What's my problem? By Catherine on 3/02/2008 07:57:00 PM
Karma is a bitch. Between being sick for most of late autumn/early winter, having surgery, spending a mint to fix my car(six trips to the shop since August) only to have to buy a new one anyway, and having only two friends show up to my birthday dinner, I'm feeling like a karmatic loser. I know I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. In fact, on a day to day basis, I tell myself exactly how imperfect I am about twice as often as your average Joe. But I really thought I'd get a call, no matter how shitty my karma is. Not a text message, an IM, a voicemail-- contact. Real contact. Today I turned 24, the lamest birthday I've had in a long while, and the person who made me feel so bad for the last few days didn't phone and say hey, we're still friends. Hey, I know things have been tough for you. I understand you've had a hard winter, maybe I could have been more available, too. Maybe I'm being too harsh on you, because I haven't tried to find out where you're lost at, locked inside your head all the time. By the way, how is that novel coming? Is it done consuming your soul yet?Maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe she's right, and I care more about myself than I do about my friends. It's my fault I'm lonely and isolated, because I spend so much time living inside my head letting my words coagulate into stories that I don't remember to have any real stories of my own. When I was a kid, before high school came along, I used to think that my only real friends were books, because a book always says the same thing, doesn't waffle or have transient, lukewarm opinions. You don't have to worry about someone else's words betraying you, the way my own often do. Books are constant, and if you're lucky, the story is timeless and you learn something new every time. The only thing my book is teaching me is that I love it more than I love my life, and that's a problem, because I can't turn into Sarah and let my magic guide me. I thought my magic was my words, but now my words are killing me slowly-- first cutting me off, then sneaking up behind me to finally stab me in the back.
I'm thinking of giving up.
Labels: friends, signs, words, writing
Updates, and stuff By Catherine on 2/20/2008 11:04:00 AM
This week is February vacation. I just bought a car. Life moves along, as always. I'm failing at my resolution to blog twice a week, but I'm succeeding in making progress with the novel. This is good. I've written 14,000 words since making that resolution. I rule. Obviously.And I think this article is fascinating-- check it out. I mean, I think it's fascinating because I'm a teacher, but I think most people will think it's equally interesting.
I've also been toying with ideas for English classes to teach. They're electives mostly, but I want to outline them for job interviews. These ideas include:
1. The Epistolary Novel (reading including Les Liaisons Dangereuses {Pierre Chodleros de Laclos}, The Perks of Being a Wallflower {Stephen Chbosky}, The Color Purple {Alice Walker}, Poor Folk {Fyodor Dostoevsky}).
2. World Economics in Literature (reading including Animal Farm {George Orwell}, 1984 {George Orwell}, Cry, the Beloved Country {Alan Paton}, The Threepenny Opera {Bertolt Brecht}, The Jungle {Upton Sinclair}). --> emails calling me a communist will be soundly ignored.
3. Literature for Romantics (reading: Water for Elephants {Sara Gruen}, Wuthering Heights {Charlotte Bronte}, Jane Eyre {Charlotte Bronte}, Sense and Sensibility {Jane Austen}, The Awakening {Kate Chopin-- just for a not-so-happy view}).
You know you're a total nerd when you sit around dreaming up English classes you'd like to teach. It's okay, I'm over it.
Labels: education, vacation, writing
Interweb drama By Catherine on 2/10/2008 04:32:00 PM
It seems like there's drama everywhere on the internets these days, from Anonymous and the systematic pwning of the Church of Scientology, to the Chans and the Goons and the nerds over at YTMND debating who actually started it, to my own little bubble at Pathetic.Org, where one uptight admin has it out for everyone more talented than she. The Anonymous vs. CoS thing is pretty silly, albeit hilarious. I'll admit, I'm on the side of 4chan, and I've never said anything that nerdy in my life. It's just... the whackos are everywhere, and they don't even know they're whackos. Normally I don't get all up in arms over what people believe, but Scientology is a cult. Period. If you don't believe me, research it yourself.But Pathetic is a different story. I'm really bummed out, because normally everyone just gets along and no one really says anything terribly mean. A good chunk of the poetry posted is emotive bs, but the trick is not to leave feedback on those ones. Mine aren't exactly the stuff of Great American Literature, either. My mom always used to say, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. But now there's an admin with a grudge, and she's making it her business to be as rude as possible when doing her normal admin stuff. She did it to me and was rude about it, but it pales in comparison to leaving a comment like this after removing a member's picture:
Oh. And one photo was removed because, well, you're ugly. ;-) You know who you are. (If you have to ask, then no, you're not the one.)
