A little bit abed.

I've seen a lot of my own bedroom, from a more or less prone position, lately. Yes, still the sick. But I can tell I'm getting better. I know this, because I was able to grade today. My eyes felt hot, but not as hot. My head hurt, but I wasn't sneezing my head off. I haven't seen the new baby yet except in photos, but I will tomorrow. So: better.

I am feeling hopeful about the grading. I can only foresee a few little glitches. And I have made up my mind that I will not be running after them, figuratively, begging them to give me the work they forgot, or decided to bail on, or are withholding, just for the fun of seeing me freak out about it. (That last part might not be literally true, ever. But it sure feels that way sometimes.) NO. I will not. They will have to take the grade I give them if their work isn't complete, and we will discuss it in the new year.



(don't hesitate to turn up the volume, if it's too quiet.)

Ill Christmas.

Man.

I hate getting sick at the ends of semesters. However, it appears that it is the way of my life. Via dolorosa de mi casa, as it were. I remember one time, I was so sick at the end of the semester, my first husband and I took to our beds for what seemed like days. We arose from our bed of affliction to go to the mall the day before Christmas, so we would have a present for each other. When I saw some people dressed up like reindeer (can that be right? I was delirious), and I thought, I wish I had brought Prudence (our cat)--she would have loved this.

I'm not that sick this time. But I am all DayQuil'd up and trying to overlap the doses so there's no complete experience of how sick I really am at any time. Because that would be horrible. I can't even bear to contemplate it.

I'm almost done whining about it, hang on.

I did have to go into school to "teach" my last class. Then there was a meeting I chaired. By the end, I basically was walking around like The Empress of Contagion. I considered, briefly, stopping at a store on the way home, but the last shred of reason still firing in my brain told me NO.

Can I refill your eggnog for you?

I look forward to weeks spent in its glow. Grading. In its glow.

All I want for Christmas

...is for everyone to blog more. Is that too much to ask?

I was talking about this with my Scotland daughter today. Well, chatting about it:

me: they're dead to me, the blog-giver-uppers.  But that doesn't seem very Christmas-y. So I turned it into a wish. I just want a daily or almost daily shot of your stories, your images, your errant thoughts. Like this morning, I woke up and the sun was coming up. Even from a horizontal, prone position, I could see the warmth of the colors in the sky.

"It's glowing," said the historian, his first words of the day.

I got up and looked. Across the horse field the cars were on their various ways, to work, school, all and sundry. And in the horse field was an actual horse, just standing in the field, as they do:

(I exempt from this Christmas wish list all the people who do blog regularly or semi-regularly. You guys are good, and I sincerely do appreciate you. Carry on.)

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!

Writing notes.

Today, I went down to the Salt Lake Roasting Co. for some magic writing time. I say "magic," because the Roasting Co. has been, heretofore, a location in which I have been able to wring drafts from dross, revise like a wizard, and even develop new material. Something about sitting upstairs in that building, looking down onto the street, makes me feel free of ordinary obligations and more focused, more intent, on writing itself.

Here are today's results.

First, yet again, I wish I were a person who wrote everyday. I always think, at the beginning of the academic year, that this will be the year I am a person who writes at least a few times a week--by which I mean that I would move my attention to writing that many times, and write some things down. However: I am not that writer, at least not at this moment in my life. Paul Lisicky observed that his once-partner, Mark Doty, considered to be a prolific writer, usually wrote in a couple of big bursts a year, and otherwise wrote only sporadically. That's me, too. So when I say, as I did a few weeks ago, I'm going to find some time to write for a few hours before the end of the year, it means either that I'm hoping for that kind of burst of writing (not likely), or that I'll be looking at things I've already written, hoping to add more to them, or transform them in some way, and maybe along the way I'll jot down a note or two that might become a freewrite that might become a draft that might become a poem. We live in hope.

Second, my friend Kim often says that for a poet, everything is writing. That fetishizing the sitting down at your desk part is just about the same as equating typing with writing. I think this is a healthy way to look at things. All the same, I do sort of believe that regularly experiencing the turn to write (or type), and acting on it, tends to prime the pump. Maybe. I sat down today and looked at the last set of notes I made. They were about a rabbit. And not much more than the word "rabbit." I keep thinking that if I were writing more often (typing), I might have more than this furry little word.

Third, there was a time when I felt moved to write a poem--a draft--often. That is not how it is these days, except for the lucky times when there's a burst. I had such a time this past summer. It was awesome. Now, though, I feel like I write in layers: I have a piece that I turn into a draft, and then the draft takes a long, long time to realize itself. I take the poem out and see if I can identify what it needs, and then I try to write in that direction. Or I've taken the draft to my writing group, and I have their notes, and I meditate on what those notes might say to me that I can use, and then I try to write or revise in that direction. The process is additive for a long time. And then it might be subtractive. Another poet friend talks about having the patience to stay in the writing moment when a poem presents itself. I get that. I'm impatient a lot these days. Sometimes I think, I'll just write the quick notes down and come back to it. But if a poem is on its way, that occasion warrants some patience. Not that any of this happened today at all.

Fourthly, sometimes you have to just feel the revulsion about your work. Just feel it, let it have its moment. And then get back to work.

Fifthly, sometimes your magic writing place won't really do the trick. You're just going to have to live with that.

In other news, I have decided that this month, each day until Christmas, I am going to post a short video of Christmas lights in my neighborhood. With comment. Sometimes my comment, perhaps occasionally the voices of others, and occasionally music. Here is Day 1 of the Lights Of Christmas Video Cavalcade:

Mad cheer.

Neighborhood lights from lisab on Vimeo.

This is my official nomination for the "Paragon of Excess" Christmas Lights Award for 2008. It's like a light-eating monster ate too many, and then threw up Christmas in this front yard.  It was a drive-by, so I'm sorry about the obstacles the car itself creates.  In particular, you cannot view the seriously undecorated aspens on the east side of the yard.  More's the pity.