New: Sister
Also, Miss Heather James, writer extraordinaire, Mr. Kevin Cannon, artist extraordinaire, and Ms. Mama Backes, reader extraordinaire, all liked The Place of Movement and Order! Yay!
AND, Miss Ila Gates-Thomas called me on Sunday and reminded me that Sunday was the 9-year-anniversary of my first journal entry ever. Happy anniversary, journals!
Also: (from my Plan)
Sunday, May 2 (Happy Birthday, Nat!)
Yesterday was the play over which I've been tearing my hair out for the last month. It went well!! Especially the grand finale, when the Evil Queen gets hit in the face with a whipped cream pie! HII-larious! Especially cool was the fact that the mayor (at my request) issued an official proclamation in the newspaper on Thursday, declaring Saturday to be Caring Community Day in Tijeras. In addition to the play we had animals, face painting, an art show, and music by two talented high school bands. So fun.
Afterward, all the parents and grandparents came up to me and thanked me and I had this weird sensation that my life had once again crossed wires with Anne Shirley's -- the scene after she directs Mary Queen of Scots and wins over all the mean Pringles come up and tell her they loved her. A feeling that suddenly I was a part of this community. Anyway.
Then the director and assistant director of TT took me out to lunch and were falling all over me (at one point, Laurie squealed, "I just LOVE you, Molly!") even though up to this point I'd been flying under their radar, so to speak.
And now I'm nervous!! Having proven myself to the community members and administration of TT, I will lose the luxury of anonymity at work. Now facing a significant promotion, including an increase in hours, responsibility, and pay (and perhaps title as well), I'm more nervous than ever about the fine line between being a part of the TT family and getting sucked into the drama and intrigue of TT (which is a lot like college/high school/junior high in its love for back-stabbing and gossip! -- does this ever end? do people ever grow up?).
To complicate and add to my issues of boundaries, privacy, and personal integrity, the director of TT has asked me to move in with him! He has two houses on his land (a beautiful beautiful place in the east mountains), and likes to have at least two tenants in one of the houses at all times. One of his two is currently moving out, and he's pressuring me to move in.... but I'm strongly considering moving in with a different person from TT... which means that as much as I resist it, TT WILL become my life.
So that's where I am right now.
And now I have to get ready to go to a little girl's First Holy Communion (the only girl in a family of four kids, three of whom I've had in various classes) and then go party with her extremely Hispanic/Catholic family. Wild.
04 May 2004
11 April 2004
Among other things...
A picture of my darling Grinnell -- looks like some things never change! Ha ha!
Got to talk to Ali & Nadia (!!) last night, who called me from Cape Town, and then tonight had a lovely, meandering conversation with my Kevin, who's just arrived home from Belize. Other than that, my easter's been pretty uneventful: no resurrections here, and no eggs either. Though I did dream that I had twelve swimming babies....
Got to talk to Ali & Nadia (!!) last night, who called me from Cape Town, and then tonight had a lovely, meandering conversation with my Kevin, who's just arrived home from Belize. Other than that, my easter's been pretty uneventful: no resurrections here, and no eggs either. Though I did dream that I had twelve swimming babies....
05 April 2004
Good god, it's been a long time. My apologies to all who've emailed in wonder or worry ("with you, no news is NOT good news!"), and thanks to everyone who called and/or sent cards on my birthday. Twenty-four! Ach, and my arthritis, it's killing me!
Anyway, haven't much time to write just now, but I wanted to trumpet a bit: I get to workshop with Natalie Goldberg!!!!!! Could I be more excited??
Anyway, haven't much time to write just now, but I wanted to trumpet a bit: I get to workshop with Natalie Goldberg!!!!!! Could I be more excited??
07 March 2004
The weather this weekend has been unspeakably beautiful! Yesterday I spent part of the afternoon sun-bathing in my backyard. As we used to say when pressed for words, AMAZING! At one point, Danielle and her mother came out onto the back patio and asked, "Isn't it a bit cold for sunning?" I said, "You forget I'm from the deep north. It doesn't get this warm there until June!"
Truly, yesterday was a day for Mac Field. On such a day in Grinnell, everyone would be out on Mac Field, lying on blankets pretending to study, or napping, or playing frisbee. At least one person would be sitting under the giant old oak tree with a guitar, strumming to an audience of a few friends. Possibly some Blue House types would have dragged a couch and/or a keg out onto the field. At least one loggia dweller would be blasting his stereo out through his window, maybe from Langan or Clark, and the field would be filled with the sounds of the mingling musics, the shouting from frisbee players, the laughing and chatting of people gathered around this or that blanket....
For some reason, it makes me think of this Johnny Cavalier strip, mainly for the shot of Mac Field.
***
Looks like Ila and David may be coming out to meet my beloved mountains in a few weeks! Whoo hoo! It's all a part of my diabolical plan to get everyone I love to move out here, so I can be surrounded by cool folks without leaving New Mexico. Fools! I'll snare them all! Mwa ha ha!
***
Last night I got to talk to my Carrie for hours, hooray! She's just moved to North Carolina, and so I got to play mentor to her experiment in uprooting one's self. Been-there-done-that. It was interesting to talk to her, because it helped me to realize how settled I've become here in many ways, and how tied to home I still am in others. Too, it's interesting that many of my friends seem to be having similar crises just now: lacking direction, lacking the easy path school offers, many of us feel driftless, aimless, worried. It's hard not to be tied down. It's hard to have such shallow roots that you could move at any time to any place -- because it means that no one needs you.
Getting married and going to graduate school seem to be ways of fighting this, the terror of an empty life. I think there's something valuable in facing the emptiness, though. I think there's something to be gained in living through the sense of aimlessness, because it means facing the ways in which you're beholden to yourself, and honoring them. I don't know, though. Talking to Carrie, I remembered that not everyone is on a life-long quest of -- for lack of a better term I'll say self-improvement -- as I am. The writer in me wants to keep pushing me into situations that scare me so I'll be forced to grow, with the rationale that every lesson I learn and every experience I have will feed my writing. The teacher in me does the same. Not everyone has that, I am reminded, and so not everyone is content to take time to explore the world and follow paths that may not lead to specific goal fulfillment. Working at Talking Talons probably won't help me get into graduate school, for example, but I do think it will help me to be a better writer and a better teacher.
All this is not to say, of course, that I do not have moments of sheer terror at the lack of long-term structure my life has. I do. I often find myself in envy of those people in my life who know roughly what they'll be doing ten years from now. Cindy for example: ten years from now she'll be busy raising a 15-year-old. There's safety in that knowledge, and comfort. And yes, I do realize that anything could happen at any time to change even the most structured of lives, and no, I don't want to be raising a 15-year-old ten years from now, but... even so, there are times when the knowledge that my future and the course of my life depend entirely on me, the knowledge that I'm the one who will have to decide the path my life takes -- there are times when that knowledge hangs heavy.
Post-graduation stress syndrome? :-)
***
Oh, and I've been meaning to post this for a long time. It was written by my friend Kate Herold, a Grinnell alum who worked at Planned Parenthood in both Chicago and Des Moines:
people i have met that have shaken up my worldview:
the 12-year-old girl who was raped by the man her
parents paid to sneak her into the united states
and by the time she figure out she was pregnant it
was too far to have an abortion ~ the woman who was
beaten up so badly it was difficult for her to sit
down and stand up for all the different steps of
the procedure ~ the woman who manuevered around the
clinic on crutches and had had knee surgery because
her husband had pushed her out the second-floor
window ~ the woman who was pregnant because her
husband had destroyed all her birth control pills
and he doesn't give her any money so she can't buy
more birth control, and she can't call the abortion
loan fund because they don't have long distance
service and he monitors her phone calls and her two
oldest children have already been taken by social
services because of the violence in the home and he
has told her that he's going to buy a gun but she
insists she has to go home after her abortion
because that's where her baby is and she doesn't
want to lose him too ~ the woman who wanted nothing
more than to have a child but she'd been diagnosed
with breast cancer and she had to choose between
the pregnancy she'd already conceived and her own
chemo ~ the woman who'd had trouble conceiving for
years and now that she had done so accidentally had
to terminate the pregnancy because she'd been
taking accutane and the child would have had severe
internal and external birth defects and she cried
the whole three hours she was in the clinic ~ all
the women who have an abortion to keep their
boyfriend/husband/partner happy and then the guy
leaves her anyway ~ all the women who have the baby
because their boyfriend/husband/partner is opposed
to abortion and then the guy leaves her and the
baby anyway ~ the woman whose partner left in a
huff the night she told him she thought she had
herpes because he figured it meant she'd cheated on
him when in fact you can have herpes a long time
without knowing, hell, he might have given it to
her ~ all the women who come in asking for std
tests because their partners have cheated and come
home again to give them an infection ~ all the
fourteen year old girls having sex not because it
feels good for them but because they're afraid
they'll be left all alone if they say no ~ the
woman who, right before her abortion, asked if she
was going to die and really really believed she
probably would but that was the risk she was
willing to take--that's how important it was for
her not to have one more child--she was ready to
die as long as she could not have one more child
and THAT is why every woman in every state must
have access to safe legal abortion and unbiased
information about birth control and sexually
transmitted infections because if women are
expected by society to be nothing but attractive
bodies to fuck and machines to pump out babies and
we buy into it so wholesale that we are having sex
by fourteen and having babies by sixteen and it
will change the course of our lives forever then we
need to have that information upfront or we will
never be equal. If we don't have access to
education and reproductive healthcare we will never
ever have a chance at equality.
So there you have it.
Truly, yesterday was a day for Mac Field. On such a day in Grinnell, everyone would be out on Mac Field, lying on blankets pretending to study, or napping, or playing frisbee. At least one person would be sitting under the giant old oak tree with a guitar, strumming to an audience of a few friends. Possibly some Blue House types would have dragged a couch and/or a keg out onto the field. At least one loggia dweller would be blasting his stereo out through his window, maybe from Langan or Clark, and the field would be filled with the sounds of the mingling musics, the shouting from frisbee players, the laughing and chatting of people gathered around this or that blanket....
For some reason, it makes me think of this Johnny Cavalier strip, mainly for the shot of Mac Field.
***
Looks like Ila and David may be coming out to meet my beloved mountains in a few weeks! Whoo hoo! It's all a part of my diabolical plan to get everyone I love to move out here, so I can be surrounded by cool folks without leaving New Mexico. Fools! I'll snare them all! Mwa ha ha!
***
Last night I got to talk to my Carrie for hours, hooray! She's just moved to North Carolina, and so I got to play mentor to her experiment in uprooting one's self. Been-there-done-that. It was interesting to talk to her, because it helped me to realize how settled I've become here in many ways, and how tied to home I still am in others. Too, it's interesting that many of my friends seem to be having similar crises just now: lacking direction, lacking the easy path school offers, many of us feel driftless, aimless, worried. It's hard not to be tied down. It's hard to have such shallow roots that you could move at any time to any place -- because it means that no one needs you.
Getting married and going to graduate school seem to be ways of fighting this, the terror of an empty life. I think there's something valuable in facing the emptiness, though. I think there's something to be gained in living through the sense of aimlessness, because it means facing the ways in which you're beholden to yourself, and honoring them. I don't know, though. Talking to Carrie, I remembered that not everyone is on a life-long quest of -- for lack of a better term I'll say self-improvement -- as I am. The writer in me wants to keep pushing me into situations that scare me so I'll be forced to grow, with the rationale that every lesson I learn and every experience I have will feed my writing. The teacher in me does the same. Not everyone has that, I am reminded, and so not everyone is content to take time to explore the world and follow paths that may not lead to specific goal fulfillment. Working at Talking Talons probably won't help me get into graduate school, for example, but I do think it will help me to be a better writer and a better teacher.
All this is not to say, of course, that I do not have moments of sheer terror at the lack of long-term structure my life has. I do. I often find myself in envy of those people in my life who know roughly what they'll be doing ten years from now. Cindy for example: ten years from now she'll be busy raising a 15-year-old. There's safety in that knowledge, and comfort. And yes, I do realize that anything could happen at any time to change even the most structured of lives, and no, I don't want to be raising a 15-year-old ten years from now, but... even so, there are times when the knowledge that my future and the course of my life depend entirely on me, the knowledge that I'm the one who will have to decide the path my life takes -- there are times when that knowledge hangs heavy.
Post-graduation stress syndrome? :-)
***
Oh, and I've been meaning to post this for a long time. It was written by my friend Kate Herold, a Grinnell alum who worked at Planned Parenthood in both Chicago and Des Moines:
people i have met that have shaken up my worldview:
the 12-year-old girl who was raped by the man her
parents paid to sneak her into the united states
and by the time she figure out she was pregnant it
was too far to have an abortion ~ the woman who was
beaten up so badly it was difficult for her to sit
down and stand up for all the different steps of
the procedure ~ the woman who manuevered around the
clinic on crutches and had had knee surgery because
her husband had pushed her out the second-floor
window ~ the woman who was pregnant because her
husband had destroyed all her birth control pills
and he doesn't give her any money so she can't buy
more birth control, and she can't call the abortion
loan fund because they don't have long distance
service and he monitors her phone calls and her two
oldest children have already been taken by social
services because of the violence in the home and he
has told her that he's going to buy a gun but she
insists she has to go home after her abortion
because that's where her baby is and she doesn't
want to lose him too ~ the woman who wanted nothing
more than to have a child but she'd been diagnosed
with breast cancer and she had to choose between
the pregnancy she'd already conceived and her own
chemo ~ the woman who'd had trouble conceiving for
years and now that she had done so accidentally had
to terminate the pregnancy because she'd been
taking accutane and the child would have had severe
internal and external birth defects and she cried
the whole three hours she was in the clinic ~ all
the women who have an abortion to keep their
boyfriend/husband/partner happy and then the guy
leaves her anyway ~ all the women who have the baby
because their boyfriend/husband/partner is opposed
to abortion and then the guy leaves her and the
baby anyway ~ the woman whose partner left in a
huff the night she told him she thought she had
herpes because he figured it meant she'd cheated on
him when in fact you can have herpes a long time
without knowing, hell, he might have given it to
her ~ all the women who come in asking for std
tests because their partners have cheated and come
home again to give them an infection ~ all the
fourteen year old girls having sex not because it
feels good for them but because they're afraid
they'll be left all alone if they say no ~ the
woman who, right before her abortion, asked if she
was going to die and really really believed she
probably would but that was the risk she was
willing to take--that's how important it was for
her not to have one more child--she was ready to
die as long as she could not have one more child
and THAT is why every woman in every state must
have access to safe legal abortion and unbiased
information about birth control and sexually
transmitted infections because if women are
expected by society to be nothing but attractive
bodies to fuck and machines to pump out babies and
we buy into it so wholesale that we are having sex
by fourteen and having babies by sixteen and it
will change the course of our lives forever then we
need to have that information upfront or we will
never be equal. If we don't have access to
education and reproductive healthcare we will never
ever have a chance at equality.
So there you have it.
09 February 2004
The Etymology Log (Hardcover Title: When Geeks Graduate)
Most of you non-Grinnellians have heard me talking about Plans before, and so know that Plans is the online community of Grinnell students, alums, and professors that allows many of us to stay connected with one another though we're far apart. Plans are different from blogs -- though not too far from a Grinnellian-only "Live Journal" -- because they're text only (one) and they're highly interconnected (two) and there's no ongoing log of them (three) and because the effect of Plans on the Grinnell community and the role of Plans in daily interaction is too complex to be explained properly, ever.
Suffice to say, for now, that Plans are like little community white-boards that many of my Grinnell friends and I check and update daily.
Today, I value Plans for the connection they allow me to have to the Grinnell community. Whenever I have a humorous anecdote or burning question, I turn to Plans. Recently, I was wondering about the etymology of the word "chiropteran" (bat), and -- lacking the Holy Oxford English Dictionary (OED) -- turned to my friends Caleb Lindley (my savior in our "English Historical Linguistics" class), Mark Bourne (linguistic superstar), and others in PlanLand (like Pat O'Neil and Posey Gruener, both English All-Stars, both in my Milton seminar senior year) for answers....
Plan of:
backes
Last log in:
Wed February 4th, 1:26 AM
Last update:
Wed February 4th, 1:02 AM
Name:
Precipitation Envy
[heroldk], [bournem], [lindley], or other such linguistic genuises:
can someone tell me the etymology of "chiropractor" and "chiropteran" (bat)?
I have a feeling that they're related somehow. Early scientists, who had only skeletons and mating patterns on which to draw connections between species, thought bats to be the closest species to human beings, based on their skeletons and mating/nurturing habits. Closer than apes! The freaky thing is that a bat's skeleton looks like a very tiny human skeleton, only with a little fox-nosed skull and finger-bones that curve into wings.
Oh Grinnell, how I miss your free access to the OED online!
***
Plan of:
lindley
Last log in:
Fri February 6th, 3:52 PM
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Thu February 5th, 1:40 PM
Name:
Thank you for the OED [bournem]. I feel like not having that thing is like not having my right hand (do note, I am left handed, so it could be worse).
Here's the deal [backes], Chiro- just means hand, and that's true in both words (it's from Greek kheir. . .whatever). However, in chiropractic the last part comes from Greek praktikos, which just means 'practical.' So I guess it's somebody who cracks your bones with their hands. In the bat one though, the last part of the word -pter is from the Greek word for wing (as in pterodactyl, which I think means leathery wing, or really gross wing made of skin or something, I don't remember the second part for sure). So, bats are called (in the New Latin), hand-wings. So the two words are related, unfortunately the dictionary I have access to does not ellaborate as to exactly why a chiropracter has hands in the name. It seems like the word just means hand-user I would think that could mean a lot of things.
***
Plan of:
oneil
Last log in:
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Fri February 6th, 7:37 AM
Name:
What did you think of the play, Mr. Littlejeans?
[backes] you'll love this. They are related, but not how you think. "Chiro" (or cheiro, apparently) comes from the Greek meaning "hand"; "ptera" from the Greek meaning winged (Greek scholars, forgive me, I know little Latin and less Greek; all these forms and information come from the OED). So bats were named for their funky wings. Chiropractor therefore means, "to practice (or heal) with hands." Which is to say, aside from the fact that bats have funny hands and that humans have hands with which they can sort out people's back problems, the words are unrelated. No one ever noticed something particularly human about bat skulls and gave them a name meaning "carriers of human-ish skulls."
But what *I* learned from all this is that Chiro is also the root of the word surgeon. So now we know.
