Invigorating

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

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

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

Administrivia

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breakfast--A Safe Subject

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

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

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

Failing Better

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wonder Twins Activate Sabbatical Now!

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

Max is Five

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Year in Numbers

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

Happy New Year!

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

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

Teaching Ferguson

I did not screw it up. Or, rather, my students did not screw it up. This was my intro to nonfiction class and my students are freshman and sophomores mostly. And they are new to college. They are a little shy. They can be easily distracted. And they are brilliant. I was nervous--maybe they'd be annoyed they'd read for class and we weren't going to talk about the text. Maybe because this is a creative writing class, not a political science class. Maybe because the phrase "white privilege" was going to come up and the knee-jerk response to white-privilege is to get defensive. 

The minute I came in I told them we would be talking about Ferguson. I said something like, "Look, mostly I'm a hand-wringer. Climate change. Wring hands. Citizens United. Wring hands. Unlawful murder. Wring hands. But I have to stop wringing my hands. Or at least wring them with you."

I asked, "So why do you think what's happening in Ferguson is happening in Ferguson."

I wasn't prepared (should have been) that some students didn't know what was happening in Ferguson. Fortunately, I brought a poem! one of my grad students wrote and posted on Facebook that did a good job describing some of the facts along with some of the helpful rhetoric we would talk about, "Forty seven days, you stand, pre-recording your message, not wearing your uniform, hoping we forget you are one of them."

I gave a short synopsis: that a black, unarmed kid was walking down the street and was shot by a policeman from more than 100 feet away for stealing a pack of Swisher Sweets.  I said, you know I have a little boy named Max. He is 4. If, when he is 18 years old, he steals a pack of cheap cigars, the worst that will happen to him is that he'll get arrested. The most likely thing is, he'll be told "don't do that again" and be sent on his way. Whatever it is, he won't be shot by a policeman from over a hundred feet away. 

And then I asked, "How many of you have heard the phrase 'driving while black'?" One student told me about living in Nogales. Every week, they drive to Tucson to shop or to visit their friends. Her mom, blond haired, blue-eyed is waved right through. Her dad, who is latino, is stopped at the checkpoint (fifty miles north of the border), every time even though the border patrol agents know him, know their car. Another student talked about being from Pittsburgh. She saw a black guy walking down the street. Some cops jumped him, beat the hell out of him, and left him in the street. One student talked about her criminal justice class and how a fellow student wrote a poem about white privilege, quoting lines about how she could go to the bar, walk down the street, buy doughnuts, without feeling like she was out of place, without being harassed, without being afraid that someone would point out she wasn't white. I handed out this poem.

alternate names for black boys
BY DANEZ SMITH1.   smoke above the burning bush
2.   archnemesis of summer night
3.   first son of soil
4.   coal awaiting spark & wind
5.   guilty until proven dead
6.   oil heavy starlight
7.   monster until proven ghost
8.   gone
9.   phoenix who forgets to un-ash
10. going, going, gone
11. gods of shovels & black veils
12. what once passed for kindling
13. fireworks at dawn
14. brilliant, shadow hued coral
15. (I thought to leave this blank
       but who am I to name us nothing?)
16. prayer who learned to bite & sprint
17. a mother’s joy & clutched breath

Then we talked about why poetry might work better for this, immediately. Because an essay argues even if it doesn't mean to. Because the images of the poem smack you in the face. Because the emotion is right on the surface. Because the "me" in the poem is so personal compared to the public "me" of the essay. Because the connective parts between images would require a "because." We talked about wanting to be a noun (person) instead of an adjective (black). We talked about the phrase white privilege. We talked about what we could do. (Talk more, was mostly our answer). We talked about how to begin to dismantle a system where there two boys live in two very different countries. One for white boys who can walk down the street without looking over their shoulder, who can steal a pack of cheap cigars, who can even mouth off to a cop without fear of reprisal and one for black boys, who can't. 

It was so intense, I got so tired. I imagine that if I were black, teaching, I would feel this tired every day. But it was so good.  Maybe the best teaching day ever, thanks to my students, who are so aware, and, even if not aware, amenable to becoming aware. 

It Shouldn't Be Like This. Or Maybe It Should.

