Blame-mongering, or how I am spending my summer.

On the one hand, I'm pretty enamored of the Resist-bot. Because of it, I could fax my senators whilst on the road. I could practically stand in an ancient monument with my cell phone in hand, wave the phone in the air to catch a whiff of cellular network, then speak my truth to my senators in voice-to-text. Or, you know, yell my truth. And then, of course, carefully proofread, because voice-to-text, whew, so many misunderstandings.

Of course, I did not stand in the middle of an ancient monument and do this. But don't think I didn't consider it. Because of the rage, which leads inexorably to the rage-fax. It's a whole new genre, I think. Obviously, I blame DJT. Alternatively, and depending on the day: the Majority Leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the afore-mentioned senators, that one representative who is standing down after having been reelected, which, on the one hand, phew, and on the other hand, who the hell does he think he is?

Emergent genre: the rage-blog-post.

All this rage isn't good for a person, I know this. I blame DJT and also all the above, and also my poor character which is, which must be, the reason I am not sleeping well, or enough, which throws all the rest of my carefully made plans into havoc. Carefully made plans: get enough sleep. Relax. Get into a writing routine. Creativity galore! Also, enough exercise. A calm and centered spirit. Etc. If there's not enough sleep, none of this will work. I also blame Bruiser, who has begun an occupation of our bed that shows no sign of abating. He is a sleep-space tyrant. Also, a sweet old dog, and who doesn't want to indulge a sweet old dog? I would never be so cruel, although I have recently purchased a memory foam dog bed that I am hoping will serve as an enticing bait-and-switch for said sweet old dog, because by God, I need more sleep, else the infrastructure of my summer plan crumble and I am left in the dust, for which I will blame, obviously, DJT. &c &c &c.

So glad we got to experience this magnificence with these people.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 15, 2017 at 11:46pm PDT

One last Chacoan window.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 13, 2017 at 7:28pm PDT

Votive amulets from Greece.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 10, 2017 at 2:25pm PDT

We're home and everything is blooming.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 16, 2017 at 9:37pm PDT

So glad we got to experience this magnificence with these people.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 15, 2017 at 11:46pm PDT

The traditional jumping over Jackson festivities.

A post shared by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jun 17, 2017 at 5:55pm PDT

Well, anyway, here we are at nearly the end of June. So far I have spent many sweet hours with my parents and sisters, walked where the ancestral Puebloans walked, smelled the sweet blooming desert flowers of Santa Fe, begun distributing copies of my book (my book!) to people. Booked one reading, am working on a second (and third, fourth, etc.). Reveled in the glorious mess that is our garden. Slept like a champion, mostly, whilst on our epic road trip. Read some really good books and some really enjoyable ones. Talked myself, several times, down from the ledge of anxiety that is the life of a writer (shouldn't I have my next manuscript ready RIGHT NOW? and if I don't have all the poems ready RIGHT NOW what will become of me? deadlines are passing right and left!). Found myself engaged in work projects that seem like they should wait till September, but no, they have to get started now. Seen many friends. Seen lots of family. Seen many more movies than I would have predicted, including Wonder Woman, which is a wonder.

I'd like to cordon off my rage-generator and its motive forces and its discontents from my ordinary (and extraordinary) joys with, oh, let's say, a hedge of dog roses and tea roses and floribunda roses and wild roses. Roses, in other words, thorny and sweet-smelling and petal-laden and high on blooms. It would be better for me, and better for everyone around me. It seems like, though, the world is whole, and everything is (as Lauren Hill says) everything, for good and ill. Here's hoping that dog bed strategy works, and all my rage-faxes join in a great river of resistance, and I--and you, too--wake up each morning having slept well, to greet the day and get to work.

Today, I got up.

I get up every day, but today I got up with a plan. To be clear: most days I also get up with a plan. Today was Sunday. Sunday, I prefer to keep my plans a little loose. Today, my plan was tight, because my writing group was coming over, I had a lunch to prepare and a lunch, therefore, for which to shop. I had a poem to straighten out so it could fly right. Also, I have other writing to do and grading to do. Also, my environment, especially my study, is a little crazy. Okay, mostly my study. Also my side of the bed. Pretty much anywhere I am keeping my personal possession. So, as you can see, I really needed the plan.

Earlier this week, I had my instructional team over for our post-semester review, aka The Post-Mortem. I made some spinach lentil soup and a lovely salad. At the end of my preparations, as I was making the salad happen, I got in a little bit of a hurry and cut my finger. I cut my finger whilst preparing vegetables pretty often. Also, and in a perhaps not unrelated trend, I am often in a hurry whilst preparing vegetables, especially when people are coming over. The people: I should learn that hurrying and sharp knives are a bad mix. But I never do. There I am, slicing red onion super thin, because if you're putting raw onion into a salad, it needs to be super thin so all the sweet can be on the surface and the raw has to hide. That's a theory, anyway, a theory of how to slice an onion. Do you need more cooking theories? I've got loads. Slicing a red onion--right? that's where we were?--and then, a cut finger, which slows down your slicing considerably.

