Too much

All of those stresses of a month ago seem to be resolving themselves. The villa owner in Italy let us move our reservations to next June, the nice people at the U found my payroll reports and verified that I worked at the U for more than .5 FTE so I am vested in my 403B here, and our house has an offer and has passed inspection. If things continue in this way, I might begin to believe that the gods favor our moving. We're looking at houses online in high-altitude desert town and are gagging at the prices but think we'll be able to find a cute enough house. We're storing our stuff for a month, heading west for the summer. I'm sad I'll be missing the spring and summer here. My backyard patio let's in just the right amount of light--all sunny in the morning and shaded by trees in the afternoon. Remind me to keep my eye out for that in the new house.
Z's grandparents are coming to fly her to salty town the first week of May. I may well be eating at Em's and the Metropolitan sooner than I ever could have thought.
I still have high hopes to do here: find morels in the woods, find asparagus along the river, cross the Mackinac Bridge into the UP and see the tulips in Holland. I have a wee bit (75 portfolios) of grading to do but I think I can work in a weekend trip or two.

Things I Will Miss

I expect as it gets closer and closer to when I'll be moving and now that most everyone knows that I am going, I will be only melancholy and nostalgic about what I'm leaving. So expect a number of posts with this same title.

Today gets a sub-title: Birds and other flying things:

• The geese that fly overhead to land in the pond at the college down the street.
• The cardinals that stare into our back room from the two trees that are not, but remind me of, a magnolia and a Japanese maple.
• The ducks that are swimming in couples around the pond. The same pond where the geese are trying to land.
• The white-bellied hawks that dive from the tall trees (again, what kind? Alder? Sure, that sounds good) as I drive toward school on the big street named after the big lake.
• Fireflies. When my mom's boyfriend came to visit, he was so surprised. What are these flying lights?
• These black and white tit-mice that land on the sycamore that I watch out the bathroom and hallway windows.
• The black and white woodpecker that eats from that same sycamore.
• The squirrels that seem to fly from branch to branch, from sycamore to hyacinth to fence to pine.
• The chipmunks that chase the squirrels.
• The red-tail hawk that sometimes appears on the sycamore looking for squirrels to eat, and, who one winter, caught and ate a squirrel while perched on top of the snow, leaving the white spattered red.
• The leaves that span seventy-five colors of red--from black cherry to neon pink-- falling to the sidewalk, on the sidewalk.
• The sparrows, plucking clean the already-bare winter branches.
• The spring blossoms, having fallen on the flower beds, blanketing them in May like so much snow did just the other day in April.

The Ice

100 Years of Solitude begins thusly:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

When I leave GR, I will remember the ice.

I grew up in a mountain town next to a lake, albeit a salty one, so I thought that moving to another snowy town with lake effect snow wouldn't be that huge of a transition. But because the mountain town I'm from also doubles as desert, the snow melts. It dries. The sidewalks if left unshoveled eventually are melted of their snow and returned to their chalky brightness.

Not so here. This winter, especially February, has gone on record as having the most snowfall ever. If it had been last year, when the temperatures all winter never rose above freezing, there would be snow up to our windows. But this year, there have been a couple of thaws. This is great when it's happening. Whole roads turn to rivers, the iciles fall and stab the ground, you can exhale and inhale outside.

But it never stays above freezing for more than 6 hours. At night, all that melt turns to ice. The streets are black with it. The gutters are puddled with it. People who haven't shoveled now have frozen slush, impossible to walk on because the shoe prints of the last person to walk through the slush have solidified--it's like walking on hardened lava. You have to high-step over the foot of ice between the gutter and the curb.

Running has been hard. Some days, even the college by my house which uses enough salt to keep the walks clear at 10 degrees, can't keep the stream of melt turn to a blanket of ice. Some days, it wasn't so much like walking as ice skating. I still ran, a little, slowly but on my tip-toes.

It seems that it might be forty degrees over the next few days. The snow banks are getting smaller. There will still be that sheet of wet ice when I run because it will still freeze overnight. But when I start counting the curb ice in inches rather than feet, when walking up the driveway doesn't require sending Cleo the dog up first so she can pull me by her leash, when I don't wear my wool hat every day, when running through the college is more mud than Dorothy Hamill impersonation, then I will look at the blue skies--here for a record 6 days in a row now, and, even though break is almost a week over, call it spring.

When I came here, I wondered why we had "fall" and "winter" semesters rather than "fall" and "spring." They laughed when I asked. They said, you'll figure it out.
Now I know.
Still. The curb ice? It's down to inches.

