Mapmaker of the Human Condition

Let the Great Warby Parker Challenge Begin

2012-01-10T13:37:00.004-05:00

Friends,

I am on the market for a new pair of glasses - ones that make me look both charming, smart, and lovely. Toward that goal, I signed on for the Warby Parker try at home program. Please vote for your favorite pair based on the pictures below.

#1. The Langston

#2. The Miles

#3. The Webb

#4. The Zagg

#5. The Finn

Full Disclosure: I'm leaning toward the Finn or the Langston.

Connectivity, Friends, Disappointments

2012-01-09T21:30:00.003-05:00

Of one thing we might be certain, our lives will continue to scatter as we age in a sad number of ways. This is perhaps truer of academics than people from other professions as we academics are more prone to moving around the country than most. Except maybe journalists. They probably move a lot. And people who work for airlines. And probably some other kinds of jobs that are not coming to mind right now. To all those groups of people, I say let us commiserate.

Let us commiserate about how difficult it is to retain friendships as we keep moving, both geographically and temporally. Staying connected as we grow older is an increasing impossibility which is a great misfortune as we now need those connections even more than we did in our pink-lighted, beer-soaked days where friends were everywhere, seeping out of our pockets, lining near barstools, ringing through our phones and ears and hearts.

And then, silence. Or perhaps not silence so much as the steady hush of busyness, of life getting on with itself, of life becoming more complicated, of responsibilities shoring our shoulders closer to the ground.

And then out of nowhere, we are where we are. And sometimes it is unfamiliar when a familiar face would be awfully nice. But the terrible busy is terribly important. Kids, work, projects, relationships, television obsessions.

Another unreturned phone call. More moments of solitary. Less connectivity. More getting on with it.

Painting with Feet

2011-10-16T05:54:00.004-05:00

Moving forward in the painting world with a two-year-old, I present our latest project. There are a zillion, trillion things one can do with an imprint of the hands and feet. Just do a quick search on Pinterest and you will see tiny little hands making the shape of reindeer antlers, Christmas trees, and birds. I am in love with all of these ideas and you will probably see many represented here. I just love the idea of documenting Atticus's size and having a cute picture for the fridge at the same time.

I am really partial to the tractor. I blame my son for that particularly brainwashing.

Painting with Cars Project

2011-10-06T18:17:00.004-05:00

I have not done much blogging lately. The reason for this is actually a pretty good one. I've had actual writing projects to work on instead of spending my writing energy on blogging. But I miss the blog form and I have guilt over not writing here. Toward rectification of that, I submit the first in a series of blogs on creative projects I have been doing with my son (when I'm not writing or sleeping or teaching).

So here I present painting with cars. It's really simple and perfect for a two-year-old. Just pour some paint on paper and then roll Hot Wheels through it. It's really quite a lot of fun. And then here's the bonus I was really not planning on: once all the painting fun is done, you have a series of tracks that your son (or daughter) will be very happy to tool their cars around on.

I let my son continue the painting onto the cars themselves because we use washable paint. When that fun was done, we then took all the cars to the car wash (a.k.a., the sink) where the fun continued.

All in all, the car painting project took about 45 minutes. And now we have cool tracks to ride on.

Questions About Being a Mom and Being a Writer

2011-10-04T13:56:00.003-05:00

Read here on Daniel Nester's site where I respond to questions about trying to mom and trying to write all at once. Oh, the hats we wear.

Fun Food Facts and Missing Blogs

2011-08-30T13:04:00.003-05:00

It's been many moons since my last entry. For this, I apologize. I can only say that teaching a second summer session (say that five times fast) was rather taxing. And then Atticus's birthday came along. And now the next semester has begun, but what a lovely, lovely semester it is.

This semester of Honors English Composition is focused on the theme of food. In celebration of this, my students come in to class every Friday with what I call a Fun Food Fact (for Fun Food Fact Friday). Here's a few of the facts we have learned this semester:

* Honey is the only food that never spoils.

* A new trend has begun that involves women eating their placentas post delivery. Go here for more on that subject. Or don't. Your choice.

* Beer has most of the nutrients we need to survive.

* If obesity rates do not change, this generation may be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

My students and I have only met a few times, so this list is brief. I'll add more as they appear in class.

And I'll try to blog more. And I'll try to be more interesting. No guarantees on either count.

Blogger Versus Internet Explorer

2011-05-06T21:26:00.003-05:00

Friends,

If you have been having trouble posting to blogger, blame the latest Internet Explorer update. While you're at it, go ahead and get rid of IE and switch to Mozilla. Publishing problem solved.

Blog Followers

2011-05-06T21:03:00.001-05:00

Is it important for people to read this? Yes. Very important.

Pulling a David Shields

2011-04-19T12:23:00.003-05:00

David Shields, for those of you who may be reading and who don't know, is a modern writer who is particularly interested in resisting genre-identification. This is only tertiarily related to my discussion and here's how. Once, at a conference where Shields had been asked to speak - I don't know what he was supposed to talk about - I think it was about genre bending or why it's not useful to categorize writing. Either way, that's not what Shields did. Instead of asking us to reconsider what it meant to write when the contract with the reader is torn to pieces or telling us the invention of the wheel is not the point at all, here's what he did.

Shields stood up, pulled out a small notebook, and in a small voice said, "These are the books you should read." He then proceeded to list off the names of hundred book titles and their authors. There was no banter in between, no discussion of why. No context whatsover. When he was done, he walked away from the podium and off the stage.

In a word, it was brilliant.

I think about that experience with Shields quite a lot and yesterday, I got to see someone pull a David Shields again.

The situation was as follows: I was honored by one of my students with an invitation to a luncheon acknowledging my impact on his life. These events are always somewhat nerve-inducing things, though they are most definitely an honor and a privilege. I really dig the student who invited me; he's easily one of the five smartest students I've ever been lucky enough to have in a classroom and he and I still communicate via e-mail or during the occasional campus run-in. So this is all to say, I was looking forward to the lunch.

Here's how it unfolded: 1) my student did not show up, and 2) the keynote pulled a David Shields. I was highly entertained on both counts. First, you should know that this student will probably show up next Monday certain that he has the right time and date. Second, you should know that I would listen to someone pulling a David Shields any day of the week.

The keynote was one Dr. Heffernan of the English Department here at UT. This is noteworthy as this was not an English Department event. The group putting on the lunch asked Dr. Heffernan to speak about the history of the university or about leadership. Did Dr. Heffernan do this? No, no, he did not.

Instead, Dr. Heffernan spoke for a little over a half hour about how the human body produces sound. He discussed plosives, and phonemes, and passive vocabularies (mine is over 70,000), and the epiglottis, and neanderthals, and collective speech, and on and on and on and on.

It was beyond fabulous. I was deeply enraptured with him after the first 30 seconds of his speech. I didn't want to look around to see how the chemistry, business, and mathematics students and faculty were taking in the talk. Dr. Heffernan didn't care and neither did I.

When his rambling, disorganized, yet engrossing talk was done, or rather, when it fell off the precipice of time and courtesy, he walked away from the podium and sat down in his seat. There was a silence in the room that I wanted to fill with wild applause. I wanted to applaud his lack of preparation for this specific audience, his certain belief that his subject had universal appeal, and his general moxie. So I did, and those around me joined in in a sort of shellshocked way.

But really, isn't this precisely what a speaker should do? Shouldn't they leave us in a state of shock and awe? Wouldn't it be awesome if every speech ended with jaws collectively dropped and with that uncomfortable confusion that is the precursor to a new way of thinking?

Bravo, Dr. Heffernan. You've inspired me to reconsider several lesson plans/lectures for my upcoming summer class. I too will pull a David Shields, leaving my listeners disoriented, bewildered, and hopefully, in the case of at least one or two of them, altered.

Duck Duck Goose

2011-04-14T13:14:00.007-05:00

Around these parts, Duck Duck Goose is more than a game. It's bloodsport. In Knoxville (and other southern cities), Duck Duck Goose is a consignment event that is not for the faint of heart. Everything a child could need from age zero to teen is available at Duck Duck Goose for cheap. My husband, who is clever and handsome and very forgiving of how much I just spent, calls it legal looting. It is. Women come with strollers as machines-of-war, giant tanks that make those of us who have come with conveniently condensable bags shudder and quake.

Really, it's not that bad. It's more that everyone is so incredibly focused. The ones with the strollers also have their children with them which makes me wildly empathetic for the parent-come-warrior and seriously sympathetic for the child who WILL meltdown and who will be clocked by an errant bag at some point in the day.

I love it. It's Black Friday only it happens several times a year. I've been looking forward to it for far too long and of course, I spent too much, but here's all the awesomely awesome stuff I got:

30 articles of clothing (shorts, shirts, pjs, hats - including Atticus's crawfish outfit to wear one month from today)
5 pairs of shoes (including Keens and Stride Rites)
1 eight foot pool (snap-set, new)
1 Radio Flyer tricycle (Fold-up with handle)
1 Fisher Price Pull Dog
1 Fisher Price Little People Garage with Elevator
1 Viewmaster Reel Case with 33 Reels
1 Tonka Ambulance
1 Discovery Channel Viewmaster
1 Little Tikes Riding Toy
1 Toy Story Racetrack
1 Little Tikes Train
1 Playskool Train and Tractor

I won't tell you how much I spent, but I will say this, I got a whole hell of a lot for the money I paid. And I cannot wait for Atticus to wake up to play with his new tricycle!

Personally, I wish Duck Duck Goose was every day; Both my husband and my bank account, however, are glad it is not.

The End of Life is the Phone Interview

2011-04-07T05:50:00.005-05:00

When I was too young to understand it, I read Thoreau's quote,

"The end of life is education."

And it deeply resonated with me - so deeply in fact that I luxuriated in degree after degree of higher education to be where I am now with two Master's degrees. (No PhD for me. The MFA was enough).

But lately, my confidence in how I have pursued (or more accurately, meandered toward) the philosophy of Thoreau's quote has come into question. I've begun to doubt what I'm doing or again, more accurately, the ability to which I am doing it. I don't want to read theory. (I know, I know ... no one does, except some people actually do). I can't use the buzzwords. My memory increasingly fails me. All that education is awash in the daily activities of my life. Most days I would rather clean the floors than reread some Faulknerian work. And let's be honest, Faulkner rules.

The catalyst for this moment of doubt is a recent phone interview. I, of the almost negligible social phobias, suffer from a particularly version of catatonia, or maybe its opposite - logorrhea - when it comes to phone interviews. I ramble, I lose thoughts, I inarticulate, I search and search for answers that extinguish in my head like mean clouds of smoke as I approach them.

A bad phone interview does not mean one is in the wrong field except for the importance of the phone interview in this field. They're mandatory. They're the gatekeepers to get the jobs that keep us in books. They're the entranceway to that whole Thoreau-ian end of life thing. I don't know how to get in front of my nerves in that situation and it bothers me that so much weight is carried by such an artificial, nerve-wrecking social context.

This is not to say that I'm wildly better in face-to-face interviews. No, wait. Yes, I am. We all are probably as phone interviews - generally conducted with three or more interviewers - are all dependent on us knowing when to speak, when the interviewer is done speaking, and how our answers are being received in the absence of the visual cues we so depend on as social reinforcement.

So this is all to say:

Dear university for which I would very much like to work, please let me move past the phone interview. I promise to be charming, articulate, and all together very likable and impressive during a campus interview. I will not fidget or pace. I will not race through incoherent monologues that never get anywhere near the appropriate responses.

In short, I will be the intelligent and lovely person I have spent the last thirty-six years becoming. I promise. I'm a gifted and smart teacher, not that you'd know it from the babbling idiot I become on the phone.

Here's what I do know with confidence: Thoreau was wrong. The end of life is the phone interview.

All the Reasons You Should Be Watching "Fame"

2011-03-29T06:58:00.002-05:00

Just recently, the Ovation network has been airing day-long marathons of a show that first aired in 1982. Based off the 1980 film by the same name, the series chronicles a gentler, better time when sweatshirt material weighed heavily in the fabric of our fashion choices. But that's not the real reason why you should be watching this show about a school of the arts in New York. The real reasons are as follows:

1. Real Dancers, Real Singers. Debbie Allen (sister of Phylicia Rashad who is longtime tv wife of Bill Cosby) is the producer of Fame. One look at her body in 1982 will tell you this is a woman who is primarily a dancer. Same goes for all of the central actors on the show. These are not actors who have been taught to dance and sing or who even have some dance and song training in their lives. These are the real thing. It makes a difference.

2. Actual Narrative. Take that, Glee fans. There are actual writers who wrote actual storylines for the show Fame. You can go ahead and argue that your little show has narrative, but I will shout you down. Snarky exchanges between superficially developed characters do not equal plot.

3. The Clothes. Oh, man, I want all these clothes. There's a rawness to Fame that's reflected in the clothing. Too, there's a dancer's flexibility to all of their street clothes that is necessary to the frequent dancing and feats of acrobatics that happen on the show. But beyond that, there's a playfulness, an ease of fashion here that reflects the 80s as a whole - a time before high stakes marketing of teen clothing. This makes the clothes inherently more sincere and cooler.

4. The Eighties. Yes, I love the eighties. It's my era, but I would love it even if it weren't my era. Here's why. Everything was more real in the eighties. Everything was less slick, less superficial, and less produced. Fame is a perfect example of this. There's a raw edge to the show that naturally comes from a generation that used hairspray as its main accessory. I don't mean that statement casually or comically. Consider an era before cell phones, youtube, Facebook, iPods, and Mac Cosmetics. This is a show about sweat, hairspray, and Maybelline mascara. That's it. And they look damn good, too. The eighties are about figuring out who you are and being who you are without a team of people producing you. I miss that time. Now I have the Internet and Rachel Zoe and Tim Gunn and Stila Cosmetics guiding me through my day. I used to put Vaselines on my lips. I think I looked really fabulous then.

5. Lastly, the following male leads: Leroy Johnson, Jesse Valesquez, and Christopher Donlon. Hot.

6. It Holds Up. For real, this show holds up even with little Janet Jackson playing the undecided Cleo. Sure, the storylines maintain an innocence that would make Glee viewers laugh out loud, but go ahead and laugh. Embracing teenage sex does not make you hip. And anyhow, Fame addresses teenage sex in a far more believable and less pushy way than Glee. Beyond that, the dancing is still cutting edge and the music, well, the music is amazing. Cassidy, the Flock of Seagulls-esque composer of the show, could still get gigs with his innovative keyboard playing. No, I'm serious.

Overall, the show is solid. Not in a Mad Men or Wire kind of way. But it's worth viewing. Ovation is marketing the show as the original Glee, but it's so much better than that. Glee isn't even in the same universe.

Mom!

2011-02-22T11:26:00.002-05:00

This title is to signify that a) the assertive shouting of the word MOM is the greatest force in my life, and b) I still struggle with what that title means.

The daily act of motherhood is not so confusing. I wake up when Atticus calls for me, I make him breakfast, we change diapers and clothes, then I plop him down in front of the television so I can have a few moments to myself in front of the computer. The rest of the day winds away in similar fashion with increasing variety as he gets older and more fun.

I get the daily structure. That's no problem. It's the big idea of motherhood that still confuses me. I don't know how to be a mom, a wife, a teacher, and a writer. Things fall by the wayside, not necessarily in that listed order. I don't know what I'm supposed to want and which things I am supposed to prioritize or when I'm supposed to prioritize them.

What I do know is I'm lucky because Atticus is exactly the kind of kid I wanted. He's got that devil twinkle in his eye and when he laughs, he bends his whole body down to prove how funny he thinks something is. He's funny and assertive and he's got his own thing going on.

Okay, wait. I think I'm onto something. Motherhood is an in-the-moment thing, which is not at all comforting for me. There's too much lack of a plan. This is not ideal for me. I like plans. I like following through on them. I like writing to-do lists. Atticus scoffs at my to-do lists.

It's bigger than this, but that's also the problem. Motherhood is so big, it consumes me. It's too big for words strung together into sentences, whipping through the great vast unknown. I don't like whipping through the great vast unknown without a light, without a schedule, without a map, and certainly, not without a to-do list.

New Year's Resoluting

2011-01-10T08:17:00.002-05:00

Despite myself, without intention, I find I have made some seriously life-changing New Year's resolutions. I'm not opposed to resolutions at the start of the new year; in fact, I think they're a fine idea. So here's what I'm doing to make my life a better one:

1. I am turning off my computer at 5pm. This doesn't sound big, but I cannot tell you how much this has already changed my life. My husband and I are the kind of people who keep our computers up all day, visiting them with great frequency to check our e-mail and facebook. Now, after 5pm, there is no reason for me to walk into the office. This means all that attention, once divided, is all Atticus's and Michael's and books that I am actually reading. (Hello, Cloud Atlas!)

2. No purchasing of clothes for the entire year. This is huge. I'm big on retail therapy and while I've always done it frugally, even that is too much at this current time in our lives. And more importantly, I don't need another damned article of clothing. I have purged my closet in a really satisfying way and I'm not looking back. There's a small caveat on this in that I obviously will have to purchase some clothes for the ever-growing Goose, but even that I'm going to try to limit. You should see his ridiculously full closet; it's embarrassing. I packed more for him over Christmas break than my mom ever owned for any of her children. Seriously. That's just gross.

The rest of my resolutions are either small (going to a class at the gym once a week) or private, but those two big ones up there are already making a huge difference in my life. I feel unencumbered in a way that I haven't thought possible for many years. Who know the abolition of computer and clothes should be so freeing? It's time I finally recognize those addictions for what they are. Now that I have, here's to a year better spent.

Things to do in DC

2011-01-01T17:42:00.002-05:00

It is that time once again when the AWP (Associated Writers and Writing Programs) Conference is nearly upon us. This time, it will be in Washington, DC, a place I have never been but which I am looking forward to seeing largely because of Josh Lyman, Donna Moss, CJ Cregg, and Jed Bartlett. Here is a list of things I would like to do and see while in DC:

1. See the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
2. Tour Mount Vernon
3. Do Georgetown
4. Visit John F. Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery
5. The Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument
6. See the Supreme Court
7. Visit the White House
8. See Capitol Hill
9.
10.

I am intentionally leaving 9 and 10 blank. Any suggestions of must-do, must-see things?

Trying to get to Ten in 2010

2010-12-30T20:16:00.003-05:00

I set out to make a list of my top ten favorite events from my personal life in 2010, but as a testament to either my mood, or a less than stellar year, I can only come up with four. I aim to amend this list as my mood changes, but if it's been an uneventful year, there's not much I can do about that. Maybe that's the reality of having a young child. Life is full of everyday little things, but nothing significantly entertaining in a memorable, oh-let's-mark-that-date-down kind of way.

