Listing.

as in

so many meanings.

Anyway. This week has been overwhelming in both wonderful and disconcerting ways. Over the last several days, I have tried on several narrative strategies which have all failed me and my subject matter, which is that flailing and floundering that is my list, my ongoing list, and also the moments of soaring and brief glory.

that's right. I turn my finished items into ghosts,
and then I strike them through, to show them who
is boss of the list. I am. I am boss of the list.

I am finding that my long list, even with the graying out and the striking through and the yellow highlights and so on, both helps me stay on top of things and makes me feel a little tilt-y. Here are the tilt-y things, bulleted for your listing pleasure:

• making phone calls for this and that purpose. UGH phone calls are the worst. Why can't there just be data ports and messaging? 
• specifically, phone calling Boxcar Press. What if they laughed at me and my belief that I could lay out a photopolymer plate in an appropriate way. What if they sniffed out what a rank amateur I am. What is they said no effing way, amateur, you are never gonna get this photopolymer plate done in time, what were you THINKING? &c. That's how phone calls go sometimes, is how I was imagining things.
• constantly questioning myself, even at moments when things are going really really well. That talk I gave in December? Probably sounded like a self-important, making-it-up-as-she-goes-along kind of a person. That poem featured on Verse Daily? Maybe it's the last good poem I'll ever write. Who was I kidding when I thought of doing a reading series? No one should entrust me with shit like this. Self-doubt of this kind might be even worse than making phone calls, which are the worst. Self-doubt is more awful than the worst! Think of it!
• the feeling that, despite the fact that I'm making my list and checking it, like, thirty times, I have this constant nagging feeling that I am forgetting things, forgetting them right and left, letting things slide, important things, the things that will undo me in the end. 
• ...like maybe I forgot the fact that I am an amateur printer. Do I even know how to print a large, exacting photopolymer plate? WHAT WAS I THINKING.

However. The things that righted the listing ship, as it were, were good:

• interview turned out okay!
• poem featured in Verse Daily!
• student-designed broadsides coming along, with literally NO heinously ugly fonts! 
• Boxcar people were super nice and very helpful!
• photopolymer plate is on its way, with only a minor hiccup. or two. two minor hiccups! but on its way!
• Hail, Caesar! was a riot. 
• The Revenant was amazing. I was prepared to have it be partially amazing, but I felt it was straight up, unabashedly, unadulteratedly wonderful. 
• shrimp enchilada!
• two not-so-busy days in a row on the weekend.  

And so on. So on we go to the next week, which will be full of whipsaw excitement:

• the poet!
• will people show up for these events?
• what was I thinking?
• the printing!
• plus everything else that has to be done! 

Whose idea was this semester, anyway?