In the Jungle of Nool

Zetta’s post today has me reflecting on my weekend. Saturday morning I slept in with the S.O. and had the rest of the day, really, to myself. I got a massage in a neighborhood I rarely spend time in. Afterward I wandered around stopping into cute shops and dig through stacks at used bookstores (Best of Jane Kenyon, $6. Score). Then I went to an alfresco café, wrote while I ate and drank ice tea in the sun and struck up a conversation with two of my table-neighbors, both dining alone, and chatted there for a while. Then I went home and read and took a nap. Then I lugged a blanket and some stuff to the beach behind my house and I went swimming, read on the blanket, went swimming again, read on the blanket, etc. till I was tired of that. Then I went to a Great Gatsby-themed party and made some new friends and ogled everyone’s debonair threads and had something called a lemon-fizzy-ginger-something-or-other, then I went home.

Sunday, S’s sister and two nieces arrived for a visit. The girls are 5 and 7. I don’t normally get all kid-happy, but I adore these two. Regardless: they’re a shitload of work. Kids just are--this is no newsflash, to be sure. And eventually I want one, maaaaaybe two. But the nonstop of kid-rearing: holy shit. His sister, who has a good-dad of a husband at home, is still frazzled all the time, even though her kids are well behaved. I realize that if/when I have one, my wandering-around-book-stores and leisurely adult conversations over iced tea will go bye-bye.

More difficult to swallow is that that time will be taken over by constant running, managing, repeating requests, breaking up sibling squabbles, wiping up spilled things, feeding, schlepping, picking-up-after, etc. This is in exchange, of course, for the countless rewards of one of the most rewarding kinds of love. Granted, some frazzled parents would benefit from asking and accepting more help, though often the resources for help are complicated or nonexistent. I intend to hold off until the situation is right--until have the resources I need to have a kid and not go completly insane. As for S’s sister—after dinner I sent Sis and S straight out for drinks with strict orders to get her to relax. And I took the two little lady-bugs to my house for some slumber-party Dr. Seuss-filled girlfriend time. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed the literary genius of Horton Hears a Who, or given little girls hugs before sleep. It was good. For a weekend.

'Cause if it ain't Scottish, well, you know what it is.

My inner critic used to be a lady in a slick pink jacket (think Grease!) who sat on the edge of my couch smoking Misty Lights. If she couldn’t stop me from writing at all, she mostly carped on about technical skills—how I didn’t know enough about point of view, scene, summary, dialogue, whatever—to ever really be any good. Then she bitched about my fears of breaking the rules, of imagination in my work just sounding weird instead of unique. Apparently inner critics have no problem contradicting themselves, in case the Misty Lights weren’t annoying enough on their own.

She wore the pink jacket because a pink jacket is what symbolizes, for me, being able to make creative choices for what you want, not what you should do. I remember shopping with my mother, who always taught us to evaluate choices based on utilitarian criteria (mind you, I was in the second grade, here), like price, usefulness, return on investment. The very first time I remember making a choice just because it pleased me was the time I bought a slick Pepto-Bismol pink jacket at Penny’s. Now, my inner critic wears it to mock me. The jacket, I loved it. But it was tacky. See where following a whim gets you? On the worst-dressed list. In writing, she said, following whims gets you some shitty writing.

I’ve learned to shut up the critic through practice, mostly, and mental tricks like reminding myself that when I write, it’s just an SFD (Shitty First Draft), so it’s allow to suck. Sometimes I actually sit down and tell myself before I begin “Write something sucky. Then put it away and mine it for good bits later.” That way when Pink comes in the room and shouts, “Who pooped?” I can say, “Oh, that’s just my first draft. Right now, it’s allowed to stink.” And keep writing.

Now that I’ve had the experience to get over that amateurish inner critic, I’ve come across a new strain of critic to which I’m not entirely immune: The Professor. The professor isn’t a real professor; my real live professors are awesome. He’s an old Scottish snooty, brainy imaginary bastard who tells me that okay, so I can write some stuff that’s kind of good. I’ve had success in a couple small literary journals. But that doesn’t mean I’ll get anywhere. Slush piles are huge and getting a first book that sells well is unlikely, and it’s harder to write your second book than it is your first. When you get to the point where you’re not the emerging star some publisher can “discover” but you’re not established yet, that’s when most writer’s stall.

The Professor is Scottish and a professor on account of a critical, self-indulgent essay I read on science poetry written by such a character. He quoted his own work as supporting material for his arguments throughout the piece—as in, “I believe that a successful poem about science must be written by one with a PhD in astrophysics. To quote, well, me, here’s an excerpt of my poem on the escape velocity of carbon molecules in the Kupier belt…” Hellooooo.

