Oh so Mattel!

So there used to be this website that had a kind of virtual Magic 8 Ball on it. You typed in your question, hit enter, and inside the 8-Ball graphic would come the answer: "Outlook is good," "Not likely," etc. Today I stopped by the site, and found this.

I used to work for Mattel and am aware they really hate it when you use their shit. I sometimes wish they could be a little nicer...Like couldn't these guys just add a statement like "This idea is based on really great toy, made by Mattel, who has generously allowed us to do this!" But that's just me, and my idealistic vision of the world. This thing is, it's a cute idea, but unless Mattel steals or buys the idea, which they probably won't because they're pissed at these guys, it just won't happen anywhere. It is the same mentality that causes politicians to shoot down decent ideas presented by opposing political parties. In the end, it's the Mr or Ms General Public who loses.

3 Things on My Mind

It's Saturday and the clock is ticking. I have three very distinct things that all need to be accomplished by Sunday night, each of which could easily take all of hte time from now to then, and each requiring an entirely different mindset.

1) Clean house for house guest arriving Monday. I can't take the time to describe how bad it is. You just have to believe me.

2) Write an essay describing my teaching methods, philosophy, influences, concerns etc. I was happy to be nominated for an award recently, but the narrowing down proces is harrowing. This essay is the last component of a binder with five dividers and multiple pages that I put together yesterday.

3) Write a specialized kind of outline for my screenplay...actually one for each of the two main characters. This is the one I wish I could go lock myself in a hotel room all weekend and do.

Instead, I need to be a grown-up and learn to prioritize and budget my time.
And that's why I'm blogging!

New Topic: Things That Piss Me Off

Large or small, we do not quibble over degrees of pissed-off-ness. Now's the time to get it off your chest. As always, if you are not a member of the growing circle of bloggers, but you have something to say, just drop a comment, and I will create a link to your pissed-off post!

This Week's Topic: Sex

This week's blog topic was chosen by Sandra. If you are a reader who would like to post on a week's topic, simply leave a comment, and we will provide a link.

1) My first notion of intercourse: In the first grade I lived in an old colonial house, with rather old fixtures, some of which were wooden door stops attached to the walls behind the doors. My best friend at the time was more worldly than I, and she explained to me that having sex meant that the man put his thing in between the legs of the woman. To demonstrate, she laid down next to the wall, doorstop between her thighs. She asked me if I wanted to try, but I was reluctant--the idea made be feel a little weird, and the whole thing seemed a bit unlikely to me. It turns out, however, that generally (allowing for a few missed details) she was right.

(The picture does not look exactly like our door stops, but I think gives a general idea.)

This was the same friend who explained to me (she said her mom had told her) that she would have medium-large breasts when she got older, because her mom had large breasts. I would be flat-chested, because my mom had quite small breasts.

She was right about that, too.

A Big Thank You

Paul has asked me to send a big thank you to everyone who took the time to look at and vote for this year's Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker candidates! Like Peter O'Toole at the Oscars, I have to report that Paul did not come home with the big prize. Unlike Peter O'Toole, however, his happy circumstance is that lots of time and opportunities to do good work lie ahead for him.

Being nominated was fun, but it was the support and encouragement from people like you that was really outstanding and heartwarming.

We are both very grateful!

PS...if you want to see the winner, or just watch Paul's fantastic film again, you can find it at www.ccrfa.com

Announcing Will!

I have a friend who once told me that she really hated verb + name movies and book titles...like "Regarding Henry," "Chasing Amy," etc. (She could think of a bunch, I find I am at a loss). I guess she wouldn't really like the title of this post.

Anyway, I digress. We have an excellent new addition to our synchronized blogging family. His name is Will, and he has already posted a brilliant and slightly heart-wrenching post on the topic of feet, on his new blog.

Look forward to seeing more of Will on our newly revamped sidebar menu, coming soon!

Feet

Mine are large. I wear a nine and a half, which is not you-have-to-order-them-from-a-special-online-store large, but just slightly larger than average. Average, when I last checked, was about size eight or nine. Most shoe brands will have half sizes up until size nine, and then whole sizes, like this: 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9, 10, 11. So while it's quite easy to find a size eight-and-a-half, it is more difficult to find a nine-and-a-half.

My feet also look longer because they are bony and narrow. And I have rather disturbingly long toes, which are fairly dextrous, probably from training as a child, when, after seeing a news item on TV about people with no arms who could do everything from writing to eating cereal with their feet, I became inspired and irritated my brother and sister when we played Aggravation, by insisting on moving my marbles with my finger-like toes, which they said were "gross." I said, what if someone comes and chops off all our arms? Who will be gross then?

