Outside the window of my office, undergrads are walking to and from class in the brightness of a late summer day. It is almost eighty outside and while I am shaded by the walnut tree out my window, I can feel the energy of the day seeping in through my skin.
I didn't get much sleep last night and my back is still "out" for the fourth day running but I am overwhelmed with a sense of deep calm and pleasure. Class went well today, the students were paying attention and processing what it was I had to say about writing. I spent the afternoon fulfilling other obligations that had been pushed off for days. My inbox is empty except for the papers handed in today.
I've called my wife, made plans, called my mother and asked her how her day was. I've read a Tobias Wolff story that stirred me inside. I'm blogging now and touching the creative. I've submitted two stories to new markets. I've done a full revision on a story I'd forgotten about. The day is blasting by and I'm glad I was here to bear witness.
And...sigh.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A New Day
The view out my office window is one of a tree-lined parking lot. It is a view I find surprisingly beautiful on most days because it means I am sitting in my office on a university campus, typing on my computer. Today is no different.
I will admit that I'm buoyed by the news of my forthcoming publication but will also say that I just finished reading a wonderful nonfiction piece by Annie Dillard that makes me want to sit down in the chair and write. Her piece "Introduction: Notes for Young Writers" from In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction is exactly what I needed to hear today and so I tell you that I'm going to hit the page and see what happens. Today is a writing day and, God, am I glad.
I will admit that I'm buoyed by the news of my forthcoming publication but will also say that I just finished reading a wonderful nonfiction piece by Annie Dillard that makes me want to sit down in the chair and write. Her piece "Introduction: Notes for Young Writers" from In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction is exactly what I needed to hear today and so I tell you that I'm going to hit the page and see what happens. Today is a writing day and, God, am I glad.
Monday, August 31, 2009
FINALLY...PUBLICATION!!!
One of my stories got published. The first one since my MFA graduation. Yahoo. We are going to celebrate tonight!!!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Insomnia
It's 2:45 in the morning and I'm unable to sleep. I've been tossing and turning in bed, turning the television on and off, listening to my wife breathe and nothing is helping me to sleep. It's maddening. So, I've poured myself a whiskey in an attempt to drug myself to sleep, opened a web browser and here I am.
It's amazing to me where my night thoughts go. So far I've covered the death of my parents, siblings, and wife. I've plotted out two weeks or so of lesson plans for the class I'll begin in less than a week, thought about the bar and the conversation I had with my owner, done some mental Christmas shopping for my wife, and on and on it goes.
I can't tell if it is anxiety that is keeping me up or if my wonky sleep schedule is finally catching up to me. It's hard to say. Swinging in between waking in the morning with the baby to closing the bar at 4 am is a hard thing to balance and I'm beginning to realize the toll it takes on me mentally and creatively. Lack of sleep isn't something to sneeze at, it's serious and I believe myself to be a pretty moderate insomniac even on my best days. The last weeks have really pushed the envelope though and I think I'm beginning to have some real fallout.
Well, the ice in my glass is cracking, inviting me to take another sip. Lets hope this works.
It's amazing to me where my night thoughts go. So far I've covered the death of my parents, siblings, and wife. I've plotted out two weeks or so of lesson plans for the class I'll begin in less than a week, thought about the bar and the conversation I had with my owner, done some mental Christmas shopping for my wife, and on and on it goes.
I can't tell if it is anxiety that is keeping me up or if my wonky sleep schedule is finally catching up to me. It's hard to say. Swinging in between waking in the morning with the baby to closing the bar at 4 am is a hard thing to balance and I'm beginning to realize the toll it takes on me mentally and creatively. Lack of sleep isn't something to sneeze at, it's serious and I believe myself to be a pretty moderate insomniac even on my best days. The last weeks have really pushed the envelope though and I think I'm beginning to have some real fallout.
Well, the ice in my glass is cracking, inviting me to take another sip. Lets hope this works.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The next day.
So, I've already heard from a writing friend in response to restarting the blog and it seems like a good idea so far. The reason I halted the blog was because I found myself having to defend the blog, its contents, my thoughts. Well, tough titty said that cat to the kitty. If I am going to engage in the process of putting my thoughts out there in a public forum, well, that's what I get. I don't know what it is about this blog, about knowing that these words do make it out into the ether that appeals, but it does.
I'm working on a wedding ceremony today. I have to perform it tomorrow and it feels good. I enjoy weddings. It's nice to see two people joining their lives together. I always feel honored to have been chosen to unite them.
So, it's off to work on the ceremony and then, hopefully, I'll have some time for my own work.
I'm working on a wedding ceremony today. I have to perform it tomorrow and it feels good. I enjoy weddings. It's nice to see two people joining their lives together. I always feel honored to have been chosen to unite them.
So, it's off to work on the ceremony and then, hopefully, I'll have some time for my own work.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Too long.
Okay, I'm considering opening this blog back up again. I've been thinking about it for quite a while, since the day I shut it down, and I feel compelled to return to it. There wasn't much in terms of content within the pages of this blog, nothing that could be considered genius or relevant but there was something essential to me, to my process somewhere in these pages. I was able to write past my censor in some ways.
I'm finding that I'm actively resisting the page these days, avoiding it, choosing anything and everything but putting my butt in the seat and that isn't something I can live with, not something I'm willing to continue. So in an effort to return to a place where the writing was an essential part of my day/week/month, I'm going to reopen these pages and see if it can't be the first step on the path that brings me back to the page.
Step one: Define goals.
1. I want to write with more frequency. I've been doing a lot of diddling around with revision, using it as a smoke screen for what I've been doing with my time. But the fact of the matter is I haven't been producing much in terms of new material. I have a couple of new drafts but nothing that satisfies my urge to burst free on the page, to really come forward and purge some of these narratives, these voices, that won't shut up in side my head. So, I want to write. I want to write three days a week.
2. I want to read more. My reading rate has dropped significantly as well. I need to fill the hopper. I need new stories, new influences, new voices inside my head. I need to get back to my old reading schedule of one book a week.
3. I want to maintain my physical fitness routines. While this new lifestyle has taken away from some of my writing time, I find that it is really good for my acuteness, stamina, self esteem, and general health.
4. I need to reconnect with friends from the program. I have dropped off the face of the map. I've avoided them because I'm ashamed of my output. I don't have much to contribute in the way of new books read or new stories completed. I need to swallow my pride and return to them. They'll understand my fallow period.
5. I want to re-immerse myself in the writing because it makes me a better husband, father, brother, son, friend, and person. Without it, I get grumpy and shallow. I don't want that.
So, there's a start. There's my top 5 reasons for reinvigorating myself in the writer's life and hopefully this blog will be just the tool I need to get over myself and return to those characters inside my head.
I'm finding that I'm actively resisting the page these days, avoiding it, choosing anything and everything but putting my butt in the seat and that isn't something I can live with, not something I'm willing to continue. So in an effort to return to a place where the writing was an essential part of my day/week/month, I'm going to reopen these pages and see if it can't be the first step on the path that brings me back to the page.
Step one: Define goals.
1. I want to write with more frequency. I've been doing a lot of diddling around with revision, using it as a smoke screen for what I've been doing with my time. But the fact of the matter is I haven't been producing much in terms of new material. I have a couple of new drafts but nothing that satisfies my urge to burst free on the page, to really come forward and purge some of these narratives, these voices, that won't shut up in side my head. So, I want to write. I want to write three days a week.
2. I want to read more. My reading rate has dropped significantly as well. I need to fill the hopper. I need new stories, new influences, new voices inside my head. I need to get back to my old reading schedule of one book a week.
3. I want to maintain my physical fitness routines. While this new lifestyle has taken away from some of my writing time, I find that it is really good for my acuteness, stamina, self esteem, and general health.
4. I need to reconnect with friends from the program. I have dropped off the face of the map. I've avoided them because I'm ashamed of my output. I don't have much to contribute in the way of new books read or new stories completed. I need to swallow my pride and return to them. They'll understand my fallow period.
5. I want to re-immerse myself in the writing because it makes me a better husband, father, brother, son, friend, and person. Without it, I get grumpy and shallow. I don't want that.
So, there's a start. There's my top 5 reasons for reinvigorating myself in the writer's life and hopefully this blog will be just the tool I need to get over myself and return to those characters inside my head.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Goodbye.
The conditions of anonymity which made this blog experiment appealing have been compromised. I have had two conversations over the course of the last week about the contents of my blog and so I am retiring it. I will blog anonymously under a different blog title and I will make sure to keep it that way. No longer am I willing to share myself beyond the terms in which I had originally set up. If anyone is out there listening, thanks for being here. Good night.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Change of Mindset
Amazing how Twain can make you go from doom and gloom to lighting up a room. A fun read found at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/note.asp?note=21967326&cds2Pid=16444&linkid=1379411
Whenever I Am About to Publish a Book
By MARK TWAIN
Reports of his death are no longer greatly exaggerated, yet Mark Twain continues to surprise readers with new work -- new as in never before published in book form, that is. The piece that follows is drawn from the volume Who is Mark Twain?, to be published on April 21 by HarperStudio. We are grateful for the opportunity to share it with our readers. --The Editors Whenever I am about to publish a book, I feel an impatient desire to know what kind of a book it is. Of course I can find this out only by waiting until the critics shall have printed their reviews. I do know, beforehand, what the verdict of the general public will be, because I have a sure and simple method of ascertaining that. Which is this -- if you care to know. I always read the manuscript to a private group of friends, composed as follows:
1. Man and woman with no sense of humor.2. Man and woman with medium sense of humor. 3. Man and woman with prodigious sense of humor. 4. An intensely practical person. 5. A sentimental person. 6. Person who must have a moral in, and a purpose. 7. Hypercritical person -- natural flaw-picker and fault-finder. 8. Enthusiast -- person who enjoys anything and everything, almost. 9. Person who watches the others, and applauds or condemns with the majority.10. Half a dozen bright young girls and boys, unclassified. 11. Person who relishes slang and familiar flippancy. 12. Person who detests them. 13. Person of evenly balanced judicial mind. 14. Man who always goes to sleep.
These people accurately represent the general public. Their verdict is the sure forecast of the verdict of the general public. There is not a person among them whose opinion is not valuable to me; but the man whom I most depend upon -- the man whom I watch with the deepest solicitude -- the man who does most toward deciding me as to whether I shall publish the book or burn it, is the man who always goes to sleep. If he drops off within fifteen minutes, I burn the book; if he keeps awake three-quarters of an hour, I publish -- and I publish with the greatest confidence, too. For the intent of my works is to entertain; and by making this man comfortable on a sofa and timing him, I can tell within a shade or two what degree of success I am going to achieve. His verdict has burned several books for me -- five, to be accurate. Yes, as I said before, I always know beforehand what the general public’s verdict will be; but I never know what the professional reviewer’s will be until I hear from him. I seem to be making a distinction here; I seem to be separating the professional reviewer from the human family; I seem to be intimating that he is not a part of the public, but a class by himself. But that is not my idea. He is a part of the public; he represents a part of the public, and legitimately represents it; but it is the smallest part of it, the thinnest layer -- the top part, the select and critical few. The crust of the pie, so to speak. Or, to change the figure, he is Brillat-Savarin, he is Delmonico, at a banquet. The five hundred guests think they know it is a good banquet or a bad one, but they don’t absolutely know, until Delmonico puts in his expert evidence. Then they know. That is, they know until Brillat-Savarin rises and knocks Delmonico’s verdict in the head. After that, they don’t know what they do know, as a general thing. Now in my little private jury I haven’t any representative of the top crust, the select few, the critical minority of the world; consequently, although I am able to know beforehand whether the general public will think my book a good one or a bad one, I never can know whether it really is a good one or a bad one until the professional reviewers, the experts, shall have spoken. So, as I have said, I always wait, with anxiety, for their report. Concerning my last book the experts have now delivered their verdict. You will naturally suppose that it has set me at rest. No, you are in error. I am as much bothered as I was before. This surprises you? -- and you think my mind is wandering? Wait, and read the evidence, and you will see, yourself, that it is of an unsettling nature. I am going to be fair: I will make no quotation that is not genuine; I will not alter or amend the text in any way.
Whenever I Am About to Publish a Book
By MARK TWAIN
Reports of his death are no longer greatly exaggerated, yet Mark Twain continues to surprise readers with new work -- new as in never before published in book form, that is. The piece that follows is drawn from the volume Who is Mark Twain?, to be published on April 21 by HarperStudio. We are grateful for the opportunity to share it with our readers. --The Editors Whenever I am about to publish a book, I feel an impatient desire to know what kind of a book it is. Of course I can find this out only by waiting until the critics shall have printed their reviews. I do know, beforehand, what the verdict of the general public will be, because I have a sure and simple method of ascertaining that. Which is this -- if you care to know. I always read the manuscript to a private group of friends, composed as follows:
1. Man and woman with no sense of humor.2. Man and woman with medium sense of humor. 3. Man and woman with prodigious sense of humor. 4. An intensely practical person. 5. A sentimental person. 6. Person who must have a moral in, and a purpose. 7. Hypercritical person -- natural flaw-picker and fault-finder. 8. Enthusiast -- person who enjoys anything and everything, almost. 9. Person who watches the others, and applauds or condemns with the majority.10. Half a dozen bright young girls and boys, unclassified. 11. Person who relishes slang and familiar flippancy. 12. Person who detests them. 13. Person of evenly balanced judicial mind. 14. Man who always goes to sleep.
These people accurately represent the general public. Their verdict is the sure forecast of the verdict of the general public. There is not a person among them whose opinion is not valuable to me; but the man whom I most depend upon -- the man whom I watch with the deepest solicitude -- the man who does most toward deciding me as to whether I shall publish the book or burn it, is the man who always goes to sleep. If he drops off within fifteen minutes, I burn the book; if he keeps awake three-quarters of an hour, I publish -- and I publish with the greatest confidence, too. For the intent of my works is to entertain; and by making this man comfortable on a sofa and timing him, I can tell within a shade or two what degree of success I am going to achieve. His verdict has burned several books for me -- five, to be accurate. Yes, as I said before, I always know beforehand what the general public’s verdict will be; but I never know what the professional reviewer’s will be until I hear from him. I seem to be making a distinction here; I seem to be separating the professional reviewer from the human family; I seem to be intimating that he is not a part of the public, but a class by himself. But that is not my idea. He is a part of the public; he represents a part of the public, and legitimately represents it; but it is the smallest part of it, the thinnest layer -- the top part, the select and critical few. The crust of the pie, so to speak. Or, to change the figure, he is Brillat-Savarin, he is Delmonico, at a banquet. The five hundred guests think they know it is a good banquet or a bad one, but they don’t absolutely know, until Delmonico puts in his expert evidence. Then they know. That is, they know until Brillat-Savarin rises and knocks Delmonico’s verdict in the head. After that, they don’t know what they do know, as a general thing. Now in my little private jury I haven’t any representative of the top crust, the select few, the critical minority of the world; consequently, although I am able to know beforehand whether the general public will think my book a good one or a bad one, I never can know whether it really is a good one or a bad one until the professional reviewers, the experts, shall have spoken. So, as I have said, I always wait, with anxiety, for their report. Concerning my last book the experts have now delivered their verdict. You will naturally suppose that it has set me at rest. No, you are in error. I am as much bothered as I was before. This surprises you? -- and you think my mind is wandering? Wait, and read the evidence, and you will see, yourself, that it is of an unsettling nature. I am going to be fair: I will make no quotation that is not genuine; I will not alter or amend the text in any way.
