radiant shreds

Anthony Bourdain Woke Me Up Early

2010-09-12T06:49:00.012-05:00

I woke up thinking about writing and also that I had to meet someone at the gym and then meet with one of my writing groups and after that meet someone else, briefly, plus grade a poopton of papers AND get them entered electronically (deadline: Monday) and translate them into the new district-mandated, supposedly-objective but as it's turning out WILDLY subjective and bizarre grading "system". . . then I tried to go back to sleep. Five hours is not enough sleep for what I have to do.

Then I thought about writing again. Thought about how I'd gotten up at four every morning for over two years, reading and writing harder than I ever had, scaling back on the "busi-ness", saying no to a lot of things I say yes to now. And how good it felt. So I got up.

I thought I could start with yesterday, and am putting aside the nagging manuscript revision that I'm halfway through. I was halfway through it five weeks ago, too, but there's been a lot of happy hullabaloo to be busy with and so. For now, I'll write about yesterday.

The day started with a bookmaking workshop for educators at the Kaneko (cool place! Very cool place!) with Gary Frost and his partner Joyce Miller. I made a book! Actually, three little ones, one of them hardbound. No words yet.

Then I went to an Eid feast with my sister's new family. Actually, they are my new family, too, cause that's how they roll, and I'm good with it. There is a wonderful healing feeling spending September 11 in the home of kind Muslims. When I get caught up, I'll tell you about the wedding. (That's the sisters, old and new, down there.)

Finally, I slipped out early with my niece Fran and we raced down to the Holland Center to see the deliciously irreverent and hot-from-afar Anthony Bourdain. These tickets were purchase by her mother/my sister many months ago because Fran and I both love him; Kathleen also (most generously) obtained some of the coveted meet-and-greet after party tickets, but even without that, the seats were amazing.

If you've never been to the Holland Center, it's a gorgeous venue, an acoustic dream of pale wood and subtle lighting, more suited to Yo Yo Ma than a punk iconoclast food writer. All these months waiting, I kept thinking, "Bourdain at the Holland? What the hell?" I guess since cutting back on the cable channels I'd managed to forget he was a TV star. But when he walked out and the crowd went wild. . . well, he's a rock star, and for the next couple of hours, he never let us down. Started out sharing stories about embarrassing run-ins with people he'd publicly slammed (i.e. Rachel Ray and suchlike.) Moved on to snarky Food Network gossip (I know almost none of the food stars he was talking about, but it was still funny) and then to personal tales. Ranting, wicked, he was ON.

But here's the meat of it: As punky and ranty as he can be, he's deep down a very old-fashioned guy. Food and people matter; treated with respect, they enrich our lives. (Oh yeah! See "Eid feast" above.)

Anthony Bourdain has grown in his travels, matured with fatherhood, thrown away the earring and the Ramones t-shirts. He still drinks too much and still seems to think that's the only way to do his job (and that's where the not-as-hot-up-close factor really goes geometric) but he still occupies a dark little table in my heart, holding forth over a grappa or a pint of Guiness. So yesterday was a good day. And I'm late for the gym.

Eco Challenge

2010-08-13T06:08:00.002-05:00

CrAzy busy, and yet I have time to lose hours. . . but there are some pretty cool ideas over here that give me hope when hope is needed.

Beach at Bray

2010-07-08T02:25:00.000-05:00

Ireland, Day 1?

2010-06-30T02:51:00.004-05:00

Well, it's 4 am and I'm wide awake. Maybe this counts as Day 2. Can't tell what time my body thinks it is but I can tell you that sitting on the tarmac for 2+ hous in NY and then flying with 2 little mini-Vikings kicking (my seat) and yelling the whole way over the ocean did not help me get much of a jump on rewiring my inner clock. All the melatonin did was muddle.

So yesterday was a weird blur of wandering and napping. Ventured out from the hostel a few times but mental fog was so acute that a block away I'd start to think I was lost or about to be.

I finally have a good wifi signal.

OK, tour some ruins today. Will repeort back then.

Racism Is Alive and Well in the Heartland

2010-06-22T06:53:00.006-05:00

Well, they did it. The town of Fremont, Nebraska, population just over 25K, passed the Arizona-esque anti-immigrant ordinance making it illegal to hire or rent to "illegal aliens." Yes, I prefer the term undocumented. I'm one of those people who find it somewhat unsavory to call another human being illegal.

And no, I'm not saying let's throw our borders open. We need to fix this problem, improve security, all that. It's a complicated mess. But laws like this are so fueled by racism and ignorance that it makes me sick to my stomach.

A friend of mine over on the Facebook keeps tossing out this topic for discussion. Some of the responses are really nauseating. Some of those posters are avowed Christians. I wonder if they take their Christian hats off before talking about other human beings like so much unwanted garbage. Can't figure out how that works.

When I think about the "illegal" people I know, I don't think of them as lawbreakers, any more than I think of myself as a lawbreaker when I occasionally drive over the speed limit. I might justify driving too fast by saying, "But I don't want to lose my job/appointment with the chiropractor/good seat at the movie."

Likewise, many of the people who cross the border justify their lawbreaking with excuses like, "But my children are hungry." If I had children, and was in a situation where I could not provide for their health and safety, I'd do whatever I could to change that. I'd cross borders to feed them, and probably wouldn't wait the years required for the uncertain process of getting legal permission to do so.

I've often wished for a national strike day where all the "illegals" took a day off. How many factories and restaurants and landscaping services (and countless other businesses that work in the background of our lives) would continue to function? If they took a week off, it would be a national emergency. And my classroom would be a sterile place indeed.

Getting Fitter

2010-06-18T07:40:00.002-05:00

I accepted the special summer school gig because 1) $ duh, and 2) the hours, 10-2, are vastly superior to the regular summer school gig, 7:30-11:30.

I am at my best, physically and mentally, in the morning. Working regular summer school would force me to squander precious writing/gardening time in a computer lab monitoring unhappy "repeaters" as they slog through a preset online credit recovery program. Instead, I roll in at a very civilized hour and work with small groups of incoming ninth graders who need focused attention on reading skills. How I accomplish this objective is Any Damn Way I Want. Pretty awesome.

But here's the rub: in preparation for my trip to Ireland (oh my god, real soon!) I embarked a few months ago on a physical tune-up, if not overhaul. I’ve never been what anybody would call athletic, but I have been far fitter. The ravages of age and a sedentary avocation have led to issues with knees, feet, and, even more menacing, the lower back. This lower back business had increased in direct proportion to my commitment to my writing. Anyone with back issues knows that sitting for long periods can be much more exhausting and painful than walking.

So. A couple of months ago I thought I’d try acupuncture. After the very first session with Ellen, the veil of pain I’d been wearing was stripped off. The back still hurt, but less. The constant drain on my energy seemed to be gone, enough so that I started thinking I could maybe try getting into a little better condition-- maybe I really could jaunt and caper about Ireland in a holiday way. Maybe a Zumba class, something to loosen up my back. I called the sisters and they were in.

Somehow, in our search for a class, we ended up joining a health club and signing up to work with a trainer who will henceforth be known as KillBill. Ok, so, you’re never too old for transformation, right? And at the club I met a young chiropractor giving out “samples” of a new technique, ART, which works with muscle and tendon injuries, and he is not only taking my back to new levels of heath—he has actually reshaped my feet, which had so many misaligned bones in them that I’d almost given up the hope of walking without pain.

