At Two

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

Happy Birthday, Bug!

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

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

More nice things to say

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

Favorite writers

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

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

My Life as Dictated by Weather

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

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

Lovely wedding, hot return

I promise to complain slightly less about the heat. Actually, without the humidity here, it would be quite nice. But it's like 50% humidity. The weather sits on my chest and won't let me get up. Well, just for this second to blog/complain about the heat and recount the wedding.

P'swedding was so beautiful with the big falls right behind her. Z did a pretty good job of being a flower girl except that she, in true Z fashion, went to clean up the petals after she dropped them. "Ah oh" was the chorus to the song of the falling flower petal. After the petals were cleaned up and 5 zillion pictures were taken of the beautiful newlyweds, there was some dancing, some fine food and some hearty drinking. All hail the destination wedding!

I'm trying to write this afternoon even though it's a hundred degrees out (if you do my math of humid plus temperature plus complaining efforts) BUT the guy painting the house next door is listening to classic rock. Bad Company until the day I die, Watch what you say, you'll be calling me a radical, political, When I'm sixty-four, Mean mean Sawyer, mean mean pride. Plus commercial. And, did I mention we have no AC so if I shut the window I would surely die? I think that yes, yes I did.
At least they're painting the house a color (blue) better than its original beige.

ETA: I could update class rock songs all day. Best day of my life.., was the last heard. but now Fleetwood Mac's Golddust Woman is on and now I can't complain. Except I do want to go download Hole's version.

Great week with mom

We've had tons of fun here with Maestra (that's what my mom wants her grandkids to call her) and her boyfriend Bart. We've been shopping and to the lake and to an arts festival. We've grilled brats and trout and chicken and pork chops--all tasty with their respective sides and sauces. You pair them up: Corn, red cabbage, radish-carrot-snowpea-scallion salad, cous cous, asparagus, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, roasted potatoes, green chile, pine nut butter.
It was a lot of cooking: breakfasts, lunches, and dinners but my mom makes cooking easier because she's always getting the napkins and forks and things together that I always do at the last minute. Then she cleans the whole kitchen. She also did a ton of laundry! Woohoo!
Our friend who is riding his bike from NYC to SLC made it in time last night for Brats and we had local friends over too which made for a lovely party-like evening. Hoorah for summer, and house-guests.
We leave for Niagara Falls tomorrow morning for P's wedding. It should be fabulous, except for, as I mentioned before, the car ride. Onward to Canada! (Did you know Canada is only like 2.5 hours from here? Now if only my passport that I ordered over 4 months ago had arrived......)

Thank you for voting

Thanks everybody. I think I have a plan. It involves none of the suggestions I listed but a combination of them and yours. Or, as Lisa B. says, I'll go back to the old title. I couldn't have come up with this idea for a new title without you so very cool and thank and thanks. (I'm taking that post down to preserve what's left of my barely concealed anonymity.)

In other news, my mom's in town. We're having fun. It's kind of hot but I think I've acclimated to the humidity. Plus, it hasn't been nearly as humid as that first hot day here in May. We leave for Niagara Falls for P's wedding! on Thursday. We're driving and we have no idea how we'll fit:
2 of mom's boyfriend's rolly-suitcases.
1 of mom's rolly-suticases
3 of mom's they're-not-really-suitcases-because-they-don't-roll suitcases.
5 of Z's required bags.
Egg and my suitcase that may or may not roll.

Wish us luck!
Happy Father's Day!
Today, we're making for Erik: Green Chile Sauce. His favorite food. We'll put it on corn and potatoes and pork chops. I'll also make him chicken salad. He loves that too. Z made him a present at school and I'm going shopping now for what will be some seriously boring but useful gifts.

Thanks again for all the titular fun. Or titillary fun. Or titling fun though I prefer the double-meaning of the first two....

Ala Mode

In the Style of Hightouch, Dr. Write and ErinAlice, I bring a list of the days.