My hands have, ever since, been in motion and also a little bit on the raw side. It's cold, for one. A cut finger likes to take its time healing because hands are necessary. For work, you see. So this week, while I trimmed a billion anthologies on the big Duplo DocuCutter, and counted them a billion times in their boxes, in case I missed one, and hung up my clothes for the billionth time, and hung cold wet clothes on the rack, and made cookies, and decorated a Christmas tree, and picked five pears and two persimmons and a wedge of gorgonzola and four Christmas cactuses at Trader Joe's, and made scallion pancakes and squash laksa and a pear cranberry gingersnap crumble, my hands were on my mind.

In my practice, when I take a poem out to work on it, it means I open a virtual file and find the latest version of a digital document. If I'm lucky, I find I've left notes for myself on the poem, that will help me to remember where I left off, what I knew I hadn't yet done in the poem when I put it down.

I'm working on a poem called 'smart bomb,' set in a car while the speaker was driving to work and a story about the bombing in Syria was on the radio. This was a few months ago, after one of the cease-fires had yet again gone south. In the poem, the speaker turned the radio off, just as I often do, when an interviewer asks a muddle-headed question, or a caller's response is unbearable, or, as sometimes has happened in the past, the host has a cold and her voice sounds phlegmy. Sometimes, I just can't take the sound that the radio makes in my ears. In my mind. In my everything. I guess now is a good time to say that 'the speaker' in the sentences above is, for all intents and purposes, me.

I've been thinking about how information--ideas, events, cataclysms--detonate, how its blast ripples wide. I've been thinking about the what to do problem. About the what to feel. Also: about how much it feels like none of my answers are sufficient. Feeling isn't sufficient. Not even doing.

In my plans for the week upcoming, I have grading to finish. I have, perhaps, a few more meetings. A finite number, I hope I hope. I have more writing to finish. A lunch with a friend. Shopping for grandchildren. Two little grandsons who will just have driven in with their mom and dad from Arizona, coming over to say hi and bye really quick tomorrow night. I know I will get several reminders of daily political actions in the civic sphere, which is to say, in the world where we live: calls to make, emails to send, places to show up and lend my voice, however I feel. I have necessary sleep I must hold a place for. I hope for a day when I can stay in my quiet house and bake.

This last week, I bought some lights on an impulse at Target--dewdrop lights, they're called, little beads of light on copper wire that you can wind around things. In the dark, dark of winter, I do love a glow. The wire and lights came wrapped around a card. You had to unwind, then load three batteries into a little pack, then click a button. The first set of batteries made nothing happen, light-wise--I think I may have lodged one of the three batteries inexactly into its slot. So I patiently extracted the three, then tried another three batteries, and this time, they lit up, brightening at intervals along the wire.

I wrapped the wire around a vase of roses, which I also bought whilst shopping for my poetry lunch. The lights illuminated the glass urn, the stems crossed in the still water, the red and white blooming out the lip. I love roses at Christmas. Roses and lights. Roses, lights, and a tree. Roses, lights, baubles, and a tree. Roses, lights, baubles, quiet, and a tree. Unwinding and winding a string of light.

Which, don't do that.

We had a blast at the Abbey-Michael Baton Rouge wedding party:

How we do #louisianastyle

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 16, 2016 at 7:29pm PST

Power of the sun. #linknlola

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 16, 2016 at 7:46am PST

A+ to New Orleans for music today.

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 17, 2016 at 3:18pm PST

Eight Dice

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 17, 2016 at 11:14am PST

Snowy egret (Bluebonnet Swamp, Baton Rouge)

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 17, 2016 at 7:42am PST

Lovely Abbey

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Jan 17, 2016 at 10:06am PST

--etoufee, jambalaya, beignets, egrets--the full Louisiana, that's all. I highly recommend a Louisiana open house, especially one with loads of dancing. So much fun!

And then on Monday we had to get on a plane at ridiculous o'clock to come back to our regular lives. I was beyond ecstatic, then, to find myself, after having fallen asleep on the plane--miracle!--as the instigator of a sneeze-fest, which indicated the onset of, yes, wait for it, the after-the-holidays-winter-cold, my beloved annual guest.

