walking on spiderwebs, or cage / page / stage / rage

I live caged gently in charts. Little black grids on white pieces of paper. Or black marker on a white board. I write in tally marks, numbers, skill descriptors. I write in red pen. These grids contain my feelings because my feelings are too big and threaten to overwhelm me, shut me down, reduce all forward action to zero, leave me in a valley of couch and comforter and unending ache. I am somewhat afraid of my feelings. So I give them numbers. Anxious, zero to five. Sad, zero to five. Happy, zero to five. Suicidal ideation, zero to five. Zero to two is for passive death wishes; three is when I start searching for my safety plan. Where did I put that again? Self-harm urges, zero to five. I have been in recovery for self-injury for seventeen years. I know this because i have a cat who is seventeen years and I got him as a kitten the year I went into recovery. Cats have finite lives though, and this one is doing less well than I would like, but he's okay. He's around right now. 

Sometimes i have to live in the right-now because the bigger landscape of my life towers over me, distorted gothic thing that it is. The sky looms big and heavy like it will come down to suffocate me with cloud. Buildings are *so* tall, they sway in my vision like they want to fall down on me. 

I like it in my apartment. It's safe here. I can hear my neighbors' muffled conversations. The woman down the hall has a dog, a big one by the sound of the bark. I'm glad my cats haven't taken umbrage in such a way that would involve fluids.

I have to push to go outside most days. The gaze of strangers is unsurprisingly yet somehow unexpectedly searing. I walk with my eyes cast down, looking up in little flicks, half-second increments. It is illogical how I reduce the field of my vision even further than it naturally is (natural about 5% of "normal" seeing). This is how disabilities collide. I blind myself further. 

My father always told me to keep good eye contact with people; that's how they know you are trustworthy. But if good eye contact is a learned skill, then how can you tell people are not lying to your face? 

I can't see faces very well. I have to stare and stare. My eyes point in different directions. My pointed stare makes people who don't know me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable too, so much raw visibility on everyone's part, so I don't do it that often.

This is not "some days" for me. This is my every day. 

I find a deep joy in writing, in running my journal, in being with my friends and my husband and reading books and petting my cats. But I am alone a lot. It takes self-discipline to do work, because I don't have the structure of an office, the white noise of other workers working. I go to coffee shops a lot to simulate this environment, but they are not without peril. The screaming toddler(s). The man who wants to talk to me despite the fact that I am clearly working. Internet that suddenly goes down. 

Discipline and responsibility. I hear the voice of my father when I say those words in my head. 

Yesterday I went outside to do work, but today I think I will stay in. It's not good in my head right now. I mean, even relatively speaking. I have a whirlpool of fear and self-doubt sucking at my heels. I have an enormous work task that seems possible or impossible depending on what moment I'm inhabiting when I look at it. I am pretty much motivated by fear right now. I can't reach joy today. 

I'm scared of being a disappointment, always, eternally, not good enough, frantically working to keep up, keep my secrets, keep going.

I pretend I'm good. I pretend I'm well. I'm really good at pretending I'm well. Therapists even have a fancy phrase for what I do, something about performing better than I actually am...I call it "masking." It happens unwittingly. Haha. I was just having a moment there. No, I'm not that sad. No, I'm not that scared. Let me say something funny to make us comfortable. 

[Apparently people-pleasing is a maladaptive coping mechanism. But my superiors in the workplace really like it when I am consistently pleasant and do what they want. People in positions of power do not express concern for my needs, my differences, or my emotions. Those things get in the way. 

I would like to say that I believe I am smart and capable as others tell me. That I am up to the challenge. That I will continue to be up to the challenge. (Am I being unclear? The challenge of living in the world.) There is a steel thread in me that I was born with. It's thin but strong. It grew with me in early childhood, when I learned the pattern of being absolutely terrified, all the time, and having to act anyway. Act: do, move my limbs, move in the world, think, react, be capable, don't let them see how weak and afraid I really am, achieve, achieve, achieve. As I grew into a young adult, I built a core around the thread--a core of self, not just survival. Creative acts saved my life. Art and writing saved my life. As I grew into a woman, teaching helped me locate myself deeply as a giver and a guide.

