Another all-night grading blitz. I hope to God I finish. It's looking grim.

I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.

I have to force myself to grade. It's terrible.

I've been rewarding myself by listening to songs every few students.

I feel much like myself today. I think it's because I'm wearing old jeans I haven't worn since approximately April when I painted last. I've had them since junior year of undergrad. And I pulled my recently-cut Stepha circa 1988-2002 full bangs back off my forehead. All I need now are eggplant-colored highlights and my gray zip-up hoodie with the birds and blue flowers on it. And Lorraine needs to give back my black Chucks with the blue star and the hot pink shoelace too, the thief.

Zomg! BLACK FRIDAY BLOWOUTS.

If I see or hear this phrase one more time, I will scream.

Blowouts are for fuses and poopy diapers. Not ~great dills~ on electronics.

Also, DOORBUSTERS.

WHAT.

Happy Halloween. I was a ladybug:




I ran out of time and resources so that's why it's lame. I think I've been some insect or another for at least six Halloweens. Not one child demanding treats or performing tricks stopped by my cul-de-sac. Went to 2 parties and danced the night away.

Lately, the fad is cupcakes.

Cupcakes are suddenly prissy and adorable.

They are the chihuahua of baked treats. Once you take off the pink tutu and tiara, you've got an ugly, grouchy dog. Once you scrape off the mound of pink icing, you've got a boring old hunk of cake.

I'm tired of them.

I want to work in the cookie business. It began last December when I was making a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies for a ~holiday party. Naturally, I got the math wrong and effed it all up. In order to salvage my time and the HUGE wad of dough, I improvised a little and managed to invent my own take on a sugar cookie recipe, which turned out well. I baked a looooot over the last year. I tried to bake something once every one to three weeks for practice, depending on time constraints--not just cookies, but pies, brownies, candies, cakes, and muffins. Cookies became my favorite thing to make. I tweaked several basic recipes to make them more delicious and got my baking time down to a precise art. I also did a teensy bit of research on the scientific aspect of baking and learned about what each ingredient is used for. Yeah, yeah. I like to bake. I'm kind of self-conscious about it. Poets are supposed to bake their own heads a la Sylvia Plath, not dozens of muffins or what have you.

Everybody wants to open a bakery. Or a coffee shop. I'm no different.

I want to open a bakery that specializes in cookies. Not giant birthday cookies with brown icing trains and balloons you can get at the mall, but "gourmet" cookies. I already have about half a dozen recipes in mind.

Here are some cookies:



Each cookie is going to be named after a poem that I think embodies the flava.

Example:

I've got this citrusy cookie with an orange glaze and I have a lemon cookie with a lemon glaze. I've also got plans to develop a strawberry version. Spring and Allllll

Gah.

cold wind on neck

3 am

the apparition of these faces in the crowd
petals on a wet black bough

It's jawsome, to say the least.

-poim fragments for you

A clouded glass
under water
a fish in a coffee can
maybe no one
should be like no one

{the hound crept along the fence
its tail quivering just}

-poim fragments for you

I've been having a series of dreams in the last few weeks in which I have to save my dog, Frank, from various scenarios. He's always on the other side of a chain link fence and I always have to grab him under his shoulders and run away with him. I've saved him from Voldemort and an angry mob in a Wal-Mart parking lot so far.

Feel like makin' ~electronic journal entries.

I have over 300 papers to grade this weekend. I plan to lock myself in my office on Western with plenty of plums and carrots and a pen or two. Duuuuuurrrrr.

^"politely disinterested."

Today, during class, I was so dissociated that I had a debate with myself about whether a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich would taste good dipped in Italian dressing. I'm still not sure.

Aside from being a little on the dreamy side lately, life has been going eerily well. I haven't felt this happy in YEARS. Literally.

I really hope that The Steamroller (from Marianne Moore's poem) doesn't come along and crush my soul. :( I'd love for this to last.

Sometimes it's the little things.

-I genuinely love teaching. My students frustrate the crap out of me sometimes, but I can say with confidence that I look forward to laughing with them every day and helping them become better writers. I'm much more comfortable in the classroom this year than I was last year.

-I just signed up for Netflix again. I dedicated two hours of my life to researching films I've been wanting to see for ages and added all of them. I calculated that it'll take me over a year to watch them all.

-I've got a new hobby, but it's a secret. It's not filthy or illegal. It's just not something I want to talk about yet becaaaaause...

-...I've got a huge poetry project I just started on and the two are linked. I don't want to spill till it's completely underway.

-I feel as though I really love poetry for the first time.

-I've made a couple of new acquaintances recently and they're great people.

-I can feel myself slowly moving away from the stage of my life where I needed constant validation.

Please no The Steamroller, please no The Steamroller, please no The Steamroller.

It was a day of warmed-over chuckles, smatterings of applause, and...Vans and Nikes sticking out from beneath corseted, crushed velvet gowns. Wait, what?

No, I did not go to an 8th grade choir concert at Chamberlain Middle School in 2003 when Evanescence was sort of a novelty (like a moody Aqua) and not something you switch off fast when they come on the radio because even hearing "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol for the tenth time in a row is better.

Yes, I did somehow find myself back at the OHIO RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL.

Where everyone looks like Amy Lee:





Nothing has changed. The same actors and actresses are still performing the same shows as ever. The same carts, stands, food, games, rides. You can, however, see where they've altered the $5 on various signs with a Sharpie so that they now read $6.

It's always a hoot. I've determined that the only issue I have with RenFest isn't the Fest itself, but the goers. It isn't an over-earnest affair on part of the cast members. Aside from the actors in the shows and the food service workers, it's mostly seasonal employment for those who make specialty crafts. They most likely have an Etsy or Ebay store and cash in on the opportunity to earn a few extra dollars on the side. Sure they dress up and cut up, but they don't seem to let it go to their heads. No. That seems to be the territory of the walking stick-leaning and belly dancing patrons. The 45-year-old women who don't wear proper undergarments with their shear attire or wear velvet cloaks on 90 degree days and the men who stuff themselves into cerulean-colored tights and talk like a pirate for hours on end. Or the teenagers that own swords and dress as male faeries and pay $20 for pointy ears, $50 for two inch glass wizards.

But who am I to judge? They aren't hurting anyone and it makes them happy. I probably sound like a jerkstore when I really did have a good time. Plus, it's more that I find this sort of person fascinating. Not to mention the crossover culture is super interesting. I'd like to make a map similar to this music map:

http://www.music-map.com/

with Average RenFest Goer at the center and take a look at what their other interests are. I'm willing to bet that 80s punk, anime, horror movies, The Nightmare before Christmas and basically any other movie, character, or series you could have found the figurines to in the back of Suncoast Video a few years ago would be on it.

Highlights:

-I tried mead. It tastes like bright lights. Seems like it would compliment greasy food quite nicely, but I drank it on an empty belly.

-I saw (ye olde) Jousting, Washer Women, and Swordsmen.

-I bought one slightly over-$ed, handmade bar of lotion.

-I ran into many folks I knew from "home."

-I ate glazed pe-cans.

-I thought about my homework and how it wasn't just going to do itself you know.

Then I ate some non-chili-laden Skyline and when I got home, I was so disinterested in doing the homework that I had been thinking about all day, that I taught myself a few sequences of choreography from the Paula Abdul video, "Opposites Attract." It's the one where she insinuates that she is in a long term, physical relationship with a scat-singing, cigarette-smoking, self-assured cartoon cat. Then I learned all the moves from "Single Ladies" when I still wasn't satisfied.

Big day.

This journal shall henceforth serve as a tomb.

But thank you for reading it up until this point.