My itinerary.

Soon I will be traveling like nobody's business.

March 8-12 Austin, TX AWP (attending just for the hell of it)

March 22-25 Chicago, IL CCCC (presenting a paper I have not yet written)

May 11-12 Milton Keynes, UK Open University (presenting another paper I
have not yet written)

June 12-15 Pacific Ocean Cruise with sibs to celebrate parents' 50th
anniversary

Also considering attending the Nebraska Writers Conference June 22 or something like that--possibly have a manuscript consultation with Mark Doty? Is it worth the time away? Is it worth the $$$?

When I proposed traveling to all these conferences, it seemed like a really good idea. Now I feel balky and whiny about it. Time away from the historian who, if truth be told, is the best person in the world to spend time with. Time away from the last remaining child who lives at home, aka my son, who will probably be playing soccer and whose games I will likely be missing. Time away from my college daughter who will be home for the summer during the last two trips. Time away from Bruiser, the most soulful and supportive of the furry kind. Time away from my own bed, my own cooking, blah blah blah. Worst of all, time away from home this summer when I could be establishing and maintaining the precious and elusive routine.

I intend to pick up many, many useful and inspiring ideas from the conferences, and I intend to do myself and my colleagues proud with my paper presentations (which, though unwritten, are/will be brilliant). I intend to buy pocketsful of milagros in Austin and have many broadening experiences. I intend to network my ass off. I intend to add a wing onto my UK trip that will involve seeing my granddaughter and her mom and dad, and perhaps the Shetland Islands. And I will try really hard not to be a big homesick baby--and that's the one thing on this list of intentions I can't guarantee.

I ask myself, why so quiet?

Maybe it's the post-vacation thing--coming back to too much to do, keeping my head down, etc.? Anyway, I took a quick trip up to Logan to visit my college daughter, who is continuing the honorable if poorly remunerative tradition of the fam by majoring in the humanities--a Professional Writing major, and holding. We had a great time: saw three movies, ate out, tore it up retail-wise in Logan, and talked over the limitations and pleasures of a freshman year at a land-grant institution.

This visit, I was struck by the Ag in Aggies, as it were. My first husband had big Logan roots, including an uncle who was the basketball coach at Utah State in the glory days-- by which I mean the days when Ainge played for BYU and Tom Chambers played for the U, and some good players I can't quite remember played for the Aggies. We used to go up there sometimes in the summer because it was a little cooler than down in the Salt Lake Valley, up to his grandmother's for Thanksgiving, and so on. I'm sure that Logan lifers would tell you Logan has changed a lot. But to me, it seems to have a certain eternal quality. Once you get out of Logan proper--and Logan proper isn't so big--it's all farms. Some ranches, too, but largely fields that, at this time of the year, are unplanted and gleaming with snow.

On my way into town, I thought briefly about taking little snaps to post here, the signifiers of hickville--"USU Experimental Animal Science Lab," where, what? they breed the [insert freak animal joke here]--but on my way out, I thought better of it, and here's why:








I got a little dirty-windshield action on these, but I think it kind of catches what Utah farming in a wintry mountain valley looks like--kind of beautiful.

In other weekend news, Sleepy E made it to SLC, and the historian and I got to break bread with him, Middlebrow, Dr. Write, and Son, and Otter Butt and her darling baby.
Completely enjoyable, if always a little weird, to meet a person with whom your only contact has been writing. Cheers to this emergent genre, the blog, that makes such events, their pleasures and oddnesses, possible.

What we did to celebrate the American Presidents (a photo essay).

Flew into San Jose and drove to Santa Cruz in our snappy rental.



Looked at this view from just outside our room.



Observed scenic dogs.



Observed other scenic dogs.



Closely observed scenic mineral life.



When capitalism dreams, it dreams of this (Pebble Beach golf course).



And this (large, fancy house with beachfront view).



The historian follows his bliss, despite above-mentioned capitalism dreams.



Damn if we didn't all feel the love.

Good radio.

Yesterday, while driving in to school for a meeting, I had a moment of radio synchronicity. I wasn't listening to my usual NPR, because it's the pledge drive and that just drives me nuts. Instead, I was listening to what used to be the alternative station, but what is really now a shrine to the alternative music of yesteryear, with select updates.

Anyhow, a great Nine Inch Nails song came on--title unknown, sorry, but I'm pretty sure it was new. Then, a great Foo Fighters song came on, followed by "Heart-Shaped Box" as I was pulling into the parking lot and locating a parking space. I was tempted to stay in my car to finish that song and see what came up next, my music luck was just that good. But I was chairing the meeting, so dutifully off I went.

Sometimes the radio synchronicity is so good that I can remember certain dimensions of it for years. For instance, about twenty years ago I had a similar run of great songs in a row that culminated in the supremely cheesy, and yet also supremely sing-along-able duet of Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, "Endless Love." Oh, how I loved that song! My only dilemma was which part to sing along with. On a good day, I'd hear it more than once, and then I could sing both parts. (On a related tangent, my daughter and I happened to be listening to a "best of" Diana Ross and the Supremes cd in recent weeks, and had a spirited discussion on the following question: how did Diana Ross get to be soul superstar with that wimpy voice? You may also wish to discuss this amongst yourselves.)

Points to the commenter with the best radio synchronicity story.

Happy Valentine's Day! (a day late)

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Tonight, we heard Chick Corea and Touchstone play in the Jazz at the Sheraton series. Such an old-timey set of names--Touchstone, Sheraton. Jazz, even. Imagine, dear reader, how my heart sank when Mr. Corea, after introducing the members of his band, each and every one of whom needed a haircut in the worst way (the flutist/saxophonist had a stunningly glossy mullet, for instance), announced that they'd be playing a program of music based on--wait for it, my lords--a reading of an L. Ron Hubbard novel.

But imagine how my spirits rose when the music was fantastic. They had a percussionist who had a set of very gray, very gnarly dreads that happened also to be extra frizzy on top--a halo-like nimbus atop this middle-aged Brazilian full-on freak. He had actual water in a dish that was miked so that when he dipped his hands in it and let it fall, you had the sound of . . . falling water. There was much rhythmic clapping, shouting, and even a flamenco dancer. You heard right. I won't get into the sexual politics of having a beautiful young woman doing this haughty yet provocative (haughty because provocative?) dancing in front of a bunch of, let's face it, paunchy, middle aged guys with shockingly bad haircuts. Yet the dancing was rhythmic, musical, full of spirit, celebratory--like the whole evening.

I have loved hearing the music in this jazz series over several years. I've had the chance to hear the up-and-comers, like Joshua Redman (now probably as canonical as anyone), the old pros, like Monty Alexander and John Clayton. And then sometimes you hear true, crazy originals, like Chick Corea, who has reinvented his music more times than Madonna and still seems as fresh as the morning news. Fresher.

The thing about jazz is that almost all recorded jazz pales in comparison to the live performance. Lots of folks--Marcuse, D.H. Lawrence, Walter Benjamin--have commented on, even lamented, the effect of recorded music on the immediacy and locality of live music. Well, I love recorded music of all sorts, but in the case of jazz, you better show up to hear the show, and I mean really show up, or you miss what it is altogether. Tonight at the Sheraton was where it all went down.

Meyer lemons: the outcome.

As it turned out, after much deliberation, I made the Meyer lemon cake from the Chez Panisse Cookbook. Despite the worrisome detail of the recipe--there was much fear of deflating the batter, and many urgings to fold in various ingredients gently--the cake turned out beautiful and delicious.

Moreover, while I was zesting the lemons with my ever-so-efficient Microplane grater, I found that there really was a difference in the odor of these lemons versus your standard, useful but sort of pedestrian lemon. There was some slight spiciness to them--floral, as one of the three tarts has noted.

Though the recipe asserted I would need eight lemons, I really only needed four for the cake. So, while it was baking, I used the remaining juice and zest to make lemon curd, as lis suggested. It was my first try at this wonderful confection. Again, this lemon curd had more bite, more citrus, more lemon to it than any lemon curd I've ever tried.

I totally don't regret my purchase of the lemons. The cake was divine. Yesterday afternoon, my son called and said, "Mom, I think you should have us over for dinner." Perfect: some people to help eat the cake. It was a big hit.

The lemons that ate my paycheck.

Yesterday, when I was shopping for food at Wild Oats, I saw these lemons--a golden yellow, weighty, heavy in the hand, which means, usually, more juice per lemon. Then I looked at the sign. Say what? Meyer lemons? The lemons of lore and fable?

I've been reading about Meyer lemons ever since I bought the exceedingly twee Chez Panisse Cookbook lo these many years ago--the one that first told me how to make a pain au levain, the bread recipe where you catch your own yeast from the vibration of fairy wings crossed with the mistral, and the bread takes a week from yeast making to loaf. But I digress. It also had a recipe for a Meyer lemon cake, which waxed poetic about the sublime nature of the Meyer. Here's what a Meyer lemon is, according to foodreference.com:

"The Meyer Lemon (Citrus meyeri) is thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange. They are thought to have originated in China about 400 years ago. The Meyer Lemon was introduced to the U.S. from China by Frank Meyer in 1908. Meyer lemons look like a large orange, with a very soft edible skin. They are sweet, juicy and fragrant, and are excellent in vinaigrettes and sauces, or sliced skin and all in salads. Meyer Lemons were mainly grown as ornamentals, but they are appearing more frequently in food markets."

Skin and all! I declare. I had never, ever seen one in a store where I shopped. Well, I figured I better buy me some and decide what to do with them later--maybe make the cake as an homage to Alice Waters. So I picked eight of them and put them in a bag. They were $3.99 a pound, but I didn't weigh them, because they're lemons! Lemons are light, usually. I don't usually weigh lemons.

So I got up to the cashier. She rang up the lemons as if they were ordinary, mere mortal, organic lemons at 2 for a dollar. I corrected her: "Those are Meyer lemons, I think they're a little more," I said, knowledgeably, pedantically, all full of snooty Chez Panisse esoteric produce names.

Serves me right. Those are $24 lemons, lovely as they are, in the picture. $24! My God.

Should I have put them back? Should I have cried out a California French expletive in protest at the absurdity (l'absurdite?) of these trop cher citrons?

As you can see, I caught my breath and bought them. There will be a Meyer lemon cake or a really amazing lemon pie in the offing, mark my words. Either that, or I will slice them thinly, skin and all, for a hella expensive salad.

Antarctica dreaming.

My old college friend Randy recently fulfilled a longtime dream by taking a boat to Antarctica. He gave me permission to publish this photo, which suggests something of the otherworldliness of this landscape.

I have had a long romance with the idea of cold, polar places. It stretches back to reading the biographies of polar explorers in my family's Childcraft volumes, which I read assiduously far longer than I should have. I checked out children's biographies of Amundsen, Peary, and Byrd from my library. This romance stretched into adulthood, though I added on a wing to it with an interest in Himalayan landscapes, and another special room in the romance for Alaska and the northern parts of Canada.

My friend's trip has made me think about the imagination's landscapes. Why would I, a girl who spent most of my growing up years in desert places, find an imaginary home at the poles? Why would I be drawn to the freezing stories of those explorers?

I'm thinking of the places in which I most like set my life's future story: the gorgeous wild coast of northern California; southern Europe; Alaska. What dimension of each--the bare wreckage of long-gone industries, and the smash-rock sea; the idea of fields of lavender; a map made of rivers and forests--ignites my dreams, catches my heart?

Sunday at the park with Bruiser.

Yesterday was a full day. We woke up to read the piles of newsprint on our porch (summation: everything is bad and stupid), then decided to take Bruiser to the dog park because it was cold, and therefore the park was less likely to be sloppy with mud, and because it had snowed the night before, and Bruiser digs the snow.

The morning was bright. Bruiser alternated between running like the wind in his prance-y, I'm-glad-to-be-a-dog style, and getting into it with other dogs--play-fighting, etc. Here he is with some running companions (he's the handsome one in the middle)--

After the successful dog-park outing, we had important work to do back at home. I had to make weekly contact with Scotland, and had a serious chat with Miriam. And, since my writing group was meeting in the afternoon, I had a poem to write. Which I did, instant messaging with Dr. Write while assembling some notes for a poem that turned out to need more baking, as it were. As in, it was really more a pile of notes than a poem. That meant that I had to scour the "new ms" file for a poem that was closer to being a poem. Which I found--a poem that was once a pile of notes that I had, at some point, turned into a rather vague villanelle. Back when I turned the pile of notes into the villanelle, I remember thinking, well, that was good practice, but also, whew! kind of crappy! But yesterday, with the cooling power of several months' neglect, I was able to see the possibilities, and it actually is coming along. I'll post it, in progress, on my website sometime soon, if you want to check it out.

Finally, last night we went up to Libby Gardner Hall to hear my son's choir, along with the other University choirs and the University philharmonic, play an intense and stunning performance of Mozart's Requiem. I have loved this piece for a long time but never had heard it live. It was like hearing Mozart's passionate and terrifying argument with God, and it was gorgeous, thrilling. I'm only sorry that I didn't call all my friends and relatives to tell them to come. Very, very sorry, friends and relatives.

Important movie alert.

Anyone living in the SLC area who missed the opportunity to see Junebug while it was here, whenever that was, it is back! Showing at the Broadway, you should not miss your chance to see this wonderful film on a big (-ish) screen. I myself will be attending the 3:45p.m. screening, because I loved it so much the first time.

SPAM-tastic Sunnydogs!

Those who follow the news closely are already aware that 10-year-old Cynthia Coombs of Herriman, UT (just a few clicks to the south and the west of where I live) won the SPAM "National Kid Chef of the Year" award for her recipe for SPAM-tastic Sunnydogs.

The recipe involves making a batter out of Bisquick, eggs, applesauce, cinnamon and vanilla. Then you dip small pieces of SPAM into the batter, frying them corndog style. You drain them, then insert a kabob or Popsicle stick into the end, and, to serve, you dip your dog in applesauce, honey, or maple syrup. Did I forget to say this is a breakfast dish? To that end, you take any leftover batter and fry it up as pancakes to serve alongside the sunnydogs.

Young Rebecca comments, "I thought no one else would think of corn dogs. And after I tried it, I thought it was pretty good. Even people who don't like SPAM would like these."

In trying--unsuccessfully--to find a link to this story, I came upon the SPAM website, where, in a digital recipe book, you can find recipes for SPAM Sauerkraut Lasagne, SPAM Chimichangas, and SPAM-spread crostini.

Although I never really warmed up to SPAM, I have eaten plenty of disgusting processed foods in my time, and liked them. For instance, my mom--who is a great cook, so this should be understood in a certain context of late sixties-early seventies foodways--used to make a dish we called "Hot Dog Sauce Over Rice." It involved a tomato base with chili-type seasonings, sauteed onions, celery, and green peppers, and sliced hot dogs. Over rice.

It was so good. Though I no longer eat hot dogs, I can remember how much I loved this dish.

Measuring Comedy.

In response to sleepy e's question about the maximum length for comedies, I post the following list. It appears that the ceiling is about 2 hours, though there are some that balloon to gargantuan proportions. Counterintuitive, signifying nothing, and I sat around and did this research together, arguing all the while if a lengthier film correlated with flabby pacing (I say yes, counterintuitive isn't so sure). The list:

Annie Hall 93 min.
Rushmore 93 min.
The Opposite of Sex 105 min.
There’s Something About Mary 119 min.
Me, Myself, and Irene 116 min.
The Wedding Crashers 119 min.
Bowfinger 97 min.
I Heart Huckabees 106 min.
Heathers 102 min.
Lost in Translation 102 min.
Groundhog Day 101 min.
Raising Arizona 94 min.
Young Frankenstein 106 min.
Bringing Up Baby 102 min.
Some Like It Hot 120 min.
A Night at the Opera 93 min.
Duck Soup 68 min.
Royal Tenenbaums 109 min.
Bottle Rocket 93 min.
Blazing Saddles 93 min.
Dumb & Dumber 107 min.
Kingpin 113 min.
Lost in America 91 min.
Tampopo 114 min.
Pink Panther Returns 113 min.
Dr. Strangelove 93 min.
The Jerk 94 min.
As Good as it Gets 139 min.
Airplane! 88 min.
Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum 99 min.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 192 min.
The Producers (Mel Brooks version) 88 min.
The Producers (2005 version) 138 min.
The Gold Rush 88 min. (24 fps)
Home Alone 103 min.
Sixteen Candles 93 min.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 93 min.
Tommy Boy 97 min.
Uncle Buck 100 min.
Midnight Run 126 min.
What about Bob? 99 min.
Ghostbusters 107 min.
Shaun of the Dead 99 min.
The Van 100 min.
Full Monty 91 min.
Millions 98 min.
The Snapper 87 min.
Goodbye, Lenin! 121 min.

Help! I need somebody!

Sunday, I was compulsively watching New York, New York, which, in case anyone's wondering, is no one involved's finest effort, and yet it's kind of hard to stop watching it. For one thing, I forgot that Liza Minelli was so young when she made it, and that girl can sing.

Anyhoo: my son came into the room, took one look at the television, and said, "What are you watching?"

I replied, "It's New York, New York--it's not very good, but I can't seem to stop watching it."

Gently removing the remote from my hand, he said, "Here--let me help you with that," and changed the channel. Whew.

Here are a few other things I sometimes need help with:

• editing the contents of my closet
• re-watching movies
• keeping all the shit I've agreed to do straight
• remembering to attend board meetings
• buying ever more stuff
• relaxing

It's lucky that I have people who love me, people who will take me by the hand.

Slow + blog = slog.

Weekend accomplishments:

• desultory replies to student e-mails
• cried at two movies; posted reviews of same
• fretted over late hours of teenage son
• took many naps
• tried new oatmeal cookie recipe (into which I added a little cardamom and some roasted cacao nibs--btw, "nibs" makes these cookies sound vaguely naughty, don't you think?)
• went to used CD store where teenage son and I found lots of treasure (Ben Folds stuff for him, new Cat Power release for me)
• took B to the dog park twice

Holing up, evidently, till spring.

You don't need a bodhi tree to know which way the wind blows.

After the noise of the holidays (I'm still stuck there, sorry! --we had the last of the big parties for awhile on Sunday, with piles of enchiladas and so forth, and a cake, and the Christmas tree came down), it's just me, the historian, and Bruiser, which means the little economy of our lives is rather circumspect. On the days I don't teach, I hang around with the B-dog for several hours, working at my online classes, before showing up for meetings; on the days I teach, he hangs around with himself. When we come home--or more precisely, when the historian comes home--Bruiser believes it's time for action.

