General Update! JOBS AHOY!!!

THEN

The other day, we attended a graduation party for D, cousin of mine.  It was so nice to watch him open his gifts and hanging out with everyone.  He's a nice young man and Hannah and I are going to take him camping with us at some point this summer.  His future is like an open book right now and I'm excited for him.  Sadly, being at a family gathering also reminded me how much I dislike certain members of the group.  My uncle J for instance is a complete asshole.  He and a family friend (or rather a man who happens to be married to a dear family friend) were rude and loud and argumentative throughout and when my mom asked them to keep it down so that my wee little cousins could read D a story, my uncle and this other man acted like spoiled brats and fought back with her saying they'd be as loud as they damn well pleased and then made faces at her as she left.  Not cool.  I wanted to play their game and cut them down, but I didn't want to ruin D's party.

And then my aunt S started bitching about another cousin of mine and, once again, I had to escape rather than do anything to ruin the mood.  I found out later from my mom (who is not please with J, the friend, or S) that my aunt badmouths my mom because she thinks it's wrong of her to condone my sinful relationship with Hannah.  S is a giant hypocrite and I thought I cared if she fell off the face of the earth.  But I guess I don't.  Thank goodness for family like D and several other cousins.  And thank goodness for my friends who feel like family.  Bickering is one thing, but being an all-out asshole is another and I'm pretty much done with assholes.  The child part of me wants to get married up here and rub it in S's face as hard as I can that Idaho as a whole has progressed so why the hell can't she?  Ugh.  Enough ranting. 

Also my computer is on its way back to me.  They took it completely apart and put it back together and couldn't recreate the problem so we are all crossing our fingers that the situation is resolved.  I have 90 days when from I receive her to try her out and make sure she's all good to go.  I really can't afford another computer right now.  I have the extension for the man who's been working on the problem and if there's even a hint of an issue, I'll be on the phone with him again.  I hope it's all up from here as far as my Vignette is concerned.

NOW

This morning I was incredibly productive.  I think it's because things may actually finally be turning around for Hannah and I a little bit.  Yesterday PTI called us both to come in for training.  Hannah's training is for today but mine will take place on Thursday because I have work with the bra store today, tomorrow, and the next day.  Of course they would schedule me for several days on the week I'm due to start another job.  *Sigh* But they didn't know.  I didn't even know.  I'm very excited about this job however.  Essentially it's transportation of rail crews (a driver and a conductor) from one site to another.  It's mostly just driving but I'll get to learn a great deal of trains and about the history of freight in America which is actually pretty nifty!  

So this morning, because of all this new excitement, I've managed to get up super early, shower, get Hannah to work (with a packed lunch that I made her last night ^_^), clean out and wipe down the inside of my car, start up some laundry, pick up the bedroom and bathroom, and still have enough time to blog about it all.  Who knew getting up at 7:30 would leave so much time in the morning.  If only I were a starling and not an owl.  

Last night I stayed up for quite a bit working on The Summer of August Hunt.  I am liking August so far and I adore Bertram who is my POV character.  I'm trying it in first person.  At the residency in January, Randall Kenan told me to go with it and even though it's a bit of a challenge, I'm going to stick it out.  I can always change things later.  That's the beauty of writing. 

Later today, Hannah and I are going to donate plasma.  I'm hoping that this week and next week are the last times we have to do this for a long time.  Neither of us enjoy needles (I have an actual phobia which I've overcome for the sake of donations) and if we both start getting some income from this driving job then we will be, for the first time in what seems like forever, pretty darn well off.  We can start paying down bills, improve credit, and work toward a future together.

The Melt Down

I hate being an adult.  Today was hard.  I used to have two bills to my name (my car insurance and my phone) neither of which were too much to handle.  Now I have those two bills as well as four more payments via credit cards and loans that I have to make throughout the month.  This wouldn't be a problem except that I make between four hundred and five hundred a month at my job and I'm the bread winner.  And our cat, Yoda, was diagnosed with diabetes today.  Boohoo to me, though.  That's life.  I am trying to build credit and trying to take care of myself and Hannah as best as I can.  Student Loans end up being a real life saver when they come in allowing me to get airfare for school as well as the books and supplies I require to fulfill reading and writing requirements.  This time around they will also go to fixing my poor car.

