Blaisey's Hierarchy of Needs
After submitting her final grades for a very trying quarter, Traci spent a day on the couch reading a best seller. Feeling a great deal of guilt for taking a vacation day, she turned to Blaisey for permission to continue. A four-year old is always a great source of vindication, by the way. "Do you think it's a problem," Traci asked Blaisey, "that all I've done today is sit on this couch?"
Blaisey, tilted her head to the side contemplatively and sagely responded, "Uhm. Do you have to eat or poop?"
Traci considered the question and said, "No."
Blaisey said, "Then you're okay."
So, alright, I admit it: this is a pretty good life.
12.08.2011
7.22.2011
101 Things about This Guy (Complete, Digitally Remastered, and with Bonus Material)
101 things about me:
Inspired by fellow bloggers and poets and facebook and et cetera, and desiring to get on board with what seems to be the cultural phenomenon of making lists, I’m writing this list.
3: Not that I even like swimming a ton, also I’m afraid of water when I can’t see the bottom of it, maybe it’s the post-apocalypse that I’m really excited about.
4: Almost certainly, because if I couldn’t be that Kevin Costner character, I’d probably want to be Mad Max.
5: Also, I’m afraid of seaweed.
6: Not the kind in little aquariums or around sushi, but when I’m wading in water and I have to walk through it (yes, that counts as not being able to see the bottom) – oh, hell, I hate that.
7: I call the grass in rivers and ponds seaweed – it just seems more reasonable than making the distinctions pondweed, riverweed, seaweed, creekweed, runweed, streamweed, lakeweed, puddleweed – if it’s underwater and it’s something like grass and I hate it, it’s seaweed.
At the same time, I don’t think it’s a recent cultural phenomenon – if Aristotle were alive today, he’d be a blogger, right? Cataloguing, categorizing, making numbered lists. And Linnaeus for sure. Can any one of us truly imagine a 21st century Rabbelais who doesn’t have a half dozen blogs cross referencing gargantuan lists ranging from best breads baked on a particular city block to types of urinations I’ve had?
No. None of us can imagine that.
8. After eleven years as an English major, after SATs and GREs and a comprehensive exam, after two degrees and nearly a Ph.D., after teaching college writing for seven years, after getting a novel and many stories and essays published, after seven years of marriage to a Ph.D. and author, I still don’t know the difference between objective and subjective truth.
9. I know the distinction is supposed to be easy and obvious, but I’ve just never committed it to memory.
10. For a while it was like a point of pride for me.
11. Sometimes, I act like I’m too old to understand the difference.
12. Other times, I pretend that I know so much about the myriad and complicated intracacies of truth that objective and subjective means very much the same thing in the long run.
13. Sometimes, I blame the postmodern condition: “Well, you know, can any of us really know anything?”
15. I miss cassette tapes.
16. While all five of the toes on my right foot –
– are among my top hundred favorite body parts of mine of all time, the two closest to the big one are my favorite.
17. And, No!, not just because they’re partially webbed.
18. They have many great features such as looking slightly less like peanuts than the other two little ones while not being so much a loner like biggie over there.
19. Okay, the truth is: it is mostly because they’re a little bit conjoined.
20. But they’re also a little bit rock and roll.
21. In fact, when I’m in a room with a bunch of people more successful than myself (which is pretty much all day unless I’m in the bathroom, and even that isn’t as much of a guarantee as I might hope), sometimes I’m tempted to counter what those folks are saying, or just start an argument by saying, “Yes, perhaps, but I am, you know, semipalmated.”
22. I don’t really have a hundred favorite body parts: only six or seven that come to mind.
24. If pressed, I don’t know if I could come up with fifty without the internet’s help.
25. I’m secretly writing a sci-fi fantasy novel that I talk about all the time but hardly ever think about.
26. I act like I don’t like the ocean, but I could sit beside it for a thousand years, I’ll bet, and not get bored.
27. I still think about specific moments from my high school sports days.
28. There’s a gray squirrel in the backyard (nothing exceptional, very standard, white belly, expected tail), and I wish I lived the kind of life where I could sit and watch it for hours without feeling guilty about how I spend my time – really it’s beautiful.
29. There’s also a part of me that wants to shoot the squirrel and eat it.
30. I’m going for a run.
31. Maybe I would feel differently if I were somebody’s boss, but I don’t place much value in the ability to mulitask.
32. I’m finding it incredibly difficult to come up with 101 things about me.
34. I never thought I wanted to have kids until I had three.
35. If I were immortal, the first thing I would do would be to buy a whole bunch of shovels and fill in the Grand Canyon.
36. In part because I can’t think of anything else so terrifying that I’d like to be known for.
37. But, also, because I would love to spend the next 10, 20 millennia watching it carve itself back out.
38. Fact is, I don’t think immortality would get boring to me, despite contemporary folklore.
39. I wonder how many shovels it would take.
40. Most days, I prefer rain.
41. If I could change one thing about myself, I would be unforgivably wealthy.
42. I don’t have any objections to people who curse while they pray.
43. Though my allergies frustrate me in the way they control much of my life, I genuinely enjoy sneezing.
44. If I were three of me, I could be a really good writer; if I were six of me, I could do a good job keeping up with the house and yard; if I were a hundred and forty-four of me, I could be a good enough parent.
45. I’m still thinking about eating that squirrel.
46. I wish I were better at taking pictures – not necessarily more skillfully, just more frequently.
47. If I were immortal, the second thing I would do would be to commit to memory the difference between objective and subjective truth – seems like that’s the type of thing an immortal ought to know.
48. For years, I’ve had this whole obsession with space and time: I mean, imagine I can run ten miles an hour; I should be able to, with little effort, run 10.0000001 miles per hour; if that’s the case, I should be able to run 10.0000002, 10.0000003, 10.00000004, etc. with equally little effort, such that I would soon be running at about 120 mph (which is my ideal speed) – anyway, that’s what my sci-fi / fantasy novel is all about.
49. If I could be one other animal in the world, it would not be a squirrel.
50. I’ve nothing against them personally – they’re cute and all – but they’re not quite as terrifying as a rat, not quite as big as a woodchuck.
51. Maybe if they moved in herds, I would want to be a squirrel.
52. I wouldn’t want to be a dog either – imagine not even having language and having to live with something as moody as a human.
53. I don’t understand line breaks in poetry.
54. I’m not real sure why I end certain paragraphs where I do either, though.
55. Sometimes I wonder who in the hell gave me all these degrees in English.
56. Nobody in my secret sci-fi / fantasy novel has an English degree, and they’re all smarter than I.
57. My spouse just asked me if I was humming the theme to Rocky: no, I wasn’t.
58. I am now.
59. If I could be anybody else in the world, it would be me during my senior year of basketball, during the playoff game we lost to Northeast High School: fourth quarter, tie game, I stole the ball and made a break – this time I wouldn’t pass the ball; you couldn’t pay me a thousand dollars to pass the ball this time.