1. Atticus's First Birthday
2. Running my first 10k in October
3. Going to the Smokies with Natalie and Zach
4. The pool, the pool, the public pool all summer!

Oh, sad, sad list. How sad you are.

Jay-Z on Braggadacio and the Sonnet

2010-11-27T08:00:00.003-05:00

This is too cool not to share and I want to encourage other people to pick this gorgeous book up. First of all, it's a beauty and will make all writers jealous. The narrative, or rather, apologia of the life of a hip-hop king, is juxtaposed with images, pull quotes, and codes for many of Jay-Z's songs, but not in a way that looks like a crappy coffee table book. This is the real thing. This is book as artifact. My hand to God.

From Jay-Z's new memoir, "Decoded":
"But even when a rapper is just rapping about how dope he is, there's something a little bit deeper going on. It's like a sonnet, believe it or not. Sonnets have a set structure, but also a limited subject matter: They are mostly about love. Taking on such a familiar subject and writing about it in a set structure forced sonnet writers to find every nook and cranny in the subject and challenged them to invent new language for saying old things. It's the same with braggadacio in rap. When we take the most familiar subject in the history of rap - why I'm dope - and frame it within the sixteen-bar structure of a rap verse, synced to the specific rhythm and feel of the track, more than anything it's a test of creativity and wit."

The Great Underselling of Selfishness

2010-11-07T06:19:00.002-05:00

We've been sold a sale of goods on this whole being selfless thing. I know plenty of people (ahem, my mother) who will tell me and you that we're here to serve others, and there's truth to that. But I want to talk about another way of doing that.

This is what I have decided after 15+ months of surrendering myself to both my child's and my husband's needs. I am angry. I am lost. I am confused. I am in such sore need of creative expression that I am nearly an imploding star. It occurs to me that this is not perhaps the source of light and selfless giving that can be a real benefit to either my child or my husband.

There are creative/selfish pursuits that require such focus and expenditure of energy that combining them with a small child is absolutely impossible unless you make a conscious decision to be a selfish mother. I am by most accounts a traditional mother who devotes every waking second to her child and who would not even consider childcare. But it's time, after 15 months, after too much stifling, after coming so close to imploding all over my husband ... it's time. I hereby declare I am ready to become a selfish mother. Atticus, I hereby declare a loosening of the apron strings.

Here are stops on my unwalked avenue of selfishness:

Quilt-making
Writing (I know this should be number one, but it's not. Shut up.)
Taking and Editing Photos; Scrapbooking
Painting
Decorating
Clothes-making
Taking Walks
Picking up Pretty Leaves
Wandering Around Marshall's (without calling to check up on family even once)
Going to the Bar (after 9pm! Gasp!)
Making Lunch Plans
Buying Food No One Else in the House Will Eat
Cooking Food No One Else in the House Will Eat
Taking Long Baths
Wandering Around Hobby Lobby
Sitting At Panera (not to grade - that doesn't count)
Blogging
Learning a New Trade (Maybe Book Arts?)

Other Things

This list is sort of lame. I don't remember how to do this exactly. I think knowing how to pursue things that interest you is not at all like riding a bike. It's a muscle and mine has grown flabby with disuse. In the interest of using the phrase hereby declare far too often, I hereby declare it time to wear the selfish muscles out until they are so exhausted, so big, so absurdly muscular, they cannot help but lift husband and child up into the great swirling eddy of happy wife and motherdom. I hereby declare it.

The Last Mile

2010-10-17T07:44:00.002-05:00

I did it. I ran my first 10k. Honestly, I really never thought I'd be able to do it. It just seemed so colossally big and beyond me, but now that I've done it, it seems like nothing.

Okay, not exactly nothing. Here's the thing: I undertrained. I really, really undertrained. I run 2-3 miles for my regular run, and by regular, I mean about twice a week. That's all I did in preparation for this 10k. I wanted to do more. I meant to do more. But I didn't. Instead I just visualized and mentally prepared and told myself I could do a combination walk/run thing after running the first 3 miles.

But then something happened. After mile 3 I thought, maybe just to mile 4. And then at mile 4 I thought, maybe just to mile 5. And what do you know, I can apparently run 5 miles, and not just that, but run 5 miles at a pace I find respectable, coming in at 53:38 for the first 5.

Then came mile 6, that evil, spirit crushing mile. Thanks to my new practice of running with other people which calls for a different kind of cardiovascular demand what with all the chatting I am apt to do, my lungs were doing great. They really were. My legs? Not so much. They. Were. So. Tired. I pushed through. I figured if I made it this far, I shouldn't walk the remainder of the way, but I really, really, really wanted to. So I walked for a second and realized that actually didn't feel any better and I might as well run.

Then up ahead of me, I saw signposts for the finish line and it looked really far away, discouragingly far away. I didn't think I could keep doing it, not with the muscles in my thighs giving out on me the way they were. I pushed and pushed. And then something dumb happened: I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to cross the road for the finish line. I know. I'm dumb. But that's the truth. Did I mention I was tired?

I finally figured it out, but between tiredness, laziness, confusion, and bad decision-making, I really blew that last mile. It took me 15 minutes to finish that stupid mile. I hate that mile. I want to blow that mile up.

And so what should be a victory is instead a disappointment. I ran my first 10k and I did more running than I thought I would be able, but that last mile is a thorn in my side. It's 15 minutes I will keep revisiting over and over again, a painful reminder of a moment of weakness I hope not to repeat.

I am trying to remind myself, girl, you just ran a 10k. That's pretty cool. But I want to be even cooler. Next time, mile 6, you will not best me. You will be mine for the conquering.

Trying to Matter

2010-10-14T19:12:00.003-05:00

For their most recent assignment, my students had to participate in the public sphere in some capacity, whether that be by creating a blog, posting a video on Youtube, writing letters to the editor, or submitting political poetry or a literary essay to an appropriate venue. My hope is their participation will spark something in them, make them citizens, make them realize how very much they count.

Which begs the question: do our blogs count? Do they matter? Do we have readers who, if nothing else, we entertain briefly?

I went through my "Stats," a new tab available to me as I am posting a new blog. I can see how many views specific entries have received over the many years I have been writing this. It is entertaining to me to find that the entry that has received the most views is one where I have posted a picture of Mandy Moore's hair. I believe this to be the result of the intersection of Google Images and my little blog. It has received an awful lot of hits. That Mandy Moore really has a following, and so do I, because of her - it would seem.

But I think this blog (and that blog and that blog and that blog) does matter even beyond the star power of Mandy Moore. It matters because of how democratic it is. It matters because there is a forum. It matters because I am educated, and funny, and articulate, and a wife, and a mother, and a teacher, and because I'm very likeable and people are probably wondering how I got to be so great. Probably.

What is for certain and not hinging on probabilities is the beauty of the Internet. Here I am, girl in Tennessee, writing self-referentially about my own blog, wondering if I matter. And the Internet, in all its glory, gives me an outlet for all that meta-ness. Thank you, Internet. I will keep trying to matter.

Toward that end, I will just say this - I like having a blog. I like reading blogs. I hate that people who are interesting and inspiring and cute and charming and funny live so far away. Blogs make them closer. I want to hear about your politics, your kids, your careers, your shopping lists. It all matters very much to me. Keep writing. I promise to read it. I promise it matters, even if what we sometimes care the most about is how cute Mandy Moore's hair is.

The F Word and Other Growing Concerns

2010-10-08T09:54:00.003-05:00

It's a dangerous line to straddle between believing in the power of language and refusing to hold on to that language too tightly when it comes to the great, beautiful swears like the F word.

Who knows what little ears can hold? Yesterday, Atticus and I bopped around to the Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs, which all should agree is a mindblowingly good concept album. And if you know that much about the album in question, you also know that a) the bouncy silliness of it lends itself beautifully to Atticus's musical aesthetic (can it be danced to?), and b) a lot of the album's language is not appropriate to plant in the landscape of Atticus's fertile ears. Volume One (the superior of the three volumes), tracks 9 and 14 come to mind. Sure, pretending we're bunny rabbits sounds innocent enough ...

At one point do we need to edit, monitor, babymuff the things we say to ensure that our children do not use language we don't want them to? On the one hand, I don't want him to think language is a bad thing - any language at all. I want him to understand appropriate and inappropriate contexts for all language. But on the other hand, there is nothing even remotely charming about foul language coming out of a small child. I'm not talking about that one time they used a word they didn't know was bad. That can be adorable. I'm talking about bad words coming out of little mouths with intention. Not cool.

I don't want Atticus to be that kid. I want him to understand the pointed nature of some words, how they carry more weight, how they can slap someone across the face from across the room. I want him to save those words for when he's all grown up and needs them.

Until then, must I banish the Magnetic Fields and their ilk? Do I make a different version of the cd, of all of our lives, until he's ready for it? Childhood is a cleaned up version of the world. I'm cool with that. I'm cool with wiping down the scene for him. I'm just not sure where to begin.

Eula Biss Had a Baby

2010-09-18T07:03:00.002-05:00

In days of ignorance, when friends cautioned against the mixing of the writing life with the parenting life, I guffawed. I had a model in my mind of Gina Ochsner, a woman whose situation crossed my path in my first years of graduate school. A mother of three and a writer, Ochsner went to a bar every evening for a few hours to get her writing done, always home in time for baths and bedtime. This sounded like a very good life for me. Plus, she's Catholic, so clearly the heavens were speaking to me.

I have one baby, just the one, and I never write anymore. Glancing over the panels and discussions for this year's Nonfiction Now conference (a conference for - you guessed it - nonfiction writers), I was struck by how far removed I am from the conversations of my field. Here's a panel of note: "Nonfiction: A Hybrid Genre or a Highly Evolved Form?" This will be an excellent panel. I know it to be true because there are awesome people on this panel, including Nicole Walker. I would like to go listen to Nicole and others in my field discuss what we're doing. I want to get excited about it. I want to have written something.

But alas, I have not been getting to the bar in the evenings. At this very moment, I hear my son has woken up and he is playing with blocks. He doesn't know I'm up and writing this blog, but when he finds out, it is all for me here in the subsaharan writing land of bloggerville.

Eula Biss had a baby. She is my hero, writerly speaking. Seriously. She's freaking amazing. Read here for evidence. I am watching her, waiting to see how the baby affects her writing life. This is not to say I am at her level or that the writing I was doing before in either volume or quality was comparable to Biss's. But still, I wonder how this baby will take over the landscape of her life, how it will reach past the very fingertips that once pounded out on a typewriter.

I do note with some satisfaction and consolation that Biss is not on the Nonfiction Now schedule. I shouldn't be satisfied about that, but for the moment, I just need to be.

The Question of Two

2010-09-13T09:26:00.002-05:00

As soon as that baby comes out, the question of will I have another one climbs up into that place and fills the void of the recently empty womb. It's crazy. You don't want to ask it. You want to leave that question alone. You want to enjoy the baby you have right in front of you. And yet.

I have tried to ignore the question from my mother, my father, my siblings, my in-laws. But I cannot ignore the roar of it coming from my own body. I am 36 after all. If I want to do this again, it's not like I have all the time in the world.

One is so nice. One is so manageable. And Atticus is a marvelously good baby. He really is. People comment on it all time. I'd like to take credit for that, and maybe I can insomuch as he's very well-loved and well-tended to, but anyone who knows me and my husband knows that if we have a well-behaved and chill baby, those are my husband's genes poking through. If we have another baby, maybe this baby will take after me, which is to say, this baby will be wild, adventurous, and troublesome. Those are three wonderful, wonderful traits in an adult, but docile is a much, much better word for a baby.

Do I want to go through that pregnancy again? Pregnancy stinks. It really does. Especially when you have to go through Hyperemesis Gravidarum. This is a very real consideration. If I decide to get pregnant again, we will have to arrange for one of our mothers to be here for maybe a month to get us through the worst of it. And I have to plan around work. And Atticus will have to watch his mommy be very, very sick. I don't want Atticus to see that.

Moving past the pregnancy, there's all those sleepless nights again. How do we ever survive them, we mothers? It's such a cruel, cruel time maybe meant for bodies more resilient and younger than mine.

But a new baby, a little brother or sister for Atticus ... wouldn't it be a disservice to Atticus to not have one? Wouldn't we regret it when we're older? Can I get through the first couple years of it again for the long reward of it?

I say my little family a lot now. I like my little family, but is that the right word to describe us as a permanent unit? Are we meant to be a little family or are we meant for something a little bit more? Will I ever just say family without the little in front of it?

That torturous question. I told myself I wouldn't consider it again until Atticus was three, but that's an impossible thing to avoid as this blog suggests.

Why have more than one? Why do we choose that? Is it because we have more to share? Because we love the smell of babies? Because we are careless about family planning? What are we here for? What should my life be?

I end a lot of blogs with the word Blurgh. Blurgh.

Two Years In

2010-08-09T17:27:00.003-05:00

At year two, we have a one-year-old.

At year two, we know each other more, but talk less.

At year two, we bicker and joke in one breath.

At year two, we fight against patterns.

At year two, we know where to put each other's socks.

At year two, we travel long distances in silence and apologize for turning the air conditioning on or off.

At year two, the baby is more important than the two people who started this whole thing.

At year two, I still feel lucky.

At year two, we spend a great deal of time with our backs facing each other while we work on the computer.

At year two, he complains less about me leaving the door open.

At year two, I floss and pluck in front of him.

At year two, we think about having Christmas by ourselves and not travelling to visit family so much.

At year two, I can make at least five meals I'm sure he'll really like.

At year two, he still does not quite know how to buy the groceries.

At year two, I know very well how to buy the groceries.

At year two, we wonder if this will always be the size of our family.

At year two, we are tired of being poor all the time, but happy we are not that poor.

At year two, a gym membership is our primary social activity.

At year two, we have not seen a movie in nine months.

At year two, we do not know how we will travel 20 hours away to see a friend because how can a baby travel for 20 hours?

At year two, he has grown more handsome by any standards and not just my love-goggled ones.

At year two, there is no end in sight.

At year two, I hate to be home without him.

At year two, he went hiking with me because it's what I love to do.

At year two, we say, "I'll do better next time."

At year two, I worry he should write and read more.

At year two, I worry I get in the way.

At year two, I worry I can't get in the way.

At year two, we fight meaner.

At year two, we fight more productively.

At year two, we leave fights in the middle of them to fold laundry.

At year two, the car is filled with graham cracker crumbs.

At year two, the graham cracker crumbs have stopped bothering us.

More on Boobs

2010-06-25T12:36:00.002-05:00

In one fell swoop, that is to say, in one day, Atticus took his first steps and made the executive decision to be done nursing. He is Mr. Independent. He needs me not.

And I'm quite fine with this. For reals. I'm not one of those mothers who freaks out when their child moves on to the next thing, though I am admittedly a little melancholy about the walking. It signals a giant shift out of babyhood and into toddlerland, but for the time being, he is still a baby.

What this post is more concerned about is boobs and what happens to them when one is done nursing. Contrary to popular opinion, nursing does not make boobs droop or malform them in any way. Pregnancy does that. Quit blaming the nursing.

While there are a billion (to be exact) websites about the benefits of breastfeeding and the good counsel of slow weaning, there is almost nothing on the woman's health in this issue. Those who have nursed understand the discomfort, engorgement, and possible mastitis that is the frequent companion piece to nursing. And it only gets worse when the baby stops doing his part.

Atticus decided to quit nursing all by himself, a self-weaner, which is a fun phrase for all sorts of reasons. He weaned fairly slowly over a period of a couple of weeks and then he was decided about it - so much so that there were actually two mornings wherein he rejectedly crawled away from me in tears because I can only assume he thought I might force him to nurse, which I of course have never ever done.

And so he's done and while I thought I would be emotionally overwrought about it, I am not. Rather than my mind, it's my body that has not caught up with the new world order of independence. I naively thought within a week, all would be normal again - my body would return once again to its pre-baby state of decoration and not utility.

This is not the case. Be warned, future nursers. The body will not stop producing milk until weeks, months, or up to a year have passed by. A year!!! Until then, infrequent, judicious expressing will keep the engorgement and mastitis away.

Blurgh. I am reminded these past many days of Al Pacino in the Godfather II. You know the line: "Just when I think I'm out, they keep pulling me back in."

This is good training for motherhood. It is not a job that ends in any satisfactory way. Before one thing finishes, the next thing starts. While I am not naturally inclined toward this sort of continuous work, it is a job I cannot get out of and a job I would never abandon. Because Young 'Cus, as one of our friends call him, is pretty freaking cool. It's just, seriously, I had no idea how much I signed on for. None. Not really. But here we are 11 months later and all is, if not easy, pretty freaking awesome.

The End of the Line

2010-06-10T19:20:00.003-05:00

(New design for my blog. 'Thought I should shake it up a little bit and take advantage of the snazzy new templates. Plus, I like birds. I cannot resist them.)

Every morning I wake to Atticus trilling from his crib. You know trilling? That sound one makes with their tongue or with their lips? Atticus does it with his lips, increasing in pitch and volume the longer it takes me to respond. It's time to get up, his trills say. Come on, there's fun to be had.

And so I roll out of bed and go to him, groggily, but happily. He's waiting in his crib, standing up, holding the bars, and swaying back and forth to the rhythm of his own morning sounds. We nurse and get on with the day and all that fun his trills promise.

And our days are always fun, though lately, they involve less and less nursing all the time.

I am dreading its end.

It is happening far more quickly than I thought possible, though certainly many people would say that nursing for almost eleven months is not exactly quick. But alas, for me, it feels quick. I thought I'd have more time. I thought I'd have to read up on weaning. I thought I'd have some say in the matter.

But I don't. He's done nearly, ready to move on to the rest of his life, slightly more independent.

And I'm happy about it. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. I don't know. One thing I'm sure about, I'm going to cry when it's officially over. Yes, I will definitely cry. And then maybe I'll go out and buy a frilly new bra.

Swan Dives into the Ineffable

2010-05-30T11:31:00.002-05:00

I had a professor who called poetry a swan dive into the ineffable. That's nice. I like that phrase. It's lovely and it makes the making of poetry sound terribly important, and as the wife of a poet, I do think poetry's important.

But I bring up that phrase for a different reason altogether. It has been a little over 10 months since Atticus was born and I'm still swimming madly against the rapids of the ineffable. He still doesn't make sense to me, his whole existence doesn't. I sit in the backseat next to his carseat everywhere we go and I often, frequently, almost always look at him with a sense of wonderment nearing displacement. How did he get here? Where did he come from? Is this kid really mine?

It is not without love or attachment or a great desire for him that I ask these questions, but I'm trying to figure the ineffable here: once there was no one and now there's a whole Atticus. Any parent who doesn't get horribly confused by that fact is either not thinking very hard or far more wise than me.

