Despite the fact that I will be taking three classes, working a full-time job, kickboxing 2-3 times a week, going to AWP, participating in Reflex and oh yeah trying to have a regular mom/partner/friend life, I have decided to participate. Clearly I need to revisit that whole “where are your priorities” thing.

At any rate, I think it sounds like a great plan. If you’d like to play along, visit the website for the Month of Letters Challenge. If you’d like to play along with me, send an email to rebpoetry [at] yahoo [dot] com and we can exchange addresses.

And while you’re deciding, here’s PJ Harvey advocating for letter writing.

My dear friend and fellow poet David Bauman has created a lovely, lovely video of my poem “Wildflowers.” A simple presentation, the video features David’s reading of the poem. You can view it here.

If you want to see me reading, you can do that here – a video from the Collingswood Book Festival in October 2011, where I appeared as part of the Duo-ling Poets with excellent poet and ink black soul sister Anna Evans.

And finally, I received Reflex in the mail yesterday – we have just closed out Round 2, and are kicking off Round 3. You can see updates on the project here.

Texts from Bennett – arguably one of the more offensive ones, this Tumblr features text message exchanges between someone who seems relatively intelligent and “normal,” and his crazy cousin Bennett. It’s still pretty funny.

Ugly Renaissance Babies – That’s right, exactly what it says. (My personal favorite from this one is here.)

You Might Be a Feminist – Sometimes right, sometimes oh so wrong. Mostly pretty amusing, and true.

Kim Jong-il Looking at Things – Now look, I think Dear Leader was pretty creepy – in fact, last night I used North Korea as an example of how to abuse art for the benefit of a political propaganda machine. But this Tumblr is kind of irreverent, and I can’t figure out why it makes me laugh so hard, but it freaking does. The other night, I was laughing so hard I nearly wet my pants. No joke. Ask Donna.

Microaggressions – This one is not exactly funny, but it is pretty awesome. For a definition of microaggression, check the about page.

Fuck No Rick Santorum – I think the title says it all.

Fuck Yeah Anne Hathaway – This one doesn’t get updated anymore, it seems, but it doesn’t matter. It has lots of pictures of Anne Hathaway, and I could stare at it forever.

And now we come to what I think is my favorite genre of Tumblrs – the Ryan Gosling/Hey Girl meme:

Feminist Ryan Gosling – hands down, this is the Tumblr I check every morning, hoping against hope for an update. Absolutely hilarious, it makes me laugh out loud most of the time and warms my cold, cold heart.

Hey Girl. I heart NPR. – YES. I can totally see someone trying to use some of these as terrible pick-up lines. Especially this one.

Handmade Ryan Gosling – Because I’m not as handmade-craftsy as I could be, I don’t always get these, but enough of them are super funny that I really do appreciate this blog.

Hey Girl. I like the library too. – I can’t help it. Even when the general context of the Tumblrs don’t apply to me, the whole Ryan Gosling/Hey Girl thing really hooks me. (Although I do like the library, too.)

Ok, I think that’s all my favorites for now. Link me to some of yours.

Also, a few side notes:

James Franco (boo! hiss!) gets pissy about Ryan Gosling’s Hey Girl popularity

Ryan Gosling is a good sport.  (you can stop watching after 1:44)

• Two New York Rangers fans attended the Winter Classic this past weekend in Philadephia. After the game, they went to Geno’s to get some cheesesteaks, where they were attacked and beaten severely enough for at least one of them to be hospitalized. (Someone took video of it; it’s pretty horrifying.) By 3 guys wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys.
• Then some knucklehead named Edward Neary claimed credit for the attack on Facebook. Then he started getting in trouble, so he dimed out some friends instead.
• Then he posted another thread to the same Facebook page, stating it was all meant to be a joke, that he didn’t do it and neither did his friends and people should just lighten up already amirite? (that’s probably going to be removed at some point, but no worries – I have a screen shot.)