I thought my childhood and teenage years would be the worst thing that would ever happen to me. By far. No close seconds. But then my mom suicided (three years ago Sept 21) and that perspective changed. I can't know what's ahead. I can't worry enough do enough rituals enough compulsions pile on enough covers to protect me from the future. << It's been three years and I'm still like this.

I heard somewhere it's National Suicide Prevention Month. 

The reason I'm putting this on my blog instead of deleting it is to say fuck you to mental illness. To stigma and judgement and appearances and people-pleasing and the bottom line. I am alive. Sometimes completely; today barely. But I am alive. 

I wish it genuinely felt like enough to celebrate being alive.

When someone with mental illness or a disability says fuck you stigma, there is a rallying cry from allies. Oh yes. Fuck you stigma. We should be more open about these things as a society. But only in the most abstract ways. When it comes to the practical details. Well. That's tricky. No one wants to really deal with that.

*

I don't know if I'm re-starting this blog or not, for real, or if this entry is just a one-time deal. But I do know that I began the blog with this theory of RADICAL OPENNESS (fuck you stigma). I began this blog not even imagining what was in the future for me. And somehow I'm still here. Straining my neck. Chin bobbing just above the surface.

Here's a video. I'm teaching a class pretty soon and I want to do a section on sublimating trauma through poetry. I found this amazing talk and poem by Rachel McKibbens. It allowed me raw access my emotions, for once. It gave me permission to write this. I churned out work like a demon yesterday. I don't know if I am capable of doing any work today, but...I listened to her talk and it gave me permission to write this, at least.

There's a splinter in your eye and it reads react (R-E-A-C-T)

Haaaaay internet bitchez what up?

Okay, I tried being casual just there (which I mistyped causal) but I like you. And I'm not casual with people I really like; I'm serious. 

I've got this serious dilemma. 

You may have already been caught up with my life to date, or at least the one I share in blogland, but if you're not, maybe you should read back a few entries until you are caught up... if you want to help me make this choice. If not, fuck it. Keep reading voyeur. I know you're there.

This house here that I'm sitting in right now is a safe place because Pam says it is. I think stepmom Pam may have been created from part-goddess parts.

Then there is my dad who, when I said, pre-morning-coffee: Gee I'm sorry I slept so late; I was up all night worried about my kitty cat.... responded with YOU KNOW I FEEL A CERTAIN WAY ABOUT PETS SOME PEOPLE MAY THINK IT'S HEARTLESS OR CRUEL BUT YOU REALLY HAVE TO LOVE THEM IN THE MOMENT AND THEN WHEN THEY DIE OR RUN AWAY YOU NEED TO JUST REPLACE THEM AND LIVE IN THE MOMENT YOU CAN FORM THE SAME LOVING BOND WITH ANOTHER PET SOME PEOPLE MAY SAY THIS IS CRUEL BUT FOR EXAMPLE [..... minutes pass ......] YOUR MOM AND THAT DOG OF HERS WERE REALLY CODEPENDENT TO THE POINT WHERE IT JUST WASN'T A NORMAL SCENARIO dad you know mom herself isn't a normal scenario BUT WHAT I'M SAYING IS IT WAS UNHEALTHY NOW INSTEAD YOU SHOULD..... 

My dad actually talks like that. His default unit of communication is The Lecture. It lasts from 5-10 minutes. I have gotten good over the past few days at not giving a crap. Or rather at fake giving a crap. This is different from when I was growing up. Then I really gave a crap about everything that came out of his mouth because he was my dad. And I was raised to do so. Ditto mom. She really isn't a normal scenario. I don't mind faking it. I love him. He's my dad. I love mom too. They did some pretty stupid things back in the day, but I love them. Pam has semi-reformed my dad. My dad is driving me to Pittsburgh for a thing. He's good. We just don't see the same on a lot of stuff. Mom is still doing stupid things. But I love her anyway. Yes, I'm being vague here. The stupid things they did aren't really relevant to this post. 

