My afternoon at The Lowe's.

The Lowe's is full of items that will make your life better better better, such as pesticides and herbicides and cedar mulch and paint chips and rollers and frog tape and drop cloths and dishwashers and stainless steel-look refrigerators and hydrangeas. Full of such items, arranged in long, tall rows, each of which will cause a person to reevaluate an aspect of his or her domestic arrangements, such as, "Our blinds are stupid and one window doesn't even have them." Or, "Are the edges of our paint sharp or blurry?" Or, "Why is our expensive refrigerator so lame?"

The people, today we went to The Lowe's. At The Lowe's we:

• put a "recall" on a new swamp cooler. This means that an installer guy will call us tomorrow or maybe the next day to set up a time when he can come give us a bid on how much it will cost us to install the new swamp cooler. Which we will, at that point, still have to buy. And then that guy or maybe one of his "crew" will come and install it. Do the math, and I think you'll see that it will be next November before we have a swamp cooler in. While we were doing the math, we moseyed on over to
• the paint pavilion, where we took our green chip, our lavender chip, and our blue chip, got satin and semi-gloss paint, and ordered up three gallons, which, while the paintmasters were a-mixing them up, we sauntered down the
• paint accoutrements aisle, where we gathered up a canvas drop cloth, plastic sheeting, frog tape, edgers, rollers, and brushes, after which we
• investigated the dishwashers. We had an enlightening conversation with the appliance guy who explained the virtues of the nylon coated racks and the way the "dirty" interior would prevent rust (not sure I am buying this point), after which we signed some paperwork for
• a guy to call us tomorrow or maybe actually Tuesday to set up a time when he could come install the new deluxe dishwasher, which we hope will actually "wash dishes" as opposed to rinse with hot water the dishes I have already buffed to a sheen under running water. The dishwasher itself needed to be ordered. Do the math, and I think you'll find as I did that we should be getting clean dishes by about August 15. After this we
• went back to PaintLand, and found that the green and the lavender were ready but the blue was being difficult. I noted that the historian was possibly appearing a little pale due to the intense retail experience of The Lowe's. He assured me that he was okay, so we
• waited some more. For the blue paint. And then,
• the blue paint turned out great! so we
• went to garden center because: cedar mulch! we needed more! So,
• then we took our now-be-laden two carts and stood in line for a cashier who
• frankly wasn't really a cashier--more of a paint mixer--but who gamely rang up our purchases and asked multitudes of questions of "Jackie," who must have been a cashier stylist, because she knew what to do with the "recall" and the "work order" (dishwasher). Finally,
• we left The Lowe's only about an hour and a half after we got there, with a receipt about a yard long in hand, and stuff to
• improve our dishwashing experience,
• paint our bedroom and bathroom,
• and possibly be cooler and more energy efficient sometime soon, oh please! Soon!

I think now is a good time to panic.

Don't you?

It all started with the brilliant idea I had to pay Danny, running son's friend, to strip wallpaper and paint our bedroom while we're in Idaho. What is this stage of life for, if not to pawn off work on young people and pay them the benjamins so they can afford to go to college and eat junk food and buy concert tickets and whatnot.

Tonight, as I was searching for the copies of my poems that had the notes on them from my writing group, so I could make a pass at the manuscript before I hand it off to my friend for her take on it, I was struck by a series of facts that had that duh duh DUH feel about them, aka, the sound of DOOM:

fact 1: in order that Danny may begin the project of wallpaper stripping, we must create space and maneuvering ability in the room.

fact 2: creation of said maneuverability will entail moving a LOT of stuff out of that room.

side fact: OH MY LORD there is so much stuff. what is the meaning of this stuff? why the stuff?

fact 3: ahem, also, I will need to move my clothes out of that over-stuffed closet.

fact 4: where will I put the clothes? and the furniture? and also the clothes? and don't forget about the shoes.

fact 5: not to mention the dust.

fact 6: and someone needs to choose the paint. and also: go buy the paint.

Ergo, I am awake at 2:45 a.m., writing this and revising my manuscript, and making a long list that attempts to cope with the limited number of days before we leave and the amount of stuff-schlepping that needs to occur, along with various family and social engagements, good heavens.

Open letter to the rest of the summer.

Dear the rest of the summer,

Although, technically, you are not summer yet, I nonetheless address you, the rest of the summer, because I know you can hear me. It's June 1, and everyone knows that June and July are summer, regardless of the actual solstice.

So listen up, the rest of the summer: there are a lot of things that have to be fit into you, and you and I both know that project--the "fitting stuff into you" project--will go much better if I am not freaking out every other minute about how fast you are flying by, how short you seem to be, how little of you is left.

The rest of the summer, I think we should come to an agreement. Here are the terms:

1. Let's not think very much about how May is already gone. There's no point to that. I did what I did in May, the rest of the summer, and that's that.
2. Let's linger over these June days. They are so fresh, so early, so pointedly not "the rest"--much more "the beginning."
3. In fact, the rest of the summer, let's just have you wait over there in the wings--why don't you hang out over by the end of July? That would be a good time for you to discreetly signal to me that you're about to make your entrance.

Yes, that's maybe the best idea I've had in several weeks: hello, the first of June! why don't you dawdle over here with me while I plant the heliotrope and contemplate a hydrangea and plant some beans and buy another hanging geranium? The first of June, you are excellent company. You're the kind of companion that makes a person feel like summer is just starting. The first of June, let's have a glass of lemonade and read a novel.

The rest of the summer, I am building a wall of lemonade and novels and writing and Idaho and lazy mornings and heliotrope. An impenetrable wall, one that means I can't see you.

Ignoring you deliberately,

htms

Useful facts.

aka, by-products of my revision process:

Did you all know about this "parasitic -n-" phenomenon? Me neither.

Carry on.

Netflix is stalking me.

OR, possibly, I am stalking Netflix. What with the instantaneous episodes of Lost. I wish I could say that I hadn't whiled away hours for two days straight watching and watching. I wish I could say it, but I cannot, for I in fact have whiled away those hours, and I will never get them back.