I’m not sure which part disturbs me most:

• that people take sports this seriously
• that people feel entitled to put their hands on each other
• that a large crowd of people stood around the watching the beating happen, saying things like “Easy! Easy!” and “Relax!” instead of saying “Hello, 9-1-1? Yes, there’s a fight happening and you should send someone here to ARREST THESE JACKASSES.”
• that someone videotaped the beating with their cell phone instead of using said cell phone to call the police
• that someone feels the violent beating of another person is joke-worthy
• the insistence by some Philly fans that “it’s not just Philly, so why do we always have to talk about what Philly does wrong?”
• the reaction of commenters all over the internet – reactions seem to be split among “Rangers fans deserved it,” “Philly fans should be beaten/put down/tortured” and “Dude who joked about it should be beaten/put down/tortured.” Oh, and liberal use of the word “faggot” (or any of its alternate spellings) is apparently imperative.

I guess it doesn’t matter which part is the most disturbing, because all of the parts are enough to entirely ruin sports for me.

1. Jacob.
2. Continue to write nearly every weekend.
3. Send 2 submissions per month.
4. Submit the manuscript to at least 5 more contests.
5. Complete NaPoMo.
6. Support independent presses & journals (by purchasing subscriptions, books, etc.).
7. Graduate.
8. Begin the process of identifying MFA programs.
9. Take more pictures.
10. Kickboxing.
11. Lose some weight.

Fewer goals this year, but no less important, I think.

What are your goals for the coming year?

Packages from Jon are always exciting. Usually they contain something handmade, something typewritten, and, very occasionally, chocolate coins that have melted and reconstituted themselves in transit over 2,904 miles. Yesterday’s package, though lacking in chocolate, was no exception: inside a small sheet of wrapping paper made from Italian comic book pages, a CD inside a cardboard sleeve. Some text on the front that I couldn’t read (“Is that Hebrew?” I asked Donna. “I think it’s Hebrew.”), and a track listing that contains Eminem, Smashing Pumpkins and Das Racist, among others, and is kicked off with a piano-y-jazzy-track voiced by Erin, Jon’s lovely girlfriend. Indeed, the writing is Hebrew.

By far the best piece of the package, though, is the note tucked inside the CD sleeve.

“an enthusiastic voice of support and an artist with integrity that I respect”

Exactly, exactly what I needed. I am a lucky girl.

1. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.
   This was a vague goal – but mostly, I wanted to focus on quality in terms of my time with Jacob. I really feel like I did that. I’m marking this goal ACHIEVED.
2. Continue to write nearly every weekend.
   Well, I managed this right up until the summer, I think. As my classes got more difficult, I gave up writing time to focus on school. But still, I kept writing and have continued to produce new work, including revisions to the manuscript. I’m marking this goal ACHIEVED.
3. Submit manuscript to at least 5 contests.
   I have submitted to 12 contests in 2011. Results for a few outstanding. ACHIEVED.
4. Send two submissions per month.
   I did this consistently through the summer. Again, as school took precedence, I let the submissions fall to the backburner – though I did continue submitting. I will mark this one PARTIALLY ACHIEVED.
5. Complete NaPoMo.
   Woo hoo! I did a NaPoMo! ACHIEVED.
6. Spend more time geocaching.
   Well, no. With so many plates in the air – school, Jake, work, Donna, writing, manuscript revision, the house, a social life and a fair bit of travel in 2011 – I just didn’t have time. NOT ACHIEVED.
7. Participate in Donna’s Poetry Tow Truck exercises.
   Yes, though I often didn’t post them. ACHIEVED.
8. Actually get back to Nic Sebastian on that Voice Alpha guest-blog invite. And maybe write a guest blog. I did! I wrote the guest blog, which you can read here if you’re interested. ACHIEVED.
   
9. School, school, school.
   Yes, I am well on my way to a graduation in summer 2012. ACHIEVED.
10. Think about finding a new job, or learn to balance work/life more appropriately in this one.
    Oh boy! A promotion, a better work/life balance. A wonderful thing. ACHIEVED.
11. Act less on impulse and more out of kindness.
    I think I have managed to do this mostly. I feel comfortable with where I am. ACHIEVED.
12. Weed out the negativity.
    Oh have I ever. ACHIEVED.
13. Make time to blog twice a week (it stimulates the muses, you know).
    I think, on average, I actually managed this. ACHIEVED.
14. Take more pictures.
    Yes, I did this. Not many more, but still more. ACHIEVED.
15. Stick with kickboxing.
    Yes! I did this! Having a sparring partner really helps, and Becky has been a wonderful partner. Though I have missed the last few weeks due to that respiratory thing, I am looking forward to getting back to it! ACHIEVED.
16. Lose some weight.
    Yes! I did this too! I have lost 23 pounds since July. I feel so much better, and I am amped to keep going! ACHIEVED.

