Travels in Chicago and Abroad....

Yesterday, my mother came down to Chicago and hung out with me for the day. Ostensibly, she was here to help me pack (which she did) and take me out for my birthday (we went to Zia! New Mexican food in Chicago! Best of both worlds!) but actually we spent the majority of the day driving around the city looking for baby hats. It's a long story.

Anyway, even though tromping all over the city with my mom was fantastic, and the sun even came out for a few minutes here and there, the highlight by far was "Mamabackes's Tour of Homes (and everyone who was stabbed when she lived there)" in which she drove us around Old Town and Lincoln Park, showing us all the different houses and apartments she lived in when she lived here in her twenties. Every apartment came complete with a story like, "Oh, and that house three doors down? That's where a pregnant lady was stabbed in the stomach and pushed out a third floor window..... and that place had the BEST Italian bread! ....Where that bar is used to be our laundromat, where my neighbor got stabbed and then he was so scared he had to borrow my German shepherd for the night.... did I tell you about the ladies who used to make big plates of fried chicken and spaghetti at that church?.... and over there is where your cousin got stabbed in the neck......"

It was awesome.

I made her give me a similar tour a few years ago, when I was here taking a summer class at Second City, but I didn't yet have any frame of reference for the city, so I didn't really understand where we were at any given time. Yesterday, I saw that she lived in a pretty close range, and after taking the Armitage bus every day for six months, I am all too familiar with the area where the pregnant lady was stabbed. Luckily for pregnant ladies, and probably unluckily for local color, the area is now mostly full of ladies who are far too rich to do anything so undignified as get stabbed in the belly. The back, certainly.

I love hearing my mom's stories and trying to imagine what Chicago was like thirty years ago, even as I learn what it's like for myself now. Because my parents both lived here when they were my age, this place sometimes feels a little bit like an ancestral home. In a nice way.

So thanks Mom. You can tell me about walking your dog and people getting stabbed any day.

In other news, I'm heading off to Barbados tomorrow for my college roommate's wedding. Five of us lived in a house senior year at Grinnell (White House, for you Grinnellians) which we called "The Funnery Nunnery -- the last stop before hell." We were the Fun Nuns, also known as the Bad Habits. We're reconvening on the beach for a week of nuns in the sun, which will likely culminate in some sort of leaving the sisterhood ceremony. She may be leaving the sisterhood, but she'll always be our sister. Awwwwwwww.

So: I'll see you when I get back! Have a great week!

March: The Book You Should Have Told Me To Read

Last fall, I wrote about my lifelong fondness for Louisa May Alcott’s timeless Little Women. I may have also mentioned, once or twice, my deep and profound love for reimagined stories. If you know me well, you also know that I love song covers – same basic concept. You take someone else’s story (or song) and spin it in a slightly different way. When you’re successful, you gain the ring of truth in your own story, set as it is in a world already established, and add depth to the original.

Knowing all this as you do, how is it possible that NO ONE has thought to recommend Geraldine Brooks’s exquisite book March to me? Come on, Bloglandia! Where were you? You made me wait until my father just happened to pick it off the book table at church a few weeks before my birthday? In 2008?? When it won the Pulitzer Prize TWO YEARS AGO??

You guys!

Even MORE troubling than this gross oversight on the part of everyone I know are the blank looks on the faces of the people I’ve recommended this book to in the last few days:

Me: OMG, I just read this fantastic book.
Book-Loving Friend: Oh, I love to read! What is it?
Me: Geraldine Brooks’s book March. It tells the story of what happens to Mr. March when he goes off to the Civil War. It’s so good!
Friend Who Actually Might Not Be That Much of A Bibliophile After All: Who?
Me: Mr. March. You know! Marmee’s husband? Meg and Jo and Beth and Amy’s father?
Friend I Previously Considered to be Literate: (blank look) Uh… who?
Me: You know, like Little Women?
Friend Who Clearly Hates Books and Maybe Isn’t Actually My Friend After All Because How Can I Be Friends With Someone Who Doesn’t Know Who Marmee Is, I Mean Really: Oh yeah, I never read that book. Should I?

People!! I expected this kind of nonsense from my students, but from my friends? From adults? From the WRITERS in my workshop? You can’t not read Little Women!

I’m serious. Go read Little Women, and don’t come back until you can tell me what Teddy Laurence has in common with Sir James Chettam. I’ll wait here.







Okay, from here on out I’ll assume you’ve now all read Little Women. Isn’t it great? Don’t you love the part where everything’s just awful and Beth has scarlet fever and Marmee’s away in Washington and the girls are all by themselves, trying to keep poor little Beth alive, but then Marmee comes home and Beth can breathe and THEN Mr. March comes home on Christmas and everyone flies to him and smothers him in hugs and Amy falls at his feet and hugs his ankles and the girls make him go around and tell them how they’ve all changed in the year since he left them?

Ever wonder how Mr. March changed?

Geraldine Brooks did. In her splendid March, she tells the story of what happens to Mr. March during his year in the Civil War, doubling back in the narrative to cover his youth as a traveling salesman, his courtship and marriage to Marmee, how he won and lost his fortune, and why he decided to leave his four little women and his wife for the grueling hardships of war. Just as Louisa May Alcott drew on her own family to craft her novel, Geraldine Brooks turned to the journals of LMA’s father, A. Bronson Alcott, to fill in some of the narrative gaps, lending historical and familial truth to the figure of Captain March. Additionally, Brooks peoples her narrative with familiar figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Day, and Henry Thoreau, with whom the Alcotts themselves were acquainted.

As the best retellings do, March adds layers of pathos and depth to the pages of Little Women, its shift in perspective bound to change the way you read the homey scenes in the March home forever. After what he witnesses on the battlefield, the carnage and the cruelty, how can Mr. March possibly come home unchanged? And yet, the story of his family is clearly the story of the women, who focus on their growth and development without allowing much room for their father to do any of his own.

I don’t even like historical fiction, and the Civil War is by far my least favorite period of time to read about – and yet – I love this book. I read so much and so quickly that it’s rare for a book to strike at my heart. Even more rare are the times I find myself looking up from a page in quiet thankfulness, almost disbelief, that this book is SO GOOD and doesn’t lag or lose my interest at any point. March defied my every expectation.




It was folly to let him go. Unfair of him to ask it of me. And yet one is not permitted to say such a thing; it is just one more in the long list of things that a woman must not say. A sacrifice such as his is called noble by the world. But the world will not help me put back together what the war has broken apart.

It's supposed to be spring. SPRING!

An Open Letter to the State of Wisconsin

Dear Wisconsin,

How’s it going? Things are pretty okay here, I guess. I mean, Illinois is all right and everything, even though we used to make fun of it a lot. Those were good days, huh Wisconsin? Remember? Those long lazy days of summer, when it seemed like everything was funny and nothing could go wrong? I know you’re one hundred thirty two years older than me and everything, but our age difference never seemed to be much of a big deal, back then. We were pals.

Wisconsin, I have a confession. I took you for granted. I know I did. I didn’t realize how much I cared about you until I left. I went off to Iowa and though – I know this is hard to hear Wisconsin, but it’s true – though Iowa is very lovely in its own way, and will always be dear in my heart, it was YOU that I missed, Wisconsin. Did Iowa introduce me to deep fried cheese curds and beer baseball? Does Iowa have a cave full of smurfs and towns full of trolls? Can Iowa brag about its Circus Museum & Mustard Museum? No, Wisconsin. That’s all you. Iowa doesn’t even have a professional football team, babe.

I tried to make it work, Wisconsin. I came back to you, remember? I came back. We had a whole summer full of five mile walks at midnight, the Milky Way spread thick over the quiet cornfields, wildflowers by the sides of the highway, bobbing with fireflies. Music on the Union Terrace, the colors and textures of the Farmer’s Market in June, ambling through the prairie grasses of the biggest dog park I’ve ever seen… the hills of Lacrosse and the Mississippi bluffs… Picnic Point in autumn, with merlot and burgundy leaves overhead and orange and gold at our feet…. You, Wisconsin. It was you I loved.

