What to do with everything in your pantry.

If you have

• various, slightly shabby-shabby looking farmer's market potatoes
• some still virtuous greens, but looking back upon their day of sale from far away
• garlic
• leftover grated pecorino from a Thanksgiving day salad
• a red grapefruit
• some grapes
• pomegranates whose skins are leathery

 you can make

•  mashed potatoes with the skins still on, garlic (cooked with the boiling potatoes), and the pecorino
• greens, cooked at a rather high heat in the oven with olive oil and garlic and salt and pepper
• a lovely wintry fruit salad of the grapefruit, grapes, and pomegranates.

You will, however, have to gather the pomegranate seeds from hither and yon, and wipe up the juice from the floor and counter and yourself--it's possible you may have let those pomegranates sit on the counter a week too long.

Day Two, the Lights of Christmas Video Cavalcade!

A few notes on cleaning up my study.

Big fat September Vogue, it is November now. But I can't quite quit you yet.

Big puffy chair, how did it happen that you are now the dog's chair? He doesn't even read. At least as far as I know.

How do you know if a paper is important enough to keep? How?

Big garbage bag of stuff, I just threw you away without a backward look. Well, with a mere backward glance. Half a glance.

Big bag of stuff, I'm not sure what I've just thrown away!

I need to put the books I've bought but haven't read in a place. A "Books to Read" corner. Whence I would repair upon my leisure to read and peruse. And whatnot. Perhaps when I am old, or when I am dead.

Magical household.

My washing machine did heal itself. Apparently, it just needed a little break from its job, much like the rest of us do. Shortly after I posted yesterday, and after I had tentatively switched a few breakers on and off like I knew what I was doing, which I patently did not, the washing machine drained itself and went into the rinse-and-spin cycles. Like the champ that it is.

Now, if my household would just

• vacuum its own rugs,
• clean out its own refrigerator,
• hang up its own clothes,
• sort its own excess,
• clear the kitchen table of its mail and books and whatnot, and
• do the thinking for me about my poetic project, so that I can
• revise my manuscript into the winner I know it can be,

then I would

• solve the debt ceiling crisis.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

To the desert:

Here, it is hot during the day, as one might expect. At night, it cools down. Here, in this house high on a hill, just north of Joshua Tree National Park, late in the day, we open the doors and windows to let the cool in. Because it's a house I'm not used to, I wake a few times in the night. The windows are uncurtained because the house is remote, and I can see the changing face of the sky. A three-quarter moon. An airy tree. At six, a sky all blue and bright with sun.

In this desert house, there is no television, and more, I need less diversion. Diversion from what? There are art magazines and books. In the past, when I've subscribed to art magazines, they often just felt like pretentious noise. This was especially true when what I needed more than anything was diversion. I am thinking about diversion a lot, because I realize, what I've been seeking to be diverted from is my life, my actual life. I thought the stress emanated only from the job, but that's because the job felt like it was my only life.

But that's done. Today, I wrote a million ideas. Not ideas for diversions, and not ideas for my job. Ideas for my work, my work and my life.

In the desert, like everywhere else, there is a history that lives in the layers of things. Today, we found out about the sea that covered the California deserts. There are artifacts left from the people who lived by it, near the Pinto Mountains. And all over the desert there are oases, where California fan palm trees grow. Yesterday, we hiked up Palm Canyon, outside of Palm Springs. Palm Canyon, part of a complex of canyons known as "Indian Canyons," are not too far from a golf course and resort. All of it is owned by the Agua Caliente band of the Cahuilla tribe. You can't believe how beautiful and how peaceful.

According to the tribe,

With our language dying, our ceremonies fading and the younger generation leaving the old ways, the death of our Tribal leader brought the past and future together in a momentous way. The elders determined that there was no one left among us to serve as the people's teacher, to preside over meetings, rituals, rites of passage, and wield the power of the Um na'a as had been done since the creation of the world. They came to the painful decision that no one would be named as our new net and that the traditional ceremonial house would be burned. As fire engulfed the structure, so went many of our ancient ways. It was time, they said, to look to the future.

I have been looking to the past, to try to understand my own and how it intersects with this particular landscape. Here, in a place where there are so many ruined houses, so many abandoned sites of enterprise and human artificing from every possible era, I'm laying hands upon a will, a desire to start again, an urge from which I will not be diverted.

Stats: pre-solstice, post-teaching.

Teaching: done.

Baked goods: one cake baked; eaten. None remaining.

Illness: inevitable possible cold.

Grading: all still awaits.

Movies: two.

Mood: rainy but optimistic.

Crossword: yesterday's.

Housekeeping: que porquería.

Young men in their twenties in the house: two.

Online status: powering down.

Semester: almost, almost over.

All is well.

I woke up this morning to a phone call with no person on the end of it. A necessary fumbling for the reading glasses revealed that the caller was a toll-free number. But since I was awake, I thought I'd see if my son-in-China had communicated in the night.

Yesterday we chatted online briefly, and he gave me a hotel phone number that never worked. Moreover, he told me that the credit card and debit card we'd so assiduously arranged for--including the de rigeur "I will be using this credit/debit card in China, as in C-H-I-N-A, so don't decline any charges coming from this card in Beijing, which is in Ch-China" conversation--was not working. As in, when he used it to charge a hotel room, the card did not "function."

God.

