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Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

FEEEEEEEAAAST!!!

If you've seen this Snickers ad campaign, you know what I'm talking about.

Today, D got our photos from Thanksgiving onto a server, so I was able to download all of them in minimal time. Hooray for online storage space! The shots he took during our morning of cooking were intermittent as we had our hands quite full, but here are some highlights from our culinary adventures.

We brined and roasted our turkey according to this recipe, which we tested last year with nice results. This year's bird worked out well too -- the breast meat was juicy, and the legs and thighs were tender to the point of pulling away from the body at the joints. If prepping a turkey were less messy, I'd cook one way more often. Note the operative word if -- when I was butterflying the bird for roasting, I managed to cover the front of the dishwasher with raw meat juices (we don't have a lot of space in our kitchen, so when food messes reach the edge of the counter, as they often do, they plunge off to wreak havoc on whatever surfaces are below). I was also not tall enough to apply sufficient force to the breast bone in order to crack the turkey open, so I had to get up on a chair to put all my weight into it. Oddly reminiscent of CPR training! I think it took about five or six compressions to do the job -- and then a lot of paper towels and soap to get rid of the fluids that squirted everywhere. Yum, yum. Good thing D had us eat breakfast before going at all the cooking -- he got up early to make bran muffins and cornbread, which powered us through.

Once everything was cleaned up, we were in good shape for the rest of the food prep. I have to say that even with four cooks in our tiny kitchen, we did an incredible job of not running into one another. My best friend from college and his longtime girlfriend came up from Portland to spend Wednesday night and most of Thursday with us for the holiday, and they brought an entire cooler of ingredients for the dishes they planned to make. So wonderful to have people I love living nearby again! (They moved to Oregon a little over a year ago and are the same friends we visited in May.) The occasions for seeing such friends have been otherwise infrequent since our own move west -- most of our group from school stayed in New York and Massachusetts.

We made Brie en croûte with dried cherries, honey, pecans, and rosemary as an appetizer, served with croccantini from a local grocery, then for side dishes to accompany the turkey, we prepared cranberry relish; pan gravy; oven-roasted new potatoes with pearled onions, rosemary, and paprika; and green beans sautéed with fresh garlic. Matt and Gaby made sausage stuffing, oven-roasted apples and root vegetables (sweet potatoes, parsnips, and beets), and an Elizabethan pot pie that contained Jerusalem artichokes, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, and dates with a drizzling of heavy cream. Quite an amazing spread once we were done! Add to that the whole-wheat loaf that D baked the night before, as well as several bottles of wine, and it was a true feast. I think we were all a bit stunned that everything turned out so well. "Did we do that?" Matt said once the table was set.


We were quite full by the time we finished our main course(s), so we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Then we had a round of cards to liven us up, and D and I baked our mini molten chocolate cakes. Half of them -- the ones that were made with powdered Splenda -- turned out beautifully. The other two did not want to solidify on the outside and remained more like bread pudding. I'm guessing it's because we didn't have confectioner's sugar (we substituted the granular stuff, which didn't grind well with our mortar and pestle). In any case, the cakes still tasted fine, and they went really nicely with the loganberry dessert wine our friends brought -- Vinotaboo, which is made in Oregon. A pomegranate was a good palate cleanser that finished off the day.

After a few more rounds of cards, we decided to take Matt and Gaby to D's office, where we played foosball (another favorite activity we haven't had since college). And then we had to say our goodbyes since I had my flight at the crack of dawn and they had a three-hour drive back home so they could be at work the next day. I was sad to see them go so soon -- but there's always January. I think another reunion is very much in order.

So that, in large part, was Thanksgiving '08 chez nous! Now go eat something. I know I'm hungry again after thinking about all that food.

Friday, November 28, 2008

There and back again

So I expected that I would have MORE time to blog while in Seattle for Thanksgiving break, but it was exactly the opposite. Some of that was the product of catch-up time with D, of course, but while he was at work, there was just that much stuff to do -- Christmas shopping, prepping for dinner guests, taking advantage of the free laundry, and working on the holiday newsletter to go out with the cards to friends and family. That last item is sort of becoming a tradition. I had hoped to get it finished before leaving so I could print off the copies from our color printer, but I couldn't manage it. Oh well. I'll write the rest of it tonight, and D will print it. Hopefully his version of Word won't scramble the document like it did last year after I sent it to him! Coordinating a repair job over e-mail took some creativity, to say the least.

I wish I could have stayed in Seattle through Sunday morning, but in order to get there using mileage awards, I had to come back today. D and I will see each other in three weeks, which will also mark the beginning of winter break for me (can't wait!). This little week off was wonderful -- a taste of what we'll have over December and January. We had a dinner date on Friday after I landed, and then we had a very lazy Saturday -- lots of lounging and talking and just being in the same home with the prospect of another five days together instead of only one. D made his special waffles for breakfast and we tested a molten chocolate cake recipe (part of the menu for Thanksgiving). On Sunday, we went marketing for Christmas gift ideas and I got reacquainted with the irises. Ralph has what seems to be a bud! Silly plant -- it's not time for that yet!