My husband refers to my feet as "Monkey Feet."

All in all, as Mya pointed out in her post on the same topic, I am supremely grateful for my feet. They have served me well.

Therapy

My favorite kind of therapy is massage therapy.

point of no return

So I am behind on my posting of weekly topics for my synchronized swimming...oops I mean bloggging circle. New topics often occur on Wednesdays, so as of tomorrow I will be down by three: Therapy, Feet, and whatever comes next. It's a quarter to one in the morning, and I gotta say, I'm feeling good...I could write them right now. But then it would be two, and then it will be eight in the morning and time to drive to work and eight-in-the-morning B will be pissed at one-in-the-morning B who made the decision to leave her holding the bag. So instead I will post only this, a commitment to run and catch up with the train tomorrow, before it passes the point of no return. Also, I will more formally introduce the newest member of our synchronized blogging team, whose name I won't even reveal yet as I haven't written down his link information so there is really little point. But tomorrow--there's a lady worth saving a dance for! I'll see ya then.

We've got a few loose bats in the belfry

Well actually just in the house. Paul caught one the other night and let him out. I saw another tonight, turned off the lights and opened the doors, but didn't see where it went, since the lights were out. My internet research indicates that these are babies, and that they sometimes get a little lost. They might be roosting in the walls or roof or something. Not quite sure what to do next, but did find some comforting facts:

* Bats are not rodents, and will not nibble or gnaw at wood, wires or insulation.
* All bats in the U.K. eat insects. Their droppings are dry and do not putrify, but crumble away to dust.
* Female bats have only one baby per year.
* Bats do not build nests and therefore do not bring bedding material into the roost, neither do they bring their insect prey into the roost.
* Most bats are seasonal visitors to roosts in houses - they are unlikely to live in that roost all year round, although they are loyal to their roosts and so usually return to the same roosts year after year.
* Bats are clean and sociable animals and spend many hours grooming themselves. They prefer to live in clean, cobweb free areas where there are no draughts.

Maybe we could just have some pet bats?

I Hate My Grantwriting Class

Somehow, by mid-semester I always realize that I have a couple of classes that are awesome and that I would be happy devoting my life to, and then one ridiculously labor intensive class that makes me feel like A) my head is going to explode B) I am wasting valuable moments of my life C)I am a little rule-mongering toady because I have to follow the rules and do all the crappy busy-work because I don't have the balls to just say..."that fact that you assigned this makes it clear that you don't have any idea what you are doing, that you are clueless as to the time it takes to do this, and, oh, by the way, if you taught us anything in class you wouldn't have to give us some huge-ass 6 month correspondence course that you downloaded from the web somewhere as a take home mid term over our spring break, I hate you!" Some people are born with ability to say such things, but I am not one. It is possibly the life lesson that I need to learn in order to reincarnate in my next life as more evolved being and not a piss ant or a rock.

Naked Running Man

I've been buried in writing a seemingly endless essay, and so apologize to my fellow synchonized bloggers for this overdue post, on Katie's topic: Nudity.

Back in my undergraduate days, at Indiana University in Bloomington, I lived in the “Collins Living and Learning Center,” better known to frat boys and others as, “the hippie dorm.” Indeed we had our share of artists and philosophers, comedians and revolutionary thinkers. One day in the cafeteria, I found myself sitting in a group with a guy named Bart Everson, who it turned out, was having some legal woes.

“Why?” asked we.

And he told how he had had a brilliant idea to streak across campus, running au naturale from Ballantine Hall to his dorm. This he set out to do, I believe with camera man in tow—as at the time several people I knew (including myself) would occasionally make programs for the local cable access channel—to film the segment “Naked Running Man.” The only problem was, he had not thought to do a test run, and halfway to his destination realized he could not actually run across campus, and had to stop and walk.

As he was walking back to his dorm, he was arrested for exposing himself in public, and at the time of our conversation was embroiled in some negotiations regarding the ramifications of this. I believe that “Naked Running Man” did show on the access channel, but not having a TV, I never got to see it.


Addendum: Telling this story made me think fondly of Bart, and wonder how and where he is now. So of course, I googled him, and found he has quite the web presence. He apparently stayed around Bloomington after graduation and had a series on cable access with sufficient cult following to warrant its own Wikipedia entry, with references to articles in Wired and Time magazines. I think he now lives in New Orleans, seems active in his community and he has a blog. And I found his own rendition of the naked running man story here, from which I stole the picture above. (If you follow the link be sure to hit the media pop-up window for a QuickTime clip.) Here’s to you, Bart!