Terror
I'm not sure of anything anymore. Things I believed to be unwavering waver. Things I trusted to be true are false. My head is spinning. I'm not sure which way to turn or which way is up. I'm hoping for peace.
Friday, April 17, 2009
A Tenuous Grasp
I walk the edge of a blade each and every day. I am buffeted each and every day by the nonsensical whims of my own emotions. A couple of days ago I was riding high, feeling in control and having a very good day. The next day begins in much the same way but is soon derailed by the railings of the one person who is supposed to be lifting me up. She leaves a message on my voicemail berating me for a locked door. For the inconvenience of having to use the front door.
It isn't the subject of the voicemail that bothers me. Not in the least, In fact I laugh at the subject of the voicemail but am soon hit with a wave of sadness at the tone of it. I don't want to say I've "never" been spoken to in that tone but it feels that way. It is a mix of condescension, anger, and disregard. It sends me crashing. I come home and don't speak for the remainder of the night. In fact, once the baby is down, I leave for the bar. I don't get wasted, I simply grade papers and have a beer or two until I know my wife is asleep.
The next day is good. I try and forget about the message on my phone and move on with my day. I have a good day but it is shadowed by the presence of no apology. I climb a little higher out of my gloom and finish the day at home with my family, still quiet but apparently it goes unnoticed.
Thursday is a good day at school. I get a ton of work done, my classes are in the library for a presentation and so I am off the hook for lecture. The sun is out and I'm in short sleeves and jeans. It's a good day. My former advisor emails me and tells me he has a giant spread in Writer's Chronicle which should hit any day. I try and lay my hot little hands on it but can't find it anywhere. Patience, patience. I take a walk in the sunlight.
Oh, that reminds me, I've been trying to run lately but I am developing a pain in my ankle. More the side of my foot really. It happened after the first day I ran. I think I pushed myself too far and I've bruised a tendon or something. It doesn't feel like a sprain or anything of that nature. So, I've had to settle for walking, which if overdone, still sends pains shooting up into my calf.
Anyway, it seems that all of these events, both big and small seem to push me too far to one side or another. I'm raw, red raw, hot electric wire raw, and my joys are real but my anger scares me, my sadness threatens to draw me down, and I'm not sure if my amiability is going to be enough to keep me in control.
We'll see. Wish me luck.
It isn't the subject of the voicemail that bothers me. Not in the least, In fact I laugh at the subject of the voicemail but am soon hit with a wave of sadness at the tone of it. I don't want to say I've "never" been spoken to in that tone but it feels that way. It is a mix of condescension, anger, and disregard. It sends me crashing. I come home and don't speak for the remainder of the night. In fact, once the baby is down, I leave for the bar. I don't get wasted, I simply grade papers and have a beer or two until I know my wife is asleep.
The next day is good. I try and forget about the message on my phone and move on with my day. I have a good day but it is shadowed by the presence of no apology. I climb a little higher out of my gloom and finish the day at home with my family, still quiet but apparently it goes unnoticed.
Thursday is a good day at school. I get a ton of work done, my classes are in the library for a presentation and so I am off the hook for lecture. The sun is out and I'm in short sleeves and jeans. It's a good day. My former advisor emails me and tells me he has a giant spread in Writer's Chronicle which should hit any day. I try and lay my hot little hands on it but can't find it anywhere. Patience, patience. I take a walk in the sunlight.
Oh, that reminds me, I've been trying to run lately but I am developing a pain in my ankle. More the side of my foot really. It happened after the first day I ran. I think I pushed myself too far and I've bruised a tendon or something. It doesn't feel like a sprain or anything of that nature. So, I've had to settle for walking, which if overdone, still sends pains shooting up into my calf.
Anyway, it seems that all of these events, both big and small seem to push me too far to one side or another. I'm raw, red raw, hot electric wire raw, and my joys are real but my anger scares me, my sadness threatens to draw me down, and I'm not sure if my amiability is going to be enough to keep me in control.
We'll see. Wish me luck.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Control
How much of our lives do we spend seeking control? We want to control our weight, our smoking, ourselves, our impulses, our tempers, our loved ones, our circumstances. It's maddening. Every now and again, though, we are given the chance to exert a little bit of control. Done in the proper context, with the proper motivation, it is a great thing.
I'm feeling great about the smoking cessation program I've begun. The hypnotist has given me a great gift, a little extra self-control. I've been seeking it for months now. I feel good for having taken this step and I want to hold on to this feeling. That is one thing, one positive of quitting that I didn't figure into the equation...it feels so damn good.
I'm feeling great about the smoking cessation program I've begun. The hypnotist has given me a great gift, a little extra self-control. I've been seeking it for months now. I feel good for having taken this step and I want to hold on to this feeling. That is one thing, one positive of quitting that I didn't figure into the equation...it feels so damn good.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Saturday
The hypnotism is holding strong. I listened to the follow up CD and was amazed at how quickly I fell back into the trance-like state I experienced in the presence of the hypnotherapist. I woke this morning (after a night of drinking for my mother-in-law's birthday) and felt fantastic. I went to breakfast with the family, got some work done in the yard and then went for the first run in what I hope will be a long string.
When I was thirty years old I talked myself into "the year of change." It was one year where I took risks and pushed myself to change beyond the comfortable boundaries I'd set for myself. It was, and remains to be, on of the greatest years of my life. I'm trying for this again. I need a life overhaul. I'm on the path, I'm making changes and I'm hoping I have the courage and and fortitude to see this experiment through to its natural conclusion.
When I was thirty years old I talked myself into "the year of change." It was one year where I took risks and pushed myself to change beyond the comfortable boundaries I'd set for myself. It was, and remains to be, on of the greatest years of my life. I'm trying for this again. I need a life overhaul. I'm on the path, I'm making changes and I'm hoping I have the courage and and fortitude to see this experiment through to its natural conclusion.
Friday, April 10, 2009
A New Day
My in-laws should be arriving any moment. When they do, I will leave my house and drive into southeast Portland to meet with the hypnotist. I've met the man once. I liked him immediately. His work space was a hypnotherapy clinic/photography studio. We talked for an hour and a half on Monday and decided my quit day would be today, Friday. There was no actual hypnosis on Monday but by the end of the appointment, I found that my arms were no longer crossed over my chest, my legs were stretched in front of me, and if I had simply laid my head back onto the backrest of the sofa, I could have taken a nap.
I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. This counselor records his session so that I can hear everything he is saying and I trust him, although I don't know him. Something about his energy puts me at ease. I'm excited to be saying goodbye to cigarettes. I have such a shameful love/hate relationship with the damn things but I can no longer justify it on any level. I just had a peer tell me that she found a lump in her breast. The bar where I work has done a fundraiser for a cancer child. It's everywhere and I don't need to be assisting it.
My reasons for quitting are many but here are some the hypnotherapist and I outlined:
1. My family (Shea and Tracy)
2. My level of desirability with my wife (aka I stink when I smoke, and stinky isn't sexy).
3. Long term health (Cancer, Emphysema, etc.)
4. My aerobic fitness (short term health).
5. Time (Smokes used to be a time out and now they are a time suck. I could be blogging instead of standing on my back patio smoking).
6. Money (Oregon just implemented another increase to the cigarette tax and smokes are now over $5 a pack.
7. Self-esteem. I feel out of control when it comes to the issue of cigarettes. It is something I haven't been able to master since I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. It's time to find some inner strength and conquer my Grendel.
Well, I should wrap this up. My in-laws should be here any minute. I'm off.
I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. This counselor records his session so that I can hear everything he is saying and I trust him, although I don't know him. Something about his energy puts me at ease. I'm excited to be saying goodbye to cigarettes. I have such a shameful love/hate relationship with the damn things but I can no longer justify it on any level. I just had a peer tell me that she found a lump in her breast. The bar where I work has done a fundraiser for a cancer child. It's everywhere and I don't need to be assisting it.
My reasons for quitting are many but here are some the hypnotherapist and I outlined:
1. My family (Shea and Tracy)
2. My level of desirability with my wife (aka I stink when I smoke, and stinky isn't sexy).
3. Long term health (Cancer, Emphysema, etc.)
4. My aerobic fitness (short term health).
5. Time (Smokes used to be a time out and now they are a time suck. I could be blogging instead of standing on my back patio smoking).
6. Money (Oregon just implemented another increase to the cigarette tax and smokes are now over $5 a pack.
7. Self-esteem. I feel out of control when it comes to the issue of cigarettes. It is something I haven't been able to master since I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. It's time to find some inner strength and conquer my Grendel.
Well, I should wrap this up. My in-laws should be here any minute. I'm off.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Trying the Sequential.
The minute Jeff Knight arrived home from school, he went to the mailbox. He expected acceptance letters to arrive in the mail any day now and he was desperate to begin this next phase of life. Canby was nice and all, he’d had a nice childhood, but it was beginning to feel like a python, constricting against every move he made and he was desperate to flee.
As he had anticipated, there was a large white envelope bearing the seal of the University of Arizona on the upper left hand corner. It was thick with its contents, which, to Jeff, heralded only good news. They wouldn’t bother sending catalogs and registration information if you’d been denied. He must have been accepted. He stuffed the envelope into his backpack, tucked the rest of the mail up into his armpit and crossed the front yard to the wide front porch of his house.
He dropped the mail on the dining room table as was the custom in his family and bounded up the stairs without a word. His mother appeared in the kitchen door just in time to see his backpack straps trailing in the air behind him.
“Well, hello…” she called.
Jeff’s voice echoed back down at her, “Hey, mom.”
“Are you coming down?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute, I want to put my stuff away.”
It was not unusual for Jeff to lock himself in his room for long stretches of time but it was the urgency with which he disappeared that sometimes caused his mother alarm. His mother, Beth, understood his excitement. She remembered what it was like to be a teenager. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she felt like she hadn’t aged a day since eighteen. She knew her body was different, her hips wider after childbirth, her chest larger from nursing her boys after they were born. She didn’t mean these physical things, in that way she knew she had aged, it was the inside of her that didn’t feel older. She felt like she did when she was dating Randy Durmeyer and taking long drives down to Molalla State Park in his tricked out Mustang. While nothing had changed on the inside, she knew her children would never believe such a thing. They saw her, checkbook in hand, at the dining room table paying bills, with flour in her hair at Thanksgiving. They knew “mom” and, in moments where she knew Jeff felt misunderstood, she couldn’t help but feel the corners of her mouth crawl up into the beginnings of a smile.
With his bedroom door firmly closed behind him, Jeff reached back into his backpack and pulled out the letter. He was visibly nervous. His hands shook and were moist with sweat, the white envelope barely darkened where his palms pressed into the paper. He didn’t know what he was going to do when the time came to tell his parents. He pushed the thought to the side, allowing himself the victorious moment, and ripped into the envelope. He withdrew the packet and began scanning the title page. He stopped reading after, “Congratulations.” His heart fluttered with the word, as if someone he missed had spoken his name after a long absence. He took the moment, thrilled at it, but then had to face the facts that he was going to have to talk to his parents.
He hadn’t exactly discussed out-of-state schools with his parents. There was a prevailing history in their family of attending local universities. The fact that it was never said made it seem somehow more sinister than it ought to have been, but the Knights suffered from the same lack of communication that affects most families with teenagers.
Each of them, Jeff, his mother, even his father, Tom, a jovial guy with a small insurance business in town, didn’t want to “interfere” with each other. The modern idea of privacy for teens is a good one for the most part, but it has quickly escalated into a remote distance, a silent absolution for the tight family unit.
So, Jeff had application packets mailed to the school. Filling them out was a furtive activity, one that required late night hours, solitude and a shut door. He needn’t have worried about being disturbed. His father had told his mother he was probably masturbating in his room and so there was no chance of his being discovered. His parents’ distance had always seemed like a disinterest to Tom, but to his parents it was a sign of respect. The cross-wiring and miscommunications in their family were too convoluted to be understood by any of them.
As he had anticipated, there was a large white envelope bearing the seal of the University of Arizona on the upper left hand corner. It was thick with its contents, which, to Jeff, heralded only good news. They wouldn’t bother sending catalogs and registration information if you’d been denied. He must have been accepted. He stuffed the envelope into his backpack, tucked the rest of the mail up into his armpit and crossed the front yard to the wide front porch of his house.
He dropped the mail on the dining room table as was the custom in his family and bounded up the stairs without a word. His mother appeared in the kitchen door just in time to see his backpack straps trailing in the air behind him.
“Well, hello…” she called.
Jeff’s voice echoed back down at her, “Hey, mom.”
“Are you coming down?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute, I want to put my stuff away.”
It was not unusual for Jeff to lock himself in his room for long stretches of time but it was the urgency with which he disappeared that sometimes caused his mother alarm. His mother, Beth, understood his excitement. She remembered what it was like to be a teenager. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she felt like she hadn’t aged a day since eighteen. She knew her body was different, her hips wider after childbirth, her chest larger from nursing her boys after they were born. She didn’t mean these physical things, in that way she knew she had aged, it was the inside of her that didn’t feel older. She felt like she did when she was dating Randy Durmeyer and taking long drives down to Molalla State Park in his tricked out Mustang. While nothing had changed on the inside, she knew her children would never believe such a thing. They saw her, checkbook in hand, at the dining room table paying bills, with flour in her hair at Thanksgiving. They knew “mom” and, in moments where she knew Jeff felt misunderstood, she couldn’t help but feel the corners of her mouth crawl up into the beginnings of a smile.