Anyway, the Scottish snot says that it’s better to be a scientist who writes poetry (like him) rather than a poet who includes science because scientists are always successful. Even if a theory is tested and proven wrong, its successful in that in eliminates a possibility. However, a poet can fail all the time—if all they ever do is get published in literary journals that have more submitters than subscribers, what Big Fat Losers of Doom. Furthermore, poets are too fluffy to get science.

Where’s Pink when you need her—Who pooped?, indeed.

To me, there is no “us” and “them” about it. Sciences and arts are both high creativity in different forms. An equation is a language that creates something we may not be able to perceive with our senses just like poems use a language to generate something we can feel but isn’t tangible. That’s what I say to The Professor. That, and that starting out in little LitJo’s isn’t failure, it’s awesome. And for God’s sake, lose the kilt and put on some damn pants.

I have a confession:

I like working on my thesis. It doesn't feel like a looming burden. It feels like a fulfilling break from all the zooming around.

Mind you, I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, writing a book. I’m focusing on my current job, which, here in pre-thesis, is to read lots, write lots of poems, send them to my advisor, get them back, revise them. The whole making-them-perfect part and putting-them-in-some-kind-of-order part is a speck off in the distance, no doubt approaching much more quickly than I can perceive now. I return again to my comet analogy: Before I can even say, “Why, what’s that dim light? Is that a co—” the deadline-comet will smack me in the head at full speed, I’m sure.

Its summer, right? This weekend I saw a play, went to a party, watched the Twins win, rowed for 2 hours, had dinner with Voix, went shopping with Jess and still managed to work on thesis for about 4 hours and fall asleep on the couch watching a movie. The whole thing was fun, but thesis was a nice calming breath of relaxation in all that.

Not writing is scarier than writing at this point. I mean, it’s kind of like doing laundry. There comes a point when there’s so much damn laundry to do that you keep avoiding it, when really, that makes more laundry pile up so you REALLY start to avoid it and before you know it, you’re buying new underwear because you don’t want to face The Pile.

Likewise: The more hours I go without getting ideas out the more will pile up for when I do sit down to write and I feel like it’ll get all jumbled around into a big stinky mess instead of being neatly folded in stacks or rolled into little sock-beans and lined up in a drawer. There’s a backlog of stuff that I’ll lose if I don’t go get it down. But lo—there is a full time job to keep. There is a man to drink wine with on porches. There is the Mississippi to row.

Unlike laundering jeans and spending an afternoon handwashing unmentionables and rolling socks into little beans, which I do not like, I love writing when I get to do it. Time flies by, I get good ideas, the poems look better than they did before. Progress happens.

People bitch about Minnesota winters (myself included), but there comes a time after summer where you long for a nice spell of fall thunderstorms. You get to sink into a chair and just stay inside and stop going. The end of summer is one big sigh, but right now we are in the middle of it. There are no thunderstorms--just the loud call of sunshine/refreshing beverages/backyard parties. And, of course, the comet, just a little smear off in the distance.

Peppermint latte. Mmmmmmmmm.

So, as of this summer, I’m managing my first employee. It’s a little weird to have someone come to me like, “Do you want me to research the clinical data first or make photo shoot appointments?” What? Who, me? Yeah, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m pretending that I do. It’s been good—Megan’s awesome and motivated and smart. I hear my colleagues bitch about their employees falling asleep at their desks (oh, and such a short while ago that employee was me) and mine rocks.

And she puts up with so much crap from a certain someone else in our department. Megan just got back from her family vacation to find approximately 80-gajillion boxes in her cubicle. My boss put them there thinking Megan wasn’t returning until Monday, so Meg spent her morning burrowing a tunnel to her computer. The good news is that if the office were suddenly attacked by Vikings, Megan would be protected by a fort made of cardboard boxes full of surgeon training binders.

Meanwhile, I’m a tired and dried out. I went out for beer(s) last night, then S. and I sat up talking and goofing around till 1 a.m. and my alarm didn’t go off, so yet again, I show up to work where my one employee has been dutifully digging her way through crap to start organizing our literature catalog, and I roll in 45 minutes late in jeans and a t-shirt and wet hair with bags under my eyes like, ohhhh, you’re back today? Would you be a doll and run to Dunn Brothers and get me a peppermint latte?

People who take the last pull of coffee in the office on a Friday morning and don’t start a fresh pot should be forced to drink day-old decaf for the rest of their lives. It’s called grab a filter, dump in a bag of grinds and hit “start,” people. For the love.