It's been cold enough that the mud at the dog park is either frozen or at least not sloppy; but it's also cold enough that no one but Bruiser really wants to go to the dog park. For awhile, we had a workable compromise, taking him to the schoolyard nearby, but he's unpredictable--he could see another dog or some teenagers and think he needs to check them out right now, and no amount of calling or remonstrating will stop him. We don't want to see him run into the road. This state of affairs means that sometimes Bruiser has to get his action by bringing us various things with which to stage a tug-of-war.

We hate to disappoint him. Maybe Bruiser has better tools for dealing with disappointment than I do--he never pouts, for instance. (He does, however, dismantle things with his teeth--maybe pouting equates on the unproductiveness scale.) Whereas I found myself nearly unbearably disappointed by two facts: one, the slate of Law and Order: Criminal Intent episodes with which I had intended to divert myself last night were all episodes I'd seen before, and two, the Jazz played horribly last night.

I could practice non-attachment and meditate upon the impermanence of all things, including new episodes of L&O:CI and good basketball, but I find that generally, the best solution there is to go to bed early and hope for better luck the next day. Last night, I dismantled several magazines (though not with my teeth) before finally giving in and exercising the reset option.

Sightings.

Last night, after hearing the Yellowjackets' set at the Sheraton, we stopped in at the Sinclair station ("No Public Restrooms") for a Coke. Guess who walked in behind us? The Great Man himself, Jerry Sloan. Since we just got done with jazz, we didn't know what had happened with The Jazz, so we were both tongue-tied. Even if I had known that the Jazz won, though, I'm not sure I would have said anything. I really like Jerry Sloan on TV--he's one of my favorite basketball characters (Chair of the Curmudgeon Society, hard-ass Originalist, etc.). But he's a little scary in real life, in my opinion. Still shockingly tall, for one thing.

My friend Jen lives in Park City, which is now, and for a little while longer, Celebrity Central, as you all know. She has promised--and delivered--breaking Celebrity Updates ("this just in--Team Aniston has entered the building!"). Maybe some people manage to be nonplussed at the presence of celebrities. I have a friend who has chatted up, over the years, the likes of Robert Palmer, Sandra Bullock, and Anthony Lane, to which I say: My friend, I salute you. I, however, turn into an idiot. I saw David Strathairn at the farmer's market a couple of years ago--I'm not sure why he was at the farmer's market in SLC, but there you go, one of the enigmas of celebrity life--and here was my dignified, cool response: (pointing) "That's a movie star!" Worse, I repeated this remark, and even worse, he heard it. Jeez.

In my writing classes, we're talking about profiles today--a genre that these days often serves the marketing purposes of the entertainment industry. What is it about the famous that is so fascinating? I know how to deconstruct it, but analysis doesn't undo the glamour.

A movie to talk about.

Last night, the historian and I saw Match Point, which has the virtue of being a Woody Allen film that almost makes you forget how many lousy movies he's made of late. It's fluid, engaging, provocative, pretty much well-acted, pretty-much well-written--an enjoyable film. As we walked out of the theater, we began talking about it--what we thought of the premise of the movie (it's a movie with a thesis, like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Melinda and Melinda--a "what happens if X is true?" kind of thesis, which the movie then works out), what were the film's longueurs, whether the characters were well-enough developed and whether we felt we understood the main character's motivations, and so on.

I find myself more sensitive lately to certain misogynies in the movies I've seen. (We saw The Ice Harvest a few weeks ago, which actually made me mad on this point.) One point this film could be said to have made, though perhaps unwittingly (I said to the historian), is that it sucks to be a woman. The narrative strategy of the film is to get you to identify enough with the protagonist--the class-climbing male--that you sickeningly assent to his worst actions. Poor Scarlett Johanssen's character: for half the film she gets to be a vampy babe saying fatale-ish things, then the other half, she gets to be a harpy. She was darn good, and she looked wonderful, but it's a thankless part, ultimately. It made me want to revisit the W. Allen films I truly love (for the record, they are: Annie Hall, Love and Death, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Sweet and Lowdown, and I guess that's it) to see what I think of the way each film treated its female characters.

We woke up slow this morning, and found ourselves thinking again about the film. We had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago, when we saw Munich and had a very spirited conversation about it afterward. My beloved felt that it favored Israel's view of itself as justified in vengeful actions; my response was almost precisely the opposite. I've been re-reading reviews of the film to check my own responses (not that I need to be right or anything). At this point, though, what I find myself glad for is to be seeing films that stick around in my mind awhile, giving me a reason to consider and reconsider, a reason to keep talking.

Hope I Die Before I Get Old.

New year, old me: recently I visited a professor from my undergraduate years. We had breakfast in the university's student center cafeteria, then he showed me around the brand new humanities building. It was a really nice visit, but guess what? He's older now than when he was my teacher. Me, too.

I've been thinking about age for awhile now. I've never had any anxiety about my birthdays--not any of the milestone ones, for instance, thirty or forty. Maybe because I was never athletic nor have I ever considered myself a beauty, I haven't thought much about decay or decline--I've never had such an exalted sense of myself (perhaps I've been vain about my mind, but then there's that amazing dearth of self-discipline and follow-through to temper the vanity).

On the weekend, the day before her birthday, my small, breakable mother fell, caught herself with her hand, and broke her wrist. My aged grandmother, whom I visited today, has broken all sorts of parts. On the whole, I've been remarkably healthy all my life. I've had a bunch of kids, all without incident, never had surgery or any major illness (sometimes I have to exaggerate a cold just to get a day off). But if my mom's getting old, if my grandmother is demonstrably old, if I have a child who has a child, then hey, I'm clearly not getting any younger myself.

My grandma is ninety-one and in the kind of health that keeps her here, but just barely. The last of her generation just died a week or so ago. My dad and my aunt visit her devotedly, one of my cousins and I go fairly often, but in lots of ways she'd rather be gone. "I want to go home," she told me last week when I went to see her at the care center where she stays. It's a common but sad story. I've told my kids to put something slippery on the floor when I get to that point. My youngest son pointed out that falling might not kill me, and suggested poison. Clever lad, that one.

I don't really want to die before I get old. What I want is to get old but stay healthy and self-sufficient and witty and in full possession of my faculties (which I reminded my son, in case he decided to slip me the mickey before I was ready). I don't want eternal youth. I just don't want to live so long that I'm waiting around to die.

Multi-tasking.

The house is all but empty--my daughter and granddaughter have gone back to Scotland, my college daughter is back in Logan. My son, the youngest, is still here, but will go back to his dad's on the weekend. So mostly it's quiet, leaving us all to our thoughts. The Christmas tree is still up, by the way. My goal is to have it down no later than Valentine's day.

Last night I found myself watching a round of television, most of which was unworthy of my time. At the same time, I was loading a bunch of cds onto ITunes, mostly because my son has been doing it in preparation for the IPod he intends to buy with the money he makes from his new job at the movie theater. He's been loading a bunch of my cds (NIN, anyone? I'm not sure I want my 17 year old listening to that, but it's too late). Now I'm going to load any of his I find interesting. Plus, it happens that the cd collections of a bunch of people come in and out of my house to find their way into the ITunes of my son. I might as well take advantage of that.

During the TV-watching, cd-loading process, here are some other things I did: spoke to two of my daughters and one of my sons on the phone; took my youngest over to his dad's to pick up a car; added three students to a section of English 2010; answered some e-mail; made popcorn and a Diet Coke; looked over my style notebook. The result was that I really enjoyed only a little of any of these activities.

My computer is a little hesitant--balky--as I'm loading the cds and blogging and e-mailing and so on. I feel it is trying to tell me something.

The staff of life.

Here, for your edification and delight, is a record of all the movies I saw in 2005, with comments. Seventy-four all told, which doesn't include the second (and even third) times I saw certain films.

Bruiser's Christmas vacation.

Bruiser interrogates college coeds, on their way home from Utah State University for Christmas break, using my couch as a way station.

Bruiser digs the snow, and he and Miriam become snow buddies.

Bruiser takes a much-needed rest after 24-hour partying.

Post.

Now that Christmas, and also the day after Christmas, are over, I thought I'd offer a brief summation. First of all, there was shopping, which I accomplished with shocking efficiency (years of practice). Then there was decorating. You'll be pleased to know that this year, I bought a Christmas tree on December 18, as opposed to the hellish search I undertook for a tree when I tried to buy one last year on December 22. This year, it was all Fred Meyer, "I'll take this one, please," and it was 30% off.

Then there was baking. I delivered goodies to a dozen people. Bruiser ate an entire plate of cookies when we were out of the house for an hour. Merry Christmas, Bruiser.

Finally, there was entertaining. Because of the diplomatic entourage from the United Kingdom, we had to have a reception for the fam (25 or so people eating soup, chili, salad, and bread). This happened the same day we bought the tree. Actually, it was good we had the party, because I didn't want to start any Christmas activity until I finished my grades, but because of the Scottish invasion, I was procrastinating like nobody's business. If we hadn't had the party, we might not have had Christmas at all. As it was, I finished my grades just a couple of days late, but who's counting.

We also had a Boxing Day party, another 25 people or so, this time eating a gigantic feast, which included killing the fatted calf (i.e., cooking a big piece of meat, which I do once a year for this occasion) and all manner of delicious foodstuffs, including apple tarts and homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert, thanks to my handy countertop ice cream maker.

Today, I spent the entire day doing just about nothing. I read about two and a half beautifully written pages of Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude before I fell asleep at 10:30 a.m., waking up again at 1 p.m. I staggered into the kitchen and reheated some Indian food, then hung up some clothes that had been laying around since before Christmas. This necessitated another lie-down. For dinner, I turned the leftover roasted potatoes and broccoli into a delicious hash, which we ate with leftover salad and leftover french bread. I then had a productive evening listening to the Jazz beat a McGrady-less Rockets (when I actually watched, the Jazz didn't do so well, so I may have dozed a bit during the third quarter), then watching an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, which I am finding alarmingly addictive.

Delegation from Scotland arrives.

An extremely short member of the Scottish contingent walking with her escorts in the airport.



Scottish girl eats her porridge, in West Jordan.



Miriam plays an hymn to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Handsome Boy Modeling School.

(Either that, or the band is called Teenage Fanclub. I always get the two mixed up.)

Below, see the birthday party of my son (the one at far right with the ski cap and mouth so full of pizza he can't manage a proper smile). He turns seventeen on Thursday. Happy Birthday to him. (also happy birthday to Middlebrow and Dr. Write!)



Party supplies:

1. two bags of Doritos
2. two 2-liter bottles of Coke Classic
3. bag of Skittles
4. bag of Starburst
5. microwave popcorn
6. Two pepperoni pizzas (Little Caesar's)
7. Two orders of Italian Cheese Bread (ICB, for non-cognoscenti; also from Little Caesar's)
8. Gameboy, Nintendo DS, computer games
9. Excitable teenage dog

The after-party:

Last Day(s).

As the poet Gail Wronsky once wrote,

The Spanish dancer said, "This is your last day."
"But," she said, "it is not your very last day."

[I invite the readers of the Store to contemplate the pretty much all-purpose utility of the above lines, which are contained in Ms. Wronsky's creative dissertation at the University of Utah from many years ago.]

Today is the last day of classes. I find myself feeling nostalgic for the class, choosing to remember the challenging, engaging, scintillating time we spent together. This nostalgia (dare I call it love?) for the class leads me to fend off a tear, sometimes not quite successfully, to write comments on the students' final projects and e-mail the comments to the students, as if the students care about my comments when the semester's over. Maybe they do. Anyway, I will miss my students from this semester. [Note: the photo above is of actual students on the actual last day of class, taken with my own actual digital camera.]

Today, twenty-five years ago John Lennon was killed. Click here to read John Lennon's FBI file, or you can check out this weird project that aims to recreate John Lennon's personality by programming an Artificial Intelligence engine with his words and thoughts. Alternatively, you could just listen to an old Lennon recording. Walls and Bridges is a personal favorite.

The mega-kitchen.

Tonight as I cooked our dinner (clean-out-the-refrigerator linguine and last-half-a-head-o'-lettuce salad) and then made granola, I contemplated the pretty much permanent wreck that is my kitchen. If you've ever had dinner here, you may not know this fact about the near permanent wreckage (although you may, and if you do, then please keep it to yourself), since for a dinner with company, we try to clean up nice. But day to day, there are dishes that, though clean, we never quite put away, since the historian usually loads and unloads the dishwasher, and I could be a little more prompt about putting the pans, etc. in their proper places.

Also, there is an insufficient amount of proper places for things in my kitchen. This may be because I am organizationally impaired, but it may also be because of my penchant for bringing more kitchen stuff home. To wit: new ice cream maker, innumerable serving pieces that were on sale for an irresistible price, ramekins, espresso cups. Also I save things like jars, because there's nothing more useful than a small-ish jar for transporting vinaigrettes, for instance, to a family party when you've been assigned a salad. Add to that the enormous amount of garlic we received from our farmer at the farmer's market. At this point, it's probably containable in one brown paper bag, instead of the myriad of brown paper bags in which we received it. But in the myriad bags the garlic remains, with all of the bags in a very large bowl that I bought at a consignment store (for an irresistible price).

Okay, all this is to say that, though such a rumination would generally put me in a soul-despising crisis of self-loathing, it has not, and here is why: soon, I will be baking. I have toyed with the idea of replacing the baking and delivering of baked goods to the neighbors with other holiday projects, such as ice cream making (also mass granola making), but I think I will probably bake the same stuff I always bake every year. Anyway, soon the kitchen will be a happy mess. There will be sprinkles and colored icing, dried fruit and nuts, yeast and butter. This year, my Scotland daughter will be here to help. Once she and I decided to take on a very complicated cookie recipe that resulted in checkerboard cookies of vanilla and chocolate doughs. They were so damn cute it was hard to eat them, even though they were good. I guess I'm probably not willing to go that far for a cookie. But to go as far as making dozens and dozens of various treats to give away?

Yes, I am willing to go that far. But first, I will clean up my kitchen--when you embark on a cooking project of this magnitude, it's best to start clean.

What Sharon Olds wrote to Laura Bush.

I don't usually write about politics here, but thought the readership of the Store would be edified by the following:

[at the conclusion of the letter she wrote, declining the First Lady's invitation to attend the National Book Festival:]

I tried to see my way clear to attend, as
an American who loves her country and
its principles and its writing--against this
undeclared and devastating war. But I could
not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I
knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would
feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to
be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush
Administration. What kept coming to the fore
of my mind was that I would be taking food from
the hand of the First Lady who represents the
Administration that unleashed this war and that
wills its continually permitting "extraordinary
rendition": flying people to other countries
where they will be tortured for us. So many
Americans who had felt pride in our country
now feel anguish and shame, for the current
regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of
the clean linens at your talbe, the shining knives
and the flames of the candles, and I could not
stomach it.

When your life is on fire, don't add more matches.

Here is some more advice you didn't ask for, although none of it, unlike the above, is Dr. Phil approved:

• Eat more soup* in the wintertime. It's good for you.
• If your dog occasionally dismantles the upholstery of your grandmother's old chair with his teeth, don't sweat it, because hey!--you have a dog.
• It's really okay if you spend a significant part of your evenings horizontal in front of the television.
• When the Jazz have their all-wannabe lineup in, just chill. You might as well.
• It's completely fine to take all the credit--in your mind--when your students do something really cool.
• Try to figure out a way to get more all-out singing in your life, even if it's karaoke.

*If you roasted tomatoes and froze them like I told you to this summer, the following is as close as it gets to instant food, but oh so much more delicious: Take frozen roasted tomatoes, put them in a pan with an equal amount of broth (vegan or vegetarian bouillon cubes are completely fine). Bring the whole deal to a boil. Put it in your blender and add a little milk. When everything's cooled down enough to blend without a blender explosion, by all means blend. You can do it briefly so there'll be a little texture, or at greater length if smoother is the way you like your soup. Okay, so when you've done that, then put it all back in the pan, bring gently to a simmer, then add some crumbled gorgonzola cheese. Let this melt briefly. Eat the soup with toast and you will be a better person for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the semester is about to end.

Not that y'all were unaware of this fact. I'm deeply engaged in list-making: stuff I need to finish related to teaching, related to committee work, related to the upcoming holidays, related to the fact that my daughter, her husband, and their daughter (my grand-daughter!) will be flying in from Scotland in mere days, related to the fact that my college daughter will be home for the holidays, and my soccer-coach son, too.

Whew.

My students are working away, finishing their final projects and portfolios. Though I've returned a vast amount of student writing to the authors, there's a strange quiet a-brewing, the eerie silence of a storm of late, and then final, drafts about to whoosh in, tsunami-like.

I was sick this weekend, which I took as a sign from God that I needed to take a bunch of naps, and also that I should watch a flurry of Law and Order episodes in all the various acronymic incarnations. Which I did. I'm still a little under the weather [hand anxiously pressing brow for lingering signs of fever], but things are definitely looking up.

Advertising is a science and holiday wishes.

Today, in the copy of Premiere that arrived like an early Christmas gift in my mailbox, I found an ad for the Mini Cooper car that consisted of two or maybe three stiff pages--the kind that make it hard to fold back the part of the magazine you've already read so you can read the magazine more easily. I tore the pages out, and discovered that the ad consisted of a regular page describing why the Mini Cooper is a car worthy of purchase, but also a template-cum-stencil, made out of flexible plastic, and another page called the "Practice Grid," the idea being that you should, I guess, draw/design your own car? One that looked like a Mini Cooper?

Does this make anyone want to buy a Mini Cooper? I just don't understand this--like higher math or physics or (let's be honest) the finer points of photosynthesis. Or the literary tenses in French.

Anyway, the Management of High Touch Megastore wishes all readers a Happy Thanksgiving. There has been no unseasonal decor nor Christmas music around here. We don't believe in doing anything Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. In fact, I really don't like to do anything Christmas until about December 19, which explains the big fat postage bills I usually end up shelling out every year. (Where was I?) Yeah--happy thanksgiving.

Achieved.

As of last night, I have finished responding to dozens of student portfolios and dozens of pieces of fiction and fiction exercises, as well as student research project proposals, making me officially, at this moment, Caught Up. Such moments in the life of a teacher are celebratory. Such moments make one want to receive praise and possibly gifts. Even without praise or gifts, however, everything in life tastes sweeter.