With his bedroom door firmly closed behind him, Jeff reached back into his backpack and pulled out the letter. He was visibly nervous. His hands shook and were moist with sweat, the white envelope barely darkened where his palms pressed into the paper. He didn’t know what he was going to do when the time came to tell his parents. He pushed the thought to the side, allowing himself the victorious moment, and ripped into the envelope. He withdrew the packet and began scanning the title page. He stopped reading after, “Congratulations.” His heart fluttered with the word, as if someone he missed had spoken his name after a long absence. He took the moment, thrilled at it, but then had to face the facts that he was going to have to talk to his parents.
He hadn’t exactly discussed out-of-state schools with his parents. There was a prevailing history in their family of attending local universities. The fact that it was never said made it seem somehow more sinister than it ought to have been, but the Knights suffered from the same lack of communication that affects most families with teenagers.
Each of them, Jeff, his mother, even his father, Tom, a jovial guy with a small insurance business in town, didn’t want to “interfere” with each other. The modern idea of privacy for teens is a good one for the most part, but it has quickly escalated into a remote distance, a silent absolution for the tight family unit.
So, Jeff had application packets mailed to the school. Filling them out was a furtive activity, one that required late night hours, solitude and a shut door. He needn’t have worried about being disturbed. His father had told his mother he was probably masturbating in his room and so there was no chance of his being discovered. His parents’ distance had always seemed like a disinterest to Tom, but to his parents it was a sign of respect. The cross-wiring and miscommunications in their family were too convoluted to be understood by any of them.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A Reading
Between sunbursts, the weather around my home alternated between rain and hail. It was a tumultuous day. It began with a trip to the accountant and news of a refund. My wife and I had expected to pay but we were greeted with good news. Then, off to the doctor for my daughter's two-year physical.
While she falls well into the realm of average for height, weight, and developmental milestones, we had to endure the words "cerebral palsy" for the first time. Let me be clear, it is not a diagnosis, it is a possibility. We had to sit there and hear about MRI scans, sedation, and entertain the possibility of a previous stroke. Our baby is healthy and happy but there are a couple of things that remain to be determined and the not knowing is the worst kind of torture. This is not spinning me off into despair, on the contrary, I feel, for the first time, like we are beginning to narrow the field of possibility. We switched pediatricians and this new doctor is frank, sympathetic, and available to questioning. While the news itself was hard to hear, at least it came in the form of news.
So, the afternoon continued with a long dose of snuggling from my daughter as I put her to bed. She tucked herself into the crook of my shoulder, her doll tucked in the crook of her own shoulder. She drank warm milk from her sippy cup, looked me in the eyes and cooed until her lids grew heavy with the pace of the day. I slipped her into her crib, tucked her in tight under two blankets soft as suede, and made my way to the patio to read from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
The babysitter showed up early, as requested, and I tucked myself into my father's Expedition and headed off to the airport. I was early, as is my custom, and pulled into the cell phone waiting area. More Kavalier and Clay. When my cell phone rang, I was tickled to find Ellen Bass on the other side of the line. She had landed and was ready to make her way to Pacific University to give her reading.
We chatted the whole way there about writing, poetry, students, teaching, and the sacrifices and struggles the writing life imposes. She was sympathetic and charming and before we knew it the drive was over. We pulled in front of the new Thai restaurant in Forest Grove and met the other reader, Alissa Nielsen, a fellow teacher, and a couple of students from the creative writing program. The menu was expansive and meal was delicious but we were already pressing for time.
We made our way over to Taylor Auditorium, a space that has played host to many inspirational craft talks during my MFA program. The night began with Alissa reading. Her story was a knockout. I remember the closet where the main character hid, the threat of violence between a father and a son, the image of box elders swarming, and the lovely final note that resonated on past the close of the story. It was fantastic.
Ellen, for her part, was her charming self. Her poetry was accessible, her demeanor plain and open. The students laughed, celebrated her work, and ripped into applause when the day was done. I sat in my seat well after the final poem had been read. I was soaking it all in, trying to process the language that swam over me. The reading had been a comfort, a wanted distraction and call to attention, I felt that Alissa and Ellen had tucked me in with their words and their work felt warm and soft as suede.
While she falls well into the realm of average for height, weight, and developmental milestones, we had to endure the words "cerebral palsy" for the first time. Let me be clear, it is not a diagnosis, it is a possibility. We had to sit there and hear about MRI scans, sedation, and entertain the possibility of a previous stroke. Our baby is healthy and happy but there are a couple of things that remain to be determined and the not knowing is the worst kind of torture. This is not spinning me off into despair, on the contrary, I feel, for the first time, like we are beginning to narrow the field of possibility. We switched pediatricians and this new doctor is frank, sympathetic, and available to questioning. While the news itself was hard to hear, at least it came in the form of news.
So, the afternoon continued with a long dose of snuggling from my daughter as I put her to bed. She tucked herself into the crook of my shoulder, her doll tucked in the crook of her own shoulder. She drank warm milk from her sippy cup, looked me in the eyes and cooed until her lids grew heavy with the pace of the day. I slipped her into her crib, tucked her in tight under two blankets soft as suede, and made my way to the patio to read from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
The babysitter showed up early, as requested, and I tucked myself into my father's Expedition and headed off to the airport. I was early, as is my custom, and pulled into the cell phone waiting area. More Kavalier and Clay. When my cell phone rang, I was tickled to find Ellen Bass on the other side of the line. She had landed and was ready to make her way to Pacific University to give her reading.
We chatted the whole way there about writing, poetry, students, teaching, and the sacrifices and struggles the writing life imposes. She was sympathetic and charming and before we knew it the drive was over. We pulled in front of the new Thai restaurant in Forest Grove and met the other reader, Alissa Nielsen, a fellow teacher, and a couple of students from the creative writing program. The menu was expansive and meal was delicious but we were already pressing for time.
We made our way over to Taylor Auditorium, a space that has played host to many inspirational craft talks during my MFA program. The night began with Alissa reading. Her story was a knockout. I remember the closet where the main character hid, the threat of violence between a father and a son, the image of box elders swarming, and the lovely final note that resonated on past the close of the story. It was fantastic.
Ellen, for her part, was her charming self. Her poetry was accessible, her demeanor plain and open. The students laughed, celebrated her work, and ripped into applause when the day was done. I sat in my seat well after the final poem had been read. I was soaking it all in, trying to process the language that swam over me. The reading had been a comfort, a wanted distraction and call to attention, I felt that Alissa and Ellen had tucked me in with their words and their work felt warm and soft as suede.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
I received an email today from one of the publications to which I submitted a story. While they didn't accept my piece I got a nice personalized rejection from them. MY FIRST! I have either had the experience of publishing or receiving stock rejections and so I see this as a step in the process. A testament that my stories maybe do have strength. Anyway, it's an encouraging development.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Exhale
The day is grey, which is perfect for late morning lounging and a single cup of coffee enjoyed over the space of an hour. It's a no-rush-sweatpants-wearing-carpet-sprawled-color-crayon-playing kind of morning. We're moving at the speed of glaciers. Even our conversation seems slowed to the speed of tree sap oozing. It's lovely.
Shea maintains her attention for long periods of time this morning. She must feel grounded, settled-in, with both her parents sitting next to her, each armed with a coloring book all their own. I'm cheating a little bit, coloring the pages of Writer's Digest. She wants me to color and I do, I simply chose my medium wisely and I glance through the pages and chuckle at the absurdity of some of the writing advice.
All can say is...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Shea maintains her attention for long periods of time this morning. She must feel grounded, settled-in, with both her parents sitting next to her, each armed with a coloring book all their own. I'm cheating a little bit, coloring the pages of Writer's Digest. She wants me to color and I do, I simply chose my medium wisely and I glance through the pages and chuckle at the absurdity of some of the writing advice.
All can say is...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
An Awkward Situation
What do you do when you have information from one source that effects another?
How do you handle the balancing of confidences?
I had a conversation this morning with the person with whom the conflict originates. I am an outsider, someone who was involved only by way of solicited advice, but I heard a retelling of events that wasn't true by someone else outside the situation. They asked me not to repeat it.
Well, I didn't repeat it outside of the affected party. I told her of the miscommunication, of how I had heard misinformation being spread about her. She was relieved to find out that I had corrected the information, put the interested party on the right track and avoided a larger snafu regarding her professional life. Things should be cleared up now but I am still nervous that I've somehow painted myself into a corner and will soon have to experience the backlash of a conflict that has nothing to do with me.
Let's hope not. Sorry to be so vague.
How do you handle the balancing of confidences?
I had a conversation this morning with the person with whom the conflict originates. I am an outsider, someone who was involved only by way of solicited advice, but I heard a retelling of events that wasn't true by someone else outside the situation. They asked me not to repeat it.
Well, I didn't repeat it outside of the affected party. I told her of the miscommunication, of how I had heard misinformation being spread about her. She was relieved to find out that I had corrected the information, put the interested party on the right track and avoided a larger snafu regarding her professional life. Things should be cleared up now but I am still nervous that I've somehow painted myself into a corner and will soon have to experience the backlash of a conflict that has nothing to do with me.
Let's hope not. Sorry to be so vague.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Upcoming news
A faculty advisor of mine has called to say he has good news for me but won't elaborate any further. I am dying to hear from him. I've left two messages for him but I've missed him at home. Hopefully I will have something exciting to say here soon.
Monday, March 2, 2009
A Prolonged Absence
I've been slacking on updating the blog and found it whispering my name as I prepared for another bar shift. Things have been hectic over the last couple of days. The job I thought would never be has reasserted itself and with a deadline looming only two weeks away. I'm in the process of chasing down reference letters, teaching philosophies and trying to formulate a class syllabus. All of this is in the midst of my classes handing in their first graded assignment. I only have 11 essays left to grade and then I am free to focus.
I find myself sinking down into a kind of calm that belies my current obligations. It is the advent of creation. I can feel it. The juices have been stewing under the surface and are about to spring forth. I can't wait. I know that I will get home tonight and set to it, fingers to keyboard, searching for that entrance into what can only be expressed as joy finding a voice.
I find myself sinking down into a kind of calm that belies my current obligations. It is the advent of creation. I can feel it. The juices have been stewing under the surface and are about to spring forth. I can't wait. I know that I will get home tonight and set to it, fingers to keyboard, searching for that entrance into what can only be expressed as joy finding a voice.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Newport
The sun made a rare February appearance on Friday as Tracy and I made our way to Newport, OR for the annual Seafood and Wine Festival there. We had our Mapquest printout of directions but found a small sign with the name "Waldport" on it. We were staying in this small town a few miles south of Newport and we decided we would try it out. We were alone, only the two of us, and the day was open before us. The idea of travelling a road we'd never seen was a pleasant one and the gamble totally paid off.
Highway 34 cuts southwest out of Philomouth, OR and makes its way through high hills alongside the Alsea River. There were two and a half towns on the entire 70 or so mile stretch. Otherwise it was mossy forests and winding riverbanks. It was the middle of the afternoon, Tracy had taken the day off, so the sun was high in the sky and the trimmed grass of open meadows delighted us.
The CD was Ryan Montbleau, a solo musician we had seen recently in Portland, and his bluegrass/folksy rhythms made my knee bounce in time and a smile spread over my face as I watched the scenery change outside my window.
We arrived in Waldport around 2 in the afternoon and found our TINY condo soon afterward. My brother and a group of his friends were staying in a larger house nearby but Tracy and I wanted sanctuary, time away from all others, where we could read, talk, and, well, be a married couple without intrusion or embarrassment. We didn't have Shea, our two year old, for this trip and we were hoping to reconnect through some alone time.
The couple staying below us seemed friendly at first and, outwardly, they were. Although we quickly learned they argued fiercely behind closed doors, dropping all kinds of profanity on each other. It was an awkward situation but it only happened twice the entire weekend. That first afternoon we thought it was the television.
We settled in, stocked the fridge, dropped our bags into corners and settled in. It didn't take long before we found each other coupled in the bedroom. The passion of the moment overwhelmed me. It was like we had only been dating a short time. It cast me that far back into our relationship. I realized it had been a while and the last couple of times were stolen moments during Shea's nap and not the long, languorous, self-indulgent escapades of the newly dating, or the newly married.
Afterward, we lay in each other's arms, breathing, trying to regain our bearings and our voice. When our eyes locked, we both smiled, uninhibited, joyous, unashamed...in love. This was only the first day of what was turning out to be a perfect getaway for us.
Highway 34 cuts southwest out of Philomouth, OR and makes its way through high hills alongside the Alsea River. There were two and a half towns on the entire 70 or so mile stretch. Otherwise it was mossy forests and winding riverbanks. It was the middle of the afternoon, Tracy had taken the day off, so the sun was high in the sky and the trimmed grass of open meadows delighted us.
The CD was Ryan Montbleau, a solo musician we had seen recently in Portland, and his bluegrass/folksy rhythms made my knee bounce in time and a smile spread over my face as I watched the scenery change outside my window.
We arrived in Waldport around 2 in the afternoon and found our TINY condo soon afterward. My brother and a group of his friends were staying in a larger house nearby but Tracy and I wanted sanctuary, time away from all others, where we could read, talk, and, well, be a married couple without intrusion or embarrassment. We didn't have Shea, our two year old, for this trip and we were hoping to reconnect through some alone time.
The couple staying below us seemed friendly at first and, outwardly, they were. Although we quickly learned they argued fiercely behind closed doors, dropping all kinds of profanity on each other. It was an awkward situation but it only happened twice the entire weekend. That first afternoon we thought it was the television.
We settled in, stocked the fridge, dropped our bags into corners and settled in. It didn't take long before we found each other coupled in the bedroom. The passion of the moment overwhelmed me. It was like we had only been dating a short time. It cast me that far back into our relationship. I realized it had been a while and the last couple of times were stolen moments during Shea's nap and not the long, languorous, self-indulgent escapades of the newly dating, or the newly married.
Afterward, we lay in each other's arms, breathing, trying to regain our bearings and our voice. When our eyes locked, we both smiled, uninhibited, joyous, unashamed...in love. This was only the first day of what was turning out to be a perfect getaway for us.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tired
The manager of the bar where I work is gone to Hawaii so I was left with the closing shift on Wednesday night. My first Thursday class starts at 9:40. With an hour commute and leaving myself the proper time to settle in and prepare for the class, this means I must wake at 7 am. I am here in my office on campus but I can feel the downward tug of my eyelids like sandbags tied to my lashes. I have a five hour break between classes. I may sleep in my car.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Awkward
Once again I am riddled with doubt as to whether or not I am doing my students a service or disservice with my lectures. I am riddled with self-doubt and insecurity as I stand before them. I love my job. I do. I simply wish there was a manual for this process. I can imagine it.