Anyway dad in this particular cat lecture kept rolling on like a 18-wheeler that's lost it's brakes and is on a slight slope downward. When I was younger I would have freaked the fuck out that he was talking about my cat that way, because I depended on my dad to understand me. Now I'm 37, I have a load of friends that I pretty much consider my extended family, and also did I mention, right now I'm on lots of medication. So I was like in my head: hm dad, fuck fuckityfucknuts where is the coffee.... 

But it takes little pieces of me away, whenever I have to fake it. My dad says ridiculous things all the time. I mean reeeeeee DICK ulous. His views on gun control and immigration are... ahem, they do not match mine. And without Pam there, he feels free to expound even if I ask him not to. Because he speaks in the all-caps voice, and I speak in the regular typeface with lots of dashes and interruptions-of-myself / or / slashes / like this / voice. 

If dad were the only thing getting under my skin (HA I made a joke there b/c my skin was all scabby before my dad got under it), this trip would not be making me so crazy. But there's one more leeeeettle straw that is breaking my back.

Back, back, back in the day I used to live here. In this town. And when I wasn't living here, I was living about 15 minutes south.

Some crimes were perpetrated against me by a certain man. Not a relative.

And this town holds all these memories that I didn't even realize would come up when I was by myself, under a fair amount of stress.

I thought this afternoon hm this could be a clue as to why I don't visit here that often.

I feel like to go outside I should dress up in a floofy head scarf and big sunglasses (sunglasses, check). Like Jackie Kennedy.

I don't believe this person, this man, is living here anymore.

But when you have, for example.... say you have a really ugly dresser. 

I have a really ugly dresser.

Say it was bought for you by your dad who has very masculine taste in furniture when you moved into his bachelor apartment when you were 17 because mom was not a normal scenario.

It was bought for me by my dad..... 

and I was looking at it when... this man... not a relative... was perpetrating crimes against me. Not crime, crimes. Repeatedly for several years.

This dresser is still in the room where I'm staying now. This dresser has followed me through 1, 2, 3 yes I believe it's three homes in the Allentown-Bethlehem area. 

And it's not the only scenery that surprise-haunts me.

My dad and I were doing some errands today in the car. Vroom, drivey-drive. You don't walk anywhere around here because you drive. Dad likes to drive. He likes to drive scenic routes sometimes. Todays scenic route, featuring some of the best scenery of Allentown-- it is seriously nice scenery --took me past several places where I remember the details of certain crimes. 

Last night, before this all even happened, I dreamt about him. The man. I dream about him in Pittsburgh sometimes too. But not very often. And when I dream about him in my own house, I wake to my life, my independence, my I-can-leave-if-I-want.

So I'm thinking about coming home. My dad already agreed to drive me back to Pittsburgh and back in a few weeks to do an important poetry thing. Nobody besides my dad and Pam (and Jenn?) know about this because it's been all Ravi Ravi Ravi where the fuck is Ravi. But I could just not go back with him. I would stay a week at home and then come back with Mike for the shore trip at the end of that week. 

But I am worried about incurring the, I won't say wrath, because my dad doesn't do wrath anymore... incurring the pissed-off of my dad.

*     *     *

I can't take this shit anymore. I'm going to list the shit now, just to recap.

1) We got fleas.
2) My OCD, the fleas, and the extreme heat of August interacted very badly, creating lots of scabby wounds all over me which I imagine are all flea bites, but which, in fact, are most likely not all flea bites.
3) I retreated to my parents' villa in sunny A-town which is well-appointed, cold as a fridge, and has stepgoddess Pam.
4) Back in Pittsburgh one of our cats vanished.
5) My husband starts freaking out and we are apart. I mean he is being really productive and amazing, but he is still hurting too.
6) I start freaking out here but in a slower, more protracted manner, including varied and sundry elements of PTSD badness, remembering crimes, etc.
7) if I go home, I will have to face the reality of my gone-cat-gone, and the imaginary but sort-of-real fleas.
8) if I stay here I will have to deal with the PTSD and to a much lesser extent my dad.
9) Either way I have at least another week of here. Which has goods and bads that even out. If you look at it as T = 7 days.