Long story shorter: I’m feeling much better, fitter, less trepidatious about my journey. But? The writing and gardening have been sorely neglected. Every morning for the last few weeks, I either go to the club or to the chiro, and physically that’s a great thing. But my spirit has felt somewhat deprived. Today is the first day I did neither. I felt a little funny about it, but while getting a few things done in the yard—a wee bit of weeding, sprayed the apple trees for rust – I found the writing returning, and thus this long overdue post. Even if nobody reads it, I’m grateful to know that while regaining other physical freedoms, I haven’t lost the ability to type. Sometimes you just have to skip the gym.

The Big Balk

2010-05-10T05:36:00.004-05:00

No excuses. I thought it had been maybe a month since I posted, but it's more like a month and a half, and the longer it goes, the balkier I get. I get balky. I don't know why, but it happens too frequently-- I start to feel overexposed, start to regret ever opening my mouth, both metaphorically and otherwise.
Here's Merriam-Webster on balk:

So I don't know exactly why the word balk seems to be the best choice for the feeling I have about writing these days, but it's probably a combination of #1 and #5. I need to get to the plowing, I need to complete some motions.

Free Handguns for Patriots

2010-03-22T08:27:00.009-05:00

In my mailbox this morning, the Washington Post daily headlines were waiting. Though I already knew that the House had passed HCR, I wanted to see how they were spinning it. Yee-ikes.

Some billionaire patriot is giving away free handguns. For the coming uprising. Against the government, presumeably.

I mean, seriously, WTF?!

Monster Haiku

2010-03-15T21:56:00.006-05:00

So I'm multi-purposing here, been really too busy to even drop by, but one of my writing groups has started doing prompts every week. Thus, the Monster Haikus. I am so muli-purposing right now, I even used this assignment for my ninth graders today. Here goes.

Godzilla, Mothra, King Kong, Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Frankenstein, Medusa, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.... and one more personal favorite, Cylon.

O my gorgeous green
rage, rise well up and fall hard—
crush our mess to bits.

Pupae in my head
this morning, stirs restlessly
ready to crack free.

You climb because what
else? Civilization hot
to cage up your lust.

We feed on each other
your heart sinewy, my mind
rW, unsavory.

Pale and pretty man
eyes drawing in, draining—
blood leaps to meet you.

Better than a man,
loyal and cuddly and brave,
my wild hairy luvah.

Or any other
part belonging to a man—
what’s this? A kumquat?

She shrinks from eyes, hides
her vicious lovely hair, her
stony loving gaze.

My worst date ever?
Did he have poor hygiene? Not
for a slimeball, no.

What to do with you?
kill, listen, frak, kill—why choose?
Frak—you’ll come again.

A Little Optimism

2010-02-24T06:51:00.005-06:00

Swamped, I tell you! So many tasks undone that when I'm alone, I slip into a slightly catatonic trance while the to-dos whirl, and yes, maybe I'm dreaming of poppies, what's it to ya?
But anyway, I've no time today, so I thought I'd just send you over to a very cool post by Robin Sloan at the 3six5 project. If you aren't already following, it's a year's worth of "what's happening today in the/my world" posts by 365 bloggers. (Yes, I wanted to be one of them, I can handle one assignment a year, but I didn't get picked.)

And Spring will come again. Meanwhile, it's exactly ZERO outside.

Happy Lupercalia

2010-02-14T13:55:00.004-06:00

No time to do much more than share a link to a great blog post: a debut writer's experience of the rapidly evolving publishing world. It starts out frankly depressing, and ends up powerfully hopeful.
And evolution is really an apt concept here-- the climate is changing fast, and those who can't adapt. . .

So my Valentine to you: Love the life you lead, and vice versa.

Chopping Up My Darlings

2010-02-07T09:53:00.009-06:00

We writers have heard it (and repeated it) many times, that old line about murdering your darlings. I'd never seen it in context before, so I went a-lookin'. Here's a bit, courtesy of Bartleby:

Style, for example, is not—can never be—extraneous Ornament. You remember, may be, the Persian lover whom I quoted to you out of Newman: how to convey his passion he sought a professional letter-writer and purchased a vocabulary charged with ornament, wherewith to attract the fair one as with a basket of jewels. Well, in this extraneous, professional, purchased ornamentation, you have something which Style is not: and if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

The latest version I've heard, and much more gently put, has been in several rejections: "beautiful writing, too quiet." I've been at this long enough to translate this agent speak: boring, boring, yawn. The last rejection used the word "beautiful" twice, ouchy.

But the good news is, the rejecting agent added, "Perhaps if you started with. . ." and here is where I get a little confused. She mentions events that occur in chapter 22 (out of 30 total chapters.) I vacillate between thinking she meant I should dump the first 21 chapters, or else simply tweak chronology, reshape, chop off a few fingers and toes, maybe a chemical peel, definitely some liposuction.

The second option seems too simple, so that is what I'm doing. Baby steps.

I am also coming around to the knowledge that my beautiful, beautiful prologue is a vain bit of ornamentation that may not survive the slaughter. I still harbor some hope that it might slip in somewhere later, when presumably my reader has learned to accept me, warts and all. But after having this funny feeling (like, wow, I love it, that can't be good) for way too long, reading this Pub Rant pretty much strapped my prologue to the chopping block.

Taking a Trip, Not Taking a Trip

2010-01-24T07:05:00.012-06:00

Before me squats a to-do list as long as the Giant Squid I saw on the telly yesterday, and yes, that really is an apt metaphor. The list contains such items as "find birth certificate and get pics for passport" and "customize two chapters for deadlined submission". "Write travel grant" is one that keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list because I've never written a grant before, but the deadline is 5pm Friday so if the bulk of it isn't done today, I can kiss it goodbye.

It was during one of those snowed-in periods a few weeks ago I realized it's time to get out of this country for a while. Other than a short camping trip on Vancouver Island in 1977 and an afternoon in Nogales some time in the late 80's, I've never left the Estados Unidos. A year and a half ago, my dear brothers and sisters started a travel account in honor of my fiftieth birthday, intending to fulfill my childhood ambition of going to Paris, and it's grown by dribs and drabs ever since.

During those snow days, there were too many reports of people who died tragically in their own front yards, slipped and somehow froze before morning. A woman was killed by a snowplow in her own parking lot. People die all the time, often with no warning at all. A random bullet, a slippery sidewalk, a freak stroke. It came to me then that the travel account wouldn't spend itself.

Yet my desires have mellowed. Sure, it would be cool to hang around in the cafes, sip espresso where Beckett sat smoking and scowling, but I feel no sense of urgency about Paris. I still want to visit the Louvre before I die, and Shakespeare and Co., before or after, but if I only get one trip before a chunk of blue ice gets me, I want to go to Ireland.

A cousin, the family genealogist, has traced our family to Bunclody, near Enniscorthy in County Wexford. Our ancestors were involved in the revolution that led to Ireland's war of independence. I think I'll be splitting my time between the old home county and the glories of Dublin. Maybe I'll even run into the lovely writer who my aforementioned cousin contends is a distant cousin to us all. Plus there'll be mounds and castles, which hold a special attraction for a nerd like me, so there you go.

Paris can wait.

Ghost Story, For Reals

2010-01-19T10:29:00.013-06:00

Original staircase, Staab House inside La Posada, Santa Fe

Sorry it's been so long. The three of you (Hi there loyal readers!) must really think I'm a slacker, but believe me, I've been wicked busy. Among other things, we started a new semester with a fresh crop of students, and I'm getting ready to start teaching a new Title 1 after-school program, plus brainstorming/researching for the Latino Literature course for next year. Plus shoveling. Fun busy, for the most part. I just got back from a conference in Santa Fe where I stayed in La Fonda, a hotel I would never have been able to afford on my own, and that is where this adventure begins.