60. It’s kind of embarrassing to me that if I could change one thing about my past, it would be that I would have taken a single jumpshot sixteen years and two months ago.
61. I was never a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” until I got old enough to wish I was young again.
62. I haven’t seen that squirrel since yesterday morning.
63. I’m not who I thought I would be.
64. I was certain I would be much taller by now.
65. I would have guessed I’d be a stronger swimmer.
66. I’m totally over that squirrel.
65. My favorite colors are green and gray, not necessarily for the way they look together – though I do think of that gray I-80 cutting through the green green heart of Pennsylvania in a thick summer – but they just sound so nice, much better than black and blue, which, of course, are my second favorite colors.
66. Robert Frost famously wrote, “Something there is that does not love a wall” – me? I like a good wall.
69. Any time I think about it, I find it hard to believe that anything can hold all these molecules together.
70. I used to tell people that before I met them I could throw an 80 lb. bag of mortar the length of a football field – that wasn’t true.
71. It still isn’t.
72. If I were immortal, the third thing I’d do would be make a much longer list of things about me – I would call it “505 Things about This Guy.”
73. The other thing I don’t understand about language is why I use “were” in #72 instead of “was” – something tells me I’m using the language correctly, but I don’t know how.
74. I hate the sound my tongue makes when I bite it.
75. When I reach the point where I can spend an hour a day in the garden without feeling guilty, I think I will have achieved self-actualization.
77. When I grow up, I want to be calmer.
78. I have never outgrown my childhood objection to neckties.
81. I’m not really as into lists as I was three days ago.
82. Okay. Now there are three squirrels. Don’t they know who I am? What I could do to them? How good they would taste in a stew? Still they’re pretty cute when they hop over dandelions.
83. Sometimes I have a hard time following through with
86. Both good points, I'll give it some more careful thought. Some other day.
87. Saturday night was the first night I've been alone in a house in almost eight years.
88. I didn't like it.
89. I miss my spouse and my kids. It is time for them to come home now.
90. Now there are three bunnies within bowling distance. Though one more would fill the crock pot right nice, I'm sitting here, admiring their majesty or whatever.
91. Dennis Rodman's number, when 10 was taken. Oh Worm, where are you now?
92. On second thought, don't answer that. There's like a 90-10 chance I don't want to know. Right?
94. At this stage in my life, I have to admit, I'm shocked that it's taking me months to come up with 101 noteworthy things about me. I bet when I was twenty-two, I could have cranked out an awesome list in an afternoon.
95. I blame my kids -- having four children that I find infinitely more interesting than myself, I have very little to post.
96. I guess I do tend to try to live vicariously through my little turtles – ever seen a baby, come on, give one a shell, and it might swim to Australia – but that doesn’t stop me from this overwhelming desire to encourage them to do what I would have done, what I would have wanted to do, what I wanted to try but was never talented enough.
For instance. Noon, today, I’d been thinking about delivering a speech to Sam: “Sam, you’re not going to be 15 forever.” But I decided that was too much, and that I would let him figure it out on his own.
Still, who can blame me? I remember fifteen as the first time I got up on the rim. First fingertips, eventually palm, I remember the first time I dunked something – after my cousin’s basketball game, the first of three losses her team had during her four years of varsity play (what a team!) – a nickel. Quickly followed by a lollipop. Oh. I was something. And here’s Sam, six-foot-two, a hundred and seventy pounds . . . oh, what I would have done.
I’d already been to the coffee shop this morning to work on a novel I’m writing – it’s a historical novel, a Western (in a sense) though it’s set in the East; I’m 72,000 words into it, and I went back again this morning to chapter 10, which is the most important chapter in the book and the most boring; it’s the point at which the plot becomes less like 3:10 to Yuma and more like Wallstreet.
Okay, in response to the first part of your question: No, I don’t find it problematic that I can only talk about this book in terms of movies. As for the second part: Yes, I find it as boring to write about writing the book as you find it reading about writing the book.
But that’s kind of my point. I rethunk my speech to Sam – “You’re not going to be 15 forever,” by which what I would have meant was, “Go for a run, do some push ups, get off the computer for half an hour” – but I couldn’t think of anything quantifiably different about what he was doing and what I was doing, would have done, would have wanted to do, wanted to try but was never tall enough.
Nor did I forget to remember that famous conversation between Mom and Dad many years ago . . .
Mom: Don't you worry about him?
Dad: Who?
Mom: Jackson.
Dad: Why?
Dad: Yeah, but . . . he's really good at it.
97. I’ve been writing outside today, and it just now struck me: it smells like the ocean in our back yard – anybody else think it’s time for me to turn off the sprinklers?
98. In other vicarious news: traci left Utah this morning for her first cross country trip without me in eight years. I love that open road. traci, our dear friend Kristen, and Zac are driving back here this week. Zac had been in Utah for three weeks, visiting family who gave him a brand new 1987 Jeep Wrangler – a trip that he’s been planning for over six months. traci, on the other hand, flew out last Thursday on a buddy pass Kristen’s friend had given her, such that she (traci) could drive back here with her (Kristen), and we could all hang out for a while – they decided to do this last week. The fact that they’re caravanning across Wyoming right now is dumb luck.
Given that this scenario is not terribly out of the ordinary for our family, you would think that I would be good at plots, and could just make something wonderful happen in the above mentioned Chapter 10: “Tendrils.” Not the case.
Though I deeply envy them their drive, I have, through the beauty of text messaging (yes, I said it, beauty. of. text. messaging), traci has been updating me when she reaches some of our favorite landmarks: “Park City llama onto I-80,” “Eating a sandwich in the town with no name but lots of fireworks, “Big sky Wyoming,” “that dark red highway across Wyoming,” “the town named after Richard Ford’s stunning short story collection,” “Zac peeing on an abandoned gas station in the wide open plains” (this most recent one is not necessarily a landmark for us, but, again, not so terribly unfamiliar).
But what about Illinois and Indiana?
We’re gonna need a bigger soundtrack.
Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina – well, that’s hardly even a trip, now is it? Still, I would just find whichever Ani Difranco album is my favorite today, and play that on repeat until you get home.
Meanwhile, thanks to the glorious inventions of thumbs and the qwerty keyboard, I’ve learned that our caravan will most likely spend the night in Wyoming tonight. Short first leg, but I think we can all agree this restful drive should lead to a long haul tomorrow – Indiana, maybe. Maybe Ohio. I’m hoping they’ll get home by Thursday, though, much as I miss them, I sure do love a cross country drive.