And self-identity is still somewhere in that ineffable ocean. I know I'm a mother, but I don't always feel like a wife. Here's an inescapable truth of having a young baby in the house. Wait for it. Are you ready? Not a lot of sex happens in that house. Not that sex defines wifery, but certainly it has something to do with it. Have I disclosed too much? Will my husband cringe at reading this? But it's the truth and one that needn't be shushed or whispered or alluded to in quiet tones between other mothers. It is really damn hard to be anything more than a mother as being a mother is so all consuming. Any other pursuits feel selfish, reckless, and tiring at the end of the day.

I don't want it to be like this. I'd like to go out for an evening and let it be okay that my son is not as comfortable as he would be if I were with him. I'd like to put my husband first sometimes. Hell, I'd like to put myself first sometimes.

But I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Last week we met up with some old friends in my old town and I became acutely aware of the difference in our lives now. It was a reading at a very hipster bar in Grand Rapids. The readers were great, real artists with presence and content and craft; it was the type of reading that makes you ache a little bit to go home and write and be a creator of things yourself.

That was at the beginning of the evening, but as the evening wore on, my creative impulses were overtaken by my maternal ones. It happened quickly and completely. The "must get home to baby" internal chant gained momentum and volume and I forgot entirely about wanting to write or eventually have my own readings.

Will it be this way forever? Will I ever feel like Atticus would be better served by serving myself first? Am I okay with this?

Babies and Travelling

2010-05-27T20:17:00.003-05:00

Travelling with a baby is tough stuff. Funny thing about babies - they like sameness. They like the same faces and smells and places to sleep night after night. Now that I think about it, I'm not really all that different from a baby.

It's good to be home. While there was tremendous fun and excitement to be had up north, there is nothing so tremendously fun as ones own bed.

Our travelling baby was a trooper. Sort of. Mostly. Kind of. Pretty much. But now he is in his own bed and while I have more to say on this matter, the pull of my very own bed is too strong.

More soon on other things related to babies and mothering and the intellect precariously balancing between.

Ruggedly Confused Patriot

2010-05-06T20:49:00.005-05:00

"America: The Story of Us" is a series from the History channel that tells, well, derr ..., the story of America. I'm enjoying the show immensely, but at the same time, I am becoming increasingly queasy with the unsavory truths of our history.

This is a tired conversation. We've all become enlightened about the less glorious moments of our short American history, but then there are the those things that remain in the darkened shadow of glorified language, hidden, tucked away under that hearty phrase "rugged individualism."

What does that phrase even mean? Herbert Hoover was the guy to first bring that healing term, that salve of all salves, into our lexicon. To be rugged is to be capable of enduring great adversity, to be hearty, to be manly, to look a bear in the eye and roar right back. And to be an individual is to know your mind and give it free rein over your interests and conversations and life goals. Put those two together and heck, you have license to pretty much kill everything in front of you.

Or so it was with the patriots. And I WANT to call them patriots. I want to give them the respect they questionably deserve. What our American forefathers did was rugged and individualistic and scary as hell and you wouldn't catch me doing it for all the tea in China. If it were up to me, we'd all still be in England saying, "Yes, mum, indeed, mum, here's all my money for the Crown and sure, I'll go to whatever Church you tell me to, mum."

But that's not our patriots. Our patriots left, got on ships, landed in harsh conditions, starved or ate each other, died from smallpox, died from smallpox inoculations, died from milk disease, cut out the Erie Canal with their bare hands working fingers to literal bone, and all for what? Could they imagine the glory their sacrifices would allow? Could they imagine a highway system and sanitation and education for all? Did they know - could they have had any indication of the superpower we would become? George Washington thought it would take a 1000 years to settle America. Not with rugged individualists at the helm. No sir. We are only a couple hundred years into the great experiment and look at us. We rule the whole freaking world.

It's not hard to love the patriots, our forefathers, our bold leaders, our rugged individualists. How ungrateful would I have to be to not love them and respect the hell out of their accomplishments?

And yet.

To wit, a list of the things young America did to earn the term "rugged individualists":

1. Defeated the British who were defending Native American boundary lines

(How, you ask? By killing off the Native American guides in the service of the British and by employing sharp shooters to take out British captains. Stay classy, patriots.)

2. Defeated the Mexicans who had welcomed us into their territory only to have us take it over entirely

(Remember the Alamo? Remember when the Mexicans said, sure, come on in? Then, hey, wait, there's too many of you? Then, hey, what the heck just happened here?)

3. Indentured the free Africans who had fought for America right alongside every other America in the Revolutionary War

(Hey, somebody's got to take care of the cotton on the land we took from the Cherokee.)

4. Crossed 2000 miles to get to the gold rush in California where men died and didn't even receive decent burials

And on and on. But look how tough we are. We keep pushing through. We tame the lands and flourish despite it all.

And there are longers lists of our better deeds. History books are full of them. I am, I must admit, a huge fan of John Adams and his contribution to American history. Also, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Pretty much in that order. And they are all that term for good or ill.

But it's the ill that has me at the moment. That Machiavellian sensibility that pervades our history and probably the history of every history. We are no different from each other. Perhaps if I had been a part of the Donner party, I would have made the same choices. Perhaps I would have believed in freedom and self preservation at all costs. Perhaps I am just as ruggedly individualistic as the next guy.

Lucky for me, my life is so posh, I don't have to find out. Thanks, patriots. Thanks for my cushy, easy life. Thanks for setting me up in a free society where I can blog about how murderous your sacrifices were. Thanks for this life, this liberty, and this pursuit of judging the heck out of you and all you have done for this great country.

How to Feed a Baby the Jamie Oliver Way

2010-04-17T15:45:00.005-05:00

Just as my baby is slowly beginning to wean himself and experience the world of culinary delights, Jamie Oliver comes along with his groundbreaking series "Food Revolution." In this series, Jamie Oliver takes on Huntington, West Virginia, one of the least healthy cities in the nation and tries to start a food revolution by overhauling the cafeteria systems of the elementary and high schools.

I love this show, and at any other time in my life, I would have comfortably sat through each episode arrogantly thinking, Oh, yes, of course the children should be eating fresh and proper food. How stupid these people of Huntington are. But now that I'm a mother, the overwhelming task of doing just that, preparing wholesome food with love on a regular basis is, well, overwhelming.

It's one thing to eat healthfully yourself. It's not really hard at all. I eat a lot of same things over and over again, but those same things are varied and are very good for me. In the morning, I eat oatmeal and yogurt with walnuts or flax seed. I have a veggie sandwich on whole grain bread with cheese every day for lunch. For dinner, a little more variety - maybe grilled vegetables and a veggie burger, maybe a salad and french fries, maybe Chinese takeout. The repetition of my eating makes shopping easy as I know what things I'm likely to eat every week. And with the exception of an occasional pigging out on pizza and a blizzard from Dairy Queen, I can feel pretty good about what I put into my body.

But to feed a baby - three times a day! This is an awesome task for someone who rarely gets to sit down to eat herself. But if I want to continue watching "Food Revolution" in comfortable arrogance, I must actually do what Oliver is pushing in the series: make real food for my baby that is well considered and made with love.

I am trying. I really am. It goes like this: Atticus smells something in the kitchen and the lip-smacking begins. I think about what I am preparing and invariably it contains some dairy product unfit for a child before the age of one (as there is a potential for dairy allergies later in life for infants who are given cow's milk before age one).

So I must reconceive things. I have to think ahead. I have to plan. I cannot rely on my pat shopping list of frequently used ingredients. This is a new eater with new needs and I am ultimately responsible for his eating habits and attitude toward food. Oh, the sheer weight of this responsibility ...

And my baby is particular. He will not eat baby food or anything with the consistency of baby food. How gauche, he seems to say as I try once again to give him yogurt. Not for me, his turned head and pursed lips suggest. But there are other things, many other things that I hope will have the Oliver seal of approval.

Atticus is very fond of the following foods in descending order of appreciation:

Sweet Potato
Carrots
Potato
Peas
Chicken Noodle Soup
Orange Slices
Pasta or Rice with Peas and Herbs
Chunky Apple Sauce
Scrambled Eggs

Those are the highlights, but I have intentionally left out Puffs which Atticus eats in such generous volume that I wonder if we will have to sit down and have an intervention with him someday. Puffs rehab. I don't want everyone to know how many Puffs I let my son eat. I recently read that children get 20% of their nutrition from snacks. Atticus might be getting 60% of his nutrition from Puffs. Please don't tell Jamie Oliver. I'm trying to get it right and do it proper, mate. I really am.

On Kendra and Kimora

2010-03-25T12:07:00.002-05:00

Likely, you will think less of me when I tell you I have the show "Kendra" set to record on my DVR, and while I did not have to admit that to you, I want to bring up my defense toward a greater purpose.

The greater purpose is this: there is an extraordinarily limited number of television programs that involve new motherhood, which is strange since new motherhood is pretty much the most common thing in the universe. The fact is if there is no new motherhood, there are no new viewers.

New mothers are left to identify with Kendra and Kimora. "Kendra" is a spin-off of "The Girls Next Door," an absurdly trashy, mindless program highlighting the women who live at the Playboy mansion. One of these girls, Kendra, married Hank Wilkinson of the Indianapolis Colts and she got her own show.

Full disclosure: at one point, I accused Kendra of retardation and I meant it. As an educator, certain red flags are raised with regard to Kendra's special kind of stupid. And don't even get me started on that laugh.

But then something happened. Kendra got pregnant and had a baby. The months leading up to her labor and delivery were documented on her reality show as was her actual labor and delivery (not the bloody reality of it, but the curtained, appropriate for reality television part of it). And then Kendra was a mommy and not the seemingly retarded girl bouncing around the Playboy mansion.

This is not to say that mommyhood made Kendra smart. She just seems less stupid. And more to the point, she's the star of a reality show about a mom with a very new baby who is dealing with all the things every mom with a new baby deals with: she has to come to terms with her considerably bigger body; she has to figure out how to be sexual with her husband again; she has to try to find common ground with her single, childless friends; she has to interview prospective babysitters; and she has to walk red carpets fearful of her boobs leaking. Okay, so most of us are not walking red carpets, but the rest of that stuff is absolutely riveting to someone in my position.

Anyone who knows me has heard me ineptly try to describe the impossible nature of taking care of a newborn. It is so hard, I feel like I am the first woman to ever have attempted it. Imagine the comfort of seeing someone like Kendra Wilkinson struggling, yet succeeding at the nearly impossible task of keeping a baby alive and well.

And here's the thing. Think for a second. Run through your cable stations. How many programs are out there showing what having a newborn in the house is really like? MTV's got that "16 and Pregnant" show, which is doing a great public service, to be sure, but I'm not 16. I have a husband and support and an education and all the trappings of a quality life that suggest I should be a good, well-balanced, and loving mother.

There are two shows: "Kendra" and now "Life in the Fab Lane" with Kimora Lee Simmons. Recently, Kimora could be seen from behind, telling a photographer they would have to wait to do her family photo because she was in the middle of pumping and all the stress surrounding her was affecting her "letdown." The scene did not come close to exposing her in the act of pumping breastmilk, but she referred to it and showed the camera a bottle after she had successfully pumped several ounces.

"Letdown," Kimora explained, is not when someone disappoints you. We're talking milk here.

Mothering a young baby is ridiculously consuming. Shockingly so. Jarringly so. That a whole other world goes on around you while you are: sleepless, investigating the best methods for freezing milk, reading up on healthy sleep patterns, folding laundry one-handed while nursing a baby in your other arm, challenging doctors who are not as supportive of nursing mothers as they should be, passively fighting with your spouse over whose turn it is to hold the baby (while feeling guilty about how badly you want to not be holding the baby), and trying, hoping, and praying you'll get a shower that day - this is one of the unique challenges of motherhood.

And then there's Kendra and Kimora bringing the inexplicable challenge of it to television. And not just to television, but to popular television. This is no poorly produced "A Baby Story." This is glossy, full-production value television of women who, despite their celebrity, at the end of the day, are just trying to be good moms.

Certainly once Kendra's son starts to grow and verbalize and Kendra starts explaining how mama used to pose for Playboy, she and I will part ways. We will no longer share that bond of the mama who is stunned to find herself in the position of motherhood. But until then, I look forward to another episode where Kendra tries to find the time to get to the gym and where she cries to her husband one more time about how she just doesn't feel like herself anymore. Go, Kendra. I can completely identify with you.

Me and My Shadow

2010-03-11T19:40:00.002-05:00

It is very difficult as a mother to find your own identity, to separate yourself from your child. I think of that often as I begin yet another blog about my son, or post yet another photo of me and my son on my Facebook profile. And then I realize how ridiculous it is to even try for that separation.

Reality check on motherhood: I am not a separate identity anymore. It's a tough transition to make, from independent persona to mother of child. It took a long time for Atticus's existence in our house to feel normal. But now it is normal. Once you give in, surrender to the intrusion of a life that you asked for in the first place, that identity shift happens. The struggle is over and life gets easy-ish again.

It's not at all easy before accepting that shift. And sure, I could have just accepted it on day one when we brought Atticus home from the hospital, but I didn't know how. I didn't even know I was supposed to because everyone says, "You have to make time for yourself." And you do, sort of, but not really, because "yourself" is a completely new concept and that individual existence is really gone. At least for me it was and is. Thank goodness I am communal and like being around people. Loneliness, how little I knew you.

And so I have this shadow always, but it's more like a light than a shadow. Atticus is almost eight months now. And he is everywhere - on my blog, in my conversations, on my Facebook profile, crawling across the floor, sitting in the chair next to me crying for my attention as I write this. And so I'll go and give him the attention he wants because I like him very much. He's good people, my kind of people. And he and I will never be entirely separate no matter how hard either of us might try. What a comfort that is.

Food Rut

2010-02-21T08:01:00.004-05:00

It happens to all of us. There comes a time when nothing sounds delicious and no recipe intrigues. I am there. I am officially in a food rut.

Usually when this happens, I bust out the cookbooks, stroll through the pages and pull forth new and unexpected ingredient options to tease and awaken a sleeping palate. But this time, the cookbooks aren't working, nor are the cooking shows we watch ad nauseum, nor is my trusted and true Bon Appetit magazine - a boon which has contributed many a new recipe to our dining lexicon, such as blueberry lemon shortcake and fake fried chicken.

What to do when nothing at the grocery store excites one to eat something delicious? The only thing seasonal at this time of the year in Tennessee markets are pineapples. I like pineapples very much, but not so much as a savory component. And anyway, they are rather on the small side right now.

It's a time for ordering Chinese food in. That's usually my strategy, but one can only afford to do so a couple of times before one must return to ones own food stores. What to do? Where to eat? Food inspiration is in short supply.

Teaching Advice?

2010-02-14T17:51:00.002-05:00

Forgive the cliche, but I am entering unchartered waters with my Public Writing class. I am starting a section entitled "Joining the Public Forum" wherein students will participate in political blogs, online videos (such as youtube), the writing of letters to the editor, and/or participating in the writing of political literature (essays or poetry) in some way.

Do any of my teacherly friends or otherwise savvy people have any suggestions of blogs, videos, political essays, etc ... that I could incorporate in the classroom toward the goal of familiarizing students with the craft and purpose of public writing in a political context?

Thanks, friends.

Stranger in a Strange Land

2010-02-14T17:03:00.002-05:00

It comes as no surprise to those who know me that neither I nor my husband are huge fans of living in the South, and yet, I am committed to enjoying the rest of our time here. I've spent the last year and a half trying to explain what it is that we have found so unpleasant and I have always been aware of how flimsy our reasoning has been. So toward a happier experience here in this strange land, I will try to explain and excavate all that anti-South baggage.

For starters, it's a thousand little things. This is what I've finally come to. There are a thousand little things that are different about the South that make me feel like an interloper, an other, a conscientious objector.

Word Choice and Fun Expressions: I can't tell you how many times my heart's been blessed. Southerners really love to "bless your heart." This is not a complaint. It's just different. I don't think anyone in Michigan has ever blessed my heart. And Southerners call grocery carts "buggies." And when they have completed something - like, say, fixing a leaky pipe under the sink - they say, "Alright, that's got ya'," which is a great turn of phrase, though strange.

Nevermind the accent. I don't hear that anymore at all unless it's a particularly thick one. It's the different phrasing and word choices that pull me out of my daily routine and remind me that while it is nice here, I am not home.

On the Subject of Snow: A few weeks ago, a terrible hardship fell upon Knoxville. A smattering of fluffy snow that was too light to stick to the ground came down from the sky. Schools closed. Malls closed. Grocery stores crowded over and then closed. I was in Marshall's to decompress, enjoying a few scarce moments on my own, when over the intercom I hear the words, "The store will be closing in 15 minutes due to inclement weather."

Inclement weather? Are they serious? I looked out the window. Clear parking lot. Clear roads. Light snow falling. To no one in particular, I uttered, "Seriously?", then put down my potential purchases and walked out into a clear day no Michigander would come close to describing as inclemental.

Southerners defend this by saying
a) they do not have the equipment to clear snow,
b) the North does not have mountains like they do, and
c) they do not know how to drive in the snow.

In response to these arguments I say
a) there is no snow on the ground for a plow to clear away,
b) you live in a valley, and
c) go slow and drive more cautiously.

Slow and slow, that is the tempo: When we first came here, I thought my head might explode. I had heard all the cliches about the South living a slower paced existence, but I didn't think they were actually true in our oh-so-modern world. They are. Go to a bank, any bank in the South, and you will experience the Southern way to its fullest. All one may need to do is make a quick transaction - in and out and on to the next thing, but the teller has different plans. "How you? Oh, did you just move from Michigan? How do y'like it here? Well, you'll love it come late February and March. Oh, I cain't stand the snow."

And on and on. It took me a while to slow down, to welcome the random and constant stream of conversation from strangers. Now I can jump in the middle of a conversation with the best of them, but this is not a northern trait or tendency. We are saved by our ruthless efficiency.

Friendy friendy: This is related to the previous point. It isn't just that everything is slower, it's that everyone is friendlier. The South is superfriendly and if you are a northerner, this takes a little while to get used to. I don't want to suggest that the North is not friendly because that's plain wrong. It's just that generally speaking we do not want to bother you or otherwise impede the progress of your day. If you need something, directions or a restaurant suggestion, we northerners are only too happy to oblige. But if you engage in a conversation with us that lasts longer than five minutes, we will likely start to become suspicious of you and your intentions. Do they want to get us in their van, we wonder? Are they trying con us? Is there a second player involved? It's confusing. We are not bad people. We just have certain social expectations of strangers.

In the South, the social expectations of strangers is quite different. Everyone is fair game for conversation. I cannot tell you how many conversations about celery, soup stock, chicken cuts, or milk expiration dates I have had in Kroger with my fellow shoppers, strangers all of them. I am everyone's friend here. This is nice, but it would be a lie to say this did not take some getting used to. My husband is not at all used to it and his inherently shy and guarded self has had to invent all new defense mechanisms to accomodate this uniquely southern tradition.

And lastly, the worst thing about the South is the fact that my family does not live here. This is its grossest crime. It is likely I will be here for another year, perhaps two, and it's time to stop beating up the South for my mother not being around the corner.

So to the South, I apologize. I am ready to have my heart blessed, to return my buggy to the buggy corral, to discuss recipes with you at the grocery store, and to be your friend in all things.

But this snow thing --

Oh dear South, you must know it makes you a horrible wuss, and I will continue to make fun of you for unnecessary school closings and for shutting down the malls at the slightest mention of cold, white precipitation. On this point, I will ever hold true to my Yankee status.

The Feat of Sitting Up

2010-01-31T18:35:00.003-05:00

Newborn babies are boring. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They don't see well, they're fairly quiet, and their daily accomplishment are few and far between. The mother of a 3-month old baby excites over her baby's newfound ability to focus on objects several feet away from their face. It's cause for celebration.

A six-month old - on the other hand - a six-month old can do some pretty cool shit. A six-month old, for example, can sit up and play with blocks. Now we're cooking with gas.

I can hardly explain the novelty of Atticus being able to sit up. It is nothing short of a magic trick in my book. How DOES he do it after months of floppiness that necessitated constant carrying around? One second, he's a spineless fish nearly slipping out of my arms. The next, he's a strong little man sitting up, reaching for toys just out of his reach.

Not only does he sit up on his very own, he is also engaged with toys and very, very interested in this whole crawling business. If only he could figure out how to move forward. Backwards? Sure, we have that down. Forward is another thing altogether.

But the sitting up - this, according to Dr. Sears, is the master skill of the six-month old. And Atticus, well obviously he is a master at it even if he occasionally (read: always) falls over at some point during the sitting up. Still, the kid is good. I mean, he's, like, really, really good at it.

I cannot get over it. I sit and watch him do it and cannot go over the feeling that this is all very wrong somehow. He should not be sitting up, or rocking back and forth on all fours in an attempt at locomotion. I thought it would be more of a struggle, but he's no more than thought of it and the feat is done. And it is in those moments that I am utterly aware that Atticus is not an extension of me. While surely I encouraged his ability to sit up, I didn't teach him how to do it. That was all him. He is a complete and whole person whose instincts, both physical and emotional, will dominate his life in a way that even a mother cannot compete with. Not that I want to. I don't.

I'm the transition team. Me and Michael are. We're just here to get him through to adulthood, and with any luck, we'll be there then as well to continue to serve as buffer and pillow when he inevitably falls over again. Even the most mastered of skills fail us at times. But oh how it is fun to watch the skills be acquired. And oh how remarkable it is to be human. To grow, to learn, to get smart, to be interested, to lunge for toys, to sit up on ones very own. Motherhood is nothing if not a reminder of how miraculous we all are.

Goodbye to All That

2010-01-17T09:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't written my Best of 2009 post yet and it's already halfway through January. No matter, the best of 2009 is Atticus. He's the best of everything. Right now he's chewing on a plastic star. You go get that star, little man. And all the other ones, too.

But I owe Atticus an apology. I've spent the majority of 2009 complaining to women about how difficult a baby is. And really, Atticus is probably the most magical baby in the universe, especially now that he's six months old and chewing on plastic stars in his magical exersaucer. I couldn't love him more than I do right now. Except tomorrow, I'll probably love him even more. That's how magical he is.

So goodbye to all that complaining. Of course, I'll still have things to say and there will still be challenging mama days, but I'm not going to let that run the show. Goodbye to all that ingratitude and hello to thanks.

Thanks for the best year, Atticus. I'm looking forward to a hundred more with you, magical little man. Love, love, and exponentially-growing love.

Spambusters!

2010-01-09T08:39:00.002-05:00

Friends,

I promise to post a real blog soon, but I just wanted to say I had to change my comment posting settings to get rid of all the stupid spammers who have been littering my account with their sales detritus. You can no longer post comments anonymously but can do so with an OpenID.

Soon.
M.

Making the Baby Laugh

2009-12-11T15:39:00.002-05:00

For some reason, Michael can make the baby laugh more than I can. I try and try. I mimic Michael. I come up with my own routines. I goose him, I zerbert him, I peekaboo him, I boo him, I tickle him ... and it works a little, but not like it works with Daddy. I guess I can handle this. I mean, we all know who the baby loves most, right? I say that facetiously because I need to comfort myself somehow.

Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world if my baby has my husband's sense of humor, but seriously, if this baby comes out speaking some fruity, fake French accent, there's going to be a problem.

His latest amusement is nose-biting or nose-sucking, depending on mood. Picture attached.

Reincarnated as a Mother

2009-11-07T09:06:00.003-05:00

A few weeks back, I was at a pig roast with my 3-month old son when a woman asked me what one thing has changed the most since I had a baby? What happened to my brain the second she asked that could only be called mental paralysis. Every synapses misfired and I was left with just a blinding, twirling list of answers that refused to organize themselves into a cognizant response.

Cate Blanchett's answer to a similar question was that having children is close to being reincarnated. Your life is altered so fundamentally, you are very nearly a new human being. I like her answer. I want to steal it.

In the interest of elaboration, I want to explore this further. What has changed the most?

My life is unimportant beyond the needs of my child. There are plenty of magazines and talk shows and books that will tell you how important it is to make time for yourself when you have a young baby, which is supercute advice, but so unrealistic as to be laughable. While this state of self-negation is temporary, it is reality. I am not important beyond the well-being necessary to provide for Atticus. I wake when he wakes, I eat when he lets me, I sit when he allows it, I plan every moment of my life around him. That balance will slowly shift as he continues to grow and gain independence. But for now, I am in his service.

We now eat in shifts. I overheard a friend talking about some crazy, delicious meal meal she and her husband had eaten the other day and the thing that was the most intriguing to me about it was that they had eaten at the same time. I forgot people did that. My husband and I eat in shifts, usually me first because my husband is nice.

All things are scary. The fear for a child's life and well-being is so everpresent, the world becomes a monster full of teeth and snarls and claws. I have horrific dreams at least once a week in which terrible, terrible things happen to my baby. I wake from them sure that I will make some dreadful mistake with consequences I cannot live with.

Heart transplant. I don't have a sentence for that one. All I can say is that when you have a baby, your heart and center live outside of you and it's a terrifying way to live. The number of bad things that can happen to someone suddenly feel quite present and feasible. I know this is similar to my previous paragraph, but it's slightly different. I don't mean just physical danger here, though that falls into this as well. Example: my son was laying on his grandparents' bed and a number of his cousins were scrambling around him, playing, squealing, enjoying their little lives. One of them accidentally kneed my boy in the head mid-scramble. When Atticus started wailing, I wanted to change the infrastructure of the universe to make him stop. I didn't really want to hurt the cousin who did it, but the impulse toward protection was so strong that it scared me a little bit. That heart sits out there too clumsily. I cannot rein it in.

Time as an abstract becomes more abstract. Some weeks back, the time changed, but my son and I have no real concept of that. Sure, it changes the time I leave for the classes I teach on Tuesday and Thursday morning, but those few days are not enough of a marker to really signal for me that the world is altered. Again, I wake up when my son wakes up. I sleep when he sleeps (hopefully). That we have gained or lost an hour means nothing as we hold to his erratic sleeping schedule. There is no more or less daylight hours for us.

The stores I go to, oh, how they've changed. Much of these entries overlap; that cannot be helped. Furthering the idea that my life is unimportant (for now), I now find myself in Gymboree, the Children's Place, and Once Upon a Child far more often than the Gap or Banana Republic. I have become learned in the ways of considering a child's future size and weight and the price I am willing to pay for that swiftly-changing body.

The foreclosure of thinking. I love the line from White Oleander when the mother says of the experience of having a new baby: "I was used to having time to think." Not only did I have time to think, I had time to write, to ruminate, to malappropriate, to create, to wonder, to wallow, to brew, to listen, to fume, to submit, to conjoin, to divide, to conquer, and all other sorts of infinitive verbs. Now I am lucky if I can remember to refill the toilet paper roll in the bathroom.

I am that mother. While I try to retain a sense of self, my blog and my Facebook persona reflect nothing so strongly as my changed status in life as a mother. It is central to who I am now. It is the ever-present subject of my life and I am probably boring people with it. I know my Facebook picture should be of me and not always my son. And I know I should use my blog to remind myself that I more than just a milk-delivery system, but for now, this is who I am. For now, I am that mother.

The strongest arms you've ever done seen. Not only are my forearms and biceps unusually strong now, they are more adept at one-handed or one-armed acts. Formerly two-handed acts like making coffee, emptying the trash, and checking e-mail are now one-handed feats.

There are more, but my husband has been minding our littlest one this morning while I took the time to write this and he would probably like an opportunity to have his temporary independence this morning before we begin another day of sublimating our lives in the interest of our son's development. We do it completely, if not always cooperatively. And it's worth it. My sister-in-law calls motherhood "the best job there is." I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but I will say it's the most challenging and the most interesting even as there are days full of boredom. Would I reincarnate as a mother again? Some days, yes, some days, no. Today? Today, I don't even have time to consider it.

The Curse of the Bridesmaid Dress

2009-10-10T14:01:00.004-05:00

I know all brides face it - the curse of the bridesmaid dress - that impossible quest for something that is neither too expensive nor too ugly. They are impossible things, really. On Project Runway, it's the kiss of death to have ones garment referred to as a "bridesmaid gown." And yet there is little out there to save one from it, and believe me, I looked and looked.

It has been fourteen months since the day I was married and I still cannot get over my disappointment in the bridesmaid dresses I chose for my beautiful attendants. You can ask my husband. I have a moment about once every two weeks when the anguish of it hits me. He wants me to get over it. I want to get over it. And yet it persists.

I had a lovely wedding. I really did. The person waiting at the end of the aisle for me was (and is) a lovely, lovely human being who is a tremendous partner and friend to me. My dress - a diamond white, strapless gown - was so gorgeous. I felt beautiful and nervous and loved and all those other overwhelming emotions that drown a wedding day. I wouldn't do any of it over again except one thing.

The bridesmaid dress. I so desperately wanted something my bridesmaids and groomsladies would feel beautiful in. I was not one of those brides who wanted or needed to outshine her attendants. In choosing their dresses, I wanted something that was not too expensive, and if not something they could wear again, then at least something they liked wearing for one day.

But here was my dilemma: I had to fit size 2 (really, less than 2) through size 22 - I think it was 22 - anyway, this was an enormously difficult task. I searched and searched and searched bridal stores, online stores, department stores. I had some of my attendants looking online and shopping with me. I asked for suggestions of websites and color choices.

I had an idea in my head of what I wanted: just a plain a-line dress, perhaps with a halter neckline that tends to flatter almost all shapes. And I wanted color.

I know it's the hip thing to do now to have all attendants in black, but it was an August wedding and I love color and I wanted my wedding to be a colorful affair. I also know it's the hip thing to just give your bridesmaids a color scheme they have to fit into rather than choosing their dresses. But sue me. I wanted a traditional line up. Let's just go ahead and call that my fatal flaw.

Along with one of my bridesmaids, I found a dress online for around $200 which still seemed wildly expensive to me. I know now this is on the low end which is just wrong in so many ways. We all know we're not going to wear that dress again. It should be more disposable financially. Alas.

I chose a sage green with rose trim which looked super lovely online. Was the dress sage green when it arrived? No. No, it was not. Instead, it was a mint color that is difficult for just about every skin tone to pull off. My poor bridesmaids. I tried so hard to do right by you!

Here are pictures from my wedding day with my lovely attendants who, let's face it, are beautiful no matter what you put them in. I don't hate these dresses. The thing I hate is that I don't think the women who wore them felt beautiful in them like I hoped they would. And I'm angry that there was not a better solution out there available to brides. There has to be. There just does, though I defy anyone to find one.

Aren't they pretty people? Hell yes, they are. But that dress, it could have been better. The groomladies are in black to distinguish them from the bridesmaids and they faired better, I think. They may have even gloated a little bit that day. Okay, maybe a lot.

I need absolution. I cannot deal with this any longer. I'm sorry attendants. I'm sorry you spent all that money on something that didn't serve your beauty the way I wanted it to. If I could do it over again, I would, though I don't know how. But damn it, I would find a way. I would. And I wish you better luck in your future bridesmaid stylings. I wish for dresses that are reasonably priced, rewearable, and complementary to all sizes and shapes. And I wish you the peace - fourteen months out from your wedding day - of knowing you did right by the women you love most in the world.

A Slowly Tumping Baby

2009-10-06T13:58:00.006-05:00

Video is one of those words that begins to sound funny when you say it several times in a row: video, video, video. By the third or fourth repetition, one cannot help but say it with a Spanish accent, changing the stress to the second syllable: vi-DAY-o, vi-DAY-o, vi-DAY-o. After that, it just becomes a mindless game only your mouth can participate in. 'Probably too much said there.

My in-laws got us a supercool digital camcorder that is the exact same size as my phone. Seriously, it is bad ass. Now I must post videos in celebration of the thing.

So this is a video that will probably be used in Atticus's future therapist's office to prove how mean we are as parents. He is trying very hard not to tump over onto his back here and we are inordinately amused. Notice near the end, I come around and blame Michael, though it is clearly my laugh heard the loudest here. I really must try harder to be a nicer mommy, though I am not as bad as some people who flutter their finger on their son's lips when he is crying to hear what it would sound like if Atticus were crying into a fan. Ahem.

As always, if you are on Facebook and want to view the video, go to www.mollyjorose.blogspot.com. I guess Facebook cannot support videos.

Magical Thinking and Long Distance Babies

2009-09-27T06:13:00.003-05:00

I imagine every mother goes through this. There are many hours in my day when I magically believe if I stare at Atticus long enough, I can prevent him from growing any bigger. Of course I don't want a baby whose growth is stunted, but I have a tendency to feel nostalgia in advance and I want this time with him to last forever. At thirteen pounds, he is perfectly portable, perfectly lovely - just perfect in all things. He has come to a point where he sleeps well enough for me to feel like more of a human and he coos and his laugh develops more every day. It won't be long before his little hands won't want me to hold and caress his all the time as I do now. Then what will I do?

Over his crib, I watch his chest rise and fall and I know it's happening. No amount of magical thinking can change the fact that the inches are coming; his limbs lengthen, his torso, too, gets longer. He'll keep putting on weight and keep running through the clothes in his closet until I'll quite suddenly find myself looking at the toddler clothes at Target.

And in that time, he won't have had enough people fawning all over him. This is the greatest curse of living away from family and friends. I hate it so much. I hate it more than Atticus growing so quickly. He's such a beautiful baby, really, the sweetest person I have ever known. And the only people who fawn over him on a regular basis are me and Michael. There are no grandmothers and aunts fighting over whose turn it is to pick him up. There are no little cousins patting his soft little head. There are no little outfits lined up that a gaggle of neighborhood ladies is dying to see him in.

It's not fair. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to Atticus. He may not need to be fawned over, but he certainly deserves it. He's such a good baby, so flirtatious and good and sweet and social. He loves our mail lady and even the nurses who gave him his shots. He's so ready to love everyone and yet every day it's just mom and dad. And he loves us, of course, but I think he'd like a new audience. Sometimes I think I can hear him say, "Come on, people, I got all this charm to show off and you're not bringing in any new people I can try it out on."

We leave for Cleveland in a couple of weeks to see family. It's not soon enough.

Atticus in the Morning

2009-09-12T17:29:00.002-05:00

I think there is nothing better than a baby in the morning.

(If you cannot view this on Facebook, go to my blog).

Great Baby Gifts

2009-09-12T07:19:00.003-05:00

Because I'm in that place of heightened awareness regarding what is useful as a new mother, I thought I'd make a list of those things that were the coolest and best baby gifts I received. This is my first baby and I was an ignorant sap at my showers, opening presents, thanking people graciously, not knowing when the really truly great gifts were being opened and stacked with the rest. Don't get me wrong. All the gifts I received were wonderful, but certainly some are being used more than others. Here's that list. Feel free to add your own.

1. The Miracle Blanket: Seriously, this swaddling blanket is awesome. My husband calls it a baby straight jacket, but he will admit that our son loves it. For those opposed to it, remember, babies are not like us. As mentioned in a previous post, newborns are not particularly aware of their limbs just yet and they certainly don't mind their limbs being secured close to them. Two things babies like: Security and Closeness. The Miracle Blanket provides both of these. (http://www.miracleblanket.com/index.htm)

2. Baby Sling: I actually bought this for myself, but it still counts. My world is a better place because of this baby sling. I worried my child would be the only child in the history of slings to hate the sling, but this was an unnecessary worry. He loves it and falls asleep when he's in it almost immediately. The few times he's not asleep when he's in it give him an opportunity to look around at the world from my level while I shop for groceries, fold laundry, respond to e-mails -- you know, things that require free hands. Of this my husband says, "30,000 years of women using baby slings can't be wrong." We're Catholic so I don't know where he gets this 30,000 years thing, but you get the point. There are a zillion out there. Here's where I got mine: www.small-wish.com.

3. Newborn-to-Toddler Bathtub: These nifty tubs are fitted with a padded netting for an infant that can be removed as your baby gets bigger. I don't know how I'd wash my baby without it.

4. Diaper Genie: You might think you don't need one, but trust me, you do.

5. Dutalier Nursing Chair and Ottoman: Okay, so this is a really expensive gift and not everyone needs this type of item, but it's worth mentioning, particularly to mothers who are going to nurse. This chair is amazingly comfortable and designed specifically for nursing a baby. It's one of our favorite pieces of furniture.

6. Medela Pump-in-Style Electric Breastpump: Again, a gift for the nursing mother and again, a pricey gift. One of my sisters-in-law actually gave me hers and I bought new tubing for it. While the manufacturer does not support this, I have found this to be a perfectly workable solution. And it saved me $300.

7. Louise Erdrich's The Birth Year: Loved this. It was one of the only things I read during my pregnancy about pregnancy that made any sense.

8. The Baby Book: By Dr. Sears, this book includes just about everything you'll ever need to know about your baby, from what to do when one of his eyes won't open (clogged duct: routinely massage duct over a couple of days) to how to get a toddler to eat more vegetables.

9. Burp Cloths and Diaper Cloths: Invaluable, necessary, washed almost daily. Even if you're using disposable diapers (like me), those old school diaper cloths will come in handy. They catch spit up like nobody's business.

10. Black-and-White Baby Books: This is not a brand. I mean black-and-white purely descriptively. Because my husband and I are what you might call "bookish," it's important to us that our baby learn to love books. Toward this end, I have been reading to him since he was around three or four weeks old. None of his books interest him just yet because 1) he's far too little, and 2) he cannot really see that well. This is true of all of his books except two books a friend gave us (an educated librarian who knows these things) that are in black and white. He actually looks at these pages. Sure, nothing is going to hold his attention for that long, but baby steps ...

11. Things the Daddy Likes: This is a generic posting that is meant to give people who do not know what to buy another avenue of gift considerations. Even in our modern era with modern fathers who are much more involved in childrearing, it's important to make them feel as connected with the baby as possible. I have found it interesting to note how many people innately just get this, telling my husband how much our baby looks like him when really our baby looks like nobody but himself. That drive to keep the father from leaving the tribe runs deep. So any gifts that include him -- say a onesie that says "I love Daddy" or pajamas with little dinosaurs in football gear that resembles Daddy's favorite football team -- are a good idea.

12. Keepsake Box: You'll want a place that is more roomy than an album to keep things like the baby's hospital wristband and the measuring tape they use to measure him when he or she is first born.

13. Baby Wash and Washclothes: You'll get a lot of these. You'll use all of them.

14. Handmade Things: I'm biased as a crafty person, but I love the handcrafted items given to our baby - a quilt, a teddy bear, a soft blanket - the love put into these things is invaluable.

15. A WORD ON CLOTHES: There are more gifts that we have loved that I'm forgetting, but I would be remiss if I did not make one suggestion here and that is this - if you buy someone baby clothes, which everyone loves to do because man, is it ever fun to shop for a baby, always give the mom the receipt. This is not because she hates what you buy and wants to replace everything with her own taste. The reality is that babies must dress seasonally just like the rest of us and that has not always been taken into consideration judging from the closet full of warm clothes my Tennessee baby has available to him during his summer months.

Plus, the rate at which babies grow cannot always be predicted. There are plenty of adorable, sweet items with tags dangling from them that my son will not be able to wear and without receipts, I will just have to give them away to someone else in the hopes that they will work for them. Receipts are just a good idea when it comes to children's clothing. No one knows what a child can fit into but their mother (or father). I have actually returned a cute item for the exact same item in a bigger size, so fear not - your cute choice will be honored!

What am I missing? Any other suggestions, mamas?

Encounters with Stuffed Lions

2009-09-01T19:46:00.006-05:00

Two things of note this week: 1) Atticus got huge quite suddenly resulting in me becoming one of those people who cannot help but marvel at the speed of life once a baby enters into it, and 2) Atticus is noticing things around him. Regarding the first item of note, I am terrified of life moving quickly.

I've always blamed this thorough and sickening dread of life's heavy and quick rotation on having read that Thoreau "suck the marrow out of life" thing too young. No matter the reason for it, Atticus leaping from Newborn clothes to 3-month clothes in less than a week is really not helping the situation. I am now a part of the cliched and hackneyed people who have been repeating the following expression ad nauseum over the last many weeks: "They grow up so fast." Not only am I a part of it, I am kneedeep in it, clawing my way back to three weeks ago when my baby was more baby than he is today.

The second thing: Newborns are rather oblivious to the fact that they exist, stunned as they are, I think, to be out of the cocoon they've been secluded in for so many months. And then out into the world of hands and voices and sounds and lights and colors they rush, not quite prepared for all that stimuli. And physically, of course, they are truly not ready for all that stimuli. Their eyes cannot focus much beyond eight to fourteen inches. They cannot see colors. While their hearing is well-developed, the world is still just cacophony beyond the comforting familiarity of the mother's and father's voices.

It's only in the last week or so, at five or six weeks old, that Atticus is starting to track us as we cross a room. He's still not completely aware that his hands are his and that they can affect change, unlike his voice that he somehow intuits the power of.

Today he first noticed a toy - a little yellow and orange lion which lights up and plays "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" when its belly is pressed. Atticus was stunned into silence and stillness when he saw it before him. And I mean, really saw it. Below is Atticus and the Lion's first encounter. (If you can't see this video on Facebook, go to the original posting at http://www.mollyjorose.blogspot.com/).

Language Class on the Crying Baby

2009-08-25T16:55:00.002-05:00

On my way to my second class this morning, I walked down the hallway of the languages department. There were signs on the door for all sorts of language classes, including sign language. In particular, there was a mildly clever sign that said "End noise pollution - learn to sign."

A little more than a month ago, our house could hardly be accused of noise pollution. My husband and I are both quiet talkers who spend the bulk of our days in our heads. Now, our newest little roommate has made our once quiet house a house of rampant noise pollution. Newborns cry. A lot.

I cannot quite describe the first month with Atticus mostly because I was too tired to really experience it in any cognitive way. But every day, Atticus grows and changes and develops and we grow and change and develop with him. I am finally starting to understand the language of his crying, little by little.

His short little stunted cry, the "eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh" cry where it sounds like he's revving up for his next breath is my favorite. It's so desperate and passionate and fully committed. I love it.

He has a little pathetic cry that matches his sweetly sympathetic eyes perfectly. That cry makes me want to hold him forever and just kiss away every imperfection in life. It's a quiet cry, usually murmurred into my shoulder.

It's the open volcano of a cry that I still cannot always interpret. Sometimes it's a cry for hunger, sometimes for sleep, sometimes for belly aching. But sometimes, there's that loud pissed off wail of a cry that cannot be comforted away or translated in any productive way. It just needs to storm thunderously out of him and there's no amount of walking or back patting we can do to relax his rigid body as the cry tornadoes its way forth.

The only cry I hate is the random, quick shreik that jolts him from sleep sometimes. The first time we heard it, my husband said it sounded like night terrors. It's so sudden and high-pitched and terrible that I don't want it to belong to Atticus. There's just something prescient and unkind and knowing about it. It doesn't belong to a baby. I don't want it to belong to my baby.

I want him to have different cries that have meanings and declensions - cries that can be discussed for their past participability and contribution to the greater vocabulary of crying. I want to break down his cries like language and hear them for what they are. I want to know what they mean so I can have a conversation with him that shows I am listening and that I want to respond to him in an appropriate kind of way. I am learning little by little Atticus's language and as sweet as some of his little cries are, I cannot wait until the cries are replaced by words.

Atticus's Next Dance Crew

2009-08-17T04:14:00.006-05:00

My husband and I have a new guilty pleasure: Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew. It has nothing to do with Mario Lopez's abs, the ghetto fabulousness of Lil' Mama, or the questionable charisma of JC Chasez. We just like to watch the bizarre athleticism and weird quick twitch muscles of the male dance crews mainly. How they get their bodies to polarize and stop motion in such inhuman positions is a source of constant wonder for us.

Here we submit our son for the next show. We're not sure yet, but we're thinking of calling Atticus's crew "Polska Baby." We're looking for other talented Poles to join him, but only the best need send audition tapes. Age not a consideration.

(If you can't view this on Facebook, go to http://www.mollyjorose.blogspot.com/ for the original posting).

Why I Love 80s Movies

2009-08-14T09:52:00.005-05:00

I know my first official post as a mother should have more import than this, but this is what I'm thinking about this morning.

1. Fat and/or Unattractive Dudes Wearing Sweatshirts: Seriously, check out any movie from the 80s and you'll find a lead dude who could never make it into any other decade of film. What was it about the 80s that allowed us so much aesthetic generosity? Is John Belushi responsible for this? Or Bill Murray who was attractive for reasons that had nothing to do with his looks? No matter the motivation, all hail the 80s film and its acceptance of the fat dude in ugly clothes.

2. Ugly Clothes: No one cared what they were wearing. They really didn't. Sure, there's the occasional Valley Girl film with a whole lot of bracelets and taffeta and pink lipstick, but very few 80s films had fashion as a main character. Oh, well, I do have to give props to Pretty in Pink where fashion was central, but a majority of the films featured jeans, ugly tennis shoes, and those sweatshirts - usually dark green sweatshirts for some reason that I'm pretty sure were made by Hanes.

3. Delayed Adolescence: Nowhere is there a greater commitment to the childish man than in 80s films. How old was Bill Murray in all those films? There was no celebration of the teen as evidenced in just about every popular television show and film in modern "culture." Instead, men in their late 20s and early 30s reflected the apparent 80s fascination with tee-peeing and scavenger hunts.

4. The Scavenger Hunt, Summer Camp, and Fraternities Situation: The ubiquitous nature of the scavenger hunt, the summer camp scenario, and nerdy, social outcast fraternities in 80s films suggests a commitment to play that is lost in current cinema. Instead we have a bunch of shows and films where teenagers act like adults instead of the other way around. (See: Beverly Hills 90210 and Gossip Girl).

5. Molly Ringwald and the Charming Life of the Poor: We were concerned about nothing so much as which side of the tracks we lived on. It was our major crisis in the 80s as evidenced by every Molly Ringwald film. Whether she was the rich, snobby Clare in The Breakfast Club or the poor Andie in Pretty in Pink, Molly Ringwald represented the social strata of the 80s in a way that no documentarian has been able to capture since.

6. Nerds: See Goonies, Revenge of the Nerds, Animal House, Lucas, etc ...

7. Simplicity: Life was easier in the 80s. It must have been. Film was not interested just yet in unusual narrative development or untrustworthy narrators. We knew Jennifer Grey would learn how to dance. We knew no children would die on Elizabeth Shue's watch. We knew Duckie and Andy would be friends forever.

8. 80s Music: Oh, you synthesized heaven, you. Bring on those dancing horses. John Hughes, recently deceased king of 80s cinema and ruler of Molly Ringwald's career was the Wes Anderson of his day, pairing music with film in a way that can only be described as genius. I remember reading an article in Jane magazine (yes, Jane magazine!) where Molly Ringwald claimed some responsiblity for the music choices, which makes her even cooler which hardly seems possible.

9. Horribly Problematic Racial and Sexual Characterizations: I know this shouldn't fall under why I love 80s movies, but the lack of attention to political correctness is refreshing even as I recognize how awful it is. Think: C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man ("This is the Cosby decade. Everybody loves black people"), Data in Goonies ("Booby traps!"), Fisher Stevens playing an Indian in Short Circuit ("Who is knowing how to read the mind of a robot?"), Meshach Taylor in Mannequin ("Two things I love to do is fight and kiss boys"), etc ... Think on these things and let yourself laugh about it.

10. Fagabeefe and the Miracle that is Midnight Madness Which Embodies Pretty Much Everything in This List:

Thrashers and Goats and Accents, Oh My

2009-07-10T04:10:00.007-05:00

I went to the Fruit and Berry Patch yesterday in search of good things to eat. While the excursion warranted ample opportunity for severely lame punning as it was slim pickings and unfruitful, I did get to see some cool birds and a goat that scared me a little. What? Goats can do some damage.

I do believe this bird is a Brown Thrasher, contrary to the opinion of the woman who pointed it out. (She thought it was a pair of mockingbirds).

Her partner in berry picking called out to us at one point and said, "You sound like home. Where are you from?" And indeed, I could hear the familiar o's and flatness in her speech that is common to us northerners, but I wasn't exactly sure she was talking to me or my friend. I leaned around a blackberry bush to identify the direction of her question.

"Oh, me?" I asked. "Michigan."

"And you," she asked of the friend who was with me.

"I'm from Tajikistan," said Kat. Which is just an awesome answer, and the only true one.

Antony & the Johnsons covers Beyonce's "Crazy in Love"

2009-07-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

The sounds houses make

2009-07-01T06:45:00.005-05:00

The toilet is gurgling in the hall bathroom and from the vent in there comes a persistent scratching. I cannot identify the source of these noises and find them disturbing. What lives under the house in the spaces behind our deck? There is a small door accessible from the outside that leads into this underworld which my landlord tells us is an excellent place for storage. And yet, I am certain something else has dibs on the area and I prefer to cede it to them.

I don't know if it's because we live in a sparsely populated area or if our house is just one of those quirky houses with habits; It breathes, and groans, and speaks in languages I cannot interpret. It makes me feel like a foreigner here. At night, I wake to a rustling outside my bedroom window, what I believe is a not disagreeable animal sound which sounds like something small - maybe the size of a breadbox. It sounds against the siding of the house as though it brushes its matted fur directly against the house and over the milky quartz and other rocks tapered in by railroad ties in the frontyard. I am comforted by its presence because it is less foggy than the sounds the registers and vents make. I know it is some animal and I suspect it is a skunk whose fertile odor woke us all up in confusion some weeks ago.

It is an odd thing to be woken up by the sense of smell. Disorienting. It takes a few minutes to realize it is neither sound nor light that has jarred us from our sleep. Instead, on the night of the skunk, it was the rich, overpowering odor, the likes of which I had never smelled so impactfully as on this night, sitting up in bed certain that something had just struck me in a tangible way that odors do not often achieve.

But the sounds. Even if I can identify the general vicinity they come from, I cannot usually determine anything else. They remain hidden from me, the gurgling, scratching, tump-tump-tumping of a new house where I am clearly the intruder, adding to the mysterious, dense cacophony. Maybe there is a badger somewhere wondering what all this keyboarding tapping is about. Maybe he waits with his eyes open, sense alert, caught in between wonder, fear, permanence.

Addendum: Scratching from vent identified - a squirrel is gnawing at our deck. Interestingly enough, this is often done by female squirrels about to give birth. They can't eat much, but they do like to gnaw. This is the second pregnant animal (see post about the robin hatching her eggs) I've encountered during my pregnancy. I like these coincidences. I think my environment senses my own pregnancy and is harmonizing with it.

Top 5 Moments in Television History (According to Me)

2009-06-22T16:28:00.002-05:00

1. The Cosby Show - The Cosby family performs Ray Charles' "Night and Day" for the grandparents' anniversary:

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2. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - The Tomahawk Incident (this moment created the longest sustained laugh in televisin history and gave Carson the opportunity for the classic line "I didn't even know you were Jewish.")

3. The Carol Burnett Show - Gone With the Wind:

4. Late Night with Conan O'Brien - Triumph the Insult Dog at the opening of a Star Wars film:

Triumph at the Opening of Star Wars Ii - The funniest videos clips are here

5. Saturday Night Live - Gilda Radner's "Judy Miller Show":

Summer and Waiting

2009-06-19T11:35:00.002-05:00

I get that I'm lucky to so frequently have summers off and since everyone keeps reminding me how lucky I am in that "geez-you're-goddamn-lazy-and-worthless-and-not-at-all-contributing-to-society-the-way-I-am-with-my-40-hour-a-week-job" way, I try to make my days feel useful in some way. Alas, I am failing miserably.

I wake up early, which cannot be helped on account of the fact that I am just naturally an early riser. I wake up between 7:05 and 7:20am every morning for reasons I cannot explain. It also cannot be helped as I am nine months pregnant and sleeping for long stretches is simply out of the question.

So I'm up around 7am which leaves me with at 15 hours of a day to fill and I just can't do it. I get up, check e-mail, have some breakfast, maybe send out some bills, catch up on correspondence and if I'm lucky, this will take me to 9am. Then the dark veil of uselessness falls upon me. What can I do?

Work on my quilt?
Watch last night's late night shows my husband taped for me?
Cook something?
Reorder the already well-ordered nursery?
Clean a house that remains pretty immaculate as a rule?
Draw? Paint?
Start a rock band?
Go for a walk?
Attempt some very awkward lawn maintenance in 90+ degree weather?

I do all these things (except the rock band part) and then it's maybe 11am. My husband is likely still sleeping and then I get hostile with this stagnant life. I know there are zillions of people who would like all this time off. I get that. I respect it. I sympathize with their plight. But boredom and lack of utility is a plight as well and I'm sick of hearing things like, "boy, you must have a lot of time on your hands" in that tone. It's not all it's cracked up to be.

I'm slowly working my way through my husband's Souther Lit reading list for fall, but even that, because it is not required of me, feels purposeless.

Taking Up Serpents

2009-06-17T20:31:00.009-05:00

Snakes and human are not wonderful companions. Nobody would call a snake "man's best friend." Don't get me wrong. I'm no snake hater and I'm not even particularly herpetologically-phobic. I just think snakes belong where they belong and I belong somewhere else. So imagine my displeasure when the following sibilant creature showed up in my dining room this week:

Yes, displeasure. That's what I'm going to call it now that the event is a few days past. Who would not be displeased to find a three-foot snake in their home, a snake that was foreign to a girl from Michigan who can only identify the common garter snake or the occasional harmless corn snake? So, yes, I was displeased, and I calmly called to my husband to let him know there was a freaking enormous snake IN OUR HOUSE! And yes, would he please remove it. Thankfully, my father-in-law was visiting and between these two brave, brave men, the snake was removed and sent back away where it belongs, away from my house. I took a picture beforehand (as evidenced, of course, by the above photo), and calmly (read: in a panic, fingers trembling, breathing shallow, mindful of potential snakes slithering across my feet) got online to send the picture to any person who could assure me I did not just have one of Tennessee's four venemous snakes in my house. A very, very, very kind man - the director of the herpetology department at the university - responded quickly.

Black Rat Snake, he said. Not venemous, but liable to attack if cornered. Thankfully, while the snake threateningly showed its fangs, no attack occurred.

And here are other comments I received from those I sent the image to:

"Great photo, btw!"
"Nice photo"

Yes, who doesn't want to be complimented on their photographic skills when the fear of death by snake is upon them? But this is Appalachia and silly me for finding these responses inappropriate.

This is snake-handling country which is no sideshow but a religious tradition of proving ones faith in accordance with the following bible verse from Mark 16:17-18:

"And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

This is it - the justification for taking up snakes and drinking strychnine (which is a fabulous word, onomotopaedic with its hard k and somber n's).

And there are plenty of dangerous snakes to choose from here - four venemous snakes in all: the northern and southern copperhead, the timber rattlesnake, the western cottonmouth, and the western pygmy rattlesnake. Want to take up a serpent? Take your pick! Behold the wondrous variety available to you!

Michigan has one venemous snake, the Eastern Massasagua Rattlesnake, an increasingly rare breed only found in the lower peninsula of Michigan. 'Just the one and there are no holiness churches calling for its members to pick it up. No sir. We Michiganders leave that snake alone. It likes it that way. We like it that way.

But I'm stuck in Tennessee for a couple more years where snakes forget their rightful place, or maybe it's us humans who have. Either way, I move around my house differently now. I have no desire to prove my faith with any snake-handling encounters, but I will say, with all the prayers of protection I've got going up, that snake may have done its work in bringing me a little closer to God.

(Sidenote: "Salvation on Sand Mountain" by Denis Covington - a smart, personalized, journalistic foray into snake-handling. Read it. Damn. It's good.)