***
Plan of:
gruener
Last log in:
Fri February 6th, 11:15 PM
Last update:
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Name:
to jump on the [heroldk]/[bournem]/[lindley]/[backes]/[oneil] train--because it's fun:
so cheir (or hand), in addition to being the root in chiropractor and chiroptera, is also the root in chirographer--a specialist in penmanship. which is not exactly like, but similar to, a calligrapher (root word kallos, or beauty)--a specialist in *beautiful* penmanship.
which, in turn, is *some*what akin to a callipygian--someone with beautiful buttocks (the new word being pyge, or buttocks).
which finally takes us (via aNOTHER new root word, kakos, meaning bad, or harsh) to my very very favorite greekism, cacopygian. Or, someone with ugly, unshapely buttocks.
cacopygian. cacopygian.
.....
oh, and one more:
nostos is the greek word for a return (home) and algos is the word for pain. put em together and whaddya get?
***
Plan of:
backes
Last log in:
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Name:
Precipitation Envy
Thanks, [lindley], [bailey1], [bournem], [oneil], & [gruener]! I got the pter/pterodactyl connection on my way to work this morning. Except a dactyl is a metrical foot (three syllables: accented, un, un, like "elephant"). Hmmm....
***
Plan of:
lindley
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Name:
OK [backes] and [gruener], I was intrigued enough by [backes]'s mentioning of datyl being a metrical foot to force me to look it uup too. . .perhaps you've already done this, but I thought I'd share anyway. Dactyl comes from the Greek word daktulos meaning finger. It can mean this in English too. (In the word pterodactyl it means winged finger, or digit, I'm assuming due to their unique, i.e., gross, wing structure.) My guess is that it can also refer to the metrical foot, which is comprised of three sylables, because their are three joints on any given finger. But alas, since I don't have access to the OED. . .Oh, and to tie dactyl and -graph, a dactylographer is someone who studies fingerprints.
Also, you might be interested that the -pter suffix occurs in another, far more oft used word--helicopter. The first part of the word is from helix, meaning spiral (I assume that the -o- is just a sort of bridging vowel).
***
Plan of:
backes
Last log in:
Sun February 8th, 11:34 PM
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Sun February 8th, 11:41 PM
Name:
Precipitation Envy
Continuing the linguistic saga of bats... (and here it gets really weird!)....
from the OED entry on BAT:
[1535 COVERDALE, Molles and Backes; 1590 Genev., To the mowles and to the backes; 1611 Moules and battes.] 1414 BRAMPTON Penit. Ps. lxxx. 31 A backe, that flyith be nyt. c1440 Promp. Parv. 21 Bakke (v.r. bak), flyinge best (v.r. fleynge byrde), vespertilio. [...] 1496 Dives & Paup. (W. de W.) III. viii. 144 Lyke oules & backes whiche hate the daye & loue the nyght. a1500 in Wülcker Voc. /761 Hic vespertilio, hec lucifuga, a bake. 1509 FISHER Wks. I. (1876) 87 More louynge derkenes than lyght, lyke vnto a beest called a backe. 1513 DOUGLAS Æneis XIII. Prol. 33 Vpgois the bak wyth hir pelit ledderyn flycht. 1552 HULOET, Reremowse, or backe whiche flyeth in the darcke, nycteris. c1554 CROKE Ps. (1844) 20 The backe or owle, That lurketh yn an olde house syde. 1607 Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr. II. vi 71 To cast them to the Moules and to the backes. [1808 JAMIESON s.v. Bak, The modern name in Sc. is backie-bird. 1863 Prov. Danby, Back-bearaway, the bat, or rere mouse.]
The plural of bat used to be BACKES??? What??
Caleb [Lindley], can you explain the transformation from bak/backe to bat for me, please? I'm afraid I blanked all that out, on the suggestion of my therapist (Dr. J. Beam).
***
Plan of:
lindley
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Name:
Whoa, Molly [backes], that's . . . I don't know what. Here's what the OED etymology section said:
The mod. bat, found c 1575, takes the place of ME. bakke, apparently from Scand.; cf. Da. aften-bakke ‘evening-bat,’ ODa. nath-bakkæ, OSw. (Ihre) natt-backa ‘night-bat.’ Swedish dial. have also natt-batta. natt-blacka: with the latter cf. Icel. ler-blaka ‘bat,’ lit. ‘leather-flutterer,’ f. blaka ‘to flap, wave, flutter with wings,’ whence it has been suggested that bakke, backa have lost an l; but as the l does not appear in the OSw. and ODa. forms above, this is very unlikely. The med.L. blatta, blacta, batta, glossed ‘lucifuga, vespertilio, vledermus’ (Diefenbach Suppl. to Du Cange) = cl. L. blatta ‘an insect that shuns the light’ (blattæ lucifugæ, Vergil) ‘cockroach, moth,’ is distinct in origin, but may have influenced the English change to bat; evidence is wanting. Back- in comb., backie-bird, bawkie-bird still survive in north Eng. and Sc.
And, if I'm not mistaken, all that golbidy gook means that they don't know either.
If you want, I could give you my own personal musings on the topic, whatever that's worth.
What I find interesting is that Old Swedish had both bakka and batta, just in different dialects, which means it could be the same in English (they are two voiceless stop consonants after all). I also find it interesting that the Old Icelandic and the Latin both have a bl- thing going on, and the OIce ends with a [k] and the Latin with a [t]. I was going to make speculations about the words being cognate, but I'm either full of crap or lack the necessary education to even begin to go down that road.
Beyond that, it would appear as though you have stumbled upon a mystery that requires a considerable amount of research. I don't suppose there are any family stories about the origins of your surname?
Suffice to say, for now, that Plans are like little community white-boards that many of my Grinnell friends and I check and update daily.
Today, I value Plans for the connection they allow me to have to the Grinnell community. Whenever I have a humorous anecdote or burning question, I turn to Plans. Recently, I was wondering about the etymology of the word "chiropteran" (bat), and -- lacking the Holy Oxford English Dictionary (OED) -- turned to my friends Caleb Lindley (my savior in our "English Historical Linguistics" class), Mark Bourne (linguistic superstar), and others in PlanLand (like Pat O'Neil and Posey Gruener, both English All-Stars, both in my Milton seminar senior year) for answers....
Plan of:
backes
Last log in:
Wed February 4th, 1:26 AM
Last update:
Wed February 4th, 1:02 AM
Name:
Precipitation Envy
[heroldk], [bournem], [lindley], or other such linguistic genuises:
can someone tell me the etymology of "chiropractor" and "chiropteran" (bat)?
I have a feeling that they're related somehow. Early scientists, who had only skeletons and mating patterns on which to draw connections between species, thought bats to be the closest species to human beings, based on their skeletons and mating/nurturing habits. Closer than apes! The freaky thing is that a bat's skeleton looks like a very tiny human skeleton, only with a little fox-nosed skull and finger-bones that curve into wings.
Oh Grinnell, how I miss your free access to the OED online!
***
Plan of:
lindley
Last log in:
Fri February 6th, 3:52 PM
Last update:
Thu February 5th, 1:40 PM
Name:
Thank you for the OED [bournem]. I feel like not having that thing is like not having my right hand (do note, I am left handed, so it could be worse).
Here's the deal [backes], Chiro- just means hand, and that's true in both words (it's from Greek kheir. . .whatever). However, in chiropractic the last part comes from Greek praktikos, which just means 'practical.' So I guess it's somebody who cracks your bones with their hands. In the bat one though, the last part of the word -pter is from the Greek word for wing (as in pterodactyl, which I think means leathery wing, or really gross wing made of skin or something, I don't remember the second part for sure). So, bats are called (in the New Latin), hand-wings. So the two words are related, unfortunately the dictionary I have access to does not ellaborate as to exactly why a chiropracter has hands in the name. It seems like the word just means hand-user I would think that could mean a lot of things.
***
Plan of:
oneil
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What did you think of the play, Mr. Littlejeans?
[backes] you'll love this. They are related, but not how you think. "Chiro" (or cheiro, apparently) comes from the Greek meaning "hand"; "ptera" from the Greek meaning winged (Greek scholars, forgive me, I know little Latin and less Greek; all these forms and information come from the OED). So bats were named for their funky wings. Chiropractor therefore means, "to practice (or heal) with hands." Which is to say, aside from the fact that bats have funny hands and that humans have hands with which they can sort out people's back problems, the words are unrelated. No one ever noticed something particularly human about bat skulls and gave them a name meaning "carriers of human-ish skulls."
But what *I* learned from all this is that Chiro is also the root of the word surgeon. So now we know.
***
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gruener
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to jump on the [heroldk]/[bournem]/[lindley]/[backes]/[oneil] train--because it's fun:
so cheir (or hand), in addition to being the root in chiropractor and chiroptera, is also the root in chirographer--a specialist in penmanship. which is not exactly like, but similar to, a calligrapher (root word kallos, or beauty)--a specialist in *beautiful* penmanship.
which, in turn, is *some*what akin to a callipygian--someone with beautiful buttocks (the new word being pyge, or buttocks).
which finally takes us (via aNOTHER new root word, kakos, meaning bad, or harsh) to my very very favorite greekism, cacopygian. Or, someone with ugly, unshapely buttocks.
cacopygian. cacopygian.
.....
oh, and one more:
nostos is the greek word for a return (home) and algos is the word for pain. put em together and whaddya get?
***
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backes
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Precipitation Envy
Thanks, [lindley], [bailey1], [bournem], [oneil], & [gruener]! I got the pter/pterodactyl connection on my way to work this morning. Except a dactyl is a metrical foot (three syllables: accented, un, un, like "elephant"). Hmmm....
***
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lindley
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OK [backes] and [gruener], I was intrigued enough by [backes]'s mentioning of datyl being a metrical foot to force me to look it uup too. . .perhaps you've already done this, but I thought I'd share anyway. Dactyl comes from the Greek word daktulos meaning finger. It can mean this in English too. (In the word pterodactyl it means winged finger, or digit, I'm assuming due to their unique, i.e., gross, wing structure.) My guess is that it can also refer to the metrical foot, which is comprised of three sylables, because their are three joints on any given finger. But alas, since I don't have access to the OED. . .Oh, and to tie dactyl and -graph, a dactylographer is someone who studies fingerprints.
Also, you might be interested that the -pter suffix occurs in another, far more oft used word--helicopter. The first part of the word is from helix, meaning spiral (I assume that the -o- is just a sort of bridging vowel).
***
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backes
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Sun February 8th, 11:41 PM
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Precipitation Envy
Continuing the linguistic saga of bats... (and here it gets really weird!)....
from the OED entry on BAT:
[1535 COVERDALE, Molles and Backes; 1590 Genev., To the mowles and to the backes; 1611 Moules and battes.] 1414 BRAMPTON Penit. Ps. lxxx. 31 A backe, that flyith be nyt. c1440 Promp. Parv. 21 Bakke (v.r. bak), flyinge best (v.r. fleynge byrde), vespertilio. [...] 1496 Dives & Paup. (W. de W.) III. viii. 144 Lyke oules & backes whiche hate the daye & loue the nyght. a1500 in Wülcker Voc. /761 Hic vespertilio, hec lucifuga, a bake. 1509 FISHER Wks. I. (1876) 87 More louynge derkenes than lyght, lyke vnto a beest called a backe. 1513 DOUGLAS Æneis XIII. Prol. 33 Vpgois the bak wyth hir pelit ledderyn flycht. 1552 HULOET, Reremowse, or backe whiche flyeth in the darcke, nycteris. c1554 CROKE Ps. (1844) 20 The backe or owle, That lurketh yn an olde house syde. 1607 Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr. II. vi 71 To cast them to the Moules and to the backes. [1808 JAMIESON s.v. Bak, The modern name in Sc. is backie-bird. 1863 Prov. Danby, Back-bearaway, the bat, or rere mouse.]
The plural of bat used to be BACKES??? What??
Caleb [Lindley], can you explain the transformation from bak/backe to bat for me, please? I'm afraid I blanked all that out, on the suggestion of my therapist (Dr. J. Beam).
***
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lindley
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Mon February 9th, 3:10 AM
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Whoa, Molly [backes], that's . . . I don't know what. Here's what the OED etymology section said:
The mod. bat, found c 1575, takes the place of ME. bakke, apparently from Scand.; cf. Da. aften-bakke ‘evening-bat,’ ODa. nath-bakkæ, OSw. (Ihre) natt-backa ‘night-bat.’ Swedish dial. have also natt-batta. natt-blacka: with the latter cf. Icel. ler-blaka ‘bat,’ lit. ‘leather-flutterer,’ f. blaka ‘to flap, wave, flutter with wings,’ whence it has been suggested that bakke, backa have lost an l; but as the l does not appear in the OSw. and ODa. forms above, this is very unlikely. The med.L. blatta, blacta, batta, glossed ‘lucifuga, vespertilio, vledermus’ (Diefenbach Suppl. to Du Cange) = cl. L. blatta ‘an insect that shuns the light’ (blattæ lucifugæ, Vergil) ‘cockroach, moth,’ is distinct in origin, but may have influenced the English change to bat; evidence is wanting. Back- in comb., backie-bird, bawkie-bird still survive in north Eng. and Sc.
And, if I'm not mistaken, all that golbidy gook means that they don't know either.
If you want, I could give you my own personal musings on the topic, whatever that's worth.
What I find interesting is that Old Swedish had both bakka and batta, just in different dialects, which means it could be the same in English (they are two voiceless stop consonants after all). I also find it interesting that the Old Icelandic and the Latin both have a bl- thing going on, and the OIce ends with a [k] and the Latin with a [t]. I was going to make speculations about the words being cognate, but I'm either full of crap or lack the necessary education to even begin to go down that road.
Beyond that, it would appear as though you have stumbled upon a mystery that requires a considerable amount of research. I don't suppose there are any family stories about the origins of your surname?
04 February 2004
Wednesday Night
Yeah, Massachusetts!!
"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal. For no rational reason the marriage laws of the commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain. The [civil unions] bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits."
***
As I was driving home from work tonight, I was brooding about this mistake I made at work a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a big thing, but I was chastising myself for being such an idiot – until I realized that there’s no reason I should have known better. As I have mentioned before, the place where you grow up determines certain assumptions you make, assumptions that don’t get challenged until you move to a place with a different set. I find myself defending certain ideas I have and choices I make by saying, “Well, in Wisconsin/Iowa it’s this way....” Sometimes I feel like Rose from that old show The Golden Girls, who would always defend herself with stories about Lake Wobegon or wherever she was from. And so, for your reading pleasure, I present:
ERRORS AND ASSUMPTIONS I'VE MADE IN NEW MEXICO, or MIDWESTERN MISTAKES
1. If you address a letter to someone’s house, it will reach them.
This is the mistake I made at work: a few weeks ago, we were sending out a mailing to people in the East Mountains, asking them to come to a meeting on February 12. There were probably 35 people on our list, most of whom hadn’t listed their mailing addresses. Without putting much thought into it, I looked up the names in the East Mountain phone book, and only called people for their addresses if they were unlisted in the phone book. Last week, about 10 of the letters I’d sent out were returned, and my boss was pretty irritated. “You can’t send mail to a person’s address,” she said, using a tone generally reserved for the very young, the very old, or the developmentally disabled. “No one gets mail at their house; everyone has post office boxes.” “Um, sorry,” I said, feeling stupid. It wasn’t until tonight that it hit me: why the hell would I know that? I come from a magical land where people either get mail delivered to their houses, or else list their mailing address in the phone book.
2. “I know how to drive in the snow! No problem!”
When I moved out here, I had eight years of winter driving experience under my belt. I had driven through some pretty freaking horrible snowstorms, including one so bad it took me nearly four hours to drive the 60 miles from Iowa City to Grinnell (we left at 2:30 am and didn’t get to Grinnell until 6 in the morning), with visibility at, like, two feet and semi-trucks jack-knifed on the sides of the highway every quarter mile. But. One big difference between driving in an Iowa winter and driving in a New Mexico winter is that if you go off the road in Iowa, chances are good that you’ll land in a cornfield. Whereas if you go off the road in New Mexico, chances are good that you’ll go plunging down some ridiculously steep embankment and end up bruised and broken hundreds, maybe thousands, of feet below at the bottom of the canyon.
3. Gigantic jeeps, trucks, and SUVs are evil.
Modification: gigantic jeeps, trucks, and SUVs are evil if they’re only manifestations of a suburbanite’s wish to pretend her life is far less tame than it seems. I’d guess that 96% of the people in this country who drive these monstrous machines do not actually need them. However, they’re necessary if you live at the top of a mountain and need lots of horsepower and four-wheel drive simply to get home at night.
4. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 1
This continues to trick me: in the mornings when I take the dog out, I decide how many layers I’ll need for the day based on how cold it is in my backyard. Please note that, for the most part, this is a totally viable strategy in this midwest. However, the weather in Albuquerque is often completely different from the weather in the East Mountains. Tonight, for example, I left work early because it was a right blizzard in Tijeras, with big wet snowflakes, slick roads, and crappy visibility. This weather bothered me for all of six minutes on the drive home, until I came far enough down the mountain to be back in the drier, warmer climate of the city. Though I had been freezing my face off all day at work, once home I took the dog for a walk and didn’t even need a coat. Go figure.
5. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 2
A few weeks ago, my new intern and I were strolling from the parking lot to the Talking Talons center, enjoying the balmy spring air and sunshine. At least, I was strolling and enjoying the day. My intern was hunched over and shivering, cursing the bitter winter. After a minute or so of listening to her bitching, I finally snapped, “Oh my god, woman, it’s in the mid-50s!” She nodded miserably. “I’m wearing thermal underwear under my jeans and sweatshirt and jacket, and I’m still c-o-o-o-o-o-o-l-d!”
6. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 3
This weekend, I was at a conference in Santa Fe and it was legitimately cold. The temperature was in the teens, and it was snowing and windy. Leaving the hotel for the day, me: thick wool socks, boots, long corduroy pants, a teeshirt, cardigan sweater, long wool coat, scarf, gloves. Leaving the hotel for the day, my intern: open-toed sandals (!!!), no socks or stockings, thin linen pants, short-sleeved silk blouse, loosely-knit cardigan sweater. And that’s all. Being the paranoid midwesterner that I am, I usually have one or more sweatshirts, hats, pairs of gloves, extra socks, boots, and sometimes jackets in the back of my vehicle (in case I get in a blizzard and have to exist in my car for a few days, or dig myself out of a snowbank, or stand around talking to police officers after someone slides into my truck, of course). Raising an eyebrow, I offered my intern an extra jacket and pair of gloves – “You’re welcome to take an extra sweatshirt as well, if you’d like.” Understand that this was just a light unlined spring jacket, good for keeping out wind and rain, but not much else. Imagine my surprise when I came back to the truck to find that my intern had put the jacket on but had taken the sweater off and was throwing it into the truck. “Don’t you want to wear the jacket over your sweater?” “Oh, no, that’s not a sweater, that’s my winter coat.”
7. Given the state’s rich Spanish heritage and bilingual nature, places with Spanish names have Spanish pronunciations.
WRONG! Even though I studied Spanish for more than five years and had a good enough grasp on the language to get by in Costa Rica, I never guess the correct pronunciations of towns and cities. This week’s example: Malpais. El Malpais National Monument is in New Mexico, and whether it was this area or the Malpais Pueblo in Arizona to which Aldous Huxley refers in Brave New World, I am not certain. However, I am certain that “el malpais” is Spanish for “the badlands.” I was talking about the book this weekend, and said something about the savage from “ell-mal-pie-ees” when a certain snooty someone jumped in and corrected me. “You mean Maal-pie.” “Oh, is that how you say it? I just assumed the Spanish pronunciation.” “It’s not Spanish, it’s Indian,” says my know-it-all friend, as if I am the most retarded person she’s ever met. [For the record, I looked it up, and it is Spanish, and I actually pronounced it correctly.]
Other cities I’ve pronounced incorrectly:
Amarillo, TX (Spanish: ahm-ah-REE-o, Texan: Aa-mah-RILL-ah)
Santa Fe, NM (Spanish: san-tah FAY, New Mexican: SANNA-fay)
Madrid, NM (Spanish: mah-DRID, New Mexican: MAD-rid)
And so it goes....
The thing that really bothers me, though, is when people are really condescending and snotty about my incorrect pronunciations. I mean, for god’s sake, if someone from New Mexico were visiting me in Wisconsin and wanted to go to Prairie du Shee-ehn, I wouldn’t be laughing at them, I’d be laughing at us. That’s Prairie doo SHEEN, friend.
8. “Up” and “North” are the same direction.
Because Albuquerque is built at the base of the Sandia mountains, the entire city slopes eastward. Thus, if you tell someone to go up the street, they’ll take you literally, and go east. Naturally, “down” and “west” are synonymous as well.
***
Of course, this list is only a small sampling of all the ways I make a fool of myself here. One day, perhaps, I'll make a list of all the ways a person can kill themselves out here (spider bites and mouse poop come to mind, not to mention the plague), or all the words that have different meanings (hot sauce, patio, weather).
For now though, I'll leave it be, with this post-script only:
If you want to make fun of someone from Wisconsin, it's funny to mock their exaggerated long o's (AriZOna, MinneSOta) or talk about cheeseheads, hockey, hot-dish, Lutherans, or Mary Jo's lemon bars.
It is not funny to say "Wis-CAN-sen! Wis-CAN-sen!" because NO ONE IN WISCONSIN ACTUALLY SAYS THAT! Everyone from Wisconsin pronounces the word like it's spelled: Wis-con-sin. The only people in the whole goddamn world who say "Wis-CAN-sen" are the idiots from everywhere else, who think they're so funny by misprounouncing the name of the state in a completely inaccurate manner.
Arrrgh!
However, if you want to make a Wisconsinite fly into a homicidal rage, I've got just the ticket....
Yeah, Massachusetts!!
"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal. For no rational reason the marriage laws of the commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain. The [civil unions] bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits."
***
As I was driving home from work tonight, I was brooding about this mistake I made at work a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a big thing, but I was chastising myself for being such an idiot – until I realized that there’s no reason I should have known better. As I have mentioned before, the place where you grow up determines certain assumptions you make, assumptions that don’t get challenged until you move to a place with a different set. I find myself defending certain ideas I have and choices I make by saying, “Well, in Wisconsin/Iowa it’s this way....” Sometimes I feel like Rose from that old show The Golden Girls, who would always defend herself with stories about Lake Wobegon or wherever she was from. And so, for your reading pleasure, I present:
ERRORS AND ASSUMPTIONS I'VE MADE IN NEW MEXICO, or MIDWESTERN MISTAKES
1. If you address a letter to someone’s house, it will reach them.
This is the mistake I made at work: a few weeks ago, we were sending out a mailing to people in the East Mountains, asking them to come to a meeting on February 12. There were probably 35 people on our list, most of whom hadn’t listed their mailing addresses. Without putting much thought into it, I looked up the names in the East Mountain phone book, and only called people for their addresses if they were unlisted in the phone book. Last week, about 10 of the letters I’d sent out were returned, and my boss was pretty irritated. “You can’t send mail to a person’s address,” she said, using a tone generally reserved for the very young, the very old, or the developmentally disabled. “No one gets mail at their house; everyone has post office boxes.” “Um, sorry,” I said, feeling stupid. It wasn’t until tonight that it hit me: why the hell would I know that? I come from a magical land where people either get mail delivered to their houses, or else list their mailing address in the phone book.
2. “I know how to drive in the snow! No problem!”
When I moved out here, I had eight years of winter driving experience under my belt. I had driven through some pretty freaking horrible snowstorms, including one so bad it took me nearly four hours to drive the 60 miles from Iowa City to Grinnell (we left at 2:30 am and didn’t get to Grinnell until 6 in the morning), with visibility at, like, two feet and semi-trucks jack-knifed on the sides of the highway every quarter mile. But. One big difference between driving in an Iowa winter and driving in a New Mexico winter is that if you go off the road in Iowa, chances are good that you’ll land in a cornfield. Whereas if you go off the road in New Mexico, chances are good that you’ll go plunging down some ridiculously steep embankment and end up bruised and broken hundreds, maybe thousands, of feet below at the bottom of the canyon.
3. Gigantic jeeps, trucks, and SUVs are evil.
Modification: gigantic jeeps, trucks, and SUVs are evil if they’re only manifestations of a suburbanite’s wish to pretend her life is far less tame than it seems. I’d guess that 96% of the people in this country who drive these monstrous machines do not actually need them. However, they’re necessary if you live at the top of a mountain and need lots of horsepower and four-wheel drive simply to get home at night.
4. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 1
This continues to trick me: in the mornings when I take the dog out, I decide how many layers I’ll need for the day based on how cold it is in my backyard. Please note that, for the most part, this is a totally viable strategy in this midwest. However, the weather in Albuquerque is often completely different from the weather in the East Mountains. Tonight, for example, I left work early because it was a right blizzard in Tijeras, with big wet snowflakes, slick roads, and crappy visibility. This weather bothered me for all of six minutes on the drive home, until I came far enough down the mountain to be back in the drier, warmer climate of the city. Though I had been freezing my face off all day at work, once home I took the dog for a walk and didn’t even need a coat. Go figure.
5. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 2
A few weeks ago, my new intern and I were strolling from the parking lot to the Talking Talons center, enjoying the balmy spring air and sunshine. At least, I was strolling and enjoying the day. My intern was hunched over and shivering, cursing the bitter winter. After a minute or so of listening to her bitching, I finally snapped, “Oh my god, woman, it’s in the mid-50s!” She nodded miserably. “I’m wearing thermal underwear under my jeans and sweatshirt and jacket, and I’m still c-o-o-o-o-o-o-l-d!”
6. “You don’t need a coat today.” Pt. 3
This weekend, I was at a conference in Santa Fe and it was legitimately cold. The temperature was in the teens, and it was snowing and windy. Leaving the hotel for the day, me: thick wool socks, boots, long corduroy pants, a teeshirt, cardigan sweater, long wool coat, scarf, gloves. Leaving the hotel for the day, my intern: open-toed sandals (!!!), no socks or stockings, thin linen pants, short-sleeved silk blouse, loosely-knit cardigan sweater. And that’s all. Being the paranoid midwesterner that I am, I usually have one or more sweatshirts, hats, pairs of gloves, extra socks, boots, and sometimes jackets in the back of my vehicle (in case I get in a blizzard and have to exist in my car for a few days, or dig myself out of a snowbank, or stand around talking to police officers after someone slides into my truck, of course). Raising an eyebrow, I offered my intern an extra jacket and pair of gloves – “You’re welcome to take an extra sweatshirt as well, if you’d like.” Understand that this was just a light unlined spring jacket, good for keeping out wind and rain, but not much else. Imagine my surprise when I came back to the truck to find that my intern had put the jacket on but had taken the sweater off and was throwing it into the truck. “Don’t you want to wear the jacket over your sweater?” “Oh, no, that’s not a sweater, that’s my winter coat.”
7. Given the state’s rich Spanish heritage and bilingual nature, places with Spanish names have Spanish pronunciations.
WRONG! Even though I studied Spanish for more than five years and had a good enough grasp on the language to get by in Costa Rica, I never guess the correct pronunciations of towns and cities. This week’s example: Malpais. El Malpais National Monument is in New Mexico, and whether it was this area or the Malpais Pueblo in Arizona to which Aldous Huxley refers in Brave New World, I am not certain. However, I am certain that “el malpais” is Spanish for “the badlands.” I was talking about the book this weekend, and said something about the savage from “ell-mal-pie-ees” when a certain snooty someone jumped in and corrected me. “You mean Maal-pie.” “Oh, is that how you say it? I just assumed the Spanish pronunciation.” “It’s not Spanish, it’s Indian,” says my know-it-all friend, as if I am the most retarded person she’s ever met. [For the record, I looked it up, and it is Spanish, and I actually pronounced it correctly.]
Other cities I’ve pronounced incorrectly:
Amarillo, TX (Spanish: ahm-ah-REE-o, Texan: Aa-mah-RILL-ah)
Santa Fe, NM (Spanish: san-tah FAY, New Mexican: SANNA-fay)
Madrid, NM (Spanish: mah-DRID, New Mexican: MAD-rid)
And so it goes....
The thing that really bothers me, though, is when people are really condescending and snotty about my incorrect pronunciations. I mean, for god’s sake, if someone from New Mexico were visiting me in Wisconsin and wanted to go to Prairie du Shee-ehn, I wouldn’t be laughing at them, I’d be laughing at us. That’s Prairie doo SHEEN, friend.
8. “Up” and “North” are the same direction.
Because Albuquerque is built at the base of the Sandia mountains, the entire city slopes eastward. Thus, if you tell someone to go up the street, they’ll take you literally, and go east. Naturally, “down” and “west” are synonymous as well.
***
Of course, this list is only a small sampling of all the ways I make a fool of myself here. One day, perhaps, I'll make a list of all the ways a person can kill themselves out here (spider bites and mouse poop come to mind, not to mention the plague), or all the words that have different meanings (hot sauce, patio, weather).
For now though, I'll leave it be, with this post-script only:
If you want to make fun of someone from Wisconsin, it's funny to mock their exaggerated long o's (AriZOna, MinneSOta) or talk about cheeseheads, hockey, hot-dish, Lutherans, or Mary Jo's lemon bars.
It is not funny to say "Wis-CAN-sen! Wis-CAN-sen!" because NO ONE IN WISCONSIN ACTUALLY SAYS THAT! Everyone from Wisconsin pronounces the word like it's spelled: Wis-con-sin. The only people in the whole goddamn world who say "Wis-CAN-sen" are the idiots from everywhere else, who think they're so funny by misprounouncing the name of the state in a completely inaccurate manner.
Arrrgh!
However, if you want to make a Wisconsinite fly into a homicidal rage, I've got just the ticket....
28 January 2004
In my world, it's the weekend! Yayster!
And here's why: In the last three days, I have managed to clock in 30 hours. Yesterday I was at the center at 7:30 am, and today I was in at 7:00 (which means that I have to leave my house at 6:35 AM -- my commute's been longer since the cops have focused their attentions on speeders on I-40 in the canyon between Albuquerque and Tijeras). It goes without saying that I am exhausted. I have to spend my entire weekend (Saturday - Monday) in Santa Fe at a conference (LAME!), and so I am taking tomorrow off to give myself a little weekday weekend.
***
Today I learned a lot about bats!
For example:
-- Without bats, we wouldn't have tequila, for bats are the only pollinators of the agave plant
-- Bats are number ten on the list of most common carriers of rabies. Number one is pet dogs. You hear that, people? You are more likely to catch rabies from your dog than from a bat!
-- There are more than 1,100 species of bats in the world, from the largest (the gigantic flying fox of the South Pacific, with a wingspan of six feet) to the smallest (the bumble-bee bat, which weighs less than a penny).
-- Of these, only a very few can alight from the ground. Because they don't have feathers, most bats can't get enough lift to take off from the ground, which is why they hang upside down.
-- When you see scary bats in movies, they're FRUIT bats! They're hungry for rotting fruit, not for blood.
-- There are three species of vampire bats, all of which live in Africa. These bats drink the blood of cows and chickens, but only take two teaspoons of blood out of the animal (at the most), and the donor almost never notices.
-- Vampire bats are helping humanity, because their saliva contains an anti-coagulant that's been beneficial to people with heart problems.
-- Bats aren't blind. They have perfectly good vision. Many of them do echolocate, but they use this tool in addition to their sight.
...and lots more!
***
One particularly horrifying article in Mother Jones is about Grover Norquist, who is the "national ward boss for the right."
"We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through 2012... and rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them."
Awesome.
Or this:
Norquist calls it the "Leave-Us-Alone Coalition," a grouping of gun owners,
the Christian right, homeschoolers, libertarians, and business leaders that he has almost single-handedly managed to unite. The common vision: an America in which the rich will be taxed at the same rates as the poor, where capital is freed from government constraints, where government services are turned over to the free market, where the minimum wage is repealed, unions are made irrelevant, and law-abiding citizens can pack handguns in every state and town. "My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit," says Norquist. "Because that person doesn't need the goddamn government for anything."
Of course -- whether intentional or not -- he says the ideal citizen is a guy. Because I'm thinking that women still need the goddamn government to protect them. As well as, you know, poor people, sick people, old people, young people, people with different skin colors, and people with different religious beliefs, not to mention wildlife and the few wild places left in this country. It hurts my heart. The scariest thing is that this man is extremely powerful in Washington. Powerful like Karl Rove wants to be his BFF.
Powerful like
"At Rove's request, Norquist flew to Austin for a private meeting with the
then Texan governor and presented the agenda he wanted George W. Bush to back:
broad income-tax cuts, school choice, the privatization of Social Security, tort reform, and free trade."
Powerful like
"Norquist's goal is nothing less than a well-oiled national, state, and local
political machine that can roll over and crush the last few bastions of Democratic Party support."
Powerful scary.
***
On a slightly more cheerful note, this article about a man who works undercover as a car salesman. It's extremely long, but very compelling. The author describes the psychology of sales, as well as the spooky beer-can-crushing testosteroney atmosphere of the high-volume dealers. If you're not so interested in the narrative, you can skip to the end, where he sums up some of the things he learned that might help you not to get totally screwed next time you buy a car.
***
Today at Crossroads (the alternative high-school):
Me: (after staring at the classroom map of Africa for the last five minutes of class) Hey Mr. Bond, that's a pretty old map there, huh?
Mr. Bond: Why?
Me: Um, Zaire??
Mr. Bond: (smiling) Whatever do you mean, Molly?
Me: I'm pretty sure it's been the Democratic Republic of the Congo since I was in high school.
Mr. Bond: Do you know that in seven years, you're the only one who's ever noticed that?
Random Student: Dude, you're smart!
Of course, I admitted that I wouldn't know anything about Africa if my best friend hadn't moved there. Thanks, Ali!
***
Along these lines, I'm always looking for good books about Africa. Any suggestions?
my list so far:
Gordon, Sheila. Waiting for the Rain.
Jones, Ann. Looking for Lovedu.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible.
Malan, Rian. My Traitor's Heart.
Mathabane, Mark. Kaffir Boy.
...and I've been meaning to read Achebe's Things Fall Apart since I was 15! Maybe that's what I'll do over my "weekend."
***
And finally, apparently my mother was educated by the Sisters of Loretto! Who knew??
Happy weekend!
And here's why: In the last three days, I have managed to clock in 30 hours. Yesterday I was at the center at 7:30 am, and today I was in at 7:00 (which means that I have to leave my house at 6:35 AM -- my commute's been longer since the cops have focused their attentions on speeders on I-40 in the canyon between Albuquerque and Tijeras). It goes without saying that I am exhausted. I have to spend my entire weekend (Saturday - Monday) in Santa Fe at a conference (LAME!), and so I am taking tomorrow off to give myself a little weekday weekend.
***
Today I learned a lot about bats!
For example:
-- Without bats, we wouldn't have tequila, for bats are the only pollinators of the agave plant
-- Bats are number ten on the list of most common carriers of rabies. Number one is pet dogs. You hear that, people? You are more likely to catch rabies from your dog than from a bat!
-- There are more than 1,100 species of bats in the world, from the largest (the gigantic flying fox of the South Pacific, with a wingspan of six feet) to the smallest (the bumble-bee bat, which weighs less than a penny).
-- Of these, only a very few can alight from the ground. Because they don't have feathers, most bats can't get enough lift to take off from the ground, which is why they hang upside down.
-- When you see scary bats in movies, they're FRUIT bats! They're hungry for rotting fruit, not for blood.
-- There are three species of vampire bats, all of which live in Africa. These bats drink the blood of cows and chickens, but only take two teaspoons of blood out of the animal (at the most), and the donor almost never notices.
-- Vampire bats are helping humanity, because their saliva contains an anti-coagulant that's been beneficial to people with heart problems.
-- Bats aren't blind. They have perfectly good vision. Many of them do echolocate, but they use this tool in addition to their sight.
...and lots more!
***
One particularly horrifying article in Mother Jones is about Grover Norquist, who is the "national ward boss for the right."
"We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through 2012... and rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them."
Awesome.
Or this:
Norquist calls it the "Leave-Us-Alone Coalition," a grouping of gun owners,
the Christian right, homeschoolers, libertarians, and business leaders that he has almost single-handedly managed to unite. The common vision: an America in which the rich will be taxed at the same rates as the poor, where capital is freed from government constraints, where government services are turned over to the free market, where the minimum wage is repealed, unions are made irrelevant, and law-abiding citizens can pack handguns in every state and town. "My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit," says Norquist. "Because that person doesn't need the goddamn government for anything."
Of course -- whether intentional or not -- he says the ideal citizen is a guy. Because I'm thinking that women still need the goddamn government to protect them. As well as, you know, poor people, sick people, old people, young people, people with different skin colors, and people with different religious beliefs, not to mention wildlife and the few wild places left in this country. It hurts my heart. The scariest thing is that this man is extremely powerful in Washington. Powerful like Karl Rove wants to be his BFF.
