and I’m exhausted. I’ve never looked forward to Labor Day weekend so much. I’m thinking it’s the way my teaching load is distributed. For example, at NAU, I taught Eng. 105 four days a week. Last year, I taught Engl. 1101 three days a week. Now, I’m teaching Eng. 1101 two days a week. You would think—hey, that’s less work right? Not when my schedule is weighted so heavily Tuesday through Thursday. (I have a class on Wednesday, plus Wednesdays are “meeting days”). Hopefully, I’ll adjust by the time I get my first student papers to grade.

So, I’m halfway through my MFA! It’s amazing and exciting, but just thinking about it makes me a teeny bit nauseous. I don’t know where we’ll be heading after that. More info is forthcoming… I hope. It’s time to contact all my Interfolio people and see if my recommendations hold up for jobs. I’ll be observed next week, so I can get my big teaching letter. I need to ask a few more people here for recommendations too. My goal would be to be done with all that before Nov. 1st, which is when most schools begin taking job applications. As I’m very happy with a composition job and/or intro. to creative writing job and I’m coming out of here with four years teaching experience, I hope I’ll be pretty marketable. I still might apply to two PhD programs to cast a wider net, but I’m not sure.

This semester, I’m taking Teaching Creative Writing (I’ll be teaching Intro. to Creative Writing in the spring!), thesis hours, and Poetry with Poet-in-Residence Alice Friman. This poetry class doesn’t have traditional workshops. We basically meet one on one with Alice every week, and our class meets officially three times during the semester. For two of these meetings, we’ll need to have prepared a 10-12 minute reading of one of our favorite poets, and we need to have memorized one of these poems. Of course, you loyal readers know how much I struggle with the memorization, so I’ve already started on my first poem.

Just to give you a quick glimpse of what I have due this week: 2 poems, one 10 page book review, read two chapters of Creative Writing book, need to have marked up 45 “diagnostic” writing samples for students, need to fill out application to graduate and pay 45 bucks to Registar, schedule a library fieldtrip for students, keep working on memorizing aforementioned poem, eat healthy food, figure out my exercise regimen for the semester, do laundry, do dishes, hang out with Derrick, purchase/write cards for Grandparents day, sleep. I also might start getting Arts and Letters submissions that need to be looked over/accepted/rejected this week. And…I’m getting married in less than seven months, so calculate in all that wedding planning stuff that I’m doing now so next January and February aren’t terrible. This is why I am tired.

The Next Day

by Randall Jarrell

Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
I take a box
And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.
The slacked or shorted, basketed, identical
Food-gathering flocks
Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,

Is learning what to overlook. And I am wise
If that is wisdom.
Yet somehow, as I buy All from these shelves
And the boy takes it to my station wagon,
What I’ve become
Troubles me even if I shut my eyes.

When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I’d wish
What all girls wish: to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I’m old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car

See me. It bewilders me he doesn’t see me.
For so many years
I was good enough to eat: the world looked at me
And its mouth watered. How often they have undressed me,
The eyes of strangers!
And, holding their flesh within my flesh, their vile

Imaginings within my imagining,
I too have taken
The chance of life. Now the boy pats my dog
And we start home. Now I am good.
The last mistaken,
Ecstatic, accidental bliss, the blind

Happiness that, bursting, leaves upon the palm
Some soap and water–
It was so long ago, back in some Gay
Twenties, Nineties, I don’t know . . . Today I miss
My lovely daughter
Away at school, my sons away at school,

My husband away at work–I wish for them.
The dog, the maid,
And I go through the sure unvarying days
At home in them. As I look at my life,
I am afraid
Only that it will change, as I am changing:

I am afraid, this morning, of my face.
It looks at me
From the rear-view mirror, with the eyes I hate,
The smile I hate. Its plain, lined look
Of gray discovery
Repeats to me: “You’re old.” That’s all, I’m old.

And yet I’m afraid, as I was at the funeral
I went to yesterday.
My friend’s cold made-up face, granite among its flowers,
Her undressed, operated-on, dressed body
Were my face and body.
As I think of her and I hear her telling me

How young I seem; I am exceptional;
I think of all I have.
But really no one is exceptional,
No one has anything, I’m anybody,
I stand beside my grave
Confused with my life, that is commonplace and solitary.

5) Food: This has been a summer of food. As some of you know, my diet has changed a lot in the past few years as I’ve been battling high cholesterol in my 20s. I’ve continued to work away from processed foods towards more of a “diabetic” diet this summer, and I’ve been trying a lot of new recipes. I think I’m becoming a pretty damn good cook, and Derrick is a grill master. One of our favorite new meals was a vegetable fettuccini dish. A failed experiment: green bean casserole that turned into mush.

4) Movie Fun: Derrick and I’ve launched (and very successfully too, I think!) TheRecasts.com. This is something we’ve been working on for a few years, and it’s finally up, running, and rocking. I’m really proud of it. We’ve also been able to watch a lot of movies (Southland Tales, Drag Me To Hell, Inland Empire, Chopping Mall, A Perfect Getaway, and The Crazies my favorites). We watched Freaks yesterday on TCM, and tonight we’ll have a double feature of The Invention of Lying on HBO and Jennifer’s Body on Cinemax.

