Wedding Report #4: Lindsey & Jeremy

This wedding was a long time ago. September 10. I started the fall semester two days later, and blogging hasn't been a priority since then, but I've felt that absence, so here goes.

Lindsey and Jeremy got married at Landfall, the ritzy country club in Wilmington. I left Richmond early in the morning and rolled in just in time for a luncheon at Elijah's on the waterfront. It was awesome to see Stacey and Lyndsay and Lindsey and to get to know the other bridesmaids I'd heard so much about. I remembered other meals I'd had there, the one where Sims called randomly in the middle of it just to see how I was, the one where Katie walked across the restaurant to fix the blinds for me because the sun was in my eyes, the dinner we had to say goodbye to the same Katie but she didn't even make it and I was bummed.

After a happy girly lunch, Stacey and Lyndsay and I met up with Stacey's husband Bobby and got ice cream at Kilwin's and took pictures at the river in our dresses and, well, I wouldn't even say we caught up because these are people with whom you pick up where you left off, no big whoop. Lyndsay is in Colorado, and she says it finally feels like a real life. Stacey is in a tiny not-even-town in North Carolina, Bobby working in his parents' store and Stacey home with baby Jonah. Best mental image of the trip: Bobby worked at Starbucks before they moved. Every employee gets a free pound of coffee or container of tea or whatever each week, and before they moved, everyone at the store gave Bobby their freebies, so their pantry out there in nowheresville is filled with options for coffee and tea and cocoa and any such thing they could want.

The rehearsal involved mostly walking up and down the aisle, and then for the rehearsal dinner we went to the Pilot House, right next door to where we had lunch. I saw not one but two videos of babies dancing, and the mosquitos came out something fierce but someone had bug spray to share.

I got back to Jeff and Brinley's and watched The Soup and talked with Brinley for a bit before sleeping in their guest room, which has a remote-control fan. On Saturday morning, I woke to the sound of Brinley using her KitchenAid; she was working on concord-grape-and-rosemary focaccia. It was incredible. Jeff was out surfing. Brinley had made granola bars earlier (which I've been making ever since), and she broke one up and served it to me with vanilla yogurt and strawberries. Amy and Eric came over and hung out. The best thing about seeing old friends (OK, I know I'd only been away for two months, but a lot had happened in that time) is the ease of it, like you never left. It felt like I just happened to be over at Jeff and Brinley's that morning.

I got to Landfall in time to hang out for a little bit with Lindsey and the girls before we took our places. Everything was beautiful and sweet, and when they knelt for communion with their backs to us, we could see the bottom of Jeremy's shoes which said "Lucky" on the left and "Me" on the right.

At dinner, I sat with Elizabeth and Lindsay (yes, we are overrun with Lindsay/Lindsey/Lyndsay in that group, but at least they have different spellings), and again it was like old times, giggling about boys and getting excited about Elizabeth's applications to law school and feeding off each other's sweetness and care. The cake was the best wedding cake I've had, the speeches were precious and touching, the dancing was wild, and the whole thing made me see, on the fourth time, why it is that weddings are so great.

It's so not about lovey-dovey romantic mess, like I must have thought it was. Weddings celebrate love in general, and every type of love is present there. You have people who watched the bride and groom grow up, little kids who look up to them, new friends, old friends, neighbors, coworkers, every type of family, church friends, school friends, those who babysat for them and those whom they have babysat. I saw that very clearly at the Moore wedding, not that I didn't at the others. I saw how much Lindsey's coworkers love her. I saw how much her parents love her. Jeremy, great as he is, he's just icing, and that's as it should be.

I stayed with Megan, who was wearing almost exactly the dress I had thought about wearing, and slept hard and woke up and had salted caramel something at Starbucks because they were out of pumpkin spice and went to Pine Valley United Methodist for their 50th anniversary service and lunch, and I looked at what they were putting in the time capsule and hugged all the youth and ate a pot-luck lunch and listened to how all the couples at my table met.

Then I went to the Guppies' house. Baby Jack was asleep, and I had a good visit with Chris and Brian. When it was time to leave, I had to think hard of how much I loved seminary, which I really did and still do, but man, was it hard to tear myself away.

Thank you, Jeremy and Lindsey and everyone involved in the wedding, Jeff and Brinley and everyone from Pine Valley, Chris and Brian and everyone else I got to see in Wilmington, thank you, thank you, thank you Wilmington itself for drawing all these fine people, for being the place where we met and lived and shared and grew, for being the place where I finally started to get it.

Wedding Report #2: Laura & Javier

I left Richmond just after class on Friday afternoon and caught a ride to the airport with some generous friends who were on their way out of town. Got some quality flash-card time in the airport before leaving. A connection too short to speak of in Atlanta, and before I knew it I was in Houston. It turned out the two people I was meeting, other friends of the bride, both had long delays, so I hung out with The Member of the Wedding, my journal, and the flash cards from about 6:30 til almost ten. The two delayed ones were very apologetic, but it was quite nice to sit undisturbed, with plenty of people to watch, none who had any demands on me and none I wanted to impress. The book was good--I guess I'm a fan of Southern gothic without knowing it until now.

I came up with a new career idea: airport chaplain. I found out later in the trip that this does exist. As Mom said when I told her, it's perfect because I wouldn't have to form any lasting relationships. "Yeah, you get to help people without anyone critiquing your sermon or the seating arrangement or anything," I said. Half-jokes aside, it would be a very neat opportunity. I've been noticing a lot of changes in myself lately, which I suppose is a by-product of a geographic and life-stage move. One of them became evident when I was people-watching in Houston: I've always liked to watch people, but it used to be because I was interested in them or curious about them. I still am, but now I also love them. A lot. All of them.

New Friend #1 got in just before ten, then #2 came from Houston's other airport after midnight, and we got to the house we were staying at after 2 a.m. On Saturday, we left just after lunchtime to find our hotel and change clothes before the 3:00 wedding. Everything happened in both Spanish and English because the groom is from Mexico, and the church was really pretty and the couple was really pretty and there was great rejoicing.

At the reception, I got to catch up with a few old Davidson friends and meet a few new ones, learn a new dance that involves a napkin, and enjoy great food and drink and the precious people at our table. Toasts and other announcements were bilingual there too. A few people went out afterward since it was only 8:00, and Laura in her wedding dress got congratulations from strangers, as all brides should.

On Sunday morning, from our patio table at brunch, we watched some unfamiliar birds swarm a recently-vacated table and scavenge the food. We went back to Laura and Javier's apartment, where we looked at pictures and they opened a few gifts. We went to the Art Car Museum, which was scary like many museums are for me and fun and funny like more museums should be. I went to the market and the bakery with Laura, and we looked at her Enneagram book and Amy Sedaris's I Like You and geography games online inspired by their world-map shower curtain. I started reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and we had French food for dinner and then bubble tea and an outdoor showing of Othello, which I had taught but still didn't follow. The grass was clipped very short, and there was a well-behaved corgi in front of us, and I couldn't tell the characters apart, and it didn't matter. We talked about patriotism and national holidays and how on Mexican independence day the mayor of each town goes out at midnight shouting "Viva Mexico!" and everyone shouts back.

Monday, I ate a really good cream-cheese empanada and we were off. During my long layover in Atlanta, a French family sat down next to me and stayed long enough that I worked up the courage to talk to them in French. The aunt/sister is a CPA in Richmond, has been for ten years. I had forgotten how quietly French people can talk. Sitting across from them, I heard their conversation as little but a soothing murmur. When I got home, I signed up for the Richmond French Meetup Group, yet another joy of being in a big city.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and delightful. Yet another kind and generous friend picked me up, and I had Facebook messages saying people had missed me, and hugs in real life, and a lot to catch up on even though it had only been three days. What a great blessing, to go see something beautiful and new and then come home to warmth and love.

