If you hadn't guessed, three posts in four days was sufficient to qualify as "caught up" after not writing over the three week winter break which is why the onslaught of "Con-Son-Slaught" abruptly came to an end following my last post. Ironically enough, you also may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for about three weeks, reason being, I'm busy. My work load for this quarter is really starting to pile up and while I can't say I don't have any free time at all, I found watching Wilfred on Netflix much easier than writing a blog post or sonnet or editing my NaNoWriMo novel.
Since my last post I've started some new poetry projects; it's entirely probable they will join the 17 other sonnets I've left unfinished but these six most recent ones mean enough to me that I at least wrote more than one line, which, unfortunately, seems to be the way I work: I write down whatever line made me think it was such a great idea to begin with, and then, what took me less than a minute to write down, sits untouched for months. I hope to finish a few sonnets in a timely fashion but with the way this quarter is hammering me over the head, that probably won't happen.
Speaking of a timely fashion (ha), with the completion of this post I will have finally reached the point in time that I was planning on going up to with my first, "season two" post back in October of 2013. It has been a rather drawn out process but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way; had it been any different, both quality of this blog and my satisfaction in its expression would be severely diminished.
After three months of writing, here it is: the final chapter of "The Past One and a Half Years of My Average Life." Before I get to that, though, I'd like to cover the still relevant topic I said I might revisit -- windsurfing. When I first mentioned it in A Lahar of Tea and Fruit Snacks all I said was, "holy crap was it a workout." I actually don't have anything more to add about windsurfing; I just wanted to use it as a segway into my trip back to Minnesota after the Alaskan cruise.
A large portion of my time back in Minnesota was spent trying to get my uncle's old windsurf from about 1980 back in surfable condition. I must have spent a good ten hours trying to find all the parts, clean 30 years of filth off them, and figure out how they all fit together. Anyway, long story short, I spent all that time and sweat only to use the blasted thing twice. In my defense I'd like to say it was too windy in the wrong direction and, I'd like to add (though I may not be entirely telling the truth), it was the equipment that was faulty and not the operator. It wasn't the same kind of rig I used for my Beginning Windsurfing class, true, but how much of a difference in design can 30 years make, really? "Apparently quite a bit," so said my exhausted, puking form, collapsed in the shallows from having to paddle halfway across the lake when the wind pushed me there and I realized I wouldn't be able to surf my way back.
When I wasn't busy feeding the fish, I spent many enjoyable hours laying in the sun, reading A Song of Ice and Fire, and catching up on Breaking Bad. I went to visit some old high school friends too, but it's hard to catch up when you live 1,576 or more miles away, are on different school schedules, and only have an hour over coffee to do so. I still enjoyed the company of my friends but compared to other times, this visit felt different; I felt like a former employee with a visitor's badge -- an outsider. I guess that's bound to happen when everyone goes their separate ways to college and beyond but, all the same, it was disheartening to feel less than comfortable around the wonderful people that made high school as enjoyable of an experience as it can be.
I came back from Minnesota with a farmer's tan, slightly less of an esophageal lining but a greater sense of pride and determination, and a resolution to stay in better contact with friends, lest the only pillars I've built beneath a facade of indifference come crashing down.
I honestly don't remember much of what I did between Minnesota and the start of Fall quarter. That's not just because I spent a weekend up in Vancouver with my brother and mother sipping wine and stumbling/floating around Olympic Village, but because I just didn't do much of anything exciting; unless, of course, you consider sanding my mother's new kitchen cupboard doors with a power sander exciting. Coming back to school was just exchanging one grindstone for another. Most anything of significance that has happened these past two quarters has been incorporated sporadically throughout the retelling of these past few years, with the exception of seeing Ryan Stiles perform live in October. I haven't laughed that hard in years.
Lastly, I need to mention that I'll be attending the International Summer School at the University of Oslo, Norway this summer. More info on that to come soon.
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Don't worry. Though this may be the end of another "season" of Concerning Sonnets, there won't be a year-and-a-half hiatus after this one like there was after the short-lived season 1, which ran from February 28th to April 11, 2012 if you wish to check the archives. These aren't seasons like those of a television show: there's no life-or-death cliffhanger at the end before a two year intermission (*cough* Sherlock *cough*); they're merely an imagined distinction between the phases of this blog. Season 1 was focused primarily on the poetry aspect while Season 2 has been focused on the retelling of my life since the end of season 1. Looking to the future, I hope to combine the poetry aspect of Season 1 and the journaling aspect of Season 2. I'd like to write more poetry while keeping up to date with current events in my life and maintain the spirit of creativity by recording any observations, anecdotes, or fanciful contrivances that come to mind in my day-to-day living of life.
Be sure to keep an eye out for occasional "interim" posts I'll use to put out a poem or two and as a way to keep you up to date on events as I finish up this busy school year and prepare for the "premier" of Season 3, which I hope will be sometime shortly after my return from Norway. But as can be imagined, most of my energies from now until then will be directed toward schoolwork, the editing of my NaNoWriMo novel, and the creation and population of a new blog devoted to my trip to Norway.
I apologize for the rather spasmodic nature of this post but there was much I wanted to cover before setting down the pen, so to speak. In addition to that, writing this over the space of a week hasn't lent itself to quality or continuity. Nevertheless, I hope you've enjoyed reading it along with all the sonnets, stories, and straightout shit of seasons now past. Here's looking forward to much of that and more; see you next season. - Neal Lee Digre
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Unpublished material, ©2014 Neal Digre
A weekly blog of original sonnets, etc.
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