Okay, I didn’t send her out for coffee even though I wanted to because I’m not that kind of boss. On that note, I suppose I should go do some work now.

Journey Home

So, I’m getting ready for a trip home to the Hoosierland, and I’m taking my beau. This is the first time I’ve invited a beau home, which didn’t stop my aunts from adding my last boyfriend, whom they’ve never met, to the Family Tree. No shit. They still have a photo of us up (we broke up in 2003) on what I call the Wedding Table. The Wedding Table is a table at my grandmother’s with photographs of all 18 million grandchildren at their weddings. Oh, and then there’s Dan and me. I haven’t laid eyes on Dan since 2004.

Anyway: There’s my family for you. Most of them live in the same area code, married before 25 and had babies. Great for them. But I didn’t do that, and while they love me and they try to get it, they just kind of don’t. (Honestly, I don’t get them either, but I try.) As a disclaimer, my immediate family—mom, dad, big sis, little sis, didn’t go down the rural-Midwestern-life-path either, and they get that there are other ways to do things.

So, S. and I are staying at the local B&B. I called the proprietor of said B&B, who is the mother of one of my old high school classmates. So I make my reservation and she says “So, have you heard? Little Eddie S. died. Surely you remember him—you did the play Grease together when you were juniors. The paper said the memorials are to go to a mental health facility. What do you think that means? Well I’ll save the obituary for you.”

And there you go: You call to make a reservation from a stranger and before you know it you have the town news and an invitation to gossip about the mental health of a kid you sat three pews behind in church for 15 years. Just in case being in Indianapolis during a huge (HUGE) NASCAR event isn’t enough to scare the pants off my tolerant and loving boyfriend on his first trip to Indiana, the obituary on the pillow of our bed and breakfast will.

Ed, the classmate who just died, suffered deeply from depression, and was the town’s only other poet. Even though we weren’t close, I’ve read his work, done theatre with him, and feel a sort of poet-kindred ship. His obituary says he’d just finished preparing his second manuscript. I’ve been saying little prayers for his family. I hope he found at least some comfort in his art.

That's right, with tassels.

I once bought pasties from a burlesque dancer during a blizzard. My friend Patrick was visiting from New York and we walked the skyways across the entire city to the only bar we could get into without IDs. Pat left his at Bryant Lake Bowl, where we had breakfast, which may tell you something about the quality of bar.

We ended up at a burlesque show in the middle of the night—you have to understand that Patrick is the variety of friend with whom you think you’re going for a cup of coffee and the next thing you know you wake up in Tijuana with a splitting headache and someone else’s underwear on your head. We met the dancers back stage after. This is where I bought red pasties handmade by CC, and had a lesson on nipple size and how to make the tassels swing, though I gave the pasties to my friend for her wedding. So I didn't get to put my swinging-expertise to good use, but what a great wedding gift.

Two years later I started dating S.A., and somehow through conversation figured out that CC lives in the apartment upstairs from him with her partner, N. They’re lovely friendly neighbors. CC leaves fliers for her shows under the door, and she shares her gardening soil with S.A. and lends me her parking spot sometimes. Once, when she and N were having a spat, she came down for a pep talk. They’re nice folks.

Sunday was the Gay Pride parade, and CC’s burlesque group had a very classy float. CC is expecting now, but only has a tiny little bump you’d never notice, and her attire was fitting for the venue (there were many families and children at the event). So we hollered for her and cheered.

We’re looking forward to babysitting. The couple that live below S.A.’s apartment are also expecting. Come to think of it, we’re the only ones in his wing that aren’t pregnant or recently made parents. S.A. and I wonder what the hell’s in the water in his building. Yikes.

Leek soup. Leek hot dish. Leek a la mode.

This summer, S. and I signed up for one of the farm co-ops that give you fresh, seasonal stuff once a week, all pre-paid and with recipes (in the event that one load includes 6 leeks, and who the hell knows what to do with 6 leeks?). The first shipment arrived last week. It was lettuce, garlic and eggs. I made a Nicoise salad and lo, it was good. I’m excited about this. In part because the conversations S and I have about food tend to go something like this:

Me: Let’s make some veggie stir fry tonight!

Him: Yeah! That sounds good. Had a lot of Asian food lately though. What if we made fajitas with the veggies instead? Mexican, mmmm.

Me: Fajitas sound good.

Him: Actually, I’ve got some great enchilada sauce I need to use up. Why don’t you chill out and read and I’ll make us some enchiladas.

