Everybody panics. That’s what she tells me, a gal who graduated from the program last year: “You’ll totally find a job after graduation. Don’t worry.”
A job?
No, I was freaking out about my thesis: that two-hundred page monster that I’m supposed to be writing, starting…last year? The reason I assuredly tell my thesis advisor I’m here? Sew, sew driven. Tres, tres professional. That’s me.

“Don’t worry, you can do it over next summer,” the poets tell me.
“Don’t worry, just get your ideas together and write, write, write. Don’t worry about whether it sounds good, yet,” the memoir-writers tell me.

No. You don’t understand. I don’t have any freaking material. Research-based project, here. Trips to be planned. Myriad interviews, books to read. And um, I’m not really sure I’m all that into my chosen subject. Gah-!

So, I haven’t written here in a while. So, that’s why.

What am I writing? Why, gems such as these, on student papers: “What’s the larger significance of writing about this acid trip? It seems like it could possibly be one layer in a larger story, but as it stands now, I’m left wanting more.”

“Your grandfather’s death is a great concept for this essay. What would make it even better: Some scenes. An exercise to try: Sit down and consider just one scene during this five year span you cover here.”

Truth: I’m not left wanting to read anything more about anybody’s drug trip, dead grandfathers or the puddles of tears “I could of swum in” tears and more tears dripping, dripping to the floor at their “pint sized feet.” Truth? I just want to be left alone. I think this is Phase Two of grad school. Phase One is a head-snapping adjustment period. Phase two is Leave me Alone with my Thesis. I think Phase Three might involve the acquiring of an eating disorder, or perhaps psychosis. Worth the thousands in loans a year by itself. Because those experiences sell books like mad.