Six Word Memoir Meme (now with more words)

Pretty Hard, Dammit tagged me for a meme. Since I have never been tagged before by someone I know only through the blog world and since I’ve been deficient in my blogging, I am going to write a series of six word memoirs. Lucky you.

1) I know the value of nothing.

I’m sitting here waiting for someone to come look at our dining room table that I’ve been complaining about for a year. The chairs are uncomfortable, the table is scratched. So I posted it on a university classified ad service for a relatively cheap price. Note that our neighbors had already looked at it and did not buy it so it’s obvious, as of this morning, that it’s worthless. After I post the table and chairs on the service, I get 10 emails within 15 minutes. Everyone wants it. Guess what? I don’t want to sell it now.

The couch I listed that no one emailed me about? It is certainly still worthless and I’m still willing to sell it. Until someone lets me know otherwise.

2) I like words: they are deletable.

This table-selling business just clarifies exactly what sorts of therapy I need. Making decisions is just about making regret for me. No matter what I decide, it is the wrong decision. This is why I like writing. I can revise. Delete. Finished is a generally arbitrary idea. I send stuff off. People like it or they don’t. I know it’s done when they like it. Similar to the idea that my table is worthwhile. Perhaps I’ll post some of my essays to the classifieds to see if there are any takers.

3) I just want to go home:

This is a mantra that I repeat always and wherever I go. Even when I am home. Meaning home is always where I’m not. Flip side, grass greener, nostalgia (sickness for the past). I am a sick cookie. I think my true home is Welches, Oregon where once I found fourteen pounds of chanterelles. But it’s kind of shady there with all those firs and pines. And cloudy. Maybe Mountain Town southwest has chanterelles AND sunshine. Except you can’t have mushrooms without rain.

Pretty Hard Dammit actually tagged me to write Zoe’s birth story in 6 word meme. The I-just-want-to-go-home one describes it pretty well. Z however very much wanted to get out into the world. So at 32.5 weeks she kicked her way out of there and made it as far as the NICU. We could see our house from the window, making the longing all the stronger. I was in the hospital for only 4 days but she was there for 20. Still, she was home four weeks before the doctors told us she would be. And she has now lived in two homes and is moving toward another. Perhaps she’ll be less of a I-wish-I-was-somewhere-else kind of person and more of a I’m-happy-wherever-I-am kind of bug. And then I will take a lesson from her and we will hang out happily in the sunny forest full of mushrooms and trees watching the otters swim in the river. I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

Edited to add: Woman not interested in the table. Table now back on the undesirable list.

The Next Go Round

My boss, who is really sweet one on one, took me to lunch a couple of weeks ago and gave me a bit of advice about my next job. He told me to take the long view and not get so stressed out about doing it all at once. I'm not sure what kinds of mythologies exist in peoples' perceptions of my time at this University but I was pretty stressed out. I didn't realize how stressed until I quit. I was never entirely sure how much service I was doing or needed to do, if my presence on campus was sufficient, if my publications mattered at all, if I graded too easy or too hard. So I'm trying to think about how I'll do things differently at the next job.

From the above list, it seems obvious and apparent that perhaps I should have asked. Of course, I did ask my one good friend but, as a friend, he tended to either support or tease me about freaking out about these things. I should have asked the chair these things, at least some of them, just so as to alleviate my stress. I think I was afraid he would say, you do too little. Now I find out that in some ways, he thinks I did too much. I've never been good about asking for help or feedback. In PhD school, I spent little time in my professors offices. I think this was a huge drawback to my grad school experience and, though I've known I'm like this, I still haven't corrected it. In fact, when students come to visit me in my office, I stare at them like what could I possibly tell you here that you couldn't ask me in class. I mean, my students come. We have good discussions. But I'm so unclear as to WHY they're there (they don't tell me) that I just talk and pontificate. If they have a clear question, it's easy, but the hanging out as an extension of the professorial experience makes me act all talky and uncomfortable.
So my prejudice against office-time goes both ways. One way to fix this is to change the context of the office hour by taking it out of the office. Fortunately, at my new school, there are compulsory writing center hours. If nothing else, I will have face-time with students when they don't have to specifically seek me out. The other thing to do, is to schedule time with my chair and other profs throughout the semester so I make myself go to the meetings. If I schedule something, I might be able to be more precise in the way I ask how am I doing, am I doing enough service, what kinds of service should I be doing.....
The other good thing about the new job is that my service is already built into the job so wandering around the hallways looking for ways to distinguish my service will not be so difficult. At my current job, everyone had claimed their service territories and I wasn't sure how to claim my own. I ended up doing a lot of assessment, benchmarking, curriculum development-type work (which helped me get this new job, I think) but at the new job, I'll be the point person, the public face of the department, which is something that suits the kind of service I want to be doing.

Other random things I'll do differently

1. Get to town earlier. We arrived in this town ten days before classes started. We had a couple of personal crises plus a one-year old who was still a entirely new concept. We knew where nothing was. We had no vacuum. We didn't know where the grocery store was. We couldn't decide on cable or not. I barely knew how to drive to campus. In fact, it took me a whole semester to figure out the fast way. I missed some of the first of the year meetings on campus so Erik could interview for jobs. I feel like I started behind and have been playing catch up ever since.

2. Figure out a babysitter/daycare situation. Before we knew that daycare would be the infectious trap that it was, we planned for Z to be in daycare the whole time while Erik worked. We realized that Zoe would not be able to go to school as sick as she got, we ended up in the hospital. Erik quit his job, in part, so he could take care of her. In Mountain Town I'm going to have to have a sitter to cover my schedule plus preschool for her so she can get some kid-time in but if she does still get sick, Erik and I can go to work and I'll feel like I'm putting in plenty of face time.

3. Have a party early on. Invite everyone before I figure out who likes who and who tends to hang out with who else.

4. Ask how people grade grad students and then how they grade their undergrads. Having gone to Reed and then grad school, I still find all this grading mysterious. I do grade creative work but maybe I should stop and just grade brilliant comments.

5. Get in a writing group. I have online ones but I miss having a regular face-to-face meeting.

6. Take at least one weekend day off. Go somewhere. That's why we moved there. For the somewhere.

7. Write down long-term service goals. Piece them out into workable parts. Do a little part. Again, with the long view.

8. Hang out at school. This will be easier as I hope that we live closer to campus. It sucks if it takes 25 minutes to get to campus. One is likely to go for a long time, but not as often.

I'm sure there are more ways to take the long view but this is a good start. Maybe if I make my plans public, I'll stick to them. Perhaps someone could ask me some time in October if I've been to visit my chair lately or had a party. Or find out when I will be having a party and then you can come. It would be easier if I already knew some people there....

An Update on the Z Zau McFlau

We are living under the reign of Z. She is a gentle tyrant but not to well disposed to instruction or rules or wearing of the clothing. This morning while I was in the shower, she took my make up and spread it like peanut butter all over our leather chair. Why? Because the chair was dry and it needed lotion.
Do you remember when she would wear only purple? Purple turtleneck, purple leggings, purple dress? First went the turtleneck, and now the leggings and now, if we're lucky, she will wear the purple, sleeveless sundress from last summer because she has decided that now it is summer and she is "cold enough" and it's bright out there and even though it's still only forty-degrees tops, that is all she needs to wear.
At night--she needs books. Several books. We started a chapter book. We also finished it that night because she wanted to hear just a little more. And can you say no to books? We have the goodnight moon book from her Maestra (my mom) the blue moon that her aunt Joyce gave her and the Zoe's Potty that my cousin gave her and the animals in the forest from her grandparents and some idiotic everything book that has no narrative that we must read every night. Plus the songs three: Hush, Sunshine and Zoe (Zoe still says her name Dowie so sometimes we think she's talking about her dad, Airwick). And then songs three one more time.
At 3:46 a.m. she would like more milk please. Just a tiny bit, she asks. Tiny bit?
She'll still eat half an onion but is less into other foods like turkey and chicken. Skittles? Those she'll accept.
She counts to ten if you don't make her say 7 and are OK with 8 being H.
Paint a picture of Lily, please. NO PANTS! DRESS! she demands. I tell her Lily, unlike she, wears pants. And a shirt. And some other color than purple.
She must watch Steins (Little Einsteins) and Dora with Diegos in them. We are allowed to dance--swing her around in 20 circles until one of us is about to throw up, practice our arabesques and pirouettes but cannot sing. If we do sing, we must sing loud.
It's a Byzantine system we've been living but we cut her some slack because someone's got to be in charge and she who knows what she wants and what she wants to wear is obviously someone who has good leadership and management skills. And the leather chair, it is silky soft now, even if slightly tinted human color. Plus, when she demands hug and runs full tilt into the surprise of my shoulder or demands kiss and kisses my lips and then offers me lip-stuff because they too seem dry, I give up all plans for revolt and rebellion and spin her one more time. And then one more time again.

Edited to add: Because I wasn't here, I forgot that during random times of the day, one is told to lie down and "close eyes." She puts a blanket on one's body and sings a variation of "hush." If one stirs or makes moves to get up or opens one's eyes, one is told to "go to sleep." I'm not sure why she thinks that would work on either me or Egg, since it certainly doesn't work on her.