Me: You got a deal, mister.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the occasional bubbling dish of enchiladas (or a man who wants to cook for me—hi, awesome), but note the swiftness with which the healthy plan turns into deep-fried cheese curds is getting a little out of control.

I wish I were one of those ladies who woke up bright and early on Saturday mornings, put on my sun dress and adorable hat and bounced out the door to load a net bag with fresh stuff from the farmers market, but that only tends to happen about once or twice a year. And I don’t garden. Gardening is on my list of “things I wish I liked but I just don’t.” So this co-op thing, it should work well. Tonight: we go pick up peas. Mmmm, peas.

Oh, Hazel.

The other night, my friend’s poor dog got into her bag and ate a big thing of chocolate covered espresso beans. Hazel’s a wiener dog. Though medical assistance was procured, Hazel spent the night tearing around the apartment, barking, and being a total spazzoid freakball.

I feel for Hazel. Hazel is a metaphor for me.

I’m happy to report that I presented my prospectus on Monday, it was slightly nerve-wracking and intense but motivational and calming and good. My advisor: totally intense and brilliant. The woman wrote 2,000 poems for her first book and whittled that down to something like 48 poems for the final collection. She’s bionic. A machine. In my meeting, this woman told me I need to chill out a little, that maybe my first assignment should be to spend a whole day on my couch watching bad movies.

It was kind of a relief—it’s been hard to get out of overdrive. But now that prospectus is done and I handed her my paper, my plan, my application, and a stack of something like 100 poems (and thesis hasn’t started yet, but this is expected), I just get to write. I’m tired of writing about writing and making a plan that I know will change anyway. Now I just get to write it on my own time and read what I want to read. I feel better.

Oh, and the haircut? Apparently I now have the same hairdo as Posh Spice. I’m told this is a good thing. Maybe people should start calling me Spazziod Spice. We could be sisters.

for my old friend Herman, gone ten years now

At the end of the day

I roll the wheel barrows in
push in the mowers inside
from the sidewalk display,

wave to Mrs. Mason
ticking tires with chalk
at the five o’clock hour

and walk toward home.
When I was a kid
I said an Our Father

forgive us our tresspasses
as I cut through the lawn
of the Methodist Church.

Home again now
after years I take care
while you die.

I keep to the sidewalk.
I pray all the time.
Your flannel hangs from the chair.

The rosary your wife made
is tangled in a dish.
Her eyes were good enough once

to thread bead after bead,
bend wire into loops,
with tools from your store.

I work hard
to keep it afloat
but we can’t compete

with big box stores.
I know soon
we’ll have to stop fighting.

Three Lessons of Haircuts

I’m chopping off my hair tonight. Actually, I’m paying a talented and lovely lady named Lindsay to chop my hair off for me.

My hair-cycle goes like so—I chop it. I grow it. I start putting it up constantly because its longness bugs me. I get hair-envy for other women’s short-n-sassy hairdos. I chop it. Repeat.

When I was a kid, it was long and blonde and wavy like the little Dutch-ish girl I was. It started turning brown and in high school I got sick of the long-with-bangs thing that had been going on forever. Remember the early 90’s? Somewhere during the grunge phase people were shaving the underside of their hair just a little bit around the neck line. Remember this? Maybe it was just my high school—after all, we were isolated from all forms of culture by a ten-mile-wide radius of cornfields. Anyway, for some God, God awful reason, I shaved off all the hair just around my neckline, leaving the rest long I’m pretty sure it is around this time that my parents laid awake in bed at night whispering to one another “Well, at least she’s not on crack.”

I soon realized what a foolish fit of blinded-by-teenage-idioticness this was, and decided to solve the problem by chopping the rest of it off. Lesson 1 about hair: Chopping it off is never the solution to a bad haircut.

I grew it out, and it was all pretty and good again. That is the good thing about hair: it grows, just not fast enough. And by late high school and college it was lovely and flowing. It was the kind of hair people walking into a salon look at and say “Make my hair do that.” Then I broke up with my boyfriend.

Lord almighty, I was insane with grief. I could not be trusted with such matters as who to date or how to dress myself—my heart had been crushed for the first time—and it is the job of a girl’s friends to monitor the idiotic urges of such a fragile teenager.

One day, roiling in my post-break-up pit-o-despair, Becky left me alone a little too long with our friend Erika, who was the least stable of the clique. Erika had been known to drink Zima and belt out country tunes while careening down the highway in her little 1991 red Ford Escort. Erika took me to get a haircut because she thought a new look would make me feel better. Lesson 2 about haircuts: Never get a haircut right after a break-up.

