I had just graduated from an MFA program ready to take on the world and all that idealistic BS... and then my mentor passed away, and then I couldn't find a job right away and then I was just ... stuck. So I'd decided to try to start a jewelry business.
I built a website and attended these free classes at Pitt for women who wanted to start their own businesses. I sold some stuff to consignment stores and some stuff at flea markets and got a lot of orders from relatives who wanted gifts for their other relatives at holidays (and also a lot of "hey can you make ME a holiday gift... which was flattering). But it wasn't profitable. And I'd applied to one arts festival and was rejected. I don't think it was because of the quality... I just didn't fit the profile. This particular festival, which I love going to whenever it comes around, is all about the ironic reappropriation of the traditional female stereotypes so, you know: pot holders with guns on them. Onesies that made your newborn babe look like an adorable zombie. Also, a lot of upcycling: typewriter keys, scrabble and mahjong tiles, etc. And lastly, something that is beloved to me but as of now beyond my purview: the elaborately delicate steampunk creations that I can neither afford to buy, nor create.
In the meantime, when I wasn't doing that, I was submitting to journals like crazy. I found my old submissions tracking chart and it brought back some nostalgia for me. I remember how long everything took. How much work it was, and how much uncertainty. Eventually the success came, but it took awhile.
So, flash forward to 2012. The waiting, the uncertainty, of the submission process, is crushing me. I just see the uphill climb without a glimmer of the success. Yet. I hope it's yet. And not never. I keep succumbing to days of crushing depression. Spending too much time in bed crying. I know I'm putting this out there on a public blog, and if it makes me look like a loser then fuck it. This is what's happening. I remember when I was an undergrad we bore our rejections like badges of honor. Taped them to the wall. It was a defense mechanism that worked, at that time. That person isn't me any more. For example, my community of writers is much smaller, more sporadic, and we're all older. Each rejection feels like a little sting. Sometimes the stings add up.
So what am I driving at here? Well, I'd like to adjust my expectations a bit and try to start making jewelry again... "professionally." I have arthritis in my neck, which prevents me from wearing many of my old creations that I'd made for ME, and also many of my vintage finds that I was once so proud of. This time, I think I'm gonna focus on making lightweight jewelry... maybe with some varnished paper / collage elements. My favorite necklace that I made Back Then that I can still wear, has these type of components.
I need another thing to strive for that breaks up the waiting. This I could do out of my house. If I had a bad fibro day, I could do less instead of more. And now there's Etsy. This time, breaking even would be okay. I don't care if there's 5,000 other jewelry designers. I just want to throw something up there and see what happens.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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.
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.
Today's journal submission
... is to Juked.
I want to say nice things about Juked but I broke my reading glasses which has left me with a walloping head and shoulders ache and nooooo able stare @ computer anymore cnt c tny ltrs
I want to say nice things about Juked but I broke my reading glasses which has left me with a walloping head and shoulders ache and nooooo able stare @ computer anymore cnt c tny ltrs
I want a rock
As I walked to the bus stop this morning, mostly stepping around the discarded packaging that people leave to scatter on the sidewalk and blow against the banked edges of our yardlets (observed today: the wrappings and vessels of beverages, snack foods, cigarettes, and condoms), I spied-with-my-little-eye a perfect rock. Egg-shaped, but larger. Butterscotch colored. A smooth finished surface. Like one of those purchased river rocks that escaped from a garden or the concrete island of a gas station.
Every time I see a lone rock, I really really wanna throw it through a window. No one's in particular. But I am thinking house or storefront rather than car. I can imagine the heft, how it will fit the curve of my palm.
I have never thrown a rock through a window. How hard would I have to throw it? I'm thinking of the big panes of glass on front windows. Would the window break all the way or would it just make those cool cracks like a huge jagged asterisk? With my luck, there would be a window screen that I hadn't discerned and the rock would bounce right off. But if all went as planned, I imagine myself as immensely satisfied.
This reminds me: at the university where I used to teach, they offered a major called Entrepreneurship. I thought this was bogus until at lunch one day I eavesdropped on this student, surely a product of that major, who had an idea for a business that I thought was pretty genius.
Basically, he wanted to rent a warehouse where he could amass unusable breakable items. He would give people skin/eye protection and weapons and let them beat the crap out of stuff that was destined for the landfill. He would employ people to load in the items and then to clean them up after. You would pay by the hour and/or the types of items.
Maybe because I'm a girl and socialized thusly, but I have rarely engaged in the on-purpose breaking of things for my own delight. How awesome would it be to whip rocks at an abandoned greenhouse or bust up a console tv with a sledge hammer? Very.
Every time I see a lone rock, I really really wanna throw it through a window. No one's in particular. But I am thinking house or storefront rather than car. I can imagine the heft, how it will fit the curve of my palm.
I have never thrown a rock through a window. How hard would I have to throw it? I'm thinking of the big panes of glass on front windows. Would the window break all the way or would it just make those cool cracks like a huge jagged asterisk? With my luck, there would be a window screen that I hadn't discerned and the rock would bounce right off. But if all went as planned, I imagine myself as immensely satisfied.
This reminds me: at the university where I used to teach, they offered a major called Entrepreneurship. I thought this was bogus until at lunch one day I eavesdropped on this student, surely a product of that major, who had an idea for a business that I thought was pretty genius.
Basically, he wanted to rent a warehouse where he could amass unusable breakable items. He would give people skin/eye protection and weapons and let them beat the crap out of stuff that was destined for the landfill. He would employ people to load in the items and then to clean them up after. You would pay by the hour and/or the types of items.
Maybe because I'm a girl and socialized thusly, but I have rarely engaged in the on-purpose breaking of things for my own delight. How awesome would it be to whip rocks at an abandoned greenhouse or bust up a console tv with a sledge hammer? Very.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Today's journal submission
... was to Salt Hill.
I'm trying to get back on it. I had lunch plans that fell through and the fact of it made me crumble completely and then have to re-assemble. Don't tell anyone.
I'm trying to get back on it. I had lunch plans that fell through and the fact of it made me crumble completely and then have to re-assemble. Don't tell anyone.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
I finally submitted...
... to another journal today. I'm hoping this is a break in my crisis of confidence. It would be nice to get back up to five subs a week. Or even a steady three. I think the waiting is the worst part. But then of course, the waiting can lead to rejection, so you don't really want the wait to be over. Ugh. Anyway. The journal is Fourth River : [from website] "We welcome submissions of creative writing that explore the relationship between humans and their environments, both natural and built, urban, rural or wild. We are looking for writing that is richly situated at the confluence of place, space and identity..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)