Too much

All of those stresses of a month ago seem to be resolving themselves. The villa owner in Italy let us move our reservations to next June, the nice people at the U found my payroll reports and verified that I worked at the U for more than .5 FTE so I am vested in my 403B here, and our house has an offer and has passed inspection. If things continue in this way, I might begin to believe that the gods favor our moving. We're looking at houses online in high-altitude desert town and are gagging at the prices but think we'll be able to find a cute enough house. We're storing our stuff for a month, heading west for the summer. I'm sad I'll be missing the spring and summer here. My backyard patio let's in just the right amount of light--all sunny in the morning and shaded by trees in the afternoon. Remind me to keep my eye out for that in the new house.
Z's grandparents are coming to fly her to salty town the first week of May. I may well be eating at Em's and the Metropolitan sooner than I ever could have thought.
I still have high hopes to do here: find morels in the woods, find asparagus along the river, cross the Mackinac Bridge into the UP and see the tulips in Holland. I have a wee bit (75 portfolios) of grading to do but I think I can work in a weekend trip or two.

Things I Will Miss

I expect as it gets closer and closer to when I'll be moving and now that most everyone knows that I am going, I will be only melancholy and nostalgic about what I'm leaving. So expect a number of posts with this same title.

Today gets a sub-title: Birds and other flying things:

• The geese that fly overhead to land in the pond at the college down the street.
• The cardinals that stare into our back room from the two trees that are not, but remind me of, a magnolia and a Japanese maple.
• The ducks that are swimming in couples around the pond. The same pond where the geese are trying to land.
• The white-bellied hawks that dive from the tall trees (again, what kind? Alder? Sure, that sounds good) as I drive toward school on the big street named after the big lake.
• Fireflies. When my mom's boyfriend came to visit, he was so surprised. What are these flying lights?
• These black and white tit-mice that land on the sycamore that I watch out the bathroom and hallway windows.
• The black and white woodpecker that eats from that same sycamore.
• The squirrels that seem to fly from branch to branch, from sycamore to hyacinth to fence to pine.
• The chipmunks that chase the squirrels.
• The red-tail hawk that sometimes appears on the sycamore looking for squirrels to eat, and, who one winter, caught and ate a squirrel while perched on top of the snow, leaving the white spattered red.
• The leaves that span seventy-five colors of red--from black cherry to neon pink-- falling to the sidewalk, on the sidewalk.
• The sparrows, plucking clean the already-bare winter branches.
• The spring blossoms, having fallen on the flower beds, blanketing them in May like so much snow did just the other day in April.

The Ice

100 Years of Solitude begins thusly:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

When I leave GR, I will remember the ice.

I grew up in a mountain town next to a lake, albeit a salty one, so I thought that moving to another snowy town with lake effect snow wouldn't be that huge of a transition. But because the mountain town I'm from also doubles as desert, the snow melts. It dries. The sidewalks if left unshoveled eventually are melted of their snow and returned to their chalky brightness.

Not so here. This winter, especially February, has gone on record as having the most snowfall ever. If it had been last year, when the temperatures all winter never rose above freezing, there would be snow up to our windows. But this year, there have been a couple of thaws. This is great when it's happening. Whole roads turn to rivers, the iciles fall and stab the ground, you can exhale and inhale outside.

But it never stays above freezing for more than 6 hours. At night, all that melt turns to ice. The streets are black with it. The gutters are puddled with it. People who haven't shoveled now have frozen slush, impossible to walk on because the shoe prints of the last person to walk through the slush have solidified--it's like walking on hardened lava. You have to high-step over the foot of ice between the gutter and the curb.

Running has been hard. Some days, even the college by my house which uses enough salt to keep the walks clear at 10 degrees, can't keep the stream of melt turn to a blanket of ice. Some days, it wasn't so much like walking as ice skating. I still ran, a little, slowly but on my tip-toes.

It seems that it might be forty degrees over the next few days. The snow banks are getting smaller. There will still be that sheet of wet ice when I run because it will still freeze overnight. But when I start counting the curb ice in inches rather than feet, when walking up the driveway doesn't require sending Cleo the dog up first so she can pull me by her leash, when I don't wear my wool hat every day, when running through the college is more mud than Dorothy Hamill impersonation, then I will look at the blue skies--here for a record 6 days in a row now, and, even though break is almost a week over, call it spring.

When I came here, I wondered why we had "fall" and "winter" semesters rather than "fall" and "spring." They laughed when I asked. They said, you'll figure it out.
Now I know.
Still. The curb ice? It's down to inches.

Edited to add: Dorothy Hamill implies some sort of graceful ice-venture. That is not me. In the Upper Penisula, there's the verb pank. It means to tap down the snow hard with a flat tool--possibly called a panker. That's more like what I'm doing with the ice except the ice is already hard so my feet don't make much of an impact.

Ineffective Political Action ETA Not So Ineffective!

I got an email from the HRC last night urging me to email all 76 Utah state reps and ask them to oppose amending Senate Bill 199. Since I haven't been involved in Utah politics for awhile, I was unfamiliar with the bill but apparently the original, unamended bill would allow domestic partners in SLC to keep their domestic partner benefits although it would change the name of the registry. The amendment would make it illegal for a city to define domestic partners or benefit participants (something like that. Like I said, I'm out of Utah politics). I'd already had some wine and had nothing better to do so I emailed them all (please note that it's probably illegal, or at least very pointless, for me to do so as a nonresident) and asked them to vote against the amendment.
I remember from my old letter-writing days (pre 2004 when I gave entirely) about how nervous I was to write letters, especially to Utah Reps because I could just imagine the awful responses I could and did get--from what Utah families "are" to how it cannot be a priority to think of water management. But by emailing all 76, I realized that although 15 or even 25 would or could write heinous responses to me about their distaste for anything outside their realms of known experience, I realized that there might be at least that many who might not have such a strong response. Ones who might care what someone might say.
We'll see. I've already had one request for my address (which of course I coudln't send) and another telling me to stick it. But one person did say "thanks. This adds to my reasons to vote against." And so I say yay!

ETA:
From a rep!
Thank you for contacting me about this amendment. I share your concerns and voted against it. I am pleased to let you know that it failed.

Best Wishes,
Representative Karen Morgan

Disaster, minor

I was going to blog on Sunday about the dinner I made on Saturday night. But, right before I went to take the souffles out of the oven, I went to check on Z who had gone to find a necklace in my nightstand drawers. Instead of a necklace, she found a bottle of benadryl. The lid was on, just not very tightly. I found it underneath the pile of pink pills. I asked her if she ate any, she said yes. I said how many, she said two. I had to believe her even though she was saying yes as if I wanted her to say yes. What I really wanted was for her to say no but I didn't want to lead the witness. Two seems plausible. And two too many. So we tell our guests to make themselves at home, to pull the souffles out, to slice the ricotta tart, to add the lemon juice to the lentils and we drive over to the ER. We know where it is. (3 blocks away). We've been there before.
The nurses are pretty calm. No charcoal. No stomach pumping. They just watch her for a minute. Benadryl isn't particularly toxic, we learn. Still, two hours of monitors and lots of stickers on her chest to make sure her heart rate doesn't spike is a long time for a 2.5 year-old. Fortunately we had my cell phone and there's a Tetris-like game on it (who knew?) that now she and Erik are addicted to. We were let go with not too much shame or admonishment. I apologized to Erik and Z for my Benadryl addiction and for my wrists which are apparently too weak to twist a cap all the way to lock.

We got home. The guests had eaten the souffles, the tart, and figured out to put the leeks with the lentils. They also saved us some food and cleaned up the dishes. The best part was that they were still here when we got back. Usually when we go to the ER, no one knows where we are. This time, people were waiting to hear and then willing to hang out longer just so the whole night wasn't a total disaster.

In the end, we think Z took none of the Benadryl. She stayed up until 11 and woke up by 7 the next day.

Indexed

Numbers of pages revised this week: 268—247 of them novel, 21 of them essay.

Number of pages written: 21—1 of a new essay, 1 formal letter and 1 letter of resignation, 18 of comments on stories, essays, and poems.

Number of people who mooned me when they find out I was quitting: 1— both bra and underwear.

Number of calls and emails negotiating job offer: 6.

Number of concessions made of the three I asked for by new school: 3, although only the first by ½.

Number of forms filled out consenting to a background check: 1

Number of readings attended: 2—1 with Bill Olsen and Linda Gregerson, who restored my certainty in poetry and readings and 1 with me, Brock Clarke and Douglas Kearney, who bewildered me all over again.

Number of hawks sighted while returning from the University of Illinois where reading # 2 was held: 16.

Number of phone calls and emails about the transition including am I vested in my 401K, how will we sell this house in the down market, can we move our Italy trip to 2009? 9.

Weight, in pounds of fear, that all the answers will be no: 2,837.

Weight, in pounds of guilt and sadness, of leaving my fine, fine department here: 2,838 (thereby, the guilt will be redeemed when I’m punished by the resulting no’s from the 401K, house selling and Italy questions, though I’ll still be left with a pound left over).

Number of poems of mine re-published on Verse Daily: 1.

Number of times I emailed Verse Daily to make the archives reflect my current name and the first line of the poem: 2.

Number of times asked to listen to Didn’t Bring Nothing But the Baby per hour on the way to U of I: 12.

Number of hours to and fro U of I: 10. Thankfully, it’s a good song and I like Alison Krauss.