The Myth of Rain and Pregnancy

2009-06-09T18:19:00.003-05:00

There are some things so socially accepted as to be indisputable and yet, I dispute.

Here are two widely propagated myths that need dispelling:

Fact or Myth?

Myth: Pregnancy is nine months.

Fact: Pregnancy is actually ten months.

Fact or Myth?

Myth: Seattle gets more rain than any other city in the U.S.

Fact: Seattle receives a mere 37.1 inches of rain annually on average. Knoxville, Tennessee, on the other hand, receives 47.29 inches of rain annually on average. That's more than ten inches over Seattle.

Why are these fallacies continually reinforced? I'm thinking about looking into the origins of hot dogs. Maybe they're really quite good for us and made of vegetables.

Yet another day at Fellini Kroger

2009-06-03T04:00:00.002-05:00

Earlier blogging has illuminated the finer Knoxville shopping experience that is Fellini Kroger. A short recap: Fellini Kroger is the Kroger Grocery store on Broadway in North Knoxville, so called because its weirdness and its most frequent inhabitants. When Michael and I lived in North Knoxville, it was our main grocery store despite the fact that a student of mine decided to write about it as though it was an dizzying adventure through something akin to a crackhouse. Really, it's a nice place to be, very colorful, and it's really difficult to leave Fellini Kroger without having a casual conversation with someone that somehow has great significance. I've seen an old man repeatedly wet his pants there. I've learned from an old Knoxville lady how to buy the right celery just as though I had asked her.

And so it should come as no surprise to me that when I tried to return my recycling - oh, I should mention that - in Knoxville, the Kroger parking lots are where residents bring in all their recyclables - so just as I began to sort through my cardboard, mixed paper, aluminum cans, and assorted colored bottles, a police officer approached me. This immediately made me nervous as I had done an illegal u-turn about two miles back and I thought for a split second that he had followed me. I was prepared to play the "but-I'm-a-helpless-pregnant-lady" card.

Great alas, it was not my u-turn that caused his approach.

"Uh, Miss, do you think you could do that later," he asked.

"My recyling?" I was flummoxed. What an odd request.

"Yes, we sort of have a situation here," says strapping Tennessee police guy.

"Oh," I stammer. "Of course," I respond, shoving my burgeoning car full of a month's worth of smelly recycling back in my car, thinking how easily whoever this policeman is after could have taken my car and purse while I was running away from the bees in the smelly glass bottles portion of the recycling.

And so I left, responding dutifully to the policeman's request as quickly as possible. I returned hours later to find a girl I will just call a hippie for lack of a better, more encompassing word, halfway bent over one of the large green bins searching for something amid the smell of hot trash.

"Did you lose something," I ask.

"Uh, no." She is slightly, but not entirely, embarrassed. She sizes me up and asks, "Have you ever heard of Found magazine?"

I'm from Michigan, I tell her, so yes, I've heard of Found magazine, which collects and prints odd items found in miscellaneous places by people all over and which is run out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"I'm looking for stuff for Found," she says by way of explanation, dipping once again into the filth that I am never entirely able of disinfecting my hands from.

And that's that. Fellini Kroger, ladies and gentlemen. A tour of Knoxville's finest.

Are you my mother?

2009-04-27T09:56:00.003-05:00

They hatched! Here are the wee ones referred to in my previous post straight out of P.D. Eastman's "Are You My Mother?" If you haven't read that book recently, you should. If you want, I can have one of my nieces call you and read it. She's really good at the Snort part.

The Bird and the Bee

2009-04-26T05:41:00.002-05:00

A frequent go round on my cd player of late has been a band called "The Bird and the Bee," which seems particularly ironic as a particularly bird and bee have been the bane of my existence for the past several weeks.

My current home has a lovely deck where I have a lovely patio set that I very much like to sit at in the mornings or in the evenings - never during the day when the white hot Tennessee sun threatens immediate cancer of all cells. Unfortunately, my deck has some angry squatters on it who are absolutely bent on taking over my deck. The first is a robin, that lovely bird I am wont to speak highly of in all other instances as it is my home state bird and I have never had any reason to speak negatively of it before this time. When she nipped the top off of one of my basil plants to make a nest, I was annoyed. But she was a building a nest on my porch! How wonderful! She would roost over her brood as I was brooding over mine! What wonderful serendipity, I thought! I moved the basil plants to the front where she could no longer pluck from them and watched her from afar as she continued to build her home from dry grass and twigs around the yard.

But serendipity, alas, is a temporary, unstable state at best. Any time I have since walked out the door to my deck, whether it be to get to the yard below or to take my rightful place at my patio set, the robin alights angrily, fussing back and forth between roof and telephone wire, bickering and hollering at me in what can only be called a southern squawking. I try to reassure her, tell her to look at me, won't you? I have a baby of my own to protect and there is no way I am going to upset your's. Some days it works. She remains on the telephone wire, eyeing me watchfully, but seemingly comforted by my lack of movement toward her nest. Most days it doesn't work and as her babies come closer to cracking through their shells, she is more wild in her protectiveness, dive bombing me the minute I open the door. No amount of soothing assurances or angry words of defense back to her can calm her down.

And she has an accomplice, a big fat old bumblebee, a male - though I don't have any assurance he is male other than instinct - has also started dive bombing me more ferociously than the robin before him. The minute the door leading out to the deck creaks, he strikes and is relentless. I asked Michael to go out and kill him for me and he complied, swatting and swatting, but he never got anywhere. I've watched from below the deck to see if the bee has his own brood to protect, but there are no signs of his home or any mates anywhere near the door he guards like a Guantanamo cell.

I fear the bee the most. I watch him through the glass window and he appears to float in mid-air, watching me with those compound eyes, seeing hundreds of me yet unafraid to defend his territory. I hate him. I run from him. I drop things and scramble away from his fat buzzing and crazy, unpredicatable dashes and darts.

There is only one solution: I have to give up the deck. There is no beating them and soon, we will be moving anyway. The next tenant will have to take up the fight. I hope the robin will be left alone, but that bee, I am comfortable with any fatal fate that may fall upon him.

Starling and Planting and Naming

2009-04-20T12:37:00.001-05:00

Birds are like flowers, magically named and reminders to look up from what it is that I'm grading or watching on television and remember that mercifully, life is not all humanity and computer-driven. It is spring in Tennessee and I am on a mission to make my Sibley Guide to Birds my constant companion, along with a book about trees and shrubbery in Knoxville that I haven't looked for yet in the library. Identifying birds I am unfamiliar with is challenging. I can narrow things down somewhat, but the Sibley Guide, for all its richness, needs a section for bird-ignorant people like me that says things like "Can often be found in your yard, pulling worms from the ground until their guts are full of the slithery stuff." Then I would know, hey that gasoline-feathered bird is a starling! It is clear as I write this that a starling poem is nesting in my head. I will go sit on that soon.

There are plenty of robins in Knoxville, which makes me feel more at home as the state bird of Michigan is the robin. Also of Michigan is the state motto, circumspice, meaning "look about you." And since I miss my beautiful state that is calling for me from my Tennessee television with travel ads filled with water and fishtowns and deep sunsets, I'll do the next best thing: I'll look about Tennessee and try to make this place more familiar by learning that starlings are nuisances here and are warned off by cannons in the summer and the Bradford Pear tree, the first flowering tree of spring with its acrid, lovely aroma and appearance of snow falling everywhere, is a fast friend with that starling, made for each other, attracted by the very nature of their nature. Soon Tennessee will not seem so foreign. I hardly recognize the accents anymore.

And do the tomatoes here grow slower and speak liltingly like all other southern things? Soon I will know as I will be planting tomatoes, green beans (with their delicate white flowers), basil, mint, and whatever else looks nice and like something I would like to eat. Since Michael and I are committing to Tennessee and to one house for the next three years, I can finally plant something and watch it come out of the ground anxiously, impatiently, fearful for its strength and liveliness.

Not unlike I am waiting for this baby, anxiously, impatiently, fearful. It is that time in the pregnancy where bargains are struck with God. Let my baby be healthy and smart and I will go to Mass every Sunday. Let my baby love the outdoors and be friendly to strangers and I will teach him the importance of the rosary and daily prayer.

We must name him, a task far too big even for us whose vocabularies and student rosters are full of minglings of letters and vowel sounds and alliterations. We cannot name him wrong. We will never have a dog and we might not have another child so this one has to count. His naming cannot be the first pancake. My husband and I are stubborn, he far more than me. For us to agree on something that is perfect and whole and right will be quite a task.

The naming has to be like a bird's or a flower's, just right, individual, not silly, not too strange, not susceptible to shorthands we do not like. It has to be a series of letters flying through the sky that speak to who and what our baby is. Maybe we should wait until he's five to name him. Maybe then we'll know him better after I've learned his birds and his flowers and when his seasons come - when his accent to me is as familiar as Michigan.

Here's a dorky tour of our new crib

2009-04-05T17:52:00.003-05:00

Yes, that's totally me narrating.

On Unsettledness

2009-04-04T22:04:00.002-05:00

I hate being unsettled. I often quote the Nelly McKay line, "God, I'm so German, 'have to have a plan," and man, is that ever me. So imagine my fitfulnes as a six-month pregnant lady who was not sure what house, let alone what state, she was going to live in in a few months.

Well, now we have something settled. Michael and I made the monumental decision to a) stay in Tennessee until he's done with his PhD, and b) move to a different house within Knoxville. We found a house on our first day of looking, which is a little unsettling. There should be more of a struggle. There should be endless phonecalls to landlords and frantic e-mails back and forth and mapquesting all over town going on, but no. Instead, we made three viewing appointments today and were certain that the very first one we looked at was the one for us.

As a funny sort of sidenote for the day, the second house we looked at was HILARIOUS! Seriously, Michael and I will be laughing about this place for years to come. This hairy-backed, delusional landlord is looking to rent this house for $850/month. It was the most rundown shackety-shack I have ever seen and it had ZERO appliances in it. Imagine: wood paneled walls, disgustingly dirty carpet, holes in walls, doorless closets, and nary a single kitchen appliance in the dump. And this dude wants to rent it for $850 big ones! Normally, I'm very forthcoming with landlords about disliking a place if it does not suit me, however, I had this horribly creepy feeling walking into the place as the landlord shut the door behind us. If Michael were not with me, I would have felt like I had just entered a bad Lifetime movie wherein I was about to be sexually assaulted. So with that feeling sending a chill through me, I kept my mouth closed other than to say to said hairy-backed landlord that we had other places to look at before making a decision.

That was a long sidenote. Apologies. Anyway, all these changes make me feel uncomfortably unsettled, which is a terrible state to be in as it tangles up loneliness, self-doubt, fear, and melancholy inside of it. So I've got all of those emotions raging through my hormonally-charged pregnant body.

We are signing a new lease tomorrow and hoping, praying, counting on our landlord being able to rent our current home before our lease is up. All this up in the air-edness is not doing anything awesome for my German self. Sometimes even having a plan is not enough.

My New Blog about the Joy of Pregnancy

2009-03-29T11:02:00.002-05:00

Hey, I started a new blog. Check it out: http://manihatebeingpregnant.blogspot.com/

Because There Are Apparently Only Little Boys in the World

2009-03-28T19:10:00.003-05:00

It doesn't help that I'm pregnant, but still, I'm officially pissed off. Occasionally, I do Google searches to see where I am in my pregnancy, what I can expect, how the baby is developing, etc ...

And here's an interesting, unforgivable, egregious, not to mention INFURIATING position every damn website I have gone to has taken. Every time the baby is mentioned, the pronoun used is "he" or "him" or some other masculine attributive tag. Seriously, I'm pissed. Who the hell do they think their readership is at www.similac.com or www.motheringmagazine.com? How many men do they think are out there looking for cures for the heartburn and indigestion that accompanies the six month of pregnancy?

It's all a conspiracy. This whole damn pregnancy thing is a conspiracy. I hate it and I hate the writers of all those damn websites who are abusing gender-specific pronouns at the expense of the actual gender who is doing all the damn work.

Screw you, Similac and all your female-hating cohorts. You and all your "he" and "his" and "him" can go suck it.

Addendum: After reading my sister-in-law's note about the changing of gender pronouns used on a day-by-day basis, I looked again at Similac's site today to see if the world was full of little girls for the day. Alas, this is not the case. The world still belongs to "he" and "him" and "his." I nearly sent a scathing e-mail to Similac and similar sites, but then I thought why bother? My energies are probably better spent elsewhere. Like, you know, eating the leftover pizza in the fridge and trying not to barf. Ah, pregnancy. Such, such were the joys.

Running Hot and Cold

2009-03-12T08:29:00.003-05:00

In Michigan, you can count on a couple of things: in September, apple season will begin and there will be lots of pie and cider and hayrides through orchards to make one feel like the season is new and different from the one before it that was all lakes and bathing suits and the smell of sunblock. Another thing you can count on is that come October, early November, there will be snow and it will stay through March and really, often through April. It will stay cold, rarely reaching beyond the height of the 50s over this period of time. (Okay, sure, there's an occasional 60 degree day, but this wildly rare and confusing.)

Which brings me to Tennessee where hot and cold days switch faster than my shower faucets are capable of. Tuesday, March 10, it was upwards of 80 degrees here. I liked it. I wore shorts and sandals and opened up the few windows I do not have weather-stripped. It felt good to be alive again and I started to think about all the lovely things our lives would become once this baby gets here. Warm weather, walks, picnics, evenings around the fire pit.

And then today happens, which at this point should not be a terrible surprise to me. We woke to 40 degree weather, which is how it will remain for the weekend before it moves back up to the 70s next week. There's a lot of this here: little pockets of cold days, or little pockets of hot days, depending on which season is the frame of reference point. When I first starting teacher here and "winter" came along, I could not understand why my students stubbornly wore their sandals all through December and January. Now I have come to believe that this weather makes them optimists who trust the warm to return any day now, because it does even though it leaves again quickly.

In Michigan, despite a steadfast cycle of cold winter, hot summer, cold winter, hot summer, it's hard to trust that return. We know Spring will come again, but at some point, the cold and snow become unreasonable and mean, even uncharitable. I know it is that time of the year for my Northern friends. They are cursing the snow and the gray, cursing the climate that forces them into a crankiness they would like to throw off into a bright summer sky. It will come. The hot and cold may be farther apart than it is in the spotty Tennessee climate, but it will come.

Photo Essay for a 65 Degree Day

2009-03-05T16:30:00.003-05:00

Birds on a wire at the end of my street. Can you see their pretty, red-painted throats?
This is what we call a Tennessee yard dog. Sure, she looks sweet, but she's protective as hell. I have jumped many a time when passing by her.
This is no joke. A Tennessee yard dog is not something you want to mess with. Believe you me.
The street where I live.
Seriously, I can't get enough of these doves.

These pretty yellow flowers are in my backyard. I daresay they are crocuses, though I am not certain of this. Isn't it weird how sometimes we think we know the names of things, though we are not sure why?

This is the infrequently blooming bloom from the pond lilies my Aunt Sharon bought for me many, many years ago. I just keep cutting them over and over again and they grow like crazy. I love them.

Ain't this an ugly bush? My landlord encourages me to kill it by any means necessary. Any suggestions?

I would like to know the name of this tree. My students cannot tell me which I think makes them very poor Tennesseeans.

Because I've been thinking about Frank Stanford again ...

2009-02-17T06:49:00.001-05:00

The Singing Knives

The dogs woke me up
I looked out the window

Jimmy ran down the road
With the knife in his mouth
He was naked
And the moon
Was a dead man floating down the river

He jumped on the gypsy’s pony
He rode through camp
I could see the dust

There was the saddlebag full of knives
He was crazy

When Jimmy cut a throat
The eyes rolled back in the head
Like they was baptized
I tell you
When he cut a throat
It was like Abednego’s guitar
And the blood
Flew out like a quail

He had the red hand
He poked the eyes out

I dreamed I stepped over a log
And there was fire in my foot
I dreamed I saw a turkey and two wildcats
Jumped on me at the same time
I dreamed jimmy was pouring ice water
Over my head at noon
I dreamed I heard somebody
Singing in the outhouse
I dreamed the mad dog bit the Gypsy
And they tied him to a tree
I dreamed I was buried in the Indian mound
And moon lake rose up
I dreamed my father was wading the river of death
With his heart in his hand
I dreamed Jimmy rowed out the front door
With a hawk on his shoulder
And I was in the bow kneeling down
I dreamed the blacksnake rode the guitar
Down the river
I dreamed the clouds went by
The moon like dead fish
I dreamed I was dragging
A cotton sack with a dead man in it
I dreamed the fish bandits stole the hogs
Off my lines
And one of them was hunchback
I dreamed the night was a horse
With its eyes shut
I dreamed I had to fight
the good man with the bad arm
And he had the dynamite
I dreamed I trailed a buck from Panther Brake to Panther Burn
I dreamed the Chickasaw slit his throat in the papaw
I dreamed that rising sun was smoking blood
You could pick up and throw
I dreamed the Chinaman’s peg leg
I dreamed I was fishing in heaven with Sho Nuff
and Jesus cleaned the fish
I dreamed a man flies wouldn’t bite
I dreamed I was riding through Leland in a dragline bucket
And the cotton making everyday
I dreamed we got the bootlegger’s truck out of the mud
I dreamed the levee broke

I dreamed the Gypsy was laughing under the water
And the minnows were swimming though his eyes
I dreamed I reached down in Moon Lake
And untied his arms and one hand
Floated up the way it did
When he threw those knives
I dreamed the pony that fights in the water
And the boat that towed the dead man
I dreamed I felt the knife singing in Abednego’s back
I dreamed I pulled the ring out of his ear
And Jimmy put it on his finger
And swam through the water
I dreamed he was looking for Abednego’s boot
And when he came up
He had the jackknife between his teeth
I dreamed he was so beautiful
He had to die someday
I dreamed a knife like a song you can’t whistle

“Let’s go, I got to throw tonight” he says

He had the bandanna around his neck
And the pilot’s cap on
He played the harp in the moonlight

I led the horse out back
I tied him to a Chinaberry tree

“What you want” I says
But I knew he wanted me
Standing at the back of that outhouse
“Shut up” he says “don’t move”
The dirt dobbers flew around my head

He threw Boo Kay Jack at me
He threw Django at me

The mosquitoes drew blood
I looked on the ground
I saw the shadows coming like gars
swimming under me at night
I saw the red moon too
I wished I was running a trot line
I wished I was in a fight
I wished I was fanning myself in church
But there was a heart on the fan
With a switchblade through it

And the knives came by

The bone handled one
The hawk handled one
The one with a blade like a skiff
Out of his boot
Behind his back
Mexican style
The way Abednego showed him
Singing in the outhouse
Like a horse breaking wind

He took the knife and ran it
Across his arm
The he ran it across mine

Blood came out like hot soda

He tied our arms together
With the blue bandanna
And we laid down in the cotton

I wished I was riding a mule somewhere
Blowing a jug
With a string full of crappie
And the cotton making everyday

Post Antony and the Johnsons Show

2009-02-08T06:10:00.002-05:00

I cannot say enough words, or at least, I cannot find the right ones to contain last night's Antony and the Johnsons show at the Bijou Theatre here in Knoxville. Friends from Kalamazoo will understand this reference when I say the venue was very similar to the Little Theatre, only it was smaller. It was by far the most intimate and artistic performance I have ever seen and I left feeling like my soul had been carved just a little deeper - also, happy that there was room in the world for someone with such a cavernous soul and matching cavernous vulnerability as Antony Hegarty.

