Saturday stats.

Hours spent at home today (between waking and bedtime): 3

Sugar pumpkins purchased at the farmer's market: 2

Hours spent at a part-time faculty workshop this morning: 3

Days since our oven worked: 21

Percentage of crossword puzzle finished: 5

Number of times I listened to 'Surf's Up' on the way to Orem: 5

Minutes I slept when I got home: 45

Scary stories I heard on This American Life: 4+

Number of movies we saw this weekend: 0

The time I hope to wake up tomorrow morning: 8:30 a.m.

Assorted things I do not approve of: horror movies. The vast amount talking about work I do. Failing to see movies on the weekend. Working, as in going in to work, on the weekend. Not getting enough sleep. The fact that my oven is out of commission. The fact that the previous fact means I have to go to GD Lowes and order on and arrange for it to be put.

On the other hand, things of which I do approve: a croissant at the farmer's market. Sugar pumpkins. The hope of an oven and, therefore, baking. Friends. Visiting my parents and my sister. Eating a sandwich. Laughing. A nap. Listening to This American Life. Getting a #nachoselfie from my Scotland daughter. Seeing pictures from my kids on Instagram. Talking to my kids in general.

Sunday looks like it will be even better than Saturday, and Saturday has been good. Stay tuned.

Week in review.

And now, an independent assessment of my blog practice.

I spent the day with my daughters, shopping for a wedding dress for the younger. We were driving to our next appointment. I was furtively checking page views on my blog. Then this hilarious conversation, in which my progeny interpellates me about the subjects which move me to write on my blog:

Younger daughter: I hope you blog about this tonight, Mom.

Me: I'm sure I will!

Older daughter, casting a sidelong glance: Mom's like a teenager...always looking at her phone.

Me: (laughs, closes phone with a righteous guilty conscience. Busted.)

Younger daughter, not to be deterred: I'm not around all the time, so I'm not in the blog as often.

Older daughter: Listen, she never writes about me, and I'm the one who's here all the time!

Me: (inarticulate protest--what!?) Hey. Hey! I write...

Older daughter: She'll write about her garden. Work. And a hot day, you'll always write about that.

(a couple hours later: we're talking about the wedding, which is in December. My Scotland daughter will be arriving on the 11th:)

Me: I gotta make sure my grading's done.

Older daughter (who totally has my number): Oh, grading. You'll also always blog about that.

One thing about writing a blog for a really really really really long time: I never want to have experiences just so I can blog about them, but that's a risk you take when you write forever--that your experience starts to assume the dimensions of a potential blog post. That can feel a little cheap, and I don't want the people I hold most dear to feel that way to me. It's a little conundrum, though, because I also like going through this blog to remind me of things I once experienced--so if I haven't blogged about something, that failure is just one more chance that my actual experience will be absent. Maybe this is what Socrates was talking about in the Phaedrus, when he expressed his apprehension that writing would cause a deterioration of memory. Also, I recognize that this is not a real problem. But it does feel worth it to reflect upon it.

Well! never let it be said that the just opinion of my splendid daughters does not matter to me. So: we had a beautiful day, the three of us plus the baby, discussing the merits of this and that dress, and ultimately finding an absolutely beautiful one. It felt so special, that we could do this together. We cried, we laughed, we had a fancy lunch. We drank refreshing beverages from a drive through. My daughter, the bride to be, is radiant and lovely and so happy. My daughter, her older sister, is wise and witty and beautiful. Naomi was as patient as an infant could possibly be.

At the end of the day, we went to a park and ate dinner with a big proportion of the family present--talked about the wedding tomorrow, listened to and watched the kids play.

For today, I will not say a word about my garden. If the day was warm, who had time to notice? (and also I am not working nor am I grading this summer.)

Just being with my beloveds, and that is good enough for this blog.

Productivity Report.

--because every so often, we all need one.

Right now, I am eating several Christmas cookies, some of the last of the very last. They are still good. A picture, you say? Sure: 

But eating cookies is not all I have done today, not by a long shot. I have also eaten oatmeal, and an apple.

I am also charging and updating my iPod. And I am doing curriculum work which, if you want to know, is tedious. Also, in a momentous and decisive moment, I threw away some candy.

Also, I saw 47 Ronin, which was every bit as much of a mess as it possibly looked like it might be from the trailers, which trailers made me say  I am seeing that movie. And today I did, with my aunt Sally, and we had a good time, and popcorn. Very satisfying. Checked it off my list.

Also, I did laundry and hung up my clothes and washed the sheets. And graded a discussion, and did half of the Sunday crossword puzzle and took a minor nap. And made dinner. And then did some more curriculum work.

Does this sound desultory? Does it sound mundane? Did you perhaps do something better and more worthy, such as see films at Sundance or take a hike or come back from a small and splendid trip? 

My friends, I know that some of you did each of these things, and good for you, truly. I am about to go binge watch from Season 4 of Justified, without irony, because as my friend Pancho once said to me (I paraphrase), "You don't got to explain your viewing decisions to no one." Truer words, Pancho. Truer words.

Okay, spring break,

it's now time to show us your hidden passageway that will take us to the secret wing where you're keeping your extra week. Because I need that extra week right about now.

Sigh.

Well, here's my progress report so far:

• massively behind, still, in my online grading.
• making progress on my lecture/presentation.
• dramatically over-writing the script for one of my digital stories.
• reading reading reading lots of interesting stuff re the above.

In addition, I have

• watched two thirds of House of Cards with the historian.
• eaten pancakes for breakfast and an omelet for breakfast and leftover buttermilk blueberry muffins* for breakfast.
• and leftover enchiladas for lunch.
• taken many restorative walks with the historian and the big bad Bruiser.
• gone to the library with a couple of grandsons and my daughter-in-law.
• done piles of laundry.
• sorted through lots of stuff and put lots of it away and culled out lots of things to give away.

I feel that, in the interests of science, I should report that I felt considerably more relaxed on Saturday last than I do tonight, Wednesday, at 11:07. Also in the interests of science: I woke up this morning at 5:45 a.m., thinking about all the stuff I have to do. And also, I had a dream about mice.

Tomorrow will be the attainment of the digital story and the further embellishment of the presentation/lecture notes. And Friday, more of the same. Plus grading, I guess. Who can say?

*Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins.

I read a recipe that I adapted. These were sublime, so don't hesitate to try them. They made an unbelievably lovely Sunday breakfast.

1 1/4 c. white wheat flour
1 1/4 c. unbleached flour
2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt
1/4 c. raw sugar

Mix the above ingredients together.

1/2 c. butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. buttermilk
1 ripe banana, mashed

Mix the above ingredients together and pour all at once into the dry ingredients. Mix until the dry ingredients are just moistened--as always with muffins, you shouldn't beat the batter until it's smooth. The banana adds sweetness that's not sugar, but it doesn't overwhelm with its bananarama.

Add one cup of blueberries (you can use frozen ones if you're like that) and stir them through. Dole the batter evenly into twelve muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden.

So. Good.

The reckoning, part 3.

On Books.

I find myself to be an undisciplined, a chaotic reader. Much like every other endeavor I undertake. Anyway. I consulted my bookshelves, my Amazon account, and my memory to come up with the following annotated list of books I read, or bought, or dipped into, and why:

Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked A Hornet's Nest. Having finished the previous two, I obviously needed to finish the set. Slower, talkier; still had the advantage of the great character Lisbeth Salander.

Arnaldur Indridason, Hypothermia. Love this guy, loved this book. The character, Erlendur, is wonderful--melancholy, deliberate, intelligent. It's worth hearing about his own history as he makes sense of the cases that come his way. Also, set in Iceland, which is fascinating. I cannot get enough of this stuff.

Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist. I said to the historian, This book is good but it doesn't really have a story. I had been reading it a few pages at a time and finding it easy to put down. And then, I read the rest of it like the next day, as if it were the most delicious thing ever. I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a poet or have any interest whatsoever in poetry.

Beautiful Junk. A children's book about the Watts Towers. I am working on a poem about them, and this book was recommended somewhere in my research. It is lovely.

Judith Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands. Prose poems? Brief essays? about actual remote islands, accompanied by beautiful little drawings. This book is mysterious and ineffable.

Lynda Barry, Picture This. Who does not love Lynda Barry, except perhaps for those who have not encountered her? She is a humane, quirky genius. This book is Barry's answer to the question, Do you wish you could draw? The answer is: yes.

Joseph Brodsky, Watermark. I read about this book of prose poems about Venice in an article about traveling in Venice in the winter. (a) I really want to go to Venice in the (b) winter, and (c) this book is actually waiting for me at the post office as we speak. I am anxious to read it.

Kate Braverman, Frantic Transmissions to and from L.A. A memoir in which the novelist talks about leaving L.A. for upstate New York. Part of my L.A. Project, as I, too, am absent from L.A.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. We read this in my book group. I loved it. Not everyone loves it, but I did. I thought Ishiguro's handling of the narrator, who tells the story in an emotionally flattened voice, was kind of brilliant, in that the pathos of the story seeped through that flatness and was all the more compelling for the filter. Well, it's not a long novel, you can see for yourself what you think.

David Smit, The End of Composition Studies. I read a bit of this book and will probably read more. What I read was pretty depressing, I must say, but not wrong. So I better find out what Smit ultimately concludes. I hate lingering over the incisive yet devastating analysis, especially when it's my job to go teach composition.

Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: the Natural History of Innovation. I bought this because I read an article about it on Slate, which mentioned that creative minds are often chaotic minds, which made me feel good about myself. I love, though, the ideas that mistakes often lead to more creative solutions, and that a connected environment leads to greater creativity. Looking forward to spending more time with this.