Okay, okay, I know I left again. What can I say? New Mexico had a certain je ne sais quois. It was exotic, all those lavender mountains and wide open skies. I never left you for very long, though, did I Wisconsin? I came back to you at least twice a year, and believe me, I thought about you a lot. Look, New Mexico’s gorgeous, but it doesn’t have your trees, Wisconsin. It doesn’t have your gorgeous autumns or your velvet summer nights. All that humidity we used to complain about? Turns out it makes for some pretty fantastic early summer mornings, the mist rising off the lake…. New Mexico doesn’t even have lakes, baby.

Look, Wisconsin, it’s always been you. You’ll always be the one I come back to. You’ll always be the one I’m talking about when I talk about home. But honestly Wisconsin? I have to admit that I’m getting pretty tired of this winter shit. I know, I know, you’re in your rebellious phase. I get it. You’re trying to punish me for leaving you. Last winter you rubbed your mild winter in my face with your 55 degree days and your sparkling turquoise lakes as I flew out of Madison for the tundra that was Albuquerque, and this year, now that I’m back, you’re nothing but snow and ice. Just like your heart, right? I get it, Wisconsin. You never were very subtle with your metaphors. But seriously, enough. Enough.

Wisconsin, it’s spring. It’s March 21, Wisconsin. It’s Easter. If you weren’t in such a snit today I would be with you RIGHT NOW, Wisconsin. That’s right! I was going to drive up today and hang out with you all weekend, did you know that? Until Monday, Wisconsin! I always spend the holidays with you, Wisconsin, you know that. Of course I was going to spend Easter with you. But no, you had to be all 8-10 inches of snow, winter driving emergencies, winter weather warnings, Dane County Sheriff’s office sending out memos begging people to stay off the roads if at all possible…. And then you drag Illinois into it? That’s pretty childish, babe.

I’m losing my patience here, Wisconsin. Look, of course I love you, but if you’re going to be nothing but winter from October 1 to April 1, then maybe it’s not worth it anymore. No, this isn’t an ultimatum… I’m just saying, Wisconsin, that… you know, I’m still friends with New Mexico, and I could always go back. I could. Cause babe, I really don’t need this right now.

Give me some sunshine & I’ll reconsider.

Love and kisses,
Molly

The Mysterious Elderly Gentleman

By Mamabackes

When I got home from work yesterday, 15 year old Zeke was not at the back door to greet me. About half of the time he seems to hear the car or otherwise sense that I will be opening the door and is there waiting. I let Basil out of his crate and went to tell Zeke that it was time for a walk. When I left the house nine hours earlier, Zeke was sleeping peacefully on the couch, but he was not on either the couch or the loveseat. I went upstairs to look for him on his bed and he was not there either! I did a frantic search of the entire house, including the closed bedrooms and closets, under beds and in hidden corners and Zeke was no where to be found! I thought maybe Molly had been homesick and had driven up and taken him for a walk but that didn't make any sense. Then I (seriously!) thought that Zeke had died while I was gone and the creatures from his planet had landed in the back yard and retrieved the body of their king to take back home.

Finally, I went to the basement and found Zeke disoriented, sleeping on a pile of dirty laundry. I do not believe that he has ever been in the basement before, and I can't even imagine how difficult it would have been for him to make it down the cement stairs when he has such difficulty with the carpeted ones. I don't know if he went looking for a quiet place to die or he got lost looking for cheese. He was unable to climb up the stairs by himself so I carried him up. Once he was back in the kitchen he started bugling his moose call and jumping in the excitement of being readied for a walk, all thoughts of demise banished, for now.

Love, Mama

A Letter to My Students

Recently, spies at my old school informed me that some of my former students thought to google me. Apparently, they found this blog and came back with the information that A) Ms. Backes is writing a book! [True] and B) Ms. Backes has friends!! [Also true, and how flattering that it should come as a surprise to them. Reminds me of Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago, when my students were shocked to hear that I had managed to find someone who wanted to date me.

George: Are you married Ms. Backes?
Me: No.
Dan: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: Yes.
Haley: YOU have a BOYFRIEND??????????
Me: (dryly) try not to sound so surprised.
Haley: You must be a LOT more exciting outside of school.

Anyhow, yes, children, Ms. Backes has managed to trick several people into being friends with her over the years, and yes, she’s probably more exciting outside school.]

As usual, I can’t resist the chance to hang out with students for a bit, so if you’ll forgive me, this next part is for any kid I was ever fortunate enough to work with, from the current 8th graders who are clever enough to google me but wouldn’t actually talk to me when I was there in December (hi 7th period!) to the now-in-their-mid-twenties folks who were in the first theater class I ever taught, in the mid-90s.

To My Students

Hey you guys,

I miss you! You probably don’t believe that, because you remember all the times I threatened to make you pay for my therapy bills. You probably assume that when I think about you, I think of all the giggles and whispers I was constantly shushing, the big round zeros in my assignment book I was always nagging you to complete for me, the notes full of middle school drama I liked to confiscate and pretend I was going to put in my imaginary book Whuz UP: Linguistic Particularities in Colloquial Pre-Adolescent Discourse. Of course I remember those things, and many more, believe me. But really? When I think of you guys I don’t think of picking up your candy wrappers after I expressly told said no food in my classroom, or of buzzing the office to send someone to find you when I knew you were ditching my class, or of washing my board for the third time in one day because you just couldn’t stop yourselves from drawing little doggies with circles for paws next to your name and basketball number, even when I hid all the chalk.

What I remember best are the times you made me laugh.

I have hundreds of pages of funny things you said, hundreds of snippets of conversation and quotations that made me laugh then and make me laugh still. I kept the stories and drawings and notes and cards you gave me, and over the years I’ve gone back to them, and they’ve helped me to face another day of whispers and candy wrappers. I miss the way you could always take me by surprise, how you were always far more clever and sly than anyone gave you credit for, how pleased you seemed when you could make me laugh out loud, even if it was for something ridiculous. Especially then.

I miss reading with you. A few years ago, some teachers and I were talking about what we’d do if we won the lottery, and of course the general consensus involved closing the school and moving to Mexico, but I said if I won the lottery I’d keep coming to school, I’d just stop giving grades, and turn my classes into writing groups and book clubs. We’d just hang out together and write stuff and read books together and talk about why we liked them. The best days in class were the days closest to that model: last year, when we pushed all the desks back and sprawled out in a circle on the floor together, or the year before, when we did nothing but read The Diary of Anne Frank for two weeks straight, no tests, no journals, no worksheets. We just read and talked. The time we did Nanowrimo together and did nothing but write novels for a whole month – that was awesome. The year before that, when we picked a country in the world and wrote a story about someone who might live there, with the understanding that ninjas can live anywhere. So fun.

You guys were also my favorite people to be around when things got sad and hard. Those of you who were in seventh grade in the fall of 2002 (and will be graduating this year, my goodness!), after the one year memorial service we had on September 11, you guys talked to me about the whole terrible event, and you helped me to keep faith in the goodness of the world. Or the following spring, when my cousin was killed in a car crash, you were the only people I could talk to, because you were the only ones who didn’t feed me BS about it. All the grown-ups gave me platitudes like “It was his time” and “He’s in a better place now,” until I wanted to scream. You guys just looked at me and said, “Are you sad? If my cousin died I would be really sad.” I was, and you were the only ones who just let me be sad without trying to gloss over anything. Thanks for that.