Have you ever come back from a performance, whether it be a reading, a concert, or a play, and just felt like it righted everything again? Yeah. It was like that.

Here's a couple clips from other concerts:

Us v. Knoxville

2009-02-05T08:45:00.003-05:00

It's good to try to make a go of things. It really is. I think it's safe to say I'm a "give it the ol' college try" kind of girl, fairly positive, with not a small amount of workitivity in me. But this Tennessee thing - well, we can just not take a shining to this place. My husband and I were driving home from yet another so-so Knoxville restaurant last night and we played our usual roles: me as the positive one suggesting it's not so bad here and my husband playing cynical man. (In his defense, he's very positive and forward-thinking when he needs to be, but he has been broken down, abused, trampled on). His rant last night could not be argued against, unfortunately. It's true - there's nothing here we would look back on and say, "Oh, don't you wish we could go there again? To that bookstore? To that shop? To that festival? To that restaurant?" Not a thing.

What confounds us is how such a big college town could be so lacking in anything resembling individuality or spark? Where are the great independent cd stores? Where are the awesome used bookstores? Where's that one bar that faithfully serves us cheap pitchers of beer every Thursday night? Where's that coffeehouse that can be depended on to play the right background music while we grade student papers?

But hope - that light through yonder window breaking - a friend of mine just got a job at the school where I wanted to get a job and something about his news made me a) overwhelmingly joyful for him, and b) hopeful we too could return to Grand Rapids, that place I love so much despite its dark, long winters.

So with fingers crossed, we plow through another Knoxville week, going without the meat and cursing the bread, hoping we get out of here before a bullet goes through our head. Hope. Hope ...

Teaching Dilemmas

2009-02-02T16:36:00.002-05:00

The greatest affront a teacher can face is a student's bold assertion that they do not care to be any smarter (or more accurately, any less stupid) than they currently are. They don't care. Nothing I can say is ever going to stimulate or interest them in any way. It's to those students I have the most hostility. Here is something I found online which addresses this accurately, and to it, I say AMEN (from Vicky Newman's "Misreading the kiss: Teaching Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman"):

Students will not indict the exigencies of capitalism. For the pervading view is the cool consumer perspective, where passion and strong admiration are forbidden.... Is it a surprise, then, that this generation of students steeped in consumer culture before going off to school, treated as potent customers by the university well before their date of arrival, then pandered to from day one until the morning of the final kiss-off from Kermit or one of his kin-are inclined to see the books they read as a string of entertainments to be placidly enjoyed or languidly cast down? Given the way universities are now administered (which is more and more to say, given the way they are currently marketed), is it a shock that the kids don't come to school hot to learn, unable to bear their own ignorance? (Edmundson 47)

Call for Kiss of the Spider Woman Critical Essays

2009-02-02T16:27:00.001-05:00

Hi smart friends,

Can anyone lead me to particularly good critical evaluations of Manuel Puig's, "Kiss of the Spider Woman"? I'm finding a lot of junk online and am wondering if anyone can lead me to higher sources of discussion.

Thanks.

Weird Shows From My Past

2009-01-28T11:03:00.002-05:00

I just want to put this out there. I think the following three shows are just about the weirdest television shows one could ever watch, not just for their unlikely storylines, but also for the bizarre, meager production value that I apparently was completely oblivious to as a young viewer. For your nostalgic viewing pleasure:

1. Small Wonder (1985)

You might remember this bizarre show from 1985 with a central character named Vicki, a young girl who just happened to be a robot. This was the era of ALF, after all, but ALF premiered a year after Small Wonder, so one could really consider this "alien entity invading a typical suburban white household" storyline as the progenitor to ALF, though certainly ALF exceeded Small Wonder in popularity. Still, I remember you, Vicki, with your odd doll-like clothes and monotone voice. I found you far more charming than ALF and would rather hang out with dad Ted Lawson than dad Willie Tanner any old day.

2. SuperFriends (1978)

If you want to quickly identity how many people in any given room were doing the same thing you were doing on Saturday morning in the late seventies/early eighties, shout out, "Wonder Twin powers activate - form of an ice bucket!" If anyone gets that reference, they too watched what was really a very crappy show that, when viewed as an adult, will make you seriously question your aesthetic prowess for all time. The original SuperFriends began in 1973 and did not include the Wonder Twins, which, as far as I'm concerned, really defeats the whole point of the show.

3. The Dukes of Hazzard (1979)

Okay, this show might really top this list of bizarre shows. That's right - it's more surreal than a little girl robot dressed up to look like a Raggedy Ann Doll. What made this show so bizarre? The production value, for starters, is seriously questionable. I don't remember it being as bad as it really is (and thanks to the Country Music Television, modern viewers can relive the reign of the Good Ol' Boys). Reviewing the show ought to really make one consider how such a show like this could have such a profound cultural impact in our country. What does that say about America? About our values? About the characters we most admire? All I know for sure is I've jumped through my share of passenger-side car windows in an attempt to be as cool as Bo and Luke, and if you wanted to play Dukes of Hazzard with me as a little girl, I always called Daisy. (And yes, we played that a lot in my childhood neighborhood).

No, seriously, we really are this dorky

2009-01-23T13:07:00.001-05:00

These pictures were taken only a couple of days before things starting going downhill, but now that things are all better (I am Zofran pump free!), I figure I can put up these pictures showing our initial reactions to baby-ness.

Yes, yes, we washed our hands afterwards. Don't be a sissy.

Yes We Can

2009-01-20T11:01:00.001-05:00

What to do with a book

2009-01-18T19:37:00.001-05:00

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Visiting Normal

2009-01-15T15:56:00.003-05:00

For me, normality is bliss. I'd like to take credit for having worked fastidiously to build the life that I get to live, but in no way do I think I get credit for it. I showed up. I turned things in on time. I can take that much credit alone. The rest is pure luck and don't I know it.

The past two months, a break in my usually golden-touched life only served to prove how golden my life is. Now that my pregnancy has become a pretty normal thing, I get my normal life back. For me, this means teaching and hanging out with my big lug of a husband, who's totally bad ass. Watching "Scrubs" the other night, he tackled me on the couch and just hung there like a giant, loving ape. I liked it.

But normalcy for me really lies in standing at the front of the classroom again. When I'm up there, even with my Zofran pump slung over my shoulder, I feel normal. My life is mine again. I'm teaching a new class that involves a lot of research and legwork on my part, but it's studying American history and current American politics - two things I find overwhelmingly interesting.

So, yeah, it's nice to have my sort of ridiculously charmed life back. I'm 3 and a half months pregnant so I'm trying to enjoy this version of normal as long as I can. Yes, my life will still be golden after the baby arrives, but I might not have as much time to dwell on it. Worse, it might come out in spurts of incoherent babble, because believe this: being pregnant makes you kind of stupid. My memory is being sucked away and from what my doctor tells me, that's only going to get worse once I start breastfeeding.

Awesome. But at least that new normal is slow in coming. Maybe not slow enough for my taste, but I've got some months to deal.

Not Exactly New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-09T11:00:00.003-05:00

Here's a list of my goals for 2009. I'm not going to call them New Year's Resolutions because I sort of think those are dumb, though I couldn't rightly give you a strong distinguishing characteristic between that and what follows:

1. Finish the Pilgrimage manuscript and agent it.
2. Find a way to move back to Michigan.
3. Be a more loving and thoughtful wife.
4. Learn all I can about the great American documents.
5. Read Mrs. Dalloway and get Beth to discuss it with me in detail.
6. Go to Church every Sunday.
7. Volunteer at the hospital.
8. Get to a point where I don't hate being pregnant.
9. Buy a new TV.
10. Get to a point where I can eat real adult food and have friends over more frequently for dinner.
11. Set up my own website for both professional and personal updates.
12. Convince as many people as possible that Blackboard is clumsy and unusable.
13. Plant something (if we're staying in Tennessee).
14. Buy my husband a really, really good birthday present that even he would be impressed by.
15. Learn to pronounce more French words while Michael is studying for his French examination.
16. Get comfortable calling my in-laws some variation of the words mom and dad.

2008: The Final Countdown

2009-01-04T14:20:00.004-05:00

I'm a fan of lists. It's sort of a problem of mine. But as I always say, better to be addicted to lists than Dilaudid. I don't really always say that. That's a sort of new expression I'm trying out.

Top 10 of 2008 (not ranked):

1. Spending loads of time with my mom planning a wedding

2. Taking dance lessons with my awesome dad in preparation for the father/daughter dance

3. Tiptoeing to the garage with my mom, hands full of glasses and champagne to celebrate Michael asking my dad for my hand in marriage, only to be shushed away by Michael because he didn't have the nerve to ask yet - then stumbling over each other in giggles to back away without my dad seeing us

4. The chocolate ice cream I ate the other day because it was the best thing I'd tasted in well over a month - really, one of the only things I'd tasted in well over a month

5. Running through the lovely, flat, cosmopolitan area of East Grand Rapids all summer long, listening to my music, feeling the pavement, nodding at pedestrians, loving the ability of my body to continue moving through it all

6. My bachelorette tubing party with my favorite people, the day lazy, lovely, liquid-filled

7. Celebrating my friends completion of their MFA, which includes all of the following: watching Beth get a giant lightbulb from Bill Olsen, hearing Michael read with his family present, getting to meet Cindy's mom for the first time, listening to Natalie's insanely lovely poetry and uber-feminine Texas voice, celebrating the wonder that is Benny, watching Turcotte get choked up before his reading, then hanging out boozing it up with Michael's sisters at the Roadhouse

8. Wearing the most stupidly gorgeous wedding dress in the universe and seeing Michael at the end of that long aisle

9. Long, leisurely days spent sewing

10. Teaching two of the smartest groups of students I've ever had the pleasure of working with - a particular highlight was a student identifying Morrissey's music as "happily melancholic"

The Bottom 10 of 2008 (not ranked):

1. The diaspora of the best group of friends a girl could ask for, with a particular hit being taken by both Nicole and Cindy's early exit from Michigan - You ladies suck for that

2. The black cloud that is severe sickness which shall thus forth go unnamed

3. Finding bridesmaids' dresses that weren't hideous, easily the most difficult part of the wedding

4. That really bad haircut I got in Knoxville that culminated in an unprecedented fit of hysteria and made me want to leave not only Knoxville but my new husband as well

5. Ruining the experience of shopping for a wedding dress for my mom by having a not-so-unprecedented (apparently) fit of weeping and desperation in a bridal shop, then calling Beth and freaking out about how I was ruining everything for my poor mother

6. Blood sugar testing pin pricks every six hours that left the tips of my finger purple and blue

7. Missing out on Christmas and New Year's

8. Helping my packing-skills deficient husband move

9. Having to give a ridiculously hardworking student a C because her English was just not strong enough yet

10. Struggling to teach one of the top three most challenging students of my seven-year teaching career this past spring

Things you think you will never live through, in no particular order

2009-01-03T18:00:00.005-05:00

1. Planning a wedding
2. Your first heartbreak at fifteen, realizing for the first time that you'll not marry that one
3. A policeman tapping on a dark, steamed-up car window
4. Your mother's cancer diagnosis, treatment, panicked eyes
5. Confronting your own mortality for the first time when your mother is diagnosed, treated, and panicked
6. People dying young, proving it could be over like the snap of a supple finger
7. A positive pregnancy test
8. Hyper-emesis Gravidarum *
9. Food poisoning from rotten garlic at one of your favorite restaurants **
10. A bad group of girlfriends who put you in a box that is uncomfortable, limiting, quietly cruel
11. Being booed at a basketball game, not realizing the camera was on you and you were supposed to kiss your husband on the Jumbo-tron
12. Hyper-emesis Gravidarum *
13. An egotistical (insert grawlix here) of a teacher who tells you to take a couple years off to spend time with basic grammar books before considering writing again ***
14. A broken engagement to be married after the church has already been booked
15. Lost sisters
16. Reading Madame Bovary
17. Yet another needle coming at you

* I beg you, do not write anything helpful or in a warning tone about Hyper-emesis Gravidarum. I beg you. I plead with you. A little knowledge is far too much right now.

** Let's call it karma. My then-boyfriend found a $50 bill on the ground and took us out for a fancy dinner. Proof positive there is no such thing as a free lunch. Or dinner.

*** Let's assume this teacher does not even know the word grawlix because he's a moronic, beefy asshole who really should retire all those karate outfits he wears to class.

Quiet Like Wax

2008-12-22T10:06:00.006-05:00

My husband is a little grossed out by them
And who can blame him
White gobs of wax on my bed table
the shape of my ear canal
Where no sound swims through

White gobs like melting snow
It is always Michigan in them
The world muted in tunnels of snow
Canals of ice packing

My ears were hollowed out by summer dives
to the bottom of the summer pool
But Michigan winter is what gave them
depth, what gave them
echoes like distant silence

Once, in Michigan
I lived below heavy walkers
and their heavy boots
I hated them, their hours
Cursed them like a Charlton Heston character
fist clenched to God
When a friend stayed beneath them
I asked did it bother him, all that noise

No, he said, but I am partly deaf
Lucky, I said

For me, there is never enough snow

Memory as Snow

2008-12-20T09:15:00.003-05:00

When I was little, tunnels brought us to each other
compacted, dark, windowless
muffled under mountains of snow that would never
fold into us or
topple onto us
secure, muffled, tight
away
in pink wool mittens
in pink puffy snow pants
in pink cheeks and fingers
tunneling and tunneling
toward the warmth

2008-11-18T10:19:00.001-05:00

A Primer
by Bob Hicok

I remember Michigan fondly as the place I go

to be in Michigan. The right hand of America

waving from maps or the left

pressing into clay a mold to take home

from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan

forty-three years. The state bird

is a chained factory gate. The state flower

is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical

though it is merely cold and deep as truth.

A Midwesterner can use the word “truth,”

can sincerely use the word “sincere.”

In truth the Midwest is not mid or west.

When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio.

There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life

goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam,

which we’re not getting along with

on account of the Towers as I pass.

Then Ohio goes corn corn corn

billboard, goodbye, Islam. You never forget

how to be from Michigan when you’re from Michigan.

It’s like riding a bike of ice and fly fishing.

The Upper Peninsula is a spare state

in case Michigan goes flat. I live now

in Virginia, which has no backup plan

but is named the same as my mother,

I live in my mother again, which is creepy

but so is what the skin under my chin is doing,

suddenly there’s a pouch like marsupials

are needed. The state joy is spring.

“Osiris, we beseech thee, rise and give us baseball”

is how we might sound were we Egyptian in April,

when February hasn’t ended. February

is thirteen months long in Michigan.

We are a people who by February

want to kill the sky for being so gray

and angry at us. “What did we do?”

is the state motto. There’s a day in May

when we’re all tumblers, gymnastics

is everywhere, and daffodils are asked

by young men to be their wives. When a man elopes

with a daffodil, you know where he’s from.

In this way I have given you a primer.

Let us all be from somewhere.

Let us tell each other everything we can.

The New Buzz

2008-11-15T11:09:00.004-05:00

The new buzz in the circle of buzzing I inhabit is babies, which, for an academic, is a strange thing. The general impression I have had for the past many years regarding babies is cute, not for me, you know, but how cute! And now suddenly, I have friends with babies, and friends who want babies, and friends who surprise themselves with angry, jealous responses when they hear of other people getting pregnant, the end result of which, is babies.

Why academics have few children is open for interpretation, discussion, and malignment. For me, I frequently think of a quote from Michelle Pfeiffer in the movie White Oleander: "I was used to having time to think," says the Pfeiffer character, an artist of some talent.

That's a big part of it, the needing of time to think. That's certainly a trademark of the academic life. We need time to think, to create, to write, to invent. It's how our brains are wired, it's what we're interested in, it's what we think we were made for, and unfortunately, it's not something that lends itself to scheduling all that well. Sure, it's all very well and good to say, "I will write ten pages a day." And maybe some people set out those ambitious goals and accomplish them, but to loosely quote Anne Lamott, we hate those people and would like to shoot them.

This is all just to say, we need a lot of free time. We are a group of people who can justify calling reading for four hours work. It is genuinely necessary for the advancement of our careers and our writing lives. (No writing life = no career = no money to take care of imaginary future babies).

Consider now throwing a baby into the mix, a baby who requires all sort of scheduled events - feedings, burpings, diapering, school district planning - and it becomes clear why academics find it a tough row to hoe. All that scheduled time leaves little time for our livelihood, that thing that pays for babies in the first place.

Not that having a baby is any harder for us than anyone else. That's where we just have to get over ourselves. I realize that. The reality is that our jobs lend themselves to babying more than a lot of other jobs as we a) as a group, tend to have more forward-thinking, equal partners in our husbands, and b) have a fairly flexible schedule of actual "need-to-be-there time." Most of our work is done at home, scheduled at our own leisure and discipline and inspiration. But still, when a writer/artist/academic is in the position of having to abandon the infrequent day of mad writing inspiration to soothe a crying, needful infant, it is difficult to make the right choice after years of pursuing that creative moment.

Certainly babies are the most creative moment, extended over many years. But how to make that transition and balance? How to give enough to both lives and inhabit them both successfully and lovingly?

Babies. It's all the buzz. Everyone wants one. Even us academics. After a set of non-toxic dry-erase markers, it's this season's latest accessory.

Gerald R. Ford, Barack Obama, and Philip Fulmer

2008-11-09T13:45:00.002-05:00

Two things which continue to confound me about Knoxville:

1) Why is there a Gerald R. Ford Street? I have raised this question in previous blog entries, and yet the question remains. A student tells me that Ford once scored a hole in one at a golf tournament in Memphis, but other than that, the student suggests the only reason Ford was given a street name was because of his Republican status.

