I'm Still Here
Dear FOG (fans of gracky)
I know its been ages since I last wrote. I hope you’ll forgive me for not writing sooner, because I've had heaps of good intentions to do so and something’s got to be said about good intentions besides the fact that the road to hell is paved with them. Isn't it the thought that counts? Well, I've been thinking a lot about writing you, so I hope that serves to vindicate me just a little.
How are you? I’m doing all right. Life has been as busy as I can make it, so I don’t have time anymore to think too much, the way I usually do. It’s nice for a change.
My days have fallen into a predictable routine: wake up between 6:00-6:30am, go for a walk or jog, eat breakfast, get dressed, then hop in the car and drive to work while half-listening to NPR. Then after work, go for another walk or jog, before heading either home or to a coffeeshop where I will, in theory, spend some time writing short stories. In actual fact, I spend a great deal of time avoiding writing. Sometimes I’ll manage to squeeze a bit of piano practice into the day. Eventually I will get tired and go to bed, looking forward—if that’s the right term—to getting up the next morning and doing it all over again.
By the way, if you didn’t know, or forgot, I am a full-time proofreader for a direct marketing agency, which is all kinds of excitement, as you can no doubt imagine. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Wow, that is one job I could never do,” I’d be—well, not rich, but I could afford a venti latte at Starbucks for once. Seriously, though, I wonder sometimes what people mean by saying that. Are they saying they could never do it because they think it is so mind-numbingly boring? Or because they can’t spell? I don’t know. Maybe they mean both. As for my own thoughts about it, well, it’s an OK job. I don’t mind it usually, but the past couple weeks have been draining. Too many projects all at once. I never thought I’d come to hate reading, but that’s how I’ve felt lately.
Of course, that’s a problem because I’m just getting into the thick of my second semester in a Master of Fine Arts creative writing program, and naturally I have to do a lot of reading for that. At the moment, I am busily reading just about anything except what I put on my reading list--like Flannery O'Connor's Mystery & Manners and The Habit of Being, or the latest issue of Ploughshares. I would say I'm avoiding my "real" reading because I have a bad case of senioritis, but I’m not a senior, so there goes that theory. I know what it is really—summeritis. I find it hard to focus on work when the sun is out and the days are warm.
And by the way, if I had a dollar for every time I read an article about how MFA programs are no good and are ruining literature, I might not have had to take out student loans for another set of high-priced, non-lucrative letters to go after my name. Oh well.
Hey, guess what—we had another fire today. I saw it from my cubicle, which looks north toward the mountains. I forgot what the mountains are called. Anyway, I happened to look out the window (thank God my cube is next to a window!) and saw a plume of smoke rising behind the ridge of the nearest mountains. Not again, I thought. We just had those Griffith Park fires a couple months ago. Thankfully, they got this one under control and extinguished pretty quickly. I never even saw anything about it on the news, so I guess it didn’t do too much damage.
In other news, I’m still planning on doing the Nike half-marathon in San Francisco in October. I’ve been jogging several times a week, and can now go twice around the Rose Bowl (six miles) without too much trouble. So I think I’ll do better this year than I did the first time I attempted the half-marathon, which was in 2005. That was a fun, but awfully painful, experience.
Well, I have to go. I promise it won’t be too long before I write again. Til then, be as good as you can, and miss me, my darlings.
Kisses from the frogg princess
I know its been ages since I last wrote. I hope you’ll forgive me for not writing sooner, because I've had heaps of good intentions to do so and something’s got to be said about good intentions besides the fact that the road to hell is paved with them. Isn't it the thought that counts? Well, I've been thinking a lot about writing you, so I hope that serves to vindicate me just a little.
How are you? I’m doing all right. Life has been as busy as I can make it, so I don’t have time anymore to think too much, the way I usually do. It’s nice for a change.
My days have fallen into a predictable routine: wake up between 6:00-6:30am, go for a walk or jog, eat breakfast, get dressed, then hop in the car and drive to work while half-listening to NPR. Then after work, go for another walk or jog, before heading either home or to a coffeeshop where I will, in theory, spend some time writing short stories. In actual fact, I spend a great deal of time avoiding writing. Sometimes I’ll manage to squeeze a bit of piano practice into the day. Eventually I will get tired and go to bed, looking forward—if that’s the right term—to getting up the next morning and doing it all over again.
By the way, if you didn’t know, or forgot, I am a full-time proofreader for a direct marketing agency, which is all kinds of excitement, as you can no doubt imagine. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Wow, that is one job I could never do,” I’d be—well, not rich, but I could afford a venti latte at Starbucks for once. Seriously, though, I wonder sometimes what people mean by saying that. Are they saying they could never do it because they think it is so mind-numbingly boring? Or because they can’t spell? I don’t know. Maybe they mean both. As for my own thoughts about it, well, it’s an OK job. I don’t mind it usually, but the past couple weeks have been draining. Too many projects all at once. I never thought I’d come to hate reading, but that’s how I’ve felt lately.
Of course, that’s a problem because I’m just getting into the thick of my second semester in a Master of Fine Arts creative writing program, and naturally I have to do a lot of reading for that. At the moment, I am busily reading just about anything except what I put on my reading list--like Flannery O'Connor's Mystery & Manners and The Habit of Being, or the latest issue of Ploughshares. I would say I'm avoiding my "real" reading because I have a bad case of senioritis, but I’m not a senior, so there goes that theory. I know what it is really—summeritis. I find it hard to focus on work when the sun is out and the days are warm.
And by the way, if I had a dollar for every time I read an article about how MFA programs are no good and are ruining literature, I might not have had to take out student loans for another set of high-priced, non-lucrative letters to go after my name. Oh well.
Hey, guess what—we had another fire today. I saw it from my cubicle, which looks north toward the mountains. I forgot what the mountains are called. Anyway, I happened to look out the window (thank God my cube is next to a window!) and saw a plume of smoke rising behind the ridge of the nearest mountains. Not again, I thought. We just had those Griffith Park fires a couple months ago. Thankfully, they got this one under control and extinguished pretty quickly. I never even saw anything about it on the news, so I guess it didn’t do too much damage.
In other news, I’m still planning on doing the Nike half-marathon in San Francisco in October. I’ve been jogging several times a week, and can now go twice around the Rose Bowl (six miles) without too much trouble. So I think I’ll do better this year than I did the first time I attempted the half-marathon, which was in 2005. That was a fun, but awfully painful, experience.
Well, I have to go. I promise it won’t be too long before I write again. Til then, be as good as you can, and miss me, my darlings.
Kisses from the frogg princess
posted by grackyfrogg @ 10:56 PM
3 Comments
