Are They Having a Fire Sale on Crazy?

Pennsylvania's governor jumps into the fray, suspending pollution controls.

Bread, The Next Frontier

The rye bread was mostly successful, apart from some tomfoolery with the second rising. There's no need to point fingers or try to assess blame over who did or didn't properly cover the loaves with the right kind of plastic.

Whole-wheat is the new frontier. Intriguingly, it requires additives and techniques, since whole grain flours lack the proper gluten to make this whole rising thing happen. (See, this is what's so fascinating about the whole bread-making process: It's science!)

It's probably overly ambitious, given how I haven't mastered the half-white/half-wheat loaves I've tried in past, but I am undaunted. And I have lots and lots of backup yeast and flour.

What We Have

A new kitchen faucet that looks lovely and modern and no longer leaks.

Bikes, on a bike path, here in warm weather. Did we kick some butt this weekend, zipping past all those wee young tots on skateboards and Huffys? Did we leave those four-seater surrey-type deals in the dust? Yes, yes, we did. To the accompaniment of our own Jackie Stewart-style commentary ("She's coming around the motor track. . .")

Soon-to-be-painted kitchen walls.

A writing nook for me, with hummingbird feeder and ocean view.

Tax refunds! (This one is huge, since next year for me will likely not be pretty vis-a-vis freelancing income.)

More wine than most normal humans can drink, with my own special supply of my favorite $9 Spanish red.

A cat who is admittedly in her dotage, with predictable symptoms on the horizon, but doing her thing. This thing involves actually being cuddly and purring nonstop.

Once you stop freaking out about what might happen or all the scary uncertainty, it's possible to see and enjoy the good stuff. It's also possible to put your own productivity into perspective and see how much you've done.

I swear, I can see the movie made from my memoir already.

These Are the Accommodations One Gets in One's Dotage

It's not quite shuffleboard in Boca Raton or golf-course-adjacent living in Arizona, but it is the best $5 ever spent.

Is It a Mode We Shift Into?

I don't know what it is, but I seem to be in Pontificating Know-It-All phase on my writing. Which is a good thing, since I'm doing some freelance writing and working on a critical paper for school.

The bullshit's flowing, people. I actually wrote a piece authoritatively laying out how to make money off of facebook. HAH HAH HAH HAH!

I'm Not Saying I'm Betty Draper, Exactly. Just That I Feel Her Pain. A Bit.

You know what sounds like all kinds of fantastic? Quitting a job that you've been stagnant in for a while, but that was safe, moving across the country, enrolling in an MFA program, and generally getting to have an interlude of intense writing focus. Many people dream of that, let me tell you. Many more dream of living in a gorgeous locale and not having to worry about how one will be feeding the cat or figuring out how one would set up a vinyl tarp next to the woman on the beach-walk bench. (Should I, god forbid, become homeless, that's where I'm heading. Mild weather, close bathrooms.)

I'm so fortunate! I realize that, truly. And I didn't think my stagnant job was any great shakes. Enhancing my future job prospects? Hah! More like sending me toward mental breakdown.

But, but. Dropping out of the "what do you do," even for a moment, even to be a student, is a bit of an identity void at my age and stage in life. I've never been one deeply invested in my career, such as it's been. But I've taken great pride in being a hard worker, a good thinker, one who contributes. And I've also taken great pride in having supported myself successfully since graduating college. There was a brief moment back in the day when I was terrified that I would fail, and that any moment, I would have to move into my parents' basement. Or find kind relatives who wanted to take me in. It took me years to get past that primal fear of failure and dependency.

Instead, I've been taking care of myself for a long, long time. I've been able to take vacations, buy a house, and keep the cat in premium chow. Not that I've been awash in the money, just that I've been okay. And able to save, choose, and spend on--for example--organic produce, if I want to.

Losing that thing you've been doing every day for years is hard. Waking up and knowing it's all on you to write, do your homework, or hammer out that freelance job is hard. No longer being that person who can cover her own bases, take care of herself, keep the cat in premium chow, is really hard.

You don't realize how much your identity is tied up in what you do and what you present to the world until you drop off that standard grid. And the world motors on while you fight your own inertia and attempt to instill structure and meaning into your day.

Best Christmas Present Ever?