Since the last post, some of us:

• Bought new kitchen cabinets because one house demolition disaster is not enough.
• Edited blog to include new links.
  
• Rode our bicycles around Reed's Lake.
• Played disc golf four out of the last nine days.
• Cleaned out the fridge.
• Went on the swing four-hundred and seventy-two times.
• Wrote some number of words of novel.
• Contemplated getting an MBA.
• Wrote some number of poems.
• Watered the new outdoor plants.
• Read some of the Pynchon.
• Continued with bed-making propensity, flattening sheets, clothes, napkins.
• Went downtown to Local's Only Festival.
• Finished one essay.
• Made plans for crazy week of housesitting and wine-tasting and going-to-fancy-dinner with friends.
• Made rib-eye steaks topped with most delicious habenero and red bell pepper vinaigrette (OK, that was last week but it needed mentioning. Best food I ever made).
• Went downtown to nice restaurant. Like a slightly fancier Red Rock.
• Started the cleaning process for upcoming visit from the mom.
• Stayed up past 9:30 every night.
• Went downtown to arty street.
• Learned how to count.
• Made turkey burgers with green chiles, shitake mushrooms, bacon and pepper jack. Best food I ever made.
• Contemplated giving up on the Pynchon.

And conversation with the Z:
Do you want to swing?
Swing!
Do you want to go on the slide?
Slide!
Do you want to go on the swing again?
More.
OK. That's enough. Let's go in.
No. (In the most pleasant of tones. As in no, I'd rather not.)
Come on, we have to go.
No. (Ditto the pleasantries).
Do you want to go to time out?
Out! (Whereby, she walks to the vestibule which has the front door and also a French door. She opens the French door, walks in, closes the French door and waves.)

She has taken our only ammo and turned it into her own good idea. "I do indeed believe I need a break from you people."

Neighbors

To make up for a Memorial Day faux pas (I bailed on a neighborhood bbq in favor of one at our every-day friend's) Egg and I hosted a dinner party for 7 adults and 7 kids. The 7 kids part was unnerving. As usual, I cooked way too much food that was also perhaps too unusual for a neighborhood-party with kids. I made salmon with raspberry vinaigrette (raspberry jam, white wine vinegar, cumin, salt, pepper, olive oil and a little water), Greek Salad, baba ganoush, hummus (Egg made the Hummus) and this yogurt-cilantro-cardomon-caraway seed concoction that no one liked (I liked it!) And we roasted potatoes on the grill in foil which would have been great, had we not burned the crap out of them.
Our neighbor next door has a great yard for kids and she invited them over to play in her yard--which was OK--but then the party was split in two. The guys over here, drinking beer and the women-folk over there, watching the kids. Later, the guys went over there but I was annoyed at the splitting over the party and the division of labor. But I was happier to be annoyed than if all the kids were running around our small, flowery yard or if they were bored to tears asking to go home. So it really did work out, though the labor had to be divided. I kept running back over here to get appetizers and more wine to take over there and to roll my eyes at the guys. Only Egg had a clue what I was rolling my eyes about. These folks, except my neighbor, have a much more traditional understanding of labor and division than we do which I find difficult to understand. I don't understand how the division develops. At what point did it become clear to them that he would work and she would watch the kids? That she would take the kids to the bathroom? That she would be the one to make sure the hot dogs (I did not force my salmon or weird yogurt on the kids--although I made enough for 27 of them) were eaten? Even were Egg and I to come to that decision, we'd have to argue and pontificate and be stubborn and relent for eight to ten years and by then, Z would already be able to find the bathroom and cook her own hot dogs. That it was assumed that that's how the labor would be divided was fascinating, if also disturbing, to me.
Our next door neighbor is a single mom and she makes more sense to me. One of the kids asked her daughter where her dad was and the daughter said, "I don't have one. It's just me and my mom," in the most confident of manners. Under her breath, my neighbor said, "and if I did have a husband, he'd be inside doing dishes." A dig at the division of labor or a comment on her own cleaning skills, I'm not sure.
And, finally, the woman with three kids asked if we were going to have another baby, which everyone always asks, to which I said, I don't know, one seems so manageable. I hope I didn't imply that they weren't doing a great job managing their kids. They were. I was just commenting that it takes both me and Egg ninety percent of our concentration to manage the Z. More because we prefer Z management to other activities, but still, it is a big job.
All in all, a fun barbecue that left me thinking I could possibly invite near-strangers over again although I felt terrible about the one neighbors we didn't invite who kept looking over from their deck with left-out-itude in their eyes. That sucked and it makes me think it might be too hard to be friends with some neighbors and not others.

