badgerbag

- Wittig book. T. will publish it. Needs… several weeks of intense work. Will not really pay. But I’ll like having it out and done. Someone will like reading it.

- C.B. translations. I have a batch of maybe 15-20 poems of hers. Some will get published soon so I have to work on them for sure. Others seem very promising – I think people would want them. Must get in touch with her. I could very well do a complete book of hers, either selected poems or everything in “A M3dia Asta.” will she be nice? Will she like my translations? Time scale: ??? I could get a grant for this, maybe, or query a publisher, or both. (U-see-I grant? though they are snooty as hell). Other sources? Grant first, then publishers? Or the other way around? Would this project establish me better/easier as a translator? (Also, I lean towards it since it’s new and shiny and I love the project.)

- j. de ibar. book. Also would need… a month, 6 weeks, two months? I have a lot done. around 150 pages of poems. But they would all need to be gone over carefully and there are also many others not done that i’d like to do. My research into her life is okay, but not hugely thorough, but i might not need it for the press that expressed interest over a year ago that I have not followed up on.

- giant anthology. pitch it to many places? query letters. i want to keep doing research and expand it. a grant? a selection from it: maybe the cubans?

- my own work which is this enormous manuscript which I need to update. (One unfinished long poem that I would have to spend a while working on, which involves some down time along with the plain old writing.) Send this off to various places.

I would like to go to Cuba, and Argentina, and Uruguay, and Chile. Especially Cuba, to go to the libraries and look at whatever I can find and to buy books. Investigate cultural/research channels to get there? (Then, my language ability would improve and I could reapply to grad school and get a phd eventually.)

I need to get translations published here and there in journals, so I can qualify for grants, which I still don’t, because there is a particular bar of page count and over half of them must be from not-online journals.

So all those things are possibilities and they’ll all get done eventually. Which to focus on first?

OR… completely different tack. Should I instead be volunteering or interning at some techie place that I like and love? In order to try to get a job? Because none of the jobs I see seem likely to hire me without more recent actual experience.

OR… should I be getting some crap job, part time or full time? Just to have some income at all? (I lean against this because then I fuck over my long term “career” possibilities and then M. goes into squalid non-educational daycare for not a very good reason. But, then I am less parasitical, and earn social security, and maybe feel less guilty, though I would be miserable and bitter. And yet I see secretary/temp jobs come up and think, “well, then i’d get paid for something. I shouldn’t be so spoiled.” )

OR… should I be setting up as a consultant? I feel like I could do this but I’m not sure how to start. The ghost-blogging job would have been so ideal.

OR… should I be applying for rather hideous looking part-time lecturer pool jobs, in composition, that I probably won’t get…? (since they seem to want a composition certification).

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Man, I love Halloween! I have horrible cramps… but I’m already in my costume at 7:30am. black leggings, boots, silver disco glitter miniskirt, silver top, matching shirt, grey undershirt, and a silver glitter cloak with black velvet lining. and a glittery sword. and a crown.

Moomin looks extremely grand as well.

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Buttons! You can’t put them through a mangle! Thus, the luxuriousness of buttons. Thus, ribbons and strings and laces. I see the light! I understand all.

Particular cities designating times and special regulations for trick or treating? And particular days that aren’t actually Halloween? pheret1 refers to rules in Chicago, and I found this odd document from Milwaukee.

Rook has worked at Barflink for 5 years. They gave him a lava lamp in celebration. A lava lamp… how thoughtful!

Perhaps 40 years from now our social security plans will consist of being given a “vintage iPod” by the government.

My translations from yesterday are better and more interesting that I thought at the time. It’s funny how that works. Compared to moments when I know I’ve really hit the groove, I wasn’t there. But I can see that my baseline-without-special-inspiration is still damn good.

A good feeling!

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Hmmm, my life goes in certain predictable grooves. I am in a fancy internet cafe. What else is new?

Did a usability study this morning & it was fun. On some level I feel a bit humiliated to do stuff like this when I should be setting up to do this for money for real because I am something of an expert. I just am kind of clueless about how to pitch myself properly. Hmmm. Anyway I’m super happy to have the money. And I liked the person doing the study – super nice.

This cafe rocks – the upstairs is very cosy – and a guy in thick glasses just sweetly lent me his power cord. Yay, universe! Thanks!