We talked about some tough stuff over the years: the Holocaust, the KKK, Hate Crimes, homophobia, racism, sexism, violence, fear, September 11, the Birmingham Church bombing, slavery, Matthew Shepard, Columbine, Hurricane Katrina, the deaths of people in our communities, suicides, addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, murder, rape. We kept tallies of how many times in a day we heard people using racist or sexist or homophobic epithets (and it was a LOT). You asked me why Hitler hated the Jews and then you told me about who you hated, two weeks later, and I tried to make you see that your reasons were just as dumb as Hitler’s were. We talked about Matthew Shepard and you brought me articles from the local newspaper about a similar Hate Crime that happened in our own town. Most of you made an effort to stop calling people fags and using “gay” as a synonym for “dumb” – at least in my presence. You wrote a lot about yourselves, and tried to find your own voices in spite of the fact that middle school pushes you to conform. You thanked me for giving you permission to be weird. You took my suggestion to use your imagination and ran with it. You came back from high school and told me that I would be proud of you: you’ve dropped a lot of the posturing you had in middle school and now you’re much more of an individual.

I am proud of you guys. I’m proud of you all. Don’t forget the things we talked about back then. Be weird and wonderful and creative. Be yourselves. Be kind to everyone, even the freaky kids. Don’t listen to gossip, and don’t spread it. Don’t let other people make up your mind for you. Judge everything for yourself, and always keep an open mind. Let yourself be surprised. Remember the power of language, and please call people out when they use racist or sexist or homophobic language in your presence. Be thoughtful and true to yourself. Keep reading. Keep writing.

Thanks for all the awesome times we had together, the great discussions and the games of Silent Desk Tag. Thanks for making me laugh. You guys were the funniest and best students a teacher could have.

Keep being awesome.

Love,
Ms. Backes

My Little Pony: Princess Mononoke

Last night, we watched Hayao Miyazaki’s film Mononoke-hime, or Princess Mononoke, which – according to Wikipedia, at least -- is the third most popular anime film in Japan, after Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. For good reason. Princess Mononoke is beautifully animated and presents a tale of complex moralities in the struggle between the Humans and the Forest. Like Harry and Voldemort, it seems, neither shall live while the other survives. Only Prince Ashitaka, an exile from a long-lost tribe, understands the need to make peace between the two groups.

I have a deep-rooted (and totally irrational, I know) distaste for anime, which stems from this show Belle and Sebastian that was on Nickelodeon in the late 80s. I hated that show, and I’m not sure why. It’s about a little boy and his giant dog (a Great Pyrenees, probably) who live in the French Pyrenees – yes, the central plot focused on a dog, and still Young Molly could not love it. It was the weirdly moving mouths and eyes and the occasionally poorly-synced sound that bothered me. Also, as I recall, the kids were always climbing mountains and freaking out about something or other, and whenever they freaked out about something, their mouths opened and shut like lampreys. I hated that.

So the very fact that Princess Mononoke won me over says a lot for it; it’s good enough to charm an ardent anime disliker. What I loved especially about the film -- other than the gorgeous animation and the extremely charming character Yakul the red elk – was the complexity of the characters. No one (other than Yakul) is all good or all bad. Lady Eboshi (voiced in the English version by Minnie Driver) is the leader of the Human settlement Irontown, and though she thinks it would be a fantastic idea to kill all the animals in the Forest and cut off the head of the Forest Spirit, she also takes in lepers and buys the freedom of girls in brothels. Moro the wolf goddess (voiced by Gillian Anderson) wants to eat Lady Eboshi’s head and generally thinks that Humans should probably all be drowned like kittens, but she also takes in a human girl and raises her as a daughter, and will do anything to protect the Forest. It’s never easy.

The only part of the movie that gave me pause was the ending. Billy Bob Thornton and Minnie Driver manage to cut the head off the Forest Spirit, causing it to turn into a giant black ooze that searches the forest for its head and turns everything it touches evil or dead. Suddenly, the fight to stay clear of the black ooze becomes a matter of life or death. “Don’t let the ooze touch you!” people scream, running from its inevitable path.

The scene would have been very dramatic, probably, if it hadn’t reminded me of another animated movie: My Little Pony: The Movie. That’s right, Miyazaki’s lovely, classic film reminded me of a wretched example of cinematic prostitution existing only to sell more toy ponies, one which to this day is on record for being one of the weakest grossing feature films ever.

My film studies major sister will probably have a coronary at this comparison. Miyazaki… and Hasbro? Seriously?

Yes, seriously, and Megan, here’s why: I know you remember My Little Pony: The Movie, because we definitely rented it from Mr. Eddy’s video store more than once. Perhaps you recall the plot, which involves an evil witch making a PURPLE OOZE which covers PonyLand and which turns everything it touches grumpy and pessimistic. Miyazaki = Black Ooze, turns you evil; My Little Pony = Purple Ooze, turns you cranky. Just as the final scenes of Princess Mononoke have everyone running away from the Black Ooze, much of My Little Pony: The Movie involves ponies, dragons, flutter ponies, and some human kids (notably named Megan and Molly, which may explain why my sister and I watched that movie more than once) running away from the Purple Ooze. The Black Ooze destroys the Forest and Irontown; the Purple Ooze destroys PonyLand and the Dream Castle. The Black Ooze disappears when Ashitaka and San give the Forest Spirit’s head back to him; the Purple Ooze disappears when the Flutter Ponies come do “Utter Flutter” and free the Rainbow of Light, which attacks the witches who made the Purple Ooze and drops them in a volcano. Okay, so the denouement isn’t quite the same, but still. The Oozes and their effects are eerily similar.

After watching Princess Mononoke, I’m eager to see Miyazaki’s most popular film Spirited Away, which I actually promised Lisa I’d see years ago. I’d probably even see Howl’s Moving Castle, I was that enchanted by Miyazaki’s work. Still, you’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that Hayao wasn’t watching My Little Pony: The Movie with his grandchildren when he worked on the script for Princess Mononoke. I guess I’ll hold my judgment here, but if Spirited Away ends with Utter Flutter freeing the Rainbow of Light... well, Hayao Miyazaki, I got your number, and I’ll count it in tiny purple hoofbeats.

Go Rest, Young Bear

I've gotten a couple of panicky emails asking where I am. "You haven't blogged in FIVE DAYS!! Are you alive??"

I am. I haven't. I'm sorry.

Here's the thing: the high -- the HIGH -- in Chicago today was 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't want to know what the windchill was. The sun was actually out, which was a nice change, but still? Twenty-two degrees below freezing is goddamn cold.

As it turns out, the HR people at my old job changed their minds once more, and they decided to make the job half what I did when I was there and half what I never want to do anywhere, and so once again the universe made that decision for me. Thanks, universe! Anytime you need help making a decision, I got your back.

So this week: no reason to leave the house (with the exception of a fabulous breakfast with my dear friend Kate Cannon on Monday) -- really really cold outside -- aaaaaaaannnd, our internet's broken. Therefore: peaceful hermitage. ("Till old experience do attain /
To something like prophetic strain...." Am I right? J-Milt? Cynthia knows what I mean.)

I've been sleeping a lot, shifting in my bed to absorb what sunlight I can find. For a while, I assumed that it was seasonal depression, back with a vengeance now that I'm firmly entrenched in this midwestern darkness. It came to my attention recently, though, that spending the winter snuggling doesn't necessarily mean I'm depressed. It seems I could also be a bear.


Given a choice between seasonal affective disorder and being a bear, I choose bear.






So dear reader, be assured: it's not that I'm too cold to blog, or too sleepy, or too busy revising my novel. Nope. I'm busy being a bear.

Corporate Waste

Subtitle: Things I've Thrown Away This Week (Not Including My Heart)

On Tuesday, I spent the entire day making thirteen copies of a 60-page binder. 780 pages, plus all the binder tab pages (65). And the cover pages, 13. So... 858 pages.

This comprised about two, two and a half hours' work, and tons of paper cuts. The company paid approximately sixty dollars to have me do this.

At the end of the project, it turned out that the binders the project manager bought for the reports didn't match up to the hole-puncher we'd used, so the 65 page report didn't fit into the 13 brand new binders. The project manager looked at me, and I could see the thought "Redo" flashing in his eyes. Instead, I talked him into going into the supply closet for different binders. We found six binder that worked, and he ran off to order more of the same binder from the office supply company, to be delivered the next morning. The company paid about $25 for me and probably about $50 for him to take this hour plus just worrying about binders.