Am I still making sense bloggerinos? Help me make this choice? Deliver me some insight? 

cutting and pasting

Okay, so my friend B, who is pretty much the only friend I've kept in touch with continually since high school (that's how rad she is) sent me an email which included the following little bit : Also I have thought of you because I love your collage work. You know I am always looking to use my creativity [...] and I think I would like to try to do some collage. Do you have any tips?

When I was writing her back the message got longer and longer. I didn't realize how strong I felt about collage... or maybe what I mean is, how articulately I felt about it. So I'm gonna blog the part of my response to her that focuses on collage.

 Thanks for liking the collage! You know, it started when I had first gotten out of the hospital --for the first time. You probably knew this already but I pretty much spent from 1995 through 1998 going off and on into inpatient / outpatient programs because I was so unstable from PTSD. I learned (no that's not the right word) --discovered --collage in an art therapy class that focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness of course being the idea of living in the exact moment, the very SECOND that you exist in -consciously --and not ruminating on the past or feeling anxiety about the future. 

There was something quite visceral about cutting (or tearing) the paper, feeling the glue on my fingers, layering paper on top of paper on top of paper.... 

For quite some years I used to live in houses with many people. Once I attached a huge piece of cardboard to our kitchen door, which we never closed. I started a collage and left a pile of magazines but also pre-cut images, and some glue, on the table near the door. I invited my housemates to, whenever they passed by, add an image to the collage. That way, when it was time to move, I would have this ENORMOUS artifact of our time together. 

Imagine my surprise when they were like, "Okaaay Jill, that's cool... maybe later." I couldn't believe not everyone wanted to glue stuff with the same rapacity I did. Eventually I did get my artifact, though I had to contribute more than I wanted --not that I minded doing the work --it was more that I wanted the others' input. 

However, we'd hosted a German exchange student for awhile and when she was ready to leave she did a bit of work on it, including just writing down some phrases in the margins to express how she was feeling. She asked me if she should write them in English or German. I told her to write them in German because then later I could find a translator and it would be like uncovering a wonderful puzzle. 

When I moved to Ohio I lived in a series of small apartments where it was not convenient to do the large-scale collages I had previously liked. That's when I switched over to doing 90% of my work digitally. As much as digital collage frees me from things like large work spaces and messy glue & paint, it also lacks the visceral nature which was so pleasing to me when I first got into collage. 

There are a lot of books on collage / mixed-media art / making altered books that you can buy and they tell you about different advanced techniques like stamping and transfers and wax resists.... but to me the best thing about collage is that you can make beauty from accidents. 

I can't draw very well. I certainly can't draw life-like things from purely my imagination, which is a skill that I still equate with magic. I love to paint as well, but I can't paint, say, a convincingly realistic landscape or a scene with people in it or stuff like that. I don't know if it has to do with my visual impairment, which is significant, the fact that I haven't practiced enough, or the fact that I'm just not that talented in these areas. 

Doing collage / mixed media, for me anyway, basically says "fuck perfection." It lives somewhere between 2D and 3D art because of all the delicious layers. If you mess up, that can just be a "seed" to start a new layer which is just another opportunity for magic. There are lots of unforeseen rips, snags, wrinkles, and stains. There's nothing that has to be symmetrical or in a visual perspective that imitates life. It is about BEING FREE and living in the moment. It is messy and sensual. 

Writing all this stuff down for you makes me think I should get back to "my roots" so to speak... which means, just slap it the fuck on there. 1) Glue paper to a sturdy surface. 2) Glue some more paper to that. 3) Maybe add paint or ink. 4) Glue some more. With my hands, not the computer. 

I'm a control freak. All my therapists say that I'm really good at confronting challenges and working on myself. The hardest part of the serenity prayer for me is "accept the things I cannot change." It would probably benefit me to re-engage myself in an activity where control is not required, where lack of control is a good thing. Mindfulness.

