Link du Jour

This almost made me cry just now. What a wonderful idea. http://www.zefrank.com/from52to48withlove. I guess 52% of us voted for Obama and 48 otherwise? Which opens up a whole new thing, namely, what is the point of the electoral college? It's complicated things so much, so why don't we just vote straightforwardly? Anyway, that's not the point. I like the site a lot. Enjoy

Now You See Me, Now You Don't

I've been thinking a lot lately about moving. Moving to a new apartment in Wilmington, moving to another town after graduation, moving closer to Seagrove for my last semester, the better to research it with, my dear. I've been thinking I've never moved to a place without a definite end in my mind: four years of college, three months of internship, three months of volunteering, just until the holidays are over, just until grad school, and now just until graduation. Because, as much as I like Wilmington, it's school for me. Many of the people I care about will be leaving when they're done here, which will leave me holding onto empty clothes and ghosts. Going back to Davidson feels like visiting the set of a beloved play or the soundstage where a favorite movie was filmed. The field where Field of Dreams was filmed is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iowa. That's how Wilmington might be for me one day, after everyone else filters out. That and the lack of publishing jobs, and the dreary romantic prospects, nudge me toward the thought that it'll soon enough be high time to go.

But really? I'm just so tired of starting over. I want to have the same friends, see the same friends, for ten years or twenty years, not notice each other's aging or changes because we're together so frequently. I want to paint some walls and knock out others. I want to forget what it feels like to be restless. I don't ever again want to be thinking toward a move. I don't ever want, as I get to know someone, to anticipate what it will be like to leave them. I don't want to introduce myself or prove that I'm cool or break the ice. I want to come home and not automatically turn on the TV, because there will be someone I can't wait to talk to, or something I can't wait to do.

But I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, and laughing like a hyena at what I thought I wanted. I will, at some point, need new friends, get tired of my routine, and wish I could move anywhere, anywhere new. I will roll my eyes unnecessarily, and I will stomp around the house just because it feels different from walking. I will pray for wings or wheels. I will change the sheets obssessively. Because the woman with curly hair wishes it would just behave, and the woman with straight hair wishes it would do something interesting. Because when I am bound to move, I wish I could stay, and when I know I must stay, I will wish I could leave.

It has a lot to do with men. I mean I think it will be easier for me to stay in one place when I'm in love with someone there, and conversely, staying on the move is a natural step to take when I'm not and when it's important that I do find that place with the person in it.

It has a lot to do with this apartment. It's shoddily built from inferior materials, and the counter space is laughable, and there are spots on the floor that don't come out, and I never open my blinds because I'm on the first floor and don't want anyone looking in at eye level.

It has the most, I think, to do with being days away from twenty-five and still feeling like a teenager in many ways, but having to act like a grown-up for the world anyway. It's funny--while I have a sense of having missed the mark, it's not because of any expectations I personally had. I don't remember having had ideas of what I would be like or do at this age. In fact, the only indicator I have is a drawing from second grade or so, and according to that, I'm pretty much dead on. The printed instructions say, "Draw a picture of yourself at work in a job you would like to have when you are twenty-five years old." I have drawn myself in an artist's smock, with an easel, outside. The easel is a miniature version of the scene I stand in and says, "$10." Most of my art supplies languish in the dark these days, but I do have them, carry them around from move to move. And a writer is an artist. A nonfiction writer is the kind of artist I drew in that picture, one who takes down what she sees as closely as possible. Considering that particularity--I could have been selling an abstract piece or a portrait--and the hundreds of other jobs I could have chosen, we must say Second-Grade Rachel was not at all far off. Or maybe I'm the one who's not far off. The other childhood paper I currently have on my fridge, apparently from even earlier, has me at an easel whose contents you can't see, and says, "God wants me to be an artist." I keep them both up as reminders to maintain that certainty. God does want me to be artist. This is a job I would like to have when I am twenty-five years old. Maybe I should go back through the childhood files and see if they have anything about where I'm going to live.

Three Moments

There was a Santa at the shopping center yesterday where I graded papers. I stopped on the way to the bathroom to see what he was telling the kids, partly because I had just seen The Santaland Diaries and there was a lot of talk about the different kinds of Santas. This one was saying to the boy on his lap, "Do you have a backup plan? Because you might need one."

In church yesterday, a family was lighting the Advent candles and had their youngest boy read the prayer. It sounded quite clearly as if he said "Let us play" and "In Jesus' name we play."

I saw James Van Der Beek riding his bike at Wrightsville Beach the other night, right past the window while I ate dinner at a really great Mexican place. He even rode back in the other direction, allowing me to confirm that it was him.

The Portable Feast

I was reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast this afternoon and came across the following: "I had heard complaining all my life. I found I could go on writing and that it was no worse than other noises, certainly better than Ezra learning to play the bassoon."

Let's zoom in. "...certainly BETTER THAN EZRA learning to play the bassoon." Do you think this could be the origin of the band's name? I think it could. A quick Google shows us that there are myriad explanations for the name, none of which the band itself will confirm. Most involve another band or entity named Ezra, than which the band thought itself better. There is also a reference to another book with the phrase buried in it, Eliot's dedication of The Waste Land to (Ezra) Pound calling him "the better craftsman" in Italian, and I don't know what all else. I think I like not knowing.

Even better than that curiosity, I found in the Feast this little gem:
"They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure."

The book is a side of Hemingway I did not expect, having only read The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises, and those a very long time ago. I guess The Sun... gives us a glimpse at the Paris Hem, not so burdened with machismo, drinking wine and not always whiskey, wandering and hunkering down in cafes to write, but the Feast really fleshes him out. It's a supremely appealing vision. There's something so rewarding about reading someone's oeuvre rather than just one book. I'm finding that with Thurber as I hunt down (well, more like come across) everything he did. It's the same as having a friend and getting to know them better as you see them in different moods and contexts. Not such a rich experience if you don't bother to do that, if you let your idea of them stay static.

