Someone, I know not who, reactivated my account. *intrigue*

Ok, weirdest thing:

So I applied to this very froufy writers' conference called Bread Loaf, because my adviser told me I should. I put the application in the mail on the scholarship postmark deadline (because that's how I roll). My poetry manuscript (I applied in both fiction and poetry) was made up of about half poems from this project I'd been working on for about a year, and half other stuff, stuff from before, maybe somewhat revised since whenever "before" was. A week or two after I put it in the mail, I met with my adviser about this project I'd been working on for a year, which she hadn't seen before. She told me it was not my best work (her words). Ouch. And double ouch, since I'd just put some of those eggs in a rather important basket. Since then I've been working on stuff that is just completely different, and which she likes, and more importantly, I like. And I keep saying to myself, yeargh, if only the BL app had been due a month later.

Flash forward. On their website, BL states that all decision letters are mailed on May 25th. I think this is very nice of them. Aside from the speed of mail, no one will know anything before anyone else. So color me a little disturbed when I find a letter from them in my box yesterday, especially since I'd previously been contacted by email by the applications administrator to tell me one of my apps was missing a page. But of course they know us crazy writers, so someone had written "a question about your application" (ie, this is NOT a decision letter) across the flap. Okay. So according to the letter, UPS lost a packet of manuscripts, including mine. (From what I understand, all the apps go through Vermont, then get split up and sent to various judges around the country to be...judged.) So, either on its way there or its way back, some judge's packet went missing (along with everyone's email address, apparently.) I read the letter quickly and then put it in my backpack since I was late to work, the whole time scheming that if it was my poetry app, maybe I could get away with sending them different poems. Then I started feeling really guilty for thinking that, not to mention sure I'd be caught. I'm always sure I'll be caught. About anything. THEN I got home and read the letter again and noticed a parenthetical in the middle of it saying that if we want to change or revise our manuscript, that fine. w00t. Then I figured with my luck it was probably the fiction app that was lost. THEN I wrote to the admin and she wrote me back and said it's the poetry one. double w00t.

So, this is just so weird and I have this ridiculous fantasy/irrational suspicion that my adviser could have something to do with it. Because she's the one who told me to apply, and she's a judge--presumably she's not my judge because I put her down as a reference and it seems like they would catch on that that would be a conflict of interests...but at the same time, she might have made connection that I probably sent at least some of this "not my best work" work, and now she's all excited about my new work and she thinks it would get accepted but the other work wouldn't and, and...that wouldn't happen, right? It's just too heavily orchestrated. I mean, in my crazy imagination, it could be that the thing about UPS is a lie, that no one else got this letter, that the thing about not having my email is also a lie, but that they wanted to make it look good and so they made up this whole story instead of just saying, "Hey, Esme, we lost your app. Will you send it again? And revise it if you want." I'm totally insane. Insane, I tell you. Anyway, after all this, I'm going to feel super salty if I don't get in. Oh, well.

The reading went really well. We played to a packed house, which was pretty awesome since our publicity was totally homegrown.

In other news: yeah, not much. I feel like something exciting is on the horizon...and just feeling that way is putting a little spring in my step.

Right after Super Tuesday one of my aunts sent an email to all the family addresses she had saying "If you're willing to share, who did you vote for, and why?" I always knew there were conservatives in my family, but I've never actually /talked politics/ with them. It's been fascinating but also scary.

II am one of these people. If you're reading this, you probably know which one. So come, okay?

This is what the big 2-7 feels like, eh?

Good thing I'm not a rock star.

Over a month and no update. Not as though my life has been uneventful; the opposite, I guess.

I just came back from Chicago and am leaving for a four-day camping trip/service project at Yosemite on Sunday.

A few weeks ago I read on a panel about Bi and Trans inclusion in the LGBTetc community. My piece was about being riding my scooter in the Dyke March, and it cracked everyone up and gave me a biggish ego for a few days.

I painted these




and donated them to an auction fund raiser for Big City Montessori, which is run by one of M's cousins. I was in Chicago the night of the auction, but M tells me people liked them and they sold well, so yay more ego.

Tonight I made delicious sesame-peanut noodles.

I started working for a new test prep company and I think it is going to be much better than the last one. Actually, I know so. Already, it is so much better--it's way less corporate, my hourly wage is already 50% higher than it was at my old company, and they people who work there just generally feel more like my kind of people.

School starts in a week and a half. I'll be done (for now) in May. Motherfucker.

I want the internet to go away.

kthx

I decided to ride my scooter in the Dyke March because that will prevent me from getting drunk and by extension being wrecked the next day at work.

Maybe I will meet a nice girl to ride on the back.

The reading went well.

I'm fucking starving.

update: I made myself a mozzarella sandwich with homemade olive tapende on whole wheat nut and grain bread. Take that, Tartine!

Maybe more later.