Happy New Year

I worked hard at endorphin production to make the transition from '08 to '09.  Came up a tad bit short at the stroke of midnight, but danced a little more, made

last call and got into a big conversation with a scientist about sub-atomic particles and the the big bang and that made me feel like there might almost be something like a God. Maybe it was the wine.

I'm Working On It

The new me will have an MFA. I don't care that I'm too old with too short of a resume to find a "real" teaching job. Whenever that conversation starts and someone asks me why I've gone back to school, I tell them I'm going to teach creative writing in the prisons.  I tell them I have connections.  

The new me will keep in touch with friends. Drop an email, write on a Facebook wall, buy a plane ticket or take a road trip. I'll be the one to suggest lunch or dinner instead of waiting for the phone to ring.

The new me will work harder, review what I've learned more often and try to remember it. I'll read sitting up instead of lying down in bed so the words have a chance to settle into my brain instead of sinking into my pillow and mingling with down and fluff.

The new me will tell my children I love them every time I see them and  in every phone conversation. Every time. Grand children, too. 

The new me will call my mother more often. Even if I have to over enunciate and speak more loudly than I'd like. The new me will visit her at least 4 times a year.

The new me might settle down and stay in L.A.--eventually. Or somewhere else.

This is Snow?

I was hoping for the pristine. A white blanket. The covering of flaws and bleakness and something to coat the branches of the trees that stand naked in the winter wind. Last December, during my first grad school residency, I walked in the woods every night. But this semester after 75 hours inside, I ventured outside for the first time this evening. You could say I'm cocooning, but that's not really how it is. I'm inside. Interior. Thinking of how terrible I felt last year to be starting grad school without a support system, mourning the death of my marriage full out. (How did I manage that?) and somehow taking lecture notes and workshopping and getting to know people. I feel better this year. But I still want snow. Something to blot out the grayness. Something for the moon to reflect off of.

Sweeter than Pineapple

My original intention as I began this blog at the end of September was to put into words the gratitude I feel toward my friends.  The list of kind acts, kind words, dinners, lunches, coffee dates, conversations, gifts tangible and intangible that I've received from my friends and family since my marriage ended would make this blog longer than a litany of the saints. But I've gone off on about a million tangents since then, and while I think of my friends every day and spend more time with them than ever, I don't always write about it.

My friend Ellen called me this morning while I was eating pineapple in the restaurant at the New Otani Hotel in Honolulu. My daughters were still asleep and beach-goers on this quiet side of Waikiki were just beginning to don their snorkels and venture into the blue water.  I've felt a bit underwater these last couple of days--sad that our family is broken apart and mad that Mr. Ex fell in love with someone else--but I have my friends and family and we've drawn closer since the divorce.  Ellen's phone call reminded me of that. And that, my friends, is sweeter than pineapple.