hot in the city

Um, it's 84 degrees outside and I think I may be dying of heat exhaustion. Me thinks I've never encountered humidity until this week. To continue the sorrow of the last post, I miss my old house with its old swamp cooler. How cool I was. And how little humidity. Here, we have radiant heat. Radiators. So there's no duct work. So no air conditioning. So I can sit here on my high-horse and save the planet by not using so much energy while I sweat to death. It's a short life-expectancy, up on this high-horse.
In other news, Egg is out of town so it's just Z and me. We went on a bike ride. It was death-defying. Now we're trying to decide what to eat/where to go for dinner. I thought I'd eat a bunch of foods that Egg hates: feta (which I did eat), Pho (but I'm really not quite up to cooking it or seeking out the one Vietnamese restaurant in town) and it turns out, I don't think I actually like chicken drumsticks as much as I thought.
My grill is broken so it's possible we will starve to death even off the high-horse. There's no way I'm roasting chicken legs inside when it's the ridiculous degree of now, 85.

You can't go home again.

Literally. Not when they tear your house down.
We sold our house in August. The house I lived in for 8 years and Egg lived in for 7. The house we lived in when we met, got married, had Z. The house whose backyard hosted countless parties--the grad school party when the window got broken and my neighbor came over to tell us to keep it down. The late night party when we sat around the chiminea smoking and drinking until almost morning. The front porch where Egg asked me to marry him. The backyard that we made into gardens for tomatoes and chard and peppers.
A year ago at this time, we had just finished remodeling. The kitchen had new cherry cabinets. Granite countertops. Tile blacksplash. Egg, the world's best painter, had just finished painting the hallway. He painted every room in that house. Our bedroom was a strange silver-green that he made with special texturing paint. Z's room was adobe-peach. The basement had a bright purple room, a red room, an amber room. The kitchen was mocha-colored. Egg paints like a crazy person--cutting in a room's ceiling first, then cutting in corners, then painting the walls, painting trim in the most toxic-smelling of oil paints, painting window casements freehand. It takes him forever to paint. I wonder how long it took for the paint to fold and crack as they crushed the drywall.
The house was brick--post WWII regular bungalow with a concrete-tile roof. It was small but with a dry, finished basement, big enough for 4. Egg's mom and my mom grew up in houses that size without the basement with families twice that big. But this house wasn't big enough for the couple and their 3 year-old.
My mom, who encountered the potential buyers last summer while she was watering the plants (we had already moved here), told me the first thing those would-be and eventual buyers did was ask her about the lot size. We should have figured then what they had in mind but I thought addition, not demolition.
All the work that went into that house: Egg, his step-dad, his uncles, my sister, my mom...everyone who helped us weed and rake and paint. All the people who visited: to drink beer in our enormous backyard, to eat dinner at the table in the small dining room off the kitchen or at the island, to watch Z start to crawl on those newly-finished hardwood floors.
Of course I still have all those memories, but now, and I'm sure at least for a while, I'll think about something that happened in that house --the time I couldn't decide which was more wasteful--washing out the yogurt container with the limited water in that drought-ridden state or just throwing the plastic away. In the end, I gave the container to Cleo to lick out, then I recycled it. Cleo, the dog we got while we lived there. Or the compost bucket on the back porch. Or the smoking I did on that back porch and then quit doing on that back porch. The books I read and writing I typed. The dumb fights with Erik and the sex in different rooms. The dinners I made. The goodbye parties hosted for others, then for us--and that memory will be tainted with the recognition of the actual "thing" not being there.
I'm very big on the thing itself.
I still like to drive by the old houses I grew up in. The one by the mortuary. The one by the cemetery. The one by the church. When I'm in Portland, I drive by the apartments I lived in and the house I owned. Just going by reminds me of things I'd forgotten. I won't be driving by our house again because it will not be there. Nothing to jog my memory. Nothing but a gigantic house that dwarfs all the neighbor's regular-sized houses. Nothing but a waste of lumber and tree and paint trucked off to the dump, maybe a salvage yard, if I'm lucky. Nothing but those motes in the air. The dust of the thing itself. Maybe there's enough substance in that dust that I could find the flicker of a memory. I could go over there and rake the grass, toss up some motes, see what that could do to remind me of the house where we brought Z home from the hospital, both times, where Cleo healed from her hip surgery, where the night we met, Egg came over and we read that transvestite Mormon cookbook, where my first friends in grad school Dr. Write and J.P. came over that first semester and drank what was left of my Oregon wine, where my best friend in grad school Steve came over and let me make him cassoulet, where Thirty-one came over during lunch when she was pregnant to take a nap on my couch, where my cats had a cat door in the backdoor that opened into that enormous backyard, where my mom stayed when she moved back to Salt Lake before she left for New York, where my friends slept the days surrounding my and Egg's wedding, where my sister P stayed when she came home from Baltimore, where I experimented with paper and computers and herbs and plants and books and exams and baby-raising.
It was hard leaving that house last August. Now it's like leaving all over again.
Last night, the Jazz played in the Playoffs in Salt Lake. One of the cameras looked like it was stationed right about where our house had been. The view was of the city that we could have seen from our back porch, if you tilted your head one way and leaned over the railing a bit. Egg and I looked at each other and then quickly looked away.

Dog fun

In an attempt to do something new, Erik and I bought ticket to a fundraiser for the County Animal Shelter. The fundraiser was held outside and the dogs could all come. At first, I was worried they'd kick us out because of Zoe but it didn't even occur to me to get a babysitter. Of course, if dogs could come, then kids could. But not really. Some people don't like to drink in front of kids and the main draw of the fundraiser was wine and beer and appetizers! Knowing full-well I'd overdo on the wine and under-do the appetizers, Erik and I took Zoe to dinner before hand. I had a scallop appetizer. Erik had steak and bleu cheese salad. Zoe had her ever-favorite chicken fingers. With a pickle. And blueberries. And chips. Happy baby. We'd driven over to the dinner place then Erik drove home to get Cleo and walked back (hence the guilt-free wine drinnking). Then the dog-partying commenced. Zoe was quite welcome. There were as many babies there as dogs I think. Cleo got to nuzzle with a bunch of other dogs her size. Erik and I drank our requisite amount of drink (only two each) and then we walked home. A lovely evening except when Erik lamented the times when I drank Bud Light and therefore was a cheaper date. Indeed, I was cheaper then!

Observation: People in this fine state are different about dogs than they were in SLC. If you're out walking your gigantic german shepherd/husky mix, they'll move their golden retriever to the other side of the street. Some people (lots) (well, more than zero which is the number I ever saw in Utah) muzzle their dogs. In general, there's a lot of leashing and harnessing and anal-retentiveness about the dog. It was nice, then, to see dogs in the out-of-doors, free to consort. Except the one muzzled dog, which just seemed mean. Their were appetizers for the dogs--ice cream, Zen treats (which Cleo did not like) and other biscuits. This poor muzzled husky didn't get a single bite.