Are you freaking kidding me? Are we in grade school? Is this not a more or less professional writer's community? Keep in mind, I found this out after browsing through on my own, though the person she did it to happens to be my editor. There are other sterling examples that I won't take the time for here, because it's such pettiness. This person is supposed to be keep the rules in order, and yet this is the behavior members deal with. I'm honestly considering removing my membership, because now that I know it wasn't just me, I'm pretty disappointed.
I like my lurking existence on these internets. I keep to myself and don't really talk to anyone, aside from posting here to people who know me anyway. When the interwebs get personal, I take myself away from them. Do you ever see me on AIM anymore? I thought a writing community was pretty easy. So much for poetry, I should just go join Anonymous.
Four things By Catherine on 1/30/2008 07:48:00 AM
I don't want to make a habit of posting this stuff, but I was amused by this little survey and figured posting it here was less invasive than flooding everyone's inbox with such inane little factoids on myself. If you feel like responding, permalink and I'll check Technorati for linkbacks.Four (4) things about me that you may or may not have known.
1. I really like sushi
2. I really hate onions (unless they're cooked until they don't resemble onions anymore)
3. I am taking the English MTEL exam next month
4. I have a slight case of OCD... and by slight I mean not slight. Large.
Four (4) jobs I have had in my life
1. Camp counselor
2. Waitress/hostess
3. Cashier at BCF (was Decelle then)
4. Teacher
Four (4) movies I've watched more than once:
1. The Big Lebowski
2. Mary Poppins
3. Independence Day
4. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Four (4) places where I have lived
1. Northborough, MA
2. Bridgewater, MA
3. Amherst, MA
4. Shrewsbury, MA
Four (4) TV Shows that I watch:
1. Law and Order
2. Forensic Files
3. Jeopardy!
4. Project Runway
Four (4) places I have been
1 . Grenoble, France
2. Ann Arbor, MI
3. Washington, DC
4. Richmond, VA
Four (4) people who email me regularly
1. my mom
2. Amanda
3. Jen
4. Gram
Four (4) of my favorite foods:
1. New England clam chowder
2. Sushi
3. Spaghetti and meatballs
4. Tiramisu
Four (4) places I would rather be right now:
1. Cape Cod
2. Paris
3. Home (am at work-- assembly = no kids)
4. Myrtle Beach
Four (4) people I think will respond:
1.
2.
3.
4. No one.
Four (4) things I am looking forward to this year.
1. Going to France
2. Speaking French (finally)
3. Sunshine and spring
4. Not working a full-time job this summer so I can focus on writing more.
Labels: favorites, s, summer, vacation, writing
60 years mirrored by the moon By Catherine on 1/21/2008 09:00:00 PM
Something touching emanates from the older woman, slumped and sleeping across the table. Involuntary quakes ripple through her, unnoticed--she is quite asleep. Her pen rolls to the floor.We sit here, sixty years apart, and are the same. We work: I'm designing history papers for my students and she's writing copy for a newsletter for others whose bodied shake and shatter without permission.
We've both worked in consensus-based collectives. Her daughter's life there stands her apart from her peers, whose store-bought wheat bread pales next to her homemade loaf. My father quakes like she does. She writes and produces and publishes, while I'm too much of a bleeding heart to send anything out in seriousness.
My heart shakes like her hands; if I had half her courage I'd go on and stand next to the muses, still as a statue until they blessed me with a light. I'd have confidence to move forth and stop pretending to be tethered by some invisible blue thread.
Watching her pen roll slowly away, I'm tempted to wake her, ask her if she's like some help down the steep back stairs to her room. This woman is strong, I feel sure she'd balk at a young thing like me, offering to brew her a cup of tea. I now she'd insist on doing it for me instead, and I'd have to watch her hands betray her with an earthquake of muscle and glass.