I can only imagine how thrilled the people sitting around me on the plane were. The guy with the aisle seat (I was at the window) said bless you! several times, but then, he stopped saying it. I'm assuming his inner monologue was more like PLAGUE! CONTAGION! OUT OUT DAMNED SNEEZLE! And who could blame him? I was more inclined to blame the virus than the vir-ee--that's a thing--aka ME--in this case, but still. DAMMIT.

My supercharged plan--it seems like there's really no other kind--was to get off the plane, go home and grab another bag and hightail it back to the Arthouse Convergence conference-stroke-SLFS Board meeting. Which I did, with a short Mucinex pause. You'll be glad to know that watching a panel discussion, and then a 60s era Taiwanese wuxia martial arts film whilst riding the Mucinex high, made it extra special. And also driving up to Midway, be-Mucinex'd, in the not-quite-snowing-but-kind-of-death-defyingly-foggy weather was rather thrilling.

I helped with the strategic planning today, but last night, even though I could have watched The Last Days In the Desert starring Ewan MacGregor as both Jesus and the Devil, and even though Ewan MacGregor himself was apparently there to introduce the film, I stayed in. I watched nothing in particular on television. The historian came all the way up to Midway to watch me as I lay there and let the cold medicine have its lurgy way with me.

The upside? I actually do feel quite a bit better today. I am sure you would like my analysis of the whys, the wherefores, the what have yous of my illness, my decline, and my eventual recovery. Here they are:

My Analysis of the Whys, the Wherefores, the What Have Yous of My Illness, My Decline, and My Eventual Recovery.

1. Early flights: they are terrible. Don't do that.
2. Supercharged plans, where you get off a plane and have to do something immediately: the worst. Don't do that.
3. 60s era wuxia films for no good reason? Fine. Go ahead.
4. Mucinex? As a friend of mine once said, in the winter you might as well take it as a prophylactic measure. Truth.
5. Driving on a snowy day through mountain passes? Dicey. Probably shouldn't do that, especially hopped up on cold medicine.
6. Ewan MacGregor? I love him. But when the weather is below freezing and the cold is battling your immune system for your very soul, better stay in.
7. Sleeping in a foreign bed in another county? After three nights in a foreign bed in another state? Who do you think you are, a superhero? Go home already! Sleep in your own bed!

Plans.

A couple of nights ago, I happened upon a slew of the calmed-down, basic-cable versions of Sex in the City. For those of you who remember it, it was right after Aidan and Carrie and Big and Natasha all had their sad roundelay, and subsequently Carrie regretted it, and Charlotte and Trey were trying to be together and trying to have a baby, etc. I fell into these episodes like they were my best friend, walking down the street when I least expected her, and we went to get Cokes and french fries (this would have happened a long time ago, before there was such a thing as carbs and therefore we could eat what we wanted).  I watched Carrie consider important narcissistic items whilst wearing cosmic print shortalls with a chiffon shirt over them. And prancing in her crazy shoes, which, in one of the slew of episodes I watched, she also got mugged for. Etcetera and so on, except I still kind of liked her, as I always did.

Yes, there I lay on the bed, letting those stories just come at me, as if I had nothing better to do, such as

• make my actual, as opposed to my theoretical, syllabi
• write the reports I just dropped mid-bullet point back when the semester skidded to a halt and I waltzed off to a wedding and then Christmas
• I don't know, iron my white shirts?
• revise my manuscript, maybe?
• put together my travel request
• stop all my online shopping already
• etc.

Tomorrow, I need to make progress on several of the items on this list. Also, and perhaps contradictorily, I would like to be able to drop everything if my son wants to go get a burrito, because he's moving across America soon, and how many more burritos are in my future, at least burritos consumed with my son? Not that many, you guys. My burrito-eating days, with my son, are numbered, because mortality, that's why. Ergo I should be able to drop my syllabi in favor of a burrito. Syllabi are eternal, in that they will always be with us, but lunch dates with children are not. They are finite. I feel this argument is becoming circular. Moving on:

Also, I want to work out. And there are housekeeping things that could take up my time forever, such as putting the sheets back on the downstairs beds, and deciding once and for all what things I can put or give away so that there are no more clothes lying around unhoused in my bedroom. You know, general it's-the-new-year stuff. Like: NO MORE! of whatever it is there's too much of. 

Because I don't have anywhere to go tomorrow except possibly to Burrito Town, I can theoretically really get a lot of things done. So that's my plan: move through the list and check them off/strike them through. Until I have a veritable tiger of a list, i.e., striped (with strikethroughs, do you see the picture I am conjuring? with my words?). At least a tiny little part of me suspects that there may be some languor and dillydallying, though. Languor and dillydallying are my specialties.

I wish there was someone in my life who would come up to my apartment and cook me a steak, bloody, to strengthen my blood, and smack me and say Snap out of it!