For the feel-good dinner, I made homemade baked macaroni (penne, but I don't want to come off aspirational) and cheese and also baked custards for dessert. But the real cooking feat of the day was applesauce, made by the historian. The historian is a gleaner. He's the one who scours the vines for the last clumps of little green grapes; he picks the last, ripest cherries, fending off the birds; and he picked the apples despite the fact that many of them were wormy (on the bright side, this signals that we never spray--they're good for you!).

Anyway, he took the notion that we should make these apples into applesauce. He kept mentioning it over a period of weeks, but the time just never seemed right. For one thing, I thought it would take more time and effort than it did. Well, it's not all that hard: you cut up the apples (and cut out the bad parts), leaving skins and all intact, and put them in a pan. You cover them with water and simmer until they're tender, which takes no more than a half hour. Then you put the cooked apples through a food mill, one of which we happen to have, a really old one that we bought at an antiques/junk store in Cedar City. It worked beautifully. After you've milled the apples, which removes their skin and turns them into a pulpy sauce, you gently cook them a few minutes more, adding whatever it is you think you want to add. In our case, we added a little cloves and a little cardamom, which made a divinely spicy applesauce.

I helped find the food mill and thought of the spices. We would have added cinnamon, but we were fresh out--I ask you, what kind of household has no cinnamon but plenty of cardamom? This tells you everything you need to know about how I keep house. Anyway, the point is, this was the historian's project, and he made a mad success of it. Aside from the great pleasure of having homemade applesauce, we have a lesson: pay attention to those apples next year.

Finally, last Thursday, my son was named MVP of the Cross Country team at the annual end-of-the-season banquet. It was wildly disorganized but it was fun and it had a good outcome. Actually, perhaps that last is a better descriptor of housekeeping here in West Jordan.

New Template and Poetry Reading.

At tea last week, my dear friend Ann noted that reading light-colored letters on a dark background was hard on her eyes. I'm chagrined that I didn't think of this myself--there are certain publications that I don't even pick up anymore because their fancy layout/typography was clearly designed by young mind-altering-substance users who believe their eyesight will never deteriorate.

Voila, the eye-friendlier new Megastore.

Last night, I read poetry at the City Art reading series. Always a funny experience, the poetry reading. For me, it goes like this: I get asked to read. I'm happy and flattered. A few weeks before the reading, I start to assemble a list. I remember that Hector Ahumada, the Chilean poet, once said you should always read only new work. Regardless of whether this is good advice, I allow myself only to select new work. My list of new work then sets the revision agenda.

If things are good, I start revising in a deliberate way well ahead of the reading. Things are really never good. I start revising the day before the reading. Or the day of the reading. Yesterday, I spent the day revising.

It was a good day. I was home with Bruiser, who, stunningly, had nearly nothing to contribute to the revision process. No advice about line breaks, structure, diction, whether a version of a poem was self-pitying or condescending. Nothing. Nonetheless, I forged on. By the time the reading rolled around, I had a dozen poems in pretty good shape.

About the time I'm done revising, aka a couple of hours before the reading, all my writing turns to shit. It's the same writing of course, it just takes on the unmistakeable appearance--the odor, even--of shit. I gather this sheaf of sad, bad poetry together, put on my best poet clothing, and head on down to the City Library. Too bad such a beautiful building is going to host such a terrible reading of terrible, terrible poems.

The nice guy--excellent poet Joel Long--who coordinates the reading series introduces me and says very kind, glowing things about me. If only he knew what awful poems I was about to read! Then, I get up, say a self-deprecating thing or two, then commence.

In the reading, the poems don't sound half bad. "Not half bad," say to myself as I'm reading, which distracts me a little. Occasionally I stumble over a word while encouraging myself mentally. Before you know it, I've read for 25 minutes or so, my little pile of not-so-bad poems depleted. I say thanks and mean it, and then I sit down.

The next reader gets up, my friend Kim Johnson. She's a wizard of wordplay. Her poems are dense and playful, lively, sharp. I'm able to give myself over to enjoying them because I'm done and I did okay. At least okay. After it's all done, there's milling about, friends and strangers who say kind words, and it's over.

So that's how it went down at the poetry reading.

Planning is for suckers (Part 2).

On the one hand, I have planned to purchase a counter-top ice cream maker for years now. Literally years. We have an old fashioned ice cream maker, the kind that you hand crank (as in, to crank). We have made cracking good ice cream with that thing, and in cold weather, too. We're no sissies. Yet I longed for the ability to make ice cream on a whim and without worrying my prince of a husband, since the cranking, past the first few minutes, is beyond me. Not that I'm some delicate flower, but really, our ideal ice cream making time is when we have a bunch of strapping sons and sons-in-law around to take a whack at the cranking.

I'm not sure why it took me, the queen of commerce, years to decide to buy this relatively modestly priced luxury. But on Saturday, the day before a dinner party, I ventured forth to Bed, Bath, Barroom, Barrel, Buggery and Beyond, and found it. It shone like a city on a hill, the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, a multifunction ice cream maker which makes frozen yogurt, ice cream, sherbet, sorbet or frozen drinks in just 20-30 minutes! and it has a 1.5-quart double-insulated freezer bowl, an automatic mixing arm, an easy-lock transparent lid, and an instruction and recipe book!

Too bad I brought the shiny new kitchen artifact home and did not open the box nor read the instructions. If I had, I would have found out that you have to freeze the double-insulated freezer bowl before you can make ice crea, which can take from 6 to 22 hours. 22 hours! My God. What about people who don't plan ahead? Didn't they think of that?

Well, I froze my freezer bowl for 6 hours starting on the morning of my Sunday family dinner, but said bowl wasn't sufficiently frozen to actually make sorbet out of the delicious concoction I had prepared (blueberries, orange zest, orange juice, simple syrup). What we had, then, was really more along the line of a super blueberry slushy. It kind of rocked, actually, because we ate it with the best brownies* on the planet Earth. We inhaled the brownies, everyone's lips were blue, we were satisfied.

*Melt 1 stick butter with 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate over low heat. Remove from heat. Add 1 c. sugar, 2 eggs, and a snort of vanilla. Beat it. (just beat it.) Add 1/4 c. flour and 1/4 tsp. salt. Pour this confection into a buttered and floured 8 inch pan and bake at 325 degrees for 30 or so minutes. Katharine Hepburn is said to have originated this recipe. Whatever.

Indicators: The Weekend.

Basketball games watched: 0
Movies attended: 2 (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; New York Doll)
Number of chilies in my papaya salad at Thai Delight: 1
People eating dinner at my house on Sunday: 11
Number of dogs attending the dinner: 2
Items of clothing purchased: 0
Kitchen implements purchased: 1 (ice cream maker)
Hours lingered over the Sunday New York Times: 2.5
Pots of chocolate tea consumed at the Beehive Tearoom: 1
Episodes of Family Guy watched (with my son): 1
Rows knitted: 5
Student portfolios read (so far): 5

One of the best things that happened to me this weekend was an extremely realistic dream in which Bruiser could talk. What he said: "My name is Bruiser." I woke up laughing, which is a very good feeling. I highly recommend it.

Inside the brain of a teenage boy.

So it was quick, the arc of try-out-and-get-cut for the high school basketball team. I surmise that some or all of the following factors played a role: my son is tall and skinny, but probably not quite tall enough and probably too skinny; the junior varsity and varsity teams are actually all one team, which meant that there were very few spots; the coach cut quite a few kids right off the bat, given what he knew about the kids he already had; the team went to the state championship last year.

All of this I surmise, because when you're sixteen and you're talking to your mom, you control the discourse. Here's how it goes: your sixteen-year-old son calls you at 11:45 a.m. on a day when you're working at home. He's stayed home sick. He wants to know if you want to go to lunch. Sure! You're so ready, at any moment of any day, to go to lunch or anything else with your sixteen-year-old son. You shut down your computer, because you were really just idling anyway, hop in the car, speed over to pick up your son.

He gets in the car and tells you that he's stayed home because he woke up at 4 in the morning, vomiting. Alert! You say, "Are you sure you want to eat?" Then you think, he has basketball tryouts! and he's been sick! So you say, "Are you going to tryouts this afternoon?"

And he says, "I got cut."

It's a reflex when you say, "Are you okay?"

And it's a reflex when he says, "I'm fine."

This is meant to close the conversation about basketball tryouts, with the finality of its fine, but you are a mom, and that means that even though you keep your mouth shut for maybe a whole minute and a half, you have to ask again: "Are you sure you're okay?"

And because he's a sixteen-year-old boy, he must reply, "I'm fine," with even more finality in the fine this time. So this time, you really do keep your mouth shut. Inside your head, though, you're having a whole one-sided conversation full of questions that would make him want to murder you, or at least prefer making a peanut butter sandwich to having lunch with you. How many kids did they cut? How big are the kids they kept? How many of them are seniors? Do you think this means you have no chance next year? Do you want to play rec ball? What about your friends--do you think there are enough of them to make a team? Are you sure you're okay? Are you really sure?

We make it over to Wendy's without further discursive blunders. The beautiful, mysterious brain of my sixteen-year-old son keeps its counsel, enigma control fully engaged. He orders his usual, biggie sized, and we go home to eat it and watch an old episode of the Simpsons, after which he vomits again--not ready to talk, or eat again, either.

Better.