Last Day at AWP

Saturday, 4pm

You can see people’s energy flagging…nonetheless, I enjoyed panels on “Leading the Double Life,” about the difficulties and benefits of having work in addition to one’s writing, and “I Lie You, I Like You Not,” a panel stock full of FSU friends—Roger, Forrest, Jessica and Jill—that explored what factors contribute to the likeability or unlikeability of a character. I enjoyed the “Purdue University MFA Program Anniversary Reading,” and was particularly entertained by Elizabeth Stucky-French, and poet Mairead Byrne.

I came back to our room at the hotel with every intention of answering some email and returning within the hour, but lost my steam upon seeing Susie already curled up on the bed. Katie showed up soon after, and we've decided we should rest up for the evening’s activities: Forrest has left me with an invite to the Suwannee Alumni Reception, and Tom has given Katie an invite to the VIP rooftop party…so we're going to rest and doll up before heading back out, because if you're going ot craash a party, you want to look good!

Sunday morning.

The Suwannee party was easy to crash, and packed to the gills…more hummus and crudite and open bar. I met plenty of strangers, and talked the photographer into taking our picture together, hoping that when they got developed, no one would no who the hell I was.

Up on the roof-top, it was a harder go. The bouncer had apparently been chastised for allowing in the wrong element on previous nights, and had enacted a “One plus guest” rule for the invitations. We had a small “Sophie’s Choice” moment in the lobby. Katie, who, unlike me and Suze, had not yet crashed a rooftop party, was an obvious choice, and Will and I generously abdicated so Susie could go with her. Apparently they made a good team, as they amused themselves by going up to writers they recognized and claiming to have been in their workshops. A number were polite enough to say they remembered. After a while one of the FSU professors caught on to what they were doing, and provided them with more names. They started to cap off the encounters by asking for pictures with their “former instructors.” Ohhh, funny but mean, I’m sure the pictures will show up on someone’s blog.

Will and I, along with a number of others who were turned away, returned to the hull of the Titanic--the hotel lobby outside the bar, and whiled away the time pleasantly enough talking to people til the wee hours. Finally we slipped out without saying goodbye to anyone, and my first AWP is officially at an end.

AWP Journal #2

Again, typos and fragments abound...

11 pm Friday

I just wimped out early for the evening, and plan to wash the cigarette smell out of my hair and lie around reading in the hotel room bed. But my second day at AWP has been really fun.

I started off slow, arriving late to Sandra’s panel, entitled “Found in Translation: Poetry that Stems from Multilingual Homes.” My lateness might have had to with my subconscious lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter, that is, poetry. But I was shamed by my preconceptions, because it was for the most part really engaging stories and poems by poets who grew up around two different languages. Dominika, who I see working at the RWC several days a week told about her Polish family immigrated here when she was nine, and it was riveting, and she was just one of the interesting panelists.
I
attended “Prize Stories: Reading of the Year’s Best,” readings by winners of various prestigious prizes in 2006. This was enjoyable, though perhaps because I am already not as new, didn’t blow me away like the reading yesterday.

I skipped the next panel to go hang around the Book Fair on the lower level. Quite a scene--it felt like a flea market. I was a little worried as I wandered around that to the people at the tables, who I'd heard were often publishers of journals and reviews, it might seem like everyone (including me) was just a writer trying to schmooze before they submitted. In 98% percent of the cases though, the pressure felt directed the other way, either subtly or less so. There’s nothing quite like idly picking up a book to have someone a foot and a half from you say, “Hey, I published that book, and right here is one of our authors. If you buy it now, he can sign it for you! If you buy it now, we’ll give you a discount! If you buy it now, I’ll give you a kiss!” (That last example is courtesy of a report from Katie.) Conversations lasted a little longer than I anticipated as well, I think I covered five tables in an hour and twenty minutes, and bought three items. There were over a hundred tables left to go, but fortunately I had promised to meet Suze for the next panel “What Really Happened: Research and the Novel.”
By evening, since we’d only eaten from the Café Express counter in the hotel lobby for two days, we decided to try a Thai Restaurant near the Highland Motel, where Jessica, Forrest and Elizabeth were staying. That was a great call. We followed up with a visit to Manuel’s Tavern, where I got to talk to the nice people from University of Texas Press, K.C and Stephanie, that I had met earlier at the book fair (they had not to hard-sell me any books), and a group of guys from Louisiana State University. I make it a point to meet a couple of strangers each evening, just on principle—if you drive a few hundred miles and spend a few hundred dollars you should talk to someone you won’t see in the grad lounge on Monday—but it can be, at times, hard to make myself do this. When I plunked myself down at their table, one of the Louisiana State guys immediately reached over and said, “Hi, I’m Ben, this is Jerry(? that's weird, was it really Ben and Jerry?) and that’s Chris,” and made me feel right at home.

