“It’s good to be able to name the pooch.”

I’d just shared a situation with my friend. Rambling on, trying to explain how I’d been caught—alone and afraid—in a circumstance and I could find a way out.

She is brilliant. It was a military saying: to screw the pooch. It’s a way to describe things gone wrong—disgraceful and mortifying—maybe even with good intentions but seriously wrong.

I am wrestling with a new circumstance—the hits keep on coming—and I’m working through the layers.

SOMETHING is wrong. I am getting the clues and forming suspicions but it’s foggy and not in my control.

I can feel the wrongness, and I’m not sure if I can stop it. Am I screwing up? Or if I flip it over, am I witnessing something being screwed?

Feeling gross and uncomfortable, I am not sure.

I find comfort in being the one to blame. Yes, the mortification would land on me. But if I’m the problem, I can start on the solution right now. I am in control and my actions could fix the problem., I can shift and get things moving the way I want.

I wrote about the trouble I was having with math last week. Last week’s pooch was math. I wrestled that one into control and another pooch showed up.

I am working through the layers of figuring things out. I know it’s not right and I’m still not sure how to get through to the core of the issue. I am trying, and I am not sure the problem is me. I’ve been playing with that idea and it doesn’t seem to fit.

Once I decide the trouble isn’t me, I could release the idea that I have to grapple it into submission. If the problem isn’t for me to fight, it could be something that will change without as much effort. It could change like the weather, The wind could die down and the sun come shining through.

That happens. And if I were still stuck trying to understand the nature of the pooch I might miss that the struggle—the pooch—had moved on. What exactly would be screwed then?

Me, probably.

Things do change. The sooner I figure out what call that pooch and how to stop the screwing the better for me.

I started this test for the third time. By the second question the panic was bigger than me. This new industry I am working in is different and I am trying to get this certification so I can follow along with the action.

I’m used to picking up certifications–it’s fun learning new things. When the manager suggested it, of course I said I would give it a try. Water math, they called it.

The first part seemed easy.

I was wrong. This math is impossible.

I’d invested in the online class, and the team I’d joined told me that it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Now the unit conversions between gallons pounds, acres, liters and milligrams were a cliff I couldn’t scale.

I tried to go back to the beginning and try again. Write it down, do it slow.

But the storm of thoughts made the facts slippery. Maybe I wasn’t capable of this kind of learning anymore. It would become clear to everyone else that I was in the wrong place, not the right person and would be asked to leave. My presence would be an insult to the other people, best swept away and not spoken of again—at least not publicly.

With those terrifying monstrous ideas whirling through my head, it was impossible to convert pounds of chlorine to the correct dose into quantities of million gallons per day.

I knew better than to start the test for the third time. It was a desperate move, apparent the moment I started again. As if magic would suddenly happen, and I would know the answers without making the effort.

I thought I knew better. My panic was picking up new evidence for how impossible this was, and how everything else in my life was impossible and I was doomed to failure at everything I attempted.

Carrying the momentum I went to my martial arts class, and was able to teach my class a new move. It wasn’t new to me at this time, but it had been a while since I’d done it. It came back to me. I remembered how impossible it was the first few months when I’d tried to learn it.

And this night, I had forgotten that I’d learned it. Until I did it again. Almost as easy as walking.

I had done the impossible once. I had another story to calm the panic. The next morning I picked up the homework again. I re-read, wrote it all out again, and spent another set of hours. The panic came with, but I was able to quiet it enough to keep going.

I did not need magic after all. I found a way to keep trying and that let me stop the free fall. It’s going to take longer than I first thought, but it lost the impossible part.

I’ve talked about books here an embarrassing amount. I love reading, and I’m always looking for another book to savor. I seek out recommendations for the best book possible.

The literary canon has many enduring beautiful books to choose from. Experts have anointed certain books as worthy of attention.

I could name the books I’ve read and recommend. But for a change, I am going to talk about one I can’t stand.

I’ve read The Great Gatsby at least three times. It’s a book professors love to lecture on.

I tried. I don’t like any of the characters and I don’t understand people who do. I tried it again to see if I was missing something.

No. I still hate it. Who are these wretched people and why should I care? The parties in the book sounded glamorous, but that was it.

What lifted this to literature? What did thes professors see that I didn’t?

My husband found an article that gave me a new perspective. Not on the prose, but on the author and how he got attention.

Fitzgerald’s work were not that popular during his lifetime. His high life booze-soaked novels lost appeal during the 1930s prohibition and depression economics. But then an aspiring professor at Princeton named Mizener had gotten hold of Fitzgerald’s papers after he died.

And he produced paper after paper about this author, eventually getting his own faculty position. The article goes on to explain how a number of Princeton people influenced Great Gatsby’s rise to being a classic.

Gatsby himself is doomed to never be good enough to get what he wants. And the darkest side of the Ivy league Princeton snobbery is so vindicated by his exclusion.

It confused me to hear one of my professors call it the great American story. I’ve lived in America my whole life, and I don’t know anybody like those people and I wouldn’t want to.

I’m not saying these kinds of characters don’t’ exist, but they are not common. And I don’t have to like it. Nope, that’s not the America I know and I’m willing to see these lit teachers as unreliable narrators.

This Substack is the newest version of the Wonderblog, which I started mere months before I graduated with a BA in English. I graduated later than I thought I was should have. And as soon as I graduated, I started thinking I didn’t need to have graduated at all.

The reason I wanted a BA was to start writing.

I started this blog before I graduated–proof that I never needed to wait for the diploma.

I have kept up this blog—founded in 2002 and blogging no less than once a week. I’m beginning to see that consistency like that is one of my superpowers.

But this week, I’m having trouble.

I’m past the hurricane of cancer treatments, and sick to death of talking about it. I’ve been stuck under that storm so long I’m not sure who is left as I crawl out. What remains?

I kept hold this blog

Because as long as I’m writing

I’m a writer.

I didn’t need the university to give me permission, and I regret I waited so long to give myself permission to write my first book.

Then again, I did –and still do—the work to keep creating. Stacking words into sentences and seeing if they stand up. 

Looking back at the origin story, I’m reminding myself of who I am.   It’s  what I need right now.

The world has changed since this blog began. I asked GrokAI for a writing prompt, which was a self-aware attempt to engage with AI as a new technology.

The answer was not helpful. I tried to reverse engineer his style “Grok, why did you use an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence?”

“Exclamation marks add excitement and energy to writing!”

They are fake emotion, Grok. Using metaphors and examples for what emotions a writer is trying to evoke is what makes prose beautiful.

He defended his choices, and continued to use exclamation marks after I explained that they were the sign of an inexperienced writer.

Me and the AI went back and forth as I responded to prompts about how writing should be done.

I’m not gaining anything by teaching an artificial intelligence how to write about feelings it doesn’t have.

Then again, I was able to quickly express the mechanics of writing, proving that I do know this craft.

As I’m trying to find a way pick it up again, it’s nice to realize I’m not starting from zero. I’m still in here and I know a few things.