See, there's good, and then there's better. For instance, having sufficient satellite stations to be able to watch all (or nearly all) of the Utah Jazz games on TV is good. (Watching games at the arena--good; watching them at home on TV--better: cheaper snacks, more comfortable seats, no annoying people sloshing their beer at you. Watching the game in lower bowl seats--good [it's happened twice]; watching the game in upper bowl seats--better: no snobby elitists talking on their cell phones making business deals.)

But having sufficient satellite stations to be able to watch all, or nearly all, of the Utah Jazz games on TV is even better when your basketball playing son happens to drop by to watch the game with you. Immeasurably better. For instance, even though he tells me not to get all panicky when the Jazz miss their first shot in overtime, which ordinarily might be annoying (does it mean something that "don't freak out, Mom" is a sentence that all of my children use on me at one time or another? Jeez!), last night it was kind of funny, because we were having the "watching the Jazz" ritual, in which I get cautioned about freaking out, but with a smile. Also, at half time, we got to hear the litany of opinions--on Jerry Sloan and his slavish devotion to his rotations; on why Ostertag is infinitely preferable to Jarron Collins--that mark each year's Jazz discourse.

Finally, victory is rendered even sweeter when you get to hear the NBA.com post-game statistical breakdown voiced by the teenage basketball-playing son.

Oh, yeah--I was supposed to help him with an English assignment--something about Benjamin Franklin and a virtue and what he, my son, did over a few days to improve himself in that regard. I forget whether B. Franklin liked b-ball or not.

Fan Watch: my son will be trying out for the HS basketball team this week. Last year he made it all the way to final cut, and it was heartbreaking. For him, too. I'll keep you posted.

Note to any readers of this blog who don't like sports: I apologize. I wish I could figure out a way to write poetry about basketball. I'll work on it.

Perfect day, abolished.

Here's how Saturday went: Bruiser knocked politely at our door so that he could come partake of the morning waking up activities. We got up, ate our breakfast (whole wheat bagels, toasted; tea). We went out, my husband for a bike ride, me for a trip to a couple of consignment stores in search of a yellow sweater, which may be becoming a quest rather than an errand. We went to Big City Soup for lunch. We saw Good Night, and Good Luck. We went to Ken Sanders' Rare Books and perused. We bought several excellent books (Galway Kinnell's translation of Francois Villon for me; a book on Coxey's Army for the historian). Then, we went back to the theater and saw Shopgirl. We rushed home, we took Bruiser to the dog park, leaving only when it was too dark to see and he was the last dog there. We came home and had soup and cheese toast for dinner. We watched the Jazz lose to the Suns--disappointment, but it was the Suns, after all. Then we watched two episodes of Six Feet Under before going to bed. It was a perfect day.

Today, however, The Weight descended. There's grading to do. Important manifestoes and assessment projects and textbook proposals to write. A package I should have mailed yesterday. In short, all the responsibilities that I shirked yesterday are crushingly present today. Yesterday felt light--even the sky, in between the movies, was streaked with gorgeous autumn sunshine. Today, the sky is heavy.

The cure to all of this is to dig in and grade, write, etc. Instead, I want to: take photographs of the leaves, paint, buy big sheets of rice paper and ink black shapes on them with a fat brush. Buy yards of white silk and paint colorful circles on it. Do yoga every day. Take long walks. Listen to each and every one of the new CDs I have recently purchased. Play through another couple of Haydn sonatas.

What I actually did: bought stuff at Target; made garlic french fries; took Bruiser to the dog park; counted how long until I can take another sabbatical (two years plus ten months). What I'm going to do now: watch the remaining two episodes of Six Feet Under.

Note: if I'm whining, so be it, as this is a blog, in case you didn't notice, and that means a license for narcissism.

It Lives! and It's a Pure Adrenaline Rush!

A., I have my computer back. You'll be glad to know that my data is "backed up," to coin a phrase.

B., After a soul-sucking afternoon spent in strategic planning meetings, I participated in these redemptive activities:

• Took Bruiser to the dog park. In the post-daylight savings time, he ran around like there was no tomorrow for running, in the gloaming.
• Made arugula pesto for dinner, plus really good bread, plus a really good salad.
• Watched the Jazz play. In a conversation with Middlebrow today, I took his view under advisement, that view being that, despite the hopeful preseason rhetoric, the Jazz would be a sub-fifty percent team and this season would be bad. Well, we shall see. Say what you will, Deron Williams looked beautiful tonight, Mehmet Okur looked like a genius, we got a few desperate prayer shots that went in! Plus, Ostertag didn't look like a total lummox, or at least, he was a lummox that could block shots. Plus, even the players that are prone to disappoint had good moments amidst the usual chaos. All I know is, plenty of people were pretty happy around my house. And, it turns out that Bruiser is a basketball fan, as well. A Jazz fan.
  

Computer death watch.

9:00 a.m. OIT calls me (OIT=Office of Infernal Torture) to say that Dell has my particular hard drive on "back order." Expected delivery date: 3-5 days.

[the sufferings of the damned]

2:30 p.m. OIT calls me (OIT=Office of Ineffable Titillation) to say that they've decided to pull a hard drive from another computer and have given said hard drive to my computer and have re-imaged. I can pick it up tomorrow at eleven-ish.

[Don't tease me.]

I'll keep you all posted.

Maybe this is really why they invented literary theory.

Click here for a discussion of the Star Wars sextet as a giant postmodern art film.

The hell of it.

Okay, so there was good news when I got home on Friday--this e-mail, which should have been accompanied by strains of cherubic choirs singing:

Lisa,

We were able to back up data and re-image the laptop. Stop by as soon as you can, so we can have you log back in and copy the data back to the hard drive.

--Jack

However, this morning when I stopped by the bowels of hell, by which I mean the area where the computer tech guys do their infernal work, there was more bad news. While my computer had apparently been healed by the laying on of hands, and my data saved, this morning it was still possessed by the hard-drive eating motherf***er that gave me the black screen in the first place. [Black Screen is roughly equivalent to Black Death in the Windows world.]

[expletives, many of them, deleted]

The good news is, they're giving me a new hard drive, and my data is still saved. By grace, and also by Jack and Jared. So right now, I'm sitting in a little lab in the Faculty Teaching and Learning Center, knowing that I should be grateful--and I am! I am!--but I'm also still a little peeved. Pissed, actually.

Well, anyway, the weekend was immensely brightened by the thought of my saved data. My son and I took a leisurely trip to Wendy's for lunch (I'll say no more about his eating habits, except to say that Wendy's represents the best of them), then to the local used CD store where we found much treasure. He's currently in the middle of a small Ben Folds obsession, and found the eponymous BFF CD (yes, dear readers, he used the word "eponymous"). I found, meanwhile, used copies of discs that had been on my list for quite some time: Juliana Hatfield's in exile deo and the Scissors Sisters. Additionally, CDs I didn't know existed, such as a new Rickie Lee Jones recording; and both Fiona Apple disks I'd been sort of looking for (the new one and the one before that, which I once had but I think one of my kids made off with). We saw two movies--Separate Lies, which was interesting but not fabulous, and Capote, which was both. I wrote a new poem for my writing group. The weather yesterday was sunny, and we got an extra hour of sleep.

To Monday was allotted the backsliding of bad news, and that's probably for the best. To borrow signifying nothing's witticism, I enjoyed The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Weekend.

In Which Technology Sticks a Shiv in my Heart.

Wednesday night my laptop crashed, and I haven't backed up my data. Not for a long time.

I won't bore you with all the important stuff that means I may have lost. It was a new-ish laptop. I never thought about it crashing.

Thoughtless, reckless, naive. Yes, all of these. I took my beautiful laptop for granted.

The tech guys all made concerned, then very concerned, noises when I told them what happened. There was a screen, a black screen, with these words: We're sorry for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start properly. After that, there were six options for rebooting, all of which returned me to the same black screen. My computer itself made pathetic humming and ticking noises as it tried to reboot.

I feel like I have no hands.

Two More Small Thoughts.

1. If there are Sustainability Studies programs at universities, should there not also be Profligacy Studies programs?

2. If there is a Mitigation Director at FEMA, shouldn't there also be an Exacerbation Director?

Small Gathering of Small Thoughts

Things I've recently learned.

1. How to knit. I used to know this when I was a girl. A few years ago, on a trip with my best friend, we bought very interesting yarn and some knitting needles to make smashing scarves out of, but I found that, while I still remembered how to cast on, I did not remember how to knit. So I bought a book. An illustrative explanation and photo put me back on the knitting path.

2. Bruiser thinks that bamboo knitting needles are a delicious snack.

Addenda to Best Movies of the Year So Far list:

Best Claymation film: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. How do characters made out of clay seem to be so light on their feet? Witness Victor Quartermain as he challenges Wallace to a fight.

Best Small Film: Forty Shades of Blue. I thought this film was terrific. It features Rip Torn (anyone ever see him in Songwriter? That's a gem and a half of a small film.), Darren Burrows, Ed from Northern Exposure, who has turned into a very handsome man (from a very pretty boy), and a melancholy atmosphere. It won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and predictably, our local reviewer was sniffy about it. Ignore him. This is a wonderful film.

Small improvements to my life:

I now have three pairs of reading glasses, prompted by an unfortunate glasses misplacement episode last week. One pair for home, one pair for work, one pair for my purse. Bonus: the ones in my purse have pink frames.

Over.