Question: why do The Others have that sick fixation on other people's children? Can they not have children of their own? Are there no fertility clinics on the island? This feature of the show is totally creeping me out.

In other news: tomorrow I will be doing something productive during the daylight hours. And possibly watching an episode here or there. I said AN episode, the people. Just one. Or maybe two.

In other other news: SATC the Rematch was HORRRIBLE (yes, it needed an extra "R," it was precisely that bad). Exhibit A: Liza Minnelli, at the wedding of two gay men, doing "Single Ladies." Also, many more exhibits too banal and also lame to name.

Addendum to the other other news: If I don't plant some flowers soon, I will not be able to live with myself.

Premiere.

Mind like a river: nine theses on flow.

Mind like a river from lisab on Vimeo.

Signifying dog.

Tonight, for a variety of reasons, we couldn't take Bruiser for his evening constitutional. One of those reasons was not the fact that I am watching Lost like it's my job. I'm still in the first season, and I am currently experiencing thoughts that most of America had six years ago, such as, "Matthew Fox . . . dreamy."

HOWEVER. I had just finished with one episode and was about to start the next one, when the historian spoke from the other room. I paused, said, "What?" and he said, "I thought you were done with that episode," and I said, "I was, but I was starting a new one--but do you need to talk?" and at that word--the word that rhymes with "w-a-l-k" (I spelled it, although the B can also spell)--my intelligent canine roused himself from his torpor, and said, effectively, "I know that word: rhymes with walk."

Other signs and portents the B can interpret:

• the putting on of sneakers
• when I say, "so shall we do this?"
• or when I say, "so, what do you think?"
• or when I say, "Okay!"

All these things mean "walk." Walk WALK walk walk walk. The only word that's as important as walk in the Bruiser lexicon is "food," but he prefers that, rather than using the alphabet, we spell this word with actual cheese.

And now, resuming my Lost viewing.

Flow.

I'm working on a project that I last touched last October, a little video essay about flow. This means, of course, that I have been listening to little clips of Hank Williams all day, with a smidgen of cover action (same song) by Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. It's a beautiful song.

As I was walking Bruiser this morning, with an overcast sky threatening rain, I kept thinking about this--the process or whatever it is--act of God? blessing? mercy? dumb luck--of falling into something and not being hoisted out of it by nerves or distraction or duty or whatever. Just going with it. The "it" could be anything: cooking, reading, writing, walking . . .

It's not too long before we go up to Idaho for an extended visit. I tend to think of this place as conducive to flow. I think it's because there's a river. River river river I can't wait to see you.

Thoughts on order.

Since my grades got finished (by the grace of God, a pinch of pixie dust, a sturdy set of rubrics, a malleable set of metrics, and a fair amount of cursing), I have accomplished the following:

• picked up books on hold at the public library
• paid slightly sad amount of library overdue fines so I could check out the above
• found loads of books I purchased from Amazon etc. during bouts of stress-induced online buying
• straightened up my study.

I don't really wish to discuss my method for straightening, since it's more like "moving things off my desk into other locations, such as boxes," but the surface of the desk is tidier, more expansive, slightly more without stuff, more conducive to creative work, which is what I'm after. (Also, my soul feels a little freer, even if I know I'm kind of lying to myself about the true extent of the tidiness--this is my particular bargain with chaos, and I guess I'm sticking to it.)

ANYHOW. I was reading an article in the Innovations edition of The New Yorker, an article about this engineer, Saul Griffith, and his work with renewable energy. Here's the writer's description of Griffith's lab:

Griffith seems to operate on the principle that excessive orderliness is inefficient, and that neatly putting things away is more time-consuming, in the long run, than searching through piles.

If only I had won a $30,000 prize for my innovative invention at M.I.T. when I was a student there (I went where I went, okay?), and then won a MacArthur Genius grant--I could totally be this guy.

One sentence.

"The grading is finished," she announced,

"except for this one guy who, well,

where on earth is his community writing project,

and this other guy

who did not revise one thing in his final portfolio,

so I have to stew some more

about that,

but aside from those guys,

I say it's now officially summer,"

and with that

she wrapped the quilt more

closely around her because apparently

May is, like, late winter in

these

dark times.

tags: sententia

School or not school? you be the judge.

1. I have ten school-related meetings this week.

2. TEN.

3. Still grading.

4. I'm engaging in long obsessive worryings about this-and-that. School-related, natch.

5. I bought two heliotropes, a fantastic pelargonium, and three marguerite daisies (pink) today.

6. We moved the outside pots outside, where they belong. In the rain.

7. I'm still writing notes to students about things they may have forgotten.

8. I'm receiving application materials from students for the Folio editorships.

9. I am about to read great swaths of my French detective novel.

10. I wore a white dress with a grey polka-dotted sweater.

Spring pest alerts.

1. There are voles in our vicinity. Many of you are probably well aware of the Ways of the Vole, but here are some facts I did not know until recently, when the historian (a) announced that we had voles, and (b) did some research ("Google") on the vole:

• the vole is very mouselike. In fact, it's hard for the uninitiated (aka Those Ignorant of the Classes of Rodents) to tell the diff.
• Utah is rife with voles. RIFE.
• They tunnel.
• They eat plant matter, to wit: grass, your darling perennials, tulip bulbs.
• They also will nibble upon the occasional snake (!) and various insects, and also snails.Then it's right back to your Tulip Bulb Buffet.
• What to do with the vole? Your humane traps are useless. There are 900 million voles in your backyard and they are reproducing like, well, voles, with their natural predators being the hawk and the coyote, neither of which we happen to have in residence for Predation Duty.
• Poison is right out. It will not be done in this backyard, neither in the here nor the hereafter, that is how strongly I feel about this.

In sum: Voles! F***ing voles!

2. There was one brief snake sighting today, in the grass (i.e., on the lawnlike roof of Voleville). It slithered away on its own recognizance. Perhaps it overheard us talking about the voles.

