Brandi Wells tells me that last picture was very MySpace. I mean, I used to have a MySpace back when MySpace was new, so I guess a little bit of teenage angst will live in me always. I also had a Xanga, which was probably the most explicitly personal of all my past blogs, and also the most explicitly secretive, because I was sixteen and that's how I got through it (being sixteen). I have now officially messed with the ending to the Cheerleader, AND the ending to the book manuscript. My students are always telling me that they have trouble with conclusions for their papers, and I'm like, YEAH, it's really hard to end something in a way that isn't trite or repetitive or ugly. Conclusions knock me out, too. And I'm less stressy when it comes to ending a particular page or poem, but when it comes to ending a long poem? Or a whole manuscript? Something I've been working on for two years? Yeah. You'll see me devolve into angsty me. Stressy me. MySpace me.
I have this urge, lately, to philosophize, and it has definitely shown up in the thing I wrote today. I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, because I just wrote it and am too close to it. The last person who said he would read my whole manuscript just had a baby, so I'm thinking no, it would not be a good idea to send to him. The fact that we're in summer now also makes me think I should not send this thing to professors, who are on summer break. I just--I have just been working on this for a while. And I want so badly for others to read it, not just as helpful commentators, but as readers. People who like to read liking to read this book that I wrote, a thing that came about because I loved it.