This is Just to Say,

with much delay, that the potters of Seagrove are the most gracious and precious people I've met in a long time. Not only do they do beautiful work, but they act like they know you already and welcome you and answer inane neophytes' questions with no iota of condescension, even though the questions I asked were the equivalent of asking a writer, "So, it's like, subject and then verb?" I cannot wait to go back and get even more information. I'm happy to report that both the Festival and the Celebration were successful. Do consider buying something from Chris Luther http://www.chrislutherpottery.com/, whose studio burned down last weekend in the midst of festivities, or donating to the Potters' Relief Fund to help him. Also, buy something from any of them. They're all awesome. More to come.

Haiku

For the next two weeks in poetry class, we are working on haiku and a related form, waka, or tanka (5-7-5-7-7). The length gives me the luxury of starting early so I can get the mediocre stuff out before turning in something dazzling. Here's some of the mediocre stuff that I actually like well, but don't find quite "poetic" enough to turn in. Then again, maybe I could just say I'm re-envisioning the haiku.

James Lee Burke is a
beautiful name. Let's say it
again: James Lee Burke.

What if you were the
first man to hear a heart?
Wouldn't you be afraid?

This one has a title: Terms I Forgot for Disconcertingly Long Periods of Time.
Bruschetta. Challenge.
Zodiac. Beside the point.
Posthumous. Candide.


They are really fun to make. It's the kind of thing one can do while waiting in line or something.

Some men fighting in, I think, the Civil War experienced a condition called soldier's heart. Then in World War I, the same condition was called shellshock, in WW II battle fatigue, and now it's post-traumatic stress disorder (or syndrome). What a shame that we're getting less poetic. On the other hand, someone with a good ear renamed dephlogisticated air and called it oxygen. So we're not going altogether downhill.

Everything

1. It seems antioxidants are nothing but vitamins A, C, and E. I feel a little gypped, like it should have been something more mysterious and involved.



2. Singing can treat stomach problems.



3. My editing project taught me a lot of cool Chinese words, and I love how one word in another language can mean a lot in ours. Reminds me of German. Here are just two I learned from editing: shenda- being cautious about greatness; shenshi- being aware of power.



4. I just made some peanut butter brownies from a Mollie Katzen recipe and now have the happy task of finding people to share them.



5. It's Writers' Week! Which means no class, and instead we get to go to seminars and movies and readings. They had the greatest documentary about Andre Dubus. He seemed misogynistic and self-centered and misguided, but I really like the guy and would like to have hung out with him. I'm totally ready to go out and get all his books and everything about him. Tonight is Dusty and Ace, AKA Philip and Clyde, the highlight of any Writers' Week. Can't wait.



6. I had to write a cinquain for Wednesday morning (a poem with 2 syllables in the first line, 4 in the second, 6, 8, 2). So I wrote this:

Barack

Obama is

our president. Not that

I expected anything else,

but wow.

It gave away that I waited until the last minute, but I think it was OK. It's hard to see anything as not OK for a while, because our president can speak without embarrassing us; he even makes me proud.

File Under "Headlines that could be in The Onion but are actually real"

"Sarkozy wants a Paris judge to ban the sale of a voodoo doll of himself" -cnn.com

Know what's good?

Yogurt with honey and cinnamon. The combination was inspired by the vaguely Middle Eastern/ancient origin of all three. It's a little like eating the icing from a cinnamon bun but not, like that icing, sweet enough to make you sick or otherwise remorseful.

I'm thinking of eating exclusively "ancient" foods for a while, meaning ones that are mentioned in old texts, old meaning from a time when nomadism was common and houses were huts and the rest I just can't fathom. It's remarkable how much I'd be allowed: even if I stick to the East, as I always picture "ancient" as meaning all sand and oases as in the Bible and Rumi, I can have dates, figs, pomegranates, grapes, apricots, apples, and surely some other fruits. Lamb, pork, and fish (in theory, but let's be honest, I won't cook any of those). Bread, wine, olives, and olive oil (just those four are enough to hold me for a powerful long time). Yogurt, milk, butter, soft cheeses. I'm coming up short on vegetables, as usual. I could probably have tomatoes. Coconut? Maybe island palms are different from desert palms. Oh, I bet I could have peaches, nectarines, and plums.

I wonder why I'm so into categorizing foods like this, as if there's something better about these than, say, berries of American origin or cheddar cheese as opposed to goat. I think it's just fun and makes me feel smart, even though much of it is guesses ("That seems Middle Eastern, let's throw it in"). I also like the idea of having a diet of roughly this scope: enough choices you wouldn't get bored, but few enough you don't get overwhelmed. They always had a choice (in my idealized, romanticized version), but they never had more than 2 or 3 choices. Sounds nice, because my list of restaurants to go to is starting to look like the shelves of unread books--intimidating and insurmountable. Not to mention the different offerings at each restaurant, or the recipes I haven't tried. Luckily, I do have to eat, so the outlook is a little rosier than for the unread books. A little.

Wish I'd thought of that.

There is something so refreshing and honest about shows, movies, and other media that are clearly built on a very obvious, simple premise, as if dreamed into existence by a roomful of young people with beers. Part of the appeal is that my friends and I could come up with these things. I feel that way about Jaws, Tremors, and I don't know what all else. I'm watching the premiere of Time Warp on the Discovery Channel. All it is is they show cool stuff happening and make it even cooler by slowing it down with a high-speed camera. It's so elementary that I'm surprised it took us (humanity) so long to come up with it. It seems like something they would have done when they invented the high-speed camera. Maybe they did and just didn't televise it. I recommend it for mindless background entertainment.

Yesterday I made some olive and rosemary pancakes. Nothing sweet about them--regular pancakes aren't even that sweet, it's just the syrup, fruit, or sugar you add, but these are even more savory. A Mollie Katzen recipe. It feels so good to try something new. I already made all the batter into pancakes so I can freeze them, because while they're delicious, they're not the kind of thing I want to eat for a week just because they'll go bad. Actually nothing is the kind of thing I want to eat for a week, and I'm discovering how helpful my freezer is. Who knew? I got a blender on Monday and have had a smoothie every day since. I even used the food processor attachment for the olives in the pancakes. I've already officially gotten my money's worth. I love when a purchase proves itself so quickly.

