12

Back to work, summer style, doesn't actually feel like work when work-work looms. Did I mention I have to go back into the office tomorrow? Just for a minute of a meeting but it does make whatever work I did at home today feel more like summer-work than work-work which just reminds me 12 is a number that I should behold. 

1. Making sense is exhausting. Again, revising is so not pleasant. It's like work-work instead of summer work. Writing first drafts is summer work. Revising is like making sure your annual report gets turned in on time. I knew I had trouble waiting for me to fix. I had A Winter's Tale trouble. "Exit, pursued by a bear," literally. In the YA novel, there's a bear. He just shows up. Why? I don't remember. Does everything have to have meaning? I think it was for plot but I'm afraid I already have too much plot. What to do with the bear? I let him stay but I had to do a lot of surround story and back story and fore story to make it worth it. The bear himself was interesting. "She could almost make out his ears, which, in the zoo, seemed small and cute but here seemed as menacing as his snout. All his orifices were focused on Marie." But, really, are ears that interesting? 

2. Then I had to make sense of this essay inside the book that is a book pretending NOT to be a series of essays because every agent in the world says, "Essay collections are very difficult to sell." The essay is about cautionary tales and just IS a series of cautionary tales as told to Max and Zoe and perhaps it lacks the ears of the bear story. I mean, it's a bit long-winded. 5000 words? On cautionary tales? I should probably cut it.  And there were typos. And there were gun stories, sex stories and fire stories that really don't relate nearly as much as ears do to bears and bears were already acting very "exit, pursued by." So maybe I fixed nothing today. Or maybe it's all good. Who knows? It's revision! A crap shoot of system that by tomorrow will need to be shot fully with more crap.

3. Speaking of bears, the hummingbirds, of which there were 1000 the other day, have somehow moved on. I'm not sure if it's our food, although we just gave them part 2 of what they drank down in 4 hours the night before. Maybe our neighbor, who has returned from her travels, has refilled her many feeders and they have all flocked to her (What's a group of hummingbirds? A charm of hummingbirds. A troubling of hummingbirds. A hover of hummingbirds. Oh my. All the emotions of the day at once). Maybe the Rufous hummingbird scared all the other ones away and he drinks tiny sips surreptitiously at night. Maybe they got sick of me typing about them. Maybe the bear scared them off. 

13

There was much driving. We might have made it to Los Angeles had we driven straight through all day but instead, there was slow driving, driving by children, driving on gravel roads, driving on dirt roads, roads called 260, on roads called 87, roads through places called Pine and Strawberry. There was driving to lakes and walks to the water and fishing poles cast into the water. There were no fish but there were Triscuits and aged gouda and smoked almonds.

1. Max is a good driver but not as good a driver as Zoe. When Max drives, Erik still holds the wheel. When Zoe drives, Erik has the pedals but Zoe steers us up and down dirt and gravel and relatively untraveled roads. The photo is blurry because the road is bumpy.

2. The Mogollon Rim  is the end of the Colorado Plateau. From the top of the rim, you can see down to the other side of Arizona. It's like a green version of the Grand Canyon and we drove along the rim road so all you could see is the rest of the world. 

3. At the lake, we could see the fish jump. The ospreys flew overhead. The aged gouda was just as delicious as the Triscuits. Zoe ate all the Rainier cherries as usual. 

It rained after we left Knolls Lake and Bear Canyon Lake,  but never when we were at the lake. There was big lightning. Now we are home.

14

Today's blog post is brought to you by Zoe. 

Today my life was not fair. 

1. My Summer reading program ended before I got to put the rest of my input in. I would have gotten a new badge if they wouldn't have ended it so soon. 

2. The humming birds stopped drinking our food for no reason we can figure out. They drank the same food yesterday all day. We made them some new food so maybe they will come back. 

3. and we didn't get to go on our bike ride I wanted to go on. 

The only thing that was fair was that I got to wear my red shirt and we get to go to my friend's house for dinner.

By: Zoe

15

Perhaps I should start counting up again--16 tomorrow instead of 14? A countdown has its own grouchiness but he future is always open, full of arms. In the middle, you find balance. In the middle, you hang upon the fulcrum, ballerina. In the middle, you weigh neither more nor less. In the middle, you hesitate, bathroom half-finished, book half-finished, conference half-thought about, grant-half final reported, emails half sent. In the middle, there is still hope. In the middle, there is still despair. In the middle, it is Friday, which must mean that hope will outwin despair, the rains will come again, the August will be long and bright and the return of students will remind you that the summer part of the job is the tinny part. In September, heavier metals will ring more resonantly.

1. I slept no hours last night. I slept for a few in the morning, but in the darkness of night, nothing. I had the injustice equals itchiness. I couldn't see how the bed I was sleeping in could be so uncomfortable and so itchy when just the night before it had been totally not-itchy and comfortable. It was even cold last night. It rained hard, for an hour. In the not sleep, one bad thought leads to another bad thought that makes me think every decision I ever made was a bad one. Today, it is not going to rain. Maybe my decisions will prove good and let me sleep.

2. I am making churro lamb ragu. The recipe calls for Wild Boar but I have no Wild Boar or even Tame Boar but I have some locally grown Navajo lamb. I cut it up into 1/2 inch cubes. This is the key, I think, to ragu. Pancetta (aka, bacon, today), carrots, celery, onions, garlic, sage, thyme, chili powder and the last two jars of last year's tomatoes must mean that it's time to put up tomatoes again and pretend that it's cool enough to eat red sauce.

3. Did I complain about scheduling play-dates yet? I love Zoe's friends but her social calendar is far more complicated than mine. Not that mine is complicated at all. Nope. Not too complicated at all. Mostly, it's called, take Max and Z swimming. Which I did today. And to the store. We go to the grocery store a lot. It's kind of a leitmotif of its own.

16

An abundance of riches. The grouchiness is, mostly, taken in perspective. For instance, it rained today. But now it is sunny and dry. Erik's building a fire. The kids are over at Bridget's, playing in her front yard. We swam today. We ate salad with pepitas for lunch. Summer is too short. Summer is too much. It is almost over. It has just started. I'm pickling cucumbers to remind me of how too much it is in winter when outside is a don't-sit-still kind of situation.

