Into the wild blue wherever.

I don't know anything at all about Washington, DC, except that in a week I'll be going there. I didn't have one of those junior high trips to DC. My parents took me to Paris instead of DC. My friends and I road-tripped to Toronto instead of DC. The other day I realized that my dad only recently went to DC for the first time (a business trip).

I think I am a complete freak of Americanness! Or un-Americanness?

Today was a day of headaches. I hope they go away soon.

I love my classes this semester. Like, I am sad when it's a non-teaching day. I have so many talented and fun students who are generally awesome people.

Talking about The Endarkenment in my undergrad poetry workshop tomorrow. Yeah!

After a big scare, BOR 4 is finally on its way from the printer. Whew.

If the snow would melt and my sinuses would disappear, the world would be a completely happy place.

Washington, DC. I guess I'm on my way-ish.

[discipline & publish]

For whatever reason, I almost always pack up all of my work on Friday and bring it home with me, even on weekends when the kids are home the whole time. So then on Sunday night and Monday morning I'm all eff this, why did I bring this home. But for once, I am glad I brought it all home this weekend, because now I'm sick. And who doesn't want to annotate and edit a fever away, right? Or feverishly plan an AWP table schedule? Or cough all over somebody's thesis?

I am not taking any chances this time and I am not going to work. I will not repeat Lungtastrophy 2010. Oh no. And yesterday's football games certainly did not provide me with a shot of penicillin (or similar).

The not-writing is starting to really bother me.

But I've been understanding a lot more about my current project thanks to an interview I'm doing for The Fine Delight. I'll let you know when it's posted.

Sent in the final edits for Saint Monica. Subsequently fell in love with the poems all over again, if that's possible to do with your own poems.

BOR 4 is at the printer. Hooray! It might just be the best issue ever.

Still basking in the afterglow of The Monkey and the Wrench being released. It's a paperback, and also my first e-book. I don't have an e-reader, but some of my friends think it's cool. Thank you to all the folks who have bought a copy. We'll be giving out a mini-galley (to treasure! to bring home for the kids / cats!) at AWP.

I'm in AWP disbelief. Maybe because it's been less than a year since the last AWP.

I think that's about it for now. Thera-Flu, here I come.

For your calendar.

Reading poems from O Holy Insurgency as well as some coin operated poems that will thrill the spare change out of you.

Wingspannery.

You can barely see it, but some nice spider stretched a web from one angel wing to the other. Sometimes it's the little things that charm me. I had to make it b&w for fun. I'm trying to figure out what it means, but I have no idea.

First teaching day of 2011 for me, and two poetry workshops (advanced undergrad, and grad). Aside from having classes eight hours apart, I'm happy with the schedule, and feeling the usual giddy things I feel with a new class. I don't ever think I'll stop loving this.

Speaking of love, and labors thereof, Barn Owl Review 4 is off to the printer. This has to be my favorite issue so far, and my favorite cover. It occurred to me a few minutes ago that this is the third document I've dispatched to the printer in the past four weeks or so. Whew.

I have a lot of things simmering right now. Will rewrite, and then subsequently shorten, the to-do list now.

And then everything was pretty much the same...

...only, you know, emptier.

I feel like it's a little wrong for me to like this photo so much. I took it, after all. That's gross. But the parking lot is the real star.

So back on the chain gang, and all that. I succeeded in not doing work over break, for the most part, aside from BOR work. Hence, I had many nasty little tidbits awaiting me when I returned to my office(s) this week. Today I had some uninterrupted hours to get things done, and actually felt as if I managed time effectively.

Now, to add writing poem to that time management.

My shoulders hurt and I don't have very many ideas in my head.

I have a lot of projects right now. But The Monkey and the Wrench is alive (and almost officially on shelves), and BOR 4 is in pages, and we have a really kickass new interview with David Dodd Lee over on BOR Online, thanks to Nick Sturm. Now that I've progressed my web design skills past 1999, we'll have a lot more content rocking over there at BOR.

So that's 2011 so far, in a nutshell. I imagine next week it will get a bit more hectic.

For now, I will just enjoy the cracks in the parking lot.