Look, I'm posting!
I didn't think I'd have telnet access from Lisette's...but then I thought, "why not?" I know how to download things. And lo and behold, I fiddled a little this morning and here I am. Didja miss me?
Karen has told me that my journal lately has been pleasant but dull. Okay, that's not exactly what she said, but it's the general gist. She's far too tactful to actually tell me I'm being boring. Well, not in so many words, anyway.
Anyway. I do agree with her...it's partly because my life is so interesting, I'm afraid. That doesn't seem fair to you -- if my life is super-interesting, then my journal should be too. But instead, my journal gets very brief and quiet.
Things on my mind these days:
- Aqua Erotica -- this one's causing a fair bit of anxiety. I'm glad I
did Maiden Voyage; even if it was pulled, I learned a lot in the process
about how to put together an anthology, and I feel like I know what I'm
doing this time. But I have a really tight deadline (the call ends
November 15th, and I'm supposed to get a final manuscript to them by
December 10th) and there's suddenly been a lot more pressure from the head
honchos to get at least one big name for the anthology. I mean really
big. I thought it was enough that I got Nicola Griffith and Mary Maxwell
and Lawrence Schimel to write me stories (all names in different ways),
but they were thinking like Anne Rice or Nicholson Baker or Dorothy
Allison. Meep! So I'm trying desperately to find contact info for
bestselling authors who might possibly be willing to write a little
erotica piece for me (or have one lying around) -- anyone know how to
reach Stephen King? They're not going to shoot me if I can't (esp. given
the tight deadline), but it'll make a big difference to book promotion, to
how much the publisher spends on the advertising budget, and THAT makes a
big difference to how many copies sell. They're doing a large print run
(well, large by my standards, anyway, in fact, huge by my standards) and
I'd really like to at least sell most of them. Ideally, of course, it's a
runaway bestseller and we sell them all and go laughing back to the
printer to do a second, much larger, print run. (I can dream, no?)
- Me. My...my inner workings, I suppose? All of this stress with Kevin
has made me realize (okay, he said it first, but several people confirmed
it and I must admit it's true) that I just am not very introspective.
Which would be okay if I were a totally happy and fulfilled person, but
what I've been realizing lately is that while I love very much of what I
do, there are some buried parts of my psyche that could really use some
attention. I'm a little afraid to poke at it, though. I'm afraid that if
I take off the lid (sorry for the wildly mixed metaphors), enough stuff
will come jumping out that it'll distract me from my work...and I have SO
much work to do. I really overcommitted this time around, and so the
tempation is to just keep the lid on until Christmas, at least. But Kev
isn't teaching next semester, so I don't know how much he'll be around,
and I'd really feel much better about letting some stuff out if he were
around to keep it all from flying away. Hmm. I suppose I could just go
talk to a counselor of some kind (Lisette's suggestion), but it doesn't
feel quite serious enough to justify that. On the other hand, I came
really pretty close to breaking down at the end of my time at Mills, and
there have been some sort of ragged times since...well. I'm still
thinking about it. Sorry that all this is vague -- it's nothing
particularly nasty, just hard to put into words. And some of it (like
resentment and frustration with my parents) doesn't really need to be
explored in a public journal. It wouldn't be fair to them. I'll tell you
what I feel I can.
- Teaching -- there was somewhat of a teaching crisis last week, actually...or at least a grading crisis. I had students coming in and crying in my office and I really don't think anyone should cry over a freshman composition class. So I spent a lot of time talking to Paul and Susan (colleagues) and decided to ease up a little on the grades (my class average was about a D+, so maybe I was being a bit harsh), and the students seem less terrified now. So that's good. I want them worried and working hard, but not actually freaking out, 'cause that's usually counterproductive. I've started grading their biotech papers...I'm think I'm going to comment more on these, which will take longer, but there's isn't as much of a time crunch for getting them back, so it should be okay.
Okay, that was a tangent I hadn't planned. Eventually last night I got to see Lisette act in a production of William Gibson's Burning Chrome, which I enjoyed. I always love watching her act. I had no idea she was so buff, though (she wears very tight black spandex bits for the play, and her stomach is totally flat and hard -- very impressive). After the play, we talked 'til 2 or so. Men and emotions. I've missed her!