It occurred to me that I feel extremely alienated from the "writing community" at-large and I'm not so sure if this a newer development or something I've felt for a long time. There's always been this lingering sense of certain people only being interested in what I can do for them, or others taking advantage and not appreciating (or respecting) what I do or something like that. In reality that is probably a minority. Most writers have been rather gracious and generous, but that minority sometimes sticks in my heart. It's always had more power than it should. I've spent a long time trying to figure out the ways how I fuel that power. This BlazeVox business is maddening. In many ways it has nothing to do with me. I never published with them, I don't know the editor personally--yet some of the comments just bring up all kinds of painful feelings, especially when they're directed at poetry publishers in general. So I am still part of the community, else I wouldn't care, right? Or is this pain coming from being the outsider? Most probably wouldn't consider me an outsider. Eh, who doesn't feel like an outsider, right?

I think it's more than all that, much more, but I can't really place my finger on what all that is. Many of my close friends are writers and I'm not alienated from them personally. I can think of several writers who I feel alienated from for a variety of reasons and I keep going back and forth wondering if that plays anything into it. Maybe it does. Maybe it's that heart damage from the minority that isn't healing properly. A year ago (or maybe it was two?, whenever it was when I started this new blog) I was doing daily energy/healing meditations, letting stuff go--I lost a bit of weight in the process, like I was storing up my anger in my ass and hips. I think I'm going to go back to doing that. I think the ass and heart share the same chakra. Yeah, I read that somewhere. My pilates trainer noticed I lost a bunch of weight and asked what I was doing. I told her about the energy exercises and she looked at me like I said I lost it by slaughtering hobos or something totally insane. It made me feel really uncomfortable and I started noticing that I was always really uncomfortable in the loud, cold, hard pilates studio. The constant mindless chitchat, the regular pressure to push oneself even if it didn't feel right. I didn't belong there, but I went because I got "results." A couple weeks later I quit (even though I still had 3 or 4 paid lessons) and returned to yoga. Yoga was so different than I remembered. What used to seem difficult wasn't so much. I probably had pilates to thank for that.

Yesterday I dreamed that I found a doorway in Chris' office into an apartment. There was another door that I hoped connected my own office to the apartment. I had forgotten that our new house had an apartment and I was so excited to realize I had all this additional space. My new house was truly huge and limitless. The previous owner's furniture and other items were still there, so I was deciding what to keep and what to pitch. Then two writers came into our home, one I know in waking life and the second was someone I knew in the dream, but couldn't remember his name. They brought cherry beer (something I'd recently considered buying in a grocery store in a dream the week before). Then tens of young, 20-something writers came into the house. It was like one of those flash mobs, but it was more like a flash party. I said I wasn't uninviting them because I never invited them in the first place, but they could only stay for 30 minutes because I had plans for the evening. At first I was OK with the unscheduled party but then I noticed that the writers were scrawling all over my walls. I yelled that I just paid thousands of dollars on painting. I screamed for them all to leave, threatened them with bodily harm, threw a vase and a lit candle and tried to call the police (I accidentally called the fire department instead). Finally everyone left and my new dream neighbors came into my house to make sure I was OK. They assumed the flash mob members were strangers. I explained that they were writers and I knew 10-15 of them but none of them were invited. My dream neighbors told me not to worry, that they were my community now.

I'm not sure how to interpret this dream. Was it showing that I'm rejecting "new writing" or an actual writing community? But if so, how is it OK to scrawl all over my walls? They were disrespecting me and my home. In waking life I would totally freak if people did that to my home. How am I supposed to work with that? Who are these new dream neighbors? They certainly weren't writers. What is this community embracing me now? Why were these young writers such despicable, disrespectful thugs? Why does interacting with writers have to be so overwhelming?

If you miss my old "cackling jackal" days, here's a post in that spirit about publishing over at No Tells.

School starts for Gideon tomorrow. 1st grade. I'm preparing a very serious happy dance. It's been an intense, wacky summer and I'm ready to go back to breathing.

I have plans and intentions about what I'm going to do with my time and they involve writing and doing a lot of stuff for myself.

