It's Been an Odd Week

Monday was business as usual. Tuesday was me sleeping through my alarm, a fire alarm interrupting Algebra, Approaches to Lit. was cancelled, and I didn't go to Adolescent Lit. because I had to meet Mom for art. Wednesday, Career Perspectives was cancelled due to lack of speaker and Film was a test I finished in 30 minutes. Thursday was mostly normal, though I left Adolescent Lit. early to make writing class where one of the members that we haven't seen in a month showed up and I got to say "fuck" a lot. And today, Friday, after my usual middle school not-tutoring stuff I went to a party downtown for the school literary magazine and spent most of the time reading because the place is apparently also a bookstore.

So I feel like I've accomplished nothing and a lot this week. It's a weird sensation.

Also, I wrote a bunch of color poems.

I Fail at Pattern Recognition in My Own Life

I don't know why I only realized it a few days ago, but I give my writing away a lot.

My postcard project that I've been leaving for Dr. Minnick, my writing notebooks, my supposed-to-be-exclusively-for-classwork reflection journals, inserted into letters, left on sidewalks in chalk or on dry-erase boards - it's like I have this pseudo-obsession with leaving it all lying around for somebody to find.

I'm not sure what this says about me - that I want to be read? Discovered? Or I just like making somebody's day a little more surreal? (I think it's the last one.)

Last week, Dr. Minnick was asking if I kept the original copies and drafts of my work, which is how I noticed this pattern. I do keep all of my work - right up until I give away another notebook. I often post initial drafts online for feedback as well, so things are rarely lost for me. Still won't use Stash. Anyway, I was explaining my habit of mailing off my notebooks to him and he's the one all of my postcards go to; having the two things side-by-side in my head made me realize how often I just give my work away.

It honestly puzzles me now that I think about it. Aren't writers supposed to be possessive of their work or something? I never really thought twice about it until now.

I Am Terrified of Things with Exoskeltons

I needed a shower tonight. I got one, but in the aftermath was forced into hand-to-wing combat with Nature's terrorist: the cockroach. And let me tell you, fighting terrorism is no fun when you're naked and your hair is wet.

The formalities began when I entered the bathroom and flicked on the light. Being of sensitive peripheral vision, I immediately noticed the scurry of brown far below, and also being of supremely excellent reflexes jumped a good six inches backwards over the threshold with, I might add, enough of a muffled scream that my grandmother did not rush to see what was happening.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, I made a quick spot check to see - yes, the roach was hiding around the sink cabinet. Making a tactical retreat to grab a shoe, I returned to find my enemy vanished; to where, I knew not. No doubt to some dark crevice whence I could not follow.

It was late; I still needed a shower. I shrugged off the situation as best I could, but not amount of hot water could ease the apprehensive tension growing between my shoulder blades. I would have to fight this enemy again. With any luck at all, my foe would not rear his exoskeleton until after my nightly cleansing ritual.

Luck was on my side, but She is a fickle goddess; though my shower remained unbugged, I was attacked almost immediately upon my exit. And this time, I had nothing heavy on hand, no weapon of smiting. Looking around for something, anything to MacGuyver with, the cockroach took the opportunity to scurry across the floor and begin crawling the wall. I spotted my makeshift weapon - a tissue box. The roach made it to the towel rack.

As a towel rack is a rather awkward shape, one less than ideal for smiting, I waited. Waited for him to move to a less advantageous position. This was a mistake. For he readied himself with a twitch and FLEW RIGHT AT MY FUCKING FACE FUCKFUCKFUCKTHISAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.

He missed - towels make excellent shields. He hit the floor and ran. I slammed the box down and held. Then pulled up to do a body check. No good - still alive. Hit him again. And again. Once more for good measure. Then sweep him under the rug and find something heavier to grind the body to crumbs with.

Then I finished drying off and got dressed. And thus ends my epic battle with a cockroach. Lauren: 1, Terrorism: 0.

October

One of my favorite months <3 Been having some lovely weather lately - kinda grey and rainy, though not very much rain. It's very relaxing.

I didn't catch up on as much homework as I would have liked over the weekend, but I managed a lot. Mainly my Lit. journal. Need to finish some linguistic stuff before Thursday too, and get my Algebra website issue straightened out, but I feel a little more balanced than I did last week.

