Yesterday morning, I woke up thinking of a blog post and then all day, I couldn't remember it. But this morning, I woke up at 5:42 and remembered. I can't go back to sleep if I wake up any minutes after 5:00. It's a curse, but in this case a gift, because that itchy feeling of can't remember finally got scratched.
I remembered because the light from the neighbor's dining room chandelier fell into the bedroom like a sun coming up. It is strange to me, living in the rural town that is Flagstaff, that I've never had a nearer backyard neighbor. At least not since I was one and my parents and I lived in the Sandpiper apartments off Van Winkle Boulevard. My parents moved next to a house behind a mortuary. No one there left lights on all night or woke up early. We moved next to a house that backed a cemetery. No one there woke up at all. After that, we lived on a big block with a huge plot of land in the middle of it. Eventually, the Church built a Stakehouse there but the worst noise there was basketball on Friday mornings. My dorm room at Reed backed the Student Union but my room was high enough that the light from my room fell down on them, not the other way around. On 37th Street, our house was on a hill. Again, my light trickled down. On 7812 SE Woodstock, I don't remember the house behind us but it didn't matter because the house was lower than the fence and the windows below the weeds that grew tall in that backyard. On 26th Street--tall fence. On Cora, our big lot-sized garden grew outside my window. Then, when I bought the house on Brooklyn Street, the cherry tree and fig tree blocked the neighbor's light. On G. Street, in Salt Lake, the lot was double-long and the house behind was so far away that I was never sure anyone actually lived there. When we moved to Grand Rapids, the houses were close together. We shared a driveway with Beth, who lived next door. The light from her bedroom could have flooded our bedroom, but she kept her blinds closed. Our backyard again was far away from the neighbor's backyard, the houses infilled side by side rather than back to back.
It is strange, then that my current backyard neighbors, in this big-lot sized neighborhood, in a forest-filled town, are the ones who bug me. There house sits directly behind ours, matching window for window. We have no fence and the Ponderosa Pines are too tall to block any light. Thankfully, our big deck is on the side of the house, we we're not fully exposed but the backyard feels like their backyard. When they're on their deck, we can hear every word. They have no blinds. I have blinds and curtains in the bed room and yet, in the morning, and sometimes all night, the light from their 118,000 watt chandelier falls through the bedroom window, making me think the sun is coming up, which wakes me up for once and for all.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Running vs. running around
My thighs are Popsicles. I knew it was cold out from the weather report but I didn't know how windy it was. I wore my sunglasses to keep my eyes from freezing. Winter here is not regular Flagstaff winter--there is barely any snow, but this week, it's cold. The snow that is there hides rocks for twisting ankles. I fall on the ice and scrape my hands. The wind whistles into my ear drum, so far it makes my teeth hurt.
And yet! This is the preferred running. The rest of the day will be running around from my office on the first floor to the Comp office on the third floor where the grad applications live. Travel forms, letters of rec (still?), and essay proofs print in the English Department office, where I will run, down the hall, to pick up one by one (yesterday, I ran around too fast and sent a letter of rec to no one--I forgot to address the envelope). I'll run over to the grad college and over to Babbitt for the UGC meeting where I'll defend, I hope for the last time, the idea of turning our MA to an MFA. Also. We need coffee. Eggs. Run to the CSA. Pick up Max. Pick up Z. Run around the kitchen, chop up vegetables. Run into the living room because Max can't reach his train. Run over to Z to help her with her Spanish homework that already surpasses my Spanish-speaking skills so that running is completely useless. All this running doesn't make me skinny. It doesn't make me warm. It makes me nervous and frantic and feel a little bit like if I could spend the whole day really running, rather than running around, I would actually be getting more done.
And yet! This is the preferred running. The rest of the day will be running around from my office on the first floor to the Comp office on the third floor where the grad applications live. Travel forms, letters of rec (still?), and essay proofs print in the English Department office, where I will run, down the hall, to pick up one by one (yesterday, I ran around too fast and sent a letter of rec to no one--I forgot to address the envelope). I'll run over to the grad college and over to Babbitt for the UGC meeting where I'll defend, I hope for the last time, the idea of turning our MA to an MFA. Also. We need coffee. Eggs. Run to the CSA. Pick up Max. Pick up Z. Run around the kitchen, chop up vegetables. Run into the living room because Max can't reach his train. Run over to Z to help her with her Spanish homework that already surpasses my Spanish-speaking skills so that running is completely useless. All this running doesn't make me skinny. It doesn't make me warm. It makes me nervous and frantic and feel a little bit like if I could spend the whole day really running, rather than running around, I would actually be getting more done.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Bald Eagle Again
On Tuesday, Zoe and Max and I were driving home from schol/work. It was cloudy out even though it was obvious no snow was coming. The light was that yellow gray that comes toward the end of winter, the beginning of spring even though we haven't had any winter yet. Last year, with a big winter, I saw almost an eagle a day. Not by my house but by the coffee shop off Highway 180 that leads to the Snowbowl where I had off-campus office hours while the Liberal Arts building was being remodeled. This year, the eagles, like the snow, haven't been anywhere near 180 or the snowbowl but there's at least one who is living by our house. As we drove down our street, to the left, in a different snag than last time, sat what I'm sure was the same eagle. I had to drive around in circles so Zoe and Max could each see it. It flew off. I feel bad if I made it dizzy with my driving.
I don't know about harbingers but I do have a policy of believing that birds of prey are good signs. Sometimes, they are just signs of themselves. That's the better belief. But, when something good happens around my seeing of the bird, I give the big bird credit and then I go out and look some more.
That baby-friend of mine is doing the very slightest bit better, I found out on Tuesday afternoon. Good work baby and thank you eagle.
I don't know about harbingers but I do have a policy of believing that birds of prey are good signs. Sometimes, they are just signs of themselves. That's the better belief. But, when something good happens around my seeing of the bird, I give the big bird credit and then I go out and look some more.
That baby-friend of mine is doing the very slightest bit better, I found out on Tuesday afternoon. Good work baby and thank you eagle.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Teaching Blogging writing Chopped
Both Jackson and Lisa B. commented on one or two of my last posts about the cooking and the teaching and the writing. Jackson quoted Janet Burroway saying that neither cooking nor writing are monolithic tasks--you take to them piece by piece. It's what makes me anxious about writing--the whole idea does hover around. If you let it hover too much, it gets in the way of the details. I remember one reviewer of one of my manuscripts saying there were redundant parts. Whole-sale parts copied and pasted from other parts showing up throughout the manuscript. This was a poetic urgency on my part--you get it, don't you? Let me show you again. The details were supposed to be holding up this whole notion. Why not use the same details again? But I was missing a key factor in what is pleasurable about reading. People like reading details, new ones, surprising ones, more than they like whole notions.
When I teach writing, I make my students write idiosyncratic detail, not just specific detail. I'd rather hear about the oceanic chair than the blue, velour-covered chair. But I don't get too picky about the kind of detail, as long as it's kind of weird.
This is where my beastliness in the kitchen is so much more bossy than my professoring in the classroom. In writing, I want students to explore and surprise themselves and do new things. In the kitchen, I want food to taste right. There is a right and wrong taste with food and while there are degrees of right and wrong in writing, the process, at least as a professor of writing, is the most important part. (When I'm an editor, it's less true. There is a righter taste).
When I was blogging Chopped last spring in an attempt to avoid other kinds of competitions, I thought a lot about how teaching and writing were a lot like cooking. But instead of thinking deeply about cooking, I thought more about the competition behind cooking. Who wins? The most creative? Rarely. The best presentation? No. Taste always wins. The judges admit so much. And, with three judges, you can see that there really is one right (or one more right) taste. The judges care about all three categories--taste, creativity, and presentation--but taste always wins out.
When I cook, I know how to make sure it tastes right. With writing, I'm getting closer. But I've been writing for a long time now and I'm barely sure now what details are the right ones, what ones lead to better taste and what ones just lead to better presentation or creativity. No one wants that much creativity or presentation (sure, a little is nice) but they really want things to taste right which is so much easier to gauge with the chemistry of cooking. Not too much salt. Evenly chopped onion. Cook the onions on low. If you do burn the onions a little, add some wine, deglaze the pan. Writing. Step by step? Maybe. Correctable? Of course, just add wine and revise. But sitting down to eat and knowing that it tastes right? Our palates aren't so different.
When I teach writing, I make my students write idiosyncratic detail, not just specific detail. I'd rather hear about the oceanic chair than the blue, velour-covered chair. But I don't get too picky about the kind of detail, as long as it's kind of weird.
This is where my beastliness in the kitchen is so much more bossy than my professoring in the classroom. In writing, I want students to explore and surprise themselves and do new things. In the kitchen, I want food to taste right. There is a right and wrong taste with food and while there are degrees of right and wrong in writing, the process, at least as a professor of writing, is the most important part. (When I'm an editor, it's less true. There is a righter taste).
When I was blogging Chopped last spring in an attempt to avoid other kinds of competitions, I thought a lot about how teaching and writing were a lot like cooking. But instead of thinking deeply about cooking, I thought more about the competition behind cooking. Who wins? The most creative? Rarely. The best presentation? No. Taste always wins. The judges admit so much. And, with three judges, you can see that there really is one right (or one more right) taste. The judges care about all three categories--taste, creativity, and presentation--but taste always wins out.
When I cook, I know how to make sure it tastes right. With writing, I'm getting closer. But I've been writing for a long time now and I'm barely sure now what details are the right ones, what ones lead to better taste and what ones just lead to better presentation or creativity. No one wants that much creativity or presentation (sure, a little is nice) but they really want things to taste right which is so much easier to gauge with the chemistry of cooking. Not too much salt. Evenly chopped onion. Cook the onions on low. If you do burn the onions a little, add some wine, deglaze the pan. Writing. Step by step? Maybe. Correctable? Of course, just add wine and revise. But sitting down to eat and knowing that it tastes right? Our palates aren't so different.
Monday, February 06, 2012
CSA Lunch Special
It's like the Blue Plate Special, but weirder.
Watermelon radish, diced.
Small cluster of cauliflower, diced.
Small cluster of broccoli, diced.
4 olives (think about dicing them, but they're not really from the CSA, eat on the side instead).
1 cup wheat berries, cooked (Thomas Keller calls them "Farro." They take a half hour or so to cook. Don't add as much salt as I did.)
2 eggs, poached.
Mix cauliflower, broccoli, wheat berries and radish with a little olive oil and vinegar. Top with poached eggs.
Hold on. Removing poached eggs now. Let's see if it's good:
Oh yes. My dream. I may live forever.
(The secret to poaching eggs? Use the freshest eggs possible, meaning, eggs from the CSA.)
Edited to add, 15 minutes later. I'm still eating. It's even better now that the eggs have seeped into the wheat berries. But my jaw hurts a little from chewing. When they say eat whole grains, you can't get much more whole than the whole berry of the wheat.
Watermelon radish, diced.
Small cluster of cauliflower, diced.
Small cluster of broccoli, diced.
4 olives (think about dicing them, but they're not really from the CSA, eat on the side instead).