1. The hummingbirds are out of control. We have one feeder. Erik fills it up every other day. The whole back yard is buzzing with their dives and bombs. We have this guy. A broad-tailed hummingbird. Image source. 

And another broad-billed. 

And the Rufous

And some Anna hummingbirds

They fight a lot. I feel bad for the little dudes. I just read that if you have one hummingbird feeder with a little more sugar in it and one with a little less, the dominant ones will flock to the overly-sweet one and the submissive birds will flock to the regular one. Such is the nature of privilege. 

2. After a marathon week of cooking: Brats (homemade sauerkraut. Not bad. A little salty. Nobody died), kabobs, tacos, smoked pork chops, we went out to eat tonight. Flagstaff has strangely excellent restaurants for the small town that it is. We narrowed it down to Coppa--super excellent, French-Italian offering moules frites, steak tartare, oysters, charcuterie, homemade Bolognese; Tinderbox with their own charcuterie,Dr. Pepper braised hog jowls, bacon wrapped meatloaf and fennel scallops; Fat Olives with their pizza oven and the 00 flour straight from Naples; and Lumberyard, with the Vietnamese Burger--a banh mi type hamburger and sometimes, a Utah burger, pastrami and fry sauce attached. We decided on Criollo which has 10 types of tacos, bacon nachos, vegetable rellenos, salmon tostado. We ordered the happy hour fish tacos, nachos and calamari for Z. We were home by 6:00. Now it is 7. The fire is almost going even though the wood is wet and so is the picnic table bench that is making my butt wet with its wetness. 

3. This. 

17

I feel like I'm posting every twenty-minutes. It's a bad sign. The end is nigh. I was asked to come to campus for a meeting. A budget meeting. Twice, I have tried to imagine where the books I plan to teach this fall might be hiding. With great proximity comes great speed, so says JFK or Batman and even greater pretend-fatigue. I'm so tired but so little has happened in the past day that it's nearly impossible to imagine three whole items to write about but I have pledged my undying, 30 day devotion here and since I'm not so devoted other ways (except in the following enumerated bit), I may as well follow through.

1. For the first time in I don't know how long, I read an entire book in a day (24 hours). Yesterday, the library, which I forget actually has, occasionally books I might enjoy, emailed to tell me to renew my, Zoe, and Max's recent check-outs. But one of the books had a hold on it, which means, it turns out, that I can't renew it. This gave me 48 hours to read the book. So I did. It was not a great book. It has been greatly hailed. I read it quickly. It does have a lot of plot. But the depth of character was zippo. It may as well have been a murder mystery, like the Nancy Drew kind, which Zoe was reading next to me as I read. I like murder mysteries but this book promised to be the best book ever. How could it be? There were no leitmotifs! No larger political sentiments! No insight into how to be a person, or, even, really insights into how to be a writer. But it was highly readable in that the sentences were transparent. No fancy language or big words. I remember running into this problem last summer. I wrote an essay about it. The essay was full of leitmotifs complaining about the transparency of sentences. No one has taken the essay. Perhaps, if I actually want to publish, I should lay off the leitmotifs. But why would you write without leitmotifs? Apparently, I am 100% off in my own insight into books. My failure is secure. I find some satisfaction in that. Nancy Drew might even be the better book. Zoe, comparing the movie to the book, said, "The movie was a straight line, but the book was a circle." Like a whole world.

2. As Zoe read Nancy Drew next to me, she wanted to keep pace but I have had lots of practice. It has been so long since I just read a book--in the way that you ignore your children (only Max. I'm training Zoe into joining me on the ark side). I left him to watch TV and play ninjas. I do get updates every five minutes about which ninja is the best (Kai, Cole, Jay, and Zane) but I just nod at him when he tells me the sword broke or the car had no top. NONE!), in the way that you go outside first thing in the morning with your book and your coffee, in the way you sit on the front porch in the rain and read and read and read. It's almost the same zone as writing all day but in writing all day, there are many, many more interruptions and a better ability to understand Ninjago Lego. At least, thanks to this book, I saw no Facebook which has become my only goal in life.

3. Erik drove to work for the first time all week. He's been riding almost everyday since May, but not today. Max said, "So dad didn't get exercise but his car did." On Sunday, we biked all day and hiked far. Yesterday, I swam and ran. Today, I ran. It doesn't matter though. I always look the same. It is similar to writing. I do it a lot. Nothing changes. I am practicing finding satisfaction in that.

18

1. Today was dedicated to not working. It worked pretty well. I went running. Max and Zoe and I cleaned the house for a couple of hours and watered the plants at Erik's mom's, then we were done. We went to Whole Foods which was, until a month ago, New Frontiers. They no longer have English peas or Diestel smoked turkey legs so I really see no reason to go back. I bought cilantro for $1.49. Zoe thought the blueberries looked old so we didn't buy those. Corn was regular price--2/$1.00 which must mean it wasn't organic. They have those big green olives I like. I bought some for a picnic in the park tomorrow. Castelventranos, I think. We did make our $8.49/lb salads which only cost about $3 each which is pretty cheap for lunch even if croutons as numerous as the vegetables.
a. Bonus note. Just went to look at the boxes of tile upstairs.  Castelventrano. What? Serendipity? An essay the waiting? No. Italy's just very talented and delicious/beautiful.

2. We went to see How to Train Your Dragon, Part 2, which was, in equal parts, boring and too intense for me. Maybe I went into some kind of overly-cute, overly-stressful shock that made the dramatic moments simultaneously distant and boring and unmanageable. I cried about Toothless's turn. Maybe it's the effect of a midday movie in a theater. Unknown movies. Unknown environment. An adventure!

3. Swimming at 2:00. I swam laps. Max practiced swimming to Z. Then they had lessons. Then Zoe's friend showed up to swim, which is great except then it's always, can we stay five more minutes? Can Zoe come to dinner? Can we move in together and never, ever leave each other's side? I put them off by inviting them to concert in the park tomorrow. It will rain and then I will have lied but even that doesn't even count as work.

