Reasons to Be Blogging
Hiatus: over. Hellooooo, readers! I hope you've survived the holidays, the MLA convention, and your family members' best intentions. It's good to be back.
The bread pudding worked wonderfully well with egg replacement powder and Earth Balance buttery sticks (because I know you've been up nights wondering). The whiskey sauce, however, turned out more like a scary oil slick of yuck. I do not recommend it. Next time, I'll just pour the whiskey straight onto the pudding.
One surprising benefit to hosting a militant vegan is that James and I are apparently among the 19 American adults who gained no weight over the holidays. (Must look into this....) Of course, I now twitch when I see an omelet, but that's seemingly the price that must be paid.
Grey leaves Tuesday for his final semester at Oberlin. It usually takes me a full day of wrenching misery to regain my equilibrium after he leaves, so expect nothing on Wednesday--except perhaps the echoing sound of faint howls, if you're in the Lincoln area.
I love popcorn, but not on the ceiling, so you'll be relieved to know that our new apartment (where the 1970s crawled in and died) now has only smooth white planes overhead and lacks any shred of the stained turquoise carpet that once odiously coated the floors. Now, thanks to the guys who ripped it out, we instead have odious cement, with squiggles of yellow carpet glue that look alarmingly like mucus, and we will be living with them until after Grey graduates. The love of parents is a formidable force, people. Do not tangle with it. It can make otherwise sane, selfish humans live with very ugly floors for unconscionable periods. The only bright spot is that we'll be able to save on pumice stones.
As suggested by a certain university press, I have used my holiday to reread and take copious notes on the manuscript formerly known as ANY NUMBER OF OLD LADIES and now tentatively known as FAMILY TROUBLE: MEMOIRISTS ON THE HAZARDS AND REWARDS OF REVEALING FAMILY in order to write my introduction to the collection, which I will begin to draft tomorrow. It's due on the 8th. (Cue maniacal laughter of the over-promiser.)
If all goes well, it looks like we might have a very distinguished younger poet here at UNL this spring--in addition to the (kiss-kiss love-love amazing) writer Randall Kenan, who'll be here for two weeks, teaching a seminar, and other assorted visiting writers. I can't publicize this poet's identity until her visit's set in stone, but I'm working on it. More on this later.
Readers from the great beyond, just when you thought we Lincoln-dwellers might be weary of our fair city (the blizzards, the below-zero temperatures, Ben Nelson), in comes a report from Women's Health that Lincoln, Nebraska is one of the U.S.'s ten best cities for women. We're ranked #8, because "[t]he average life expectancy is 80 years," "Lincoln has had zero days of unhealthy air quality from 2004 to 2008," and Star City denizens have "[a]n average commute of only 17 minutes," which "also means less teeth-grinding stress."
So if you do happen to need to move to Lincoln, you can rest assured that you'll also lower your stress, breathe easy, and live longer. Of course, the article also recommends moving to Fargo if you want a date (100 men for every 79 women), so its attitude may be just a touch cup-half-full (not to mention heteronormative) for me.
Speaking of towns, the locale where I spent the most godawful two years of my childhood, from 12 to 14, also happens to be the hometown of the stunning fiction writer Jayne Anne Phillips, who penned "Buckhannon, West Virginia: The Perfect Birthplace," a surprisingly folksy tribute (surprising, that is, for a writer who does harrowing and haunting the way most of us breathe), for the latest issue of Smithsonian magazine.
For me, the very landscape of Buckhannnon meant hunger, abuse, fear, and the way everyone who knew us--schoolteachers, neighbors, classmates, and churchgoers--turned a blind eye. But for Jayne Anne and the many people who commented on her piece, Buckhannon was a beautiful home. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, and it's a refreshing jolt to be reminded of how much happiness was really there.
For writers, here's some good advice from Susan Orlean's Twitter feed, @Susanorlean: "If a story ends up just like you imagined it would, you've done something wrong. It should surprise the reader AND the writer." Too true. So shake off that complacency and go for the ending it deserves.
Friend-of-the-blog Faye Snider recommends Elizabeth Gilbert's perspective on writing memoir in the recent Poets & Writers, which I have not read yet, and alas, it's only available in the print version, but if you've got the issue, the piece is called, "Fires of Inspiration: How the Winter's Biggest Books Got Started," and I trust Faye's judgment (even if another friend once referred to Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love as "So Much Privilege, So Little Time," LOL), so check it out.