Step One: Get them to engage with writing on a personal level.
Step Two: Show them examples of excellent prose.
Step Three: Allow them the freedom to mess up.
Step Four: Teach them how to revise to eliminate said "mess ups."
This is what I'm trying to do but I can't believe the level of disconnect I feel from them. I have this one woman in my morning class. She's nice, or appears to be, but as the class rolls on I can see her staring at the chalkboard on the side wall of the class. Not even out the window. The chalkboard is more interesting than the information I am trying to give her.
I didn't have alt-woman in my class this morning. She's a creative writing major and I can already tell that she is disenfranchised from the material. She believes herself to be above it, beyond the scope of what I am teaching. I've read her writing...she's not. I'm not for Christ's sake. All of my lessons have reverberations in my own writing. I'm learning right alongside these guys.
I can't tell if it is simply the new class blahs or if there is something more worrisome happening here, but I'm determined to reach them. I will come back day after day to make sure that they don't give up on this process and that each of them leaves my class a better writer.
Step One: Get them to engage with writing on a personal level.
Step Two: Show them examples of excellent prose.
Step Three: Allow them the freedom to mess up.
Step Four: Teach them how to revise to eliminate said "mess ups."
This is what I'm trying to do but I can't believe the level of disconnect I feel from them. I have this one woman in my morning class. She's nice, or appears to be, but as the class rolls on I can see her staring at the chalkboard on the side wall of the class. Not even out the window. The chalkboard is more interesting than the information I am trying to give her.
I didn't have alt-woman in my class this morning. She's a creative writing major and I can already tell that she is disenfranchised from the material. She believes herself to be above it, beyond the scope of what I am teaching. I've read her writing...she's not. I'm not for Christ's sake. All of my lessons have reverberations in my own writing. I'm learning right alongside these guys.
I can't tell if it is simply the new class blahs or if there is something more worrisome happening here, but I'm determined to reach them. I will come back day after day to make sure that they don't give up on this process and that each of them leaves my class a better writer.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Lesson Plans
I'm three hours early to work and take the corner booth. I set up my computer, pull out papers to be graded, the anthology I have to read, and set to work on preparing my lesson for Tuesday. I don't feel like I've connected with my classes yet and I really want to come prepared on Tuesday with something practical they can wrap their minds around. I believe I've found it.
Authority. Author-ity. No more hedging and qualifying. These students need to learn the art of stating what they mean without worrying if they got it all wrong. Say what you mean. No more "in my opinion," "could," "possibly," "maybe," etc. The list is long but the lesson will allow them to have a checklist they can use, along with Word's "Find" function, to instantly tighten up their writing and become confident writers who can state things clearly and succinctly without the timidity I find in almost EVERY paper.
I'm excited.
Also, tomorrow I will begin class with one of my favorite poems for undergraduate students. "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins. This poem expresses the sentiment I have often felt in literature classes and my students have expressed to me. Sometimes poetry needs to be read not to analyze but enjoy, to allow the words to wash over you for the sheer experience of hearing them, reading them, absorbing them as a whole.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Authority. Author-ity. No more hedging and qualifying. These students need to learn the art of stating what they mean without worrying if they got it all wrong. Say what you mean. No more "in my opinion," "could," "possibly," "maybe," etc. The list is long but the lesson will allow them to have a checklist they can use, along with Word's "Find" function, to instantly tighten up their writing and become confident writers who can state things clearly and succinctly without the timidity I find in almost EVERY paper.
I'm excited.
Also, tomorrow I will begin class with one of my favorite poems for undergraduate students. "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins. This poem expresses the sentiment I have often felt in literature classes and my students have expressed to me. Sometimes poetry needs to be read not to analyze but enjoy, to allow the words to wash over you for the sheer experience of hearing them, reading them, absorbing them as a whole.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Another Day Down
The mirror shows the changes I have been slow to realize. I find my eyes darkened around their lower edge, the puffiness apparent, the wrinkles etching deeper than I can remember. I see it in my hands as well, the dryness, thin lines creasing the fleshy bit between thumb and forefinger, a redness at the knuckles and a paleness of the smoother plains.
I'm getting older.
It may be that my schedule has something to do with it. Averaging six hours of sleep a night, spending long hours focused solely on work, and finding less and less time doing anything that has to do with recreation, entertainment, or travel, I find myself fatigued. Sleep calls to me often, the morning comes too quickly and blank hours in the day while Shea sleeps find me lying down, closing my eyes, beckoning the oblivion of sleep.
Day is a demanding space; its responsibilities are apparent in the light; its schedules defined as the edge of shadow where the morning sun breaks through the gap in the curtains; it lets me know that I should rise again; rise and look in the mirror; take a look at the toll of another morning; realize the obligations that have run through my head like a dream since the moment I laid my head down on the pillow the night before.
I'm getting older.
It may be that my schedule has something to do with it. Averaging six hours of sleep a night, spending long hours focused solely on work, and finding less and less time doing anything that has to do with recreation, entertainment, or travel, I find myself fatigued. Sleep calls to me often, the morning comes too quickly and blank hours in the day while Shea sleeps find me lying down, closing my eyes, beckoning the oblivion of sleep.
Day is a demanding space; its responsibilities are apparent in the light; its schedules defined as the edge of shadow where the morning sun breaks through the gap in the curtains; it lets me know that I should rise again; rise and look in the mirror; take a look at the toll of another morning; realize the obligations that have run through my head like a dream since the moment I laid my head down on the pillow the night before.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Valentine's Day
I had to work on Valentine's day this year and when I arrived at the bar, the place was packed. The parking lot was full of cars and trucks gleaming in the afternoon sun, a welcome addition to the day. I entered through the back and peeked my head into the bar from the back room. The place was full, each booth filled with two or more people, tables pushed together to accommodate a group of twelve, and the bar stools almost completely filled.
There were three coworkers on the floor and so I didn't feel the need to clock on early (there are normally only two). I ordered myself a sandwich. I needed to eat. My shift was starting at 4 in the afternoon and I knew I wouldn't be done until around 2 in the morning. I needed fuel. As I stood at the computer, trying to figure out what I wanted to eat, a regular poked his head through the pass through window from the video poker room.
"Looks like you guys are short-handed today."
Urgh, this guy is a known ball-buster. Demanding, temperamental, and, worst of all for us bartenders, cheap.
"No," I said in a soft voice, "there are three of them on. It's just busy. You'll have to wait."
I knew what he wanted from me. I knew he wanted me to get him a new beer although I wasn't on the clock. I didn't do it. I tucked my book under my arm, sent me order to the kitchen, turned and walked away from him, smiling.
After I had eaten, tied on my apron, clocked on and moved out onto the floor, I discovered that things had slowly deteriorated since I ordered my food. The place was still full and there were glasses, plates, silverware, and tabs spread out all over behind the bar. The place was a wreck. The straws were almost empty. Only a few limp pieces of lemon lie in the fruit tray, and the cooks looked like they were about to pull their hair out.
This isn't the way you want to start a shift.
I jumped right in and began cleaning. I didn't leave the back of the bar. I trusted in my coworkers to make sure that the guests were satisfied and I set about the business of getting set up for the dinner rush and cleaning up the mess from this unusual afternoon pop in business.
Every time I turned around to grab something new, there were people from the poker room waving tickets at me. They wanted their money, they didn't want to wait. They were impatient, pushy, more than one was drunk. I ignored their drink orders, or pretended to forget, in order to slow down their consumption. I didn't want to cut people off at 4:30 in the afternoon but it looked like we were heading that way.
We ran out of large bills to pay the poker crowd. I was paying them in bundles of fives. We ran out of Jaegermeister. Two kegs popped in the first hour and I had to change them. Waitresses were getting food orders messed up. I was only a half an hour into the shift and things were already looking gloomy.
Happy Valentine's Day. Get to work.
There were three coworkers on the floor and so I didn't feel the need to clock on early (there are normally only two). I ordered myself a sandwich. I needed to eat. My shift was starting at 4 in the afternoon and I knew I wouldn't be done until around 2 in the morning. I needed fuel. As I stood at the computer, trying to figure out what I wanted to eat, a regular poked his head through the pass through window from the video poker room.
"Looks like you guys are short-handed today."
Urgh, this guy is a known ball-buster. Demanding, temperamental, and, worst of all for us bartenders, cheap.
"No," I said in a soft voice, "there are three of them on. It's just busy. You'll have to wait."
I knew what he wanted from me. I knew he wanted me to get him a new beer although I wasn't on the clock. I didn't do it. I tucked my book under my arm, sent me order to the kitchen, turned and walked away from him, smiling.
After I had eaten, tied on my apron, clocked on and moved out onto the floor, I discovered that things had slowly deteriorated since I ordered my food. The place was still full and there were glasses, plates, silverware, and tabs spread out all over behind the bar. The place was a wreck. The straws were almost empty. Only a few limp pieces of lemon lie in the fruit tray, and the cooks looked like they were about to pull their hair out.
This isn't the way you want to start a shift.
I jumped right in and began cleaning. I didn't leave the back of the bar. I trusted in my coworkers to make sure that the guests were satisfied and I set about the business of getting set up for the dinner rush and cleaning up the mess from this unusual afternoon pop in business.
Every time I turned around to grab something new, there were people from the poker room waving tickets at me. They wanted their money, they didn't want to wait. They were impatient, pushy, more than one was drunk. I ignored their drink orders, or pretended to forget, in order to slow down their consumption. I didn't want to cut people off at 4:30 in the afternoon but it looked like we were heading that way.
We ran out of large bills to pay the poker crowd. I was paying them in bundles of fives. We ran out of Jaegermeister. Two kegs popped in the first hour and I had to change them. Waitresses were getting food orders messed up. I was only a half an hour into the shift and things were already looking gloomy.
Happy Valentine's Day. Get to work.
Monday, February 9, 2009
A Special Day
I spent yesterday celebrating my daughter's birthday. We started the day with Shea, Tracy, and I opening presents, cuddling, and being together. We moved toward brunch with my family, spent the afternoon napping, and then had dinner with her family. Shea has somehow learned about cake from my birthday a couple of weeks ago. After each round of presents, she would look at her mother or I and ask, her head cocked, "Cake?" I have to gush. It was adorable. The hope in those little blue eyes, hoping that her mother and I would pull a cake from behind our backs and feed it to her.
Well, at dinner, she finally got her wish. We sat her in her booster seat, tied on her bib, and brought an ice cream cake to the table. Two tiny candles glimmered against the shiny chocolate frosting and Shea broke into a smile. We set the cake in front of her, sang, and she leaned forward to blow out the candles.
With one tentative finger she reached out and brushed the frosting and popped her little digit into her mouth. "Yum!" she exclaimed. Out came the little finger. "Yum, yum, yum, yum-o." Her grandmother pointed to the white whipped cream frosting that bordered the cake. She dipped a finger into it, ate a small drop, and threw her hands in the air and shouted, "Woo-hoo."
Sugar and babies. What entertainment.
This post didn't make it to the blog for some reason and so I'm posting it late.
Well, at dinner, she finally got her wish. We sat her in her booster seat, tied on her bib, and brought an ice cream cake to the table. Two tiny candles glimmered against the shiny chocolate frosting and Shea broke into a smile. We set the cake in front of her, sang, and she leaned forward to blow out the candles.
With one tentative finger she reached out and brushed the frosting and popped her little digit into her mouth. "Yum!" she exclaimed. Out came the little finger. "Yum, yum, yum, yum-o." Her grandmother pointed to the white whipped cream frosting that bordered the cake. She dipped a finger into it, ate a small drop, and threw her hands in the air and shouted, "Woo-hoo."
Sugar and babies. What entertainment.
This post didn't make it to the blog for some reason and so I'm posting it late.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Having Fun
The possibility of this monthly column is yielding some interesting results. The format, which I've chosen is 300 words for now, is a manageable chunk of writing that can be done anywhere, anytime. Also, I am trying to stick to 300 words EXACTLY which poses some interesting challenges in terms grounding the story in the setting and still having enough room to inject some kind of tension.
The idea I'm working with right now is that I'm visiting physical locations around my hometown. Trying to evoke Canby in all of its forms. I'm mentally revisiting locations from my own childhood/adolescence that I haven't thought of in a long time. I'm resurfacing memories and situations that I haven't thought about in over a decade or more. I find myself in the company of long time friends, in our youth and exuberance, exploring our independence.
I placed a call to the man who offered me the job and asked him to send me his contact information so that I can send him a proposal for my idea. Canby through its geography as seen through the eyes of one man, one child, one resident, and hopefully reaching out to others who know the same places, or find new ones, and evoking the past and present of a small town I love.
Too much fun.
The idea I'm working with right now is that I'm visiting physical locations around my hometown. Trying to evoke Canby in all of its forms. I'm mentally revisiting locations from my own childhood/adolescence that I haven't thought of in a long time. I'm resurfacing memories and situations that I haven't thought about in over a decade or more. I find myself in the company of long time friends, in our youth and exuberance, exploring our independence.
I placed a call to the man who offered me the job and asked him to send me his contact information so that I can send him a proposal for my idea. Canby through its geography as seen through the eyes of one man, one child, one resident, and hopefully reaching out to others who know the same places, or find new ones, and evoking the past and present of a small town I love.
Too much fun.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sick
I'm sitting in my living room feeling a little sorry for myself as I sniffle away the afternoon. I've been surfing the net instead of preparing for class and I'm beginning to feel a little nervous about that.
There is one thing I can say happened this afternoon. I found a really interesting website where the best translations of the year are posted. Translations are few and far between in the US and I think it is something we need to address. This comes on the heels of John Anthony Allen giving a senior presentation on the subject. But he is right.
It also flashes me to something I once heard the novelist David Long say, "We are what we read, but, also, we are what we DON'T read." Allowing ourselves exposure to the literature from around the world is necessary to have an educated conversation about the nature of art in the modern world. Check out this site for some possible reads in the future.
http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?s=btb
There is one thing I can say happened this afternoon. I found a really interesting website where the best translations of the year are posted. Translations are few and far between in the US and I think it is something we need to address. This comes on the heels of John Anthony Allen giving a senior presentation on the subject. But he is right.
It also flashes me to something I once heard the novelist David Long say, "We are what we read, but, also, we are what we DON'T read." Allowing ourselves exposure to the literature from around the world is necessary to have an educated conversation about the nature of art in the modern world. Check out this site for some possible reads in the future.
http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?s=btb
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Hmm, what is this?
So, in considering yesterday's proposal, I've decided to take a stab at writing a shorty short. This piece originates as a nonfiction event, but moves into fiction. I'm not sure if I should do something like this because people were hurt at this event, there might be negative backlash.
