Hedgehogs & Foxes

The overtired 3.75 yr. old is unexpectedly napping! At the same time as little bro, 22 months old this week! I am so shocked by this turn of events that I don't know what to do with myself. I'd planned...uh, nothing. Low expectations. (And then crazy high expectations for the two days a week they're in daycare during the summer. 'Tis my way.) This morning we went to Target and the library. The boys are doing a summer reading program where they get points for books, then prizes for points, as the 3.75 yr. old explained to the charmed Target cashier. He told her he was going to read a book and get a hedgehog. As you do.

Turned out the hedgehog he's had his eye on was really a lip gloss in disguise. Another mother pointed that out -- one of her girls was getting the hedgehog lip gloss. My kid still wanted it. I like to think that I will be OK if my boys want to wear lip gloss, but for one, they're too young for makeup, and two, I think they should wait until they're past the temptation to eat it. For me, that was age thirteen. I mean are you aware of Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers products? Delicious. The boys also are big on smearing messy things across non-messy surfaces, and as we prep to put our house on the market, this is pretty super and very helpful. Part of the Target errand was for those magic eraser things that take stains off the walls. Anyway, kiddo opted for a squishy globe instead. He helped little bro pick out a squirty fish for the bathtub.  

Everyone's still catching up from our 2000-mile road trip. My cousin and his lovely bride were married at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA. We stayed in a neat house on a cliff and climbed some rocks at the beach. I sat in the yard and re-read Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple and at one point looked up and found myself staring at a gray fox. This was shortly after reading Bernadette's last name, which is Fox. The gray fox stared back and then we both gasped and ran in opposite directions, which means neither of us is likely to have rabies. Good thing, considering my dog bite in March.

And now the little one's up. As mentioned previously, he doesn't really wake easily. He howls. I mean screams. I mean really gets his point across loudly and his point is displeasure at remaining in his crib for a second longer than he'd like. Wait. Is quiet again. Maybe I can go out on the porch and read more Lydia Davis? Maybe? Please? (Said rudely while signing "please", a slap across the chest, toddler-style, which takes something away from the politeness element?) 

Would've mentioned Lydia Davis as a favorite writer in my earlier WordLab interview, had I been deeper into her collected stories at the time. Good gravy. Why haven't I been reading her all along? WHY DIDN'T YOU PEOPLE TELL ME? Had a really great time at WordLab, too, recapped here, thanks to Metonymy Media and Theresa Beckhusen. Next up is the fantastic David Blomenberg, on July 7 at 7 p.m. 7/7 at 7.

Now trending: the number seven. And foxes. Which, by the by, is my favorite superlative for an attractive person. The band Fleet Foxes ain't bad, either, and could be a compliment for an attractive and gracefully quick person. Go out on your porch -- ours is newly painted! buy our house! -- and read some Lydia Davis. Or something else. Reader's choice. 

WordLab & Interview

Did a ton of gardening and house stuff this weekend, plus child-rearing, plus had a little party, and am about to keel over into my saltines. (I like 'em. Sue me.) Went for a run today and at one point had to sit on a bench and just be sad. I wasn't really all that sad, just tired. But it is easy to confuse the two. Also, due to kid timing and husband timing, said run happened in the midday sun and I hadn't eaten lunch. So I was especially cranky at all the fashionable, hungover people having brunch in my neighborhood while I trudged sweatily by. "It's take your ankle tattoo to brunch day," I thought, which is rude. I have nothing against ankle tattoos, or brunch. Tattoos are not for me, but brunch? Sure, I'll have some brunch. The sidewalk cafe patrons wear sunglasses because they are hungover, and their meals are reflected in the lenses. They'd share if I asked nicely and kept my trap shut about their ankle tattoos. On the trail, a guy running with his dog started running backwards as he approached me. What the what? And while I'm parsing all this out in my brain, a child riding a bike with training wheels passed me. She was pretty fast. But still.

