Possibly the best sandwich known to man.

Dear America,

Last week, I found myself in need of a 'main dish' to bring to a pot luck. I also found myself in need of something that would not require me to apply heat to food, since it's hot, America, it's hot, still, as it is still summertime, despite the fact that the community college teachers are back to work, the swimming pools are about the close, the days of perfect tomatoes and corn and peaches are, while upon us, numbered. Summer is almost over--kind of already is over--and yet it is still hot. Not that I'm whining. At least, I'm not whining more than I usually whine. Although really, who can verify that? What are the metrics? I ask you.

I considered my main dish options. Is tabbouleh a main dish? Is fattoush? They would be at my house. But I feared that, for purposes of the pot luck, they would be considered salads, because, in fact, they are salads. I was just about to venture down the road of the salad-main dish, prepared to make my argument (because that's a time-honored tradition at pot lucks, right? arguing over whether something is categorically a main dish or a salad or a side or an adornment or a garnish or whatever?) that a salad can be a main dish. But then, the idea of sandwiches came upon me and the debate was transformed.

Sandwiches, America, are a main dish. I submit to you the hamburger: clearly an item that is central to a plate. Accompanied, perhaps, by potato salad, or potato chips, or french fried potatoes--something something potato, in other words--and perhaps a pickle, and maybe adornments such as a sliced tomato or a leaf of lettuce or perhaps a slice of cheese. A hamburger is a sandwich, ergo a sandwich is a main dish.

Obviously, I would not be schlepping hamburgers in a  covered dish to a pot luck. But I could, perhaps, make the kind of sandwich that is built upon the baguette, and sliced into sections, a classic dish for a French picnic, such as Pan Bagnat, aka the Nicoise Sandwich, aka the French Fancy Tuna Sandwich of Glory. Also: a caprese sandwich. So two baguettes' worth of main dish sandwichery.

The pan bagnat is a wonderful thing. I had never made one before but I had a memory of a vegetarian version from the first The Vegetarian Epicure. Basically it involved stuffing a bunch of delicious stuff into the halves of a baguette with loads of olive oil, then pressing the sandwich firmly so that the stuff and the bread became intimately acquainted and not too fall-y apart-y. (That's a pipe dream, by the way, but anyway:). I Googled (as you do) 'Nicoise Sandwich,' the sandwich of the Niceans, hahaha, no: the southern French people who live in Nice, and found a glory of a recipe.

Dramatic reenactment of my sandwich

It was not so tidy as this one, but it 

also was juicier. I'm surmising.

One key factor: oil. All the oil. The bread will be madly oily and everything else with it: oily, too. That's a great thing, since oil carries the flavor and brings the bread into discourse with its destiny, which is to absorb and be the vehicle for all the sandwich's goodness.

So: the goodness: you take two kinds of onion, super thinly sliced, then add salt and pepper and olive oil and vinegar to it, and then you squish all of it together with your hands. For five minutes. Per the instructions: 'Do not rush this part.' Yes, I got all meditative with the onions, the oil, the salt, the pepper, the vinegar whilst all of it moved through my fingers and around the bowl.

A million minutes, or five, I guess, later, you take the oil-packed tuna--do not substitute your sad water-packed tuna!--and mix that into the whole situation, along with a squeeze of lemon juice, since lemon juice makes everything monumentally better.

Let me tell you, America, that tuna-onion-oil plus flavorings was already happening, as in, you'd want to eat it straight from the bowl. But wait: it gets better.

You sliced the baguette lengthwise. You open it up. You layer leaves of lettuce on one side, then slice tomatoes on top of that. It helps a lot if the tomatoes are amazing, as in, you picked them from your own vines or you bought them from the farmers market that very morning. The latter was the case for me. Then, you spread the tuna-onion situation on the tomatoes--by 'spread,' I mean 'dollop and gingerly edge outward'--and top that with: (a) slices of freshly hard boiled egg, (b) a strewing of sliced scallion, and (c) slices of radish.

If you happen to have Nicoise olives, you can also strew these. The recipe says that the olives can be 'pitted or not.' Hey, Nicoisians: I submit to you that an olive pit is not a nice addition to a sandwich. As I did not have Nicoise olives, I used a lovely olive tapenade, and spread it on the other length of baguette. Then, I put the olive-y baguette half on the tuna half, carefully, and wrapped the whole shebang in waxed paper and foil so that it could consult its own soul in a private hour, aka marinate in its own juices.

When I unwrapped this sandwich at the potluck to the tune of a great swarming of yellow jackets--yet another of the glories of summer--it was perfectly delicious and fresh tasting. Because it's supposed to marinate, it also can keep for a couple of days if you pack it and keep it cold. In fact, I just ate the last of this sandwich for my own workaday lunch, and it was still splendid.

Sandwiches, America! I salute them at the end of a summer and recommend this one to you, along with good wishes that the last ears of corn you buy be sweet, that your tomatoes be juicy, and that the remaining watermelons of August open with a promising crack.

htms

Day the first: an orientation.

It begins, the beginning of the academic year, in the middle of a week which already feels long. To wit:

• Sunday, when we drove home from Idaho. Does this count? Didn't we go to Idaho for the fun of it? Does driving home on a Sunday count, legitimately, as a part of a long week? I'm not saying I'm being a grownup about it, okay? I'm saying that driving home from a vacation, just like flying home across the Atlantic and practically a whole continent after spending a blissful nine days in Scotland, is the worst, and it categorically inaugurates everything that comes after it as 'long.' 
• Whew, so much whining after a vacation!
• Monday: meeting meeting meeting. Meeting! Even with friends: meeting x 4 = math, which is the worst.
• Tuesday: MEE E E E e e e ting. So much meeting.
• Wednesday: the first day. After which come Thursday and Friday, with their iffy qualities and also: more meetings.

allow me to illustrate.

Well, just so you know that my whining game is legit. Because it is LEGIT.

I had a good writing summer. June and July, I wrote a poem or revised a poem every day. Adding that to the poems I wrote in April (the cruelest month), I have about 90 poems happening. Add to that: my current manuscript was a finalist twice and a semifinalist once in national book competitions. And now summer is over, and said manuscript is done being a finalist, which, no matter how many pep talks you give yourself, or how many times you remind yourself of encouraging things that your writer friends have said, you have to pick yourself up from it, frankly. It feels a little bit like failure.

This helps.  To wit:

And indeed, when I came to the U.S. to become a poet, and when my first book was rejected by the first three publishers I sent it to – FC2, Coffee House, and Wesleyan University Press, as I recall – I was undaunted.  And when my third book took nine years, over 20 revisions and 4 cycles of rejections before it came out, I never thought that this was wrong. It’s not that I thought that my writing was so great and that all I needed was to keep putting it out there until I’d reach the occult threshold of the 76th attempt, but rather, that I came to believe in duration. How a narrative becomes itself in time. How cycles of dormancy and expression are weirdly nutritive. How failure itself becomes a site of possibility: an aperture for chance; for the conditions of the work to arrive in a different time to the one in which it was begun. I learned to continue, to keep moving forward, to keep writing, whether the outcome of that writing was visible – perceptible – or not. I learned how to re-write my work with as much passion and joy and curiosity as I had given to the writing of it. I even invented a chant: Re-writing is writing. Writing is re-writing.

Yep: "cycles of dormancy and expression are weirdly nutritive....failure itself becomes a site of possibility: an aperture for chance; for the conditions of the work to arrive in a different time to the one in which it was begun."

I hope you noticed that I linked to Bhanu Kapi's commencement address. I block-quoted from it. And then I quoted from the block quote. I'm trying to reorient myself. Not a bad thing for a person to do at the beginning of the semester.

In other news, there are practically no vegetables in my house. Not to mention not much of anything else, what with all our travel travel travel (and the subsequent meeting meeting meeting). So once I conclude this orientation session--orienting you to my new semester, since no students showed up for this actual orientation session IRL--I am going to work out, and then buy some broccoli.

It's going to be great. Everything--the writing, the nutritive failure, the semester, the workout, the broccoli. Maybe especially the broccoli though, which is itself super-nutritive.

Waking and dreaming in Idaho.

First, I'm definitely not getting enough sleep. Chalk that up to jet lag, but also the early morning dog, and also jet lag, and the argument my body makes, rather insistently, when I'm in this sleep deprivation mode, that everything is terrible and it will never get better and why WHY is that damned dog coming to our room so [expletive] early in the morning?

Bruiser, expressing his wish to travel to Idaho with us

by climbing into the passenger's seat.

Second, yesterday, I gave a getting-ready-for-school meeting the slip, leaving it midstream, to hightail it out of Salt Lake for the north, aka Idaho. Nothing against the meeting. It was a great meeting. It's just that we had a date with Idaho.

Was I tired whilst we drove? Yes, I certainly was. Did that sense of the persistent terrible tag along, like a sad little cloud? Sure it did. Still, as we drove the Mesa Falls loop to evade probably terrible road work, saw the Tetons over there in the distance, fields white with wheat, then lodge pole pine and aspen interspersing in a thickening forest, that sad little cloud seemed smaller. That voice less strident.

Thirdly, this place never fails me.

I still woke up way too early this morning (see: jet lag). I have a poem to write, and that's what woke me up. Well, that and some achiness (hey, spell check: achiness is not Chinese!). As I lay there in the dark, paying attention to my breath, I felt, rather than thought, the injunction: Steady now. And the poem began to articulate its own edges, and I kept breathing (as you do), and more came to me. So I got up at 5:45 a.m., and started to write.

The naps here are unparalleled. That's fourth.

Also? Early morning light. And early morning toast.

We're here we're here we're here.

We arrived in Aberdeen after the usual bearable, but only just, trains-Atlantic flight, and a long-ish layover in Charles de Gaulle airport. Somehow, seeing these faces makes pretty much everything else disappear. After dinner, we walked by the canal and the river in the rain. Picked raspberries from bushes along the car park. The fireweed, which is my favorite, bloomed everywhere. We intend to live it up while we're here. It's been a crazy summer. Living it up seems like the only rational response.

Between the wars.

It's now a trope, to talk about the cascade of the worst possible things--Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, the violence in Dallas and in Baton Rouge--plus the ongoing misery that is American politics right about now, how all of it renders everything else absurd. For me, writing here, in this space, the kinds of things I usually write seemed--as it has seemed from time to time in the past--spectacularly beside the point.

I don't know what to say about it, except I'm trying, like many other people, not to let the fire die down, not to let myself off the hook. As they say, to stay woke. To have courage and to add my actions to those of others.

Also: I know there is no 'between' in the wars we're living in. They are unrelenting and have been with us from the beginning.

I guess I also want to say that we, chez megastore, have been laying pretty low--the historian's surgery and recovery have meant that we're conserving our energy, looking for the healing sign, trying to keep a good thought. Also, still eating pancakes and baking pies and watching television and listening to music. Writing poems, as you do. No matter what.

The Megastore recommends: when the party's over edition.

Yesterday, after the historian came home from a medical procedure, buoyant despite feeling dragged out, no doubt, from anesthesia and so forth, we both rested for awhile. In the afternoon, and then in the evening. And in the evening, after resting, I arose from the bed and said, I shall make two kinds of cake. Thus, a festive mood was set, as my son and his wife jointly worked on a tricksy word puzzle and I beat butter and sugar together, etcetera.

The party is almost over--the long June that saw family coming and going, a giant festive celebration of my mom and dad's sixty-years-long marriage, my brother and family in town, swimming, dinners out and dinners in, fancy breakfasts with grandchildren at my table, a medical procedure near the end.  I told my son today that while I'm in the whirl of such a wonderful month, it can feel so intense, that concentration of so much fun and so many beloveds, that I feel overwhelmed, but when it's over, I feel overwhelmed with sadness. What to do?

...+ this equals the breakfast
that will see me through.

this...

1. Eggs for breakfast. The departure of beloveds calls for a substantial breakfast, one that will fortify you and make you feel sturdy and, basically, the embodiment of survival. I have eggs. I have potatoes. I have, or will have, green chiles. I plan to make eggs with a good cheese and green chiles, fried potatoes, and toast on the day everyone leaves. If I need to cry, on and off, all day, those eggs will back me up and right the ship. I'm counting on it.

the title of this is 'don't cry about it,'
but my advice is precisely the opposite.

2. Speaking of crying, go ahead and cry. There's really no point in trying not to. So what if you look like you had an encounter with grave difficulties and only barely escaped with your wits? SO WHAT. Feel free to wear your dark glasses outside and, frankly, inside, if it's called for. Also? Feel free to rest in a darkened room with a damp cloth. PRO TIP: you can get the necessary crying started by listening to whatever pop song does that for you. The car is a perfectly good place to cry, but do abide by all traffic laws. In conclusion: the crying is its own event. Suit up.

something along these lines.

3. Work out, for the love of everything holy. Is it possibly true that, whilst all the fun was being had and the day at the hospital was happening, and while two cakes were baking and so forth, that the two a days fell by the wayside? Of course it's true. And while it was worth it--who wants to be that person, who won't have the fun because she has to go to the gym?--it was definitely worth it, it's also true that the workout canNOT resume soon enough when the people leave, abandoning to us to our own resources. Our own resources, which include working out. Which, by GOD, get on it.

the first step is to write PLAN
on a sheet of graph paper, obviously.

4. Make a plan. This week, the historian and I are pretty much hanging out together. I am insisting that he eat nutritious food on the regular and policing his meds like it is my job (I sound super fun in this scenario, I realize). Next week, I have a few meetings hither and yon, and a couple of engagements I'm looking forward to. I've been writing every day this past month, even with the full-on family extravaganza, and I intend to continue with this regimen. We bought tickets to go to Scotland. The plan is essentially your counter narrative to the 'everyone is leaving and life is a bitter and empty shell' story that is kind of inevitable when everyone leaves and, well, life is a bitter and empty shell. If you have a plan, the terrible story built into the situation will, possibly, have a shorter half life. Possibly. These are the hopes we hang on to.

I realize that I am making these recommendations to myself, by the way. Of course I am.

Episode 1: The Great Summer Cull of the Vast Wardrobe of Overconsumption.

1. Sparkly librarian sweater. I realize that this characterization makes, potentially, an insinuation about librarians. So, to clarify: librarians are awesome. Librarians exhibit the entire spectrum of style. This sweater, sparkly navy blue, made me look like someone I'm not, or, worse, like I was aspiring to that look. It did not work. Into the donation bag it went.