My class discussed Annie Dillard today, and as usual they are more insightful and seasoned than I am and pretty much changed my mind about the reading. I'd forgotten, or just not known, how divisive Dillard can be. Lah-di-dah cock-eyed optimists like me eat her up, and cynics just sneer away. After our discussion today, I stand loyal to her but certainly see the basis for all criticisms. Many students said they just didn't get it, walked away unchanged, so we joked about checking the SparkNotes. That cracked me up, because what would be on the SparkNotes of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? "Chapter 1: Annie goes to live at Tinker Creek. Chapter 2: She is still there and totally enthralled. Chapter 3: She tells us some fascinating information in an awed tone. Chapter 4: She visits the creek again and is awed again." Actually, I'm going to go check SparkNotes for that right now. The question is, does that matter? That there's no plot or change? The Pulitzer people say no. I say, eh, if a student wrote like that I'd probably tell them to show us a change in the narrator, show us a point, and not fall back on beautiful language. Now if we can only get my other class to step it up, which for them means, oh I don't know, read the material. Oh, the difference between general studies and creative writing students. At least in that class we're reading The Importance of Being Earnest, so I know what's going on just by reading it instead of relying on the big prof for everything.

There's a "parade to the polls" from campus tomorrow for early voting. I have class then, but how cool. I think I'm voting early. Why not? Yeehaw.

My Gift to You

Yo, check it. I was reading an eHarmony Advice article on romance, and there's a section on cooking. Among its sentences, we find, "Add some wine and candles, and Don Quixote will start looking like a slacker in comparison." Now, I don't know much about Don Quixote, but I never thought of him as romantic. I think the eFolks might mean Don Juan. If I'm right, this is funny. Funny enough to share with the world. You're welcome.

New to the blogosphere

I can't believe I just used that word, but it's an exciting occasion. The pastor who spoiled me such that I didn't like another church for years, recently retired, has set up camp here: http://ricksmumbles.blogspot.com/. This is an important man, and if you have a spiritual inclination you should check out his blog. It's brand new. (Heh heh.) So be among the first to visit! Maybe if you write comments, he will post a lot.

In other news, I think I've finally hit my stride with writing and come up with a comfortable, fascinating subject capable of keeping me interested long enough to write a whole thesis on't. http://www.taize.fr/. Very close to my heart. You should go. And invite me to go with you. Added bonus: I speak French, so I would be a valuable asset to your group.

I made not one but two trips to the library book sale. The only reason I'm not worried for my mental health in relation to buying books is that I was able to leave behind many books I could well have purchased. Now I've got the crowded-shelf problem anyway, and not nearly enough time to read. My habit lately is to read a bunch of books a little at a time, at the same time. Like, sit down with a stack and read one page of eight or ten books. I got the idea from Sparrow, so it can't be all bad, but it's making it hard for me to read anything for longer than that. I console/inflate myself by reading things like The Whipping Boy, and saying I read a whole book, look, I can read a whole book, I can. Holding it up as evidence (to no one but myself) that I am capable of reading a whole book. So cheap. Oh well. Since everything's cyclical, soon enough I'll be reading like a normal person.

Oh, here's something cool (can you tell I just learned how to insert links?): http://www.humancalendar.com/. Found through Scott's blog.

I think I'm going to the Seagrove pottery festivalS. I want all the dirt behind the clay. This is all fascinating, sad, and hilarious to me. Gotta figure out where it is and whether anyone I know lives close enough for me to crash with them, because I have a feeling there'll be no room at the inns. So exciting. Look at me acting like a real writer.

This is why I should go to places with no internet.

I've done everything on my computer today but write. I have expertly arranged my bookmarks (er, favorites), bookmarked (favorited?) some sites for writing research, looked at other people's blogs, written this post, checked email, reviewed the week's PostSecrets in English and French, and thought nobly upon the enticing possibilities of all the research I'm going to do, all the topics that are just so fascinating to me, all the books that are brewing inside this brunette-covered brain. And their name is Legion. Oh, you betcha (anyone? Anyone? Palin?), there's synesthesia, wine in France and in NC, Taize and Seagrove and pottery, comics, the history of typography, everything that pops into my head is there in full-fledged hardback bound form, right down to the author photo, which doesn't exist but I know just which pose I want. There's just one small problem.

The writing.

Not my thing lately, it seems, despite my mapping out all the ideas in my world and their connections on butcher paper on the kitchen floor, despite my blocking out time to write, despite my (parents) paying good money to be here and devoting three years of my life to writing, and taching writing--for goodness' sake, if my students knew how long it'd been since I really put myself into a piece and got behind it instead of dashing something off for workshop and couching it in disclaimers about how rough it is, they'd stage a coup. Unless we had class outside, in which case they wouldn't notice or care.

Other non-writing things I have done: library book sale, cheap massage at the technical college, reading Othello, reading other stuff, several episodes of Project Runway, walking Wrightsville Beach Loop, considering a small party, a little cleaning here and there. Nothing I shouldn't have done, but geez, I have got to come up with a system that will make me do what I say I do.

Any ideas?

I don't know how to get just the funniest part. The part I want to show you is about God and Jesus, several minutes in. Cracks me up for a good 18 hours now.

Something is wacky on my taskbar. Lugging the ol' computer to IT on campus tomorry and hoping someone there knows from Vista.

I spread out some butcher paper on my kitchen floor and made a sprawling map of things I could write about. Lots of connective lines. Groups of topics are becoming clearer. It's fun stuff.

men i don't know inside my brain

You know what I realized yesterday? When I read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (which is as often as possible), I picture James Thurber, or some Thurber hero. I think it has to do with the era, and the clothing, and the age of the man. It would have to be Thurber in a bad mood, though, becuase Prufrock seems so much less able to laugh at himself. Strange, strange thing, the way a mind works.