That's right, tonight it was Moonstruck on TV. Classic of straightening out your life by having, then changing, your plans.

Here are a few things I think I will probably end up writing on an airplane.

--because I have now officially reached the moment when I'm probably not going to get much more done except pack, straighten, and leave:

• Several proposals 
• Scripts for a handful of instructional screencasts, to wit:: 

• 'something about genre-mixing, mixed genre pieces';

• 'something about genre that *undoes the regime of compliance,* that undoes the notion of genres as closed systems; working toward an open ecology of genre, with adaptability & invention & responsivity as the prized values' [NOTE TO SELF: I'm sure this will be super easy, especially on a plane.];  

• 'Storytelling aspects of using sources? (the submerged and/or explicit narrative elements of all the genres, and how to address this in terms of composing)' [NOTE TO SELF: ...and the fact that this has been on my list for a year might be indicative of ...something.]

• a poem for convocation (!)
• a draft of a poem that I have been planning to write all summer
• a revision of the Francis Bacon poem

I did get my manuscripts mailed or otherwise sent off today, including one with a 'detailed cover letter addressing my bio, my publication history, and my marketing plan' should my manuscript be accepted by the press in question. 

And I bought a non-essential tee shirt and some essential hair product. I am prepared, people! I have several novels on my Kindle. And a non-functioning iPod, so, you know, that's rad. As you can see, I've been thinking about my carry-ons obsessively, as well as my in-flight productivity. Yes, I said that. I'm as horrified as you are.

The rain was our nemesis.

My best friend, the friend of my youth, is here visiting. Our big plan was a road trip to Hovenweep and Mesa Verde. I have wanted to see Hovenweep for a really long time. I know that it doesn't have the scope of Mesa Verde, let alone Chaco Canyon or other ancestral Puebloan sites. But still: I loved the idea of its remoteness and its non-national park status. I probably was cherishing a ridiculous notion of Hovenweep being kind of a secret.

Well, we drove south and east, and got all the way to Blanding, but Blanding proved to be our Waterloo (wait for it): there were flash flood warnings in the area. Rain was sheeting down, and as it did, I remembered what I had read about the roads in Hovenweep, and what I recalled was the basic message was a caution to potential visitors about possible dangers, flash flood-wise.

I am here to say that I shall return to Blanding, and thence I shall arise and go, and go to Innisfree, I mean Hovenweep. However, not on this trip.

We turned around, Blanding and its flash flood warnings having routed us from our intended destination (1) and drove straight to Monticello, and then Cortez, and then Mesa Verde (destination 2), where we slept at the Far View Lodge, after having eaten a lovely dinner, and then we arose this morning to see the following:

I have more to say about all this, including what the sky looked like, and how the little birds flitted their songs above the canyon, and the way the canyons felt, with the coolness of the water seep. But for now, let me say that I think we did all right. Even without Hovenweep.

Plans big & small.

Today I did a little laundry and did a few dishes and ate a burrito but also some salad, made the second pitcher of iced tea of the summer (Moroccan mint), thought a little or a lot about Morocco. Bought a pair of red shoes. Worked out, added notes to my poem-storm, admired my garden.

My friend Ann came over this morning--we had a plan to watch Pitch Perfect, which she had not seen (!), and which, in my opinion, was necessary preparation for watching Pitch Perfect 2. Which we plan to do sometimes soon. She brought doughnuts from Fresh Donut & Deli (the best!). What a pleasure, to laugh with her as we watched a movie that has given me so much pleasure. She also brought her own cold Dr. Pepper, because she is always prepared.

Later, I wrote to my oldest friend Mary, who will be coming to visit me next week. We've planned a little road trip down south and east, to Hovenweep and beyond. We're both bringing our cameras. We will see all of these things, whatever they are, for the first time with each other. It will be an adventure and a pilgrimage and the hours we will spend together--necessary, crucial, for both of us.

I've been thinking and feeling the great blessing of these friends--truly, of all my friends. How glad it makes me to see them, how restored to myself, how much richer my life feels because of them. How much more open the world seems because of them, because I unlock the hoard of time I keep by instinct, and because I spend that hoarded time at least a little more freely. I need that time, the time I keep, for quiet, for writing, for solitude; but I also recognize that this can become a kind of fetish, a dogma. Better to be heterodox. Better to both keep and spend.

Tomorrow I will continue to go through the first edits of my book (my book!). I will write the biographical statement that will actually go in my book. I'll meet with another friend for a project at work. I'll work out. I have plans to see another friend mid-June, and I need to find a time to have dinner with several other friends. This list, even writing it, can raise a small atmosphere of panic. But one thing at a time. The days have room for solitude and for friendship, for quiet and for conversation. For Pitch Perfect and for Francis Bacon, and a little iced Moroccan mint tea, just to keep things cool.