The New Reality

Summer language school is accelerated. A lot. It's not one but two semesters of Greek or Hebrew squeezed into about six weeks. This has been, so far, a good way for me to learn. I like it very much. There's a side effect to that acceleration: it works the same way in our social lives. I think I anticipated this in some vague form, but I had no clue what a blast it would be. I use the word "blast" both in its slangy form to mean "a really fun time" and in its closer-to-literal form to mean "an explosion, a sudden movement, a momentary unleashing." "Whirlwind" would be appropriate as well.

We do this because some of us are scared (not me, not really), all of us are starting anew, for a few days we were a little bored and unmoored, and since class started we've embodied the "work hard, play hard" mentality. Friday afternoons we are as restless and frightening as caged animals, and when we load up the cars to go wherever we go, or pour into someone's apartment, the energy is frenetic and loose and fast and wild until Sunday evening when the Greek students buckle down to study. (Hebrew doesn't meet on Mondays, but we also begin to wind down about then.) We talk over movies and over each other. We make ourselves known in church. We are unignorable. We travel in packs. We are well matched in darts. We learn from everything, and we are always thirsty and we are always full. We have so much steam it takes three days to let it off, and then we have none for four.

During the week, the pace is smooth and almost lethargic in the best way. There is yoga and swimming and groceries and a series of foods I aim to eat each day and each week. The classroom is cold and the breaks are long. My stack of flashcards will soon be as tall as my hand, the long way. The rhythm in which we gather and disperse is like a slow and reliable breathing. Everything shines, but it does not hurt my eyes. When I felt sad for the first time since moving here, I said to myself, "Oh no, reality is setting in," but then I said, "That is not reality. The new reality is this." My cup overflows with joy and peace and freedom from fear and friends and health and love.

There's a Hebrew word you say when you drink coffee with someone. It means not only "thank you," but "forever and ever," as in, "May this state of affairs last forever and ever. We are not being chased, we are not at war, we are not starving, we are enjoying this together and we would like it to last." Unfortunately, I do not actually know the word. But that is precisely how I feel. May this last forever and ever. Amen.

Gratitude

I got back from church camp on Friday around lunchtime. The week was full of bugbites, humidity, delicious food, swimming in a lake that turns everything brown, very little time alone, the danger of stinging nettles, and SO MUCH FUN! I can't think of a better way to say (a temporary) goodbye to Pine Valley and to coastal North Carolina. My cabin was full of wonderful, fun girls, the other counselors were a great help, and I never stop marveling at how smart, faithful, fun, and self-sufficient our youth are. Thank you, everyone at Pine Valley, for making the week and the past three years such a delightful and challenging experience.

One of the highlights of the week was serving communion on the dock. I'd served once before at church and loved it. You get to look each person in the eyes and say, "This is the body of Christ, broken for you." (Or, if you're serving the juice, "This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.") One kid had the kid behind him take a picture, with a flash, which threw me off and made me laugh. Alex was playing the guitar behind us for ambience. Randy was serving the grape juice to my left. A perfect evening. Does anyone know whether a Presbyterian pastor would be allowed to serve communion in that style (people come up to the front instead of staying in their seats)? I think so. I hope so.

It didn't hit me until the next day that I can look forward to doing that kind of thing in my regular life. This also happened the day I got my first acceptance to a seminary, when I went to an MFA event and a professor told me all about how he grew up in the church and what made him leave it. "I'm going to get to have conversations like this all the time!" I thought. What an honor.

As I prepare to move on Friday, my calendar is filling up with lunches and dinners and other last hurrahs. Another cause for great rejoicing; I have so many great friends and so many great places to go and enjoy unique food. As hard as it is to leave, I try to keep in mind that you don't cry because a chapter ends (unless, as Ashley pointed out, it's the chapter in Harry Potter where Dumbledore dies, even though in that case you're not crying just because the chapter's over). You process it and get excited about the next chapter. So instead of moping about leaving (mostly), I look at Richmond churches' websites and the YMCA yoga schedule and my school email account and everything else that helps me focus on the possibilities and the growth to come. And I thank God for everything.

Wedding Report #1: Paul and Lauren

I left on Thursday morning for Raleigh, parked at my aunt's house, and rode with her and her cousin and my granddaddy to the airport, where we met Mom, Dad, John (my brother), and Allison (his girlfriend). It was my first experience with the full-body scanner, even though I flew in March. They had to pat me down because of the underwire in my bra. Hooray! We had a direct flight to St. Louis, where our hotel was really awesome and I forgot to take pictures like I meant to, especially of the sign "Limousine parking only."

We had dinner in the hotel, which was actually quite good. Several others joined us, including the bride and groom. The young people planned to go out, but we ended up sending a party to the store for beer and drinking in the hotel atrium instead, which was great fun. Between deciding to go out and deciding to stay in, we called a cab, which arrived the minute we found out we were staying. The driver was not nice.

The next morning, after a delicious hotel buffet breakfast, we left around noon for St. Genevieve, about an hour and a half from St. Louis. On the way, we got to see a little bit of the city, and I liked it. The vineyard where we had the wedding is in really nice rolling-hills country, one of five or six vineyards there actually. I didn't know anything about Missouri and was kind of blown away by how pretty it was. Our car (Dad, me, Allison, and John) got there first, so we went to a brewery down the street and up a very curvy one-lane gravel driveway. At the brewery, there were an uncanny number of dead moths or moth wings in the yard, which was pretty but kind of creepy. Then we saw a nice kitty. I figure the cat was getting the moths. They had a beer called barleywine that was like a beer-wine hybrid. A larger group ended up going back later that evening, and John pointed out that they had homemade root beer. I figured I'd have just a try to see how it was--why would I need a whole glass?--but it was SO GOOD that I had to get it. Really. If you ever go to Charleville Brewery and Vineyard near St. Genevieve, Missouri, get the root beer. And the barleywine. And the winerita. And the strawberry beer if it's summer. And, well, pretty much everything. On the second trip, some of the bride's family was there too, and her granddad played the clarinet in the background. There was also a nice dog and pretty stained glass.

That night, those who were in the wedding went to the rehearsal, and then the rest of us met them at the rehearsal dinner in the winery's cellar, lined with barrels and nice and cool after a hot day. Allison and I were standing near a table with only one couple at it, deciding whether to sit there. I thought, "Surely these people can hear us talking about whether we're going to sit with them," so I said, "These people look nice. Let's sit here." So my nuclear family joined Elizabeth and Brian. Once we determined that we were all on Paul's side (although we're just as much on Lauren's side, too!), Mom said, "Oh, you're Elizabeth from summer P.E.!" Apparently, Paul and Elizabeth did not go to the same high school but both had to take P.E. in the summer, and they would walk around the track together, and they became friends. So my mom says, "Which high school did you go to?" and Elizabeth says, "Enloe." And I think, "I know only one girl who went to Enloe. And her name was Elizabeth. And she looks not at all unlike this one." So I say, "What's your last name?" because I am creepy like that and remember the last names and high schools of people I knew for a week twelve or more years ago. And she said it and yep, it was my roommate from summer writing camp at Queens College the summer after eighth grade. She lives in Chicago now, and she's marrying Brian in October. We had fun.

