Gearing up

I feel hungover today and I didn’t drink a drop last night. What in the hell is that?

So I wrote about idleness, which is good. But sometimes you have enough idleness and time for thoughts to emerge and percolate, but you still don’t get it down. I think I’ve had a good 5 or so years of idleness that I never got down. So I guess now is the time. If you want something done, give it to a busy person, right?

The professor I’m working with on this book told me last week in parting, “Scare yourself with your genius.” What the hell does that mean? Perhaps this is the flipside to what I tell myself every time I sit down to write: you can only be as good as you dare to be bad. Maybe I needed him to say: you can only be as good as you dare to be. I don’t know. Sounds like terrible pressure to me. But what isn’t pressurized about putting yourself—your story, your life, your writing, your talent—on the page for others to read and judge? Yikes. Could drive a person to drink—or worse, could drive a person to drunkenness without a drink. Shit.

But all of a sudden I’m finding it very comforting to be teaching writing classes, to have younger writers than I am to help shape and mold and discuss their roadblocks and their successes. I see what I’m helping them do, and it constantly reminds me what I can do for myself. Isn’t it true that if you can’t help yourself, you can’t help anyone else?

I also love being around other young teachers. Some of these grad students—most of them, actually—are teaching for the first time. It ain’t easy. Talk about putting yourself out there. . . . And those kids can be vicious—they’re like wolves; they smell fear. So my dear, sweet friend, I’ll call him KiKi, was telling me about how his students are calling him out on everything and he feels like he has to defend himself and his choices all the time. He’s a wreck. A tender flower by nature, he can’t stand up well to the cruelty of others. So I told him to practice responding to questions with questions. Throw it back at them. That’s education and accountability, man. He liked that idea.

In other news, I am sore. TTT and I did chest, triceps and legs on Tuesday and all those parts are barking at me now. What will she have me do today? Probably back, biceps and legs. I’ll do shoulders and abs myself on Saturday. I just might get buff yet, y’all. I love the hard curve of a well-defined muscle.

And I think I’m ready for some companionship. But it has to be good. I am not at all interested in playing the field or dating around. I’ll go dancing with anyone who’ll have me and who can dance, but I’m not going to spend time in conversation with anyone who doesn’t light my fire. I don’t have time to be bored, and I daresay I never will.

But I’m practicing patience and letting the world come to me. So far so good.