I took in a photo and asked the stylist for a short-ish bob, like the girl in the picture. I came out looking like my grandmother. In my small Indiana town, the hairdresser spent most of her time on little old ladies, so she cut my hair just like an old lady—a super-duper-beyond-repair short that looked absolutely nothing like the photo.

Naturally, I went home, threw myself on my bedroom floor and bawled. My life was over—I looked awful, my boyfriend broke up with me, it was never going to get better, he was going to see me like this, I’m never going to get over him, etc. etc. etc. Becky came over and sat there with me and suggested things like hats and bandanas and all the stuff that doesn’t help even though you wish it did.

Yeah. I remember that. That was awesome.

I grew it back out, then I chopped it off again. However, this time I utilized Lesson 3 about haircuts: Never, ever, ever get a drastic cut unless the stylist has cut your hair very well no less than a million times. Never. Amen. Hallelujah. Never.

My cousin Julia became a stylist, and she’s awesome. I’d trust her to cut my hair blindfolded. I had it short through the rest of college (but not THAT short) and it was very cute. I was told I could pull off short hair well. I had a pixie cut right after college. It was alright, but I wouldn’t do it again.

Then: Short, long, short, long.

Now it’s long and dried out and the color isn’t right and its driving me crazy. The plan tonight is to go have many inches cut off, but I’ve been known to walk into a salon and come out with something totally different than I had in mind when I went in, so we’ll see what happens. As long as I don’t come out looking like Great Aunt Margaret, I think I’ll survive.

Ohmmmmmm.

My good friend Kate and I were on a walk the other day and I mentioned that maybe I’m tired because I’m working a full-time job, rowing 6-8 hours a week and putting together a prospectus and residency applications and writing a book. Last night after work, a 2-hour row and shower and laundry, I revised 40 pages of poetry. I did not want to get out of bed today.

Kate asked me what she can do to help, and I said very nicely that I kind of want everyone to go away. Just for a few days. Actually, I want me to go away for a few days, but that’s difficult due to finances and logistics (I need access to humongous stacks of notebooks and books).

I’ve arranged to have most of this weekend to myself. My sweetheart, my favorite distraction, is going camping with himself. I am going to stay inside my house and click away.

I’m dreaming of a writing retreat, and all the places I can take them in the future. Over the winter I went to the North Shore for three days all alone and I stayed in a little cabin overlooking Lake Superior. It was awesome.

I love my work, but the time consumption is a pain in the ass. Then there is the part where I get paid. I may not have summers off or get to leave every day at 3 or get to sleep in and leisurely make my way to French Meadow to eat a croissant while I edit last night’s notebook entry. But I do get paid time off and enough dough, if I’m careful, to rent the occasional cabin at the lake or fly my ass to Sydney if I want to.

Now, I wonder what else is out there for writer retreats. I’d love to do some kind of yoga/nature/spa/writing kind of thing. Actually, I’d love to teach at a yoga/nature/spa/writing kind of thing. I don’t know where to begin looking for them.

Where do you go to take a break or do your pleasure-work? Escape your life? Focus?

The Grand Gathering: 109

I am in the process of collecting all the poems I’ve written in graduate school. My advisor will read them and we’ll cut a bunch and revise a bunch and I’ll write a bunch more. My goal is to have 150 poems to give to her. So far I have 109.

One-hundred-nine poems, friends. Keep in mind that until just this past November, I was focusing on fiction, not poetry, so that’s quite the shitload for someone who wasn’t supposed to be focusing on poetry at all.

My thesis—I’m stressin’. I suppose most of us are. I want it to be brilliant and perfect and I want to complete it in a year. Tall order, I realize. And at first I was going to do a collection of science-themed poems. Now, I want to take a bunch of the fiction I have and turn them into narrative poems. And I want to do another collection of poems that are just ones I like that don’t necessarily have a theme.

(Hold on! I just found another one. Make that 110. Yeah!)

Is it just me, or does that sound like three books? Yeah, I’m not writing 3 books in a year. Or maybe I can somehow combine these—do 1 book with three sections. But… doesn’t that sound random? Like, “Hey, this part is about physics and astronomy, and this part is about my mom! And over here there are a couple poems about birds.” (Oh yeah, the bird poems. Revised total: 113.)

Really.

My point is, I don’t know how my vision of my thesis looks. It keeps changing, and I’m going to have to steer my craft toward some sort of vision of a project, but I also need to honor whatever I feel compelled to write, right? Or is that just a bunch of crap?

I hope this is the part where my advisor comes in. Like, she’ll look at my stuff and say something like “Clearly, you’re doing a lot of work that is X. So let’s make that into a book. Here’s step 1.”

I do not know. What I do know is that I’m totally overwhelmed, and how it’s all going to come together: a mystery. And this mystery, I want to hide from it right now. I want to go watch TV and shop for tank tops instead of think about how much I’ll have to do to figure this out.

Should the theme/vision/narrative of my thesis project somehow seem obvious to any of YOU, please, do enlighten me.

Put the jack-hammer away, doctor.

Some of you may know that my day job is to write surgical technique manuals for spine surgery. All the nerve roots to your whole body connect through a space between moving, hard bone, right? If you screw up the bone or the discs between the bones, they can cause a world of pain. Your limbs may go numb. The muscles will tense up to compensate for misalignment of the bones. Nerves will get crushed.

Apparently one of the vertebral processes in my lower cervical spine is skewed. By this, I mean that when I went to the chiropractor complaining of muscle tension in my upper back, he took and x-ray and it looked something like this:

Spine problems that aren’t caused by trauma are usually degenerative, meaning, before I’m even an old lady I could be in the kind of pain that will make implanting something like this:

using something like this:

sound appealing. So, even though my only symptom is annoying muscle tension and a wonky knob in my back, I need to take care of it now or I’m screwed (literally—a very common surgery is implantation of a pedicle screw system that looks something like this):

So I’m going to the chiropractor, getting massages and today I had doctor who specializes in physiology do an ergonomic assessment of my workspace. So far, it's apparently working.

I’ll end with this disclaimer: The truth is (and I’ve seen in a million times) for sufferers of severe back problems that can’t be resolved through physical therapy, surgery can be an amazingly good solution. It changes people’s lives for the better. Surgeons can do amazing things for people these days, and by the time I’m an old lady they’ll be able to work even bigger miracles. I don't actually have disc herniation or anything super-dramatic at this point. Still, let’s stick with the preventative measures, shall we?

There's a slight chance I might be going to hell.

My former landlord (oh, it feels so good to say “former”) is a jackass. He broke many laws—such as not replacing appliances in a timely manner, refusing to put deadbolts on my apartment doors, giving me my rent tax forms late… He told me he didn’t want to put on deadbolts because living in fear of burglary attracts the negativity of intruders (like rapists) as though by asking for basic safety measures, I was “asking for it.” Our “included” washer and dryer costs were snuck onto apartment #1’s bills. He spent a whole hour explaining to my neighbor how to use the miniblinds like she’s some kind of idiot, but he failed to tell her that she controlled the heat for my apartment, so when she turned the heat down and left for Boston for Christmas, I had no heat in my apartment until she returned a week later—in the middle of winter in Minnesota—and my landlord had left town with no back-up facilities help, so I was screwed.

When I moved in originally, he hadn’t cleaned the apartment, so I had to scour the place before I could move anything in. It was disgusting. Now, I have moved out. I didn’t want to clean it because it wasn’t clean when I moved in and because I hate him. But he still has my deposit—and while he probably couldn’t legally withhold it for not cleaning, the last two people who moved out had to take him to court to get their deposits back. I didn’t want to go there.

My landlord is the next tenant for my apartment—he’s moving in as we speak. So what’s a girl to do? Do you clean the place, knowing he doesn’t deserve it, hoping to save your deposit? Or do you leave it crusted with gunk?

I’ll tell you what you do. You clean the whole apartment using week-old toilet water. You snap on some rubber gloves, dip a couple sponges in stagnant water from the shitter, and you scrub the inside of his refrigerator with it. Then you do the microwave, the bookshelves, the mirrors. Dip them again—give the side of the bowl a little wipe—then clean all the light switches and door handles.

I ran into the bastard on my way to get my last pieces of mail. He told me how clean it was—immaculately clean—and he seemed so pleased.

Things I would do if I had a magic wand or a bewitched nose or at least a crew of helpful mice like in Cindarella:

• 
• Magically arrange and put away all the tons of stuff in boxes and lying in piles around the new apartment.


• Remove the ugly mini-blinds in my new apartment and replace them with lovely curtains.
  




• Stop time long enough to lie on my big fluffy couch and read books until I fall asleep.
  
• Magically and neatly fold fitted sheets and put them in the linen closet.
  


• Collect all the stuff that needs to go to Goodwill and float it down the street and into the donations box.
  
• Fix whatever is wrong with my printer.
  
• Return light bulbs that don’t work and magically select the ones that do from the aisle at Target dedicated to 6,503 sizes of light bulbs.
  