Powerful like
"At Rove's request, Norquist flew to Austin for a private meeting with the
then Texan governor and presented the agenda he wanted George W. Bush to back:
broad income-tax cuts, school choice, the privatization of Social Security, tort reform, and free trade."
Powerful like
"Norquist's goal is nothing less than a well-oiled national, state, and local
political machine that can roll over and crush the last few bastions of Democratic Party support."
Powerful scary.
***
On a slightly more cheerful note, this article about a man who works undercover as a car salesman. It's extremely long, but very compelling. The author describes the psychology of sales, as well as the spooky beer-can-crushing testosteroney atmosphere of the high-volume dealers. If you're not so interested in the narrative, you can skip to the end, where he sums up some of the things he learned that might help you not to get totally screwed next time you buy a car.
***
Today at Crossroads (the alternative high-school):
Me: (after staring at the classroom map of Africa for the last five minutes of class) Hey Mr. Bond, that's a pretty old map there, huh?
Mr. Bond: Why?
Me: Um, Zaire??
Mr. Bond: (smiling) Whatever do you mean, Molly?
Me: I'm pretty sure it's been the Democratic Republic of the Congo since I was in high school.
Mr. Bond: Do you know that in seven years, you're the only one who's ever noticed that?
Random Student: Dude, you're smart!
Of course, I admitted that I wouldn't know anything about Africa if my best friend hadn't moved there. Thanks, Ali!
***
Along these lines, I'm always looking for good books about Africa. Any suggestions?
my list so far:
Gordon, Sheila. Waiting for the Rain.
Jones, Ann. Looking for Lovedu.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible.
Malan, Rian. My Traitor's Heart.
Mathabane, Mark. Kaffir Boy.
...and I've been meaning to read Achebe's Things Fall Apart since I was 15! Maybe that's what I'll do over my "weekend."
***
And finally, apparently my mother was educated by the Sisters of Loretto! Who knew??
Happy weekend!
25 January 2004
oh my gosh...
It's SNOWING!!!
***
The other day, I went to this amazing Chinese restaurant called the China King, which has the biggest buffet ever, and you get unlimited trips to the buffet for five dollars. Jennie and I have been there several times (she took me there for lunch my last day at work before Christmas), because there's nothing Jennie likes better than lots of inexpensive, good food.
At the end of the meal, of course, the waiter brought us fortune cookies. I wouldn't say that I'm superstitious, exactly, but I am always on the lookout for signs. Eager to see what the universe had to tell me, I cracked open my cookie.
This was my fortune:
Aunque sea un pequeno regalo significa tanto para alguien hoy.
I stared at it in disbelief. My fortune's in Spanish??
As best I can translate, it means Though it will be a small gift, it will mean a great deal to someone today. Er, or something like that. My Spanish is pretty rusty.
***
So I had this dream in which I gave birth to my second child. I named him Nathan Peter, and he was dark brown (and a little fuzzy). My first child was named Basil, and he was light-colored. Note that my mother's dog is named Basil, and he came first in our family, and my dog, while not named Nathan Peter, is dark brown and fuzzy, and he came second. This makes me think that my unconscious mind confuses babies and puppies.
Anyhow, so I had these babies (puppies) and I took them shopping. At the store, I was carded, and for the life of me I could not get my driver's license out of my wallet. After much struggle, I finally gave the checker my credit card as ID and left. When I got home, I was unloading my truck, and couldn't find my babies (puppies). Note that I expected them to be in the uncovered bed of my truck. I couldn't figure out if I had left them at the store, or if they had blown out of my truck while I was driving.
Moral of the story: Molly Backes is not allowed to have children!
***
I talked to Ila yesterday! As talking to anyone from home does, it made me both happy and sad. Happy, because it's so great to catch up with my far-away friends! And sad, because I wish I were closer, especially when my far-away friends are going through a rough time of it.
Hats off to Ila Grace Gates-Thomas, who is great and who has a pretty live journal about muppets!
***
Kevin just finished his first real collaboration with Zander Cannon (Zander wrote, Kevin drew), called The Mustache and Topcoat Club. Zander is a Grinnell College alum who's also a cartoonist, who also lives in Minneapolis, and who also has a studio in the Handicraft Guild building, but who isn't (strangely enough) related to Kevin.
Several years ago, Kevin had an internship as Zander's assistant, and was able to sneak a few secret messages into Zander's book (with Alan Moore) Smax.
***
In other news, if the classicists just marketed The Metamorphoses as the Days of Our Lives of Ancient Rome, I bet a lot more kids would go for it. Seriously, the plot twists are weirder and the characters more impulsive and insane than the soaps could even dream. Days, for example, has never had a character be cursed with never-ending hunger so that he was forced to eat his way through his fortune, then sell his daughter into slavery to buy more food, and finally eat his own flesh.
***
You know the scene in movies where through a series of hijinks (usually but not always involving clueless people, like dads or kids, being left in charge of the house while mom's away) suddenly the washing machine or dishwasher goes crazy and starts spewing huge mountains of soap suds and water all over the room, eventually filling the entire room with bubbles?
Yeah, well. Apparently that really happens.
It's SNOWING!!!
***
The other day, I went to this amazing Chinese restaurant called the China King, which has the biggest buffet ever, and you get unlimited trips to the buffet for five dollars. Jennie and I have been there several times (she took me there for lunch my last day at work before Christmas), because there's nothing Jennie likes better than lots of inexpensive, good food.
At the end of the meal, of course, the waiter brought us fortune cookies. I wouldn't say that I'm superstitious, exactly, but I am always on the lookout for signs. Eager to see what the universe had to tell me, I cracked open my cookie.
This was my fortune:
Aunque sea un pequeno regalo significa tanto para alguien hoy.
I stared at it in disbelief. My fortune's in Spanish??
As best I can translate, it means Though it will be a small gift, it will mean a great deal to someone today. Er, or something like that. My Spanish is pretty rusty.
***
So I had this dream in which I gave birth to my second child. I named him Nathan Peter, and he was dark brown (and a little fuzzy). My first child was named Basil, and he was light-colored. Note that my mother's dog is named Basil, and he came first in our family, and my dog, while not named Nathan Peter, is dark brown and fuzzy, and he came second. This makes me think that my unconscious mind confuses babies and puppies.
Anyhow, so I had these babies (puppies) and I took them shopping. At the store, I was carded, and for the life of me I could not get my driver's license out of my wallet. After much struggle, I finally gave the checker my credit card as ID and left. When I got home, I was unloading my truck, and couldn't find my babies (puppies). Note that I expected them to be in the uncovered bed of my truck. I couldn't figure out if I had left them at the store, or if they had blown out of my truck while I was driving.
Moral of the story: Molly Backes is not allowed to have children!
***
I talked to Ila yesterday! As talking to anyone from home does, it made me both happy and sad. Happy, because it's so great to catch up with my far-away friends! And sad, because I wish I were closer, especially when my far-away friends are going through a rough time of it.
Hats off to Ila Grace Gates-Thomas, who is great and who has a pretty live journal about muppets!
***
Kevin just finished his first real collaboration with Zander Cannon (Zander wrote, Kevin drew), called The Mustache and Topcoat Club. Zander is a Grinnell College alum who's also a cartoonist, who also lives in Minneapolis, and who also has a studio in the Handicraft Guild building, but who isn't (strangely enough) related to Kevin.
Several years ago, Kevin had an internship as Zander's assistant, and was able to sneak a few secret messages into Zander's book (with Alan Moore) Smax.
***
In other news, if the classicists just marketed The Metamorphoses as the Days of Our Lives of Ancient Rome, I bet a lot more kids would go for it. Seriously, the plot twists are weirder and the characters more impulsive and insane than the soaps could even dream. Days, for example, has never had a character be cursed with never-ending hunger so that he was forced to eat his way through his fortune, then sell his daughter into slavery to buy more food, and finally eat his own flesh.
***
You know the scene in movies where through a series of hijinks (usually but not always involving clueless people, like dads or kids, being left in charge of the house while mom's away) suddenly the washing machine or dishwasher goes crazy and starts spewing huge mountains of soap suds and water all over the room, eventually filling the entire room with bubbles?
Yeah, well. Apparently that really happens.
29 December 2003
Monday Afternoon
Not quite 3:30 pm. I'm in Studio 207 in the Handicraft Guild Building in downtown Minneapolis, MN -- home of artist Kevin Cannon. [Kevin wants me to put a link here to his newest cartoon, DOBEY! -- Apparently, this is just the first of many episodes in the life of Dobey.... call the trumpeters, rejoice.] Just returned from a lunch near the window in a third floor niche overlooking 7th Street. Minneapolis today is a lovely snowglobe of quiet flakes and soft lights. In other words, home.
I looked forward to this moment for months: caught between the frozen earth and the great gray sky, surprised by sudden snow. It happened this morning, as Kevin and I walked to the ochre bricks and wooden doors of the Handicraft Guild Building. Snow.
It has snowed several times while I've been home -- when I was in Grinnell, I stood outside of Steiner at 3:00 in the morning and willed the tiny snowflakes to grow in the light of the old-fashioned streetlamps; when I was in Oregon, an entire day of tiny snowflakes outside my livingroom window; when I was driving home from Ila's house on Gorham, mentally beseeching the falling ice to switch to snow -- but this morning was the first perfect snowfall of the season (for me at least).
The last two weeks have been full of wonderful people (though sadly there are a few terribly important people I missed -- you know who you are) and great moments. Last night for example, sitting on the couch between Carrie and Kevin, laughing at some lame joke carried all the way from gourmet house... or sitting with Cindy and Memo as they opened their cactus... driving on Lincoln Road with my sister, talking about old loves and new lives... eating gross fast food breakfast with Ali on Summer Street -- and breakfast at the New West Side with Ali and Adam and Larry -- and breakfast with Jean in her sunny little kitchen -- and breakfast this morning with Kevin and Kate at Pannekoeken Huis, where the wait staff apparently has to sing out "Pannekoeken!!" every time they deliver one to a table.... The problem with all this, of course, is that I start to wonder what I'm doing 1500 miles away from the people I love best in the world.
One important thing I have realized coming home is that I can't see Oregon or Madison or Grinnell through new eyes. Wherever I look, I see layers -- I see things not only as they are now, but as they were when I was 21, and 18, and in Oregon, as they were when I was 9 and 12 and 4. My whole adult life, I've been searching for the eyes of a new writer -- looking for ways to make the world seem new again, as it was when I first picked up a pen and realized I could make the world my own through words. At home, I've lost the ability to be happily surprised, lost the ability to see the small streets of Oregon with wonder. In the west, I have new vision. In New Mexico, I have moments of sparkling clarity, where everything I see is illuminated.
As Mr. Root once told me, "The trick is to find that at home."
Not quite 3:30 pm. I'm in Studio 207 in the Handicraft Guild Building in downtown Minneapolis, MN -- home of artist Kevin Cannon. [Kevin wants me to put a link here to his newest cartoon, DOBEY! -- Apparently, this is just the first of many episodes in the life of Dobey.... call the trumpeters, rejoice.] Just returned from a lunch near the window in a third floor niche overlooking 7th Street. Minneapolis today is a lovely snowglobe of quiet flakes and soft lights. In other words, home.
I looked forward to this moment for months: caught between the frozen earth and the great gray sky, surprised by sudden snow. It happened this morning, as Kevin and I walked to the ochre bricks and wooden doors of the Handicraft Guild Building. Snow.
It has snowed several times while I've been home -- when I was in Grinnell, I stood outside of Steiner at 3:00 in the morning and willed the tiny snowflakes to grow in the light of the old-fashioned streetlamps; when I was in Oregon, an entire day of tiny snowflakes outside my livingroom window; when I was driving home from Ila's house on Gorham, mentally beseeching the falling ice to switch to snow -- but this morning was the first perfect snowfall of the season (for me at least).
The last two weeks have been full of wonderful people (though sadly there are a few terribly important people I missed -- you know who you are) and great moments. Last night for example, sitting on the couch between Carrie and Kevin, laughing at some lame joke carried all the way from gourmet house... or sitting with Cindy and Memo as they opened their cactus... driving on Lincoln Road with my sister, talking about old loves and new lives... eating gross fast food breakfast with Ali on Summer Street -- and breakfast at the New West Side with Ali and Adam and Larry -- and breakfast with Jean in her sunny little kitchen -- and breakfast this morning with Kevin and Kate at Pannekoeken Huis, where the wait staff apparently has to sing out "Pannekoeken!!" every time they deliver one to a table.... The problem with all this, of course, is that I start to wonder what I'm doing 1500 miles away from the people I love best in the world.
One important thing I have realized coming home is that I can't see Oregon or Madison or Grinnell through new eyes. Wherever I look, I see layers -- I see things not only as they are now, but as they were when I was 21, and 18, and in Oregon, as they were when I was 9 and 12 and 4. My whole adult life, I've been searching for the eyes of a new writer -- looking for ways to make the world seem new again, as it was when I first picked up a pen and realized I could make the world my own through words. At home, I've lost the ability to be happily surprised, lost the ability to see the small streets of Oregon with wonder. In the west, I have new vision. In New Mexico, I have moments of sparkling clarity, where everything I see is illuminated.
As Mr. Root once told me, "The trick is to find that at home."
10 December 2003
Wednesday Night
Well, we've always wondered, and now we know:
The Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow
***
T-minus SIX DAYS before I leave for the midwest! Needless to say, I am very excited about my imminent departure, and can't wait to fill my eyes with the faces of my beloved Northern Folk (as if you were a tribe of dwarves with hairy feet, no?) in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. I plan to arrive in Iowa late Wednesday night (Dec 17) or early Thursday morning (the 18th) & stay until the 20 or 21. I'll be Wisconsin-Bound on the weekend, and will of course make a short trip up to the TC in MN between Xmas and the new year.
One funny thing is that my boss can never remember which state I'm from, and keeps telling people I'm going home to Michigan or Minnesota. Lots of native New Mexicans seem to believe that everything above the Mason-Dixon is basically Canada (including New York, Miss Brown). Living in different regions in the country helps me to remember/realize how regional we all are. When I lived in Boston, I heard "I've only ever been on the coasts" over and over again. Far worse, of course, was the "I have a hard time believing that people actually have lives out there!" On the other hand, there are a lot of midwestern transplants out here, so there's almost always someone with whom I can talk about Precipitation Envy.
....Which is to say that I am jealous of all of you snuggling under blankets of snow!! It did snow in the East Mountains the other night, so I got to make a snowball yesterday morning and go on a snowwalk with Jennie & Hito in the afternoon, but it has not snowed at all in ABQ. Furthermore, though the parking lot was still rather icy today, it was warm enough in Moriarty to go without a coat this afternoon. As usual.
I've had to supplement the lack of snow in my life with this snowglobe. I'm not even going to admit how much it amuses me, and for how long. I especially like it when the Christmas Carols are interrupted by screams.
***
In other news, the reports of my father's death are greatly exaggerated. Apparently he was listed as deceased in a recent edition of his fraternity's newsletter, so now people are calling him up to ask, "Dude, are you, like, DEAD?"
***
It's been a Heatherrific week! I spent most of Monday night talking to Miss Heather James, the brilliant young writer and aspiring doctor, catching up on years of gossip about friends and men and tatoos and, you know, Jebus. Then today, I heard from Miz Heather Moore, who just finished reading The Giver. Fun! I look forward to seeing her & the big, bad 8th graders at Berg Middle School (next week!!).....
Well, we've always wondered, and now we know:
The Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow
***
T-minus SIX DAYS before I leave for the midwest! Needless to say, I am very excited about my imminent departure, and can't wait to fill my eyes with the faces of my beloved Northern Folk (as if you were a tribe of dwarves with hairy feet, no?) in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. I plan to arrive in Iowa late Wednesday night (Dec 17) or early Thursday morning (the 18th) & stay until the 20 or 21. I'll be Wisconsin-Bound on the weekend, and will of course make a short trip up to the TC in MN between Xmas and the new year.
One funny thing is that my boss can never remember which state I'm from, and keeps telling people I'm going home to Michigan or Minnesota. Lots of native New Mexicans seem to believe that everything above the Mason-Dixon is basically Canada (including New York, Miss Brown). Living in different regions in the country helps me to remember/realize how regional we all are. When I lived in Boston, I heard "I've only ever been on the coasts" over and over again. Far worse, of course, was the "I have a hard time believing that people actually have lives out there!" On the other hand, there are a lot of midwestern transplants out here, so there's almost always someone with whom I can talk about Precipitation Envy.
....Which is to say that I am jealous of all of you snuggling under blankets of snow!! It did snow in the East Mountains the other night, so I got to make a snowball yesterday morning and go on a snowwalk with Jennie & Hito in the afternoon, but it has not snowed at all in ABQ. Furthermore, though the parking lot was still rather icy today, it was warm enough in Moriarty to go without a coat this afternoon. As usual.
I've had to supplement the lack of snow in my life with this snowglobe. I'm not even going to admit how much it amuses me, and for how long. I especially like it when the Christmas Carols are interrupted by screams.
***
In other news, the reports of my father's death are greatly exaggerated. Apparently he was listed as deceased in a recent edition of his fraternity's newsletter, so now people are calling him up to ask, "Dude, are you, like, DEAD?"
***
It's been a Heatherrific week! I spent most of Monday night talking to Miss Heather James, the brilliant young writer and aspiring doctor, catching up on years of gossip about friends and men and tatoos and, you know, Jebus. Then today, I heard from Miz Heather Moore, who just finished reading The Giver. Fun! I look forward to seeing her & the big, bad 8th graders at Berg Middle School (next week!!).....