Things really started picking up on Monday. While D was at work, I met up with our realtor again to look at more houses. The market has definitely changed a bit with the economy. I'm glad we didn't jump into making an offer on anything this summer as there are larger places for better prices now. We looked at seven homes, two of which felt like they had good potential (with room for us to grow so we wouldn't have to move out again for several years). Appreciation rates have slowed, so being able to stay put for longer is important to us.

Tuesday, we did the last of the pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping and D made a delicious white bean and ground turkey chili for dinner while I was whittling away at grading and the newsletter. It sounds almost mundane, doesn't it? Trying to write about why all of this was so good is difficult -- how do you explain how extraordinary ordinariness is when you never have it?

Our guests arrived Wednesday, and their visit deserves its own post, so I'll stop here for the moment. But yes, it was lovely just to be back where I could see the mountains, even if it's dark at 3:30 now because we're so far north. My plane followed the sunset on the way out to Seattle, which was a little treat. Here's a shot of the last of it and the north star somewhere over Montana.

Monday, November 17, 2008

On loss, mostly

Today was all over the place.

Today actually started in the middle of the night -- I woke up with the sensation that something bad was about to occur. You know that feeling where your heart starts pounding because there's some imminent threat you can't identify? Pulled me out of a dead sleep. So I lay under the blankets, holding my breath, listening. Then the earth started to roll, as it did during the earthquake last April, and like last time, I froze, even though I should have gotten up to stand in a doorway. It was the strangest sensation, feeling the mattress bucking underneath me and hearing things fall elsewhere in the apartment. Then the rolling stopped, and for the rest of the time before my alarm went off, I was semiconscious, body tensed, waiting for aftershocks.

When I woke up to the radio, though, there was no mention of any tremors (unlike last April, when they were the first item on the news). That's right, I was dreaming the whole time -- a dream of being awake in the here and now when I was actually unconscious in some parallel universe. Disturbing if not plain eerie. So that was an unsettling start to the day.

Things got better once I was up -- I breakfasted, read the news online, worked out, showered, did some reading and figured out what spring classes to register for. Talked to D briefly. I've missed him more than usual in the last week (I think the three-week stretches between visits have been getting tougher since the fall semester hasn't had any big breaks before Thanksgiving). We've been planning what to do while I'm in Seattle. Maybe some house hunting just to explore the market now that the economy has changed so much. Definitely a meeting with an attorney to set up our wills. We should have done this right when we got married, but I was applying to school, and he was looking for a job, and then we were moving me and then moving him and then commuting for two semesters and then cramming five weddings into our summer and now here we are. I know, no excuses. The plan is to start the paperwork over this vacation (we have an appointment in place) and finish it during winter break. Not that we have huge amounts of property to divvy up, but we would like to make sure it goes to the people we want it to go to instead of having the state make those decisions.

It's always a little weird talking about wills and such. The idea that one of us won't always be around is a strange and familiar thing at the same time. We've been apart for so much of our relationship that we're used to functioning without the other person there. But the idea of losing that person for good is still, of course, terrible -- and feared even more, on some levels, because the life we've wanted to begin together hasn't quite begun yet either. Hence the extra urgency to get the wills in place. We've talked about where and how we want to be buried, we know each other's favorite flower. I know it sounds morbid, but it's really not. We've just had enough time apart to know that time together is never long enough, so having all this out in the open kind of gets it settled and out of the way. Which means we can get on with enjoying our lives with each other.

After talking with D, I packed up to head to class. My students had their papers due today, so I knew attendance would be fairly high (part of the reason why I scheduled my teaching observation for today). I wasn't nervous about that, but I was a little worried when only half of the class had shown up by the time we were supposed to start. Almost everyone else got there within five minutes, though, so things looked like they were going to be fine. Then one of my girls arrived but only stuck her head in the doorway as we were getting discussion moving. She beckoned with her hand, asking me to go out into the hall with her.

I knew, before I left my seat, what she was going to tell me. This was the student whose family member was in a car accident not quite three weeks ago. I knew his condition was poor (he was thrown through his windshield when a driver rear-ended him on the highway, the student told me), and I was guessing that, since he hadn't woken up within the first week of the accident, his prognosis wasn't good. But it was still a shock, like getting all the air forcefully evacuated from my lungs, when she told me he was dead. He was her twin.

She handed me her paper at this point. I must have looked bewildered -- I couldn't believe she had come all the way to class just to turn it in (my policy is that written work has to be handed to me in person unless there are extenuating circumstances). I told her I was sorry and that we could talk privately in office hours tomorrow, if she was up to it, to determine what kind of arrangements she would need for the rest of the semester. I asked her if it was okay to give her a hug, and she said yes.

And then I had to go back into my classroom and pretend that everything was fine.

I know I never knew her brother, but the complete and utterly meaningless destruction of his life is the same sort of thing I've feared most for the people in my own life, especially now that they're scattered across the country. I can't say that I know what her loss feels like, but I've imagined it a thousand times over, every time I've left D at the airport, even though I've tried not to let my mind go there. So I wanted to feel sadness for her -- to honor her loss within my physical body, to recognize its weight in the pit of my stomach. But I had to stifle myself, cut the feeling off after my initial reactions (those can't be controlled). Doing that -- even if only temporarily, for the sake of my student's privacy and for the sake of conducting a productive class for fifteen other people -- felt wrong in some way. To be able to shut down instantaneously. Not to allow some molecule of grief to hover in my consciousness. It was almost inhuman. But it was either-or.