99. I’ve gotta admit, I’m looking forward to this coming to an end.
100. If I were immortal, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, I would jump off of very tall objects with the idea in mind that I might be able to catch a bird cruising by beneath me – what a rush.
101. Finally, it turns out, I’m an awful blogger. I can’t keep a pace for shit.
102. Bonus: Ijust want to mention how proud I am that I made it through a hundred things about myself without saying fart or shit. Hazah!
Inspired by fellow bloggers and poets and facebook and et cetera, and desiring to get on board with what seems to be the cultural phenomenon of making lists, I’m writing this list.
1: Kevin Costner’s character on Water World, the one with the webbed feet and the gills, sometimes I wish I could be him.
2: I don’t really wish I could be him, I just wish I could swim really fast.
3: Not that I even like swimming a ton, also I’m afraid of water when I can’t see the bottom of it, maybe it’s the post-apocalypse that I’m really excited about.
4: Almost certainly, because if I couldn’t be that Kevin Costner character, I’d probably want to be Mad Max.
5: Also, I’m afraid of seaweed.
6: Not the kind in little aquariums or around sushi, but when I’m wading in water and I have to walk through it (yes, that counts as not being able to see the bottom) – oh, hell, I hate that.
7: I call the grass in rivers and ponds seaweed – it just seems more reasonable than making the distinctions pondweed, riverweed, seaweed, creekweed, runweed, streamweed, lakeweed, puddleweed – if it’s underwater and it’s something like grass and I hate it, it’s seaweed.
At the same time, I don’t think it’s a recent cultural phenomenon – if Aristotle were alive today, he’d be a blogger, right? Cataloguing, categorizing, making numbered lists. And Linnaeus for sure. Can any one of us truly imagine a 21st century Rabbelais who doesn’t have a half dozen blogs cross referencing gargantuan lists ranging from best breads baked on a particular city block to types of urinations I’ve had?
No. None of us can imagine that.
8. After eleven years as an English major, after SATs and GREs and a comprehensive exam, after two degrees and nearly a Ph.D., after teaching college writing for seven years, after getting a novel and many stories and essays published, after seven years of marriage to a Ph.D. and author, I still don’t know the difference between objective and subjective truth.
9. I know the distinction is supposed to be easy and obvious, but I’ve just never committed it to memory.
10. For a while it was like a point of pride for me.
11. Sometimes, I act like I’m too old to understand the difference.
12. Other times, I pretend that I know so much about the myriad and complicated intracacies of truth that objective and subjective means very much the same thing in the long run.
13. Sometimes, I blame the postmodern condition: “Well, you know, can any of us really know anything?”
14. Other times, I blame our holy texts like The Constitution or Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home, because, you know, if those texts aren’t going to make the distinction clear, why should it matter to me?
15. I miss cassette tapes.
16. While all five of the toes on my right foot –
– are among my top hundred favorite body parts of mine of all time, the two closest to the big one are my favorite.
17. And, No!, not just because they’re partially webbed.
18. They have many great features such as looking slightly less like peanuts than the other two little ones while not being so much a loner like biggie over there.
19. Okay, the truth is: it is mostly because they’re a little bit conjoined.
20. But they’re also a little bit rock and roll.
21. In fact, when I’m in a room with a bunch of people more successful than myself (which is pretty much all day unless I’m in the bathroom, and even that isn’t as much of a guarantee as I might hope), sometimes I’m tempted to counter what those folks are saying, or just start an argument by saying, “Yes, perhaps, but I am, you know, semipalmated.”
22. I don’t really have a hundred favorite body parts: only six or seven that come to mind.
23. In fact, it might take me all day to list a hundred body part, even if I count the ones I'm not as fond of:
24. If pressed, I don’t know if I could come up with fifty without the internet’s help.
26. I act like I don’t like the ocean, but I could sit beside it for a thousand years, I’ll bet, and not get bored.
27. I still think about specific moments from my high school sports days.
28. There’s a gray squirrel in the backyard (nothing exceptional, very standard, white belly, expected tail), and I wish I lived the kind of life where I could sit and watch it for hours without feeling guilty about how I spend my time – really it’s beautiful.
29. There’s also a part of me that wants to shoot the squirrel and eat it.
30. I’m going for a run.
31. Maybe I would feel differently if I were somebody’s boss, but I don’t place much value in the ability to mulitask.
32. I’m finding it incredibly difficult to come up with 101 things about me.
33. Ani Difranco in her song “Grey” says, “I smoke and I drink, and every time I blink, I live a tiny dream, / but as bad as I am, I’m proud of the fact that I’m worse than I seem” – I like that sentiment.
34. I never thought I wanted to have kids until I had three.
36. In part because I can’t think of anything else so terrifying that I’d like to be known for.
37. But, also, because I would love to spend the next 10, 20 millennia watching it carve itself back out.
38. Fact is, I don’t think immortality would get boring to me, despite contemporary folklore.
39. I wonder how many shovels it would take.
40. Most days, I prefer rain.
41. If I could change one thing about myself, I would be unforgivably wealthy.
42. I don’t have any objections to people who curse while they pray.
43. Though my allergies frustrate me in the way they control much of my life, I genuinely enjoy sneezing.
44. If I were three of me, I could be a really good writer; if I were six of me, I could do a good job keeping up with the house and yard; if I were a hundred and forty-four of me, I could be a good enough parent.
45. I’m still thinking about eating that squirrel.
46. I wish I were better at taking pictures – not necessarily more skillfully, just more frequently.
47. If I were immortal, the second thing I would do would be to commit to memory the difference between objective and subjective truth – seems like that’s the type of thing an immortal ought to know.
48. For years, I’ve had this whole obsession with space and time: I mean, imagine I can run ten miles an hour; I should be able to, with little effort, run 10.0000001 miles per hour; if that’s the case, I should be able to run 10.0000002, 10.0000003, 10.00000004, etc. with equally little effort, such that I would soon be running at about 120 mph (which is my ideal speed) – anyway, that’s what my sci-fi / fantasy novel is all about.
49. If I could be one other animal in the world, it would not be a squirrel.
50. I’ve nothing against them personally – they’re cute and all – but they’re not quite as terrifying as a rat, not quite as big as a woodchuck.
51. Maybe if they moved in herds, I would want to be a squirrel.
52. I wouldn’t want to be a dog either – imagine not even having language and having to live with something as moody as a human.
53. I don’t understand line breaks in poetry.
54. I’m not real sure why I end certain paragraphs where I do either, though.
55. Sometimes I wonder who in the hell gave me all these degrees in English.
56. Nobody in my secret sci-fi / fantasy novel has an English degree, and they’re all smarter than I.
57. My spouse just asked me if I was humming the theme to Rocky: no, I wasn’t.
58. I am now.
59. If I could be anybody else in the world, it would be me during my senior year of basketball, during the playoff game we lost to Northeast High School: fourth quarter, tie game, I stole the ball and made a break – this time I wouldn’t pass the ball; you couldn’t pay me a thousand dollars to pass the ball this time.