Errands & a plan.

I am big on the idea of a plan, as readers of this blog may remember. I am also a believer in the notion of a routine. It's like a mini-, quasi-religion with me, and especially in the summer time.

The following is a reenactment of my mental state, come summertime:

Me, speaking to myself, silently. In my brain: Okay. First of all, what is my plan? What are my goals? How many weeks are there in the summer? How many have I already spent doing nothing, or finishing my grades, or taking naps? Speaking of naps: I want a nap to be a part of my routine. Like, daily? Maybe daily is too much. A 45 minute nap wouldn't be too much. Also, I want to work out. Beginning of the day? end of the day? Why am I thinking about working out, when the most important thing of allll is writing? I want to write every day. Even a little bit every day. How much is a little bit? Is 45 minutes a day too little? That seems like too little for the most important thing of alllll. Okay, 3 hours. Every day, three hours, or sometimes a little less. So: when should I write and when should I work out? Also, I want to cook every day. Also, I want to organize all my books.

It gets a little crazy up in there.

One of my plans/goals/agendas for coming down to talk to my son about his plans/goals/agendas. Not that he needs my help, realistically. I just feel better knowing everyone's plans/goals/agendas. Seriously: like everyone's.

Reenactment of my mental state about everyone's plans/goals/agendas:

Me, speaking to myself, silently. In my brain: I just want to know everyone's plans/goals/agendas. It will help me sleep at night. Is this so much to ask? (insert extra question marks, for emphasis.)

As you can imagine, I don't get nearly the amount of plans/goals/agendas, submitted for my database, as I would like. But it's also true that, from time to time, I have to remind myself that, while a certain amount of planning and goal-setting and agenda-making is useful and healthy, a lot more flexibility, looseness, roll-with-it ease is even more useful and more healthy.

Today we walked around Tempe Town Lake, where we saw a heron, a bunch of ducks and duck-like birds as well as what seemed like an enormous hawk flying overhead. Also, we got buzzed by a rogue ensemble of irritated bees, which caused us to flee from a shelter where we had been briefly sitting. We--seriously--called the cops on these insects, because my son, no bee-hater, informed me that there is some situation with the bees at ASU. I wasn't quite clear on this, but the dispatcher didn't seem to think this was a joke. A few minutes after the call, some officials came by to check the bee situation out. We weren't nearby, so I can't report what the discussion was like, but I imagine a little something like this:

Reenactment of the bee cops, examining the bee situation:

Bee cops, talking to each other: These bees seem pissed. Better back away. I'm putting up the 'Angry Bees: Beware!' sign right...here. [flees]

I realize I'm talking a lot about bees. Our encounter was actually quite brief. But we took another route, we retraced our steps across the bridge. We threw some stones into the lake. And our day ended up pretty great, with sandwiches and, later, really delicious Middle Eastern food, and stories at bedtime, all agendas and plans and goals and angry bees aside.

Posted with Blogsy

I would just like to share with you and everyone

that I have reached, perhaps, peak sleep dissatisfaction.

I would like to say this, but in the act of writing it--of coming up with the noun dissatisfaction--I basically disproved the claim at the very moment in which I was stating it. So that's a nonstarter.

Other nonstarters of the evening:

1. I planned to vacuum my study tonight. Nope.

2. The fancy outfit I had planned, written on a post it note, to wear to my fancy event? Nope. So I exchanged the planned

• black velveteen trousers and a 
• black silk shirt and my 
• dragon necklace and 
• black suede boots and 
• some sort of black jacket 

for the new and improved (wait for it)

• black velvet skirt and 
• a black v-neck sweater and a 
• different necklace and 
• black suede boots with 
• tights* and a 
• black cardigan. 

Sort of the same, I guess, but I really hated the black jackets I came up with for planned and rejected Outfit 1. One after another: nope. Nope. Nope. Not even. Stupid. No way. All horrible. Outfit killers, those black jackets.

On the other hand: black cardigan (Outfit 2) = perfect.

3. I have graded...well, not everything I need to grade. I am lying to myself about how much I can accomplish between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 1 and 2:30 p.m. Loads, is basically what I'm telling myself. Heaps. Grand amounts.

I have books aplenty on my iPad. I hope that there is a good magazine to buy and read at the airport.

I hope that leaning on the historian whilst we are in flight is both comforting and comfortable. I really, really hope this.

I hope that the music on my iPod is dramatically satisfying and soothing.

Have I done all I can do? Just about, and that is the truth.

