I almost made it.
Trekked to the gym four times this week and logged a total of 3:40 on the elliptical runner. Woulda batted 5 for 5…if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids. Well, technically those kids are members of the Excellence in Teaching committee, whose snarled schedules oblige us to schedule meetings at 8:30, but it’s too early to quibble over semantics.
The good news is that it should be an interesting meeting, as we’ll be sifting through the nominations for the College’s annual teaching award. I’ve also sifted through applicants for the Department’s various self-administered scholarships this week; overall, I’m feeling pretty sifty.
I’ve also cleaned up my poetry tracking guide–no mean feat, since it’s 57 pages long and dates back to January 2006 (no foolies). Revisiting the file is always a little heady, since I’m either a) logging the submission of new work, b) lamenting the rejection of older work, or c) entertaining sugarplum visions of pending work. Part of the process simply involves clerical cleanup–I’m fairly well convinced that I needn’t hold out hope for good news regarding my March 2006 submission to Blackbird any longer–but there’s also a degree of tantalizing promise. My motive for the latest visit was to see if my September submissions were ready for revision and repackaging, but lo! I realized that nine of those submission packets were still outstanding. When one is playing an extended version of The Waiting Game, there’s something reassuring (if not a little thrilling) about knowing that one’s work remains in the hands of excellent presses.
I could write that reassurance off as an illusion, as a product of heavy submission loads and unavoidably long turnaround times…but it’s far too early for that. Besides, I’ve got sifting to do.