60. It’s kind of embarrassing to me that if I could change one thing about my past, it would be that I would have taken a single jumpshot sixteen years and two months ago.
61. I was never a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” until I got old enough to wish I was young again.
62. I haven’t seen that squirrel since yesterday morning.
63. I’m not who I thought I would be.
64. I was certain I would be much taller by now.
65. I would have guessed I’d be a stronger swimmer.
66. I’m totally over that squirrel.
65. My favorite colors are green and gray, not necessarily for the way they look together – though I do think of that gray I-80 cutting through the green green heart of Pennsylvania in a thick summer – but they just sound so nice, much better than black and blue, which, of course, are my second favorite colors.
66. Robert Frost famously wrote, “Something there is that does not love a wall” – me? I like a good wall.
67. If you were to ask me what I was humming any day between now and last July, it would be this song.
68. I hardly think about that squirrel at all any more; I mean, if you were to ask me, “What’s up with that squirrel?”, I would be all “What squirrel?”
69. Any time I think about it, I find it hard to believe that anything can hold all these molecules together.
70. I used to tell people that before I met them I could throw an 80 lb. bag of mortar the length of a football field – that wasn’t true.
71. It still isn’t.
72. If I were immortal, the third thing I’d do would be make a much longer list of things about me – I would call it “505 Things about This Guy.”
73. The other thing I don’t understand about language is why I use “were” in #72 instead of “was” – something tells me I’m using the language correctly, but I don’t know how.
74. I hate the sound my tongue makes when I bite it.
75. When I reach the point where I can spend an hour a day in the garden without feeling guilty, I think I will have achieved self-actualization.
76. One of my favorite words that I have never used in a sentence is "craw" – what an awful and beautiful sounding word.
77. When I grow up, I want to be calmer.
78. I have never outgrown my childhood objection to neckties.
79. I still genuinely enjoy Cabin Boy.
80. I don’t typically have any objections to eating with ones hands.
81. I’m not really as into lists as I was three days ago.
82. Okay. Now there are three squirrels. Don’t they know who I am? What I could do to them? How good they would taste in a stew? Still they’re pretty cute when they hop over dandelions.
83. Sometimes I have a hard time following through with
84. I've put it off for twenty-four years, but here I am this evening watching Robocop. Detroit looks just like I left it.
85. Those squirels are back, only this time they've come in the form of robins, red-breasted ones at that. They're busily hopping around the yard, picking up bugs and worms and eating those things. Traci recently said, "They must have excellent eyes or some other sense that allows them to find so many small critters crawling through the grass." Sam countered, "I don't know. It seems like if I spent twelve hours a day hopping around the back yard, I could catch a worm or two, too."
86. Both good points, I'll give it some more careful thought. Some other day.
87. Saturday night was the first night I've been alone in a house in almost eight years.
88. I didn't like it.
89. I miss my spouse and my kids. It is time for them to come home now.
90. Now there are three bunnies within bowling distance. Though one more would fill the crock pot right nice, I'm sitting here, admiring their majesty or whatever.
91. Dennis Rodman's number, when 10 was taken. Oh Worm, where are you now?
92. On second thought, don't answer that. There's like a 90-10 chance I don't want to know. Right?
93. I watched For the Bible Tells Me So last night on Netflix, and wept for about the last half hour of it. I'm so sick of having rights that my gay friends and enemies can't have, I could cry. (Which explains those above mentioned thirty minutes.)
94. At this stage in my life, I have to admit, I'm shocked that it's taking me months to come up with 101 noteworthy things about me. I bet when I was twenty-two, I could have cranked out an awesome list in an afternoon.
96. I guess I do tend to try to live vicariously through my little turtles – ever seen a baby, come on, give one a shell, and it might swim to Australia – but that doesn’t stop me from this overwhelming desire to encourage them to do what I would have done, what I would have wanted to do, what I wanted to try but was never talented enough.
For instance. Noon, today, I’d been thinking about delivering a speech to Sam: “Sam, you’re not going to be 15 forever.” But I decided that was too much, and that I would let him figure it out on his own.
Still, who can blame me? I remember fifteen as the first time I got up on the rim. First fingertips, eventually palm, I remember the first time I dunked something – after my cousin’s basketball game, the first of three losses her team had during her four years of varsity play (what a team!) – a nickel. Quickly followed by a lollipop. Oh. I was something. And here’s Sam, six-foot-two, a hundred and seventy pounds . . . oh, what I would have done.
I’d already been to the coffee shop this morning to work on a novel I’m writing – it’s a historical novel, a Western (in a sense) though it’s set in the East; I’m 72,000 words into it, and I went back again this morning to chapter 10, which is the most important chapter in the book and the most boring; it’s the point at which the plot becomes less like 3:10 to Yuma and more like Wallstreet.
Okay, in response to the first part of your question: No, I don’t find it problematic that I can only talk about this book in terms of movies. As for the second part: Yes, I find it as boring to write about writing the book as you find it reading about writing the book.
But that’s kind of my point. I rethunk my speech to Sam – “You’re not going to be 15 forever,” by which what I would have meant was, “Go for a run, do some push ups, get off the computer for half an hour” – but I couldn’t think of anything quantifiably different about what he was doing and what I was doing, would have done, would have wanted to do, wanted to try but was never tall enough.
Nor did I forget to remember that famous conversation between Mom and Dad many years ago . . .
Mom: Don't you worry about him?
Dad: Who?
Mom: Jackson.
Dad: Why?
Dad: Yeah, but . . . he's really good at it.
So I let it go. And focused on myself instead: I did a hundred burpees (squat, kickback, push up, return to squat, jump, chin up) and ran three miles. After all, as my dad pointed out two weeks ago, I’m not going to be thirty-four forever. (His actual words, I believe, were: “You’re officially older than Jesus. Way to go.”)
97. I’ve been writing outside today, and it just now struck me: it smells like the ocean in our back yard – anybody else think it’s time for me to turn off the sprinklers?
98. In other vicarious news: traci left Utah this morning for her first cross country trip without me in eight years. I love that open road. traci, our dear friend Kristen, and Zac are driving back here this week. Zac had been in Utah for three weeks, visiting family who gave him a brand new 1987 Jeep Wrangler – a trip that he’s been planning for over six months. traci, on the other hand, flew out last Thursday on a buddy pass Kristen’s friend had given her, such that she (traci) could drive back here with her (Kristen), and we could all hang out for a while – they decided to do this last week. The fact that they’re caravanning across Wyoming right now is dumb luck.
