Hiatus Over

 Today, I woke up thinking about the unfinished writing in my life. 

I manage state-level adoptions of instructional materials for an educational publisher, and I do a lot of form-filling, documentation-gathering, communications with educational agencies, and project management. I do not, however, get to do a lot of writing. 

In my last role (which was, technically, a more comprehensive but "smaller" role) with an educational publisher, I did much of the same - form-filling, documentation-gathering, communications with educational agencies, and project management - but I also got to create alignment documents to match educational programs to academic state standards and I wrote business proposals for state adoptions and district adoptions, responded to catalog bids for instructional materials, and  I sometimes even partnered with the marketing team to use my creative writing skills to help market educational materials to different clientele. 

Since my last writing streak on here:

1. I re-enrolled in my Master of Arts (English Studies) program and finished it in 2015. (What's an extra four years for a degree I had planned to finish the year my aneurysm ruptured and I had to shift my focus, energy, and money to recovering from that?)

2. I moved to Massachusetts in 2017 - lived in 4 different apartments there (one of which was with my now ex-boyfriend Chris, whom I was with 2014 - 2020). I turned my full-time job into a part-time position and have worked in higher education, temporary positions in various fields, and in educational publishing. Both of my cats are gone. Alison died in 2020 at age 18, and Natalie died in 2021 at age 19. Chris's cats Mimi and Creature have also died (both in 2022). They had also been "my" cats in the two years Chris and I lived together.  

3. I moved to New Hampshire in 2022 when I bought my first house. It's an okay place; I just feel like I am in the M. C. Escher paiting Relativity because I have stairs everywhere. I'm not thrilled by the HOA and its drama. I still work in educational publishing and still teach part-time. I currently have a new boyfriend. Really interesting part? He's also a Metro Detroiter (and has an abundance of Detroit-specific tattoos to prove it!) living in New Hampshire.

4. My two closest friends are a 70-year-old woman I used to work with at one educational publisher and a 50-year-old man who a former coworker tried to set me up with since we were both single. We hit it off immediately, but much to Jackie's disappointment after the setup, the only thing that sparked is friendship. 

5. I still teach English and German online and am also looking for more of that, either at the high school level or as an adjunct faculty member in higher education. 

6. I have also started writing a LOT of things but didn't finish. I currently have:

- TV pilot scripts mapped out with some portions scripted for several episodes

- lots of ideas on Post-it notes

- journal entries

- poetry

- short stories and mapped out ideas for books, including a "children's" book series that center on a friend of mine and his dog

- political rants but still no manifestos.

- academic resources that I use in my teaching and others that I sell on Teachers Pay Teachers

- letters

- essays and master's thesis documents, and even some of my own research that has not (yet) been published. Maybe 2024 will kick me in the kiester just enough to submit it to periodicals and journals, as well as for teaching conferences.