The next morning, Mom and I were hostesses of the bridesmaids' brunch in Lauren's villa. Oh, I didn't tell you, everyone stayed in villas, which are nice houses with good views decorated in the French Country manner, and so much more fun than a hotel. So we went to the girls' villa, and the winery staff delivered chicken salad sandwiches and chicken cordon bleu sandwiches and strawberry turnovers and homemade potato chips and dip and coffee the makings for mimosas. The hairdresser was working on Lauren when we got there, and everyone else took turns getting hair did or stepping out to the spa for makeup. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the good food and decorated handkerchiefs with Sharpies, because some ideas sound a little weird but turn out to be really good. The rationale: people will probably need to wipe their eyes at a wedding. Some probably don't have hankies. It's nice to have a party favor. It's fun to draw together. Voila! A good thing. I've still got mine in my purse.

After changing clothes, taking pics of Lauren in her dress, and semi-helping get the couple's villa ready for that night, I took up my post in the chapel vestibule. I got to see the string quartet pass a cello up into the balcony. As I handed out programs, one guy was making a funny noise as he came in, and we realized he had a cicada on him! We shooed him outside, and when he came back he said it had been inside his jacket.

A note on the chapel: It was about to be demolished, and the vineyard said, "We want it." So they dismantled it and brought it onto the grounds and rebuilt it, or something to that effect. It was teeeeeeny tiny and very cute.

The service was lovely but probably the least memorable part of the weekend for me. Funny how that works. Afterward, Paul and Lauren rode away in a horse-drawn carriage under a barrage of bubbles. Then we took a few family pictures and went to the reception. I was seated with Elizabeth and Brian again, plus some friends of Lauren's from her study abroad in France who were also Christian and might want to be missionaries and were excited about my going to seminary. After dinner and the best-tasting wedding cake I've ever had, I danced a lot and took blurry pictures and laughed and danced and laughed.

The next morning, we went straight to the airport even though our flight wasn't til 8 p.m. We were too tired to figure out what to do in St. Louis. It was actually quite nice to read and chill in the airport. I watched the first two episodes of Modern Family on Mom's iPad. The flight was uneventful except that we had a really funny flight attendant, and at the end when the seatbelt light went off, he said, "All rise." I slept at Aunt Kim's house for about 11 hours, then drove home and started my last week of work.

To sum up the weekend, I was felt up by a TSA agent, angered a Russian cab driver, slept on a couch with two towels and a tuxedo jacket for covers, ruined my watchband by sweating, lost a shoe for twelve hours, had no time to relax, did not have a date, broke a wineglass and cut my finger trying to clean it up, semi-flirted with a guy and then realized he was with someone, disagreed with part of the pastor's meditation, and worst of all, had to listen to "Beverly Hills" by Weezer. Really, is that what you play when someone requests Weezer? Including all of this, it was the best weekend I've had in a long, long time. Thank you, Lauren and Paul, for getting married. Thank you, Mom and Dad and Kim, for taking us there. Thank you, John and John and Allison and David and Caroline and everyone else, for making it so fun. Someone should get married at least once a month. Oh, wait! That is the case! Now I'm gearing up for Laura and Javier in July.

I'm going to put photos in a separate post. Stay tuned!

Lundi Links: Sweet Charity

This week's Lundi Links features some of the sites that show the internet's power for good. These sites connect those with money to donate with those who need it. I have a long list of sites of specific organizations I'd like to help, but the ones I'm posting today are the ones that serve as directories or connections between many individuals or groups. To be clear, I haven't used these sites yet myself, but I have heard good things about most of them.

http://www.donorschoose.org is a very popular site where teachers can ask for funding for micro-projects: one set of books, supplies for one chemistry experiment, etc. I'm sure some of them are a bit bigger, but I love the simplicity and specificity of it, almost a poetry.

http://www.kickstarter.com is a little like donorschoose but helps fund small businesses, inventions, and creative projects. I've read up on a documentary about Matthew Shepard, a stylus tip that attaches to a regular Sharpie to make it easy to draw on an iPad, and funky drink koozies called Freakers (ILM-born!). Most of the requests have videos, and many have rewards that increase with the amount you donate.

http://www.razoo.com is a little like kickstarter but for nonprofits.

http://www.kiva.org is your path to being a microfinancer. The site partners with existing microfinance organizations (which are an inspiring and brilliant concept in themselves, although I seem to recall hearing something bad about one recently, like it went under or something?) to get small amounts of money into the hands of folks all over the world who can turn it into more resources for themselves, their families, and their communities. You can loan in $25 increments, and I believe you have a choice of receiving the money back or keeping it circulating in the Kiva system. It's incredible what these "small" amounts can do in most parts of the world.

http://www.modestneeds.org lets individuals post a specific need at a specific amount. A new muffler, travel expenses for a conference, a fan for a sick child in the coming summer, things that cost money but not astronomical amounts and that will make big improvements to the people's lives. There's some kind of point system involved.

There are several sites that keep track of charities and their activities so you know they're on the up and up (love that brand identity at Target, by the way, pipes up the designer in me). I haven't used these at all, but a couple of them for your perusal are http://www2.guidestar.org, http://www.charitynavigator.org, and http://www.charitywatch.org.

The internet, like pretty much everything, has the capacity for the most wretched evil and the most elevating good. I am so impressed with humanity when I see sites like these, how they bring strangers together for just a few minutes and a few dollars to help each other and the world. What a beautiful thing! I'm going to make a $1 donation right now. I hope you'll consider trying one of these sites.

Parents' for the Weekend

I cleared my calendar for today and came to Henderson last night so I didn't have to drive all day on Sunday for the brunch extravaganza. My grandmother's turning 80, my brother's 26, and both Munno (that's the grandmother) and Mom are being celebrated for Mothers' Day. So I get to spend the weekend here, watching recorded episodes of The Office and 30Rock (and Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar! God bless DVR), running the shorter but hillier route I've walked or run my whole life, addressing invitations for my cousin's rehearsal dinner, filling the birdfeeders, and playing with Mom's iPad. What a great time we have.

I checked my Union (seminary) email to see if they'd told me about housing. Not yet, but there were multiple emails with prayer requests and praises: this person is getting married, that person's mom has cancer. Also, in the two classes that I visited, the professors asked for prayer requests and prayed before starting class. Manhattan and Austin and Princeton and Frisco are great places to visit; I am going to the perfect place for me. I haven't counted the days yet, but I know it's less than two months until Hebrew class starts. Life is good.

A Pilgrim's Progress

I got my first seminary-related book today. I'll be reading What They Don't Tell You: A Survivor's Guide to Biblical Studies over the summer and hashing it out with an online discussion group of other incoming students. I can't go to the face-to-face weekend, but I figure it'll be good to get acquainted with people in cyberspace.

I also sent out an email to some of my Wilmington friends asking for company as I make the rounds of the city's best restaurants, collaboration on a yard sale, and help moving. It took me a long time to get around to it and a long time to compose it, mostly because I didn't want to ask for help moving and because it made the move more real. It seems to get more tangible and ambiguous every day.

I'm extremely excited about going to Richmond. The support and encouragement I've gotten have gone far beyond what people expressed when I went to grad school, which was plenty, so I'm certain that this is the right move, a rare feeling. But going there means leaving Wilmington! Dang it! Who invented that mess? I've never been so sad to leave a place and its people. So my heart is on the heavy side even as it soars.

Pictures and Thoughts

A few images from the last legs of the trip:


New York knows how to do mosaics. Not a few subway stops had their names like this.

Here's a staircase at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

This was in the Boston subway, as you go down a set of stairs.

And this is something in Boston.

And now for our regularly scheduled programming:

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Peter called me while I was driving from one assignment/meeting to another. I stopped at a coffee shop, partly to avoid talking and driving at the same time and partly because it wasn't yet time for my next thing. I sat in the parking lot talking to him for a few minutes, then I went in, but I didn't get very far. The place was closed, apparently for painting. So I went back to my car and turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I wiggled the steering wheel. I tried it with my foot on the brake. I took the key out of the ignition, got out of the car, and got back in. Still nothing. So I called AAA and called the person I was supposed to meet. Took out my Harris Teeter bags and laid them on the ground so I could sit there and read. It was a nice day to be out of doors.

The nice man came and jumped the car, and I got home without a problem. But when I got here, it wouldn't start again. So I asked my roommate what one does in this situation, called Mom and Dad, and made a last-minute semi-appointment at the Honda place for this morning. So much for the day of mellow productivity I had planned for today. It wasn't so bad, though; I took my reading material, drank their free coffee, and got a new car battery. Afterward, I went to the grocery store and stocked up for just a little over half the full price, all told. Love it! It's super double coupon week.

I made some granola this afternoon for the first time in a long time. Got some reading done, and now after a little primping I'll be ready to go to an oyster roast, more for the company than for the bivalves.

I missed posting yesterday, due to nothing but neglicence. And car trouble. So let me say now that thesis readings are the best things in the world, and our creative writing program attracts brilliant, funny, big-hearted people and turns them out even better. What a privilege. I heard on Thursday night about a sketchy hitchhiking incident, a snow-and-ice rescue, a mob burning the home of a black woman for dating a white man, a southern boy's meeting with the Russian grad student who's running the psychology experiment he's part of, and two girls who are maybe in love in the midwestern winter when one of them gets involved with a paraplegic man. Where else can you get all that in one night, and so well done? Thank you, readers, writers, for sharing your talent and joy.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

I rolled in at about 11 last night, neck and shoulders stiff from driving and, I'm pretty sure, lymph node overdrive. When you combine seven days of fast action, a mostly-carbs-and-sugars diet, lots of driving, and the effort to be all reflective and discerment-y, it's quite an assault on the immune system. Luckily, the before-bed Emergen-C, as usual, worked wonders. This morning, I felt as good as one could expect to feel.

Boston University School of Theology seems like it's not the place for me. There's nothing wrong with it, but I didn't get that flash of glee or giddiness upon arriving or at any other time. It feels pretty good to cross a place off my list.

Union Theological Seminary in New York is a wonderful place. My trip there involved the car, a bus, the AirTrain, a train, and the subway, as well as leaving my phone in the car and buying the wrong kind of ticket for the train. Once I arrived, things were much better. I had breakfast at a place across the street from the school, and man, do I ever love sipping coffee while looking out through a window in a big city.

Union is the oldest non-denominational school of theology in the country. Many films and TV shows have used the grounds to get the quitessential old-school academia feel, like A Beautiful Mind and Mona Lisa Smile. (I first typed "A Beulaville Mind." That's the town I work in. It would be a really different movie.) All the housing, classrooms, and offices are basically one big building, with a tunnel connecting some of them so you don't have to go outside if it's bad. Some of the professors live there too. They have a professor of Theological Librarianship. The class I visited was really entertaining and educational. Chapel was led by a student who had made her own oil paints from natural materials and had some paintings on display. There was a labyrinth made of soil. The school has one main entrance with 24-hour security. There's no class on Fridays. It's sort of part of Columbia University, so the 300-odd Union students have access to a lot of other classes, the library, the fitness center, and the resources of a much larger, very good school. Someone estimated that about half of Union's students are gay, and they come from all denominations. It was a very good experience. It seemed to have all the advantages of Princeton, like pretty buildings and preparation for all different kinds of careers. But it's easy to arrange an apartment, unlike at Princeton, and living in New York provides so many opportunities for ministry and puts you next to so many people in need. Princeton seems to have less of that.

So, I went to Princeton and thought that was it. Then I went to Union in New York and thought that was it. Then I went to Union in Richmond.

I arrived really late, around 11 p.m., after a full day in New York. Because I'd just come from there, I thought Richmond was the most boring and lame-o place ever. The buildings were not impressive. I was very ready to write it off.

The next morning, I left my key in the admissions office before going to class, and the seats had all these pillows made from T-shirts. They had one of those cool one-off coffeemakers that also makes tea and whatnot, with those little cups, you know? The first class I went to, something about Ethics, was really good. The professor started by asking for prayer requests and saying a prayer. She was very funny and mentioned that she'd written a recommendation for one of the guys in the class. "Did you know that every time I write a recommendation for someone, they think that person has to be black? Like they don't think I would write a recommendation for a white person!" She's black. Later, a friend told me that her nephew is Nick Cannon, who was in Drumline and is married to Mariah Carey. "I found out that my nephew got married by watching Entertainment Tonight! I thought we were a close family!" she had said at the time.

After class, I went to the admissions office for a couple of talks, one with the dean of students and one with the financial aid person. But first, they told me I got in! They hadn't finalized the financial aid package but said it would be better than Princeton's. (That's how they put it, too. "We'll do better than Princeton." Just kidding!) Summer school starts in July, and they recommended that I go this summer. It sounds like a great way to adjust to living there and ease into having a full load.

The place I stayed was a one-bedroom apartment. Its condition and workmanship weren't anything special, but it was very spacious, with a study and a storage room. I've been assuming I want an apartment as opposed to a dorm, for various reasons, one of which is that I don't want to live in an already-furnished place. My tour guide mentioned that she might ask the housing people to take some of her dorm furniture out so she could bring her own, and I'd never thought of that! So I asked to see a dorm after all. It was much nicer than the apartment! Hardwood floors! Private bathroom! The one I visited basically had two rooms, at least one of which was much bigger than mine. The only disadvantage from an apartment is sharing a kitchen, but it seemed like people are pretty respectful about shelf space and not eating each other's food. There are two ovens, so the likelihood of both being in use is small. They did say that particular dorm might be full, and the other one is apparently not so great. It was a pleasant surprise, though, that at least the one dorm is so nice.

At chapel, the preacher was a professor there and a Davidson grad. His sermon was very good. We had a community lunch afterward, and I went to a class on theories of religious education, which was also very thought-provoking. I had a lot of trouble keeping my mouth shut, actually, because there were so many good ideas flying around.

I met with another professor who's also a Davidson grad, then had dinner with friends and hit the road, spinning with delight and dismay. Oh, well. No one ever told me it would be an easy or clear-cut decision. I'm very blessed to have had that trip and seen so many people I already knew as well as meeting new folks. I learned a lot, and now I have a bit more time to consider the various factors. I very much look forward to seeing how this will all turn out.

March, Thus Far

I've gotten into Princeton Theological Seminary, which I must say is a pretty big deal. I'm visiting next Friday and then hitting Boston University, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Union Theological Seminary in Richmond at the beginning of the next week. The cool part is that I can't visit schools on a weekend because I need to see classes, so on Saturday and Sunday I have 48 hours to kill in the New York/Boston/Jersey/wherever I want to go area! Kevin told me to go to Spider-Man because it has so many problems that it's cheap. Who knows what I'll end up doing? It might be nice to sit in a hotel room and read. Let me know if you have any ideas for fun, cheap/free things around there.

It's remarkable how much I am attached to this "new" future. I put "new" in quotes because it's been floating around in my head and heart for so long but only now becoming real. When I was in grad school, and before, I wasn't thinking much about my future except to be anxious about it. Now, I'm almost more excited about whatever service and ministry I'll engage in after seminary than I am about being in school! That's a first, let me tell you, and part of why it's the right step.