Given that this scenario is not terribly out of the ordinary for our family, you would think that I would be good at plots, and could just make something wonderful happen in the above mentioned Chapter 10: “Tendrils.” Not the case.
Though I deeply envy them their drive, I have, through the beauty of text messaging (yes, I said it, beauty. of. text. messaging), traci has been updating me when she reaches some of our favorite landmarks: “Park City llama onto I-80,” “Eating a sandwich in the town with no name but lots of fireworks, “Big sky Wyoming,” “that dark red highway across Wyoming,” “the town named after Richard Ford’s stunning short story collection,” “Zac peeing on an abandoned gas station in the wide open plains” (this most recent one is not necessarily a landmark for us, but, again, not so terribly unfamiliar).
And in return, I’ve been occasionally suggesting appropriate music for the drive. At the Utah, Wyoming border (this will be no surprise), I suggested “The BalladPoncho and Lefty” to get them started. Perhaps the perfect road trip song – why not get it into our heads early. “Now you wear your skin like iron, your breath’s as hard as kerosene.” My goodness, Willie. As a writer, I could stand to learn how to create a complete epic narrative in four stanzas. Well played.
For the midway point of Wyoming, I had to go with “Off He Goes.” This one’s personal. The first time I ever drove through Wyoming – in fact the only time I’ve ever crossed it from top to bottom – I was listening to this song. Now, the fact that it is basically a newer version of “Poncho and Lefty” notwithstanding, the song will always remind me of that first cross-country drive with Angelo – only five crackers for lunch, but we would split a can of pork-and-beans for dinner, bathing in rest-stop sinks, our bed was simply every stitch of clothing we owned and a sleeping bag a piece. Freedom might be just another word, as we all know by now, for nothing left to lose, but I don’t think it’s such a bad thing.
I know it’s obvious, but if I were on a desert island, and that desert island was called Nebraska, and my smart phone could only pick up one song for the entire 660 miles: Big Country’s “Through a Big Country.” And if you’re riding along with me, try not to feel at first a little embarrassed for me, then kind of frustrated, and eventually pissed off, as I alternately scream the lyrics and weep for the eleven hours it takes to get to Iowa.
Lag Wagon’s “May 16” and Millencolin’s “No Cigar” for the bulk of Iowa. You’re gonna be tired at this point: pep up. In fact, if you can find it, easily, just play the entire sound track to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater II. I can’t make a connection to road tripping here, but it’s a nice soundtrack to jam to while crossing this little ocean of cornfields.
But what about Illinois and Indiana?
We’re gonna need a bigger soundtrack.
How about this, instead: start with This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think about and just make your way through the Modest Mouse Oeuvre, including, though not every song snaps, No One’s First, and You’re Next. Focusing specifically on “Never Ending Math Equation,” “King Rat,” “Dashboard,” Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and “Styrofoam Boots.”
99. I’ve gotta admit, I’m looking forward to this coming to an end.
100. If I were immortal, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, I would jump off of very tall objects with the idea in mind that I might be able to catch a bird cruising by beneath me – what a rush.
101. Finally, it turns out, I’m an awful blogger. I can’t keep a pace for shit.
102. Bonus: Ijust want to mention how proud I am that I made it through a hundred things about myself without saying fart or shit. Hazah!
103. Bonus: I just now realized there are two # 65s and two # 66s, but I am too lazy to go back and adjust everything that follows accordingly. So lazy, in fact, that I'm not even going to cut and paste them down here to become 104 and 105. That said, I'm leaving it up to the theorists to decide whether or not this can be called a "101 Things about Something" list, given the way I have unintentionally put the pork to the above numbers. To wit, I must say: in your face, alphanumeric system.
4.19.2011
downsizing, evaluating, other stuff
As Some of You May or May Not Know,
traci and I recently quit our jobs. We’re trying to sell our house. We’d like to, in turn, buy some chickens and plant a garden near those chickens. Preferably some place in Southeastern Ohio. We’re downsizing, and taking a step away from academia for a while. We’re going to make more time for our art and our kids and our health, and put less energy into worrying over where our students want to put semicolons or what our colleagues think of our publication records. It’s all, I know, a noble pursuit. It simply overwhelmed us a touch. We found ourselves looking forward to retirement, rather than enjoying our lives.
So I know that raises a lot of questions: what’s your house look like?, is it close to a park, how much are you asking?, chickens?, I thought you already had chickens?, and will you find true happiness once you’ve left teaching?
In response to the first three questions: check out our realtor’s website here. Or if you just want to see our crib, which has not yet been featured on any reality shows. I know. I’m constantly shocked as well. In response what appears to be the fourth question, “chickens?” Well, that’s not really even a question. Or a sentence for that matter. But I’ll do my best to respond: a chicken is a medium-sized flightless . . . you know what just click here to find out. In response to question four, which is also, I see now, not a question, I must say, you can think it all you want, that’s not going to get us farm fresh eggs. And, finally, we’re not even sure what happiness is, but one thing that I’m only now beginning to understand is that happiness, like writing, is a process, not a product, and it is in the enacting of happiness that happiness exists.
I’ve been meditating, which is like weightlifting for one’s soul. That’s how come that last line there sounds so smart. Bet your ass.
Meditating has its limits.
Meanwhile, the above is all part and/or parcel of the reason I’ve written so little lately – I’ve found it hard to celebrate a life in limbo. But I also want you all to know what we’re up to, where we are going, where we have been, what’s on the horizon, what’s off to the left there, just around the bend, up ahead, yet to be, off to the north, up, and going on.
So keep the questions coming, or else I’m gonna have to keep making them up. Until then. Y’ens take care.
4.17.2011
Hair Cut for the 21st Century
Though my head would almost certainly not fit into a red or blue plastic cup, I found myself looking very much like a beer pong ball recently. Well, to be honest, I still call them ping pong balls, but according to most of my students and that tupperware sitting next to the cash register at the BP station, they are now beer pong balls. And, rather than being swatted back and forth across a green plywood table in the garage, apparently the object of the game these days is to cover the ball in lint and dunk it in someone else’s drink. The more drinks you dunk it in, the better your chances for “staying on” to play the next folks.
All sort of beside the point, really. Recently, you all have been asking, “What, then, is the point, Jackson?” Which I’ve taken to mean, “Why are we here?” Or “Is there a meaning to all this?” Or “Tell me about the sea, Jackson?” The last of which, I feel I should mention, is not a question, despite the question mark. Maybe you already knew that. So, what is the point?
The point is: I got a haircut. Let me rephrase: I shaved my head. Not to the scalp exactly, but pretty short. In fact, this is what I used to look like:
This is what I look like now:
Well, a little what I look like.
The boys came home from rock climbing shortly after my “haircut.” Zac said, “Whoa, when your hair’s that short, your beard looks enormous.” Sam said, “You have a beard?”