Clayton Christensen, Disrupting class: how disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. My friend George recommended this. Also, this disruptive innovation idea was what spawned the recent reorg of the Deseret News (by "reorg" I mean, of course, "wholesale layoffs"). Sometimes you gotta read what the opposition is thinking about.

David Jauss, Alone with all that could happen: rethinking conventional wisdom about the craft of fiction. I bought this because of the chapter called "What We Think About When We Think About Flow." Have I read this book? I have not. However, I want to send this essay to some of my students. If it happens to be good, which I hope it will.

James White, The Salt Ecstasies. I heard about this book from a panel at AWP a few years ago. It's a reissue, part of Graywolf's Re/View series--what a great idea, taking out-of-print books of poems and reprinting them with a friendly introduction (here, Mark Doty introduces). A beautiful book.

Anya Kamenetz, DIY U. I feel a theme emerging--lots of books about higher ed and the challenges posed by different paradigms. This book still needs to be read by me. A colleague recommended it, and actually, I look forward to it.

John D'agata The Lost Origins of the Essay. Thinking a lot about essays, especially brief essays, and especially really old ones. This is a really good book.

Philip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay. See the above.

John James Audubon, Library of American Art. These paintings and drawings are spectacular, as is Audubon's whole project--wild and ambitious and grand. Working on an Audubon poem.

John James Audubon: Drawings and art (Library of America). See the above.

Selected Poems, Robert Duncan. Duncan has a poem about the Watts Towers, "Nel Mezzo del Cammin di Nostra Vita."

Darcy Steinke, Easter Everywhere. Memoir about Steinke's youth in a highly religious--Christian--family. I loved a novel of hers, Suicide Blonde, years ago. And I am interested in stories about religious lives.

Christian Weisser et al, The Locations of Composition. Essays I may one day get around to reading.

Public Literacy, Elizabeth Ervin. Another composition book.

Seeking Common Cause (Diane Bennet Durkin/Lisa Gerrard). And another composition book.

Anne Carson, Nox. I am saving the actual reading of this for a time when I can hole up with it for a day or a week.

Microscripts (Walser). Why did I buy this book? Because it is interesting looking. The microscripts are just like what they sound like--tiny pieces of writing, in tiny hand writing. Because it looks cool, okay?

Nicola Griffith, Always. I love this small series of detective novels. The heroine is Aud Torvingen and she is awesome.

Tana French, The Likeness/Faithful Place/In the Woods. All so very good. These are surely some of the most memorable books I read this year.

Berryman Selected Poems. Because everyone needs to read some Berryman.

Greil Marcus, When That Rough God Goes Riding. On listening to Van Morrison. This is more like notes about listening than a fully worked out essay, but it's interesting enough, if you love Van Morrison, which I do.

Kafka, The Trial. For the book group. We also watched the Orson Welles film. Kafka has the power to make you anxious, if that's what you're looking for in a novel.

Krista Ratcliffe, Rhetorical Listening. We read this for our theory book group. If I were a better person, I might gather my thoughts and look at this book again, and tell you what it was about. Like a lot of scholarly books, its crucial theory and working model would make a slimmer book than it actually is, with lots of examples and so forth.

Various LA guidebooks. I am now in the market for many, many, many maps of the greater Los Angeles Area. Part of the ongoing L.A. Project.

Down By the Los Angeles River. A book that will help you find spots on the L.A. River, where you can actually walk alongside it, hear it, see it. But don't step in it. That's a little scary. In a related matter, my oldest darling friend sent me a book of historic photos of the Los Angeles River.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. This used to be freely available online via Bartleby, but no more. Alas. Now I own it as a slender volume. It is one of my favorite tools for writing. What's amazing is to see how a single Proto Indo European root can manifest in a bunch of different languages, allowing you to see that the word for tongue and the word for thorn both spring from the same PIE root. Thrilling.

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody. Book? or pamphlet? Still, an interesting look into Web 2.o and beyond. Shirky is a very smart guy.

Gunther Kress, Multimodality. Gunther Kress: very smart guy. I have *used* this book but I could not tell you what it is all the way about.

Noulipian Analects. Resource for Oulipo work in creative writing classes.

Desserts by Pierre Herme (with Dorie Greenspan). Dessert! extra fancy!

Dorie Greenspan, Baking from My Home to Yours. Baking! Not as fancy, and lots of fun. Greenspan is an enjoyable writer to read.

A pile of L.A. police procedurals by Michael Connelly. I loved Angels Flight, but I have to say that Connelly is a merely serviceable writer. Still: L.A. And serviceable is not bad.

Kim Stringfellow, Jackrabbit Homestead. We bought this book after spending a couple of days in Joshua Tree, which is fantastic and everyone should go there sometime. This is about the homesteading that took place there through the mid-20th century. Lots and lots of fascinating pictures. Very cool.