The bread pudding worked wonderfully well with egg replacement powder and Earth Balance buttery sticks (because I know you've been up nights wondering). The whiskey sauce, however, turned out more like a scary oil slick of yuck. I do not recommend it. Next time, I'll just pour the whiskey straight onto the pudding.
One surprising benefit to hosting a militant vegan is that James and I are apparently among the 19 American adults who gained no weight over the holidays. (Must look into this....) Of course, I now twitch when I see an omelet, but that's seemingly the price that must be paid.
Grey leaves Tuesday for his final semester at Oberlin. It usually takes me a full day of wrenching misery to regain my equilibrium after he leaves, so expect nothing on Wednesday--except perhaps the echoing sound of faint howls, if you're in the Lincoln area.
I love popcorn, but not on the ceiling, so you'll be relieved to know that our new apartment (where the 1970s crawled in and died) now has only smooth white planes overhead and lacks any shred of the stained turquoise carpet that once odiously coated the floors. Now, thanks to the guys who ripped it out, we instead have odious cement, with squiggles of yellow carpet glue that look alarmingly like mucus, and we will be living with them until after Grey graduates. The love of parents is a formidable force, people. Do not tangle with it. It can make otherwise sane, selfish humans live with very ugly floors for unconscionable periods. The only bright spot is that we'll be able to save on pumice stones.
As suggested by a certain university press, I have used my holiday to reread and take copious notes on the manuscript formerly known as ANY NUMBER OF OLD LADIES and now tentatively known as FAMILY TROUBLE: MEMOIRISTS ON THE HAZARDS AND REWARDS OF REVEALING FAMILY in order to write my introduction to the collection, which I will begin to draft tomorrow. It's due on the 8th. (Cue maniacal laughter of the over-promiser.)
If all goes well, it looks like we might have a very distinguished younger poet here at UNL this spring--in addition to the (kiss-kiss love-love amazing) writer Randall Kenan, who'll be here for two weeks, teaching a seminar, and other assorted visiting writers. I can't publicize this poet's identity until her visit's set in stone, but I'm working on it. More on this later.
Readers from the great beyond, just when you thought we Lincoln-dwellers might be weary of our fair city (the blizzards, the below-zero temperatures, Ben Nelson), in comes a report from Women's Health that Lincoln, Nebraska is one of the U.S.'s ten best cities for women. We're ranked #8, because "[t]he average life expectancy is 80 years," "Lincoln has had zero days of unhealthy air quality from 2004 to 2008," and Star City denizens have "[a]n average commute of only 17 minutes," which "also means less teeth-grinding stress."
So if you do happen to need to move to Lincoln, you can rest assured that you'll also lower your stress, breathe easy, and live longer. Of course, the article also recommends moving to Fargo if you want a date (100 men for every 79 women), so its attitude may be just a touch cup-half-full (not to mention heteronormative) for me.
Speaking of towns, the locale where I spent the most godawful two years of my childhood, from 12 to 14, also happens to be the hometown of the stunning fiction writer Jayne Anne Phillips, who penned "Buckhannon, West Virginia: The Perfect Birthplace," a surprisingly folksy tribute (surprising, that is, for a writer who does harrowing and haunting the way most of us breathe), for the latest issue of Smithsonian magazine.
For me, the very landscape of Buckhannnon meant hunger, abuse, fear, and the way everyone who knew us--schoolteachers, neighbors, classmates, and churchgoers--turned a blind eye. But for Jayne Anne and the many people who commented on her piece, Buckhannon was a beautiful home. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, and it's a refreshing jolt to be reminded of how much happiness was really there.
For writers, here's some good advice from Susan Orlean's Twitter feed, @Susanorlean: "If a story ends up just like you imagined it would, you've done something wrong. It should surprise the reader AND the writer." Too true. So shake off that complacency and go for the ending it deserves.
Friend-of-the-blog Faye Snider recommends Elizabeth Gilbert's perspective on writing memoir in the recent Poets & Writers, which I have not read yet, and alas, it's only available in the print version, but if you've got the issue, the piece is called, "Fires of Inspiration: How the Winter's Biggest Books Got Started," and I trust Faye's judgment (even if another friend once referred to Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love as "So Much Privilege, So Little Time," LOL), so check it out.
Leave a Comment: