The Woods Decay

And decay and decay. And then they fall.
It's my birthday. I love my birthday, especially since now I've started counting backwards.
Best Birthday present:
Thirty-one Flavors flew to see me.
Best Surprise:
Finding out last Thursday that I was awarded an NEA grant.
Best Celebratory Wine:
Justin, Cab. Also, Sebastiani Simi Valley. Other wines, not as good, though well drunk.
Worst birthday present: Zoë presenting with pneumonia.
Better birthday present: Zoë waking up this morning singing instead of coughing.
Best asker of wtf regarding my tepid response to the news: A tie between Margot and Dr Write
Number of people who thought the NEA, in this case, stood for the National Education Association: 2
Number of people who teased me for getting a grant only graders 1-12 can get: 2 (31 and Egg)
Most Ecstatic: My mom.
Most able to see why it would take me awhile to be happy about the news: Fellner
Most immediately happy and proud: Egg

Birthday plans include: not much. No sleep for listening to make sure Zo would keep breathing.
Birthday dinner: steak and mashed potatoes although I suppose I should start worrying about plaque in my arteries though I plan to use more of that red wine stuff to scrub them out.

Most grateful: me, for the grant and for Zoe seeming to be on the upmend.

Certitude

I shouldn't blame my students for wanting ever more criteria. I explain to them over and over again about hooking in to the larger context, about self-effacement, about satire. But they would please to like a formula.
I do not blame them.
If, I were writing a novel, which I do not claim to be for fear this would amount to something, but were I to were, I would wish to know if page 35 is too soon or too late to have a clue to the puzzle.
I would also wish to know if Adam Gopnik, who wrote I thought quite amazingly about Darwin, was right when he said that story is pushed up seemingly unintended and natural from description. I'd like to describe some pouter pigeons. Who knew they actually pouted?

Late October

Two points. Or rather, one point and one question:
I really don't hate grading. I just wish it didn't take so long.
I'm going as the forest floor for Halloween. Zoe will be a squirrel. Or a chipmunk.. I'm trying to talk Erik into being a forest Satyr (name pun) but he's insisting on wearing a toga. I think a toga and some hooves would work. I really wanted to rehash my Lemon Fresh Scent costume but Erik gave it away at a party on Saturday. I also liked last year's Whitman themed "Stucco'd o'er with quadrapeds" but nobody got that.
Here's the question: Have I been the forest floor before?

Students and Irony

I'm teaching a course where the New Yorker is our primary text. Nay, it is our only text, our model, our muse. It's a little bit of a canned idea, but it exposes students to readings that they'll be able to continue to access even after class. One of the reasons I went to grad school is so that I could have people direct me toward readings. The New Yorker, as conservative and cheeky as it can be, serves as a good bridge from interest in yourself to interest in the world.
As my students turn in their "Shouts & Murmurs" and their "Talks of the Town" I find something so off about them. They're generally written well and the students try to reach for erudition and SAT vocabulary. But what their pieces lack is any sense of irony whatsoever. When they review, they loved it. When they self-reflect, they mean it. Earnestness runneth over. How do you teach irony? Should you even teach students the cynicism that irony requires?

Doing enough?

Oh it's just crazy here. Grading, of course, but also benchmarking and assessing and developing curriculum. Is that service? Maybe. Our department meets weekly for faculty meetings. Does that count as service? Not so much? Should I go and teach a class in the public schools? Isn't that too much service? Probably. Guest writers and student readings and tryiing to figure out if I'm a committee person or the do-it-myselfer. Most of the good do-it-yourself gigs are already filled so I'd need to come up with an entirely new project and probably find new funding for that. Which is so unlikely.
Poetry Night is tonight so I cancelled class which runs straight into the events (encouraging but not forcing my students to attend), I'm picking up Zo, I'm running home to clean the house for the babysitter. I'm bringing the programs to the reading. Does that count as service?
Perhaps one day I'll read a book again. Or write a poem. A very very short book. And a very short poem.
Really, all is well. Erik and I and Zoe had a great weekend going on long walks, driving to Saugatauk for the Oktoberfest, watching good/bad TV, meeting our neighbors again for a strange party where the moving folks invited the new folks over to meet us. It lasted from exactly six o'clock to seven o'clock. We were invited to bring wine if we wanted so of course we did but we were the only ones drinking. We are also one of the few with only 1 kid. Everyone has 3. I think it's a rule for our block. Erik and I might have to move before the neighbors turn the screw.
OK--here's a fun question: what books would you teach an advanced undergrad creative nonfiction class? An advanced undergrad poetry class? I'm thinking 5 or 6 books for each. Michael Martone, Lawrence Wechsler, Lauren Slater for the first and Frank Bidart, James Tate, Terrance Hayes and Paisley Rekdal and Olena Kalytiak Davis for the poetry. Any ideas? Warnings? Must do's.
And, if I do ever get to read a book of my own, what should I read. I'm reading Jim Wenderworth's essays right now... (where's the mot juste, Jim? Where?) Where's my French? Where?
OK. Must pick up Zo and not forget the programs. Man, service is hard work.