The conference topic was Content Area Literacy: Reading and Writing Nonfiction. I'm not getting into the details here, but one of the tasks we had to complete was a Group Inquiry, wherein the group selects a subject pertaining to Santa Fe, researches the topic, and presents to the conference on the last evening. My group (Courtney and Barbara are teachers from Arkansas, Stan is an English teacher from my own school) chose The Ghosts of Santa Fe on account of there being so many of them. We all had different reasons for being drawn to the topic, but for me it was mainly the opportunity for capers and hijinks.

Me, Stan, Barbara, Unofficial La Fonda Ghost Guide Gloria, Courtney

Our hotel was supposed to be swimming in spooks. There's the shotgunned bride, the salesman suicide, the stalking stranger in a long dark coat. Much spectral activity has been observed on the second floor (my floor, oh yeah) and in the basement. Several field trips to the basement failed to stir anything up, though we all agreed it was a little creepy. The only troubling disturbance I noted on the second floor was the noise of my neighbors, who did not seem to be used to margaritas. OK, I was a little freaked out to come in one night and see that all the lights were on in my room, even lights I had never turned on, but when I saw the chocolates on my pillow (!) I decided not to make a fuss.

Saturday night, Stan and I spent the evening with the other two conference attendees from our school, Sally (her group was researching the art market) and Rick (architecture) (how mature.) After an amazing dinner at Pasquale's , we headed over to La Posada to check out their ghosties.

A posh joint, La Posada is built around the old Staab House. We didn't yet know that the ghost of Julia Staab, heartbroken by miscarriages and the death of a child, still walks the halls, rearranges the furniture, and may be responsible for a hair-pulling incident that caused a hotel guest to bash his head into a wall. We were just on a lark, taking pictures and sneaking up the old staircase, trying to look like we were guests. (We also didn't know that genuine current guests of La Posada, Megan Fox and Mickey Rourke, are making a movie in Santa Fe, though Mickey was giving out a Golden Globe at the same time we were creeping around in the hotel.)

Sally, Rick, and Stan

So anyway, I was taking the goofy kind of pictures that tourists take, having my co-conspirators stand and point at things, and then I had Sally take a picture of me pointing. I pointed at an old picture of the Staab House and said, "Loookie, here's a ghost." Ha ha.

Caper over. On the way out, we stopped and talked to Carlos, the guy in charge of valet parking. That's when we learned about Julia, and about how people have sometimes seen weird things in the picture of the old house. I said, "Oh, we took a picture of the picture," and I pulled out my camera. We looked at the picture of me pointing but we didn't see anything.

I meant to advance to the next picture, but I hit the wrong button-- did you know the Sony Cyer-shot can zoom in while in review mode? Well, I didn't. So I hit zoom and everybody's looking at the little screen and we got a little freaked out.

I don't want to say what I see, nor will I say what other people see, because we are not in agreement. We all see something, but I won't say what unless there are comments. Do you see anything?

PS We went back the next day with our inquiry group and took a bunch of pictures from different angles, but the things we think we see in the Saturday night pics are just not visible Sunday morning. Thoughts?

Retrospection

2010-01-03T09:11:00.015-06:00

Well, I've read about as many top ten lists as I can take. Actually, I quit reading them over a week ago, along with the articles about the futility or stupidity or redundancy of such lists. Still, it's natural to look back, and at the turn of a decade, always interesting to go back to the last turn of a decade, so.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the changes in my life over the last ten years, and despite the busy-ness of the last few days, fully intended to sit down at some point and write about it. It's writing that helps me understand myself. Ah, narcissism.

Anyway, this post over on Mira's list (which, if you don't know, is a gold mine of info on artist's grants, residencies, and fellowships, subscribe now!) inspired me to sit down and get to reminiscing.

In January of 2000, I was still living in the basement of my struggling little bookcafe in Kimballton, Iowa. I was still swathed in pressure garments from the waist down (and would be until sometime in 2001.) Still taking several medications that swathed my brain in a grayish haze as my body slowly rebuilt the burned tissue. (Yes, doubly swathed. Should I say swaddled? Swaddled in despair, cuddled in gloom?) My marriage was a grim deadlock. My "business" was a joke. Things were not looking good, and I had no hope for the future, could not imagine any scenario where my life might turn out alright.

Soon, my husband would be gone and I'd pay off the building by myself. I'd teach part time in Omaha so I could keep the bookcafe open at least a few days a week. From January-June of 2002 I would close up the shop and live in NYC, helping my sister with her new baby.

In January 2003, acknowledged my failure and sold the building for half what it cost (it needed a new roof, and because of the debt incurred after my uninsured hospitalization, I couldn't get a loan.) Moved back to Omaha with my first dog, a handsome young mutt named Alice, and started over at the age of 45.

Moving out.

Young Alice.
Fast forward: Spend 2 1/2 years living in a studio apartment over a garage, chip chip chip away at the debt. For the first time since getting my teaching license in 1991, I apply for an actual full-time teaching gig. And get it! And don't really want it! But take the job, full of fear and trepidation, whatever, fear and trepidation is by now my confirmation name. Forward.

2005 become a homeowner. 2007 begin (oh, fear and trepidation!) an MFA in writing with the University of Nebraska's low-residency program, enabling me to continue teaching full time. (They are down there right now, at the Lied Lodge, having their workshops and lectures and readings without me; this is the first new year I've spent at home since I began the program.) Finished the book I'd started back in Kimballton, graduated in August, 2009.
Writer friend Erin Arellano marinating in the ambiance at Lied Lodge, January 2009

It's January 2010. It's 0° outside, but I have a warm Gertie on my lap as I type, and Alice snoring on her pillow at my feet. Though ten years ago home ownership was a distant dream, a fantasy I didn't dare indulge in, I am in a little house that is mine all mine (ok, and the bank's.) I have a job with benefits, even insurance, even a retirement plan. Ten years ago I didn't even think I could want those things, much less get them.

In two weeks, I am flying to Santa Fe for an education conference, courtesy of my employer. I'm seeking representation for my book and some days that seems an impossible dream, but though it's colder than a warlock's heart outside, the sun is shining. I fully expect this to seem a quaint yearning when I look back in 2020.

All Snuggied In

2009-12-25T10:38:00.009-06:00

Well, we're having quite a fine blizzard here in Nebrasky. My sister's boyfriend claims he's coming to get me for brunch. We'll see.

Update: Rash picked me up and delivered me home in one piece. Had a great time and am home again, more than ready to be snowbound for the next few days.
Peace.

Spelling Shmelling

2009-12-18T06:15:00.007-06:00

It's the last day before winter break and the now traditional English department last-day-of-the-year egg casserole is baking. You know the one: eggs, bread, half-and-half, jalapenos, chorizo, cheese. Mine is never as good as my mother's was, nor is it as good as my sister's, and I do not care for it, but my co-workers insist it's divine. I have donned my semi-ironic sequined sweater and am braced for the sublime madness of finals and holiday sugar bombs showing up everywhere.

With a little time to kill, checked out my Twitter feed (yes I'm a Twit, aren't you?) and as usual, Charles Blow had an interesting link to wake my brain with.

A British education blog, School Gate, posts this: Should Spelling Be Inventive?

The first paragraph is a proud summary of all the British schools gearing up for a big spelling bee. "Some things in life are either right or wrong and spelling is one of those." I agree with that sentiment, and instantly think of color vs colour, then grey vs gray, and shake my head, try to focus. Where are we going?