People keep asking about how are things at the new house. Aside from a refrigerator arriving and being too large (despite our measuring beforehand), things are going well at the new home. Right now most of our attention is being focused on the old house, getting ready to put it on the market in a little over a week. That's been a little stressful and more costly than I anticipated, so there's the whole running out of money issue that makes me want to barf a little. People keep asking if it's on the market yet and I have to control my spazzy reaction. Do you know how much work goes into getting a house ready to sell in Northern Virginia? Do you know what people around here expect? Do you know what goes into creating CURB APPEAL? Do ya, do ya?. We're even getting a stager to furnish and decorate the first level. Personally I like to see a house empty and use my IMAGINATION, but apparently nobody else has imagination and it's imperative that we show them where they can put their effing sofa. Supposedly staged houses sell much faster and closer to the asking price than non-staged homes and statistics don't lie.

Last night I was feeling especially high strung, so I decided to open up the B&N package that arrived earlier and relax reading. I ordered some art and energy healing books and was excited to get them. But I didn't get them. Instead B&N sent me 5 copies of the latest issue of US Magazine. Jennifer Aniston is trying for a baby, see:



I was upset. Chris said, Oh no, now you don't have any books to read!

That was a swipe at my ten million books in the house.

Sometimes I get my heart set on something and overlook the world of other options. Maybe there was a message in the box. I'm no Jill Essbaum, but I'm trying to better pay attention to signs and messages. All last night I kept asking myself:

What is Jennifer Aniston trying to tell me?

first dreams in new house

Chris, Gideon and I looked around a store to get items to help organize our house. It seems like a home store, but I bought a purse here recently. I spoke to the saleswoman. One of us commented about the Banana Republic was back in it's original spot in the mall. I had forgotten that it moved to the other (less used) end. I said that end of the mall felt like a totally different mall. The saleswoman agreed.

* * *

We moved out of our house mid-morning and into our new house. The old owners of our new house moved right next door. The man was older, shirtless with a big fat belly. I didn't like the former owners living so close to us. Our old home seemed to be nearby too. The new owners moved in. I wasn't sure for who, but for one (or more) of us these homes were a transitional space until we moved again.

* * *

I sat in a Poets and Busboys waiting for my former poetry teacher to arrive for a one-on-one meeting. I held the Poets and Busboys pencil that he gave me, still unsharpened. I remembered that he introduced me to this place before he had his falling out with it.

(Poet 1) and (Poet 2) joined me at my table. Maybe they were meeting with my former teacher too. The two poets talked about an amazing, brilliant woman who seemed to be able to do everything. She was a poet, the most alluring and sexy stripper who men relentlessly pursued, a Playboy model who drove men wild when they saw her nude photographs and now she was a conductor. She did everything except have children, which they said was because she was too smart for men. She was to be joining them soon.

Poet 1 and Poet 2 excused themselves from my table. I got sleepy and slumped over at the table as I waited for them to return. Poet 1 brought me a cup of coffee. I saw that she and Poet 2 joined this amazing woman at another table. This amazing woman had red hair, was middle aged and a little heavy. She didn't necessarily look the part, but I knew this was her. I felt left out that Poet 1 and Poet 2 left my table for her's.

ntm

I made an announcement over at No Tells about the future of No Tell Motel. It's a time of new directions. I'm excited and hopeful about entering this new phase.

new digs

We are now the owners of a fabulous new (to us) home!




We're having some painting and kitchen work done before we move in, but this will be our residence as of July 19th. If you need the new address, backchannel.

We'll be putting our current home on the market (probably August). If you're looking for a townhouse that is both rich in poetry blog history and located in Reston, let me know. We'll offer you a very special price, just mention this blog with your inquiry.

today's poetry dream

I was in Gideon's preschool class. I planned to work on my manuscript thesis that was due soon so I could graduate. An annoying woman came in to teach the class, so I left with my packet full of poems and notebook. I opened my slim packet. It felt like there were 30-40 poems, but instead there were smaller envelops with word games and far fewer poems than I expected. All the poems needed drastic rewrites. For the thesis, I planned to show my work (first draft, final draft) and considered writing about the changes. I had a tremendous amount of work to do in a short period of time.