I know you're out there clamoring for Sims updates and I'm sorry I haven't done one in a while. I also haven't updated the Bookworm Burb in a couple of months, and I usually do that every month. Sorry, languishing Bookworms-to-be. But I was busy vacationing. And then I was busy moping. And now I'm busy being busy. Man, August really is whirling to a close, isn't it?

The main things taking up my time have been poetry-related. Not really writing poems (although today I wrote three poems) but sending out chapbooks, working on my syllabus, working on my Fulbright proposal, submitting poetry, and reading my two new books.

Let me break it down for you.

I've signed and sent out the first batch of chapbooks. (This gave me a little thrill each and every time.) So watch your mailboxes, oh ye who ordered them. And if you didn't order one, you should really be asking yourself, self, why didn't I order one of Monique's chapbooks? Of course, maybe you have a really good answer to that question. I can respect that.

I worked on my syllabus today, and ran into my first official snag. See, I was told it would be a fifteen week course, so like an idiot, I came up with fifteen topics, photocopied poems for each topic, put them in a reader, and thought I was set. However, one of those weeks is Veteran's Day, and my class doesn't meet. Another week is Indigenous Peoples Day. No class again.

Oops.

I sort of solved the problem as best I could. I mean, what can I do? I combined topics. One class is now Figurative Language and Extended Metaphor. And the other class is Short Poetry and Prose Poetry, and the workshop is the last day of classes.

This is less than ideal-- I didn't want to do a workshop on the last day, I just wanted to have everyone read from their finished manuscripts. And I really did want to put Extended Metaphor as its own class. And Short Poetry and Prose Poetry don't really go together. But I can't see a better solution right now. Maybe I'll ask Laurie-- as a former teacher, she has had a lot of great advice for me.

Item number two is my Fulbright proposal. Man, this is hard. I have no idea how to propose a creative project. I am afraid it sounds utterly stupid.

And it really doesn't take that long to explain-- half of it feels like padding. "I am writing poems in English and translating them into Dutch. Then, I will have Dutch translations of the English poems. The goal here is to produce a bilingual manuscript in Dutch and English, with English poems and their Dutch translations side by side." (This is not the real proposal, by the way. I'm not that hopeless.)

I don't know enough about linguistics or translation, either. I have no context for this project. It's just, "Hey, it would be super cool to write some poetry and stuff. Gimme money."

I can't even write the usual bullshit stuff, because I think the Fulbright committee would see right through bullshit. I just need a solid, specific proposal. And I need it to be more than three paragraphs long.

I got my copies of Best American Poetry and Poet's Market last week. You all remember how excited I was to get them. Best American Poetry is really great this year. It has its ups and downs as a series, and I wasn't all that jazzed about Robert Hass being the guest editor, but I was pleasantly surprised. The introduction by Hass is interesting, and there are some great, innovative poems in there-- risky, bold choices.

The poets include plenty of the usual suspects, but there are some exciting new voices as well. I've only just begun to read it, but I've already made a vow to find some poetry by James Galvin, whom I had never heard of. I love his poem. It feels Tate-esque.

Oh, and speaking of James Tate, that's another thing I did today. I wrote him a letter. It feels totally goofy to write to some random poet that I don't even know (and, um, to send him a chapbook) but someone I went to school with suggested that I do so. I tried to ask him some intelligent questions about his work and threw in a copy of my chapbook just in case.

I know the odds of a reply are probably not huge, but you never know. It only took half an hour or so, and it's worth a shot.

I also went through Poet's Market and made a couple of submissions. I still have three batches of poems floating out in the ether, but I had enough new stuff and rejected stuff to send out to a couple of magazines. (I actually sent out something I wrote today-- which is a totally crazy thing to do.)

In looking over my submissions, I realized that I've got a pretty good success rate so far this year. I've sent out seven batches of poems and gotten two acceptances, four rejections, and three "we don't know yet"s. Trust me, that's good. Especially since I have high-ish standards for where I'll submit.

I also looked at one of my "we don't know" letters, and noticed that they were supposed to respond within a month, and didn't. I looked up their entry, and it says that responses take longer if they're "seriously considering" your work. So this is a good sign, and I'm stoked.

On the other hand, it's sad that I've only sent out seven batches of poems this year. It's not a quick process, but I feel like I could have been doing more. Oh well. I've been on top of it since March, so I'm not going to beat myself up. It IS a slow process.

I just want to get something published that I have written recently. They keep printing the old stuff-- of course, I keep sending the new stuff to total long shot markets. Maybe I should do a little less of that, eh?

In non-poetry news, I washed my car today. I used to wash the Geo Pet all the time, when I lived at home. When I moved to my apartment, there was no place to wash the car, so I fell out of the habit. When I moved up here, it took me a while to figure out that there is a hose here, and a driveway, and I can actually wash my car again. But I wasn't comfortable with doing it until my roommates went out of town. Why? I really have no idea.

Anyway, washing my car was a very pleasant, Zen-like experience. I must have totally spaced out too, because the next time I went outside and got in my car, I was like, "Wow! My car is clean!" Then I said to myself, "Self, you just spent an hour washing it. Of course it's clean. Dumbass."

And in other cleaning news, I found a bug wandering around on the bottom of the bird cage. A disgusting little seed-eating bug. Which was even more troubling because now that Phoebe is in charge of the Cassiecabana, the birds walk around on the bottom of their cage sometimes. Amidst bugs! I think not.

I freaked out. I took the bird cage out of the room and scrubbed it down. Of course, this left the birds extremely confused, flying around with no cage to land on. But I put my hand up, and Phoebe landed on it-- three times in a row! Each time, as soon as she realized she was on The Hand, she took off again. But she did sit there for a second and look at me quizzically. "Where in the holy hell is my cage?" I imagined her saying.

This is actually how I first tamed Cassie. Her cage fell down off the shelf, and I put my hand where her cage used to be, and she landed on it. I guess this taught her that The Hand isn't so bad. Perhaps this tactic will work with Phoebe, too.

And to round out this spicy crispy entry, here is one of the poems I wrote today, as yet untitled. It's been a while since I've posted a poem, hasn't it? Yes, it has. So if you're one of those poetry haters, you can just be quiet and take it like a man. Heh.

I want to take you somewhere:

where I can erase your lungs, liver, ribs
and replace them with an oversized blue heart

a plastic balloon filled with buttermilk
that beats much too fast for an average girl

and roll you over, kiss your back, the usual business
except at that very moment, your heart will inflate

two degrees too much, your body too full
because your pleasure is like pink buttermilk

being squeezed from the inside of your heart.
by me, by me, by my words, by me, by this

I want to take you somewhere:

apart from your usual state of being, and yet
you may be content or thoughtless or mechanical

or apathetic or mundane or truly engaged
and the place I take you may not be the place I

want to take you, not the blue balloon heart place
perhaps instead I will take you to a wild prairie

what do I know about the prairie? I think it is flat,
and there are colors in it that are your colors

but you might go and find that everything is sepia
even the prairie dogs, who don't know who I am

I want to take you somewhere:

somewhere realistic, like a bar with red upholstery
where the bartender sets a tablet next to each drink

and you swallow it, and your heart beats faster,
it may be ecstasy, ephedrine, or aspirin,

whatever, you don't care, you just dance faster,
flipping your hair and sipping your apple martini

I want to take you there and dance, take you
home and strip, get in our car, point it at the prairie

and drive, drive, drive to some remarkable destination
get in these lines and drive them somewhere new

"MOM
I made this little drawing for you, showing where everything is.

IN MY HEAD
Oh, dear god."

contest alert:
the 300th person to join the notify list will win a personalized mo pie cd. what i'm reading:
The Hobbit. In theory, I am reading The Hobbit. In actual fact, I am reading the new copy of TV Guide that appeared in my mailbox today with Scott Bakula on the cover.

what i'm writing:
Three poems, I tell you! That rules.

what i'm watching:
Nothing at all. It's how I'm managing to be so productive. Oh! OH! OHHHH! I forgot to mention I got the Waiting for Guffman DVD yesterday (the day it came out, of course) and it's GREAT. There are two cut songs in the deleted scenes section, and they're so cool-- I especially love "This Bulging River" although I understand it's seven minutes long so they had to cut it out. Most interesting trivia: the alien who steps out of the spaceship during the play has a Roman numeral eleven on his space suit. I had never noticed this before, but Guest said it's a Spinal Tap reference. I love it!

anything:
The Barenaked Ladies have done a cover of Grim Grinning Ghosts from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. It is extremely cool.

you learn something new...
That two of my classes are being pre-empted for stupid holidays.

journal quote of the day:
"He's made it clear to Linda that she cannot whore herself out if they ever get fully back together, but for now, when they're just sleeping together, it's fine; and he's really looking forward to the LSD treatment."

~Kate is back! With a journal called Reinventing Dorothy Parker. And a worrisome entry. Crack?! Holy crap.

mood ring:
grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize