Writing Stuff Going On

I forgot this was happening - The Daily Theme from Figment!

A few things: 

I couldn't write dystopia/post-apocalyptic stuff if you put a gun to my head. Though I enjoy making students do so.

I really should come up with a title for my book so I can brag better about it. It's hard to promote something called As-Yet-Untitled.

However, when you have to still revise the book before it becomes an actual, you know, BOOK, then it's hard to make up a title. A bit presumptuous, maybe, too. So.

I'm teaching all these classes this summer at The Loft. It's a long list and I'm too lazy to write it out. They are all for ages 13-17 and scholarships are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Today I'm going to Chicago to experience the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference. I have a full slate of events I plan to attend, but what's on my mind right now is what I'm going to wear and all the snacks for the road I should purchase.

Venice, Again

I'm thinking about Italy again. Wouldn't you love this to be your neighborhood?

from Ben Lerner's Leaving The Atocha Station

I don't read nearly enough non-YA fiction, and Leaving The Atocha Station underscores the need for me to do it more often. Set in Madrid at the time of the March 11 train bombings, it's a lovely, quirky little book that draws you in immediately, even as its plot meanders and wanders.

The book contains one of the funniest descriptions of a poetry reading I've ever encountered. The setting is a poetry reading in a Madrid art gallery; the narrator is the second poet in the program who has just downed a tranquilizer to calm his own jitters.

"Tomas looked less like he was going to read poetry and more like he was going to sing flamenco or weep; he did not say thank you or good evening or anything but instead paused dramatically as if to gather his strength for what would be by any measure a heroic undertaking. He had shoulder-length hair that kept falling in his eyes as he arranged his papers and he kept smoothing it back with a gesture I found studied; he struck me as a caricature of himself, a caricature of El Poeta. A few more people were trickling into the gallery and he looked at them gravely until they found their seats. Then he looked back down at his paper, looked back up at the crowd, and when the silence had intensified to his liking, he uttered what I assumed was the title of his first poem: "Sea." To my surprise this poem was totally intelligible to me, an Esperanto of cliches: waves, heart, pain, moon, breasts, beach, emptiness, etc.; the delivery was so cloying the thought crossed my mind that his apparent earnestness might be parody. But then he read his second poem, "Distance": mountains, sky, heart, pain, stars, breasts, river, emptiness, etc. I looked at Arturo and his face implied he was having a profound experience of art.


Maybe, I wondered or tried to wonder, I'm not understanding; maybe these words have a specific weight and valence I cannot appreciate in Spanish, or maybe he is performing subtle variations on a sexist tradition of which I am not in possession. As Tomas read a third poem, "Work Dream" or "Dream Work," I forced myself to listen as if the poem were unpredictable and profound, as if that were given somehow, and any failure to be compelled would be exclusively my own. The intensity of my listening did at least return strangeness to each word, force me to confront it as a sound, and then to recapture the miracle of sound opening or almost opening onto sense, and I managed to suspend my disgust. I could not, however, keep this up; it required too much concentration to hear such familiar figurations as intensely strange, even in Spanish. It was not until I began to consider the scene more generally that my interest caught: there were eighty or so people gathered to listen to this utter shit as through it were their daily language passing through the crucible of the human spirit and emerging purified, redeemed; or here were eighty-some people believing the commercial and ideological machinery of their grammar was being deconstructed or at least laid bare, although that didn't really seem like Tomas's thing; he was more of a crucible of the human spirit guy. If people were in fact moved, convincing themselves they discovered whatever they projected into the hackneyed poem, or better yet, if people felt the pressure to perform absorption in the face of what they knew was an embarrassing placeholder for an art no longer practicable for whatever reasons, a dead medium whose former power could be felt only as a loss -- these scenarios did for me involve a pathos the actual poems did not, a pathos that in fact increased in proportion to their failure, as the more abysmal the experience of the actual the greater the implied heights of the virtual. Then I was able to hear the perfect idiocy of Tomas's writing as a kind of accomplishment, especially combined with his unwitting parody of himself, doing that thing with his hair, gripping the podium as though the waves of emotion breaking over him might wash him from his feet, and I began to relax a little about my own performance, the tranquilizer no doubt also having its effect."

                from pp. 37-38 of Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, Coffee House Press, 2011. 

Be Mine

My first memory of my husband is from 8th grade. Or 7th. I can't remember. It was junior high, in any case, and we had outside lunch and the boys were playing Smear The Queer. Isn't that lovely and quaint? Anyway, that day Adrian broke his arm and my memory is of him walking toward the doors of the building holding up his forearm, which was at an angle a forearm should never be, i.e. featuring a complex divot in it, with the wrist flopping (as limply as The Queer That Got Smeared, I guess - beautiful symmetry, huh?)

If this were a YA novel, what happened next would be that I stared at him while he held his broken arm and then we locked eyes and I could see from his smoldering gaze that he was a troubled soul in serious need of love only a 14-year-old girl with Jon Bon Jovi hair could provide.

But that didn't happen because that was reality and reality is super boring. What happened was nothing.

(What, you think I'm some loon who marries their high school sweetheart? Gross.)

I ignored Adrian pleasantly until about my junior year of high school, when we were super huge dorks on Academic Decathlon together (I know, shut up) and I was going out with one of his friends. During that time, I only noticed Adrian as an appendage of my then-boyfriend, who turned out to be a crazy fuckface who broke my heart, or also as the boy I gave a ride home from AD practice every night (yes, we practiced being smart and geeky) because his house was right by the community center where I did aerobics (it was 1990, lay off).

Mostly I never considered Adrian very much and the one time he asked me out (after his fuck-face friend dumped me) I thought he was kidding and was like, "Not in a million years, are you crazy?"

(I was kind of a bitch in high school.)

So then you FF to the end of my college years, because all the intervening years are boring and off-the-plot and we're together, Adrian and I, by magic and sluttiness and circumstance and whatever. It's a terrible match on paper, because he had no job and no college and owned a Trans Am (shudder) and lived with his parents and looked way too much like my father. We didn't even live in the same city.

(Is it a testament to our idiocy that none of that mattered? We were sickeningly off our faces for each other.)

One night I'm lying in bed with him and it was like the room was swelling. My head and face and body were swelling (not literally, gross) with this notion that this was absolutely right, the thing I should do. I had graduated from college with zero clue how to go about my adult life. I had a stupid degree and a couple of poetry publishing credits and an assortment of part-time shitty jobs and all these applications to grad schools I couldn't finish filling out because I didn't have a normal English major and what did I know from Henry James? Fuck all, that's what.

But at that minute, the thing I should do involved the guy lying beside me and the rightness of the whole thing was so obvious to me I worried it might actually be visible. In the air itself, outright, where he could see! I felt embarrassed, like it was emanating from me, like an aromatic vapor.

But it all stacked up. His motorcycle and how he made homemade hot pretzels and liked it when I made him a sandwich and how he could find any place on a map in any city if you dropped him into it from a helicopter and his enthusiasm for everything I said and did, whether I had clothes on or not, and how he explained to me in Menards that he could do wiring and plumbing and I just knew he was the point of it, of everything in my dumb, unsettled, faintly artistic life so far. He was it. The thing I needed so I could do whatever the hell else I needed to do.

When I think of that moment (and where it was and what I said next and what he said next will all have to be off the record because it's not cinematic or eloquent and beside the point, unless you are he or I), sometimes I think of all I didn't know about everything in the whole world. About money and family and having babies and stupid roommate issues and self-actualization and mental illness and a million billion other things that you must contend with in marriage. I was such a fetus about everything. I knew nothing. Nothing at all.

But all of that's a prosaic list of tips for a women's magazine advice column, right? The reason you put up with that shit is when you have that moment, in the dark, with the feeling swelling in you and at that moment you just know. That's the only thing you know. The rightness. This person beside me. The point of it. The thing I need so I can live.

It's Too Cold For A Title

There are many things I should be doing but I'm not doing any of them.

I don't tend to do what I feel like doing.

Whether this is because I'm someone's mother or just besieged by guilt, I'm not sure.

It's very cold, which makes me want to get out my CANCELED stamp and cover everything with it.

I have a fat wad of NYT crosswords, three fresh magazines, an episode of The Vampire Diaries and season one of Downton Abbey on Netflix. I have a package of clothing I ordered online I should try on but I haven't opened it. I haven't exercised in two days.

The reason is that I'm writing. My Fake People are coming around. Finally. Fuck. I thought I was going to grow a long grey beard.

It turns out they don't want to do the things I had them do before. They want to do all these other things. So I'm kinda following them around and watching them do these things. Trying to make it hard for them, because this is a revision, and they only get their way on the first draft. After that, it's much less pleasing and happy. Sorry, Fake People.

The Dictionary of American Slang

sin-hound: n. A chaplain. Some prison and Army use c1920. 

Five Ways of Looking At Bob Dylan

ME: I wonder if he feels embarrassed now about the whole 'renaming' thing. Like that isn't totally self-important and hoity-toity.


MATILDA: Why's he knocking on Kevin's door?


KAREN: He sounds like a miserable, lonesome dog with a mouthful of mud. However, I am a fan of his songs.


SID: That's HIM singing? HE SHOULD NOT BE SINGING.

ADRIAN: Turn that shit off.

On Valentine's Day

I like to call it Valentimes. Like I call the place where the books are the 'liberry.' Just to be a dink. And so Matilda will correct me, all huffy: "It's VALENTINNNNNES, Mom."

When I was growing up, both of my parents got us Valentines. My mother will still send me Valentine cards. I think that is cute.

Thus, Adrian learned the Hard Way - which is His Preferred Way, incidentally - that all the girls in his home must get a Valentine. This involves both a gift and a card explaining why we are his Valentines. I give him lots of reminders, because a) he wasn't raised this way b) he's not romantical c) he has ADHD d) I really want to get something BAD.