Must rest up for tomorrow's WordLab at Indy Reads Books, 7 p.m. I'll be concocting a wordy experiment in this fantastic book store. There will be no sad bench sitting, no brunch, no jogging backwards at the sight of a woman about to be passed by a girl on a bike with training wheels. Just a short reading, some Q&A, and then we'll write and talk some more. Fun.

Theresa Beckhusen was nice enough to interview me about reading, writing, & more in advance of the event. I thoroughly enjoyed her questions, which included Trip Through Your Wires, la novela. The novel, in Spanish. It is in English with a smattering of Spanish thrown in. Ahem: carefully placed throughout.

Ya me voy a dormir. Besos a todos, mas o menos. 

The Internet, It's Complicated

I keep coming up with thoughts and ideas I'm about to blog/tweet/post and instead I reach for the papyrus and a pen. I scroll it out, like with those wooden rods. Dowels. Slap some ink down on parchment. Tell my secrets to a page, which someone in my house will probably spill milk on or maybe tear out and chew. Seems as good a way as any to interact with words: taste them.

Mine is a very filtered existence. Thoughts bounce around my brain and I weigh how public to make those thoughts. My relationship with the Internet is co-dependent, fraught with imagined missteps. Despite my reservations, I'm still scrolling, scrolling, scrolling  through screens and boxes.

You want examples? God, I knew you'd ask that.

We are in a very strange cultural moment when our every move can be subject to scrutiny, should we make it public or should it be made public for us. For example, I just typoed "pubic" instead of public. I'm a terrible typist, and 79 times worse when using my phone, which I'm not currently using. Say I tweeted that little thought, typo and all. Suddenly I'm screen captured, Freudian-analyzed, mocked, compared to Clarence Thomas, compared to a Coke can. "Make it Pubic" would go viral and inspire a line of t-shirts. I would bring shame upon my family and ancestral village.

You can't even physically attack your brother-in-law in an elevator anymore without the whole world knowing. See: celeb news, if you're so inclined. Cynical me wonders: What are they promoting? Because elevators have had cameras for years and years. We all cultivate our images these days, but for those who cultivate images professionally, there's surely a heightened awareness of audience. And camera placement.  

"Where do you want to go with your imagination?" my preschooler asks me, and good lord, it is adorable. We often talk about the beach, or going for ice cream, or maybe to his grandparents' house. But his sweet question bangs a gong, as it were, deep inside my chest cavity. In my imagination, I often travel to the city of Worst Case Scenario. In this city, I have pondered the terrible and life-altering things I could almost say and almost do. I could type the words here, in this very box, but I don't. I reach for paper instead. Something burnable.

I read an article that claimed Facebook has a feature -- this needs to be Snopesed, I think -- that captures anything you type, even if you don't post it. That little note you edit to a friend or lover or coworker, and delete without sending. The harsh or flattering words sucked up by your backspace key. Put another way, the thoughts you decide against sharing.

I am not an alarmist, but I am alarmed.

There's a moth banging against my window, and he cares not one iota about any of this. All he is thinking is: LIGHT.

Maybe that's us, too, in front of our screens. Our mini-campfires that shed only a fraction of warmth. We think we are gathering with others, and in a sense, we are. But I for one am dressed in layers, wondering who and where my people are. And hoping against hope that they're the forgiving type, for I am human, made of typos both private and pubic public.  

Seven lines in seven minutes

1. The sun filters in through tree branches, through a window in need of cleaning, and a baby howls over the monitor.

2. He wakes with drama, with impunity, with a growing sense of lack of BAGEL, lack of MILK.

3. I ate a bagel every morning, during both pregnancies, and each of the boys loves bagels, no coincidence.

4. When I wake up, I'm glad it's not howling.

5. Wrote a whole other post that could probably turn into an essay; sorry, blog, you don't get to eat that one.

6. It's been four minutes; must address the howling, which has grown in intensity and lack of BAGEL.

7. Hard to concentrate, a bit.

Ten lines in ten minutes

1. My brain has been rewired by motherhood.

2. I mangle words, phrases and names in exactly the same way my mother did/does.

3. We teased her relentlessly in the '80s for renaming "Clarence Trent D'arby."



(pause in line-making for 3:33 minutes of deliciousness. Was he wearing a...sheriff's badge?)

4. The theme of so much writing is "now I know better."

5. We are all cautionary tales unto ourselves.

6. On Monday, I taught, met with students, had a great belated birthday lunch at the Indian buffet with a friend, attended a bottle rocket launch hosted by my dad and uncle, treated the family to Taco Bell drive-thru, then heard Cheryl Strayed speak at Butler.

7. Hearing the voice of "Dear Sugar" actually say the word "Sweetpea" moved me unexpectedly.

8. Work days usually mean 1-2 meals eaten in a car, and would like to get that number down and be a civilized human being, but this does not appear to be that season in my life.

9. The baby was whiny, because we were eating our Taco Bell in the car and not sharing, because he sometimes pukes when he eats in the car, and I told him, "Sorry, sweetie, Mommy's face-down in a burrito," which is not kind or civilized but also made us laugh.

10. The kids watched their grandfather and great uncle launch a two-liter bottle a couple hundred feet in the air, spiraling in the wind, and we all cheered at this little miracle of flight; the last launch of the day landed the rocket on the roof of their office, and my dad and his brother laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes.

Informative information, which is not the same as informatics

(Informatics is a super-cool major offered at one of the universities where I teach. It seems like a made-up word, and I adore made-up words: language is fluid and referential and NEAT.)

But I have information for you. New primate fiction, written by (Vicariously) Yours Truly, at Fiction Southeast.

(my interior monologue wants to tell you about my day. my logic-brain says nah. I'll hashtag it, inspired by the Oscars: #ThereWillBeAngst #NotRelevantIn2014ButHumorMe #AmericanAdjunctHustle #HerANDHim #TodayIsawSomebodyWhoLookedLikeDanielDayLewisButClearlyWasnt #fin)

Somehow I am doing four readings this month. FOUR. This is out of the ordinary. This is fun. This is a reminder that I will have to keep my fancy T-shirt clean at least four times this March. Reading twice with my friend Bryan Furuness (see #1 and #3), and have strong urge to ask him what he'll be wearing, as I do in these situations, but suspect he will look at me blankly, like, Um, #IWillBeWearingClothes?

#ThereWillBeDetails:

#1. Mythic Indy reading Friday, March 7, 7 p.m. in Fountain Square (1043 Virginia Ave.) With Bryan Furuness, Dawn Fable Lindquist, Maggie Wheeler. #ThereWillBeBeer

#2. International Women's Day, Wednesday, March 12, 6:30 p.m., IUPUI University Library. Art by Anila Agha, poetry by Rachel Sahaidachny and Saundrajo Holiday, fiction by me. #ThereWillBeAnInternationalBuffet

#3. Reading at the Vonnegut Library during CCCCs week, Thursday, March 20. Time TBA. With Bryan aforementioned Furuness. #ThereWillBePallMalls #maybe #MomIDontSmoke

#4. Books & Beer at Indy Reads Books, Saturday, March 22, also part of CCCCs, 7 p.m., with Jim Hanna, Tracy Mishkin, Letitia Moffit, Nafissa Thompson, Matthew Minicucci. #ThereWillAlsoBeBeer #trend

#fin

Time measured by cuts

I last posted here around the time I last got my hair cut. I remember because it was the end of the semester, and I kept brushing too-long bangs out of my eyes; I even used that action while teaching my creative writing class, as an example of characterization by gesture (a tic, really, that probably rankled some. It rankled me. I like that word, rankled, and will use it again now: rankled.)

Time for posting, and haircuts. I've been working on final revisions of my novel, TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES, which will be out from Engine Books in February 2015. A year from now. Getting up early before the rest of the house to get in some writing time. (cue baby waking, crying. didn't know he had crib wifi & was reading this. hang on.)

It is now almost one week later. Seriously. One week. What have I done in that time?

