Elegy

The single mosquito and I enjoy this midnight quiet here at Playa del Sol.

It's not pure quiet though. There is an organ-based disco tune playing underneath the unmanned palapa bar behind me. The sea breaks at intervals upon the darkened shore. And, my mind races.

Not quite pure quiet.

I am full, now, of so many wishes for so many things long past. Elegy.

There is a beauty in elegy; it just happens to be painful.

Mexico City

Sitting in the airport in Mexico City, eleven hours into this twenty-hour journey. But already it's been a trip.

el sparrow naranja

After endless gray-area moments of safety and fear waiting at Euclid Avenue for the Far Rockaway train, I made it to Howard's Beach. On my AirTrain trip, two Europeans became fast friends leaning torsos over me as they inspected the map.

There were sparrows perched on inner beams inside Terminal 8 at JFK.

Mexicana Air is apparently a sub-company of American, but it was all-Spanish all the time. I can say "jugo de naranja y vodka" and "gracias." I survived just fine.

There is no music, no movie, no real-time air travel tracking map on Mexicana. There is jugo de naranja y vodka. Gracias. Uno Mas? Si. (There was actually no uno mas, but there was a sweet little tray to place my coffee cup on at roughly 3am for another cup of pitch black joe.)

Now, in Mexico City, the sun slowly rolls its light around soft hills. I changed two dollars for 24 1/2 pesos. I bought a cereal bar with blackberry jam in it. I didn't understand a word the cashier said. Gracias. No mas naranja.

In two hours, I will be back in the air. Uno mas, jugo de naranja. Uno mas.

Up and Away

I am a stress-eater. This does not mean I eat stress like the ghosts eat Miss PacMan, dominating through devouring. I wish. Instead, I eat cake.

Today I stole a chocolate frosted birthday sliver at 9:15 a.m.

I have now officially reached cake-theft levels of stress.

Yikes.

I leave for JFK in five hours. I leave for Mexico City in nine. I leave for Puerto Villarta in sixteen.

There better be no motherf*ing cake on this motherf*ing plane.

All Night Long

Goodness, I am exhausted. I owe this blog a real post soon, and plan on doing so pre-Mexico escape hatch. Just three more days until the sunshine, Mom-time and CocoLocos kick in. Three. More. Days.

I have so much on my plate right now; I am the Freelance Obese. The Sizzler of Economy 2.0. The Cruise Ship Dinner of Random Employment. No benefits, of course. You have your friends for that, I guess.

Bah - Dum -Dom.

I'll be here all night, folks. Asleep, albeit, but yes. I'll be here all night.

Today's the Day

Today's the day... big event for the NPM.

Cross your fingers for me. Or, even better, if you're in NYC, please stop by. Please.

WHAT: Clothing Swap and Costume Design Party

WHEN: Sunday, October 25th from 3pm-7pm

WHERE: Boxcar Lounge at 168 Avenue B, NY NY

AND: Bring one bag of clothes or a $5 donation

WHY: Creativity is what Halloween was made for

SEE ALSO: Metromix Listing

No Candy

Deep thoughts:

above image courtesy of www.toothpastefordinner.com

Indeed.

On We Go

Daily blogging, what happened?

Everything is amping up. I'm working with the NPM to throw a big Halloween event, one, of course, with a heavy dose of social media engagement. The real-life part of the event happens this Sunday, but the online component has been going on since last Friday. Things are busy.

In other news, I still have to visit the Crosby Bar for my bar review feature. Haven't done that. I have to rewrite my abysmal personal statement. Haven't done that. I have to rework my short story so it doesn't read like ten pages of question marks. Haven't done that.

But I will just focus and finish all these things. And then, a week from today, I will be sitting under the Mexican sun.

Oh, Puerto Villarta. You are right where I need you to be.

Business Casual

Agenda items for today's Fresh-Minted Freelance blog post:

• The Deja Vu: The big former PR firm where I once worked has asked me back to temp freelance, but in a division that sounds pretty exciting and on projects I think I'd really be able to contribute to.

• My Meal Plan: I have not been paid from my last job and am currently out of my usual poverty staples of tomato sauce, canned chickpeas, and peanut butter. The last meal I ate was entirely damning - a poor man's tuna casserole. I thought tuna casserole was a poor man's tuna casserole. And then I became too poor to afford it.

• Dating: My phone rang and the number was NJ. I was wary - NJ calls are always interesting. How right I was. A reporter I'd met in a bar called, asked me on a very entertaining-sounding date and was completely winning on the phone. Perhaps I'll say yes, I thought, but of course I will Google him first. Googled him. He was called the inspiration for Inglorious Bastards - and called that by Harvey Weinstein, no less. Great.

• Feline Fetish: The cats outside my window right now are either clawing one another to death, or having the most passionate cat lovin' I have ever heard. Perhaps both.

• Fiction Under Fire: Nearly everything I've ever written (hyperbole alert!) will be dissected in my writing class tonight. This makes me nervous and prone to exaggeration. Gross exaggeration.

• Hamburgers and Beer: This is what I really want right now - and I don't think I'm going to be getting either anytime soon. Guess it's Chicken of the Sea for me.

One Thousand Words

I missed my chance to write today and now I'm just too tired. So, delight of delights, you get this:

Thank you, Mr. Kandinsky, for filling my silence.

Fruit

Today is a day of doubts.

I wonder, "What am I doing with my life?" Then I scoff, "That's so general." But I'm not released from the overriding question of meaning - just thrown into temporal specialization. Meaning: "What am I doing with my month; my week; my day; my hour?"

Read Ann Beattie and tell me you can write. Read Amy Hempel and pretend to now be novel. It's impossible. Genius can eclipse potential when that genius is not mine.

