Media

So the news of the NEA hit the University circuit. It's very funny to see your picture on your school's home page. They have a rotating set of "success stories" and every so often when I open the page to access school stuff, there's the picture Egg took of me staring back. Of course, I don't love the picture; though it's not terrible. I feel like I'm the same color of face & hair & shirt. Three interviews, one online piece & a oforum, one school paper and one city paper is exhausting. It's kind of fun too and I like this bit of fame. What I really like are the questions about poetry as if anyone cares. Maybe they do. At least the interviewers do. And so have a couple people who have contacted me who didn't know me and read about the grant. It's also kind of fun to articulate my project. It provides me a bit more clarity too. Now if I only knew what to do with the grant. Take a semester off? But then we'd stay here & I'm not sure how beneficial that would be. Spend it on a trip to Europe? Perhaps a bit of dislocation would help me write more regularly. Maybe I'll just go hang out in a beach house in Oregon. Yes. That sounds nice.
I sent the PR stuff to the U and to the Trib in SL so maybe they'll be interested. It'd be nice to have people who know me see me in the news. The best part: My students said congratulations when I walked into class yesterday. It's so rare for them to speak without being directly asked a question and a number of them, in front of everyone said how they'd read the piece in the paper. My intro students who I've taught for only a week. So sweet. Makes teaching a bit easier too. They seemed (of course, could have been purely the glow through which I say them) to pay more attention to what I had to say. I think I've been talking--including the 3 hours classes, the interviews, and the welcome back from break conversations--for the past week and a half straight. My jaw hurts a little. Perhaps that's a sign I should go write something.