AWP Journal

The following are unedited recordings of our trip to the Association of Writers & Writing Programs annual conference, which is taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta, GA this year..pretty dry for you non-writers…but hey, it’s what I’m up to! If you are a writer, you might want so see Susie's photos of the events here described.


11 am Thursday

On the road to AWP! Started in a fairly timely manner…for me at least. I had this great idea of making business cards about twenty minutes before it was time to walk out the door…the result…not great business cards. Who would ask for my info anyway? Unknown, but now I’m prepared, or I will be as soon as I cut them out and write my information on the backs.

Picked up Jessica and Katie on the way to Susie’s. She had just come back from vacuuming her van at the Circle K in preparation for our trip to Atlanta, about five hours north of Tallahassee. It looks great.

Katie has burned an “Official AWP Soundtrack.” She’s musically hip, so highlights include Fiery Furnaces, “My Dog was Lost but Now He’s Found,” The Shins, “Know Your Onion!” and David Bowie doing a fair Johnny Cash impression on “Scary Monsters.”


1 pm Thursday

Just leaving Cordele, GA, which Katie says is the Watermelon capital of the World. At the Zaxby’s the man in the booth behind us sang through our lunch…a country song we couldn’t quite make out but are assuming was of his own invention. At the BP Susie and I talked to the store clerk about the out the new kinds of candy at the candy: The Reese’s’ Big cups with mixed nuts, (he say’s their big, and make it seem strange) the Hershey’s chocolate bars with brownie chunk (the brownie chunks are crunchy, not soft), and the Hershey’s Kiss shaped chocolate cookies (he hasn’t tried those yet).

Meanwhile Jessica wondered if she could submit a receipt for the wooden plack depicting a large sow being suckled by a number of mouse sized progeny as an AWP related experienced.

10:45 Friday

On CNN this morning when they announce that a busload of baseball players from Ohio has plunged over an overpass onto the highway below. The speculate the drive was not asleep, but that the way the I-75 HOV lane splits off was very confusing, and by the time he realized, it was too late. Really sad.

Back in AWP land…we made it in time to see readings by folks who have been published in the Georgia Review, although I missed Judith Kitchens, I caught Judith Ortiz Cofer reading from Silent Dancing…which was interesting because she read sections not included in the excerpt we use in our teaching textbook “Convergences.” I was blown away by Kevin Brockmeyer’s reading of a story about a man who finds God’s overcoat in a thrift store and becomes privy to the prayers of everyone around him. George Singleton read from “Don’t Drown the Rocks” and teasingly left us mid-arc, so now I will have to hunt down that issue of the Georgia Review.

The seven o’clock receptions were adequate…Arizona State won my vote for best food, only because they augmented cheese and crackers with veggies and hummus. As a result I met a few people from Arizona who were confused when I said I was from Florida, and one slightly crazy woman who was from Alaska, also there for dinner.

Lee Smith, the keynote speaker, was excellent…very personable and funny and honest and inspiring.

After conference dance receptions with cover bands are generally a scary proposition…There is this feeling of being back in high school, where everyone feels the disco is lame, and the cool kids only use it as an excuse to stay out so they can go have a party in some one’s basement…but I will say in this case that although the line for free drinks was lengthy indeed, that the dance band, Party Nation, was great. I’ve never seen a balding white guy rock Nelly with greater skill and musicality. I can see why they hired them two of the three nights.

There was of course a cool kids party…for AWP board members and guests in the swank rooftop bar of the Hotel. Did I get in? Yes, I did, by the skin of my teeth with a little help from a friend already inside, whom I won’t incriminate by naming here. When I asked what he did to rate an invite, he said they had snuck in with the service early on.

When was all said and done around midnight, it took the usual forty-five minutes for everyone to figure out what to do next. Forrest was all for the bars, while Susie and I killed half an hour having pizza with Sami in the lobby while Katie tried to keep up with an old Russian dude on drinks. Apparently she held her own…but felt the pain this morning.