Then I boxed up four of the binders we had and fed-exed them off to the east coast, two-day delivery. It was a large box: let's say, what, $15, $20 to ship it?

The next morning, as I waited for the office supply delivery dude to bring me the new binders so I could finish up the remaining binders, a morbidly cheerful email appeared in my outlook inbox. Turns out that the big boss had made a "few changes" to the reports. Guess what: all 858 pages had to be reprinted. And the few changes included some extra stuff, so this time it was closer to 900 pages. So: the 858 pages from the day before? Landfill. Another two hours on the company's clock for me to print new copies of 900 pages, punch them, and put them into the OLD binders. Another $50 that the company paid to re-do a project. Neat. Once those were finished, I got to box them up and fed-ex them across the country. A new box went to the east coast, to replace the four we'd sent the day before, this time overnight. Total fed-ex cost probably around $50.

All this for a 65 page report of which the board will probably read about four pages, and maybe, maybe skim four or five others. And did I mention that everyone gets a PDF file of the entire document as well? So clearly, they really need a hard copy sitting in front of them. Not to mention the fact that as soon as the meeting's over, the report will become obsolete and worthless, and the entire thing, probably including the binder, will go right into the landfill. So ultimately, another 900 pages in the earth.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday, I only had to make three reports. I spent all morning looking up the correct files, printing them, collating them, punching holes (with yet another kind of hole puncher) in them, etc etc. Each report ended up being about 100 pages, plus the tabs, so about 324 pages total. Half-way through the day, the vice president directing this project changed his mind about half the files, and of course they all needed to be reprinted and repunched. The old files, of course, were tossed. Fifty pages in the garbage. Later that afternoon, as the frantic executive assistant and I were trying to finish the books to the exec's specifications, the exec walked over and demanded more changes. "This should make your life easier," he said. Turns out, half the book is unnecessary. 150 pages: garbage. Then it turns out that one of the three books is for him, and he actually doesn't need it, so actually you can just throw that away if you don't have time to do it... another fifty pages. Oh, and this file has been updated, so it has to be reprinted and re-inserted into each of the three -- no, two! -- books. Forty pages more, garbage.

All total, more than three hundred pieces of paper in the trash, all for, again, a report that someone in the suburbs may or may not actually read. And ultimately? Land fill.

Of course we fed-exed them over there... and did I mention that I spent most of my day working on this single project? As did the EA. Between the two of us, the company probably paid between $250 and $300 in labor to produce these two stupid books.

Today I get to stuff 200+ envelopes with promotional marketing stuff, six pages in each envelope, all of which will likely get thrown away before anyone even looks at it. More than a thousand pieces of paper... hours of labor stuffing envelopes and printing out stupid "personalized" cards... which might yield, what, one account?

Total for week (so far): 3,300 sheets of paper in the garbage.

And I'm just one drone in this office, and it's just one office on this floor, which is just one floor in the building, just one building in this city, which is just one city in this country, which is just one country in the world. If I, in five days, personally oversaw the dumping of 3,300 sheets of paper....

It hurts my heart to think about it. I keep picturing a tiny koala bear, snuggling into the crook of a tree, with a single tear sliding down his adorably sleepy face.

And then of course there's the small matter of the poor, rural school that was my home from 2003-2007, where the photocopy and/or risograph machines were broken more often than they were working, where I often had to spend my own money to buy extra paper and pencils for the students, where I had to write worksheets by hand onto overhead projecter sheets and have kids copy them into their notebooks because the xerox was broken or the school was out of paper or we couldn't afford to buy a new thing of toner, or or or..... In 2005, when we did Nanowrimo, the principal bought every one of my students a brand new notebook, and it was the biggest deal. They felt SO special. For some of them, it was the first new notebook they'd had in YEARS. Our district was so poor that the school board decided to save money by keeping the hallway lights turned off during the day. We didn't have many windows, and the dark hallways made the school feel so cold and unhappy.

Man, does our culture have its priorities screwed up.

Coming from there -- a rural school so poor we couldn't afford to turn the hallway lights on when the kids were there -- to here, where hundreds of dollars are wasted, daily, for impossibly stupid reasons -- it's hard not to feel anger at the unfairness of this world. It's a global society, and yet this marble corporate office feels like a whole different planet from the dark desert middle school I came from.

And yet, those kids, the ones so poor they never had their own notebooks until the principal bought one for them, they're the ones who will be suffering when the planet finally decides it's had too many binders and too many status reports dumped beneath its crust.

It kills me.

My Favorite Holiday: Lupercalia!

Glad tidings to you on this most joyful of holidays: Lupercalia! Woo hoo!

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia was the festival celebrating the wolf who mothered Romulus and Remus, the most famous feral children in history. The festival of Lupercalia involved sacrificial goats and dogs, wiping blood on the faces of naked boys who then ran around in goat-skin undies whipping girls with goat-skin thongs.

Sounds a lot more fun than a measly box of chalky candy hearts, if you ask me.

Whether or not Lupercalia was an ancient ancestor of the modern Valentines Day seems to be uncertain; in my research I've found arguments on both sides of the issue. Either way, Lupercalia was a pastoral festival, celebrating and promoting fertility. Although it seems that we are currently locked into an endless winter hell (I heard on the radio last night that yesterday was only one of four days all month that it didn't snow!), this morning when we walked out into the wan morning light, something in the air seemed to hint at spring. To hint very very very vaguely, but to hint nonetheless. Though it's probably too cold for naked boys to run around the town square, I like the idea of celebrating fertility in this seemingly dead time. It reminds us that death is necessary for rebirth, and that this endless winter gives the earth a chance to rest and renew itself for the spring that will come... eventually. Celebrating the cycles of life and birth and rebirth feels much more important, much more sacred and real, than celebrating a multi-billion dollar marketing machine that tells us to define our worth by the number of singing cards we get.





... but on the other hand, my valentine left Pride and Prejudice on DVD for me this morning. Would I trade Colin Firth for a festival of wolves and sacrificial goats? Aye, there's the rub. Mmmm... Colin Firth.

I guess we could compromise. We'll meet half-way.

Okay, executive decision: next year we're celebrating LuperColina, and we'll snuggle with wolves, dress in goat skins, whip each other, and watch Colin Firth dive into a pool of water again and again. Best of both worlds.

Happy Lupercalia!

Even Better Than Summers Off

Everyone knows that one of the best things about teaching is summers off. When you're stuck in marble corporate hell, losing brain cells by the minute, slaving for your five personal days, summers off seems like some sort of fairy tale. Forget the fact that teachers commonly work sixty and seventy hour weeks, forget the fact that grading papers at home is one of the least fun activities in the universe, forget twenty minute lunches at your desk with a bunch of smelly tweens staring at you and asking if they can use your computer to download ringtones with their grandma's credit card number that they managed to memorize even though they still can't seem to get the difference between a noun and a verb, forget No Child Left Behind and idiotic co-workers and administrators telling you to "teach smarter, not harder," and parents demanding to know why you're not teaching eighth grade English in exactly the same way they were taught eighth grade English in their one-room school house with Mrs. McCreavy who hit them, forget bus duty and terrorism drills and lockdowns and parent teacher conferences and professional development plans and lesson plans and gradebooks and homework and knife fights outside your door and students getting arrested and curse words carved into your furniture and gross dads hitting on you and spending your own money to buy pencils and paper for your classroom and choir concerts and dances to chaperone and kids trying to sell you stuff to raise money for 4H and band and rodeo club and being told on a daily basis to fuck off and hearing the words faggot and homo and wetback fifty times a day and other teachers talking about you to students and your wallet getting stolen out of your classroom and other teachers crying and the heavy sense of overresponsibility that pushes you to yet another PTA meeting or board meeting or training session and no sleep and dreams about school and Sunday afternoons in the classroom trying to catch up.....

Still.

