Dear God,

Please stop with the change. One thing at a time, please. I love You. Thank You for everything.

Amen.

It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow

SNOW! I want to wash my hands, my face and hair, with snow.

It's already mostly melted, but what a thrill while it was here! My meeting this morning wasn't canceled, but the roads were fine. The only danger was that the stoplights were full of snow! Most of them you could see OK, but it makes me think they ought to redesign those suckers.

I got most of next week's work done last night, making way for lots of thesis work today and throughout the week during the times when I'd normally do all that other stuff. It feels pretty good, but weird since I haven't looked at the thesis in a long time. I hope to make this a pattern, though. I look forward to my week-plus in Seagrove/Badin over Spring Break, but I don't want to make it so the whole thing rides on that. The draft is due pretty soon after.

My peers' work in the Novel class is so extremely good. It's sometimes like reading for pleasure, even more this week than usual. I'm so luckly to be surrounded by so much talent.

Blood and Energy and Eustress

I learned in my Wednesday night class about the heart and how our blood moves. Elementary stuff, but I can always use a reminder. I thought about how the highway mirrors the arteries--nothing but movement can happen in the major ones, and only in the capillaries can the blood drop off or pick up anything, like how we have to get off the main roads to get food, gas, etc. Incidentally, capillaries are so small that the blood cells have to move through single file. I find this darling. Intimate. And dang, everything in us is so intricate it's a miracle we're not all on life support. I asked whether it's true that the blood can redistribute, like when after a big meal someone says, "All my blood has rushed to my stomach." It's true that arteries can get bigger according to the body's needs, sending more blood where it's needed.

That's rather how I feel about my energy level and attention lately. I have to funnel a lot into teaching and being a student, and since I have a fixed amount, that means less goes to my dear sweet thesis. I feel like I'm in a long-distance relationship with my thesis. Yearning and constantly foiled and distracted by more immediate but less ultimately important concerns. I've been doing a new thing for the last few months where I focus on the reasons I get stressed or upset, because the reasons are almost always good. Now, for instance, the publishing practicum is stressing me out (already!). That's good because it's going to serve me extremely well in the job market. The job search is stressful, and that's good because I'm striving to contribute to society and be financially sound. My novel class is time-consuming, but I can't even enumerate the ways that class is awesome. Teaching is a stressor, but I'm so glad to have a relatively easy and often very enjoyable job on campus. AWP is a short-term stressor, but I'm lucky, we all are, to have the chance to go, and it's always so fun. So, I'm happy about almost all of the things that are giving me neck-and-shoulder pain. I learned in high school that distress is "bad stress" and eustress is "good stress." The only example of eustress they ever gave was "planning a wedding." But I htink almost all stress in a healthy life is basically eustress. If we're stressing over something, it's because we care about that part of our life and value it. You should try thinking this way when you're really stressed. I think it applies to most people. And heck, if most of your stressors aren't good things (family, job, school, travel plans, projects you're passionate about, relationships you value), then maybe you should reconsider whether they're worth your stress at all.

Made in Carolina

I went to Charleston this weekend for less than forty-eight hours, as the result of an abrupt change of plans--originally we were going to the mountains for the whole weekend, but hey, I'm always up for a trip of any length to any destination. So we left on Saturday morning and made it to our hotel in the early afternoon. Lunch was kind of crappy--underdone roast beef on boring white bread with non-homemade potato chips (oh, listen to me, I'm so spoiled). We walked around on Market Street, weaving around crowds and looking at scarves, jewelry, pottery, and other wares. One booth had postcard-size photos of things that look like letters (you know, the crotch of a tree for a V and stuff like that), and you could buy your name or a word. Apparently the Charleston area has a strong tradition of basket-weaving, and there were some really cool and intricate designs. The people were even working on them right there. Then we headed to King Street, which is the opposite kind of shopping: Apple store, Lacoste, PUMA, Williams-Sonoma, and stuff I've never even heard of because it's so fine. No money spent, and surprisingly little yearning endured. I think my year of non-purchasing did me a lot of good (although the Junior League rummage sale is this weekend, so we'll see). We drove down to the Battery and gawked at the houses and took a picture in front of the water.

Our dinner was delicious and copious and my first sip of cider made me say "Aw damn." It's sort of freeing eating out in another city, because I don't have to take leftovers home. It was Lyndsay's birthday, and Lindsay (yes, we have three with different spellings) had the presence of mind to tell the waiter and to advise him not to make a production. If anyone would cringe in their seat because of the attention, it would be Lyndsay. So we got to share a free (BIG) piece of homemade Snickers pie.

At Wet Willie's, the whole back wall behind the bar is slushie machines with alcohol already in them. It's quite a sight. Lindsey had been there when she was nineteen and remembered it ever since, and rightly so. We had a lot of fun. After breakfast on Sunday we came on back. It was a really fun escape. Felt a lot longer than it was, in a good way.

Spring Break is in less than a month! If all goes according to plan, I can stay in Seagrove/Badin for about nine days! I plan to hunker down with my computer and only hit town a few times when I need to fill in gaps in the book. My draft is due the day break is over. It's going to feel so good. I'm even going to get a massage before going so I can be relaxed and stay relaxed. I wonder if I'll try to run in the lake area.

I did the most fun exercise with my students today. They've been acting from day one like poetry is some kind of rhyme-filled moon-man language, so I knew I had to do something different that would both relax them and really work on their perception. We wrote together a hopelessly cliche love poem (your smile, your eyes, I love you and you love me) and then went through line by line and improved it with non-cliches. It was hard to break some of the habits, but once I got the point across, they soared. We went from "The world revolves around you" to "When you're not here, I'm surrounded by empty ice-cream containers, wearing pajamas, watching The Notebook on repeat." These moments always come just when I'm surest I don't like teaching.