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why am I still going out with my ex girlfriend… hmmm. because we like each other and like to do the same things sometimes? We wrote in a cafe for a good long while. I was feeling down and a bit tired and awkward, and by awkward of course I mean sad, mad, and my heart in a million pieces, but anyway I tried to wait that out and I did a lot of plugging away at first-draft translations, which was fun. we had really good sushi at the place at 16th and sanchez & I started to feel a bit better. Then to aardvark books where i found a lot of cool stuff for xmas presents for people. We talked some. then i felt way better. (i kind of wanted to tell her the weird space i’m in as i hear about the depressing messed up things about other people’s relationships and power dynamics and how i feel about my own possible contribution to the world of that fuckedupedness. and that was sort of a relief b/c i knew she would get it.) She told me some interesting things about the current state of alzheimers research. and on to dance at disco night where i had a fabulous time. i like dancing there and seeing the muni trains go by. it seems extra festive. and the gay boys weren’t snotty as they so often can be at clubs. i bounced around all insane-o in my christmas dress (which is ass-short) and my snazzy fluevog boots. C. was extra happy b/c it’s her favorite music and the dj played a ton of good stuff she doesn’t have and hadn’t heard. Seeing her be extra happy and dancing around so spazzy and dorky and charming and full of enthusiasm and “get up and dance!”ness kind of didn’t help me out there. But also kind of did. As usual. It’s very strange to have a fantastic time and be happy and also be fucking unbelievably miserable.

At least I know there’s one person who knows how I feel about this… Talking to L. made me feel a little better, b/c I know she knows how much I love C., how loveable she is, and the million reasons why, though so extremely exasperating, maddening, annoying, impossible, contradictory, glib, and unfair. and I know she agrees with me there. No one else could understand it, and I can’t possibly explain it. that strikes me as being a funny thing about poly breakups. You know how you break up with someone and all your friends are like “oh, that bitch! humph! her loss!” to comfort you. But actually the sadness is helped by knowing that L. knows how I feel, like really.

I think about not blogging this and then I recall that on the first night we went out, I went to a reading where L. read out a giant thing about their sex life and gender identities, something she had published in some magazine or anthology… I think the world can stand a bit of my blogging and not stop dead in its tracks.

Well… WHATEVER…. argh…

The fun parts were fun. I have a near infinite capacity for fun. My knees don’t… again… whatever to my knees! knees!!! whatfuckingever!

The videos they were projecting were hilarious – lots of breakdancing – excellent afros – grace jones – weird 80s chicks doing step aerobics – the most amazing outfits –

I liked the song that was obviously “your love is a life saver” but it sounded awfully like “your love is a light saber” and so I had excellent pictures in my head from this of the possible music video from 1982. my amusement over this lasted all the rest of the night.

you can SO have a mosh pit to disco and funk. you can to anything. Anything!

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My god some people are so incredibly boring & tedious on mailing lists. If only I could slap most of the “me too”-ers.

Went to Dragonboy’s birthday party… one of the guys at the gymnastics place said he pulls 14 hour shifts doing parties all day (a new one every 2.5 hours, I think) and then working a 2nd job. Then school. But that when the stress of daily life gets to him, he finds the kids cheer him up. Wow…

Then to Dragonboy’s house to hang out. He and Moomin get along and like the same things (godzilla monsters, dragons, robots, dinosaurs).

During the gym party I disappeared with Eliz. to a bookstore down the street, where we happily cruised the history, mythology, and archeology shelves. She picked a book on the Iceman, a mummified guy from 3000 years ago, found in Switzerland with a birchbark basket, stone dagger, and copper axe. I asked her about the Odyssey and she smiled all starry-eyed and sighed, “Grey-eyed Athena….” like she was going to faint. We agreed it would be cool to be Odysseus, and that one feels a bit sorry for Telemachus for being a little boring and not getting to be as cool as Odysseus.

I bought a bunch of books for Moomin (cheap and used.) James & the giant peach, which he began reading tonight. The beginning is very compelling. I also got The Twenty-One Balloons, a couple of Illustrated Classics (kind of crappy condensed/rewritten versions of books but Moomin will like them because they have a ton of pictures) & a kids’ book on the hudson bay company & the 13 clocks & something else I can’t remember. I have already read most of them since Rook fell asleep very suddenly on page 20 of Farthing and has been snoring gently for a couple of hours.

At Dragonboy’s house the grownups were most entertaining. The Weaseltoast family – fun – Dragonboy himself – and Q.’s dad, whose name I’ve completely forgotten, getting on the floor with me and kids to stack up chairs and stools to make forbidding cliffs, volcanoes, and mountain caves for the 15 toy dragons that Dragonboy received for his birthday. Maybe some of them weren’t new, but it was near enough. Dragonboy and Moomin are both good at picking up the tone of my narrations. “Robodragon! Come closer and let me tell you! The mad scientist who created us wants to steal our powers!” “Oh my god! We’ve got to stop him! We must go into the caves of doom!”

At some point all the moms sat around the table, talking smack about labor stories. Q’s mom was in labor for a miserable 52 hours. Dragonboy’s had a super short home birth rather like mine, but succeeded in getting in a hot tub for a water birth – where she would scream for 30 seconds during contractions and then fall straight asleep for the couple of minutes in between. Ms. Weaseltoast caught one of her babies herself and did a great job of it. We boasted and I think if we had another time with a few mojitos to drink then we’d be comparing labia size and how many orgasms we can have. It was that excellent. The older girls hung about, listening madly with a million ears.

Technorati Tags: bay area, books, friends, kids, literature, oakland, parenting, puppy

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