The author of the article quotes a principal from a Georgia (USA) elementary school regarding spelling:

“However, for written expression activities students are allowed to use inventive spelling (spelling words by how they sound)," the principal writes, "to help get their thoughts on paper and avoid spending too much time on asking how to spell words.”

Oh dear. As all those Spelling Bee entrants know, you can't go through life spelling "inventively". I am not a fan of homework for primary school aged children, but I am fine with spelling tests because children simply need to learn the correct ways to write words.

And don't think that attitudes like this are limited to the States. The guidelines in this country are usually interpreted (at least in state schools) to suggest that teachers don't correct all the wrong spellings in a child's work, so as not to make them feel too downhearted. This of course means that many children don't realise that they have spelt a word incorrectly - and then don't learn how to spell it right in the future.

(My Yankee spellchecker tells me that she has misspelled "realize" and "spelled" up above but I'll defer for now.)

Let me just address what I believe the principal was getting at (or what I would have been getting at.) First, the use of the word "inventive" might have been an unfortunate choice. I think he was trying to say that for first drafts, the young writer's attention should be given to ideas, not technicalities.

I urge my students to set aside concerns about spelling, grammar, even logic, when taking a first stab at a topic. This is not because I'm afraid they'll become downhearted. It's because these important aspects of revision, introduced too early in the writing process, cause them to become fainthearted. The writing is flaccid and careful-- no going down blind alleys where wonder may lurk, no risky plunges into damp jungles of thought, no, they're too busy looking up believe.

Later they're expected to pull out the dictionary and take the red pen to their own work. Too often young writers toil under the misapprehension that if they are very careful on a first draft, it will be perfect and no more work will be required of them. They don't want to waste a jot of ink or effort, so they grip their little pens and clench their little brains and what comes out is stiff and possibly proper and usually dull. I want them to go wild.

Full disclosure: I am a terrible speller, and I admit this to my students. I tell them adults who claim to have all the answers, all the time, are liars or fools, and they'd better get used to looking up answers and checking with experts now or they'll grow up to be liars and fools themselves. Thank heavens we don't have closed-circuit cameras in the classroom (yet).

p.s. Despite the silly Christmas sweater picture in my previous post, my dogs are usually naked all the time.

The Lost Snow Days

2009-12-10T12:52:00.004-06:00

You've seen The Lost Weekend, right? That's the one where Ray Milland goes off on a bender and breaks your heart. I'm grateful to say I haven't had one of those weekends in a couple of decades, but that in no way means that I've healed all up. My addictions have simply taken other forms. It's the old game of whack-a-mole.

I am currently wallowing in the pure benevolence of the Universe. Snow Day Number Three. I don't remember the last time we had three snow days in a row-- it may have been when I was a kid, the glorious blizzard of I want to say '75. I was a teenager and old enough to get up to no good, that much is certain. But this is not about that.

First, yes, I had plenty to occupy me, important things that needed doing. I needed to replace my toilet seat (and have needed to for some time, purchased the replacement parts and the necessary tool some weeks ago) and I did it. I needed to get started on a bajillion batches of peanut brittle, and am now seven batches in (or eight, if you count the one ruined when the phone rang, thanks Cathy, but it was worth it!) Water the plants, feed the birds, print my free Annual Credit Report, shovel out the driveway to facilitate commiserating with my neighbors' exasperation when the plows go by and fill it up again, done, done, done, and done.

But the really important stuff, all having to do with this keyboard, with quieting my mind and overcoming the shlump (not schlump, that's something else, and not "w#&*!r's b*%#k", do not use those words around me please) I've sunk into since my ill-fated stab at NaNoWriMo (NoNoWriMe), these things I have not done. That sentence stands as proof that I'm having a little trouble with my writing.

It's just another addiction, see. Not booze, not vicodin, nothing I couldn't drive after doing. It's this damn glorious Internet. But wait, let me explain. It's not what you think.

It started with a little housekeeping. I says to myself, Let's once and for all catch up on that dang Google Reader feed. I love the Google Reader feed, a handy tool that enables me to keep track of all the blogs and news sites that at some point seemed so important or interesting that I never wanted to miss a single post. Read or deleted all 455 posts, even unsubscribed to a few feeds that no longer seemed so interesting or important.

Problem: as I'm whacking them off the front end, they keep stacking up on the back end. Became obsessed with getting them down to zero. Did so. then there's four new ones. Knock 'em down. Two more. Bam, bam. Six more. That's where my keyboard time went.

I started this post Thursday evening. It's Saturday morning and don't ask what Friday back at school was like. I'd tell you, but there are 48 things I need to read right now.

ps One other dubious accomplishment--made my dogs put on the sweaters from Aunt Mary and pose for Xmas pics. Alice is resigned, Gert is Not Amused.

In answer to a question: Balancing work and art

2009-11-08T21:43:00.002-06:00

I just plagiarized an email to a full-time teacher who is contemplating taking the plunge into an MFA. In my defense, I told the recipient I was doing it. Here's the meat of it:

So, balance? Well, I'll be honest and say I think I did a rather poor job of it, but everything that needed to be done got done. I didn't try too many new things on the job, and I got lucky my last semester a had a wonderful, capable student teacher. But basically, I made the MFA my life. Went to bed ridiculously early so I could get up at 4am and write before work (found that after work, I was too spent to do anything but read.) Weekends were totally dedicated. I am fortunate that I have nobody to take care of or cater to except my dogs, but if you have a family, and they support you in this, it can still be done. I can hook you up with a couple of married high school English teachers, both with children, who also got through the program.

The bottom line: most of the time, the sacrifices stopped feeling like sacrifices. I finally had what felt like the perfect excuse to decline invitations-- I didn't just want to write, I had to write. It got me into a practice that I now no longer feel I have to make excuses for. It felt like an amazing gift I'd been waiting all my life to give myself. Bad sentence, but you get my meaning. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

Humpday

2009-11-04T13:00:00.002-06:00

I am not fit for company, and apologize for my long delinquency. Overwhelmed, etc, and I feel bad bitching about needing a day off when I know far too many people who have too many days off. I'm sort of sick and tired of waking up worrying about other people's kids, but it's somehow not triggering my compassionate nature. No, quite the opposite. I'm feeling particularly Melvillian and want to knock hats off heads (and suckers out of mouths and smirks off faces and you get the drift. Danger to others.) I'd really like to take to the sea today. Or the desert, forest, prairie, recliner, anywhere else really.

OK, to cheer us on our way, Neil Gaiman has linked to his Nano peptalk from 2 years ago. Thank you, Mr Gaiman, and I hope it's going well for all. I am not as far as I hoped to be by today, but still ahead of what I could be.

My First Fling With Dr. Wicked

2009-10-10T11:02:00.005-05:00

Go! Goal set--200 words, 15 minutes. I am taking my first real stab at using Dr. Wicked's Write or Die site, and because I have no idea how fast I can or should write (or type, for that matter,) I thought that would be a valid first outing.