19

Some days are like, no communiqués from the outer world. The biggest news before 12 p.m. was "Monsoon storms set to return on Thursday." That's not even news about today.
Today was like that all day until I got to the doctor's office for Max and Zoe's check-up. And then it was all, Nicole, can you send that manuscript? Nicole, can you remember to send your Final Report for the grant? Nicole, can you call me? Call me? On the phone? It is summer. (It is always summer to me on my mind for the phone. The phone invades. It makes me make decisions like scheduling appointments that I will need to reschedule because I made them on the phone.

1. It is Monday. It seems that it is always Monday, even in the summer. At noon, when everything changed and there were fifteen people in my house, trying to begin to finish the bathroom which will as of tomorrow been a two-week project and will end up being a three-one and will cost all the money I made this summer, I realized, there are only Mondays.

2. But that was a grumpy thought so I will say that I am making Shish Kabobs. And rice pilaf. In between every three words here I look at the recipe. I've already toasted the rice instead of the pasta, forgot to add the white wine and finish this sentence.

3. Erik really likes it when I talk about him on my blog. He says, "I will sue you if you keep writing about me." He knows fewer lawyers than I. (I know one. My best friend from college, Misty. Sadly, I think she'd take up his case. He makes a sad case. "She's always writing about me." Misty would be like, dude, that is illegal.) And yet, I persist.

20

1. Last week's badness didn't take place in a vacuum of solipsistic blogginess. Plane shot down in Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, immigrating kids overwhelming detention centers. Take a stand, people say on Facebook. And then they yell at you on Facebook when you say anything. I guess thick-skin is a requirement for internet tanglings but I should quit the Facebook. If I think of one thing in my life that has made me grumpier in the past five years, it's Facebook. Or that five years have passed. One or the other but I suppose Facebook is about as easy to quit as time. As for Palestine/Israel, I would join up with the Jews for Peace but I don't think they will take me.
I'm thinking of those kids in detention centers. Some as young as ten. The comparison to the US turning around the ship carrying Jewish-child refugees in 1939 rings particularly true. Zoe and Max wondered why so many kids wanted to leave Mexico and other places in Latin America. I told them how some of the kids were being forced into working for the drug cartels and if they said no, the cartels sometimes killed them.  Max asked how old some of the kids were. I said I don't know, maybe 8. Maybe even 5. "Do they want to go home?" I said, "I'm sure they miss their mamas." "But then they'll die if they go home." And I said, "Maybe." What can I do to help? Take them Spanish-language books?

2. In a less depressing conversation that reminds me of how, even when the bad world continues all around you, one goes on, Max said, "I'm going to be a bad teenager when I'm a teenager. You don't have to be so afraid. I'll just be bad." It's nice that he doesn't want me to worry.

3. We rode our bikes to the Celtic festival, which was a festival less than awesome. What's with charging a million dollars to get into a festival so they can charge you more millions for a kidney pie and some a thimble full of mead. It was some cross between a Renaissance Festival and bagpipe convention. The steak and mushroom pie (which had no kidneys) was pretty good, but not $7 good. The mead should have come with a stick of insulin. But the hurling and the caber tossing and the other throwing thing was pretty awesome.

I stole this picture from the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival website. The best thing was, riding my bike, then walking Max and Z over to Okim's for a playdate meant I did not drive my car today. 

4. (A bonus to make up for hand-wringing number one.) I'm right now eating two kinds of cherries. The regular Bing which were 99 cents a pound and the expensive Rainier, which were 3 dollars and 98 cents a pound. The Rainier are better but they are not $3/lb better. 

21

A good day involves no writing. Or only writing blog posts and occasionally annoying responses to Facebook posts that I didn't mean to be annoying. As is my daily wont.

1. In good writing news, someone I adore, not a student, not a colleague, but a person from NAU I know, shouted out across the street when we were downtown tonight, "I love everything you write." I can live on that for another month.

2. We took Zoe to Tat-fu to get her ears pierced today. My student recommended this tattoo parlor downtown, where he gets all his work done. The piercer guy was super awesome. He used a needle, which is, supposedly better than going to Claire's at the mall, where they can't sterilize the needle-gun fully. It was nerve-wracking. It reminded me of when she was in the hospital at 8 months and the nurses took her blood. But now her ears are pierced and we got to see a tattoo-in-progress next-door to the piercing station. (Cautionary tale, Max and Z? I bet not. The guy getting the tattoo was totally calm.)

3. Zoe's kids-birthday was this morning, which now feels like decades ago.

I said, very loudly, as I took the picture, "That guy's loud butt is in the picture." That guy did not care. Otherwise, it would have been the best picture of Zoe's birthday party. 

22

I do realize that grumpiness is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's better, maybe, when I have to sneak in the writing, squeeze it in between emails and class prep. With this summer grant, anytime I'm not writing, I feel guilty and also entirely unsuccessful in all writing endeavors. I've seriously had some bad rejection this summer. The you-really-can't-write kind. The kind where they call you "creative" or "poetic." Poetry as an adjective is the worst sort of dismissal. Made me so mad I actually wrote some poetic poems which were so bad, they might have even been creative. But there's imperative behind this grant too--if I have some success with this writing, they'll give me another grant. If I don't, they won't. It's worse than tenure. Or as bad as. Carrot. Carrot. I am all yours. And then the stick. All I have are sticks. Not tasty at all.
When I'm not supposed to be writing though, during the semester when I barely have time to at all, all good news is just gravy and bad news is like filling out schedule J of the travel-form. Am I longing for schedule J's? I hope not.

But like I said, I recognize this kvetching is pure privilege and, on a major level, ridiculous. I did get some super nice rejections and some fine kind emails from good people so I have enough will to go on (it only takes like one drop of encouragement for me to extrapolate a lifetime of future hope).

