Beginning Again

As of late November, my previous Web site and its associated blog (Lexivore.net) ceased to exist because, well, I stopped paying for them. Since then I've been trying to decide what my first post should be on the new (free!) blog, which means, basically, that I've done nothing in the way of writing anything for it. Seeing as this was my usual modus operandi with Lexivore.net, perhaps I should turn over a new leaf and worry less about creating the ideal inaugural blog post.

So here's what's been going on in my life: I spent the summer working, first as catering wait staff in the city (NYC) and then as a counselor/teaching assistant for the Summer Institute for the Gifted (Bryn Mawr sessions), which was a debacle of a summer camp. The hours were ridiculous, the company offered classes that it refused to support (hard to teach graphic design without access to graphic design software, for instance), and the counselors were expected to uphold rules for behavior of the kids that sometimes made no sense. Also, when some of the rules mattered most (i.e., rules enforcing non-violent behavior among the students), they were not swiftly followed by the administration. Oy.

At the end of the summer, I got back to Yonkers, drove with my mom to Brattleboro, VT, and then to Newton, MA to meet with my dad. He and I then packed up the belongings still at the house he and my stepmother own and we drove back to NY in a rental van and dropped off the stuff. (My dad was generous enough to drive the van back to Boston and return it for me.)

After my return, Clare and I broke up, driven by her desire to soul-search and answer some pressing personal questions. This left me single for the start of the school year, and surprisingly sure of myself. (I realized, for one, that I didn't need to feel lonely or pine for a relationship, that I could get one if I wanted, and that I knew enough about my desires that I didn't need to leap at every opportunity I saw--I could simply enjoy the start of my third semester and date when I felt like doing so.) I did end up missing Clare at the beginning, but only because I liked her company and was used to having her around. It was a sensation distinct from lacking and desperately wanting a relationship.

So I entered the school year confident and excited. I began to work on my Masters thesis--a poetry manuscript that I hope will lead into my first book--with Kate Knapp Johnson, who is very very good at making students feel comfortable--working with her, I feel like we're collaborating to figure out how to solve a draft's problems, and not that I am listening to her dispense with advice. I leave conferences with her newly excited about my poetry.

I took a workshop with Stephen Dobyns, who is very sharp and very matter-of-fact in class and in conference. He has a subtle, dry wit, too, that can sometimes slip under your radar. He challenged me in many ways, and I feel my poetry grew a lot under his guidance and Kate's.

I participated in a teaching internship at SUNY Purchase, which meant I drove half an hour north-northeast on Thursdays for a class called Teaching Good Prose, and then again on Friday mornings to assist in a freshman-level College Writing course.

I also began to meet people again, though (deliberately) fewer than I did last year. One of the people I met was a gorgeous woman who walked into my first Aikido class of the year asking about wearing a gi. By the end of the class, we were chatting and hitting it off nicely, flirting a bit (okay, more than a bit) and finishing each other's sentences. Over the following weekend, I thought about her a lot. Those who are fairly familiar with my Aikido training and practice will understand what I mean when I talk about ki going or not going in a direction. With Virginia--whom I couldn't stop thinking about, and who clearly liked me--ki didn't go at first. It hit a brick wall. Turned out she had a (recently added) boyfriend in Paris. (She's Swiss-French and lives in Paris ordinarily.) For a few months, this proved to be a problem, as we were ridiculously attracted to each other. But in the end, she and he decided at the same time that long-distance wasn't working out for them, and, long story short, I'm in love and she loves me too!

The two of us have been working part-time in Sarah Lawrence's Academic Computing Department (ACD), through which we know Gary and Ali. Gary works in ACD and is enrolled in the MFA Theatre program at SLC. Ali works for an animal rights non-profit and is enrolled in the MFA Fiction program. I've roped them and a few other people into my Aikido P.E. class at the college, and now I have a small but growing group of regular students! I love the class, but wish I could teach some of the more complicated or unusual ki and throwing techniques. The quarter-based structure of the SLC P.E. system, stymies truly continuous teaching, however, because even with more and more regular students, I have to reset halfway through the semester and teach several classes of "the basics" to new students. Sadly, I only teach six classes in a quarter. (SLC students are, apparently, even less willing to take P.E. classes than Reedies. I don't know how that's possible.) I love teaching intro classes, but I feel a little stuck in that I can't teach my older students a lot of the really fun and neat stuff without first presenting the very basics (the four basic principles of mind/body coordination, the five basic principles of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, how to roll, etc.), and I can't do that (yet?) in fewer than two or three lessons. I think I need to improve the way I teach. And I imagine Erik must have similar frustrations at Reed.

Right now I'm on winter break preparing to enter my final semester at Sarah Lawrence (for now, I suppose). I just got back from visiting my father and stepmother in Newton, MA and my mother and a couple of old friends (hi Bret!) in Sandy Spring, MD. Virginia is getting in from a jaunt to Argentina today, and taking off for two weeks in Paris tomorrow, so I'm going to go shower, eat, and run off to pick her up. We've been talking on the phone daily since she left, and I can't wait to see her in person. I suspect once we get home this afternoon (after visiting with her friend Kristen) we won't be leaving the house much till tomorrow evening.