Proofs.

Tonight, I have been reading the proofs of my forthcoming book.

(NOTE: There is just no way to say the above that doesn't sound at least a little bit braggy, but there you have it. It's the truth. I am. I am reading the proofs of my forthcoming book.)

Like writing the bio that will appear in said book, proofreading the book is a surreal experience. What, exactly, are you supposed to say in a bio? If you compare your potential biography to, say, the bios appearing in other people's second books, you are liable to run into facts such as these: other people have had more notable honors than you have had. Other people have published more. Other people blah blah blah why are you (am I) looking at other people's books anyway?

Nevertheless: the petite status of one's own resume, as the raw material for said bio, stands, regardless of what else one is reading.

This is where it's easy to allow distractions to intervene. I won't enumerate, except to say that I have not yet written the bio, but I have reread a certain young adult series in which good triumphs over evil in the wizarding world. And so forth.

Similarly, the proofs: a person can range far, far afield into hitherto unknown realms of anxiousness whilst looking at proofs. Such as: how it would be easy to make mistakes and miss things. How the font of the title may or may not be your favorite, and in a related matter, how to phrase this issue to the editor. And general questions about the worthiness of the poems and of one's own worthiness, vis a vis the wizarding, I mean poetic, world. And so forth.

Well, tonight, after watching Golden State assert itself rather emphatically in the fourth quarter, I began again with the proofreading. I found a missing poem and a missing couplet and a few other more minor matters. I set aside the anxious mental spinning, and I got it done. I'll double check my proofreading tomorrow and send the notes back to my editor. Also, I will commit to my bio, thin resume be damned. And just like that, the forthcoming book's coming forth will have gotten just a little bit more real.

Idaho ≈ Heaven? An Inquiry.

According to the godweb, "There are at least four major strands of thought in the Bible and in Christian tradition contributing to contemporary notions of heaven," the four strands being: heaven is the sky, paradise, eternal life, or the kingdom of God.

Idaho has big skies and is paradisaical. I would be happy to spend an eternity near the Snake River. Idaho is arguably God's own country, and I don't mean the Republican god, either.

According to Wikipedia, "The term [heaven] is used to refer to a plane of existence (sometimes held to exist in our own universe) in religions and spiritual philosophies, typically described as the holiest possible place."

Idaho, or more specifically, Island Park, or more specifically even than that, the family cabin, is clearly a plane of existence we can designate as a holy place. Okay, the holiest possible place, I am willing to go that far.

In a class I took at BYU, we read Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane, which talked about the idea of religions having a sacred place, a world-navel, the original place. Island Park is, for me, that place. From the chapter called "Sacred Space: Making the World Sacred":




(click on it to make it bigger)

I am pretty sure I have seen a burning bush or a water equivalent of it up here, around sunset.

In other news: it can be a challenge to figure out what kind of food to buy for a short trip. We always stop at Dave's Jubilee Market in Ashton for this and that and snacks and soda and a watermelon, and always end up buying plenty more stuff (M&Ms, pistachios, Doritos, Coke, blueberries, rice). The dilemma is this: on the one hand, you want variety, but on the other hand you do not want to have to schlep too much of store-bought cookies home, nor do you want to take home the food you brought all the way from home, such as garlic scapes, beet greens, oak leaf lettuce, and spinach, because bringing food in the car is already stressful to the food, and taking it back home is cruel and unusual punishment.

Nonetheless, the historian and I had a delightful cabin dinner of brought-from-home potatoes mashed with sauteed garlic scapes, a hunk of cambazola cheese, a little butter and some whole organic milk (since we're at the cabin, fat doesn't really count--it's the altitude! and the air! we'll sleep better!). Also, broccoli, and tomatoes with a little olive oil-basil-pecorino garnish. Also, toasted pain au levain bread. Also, store-bought cookies for dessert. It was heavenly. Ergo, Idaho ≈ heaven. Or, if you like, heaven aspires to the condition of Idaho.