That attachment to the future, though, sure does dilute certain elements of the present, namely my job. I feel pretty checked-out about work much of the time. But luckily, the rest of life is burstingly vivid! Wilmington is so dear, I'm living it up with my friends, and I've begun working out first thing in the morning, which is going surprisingly well for me. When I think about leaving here, I block it out except to dream about the huge going-away party I'm going to have. It's going to be an all-day affair.

Aha! I just thought of what I'm doing for lent! BLOGGING! I hadn't thought of anything but giving blood, which is quite a big thing for me but only a one-time deal. Now, I am happy with the decision to blog daily. Hold me accountable, will you? Uh, maybe I can get some kind of waiver for when I'm on my seminary scouting trip. I've considered taking my computer because some of the housing has internet access. We shall see.

Here I Am Again

Not exactly on my own, but back after such a glorious four days or so at Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving. I didn't do anything I didn't want to do! And I did a lot of stuff I did want to do, like watching Date Night and eating excellent food and walking around the neighborhood and reading old New York Timeses.

And then I came here. There were a lot of tears on the way back. It's the first time I've been upset to come back to Wilmington, and one of very few times I've not wanted to return to any place I've lived. It seems to mark the point where it's clear that a move is coming. Without Lyndsay here, and with Lindsey in an important relationship, with most of my school friends finna graduate and move on, with people talking about not having supper club and with too many other changes spinning me around, the town loses much of its sparkle. Sure, downtown is sweet, sure there's a selection of beaches, but with no one to enjoy them with, what's the point? Today, I'd rather rip off the band-aid and start over somewhere new than stay here and watch things deteriorate. Both options are pretty unpleasant, but the idea of something new has its familiar pull. So the relentless search continues, as the emotional and logistical sides of the problem take turns being front and center. Mostly I just want to lie down.

In Date Night, there's a scene where Tina Fey tells Steve Carell (her husband) how hard it is for her to handle everything, how exhausted she is with all of her responsibilities. You've seen twice how she asks him to do something and then decides it'd be easier to do it herself. So during this conversation, Steve says, "You know what would make some of those things a whole lot easier? Me." He says she doesn't trust him to do things right, so she takes everything on herself instead. And he may use too much jelly on the PB&J, or he may buy the wrong kind of toy, but he says he will surprise her. And he genuinely wants to do these things and anything else he can to help.

At the time, it was a sweet scene and a pointed observation about how many couples operate. But later, as I thought it over, I realized I'm just like Tina Fey's character in that way. There's a way things should be done, and I'm the one who has it figured out. Other people might mess things up, but more importantly, I am resistant to letting even God handle things for me. I'm so insistent on my system that I leave no room for any aid, even from the best helper in the universe. So now I'm at that wretched-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach point where I know what change I need to make but am not at all excited about making it. Because it involves change, not just changing circumstances which can sometimes be fun, but changing myself. Changing who I am and how I think and feel. It also requires trust, which I've almost given up on ever having or understanding. And humility. And a dozen other qualities I don't even know I need.

So here's to holidays like Thanksgiving where family and love and food and fun can help us forget how much work we have ahead of us. To quiet car rides that help us remember. To towns like Wilmington where the friend parade never stops, and to the future, where we'll at least have another day's worth of experience to help us figure things out.

Weekend Bonanza, part 5: Seagrove

I covered a sheriff's department meeting for work at 8 a.m. and wrote it up, then headed to the middle of the state for a weekend of relaxation. I had a grand vision of spending all of Saturday reading, maybe watching something on TV, and generally having nothing to worry about and nowhere to be. Friday night would be the opening gala for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters.

But first, I wanted to see a bookbinding exhibit at UNC-Greensboro. I called my friend Sims, who lives somewhat near there, after seeing a sign that I always see that said "Sims Pottery." Sims' first name is Margaret, and she hates it. Her middle name is Sims. So I called to see if she wanted to see this exhibit with me and have a cone at the Yum-Yum. Alas, she was at work, but she invited me to see Harry Potter with her on Saturday or have dinner. I squirmed at losing my grand vision of relaxation, but it's not every day that you get to see Philip and Sims (or anyone like them!), so we said we'd talk later.

The bookbinding exhibit was neat, but it was a much smaller deal than I thought it was. It was in a room where people were working, and it was sort of like, "Oh, that, yeah, that's over there." And they were all leather-bound for posterity, not handmade in the way I had expected. I was glad I went. Then I had my child-sized Yum-Yum cone, which was the perfect amount, and got on the road to the storied house on Badin Lake.

Mom had just gotten there and was turning on the water. I helped her unload some slate she'd bought at the slate mine on her way there, and then I swept the leaves off the dock and we talked about law enforcement and how I feel much more tender-hearted toward them and thankful for them than I did before starting at this job. Not that I was like, "cops suck," but I took a rather cynical view before.

We got to Luck's bean cannery for the gala (I love that word), and there were fewer cars in the parking lot, and the music inside was too loud at first. Someone told me later that the parking was freer because they hadn't let potters park there this time, which made me feel better because I was worried there were fewer folks. Mom bought a batter bowl by Vernon Owens and some tiny vases by Michael Mahan and probably some other things. I saw a lot that I liked but nothing I needed, and I was perfectly content to just soak up the beauty. I lined up a jeweler, Jennie Lorette Keats of JLK Jewelry, to make my wedding ring. Now just to nail down every other aspect of my wedding, including the dude....

We came back tired and happy and made tea and slept til 10 the next morning. We listened to Car Talk and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, then went for a walk and came back and had frozen pizzas for lunch. I read for a bit and then left to meet Sims and Philip in Asheboro, which was about 40 minutes for me and an hour for them. Clearly we were not as close as we thought. We talked about almost nothing but Harry Potter as they debriefed themselves from the latest film. The restaurant was Sagebrush, which was neat because they served the water in mason jars and gave you a bucket of peanuts as an appetizer. My food wasn't very good, but I was happy to be with them. We walked across the parking lot to the mall and got a dessert at the Books-a-Million cafe, which was surprisingly good. Then we walked around the mall a bit, going in the pet store and the toy store, and said goodnight. A very good time with very good friends.

Sunday broke my expectations in every way, most of it unpleasant. I meant to leave at 9 and got on the road at 10. I wanted to be back in time to have Zaxby's before Disciple because it was having a fundraiser for one of our ministries, but I had to go straight to church. I wanted to spend the afternoon reading there before youth group, but it there was a youth activity I didn't know about and a meeting I didn't know about, so I took part in those instead. Youth group was good and did not mess up my expectations for it. Then I thought we were going to have our not-small-group-anymore-just-hanging-out meeting at someone's house, but they had decided to go out to eat, which I did not have the money for and didn't want to do. So I was very grumpy for the start of that, and I think they could tell, but once I had resigned myself to sitting and watching them eat, I was happy to be with my friends. Until Lyndsay said she's moving to Colorado, but we agreed not to talk about that anymore beyond the basic announcement. 48 hours later, I have not let it sink in, nor do I want to. All I can say just now is, Colorado, you're in for a treat.

When I got home, hoping to sleep in the next morning, I had an email asking me to cover something at 9 a.m., meaning I had to leave the house at 7:30. God was definitely telling me to kiss expectations goodbye. Or it was just a kind of sucky day. Probably a bit of both. But the question is, without expectations, why do anything? And where's the line between healthy expectations that help you plan things, whether it's an evening or a life, and harmful ones that set you up for disappointment? I'm still smarting a little from the relentlessness of that day and trying to process what role expectations should play in life.