2. Game of Thrones knit.  Provenance: Target. I bought this last summer, when, frankly, it was too hot to even try on. I literally thought: this has a Game of Thrones vibe. I imagined wearing it with long black articles of various sorts. And directional, simultaneously futuristic and medieval footwear. Have I ever seen a single episode of Game of Thrones? Were there, in fact, occasions when Game of Thrones looks were called for, in my day to day life? No, and no.

3. Pink knit kimono of great wideness and too-short sleeves and NO POCKETS. There is nothing about the description of this item that was, or is, or ever will be, right, by any definition of the word.

4. Brocade coat that won't button. Provenance: eBay. I have often had excellent luck with eBay purchases, namely in the form of a small suite of linen coats that are treasures and workhorses and give me hope for the entire future of outfits. My outfits. This brocade coat, however, resulted from what turns out to be an ill-judged and rather long-lasting obsession with brocade. It is nominally my size, but it only buttons with a strong dose of persuasion. The people: your clothes should not have to be argued with to fit you. Your clothes should not judge you by not buttoning. Your clothes, in a word, should not insult your body. I draw the line.

5. Brocade coat that would hold two of me. Also eBay. Sometimes a swirly flowy effect can be the effect of an item of clothing that is a bit on the expansive side. That was my thought, anyway. But this brocade coat (see: "an ill-judged and rather long-lasting obsession," above) turns out to look more like a bathrobe, except a bathrobe out of which you could pitch a tent. No.

On the bubble: campfire sock sweater. It is made from that kind of Ragg knit that campfire socks are made from. Is a campfire sock a thing? I think it's a thing. I thought to myself, at first, NO., because I am not much of a camper. But then I tried it on (too hot to try on sweaters, but anyway). It looked cozy (and too hot) and actually kind of cute. I thought, sweater for cozying up at home? while reading a book? and hung it back up. We'll just have to see.

Top 5 (sets of three edition).

1. Three excellent breakfasts in a row. One: Wednesday oatmeal, which I have perfected according to my own tastes (one half cup oatmeal, 1 1/4 c. water, golden raisins galore cooked in the microwave for five minutes while I (a) make tea, and (b) chop ten almonds, then serve with milk. And possibly a little raw sugar.) Two: Thursday breakfast with my daughter, her three children, and her niece at Little America coffee shop. Eggs & bacon & rye toast! (c) Friday buckwheat pancakes made at home. Breakfast is super satisfying.

2. 'Live it up' as my new motto. Or summertime motto, anyway. I have been testing it out: when we went to Arizona, I said to the historian that we should live it up, and we did. It was great. This morning before I got out of bed, I texted my oldest darling friend, whom I am visiting next weekend:

And last night, I floated the idea to the historian that living it up, together, should be our big plan. I say 'live it up,' as a motto, has legs, and thus I am sticking to it.

3. One two three poem days in a row. I am doing an online writing community group accountability thingie (sounds so sexy does it not?) this month, in which I have committed to write a poem every day, and send it to my little group. Sort of like Poem a Day/National Poetry Month, but with higher expectations, i.e., small fear of shaming, fear of letting down the team, fear of being an embarrassment to the entire endeavor. Basically fear-based poetry writing, in other words. The great news is that I am doing it, and have written three poems in a row. I texted my poet friend, who was the one who invited me to do this:



Good advice! I am working on that 'don't think about it' thing, even though it is not my strong suit NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT.

4. One two three two-a-days in a row. I was chatting with my daughter today about her beautiful philosophy ('fake it till you make it'). Conversation turned to my long-time beautiful philosophy:

Sometimes the thing I have to talk myself into is getting up to work out. Summertime, most days, allows me the beautiful reward of having a leisurely period when I am still in bed, for purposes of the self-talking-to, and possibly other self-improving thoughts. But this week, after we lived it up in Arizona, I got myself out of bed, whenever that may have 'occurred,' and worked out ('Trust and Believe!'), and then at the end of the day, I got myself to the gym and worked out a second time.

As ever, working out like a fiend makes me feel like I am living my life instead of the reverse (i.e., my life is living me). It's weird how summer brings out the structural recalcitrant who lives inside my head and perhaps my soul. But for the past three days, me and my inner grouch worked out, and we feel much the better for it.

5. Sing Street for the third time. First time: with the historian. Blissful. Second time: with my friends, also blissful. Third time: with my son and his wife, in Arizona. Also blissful! The conclusion, America, is that Sing Street is basically and entirely blissful, and you should see it--if not three times, then at least once.

BONUS ITEM: I have listened to this at least three times (well, realistically, many more than three):


 

Arizona in tacos.

"Let's live it up when we go to Arizona," I told the historian. Not like it was an actual proposal. Maybe more like a directive.

"Yes, let's!" he replied, because he is good-natured like that, and also living it up was maybe a more or less agreeable proposition, as far as directives go.

"And let's eat tacos every day," I said, by way of an addendum. A rider on the directive, if you will.

