Contemplating a Season of Completion

--I'm listening to an evolutionary biologist on NPR's Fresh Air.  He notes that humans are a heavy species.  He says that our thinnest supermodel has more body fat than the heaviest primate.  Immediately, I wanted to use that fact in a poem.

--He also talks about how the sweetest fruits grown in the wild wouldn't really taste sweet to us.  Intriguing.

--The story focuses on modern diseases and how they affect our stone age bodies.  If you, too, want to hear more, go here.

--How can it already be October?  My brain is stuck back in April.  My brain can't believe we've lost a whole summer.

--Of course, I haven't really lost that season.  I just focused on buying a house and selling a house.  And even though I'm living in a different house now, there's a surreal aspect to it, as if we're on an extended vacation.

--You'd think that selling the old house would help.  The fact that we've actually done that is slowly sinking in. 

--Yesterday I went to the water department to have the water turned off at the old house.  I've gotten the final electric bill.  Today I'll file the paperwork to have the insurances canceled.  Maybe these actions will help my sluggish, stuck-in-April brain to appreciate that we've sold the house.

--We signed the paperwork to sell the house in the first week of Autumn.  Maybe this will be the season of completion of big projects.

--My artist/librarian friend tells me that her thesis show will be part of a festival event (Miami Film Festival, perhaps?).  My wedding dress will find completion of its 3rd incarnation--but that's in February.

--Still, there are other projects I can complete.  Could I get the 2nd major draft of my memoir done by Dec. 21?

--I could focus on getting my fall mailing done.  That usually takes me 9 months now, and last year, I didn't even get it all complete.

--It's hard to focus on that task.  I feel like I submit to the same journals and get the same rejection slips.  Sigh.

--I have bought a laptop.  I plan to move my record keeping to an electronic realm.  You may ask how I've been doing it.  You don't want to know.  I have a notebook.  I write by hand.  It's frustrating to have to go back and thumb through it, knowing that a computer could pull up all my submissions to a journal with just a search or two.  Time to make that transition--another project that I hope to complete during this autumnal season.

--Today will be a long day at work.  I've got a morning class I'm going to teach, as the sub, and an afternoon meeting, and an evening class that I need to visit to see who will move to the Wed. section.  These are 1 day projects--easy to complete!

--Completion of big projects:  can we see evolution as the completion of a big project?