I even wrote this poem. (Actually, I discovered it almost fully written in my notes. That's why note keeping is for #winners.)

*I have already stopped wearing tights for the year, and I have rather strict rules about this (once you have bare legs, no more tights, and conversely, once you wear tights, no more bare legs). HOWEVER: I will be in Europe, so all bets are off.

Panicky, just a little.

This morning I woke up before eight. Not that early, according to the early to rise hegemonauts, but freaking early for a day in which I planned to wake up when I woke up, i.e, after eight. Too much to ask? Apparently, since I was thinking about the following:

• where will we eat in Dublin? This must obviously be planned.
• GRADING.
• poem for my writing group.
• too many things on my list, will never ever ever get them all done before we go.
• laundry.
• dinner this evening.

--so many things that I sprang as if sprung directly from my bed, into my clothes and onto the tasks of the day. (see above.)

Well, it's been a fine day. Beautiful, am I right? Full of good works, and I spoke to each and every one of my children about things of consequence, to wit: recovery from surgery, wedding planning, will we have breakfast tomorrow?, would you like to consume my leftover carnitas?, is Whiplash a good/execrable movie?, what will we do when we go to Scotland? and so on.

I now have a Google map with saved locations on it, AND I synched up my mobile Google maps with my non-mobile (?) ones, so I can have access to these starred locations when we are waltzing (I'm assuming) about Dublin and then Sligo.

The GRADING is still not finished. Shall I take the optimistic posture? I've made progress! (Alternately: not enough progress, doom despair human sacrifice dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!)

Well, anyway, at least I'm up to date on my poems, so that's something. 

( zzz ) < I just about apologized for the quality of my poems. But I am resisting that pointless gesture. That's a little something I like to call progress, bitches.

In seven days I will be flying.

Here are things that must be done before I go to Ireland:

1. spiffing up some curriculum
2. unfathomable extents of grading
3. a bit of writing

That list doesn't sound so bad, except for the 'unfathomable extents' portion. It has dimension, depth, and incompletion. The grading is the big silent accusatory hulk in the corner of my preparations to leave.

"Don't worry about finishing things," a friend advised me, when I said I was worried about finishing things before I left. "Just don't."

Okay. I think I'll do that.

But in the meantime, while I should be grading,  I have also

• made reservations for hotels in Dublin and Sligo
• begun well-embroidered dreaming about what we might do whilst there:

Garavogue River, in Sligo Town

Sligo Abbey

on inishmurray island

inishmurray island

toward inishmurray island

And that's really better, honestly, than freaking out about the things I have to do on my short and yet nonetheless daunting list.

Ergo, a poem.

Planning: a love story.

Planning: a love story by lisab

This week in prognosticated data.

Things that I hope will arrive at my office: one long-ago ordered bookshelf.

Amount of books that will fit on my hoped-for shelves: ten boxes' worth, please oh please.

Hours I will spend in my office: between three and twenty-five? 

Syllabi that will be completed: two. I hope.

Books that I will finish reading: two.

Reviews of books that I will commence writing: two. (I hope.)

Number of meals I will cook and/or otherwise prepare at home: five breakfasts, three lunches, four dinners. 

Proportion of clothing I will cull from my closets to give away, because items to be given no longer give me, personally, a spark of joy: 25%, I hope.

Christmas trees that will come down down down: one.

Remaining holiday food that will be either eaten or discarded, such as naked sugar cookies and stale baked goods:  all of it, ALL! come hell or high water.

Poems to be written: I am planning on three.

Number of birthdays this week in my family: one!

Amount of birthday cake I will eat, even so: not one piece, because the birthday boy lives in Arizona for the love.

Movies I will see: three, or I will know the reason why.

Blog posts to be written: As God is my witness there shall be SEVEN. 

Well well well.

I have accomplished the following recently:

1. achieved the insight that, if I'm behind, I feel I don't have time to write--or that taking time to write might put me further behind, so, you know. Hence, no writing.
2. what the hell.

That said,

3. I arrived home from Seattle,
4. did the laundry,
5. cooked a dinner last night,
6. enthused/ranted about the Oscar on various social media, and to Bruiser and the historian,
7. made pancakes for myself,
8. made approximately 4% progress on my To Do list,
9. ate lunch with my daughter and granddaughter,
10. came home and made 4% more progress (total, if you're keeping track: 8% progress),
11. was the guest speaker in the class of a friend,
12. came home and ordered a vegetable pizza like a boss,
13. and so forth.

Upshot: still behind, but writing a list-y blog post.

One of the things on my list was to

14. organize all AWP notes, which
15. I have not yet done.

I do, however, have all my AWP swag

16. organized in a single bag.
17. the AWP tote bag. So, you know.
18. what the hell.