1 cup wheat berries, cooked (Thomas Keller calls them "Farro." They take a half hour or so to cook. Don't add as much salt as I did.)
2 eggs, poached.
Mix cauliflower, broccoli, wheat berries and radish with a little olive oil and vinegar. Top with poached eggs.
Hold on. Removing poached eggs now. Let's see if it's good:
Oh yes. My dream. I may live forever.
(The secret to poaching eggs? Use the freshest eggs possible, meaning, eggs from the CSA.)
Edited to add, 15 minutes later. I'm still eating. It's even better now that the eggs have seeped into the wheat berries. But my jaw hurts a little from chewing. When they say eat whole grains, you can't get much more whole than the whole berry of the wheat.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
A little lighter
After sleeping most of last night, not well, but way better than the night before, and after reading blog comments, and, after the editor's request to see Salmon, and after good news about my friends' baby in the NICU (oxygen sats at 99%!), I'm feeling a little lighter, light enough to change the subject, at least.
Before the semester started and before I heard the news about my friends' babies, I was in the desert with my friend Misty. She had rented a house smack-dab in the middle of it and invited us to join her and her in-laws for the weekend. So we did. It was an awesome house with a good kitchen and a huge dining room table. The bedrooms wound around a courtyard full of Palo Verde and possibly geckos. Each room had its own bathroom--possibly the best thing about any rental I've ever seen ever.
This place was good. So good, we didn't leave for two whole days. We came bearing carne asada and pickled onions, eggs for breakfast, 48 Cuties. We sat outside. We had a margarita. We had some wine. We grilled the steaks on a charcoal barbecue. The next day, it was a little colder but we still sat outside. We hid Cuties for Zoe and Louisa like they were Easter Eggs. Misty made toast and Zoe ate it like she'd never been fed before. Misty made more toast. Louisa and Zoe finished off the Cuties. Later that night, Misty's dad and her aunt and uncle were coming to dinner too. How to feed 8 adults and 3 kids in the desert? Mexican wedding soup. Erik did leave for the store and John (her husband took his dad to the airport. He had to go back to work) but Misty and I stayed. We hot-tubbed with the girls while Max slept. Then, when everyone came back, we hiked up the wash. The girls collected 75 pounds of rocks. Max insisted on walking--no baby-backpack for him.
That night, and this is the point of this post, Misty and I made dinner. Misty is one of the few people in the world I can actually cook with. Or, rather, one of the few cooks who is willing to cook with me. My sisters and Misty and that's about it. Once, when Misty and I were first friends and we were at her parent's house in Spokane for Thanksgiving, we got in two separate fights over peels. She wanted to leave them on, first for the mashed potatoes, second for the apples for the pie. I won the fight for the mashies. She won it for the apple pie. This is why, and also why my sisters, can cook with me. Most people won't do it. Most people think I cook so much and that I care so much about it, that they usually just leave it to me. But Misty and my sisters: they don't back down. Misty cut the red bell peppers into such precise, tiny cuts, I thought, I've been cutting red bells wrong my whole life. She added escarole! Escarole to regular salad. Delicious. In the morning, she sauteed zucchini and cooked eggs on slow (she told me after reading Julia Child's biography that she cooked her eggs slow now). Delicious! She holds her own in the kitchen, ignoring me and my opinions. The best thing is, when I taste her food, and that of my sisters', because a) I already know its entire flavor components and b) the food because of their knife cuts, because they use escarole instead of lettuce, because their pinches of salt are different than mine, because they'll take a risk and leave the peels on, (wrong as that may be) it tastes different than anything I'd make. It's always a surprise.
Before the semester started and before I heard the news about my friends' babies, I was in the desert with my friend Misty. She had rented a house smack-dab in the middle of it and invited us to join her and her in-laws for the weekend. So we did. It was an awesome house with a good kitchen and a huge dining room table. The bedrooms wound around a courtyard full of Palo Verde and possibly geckos. Each room had its own bathroom--possibly the best thing about any rental I've ever seen ever.
This place was good. So good, we didn't leave for two whole days. We came bearing carne asada and pickled onions, eggs for breakfast, 48 Cuties. We sat outside. We had a margarita. We had some wine. We grilled the steaks on a charcoal barbecue. The next day, it was a little colder but we still sat outside. We hid Cuties for Zoe and Louisa like they were Easter Eggs. Misty made toast and Zoe ate it like she'd never been fed before. Misty made more toast. Louisa and Zoe finished off the Cuties. Later that night, Misty's dad and her aunt and uncle were coming to dinner too. How to feed 8 adults and 3 kids in the desert? Mexican wedding soup. Erik did leave for the store and John (her husband took his dad to the airport. He had to go back to work) but Misty and I stayed. We hot-tubbed with the girls while Max slept. Then, when everyone came back, we hiked up the wash. The girls collected 75 pounds of rocks. Max insisted on walking--no baby-backpack for him.
That night, and this is the point of this post, Misty and I made dinner. Misty is one of the few people in the world I can actually cook with. Or, rather, one of the few cooks who is willing to cook with me. My sisters and Misty and that's about it. Once, when Misty and I were first friends and we were at her parent's house in Spokane for Thanksgiving, we got in two separate fights over peels. She wanted to leave them on, first for the mashed potatoes, second for the apples for the pie. I won the fight for the mashies. She won it for the apple pie. This is why, and also why my sisters, can cook with me. Most people won't do it. Most people think I cook so much and that I care so much about it, that they usually just leave it to me. But Misty and my sisters: they don't back down. Misty cut the red bell peppers into such precise, tiny cuts, I thought, I've been cutting red bells wrong my whole life. She added escarole! Escarole to regular salad. Delicious. In the morning, she sauteed zucchini and cooked eggs on slow (she told me after reading Julia Child's biography that she cooked her eggs slow now). Delicious! She holds her own in the kitchen, ignoring me and my opinions. The best thing is, when I taste her food, and that of my sisters', because a) I already know its entire flavor components and b) the food because of their knife cuts, because they use escarole instead of lettuce, because their pinches of salt are different than mine, because they'll take a risk and leave the peels on, (wrong as that may be) it tastes different than anything I'd make. It's always a surprise.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Hard Times Come Again No More
I recognize this is a highly histrionic title. I'm taking things pretty histrionically lately.
The mud! The mud Cleo tracked in, how can I go on?
The computer, the computer. My Dell laptop, my truest typer since 2008 is dying. It's working right now but the monitor flickers and then goes out and then the harddrive spins and spins.
The sickness. The sickness. Max was sick with two different diseases two weeks in a row. I kept waiting for Zoe to get the second one as she coughed through the first. I teased her one night, Zoe, if you have to throw up, get out of bed, throw up in the toilet and then go back to bed. She said, why do you get all the sleep Mama? If she only knew. I haven't slept in two weeks. And, in the histrionic mood I'm in, I say I haven't slept in two years. I'm in one of those places where everything seems dark. The babysitter: what does she do to Max make him so grumpy. Why doesn't Max sleep? He shouts out, Ow! and Mama! and blankie! every ten minutes all night long. We sleep next to his crib in a bed because our only choice is to sleep upstairs far away.
This house. This house! Why is the master bedroom so far away from the kids? I could try to sleep upstairs but last time I did that, Max screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors. Even if he were to wake up normally and ask for his blankie, I imagine falling down the stairs to get him his blankie, or Zoe falling down them as she comes up to tell us Max is awake.
My job: how will I stop the accumulation? The rejections, the essays to grade, the essays to edit, the essays and poems to write and send out. It all seems so dumb. And dark. I'm reading Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot." It makes me wonder if I'm bipolar. I presume it makes everyone wonder if they're bipolar. But that's the dark, depressive view.
But maybe things are turning around. It snowed. Maybe we won't all die of thirst. Margot and my book "Bending Genre: Essay in Creative Nonfiction" got picked up by Continuum Press. I finally got that internal Faculty Grant. Three microessays got accepted today. My friends' baby's oxygen levels were almost 100% yesterday--She is turning around. My old agent sent me a publishing idea. Maybe Max will sleep in the night. Maybe Zoe won't throw up. Maybe, this weekend, instead of cleaning the house and handing out tissues and washing sheets, we'll go snowshoeing. Maybe what seemed like the punishment of living will abate and seem like just another January and February will turn this year around. Maybe tomorrow I will write the blog post I wanted to write that is light and happy and full of good food ideas. I will. Write it and it will be true. Maybe I'll write two posts in one day just to prove it's true.
The mud! The mud Cleo tracked in, how can I go on?
The computer, the computer. My Dell laptop, my truest typer since 2008 is dying. It's working right now but the monitor flickers and then goes out and then the harddrive spins and spins.
The sickness. The sickness. Max was sick with two different diseases two weeks in a row. I kept waiting for Zoe to get the second one as she coughed through the first. I teased her one night, Zoe, if you have to throw up, get out of bed, throw up in the toilet and then go back to bed. She said, why do you get all the sleep Mama? If she only knew. I haven't slept in two weeks. And, in the histrionic mood I'm in, I say I haven't slept in two years. I'm in one of those places where everything seems dark. The babysitter: what does she do to Max make him so grumpy. Why doesn't Max sleep? He shouts out, Ow! and Mama! and blankie! every ten minutes all night long. We sleep next to his crib in a bed because our only choice is to sleep upstairs far away.
This house. This house! Why is the master bedroom so far away from the kids? I could try to sleep upstairs but last time I did that, Max screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors. Even if he were to wake up normally and ask for his blankie, I imagine falling down the stairs to get him his blankie, or Zoe falling down them as she comes up to tell us Max is awake.
My job: how will I stop the accumulation? The rejections, the essays to grade, the essays to edit, the essays and poems to write and send out. It all seems so dumb. And dark. I'm reading Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot." It makes me wonder if I'm bipolar. I presume it makes everyone wonder if they're bipolar. But that's the dark, depressive view.
But maybe things are turning around. It snowed. Maybe we won't all die of thirst. Margot and my book "Bending Genre: Essay in Creative Nonfiction" got picked up by Continuum Press. I finally got that internal Faculty Grant. Three microessays got accepted today. My friends' baby's oxygen levels were almost 100% yesterday--She is turning around. My old agent sent me a publishing idea. Maybe Max will sleep in the night. Maybe Zoe won't throw up. Maybe, this weekend, instead of cleaning the house and handing out tissues and washing sheets, we'll go snowshoeing. Maybe what seemed like the punishment of living will abate and seem like just another January and February will turn this year around. Maybe tomorrow I will write the blog post I wanted to write that is light and happy and full of good food ideas. I will. Write it and it will be true. Maybe I'll write two posts in one day just to prove it's true.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Cough
This is also not the post I was planning on writing because coughing, like working, gets in the way of most things good around here. On Monday, Max came down with a dry, barking cough. It wasn't croup but almost. He was really sick for days. He was cuddly and thirsty and not sleepy but not in horrible spirits. El and Rick kept him home from day care and I tried to be home more than usual. The rest of us drank Emercen-C by the gallon and prayed for the best. Especially Zoe. When Erik was throwing up and Max was coughing, Zoe said she really didn't want to get sick. If she had to get sick though, she'd rather have Max's cold than Erik's throwing-up disease.
