Likers gonna like

Wet snowfalls like this one currently out my window are excellent, because that means it's a little warmer out, perfect for playing and romping like puppies.

The bigger pup, the 2-year-old, will have much fun when he wakes from his latest fake nap. Recent google search terms: "2 year old nap problems." The 4-month-old is napping, too, which is how I find myself here, uninterrupted, communing with the Internet. Little pup is too small for snowplay, and too big for his snowsuit besides.

(I am talking about actual children, by the way. Please do not tell me how much sleep dogs do or do not need. I do not have a dog. And plus it would probably break my heart to know that puppies sleep better than 2-year-olds.)

Internet, you've been a portal to too much information lately. You always are, yes, but lately it seems especially so. Would news carry better via telephone wires? Does anyone accidentally dial the wrong number and start sharing private information meant for other recipients? No, and no. Maybe it is best, Internet, if we spent a little time apart. Even if you are also a portal to people who are not babies, people who remind me of who I was and will be again.

The identity question of parenthood: I am pursuing it. Working and parenthood. Semi-working. Whatever. An essay forms in the mind, disappears without pen to trap it. I will it to come back. Eventually.

No official resolutions for me, nosiree, but I wish you well with any and all of yours, even the outlandish ones. I don't hate on resolutioneers. Haters gonna hate. I'm a liker, and Likers gonna like. And I'm going to like being in bed by maybe 11ish after a cozy night at home with the family. Big dinner and some wine and ahhh. Joy for you in the new year. For us all.

Another chance for Another Earth

If you missed Another Earth when it was in theaters, check out my latest essay in The Humanist's November/December issue for a preview on this excellent film:

"Another Earth deserves another chance, especially for readers, writers, and dreamers—bonus if you’re all three. The film offers up a wholly unique look at reconciliation, with related lessons we can absorb about the art of storytelling."

Read the rest here.

I hardly ever get out to the movie theater anymore, but we managed to see Argo this weekend. Really, really good film. My favorite kind of thriller: you know the end result, but not every detail of how you'll get there. Also, I delight in thinking about Alan Arkin's character saying "Argo-f*ck yourself."

Never in my life did I expect to fall in love with banjo music

But there you have it. Fall is for mums and pumpkins and candy corn. For lovers. For The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons and other familial outfits that rock the banjo.

You heard that right, man.

The Fog

Both babies are napping! At the same time! And what should I do before they're up again (any minute? any hour?), what should I get done, how should I use my time to its best advantage when my head is still comprised of The Fog, the lack-of-sleep delirium fog, no doubt made worse by my postpartum affection for sugar in all its sugary sugared goodness? I have 55 million emails to respond to and all sorts of thank you notes to write and then there are the baby books to fill out and look! a hummingbird! Which is how my heart feels, now that I am reunited with coffee and Coke (more, please, that is, as I only managed to cut back while pregnant, not give up entirely) and of course the sugar in all its sugary sugared goodness.

After you have a baby, it is customary for people to bring you cookies and candy and bread and cake. The people who bring you food are the best kind of people there are. The people who bring you books are a really close second. Maybe a tie.

I am not one to share all the gory details in a public fashion, but I will say this: when darling dear Baby #2 was on his way the last weekend in August, a week early, we were a little late in getting to the hospital. I was having contractions -- pretty bad ones -- but my water hadn't broken, and I was pretty sure that if we went in, I'd just get sent home again. But no. Things moved quickly. We checked in at 11:40 p.m. on Saturday night, and baby boy was born at 12:43 a.m. Sunday morning.

Really, really grateful that I didn't give birth on the side of Binford Boulevard. Reallyreallygrateful. Especially because then I'd be obligated to name the baby Binford. And we like our names a little more Irish around here.

(cue one crying child. Naptime OVER. Just remembered seven more things I was supposed to be doing. Layden OUT.)

(But I shall return. Depend upon it!)

Seven lines in seven minutes

1. I once applied for a job at Chick-Fil-A, in the mall, and I did not get the job, likely because I wore shorts and a t-shirt to the interview (I was maybe 15), and I think I balked when the interviewer mentioned God.

2. What a relief, not to get that job.

3. This round of revision involves cutting mercilessly, reducing a big thing by a percentage, and some days it is easy to see what needs hacking.

4. Other days, I turn instead to the Internet to look up images of Hadley Richardson Hemingway, star of The Paris Wife, which I just read.

