Letter Number 4--on Garbage

Dear Governor Ducey,

Last night, around 8:00, after a few of my friends had come over for a cocktail party (I made chicken liver pate. No one ate it. I have two pounds of it leftover. If you like pate, I could bring it when I come to your office to discuss Li Po), my husband told me the senate was planning to vote on the budget changes right then. That night. At 8:00 in the night. I misunderstood, as I often do, how quickly things move. I also misunderstood how likely this was to pass. I still had time, I thought. I emailed every member of the state senate and legislature. I got a few emails back from Debbie McCune Davis, Ken Clark, Eric Meyer, and Andrea Dalessandro. One of them came at 2:24 in the morning. They encouraged me to keep fighting. They promised to vote no. But even there solid commitment to staying up all night to spare us from this budget cut wasn’t enough. As you know, the budget cuts have passed both houses. It’s a done deal.

Which makes these letters seem futile but I am well-versed in futility. I’m a poet. When I have a poem published, three people might read it. And what of all those unpublished poems? Whole manuscripts?  I misunderstood, because I’m a poet and because I am naïve, that there was some hope to stop the effective dismantling of higher education in this state. But misunderstanding is kind of the point. I have to misunderstand to stay up past midnight writing letters to legislators. I have to misunderstand you, if I’m going to write these letters. I have to see that perhaps you have a human side, an ear for the individual voice. Trying to bring out the human between us is the point of the humanities, the discipline under which I work, in part funded by the state of Arizona, which I imagine you hope to dismantle but even as you do, I write.  I have to try to find the human in you even though I think you would prefer to be called arbiter, austerity-master, deal-maker, power-broker, decider, winner.

I don’t know what you did this morning after the houses delivered your budget deal to you. Maybe you went golfing. It is 85 degrees in Phoenix today. It was cold here in Flagstaff this morning— 26 degrees when my husband and my kids and I went to pick up garbage along Huntington Drive, where the new Walmart is. Our kids take Taekwondo and this section of road has been adopted by their studio. Longer than you think—the span between McDonalds and 4^th Street, the road stretches through an industrial area with Pacific Pride kinds of gas stations, APS, UPS, the equipment rental places.

It finally snowed in Flagstaff last week. The first time in two months. I was worried we wouldn’t have any garbage to find. But the snow is melting quickly. There was plenty: plastic straws, plastic bottles, empty Bud Lights, empty cans, cigarette butts, cigarette butts, string, caps, shell casings, rubber bands, plastic Walmart bag after plastic Walmart bag.

I might misunderstand politics. I thought, when you first came out with these budget proposals, that it was a joke or a stunt and 10% would turn to 1%. Instead, it turned to 13%. Instead of time for public opinion, lawmakers stayed up all night to represent the end of the university, at least as we know it. I misunderstood how deeply you meant to destroy the humanities. And science. And art. And forward thought.  But I don’t misunderstand garbage. People will throw it out the window of their car as they wait at the stoplight installed for Walmart shoppers who sit at the stoplight and throw plastic sacks and cigarette butts and hand wipes out the window.  I will pick it up. The next day, they will throw out some more garbage. In a few weeks, I’ll join the Taekwondo folks and pick it up again. I will write a poem later, maybe about garbage and crows and snow. I will make chicken liver pate. I will send this letter even though all these letters are futile because once in awhile, someone honks to say’ thanks’ for the garbage picking up. Someone reads a poem. Someone takes a bite of pate and says they like it.

Letter to the Governor #3

This one is true, too, but perhaps a little calmer.

Dear Governor Ducey,

I know you would like to say that you are a man of the budget, not a man of the people, but from what I can tell, rocks don’t use money. Neither the sand nor the saguaro use money. Not even the grassy golf course uses money. It’s only the people that use money so I imagine that you care for the people via the budget and that gives me hope.

