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.

In which she learns "teach" is a verb

7:30 get up with Z.
8:00 return email to boss re workload.
8:17 look for z's coat because winter has returned.
8:29 find coat.
8:30 take z to school.
9:00 prep for advanced non.
9:45 read student's (late) essay.
10:00 write one page comment on student's (late) (two page) essay.
11:20 eat early lunch.
11:45 drive to campus (half an hour!)
12:15 drive around good parking lot.
12:20 park in bad parking lot.
12:25 re-read CV's of job candidates (late hire).
12:30 faculty meeting to discuss hire. wonder what they said about me last year pre-hire. try not to pass out in amazement that I was ever hired.
1:30 break for coffee with Agamemnon.
1:40 learn more about U's propensities and preferences.
1:50 return to office to discuss with Agamemnon new workshop strategies including "body" workshop wherein one wears a different hat, wakes up at 4 a.m., writes longhand, writes drunk, writes naked, writes wearing other gender's clothes, writes outside just so writer writes.
2:00 interview by colleague re: outreach.
2:30 meet with student re my comments not jibing with classmates comments. explain how I'm right but they have good points too.
2:55 reread poem to teach at 3:00
3:00 quiz students over reading. ignore complaints that i didn't warn them about quiz.
3:10 teach Dean Young poem Colophon.
3:30 corrall students' workshop.
4:00 stop workshop, outline next two week's work.
4:15 return to office, turn in students receipts to get repaid for AWP, email UC Riverside to ask for Reading for Writers syllabus.
4:30 go to early dinner.
4:40 order.
4:45 finish prepping for 6:00 class.
5:30 find student in hallway looking for me. he asks to come hang out in my office.
5:31 talk to student about existential crises.
6:00 discuss David Shield's Remote. say some smart things that i've already forgotten.
7:00 implement new workshop plan. divide students into two groups.
7:05 write exit interview questions for students post-workshop.
7:06 overhear student hear from a grad school.
7:21 continue week-long conversation with student over grad school possibilities.
7:25 meet with exit interviewee #1
7:40 meet with EI #2
7:55 meet iwth EI #3
8:10 meet with EI #4
8:25 meet with EI #5
8:40 meet with EI #6
8:55 leave campus 10 minutes (late).
8:56 realize roads scarier than ever.
8:59 talk to sister re: job. scary phone & drive.
9:05 watch cars slide off freeway. hang up phone.
9:10 watch jeep spin 3 times.
9:15 take off shoes.
9:17 pour glas of wine. (OK, wine first, then shoes)
9:24 blog (please note marker for blog off. On pacific time or possibly hawaii!)
9:39 finish wine (early).
9:40 post blog without proofreading.

Long & Busy (not to be confused with productive) week

I had to go to work on a Friday to hear a job talk. This going to campus on a Friday has happened before but not usually for the whole day. Or the four hours of the day.

For some reason, this semester has been so much less productive writing-wise than last semester even though last semester I taught 4 days a week and had just moved here. I was in a bit of a panic then, and less so now, but I really should have been able to devote Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to writing work. Perhaps April will reveal a new energy and dedication to that vein of the work since after talking to Dean and Chair, the scholarly element of the job is where they would like us to shine.

I suppose I'm less in a writing panic because of the grant but also because I finally found an agent who loves my book. Flat out loves it. So rare. No weird side critiques. No but's or if onlies. She's an angel even if she doesn't sell it. I always write more when I've been rejected, which is sick and means I need to focus on the my failures.

Speaking of which, I sent out my book of poems again. I checked out the book to see if this one poem that I hate is still in there. I think of taking it out all the time but for some reason, don't. I went to check it out. It's title is the problem. "The Intersection of French and German" is so pretentious. But the poem itself isn't bad. It's about belly-buttons. How bad could that be. So I sent the book off with one more period that it had before but otherwise the same as always. The rejection should be in the mail already.

So now my self-doubt has been relegated to teaching. One of my students, late on a Monday night in the parking lot on campus, suggested that I teach poetry via grammar. I thought he had an interesting point. I tried not to be defensive and to hear why he thought that was a successful method--he'd done a lot of reading about workshops and was interesting in teaching soon and in the near future. Still, I thought it a bit of an odd suggestion though possibly workable idea. It did make me think about different possibilities to teach workshop. As I've mentioned before, I've had some good workshop teachers and some mediocre ones but I don't think a perfect model has been demonstrated to me.