5. This summer has been awesome fantastic groovy jazzy funky, with lots of reading, writing, and spending time with my hilarious and sweet toddler.

6. He is slightly less sweet when looking you in the eye, throwing a handful of food, and declaring (taunting?) "TIME OUT!"

7. But still hilarious: yeah, I get mad, sure I do, but other times it takes advanced effort not to laugh out loud.

Oh my darling, oh my darling

The clementine is one of my favorite fruits. I buy boxes of 'em throughout the winter, comparison shop, and eat one almost every day.

A magazine by the same name published my most recent headline poem, "5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids."

Check out all of Clementine Magazine, Issue 5, where my friend and former colleague, Amy Locklin, also has a bone-chilling poem.

Now go eat some fruits and vegetables, 'kay?

20 Things You Don’t Have To Do On The Internet | Thought Catalog

20 Things You Don’t Have To Do On The Internet | Thought Catalog

Is it counter-intuitive that I am posting this on a blog? Especially  #1: You don't have to have a blog.

I love this list. WE'VE BEEN SET FREE, AMERICA! 

Stars! They're not like Us!

Not too long ago, I was strolling through Shoe Carnival when I came across an adult woman and her mother. I assume they were related. In my mind they were. The mother was uncertain about a pair of shoes the daughter kept pushing at her.

"They're just like the ones you have on, except they have a slightly higher heel. God."

The mother seemed nervous about disagreeing with this opinion. "What would I wear them with?"

"You would wear them," the daughter said, continuing in the key of DUH, "with pants like those. Or your black skirt. Or pretty much anything you own. They're black shoes."

The tone was so whiny, so rudely mean, I had to get away from them. I couldn't take it anymore. I don't particularly love shopping anyway, but the thing that makes it worse? OTHER PEOPLE. People who walk slowly, touching every item they see. People who bump into you or act like you're the one walking too slow, when in fact you are locomoting at a perfectly reasonable pace. People who talk to their mousy mothers as if they are stupid, and not the person who fed them rice cereal and taught them to clap their hands and read books and comforted them when they were sad and...oh, lightbulb! aha! eureka! I see where this reaction is coming from. Might just have something to do with the extra dollop of estrogen coursing through my veins.

Anyway. Later, mimicking the shoe store scene for my husband, complete with parental disrespect, he asked, "Are the Kardashians in Indianapolis?"

Which made me think: I bet no Kardashian has ever set foot in a Shoe Carnival. And the thought of one of them, any of them, watching the Bargain Wheel spin 'round and 'round cracked me up for a good long while.

My local Shoe Carnival, or as we called it, the Shoe Zoo, used to be located by a Denny's, where we youths would loiter for hours on end, spending something like $3.99 apiece for a Grand Slam breakfast at midnight. The Shoe Zoo has since moved down the street to a larger location, near a Perkins Restaurant. They always kicked us out of Perkins after a certain amount of time. Like, an hour.

Shoe Zoo, Denny's and Perkins: all star-free zones.

Stars! They're Not Like Us!

Culture bender

My traditional end of semester ritual involves going on a culture bender: catching up on movies, books, and music that I missed out on during the hectic academic term.

These are the best benders, and I'm not just saying that because I'm pregnant with baby #2 and not drinking. The hangover from a culture bender isn't physical but mental, and pleasantly so. Instead of headache, there are echoes of the art that other people made, bouncing around in the brain, perhaps inspiring new art. Inspiring new thoughts, at the very least, and that's a pretty good deal, especially from a DVD or book borrowed from the library.

The books I purchased were cheaper than a bender bar tab, too. At least I think so. I really don't recall, Senator. I do know that a sixer of nonalcoholic Beck's costs something like $6.99 and tastes like skunk. I may have been overheard muttering "Skunk it up" in the kitchen the other day, followed by the resigned clink of a bottle cap.

So: movies. For your light science fiction needs, let me recommend Super 8 and Another Earth.

I liked the former quite a bit, but the latter: whoa emm gee. Would you think me over the top if I called it life-changing? It was life changing. If you imagine that your life is perfectly fine the way it is and you cannot see room for a deeper understanding of humanity, then do not see this film. Plus it's gorgeously shot. And Mr. Littlejeans from Rushmore is in it. I have way more to say, but I'm working on a separate thing about it. To Be Announced.

Been reading like a madwoman, too. And writing and revising again. And feeling more like myself, aside from gestating another human. Which is wonderful in its own right. But you are no longer just yourself when there is someone growing inside you. Someone for whom you have given up coffee (kind of) and wheat beer (totally), who makes you off-balance when you stand up, who makes strangers smile because he (another boy!) pushes your belly out more each day. You are you and you aren't you. You know? People see you differently, and you are reminded: I am different. Suddenly I am thinking of my friend Barney, who does not like it when you use the second person. See what I did there, friend?

But I was talking about books, or meant to. A recent sampling includes The Singles by Meredith Goldstein: I was a couple years ahead of Meredith in college, who now writes the Love Letters column for the Boston Globe and just published her first novel. It follows a group of friends from our alma mater, Syracuse University, at a wedding where many of them attend solo. Tons of flashbacks to the 'Cuse, which I loved. Meredith remembers the brutal winters well. The Next Right Thing by Dan Barden: Dan is a professor at Butler University here in Indianapolis, and he wrote a noirish mystery with a twist. The protagonist is searching to understand the death of his AA sponsor, who'd been clean for years and overdosed in a So-Cal motel room. A page-turner, dark and funny and full of feeling. Ayiti by Roxane Gay: I finally met Roxane in person this spring when she read at Butler for the Pressgang launch party. "Aren't we Internet friends?" she asked sweetly when I introduced myself. Indeed we are, and for that I am glad. Her writing contains surprises every time. This collection of mostly short pieces about Haiti floored me. So do Roxane's essays at The Rumpus. You go check these out right now, or I'm telling.

We are disappearing and becoming pixels at this late (for me) hour. In the time it took me to write this, people in my feed posted 86,000 new tweets. My nosy Facebook sidebar that monitors our comings and goings and birthday tidings and snarky comments has disappeared -- has yours? I have a false new illusion of privacy, but probably something is just broken. The last things I viewed on Amazon were books and Gerber Lil' Crunchies snacks. I do not like where they put the apostrophe in that brand name.

Wanna blog?

I'm teaching a class on blogging at the Franklin Library on Saturday afternoon, sponsored by the Writers' Center of Indiana. A prime reason to update my blog! We are going to talk about all kinds of bloggish things, and write a few preliminary posts while we're at it.

It's the end of the semester, which means my brain is pudding, which also means I communicate best in not-so-cryptic musical messages.



I'm just writin' at ya. Totally different.

Aaaaaannd Feist. In concert. On Monday. Taking place in the same building but a different room is a performance by Yanni. I am a little concerned about the Yanni seepage from one venue to the other.



And while we're living vicariously, I would be happy to loan you the papers that need grading, so you may vicariously experience the thrill of grading for hours on end. Of teaching's many rewards, this is not even close to the top of the list.

Until soon, dear writers.

Almond cake

It's been raining all day, so I decided to bake. Took on a very involved almond cake recipe, well worth it as the house now smells delicious. One stage involved mixing sour cream and baking soda alone. I was like, whatevs, recipe, if you say so. Usually I just kind of freelance, but today I attempted exactness. It foamed like a cool science experiment, which is what baking is. The cake has about ten minutes left in the oven. And then imma eat the whole thing, minus a slice or two for sharing. If you're lucky.

It's not just cloudy outside. The Internet is making my head feel cloudy too, but the only way to put this thing there is to be here. It is the confluence of Engaged Celebrities and Tax-Evading Celebrities and Vest-Wearing Politicos and Politicos in Sunglasses and Secret Service Hijinks and Three Shot in Ohio Restaurant and What Happened to the Body and What Happened to the Defenseless Child and the Person I Used to Know's Frightening Drinking Habits and the Person I'm Getting to Know's Early Tragedy and the Opinions of Everyone Who Ever Lived Listed in One Convenient Place, Chronologically.

The baking took me out of that for awhile. And then I return.

I should do more baking.

Because what do I need to know about those things? Conversely, here and now on this page that isn't a page, what do you need to know about me?

Dudes. Doodlebugs. There is too much confusion and evasive conversation traveling through wires at high speeds. Absurdity, really. (As in my found poem, Beautiful, Embarrassing.) Things you cannot touch, yet still can feel, sometimes deeply. At least you can touch an almond cake. At least I will feel it in my stomach, before too long.

I am waiting on the beep-beep-beep that signals my Pavlovian rise from this chair and walk to the oven, where I will don oven mitts to reveal what hopefully is a luscious and perfect and delicious cake. The thing I would rather talk about at this particular moment than any of the other things above.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

One line in one minute

Today as part of a survey I was asked, What do you enjoy doing in your free time? And I easily answered, Oh, yoga and reading and walking and writing, and realized that I haven't been doing any of those things lately unless school-related (downward-facing dog grading papers?), and must remedy this immediately, like right now, hence this line.