So today, to fix the grouch I
1. got up early. Not really by choice. Erik had to be at work at 6:15. But I couldn't go back to sleep so I put on my shoes and went running. This week, I've been taking the kids to camp and then waiting for the clouds to come to run but the monsoons are taking a break. I knew there would be no cloud-cover. I also knew that all week, waiting to go running is like waiting to finish the paper (i.e. Facebook, which never ends) which means no real work gets done 'til the clouds come. And then it's nearly lunch time. So today, I ran. Then showered. It was hours until lunch (I ate lunch anyway). Then I worked.

2. saw a bald eagle. You can't really plan for this although I do know basically where he lives and, if I really, really needed him, I think I could find him. I saw him on Zoe's birthday in one of his normal spots by the lake but it was nice of him to fly over my house which is not his normal path from mesa to lake. This is what he would have looked like if I had a camera and skill using one:

3. sent out a short essay and contemplated sending another one. I'm sitting outside right now. The flies land on me. The biggest wasp I've ever seen thinks my computer is his buddy. I swat and move and walk away but I don't go inside. Glutton for punishment or not, I would rather write outside on the porch than do almost anything.

23

1. Although I have been waiting my whole life to be able to turn the shower on without the faucet handle falling on my toe, having strangers in the house all day is kind of weird. The strangers are very nice but they don't really want to chat and they all wear headphones and then talk really loudly to each other so they can hear over the headphones.

2. It is July but the Juney bugs persist. They fling themselves agains the windows, the front doors, the head, if the head is sitting outside. I have to turn the lights off. Every year, they come back and every year, I forget you can't stand in the doorway, looking at the rain or the Juney bugs (these huge, green and white striped flying beetle things) will come flying at your even-indoor head. They are big, these bugs.
Here is a leap that is not quite a metaphor: When you hard boil eggs, how long do you let them boil? How long do you let them sit? How many eggs can you eat to determine when they're officially done? The other day, I cracked open an egg after a three-minute boil (perhaps this is a three minute egg, I thought to myself, having heard the idea but having not had one. Nor do I have the attendant egg holder for the three minute egg. So I tried to peel it but most of the white came off with some of the shell but then I thought I'd put some butter on it (because that will save it and that's what I think I saw my mom do once) and I ate the yolk and some of the shell and thought, this is not a hardboiled egg. End parentheses 921.))))
My point is, shut the door. Let the eggs sit. A point and a segue:

3. The other night, Erik said,  "I think I'll stop having ideas at work for awhile," which made me laugh so hard with many adverbs because it's such a good plan. Ideas lead to frustration and sorrow. No ideas lead to nothing, which is very zen.  I think I will follow suit and have no more ideas. Today, I found out that I went through the wrong office applying for a grant and spent a good number of hours fixing it and writing a budget for next year and emailing colleagues about guest writers while yelling at the computer that I was not on contract. Sadly, the computer does not care about my contract. (Also, apologies to my colleagues who I drew into my computer even though they too are not on contract.)

4. (Bonus item to make up for all those parentheses). I notice that when Max and Zoe and Erik come home, I'm not so grumpy anymore (even if Erik posts pictures of me as grumpy cat).

Maybe the problem with summer isn't so much writing and the rejection attendant but the fact that Erik goes to work and the kids go to camp at all. Perhaps if they all stayed home, we could chat with the drywall guys, figure out the best way to make hardboiled eggs, barricade ourselves from the gigantic Juney bugs, and ignore the Office of Grants and Sponsored Projects, just one more day.

Come home from camp, Zoe!

24

1. Today is Zoe's birthday! There was sushi. There was Max riding Zoe around on the back of his tricycle. Zoe got a lot of presents. Finally, the presents one gets her are lasting and useful. Like a suitcase! A rock polisher! A sleeping bag! A travel kit! (I wrapped the tiny shampoos and tiny soaps and tiny toothbrush individually. It reminded me of my mom who, for our Christmas stockings, would wrap even the chocolate wrapped coins because unwrapping is the funnest part).


Zoe's camp friends made her a Happy Birthday with Legos.

Zoe's grandma made a carrot cake.

2. Even on the birthday day, there was camp (which Max keeps asking, do I have to go to camp? Oh. Max. Camp. It's full of digging and dinosaurs and trips to the Elden Pueblos. Max. You like camp fine once you are there. I swear. I'm not as fun as I look!)

Zoe's camp friends:

3. Insights into camp and birthdays. There are chunks of time that are negligible (camp) and there are chunks of time that are not (birthday). We have lived in our house for six years, finally remodeling the upstairs bathroom. The yellow tile. The yellow bathtub. The handle that fell off the faucet in the tub for six years straight. Sometimes time is good. Sometimes time is bad.  Sometimes, after some time, you can turn the water on without dropping the faucet handle onto your foot.

25

Today, 25 seems like a lot of days left before I can complain about things foisted upon me rather than things I have foisted upon myself. Summer--it's too much pressure to make every moment count. Today, I didn't even stop read the paper (aka Facebook) until 11. That was after the hour-long camp drop-off. Which seems pointless to spend 3 hours taking the kids to camp so I can have 3 hours at home to find things to be grumpy about which is also pointless. As is Facebook. As is waiting for the electrician. Erik keeps saying I'm grumpy which makes me grumpy. I'm trying to get out of funk by drinking seltzer and watching TV. But I'm grumpy so here are 3 things I don't like.

1. We're watching Parenthood on Netflix. We are on season 4. They changed the theme song. I don't like it.

2. We watched all the Game of Thrones. Now how will I make melodramatic metaphors for my troubles?

3. Zoe's turning 9 which is just a countdown of its own. She put "construction paper" on her wish list. My sister Paige sent her the biggest packet of construction paper of all time. She opened it early. When I asked her what she was going to do with it all, she gave me teenager face.

26

1. Insight? Not really but here goes. When I'm riding my bike uphill, I'm like, what the fuck? I hate hills. Who would put a hill in my path? And then, when I'm going downhill, I'm like, I still have to pedal? That seems unjust. I thought this was supposed to be easy.
Extrapolate times a hundred and add Facebook. This is my summer writing/publishing complaint.