I don't have time to write this but I don't have time to do anything else either so I'm giving up and writing this and hopefully I will this give up and write something else soon too. Today, like all the days that you think have internal organization and lists and priorities and plans has turned to Ninjago watching, phone-calling, toast-making, exercise-when wondering, tile-guy calling, Dave chatting about quitting drinking and hauling water out to Fort Valley and a $20,000 road tax lien on his house, grant proposal review, grant-writing, friend-press-seeking-help, soccer kids snack day emailing, guest writers series-fretting, guest writers visiting in my house next weekend washing, letter of rec writing already, conference center planning, Kit Kat nay-saying, Kit Kat opening, lit mag grant check depositing, post pub book sending, pant searching, dog petting, mohawk upsticking morning that has almost turned to afternoon. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

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1. Let's end on an up note. While 2014 seems to have been a year of writerly and career set-backs, it's not entirely true. Quench won two awards--one from the Viola and one from Independent Publishers. My Micro-chapbook is forthcoming from Black Warrior Review. Witness picked up an essay. The New Yorker sent me a sweet rejection. Better magazine published an essay. I am reviewing excellent books for blurbs and reviews. I had a party. I traveled to Telluride. Seattle. Helena. Twin Falls. Salt Lake. The only western states I'll miss this year are Oregon and New Mexico. I got two writing grants--one from the Arts Commission and one from my school. I helped to get two grants for my school. I have guest writers lined up, guests coming to visit, weddings to attend and a sabbatical looming. My students send me thank you cards and let's get back to class emails. This year, Max and Zoe were sick so rarely--and I think Max's immune system is almost up to full-Kindergarten assault preparedness status.

2. Max and Zoe. On their bikes. Max is going to try to pedal his Spiderman bike since he call balance on his pushbike all the way from our house to Grandma's. Zoe is riding my bike. Does this mean a new bike is in my forecast. My future holds bike riding and that is the best kind of future one could wish for.

3. The lesson for the summer is: Writing is fun. Revising is not. Yesterday, I realized why revising takes me so long. I'm reading along, things are going well and I hit upon a sentence that reads something like, "And then her her ate the position." I have no idea what I was trying to say. If I delete it, will I lose some important that comes up later? Is this a key to the character's identity? Is this a leitmotif? So, stressed, I look to Facebook or recipe suggestions for dinner for help. This is a slow defensive mechanism. I should try to stick to the uncomfortable. It's a good lesson for life and for summer's ending.

Two writing manifestos to go push ahead:

From Richard Powers' Orfeo, page 322. 

Let no one persuade you of a single thing. Study your hunger and how to feed it. Trust in whatever sounds twist your viscera. Write in the cadences of first love, of second chances, of air raids, of outrage, of the hideous and the hilarious, of headlong acceptance or curt refusal. Make the bitter music of  bumdom, the sad shanties of landlessness, cool at the equator and fluid at the pole. Set the sounds that angels make after an all-night orgy. Whatever lengthens the day, whatever gets you through the night. Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough. Let your progressions predict time’s end and recollect the dead as if they’re all still her. Because they are.  

And from Dinty Moore's Facebook: 

"I write because I’m suffering, and the world is suffering, too, and I believe a great story, well written, can help as much as anything." ~ Alan Heathcock

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1. After I posted yesterday's blog, I was so sad. One pure moment. I only wanted one thing, which was for yesterday to never end. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox packed. File folders bound in file binder. Clothes laid out. Alarms set. I could have lived on the cusp of waiting but today came anyway. No one cried this morning.  We rode our bikes again. Max can ride his push bike. This weekend, we're going to try him out on his Spiderman bike. Pedals. No training wheels. Because sometimes you just have to push ahead.

2. I woke up this morning knowing I was a fraud and an impostor. Someone had written something on Facebook about something cool, like locusts for dinner or the battle of Ticonderoga and I just knew that I knew nothing. Even if I look something up for a second, I'm really replaying old Wikipedia songs in my head. I know sinking thoughts only sink. It took a long time to open a Word Document. I was so low, I preferred filling out the 11 pages of the Arizona Cultural Data Project form to writing.

3. But then I did open the document and found some words that made me think not all was lost. It made me say, I am not as a bad a writer as some people. I would like to put that in my next query letter. I am competitive but I have low goals. I realize, I have to be a better marketer. I'm getting the hang of it. "Here's an exquisite book about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their love of pizza. I like pizza too. Please read my mutant book about artichokes and pizza. Love, manuscript-seller." Everyone loves pizza.

Or perhaps the short form is more suitable for my style. Thus, the short blog post. The short number of posts. The short time until this blog-thirty-day project is over. What will I do then? Complain to the wind about the way time keeps pushing forward? Or do I type shortly, backwards? That's a marketing strategy in itself.

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1. I've gotten in a lot of trouble this summer. I lost Max at Hullaballoo for forty-seven seconds. Yesterday, I got in trouble for swimming while Max watched from the side of the pool. I got yelled at (rightfully so) but the woman at the hot springs when I tried to get the kids in for free. The driver pulling the Hummer with the boat yelled at me for letting Zoe ride her bike, you know, where only Hummers are allowed to go. I didn't send the grant forms the right day and didn't process my one grant through sponsored projects. I had typos. I had agent-types tell me I wasn't a science-writer (no duh) and agents say essay collections are impossible to sell. I had to tell people no, thanks, for the grant opportunity but it's not going to work. It's been hard on me. I'm usually such a pleaser-type. Don't get mad at me! But one thing I like about getting in trouble is that I get used to the pain and then I can get in trouble a little bit more. It's a risky life. Might as well live it. I plan to write trouble all day tomorrow when I can get in less trouble with the kids.

2. I am on a mission to tell Max "no" less for that very reason. You develop an armor against "no" and then what's one "no" versus another. Of course, Max's requests are often unreasonable like can I have another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle show and can I have another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fruit snack and can I have another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt and can I take my sword on my hike. I let him take his sword on the hike because otherwise I would have to say nothing but "no." My friend Julie once mentioned some of the best child-rearing advice she heard: It's not about saying "yes" or "no" but about the slide toward "yes" from "no." If you're going to say "yes," say "yes" right off the bat, which I'm, like Molly Bloom, trying to do.

3. On the last day before school starts, I made the kids go hiking with me on Fat Man's Loop on Mt. Elden because a) it's our last day of summer, b) I wanted to spend time with just them and no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (sword and fruit snacks notwithstanding) and c) I wanted them to remember, summer has its own pain. We hiked up the hill. Up was easy. Down was slippery sand. Max fell a bunch and said, "I never ever ever ever want to go on this hike again." Success! Think about when I drop him off at school tomorrow. I can be like, that's fine, let's go home. We can hike Fat Man's Loop again.

In the future, I will regret not wearing a hat every day of my life. But hats are hot. But I will wrinkle. I will regret having spent most of my life a well-temperatured, hat-free person when I am old and wrinkly. Maybe it's not too late. (It's too late.)

Truly, I think they liked it, mostly. There were fruit snacks. Rocks to climb. Fruiting yucca plants. Views of Flagstaff as far as you could see. Alligator Junipers. Lizards. A sign that you could walk to Buffalo Park in only 3.8 miles. They noticed the way the trailer builders dug logs into the trail to keep the water from washing out the path. Evidence of rain channels ran to the left and the right. They figured out why they couldn't see downtown or NAU or the airport (Mt. Elden is in the middle of town. Flagstaff wraps around it. If we kept walking toward Buffalo Park, we could have seen the 180 degree view of the town).

My dream is that tonight will be like last night and we will walk over to my mother-in-law's to check on her plants while Zoe rides her bike and Max practices riding his push bike, then we'll come back and sit on the side deck and watch the sunset but instead we will be packing lunches and backpacks and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Unless we decide we should get in just a little more trouble.

4

1. Max is four. Max is multiple times four. Max is kind of nonstop. This morning, preschool orientation, he kept asking, "You're going to stay with me?"  I said, "Yes. I will stay. But only today. Thursday, you're on your own." "But you're going to stay, right?" He's been going to preschool/daycare for almost 4 years. You think he'd be used to the system. I think camp/summer actually made his separation anxiety worse. New camp every week in between whole weeks of nonstop mom. Nonstop mom isn't any more fun than nonstop Max except I'm always willing to find his Legos for him which is more my problem than his. If someone asks me to look for something, I'm like a Beagle. I have to look for it until I find it. Max is more of a pit bull. For instance, when I said we might go on a bike ride after swimming and then I changed my mind and said, "Actually, maybe we'll wait till later, after dad comes home," he said, "no." Nonstop. He's still saying no, asking if we can go now, while following me around as I look for Legos.  Last night, when we asked him if he was ready for school, he said, "No." He said, "Actually, I'm not going to live here anymore." When we asked him where he was going, he said "I am moving to Mexico."

2. I love Zoe's friends. But playdates. I don't love. The kids do not see me. They don't talk to me. If I walk down the hallway and one of them is running down the hallway, they look at me like, hey, what're you doing here? They're polite enough and answer questions if I ask them, but only once in awhile do they engage me in conversation. Usually, it's to ask for juice. The normal rhythms of the house are: everyone in the separate corners for five minutes, then the three of us in the kitchen or living room or car for thirty, then back to our own corners, then back together. A fine orbital system. When the friends are here, there are gravities tipping the balance in all directions. They slam doors. Open doors. Run down the hallway. Make some very large noises. I think it's a matter of tolerance. If they were here every day, I'd get used to it. I'd be able to yell, "don't run down the hallway" without feeling like I was chastising a stranger*. I'd be able to tell them to get their own juice. Still, they are very friendly humans and sometimes they play with Max which allows me to go to my own separate corner. 

3. Richard Power's Orfeo might be the best book I've ever read. When I'm reading a passage at night, I think, I should write that down. But then I'd have to type the whole book. I love that Powers already won the MacArthur. And that he still writes. Not trying to impress anyone. Not afraid of someone going, 'well, I don't know who thought this guy was a genius.' Just trying to make a new story. There is something genius about someone who can make a whole book about music and a whole symphony about a book. The way Peter Els wants so hard to be a genius and, maybe was, but then couldn't be. It makes me sad how little I know about music. For instance, this means nothing o me: "A second cello harmonizes the first in simple fifths and thirds." I can imagine what that might look like on the piano but I have no idea how it sounds. I want to listen to Mahler and Soshtakovich and read the book again. But the way Powers talks about studying and studying and still never quite getting the heart of the thing makes me feel that even MacArthur winners feel like the true art of the world evades them. 

* Chastising Strangers might be the name of my next book. 

5

1. "Can you go entertain yourself for just a minute?" "Don't even worry about it. No one else will ever remember you knocked on the door of the wrong house." "Should I call the principal and get your class assignment changed?" "Go away. I'm trying to write my blog post."  These are the sayings that I thought I would never say. Oh, infinite patience and creativity. Did I use you up on my writing or on my children? Infinity is so much more countable in the summer.

2. Yesterday, while I somewhat bewept my outcast state, I realized after I wrote that I owe a bunch of people emails too. The pressure is somewhat off on all of us would-be correspondents, no?--and since everyone is on vacation every other week, I think you have to multiply by twelve the number of days of expected response. So if someone said, I'll be back to you in two weeks, what they really mean is in 168 days which is also coming up very quickly. Right? That's what I tell myself.

3. Zoe and Max are getting ready to start school on Thursday. Zoe has a new stapler. She will be the hit of the town. Everybody wants to borrow a stapler although this is what happens when you spill the staples all over the floor.

Max has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt and backpack and lunchbox. We have folders and pencils and mechanical pencils and sharpies and I actually bought some Post-Its. While I'm saying things like "Can you go entertain yourself for just a minute," I'm reading the Best American Essays 2013 and pairing with an excursion out of town so the students can immerse themselves and I hope they don't just immerse themselves in trauma. I am reading an excellent manuscript of poems that is beautiful with gods and gangsters and geometries and phrases like this: "set with cuttlefish pounce." I just got a book in the mail to review. I'm going to make dinner tonight even if it kills me. Zoe will get over not being in her best friend's class and the fact she knocked on the wrong door, trying to give her friend a thank you card. And school will start and it will be fine. This picture says so. 

6

1. Are you getting any work done this summer, writing/teaching people? Does summer mean a slow down across all industry or does the industry just change its nature? Do you want to work? My friend from work said this summer feels about the same amount of work as the regular semester. Are you working too much? I cannot get a handle on the rest-of-the-people. I get that Erik and Val work. They have regular jobs. And yet, even they seem to work in a different mode in summers. Kind of buckle down but don't communicate? Maybe that's where we're all at. Digging into the work. Not really talking about it. Oh, but I'll talk about it. There's a lot of work. Today, I had to write about mycelium and culpability. And mycorrhiza.  The writing group made me write about culpability and mycelium. I took out one metaphor. It helped. And now I have communicated it here. Will there be a big rush of communication on August 7th? Or August 8th, when the numbers run out? Maybe all this here-talking is keeping the quiet on. 

2. This is not Yelp but I have been out to eat a lot this week. On Wednesday, Fat Olives. I had the parm and pesto pizza. Erik had the Soppresetta pizza. Erik's was the best. Bottles of wine were half priced. We sat on the patio. Fat Olives is good. At least on Wednesdays. On Thursday, with my writing group, we went to the new Korean restaurant, Na D Li. I ordered the BBQ Kalbi Stone Pot Bibim Bob with fresh vegetables and short ribs on top of a hefty bed of white rice in a sizzling hot stone pot. The pot stayed very hot. The food was tasty (and hot) but I was so starving by 9:15. On Friday, because it was Friday and Art Walk, we went to Lumberyard. I ordered the Vietnamese burger with a turkey patty. I might have ordered too many of these. Tonight was the best. Greek Taverna! Gyros and wine and beer for all for $31.88. I tipped 9 bucks because it was awesome. 

3. Excellent bike rides yesterday and today. Yesterday, Zoe and I rode in the forest for 6 miles. It had just rained so the trail wasn't sandy. We haven't ridden in the forest all year. One reason is that I used to be able to take Max on his bike-seat. Erik can't ride the tag-a-long third wheel in the forest. Sadly, I fear we'll have to abandon Max so we can take our bikes in the forest all fall long.