The Dyson vacuum, my friends, is a lovely bit of technology, which fosters geeky exploration of all its bells and whistles. We have vacuumed: the refrigerator coils, behind the refrigerator, the bathroom vents, under the couch, under the bed, in nooks and crannies in the kitchen, ad infinitum. It is quite likely that we have extracted from the carpet all the cat's shedded fur, along with the fur of the previous owner's cat.

We have also wish-listed attachments such as this.

It's sad, but if it brings joy, it can't be wrong, right?

DIY, Biking, Returning to Research, and Contemplating Novels

Well do I remember back when I thought working at home would be a grand adventure. Never having to change out of pajamas! Makeup a distant memory! Deciding to break up the monotony with a run on the beach!

Of course, the flip side to all of that is never changing out of your pajamas, never wearing makeup or real-person clothes, and, um, spending your time on the bike trail or various other procrastinating activities rather than on the fiction or the billable tasks or the job letters. It's a strange and difficult balance, and whereas I was once dying for this interim time, I'm now longing for the prospect of a normal nine-to-five gig, with structured days--and not just for the steady money, although that's a huge benefit too.

Of course, say that I hit the jackpot and was able to write for a living, publishing novels people wanted to read, or elegant short stories and essays published in well-respected magazines. I would have to face down my days and attempt to manage some structure! I would have to work toward deadlines in a way that didn't involve spending the three days beforehand frantically finishing up something new before resorting to a further-along draft of something else.

But I want to take full advantage of this interim time, scary as it is to be floating out and space and not knowing where the next check is coming from. So I'm contemplating the novel I want to write. That is, I know I want to write one, but what is it? What will it be about? I should perhaps take a poll. But I have been noodling around with a character from an older story, whom I felt had more going on in her life than just the one story I wrote. I don't know. I can't seem to figure out what I want to do, even though I want to be chipping away on that big picture.

I'm also, in small ways, returning to my roots as a researcher of facts. Yes, I'm writing a critical paper. But I'm also tapping into my experience looking up congressional activities (for genealogical research). Exciting! Well do I remember that satisfaction of a job well done, an elusive fact sussed out.

And to balance all the thinking, thinking, baking continues apace (moving on to rye bread this time, at the behest of others who are declaring an intent to help with the process). And this weekend, B joins me in biking fun. Or, we hope he does, if the ordered and arrived bike lives up to expectations. Why, yes, it's 75 degrees here. Perfect weather for biking!

Oh, and I'm also trying my hand with home repair. If you read about the tragic flooding incident online, please know that I tried my best.

You Know Those Squirrels Trying to Get to the Nuts?

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm on a mission to bake my own yeast bread from scratch. It seems economical! I've had The Bread Bible for ages and never ventured out of the quick breads. When you're being student frugal, are awaiting the arrival of the next freelance job, and have access to the whole new world of food processors, it seems like there's no time like the present. So I jumped in! This is how it went.

Friday, first attempt.
Mixed ingredients, per directed, in food processor. Extracted powdery unmixed blob that I proceeded to try to knead/mix by hand. Set it on the counter in a bowl to rise for the directed "at least 2 hours." Realized after 3 hours of nonrising that I forgot to add the sugar. Ditched dough.

Friday, second attempt.
Got new ingredients. Mixed ingredients, exactly as directed, in same order as specified, in food processor. Dough was proper consistency. Trying to account for potential temperature variables (i.e., cold condo), put dough in unheated oven for rising. Waited approximately 3 hours. No rising whatsoever. Ditched dough. Tested remaining yeast packets. Results inconclusive.

Saturday, third attempt.
Got new ingredients. Mixed ingredients, this time with white flour (whole wheat combo takes much longer to rise). Pretty dough ball. Put in unheated oven to rise. Again, after 3-4 hours, nothing. Read yeast packet. Realized yeast isn't "instant," as called for in recipe, but "fast rising" and requires procedure I didn't follow. Left loaf in unheated oven, figuring I'd throw the damn thing out later.

But lo! I came back hours later to discover . . . risen bread dough!!! It's a post-Christmas miracle!!! So I started at 9:30 pm with the "second rise," and after much waiting, shaping (FUN!), and baking, I had a loaf of very tasty bread. Which I triumphantly tucked into at 1 a.m.

I want to rush right out and do it again. Food processor plus squishy dough is absurdly compelling.

