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.

Piece of advice overheard in a restaurant on Elmwood Ave. in Buffalo, N.Y., from a grandfather to his granddaughter, at a post-graduation lunch:

"Stay away from writers and artists. They only make money after they're dead."

Putting the End in Friend

Writers get rejected a lot. As far as I can tell, it's simply a fact you learn to get used to, and then you move on. Submit somewhere else. Write something new. Take up ice dancing or handicrafts, for the love of Pete, if only for the diversion.

You'd think that all that rejection would prepare a person for the tricky-to-navigate world of Facebook unfriending, but no. Yours vicariously recently has been cast out of several friends' lists, and at first I was hurt. Then confused. Then I forgot about it, and went to see Bridesmaids with one of my oldest, dearest, most hilarious friends, and realized these particular Deleters were people I only sort of knew. It would be super-awkward going to a movie with them. I wouldn't want our hands to accidentally touch in the popcorn tub.

But still. It's like a weird cyber break-up, sans confrontation. It's like the little notes I sometimes get back when I send my writing out to various publications. "We loved it! The language is evocative and haunting! But in no way is this right for us!"

Yes, right! Wait. What?

I set out to understand why this virtual shunning had happened. My research showed that "Unfriending Day" wasn't until Nov. 17. Hmm.

This article was similarly informative: a study found that most people are unfriended for inflammatory posts or mundane posts. And here's a nice little kicker for this new mom: “As soon as you have a baby, you become uninteresting,” noted one survey respondent.

Ouch. Or to paraphrase Ben Folds Five, Eff you, too.

Some light self-reflection reminded me of my unwritten rules: I try not to post about anything I wouldn't say loudly in public. That leaves out, at minimum: politics, religion, the best swear words, and the consistency of my baby's poop. (But if other people post on these topics? I will add my two cents. Loophole city, sweetheart.) It doesn't mean I don't swear, or think about religion, politics, and poop. I do. More often than I'd like, most days. But I just don't air my opinions in a loud voice, in public. It's the best gauge I can think of, when it comes to sharing and oversharing online.

So: what's left? Well, there's always food. Is food mundane? On occasion I will announce what I've just consumed/am about to consume/am thinking about consuming at an undetermined point in the future. Mayhaps this is related to my recent extra caloric intake (see: baby). Maybe I am simply a sinning glutton. Even food is political; again, happy to discuss this with you face to face, not so much online. (Because then there is a record. Which you will use against me when I rail against Americans' bad eating habits, Hoosiers especially, then go buy designer cupcakes at my favorite designer cupcakery. If our conversation's over dinner, I can always blame the wine, or your hearing.) I don't post about food that often, I swear. And one of the people who deleted me does. Or rather, did. Sniff.

Besides updating about my uninteresting life and baby, I often post about writing, books and education. Because you know what I like? Writing. And books. Also, education. One recent deleter is a writer and teacher, someone I'd met and admire. (Should I be writing in the past tense? It's not like this is death. More like the type of breakup where the other person suddenly stops talking to you.) This person had signed my books and my wall, and the unplugging stung a little. We still have a dozen mutual writer/teacher friends, and the witty repartee continues around the cyber water cooler. But this writer? Rejected. Was it a friend purge? Did I say the wrong thing? I'm too embarrassed and proud to ask.

There's always a chance you will see your Deleter in person after the deed is done. I recently attended an event where that very thing happened. It was less awkward than you might think, even though this was a Very Special Deleter, for I had been added and deleted, then re-added and re-deleted. That's right. Two times I was deemed "not friend material." Or in '80s movie terms, I must've had The Wrong Stuff, and All the Wrong Moves. Since our in-person encounter was perfectly cordial, and I still get very nice occasional email forwards, we will chalk up the double-delete to generational differences in the understanding and use of current social networking technology. That, or my online persona, and perhaps my very self, is a total asshole.

"How do you even know who deleted you?" my husband asked. "I don't pay attention."

"I hadn't seen posts from those people in awhile, so I went looking for them, and it said 'Add as a Friend.' I'd sometimes hide their posts because one said something borderline racist. Another updated nonstop about the most trivial things. I wondered if they were still posting borderline racist stuff or completely trivial things, so..."

"You're upset that someone you hid is no longer there?"

Yeah. Smart husband. I wanted to be the Deleter, not the Deleted. The dumper, not the dumpee. Dumpette. Backing up my dump truck of online friends with a beep-beep-beep, and out you go.

It feels silly, investing so much meaning in an action that likely took less than one second. Click. But that's just it: actions mean something, and friends do, too. They mean different things to different people.

Listen. Don't feel rejected, but I've gotta get back to the Book of Faces. I have 72 new photos of the baby to upload. But I will continue to exercise the utmost discretion and restraint. Not a single one of them involves poop. This time.

I had to stop watching Oprah after every episode provoked sobbing, even (especially) the "favorite things" *

Man alive, have I been posting a lot of man-with-guitar videos lately. Lest you think I'm not up on current events, I happen to be aware that today is the last broadcast of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

I haven't seen the episode yet, but I got this spoiler alert from a friend: BEES.


Just went on an online Oprah smorgasbord. The Onion's Oprah Viewers Patiently Awaiting Instructions, the one where Tom Cruise jumps on the couch, the one where Tom Cruise jumps on the couch and lightning bolts shoot from his hands into Oprah's body, the one where Tom Cruise calls Matt Lauer glib. Uh. Guess I got a little off course there.

It's tornado season here in the Unironic Midwest, and every distraction helps.

*Okay, maybe not sobbing. But seriously, the "favorite things" made me feel down, man. Why? As I might write on a student paper, "Explore this further." I will think very hard on this topic to formulate a reasonable response, in 3-5 pages (double-spaced). Yes, it has to be typed. No, I don't have a stapler.