Back from AWP/NYC Many Days Ago

AWP was even more fun than usual. Getting out of here was less fun than usual. I woke up at 6, did not shower, did not make coffee. I had parked the 4-Runner in the carport because it was supposed to snow and do other bad things in the sky like freeze rain and spit sleet. So it was cold. 9 degrees. And the locks on the car doors? They were as frozen as the rain. I finally get in, but I'm 10 minutes late.
The roads are not good for lateness. I go very slow on the highway. I take the exit at a mere 10 miles an hour. I make it to the turn into the airport but when I move into the left-lane, all is ice and Lexus SUV in front of me. I slam into him. Hard. We pull over. It's just his ($3823) bumper. He says don't worry about it. But then he takes my phone number.
Now I'm really late.
I get to the parking lot. I park in a snow drift up to my hips. The parking shuttle passes me by. Another one comes before I get frostbite.
By the time I'm at the kiosk, I'm pretty sure they won't let me on but then who do I see but my colleagues, coming in after me, all unfrazzled and unworried.
Turns out the flight is delayed. No time for departure listed. I had checked at home! But the internet lies. It lies a lot.
So we wait and wait. The flight looks like it's ready. There's much cheering in the gate area.
And then there are many tears. Freezing rain is fine for this airport but it's windy in LaGuardia.
I fly out the next day.
The rest of the trip is less eventful. There's some shopping in the village and some good subway riding.
There are many good foods eaten.
First there was Lupa downtown near Prince Street that Mapmaker so kindly organized. It was restaurant week so for $24.07 we had 4 courses. I had the oxtail terrine (sliced very thinly), the pork shoulder fettuccine, pan-seared sea bass and ricotta with honey for dessert.
For dinner: random French restaurant with my good grad school friends. What a surprise to see two of them. Such great times. Goat cheese and beet salad without any beets but otherwise good.
Breakfast the next day at Astros by the hotel (52nd and 6th)--Lox and Bagels.
Lunch: Quality Meats on 58th. Another $24.07 deliciousness. Steak tartar (my first time!), shrimp salad sandwich and some dessert I don't remember. The steak tartar was amazing.
Dinner: I wasn't hungry and I felt a little broke but I really wanted to spend time with my grad school friends. So to Balthazar! A ravioli for appetizer. I had the pork belly. Others (Dr. Write) had the confit and (High-Touch) delicious fish.
The next morning? I went to Carnegie deli. Mistake. I order $20 corned beef hash. It had green peppers. I had four bites. I talked to nice people from Philadelphia though because the tables? They're made for sharing.
But another French lunch with onion soup and foie gras terrine almost redeemed the dining day.
Oh yeah, and then I presented on our panel (I moderated and showed up late because the lines to the bathroom were 100 miles long. Sorry for the stress Margot!). I also spent much time at the bookfair looking at pretty books and lamenting the outcast state of those who seemed desperate for a book. I try very hard not to look desperate but I did spend a fair deal of time and quite a few dollars at the Milkweed table. I'll buy my way into your hearts! I told them.
I also found a few good mags to submit to and some highly hilarious children's books from McSweeney's which Dr. Write also bought.
I didn't see a number of people I had hoped to because my trip was abbreviated but overall it was one of my favorite AWP's. Because it was NYC? Because it was so short?
The rest of the week was full of campus visits and other stresses to be blogged about shortly.
AWP's in Chicago next year. Feb 11-14. Can't wait to see how many flights are canceled then....

3 loveable things

I was tagged by Dr. Write for 3 Things that I love. I hope when I return from NYC, I will have even more things to love.

I love Lord of the Rings and not because I love hobbits or fairies but because I love broad images forests and mountains, the horses—there’s something of the western to the movies because landscape provides its own narrative arc. Because I love images that are tucked into the narrative. But mostly because the movies are Shakespearean—high drama not because it’s exciting but because it affords good language. Gandalph says, “I come to you at the turn of the tide.” And “I will draw you Saraman as poison is drawn from a wound” “Your fingers would remember their own strength better if they grasped your sword” and, the rain-compounded: “And so it begins.” (Can you tell which of the three I’m watching now?) Without really worked high drama, those phrases would fall flat and sound overwrought. The image of Aragorn returning from his near-death cliff-fall as he pushes open the castle door with his right arm is the fulfillment of the tragic hero I’d always imagined.

Mushrooms. If you slice shitakes up and fry them in hot oil, just barely letting go their juices, they can taste like wood-fired steak. Slice chanterelles and bake them in potatoes and cream, they become like butter—butter that resists the tooth and does not melt. Boletes bring out the nuttiness of spaghetti. Dry button mushrooms on pizza counterpoint the liquidy cheese. I miss hunting mushrooms. Erik and I found a few boletes this fall when we went camping with Z but not too many. I love wandering the forests, looking at the moss and the slugs and the ferns—the way the orange, fluted tops of the chanterelle is the perfect counterpoint to all that green and yet are camouflaged by the red bark flaking off into the duff and the dead needles. Looking down for a long time—it’s not something I do very often and it’s a cool upside down world.

My students. Even when they’re failing, even when they don’t show up, even when I ask them what I obviously the most stimulating questions and they stare back at me in silence—I still love them. They have interest. Curiosity. They are not burnt out on lit mags, or poetry contests, or lit theory. They have, when I bring all the tools at my disposal, the capacity to make connections and comparisons that are beyond what I can do alone. When I read a poem for the first time in my introductory class and we go line by line and the students make various associations but learn how the poem builds its own argument, I am back to that place when I first read a poem and saw the way the poem was built. I love how they’re willing to do something new. To experiment. They’re not afraid of thinking that they’re not new. They just believe what they’re doing is new. And so it is.

The Opposite

I'm back from a tour of the deep Southwest. It was snowing there too but in between the snow, it's sunny. Flagstaff is cool. Kind of like Park City, kind of like Iowa City, kind of like Evanston, Wyoming. Cool and small and western and a college town (the Evanston part has mostly to do with the architecture and the size and the westerliness to it). There's a stupid Walmart. And a Sam's Club. But the downtown is full of small businesses and a bunch of good restaurants, brewpubs (2) and coffee shops.

My flight was inane. I took an earlier flight from Flag to Phoenix because I heard that the Flag flight get canceled often. The minute the propeller started, a girl had a panic attack and they had to stop the whirring, open the door, get her bag off. We still made it to Phoenix on time.
There was an earlier flight to Chicago but it would have made my connection from Chicago to here a bit tight. I dithered. I went back. By then, it was too late. You need an hour for such a change so they can get your bag. FAA regulation that you have to fly with your bag.
I should not have dithered (I went to see how much it would be to fly up to SLC for the weekend. About one million dollars to go there and then catch a flight back Sunday morning. We have a job candidate coming in on Sunday and I have to be here).
Note to self. Do not dither.
They said for a small fortune I could upgrade to first class.
I said no.
I went to the bookstore to buy the Book Thief and some tacos (best meal I had the whole trip!) and then I freaked out and said, I need the first class. So I went back, sure they would have sold out.
They didn't. I got the first class ticket and went to do some grading with the very fine free internet courtesy of the Phoenix airport.
And then, Chicago started delaying flights in. We left an hour and a half late. I was sure to miss my connection. But, the delays were widespread and I made my flight by two seconds.
Or I thought it was 2 seconds. They said they had 5 bags to wait for and then we'd be off. They said they had to wait to be de-iced and then we'd be off. They said we had to wait to be pushed back and then we'd be off. We were off by 11:00 (a flight that was supposed to leave at 9:30).
We got in at 12:50 (a short flight but a time change). When I got to the baggage claim, what did I find? Not my bag. I feel that I should tell the FAA on them.

I got home by 2. I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30 or so.

I woke up at 8 anyway.

Today reminds me of my old life before Z and when Egg had to work all the time. I'm watching Lord of the Rings, writing, revising, and eating foods I would not eat in front of my husband. Sometimes, I sit still in the same spot for more than six minutes! No one needs milk. Or juice. Or a puzzle.
And yet, it's only 12:40 and I wonder what the hell the point of the day is. If Z were here, she'd be sure to tell me.

Z at 2 and a half.

Lately, every sentence with Zoe ends “Lily, Cam?” As in, "are we going to see Lily and Cameron, my cousins soon. "Erik and Z are going to Salt Lake next week because I have two business trips in a row plus all these campus visitors coming here and I won’t be around and they may as well bask in the glow of Salt Lake love. Plus, tickets were $178. Considering that they’re often $500 from here, that was a steal. But the Lily, Cam question comes at the end of sentences unrelated to travel. As in when I ask her what she wants for lunch and she says “chips and turkey and Lily and Cam?” Or if I ask her where her purse is she says “purse on couch. Lily Cam?” Or, if we’re going in the car she’ll say, “go in car to play with Lily and Cam?” She does know her cousins live far away and we have to take a plane but I think she thinks the plane ride is not so much to endure if one gets to see Lily and Cam at the end of it. I’m very jealous she gets to see Lily and Cam. And sad to be away from her for so long. She also has a rendition of the list that goes Lily, Cam, Doug, Mice (my mom's "maestra), Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy, Val, George (Joy) and then, in a low, Isaac Hayes-type voice says “Bart” (maestra's boyfriend). She knows Paige won’t be there and I won’t be there. We get a “no Paige, no mommy” list of our own.

Z is very into puzzles now. One, I threw away today. She had bent the pieces until they broke, doing the puzzle so many times. She could do that Princess puzzle in less than a minute by the end. The five year and up puzzles take her a little longer but she’s memorized those mostly now too.

She sings a lot. Erik recorded her a bit on his Mac with the Garageband software. She’s pretty good at singing and once Erik brings home the microphone that Z’s grandpa got her for Christmas, I imagine we'll get full-on rock versions of "I'm Picking Up This Baby Bubblebee." She likes to dance almost as much as sing but we have no video of that. Imagine a toy top that can jump. And swing her arms. With a downward dog and an arabesque thrown in for style. She dances with her dad a lot who has really broadened his dancing horizons: he has added robot dancer and the twirl and dip (both the mom and the Z) to go with general-foot-tapping-stand-mostly-still-dance of before.

Z likes to put her dolls to bed and keep them warm. She also likes to keep beads and legos and stuffed animals and bracelets and socks in her bed. We’re moving her from her crib to the big guest bed which is going OK except when I wake up in the middle of night and see her moon-like face staring at me and she barks a very loud “Hi.” Hi indeed at 3:00 a.m.