Do you ever drive up Highway 89 toward page? You know that big house under construction on the left of the road? It’s been “under construction” since I moved here in 2008 to teach at NAU. On the face of the plywood of this house under construction is a painting of two people. These people stand two stories high. The man, Navajo, looks a bout sixty. He wears a cowboy hat and Levi’s. The woman, also Navajo looking, wears a more traditional dress. Or maybe it’s calico. I can’t quite remember. I haven’t driven that way in awhile.

My student, Lyncia Begay, also Navajo, hates those painted figures on the side of the house under construction.  I don’t know why she hates them—because they are older or because they represent a Navajo she doesn’t want to see or because they have been there so long on a house under construction that is never finished or because she drives back and forth through the reservation every day to come to school and she is sick of looking at them. I let her into my graduate poetry class even though she was only a sophomore. Her poems are brilliant. She matches lines like, “throw dead birds in the air” with “wispy cigarettes.”

It took Lyncia six years to get her degree. She worked full time at Dillards. She lived with her mom and her sister on the reservation most of the time. She’d drive in to campus for a full slate of classes and then drive to Dillards where she worked until 9. Then, she drove home past the house under-construction, which, after six years of driving, has begun to fade into the wood. The wood, suffering weather and sun, has turned leathery as the man and woman’s skin.

I saw Lyncia around Christmastime at Whole Foods. She was up from Phoenix, visiting her mom for the holidays. She has a full time job as a communications analyst. She has her own apartment. She is brilliant. She came to NAU because the public university tries to serve they who might not go to college otherwise, and, thanks to state funding, grants, and scholarships, Lyncia graduated.  She still writes poems in her spare time.

Letter to the Governor #2

This one is still a little strident.

Dear Governor Ducey,

I am an arts educator. I teach poetry and nonfiction at NAU. I imagine you really don’t support the State of Arizona funding the teaching of poetry. Although poetry teaches precision, careful observation, communication, logic, rhetoric, and appreciation of the small wonders of the universe, I suspect that you think that learning such skills shouldn’t be on the state’s dime. I disagree, since I believe that good government helps humanity to evolve toward equality, understanding, and fairness. Poetry, by helping us pay attention to detail, lets us recognize the value in everything and every person.

But that’s a philosophical difference toward which I imagine I will not be able to persuade you to turn. (I could come read you poems. That might help. Please let me know if you’re available. We will start with Li Po.) But let’s study my job in a philosophical dimension you do approve of: money.

In October, 2015, I plan to bring 500 conference attendees to Arizona to host the NonfictioNOW conference. Flagstaff has never hosted such a large conference. Each of the attendees will come for three days, staying at local hotels, using local transportation services, eating at our restaurants, buying our weird hats. It is expected that each attendee will spend $1000 to attend this conference, some of the money going straight back into NAU and a considerable amount in sales tax going back to the government. As Rita Cheng noted in her letter to your office on March 4th, the day NAU’s economic impact study came to light that, the same day you released your intent to cut higher education’s budget by 14%, effectively decimating our hope for growth and new research efforts,

For every $1 the state invests in NAU the return on investment is $16.72.

For every $1 in state appropriations to NAU 83 cents in estimated state and local taxes is collected annually.

For every $1 the university spends, there is $4 of economic impact.

Sixty-one percent of NAU graduates reside in Arizona and our alumni circulate $1.65 billion in the Arizona economy each year.

This conference is not part of my job. I’m not getting paid any extra salary to organize this conference. I’ve garnered $30,000 from other universities in the region to help support it. We have 104 panels proposals to read, registration to organize, programs to design and local businesses from which to solicit donations. $500,000 to a million dollars will be coming into this state because I teach writing. It’s a lot of work to bring money into this state but it is something I feel is worth doing. I wish you felt that supporting the work I do was valuable as well.

Sincerely,

Nicole Walker

Letter to the Governor #1

I'm going to write 30 of these. I hope they don't get me fired. This one is a bit over-the-top. They get less maudlin, but sadly then, more sarcastic.

Dear Governor Ducey,

I went to bed last night wondering how you could do this to my kids, my students, and this state. I woke up crying. This cannot be happening.  Haven’t you seen what has happened in Wisconsin? Wisconsin has completely starved its universities. Its students. Its kids. And it is a failing state. Minnesota has invested in its people. Look at the difference. Which state is doing better?