Working out just like I planned

I knew I would still be able to write when I started teaching. A three/three course load is generous in its own way. Right after I had Zoe, I taught two classes and edited Quarterly West and went on the job market and still wrote. How would this be different?
It's not. I wrote 2660 words today.
That's a lot for me.
Just because they were all comments for student papers doesn't mean they weren't writing accomplishments.
Anyone know of a journal that would like to publish the musings of an Assistant Prof on her students' poetry?

Fourteen months

Zoe turned fourteen months old last week. She also went to day care for the first time and finally got her year-old shots. She got over one cold and seems to have contracted another. She slept for 14 hours last night.
Because I spend less time with her than I used to, or maybe because there are few people to distract me, or, more likely, she's getting even more interesting. She loves her blanket. She finds it whereever she left it last and picks it up with her teeth, carries it to the next corner of the living room, lies down on it and makes some throaty, hurrah noise in the back of her throat. She crawls around on the back deck and climbs up the stair, then back down, then follows Cleo to where she's eating grass, eats a little herself and crawls back to the stair. She can sit on the stair for five minutes, watching the squirrels torture Cleo.
She has one of those shape boxes where the plastic shapes go in through their proper holes. She knows the holes and shapes should match but she doesn't turn them around until they do match. She gets mad and lifts the lid and puts the shapes inside that way. She closes the lid up to see if I watched.
She drives us crazy with her button pushing. Thirty one wrote one of her first posts about it. I tried to listen but, oh, what harm would a six-month old do to a remote, a phone, a computer. Answer: I got a new harddrive last week and she changed a something on the remote that I can't undo.
She was great at daycare even on the first day and had a babysitter on Thursday and Monday--who both said they'd come back.
The best thing: she understands what we're saying. She doesn't obey "don't put that in your mouth" but she laughs maniacally when we tell her no. If the phone rings, she crawls over to it. If Box wants to come in, she goes to the door. If I turn on the computer, she rushes to it, punches a button and the whole screen goes blank. I tell her no. She laugh. In fact, here she is now: zFEWx]\//
She stands for almost a minute at a time. She may walk soon. She may actually have to put on some shoes.

To Complain

I wasn't going to post until I had something positive to say. But everything seems to be skewing negative. Maybe it's me but I went to this gourmet food store I'd been waiting to visit called Art of the Table so I could buy expensive cheese and baby-sized veggies. There were but a few types of cheese. There were no veggies. It was one of those gourmet stores that had a lot of jars of jam and mustard and all the cloth napkins and placemats one could imagine. It also had wine which made up for some of the disappointment--but everywhere here has wine. There's an anti complaint at least.
We got more bad news last night--Erik's mom and step-dad are moving to the 3rd worst place on the planet, after Vegas and Phoenix. They're moving to St. George. Where the Mormons pretend they don't gamble and everyone golfs. Where there is no water. They're moving to an off-the-grid solar-paneled luxury home. They're leaving the most amazing house--up a little tiny canyon, tucked so deep that everyone who drives by is either a neighbor or people going backpacking for six days. From this canyon home you can see across five other canyons, deer scratching for brush, moose. In the winter, Erik and his stepdad would hike up the trail behind the house and ski down the ridge. You could watch them turn from the living room windows. It was a twenty minute drive to downtown SL.
They're moving to where there's no snow, no water, no restaurants. Now, we have to do the couples-from-different-hometown thing and alternate holidays. We were planning on coming back home for a month or two this summer but now that we don't have a retreat to visit, I don't know if we will. I'm not going to St. George in July--at least not for more than a couple of days.
I shouldn't complain about it--they've been so good to us and I suppose we deserve what we get, having left ourselves. But the idea of going back to that beautiful house and to the mountains was one of the ways I was keeping going. I'm still looking forward to going home to see my mom and sisters and my friends--all of whom I miss more than I even thought possible--but it won't be like I'm dividing my home between SLC & GR. It will be more like a visit. I won't be able to pretend that I don't really live here. Maybe that will be good, in the end.

