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.

Airports.

I hate to say it, but on our way down to Arizona, I kind of had a small tantrum at the airport.

Let me diagram it for you. Because I had my reasons.

1. What is the point of checking in online and printing one's boarding passes from home if you just have to check in again at the kiosk at the airport? I ask you.

2. Why are the passable restaurants and food purveyors always not sited at the concourse from which one's flight departs?

3. Other minor issues that are, in fact, too petty to mention.

Of course, in the end, we arrived, the airport traumas are behind us (BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!), and that was that.

However, today, on our way out of Arizona, at Sky Harbor International Airport, I was happily surprised to find all sorts of nice things:

• An artsy gift shop that had, among other things, robots made out of recycled materials. "So it's environmentally sustainable," said the clerk.

• Art installations, like this one, of cyanotype prints sewn into clothing:

• even a little gallery, which had some pretty great stuff:

Also, the security line was quick and untraumatic. And I found a salad called "Big Fancy Salad" at a restaurant on my concourse that was pretty darn good, including the fact that it had delicious, delicious cannelini beans. 

Still an airport, but as airports go, the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport made me hate airports just a little less today. In the end, I kept my airport tantrum tucked away for the next time an airport fills me with rage. 

Open letter to the vegetarian option.

Dear The Vegetarian Option,

Because there was no fish option, which is what I usually opt for at the occasional institutional dinner event, you and I met again last night, The Vegetarian Option, at the round table on the far edge of the room, the giant ballroom filled with dignitaries and rich people and a bunch of us employee types, who were there to season the conversation and decorate the event. I keep thinking that things have changed--that "vegetarian" is actually a cuisine, maybe, at this point. I know I've eaten vegetarian food that has the imagination, the inventiveness, the je ne sais quoi of cuisine, that still fits the criterion "vegetarian." I cook this kind of food all the time.

But not you, The Vegetarian Option. No, there you sat in the bowl, all overcooked penne and saucy sauce, and cut up green-and-yellow summer squash and the occasional incongruous carrot chunk.

First of all, penne pasta: you are not optimal for this non-optimal dish. You are hefty where you should be subtle, and you are tubular and in general, suitable for other treatments, such as baking in cheese. Al forno, penne pasta: you are optimal for that.

Second of all, green-and-yellow summer squash: you are not currently seasonal, and you are in fact usually tasteless. You are a veritable place-holder of a vegetable. Not even the fancy decorative cut-outs in the shape of leaves with leaf-vein divots on the tops of them can address your deficiencies, vegetable-wise.

Thirdly, carrots? I love carrots. But a carrot, particularly in chunk form, is not--how shall we say?--relevant to this dish.

But most of all, The Vegetarian Option, you are lousy with thoughtlessness, rife with lack of care, with I'm-just-here-to-fill-a-dish-ness. You imply that the vegetarian, because she does not care for meat, does not care about food at all. I am taking it personally, The Vegetarian Option. From henceforth you are my nemesis and I shall not rest until you, The Vegetarian Option, behave like actual food, rather than the fodder you actually are.

I mean it,

lisa b.

The good, the bad, and the ones with bees and vampires.

Today I read dozens of fiction manuscripts. That's because it was the reading party for Writers at Work, where volunteer screeners go through reams of paper trying to identify the very best fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction manuscripts. That also means that we identify the not-so-good ones. Also the awful ones, if you want to be uncharitable about it.

Of course, screening activities such as this one tend to bring out the uncharitable part of a reader's character. The way it works is: the manuscripts are divided by genre, and then into packets of ten. Each packet of ten has a scoring sheet rubber-banded to the packet. Reader #1 writes "yes" or "no" in the far column next to the manuscript number, and when Reader #1 finishes with that packet of ten, s/he folds the scoring sheet over so that her/his column is not visible to the next reader (Reader #2). A disagreement between the first two readers results in a third reading.

So, Hypothetical Reader #1 starts out the session without any grudges, looking at the first pile of manuscripts with anticipation--or at least without hate--in her heart. But she doesn't even have to finish the first set to start making rules, like:

1. Is one of the main characters a vampire? Then no.
2. Is the story set in a historical time period/place, such as pre-Revolutionary colonial America? Probably not. In fact, no.
3. Are there characters named after someone in Arthurian legends? No. Really.

This was just for the fiction. My compatriots reading poetry noted a disturbing predilection across many manuscripts for bee imagery.

4. Does the poem contain bee imagery? Probably not. Although possibly, exceptions can be made for really good bee manuscripts.

The worst thing was that, as I read manuscripts that I knew wouldn't make the cut, I still couldn't stop reading. Just because a story is poorly written doesn't mean you don't want to know what happens.

Note 1: The City Library, where the reading party was held, is a swell place to spend a good chunk of the day. I saw families, little kids, teenagers, oldsters, everyone having what seemed like a great time.

Note 2: I have sent the rage remix version of my manuscript out, having possibly done too much to it and also possibly not enough. Also, I changed my Johnny Cash poem, maybe for the worse. However, I find myself optimistic anyway. I'm currently on the hunt for the file of a poem which I seem to have misplaced, at least the electronic version of it. Luckily, there's still paper. Anyway: Poetry is happening all around you! It is the cruellest month--National Poetry Month!