So now I'm putting all of that here, just to feel it at last. Enough from the universe, please. Enough for now.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Speak, Mnemosyne?

Apparently this is what Nabokov had originally intended to name his memoir but "was told that 'little old ladies would not want to ask for a book whose title they could not pronounce' " (per the foreword in said work). I suppose from a marketing perspective that it was a valid criticism, but beyond that, I think Speak, Memory just falls more rhythmically on the ear and makes the idea of a writer exploring recollections of his childhood more accessible to the common reader. There's something about invoking a Greek muse that just feels more highflown. Of course, there's a place for that too, but when talking about the self? Let's not take ourselves too seriously ...

Nabokov is, as you may have guessed, the author of the week in my seminar. So far, so good, but his prose requires concentration. The end of a sentence often reaches places far from its beginnings, and any kind of distraction that draws your attention from its progress leaves you wondering a few words later, "Wait, how did we get here?"

I guess that's the underlying question in writing memoir too. "Neither in environment nor in heredity," writes Nabokov, "can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap." That pretty much describes what the last few weeks of writing have proved to me! The quest, perhaps, is to find the path the watermark traces -- the revisiting of all the pressures that have left their prints upon us, nudging us forward into the present. But how to organize all that into a coherent narrative?

I have to wonder what this man, who was an avid collector of butterflies, thought of the butterfly effect.

I'm playing around with structure as I'm writing but it's still unclear what's working best. The response to the essay on Thursday from workshop was encouraging enough that I sent the work to my thesis advisor -- we'll see what suggestions she has. Hopefully over Thanksgiving, I'll have time just to sit and think. That's partially what today is for too, but several days like this without interruption will be helpful. If holiday shopping and cooking don't take over, that is ...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

You just never know

Unpredictable -- I think that describes the general tenor of life at the moment.

D sent me an interesting e-mail this morning about some recent tech news. Midway Games, a company he interviewed with during his last job search, made some notable staff cuts this week. We had initially hoped, before the move to Seattle, that D would get a position at Midway since it's driving distance from Little U. on the Prairie. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that he was turned down. Who knows whether the job he applied for was one of those that got hit. Apparently, the company's stock shares are also taking a beating.

I had my workshop today, which was very helpful. Very tough, though, because of what was on the table. The essay I submitted was the first in which I think I really, really put myself out there naked -- not writing in the voice or character of the person I wanted my audience to see me as, but as the person I am underneath all the carefully wrought word-armor. I realized, in some earlier attempts to pull together this piece, that my problems writing it stemmed largely from trying not to reveal parts of myself that I'd rather keep under wraps. This is not to say that what I ultimately turned in was an exercise in self-flagellation, but I did let all the embarrassing, uncomfortable awkwardness of childhood appear. And that was hard.

What really caught me off guard, though, was the sadness I felt as the workshop got at the heart of what was in the essay -- the entanglement in certain family issues (I won't get more specific than this here) that still cause powerful grief. The sadness isn't even explicit in the essay, but people began plumbing the family dynamics driving the action in the work, and then as the explanations came out, all the awfulness of the aftermath from the experience I wrote about bubbled up like acid. I was tearing up liberally by the time we finished (also much cause for embarrassment), and I couldn't do a thing about it. I think the people who noticed probably figured it was because the subject matter was painful, not because I was upset by what people were saying about the piece -- it was all very constructive -- but ouch. I think I've had enough surprises for one day. I feel bad because I was too choked up to thank everyone at the end. Maybe an e-mail? But that seems so impersonal. Perhaps a quick thanks at the beginning of next Thursday's class. That'll be better.

So now I'm wiped out (more so than usual). But at least this weekend, I have no grading, which means I can do some more writing. I haven't had that luxury in what feels like months.

A happy note to end on: our irises are still doing well out in Seattle -- D sent me update photos. The plants will winter on our apartment balcony and should bloom just in time for my arrival at the end of the spring semester. We thought up names for them a few days ago (they're pets, so why not, right?). D has chosen Ralph and Tessa for his two, which will be deep red and tawny gold, respectively. For mine, I picked Carmen (indigo) and Lolita (pale pink). Yes, yes, think what you will! But if you could have seen what their predecessors looked like at the farm we visited, you'd understand how the names just fit.

Anyway, we're hoping all the plants will keep thriving as they have been -- I think one of D's bulbs may need its own pot already.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Procrastiblogging

What, you've never heard of that before? Surely, you jest!

I'm supposed to be grading some student exercises that I should have finished this past weekend, but I was too fried to face them -- and they're short ones too. Ah, grading burnout. Fortunately, the teaching is still good. In fact, I get energy from doing it (and there's not much of that to go around these days). This week has been terrific so far, which made up a bit for the funk I was in on Sunday, missing D mainly.

I have to say that my students are a fun bunch as they're willing to entertain some of the sillier activities I have them do to warm up for class discussion. Yesterday, I introduced them to "Monday Mingling," which is an adaptation of something another teacher showed me while I was teaching junior high. We had read a short story over the weekend with some guiding questions, so to get people out of their seats and energized, I copied the questions onto individual index cards and had each person choose one. Then all the students had to "mingle," asking their questions of different people as they walked around the room. "Pretend you're at a party," I said, which got me some amused looks, but I know everyone had a good time with it. Some people even got into the act, asking their questions like pick-up lines at a bar! I also distinctly heard one student say, "I'll meet you by the fruit punch" as she was chatting up a classmate. Whatever it takes ...

