### **Morning Pages** Vico posted a story. Me feeling called out by a Backstreet Boys song 😆 I really am not unique. Anyway. 11:45 Joined a lot of contests and submitted my work to various magazines. It’s such a rush to gamble my odds. Submitting work in a crapshoot industry really awards risk (well, not so much, because most are free entry). Finally, the sense that I am going nowhere and that I am doing things pointlessly is lifting. I bought this book called “Freeman’s: The Future of New Writing” from Big Bad Wolf in my voice acting income heyday and I found a good use of it by applying as a short story book reader for Split/Lip Press. It’s eerily the same genre as that press’s priorities. I feel like I’m onto something. That I bought this book for a reason even if it was just a random choice. That I’m publishing and entering my work from my past to these contests for a chance to win. Submitted to 7 venues/contests today. Took quite a bit of time. Exercised for 5 minutes. Felt fatigue even though I have been doing this for a month now. I also looked for composer contests and found a few. — Creation as metaphor for what God desires (the belief in the Creation story as literal as it can get) 1. Premise: God is all alone and exists in a congregation of elohim or spirits. He is still pretty lonely. 2. Nobody can create a partner for him, so he creates Man and Woman as metaphor for what he wants. Synthesis (reproduction) with a new being who is not Him. 3. Serpent (”Lilith”) wants to be this person but spites God because they are rejected for some reason. 4. Serpent destroys and poisons metaphor. To Be Reborn a House Cat — except it’s a spiritual sense of what it’s like to be a pet of some kind to an ultimate “God” who lives with a Partner. “Investigations of a Dog” Franz Kafka-inspired story — Still cannot believe I am 28 years old now. I’ll feel really old when I’m 30, but wow 28 is older than I feel. I’m 28!!!!!!! I am an undergrad!!!????? WTF!!! (But also, to be expected as a neurodivergent existing in an inherently ableist world.) — Pillow talk scene: “What’s Bisaya for “yum”?” “Lami. Why?” “Lami kaayo ka…” _Omg. Where’d he learn “kaayo?”_ “Hehe, sarap mo rin. You want round 2 or—” … _sighs_ ok I find it so romantic when people learn their SO’s native language. ### **PROGRESS / MOMENTUM** 1. Looking forward to results of Gregory O’Donoghue Prize, Leonard Cohen Prize, Wishing Jewel Prize