Karin Fossum, Don't Look Back, When the Devil Holds the Candle, He Who Fears the Wolf. Fossum is good. Her police procedurals are as good, maybe better, than Henning Mankell's. Set in Norway.

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End. Read for book club. Whined about its non-plot engine before having finished it. Finished it and loved it. Moral of the story: finish books before whining about them. (This is a wonderful book.)

Substrate, Jim Powell. Poems set in California. Some interesting stuff.

A Place of Execution, Val MacDermid. A book that thought it was smarter than it actually was. But still readable. Set in Derbyshire.

The Names, Don Delillo. Not my favorite Delillo, but Delillo always still holds delights for me, including the fact that the guy knows his way around a sentence.

March, Geraldine Brooks. A splendid book. Civil War, told from the point of view of Mr. March of Little Women fame.

All of it Singing, Linda Gregg. A selected and new from one of my favorite poets.

The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry. Not quite as clever as its author might have hoped. Steampunk. But better than George Mann's robot/zombie/zeppelin romance (see below).

Girls Like Us, Sheila Weller. About Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Carole King. Joni Mitchell. About halfway through this.

Just Kids, Patti Smith. LOVED. Patti Smith's youth as an artist and her long friendship etc. with Robert Mapplethorpe. Beautiful and sweet and charming and more.

Into a Paris Quartier, Diane Johnson. Who thought Le Divorce was pretty good? I know I did. This is fun to read, Johnson's historical reading of a neighborhood in Paris where she lives. Wish I lived in a neighborhood in Paris.

The Field Guide to Prose Poetry. Bought this as a result of a panel at AWP. Pretty good book--essays by the poets, along with a handful of their poems.

George Mann, The Affinity Bridge. This book is basically a treatment for a screenplay. It made me mad. I kept going. Why? I don't know. It was overdue at the library and I couldn't renew it online because someone else wanted to check it out. It was popular! I hated it! I kept going, because maybe those popular kids knew something I didn't? Gosh. Robots, zombies, and zeppelins, as well as, I don't know, a steampunk Queen Victoria? Give me a break.

I am looking forward to reading: Freedom, Human Smoke, the new Elmore Leonard (Djibouti), the new China Mieville (Kraken--not sure how I missed that this happened! I love Mieville.), and finishing/starting some of the books mentioned above. Also, for Christmas, the historian gave me a book about Obama, The Bridge (David Remnick) and a book by Peter Stark called The Last Empty Places: A Past and Present Journey Through the Blank Spots on the American Map. This is right up my alley, and in fact, I am already there, in Maine. See you when I get back.

2010: the reckoning (part 1).

Technology.

No new technology in 2010. In fact, we have moved one old television out of circulation (dreaded blue screen of death), moved another old television into circulation, briefly considered and rejected the idea of getting another, better, More Modern television (rejected . . . but the idea may still be hanging around in someone's mind).

No new computers--well, a replacement for my MacBook Pro (work computer), the first one of which got a crack in its screen because someone--well, me--dropped it. On the driveway. But anyway, I have a new one. It is just as awesome as the old one. In fact, more awesome, because: no crack.

But speaking of television:

We loved and watched Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, The Closer, Damages, Mad Men, and The Good Wife this year. And by the way: The Good Wife is just so good. If you have not picked it up, I highly recommend it.

Also, this year I watched every single episode of Lost, in the course of about two months. It made me obsessed and heartsick; I watched the ending and wept. Alone. And I have still not had the conversation--not with anyone!--to help me understand what that show did to me. C'est la vie, I guess.

In music:

I bought or (legally) downloaded the following this year. I asterisked* the ones I really liked and recommend. Some of these, honestly, I haven't listened to sufficiently to say anything about.

