aww shucks

the thing-economy

I just realized that no matter how stressful it is to juggle financial uncertainty and a meager income, I am working for something I believe in. I am piecing together a life that is meaning-full.

I'd trade meaning for "things" any day.

free creative writing workshops in NYC

I'll be leading these workshops hosted by the New York Writers Coalition.

We're having a Write-a-Thon on May 16. Sign up to attend or visit my sponsor page to support me and raise money to keep these workshops FREE and available to underserved youth and adult populations.

my self-administered MFA

endeavoring a serious study of poetry is jumping into a torrential river every morning, icy currents shoving you far from your intended destination, the deep water where you might lay still enough to enjoy water's calm cradle, no, rather opposite. the eddies confuse your sense of direction, spitting you places where you had no intentions of traveling--philosophy, religion, maybe taxonomy.

it takes things like dinner's dishes or the tribal drums of tea to prop your weary and exasperated self on a rock, climb out for the day. it takes a full night's sleep in order to prepare for tomorrow's plunge.

i see how an actual teacher could be handy, a lifeguard, perhaps. or maybe a buoy through a particularly treacherous pit of rapids.

bathwater needs changin'

I can't help feeling rather dismantled by my situation of delving into the marrow of my trades, writing, arting...I'm basically put in the position of learning new things constantly, feeling in command of nothing. what I have now is an assemblage of limbs that are no longer useful. I'm tripping over things I thought I knew, and further unraveled by the sheer volume of things I don't.

this city is changing me in ways I did not anticipate. standing down my inner impostor has left me rather inanimate, dull. I think everyone needs a little BS to push themselves forward, to quiet down the itty-bitty-shitty-committee, to encourage you to do stuff you might not do otherwise.

all bets are on spring right now to help me make something of this mess.

order in the court

Being a collage artist is just a good excuse to be exempted from throwing things away, especially little pieces of paper.

homecoming dance

Moving around so much as a child built within me the inner resiliency to settling down in one place, planted the seed for my vagabond response to life. I cultivated a despondency towards the present, always yearning for the future.

Now, I've been transported to the land of the eternal present, NYC. Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose dropped this little gem in my lap yesterday: "Home is a notion that only the nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend."

I couldn't have described with more precision how I feel about my Austin/NY transition. How surprising it is to finally know I have a home, and how I shall return there as soon as possible.