Edited to add: Dorothy Hamill implies some sort of graceful ice-venture. That is not me. In the Upper Penisula, there's the verb pank. It means to tap down the snow hard with a flat tool--possibly called a panker. That's more like what I'm doing with the ice except the ice is already hard so my feet don't make much of an impact.

Ineffective Political Action ETA Not So Ineffective!

I got an email from the HRC last night urging me to email all 76 Utah state reps and ask them to oppose amending Senate Bill 199. Since I haven't been involved in Utah politics for awhile, I was unfamiliar with the bill but apparently the original, unamended bill would allow domestic partners in SLC to keep their domestic partner benefits although it would change the name of the registry. The amendment would make it illegal for a city to define domestic partners or benefit participants (something like that. Like I said, I'm out of Utah politics). I'd already had some wine and had nothing better to do so I emailed them all (please note that it's probably illegal, or at least very pointless, for me to do so as a nonresident) and asked them to vote against the amendment.
I remember from my old letter-writing days (pre 2004 when I gave entirely) about how nervous I was to write letters, especially to Utah Reps because I could just imagine the awful responses I could and did get--from what Utah families "are" to how it cannot be a priority to think of water management. But by emailing all 76, I realized that although 15 or even 25 would or could write heinous responses to me about their distaste for anything outside their realms of known experience, I realized that there might be at least that many who might not have such a strong response. Ones who might care what someone might say.
We'll see. I've already had one request for my address (which of course I coudln't send) and another telling me to stick it. But one person did say "thanks. This adds to my reasons to vote against." And so I say yay!

ETA:
From a rep!
Thank you for contacting me about this amendment. I share your concerns and voted against it. I am pleased to let you know that it failed.

Best Wishes,
Representative Karen Morgan

Disaster, minor

I was going to blog on Sunday about the dinner I made on Saturday night. But, right before I went to take the souffles out of the oven, I went to check on Z who had gone to find a necklace in my nightstand drawers. Instead of a necklace, she found a bottle of benadryl. The lid was on, just not very tightly. I found it underneath the pile of pink pills. I asked her if she ate any, she said yes. I said how many, she said two. I had to believe her even though she was saying yes as if I wanted her to say yes. What I really wanted was for her to say no but I didn't want to lead the witness. Two seems plausible. And two too many. So we tell our guests to make themselves at home, to pull the souffles out, to slice the ricotta tart, to add the lemon juice to the lentils and we drive over to the ER. We know where it is. (3 blocks away). We've been there before.
The nurses are pretty calm. No charcoal. No stomach pumping. They just watch her for a minute. Benadryl isn't particularly toxic, we learn. Still, two hours of monitors and lots of stickers on her chest to make sure her heart rate doesn't spike is a long time for a 2.5 year-old. Fortunately we had my cell phone and there's a Tetris-like game on it (who knew?) that now she and Erik are addicted to. We were let go with not too much shame or admonishment. I apologized to Erik and Z for my Benadryl addiction and for my wrists which are apparently too weak to twist a cap all the way to lock.

We got home. The guests had eaten the souffles, the tart, and figured out to put the leeks with the lentils. They also saved us some food and cleaned up the dishes. The best part was that they were still here when we got back. Usually when we go to the ER, no one knows where we are. This time, people were waiting to hear and then willing to hang out longer just so the whole night wasn't a total disaster.

In the end, we think Z took none of the Benadryl. She stayed up until 11 and woke up by 7 the next day.

Indexed

Numbers of pages revised this week: 268—247 of them novel, 21 of them essay.

Number of pages written: 21—1 of a new essay, 1 formal letter and 1 letter of resignation, 18 of comments on stories, essays, and poems.

Number of people who mooned me when they find out I was quitting: 1— both bra and underwear.

Number of calls and emails negotiating job offer: 6.

Number of concessions made of the three I asked for by new school: 3, although only the first by ½.

Number of forms filled out consenting to a background check: 1

Number of readings attended: 2—1 with Bill Olsen and Linda Gregerson, who restored my certainty in poetry and readings and 1 with me, Brock Clarke and Douglas Kearney, who bewildered me all over again.

Number of hawks sighted while returning from the University of Illinois where reading # 2 was held: 16.

Number of phone calls and emails about the transition including am I vested in my 401K, how will we sell this house in the down market, can we move our Italy trip to 2009? 9.

Weight, in pounds of fear, that all the answers will be no: 2,837.

Weight, in pounds of guilt and sadness, of leaving my fine, fine department here: 2,838 (thereby, the guilt will be redeemed when I’m punished by the resulting no’s from the 401K, house selling and Italy questions, though I’ll still be left with a pound left over).

Number of poems of mine re-published on Verse Daily: 1.

Number of times I emailed Verse Daily to make the archives reflect my current name and the first line of the poem: 2.

Number of times asked to listen to Didn’t Bring Nothing But the Baby per hour on the way to U of I: 12.

Number of hours to and fro U of I: 10. Thankfully, it’s a good song and I like Alison Krauss.

Back from AWP/NYC Many Days Ago

AWP was even more fun than usual. Getting out of here was less fun than usual. I woke up at 6, did not shower, did not make coffee. I had parked the 4-Runner in the carport because it was supposed to snow and do other bad things in the sky like freeze rain and spit sleet. So it was cold. 9 degrees. And the locks on the car doors? They were as frozen as the rain. I finally get in, but I'm 10 minutes late.
The roads are not good for lateness. I go very slow on the highway. I take the exit at a mere 10 miles an hour. I make it to the turn into the airport but when I move into the left-lane, all is ice and Lexus SUV in front of me. I slam into him. Hard. We pull over. It's just his ($3823) bumper. He says don't worry about it. But then he takes my phone number.
Now I'm really late.
I get to the parking lot. I park in a snow drift up to my hips. The parking shuttle passes me by. Another one comes before I get frostbite.
By the time I'm at the kiosk, I'm pretty sure they won't let me on but then who do I see but my colleagues, coming in after me, all unfrazzled and unworried.
Turns out the flight is delayed. No time for departure listed. I had checked at home! But the internet lies. It lies a lot.
So we wait and wait. The flight looks like it's ready. There's much cheering in the gate area.
And then there are many tears. Freezing rain is fine for this airport but it's windy in LaGuardia.
I fly out the next day.
The rest of the trip is less eventful. There's some shopping in the village and some good subway riding.
There are many good foods eaten.
First there was Lupa downtown near Prince Street that Mapmaker so kindly organized. It was restaurant week so for $24.07 we had 4 courses. I had the oxtail terrine (sliced very thinly), the pork shoulder fettuccine, pan-seared sea bass and ricotta with honey for dessert.
For dinner: random French restaurant with my good grad school friends. What a surprise to see two of them. Such great times. Goat cheese and beet salad without any beets but otherwise good.
Breakfast the next day at Astros by the hotel (52nd and 6th)--Lox and Bagels.
Lunch: Quality Meats on 58th. Another $24.07 deliciousness. Steak tartar (my first time!), shrimp salad sandwich and some dessert I don't remember. The steak tartar was amazing.
Dinner: I wasn't hungry and I felt a little broke but I really wanted to spend time with my grad school friends. So to Balthazar! A ravioli for appetizer. I had the pork belly. Others (Dr. Write) had the confit and (High-Touch) delicious fish.
The next morning? I went to Carnegie deli. Mistake. I order $20 corned beef hash. It had green peppers. I had four bites. I talked to nice people from Philadelphia though because the tables? They're made for sharing.
But another French lunch with onion soup and foie gras terrine almost redeemed the dining day.
Oh yeah, and then I presented on our panel (I moderated and showed up late because the lines to the bathroom were 100 miles long. Sorry for the stress Margot!). I also spent much time at the bookfair looking at pretty books and lamenting the outcast state of those who seemed desperate for a book. I try very hard not to look desperate but I did spend a fair deal of time and quite a few dollars at the Milkweed table. I'll buy my way into your hearts! I told them.
I also found a few good mags to submit to and some highly hilarious children's books from McSweeney's which Dr. Write also bought.
I didn't see a number of people I had hoped to because my trip was abbreviated but overall it was one of my favorite AWP's. Because it was NYC? Because it was so short?
The rest of the week was full of campus visits and other stresses to be blogged about shortly.
AWP's in Chicago next year. Feb 11-14. Can't wait to see how many flights are canceled then....

3 loveable things

I was tagged by Dr. Write for 3 Things that I love. I hope when I return from NYC, I will have even more things to love.

I love Lord of the Rings and not because I love hobbits or fairies but because I love broad images forests and mountains, the horses—there’s something of the western to the movies because landscape provides its own narrative arc. Because I love images that are tucked into the narrative. But mostly because the movies are Shakespearean—high drama not because it’s exciting but because it affords good language. Gandalph says, “I come to you at the turn of the tide.” And “I will draw you Saraman as poison is drawn from a wound” “Your fingers would remember their own strength better if they grasped your sword” and, the rain-compounded: “And so it begins.” (Can you tell which of the three I’m watching now?) Without really worked high drama, those phrases would fall flat and sound overwrought. The image of Aragorn returning from his near-death cliff-fall as he pushes open the castle door with his right arm is the fulfillment of the tragic hero I’d always imagined.

Mushrooms. If you slice shitakes up and fry them in hot oil, just barely letting go their juices, they can taste like wood-fired steak. Slice chanterelles and bake them in potatoes and cream, they become like butter—butter that resists the tooth and does not melt. Boletes bring out the nuttiness of spaghetti. Dry button mushrooms on pizza counterpoint the liquidy cheese. I miss hunting mushrooms. Erik and I found a few boletes this fall when we went camping with Z but not too many. I love wandering the forests, looking at the moss and the slugs and the ferns—the way the orange, fluted tops of the chanterelle is the perfect counterpoint to all that green and yet are camouflaged by the red bark flaking off into the duff and the dead needles. Looking down for a long time—it’s not something I do very often and it’s a cool upside down world.

My students. Even when they’re failing, even when they don’t show up, even when I ask them what I obviously the most stimulating questions and they stare back at me in silence—I still love them. They have interest. Curiosity. They are not burnt out on lit mags, or poetry contests, or lit theory. They have, when I bring all the tools at my disposal, the capacity to make connections and comparisons that are beyond what I can do alone. When I read a poem for the first time in my introductory class and we go line by line and the students make various associations but learn how the poem builds its own argument, I am back to that place when I first read a poem and saw the way the poem was built. I love how they’re willing to do something new. To experiment. They’re not afraid of thinking that they’re not new. They just believe what they’re doing is new. And so it is.

The Opposite

I'm back from a tour of the deep Southwest. It was snowing there too but in between the snow, it's sunny. Flagstaff is cool. Kind of like Park City, kind of like Iowa City, kind of like Evanston, Wyoming. Cool and small and western and a college town (the Evanston part has mostly to do with the architecture and the size and the westerliness to it). There's a stupid Walmart. And a Sam's Club. But the downtown is full of small businesses and a bunch of good restaurants, brewpubs (2) and coffee shops.

My flight was inane. I took an earlier flight from Flag to Phoenix because I heard that the Flag flight get canceled often. The minute the propeller started, a girl had a panic attack and they had to stop the whirring, open the door, get her bag off. We still made it to Phoenix on time.
There was an earlier flight to Chicago but it would have made my connection from Chicago to here a bit tight. I dithered. I went back. By then, it was too late. You need an hour for such a change so they can get your bag. FAA regulation that you have to fly with your bag.
I should not have dithered (I went to see how much it would be to fly up to SLC for the weekend. About one million dollars to go there and then catch a flight back Sunday morning. We have a job candidate coming in on Sunday and I have to be here).
Note to self. Do not dither.
They said for a small fortune I could upgrade to first class.
I said no.
I went to the bookstore to buy the Book Thief and some tacos (best meal I had the whole trip!) and then I freaked out and said, I need the first class. So I went back, sure they would have sold out.
They didn't. I got the first class ticket and went to do some grading with the very fine free internet courtesy of the Phoenix airport.
And then, Chicago started delaying flights in. We left an hour and a half late. I was sure to miss my connection. But, the delays were widespread and I made my flight by two seconds.
Or I thought it was 2 seconds. They said they had 5 bags to wait for and then we'd be off. They said they had to wait to be de-iced and then we'd be off. They said we had to wait to be pushed back and then we'd be off. We were off by 11:00 (a flight that was supposed to leave at 9:30).
We got in at 12:50 (a short flight but a time change). When I got to the baggage claim, what did I find? Not my bag. I feel that I should tell the FAA on them.

I got home by 2. I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30 or so.

I woke up at 8 anyway.

Today reminds me of my old life before Z and when Egg had to work all the time. I'm watching Lord of the Rings, writing, revising, and eating foods I would not eat in front of my husband. Sometimes, I sit still in the same spot for more than six minutes! No one needs milk. Or juice. Or a puzzle.
And yet, it's only 12:40 and I wonder what the hell the point of the day is. If Z were here, she'd be sure to tell me.

Z at 2 and a half.