• Mary Halvorsen Quintet, Saturn Sings
• Mike Reed's Loose Assembly, Empathetic Parts
• Dan Tepfer with Lee Konitz, Duos with Lee
• Jane Jensen, Comic Book Whore (because of this one killer song in an episode of The Good Wife)
• Elton John and Leon Russell, The Union*
• Leonard Cohen, Songs for the Road*
• Martha Wainwright, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers*
• Mandrill, Mandrill (I used to check this LP out of the library about a million times when I was a teenager)
• Cowboy Junkies, Rarities, B-Sides, and Slow Sad Waltzes*
• The Magnetic Fields, Get Lost
• Philip Glass, Piano Music*
• Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz*
• The Bad Plus, Never Stop*
• Mavis Staples, You are Not Alone*
• Of Montreal, False Priest
• Robert Plant, Band of Joy*
• The Best of Kurtis Blow*
• Weezer, Pinkerton
• Rufus Wainwright, Milwaukee At Last!!
• Marc Cohn, Listening Booth (1970)*
• Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Come on Back*
• Brandi Carlile, Give Up the Ghost*
• Sleigh Bells, Treats
• Band of Horses, Laredo
• Kris Kristofferson, Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends
• Battle Studies, John Mayer
• Wyclef Jean, The Ecleftic
• Gorillaz, Plastic Beach*
• Rufus Wainwright, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu*
• Rosanne Cash, The List
• The Weepies, Say I Am You
• Paul Motian, Lost in a Dream*
• Lyle Lovett, Step Inside this House
• the bird and the bee, Interpreting the Masters Vol. I: Daryl Hall and John Oates
• John Hiatt, The Open Road
• Brad Paisley, American Saturday Night
• Mos Def, The Ecstatic*
• The Black Crowes, Before the Frost . . . Until the Freeze
• Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM*
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz
• Vampire Weekend, Contra
• Stacey Kent, Breakfast on the Morning Tram
• Rachael Yamagata, Elephants . . . Teeth Sinking Into Heart
• Justin Townes Earle, Harlem River Blues; Midnight at the Movies
• Frontier Ruckus, Deadmalls and Nightfalls; The Orion Songbook*
• Esperanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society
• Animal Collective, Meriweather Post Pavilion*
• Girl Talk, Feed the Animals

But what about live music, you say? Well,

• The Sufjan Stevens show was epic.
• We heard the Yellowjackets at our jazz series, and it was a great show, as was Frank Vignola's set. And honestly, John Pizzarelli was great as well.
• I feel I am forgetting something here. What is it?

Tomorrow, I reflect upon the movies. And also my character. Wait for it.

Realistic.

I planned, this week, the week of finals, to be in my office on several successive days, to allow for drop-ins (drive-bys?) from students with questions or last minute thises and thats, to do some grading, to write some documents, and probably to deck the halls with boughs of holly falalalalalalalala, etc. A sensible person would have had a more focused, a narrower, a more realistic agenda. Also, a sensible person would not have set a final due date of tomorrow for stuff to come in. (Note to self: must be more sensible about due dates!) Needless to say, this is more of what happened:

On Monday, I arrive. I plug in. I take a sip of a warm beverage. I contemplate my list. Then, Unexpected Person Number One drops by to say, "Hey! remember when you gave me that incomplete exactly one year ago? Whaddya know, I finished my stuff! It's on my e-portfolio! Have you read it yet? When do you think you'll be able to turn in my grade?" I tell him I will definitely read his work, give him the grade he has earned, definitely by the deadline.

I sip my beverage. I open an e-mail. I sort through what I have and don't have from my students. I send a few e-mails of the "When might I expect this item from you, this item that was due yesterday?" variety. Then, Unexpected Person Number Two drops by to say, "I have a disaster, and you are my faculty leader. Fix it." I tell this person I will fix it, I surely will. I assure this person I will write a strongly worded e-mail, I will make a phone call, I will raise holy hell. I take a gulp of the beverage, and look at my list, and revise my expectations downward.

Etcetera.

It is the end of Wednesday, I have not written any documents, I still have stuff to sort through and numbers to plug in on my grading grid. This week thus far, I have not, in fact, graded one thing whatsoever. Also, I have Christmas presents to buy for the grandchildren! And, for that matter, a Christmas tree. And I need butter. So here is my new plan:

1. Grade things. Everything, in fact.

2. Buy a Christmas tree.

3. Buy some butter.

4. Bake like a madwoman, after the grading is done.

I hope you'll notice that "grade things" was the number one item on my agenda. That means I gots priorities.

AWP: the awesome first day, and how it will be different than all the rest of the days.

Technically, yesterday was the first day, since we (the estimable Dr. Write and I, moi, myself) arrived in Denver, and we picked up our registration stuff plus had snacks at Bubba Gump Shrimp, and I am not lying:

Waitress: Have you seen the movie Forrest Gump?

Us: Sure.

Waitress: Would you like to play Forrest Gump trivia?

Us: Will there be prizes?

Waitress: Yes. They may not be prizes that you value . . .

Us: [shrug. Collectively.]

Now is as good a time as any to point out that there were two other esteemed persons in our party at Bubba Gump Shrimp--friend P and elder statesman poet, whom I'll identify with the initials A.G.:

Waitress: What was the name of the girl Forrest Gump was in love with?

Me: (too, too quickly) Jenny. (luckily, I did not say Jennay, but I almost did.)

A couple more trivia questions ensued. Our prize?

Waitress: Everyone raise your hands. Now, give each other a high five!

Woe.

However, when the same cruel trick was played on a table nearby, we watched with interest:

A.G.: I want to see how they react when they find out what the prize is.

Me: Schadenfreude.

Ha. I made A.G. laugh. He will never remember my name, but he said, on the way out, that he would never forget that he had heard the word "Schadenfreude" uttered in Bubba Gump Shrimp. So I'll always have that.