Speaking of my mind working (ish), I forgot my ATM PIN for the third time in four months or so, and also forgot where I wrote it down, or possibly threw that away. And now that David Foster Wallace is gone, my constant mixing him up with Scott Russell Sanders is more of a problem. Then again, maybe I'll be able to distinguish them now. It has nothing to do with their writing, it's just that they both have three names, and I discovered them at the same time. And it's not really mixing them up, because I would never call SRS by DFW's name. I just call them both Scott Russell Sanders. I'm just waiting for the day when David Hyde Pierce, Michael Ian Black, or Stephen Jay Gould enters the mix. Oh, lawd.

I do not believe in the end of blessings.

Today is the day for a haircut, and maybe the purchase of a new Bible, and a sweet-potato-and-black-bean quesadilla, and a trip to Goodwill if I'm feeling especially indulgent.

Yesterday I went to the movies too early, so I walked to the library and got some books on comics. I owed four dollars in late fees, but only from one day of lateness because it was two DVDs and they are two dollars per day late per DVD, so it wasn't as grave as I thought. The movie was beautiful, but I didn't quite get the ending, so maybe one day I'll read the book. Maybe not. Erin went with me and rode her bike home, and I pulled up behind her at a stoplight. I came home and ate homemade shells and cheese with breadcrumbs on top, then graded an impressive paper.

The day before that I went to the first meeting for Disciple Bible study, and the leader is the father of a friend from college, which was a surprise and made me feel even better about joining the study.

On Saturday, I spent the day in the upstairs of a coffee shop downtown reading and researching, and the evening at a reggae festival and then a terrible redneck bar about which my curiosity is now soundly sated.

On Friday, I found the herbal drink I've been searching for, Celestial Seasonings' Roastaroma, at the co-op. I was afraid they didn't make it any more.

In two days and a few hours I'll be on the road to Cooperstown, New York, for a wedding reception.

Two weeks after that is the public library book sale,
and then I'm reading at a reading,
and then it's Halloween and I'm going to Greensboro for the Avett Brothers,
and then it's Writers' Week,
and then it's Thanksgiving and Christmas,
and then AWP Chicago with Art Spiegelman,
and then it's almost time to start dreaming about summer and maybe a move downtown.

So who cares if I'm better at having ideas than implementing them? Who cares if I don't have a boyfriend or a date, and if one of my classes is not well, and I'm probably not going to enter that one great writing contest? Everything is the picture of perfection, and the way things are is a perfect way for them to be. I don't mean I don't want to change. I don't mean there's no better way; in fact it's the kind of perfect that can only get better. I just mean this is perfect and for once I know it.

Rachel Writes a Blog Post

I'm going to this Bible study tonight, and it is going to last 34 weeks. That's thirty-four weeks. Longer than anything I've ever done continuously, with the possible exclusion of school, which is only longer by a couple of weeks. I have never met or seen any of the other people in this Bible study. I have glanced briefly at the workbook, years ago. And the people will probably be older than me and talk often about their children and family life, and I will not identify with that, but for some reason I'm very excited about this study, so it will take a pretty terrible group to make me leave. I have always heard about this study and book and how it changes everyone's lives, and now for the first time it is working with my schedule and I'll live in the same place long enough to do it all, or most of it. I feel as though I'm getting down to business. Finally. But it could always not be for me--that happens all the time, everyone but me loves something. I hold my mind ajar. We will see.

In other news, I saw Burn After Reading and laughed and realized I am that woman who talks in movies and wondered when that happened. It was very funny, very well-acted, with lots of good scenes, but they didn't add up to much of a movie. As I'd been forewarned, the Coens and I are still OK. I would recommend that you wait and rent it or, as the kids do these days, Netflix it.

I have pulled off the coup of the decade in my poetry class, with permission. I "wrote" an entire poem of eleven stanzas using only found text from the Reader's Digest Science Reader from 1963. If I can continue to write poems by stealing lines and have professors say it's a great idea, I am switching genres. Not really. I keep telling myself I'm here for a challenge, I'm going to research and write this book, I'm not going to fall back on memoir, and I'm going to like it, and so is everyone else. Of course, when one has never had a class in research, one wonders how to proceed beyond the library. Maybe I could contract someone to do the interviews and stuff. Except I would still get to travel and meet people, just not have to take notes or anything.

I started reading French Women Don't Get Fat. When I typed that, I put "far" instead of "fat," which makes the sentence funny but not true. It's surprisingly readable, and I look forward to putting its concepts into practice. I am also savoring The Moviegoer, sometimes reading sentences repeatedly because I like them so much.

Two lost things someone should write: the second half of Aristotle's Poetics, in which he probably wrote about comedy (the half we have is about tragedy); and accounts of mortals who were welcomed into the Olympian community--according to Edith Hamilton, this happened to several humans, but once they went to Olympus, they disappeared from literature. What was their life like up there? When I say someone should write these, I mean me. So no stealing.

Tie Up the Cows, Maw!

I haven't bought bread and batteries or put together an emergency kit. I have, however, filled some containers with water and my car's tank with gas. I just don't know what to make of this. Classes are canceled, but they also get canceled when there's a quarter-inch of snow. So just how bad is this going to be?

Nothing to do but wait. I have plenty of food and stuff, and my cell phone and car. But still, how weird. The last one I remember that did anything was Fran, and we were out of school for a week because power was out all over, and we did word puzzles by candlelight. Not so bad. And now I get to see if I can do it as an adult.

This Is Just to Say

that Art Spiegelman is the keynote speaker for AWP 2009! ART SPIEGELMAN! Chicago, here I come. I think I would like to go ahead and get a ticket and hotel room just because if I miss this, I will cry for forty days. ART SPIEGELMAN! I guess it's time to buy Maus, too, so I can get it signed. ART SPIEGELMAN! I. Am going. To see. Art. Spiegelman. ART SPIEGELMAN!

I Can't Win. But Luckily It's Not a Competition.

