn; make bread; make pots once I know it won't hurt me; write a lot; on and on. Other options welcome.