The next and final installment in the Weekend Bonanza series is, of course, Thanksgiving! My expectations are already high and fully formed. ;)

Excellent Day

This morning I slept about an hour later than usual and felt it pleasantly in my joints upon waking. I visited Karen at the Little Chapel to pick up a book I'd loaned her. She told me I'd lost weight! I always love seeing her.

I went to the Poplar Grove farmers' market to buy tomato juice from Alexis and Betsy, but they gave it to me for free because they liked the article I'd written about them. They had framed a copy! I also picked up a Pink Lady apple and two sweet chili peppers from a booth that had almost a whole table of just peppers and another of just apples, plus fragrant muscadines, blueberries, eggplant, and more. The peppers were individually priced, which pleased me for some reason (as in not by the pound or ounce).

I then stopped at a thrift store and, after much trying-on, bought only books: a Hafiz/Hafez volume and Miss Rumphius. There was a Little House on the Prairie cookbook, but I was happier to glance at it than I would be to own it.

My assignment for the day was to cover the United Methodist Women's Game-a-rama. They were so sweet and insisted that I eat from the buffet. Shockingly, I was happy to see the veggie plate and gleefully took carrots and broccoli to dip in the ranch dressing. I got three or four little desserts and after a couple of bites, thought, "I don't really want to finish this." Who am I? It was a great feeling, to eat good things and skip less-good things not because I felt obligated but because that was what I wanted. I never. (I didn't actually skip the desserts because I was worried about someone seeing me throw away their own creation. And because I was just so incredulous that I fell back on habit. Or something.)

I went in to the office after that and got some interesting work news about a possible change. I saw on email that Harris Teeter's baguettes were half off, so I went there after work to pick up one of those and a few other things. Came home and read, then I went to have FONDUE at the Little Dipper! I can hardly think of anything I'd rather do than dip things in chocolate and cheese, especially in such rich and relaxed company.

Now, to make some more days like it. Go!

AWP 4: "What's Your Platform? What Agents & Editors Are Looking For in Writers

This panel was more Q&A than planned little speeches. I'll mimic the structure by introducing everyone and then diving into what they said.

Christina Katz- This panel is about how to be an empowered artist. We're all responsible for our careers, not just putting them in the hands of agents or publicists. Becoming visible, getting known.

Robin Mizell, literary agent.
Venn diagram--one group that has studied craft and is talented, one group that has studied how to promote and sell. The sweet spot where they intersect could be "larger and more dangerous." We can cross-pollinate. Jane Friedman says the challenge is writers who are very talented but don't have a mindset for the business.

David Sanders- Ohio University Press and Swallow Press.
Connection between how much of a presence a writer has in the world and how they succeed.

Jane Friedman, Publisher and Editorial Director of Writer's Digest.

Sage Cohen, founder of Sage Communications. Not sure she was actually at the panel--I rarely take notes on who said what--but her sites are cool, so here they are.

When creating your platform, think about what else you do besides writing. How are you going to become visible and rise above the crowd? Our job as writers is to stand out. It can be fun and exhilarating and creative. When you think your writing career is fun and exciting and interesting, it will become that way to others and draw people. Your platform is not your CV. It's an ongoing effort to connect with your readers and others who want to know about you and what you're doing. It takes years of work--it's never too soon to start. It's a journey, a lifelong process, part of your growth as a writer with a career.

Your platform includes:
1. The authority or credentials you bring to the table. It's a presence. Ezra Pound had the best platform of the 20th century.
2. Visibility. Antyhing that was available, Pound would exploit it, advertise his cause (not himself). This is your life. Get your friends to tell you the truth, not stroke your ego.

That was the opening remarks. Here begins the panel discussion proper.
Question 1: How can writers build a platform and gain visibility? It's not what you did, it's what you do and what you're going to do.

Answers:
Build!:
websites,
blogs,
e-zines,
e-classes,
real classes.

Write.
Get published,
give talks,
readings,
workshops,
keynotes,
panels.
Host or organize author visits and reading series.
Coaching, training. (These are all things Christina Katz does.)

Facebook,
Twitter,
LinkedIn,
YouTube.
HARO- Help A Reporter Out- requests for experts, you can answer and get media coverage. Vlogging.
del.icio.us or delicious.com, social bookmarking.
Embrace all the opportunities that exist to help writers become authors. You already have a network in the real world. Guest blogging opportunities, interviews, reviews. You should say yes to anything you're invited to until you're so overbooked that you can afford someone to say no for you.
Create an online presence. It makes you discoverable 24/7, even when you're asleep or unavailable.
Brian Solis has a graphic called The Conversation Prism that shows all of the possibilities for online connectivity, all the different sites. There's a version 2.0 but I'm linking to the older one because 2.0 made my computer not only say "error on site" but make an unprecedented beeping noise.
With all this online stuff, you don't have to be where everyone else is--don't join a site just because other authors are. You can choose what's comfortable for you and what makes sense in relation to your intended audience.
The BBC has a list of the top 100 websites, in a graphic showing proportional traffic. (Just rollover the blocks to see what they are.) You can't spread yourself among all the networks. Once you're inactive on a site, it's not effective. (my addition: probably less effective than not being on it in the first place.) You make a long to-do list and do just a little of it each day. Use what fits not just you but your audience. Where they work, live, where they go, use the tools they are using. Twitter is very effective for writers. People spend more time on Facebook than on Google! Your platform often builds with what and who you already know, where you already are. Reinforce the personal aspect of it. Extend the reach. Communicating and connecting are why we read and write. Being a big fish in a small pond is good. Oprah took away from us the idea of baby steps--we now think we can just write a really good book and then suddenly be famous. She made us think we can put all of our energy into the book and all we have to to is go on Oprah. But our career is 100% our responsibility, even if we land our dream deal with our dream publisher. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dorothy Parker all had really messed up relationships with their publishers--they were parent figures in a way, or saviors who were supposed to deliver them. We don't want that! We're going to deliver ourselves.

Question 2: What are the challenges in building platforms for writers?

Answers:
1.Time. The most important thing you have to do is write. But you can't write 50 hours a week unless you're Balzac. You're the expert! Be the expert! Let the world know what you know. If you're not writing nonfiction, write about the process, write about writing, learn what the tools are. That requires some time-budgeting to pay attention to what's happening and your contribution, to further your career. For a writer, your career is something that you don't put down.
2. Getting comfortable with technology and tools. Get comfortable with slow growth--don't ask someone to review your book the minute they friend you. It may feel at first like no one's paying attention. You have to move through the feeling of meaninglessness--give it time to develop, just like any other relationship, to grow before you ask for huge favors.
3. Overcoming the attitude that self-promotion is vulgar or an admission that you're not talented. Remain other-focused. Chris Brogan's book Trust Agents embraces being present in other communities and focused on them for a long time before you even mention your writing or projects. Comment on other people's sites. Attitude is the most important thing. A bad one is the biggest obstacle. Also, clarify who you are, what you do, why you matter, why you're relevant, from the standpoint of common ground with others, through their eyes.
4. Confusing platform development with socializing. Not zooming in on what you can offer.
5. Thinking too much about yourself and not enough about others.
6. Not having a plan. Hope is not a method. Being overconfident, thinking you have more of a platform than you do.
7. Burnout.

Find three role models who are not necessarily largely famous, but whose techniques have brought them success. Quality resources are key. Quiet time thinking about your platform will help. Libel, copyright infringement, privacy violations, and similar issues will get you automatic rejections from publishers.

Well, that's a sweet note to end on. Sorry these notes are quite scattered--I didn't realize blogger wouldn't let me cut and paste, so I couldn't re-order some of the info. Next up: Spirituality and Writing! Woo hoo! Quite a departure from the nitty-gritty practical panels of the first morning.