Which segues nicely into an unexpected concern that developed as I was walking toward my 8am class on Wednesday morning. It was the day after an historic election in America. We have elected an African American to the presidency. A black man in America has risen to the highest position on Planet Earth. It's astounding. I still can't believe it. I'm still struck by the shifting weight of it all - which might explain my sudden annoyance with some of my young relatives who refuse to be great - but that's another story altogether.

Back to that walk toward my classroom: It struck me that bursting into the classroom with tremendous enthusiasm over the newly elected president would be alienating to many of my students, who are, after all, Tennesseeans, who did, after all, vote for someone else, and who were, after all, probably having a pretty bad day.

And so I had to figure out how to bring it up in such a way that recognized the momentous occasion, honored it, and yet did not disenfranchise many members of my class. They are a smart group of people. I respect them and I wanted to show them that. Additionally, I think McCain was a terrific candidate. What an amazing election this was to have had two such capable, intelligent potential leaders. It was this sort of discussion I encouraged. I hope I handled it gracefully. It's a cautious time for everyone, or at least, it should be. It's time for unification. I want to be a part of that.

2) The second confounding element of Knoxville - football. Always football. Phil Fulmer, former head coach of Tennessee, was fired last week for a continuing failing record. There is a central artery running through campus called Philip Fulmer Way, and artery here is a good metaphor. Like many southern schools, football at Tennessee is a lifeforce, the blood that pumps through this whole place. It was interesting to see one man of integrity stand up while another man (of considerably less integrity if the rumors are true) was forced to step down. What an upset for UT students on so many levels. So many changes all at once, which is why I love my job. I get to be a small part of watching them work through that, and hopefully, give them the opportunity to articulate their ideas, concerns, conflicts in writing.

Old Sewing Books

2008-10-28T12:01:00.002-05:00

In my nearly endless wandering around Hodges Library at UT (the library's big and it hides its books in deep, difficult to navigate corners), I found a wall of books on textiles, design, and sewing. Nearly all of the books, with the exception of some highlighting current celeb designers, feature copyrights dating back to the 1910s.

The audience for these books is women, unequivocally, unquestionably, unalterably - and not just women, but the only kind of women allowed to exist in American society in 1910. Leafing through the yellowed pages of diagrams and sizing charts, I read little snippets of unasked for advice written throughout the books. Here's an excerpt taken from a chapter of Mary Picken's The Secrets of Distinctive Dress called "The First Requisite"(copyright, 1918):

"Once, at a Y.W.C.A. bathing pool, I was shocked to see a vest so unclean that it looked exactly like the color of the cement floor. When the girl who wore it was dressed for the street, she was half presentable; but, though I met her many times afterwards, the vest was the first thing I thought of, and I could never summon the respect I should like to have had for her."

And another:

"Elderly mothers have come to realize that they look ten years younger and are ten times more comfortable on a warm summer's day in a pretty, soft white dress, and it is pleasing to see a group of such mothers dressed in pretty, light wash dresses, as they appear many times as attractive as a group of young women."

Another:

"In a dietetics class held in the forenoon in a classroom, a young woman of good family wore a bedraggled afternoon dress, doubtless with the thought of wearing it out and getting as much good out of it as possible. The dress was distracting to the other members of the class, and the criticism she subjected herself to was costly - more costly than a simple businesslike dress befitting the occasion."

And one last one:

"In America, there are no such class distinctions. Here daughters from every country are blended in the making of American women; but even in this great Democracy appropriateness of dress should be understood and observed."

It's subtle, isn't it? If I had to deal with all these soft, guiding rules every day of my life and bear the criticism for detracting from these "guides," I would feel clubbed to death before a week was out. Certainly my modern goggles cannot view this without the rising hackles of feminity; that should be expected. But reading this as any person of any age, one should, I think, be provoked in the same way.

Every line reads to me like this: Be a good girl. Be a good girl. Be a good girl. Be a good girl. Be a good girl. I don't deny the value of lovely clothing and its power to create a mood, an authority, and to give the wearer a higher overall look. But it's the motivations here that are killing me.

There's more to this - an essay in it, I should think. I'll let you know when I write that one. (Note: here I sit in my $4 Target pants, my husband's old sweatshirt, and slippers. Mary Pickens is turning over in her grave.)

Scenes from a Pig Roast

2008-10-26T07:56:00.008-05:00

All hail the pig roast. And thanks to the lovely Gilmore family of Pigeon Forge for letting us join in their annual pig roast event. Michael and I thoroughly enjoyed it and are thinking in terms of what annual event we should begin a tradition of. And of course it made us think of the crawfish boil last summer that Nat and Zach had. I hope that's an annual tradition as well.

It was good to see friends and be outside, wrapped up in pillows of campfire. The roast was held at a barn a little ways down from where Birkin's parents live. Getting to their house involved a precariously narrow stretch of dirt road winding up a slight ascent of mountain. No street signs, of course, because that would make life too easy, but we made it there unscathed.

We pulled into a field of cars where pumpkin carving was well underway. Not long after our arrival, the pig was pulled from the ground, then plopped on a long table where an army of men hacked away at it, making quick work of deskinning and removing fat. I was struck by all the layers - a fact made all the more prominent as Katie, the med student, was naming the different muscular stratification as it was pulled away.

Guests pulled up a hay bale and ate macaroni-n-cheese, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, endless salad of infinite varieties, and piles and piles of pink pig flesh. I'm rarely in such a friendly group of people. Every person within a foot of me wanted to know who I was, what I did for a living, and how I liked Tennessee. It was the introduction to Tennessee I've been waiting for.

There was an outhouse of the variety one usually only sees in movies from the 70s or something. Yes, I took that picture from the inside. Don't judge me.

After eating and chatting, the band began. They set up in the open barn and people danced all around the fire. It was a lovely, delightful bacchanal. I can't wait 'til next year.

The Obama O'Lantern was a highlight for me. The artistry! The political statement! The likeness!

Dress Two

2008-10-19T11:15:00.004-05:00

Here is my second dress, same pattern. It took me two and a half hours as compared to the several days the first dress took. Ay Caramba. That's the difference between struggling through a near indecipherable set of directions and having finally cracked the code. Seriously, who writes those things? I think they have monkeys writing them. No, seriously. I think they do. Monkeys in tutus that they sewed with their own monkey hands.

Project Become a Good Sewer

2008-10-18T13:37:00.005-05:00

The word sewer is funny. I meant that title to mean "one who sews" and not a "receptable for waste." Now that we have that clarification out of the way, here's where I'm going with that.

I started a sewing class at the adult home ec center here in Knoxville. It's pretty cool. It reminds of Craft Night with my girlfriends in Kalamazoo, minus the free-flowing wine and Benny falling asleep. My first project is a dress that took me forever. Here I am in it:

I worked really hard on it. I like it. I am proud.

thegreatschlep.com

2008-10-05T09:21:00.003-05:00

... in which Sarah Silverman requests that you visit your Nana in Florida to make sure she votes for Barack Obama.

... in which Sarah Silverman refers to Barack as circum-super-cised!

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

The Firepit

2008-09-30T07:09:00.002-05:00

My husband and I recently bought one of these:

We've only sat around it one evening so far, but it was heaven. It's almost like camping, which I LOVE, but not enough like camping to put off my husband who hates the idea of laying on the ground, being dirty, and being sucked dry by mosquitoes. So we have settled on a camping-like experience with our fire pit.

It is the greatest invention ever. We set it up in the middle of our backyard, threw a fake log in it, started that baby on fire, and then commenced with the marshmallow roasting. My husband refrained from eating marshmallows because he's unamerican and instead just drank a tall glass of whiskey and Dr. Pepper, his favorite drink. Me? I'll take roasted marshmallows over a drink any old day, the more burned and cancerous, the better. My one great carcinogenic excess.

It was a nice Knoxville evening, more brisk than usual. If I closed my eyes and ignored the abundant Dogwoods around me, I could pretend I was back in Michigan camping with some friends up in Manistee National Forest.

But there are some benefits to being here in Knoxville and to sitting around that fire with my husband and my husband alone. We talked a lot. If you know my husband, you know talking is secondary to observation and silence for him. But he talked and that was nice. A fire is good for coaxing words out of someone. It helps that long silences are perfectly acceptable in front of a fire - no pressure on anyone to fill the smoky air with anything but the rumpling of a plastic bag to pull more marshmallows out.

Yes, firepits, marshmallows, and talking husbands are all very good things. The money spent on that thing was well worth it. Friends, come over soon and sit around it with us. After several drinks, Michael may just get down right wordy.

Recycling Recremental Language

2008-09-23T08:15:00.004-05:00

I don't write anymore. I'm just putting that out there to start with. I have come to certain conclusions about what I want in life and being an acclaimed author is not sincerely on my list. I still want to be on the David Letterman show, but I don't know how I'm going to get there yet.

This is all tangenital. What I really want to get out there is that I just love words. Big ones, long ones, fat ones, skinny ones. I love words. Unfortunately, it would seem they are potentially in danger of extinction. Therefore, I am calling on you, dear reader of this blog - this mountain of letters and skyline of words - to choose one or two obscure words to bring back into the fold of our national, creative, bendy, ambitious lexicon.

For inspiration, read this book review of Ammon Shae's, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. My favorite word from the article? Hypergelast: a person who cannot stop laughing.

Or read this from the Times Online, which is also a call to reclaim obscurity from the depths of obscurity. My favorite word from this article? Skirr: the beating of wings.

You can do it, one recremental (having the characteristic of waste matter, disposable) word at a time.

Dressing Midwesterners in Apples

2008-09-16T07:34:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was unseasonably cool here in Knoxville much to the great, great delight of my husband and I, both of us hailing from Cleveland and Grand Rapids respectively. My husband emerged from the bedroom wearing jeans (the darker ones I bought him) and a long white t-shirt underneath the perfect deep blue polo short (also purchased by me). He looked so good that we had to agree he is deeply midwestern and looks best in fall clothes.

As much as I will miss summer, I'm ready to start covering my legs and arms as well. Soon that time will come when I get to wear both jeans and sandals at the same time, and at night, I could potentially even throw a sweatshirt on. Ah, the best season is approaching. My jeans await.

Unfortunately, it will line up with apple season, the dominant, most defining season of Michigan, I would argue. I will be missing that season here in Knoxville. Certainly there will be naysayers who argue the long, arduous, deeply gray winter is Michigan's most defining season, but that's a really a half-full or half-empty discussion.

Apple harvesting defines Michigan for me because it includes all those great phrases particular to my fine state that asks only: Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice.

The phrases "before the snap," "honeycrisp harvest," and "apple hay ride" speak of the coming cold and the amazingly good smells of an agricultural state - the crisp cleanness of the air that you won't find in Knoxville. I miss it so much already. Someboy, anybody, send me a bushel of apples and all that fall weather that comes with them.

Ian and David and the Slippery Genius

2008-09-14T07:26:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking about these men lately. Mostly, I've been thinking a lot about Ian Curtis and that brutal hand in hand of the heavy, exposed heart and that devastating pressure to end it all. And then comes news of David Foster Wallace, whose prose I alternated between finding joyfully refreshing and in great need of editing. Refreshing is key here, far exceeding the rambling qualities that I am rude enough to bring up here.

Refreshing is the only thing we really need from artists ... a breadth of something new. A strike against the humdrum of what qualified for imaginative discovery previously. We need that moment when we are standing in front of something new and thinking, "Why the hell hasn't this done before? Where did they pull this from?"

Ian Curtis and David Foster Wallace had this in spades. And now they're gone. A slippery genius vetted out once again. Certainly by their own hands and yet the why lays heavily above the whole mess of it. That slippery genius is dead again. Long live the slippery genius.

Best Bachelorette Party Girls Ever

2008-09-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

Viewing Stars and the Viewing of Other Things

2008-09-03T10:26:00.005-05:00

Apparently, UT offers a viewing of the stars and the planets on the first Friday of every month, which I think is a terrific delight. I adore telescopes. What wonderful things they are what with all those worlds they contain and yet don't contain at all. Really, anything that offers a clearer view of anything is on my adored list, which follows here:

List of Adored Things that Offer a Clearer View of Other Things

Microscopes
Binoculars
Kaleidoscopes (a clearer viewer of colors, maybe?)
Movie Reviews
Dictionaries
Encyclopedias
Well-Written Instructions Manuals with Correspondingly Useful Diagrams
Talented Teachers
Visors Worn at Baseball Games
Prescription Sunglasses
Approachable Critical Essays
Oliver Sacks
Three-Way Mirrors
Goggles
Zoom or Macro Functions on Computers and Cameras
Anti-Fogging Spray for Coated Eyeglasses (see DOC Eyeglass Cleaner)
3-D Glasses
Prisms
The Pain Scale
The Beaufort Wind Scale
Constellation Charts
Maps
Hindsight
Experience
Lists

Fellini Knoxville

2008-08-28T07:52:00.005-05:00

Sadly, and I know I've mentioned this, but Michael and I have seen little of Knoxville so far beyond our house and the Fellini Kroger down the hill from us. And yes, the townspeople call it Fellini Kroger. Someone online claims that the Fellini Kroger was built on the grounds of an insane asylum that performed experiments on mentally ill people. I don't know if that's true, but I'm very pleased to be living in a town that is capable of creating such a mythology.

I found this image online with the caption "You know it's Tax Day in Knoxville when these guys are sitting outside the Fellini Kroger":

On Monday, we will witness more of the goodness of Knoxville when Boomsday happens, which is like this super big deal of a fireworks event. They set them off from the Gay Street Bridge. As I am a big fan of fireworks, I am very much looking forward to this. Again, to assist you in viewing the experience, a photo I found online:

And here are a few photos of our place where we spend most of our time. The first here is a picture of our deck which is wet because it's been raining for three days straight. It is apparently the first rain in 25 days, proving the old adage, when it rains, blah blah blah:

Lastly, a picture of our bookshelves, which we just purchased (the two on the sides that are not leaning slightly to the left), and which we fought over while we put them together. Ah, marriage. The highlight here is the awesome typewriters our friends Bethlynn and Calvin bought us for our wedding. They are beautiful, one for each. Extraordinary present, no? We are still blushing from the love of it:

We are off soon to continue our search for the grocery store that will most suit our needs. Oh, Meijer, how I miss you.

Knoxville

2008-08-23T21:46:00.002-05:00

I like it so far. Michael and I spend a tremendous amount of time at home, and so I have little to report of the greater Knoxville area. But since I have only been here for a week and a half, I think this is okay.

More to come soon with pictures and funny turns of phrases and all the stops pulled out.

A Change in Status

2008-07-27T08:21:00.002-05:00

There are things we mark our lives by: birthdays, anniversaries, semesters, raises, a job well done. Of all these things, there is one arena many choose to proclaim these changes in status in to whomever may be a friend, acquaintance or colleague. I am speaking of course of the Internet life, on either Myspace or Facebook or both. I am in the position of drastically altering my status on both of these accounts in the near future and the thought of it is disconcerting for me. No longer will I be "single" or even the easier to swallow "engaged." Soon I will be swallowed by the word "married," which is a great thing for all the obvious reasons and a scary thing for the also obvious reasons.

I'm going to refer to a movie here and disclaim its cinematic value from the get-go. The movie is "'Til There Was You" with Jeanne Tripplehorn and Sarah Jessica Parker. It's not a bad movie at all, to be honest and doesn't really require disclaiming but if I told you the portion I wanted to reference was from the role Jennifer Aniston played, I'm guessing you would stop listening right then and there. So be it. Jennifer Aniston is not as valueless as many people think as an actress. But that's not the point.

The point is this: the story the movie tells is of a women (Gwen) who is a la-la land romantic, which is all well and good, but does not leave room for the reality of romance which is really a lot of work. Her married best friend (Aniston's character) seems to have it all and Gwen does not hesitate in telling Aniston this frequently in that glowing, oh-look-at-the-fairytale-of-your-life kind of way. Finally Aniston has had it. She tells Gwen something like, "You think my life is over now that I'm married - 'that my life is all planned out now and everything's going to be fine. Well, it's not. My life's not over. It's still hard."

I wish I could find the direct quote. I really do, but I've done it at least a little justice anyway. The point of this long and meandering post is this. It does feel that way. It feels like my life and a bunch of searching is supposed to be over now, like I'm this far more benign, unneedy creature now that I'll be married.

I don't want to feel benign or needless. I wish from the outside in marriage didn't look like that. I wish married people didn't seem less vital or necessary. How strange is my life that this view is common. Perhaps I am being unkind and presumptuous, but I don't think I am. I know my life with my husband will be vital - I've chosen well. But I think it will be more difficult to express that in a public circle and maybe I shouldn't try. Maybe that's really the point after all.

On quilting and harmonica learning

2008-07-10T14:39:00.003-05:00

I made a bold promise to not waste this summer or let it get swallowed whole with wedding planning. I said I would a) learn to play the harmonica and b) make a quilt before my wedding. The harmonica education is coming along slowly, rather like learning an instrument does for anybody, but I am determined. You can ask anyone who knows me - I can play a mean "When the Saints Going Marching In."

The quilting has been more successful. Behold, me with my first quilt. I suspect many quilts of increasing complexity will follow, but there will never be a first quilt fraught with error and excitement and make-it-workivity.

Quilt, I will love you forever.

Fun Facts about Knoxville

2008-06-29T07:01:00.002-05:00

1. Knoxville was named after Henry Knox, President Washington's War Secretary.

2. The corporate headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is located in Knoxville. TVA was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to provide "Electricity for All."

3. In 1901, Kid Curry, a member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, shot a couple of deputies and escaped out the back window of a business on Central Avenue in what is now the Old City. He was captured, brought to the Knoxville Jail, but escaped and was last seen riding the sheriff’s stolen horse across the Gay Street Bridge.

4. Knoxville is 20 miles south of Oak Ridge National Laboratory which was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb.

5. In 1974 Walter Cronkite designated Knoxville as the "Streaking Capital of the World." It was in the spring of that year that an estimated 5,000 people on Cumberland Avenue took their clothes off... stripping on the "strip".

6. Still on the law books: It is illegal to lasso fish in Knoxville, TN.

7. The Sunsphere, built for the 1982 World’s Fair, is 266 feet tall and has 26 stories. The actual ball itself houses only five levels.

8. Knoxville Zoo is the Red Panda Capital of the World, having the greatest success in breeding and survival of baby Red Pandas.

9. Nikki Giovanni, the Princess of Black Poetry, was born in Knoxville in 1943.

10. Pulitzer Prize winning writer James Agee was born in Knoxville in 1909.

11. Current NFL star Peyton Manning played for UT in Knoxville.

12. Knoxville had the last successful World's Fair held in America.

13. Quentin Tarantino, the famous actor and director was born in Knoxville. Creator of "Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction."

14. Lastly, there is a street here named Gerald R. Ford Drive, for reasons I have yet to discover.