April Showers Please Bring Disney World Faster

The semester is winding down. I have one more packet due, and then it's officially over. It feels like it blew past, like I'm still standing somewhere in January wondering what the heck just happened. I've churned out a lot of work though, and I currently have submissions to over twenty magazines out there. The big one is supposed to be announced by the end of April, so I'm walking on eggshells and thinking of how devastating it will be if I get rejected after waiting so long and becoming so hopeful. I'll probably have a full day's worth of a pity party if I get rejected before I pick myself back up and keep going.

I really like a lot of the stuff I've done this semester though. I've kind of been surprising myself. Not all of it is great, of course, but I'm getting stuff out that I feel is worth keeping around. My thesis (future book) has sort of shifted though. The subject of the poems has kind of transformed into something else on me, but I think I can still bring it all together with the poems about my grandma. Recently, I feel like I'm writing the same poem over and over, but Carrie assures me that this is an okay feeling. My overall theme still seems to be about the (rocky, infuriating, crazy, steamy, unnerving, etc.) relationships women in my family have had with men though.

It's maddening. Especially since I'm working, right now, on my millionth poem that is still stuck on this idea in my head that I am having a hard time stamping out. But I guess I might as well feed from the fodder and embrace it.

Anyway, I am particularly cranky this week, because I had to have a mole removed from my stomach, and it resulted in like four stitches that have been irritating the crap out of me. Then I forget about them and do something stupid, like stretch when I wake up in bed, and it's like I just ripped my side open. I can't get them out until the 26th either, so I've been provided ample time to bang my side into all kinds of random items or let my dogs trample it. There was even a little girl today who, for no apparent reason at all, decided to slap me on the side. She had no idea that I had a "booboo" there, but I thought I was going to die.

The only positive that has come from these stitches is that I was hurting enough yesterday to have to call in to work, and I later found out that it allowed me to avoid running into my biological father. I can only imagine a face-to-face encounter after 8 years of nothing and him with his new kids would have been super pleasant. I can only imagine how I would have reacted, since today is his birthday and my only inclination upon remembering that was to send him a card that certainly says nothing nicer than, "You suck."I was visited by the customary surge of anger when the thought occured to me, but I just let it go. After this long, it's pretty easy to pretend like he doesn't exist.

 



Despite those unpleasant occurences, I have a lot to look forward to this summer. I will be out and about doing all sorts of awesome things. Like Disney World and LeakyCon and even going back to Murray this summer, which, yes, I am looking forward to. I actually love school. Anyway, I have to get back to this poem, even if it is making me angry.