She made it all the way until Friday. A four day incubation period. She thought she'd made it but that morning she too had the dry bark of a cough and bags under her eyes.
After dinner, she was coughing almost nonstop. Her inhaler seemed not to be having any effect (she doesn't have asthma, she has "reactive airway disorder" which means when she gets a cold, it sucks worse for her. Or at least it did. She barely wheezes anymore) so I got out the old nebulizer.
She asked, what is that?
This is your nebulizer. You used it every day for a year from when you were one and a half until you were almost three. Then, every time you got a cold, you used it four or five times a day. You don't remember it?
Why does it have this chicken for a mask?
It's supposed to be a dinosaur.
So you put in on like this? How long does it take?
She used to do this every day. She knew how to do it herself, put the albuterol in the cup, twist the cup into the mask, turn on the machine. Now, not even muscle memory.
She slept off and on last night. Erik and I went in to give her treatments in the middle of the night like we used to. Our muscles remember.
As I think about my friends whose baby is still in the NICU, I worry mostly about my friends. The baby, I believe (I have to), will be OK. And, although I knew that babies forget, it wasn't until yesterday I realized how completely babies (and two, three, four and five year olds) forget so fully. I hope that gives them a bit them a bit of relief.
She made it all the way until Friday. A four day incubation period. She thought she'd made it but that morning she too had the dry bark of a cough and bags under her eyes.
After dinner, she was coughing almost nonstop. Her inhaler seemed not to be having any effect (she doesn't have asthma, she has "reactive airway disorder" which means when she gets a cold, it sucks worse for her. Or at least it did. She barely wheezes anymore) so I got out the old nebulizer.
She asked, what is that?
This is your nebulizer. You used it every day for a year from when you were one and a half until you were almost three. Then, every time you got a cold, you used it four or five times a day. You don't remember it?
Why does it have this chicken for a mask?
It's supposed to be a dinosaur.
So you put in on like this? How long does it take?
She used to do this every day. She knew how to do it herself, put the albuterol in the cup, twist the cup into the mask, turn on the machine. Now, not even muscle memory.
She slept off and on last night. Erik and I went in to give her treatments in the middle of the night like we used to. Our muscles remember.
As I think about my friends whose baby is still in the NICU, I worry mostly about my friends. The baby, I believe (I have to), will be OK. And, although I knew that babies forget, it wasn't until yesterday I realized how completely babies (and two, three, four and five year olds) forget so fully. I hope that gives them a bit them a bit of relief.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Dreams
I would like to write a blog about something else than what I have to do today but since I went to sleep stressing about a student, woke up at 4:30 with a headache, re-stressed about a student and then about all the stuff I should do today, I should probably write a blog post that reminds me to work instead of watch Curious George with Max and look at Facebook as a means of avoiding the work. The work, when it is thick and wide and tall as a concrete wall, can be mistaken for a fog that settles everywhere, and therefore, nowhere.
Perhaps beginning at the beginning of the week will shed some light on why Friday is a large pile of too much.
On Monday, Max woke up with a terrible cough. I had a conference call with a potential publisher of a new book so Erik took Max to work. I went to get Max from him an hour later. We went to New Frontiers. Twice (I forgot the celery). It's supposed to be a writing day but Max isn't one of those babies who likes to sleep and watch TV when he's sick. He likes to play trains. Adamantly and often. So the writing didn't happen so much but some major emails were sent, some reports filed, some plans for dinner made. That's the night I made the chicken and dumpling soup. Thomas Keller makes you boil the celery, saute the carrots, and pouch the pate a choux dumplings separately. Also, make a roux. It takes forever. Perhaps I should not follow the Keller on a Monday.
That night, Erik was sick. Max was sick. The next morning, I had barely time to pick up ginger ale for Erik after I dropped Z off at school before making it to the advising center--5 students came in for advice plus prospective students. This was not conducive to commenting on student in class writing so that got squished between 11 and 12:45. I taught and then had a thesis meeting with a student.
Wednesday. Why Wednesday? I'm trying not to go in on Wednesdays so I can get some work done but this Wednesday? All in. Max in the morning, meeting with Associate Dean about program fees at 10, meeting with Dean of Grad College at 10:30, meeting with Assistant Dean about online application at 10:40. Lunch with Associate Chair and Chair (with request for lecture line!) Faculty meeting at 11:30. Big Grad Studies committee meeting at 12:30. At 2:00, another conference call with a different publisher which was not nearly as fun as the Monday call. At 3:00, pick up Z, pick up Max from Rick and El's (what would I have done without my in-laws this week?), homework with Z (lots of homework, drawing with Max, and the making of the tacos which are quick and very-non-Keller in their workload distribution.
Thursday I tried to read and comment on student essays with Max but that was going nowhere so I took him to El's, went to school, wrote comments on the essays, prepared for intro nonfiction, read book for grad nonfiction, met with a current and a previous grad student about their futures, taught until 5:30 and then fell into the booth at Fratelli's where the first piece of pizza was awesome but the next one had diminishing returns (as the Keller says happens after the third bite) and the third piece of pizza was just maintenance.
So today is the finishing work for what happened this week. Write to contributors. Send Tuition Waiver Language to Tuition Waiver person. Ask Doug if he wants a link to PIE. Arrange room for Creative Writing meeting on Wednesday. Begin report for grad online app. Ask Yvette to let you know how many GTA apps are ready for review on the 1st. Send micro essays. Input scratch marks indicating student participation from paper grade roster into BB Learn. Enter grad comments into BB learn since apparently the grad students wont' turn them in if I'm not grading them like undergrads. Read for Diagram. I would like to clean the house, go to the grocery store, go on a run, and finish an essay I'm working on but I don't think any of that is going to happen...
because now I must go play Lego's with Max which will be more fun than the work list but won't be as fun as it could be if I had already finished the last paragraph of my life and could move on to the blog post that I want to write.
Perhaps beginning at the beginning of the week will shed some light on why Friday is a large pile of too much.
On Monday, Max woke up with a terrible cough. I had a conference call with a potential publisher of a new book so Erik took Max to work. I went to get Max from him an hour later. We went to New Frontiers. Twice (I forgot the celery). It's supposed to be a writing day but Max isn't one of those babies who likes to sleep and watch TV when he's sick. He likes to play trains. Adamantly and often. So the writing didn't happen so much but some major emails were sent, some reports filed, some plans for dinner made. That's the night I made the chicken and dumpling soup. Thomas Keller makes you boil the celery, saute the carrots, and pouch the pate a choux dumplings separately. Also, make a roux. It takes forever. Perhaps I should not follow the Keller on a Monday.
That night, Erik was sick. Max was sick. The next morning, I had barely time to pick up ginger ale for Erik after I dropped Z off at school before making it to the advising center--5 students came in for advice plus prospective students. This was not conducive to commenting on student in class writing so that got squished between 11 and 12:45. I taught and then had a thesis meeting with a student.
Wednesday. Why Wednesday? I'm trying not to go in on Wednesdays so I can get some work done but this Wednesday? All in. Max in the morning, meeting with Associate Dean about program fees at 10, meeting with Dean of Grad College at 10:30, meeting with Assistant Dean about online application at 10:40. Lunch with Associate Chair and Chair (with request for lecture line!) Faculty meeting at 11:30. Big Grad Studies committee meeting at 12:30. At 2:00, another conference call with a different publisher which was not nearly as fun as the Monday call. At 3:00, pick up Z, pick up Max from Rick and El's (what would I have done without my in-laws this week?), homework with Z (lots of homework, drawing with Max, and the making of the tacos which are quick and very-non-Keller in their workload distribution.
Thursday I tried to read and comment on student essays with Max but that was going nowhere so I took him to El's, went to school, wrote comments on the essays, prepared for intro nonfiction, read book for grad nonfiction, met with a current and a previous grad student about their futures, taught until 5:30 and then fell into the booth at Fratelli's where the first piece of pizza was awesome but the next one had diminishing returns (as the Keller says happens after the third bite) and the third piece of pizza was just maintenance.
So today is the finishing work for what happened this week. Write to contributors. Send Tuition Waiver Language to Tuition Waiver person. Ask Doug if he wants a link to PIE. Arrange room for Creative Writing meeting on Wednesday. Begin report for grad online app. Ask Yvette to let you know how many GTA apps are ready for review on the 1st. Send micro essays. Input scratch marks indicating student participation from paper grade roster into BB Learn. Enter grad comments into BB learn since apparently the grad students wont' turn them in if I'm not grading them like undergrads. Read for Diagram. I would like to clean the house, go to the grocery store, go on a run, and finish an essay I'm working on but I don't think any of that is going to happen...
because now I must go play Lego's with Max which will be more fun than the work list but won't be as fun as it could be if I had already finished the last paragraph of my life and could move on to the blog post that I want to write.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Desert Living
In the past ten days, we've had the chance to go to the desert twice. The first time, further South, where the Saguaro actually live, and yesterday, to the close desert of Sedona. Neither of them is balmy right now but compared to the snowy mountaintop, it was warm. One could sit outside for an hour or two. One could watch the clouds roll over the Central Arizona Water Project. One could refill the aquifer, if one were Zoe or her friend Louisa, by turning on the hose and making a fresh pile of mud in the sand on the driveway.
I'm sure it's my protestant, Weberian background that makes me believe one must fully experience four full seasons but one benefit of Flagstaff is that I get my Protestant Boy Scout Badge by bearing the snow while still occasionally being able to dip down to the hotter places. Not hot enough to swim but hot enough to be outside.
In the desert, you can eat, if you are Zoe and/or Louisa and/or Max, forty-eight Clementines. You can splash in the hot tub. You can wake up before everyone else and sneak down to the wash to see if last night's rain made a flood. You can take a bath and then run around naked after. You can make mud. You can change your clothes on the patio. You can eat nuts that fell into the sand, if you dust them off first. You can play hide the tangerine, practicing for Easter Egg hunts. Or, in the closer, red rock desert, you can ride your bike down a slickrock trail at 25 miles an hour, making even your dad scream, "slow down." You can cry a little afterward, all adrenaline filled. Or you could choose to ride in the carseat on the back of your mom's bike going "woah, woah, woah" over the rocks. And then you can come back home and sit by the woodstove and wait for dinner. Perhaps, the next night, you mom will make chicken and dumplings with the dumplings pate a choux style.
Sometimes, even when it's probably in my best interest to check out other places and other jobs, especially ones with water, I wonder if I should bother. It's nice to have the hot so close even while I suffer the winter of my Protestant/Weberian self. And, Erik says we live on top of the one of the world's largest aquifers so perhaps there's more water than I think.
I'm sure it's my protestant, Weberian background that makes me believe one must fully experience four full seasons but one benefit of Flagstaff is that I get my Protestant Boy Scout Badge by bearing the snow while still occasionally being able to dip down to the hotter places. Not hot enough to swim but hot enough to be outside.