I worry that Christmas won't be as fantastic as I'd hoped.  Most of my long distance family and friends will have to wait for presents until my taxes come in (and I should get a decent enough return), but for those who live near, Hannah and I were actually pretty on top of things and already have most of what we want figured out for people.  We were doing so well and getting ahead but it's impossible to maintain the 'ahead' status when the output is higher than the input.

We're on Foodstamps as well.  And contrary to what everyone in this judgmental as fuck country believes, we're not just poor, lazy, white trash working the system.  We really need those stamps to get us through the month.  We used to get close to four hundred dollars back when I was on unemployment.  Then unemployment ended and I made 'less' (yes, less, not more, but less) via my job than through assistance, so they cut our stamp amount by a hundred.  The logic is lost on me, but whatever.  We went from high in the three hundreds to high in the two hundreds because let's kick 'em when they're down.  And then recently, because my hours at work range from fifteen to twenty-two, and I'm a full-time student (which means I can't work more than that or I won't succeed in either), they decided that I no longer qualified at all.  So now Hannah is the only one bringing in Foodstamps and we're at a nice solid $190.  Sure this is probably no one's business and sure I probably shouldn't be whining about this on my blog but what the hell?  Let's penalize people who are actually working and getting an education.  Right?!  Every time something negative occurs (less income or less hours) the fucking Foodstamp office sends less money.  Really?  Really, how does that make any Goddamned sense?  Whatever.  That's old news.

In new news I'm having an artistic crisis.  All of these 'real life' issues seem to either kill my writing drive or completely suck away the time I have to get my MFA homework done.  I end up scrambling almost every month and I know and own that it's my fault for having shitty time management skills but at the same time, I have so much fucking stuff going on.  I am truly bogged down by reality and by the time I get to play in the fantasy realm of my Death Man, I have no drive, no confidence, no desire.  I get excited once in a while and then it disappears the second I read over my fresh material and realize how amateur and immature the writing seems.  It's so frustrating.

I want to impress my mentor, want to make him proud.  I want him to remember me and my writing when I graduate and I want him to think to himself, 'Gee, that girl's got some talent and she's got a shot at making some real art.'  That's all I want, I just want to be validated as an artist - fuck money, fuck publication, fuck everything!  I just want to be a good writer.  And right now... I'm not.  I'm really not.  I'm second guessing everything and I'm manipulating scenes, characters, situations to the point that I'm losing all sense of rationality.  Maybe it's not really that bad.  Maybe in the morning it'll seem brighter.  Tonight I'm going to write a death scene and I'm not going to bed until I finish it.  I don't care if I sleep at all.  I'll eat straight coffee at work if I have to.

Thoughts of Hannah

This Sunday is our anniversary.  Six years ago, a shy girl in Kansas prodded gently over instant messenger, "hey, so... you've been with girls haven't you?'  (I'm paraphrasing, of course) To which I replied that I had kissed and fondled girls but had never had sex with one... or anyone *cough cough* but I was sure to tell her, too, that I had crushed just as hard on girls as I had on guys.  Well, this shy, curious thing went on to post a blog entry entitled "The Crush" and I wish, for the life of me, that I had a copy of this hanging around somewhere because it was so deliciously angsty and filled with all the woe of a teenager recluse in love with a jock.  It was adorable.  I remember thinking at the time, hoping, that it was about me.  It was.  And then she finally confessed.  I remember the scene well: I was chatting with her over the computer while working a twenty-four hour live-in home healthcare job.  During short breaks, I would chat and write a little.  I had a few constant messenger buddies, Hannah being one of them.  She told me that she really, really liked me and then, of course, I had to run off to take care of my duties.  I could just imagine her face all red and hot as she typed those things.  A few years prior, I met Hannah face to face and found her sweet and interesting.  Her impression of me was quite different.  By the time I left, she had already told her mother that she thought she was in love.

