So for my first effort in my new life of independent work, I'm off to a conference at the University at Iowa, called the "Collage as Cultural Practice Conference" . I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm still trying to whittle my 28 page paper down to a 20 minute presentation. That means I have to cut so much! By Thursday night! Plus I still have to get a new pair of pants, and a new brassiere so that I don't look like the floppy-booby frayed-kneed hippy grad student that I really am. But the University of Iowa is a mecca for writers and poets, so I'm psyched to go to a famous bookstore there, Prarie Lights, and maybe see their poetry collection, although it prolly isn't as cool as the one at UB! Luckily too my Matt is coming with me so I don't have to be all alone during the social hours, when I find it hard to be social. And we can have hotel sex! Yeah!

So, should be a feather in my cap, right, (going to a big conference, not the hotel part) but of course I got another talking to for missing this first year MFA review thang that I didn't even think I had to do since I'm a transfer, not really a first year. A proffessor told me I was a "fuck up", and I quote, for missing it. That's such a laugh. Why oh why do I have to fight all the time? I know I'm a very proud and haughty person, and I'll be the first to admit that I barrel into my fair share of head butts. But honestly now I don't try to bring it on. I'm just sick of being talked to like a snot-nosed undergrad. I can't get no respect. I'm so very close to just dropping out of society and gnawing on branches for the rest of my life. Not really. Instead I'm making a video in which I do. I wrapped myself in deer skin and ran through the waist-deep snow. Gnawed some branches. Very satisfying... life imitates art imitates life imitates art imitates wing-nut drop-outs who can't manage to get along with anyone!! :(

The Swan is Dead!



Long Live The Swan!



Well, after nearly 3 years of being used, abused, degraded and confused by a boss who shall remain nameless, except for those who know who I'm talking about, yesterday I finally had the semi-satisfaction of resigning for good. I say semi-satisfaction because when I walked into the room she looked and me and said "you're resigning." She denied me even the pleasure of getting to say it myself! Always has to have the upper hand. What an ugly duckling, eh? But I don't even care at this point. No skin off my nose, as they say. Sure she gets away with my idea, and she'll get a book out of it, and her hardscrabble climb to the top of her hallucinatory ladder will once again be boosted by the lift she got from my shoulders, but what do I care. The one thing I wish I had gotten to say to her is "I hope I'm never anything like you." She couldn't seem to grasp the fact that someone who is smart and talented is not also plagued by unbridled ambition. I just want to live, man, and I don't need to be dragged into my overseer's office every week for a dressing down, especially when I was 90% of the project. The saddest thing is that she is still convinced somehow that I'm lazy and insolent, that I don't manage my time well, and deserved to be fired. She almost even mananged to convince me of it. If I didn't believe so wholeheartedly in the wheel of karma, I'd be so pissed off right now. Well, okay, I am pretty pissed off right now. I'm no guru, alright!?

So now that I have time to live and breathe, I'll stop having nightmares and anxiety attacks, start sleeping, start eating, start, you know, doing it, again. I might even start keeping this journal again! Ha ha! At the very least I can start hanging out with my old firends again. Now if they'd only get over themselves and call me (hint hint...)