Edging out the "Competition"

"The other day, as I looked down on the field of cubicles from the 'resting area' on the balcony, I felt an urge to read aloud from a Graham Greene story I had disregarded in my 20s: 'Are you prepared for the years of effort, ‘the long defeat of doing nothing well’? As the years pass writing will not become any easier, the daily effort will grow harder to endure, those ‘powers of observation’ will become enfeebled; you will be judged, when you reach your 40s, by performance and not by promise.' Harsh stuff. But don’t take Greene’s word for it, or mine. I’m a writer. Maybe I’m just trying to clear a little more room for myself at the workspace."

Post MFA Recovery

The rule is that if I’m not creative writing I don’t get to blog. After much huffing and puffing I was able to expel a breech story this week. My reward is public blathering. As the guitarist from my band says, “I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn.”

Topic: Post MFA I’ve had problems finishing a book (as in reading one, never mind writing one). I blame the Rushdie lit seminar. One novel a week plus critical essays snapped a mind already worn fragile by plotless New Yorker stories. I remember experiencing the same reading burnout after undergrad. That summer I spent hours staring out the back window at a huge oak tree. The leaves turned brown, fell. A few months later the branches dripped cold rain. Then they were coated in ice. I wasn’t able to finish a book until the return of spring allergies. It took Stephen King to get me reading again. After four years of Plato, Hume and Wittgenstein I was in desperate need of a resolved plot.

This go round it’s only December and here I am reading already. For others in Recovery I say forget the short stories and go with the New Yorker staff writers. Good old nonfiction has come to my rescue in the form of Malcolm Gladwell. I read Outliers in a day. Devouring a book felt like an overdue chiropractic adjustment. Wasn’t that how I got into this mess in first place? Not because I had to force myself to read and write, but because I loved it?

I admit Outliers, while a great read, has some of the same problems King novels do. In the interest of concrete developments and meaty handholds, subtlety is lost. For now I’ll take story over subtlety, but I predict after a while I’ll swing the other way again. After all, it wasn’t that I didn’t love my MFA reading list, I burned out on it. I might even be ready for Alice Munro soon.

Book is Dead

The Chicago Tribune's Saturday book section (really, the Books AND MEDIA section, for pete's sake, as if books were not enough to warrant a 4 page section!) puts the crap in crappy. The horr(or) in horrible. Yes, I was happy that they finally got around to reviewing Bolano's 2666 about a month after its release. But no I do not need to read another review of a feline-based children's picture book in a half-page mega review. I just.don't.need.it. Oh, okay book section, just go ahead and use pages 3-4 for reviewing bad movies and to teach me more about the iPhone. Where has all the substance gone?

And then fellow Tribune Co.-owned Los Angeles Times announced they are no longer running a book section back in July. The only thing worse than a bad book section is no book section! Sad me.

Craigslist: the barometer

I'm back on the (half-hearted) job hunt these days. If Craigslist has anything to tell us its that, yes, the job market is crummy. For a city with such a large population & a healthy number of bustling "industrial" suburbs (that is, the outlying areas where huge buildings for huge companies can crop up with the benefit of more acreage), the "writing & editing" page on Craigslist has always overwhelmed me with 20 or so posts a day to choose from. Have at it, it proclaimed! There's something here for everyone. Every day! Yesterday that number was down to a measly 3.

What in Chicago There is to Know

Everyone around me was very animated about Gov. Blagojevich's arrest yesterday. Yes, it's alarming in a number of ways. 1) This alters the perception of Obama's pre-inauguration activities merely by association-- that the governor was selling his seat to the most attractive bidder. This, for a president-elect journalists are convinced already has the pressure of "the first 100 days" before the first 100 days. 2) Some talking heads on the local stations have decided this also jeopardizes Chicago's bid for the Olympics because a corrupt city does not sit well with the Olympic committee (but...what about...China?!) and 3) Blagojevich tried to bribe the Tribune to FIRE PART OF ITS EDITORIAL STAFF! Freedom of the Press be damned I guess. These are some shitty times, my friends.

What I do love is how comical the public radio news coverage is. The stories always detail Blagojevich's rant that was picked up by his wire tap. The small 5-line bit contains no less than 3 instances of the word fuck. We all know this. We understand how context works. However, the radio must come up with a clever way to disguise this. Hence, the following: "effing", "bleeping" & the unwieldy mid-sentence "expletive omitted".

In other proud Chicago news: Mayor Daley is so hard up for money that he's cutting back side-street plowing for the winter. I'm not sure where my entitlement came from that I deserve to have a street I can pull my car onto without sliding through every stop sign but...please, pretty please won't you plow?

Healthy brain cells

Jacket on Oppen. Because hanging out in my department's mail room is not intellectually stimulating, I need brainy critical essays.

At work I did learn that healthy human brain cells do not allow perfusion. Diseased cells, however, do. This is how, in part, MRI scans sense cancer.

I ate too much for Thanksgiving. At an over-populated home in Columbus, OH. With 75 people all sharing the same last name (not of my family tree, either).

Also, as us writerly folk look forward to a cold-ass wintry trip to Chicago for February's AWP conference, I think of this essay Kay Ryan about the antisocial approach to AWP (an outlook I wholeheartedly support). I also remember how damn enjoyable the book fair was. Seeing Kevin Young et al. close.enough.to.touch. And John Irving telling us to write backwards to meet your beginning sentence; last chapter first, first chapter last. Joys!

Mark Doty wins.

Plugging Our Friends: Brandon Shimoda's The Alps

Fellow UM MFA grad Brandon Shimoda's book The Alps is out. Check it.

Security blankets

As Obama continues to announce more filled vacancies in his administration-to-be, and the "plum" book is published claiming wide readership for just the chance to see "dream list" of career opportunities, I am contemplating the next j-o-b. This, due to the fact I am surrounded by and have only office supplies to commiserate with, which feels a little out of touch with reality.

I believe, now, my tasks at work can be replicated by a robot-- if this robot could wield Papermate Intro-brand highlighters, binder clips, "sign here" arrow post-its & navigate the intricacies of a wire inbox and outbox set.

I recently had a conversation with one of my supervisors about "my career path". I went ahead and boldy went where no 40-hour/week employee would go: "I have decided to teach" I said. That is, I went on to clarify, teach college. By that, I guess I (realistically) meant adjuncting. "But', she countered, "--ah... don't you want to pay rent?" And with that, hopes were dashed and I will quietly harbor these dreams of low pay and sharing a huge desk somewhere with the fluorescent lights of the local library glaring. Regardless, I will lobby hard for robot hiring in the next few weeks.

As Jan. looms, local community and suburban colleges have posted deadlines for full-time English faculty &, of course, composition adjunct positions. What can it hurt to have two or three part-time jobs without the benefits of vacation days, overtime or-- wouldntchaknowit-- health insurance instead of the 40-hours/wk without vacation, overtime or insurance now? I am in the very least pretty sure I'll feel a little more like a writer if I'm around some English department bookshelves. Right? Right? Does that make me weak and dependent on external circumstances for self-worth?

Notes from MFA-land

For my friends who miss being in a graduate program, the highlights of a week at school:

Monday: final "project" due (as project-y as a short story can be), comp student comes to office hours to announce that she's apathetic about writing and will no longer be putting effort into her papers, final project handed in on time, moping/depression about frustrated student ensues.

Tuesday: since project is in, time to catch up on reading. Distracted from others' workshop submissions by the excellence of a published story collection, still hung up on frustrated comp student.

Wednesday: Help frustrated student research, feel better, more reading, fall asleep over classmates' stories again.

Thursday: Finish reading workshop submissions, finish pleasure-reading story collection, take new book out of library, attend reading in Berkeley, workshop, cocktails with classmates.

Friday: no classes, lay around, clean apartment, hopefully post on blog for LEW's birthday.

The MFA life, almost a life of luxury (except on a budget and that budget on loan). Earlier today, I was ready to whine: that student depressed me; I could have done something more with my final project; I have a headache, which must be the result of a rough week (except written out it doesn't look bad at all). I got to spend hours and hours in the library (my favorite place). I saw friends, who share my interests and commiserate with me, every day. What's so bad about the MFA life? Nothing, I suppose. However, with commencement a semester away and the economy needing jump-start after jump-start, current satisfaction seems impossible (perhaps the underlying cause of my orneriness). If I can't help this one student, how can I hope to teach for a living? If I can't get this story right now, how will I ever write a successful story in the future? If I don't have Fridays off, will my living quarters ever be clean again? MFA-land is a happy enough place when experienced in the moment, but I worry about my departure from it. Next project: MFA weaning. (Although worry about the future prepares me for all the worrying that I'll have outside of school, so I may be on the right track already.)

The PhD Statement of Purpose I Wish I Could Send

Hi,

I know you are bunch of creative writers. Probably last night you were out snorting cocaine off someone’s butt. Maybe you felt up a co-ed, or maybe you were at home, quietly bathing in angst. Either way, I know you don’t really care about this statement of purpose. We all know this is a ruse to keep that cranky lit faculty at bay and appease the cloak and dagger bastards at The Graduate School.

I know you are skimming this so you can get back to your own work. I’ll try and keep this short.

I am not crazy or an asshole. I promise.

The problem here is that I can’t say this. It’s like the creepy guy in the elevator who grabs your arm and says I’m not going to hurt you. But really, I am this totally great person you will dig.

And I might make it as a writer. I’m not necessarily the greatest writer ever to hit the universe, which is not to say I don’t have something to contribute. I just need a break. Can I have a break?

Please, I can’t wait tables anymore or there will be a DEATH soon. Whose death, it’s difficult to say.

Sorry, that was a little bit melodramatic. And I know murder goes against my claim I’m not a psycho. That was hyperbole. (I like to think correct application of the term "hyperbole" proves I’m ready for the lit coursework). Sometimes kind, ordinary people get pushed too far. Let me back off a bit.

Just forget it. Forget everything! Read the sample and you either like me or you don’t. Let’s get on with it. What you want to do, fine.

End Times

On Oct. 30, a man set himself on fire at the university that employs me. A couple of people from the other side of my office witnessed it. He was a former custodial worker for the U.

***

So the job is going fine, I guess. It's hard to really know what fine is, right now, what with the cognitive dissonance of the recent election. I'm re-learning how to mail merge, mostly. And making copies. Lots of copies.

***

I wish I could say that I'm writing. I guess I am, in that I write ideas or lines down at least once a day. Nothing is really striking me, though. I may be a little too overwhelmed with the immediacy of the day-to-day world to be reflective or generative at the moment.

***

I reserved plane tickets to go to Chicago for the weekend of AWP, though I will not be attending the conference. Rather, it will be an opportunity to have a reunion of sorts with the MFA diaspora and my college roommate. And perhaps attend some off-site readings around town. On an unrelated note, I also registered for my 15-year high school reunion over the Thanksgiving break. I haven't begun the requisite stock-taking review and evaluation of my entire life yet since June 10, 1993, but it's coming. Oh, it's coming in a big way.

***

Am considering applying for fellowships. I think this is one of the stages of denial that follows the MFA. It's the No-this-can't-possibly-be-all-there-is stage. Or the I-must-cling-to-academia-for-validation stage. Or both. I've actually set some wheels in motion regarding recommendation letters. It is very possible that someone may need to slap me until I come to my senses.