05 December 2003
Friday morning
This is my life right now:
It's 8:24 am on a Friday morning in December, and I'm happily breakfasting on leftover chicken enchiladas with blue corn tortillas & green chile from this tiny little mom'n'pop place whose existence is a secret carefully and jealously guarded by locals. The dog is sleeping in a patch of sunlight on my bed, and I just broke the second bowl in under a week. The first one I didn't even mind breaking, because it made such a satisfying smash on our Mexican tiles, but the second one just made a thud on the linoleum. I'm listening to an old Hot Dish show -- 7 March 2002, I believe (also known as the "animal episode") -- on tape. "Hot Dish for Lunch! (with Mary and Molly)" was my radio show -- with co-DJ Mary Hoeschen of Duluth, MN -- on Grinnell's radio station, KDIC. Happily, I have most of our shows on tape, and have taken to listening to them on bleary-eyed mornings. I'd much rather listen to senior-year-Mary and senior-year-Molly (and sometimes special guest stars s-y-Dan, s-y-George, s-y-Kevin, and Beck) joke about the West Side Diner, Norweigan statues in northern Minnesota, the Pub, evading campus security, tiger alarm clocks, and other such nonsense than listen to shrill "shock jocks" on crappy morning radio. Any day. Of course, I prefer the selection of music that Mary & I played to the "selection" most radio stations play (with the exception, perhaps, of WMMM in Madison and KUNI in central Iowa). Plus, almost all of my Hot Dish tapes has the first ten minutes of Chris Rathjen's & Nick Wagner's show, which had a ridiculously long name -- "Chris & Nick's something something Smileytime de Vida, (fiesta extravaganza bonanza ole!)." Their show came after ours, and always made me laugh. Every Thursday after our show, Mary and I would go to Dairy Queen for lunch, then I'd drop Mary off at work and go to Bob's Underground Cafe. I was the manager of Bob's then, and on Thursdays I'd meet the delivery guy, inventory & put away the week's supply of Tofutti Cuties & other organic stuff, and do the bank from the previous night -- all the while listening to Chris & Nick's show, sometimes laughing out loud, often calling in to joke with them.
Anyhow, to all the angry people who emailed me saying "Update your goddamn blog!" I extend my sincerest apologies.
Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS HEATHER JAMES for surviving the big NaNoWriMo challenge! Very proud of you, darling.
So it's December, the special time of year when you can't even get an oil change without having to suffer through yet another rendition of "Santa Baby" or "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." I made the mistake of saying something at work about how it still seemed a little early for so much xmas, and one of the thrift store girls stared at me in disbelief. "Molly, there are only 3 shopping weekends before Christmas." Uh, sorry.
Here's the problem: it's too warm to be almost-christmas! The mornings usually start off with a chill, but by mid-afternoon it's almost always warm enough to run around in a tee-shirt. A tee-shirt! It's not time for Christmas until it's too cold outside to do anything but run from your car to whatever building is closest, even if it's your neighbor's house. My northern friends keep telling me about snow, and I am one jealous girl. It snowed once, about three weeks ago, but only in the mountains, and it all melted the next day.
However, I did go to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and got to play in a little bit of snow there. The drive to Pagosa Springs from Albuquerque was just amazing. It's only 200 miles -- less than the distance from Grinnell to Oregon -- and (no offense, Iowa and Wisconsin) it's a far prettier drive than the 240 mile stretch of 151 I know by heart. Driving north on 84, you pass through chain after chain of snow-capped mountains, which grow ever more wild and breathtaking as you go. The land around Abiquiu, too -- the part of New Mexico where Georgia O'Keeffe lived at her "Ghost Ranch" -- is just stunning, with its rocky cliffs striped in reds & oranges. And then the last hour of the drive -- from Chama to Pagosa -- was just incredibly picturesque (in the old-fashioned sense of the word), and for a while I thought of the Romantics & their sense of the sublime --- until I caught myself & forced myself to think along less intellectual lines.
I have more to report, of course, but I need to wrap this up or I'll be late to the day-long meeting I have to attend today. BO-ring!
Until next time, here's Anna Karenina (Or, Like, Most Of It), a sestina.
This is my life right now:
It's 8:24 am on a Friday morning in December, and I'm happily breakfasting on leftover chicken enchiladas with blue corn tortillas & green chile from this tiny little mom'n'pop place whose existence is a secret carefully and jealously guarded by locals. The dog is sleeping in a patch of sunlight on my bed, and I just broke the second bowl in under a week. The first one I didn't even mind breaking, because it made such a satisfying smash on our Mexican tiles, but the second one just made a thud on the linoleum. I'm listening to an old Hot Dish show -- 7 March 2002, I believe (also known as the "animal episode") -- on tape. "Hot Dish for Lunch! (with Mary and Molly)" was my radio show -- with co-DJ Mary Hoeschen of Duluth, MN -- on Grinnell's radio station, KDIC. Happily, I have most of our shows on tape, and have taken to listening to them on bleary-eyed mornings. I'd much rather listen to senior-year-Mary and senior-year-Molly (and sometimes special guest stars s-y-Dan, s-y-George, s-y-Kevin, and Beck) joke about the West Side Diner, Norweigan statues in northern Minnesota, the Pub, evading campus security, tiger alarm clocks, and other such nonsense than listen to shrill "shock jocks" on crappy morning radio. Any day. Of course, I prefer the selection of music that Mary & I played to the "selection" most radio stations play (with the exception, perhaps, of WMMM in Madison and KUNI in central Iowa). Plus, almost all of my Hot Dish tapes has the first ten minutes of Chris Rathjen's & Nick Wagner's show, which had a ridiculously long name -- "Chris & Nick's something something Smileytime de Vida, (fiesta extravaganza bonanza ole!)." Their show came after ours, and always made me laugh. Every Thursday after our show, Mary and I would go to Dairy Queen for lunch, then I'd drop Mary off at work and go to Bob's Underground Cafe. I was the manager of Bob's then, and on Thursdays I'd meet the delivery guy, inventory & put away the week's supply of Tofutti Cuties & other organic stuff, and do the bank from the previous night -- all the while listening to Chris & Nick's show, sometimes laughing out loud, often calling in to joke with them.
Anyhow, to all the angry people who emailed me saying "Update your goddamn blog!" I extend my sincerest apologies.
Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS HEATHER JAMES for surviving the big NaNoWriMo challenge! Very proud of you, darling.
So it's December, the special time of year when you can't even get an oil change without having to suffer through yet another rendition of "Santa Baby" or "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." I made the mistake of saying something at work about how it still seemed a little early for so much xmas, and one of the thrift store girls stared at me in disbelief. "Molly, there are only 3 shopping weekends before Christmas." Uh, sorry.
Here's the problem: it's too warm to be almost-christmas! The mornings usually start off with a chill, but by mid-afternoon it's almost always warm enough to run around in a tee-shirt. A tee-shirt! It's not time for Christmas until it's too cold outside to do anything but run from your car to whatever building is closest, even if it's your neighbor's house. My northern friends keep telling me about snow, and I am one jealous girl. It snowed once, about three weeks ago, but only in the mountains, and it all melted the next day.
However, I did go to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and got to play in a little bit of snow there. The drive to Pagosa Springs from Albuquerque was just amazing. It's only 200 miles -- less than the distance from Grinnell to Oregon -- and (no offense, Iowa and Wisconsin) it's a far prettier drive than the 240 mile stretch of 151 I know by heart. Driving north on 84, you pass through chain after chain of snow-capped mountains, which grow ever more wild and breathtaking as you go. The land around Abiquiu, too -- the part of New Mexico where Georgia O'Keeffe lived at her "Ghost Ranch" -- is just stunning, with its rocky cliffs striped in reds & oranges. And then the last hour of the drive -- from Chama to Pagosa -- was just incredibly picturesque (in the old-fashioned sense of the word), and for a while I thought of the Romantics & their sense of the sublime --- until I caught myself & forced myself to think along less intellectual lines.
I have more to report, of course, but I need to wrap this up or I'll be late to the day-long meeting I have to attend today. BO-ring!
Until next time, here's Anna Karenina (Or, Like, Most Of It), a sestina.
17 November 2003
Monday morning
After an extremely busy week, I get the morning off. Even though my boss insisted that I not come in to the office this morning, I still feel naughty & indulgent, like I’m playing hooky. For a job that was supposed to be part time and give me lots of time to write, it’s taking up a huge amount of room in my brain. Last night before I went to sleep my last thought was of the office, and my first thought this morning was the same. Arrgh.
Saturday was our big Winter Wildlife Family Fun Fair in Moriarty, co-sponsored by the Crossroads Program (my high school students in Moriarty!), the Torrance Project Office, and Talking Talons. It was smaller than we had hoped, but went off beautifully overall. I was particularly stressed about it, because my role was twofold: not only did I have a huge part in planning (we’ve been working on this event as long as I’ve been with TT) and running the event itself, but also I was co-leading one of the breakout workshops. My co-presenter was a man with whom I’d never before presented, nor had I ever seen him speak publicly, so our plan of “structured winging it” made me anxious. However, he’s from Duluth, and lived in Madison for a while, so whenever he’d notice that I was getting overwrought, he’d say something about cheese curds or Lutheran potlucks, and I’d calm down. Our session must have gone well, because afterward a woman from the New Mexico Department of Health came up to me and asked if I was available to speak at conferences and if so, could she have my card? I was flattered and told her that of course I’d love to, but laughed at the idea that I’d have a card.
Last week was also our big Caring Community meeting, with a terribly small attendance due to the weather (more about that in a moment). However, the mayor of Tijeras, Gloria Chavez, did show up, so the meeting wasn’t a total bust. Last week was also our first day of teaching out at Moriarty Middle School with the Crossroads kids, which also went well – though it means that from now on I’ll need to leave my house at 6:45 am EVERY WEDNESDAY until school’s over. Awesome.
Enough about work. Last Thursday was the first big snowstorm of the year! Of course, it only snowed in the East Mountains; in Albuquerque it was just another rainy day. This is something I still haven’t gotten used to: that the weather in my backyard does not always prepare me for the weather where I work. For you Wisconsinites, it is as if you leave your house in Oregon where it’s in the 50s and raining, and drive to Madison where it’s in the low 30s and blizzarding. You spend all day in Madison, consumed with the blizzard – of course it’s the main thing everyone’s talking about, because they’re all so worried about the conditions of the roads on the way home – and then you drive back to Oregon at night, where it’s just been drizzling all day and most people don’t even realize that it’s been snowing in Madison. It’s so strange!
Another thing that I find strange is the way people talk about weather: “If there’s weather tomorrow we may not be able to go out to Moriarty.” “Expect a call from me if there’s weather, because I may not make it to the meeting.” What? In my mind, there’s always weather. It may be bad or good, hot or cold, sunny or cloudy, but it’s always there, right? Isn’t weather just a word that describes the atmospheric conditions?
I tried to explain this to Danielle, and she said, “Yes, but when people say ‘weathering’ they mean ‘getting through something bad,’ and therefore weather is bad.”
I said, “No, ‘weathering’ is a clipped form of the expression ‘weathering the storm,’ and ‘the storm’ is understood when you say ‘weathering.’
She said, “Okay, but whenever you talk about the chance of weather, you mean bad weather.”
I said, “If the weather’s good this weekend, we’ll have a picnic. If the weather’s warm tomorrow, we’ll go swimming.”
Things nerds argue about.
***
On another note entirely, in a recent issue of the Oregon Observer, there is an article about a girl who is a senior at OHS and is being allowed to stage a full-length original musical there. How cool is that? Apparently, this musical even has – gasp – adult issues like homosexuality and alcoholism! Amazing! The thing about the article that most struck me, though, was an aside about what this girl (I believe her name is Katrina Harms) does when she’s not directing and producing an original musical. Among other things, she’s the editor of The Chatauqua, Oregon’s very own literary magazine. The Chatauqua!! Its ongoing existence is startling and wonderful. Founded in the spring of 1995 by a small group of students (including but perhaps not limited to Mike O’Brien ‘96, Adam Waskowski ‘96, Davey Pascoe ‘96, Ian Honeyman ‘96, and myself), The Chatauqua was always something of an underground paper. We had an advisor (Leyla Sanyer) mostly as a formality, and the editor-in-chief was a position more like the papacy than the presidency in its appointment. Mike was the official editor-in-chief (I believe) that first year with Ian or Adam doing layout (I think), and when they graduated Katy Powers ‘98 and I took over all aspects of production, from soliciting submissions to selecting contents to layout and distribution. When we graduated, we placed our baby in the hands of Catie Honeyman ‘00, who passed it on to Caitlyn Kiley. I was so excited to see that The Chatauqua still lives, I felt compelled to write a note to the current editor, care of Oregon High School.
***
Delving into the world of politics, I have some interesting links I’ve been saving. First, of course, there’s this photo of George Bush signing the so-called partial-birth abortion ban into law. It’s on the White House’s own website, and I think it’s a very striking picture, considering the fact that the law mainly affects women. Where are they, George? In the kitchen where they belong?
Oh America, you sure are of (a small number of) the people, by the (primarily male, white) people, for the (rich and powerful) people. For those of you who were still thinking this is a democracy, this article should sort things out for you. Even (other-dimension president) Al Gore is speaking out these days – in this article he accuses the administration of Orwellian tactics. When we lived in Boston, Ali and I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Big Brother is my cousin!” Perhaps it should have said, “Big Brother is my president!” Not that I’m bitter, of course. Even more shocking than Gore’s criticisms of Bush is this, originally published in Time (in 1998), in which George Bush Sr writes about why we shouldn’t invade Iraq. Recently, it mysteriously disappeared from Time’s archives. Hmmmm.....
Now, if you’re uncertain about which non-Bush candidate you should support, this candidate selector quiz may help you. I’m sure Dad will be disappointed to see that my number 2 match (after my number 1 “ideal candidate”) is not Wesley Clark....
My results:
1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (83%)
3. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (75%)
4. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (74%)
5. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (69%)
6. Green Party Candidate (66%)
7. Clark, Retired General Wesley, AR - Democrat(65%)
8. Socialist Candidate (59%)
9. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (56%)
10. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (50%)
11. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (44%)
12. Libertarian Candidate (36%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (32%)
14. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (17%)
15. Bush, President George W. - Republican (14%)
16. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (8%)
17. Hagelin, Dr. John - Natural Law (4%)
***
Recently, I pulled out Ann Harleman’s Bitter Lake, one of the books I go back to again and again, and out fell a sheet of paper covered with sentences like these:
“Molly is a wonderful companion.”
“Molly is in isolation now so we have to wear gowns and gloves whenever we are in the room with her.”
“Molly is extremely smart.”
“Molly is a cute blond spayed golden.”
“Molly is bad enough to warrant a strong ‘please stay away’ warning.”
“Molly is quite the case.”
“Molly is a metaphor.”
“Molly is a fox.”
“Molly is short on her rent money.”
“Molly is singled out by her classmates.”
“Molly is great in bed.”
“Molly is at her breaking point.”
“Molly is my mantra.”
“Molly is in a whole different category.”
Upon finding this paper, I was puzzled for a moment until I remembered Googlisms!, which were quite popular when I was a senior in college.
I must confess that many of my links (often the most interesting ones) come from Eric Simpson, who is an English Professor at Grinnell. Normally I’m delighted to follow his links, but I must say that one of his most recent links rather dismayed me. What did other people do when they were your age? Yes, I really needed to know that Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at my age....
After an extremely busy week, I get the morning off. Even though my boss insisted that I not come in to the office this morning, I still feel naughty & indulgent, like I’m playing hooky. For a job that was supposed to be part time and give me lots of time to write, it’s taking up a huge amount of room in my brain. Last night before I went to sleep my last thought was of the office, and my first thought this morning was the same. Arrgh.
Saturday was our big Winter Wildlife Family Fun Fair in Moriarty, co-sponsored by the Crossroads Program (my high school students in Moriarty!), the Torrance Project Office, and Talking Talons. It was smaller than we had hoped, but went off beautifully overall. I was particularly stressed about it, because my role was twofold: not only did I have a huge part in planning (we’ve been working on this event as long as I’ve been with TT) and running the event itself, but also I was co-leading one of the breakout workshops. My co-presenter was a man with whom I’d never before presented, nor had I ever seen him speak publicly, so our plan of “structured winging it” made me anxious. However, he’s from Duluth, and lived in Madison for a while, so whenever he’d notice that I was getting overwrought, he’d say something about cheese curds or Lutheran potlucks, and I’d calm down. Our session must have gone well, because afterward a woman from the New Mexico Department of Health came up to me and asked if I was available to speak at conferences and if so, could she have my card? I was flattered and told her that of course I’d love to, but laughed at the idea that I’d have a card.
Last week was also our big Caring Community meeting, with a terribly small attendance due to the weather (more about that in a moment). However, the mayor of Tijeras, Gloria Chavez, did show up, so the meeting wasn’t a total bust. Last week was also our first day of teaching out at Moriarty Middle School with the Crossroads kids, which also went well – though it means that from now on I’ll need to leave my house at 6:45 am EVERY WEDNESDAY until school’s over. Awesome.
Enough about work. Last Thursday was the first big snowstorm of the year! Of course, it only snowed in the East Mountains; in Albuquerque it was just another rainy day. This is something I still haven’t gotten used to: that the weather in my backyard does not always prepare me for the weather where I work. For you Wisconsinites, it is as if you leave your house in Oregon where it’s in the 50s and raining, and drive to Madison where it’s in the low 30s and blizzarding. You spend all day in Madison, consumed with the blizzard – of course it’s the main thing everyone’s talking about, because they’re all so worried about the conditions of the roads on the way home – and then you drive back to Oregon at night, where it’s just been drizzling all day and most people don’t even realize that it’s been snowing in Madison. It’s so strange!
Another thing that I find strange is the way people talk about weather: “If there’s weather tomorrow we may not be able to go out to Moriarty.” “Expect a call from me if there’s weather, because I may not make it to the meeting.” What? In my mind, there’s always weather. It may be bad or good, hot or cold, sunny or cloudy, but it’s always there, right? Isn’t weather just a word that describes the atmospheric conditions?
I tried to explain this to Danielle, and she said, “Yes, but when people say ‘weathering’ they mean ‘getting through something bad,’ and therefore weather is bad.”
I said, “No, ‘weathering’ is a clipped form of the expression ‘weathering the storm,’ and ‘the storm’ is understood when you say ‘weathering.’
She said, “Okay, but whenever you talk about the chance of weather, you mean bad weather.”
I said, “If the weather’s good this weekend, we’ll have a picnic. If the weather’s warm tomorrow, we’ll go swimming.”
Things nerds argue about.
***
On another note entirely, in a recent issue of the Oregon Observer, there is an article about a girl who is a senior at OHS and is being allowed to stage a full-length original musical there. How cool is that? Apparently, this musical even has – gasp – adult issues like homosexuality and alcoholism! Amazing! The thing about the article that most struck me, though, was an aside about what this girl (I believe her name is Katrina Harms) does when she’s not directing and producing an original musical. Among other things, she’s the editor of The Chatauqua, Oregon’s very own literary magazine. The Chatauqua!! Its ongoing existence is startling and wonderful. Founded in the spring of 1995 by a small group of students (including but perhaps not limited to Mike O’Brien ‘96, Adam Waskowski ‘96, Davey Pascoe ‘96, Ian Honeyman ‘96, and myself), The Chatauqua was always something of an underground paper. We had an advisor (Leyla Sanyer) mostly as a formality, and the editor-in-chief was a position more like the papacy than the presidency in its appointment. Mike was the official editor-in-chief (I believe) that first year with Ian or Adam doing layout (I think), and when they graduated Katy Powers ‘98 and I took over all aspects of production, from soliciting submissions to selecting contents to layout and distribution. When we graduated, we placed our baby in the hands of Catie Honeyman ‘00, who passed it on to Caitlyn Kiley. I was so excited to see that The Chatauqua still lives, I felt compelled to write a note to the current editor, care of Oregon High School.