I first heard about Dr. Wicked on the NaNoWriMo site (yes, I'm obsessed, aren't you?) and thought I'd give him a go. The site allows you to set a timer and a writing goal, which my inner Luddite snottily smirks at. Did Isak Dinesen require a website with a timer? NO! And the only outside help Balzac had was the copious consumption of coffee, which I understand he drank all day and into the night, up to and past the point of madness. I can no longer avail myself of such chemical extremes, preferring to pop an extra vitamin B and swig some fish oil from the bottle instead. I like to sleep when I'm in bed, thank you very much. But anyway, I'm jabbering now not only to avoid punishment (I'll tell you about that in a minute) but also to drown out the annoying anti-nerd nerd in my head. No, Dinesen and Balzac and Asimov--

ooh, the celebratory horns just blew with 7 minutes, 47 seconds left to go. The horns are good, they mean to say I hit my word count. So that means I am capable of writing 100 words in 7 minutes. So that means if I can, wait, let me hit the calculator. So, if I'm doing my math right, that means I SHOULD be able to write that 50,000 word "novel" in 3500 minutes. which works out to be 58.33333333333333 hours. In a month. Piece of cake.

All of these calculations assume I can keep up the pace. My plan is just to freewrite for 58.33 hours spread carefully over a month. 1000 words every weekday morning before school. 3000 on Saturdays and 5000 on Sundays, taking off Thanksgiving and the day before.

But back to Dr. Wicked. If I had paused to think for a bit too long, the background on my screen would have turned pink (which it did at one point,) then red, and then a presumably obnoxious song would have started playing and continued until I began typing again. My setting right now is 'average', but if I went with the kamikaze setting, the punishment is much more severe-- the words would begin unwriting themselves until I resumed. How evil is that?

So, after one roll with Dr Wicked, I think I love him. And I'm sorry DH Lawrence didn't have a spell check, and Henry James could not avail himself of word count, but I live now and if I have to breath modern air, and be a weak ol' modern woman who will never know the joy of trimming her own quills or killing her own goose, I might as well enjoy my gadgets.

October Anxiety

2009-10-06T06:03:00.003-05:00

So much for posting twice a week. Time has really gotten away from me-- papers to grade have piled up and up while I prepare to teach new content, read the new material not much ahead of my students and try to prepare meaningful instruction that is actually meaningful while also staying true to the "spirit" (really wrong word) of Standards Based Instruction or whatever the hell we're calling it these days.

I'm behind on every kind of correspondence I have, behind on every kind of reading, my home looks like a hobbit's version of Grey Gardens, and if I keep up this catalog I'll have an anxiety attack so let's just drop it.

All this to say I just can't wait for November. Which pretty much confirms insanity. I am afraid of looking at the NaNoWriMo website because the last time I was involved with so many people (15,363 worldwide participants have signed up as of yesterday) it was working on Obama's campaign. The site has so many message boards that I can't begin to know which might be helpful, inspiring, etc, and which will just be another way for me to lose time. So I'm avoiding.

What I'm caught up on: TV. There, I said it. I won't apologize for loving Mad Men, and am blissfully enraptured with both Glee and Bored to Death. So, while I shouldn't be too smug about deciding to cancel Netflix for the month of November, I will not be quitting my telly shows. I say I'm studying dramatic structure and don't care to hear any argument about that, thanks.

National Novel Writing Month

2009-09-28T06:50:00.002-05:00

I worried for a long time about what I’d do once my MFA was done. Gone is the structure of regular deadlines—writing quotas, specifically. One of the strategies I’m using is writing groups. I belong to three, each one very different from the others. One is a small poetry group that has let me join them for the past few years, though I’m not a poet. We meet only seasonally, but it’s always good. Another meets weekly, and my newest group meets monthly. What I forgot to worry about was what I’d write.

Since I finished my book and started on the Seeking of Representation, I’ve had the nagging feeling that I’ve become purposeless as well as projectless. I’d told myself when I finally finished the book I spent a decade on, I’d leave memoir behind and move on to a less personal genre, try my hand at some fiction again. But it’s like I’m working with wet wood and can’t buy a spark. And look at all those ‘I’s—maybe I’m too self-obsessed to write about anything but myself, yet oh how bored I am with that topic.

So, with no nonfiction topic setting me on fire, and really very few ideas about anything else, I decided to try something completely insane. NaNoWriMo is going to force me to write 50,000 words in a month. I’m sure I can’t do it, can’t wait to get started, and feel a little sick whenever I think about it.

It will be a month long freewrite. The good thing about such a task is that I won’t have time to think about how bad an idea is—the goal is not quality, it’s quantity. I know from experience that when I quit judging the quality of my output and just write, that sometimes good stuff sneaks itself in. I’m counting on that being true again.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA

2009-09-22T20:12:00.002-05:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA

Shared via AddThis
If you haven't seen this yet, guess what? You're living on Mars.

Comment, Said, Statement, Statement

2009-09-20T07:19:00.002-05:00

This sentence has been bugging me since yesterday:

"Wade M. Smith, a Raleigh lawyer who represents Mr. Edwards, declined to comment on the paternity issue directly, but said in a statement that “there may be a statement on that subject at some point, but there is no timetable and we will see how we feel about it as events unfold.”

declined to comment
but said in a statement
"there may be a statement"
(we don't know when, we don't
know how we feel
or how you feel, we'll say more
when we know more about
what you know and feel.)

meanwhile children, elbow deep
claw at the bottom of the barrel
digging for Daddy at the bottom of the cereal box
come up with crumbs as
events unfold.

Into Temptation

2009-09-19T18:53:00.005-05:00

Took Saturday off and had pleasures. One of those decadences involved going to a movie in the middle of the day, indie hit Into Temptation, written and directed by my old grade school classmate Pat Coyle.

Wonderful performances by Kristin Chenoweth (West Wing,) Jeremy Sisto (Six Feet Under,) and Brian Baumgartner (that's Kevin From The Office to you, and who knew he could play eloquent and urbane? I sure didn't.) I recommend this film--go get your temptation on.

Thanks, Pat!

Hump Day Inspiration

2009-09-16T06:41:00.004-05:00

Parent-teacher conferences tonight make for a long day ahead, but as long as I'm home in time for Glee I'll be ok.

Catching up on some reading this morning, I came upon an inspiring quote from 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started.

“It was one thing — not a difficult thing — to want to be a writer; another to become one… Looking back on it, I think the truth was that I was scared of my ambition, scared of discovering that I didn’t have what it took to fulfill it. . .And this was perhaps the nub of my fear about my ambition: I knew I wasn’t a natural writer. If I were, I’d already be a writer; there’d be no question of becoming one. The only way I could be a writer would be by making myself one, by squeezing the writer out of me. By work.” Graham Swift

I get a little worried, caught up as I am in the day-to-day of my job and spending weekends so focused on the business of "seeking representation." I miss the writing, the work. This weekend, I'll let the unrejected (so far) queries do their work (out in the world, all alone,) and I'll try to get back to mine.

Got a Nibble!

2009-09-14T16:49:00.003-05:00

Re: yesterday's whinging (yes, whinging, look it up) about queries, I finally received a communication that's NOT a form rejection-- an actual request for a few chapters. And, yes, I know, that can (and usually does) still lead to "Thank you very much, but in today's climate, and not right for us, etc, but good luck."

The letter that got the reaction was NOT one of the Big Bad Book Comparisons, either. So. Learning.

Now, if you need a little leather-free discipline, check out this succinct bit on Stephanie Austin's process.

Quer I for the Fine Line

2009-09-13T18:20:00.005-05:00

If you'd spent a weekend writing agent queries, that title might make sense. I'm to the point where I can't tell if they (the queries) are getting better or worse, but whichever it is, they are getting way more that.

And that last sentence makes me think worse.

It's all those fine lines-- between confidence and hubris, brevity and too scanty to matter. Is it thorough or blabby, moving or schmaltzy? Am I ambitious or desperate?

