I gave up on the Diaz book. The plot wasn't holding my interest. I didn't really like the prose.

After reading the interview with Jennifer Egan, I had a dream that I found her books on a shelf in a used bookstore. I took it as a sign and went to the library and checked out The Keep.

Last week I went through my amazon.com wishlist and ordered all the books I could find for a penny. This is what I got:

Cake by Sandra Newman (Have been waiting 3 years to read this. Had to order it from England. It's not available anywhere in the US. Not that I found. She taught my fiction writing class at Temple. But that was before I knew who she was. After the class ended I checked her first book out of the library on a whim, read it in 2 days, loved it, and proceeded to feel like a stupid piece of shit for writing shitty crap in her class. How embarrassing. But during a meeting, I explained to her that I'm a poet, and maybe that's excuse enough.)

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry by Anne Carson (I kind of really look up to her. In ways.)

This is Not Chick Lit edited by Elizabeth Merrick (To feed my addiction to women writers. Huge, massive fan of women writers. Good ones. Somehow this makes me a feminist, but if I were to read poetry and literature written by only men this would make me normal. No one would think anything of it. Of course she's reading a book written by a man. Just as anyone should.)

Poets Teaching Poets (ordered for my workshop. Looks boring.)

White Elephants by Reetika Vazirani (to satisfy my craving for Indian and Middle Eastern female poets, and my fascination with poets who commit suicide.)

Can't wait to quit my job and spend the day reading under a tree.

Target's HR rep talked to me about my Boston plans. Apparently the store manager was/is under the impression that I'm not definitely moving, that I'm probably not moving at all, and has shared this with HR. Target being Target, shit like that spreads. Since I haven't left yet people are wondering if I'm going at all.

"So, you're 100% going to Boston?"

"Yes."

"Without a doubt, you're definitely going, there's no way you're not going."

For the 54th fucking time. YES.

He asked me again if I considered transferring to a Target up there. I said that I don't think I'll be able to support myself with Target money, so I want to explore other options. For some reason he thought it was unbelievable that all of my living expenses are on me. Part of me wonders if there's a bonus involved in getting someone to transfer locations. Unless they want to pay me at least 11 an hour my stint in retail will end this summer.

Will end next month.

C0ntrary to popular belief, you cannot pack up your entire life in one week.

Sold 7 CDs so far. Not sure how much I made off those...I didn't keep track. Money I didn't previously have, though. The cool thing about selling them is that before I list them online I make sure they're on my itunes, and I'm rediscovering all the music I've collected since I started collecting. I've been time traveling. Tracing my roots. It's all very symbolic

Last night, before my headache got too bad (been getting a lot of those lately), I read an interview with Jennifer Egan on Narrative.com. Unfortunately, you have to sign up to read it, so I won't even bother linking it. Anyway, it got me really excited to be a writer, and got me thinking about a side career in journalism. She's a journalist for the NY Times magazine. She researches all sorts of things and people that inevitably make their way into her stories. Like a twin sister rap duo that didn't really go anywhere, or gay teens who live their "real" lives online and their "fake" lives in the real world, women who worked in a naval yard during WWII. It's fascinating.

I'm less nervous about the move. Probably not nervous at all anymore. I think because I know it's something I must do, like self-preservation maybe. I'll die if I don't. My dad said when you're on the right path things just sort of fall into place and happen for you. I'm pretty sure I'm on the right path and that's why I'm not nervous. I'm excited to do what I've always wanted to do. What I think I was always meant to do.

Anyway, I just got called into work. Great. Got shit to do, son.

Why I don't eat meat: #27

"Down in the blood pit the say that the smell of blood makes you aggressive. And it does. You get an attitude that if that hog kicks at me, I'm going to get even. You're already going to kill the hog, but that's not enough. It has to suffer...You go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and--eerk--cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream. One time I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand--I was wearing a rubber glove--and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind...I wasn't the only guy doing this kind of stuff. One guy I work with actually chases hogs into the scalding tank. And everybody--hog drivers, shacklers, utility men--uses lead pipes on the hogs. Everybody knows it, all of it."

--From Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse (as quoted in JSF's Eating Animals)

Why I write: #34

"The artist's job is to expose us to what is hidden, what is 'imperfect', what popular culture might not be ready to hear."

---Elizabeth Merrick (from the introduction to This is Not Chick Lit)

Money, money makes the world go 'round

Money never mattered to me in the sense that I would sacrifice my personal happiness in pursuit of it. I thought I made this obvious when I abruptly quit my last job and decided I wanted to move 6 hours away from all my security and stability to pursue a graduate degree in poetry.

I understand that a lot of my friends are concerned; they don't want to see me struggle, or at the very least they don't want to hear about it. But I'm disappointed that I'm asked, "what about the money?", "don't you need money?", "what are you going to do for money?" more than I'm asked, "how are we going to spend your last summer here?" or "what's going to make you happy?".