HOWEVER: though yesterday may have involved picking up AWP materials, today was in fact the first day of the conference proper, and the people, I did it up proud. I attended and took copious notes at:

• a session on prose poems
• a session on putting together a book of poems
• Dr. Write's session on the new domestic fiction
• a tribute reading to Craig Arnold
• Nikwalk's panel on coming of age in the personal essay

And then, we ate dinner at H Burger, which was swell, because they had (a) amazing fries, and (b) a good veggie burger, and (c) I was unbelievably hungry. I was the kind of hungry that, when they brought my drink, in my case a lemonade/iced tea combo, I could feel it trickling into the empty space where my hunger was raging. That's because breakfast happened when the sun was not quite up yet, and lunch was some crazy seed bar--seriously: a bar made out of seeds and some slightly sweet hold-the-seeds-together stuff--and an apple. Which, the people, tided me over, but I think we can all agree: a seed bar and an apple are not lunch. NOT lunch.

After the entirely satisfactory dining experience, we met up with some people down in the teeming hotel bar which had the immediate effect on me of sending me, with kisses to the friends I wanted to see, fleeing back to my room.

Which leads me to this point: many many sessions in a day at a conference can be good. Each one of those sessions today was rewarding in its own way, and I am pleased to have attended. However, I have learned the following life lessons:

• I am exhausted.
• Eat lunch.
• Time to go to the book fair.
• Sleep better. (I am looking for an implementation expert for this bullet point.)

After fleeing, reflecting, and resting, I went down to the keynote address by Michael Chabon. As exhausted as I was and am, that was excellent. He is hilarious. I loved it. And now, Day One is concluded, I am several poems behind on the National Poetry Month extravaganza, my eyes hurt, and it is time for bed.

Accountability.

In the spirit of transparency, I would like to ask for a full reporting of all the data on the following trend I have recently observed in my household:

We are currently suffering a dearth of treats.

We have butter. We have sugar of many kinds. We have chocolate and eggs. We have almonds and various types of flour.

But can we scare up a cookie around here? No.

A piece of cake? No.

Pie? Forget about it.

The people, there is not even a gum drop.

This cannot stand.

Antesortirian.

Today as I vowed, I took everything out of my study in order to sort and throw and give away. By "everything," I mean, "a lot of stuff" (i.e., and to wit, not everything). And lo, I did sort, and I did find things to give and to throw away. And, in my post-sorting analysis, I identified the following categorical fails in my efforts to tidy up:

• magazines. Too many of them, kept for too long. They are stacked. They are filed. They are in tidy bags from forever ago when I read them on a road trip.
• books. So, so, so many of them. By the way, that "shelve your books by their color" idea is stupid. It's pretty, but it is stupid. This idea is not pretty on the inside. No, it is pretty on the outside, but a moron on the inside. Of course, that's only if you want to be able to find your books.
• arts and crafts miscellanea. Pens, pencils, paints, paper of all sorts, crayons, oil pastels. Ink, in pads and bottles. Stamps. Stickers.
• notebooks. I have a box of notebooks, labeled "NOTEBOOKS." I don't even know where to start with this, except it feels strange that notebooks should be that meta. But did I throw them away? I could not, except for this one legal pad from when I was taking notes at work like a decade ago. I figured I could let that one go.
• kid stuff. Well, you can't throw any of it away, because it's, y'know, your kids. And you love them. And it feels like throwing their--and your--life away.

Let us pause to ask ourselves this question: is your life made of your stuff? Before you answer, all high-minded and enlightened like I know you are, let me add this: aren't we stuff? at the cellular and flesh-ular level? I am definitely of the "I am my stuff" camp, though I am trying to be a critical thinker about that. And by "critical thinker," I mean "a person who doesn't hold onto so much stuff."

Any more categorical fails, you ask? Why, yes:

• technological appendages. Cords and mice.
• cds. I buy far fewer actual disks these days. But I sure do have a hell of a lot of them.
• the documentation of my writerly life. Oh. my. God., I have so many rejection letters. I have so many of them, I think it might be the universe telling me, "Stop trying to get your poetry published." Seriously.

Let me pause to ask you: if you had so many rejection letters that it caused you to consider that the universe might be telling you to stop trying to get your poetry published, would you (a) cut them into the shapes of celestial objects and make a mobile out of them? or (b) paint them in a million shades of gray, then make wallpaper for a Room of Doom out of them? or (c) make them into pretty, pretty snowflakes? or (d) build a soul-releasing bonfire out of them? Please fax your replies to the Megastore Hotline: 1.801.WHY.WRTE.

