And now for something completely different...

As many of you might know already, I hold a bachelor's degree in English. It's not even a boring, literature degree either. It's a special one with lots of words in it--English with a concentration in creative writing and an emphasis in poetry. Or what the real world likes to call, emphasis in unemployment. It also gives me a license to wear a beret and drink ungodly amounts of coffee.

Lately, I've decided to take up my quest for publication again. I haven't written any verse since graduating in 2007. But while reviewing my portfolio, I realized that some of it might actually be good enough for submission to a magazine. Toward the end of my classes, my adviser and supervisor during my internship at Crazyhorse was coming up with less criticism. In retrospect, I think she was obligated to push me to keep improving but wasn't sure if it needed much more. At the very least she wasn't sure what direction my work needed to go in.

So I've decided that it needs to go in the direction of the mail box, addressed to various literary journals. I'm composing a database of some of the magazines we studied in my publishing practicum and will be reviewing them over the next few months. I will be providing some insight to what I find their looking for, and post my perception of what they want to see of my work on this blog every Friday.

So tune in every week and see if I've done my homework! I will still be posting my usual content on Tuesdays. This is just a project I need to post in order to motivate myself into getting any work done. Thanks for the support, guys!

And they're not all make believe, toots. Toot toot.

My toddler has been constantly arguing with me and locking himself in his room like a teenager, and all the fiber from Weight Watchers has turned me into a fart machine. As you can probably tell, this week's blog theme is "Crap, it's Tuesday already."

As accommodating as I am to my already spoiled two-year-old, it's baffling how he's become so contrary in the past few days. "I want a sucker." Okay, I give him a sucker. "No! No sucker!" Okay, put the sucker away. "No, wait! My sucker!!" Only, replace sucker with every other noun and verb imaginable--that's been my week.

He also screamed "underwear" repeatedly at the mall because he decided to drown his toy cars in the stroller with Capri Sun, spilling some on the front of his pants. Did I mention that he barfed in the middle of Best Buy a few weeks ago? We've dropped a grand and a half there in the last month because technology hates us and both our computers broke in the same week. It's enough to make anyone throw up. I took him to the Wiggle Room yesterday and it seemed to get everything back to zen.

In other news, this diet is making my ass out to be Mt. Vesuvius. Weight Watchers is based on the principle, "poop until you loose weight." The points system is centered around no fat and lots of fiber. That means I've constantly got the walking farts and occasionally blow one out that upsets most of nature. I may have caused the earthquake in Haiti via the butterfly-butt hole effect.

And when folks at the checkout line are sniffing meat products to determine what's rotten, me and my cart filled with Fiber One-whole wheat-cardboard products duck away before it's obvious that it's not that pound of hamburger that went bad--it's my rancid colon.

Today's subject line quote is Lady Elaine Fairchilde, "MisteRogers' Neighborhood" (1968) {Games (#13.8))}.