And in the last few queries, because I'm tired, and because I have to finish up and get dressed up for the True Blood finale wherein I hope to be ravished-in-proxie by one Eric Northman, and because one of those agents had blogged about The Big Bad Book Comparison, I went ahead and threw in a wildly flattering (to me) comparison one of my mentors had made. And because for months I've been dying to tell someone about that flattering comparison but never had the chance because, you know, I'm so modest and all, well, I put that line in my next query, too. To an agent who, for all I know, might just hate Big Bad Book Comparisons, and who may lack the sense of humor required to see that of course I know it's outrageous, that's why I put it in my query letter, right? Cause I'm funny, right?

So, form reject, right?

9-9-09

2009-09-09T06:08:00.002-05:00

It has only been a couple weeks since I made a (secret) vow to post something here at least twice a week. So last week: fail. I'm blaming allergies, insomnia (can't blame any one thing for that, just a slide show of anxieties,) and my slow slow process. Also I'm behind on my Querying, which is getting better but is still too slow; I thought I'd have some sort of template by now, but I find myself hyper-customixing each agent query and I'm still not satisfied. Nor are they, apparently.

Also feeling knotted up over politics. Still having trouble accepting what poor losers the losers are.

Anyway, here is a great blog post by The Intern regarding scientific proof that publishing a book won't make you happier. Enjoy that, my friends.

Femfest 2009, Part 2-The I Am Poems

2009-09-01T16:42:00.005-05:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Femfest has been going on for over twenty years. It has evolved from a spontaneous campout into a highly organized and anticipated half week at a State Park, with a fine river nearby. The air-conditioned cabins are fully equipped with kitchens and tiny but complete bathrooms. We bring enough food to stay for a week and enough magazines for a month.

For several years, we cabin-hopped, trying various locations around the park, including the Big Red Barn, a fly-ridden bunkhouse with an unfortunate proximity to the horse stables. My sisters and I finally settled on the two hilltop cabins with adjoining fire pit, and for a few years we also rented one of the “primitives” across the road (no ac, kitchen, or plumbing, just a couple of bunk beds and a fridge.) I slept there. A few of us would go behind this little cabin to hide from the kids and smoke. Furtive ironic flashbacks.

Now the kids are growing up, boys moving towards manhood, girls getting jobs, and several sisters have made it a habit to sleep outside, so we’ve given up the primitive cabin rather than pay for empty beds.

One constant through the years has been Chief’s craft project. (Chief was her name or her rank back at Christ Child Camp, circa 1969, and it’s her Fest name, too. I’m Granny by virtue of being older than everyone by at least 4 months. We also have a Pee-Pee—yep—and a Pinkie, a Scary, and a Crazy-Eye.)

Chief has a stash of paints, glue guns, glitter, sequins, beads, seeds, feathers, rocks, sea shells, bark, interesting bits of flotsam from her farm, and a wood-burner. One year she brought birdhouse gourds; birds have never come to live in mine, perhaps they’re put off its ostentatious fabulousness, but I still think it looks cool hanging on my porch. Another year we made mobiles, and I still have mine hanging in my bedroom—when I’m just waking, it looks like the ocean, drifting in the corner of my room. The projects always turn out to be cooler than I think they will.

This year Grasshopper, the Chief’s daughter, (who was not yet born when we had our first Femfest on the beach at Fremont Lakes) is twenty-three. She took it upon herself to have t-shirts made. She sent out about a dozen goddess images for us to vote on. We agreed to a Greek image of Diana, with stag and quiver, which she had printed on lavender t-shirts. This theme was the inspiration for our first writing craft project.

Initially, we were supposed to write our own goddess myths, but nobody could get started. Then I remembered the “I Am” poem. This is a project familiar to teachers everywhere, something even the most reluctant writer can do, as easy as filling in a survey. I couldn’t remember the form exactly, so Scary Googled it on her i-phone and we went to it. The brave among us wrote these I Ams from the persona of whatever goddess we perceived ourselves to be.

And that’s how I spent my summer vacation.

Reading for Pleasure for Kids?

2009-08-30T06:52:00.012-05:00

Yesterday's New York Times online has an interesting article on giving students more choice in what they read, an idea I can really get behind. I teach freshmen, but a few years ago I stole a unit plan from a senior teacher, tweaked it very little, and started using it. Now almost every teacher I know does some variation on the Independent Book Project.

It starts with a visit to the library. The students are given the parameters: they must choose either a novel or work of literary nonfiction (for example, the memoir of a race car driver is ok, but a picture book about cars is not.) It must be at least 150 pages long, though I tell them if they find a shorter book they really want to read, come talk to me. This gives some leeway to "differentiate" instruction for special needs students.

For the next three weeks, approximately 33% of class time (classes are 88 minutes long) is devoted to this project. As they read, they are writing study guides for their books. They are creating vocabulary lists and forming opinions. Their goal is to imagine that they will be the teacher, leading a class of their peers through this book. They write quizzes and a review, make recommendations as to why or why not this book is worth reading. Who would enjoy it and why, why, why? etc.

Finally, they select three items from a list of enrichment activities such as: Interview a character from the book, draw a map of the book's setting, create a soundtrack for the book and write a brief explanation for each choice, draw a chapter in your favorite graphic novel/manga/comic book style, write a new chapter or rewrite the ending. . . you get the idea. Guided choices offering the opportunity for each student to show off her skills and tastes. Empowerment.

I love doing this project with my students. With the new district-imposed timing, however, I'm not sure where I can fit it in, but I'll find a way.

Not everyone agrees that this is a good idea. For example, a Bush Education Expert:

“What child is going to pick up ‘Moby-Dick’?” said Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University who was assistant education secretary under President George H. W. Bush. “Kids will pick things that are trendy and popular. But that’s what you should do in your free time.”

Right, you should. But will you, if reading has been a dull, punishing experience? I read Moby Dick, voluntarily, when I was thirty--a transcendent experience--but I'm so grateful no one tried to force me to read that in high school.

From Students Get New Assignment: Pick Books You Like:

But literacy specialists also say that instilling a habit is as important as creating a shared canon. “If what we’re trying to get to is, everybody has read ‘Ethan Frome’ and Henry James and Shakespeare, then the challenge for the teacher is how do you make that stuff accessible and interesting enough that kids will stick with it,” said Catherine E. Snow, a professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. “But if the goal is, how do you make kids lifelong readers, then it seems to me that there’s a lot to be said for the choice approach. As adults, as good readers, we don’t all read the same thing, and we revel in our idiosyncrasies as adult readers, so kids should have some of the same freedom.”

My goal has always been to instill a love of reading in my students. I tell them that no matter what path in life they choose, Art will enrich their lives, and I believe it. I'm still going to teach Shakespeare until they pry it from my cold dead fingers, but if it takes Twilight to build a bridge to Romeo and Juliet, I'm good with that.

Found: First Person

2009-08-26T06:25:00.003-05:00

All I could think about this morning was the noise, but another cicada rant, nobody needs. So I'll spare you that and share this instead. Interesting article at Poems Out Loud about the use of the first person, specifically in poetry. A good read.

Notes on the First Person by April Bernard

In Defense of the MFA (and Praise for Low-Residency)

2009-08-22T17:24:00.010-05:00

So over at the Rejectionist the other day, a guest post by one Cherie L'Ecrivain (clever!) gave me a little bit of brain rash, and always in search of a topic, I decided to take it on.