I bumped into Naomi a short time later, and she asked, “Did you lose a bet or something?”
I asked Blaisey for her honest opinion (an honest question posed in the form of a statement (an honest question with a certain indication that a juice box might accompany the correct answer)): “My haircut looks good, right?”
Blaisey said, “Yes. Good. A little weird . . . but you look really cute in that shirt.”
She got the juice box. But, let’s face it, who wouldn’t look cute in this shirt! The one on the left.
Anyway, I've been busy for a spell, you know, whether other things, but I'm back now, or at least that's what I'd have you believe.
Also, in the off chance that it's not obvious, Desi says hi.
All sort of beside the point, really. Recently, you all have been asking, “What, then, is the point, Jackson?” Which I’ve taken to mean, “Why are we here?” Or “Is there a meaning to all this?” Or “Tell me about the sea, Jackson?” The last of which, I feel I should mention, is not a question, despite the question mark. Maybe you already knew that. So, what is the point?
The point is: I got a haircut. Let me rephrase: I shaved my head. Not to the scalp exactly, but pretty short. In fact, this is what I used to look like:
This is what I look like now:
Well, a little what I look like.
The boys came home from rock climbing shortly after my “haircut.” Zac said, “Whoa, when your hair’s that short, your beard looks enormous.” Sam said, “You have a beard?”
I bumped into Naomi a short time later, and she asked, “Did you lose a bet or something?”
I asked Blaisey for her honest opinion (an honest question posed in the form of a statement (an honest question with a certain indication that a juice box might accompany the correct answer)): “My haircut looks good, right?”
Blaisey said, “Yes. Good. A little weird . . . but you look really cute in that shirt.”
She got the juice box. But, let’s face it, who wouldn’t look cute in this shirt! The one on the left.
Anyway, I've been busy for a spell, you know, whether other things, but I'm back now, or at least that's what I'd have you believe.
Also, in the off chance that it's not obvious, Desi says hi.
12.07.2010
More Recent Evidence Reinforces My Belief That I Married up
Unfortunately, as you all know, I’ve slipped just a touch this past week in my standing as Most Successful Member of the Family. To wit: after many months of super-duper readings at great venues to vicious applause and unyielding lauding, traci’s book Recipes for Endangered Species has been panned. She was thrilled. “Look at this,” she said, “it says here, ‘I felt as if I had left a loving homestead filled with ancestral love and spiritual light to go get a job as a stripper in the city, had sold my child for drugs, and dumped my beloved cat in the trash, and walked away as it mewed. I wanted to go to sleep, but was afraid of my dreams.’”
Absolutely thrilled. She said, “This reviewer hated my book, but this review won’t make people not want to read it.”
I on the other hand felt my married-up status slipping along with traci’s grammar: “ . . . won’t make people not . . .” – so you wonder: what kind of rhetorical Wal-Marts does traci construct while you’re all away? – “won’t make people not”: that kind.
(Should that be while “y’all’re away?”)
With my PhD. a mere language requirement away, and people talking smack about traci’s writing, I thought for sure I would have to start picking my nose while teaching or throwing snowballs at Pat and Olga’s kids and blaming it on the sky. And, hell, it’s not even likely to snow here again until we leave for Utah in December. I was at an impass.
Suddenly, on Tuesday Nickole Brown from White Pine Press called traci. Turns out traci’s manuscript of prose poems Shell-Shaped Pieces of Bone was a finalist for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series. A really awesome series from a really awesome press.
While we found out this past weekend that she did not win, I was consoled by the fact that I’m back, baby. There’s no way I’m going to accomplish as much as traci any time soon, so who is the most excited in the world that I married traci? Clearly, it's this guy:
But, in all fairness, Blaisey's a close second.
Post Script: National Novel Writing Month – good attempts all around at our house. The Epic Asskicking Adventures of Princess Badass topped 8,000 words during the first week, then quickly fell from favor. Instead, I started working on my Western (The Wickedest City) again, and that went well. traci clacked steadily away at her novel – she got closer to maybe 10-12,000 words. While still shy of the 50,000 words the National Novel Writing Month experts look for, she has laid some ground work for a novel that I’m sure you all will be interested in. I’m burying Princess Badass for the time being, but traci’s going to stick with hers. I hear December is National Plutonium Enrichment Month – which means the ancient Connor family mantra (Hold My Beer I Wanna Try Something) has never been more fitting.
Absolutely thrilled. She said, “This reviewer hated my book, but this review won’t make people not want to read it.”
I on the other hand felt my married-up status slipping along with traci’s grammar: “ . . . won’t make people not . . .” – so you wonder: what kind of rhetorical Wal-Marts does traci construct while you’re all away? – “won’t make people not”: that kind.
(Should that be while “y’all’re away?”)
With my PhD. a mere language requirement away, and people talking smack about traci’s writing, I thought for sure I would have to start picking my nose while teaching or throwing snowballs at Pat and Olga’s kids and blaming it on the sky. And, hell, it’s not even likely to snow here again until we leave for Utah in December. I was at an impass.
Suddenly, on Tuesday Nickole Brown from White Pine Press called traci. Turns out traci’s manuscript of prose poems Shell-Shaped Pieces of Bone was a finalist for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series. A really awesome series from a really awesome press.
While we found out this past weekend that she did not win, I was consoled by the fact that I’m back, baby. There’s no way I’m going to accomplish as much as traci any time soon, so who is the most excited in the world that I married traci? Clearly, it's this guy:
But, in all fairness, Blaisey's a close second.
Post Script: National Novel Writing Month – good attempts all around at our house. The Epic Asskicking Adventures of Princess Badass topped 8,000 words during the first week, then quickly fell from favor. Instead, I started working on my Western (The Wickedest City) again, and that went well. traci clacked steadily away at her novel – she got closer to maybe 10-12,000 words. While still shy of the 50,000 words the National Novel Writing Month experts look for, she has laid some ground work for a novel that I’m sure you all will be interested in. I’m burying Princess Badass for the time being, but traci’s going to stick with hers. I hear December is National Plutonium Enrichment Month – which means the ancient Connor family mantra (Hold My Beer I Wanna Try Something) has never been more fitting.
11.24.2010
A Second Honeymoon and Other Travel Advice
traci and I have that old on-going marital competition. For the longest time, we kept secret tabs on who was more successful in life. One day, we just decided to make a list. My argument was that I had attained more in life than she had. And hers was, "Nah nah, nahnah, poopoo." At any rate, here's a sample of the list.