***
Delving into the world of politics, I have some interesting links I’ve been saving. First, of course, there’s this photo of George Bush signing the so-called partial-birth abortion ban into law. It’s on the White House’s own website, and I think it’s a very striking picture, considering the fact that the law mainly affects women. Where are they, George? In the kitchen where they belong?
Oh America, you sure are of (a small number of) the people, by the (primarily male, white) people, for the (rich and powerful) people. For those of you who were still thinking this is a democracy, this article should sort things out for you. Even (other-dimension president) Al Gore is speaking out these days – in this article he accuses the administration of Orwellian tactics. When we lived in Boston, Ali and I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Big Brother is my cousin!” Perhaps it should have said, “Big Brother is my president!” Not that I’m bitter, of course. Even more shocking than Gore’s criticisms of Bush is this, originally published in Time (in 1998), in which George Bush Sr writes about why we shouldn’t invade Iraq. Recently, it mysteriously disappeared from Time’s archives. Hmmmm.....
Now, if you’re uncertain about which non-Bush candidate you should support, this candidate selector quiz may help you. I’m sure Dad will be disappointed to see that my number 2 match (after my number 1 “ideal candidate”) is not Wesley Clark....
My results:
1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (83%)
3. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (75%)
4. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (74%)
5. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (69%)
6. Green Party Candidate (66%)
7. Clark, Retired General Wesley, AR - Democrat(65%)
8. Socialist Candidate (59%)
9. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (56%)
10. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (50%)
11. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (44%)
12. Libertarian Candidate (36%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (32%)
14. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (17%)
15. Bush, President George W. - Republican (14%)
16. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (8%)
17. Hagelin, Dr. John - Natural Law (4%)
***
Recently, I pulled out Ann Harleman’s Bitter Lake, one of the books I go back to again and again, and out fell a sheet of paper covered with sentences like these:
“Molly is a wonderful companion.”
“Molly is in isolation now so we have to wear gowns and gloves whenever we are in the room with her.”
“Molly is extremely smart.”
“Molly is a cute blond spayed golden.”
“Molly is bad enough to warrant a strong ‘please stay away’ warning.”
“Molly is quite the case.”
“Molly is a metaphor.”
“Molly is a fox.”
“Molly is short on her rent money.”
“Molly is singled out by her classmates.”
“Molly is great in bed.”
“Molly is at her breaking point.”
“Molly is my mantra.”
“Molly is in a whole different category.”
Upon finding this paper, I was puzzled for a moment until I remembered Googlisms!, which were quite popular when I was a senior in college.
I must confess that many of my links (often the most interesting ones) come from Eric Simpson, who is an English Professor at Grinnell. Normally I’m delighted to follow his links, but I must say that one of his most recent links rather dismayed me. What did other people do when they were your age? Yes, I really needed to know that Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at my age....
08 November 2003
She's Got Soul
I once (ca. spring 1999) posted on my plan about wanting to lease my soul to Satan for a shiny red truck. Four and a half years later, I have a shiny black truck and still own my soul. But, seeing as how it's worth $62,863.56, if I sell it now I can pay back all my student loans and pay off my shiny black truck.
Should I or shouldn't I? On the one hand, it's not going to get any more pure (currently more pure than 80% of the world's souls) as the days go by & will probably only decrease in value.
On the other hand, some might say that having a soul is important.
How much is your soul worth?
Either You're On The Bus, Or...
Apparently, Tim Kerber's soul is worth nearly twice as much as mine. He wants to know what kind of vehicle he should sell his soul for. I suggest a Jesus Bus, and have found two possibilities (each terrifying in its own way):
The Happy Jesus Bus
The Unhappy Jesus Bus
I once (ca. spring 1999) posted on my plan about wanting to lease my soul to Satan for a shiny red truck. Four and a half years later, I have a shiny black truck and still own my soul. But, seeing as how it's worth $62,863.56, if I sell it now I can pay back all my student loans and pay off my shiny black truck.
Should I or shouldn't I? On the one hand, it's not going to get any more pure (currently more pure than 80% of the world's souls) as the days go by & will probably only decrease in value.
On the other hand, some might say that having a soul is important.
How much is your soul worth?
Either You're On The Bus, Or...
Apparently, Tim Kerber's soul is worth nearly twice as much as mine. He wants to know what kind of vehicle he should sell his soul for. I suggest a Jesus Bus, and have found two possibilities (each terrifying in its own way):
The Happy Jesus Bus
The Unhappy Jesus Bus
05 November 2003
Oh, most miraculous of mornings! After staying awake far too late last night, I awoke fully an hour before my alarm went off, convinced I'd overslept. I couldn't believe that I could possibly feel this rested on only five hours of sleep -- and yet I felt great! Moreover, once I'd triple-checked my clock, I burrowed deep into my fluffy bed, curled up next to the dog sleeping warm in the patch of sunlight, and slept for another 45 minutes. Oh heaven.
Yesterday, before class, I sat out by the voc/ag building intending to scribble some notes to later paste in my journal. Instead, I wrote a poem:
Moriarty
Moriarty you are flat like Iowa
browner and more dusty, like the moon
holding a footprint in your earth
for hours, days, while grasshoppers
flip across your pebbled face
Moriarty your horizons are voluptuous
and you gaze longingly west, north,
like a young girl, south, east
surrounded by women
You are grass-stained and dirty Moriarty
You have just fallen out of a tree
and stop to take a breath
before bounding away through the desert
bourne aloft on your longing
All the Frank O'Hara I've been reading lately comes through quite clearly. My latest indulgence is Joe LeSueur's Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara which is more of an auto/biography than a work of literary criticism. It's campy and bitchy and fun, and I'm happy to return to the old circle of familar names: Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning, Bob Rauschenberg, Kenneth Koch, Mike Goldberg....
***
As you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month, and for the last five years, thousands of people across the world have taken the NaNoWriMo Challenge, in which they try to write a 50,000 word novel between midnight on Halloween and midnight on November 30.
50,000 words in a month! It's taken me 18 months to write my 29,000....
This year, Miss Heather James has thrown herself into the fray, and I am ever so proud of her. You do realize that in order to successfully complete this marathon, this amazing girl will need to write 1,666 words EVERY DAY for the entire month? As someone who has written a great many papers in the last ten years, I can tell you that 1,666 words is about 6 pages, double-spaced. Amazing! Heather and everyone else crazy enough to take part in this all deserve lots of praise and encouragement.
***
If you've lots of extra time on your hands, fill the hours with this link, which is pretty much a long (and strangely addictive) list of things a man and his girlfriend have argued about. Hence the title of the page, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About.
***
Every night as I drive home, I plan in my head all the things I'll write about: long descriptions of the suddenly wintery moon rising above the cold dark of the mountains against the pale indigo sky, the crisp chill in the air (at last!!), the vibrant golds of a row of aspens down in a little valley along 1-40, the silver of jets taking off each night at dusk, glinting like stars, the warm camraderie of Messiah choir rehearsals (and the odd comfort of returning to the Lutherans -- so many midwesterners!)....
And then I get home, I get distracted, or I try to write and end up waxing poetic about Moriarty instead.
Nevertheless, it's gratifying to know so many of you read this regularly, even if some people believe it's "terribly pedestrian" and "beneath [me]" to keep an online journal. Not to name names, of course....
Yesterday, before class, I sat out by the voc/ag building intending to scribble some notes to later paste in my journal. Instead, I wrote a poem:
Moriarty
Moriarty you are flat like Iowa
browner and more dusty, like the moon
holding a footprint in your earth
for hours, days, while grasshoppers
flip across your pebbled face
Moriarty your horizons are voluptuous
and you gaze longingly west, north,
like a young girl, south, east
surrounded by women
You are grass-stained and dirty Moriarty
You have just fallen out of a tree
and stop to take a breath
before bounding away through the desert
bourne aloft on your longing
All the Frank O'Hara I've been reading lately comes through quite clearly. My latest indulgence is Joe LeSueur's Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara which is more of an auto/biography than a work of literary criticism. It's campy and bitchy and fun, and I'm happy to return to the old circle of familar names: Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning, Bob Rauschenberg, Kenneth Koch, Mike Goldberg....
***
As you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month, and for the last five years, thousands of people across the world have taken the NaNoWriMo Challenge, in which they try to write a 50,000 word novel between midnight on Halloween and midnight on November 30.
50,000 words in a month! It's taken me 18 months to write my 29,000....
This year, Miss Heather James has thrown herself into the fray, and I am ever so proud of her. You do realize that in order to successfully complete this marathon, this amazing girl will need to write 1,666 words EVERY DAY for the entire month? As someone who has written a great many papers in the last ten years, I can tell you that 1,666 words is about 6 pages, double-spaced. Amazing! Heather and everyone else crazy enough to take part in this all deserve lots of praise and encouragement.
***
If you've lots of extra time on your hands, fill the hours with this link, which is pretty much a long (and strangely addictive) list of things a man and his girlfriend have argued about. Hence the title of the page, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About.
***
Every night as I drive home, I plan in my head all the things I'll write about: long descriptions of the suddenly wintery moon rising above the cold dark of the mountains against the pale indigo sky, the crisp chill in the air (at last!!), the vibrant golds of a row of aspens down in a little valley along 1-40, the silver of jets taking off each night at dusk, glinting like stars, the warm camraderie of Messiah choir rehearsals (and the odd comfort of returning to the Lutherans -- so many midwesterners!)....
And then I get home, I get distracted, or I try to write and end up waxing poetic about Moriarty instead.
Nevertheless, it's gratifying to know so many of you read this regularly, even if some people believe it's "terribly pedestrian" and "beneath [me]" to keep an online journal. Not to name names, of course....
29 October 2003
A few thoughts:
1. "May lightning strike me down if I am not, in fact, the son of God." BANG!
2. Once again, filling my life with artists and musicians. I actually went out for once last Friday night, to see my friend Brian's band Mistletoe play, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was enjoying myself. Maybe I should leave my weary hermitage more often....
3. Finished, finally, the most work-intensive mix tape in the history of my life, and am still not quite happy with it. Nevertheless, insist on clinging to my old ways of tapes and not going over to the dark side of cd burning.... yet.
4. Julia Alvarez's "In the Name of Salome" -- oh my god. Every daughter/mother/sister in the world should read it, and everyone else should as well.
5. How lucky am I to have a boss who suggests I run home and grab the dog before our late night meeting? I am surrounded by dog people at work, and this is a great great thing.
6. Cam & I are moving to South America in 2005, and if Bush gets re-elected, we may never come back.
7. Did I say "finally finished" the mix tape? I meant "accidentally erased the entire second side."
8.
She writes to me as if we still shared
the same language. The page
a laden sky, filled with flying letters
suspended just above the lines
like blackbirds on the horizon;
the accents -- something smaller
they are punishing.
..."Listen,"
she writes, forgetting that words
cannot pull me by the elbow....
-- Judith Ortiz Cofer
9. Yesterday in 6th Grade:
-- ...and these two redneck kids brought a needle to school and kept poking each other for fun!
-- Hmm, well that's an example of something all right, but I'm not sure if -- yes?
-- I have a question?
-- Yes?
-- What's a redneck?
-- I know! I know!!
-- Yes?
-- Irish! The Irish!!
-- Yeah, Irish!!
-- No, country!
-- Irish country!
-- Yeah, that's it! Irish country!
One of those rare times, I must confess, that I could not entirely suppress my laughter.
And last week:
"I used to live in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, but then I moved to Albuquerque."
"I know for sure that I'm part Welsh, part Scottish, part German, and some other stuff. My mom's Scottish, German...and she's from Illinois, so I guess I'm half-Illinois."
10. En paz descanse Jack Wilson, who died just two weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. Rest in peace.
Jack was my uncle, the father of my cousin Diane, my only family out here. He married my Aunt Joyce, one of the oldest sisters in my dad's family of nine, and because my dad was the baby of the family there was a significant age gap between him and Jack. Jack filled the hole in my dad's life left by his abusive and alcoholic father (both my grandparents killed themselves when my dad was a teen). My dad got shipped off to spend summers with Jack & Joyce in Iowa, which is when Jack taught him how to do the "Iowa Wave" (two fingers lifted off the steering wheel as you're going 20 miles an hour down the highway) & how to be a good, caring man. Jack taught high school math & coached every sport & taught driver's ed --- he was the kind of teacher that only lives in a small town, who does everything and teaches everyone. He was Diane's hero, and just a few weeks ago she was joking about how her high school math teacher is still her best friend. When Jack retired, the entire town threw him a huge surprise party, and my dad and Megan and I went down to Iowa for it. He was one of those people who honestly touched thousands of lives.
Hard to believe it was just a few weeks ago that he was joking to me on the phone that I should make Diane spoil me here so she could be ready to spoil him on his Christmas visit.
I never thought I'd find myself at a place in my life where I'm too broke and too busy to fly home for a family funeral. One terrible underestimation I made when moving 1500 miles away from home was how much I need my family at times like this. Of course, I had hoped that after my little cousin Jimmy's funeral last May, my family would somehow be spared, at least for the rest of the year....
I would be such a big fan of a year without any deaths in the family. Even a year with only one death, that would be okay. It just seems wrong that eight people in my family have died in the last five years.
I would also be such a big fan of being able to fly home to Iowa for the funeral on Tuesday, which will be held in the high school gymnasium because they're expecting hundreds of people to attend.
And so, in honor of my Uncle Jack, an excerpt from an essay my dad wrote about him:
Jack and I spent many hours together at countryside intersections
in rural Iowa (is that redundant?). His summer job, which is when
I’d be indentured, er, visiting, was to count the cars coming through
the intersection. Just because there weren’t very many cars
coming through doesn’t mean it wasn’t a challenge to Jack’s high
level math skills, because he also had to record the direction they
came from, and the direction they went. “So let’s see,” he might
say, “we had three cars come from the north and turn west, two
went straight, and four turned east.” Wow, I’d say. I think we set a
new record for the southbound cars turning east, didn’t we?”
“Well, the mode is 2.85 and the median is....” Jack was fastidious
in every job I saw him do, including this one, but sometimes I
couldn’t tell whether he was kidding me or not. I liked that. I figured
that counting job was pretty close to the mythical Iowa recreational
activity of watching the corn grow, which I actually came to be
better at than counting cars.
Jack was one of the nicest people I have ever known. He was a lot
like my mother in that way, which is probably why Joyce fell in love
with him. I learned a lot of value lessons from Jack just listening to
him react to Joyce’s sometimes outrageous sense of humor. I don’t
remember the joke, but I do remember the interchange when
Joyce told Kathy and me a funny story about “toe jam”, and Jack
reacted with his calm Southern Iowa accent to say, “Now Joyce,
you shouldn’t be telling those kinds of jokes around these kids.” I
have rarely told a toe jam joke because of the positive influence of
my brother-in-law Jack Wilson.
Jack was also a good role model for me as a father. He wouldn’t
let his four little brats (just kidding) get away with much, and it was
always clear that his love was unqualified. Jack was a great man
and his spirit will live on through me.
***
"Pain tempers our love of the world, makes it more durable, more real."
– Mark Baechtel
1. "May lightning strike me down if I am not, in fact, the son of God." BANG!
2. Once again, filling my life with artists and musicians. I actually went out for once last Friday night, to see my friend Brian's band Mistletoe play, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was enjoying myself. Maybe I should leave my weary hermitage more often....
3. Finished, finally, the most work-intensive mix tape in the history of my life, and am still not quite happy with it. Nevertheless, insist on clinging to my old ways of tapes and not going over to the dark side of cd burning.... yet.
4. Julia Alvarez's "In the Name of Salome" -- oh my god. Every daughter/mother/sister in the world should read it, and everyone else should as well.
5. How lucky am I to have a boss who suggests I run home and grab the dog before our late night meeting? I am surrounded by dog people at work, and this is a great great thing.
6. Cam & I are moving to South America in 2005, and if Bush gets re-elected, we may never come back.
7. Did I say "finally finished" the mix tape? I meant "accidentally erased the entire second side."
8.
She writes to me as if we still shared
the same language. The page
a laden sky, filled with flying letters
suspended just above the lines
like blackbirds on the horizon;
the accents -- something smaller
they are punishing.
..."Listen,"
she writes, forgetting that words
cannot pull me by the elbow....
-- Judith Ortiz Cofer
9. Yesterday in 6th Grade:
-- ...and these two redneck kids brought a needle to school and kept poking each other for fun!
-- Hmm, well that's an example of something all right, but I'm not sure if -- yes?
-- I have a question?
-- Yes?
-- What's a redneck?
-- I know! I know!!
-- Yes?
-- Irish! The Irish!!
-- Yeah, Irish!!
-- No, country!
-- Irish country!
-- Yeah, that's it! Irish country!
One of those rare times, I must confess, that I could not entirely suppress my laughter.
And last week:
"I used to live in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, but then I moved to Albuquerque."
"I know for sure that I'm part Welsh, part Scottish, part German, and some other stuff. My mom's Scottish, German...and she's from Illinois, so I guess I'm half-Illinois."
10. En paz descanse Jack Wilson, who died just two weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. Rest in peace.
Jack was my uncle, the father of my cousin Diane, my only family out here. He married my Aunt Joyce, one of the oldest sisters in my dad's family of nine, and because my dad was the baby of the family there was a significant age gap between him and Jack. Jack filled the hole in my dad's life left by his abusive and alcoholic father (both my grandparents killed themselves when my dad was a teen). My dad got shipped off to spend summers with Jack & Joyce in Iowa, which is when Jack taught him how to do the "Iowa Wave" (two fingers lifted off the steering wheel as you're going 20 miles an hour down the highway) & how to be a good, caring man. Jack taught high school math & coached every sport & taught driver's ed --- he was the kind of teacher that only lives in a small town, who does everything and teaches everyone. He was Diane's hero, and just a few weeks ago she was joking about how her high school math teacher is still her best friend. When Jack retired, the entire town threw him a huge surprise party, and my dad and Megan and I went down to Iowa for it. He was one of those people who honestly touched thousands of lives.