That said, I did

19. make a new header and background for my blog, and
20. write/"write" a blog post. So, you know.

That is twenty things I have accomplished, the people. I don't know what you're complaining about.

Bonus accomplishments:

21. clean sheets,
22. have listened to new Beck album (verdict: gorgeous)
23. have chatted with son in China and
24. both other sons via text. AND
25. I have a more than vague idea of what I will do in class, and
26. most importantly, I have a plan to accomplish all the other stuff I need to get done. So, you know.

A plan is literally the best.

Something new.

It turns out that our early morning arising is not a fluke but a thing, an actual thing, which we are repeating daily. Or I am, anyway. This morning, for instance, I awoke at about 6.

In case you're wondering, this does not go hand in hand with going to bed earlier. Not at all! No, last night, I went to bed at midnight and read for a few minutes before falling asleep.

This morning at breakfast, my daughter suggested that within a week I'd be back to normal. Maybe so. I'm kind of enjoying the quiet, the stillness, the freshness of these early hours. This morning, I got up and wrote a little, then took Bruiser for a walk.

I'm loving the light at the beginning of the day and at the end, when the everything seems to glow green and yellow. I'm taking more than one walk, and I love that. So if my sleep readjusts to a more habitual pattern, fine. But if I keep waking up early, fine, too. Better than fine.

So that's the update on The Summer Sleep Project. What's that? What other projects are happening this summer?

2. The Cooking Project, wherein I renew my love of and acquaintance with the making of dinner out of actual ingredients.

3. The Walking Project, wherein I walk several times a day, to give my cardiovascular system something to write home about, to commune with my dog, to let my brain do its synaptic business, to calm my soul.

4. The Writing Project(s). There are many.

5. The Gardening Project. I have big plans. Like, so big that they will require the assistance of able-bodied men, such as my youngest son and upon occasion the Historian. Also, I may not be being realistic. Shh, I'm going to plant delphiniums!

6. The Push-the-Reset-Button Project. In which I will shed my Indispensable Man complex and with it my many (over)commitments. (This also may not be realistic. Check my stress levels in August to see.)

7. The Just Enjoy It Project. Can this be a project? We shall see.

The Writing Project(s) update: today I am writing a Fourteen Hour Sonnet. Check the specs out here.

Spark.

Today I was working on the syllabus for my creative writing class. I had some ideas that I had noted on a piece of paper in my purse, cryptic little phrases ("shapes," "locations," "voices") that were just not giving me much momentum in terms of overturning the categories that had governed this course for awhile. It has been a good course. I've felt pretty proud of it. But I have the chance this semester to teach it in the Pedro Almodovar style ("Live Flesh!"), and I want to make the most of it. I don't want to do the same thing I've been doing.

So I wrote those words down on a new blank document. I thought about them. I took the sheets off the bed and put them in the washer. I looked at those words some more. I thought about going to Target. I realized with great fervor that my iPod needed a charge, so I went into my study and plugged it into my desktop. I organized some stuff on my desk like it was my job. I found another piece of paper that had some notes on it. I added those to the blank document and thought about it some more.

Then I started to look for this one book on the upper corner of my shelves. I couldn't find it. I looked again and again in that corner--I thought I remembered it there. Then, I looked on the shelves adjacent to that, and then I looked at all the shelves, my eyes raking those spines. No luck. The book is, I think (I'm not absolutely positive at this point that the book is a real thing as opposed to a fantasm, or else sitting on some shelves in my work office, which amounts to the same thing). Right: the book is an estimable creative writing textbook (I think). I was hoping to harvest some stuff from it. Ideas, exercises, assignments.

But what happened instead (since the book is either not real or else not on the present shelves) is that I began to get new ideas. I ran to the other room and got my little piece of paper and a pen, and looked over the books more carefully, and thought of new categories, and activities, and little writing prompts, and more. By the end of my shelf scan, I had the big shape of my syllabus, more or less, and the momentum to keep working on it. It seemed exciting and fun and worthwhile.

And that, the people, that is what books are for: the spark they hold of your experiences with them, the memories they're vested with. The actual physical artifacts, organized however the reader has organized them, so that they speak not only to you, but to each other.

Planning for the shopping for the baking.

The shopping list I composed last night when I was too elated from having finished grading to sleep:

And this is the actual haul:

And here is the first step in the dance we'll call "The Christmas Baking Rhumba":

The baking/candymaking plan (this is the plan of an optimist/overachieving baker who is high on finishing her grading):

1. caramels.
2. brittle: pecan, almond, and pumpkin seed
3. date pinwheels
4. sugar cookies
5. probably those little treasure cookies with a cherry or a gumdrop inside, because I heart them
6. almond bread
7. butterscotch crescent rolls (the dough starts with cooked butterscotch pudding and gets richer from there)
8. fruitcake!
9. two new things: cardamom-and-cinnamon infused honey, and boiled cider syrup, which sound exotic and time-consuming and perfect.
10. probably some other European-style baked goods from a Martha Stewart Living magazine that is sitting around, waiting to be baked from.

