Ten lines in ten minutes

1. Life observed from the car window is removed times two, yet feels sped up.
2. The dancing Cash for Gold man usually wears a gold lame suit and plays cardboard guitar, though lately he has taken to wearing a vampire costume for Halloween (presumably.)
3. Once I watched a special on TV about a man who claimed, from jail, not to have killed a woman he seemed guilty of killing; during the interview, he played a small guitar he'd made of cardboard and dental floss.
4. At The Avett Brothers concert the other weekend, I entered a raffle to win a signed guitar.
5. I said I'd really learn to play this time, if I won.
6. I'm going to win, I told my friend Allison.
7. I didn't win.
8. The night was chilly, more than that, the night was cold, and we wore our blankets and stomped our feet and danced and watched the moon and the stars and listened to the Avetts singing song after song, all that emotion, what do they do with all that emotion, I love them for having it, writing it, sharing it.
9. Sometimes in class, I feel as if I'm being watched/recorded, a la Candid Camera, based on the ludicrousness of situation.
10. Maybe I am.

Lost Dissertation Opportunity #267

Degree Candidate: Sarah A. Layden
Degree Sought: PhD in Popular Culture and Fast-Food Studies
Working Title: Color Me with Condiments: Representations of Race and Class in Burger King's 1974 "Have it Your Way" Campaign
Research questions: What is the cringey to sassy ratio? Is that Jon Voigt asking for four Coca-Cola? Why not colas?

15 lines in 15 minutes

1.) The deadline forces the mind to mind. 2.) I am writing about personal things, potentially exposing things, which feels hazardous and risky; but I'm telling the story as best I can, which means being honest, which can be incredibly difficult. 3.) There are many, many jobs that are more difficult than writing, chief among them police officer. 4.) The IMPD officers wear bulletproof vests at all times, over shorts and T-shirts when the weather is warm. 5.) There is something startling about a man in shorts with a visible gun holster, and a gun inside that holster. 6.) Even more startling: that man at your door. 7.) (Everything's fine, mom.) 8.) The refrain of the subconscious, the things it wants and asks for, so different from what the upfront brain says it wants. 9.) You Are Your Brain vs. You Are Not Your Brain. 10.) Polenta with pesto, chicken cordon bleu, a glass of red wine, a green salad. 11.) My week's refrain: The World Without Aunt Judy In It. 12.) A Facebook friend referred to FB as the biggest panoptican there is; look it up -- he's right. 13.) Planning to see "Contagion" and read "The Plague" by Camus, 'cause I'm sick like that. 14.) While burping the baby I sang to him, "Who let the burp out?" to the tune of that song, and he replied, Dada. 15.) I'd speculate if he knows what he was saying, but really: do any of us?