Does anyone know how to email or otherwise send a comment to the postsecret blog? I have some mind to speak.

AWP 3: Squad 365 Continued

These notes are from the Q&A session following the Shameless Self-promotion panel.

Reading groups are often affiliated with local bookstores. Create a list of book club questions. There's a site, http://www.readinggroupchoices.com, where you can get your publisher to submit your book to it and then book clubs will see it.

Can you make your effort less time-consuming? Can you make it something that feeds your spirit? Find FUN ways to drive traffic to your blog, like Twitter.

Propose yourself as a writer/reader for reading series. Write to them nine months or so in advance of your publication date. Leave the crumbs through the forest--it might seem weird to take the initiative and invite yourself over, but they can't invite you if they don't know you.

My idea: have a petition for people to sign who want your book published.

Think of how you can be of service to your potential readers.

Pre-publication blog: countdown, contests, interactive stuff--make the publication a highly anticipated event. Don't post excerpts before selling the book because they may change a lot!

Make sure you editor/publicist knows some of the places that are personal to you where he should send press releases, places that wouldn't be on his normal list--your hometown paper, other places you've lived, places your family lives.

Before publication, don't tell too much of the story because then reporters and other media folks won't have anything new to tell. OR, the more you tell and share and offer, the more readers you'll get. Two schools of thought.

You learn from everything. At the very least, you learn what interests you, and a writer gets to use everything.

#1 way to get your book known: get in trouble.

Make promises you don't know if you can keep. Make mistakes. Be game all of the time. Have real conversations--people are more likely to read or buy it if they've spoken with you. Promotion is human connection, not entry into a great national machine called publicity. It is rendering service. When you render service, the ego's out of it and the fear's out of it. Big global plan. A little promotion each day (writing a fan letter counts!) Micromovements.

Sit down with a librarian to talk about how to promote your books to librarians. They might invite you back for a reading. Librarians will know about book clubs. Stores will send employees to readings with a portable credit card machine and books to sell. Mail copies with letters to your literary heroes. Or to your peers, equals. That's where collaboration might happen--collaborate with established artists in other media, and their platform can market you. Nonfiction and other writers have expertise. We are authorities about things. That's a platform too. Market with what you know, apart from the book as a product.

Here are some things they mentioned:
http://www.booksense.com
Drive by Daniel Pink
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
http://tribalauthor.com. They said the blog section of this site includes a post that helps you figure out Twitter.
http://www.4over4.com lets you print your own business cards, stationery, etc.

That's it for the Squad 365 panel, the first and perhaps best one I went to this year. Stay tuned for more AWP rehashing as I try to stretch the love out a little bit longer.

AWP 2

I'm going to do this in chronological order as closely as possible. So, the first panel I went to was about Shamelessly Promoting your Book. It was fun and really informative and practical. I'm just going to put my notes on here, incomplete sentences and inconsistencies and all.

Promotion is communal, fun, a lot of people involved. Twitter. "No sale yet but bravely planning for inevitable success." "Who's excited about what you can do on your own? Who feels beleaguered and confused?"

Jon Spayde- Living the Dream. book: How to Believe: portraits of Christian believers. Don't draw a foolish line between creation and commerce. "rapidly morphing and who-knows-what's-next publishing world" is more interesting and creative every day. Mini-connections instead of major outlets. Reaching out begins with idea and continues all the way to blog, blurb, podcast, reading, coffee house artist residency. Book morphs from static object into one stage of a complex process of communication. Communication and connection are the point. Better sales are a by-product.

Margaret Hasse- Premeditated Promotion. Freelance worker, consultant to nonprofits. Successful promotion requires a creative visionary thought-out tangible PLAN. Consult heart's desire and others.
1. Plan should have a context--statement--what you do as a writer and why. Mission--process, philosophy, passion, breadth, durability, challenge, distinction
2. picture of what will be different in community because of your writing.
3. PRODUCT--what you make and do that people might want to know about and make use of.
4. PEOPLE. Whom do you want to engage? Qualities of prospective readers who would like your book if only they knew about it.
5. PLACE. Where will you and readers find each other? How wide to cast net?
6. price. consider list price, advance. Charge for services like reading, etc., and think about what to volunteer your time toward. "Finance is a footnote to my story."
7. Promotion--how to reach and inform and inspire the people you've identified. Paid ads, profiles and interviews and reviews, website, email and direct mail, personal, trade shows, events
8. definite course of action--timetable, maybe budget. "You will hit some dead ends and turn to new adventures."
plan--from drawing on flat surface--also connected to Plant. Planting seeds.

Todd Boss. Get Committed. poet.
Poetry for popular audience. It should not be shameful for a writer to seek an audience--it's our privilege and duty, our contribution to the world. In other countries, poets are household names! It's perceived as belonging to all audiences, a public resource.
Let's commit to 2 assumptions:
1. The world is our audience.
2. It is our duty to give the world the poetry it craves.
How to act on it:
1. Commit to a public role. Become a poet laureate. Assert your leadership, assign yourself a role as a local public figure with a constituency.
2. Make a website. Make it yourself so that you can use it and update it easily, move with it nimbly. Use iWeb on a Mac.
3. Make audio. "Audience" comes from "audere--to hear." The world doesn't just crave poetry, it craves the sound. Without it, you're giving the world only half of the poetry it craves. When you sign a book contract, reserve electronic rights.
4. Encourage commissions. Offer on your site to write poems in praise or gratitude toward someone, from someone else. Create a new market based on emotional necessity, urgency, and deep artistic commitment.
5. Collaborate across media. Call for collaborators on your website. Think of yourself less as a writer and more as an artist. Chances are you're a filmmaker, librettist, and playwright too.
Commit to a poetry-craving public in as many ways as you can think of. It will make traditional promotion obsolete.

Marisha Chamberlain. The Good-Enough Book Tour.
Weariness and bitterness can seep through in readings, especially from the financially successful authors.
Touring may make you poorer--you will be paying your own travel expenses. Could be considered delusional.
Achieving profit goals makes people more tense and jittery, not less so.
Tour for reasons other than book sales. Not about me, not about my book, but about a few brave souls who celebrate literature. Sometimes bears no resemblance to the idea you have of a book tour. Your publisher might not send enough copies, or any!
It's not a do-or-die effort, it's good enough. To be all together and alive in the same room caring about literature.

That's the bulk of what Squad 365 said that morning. I have two more pages of notes from the Q and A portion, which I'll put in another post. I hope this is helpful for someone who's reading this. If nothing else, it's good for me to further digest it by typing it up. More to come; writers and non-writers alike, stay tuned!

AWP Denver!

Wow, I have so much to share. I had the most wonderful time in Colorado this weekend! The conference was amazing, more uplifting than the last two years, and shockingly educational. I picked up an armload of free journals and kept some of the best poems and pieces, which I might be sharing on here. I also thought I might post some of my notes from the best panels and, when possible, link to the folks who gave them. Is there anything wrong with putting a poem you love up on your blog, when it's been published in print? Maybe I'll try linking to them instead. I'll do these bit by bit, and that way I'll have material for quite a while. Non-writers, do stay tuned, because you never know what other awesomeness I'll come up with, and plenty of the conference material could apply to you in surprising ways.

