April 9: Results of Taxes and Interview, Deconstruction

Well, the tax appointment went well.  It would have went better if there was a little bit more money coming back from the government, but I'm not complaining.  We're getting a substantial enough refund to make a dent in the summer finances.

My wife's job interview (all twenty minutes of it) went well, she thinks.  She will hear about a second interview by Friday.  She said the people were friendly and the working environment relaxed.  We'll just have to wait and see.  (As my three-year-old son says, however, "Waiting is not my favorite.")

You will notice that the second part of the post title is "Deconstruction."  The deconstruction to which I'm referring has little to do with Jacques Derrida and company.  It has everything to do with deconstructing the Stations of the Cross at church.  Now that Holy Week is over, the tables and displays need to come down tonight.  Thus, for an hour or so this evening, I will be engaging in an exercise of deconstruction.  You may interpret that text in any way you see fit.  I interpret it as a lot of drudgery at the end of a long day.

Saint Marty is both the signifier and the signified tonight, folks.

Derrida isn't going to help take down those signifieds of the Cross

August 2: Bad Mood, "Cowboys & Aliens," More Bad Mood

When I originally started this blog, I meant to write about my attempt to become a better person.  A saint.  All the saints I read about as a child always seemed so calm and relaxed and happy, even as they were being burned alive, disemboweled, or fed to hungry bears.  Even the portraits of saints, with their other-worldly peace, made me want to take whatever they were on--the Holy Spirit or Valium or Xanax.  This blog was my attempt to reach toward heaven, in a way.

Well, after a little over a year-and-a-half, I'm just as screwed up, cranky, and petty as I was when I started.  Today proves that point.  I woke up in a terminally bad mood, and, for most of the day, I have stayed in a terminally bad mood.  This state has nothing to do with the fact that my friend and coworker got an iPad2 yesterday for her birthday.  (I'm happy for her.  Really, I am.  Dammit, I'm happy.)  It has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't win that chapbook contest a little while ago.  (My entry fee for the contest entitles me to a copy of the winning chapbook.  I can hardly wait to read what a piece of crap the winning book really is compared to my chapbook.)  It has nothing to do with the fact that my daughter is away at camp for a week.  (I'm sure she's absolutely miserable without me.)  In fact, I don't know why I'm in such a bad mood. 

I am sure that saints never allow themselves to wallow in self-pity, which has pretty much been my modus operandi all day long.  Actually, it started last night when my wife told me she was having car problems and I started imagining the cost of the impending repair.  I've been in a nose-dive ever since.

Tonight, my wife and I are meeting some friends for drinks and a movie.  We're going to see "Cowboys & Aliens" with Harrison Ford.  I persuaded my friend from the university to attend by telling him it was a postmodern, deconstructionist version of the American western.  He said he would go if Derrida got his ass kicked.  I told him Derrida might be disguised as a really ugly alien or Daniel Craig, but he would get a thorough ass-kicking.

I wish I could say that, after a year of trying to be more saint-like, I feel the presence of God more in my life.  I don't.  I wish I could say I can perform tiny miracles now (cure a hangnail or ingrown hair).  I can't.  I wish I could say my life is more manageable.  It isn't. 

What I have learned, over 259 posts, is that I'm not alone.  I have friends and family, people who care about me.  I have a love of poetry and writing, a passion.  And I know that prayers can be answered (my friend's biopsy result yesterday is proof of that).  Faith.

I may be in a terminally bad mood today.  I'm human.  Just like every other saint I've read about or written of.  Saints are flawed.  They're crabby.  They're self-centered.  Sad.  Angry.  Happy.  Joyful.  Jealous.  They're everything I am.  They're everything I can become.

Saint Marty isn't giving up hope.

July 21: More Submssions, New Poem, Poetry Reading Tomorrow

I spent part of my morning submitting more poems for publication, this time to The MacGuffin.  I shot really high yesterday with The Atlantic.  Today, I was much more realistic.  I looked for a magazine I actually stand a chance of getting into.  Five more poems, plus cover letter, in the mail.

Being more realistic today

The rest of the day has been taken up with work and finishing my new poem, which I think turned out really well, although only poets and writers who are trying to get published will find it funny, probably.  That's OK.  The poetry world is inbred.  Full of people who read and appreciate each other.  Pat each other on the backs.  Tell each other how important and good their poetry is.  I love being around poets.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to the Butler Theater in Ishpeming to hear some people read poetry and fiction and creative nonfiction.  I know one person fairly well, one person socially, and one person not at all.  I'm going for the person whom I know fairly well.

Come join in the fun!

If you want to be blessed by Saint Marty's presence tomorrow night, meet him at the Butler Theater in downtown Ishpeming at 7 p.m.  He'll be the one drinking the wine.

Submissions Accepted

Despondent Deconstructionist Review now
Accepting submissions for its fall
Poetry issue.  Wants poems
Of beauty and truth, or ugliness and deceit,
Focused on European-Jewish experience
Of lesbians and transsexuals,
Or vampires from outer space.
Will consider poems traditional,
Experimental, traditionally experimental,
Experimentally traditional, and haiku,
As long as they are not too short.
Please no pornography or swear words
Unless necessary for subject matter,
Or completely gratuitous and obscene.
5 to 438 pages, comic-book sized,
Not Archie Double Digest-sized,
More like monthly X-Men-sized.
Receives 128,436 poems per year.
Publishes 1.5 of those poems.
Reading period December 5 and 6.
Responds in 1 to 3 years.
Depends on backlog.  Pays in
Dairy Queen coupons and postage stamps.
"If you submit to us, expect
To be rejected.  Great poetry,
Like great poets, comes
From miscarriage, divorce,
Famine and genocide.  Desert places,
As Robert Frost said.  Although,
We don't like Robert Frost."
Send SASE with submission.
We burn all manuscripts.
The circles of return to birth
Can only remain open, but this
Is a chance, a sign of life,
And a wound.  Jacques Derrida.

Derrida's spontaneously deconstructing!