So I guess what I'm saying in a long LONG round about way is that you don't have to learn. Just start. If you want you can pick a theme (like everything will be warm tones!) and just start gluing stuff to other stuff.  

Wild gratitude

So I just want to say thank you, although those words are inadequate for how much your friendship means to me. Especially those of you who have sent me such warm fb messages of late, and keep coming out for readings no matter how cramped the venue :) 


The Hem's reading on Tuesday, I was expecting it to be sort of meh. I was definitely having an off day; stress / anger were eating me; I was totally scattered and cerebral and just not feeling it. 


[the ambient temperature of my work area here, off the living room, has got to be over 80 degrees, so forgive me if this starts to sound loopy]


But you know? Hem's turned out to feel sort of transcendent. I don't know if it was the act of reading these particular poems or the audience's reception --it was all new stuff and vulnerable material, most of it revised with no outside input) --but I'm still feeling buoyant. [Like maybe I'm okay just as I am.] Joan made a recording for me, which was fabulous... I'll share it as soon as I figure out how to chop it up into individual poems.


I love the end of this poem "Wild Gratitude" by Edward Hirsch. Here's a link to the whole thing. But these lines...

"...teach us how to praise—purring 
In their own language, 
Wreathing themselves in the living fire."

There was a person at that reading who asked me after, in tones that sort of implied he was pretty confident of the answer, "Are you a Christian?" I was like, "Nope." He said, "Are you sure?" I was like, "Pretty sure..." He seemed to want something so I shrugged and said, "I was raised Catholic but now I'm ..." "You're what?" "Severely lapsed." I was really hoping that he wasn't going to ask me to accept Jesus as my personal savior or anything, but the conversation did not go in that direction.


Bad things were done to me in the name of religion. And I'm pretty over it... sort of... but I get tense when people try to pin me down on what I believe. But praise as a kind of purr... I can feel that.

I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in my head that I forget how to praise. And by praise I mean give profound thanks. To readers of the blog who pop up out of the ether. To friends who buy me dessert for dinner. To Mike who "fixed" my text-to-speech problem by tweaking a deeply-buried setting. To a soon-to-be teaching colleague who did not make me feel hideous [or should I say confirm my already-in-place feeling of hideousness] when I asked for help. It feels good to be so grateful. Almost like purring.

To reiterate: 

I asked for help from a person I have not yet met [read: stranger], who doesn't know me, and I got acceptance instead of rejection. I'm writing it down here so that I can attempt to cement this lesson in my mind. I know it will fall out soon enough but maybe I can get a few more days of that interesting hopeful feeling.

I found my bag of eyes.

Good thing I had labeled it eyes really big.

I found my bag of eyes and a shiny page of crystals.

Haven't been blogging in a few days because my brain is in a really bad place like almost-relapse bad and I don't want to share it with the whole internet in specific. But I am staying strong.

There's a long long list a-building. One of these days. I'm going to tell them how I feel. Use my words! Ha.

She yells at her child and then asks him why he is crying. Does it remind you of anyone?

No man is an island but is, perhaps, a woman an island?

A woman-made island. A woman, made island?

But in the meantime. If I can't make a bridge. I found my bag of eyes.

I don't think Dear Abby can handle this one...

So yesterday was unintentionally weird. Hm, do weird days ever happen intentionally? Anyway, I have this colleague. She's a bit older than me and she lives with her sister. Both my colleague and her sister have grown daughters who are in abusive marriages and refuse to leave, even though there are kids involved and absolutely everyone in their circle has been like LEAVE HIM. When I see my colleague, sometimes she will vent about the things that happen to her daughter or sometimes her niece, and it's always triggering to me.

