bookstore evangelism

This week, because of our fundraiser at the B&N, I have received so many comments about the evils of B&N.

Some friends told me I should have had the furndraiser at one of our local bookstores (which is not a bad idea, but it's certainly easier to have a fundraiser at a place that already has a structure for the event vs. a place where I'd have to invent the details). This is an idea that I will likely pursue, but the vehemence with which the suggestion came was a little, well, annoying.

Another friend passed by me, cocked her head, and intoned, "Barnes and Noble?"

I understand all of the arguments against B&N and for independent bookstores, but the preaching gets tiresome. I find the evangelical enthusiasm for independent bookstores particularly surprising around here where everyone is so uptight about the evangelizing of a certain religion.

I did make a deal with a friend that I would stop shopping at B&N if he stopped eating baby carrots (which I personally find ridiculous and are often produced in sweat-shop type conditions). That seems like a pretty good compromise--one pecadillo for another.

a little gift to help with the time wasting

I'm just blogging today because everyone is blogging today--and getting comments--which means that everyone is in that first day of school zone where there is so much to do, but still so little you must do, leaving ample time for blogging and sending endless strings of emails about the Love Boat, etc. So I just want to be part of the back-to-school-time-wasters-blogfest.

So read this and leave me comments.

Then get back to work!

a few things I'd rather be doing next week

My syllabi are done. I whipped them out in one very productive day. I have no idea what I will do on the first day of class, but I'm sure I'll figure that one out. In the meantime, I can keep daydreaming about all of the things I would rather be doing than heading back to the classroom next week.

1. Running a pie shop. I really think Salt Lake needs one of these--a place where you can buy pies of all types and flavors.

2. Opening a gourmet popsicle shop. This was inspired by my making cucumber-chile popscicles this week.

3. Starting a granita shack. I worked in a snow shack when I was a kid, but those shaved ices are just too sweet. Adults want frozen treats!

4. Camping. Why didn't I camp more this summer? Oh well, I'm getting in one last weekend.

5. Making jam. I've probably already made more than we can possibly eat in a year, but I need more!

Vacation Report

I'm back from my sojourn to Idaho and Washington--just in cas you missed me. Not that you did since I am invisible this summer.

In addition to getting lots of sleep and meeting countless members of will's extended family, I did the following:

-sailing
-sea kayaking on a lake
-decided that I must get a dog soon (will's parents have a springer spaniel who is the best dog in the world; i wanted to kidnap him)
-got into an argument with will's uncle (who I had just met) because he wouldn't accept my assertion that teaching grammar is an impediment to teaching writing (he's a geology professor, by the way)
-ate huckleberries, which I'd never had before
-wished huckleberries grew in utah
-bought and read the new harry potter--finally, it's done.
-tried to swim in a lake
-watched the new HP and Ratatouille for the second time
-tripped while trail running giving myself a bad case of road burn (worse, perhaps, than the treadmill incident


It's an exciting life I lead. Truly.

ms. cellophane

I ran into dr. write at the farmer's market on saturday. She says it's like I've been invisible all summer. Well. I guess I'd better post, so I can at least have some online visibility. (don't worry, though, we're having a party next week--email details forthcoming).

Friday, we went to the the Lucinda Wiliams concert--what I like to call the Kelly Joe Phelps concert. Our primary motivation for buying tickets was Kelly Joe. We both love him and are ambivalent about Lucinda Williams. We even left the show early because apparently we are not so ambivalent about her after all. Her songs were all a little too droning, a little too nicely rhymed. And the sound was screwed up, so everything sounded a bit too harsh and rattling. Kelly Joe Phelps, though, was amazing--as always.

We spent most of the week down in the hot, hot hinterlands of UT/AZ cruising through Bucksking Gulch and Paria River. I could tell you about the stunning walls of the narrows and the cooling meander of the river, but I'll just keep that all to myself and show you a few pictures.

why do I miss all the good stuff?

I attended three graduations at Knox College (two while I was employed there and one on a return visit to see former students graduate). Who spoke at those graduations? I have absolutely no idea.


Who has spoken at the two most recent Knox College graduations?

Last year--Stephen Colbert
This year--Bill Clinton


I felt a little guilty about not going to graduation this year, but if it had been Bill Clinton speaking instead of the Under-secretary of Labor I would have gone.

I'm so freaking unlucky. This missing the good commencement speakers is like my inability to win anything, ever.