In the desert, you can eat, if you are Zoe and/or Louisa and/or Max, forty-eight Clementines. You can splash in the hot tub. You can wake up before everyone else and sneak down to the wash to see if last night's rain made a flood. You can take a bath and then run around naked after. You can make mud. You can change your clothes on the patio. You can eat nuts that fell into the sand, if you dust them off first. You can play hide the tangerine, practicing for Easter Egg hunts. Or, in the closer, red rock desert, you can ride your bike down a slickrock trail at 25 miles an hour, making even your dad scream, "slow down." You can cry a little afterward, all adrenaline filled. Or you could choose to ride in the carseat on the back of your mom's bike going "woah, woah, woah" over the rocks. And then you can come back home and sit by the woodstove and wait for dinner. Perhaps, the next night, you mom will make chicken and dumplings with the dumplings pate a choux style.
Sometimes, even when it's probably in my best interest to check out other places and other jobs, especially ones with water, I wonder if I should bother. It's nice to have the hot so close even while I suffer the winter of my Protestant/Weberian self. And, Erik says we live on top of the one of the world's largest aquifers so perhaps there's more water than I think.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
So far in not cooking
I have made granola:
Oats, wheat bran, flax seed, oil, honey, cooked for 1.5 hours at 250 degrees. Stirred every 15 minutes. Added cashews and almonds after cooking. Zoe and Max helped make it so it doesn't count as cooking.
And I made salad Lyonaise because we had: eggs, bacon, lettuce, mustard, vinegar. The eggs, bacon, and salad were on grown locally. The eggs, so fresh, made the best poached eggs ever. Zoe ate salad dressing for the first time. The bests and firsts compensates for the not.
But I'm holding out for dinner.
Oats, wheat bran, flax seed, oil, honey, cooked for 1.5 hours at 250 degrees. Stirred every 15 minutes. Added cashews and almonds after cooking. Zoe and Max helped make it so it doesn't count as cooking.
And I made salad Lyonaise because we had: eggs, bacon, lettuce, mustard, vinegar. The eggs, bacon, and salad were on grown locally. The eggs, so fresh, made the best poached eggs ever. Zoe ate salad dressing for the first time. The bests and firsts compensates for the not.
But I'm holding out for dinner.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Another Train of Thought
Why is it without Max here, I still go around saying, "choo choo"? There must be something comforting in the repetition.
On Wednesday I vowed to cook never again. I cooked for an hour and a half, making some Thomas Keller farro, squash, rice, and spicy greens salad. It took an hour. Why does cooking vegetarian take so much longer? Steak. Grill. Done. Between helping Z with her homework, letting Max "help" me cook, and sauteing, then baking, the squash, I had a semi-decent salad that Max wouldn't eat and Zoe only sort of liked. Then, while Erik bathed the children, I cleaned up. While cleaning up, I declared that that was it. From now on: noodles and hamburger. And, I haven't cooked since. Last night, I picked up pizza from Fratelli's and tonight we're going to Erik's parents for carne asada. The only problem is, I have 1/4 pound of a pig I bought from a local farmer. 2 hams, 8 pork chops, 3 lbs of sausage, a roast and a sirloin steak aren't going to cook themselves. I got a note from the farmer: "the hams are smoked but not cooked. Cook them. And they'll need salt because we didn't use nitrates to cure them." My curiosity might get the better of me.
I have the song "You Light Up My Life" stuck in my head. If god wanted a sappy song written about him, he wouldn't let babies die, so suck it Debbie Boone. If there is a god, he would prefer Social Distortion, who is coming to town. Erik bought tickets for us. Very exciting.
And yet the song continues to play in my head. I should share, "You give me hope/to carry on/ you light up my days/ and fill my nights/ with/ song. How can it be wrong/when it feels so right/ cause you/you/ you light up/my eye eye eye/ life."
Which then turns to "If lovin' you's wrong, I don't want to be right."
I do think, overall, I was lucky to grow up in the seventies. Maybe Debbie Boone is a product of the early eighties.
Erik's pictures are up at Anderbo. http://www.anderbo.com/anderbo1/aphotoessay02/aphotoessay-02.html
That is good news.
They're surveying the street behind our house. Surveying is never a good thing. It leads to strip malls and housing developments.
I taught the first nonfiction grad workshop yesterday. I went through 6 versions of an essay I was working on to show them how much revision some essays might take. The highlight was when I turned to version 4, which was an entirely new essay, having not one word in common with the other 5 versions. I found itilluminating. I'm not sure they did. But the first day. They are always pissed if you don't just pass out the syllabus and let them go. I don't blame them.
My friends' other baby (my friend had given birth to twins) is doing better. I heard from her in a broadcast email today. She is one of the strongest, most amazing people I know. She wrote so beautifully--"I can't write words for my grief. It will be my partner the rest of my life." But she went on to say, speaking of the outpouring of love and support: "It is confusing and profound that times of such tremendous weight and hardship would paint so vivid a picture of what is good in the world." She's the true writer, artist that she is. Anyone who can be that eloquent in so much grief is probably going to be OK. They're an amazing family. I am lucky to know them.
I do believe that bald eagle lives in our neighborhood. It flew over my father-in-law's car yesterday. That is a good thing. May the surveyors stay away.
On Wednesday I vowed to cook never again. I cooked for an hour and a half, making some Thomas Keller farro, squash, rice, and spicy greens salad. It took an hour. Why does cooking vegetarian take so much longer? Steak. Grill. Done. Between helping Z with her homework, letting Max "help" me cook, and sauteing, then baking, the squash, I had a semi-decent salad that Max wouldn't eat and Zoe only sort of liked. Then, while Erik bathed the children, I cleaned up. While cleaning up, I declared that that was it. From now on: noodles and hamburger. And, I haven't cooked since. Last night, I picked up pizza from Fratelli's and tonight we're going to Erik's parents for carne asada. The only problem is, I have 1/4 pound of a pig I bought from a local farmer. 2 hams, 8 pork chops, 3 lbs of sausage, a roast and a sirloin steak aren't going to cook themselves. I got a note from the farmer: "the hams are smoked but not cooked. Cook them. And they'll need salt because we didn't use nitrates to cure them." My curiosity might get the better of me.
I have the song "You Light Up My Life" stuck in my head. If god wanted a sappy song written about him, he wouldn't let babies die, so suck it Debbie Boone. If there is a god, he would prefer Social Distortion, who is coming to town. Erik bought tickets for us. Very exciting.
And yet the song continues to play in my head. I should share, "You give me hope/to carry on/ you light up my days/ and fill my nights/ with/ song. How can it be wrong/when it feels so right/ cause you/you/ you light up/my eye eye eye/ life."
Which then turns to "If lovin' you's wrong, I don't want to be right."
I do think, overall, I was lucky to grow up in the seventies. Maybe Debbie Boone is a product of the early eighties.
Erik's pictures are up at Anderbo. http://www.anderbo.com/anderbo1/aphotoessay02/aphotoessay-02.html
That is good news.
They're surveying the street behind our house. Surveying is never a good thing. It leads to strip malls and housing developments.
I taught the first nonfiction grad workshop yesterday. I went through 6 versions of an essay I was working on to show them how much revision some essays might take. The highlight was when I turned to version 4, which was an entirely new essay, having not one word in common with the other 5 versions. I found itilluminating. I'm not sure they did. But the first day. They are always pissed if you don't just pass out the syllabus and let them go. I don't blame them.
My friends' other baby (my friend had given birth to twins) is doing better. I heard from her in a broadcast email today. She is one of the strongest, most amazing people I know. She wrote so beautifully--"I can't write words for my grief. It will be my partner the rest of my life." But she went on to say, speaking of the outpouring of love and support: "It is confusing and profound that times of such tremendous weight and hardship would paint so vivid a picture of what is good in the world." She's the true writer, artist that she is. Anyone who can be that eloquent in so much grief is probably going to be OK. They're an amazing family. I am lucky to know them.
I do believe that bald eagle lives in our neighborhood. It flew over my father-in-law's car yesterday. That is a good thing. May the surveyors stay away.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Marching on
Although all I think about and dream about is my poor sweet friends and wonder how they're doing, I still have to try to keep it together. The semester has begun. Work is flowing into my inbox at a rate of one email every ten minutes. There are still requests for recommendations. The program change is underway, requiring typo fixes and Curriculum Process Associate feedback and Curriculum Committee meetings. There are Grad Studies Committee meetings to schedule and syllabi to copy. There is legalese to study and negotiations to prepare for. There is the parlay, as Erik keeps reminding me, with the chair and the dean. There are lesson plans. I'm excited though for the lesson-making.
Today, in Intro nonfiction--I'm going to teach about narrator versus author, Brenda Miller, and how to workshop generously.
In grad nonfiction, I'm going to use the blgog by my new best friend, Mr. Jackson Connor about writing about writing, the newest Writer's Chronicle, where Jackson cites an interview with Sabina Murray, and another blog, mine, that became an essay where I show them the 6 revisions the piece went under since this will be a revise-y type class. The blog piece is about Zoe's prematurity and how does one revise about the self when the bigger picture is so much bigger and more important than your own and the circularity of it all. Everything connects back up eventually.
The most exciting thing is the 15 nontropes of nonfiction. The "non" goes with the feeling of nothingness these days. There is still no bald eagle in the snag down the road.
Today, in Intro nonfiction--I'm going to teach about narrator versus author, Brenda Miller, and how to workshop generously.
In grad nonfiction, I'm going to use the blgog by my new best friend, Mr. Jackson Connor about writing about writing, the newest Writer's Chronicle, where Jackson cites an interview with Sabina Murray, and another blog, mine, that became an essay where I show them the 6 revisions the piece went under since this will be a revise-y type class. The blog piece is about Zoe's prematurity and how does one revise about the self when the bigger picture is so much bigger and more important than your own and the circularity of it all. Everything connects back up eventually.
The most exciting thing is the 15 nontropes of nonfiction. The "non" goes with the feeling of nothingness these days. There is still no bald eagle in the snag down the road.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
What is not there
It's not hot. There's not much snow. It's not the end of the semester. It's not summer. I saw a bald eagle sitting in a snag at the end of my road. It wasn't until it wasn't there the next day or the day after that that I realized how magnificent it had been. An eagle at the end of the street. I haven't seen it since.
My friends, ones I've known for 20 years. Longer. They lost their baby yesterday in the NICU. I keep trying to think, how can I help them? There's loss there too. I don't want to point out the holes, all the nots, the tree with no birds, but sometimes that's all there is to see.
My friends, ones I've known for 20 years. Longer. They lost their baby yesterday in the NICU. I keep trying to think, how can I help them? There's loss there too. I don't want to point out the holes, all the nots, the tree with no birds, but sometimes that's all there is to see.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Pants
I have been buying my own pants for years now (not that many years. My sisters and mom think I'm somewhat shopping-dysfunctional and like to replace my hole-in-Levi's with no-hole-in-not-Levi's because it's not 1980 anymore supplies. Actually, my mom did buy me real Levi's but they had stretchy material in them, making them distinctly not bought from The Copper Rivet.)