Hard to believe it was just a few weeks ago that he was joking to me on the phone that I should make Diane spoil me here so she could be ready to spoil him on his Christmas visit.
I never thought I'd find myself at a place in my life where I'm too broke and too busy to fly home for a family funeral. One terrible underestimation I made when moving 1500 miles away from home was how much I need my family at times like this. Of course, I had hoped that after my little cousin Jimmy's funeral last May, my family would somehow be spared, at least for the rest of the year....
I would be such a big fan of a year without any deaths in the family. Even a year with only one death, that would be okay. It just seems wrong that eight people in my family have died in the last five years.
I would also be such a big fan of being able to fly home to Iowa for the funeral on Tuesday, which will be held in the high school gymnasium because they're expecting hundreds of people to attend.
And so, in honor of my Uncle Jack, an excerpt from an essay my dad wrote about him:
Jack and I spent many hours together at countryside intersections
in rural Iowa (is that redundant?). His summer job, which is when
I’d be indentured, er, visiting, was to count the cars coming through
the intersection. Just because there weren’t very many cars
coming through doesn’t mean it wasn’t a challenge to Jack’s high
level math skills, because he also had to record the direction they
came from, and the direction they went. “So let’s see,” he might
say, “we had three cars come from the north and turn west, two
went straight, and four turned east.” Wow, I’d say. I think we set a
new record for the southbound cars turning east, didn’t we?”
“Well, the mode is 2.85 and the median is....” Jack was fastidious
in every job I saw him do, including this one, but sometimes I
couldn’t tell whether he was kidding me or not. I liked that. I figured
that counting job was pretty close to the mythical Iowa recreational
activity of watching the corn grow, which I actually came to be
better at than counting cars.
Jack was one of the nicest people I have ever known. He was a lot
like my mother in that way, which is probably why Joyce fell in love
with him. I learned a lot of value lessons from Jack just listening to
him react to Joyce’s sometimes outrageous sense of humor. I don’t
remember the joke, but I do remember the interchange when
Joyce told Kathy and me a funny story about “toe jam”, and Jack
reacted with his calm Southern Iowa accent to say, “Now Joyce,
you shouldn’t be telling those kinds of jokes around these kids.” I
have rarely told a toe jam joke because of the positive influence of
my brother-in-law Jack Wilson.
Jack was also a good role model for me as a father. He wouldn’t
let his four little brats (just kidding) get away with much, and it was
always clear that his love was unqualified. Jack was a great man
and his spirit will live on through me.
***
"Pain tempers our love of the world, makes it more durable, more real."
– Mark Baechtel
21 October 2003
Multi-tasking right now, which always makes me feel a little chaotic in thought.... It's Sunday night, time to do all the domestic chores I didn't do over the weekend. Currently, I'm running a load of laundry in the wash, and another in the dryer, and--
-- and then Megan called, and I talked to her for almost an hour. We talked about how we both bought big jugs of apple cider and little pumpkins to put on our windowsills, and how it's going to be in the 80s tomorrow in both Albuquerque and Milwaukee.
Zeke is snoring in my bed, the laundry's finished (I folded and put it all away while talking to Megan), and I'm a little nervous about how not-tired I am. I have to drive out to Moriarty tomorrow morning and be there in time for first period, which means I'll need to leave the house around 7:00. The only good thing about that is that I can listen to Morning Edition while I drive, which should make the trip slightly less boring than usual.
Another good thing is that I replaced my favorite halogen lamp (left in Des Moines with Cam, I believe) last week for a mere $4.22. Working in a thrift store is so convenient! Also, I now have a big mattress supplementing my air-mattress, so my bed looks more like a real bed, and less like a poor college student's floor mattress. These are good things. And now, with my many candles and my lamp, I finally can achieve the quality of lighting I like best in my room, the kind that softens the corners and hides the dog hair.
The highlight of the weekend was yesterday, when Lisa and I spent several hours wandering around Albuquerque posting poetry in public spaces: on bulletin boards, on kiosks, in bathroom stalls, in laundry mats, in parking garages, and in phone booths. We put up somewhere around 100 copies, I think, because I printed out four copies of each of twenty-something poems. The titles now gracing our fair city are as follows:
John Ashbery, Paradoxes and Oxymorons
John Ashbery, The Painter
W. H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts
Elisabeth Bishop, One Art
Eavan Boland, The Lost Land
Billy Collins, The Flight of the Reader
Rita Dove, Flash Cards
Louise Erdrich, Windigo
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
Jorie Graham, The Geese
Robert Hass, Letter
HD (Hilda Doolittle), #39 from The Walls Do Not Fall
LeRoi Jones, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
John Keats, To Autumn
Audre Lorde, Hanging Fire
Edgar Lee Masters, George Gray
Pablo Neruda, Puedo Escribir Los Versos...
Frank O¡¯Hara, Why I Am Not A Painter
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Adrienne Rich, Song
Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things
Derek Walcott, The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Richard Wilbur, The Writer
We noticed that many of them -- the Erdrich, the Graham, the Hass, the Keats of course, the Oliver, Rich, Stevens, and even the Walcott, a little -- are autumn poems, but they're autumn poems by northern poets. Lots of falling leaves and flying geese, things we're not getting too much of out here. Ah, well.... Also, I made sure to hang the Walcott over these posters advertising the "George Bush School for Public Administration." Phantasmal peace is right....
I kept thinking of all the times I went out with Nat to hang posters for YB shows, how we'd discuss which posters on a kiosk should be covered or not, how sometimes we'd argue about it, where I'd be defending one poster or event or group, for no real reason but that for some reason it spoke to me, and other times we'd be in total agreement about who should be covered up by the YB posters. Also, I thought of the year I was the Bob's publicity manager, how I'd spent between two and six hours every week walking up and down campus, hanging signs. I had a system down then, wore my rolls of masking tape like bracelets, made five or six different signs at a time and sorted them into piles such that I never hung two of the same signs side by side on the loggia walls. Many weeks, I timed my postering so that I might just casually run into a crush as he got off work, or so I could end my posterwalk in the PEC when Ali was working.
Too, as I wandered through campus with Lisa, and listened to her stories about different classrooms and dorms, I tried to imagine how my life would have been if I had come here for college according to 15 year old Molly's plan. This kind of musing reminds me of geometry, of the logic lessons of conjunctions and disjunctions. If not a, then not b. Only these historical equations tend to turn into long domino chains: If not Grinnell, then not Ali, not Kevin, not Cam, not Carrie, not Jamie, not Mary, not Mark, not Rashmi, not Jean, not Zeke, etc.... My first thoughts are always of people, of course, but I can do it in terms of writing as well: If not Grinnell, then not Bittersweet, not Hanging in the Spaces, not Benediction, not The Bog Girl's Reply, not Habeas Corpus, and so forth. The longer I play this game in my head, the more the equation builds, until it must be reduced for simplicity's sake. The reduction being, of course, if not Grinnell, then not Molly. At least, not this Molly.
Rachel Clark's plan today was all about things she misses. She's in Senegal now, in the Peace Corps with her husband, and she faces the problem that many of us now seem to be bringing upon ourselves: the more places you pull under the umbrella called "home," the less likely you'll ever be able to be home, one hundred percent, ever again. For Rachel, home is Washington (both Sedro-Wooley and Seattle), Iowa, Sri Lanka, and now Senegal. Her plan was familiar to me, of course, because every day is its own list of what's missing in my life. Reading Rachel's list, it occurred to me that any list of what's absent says a lot about what's there. Rachel's list of what she misses tells me more about her day-to-day life than any email or letter.... and I wonder what will be on her missing list in a year and a half, when she and her husband return to the states. Surely Senegal will feel like home when they leave it, maybe even moreso than Seattle will when they return. And I wonder, how many places can a person call home before the word loses its meaning?
Leaving these questions tonight, I'm content to call this place, with Zeke snoring in my bed and pictures of Megan, Ali, Cindy, Tim, Kevin, Ila, Cam, the Fun Nuns, the Thursday night kids, Ma'Pickett, and my parents all gracing the wall above my computer, with my halogen lamp and candles and little pumpkins on the windowsills, with apple cider and a train crying in the distance, for the time being, home.
-- and then Megan called, and I talked to her for almost an hour. We talked about how we both bought big jugs of apple cider and little pumpkins to put on our windowsills, and how it's going to be in the 80s tomorrow in both Albuquerque and Milwaukee.
Zeke is snoring in my bed, the laundry's finished (I folded and put it all away while talking to Megan), and I'm a little nervous about how not-tired I am. I have to drive out to Moriarty tomorrow morning and be there in time for first period, which means I'll need to leave the house around 7:00. The only good thing about that is that I can listen to Morning Edition while I drive, which should make the trip slightly less boring than usual.
Another good thing is that I replaced my favorite halogen lamp (left in Des Moines with Cam, I believe) last week for a mere $4.22. Working in a thrift store is so convenient! Also, I now have a big mattress supplementing my air-mattress, so my bed looks more like a real bed, and less like a poor college student's floor mattress. These are good things. And now, with my many candles and my lamp, I finally can achieve the quality of lighting I like best in my room, the kind that softens the corners and hides the dog hair.
The highlight of the weekend was yesterday, when Lisa and I spent several hours wandering around Albuquerque posting poetry in public spaces: on bulletin boards, on kiosks, in bathroom stalls, in laundry mats, in parking garages, and in phone booths. We put up somewhere around 100 copies, I think, because I printed out four copies of each of twenty-something poems. The titles now gracing our fair city are as follows:
John Ashbery, Paradoxes and Oxymorons
John Ashbery, The Painter
W. H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts
Elisabeth Bishop, One Art
Eavan Boland, The Lost Land
Billy Collins, The Flight of the Reader
Rita Dove, Flash Cards
Louise Erdrich, Windigo
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
Jorie Graham, The Geese
Robert Hass, Letter
HD (Hilda Doolittle), #39 from The Walls Do Not Fall
LeRoi Jones, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
John Keats, To Autumn
Audre Lorde, Hanging Fire
Edgar Lee Masters, George Gray
Pablo Neruda, Puedo Escribir Los Versos...
Frank O¡¯Hara, Why I Am Not A Painter
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Adrienne Rich, Song
Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things
Derek Walcott, The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Richard Wilbur, The Writer
We noticed that many of them -- the Erdrich, the Graham, the Hass, the Keats of course, the Oliver, Rich, Stevens, and even the Walcott, a little -- are autumn poems, but they're autumn poems by northern poets. Lots of falling leaves and flying geese, things we're not getting too much of out here. Ah, well.... Also, I made sure to hang the Walcott over these posters advertising the "George Bush School for Public Administration." Phantasmal peace is right....
I kept thinking of all the times I went out with Nat to hang posters for YB shows, how we'd discuss which posters on a kiosk should be covered or not, how sometimes we'd argue about it, where I'd be defending one poster or event or group, for no real reason but that for some reason it spoke to me, and other times we'd be in total agreement about who should be covered up by the YB posters. Also, I thought of the year I was the Bob's publicity manager, how I'd spent between two and six hours every week walking up and down campus, hanging signs. I had a system down then, wore my rolls of masking tape like bracelets, made five or six different signs at a time and sorted them into piles such that I never hung two of the same signs side by side on the loggia walls. Many weeks, I timed my postering so that I might just casually run into a crush as he got off work, or so I could end my posterwalk in the PEC when Ali was working.
Too, as I wandered through campus with Lisa, and listened to her stories about different classrooms and dorms, I tried to imagine how my life would have been if I had come here for college according to 15 year old Molly's plan. This kind of musing reminds me of geometry, of the logic lessons of conjunctions and disjunctions. If not a, then not b. Only these historical equations tend to turn into long domino chains: If not Grinnell, then not Ali, not Kevin, not Cam, not Carrie, not Jamie, not Mary, not Mark, not Rashmi, not Jean, not Zeke, etc.... My first thoughts are always of people, of course, but I can do it in terms of writing as well: If not Grinnell, then not Bittersweet, not Hanging in the Spaces, not Benediction, not The Bog Girl's Reply, not Habeas Corpus, and so forth. The longer I play this game in my head, the more the equation builds, until it must be reduced for simplicity's sake. The reduction being, of course, if not Grinnell, then not Molly. At least, not this Molly.
Rachel Clark's plan today was all about things she misses. She's in Senegal now, in the Peace Corps with her husband, and she faces the problem that many of us now seem to be bringing upon ourselves: the more places you pull under the umbrella called "home," the less likely you'll ever be able to be home, one hundred percent, ever again. For Rachel, home is Washington (both Sedro-Wooley and Seattle), Iowa, Sri Lanka, and now Senegal. Her plan was familiar to me, of course, because every day is its own list of what's missing in my life. Reading Rachel's list, it occurred to me that any list of what's absent says a lot about what's there. Rachel's list of what she misses tells me more about her day-to-day life than any email or letter.... and I wonder what will be on her missing list in a year and a half, when she and her husband return to the states. Surely Senegal will feel like home when they leave it, maybe even moreso than Seattle will when they return. And I wonder, how many places can a person call home before the word loses its meaning?
Leaving these questions tonight, I'm content to call this place, with Zeke snoring in my bed and pictures of Megan, Ali, Cindy, Tim, Kevin, Ila, Cam, the Fun Nuns, the Thursday night kids, Ma'Pickett, and my parents all gracing the wall above my computer, with my halogen lamp and candles and little pumpkins on the windowsills, with apple cider and a train crying in the distance, for the time being, home.
16 October 2003
Nothing takes the edge off a Monday morning like fanmail!
Time: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 06:56:28 -0800 (PST)
From: emily westergaard
To: molly_backes@alumni.grinnell.edu
Subject: amazing
hi molly,
just got into work this morning and have spent the last 20 minutes reading your echolocation. it's absolutely brilliant and beautiful. it is, like all your stories, amazing, and after the first few lines, i was hooked.
i've also been meaning to write you and tell you that i spent some time reading your poetry on your website (i was looking for inspiration), and my god those pieces are unbelievable. i was captured, just reading them one after the other. half of them i was in tears and the other half i just kept thinking, jesus, this woman is a genius.
anyway, i really enjoy reading all your stuff, and am amazed at the words that lie inside you.
take care
em westergaard
Yay! This means so much to me because Em Westergaard is one of the most beautiful and strong women I've ever known. Thank you, Em!!
Time: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 06:56:28 -0800 (PST)
From: emily westergaard
To: molly_backes@alumni.grinnell.edu
Subject: amazing
hi molly,
just got into work this morning and have spent the last 20 minutes reading your echolocation. it's absolutely brilliant and beautiful. it is, like all your stories, amazing, and after the first few lines, i was hooked.
i've also been meaning to write you and tell you that i spent some time reading your poetry on your website (i was looking for inspiration), and my god those pieces are unbelievable. i was captured, just reading them one after the other. half of them i was in tears and the other half i just kept thinking, jesus, this woman is a genius.
anyway, i really enjoy reading all your stuff, and am amazed at the words that lie inside you.
take care
em westergaard
Yay! This means so much to me because Em Westergaard is one of the most beautiful and strong women I've ever known. Thank you, Em!!
08 October 2003
Today was a perfect October day, with gray skies and thick clouds against which the Golden Rabbitbush along the sides of the winding mountain roads are even more stunning than usual. (Tiska gave me a book of flowers, so I can learn some names!) I love the October combination of so many grays behind the vivid yellows and oranges and reds of the autumn leaves and flowers. Apparently it was actually flooding in Albuquerque, it was pouring so hard, but up in the East Mountains it was more drizzly and spitty than rainy. (I’m listening to an autumn mix I made in 1999, and appropriately Simon & Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song” comes on: I hear the drizzle of the rain / like a memory it falls / soft and warm continuing / tapping on my roof and walls....)
In rain, the mountains are amazing. From a distance, they turn dark, growing into shades of indigo and navy, but often they’re mostly obscured by the clouds that drape themselves across the inky peaks and ruffles like carelessly tossed jackets. (Joni Mitchell’s “Rainy Night House” comes on next – this obsession with October rain is nothing new with me.) Often, driving from Moriarty back west to Tijeras and Cedar Crest, I watch the mountains and have to tell myself that they’re not just clouds; when we were kids, we always pretended that piles of afternoon clouds sitting on the horizon were Wisconsin mountains, and now I have to remind myself that this rumbling horizon really is made of stone and not air. Today, though, I had to promise myself that there were indeed mountains beneath the thick piled clouds.
It was cool enough that I could wear a cardigan all day! I went by myself to Moriarty, had to take both Sarah (the bearded dragon) and Kernel (the corn snake) in my truck, and since they got front seat privileges, everything else had to go in the back. Jennie was at the ABQ store all day, so I spent the entire day by myself at the Cedar Crest store, then at the center in Tijeras, the afternoon in Moriarty, and then back at my office in Cedar Crest. I had a very Type-A kind of day, and so when Jennie finally got up to Cedar Crest around 5:00, I had accomplished a ridiculously large amount of work. Then I came home (luckily Danielle got the message I left on our machine this morning and closed all our windows before it started to rain in earnest!), scoured the kitchen, spent too much time and far too much money at the grocery store (and learned that, similar to how you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, you also shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re feeling all nostalgic about midwestern autumns past, because you’ll end up with way too many apples and too much cheese and bread and apple cider and squash and merlot in your basket), came home and channeled my inner-soccer-mom and made a huge batch of puppy chow for the East Mountain Health & Wellness Coalition meeting Thursday night, and then took Zeke on a long puddle walk through the dark, pretty streets.
Of the whole day, the one moment that really stays with me is from just after work, when I stopped for gas just down the road from the store. A little more than mist, and less than rain, the late afternoon was all gray wraiths snaking up from the valleys and twisting through the trees. Where the clouds parted, I could see the stones in the hillside, mossy green and in appearance very much like the quartzite bluffs of southern Wisconsin. I hugged my cardigan around me, listening to the sshhhhing of the yellow aspens and cottonwoods. No more than that; just one moment of peace in a world of flurry.
...and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
– from Derek Walcott’s “The Season of Phantasmal Peace”
In rain, the mountains are amazing. From a distance, they turn dark, growing into shades of indigo and navy, but often they’re mostly obscured by the clouds that drape themselves across the inky peaks and ruffles like carelessly tossed jackets. (Joni Mitchell’s “Rainy Night House” comes on next – this obsession with October rain is nothing new with me.) Often, driving from Moriarty back west to Tijeras and Cedar Crest, I watch the mountains and have to tell myself that they’re not just clouds; when we were kids, we always pretended that piles of afternoon clouds sitting on the horizon were Wisconsin mountains, and now I have to remind myself that this rumbling horizon really is made of stone and not air. Today, though, I had to promise myself that there were indeed mountains beneath the thick piled clouds.