3) Law and Order: It’s on TV all the time, and I watch it much of the time it’s on. I consider this to be research, considering the content of much of my recent work. This is also a very easy show to put on the TV while I’m working on other stuff, like laundry and cleaning (which I’m doing a lot of, since I feel like Derrick took over the housekeeping much of last year.) While last year I watched Criminal Intent, now I’ve shifted towards SVU. Can you believe that Detective Elliot Stabler is Freakshow in Harold and Kumar? Strange world.

2) Wedding Planning: I’ve been trying to get as much of the wedding planned as possible, so I don’t have to worry about it (at least not as much) once school starts. I’ve been watching Bethenny Getting Married? loyally (and I do hope to eventually get a review up of that first season). In latest news, we have my wedding band. We’ll be making an outlet trip next week to see if we can find a ring for Derrick (and just for fun too). Derrick’s Save the Dates were unbelievable, and he’s designed the invitation too, so once we solidify our menu, we’ll be able to knock out those rsvp cards and get those printed. In other news, Derrick was voted “Most Awesome Future Husband in the Universe”. Information on where he’ll be accepting the award is forthcoming.

1) Poetry: This is writing time. And no offense, when I’ve been on the computer writing, I haven’t wanted to be writing about me! I’ve been working on poems, revisions, and lots of submitting. My goal is one publication by the end of MFA time, so keep crossing your toes for me on that.

I’m looking forward to the Real Housewives NY reunion (final part!) and Bethenny Getting Married? tonight. I’ll try to post a Bethenny review within a few weeks, once I have a greater sense of the show. Supposedly last week scored the “Highest Series Premiere In Bravo History With Over 2 Million Viewers”. Pretty crazy stuff.

If you’re a housewives fan too, check out our new article where we recast the Real Housewives of NY with real Hollywood Actresses: Click here!

I’m way ahead of wedding schedule, at least according to the normal checklists. I wanted to post briefly what I’ve completed since school let out.

The big project we finished was the Save the Dates. I’ve known from the beginning that I wanted to give guests (near and far) a lot of notice, so we mailed these out on June 1st. Just have a few stragglers that need to be taken care of! By the time I get to the formal invitations (October or November), hopefully most guests will have already decided if they are able to attend and I’ll get faster replies. I plan right now on requiring RSVPs by Feb. 1st, so I’ll have a much easier time putting the seating chart together.

This past week, we put deposits on two very big things: the cake and the flowers. We decided on a fairly traditional cake (white, round, three tiered) with a beachy twist (draping held up by starfish). I think it’s going to be elegant. We chose a bakery recommended by our venue. I would say that it’s the “Cake Boss” of Myrtle Beach. I’m sure it will be delicious, though I will admit to some sticker shock at first. Seriously, did you realize the average wedding cake costs $543, according to The Bridal Association of America? That’s a LOT! When looking at cakes online that range from $100 to $2000, it can seriously freak you out. I’m very glad that I’ve ignored most of the bridal magazine’s design suggestions and ideas about fondant. The key is to keep the cake streamlined and classic. I think our cake will be one we look back at in pictures and are proud of.

Read the rest of this entry »

My alterego’s at it again… I’ve written a post over at TheRecasts.com which details my top 10 favorite Lifetime movies.

Enjoy!!! Click here: The Recasts

I just wanted to take a quick moment to remind you loyal readers to check my links page every once in a while. Though I don’t add new links even on a weekly basis, I’ve tried to adjust them as I’ve adjusted my viewing habits. For example, I’ve been following the My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress blog regularly for the last month, so I added it to the links. What a strange social experiment and exercise in grieving, especially as I’m horrified that anything like this would ever happen to MY wedding dress. I’m not a big shopper, but lately I have been buying more stuff and I’ve tried to add more links to the shopping section as well, mostly for wedding-related stuff (but not all! Check out Fable and Fury for their crazy jewelry. Derrick got me a two-headed fawn necklace for my birthday). Anyway, I think that’s it for now! Hope you’re enjoying your summer!

The Munsters

By David Trinidad

Among cobwebs amd
dust, Lily sits in
the parlor reading
this month’s issue
of Tomb and Garden.
In the lab, Grandpa
hangs upside down,
dreaming of a fara-
way Transylvania.
Up in his bedroom,
Eddie sleeps off
the effects of last
night’s full moon.
When the doorbell
rings (to the tune
of a funeral march),
Spot roars flames.
Herman stomps to
the front door and
opens it. Hair on
end, Marilyn’s date
runs screaming down
Mockingbird Lane.

This semester, in my Composition through Literature course, I had a whole day dedicated to “roadkill poems”. “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford has always been one of those poems I read early on in my writing career that made me go “Wow!” This themed class really got me started thinking about animals and cars. (Gosh I would love to put together a dead animal poem anthology!…but that’s for another time!) Are they inherently linked? If these keep showing up in literature, they’ve got to be in film too. And the more I thought about it, I realized they are.

So here are my top five favorite animal and car moments in movies, posted by my alterego Ray Wray Kowalcyzk over at theRECASTS.com:

theRECASTS