02 December 2009

Get out of here.

I'm almost ashamed to say this, but I didn't realize until reading some Time magazine teaser online that a decade is coming to an end in a few weeks. I used to spend a lot of time analyzing the relative "goodness" and "shitty-ness" of certain years. I believe at one point in my life I spent much of New Year's Eve cataloging the highlights of the prior year.

Obviously I had way too much time on my hands. I don't have way too much time on my hands now. But I am very excited about starting a new decade. Or, maybe I'm very excited about flushing the last decade down the crapper. Not really. That's too harsh. Some good things happened (some of them really good things) but I am ready.

I am currently consuming a mint that is so minty that I can feel it in my ears. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure.

Despite an annoying issue with small ants, I have been learning to really love my house all over again. Aside from going to work, I spend (almost) all of my time there. I am really into holiday decorating now, starting to enjoy that again. I have a profound desire to go sledding. This is a good thing, I am quite sure.

This semester has not been very fruitful in the writing department. I think I'll end up with about ten pages of new poetry. There have been multiple days in a row where I haven't done anything creative, aside from maybe making a stupid joke, or cutting up some celery on an angle, and neither of those things count. I hope that next semester, since I won't have any massive life changes, I will be able to start being prolific again, or at least prolificish. It's hard having just finished a manuscript and scrutinizing every incoming idea. Will it fit? Old book? New book? New book? Oh dear.

Maybe it's time to set a goal. Mine is going to be three new poems before the end of this decade. Who's in? Anybody?

15 comments:

Leslie said...

I'm in.

WV: nessessa: two necessary things. sort of.

marybid said...

Yess!

nessessa: the components of a Cessna that you don't want to leave the ground without.

camera shy said...

hi mary,

thanks for posting this. you got me thinking about everything that has happened to me over the past decade as a single unit of time, and in retrospect the decade has been more eventful than i remembered it being. moved twice (from IL to MN,and from MN to MA) completed grad school. wrote two and two thirds books (finishing edits to the two completed) took a position teaching comp and lit (not creative writing, but paying the bills).

i'm still considering the 3 poem challenge. editing in order to meet deadlines seems to be taking precedence over new work at the moment, though.

Anonymous said...

I'm in! I did nothing but rake leaves all last month and it's time for me to commit to a few poems!

Lyle Daggett said...

Actually Time magazine is wrong -- the decade doesn't end in a few weeks. What ends in a few weeks is 2009, the ninth year of the decade. The tenth year (and the decade itself) won't end until the end of next year, 2010.

Yeah, three poems by the end of this decade should be doable...

WV is "difieddi", one of those words that probably doesn't quite mean anything, but looks like it should.

Matthew Thorburn said...

I'm in too. I have at least three rough rough drafts I need to get back to before the moment is gone.

I think your "nessessa" definition is practically a poem in itself, MB!

marybid said...

Lyle, can I please pretend that it ends in a few weeks? Pretty please? :)

Gary L. McDowell said...

I'm in, Mary.

So, are we sharing our poems?

Happy days and hugs, Mary!

Karen J. Weyant said...

I'm in, too! (And yes, I want the decade to end in 2009!)

Lyle Daggett said...

Mary, I'll submit your request to the Chronography Steering Committee, and will let you know the Committee's decision by the end of the decade.

Laura the Poet said...

I'm in for sure. After finals week I'll have all this free time. Poems yay!

PS: Also, perhaps you needed some time to wear other hats this semester. :-)

Valerie Loveland said...

Three more poems before 2010 sounds like a reasonable goal. I'm going to try it!

Radish King said...

If the first year of the decade was 2000, then 2009 makes 10 years. I was always fairly good at math.

Yes for poems. I put aside Thursday nights no distractions. Even if I just sit with a pen and my crappy notebook I make myself write something. Mastery of practice is everything. I believe it.

Carry on.

Rebecca

jillypoet said...

I'm in! So glad I found this post! (Thanks to "Myself the Only Kangaroo"!)

Radish King, I love love that idea. Just pick a night and make it write night--no matter what.

jillypoet said...

Just popping in to say...I did it! Three poems written before the end of the decade/year! thaks for the push!

Charleston gratitude and overdue update

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