I don't ever need any diamonds or beach vacations or luxury automobiles or a giant houses. But I need you to explain to me why you like me. Preferably every day. But in lieu of how that would get a bit sickening, I demand it once a year. On February 14th. A month when nothing else good is usually going on.

No poems, please. No flower petals strewn anywhere. No flowers. No perfume. No wine.

Chocolate is okay.

I also accept iTunes cards.

Discussions of sexual intentions do not go in the card. Nor do they count as a 'gift.' That's totally cheap and kind of a Homer Simpson Bowling Bowl, too.

There is no make-up for this occasion. It happens on the 14th of February or else you fail.

On Shoes

So, my sister and I are extremely vain people. We were discussing this recently. Neither of us are vain enough, for, say, getting our nails done on a weekly basis, or shopping at a mall with regularity. Both of us strive to just be fall-out-of-bed beautiful, because all that TRYING? TRYING is very unattractive.

In case you need High School Shorthand, Kristin was the waify 95-lb. girl in a giant rugby shirt and leggings. I was the bedheady mess in Levis and flannel.

As you age, you can no longer pull off that naturally-gorgeous-just-woke-up-no-make-up thing. You sag, you wrinkle, your hair gets gray. Baggy butchy clothes don't make you look tousled and sexy but just dumpy. Leggings are something the 14-year-old who babysits your kids wears.

To look at either of us, you wouldn't guess we obsess over our clothing. I spend 99% of my life in jeans and t-shirts and hoodies and Converse. In the summer I wear skirts and and t-shirts and flip-flops. My sister's the same, except she has to go work for a living in an office and wear Awful Womany Office Wear. On the occasions that I must present myself to the public, I have a lot of consternation. Like, if I'm going to teach a class, I want to look like I know what's going on, not like I showed up at The Loft to fix a plumbing problem.

My sister can pull off girly quite well. She used to have a pink bedroom. She wore gold jewelry, even. But I cannot tolerate a lot of frippery and girlishness. When you have your father's goat-herding physique, you must streamline. Therefore my clothing tends to be dull and boring. Not a lot of whimsical prints or trendy styles. I buy a lot of A-line dresses and white t-shirts.

For this reason, shoes are very important to me. I spend a lot of time hunting for them online and in stores. Not just because of comfort. But because when everything I wear is shapeless and blah, the shoes can tell a different story.

Like - look! Swedish clogs! I'm taller, suddenly!
Ooh, platform slip-ons!
Boots that zip up the back!
Little wedgies with bells on the straps!
Beautiful wooden-heeled Frye sandals that some idiot at Savers priced at $12!

What these shoes say:  See, I'm not a boring old momma in a shapeless A-line dress! I'm fancy! I used to be kind of cool! Boys used to like me! See! It's not over yet! 

A few weeks ago, I was in the car doing the after school drop-off with this set of sisters we know, Ava and Lucy. One day, they were fighting the whole time and when we dropped them off, Matilda, an only child, was marveling at this. I tried to sell my whole idea of how being an only child is better again, by saying that I used to fight with my sister all the time, too, and felt bad because people said she was prettier than me.

"No offense, Mom," Matilda said. "But neither you or your sister are that attractive. I mean, you both have GRAY HAIR."

On Donuts

I once had this boyfriend who would get pissed at me if I ate donuts. Young women of the world, this is a terrible quality in a boyfriend - trust.

"I'm tired. And cold. I want a donut." - me, circa 1993, to then-college-roommate Heather

My sister works at this place where every Friday morning is Donut Day. This big hammy man comes in extra early with a shitload of donuts and sells them to people for a quarter or something. It kicks off a flurry of movement not usually seen in crowds of sedentary, office-padded people. Since this takes place by my sister's desk, some people give my sister money to secure donuts for them ahead of time, like it's some Soviet-era queue.

People think that working from home is so great. Except there's not Donut Day on Fridays...

My favorite donut is the regular raised with coconut/walnut frosting and a little chocolate glaze. They sell them at the grocery. I'm not fancy.

This post has done nothing but make me hungry.

My Sister Reads Nonfiction

My sister is a total weirdo.

She bought a book about eels from Half-Price books. "I can't wait to dive into this!" she said on the car ride home. EELS: the slimy icky snake fish creature. Who wants more data about those damn things?

This is also the same person who found reading the journal of a sea captain's wife 'riveting.'

She invites Matilda over to watch a PBS documentary on crows and then Matilda is telling me little factoids from her Auntie's "Crow Show" all the time.

Jigsaw puzzles. Bird-watching. Weeding the cracks in my driveway. She has the habits of an 80-year-old.

Goes to Culvers and orders...GASP -  a tuna melt. 


Once made Sid, Owen and Matilda watch this movie about bats that gave them all nightmares for weeks.

Makes her family watch The Alfred Hitchcock Hour once a week.

Real quote:  "The idea of having to write anything fills me up with dread."

The Dictionary of American Slang, Ctd.

wind pudding: Nothing to eat. Usu. in phrase "to live on wind pudding" = to have nothing to eat and no means of getting anything. Hobo use.