What's not making me happy is spending almost 40 hours a week standing in a 10' x 3' area for $8.36/hr, knowing the money I make won't even make a dent in terms of savings, knowing that for $62.70 before taxes I'm missing out on family and friends--you know, priceless things. Sure, I could work the rest of the summer, maybe save $200 and get my bills paid on time. Or I could do what doesn't crush my soul and make me miserable. I don't know, it seems obvious to me, but I'm finding my values aren't exactly in line with everyone else's.


And now, an open letter to Elizabeth Hasselbeck of The View:

Dear Elizabeth Hasselbeck,

I do admire that you're so vocal about your opinions, and that you passionately defend what you believe in. I feel these are very important traits for a woman to have. That being said, you're a fucking moron. One of your hot topics was about how Janeane Garofalo said that Obama's call for prayer (for the Gulf situation) is anti-intellectual and essentially non-productive. (And don't get me started on the site I found that video on.) You took it as a personal hit against people who pray, saying anti-intellectual means "dumb". Means you're dumb. I'll explain how you're dumb and how it's not because you pray.

Intellect isn't necessarily the same as intelligence. I understand your confusion. Semantics. But intellect, as defined by dictionary.com means "the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge." Just to further clarify, prayer--the thing by which one feels and one wills--is not faculty of the mind, but of the heart. It's vague. It's blind-faith. Nothing against prayer, but it's surely a desperate situation when our president asks us to pray because we really have no other hope. Literally. No hope whatsoever.

Lastly, you said Janeane's comment was bigoted, and you called Joy a bigot when she tried to explain the difference between intellect (thought) and intelligence (smarts) and prayer (faith), and how this is the separation of church and state (something you seem to not support). It's great that you know the first amendment protects your right to pray to whatever god you choose, but it also protects our right to not be blanketed by American Brand religion, and you're a bigot for thinking Janeane (and myself) is an asshole for thinking prayer is not really a viable solution. For thinking we're assholes for not wanting to pray at all. To clarify once more, bigot means "intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion". She wasn't being intolerant. She was being intellectual. (See what I did there?)

In the future, argue more with your intellect and less with your prayer.


Sincerely,

Shannon Wagner

Fundraising

1. Selling about 3/4 of my cd collection on half.com

2. Permission from dad to sell his shoe collection on ebay

3. Picking up loose change wherever found

4. Tuition refund should be disbursed automatically in October after the drop/add period. Should be.

5. Switching to part-time. Not exactly helping to raise funds, but will go a long way in raising levels of morale and sanity. Dad gave me his blessing to quit. He said stick it out for as long as you can, and then give your 2 weeks if you have enough to cover bills for the summer. Mom-mom gave me some money for "school expenses", and he said I could use that for the summer, but I'm not sure yet. Just...sick of standing for 8 hours a night when I could be spending time with people I love or doing one of the 10,000 important things I need to do or sitting outside/swimming because it's gorgeous out. It's summertime, people.

6. Thinking about pawning some of mom's jewelry (i.e, wedding/engagement rings, another ring from my dad...things she gave me that don't fit and that I secretly think are bad luck).

7. Yard sale?

8. I'm in the process now of just sorting things out. What I'm taking vs. What I'm not taking.

9. Can't view student employment opportunities till they give me an email address. Thinking about getting in with a temp agency after I move. If I only have 2 classes a semester, I could probably swing full-time and still have time to work on my poetry. I'm thinking regular pay and benefits. But who knows, really.


Miscellaneous

1. I watched some of CBS Sunday Morning yesterday. They did a segment on Bob and Ziggy Marley. Spent the rest of the day with "Could this be love" stuck in my head. Ad's friend Zee reminds me vaguely of Bob Marley.

2. Forgot to request off for Boston. Forgot/thought it was a week further away than it really is. The request was due yesterday (but I called out to see my family). I'm hoping I can still get it in today. There's no way I can miss this trip. It's absolutely out of the question. So...I'll quit if I have to. (I think I'm just looking for an excuse at this point.) (Also, I increasingly hope to be fired, though I don't really give them a reason to fire to me other than I consistently show up 3-5 minutes late.)

3. I turned the cartoon dad on the father's day card I bought into a crossdresser.

4. I think I need a new dresser. The one I have is way too big for an apartment. The one I used in Ambler has a couple broken drawers. The one at my mom's makes my clothes smell weird. Like wood chips and animal.

5. Dabbling with veganism. It's freakin' expensive. So I switched to soymilk. It's actually really good and doesn't expire as quickly as milk. Baby steps.

Relieving a little anxiety

Got my tuition statement today. I'll get a $1,041.00 refund and won't need to take out any additional loans this year. (Hopefully.)

Things are starting to make sense. I'm really doing this.