I'm back in Wilmington now, just getting used to the new/old rhythms and responsibilities. My body doesn't remember this place; the sand shifts as I walk on it, while the mountains always stood firm. The air is thick and wet, the sun goes down so early, and I'm just now not too stiff for yoga (which I skipped for the summer in favor of hiking). It's strange, albeit delightful, to read until midnight--in Montana, I always got caught up in something social instead. So little time now, for just hanging out and doing nothing. Always a lesson plan or a workshop piece or a library trip looking over my shoulder disconcertingly until I do it. I'm glad to be back with my clothes and kitchen and bed and friends, and praise the Lord! I actually write every day! But this summer I just got another magnet under my skin, pulling me toward yet another place I'll always miss. I knew this would happen--while I was there, I thought about being here, and now that I'm here, as I predicted, I'm obsessed with Montana. I wonder if I'll ever stop doing this to myself, going to places knowing I can't stay, and then I wonder if I even want to.

Rocky Mountain Fever

Either Audubon or Muir called Glacier National Park a place with "care-killing scenery," and that's what it is. When work is ridiculous and tiring, I forget it when I step outside and see the mountains. The Blue Ridge is (are?) really nothing in comparison. We have this peaceful coexistence thing going with the big-horn sheep, the marmots, the Columbian ground squirrels (who sound like birds and are nicknamed whistle-pigs), and we just let awe take over in case of bears and moose. I saw a moose swimming across the lake one day, only its head above the water.

My motto for the summer is "The world needs all kinds of people." Slow hikers and non-hikers in addition to hard-core, race-ya-to-the-top hikers. Reserved alongside gregarious, sweet next to salty. We can't do without each other, no matter how one type dominates in certain settings. And if one's gifts are private and hidden rather than obvious to all, they're just as valuable and dazzling as the easily-spotted ones. This comes, as most of my insights do, after a childish fight with the way things are. I got here and felt like a slow-hiking, taciturn fuddy-duddy. It took me a while to realize those first two terms don't make me inferior to anyone who walks fast or talks a lot. Hence the motto.

I had planned a much grander blog post, having waited so long to write it (the internet at the hotel is--shudder--dial-up, so I'm now in Canada, in the parking lot of a Safeway, which for some reason has WiFi). I think you've got the gist of my summer so far, grand or not. I'm sending you the wind on the lake, the reflection of the trees, a patch of snow the shape of South America, someone eating a bug on the front porch, profoundly inane conversation, sweet fatigue, and knowing on the steep way up that you get to take it easy on the return. I'm going to try to get some pictures up, a lame simulacrum being better than nothing. I can't really see them, so I've picked three more or less at random. Enjoy.

Step It Up and Write

Back when I had my TV on the wrong setting and thus only got twenty channels, I watched a lot of Top Chef on Bravo (strangely, that was one of the channels). A few months ago, I watched and enjoyed some Project Runway and realized it had a very similar structure and style, the way the challenges were set up, even the graphics. Then the other day, I came across Step It Up and Dance, and by gum, it's the same thing too. I find the formula engaging to the point of addictive, and clearly I'm not alone because Bravo has realized what works and stuck to it.

Which brings me to my latest imaginary entrepreneurial endeavor: a writing retreat that's structured like one of those shows. I'm sure people would pay lots of money for such a thing--they already drop a lot for writing retreats, and if it has a gimmick like that, all the better. I'm not sure whether there would be elimination, since everyone would have paid the same amount to be there. And it's sad.

To be clear, this would not be a show. No cameras present. When I found out the latest Project Runway champ was only 21, I referred to him as "just a baby," and my friend said, "Uh, how old are you?"
I laughed and said, "Twenty-four, but I don't have my own clothing line."
She said, "Well, if there were a show for writing, maybe you'd be on there. It's just a matter of opportunity."
As I agreed, another friend piped up laughing: "If there were a show for writing, it would be the most boring show ever."

Completely true, I'm afraid. Thus, it's just a retreat, not a show. Although we might have a shot at PBS. Maybe Levar Burton could be the host.

Woooooo.

I'm trying something new and exciting. Will we be able to see this video? I hope so. Enjoy.

Actually, It's Tolerable, but Just Barely

Today I watched part of Intolerable Cruelty. Besides having really gorgeous people in it (George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones), it's just not that great, from what I could tell. And that made me happy, because the Coen brothers are so talented, such masters of their art, and they have still made some forgettable, mediocre films. Barton Fink left me feeling the same way, and Blood Simple. Or A Simple Plan, whichever was theirs--see? It's not even good enough to remember the title! It means there's hope for the rest of us, swashing along through the creative muck. If you do stuff often enough, something great will probably come out eventually. A comforting thought.

I've still been indulging in nostalgia, about to start the last Dark Is Rising book and talking about it to anyone who'll listen. To add to the list, I found an online version of You Don't Know Jack, the best computer trivia game ever. It doesn't have the jingles for each question number, but it's still fun and challenging.

I Love the 90s

The other night, I found Quantum Leap on Ion, this weird channel with reruns from that era. I can't even tell you how happy that made me. The show is emblematic of childhood summers--it used to come on at noon every day, and we'd watch it while we ate lunch, then resume our playing. I want to find DVDs now and spend days watching Quantum Leap. It's better than the other bad-but-good shows from the 90s. I was up earlier than usual a few weeks ago and got to see Saved by the Bell and Fresh Prince. And I'm rereading the Dark is Rising sequence, from even earlier. So, nostalgia all the way lately.

It's remarkable how abruptly something can lose hold of me; I'll read two-thirds of a book and suddenly realize I'm not interested. And since school ended, I've had fun being mostly alone and reading, but just today I decided that time is over and I'm ready to be sociable again. It's like something outside me has flipped a switch, arbitrarily. So let the cartoons begin.

Know what's weird?

