Friday, June 22, 2012

Summer esque

It has been five weeks since graduation. Supposedly, my summer should have started shortly after the last student turned his last thesis in. But the High Altitude Writing Institute was coming up in only two weeks. The dean wanted to take me to Winslow. External reviewers needed tenure application materials and internal reviewers needed professional statements. I needed to pack for Portland. I needed to drive to Phoenix, fly, alone with Max to Portland. I had to have fun, damnit, in Portland. Portland should have been the beginning of summer but I kept getting emails about external reviewers and professional statements.  First proofs of Quench came on Wednesday. Interview questions came yesterday. A student getting funding from the tribal council needed a program of study filled out and faxed immediately.
But somewhere in the middle of Portland, perhaps over at Reed College where we saw the beaver tooth-sawing a tree for his dam, or perhaps at the coast where we made salmon and quinoa and salad in our hotel room after soaking the kids in 50 degree ocean waves, in 60 degree air temps, after helping Misty build a fortress of water and sand that she could submit for an application to urban planning school, should she decide to stop being an immigration lawyer (which she shouldn't. Because she's an awesome lawyer), after eating at Pok Pok and eating raw salmon from QFC and eating chef-sanctioned sushi on Hawthorne, after going to OMSI, after driving in the rain, after missing so much but remembering almost as much (blue house on Brooklyn. You are looking a bit thin), after thinking there is no way I can make the drive up from Phoenix to Flag, there is no way I can unpack, there is no way I can repack for camping, there is no way I can drive in the car another minute, we arrived at the end of route 231 overlooking Sedona and I sat down and realized, summer has been happening all along. This is actually going pretty well. The work. Well, an hour on tenure file, an hour on my designing my class, two hours writing, one hour emailing and program of study making, one hour of reading proofs is still only a 6 hour day and most of it, I can do outside, in the wind, with Max here some of the time helping me with his tools and driving around me or into me with his cars or convincing me that playing Lego's is more fun than organizing tenure files--it's not so bad. This is summer. I have successfully sat outside with my mom who stayed for a week and did too much work with rocks and weeds but just the right amount with Max and Zoe. I have sat outside with Misty and John and Van and Emily and Andy drinking wine by the fire and on their porch, even though it was only 60 degrees there too, and with Rick and El at their house around their fire, with Lis and her kids at my house for dinner and with Karen and Sam on the deck for writing group. I sat outside while camping and watered plants outside. I went running outside every day at 6:45. I am typing this outside even though the wind is annoying and that whatever hope I had of bringing rain home from Portland has been summarily dashed.
But I have found some water. After camping, we went down into that creek we had been overlooking the day before and got full-on wet in a swimming hole. On Tuesday, we went swimming with Lis and her kids at Bear Paw--the neighborhood pool. And tomorrow-- East Clear Creek with Emily with whom I will also sit outside tonight because she's visiting from Salt Lake.
We may be in desperate need of water here but here I have found some. And, I may be in desperate need of summer but apparently, summer has been here for awhile now.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Funk

It took me this long to come up with an appropriate title since last I posted. It's summer. I should not be in a funk. I should be swimming. But there is no water in Flagstaff and the water was too cold to really swim in in Portland and i had no idea how narrowly I had constructed my world and what gives with my tastebuds anyway? I need a publicist to make me seem famous and happy but instead I have funk.
The funeral was the first funk. Then, pneumonia by Z. Then a car accident with Z that wasn't bad but just expensive enough to put me in a funk. Work. In the summer time. When I'm supposed to be writing. Then, Max's daycare imploded. Then. Work with Max.In the office kind of work that I'm not getting paid for. In fact, I'm not getting paid at all until July 12th which puts me in additional funk. Then it was windy. Then Cleo the dog got so arthritic we thought she would die and we had to carry her inside on a bed sheet. Ibuprofen and she is much better and much less in a funk than I even though I take an egregious amount of ibuprofen.
Unfunk, I say to myself. Here's a list of unfunk:
I went on an airplane trip with the children and survived!
I saw the ocean.
I saw goats. Even baby goats.
I ate street raspberries.
I ate at Pok Pok.
I ate raw salmon (a lot. Possibly too much. A little off since the raw salmon eating frenzy of 2012).
I saw friends from before (who said the words 20 years a little too often.)
I realized that no one really cares about what I'm working on (which is a good and bad realization but an important one I think. It's important to think of work as just work).
I am still in love with Portland but not in that desperate way I used to be. Flagstaff is awesome. Especially when it's not windy. If only it had some water.
I am writing every day. Not here. But I'll try. This Hightouch post is true about how writing is the best, even if you don't have a publicist.

Here's a list of the nonwriting things I have to do before I can write all summer.

Section Introductions for Bending Genre
Website for MFA
Website for How to apply to grad school
               (We do need the form for current students interested in applying for GTA positions)
Tenure!
Faculty 180—attachments
1.      Find Sections student workers can scan
a.      Letters.
b.      Teaching summaries
2.      Write section intros. Upload evidence to CV.
Design Eng 573
               Upload texts, assignments, syllabus.
Book orders for Fall.
Book release business.
               Email Reed.
Acknowledgments for Quench

But here's the fact. 1 page a day of each thing plus the above list will make this a fine summer. Plus swimming. Plus, some anti-funk which I believe is swimming plus bike ride.