2. It has been a long time since I've had an in-person workshoppy-type setting with serious fellow writers. There were words. Insight. A paragraph insertion. The joyfulness of switching point of view. Through lines! Connective threads. It wouldn't be too much to say my readers were generous and genius. It is like a monsoon storm in a desert. I am grateful.

3. Today was supposed to be 100% monsoon which usually mean between one and two. Today, it meant six am and now (which is ten pm). In many ways, a bookended monsoon is better for:
a: shopping for Zoe's birthday presents (hint: travel supplies).
b: taking and picking up kids from Discovery Camp thrice.
i. Camp starts at 9. Max's camp ends at 1. Zoe's ends at 4.
c. Swim lessons.
i. Zoe is learning the butterfly.
ii. Max is trying to learn not to hold his breath all the way across the pool.
iii. Swimming in Flagstaff is tricky but they have prepared for monsoons with indoor pools.

Remember for tomorrow: buy books. give money. adopt cat. wrap presents. swim. make ragout that workshop friend made for dinner but you left because you wanted to see kids before bed (made it, but only 1 for 2).

27

1. Revising is not so fun. Especially revising fiction. You have to not only fix all that stuff you didn't get right writing it the first time so you could fix it when you are revising, but you have to remember what you did right so you don't ruin it. It's a memory problem but also an ontological one--what did you get right? What is right? What is this thing you are writing? What is the point? In writing the first draft, the act of creation is its own impetus to go forward--putting "something" into the universe is all to the good. But when one goes back to "fix" or "rethink" or "remake," value becomes more important than thing. I love "thing." Not so sure I love the measurement of value. There is none of the frenetic joy of writing. There's labor, which is good but mainly in that protestant workman way more than the immanence that comes from making a new thing. Plus, fiction is rough. I like the way in nonfiction and poetry apprehension is the point. You see and startle. You puzzle and pull. Associations lead to comprehension. You find interiority, or Hopkin's inscape, in the things just by perceiving them. In fiction, you have to create the circumstances that allow for apprehension and if you don't create the fiction just right, you miss the opportunity to apprehend. Perhaps revision is against art--if you don't apprehend it the first time, just move on. But I am a typo-maker. I make the most flaws. My characters roll their eyes every five sentences. Perhaps we could have less irritable, less Nicole-like, characters?

2. We rode our bikes downtown to the Farmer's Market, Zoe on her bike, me on mine, Max behind Erik on the three-wheel. We went down Butler fast, through Fox Glenn, up Sparrow, down 4th Street and then onto the big bike path along Route 66. It's a pretty good ride--mostly safe, but on the corner of Beaver and 66, Max let go and fell. He fell toward the sidewalk and scraped his nose but if had fallen the other way....Anyway, we all lived again. Adventure town USA etc. Also, someone in a Hummer pulling a boat driving by yelled, "Your daughter is going to get run over." I yelled back, "Only by you!" Perhaps this isn't the best thing to yell at someone in a multi-ton vehicle when I've got my two kids riding alongside. Bike-riding, like eating vegetarian, makes me immediately self-righteous (and neglectful).

3. Speaking of vegetarianness and instances of not being neglectful: When we got home I made tostadas with pinto beans, eggs, onions and tomatoes from the farmer's market and just a little bit of cheese. And hot sauce. With a side of carrots. And peas. And cherries. Because it's summer and we were very hungry. The World Cup is over. Erik is done painting. I revised a whole five pages. Time to find a lounging place and make the Sunday last a little longer.

28

While our friends were in town last week, it rained like last year's crazy non-stop monsoon. This weekend, not so much. Last weekend, we went fishing at Ashurst lake, riding horses by Lake Mary, 4th of July parade, fireworks, Viet Springs hike, Art in the Park all in the rain. This weekend. Not so much. Paint and vacuum and laundry. So today seems a little bit about lost opportunity but found opportunity. We could have gone downtown to the climbing gym, on a hike, to the Hope Cottage fundraising event, to the arboretum. Instead, I stayed home and realized:

1. The blue wall is disgusting. It's flat blue paint that children touch, dogs sleep against, I tried to wash, leaving broad sweeping strokes of it's-worse-now-that-you-tried-to-scrub-away-the-kids'-greasy-fingerprints. So Erik fixed it. You can't tell from these pictures but the plain wall now looks perfect. Erik made each of us raise our hands and say, "We vow never to touch the walls and if our friends touch the walls to ask them nicely to please not touch the walls."

The children proceeded to touch all of the walls.

2. The Lotus Eaters chapter from the Odyssey and the effects of some mushrooms may have more in common than I thought. So might the song Frog Went a Courtin'. Now I have to go all the way through the MG novel and add more lotus. Or more mushrooms. Or more frogs.

3. It was so hot today (almost 90!) that on a walk in the forest today, Max said "he was going to die." We were twelve minutes from our house but we had no water. We worried about the squirrels. What do they drink? They do not have Spiderman cups filled with ice waiting for them at home. We decided they drink the white stuff at the bottom of a blade of grass. And wait for monsoons which will only come if their friends visit from out of town.

29

1. This has been the week of no. Or nothing. No response. No to requests. No to work. No no no. I am now whiny with the nothing. Whiny is not good but neither is no. Sometimes, I think there is a black hole of no.
2. Fiction is either the hardest or easiest genre. I think I type too slowly and read too quickly. Or read too slowly and type too quickly. Other genres, I'm better at the mix. Must I go in and describe the shadows produced by certain angles of sunlight upon the trees? Triangles. They are triangular.
3. Downtown festivities. Zoe just got picked up by her friend. They are going swimming then to the friend's house then downtown. Max is very, very sad that his sister left him. Perhaps I will take him downtown and he can pretend I am his friend but he already said that grown-ups are boring. "I just wish I had a friend. If I go Lumberyard I'll sit down by the grown-ups and play all by myself. I don't want to be lonely." I tried to explain that when Zoe was his age, he wasn't born yet (or just barely) and she had to hang out with us by herself all the time. He feels very sorry for her. "Every time she had to hang out with just you. Wow." He's writing his sadness in his notebook. One of us is the saddest writer. "I just want a friend." We are all full of wants, Mr. Max. Might as well write about it.