• Make a big fat ice cream sundae for my boyfriend for doing tons of handiwork.


• I may as well make one for myself while I'm at it.


• Clean the old place.
  
• Type up a brilliant prospectus and residency application and slide them into the mailbox with correct postage.
  
• Install a 3-pronged electrical outlet next to my bathroom sink. (There are no working outlets in my bathroom—none.)
  
• Re-pot all my plants.
  
• Find something to put in the weird-shaped, unusable fireplace spot in my living room that covers up the electrical outlet (there IS an outlet right in the middle of the fireplace-hole! WTF?) that fits and doesn’t look funky. Candelabra? Pillows? Lamp?

Exclusive interview you've all been waiting for!

Hee hee.

My new blog-o-sphere pal over at Bleeding Espresso interviewed me, and now I shall interview you. Drop me a line in the comments if you want 5 questions.

(1) Do you have a large group of close friends or just a few? Do you like it this way?

I have some friends from various stages of life all over the globe—childhood, college, living abroad. I'm good at keeping in touch with old friends. I’d say I have a small group of really close friends and a large group of medium-close friends in my day-to-day life. I prefer a smaller group of close friends rather than a zillion semi-friends.

(2) Your teenage years: best time of your life or sheer torture?

I didn’t like high school. I lived in a small conservative town with limited educational resources and I always felt stifled, like I didn't fit in and that freedom awaited me elsewhere. I did have wonderful friends, a safe home and much love from my community, which I appreciate. I've converted most of my distain for my hometown into respect for it (even though it isn't the right place for me, at all). One of the things that united my group of friends was our desire for more, and that made for some loving friendships.

I'd say the best time of my life is now.

(3) In how many different places have you lived? Which was your favorite and why?

About 4. Probably Australia because I love the ocean, but I also love Minneapolis now and love Portland (though that period ran its course for me). I also studied abroad twice and sort of feel like I've lived in Europe. I want to live abroad again sometime soon-ish.

My favorite is usually wherever I am.

(4) Who's your most favorite person in the whole world and why? (OK, you can list a few if you like.)

Let’s assume you mean someone I actually know who is alive right now (so we can rule out the Dhali Lama and Mother Theresa, etc.).

My favorite people right now are all the ones who helped me move this weekend.

• Liza and Voix helped me paint the bedroom sky blue and the kitchen a bodacious orange.
• Scott Andrew tirelessly schlepped boxes, went on a painfully long shopping trip, arranged for a van and kept me sane--we're talkin' dawn to midnight for 3 days straight, all without whining once.
• Kate and Tim helped with several loads.
• Aunt Claire and Uncle John brought over their van and helped me pack and move furniture, all after hauling a million pounds of mulch for their own garden.
• The Two Barts helped with a kitchen table and transportation.
• Kara and John not only helped me assemble cabinets and lash boxsprings to a car, but they brought me a big old bottle of champagne to boot.

A pretty loving tribe I've got over here.

(5) You've just been granted your dream holiday. Where do you go, for how long, and who's coming with you?

Oh. Yes. I love this question.
I’d travel around the world—literally, including Antarctica—and I’d bring Scott for most of it (traveling alone is also fun) and have other join at various points on the trip. I’d begin with a tour of the pacific islands (Fiji, Cook, to which Becky, Kate, Voix, Jessi, Michelle and Lola are invited), head to Australia to see friends in Perth and Sydney. Get my dive certificate at the Great Barrier Reef. Do Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Russia. I’d need to do more research on Africa for specific spots, but definitely the Gold coast, Morocco, Egypt. I’d like to go to Mesopotamia if it’s safe enough. I’d see Europe—back to the Swiss Alps, Italy (heaven) and Germany and spend lots of time in wine country. Go to the Nordic countries. Back to England. Ireland. Iceland. Then central America (maybe hang out in Guatemala long enough to learn Spanish properly), and work my way down to the tip of SA and take a cruise to Antarctica.
There, how’s that for an answer?

Your turn:

1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Modern Astronomy 101

Doctor Murphy told us he doesn’t believe

in UFOs. He sketched equations over-head
showing the likelihood of aliens
coming to Earth from billions of light years away

to make crop circles, no less, and go home.

Maybe we came to class hung over,

sweat pants baseball caps. Late.

But equations. Equations can see
The Wind Cries Mary leave Hendrix’s guitar
in colors and waves, hit your inner ear and
fire the synapse that gives the urge

to close your eyes and rock.

One equation showed the likelihood
aliens could travel faster than light
without micro-waving to death.