Summers. Off.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, seeing as how -- as it turns out -- I actually hate having a job. Given the choice between having a job and not having a job, I pick NOT. Summers off. Remember that? Ten weeks of not having a job? (Actually, I always taught summer school, so I'd only get like six weeks off, but still: six weeks off.) Believe me, I haven't forgotten the fact that by the time you hit summer, you feel like you need every single second of that break to reset your mind and recharge your spirit, because without those summers off you probably wouldn't come back next year, and if you did, it might be awfully difficult to get through the year without "accidentally" driving right through the bus pad one day after school and taking as many anklebiters down with you as you can, because by god if you're going down, so are they. Really, summers are crucial in keeping students safe.

Still, you know what would be even better than summers off?

WINTERS OFF.

I would go back to teaching in an instant if I could teach March - November. I would gladly fill my wardrobe with professionally appropriate sandals and shorts-that-look-like-skirts if I knew that there would still be five or six hours of daylight after I got off work. Summer? It's hot out! It would be comfortable to teach in a nice air-conditioned classroom, and on nice days we'd take lots of field trips to the big tree outside where we'd sit in the shade and read the classics together. Ethan Frome's a lot more palatable in the summer, when the frigid cold and depression of winter all seems like a bad dream! Teach Ethan Frome in February? Fantasize about driving into a tree. Teach Ethan Frome in June? Have a meaningful, empathetic discussion about the depths of the human heart, and then meet up with your buddies for frisbee and margaritas after school!

If schools had winters off instead of summers, snow days wouldn't be a problem, and students wouldn't miss precious days of standardized test training to the whims of the weather. Family vacations that used to happen in July? Take them over Christmas! Stay a month! Go somewhere warm, have fun! Everyone knows that the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day are almost worthless in the classroom anyway -- why not just take that time off, and let the students learn in the long, lazy stretches of uninterrupted summer time?

I miss teaching. Of course I do. I miss kids and autonomy and the freedom to do whatever you want on any given day and the moments when someone really gets it. Right now, though, it's not quite enough to win me back; I'm too happy with all the extra time and mental space I have to work on my writing. But believe me, if, rolling out of bed on a 9 degree morning, hours before the sun even thinks about showing up for its allotted one minute a day, if I could say to myself "If I were teaching right now, I wouldn't have to get up until March...." I would be back in the classroom in a heartbeat.... or rather, in the number of heartbeats it takes to snuggle my way through the last two weeks of February.

Poorpourri

Our house smelled weird. Was it the smell of winter coats drying, of the pile of laundry that should have been done a week ago, the lingering scent of microwave popcorn that ALWAYS burns, or the two bad mice who do nothing but bite each other on the face and poop? Maybe it was the boys below us who like to smoke and spill beer and pet dogs and let smelly homeless musicians crash on their couch; maybe it was that the trashcans in our alley are under two feet of snow and so garbage bags tend to stay in our kitchen longer than they should; maybe it was the simple fact that it's February in Chicago and the windows have been shut tight since before Halloween. In any case: weird. Not bad, exactly... but not good. Definitely not good.

We're not starving to death, yet, but we're living pretty close to the line here, and we can't afford to drop thirty bucks on candles every time the house smells a little weird.

So the other night, determined to change the prevailing odors of these winter-closed rooms, I whipped up a batch of Poorpourri, using only stuff I already had in my kitchen (because I try not to go outside unless I absolutely have to. Have I mentioned how cold it is? And it WON'T STOP SNOWING. I heard on the radio the other day that in the first eight days of February, we've only had eleven minutes of sunshine. ELEVEN MINUTES. I hate winter!)....

Ahem. Anyway. So, Poorpourri:

-- Water
-- Some chunks of an apple that was too little and mushy to eat
-- Apple Spice Tea bags
-- Lots of cinnamon. Tons.
-- Some nutmeg
-- Some sugar

Bring to a boil... and simmer for as long as you want. Add water & cinnamon occasionally. I ladled the mixture into smaller bowls and set them in other rooms until they cooled off, then dumped the cooled mixture back into the original pot.

It worked GREAT. My house smelled warm and rich and applecinnamony for days. When I walked in from the snow/rain last night, the house smelled so yummy and cozy that I almost -- almost -- appreciated the snow outside, wanted to curl up with a good book and watch the snow fall past the yellow streetlights on Western, and didn't even mind the sounds of my smelly neighbors playing the same eight-bar bass loop over and over for an hour. Such is the power of Poorpourri.

Girl Friday, Temping in Corporate America

Maybe I shouldn't admit this, what with my expensive liberal arts eduation and my yay, feminists! break the glass ceiling, bitches! leanings, but... there is a part of me that really enjoys playing Molly Backes, Girl Secretary. (Does that need an exclamation point? I think it does.)

Molly Backes, Girl Secretary!

I like walking downtown in the raven black crowds of thin, hungry young people in their clacky heels and their pretentious bags. Ideally, I'd wear nylons with a seam up the back of each of my legs which disappears snugly into the heel of my two-toned pumps. I'll wear a jaunty hat and red lipstick and keep my fingers pertly arched over the keyboards, my perfectly groomed eyebrows raised and ready. Give me some office supplies: I will amaze you with my clever efficiency. Give me a letter to type: I will correct all your poor grammar and dangling participles. Give me a stack of invoices to file: I will file them alphabetically and chronologically, both. I will put sticky notes on everything. I will go the extra mile. What's that, Mr. Smith? You want me to explain the process through which a bill becomes a law while you renew my faith in Goodness and the American Spirit? I'm ready!

The beauty of temping is that it allows you to play work -- and even get paid! -- without actually having to work. I spent today on the 28th floor of a skyscraper downtown, putting labels on folders, alphabatizing things, um... typing... infused all day with the last-week-of-a-crappy-job attitude: this has nothing to do with me! This job in no way impacts my life! I am floating far above the drama and office politics, looking down with pity on you poor saps! Look at me, I have a visitor's pass and a temporary log-in! I'm free!

It reminds me of when I "worked" for my dad, over winter break one year in college. I'd show up to his office late, hung-over, wearing the same clothes in which I'd been dancing with strange men at some gross State Street bar mere hours before, and then delude myself into thinking that I was absolutely making an impact on his life by re-organizing his entire filing system. I was making an impact all right... wasting his secretary's time by allowing her to get me coffee and help hide my hangovers from my dad. Thanks, B, wherever you are! Haven't forgotten you!

Obviously, if this were a real job, I'd be mourning the slow erosion of my soul, watching the grey skies above the city with desperation. The office supplies wouldn't say, "Look how cute and efficient you can be" so much as, "How many ways can you slit your wrists with a paper clip and a pad of sticky notes?" I would get increasingly angry about petty things, like how is it that Jim always has a diet coke in his hand and yet he NEVER thinks to refill the fridge? Am I the only one in the building who knows how to brew a goddamn pot of coffee?

I'm sure I'll end up with one of those jobs soon enough, where the antics of my idiotic co-workers are enough to drive me absolutely insane, where I'm so annoyed that I'm even dreaming about how much I'd like to push them through one of those picturesque 28th floor windows.

But for now, for now... it's Ms. Backes Goes to Washington, it's Corporate Barbie on the Town, it's an endless month of Take Your Daughter to Work Day, with a little less coloring. With just enough fun... and just enough cash... to keep me coming back.

The Grueling March of the Rewrite

I love my friends and family, and I’m relatively certain they love me, but lately I’ve been noticing a similar glazed expression in their eyes whenever I start talking about my novel. So, they say nicely, you’re… rewriting it? The unspoken word hangs between us like an impolite body odor: Still?

Yep. I am.

My favorite friends, the ones who are most likely to buy me a beer and maybe even some French fries when we go out, say, but we liked it so much already! It’s wonderful! What could you possibly have to do on the manuscript, still?

And I say, sadly: so much. So much.

Rewriting is a tricky endeavor. The first draft is a dizzying, careening, gleeful car chase through the countryside, in which you can follow any whim, whip around any corner, run stop signs, cut through backyards, hit birds and cats without slowing – anything goes! It’s great!