30 Days of Summer

Let's imagine there are more than 30 days of summer. There are actually more, for me, but only 30 left for Zoe. She starts school August 7th (which is, worse! 28 days from today). And I have a grant so I'm supposed to be writing but there's only so much suicide and global warming I can take!

But let's pretend we have 30 days. And let's pretend that I have a blog and a purpose for writing it. So a plan.
Three things a day for thirty days plus maybe a picture if I can figure out to login to my Instagram account.

1. I am making sauerkraut. Cut up sauerkraut. Add salt. Knead for ten minutes. Stuff into jars. Submerge with a cup filled with stones.  Cap with a towel. Kimchee is next.

2. Took the kids Library. I should not be allowed to go. Fourteen books, all due in 2 weeks. Which should I read? The Middlemarch one? (Rebecca Mead's) The new Richard Powers? Roxane Gay's Untamed State? I can't remember the other ones because I know I can't read them all.

3. I gave a character in my "middle grade" book some hair. Black hair and a goatee. And loafers! I am so obvious. I cannot believe I just typed the words "middle grade."

Literally

Why did Rob Lowe leave Parks and Rec? I love Rob Lowe. I need to channel my inner Chris and smile a lot but I literally am going to start spinning in circles trying to get it all done. I'm only taking the 10 seconds here to type so I can remind myself that February is always like this except next February which I hope to god won't be like this because I'll be on sabbatical. I am emailing the administrative assistant about standard meeting times, the business manager about the lit mag's printing and budget, the area about standard meeting times, the writing program admin assist about GTAs, grading 4 essays, preparing to teach Mary Ruefle, Mary Ruefle, posting about reading series, finding the form for Ron Carlson, compiling the grant files, scheduling Bending Genre website, planning birthday shopping, figuring out when I can stop by the CSA, get Max, get to Zoe's science fair, pick up food for tomorrow's dinner and, wait, what am I teaching. Literally. I am not going to make it to Friday. Come scrape me off the classroom floor. Maybe I can sing Mary Ruefle Mary Ruefle to the class for two hours. She deserves a song in her honor.

What Happened to Today?

Oh my peaceful dreams of a peaceful dreamy life of dreaminess met the less dreamy world of reality called the first week of school.
Here was my list last Friday:

• Laundry
• Mail Certificate
• Forms for Grant
• Sarah
• Walgreens
• Dr. Wetzel
• Stan
• Ellen Meloy
• Dishwasher 
• Dog food

Here is my list for this Friday:

• Sophie at The Normal School
• Call John Rothfork
• Book Flight to Denver
• Fall Schedule--print and sign
• Confirm with Chris Cokinos
• Confirm withe Angie Chuant
• Jesse's letter of Rec
• Jane's class
• Rooms for readings
• Book orders for readings
• Soft Skull
• FCP Grant Insurance
• Bending Genre Blog
• Creative Nonfiction Proofs
• Sonora Review Proofs
• Poetry Out Loud w-9
• Fix BBLearn
• CNF w-9
• Diana Gabaldon Address
• Gifts for Tyla & Liam
• AWP Reading
• Thank you notes--Max's birthday, Dean, John and Ang
• Thomas reading
• Dalkey Archive
• Menagerie
• Wave
• Laundry
• Grocery Store
• Walk
• Confirm Ander
• Confirm Aurelie
• Write 
• Make dinner
• Fix remote control cars (ceded this fun fest to Erik)
• Take important Facebook quiz
• Max all day
• Zoe half day. 
• Take Zoe to piano lesson

I miss last Friday. I also think we should all take out grant insurance. Just in case. 

Max a Chat

Max is a talker. Yesterday, at the Phoenix Zoo, he asked, “What did I talk about when I was three months old.”

I told him, “you weren’t talking yet, but a few months later, you started talking and you never quit.”

Erik said, “You wake up in the morning chatting and you don’t stop til bedtime. Sometimes, you fall asleep in the middle of the sentence.”

None of which he heard because he had already moved on, talking about the different ways his rock could fly up in the air and down in the air. “It’s an organized rock.”

Today, when I was working at home and he was flying his Star Wars jetfighter around and I asked him “Maxi, do you want a sandwich?”

He said, “You need to stop mean at me.”

“What did I do mean?”

“You talked to me while I was talking to you and you called me Maxi and I don’t like that because I was talking and you are mean at me.”

“What should I call you? Maxintosh? Maxallot? Maxalovebutt?”

“Max. Max is fine. And no talking.”

Yesterday, his grandma asked to take a picture. “Yes, you can take a picture of me. But just the back of my head. “

Upon finding Zoe and Max staring hard at the Walking Dead when the DVR reverted to the channel, AMC, I started running around the room, trying to turn the TV off, asking, why are you watching zombies? Max says, “WE WATCH ZOMBIES BECAUSE YOU WATCH ZOMBIES.” Parenting 101 reminder.

We went to Phoenix for the weekend, stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn. A fine hotel but nothing to write home about. Max says, “I want to go back to the hotel. Why did we leave? Someone will steal our spot.”

This morning, before sandwich, after cereal, during my English Muffin.

“Can I have some French Toast.”

“I don’t have any French Toast. This is an English Muffin.”

“I like French Toast. But English Toast is OK. Bring it to me in the TV Room. That’d be great.”

I spend most of my life looking for Lego Parts. It is a line on my CV. I’m pretty good at it. Today, I gave him a flashlight and said I had too much work and it’s too hard to find the tiny guys and their heads and legs and single Lego pieces.  I told him he had to look. He found the Star Wars guy’s Helmet under the couch. “Miss Mommy. Miss Mommy. I found it. It was SO easy. Why you think it’s so hard?”

“Do you want to watch George and the giant thumb?”

“What is that, fee fie foe? No. Let’s watch the one about maple syrup. That’d be great.”

After I asked him if he liked being a monkey: “Yes. I haven’t seen giraffes in a long time.”