* traci had a full scholarship to play Division One basketball – I was a Division Three cheerleader for gym credit
* traci has a PhD. – I have an MFA (from the same university)
* she’s 6’1” – I’m 5’11” (with my boots on)
* she has a book published – I have a few short stories and an essay
* she is a tenure track professor – I teach part time
As you can imagine, the list went on for the first half of a seventy-page college ruled spiral notebook before traci, incredulously, asked me, “Well, then, how exactly are you more successful than I?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “I married up.”
traci’s choice of spouse aside, she really is pretty amazing. Recently, writer and madhatter Carol Novak asked traci to read along with herself, David Smith, and Carter Monroe at the MadHat's Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes. traci, of course, was honored, and it gave more credence to my argument that my spouse is superior to my spouse’s spouse in all ways. Chalk one up for this guy. I don’t see traci becoming as successful as me any time soon, unless she stops doing really awesome things and I start robbing banks. That might equalize the playing field.
Anyway, it was an awesome reading, and if you’ve never met the above four awesome writers, then I’m better than you. Or luckier, at least, and if you like reading, look into each of their works – some of the best stuff I’ve been exposed to for quite a while, and someday when I complete my PhD., I’ll have the ethos to explain why they’re awesome. For now, it’s enough to say, they are kind and strong people who celebrate art and good conversations.
Meanwhile, traci and I took advantage of the journey to have a romantic day alone. We started off the day by taking a circuitous route up around the panhandle to have a look at some used cast iron bathtubs in the hopes of finding a four footer to fit our guest bathroom. The place we drove to is close to the Tennessee border, and the guy who runs it sits there on the porch, with a fence made of bathtubs and a yard made of bathtubs and a garden made of bathtubs, and this guy can tell you the personal history of every one of the bathtubs and others like them.
We asked him how he kept track of the prices of all the tubs. He said, “Five footers are two hundred. Four foot and a halfers are three hundred. And I don’t have any four footers, but, if I did, it would run you about seven hundred.” At this point, I could only be thankful we didn’t need a three footer – we’d have to sell the bathroom to buy the tub.
So we continued on our way – tubless – to Ashville, following the directions we’d been given by the internet. It has always amazed myself and my family that when I moved to Utah to perform my MFA program, I got on Route 8 which runs past my house, drove to Barkeyville, turned left on I-80 and drove straight until I found a hotel in Salt Lake City. In order to get from Greensboro NC to Ashville NC, we had to print out three pages of directions, leading us through Tennessee along seventeen different routes and interstates, and dubious county roads. At one point, traci looked up from the map and said, “Are we in somebody’s backyard?”
Now, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can start at Point A, walk a mile south, walk a mile east, walk a mile north, and end up back at Point A. It’s a sort of a riddle slash logic problem. Don’t finish this sentence if you don’t want to know the answer is the North Pole. At any rate, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can make such a triangular journey, following straight lines.
I’m here today to say that I think we’ve found a second such place. One of the directions, and this is verbatim, asked us to “Turn left to continue straight North on East 74 West.” I’m not going to address the fact that the directions asked us to turn left to go straight. Nor am I concerned with the idea of heading West on 74 East. What concerns me here is that we were already heading west, so the left turn should have effectively had us driving south while heading North on East 74 West.
So while I recognize the complicated magnetic issues the North Pole offers the world, I am certain there isn’t a pole on this planet that can contend with Tennessee for confusing travelers. At one point, in fact, we came to an intersection of East 74 West and North 81 West and couldn’t decipher the map. So we drove straight for a mile, came back to the intersection, tried the two other roads – each time coming back to the intersection – and simply decided to backtrack on East 74 East for a few miles. Now, it turns out that was exactly what the directions wanted us to do, but what’s more interesting is that all three of the other roads would have taken us 22 miles to Boone, NC. I know all roads once lead to Rome, and that’s a nice metaphor, but the only thing I can figure is that whoever designed the roads in Tennessee had a strong practical grasp of mobius strips.
Still, though we didn’t end up with a tub, it was a beautiful drive. The Black Mountain College Museum was a great space for a wonderful reading. After which we ate the best Punjabi food I’ve eaten since Jaswinder let me sleep on his floor for three months. We ended the romantic evening by driving halfway back to Greensboro along I-40 and sleeping for a couple hours at a rest stop. Best second honeymoon we’ve had since we moved to North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the whole lot of us are in Pennsylvania until Sunday, and for those of you travelling during the holiday season, I have two bits of advice. One drive safely: there’s lots of lousy drivers and even worse text messagers out there these days. And two, if you head through Tennessee, take a camera (it’s truly beautiful country), but leave the compass at home: it won’t do you any good anyway.
* traci had a full scholarship to play Division One basketball – I was a Division Three cheerleader for gym credit
* traci has a PhD. – I have an MFA (from the same university)
* she’s 6’1” – I’m 5’11” (with my boots on)
* she has a book published – I have a few short stories and an essay
* she is a tenure track professor – I teach part time
As you can imagine, the list went on for the first half of a seventy-page college ruled spiral notebook before traci, incredulously, asked me, “Well, then, how exactly are you more successful than I?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “I married up.”
traci’s choice of spouse aside, she really is pretty amazing. Recently, writer and madhatter Carol Novak asked traci to read along with herself, David Smith, and Carter Monroe at the MadHat's Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes. traci, of course, was honored, and it gave more credence to my argument that my spouse is superior to my spouse’s spouse in all ways. Chalk one up for this guy. I don’t see traci becoming as successful as me any time soon, unless she stops doing really awesome things and I start robbing banks. That might equalize the playing field.
Anyway, it was an awesome reading, and if you’ve never met the above four awesome writers, then I’m better than you. Or luckier, at least, and if you like reading, look into each of their works – some of the best stuff I’ve been exposed to for quite a while, and someday when I complete my PhD., I’ll have the ethos to explain why they’re awesome. For now, it’s enough to say, they are kind and strong people who celebrate art and good conversations.
Meanwhile, traci and I took advantage of the journey to have a romantic day alone. We started off the day by taking a circuitous route up around the panhandle to have a look at some used cast iron bathtubs in the hopes of finding a four footer to fit our guest bathroom. The place we drove to is close to the Tennessee border, and the guy who runs it sits there on the porch, with a fence made of bathtubs and a yard made of bathtubs and a garden made of bathtubs, and this guy can tell you the personal history of every one of the bathtubs and others like them.
We asked him how he kept track of the prices of all the tubs. He said, “Five footers are two hundred. Four foot and a halfers are three hundred. And I don’t have any four footers, but, if I did, it would run you about seven hundred.” At this point, I could only be thankful we didn’t need a three footer – we’d have to sell the bathroom to buy the tub.
So we continued on our way – tubless – to Ashville, following the directions we’d been given by the internet. It has always amazed myself and my family that when I moved to Utah to perform my MFA program, I got on Route 8 which runs past my house, drove to Barkeyville, turned left on I-80 and drove straight until I found a hotel in Salt Lake City. In order to get from Greensboro NC to Ashville NC, we had to print out three pages of directions, leading us through Tennessee along seventeen different routes and interstates, and dubious county roads. At one point, traci looked up from the map and said, “Are we in somebody’s backyard?”
