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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.