In lieu of a real post

Your Theme Song is Back in Black by AC/DC

"Back in black, I hit the sack, I've been too long, I'm glad to be back" Things sometimes get really crazy for you, and sometimes you have to get away from all the chaos. But each time you stage your comeback, it's even better than the last!

What's Your Theme Song?

I feel better already.

First Days

What I wore on Monday: beige suit, black tank, chunky choker necklace.
I never wear jewelry. Effectiveness? Unknown.
The first class was Intermediate Nonfiction. I'm pretty excited about it because we're using The New Yorker as our exclusive text. Though I hope to be critical of the magazine, mostly I'm just excited to teach what I read every week anyway. The class went OK but I let them go a bit early because I thought we'd be in the computer lab and we weren't until Wednesday so my "go research what you don't know" assignment had to be a take-home one. The students were pretty quiet which was a bit disappointing since I thought I was pretty "on" but who knows.
I used Middlebrow's Science Fiction defamiliarization post in both the Int. Nonfiction and in Intro CRWR. I said "make the stone STONY" with the exact right amount of inflection.
To Intro (which are both on Tues & Thurs) I wore the outfit Egg's mom bought me from J Crew. Vest, long-sleeved wrinkly shirt, brown, above-the-knee skirt. With cowboy boots. Very fun class. I had them go and find something in the building that they didn't know what it was and come back and write an exquisite corpse about it. Students in this section, which is downtown, were great. I teach one more section of it this afternoon--I hope these main campus students are as fun.
I'm already beat but I attribute that to the newness of everything and the commuting between campuses. And the threat of weekly faculty meetings. I think the classes, once they get going, should be great.

Other news includes: more bats. We're moving. (Not really. Called a bat catcher. This will cost mucho dinero).
Electrical work--also mucho dinero.
But, we will have a bit of extra money--if nothing goes wrong this time--because we think, according to mucho paperwork, that we've sold the house. We close on the 19th but they want to rent from us from Thursday on. Sad and good news. I miss that house so much. Plus, there were no bats there.

Food front: Still grim. We've eaten at Big Bob's Pizza--weird sausage; Tokyo Grill Sushi--slow service, weird mayo in many of the rolls, fish a bit warm; the BOB--downtown building supposedly full of restaurants but each time we go we end up at the Bobarino. I had very bad sandwish of blackened (with thyme & cayenne) ahi, mango slaw, and some aioli that I couldn't discern. Yuck. There's an Indian food place that Zoe and Egg loved but I thought was mediocre. I'm being difficult but still. I like to eat out and I'm being thwarted. A place called Rose's had OK food but the food was made better by the location: upon Reed's Lake. We'll try this Tapas place next. And a place called Leo's.

Number of new acquaintances: 42
Number of new friends: 0.
Number of Bats: 2 or 4 depending if the bats left the first night or hid until the next night.
Number of Service techs called to fix house: 3 (plumber, electrician, bat catcher.
Number of Restaurants eaten at: 14.
# of restaurants loved: 0.
Number of sisters visited: 1.
Number of times said sister will have visited by Labor Day: 2.
Number of times Zo has climbed the very steep, very hardwooded stairs: 1,000,000
Number of essays or poems written: 0
Number of poems due by Sept. 1: 1

I have office hours now in my very swanky LEEDS building office. Since no one will visit today, perhaps I'll get some work done.....

Bats!