Lately, every sentence with Zoe ends “Lily, Cam?” As in, "are we going to see Lily and Cameron, my cousins soon. "Erik and Z are going to Salt Lake next week because I have two business trips in a row plus all these campus visitors coming here and I won’t be around and they may as well bask in the glow of Salt Lake love. Plus, tickets were $178. Considering that they’re often $500 from here, that was a steal. But the Lily, Cam question comes at the end of sentences unrelated to travel. As in when I ask her what she wants for lunch and she says “chips and turkey and Lily and Cam?” Or if I ask her where her purse is she says “purse on couch. Lily Cam?” Or, if we’re going in the car she’ll say, “go in car to play with Lily and Cam?” She does know her cousins live far away and we have to take a plane but I think she thinks the plane ride is not so much to endure if one gets to see Lily and Cam at the end of it. I’m very jealous she gets to see Lily and Cam. And sad to be away from her for so long. She also has a rendition of the list that goes Lily, Cam, Doug, Mice (my mom's "maestra), Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy, Val, George (Joy) and then, in a low, Isaac Hayes-type voice says “Bart” (maestra's boyfriend). She knows Paige won’t be there and I won’t be there. We get a “no Paige, no mommy” list of our own.

Z is very into puzzles now. One, I threw away today. She had bent the pieces until they broke, doing the puzzle so many times. She could do that Princess puzzle in less than a minute by the end. The five year and up puzzles take her a little longer but she’s memorized those mostly now too.

She sings a lot. Erik recorded her a bit on his Mac with the Garageband software. She’s pretty good at singing and once Erik brings home the microphone that Z’s grandpa got her for Christmas, I imagine we'll get full-on rock versions of "I'm Picking Up This Baby Bubblebee." She likes to dance almost as much as sing but we have no video of that. Imagine a toy top that can jump. And swing her arms. With a downward dog and an arabesque thrown in for style. She dances with her dad a lot who has really broadened his dancing horizons: he has added robot dancer and the twirl and dip (both the mom and the Z) to go with general-foot-tapping-stand-mostly-still-dance of before.

Z likes to put her dolls to bed and keep them warm. She also likes to keep beads and legos and stuffed animals and bracelets and socks in her bed. We’re moving her from her crib to the big guest bed which is going OK except when I wake up in the middle of night and see her moon-like face staring at me and she barks a very loud “Hi.” Hi indeed at 3:00 a.m.

She likes to trace our faces with her fingers. It’s very sweet. Unless, again, it’s at 3 in the morning.

She likes me to sing Hush Little Baby 16 times before she goes to sleep. Sometimes, she sings it back in a very experimental tongue. She seems to love the tactility of words. If she’s playing Thomas, she says choo choo choo choo and then will turn, squish her nose up to say fake sneeze an “achoo” because choo choo wasn’t quite in her face enough. It’s pretty easy to understand her most of the time, unless he has a very long and serious story to tell and she’ll cock her neck to one side and gesticlutate with her hands and say “es tay voile moushay tone. Speksy mafle candor sloon.” Usually, she is complaining, possibly in french, against the cat. She calls all cats Box and all scratches Box too.

She like everything to match and she wants everything to be purple. She’ll wear her purple haltertop dress over anything—including another dress. Her socks have to match and the line on the top has to be perfectly perpendicular to her toes. But she does all this dressing of herself except for popping the shirt over her head so I suppose she can choose her style even if I’m beginning to find purple a little overwhelming.

My favorite is that now she speaks in sentences. “I can get down now, please.” “I want some onions, please”. (sometimes please.) She also sometimes slams the door to her room and screams “No Thank You” at me if I try to get her to wear something a little less purple. She says, “Bye. Love you.” Every fourteen seconds. Even if we’re going nowhere. If we are going somewhere and ask her to come on, she says “I’m coming” like she can’t wait to get where we’re going. Which, she hopes, is to see Lily and Cam. As soon as possible. It makes me feel a little better being away from her for 10 days that for 7 of those days, she’ll be with people who, if you add how much they love her together, probably love her as much as I do. And Egg will be with her the whole time. She probably won’t notice I’m gone. But I will.

Edited to add: She also shares her Skittles.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Thirty-One and Kendall-Jackson. May you both be 31 forever in our minds (and always take solace in the fact that you'll always be younger than me.)
I hope your birthday is one of the best. Welcome to the Jesus Year!

Bad Blogging, Bad Shoulder

I tweaked my shoulder whilst skiing at Alta. The light was bad and the snow sometimes soft, sometimes crunchy. I hadn't been skiing in awhile so I was all tense and did not go with the flow. But that was just a little tiny ache. When I went to the Chicago for the MLA, the hotel reservations were all a-mess. There are TWO Embassy Suites downtown and I and my suitcase were told the wrong one. So my suitcase, weighing in at exactly 50lbs so there was no extra charge, and I walked the 8 blocks to the correct Embassy Suites. Since the suitcase is better at rolling than walking and better at being steered than steering, so I rolled and steered it over slippery sidewalks, around busy traffic, through melting puddles to the proper Embassy Suites. When I got there, I dragged my suitcase to the far corner of the room and went to find my colleague who was beginning to straighten out this hotel mess (we had candidates coming for interviews the next day. Which hotel would they go to? An adventure to find out). Eventually I got on the phone, changed some of our reservations to the right place and kept some of them at the wrong (and currently suitcased stationed) hotel. I was to go back to the "right" hotel and host the interviews there. I went up. Got my suitcase and dragged His Heaviness back down the hall, out the elevator and down the block. I asked my colleague if she'd heard from the other interviewers. Apparently, one of them was angry. He had already checked into his room at the other hotel and was ready to stay put. I dragged His Heaviness for another half a block and stopped. There was no way I was hiking over there just to be told to come back. I called my other colleague and asked if it was true he wanted to stay there. He did. I waved off the walking-with-me-colleague, turned around and headed back up to the room. I dragged His Heaviness into the corner and did a Nestea plunge onto the bed, grateful to be in a room and not moving.
But it was too late. I did something seemingly permanent to my shoulder. Pinched a nerve? Unknitted the shoulder muscle from the neck so there's nothing but frayed meat hanging from the bone? I haven't gone to the doctor yet but since this is the most I've typed in two weeks and I have syllabi to build, an introduction, a panel presentation, and a explanation of what I write to write, I had probably best go in and see if I can at least get some pain relievers that let me sleep through the night.
In other MLA news:

• Interviewing candidates is hard but so much less hard than being the interviewee.
• I learned a lot of new ideas of what and how to teach thanks to the interview.
• I am excited about our candidates. They're amazing. Makes my job look even cooler.
• I met some bloggers at the bar. They were hard to find because none of them wore the fishnet stockings they promised. I kept going up to women at the various hotel bars asking to see under their skirts. Very flirty but ineffective in blogger-finding.
• I wandered around the city before the blogger meet up--at 8:30. I was in at 4 with a broken shoulder. That warranted a drink. And a pizza. My first pizza. Then I wandered the wrong way, got lost, found sushi, spent way too much on sushi , went to the blogger meet-up, had but one glass of wine, wandered back the mile or so to my hotel, had one more glass of wine and one more pizza (of which I did not eat the whole thing). Woke up at 3 screaming with shoulder pain.
• I did not throw up on any of the interviewees even though the arm pain was making me nauseated.
• Went out for pizza with colleagues that night.
• Met friends for dinner the next night.
• Waited for Egg and Z's plane from SLC to land at O'Hare for over an hour. A $60 cab-ride to pick up the car made me rethink our bargain flying plans. We drove from here and parked at a long-term and cheap park and ride. But with His Heaviness, I could not imagine taking the El.
• Got home to a clean house and happy animals.
• Cleo hurt her leg running down the stairs to welcome us home.
• The house is now a disaster.
• And now I have to type more even though this is the end of my typing shoulder.

Happy New Year and the semester starts tomorrow.....

Winter/Break

Two feet of snow at Alta. A foot or more in the valley. It's like pre-global warming days when we actually had to wear mittens to school and made snowmen and took our sleds sledding. I might even ski on Sunday--like everyone else in the valley.
I'm so sad I have to leave on Thursday for MLA. Why does MLA have to be over break? As far as I can tell, there's not even talk about moving it. Chicago in less than a week. Grim.
Until then, there's Thirty-One's solstice party, Egg's folk's white elephant party, K-J gets in that night, then big family party Sunday, mellow Christmas eve at mom's and a less-than-usual crazy Christmas day. Some might even go skiing!!! On Christmas. We're heathens.
I've already got to see the lovely Dr. Write and Scorpion's Tail. We had delicious tapas at Martine. I hope to see more folks tonight at Solstice. If people trek through the many feet of snow.

What to Read Indeed

Some commenters asked how I decided what to read at the Retirement Center.

I decided to read the "cute" poem about Z being in the NICU. I explained to them that when Z was in the NICU, as hard as that was, we didn't know her very well and the whole thing was so alien that the emotional toll was much less than when, nine months later, she went back to the hospital for RSV and we could tell she was in pain and we all wanted to get out of there and we all weren't sure how things will turn out. So I read the Hagionoma poem about astronauts and NICU's that's in Nimrod. I forgot it was 4 pages long. I also forgot that I talked about my breasts being called "turtle boobs" by my sister and that I was fat and that a seal wanted to mate with me.
And then I read another poem about Z in the future and a boy who wants to, shall we say, deflower her.
My point is--I really didn't read my poems first and I probably should have. But the nice ladies laughed at the turtle boobs comment and didn't seem to outraged at any swearing moments or the losing virginity parts.

But tomorrow, I leave for NYC to read at the Center for the Book Arts with Rigoberto Gonzalez and I'm not sure what to read? I should practice! I should bring all the poems. I should remember to thank the NEA or they might take the grant back. I should download the logo and have it tattooed to my forehead.
I don't want to read only Z poems tomorrow. I think I'll read one about the Ilse Royale twisting itself off from the earth and becoming a planet on its own. And the one about the postman that Fellner loves. And maybe the MRI poem about birds.

I'm very nervous to go because:

• it's going to snow and my plane will be late.
• I'm supposed to meet my agent uptown (98th St.) at 11 when my plane gets in at 10.
• I'm supposed to meet my sisters downtown for lunch at noon.
• I can't check into the hotel until 3.
• I have to be dressed, prepped and ready to read by 6.

I did buy a new coat for the trip. It's blue. I can't wait for Saturday when the aforementioned list of bullets has resolved itself.
And then, I can't wait for Friday when we leave for SLC!

The Old Folk's Home

I was invited to give a reading at a Retirement center. A woman named Vernis, who read about the NEA back in February, contacted me for a reading in December. I was like, um, yeah, I'll remember a plan a made 10 months in advance. But, I figured, why not? She's probably more organized than I. She'll remind me. And remind me she did. I got several emails telling me where to go, how to get there, and in what manner the chairs would be arranged. It wasn't until the week before that I thought to ask, what time? I assumed normal reading time--6 or 7 or so.
No, no. 2:30.
Thankfully, I didn't have classes to teach that day.
So off to the reading, following her careful directions. There were so many directions, by sheer mass of turns and stops, I thought it would take half an hour to get there.
The retirement center is about a mile from my house.
So I got there at 2 and listened to NPR and wondered what these retirees would think of my weird poems.

I went in. I told them about the NEA. I told them about the state of contemporary poetry (they probably wouldn't argue my semi-studied description). I told them about how the project changed as I worked on it. I decried poetry contests. Then I read my poems.

They said they liked them. Better when I read them than when they read them on the page. Even though the poems were hard, they said, they liked the images. The poems made sense, they said.

They asked hard questions about form and purpose and teaching and reading and their own writing. The one man in the room corrected my pronunciation of hydrocephalus. They wondered about rhyme and line and I wished my students were as invested in poetry.

It was, by far, the best thing I did with, or rather, because of, my NEA.

The organizers, Vernis and her friend Jay, keep emailing me to tell me how much they appreciated the time and my "vibrancy." Once, Jay emailed and I didn't email back until the next morning. Vernis emailed to see if I'd received her email. I promised I did and that I had, finally (12 hours later, with sleeping time in the middle), emailed Jay back.
They keep emailing. It's one of the situations where no one knows when to quit saying thanks. But maybe that's how friends are made.

Margaret Atwood where are you?

Dr. C (whom I get to meet at MLA--a brush with fame it feels like) listed her top ten books to take to a desert island. She chose Atwood's the Robber Bride as one of them, which I don't think I've read. I used to love Atwood. I read everything up to this point: (thanks Wikipedia)

• The Edible Woman (1969)
• Surfacing (1972)
• Lady Oracle (1976)
• Life Before Man (1979) - finalist for the 1979 Governor General's Award
• Bodily Harm (1981)
• The Handmaid's Tale (1985) - winner of the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1985 Governor General's Award.
• Cat's Eye (1988) -
  

My high school teacher, alarmed that I was reading too much Plath and Sexton, gave me a book of her poems which I read too, though with less enthusiasm.

The other day, I read a review on bookslut about her latest book of poems. She still writes poems? Where did she go? After Cat's Eye, I fell out of love. It was the first time I had been disappointed by a writer. I remember the story beginning so pedestrian, so Anne Tylerish (I don't know if I'm right in my memory...that's just the vague recollection I have). Once I went to college I didn't think of her again.

So she dropped out of my periphery. When she came to do a reading in Salt Lake, I was like, whatever man. Crowds and such. She's too popular, therefore too lame (I guess that was what I felt...again hazy or lazy with the details).

But then, two years ago I read Oryx and Crake. That might be my favorite book of all time. I like books about young boys and apocalypses. Then I read the Blind Assassin. Not my fave, but still, fine. Mythological.

