raybear | I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming, now I'm home.

I'm still a little groggy and sleepy from my afternoon nap but I'm hoping typing will help wake me up, otherwise I might just sleep all night into morning. The good news is I finished the grant and turned it in. There was only minor drama involving the ink cartridge running out just in time for the last page of the printout, and then I used one of those cheap univeral printer refills that was hugely messy and stained my hands and other items in the house. This all caused a minor meltdown and drama queen moment of throwing papers and shouting expletives and even hitting the wall (but not getting ink on or otherwise ruining the beautiful red paint job). It felt kind of good to release anger like that, I do it so rarely. Anyway, it got done, no one was harmed in the process, not even inanimate objects (ok, a few sheets of paper got severely crumpled).

I spent the afternoon eating nachos and looking up the word "ponce" then taking a nap. I was woken up when DYA came home from her job interview and announced she has a job, and she's probably writing it in her livejournal in the next room as I type.

I feel like I haven't written here much lately, as I've been preoccupied with my working life or my writing life. So here's a short report:

Last night was the Raw Works reception at Black Water Cafe, a fond farewell to the semester and the kids and working with the Center. It was low-key and I started off with low expectations, feeling kind of disappointed in how the results of this semester were not what I wanted, but by the end, after hearing all the kids read and perform and do a great job, and all the kind words from the Center staff, it was good closure. Plus, I love Heidi and Marta and need to visit with them more this summer.

So I'm done teaching for right now. Whether I'm teaching in the fall will depend on this grant I just submitted today. It's for the same program, Raw Works, but moving into a high school instead of a community organization where we were. More on this later, but the short version is I'm excited for the change and feel pretty hopeful about our chances in getting the proposal accepted and getting placed by the organization. We met with them a couple weeks ago, and I trust they'll do right by us, as best as they can. The program would actually expand to be more than just focused on LGBTQ youth, and more about writing and performance based on identity, including gender, sex, race, class, etc. which is kind of what we were already doing already.

In about a week and a half I leave for L.A. for my school residency. I have one more semester and I gaduate in December. !!

Between now and then I have copying work to do, but that's it. Oh, and keep trying to write 50,000 words before June 15th along with my school buddies. I haven't totally given up on it, but realistically I don't think it'll happen. Maybe 25,000 words though, and that's hella more than 0.

I still haven't finished Cloud Atlas. It's starting to annoy me a little though.

I did finish season three of Six Feet Under and I've already written about this some in comments in other posts, but my overall complaints are this:

1. The pacing was off. SFU is a lot of story arced over 13 episodes because the characters breathe between shows, which usually take place several weeks between each other. This season had several episodes that felt too close together, especially near the end regarding Lisa's disappearance. So it was hard to figure out if one day had passed or 3 weeks and everything felt simultaneously rushed and overdone.

2. While Lisa's disappearance/death produced some really great poignant and heartwrenching moments and scenes that I enjoyed, overall I think it was a big ole narrative cop-out. I think the transition from Nate as "feeling trapped" to "feeling happy and grateful" happened way too fast, such that I didn't quite have time to fully believe it before it got tested by her disappearing. And I felt that them off-ing her let him off the hook WAY too easily because now he can get back together with Brenda without having to let go of his "good guy" image or really deal with his shit. He gets to keep the baby, Lisa's gone, enter Brenda. No messy divorce, no issue of custody cause Lisa sure as hell would never just let Mya go, no Nate having to stand up and make any real choices and follow through on them.

3. I don't like Nate. That's okay, I don't mind that I don't like him, because he's still fascinating to watch. I mean, all the characters have positives and negatives and that's really what I love, that they can be both maddening and lovable, sometimes even in the same episode, but Nate is certainly pretty and sexy and charismatic and sometimes had smart things to say, but overall I don't trust him a bit and think he's extremely mean and selfish and self-involved and every time he blows his top and gets in his wife's or mother's or friend's face and yells "FUCK FUCK FUCK", I feel like it's not an anomaly, it's just the swinging door to reveal what's truly on the other side. The boy has got serious anger volatile issues and I have empathy for him but in that "good luck and you can work on that waaaaaay over there, 'cause I will not pick up your shit" way. Going back to Lisa issue, this is very similar to him losing his dad, where he loses something valuable, but doesn't really understand as such until it's too late, and it doesn't shake him up the way I want him to be changed, I want him to stop seeing the world as if he is the standard of normalcy, so see it through someone else's eyes in an authentic way, and maybe his daughter will do that for him but so far I'm not seeing it.

I can't believe I'm writing all this about SFU. But I know that all the buttons this show pushes just reveal what's going on inside myself. It's why I keep watching.

Ok, time to go shower. I have a date.