Your plan for our government parrots Scott Walker’s. “Walker — facing a 9.2 percent unemployment rate and a $3.6 billion deficit — and the Republican Legislature made massive spending cuts to public education and required most public employees to pay more for their health care and pensions. Some tax credits for lower income residents were reduced. Business tax incentives were added, and taxes were cut nearly $2 billion through a combination of income and property tax reductions.”

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, on the other hand, went the other route. “Dayton grappled with a $5 billion deficit and after a grueling fight with Republicans that resulted in a government shutdown in 2011, the state balanced its budget in part by borrowing against its commitment to education aid. After the 2012 elections when Democrats took control of the Legislature, taxes were raised on the wealthiest Minnesotans and tobacco taxes were increased.”

The result? “While Wisconsin faces an estimated $2 billion deficit — including a $750 million deficit in transportation spending — Minnesota has a $1.2 billion surplus. Minnesota has the luxury of being able to invest in its state; Wisconsin faces some challenging spending decisions.” http://lacrossetribune.com/news/opinion/our-view-minnesota-is-winning-this-border-battle/article_92f1e11e-1375-5f5a-b28e-eb80bded634d.html

Like Wisconsin, Kansas is almost out of business. Florida is drowning. Arizona, if you continue on this path, will follow suit.

Your willingness to destroy education means that you will eventually destroy this state. No business wants to come to a place where there are more prisoners than students.

Please. I live here too. I beg you to reconsider these draconian cuts. Instead, you should invest in education. Raise taxes on they who can afford it—who reap the benefits of a citizenship that can build a stronger community through technological, cultural and educational advances. Making people smarter will make this state attractive to business, attractive to humans, attractive to the wealthy who, even if you raised taxes the slightest, would pay one of the lowest tax rates around.

Please reconsider. Please do not destroy my family, my schools, my life with your short-sighted plan.

Sincerely,

Nicole Walker

Never Email Unless You Are in a Hurry for Rejection

I emailed to ask if, although I knew, given the time that had past, that I hadn't won, to ask if I had. Never do that. They'll tell you 'no' and add a little extra information about how much they do not want you, just for you. Merely asking seems to tip the universe against your favor. You would think that perhaps you'd get points for being proactive: "Now here's a real go-getter." But you'd be wrong. You'd look like a sucker who spends too much time refreshing her gmail, which you are. 

But having internalized a solid 'no,' I have now moved on to thinking of the good week news. I have finally been published in a magazine you can get at the grocery store. Well, Whole Foods at least. This makes my day. Also, the piece is about my mom so my mom can get it at the grocery store. Well, Whole Foods.  You have to buy the magazine to read it, but I'm pretty happy to be all glossy-like. It's a short essay and some short essays won Best of the Net for 2014 which makes two years in a row which (you have to read Keise Laymon's which is a much longer and better description of how it seems to go in the don't-email-if-you-don't-want-a-"no" department), and Justin Hocking's essay on Bending Genre went Freshly-Pressed viral (meaning I get 100 messages a day telling me my blog has a new follower--not this one!) makes me feel like I have won the internet, at least for the day, even though we all know there is no permanent winning. Scott Walker will show up in my feed for the next four years, I fear. I thought Arizona had the worst governor, but I might be wrong. 

Speaking of bringing money to Arizona! (segue? Like a cop!) I have, after four months of trying, made my fundraising goal for the NonfictioNOW conference. This is exciting because I love to raise money. I should have maybe followed my sister Val's footsteps and gone into sales. The adrenalin is almost as excellent as getting an acceptance in a lit mag and the rejection much less personal. Plus, now I can host a party for 450 people. Like a wedding but without so many flowers. Maybe a few flowers. 