Labels: working through the block, writing
The moon was thin last night By Catherine on 1/12/2008 08:50:00 AM
I've been feeling pretty yucky lately.It's not really important why, but the last 6 weeks or so of posts does a pretty good job explaining. It was buildup mostly, something small and something small and something small can often make you feel defeated before you even wake up in the morning. We've been really busy since I got better, but for the first time Christmas and the New Year brought change and death and a general feeling of mortality that is hard to grasp as a younger person. You feel like your whole life is ahead of you, impatient for everything and desperately wanting to grow up and then... When you're 23 you still feel like that in a lot of ways and have the freedom and means to act it out. You never expect people your own age to go, and yet here we are.
That's a long explanation for why I've lately been feeling, for lack of a better word, condemned. Condemned to die, and it could be sudden and tragic. It could be Adam, my mother, the cat, it doesn't matter. I can successfully put it out of mind up until a point, but lately I've been consumed by it. I've been thinking about my grandfather constantly, because he really epitomized to me as a small girl what a man was: he was strong but gentle, fair, devoted entirely to his wife and family, and very very smart. He left law school to raise his family and took care of them well. He learned the art of bonsai and kept meticulous care, lecturing around colleges to other scholars of the art. He read constantly, loved PBS, kept a "Victory Garden" with me in his backyard. He was the best man I could think of. If I could make anyone proud, it would be him.
So yesterday a friend and I were talking about writing, and she asked if I was planning on trying to get published in literary magazines or newspapers, etc. I've got a lot of balls in the air, but I obviously haven't been feeling very confident and have just sort of pretended that I don't have time. I told her no, and was honest about why. Two hours later I received an email from the editor-in-chief of Quill and Parchment, who is a member over at pathetic.org where I keep my poems. (It's good because anything on the site is copyrighted to the author due to the terms of service, so there's no better place to keep them as far as I'm concerned. Paper burns.) Anyway, this editor wants to publish not one, but TWO of my poems, one in May and one in July.
I was shocked, because I didn't solicit the invitation, she just read them at pathetic and liked them and asked. I said yes of course, there's no reason to say no, but I thought it was funny and ironic that I'd just been doubting myself aloud earlier that day. It's not The New Yorker, but for all the work I did to get it, it might as well be. (I really do heart irony.) Adam decided we had to celebrate, and I finally started to cheer up. It was pretty great. We decided to try an Indian restaurant in Worcester with fantastic reviews, but when we got there it was closed for renovations. We were momentarily slowed, but Adam suggested O'Connor's, which is the opposite of Indian. The place is decorated to the hilt with Celtic knots, Gaelic sayings, and every inch of wall-space is taken up by framed advertisements, maps, beer mirrors, and anything related to anything Irish. We hadn't gone in years so I agreed and called ahead to get a spot on the list. On the drive there, I decided that yes, my granddad would be proud of me.
It was packed when we got there, and a waiter accidentally knocked over a stack of menus, which I caught, to the great amusement of the owner. He found us a big table in a quiet part of the restaurant even though there were two-top tables scattered near the bar. When he sat us down, I looked over Adam's left shoulder. On the wall was a framed coat of arms, bearing the name O'Shea. That was my grandfather's last name.
I don't believe in signs.
But that is an awfully strange... Coincidence.
Labels: memories, poetry, publishing, signs, weird coincidences, writing
Obligatory post on New Year's Resolutions By Catherine on 1/07/2008 08:33:00 AM
New Year's is my favorite holiday-- a symbolic fresh start on life, when pretty much everyone bands together and tries to improve life with small (or large) changes and at least a little motivation to follow through on it. Historically, I fail at New Years resolutions. The only exception was senior year of college, during which I was inhumanly productive. Also very thin and stylish and feeling fabulous, but the Real World has beaten that out of me. I reached my goal of wearing a size 4 pants, kept my resolution to gym at least 3x per week, ate so little crap that my cholesterol was like a newborn baby's, and maintained a 3.8 GPA (for the year, not my whole college career. I had a life, jeez.)Last year, my goals were simpler-- one year out of college and my resolution was to lose the pants size I gained in being a couch potato workaholic half-time grad student, wake up earlier for work, do my laundry consistently and save money for a computer. Well, none of that happened, and though I do have a new computer it's more because of a good deal than because I saved up enough for it.