I will spare you the rantings of me, moi, myself as I tried to figure out how to get that situation in hand, without a functioning phone number, and with a bank that is decidedly and emphatically not available on the phone on Saturdays. Yes, it meant I waited in the drive-through line to find out, ultimately, that they, the bank, were not declining any charges. So what the hell?

Actually, having finally conversed with the bank, I kind of calmed down. I had done what there was to be done. Meanwhile, son-in-China slept off his jet lag in his hotel room (he is lucky we insisted that he carry some cash).

So, today when I looked, I saw a cheery e-mail in which he informed us, his parents, that he had purchased a cell phone, that there is now indeed a way to contact him, and that his credit card is now working, whatever! And he is registered at the university, his tuition and room and board paid for, and all is well. He has a blog, and there are a couple of posts. We spoke on the phone and he sounded great. He had noodles for breakfast, MacDonald's for dinner, and has purchased orange juice and Oreos for breakfast, much like college students everywhere in the world, apparently.

I feel so much better. So much better, in fact, that after having read the entire New York Times (with an excellent article about Jeff Bridges), I stood up from the comfortable red chair in the living room, looked around, and thought, I love this house. Hope you're up for a little tour:

tags: relief, Ch-china, financial instruments

A little different.

Yesterday, our friends from Wyoming were in town--the ones we visited a couple of weeks ago--and they came over for dinner. The historian has had a cold/cough/ache thing going on NONE DARE CALL IT FLU and so my preferred conditions* for dealing with my portion of the mess--which, I confess it, is a big portion--were not to be.

*[Conditions for dealing with my portion of the mess: a house empty of all save me and my portion of the mess, the better to wrestle with my demons and call upon deity for aid and comfort and make vows to whatever powers that be that I will never ever no never let it get this bad again.]

No, the historian, ill and in need of rest, needed to be able to lie down. So, the people, my portion of the mess got worse. Or, if not worse, it began to glower at me. To call me names and to insinuate things about my character. In the cold light of day--November light, hence, quite cold--the loomingness of my portion of the mess seemed ever more looming. My character ever more flawed. It was pretty bad. Very bad.

I kept thinking, how can we have people over? There's this mess, and it's looming. And I am a flawed, flawed person! This house! The squalor! Etcetera &c &c.

I had to do it in stages: first, sort my portion of the mess into smaller portions (sweaters, tee shirts, skirts, trousers, fashion magazines, The New Yorker, catalogs, old crossword puzzles, scarves). Then, go through them to see if there are obvious giveaway candidates. Then, on D-Day (dinner day), put things away and throw things away. Meanwhile, I also cooked. Meanwhile, the historian did other cleaning and sorting maneuvers.

And, the people, I felt so much better. About everything.

Our friends came over and of course what they responded to in our home wasn't anyone's portion of the mess. Rather, they loved the colors of our walls, the paintings, the candlelight, the dinner itself. We had a wonderful time and I was able to see again--it is a little surprising to me how long it has been since I've seen it--how lovely and wonderful our home is to live in, how much we've made it our own, how vivid and lively and lovely it is. That's hard to see when all you can see is your own flaws.

There are resultant resolutions and plans aplenty, which I will spare you. But mainly, it was very good to be reminded about how to enjoy our own space--our own lives.

Tell me which way you liked that.

It is time to break the Summer of 2007 all the way down with the Best and Worst list:

Best new recordings: Rickie Lee Jones, The Sermon on Exposition Blvd., Feist, The Reminder, Rufus Wainwright, Release the Stars

Best family stuff: the Scots came to town, baby Deacon was born, family gatherings of all sorts when my brother came to town, my sister came to breakfast at my house. Running out with college daughter and running son for sodas late at night. Late night movies with college daughter.

Best household developments: I cleaned out my closet and gave away so many clothes, so many that I can now see that I still have a bunch to give (I told the historian last week that I bet I could reduce my sweaters by a third--and I did). I bought a vacuum cleaner. I got the downstairs carpets cleaned.

Best television: so many middle-aged actresses have shows now--Lili Taylor, Holly Hunter, Glenn Close, Kyra Sedgwick. I now have a weekly regimen of State of Mind, Saving Grace, Damages, and The Closer. I'm also watching The Office, 30 Rock, and the pretty horrible most recent season of Scrubs. Also, a brilliant series on AMC called Mad Men. Also random episodes of Top Chef. Aside from that one, I could never get into the reality tv scene, so summer has kind of been a wasteland--but now, there's actual new television: some shows that are only barely passable as shows but with terrific acting (State of Mind and Saving Grace), but also terrific shows with excellent acting (The Closer, Damages, The Office, 30 Rock, and Mad Men).

Best movies (aka, movies at which I had a good time): Superbad, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hairspray, Once, Hot Fuzz, Knocked Up, Disturbia, Away From Her, Broken English, and The Simpsons Movie.

I'm also adding the amazing vacation we took to the "Best" list.

Sundry other bests: I got to write new poems, including trying my hand at a canzone (still working on it), read new books, and relax a lot. I wrote a paper with counterintuitive. I've got some poems coming out this fall. I feel invigorated about my writing and submitting life. I can carry a lot of music around on my iPod.

Worst: Well, after a summer like that, it would be a little churlish to linger on "worst." Worst is, maybe, having to contemplate checking all the links on your readings pages for the online class you're about to teach. Or having to spend Tuesday in meetings. Or having to get your parking hang tag. Or thinking about how very, very whiny you have all of a sudden, after a pretty much blissful summer, become.