This is not an AWP recap

Maybe you know this already: AWP is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and last week/weekend was its annual conference in Chicago. I could spend some time telling you about the panels and readings I went to, but chances are you were one of the 10,000 people there, too. And besides, I still need some time to process. To digest.

Which brings me to: while packing, I removed a sweater from my suitcase so as to make room for a big thing of Cheez-Its. I travel in style. I also devoured Giordano's pizza, a lovely basil/mozz/tomato flatbread sandwich from Cosi (the one chain that has yet to settle in Indy, apparently), and taro, spring rolls, and pad thai at Tamarind. Oh! Also had a pretty great cheeseburger with enormous pickle on the side at Buddy Guy's Legends, where my dearheart friend Sarah was performing, along with other writers who are musicians. Sarah is a co-founder of Octave Magazine. If you are musical, and a writer, then you should send them something.

There were many celebrities at AWP, too many to count. Writing celebrities, that is, which means the gathered throngs of writers were swooning, while US Weekly would have been checking its iPhone or looking over your shoulder while talking to you for more interesting faces. (Actually, writers do that, too.) I did not see movie stars Megan Fox or Shia LaBeouf at AWP, but handily, you can find them in my latest headline poem at Punchnel's: "What Shia LaBeouf Won't Do with Megan Fox."

Is it a continuation of my delusions that I hope somebody manages to get this to MF and SL for their reading pleasure? Have their people call my people. My people are 17 months old and are the boss of me and the rest of the universe. My people will answer the phone if given the chance, yell "HI!", and then hang up/press buttons for as long as allowed. Speaking of, the boss is napping, it's fake spring break (one school's off, one school's on), and I've got to get back to revising. It's going well, I think. It's happening in bits and pieces, fits and starts, dribs and drabs. Name your cliche for piecemeal. It's early March and I've got candy corn and that is excellent revision fuel. Sweet dreams, little lambs.

Dear Diary

Oh, Dear Diary, so much has happened lately that I don't know where to begin!

I shook dreamy Jimmy Fallon's hand at a taping of his show in Indy. He was here for the Super Bowl, along with a gazillion other people. I saw Patriots coach Bill Belichick riding on a bus. I saw Shaquille O'Neal in pink bikini bottoms, and Fitz and the Tantrums in nice blazers. I saw lots of other people on screens, even though they were a few miles away. Sometimes I like to keep my distance.

Diary, I have been lecturing to nearly 200 undergrads on Candide and grading up a storm. We talk about poetry next, then Kafka. Beetles! Allegory! Kafkaesque! I am, if you cannot tell, a little excited. The Hunger Games is also on the syllabus. Yes.

My sweet little toddler has been sick, diary, and boy have we had a hard winter. But he's healthy and cheerful now, and demanding a COOKIE after we let him have one at a Super Bowl party, where he kept saying MMM, COOKIE, MMM, and signing "more." He had never had a cookie before, nor had he ever said the word cookie. It was oatmeal chocolate chip. He ate three. Including half of one he ripped from my hand. Also he had his first chips. And a huge bowl of rigatoni. My boy did the Super Bowl up RIGHT. He may never eat a vegetable again, but hey.

Diary, I wrote another headline poem. This one's called "Astronauts answer YouTube questions from space," and it appears in Sweet. I think you will like it.

While we're on the subject of headline poems, lately I am meditating on Ezra Pound's assertion that poetry is news that stays news. The sentiment kind of blows my mind. Journalistic-literary-something-something worlds colliding.

I am, diary, a little tired.

But life is good. I am revising a certain thing to send back to a certain place. Did I just jinx it? NO. I am only telling you, diary, because I know I can trust you. But not with the specifics. Sorry, friend.

And I forgot to tell you, this is oldish news but hopefully news that stays news, but my short story "Resuscitation" came out in Blackbird a little while ago. This character, Shel, is one I kind of wonder about, still. What's she doing now? Maybe I need to find out.

Hugs and kisses,

Pre-united and it feels so good

Please join my obsession with the Bourne franchise of films as I pitch prequel ideas at Punchnel's. It is my irrational expectation that one of you, via six degrees of separation, will get this to Matt Damon.

Don't make Bourne come after you.