Next event--Memorial Day in Chicago? We'll see.

Oh ho ho

You thought my last post was made it "home." Oh no, that was from Baltimore. But we did make it home. Barely. Z was a trooper. Ohio is vast when you don't have a fine friend's home to crash at half-way through. I'm never taking another road with the letters "95" in them and Z might have an issue with car-sickness. Stop and go traffic makes her throw up. Might try dramamine. We have several more driving vacations planned.
Must go to bed now. It's 11:20 (that's 23:20 to P's military fiance) and we've been driving since 9 (that's 9 to him and to the rest of us). I have a teaching portfolio workshop tomorrow. It sounds like one of those very irritating helping-absent-minded-professors projects but apparently I have a third year review next year although I just barely finished my first....the tenure track is a lot like I-695, I-495, and the promising but unfulfiling I-395--confusing, back-tracking and often very much like a parking lot.

We made it!

We arrived happy and intact. All was well on the drive. Ohio was great. Seeing our friends and their kids halfway was lovely. They are the most gracious hosts and have a beautiful house--a resort-like space. They gave up their bedroom for us--the windows looked out onto the woods.
The drive on through West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland was equally gorgeous. What a lovely country--perhaps I'll stay! Now Erik and I have officially driven across the whole of it. Z was amazing Unbelievably good. No crying. No complaining. Lots of fun back-seat-sitting. Not much singing because Egg couldn't like the Pete Seeger I downloaded.
Z was great, perfect, until we hit Baltimore's 695. Stop and go. 10 miles took 40 minutes. Z, who hadn't been out of the car in 3 hours and had eaten a bunch of peanuts, threw up. But we made it to P's and rinsed the carseat off and changed her clothes and much joyous reuniting commenced.

Have Child, Will Travel, Need Advice

We're leaving for Baltimore on Wednesday. The housesitter's coming, the grades are turned in, the car's oil has been changed.
But, oh ye brave souls who have traveled 10 hours in a car with a child, tell me what did you do to make it less of a screamfest? Z is OK in the car, but at 21 months doesn't like to be confined for very long (say over an hour). We're driving to see Margot! in Columbus, which is 5.5 hours and staying over there so we'll have a break on our way eastward. We may or may not try to make it straight back the following Wednesday (11 hours).
We'll take our computers and my video iPod. Any suggesstions for how to make this fun (or at least not painful)?
Thank you in advance for making me feel like this was a good idea.

Went well

Thank you my well-wishers: Lisa B and Dr. Write.

Thirty-one would be proud. I wore very tall shoes.

Some of my favorite writers were there and they said nice props. And even though I dropped my papers, people still said I read beautifully, elegantly.

I'm pretty happy! I love to read (I always forget how much I love it). My students came, my colleagues came, folks from Western came. A fellow-NEA winner from 1995 came. Well-attended indeed.
My neighbors came too! 4 of them. Linda, Cheryl, Beth and her daughter Rose. So it wasn't just poetry-ites. It made me feel like I'm making in-roads and communities.
I read with my non-poetry reading voice which people seemed to love.
Now, if I could only get the paper to stay on the podium....

Big Reading Tonight

I'm reading at the downtown GR public library tonight. Mostly new poems. I have several worries. That I'll read too fast. That the audience will space out. That the poems will make no sense. That I'll wear something ridiculous. I almost decided on an outfit but then realized the shirt for it is the same shirt I wore for the NEA photograph. Perhaps that would be funny.

None of the poems are funny.
People like funny poems.
Ergo, no one will like my reading.

Maybe I can ham it up a bit with the discussion of the shirt.