This year, I didn't even think about resolutions until this weekend. I've been ill-ish and tired, as I'm not 100% healed from tonsil surgery and we honestly haven't had a blessed minute since I started functioning again. The Real World makes one cram as much as possible into weekends, which is both cool because you feel popular and in-demand, and annoying because JUST ONCE you'd like to sleep past 8 on Saturday. So here's my obligatory list of resolutions for the year 2008, which I will now start implementing one week late:
1. Wake up earlier for work.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Go to the gym or do a video 3 times per week. This will be slightly easier since I joined a weight-loss group at work.
4. Do 200 sit-ups per day. I used to have awesome abs.
5. Write for at least half an hour a day. Ideally the new laptop makes this easy. :)
6. Blog 2x per week.
That's really it-- I just want to make my life more streamlined and organized so that I don't constantly feel like I have no time to do anything. Maybe I should stop complaining about it and actually do it... I'm so good at procrastinating. :)
Labels: clutter, frustrations, List, working through the block, writing
New layout, etc By Catherine on 11/28/2007 09:31:00 AM
Isn't the new layout fabulous? I love it! While the last layout was really pretty, it was hard to read and not bright enough for me. I got a lot more design input on this one too-- I'm slowly but surely learning how to maintain this site all by myself. Also trees: my latest collage design is a really neat tree motif slash universe lady. I'll definitely post pictures when it's closer to done.It's really time to start being a bit more serious in life. I know what I love, and I know what I need to do to be successful at it-- right now it's just a matter of getting it all set up so that I can keep going. Really that could have been done over the luxurious 5-day Thanksgiving break from work, but I chose instead to make huge headway with Christmas/Hanukkah presents, which will, in actuality, be for the benefit of said seriousness. Now I'm all but done and have significant time approaching (while the Dr. Duo and family are away in Egypt) to finally organize my photos, set up the "projects" section (collages, jewelry, utilitarian art, etc), and get back down to work on my novel.
Ohhh yeah! Catherine is writing a novel! You all forgot, didn't you? Well, I didn't, in fact I was at the point of opening the word doc 6 times a day and brimming with tears, because I could not seem to get a thing done. I took that stupid camp job to have time to write, but ended up exhausted and devoid of motivation. Finally, four months and four hundred boxes of tissues later, I've managed to get something going again. This includes massive edits and multiple drafts, but circular progress is better than no progress at all. And I figure it will only be circular progress for a bit longer, then all my hemming and hawing for the last quarter-year will be done with and I'll be able to just slam it out. All I care about, for the moment, is getting it all out on paper so I can begin the REALLY hard part: editing.
You won't see it here though-- I shall not be plagiarized by the Internet.
I've got a lot to do, but you know what? It's finally stuff that I want to do, not that I'm contractually or otherwise obligated to do. It's a good feeling, to finally be in a place where I can make things happen and I'm not feeling so overwhelmed and un-creative, it can finally happen. GO. ME.
Labels: dreams, freedom, working through the block, writing
It's okay, I think the joke's on me (or how I received e-mail from a creep) By Catherine on 9/29/2007 11:22:00 PM
I am an oxymoron, and those who know me personally are acutely aware of it.What I mean is, I'm an introverted-extrovert. I love blogging, hate bars. I love dinner parties, hate frat parties. I'm addicted to the internet, but no, I do not want to meet up. Ever. The first night I met her, I was told by my dear friend's significant other that I am "too nice." But then I drank wine and went on a sarcastic tirade. I am guardedly-open (sans shiraz). I am an oxymoron.
The point is, I am stepping outside the Catherine-bubble and doing my first real poetry reading tomorrow evening. I selected three decent poems, and I am gonna do it. It's ten minutes of my life, and if I don't try it now I might not get the chance again. I picked two quite light-hearted pieces and a more serious one, but my market is children. And that's what y'all are gonna get. I'm rather proud, because I never used to have sage fright (there's pictures somewhere of me as Meg from Damn Yankees and as a stripper in Guys and Dolls-- no, not appearing on Flickr) but now, I'm nervous.
My first attempt at overstepping my comfort-line was to join the French-speakers MeetUp in my area, but that didn't go so well. I'll admit, I joined in a moment of weakness. I was feeling lonely, having just moved to these God-forsaken suburbs from Amherst, which is a kind of lasting intellectual fairytale in my mind. I majored in French, and specialize now in Language Arts in my classroom. I loves me the Frenchies. (And Africa, but, hello, another post for another day! Oh, how I wish Joseph Conrad were alive and writing...) DIGRESSION. See the pattern? ADD!