We had one. Around 4:30 am Cleo starts randomly barking. I tell her to be quiet because I haven't slept in over 23 years. But Erik tells me to be quiet because he hears something. He jumps up, turns on the lights. I say Oh please shut the light off and let me go to sleep. Then I hear a screech. I'm not sure why he's dragging his fingernails down the chalkboard but then I realize we have no chalkboard. There's something in the house, he says. And then, I hear a swoosh and a "goddamn, it's a bat."
Both Erik and I are afraid of bats. When he was 8 and lived in Denver, a bat flew in his and his sister's bedroom and, the funny though I'm sure apocryphal story goes that his mom rushed in, saw the bat, and pressed her kids to the floor to make a mad dash out of the room. I'm sure the story is not true, but if it is, I don't blame her.
And, when my sisters were camping with my grandpa, he got bit by a bat. He swatted it down and killed it and it DID have rabies. He had shots in the stomach for years.
So we're fucking afraid. Even Cleo, who unearthed the beast, was afraid. Only Box the cat was fearless--jumping up in the air to catch the thing as Erik made me walk behind him, holding up a blanket, as we shoed him toward the outdoors. Actually, I only know what Box was doing from Erik's rendition because I held the blanket up in front of my head the whole time. I didn't see this bat. But I heard it. It was big, as Erik said. As an eagle (later, it was downgraded to falcon-sized). Finally, we (by we I mean Erik and my walking blanket) got the bat to the backroom. I stood holding the blanket against the entrance of the kitchen while Erik went outside to open the backdoors. But they were locked. So he came in and crawled Army-style to the door and opened it. We turned on the fan and the light and out he went. So we think. We spent the next hour making sure there was no more bat.
We'll spend the next six weeks making sure he doesn't get back in. We dan't find a whole in a screen or a gap in the wall anywhere. He may have been here for a long time.
My neighbor Beth was sanguine--well, at least you won't have any mosquitoes for awhile. Indeed.

We're Here

Leaving was even harder than I expected. If there wasn't a train and we weren't already on it, I couldn't have done it. But once the truck comes, the stuff's packed, the car's packed, the dog and cat are in the car, what else can you do but let the wheels roll.
No rooms in Cheyenne. Mind you check when Sturgis is if you're traveliing East through Marlboro Country.
But, we're here.
Slightly traumatized. VERY nice neighbors. Perhaps too nice. They visit often. Kendall & Lt. (perhaps Capt by now) came and de-loaded the truck. Erik's mom and dad have been here watching Zo and mowing down all the greenery that grows even out of the gutter. We went to the lake yesterday. Big lake.
I might survive. Might not.
I feel very "observed" for some reason. Neighbors and bosses and orientation all serve to make me feel very suburband and attended to.
Sorry to be so long in between posts but I had nothing but sad to say. Now, at least, things are new and strange. And therefore, writable, I suppose.

Zo's Birthday

Dear Zoë,
All over the blogland, women write letters to their babies on their birthdays. Even their one month birthdays. I am not so good at birthdays, as 31 and KJ will tell you. I tend to write people checks. And yet, I do like my own birthday to be celebrated with well-thought out gifts. I hope you get your aunts’ and grandmothers’ talents for generosity and celebration.
The good thing about writing on one-month birthday letter is that nothing gets missed. I will only remember a few things—but maybe I can get your dad and grandmas to remember a few things too and I’ll write those down later.
It’s been a great and hard year. You are such a good baby— you’ve already endured what I think is a lot. Being preemie (20 days in the hospital), me going back to work six weeks after you were born, me going on the job market, all that travel, another hospital stay (8 days), dad and me moving to Michigan, selling the house—fixing the house. But I wonder, as you sleep your good 11 hour sleep each night and eat the 17th grape for the day, if any of this fazes you. Is this list of hardships just projection of my own bullet-point list of “hard year?” Still, you are brave, as 31 says.