Damn.

summer update

At the beginning of summer, I planned to post a declaration of my summer intentions (as seemed to be the trend) but really I didn't want to have any accountability. That's what summer is about, right?

But here's a quick update of what I have been doing:

Reading. I went on a bit of a reading binge just after the semester ended, reading about six books in a week, but that has slowed down and now I'm at about one a week (sometimes not even quite that). It's been quite a pleasure reading this much. I've been buying a lot of books too, which is not a very good thing for my budget. Among the recent reads:

*Larry's Party, Carol Shields
*The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
*The Perfect Scoop, David Lebovitz (it's a cookbook, but it's about ice cream, so it deserves a careful read)
*The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick (a kid's book, but highly recommended--a sort of graphic novel that draws a lot of inspiration from film)
*Flight, Sherman Alexie
*Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston


Moving The move wasn't a very big one--just downstairs in our building--but the space is bigger and there is a separate kitchen with a huge window which I love. You'd think that moving downstairs would simplify life, but moving sucks no matter how far you go. I am sure we will have some sort of event soon, so you can all see it.


Writing I wish I could impose a word count on myself like Dr. Write has done, but I'm not very good at structure. But the writing projects are going pretty well. Hopefully by the end of summer I'll have a report with good results.

Otherwise, I've just been playing outside and anxiously awaiting the start of the farmer's market. This weekend we went to Moab--more eating than hiking, but it was a good trip. Everyone there but me was a mathematician. Of course, I was the one who ended up figuring out every restaurant bill. Why is it that mathematicians have no ability to do simple arithmetic?

I know it's almost done, but. . .

I am blogging as a way to further postpone my grading, an act all of you can certainly understand. I know that if I just started working it would all be over soon, but I just can't seem to get enough motivation. I've spent the past few days catching up on Community Writing Center work, so now I'm tired and all I want to do is lay in my bed and read. It doesn't help that it's cold and rainy today.

I left my house, thinking that a change of scenery would help my motivation (and get me away from using housecleaning as an excuse for not grading--you know things are bad when housecleaning seems appealing). But here I am at the Cocoa Cafe, not grading. And I'm grumpy because they put way too much hazelnut syrup in my steamer.

I wish I weren't such a procrastinator. I've never been very good with the logic that if I just finishe a dreaded task it will be done and then I can move on. I think sometimes I really believe that if I wait long enough the dreaded task will go away.

Ok, back to grading.

wherein a housing application reveals my failings

I just spent an hour and a half filling out a housing application. Doing so has made me feel like a total loser. I am not a very good keeper of information and they ask all these questions that I should know but don't. These are things I do not know:

• My license plate number
• The name/ number of my previous landlord
• My savings account number
• The telephone #/ address of several good friends
• The address of my employer
• My gross monthly income

Some of these things I can find out easily, some with more difficulty, some are lost forever. I should have a file or something labeled "Important Information." Alas, even if I did have such a file I would probably forget to file anything in it and the Important Information would be stacked in a pile on my desk somewhere. And it's not that I don't have a system at all. I have a way to get all of this information, but it's not very efficient. I used to call my dad repeatedly for phone numbers of family and friends; he would always tell me that I should get an address book. What he didn't understand is that I did have an address book--him. But I could tell I was annoying him, so I bought a book. And it is handy--when I can find it.

I have visions sometimes of me becoming an organized woman, of knowing where to find information when I need it. But I fear it will never happen. And this is what makes me feel like a loser. I imagine that if I were more organized, then I would be more together in all aspects of life. Luckily there is the Internet and a system that only requires four little numbers to access my money. Otherwise, I would probably be living in a shack with my money shoved under the mattress.

Well, here's hoping that my failure to keep track of all that Important Information will not stop me from getting to live at the swank new apartment.

just so you can save some money in your budget. . .

Jenna Bush is apparently writing a book for children:

“The president's daughter, 25, says the book …is aimed at ‘getting kidsthinking and involved’…’there's so much they can do’ to deal withissues of ‘exclusion’ — from research on HIV discriminationto ‘inviting new kids to sit with them in the cafeteria.’"

I'm a little skeptical about this, but she says she's going to donate the proceeds to UNICEF so I do have to give her some credit for that. You can read more here.

unlucky thirteen?

My four-year-old nephew has no concept of the number 13. He seems to be aware that the number 13 exists, but he has no sense of where it belongs. He also understands that there is a number between 12 and 14, but for him that number is 14. In his world, there are two 14s.