I love this blog. I might secretly love it more than other, more important, things, which I shan't name (but which do not include members of my family, my dog, or my friends). However, as much as I had planned to write a report about the State XC meet, filled with thrilling details, I find myself feeling a tad on the slumpy side.

It's over.

Let me say, first of all, that Sugar House Park (something I learned today: Sugar House is two, count 'em, two words, and not one, which has led to untold errors on my part in the past) is huge. That is, if you've told your parents and two aunts that you'd "keep an eye out" for them. Even so, I was able to find the starting line and, as a result, my son. There were a big bunch of runners. I stood behind the starting line (mini-DV camera in hand, shooting steadily with no fancy tricks, and, I'm hoping, no gratuitous sky shots or shaky pans of trees and grass), so I got to see how the start worked--the schools all had a slot, and three runners could be on the line, with the remainder of that school's runners behind those three.

Add to the hugeness of SHP its hilliness, its rolling terrain. After the race was over, as we hiked overland to our respective cars, I was able to see just how tough a race it was. Anyway, after the runners started, I got to see them pass at four different locations. As always, you can hear the runners coming before you see them, because the noise of the crowd swells and rolls toward you. It's still thrilling.

But. At the state meet, you compete against runners you've not seen before in the season (or you might have seen them, but maybe only once). That means, for instance, that the super-fast Utah County runners, high on life, apparently, come outta nowhere (there's a joke that goes with that, but I'll have to share it later, as I have a race to report). So the West Jordan runners, who were looking good on the first and second pass, by the third pass (past me, anyway) had fallen behind. It was on that third pass that I saw my son pass Josh for the last time ever, probably.

The look on Josh's face actually gave me pain. My son told me over the weekend that he liked beating Josh, and he didn't like it, and that's exactly how it looked. It's arguable, I guess, who is the best runner--one who, on a good day, really is faster than everyone else, or one who knows how to win in the high pressure races. Still, it's hard to watch a kid that talented fall apart.

After it was all over, and kids were milling around by the hundreds, I found my husband, and then my son's dad and stepmom, then my own parents and my two aunts. We couldn't find my son. He finished the race, 3 miles, at 17:39. When I talked to him on the phone later, he told me that he knew he could have run the race faster--he'd had a stomach ache.

It's funny, really, how an event that's supposed to be the fulfillment of a whole arc of preparation can feel so diminished in the experience. My son ran a race in which, by at least some measures, only the best runners qualified to compete. He didn't run his best, but he ran respectably, and finished first again for his school. His coaches want him to train year-round--they think he can cut another minute or more off his time. Josh has run his last high school cross country race. The season's over.

Flaws.

I saw Elizabethtown this weekend, to which I had looked forward despite all the warning signs. I found myself not particularly disappointed in it, which is not the same thing as a recommendation, I realize. When I discussed it with my daughter, who'd been similarly looking forward to it, I told her that it was flawed--there were several critical things that appeared to have gone missing, such as scenes that helped us to see the main character's removal from his family, his mother's grief, and so forth. It gave a feeling of being simultaneously too long and incomplete. I found myself knowing this, knowing it aloud as I was watching it (sotto voce, of course, I'm not a barbarian!), even. Yet I enjoyed the film, found myself feeling it getting better as it gathered toward its ending. As we walked out of the theater, my husband and I agreed--the flaws were evident, yet we felt somehow satisfied by it even so.

The question is, why are some kinds of flaws sort of endearing, or at least endurable, and other flaws are the deal-breakers? For instance, I will never go to a movie again (the kind of remark destined to be contradicted within weeks, no doubt) in which stuff explodes in great sheets of flame while someone walks away from the conflagration in slow motion. Extra points off if there's loud cinematic music swelling.

I'm sure that I could probably systematize this--figure out what makes certain flaws bearable, even charming, and others annoying or even infuriating. In this case, I'm prepared to like Cameron Crowe's films (although, sadly, not Vanilla Sky), because I loved Say Anything, and I loved Almost Famous even more. (Side note: the kid in Almost Famous, aka Cameron Crowe, could practically have been me--CC was in high school at the same time as me, in a SoCal high school. My kids even think that the kid, whom they now refer to as "Almost Famous," looks like I did in HS. If you look at the correct HS picture, they're right--I think we even had the same hair cut.) So I'll allow all the flaws of Elizabethtown because Almost Famous went to my high school? --or something like that.

A short list of people whose flaws I am prepared to indulge--for now, at least:

• Wes Anderson's, whose The Life Aquatic may be deeply flawed, but stuff made me laugh in it, anyhow, especially upon the second viewing;
• Bill Murray's, whose range may in fact be limited, as critics charge, but whose melancholy gets me more than anybody's;
• Joni Mitchell's, who may have turned into the biggest crank in all of popular music, but she is, after all, Joni;
• Don DeLillo's, because of Underworld;
• Anne Carson's--actually, what other people see as her flaws, I see as her virtues.

. . . but 2005 isn't over yet!

In the spirit of The Best American Poetry 2005, published and in the stores by mid-September*, I am posting my Best Movies of 2005 list now.

Best Documentary: Tell Them Who You Are, made by Haskell Wexler's son. It tells you a lot about Wexler pere, while telling a very poignant story about family relationships and how complicated they are, by envy, resentment, and even love. Also noteworthy: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, March of the Penguins, and RIZE.

Best Small Film: Winter Solstice. It's so small you might not even realize it's there, but it's a lovely little thing. Beautiful performances by the actors who play Anthony LaPaglia's sons. Also noteworthy: Undertow, Saving Face, and The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

Best Movie in the "Great Performances, Ridiculous Plot Turn at the End" Category: The Upside of Anger. Who thought it would be a good idea to end this movie with a funeral? Also noteworthy: Layer Cake (although this may also fall into the "Best Gangster Movie" category, we'll have to see).

Best Movie to See With a Teenage Daughter: A Lot Like Love. Readers of the Media page on the hymnbook already know that I love a romantic comedy, a fact that I feel a little guilty about, given my superior aesthetic training (she says sniffily). However, this film has the utterly charming Amanda Peet (remember how good she was in Igby Goes Down?) to recommend it. Also noteworthy in this category: in her shoes.

Best French Movie: The Beat That My Heart Skipped. If you haven't seen it, make sure that you do. It's a remake of Fingers, which I never saw, but everything about this film felt utterly fresh to me. Also highly noteworthy: Look at Me.

Best Israeli Film, or Best Film Featuring an Assassin, or Best Film Featuring Former Nazis: Walk on Water. Actually, I don't mean to be flippant: this is a wonderful, very moving film.

Best Film to Feature Middle-Aged Kung Fu Heroes: Kung Fu Hustle.

Best Mega-budget or Hyper-Hollywood Film: It's a tie between Cinderella Man and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The diehard SW lovers will not hear me out on this, as they cannot venture into the misty past that predates Luke and Han and Leia and Chewie. I say, however, that this film has a tragic grandeur that was wholly unexpected, despite certain thankless roles (Natalie Portman deserves an apology from G.L., in my opinion). And in the boxing movie vein, I thought the fight scenes in this movie were awesome--kinetic and electric.

Best Animated Film: Howl's Moving Castle. Wallace and Gromit fans--and I am among them--may protest. I may have to revise the list. As of the end of the year, however, aka October 2005, Howl will have to do. A, it's Miyazaki; B, it was the only animated film I saw.

Best Movie That's Just Wrong to Enjoy: The Wedding Crashers.

And in the all-round competition, the nominees are: Happy Endings, Junebug, A History of Violence, and Mysterious Skin. I loved each of these films for their quirkiness and the ways I found myself surprised and moved by each. I saw Mysterious Skin sometime in the summer, though, and it has stayed with me ever since. It's a beautiful and disturbing film, revelatory without exploitation. For me, it's the best movie of the year.

*Who knows what happens to the poems that get published between, say, August and December 31? Do they enter a no-man's land of poems unworthy to be considered "best" or "American" or "of 2005"? If anyone can answer this question, then I'll know what to do with the movies I see starting this weekend. Stay tuned.

da Noise.

Tonight, Joshua Redman and the Elastic Band came to town. It turns out that Salt Lake, for being a town with the kind of nightlife that inspires some NBA players to turn up their noses, that caused sportswriters everywhere to groan when the All-Star Game was held here, has a great jazz series, and tonight was one of the greatest of all concerts.

The scene is definitely anchored mostly by middle-aged white folks, supplemented by younger mostly white folks. There's a fair amount of "cat" behavior--you know, the jazz head bob with the eyes closed, a little motion to the backbeat. One of the major sponsors/underwriters, Gordon, who runs a pharmacy and apparently nurses a serious jones for jazz, sits in the front row, swaying from side to side. I'd have to laugh if I weren't so darned grateful that he and a few others make the whole thing possible.

Anyhow, my friend Clifton, who's a fine saxophonist in his own right, has never been able to make the Joshua Redman dates; I promised a full account, so here it is:

Set list:

The Gauntlet (composer, Sam Yahel, who played keyboards--mostly Hammond organ)
[tune so new it has no name, also composed by Sam Yahel)
Greasy G (composer, Joshua Redman)
News from the Front (composer, Joshua Redman)
[unnamed standard--ballad]
Is This My Sound Around Me? (composed by Bobby Hutchinson, the vibraphonist)
Sweet Nasty (composer, Joshua Redman)
Encore: Unnamed Blues (requested by side-to-side-swaying Gordon)

The drummer, a fantastically inventive player, was Greg Hutchinson. All players: virtuosic, with a seamless ensemble. The Hammond organ as played by Yahel got a kind of bubbling, percolating sound going that worked beautifully through most of the pieces--the sound felt like some effervescent mixture of lounge, 70s funk, electronica, a little Moog action. Occasionally he switched to another bank of keyboards and got all kinds of other cool sounds out of those.