And she’s right, you do eat onions. You eat everything first with caution—“What the hell have you put in my mouth?” And then the next bite, you reach for it with abandon, saying “Give me another one right now or I’ll unhook my bib and huck it in your general direction.” You like steak, salmon, veggie sausage patties, yogurt, bananas, raspberries, blueberries, cherries, peaches (OK, you haven’t met a fruit you didn’t like), hotdogs—both tofu and Hebrew Nationals, chicken nuggets, ice cream, cookies, and, most of all, M & M’s. (You also eat a lot of dog hair. Sorry.) At this point, there’s not much you don’t like though you’re occasionally not in the mood for it—avocados are kind of hit & miss which makes your grandma Ellie and me wonder if you maybe were switched at birth in the hospital, since that’s our favorite food. This openness to new foods, I fear, will not last, so I plan to feed you foie gras and calamari before your palate closes down like a time capsule that won’t re-open, if you’re like me, until you’re 19. You love black beans and chicken and, of course, your favorite is sweet potato. I made 8 sweet potato pies for your birthday party. I hope your dad’s whole side shows up. I also bought 60 pieces of fried chicken for the family. Happy birthday to all of us.

In the morning, you wake up and talk to yourself for about half an hour. You have much to say about the letter “a”. When I come in to get you, you smile. And, since you were ten months old, you sit up for me to get you. And in the past few weeks, you’ve pulled yourself up to meet me halfway. When I pick you up, you point at the light switch. And then the picture frame. And then your hippo. We go around the room every morning, touching each thing in precise order, preparing youfor early onset OCD.

I bring you into our bed and your dad and I feign sleep while you drum away at our backs. You pull yourself up by my hip skin even though I’ve told you that’s not a handle. In the bath, you like to pull out a pubic hair and hand it to me as if I’ve misplaced it and you, Dr Watson, have found it.

You have two teeth on the bottom and you like to jut them out. It makes you look serious. In some ways you are a very serious baby but when you get laughing, it’s hard for you to stop. Or, rather, it’s hard for us to stop what you’re doing so that you’ll keep laughing. Maestra got you laughing like crazy by pulling the screen door’s chain and letting you reach up to get it. Your grandpa likes to tip you upside down, which makes you giggle. Your grandma dangles a necklace and you watch it, then grab. She pretends to be surprised and you laugh even harder.

You’re very busy. You must get to everything right now. You share all your toys. You continue your pointing ways by sticking out your index finger at every one—to say “you.” We say,“No, you” in return. You play Leapfrog noisy machine and with your blocks but you really prefer my cell phone and the remote control. When we moved the TV downstairs and began to spend most of our time up, one of your trademark busy business toys disappeared. Whenever we go back down and you see the remote, you clamor for it like you’ve found a long-lost friend.

You crawl like crazy. Sometimes, you stick your right leg out as a special rudder that propels you at the speed of light. Your dad chases you on his hands and knees but you still outrun him. You crawl to the dog food. You crawl to the stairs. You crawl to the cords that stretch seemingly from every light socket. But you don’t wear me out. Chasing you is never frustrating because so much of your time thus far has been stuck in beds and carseats and high chairs. That you can move on your own makes me know you will be the fierce woman I want you to become. Also. I carry you less, so much energy has been saved.

You like to go on walks either in BOB the stroller or in your baby backpack. You like to crawl around outside on the grass which doesn’t seem to sticker you like it does so many babies. And adults. And all of they who need a blanket to sit outside in the summer.

You’ve been swimming twice, both times in the last two weeks. You are, as expected, a water bug. We ferry you around on our backs and you look like you might go ahead and kick and blow bubbles. You wear your yellow sunhat and splash like a frog. You even leapt off the side into the water. Your dad scooped you up before you sunk too far, but we knew we were in trouble when we saw fearless in your shove off the concrete pool’s edge.

They say you can tell how much you are loved by the number of names you are called. This is a short list:
Zo, Zoster, bliggedy blig, turtlebutt, busy bee, wild woman, big head, rabbit roo, trouble, bubble butt, sweet potato, big kid, blue eyes, monkey (you do make this wild screeching noise when you want something and we haven’t read your mind quite yet—or followed your pointy finger), goose, and pterodactyl, (both also due to the very primordial sounds you make).

You blow bubbles and raspberries. You slap your fat thighs when you think something’s funny. You clap when you realize we’ve figured a little of you out. You spin around on your butt while drinking your sippy cup. You laugh while I watch you turn. You stick those two teeth out in front and dare me to come and get you. And I do.

Happy Birthday baby.