The other day we were playing "Bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish" and I told him that I wanted 13 wishes (just to entertain myself). He counted up: "12, 14, 14, 15, 16" getting all the way to 21 before I stopped him. I told him that he'd missed thirteen. He started over: 12, 14, 14.

on memory

I feel like if I never blog that when I do I have to offer something really worthwhile. But don't get your hopes up, people.

This morning, Will and I were talking about romance novel covers after having been sent this by Sarah of 3 Tarts. Suddenly I had this memory of a Christmas party from when I was a tutor at UVSC. We did white elephant gifts and someone brought a romance novel. A co-worker read the back cover, giving a compelling performance that had all of us on the floor laughing. The thing about the memory was that I had completely forgotten about that co-worker. She was a woman that I liked and respected and until that moment it was as if she hadn't existed. It was a shock to suddenly see her face, hear her voice. I still can't remember her name.

It has me thinking about all the people that come into our lives only to get lost somewhere in our memory. And why our memory brings them back at certain times. I wonder what else or who else I've forgotten.

all hail the sun

I am a sun worshipper. I forget this sometimes, but it's true. I live for sun. I'm surprised I haven't yet made a soltice pilgrimage to the sun tunnels to burn sage and dance in circles (or whatever a proper sun worshipper might do).

When I was making grad school decisions, the clincher was probably reading somewhere that Ft. Collins has 360 days of sunshine a year (and it pretty much did). Once, during an atypical week of cloudy skies a professor remarked that the sun better come out soon or students would start killing themselves. I also briefly considered attending college in Fairbanks, Alaska until I read that it had the highest suicide rate in the nation (along with other extreme responses to cabin fever).

Now I live in the land of smog. It's smog people, not that hopeful " haze." Air so thick and dirty, it coats your car. Sometimes I even forget that there is a sun--a total faith crisis.

But luckily if you drive high enough (maybe those Babel tower building folks lived in an inversion) you can find some evidence for your tenacious faith. Sun. Real sun, not sun that sets behind smog before it retreats behind the real horizon.

Today, Will and I hiked (so little snow you can hike) up to Dog Lake. At the top, the sky was blue and fierce. There was so much sun that I didn't have to wear gloves or a coat or a hat. I was so ecstatic, I even climbed a tree (which didn't go so well, the tree being a wobbly aspen).

This is just to assure all of you Salt Lakers that there is still a sun.

how I spent my christmas vacation

I may not have been to Spain or Scotland, but I did briefly escape from the valley and the smog (which today, thankfully, gloriously has disappeared).

First to a yurt in the Uintas (Lily Lake) for Christmas. This included 5 1/2 miles of cross-country skiing with a backpack which is an impressive feat for a girl who had never put on a pair of skis until this winter (and who desperately hates winter).

Cross-country skiing is pretty fun and winter camping is made tolerable with wood floors, canvas walls, and a stove.

For New Year's, we cruised off to Vegas, but stayed totally out of Vegas (except for a trip to Trader Joe's) . I detest Vegas and have know realized that the only way it is worth seeing is from a Sandstone peak miles away in Red Rocks. We camped, we hiked, we climbed (well, mostly Will climbed. I was kind of in a wimpy mood). On New Year's eve, we fell asleep at 8:30, but we did wake up for three subsequent countdowns (couldn't they have coordinated a little?) in the campground and some ill-advised fireworks. It was, I think, the best New Year's I've ever had.

hey, that new james bond is really good

uh, I mean hot. I don't really like beefy guys with chiseled features, but there's something about this new Bond. Even the boyfriend has a man crush.

I don't particularly like James Bond movies, but there's something about this new one that I really like. Maybe it's that he's not so slick and polished (in the Bond, James Bond way). There's a beautiful moment where he orders a martini; the bartender asks him whether he wants it shaken or stirred and he replies, "Do I look like I give a damn?" It was refreshing seeing Bond not quite so Bond.

Of course, if they make more movies with this guy, he's going to have to become Bond of the shaken martini, and I think I'll like him much less.

Oh well, it's a good flick. I still haven't figured out why, but it's good. Really. Go see it.

stop that blathering

You know how it is. You read your students' papers and you just want to fill up the margins with big red letters asking, "What the fuck?!" You hold back--you don't want to be that mean. But you're certain that they didn't try at all, that they haven't been listening or reading or caring. You try to look for the effort in the work, but you are pretty sure it's all just a lot of blather.