I tried to keep the piece to 300 words. I've done this precisely. I'm just not sure it carries significant enough weight to be worthy though. Hmm, something to consider.
In the meantime, I figured I would throw it out there and see what the rest of you thought.
Fourth of July
People packed Wait Park for General Canby Days and the stands offered cotton candy and corn dogs to all passersby. I remember the dunk tank, our coaches sitting on the platform, dripping wet and shouting at us. “You can’t hit it.” My friends and I circulated in the crowds looking for cute girls, cheap entertainment, and, possibly, the slightest bit of mischief.
We had pockets full of Whip-Its—tissue-wrapped bundles of powder that popped on impact—and we loved sneaking up on the unsuspecting. We dropped them near groups, by the elderly (who, at that time, was anyone over fifty), by flocks of younger kids, and the tight bunches of mothers who were always good for a scream.
One woman confronted us, scolded us for being kids, for getting up to the mischief of a summer day. We hadn’t seen the baby in her arms, hadn’t paid close enough attention to know the joke was in bad taste. She turned away from us and stroked the back of the baby’s head, smoothing its delicate hair.
I put my Whip-Its back in my pocket.
When the horse began jumping and kicking its way through the crowd, frightened by a poorly placed Whip-It, I turned.
Crowds parted, the horse’s haunches appeared above the heads of frightened onlookers who scooped up their children and ran. People screamed. The horse itself was terrible and beautiful, a force unleashed, a feeling not unlike my own adolescence, something that had been contained and was now launching out of me. It’s tossed mane and arched back shocked me, drew me out of myself, made me take pause. In the space between breaths, I watched the horse unfold itself, like an exhale, or a sigh, and knew it felt free, if only for a moment.
I tried to keep the piece to 300 words. I've done this precisely. I'm just not sure it carries significant enough weight to be worthy though. Hmm, something to consider.
In the meantime, I figured I would throw it out there and see what the rest of you thought.
Fourth of July
People packed Wait Park for General Canby Days and the stands offered cotton candy and corn dogs to all passersby. I remember the dunk tank, our coaches sitting on the platform, dripping wet and shouting at us. “You can’t hit it.” My friends and I circulated in the crowds looking for cute girls, cheap entertainment, and, possibly, the slightest bit of mischief.
We had pockets full of Whip-Its—tissue-wrapped bundles of powder that popped on impact—and we loved sneaking up on the unsuspecting. We dropped them near groups, by the elderly (who, at that time, was anyone over fifty), by flocks of younger kids, and the tight bunches of mothers who were always good for a scream.
One woman confronted us, scolded us for being kids, for getting up to the mischief of a summer day. We hadn’t seen the baby in her arms, hadn’t paid close enough attention to know the joke was in bad taste. She turned away from us and stroked the back of the baby’s head, smoothing its delicate hair.
I put my Whip-Its back in my pocket.
When the horse began jumping and kicking its way through the crowd, frightened by a poorly placed Whip-It, I turned.
Crowds parted, the horse’s haunches appeared above the heads of frightened onlookers who scooped up their children and ran. People screamed. The horse itself was terrible and beautiful, a force unleashed, a feeling not unlike my own adolescence, something that had been contained and was now launching out of me. It’s tossed mane and arched back shocked me, drew me out of myself, made me take pause. In the space between breaths, I watched the horse unfold itself, like an exhale, or a sigh, and knew it felt free, if only for a moment.
Monday, February 2, 2009
An Interesting Proposition
I was sitting on a milk crate outside the bar, reading, waiting for my shift to start when a man I know from way back, a family friend, my childhood best friend's older brother, greets me. He has a stack of small newspapers in his hand. He's been putting together a local paper that focuses on businesses and the community in my home town. He wants to know if I will write for it. He wants some shorty shorts to fill the pages. Kind of a Garrison-Keillor-Prairie-Home-Companion slice of life segment that will appear in the pages monthly.
I have to say that I'm intrigued by the deal. Intrigued at the idea of writing 250-500 word short stories that could possibly be serials, possible standalone. It would be a good exercise, an assignment in brevity. I'll have to try it out in the coming days and see if I can possibly make something happen.
It's weird how these things come about, these opportunities to write, to put the work out there. Plus, he said he would pay me $100 a month for my segment. A PAYING OPPORTUNITY! I have to get my ass in gear.
I have to say that I'm intrigued by the deal. Intrigued at the idea of writing 250-500 word short stories that could possibly be serials, possible standalone. It would be a good exercise, an assignment in brevity. I'll have to try it out in the coming days and see if I can possibly make something happen.
It's weird how these things come about, these opportunities to write, to put the work out there. Plus, he said he would pay me $100 a month for my segment. A PAYING OPPORTUNITY! I have to get my ass in gear.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Drunkening
I behaved like a fool last night. My wife threw a party for me for my birthday and everyone showed up late. In the space between when people were due to arrive and when they did (an hour and a half), I started my first cocktail.
The evening went fine, people did show up, and we had a nice dinner with good friends. I never stopped making cocktails though. In the end, I went to the bar I work at and had more beers and a couple of shots. The night feels like a blur. I couldn't even hold a coherent conversation, or at least I don't feel like I did.
I'm not accustomed to drinking like that and I've felt like shit all day. I'm going to have to go to work in an hour and see my coworkers. I really hope I didn't do anything dumb. If I did, I'm sure I'll hear about it.
Oh, well, let's just chalk it up to blowing off steam.
The evening went fine, people did show up, and we had a nice dinner with good friends. I never stopped making cocktails though. In the end, I went to the bar I work at and had more beers and a couple of shots. The night feels like a blur. I couldn't even hold a coherent conversation, or at least I don't feel like I did.
I'm not accustomed to drinking like that and I've felt like shit all day. I'm going to have to go to work in an hour and see my coworkers. I really hope I didn't do anything dumb. If I did, I'm sure I'll hear about it.
Oh, well, let's just chalk it up to blowing off steam.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Signs and Signals
This week has been full of unexpected encounters. I have seen more old friends/acquaintances in the last week than I have in a long time. Today, in addition, is a dinner party at my house where my oldest friends in the world will be here. I'm very excited to have them around. There is even a last minute addition of a guy who lives in San Diego, CA. He emailed me and said he was going to crash our party. It was a message out of the blue.
I'm prone to think about what life is trying to teach me when things like this happen. I tend to think that life offers us up lessons and experiences that are meant to be understood and/or experienced.
With people popping up on the fringes of my life, I wonder what life is trying to tell me about my connection to this place, this community. I can't say what it is that I know about the lesson, but I know that something is roiling beneath the surface, wanting to spring free. It may be that I have just finished reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg, where I felt the author did an amazing job of painting a small town community and populating it with all the different people that make places like Canby a memorable place to be, a place that allows you to sink roots into the region, into its people, and enfolds you like river water when you sit with your back upstream.
I'm prone to think about what life is trying to teach me when things like this happen. I tend to think that life offers us up lessons and experiences that are meant to be understood and/or experienced.
With people popping up on the fringes of my life, I wonder what life is trying to tell me about my connection to this place, this community. I can't say what it is that I know about the lesson, but I know that something is roiling beneath the surface, wanting to spring free. It may be that I have just finished reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg, where I felt the author did an amazing job of painting a small town community and populating it with all the different people that make places like Canby a memorable place to be, a place that allows you to sink roots into the region, into its people, and enfolds you like river water when you sit with your back upstream.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Empty House
Tracy and I slept in this morning. She's sick with some kind of stomach bug and has been sleeping off an on since about two yesterday afternoon. I had dinner last night with my in-laws, a quiet birthday celebration, and, since Tom was going to watch Shea today anyway, I left her there to spend the night.
I seem to be adjusted to waking up early, well, early for me, and early for a part-time bartender. I woke at eight, drifted in and out of sleep until nine-thirty when I gave up the ghost of getting more. I showered, came down to a pot of fresh brewed coffee. Even when Tracy is sick she can't help but do some of the smaller things that are a part of our daily routine. The pot is full, she hasn't had any of it. She made it for me. It's the way she operates.
So, I've spent the morning alone in the living room, checking emails, reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg and listening to the invading silence of a house empty of our child. It flashes me back to a time when our daughter wasn't around, when my wife and I were single, enjoying each other's company, and living only for ourselves.
I have to say that it's easier to get stuff done when I'm alone like this, no cartoons, no electronic toys, no child underfoot, but I yearn for my daughter and miss her when I don't get to see her. I haven't felt the soft press of her lips giving me a morning kiss. I haven't held her in my arms, her head falling to my shoulder as she hugs me when I lift her from her crib.
This is my new life, the way things are going to be from now on, and I can't think of a better way to live. There are so many things about my life that are richer, more intense, even joyful. I wonder what levels of joy felt like ecstasy before she came into our lives. I wonder how the levels of happiness can be pushed beyond what I had felt before and if they will continue to grow and expand. My life threatens to overtake me sometimes, to push me beyond the known levels of contentment and peace and burst my heart with a bliss that comes only from loving.
I seem to be adjusted to waking up early, well, early for me, and early for a part-time bartender. I woke at eight, drifted in and out of sleep until nine-thirty when I gave up the ghost of getting more. I showered, came down to a pot of fresh brewed coffee. Even when Tracy is sick she can't help but do some of the smaller things that are a part of our daily routine. The pot is full, she hasn't had any of it. She made it for me. It's the way she operates.
So, I've spent the morning alone in the living room, checking emails, reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg and listening to the invading silence of a house empty of our child. It flashes me back to a time when our daughter wasn't around, when my wife and I were single, enjoying each other's company, and living only for ourselves.
I have to say that it's easier to get stuff done when I'm alone like this, no cartoons, no electronic toys, no child underfoot, but I yearn for my daughter and miss her when I don't get to see her. I haven't felt the soft press of her lips giving me a morning kiss. I haven't held her in my arms, her head falling to my shoulder as she hugs me when I lift her from her crib.
This is my new life, the way things are going to be from now on, and I can't think of a better way to live. There are so many things about my life that are richer, more intense, even joyful. I wonder what levels of joy felt like ecstasy before she came into our lives. I wonder how the levels of happiness can be pushed beyond what I had felt before and if they will continue to grow and expand. My life threatens to overtake me sometimes, to push me beyond the known levels of contentment and peace and burst my heart with a bliss that comes only from loving.
Monday, January 26, 2009
A Frightening Tone
My jacket was zipped, the stroller was packed, and the meltdown began when I tried to get my daughter's shoes on. I don't know why shoes were an issue this morning but they were. After struggling past her kicking feet and getting her little velcro shoes on her feet, I went for the coat.
We were going to the park. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
Well, the jacket set off round two of the hissy fit. When I sat my daughter in the living room chair and tried to put on the jacket, she hit me, right across the eye, her little fingernail scratching me a little bit as she did so.
I grabbed her little hand and told her "no." I have to admit that the tone I used was the same tone I use with my dog when I am training her. It's a deep, grumbly, growly tone of voice, one that speaks authority to dogs, but, apparently, freaks the shit out of little kids. My daughter's eyes went wide and the fit escalated to levels I really haven't seen before.
She couldn't catch her breath, she wouldn't look at me, she turned around and buried her face in the crease between the chair's seat and back. I felt horrible. I left her alone, knowing that I was only going to make her worse. She cried, curled up on the seat of that chair, for ten minutes before she moved off of it.
She eyed me warily before she sauntered off to her toy corner. Again, she tucked her head so she couldn't see me, this time against the back of her dump truck. She pushed the balls inside the bed back and forth without joy or enthusiasm. Every now and then I could hear the hitch of her breath as she was slowly calming down. I tried to speak to her in gentle tones, to comment on her play, to change the subject. Each time she shook her head and continued on without looking at me.
I've never had this experience, this lasting grudge for discipline given. My tone was probably too harsh, but the reason for the tone was justified. It's hard to discipline someone you love so much, especially when you see how it can turn them against you, how you become the threatening father like so many fairy tale stories, or bad Lifetime TV movies.
It's a line, a line I have define for myself as a father. I felt bad for scaring her like that.
But, then again, I just put her down for a nap and she snuggled with me for twenty minutes, longer than any other day, her head in the crook of my shoulder, my nose pressed to the top of her scalp, breathing her in as deeply as I could.
What a day.
We were going to the park. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
Well, the jacket set off round two of the hissy fit. When I sat my daughter in the living room chair and tried to put on the jacket, she hit me, right across the eye, her little fingernail scratching me a little bit as she did so.
I grabbed her little hand and told her "no." I have to admit that the tone I used was the same tone I use with my dog when I am training her. It's a deep, grumbly, growly tone of voice, one that speaks authority to dogs, but, apparently, freaks the shit out of little kids. My daughter's eyes went wide and the fit escalated to levels I really haven't seen before.
She couldn't catch her breath, she wouldn't look at me, she turned around and buried her face in the crease between the chair's seat and back. I felt horrible. I left her alone, knowing that I was only going to make her worse. She cried, curled up on the seat of that chair, for ten minutes before she moved off of it.
She eyed me warily before she sauntered off to her toy corner. Again, she tucked her head so she couldn't see me, this time against the back of her dump truck. She pushed the balls inside the bed back and forth without joy or enthusiasm. Every now and then I could hear the hitch of her breath as she was slowly calming down. I tried to speak to her in gentle tones, to comment on her play, to change the subject. Each time she shook her head and continued on without looking at me.
I've never had this experience, this lasting grudge for discipline given. My tone was probably too harsh, but the reason for the tone was justified. It's hard to discipline someone you love so much, especially when you see how it can turn them against you, how you become the threatening father like so many fairy tale stories, or bad Lifetime TV movies.
It's a line, a line I have define for myself as a father. I felt bad for scaring her like that.
But, then again, I just put her down for a nap and she snuggled with me for twenty minutes, longer than any other day, her head in the crook of my shoulder, my nose pressed to the top of her scalp, breathing her in as deeply as I could.
What a day.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
State of Poetry?
I was reading the blog of Stephen Kuusisto today and I found this post. I think I understand what he means, what he intends to say, but I wonder about the overall approach. I think if there are any poets out there reading this they will want to take a look. The address is:
http://www.planet-of-the-blind.com/2009/01/philistine-yes-thats-me.html
I'm inclined to disagree as a generalization, but, then again, I've heard a lot of poetry like this in the past couple of years. I have to admit that I like poetry that turns inward, brings in the "I", becomes personal and revelatory. Maybe just a personal preference.
http://www.planet-of-the-blind.com/2009/01/philistine-yes-thats-me.html
I'm inclined to disagree as a generalization, but, then again, I've heard a lot of poetry like this in the past couple of years. I have to admit that I like poetry that turns inward, brings in the "I", becomes personal and revelatory. Maybe just a personal preference.