After we'd mingled for about five minutes, we sat down again and shared out the answers each student had collected. Pretty effective for getting people talking.

We're going to start looking at poetry tomorrow, which will be a real change of pace. I think I'm going to have my students close their eyes and do some guided meditation just to slow their brains down before we start examining some verses -- poetry really does have its own time scale. For a little icebreaker, we'll be looking at Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, which turns conventional beauty on its ear (hopefully, students will figure that out after they try to draw what's being described). I bought crayons for the occasion -- a box of 48, although the set of 64 was tempting. That should be plenty, in addition to the markers I already have, for them to use to create some entertaining illustrations. And there's nothing like a brand-new box of crayons to inspire creativity. (If you remember this video from Sesame Street, you know what I'm talking about.)

Arrrrrrrrgh, grading calls. I'd better get to it before I start procrasticleaning or something worse. It's been known to happen.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Got a minute?

I know, I know, I'm always talking about how I don't have time to write. But I came across this site on the Blogs of Note list and thought it was a neat idea. Read the prompt; write for 60 seconds. A great place to find writing "exercises," as they call them around here, when you've got writer's block.

Lots of good reading for my classes of late. Most recently, I finished Patricia Hampl's The Florist's Daughter. I can't say I loved the whole thing, but the frame that introduces and ends the work is lovely, poignant, and also disturbing: a daughter keeping vigil by her dying mother's bedside, holding her hand in one of hers while writing her mother's obituary on a legal pad with the other. The memoir is about a place and time that are no longer available to the writer in the present, but her attempts to look back and plumb what's contained in her memory of them are commendable. It's so hard to disentangle yourself so you can write about those things sometimes -- I think that's the problem I ran into in the last week and a half while working on my own essay. There's the problem of attachment that makes objectivity so impossible. As Hampl writes:

Nostalgia, someone will say. A sneer accompanies the word, meaning that to be fascinated by what is gone and lost is to be easily seduced by sentiment. A shameful undertaking. But nostalgia shares the shame of the other good sins, the way lust is shameful or drink or gluttony or sloth. It doesn't belong to the dessicated sins of the soul -- pride, envy. To the sweet sins of the body, add nostalgia. The sin of memory.

Nostalgia is really a kind of loyalty -- also a sin when misapplied, as it so often is. But it's the engine, not the enemy, of history. It feeds on detail, the protein of accuracy. Or maybe nostalgia is a form of longing. It aches for history. In its cloudy wistfulness, nostalgia fuels the spark of significance. My place. My people.

My essay gets workshopped on Thursday, so we'll see what people think. I sent a few drafts to D before I turned it in, and he was helpful in pointing out how to fix some things. It's nice to have a reader with fresh eyes -- not just eyes that haven't read this particular piece but eyes that haven't been looking at tons of other essays all semester and are getting a bit glazed over! (I don't blame them.)

I unwound from all the craziness of the week last night by talking to my sister, who is in the fall semester of her senior year in college (also the one involved in the Cork Incident that I mentioned last week). Talk about being nostalgic -- where has time gone? We've been scattered across the country, this sister, my other sister, and me. I miss being silly with them and finishing each other's reminiscences and speaking in the code that only we share. Perhaps another essay will come of that idea.

In the name of nostalgia for silly moments, here's one from a visit that one sister made to Seattle during our first summer there. Clearly, Midwestern girls do not see hills like this one very often. D's driving, Sis is shooting the video, and I'm in the back seat laughing.


Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hirsute pursuits

Okay, it was a hairy week. Between holding extra office hours for students for paper-writing help and having my own essay due today, I was a bit overstretched, so now I must do some catching up here.

First off, the last "husband weekend" of 2008: D had fun showing off his costume at a Halloween bash while he was in town. He was a pirate, complete with puffy shirt, bandanna, hoop earrings, and beard. I must say, he wears the facial hair well! We took some glamour shots to zoom in on the fine detailing of the whole package.













Sadly, D was unable to bring his old-fashioned toy pistol (too much of a hassle to try to get that through airport security) -- that was what was in the picture I posted here. Alas, no winning guesses as to what it was! Here's the original picture.


Next, the election: Talk about a distraction! I voted on my way home from campus and then sat on tenterhooks all evening trying to do work but utterly failing. It didn't help that it was 75 degrees out (during the first week of November!), making it rather uncomfortable indoors while I was in office hours (the heat in the building was roaring). By the time I got back to my place, I was too tired to think straight. I refused to turn on the TV (still trying to write that pesky essay) but I couldn't help flipping over to The New York Times' online electoral map to check on the returns. I finally gave up after the results were called around 10:15 here and watched the acceptance speech -- very much worth it, of course. I don't think I fully decompressed from all the built-up tension until late Wednesday.

Finally, thesis committee progress: I now have two of my three people! The second person said yes this week -- we have to meet to talk about what role she'll play as a reader, but she's very enthusiastic about the project. Yay! Hopefully I'll have the third person figured out before next Friday. It would be so nice to have this set before Thanksgiving ...

All right, it's very much time for me to consider bed after this crazy couple of days. One more till the weekend.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

FEEEEEEEAAAST!!!

