New Year, Same You

When the calendar flips, you have another chance to be better. It is 2013. You can be better than ever in this year, you learn, in terms of losing weight, exercising more, publishing your novel, landing your dream job, raising your children, being a good spouse, keeping an organized household, mending your own clothes, tending your free range chickens, changing the car's oil in a timely fashion (and mess-free in the driveway, using a funnel made from upcycled dried coffee filters reinforced with papier mache, accented with cruelty-free raffia, as seen on Pinterest), walking three times a day, doing sun salutations between laundry loads, brushing your hair more regularly, creating activities appropriate to your child's developmental level in order to maximize his/her learning potential, boiling down a homemade version of sidewalk de-icing salt that's less corrosive to city cement and better for environmental runoff, handmaking peanut butter birdseed bells for the cardinals and the woodpeckers, and the squirrels, because they also are hungry, albeit obnoxious, and you've already mentioned squirrels a few times in this venue and are beginning to look a little nutty. A-corny. C'mon. Let's try, here. Let's at least put in an effort. Put up appearances. New Year, New You.

The calendar flips with or without you. There you are, on your way to library story time with the kids, and Dunkin' Donuts is not on the way but does have a drive-thru, and it might not the best idea to feed a two-year-old half a glazed donut before story time, but what the hey, he does fine, he likes it, and how about a Boston cream for you? And another cup of coffee? Yes. That third cup of coffee puts you in the zone. Turns you from mediocre to SUPER IDEA PERSON. Clearly caffeine is a drug, and you are going to get all you can before it is outlawed. You went to the gym the other day and burned off last week's pastries along with the intermittent anxiety over cobbling together multiple part-time jobs, returning to work after baby, taking baby to daycare for first time (avoid that thought), of job applications labored over and spinning aimlessly into black holes, the sorting of modern life, the emails that disappear into dusty e-folders, overstuffed and never to be seen again, the sorting and storage of toys with one million parts moved daily in and out of bins, parts that you trip over each day.

You did sun salutations for the first week of the new year, until you forgot or your wrists started aching, or both, wrists that flare with carpal tunnel and the usage of the technology of modern life, that ache from the lifting and nursing and buttoning and caring for two small people dependent largely on you for their survival. The older one turns off the computer with five browser tabs on the screen and three documents-in-progress, an unsubtle opposition to the end of the tractor video on YouTube. (That weirdly passionate song about excavators: rock on, 1988, with your badass synthesizers. This song will be in your head all day.) Everyone says, "Time goes so fast. Cherish this age!" And you do. Or you try. Because you have learned that the months and years go fast. It is the days that are slow. You wonder how it possibly could be just 12:30 p.m. when it feels like you've done enough work for three weeks.

This complaining! Do you think you work in a sweatshop? (No.) Do you think you are paid cruel wages? (Well. Adjunct pay minus the cost of daycare equals No Benefits in most senses of the phrase. It equals anchors aweigh on the S.S. Explore Your Options). Sorting emails, toys, employment, wah wah wah. Complain less in the new year by writing in a handcrafted-by-you gratitude journal, with deckle-edged paper and French flaps. Iron on a tree decal to the 100-percent cloth cover, as a reminder that trees give, just as in the children's book, and you are a tree, sturdy of trunk and long of limb, and your reach extends over many. Do not think about the fact that the tree winds up being a stump, and is all like, I've given, and you've taken and taken, and I would love it if you just sat on me some more!

(You are missing the point of the story. The point is selflessness. But that book has always made you sad in the wrong way. Or maybe the right one.)

Forget where you put the gratitude journal. Pledge to make a new one.

Or not. While the kids nap, dig out a cruddy notebook

last used for a class you taught. Rip out the old pages, the notes you chalked on a board, ideas that students may or may not have copied into their own notebooks. Sit down with your favorite pen, the Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine, black ink. Stretch a little, do a sun salutation or two if you can stand it, knowing that your wrists will hurt only until they get stronger again. Think about your two-year-old's enthusiasm for just about everything: "I love this!" he exclaims daily, about Christmas ornaments and toy trucks. About measuring cups and pine cones and the occasional donut. The four-and-a-half-month-old grins and grins, sighing comically at the end of a sneeze. Write about that, write about anything. Get it published or don't. The caffeine and sugar and pen and notebook and clumsy yoga: these make you you. So many changes, yet this remains. Run a hand through tangled hair. Grin a little. New Year, Same You.

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.