Breakfast Meeting
It was snowing as I stood outside the restaurant, light flakes landing on my jacket and hair, melting instantly into the fabric, my hair, down into my scalp. It was 10 am on a Sunday and I was already at work. A mandatory meeting had been called.
I didn't know the agenda, but I figured it was going to be about plummeting sales, cut back hours, new promotions, or something along those lines. I was smoking the first cigarette of the day, my breath frosting the air, or was it the smoke, I couldn't tell. My hands were pinking in the cold, the tips beginning to get that burn that comes from being in the weather too long. I knocked the cherry off the smoke by pinching the cigarette between my two fingers and the burning ember hit the pavement with a hiss.
In I went. The restaurant was empty of customers and so I gave a loose "hello" to Aurelio, Arnie, Luis, CT, and Leah. As I reached for the coffee pot, it hit me, the buzz from the first smoke of the day. It was a strong one, my head swam and little electric impulses shivered down to my fingers. My hand shook a little as I poured myself a cup of coffee.
The restaurant smelled like bacon, not unusual for the opening shift as they pre-cook the bacon for the day's lunch crowd. In addition, there were eggs spattering on the plancha, O'Brien potatoes frying next to them with a mix of peppers and onions, hash browns browning. We don't serve breakfast at the restaurant, or at least we DIDN'T.
Turns out the meeting was for the sole purpose of testing out the new breakfast menu. Erica, Joan, Leah, and all the rest sat around sampling omelets, potatoes, breakfast burritos, and a breakfast sandwich on sourdough bread. I sit on my couch now, having to return in less than four hours to work my night shift, but my belly is full and my heart is content. My daughter is screaming herself to sleep, a sound I've become adjusted to, and Tracy is nibbling a little something to tide her over. We plan on having our lazy afternoon today, a day where nothing much is accomplished except the tender touch of a hand on a cheek, or my fingers running through her hair.
I didn't know the agenda, but I figured it was going to be about plummeting sales, cut back hours, new promotions, or something along those lines. I was smoking the first cigarette of the day, my breath frosting the air, or was it the smoke, I couldn't tell. My hands were pinking in the cold, the tips beginning to get that burn that comes from being in the weather too long. I knocked the cherry off the smoke by pinching the cigarette between my two fingers and the burning ember hit the pavement with a hiss.
In I went. The restaurant was empty of customers and so I gave a loose "hello" to Aurelio, Arnie, Luis, CT, and Leah. As I reached for the coffee pot, it hit me, the buzz from the first smoke of the day. It was a strong one, my head swam and little electric impulses shivered down to my fingers. My hand shook a little as I poured myself a cup of coffee.
The restaurant smelled like bacon, not unusual for the opening shift as they pre-cook the bacon for the day's lunch crowd. In addition, there were eggs spattering on the plancha, O'Brien potatoes frying next to them with a mix of peppers and onions, hash browns browning. We don't serve breakfast at the restaurant, or at least we DIDN'T.
Turns out the meeting was for the sole purpose of testing out the new breakfast menu. Erica, Joan, Leah, and all the rest sat around sampling omelets, potatoes, breakfast burritos, and a breakfast sandwich on sourdough bread. I sit on my couch now, having to return in less than four hours to work my night shift, but my belly is full and my heart is content. My daughter is screaming herself to sleep, a sound I've become adjusted to, and Tracy is nibbling a little something to tide her over. We plan on having our lazy afternoon today, a day where nothing much is accomplished except the tender touch of a hand on a cheek, or my fingers running through her hair.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Lazy Saturday
My wife and I had expected to laze around the house with our daughter, but, as with most things, it didn't go as planned. Somehow, the garage stand-up freezer wasn't closed and we woke up to a wet mess on the floor of the garage. By the time Tracy had unloaded the freezer into coolers and the other two refrigerators, I was elbow deep in play time. Shea was in a fantastic mood, running, playing, giving unsolicited kisses.
Tracy defrosted the freezer, breaking out pieces of ice and dumping them in the backyard to melt. She was thorough as always, making sure that any trace of frost was eradicated. She boiled kettle after kettle of hot water, making sure to rinse all of the walls, wiping down any drips of chicken blood, marinara sauce, or soup. She wore a grey sweatshirt that was wet to the elbows, fleece pants and her woolly, rubber-soled slippers. Her hair fell about her face in thin wisps, wet at the temples where she sweat.
Feeling like I needed to contribute, after Shea was tucked into bed, I unloaded the furnace filters and took them to the back patio to clean them. Armed with a bottle of Simple Green, I sprayed down the filters, hosed them off in the grass, and shook them as dry as I could. By the time I was done, Tracy was ready to reload the freezer and I passed her its contents by category: beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, turkey, duck, rabbit, and lamb. When she was done stacking its contents, the fridge looked like a compartmentalized office space, cubicles full of frozen flesh.
We came inside, warmed ourselves, dined on bowls of Top Ramen, and settled in to watch "Juno." While the morning wasn't exactly as we expected, it's turned into an afternoon where our sloth feels justified, where we feel we've accomplished something, and now can collect our just desserts. Speaking of...there's Snickers in the fridge.
Tracy defrosted the freezer, breaking out pieces of ice and dumping them in the backyard to melt. She was thorough as always, making sure that any trace of frost was eradicated. She boiled kettle after kettle of hot water, making sure to rinse all of the walls, wiping down any drips of chicken blood, marinara sauce, or soup. She wore a grey sweatshirt that was wet to the elbows, fleece pants and her woolly, rubber-soled slippers. Her hair fell about her face in thin wisps, wet at the temples where she sweat.
Feeling like I needed to contribute, after Shea was tucked into bed, I unloaded the furnace filters and took them to the back patio to clean them. Armed with a bottle of Simple Green, I sprayed down the filters, hosed them off in the grass, and shook them as dry as I could. By the time I was done, Tracy was ready to reload the freezer and I passed her its contents by category: beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, turkey, duck, rabbit, and lamb. When she was done stacking its contents, the fridge looked like a compartmentalized office space, cubicles full of frozen flesh.
We came inside, warmed ourselves, dined on bowls of Top Ramen, and settled in to watch "Juno." While the morning wasn't exactly as we expected, it's turned into an afternoon where our sloth feels justified, where we feel we've accomplished something, and now can collect our just desserts. Speaking of...there's Snickers in the fridge.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Shmoozing
The MFA department asked me to come to a recruitment meeting at Marylhurst University. It was a small informal meeting held in a classroom of the main building on their campus. In total, there were six people there, two of whom are faculty. Collene, the assistant director of Pacific's MFA program, and I answered questions about the nature of the program, the interactions with faculty, publishing, cost, etc. I noticed that the two Marylhurst faculty members were nodding a lot when I spoke. They asked questions about my TA experience, about how I run a classroom, which seemed odd for an MFA meeting.
Afterward, I talked to both of them and they asked me to send along my CV. It seems that they may have some adjunct work. It just goes to show, it's not what you know, but who.
Afterward, I talked to both of them and they asked me to send along my CV. It seems that they may have some adjunct work. It just goes to show, it's not what you know, but who.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Dropped the Ball, Picked It Up and Ran With It
I was attempting to blog every day of the residency, but I dropped the ball. There was so much I could have written about but all of that energy got funneled into the creative work. I couldn't help but come back to the page again and again.
Work I got out of the residency:
I have one whole first draft of a nonfiction essay.
I have two partial drafts of nonfiction essays. I couldn't do the research for one of them in Seaside because the library didn't have what I needed and Stephen helped me find the structure for the other one. I can't wait to get going on them.
I have two partial drafts of short stories. One of them was urged by Ellen and Mark. It grew out of a rant, an anecdote, in the bar. Bonnie would be so proud (her craft talk was on how to make anecdotes into stories).
Strangely enough, I have a completed first draft of a children's book.
I set out to have one whole short story completed. I'll put the completed nonfiction essay in that spot and say, "Check. Mission accomplished." What is greater than that is that I'm burning with inspiration. I went to the residency to find the juice and that is what I got.
Also, I met the fiction editor of a literary magazine, dined with her, and she asked that I send her one of my stories for consideration. Here's to hoping. I'm going to take a look at it and make sure that it is polished enough.
One helluva week, I'd say.
Work I got out of the residency:
I have one whole first draft of a nonfiction essay.
I have two partial drafts of nonfiction essays. I couldn't do the research for one of them in Seaside because the library didn't have what I needed and Stephen helped me find the structure for the other one. I can't wait to get going on them.
I have two partial drafts of short stories. One of them was urged by Ellen and Mark. It grew out of a rant, an anecdote, in the bar. Bonnie would be so proud (her craft talk was on how to make anecdotes into stories).
Strangely enough, I have a completed first draft of a children's book.
I set out to have one whole short story completed. I'll put the completed nonfiction essay in that spot and say, "Check. Mission accomplished." What is greater than that is that I'm burning with inspiration. I went to the residency to find the juice and that is what I got.
Also, I met the fiction editor of a literary magazine, dined with her, and she asked that I send her one of my stories for consideration. Here's to hoping. I'm going to take a look at it and make sure that it is polished enough.
One helluva week, I'd say.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Residency - Barry Lopez
I am back in my room after having listened to Barry Lopez speak. I can't summarize his talk, can't begin to even process half of it, but here are some quotes I was able to get down:
He quoted Robert Duncan, I believe, "The drama of our time is the coming of all men into a single fate." This was written in the '50's so men refers to the human race.
His approach to nonfiction involves a bow of respect to the material, a bow of respect to the reader, and he believes the hinge is the structure in which the story is told.
"Diversity is a necessity for the continuation of life."
Paraphrase: The university years are important for two reasons:
To discover what you mean
To learn how to say it.
"Language asks everyday, 'Don't abandon me.'"
Story reminds people of what they already now. People don't want away from a novel saying, "I didn't know that before." Not on a fundamental level. On the elemental level, the novel has reminded them of something that they already knew.
Amazing talk. Most of these things are paraphrased and/or explained from my notes. Only those in direct quotations are taken as Barry phrased them.
He quoted Robert Duncan, I believe, "The drama of our time is the coming of all men into a single fate." This was written in the '50's so men refers to the human race.
His approach to nonfiction involves a bow of respect to the material, a bow of respect to the reader, and he believes the hinge is the structure in which the story is told.
"Diversity is a necessity for the continuation of life."
Paraphrase: The university years are important for two reasons:
To discover what you mean
To learn how to say it.
"Language asks everyday, 'Don't abandon me.'"
Story reminds people of what they already now. People don't want away from a novel saying, "I didn't know that before." Not on a fundamental level. On the elemental level, the novel has reminded them of something that they already knew.
Amazing talk. Most of these things are paraphrased and/or explained from my notes. Only those in direct quotations are taken as Barry phrased them.
Residency - Day Six
Time is getting away from me. I've been allowing myself to be distracted from my purpose while I am here. The social networking, the drinking, the entertainments have all begun to crowd the time I'm supposed to be writing. I need to be firmer in my resolve to use this time wisely.
The craft talks are amazing as always. I find myself not taking as many notes, not being as enthralled in the presentations as I was in years past. It's not that it's not great information. It's not that it isn't good advice, hints, tools to employ. It seems that I have changed. I incorporate their information more readily, I follow the trains of thought almost intuitively. There are flashes of brilliance where I am writing things down, but for the most part I can see the DNA of the craft talk, the inspiring idea, and the how that DNA will express itself by the time we are ten minutes into the talk. It's strange but comforting.
The reading last night was lovely. Stephen, John, and Leslie all read. It was a poetry sandwich: prose went first, poetry, followed by prose. There was a lot of humor in the reading and it felt good to laugh, to make light, to look at the ridiculousness of our own frailties. A good day.
The craft talks are amazing as always. I find myself not taking as many notes, not being as enthralled in the presentations as I was in years past. It's not that it's not great information. It's not that it isn't good advice, hints, tools to employ. It seems that I have changed. I incorporate their information more readily, I follow the trains of thought almost intuitively. There are flashes of brilliance where I am writing things down, but for the most part I can see the DNA of the craft talk, the inspiring idea, and the how that DNA will express itself by the time we are ten minutes into the talk. It's strange but comforting.
The reading last night was lovely. Stephen, John, and Leslie all read. It was a poetry sandwich: prose went first, poetry, followed by prose. There was a lot of humor in the reading and it felt good to laugh, to make light, to look at the ridiculousness of our own frailties. A good day.
Residency - News from Home
The night’s frost still clings to the shady basins of the dunes, although the sun is steadily marching higher in the sky, pushing back the white frosting coating the sand. For the Oregon Coast in January, it is a spectacular day. I’ve woken late, my conference schedule allowing for a late start, and one of the first things I’ve done is call my wife to check in.
My daughter had physical therapy yesterday and we’re discussing how the session went. I can tell there is something bothering Tracy and I ask if everything is okay.
“I didn’t want to tell you while you were gone,” she says.
“No, tell me. I’d appreciate it if you tell me.”
“Well, Cressa, the physical therapist wants to put a new brace on Shea. Both legs. She thinks Shea’s walking on her toes is getting worse.”
I mumble a quick, “Uh huh,” and hope my wife will continue quickly. I don’t like these stories to be dragged out. I want the information quick and dirty. Otherwise, if I don’t get it that way, my mind begins to wander, I see surgery, disfigurement, a lack of physical aptitude.
“It’s going to be a calf-length brace on both feet. It’ll incorporate the orthotics she already wears and so we’ll only have to worry about one brace. She needs to wear it 90% of the day.”
“Wow,” I say. It’s not the brace I’m amazed at. It’s the amount of time during the day she’ll have to wear them. I should tell you that my daughter is going to be two in a matter of weeks. She’s a baby, or close to it anyway. Braces are a struggle, a power play that involves coaxing, persuasion, and, yes, sometimes even force. I’m not saying force in terms of physical force, abusive force, but a force of will to ignore Shea’s cries and tears when she doesn’t want to wear them. The force of will to understand what you are doing is incomprehensible to the child, but, in the end, in her best interest.
“Yeah, I know,” Tracy says, “Anyway, Cressa think they’ll be temporary. Six to nine months. If we don’t do this now, her calf muscle won’t elongate, won’t generate the proper strength and could cause problems with her balance, her ankle, knee, hip, and back. We have to do this.”