"Sure," he said, for the same reasons as above.

Herewith: a taco report.

DAY 1: We eat pizza, at Organ Stop Pizza. Also, we see Zootopia. Altogether a good way to go, day 1.

DAY 2: We head to Tucson. We arrive at the borders of Tucson just about lunchtime. I Google and FourSquare Tanias.

Waiting for #tacos

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 27, 2016 at 12:28pm PDT

Tania's is excellent. After a rather lengthy tutorial from the proprietor, in which we are told that it would be extra foolish not to get the maximum combo, if we want tacos, because: side of rice and beans plus a beverage!, and in which my daughter-in-law, upon requesting black beans, gets this in reply: "No no no no, this is Sonora, not New York!"--which basically means "pinto beans"--we all order excellent plates: three tacos for me (plus rice + beans + a strawberry agua fresca), including a potato and green chile one, a cauliflower one, and a carnitas one. The historian gets three various vegetable tacos, and so on. It was an auspicious and perfect beginning to our taco extravaganza

After some saguaros on the east side of Saguaro National Park, and a visit to my middle school (!):


 


 we find our way to the very first Mexican food restaurant I ever ate at in my life. IN MY LIFE.

I have a green corn tamale. Actually, I order two of them. They are enormous. However, I do not have a good sauce situation. Also, and to be truthful, I possibly had eaten more tacos, at Tanias, than I had already digested. Still, and in any case, it is meaningful to me to eat at Cafe Molina. I ate there the first time when I was in sixth grade. That, plus the middle school, plus being there with people I loved, plus the chips and salsa: saturated with meaning. The tamale qua tamale is kind of beside the point.

 DAYS 3 & 4 & 5: We are over saturated with the taco quest. My son had chosen some chorizo concoction at Casa Molina and it is having lingering effects, the details of which I will deftly leave to the side. We go to a Village Inn for breakfast and have various snacks at the cafe in the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Perfectly good and fine.

A full bristle of cacti

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 28, 2016 at 7:01pm PDT

On our way home from Tucson, I admit I ate an apple pie from McDonald's. The next day, we have naps and sandwiches while we continue to recover from our road trip. Also: coffee cake, which one grandson helps me whip up, and which is estimable.

On Memorial Day, we go for a wander at the park, and eat at Flower Child--Dr. Write's recommendation, entirely wonderful--just before we have a visit to the butterfly sanctuary. On the way home, we buy a pineapple and a watermelon and stuff to make my best pasta salad, and a loaf of French bread. These comestibles restore us further.

I hope you're seeing that I am capable of setting an agenda aside if it is for the greater good.

We also get a babysitter for the boys, and see Sing Street, at which we eat popcorn.

DAY 6: Today is a glorious day in tacos. We eat at Mucha Lucha, which is my son's favorite Mexican
restaurant. I have three shrimp tacos and they are pretty much everything a taco should be. The line is just about out the door the whole time we're there, so we have to be patient (which I can totally do, and be), and we have to be prepared (me also). When I take my tacos to the table where the little boys are each eating a small quesadilla, and where the historian is eating a large vegetarian quesadilla, and my son is eating a burrito, and my daughter-in-law is eating street tacos, we all heave a collective sigh of joy, the ultimate joy of sublime tacos entirely achieved.

Luchador uno

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 31, 2016 at 1:37pm PDT

Luchador dos

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 31, 2016 at 1:37pm PDT

In conclusion, here are the lessons we learned:

 1. Chorizo is dangerous. Proceed with caution.

2. A taco agenda, while worthy as agendas go, is, like all agendas, to be taken up with humility and the willingness to adjust, especially where there is new data of which to take account. Data that is chorizo-inflected, for instance.

3. Returning to one's (taco) agenda is, however, a joy. A taco-centric vacation is an excellent vacation, even if the center does not hold, at least not entirely, when chorizo is involved.

Category error.

We got in to the airport in plenty of times, because like the rest of America, we were afraid of long ass TSA lines. Which fears, of course, proved to be unfounded. I don't want to brag, but you're looking at a TSA Pre holder here, who knows how that happened, but I am totally putting it down to unspecified character strengths. So we sailed through, leaving us plenty of time to do airport things, such as:

• Buying a Times (the Thursday edition is the best edition);
• Logging on to the wireless;
• Etc.

...and then realizing that it was elevenses, and therefore time for a snack.

"I don't want to eat a lot, but I need a snack," I declared. "Because I'm a little bit hungry."

"Well, it sounds like you'd better find something," said the historian.

I perused my options, which, as per usual, were thin. Dubious looking cookie at the coffee shop? Bagel? Bag of potato chips (a perennially trusted option)? Yogurt cups? With granola on top?

Well, I wandered past the airport Wendy's, the very same Wendy's that was once the site of a previous bad airport elevenses episode. Be that as may be: I saw a fancy picture of fries (where admittedly I have a weakness) with cheese on them, and also chopped peppers. Yes, America: I fell prey to a marketing strategy, in the form of fries. Ghost pepper fries.