If you've seen this Snickers ad campaign, you know what I'm talking about.

Today, D got our photos from Thanksgiving onto a server, so I was able to download all of them in minimal time. Hooray for online storage space! The shots he took during our morning of cooking were intermittent as we had our hands quite full, but here are some highlights from our culinary adventures.

We brined and roasted our turkey according to this recipe, which we tested last year with nice results. This year's bird worked out well too -- the breast meat was juicy, and the legs and thighs were tender to the point of pulling away from the body at the joints. If prepping a turkey were less messy, I'd cook one way more often. Note the operative word if -- when I was butterflying the bird for roasting, I managed to cover the front of the dishwasher with raw meat juices (we don't have a lot of space in our kitchen, so when food messes reach the edge of the counter, as they often do, they plunge off to wreak havoc on whatever surfaces are below). I was also not tall enough to apply sufficient force to the breast bone in order to crack the turkey open, so I had to get up on a chair to put all my weight into it. Oddly reminiscent of CPR training! I think it took about five or six compressions to do the job -- and then a lot of paper towels and soap to get rid of the fluids that squirted everywhere. Yum, yum. Good thing D had us eat breakfast before going at all the cooking -- he got up early to make bran muffins and cornbread, which powered us through.

Once everything was cleaned up, we were in good shape for the rest of the food prep. I have to say that even with four cooks in our tiny kitchen, we did an incredible job of not running into one another. My best friend from college and his longtime girlfriend came up from Portland to spend Wednesday night and most of Thursday with us for the holiday, and they brought an entire cooler of ingredients for the dishes they planned to make. So wonderful to have people I love living nearby again! (They moved to Oregon a little over a year ago and are the same friends we visited in May.) The occasions for seeing such friends have been otherwise infrequent since our own move west -- most of our group from school stayed in New York and Massachusetts.

We made Brie en croûte with dried cherries, honey, pecans, and rosemary as an appetizer, served with croccantini from a local grocery, then for side dishes to accompany the turkey, we prepared cranberry relish; pan gravy; oven-roasted new potatoes with pearled onions, rosemary, and paprika; and green beans sautéed with fresh garlic. Matt and Gaby made sausage stuffing, oven-roasted apples and root vegetables (sweet potatoes, parsnips, and beets), and an Elizabethan pot pie that contained Jerusalem artichokes, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, and dates with a drizzling of heavy cream. Quite an amazing spread once we were done! Add to that the whole-wheat loaf that D baked the night before, as well as several bottles of wine, and it was a true feast. I think we were all a bit stunned that everything turned out so well. "Did we do that?" Matt said once the table was set.


We were quite full by the time we finished our main course(s), so we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Then we had a round of cards to liven us up, and D and I baked our mini molten chocolate cakes. Half of them -- the ones that were made with powdered Splenda -- turned out beautifully. The other two did not want to solidify on the outside and remained more like bread pudding. I'm guessing it's because we didn't have confectioner's sugar (we substituted the granular stuff, which didn't grind well with our mortar and pestle). In any case, the cakes still tasted fine, and they went really nicely with the loganberry dessert wine our friends brought -- Vinotaboo, which is made in Oregon. A pomegranate was a good palate cleanser that finished off the day.

After a few more rounds of cards, we decided to take Matt and Gaby to D's office, where we played foosball (another favorite activity we haven't had since college). And then we had to say our goodbyes since I had my flight at the crack of dawn and they had a three-hour drive back home so they could be at work the next day. I was sad to see them go so soon -- but there's always January. I think another reunion is very much in order.

So that, in large part, was Thanksgiving '08 chez nous! Now go eat something. I know I'm hungry again after thinking about all that food.

Friday, November 28, 2008

There and back again

So I expected that I would have MORE time to blog while in Seattle for Thanksgiving break, but it was exactly the opposite. Some of that was the product of catch-up time with D, of course, but while he was at work, there was just that much stuff to do -- Christmas shopping, prepping for dinner guests, taking advantage of the free laundry, and working on the holiday newsletter to go out with the cards to friends and family. That last item is sort of becoming a tradition. I had hoped to get it finished before leaving so I could print off the copies from our color printer, but I couldn't manage it. Oh well. I'll write the rest of it tonight, and D will print it. Hopefully his version of Word won't scramble the document like it did last year after I sent it to him! Coordinating a repair job over e-mail took some creativity, to say the least.

I wish I could have stayed in Seattle through Sunday morning, but in order to get there using mileage awards, I had to come back today. D and I will see each other in three weeks, which will also mark the beginning of winter break for me (can't wait!). This little week off was wonderful -- a taste of what we'll have over December and January. We had a dinner date on Friday after I landed, and then we had a very lazy Saturday -- lots of lounging and talking and just being in the same home with the prospect of another five days together instead of only one. D made his special waffles for breakfast and we tested a molten chocolate cake recipe (part of the menu for Thanksgiving). On Sunday, we went marketing for Christmas gift ideas and I got reacquainted with the irises. Ralph has what seems to be a bud! Silly plant -- it's not time for that yet!

Things really started picking up on Monday. While D was at work, I met up with our realtor again to look at more houses. The market has definitely changed a bit with the economy. I'm glad we didn't jump into making an offer on anything this summer as there are larger places for better prices now. We looked at seven homes, two of which felt like they had good potential (with room for us to grow so we wouldn't have to move out again for several years). Appreciation rates have slowed, so being able to stay put for longer is important to us.