Tracy is persuading me, trying to argue me into acceptance. What she doesn’t know is I’ve already accepted this. I’m firm in my resolve that this is the best course of action. Then I wonder if it isn’t about me, if it’s about her, if she is persuading herself. It sucks I’m gone.
I’ve been gone for a week now and am not due to return for another three days. It’s hard enough on Tracy and I both that I’m not there. Tracy’s aunt Mary is there at the house, taking care of Shea while Tracy is at work and I am gone. She’s a lovely woman and we are blessed to have her around to help with everything. I don’t know what we would have done without her.
Tracy and I are creatures of habit, routine, schedules. I was never this way as a young man, but I’ve come to love the security of the schedule, the safety it provides from anxiety and stress. But, also, it makes weeks like this, when I am gone, much harder to handle. Things are in disarray, chaos. It sets us both on edge a little bit and our conversations feel like we are talking across continents, instead of only the distance of an hour and a half drive.
So, the braces. In my mind they are mechanical contraptions, bulky, heavy, unattractive. I know modern orthotics and corrective devices aren’t always this complicated, but I grew up in a time where they were. I remember a girl Stephanie in grade school who had complex mechanical braces on her legs plus arm supports that helped her walk. This is the image that pops into my mind. It makes me sad, fretful. It’s not because of Stephanie, it’s because of the way I remember people treating Stephanie.
Stephanie herself was a bright and witty young girl. She was also the best tetherball player I had ever seen. The strength in her arms as a result of using them to help her walk was enormous. She couldn’t move quickly, so she would plant herself at a strategic point on the court. She didn’t need to move. Her long arms seemed to attract the ball with some kind of magnetism. You had to hit the ball perfectly so it hit the apex of its arc just above her head. Anything in an upswing, or dropping too early, was hers. I don’t think I ever beat her. I don’t think many people ever did.
I remember that playground and those games. Stephanie didn’t excel at dodgeball or basketball but she owned the tetherball court, which was one of my favorite games to play at recess. I played with her often, wanting desperately to beat her. I was a child, I wasn’t taking it easy on her because of her disability, I was playing an opponent, a good one, and I wanted to win, to prove myself. I can’t remember if I ever did or not.
So this image of Shea in these mechanical braces, having to walk with corrective devices does bring me some sadness. It makes me realize I will be explaining myself to nosy people in grocery stores and restaurants. I know I will have to have a conversation with my mother, who watches Shea once a week, and stress the importance of her wearing the braces, even though she cries and throws fits.
It’s hard to not cave in the face of a crying child. It’s hard to assert strength of will over their tearful objection. This is parenthood, though, right? I’m not acting this way out of some form of malicious intent. I’m trying to help her, I’m trying to prevent long term damage to her skeletal and muscular structures. I have her best interest at heart, right?
So, if all of this is true, then why is this so hard?
My daughter had physical therapy yesterday and we’re discussing how the session went. I can tell there is something bothering Tracy and I ask if everything is okay.
“I didn’t want to tell you while you were gone,” she says.
“No, tell me. I’d appreciate it if you tell me.”
“Well, Cressa, the physical therapist wants to put a new brace on Shea. Both legs. She thinks Shea’s walking on her toes is getting worse.”
I mumble a quick, “Uh huh,” and hope my wife will continue quickly. I don’t like these stories to be dragged out. I want the information quick and dirty. Otherwise, if I don’t get it that way, my mind begins to wander, I see surgery, disfigurement, a lack of physical aptitude.
“It’s going to be a calf-length brace on both feet. It’ll incorporate the orthotics she already wears and so we’ll only have to worry about one brace. She needs to wear it 90% of the day.”
“Wow,” I say. It’s not the brace I’m amazed at. It’s the amount of time during the day she’ll have to wear them. I should tell you that my daughter is going to be two in a matter of weeks. She’s a baby, or close to it anyway. Braces are a struggle, a power play that involves coaxing, persuasion, and, yes, sometimes even force. I’m not saying force in terms of physical force, abusive force, but a force of will to ignore Shea’s cries and tears when she doesn’t want to wear them. The force of will to understand what you are doing is incomprehensible to the child, but, in the end, in her best interest.
“Yeah, I know,” Tracy says, “Anyway, Cressa think they’ll be temporary. Six to nine months. If we don’t do this now, her calf muscle won’t elongate, won’t generate the proper strength and could cause problems with her balance, her ankle, knee, hip, and back. We have to do this.”
Tracy is persuading me, trying to argue me into acceptance. What she doesn’t know is I’ve already accepted this. I’m firm in my resolve that this is the best course of action. Then I wonder if it isn’t about me, if it’s about her, if she is persuading herself. It sucks I’m gone.
I’ve been gone for a week now and am not due to return for another three days. It’s hard enough on Tracy and I both that I’m not there. Tracy’s aunt Mary is there at the house, taking care of Shea while Tracy is at work and I am gone. She’s a lovely woman and we are blessed to have her around to help with everything. I don’t know what we would have done without her.
Tracy and I are creatures of habit, routine, schedules. I was never this way as a young man, but I’ve come to love the security of the schedule, the safety it provides from anxiety and stress. But, also, it makes weeks like this, when I am gone, much harder to handle. Things are in disarray, chaos. It sets us both on edge a little bit and our conversations feel like we are talking across continents, instead of only the distance of an hour and a half drive.
So, the braces. In my mind they are mechanical contraptions, bulky, heavy, unattractive. I know modern orthotics and corrective devices aren’t always this complicated, but I grew up in a time where they were. I remember a girl Stephanie in grade school who had complex mechanical braces on her legs plus arm supports that helped her walk. This is the image that pops into my mind. It makes me sad, fretful. It’s not because of Stephanie, it’s because of the way I remember people treating Stephanie.
Stephanie herself was a bright and witty young girl. She was also the best tetherball player I had ever seen. The strength in her arms as a result of using them to help her walk was enormous. She couldn’t move quickly, so she would plant herself at a strategic point on the court. She didn’t need to move. Her long arms seemed to attract the ball with some kind of magnetism. You had to hit the ball perfectly so it hit the apex of its arc just above her head. Anything in an upswing, or dropping too early, was hers. I don’t think I ever beat her. I don’t think many people ever did.
I remember that playground and those games. Stephanie didn’t excel at dodgeball or basketball but she owned the tetherball court, which was one of my favorite games to play at recess. I played with her often, wanting desperately to beat her. I was a child, I wasn’t taking it easy on her because of her disability, I was playing an opponent, a good one, and I wanted to win, to prove myself. I can’t remember if I ever did or not.
So this image of Shea in these mechanical braces, having to walk with corrective devices does bring me some sadness. It makes me realize I will be explaining myself to nosy people in grocery stores and restaurants. I know I will have to have a conversation with my mother, who watches Shea once a week, and stress the importance of her wearing the braces, even though she cries and throws fits.
It’s hard to not cave in the face of a crying child. It’s hard to assert strength of will over their tearful objection. This is parenthood, though, right? I’m not acting this way out of some form of malicious intent. I’m trying to help her, I’m trying to prevent long term damage to her skeletal and muscular structures. I have her best interest at heart, right?
So, if all of this is true, then why is this so hard?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Residency - Day Four
Michelle and Robert give their critical introductions and their readings and the audience is stunned to tears. It isn't that their is anything depressing, overtly sad, or nostalgic about it, it is the sheer power of their words, the power of their friendship, the power of these two open, dedicated people. The crowd lingers in the room for almost twenty minutes. Each person is trying to find the time to get a moment with the writers, to pass along a hurried congratulations, and to express their gratitude for what they shared.
I'm in a mood. Not a bad mood, but a mood where I can feel some kind of quiet settling over me. I need to find a room with a door where I can lock out the outside world. I need a room with a door and one person with which to talk. I miss Katey. I miss Beth. They would be a perfect balm to me in the moment. Instead, I make my way to Stephen's room to see if he remembers the student/faculty dinner.
His room is adjacent to mine and so it is easy to slip next door. I knock. I hear the scamper of a dog behind the door and am soon greeted by both dog and master. I'm invited in. I'm given a glass of red wine, a chair by the sliding glass door. I'm given the gift of conversation, quiet conversation, passionate, expansive, hopeful conversation.
Stephen is a gifted conversationalist. He knows much about many things and our conversation whirls between the typical literary conversations, Israel and Palestine, Obama, Congress, Apocalyptic visions, hope in the face of the future, hope in the face of overwhelming odds, hope as a way of sustaining oneself, hope as a way of entering the writing, of expanding it, of finding something to treasure in the space between words, of committing to the act of creating something beautiful and lyric. I look him in the eye and his eyes dance.
I'm in a mood. Not a bad mood, but a mood where I can feel some kind of quiet settling over me. I need to find a room with a door where I can lock out the outside world. I need a room with a door and one person with which to talk. I miss Katey. I miss Beth. They would be a perfect balm to me in the moment. Instead, I make my way to Stephen's room to see if he remembers the student/faculty dinner.
His room is adjacent to mine and so it is easy to slip next door. I knock. I hear the scamper of a dog behind the door and am soon greeted by both dog and master. I'm invited in. I'm given a glass of red wine, a chair by the sliding glass door. I'm given the gift of conversation, quiet conversation, passionate, expansive, hopeful conversation.
Stephen is a gifted conversationalist. He knows much about many things and our conversation whirls between the typical literary conversations, Israel and Palestine, Obama, Congress, Apocalyptic visions, hope in the face of the future, hope in the face of overwhelming odds, hope as a way of sustaining oneself, hope as a way of entering the writing, of expanding it, of finding something to treasure in the space between words, of committing to the act of creating something beautiful and lyric. I look him in the eye and his eyes dance.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Residency - Playing with Voice
My husband eats hot dogs. Lots of hot dogs. I can’t stand the things. Ever since I was in the third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Elkin, took us on a field trip to the hot dog factory, I can’t touch the things. So, I don’t give my husband many restrictions on diet or behavior, but I do ask that he not eat hot dogs.
It’s not even that I ask him not to eat hot dogs. I ask him not to cook hot dogs in our house. Have you ever walked into a house where someone has been boiling those chipped up intestinal wraps? It reeks. I can’t stand it.
So, my husband not only eats lots of hot dogs, but he insists on cooking them in the house. Normally, it’s when I’m not home and he has the day off, but I can still smell the stinking things hours after he’s eaten them. I come home from a long day at work, wanting to unload my laptop, turn off the cell phone and simply relax. But that’s not possible when your house smells like hot dogs.
He tries to mask the smell. He turns on fans, opens the windows, sprays floral air freshener, but, in case you didn’t know, hot dogs are impervious to air fresheners. People say Twinkies and cockroaches will survive the holocaust. I don’t think that’s true. I think it will only be hot dogs and cockroaches. Hot dogs, cockroaches, and yellow mustard.
Ugh, that’s another pet peeve of mine. Yellow mustard. I can eat the spicy browns, the hots, the stone ground mustards, but I cannot, and will not, stand for yellow mustard. Hot dogs and yellow mustard joined together emanate a smell that can only be compared to Richard’s gym bag. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks in August. I’m telling you, it smells that bad.
So, I came home the other day, it was a Thursday, and the whole house had that meat filler, yellow mustard funk hanging everywhere. It greeted me before I could set my bag down by the front door. I could tell he’d taken his usual measures to mask the smell, Lysol disinfectant spray, fans whirring, windows open, letting the salt breeze infiltrate the room. So, now the house smelled like a salt-cured-flower-stuffed-hot dog with yellow mustard. I dropped my bag right there at the threshold. I could hear the heavy thunk of my computer on the hard wood floors and a sharper crack like the breaking of Lincoln Logs. “Fuck,” I said, not taking the time to survey the damage. It was a work computer anyway and if anything was wrong I would just put in a requisition for a new one. I was due anyway.
***That's all I have for right now. I'm hoping this leads me somewhere.
It’s not even that I ask him not to eat hot dogs. I ask him not to cook hot dogs in our house. Have you ever walked into a house where someone has been boiling those chipped up intestinal wraps? It reeks. I can’t stand it.
So, my husband not only eats lots of hot dogs, but he insists on cooking them in the house. Normally, it’s when I’m not home and he has the day off, but I can still smell the stinking things hours after he’s eaten them. I come home from a long day at work, wanting to unload my laptop, turn off the cell phone and simply relax. But that’s not possible when your house smells like hot dogs.
He tries to mask the smell. He turns on fans, opens the windows, sprays floral air freshener, but, in case you didn’t know, hot dogs are impervious to air fresheners. People say Twinkies and cockroaches will survive the holocaust. I don’t think that’s true. I think it will only be hot dogs and cockroaches. Hot dogs, cockroaches, and yellow mustard.
Ugh, that’s another pet peeve of mine. Yellow mustard. I can eat the spicy browns, the hots, the stone ground mustards, but I cannot, and will not, stand for yellow mustard. Hot dogs and yellow mustard joined together emanate a smell that can only be compared to Richard’s gym bag. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks in August. I’m telling you, it smells that bad.
So, I came home the other day, it was a Thursday, and the whole house had that meat filler, yellow mustard funk hanging everywhere. It greeted me before I could set my bag down by the front door. I could tell he’d taken his usual measures to mask the smell, Lysol disinfectant spray, fans whirring, windows open, letting the salt breeze infiltrate the room. So, now the house smelled like a salt-cured-flower-stuffed-hot dog with yellow mustard. I dropped my bag right there at the threshold. I could hear the heavy thunk of my computer on the hard wood floors and a sharper crack like the breaking of Lincoln Logs. “Fuck,” I said, not taking the time to survey the damage. It was a work computer anyway and if anything was wrong I would just put in a requisition for a new one. I was due anyway.
***That's all I have for right now. I'm hoping this leads me somewhere.
Residency - Day Three
I woke this morning and made coffee first thing. I feel rested, although a bit unsteady. I battle my contacts but quickly retire them to their case and don my glasses. My left eye burns. I fill my travel mug with coffee, pour a cup for Stephen, and walk next door to the room where he is staying. He is not there.
I make my way down to Salvadore's, feeling groggy and full of head fog. Stephen sits with one of his students from the last semester, having breakfast and chatting about her writing. I say my name when he notices my shadow standing at the end of the table. He smiles and tells me I look like Cary Grant. I tell him, "I'll take it," and smile broadly. He is refreshing. Witty. Cavalier. An unrepentant flatterer.
We make preparations for his craft talk -- cue up the CD to the proper track, set up his laptop, and wait for Shelley to make the morning's announcements. It's typical fare for the morning: room changes, cell phone reminders, etc. And then Stephen steps to the microphone.