Lately, I've had some kind of switch flipped once a day or so, a switch that made me realize how absurd it is to be human. I mean, talking? What's the deal with that? Writing? Cooking and living in houses and forming communities and needing money and voting? We are strange. It makes no sense whatsoever. The world would be perfectly fine with jellyfish and pine trees and wooly mammoths and everything but us. And here we are, finding meaning in every little crevice.

Coinage

I've repurposed the word "fruity." Instead of meaning dippy, sentimental, schmaltzy, or whatever negative thing you might think it means, it now means delicious, sustaining, energizing, juicy, and good for you.

I know a lot of really fruity people.

Life on the Island

I watched just a little of King Kong today before church, the new one with Naomi Watts. It was funny how the surprises themselves became predictable--I knew that once a character thought he was safe, an even bigger menace was on its way into the frame behind him. As far as I could tell, the premise was that everything on the island was huge and dangerous. The displaced humans had to find a way back to safety. Simple enough.

I thought about how life sometimes seems like that island, with everything giant and threatening, a new monster everywhere you turn. It feels like there's no safety, no escape. I had a recent spate of badly timed bad luck and bad news that was like that (see the entry, "A Sledgehammer and a Sidewalk")--I'd get over one wretched thing, and another would arrive. I even started expecting it. Eventually I gave up in a sense, decided none of it was my fault and I was ready for something else awful to happen. In the movie, after a big fight with a growing number of Tyrannosauri, Kong walks away, but Naomi Watts calls to him. He picks her up, as if to hurt her, but then he puts her on his shoulder and keeps walking. That's what it felt like--being slapped around, passed from T-Rex to giant gorilla, and then lifted to safety by a gentle hand once I stopped fighting.

tidings of the overwhelming

In my most recent workshop piece, I wrote more about God than usual, in my usual-for-school safe, vague, impersonal terms. A classmate called me out in his written comments, said, "Use I and God in the same sentence. Be explicit." Good advice, but I was sad because it made me realize how noncommital I am in certain communities--I'd rather have everyone like me than alienate them by talking about God. And then in certain other communities, where I'm supposed to talk about God, I'm afraid to because my beliefs might shock and divide. So here's what's on my mind, for a start.

I love God and Jesus. I don't love churches or religions. Religion is a human creation, so I feel free to pick and choose elements from each and still call myself a Christian.

Jesus died for my sins and for yours, whether we wanted him to or not.

I am probably saved, and you probably are too, even though I've never formally "asked Jesus into my heart." He's always been there. It's not up to me.

I believe in karma. I believe in meditation and yoga. I believe in the Four Noble Truths and the Five Pillars of Islam. I believe every religion has a lot to offer anyone.

I don't believe anyone but God has the authority to decide, or even guess, who's going to heaven. It is not our business. Each person should focus on whether she is doing the right thing, not converting her mom or the pizza guy or the African who's never heard of Jesus. Similarly, I don't like it when people think admission to heaven requires a certain set of steps, a certain way of life. That's not up to us.

The Bible is a great book. A holy book. It has a lot to teach everyone. And it is divinely inspired. But so is Mary Oliver's poetry, so is Haven Kimmel's fiction, so is my friends' and my writing. The Bible is flawed because its writers, however inspired, were flawed. For example, it says not to mix fibers like cotton and linen in fabrics you wear. And we've totally rejected that law. We've rejected a lot of the laws dealing with meats and food. So if we feel comfortable ignoring those, why do people get so fixated on other laws and use them to hurt others? The laws about homosexual activity appear alongside outdated hygeine laws we ignore, so why not be lenient about that, too? And don't even get me started on the stuff about women. The Bible is a product of a time and place with prejudices just like any other, and we should try to extract the wisdom and guidance without getting bogged down in the hurtful specifics. We should also read other religious texts and focus on the commonalities, the deep truths that apply to humanity rather than a sect of it. (The title of this post came from the Koran.)

Anyway. Mind your own business. Love everyone. Give more than you receive. Pray and trust. Read holy things. Don't worry about the rest of it. God's got it under control.

The Perfect Country and Western Song

For weeks and weeks, I've been trying to remember what song Bob and Madison used to play on G105 on Friday mornings when I was in elementary school and woke up to them every day. They played something, something kind of country, every week, and it came to symbolize Friday for me. But what was it? I haven't been able to remember even a snippet, but it's been nagging me. Then, tonight at Azaleafest, I heard a riff of outdoor karaoke and suddenly remembered the line, "you don't have to call me darlin', darlin'. You never even call me by my name." Came home and Googled it, and now I have bookmarked the lyrics and a YouTube video of "The Perfect Country and Western Song" by John Prine. What a relief, and more than that, a feeling of accomplishment and recovery of something lost.

I've also been writing a piece about my old neighborhood, working my way through memories of each family in each house, and it's surprising how many stories life holds and how easily they slip under the surface of immediate need to know. So, it feels really good to remember things you forgot for a long time. And the Internet is like God because it's so huge and crucial that I take it for granted.

My hair is long enough to go in pigtails now, if I pin back the sides. The plant by the window is thriving. Skirts and tank tops are coming out of storage. We're almost home free on schoolwork, which is good because I've got Montana on the brain. So the future and the past are in pleasing balance.

A Sledgehammer and a Sidewalk

That's what I thought I'd need, along with wine, ice cream, and Office Space, yesterday when I counted to myself all the things that have gone wrong lately. I'm having some problems with guys and friends, all of which came in quick succession, on top of the yearly April-in-school meltdown, departmental politics, looming projects, and untrustworthy weather. So yeah, it's been a hard week.

BUT. I went to a beautiful wedding this weekend and saw some old faithful friends and felt like I might believe in love. The library book sale is this week, and I picked up Thurber, E. B. White, New Yorker cartoons, a book by Gordon Lish (Raymond Carver's controversial editor), a New Journalism anthology, and essays on Superman. I did watch Office Space (and what a help!), but I haven't engaged in carb therapy, and instead of taking a sledgehammer to the sidewalk I've kicked a few sturdy trees. My friends here have come through in ways I wouldn't even have hoped for. A book for me came in the mail from my mom. My favorite professor winked at me and said I could join his class in the fall even though it's full. I am blessed even in my whining.