In which I complain once again about moving

Waiting

What to do for the next month? Read “Underworld.” Already by page 12, I see a new way to be. When Cotter’s gearing up to jump the turnstile to get into the Baseball game, he summons a force, and, more important, a style, that is completely unaffected and internal.
“He surprises himself this way every so often, doing some gaudy that that whistles up out of unsuspected whim.”

This month will be odd. I’m done with everything except a few niggling details at QW and packing. It’s a little bit like waiting to die. Of course, I believe in reincarnation: I’ll be reborn again in Michigan. I hope. But I am leaving this life wholesale. I’m even leaving Zo and Egg, in a way. For whoever they are here, they won’t be there. The way Zo’s grandpa calls her a “Wild Woman.” The way her grandma says “You come here. You come here right now.” The way my mom makes her laugh by turning her backwards, upside down, and letting her little one year-old body hang there. Only grandparents love your kid as much as you do—and, as my friend Steve Tuttle says—no one else wants to babysit them. Others will, but no one else actually goes so far as to ask. No one else will want to hear, “she ate three grapes and a hot dog today.” Or, maybe they will want to hear it but they won’t exclaim and enthuse as if she had just solved Fermat Last Theorem.

And Egg, what will he be like without his skis or his camera? With his chair facing south instead of north or with a boat? What will we do on holidays? On weekends? On Tuesday nights. I don’t think I realized how much time we actually spend with our family until both my mom and his mom went out of town last week. We’ve spent every waking minute with Thirty-One to fill in the gaps. And the one night since Thursday we didn’t hang out with her? We spent it with Egg’s cousin Em.

Of course all this doubt will also lead to new adventures and new manifestations of self. Hence the “surprised himself” excitement while reading “Underworld.”

So I’ll wait. Wait for the truck to come. Wait for the house to sell. Wait for someone rejection and acceptance letters. Wait for Zo’s first birthday.
Maybe I’ll surprise myself by waiting with good character and patience.

Umbrella trouble

It is raining in July. I know I said it never rains in July. I attribute all of my previous misstatements to global warming. Even those that weren’t weather related. It IS raining. Hard. On the fourth. Egg’s at work and Zo is asleep so I’m writing this while it rains. It’s almost done now, but I can imagine all the barbecuers in the valley running into the house—half-cooked burgers in hand, chairs pulled in, tents blowing, then falling down. In the mad rush, ketchup is knocked to the ground, the potato salad gets dumped into the coleslaw and the barbecuers turn to look at the already-stopped rain and get mad because they jumped the gun. Five seconds of rain can ruin a picnic as bad as real rain.

It looks like it’s clearing up. We’re not cooking at Thirty-One’s until five anyway. I’m bringing a six-pack and a bottle of wine. It’s not much but Val should have wine herself and Dr Write and folks might bring something I’m sure. I shouldn’t panic but the liquor stores are closed today and in Utah, you can only buy wine at a state-run store.

Now it’s thundering which makes me think this may be a bigger storm than I thought. I would give anything for it to rain a lot today. I read in the paper that at 12. 76 inches this year, we’re almost an inch short for the water-year. A huge storm, one that would coat both the cars and the driveways, would be such a bonus.

In times of great scarcity, such as store-closings and drought, I like to compensate with a bit of excess.

Red Butte--John Hiatt

Oh, the Red Butte Concert Series is afoot. As Dr Write pointed out--it's a blissful way to spend the summer evenings here in the land of salt.
Though last night (touched as I was by a bit of the ennui--which I also call Petite Syrah) I found the audience to be a bit disconcerting.
First off--everyone had blond hair. This is not unusual for the Scandinavian rooted stock that is Utah. BUT most of these were older blond heads. People who went to Lagoon to see the Doors and the Beach Boys play.
And then I had a moment of: I am a old blond too. What's the point of having blond hair if you're over 30? I'm becoming agist against myself.
On the other side of the coin was this young girl in front of me. She was, you guessed it, also blond. And the tannest and most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. She was, I think 8 or 9. But she was hot. And she knew it. And the boy who was obviously the son of her parents' best friends knew it too. And he ignored her like she was a napkin. Everything she did--take a drink of soda, stand up, eat a carrot, brush crumbs off her shorts--she turned to look to see if he noticed. And I, who was sitting behind saw that he did. But to her, no. He turned his head to look away every time.
He was about ten. His parents left before hers did. After he left, she relaxed. She danced around like a little girl should. She stood between her mom and dad and felt protected not only by their bodies but in the way they weren't pretending not to look at her as they looked at her.
I just wanted to go up and tell her--keep your clothes on. Next time you see this boy. He's not worth the amount of nakedness you'd have to show him to get him to look like he's actually paying attention. He already is.