In the second draft, you go back over your route and see that it is quite mad, and there is a much more logical path to follow if you want to get from here to there. Your first dash showed you all the awesome little sights and secrets you wouldn’t have found otherwise; your second draft figures out a way to include all the best parts without hitting quite so many dead-ends. The third draft starts looking at themes and character motivations and story arcs and attempts to tidy up all the loose ends and unfired guns and pull everything together in a lovely, cohesive manner. Any subsequent draft after that is cosmetic, maybe looking at the language itself, maybe finding a scene here or there that could be tighter, cleaner, better paced, more interesting, prettier, whatever.

The fifth draft of my novel was good enough to get me an agent. My agent, who is wonderful and brilliant, who writes me little notes and sends me pictures of stick figures doing dances, loved my fifth draft, loved the story and characters and setting, and suggested a number of cosmetic changes: explain this character’s motivation, give me some backstory on this thing, make this moment a little more complex. So I did; I spent a month reworking, rewriting, adding a few sentences here and there to lighten, to darken, to color and shade and enhance.

And then…. we came to the seventh draft, and my agent and I had a big heart-to-heart, and we decided that a major plot point was problematic. This plot point, which drives all subsequent action in the story, actually hijacks the entire story, and after it no one has much room to think about anything but its aftermath. And that, we decided, is kind of a problem. Because the story isn’t about that one plot point, and yet, due to the nature of the moment, it must be. So… time for another re-write.

In order to take out the pivotal moment in the plot, the entire book must be reshaped. Good news: the story will be much more subtle and interesting and unique without it. Bad news: attempting to do this will be like assembling a turducken – the bones must be removed and the shape of the thing must be recreated and refolded into the larger structure of the real story. As it turns out, this will be incredibly difficult.

In the end, though, it will be great. Last night I finished re-writing the first chapter for probably the sixth time, and when I was finished I had a chill up the back of my neck. I stepped away from the computer gingerly, carefully hitting the ctrl+S and closing out the document, feeling as though I’d managed to get to exactly the right place by sheer luck and magic. Of course, it wasn’t luck or magic, it was months and months of hard work, it was hours of agonizing over character and motivation and plot, it was brainstorming with Ali and a bottle of champagne on NYE, it was workshopping the chapter at Story Studio and reading it out loud to myself, to Natalie, it was phone conversations and g-chats with the beer-buying friends who love me and love the story and who don’t quite seem to trust me not to fuck this up. But finally, at last, there it was, and it struck all the right notes, and it set the right tone, and it was exactly, entirely, at last… perfect.

In a moment I’ll open that document again and re-read it, and knowing me I’ll tweak some sentences, switch some words and re-think this one paragraph that I think needs to be there but doesn’t exactly fit, but finally I feel like I’m in a really good place with it, and in a few more days I’ll be finished with this turducken draft, and I’ll send it off to my brilliant agent, who will either have a little dance party in her office or write me a long letter about why it STILL needs a lot of work, and the march will continue.

Last fall, my future BFF John Green said that of the final, published draft of his wonderful book Looking for Alaska, only 10% of the original manuscript survived. “The challenge of the book, ultimately, was not writing it, which was easy, but revising it, which was hard.” He described writing a book as a lengthy game of Marco Polo: “I spent four years sitting in a basement, writing, saying Marco… and years later, I got an email from a reader, and basically all that email says is… Polo.”

So that’s what I’m doing with my life right now. That’s where I am. And even though it’s hard, agonizing, maddening work, I’m confident that the story will be better in the end, which makes it all worth it.

A Life According to Writing

The other day I dragged out my old copy of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, looking for a certain quotation [1]. Old books are like old friends, reminding you who you were, who you’ve been. This book reminds me of how I read it in one of the art studios at Grinnell, perched up on the counters near the windows. It shows me how I wrote my name in the front, says “Here is how you rounded your 9s, this was the curve of your letters.” From between its pages it lets fall an index card covered with the careful handwriting of an old love. Return movies. Walgreens. Dry Cleaners. And on the back, in my hand: Friends love the person you were and the one you’ve become – and the one they know you’ll always be….

It’s all very mysterious and familiar.

And then, on page 18 and 19, the book shows me sentences and paragraphs I underlined a thousand years ago:

Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all – ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity.

The question is: how do we build our lives according to the necessity of writing? It’s one I’ve been grappling with all year (and maybe earlier – perhaps I’ve been asking myself this question from the moment I took pen in hand and carefully underlined this passage).

Not only do we need space and time to write, we need to feed the inner writer (or as Maureen Johnson says, the BRAIN MONKEYS a steady diet of life: of love, of hate, of hunger and anger and hurt. Whenever something interesting happens to me, the inner writer says, hmm, this might work in a story. I confess to standing through the most dire tragedies – weeping in a freezing cold church at the funeral of someone I dearly loved – and thinking on some level, in some far back place in my head: so this is what it feels like.

And, the perennial question of writers: How can I use this?

Sometimes, though, the well runs dry, and life begins to seems stale and repetitive. At this point, I think that building your life according to the necessity of writing means finding ways of surprising yourself, even shocking yourself, out of your comfortable experiences and ways of thinking.

Sara Ryan wrote about this recently. “I do think that especially as we settle into professions and circles of friends and stable relationships, it gets harder to find new things that shake up our brains and engage us with the world differently.”

Sometimes I beat myself up for jumping out of the box too much, for structuring my life in strange and surprising ways, for making major life decisions without solid reasons other than “It seemed like a good idea,” or “It seemed like what I needed to do.” At 20, I moved to Boston just because the very idea frightened me so much. I’ve learned that tackling something that scares me is an opportunity for growth. (With the possible exceptions of muggers, and wild animals. I’m not planning to tackle any hippos in the near future.)

Studying improv taught me the power of Yes, And. Before improv, I generally said no when people asked me to break out of my comfort zone. Want to come out and party with us? No, I think I’ll probably just head home. Want to drive to Michigan this weekend, just because? No, I should really stay home and clean the house. After taking improv classes, I started saying yes. It’s bar time: want to go to the casino? Sure! Why not. Want to take a writing class? Want to have dinner with me? Want to learn how to meditate? Yes, yes, yes.

Every new experience is a chance for growth, and it all feeds the writer.

A few weeks ago, a musician friend of mine called me and said, Hey, my band’s going to be in your area for a week; want to come on the road with us? Normally I’d say no, I really shouldn’t, the responsible thing would be to stay home and work, blah blah blah. But my inner writer was feeling parched, and my life was feeling a little gray, so I said, Sure! Why the hell not? It will be fun. So this weekend I’m going to meet the band in Indiana and travel through the Midwest with them for a few days, spy on them a little, see what it’s like to be a professional musician living on the road, try to imagine how it feels when it’s your job to be perfect on stage every night.

It might be fantastically fun, it might be painfully boring, but it will be something. Something surprising, something different. And though there’s the little voice in my head asking, um, you’re going on the road with a band for a few days? Are you seventeen? Are you nuts? there’s another voice in my head, more insistent, more reassuring, saying resolutely: Build your life according to this necessity. You must.






1“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses: perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter 8, Letters to a Young Poet.

In My Head, I'm Still Sixteen

Over the weekend, I heard my cousin say that she would be eleven in March, and I kind of freaked out. I turned to her father and asked, “Is Anna really turning eleven this year?” He nodded.

That’s so old!

Anna was the baby of the family until my (perfect, adorable, genius) niece Elodie was born last October. Her older brother is in high school, but that doesn’t freak me out as much as Anna turning eleven does, because he was born when I was in middle school, still a kid. Teaching middle school for the last five years pretty much resigned me to the idea that the children who were born when I was in seventh and eighth grade are now in middle and high school themselves. That’s cool. I’m okay with that.

What blows my mind is that I very clearly remember a time before Anna was born: Superbowl XXXI. The Packers were playing the Patriots, and everyone was gathered at grandma’s house to watch the game. Between plays, the conversation turned to What To Name The Baby. In the other room, I was filling out the paperwork to take the SAT and ACT tests. I remember stressing out about what schools I should list in the where-should-we-send-your-scores blanks. Later, my sister and I got in my red Renault Alliance and I drove us back to my mother’s house.