But I do occasionally go to the non-thrift store to buy pants. I buy pants in some size between 8-10. No matter what size I buy, they fall down. I do think this is my fault, to some degree. I am squarely shaped. Erik recently bought me some pants that cost $70! $70 pants! In the size 8. And they fall down. Am I supposed to buy a belt. Am I supposed to spend the day hitching up my pants? I do not think a size 6 would have fit me and if it had, it would have produced some pastry-type-top that I refuse to name.
There used to be a store, possibly next to the Copper Rivet, called 5-7-9. I shopped there when I was in Junior High. I'm essentially the same height now, if not exactly the same weight. Perhaps if it still existed, the size 7 or the size 9 would be the answer to my pants-falling-down problem.
Erik thinks this falling-down business is true for man-pants as well. He says it's a product of the low-rise phenomena. He wears a belt sometimes. But for me, the belt cinches and it sticks and it doesn't seem right either.
Do you know who looks good in the pants of today? Zoe. She's 6. Even her pants are low-rise. But somehow she pulls it off, possibly because the model body shape today is an elongated kids size 6.
But I do occasionally go to the non-thrift store to buy pants. I buy pants in some size between 8-10. No matter what size I buy, they fall down. I do think this is my fault, to some degree. I am squarely shaped. Erik recently bought me some pants that cost $70! $70 pants! In the size 8. And they fall down. Am I supposed to buy a belt. Am I supposed to spend the day hitching up my pants? I do not think a size 6 would have fit me and if it had, it would have produced some pastry-type-top that I refuse to name.
There used to be a store, possibly next to the Copper Rivet, called 5-7-9. I shopped there when I was in Junior High. I'm essentially the same height now, if not exactly the same weight. Perhaps if it still existed, the size 7 or the size 9 would be the answer to my pants-falling-down problem.
Erik thinks this falling-down business is true for man-pants as well. He says it's a product of the low-rise phenomena. He wears a belt sometimes. But for me, the belt cinches and it sticks and it doesn't seem right either.
Do you know who looks good in the pants of today? Zoe. She's 6. Even her pants are low-rise. But somehow she pulls it off, possibly because the model body shape today is an elongated kids size 6.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Compass
For a moment, I am full of certainty. Where my house sits, it seems to point directly west. The sun goes down in front of it and sets behind it. I can see Mt. Elden which is due west. I can see the Skydome, to my southwest, which I thought was distinctly south. And yet, Mt. Elden also, when I'm driving around, seems to be due north from downtown. And now, I doubt which way my house sits.
I grew up in Salt Lake City on a very perfect grid system. Houses did not face 297 degrees northwest. They faced west, or north, south or east. That Mt. Elden is confusing because the town essentially wraps around it. It is north and west, depending on how windy the road goes. Downtown and the skydome are both west, but the skydome is more south and the downtown, slightly so. I think. I keep driving around town, holding my hand to over the dashboard to see if I'm picturing the orientation of my house correctly. When I pull into the driveway, I hope the hand and the house are parallel.
Which is why I find writing so hard. Not writing. Writing is easy. I love writing. I giggle and I have to stop myself in the middle of sentences to look at Facebook not because I'm stuck (well, sometimes because I'm stuck) but also because, coming from good Mormon/Max Weberian-type-protestant stock, I'm sure I'm supposed to be having this much fun doing work I jump around the room when an image from paragraph one has miraculously (by that I mean not consciously intentional). When I find out a word means both hot and prickly. When the full stops come fragments. When the connections between the 2004 tsunami and the burble of an IV don't seem arch. When the sentences run long and I can still piece my way back to the beginning and see what I was saying. When all this is happening, I am sure. I am convinced. I know which direction I'm facing and am certain it's the right one.
But then I go driving around town and doubt keeps in. Maybe tsunami and IV together are arch. Maybe there's too many images. Maybe the subconscious placing of the image in paragraph 11 isn't serendipitous. Maybe it's stupid. Maybe I cannot interpolate food and Y2K and fertility all into one essay. Sadly, when it comes to writing, I can't pull out a compass and say, oh, that's where I was pointing.
It's one reason I like to write fast. The serendipity is cleaner. The one-true notion remains pure and directional. I write and write. It's the stopping that let's the doubt creep in.
But, and this in somewhat in responses to Mary Anne's post about Rilke's Letter to a Young Poet. Where does the doubt come from? From the ability to foresee the piece being published? From what Erik may think about it? From what my friend-writers might think? Or is there some real basis for the doubt? But even if there is, does real basis matter? I was having a good time writing. Less fun doubting. So I will go work on my syllabi until I find a way to reorient my doubt or until I can see a way to straighten the thing out. But as my friend Rachel used to say, always go forward, never go straight.
I grew up in Salt Lake City on a very perfect grid system. Houses did not face 297 degrees northwest. They faced west, or north, south or east. That Mt. Elden is confusing because the town essentially wraps around it. It is north and west, depending on how windy the road goes. Downtown and the skydome are both west, but the skydome is more south and the downtown, slightly so. I think. I keep driving around town, holding my hand to over the dashboard to see if I'm picturing the orientation of my house correctly. When I pull into the driveway, I hope the hand and the house are parallel.
Which is why I find writing so hard. Not writing. Writing is easy. I love writing. I giggle and I have to stop myself in the middle of sentences to look at Facebook not because I'm stuck (well, sometimes because I'm stuck) but also because, coming from good Mormon/Max Weberian-type-protestant stock, I'm sure I'm supposed to be having this much fun doing work I jump around the room when an image from paragraph one has miraculously (by that I mean not consciously intentional). When I find out a word means both hot and prickly. When the full stops come fragments. When the connections between the 2004 tsunami and the burble of an IV don't seem arch. When the sentences run long and I can still piece my way back to the beginning and see what I was saying. When all this is happening, I am sure. I am convinced. I know which direction I'm facing and am certain it's the right one.
But then I go driving around town and doubt keeps in. Maybe tsunami and IV together are arch. Maybe there's too many images. Maybe the subconscious placing of the image in paragraph 11 isn't serendipitous. Maybe it's stupid. Maybe I cannot interpolate food and Y2K and fertility all into one essay. Sadly, when it comes to writing, I can't pull out a compass and say, oh, that's where I was pointing.
It's one reason I like to write fast. The serendipity is cleaner. The one-true notion remains pure and directional. I write and write. It's the stopping that let's the doubt creep in.
But, and this in somewhat in responses to Mary Anne's post about Rilke's Letter to a Young Poet. Where does the doubt come from? From the ability to foresee the piece being published? From what Erik may think about it? From what my friend-writers might think? Or is there some real basis for the doubt? But even if there is, does real basis matter? I was having a good time writing. Less fun doubting. So I will go work on my syllabi until I find a way to reorient my doubt or until I can see a way to straighten the thing out. But as my friend Rachel used to say, always go forward, never go straight.
Monday, January 09, 2012
A train of thought
There's a much-beloved blog that I link to on the side, Julia's Hippogriffs, which is funny and awesome when she describes her kids and sometimes talks about her too-attractive husband. She's written it before, years ago, almost word-for-word, and last week she wrote
I frequently read - entirely in the comments of advice columns, I admit - about how hard it is to be married. This is not my experience at all. Being married to Steve is the easiest thing in the world and every single day I marvel at how lucky I was to meet him and how bizarre it is that none of the things that initially interested me (his green/gold/brown eyes, chiseled jaw and automobile figuring largely) have anything to do with how happy I am now. He makes me laugh.
And this brings ire to her in the comments. It also bugs me because it does seem kind of neener-neener-ish. But obviously she's glossing over. He goes to his farm for a week at a time, leaving her with all three kids. She has anxiety attacks. One of their kids is a genius of some sort but also has some permanent sinus infection. They have an organized, if traditional, division of labor. He works (from home) and she has the kids and the house and the cooking. Would the marriage be harder if he had to clean more or if she worked outside the home? The way they have made their life seems to cause them no strife but obviously, that's partly personality and partly a matter of life-choices that suited those personalities. I bristled at the "Being married to Steve is the easiest thing in the world." It IS kind of braggy but I think she's saying more than, "aren't I lucky?" I don't think she's saying that there's no strife, just that even in the strife, there's an easy knowledge that this is the person with whom the strife is supposed to take place. That the hardness isn't about marriage--that hardness is about being a human and it's nice, when it works out and you marry someone that likes you despite the fact that you are sometimes a hard person or that he is sometimes a hard person. It's easy to fight/disagree/argue when fundamentally you know that person knows you're hard and difficult and knows that he himself can be hard and difficult and manages to still find you funny and still manages to be funny. Marriage isn't hard. Life is.
And so hard is life when the children are throwing up on both a Friday night and a Saturday night. Why can't kids throw up in the day time? Is there a law against the light of day and viruses? Viruses are vampiric enough, no? Can't a kid say around noon, hey, I don't feel well, and find his or her way to the toilet? Must the moaning ensue around 11:00 p.m and last until 3 a.m.? And why, when the kids finally fall back asleep, why can't I go back to sleep?
However, when I slept fitfully between 11 and 3, I had a dream about my friend Craig, who died 3 years ago, maybe almost 4, while climbing in Japan. It was so nice to see him. He reminds me of Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort. Not in the way Voldemort is evil but in the way Fiennes twists his hands around. Also, Voldemort is bald and so was Craig. Craig gesticulated a lot and in the dream, he twisted and turned his hands while he explained how he'd escaped his fall and had just taken awhile to get back to his girlfriend and his ex-wife, he told me as we sat at a very blue bar. It was a good dream.
The dream of mozzarella was close but not quite perfection. The meltiness of mozzarella: I think the mozz I made was better raw than cooked. On the pizza, it developed a slightly slippery texture that reminded me too much of milk. Maybe that's because now that I made it, I knew its root texture, which was slippery milk. Next time, I will make cheddar.
I frequently read - entirely in the comments of advice columns, I admit - about how hard it is to be married. This is not my experience at all. Being married to Steve is the easiest thing in the world and every single day I marvel at how lucky I was to meet him and how bizarre it is that none of the things that initially interested me (his green/gold/brown eyes, chiseled jaw and automobile figuring largely) have anything to do with how happy I am now. He makes me laugh.
And this brings ire to her in the comments. It also bugs me because it does seem kind of neener-neener-ish. But obviously she's glossing over. He goes to his farm for a week at a time, leaving her with all three kids. She has anxiety attacks. One of their kids is a genius of some sort but also has some permanent sinus infection. They have an organized, if traditional, division of labor. He works (from home) and she has the kids and the house and the cooking. Would the marriage be harder if he had to clean more or if she worked outside the home? The way they have made their life seems to cause them no strife but obviously, that's partly personality and partly a matter of life-choices that suited those personalities. I bristled at the "Being married to Steve is the easiest thing in the world." It IS kind of braggy but I think she's saying more than, "aren't I lucky?" I don't think she's saying that there's no strife, just that even in the strife, there's an easy knowledge that this is the person with whom the strife is supposed to take place. That the hardness isn't about marriage--that hardness is about being a human and it's nice, when it works out and you marry someone that likes you despite the fact that you are sometimes a hard person or that he is sometimes a hard person. It's easy to fight/disagree/argue when fundamentally you know that person knows you're hard and difficult and knows that he himself can be hard and difficult and manages to still find you funny and still manages to be funny. Marriage isn't hard. Life is.