I'm sure you can imagine that I thought I would be getting actual cheese, in its grated form, on my fries. But I watched as the behind-the-counter guy ladled the cheese sauce over the fries he'd harvested from the fry warmer, I thought, oh, right. Cheese SAUCE.

A SMALL DIGRESSION ON CHEESE SAUCE: There are people in my life who love what we call 'nacho cheese,' e.g. the Kraft product that is sold in jars to be heated and consumed with tortilla chips. See also: queso. I find this product repugnant. To me, this product bears the same relation to cheese that Pringles bear to actual potato chips, or that butter-flavored spray bears to actual butter, or any gross simulacrum to its legitimate forebear. However: there hath not been queso/nacho cheese/cheese product in my house for a long time. Maybe this is why, though I should have known better, I did not, and was led astray by the attractive picture of the grated cheese, aka the ghost pepper fries.

Did I eat the fries? Yes I did. Some of them. Some of them were not bad, or not fatally bad, anyway. In my defense, I was hungry. Okay, I know: that's not a real defense. 

Did the historian eat some? Yes, yes he did--in fact, he finished them up, when there was too much of the cheese sauce drowning the remaining few potatoes. Would I order them again? Jeez, I hope not. But the airport elevenses might be a felicity condition for bad snack choices, and that's the (possible) truth.

In Tempe,

People really like to play Minecraft. Also: eat pizza and listen to organ music. Also: watch Zootopia.

Today in Hank Williams news.

I'm continuing to work on my little Hank Williams obsession. I am, of course, working on a poem, or something that might become a poem.

Today, for instance, I found out that Williams was born with a spine issue, called spina bifida occulta. It later caused him great pain, which both exacerbated and instantiated his alcohol use and the pain drugs he sought. That 'occulta' is giving me something to work with, it must be acknowledged.

I've been listening to a Hank Williams playlist I made, which includes songs from The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams. This playlist is, of course, open to suggestions of other songs I should include.


I


I asked Ann Cannon today, in an email:

...and her answer did not disappoint, including a rundown on the instruction she received from her dad about how Hank Williams sang the songs of the people, and so forth, and how, despite her past-Ann eyeball rolling, present-Ann loves Hank Williams, especially the classics.

Today, I found out that there is some disagreement about whether Hank Williams believed the gospel songs he wrote or not. (In related news, I read Hilton Als today about Beyonce (I know. I am in the grips.) and how she's performing this and that because she wants to be more serious and still make money. GET A GRIP America, musicians who record music want to make money. (There, I said it.)) Anyway, I'm interested not only in the state of Hank Williams' music but in the state of his soul, however he exhibited, recorded, wrote, and performed it.

I am interested in any and all Hank Williams leads, intelligence, sources. Also opinions. Please direct me, internet. I am on a mission.

The Megastore recommends: snap out of it edition.

I am having my classic post-semester let down: feeling generally exhausted, judging my own character harshly, eating Pop-Tarts. (That last item may be just this current post-semester.)

Did I once do two-a-days, while I was working my ass off and keeping my schedule humming like a top? Well, this now seems absurd and stupid, and also my shoulders hurt. Did I once hop out of bed at the crack of dawn, ready to meet the day? Don't be ridiculous. Of course not. Still, I have a few recommendations. For myself, I guess, but sometimes I need to give myself advice, don't you?

1. Wear the shoes you bought awhile ago. I can't be the only person who shops ahead--thinking about spring when there's still snow on the ground, for instance, or even thinking about summer when it's still raining like mad. Cold rain, too, not a gentle 'give the flowers a drink' rain--raining like a mad dog.

But when the rain stops, or pauses, it's good to put on the sandals you bought back in, like, March. Admire the fact that they are red, and that they fit your feet, and--hey!--that they're comfortable. Past you was so freaking smart. Past you foresaw the need for comfortable red sandals that fit, and present you is reaping the benefits. Maybe present you isn't so bad after all? Well, at least present you has cute feet.

2. Smell the roses. No, literally: the literal roses are starting to bloom. How bad can things really be, if there are roses, roses in bud, the first blooms, and many more roses to come (just spitballing here, from previous nature data)?

3. Pick up a book you bought a year ago. Just a week or so ago, I was chatting with my Scotland daughter, who recommended a crime/detective series set in Aberdeenshire in the early Reformation period. (I know! right up my alley!) I was all, Ima go read that. So I looked to see if it was downloadable as a Kindle book, but no. So then I thought, FINE I'll buy it. But Amazon remarked to me that lo, I had purchased this book a year before. For a few seconds, I had a giant question mark hovering over my head, and then I thought WAIT and went to my living room, where the first book in the series sat on my coffee table, where it has been sitting for a whole year. I bought it a year ago because my daughter recommended it to me then, also. This time I am humming along in it and it is grand. Good times!

