Don’t wanna sleep (after Laura Litter)

I am taking a Creative Writing class in Poetry at UCLA on tuesday nights. This week and last week we had to write one sestina (evil!) and one villanelle (appears less evil, but really is more). I decided that I would write the sestina about my blog.
Don’t Wanna Sleep (after Laura Litter)
by Jenifer Hanen
May 12, 2003
Many nights I fight to stay awake,
I don’t wanna sleep, to sleep like a log,
The fear courses deep that I have not earned enough money.
Billable hours, hours billable, were there
a sufficient number of them on this day?
Cubicle land leads to numbness, I don’t want that program.
Can an artist learn to program
a computer? For the sake of pure cussedness, I stay awake.
Each year I gift myself a challenge on my birthday,
Two weeks ago, I downloaded, installed a weblog.
Not only a technical stretch waiting for me there,
But a daily stretch to write, capture ideas, try to be funny.
A computer scientist asks, “Sure you can do this honey?”
Do you have to have a CS degree to program?
I learned Italian, I can learn Perl and C++ despite all their
objections. Freelance writer and artist, I stay awake,
to push my technical and creative worlds, I blog.
The first iris of May,
That black gamecock from my garden on the 7th of May,
linking to articles, stories, and funny
ideas, posting fleeting fancies, a catalog
of events. Designers, artists, writers, thinkers, a futuristic telegram.
Hello world. Here I am, an archive of now, I am awake.
No need to slumber in that bed, in front of the computer I am there.
Don’t wanna sleep there,
in that bed, desire is strong to stretch the day,
into the night. My family may hold a wake,
thinking I have passed on, no sight of me when it is sunny.
To announce my departing from social life, mom might send a telegram
to Grandpa out on the high seas. Me, I would blog
it. Hello world. I have ceased to sleep like a log,
Now I can be found exclusively there,
online. I would live my life in the future program.
Friends and relatives could check each day
my site for my thoughts, doings, and photos. But does she make any money?
Probably not. But I am very awake.
Happy little blog, my gift to me on my birthday,
despite all objections about a waste of time and a lack of money,
I program now, I am awake.