TV Free

We're closing in on the move. Much is packed and stuffed into the garage. We're closing on the MI house next week and this house is on the market as of Friday. Many of my friends are leaving for their jobs soon. I'm kind of in a holding pattern--I'm done with the bittersweet: I can't leave this tree, this sidewalk, the cabinet, this blade of grass. Instead, I go outside without my shoes on and sit on the backporch to watch the sun go down. We have packed the TV. I try to read in the waning light.
Monday night, Zo was sick again. Every cold goes straight to her lungs. She sounds almost as bad as when she had RSV--Respiratory Scintilla Virus. I particularly find the Scintilla to be illustrative because she sounds like she inhaled a Chinchilla. And, as we all know, rhyming is true etymology. We went outside and let her wheeze the fresh air and we drank wine. We put her to bed and went back out. It's like when we were first dating. I don't think we came inside more than twice that first summer. Perhaps I love no TV.
This week: I'm reading Steve Almond's, (who I'm intruducing on Thursday at Writers@Work new book "Which Brings Me to You;" I'm revising my novel again (just a little) to send to the agent I met yesterday, I'm driving Writers @ Work folks to the airport, entertaining Erik's aunt, going to a cocktail party going to my mom's family reunion, waiting for the home equity line to go through and figuring out where this new Franck's restaurant is that the Trib gave 4 stars to. Thirty One and I will be there soon.
Speaking of sisters, Thirty-One's twin has started her own blog: Kendall Jackson. Hurrah! And, Thirty-One talked Kendall into coming to visit in July. Another Hurrah! And, she's meeting me in Michigan to help us unpack and get settled. Triple Hurrah!

Titles

I haven't looked completely at App Crit's Titulary Discourse post but I do like to come up with titles. I have a new book of poems that I want to call "King George's Book of Cliches" but I also like "King George's Book of Birds and Cliches" which takes the birds out of their lofty position and elevates the cliche a bit. There are a number of birds and cliches in the book so it's also descriptive!
It's fun to make new books. I have only 48 pages though. I might have to write some poetry filler. What's a good cliche that I haven't used?

Greed

I've been a bad blogger. I want to write more, but as usual, I want more of everything. I was obsessed for a moment with personality quizzes like BlogThings and QuizBox. I like to go back and change my answers to see how the quiz is formulated. I usually know in advance which personality trait, which animal familiar, which IQ, which aura I would like to have and I answer accordingly. However, on one of the quizzes--I believe it was the 7 deadly sins quiz--I thought I was answering that sloth was the one sin I was most guilty of. Turned out, it was greed. I thought that was odd because everything in my life is geared to make me lose money, not make it.
But then I thought of what I actually spend most of my time doing--wanting more publications, wanting more time to write, wanting to eat more, wanting to be thinner, wanting a beautiful space to be in, wanting to spend more time with Zoe, wanting more long conversations with Egg, wanting to live by a lake, in the mountains, with a big great-room for company, wanting more friends so I can have more company, wanting more mail, more blogs to read, more time with my family, more choices, more plans, and, even, in a way, more money (or, less debt).
I'm greedy in all things. It's a kind of lust too--wanting so much stuff. No wonder the quiz had a hard time finding me lazy--so much wanting keeps me very very busy.

Night

All the cable to the TV has been unplugged. There is no furniture to sit on. I can either go to bed or go outside. Z has gone to sleep. I come out back. I take my computer. I've never seen the screen so clearly. It's a little cold and all I can see is the light emanating from the active display, but man is it nice to be outside. It makes blogging seem less nefarious, more healthy. Me and the moon and the lot of you.

I may be out here all night.

I may, when it gets really hot, figure out how to write outside at night, in the dark, but for me and this funny TV.