Being impressed is not being inspired. And this is painful. If I read one more piece by Flannery O'Connor, I may never write again. Fear of Flying is the single most inspiring work I've ever read, mainy because, from a purely stylistic atandpoint, it was not impressive. I read Erica Jong and thought, "Great story. I could tell it better." And so I found a pen and tried.

Have I ever read Toni Morrison and felt that? Philip Roth? Charles Bukowski? Donna Tartt? No.

Why can't there be more low-hanging fruit?

Why must I feel so incredibly beneath?

What can I possibly bring to a banquet so full?

Why do I feel so empty?

Second Opinion

Top 20 Fully-Funded MFA Programs By Overall [Averaged] University Reputation

With Averaged Ranking Score in Parentheses

1. Cornell University (12)
2. University of Michigan (14)
3. University of Wisconsin at Madison (24)
4. Johns Hopkins University (27)
5. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (32)
6. University of Texas at Austin (34)
7t. Brown University (38)
7t. University of Virginia (38)
9. Pennsylvania State University (49)
10. University of Minnesota (50)
11. Ohio State University (54)
12. Washington University at St. Louis (56)
13. University of Florida (70)
14. Vanderbilt University (71)
15. Indiana University (73)
16. Purdue University (74)
17. University of Iowa (75)
18. University of California at Irvine (83)
19. Syracuse University (120)
20. [No college/university qualifies].

- Courtesy of the Abramson Leslie MFA Blog

For the Poets & Writers Record

2010 MFA Rankings: The Top Fifty

Back to Main Article

Rank	School	Votes (of 508)	Poetry Rank	Fiction Rank	Nonfiction Rank	Total Funding Rank	Annual Funding Rank	Selectivity Rank	Postgraduate Placement Rank
1	University of Iowa in Iowa City	253	1	1	1	21	22	22	2
2	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	169	3	2	*	16	4	14	4
3	University of Virginia, Charlottesville	144	2	4	*	21	21	2	7
4	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	132	4	5	*	40	41	15	30
4	University of Texas, Austin	132	5	6	*	1	1	1	1
6	University of Wisconsin, Madison	129	6	11	*	21	22	8	7
7	Brown University in Providence	127	8	3	*	19	20	5	19
8	New York University in New York City	125	7	7	*	+	+	38	15
9	Cornell University in Ithaca, New York	110	9	7	*	10	2	3	3
10	University of Oregon, Eugene	104	15	12	*	27	29	7	5
11	Syracuse University in New York	97	20	10	*	5	7	30	23
12	Indiana University, Bloomington	93	13	14	*	6	8	11	15
13	University of California, Irvine	91	26	9	*	26	28	9	12
14	University of Minnesota, Minneapolis	85	17	14	8	29	27	17	10
15	Brooklyn College, CUNY	81	39	13	*	*	*	36	*
16	University of Montana, Missoula	78	17	17	17	47	46	24	19
17	Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore	77	11	16	*	30	30	10	*
18	Vanderbilt University in Nashville	76	13	18	23	25	26	4	*
19	University of North Carolina, Greensboro	75	10	19	*	33	31	12	12
20	Washington University, St. Louis	70	15	24	*	12	3	6	15
21	University of Florida, Gainesville	67	22	21	*	13	16	13	15
22	Columbia University in New York City	66	38	19	10	*	*	*	28
23	University of Notre Dame in Indiana	62	34	22	12	+	+	32	*
24	Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia	56	32	26	4	+	+	23	*
24	University of North Carolina, Wilmington	56	22	25	5	41	42	39	*
26	Arizona State University, Tempe	55	19	28	35	15	18	18	*
26	Hunter College, CUNY	55	45	22	6	*	*	26	*
26	University of Houston in Texas	55	11	34	18	34	34	N/A	6
29	Colorado State University, Fort Collins	53	20	34	*	42	43	N/A	*
29	The New School in New York City	53	47	27	3	*	*	41	*
31	Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York	52	27	33	8	*	*	N/A	26
31	University of Washington, Seattle	52	27	28	*	*	*	29	*
33	University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa	51	25	31	29	2	18	20	9
34	University of Arizona, Tucson	49	32	28	2	+	+	49	22
35	Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana	45	22	40	*	9	10	21	*
36	University of Arkansas, Fayetteville	41	31	45	*	17	24	18	25
37	George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia	40	39	34	12	+	+	46	28
38	Boston University in Massachusetts	39	39	38	*	+	+	35	11
39	University of Nevada, Las Vegas	38	48	31	*	35	35	33	*
40	Ohio State University, Columbus	35	27	+	35	7	9	37	32
41	University of Maryland, College Park	34	37	44	*	*	*	*	24
42	Florida State University, Tallahassee	33	39	+	*	38	38	*	*
42	Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge	33	*	46	*	3	5	*	*
42	Rutgers University, Newark in New Jersey	33	*	37	12	*	*	*	*
42	University of New Hampshire, Durham	33	39	40	7	*	*	*	*
46	Pennsylvania State University, University Park	32	45	46	11	28	14	28	*
47	Southern Illinois University, Carbondale	31	27	48	*	14	17	*	*
47	Texas State University, San Marcos	31	*	40	*	+	+	*	*
49	University of Mississippi, Oxford	31	+	40	*	18	25	16	*
50	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	30	34	+	*	4	6	27	*
50	Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond	30	+	38	*	31	32	*	*
50	Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg	30	34	+	*	8	10	34	*

Note: An honorable mention goes to Bowling Green State University, a two-year program in Ohio that ranks among the top fifty programs in selectivity (#47), total funding (#46), annual funding (#45), and poetry (#48), and received pluses in overall votes and fiction. For a ranking of the additional eighty-eight full-residency MFA programs, click here.