this & that.

I think I would like seeing this.

Someone should figure out how to make all of these clothes for me, stat.

I have reached the point in this particular cold where I would rather blow my nose than take this or this anymore.

This guy will be back from Mumbai in January (for two months)--can't wait to see him!

Sure, I'll be watching this, but with a jaundiced eye.

On the other hand, we'll be watching this (streaming) and DVRing this (so we can binge-watch later).

Hoping to visit the modern-day version of this town over spring break.

When we visit Chengdu this spring, I hope I get to see this.

Having an after school snack with this guy on Monday, and sneaking kisses from this tiny girl.

I'll be sorry to see these two go home tomorrow afternoon.

Loved watching this again with my son and his friend.

I hope I hope I hope that these people will be in Utah this summer.

Looking forward to being well again, so I can finally see this (after reading this and this and this).

This is compulsively readable!

and they heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight--

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.

To do.

Things I need, really really need, to do:

• plant 10,000 poppies
• plant a hedge of red roses, like Sleeping Beauty
• prune my roses
• paint my bedroom
• strip the bedroom wallpaper so I can paint my bedroom
• air everything out
• clean like mad
• think for hours without talking to anyone
• write no more letters forever
• wake up when I wake up
• be outside
• give grave and deeply considered thoughts to things like dinner
• purchase the food of spring, with many many vegetables
• put all my sweaters away
• put all my tights away

Today's poem. Who knows how many poems there will be by the actual end of April.

Best of 2009.

Of course it's a partial list, I know that!

Technology: What technology made my heart sing this year? I'm so glad you asked:

• my new iMac, which is ineffable.
• Mac Book Pro: it's better than bad, it's good!
• Various software and freeware: Final Cut Express and Screenr, Spezify. Fun for everyone.

Live Music: My most memorable live shows included

• Regina Spektor
• The Pretenders
• Benny Green (jazz)

Los Angeles: Part one of the Los Angeles Project took place, formally, this past October. Highlights included:

• Mulholland Drive, the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains, Topanga Canyon
• The fishermen: at Royal Palms beach on a choppy, brilliant Sunday; off the Hermosa Beach pier on a Saturday night
• The Getty. Creamy and delicious.

The West: Most of our trips this year were in the west (the rest of the west, aside from California). Each of these trips was splendid in its very own way:

• Wyoming: South Pass, sunny both ways, and the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone and environs.
• Montana: Bozeman and Red Lodge (or Red Cloud Lodge, as I like to call it)
• Seattle, to visit the historian's daughter, partner, and new baby boy.
• Idaho: of course. For all the reasons, and more.

Retreats: Leaving one's home, in order to retrench, renew, recuperate, refresh, which I/we did par excellence in

• Idaho, all summer, practically. I hope we get to do it again.

Reading: This year, I read--aside from the never-ending pile of detective novels and police procedurals--and loved:

• The City & the City, China Mieville
• To the Lighthouse, V. Woolf
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Movies: I already named some of my favorite movies of the year in my annual premature list:

• The Hurt Locker
• Bright Star
• Eternal Moments
• Summer Hours
• A Serious Man. To the above, I add
• Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is fantastic.

Fashion: this year I am enjoying wearing

• raw-edged ruffles, with a little
• sparkle, preferably all in
• gray.

Triumphs: things we conquered this year included

• the mice (a provisional victory)
• last semester (a definitive victory. I've recently decided this.)

Perhaps it goes without saying that the first eight months of 2009, during which I was on sabbatical or it was summer, were peerless: I wrote, I read, I made movies. I don't know if these months were, taken as a whole, the best of the best. But they were amazing. They were excellent.

Forecasts for 2010:

• In 2010, I plan to take better care of myself.
• I will make more music, and
• I will make more video essays.
• I will enjoy all my beloveds--family and friends--because they are my beloveds.
• In 2010, I will write more poems, and
• I will invite more people over.

Most of all, I want to remember 2009 as a year in which I loved and spent time with my family, loved and spent time with my friends, made many and varied verbal and visual artifacts, traveled, and cherished the lucky life I have. My life is full of blessings, and you, dear readers, are a part of that. Here's to you in the new year, happy, healthy, and full of sass. Bless.