It was cool enough that I could wear a cardigan all day! I went by myself to Moriarty, had to take both Sarah (the bearded dragon) and Kernel (the corn snake) in my truck, and since they got front seat privileges, everything else had to go in the back. Jennie was at the ABQ store all day, so I spent the entire day by myself at the Cedar Crest store, then at the center in Tijeras, the afternoon in Moriarty, and then back at my office in Cedar Crest. I had a very Type-A kind of day, and so when Jennie finally got up to Cedar Crest around 5:00, I had accomplished a ridiculously large amount of work. Then I came home (luckily Danielle got the message I left on our machine this morning and closed all our windows before it started to rain in earnest!), scoured the kitchen, spent too much time and far too much money at the grocery store (and learned that, similar to how you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, you also shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re feeling all nostalgic about midwestern autumns past, because you’ll end up with way too many apples and too much cheese and bread and apple cider and squash and merlot in your basket), came home and channeled my inner-soccer-mom and made a huge batch of puppy chow for the East Mountain Health & Wellness Coalition meeting Thursday night, and then took Zeke on a long puddle walk through the dark, pretty streets.
Of the whole day, the one moment that really stays with me is from just after work, when I stopped for gas just down the road from the store. A little more than mist, and less than rain, the late afternoon was all gray wraiths snaking up from the valleys and twisting through the trees. Where the clouds parted, I could see the stones in the hillside, mossy green and in appearance very much like the quartzite bluffs of southern Wisconsin. I hugged my cardigan around me, listening to the sshhhhing of the yellow aspens and cottonwoods. No more than that; just one moment of peace in a world of flurry.
...and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
– from Derek Walcott’s “The Season of Phantasmal Peace”
05 October 2003
Such a weekend! I am torn between the desire to describe every moment and the desire to go to bed, so I’m compromising by writing until the dryer’s finished running its cycle, figuring that I need to stay up until the laundry’s done anyhow. Zeke’s already in bed, stretched across all the pillows, snoring like the crusty old man he is. Every snore from his salt&pepper nose tempts me to bed, so I’ll type quickly.
Friday night, I went with Tiska to an opening at the Coleman Gallery on Central/Rte 66. I love that Tiska keeps inviting me to these artistic events; without the impetus of her company I probably wouldn’t go, but there is something inherently healthy about an artistic space. Wandering around Page’s gallery, I was struck by her ethereal landscapes, but even more, I was struck by peace of the gallery, and thought about the hours I spent wandering the Falconer Gallery at Grinnell....
Though the Coleman was lovely and full of wonderful pieces, I was actually more taken with the New Grounds Print Shop next door. It’s a combination gallery/workshop/classroom, and artists can rent time in the print shop, which is wonderful because presses are very expensive and few beginning artists can afford their own. New Grounds had the same ambience I so valued in the painting & drawing studios at Grinnell. "There is a sort of energy here [in the studio], a tangible vibration of creation. It is in the finished or near-finished works on the walls, the still lifes in the center of the room, the easels standing ready to hold blank canvases, eager to hold up art... " (3 October, 1999)
Later, Tiska and I went for dinner with her friends Val and Liz at Taj Mahal on Carlisle (only a few blocks from my house!). It was a funny dinner because Val and Liz kept asking me questions about the midwest: "What do people eat there?" "What jobs do people have?" "What do people do for fun?" "How do they talk?" I loved talking about Iowa and Wisconsin, of course, but I felt kind of weird and kept saying, "It is the same country, after all." But I tried to explain about hot dish, and potlucks, and getting lost in cornfields when we were kids. Later, I said something to Tiska about their fascination, and she said something about the midwest being exotically normal.
Saturday, I helped Tiska cover the pond so falling leaves don’t muck it up, and after a long conversation about our usual topics – how stupid Bush is, and how scary the country is – we watched part of the movie "Punch Drunk Love," but hated it and turned it off.
Saturday night I went with my friend Lisa to this great coffee shop in Cedar Crest to support Jennie and her friends. They had an evening of psychic events, and because Lisa and I were too poor to afford to pay anyone for a reading, Jennie and her friends offered to do some gratis readings for us. Jennie is one of those rare people who becomes vital to me within days of our meeting, like Ali. She "read my crystals" which – like most things with Jennie, I suppose – sounds completely crazy but at the time, because I trust Jennie so much and because she has such a deep sense of honesty about her, it seemed perfectly natural. Also, the things Jennie told me affected me in a deep way, and part of this, I think, had to do with this very strong conviction I suddenly had that I was loved and valued. Later that night, after I dropped Lisa off at her mountain house in the countryside between Cedar Crest & Edgewood, I drove home on Rte 66, listening to "The Joshua Tree," enjoying the chilly night air (!!), and watching the mountains, black against the lighter blue of night sky. I began to feel that this is home....
This morning, I got up at 4:00 AM and with Danielle and her parents headed down to the Balloon Fiesta. When we got to the grounds, it was still very dark, and very cold (yay!! I even got to wear mittens!!). While Danielle’s father went to save us a picnic table on the launching grounds, Danielle, her mother, and I went in search of breakfast burritos and coffee. Breakfast burritos: disgusting in Iowa, delightful in Albuquerque. Packed with hot green chile and cheese.... mmmm. Just before 6:00 the first balloon went up. Dawn was still a while off, but the mountains behind us were already beginning to take shape against the lightening sky. The first balloon was yellow, lit up by its propane flames like a giant chinese lantern against the still dark sky.
The whole AIBF scene was like a cross between a state fair (with all the booths and people selling all kinds of randomness – we even saw two alpacas) and RAGBRAI (with all the "teams" and balloonists). Just after dawn, the field began to fill with balloonists inflating their balloons, and by about 7:00 there were already two or three long rows of balloons waiting to begin the mass ascension. Of course, the first two balloons of the mass ascension were the POW-MIA balloon and the Zia (New Mexico flag) balloon, both carrying giant American flags. For the next few hours, the lift-offs were non-stop. Every minute another balloon took off, and we were close enough to see the specifics of the take-offs quite clearly: handlers dropped the anchors, a referee with a dog hat on (haven’t figured that one out yet) blowing a whistle, clearing a path through the crowd for the gondola to bump along the ground several feet until it gains a bit of height and floats up to join the rest. We stayed until about 9:30, at which point the crowds were becoming rather unbearable, and the sky was filled with hundreds of balloons, with hundreds more on the ground waiting for their cues to begin inflation and ascension. It was pretty incredible, though I wished there was a part of the field reserved for spectators who promised to be totally silent and not say irritating things. Something about the giant balloons slowly lifting into the sky and then hanging aloft against the morning blue calls for quiet and peace. Next year, you’ll have to come down and experience this for yourself; it’s too big for pictures or words. I’m hoping that later in the week I’ll be able to find a good watching place high above the crowded fields from which I can watch the Glow (all the balloons lighting up after sunset) and "afterglow" fireworks.
For now though, the laundry’s done and Zeke’s kicking in his sleep, so I’m signing off for tonight, to catch up on some of the bedtime hours I spent this morning jumping around a frosty pre-dawn field (in a sweatshirt and jeans and mittens!!).
Friday night, I went with Tiska to an opening at the Coleman Gallery on Central/Rte 66. I love that Tiska keeps inviting me to these artistic events; without the impetus of her company I probably wouldn’t go, but there is something inherently healthy about an artistic space. Wandering around Page’s gallery, I was struck by her ethereal landscapes, but even more, I was struck by peace of the gallery, and thought about the hours I spent wandering the Falconer Gallery at Grinnell....
Though the Coleman was lovely and full of wonderful pieces, I was actually more taken with the New Grounds Print Shop next door. It’s a combination gallery/workshop/classroom, and artists can rent time in the print shop, which is wonderful because presses are very expensive and few beginning artists can afford their own. New Grounds had the same ambience I so valued in the painting & drawing studios at Grinnell. "There is a sort of energy here [in the studio], a tangible vibration of creation. It is in the finished or near-finished works on the walls, the still lifes in the center of the room, the easels standing ready to hold blank canvases, eager to hold up art... " (3 October, 1999)
Later, Tiska and I went for dinner with her friends Val and Liz at Taj Mahal on Carlisle (only a few blocks from my house!). It was a funny dinner because Val and Liz kept asking me questions about the midwest: "What do people eat there?" "What jobs do people have?" "What do people do for fun?" "How do they talk?" I loved talking about Iowa and Wisconsin, of course, but I felt kind of weird and kept saying, "It is the same country, after all." But I tried to explain about hot dish, and potlucks, and getting lost in cornfields when we were kids. Later, I said something to Tiska about their fascination, and she said something about the midwest being exotically normal.
Saturday, I helped Tiska cover the pond so falling leaves don’t muck it up, and after a long conversation about our usual topics – how stupid Bush is, and how scary the country is – we watched part of the movie "Punch Drunk Love," but hated it and turned it off.
Saturday night I went with my friend Lisa to this great coffee shop in Cedar Crest to support Jennie and her friends. They had an evening of psychic events, and because Lisa and I were too poor to afford to pay anyone for a reading, Jennie and her friends offered to do some gratis readings for us. Jennie is one of those rare people who becomes vital to me within days of our meeting, like Ali. She "read my crystals" which – like most things with Jennie, I suppose – sounds completely crazy but at the time, because I trust Jennie so much and because she has such a deep sense of honesty about her, it seemed perfectly natural. Also, the things Jennie told me affected me in a deep way, and part of this, I think, had to do with this very strong conviction I suddenly had that I was loved and valued. Later that night, after I dropped Lisa off at her mountain house in the countryside between Cedar Crest & Edgewood, I drove home on Rte 66, listening to "The Joshua Tree," enjoying the chilly night air (!!), and watching the mountains, black against the lighter blue of night sky. I began to feel that this is home....
This morning, I got up at 4:00 AM and with Danielle and her parents headed down to the Balloon Fiesta. When we got to the grounds, it was still very dark, and very cold (yay!! I even got to wear mittens!!). While Danielle’s father went to save us a picnic table on the launching grounds, Danielle, her mother, and I went in search of breakfast burritos and coffee. Breakfast burritos: disgusting in Iowa, delightful in Albuquerque. Packed with hot green chile and cheese.... mmmm. Just before 6:00 the first balloon went up. Dawn was still a while off, but the mountains behind us were already beginning to take shape against the lightening sky. The first balloon was yellow, lit up by its propane flames like a giant chinese lantern against the still dark sky.
The whole AIBF scene was like a cross between a state fair (with all the booths and people selling all kinds of randomness – we even saw two alpacas) and RAGBRAI (with all the "teams" and balloonists). Just after dawn, the field began to fill with balloonists inflating their balloons, and by about 7:00 there were already two or three long rows of balloons waiting to begin the mass ascension. Of course, the first two balloons of the mass ascension were the POW-MIA balloon and the Zia (New Mexico flag) balloon, both carrying giant American flags. For the next few hours, the lift-offs were non-stop. Every minute another balloon took off, and we were close enough to see the specifics of the take-offs quite clearly: handlers dropped the anchors, a referee with a dog hat on (haven’t figured that one out yet) blowing a whistle, clearing a path through the crowd for the gondola to bump along the ground several feet until it gains a bit of height and floats up to join the rest. We stayed until about 9:30, at which point the crowds were becoming rather unbearable, and the sky was filled with hundreds of balloons, with hundreds more on the ground waiting for their cues to begin inflation and ascension. It was pretty incredible, though I wished there was a part of the field reserved for spectators who promised to be totally silent and not say irritating things. Something about the giant balloons slowly lifting into the sky and then hanging aloft against the morning blue calls for quiet and peace. Next year, you’ll have to come down and experience this for yourself; it’s too big for pictures or words. I’m hoping that later in the week I’ll be able to find a good watching place high above the crowded fields from which I can watch the Glow (all the balloons lighting up after sunset) and "afterglow" fireworks.
For now though, the laundry’s done and Zeke’s kicking in his sleep, so I’m signing off for tonight, to catch up on some of the bedtime hours I spent this morning jumping around a frosty pre-dawn field (in a sweatshirt and jeans and mittens!!).
01 October 2003
around midnight, mountain time, home
Too much happens in one day to capture any but flashes. Each sunset alone warrants epic description, moment to golden orange moment. Tonight after work I went hiking in the Manzanos and a line from DBQ was running through my head: "What impressionism takes us to is the belief that at every single second the world is change." I felt that intensely tonight, personally, as the sky changed color around every single curve. I imagined what it must be like to be an impressionist, to be dragging an easel and canvas and paints down into the canyon instead of just a nalgene bottle and journal. Coming up out of the canyon as the sun was setting, I kept stopping in the road to jot just one more line – just one more line – just one — and as I was standing under a golden oak, a group of mountain biking boys rode past me and stopped a few yards up the trail, laughing and punching one another and joking about who did or did not make it up certain parts of the trail, and I could hear them whisper about me and was suddenly conscious of who I was at that moment: the crazy girl scribbling in a book, leaning against a tree and looking up at the changing sky every few moments. So be it. I’m sure the farmers who came across Pissarro or Monet whispered and wondered as well, and no one who knew Turner thought he was normal when he tied himself to the prow of the ship in order to paint the storm.
***
The hike was a strange and beautiful blend of the familiar and the foreign. I was so happy to be surrounded by these rock faces like the bluffs along the Mississippi in southern Wisconsin, hung with orange and crimson ivy, and to follow a creek – to cross a creek on a natural bridge of boulders! – to smell the deep, sharp scents of fallen leaves and drying grasses.... I thought of all the times a crisp autumn afternoon would impel me to grab a loaf of french bread, some cheese, some apples perhaps, and go wandering through Horicon Marsh (in particular one long, lovely day in late September, maybe 1997, watching Canada geese with Ila, driving home in the lights of too many trucks, in her old gray station wagon) or trek out to Picnic Point, or down to my darling “Jenni & Kyle Guerkink” bench in the arboretum — thought of the autumn days at Wyalusing with the Catlins, and later with half of the sixth graders at Oregon Middle School, of days at Devil’s Lake, climbing until everything was fiery trees and sparkling lakeview....
And then driving home, winding around and around through the Cibola forest, through the Manzano Mountains, toward an ever changing sky spiked with sunbeams like the cover of an inspirational Hallmark card, or a child’s mountain sunset in crayon. The mountain profiles soft and indigo against an apricot dusk. I imagine you here with me, imagine taking your hand as we search for red leaves in the canyon, imagine you in the seat next to me as the truck pulls around another curve and the first star appears in the cup of sky between two peaks. You, all of you. I wish to be a camera at every moment, to share each slow breath and every swooping bird, want to show you what it is to stand atop a granite shelf overlooking a long canyon of dusty smooth stone and charred boughs as the salmon clouds define the delicate contours of cliff against sky.
I want to share this all with you, and I am struggling in the limitations of my language, straining against the boundaries of what I can name. My specificity is limited by all the words I do not know, all the words I do not have, and as I walk sometimes I spin through words in my mind and wonder where they fit in this valley: saguaro, sage, piñon. In my mind, David Campbell is saying, “We don’t have the words to love this place,” and I am naming everything I can: oak leaf, prickly pear, southwestern paintbrush, juniper, aspen. Sunset. Mountain. Autumn.
Too much happens in one day to capture any but flashes. Each sunset alone warrants epic description, moment to golden orange moment. Tonight after work I went hiking in the Manzanos and a line from DBQ was running through my head: "What impressionism takes us to is the belief that at every single second the world is change." I felt that intensely tonight, personally, as the sky changed color around every single curve. I imagined what it must be like to be an impressionist, to be dragging an easel and canvas and paints down into the canyon instead of just a nalgene bottle and journal. Coming up out of the canyon as the sun was setting, I kept stopping in the road to jot just one more line – just one more line – just one — and as I was standing under a golden oak, a group of mountain biking boys rode past me and stopped a few yards up the trail, laughing and punching one another and joking about who did or did not make it up certain parts of the trail, and I could hear them whisper about me and was suddenly conscious of who I was at that moment: the crazy girl scribbling in a book, leaning against a tree and looking up at the changing sky every few moments. So be it. I’m sure the farmers who came across Pissarro or Monet whispered and wondered as well, and no one who knew Turner thought he was normal when he tied himself to the prow of the ship in order to paint the storm.
***
The hike was a strange and beautiful blend of the familiar and the foreign. I was so happy to be surrounded by these rock faces like the bluffs along the Mississippi in southern Wisconsin, hung with orange and crimson ivy, and to follow a creek – to cross a creek on a natural bridge of boulders! – to smell the deep, sharp scents of fallen leaves and drying grasses.... I thought of all the times a crisp autumn afternoon would impel me to grab a loaf of french bread, some cheese, some apples perhaps, and go wandering through Horicon Marsh (in particular one long, lovely day in late September, maybe 1997, watching Canada geese with Ila, driving home in the lights of too many trucks, in her old gray station wagon) or trek out to Picnic Point, or down to my darling “Jenni & Kyle Guerkink” bench in the arboretum — thought of the autumn days at Wyalusing with the Catlins, and later with half of the sixth graders at Oregon Middle School, of days at Devil’s Lake, climbing until everything was fiery trees and sparkling lakeview....
And then driving home, winding around and around through the Cibola forest, through the Manzano Mountains, toward an ever changing sky spiked with sunbeams like the cover of an inspirational Hallmark card, or a child’s mountain sunset in crayon. The mountain profiles soft and indigo against an apricot dusk. I imagine you here with me, imagine taking your hand as we search for red leaves in the canyon, imagine you in the seat next to me as the truck pulls around another curve and the first star appears in the cup of sky between two peaks. You, all of you. I wish to be a camera at every moment, to share each slow breath and every swooping bird, want to show you what it is to stand atop a granite shelf overlooking a long canyon of dusty smooth stone and charred boughs as the salmon clouds define the delicate contours of cliff against sky.
I want to share this all with you, and I am struggling in the limitations of my language, straining against the boundaries of what I can name. My specificity is limited by all the words I do not know, all the words I do not have, and as I walk sometimes I spin through words in my mind and wonder where they fit in this valley: saguaro, sage, piñon. In my mind, David Campbell is saying, “We don’t have the words to love this place,” and I am naming everything I can: oak leaf, prickly pear, southwestern paintbrush, juniper, aspen. Sunset. Mountain. Autumn.
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