I joined the French MeetUp in my most pathetic moment, and then I blew them off. I just. Never. Went. The first few were house parties and brunches, and I could always find a reason to be busy. Until The Creep e-mailed me.
The Creep blindsided me on a weeknight, a few days before the monthly brunch at Panera, demanding WHY hadn't I come to any meetings and didn't I know that the organizer pays $75 per year to the site?! (interrobang! ADD.) I almost didn't dignify him with a response, but I'd be lying if I told you I was that mature. My reply was the e-mail equivalent of the bird, cause, who monitors that shit? And who cares?
Apparently MeetUp.com is the same thing as EngagedtoBeMarried.com. I was not aware. But The Creep didn't care though, and he obviously didn't get it, because he proceeded to reciprocate with how lonely he was and did I want to call him? His number is 1-800-BEGGIN-4-LUV. Three pages worth of this garbage. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The only thing that stopped me from posting the whole sordid affair was the fact that gmail deletes Trash mail after 30 days, and this happened in June. And I realized that my bubble is safe. From creeps.
Of course, that didn't exactly make me want to start going. In fact, it had the opposite effect, and made me think that I was not, and will never be that lonely. But again with the digression.
I decided not to venture out again, at least until this current opportunity popped up. This seems somewhat less... Full of foreboding, unlike the last one. I can read three poems, and if I totally embarrass myself then whatever, cause I just disproved my own hermit-ness. And I don't have to see them ever again. And I can adopt a pseudonym when I publish my bestselling book.
And I can rationalize anything. Thanks, Mr. Creep, you're my hero.
Check out:
MeetUp.com
Labels: creeps, I have ADD, interrobang, joseph conrad, librivox, meetup, NEWS series, poetry, STRESSSTRESSSTRESS, writing
Weekly writing update By Catherine on 9/12/2007 10:46:00 AM
So, for the first time in forever, I'm feeling pretty prolific. I've got two short-stories, several poems, and of course the novel-- all a work in progress, but the point is, I'm actually making progress, which is the most important part. I'm lucky to have two fantastic poets to help me critique and improve; I'm probably annoying them with the deluge of insecure half-poems I keep sending out. Plus there's the imminent possibility that Solvo will finally get something concrete completed, so I can start with the marketingTalking with Amanda on gchat the other day, we both agreed that there's really too much pressure to publish. Please don't take it as sour grapes, because for those writers who are in a place where publishing is a possibility, that's fantastic. I understand the desire, because I want to publish too, but I don't want to publish what's not of a caliber I think is good enough. I'd rather wait ten years and work my fingers to the callused bone, writing and rewriting and scrapping every other poem than to publish too early and gain a reputation as mediocre before I've come to understand my own style enough to make it say what I want.
So, I'll sit here in my classroom, typing in my blog instead of eating lunch, and working on poems that aren't so mediocre. I can only hope the NYT Book Review might be kinder to my modest tome than to Nabokov on his first attempt. But then, it's not very modest to put oneself in his category, so scratch that, too.
Labels: publishing, writing
Another rainy April morning By Catherine on 4/04/2007 07:09:00 AM
I really need to be more on top of things. My basket of mail is overflowing, my inbox looks like I haven't deleted anything since, oh, high school, and it's my turn to do the dishes. It's very easy to get into this kind of avoidance-funk, and I vow this afternoon to break it. What I really want to do is write, but lately the pen has hit the paper at a funny angle, and nothing decent comes out.AH gave me a copy of Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, which has served its purpose in making me laugh through my "shitty first draft." I can't manage to get anything down that doesn't sound trite and manufactured, and it's fairly discouraging-- which of course makes me want to work on it like, less than never. While the insights are heartfelt and the advice solid, I can't seem not to take the whole block I'm experiencing at the moment personally. Pshh. I'm going to ask publishers to send a red envelope for yes and a blue one for no, that way, I never even have to open them.
I think, this evening, I'd like to sit down and just type. Type, type, type, and try to let Sarah talk through me. So far, I haven't managed to relinquish enough control to allow her to come full circle, and she certainly isn't flawed, which is a big problem. Even thirteen year-old protagonists in fantasy novels need some kind of flaw. Maybe some more dialogue would help. Maybe that 1"x1" frame would help.
Maybe I should shut up and write. That would help, too.
Labels: working through the block, writing