It's all over but the proofreading.

In a motel room in Driggs, ID, I have finally finished my portfolio.

the drives. whence comes the documentation.

epic. 

Tomorrow, on to monuments not made by human hand. Made of stone and fire and water. That's all.

Accounting.

Today, I put the grommets into twenty three folios.

Wait, let me start again.

My poetry class is producing a publication. I had a vision of it long before we at the Publication Center ever got a press. A Takach etching press, to be exact. My vision was this:

• a collection of broadsides (each student produces one broadside in a class-size edition)
• sometimes these broadsides were tiny (broadside being used loosely in this instance)
• sometimes these broadsides were largish. Close to tabloid size.
• the broadsides would be printed (sometimes in my vision, they were letter pressed) and would have an image on them.
• the broadsides would be gathered and held--bound, in a word--in a portfolio, which would be
• a beautiful piece of heavy weight paper, printed with the title, and tied with some sort of lacing that would 
• lace through both sides of the portfolio.

In all versions of my vision, this publication was exquisite.

I talked it over with my Publication Center people. We all agreed this was doable. We came up with dimensions for the broadsides (slightly smaller than letter size paper) and the portfolio (a tabloid piece of dove-gray medium weight cardstock). 

"How will the lacing go through the paper?" Charlotte asked.

"I don't know. Just, like, holes?" I approximated.

"You're gonna need grommets," said Charlotte, with certitude and firmness. We talked about grommets and how that would all work, and it was decided.

"What are you going to lace it with?" Charlotte and Kat asked, on different occasions. 

I thought maybe gray suede lacing, and/or maybe gray satin ribbon.

Kat said, "Maybe the narrowest"--she held her index finger and thumb infinitessimally close--"gray grosgrain ribbon." 

This all sounded good to me.

So excited to finish this project with my poetry students tomorrow! It will contain a class set of broadsides for each writer.

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 4, 2015 at 7:03pm PDT

Cut to now. I have visited three different stores in search of the elusive narrowest gray grosgrain (or satin, either would do) ribbon, and gray suede lacing. Here's what I have instead:

• satin and grosgrain ribbon, gray, but not the narrowest--medium narrow
• black suede lacing
• lovely soft gray wool yarn
• the very narrowest black grosgrain ribbon
• sheer gray ribbon, also not the narrowest.

Also, today I put in four grommets per publication by hand. The people, I brought a hammer and a nail to work. A hammer. (and a nail.) Putting in grommets is sort of meditative, if by meditative you mean using a hammer and also wondering if you're even doing the damn thing right at all. Or what.

But it is going to be beautiful, I swear. That part of the vision is coming true. Also the part where we have doughnuts from Fresh Donut & Deli. Doughnuts are always the refreshment of choice in my visions.

Stuff.

Graphic credit: Carl Richards via The New York Times

We have a lot of it.

That is not all.

We have made the monumental decision to improve the basement of our house by getting sheetrock and better ceilings and a couple of power outlets in the hall and new carpet in the bedrooms and some other shenanigans I don't know what all.

This necessitated removing stuff from the rooms that are to be improved.

So. Much. Stuff.

The untidiness!

The Gatorade bottles, empty, under certain people's beds!

"We have got to get rid of some of this furniture," I said, emphatically, to the historian, while sitting on some of the furniture that we might have to get rid of.

"I promise," said the historian.

Tomorrow, the wrecking ball.

I mean the contractors.

As God is my witness, we will get rid of some of that stuff.

And that IS
all.

Artifacts.

yo yo yo the lecture is o o o ver!

Here's the digital story I made:



shrine from lisab on Vimeo.

And here's a comic:

is it narrative or is it argument? by lisab

and here are some links and stories.

PHEW.

that is all.

Today in pictures.

this is the test print. it worked.
we will have a chapbook.

Today began with struggle: to get up, to get motivated for the day, to fit in all the things that needed to happen in class. When you meet just one day a way, and you're in the thick of a project, sometimes your so-called "lesson plan" is as grass, in the Biblical sense, i.e., it is toast.

But then, sometimes good things come of the lesson plan
that came to naught. For instance, the layout works and the students talking to the printer make the transition from layout to document that will print the way it's supposed to. Which means that we have a go on our thick project, i.e., we have a chapbook.

"I triumphed over Adobe."

This is the person who made the layout work. She is a student and she has a bright future ahead of her.

The bright sun signifies that things
got a little hazy. You can see that, right?

Now, after that triumph, things get hazy. I know I ate a sandwich, and I know I went to a meeting, and then another meeting. I also know that I went to Tulie and had a cookie with an old friend, and then I drove downtown to have dinner with the historian. And then: a movie.

We saw Salmon Fishing on the Yemen. It was basically Big Miracle, but on the Yemen. With salmon instead of whales. Frankly, I loved it. Don't judge. Ewan MacGregor = good.

who knows what manner of false blossom? 

Also, it is spring. Which makes all of the above feel a little more blissful.

Both hands, alternatively.

On the one hand, I am so excited that I'm going to see my daughter in Boston tomorrow. On the other hand, sometimes I miss the Scotlands so much it makes me a little bit sick inside.

On the one hand, I roasted a lovely piece of squash tonight with the intention of making risotto. On the other hand, by the time the squash was roasted, risotto seemed like kind of a big project, so we ate leftovers.

I find this time of year so beautiful. The early darkness, however, is like automatic melancholy.

On the one hand, I'm glad it's basketball season, but it would be nice if the Jazz weren't making me bite my nails in this last minute of the game (and then losing, dadgummit).

On the one hand, the guy who came to deliver our new-to-us retro-tastic cobalt blue sectional sofa (we can have Jazz game watching parties! board game parties! Mad Men watching marathons!), which we purchased from The Green Ant, said he's never before delivered anything out in our neck of the woods. On the other hand, he said he knew which house it was by the Obama sign.