But the bad news was also bad enough to make me want to quit and become a maker of kombucha and charcuterie. A little homemade pancetta with your probiotics? I got a rejection for an essay I wrote exactly for a specific editor/magazine and I guess it was too depressing even though it IS THE LEAST DEPRESSING ESSAY I ever wrote. Maybe it is depressing, talking to Zoe about climate change and the end of the world, but there is the excellent bright spot when I think I see a sloth hanging out in a ponderosa tree. That is as good as it gets, isn't it? I worry that I sound a lot more depressed than I ever actually am. In actuality, I am the smilingest person I know. Zoe and Max's taekwondo tells me every day that she likes my smile. And then she turns to the kids and says, "Did I hear a yes, ma'am?" "No, ma'am." "Then get to the back wall." She's tough. Like the smile I make when I think I'm funny when I'm not. 

But if there's one thing that's important to win it's sabbatical because you only get one (or maybe 2 or 3 but at the rate Arizona's going, this could be it) so today I took Zoe and three of her friends ice-skating. We skated for an hour and they who were just learning to skate stopped holding onto the wall and they who are practicing skating backwards skated backwards and I went around the rink 147 times and I'm having a hard time standing up to answer the door now that the parents are coming to pick up the three girls who came over to our house after skating to play with Zoe and try on her every dress and ask Max to marry them but he says, "no" even though he did put on his tuxedo. 

It Would Be More Fun with Pictures

At some point, I will find a perfect definition of sabbatical and then I will perform it. In the meantime, I will cobble together a semblance of an idea and then wish I posted minute by minute what I did on my sabbatical but will instead post month by month.

1. Imagine this picture. Hike. Mt. Elden. Fat Man's loop. It is January on a Tuesday. I think I'll have the whole trail to myself but as there are on Friday there are again on a Tuesday runners and dog walkers and fast hikers hiking straight up 1.5 miles and then straight back down. It's slippery walking downhill. Be care. 
2. Trip to Oregon. Saw Misty. Gave a quick talk. Came back. Portland, as much as I don't want to love it, is still lovable. I went to Laurelhurst Deli and picked up charcuterie to take home. I ate it on the drive up from Phoenix. I also found a beer I like. It was sour. It tasted like kombucha. I wish I'd stayed longer to see more people but seeing Misty was rejuvenating. 
3. Book book book book. So I have been writing. 7 new essays since the end of last semester, all in an attempt to tie the book together. Narrative is a lie though and I write nonfiction so no narrative, baby. It's OK. I can live with that. 
4. I submitted one of those essays on Monday. It was rejected today. So maybe not OK. 
5. Conference, conference, conference. It's OK, in some ways. I mostly work on getting sponsors and responding to email and planning social media pushes on Mondays but that bleeds into Tuesdays. Budget budget budget. No sleep at night. But then, by Wednesday, I usually get it out of my head, at least for a few hours. 
6. There is a lot of cat in two kittens. 
7. I have done something so terrible to my hip that I can hardly run. I've been doing strengthening exercises and using the IT roller but it still hurts. If I have to see a doctor for my hip, I will resign myself to old age. I think I'll see an acupuncturist first. 
8. I might make kombucha for the CSA. 
9. I have field trips. Did I mention? Water treatment plant, recycling plant, ice cream cone factory, toilet paper factory, Grand Canyon? Also, where is my butchery apprenticeship? Where?
10. I went on another hike to find the heart rock behind Zoe's school. I found some rocks and a cave and got kind of lost but I just ended up in a neighborhood. I had to sneak through someone's back yard to get back to my car, but no one shot me. Yay Arizona!
11. I'm going to volunteer at the CSA. I fear I will regret this. 
12. On campus. Only twice. Not too bad. 
13. Great Narrow Chimney Series Readings. Have been to them all this semester. I'll see if I can keep it up. 
14. Planning trips for March and April. Tucson, Torrey, other places that begin with T. Minneapolis does not begin with T. Not looking good for AWP. 
15. Facebook. Problem or friend? Who else am I going to talk to? 
16. It's pretty easy to get used to talking only to yourself, your cats, and your computer. 
17. Taekwondo for Max and Z. 2 days a week, each, different days. 
18. Cheffering up a little bit. Made a good mole amarillo although I added a few mole verde ingredients (pumpkin seeds, mainly). I think it was pretty good but not spicy enough. I made curry last night, having finally found garam marsala. It was excellent. Also could kick the spice notes up a notch. Fajitas instead of tacos one night. Ground breaking! 
19. Birthday parties. Ice skating. Trip to Jerome. 
20. No snow. Mostly I spend none conference thinking time thinking about how fast the forest can go up. Don't read Timothy Egan's "The Big Burn" if you live in a forest in the middle of a drought. 
21. Microfilm! First page written. 50 pages to go. 
22. Egg. Book. This week. Proposal forthcoming
23. Next book plan. Running even though it kills you? Well, I'm off for a 3 mile walk/run. I'll let you know if I survive. Next month. 