Max talks in all caps a lot. There is little he has no opinion about. He has been talking for three years straight. Now that he’s four, he sometimes lets me or Erik or Zoe get a word in edgewise. Sometimes not. Sometimes, if anyone else tries to talk, he says, “but I was talking.” And we say, “No kidding.” But he doesn’t hear us because he’s already talking about something else.

My ears have been filled with the sounds of Max for four years now. When he’s not here or he’s asleep, the silence is deep. If he’s taking a nap, sometimes I want to go and wake him up. We could chat about Transformers and why they’re not always cars or Star Wars and why they wear helmets or giraffes and how tall tall tall tall tall they are. Or I could get some work done.

Oh wait. Never mind. Here he is.

“We can talk about the nap later. Let’s play this book again.”

He’s in his room, saying “tick tock tick tock. OK. Time to go.” The audience? Not always necessary but no matter how much work I have to do (semester. Begins today.) I can’t stop myself from following his voice to find out what he’s talking about, even if it’s just English Muffin expectations.
When I found him, I said, "You need to take a nap."
He said, "I can't. I'm missing you."
And that is how four year olds nap. By talking the whole time. 

4 is old--redux

Max just turned 4. His ways remind me of Zoe's ways although he has his own ways too. Still, this is what I wrote when Zoe turned 4.

Almost Z's Birthday

4 is old. 4 is like totally back-off, unless, of course, I need you to sit in the back seat with me. 4 is I can crack an egg and scramble it but, for some reason, I need your help getting me a tissue. 4 is I can't wear these shoes, or these shoes, or these shoes. Where are my shoes? 4 is that exact number of clothes changes per day. 4 is why doesn't dad like yellow flowers to which dad says he just doesn't like the yellow-flowered invasive butter bush to which she turns and asks me, why doesn't dad like yellow flowers? 4 is bracelets and necklaces. 4 is Frosted Mini wheats and salmon but no strawberry juice on my carrot. 4 is lost bracelets and lost necklaces. 4 is I want to go outside. 4 is it's too hot. 4 is I want to sit in the other room. 4 is may I have some more milk please. 4 is swimming lessons and gymnastics. 4 is I want to give you one more hug and one more kiss. 4 is why do I have two toothbrushes downstairs? Two. Toothbrushes. 4 is which peach is ready for me. 4 is don't sing that song it gets stuck in my head. 4 is feeding Cleo a scoop of dog food, tapping on the food in the bowl and saying, I like to keep it organized. 4 is me saying, Z sometimes you drive me crazy, and 4 says, Sometimes YOU drive me crazy. 4 wonders why in the song "On Top of Spaghetti,” is there cheese on the spaghetti? 4 agrees knowingly when I answer, "It's Parmesan." 4 asks, Why does the meatball roll right out the door? Was the door wide open? 4 tells me she likes to move it, move it. 4 is saying to me, you shouldn't have dropped it. 4 is singing songs about getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, driving in the car. 4 is getting everyone a napkin. 4 is wanting to go to Fratelli's for pizza every day. 4 is thinking it's hilarious to hold up 3 fingers and say, no this is 4. If only it were so 4, because 4, 4 is old.

Lament

Colin Robinson in the New York Times laments the ever-diminishing role of the book review. Newpapers have cut their reviews sections. The NYT Book Review is a third as large as what it was in the 70's. The big publishers are only publishing known quantities. The mid-list is going the way of the "middle class," he says. It's true. It's sad. But his argument is pretty hard on small presses and the more grassroots forms of book-reviewing like Goodreads and Amazon Reviews.

"The growth of these sites has been phenomenal. Shortly after its purchase by Amazon in the spring of last year, Goodreads announced it had 20 million users. Whether this is an amelioration or a reflection of an increasingly atomized culture is a question that can be filed in the same drawer as Facebook friending or dating on Match.com. Certainly the range of collective knowledge in pools of this size is incontestable. But it derives from self-selecting volunteers whose authority is hard to gauge. And though the overall network is vast, recommendations are generally exchanged within tight circles of friends. This results in another typical Internet characteristic: the “mirroring” of existing tastes at the expense of discovering anything new."

In "whose authority is hard to gauge," revolution lies. Yes, readership per book is small, atomized, and often a tight circle of friends. My book was read mostly by a tight-circle of friends. But there are at least 18 people who read my book that I don't know. Maybe more, if you count the people who bought it at readings their teachers made them attend. So what if there's no mid-list? It is not the same as the collapse of the middle-class. So what if many of these books are read only in creative writing programs? Creative writing programs are growing. Students read. Students then go on to write essays and poems and stories published in lit mags that few read but some do. Admittedly, writing and reviewing don't fully supply full time salaries writers and reviewers, but how many did they support before? How many mid-list writers were living on their mid-level advances? Can the production of more art ever be a bad thing? Isn't it great that "self-selecting volunteers" for no money write short reviews of books? Isn't it great people have tight circles of friends who will read their books? We are not big list. Not JK Rowlings or even Margaret Atwood. Or mid-list. We are just writers writing. You can't read it all, but could you ever? I remember going to Powell's in Portland and pulling book after book off the shelf. I'd buy most of them. Return half of them unread. You read what you can. Some of it's good. Most of it's worth your time, even if it's not great. Sometimes, it freaks me out, the idea that everyone in the world is writing. How will we all read it all? We won't. We'll read this and that and write a short review or read a short review and maybe we'll make one new friend, thanks to our review, that will read our book later. Our friends' tastes don't always mirror our own and, if we write more, and make new friends, our tastes will broaden.
I get the lament. The old ways are dying. I have dreams of the old ways. But the fact that there are presses out there, making books for little or no money, that there are writers out there, writing for little or no money, that there are reviewers out there reviewing for little or no money makes me think writing and reading are alive and that it's a bit of an economic revolution itself. When you do something for no money, no one owns what you do.

One

I have a lot of ideas for a blog post which makes it so that I do not actually blog. Perhaps I can pile all the ideas into one long entry? That sounds efficient and unreadable. Bonus for both!

I said on Facebook that my New Year's Resolution is to try not to feel bad nor to make others feel bad. This is a tricky one because if I took only the first part of the resolution, I would be a jerk and if I took only the second part, I'd be a sucker. Let's back up a little and I think the parameters of the resolution will make more sense.