So, a few years later, she very slowly, very cautiously, begins to probe out my feelings.  She asks if we want to try dating, she tells me how much she weighs, she tells me all her bad habits, she goes on and on in disclosures and I assure her that none of those things matter because I like her, too.  I've only ever had one other person actually want to date me and I shut him down faster than a restaurant with roaches.  But apparently beggars (single people) can't be choosers (shouldn't ever say no to anyone who could possibly want to get in their pants).  Basically when you are an undated girl in high school and someone shows interest and you turn them down... people start to say 'you brought your loneliness on yourself' and let me tell you, that doesn't feel good.  It didn't matter that the guy scared me, creeped me out, gave me all the bad vibes that thousands of years of human evolution tell us to pay attention to.  Fast forward from high school to about six years ago.  There I was, the beggar, faced with someone saying they wanted me, but this time I didn't feel all creepy crawly.  I was flattered and excited.  I found her attractive (she loves to do her hair and make up) and smart.  She really is smart.  She doesn't think she is, but I enjoy talking to her about pretty much anything and if we come across something she doesn't understand or hasn't heard of, she is always eager to learn.  Especially words.  She loves learning new words and adding them to her arsenal of vocabulary.

Last year's Anniversary.  My mother made
that cake for us.  It was fantastic!

In the end, after calling and conferencing with a couple of my good friends, I decided that I definitely would try dating.  Hannah and I talked about a lot of things that first day.  Talked about BDSM and decided we would see about trying some of it together, talked about sexual histories (mine was very short... almost nonexistent *cough*), and then we set a date.  October 13th.  We had a phone date that night and decided that would be the start of our relationship because already we were hoping that this would evolve into something that would span years.

It hasn't always been easy.  While we got along well as friends right from the start, there was a definite disconnect as far as our expectations for how the relationship would go. This was my first relationship ever and her first ever with a girl.  It was strange.  But in a weird (totally not incestuous way) it was kind of like getting a sister.  We share everything.  I remember the day that we mixed our CDs together in the same book.  It was kind of startling to me.  I've always been very OCD about my CDs and the fact that CD appears in the acronym OCD makes me very happy right now.  I digress.  *ahem* So to mix up the CDs like that was like finally admitting that I was no longer a 'me' but a 'we.'  The nice thing in all of this has been that my friends and family (aside from a few here and there) and her friends and family (aside from a few) were extremely supportive and nonjudgmental about us getting together.  Some of the hesitant ones came around and some didn't.  Neither Hannah nor I are lesbian.  We just happen to be two girls in a relationship that qualifies as lesbian.  Some people have a hard time grasping this.  I like dick.  So does Hannah.  In fact, I would say that we are both more comfortable with male genitalia than with female, but that isn't why we're together.  I would say it's complicated (and really what 'love' isn't?) but the reason itself is very simple: a shy girl from Kansas said, 'I like you,' and I said, 'I like you, too.'  The rest is six years of history.

We smeared cake on each other.  It was green.  Looked like we had booger problems.

Library, Novel, and 4K Pageviews

I'm sitting at the Post Falls Public Library.   This is a really fantastic building.  I spent numerous hours here before the MFA and after starting it, this is now a second home for me.  It's calm, peaceful (for the most part), and the librarians are all wonderful people.  Hannah and I have come here and used the private study rooms a few times and while they are great, they are almost too great - too cozy - and there is a huge temptation to curl up and sleep on the keyboard.  It's just that nice of a place.  I've slept her a few times (naps in the chairs while Hannah works on her writing or blogging) and then a semi-medicinal slumber with my head propped up by the heel of my hand.  Right now, I'm comfy but not sleepy.

I'm going back and forth between working on a short story and working on a pivotal chapter for Death Man.  For some reason this chapter is giving me the kind of resistance one might expect from a two-year-old being force fed liver and onions at an obscure relative's funeral.  Yeah.  It's like that.  So I'm going to shove that spoon as far down his little throat as far I can today.  Or try to, at least.  As for how the MFA is going overall, I am absolutely loving this mentor but I can definitely see where I am a bit more tentative in my writing, aiming for perfection in my first drafts and then going out of my mind editing and revising.  It's good for me, but I need to embrace the fact that I can't write a perfect chapter for this man, that I just need to pump out as much as I am able to so that he can help me not only hone what I have, but propel me toward more.  That is the goal of this packet.