The historian, it's your birthday, happy birthday, the historian.

Happy birthday to the historian!  I asked him to tell me ten things he wished for.  He said he wished 

1. that he understood more about economics;

2. that he were a painter; and/or

3. that he were a musician, and especially that he understood jazz;

4. that we will be able to travel in the future to at least some of the places we want to go;

5. that he would enjoy good health for the rest of his life;

6. that the Scotlands would move here in the not-too-distant future;

7. that he would remain productive as a historian;

8. that he were a swell pool player;

9. that he were a magician; and finally,

10. that none of our kids will have financial difficulties.

In light of these wishes, I wish the historian a year filled with learning, art, music and especially jazz, travel, excellent health, lots of family visits, new and exciting historical projects, pool-shooting, magic, and prosperity spread all around--to everyone, because prosperity is just better that way.  

In conclusion, please substitute "the historian" for "Lisa" in this song:

Oooooooooh, tag.

Dr. Write tagged me! The idea is to answer these questions with just one word, so here I go. If there's a parenthetical after my answer, it doesn't count, since parentheses cast whatever they contain into the abyss (I'm pretty sure that's what Derrida meant by mise en abyme, and if it isn't I don't want to hear about it). Here I go:

Where is your cell phone? bedside
Where is your significant other? doomsville (work)
Your hair color? graying
Your mother? supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Your father? Rockin' (in the Free World)
Your favorite thing? movies
Your dream last night? Obamafied
Your dream/goal? writing
The room you’re in? bedroom
Your hobby? shopping
Your fear? irrelevance
Where do you want to be in 6 years? here (SLC)
Where were you last night? book club
What you’re not? tidy
One of your wish-list items? publication
Where you grew up? Japan/California/Tucson
The last thing you did? obsessed (over the elections, obviously!)
What are you wearing? clothing
Your TV? cabled (dished, big diff)
Your pet? Boddhisatva (aka Bruiser, the enlightened one)
Your computer? overused
Your mood? optimistic (my duty in a democracy)
Missing someone? kids
Your car? Camry (of Power)
Something you’re not wearing? socks
Favorite store? Target
Your summer? blissful
Love someone? Multitudes
Your favorite color? yellow
When is the last time you laughed? six p.m. ("Two and a Half Men," sorry!)
Last time you cried? afternoon (working on a poem)

I tag: Hands Across the Water, Deacon's Mommy, The Nitty Gritty, The Inner Workings of . . ., Gillian, Middlebrow, and Counterintuitive. Do it! I'm begging you!

Wish list.

Would've been great to see this set.
If I were a traveling salesman in 1910, I would wear these.
My inner male dresses like this, except when he dresses like this.
It would be kind of fun to drift in a desultory way through this.
And I would sure like to see this.
Looking forward to reading this.
Thinking about staying in a cottage here with college daughter.
If I had organizational and minimalist powers, I could make my kitchen feel like this, even though there are charms to being just the way I am (wishful thinking).
I know it's silly to dream like this, but I kind of wish every day could feel like this:




(thanks for this idea, SAKS)

Bonne anniversaire to the historian.

Here are ten of my many birthday wishes to the historian:

1. that the most progressive possible Democrat wins the nomination, and then the White House.

2. that someone in his life gets it together to create a calmer, gentler, less chaotic household.

3. that he gets plenty of nice days to take a bike ride. Soon.

4. that when we show up to eat out, the restaurant has excellent, innovative vegetarian options.
5. that the grandkids give him doughnuts for a birthday present.*

6. that the good health he deserves for living so well and so mindfully be his in full measure.

7. that we have many gatherings with the whole family this year at our house.

8. that his clothing be sweatshop-free.

9. that he will take the opportunity to turn up the volume when he plays jazz on the stereo.

10. that bluebirds sing when he walks by, flowers nod at his passing, and fish leap from the river, because he is so swell.

Happy birthday!

*Mission accomplished--the grandsons chose a box of doughnuts to give to their Papa.