The general overview is that I love writers and writing more than ever. Maybe I'm being preemptively nostalgic, knowing I'm about to leave the particular community of writers I'm part of and probably not be part of one at all for a while. Maybe I came into it at a sparkly-eyed time when I want to hug the world. Or maybe this conference was more full of joy and laughter than the 2008 and 2009 incarnations, not that those were dull or morose. But Michael Chabon did an amazing keynote address, which I hope I can get a copy of somehow, and George Saunders is much younger than I expected and peppy and does voices, which is perfect for settings like AWP where everyone is exhausted and prone to sleeping. Reading with him was Etgar Keret, who is new to me and whom I thought was Edgar Caret until just now. I'm definitely going to be reading him. One of his stories was about a beautiful woman who turns into a big fat hairy man at night, and her husband becomes friends with him. They go out on the town every night. He introduced it by saying something like, "My wife said, 'You write stories for all of your friends and family, but you've never written a story for me.' So I did, and I called it 'Fatso.'" Wow, did I have fun.

Outside the conference, I hit the Tattered Cover bookstore and yearned after almost everything there. I realized that it wasn't the books themselves I wanted so much as the time to read them. I also went to the Garden of the Gods and had a nice time exploring Manitou Springs, a very cute little town which, in the on-season, is probably overrun with tourists to the point of nausea. The Garden of the Gods is a series of rock formations that are indescribable. I get, a little bit, what people are talking about when they say Uluru/Ayers Rock in Australia has a primal pull. Felt it a little at the G of the G. Definitely recommend it if you're ever out that way.

Well, I plan to parcel out the AWP goodness for quite a while, so check back for more. Everything else is going great.

Beginning of a Long Weekend

I'm continually amazed at how much happens in one's twenties. My teenage life was so day-to-day, childhood filled with trips to the creek, most of the days up until college interchangeable. And then semesters started happening, where each one was such a departure from the last and an arrow to the next. And now this. Feeling kind of like a pinball, pinging against the edges of something gigantic and changing direction at the oddest times. I was telling a professor today (was that today?) about Spring Break, and I said, "Last month...no, wait. That was this month." March has brought three job interviews, which means three very different visions of what May and beyond will be like, plus all the ones I make up for myself, plus the aforementioned Break in Seagrove writing, writing, writing, the thesis brought from helpless baby bird to hopeful fledgling and turned in to both committee and grad school, a move across the hall, a toilet fixed, a roommate out and waiting for her replacement, and at least one other factor I won't detail just yet for fear of jinxing it or pushing it into some invisible wall or smothering it by using the wrong words but so far it's the best one of all. So, yeah, March.

And April means Easter which means wackiness at church, then AWP in Denver which means seeing an old friend I'm just now ready to see and possibly begging for jobs, thesis defense the day I get back, maybe a trip to Seagrove, end of classes, possibly starting a job, possibly moving I suppose, though we don't use that word in this family if we can help it. Maybe more interviews, more applications, hopefully a little Frisbee and bread-baking. Grading the last papers, averaging, and wiping my hands of teaching for a little while at least. A few weeks of pollen. Humidity that will hit me like a wall one day when I least expect it. The beach house coming alive with visitors. And that's just about the last thing I know, the last thing I can say without speculating. Because things are about to change big time, no matter what. My job, my schedule, what I do all day, is going to be hugely different than it has been for three years, probably different than it's ever been. Nothing else is really certain either.

Well, that's not true, at all. God is certain, and the good teeth and eyes my mom complimented me on today, and all of my friends here because I know that even if I move, I'll have them with me and I'll be here, for as long as it takes, for as long as I need that. I will always have words, writing and reading, other people's blogs and library book sales. I'll have red wine and running, and curiosity and a solid sense of the ridiculous. There's a lot more that I, that we, will have no matter what, no matter where, no matter when. A lot of things will change. But everything, never.

I've been trying for a long time to cultivate trust. In people, in God, in myself. Every job rejection I get is a chance to reaffirm that I know God has a plan for me, not just a plan I fit into but a shockingly fierce plan for me, for my life, that wouldn't work quite right for anyone else. I put Him in charge daily. I thank Him for everything else, for all of the people that are making me smile, widely, even on days when things feel shaky and frustrating or worse. For Easter, which is the whole point. For weekends, which run a close second. In some ways, even though I'm being evaluated by strangers, even though I'm constantly waiting to hear from someone, even though I have a relatively small plot of ground to stand on these days, in some ways, I have never been happier. I have almost no expectations, except that God will provide what I need and will put me where I belong, job-wise, town-wise. If you walk a set of stairs as if each step is the last, you will never fall. One moment at a time. Deep breaths, long walks, and lots of The Office.

Breyer's ice cream is $1.99 at Harris Teeter until April 6th or so.

No school until Monday!

The new publishing imprint at school is using my handwriting for the logo! Who's bad?

I'm reading for pleasure again, with the thesis temporarily put to bed. It's beautiful. I feel like me.

Everything is just right tonight. May you feel the same way.

What I Did on my Martin Luther King Jr. Vacation

I have a master plan to stick it to Wal-Mart by shopping the specials at Harris-Teeter. The e-VIC specials are crazy good, like half off and buy-one-get-two-free. I do buy things that aren't on sale if I need them, but the practice dictates my meals somewhat, which in these days of indecisiveness feels kinda nice. So I have a whole lotta chicken in the freezer. I ate tilapia this evening with rosemary (a trick my aunt taught me, so the house smells like rosemary instead of fish), and my go-to salad of spinach, raspberry vinaigrette, walnuts, and feta. A little bowl of cherries, and crackers and cheese. Quite a spread. Oh, and ice cream for dessert. I feel rather queenly when I actually sit down at the island to eat instead of wandering in circles or plopping on the couch.

Job opportunities come in a slow but steady trickle, slow enough that I worry but steady enough that I don't collapse from it. My job-correspondence spreadsheet--whom I've contacted and when--provides the sweet illusion of control. The weather continues to surprise and please us all--I saw two barefoot boys in their bathing suits on the sidewalk today. Student work is shockingly good for in-class exercises but predictably bell-curved on typed assignments. I think it's because they don't think too hard about the in-class stuff. I had them write one sentence and then pass the paper, write the next sentence of the story they then had, etc. One began, "Today I turned 96 years old," and the next student continued, "And it's the first day I've ever been outside." I almost got chills.

I'm workshopping next week, almost all of the book that isn't directly about the set-to. A little nervous because it's so different from what other people turn in for that class. They're all writing novels, fiction novels, and this is not going to be quite so linear. But one of the best things I've learned in grad school is how to hear and interpret responses to my work, so I can certainly handle whatever they say, especially considering that the portion I'm sharing isn't the book's heart. There are surprisingly few things I'll miss about grad school, but I will definitely miss workshop. It's simultaneously so thrilling and so safe.

I learned the most fun game ever last night! It's called telephone pictionary. Everyone gets a stack of note cards, as many as there are people. You write a phrase on one card, any phrase. I used "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Up the creek without a paddle." You pass the entire stack to the right. Then everyone looks at the phrase and draws a picture of it, leaving their picture on the top and moving the phrase to the bottom of the stack. Pass, and then write the phrase you think the picture represents. Pass and draw the phrase, and so on until you run out of cards, which will coincide with your receiving your original stack. Everyone shows all of their cards so you can see how their phrase, in most cases, got mangled beyond recognition. "Napoleon Dynamite" quickly became "swingset," and "Up the creek without a paddle" became "I see a happy fish and I am thrilled." "He drinks too much" became "foul language" because someone drew a guy drinking from a jug with XXX on it but the jug was upside down and looked like a speech bubble with XXX in it. You should definitely play, and everyone can make fun of everyone else's drawings, and you will laugh and laugh and if one of your friends is pregnant she will have to leave a lot to pee because of all the laughing.