3. While I was out and about purchasing a lovely little gift for my mother today, I ran into the snail bait section of my local garden shop. Let me just say, the snail bait people are not subtle. There was one variety of snail bait called, and I did not make this up, "Snail Death." Poor snails. Do they have a choice about having that thin candy shell not fully enclosing their gastropodic bodies? or about the slime? or about the fact that they are disgusting. They do not. Yet the snails I cannot abide.

Perhaps the voles will be on the snail beat, and I will not have to pick them gingerly off my geraniums and lemon verbena (I'm sounding like a crotchety old lady, I'm fully aware of this) and toss them with great accuracy onto the parking strip, where they are (a) far away from my crotchety old lady plants, and (b) not in the street, where Snail Death of the non-bait variety surely lies.

tags: pest, rodent, reptile, gastropods, facts

Open letter to the Academic Year 2009-2010.

Dear Academic Year 2009-2010,

Although I have not yet submitted a single grade, you are almost over. If not all the way over, then virtually over. "Over." As in, I am over you. Mostly. Except for that one student I'm talking to on Saturday morning. And the few extensions I granted, but really: OVER, just about.

I have totaled up the participation portion of your grade. I have read your portfolio, Academic Year 2009-2010, and I have assessed its rhetoricity. I have contemplated, though only by means of the sidelong glance, your collateral damage, and guess what? I am denying you your incomplete.

I have a gown but no cap and certainly no regalia, Academic Year 2009-2010. I am not down with regalia. I am, to be honest, not down with the gown, either, but I'm called upon to wear it. That's one of my problems with you, Academic Year 2009-10: you have been just about twenty-five percent too much of that kind of dress-up and show-up nonsense.

Academic Year 2009-2010, I feel I have satisfied your demands (except for the grades). I have the data and the documents. So this is me, blowing you a kiss goodbye. I am brushing the dust of you off my sandals, so to speak.

Academic Year 2009-2010, it's been swell. So long.

sincerely,

htms

My agenda.

1. Grade.

2. Lunch with birthday boy grandson.

3. Consult with 3 students.

4. Grade.

5. Scavenge dinner.

6. Grade.

7. The Office.

8. 30 Rock.

9. Walk the dog.

10. Grade.

TAGS: tedious

Quite a bit better, thanks for asking.

Readers of this blog will be glad to know that a certain Curtain of Melancholy has lifted around here.

What? You've never heard of "The Curtain of Melancholy"? Well, it goes a little something like this:

• too many projects come to their
• various critical points all at the same moment,
• I think I'm going to collapse or have a stroke or something,
• the critical points happen and everything goes fine, brief moment of elation followed by
• a crash/deep hole of despair. Out of which I
• clamber back into Life. Possibly.

Need a PowerPoint for that? Got it:

Curtain of melancholy

View more presentations from hightouchmegastore.

Anyway. Friday, I took the Folio editors to lunch. We had a wonderful time and I was reminded that their connections with each other are one of the ancillary--maybe even one of the main--excellent outcomes of this project. Then we saw Date Night, which was pretty darned entertaining (aka, just what the Date Night Doctor ordered--see how meta that is?). Then, a Saturday in which I took my grandson with me to the grocery store and made him lunch while his folks were moving house; cleaned out my closets and began transitioning to the warm weather clothes (if this sounds to you like too large of an event for clothes, you may be right--but that's how it works around here. Maybe. If it actually does help me to manage my sartorial apparatus); went to a work event honoring a colleague, which was fun and inspiring.

Curtain: lifted. Grading: commences tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Pause.

before grading

before May

before the next round of the playoffs

before school is finally, fully out

before bed

I am trying to just breathe.

Stats.

I'm in no mood.

Here's what I should do before I go to bed:

1. find that one list I wrote to myself on Friday about all the things I need to do. The one that has things that aren't just right in my face--the slightly further reaching things. The ones that I'll wake up remembering, in the middle of the night.

2. do the dishes.

3. have a reckoning with myself about my life.

4. finish the never-ending responding. The responding!

5. pat my pockets for all the things I'm forgetting.

6. start my fitness plan.

7. write a poem.

8. strip the wallpaper in my bedroom.

9. read Proust, leftover Proust, from that one time I read about 50 pages for my book group. Also, and on this same topic, The Tale of Genji.

10. cry a little.

11. draft a position paper on a compensation issue for the faculty at my college.

12. try not to forget any of the times I said I would talk to, chat with, or meet with a student in the next couple of days.

13. I'm pretty sure there's something else I'm forgetting.

What I am going to do instead is read my French detective novel and maybe do a crossword puzzle. And probably cry a little.

Best apps ever.

I was reading ProfHacker column in the Chronicle of Higher Ed today. It's kind of a cool column, some tech savvy professors trying to give help to the benighted, with tech stuff that applies to teaching, scholarship, and other educational productivity blah blzzzzzzzzz what? Right: productivity.

One of the ProfHacker posters recommended tools, some tech-related (Evernote), some not (a fancy kind of notebook I can't remember and now I can't find the post again--FRUSTRATING), some of which I explored for a minute or an hour or two while I was also "grading." Which leads me now to consider my favorite apps, in the spirit of sharing and helping, because I am all about that. Forthwith:

Apps of Glory.

App 1. Fountain pen. Yes, the fountain pen represents nothing so much as the possibility that ink could explode (or 'splode, as I like to say, in homage to the way I think Ricky Ricardo might say it in a beloved yet elusive episode of I Love Lucy) all over your bad self. But on a good day, here are two things the fountain pen will do for you: (a) dignify every motherloving word you write with ink flowing elegantly from a nib (Yes! Nib!), and (b) provoke the envy of your peers. I recommend a child's fountain pen, such as the Pelikan Pelicano Junior. It is fat, it is comfortable to hold, it is sassy.

"But is it an app?" you say.

"Why, yes," I reply. "It allows for the application of ink to paper. Also the application of attitude to any situation. What definition of 'app' are you using?"