I was in an abusive relationship for five years. He was my first boyfriend. It went from when I was 15 to about 20. I don't like to talk about it and I don't think I've blogged about it yet, and I hope to not have to do so in the future, but it's relevant to the story. Anyway, I still have PTSD from that. It mostly hangs out in the background and / or manifests itself as this constant social anxiety I have. So yeah. That happened, and I'm still affected by it. He messed me up real good. But I run through the aphorisms like dwelling on bad shit is like letting that person live rent-free in your head and living well is the best revenge etc. And I'm on a lot of pills. So I'm simply super; thanks for asking! {ting}

Thus, when I say triggering, I mean triggering a PTSD flashback. Yesterday, I saw my colleague. She was really upset. Apparently over the weekend her niece's husband had "beaten the hell out of her" "fractured her front teeth" and "choked her with a cord until she became unconscious." Annnnnnd apparently the kids saw everything and the oldest one (about kindergarten age) knows what's happening. And she, my colleague, is still worried that her niece will go back to her husband even though this is the worst the abuse has ever been. I expressed upsetness and disappointment and anger and all the stuff you would expect... I tried to be supportive... then a little while later my colleague, who knows very vaguely that I had been abused --I may have mentioned it when she told me about her daughter and niece and their situations --starting asking me really personal questions about my abuse.

I was sort of shocked by the fact that she would ask me these personal questions, but I gathered that she was really life/death worried for her niece, that she wanted to know the perspective of someone who had been there and come out of it. So the questions were like, "what was it like?" "why did you stay?" and "why did you leave?" I sort of felt obliged / shocked into answering. I like my colleague a lot. She's a warm, giving, genuine person who devotes her life to helping people. And I think she was looking for some advice about how to convince her niece / daughter to get out of these marriages.

When the conversation was done my colleague was all like, "you're amazing," and I was all like, "I'm okay," and she was like, "No, really, you are; you're amazing," and I was all like, "I have trouble accepting compliments heh heh." So we sort of shared a moment there and I hope I helped her in any way that I could ..... BUT ...

I had started my day full of energy and plans. After she left I started in on my list of things to do, but when it came time to go outside... I had already packed my laptop, computer, notebooks all my crap.. and my brain was just like NOPE. NOT GOING OUTSIDE TODAY. And I was trying to appeal to my brain's reasonable half. C'mon brain, you need some distraction.

I plowed ahead with more "inside" tasks, which included calling my mom to get a family recipe for a cake as part of a poetry project. I wrote down the recipe plus her commentary and the conversation was really hilarious and actually kind of nice because my mom and I were talking about baking and baking brings her out of her constant, profound depression. She used to be a pastry chef. She's an AMAZING baker. Was. Is. She doesn't bake much now but when she does it is amazing. I am an okay baker. I don't do cakes so well. We talked about my problems and she diagnosed the problem and gave me some simple solutions to fix it. She also talked about when she first started how her cakes were flat and dense and horrible and she just kept practicing until she got good. I was like, "I can't even fathom the idea of you making hideous cakes," which made her laugh. By the time I was sentient her cakes were awesome.

After that I tried again to move my body outside. I had my stuff packed. I was looking cute. The bus was gonna show up. And brain was like NOPE. WHAT DID I TELL YOU? And I started have a gigantor panic attack that lasted on and off for the rest of the day until Mike got home.

When the panic was "on" I laid on the couch, watched tv and played Bejeweled. When it was "off" I tried to move ahead with some poetry stuff. But mostly, I was not very productive and it made me feel guilty.

Here is the Dear Abby part. Like I mentioned, I like my colleague. I want to be supportive. But I fear that --especially now that we've shared this moment --that she will think our intimacy has leveled up and we can talk about stuff like this more often. Except even before yesterday I was thinking my colleague can be so triggering; I wish I knew how to respectfully tell her to back off without it being mega-awkward. I don't want her to know that she's triggering me. I just want her to talk about something else. Like animals. She has three cats and three dogs. Like me, she carries pictures of her animals on her phone. You see? Different conversation tack.

