This is my 200th post, Blogger says.

Huh. I have no response to that.

(That was a little Joe Versus the Volcano, if anyone cares. Highly underrated, in my opinion, because it has added so much to my vernacular. My belief that fluorescent lights suck the juice out of my eyeballs? Thanks, Joe.)

(Although clearly I can never watch that movie again. It will never live up to my memory of it. My sister and I would call that the Dukes of Hazzard effect.)

Anyway. I’m sure this post will not live up to its status as a milestone post. I apologize in advance.

But at least I’m posting, right? RIGHT?

This week is my Major Week at Major U, in which I’m supposed to work twelve days in a row without much of a nod toward the weekend that’s sacrificed. I know: I get paid. I do feel lucky to have a job in this economy, etc, etc.

But 12 days in a row? I’m a white-collared, soft-handed wuss.

In reading news: Remember how I said the next book I read had to be good, really really good? It sort of dropped into my lap, but I found it.

50. Mentor– Tom Grimes
Not sure how the general pop will like this, but to my hopeful, writerly self, this book was very affecting. And maybe not in the way Grimes meant for it to be. It’s about Grimes, a writer, who found a father-figure, friend, and mentor in Frank Conroy at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Boohoo for anyone who got into Iowa, but the parts of the book when he’s there are what got to me. Because I miss my workshop—not Iowa, but whatever—a lot. Not the classes, exactly, but the time and the focus and the community of people around you who all care about the same things you do. While I was in my MFA, I felt as though I’d figured it all out. Real life, so-called, cannot begin to compare. So I read this book in a sort of half-mournful trance. Apparently I like half-mournful trances. I’d read more books like this, only I need to get back to revising my book.

My book! So I got rejected (sniff) by Big Unlikely Agency #1, but I have two others who have interest in my pages. And yet—when am I supposed to be working on these pages? Argh.

I’m going to have to get a little more selfish with my spare time come November 1.

My class! They are chugging along with their projects. If I were in their shoes, I’d be having some sustainability issues right now, so we’ll work on that come our next session. And then revision, since they have to turn some in for their final grade. By December 10, we’ll be done, more than half of them will graduate, and I will be revising that time into writing time. It’s been really great and inspiring, but it’s not realistic to think I can do a class in the spring, too. Too much going on in the sponsorship portion of my life.

Off for a brief and probably very cold dog playdate and then back to work. No rest for the cranky.