App 2. Notebook. Someone on that ProfHacker post (gone to time, gone to the black hole of the internets, oh post of yore or this afternoon, where have you skedaddled to?) made a snide remark about the Moleskine notebook being pretentious. Yes, I know that the Moleskine is something white people love. Yes, yes, yes, go on ahead. But the Moleskine has one great thing going for it: that elastic band that keeps it shut. No, two things: the color of the paper is creamy ivory. Three things: also, the texture of the paper is extremely fine--smooth, beautiful to write on. With your fountain pen. Four things: the pocket. Trendy, pretentious, whatever. It's a damn fine notebook. I am currently filling the Reporter's Notebook with my deep, deep, complicated thoughts. I recommend that you do likewise. I like my notebooks without ruled lines, because my thoughts are deep and complicated enough that lines would constrain them. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean.

"But is it an app?" you query.

"Why yes, it is," I reply. "It is an application for storing your deep, deep, complicated thoughts on creamy ivory paper of an illustrious texture, and for your receipts and other doodads in the pocket, and out of which nothing will ever be lost, because: elastic band."

App 3. Genius function on iTunes. OMG I love the Genius. Today I started with the Grandaddy cover of the Beatles "Revolution,"

Revolution - Grandaddy

and before you know it I was hearing good stuff like nobody's business. Moreover, while I was hearing a song by Iron and Wine, I thought to myself, I wonder if Rufus Wainwright will show up in this playlist. And what do you know, the very next song was "Poses."

Poses - Rufus Wainwright

What I'm saying, the people, is: my Genius can read my mind.

"But is it an app?" you ask.

"Of course it's an app," I reply. "It's on my iPod."

tags: app, cool shit, stuff

Top 5 of everything.

At the moment, anyway--

1. Grilled cheese sandwich

2. Baby walks around saying "Oh my GAH"

3. Bruiser

4. Googling "cottage in France" and finding a bazillion, some of which we could afford

5. the memory of Ireland

Unsolicited feedback to persons who are unlikely ever to read this.

TO: My local public radio station

FROM: htms

date: 21 April 2010

re: pledge drive

Please, please, please just send me a bill. Go ahead, make it a fat bill. Just give me back my radio programs. I can't take it anymore.

*

TO: the person or persons who stole our garbage receptacles, two of them, and tipped them over, way up the street

FROM: htms

date: 21 April 2010

re: our garbage receptacles, two of them, tipped over, way up the street

Seriously? SERIOUSLY.

*

TO: the guy I heard on NPR, talking about that ridiculous proposed new immigration law in Arizona

FROM: htms

date: 21 April 2010

re: your use of the word "swarthy"

Thank you very much for using the word "swarthy." I have not heard that word used in, like, twenty years. I would especially like to commend you on your particular pronunciation of it, with a soft "th," which gave it especial panache.

Your point, also--that this ridiculous proposed legislation is really about racial profiling, identifying "brown people, swarthy people" as suspect illegals--is very well taken.

Sir: I admire you. Well-played.

Today is the day

I got caught up, or got started on the get-caught-up project.

Today is the day I received lavender shoes in the mail.

Today is the day I made sloppy joe (I don't think it needs a plural, do you?) for homeless guys. (join this project--it's a good one!).

Today's the day I realized yet again that I find watching the Jazz play in high stakes games almost unbearable. Never mind that a Chauncey Billups/D Will matchup is kind of awesomely watchable. If only I could stand to watch.

Today is the day I was home, quiet, working, with Bruiser--presentiment of summer.

Today, two poems, neither of them much to speak of. Today, no (visible) snakes.

Serpentless day.

All observers who were horrified by the previous snakes can, as of today, settle down. We had a day with no snake sightings. Moreover, I found out all sorts of things about the historian's snake shenanigans. Apparently, the historian, whom I believe to be one of the world's most secular men, is a snake-handler. If by "snake-handler," we mean "a man who will shoo snakes back to a safer place so they won't run into the road and get run over by a car."

The way I see it, you can find this admirable, in the way that we admire the great humanitarians, because he's looking out for the creatures of the world.

On the other hand, they're snakes. Here's a bit of the colloquy between my son who is in China and myself this morning:

Walker: has that snake been crucified yet?

me: it was a bunch of garden snakes.

I think there were like six of them.

Walker: six?

8:18 AM me: seriously

Walker: what did you do with them?

me: I have another picture of them dispersiing

Walker: it looked like one

me: they ran away

under a rock

Walker: ahhh!

me: I know it was creepy

they were all in a pile

Walker: call the exterminator

Walker: they were probably mating

me: gaaaa

Walker: i know, we need them out

before there are millions

8:19 AM me: they eat spiders

and mice

Walker: i really am freaked out, i don't ever want to see that picture again

i don't care they might eat me

me: okay, okay

but you know John

Walker: kill!kill!

me: he shooed them away because he was afraid they might go into the street and get hurt

Walker: no!

me: I kid you not.

8:20 AM Walker: what if they crawl into my room through the window well?

me: I will point this out.

Walker: at least shoo them into the horse place

that's probably where they all come from

me: it was in the front yard

john says he might try to "relocate" them and I will encourage the field to be the relocation place

Walker: those snakes will be the death of me

me: do you remember when you trapped one under a flower pot?

Walker: maybe

me: I do.

I wrote a poem about it.

Walker: did we kill it, because we should have

what did we do with it?

me: no, we released it into the wild

I wouldn't let you kill it

Walker: he is probably the root of this mess

Let me add to this bit of trans-continental discourse that the historian's snake relocation methods include putting the snake into a paper bag. Does this involve picking up the snake with his hands? Yes, yes it does. It goes without saying that the hands are bare, as in, without protective snake-proof gloves with tongs attached.

"Wow, I guess everyone's freaked out by the snakes," he says, mildly, after singing son calls to ask about the snakes.

Sir, the reason we are freaked out is that they are snakes. Do I have to spell it for you? S-N-A-K-E-S. Which word, by the way, comes from the way way back Proto-Indo-European root for "super-f***ing-uncanny limbless elongate." I looked it up.

Today's poem, perhaps uncoincidentally titled "To a snake."

tags: serpentless

Oh my hell.

I would like someone to interpret the hermeneutics of this, which I found in my apparently toasty-warm front garden:

In other news, can the end of the semester come soon enough?

tags: snakes on a plane, snakes in my garden, snakes too close for comfort

To do.

Things I need, really really need, to do:

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

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

Thirteen ways of looking at April 13.

1. Pancakes for breakfast.

2. I got to wear my yellow coat.

3. New poem.

4. However, odd poem.

5. Walk with Bruiser in the cold.

6. Escaped from challenging meeting dignity etc. intact.

7. Saw Dr. Write at her signing. Huzzah!

8. Rose to the challenge of making dinner after long day.

9. Inspiring homemade mac and cheese--perhaps the best ever made by anyone, ever? Perhaps.

10. Cute shoes.

11. The historian greeted me when I got home.

12. I shall arise early to greet the dawn and also the Board of Trustees on the morrow.

13. In the meanwhile, I shall sleep. Huzzah!

A small discourse on the word "work."

It has instructive contrasts with play.

It reasserts itself come Monday.

It is good to have. But that doesn't mean that it always feels good. To have.

It reminds one that previously, there were restaurants and socializing and bookfairs and out-of-town. And Sunday.

It is synonymous with "employment."

It may be a kind of alienation. Or it may be a kind of fulfillment, or at least some people think so.

Fine. One is grateful for it. Fine. Grateful.

Fine.

Luckily, there is poetry to save us.

Writing lessons.

Some things I learned at AWP, in no particular order:

1. from Michael Chabon, on the question "How do you get your ideas?": "Ideas are the easiest--hence the least interesting--aspect of the job [of the novelist]. Ideas are like the one pound of insects you [apparently] unwittingly ingest every year. They're like the air that we breathe. The hard part is sticking with the ideas when they start to lose their luster."

2. Lidia Yuknavitch, on writer's block, advises ritualizing every minute of every day. She also says she doesn't believe in writer's block. She suggests that what we call writer's block is usually something else--and that if we experience such a thing, we should ask ourselves better questions about what's going on.

3. On digital storytelling, part one: the ur-story for digital stories appears to be, "I never really had a friend--truth be told, I didn't even know what one was."

4. On digital storytelling, part two: "most of our photos are lies--'please look back into the camera and smile.'"

5. On digital storytelling, part three: at the beginning, most digital storytellers want to make "a one-t0-one correspondence between the image and the noun."

6. On the relationship between creative and critical work: "creative work *is* theoretical practice."

7. From Don Stinson's painting "The Necessity for Ruins": ruins are necessary.

8. From Keith Jacobshagen's landscape painting "By June the light begins to breathe": "Face it, landscape painting is a cliche. It's a long history of cliches. The best landscape painters are the ones who have done something interesting with the cliches."

9. From the Denver Art Museum's collection of Decorative Arts: furniture elucidates and enacts a vision of the human body and of human activity.

10. From Campbell McGrath, on the elegy: Elegies are not for the dead, they are for the living, and elegies are really about life.

and a bonus:

11. Nick Flynn, on the elegy: "Looking at the art is cathartic, but writing it isn't. Aristotle doesn't promise catharsis for the makers."

And today, my observance of National Poetry Month resumes.

The conference that ate me alive.

Officially Day 2 of AWP was a good one. Here is the data:

• I cruised the book fair for a good period of time, and bought some chapbooks for the Publication Center, collected a massive amount of witty, arty, or informational postcards, bought a broadside, also for the Publication Center, and got ideas of places to send my work.
• I went to a session about digital writing. It was great. One thing that was great about it was I realized that I had, effectively, taught myself how to do everything that was in the session last year on my sabbatical. Another great thing, however, is that I learned there is an organization that will teach you how to both make digital stories/essays (i.e., video essays), and how to teach others how to do it. Thirdly, I realized that I could do this at my own institution, and easily. I could set up workshops teaching teachers how to make their own and how to teach their students to make them. And now, I have a few more resources to call upon.
• [there was another panel in here that has stimulated my thinking about another thing or two, but other than demonstrating my session-going diligence and virtue, I am too tired to explain it. British blah blah critical research etc., many important outcomes will derive and the world will be a better place because I went to this panel.]
• I went to the University of Utah faculty and alumni reading. Dr. Write was, it must be said, the hit of the program. She was excellent, reading the story that appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and reading it very well.
• I ran into two former students of mine, both of whom went on to finish B.A.s in English and then MFAs. It was nice to think that perhaps I played a small role in their development as writers.
• Rather than fleeing the social scene of the hotel bar, this time I stayed, and did some world-class schmoozing, at least in my league. That would be the Pee Wee League, but still. A girl has to start. Anyhoo: I think there may be a panel proposal for next year in the offing, I have been formally introduced hither and thither, and reconnected with some writer friends from the days of yore. The kind of thing, you know, that is supposed to go on at conferences. Whoo hoo!
• AND THEN there was a reception given by the U of U people, and again, rather than fleeing, I stayed, I socialized, I reconnected. AND THEN there was dinner with friends at a French-ish place:

Our Party (charming! high spirited!): How long for a table for four (with a dozen manifestly empty tables surrounding us, and it was almost 9 p.m.)?

Our hostess: Oh (surveying her table chart) that will be 30-40 minutes, or maybe never. Let's just say: when hell freezes over. [not what she really said, that last part]

Our Party: Wha????

Our hostess: (faintly starchy) Well, don't expect to come to our happening boite with no reservation on a Friday night and get a table, hicks/rubes from out of town. [not what she really said, that last part--or any of it.]

Well, once we actually got a table, it was great.

BUT, the people, that was an exhausting day, what with all the schmoozing and the socializing and the extending myself beyond my comfort zone. And today? Today, Officially Day 3 of AWP, it was a full-on conference exhaustion situation.

I will tell you all about it later. Because it's time to pack (WOE) and go to bed (cue: sound of angels singing).

AWP: the awesome first day, and how it will be different than all the rest of the days.

Technically, yesterday was the first day, since we (the estimable Dr. Write and I, moi, myself) arrived in Denver, and we picked up our registration stuff plus had snacks at Bubba Gump Shrimp, and I am not lying:

Waitress: Have you seen the movie Forrest Gump?

Us: Sure.

Waitress: Would you like to play Forrest Gump trivia?

Us: Will there be prizes?

Waitress: Yes. They may not be prizes that you value . . .

Us: [shrug. Collectively.]

Now is as good a time as any to point out that there were two other esteemed persons in our party at Bubba Gump Shrimp--friend P and elder statesman poet, whom I'll identify with the initials A.G.:

Waitress: What was the name of the girl Forrest Gump was in love with?

Me: (too, too quickly) Jenny. (luckily, I did not say Jennay, but I almost did.)

A couple more trivia questions ensued. Our prize?

Waitress: Everyone raise your hands. Now, give each other a high five!

Woe.

However, when the same cruel trick was played on a table nearby, we watched with interest:

A.G.: I want to see how they react when they find out what the prize is.

Me: Schadenfreude.

Ha. I made A.G. laugh. He will never remember my name, but he said, on the way out, that he would never forget that he had heard the word "Schadenfreude" uttered in Bubba Gump Shrimp. So I'll always have that.

HOWEVER: though yesterday may have involved picking up AWP materials, today was in fact the first day of the conference proper, and the people, I did it up proud. I attended and took copious notes at:

• a session on prose poems
• a session on putting together a book of poems
• Dr. Write's session on the new domestic fiction
• a tribute reading to Craig Arnold
• Nikwalk's panel on coming of age in the personal essay

And then, we ate dinner at H Burger, which was swell, because they had (a) amazing fries, and (b) a good veggie burger, and (c) I was unbelievably hungry. I was the kind of hungry that, when they brought my drink, in my case a lemonade/iced tea combo, I could feel it trickling into the empty space where my hunger was raging. That's because breakfast happened when the sun was not quite up yet, and lunch was some crazy seed bar--seriously: a bar made out of seeds and some slightly sweet hold-the-seeds-together stuff--and an apple. Which, the people, tided me over, but I think we can all agree: a seed bar and an apple are not lunch. NOT lunch.

After the entirely satisfactory dining experience, we met up with some people down in the teeming hotel bar which had the immediate effect on me of sending me, with kisses to the friends I wanted to see, fleeing back to my room.

Which leads me to this point: many many sessions in a day at a conference can be good. Each one of those sessions today was rewarding in its own way, and I am pleased to have attended. However, I have learned the following life lessons:

• I am exhausted.
• Eat lunch.
• Time to go to the book fair.
• Sleep better. (I am looking for an implementation expert for this bullet point.)

After fleeing, reflecting, and resting, I went down to the keynote address by Michael Chabon. As exhausted as I was and am, that was excellent. He is hilarious. I loved it. And now, Day One is concluded, I am several poems behind on the National Poetry Month extravaganza, my eyes hurt, and it is time for bed.

High concept poem.

Tomorrow, I leave for AWP in Denver, and the people, I am kind of excited, because I have outfits to wear, and music to listen to on the trip, and work to do--wait, am I excited about that? damn.--and people to see and stuff to learn and awesome dinners out to have. Etcetera.

Point 2: there has been enough going on here and there, hither and yon, that I (a) did not write a poem yesterday, and (b) only barely got one for today. Yesterday, at the end of a lo[insert extra 'o's here]ong day, we happened to find ourselves at the Dianne Reeves show, which is not a bad place to be, but (1) there was a winter storm happening on the way into the show, which we--I think I can speak for all of us here--had on our minds as being probably likely to continue for the return portion of the journey, and (2) the day had been lo[insert extra 'o's here]ng, and (3) what about National Poetry Month? So whilst contemplating Dianne Reeves's lovely ensemble and accessories while she was singing with great splendor, I thought I would write a poem about adornment and I scribbled notes galore in the dark without my glasses on, notes which I transcribed a little while ago.

However: those notes did not feel like becoming a poem tonight.

So instead, I wrote this. [< - that "this" is a link.]

I will be having my laptop with me--that is to say, my laptop will be companionably accompanying me, as in, my laptop insisted on coming with to Denver. So perhaps there will be further updates, poetry-wise, or maybe I will just do a little online teaching. Check back here to find out!

It's Easter, here's a poem.

Seriously, that's pretty much what I've got.

On target

in this, at least. Everything else I am behind in, but this: on schedule.

The poem, I mean.

I wish

I could promise that I will write something witty and refreshing at the same time I am writing poems this month.

I will try.

I can already feel my mind shifting into a different mode, the mode for finding the gesture that might become a poem. I asked myself today, why have I not made a way into this mind for so long?

This may be a mystery for another day. Maybe I'll get to it after I hang up my clothes. Again.

But for now, poem 2. Rough but ready.

April.

You know, the cruelest month, i.e., National Poetry Month. I know, I've made that joke before and probably so have a thousand other poets, but I still kind of like it. I get a charge out of it, and the people, that's not a bad thing at this point in the semester.

So, here's today's poem. I'm going to do my level best to write thirty poems this month. I haven't written one new poem since I came back to work after my sabbatical. Is that my fault? I say no. I say it's the job's fault, so take that, job! I'm writing a poem a day for a month. See if you can stop me.

tags: oh yes there will be poems

Santa Monica.

THAT was a pretty good day:

Back to L.A.:

Did you know about the giant windmill farm?

The next day, we did one of my favorite things this trip--a drive we took up Western Ave, which basically runs from the South Bay all the way to the Hollywood Hills. We were heading to Griffith Park, and we could have taken a series of freeways, but this was better. You can see a lot of different demographics and neighborhoods that make up greater Los Angeles. Did I tell you about last trip, when we got a little bit lost in Compton/Watts, trying to find the Watts Towers? That didn't happen this time:

Unfortunately, Monday is the day that the Griffith Park Observatory is closed. What? No, you heard that right: Monday. However, it was still good. We also stopped in a Target in, I believe, West Hollywood. Targets are not all created equal, but they are all good.