I told this little story to Anna’s father, and he nodded politely. He didn’t seem too shocked. “I was getting ready to take the ACTs when Anna was born!” I said. “I could already drive!!”

“Uh huh….” Dave said.

“I still have some of the clothes I was wearing then! How can it be eleven years ago??”

Dave seemed like he wished I would stop talking.

“This year is my ten year high school reunion, Dave!” I said. “Can you believe that?”

“Huh,” Dave said.

He was clearly unimpressed. Later, I realized that of COURSE he could believe it, that Molly being out of high school for ten years shocks no one but Molly. (Once at a Dar Williams concert, Dar said, “I think about myself a lot. The universe? Not so much.” Ali elbowed me in the stomach, hard, and laughed for about ten minutes. Funny, I said. I get it. After that, her motto for me was “Me? Lots. The universe? Not so much.”)

Sometime in the last ten years, I shifted into the adult category in my family. It probably happened when I lived in New Mexico, and it’s only surprising me now because I only got to see my family once or twice a year when I lived so far away, and didn’t have time to ponder shifting generational plates. Maybe I didn’t notice because I was too busy becoming an adult, or maybe it was the simple fact that inside my brain I still feel like I’m about sixteen – a smarter, more laid-back sixteen, but sixteen nonetheless. Who knows. But looking around the table on Sunday, it became very clear to me that I’m solidly in the “adult” category.

I remember one of my teachers in high school telling me that she still dreamed about her high school boyfriend sometimes. At the time, I think she was trying to explain to me that our first loves have major impacts on our brains, and that I wasn’t crazy for being so upset about breaking up with my first boyfriend. What I actually thought, at the time, was “You still remember your high school boyfriend? Didn’t you go to high school in, like, the GREAT DEPRESSION?”

Luckily, I kept my mouth shut.

Now I see that the teacher who counseled me probably felt that not only was she still dreaming about her high school boyfriend, but if she thought about it, she could still remember the exact fluttery, hollow, sinking feeling somewhere behind her sternum when he first kissed her. She could probably remember exactly how it felt to fall into that kiss, and she could probably remember it not in that hazy, overexposed photograph way you can remember flashes from your early childhood, but rather in the precise, cinematic way our brains hold on to significant moments. She probably felt like it hadn’t been so terribly long, after all, since she’d been my age.

I remember very clearly what it felt like to be in middle school, in high school, but I’ll also remember what it felt like to be here, to be in my late twenties and trying to interest people in how OLD I am. And when I’m in my mid-forties and Anna turns to me and says, “Can you believe it’s been ten years since I graduated from high school? I’m so OLD!” I’ll remember how it felt to be twenty-seven and marveling at your newly won adulthood, and I’ll nod sympathetically. “I know!” I’ll say. “That’s SO crazy!!”

And then I’ll go home and blog about how if Anna’s ten years out of high school, shoot, I must really be an adult. Even if I do still feel like I’m about sixteen.

A Few Good Men

Last week, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece by Bob Herbert called Politics and Misogyny, in which he asserts that

“Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.”

I don’t know if I agree with Herbert – I certainly don’t want to agree, I don’t want him to be right! – but too often it feels true.

This is not an us-vs-them world, folks. It can’t be. We’ve grown too small, have gotten to know each other too intimately, to persist with the casual marginalization of any group of people, whether they be of a different culture, a different religion, a different race, or a different gender. The planet’s not doing too well, the global economy’s going for a ride, and as it turns out, we’re all interconnected. We’re all in it together, guys, and it’s not going to be easy.

Still, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be, as we’d say in my post-colonial lit class years ago, “Othered,” particularly when you’re securely in the dominant group. The other day I overheard some (white) friends arguing about the existence of such a thing as “white privilege.” One friend said, you can argue against it, but you cannot escape it. The other said, you don’t have to escape it, because it doesn’t exist.

I thought, I wonder if my non-white friends would agree.

Over the years, I’ve been in my fair share of fights about women, women’s rights, and feminism. If you ever dare to use the term “feminazi” in my presence, I will yell at you until you hold up your hands and apologize. If you tell me that “most of the battles feminists were fighting for have been won, at least in the United States,” I will publicly mock you… even if it means I’ll be disregarded as “just another angry feminist.” (I don’t feel like an angry feminist… an angry person, sometimes, and a feminist, certainly, but I think you can be a feminist without being angry. Maybe I’m wrong.)

I’m friends with a lot of men, and as I have impeccable taste in friends, they’re all quality people. The men in my life are generally intelligent, funny, creative, and very kind. (And devastatingly good looking, of course.) They’re the kind of guys who complain about how “women never go for nice guys,” while peeking at you out of the corners of their eyes, waiting for you to praise them for being such sweethearts. They’re the kind of guys who will drive you home if you’ve had too much to drink, help you carry a couch up three flights of stairs, lend you a hundred bucks when your wallet gets stolen. They’re great.

But they don’t always stick up for women.

Sometimes they listen to their friends or colleagues making disrespectful or inappropriate comments about women, and they don’t speak up. Sometimes they tell jokes or stories where women are the punchline – too strong or not strong enough, too smart or not smart enough, too pretty or not pretty enough. One of my dearest guy friends likes to call me when he’s been dumped and tell me that I’m the only woman he likes, that I redeem his faith in womankind. Shit, I always think, what if I screw up?

If you’re one of my menfriends, you’re probably getting defensive now. “Hey, I’m a good guy. I treat women well.”

You are. You absolutely are, and you do. And I know that sometimes it’s hard to see the little ways women get hurt around you, and the little ways that you can stand up for them. But when you can – when you see something that demeans women, and when you speak up about it – you can make a hell of a difference.

When I was student teaching at Grinnell, I was one in a class of three: me, my professor Jean, and my darling friend Cam, who’s long been one of my favorite men on the planet. In class, we were discussing methods of textual analysis, ways of deconstructing and understanding works of literature, and we started talking about reading texts through a feminist lens. Cam looked thoughtful, and said, “Do you think it would have a different impact on the students if I were teaching them about feminism?” You could see the idea playing across his face, as if never in his entire 23 years he had thought about feminism and women and the ways they’re presented to teenagers, but now that he was thinking about it, it seemed like it might be an incredibly important thing to talk about with students and there was no reason he couldn’t be the man to do it. “You mean, would it mean more coming from a man?” I asked. He nodded. Jean and I looked at each other as if our new puppy had just learned how to file taxes, and nodded enthusiastically. “YES, it would, it would be GREAT.” Jean said, “All your students will look up to you, Cameron, and you can set such an example for them!” Cam smiled and said, “Okay, then I will,” and it was decided.

I remember I felt so lucky to know such a good man, who was sensitive enough to empathize with women and to get the importance of feminism, and brave and confident enough to talk about women’s issues with teenagers. Very cool, Cam.

Last weekend, I was in Wisconsin, at my step-grandmother’s 87th birthday brunch. We had ten adults, a teenager, a tween, and a baby at one long table. The food was fantastic and at any given time there were at least three different conversations swirling around the table. I mostly talked to the people at my end of the table, but every now and then I’d pick up hints of other conversations, sentences or phrases here and there, and sometimes I’d get pulled in. The most compelling of these side conversations involved my brother-in-law, an attorney, talking about a big case he’s been working on forever. I didn’t hear a lot, but from what I could pick up, it’s a sexual harassment case with a number of female complainants against a company. What struck me was Justin’s voice as he talked about the case, how adamantly he felt that these women had been wronged, how intense he was about it. He described some of the actions in the case, some of the harassment, and I thought, “Well, that’s how it is,” (oh, cynical me) but Justin was like the sword of vengeance, coming down to smite the offenders. “No woman should have to go through that,” he said. “It’s despicable, and the worst part is that it’s not uncommon, at all.”