Now, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can start at Point A, walk a mile south, walk a mile east, walk a mile north, and end up back at Point A. It’s a sort of a riddle slash logic problem. Don’t finish this sentence if you don’t want to know the answer is the North Pole. At any rate, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can make such a triangular journey, following straight lines.
I’m here today to say that I think we’ve found a second such place. One of the directions, and this is verbatim, asked us to “Turn left to continue straight North on East 74 West.” I’m not going to address the fact that the directions asked us to turn left to go straight. Nor am I concerned with the idea of heading West on 74 East. What concerns me here is that we were already heading west, so the left turn should have effectively had us driving south while heading North on East 74 West.
So while I recognize the complicated magnetic issues the North Pole offers the world, I am certain there isn’t a pole on this planet that can contend with Tennessee for confusing travelers. At one point, in fact, we came to an intersection of East 74 West and North 81 West and couldn’t decipher the map. So we drove straight for a mile, came back to the intersection, tried the two other roads – each time coming back to the intersection – and simply decided to backtrack on East 74 East for a few miles. Now, it turns out that was exactly what the directions wanted us to do, but what’s more interesting is that all three of the other roads would have taken us 22 miles to Boone, NC. I know all roads once lead to Rome, and that’s a nice metaphor, but the only thing I can figure is that whoever designed the roads in Tennessee had a strong practical grasp of mobius strips.
Still, though we didn’t end up with a tub, it was a beautiful drive. The Black Mountain College Museum was a great space for a wonderful reading. After which we ate the best Punjabi food I’ve eaten since Jaswinder let me sleep on his floor for three months. We ended the romantic evening by driving halfway back to Greensboro along I-40 and sleeping for a couple hours at a rest stop. Best second honeymoon we’ve had since we moved to North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the whole lot of us are in Pennsylvania until Sunday, and for those of you travelling during the holiday season, I have two bits of advice. One drive safely: there’s lots of lousy drivers and even worse text messagers out there these days. And two, if you head through Tennessee, take a camera (it’s truly beautiful country), but leave the compass at home: it won’t do you any good anyway.
11.04.2010
National Novel Writing Month and Me
What you’ve heard is true: November is national novel writing month. This is a tradition that is as old as time itself – eleven years. The official website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) claims the first Nanowrimo was held in 1999. Yes, I thought time would be older as well. Who knew?
Still, this reminds me of the first time the kids ever came to Pennsylvania. Summer 2004. traci and I had been married for a few months, and we were driving down over the hill to visit Maga and Pappap. Zac was eleven, Sam was eight, and Naomi was four.
Sam said, “My friend had to have his index removed.”
I said, “His index?”
Sam said, “Yes.”
Naomi said, “Did it hurt?”
Sam said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Naomi said, “What’s an index?”
Zac said, “I think he means appendix.”
Sam said, “Yes, appendix.”
Naomi said, “What’s an appendix?”
Zac said, “Nobody knows.”
Naomi said, “Why do we have one if we don’t know what they are?”
Zac said, “Sometimes organs that were once useful lose their necessity as the body evolves in order to adapt to our environment.”
Sam said, “Basically, we grew out of it: like tonsils.”
Naomi said, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Like back in the nineties.”
This conversation is noteworthy to me, because it marks the first time I realized that my kids think of me not only as a different generation, but also as a primitive stage of the evolutionary cycle. All said, it’s not an awful feeling, and it does make me appreciate how difficult it was for my parents to adjust to losing their tails.
Meanwhile, back at National Novel Writing Month: traci and I have talked for years about taking part in this tradition. Each year, we’ve opted out. This year, we decided that since we’ve never been busier in our whole lives, we might as well try to crank out a 50,000 word work of fiction. (We are doing this unofficially.) That’s approximately 1,666 words a day.
In response to your first question: Is that a lot of words? Well, for instance, The Declaration of Independence has about 1,300 words. And that took fifty-six people like a month and a half to write. So, yes, I’d say 1,666 a day is a considerable amount.
In response to your second question: Will I be in your novel? No, you will not. Rather, I’m attempting a fantasy novel I’m tentatively calling The Epic Asskicking Saga of Princess Badass. It’s terrible. Perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever written. traci is writing an awesome novel, which she will tell you all about at a later date. You are not in that novel either.
But maybe you’ll be in the sequels. Meanwhile, we are both a little bit behind schedule, but optimistic. As neither of us teaches on Fridays, we have vowed to write our asses off on those days. I’ll leave you with that compelling image. Wish us luck.
Still, this reminds me of the first time the kids ever came to Pennsylvania. Summer 2004. traci and I had been married for a few months, and we were driving down over the hill to visit Maga and Pappap. Zac was eleven, Sam was eight, and Naomi was four.
Sam said, “My friend had to have his index removed.”
I said, “His index?”
Sam said, “Yes.”
Naomi said, “Did it hurt?”
Sam said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Naomi said, “What’s an index?”
Zac said, “I think he means appendix.”
Sam said, “Yes, appendix.”
Naomi said, “What’s an appendix?”
Zac said, “Nobody knows.”
Naomi said, “Why do we have one if we don’t know what they are?”
Zac said, “Sometimes organs that were once useful lose their necessity as the body evolves in order to adapt to our environment.”
Sam said, “Basically, we grew out of it: like tonsils.”
Naomi said, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Like back in the nineties.”
This conversation is noteworthy to me, because it marks the first time I realized that my kids think of me not only as a different generation, but also as a primitive stage of the evolutionary cycle. All said, it’s not an awful feeling, and it does make me appreciate how difficult it was for my parents to adjust to losing their tails.
Meanwhile, back at National Novel Writing Month: traci and I have talked for years about taking part in this tradition. Each year, we’ve opted out. This year, we decided that since we’ve never been busier in our whole lives, we might as well try to crank out a 50,000 word work of fiction. (We are doing this unofficially.) That’s approximately 1,666 words a day.
In response to your first question: Is that a lot of words? Well, for instance, The Declaration of Independence has about 1,300 words. And that took fifty-six people like a month and a half to write. So, yes, I’d say 1,666 a day is a considerable amount.
In response to your second question: Will I be in your novel? No, you will not. Rather, I’m attempting a fantasy novel I’m tentatively calling The Epic Asskicking Saga of Princess Badass. It’s terrible. Perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever written. traci is writing an awesome novel, which she will tell you all about at a later date. You are not in that novel either.
But maybe you’ll be in the sequels. Meanwhile, we are both a little bit behind schedule, but optimistic. As neither of us teaches on Fridays, we have vowed to write our asses off on those days. I’ll leave you with that compelling image. Wish us luck.
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