I'm doomed.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Semester is 98% over

The remaining 2% might kill me but probably not. I'm reading at the Public Library on Thursday night. They paid me real money to read. I love the library. Then, I have revisions to look at (I refuse to call them portfolios). I'm actually looking forward to reading through everyone's work. My two upper-level classes turned out to be amazing. Even the students I thought didn't like the classes turned out to love it. I have many people telling me they'll be taking my intermediate classes and the Capstone in the fall.
I meant to post last week about many things but was too disheartened by the Virginia Tech and the Supreme Court Rulings and then again by the Earth Day Funereal March. But I have sublimated all that business and now want to know everything you know about Roland Barthes Mythologies. This is the book I'm going to use as central to this capstone class. The capstone is supposed to focus on genre--from the memo to the novel. Barthes' Mythologies should work well to describe convention and frame in "Myth Today" and enact it in the specific examples. My favorite thus far is "Steak and Chips" though "Wine and Milk" is a good one too. Ah, the recipe as genre. But I want to keep the conversation focused on more than just pointing to stuff and saying "there's a genre" "there's a convention" "there's a frame around a frame." Any ideas you all have will be absorbed by the blob that is my brain.
Now, I'm off to mark the calendar for days we need housesitting....Most of the summer it seems.

Starblucks

I don't hate Starbuck's with the rabidity of some. Sure they overroast their coffee. Sure they put a number of cooler coffeehouses on warning if not out of business. Sure they're destroying the planet by not shade-growing their coffee. But when I travel, particularly in NYC--they always provided: 1)clean, unlocked bathrooms. 2) a coffee lingo I could learn and repeat "Tall," "skinny," "with room" etc. and 3) OK, I can't think of a third.

I went there today to try to finish this long poem (in Terza Rima!) and first asked for a cup of Fair Trade coffee since my poem is about the end of the world (as usual). They didn't have any brewed but they'd make me a French Pressed cup. Yeah! But then they asked me what size and it seemed like all of western civilization took a nose dive when I said "tall." They said Large, I said Venti and I realized I was no longer in Starbuck land.

I tried to log on to the internets. They were closed. Or rather, a T Mobile Hot Spot connection was available for the low low price of $9.99. For a day pass.

Still, my very very Grande Fair Trade French Pressed coffee was freaking amazing and the only thing to have gotten rid of my three-day old headache. But it was GIGANTIC (large, Venti, whatever). So, I went to the bathroom. What did I find there, insult among insults? A locked bathroom and a sign that said please to ask for key. A key? For a Starbuck's bathroom? Is it worth it then, to humilate oneself for the Starbucks-going rather than the cool coffeehouse because it's non-smoking and has comfy chairs, for them to destroy rainforests to grow coffeebeans, traded unfairly, to pay them for the internet even though I didn't really end up having to since 4 businesses around had open access wireless accounts if they're not going to leave the bathrooms open for everyone!

Democracy is over if we have to pee with a key (see how I've got the rhyming for the Terza Rima in my head?)

News of the Z

Both Z's grandparents sent her Easter baskets. They sent candy and stuffed bunnies and a tractor. My mom also sent clothes which ended up on the living room floor. She spent all day laying them out flat. Until I sat down by her. She pushed me back and made me lie down. She covered me in the clothes and the rabbits. Then her dad came in the room. He sat down and was forced to lie back and be buried in the system of clothes too. Whenever we tried to get up, much yelling and crying by the Z would ensue.
Eventually, we were bored enough to prevail and tried to ignore her stubborn protestations. We distracted her with asparagus and cous cous.
But this morning, she has not forgotten. For not one second as I've been typing this have I not been tugged towards the floor.
If you need me, I'll be on the rug, trying to drink coffee lying down.
Perhaps she'll bring me a book.

Edited to add: Also, if a rug is folded over on itself by someone walking in the door, the dog and cat rasslin' around, her own tripping on its corner, Egg moving it to vacuum under, she runs over to it, unfolds it, and flattens it. She pats it as if to say, no more of that, you upstart of a rug. Perhaps she has an imminent career in carpet laying, ironing, or, my great-grandmother would like this: bed-making so that you can bounce a quarter off the hospital-cornered sheets.