On our way home:

Accountability.

In the spirit of transparency, I would like to ask for a full reporting of all the data on the following trend I have recently observed in my household:

We are currently suffering a dearth of treats.

We have butter. We have sugar of many kinds. We have chocolate and eggs. We have almonds and various types of flour.

But can we scare up a cookie around here? No.

A piece of cake? No.

Pie? Forget about it.

The people, there is not even a gum drop.

This cannot stand.

And now I will inundate you with further desert pictures.

I don't know whether to apologize or say, you're welcome! but if you want to see some pictures of how beautiful Joshua Tree National Park is, hello, you're here:

Somebody oughta market this place like crazy. Or . . . not.

[note to Facebook viewers: you have to click on the original link--no pics otherwise. On the other hand, maybe that's what you're after in which case, here you go.]

tags: Joshua Tree, national park, kind of remote

Some more desert.

When we're out and about in foreign environs, such as the desert almost directly south of Barstow, we like to pick up all the free ephemera floating around in the racks at the Seven-Eleven, or in this case, at the Stater Bros. grocery store in Twenty-Nine Palms (this might be the all-time greatest name for a town in the history of the universe, and I am including Constantinople and Timbuktu).

In this little rag, we found an article about a brand new book that was having its brand new book party that very weekend. The book is called Jackrabbit Homestead, which is all about the little homesteads that sprang up in the Morongo Basin near Twenty-Nine Palms as a result of the federal government's (hows you spell that, son? I said: g-u-v-m-i-n-t. God Bless America.) Small Tract Act of 1938.

Turns out that our little piece of heaven in the desert is right there in the middle (or on the verge, anyway), of the remains of these homesteads, which are basically mostly abandoned shacks. Some of them are being reclaimed by all sorts--artists included.

Shack architecture, is what we started calling it:

tags: shack

L.A. Report.

This chapter of the Los Angeles Project started in the Moronga Valley, which is west of the San Bernardino Mountains. The reason for this fact is a slightly not well written book that I read in my book group, which was all about the marriage of Raymond Chandler to an older woman, and their peripatetic house-moving, through parts of Los Angeles, Pasadena, La Jolla, and--here's the relevant part--Cathedral City, which is just next door to Palm Springs, which is not too far from the Twenty-Nine Palms Highway, which is where Joshua Tree (the town) and Joshua Tree (the National Park) is, which are all in the Moronga Valley. (Which, also a few years ago, I read a true crime book about a murder that occurred in Twenty-Nine Palms.) All of which led me to figure out if there was a place to stay in Cathedral City or Palm Springs or . . . what's this? a little house right next to Joshua Tree National Park? A little house called Quail Mountain House?



And, the people, this beautiful little place had no television, no internet, no phone. Let me reiterate, and this time with bullet points:

• no television
• no internet
• no phone.

Which, honestly, usually would not be recommending points. But here's a novel fact: both nights we stayed there, I fell asleep at 9:30 p.m.

NINE THIRTY in the evening.

Which I frankly did not think was possible. Literally, as in, I could not go to bed that early unless I was at death's door, and also if I took a Nyquil. At death's door. Woozy and on the verge of death: that was the only way I believed I could fall asleep at nine thirty. I don't think I've fallen asleep like that, at nine thirty, since I was like five years old.

Sorry, it still stuns me.

The better thing was that I woke up with the sun--the desert sun, which is somehow sunnier than all other sun. At six in the morning. And it was glorious.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

Translation: go on a trip, come back to your actual life. With a job and all.

Question: was it a "trip," aka a vacation? or was it a "project"? And all that that entails.

Question: will I ever organize my photos?

For now:

Things to spread on your bread in China.

TAGS: screen shots, son in China

. . . and we're back.

We pulled into our driveway at about 9:15 p.m., making our trip from the coast to the mountains in about 10 hours and 45 minutes. Not bad. I'll be posting pictures and commentary from the trip over the next few days. I know, you can't wait.

Let me just say that, in L.A., the weather was perfect, we didn't get lost in Compton, I learned ever more fascinating facts about the geography and history of Los Angeles and environs, and also this, the people: from St. George to Nephi, roughly from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., as beautiful, clear light shone across the faces of the bluffs and cliffs and mountains and into the hollows of the valleys, I thought, oh my God, so beautiful. Over and over and over again.

Overpacking: a manifesto.

hen in the course of the semester it happens to be spring break, and therefore it becomes necessary to go to Los Angeles so that the people do not have their heads explode from The Teaching, and to drive therefore first to St. George, and then to California, from thence to parts hither and thither across the great Los Angeles basin, a decent respect to the possible activities and outings of this vacation requires that the people assemble many many many items for the journey:

Therefore, I hold these clothes to be self-evident, that the people should be able to have an orange skirt and also a denim skirt and also two gray skirts, that people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable shoes, that among these are platform sandals and also two different pairs of sneakers and two pairs of ballet flats.

To secure these clothes (and accessories), large suitcases are instituted, deriving their just mobility from tiny little wheels and also collapsible handles. And when any suitcase becomes inadequate to the inalienable clothing, it is the right of the people to get a bigger suitcase, and lay the shoes upon the bottom of it so they don't dirty the clothes, and pile the clothes willy-nilly upon the shoes, never mind, there will be time to sort that out later. In the motel.

For while economy of packing is admirable and not a trivial thing, all experience has shown that the people, when the long train of usurpations of clothing rights occurs, the people suffer, for what if there is not a good outfit for going out to dinner? And do you really expect me to wear the same pants two days in a row? Such a design is absolute despotism, and under such, it is the right, it is the duty of the people to thrown off this despotic design and bring way more outfits and possible parts of possible outfits, such as ten different tee shirts, you never know.

Let facts be submitted to a candid world: you might need a shopping outfit, a going to the beach outfit, a laying around the room ensemble. And what about museums? and a possible hike? and Palm Springs, what do people wear there anyway?