4. Listen to the same album over and over. And over and over. It can be Junk of the Heart by the Kooks, recommended to you by your son. Or it can be Lemonade, recommended to you by the universe because it is just that good. Either way, you aren't going to go wrong whatsoever. Pro tip: both albums can be worked out to nicely.

5. Second wake up. I know, not everyone can do this, and those of you who can't are going to gnash your teeth at me. But if you are so lucky that you can, the way it works is this: you get up at around 7. You go get the paper. You sit on your couch in your nightie and robe and read it for awhile. You mope around the kitchen, check your Instagram, think dire thoughts, consider a cup of tea. Eat a half banana. Then you grab your reformation crime/detective series novel set in Aberdeenshire and get back under the covers. You read three pages and then curl back into sleep. If you've timed things right, the sheets are probably still warm. Sleep till whenever.

Will you have wasted a precious hour or so in this fashion? I submit to you that this is the wrong way to look at it. The way to look at it is you will be well-rested for the rest of your day, and what could be wrong with that? Nothing, America. Nothing whatsoever.

The Megastore FAQ: Mid-May edition.

Q: How long since the semester ended?

A: Depends on the meaning of 'over.' It's been thirteen days since I finished my grades. But little summer projects, work-related, are lining up one two three four five with no end in sight.

Q: Have you learned to say NO yet?

A: No. Not really.

Q: What flowers have you planted?

A: A heliotrope and three miniature roses.

Q: Is that enough flowers?

A: It is the opposite of enough flowers. It is a scarcity of flowers. It is one trillionth of the flowers I need to plant.

Q: But don't you already have flowers blooming in your yard?

A: Sure. I guess.

Q: So...isn't 'one trillionth' an exaggeration, really?

A: No, it is 'a hyperbole.'

Q: What's the difference? Doesn't 'hyperbole' mean 'exaggeration'?

A: 'Hyperbole' means 'exaggeration for rhetorical effect.' For rhetorical effect.

Q: Seems like splitting hairs.

A: Yes, but for rhetorical effect. So, totally justified.

Running all over and not standing still.

Today, I am thinking about the summers of yesteryear, when I ate my breakfast on the porch and under the trees and flowers and so forth.  Leisurely, is what I'm saying. Why is there so far not enough leisure? Am I forgetting what leisure is? Maybe this is leisure? If so, I feel that the character of leisure has changed, and I am not in favor of that.

In other news, things could be tidier around here.

Even so: while hopping into the car to go hither and yon today, I did manage to notice this:

Breeze

A video posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 16, 2016 at 10:08am PDT

and I felt like this was something to aspire to. Slow motion flowers, and a breeze. This is the new desideratum. This, and maybe breakfast on the porch. And clean counters. But I would be happy with just this.

Top 5.

1. My washing machine now requires no intervention on my part to finish a cycle. For approximately years, my washing machine has decided to take a little sabbatical in the middle of each and every load, so that when I would lift the lid to move the wet clothes to the dryer, there they would be, still sitting in soapy water.

Of course I figured out various workarounds, including (a) a heavy weight on top of the lid, (b) a weight on top of the weight, and (c) hovering around the machine at the midpoint of every wash cycle so I could goose it along. As I say, approximately years of this. But on Tuesday I said ENOUGH and called a repairman.

As I led him back to the laundry room, explaining my problem, I concluded by saying, 'But you probably know what's wrong,' and he said, like a genius and a wizard, 'I do, just from your explanation.' Which: obviously I'm a champion explainer, but geez, I should have had this fixed approximately YEARS AGO.

2. Finally watched this and wow. (Also, to quote a friend on FB, I have been doing little but reading feminist critiques of Lemonade, then critiques of the critiques.) Also: finally got to talk to Scotland daughter about it, a reward in and of itself.

3. Suave open-faced sandwiches for lunch, at Finn's with Ann. Seated outside where the sun was bright and balmy. Topics of conversation: the situation in the Environmental Humanities program up at the U (verdict: those administrators sure could have handled a complicated situation better); The Good Wife finale (verdict: TERRIBLE).

4. The library's robot has informed me that the Hank Williams biography I requested is IN.

5. I found a perfect pair of shoes today that I did not buy (bad call!), but which I am going back to buy tomorrow. I plan to be there the minute the store opens. Lesson learned.

how it is.

Today, I took my general unwillingness to spring from the bed in the morning and joyfully get about the day's business to a new level (that was a long modifier in the middle there, sorry about that!). Which is to say that I didn't get out of bed until NINE O'CLOCK. From this, I hypothesize:

1. I am carrying around a massive sleep deficit and will not be arising early for weeks and perhaps months to come.
2. I am a lazy brat.
3. both (a) and (b) above.

Well, be that as may be, I arose in a cold, quiet house. (I did open my eyes enough to chat with the historian a couple of times. I'm not a barbarian.) I worked out. I showered. I ate pancakes. (The first pancakes of summer!) 

