Hello Hubski -- currently ISO a person who is familiar with/perhaps fond of Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons," who also has the time and inclination to read a short-ish poem draft in that style and amenable to slight brain-pickings on the draft afterwards. If that sounds like you, reply or PM me. I will appreciate. In terms of real life, today I was in an 8 hour long meeting, aka my entire work day. I am not fit for 8 hour long meetings. We had a midmorning, lunch, and midafternoon break, but even with those, that is the longest I have sat still in one place in I don't know how long but very, quite, very long. I didn't go outside all day. I do not like things like that. On the rare occasions I do work in the office for 8 hours at a stretch I am the sort of person who gets up and makes a round of the floor every hour or so, who, when on a call, prefers to pace about while talking. The meeting did not have to be 8 hours long. I learned some things that were quite positive and interesting, but in other ways it was deadly dull, overly cheerleader-y, excessive, at minor points even slightly manipulative. Not to mention cloaked threats of future "relocations" (read: lay off everyone who works in one place and re-hire the department in a new place) as well as a list of 4 "attitude suggestions" from our CEO that could be summed up as "There is no I in team, work hard and harder at getting along, don't take it personally if you get fired!" On my way out I stole 2 cans of diet soda, so I suppose I din't leave wif nuffin. It is summer now and it is glorious. I have been writing consistently again. At last. Something turned or fixed somewhere around mid-April and has been continuing to turn or fix gradually, but positively, ever since. This is very, very good. It feels very, very good. I don't know how much effort I am going to put into publication submissions going forwards. But I know, at least for now, I am definitely going to continue to write. - It is hard to suddenly, at 26, find yourself questioning the identity you have held dearly for yourself, as yourself, since you were 12 or so - the identity you thought you would always be, the identity you thought was what described you first and foremost, above all else. I always wanted to be a writer. I always was a writer. Then for the last 6-12 months before April it got very difficult, and then I could find nothing worth writing about, and then I mostly stopped. And I wondered, if I wasn't a writer, who I was. And I didn't know. _ If you want to be a writer, but are having trouble writing, may I suggest you read good books, books you like. Not books from a canon or books you "should" read, but books you enjoy. Easy books, or books about people you admire and love and are intensely curious about. Find a book that is so good you want to read it. And then another. And another. And it may help you write again. At least, it may help you remember what you love so much about words. - P.S. If any Hubskiers are located either in Pittsburgh, or around the Clarksville, TN area, I hope to be visiting both during a week sometime this summer between mid-July and early September. Please let me know. I love a meet-up, no matter how small.