He begins by talking about underpants. Underpants, that's right. The room immediately fills with the muted chuckles of educated people taking delight in the bathroom humor of it all. I can see some reluctance from them, how they wonder if they are above this kind of humor, but I let fly with a laugh. It's funny, I'm sorry, but it is. Stephen knows this and explains that you can make any group of people laugh at the mere mention of underpants. The chuckles dissipate into the ether and the room steadies its reverberations into silence.
He begins in earnest. I won't pretend to speak on his subject with as much poetry and lucidity as he does, but he talks about listening, about the language of sound, about simile. He talks about textures in writing, about how we must expand our senses beyond the visual into sound, smell, and taste, and how this forces us into a poetics of simile, about how rain on a tent sounds like bacon frying, about how the high C of the opera singer Caruso is like milk and iodine. He is firing on all pistons, the room is stunned into silence. I watch Jack and Bonnie beaming at him on stage, Peter whispers "damn" on more than one occasion. The talk is pure inspiration, poetry, and brilliance. I am in awe.
His talk casts me back to the experience of reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind. I studied this novel, about how Suskind, with very little language available for smell, had to connect smells to memory. Comparisons needed to be made in order for the smells of the novel to come alive, and Stephen has done something similar with sound. He's linked what he hears to all kinds of unlikely things, which drove the language of his talk to a poetic place, full of simile and concrete detail that allowed us to experience his world in a very tangible, a very personal way.
At one point, I was tempted to close my eyes and to simply listen, but I fought against it. It is good to highlight the sense of sound or smell by eliminating sight, but it is contrary to how I need to work in the future. I need my visuals, my images, but I ALSO need to be aware of how my other senses are interacting with the world. I need to layer these perceptions on top of my images, I must use all the tool sets available to me in a textured tapestry that will naturally elevate my prose to poetry.
I'm awake now and, I hope, paying attention.
I make my way down to Salvadore's, feeling groggy and full of head fog. Stephen sits with one of his students from the last semester, having breakfast and chatting about her writing. I say my name when he notices my shadow standing at the end of the table. He smiles and tells me I look like Cary Grant. I tell him, "I'll take it," and smile broadly. He is refreshing. Witty. Cavalier. An unrepentant flatterer.
We make preparations for his craft talk -- cue up the CD to the proper track, set up his laptop, and wait for Shelley to make the morning's announcements. It's typical fare for the morning: room changes, cell phone reminders, etc. And then Stephen steps to the microphone.
He begins by talking about underpants. Underpants, that's right. The room immediately fills with the muted chuckles of educated people taking delight in the bathroom humor of it all. I can see some reluctance from them, how they wonder if they are above this kind of humor, but I let fly with a laugh. It's funny, I'm sorry, but it is. Stephen knows this and explains that you can make any group of people laugh at the mere mention of underpants. The chuckles dissipate into the ether and the room steadies its reverberations into silence.
He begins in earnest. I won't pretend to speak on his subject with as much poetry and lucidity as he does, but he talks about listening, about the language of sound, about simile. He talks about textures in writing, about how we must expand our senses beyond the visual into sound, smell, and taste, and how this forces us into a poetics of simile, about how rain on a tent sounds like bacon frying, about how the high C of the opera singer Caruso is like milk and iodine. He is firing on all pistons, the room is stunned into silence. I watch Jack and Bonnie beaming at him on stage, Peter whispers "damn" on more than one occasion. The talk is pure inspiration, poetry, and brilliance. I am in awe.
His talk casts me back to the experience of reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind. I studied this novel, about how Suskind, with very little language available for smell, had to connect smells to memory. Comparisons needed to be made in order for the smells of the novel to come alive, and Stephen has done something similar with sound. He's linked what he hears to all kinds of unlikely things, which drove the language of his talk to a poetic place, full of simile and concrete detail that allowed us to experience his world in a very tangible, a very personal way.
At one point, I was tempted to close my eyes and to simply listen, but I fought against it. It is good to highlight the sense of sound or smell by eliminating sight, but it is contrary to how I need to work in the future. I need my visuals, my images, but I ALSO need to be aware of how my other senses are interacting with the world. I need to layer these perceptions on top of my images, I must use all the tool sets available to me in a textured tapestry that will naturally elevate my prose to poetry.
I'm awake now and, I hope, paying attention.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Residency - Day Two - Intrigue
It's odd being inside the cabal of people who orchestrate the residency. There are maneuvers and egos on this side of the residency. I was always pleasantly unaware of the intrigues that occured inside the residency walls and it is hard to see some of the things that happen while the students aren't looking.
There are an infinite number of concessions that need to happen in order for all of the professionals to be satisfied and I'm amazed at what these people expect from the staff of a program like this.
I've spent the last two hours on a book hunt (one of the author's books didn't arrive) and composing emails to said author to try and repair some of the damage that was done as a result. It isn't a good situation. But, the staff is trying their hardest to repair what was done and I'm going to have to commit seppuku tonight at the introductions. I don't mind. The program should apologize for their oversight and, as the mouthpiece, I will do so with as much grace and sincerity as is possible. Taking one for the team.
There are an infinite number of concessions that need to happen in order for all of the professionals to be satisfied and I'm amazed at what these people expect from the staff of a program like this.
I've spent the last two hours on a book hunt (one of the author's books didn't arrive) and composing emails to said author to try and repair some of the damage that was done as a result. It isn't a good situation. But, the staff is trying their hardest to repair what was done and I'm going to have to commit seppuku tonight at the introductions. I don't mind. The program should apologize for their oversight and, as the mouthpiece, I will do so with as much grace and sincerity as is possible. Taking one for the team.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Residency - Day One
After the grumpiness of the morning passed, I'll credit the coffee, I settled into the day with ease. My anticipation was high as I knew Jack Driscoll was going to be giving the first craft talk of the residency. As always, he was eloquent. He revisited a theme he and I have discussed many times...love. This time the frame of the talk surrounded the treatment of "characters," those people we inhabit when we write fiction.
He talked about desire and how when characters don't desire, they lose the ability to suffer, which inevitably flattens out the prose. He talked about loving our characters, both good and bad, heroes and villains, in a way that we enlivened them with the energy of that passion. It brought my mind back to Keir, a character for a novel I was working on when I first began the MFA. I realized I still loved the man, was still invested in his journey, and I wondered what would happen if I revisited the page with this young man in mind.
Well, when I found a free moment, I returned to the page and I invoked Keir's spirit. Sure enough he was there, he was enlivened, and three pages passed before I even really knew that I was writing. I'm debating whether or not I should follow him further or return to the short story. Either way, I'm having fun being present and inspired. I'm sneaking away more than is usual for me at residency, which is a nice change of pace and a nice tone to my new life outside the program.
Yes, I am here. Yes, I am participating in elements of the program, but, no, the program is no longer mine. I love it but must leave it. I have a feeling that these ten days are going to be the perfect bon voyage.
He talked about desire and how when characters don't desire, they lose the ability to suffer, which inevitably flattens out the prose. He talked about loving our characters, both good and bad, heroes and villains, in a way that we enlivened them with the energy of that passion. It brought my mind back to Keir, a character for a novel I was working on when I first began the MFA. I realized I still loved the man, was still invested in his journey, and I wondered what would happen if I revisited the page with this young man in mind.
Well, when I found a free moment, I returned to the page and I invoked Keir's spirit. Sure enough he was there, he was enlivened, and three pages passed before I even really knew that I was writing. I'm debating whether or not I should follow him further or return to the short story. Either way, I'm having fun being present and inspired. I'm sneaking away more than is usual for me at residency, which is a nice change of pace and a nice tone to my new life outside the program.
Yes, I am here. Yes, I am participating in elements of the program, but, no, the program is no longer mine. I love it but must leave it. I have a feeling that these ten days are going to be the perfect bon voyage.
Residency - The Reality of Morning.
It's six am when the noise starts. I had been so excited about my room. It's big with a view of the ocean (although it's not an oceanfront room). It's the same room I had two years ago but two floors down. The third floor. I didn't even think of the logistics of what this meant.
Well, this is what it means. At six am the people cleaning rooms are starting to prepare. They push around a cart with the squeekiest wheel of all time. I want to yell at them to put some WD-40 on it. But I try and roll over and go back to sleep. Then, the hotel comes alive.
My room shares a wall with the stair well. Also, my floor is where all craft talks, panel discussions, etc will take place. I may be next to the most highly trafficked portion of the hotel. The "pitter-patter" of giant feet in the stairwell reverberates throughout my room. People are coming and going. Taking walks on the boardwalk, going to breakfast, chatting and making acquaintance. It's all very social and friendly and ambitious.
It's also right outside my door.
Well, this is what it means. At six am the people cleaning rooms are starting to prepare. They push around a cart with the squeekiest wheel of all time. I want to yell at them to put some WD-40 on it. But I try and roll over and go back to sleep. Then, the hotel comes alive.
My room shares a wall with the stair well. Also, my floor is where all craft talks, panel discussions, etc will take place. I may be next to the most highly trafficked portion of the hotel. The "pitter-patter" of giant feet in the stairwell reverberates throughout my room. People are coming and going. Taking walks on the boardwalk, going to breakfast, chatting and making acquaintance. It's all very social and friendly and ambitious.
It's also right outside my door.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Residency - The Arrival
This is for you, K.S.
I arrived at Portland International Airport a good thirty minutes before Stephen Kuusisto's flight was due to arrive. I browsed Powell's, got a sandwich, and sat myself near the security checkpoint. With Kwame Dawes' She's Gone in hand, I wiled away a good hour before I asked about his flight. The security guard was a pleasant older woman with prim makeup and hair. She was accommodating (she even went to the gate to check on the flight's status) and she chatted for a bit until I saw the yellow lab round the corner.
Stephen is an unassuming man, but his guide dog is a young three year old, full of energy and enthusiasm. They crossed the threshold to where I stood and Stephen and I shook hands and introduced ourselves. Behind him stood a lithe young woman, beautiful and earthy. Stephen introduced her to me immediately. It was Bonnie Jo Campbell. They had shared the flight and, instead of waiting the two hours for the shuttle, Bonnie made her way to my car with us.
The drive to Seaside via Highway 30 was uneventful in terms of traffic or flooding. The Columbia was swollen, overtaking trees on the bank, but the time went quickly as we marched our way west to Seaside and the impending residency.
Stephen is irreverent, charming, and a tad bit eccentric. Bonnie, a little reserved, is brassy and also charming. We shared book titles, anecdotes, political opinions, and soon we had arrived at Safeway inside of Seaside's city limits.
Stephen was smart not to pack dog food. Instead relying on the fact that his brand would be waiting for him inside the "stupor-market" as he called it. We browsed the aisles, looking for the pet food, Bonnie claiming that she wanted a bottle of wine, Stephen agreeing. It was fun, casual, reminded me of my college roommates on a similar "stupor-market" expedition.
When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Shelley, the queen of the program, all smiles and welcomes. Our rooms were doled out. I'm staying on the third floor, in the corner room overlooking the beach. Not a beach front room. Those are reserved for faculty and students, but the next best thing. I am comfortable. The moment I arrived in Seaside in January, I felt the call of the keyboard. I felt the need to sit and be present. It's been nice to hammer out these few paragraphs, the first of many. I hope, anyway.
I'm missing some of the familiar suspects. I miss K.S. I miss B.R. I even miss J.W. To be honest there is a litany of people I wish could be here. S.R. with her fiery red hair. W.G. with his Magnum P.I. mustache. L.G. with her androgynous sexuality.
I will try and make the best of my ten days here at residency. I promise not to focus too much on the introductions. They are secondary to the content of the readings. I promise not to get swept up in the social life presented in these ten days. I promise to have the rough draft of a new story by the time I check out (a week from Sunday). I am looking to make good on these things and the thing that is necessary to make these things happen is a dedication to the idea, resolve to allow myself time, and an openness to the ideas presented in the craft talks, readings, and otherwise good mojo.
Love you, K.S., I'll keep you posted.
I arrived at Portland International Airport a good thirty minutes before Stephen Kuusisto's flight was due to arrive. I browsed Powell's, got a sandwich, and sat myself near the security checkpoint. With Kwame Dawes' She's Gone in hand, I wiled away a good hour before I asked about his flight. The security guard was a pleasant older woman with prim makeup and hair. She was accommodating (she even went to the gate to check on the flight's status) and she chatted for a bit until I saw the yellow lab round the corner.
Stephen is an unassuming man, but his guide dog is a young three year old, full of energy and enthusiasm. They crossed the threshold to where I stood and Stephen and I shook hands and introduced ourselves. Behind him stood a lithe young woman, beautiful and earthy. Stephen introduced her to me immediately. It was Bonnie Jo Campbell. They had shared the flight and, instead of waiting the two hours for the shuttle, Bonnie made her way to my car with us.
The drive to Seaside via Highway 30 was uneventful in terms of traffic or flooding. The Columbia was swollen, overtaking trees on the bank, but the time went quickly as we marched our way west to Seaside and the impending residency.
Stephen is irreverent, charming, and a tad bit eccentric. Bonnie, a little reserved, is brassy and also charming. We shared book titles, anecdotes, political opinions, and soon we had arrived at Safeway inside of Seaside's city limits.
Stephen was smart not to pack dog food. Instead relying on the fact that his brand would be waiting for him inside the "stupor-market" as he called it. We browsed the aisles, looking for the pet food, Bonnie claiming that she wanted a bottle of wine, Stephen agreeing. It was fun, casual, reminded me of my college roommates on a similar "stupor-market" expedition.
When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Shelley, the queen of the program, all smiles and welcomes. Our rooms were doled out. I'm staying on the third floor, in the corner room overlooking the beach. Not a beach front room. Those are reserved for faculty and students, but the next best thing. I am comfortable. The moment I arrived in Seaside in January, I felt the call of the keyboard. I felt the need to sit and be present. It's been nice to hammer out these few paragraphs, the first of many. I hope, anyway.
I'm missing some of the familiar suspects. I miss K.S. I miss B.R. I even miss J.W. To be honest there is a litany of people I wish could be here. S.R. with her fiery red hair. W.G. with his Magnum P.I. mustache. L.G. with her androgynous sexuality.
I will try and make the best of my ten days here at residency. I promise not to focus too much on the introductions. They are secondary to the content of the readings. I promise not to get swept up in the social life presented in these ten days. I promise to have the rough draft of a new story by the time I check out (a week from Sunday). I am looking to make good on these things and the thing that is necessary to make these things happen is a dedication to the idea, resolve to allow myself time, and an openness to the ideas presented in the craft talks, readings, and otherwise good mojo.
Love you, K.S., I'll keep you posted.
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