And so hard is life when the children are throwing up on both a Friday night and a Saturday night. Why can't kids throw up in the day time? Is there a law against the light of day and viruses? Viruses are vampiric enough, no? Can't a kid say around noon, hey, I don't feel well, and find his or her way to the toilet? Must the moaning ensue around 11:00 p.m and last until 3 a.m.? And why, when the kids finally fall back asleep, why can't I go back to sleep?
However, when I slept fitfully between 11 and 3, I had a dream about my friend Craig, who died 3 years ago, maybe almost 4, while climbing in Japan. It was so nice to see him. He reminds me of Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort. Not in the way Voldemort is evil but in the way Fiennes twists his hands around. Also, Voldemort is bald and so was Craig. Craig gesticulated a lot and in the dream, he twisted and turned his hands while he explained how he'd escaped his fall and had just taken awhile to get back to his girlfriend and his ex-wife, he told me as we sat at a very blue bar. It was a good dream.
The dream of mozzarella was close but not quite perfection. The meltiness of mozzarella: I think the mozz I made was better raw than cooked. On the pizza, it developed a slightly slippery texture that reminded me too much of milk. Maybe that's because now that I made it, I knew its root texture, which was slippery milk. Next time, I will make cheddar.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Max
Today Max turns two. I joke that Max was born two but it's true. He's the most stubborn person in our family and that is saying a lot. He wakes up in the morning saying "choo choo" and he points at everything and says "choo choo." If no train is forthcoming in the form of Thomas on TV, Thomas on the track, Thomas on the iPhone, the "choo choo" becomes insistent as if volume could make trains appear out of nowhere. And sometimes, volume does. If the world could be turned into boxcar, he would be a happy person. But really, he is happy. This morning, when I said happy birthday, he said "happy!" and when he cleans up his Legos he says happy and when he sees a choo choo or a choo choo track, of which we have many in Flagstaff, he is happy. He's a chatty Kathy. Sometimes, it's "Elsay morta lamoo new?" Doncha know? but it's also often, bye bye Cam, bye bye baby Blake, bye bye Lily, bye bye Straw (what he calls my mom), bye bye Val, bye bye Paige. He calls his Grandma Ellie and his Grandpa Baka. "Please candy" is definitely his strongest two word sentence. When he wants more, he says moo. Which, lucky for him, rhymes with choo and often can get as loud and insistent. Moo. Right now in fact.
Ellie says that Max is a danger baby, and he is, but he's also kind of cautious. He stands up in the middle of the bed, falls down and says "Crash" and smiles widely but he's always checking to make sure he's the middle of the bed where he can't fall off. Almost always. I catch him the other times.
He is not shy. We were downtown in the square yesterday and he and Zoe were running around while Zoe tried to teach him the letters embossed into the bricks. He was just running. Mostly in the way of other people. He didn't get nervous when he ran into the legs of some stranger. He just looked up and said "hi." The guy said "hi" back. He also says "hi" to trains. And "bye bye choo choo."
Right now, he's watching Thomas on the TV while watching it on the iPhone. I'm not actually sure if he likes the Thomas as much as he likes the technology. He also likes books and points at words, instructing me to read at exactly what pace. If I go to slow, he just takes the book and reads it silently to himself.
He's not feeling 100% today--long week back at school, a head cold, and maybe a stomach ache, so he's extra cuddly. He's the kind of baby who gives big hugs and big kisses and even sticks his hand down your shirt, when it's most inappropriate. And, now that he's two, not that much a baby which makes me squish him harder. I wanted to get him a strider bike for his birthday but they're $150 and would last merely a a season. I still might give him an IOU for this summer. I'm sure he'll exchange it for a choo choo.
Edited to add: Max likes buttons. He likes the buttons that run the iPod. He likes the iPod. Sometimes, he pushes the button that ejects the iPod. Sometimes, he removes the iPod from its player system. This time, he has taken the iPod and hidden it somewhere. Zoe drew a picture of an iPod to help him remember where he put it. When that didn't help, she put the paper iPod where the metal one used to go. It's similar but not the same.
Ellie says that Max is a danger baby, and he is, but he's also kind of cautious. He stands up in the middle of the bed, falls down and says "Crash" and smiles widely but he's always checking to make sure he's the middle of the bed where he can't fall off. Almost always. I catch him the other times.
He is not shy. We were downtown in the square yesterday and he and Zoe were running around while Zoe tried to teach him the letters embossed into the bricks. He was just running. Mostly in the way of other people. He didn't get nervous when he ran into the legs of some stranger. He just looked up and said "hi." The guy said "hi" back. He also says "hi" to trains. And "bye bye choo choo."
Right now, he's watching Thomas on the TV while watching it on the iPhone. I'm not actually sure if he likes the Thomas as much as he likes the technology. He also likes books and points at words, instructing me to read at exactly what pace. If I go to slow, he just takes the book and reads it silently to himself.
He's not feeling 100% today--long week back at school, a head cold, and maybe a stomach ache, so he's extra cuddly. He's the kind of baby who gives big hugs and big kisses and even sticks his hand down your shirt, when it's most inappropriate. And, now that he's two, not that much a baby which makes me squish him harder. I wanted to get him a strider bike for his birthday but they're $150 and would last merely a a season. I still might give him an IOU for this summer. I'm sure he'll exchange it for a choo choo.
Edited to add: Max likes buttons. He likes the buttons that run the iPod. He likes the iPod. Sometimes, he pushes the button that ejects the iPod. Sometimes, he removes the iPod from its player system. This time, he has taken the iPod and hidden it somewhere. Zoe drew a picture of an iPod to help him remember where he put it. When that didn't help, she put the paper iPod where the metal one used to go. It's similar but not the same.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Meta mega melt
In honor of Jackson's beautiful blog Write from Scratch, I would like to take a moment to go all writing meta for a minute. I wish I could do such a thing as Jackson is doing but I think it would cause me much anxiety about the current writing project(s) and then I wouldn't be able to finish them which is what the meta is all about. If his book is half as good as his blog,
Here's my problem and I do think you all know it. I have too many book projects. When you have several book projects and none of them is done (i.e. not published, thereby not set in stone), your 3 book projects an easily become one book project. The themes swirl and eddy, the styles impinge on one another, the stories can be interchanged. This seems particularly a problem for me who is writing, of the 3 books, 2 kind of memoir things. How many memoirs does one person need to write?
When Quench finally (and I mean finally) got picked up in September, I was nothing but glee even though Salmon (Salmon) still was not making any headway and Salmon was what I had the most invested in of late. So when Quench--about water, wine, sex, birds, wolves and dams--won the contest, I rested on my laurel-like chair for about half a minute and then freaked the hell out. The first problem was, why was I revealing so much? Shut the hell up, self. The second was, um, don't I say this in Salmon? Was Salmon really just a rehashing of Quench? Was Quench just a rehearsal for Salmon?
But late one night, after a kind David Shields gave me some good advice, I realized two things. Quench is Quench and Salmon is Salmon. I went back into Quench and took out all the nervousness, the over-reaches and the I'm-so-clevers. Well, at least the ones I could see for that minute. And then I went back to Salmon and chopped off, like chopping off a toe (a much-loved but not really necessary body part), the first half of the book. The reveals in Salmon are fewer (Quench is burdened with those) but Salmon, which had suffered from tonal issues, is now a lot more fun. I hope. I need to get it into the world because one problem with meta is its all very interior and this week, which has been in some ways like a writer's retreat, is also kind of The Shining like in that maybe I think I'm making progress but only in the cold light of day (what kind of light is it? Harsh? Hard? Sometimes, I think English is not my first language--idiom-wise) will I know. And sadly, the cold light of day is not always easy to find even though it is indeed sunny out there.
Here's my problem and I do think you all know it. I have too many book projects. When you have several book projects and none of them is done (i.e. not published, thereby not set in stone), your 3 book projects an easily become one book project. The themes swirl and eddy, the styles impinge on one another, the stories can be interchanged. This seems particularly a problem for me who is writing, of the 3 books, 2 kind of memoir things. How many memoirs does one person need to write?
When Quench finally (and I mean finally) got picked up in September, I was nothing but glee even though Salmon (Salmon) still was not making any headway and Salmon was what I had the most invested in of late. So when Quench--about water, wine, sex, birds, wolves and dams--won the contest, I rested on my laurel-like chair for about half a minute and then freaked the hell out. The first problem was, why was I revealing so much? Shut the hell up, self. The second was, um, don't I say this in Salmon? Was Salmon really just a rehashing of Quench? Was Quench just a rehearsal for Salmon?
But late one night, after a kind David Shields gave me some good advice, I realized two things. Quench is Quench and Salmon is Salmon. I went back into Quench and took out all the nervousness, the over-reaches and the I'm-so-clevers. Well, at least the ones I could see for that minute. And then I went back to Salmon and chopped off, like chopping off a toe (a much-loved but not really necessary body part), the first half of the book. The reveals in Salmon are fewer (Quench is burdened with those) but Salmon, which had suffered from tonal issues, is now a lot more fun. I hope. I need to get it into the world because one problem with meta is its all very interior and this week, which has been in some ways like a writer's retreat, is also kind of The Shining like in that maybe I think I'm making progress but only in the cold light of day (what kind of light is it? Harsh? Hard? Sometimes, I think English is not my first language--idiom-wise) will I know. And sadly, the cold light of day is not always easy to find even though it is indeed sunny out there.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Tarantulas, Big Birds and Cheese
I did make the cheese. It was mostly easy with a lot of measuring of water temperature and cautionary tales about the curds looking like ricotta instead of custard (which is bad) which is what mine looked like, but then, the mozzarella stretched and became elastic and smooth and I cooled it in water and it tastes pretty good. Will it melt? I don't know. Do I want to make cheddar? Yes. Yes I do. I thought about the cost--$4.00 for a gallon of milk plus the rennet and citric acid (free for now, because the kit was a gift) versus the cost of homemade mozz from the New Jersey Pizza Co. For about the same amount of cheese, NJ Pizza charges $8.00. So, was it worth the $4.00 of time? I'm not sure. Zoe liked it but wasn't in love with it and there's no way she will eat the cheese (she only likes orange cheese. And remember the time we made homemade butter? I think she prefers things in squares. She probably will eat it on pizza. Maybe). And I presume I'll get faster but there's a lot of water heating and tossing which seems wasteful (less wasteful when the big factories make it?) and the curds cling to things but overall--yes. I will make it again if it melts on the pizza that we will make for Max's birthday on Friday!
As for the birds. When I first moved here--I was dismayed. Where were all my hawks from Utah? But since then, I've found them, plus a horde of others. I'm not so good at knowing the small birds but there is a black and white little jobber I would like to call a Junco, so I will.