::Took kids to library. Chased one child up a ramp. Everyone had low blood sugar, everyone screamed. We ate, we apologized. Engaged kids in Valentine-sticker-project that held their interest for two minutes; finished cards myself, cursing. Found out my 2 removed moles weren't cancerous. Taught classes, graded. Talked about Herman Koch's The Dinner for a faculty/staff book discussion group. Chilled out with my Valentine at home on a snowy night. Movies books beer. Had a birthday. Ate too many fried cheese curds. Had the family over. Could not find a candle for my birthday cupcake so I lit a kebab skewer. The children were delighted that it still glowed after blowing it out. I forgot to make a wish because I was focused on making sure children were not burned by kebab skewer. No, that WAS my wish: do not burn children with improvised birthday kebab skewer candle. Worked on interview questions for a writer I'm excited to learn more about. Watched Downton Abbey, and for the first time we're current. Laundry. Grocery. Skied myself sleepy.::

Some other things. Etc. and etc.

Still revising the novel; getting closer to done. Still need a haircut. Maybe I'll keep growing it until I turn in the final revision. The bookish version of a playoff beard.

Caption: REMEMBER ME? (Quiet internal voice: Yes. Though I wish I had never Googled "magnetic beard toy man.")

I have been growing my hair longer for some time now. The key, I've finally figured out, is not to cut it. (Slow learner.) Not so with revision. Sometimes you need to cut and cut, for years. (Slow learner.)

Ah but now it is pumpkin time, so that I may rise early enough to get some writing done before the kids are up. And the weeks just kind of blend into each other. The other day, as I was picking crushed Life cereal out of the dining room rug, I kept telling myself, This is not a metaphor. This is not a metaphor. (Lie. I thought to myself, "crushed Life cereal," now that's pretty funny. You should use that. And that's the whole troof, as some of us around here might say. Peas and fanks.)

End-of-semester list

1. Our Christmas tree smells so delicious that I want to eat it. That's probably a sign of iron deficiency, as in when you crave ice. My teeth cringed just thinking about it.

2. The semester is done and I want to sloth on the couch all break with books, movies, a blanket, some popcorn, my family.

3. I want to get my brain back into writing shape. It's in commenting shape, critiquing shape, lecturing shape. I have filled a few notebooks about the different energy needed to teach vs. write.

4. We survived a semester of full-time daycare for two kids. I'm not quite sure how, especially while potty-training the older and breastfeeding the younger. The morning routine was...not pretty. Two nights a week, Dada picked them up, cooked dinner, and put them to bed solo while I taught. Some nights, I'm told, were...not pretty.

5. The kids did great. They love their school. I've missed them terribly.

6. I've enjoyed working and thinking. Teaching new books and learning new things. Trips to the library to write and research in peace.

7. My winter break babyproofing today involved a metal file, a roll of wire, and some all-purpose snips. This business is no joke.

8. I have about a hundred things rattling around in my head right now, like fill out the forms for the pediatric dentist and reply to the email from the department head. Finish your beverage and put away the Goldfish. Go to bed and get the rest you've been promising yourself.

9. OK. OK. OK. OK.

10. New fiction about Indianapolis, in the Mythic Indy series at Punchnel's, called Carpe Lucem. Those from my 'hood might recognize the Monon Trail, Mama Carolla's, Joe V. from Yats in a cameo as the piano store owner.

11. Boy howdy do I love a head-clearing list. This one only scratched the surface. But sometimes that's as deep as the itch goes.

Yes you can

Question. And that's if only I can ask this question. Can I?*

YES YOU CAN!**

Are you free Saturday night? That's my question. Because I would like to cordially invite you to Indy Reads Books on Mass Ave. in Indianapolis. I'll be reading some words at A NIGHT OF WORDS, 7:30 p.m., with UIndy student Elise Campagna. It should be fun. You should come.

*De la Soul lyric

**Reference to Tribe Called Quest lyric within De la Soul lyric***

***Which samples all these other songs, beautifully, including one by Lou Reed, who is referenced all the time, especially this week (RIP).

Alice Munro wins Nobel Prize

Alice Munro: DEAR LIFE. God, isn't it? #fridayreads

— Sarah Layden (@calmoots) April 27, 2013