• boxes. Yes, boxes. Some of them have stuff in them, sort of semi-organized. Some of them don't, as in, some of them are empty. Why not recycle those boxes? I don't know.
• stuff that really belongs in my office at school. This includes a bulletin board I took home when I was (a) on sabbatical and (b) the roof fell in; a beautiful retablo that I kept there before (a) my sabbatical and (b) the flood; books, journals, student work; textbooks. Except, truth be told, my office is cold, as in, literally, there is not heat. And, the people, in the winter, that means I really, really really hate working in my office. So taking my stuff there seems like a bad move, except then it lives in my at-home study, where there are boxes, rejection letters, books, magazines, technological appendages, notebooks, kid stuff, arts and crafts stuff.

I think that, one day, when I am organized, there will be a perfectly capacious, but perfectly sorted, office. It will be of a temperate temperature. It will be both here and there, at home and away, and there will be a calm and orderly intelligence guiding it. There will be a place for everything, and everything will be in its place.

This kind of sounds like heaven, I think. And you know what that means, the people: I'll be sorted when I'm dead.

Check, check, check. And check.

I have written and posted a syllabus that I believe is a model of the genre.

I have put together the week-by-week schedule that, at this juncture, appears to be an impeccable and thoroughly detailed guide to exactly what we'll be doing in the course, moment by moment. It's like, if Lewis and Clark had a map, but the map was so detailed that it had each shrubbery, pebble, rivulet, and bottle cap (they had those back then, right?) on it, so they could not possibly lose their way. Ergo, therefore, and hence (also the name of my legal representatives), my students will never miss an assignment, a discussion post, a reading, nor will they ever fail to understand the gist of the course. At least, that's how it looks to me right now. In this very swinging moment.

I have developed learning modules, which will contain objectives and writing assignments, readings, links to discussions. (The "will contain" there indicates "work yet to be done," of course.)

I have about 65% or maybe 70% done of the presentation I'll be doing tomorrow at 10:10 a.m. on screencasts (with my colleague Jen C.). For me, 65-70% is like being finished. (Jen C., if you're reading this: kidding! it's all ready! no worries!)

So, I just have to find a few more readings, revise the writing assignments, write the objectives for the modules, create the discussion links. Piece of cake. Piece of crumb cake.

In other news, newly returned son last night came home late and pretty much stayed up all night (albeit noiselessly). I got up at 5 a.m. to take him to the airport, but I couldn't go to sleep till almost 1 because . . . he wasn't home yet. See, this is the problem with being the mom. No matter how much you know that it's not your responsibility to be awake when the kids roll home, sometimes your body will not synch up with that bit of logic. Thus, ergo & hence, I am exhausted. Let's call it a preview for a little featurette we'll call "Spring Semester: Return of the Unsleeping."

TAGS: featurette, preview, exhausted, cake

Los Angeles: the report.

Part 1.

We left at a ridiculous hour, because I didn't want us to spend part of one of our days traveling, and true to that desire, we arrived at LAX at about 8:30 a.m., got our car--a stylish Suzuki something or other, black--and drove confidently down Sepulveda to Hermosa Beach, where we got a burrito at Java Man and then went to the beach.

Exhausted and exhilarated. I loved this beach because it seemed to me, in the seventies, that it was countercultural in a way that the two beaches closer to me, Torrance and Redondo, were not. I probably went there like three times, but it is utterly vivid to me. Its symbolic value is somehow huge. Some of what I loved about it has changed, but not all.

You can see the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where I went to high school, in the distance. To the north, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo (where my dad worked), then LAX and parts north (more about this later). I know: those of you who grew up there, you know this. Those of you who live there, you know this. But I lived there for four years, and made only the sketchiest mental map of the place--the place broadly construed, the Greater Los Angeles area. I think of each trip as penciling in a few more details.

We came back down to this beach each day at one point or another, in our little meterological, demographic, naturalistic and oceanographic studies. We learned a lot:

Data sets.

Better thinking through cooler weather.

It's a pretty much straightforward equation, which, if I had even a passing acquaintance with equations, I would demonstrate here, with an equation:

[Note: I don't even know what the above drawings mean. They are not real equations for this situation. At least, I don't think they are.]

However, since I don't remember a thing about what smarter people than I call "Mathematics" anymore, let alone anything remotely equational, I will simply say this: I think better when it's cooler. (Decorate that sentence with all the math you want. I wish I could, but I do not wish it enough to take a mathematics course.)

Of course, yesterday, I was paying the price for not being able to sleep since I got back from Idaho. (Wait, isn't that paying the price twice? Can't sleep because it's so hot, then get sick because can't sleep because too hot. The mighty injustice of it all!) So my hot weather/productivity matrix was a little bit skewed by a summer cold:

[The above: obviously, not even a matrix. At all.]

. . . but today, with the weather holding at whatever blissful temperature it was holding, and I having slept pretty well, finally, and with whatever cold symptoms I was experiencing being kept in a chokehold by one--just one!--DayQuil capsule: today, the people, I worked. Things happened. Revision was my boyfriend.