A word about those New Yorker cartoons. I very rarely find even contemporary ones funny, and the old ones hardly ever. I enjoy them not as humor but as zen koans. Tiny, moment-sized knots that you untie just a little with every looking.

Of a Piece

I've been thinking a lot about Andy Goldsworthy, one of my very favorite artists, and how his work is intentionally transient; he uses rocks, or twigs, or sheep's wool, to make a shape, and the tide or the wind will wisp it away hours or weeks after he finishes. There was a saint, wasn't there, who weaved baskets and then burned them in a symbol of devaluing this world and his work in it. And I'm in an art show next week, which means someone might buy something I made. If they buy it, they might break it. They might let it get dusty. If something comes loose, they might not glue it back. I feel (on a much smaller scale) what parents must feel when they're about to let their kids leave the house: I've done all I can to take care of you, little shadow box and painting and collages. No one can guarantee your well-being now, but I have to let you go and trust the universe to take care of you. It's not exactly the same as letting fire or water destroy my work, but it's of a piece. And if no one buys my work, well, I can't say I'll be crushed, because I'll get to keep it. Win-win.

The semester has, with breathtaking alacrity, reached that point where I must begin to see work not as standing between me and freedom or leisure but as a gateway to freedom and leisure, a facilitator of those things and a link to them.

Comics and Movies: A Beautiful Friendship

I saw 300 last night (I just realized it wasn't called The 300, which I think makes it cooler), and today I read the book. The visual fidelity is commendable and makes me excited that we have the technology to do that. I felt the same way about the movie and book Sin City (same author and artist, Frank Miller, the ultimate man's man). Then there's American Splendor, which fills me with delight every time I think of it because the movie uses actors and the real folks, along with old footage of Pekar's appearances on David Letterman. Ever since I saw it, I scoff at movies like Good Night and Good Luck and Walk the Line that could use "real" footage but don't. Maybe scoff isn't the right word; I just don't see why they wouldn't. (The rights are probably expensive, but don't they have millions of dollars?) I really like those two movies, and I'd like to emphasize that they're great, but I'm sad they missed the chance to be even better. John Sullivan said in class yesterday, "Editing is much less looking for mistakes than it is looking for lost opportunities." Speaking of editing, I do it so much now that it spreads, inexorably and unapologetically, to my leisure reading. Today I read, "Your right hand sustains me," in Psalm 18 and wrote next to it, "Too vague."

My point is, comic books make great movies. If not great movies, then good, risky, hard-to-classify, innovative movies. Movies with eggs. (Eggs are the new balls, by the way. You can also say "eggsy." Spread the word.) As if I needed another reason to love comics. Oh, and the Persepolis movie is coming to Thalian at the end of the month! Quelle joie!

Woman in the Moon:Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Write a Really Saccharine Post

Near the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the play-within-a-play, one of the day-laborer types plays Moonshine. After being interrupted twice, he breaks character and addresses his audience: "All that I have to say, is to tell you, that the lanthorn is the Moon; I, the man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog."

Today, during a brief stroll around the ol' alma mater, my world resounded with, "This grass is my grass; these bricks, my bricks; this building, my building." That's where I visited Dr. Sachs's hidden little office for the first time. We had class in that circle of benches once with Dr. Ingram, during those contagious first days of spring. I learned to write in that building, and to read in that one. I went up on the porch of Phi hall and cried a few happy tears for the beauty of growth and change. If ever a place was skirted in stars and soaked in magic, if ever a place was a crucible for refinement, if ever a place was a character in a story, it is Davidson. What a resounding, loaded, momentous word. Davidson.

I was there for a wedding, and to comment on that I'd like to quote myself circa 1990, from a stack of childhood papers I recently exhumed: "Love is the Best thing in the Whole Wide World. it makes weddings and things likethat. it's the very Best thing of all." Still true! I used to think I'd be bitter or jealous when my friends started marrying, but it turns out I like it a great deal. Since I'm in no hurry to get married, I just get to be happy for my friends, and I always see other people whose singular beauty I'd forgotten.

Aren't friends wonderful? I could go on and on about how great my friends are. It would sound remarkably like a greeting card, though, so I'll spare you. (At least temporarily--bwah ha ha.)

In short, everything is illuminated. Life is beautiful. It's a wonderful life. I think everything is a miracle, and I don't care if you hate on me a little for being so upbeat. That's how it is, sucker. You're just going to have to learn to deal with it.

Thinking Everything is All Right

The Oscars: Could Tilda Swinton look more like Conan O'Brien?

I often rail against annual awards because they contain an inextricable fallacy: too much depends on the year, so great movies can go unrecognized and bad ones can win because of their competition. But when I actually get to watch the Oscars, I remember how freaking fun it is! There are so many movies I want to see, or want even more badly to see, after tonight. It feeds my starry-eyed admiration of artists, and if it doesn't, I get to criticize their dresses.

My favorite moments from this year:
-Helen Mirren poetically presenting Best Actor. May I be like her when I'm her age.
-The song from Once winning over three from Enchanted.
-The writer of said song getting a second chance to give thanks after she got cut off.
-Jon Stewart existing.
-TV Guide Channel's red carpet coverage, specifically the hairdo analysis done by white marks on the screen like in football.
-Those adorable freres Coen pulling simultaneously on their earlobes. Watch a tandem interview and note how they have the same mannerisms at the same time. And they're not even twins!
-Marion Cotillard thanking life.

Prom 2.0!
My friend published a novel, and her book release party was a prom. I got a kiss on my gloved hand, a "Rachel's my favorite person in the world," a flurry of variations on "You look nice," and a nice warm feeling all evening. The book's sequel is scheduled to come out in February 2009, so we're already planning for the next prom!