In other news, this blog has reached over four thousand page views.  This is a very nominal number when compared with the page views for the Detangled Writers blog, but this one is much more intimate and I am just thrilled that after a year (the blog's anniversary was actually last month!) or so of writing, whining, explaining, and planning, it's still a useful outlet for my creativity and, I hope, somewhat entertaining to my readers.  Now.  Back to my chapter and force feeding the figurative two-year-old.

Looking Ahead, Fretting the Now

My cousin Kat is en route to Tulsa, OK where she will be living for a year or so.  It's a long way away from me.  I will miss her horribly.  This move has me thinking all about Hannah and myself.  In the end, what needs to happen is this: we need to have steady sources of income and we need to put between a hundred and two hundred away each paycheck.  Then we need to talk to HUD or to a bank or something!  Then we need to put a down payment toward either a town home (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6K-10K) or a house (around 10K-25K depending).  Then we can either pay the rent at a reduced price or pay off the mortgage at a reasonable amount.  This is what needs to happen.  We are both almost thirty.  We are stir crazy and need a place that we can paint the hell out of and build onto.  We need a garden, we need a life.  We need a huge Saint Andrew's cross in the basement and a high enough ceiling so that we can have fun.  It's stressful.  But the other part of this is - where will this be.  If we go to Kansas, then we will go for the town homes that her parents live in.  They have great space and are low on rent.  But what about a house?  If I were to graduate and get in with a community college or something like that... then wouldn't a home be feasible?  A home in Coeurd'Alene maybe?  Or somewhere in Kansas not necessarily Wichita?  I think Wichita is the only place I would be willing to live in Kansas but then again what about Washington?  What about Spokane and Liberty Lake and Moses Lake and all these damn lakes?  Where indeed.

Enough of my ranting.  Onward to life as it is: I am working on a couple of books for this last fifth of the quarter.  More than anything, however, I want to write, write, write.  That will be pretty much my entire day today and tomorrow.  I just cleaned up the bedroom and tonight I'll be camping in the living room on the air mattress (cuz I can!) and then I'll finish deep cleaning the bathroom tomorrow.  At the moment, I just miss Hannah like crazy.  Her being in Kansas for a month without me is just too long I think.  I really miss her and her kitties really miss her.  I have a sneaking suspicion that she also misses me.

I have some stuff to read for the residency but I can do most of that in June.  More than even how much I'm worrying over the final packet, I am starting to stress about workshops.  I think, in the end, I am going to workshop Death Man.  Two fresh chapters.  But I need to get as far along as I can because I need to solidify some sort of plot line (a very loose one) that I can present as the before and after of the chapters I submit.  Oh logistics, thou always dost make shit cake out of creativity.  So, wish me luck in my Death Man endeavors.  I think I will be posting a few snippets from the story on the blog once I am satisfied with them.  And satisfied is such an ethereal state when it comes to writing.

Oh, Vizio...

So as it turns out, sleep, medication, and reality were effective in convincing me to keep my sexy little Vizio instead of turning her back into Walmart with a 'thanks for all the fish' sort of repartee.  Firstly, I am typing on it right now and while I am still having to go back and fix things here and there it's not nearly as bad as it was two days ago or even yesterday.  I even managed to sit and type on it while Hannah and I bombarded Barnes & Nobles today.  By the time I've made about half a page, I was a little tired of putting so much concentration into the act but I wasn't crying and I was actually kind of proud.

Secondly, the idea of taking the computer back began to give me mild palpitations - not so much because I thought that Walmart wouldn't take it, but more so because she is such an astronomically good deal that there would be no way I'd get another computer this cool/groovy for anywhere near the price.  Right now, this Vizio (same specs) sells for anywhere between $650 and $850 new, and around $450 to $550 used.  This one is new.  And it's Windows 7.  And it was $500.  I got a heck of a deal and apparently others are finding that they really love these little beasts because they are getting fairly high marks and also stores are running the fuck out of them.  They got bought up at Walmart so fast it's almost like it didn't carry them at all.  It was kind of a fluke that I ended up with it.