So I think 2011 was a great year. Out of 16 goals, I achieved 14.5 of them. That makes me really happy.

Stay tuned for 2012: looking ahead!

A quick look back at the last few weeks:

Yeah. Life is good.

At some point, there will likely be a “resolutions” post. In 2011, I made it through about half the year tracking my progress before I fell off the wagon. We’ll see what happens in 2012.

I was notified this morning that my poem “Vanishing Twin” was a finalist for the 2011 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. It’s heartening to be a finalist – I haven’t entered many single-poem contests, so this is nice validation for me. And I’m in good company; I saw the list of other finalists (which will eventually be posted here), and there’s one name in particular I am proud to find myself bumping up against!

Three poems from my Imprimatur series were accepted by In the Biblical Sense, a very cool anthology that will be seeking a press. I’m so excited about this because one of the poems is previously unpublished, and it’s one I really, really enjoy. Also, I love being a part of anything that describes itself as “apochryphal.”

I returned to work today to find a gift card on my desk – two of my coworkers chipped in to get me a little something for the holiday, which was very kind. In doing so, they enabled me to get the newest releases from Dean Young and Aracelis Girmay, which I am SO. TOTALLY. STOKED. about.

In a little less than a month, I will be at the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway with some of my favorite people, including the super fantastico Donna! This year I’m taking a fiction workshop instead of a poetry one, which is I think my way of trying to push my creative limits. Since I have written exactly one piece of fiction in the past 16 years, I am very nervous about this.

And then! Like a month after that! I will be going to AWP! This is pretty exciting, since I have never been to an AWP conference. And this one’s in Chicago, which means I will get to see the super fantastico Donna yet again! And Laura from Weave Magazine! And probably some other awesome peeps as well.

And of course, I would be totally remiss if I did not thank both Laura and Donna for giving me a Liebster Blog award – you ladies are all kinds of awesome, and you have thrown a few new readers my way!

Well that’s a lot of awesomeness right there.

I insisted from the start that we have a real tree. It used to be that there was very little about Christmas I enjoyed, and having a real tree was the only thing I would admit to liking. Now, though, I am less of a humbug than I used to be, and I enjoy so many things about the season. But still, a real tree! So for the third year in a row, Donna and I took the very short drive to the small farm market across the highway and quickly identified a Douglas that we liked. It’s a beautiful squat thing, wide and stiff and lovely. We brought it home Saturday, set it up and strung it with lights.

It leaned, a little.

It was a thing of beauty.

Tonight, we pulled out the Christmas decorations: some ornaments, our stockings, Donna’s Christmas village, the electronic snowglobe & musical puppy that Jacob picked out over the past two Christmases. We started the evening with Alvin & the Chipmunks’ “Christmas Time is Here” and moved on to the Barenaked Ladies, Harry Connick Jr. & Sarah McLachlan. The tree looks beautiful.

As Donna placed a small silver bell on the tree, this conversation took place:

Rachel: I think that’s probably enough now.
Donna: Enough ornaments?
Rachel: Yeah, I think so.
Donna: :snickering: Yeah, if we add anymore the tree might really fall over.
Tree:  [creeeeeak]
Rachel: :looking startled & catching the tree as it topples forward:
Donna: Like that!

We spent the next half hour adjusting & readjusting the screws in the trunk. Eventually, the tree stood up straight and we breathed a sigh of relief. Donna pulled out the vacuum to dispose of all the fallen needles. The tree fell forward again – she caught it just in time.

The tree is currently being held mostly upright by some coooking twine, two 8-pound dumbbells and all the hopes of the Buneke clan.

Merry Christmas, kids.