Again, I felt lucky to have such a good man for a brother. Later in the car, I asked Natalie, “Have you ever heard a man get so fired up about defending women?” “No,” she said, sounding amazed. “I was very impressed.” (Sadly, the fact that we were both stunned just to hear a man get so heated about women being harassed tells me that it's far too rare in both our lives. In an ideal world, we'd be rolling our eyes a little at yet another man passionately standing up for a woman's right to go to work without being harrassed. Oh you men, we'll say, you just want everyone to have equal opportunities all the time! That's just how you are!) Thanks, Justin, for fighting on behalf of women. I'm proud to say you're my brother.

Both Cam and Justin are fathers, and it makes me happy to think of the good examples they’ll set for their children. Obviously, this is an historic time for women, and regardless of how Senator Clinton does in the long run, she’s setting precedents right and left. Still, issues of gender equality, feminism, and women’s rights haven’t disappeared. The gender gap still exists. In the coming months, given the nature of politics in this country, I’m sure the meanspirited and often misogynistic sentiment toward Clinton will resurface with more frequency. I just hope that when it does, you good men – not just Cam and Justin, but all of you, you nice guys, you good, kind men – will notice it, and fight to stop it.

Guest Blogging at Puffery

Given that I spend the entire winter in the bathtub (the only warm place in the house -- did I mention that the windchill here has consistently been around or below zero degrees? The second you step outside, you can feel your mitochondria freezing. If you breathe in too deeply, your nostrils freeze shut. And it's only January. We have another month of this, at least? And WHY did I move back to the midwest, again? OH MY GOD I HATE WINTER!)

...sorry, what was I saying?

Ahem. Given that I spend the entire winter in the bathtub, it's awfully nice to have the girls over at Puffery to offer up their reviews of and suggestions for bubble bath and all other manners of paint and powder, frill and frippery.

Even nicer, they let me rave about my latest obsession on their site! Check it out, and keep in mind that I'm not getting paid to gush...










...but I should be. Maybelline? Anyone? Bubble bath doesn't come cheap.

This Makes Me Feel Better About My Life

YA authors Maureen Johnson and Libba Bray talking about Libba's new book, The Sweet Far Thing.




At about one minute in, she talks about her writing process. Currently, I seem to be in the "I drank lots and lots of coffee... and I didn't smell good" phase. At least I'm not alone.


"The book actually getting written... is not pretty."


Good to know.

Chalk, PTSD, and the Incredible Weirdness of Teaching, or: Why I Hate Mr. Holland

One day last year, I walked in to the school after a day at the district-wide spelling bee. The school day wasn’t over yet, but I had a sub scheduled for the whole day, so my plan was to sneak past my classroom to the teacher’s lounge and use the rest of the afternoon to catch up on grading and paperwork. This plan was immediately thwarted when I pushed through the heavy front doors to find two of my most charming students racing each other down the hallway toward me. As soon as they saw me, they skidded to a stop, looking guilty. “Hi Ms. Backes!”

“Hello children,” I said politely. “And why exactly are you running down the hallway when you should be in my classroom right now?”

“The sub said we could! We have to go to the library!”

“Interesting,” I said. “And why is that?”

“We need a book to do the assignment!”

“That’s funny,” I said, “because I happen to know that the book you need for the assignment is the grammar textbook which you are currently holding in your hands, and of which I have forty copies in my classroom.”

The boys stuttered and fumbled, but ultimately gave in and followed me meekly back to my classroom, where I encountered a scene of such HORROR that I would still be having nightmares about it if I didn’t drink so heavily to forget. Children were in the hallways, screaming with laughter. (And I do mean screaming.) There were children writing on the board, throwing paper, chasing each other around the room, standing on tables, talking on cell phones, and doing pretty much everything in the world except identifying adverbial phrases. Meanwhile, the sub sat peacefully at my desk, knitting. In a cape.

In order to teach middle school successfully, you must develop a world-class poker face, which you will use to keep yourself from laughing when children fart audibly, or say things like “Tell him to stop playing with my balls!” Your poker face will keep you from rolling your eyes when your asinine co-worker gives you pedagogical suggestions involving spinners or beanies, and keep you from flipping out when the literature teacher has never heard of this T.S. Eliot fellow.

It will also hide your mortal fear when the children go wild.

You do the math of You vs. Them and realize, particularly if you’re teaching middle or high school, that the children are much bigger than you, and there are so many of them, and just one of you. When you come right down to it, what separates you from them, other than a valid driver’s license and the legal right to arm yourself? Thank god the kids don’t think this through, or you might be screwed. You turn your back on the class for one minute, and the next thing you know there’s a sow’s head on a pole, the conch shell is crushed, and Piggy’s lying dead under a boulder.

In your first years of teaching, you learn how to plan lessons, how to talk to parents, how to give good, helpful feedback on student papers, sure, but you also learn how to command respect. How to stare someone down. How to control a classroom of wound-up, hormonal teenagers. How to hide your pink underbelly. After a few years, these things come more easily, and you don’t have to think about them much. After a few years, you get to stop worrying so much about managing a classroom, and actually concentrate on teaching. It’s great!

And then you see a first-year teacher flopping around in front of a group of unimpressed students like a gasping fish on the beach, and it all comes back to you. The fear. The horror. The unfettered PTSD of your first years of teaching.


The faux-documentary Chalk captures this perfectly. Written, directed by, and starring actors and improvisers who really were teachers, and featuring their former students and co-workers, Chalk is the truest movie about being a teacher I’ve ever seen. The film is to education what The Office is to Office-Monkery. It is just so, so true. And as is often the case, the truth can be extremely painful.

The first time I saw this film, in Madison’s snooty patooty Sundance Cinema, I had a tiny breakdown in the theater. The audience kept laughing at stupid little things, and I had to restrain myself from standing up and screaming “IT’S TRUE! THAT’S HOW IT IS!!” Next to me, my mother elbowed me and cackled. “Does this make you miss teaching?” I couldn’t even reply; I was too busy cringing. Chalk follows three teachers and an Assistant Principal in their first three years on the job. Mr. Stroope, in his third year, just wants to win Teacher of the Year, and doesn’t mind fighting dirty. Coach Webb, in her second year, believes that “students are what you make them think you think they are.” And Mr. Lowry, in his first year, is awkwardness embodied. Poor Mr. Lowry is just painful to watch. The worst thing about watching Mr. Lowry go through his first days and weeks of class is that it brings up all the memories of how terribly awful you were, in your first days and weeks as a teacher. You seriously hope that you weren’t as bad as he was… but you might have been. In this way, the film feels a little bit like watching a screening of your own geeky, pimply adolescence. At times, it actually hurts.

Chalk tells the truth about teaching in a way I’ve never seen another movie do. As a teacher, I always felt I was closer to Jack Black in School of Rock (“I’m hungover. Does anyone know what that means?” “It means you’re drunk?” “No, it means I was drunk YESTERDAY.”) than I was to Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver. In general, I kind of hate movies about inspiring teachers. Mr. Holland’s Opus, for example, made me want to stick wooden spoons down my throat just to get the wretched taste of precious spun sugar and inspirational sign-language dancing out of my mouth. The thing about teaching is that it’s only inspiring FROM A DISTANCE. You don’t realize how good and brilliant and noble your teachers are until you are far, far away from them. In the moment, in the day to day scuttle of school work and staff meetings and broken copy machines and standardized testing, teaching feels less like a Precious Moment and more like Platoon.

What those insipid inspirational teaching movies don’t get is that the bulk of teaching isn’t noble or inspired, it’s just absolutely ridiculous. It’s trying not to laugh at your students, it’s listening to your colleagues make snarky comments about what the parents wore to conferences, it’s explaining the difference between a kitty and a goat to children who really ought to know. It's sliding to the floor of your classroom after the last student leaves, and finally allowing yourself to cry. It’s hard and funny and trite and tiring and weird, and sometimes, sometimes, it's genuinely moving. It’s the whole spectrum of human drama, played out under florescent lights by a cast of adolescents… and the grownups they bring down to their level.

In this way, Chalk gets it exactly right.