Tuesday, we did the last of the pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping and D made a delicious white bean and ground turkey chili for dinner while I was whittling away at grading and the newsletter. It sounds almost mundane, doesn't it? Trying to write about why all of this was so good is difficult -- how do you explain how extraordinary ordinariness is when you never have it?

Our guests arrived Wednesday, and their visit deserves its own post, so I'll stop here for the moment. But yes, it was lovely just to be back where I could see the mountains, even if it's dark at 3:30 now because we're so far north. My plane followed the sunset on the way out to Seattle, which was a little treat. Here's a shot of the last of it and the north star somewhere over Montana.

Monday, November 17, 2008

On loss, mostly

Today was all over the place.

Today actually started in the middle of the night -- I woke up with the sensation that something bad was about to occur. You know that feeling where your heart starts pounding because there's some imminent threat you can't identify? Pulled me out of a dead sleep. So I lay under the blankets, holding my breath, listening. Then the earth started to roll, as it did during the earthquake last April, and like last time, I froze, even though I should have gotten up to stand in a doorway. It was the strangest sensation, feeling the mattress bucking underneath me and hearing things fall elsewhere in the apartment. Then the rolling stopped, and for the rest of the time before my alarm went off, I was semiconscious, body tensed, waiting for aftershocks.

When I woke up to the radio, though, there was no mention of any tremors (unlike last April, when they were the first item on the news). That's right, I was dreaming the whole time -- a dream of being awake in the here and now when I was actually unconscious in some parallel universe. Disturbing if not plain eerie. So that was an unsettling start to the day.

Things got better once I was up -- I breakfasted, read the news online, worked out, showered, did some reading and figured out what spring classes to register for. Talked to D briefly. I've missed him more than usual in the last week (I think the three-week stretches between visits have been getting tougher since the fall semester hasn't had any big breaks before Thanksgiving). We've been planning what to do while I'm in Seattle. Maybe some house hunting just to explore the market now that the economy has changed so much. Definitely a meeting with an attorney to set up our wills. We should have done this right when we got married, but I was applying to school, and he was looking for a job, and then we were moving me and then moving him and then commuting for two semesters and then cramming five weddings into our summer and now here we are. I know, no excuses. The plan is to start the paperwork over this vacation (we have an appointment in place) and finish it during winter break. Not that we have huge amounts of property to divvy up, but we would like to make sure it goes to the people we want it to go to instead of having the state make those decisions.

It's always a little weird talking about wills and such. The idea that one of us won't always be around is a strange and familiar thing at the same time. We've been apart for so much of our relationship that we're used to functioning without the other person there. But the idea of losing that person for good is still, of course, terrible -- and feared even more, on some levels, because the life we've wanted to begin together hasn't quite begun yet either. Hence the extra urgency to get the wills in place. We've talked about where and how we want to be buried, we know each other's favorite flower. I know it sounds morbid, but it's really not. We've just had enough time apart to know that time together is never long enough, so having all this out in the open kind of gets it settled and out of the way. Which means we can get on with enjoying our lives with each other.

After talking with D, I packed up to head to class. My students had their papers due today, so I knew attendance would be fairly high (part of the reason why I scheduled my teaching observation for today). I wasn't nervous about that, but I was a little worried when only half of the class had shown up by the time we were supposed to start. Almost everyone else got there within five minutes, though, so things looked like they were going to be fine. Then one of my girls arrived but only stuck her head in the doorway as we were getting discussion moving. She beckoned with her hand, asking me to go out into the hall with her.

I knew, before I left my seat, what she was going to tell me. This was the student whose family member was in a car accident not quite three weeks ago. I knew his condition was poor (he was thrown through his windshield when a driver rear-ended him on the highway, the student told me), and I was guessing that, since he hadn't woken up within the first week of the accident, his prognosis wasn't good. But it was still a shock, like getting all the air forcefully evacuated from my lungs, when she told me he was dead. He was her twin.

She handed me her paper at this point. I must have looked bewildered -- I couldn't believe she had come all the way to class just to turn it in (my policy is that written work has to be handed to me in person unless there are extenuating circumstances). I told her I was sorry and that we could talk privately in office hours tomorrow, if she was up to it, to determine what kind of arrangements she would need for the rest of the semester. I asked her if it was okay to give her a hug, and she said yes.

And then I had to go back into my classroom and pretend that everything was fine.

I know I never knew her brother, but the complete and utterly meaningless destruction of his life is the same sort of thing I've feared most for the people in my own life, especially now that they're scattered across the country. I can't say that I know what her loss feels like, but I've imagined it a thousand times over, every time I've left D at the airport, even though I've tried not to let my mind go there. So I wanted to feel sadness for her -- to honor her loss within my physical body, to recognize its weight in the pit of my stomach. But I had to stifle myself, cut the feeling off after my initial reactions (those can't be controlled). Doing that -- even if only temporarily, for the sake of my student's privacy and for the sake of conducting a productive class for fifteen other people -- felt wrong in some way. To be able to shut down instantaneously. Not to allow some molecule of grief to hover in my consciousness. It was almost inhuman. But it was either-or.