First, a confession. I used to harbor my own prejudices about MFAs in writing. I assumed (and unlike the author of this post, had no actual experience to base this on) that most MFA programs were groovy, rich-kid playgrounds, factories churning out pasteurized products every year, each bearing the stamp of the latest trend in literature. I wanted none of it. I would be a unique voice, raw and untamed. It had nothing to do with how those grapes were dangling so high above my head or that I couldn't jump that high and was afraid to climb. There were bugs on those grapes, yuck, phooey.

I dibbled and dabbled and dribbled for years, feeling always the lack of the community that M. L'Ecrivian skewers in her post. I wanted writers in my life. I wanted feedback. Having found a project that inspired passion in me, I toiled and spun in a vacuum for almost a decade.

At the tender age of 48, I finally admitted I needed help. Despite my debtanoia, I applied for student loans. Following the advice of a poet friend, (yes, I had some poets in my life, but I am not a poet, really, and knew no prosers, so) I applied to the University of Nebraska's Low-Residency MFA in Writing. It fit my lifestyle. Five nine-day residencies at Nebraska City's beautiful Lied Lodge, one in the middle of the summer and one during winter break, each followed by four intense months of reading, writing, and regular correspondence with a mentor.

I worked closely with four amazing (yeah, an adjective; I debated, but I'm sticking with it, and if you knew them you'd understand) mentors over the two years, and each of them contributed immeasurably to my growth as a writer. Sometimes I disagreed with their suggestions, but usually I went ahead and tried them anyway. Sometimes I decided I was right (can't think of an example right now so this may be a big lie) but usually these suggestions led to me breaking through a fear.

During the residencies, the days and nights were full of lectures, readings, and workshops. Nine days of hard work and camaraderie, then you go home for more hard work.

The blog post I'm responding to said, in part:

Beyond actually acquiring the physical diploma, it’s difficult to gauge the success of your tenure as an MFA student. It’s not like the degree is meant to help you land a well-paying job.

This I agree with. Sure, we all want to be published, but anybody seeking a fine arts degree because they want to make money is dangerously naive. That's what jobs are for, silly.

Then Cherie swerves off into less informed territory:

Most of the workshops are heavily focused on short stories and then once a semester an agent visits the class and tells you that story collections are completely unmarketable and no one will even consider publishing yours until you have a novel to back it up. At least this way when you graduate without a book deal or salable manuscript it is only partially your fault. However, your time in an MFA program can be considered a triumph if you clock more hours actually writing than you do vomiting up your student loan money in the bathroom of every bar in Park Slope.

I think she's writing memoir here. Speaking of memoir, in my workshops (of eight or nine people, and each residency I was with a slightly different group; the Boss Lady threw our names in a bowl and let her cats fish us out) there were almost as many essays and excerpts from longer works as there were short stories. And let's face it, short stories are a wonderful form and efficient for learning craft. Unless, yeah, you're in it for the money.

Cherie also had trouble with her playmates, and I can see how that could happen in a traditional MFA program, where you workshop weekly with the same people. Especially if you are young and have not yet spent decades paying off that first round of student loans you squandered in saloons all over Montana or wherever.

With low-residency, this is more easily avoidable:

You will also know how well you have done based on who you are still speaking to when school is over. All MFAs are composed of people who are used to being the standout writer in any workshop they’ve ever attended. So, take twelve to forty people who are equally good at something but accustomed to being the best and put them in a situation where they are required to critique one another and compete for praise and prizes. Have fun navigating that obstacle course of loyalties and animosities, particularly when the participants are perpetually steeped in sleep deprivation and alcohol. In any workshop you'll be lucky to find one or two people who are good readers for your “work”—yes, you will call it that, eventually—and that's nice and all.

I do feel lucky. I graduated three weeks ago. I am proud of the work I did, and I'm grateful I had to keep my day job and write when I used to be sleeping. I'm grateful for the discipline I learned and the tools I've acquired. Most of all, I'm grateful for the relationships, both online and face to face, with writers of every genre-- poetry and prose, literary fiction and nonfiction and fantasy, multi-media-melange and memoir. These are people I've watched grow over the last few years, and they've watched me. I have a community now, and I guess that's what I'm defending.

I'm sorry that some people have had such bad, expensive experiences with higher education, but in this brutal business, all I can say, Cherie, is better you than me.

Look at This While I Stall

2009-08-22T13:07:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, in the wee small hours of the morning, when I should have been doing a number of other things, (like trying to shower, dress, and get to work on time at least once in the first week of school) I read SOMEWHERE, (where? I can't rebut until I find out) a bitter diatribe against MFAs.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. There were some valid points. Yet, as I so often do myself, the writer went over the top and tipped a metaphorical hand full of sour-grape-stained small-digit cards. So, I am working on a modest defense of the MFA, specifically the low-res variety of which I am a recent and grateful graduate. But while I get my thoughts together, please to enjoy these useful McGyver tips from Lifehacker.

Friday Zombie Love

2009-08-21T05:39:00.004-05:00

Made it to Friday, first week done. As usual, having the kids back energized me this week, and though I know I'll never be the Super Teacher that some of my smart, organized, creative colleagues are, today I'm liking my job.

Took my classes to the library yesterday. Their assignment was to check out a book. Since they're ninth graders, our wonderful librarian and her assistants gave them the intro spiel and cut them loose.

In each class,as usual, there were the boys insisting they didn't read. There was nothing they were interested in that would be in a book. I love the look on their faces, when we steer them to the horror section, or find books on graffiti or skateboarding or gangs. I love to be right. When I tell them that the librarian can get them a book on almost anything they could want, but then it turns out she already has it, I try hard not to be too smug about it.

This book trailer, via Prairie Schooner's blog, made my morning complete. Avoid if you are sickened by or scared of haiku.

http://www.zombiehaiku.com/index.html

For Book Lovers

2009-08-18T20:45:00.004-05:00

Via moonrat at Editorial Ass.

Pretty cool art:

http://theharperstudio.com/2009/08/happy-friday-book-lovers/?dsq=15039556#comment-15039556

The Kids Are Alright

2009-08-18T16:49:00.000-05:00

Well, every year I think this is the year I've lost it, and every year the kids come back and I find myself loving my job again.

Things are still a little crazy with the schedules due to the district's rapido reassigning of administrators this summer (the assistant principal in charge of student schedules was given like five minutes to move to a new school.) Some of our students were floating around like lost tribes during 2nd and 3rd block today, but hopefully we'll find somewhere to put them tomorrow.

Meanwhile, our new principal is a ROCKSTAR. During the assembly he was sitting with the kids up in the bleachers, and he is so visible in the halls and dropping into classes that they definitely know who's boss. I heard he was using zip ties to hold up the pants of certain individuals who didn't believe him when he said he'd have no sagging. Wow-- a principal who means what he says. It's a whole new ballgame.

Bloody Sunday

2009-08-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

Just spent 3 hours in the emergency room with my dad, watching arterial blood* spurt out of his head whenever they tried to take the pressure off. Not sure if it's from the skin graft they gave him when they whacked off a chunk of cancer a few weeks ago or if it's from the haircut he tried to give himself, but I'm proud I kept my mouth shut. Trying to get up the gumption to watch my favorite Sunday night show, but my stomach tells me I've had enough True Blood for one day. Must muscle through somehow.

*arterial blood--and I did not really know this until today--is a very bright, pretty red, and pumps out in tune with the heartbeat.

Femfest 2009- Heat Lightning

2009-08-05T14:39:00.000-05:00

August 4, 2009, 4:19 a.m.