Invigorating

In November, my neighbor sold me her bike. I thought that maybe it was too big, but it seemed OK when I took it out for a test drive and Zoe has been begging me for my bike. I had been riding my bike once or twice a week to school and at least once in the forest last semester and this neighbor's bike had better components. The seat felt great. The tires were bigger. The bike was faster.

But the bike is too big. I've pretty much stopped riding because whenever I take that bike out, my shoulders pinch and hunch as I put too much body weight forward to reach the handles. This is bad news since Zoe loves my bike (which needs a tune-up. The cable snapped. Erik fixed it but it still needs some adjustment to make it perfect). So either I have to boot Zoe back to her tiny bike (it's nice, but too small for her) or buy a new bike or try to share by old bike with Z which is what I did today. Having ridden only in pain for the last two months, riding down the hill and around the lake felt like flying. As I rounded the corner, I saw a herd of elk. Close up, those weird almost-camels chewed right in my general direction. There must have been thirty of them. I rode on, past the little library--one of those libraries-in-mailbox form--and thought of all the books I should put in there that I've read lately. Rounding another corner, I looked up in the tall Ponderosa where the eagle sometimes sits. I didn't think he'd be there since I thought maybe I'd seen him out over the golf course but there he was. Such a big fat white head. I love my eagle. I said, "Hello eagle" and rode away so I didn't bug him too much.

I rode home, up the big hill even though the gears wouldn't shift to smallest, and thought that maybe I will find a way to buy Zoe a new bike and keep this one forever.

Administrivia

Perhaps what a sabbatical is is a chance to see where you went wrong. I am mostly working 8 hours a day on stuff that I've volunteered to do. I'm not sure what I'd do if I was working my regular job right now. I have poetry manuscripts and essay collections and essays and novellas to read. I have contests to judge. I have money to raise. I'm calling potential sponsors. I'm emailing editors to buy tables for a bookfair. I'm making charts and spreadsheets. I'm reviewing proposals and panels and books. I'm responding to emails. I'm reminding Max to send thank you letters and Thin Air to send thank you letters. I'm writing letters of rec. I'm editing blogs and blogs and another blog (which reminded me I'm behind on another blog post). I am driving kids to more activities than I ever thought I would allow. I'm trying to make extra money to fix the things that broke. I'm also three layers of sick, which is maybe one drawback to the sabbatical. The body thinks it can lower its defenses.

The problem with administrative work is that it seeps into the rest of your brain. I'm afraid whatever I write will sound like "Dear potential sponsor....the opportunity to support your fellow writers.....appreciate your consideration."

I'm thinking the real sabbatical will start in February. Which is good because my manuscript is due at the end of it. But, if I look at my list of stuff to do, I really think March might be the real beginning which is kind of sad because then it will be spring break and mostly over.

These are the things I want to do:
Tour recycling facility.
Tour toilet paper making factory.
Apprentice under Proper's butcher.
Make sourdough starter.
Buy a gigantic chalk board.
Tour water-treatment plant.
Volunteer at literacy center.
Write script for Micro film.
Rewrite Salmon. Change title.
Finish Micro. I thought it was done but it's not.

To have a really writerly sabbatical, I think you have to leave town for the whole time. But the kids are in school and Erik has a job and I don't want to leave them for a whole 4 months and although I worry about administrative brain creep or brain seep, if I spent all my time writing. Well, that's a lot of time alone in my head without spreadsheets.