We have a young friend living with us for awhile. He's a musician. He's working on composing some new songs. I heard some epic drumming from downstairs, because he can and does play multiple instruments. That drumming helped me

1. write notes for two new poems
2. consider a few things I needed at Target (a new trowel, gardening gloves, pruning shears)
3. call the appliance repair guys so they can come fix my washing machine, which has been doing this weird stop-in-the-middle-of-a-cycle for about two years now, so, you know, now seems like a good time to get that taken care of

I also used the drumming to motivate me to

1. load the dishwasher
2. put away a vast amount of clean dishes and other stuff that had been hanging out on my counter for awhile
3. straighten up my laundry room, because I don't need that appliance repair guy judging me like a judgmental bastard

The quiet: the people, it is a blessed, blessed balm to me.

Soon, I will take up what I believe is my big project of the summer, which has something to do with religious language. Maybe archaic and religious. Anyway, why this is a language I keep returning to--I am going to investigate that. The quiet seems like a good locus for a project like that. I will return and report. Maybe. Or maybe I will just keep it to myself, like a novitiate who has taken a vow of silence.

Things I am apparently interested in.

Tonight, I briefly checked out an article in the New Yorker that has to do with new evidence, in the form of feces and its micro-contents, of the route Hannibal took over the Alps with his fabled elephants. Which are--surprise!--probably unlikely.

Once the article, which was quite focused, got down to the tapeworms, I was, quite frankly, out. I mean, elephants crossing the Alps in olden times, sure, but not the dung. The dung is right out. However, I get it that your mileage may vary on this. It is super science-y, for instance.

However! I am currently, apparently, on a quest to find out about a song that Hank Williams wrote with Lawton Williams called 'Between You and God and Me.' It appears on the detailed song list of Williams' Songwriters Hall of Fame page. It was published by Western Hills Music Co., although I don't know when. It doesn't seem to have been recorded, by Hank Williams or anyone else.

I had a conversation about this with my son, the musician, tonight. 'Maybe it's a really crappy song,' he offered, given the sparse facts available.

'Oh, I don't think so,' I said. 'Not in my imagination.' Because this song has taken up territory there. At the suggestion of my son, I wrote an information request to a Library of Congress librarian:

Hello there, 

I'm looking for information about a song that was co-authored by Hank Williams and Lawton Williams, titled 'Between You and God and Me.' It's listed as a song on the Hank Williams Songwriters Hall of Fame page. 

I'd like to know anything at all about the song, including lyrics, whether it was ever recorded, and if there was sheet music of any kind published. I'm a poet, and that's what I'd use this information for --a poem.

Thanks for any help you can give me-- 

htms

Please wish me and the librarians of the Library of Congress, and my mostly hypothetical poem, luck.

Note to my beautiful day.

First of all, you started a little too early. As in, I had to be up and at 'em and out the door in order to be somewhere by 8:30-ish, all in preparation for a long sit in hard seats. Sort of a sketchy beginning, to be frank, but it picked up from there:

• Sugar doughnut at the breakfast buffet, along with
• Bacon.
• I got to line up then sit with some of my favorite people, and
• I saw several students of mine, in their beautiful graduation attire, mortar boards atop, and
• That just plain made my heart soar.

Literally nothing is like the inspiration you feel when you hear the stories of people who figure out how to attain an educational goal, despite the odds and the obstacles and the heartbreaks and the sacrifices. Nothing like it at all, even when you're in the middle of a long sit in hard seats. (Fueled by doughnuts and bacon, though, to give the breakfast it's due.)

Not to mention celebrating a grandson's birthday with frozen yogurt:

Birthday froyo extravaganza! #happybirthdayalex

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 6, 2016 at 1:25pm PDT

...along with Harry Potter birthday widget gifts, and a visit afterward with the family. And then a wonderful movie, and Mexican food.

I took such pleasure in all of this, but maybe most of all the parts that weren't about me--the parts of which I was only a part, a small part.

Thanks, beautiful day, for reminding me of this--

htms

Today,

I sent my comments to groups for their group projects, and to individuals for their individual work. I ate granola for breakfast. I dug deep, I trusted and believed, I used my body as my equipment (morning workout). I hung up my red skirt and put away my yellow tee shirt. I wore white jeans.

I scampered away from grading to attend a movie that is slightly too embarrassing to mention. Okay, The Boss. And snuck my salad and yogurt and orange in there like a thief in the night. And emerged feeling slightly better for having laughed. Not that I was in a state where my mood needed rescuing.

I found my academic robe. Okay, I got it out of the trunk of my car. I submitted all my grades for my composition sections. I made soft tacos for Cinco de Mayo. I ate a zillion cookies. In my defense they were tiny. I read the final projects for Publication Studies and was moved and impressed. I submitted those grades. Which makes me--in case you're keeping score--through with grading before graduation. If it seems like I'm gloating, it's only because I am.