She likes to trace our faces with her fingers. It’s very sweet. Unless, again, it’s at 3 in the morning.

She likes me to sing Hush Little Baby 16 times before she goes to sleep. Sometimes, she sings it back in a very experimental tongue. She seems to love the tactility of words. If she’s playing Thomas, she says choo choo choo choo and then will turn, squish her nose up to say fake sneeze an “achoo” because choo choo wasn’t quite in her face enough. It’s pretty easy to understand her most of the time, unless he has a very long and serious story to tell and she’ll cock her neck to one side and gesticlutate with her hands and say “es tay voile moushay tone. Speksy mafle candor sloon.” Usually, she is complaining, possibly in french, against the cat. She calls all cats Box and all scratches Box too.

She like everything to match and she wants everything to be purple. She’ll wear her purple haltertop dress over anything—including another dress. Her socks have to match and the line on the top has to be perfectly perpendicular to her toes. But she does all this dressing of herself except for popping the shirt over her head so I suppose she can choose her style even if I’m beginning to find purple a little overwhelming.

My favorite is that now she speaks in sentences. “I can get down now, please.” “I want some onions, please”. (sometimes please.) She also sometimes slams the door to her room and screams “No Thank You” at me if I try to get her to wear something a little less purple. She says, “Bye. Love you.” Every fourteen seconds. Even if we’re going nowhere. If we are going somewhere and ask her to come on, she says “I’m coming” like she can’t wait to get where we’re going. Which, she hopes, is to see Lily and Cam. As soon as possible. It makes me feel a little better being away from her for 10 days that for 7 of those days, she’ll be with people who, if you add how much they love her together, probably love her as much as I do. And Egg will be with her the whole time. She probably won’t notice I’m gone. But I will.

Edited to add: She also shares her Skittles.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Thirty-One and Kendall-Jackson. May you both be 31 forever in our minds (and always take solace in the fact that you'll always be younger than me.)
I hope your birthday is one of the best. Welcome to the Jesus Year!

Bad Blogging, Bad Shoulder

I tweaked my shoulder whilst skiing at Alta. The light was bad and the snow sometimes soft, sometimes crunchy. I hadn't been skiing in awhile so I was all tense and did not go with the flow. But that was just a little tiny ache. When I went to the Chicago for the MLA, the hotel reservations were all a-mess. There are TWO Embassy Suites downtown and I and my suitcase were told the wrong one. So my suitcase, weighing in at exactly 50lbs so there was no extra charge, and I walked the 8 blocks to the correct Embassy Suites. Since the suitcase is better at rolling than walking and better at being steered than steering, so I rolled and steered it over slippery sidewalks, around busy traffic, through melting puddles to the proper Embassy Suites. When I got there, I dragged my suitcase to the far corner of the room and went to find my colleague who was beginning to straighten out this hotel mess (we had candidates coming for interviews the next day. Which hotel would they go to? An adventure to find out). Eventually I got on the phone, changed some of our reservations to the right place and kept some of them at the wrong (and currently suitcased stationed) hotel. I was to go back to the "right" hotel and host the interviews there. I went up. Got my suitcase and dragged His Heaviness back down the hall, out the elevator and down the block. I asked my colleague if she'd heard from the other interviewers. Apparently, one of them was angry. He had already checked into his room at the other hotel and was ready to stay put. I dragged His Heaviness for another half a block and stopped. There was no way I was hiking over there just to be told to come back. I called my other colleague and asked if it was true he wanted to stay there. He did. I waved off the walking-with-me-colleague, turned around and headed back up to the room. I dragged His Heaviness into the corner and did a Nestea plunge onto the bed, grateful to be in a room and not moving.
But it was too late. I did something seemingly permanent to my shoulder. Pinched a nerve? Unknitted the shoulder muscle from the neck so there's nothing but frayed meat hanging from the bone? I haven't gone to the doctor yet but since this is the most I've typed in two weeks and I have syllabi to build, an introduction, a panel presentation, and a explanation of what I write to write, I had probably best go in and see if I can at least get some pain relievers that let me sleep through the night.
In other MLA news:

• Interviewing candidates is hard but so much less hard than being the interviewee.
• I learned a lot of new ideas of what and how to teach thanks to the interview.
• I am excited about our candidates. They're amazing. Makes my job look even cooler.
• I met some bloggers at the bar. They were hard to find because none of them wore the fishnet stockings they promised. I kept going up to women at the various hotel bars asking to see under their skirts. Very flirty but ineffective in blogger-finding.
• I wandered around the city before the blogger meet up--at 8:30. I was in at 4 with a broken shoulder. That warranted a drink. And a pizza. My first pizza. Then I wandered the wrong way, got lost, found sushi, spent way too much on sushi , went to the blogger meet-up, had but one glass of wine, wandered back the mile or so to my hotel, had one more glass of wine and one more pizza (of which I did not eat the whole thing). Woke up at 3 screaming with shoulder pain.
• I did not throw up on any of the interviewees even though the arm pain was making me nauseated.
• Went out for pizza with colleagues that night.
• Met friends for dinner the next night.
• Waited for Egg and Z's plane from SLC to land at O'Hare for over an hour. A $60 cab-ride to pick up the car made me rethink our bargain flying plans. We drove from here and parked at a long-term and cheap park and ride. But with His Heaviness, I could not imagine taking the El.
• Got home to a clean house and happy animals.
• Cleo hurt her leg running down the stairs to welcome us home.
• The house is now a disaster.
• And now I have to type more even though this is the end of my typing shoulder.

Happy New Year and the semester starts tomorrow.....

Winter/Break

Two feet of snow at Alta. A foot or more in the valley. It's like pre-global warming days when we actually had to wear mittens to school and made snowmen and took our sleds sledding. I might even ski on Sunday--like everyone else in the valley.
I'm so sad I have to leave on Thursday for MLA. Why does MLA have to be over break? As far as I can tell, there's not even talk about moving it. Chicago in less than a week. Grim.
Until then, there's Thirty-One's solstice party, Egg's folk's white elephant party, K-J gets in that night, then big family party Sunday, mellow Christmas eve at mom's and a less-than-usual crazy Christmas day. Some might even go skiing!!! On Christmas. We're heathens.
I've already got to see the lovely Dr. Write and Scorpion's Tail. We had delicious tapas at Martine. I hope to see more folks tonight at Solstice. If people trek through the many feet of snow.

What to Read Indeed

Some commenters asked how I decided what to read at the Retirement Center.

I decided to read the "cute" poem about Z being in the NICU. I explained to them that when Z was in the NICU, as hard as that was, we didn't know her very well and the whole thing was so alien that the emotional toll was much less than when, nine months later, she went back to the hospital for RSV and we could tell she was in pain and we all wanted to get out of there and we all weren't sure how things will turn out. So I read the Hagionoma poem about astronauts and NICU's that's in Nimrod. I forgot it was 4 pages long. I also forgot that I talked about my breasts being called "turtle boobs" by my sister and that I was fat and that a seal wanted to mate with me.
And then I read another poem about Z in the future and a boy who wants to, shall we say, deflower her.
My point is--I really didn't read my poems first and I probably should have. But the nice ladies laughed at the turtle boobs comment and didn't seem to outraged at any swearing moments or the losing virginity parts.

But tomorrow, I leave for NYC to read at the Center for the Book Arts with Rigoberto Gonzalez and I'm not sure what to read? I should practice! I should bring all the poems. I should remember to thank the NEA or they might take the grant back. I should download the logo and have it tattooed to my forehead.
I don't want to read only Z poems tomorrow. I think I'll read one about the Ilse Royale twisting itself off from the earth and becoming a planet on its own. And the one about the postman that Fellner loves. And maybe the MRI poem about birds.

I'm very nervous to go because:

• it's going to snow and my plane will be late.
• I'm supposed to meet my agent uptown (98th St.) at 11 when my plane gets in at 10.
• I'm supposed to meet my sisters downtown for lunch at noon.
• I can't check into the hotel until 3.
• I have to be dressed, prepped and ready to read by 6.

I did buy a new coat for the trip. It's blue. I can't wait for Saturday when the aforementioned list of bullets has resolved itself.
And then, I can't wait for Friday when we leave for SLC!

The Old Folk's Home

I was invited to give a reading at a Retirement center. A woman named Vernis, who read about the NEA back in February, contacted me for a reading in December. I was like, um, yeah, I'll remember a plan a made 10 months in advance. But, I figured, why not? She's probably more organized than I. She'll remind me. And remind me she did. I got several emails telling me where to go, how to get there, and in what manner the chairs would be arranged. It wasn't until the week before that I thought to ask, what time? I assumed normal reading time--6 or 7 or so.
No, no. 2:30.
Thankfully, I didn't have classes to teach that day.
So off to the reading, following her careful directions. There were so many directions, by sheer mass of turns and stops, I thought it would take half an hour to get there.
The retirement center is about a mile from my house.
So I got there at 2 and listened to NPR and wondered what these retirees would think of my weird poems.

I went in. I told them about the NEA. I told them about the state of contemporary poetry (they probably wouldn't argue my semi-studied description). I told them about how the project changed as I worked on it. I decried poetry contests. Then I read my poems.

They said they liked them. Better when I read them than when they read them on the page. Even though the poems were hard, they said, they liked the images. The poems made sense, they said.

They asked hard questions about form and purpose and teaching and reading and their own writing. The one man in the room corrected my pronunciation of hydrocephalus. They wondered about rhyme and line and I wished my students were as invested in poetry.

It was, by far, the best thing I did with, or rather, because of, my NEA.