Click publish

Sometimes it seems there are too many ways to express the self, including this mode, le blogger, and we have to choose which method for which situation, which place in time, which people will see which thing, how those people might react in their particular places and times, the fallout or repercussions of those reactions or potentially the lack thereof, a silence that speaks to being ignored or worse, never seen, never heard, our lives a vacuum in which we are talking to ourselves but pretending otherwise, until the word "vacuum" reminds this particular self that I forgot to vacuum the dining room rug earlier, and now it is too late in terms of those who are awake versus those who are asleep, and whatever fell off a certain someone's high chair tray will just have to stay there, and my shoulder hurts and hoisting the vacuum wouldn't be a good idea anyway, and the movie we watched half of, "An Education," was rife with people about to act on bad ideas presented in a suspenseful fashion and I'm eager to watch the rest of it, now I am writing as "I" and not "this self," I am getting closer to saying something, maybe what I want to say is that I like distance and this mode of expression begs for assumed closeness and I want to assume as little as possible, that we (me and you, whoever you are) would share the details of our weekend around some sort of beverage cart (because really, water coolers? They are expensive enough, apparently, that they are removed from certain offices as cost-cutting measures), and I am about to backspace over all of this, just unpave the whole thing, and I see that button below, Publish, and this isn't really all that interesting, why should I click publish, or why NOT, as a little counter-argument, arguments about counters, granite vs. laminate, both heavy, and seriously: my arm and shoulder feel like they're about to fall off, and here seems like a good venue for that discussion instead of there, which would turn into "Wot happend?" and "Aww poor baybeeee" and "what did u do?" and even typing in that fashion makes me want to massage my eye sockets with a pencil eraser, and what happened was carrying a heavy but adorable baby, and yoga, and moving furniture, and being old, oldER, shall we say, if we're continuing our beverage cart chat, because this is what (wot) we do: share the mundanity of our lives, and twenty to forty-five times a day I think of doing so, sharing, and usually don't, but the mundanity is where the meaning is, the walk after getting ice cream (birthday cake flavor), the stretch of my hamstrings, listening to the baby learning to say "Uh oh," the weather today so perfect and sunny with a slight breeze and blue skies and the feeling of, Why can't every day be like this? Like Sunday, as Morrissey wondered, like grilling out for dinner and a walk down the block and calm, calm, calm, a day so lovely you almost can't believe there was a hurricane on the east coast, Irene, when you're just going about your business, and at 11:11 when I make a wish (always), it is for myself or my child or my husband and almost never do I use my wishes on strangers, and almost always is the wish the same thing, a version of the same idea, and I am close to telling, I am this close to telling, so I either unpave what I've written or click publish, and you know what? 11:11, make a wish.

Dissonance

I have spent the last two weeks talking, teaching many classes. I used to think I was an introvert, and Myers-Briggs even said it was so. But teaching has turned me extroverted. Truthily. The last M-B personality test I took placed me squarely in the "E" category. Who knew?

Hectic as summer programs are, I had a blast. But boy am I sick of the sound of my own voice.

Let's listen to other people for awhile.



I'm reading Bob Mould's autobiography, See a Little Light.



I sung a few bars for my husband. He thought I was singing something by this band. I wasn't, but it's always nice to revisit the 90s.



Looking forward to the new Feist album, Metals, in October. The 4th, says the knowledgeable staff at LUNA Music. I'm-a gonna get it for the baby for his birthday, which is the 5th. Almost one! Who can believe it? Not I.



That was kind of dreamy. Speaking of, awoke with this in my head...



Better than getting Rick-rolled, which just happened when I clicked on a YouTube video a minute ago. But was secretly pleasing, also.



Enjoy the random, the general specific. The happiness of the guys in this audience. One beard, two beard, red beard, blue beard.

Close to Home

The Indiana State Fairgrounds are a mile-and-a-half from our house. We can walk there, or run past on the Monon Trail. Saturday night, we were at home, not at the fair. We were on the couch, enjoying Mexican takeout and a drink and the Colts game interspersed with The Dark Knight, enjoying the fact that the baby was sleeping so we could do all of the above.

We were not at the fair. We were not there when the storm rolled in just before Sugarland was about to take the grandstand stage, when gusts of wind caused the stage to topple, when four people died (and later, at the hospital, a fifth) and dozens were injured, when concertgoers were evacuated, with people far and wide wondering whether their loved ones were all right.

We can hear muffled versions of State Fair concerts from our house, but not this night. The wind drew us to the porch, and we watched the enormous trees behind our neighbor's house sway. I moved the potted plants from the table to the porch floor. The plants are nearly dead from the heat and my neglect but I didn't want the pots to tip and shatter. The power surged briefly, then came back on. The baby slept. We went back to watching The Dark Knight, and created a hand gesture/gang sign to indicate hash tags, basically the new air quotes (#HolyHeathLedger). I thought of the tall trees in our own backyard, outside the baby's room. The biggest one's trunk veers in two different directions. We had it cabled for stability last year, I reminded myself. The wind had already died down. Just some rain now. Midwestern spring and summer storms can be wicked. We would hear the tornado sirens if it came to that, and we'd grab the sleeping baby and retreat to the basement in time to be fine, if it came to that.

When we'd had enough of TV, I logged onto Facebook. That was how I heard about the catastrophe at the State Fair, which dominated my news feed. Initial reports said four dead, at least a dozen injured. No names of victims yet. I had been about to post an update about our relaxing, fun evening staying in, but I didn't. People were dead a mile-and-a-half from my house. Mexican food and the Colts and Heath Ledger were no longer relevant. The baby sighed in his sleep over the monitor. He does this sometimes, his thoughtful way of reminding me that he's still breathing. Sugarland. A band I knew from students who recommended their music, who said their concert was the best experience of their summers.

Were any of my former students at the concert? I hit refresh, willing the list of names to appear. They didn't. (Not until midmorning Sunday: Tammy Vandam, 42, Wanatah, Ind.; Glenn Goodrich, 49, Indianapolis; Alina Bigjohny, 23 Fort Wayne; Christina Santiago, 29, Chicago; Nathan Byrd, 51, Indianapolis. People I didn't know, won't know. Rest in peace.)

I looked up Indianapolis Star music critic Dave Lindquist on Facebook and read his reports from the scene. I scrolled the feed to read about friends who updated that they were all right, and so were their friends and family.

Then the power went out. It was about 10:30 p.m. We gathered the flashlight and candles, discussed whether the baby would be too warm without air conditioning. How long the fridge and freezer contents could last without spoiling. Tom went to the store for ice, grabbing extra bags for the neighbors. We went to bed, and the power came back on around 1:30 a.m. Our food was fine. The baby's bottles were fine. Minor inconveniences. A mile-and-a-half down the road, people clutched at each other as they ran for their lives. I wasn't there. I saw the pictures.

Today we went to the zoo with our friends, and it was like being on vacation. The place was packed, perhaps in part because the State Fair was closed today. Rain clouds came and went. If there was a storm, it was meant for somewhere else. The drops mostly missed us, just a few on my face. I picked up the baby and shielded him the best I could.

Sometimes you search the Internet, sometimes the Internet searches you.

I can't believe I found this. My search terms were "egg commercial wagon wheel." Can't really pinpoint why I was looking for it -- maybe I want some cheese? -- but it instantly brought me back to my youth, watching TV, and these wonderfully bizarre PSAs on behalf of whatever food needed promoting that month. (Such as the Incredible Edible Egg. Brilliant. Though just came across some 1980s commercials, with limber female gymnasts and downhill skiers and plates of different egg dishes, that were startling in their sensuous depiction of the egg. What's that all about? Lost thesis opportunity: The Hidden Fertility and Procreation Messages from The Egg Council Circa 1985.)

And then I am reminded of college, of Danielle's spookily accurate impersonation of the rubbery-legged cartoon egg, which made us laugh so hard we cried. The camaraderie created by a commercial aired in two different states decades before, remembered by two people who had not met, but watched simultaneously, probably in pajamas while eating cereal out of the box (Lucky Charms for me, Cap'n Crunch, I'd guess, for her). Years later, we wound up at the same college on the same volleyball team in yet another state, and discovered that for a short period of our childhoods, we had lived near each other, but never met. Our older siblings went to the same preschool.

Connections atop connections. Geography. But also, eggs speaking about cheese.

Which led me to: "You Are What You Eat (From Your Head Down to Your Feet)" which is just as creepy as I remember. Our insides have conveyor belts and trap doors. And an Eggman, koo koo katchoo, deciding what stays and what goes. Tapping his little cane on your small intestine.



And appearing in the sidebar is Mr. Yuk: terrifying.


Those 1970s/80s warnings for children pull no punches, for real. And guess what: I still have some Mr. Yuk stickers. Want one? Let me know. I'll drop it in the mail. Seriously. If not a Mr. Yuk, you could also opt for a scratch-and-sniff that smells vaguely of cotton candy, and also the 80s.

Cool it, now

People. It is hot. It is the kind of hot that bakes our brains, and the only thing we can say to each other, all day long, is: "It is hot. It is HOT."

And our wilted companions try to nod, but their sweaty hair weighs down their head and neck and they look a little Muppety. (No offense.) "Hot," they agree, weak but emphatic.