So I'm going to fund raise like crazy this week and get the registration form for the NonfictioNOW website underway. I'm going to read these manuscripts and essays and then I'm going out of town for a couple of days to give a reading. When I get back, I'm going into a sensory deprivation tank. Or on a tour of the recycling facility. Or maybe try to start my taxes because sabbaticals might just be the time when you get all the things done without having a nervous breakdown trying to do them while working your regular job.

Breakfast--A Safe Subject

Actually, it's probably not a safe subject considering that nothing has not an opinion attendant and yet I'm venturing back to the blog with an update on breakfast foods.

Some days, I eat cereal but Zoe is on this Honey Bunches of Oats kick and Max likes Cinnamon Life (or maybe they switched favorites this week) but no matter because I like none of them. Usually, I eat breakfast with them before Erik takes them to school but lately, with these too-sweet-cereals, I've just sent them off and then poked around the fridge for something less abominable. Usually, I go with toast, which, at least this brand, has just as many refined sugars but you can put butter on it to make it taste less sweet. But the other day, I had leftover quinoa. I added some pine nuts and some almonds, some currants and some coconut (and, admittedly, a little butter) and it was good--less processed-food-tasting and not too sweet.

Max and Zo like oatmeal but they prefer waffles and French Toast and sweet cereal. I like granola but I keep forgetting to buy it and I keep promising to make it. Granola is safe for everyone.

Failing Better

Writing better. I think about it every day although I only work at it when I have "time." Meaning, so much time on either side of a perfectly crisp, picturesque day where I can unload the dishwasher and keep up on Facebook and "write." I'm afraid this "time" and this "writing" makes writing seem like something precious. And while time might be precious, writing probably shouldn't be. As Karen Craigo said on Facebook said (see, Facebook is helpful!) and on her blog, there is no writer's block, there's just brilliance block. I don't have a brilliance block, I'll write anything. But, as I told my students on the last day of class last semester and to someone on Facebook today, that I really do wonder where writing and writing better intersect. I know I can write some drivel but can it be expected that I write less drivel now that I've studied writing (called "reading), and taught writing, and wrote so many words that they must go together in a better order somewhat more easily than they did when it felt like wrestled every word like I had to do in the olden times? Maybe a little. At least I have a sense of what I do, even if I don't quite know what I do well. I think I know what I do badly and I'm getting better at re-reading my words without cringing. Or rather, when I cringe, I don't just keep reading and pretend it's just me that's cringing. I stay and fix it. Is that getting better? 

But what is this getting better? I had an agent once who really wanted the Salmon book to work and she had many hopes about my ability to make clearer what the book was about and how to make the book funnier and how to make the book more emotional but these were just abstract words laid across the very object-ridden words. I smushed the words to the left. I smushed the words to the right but it didn't make the book better, and, although we both wanted it to, it didn't make the book more marketable. Worse, I lost my voice for awhile, meaning, I wrote like someone else on Tuesday and yet someone else on Thursday.  

When I teach workshop, I try very much to guide the students toward making their kind of essay or poem more of their kind of essay--a more nuanced, vivid, mind-blowing version of what they are doing and saying and imaging. But the reader (who they would like to be an agent or editor) does have an opinion. A "yes, it's working" or a "no, it's not." Their fellow-students think "better." They think whatever they want to think. There are fewer rules for thinking than for writing. They guide and over-correct and take it back and rethink. Everyone is rethinking together, which is my goal and my dream. True collaboration? I'd like it to seem at least somewhat that way. But when the students get home, they have to decide, which better is better? Is Joe's desire for more scene better or Jane's desire for more thoughtfulness? Is Jake right that the free-associating just isn't working here or does Jill's (I have no J-named students this year!) understanding that the free-associating mirrors the fracturing between two people who hoped to talk but couldn't the true reading of the piece?