The organizers, Vernis and her friend Jay, keep emailing me to tell me how much they appreciated the time and my "vibrancy." Once, Jay emailed and I didn't email back until the next morning. Vernis emailed to see if I'd received her email. I promised I did and that I had, finally (12 hours later, with sleeping time in the middle), emailed Jay back.
They keep emailing. It's one of the situations where no one knows when to quit saying thanks. But maybe that's how friends are made.

Margaret Atwood where are you?

Dr. C (whom I get to meet at MLA--a brush with fame it feels like) listed her top ten books to take to a desert island. She chose Atwood's the Robber Bride as one of them, which I don't think I've read. I used to love Atwood. I read everything up to this point: (thanks Wikipedia)

• The Edible Woman (1969)
• Surfacing (1972)
• Lady Oracle (1976)
• Life Before Man (1979) - finalist for the 1979 Governor General's Award
• Bodily Harm (1981)
• The Handmaid's Tale (1985) - winner of the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1985 Governor General's Award.
• Cat's Eye (1988) -
  

My high school teacher, alarmed that I was reading too much Plath and Sexton, gave me a book of her poems which I read too, though with less enthusiasm.

The other day, I read a review on bookslut about her latest book of poems. She still writes poems? Where did she go? After Cat's Eye, I fell out of love. It was the first time I had been disappointed by a writer. I remember the story beginning so pedestrian, so Anne Tylerish (I don't know if I'm right in my memory...that's just the vague recollection I have). Once I went to college I didn't think of her again.

So she dropped out of my periphery. When she came to do a reading in Salt Lake, I was like, whatever man. Crowds and such. She's too popular, therefore too lame (I guess that was what I felt...again hazy or lazy with the details).

But then, two years ago I read Oryx and Crake. That might be my favorite book of all time. I like books about young boys and apocalypses. Then I read the Blind Assassin. Not my fave, but still, fine. Mythological.

Yesterday, I bought the Robber Bride. If I had my druthers (meaning not having 10 essays to comment on) I'd read it all day.

I wonder, as I write this sort of bullet-pointed post without the bullets, where does Atwood stand on the measuring stick of great writers? In some ways, because she's prolific, she falls into the Updike, Joyce Carol Oates list. Her writing is more akin to John Irving and Tom Robbins--who, are prolific too, I guess. But to me she stands apart--poet and novelist. Not afraid to be political. Willing to let a book fail because of its politics.
I say that I like her very much. Admire her. Maybe the most. And that maybe I didn't go see her in Salt Lake because I want to love her with my singular love and not look at all those other lovers who want to love her singularly too. But next time she comes to a town near me, I'll go. I'll see if I can ask her a lame-free way of asking how she does it.

Good things

In an attempt to be less complainy, a new list called Good Things. Ala Martha Stewart. Back when she could coin a phrase.

1. Triscuits.
2. Two year olds who say "Bye. Love you." every time they leave or room. Or enter one, for that matter.
3. Husbands who clean up after said child's artistic experiments with "clay" otherwise known as "poop."
4. Other people hosting parties so I can make the cholesterol-busting, stuffed mushrooms.
5. Birthday weeks. Nay, birthday months.
6. Friends who let me go back and forth deciding what to do for said birthday and promise to bring pie no matter what I decide.
7. People who sent cards and emails and presents (including Gordon's Gold because nothing says 23 like Gordon Lightfoot) even though I'm far away and am not good at sending presents myself.

I'm the lame

I can't even write a blog post that doesn't suggest my suckitude. I keep thinking about the previous post's title with the word "contemporary" in it. Is that even the correct usage? I doubt it. But I don't know. I'm a lame complainer head who doesn't even post on the twitter blog. And I really want to know where the New Adventures of the Old Christine is, but I'm too lame to go find out on the internet.
My kid is not lame. She peeled an orange and then threw the peels away. I would just leave them about like they're some kind of make-shift potpourri.
Perhaps the middle of November will prove to be some kind of lameness turn around.
In general, I feel like apologizing to the planet: Sorry to be so lame.
Edited to add: As if the planet cares how lame I am. See? So lame.

7 new facts about me, the contemporary version.

Thirty-one has retagged me. This could go back and forth for awhile.

1. I didn't want to spend $20 to get my eyebrows waxed at the Aveda salon so I went to a salon right by my house where the haircut was $40 and the brows were $15. They used Loreal products. I have the worst haircut of my life. Also, the Aveda salon doesn't ask for tips. I ended up paying near-by salon $65. And now my hair hurts.
2. Being on this side of a job search also hurts. So many well-qualified people. So only one job.
3. I wonder where my book is. At the Conference of Potentially True Facts, everyone thought I already had a book. Not so much.
4. I'm obsessed with micropreemie (babies born before 28 weeks--usually around 1. 5 lbs) blogs. I call is "research."
5. I check my email about once every ten seconds. I get about 7 emails a day. This is not efficient use of my time nor a good way to answer any questions of longing.
6. It's my birthday on Wednesday.
7. I will be 23.

7 Facts about me

I'm back from the Conference of Suspect Facts. More on that later. For now:

Lisa B Tagged me for this. I'll tag 7 more people for their 7 facts below.

Seven facts about me:

1. I didn’t eat beans, black, red, white, refried, until I was 27 years old.
2. I had a hernia operation when I was 8. The hernia was probably caused by carrying my twin sisters around simultaneously. I didn’t want to play favorites.
3. In the 3^rd grade I wanted to win the reflections contest—an elementary school arts contest in every category. I wrote poems (“Ain’t no freedom in this land/for no one” was a featured line. I had just read Roots), I drew a picture of a cat and I made composed my own score by, somewhat randomly, making half and whole and quarternotes on the treble and bass clefs. I won none of the categories.
4. I had the fuel injectors (twice), my car stereo (five times) stolen from my Jetta in Portland. When I moved back to Salt Lake, my Isuzu Rodeo (leased) was shot up on 9^th South and 9^th West on Halloween night.
5. I wore a headband every day of fifth grade.
6. I am allergic to (cheap) metal. When I wear Levi’s, the cheap metal rivets give me a rash on either side of my belly button.
7. I have no middle name.

OK: Now these guys are tagged to post 7 facts about themselves and then tag 7 more people in the comment section of those people's blogs:
Thirty-One.
Kendall Jackson.
Mapmaker.
Scorpion's Tail.
Econtrario.
Xena One and Two.
Strange Polkas.

Hosptial Reprise, Reprieve

Anytime Z gets the wheeze going on, Egg and I go back and forth trying to decide whether she needs to go to the hospital. For the most part, we don't really consider going to the doctor because that would be but a detour on the way to the hospital. The doctor's office always freaks out when they listen to Z breathe her darth vadar-y breath. On Monday night, Egg came home from school and went in to check on she-who-had-been-sleeping. She was not sleeping. She was sitting up, coughing and wheezing. She just wasn't getting better. So we hemmed and hawed for about 12 minutes. Finally, we decided to just go. The decision is always hard--she has never again been as sick as she was in Feb of '06 when she had RSV and we were in the hospital for 8 days. To be released from the hospital, her oxygen levels had to stay at 93% or above. That's usually where they hover when she's sick now. At the doctor's office, 93% sends them into a tizzy. At the hospital, they're usually OK with the 93% but worry about the way her lungs retract. They think it could get worse and that she could get worn out. She has been sick for 6 weeks, off and on. We too were getting worried about her getting worn out. So on Monday, not knowing where her oxygen levels stood and having been listening to her cough for days and wheeze off and on that day, we went in.
I packed everything we would need for overnight. Contact case. Waterbottles filled. Books. Magaazines. Toothbrush. Z was pretty excited to go. We never leave the house at 9:30! Go? Car? She started jumping and putting on her coat and saying shoes shoes shoes shoes. Go go go go go. So we went.
We were ushered in, more, we think, because of our solid medical insurance than our deeply illing child, but possibly because anything respiratory freaks everyone out. They looked at us like we were a bit weird for bringing her in. The doctor came in and sat down next to Z and asked us why now. Z kept cocking her head to the side to say hi hi hi. As if to say, don't pay attention to them. I'm out after dark. Let's party. The doctor, fully charmed and off-put by such a sicky being in such a good mood, asked us again, why did you bring her in now?

We said that on the condition of getting the predisone, we would bring her in for any wheezing. They seemed to think that was a bit extreme. Her o-sats stood at 93%, sometimes dipping to 90, sometimes up to 95. We were sure we were in for the night. Or the next 8 days.

But the doctor, whom I love now more than butter, said, let's give her a breathing treatment and then I think that will be that.

We tried not to get our hopes up. We also tried to convince Z not to jump up and down on the bed for fear the tape that held the puls-ox monitor to her toes came off and her sats dipped to zero and someone in some nurse's station recorded it and we were going to be locked in for life.

The Respiratory Therapist came in, gave Z a treatment (alubterol0l). Z let her put a a mask over her face. Everyone was amazed Z was wearing the mask for the treatment rather than just using the blow-by method. Z was amazed they had invented something with stretchy-bands that go around over her head and hold a dinosaur-shaped plastic thing to her face. Or she was quite satisfied at all our amazement. Most kids won't do that, said the RT. Never. Said the doctor. The doctor said she'd go order the steroid meds and be right back to listen to Z and we'd be on our way.

She didn't come right back. Right after the breathing treatment, Z sounded great. But an hour went by and her o-sats dropped back to 93, even 92. Egg and I looked at each other. We're staying, we realized. We stare at the o-sats, holding our own breath. We've spent weeks like this, waiting for the o-sats to stabilize. Waiting for the magic number to hold.

