{Saturday Happy}

School has started, I am teaching this year. This semester I am TA-ing for an American Lit. class. This first week wasn't that hectic, but I am sure it will become crazier as it moves along. My days are not that "interesting" right now. I wake up, make myself coffee, try to do some work on the dissertation chapter, read a little, write a little. So, yes, these were the three "happy moments" of this past week:

1. Breakfast Tacos at Cafe Medicci

Yes, I allowed myself two breakfast tacos this Thursday: bean and cheese and migas. They were delicious. But it wasn't just that. They also helped me to pay attention to the class while the professor I am TA-ing for, appreciate it, and then have a meeting with him and my co-workers during which I didn't think about food.

2. My Advisor Likes My Chapter 3

and thinks it's "bold." This did give me some impetus to keep on working on my Chapter 4.

3. Cappuccino and Revising A Poem

Yesterday, I bought myself a cappuccino and worked on revising a poem. I felt such a bliss! I haven't been able to write too many new poems, and I doubt I will, until I get the dissertation done. But I can still revise my old poems! And there was something extremely consoling about sitting in a cafe with a cup of cappuccino and revising my poem. It's like a date with a very close friend, someone who knows me better than anyone else, someone to whom I don't have to explain myself. I just emailed the poem to one of my readers, let's see what he has to say.

Thursday Happy (Late Edition)

I am still suffering from an overall feeling of listlessness--there is too much to be done, and I am always under this feeling that I am doing too little. There is the dissertation to be completed, job applications to be done, more poems to be revised, written and submitted, stories to be written and revised, feedback to be given. If I have to characterize my life, it won't be an exaggeration to say that I live within a complex cycle of relentless, continuous work. These days, I feel, time is running out. Maybe this has to do with me growing older. I don't think I have ever felt this way when I was 21 or 25. I am trying not to lose track of life in the midst of it all. So here are the three things that made me happy this week:

1.

Receiving My Friend Cindy Hochman's Chapbook In Mail

Cindy and I met when we took Michael Montlack's poetry workshop in Gotham. We kept in touch even after the workshop, reading and commenting on each others' poems, chatting and sometimes just sharing a good joke. It's wonderful to see Cindy's work published as a book, and acknowledged by the larger poetry world. No, she didn't charge me for the book, and had written a beautiful inscription inside.

The title of her chapbook is: The Carcinogenic Bride

2.

Breakfast at Hornitos

I have known for a while that this is one of the Austin institutions, but never had a chance to go. So, I did finally. Yesterday. With a friend. Their breakfast tacos are very very very delicious. There is something about the chorizos that I simply love. I wish I could do breakfasts more often (sigh!)

3.

Coffee With Komrade Andy

Whose jokes cheer me up, with whom I can share my dreams of a better world, without translating...my comrade, my fellow-dreamer in diaspora...