Too much?   I am not now, nor have I ever been, a minimalist. And I will be baking, candy-making, honey-infusing, and cider-reducing my head off until Christmas, and possibly beyond.

Plan/wish.

Right about now, I would like to skip over the part where we orchestrate the exit strategy of all the classes. Students would have turned in their final projects and exams, and the halls at school would be quiet. There would be no more events and all the meetings of the semester would be completed, the minutes taken, the action items nestled into their little bulleted lists.

Pies, Pies, Pies. (Wayne Thiebaud)

I would be happily grading. There would be a Christmas tree and it would be lit. I would have a warm beverage and I would be happily grading. When I had completed, happily, a swath of grading, I would bake something. Like, perhaps, a pie. Perhaps several pies. After the grading was entirely completed, I would bake so many pies that I would have become, in point of fact, a pie baker, a baker of pies. I would bake pies of all kinds and I would deliver them to people. After I had baked a zillion pies and delivered them to a zillion houses, I would open a shop. Or maybe I would start a pie blog. Either way, the endgame would be a cookbook, that I would sell on the internet. The cookbook would be called PIE, and it would sell a zillion copies.

And that's how my life would be transformed.

Alas, I am but a community college English professor, a professor of English. And, within this calling, there is nothing I make that is so delectable as pie (arguments? assignments?). Having recognized this, there is nothing for it but to orchestrate the final projects, to lift the spirits of the dejected, to take pleasure in the good work and not take the not-so-good work personally. To grade, happily, even though the halls are still teeming and the meetings still glower, and there is so much, so much work yet to do.

And cookbook or no, I will make pie within the week. You mark my words.

Bear viewing strategy.

For when we go to Yellowstone tomorrow:

1. Get up. Eat breakfast. Write.
2. Around 11, gas up and go.
3. Linger in a bookstore or two in West Yell.
4. Around noon or one, go to the Park. Drive to Madison, Norris, Canyon, and Tower. This should take an hour and a half-ish, depending upon pauses and picture-taking and whatnot.
5. Drive around leisurely in the Lamar Valley for awhile or several hours.
6. See several bears and probably some wolves also. Antelopery as well.

I am pretty sure this will work.

Big Planning, Inc.

I am a victim of my own plans.

No, let me explain. But first, let me back up.

I have always--and by "always," I mean all the way back to high school, at least--I have always felt that I lack the big picture in terms of my own life. The girls I knew who were picking out baby names and thinking about what kind of house they'd live in, or else who knew what they wanted to major in in college and what careers they wanted--at that point in time, I was thinking, quite seriously, that I was going to be a concert pianist. (Before that, in my childhood aspiration-list, was "stewardess" and "secretary." All equally lofty, I'm sure you'll agree.) When I was the camp director in my Mormon ward (stop laughing. No, seriously. Stop.), I literally took making handmade paper (so that the girls could write notes to each other on it in the camp "post office") as my first priority. This, while more practical people were planning the meals around me. I shudder to remember this. Also, while shuddering, I have shaken loose about a dozen more similar memories of myself acting dreamy while other people did the list-making.

ANYWAY. Obviously, I am capable of planning plenty of things, since I go to work, collect a pay check, write proposals, buy a lot of shoes, etc. But lately, I feel my plans and good ideas just keep sneaking up, tagging me from behind and snickering at me. Here's an example.

We planned our trip to Scotland, which is now over and done with and is a faint whisper in the annals of time. Not really, but we're not there anymore. Sometime about the same time as we were planning that trip, the Publication Center Steering Committee and I came up with the idea of a Publication Boot Camp, to which we would invite all and sundry, and at which we would teach everything we know to all comers, and would also take a stab at a bunch of stuff we only sort of know. 

We sorted through possible dates. Right before the beginning of the fall semester? But then people wouldn't use the knowledge in their fall courses--it would be too late. The middle of the summer: right out, since people would either be teaching in the summer, or lost in a lemonade-soaked haze. Ergo, right before the summer semester started seemed like the best timeframe possible.

Well, right before the summer semester starts is right now. Right now, as in the jet-lagged, DayQuil'd present. What was I thinking? 

I am uploading Creative Commons licensed photos, videos, and sounds as we speak, so our attendees can practice on them. Wish us all luck and lucidity. Speaking for myself, I know I will need it.