The other birds include:
Red tail hawk
Harrier hawk
Some falcon I saw yesterday.
Northern Flicker.
Regular old woodpecker like in the cartoons
Bald Eagle (first spied last year)
Blue Jay
Ravens Ravens Ravens mostly ravens
Vultures (only in the summer. Interesting).
Some white-long-legged crane type thing.
Some water-loving Sea-Eagle
Gray Herons.
Pigeons.
Mourning Doves
And owls of some kind, though I'm still looking for them.
Today, in the forest while running (or rather, stepping gingerly over snowing snowbanks and icy ice patches) I saw a tarantula. A tarantula in January! Who knew. I also slipped on the ice but I always fall so it wasn't too bad except to remind me to practice my Kegels.
As for the birds. When I first moved here--I was dismayed. Where were all my hawks from Utah? But since then, I've found them, plus a horde of others. I'm not so good at knowing the small birds but there is a black and white little jobber I would like to call a Junco, so I will.
The other birds include:
Red tail hawk
Harrier hawk
Some falcon I saw yesterday.
Northern Flicker.
Regular old woodpecker like in the cartoons
Bald Eagle (first spied last year)
Blue Jay
Ravens Ravens Ravens mostly ravens
Vultures (only in the summer. Interesting).
Some white-long-legged crane type thing.
Some water-loving Sea-Eagle
Gray Herons.
Pigeons.
Mourning Doves
And owls of some kind, though I'm still looking for them.
Today, in the forest while running (or rather, stepping gingerly over snowing snowbanks and icy ice patches) I saw a tarantula. A tarantula in January! Who knew. I also slipped on the ice but I always fall so it wasn't too bad except to remind me to practice my Kegels.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Anxiety
Anxiety is a wasted emotion. It's like chewing on foil with teeth full of metal. You can mack on it all day but you won't get anything nutrients out of it and the shooting pains such chewing sends down your spine aren't good for your heart.
To stave off anxiety, make lists? Possibly.
1. Send Cam and Lily the clothes they left here and Lily's hat and Cam's gloves from sledding.
2. Max's birthday. Thoughts? Bike? Or is he still too little? Closet organizer? He's two. It's the last year I can get him housewares and pretend it's a thoughtful gift.
3. Send revised Quench to blurbists.
4. Read Diagram essays.
5. Read and select Chapbooks!
6. Get a new computer that types actual letters.
7. Read essay for good friend.
8. Revise.
9. Write anew all of Salmon.
10. Next micro project!
11. Grant?
12. Make cheese. Today mozzarella. Tomorrow. The world.
Also. Birds. And exercise. It was so cold in December but it is going to be 58 degrees here by Thursday. Calls for running. Even bike riding. Yay.
My dream is to use these two weeks before school starts to get into a good writing and exercising habit so when the great wall of the semester starts, I have enough momentum to crash right through it.
Ah. Metaphors.
To stave off anxiety, make lists? Possibly.
1. Send Cam and Lily the clothes they left here and Lily's hat and Cam's gloves from sledding.
2. Max's birthday. Thoughts? Bike? Or is he still too little? Closet organizer? He's two. It's the last year I can get him housewares and pretend it's a thoughtful gift.
3. Send revised Quench to blurbists.
4. Read Diagram essays.
5. Read and select Chapbooks!
6. Get a new computer that types actual letters.
7. Read essay for good friend.
8. Revise.
9. Write anew all of Salmon.
10. Next micro project!
11. Grant?
12. Make cheese. Today mozzarella. Tomorrow. The world.
Also. Birds. And exercise. It was so cold in December but it is going to be 58 degrees here by Thursday. Calls for running. Even bike riding. Yay.
My dream is to use these two weeks before school starts to get into a good writing and exercising habit so when the great wall of the semester starts, I have enough momentum to crash right through it.
Ah. Metaphors.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Road Trip
In an attempt to forgo Wendy's (why does anyone go on a road trip if not to eat fast-food?), I spent today for fast-food distracting snacks. I wanted to buy a whole pound of beef jerky but am trying not to eat too much CAFO meat or too much salt. So I bought proscuitto.
I am not entirely sure these are different things.
I am not entirely sure these are different things.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Pho for Ali redux
We made Pho for dinner. Even Max ate it like a mad dog. BUT in this recipe, which I haven't used for awhile because I usually make it from memory, I neglected the mung bean sprouts. I had daikon radishes from the CSA I used instead--which worked just fine--but in case you want to remember next time, here's the recipe, fixed.
For the broth:
4 oz rice noodles.
4 cups Beef Stock.
3 tbsp Nam pla (Asian fish sauce)
5 star anise
6 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 rounds of ginger
1 tsp. ground pepper
To accompany:
1 pound very lean sirloin of beef.
small onion, sliced thinly
jalapeno, sliced
1 lime, quartered
Sriracha Sauce
Hoisin (optional. Makes it too sweet, I think).
Bean Sprouts.
Freeze the sirloin for a about an hour so you can slice it thinly.
Soften the noodles in a bowl with hot water.
Combine stock, water fish sauce and spices in a large pot. Simmer broth for one hour (this should reduce the stock enough that you don't need more salt but if you do, add some.)
Slice sirloin as thinly as possible and pop it in the hot broth. Garnish with limes, basil, sriracha, onion and jalapeno. And hoisin if you must.
For the broth:
4 oz rice noodles.
4 cups Beef Stock.
3 tbsp Nam pla (Asian fish sauce)
5 star anise
6 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 rounds of ginger
1 tsp. ground pepper
To accompany:
1 pound very lean sirloin of beef.
small onion, sliced thinly
jalapeno, sliced
1 lime, quartered
Sriracha Sauce
Hoisin (optional. Makes it too sweet, I think).
Bean Sprouts.
Freeze the sirloin for a about an hour so you can slice it thinly.
Soften the noodles in a bowl with hot water.
Combine stock, water fish sauce and spices in a large pot. Simmer broth for one hour (this should reduce the stock enough that you don't need more salt but if you do, add some.)
Slice sirloin as thinly as possible and pop it in the hot broth. Garnish with limes, basil, sriracha, onion and jalapeno. And hoisin if you must.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
This semseter
I've posted only five or six times in the past five months. The normal reasons: too busy, nothing much too say, one nasty-ish comment that made me gun-shy, busy, Facebook. I have also been trying to write new stuff at least occasionally to send out so whatever time I do take to write, I do it in Word instead of Blogger. But now that the semester is mostly over, and the Christmas shopping is mostly done, and the 2-foot tall blue Christmas tree has been plugged in, and Max is asleep and Zoe is at her grandma's making gingerbread cookies and Erik is watching another Clint Eastwood Western, it seems like a good time for a wrap up.
This was the first year that Erik had a regular 9-5 job. He's worked a lot since we've been here, but it's been a more varied kind of work schedule. But in some ways, the consistent, and constant, work has been more relaxing. Instead of trying to get childcare here and there when both of us had to work, we've had very consistent work schedules which has made life more routine than it's been since I left Portland for grad school. I went to grad school so I didn't have to be to work by 8:30. Now, I'm at work by 8:15, most days and up by 6:40 every day.
Mondays, I was home with Max, working and playing and mostly managing to be prepared for Tuesdays marathon advising center-teaching-teaching day. Wednesday, since Max went to day care anyway, I was in by 8:15 again. Wednesdays were supposed to be my writing days but my office is next door to my students' office so when I'm in, everyone knows. These became long advising days, which was awesome in a lot of ways, but not in the I-need-to-write-something ways. Also, when you're on campus and in the hallway, everything's a mini-meeting. I administrated on Wednesdays. Thursdays were identical to Tuesdays and Fridays, which should have been writing days were really Zoe-has-short-days days and so now I have the kids at home and we might as well go bike riding.
So, I was at school more than I've ever been. I got a lot of stuff done school related. We will probably get to turn our MA into an MFA, thanks to my constant meeting and emailing. I think I organized 17 hours of meetings to make this happen. From meeting with my area, my chair, my dean, the VP at Distance Learning, the Vice-provost, the associate dean of the grad college and the dean of the grad college, I believe I've learned how to get things done at the University. Talk to everyone until there's a buzz big enough that people already believe that whatever plan you were planning is already in the works. Then spend the next 45 hours filling out paperwork (actually, I filled out the form fast the Wednesday the graduate studies committee and the faculty passed it and I found out to get this to happen by next Fall, I had to have it to the curriculum committee by Friday). I kind of like this stuff and I'm afraid for liking. Do I like administrative stuff really or do I just like it because it's immediately gratifying, compared to the long slog that is writing submission and rejection?
I worked more consistently this semester and therefore, was less stressed out. This is probably how I'm supposed to do it. But I did miss regular writing and regular exercise. The good part about my old life is that I was "running" every day. Now, I'm lucky to go on Mondays and Fridays. The good part about my new life is that Zoe learned to ride her bike without training wheels in July and by September, she was riding in the woods behind the house. The days that may once have been writing days became riding days and that was not so bad.
I did make some progress on the new book project but only because I'm writing shorter things. I was able too to trim a 40 page essay to a 22 page essay and that got accepted so not zero writing work was accomplished this semester. I wrote a few poems that I should send out but compared to the last couple of years, the writing has taken a backseat. This is sad in someways but also, not so sad. There's a lot of writing already in the world and my friends are writing awesome things and my students are writing awesome things and maybe next semester, I'll sneak into my office at school through the window so no one knows I'm there. Or get a carrel at the library. Or go back to writing at Late for the Train, which has coffee and a nice, albeit fake, woodstove.
This was the first year that Erik had a regular 9-5 job. He's worked a lot since we've been here, but it's been a more varied kind of work schedule. But in some ways, the consistent, and constant, work has been more relaxing. Instead of trying to get childcare here and there when both of us had to work, we've had very consistent work schedules which has made life more routine than it's been since I left Portland for grad school. I went to grad school so I didn't have to be to work by 8:30. Now, I'm at work by 8:15, most days and up by 6:40 every day.
Mondays, I was home with Max, working and playing and mostly managing to be prepared for Tuesdays marathon advising center-teaching-teaching day. Wednesday, since Max went to day care anyway, I was in by 8:15 again. Wednesdays were supposed to be my writing days but my office is next door to my students' office so when I'm in, everyone knows. These became long advising days, which was awesome in a lot of ways, but not in the I-need-to-write-something ways. Also, when you're on campus and in the hallway, everything's a mini-meeting. I administrated on Wednesdays. Thursdays were identical to Tuesdays and Fridays, which should have been writing days were really Zoe-has-short-days days and so now I have the kids at home and we might as well go bike riding.