The doctor came back, looked at Z with concern. She ordered another breathing treatment.
She'd be back. With admit papers, we assumed.
Less than an hour later she came back. She listened. She said she was going to get the Attending.
Getting the Attending is never good. It's a consultation--a what-to-do-now? A this-is-a-real-emergency. Sound-the-alarms type of thing.
Beth, the attending came in. .
She looked at Z. She looked at us.

OK, then, she said. She looks good. You guys are out of here.

I do think we may have danced a little.

20 minutes later, we were on our way.
Z was excited to go back in the car. At night. In the dark!

We came home and had a party. Z jumped off the coffee table fifteen times, prompting us to ask her to please, not make us go the ER two times in a night. I had a glass of wine. Egg had a beer.
We had this conversation:

There was a headline on one of the news pages. MSN I think, teasing what is the “least attractive city in the country?” Answer: The City of Brotherly Love.

Me: But they have the best sandwich. I’d rather have a perfect sandwich than be beautiful, wouldn’t you?

Egg: No answer.

Me: I know. You’d rather stay beautiful. That’s the problem with us. Beauty vs. true satisfaction.

Egg: It’s gluttony or vanity.

Me: it’s not gluttony. I just want one, not a hundred (thought I have had two Philly Cheese Steaks in a row before).

Egg: Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s sandwich.

Me: I think you’re mixing your commandments with your deadly sins.

Me: I really want a Philly Cheese Steak now.

We did not rush out for Cheese Steaks. We were in our own beds by one.

It makes going to the hospital seem like it might not be the 5th circle of hell. Maybe only the 4th.

Kids Aren't Entirely Impossible

When your kid has been sick with the same cold for three weeks and you call the doctor and ask for prednisone because it’s the only thing that makes it so she doesn’t have to go to the hospital and they give you the prescription with the caveat that if she wheezes once you have to bring her in to his office which you know means they’ll send you to the hospital which is the place where nurses come in every 45 minutes to wake you and the child up so no one sleeps and no one gets better and yet they do little except monitor her where her o-sats never go lower than 95% and you take this as some kind of indication that her wheezing does not automatically indicate not breathing and so with the next cold you wait it out and there is no wheezing (yet) and there is no hospital (please no) and you make Pho Bo for dinner and the butcher at Meijer cut your top round (supposed to be sirloin) thick (you asked for carpaccio-thin) and you go home and put the too-thick meat in a star-anised beef broth ($3.89 an organic box broth\) and you drive home hoping there’s no wheezing (none) and the broth is good but the meat (top round, thick) is tough but your daughter-with-nose-running is drinking the broth and eating the rice noodles and chewing on a basil leaf, asking for another bean sprout makes me think that you maybe have a new date (since your husband is not a Pho zealot) for the Vietnamese restaurant a mere 12 miles away and she wants some of your broth with the four jalapeño slices and you give her a sip and she says water water water and then asks for more soupand you are relieved when she runs and jumps and says bean sprout over and over indicating not wheeze just breath, you relax for the first time in 28 days and chew on the jalapeños in your soup and let your own nose run and run.

Getting the Cooler Back Out

We had our friend's birthday party at our house. It was 88 degrees on Saturday. On Oct 6th. In the northerly Midwest. So the cooler came back from the basement, was stocked full of beer, and several people came over. I got to hang out with a few I barely knew and am now glad to know.
Also, there was some good cooking this weekend: A recent issue of Gourmet has all kinds of Latin American recipes. We made chicken a la brasa marinated for 24 hours in various spices and soy sauce. Delicious. I'm making zucchini and poblano pepper soup for our neighbor who broke his hip while mountain biking. Not here. In Tennessee. There are no mountains here tall enough to break your hip. Also, Equadoran potato cakes were made but they stuck to the bottom of my pan. I don't have a non-stick pan. Would this have helped? Is this the problem with every potato cake I've ever made? Must I pollute the planet with my teflon needs and bite the bullet and buy a one?
Last night: Chile with Mexican chorizo. I finally learned the difference between chorizo. Spanish chorizo is cured and sliceable and Mexican chorizo is spiced, pork sausage that you have to cook. Our farmer's market sells the latter. I had it for the first time the other night in the chile. 31 and I tried to cook with it before but it turned all greasy and mushy. We tossed it. The kind from the farmer's market was perfectly crumbly and not oily at all. Delicious. I have just enough leftover to make a scrambled egg recipe of chorizo, leftover tortilla chips from the same issue of Gourmet. Tonight? So many more chicken recipes. But, since I have 4 intermediate nonfiction essays, 6 intermediate poems, and 2 capstone papers to read, comment on, and grade, I may not be cooking much. Why do I make my students write so much? If I was a better teacher, they could learn by osmosis. Although I guess reading is a kind of osmosis. But I have to check their reading by reading their writing. Oh the vicious cycles!

Business of writing

This week, some writing got done but it felt more like business than creation. I worked out in my mind a few of the last details of the novel's plot but if details are not on the page, it doesn't really count. I did have one of my characters trade sex for a peak at a patient's records but otherwise, I'm stuck on the denouement. I kind of hate denouements. I think I'd prefer to write a choose your own resolution book. Once I know how it's going to end, I get bored.
Then I spent the early part of the week trying to figure out how to record two poems for the upcoming issue of Drunken Boat. Apparently, Macs have a built in microphone and a built in recording studio (Garage Band! Thanks Craig for the tip). So I finally recorded the poems on Erik's computer.
Then I got an email from Tin House's editor that she liked a piece of mine but that she needed me to revise it. So I got down to business and started revising. I moved the middle to the fore, strengthened some connections, cut a section about imagining being blown up in Wendover. Then, the next day, AGNI's editor mailed me to except the very same piece for their website. AGNI's great but I would have preferred the print version to the online space. So I emailed Tin House and asked them what to do. They said, I'd go with the sure thing since it will still be a couple of weeks over here for us to decide. That's cool, I thought. Thanks for the advice. And so I sent my one piece off to AGNI and will send a new piece to Tin House. Next week? Is that too soon?
Then, I started to write a review of Jenny Boully's new book for The Diagram. And maybe I finished it? I wrote an exegetical epic metaphor to describe the book. It's already over long. I may be done.
And then, I finished Dr. Write's amazing story collection. It is amazingly smart and precise. Next, I'm starting Scorpion Tail's new novel. I cant' wait.
I also went out to campus on a Thursday! to see Jason Breadle talk to A's students. Really nice guy with some really great poems. I'm going to buy his 2nd book from Red Morning Press.
I also sent my (new, NEA-ish) book of poems off to Steve to see what he thinks.
I still need to finish my talk for NonfictionNow but then I can get back to noveling and these much-revision-needed essays. I'll aim for Dr. Write's precision but if I get close to say, only three mistakes per page, I'll be happy. I need a live-in editor.
Also. I must be commenting on students' work and preparing for my capstone class to be observed on the 17th.
Also. M's birthday party tonight at our house. Must go clean. Or at least hide things. Oh, weekend, I hardly knew you.

Putting the Cooler Away

We went camping on Friday night. We tried to go Thursday but about halfway there, it started to rain so we turned around. Of course, the skies cleared up the minute we pulled up to our house but that night, it thunderstormed pretty majorily. Interpid souls that we are (hardly) and with the car still packed (lazy) we headed out Friday afternoon. We drove north and west toward Silver Lake and Lincoln Bridge but the state parks there were pretty small with the sites on top of each other. And, Z didn't fall asleep for her daily nap until we pulled into the campground. What better reason to look for a better spot? So we turned south and drove toward some lake-y campgrounds. We found a great spot at Benton Lake--a bit of sun, a picnic table, a fire pit, a deer flaying hanging-post--all the things you want while camping with a two year-old.
This is our first camping trip since Z was born. How can that be? Well, last summer it was all moving and selling the house. And this summer....it was a lot of travel. But it was so great and Z loved it and now that we've got a lay of the camping land around these parts, it won't be such an inertial effort.
I didn't cook a gigantic meal like I like to when we're camping. I once made leg of lamb. For a backpackign trip, I once made and then dehydrated my own stew. This time, we just had brats and onions and kraut--in the end, I was glad Egg insisted we not make anything complicated. And so few dishes!
The temperature got down to like 40 degrees that night but we had plenty of firewood and an extra featherbed (it was roughing it in the least rough way) for Z so we were warm and toasty. The best food news? We found both birch and aspen boletes in the aspen forest and had them with our tuna (bad, awful, ahi from Costco) last night after we got back. They were delicious if a bit sandy.
It should be easier to take these one-night or all day jaunts if I remember that I can run errands and do laundry as soon as we get back. And if I have forest mushrooms to go find. Z is really good at finding mushrooms and particularly good, thank god, at not eating them.
I feel really behind with work (Dr. Write! Scorpion's Tail! Novel!), grading, student blogs, etc. But if I go running now and make some sort of list, I think I won't be in danger of flubbing next week entirely.
Egg has two big tests but then next weekend, maybe we'll try another big activity. Bike ride on the rail trail? I hope so!

What's that ringing sound in my ears

I joke a lot about the fact that the only person who calls us on our home phone is A.M.--and then usually only to plan disk golf with Egg. I IM with my sisters most of the weekend, email everyone else. I don't absolutely hate talking on the phone but it never occurs to me to call anyone just to chat.

And yet, this weekend, I think I spent 14 hours on the phone. 3 to my friend in New York, 2 with my mom, and 9 with my friend in Wyoming. Divide each of those numbers by 2 and the numbers actually reflect reality. I used to talk for hours to two of my friends but we're not that close anymore so my the hours I'm putting in with the handset tucked under my chin have dropped off considerably. My chin is the better for it but not much else.