When Redman plays, I often feel that he's adding new capacities to the instrument. He loves the full range of his sax, hitting syncopated and percussive notes--like snarls or snorts. You felt like the music was being invented right there on the spot. One thing that makes this ensemble, and Redman in particular, special is that you always can feel the architecture of the song even during the most spectacular improvisations. "Greasy G" started with a five minute long solo--sax without accompaniment--full of surprises, but you felt a kind of inevitability when the band kicked in to anchor the song. The song was already anchored in the phrases of the improvisation.

In "News from the Front," Redman used some electronic means (a sequencer, maybe?) to create very cool sonic effects in the intro to the piece, but I have to say that the new sounds that came out of the horn as he was blowing it himself were the most amazing effects of all.

Speaking of monster performances: the Region XC meet was today. As I walked into the park, I spotted my son pulling on his singlet. He came up to me and said, "My coaches told me that if I finish in the top ten, I get to go to state even if my team doesn't qualify." I blurted, "Can you do that?" Two minutes later, I was standing on the hill looking for the varsity girls to come around the bend, thinking, that wasn't the most supportive thing to say! (After the race, all the parental units--mom, dad, both steps--agreed that we had had the same thought, so I didn't feel so bad.)

There were six schools competing, and about 40 varsity boys runners. Two schools have seriously good programs--Bingham and Copper Hills, both also rivals of West Jordan. I'm thinking, okay, Walker, run your best race (also exactly what his dad told him--there are no original thoughts when your kid competes in high school athletics, by the way). The team's stretching, they're warming up, they line up, they're off. The race is on terrain, not a track, but after they start, they make two full circuits of the park, then finish near the starting line. So after the first circuit, Walker was fifteenth, with Josh, the best runner on West Jordan's team, at tenth but fighting not to lose position to another runner. Zach was behind Walker, but not by much. After the second circuit, though, Walker was thirteenth.

We watched as he took the hill (he told us afterward that he might be the best in the region at the hills--yeah, me too!), and even though it was far away, it looked to us like he might have passed Josh. After all the runners finished the second circuit, the crowd shifted back to the chute that would take the runners uphill to the finish. The first couple of runners were from Bingham--they're beautiful runners, the second place finisher just seconds behind the first, both of them running easily and with great form. I was looking for the first glimpse of a white singlet, then I spotted it. At first I thought it was Josh, and thought, I must have seen wrong, Walker didn't pass him. But then, we could tell--it was Walker.

I looked to see if I'd missed another white jersey, but no--he was coming in first for his team, and he was number ten. He finished strong and ran his best race ever--17:27 for the 5K. Zach came in maybe three seconds behind him. Josh was a few second behind that.

The best news of all: West Jordan's teams, both the boys and the girls, qualified to run in the State meet next Wednesday. As Walker stood up with the top ten finishers to receive a medal, and the official declared that West Jordan's team would go to State, he held up his arms to celebrate with all the other West Jordanians. No "I" in "team" is how I hear it.

My New Life.

As Signifying Nothing notes, a great feature of academia (if you can call the community college "academia," not that I'm disrespecting my place of employment) is the many recesses of various kinds we get. No actual paid holidays, but they have the effect of holidays.

My husband the darling historian (my adjective there may be roving, I'll have to get that checked) and I drove to Idaho, a place where my dreams are increasingly focusing. For instance, the nice folks who own the Grub Stake Market are thinking about selling it after 25 years in the biz, and I'm considering what my life might be like as a grocer to hunters, fishermen, and snowmobilers. (I'm thinking I'd sell homemade soup in the deli in the wintertime, and my line would be "Soup at Eleven, Till It's Gone." It gets catchier the more times you say it.)

We left the Salt Lake valley on Wednesday evening, with enough pre-trip errands and checklists that I thought my head might explode before I got a chance to chill. Because we left late-ish, we stayed in Pocatello, only 150 miles or so. That meant that the next morning, we had a chance to drive around in the railroad portion of Poky, and stop in at The Walrus and the Carpenter bookstore. It's a very low-tech place--the proprietor, Will Peterson, is a world-class whistler and a darn fine guitar player. Between the two of us we bought about $300 worth of books for only $110. Tons of great stuff, including three used Ruth Rendell mystery novels, purchased as I was inspired by a story in the NY Times regarding her newest book. After that, we were on to West Yellowstone.

West Yell has always been a trashy tourist-y place, in my experience, and that's largely because we always went there as a tiny break from our noble family cabin, to consume ice cream and buy crap at the dollar store. This time, we stayed, figured out a decent place or two to eat (tough going, I'm afraid). We went into the park and saw a herd of buffalo right by the side of the road, and I mean actually on the road (by=on, apparently). Also plenty of elk.

Largely, this was an experiment in finding out what the summer place is like when summer's over. It was a success, in my view: first of all, we had an entire national park to ourselves (well, more or less). Second of all, we had nice chats with people we wouldn't have chatted with, as we wouldn't have been staying in a motel in West Yell, since we would have been staying in our cabin, our cozy, nest-like little cabin that protects us from any conversations. Thirdly, we drove to Bozeman, MT, which is kind of a cool town. We drove a different way to Bozeman--up through the mountains past the Hell Roaring part of the Beartooth Wilderness--than the way we drove back to Island Park, past Norris and Ennis through the Madison Valley, all of which was revelatory. After all the times I've traveled to this region, to have discovered so much about it was a real gift.

The last night we stayed in a little riverside inn just down the road from our cabin. Hanging out by a river is amazing. It was raining and the sky was heavy. As we were bringing our stuff into the room, we saw several people on beautiful horses crossing the river, with their dog swimming alongside. They each said hello to us in turn, as we stood in the doorway to our room overlooking the river, as they stepped onto the riverbank. It felt like something out of another life.

Planning is for suckers.

I have bragged, and recently, that there's a certain kind of bread--a classic french-style baguette--that I can now make in my sleep (other things: corn bread, muffins, bechamel sauce and variations). I put my own brag to the lie today when I started the bread with just about twice as much water as I needed. I kept adding flour, thinking, "maybe there's extra humidity today." Humidity my ass. I just wasn't paying attention.

At the same time I was making what ended up to be twice as much bread dough as I thought I was making, I was also making raspberry jam. In the middle of ransacking the kitchen for more flour, I grabbed the book I recently located in my cleaning/reorganizing/sorting extravaganza--the book I thought I had lost--about home canning. This, in the middle of the jam-making. How interesting to find out that raspberries are low in both pectin and acid! Useful information to have before you start squeezing lemons and adding sugar and setting all this, along with expensive berries, to boil.

I did manage to scrape together enough flour to make double the bread, but only by opening a bag of spelt flour. [Interesting (or maybe not) aside: spelt is a grain that has never been hybridized, and has been around for millenia. Also kamut, but that's another topic, and another grain, really. When I was in Vermont (at the Artist's Colony, when the Leaves were Turning), they had the most amazing spelt bread, made with a starter instead of commercial yeast. Mmm, especially with butter.] Revenons a nos moutons [French reference for my readers who know French, although I cannot remember the literary work whence this witticism derives, sorry]: this meant that our pizza dough had a certain nutty graininess. All told: the jam set despite the low pectin/acid content of raspberries, perhaps because of added lemon juice?; the pizza was great (yield: two large pizzas, one pepperoni, one veg, a pan of cheese/garlic bread, a bonus loaf of bread for good measure); the kitchen looked like a tornado hit it.

The bones of this narrative pretty much comprise my life, all the decisions I have made from early to late. I start something, to be reminded that with my slap-dash preparation and too-much-going-on-at-once attention span, I'm not much in control of what's going on. Another thing I always say about myself: I look at something--a painting, a beautiful photo, a piece of fabric, some delicious dish at a restaurant--and say, how hard could that be? It's my motto. So I forge ahead without really ever counting the cost or considering how long it will take, or what I really need to know, or even what I really need, before being able to accomplish the thing. Bookmaking, jam-making, dissertation-writing, moving house, blah blah blah. One time I flew to Orange County for a brief conference without my hotel information, thinking that others from my college would be on the plane and staying in the same hotel. I arrived at John Wayne Airport, apparently sans college colleagues, knowing only that I was staying in a Marriott somewhere near an IBM company building. It took my darling and much more level-headed younger sister to find out where my bed was. It's all how hard could that be? or things will sort themselves out, then doing the thing, often sloppily, but often enough, it turns out, successfully enough.

Planners, by which word I mean both people who plan and those fat books people carry around, make me itchy, mainly because they make me feel shoddy and inferior. Planners think about how many kids they should optimally have, and sock away money for those one or two or one and a half kids to go to really good colleges. They don't work on too many committees and they finish their dissertations. On the other hand, think of the everyday thrills: will the raspberry jam set up? Yes! Will this dough ever stop being wet, and will we have pizza? Yes! And bread! Will I wander the streets of Orange County? Or will I sleep in the clean sheets of the Marriott, whichever Marriott that may be?