I won

(If you don't remember, click here)

But basically, out of all the seniors in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, this judge thought I showed the most promise as a poet (along with two other recipients). Very exciting. More exciting is the $400 cash prize I'm getting. Probably going to go to a new bass speaker cab, since I kind of blew most of the speakers on the one I have now lol.

Also, went on a date with this one girl (actually three, technically) and it was nice, she's cute and all, but sadly we don't really have much to talk about (even though she keeps chatting with me on facebook and such) and she's really really hard to read. After the second date she gave me one those kisses that was too fast for me to comprehend what happened until it was over, and then earlier today we hung out and actually kissed for a bit. But it was weird, after a little group of them she kept noticeably pulling away...then 10 seconds later it was ok to kiss her again. I tried asking her about it/what was up and she just switched off topic or didn't say anything. It's like I could see her mind going a million miles an hour, but she won't say a word. I am so confused by her, I'm not really going to keep going with it. Even on the first date I had this "she's cool, but I don't really get that 'i want to be with this girl' vibe," so ya. But I mean, it was the closest I've come to something since Brittney. I guess I'm making the right progression.

New Mike Doughty CD "Sad Man Happy Man" is excellent. Go buy it I'm skeptical of the new Muse CD--anyone checked that one out yet? Same with the Flaming Lips' Embryonic.

I's gots it. Now even medicine wants to make sure I'm isolated and unable to come within 6 feet of anyone.

Parents are driving me up to PHX to get better up there.

I'm gaining some happiness. Yesterday, I kind of half tap danced down the steps in front of the Pi Phi house after work, all Singin' in the Rain style.

After just one session of counseling, I already felt a little more like I knew what I had to do. She had said that sometimes the simplest communication is often omitted, so I sat down with my ex and said "Look, I know you no longer think of my in any kind of romantic or sexual way, but we've got 6 months of college left and it seems impossible to avoid each other. So let's stop the games and try and be a bit more civil until then. Cause at the moment, you're causing me more pain than happiness, and yet I don't think it's possible to totally remove you from my life." We discussed my perceptions of why she had been more cold since last winter--I had thought she thought all I wanted from her was to get her back or to make love to her, but she said it was my constantly commenting on every guy that suddenly appeared in her life as some great new love in negative ways, and other snide comments about her moving on. (Yes, I know, I know...I'm over that). We'll see what next. All I can say, is I felt a great relief after the conversation was over, and it appeared she did too. We played with Daisy for another hour and just hung out like friends, with no tensions, talking about how funny it is seeing our parents drunk, and it was absolutely fantastic.

Speaking of counseling, this person does a type of mixture between "practical" and guided imagery sessions. Guided imagery being a cousin of hypnosis, where it's almost as though I'm put under the same way (more relaxed state) but instead of being told what to do, she asks me questions and I respond by talking about the images I see. I'm having my first of those sessions this Friday, and greatly intrigued by it.

As for my poetry, there seems to be this sudden tear in my watchers who think that some of my older work is more interesting, and that my professor is steering me in a bad direction, but I'm enjoying the way some of my latest poems are coming out, and am very proud of what I'm accomplishing in these pieces, more so than I feel when I finish some of my bar poems. Now, more words from my prof that I'd like some thoughts on.

We workshopped Pleurisy yesterday, and one thing he mentioned was the artificiality of a few of my images, viz. "this is your fortunate fragrance / that I let it seep into my arteries." His objection was that a fragrance can't really get into the arteries like that, and that he had noticed a lot of my poems rely on some kind of imagery that is stretching the plausible. I hadn't really noticed that before, because I feel like it could happen, but it's not exactly as direct a route as I make it in that image. It would have to go onto the skin first, then absorbed below, and some finally down into the blood stream. I feel his point is valid in some ways, but I'm wondering if the artificiality bothers you, as readers, that much?

Whether you agree with him or not, he has definitely challenged me as a writer and a reader of poetry, and I'm very thankful I took the class, even with all the frustrations.

I'm really having a tough time deciding where the line is with abstractions in poetry lately. Where does details become too much, when every little thing has to be so meticulously described that I feel like I'm creating a big list and crowding so much into the poem that is unnecessary, and makes the real message lost. Plus the more detailed I get, the more questions about "why this one" when it's really because I was trying to avoid the abstraction in the first place.

Like, if I just say "I buy groceries for her," does the reader absolutely need to know which kind of groceries? Trying to avoid an abstraction, I might be tempted to say it was Campbell's Chunky soup...but that might imply the speaker thinks the girl is fat, or that perhaps this is her favorite soup, when really, all I want to say is that the speaker went and got some food for her, without judgment on her character.

I know most of you don't like anything my professor keeps saying, but this is again because of something discussed in our workshop. (For those who keep asking, here's a poem of his that I think is really incredible Three Teenage Girls: 1956)

He's been challenging us to cut out more of our abstractions, but for me I can't tell when it's ok just to say "groceries," and not detail every minuscule, nondescriptive noun of every line. He's really fucking with my head, and I can't tell if it's a good thing or if he's just driving me away from poetry because of the dual aspects of trying to make it complex, but not overthink it, to create something accessible to a myriad of emotional responses from as many readers as possible, but specific to the one single experience, to narrate and move through time, but not use any functional time-shifting words, to write longer sentences, then cut all the fluff down to short choppy sentences that don't flow, then add more until they do, and cut again.

AH!

He keep telling us to write about something we're conflicted about, but I'm too depressed to feel any conflict within me. "But surely, you're still conflicted about something" No, all I've got is the same constant feeling that everything in my life is failing, or worthless, or unacceptable...no other side to the argument. I'm getting tired of his teaching, it has completely detached me from the happiness of writing, and simultaneously destroyed all my beliefs that anything I've wrote before this can be considered poetry. And yet, as per his request, I've been reading as much poetry as possible and it seems like every person I've read lately talks in such plain language and doesn't go into the descriptions, so I'm not sure why he's forcing us into this purging of abstractions if so many "well-established, respected" poets (those who've won many major literary awards such as pulitzers, national book awards, etc.) seems to have them there as well.

I really don't know what to do.

I'm officially getting it. This depression has been going on for too long--Everything that was helpful has been tapped dry and I don't have the energy to keep going and pretend I'm fine anymore.

I'm worried about medication though. If at all possible, I'm going to refuse that as long as I can unless I get to a point where I absolutely need it. I really don't trust it and I'm afraid I won't be able to quit it if they put me on it even for a little bit and on weak dosages.