So now I'm putting all of that here, just to feel it at last. Enough from the universe, please. Enough for now.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Speak, Mnemosyne?

Apparently this is what Nabokov had originally intended to name his memoir but "was told that 'little old ladies would not want to ask for a book whose title they could not pronounce' " (per the foreword in said work). I suppose from a marketing perspective that it was a valid criticism, but beyond that, I think Speak, Memory just falls more rhythmically on the ear and makes the idea of a writer exploring recollections of his childhood more accessible to the common reader. There's something about invoking a Greek muse that just feels more highflown. Of course, there's a place for that too, but when talking about the self? Let's not take ourselves too seriously ...

Nabokov is, as you may have guessed, the author of the week in my seminar. So far, so good, but his prose requires concentration. The end of a sentence often reaches places far from its beginnings, and any kind of distraction that draws your attention from its progress leaves you wondering a few words later, "Wait, how did we get here?"

I guess that's the underlying question in writing memoir too. "Neither in environment nor in heredity," writes Nabokov, "can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap." That pretty much describes what the last few weeks of writing have proved to me! The quest, perhaps, is to find the path the watermark traces -- the revisiting of all the pressures that have left their prints upon us, nudging us forward into the present. But how to organize all that into a coherent narrative?

I have to wonder what this man, who was an avid collector of butterflies, thought of the butterfly effect.

I'm playing around with structure as I'm writing but it's still unclear what's working best. The response to the essay on Thursday from workshop was encouraging enough that I sent the work to my thesis advisor -- we'll see what suggestions she has. Hopefully over Thanksgiving, I'll have time just to sit and think. That's partially what today is for too, but several days like this without interruption will be helpful. If holiday shopping and cooking don't take over, that is ...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

You just never know

Unpredictable -- I think that describes the general tenor of life at the moment.

D sent me an interesting e-mail this morning about some recent tech news. Midway Games, a company he interviewed with during his last job search, made some notable staff cuts this week. We had initially hoped, before the move to Seattle, that D would get a position at Midway since it's driving distance from Little U. on the Prairie. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that he was turned down. Who knows whether the job he applied for was one of those that got hit. Apparently, the company's stock shares are also taking a beating.

I had my workshop today, which was very helpful. Very tough, though, because of what was on the table. The essay I submitted was the first in which I think I really, really put myself out there naked -- not writing in the voice or character of the person I wanted my audience to see me as, but as the person I am underneath all the carefully wrought word-armor. I realized, in some earlier attempts to pull together this piece, that my problems writing it stemmed largely from trying not to reveal parts of myself that I'd rather keep under wraps. This is not to say that what I ultimately turned in was an exercise in self-flagellation, but I did let all the embarrassing, uncomfortable awkwardness of childhood appear. And that was hard.

What really caught me off guard, though, was the sadness I felt as the workshop got at the heart of what was in the essay -- the entanglement in certain family issues (I won't get more specific than this here) that still cause powerful grief. The sadness isn't even explicit in the essay, but people began plumbing the family dynamics driving the action in the work, and then as the explanations came out, all the awfulness of the aftermath from the experience I wrote about bubbled up like acid. I was tearing up liberally by the time we finished (also much cause for embarrassment), and I couldn't do a thing about it. I think the people who noticed probably figured it was because the subject matter was painful, not because I was upset by what people were saying about the piece -- it was all very constructive -- but ouch. I think I've had enough surprises for one day. I feel bad because I was too choked up to thank everyone at the end. Maybe an e-mail? But that seems so impersonal. Perhaps a quick thanks at the beginning of next Thursday's class. That'll be better.

So now I'm wiped out (more so than usual). But at least this weekend, I have no grading, which means I can do some more writing. I haven't had that luxury in what feels like months.

A happy note to end on: our irises are still doing well out in Seattle -- D sent me update photos. The plants will winter on our apartment balcony and should bloom just in time for my arrival at the end of the spring semester. We thought up names for them a few days ago (they're pets, so why not, right?). D has chosen Ralph and Tessa for his two, which will be deep red and tawny gold, respectively. For mine, I picked Carmen (indigo) and Lolita (pale pink). Yes, yes, think what you will! But if you could have seen what their predecessors looked like at the farm we visited, you'd understand how the names just fit.

Anyway, we're hoping all the plants will keep thriving as they have been -- I think one of D's bulbs may need its own pot already.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Procrastiblogging

What, you've never heard of that before? Surely, you jest!

I'm supposed to be grading some student exercises that I should have finished this past weekend, but I was too fried to face them -- and they're short ones too. Ah, grading burnout. Fortunately, the teaching is still good. In fact, I get energy from doing it (and there's not much of that to go around these days). This week has been terrific so far, which made up a bit for the funk I was in on Sunday, missing D mainly.

I have to say that my students are a fun bunch as they're willing to entertain some of the sillier activities I have them do to warm up for class discussion. Yesterday, I introduced them to "Monday Mingling," which is an adaptation of something another teacher showed me while I was teaching junior high. We had read a short story over the weekend with some guiding questions, so to get people out of their seats and energized, I copied the questions onto individual index cards and had each person choose one. Then all the students had to "mingle," asking their questions of different people as they walked around the room. "Pretend you're at a party," I said, which got me some amused looks, but I know everyone had a good time with it. Some people even got into the act, asking their questions like pick-up lines at a bar! I also distinctly heard one student say, "I'll meet you by the fruit punch" as she was chatting up a classmate. Whatever it takes ...