On the way there, another friend brought up the song "Yakkity Yak," and I said it brought back memories; my dad used to sing it to me, "That and--oh, what was the other one? I can't think of it..." My friend jumped in with "Splish Splash," phrased not as a question but as an answer. Shockingly, that was exactly the song I meant! I'd definitely never told her that. She said those songs are universal, sung by all dads to all daughters, but I'm not so sure. I think it explains a lot about why we get along so well.


My last few weekends have been characterized by natural unplanned movement from one activity to the next: walking to shopping to slacklining to dancing downtown, for example. I relish that picaresque episodic quality in a day, the sense that I'm really living and loving every minute of it in the most cliche but deeply right way. The quality of my company is sometimes hard to believe, it's so high. The extent to which I'm a raging extrovert is becoming laughably clear. I'll let Walt Whitman say what I'm feeling:

"I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well."

Picture Books

I just finished Into the Wild, which was formidable and heartbreaking and sexy and informative, everything I want in a book.

Except pictures.

Are a few photos too much to ask, people? In this case, OK, maybe the family didn't want to publish them, but think of all the other pictureless books. I challenge you to name one nonfiction book that would not benefit from photographs. Really. Post a comment if you can think of one. You can't, can you? Ha. Didn't think so.

Hillary and Barack, McCain, other front-runners, if you're reading this, here's a plank for your platform: mandatory photos for nonfiction books. You'd have my vote. Also, higher salaries for teachers and lower ones for professional athletes and other entertainers. Also farm subsidies for organic growers. Alternative energy. Get out of Iraq. Health care for everyone.

Oh, Lord, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I try not to use the word never, so I'll say some of that stuff is, um, not going to happen. For every truth I see as painfully obvious, someone is exactly as convinced of the opposite. For every Daily Show I watch, there's a half-hour of, I don't know, the actual footage it makes fun of, soaking into someone's tender brain. And while I call things painfully obvious, I just mean to me--after all the books I've read, all the conversations I've had, the towns I've lived in, while other people grew up with different books, talks, and towns. So, a little scarily, "obvious" means nothing, nearly anyone can defend his convictions as well as I do mine, and everything, y'all, everything, is relative. The truth is always ours, no matter who "us" is.

Ha! All that from a tongue-in-cheek rant about photos in books. So I guess I've decided to laugh.

The other day, our department had a poetry reading. At the reception afterward, I was keeping an eye on a friend because I needed to talk to her before she left. Every time I glanced across the room at her and three others, including a professor, they were all laughing and smiling so genuinely, having such fun and enjoying each other. And I thought, "That's what it's all about." Our program is so special because it's really a community and everyone puts energy into making that a priority. I take it for granted until I hear about other writing programs where no one sees each other outside of class, everyone is cutthroat-competitive, and they're just not friends. Then I feel very fortunate and blessed. I mean, yesterday I went ice-skating with friends from my program. How many people at Iowa or the other "top" writing programs can say that?

TV, AWP, NYC

Watching Ace of Cakes yesterday, I realized just why I like it so darn much: it's a happy, happy show. No one is competing. No one is arguing, really. No one is crying because they have to confront their demons or fear of change. It's a show about artists. Artists having fun. And who doesn't love that? Even if it does make you hungry.

Speaking of artists having fun, I spent the weekend in New York at the Associated Writing Programs conference, and it was a very edifying, enjoyable, and inspiring event. I came home raring to write, write, write, and then to submit stuff for publication, which is not an urge I get often. I ate some formidable pizza (it is true, what they say about New York pizza. Just when you thought regular pizza was perfect...) and very authentic baguette at Le Pain Quotidien, which made me think I should move there (move to the restaurant, I mean, not New York). Sharon Olds's reading was probably the conference highlight for me, all the more a treat because I went to see the person she was reading with, not really her, and she was waaaaay better. The dance was funny because, like, most writers are nerds, and most of them were really breaking it down. One of my friends remarked on the strangeness of (and need for) social gatherings of writers: "We're all writers, you know [meaning introverts], so [at the book fair booths] I'm hoping they don't say anything to me besides hello, and they're probably hoping I don't say anything but hello." Very true for me, too. It was a good time, and I look forward to next year's conference in Chicago.

Art!

I'm doing an art show in April with some other MFA students, and now that I have a blog, what better to do than post some photos? I only have a couple things so far. Everyone in the show is doing a box the same size and shape as the one on the left, with different stuff inside or on each. It's a very cool project, and I think I may be addicted to the three-dimensional.

the moviegoer

That would be me, having been four times in eight days.

1. Juno. Excellent. Lived up to all the hype. Great music, wonderful leads, and who doesn't love J. K. Simmons saying, "Tore up from the floor up"?

2. The Color Purple. Made me wish I were in the 1900s south, practically living on the porch, going to the dry goods store in my gingham dress made from curtains. There's some very nice church-choir singing. Perfect for MLK day.

3. The Science of Sleep. Eh. Gondry can do better; in this, he was just showing off his stop-action and crazy lo-fi effects. I do love Gael Garcia Bernal, and French.

4. Gone Baby Gone. Probably the best of the four. It would be very hard not to like a movie with Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, and Ed Harris, AND the best moustache in all of movie history. It reminded me of Mystic River (based on a novel by the same author, Denis LeHane), but without the strange parts I didn't get.

Husbands 4 Hillary

I saw a sign that said that on TV today, behind Mrs. Clinton at a speech. It was a very good speech, I thought. "I want the government to be transparent....I want you to hold me accountable if I get elected and say, 'You told us about that new health care plan, so why haven't you done it?'" The health care thing was intriguing: she wants to make the plan Congress uses available to regular people. She also talked a lot about the need for new energy sources, which I can certainly get behind.

It's a shame I don't really believe her. Or anyone else in politics.

On My Good Side:
1. Ace of Cakes
2. Writing down a menu for every day and sticking to it
3. No class for MLK day!
4. Jesus. I went to church twice this weekend!
5. School of Rock
6. Lynda Barry

Not So Much:
1. Trying to get used to school again
2. Cold so cold you don't want to go outside
3. Rain that lasts more than an hour

These are in no particular order. Numbers just make me feel good.