About a half hour ago I woke up thinking there was a fire in the corner of the room, and knew at the same moment that the fire was not hot. The light of the fire was white and cool as it flickered in the corner at the foot of my bed. I remembered that my sister had left her phone charger plugged in on the floor, sans phone, (and why hadn’t I unplugged it two days ago, when I arrived at the cabin? I’m usually pretty good about being obnoxious about stuff like that.) (FACT CHECK: K says she would NEVER leave her phone charger plugged in-- it was her booklight charger, my bad.)

I sat up. Sure enough, the corner was flashing with light, but it was coming from under the thick brown curtain. It was coming from the sky.

It looked like aurora borealis on meth. Nebraska heat lightning sparked and flashed across the horizon, and from my window the view is full-throttle horizon. I stumbled out to the living room for my camera and tried to take some shots on every setting, including video, but the light show wasn’t making much of an impression on—well, not film, whatever it is in a digital camera that takes impressions. This is one of those things you just have to see for yourself.

Yesterday we were trying to figure out how long we’ve been coming here. Sheila M, who is 23 years old and who took it upon herself to design and print goddess t-shirts (purple on lavender, Artemis with bow, a phallic quiver slung over her shoulder and a mellow deer beside her) for the Femfest this year, says it’s been going on since before she was born. All we can remember, those of us who were alive at the start, is that back then it was more of a “grab your sleeping bag, I’ve got some good bacon” kind of thing. Those mid-eighties getaways were much closer to actual camping, with all activities—cooking, eating, sleeping, etc— happening outside, or in a tent, and we felt a little lame even then, a little ashamed that we hadn’t had to schlep our gear over hills and bogs to get to our campsite. Still, it was grand, and whenever it was that first one occurred, we decided that it should be a tradition, a sister campout every summer for the rest of our livelong days.

And we did it, every summer after. Except for Michelle (Sheila M's mom,) we were all single back then, and bosses were the only people in our lives who might hinder us. If someone couldn’t get off work for the full couple of days, we were still close enough to town to commute. I saw this proximity to town as a plus, enabling the hard-working and over-employed among us (insert modest throat clearing here) to enjoy a summer getaway. My sister K, though, believed leaving for any reason other than more ice, more wood, more s’more stuff, was a spell-breaking, bliss-busting violation of the rules that she had not and would not write down.

When the sisters started to breed, we began to desire amenities. With children came the perceived need for plumbing, shelter, refrigeration, and climate control. We changed venues, from the charming sub-roughing it of Fremont Lakes to the poor-woman’s “summer place” at (redacted) State Park. Our annual summer getaway has evolved from the spontaneous summer campouts of our late youth (I was in my mid or late twenties, and the oldest) to a highly organized and civilized outing.

After trying several settings here at (redacted) River over the years—some low-lying, primitive cabins, and two years at the Big Red Barn—just what it sounds like, dormitory style, with bunk beds and an unfortunate proximity to the horse corral and its attendant fly population— we have settled on our summer homes: (redacted). Reservations are made a year in advance.( Sorry about all the redacting-- I've been informed by a secret person who does not and will not make rules that these are secret locations.)

“Our” two cabins here atop the hill share both a fire pit and a grill. I’m in the nice cabin, the one with an actual living room and fireplace. The dogs and I have a room to ourselves, and Cary is in the other bedroom with her two dogs. In the other cabin are three bedrooms, and one has two bunk beds. This is deemed the boy room, and it holds the male children until they’re twelvish and their testosterone levels get too high to hang at the Femfest, whereupon they are harshly banished to the care of their fathers.

We set up our lounge area beneath the shade trees in a breezy spot with a view down into the meadow. From this fine location we watch wild turkeys and deer in the morning, and horses sometimes, and turkey vultures up above; this is also where we read our magazines, and where we take our breakfasts and our lunches, which can occur at any time. These meals are made up of Michelle’s homemade salsa on chips or her zucchini bread, Sheila’s tuna salad or fruit salad, the artisanal cheeses and chocolates that by tradition must be provided by Cary, Kathleen’s pesto pasta (if Grace hasn’t finished it,) and her everything cookies that have everything, really, that you could want in them, you need only think “pecans” or “oats” or “coconut” or “chocolate covered dried cherries” and that very flavor will dominate your next nibble. There will be peaches that cover you in juice, and watermelon, and smoky leftovers like roasted corn or eggplant, all washed down with coffee, hot or iced. It’s all the abundance we can muster.

Dinner, a more organized affair, is taken at the picnic tables, and occurs in the evenings. There is usually a steak night and a BLT night. Other than that, and the unwritten prohibition against leaving, there are no rules.

There is much to say about the evolution of our sleeping arrangements, but it is after 7 a.m. and I feel a nap coming on. (We nap whenever we want, for as long as we are able.) Let’s just say Kathleen, Sheila, and Michelle sleep outside most nights now. The heat lightening that woke me a few hours ago eventually led to rain around 5:30 and they had to drag their air mattresses inside. The sisters are spread out in the living room now, and if they can sleep, they will sleep for as long as they can.

2009-05-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

It's getting down to the wire. I told myself I'd get serious about this blogging business as soon as my thesis was done. I thought it was done 3 weeks ago, formatted (with help, thanks Jenna) and ready to print. Yet I couldn't print it. Or didn't. Then a week ago I thought I'd have another comb-through, and lo, what a mess. Thank G for procrastination. So, I am finally hours away from really finishing the final comb-through, ridding myself of piles of justs and typos.

So why am I not finishing? Why this reluctance? Well, after so long, I'm afraid I won't have anything else to say. Right now, this typing is proof enough of that.

Ok, back to work.

2008-12-14T10:55:00.000-06:00

It's mid-December and I'm feeling weird about things. A week ago I called the fix-it guy who took my back-storm-door away this summer-- it had been flung about and mangled by the big tornadic winds that passed through in June-- and left a message that we really needed to find a time for him to put the door back on. A week ago, no reply yet. Maybe he hasn't gotten around to fixing it, maybe he lost it, or maybe he just feels weird himself, ashamed that he never finished the job. I know that feeling, but I also know there is frost building up on the inside window of the backdoor and that is not cozy to see.
I'm feeling also like a crappy teacher, a mediocre student, a lousy sister, terrible daughter, disappeared friend. Poor housekeeper, rotten gardener, embarrassing neighbor. . .

New Rule: You don't have to be rude to win.

2008-10-08T06:49:00.000-05:00

It's too bad old man McCain is past learning, even though he's been gently schooled by Obama twice now.

I am so excited about what President Obama is going to teach America about grace, dignity, and strength. We could all use a little more of that.

letter to the editor

2008-10-06T06:01:00.000-05:00

Why is it that some people think their next-door neighbor is qualified to be vice-president or even president? Isn't that what we were hearing about George W. Bush a few years back- that he is someone a lot of people could imagine having a beer with?

Are the people I "identify" with qualified to run the country? After all, I am well-educated, informed, and pretty nice most of the time, though I can be tough when riled. Would that make me a good president?

My neighbors are nice people-- some are funny, some have great lawns, and all can be counted on to loan me a cup of sugar if I ask. Would I like to see any of them in the Oval Office? No I would not.

Of the four candidates for the two highest offices, I have most in common with John McCain, because sometimes I make rash judgments and speak before I think; sometimes my quick temper and sharp tongue get me in trouble. I have gaps in my knowledge that sometimes I'm willing to admit, and other times I'm not.

I do not want a president who is just like me. I want a smart, thoughtful, cool-headed president who can help this country rise up again and restore our standing in the world. I want a president who is looking forward and understands the challenges of this century. I want a vice-president who does not have plans to further expand the powers of that office (as Cheney has so dangerously done.) That is why I am supporting the Obama-Biden ticket.