What I'm saying is, I am going to bring all these clothes, and with a firm reliance on a big trunk and an empty back seat, no one is going to stop me.

All the Mormons in Beijing.

Sundry updates:

1. I put my clothes away today. Again.

2. I just started a load of laundry. 90% of the items were gray.

3. We just ate the last of the cookies. They were seriously some of the best cookies I have ever made in my life.

4. I have a lot of responding to students drafts to do, which I am doing at this very moment. Or shortly, whichever comes first.

5. We are driving to L.A. in two days, and I literally cannot wait to blow this town.

6. What is the weather like in L.A.?

7. Running son is having a hard time finding the Mormons in Beijing. I am having a hard time helping him. Beijing is far, far away. And they speak a different language, and it's written in a different alphabet.

8. But he will figure it out.

9. Is it winter? is it spring? who can tell?

The silence.

There are times when a bunch of new music and a bunch of old music, a loaded iPod, a car, a day with a lot of festive cooking ahead in it, some rejuvenating housecleaning--times when such conditions call for music, lots of it, for a heady, raucous blast of sound is the ne plus ultra. Is the very-much-to-be-desired. Is exactly what I want.

Those times, the people, are not now.

I remember sometimes when the kids were growing and had soundtracks of their own to play, whenever I had a moment when the sounds could be my own, those sounds would be silence. Such silence would be cleansing. The silence was spaciousness in the form of the absence of something that, when there was no silence, crowded me till sometimes I thought my brain was made of nothing but noise.

I wonder if it's that, after more than a year of no one at home but me and the historian, we had a hit of what it used to be like: our house the guy-crossroad again, with their music and movies and video games, their talk and jokes, their fast food and their late hours. A hit of their beautiful noise, which is now gone. In the clear, quiet space here, just a few faint echoes remaining.

In five days we will be driving to L.A. There is music galore to be listened to, and I am thinking that we'll find ourselves--maybe about the time we hit Vegas, and maybe before--in the mood, ready for the music that will inflect our good time and be a part of our consciousness and imbue these new memories with sounds. Music for the desert, for the freeway, for the ocean and pier, for driving and for arriving.

tags: noise, travel

Paper, a love story.

Today I was in the Publication Center at my place of work, where there was an open ream of paper called Long Grain Cockle Finish something or other. It reminded me of the typing paper of my youth. It was beautiful: ivory colored, crisp and yet redolent of textile. Reader, I stole a sheet or two. Or three.

Who among us does not love paper? Lo, even those of us who spend far too much time in the glare of the digital simulacrum have been known to melt, verily even to swoon, at the odd notebook. I myself have notebooks in many many forms: composition books, handmade notebooks, the ubiquitous and yet still very sexy Moleskine (it is shocking how many kinds of these I have), sketchbooks. All these and more, and I'm not even trying very hard to enumerate.

Also, random paper: I love sheets of art paper, handmade or otherwise. There is an arts and crafts store in the general vicinity of Sonoma County where my bff lives that has the certifiably most awesome collection of awesome art papers in the entire universe. Or so I'm told. Or maybe I just surmise it, because I have bought beautiful lacy Japanese rice paper there, and paper made of leaves, and paper with flowers, actual flowers, built into it. What do I do with this paper? Well, sometimes I make things out of it, and sometimes I just keep it. And sometimes I unroll it to admire it, then roll it back up. This paper lines the drawers, walls, and bookcovers of my dreams.

And what about the school notebook? School's true beauty, if ever there were any, is entirely imbued within the covers of a fresh notebook, either three-ring and filled with college-ruled paper, or spiral-bound, likewise ruled, that has yet to be written upon. Blank and still promising.

Well, I have not decided what I will do with the sheets of cockle-finished ivory paper I pilfered. Maybe I will write something on it. Maybe a love letter, perhaps with the beautiful new fountain pen (the Pelikan junior fountain pen--awesome, colorful, and cheap, which is my personal motto) that recently arrived in the mail. Who ordered it? I, paper- and pen-loving and acquisitive, did. I ordered that pen for myself.

tags: paper

A few announcements, and an elegy.

A few announcements.

1. I am so. far. behind. I want to cry.

2. I am, in a perhaps not unrelated development, sick.

3. There are certain themes in my life:

• too many magazines accumulate beside my bed
• I need to reduce the amount of clothes, shoes, etc. by one-third
• I screen out the same callers on my caller ID (SLVFA, Stage Attractions, Banker's Life, Deluxe Carpet Cleaners, &c. & c.) pretty much every day

--but I am not sure if the magazines, extra 33 1/3 % clothes/shoes, recurrent callers are an enlightened boddhisatva, sent to me to teach me a lesson, or whether I am just a wreck of a human being.

4. Work is making me anxious.

5. My daughter and grandson are in Scotland. Not that daughter, the other one. Actually, both of them. But there's still one daughter here at home. Also, my son is in China.

6. Over spring break, come hell or high water, the historian and I are going to L.A. for The L.A. Project, Part 2. We will be near Joshua Tree for a couple of days, then back to the coast. I am hoping for some beach, some Griffith Park, some historic L.A. I am hoping not to think about work at all.

An Elegy to my Sabbatical

I know: an elegy is not to,

rather on, but I am not Keats,

nor was meant to be: yet once more,

o ye unfettered hours, I think

upon you and--hear my plaint,

o ye unfettered hours: you

have skedaddled and with you,

every last flouret of a thousand hues

&c &c, but O the heavy change,

now thou art gon,

damn straight, thou art gon

and never must return: seriously,

o ye unfettered hours, I

hella miss you, and now I am sick

and pining for you a full-on pine.

Sabbatical, you were worth it,

but coming back to work was

a bitch: thus sang the uncouth

swaine to her sabbatical,

which hath dissolved into a mist:

is that a sabbatical I see

behind me? Come, let me

grasp thee. I have thee not,

and yet I see thee still--

tags: elegy, pastiche

Fascinating facts you did not know about the dead presidents.

Read the first chapter here.