Other than that, I've been working on a piece for Poetry Screams. Dr. Minnick is wonderfully helpful and I really do need to buy him lunch sometime. It's the least I owe him. Currently on my third draft of this thing; my library group aside, I don't have much occasion to share my writing with people I know IRL. And even less occasion to ask advice from people who really know what they're doing.

He really wants me to do something with those postcards though - apparently that's a publishable idea. I'm not really sold on that, but I guess I can at least mull it over and try some things. I'm glad he likes reading them because I really enjoy writing them X3

Disbanded

I had something to post about, but I forgot it. I'll talk about writing class instead.

Today was a wonderful writing class after a string of terrible ones. Terrible in that I was the only regular showing up. Once was due to all the rain scarring everybody off (even though I was coming from the furthest away). Two weeks later, I was once again the only one showing up. And the class before this, same deal.

Apparently what has happened it one of the regulars never got one of his pieces back from the writing group - we have lives, people lose papers; that's how it is. However, he's convinced that they stole it. Why? I don't know. So he's not showing up because he thinks his work will get stolen, and the other two regulars aren't showing because they've been accused of stealing, and I've been sitting in the classroom wondering what the hell happened to everybody.

All this came out today's session because Jen had been saying that something had happened but wasn't spilling any details until I kept pressing. The upside to this is that around the time everyone started dropping, some new writers decided to show up and we effectively have a new group of people.

The new group is very open to criticism and learning, and today was more about how to give critique than an actual workshop as is usual the second meeting of the month. Both are older ladies who are kinda novices at writing - one writes poems with that painfully sing-songy end rhyme and the other writes prose though I've not had a chance to read anything from her yet.

So yeah. The old group had a good run I guess, but it looks like it's gone. I can't figure out why he thinks his work has been stolen. If I can put everything I have online without worrying about copyright, he shouldn't have such a big issue =/ None of us in the group are/were anywhere close to publishing level or anything, so it's not like that's a factor.

At the end of the day, all of my stuff goes online because I would only be depriving myself of learning opportunities by hoarding it. If I want to get to publishing level, I have to put it out there. That's just how it works.



Note to Self: Minnick recommends Joe Meno. Look him up later. Second note to Self: catch up on Approaches to Lit. journal this weekend.

My Sleeping Schedule is Shot

I was hanging out in the English department (surprise) last week. I think it was on Wednesday. In fact, I know it was Wednesday because film was cancelled and that's why I was up there so late. No one expects me home before nine on Wednesdays.

As usual, Minnick is the last person to leave, grumbling about his 17 hour day, which is how I learned he wakes up at 5AM every morning. But that's not the point of my story.

Last night/ today, I went to bed at 7AM in this morning.

I'm pretty sure that's the latest I've ever stayed up, but I could be wrong. This hasn't happened in a while. I got caught up reading. I pulled away long enough to wonder why it had gotten so much brighter in my room and realized the sun was coming up. It seems like the later I stay up, the less sleepy I get. If I can make it to about 4AM, I can keep going indefinitely. I've never tried to test how far I can go. I don't know if my body just starts pumping adrenaline or what, but I've always found it odd.

I woke up about six hours later, laid in for another hour, then finally got up around 2:00 (about six hours ago). Thankfully, I don't have to get up before noon tomorrow; tutoring isn't until the afternoon.

But that's still not the point of my story. The point is, the last thing I remember thinking before going to bed was that Minnick had already been up two hours getting shit done XD

Morning people baffle me.

This is Pretty Cool

Got this in the mail today, from DrippingWords:

The outside

The inside

It's a collection of most of the color poems from myself and people around dA. And will possibly expand to include the people of Goodreads where the form has apparently taken off as well =D 

I knew she was making me something for my birthday, but I didn't see this coming at all. I also have a new penpal (assuming I can manage full letters on a regular basis anyway).

Meanwhile, Minnick has been encouraging me to take pictures or keep notes of my Postcard Fiction project, so here's what that looks like as well:

I try to make the story and picture match when I can, with varied levels of success. The latest batch of pieces I wrote were directly inspired by some of the cards I've bought online which turned out pretty nicely. I'm glad he seems to like reading them because I really enjoy writing them <3 I like the extra dimension the card gives to the story.