So we head indoors. Yesterday the newspaper's front-page story was about a man who works on a boiler at the gas plant. No indoors option for him. To paraphrase the headline: Think it's hot? Try working his job. (It's a Midwestern specialty: stop complaining, because somebody's got it worse than you. And they do. My classroom is air conditioned. The closest I've ever gotten to a boiler is Purdue Pete.) Today's front page? "We're sweatin' (But just a little)." Come ON. There are rivulets of sweat running down this city's back. That stiff Midwestern upper lip is caked in layers or salt.

Indoors. Ho-hum. The love affair with cable has drawn to its predictable close. The mall feels like cheating on the pool, with distracting signage. "It's our biggest event of the year!" exclaims a department store that holds a sale roughly every two seconds. Should we "step out" and see what it's all about? Apparently a reality show mom just "stepped out" with a new facelift. A facelift, the celeb news anchor said, that she got in time for her daughter's wedding.

Help me, Rhonda.

I feel like it's important for us to remember that a sale is not an event. Also? People do not "step out." They leave the house, sure, but presumably to do things. It occurs to me now that the idea of "stepping out" was invented for non-events. Like celebrities leaving the house in order to be photographed. And that's not an event, either. It's a sale.

Trapped inside, we long for something new. The computer connects us to the celebs stepping out, the sales events, each other. We circle one another online without ever having to say hello. Hello.



I hope The Moody Blues have found Facebook. Go-go Boots Dancer, I bet, is a vaguebooker.

So look here. I don't know if this will alleviate heat malaise or boredom, but I got something for you: The New Thing, completely free at Metazen. While you're reading that, I will wait patiently for my new thing to arrive on the doorstep. Whatever it is, it's on its way.

Special Summer Blockbuster Trailers Edition

BOOK TRAILERS, of course! Books I'm reading/want to read. What other trailers are out there? Please do share. Enquiring minds, etc. etc.

I can't think of any movies out now that I'm really excited about seeing. This is mainly because I've been living in a cave, but also because there's an awful lot of dreck out now, therefore I stop paying attention. I see two-and-a-half stars from my trusty reviewers and think, Eh, there's one less thing I need to be concerned with, so THANKS, reviewers, and THANKS to the five-star rating system and visual/symbol literacy, and THANKS brain for understanding said system and moving on to the next thing, which is the comics, and also the baby wants more cereal, like immediately, because that kid can eat. So! Let's you and me curl up with a good book trailer followed by reading the book itself. Yes. Get on board.


So You Know It's Me by Brian Oliu

So You Know It's Me Trailer from Be Xo on Vimeo.

Naked Summer by Andrew Scott

Naked Summer: The Book Trailer from Andrew Scott on Vimeo.

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French



Question: would it be odd to make a trailer for a book that has yet to be published? Because I think that would be some awesome fun. And a great excuse to travel and shoot footage. Cue the fog machine. Release the hounds. Vamanos a las montañas. Etc. etc.

Notebook detritus

Yesterday I came across an old "ideas" file on the computer, a place I'd intended to jot and stash images and material for stories, poems and the like. I'd forgotten the file and hadn't opened it in ages, since I usually turn to notebooks and scrap paper. There were only a half-dozen items on my list, which is actually titled "idears," because that seems a little amusing and vaguely British and has "dear" in it, always nice. One of my idears was this gem:

POEM ABOUT DUST

I have no recollection of writing this note-to-self, and not even sure what I had in mind with my poem about dust. The constant battle against? The squeamy feeling that comes with thinking about dust mites on the skin? To dust we shall return?

I really ought to write a poem about dust. Dorianne Laux did, and so did Li-Young Lee.

(Fun for hours at The Writer's Almanac, at least for a word nerd like me. Here you will find the work of David Shumate, a fine, fine, poet I am lucky to call a colleague. Related: Good Poems for Hard Times, selected by Garrison Keillor.)

I have more notebooks than I can keep track of, filled with the unfinished, the half-thought-out. Maybe I need to dust off a few old ones to see what else I've forgotten.