Yesterday, I bought the Robber Bride. If I had my druthers (meaning not having 10 essays to comment on) I'd read it all day.

I wonder, as I write this sort of bullet-pointed post without the bullets, where does Atwood stand on the measuring stick of great writers? In some ways, because she's prolific, she falls into the Updike, Joyce Carol Oates list. Her writing is more akin to John Irving and Tom Robbins--who, are prolific too, I guess. But to me she stands apart--poet and novelist. Not afraid to be political. Willing to let a book fail because of its politics.
I say that I like her very much. Admire her. Maybe the most. And that maybe I didn't go see her in Salt Lake because I want to love her with my singular love and not look at all those other lovers who want to love her singularly too. But next time she comes to a town near me, I'll go. I'll see if I can ask her a lame-free way of asking how she does it.

Good things

In an attempt to be less complainy, a new list called Good Things. Ala Martha Stewart. Back when she could coin a phrase.

1. Triscuits.
2. Two year olds who say "Bye. Love you." every time they leave or room. Or enter one, for that matter.
3. Husbands who clean up after said child's artistic experiments with "clay" otherwise known as "poop."
4. Other people hosting parties so I can make the cholesterol-busting, stuffed mushrooms.
5. Birthday weeks. Nay, birthday months.
6. Friends who let me go back and forth deciding what to do for said birthday and promise to bring pie no matter what I decide.
7. People who sent cards and emails and presents (including Gordon's Gold because nothing says 23 like Gordon Lightfoot) even though I'm far away and am not good at sending presents myself.

I'm the lame

I can't even write a blog post that doesn't suggest my suckitude. I keep thinking about the previous post's title with the word "contemporary" in it. Is that even the correct usage? I doubt it. But I don't know. I'm a lame complainer head who doesn't even post on the twitter blog. And I really want to know where the New Adventures of the Old Christine is, but I'm too lame to go find out on the internet.
My kid is not lame. She peeled an orange and then threw the peels away. I would just leave them about like they're some kind of make-shift potpourri.
Perhaps the middle of November will prove to be some kind of lameness turn around.
In general, I feel like apologizing to the planet: Sorry to be so lame.
Edited to add: As if the planet cares how lame I am. See? So lame.

7 new facts about me, the contemporary version.

Thirty-one has retagged me. This could go back and forth for awhile.

1. I didn't want to spend $20 to get my eyebrows waxed at the Aveda salon so I went to a salon right by my house where the haircut was $40 and the brows were $15. They used Loreal products. I have the worst haircut of my life. Also, the Aveda salon doesn't ask for tips. I ended up paying near-by salon $65. And now my hair hurts.
2. Being on this side of a job search also hurts. So many well-qualified people. So only one job.
3. I wonder where my book is. At the Conference of Potentially True Facts, everyone thought I already had a book. Not so much.
4. I'm obsessed with micropreemie (babies born before 28 weeks--usually around 1. 5 lbs) blogs. I call is "research."
5. I check my email about once every ten seconds. I get about 7 emails a day. This is not efficient use of my time nor a good way to answer any questions of longing.
6. It's my birthday on Wednesday.
7. I will be 23.

7 Facts about me

I'm back from the Conference of Suspect Facts. More on that later. For now:

Lisa B Tagged me for this. I'll tag 7 more people for their 7 facts below.

Seven facts about me:

1. I didn’t eat beans, black, red, white, refried, until I was 27 years old.
2. I had a hernia operation when I was 8. The hernia was probably caused by carrying my twin sisters around simultaneously. I didn’t want to play favorites.
3. In the 3^rd grade I wanted to win the reflections contest—an elementary school arts contest in every category. I wrote poems (“Ain’t no freedom in this land/for no one” was a featured line. I had just read Roots), I drew a picture of a cat and I made composed my own score by, somewhat randomly, making half and whole and quarternotes on the treble and bass clefs. I won none of the categories.
4. I had the fuel injectors (twice), my car stereo (five times) stolen from my Jetta in Portland. When I moved back to Salt Lake, my Isuzu Rodeo (leased) was shot up on 9^th South and 9^th West on Halloween night.
5. I wore a headband every day of fifth grade.
6. I am allergic to (cheap) metal. When I wear Levi’s, the cheap metal rivets give me a rash on either side of my belly button.
7. I have no middle name.

OK: Now these guys are tagged to post 7 facts about themselves and then tag 7 more people in the comment section of those people's blogs:
Thirty-One.
Kendall Jackson.
Mapmaker.
Scorpion's Tail.
Econtrario.
Xena One and Two.
Strange Polkas.