What does better mean for someone who teaches workshop but doesn't partake in them? What does it mean when you're home, writing for days on end and wondering, is this better than yesterday, the last thing I wrote, the first thing I published, better than that book I just read, or at least approximating as-good-as? If it's as good as, is it just approximating someone else's voice? If the Paris Review says almost but not quite, if the essays and poems get liked, even if they don't go viral, if the essays get rejection after rejection, is that better? I try to live by the Samuel Beckett quotation, "Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I try to fail better. But "I try" always sounds so weak. I get sweet rejections that say things like a little more focus or good but maybe trying to do too many things or I love your writing but it's not right for us. That seems like failing better but maybe it's failing worse. 

My main goal for writing is to be as wild as I can possibly be while still writing a scene or cohesive image, evoking emotion (character, in fiction), and being clear (no lost antecedents!). It is also important to me to have something to say. My main goals for revising are not to cringe when I re-read the sentence. To move the sentences around in better order. To make sure the thread travels all the way through the essay or poem (which is harder to do in whole books but there I try too). 

Should I have loftier goals? Besides the two I have which are ridiculous and true: save the planet and revolutionize what we mean by narrative? 

Medium-sized goals are trying to write whole books from start to finish (I'm a piece-mealer with essays and poems. Fiction, I can write straight through but no one knows the fiction I've seen).

Even if my writing isn't better, thinking about better writing is fun and good for my students, who, I hope I can convince that writing better is better than getting an agent or publishing because the idea of better is a strange idea and is worth thinking about even if it's not necessarily worth writing about. 

Wonder Twins Activate Sabbatical Now!

My house is as clean as it has ever been or probably will ever be. My computer has been updated and my anti-virus software is staving off viruses like a champ. I have been to the dermatologist. The optometrist. The grocery store. Max's birthday is complete--his kid party organized. I'm almost ready for actual Wonder Twin (sisters Paige and Val) Birthday. Even most of the laundry is done. So, now I just have to take this manuscript and make it read like a philosophical, globally aware, multicultural, domestic, international thriller. I'll be right back.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Oh hi. Here I am. No thriller. Where did I put that manuscript anyway? Trouble at work. Have to call in. Also, the glasses I wanted to order were so inexpensive ($29.95) but with my wonky, heavy prescription, they are now $70.40. Where is the prescription the dermatologist called in? What the heck is wrong with my hip? Should I see the chiropractor? I'm really not ready for birthdays. I'm not packed for travel. There are only tacos to eat for dinner.

Max is Five

I ask Max how long he has been waiting to turn five. He says, "Since I was born."

He was the up this morning. I could hear him downstairs, jumping up and down, saying "now I can jump high!" Immediate transformation.

Then he ran back and forth and up and down the stairs. "I am so fast." Five is fast.

When he was getting ready for school, I said, "Max. Wear your shoes but bring your boots. It's muddy out. Your boots are in your room. Put them in your backpack. Your backpack's in there too." To which he responded, "Oh man. I'm five. Now I can tie. Where are my tie shoes?" he asked as he he moon-walked backwards out of the room. When he returned to the kitchen, he did not bring his boots or his backpack. But his shoes were on his feet. They weren't tie shoes but they were velcroed well. He's so close to being able to tie his shoes. Maybe by tonight--his birth-time is 10:52 p.m. We should let him stay up late.

Yesterday, he brought me his Curious George book. "So. I can read now, right?"  He opened the book. The words read "Kite." He said, "Kangaroo." I said, "Close. Even when you're five, you'll still need a little practice." I wouldn't put it past him if in the 24 hours he learns to read. He's a goal-setter. Five has been destiny and destination for awhile. Five is it.

Last fall, Zoe and I went to Salt Lake without him. He really wanted to go even though it was for a girl's only wedding shower. I am planning a trip this January to Salt Lake. I said in front of him aloud, dumbly, "Maybe just Zoe and I will go." He came up to me, put both elbows on my knees, put his chin in his hands and and said, "C'mon mom, give me a chance." I booked him a plane ticket. Five is persuasive.

