Cake.

At or about 11:00 p.m. I'm in the kitchen. My son has just come home from the gym.

Son: What're you making?

Me: Cupcakes. (feeling suddenly sheepish.) For my class.

Son: That's nice of you.

Me: But I bet they don't do stuff like that at the university, do they?

Son: My Chinese teacher brought egg rolls. Twice. Once on Chinese New Year and once on the last day of class. Egg rolls and oranges.

Me: (brightening!) That makes me feel better!

Son: And I have her twice on the same day. So I got to eat it twice.

Tomorrow is the final exam period for my Introduction to Imaginative Writing course, which I taught face to face for the first time in blah blah blah, I know, I told you this already. Anyway, it's been a great class. We are binding our copies of the class chapbook tomorrow, then having a little reading and celebration. Hence: cupcakes.

Here's a tip: if you happen to be in the area tomorrow at about 11:30 a.m., and you happen to be a creative writer (here's another tip: I think all writing is creative), and also you happen to have read this blog post (obviously), then you, too, can have a celebratory cupcake, which, since they give out egg rolls at the U, is perfectly okay.

Edging closer.

Over the past few days, I've responded to questions from some creative writing students about the place of creative writing in the world. I also responded to an e-mail or two about curriculum, which led me to first find, then to take a look at my notes from May of this year--that's right, two and a half months ago, like an eon--notes from a meeting where I started to imagine what I wanted my composition courses to look like this fall. That's right, a month from now. Less than a month.

But who's counting.

I'm also at a point where my own creative projects seem to share a margin with work I hope my students will do. I worked some more on my photo essay, which is shaping up pretty nicely. It involves images from the Scotland trip and some thoughts about ruins and ruination. I'm also using photos of the shacks from our Joshua Tree/Morongo Valley trip from last year.

It's great to work with those images and to bring my disparate thoughts about these abandoned and collapsing structures together into a series of statements with something like a coherent through-line. This is something I would like my students to be able to do, with or without the photos. Same with my video essay about feminism--assembling primary and secondary research materials, ordered and juxtaposed in a way that creates a nascent argument, with the writer's own point of view to frame and shape all of it. With or without video, voiceover, ambient noise, or a soundtrack.

But it's okay that my projects are verging on demos for what I want my students to do. It's what teachers do--find a connection between their own projects and what they hope their students might be able to do. Yep, that's me, a teacher. Getting ready to teach, although well in advance of actual syllabus making.

Today, this came to me as a recommendation from the UK Amazon:

Amazon.co.uk, you've got my number.

A new word my dad brought to my attention:

Say it with me now:

American Heritage Dictionary kludge or kluge (klōōj)
n. Slang

1. A system, especially a computer system, that is constituted of poorly matched elements or of elements originally intended for other applications.
2. A clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.

[From ironic use of earlier kluge, smart, clever, from spelling pronunciation of German kluge, from Middle High German kluc, from Middle Low German klōk.]
kludge v., kludg'y adj.

Use it in a sentence:

"My dad was a great kluger. He used to wrap this one fuse that kept blowing in tin foil and then stick it back in. It worked out okay."

My dad taught this word to me. According to my dad and my mom, the word always carries with it a slightly pejorative connotation, even when the kluging is clever and efficacious. Also, add the additional form of the word, kluger, i.e., one who kluges.

I feel this word is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a precious addition to my working vocabulary. I intend to use it several times a day, and urge you to do the same. Remember: everyone needs to kluge, on some level or another. For instance, when I just read this post to my dad, he laughed, and said, "You oughta see the way I've got my television system set up at home." Also, apparently my mom is a talented kluger. Who knew.