November was rough. Students wanted to talk to me about classroom dynamics. My birthday didn't really happen. I got some big rejections for essay stuff. .Classes I was trying to get the admin to pay for aren't being paid for, contracts from the admin not forthcoming, I was a finalist but not the winner of the National Poetry Series, not really thinking I'm much of a poet anyway. But mainly, I hurt someone's feelings by writing a micro essay about them. It was meant to be a testament to this person's awesomeness but they felt it was too revealing. I felt horrible for hurting this person's feelings. The kind of horrible from which you think you will never recover. I remember running down the road thinking, I will always feel this badly. And, I still do, if I think about it. I hate to hurt people's feelings. I feel so bad for my mom! My god. I write essays about her all the time and she grins and bears it. My mom is awesome.

So I felt horrible. But also lingering in the back of my mind was that I always feel kind of like this. That I'm always in trouble, or late, or behind, or not cooking enough, or not commenting enough on student's work, or not applying enough, or not playing on the floor with the kids enough, or not inviting my friends over enough, or getting enough presents for birthdays, or not getting my hair cut enough, or spending too much money and time at the grocery store, or not chairing my committees enough, or getting grants enough.

So stop. I said. This is dumb. You can't go around feeling badly all the time. You do enough. You get grants. You have essays and poems coming out. You have nice editors who email you. You pick up your kids every day and play with them on the floor most days. The committee doesn't care. The grocery store doesn't care. No one cares if you just serve pasta for dinner (Ew. I care. Maybe just cheese and apples.)

So I'm trying. It's innate, in me, to worry--worry about enough and what other's need and think. But now that I've been to what felt like the very bottom of feeling bad, I know that I don't want to feel like that, especially as constant background noise. So screw it. I'm not doing it anymore. Sorry. I can't go to drinks. No, you can't do one more activity, Zoe. No, I'm not going to three stores to find the cheapest sesame oil.

However, I also need to not make others feel bad. To the big bad: If I'm less stressed out, I'll be more careful. I won't feel this panicked need to send out submissions all the time before they're totally edited. But most importantly, I won't make others feel bad because I feel bad. By always trying to do everything, more and more, I put expectations on people, mostly Erik, but others too, that they should always try to do everything too and they feel badly when they don't worry as much about pasta versus apples as I. By not worrying so much about whether I buy the $4.99 Method dishwashing soap or the $2.99 Dawn, or wondering if I'm commenting enough on student essays (which I am--according to evals), I will not be adding to the background noise of bad-feeling. Also, by just saying "no" to requests I really don't want to do, I'll have more time to do the things I want to. There may be some making-people-feel-bad in that way but I have been to the pit of making-people-feel-bad. My not being on your committee is not that feeling. My not meeting your for lunch or coffee is not that. My Lego-in-every-room-of-the-house is not that. It's a short dip into the well of regret and then back out again.

I imagine it won't be perfect. I already feel a little bad I said no to a student. And I am behind on texts and emails. And I got a rejection from the Believer in less than 3 hours. Bad feelings abound but if I endeavor not to be an idiot, instead of endeavor to do everything I can think of to prevent bad outcomes ever, and if I shrug off the glancing bad feeling, I will at least be resolved.

Zombies and Change

I like Halloween. It used to be my favorite holiday. Now, it's more complicated what with the  having to do more than go to someone's house with a bottle of wine and call it an October. Now, the party is last on the list. Now, I think of costumes for the kids in September. Now, I time the ordering of pizza so we can do both the downtown and the trick-or-treating. Flagstaff has an awesome downtown Halloween with a scary house and games and booths in the square. Everyone dresses up. Even the grown ups. This year, I had to teach until 5:30. We got out a little early (my students took pity on my kids and talked very fast). I went downtown with my wings and my Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute slogan.

My wings were too big. I kept stabbing people in the eye.  I gave up on trying to follow Max and Zoe through downtown, left them to Erik and their grandparents and went to pick up pizzas. Our friends were meeting us at the grandparents' house for pizza (and wine. Don't feel too sorry for me) and then to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood where the candy is plentiful and the sidewalks extant.
I did not make it to the Halloween party at my friend's house. I have mostly reconciled myself to the idea that Halloween is for kids. There once was a little Halloween. Now there is a lot. Maybe too much. Cleo the dog ate half of Max's candy. Zoe, zombie-bride, was a little too scary. And a bit nonchalant about her scariness.

Speaking of zombies. Once upon a time I could not watch the Walking Dead. I had seen the I Am Legend and the dog scene.  I had a nightmare every time I saw a zombie on TV. But then, after the Boston AWP, I sat on a seat behind and to the left of someone watching the Walking Dead. I could see the show clearly across the aisle. He must have watched 7 episodes, from the series' beginning. I had watched the first episode with Erik, which was when I quit the Walking Dead. The mother coming up to the door, looking through the peep hole, was the source of the most recent zombie nightmare. But with the sound off, the zombies looked pretty unscary. When I got home, there was a Walking Dead marathon. I caught up.
Now I watch it every week. I watched it last night. I still have nightmares, or, rather, dreams. They're not so scary. Zombies biting my knees. A cure for zombie-ism. Zombies lining up to get a shot, complaining about the sting. I try not to think about the show before I go to sleep but I have questions. What do the zombies represent? Xenophobia? Contagion? Racism? Republicans? My mother-in-law suggested immortality. Also, do you always turn into a zombie if the zombies eat you? Like, if they eat all your entrails, do you have enough "stuffing" to walk around? How come most of the zombies seem whole? Do zombies have any memory? They can smell alive people? What about covering themselves in blood, like Rick did. Would that work? I liked the World War Z solution to the zombie problem. What solution will the Walking Dead people have? Maybe the swine flu will save them.
We keep talking about getting rid of cable but then we'd have to wait to see all the Walking Dead and that seems like an unlikely patience. But I changed my mind about zombies like I changed my mind about must-go-to Halloween parties. Maybe I can do it again.