I hate to call to interrupt people's regularly schedule. And the time difference makes it hard to calculate when might be the best time to call. And Z the McFree is not particularly conducive to phone calling. Maybe now that so many of my friends have kids, none of us use the phone like we used to. And I get frazzled on the phone in ways I don't in person (though I do get frazzled in person--just in different ways). I make up words and laugh in the wrong places and say "cool" way too often. When I was on the job market, I had a phone interview for one job. I made myself dress up in my suit anyone just so I wouldn't fall prey to my own spiral-talking.

But perhaps some of the isolation I'm feeling this fall (I know, it's only really been fall for 2 days), could be alleviated by using the telephone. The electronic media does what it does but there's still something quiet about it.

Please to include

On my list of things to do:
Proofread blog posts.

The problem with lists

I knocked a few things off the list, added others. Got swamped by advising and teaching stuff and then we all got sick.
Zo has her regular Darth Vadar breath. I don't think even Darth could handle as much albuterol as we nebulized all over her last night. But she seems to have turned a corner. Or is maintaining. Or mainlining the albuterol.
I, however, have lost all hope for the list.
If you need me, you'll find me under the kitchen table, eating Tabbouleh. I'm sure I'll take my computer under there with me. So I won't be out of touch. Just out of range of the onslaught of reviews and conferences.

No way it's all going to happen

I was just reading over at Limon's about how she's not going to get all the things done this semester she needs to. I am panicking about my own semester by blogging. Actually, I'll make this a listing blog so the list and the weight can be palpably felt. And perhaps in order to lift the weight, I'll actually do one or two of these today.

• Host Grad School Night Sept. 24.
• Write a review by Oct 15.
• Read 40 student blogs a week (whoops! What a great idea! Student blogging! 750 words a week! Ack!)
• Write conference paper for Nonfiction Now.
• Contact my panelists for Nonfiction Now.
• Read 7 books for my independent study.
• Finish novel draft by Sept. 30 (60,000 words yesterday. 10 or 20 more thousand to go.)
• Compile 3rd year review file.
• Read apps for new hire.
• Review affiliate faculty.
• Finish Hospital poems for contests.
• Send out old book to contests of finalist last year.
• Write conference paper for AWP.
• Revise 14 essays.
• Buy plane tickets for SLC, NYC, and NYC.
• Develop course for Spring 2009.
• Finish kitchen (admittedly, my role is small. I mostly have to by drawer pulls and wine racks but still).
• Submit funding requests for trips to NYC and NYC.

Actually, now the list doesn't seem so bad. The biggest trouble is the 3rd year review file but I think that's mostly a matter of organization. Which is not my strong point. But perhaps lists like this are a sign of things to come.

Hope I didn't stress you out on a fine Sunday morning. I feel better though.

Hispanic Festival

Finally. A good taco. Better than a Salt Lake taco. Here, in GR.
We had a great day. Z's daycare hosted this odd fundraiser where we paid $20 and they watched kids for 4 hours to help pay for new playground equipment. If it was only $5/hour every half day--it would be an ideal amount of school for the Z where maybe I could get some work done without having to say, OK Z, five minutes. Mom's working. And then giving in to play magnet puzzle for twelve minutes.
So we went to the Hispanic Festival, purchased an adorable Equadoran sweater for Z featuring embroidered cacti and llama and I got a sweater full of orange colors.
I drank beer there.
Then, we went to Founders. Which has many a beer and nary a glass of wine. I drank half a glass of beer there.
And then our good friends who make GR a great place to live came over and they had another beer and I returned to my stand-by, wine. We had to escape the onslaught of mosquitoes and so came inside where we were accosted by Z's stuffed animals and Egg's lascivious jokes about portfolios and balance sheets.
Ah, the MBA. Who knew how sexy the MBA could be...

Stymied by Yahoo

Usually, I'm a pretty good Googler. I can find out what translocated genes are and what Rolling Stone cover Britney Spears may have graced and which New Orleansy foods are considered Cajun and which ones Creole.
But two answers the internet has denied me:
1. How do squirrels get inside of walnuts. Is it gravity that breaks the outer husk? Then how do they get into the harder one. I tried throwing it on the ground, stomping on it, even biting it but then the bitterness of the outer husk choked me and my hands turned black from the essential oils and I wonder do squirrels have little bearded nutcrackers in trees or do they just wait for the husks to rot or are their teeth the stuff nutcrackers aspire to be? The internets would not tell me. I googled a bunch of phrases and nothing.
2. Then, last night, while we're watching Children of Men, which I shouldn't watch because I tend toward a dystopic view of the universe and I find all things baby-related extra tear-provoking, Michael Caine's character says Shanti Shanti Shanti when imagining the hopeful Human Project. So I look up Shanti Shanti Shanti which , it turns out, is a common meditation mantra. But what poet says it three times in one of his poems? Gary Snyder? (ETA. TS Eliot. It came to me five minutes after I posted.)
And, although I could find it but I'm too lazy, on Hightouch's blog I used the phrase "bogart" as a verb. Does it mean plain old steal or just sort of take too much space up on? Because the latter is what I meant.

First Two Weeks in Review

I've been refraining from blogging. Partly because I'm overwhelmed and partly because I feel complainy and I don't want to complain too much here. I'd prefer to list the delicious foods I've eaten of late, but there haven't been too many. I've been too busy.
Egg started MBA school last week so he's gone two nights of the week. I like to cook for Z and her palate is pretty broad for a two year-old but she doesn't act as impressed as I'd like my diners to be. So we eat noodles and pepper for dinner.
My foot. It is hurt. I pulled the outstep but it feels like the skin and the muscle became separateed and whenever I walk, the skin goes one way and the muscle and bone go another. I can't run so I'm grumpy. Even though I run slow. And short distances.
School. It is a long distance and also slow. I hate how I already feel behind. The first week of classes seem to require such tremendous energy--like right now I have to press all the force for the semester into these first weeks. If I do it well, the rest of the semester rolls right along, clicking along, amassing speed and work like any good roller coaster. And the more I teach, the more I know how much energy these first weeks require. Once we get going and I establish a rhythm, I think it will be fine.
Fine, that is, if I don't do anything but teach. I'm getting a bit bogged down in the details and I have a review coming up and assessment and benchmarking and curriculum making and etc. and oh my.
But it seems like it should be a pretty fun semester with some smartly students whose mindsI'm trying to blow by making them read hardcore theory. If my mind doesn't blow first.

Vacation Index

5. Number of runs ran in the high-altitude city.
4. Number of hikes hiked in the mountain behind in-laws house.
2. Number of hikes hiked in red dirt land.
1. Number of hike-type hikes hiked following Egg around disc golf course in red dirt land.
4. Number of fancy meals eaten at fancy restaurants. Pork confit, hanger steak, and sushi, cold Blackberry soup, mushroom tart, pablano creme.
1. Number of dinners eaten at Oyster Bar. No longer in the fancy restaurant dept. Good oysters. Overly salty and overly priced King Crab Legs.
1.5 Number of fast food trips taken because the french fries in the high, salty city come with special sauced.
2. Number Barbacoa's salad consumed. (Not enough.)
14. Number of anaheim peppers roasted, chopped, sauteed and eaten for two separate meals.
2. Number of filets consumed at in-law's and sister's.
1. Number of rib-eyes consumed at sister's.
238. Number of tomatoes paired with mozzerella and basil from Mom's boyfriend's garden.
2. Number of delcious squash dishes prepred by Maryland sister.
2. Number of delicious frut tarts baked by same sister.
4. Number of most exquisite racks of lamb made by home-based sister.
8. Number of twice-baked potatoes baked with blue cheese by home-based sister that people are still taking about.
2. Number of injuries sustained by either myself or home-based sister (1 finger cut deeply, 1 leg burned badly).
24. Number of Italian sausages accompanied by onions sauted in creme de cassis and grenadine made by father-in-law.
3. Number of those sausages I ate myself (not in one day!)
1. The ordinal number denoting the time I ate refried beans prepared by someone other than myself.
1,482. Number of glasses of wine consumed. Crawford, Joseph Phelps, Marilyn Merlot, were among the best.
2. Number of restaurants I meant and tried to eat at but didn't (Hong Kong Tea House, Red Iguana).
6. Number of pieces of fried chicken eaten (Yes, all in one day. They were wings though!)
342,095. Number of calories still need to burn off from trip.
9. Number of friends seen for drinks, lunch, or workshop.
3. Number of whom are on my bloglist.
2. Number of sisters seen for drinks, lunch, or dinner (dinner is a lot like workshop in that it involves sitting, talking and often drinking good wine).
2. Number of sister's who are on my bloglist.
528. Number of relatives seen at dinners, reunions, and birthday parties.
10. Number of siblings, mothers, fathers, nieces and nephews that were nearly impossible to say goodbye to.

must blog-quiz while traveling

Apparently, I'm not in reporting mode; instead, I take the quizzes. A brief update includes: I just ate a bag of spinach and Thirty-one and I are off to Taste of the Nation while my mom and Egg's mom and dad are volunteering. I won't relish any of them bussing my table or pouring me wine they can't drink...no, not at all. Or at least, not too much.

Also. This.

You Are The Star

You represent the ultimate in truth and purity. Insightful and illuminating, you provide guidance for others. You also demonstrate unselfish, unconditional love. You posses many spiritual gifts, including the ability to heal. Your fortune: Your future is looking brighter by the day. The near future will be a time of both hope and healing. Luck is about to come your way, perhaps the best luck you have ever seen. Life is about to get a lot easier and much better!

What Tarot Card Are You?

How did it know I was short?