I'm trying to shake things up at the end of the semester just to experiment about how to make the students more responsive and responsible to each other. Although I don't know if talking about prepositions is the way to develop a methodology, as my one student suggested, but it may be a manner that would make the workshop less formulaic. So I divided my class in half and will have them workshop more fewer pieces more slowly. After the writer has been thoroughly critiqued, she'll come tell me what her workshoppers thought, what she found helpful, what she still needed help thinking through and how it might affect her revision. This second part might be the trickiest part--taking the student out of the workshop for a small conference and asking her to recapitulate what she heard but I think the students will pay attention differently, which, if nothing else, will be a small sign of success.
The hardest part for me about teaching is logistics--some of my ideas seem great until I put them into play and realize that whoops I forgot to account for the 17 contingencies and the desire for students to know exactly what's going to happen every day for the whole semester. I suppose I will take the risk to shake things up at the expense of the students feeling comfortable. Perhaps it will even work.

All's well

She's A OK. Now I can make inappropriate jokes about how huge her head is. Poor kid. Her head is almost as big as mine. But that is, according to all news MRI, just fine.

Now I have to go lie down. All the stress that has been keeping me upright this week is starting to seep out.

Thank you everyone who waited in worry with us.

Mwah. (that's a kiss from Z).

No news yet but you know what they say about news

Hi you all who commented and sent your good wishes for the Zoster.
Of course, we know nothing yet but if it was emergent she would have had to stay at the hospital last night. And, we didn't hear anything today--so if it's probably not immediately horrible. A few more days and we'll know more.

Over-workshopped

Spring break came and went way too fast. But now my week is over again and the work I'll do now is less public, if not more intense. I'm teaching two three-hour workshops this semester and it's the best and worst of all worlds. On the one hand, three hours gives us plenty of time to get in the mode of workshopping, to relate our reading to the workshop pieces and to develop a sort of workshop aesthetic. On the other hand, by the end of the 2nd hour, the class starts to lag. I lag. The students get cheeky. Sometimes frustrated with each other. There has to be a way to shake up workshop so it's not all praise and suggestion--although my students are really good at the praise and critique and we're working hard toward making truly creative and helpful suggestions--but this takes so many mental gymnastics--to not only read and comprehend a piece, but to find its signature strengths and its integral flaws and then to imagine how to reinforce those strengths and explore, explode and fix the flaws is more like running 3 miles than running 3 miles is. I am so impressed with my students and their stamina. I'm less impressed with my own until I remind myself that every comment one of them makes I need to: hear and comprehend, find its signature strength and integral flaw and then reinforce its good point and find a way to incorporate its flaw into something constructive. Workshopping the workshop is like hauling up a net of fish, flieting them, cooking them up just right and serving them with an unbroken hollandaise.

On another note: I'm so sad. Z needs an MRI for her ever-large head. I didn't want to blog about it because I don't want anyone to look at her and see how big her head is but what if there is something wrong? Encephalitis? Hydro-encephalitis? What if she needs brain surgery? What if she needs to wear a helmet that re-shapes her head? How do I know how to worry with the right weight? My mom says it never ends, the worry. But an MRI on a 20 month old? Hard to find in my own head about where to hang the balance.

Back from Atlanta

This blog is officially turning into "the complain about weather blog." If you wanted me to say interesting things about other topics, you'll have to email or call me. It's 16 degrees today. Gray. A flake about every five minutes but each flake threatens more. While we were gone, it snowed 18 inches or so. My father-in-law had to shovel every day. His back hurts but he got to go home.
The whole thing just depresses me. I'm not used to being depressed by weather but this is getting a bit suffocating. It adds to the feeling of isolation now that the in-laws have gone home and we've left our friends to go back to their regular homes. Even our friends here are out of town and promising more leave. It's a bit like a hard stone in my chest all the time.

AWP itself was OK. It was different than usual because a) I didn't have to sit at the bookfair table all day every day and b) I had a presentation on Saturday. On the one hand, it was nice to have only one real obligation. On the other, I missed having a place to go and meet strangers and Saturday loomed the whole time. Somewhat like the clouds right now (see how this is weather blogging still?).
I saw many great blog people--Dr W and Lisa B and Strange Polkas and Terrible Mother(although not enough of the last one. Maybe next year). I saw great friends who now live in Texas and do good work making us feel better that we live at least in a city with several nice restaurants. They are much jealous of our tapas here. Tapas eaten in the cold but tapas nonetheless. I saw my great friend Steve whose book came out and who got a tiny sliver of the moon of attention he deserves (See Dr. Write on Steve's book).
(Flake a minute now).
I saw Margot and Felicia and Steve T--friends that are closer now than they ever were in Salt City. I met a couple of people for a few hours that I would like to remember next year--Brian, Liz, Dave, John, Christine (the last two from Texas friends' U).
I saw U of U profs Jackie and Donald and Kate and Paisley and Karen. Got to have a drink with Karen. Got to want more from Donald and Jackie as usual.
And, for the real namedropping, I got to hang out with David Shields and Nick Flynn and Michael Martone and Rebecca Woolf and David Hamilton and Kim Barnes and the guy from Poets and Writers.
And of course folks from Grand U including students who were good and bad alternately but in the end quite fun (although they thought I ditched them for a party. I didn't. I would have but I didn't).
(The snow is falling harder now. A flake a second.)
Thoughts: As usual, I hate the schmoozing and the fakery and the hopelessness of AWP right at first but then by Saturday, I'm steeled against hope and fakes and just kind of like the people and the people watching. Really a generally good group. All 5,000. I like to make summary judgements. Large ones. But still, by the end, itis mostly true. The panel went well--a number of people have emailed me or Margot to tell us it was their favorite panel. That was much niceness. And, considering it was of the last panels, it was still pretty well attended. Yeah! Maybe I'll do it again one day.
OK. Snow falling for real now. Must go hunker down and buck up and batten down the hatches. Or find my gloves. To wear. Indoors. So I can type more.