I've had this experience way too many times this semester. Then, the other night, I ran across an old college paper, from my later Brit survey. It was about Hopkins--God's Grandeur, Binsey Poplars, inscape, instress. It was just a short paper, 3 pages. I got a bad grade on it, a big old B-. And my teacher's comments were mean. He told me that I was just using words to impress, without thinking about what they mean. He said that the ideas didn't seem considered at all, just a bunch of blather. He actually said "blather." I remember writing this paper. I was really excited about my idea (I loved Hopkins) and I couldn't exactly work it out. But I tried. I actually wanted to work out my thoughts. I also remember being very disappointed with my teacher's comments (mean old Dr. Best); I was less concerned about the grade then the complete dismissal of my thoughts and efforts.

So now I'm thinking that I'm turning into the mean old teacher and maybe I need to remember that just because my students don't get it exactly right doesn't mean that they aren't trying or thinking. It's a bit eye-opening. I think maybe I should read those Dr. Best comments before every batch of grading, just to keep perspective.


Side note that may or may not ruin my epiphany: today a student who has been a complete slacker--he submitted a lame review of The Fast and the Furious when he was supposed to do Critical Discourse Analysis--gave me a draft of his final project. Apparently his IQ has gone up about 100 points in the last week. Totally plagiarized. This is a new one for me--submitting a plagiarized draft (and I didn't even ask them for one).

gloomy democracy

During the fall of my senior year of high school, I went out with a couple of friends to steal campaign signs. We gathered them up from various corners around town, stacked them up in the back of the car, and delivered them all to the front lawn of a boy one of us (or all of us) liked. At the time, we thought that our actions were both a) rebellious and b) meaningful. Oh and we also thought we were funny. How wrong we were on all accounts.

So now it's fall again, election time again, and I am older. Today, I drove past dozens of campaign signs. I didn't steal any of them, but I did sort of want to pull down all of the ones for Mr. Orrin (because really wouldn't the world be better off if he could just dedicate all of his time to his music?) I went to my polling station at the Parklane Senior Apartments. I used the fancy new voting machine and made all of my choices; I opted not to do the easy straight ticket option because for some reason I like the act of selecting each candidate. I am more of a citizen than I was back in high school, stealing campaign signs. I can vote; I make choices based on research, thoughtful consideration, and firm hope for change. But I am not certain that my act now is any more meaningful than stealing campaign signs was back in high school. I will watch election returns tonight and I will see that most of what I voted for, hoped for will not go my way. I may get one or two nods that my opinion matters. But most likely, I will have to wait another two years, biting my lip, hoping for change.

Halloween costume, help!

So I have to go to a party on Saturday, one that I didn't know about until yesterday (thanks, w.). I need a costume and I got nothing--except for this hat. So your job, blog reading pals, is to look at this hat (with me in two different moods, so you can consider a range possibilities) and tell me how to build a costume from it. I'm counting on you all, so let's hear those ideas.

I'll take my Pibb straight up, thank you

The other night I went to the movie over at the Hateway and the line for the Prestige was long (who knew it would be so popular?); we were stuck at the back, around two corners, and the usher kept telling us to squish together because they were running out of room for the line. Squish together? Not so long ago I got stuck in an elevator at the Hateway and that was pretty horrific, but being told to squish up with a bunch of movie-goers seemed worse. The only good thing about being stuck in a big line of people while awaiting a movie is getting to listen in on people's conversations and I found a gem:

Wife to Husband: Well, I guess you could get me a Mr. Pibb, but that will keep me buzzing all night. So, if you want that, get me a Mr. Pibb. But the Coke. . . . Tell you what, get me a Mr. Pibb with a lot of ice and if I can't handle it, I'll dump it out before we get into the theater.


Only in Utah, folks. Only in Utah.

a tale of two classes

This semester I'm teaching two sections of the same class and they meet on alternating days. One class makes me feel like a terrible teacher. While there are a few engaged students, most of them look at me like I am doofus with lame ideas. They make me feel like that teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Every time the class ends I think I should probably get a new career.

And then the next day comes and I go to class number two and all of the things that failed miserably yesterday work beautifully. They ask questions, they pay attention, they seem to get it--and better yet, like it. They make me feel like the math teacher in Better Off Dead, where the students anxiously await their opportunity to turn in assignments. I leave the class completely renewed, yet dreading the next day.

What to do? I'm not sure that it's possible for me to change so much from day to day. It must be them. But maybe it is me, and if it is, what's going wrong. Does the one class sense that I dread teaching them? Is it because I wore jeans on the first day of the bad class? Fellow teachers, help!