After we'd mingled for about five minutes, we sat down again and shared out the answers each student had collected. Pretty effective for getting people talking.

We're going to start looking at poetry tomorrow, which will be a real change of pace. I think I'm going to have my students close their eyes and do some guided meditation just to slow their brains down before we start examining some verses -- poetry really does have its own time scale. For a little icebreaker, we'll be looking at Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, which turns conventional beauty on its ear (hopefully, students will figure that out after they try to draw what's being described). I bought crayons for the occasion -- a box of 48, although the set of 64 was tempting. That should be plenty, in addition to the markers I already have, for them to use to create some entertaining illustrations. And there's nothing like a brand-new box of crayons to inspire creativity. (If you remember this video from Sesame Street, you know what I'm talking about.)

Arrrrrrrrgh, grading calls. I'd better get to it before I start procrasticleaning or something worse. It's been known to happen.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Got a minute?

I know, I know, I'm always talking about how I don't have time to write. But I came across this site on the Blogs of Note list and thought it was a neat idea. Read the prompt; write for 60 seconds. A great place to find writing "exercises," as they call them around here, when you've got writer's block.

Lots of good reading for my classes of late. Most recently, I finished Patricia Hampl's The Florist's Daughter. I can't say I loved the whole thing, but the frame that introduces and ends the work is lovely, poignant, and also disturbing: a daughter keeping vigil by her dying mother's bedside, holding her hand in one of hers while writing her mother's obituary on a legal pad with the other. The memoir is about a place and time that are no longer available to the writer in the present, but her attempts to look back and plumb what's contained in her memory of them are commendable. It's so hard to disentangle yourself so you can write about those things sometimes -- I think that's the problem I ran into in the last week and a half while working on my own essay. There's the problem of attachment that makes objectivity so impossible. As Hampl writes:

Nostalgia, someone will say. A sneer accompanies the word, meaning that to be fascinated by what is gone and lost is to be easily seduced by sentiment. A shameful undertaking. But nostalgia shares the shame of the other good sins, the way lust is shameful or drink or gluttony or sloth. It doesn't belong to the dessicated sins of the soul -- pride, envy. To the sweet sins of the body, add nostalgia. The sin of memory.

Nostalgia is really a kind of loyalty -- also a sin when misapplied, as it so often is. But it's the engine, not the enemy, of history. It feeds on detail, the protein of accuracy. Or maybe nostalgia is a form of longing. It aches for history. In its cloudy wistfulness, nostalgia fuels the spark of significance. My place. My people.

My essay gets workshopped on Thursday, so we'll see what people think. I sent a few drafts to D before I turned it in, and he was helpful in pointing out how to fix some things. It's nice to have a reader with fresh eyes -- not just eyes that haven't read this particular piece but eyes that haven't been looking at tons of other essays all semester and are getting a bit glazed over! (I don't blame them.)

I unwound from all the craziness of the week last night by talking to my sister, who is in the fall semester of her senior year in college (also the one involved in the Cork Incident that I mentioned last week). Talk about being nostalgic -- where has time gone? We've been scattered across the country, this sister, my other sister, and me. I miss being silly with them and finishing each other's reminiscences and speaking in the code that only we share. Perhaps another essay will come of that idea.

In the name of nostalgia for silly moments, here's one from a visit that one sister made to Seattle during our first summer there. Clearly, Midwestern girls do not see hills like this one very often. D's driving, Sis is shooting the video, and I'm in the back seat laughing.


Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hirsute pursuits

Okay, it was a hairy week. Between holding extra office hours for students for paper-writing help and having my own essay due today, I was a bit overstretched, so now I must do some catching up here.

First off, the last "husband weekend" of 2008: D had fun showing off his costume at a Halloween bash while he was in town. He was a pirate, complete with puffy shirt, bandanna, hoop earrings, and beard. I must say, he wears the facial hair well! We took some glamour shots to zoom in on the fine detailing of the whole package.













Sadly, D was unable to bring his old-fashioned toy pistol (too much of a hassle to try to get that through airport security) -- that was what was in the picture I posted here. Alas, no winning guesses as to what it was! Here's the original picture.


Next, the election: Talk about a distraction! I voted on my way home from campus and then sat on tenterhooks all evening trying to do work but utterly failing. It didn't help that it was 75 degrees out (during the first week of November!), making it rather uncomfortable indoors while I was in office hours (the heat in the building was roaring). By the time I got back to my place, I was too tired to think straight. I refused to turn on the TV (still trying to write that pesky essay) but I couldn't help flipping over to The New York Times' online electoral map to check on the returns. I finally gave up after the results were called around 10:15 here and watched the acceptance speech -- very much worth it, of course. I don't think I fully decompressed from all the built-up tension until late Wednesday.

Finally, thesis committee progress: I now have two of my three people! The second person said yes this week -- we have to meet to talk about what role she'll play as a reader, but she's very enthusiastic about the project. Yay! Hopefully I'll have the third person figured out before next Friday. It would be so nice to have this set before Thanksgiving ...

All right, it's very much time for me to consider bed after this crazy couple of days. One more till the weekend.