So, I was at school more than I've ever been. I got a lot of stuff done school related. We will probably get to turn our MA into an MFA, thanks to my constant meeting and emailing. I think I organized 17 hours of meetings to make this happen. From meeting with my area, my chair, my dean, the VP at Distance Learning, the Vice-provost, the associate dean of the grad college and the dean of the grad college, I believe I've learned how to get things done at the University. Talk to everyone until there's a buzz big enough that people already believe that whatever plan you were planning is already in the works. Then spend the next 45 hours filling out paperwork (actually, I filled out the form fast the Wednesday the graduate studies committee and the faculty passed it and I found out to get this to happen by next Fall, I had to have it to the curriculum committee by Friday). I kind of like this stuff and I'm afraid for liking. Do I like administrative stuff really or do I just like it because it's immediately gratifying, compared to the long slog that is writing submission and rejection?
I worked more consistently this semester and therefore, was less stressed out. This is probably how I'm supposed to do it. But I did miss regular writing and regular exercise. The good part about my old life is that I was "running" every day. Now, I'm lucky to go on Mondays and Fridays. The good part about my new life is that Zoe learned to ride her bike without training wheels in July and by September, she was riding in the woods behind the house. The days that may once have been writing days became riding days and that was not so bad.
I did make some progress on the new book project but only because I'm writing shorter things. I was able too to trim a 40 page essay to a 22 page essay and that got accepted so not zero writing work was accomplished this semester. I wrote a few poems that I should send out but compared to the last couple of years, the writing has taken a backseat. This is sad in someways but also, not so sad. There's a lot of writing already in the world and my friends are writing awesome things and my students are writing awesome things and maybe next semester, I'll sneak into my office at school through the window so no one knows I'm there. Or get a carrel at the library. Or go back to writing at Late for the Train, which has coffee and a nice, albeit fake, woodstove.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Thanksgiving Weekend
Thanksgiving has been awesome. Much turkey (20 lb locally grown from Valley View Farms, brined. Cooke in 3 hours. What's up turkey? Why did people used to get up at 5 a.m. to put the turkey in the oven?), much pie (not enough sugar to compensate for roasted pumpkins), much stuffing (two kinds, cornbread and green chile and regular mushroom, onion, celery--thanks Mary Anne!) and possibly the best gravy ever (Thanks Grandma and mom for teaching me how to make gravy. If there were gravy-making contests, I'd enter). Besides food, we have gone on two bike rides (and I hope for a third today), cleaned the house, shopped for a mountain bike for Zoe, bought two (two! Christmas presents, none on Black Friday), eaten ramen noodles for lunch on Thanksgiving Day and sushi for dinner on Saturday. Erik's raking pine needles and putting away the outdoor furniture. But I've spent most of the weekend revising the nonfiction manuscript. It's due to the publishers on Wednesday. I'm freaking out. (I forgot there was sex in it. Sorry mom!). I'm reading Joni Trevis's "The Wet Collection" and Maggie Nelson's "Bluets" and hoping my book is as good (it's not like those books at all). I'm happy to find some common threads besides the purposefully constructing one. Lawn mowing mostly, but a recurring motif nonetheless. It is different publishing nonfiction in book form than in lit mags. I'll tell you who doesn't read lit mags. My mom or my mother-in-law. But they read books and this one has highly inappropriate sexually material. I cut some of it out but still. It's one of the points of the books (boundaries/dams/giving way/holding back) so most of it has stayed. I've also fixed most of the ridiculous phrasing and typos and possibly made some of the tangential metaphors clearer. I look forward to editorial feedback from the press. I want this book to be as good as I can make it, even if it freaks my mom out.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
33 Flavors and then some
I typed this all up and then Firefox crashed. I hate
my computer. But I love my sisters who made me and sent me notes leading up
until my birthday so I will retype them (OK, Zoe retyped half of them) and
indicate whether or not I did the job that the sisters suggested.
1. Cry for no reason and let them eat cake! (Yes. I’m pretty sure I did this.)
2. Remember your terrible twos. Do something bad today. (Probably.)
3. Take today to recognize the exploration of a three year old. What’s that? Why? (Always!)
4. Try to drink a forty. Just try. (Nope.)
5. Happy 5th! Kindergarten, riding bikes, and knowing your numbers and letters. Best celebrated with a long walk, a game with the kids and at least an hour reading your favorite book. (I tried to do most of this. I’ll finish the other 45 minutes of reading this week).
6. On the sixth day, perhaps it would be best to drink a 6-pack. Since I know this is not your cup of tea, spend 6 minutes doing absolutely nothing. (I’m working on it.)
7. Seven DEADLY sins. Seven wonders of the world. You choose! But do one of them. (I live close to one of the seven wonders, does that count?)
8. Eight lords of leaping! Take a leap…and do something you have always wanted to do. (I went on a mountain bike ride in the forest behind the house with El and Rick and Zoe with Max in the baby seat for 5 beautiful miles.)
9. Listen to the Beatles White Album. (This is when the trouble began. I only own the White Album in album form. Our iTunes is somehow locked up on a non-working computer. Erik’s working on it).
10. Listen to Led Zeppelin’s Ten Years Gone today. (Listened just now!)
11. Eleven! Eleven! Today you need to make a wish. (Made a wish. Also. On Veteran’s Day, 11/11/11 I looked at my clock and missed 11:11 a.m. by 1 minute. Wished anyway.)
12. Celebrate your womanhood today and do your toes, get your hair done, make it a great day! (Not so much. But I will make a hair appointment this month!)
13. Triskaidekaphobia celebrate your bat mitzvah. (When I think of Bat Mitzvah, I think of Magda’s and her mom, Jackie Osherow’s stir-fried green beans with lemon and almonds. So I celebrated by eating green beans.)
14. It is important to listen to Metallica today, don’t ask…(I did it. I still didn’t get it. But I did it.)
15. Quincerara Day. Buy a new dress and make it a night to remember. (Val brought me a new dress when she came to visit. Does that count?)
16. Watch 16 Candles. (It was on HBO!)
17. Senior Prom! Relive it. (I didn’t go to senior prom but they have adult prom in Flagstaff in June at the Orpheum. Perhaps I’ll try to go.)
18. Graduation Day. Use this day to celebrate everything you have accomplished since graduation. Make a list! (I’m no good at lists but Zoe is typing this list for me since I got so mad the computer crashed. I think that counts.)
19. Nineteen is the end of an era. Watch gone with the wind. (I still have never seen it.)
20. This is half time. Celebrate the :20 (I think this is a pot reference but I could be wrong.)
21. Drink, drink a lot and don’t care about tomorrow. (I got this on a weekday.)
22. Make twice the wish you made for 11. (I did. Twice.)
23. This is a lucky day! Focus on the great things that will happen today. (I did this too.)
24. Take 24 hours off. Call in sick, make an excuse and do whatever you want. (Oh P. You’ll see soon. Moms don’t get days off.)
25. Quarter life crisis. Write a letter to yourself at 25. (Dear Nik, I can’t believe you left Portland for grad school. It was a good move but the word Portland still makes my mouth water.)
26. It’s two weeks to the big day, presents should start. (They did. Val sent me another present. Didn’t I get a dress from you? Opening it tomorrow!)
27. Watch 27 Dresses today. (Put it on Netflix.)
28. Watch 28 Days Later or watch 28 Days. (I gave up zombie movies and rehab movies at my last birthday.)
29. In honor of the 29th day of February, take today as an extra day. Act as if you have an entire day to do whatever you wish. (See #24).
30. Look for all the photos from your 30th birthday. Smile at all the ones which you look exactly the same. (This is an awesome charge. Now I need photos from the Dirty 30 party. Miss Paegle? Mr. Burger?
31. 31 Flavors. Eat some ice cream! (Does butter count?)
32. 32 Flavors and then some! Eat more ice cream. (More butter. Plus, awesome Ani reference.)
33. One week until birthday. This should be a great day. Go to dinner with friends. (Stop counting damnit.)
34. Redecorate! Find something you can change in your house for under $3.40-$34.00 and do it. (Copper from thriftstore polished and reorganized into decorative alcove!)
35. Get yourself some new shoes. (I did this one! Thanks to mom’s gift. They are awesome.)
36. Drink 4 glasses of wine and call me in the morning. (See #s 29 and 24)
37. You deserve it! Drink 3 glasses of wine. (That I can manage.)
38. (Stop counting)
39. (I said, that will do.)
Thursday, November 03, 2011
The last bite
I just ate the last bite of the veggie lasagna I made last week. It was possibly better than the lasagna bolognese I also made. Before I forget what I put in it, here's the recipe.
1 lb. mozz.
no boil noodles
squash of some sort
parsnips
arugula
basil
onion
tomatoes (semi-ripe)
For bechamel:
milk
flour
butter
This entire recipe, save the lasagna noodles, milk, butter and flour was made from items garned from the Flagstaff CSA.
I received a ginormous squash at the CSA. I put it out with the Halloween pumpkins and thought I would leave it on the porch steps for a month or two until its collapsed form no longer could fake decoration-status. But why not use it? Lo though I hate peeling sqaush, this one was so big, it was actually kind of easy. I used about half of it and contributed the rest to the squash heap of history. I sliced it into thin half-rounds and boiled it in salted (and a big sugared) water until it was al dente. Then, I sliced parsnips and cooked them in butter because there wasn't enough butter in the bechamel which I was making on the side and not the fancy, clove-stuck onion and bay leaf way, but the butter, flour = roux, whisk in some milk way.
Then I layered.
First bechamel. Then, noodles, then squash, parsnips, sliced tomatoes, torn arugula, mozz, then bechamel, noodles, squash, parsnips, sliced onions, sliced tomatoes, torn basil mozz, then bechamel, noodles, squash, parsnips, arugula, mozz, then noodles, then bechamel, then topped with mozz (and maybe some parm).
Cook for 1 hour while at a neighbors' party.
Possibly better than the bolognese (with CSA pork and ground beef) version I also took over to a different party that evening. Possibly.
1 lb. mozz.
no boil noodles
squash of some sort
parsnips
arugula
basil
onion
tomatoes (semi-ripe)
For bechamel:
milk
flour
butter
This entire recipe, save the lasagna noodles, milk, butter and flour was made from items garned from the Flagstaff CSA.
I received a ginormous squash at the CSA. I put it out with the Halloween pumpkins and thought I would leave it on the porch steps for a month or two until its collapsed form no longer could fake decoration-status. But why not use it? Lo though I hate peeling sqaush, this one was so big, it was actually kind of easy. I used about half of it and contributed the rest to the squash heap of history. I sliced it into thin half-rounds and boiled it in salted (and a big sugared) water until it was al dente. Then, I sliced parsnips and cooked them in butter because there wasn't enough butter in the bechamel which I was making on the side and not the fancy, clove-stuck onion and bay leaf way, but the butter, flour = roux, whisk in some milk way.
Then I layered.
First bechamel. Then, noodles, then squash, parsnips, sliced tomatoes, torn arugula, mozz, then bechamel, noodles, squash, parsnips, sliced onions, sliced tomatoes, torn basil mozz, then bechamel, noodles, squash, parsnips, arugula, mozz, then noodles, then bechamel, then topped with mozz (and maybe some parm).
Cook for 1 hour while at a neighbors' party.
Possibly better than the bolognese (with CSA pork and ground beef) version I also took over to a different party that evening. Possibly.
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