You're Prufrock and Other Observations!

by T.S. Eliot

Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic
and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying
to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really
heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

4:00 am

I woke up at 3. This isn't so great. I even took a Lunesta which I rarely do. But at 3:17, I said the forbidden phrase to myself "I have got to get to sleep." I employed all my I need to go back to sleep strategies--counting slowly to ten, watch a stick tumble down the river, think of the plot of a movie I've seen a million times. Instead, of concentrating, which leads to peacefulness, I kept thinking of what I forgot, to tell the housesitter there's an avocado he should eat, that I should hide anything revealing.
Oof.
So now, I'm showered and ready. Egg will get up at 5, we'll rouse Zoe at 5:30. The cab will be here at 5:40. And by 10:50 a.m (12:50 our time) we'll be in SLC. And maybe I'll then get to take a nap. And then we have Ryan Adam's concert at the Red Butte Gardens. Oh the miracle, the expesne, the carbon footprint, the lines, the bad seats, the hours of distracting the toddler....
Perhaps it will all go off like a charm.
At least I didn't sleep through my alarm clock.

The Short List

This post comes from two places. The first is that one of the bloggers that I link to has a whole category of "shameless self-promotion." I'm not very good a self-promotion but I should probably work on propping up some of the good news that comes my way. Such self-promotion on her part though did make we want to know more about her so there is some danger in revealing one's anonymity by posting specific moments of renown. But in my case, I'm so far from actually anonymous and the good news I found was layered so deep that that being outed didn't worry me too much. The second is that my good friend who lives in CA and I are working on being friends again after a pretty huge falling out and she assured me that publication was just a matter of time. Lots of people say that, but when it comes from someone who now has some distance from you and your would-be successes, it seems somehow more plausible.
Publication-wise, this summer has been somewhat exciting but mostly kind of depressing.
I was short-listed at Graywolf nonfiction contest, Sarabande's novel contest, AWP's nonfiction contest and a few poetry contests. I found out last night that I was short-listed at the Faulkner Contest for the novel. Last year, I was a semi-finalist. This year, bumped up to the short-list of finalists, but still not quite a finalist. That one would be great to win because big books sometimes come from winning--The Three Junes being the most famous.
I've had a couple of poems and essays accepted which is very great. Still, I feel like I'm always a bridesmaid, never a bride at these book contest things. Perhaps my agent will still come through with something but, man is this process slow!

But the good news is that my friend M emailed last night to say a magazine I'd been published in had been favorably reviewed in New Pages and had quoted me. And so I went cruising around the internet to see if there were any other reviews of mags I'd been in and Utne reader had a really nice bit about a recent publication of mine and a magazine/writing group chose an essay from another pub of mine to be their Lit Pick of the Quarter. So. Slow. But good.

At Two

Z turns two today. She is a full-on person now, even if constrained by short sentences and challenged vertically. She knows when it's time to go--puts on her shoes, gets the keys, stands by the door waiting for us to get our shit together. She climbs up into her high-chair when it's time to eat, unless she's preferring at the moment to sit in a regular sized chair. She gets into her car seat herself, and her stroller. In fact, I'm not really sure what I have left to do besides drive the car, push the stroller, push the swing. She even says "please" and "thank you, (which sounds a bit like "Dane Do"), so her social graces are in tact.
Most days we do this: she wakes up by either singing or stating matter-of-factly, mommm-eeeee. We go and bug her dad who is not a morning person, then we go downstairs and eat Frosted Shredded Wheat. She likes a spoon, please. Then a little Sesame Street, either a walk or a run, then play a little, and then somehow lunch is already upon us. She will have berries and peas and grilled cheese, please. Then a nap with a sippy cup (the bottle has been gone for only a week!), then she wakes up at 2 or 3 and real playing begins. It's summer. We're outside most of the time. She gardens, which involves carrying the weeds we've pulled over to the yard waste can, or pours cups of water from one to the other in the swimming pool. She stacks the child-sized plastic chairs we co-opted from the neighbor. She plays Stop and Go (You yell go and she runs. You say stop and she stops. Eventually). Then, it's time for dinner. Maybe we ride our bike over to the store to pick up supplies. Mostly we drive. She likes steak and chicken and salmon and halibut and every protein except barbecued pork. She REALLY likes edamame. She can eat a pound in a bout twelve minutes. She also likes asparagus, onions, carrots, corn, beans, beets (had one for the first time last night), scallions, oregano and basil (the two plants she can eat directly from the yard), broccoli. She's starting to like bread and at restaurants, she has expanded beyond the chicken nugget to include the quesadilla and the pizza. She loves apples. She can eat a whole one. She likes them dried and in juice too.
She likes company. She hands out plates and napkins, takes off her shoes so one of our friends can put them on, she takes chip after chip out of their hand. She gives each of them a hug when we go to leave or she goes to bed.
At school, they say she's smart. They also say/warn that she can take her clothes off (and her diaper--scary. She mostly puts them back on). She plays in the sand and makes mother's and father's day presents.
Lately, she likes girly stuff more than before. She wants me to put her hair in pony tails and she found a doll she carries around. But she still likes to climb and wrestle and play with cars so she seems to maintain a reasonable gender balance. She likes her shoes and her juice although sometimes we give her one when she means the other and she looks at us like we are the least suited people to procreate in the universe. She states it clearly again, Soice. Oh. Suice.
There' s a lot of uh oh and bye and hi but also more complicated constructions like, need napkin, face dirty. She still likes her napkins but she flattens them a little less often. She still makes a pretty mean bed, even when you're often still in it.
Every day, she's the most fun to hang out with. I love that I can spend this much time with her this summer. On days when she sleeps later than I do, I go in and quietly look at her in her crib and send mind-beams of "wake up, wake up" so we have the most fun.
Today, for her birthday, we might go to her first feature-length film. She has a bit of a cold (but she doesn't sound like Darth Vadar!) and bug bites and is getting a new bicycle. And then she won't even need me to drive her around.

Happy Birthday, Bug!

Edited to add: Apparently, she knows all these songs from day care. How do I know? I start singing Ring Around the Rosies or Row Row Row Your Boat or Picking Up My Baby Bumblebee and she automatically (her motions are a bit robotic) spins in a circle or twirls her arms or cups her hands together to hold a bee. She goes only once a week but that's enough to absorb songs and their attendant dances. She has her own world that only intersects with mine when I coincidentally sing a certain song.

Edited again to say: She also says "woah" all the time which is why many of my emails of late begin with that phrase.

More nice things to say

about the place I live.
Lo, though it is 90+ today, it will be the hottest day of the year thus far. No hundred degree temps recorded since 1988. The humidity is a bit troublesome but since it hasn't rained, it doesn't feel too sticky.
And, there is water around here so I don't feel that desperate desert feeling I get in SLC in the summer when the edges of the tree's leaves start to brown and the grass gets crusty even though it's watered seven days a week. I just finished the book "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan which reminded me of all the trouble that goes into trying to garden-up a desert.
There is a little lake here--about a mile away. Zo and I ride around it once a week or so. She likes her bike seat a lot. From our perch we saw a turtle, a beaver and some ducklings. We've been mapping the ducklings progress and they are getting almost grown-up sized.
And, we're off to the big lake this afternoon after Erik finishes tearing down a wall, I write something, and Zo takes a nap. The big lake is as nice as the ocean with waves and super-sandy beaches.
So, this place, this summer, not so bad.
Look forward to more weather updates since pretty much that's all I think about, an obsession Egan's book thoroughly justifies.

Favorite writers

Why is it that my favorite writers from high school/early college were famous for only one book--for instance, Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, Keri Hulme's The Bone People, and Marilynne Robinson, until Gilead, Housekeeping.
Some of it seems to be busy-ness but some of it seems to be satisfaction. Once their book was nomiated or won a huge prize, perhaps that's all the needed to accomplish? Or they knew themselves that the most perfect rendering of their words had been written? Or is it fear of the next book failing?

I guess it's somewhat true for the man-types--Salinger will always be better known for Catcher in the Rye but almost as read is Franny and Zooey or Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters. Who else has read Dunn's Attic or Truck?

My Life as Dictated by Weather

It has been the most beautiful three days of weather in my life. 75 degrees, no humidity. In JULY! I may forgive GR its previous days of below zero temps and above 100% humidity. What I like best about not-too-hot is that I actually do something in the weather. When it's too hot, after 11 a.m., it's hard for me to convince myself it's healthy to exercise. I could die out there. It's safer to stay here, prostrate, with ice water and possibly a fan if someone else could please turn it on.
If I could live in perfect weather, GR would count. The thing about SLC is is that if it's nice but not too hot in the day, then it's freezing at night. And, once it gets hot in SLC, it pretty much stays hot. Here, there are vicissitudes so that even when I panic about the 90 degree heat and humidity, I can hope for days like today.
I'm outside, typing, trying to remember the essay I started in my head last night. I'm also working on a novel. I wish I'd read more of Bloom's Anxiety of Influence but I don't think that's the kind of anxiety I have. The kind I have is that I imagine everyone is reading the exact same research documents and so when they go to read my novel they'll be like, didn't I read that in The Nation or on that one woman's blog. To lift experiences and knowledge from the web at large seems kosher--I don't steal anyone's words, I change the setting and the circumstance, but sometimes I need the detail like the kind of dirt or the date of invention. If there was someone tracing my url's, they'd be like, oh my god that's so obvious. But since no one is (that I know of) the details will still come as a surprise.

ETA: One more thing I was thinking about--writing as jealousy. When I was reading Three Tarts yesterday and one of the bloggers there wrote "curls of cinnamon" I was immediately jealous for that description. The best writing works like that--describes details uniquely but accurately. It wasn't trying too hard, it wasn't too fancy, it was just right on. Since I can't steal it, I want to go try and write something equally as perfect. Usually, this jealousy is a catalyst for more writing. Sometimes, it can be demoralizing as in somebody already said it better, yesterday.