Tonight we will have pizza because when asked what his favorite food is, he says, "Hmm. Let me think. Turkey. No. Chicken nuggets, no. Lasagna. No. Soup. No." A hundred foods later, we remind him about pizza. "Yes. Pizza. Pizza is my favorite food."

He will get three boxes of Legos. That's all he wanted because "Daehan (his good friend) does all the Legos by himself and he's five so I will do all the Legos by myself too." (Zoe likes the Legos too. When he was 4, she did the 8 and up ones for him. Now that he's five,  we'll have to get both of them twice as many sets."

Max is cuddly bear. He jumps into my arms, puts his head on my shoulder. When he does that, I call him Mr. Squishy. He still likes me to pick him up but I can tell that in the last couple of weeks, he's been hugging less, holding me at arm's length. When I ask him if he'll still be squishy when he's five, he shrugs his shoulders all the way up to his ears and says, "I not know."

My hope for Max's fifth year is that his quotes remain as quotable and his person remains a little squishy too.

Year in Numbers

15. Bike rides to campus.
9. Bike rides up Butler, all the way home.
6. Times my nice husband tossed my bike in the back of his car so I didn't have to ride all the way home on Butler.
3. Weddings attended.
3. Trips to fun places for 3 weddings.
2. Sisters who are turning 40 in a couple of weeks.
38. Blog posts in 2014.
30. Blog posts posted in August.
4. People who stayed at my house to help plan NonfictioNow Conference.
128,272. Meetings, emails, phone calls about NonfictioNow Conference.
0. Times sledding (no snow 2014. Went sledding today!)
8. Times ice-skating.
2. Bathrooms remodeled (one by Erik, one by the most expensive contractor in the land. (Not really, it just feels that way.))
5. Sentences written with more than one paranthetical per.
1. Camping trip to The White Pocket.
3. Trips to Salt Lake (not enough).
1. Pork terrine made without the blade on the meat grinder.
3. Turkeys smoked in the smoker.
1. Turkey roasted in the roaster.
47. Nights of turkey/green chile tacos.
123. Tacos eaten.
3. Smoked duck breasts procured from The Tourist Home.
2. Kittens procured and standing right now on my computer.
10. Essay collections read. See Essay Daily for long list (but really read other posts there for December. That last one is particularly excellent as is Dinah Lenney's tribute to Judith Kitchen).
1. Chapbook forthcoming from Black Warrior Review.
1. Agent procured.
10. Essays published.
15. Times I told my kids I wish they would stay home with me. I would home school them.
14. Times I told my kids to freaking go entertain themselves.
5. Books spread-eagled on my nightstand.
16. Novels I read in secret.
9. Poetry collections I read in public.
2. Visits to Coppa for dinner.
1. Visit to Coppa for their $165 per person truffle dinner that I'll have to miss because
1. Thermostat that broke on New Year's Day, precipitating an emergency visit from the most expensive furnace repair man in the world (not really, it just feels that way).
1. Dinner I probably really wasn't going to go to any way.
1. Denver Film Festival attended as a guest of a filmmaker husband.
1. Dog that's getting old but is hanging in there.
1. Visit by great friends from Los Angeles.
1. Mom who visited for Thanksgiving.
2. In-laws who have had us over for dinner every night this week because of the
1. more room to scrape, drywall, texture and paint.
1. Very, very seafoam green room. Come visit. Bring your snorkel.
1. Sister who teaches her brother how to count to 100 and by 10s.
2. Great visiting writer gigs--one thanks to Susan Goslee at Idaho State and one thanks to Peter Covino at the Ocean State Summer Writer's Conference.
1. Upcoming writing gig a Pima Writer's Conference.
7. Other things I should be doing besides blogging.
1. Resolution not to oversay "should."
1. Upcoming sabbatical for which I will write another list tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

It is not my fault.
A resolution? Maybe. A mantra? Probably a bit of a lie.
Someone else was pouring the scotch. A little too much. I have a little bit of a headache so this will be a little bit of a blog post. But happy new year.

Here's to accountability in the new year (and maybe a little bit less whiskey).