New Do

Finally done with grading. Though I procrastinated long enough to write a short story and to wonder if I should try writing more fiction. I've been trying to resurrect some old work, but I don't think it's working. So, tomorrow it's back to creating new work. My goal is to have three short stories by next year at this time. So, I'm 1/3 of the way there. As if I didn't have enough projects already.

I'm beginning to think I don't have any follow-through or that I always feel compelled to be working. I wonder if that's a generational thing or just a Jewish OCD thing---what is it that makes us (or rather me) so driven? Today I thought maybe it's city life, that being part of this frenetic pace is part of it. Living in a city has definitely made me more concerned with fashion and perhaps even success. It's funny, one of my students wrote a short story about a girl who was reassessing her life at 27 because that seems to be the age in which one thinks about these things. At least that's what the character reasoned. I don't think she was aiming it at me, but it hit a chord.

Perhaps it's that time of the year again, almost New Year's and time to start making goals. Mom always says she's worried about me because I always seem so flip---no need to worry about it now---that I don't have any real definitive goals except to write, teach writing, and be happy. And it seems like I'm constantly coming up with 1001 ways to do all of these things. Or maybe it's my new haircut--that somehow a physical change is symbolic of something that is going on inside, or maybe, just maybe, all of this hair dye has gone to my head.