Thirdly, I ain't got no other option!  The Samsung that I lusted after yesterday in my blog post is no longer available.  Hardly any of the computers that were Windows 7 are available.  I even broadened my criteria to include mammoth screens and yet there was nary a Windows 7 in sight.  I took all of these things to mean that I just needed to be patient and breathe and give Vignette a little more time.  That's what I named the little beast: Vignette.  Because she's like a little slice.  They really mean it when they call the Vizio CT14 Ultrabook a 'thin and light' laptop.  When she's closed down flat she almost disappears.  Kind of like Tim Roth in 'Rob Roy' during the final duel between him ad Liam Neeson.  I swear that there are moments when he turns just right and his skinny little British body seems to slurp into another dimension and disappear right there on screen.

Something interesting that I hadn't known prior to nabbing this little beauty from the shelves a few days back was that Vizio only entered the PC scene around June of last year.  This was one of their first babies on the market from what I can tell and again, I am lucky to have snagged it for this price.  Now that the word is out, they are selling like hot cakes.  I think in a weeks time, when I am used to the super responsive mouse pad and the extremely thin keys, I will have nothing but good things to say about her.  For now, this blog was further practice before I begin really hunkering down on novel stuff for my homework tomorrow.  I have lots to write and not much time to do it in.  I cannot believe that the second residency is just around the corner.  This time when I go to Boston, I will more than likely have a little Vizio by my side.

If he can type on a flat keyboard then surely I can figure it out.

General Updates and New Blog

EDIT: The other blog is now null and void.  My only blog that I update regularly is this one.

It's been a little while since I last updated here.  Things have been busy with work and busy with getting my act together for school.  I have a great many things I need to read, lots of pre-arrival paperwork to do, and I still have to finalize everything to do with my financial aide.  I am nervous, nervous, nervous to say the least.  As far as other updates go, you can find tidbits of my life via my journal blog entitled 'Skoora's Box' (a name that may eventually change) via igotcherback, a social networking site that a friend of mine launched.  The posts are called Office Christmas Party and The Yoda is Sick.  Please check them out if you have nothing better to do or are training to be a professional grade stalker and need to know every detail of my day to day life.

I'm sure I will have a plethora of things to report concerning my MFA strides as this month progresses.  In the mean time I hope that everyone is safe, warm, and filled with some of the general good feelings that this time of year tends to bring about.

Some Sound Advice!

This is a link that was posted recently on the Creative Writing MFA Blog, which is a fairly informative writing hub concerning that ever pressing topic: the MFA and the various programs through which to obtain one.  Several of the blog posts speak of first hand experience in dealing with the Low Residency Program through Queens University of Charlotte and I found this to be particularly helpful in the decision making process.  However, enough promotion, and on with the good stuff:

How to Apply to an MFA Program is a blog post from by Seth Fried who writes for the TinHouse Blog.   It is a truly excellent piece that - had I known about it prior to having mailed out my first two applications to MFA programs - wouldn't have helped me in the least.  But perhaps it will soften the blow of any rejection letters that may be forthcoming.  Enjoy this small excerpt, but please, do yourself a favor and follow the link to read the entire 'how to' article.  It's very much worth it.

~*~

Much like the royal courts of the yestermillennium, MFA programs will not grant you an audience unless you approach them with proper letters of introduction. That is why it is of the utmost importance that you secure two to three letters in which your former teachers recommend you as a human.

When requesting these letters from your teachers, you must be sensitive to the fact that teaching is demanding work and leaves very little time for writing letters. A polite thing to do is to create a generic letter to which any teacher can simply sign his or her name. I have included an example below:

Dear College,

I am writing to recommend that you accept Seth Fried to your creative writing program.

Seth was a star pupil in my (please circle one) REMEDIAL MATH COURSE/ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASS/BASIC HYGIENE INTERVENTION. Based on his performance, I am able to say with a high degree of certainty that you would be a fool not to accept him.

I found his intelligence to be so intimidating that after grading his work I was often unable to perform sexually. Frankly, I’m not even certain that he shouldn’t be writing a letter of recommendation for me.

He would truly be an asset to your program. Not only is he talented and focused, but he also does not do hard drugs and has never been convicted of a violent crime.

Sincerely,

—————————-
(sign above)