Luna is now making incursions on my keyboard and I'm afraid she's gonna erase my entire entry, plus make a large monetary contribution to the Republican party on my behalf.

a drop in temperature leads to

me not wanting to go outside today, even though it looks sunny. So:

This morning started off with an acquaintance telling me about a situation. This person is a guardian for two special-needs teens. The teens were molested repeatedly by a family member when they were growing up. The perpetrator was convicted and served his legal punishment for it, but now that he is out, he is being all stalky and intimidating to these teens. I am not mentioning any names/details here on purpose. If you know more about this situation, please keep it to yourself and not comment on the blog or fb. The only reason I bring it up is, my productivity was kinda trashed there for awhile. Listening to my friend go on about this story of violence reminded me of a time in my life when I was young and there was violence and what would happen to me if I told, etc. I sorta had a big ol' ptsd panic attack there. Every time my acquaintance updates me about this situation, I want to tell them, can we not talk about it? because it makes me freak out. But I want to be supportive. This conversation led into a longer one about victims' rights, how they have fewer rights than the prosecuted, then the Treyvon Martin case --for which I think there's a rally at CMU today... and I just ... didn't want to go there.

I read a cool article about meditating and almost did it but then did not. My mind was too stormy and I was alone... it was maybe a bad time to "go inward." So I answered 10,000 (approx) emails --this is what happens when you don't check your email over the weekend I guess. Then I went on YouTube and watched some jewelry tutorials that I had intended to get to. One video led to another and there I was for two hours watching videos. The last one(s) were of these pendants made out of watercolor paper --so amazingly gorgeous that i started to think how / why would anyone ever buy MY stuff on etsy this guy has an art degree from Pratt... and the self-esteem started to go into decline-mode.

After two potential knocks to my productivity I decided it was time for a shower. It must have helped because after the shower I submitted to Sixth Finch, which was a good idea I had been sitting on. Then I sent out a bunch of withdrawal notices.

Sending out w/d's is a good thing --it means acceptance. But I have this paranoia that when I send out the w/d, the editor is going to be like, "Okay, you really want me to go through my 4,096 submissions to find your ONE poem that you withdrew and keep looking at your other stuff? No thank you." And then they'll hit the REJECT button.

Mike points out that 1) The journal assumed the burden when they said sim subs are okay 2) The editors are probably writers too, who also sim sub, and thus they will be empathetic and 3) Sending a w/d makes you look Wanted, like "you waited too long to ask me to the prom; sorry."

I'm not sure I believe his relentless optimism. But I am glad it is there. In my life. Close to me.

Stop touching me

Sometimes I am sooooo jealous of people in cars. Of their sweet sweet isolation.

The bus to my neighborhood (the 48), I would argue, has slightly more than usual of ... inappropriately behaving ... people on it. However, transit in general.

I was on my way home from massage therapy today, which was not as painful as usual and actually quite lovely. I was feeling all dreamy and relaxed. Then the bus shows up. The one that will take me practically to my door step. Huzzah! Excellent bus karma! But then I had to pay for it.

On the way in, this drunk (you could smell it; he was slurring) guy is all like, "How are you ma'am?" He did say ma'am, but I don't acknowledge the questions / comments of male strangers on the street / transit unless they are trying to get my attention for a good reason (i. e. "Hey, you dropped your wallet"). My husband thinks this is quasi-rude, but I would like him to try being female for awhile and then reassess.

Anyway, I ignore this guy. Then he sort of reaches out and goes PATPATPATPAT on my upper arm and repeats his question. I'm like internally {e e p} but externally I brandish the cheeriness. "Great!!!!! How are you?!?!" while speeding toward the back of the bus.

And eventually I got a seat and eventually he reached his stop and I was wearing a thick coat and it wasn't a super-unacceptable place to be touched AND it wasn't nearly as bad as the drunk guy who embraced me because he wanted to "spread the love." But my ptsd kicked in and I felt my insides roilingroilingroiling. And then I felt this one muscle (the worst one) in my back start to tighten and I thought "nooooooooooo...." because : nice expensive massage appointment.

Now I am home. I am very grateful for our also nice also expensive home security system where I can press buttons and then it will give an ear-ringing beep if someone is trying to break into my personal space. The end.

oh damn

I was just writing the submission tracking details on my new hard copy of revised MS when I discovered revisions that had fallen through the cracks —meaning they were made after 12/22 and before the old laptop was stolen… and I thought I’d caught all of those! Mostly because I’ve been revising poems from The Sheaf (all the crap I’ve been writing since January) and not the MS. 

You know, the MS I just sent to Ahsahta. 

I mean, those revisions weren’t… I guess they weren’t crucial to one’s appreciation of the poem. Well they sort of were. It was more than tweaking of verbs or line breaks. But it was only two poems in a whole MS. 

FUCK.

REALLY????!!!!!!

Every time this happens I have a moment (more than a moment) where I am back standing in front of my desk and it’s like ghosts have miraculously whipped my laptop into another dimension. I’d actually thought I was hallucinating. Like: psychotic break time. Nope, it was really gone. I feel that disorienting, spinning… every time I find something I’ve lost. 

I can’t believe I didn’t check the electronic copy against the hard copy. Ugh. There are just so many pages. But poems, unlike prose, are modular. They go out in small batches to journals. They go out in a huge chunk as the MS. They squirm and worm around and their state is changeable. I thought I had everything up-to-date and good. 

This is going to obsess me now. 

Perhaps there needs to be cake.

Tuesday's journal submission

… is to Prime Number. This is a nifty online mag wherein they feature several linked poems by 5-ish poets, followed by a Q&A —a brief interview with the poet. It would SO rock to get my work in here.

Amidst this, they are finally installing the home security system. There is a lot of beeping and banging. The kitten is far too interested. The gentleman doing the installation is personable though. It’s cold and blowy out; thus cold in here. I wish I could go to bed now. Just for a little while. I squoze a submission out. Yay me.

Well, I lied.

Early last week I was all like, “Whee, I’m so under control even though someone just robbed our house! I’m back onto my project after eight days as if nothing happened…” Yeah… no. I was back on it for one day and then the rest of the week was spent wondering what the hell I was doing in this world. 

This is a typical response from me whenever anything bad happens. I allow myself [what I perceive that the outer world agrees is] the appropriate amount of feelings, and then I cram the rest back into my brain. 

Understand, I used to have a big problem with being self-destructive and letting my emotions rule me, often to harmful ends. This is the new (actually 13 years old) “recovery me” talking now.

I’m not fine and I’m not under control, and though I love my new, upgraded, expensive-and-paid-for-not-by-me laptop, it’s not the same as the old laptop. It’s faster, but the interface is ever so slightly different and it’s bugging the shit out of me. And I will never get back all my stuff.

So I haven’t been doing much submitting or art. Today I sent out to failbetter. Yay me. AND two people asked me to do readings. One is in April, the other in July. Rock on. Cos I can’t get my sorry ass together to ask someone else if I can read in their series. I write this because my husband told me I should try to enjoy my accomplishments more.

Annnnnd I might go after this one part-time research job even though I’m not supposed to even think about getting a job until the end of the semester. Maybe.

That is all.

Oh, those pesky journal subs, mounting the gibbet, etc.

Well, I’m back at it. New laptop, reconstructed most of Lost January. I know I will encounter unrecoverable losses and then I will have meltdowns and stay in bed. But my January work is 90-95% recovered and shit, I am dumb with gratitude.

I forgot to mention a journal or two right around the time we were robbed. I submitted to Blood Lotus. And then decomP on the 31st. 

I can’t believe I’m back on it in a week. I’m still massively dissociated though, or at least I lapse into it whenever I have to tell people what happened. Fucking fuck. I guess that coping mechanism has served me well in the past and my brain just does it, no choice. Still.

Finally, today’s sub was Mid-American Review. 

I have to say, I love this. I love getting to read as much poetry as I want, every day. I love reading all these journals, so that I feel like I’m right there at the edge of poetry, if that makes sense. I might not be making sense. I really want to go back to bed but I have to go to PT. Ugh, it’s snowing sideways. Maybe I can call off. That makes me feel guilty. But… /whine/ Snow. Bed. etc.

Today's journal submission

… is to AGNI.  

Today was rough. Briefly, and b/c no one reads this anyway:

1) I have PTSD
2) There were strange men working on our house all day
3) I was home alone with them
4) … today was rough
5) BUT I GOT THE DAMN SUBMISSION IN and that is what matters.