off, off forth on swing

To AWP:
Can I just quote Hopkinis' Windhover during my panel?
I already use the superbowl as a reference so how much weirder would that be?
I'm SO excited to see High Touch & Dr. Write & Strange Polks and meet Terrible Mother. A convergence of friends. I suppose there ARE other reasons to convene but this is the best one.
I give my panel presentation with Margot Singer and Nick Flynn and David Shields on Saturday. I wish it was on Wednesday so then the rest of the conference would just be relaxing but it's probably for the best I stay somewhat on task.
The best bit is that after this, it's Spring Break at Grand U so I can relax afterwards. What a semester! What a winter!
It's going to be 60 degrees. I'm bringing skirts and a swimmin' suit.
If I can report from there I will.

Itemized

1. They (Blogger) made me move to the new blogger. Urg. I hate to be forced to make changes.
2. Erik has a new Mac! I hate new computers but this screen is sweet (I'm typing on it right now). He needed two gigs of RAM to run Final Cut. Two gigs of RAM! I remember when 16 megabytes were great. I mean, I remember when 256 K was normal, but that was never great.
3. Blog world is freaking me out. Bitch PhD wrote some smart and salient post and people went CRAZY on her. She's a brave and well-armored woman. One day, I'll have some chutzpah.
4. Getting excited about AWP
5. Hoping Zoe stays healthy.
6. Erik and I each bought 2 lbs of Tillamook Cheddar at Costco. We already had some cheese. I'm pretty sure there's about 5 lbs of medium cheddar in our house. At least Zoe and her sitters won't starve while we're basking in the rays of Atlanta, GA.
7. I've taken to deleting huge portions of my manuscripts.
8. Started NEA project poems.
9. I'm writing serious comments on my students' workshop poems. I wonder if any prof I had wrote comments at all. I know Eleanor and Melanie did. And Robin wrote a brief paragraph. But others? Not so much.
10. No president's day for us at the Grand U tomorrow. They've rigged the schedule so we can get out by April 19th! The summer cometh.

Sick!

Me! Sick! I'm never sick. I've been sick since I posted last. A sinus infection. In my nose! Rude. I finally went to the doctor yesterday where I let him prescribe the dreaded anti-biotics. I hate to use antibiotics. Resistant bacteria. Ack!
I do feel a little better as you can tell by my wanton use of exclamation points. But I hate the doctor's office. My blood pressure spikes, I get all pissed about the state of Health care in this country AND I have PTSD from all the times Zoe has been sent to the ER immediately.
But! I did manage to teach my classes and grade and comment and the like so I haven't been completely incapacitated.
Perhaps March will be the month to be productive??? After I finish off these bowling-ball sized pills. 6 a day. For ten days. Die little bacteria. And don't come back with that amoxilcillin can't kill me any more business.
I blame the cold.
And the snow.
And the doctors.
And the bacteria.
I'm off to eat some yogurt where some tiny acidophilus creatures I love can re-line my bacteria-free stomach.

February

I can barely see the road, the snow is falling so hard. But here, the intrepid midwesterner drags out her intrepid sled, slides down the sidewalk (because they're covered in ice, then snow, then ice, then more snow) and whose parents even slip on the cross-country skis to slide on over to the park that has the one small hill in the area. The hill slopes for only about ten feet but stays slippery all winter because it never thaws). Until last week, temps here were Salt Lake-ish. It felt a bit colder because of the humidity, but 25-30 degrees wasn't too bad. Now though, it's 10 degrees outside with a -14 windchill. Sweet. They say it hasn't been this cold or snowy here for 7-8 years. Another sweet. But except for the shoveling and the hard-to-run on ice bit, the snow it isn't so bad. At least not on a Saturday when we don't have to go anywhere (except Egg who took the dog for a walk in the blizzard). So. February in Michigan. I'll let you know how much snow finally accumulates.