Another showed the likelihood
they’d be able to stop a space craft moving that fast

without crashing into us.

He turned the crank and laid a transparency

of the Universe, black with blurs like bits of rice.

Murphy said with so many suns

They must exist. But

our planet’s just a boat rocking away

in a black sea. We’re a climber stumbling sideways

through snow and aliens may be a helicopter

with a search light. Even if we could feel their blades

rattle our sternum—if they bothered

to send out a search team at all—

they’d surely never find us.

Progress Report:

A couch has been purchased. Picture it in a coffee-with-cream color, minus the tacky accent pillows.

Paint has been purchased.

Old apartment is looking very post-tornado.

I'm am going to swipe more bubble wrap from the shipping room at work now.

Yeah. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I had the pleasure of babysitting my friends’ baby, who is the smiliest, most angelic little almost-1-year-old you could ask for.

I have no children of my own, and while I want maybe one or two of them, genetics did not bestow me with the gene that draws me to children with the same force that I am, say, drawn into a shoe store. I like kids and all, but I don’t feel a primal or automatic urge to go play games with children at company picnics or know what to say to make them giggle or get them to stop crying. I’m generally inclined to treat them like little adults, though I know better than to make them a toddler-sized martini.

Anyway: I adore this little kiddo. He’s the first I’ve gotten to see grow from teeny infancy, and he recognizes me and reaches out for me when I’m around. So last night we got to hang out solo while his parents went out.

Before the walk, I changed his jacket 3 times before going out because I was afraid he’d be cold, or warm, or maybe he should have a hood, or maybe I should put him in a fleece and bring 2 more options just in case. I loaded my pockets with 10 binkies and toys, then realized that after all this, I forgot to put shoes on him.

I had also forgotten to strap him into the stroller entirely (lest he fall out at a screaming .0001 miles an hour). Naturally there are 60,000 straps and clips all wound around and I don’t know what goes where. When I got him all finally situated realized that I’ve done all this IN the house and now have to either undo all the straps and take him out of the stroller—a contraption as large and complicated as a space ship, I tell you—and put him back in again, OR I’ll have to carry him down 25 steps still strapped in.

Then my mind goes like this: But if I take him out of the stroller so I can carry the stroller down the steps first, what if something happens in the 3 seconds while he’s out of my sight? What if he chokes on a Lego or tries to pull himself up on the bookshelf and it falls over or drinks Drain-o or follows me out and falls down the stairs or chokes on those little strings that hang from the blinds?

And the whole time he’s sitting there blinking his giant blue eyes at me like, “Lady, what the HELL are you doing?”

Note to self: Call your mother and apologize to her for all the years you teased her never, ever getting out of the house on time.

(Oh, and I carried him down the steps IN the stroller. And I didn't drop him once.)

Moving. Ack.

I woke up the day after class ended and thought “Ah, morning. I’m done with school. Why, what’s that small light off in the distance? It’s getting bigger. Hey, it looks kind of like a co—” BAM. It hit me: I have to move, um, NOW.

I have to be out of there by the weekend, need to paint, acquire boxes, buy, I don’t know, FURNITURE, schlep a ton of crap across town and naturally, I really, really want to have everything I need right NOW so I can just get it done. Not just “done” as in, “I can find a fork somewhere in one of these boxes” but I want it “done” as in Better Homes will be over with the photographer by next Wednesday. Not so realistic, I know.

When I moved here, everything I owned could practically fit into someone’s glove compartment. I had no job and had just taken out student loan money which is enough to buy one whole burrito to sustain me for the entire semester. My parents were kind enough to give me some of their furniture, and while I appreciate their generosity (love you guys!), its old an needs to be put to pasture.

So, Voix and I went on a big fat furniture shopping spree on Saturday. You know how when you have no money you can walk into a store and think “If I could afford any of this I could decorate a whole house!”? Yeah, it wasn’t like that. Now that I have the money to actually buy some moderately priced stuff, there really wasn’t much of that looked very fabulous. However: If I’m ever hired to decorate Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Nascar game room basement, I totally know where to buy gold-trimmed paisley ornate coffee tables and puffy built-in-beer-can-cup-holder couches.

Okay, so some of it was fine, but nothing that I gotta have. I need to find something soon because I didn’t think to consider that a couch that isn’t stocked in a nearby warehouse will take 8 weeks to get here.

Luckily, I found some stuff at a department store last night. I have a couch/chair combo that I really like, but there are a couple more places to check out before I commit. It’s a couch, I know. It can be sold or even returned to the store if I don’t like it, but the whole thing feels like a big decision.