So whatever we can all do to keep things at this equilibrium, let's do it. Just keep things cool.

What it is.

With the historian gone, I am fully into the stay-up-way-too-late mode that is apparently what I revert to when I'm on my own. Go ahead--call me at 1 a.m., I'm up. But you might want to wait till . . . oh, let's say ten before you call in the morning. I am slightly disgusted with myself, but why should I be? Because I got a whole lot done today:

• went through every poem line by line
• tentative new organizational plan
• full draft of difficult poem

I rode on my bike to get the paper, read it, did the crossword, did all the laundry, hung it out on the line, made an awesome dinner. I also took a mind-clearing bike ride in the middle of drafting the difficult poem.

Right now, I'm hanging with Stephen Colbert, because there's no one else to hang with. (I also hung with Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan earlier.)

I thought I would offer you a guided tour of this domicile, because I think you need to have a better picture in your minds of where I am. I know you've been wondering.

Let's evaluate the evidence.

Is this little episode a vacation or is it work? Let facts be submitted to a candid world:

1. Arose today at 9 a.m.
2. Toast and cherries for breakfast.
3. Bike ride to the river and then to pick up a newspaper.
4. Read the paper. Did the crossword in ten minutes flat. (Probably not true. But it was easy.)
5. Finished reading The White Lioness, a great swath of it.
6. Opened documents for the poems I was planning to revise today, four of them.
7. Bike ride to giant antique and craft fair across Hwy. 20.
8. Hopped in the car to buy potato chips and magazines.
9. Read magazine. Ate potato chips.
10. Looked at poems.
11. Helped daughter with documents for a job interview.
12. Revised one poem. (It may still be in need of further surgery. It's a fixed form poem. I'll say no more.)
13. Decided one poem will not be in the manuscript, thus needs no revision at this time.
14. Warmed up stellar leftovers for dinner.
15. Bike ride to another part of the river.
16. Saw an osprey.
17. Shot footage via bike-cam on the way home.
18. Finished reading magazine.
19. Watched two episodes of The Wire.

On second thought, maybe "work" isn't the right category for this exercise. Let's just wrap this all up into a category we'll call "summer." With work on the side.

Update 1.

We arrived yesterday evening. Our accomplishments thus far:

1. Brought up two bikes with no mishaps.
2. Slept the sleep of the blessed last night.
3. Cabin-napping. (Studies show that cabin-napping is far superior to regular napping.)
4. Two walks by the river.
5. Watched a new episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which featured an egocentric poet/editor of a poetry magazine. Oh! 'twas very heaven.
6. Watched three episodes of In Treatment, which is everything I have been told it would be. Which is to say, excellent.
7. I finished one L.A. detective novel and am now halfway through The Black Dahlia. Which is excellent as well. Remind me to tell you about my whole new L.A. thing. There is a reading list.
8. Started reading through my manuscript. Hey. It's the weekend. I'll get serious tomorrow, which is Monday, which is, in case you forgot, the beginning of the work week.

The people, Idaho is beautiful. There are birds everywhere, all kinds of birds. It is warm but not hot, and there was a wonderful stiff wind swooping around everywhere while we were eating our dinner, which was spaghetti, which tasted like everything tastes up here: perfect.

Some things to whine about.

Uh, I hate to be that person, the one who whines about summer, but here I go, whining:

1. My mind starts feeling dizzy when I think about the different appointments and dates and people who will be in town and what's happening, plus birthdays, Father's Day, concert dates, and other events and travel that are not yet finalized. Dizzy. My mind is trying to find a chair before it falls on the floor.

2. It is the middle of June and the weather has not been, let's be honest, acting very summery. Not that I am the person ever to complain about rain or snow (please, let's not get technical about this--by "ever" I mean "hardly ever" and by "hardly ever" I mean "not more than once a day or so"), but good heavens, it's rained so much! Not that I'm complaining about the rain.

3. I'm feeling a little bit cold right now, actually.

4. DayQuil is making me a little bit woozy. Watch out if you see me on the road.

5. My very old cat is back to her mouse-killing ways. Earlier this evening, I saw her move rather speedily under the bed with a corpse in her mouth. And by "the bed" I mean "where I sleep," which I think we can all agree is no place for mice, dead or alive or God, this is making me a little nauseated.

Okay, time to lie down under a pile of covers to read a, let's face it, trashy detective novel. I can own up to my trashy, whiny ways. I am all about accountability. I will try to keep the woozy, mind-reeling complaining to a minimum for the next eight hours, and also--lucky!--I will not be behind the wheel of a car. So we've got that going for us.

Status report.

1. Moratorium on buying clothes and books: over.
2. Shower: still boss.
3. Student work still to respond to: a bunch.
4. Mouse count: zero since Valentine's Day
5. Music listening agenda: thirteen out of thirty-nine proposed recordings
6. Procrastination cake: finished