It Occurs to Me That Everything I'm Doing These Days Is The Hard Slog

Not to be a whiner, but it requires a certain amount of fortitude to power through the long haul, eschewing the immediate reward and working toward the ultimate payoff. Job hunt? Check. Writing? Double and triple check. Particularly if I veer toward the longer work that I'm contemplating (how in the world do people do these things??). All other school components, such as research papers and field studies? Oh, yes. These aren't things I can check off quickly and be done with. Even exercise is something that you have to power through the unpleasantness on to get to where it's actually fun (yes, illness plus holidays means that I'm an asthmatic wheezy mess and starting from scratch).

Obviously, I need to balance all this out with immediate gratification that doesn't cost me a fortune and/or set me back on personal goals. I need a low-stress hobby. I hear crossword puzzles are relaxing.

There's Still Time to Get Your Festivus Poles

Oh, Yes. I Do Love Me Some Surprise Holiday Gifts

Thanks to lovely relatives (you know who you are), I've been digging into some good Magnetic Fields tune-age. Ahhhhhhh. . . .

Done, and Done.

Residency number two has come to an end. Once again, I failed to find the kool-aid that everyone else was drinking. ("It's been life changing, this whole experience!! I love each and every one of you in this room. Yes, even you. The person in the back whose hair I mocked behind your back to my friends in the lounge.")

It was less inspiring for me this time than last, because the faculty punted on the literary analysis lectures in favor of panels on craft. Which is fine, it's just that I'm more jazzed to dissect what Faulkner does than to muse philosophically over "how much of myself" is going into my work.

My new mentor appears to be very smart, engaged, and helpful in terms of feedback. And she's already read some of my stuff, so she's had a preview of where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to do.

Alas, this term I have to cover all sorts of bases (come up with a field study, write a critical paper, do an intensive two-week online conference), so I'm going to have to hit the ground running. The sooner I knock this other crap out, the sooner I can concentrate on the writing.

I'm musing on whether I want to write a novel, though, for my final project. Everyone seems to leap into that direction because, of course, it's marketable. I'm not burning to do that, just yet. We shall see, though. Next term, I want to work with one of the ass-kicking mentors, who's pushed along folks from "Eh, don't care about novels" to "Um, okay, I'll get your a draft of my 300-page novel by that date."

We crank along toward MFA-ness.

Mad Cramming

School starts the day after tomorrow, and I am trying to wrap up (1) paid work and deadlines (hah! which allegedly runs out at the end of this month, although no one has actually discussed this with me); (2) coursepack readings; (3) workshop piece comments; and (4) any other life-related do-dads that will go out the window for the next ten days.

The nice part is that, for this stint, I'm local and have my own car.

This is Awesome

The Penmonkey's Paean:

This book is not the boss of my shit.

These characters dance when I tell them to dance. They leap, cackle, fuck and punch because I jolly well told them to and if they don’t do as I say I will have them nibbled to death by marmots.

This plot is knotted tight in the configuration I demand. With it I shall tie a noose, and with that noose I shall hang my fears and uncertainties by the neck until they void their bowels and their legs quit kickin’.

These words march in the order I choose. They are my little bitches, cobbled together of letters and made to carry heavy notions and lofty ideas and character motivations and bad-ass non-stop mad ninja action. In this way they are like ants, carrying more than they should rightfully be able to carry.

The whole thing is awesome.

This Is the Stuff We Live For

I see on weather.com that about 4 inches of snow are about to fall in Bungalow-ville . . . and I do not have to shovel it. It's a liberating feeling, even if I am chilly right now (imagine fall, before you turn on your heater; no, I'm not looking for your sympathy). And also, it's super-duper foggy out right now.

A Theory on Social Networking

People are trying to collect complete sets ("Marge! I found the last woman I used to work with at Dunder Mifflin Inc.!"). How else to explain the sheer volume of friend requests from random people I went to high school with, who were not friends and who, indeed, in some cases never even spoke to me? Does the fact that we rode a school bus together in the seventh grade really warrant continued updates into your child's hockey team/husband's beer making/baby's potty training progress or my snack-food preferences/celebrity hate watch/cat's barf status? I think not.

I'd ditch the whole thing, but for the ten people I genuinely know and like, who post pithy things, using the word "yule" as an adjective. Some people really excel in the medium.

One of Those Mysteries of Human Constitution?

Here in the House of Random Illness, all occupants--human and feline alike--have cycled through being sick the past couple of weeks. The cat and I, unfortunately, are on illness #2: The Cold That Kicked Our Asses.

Strangely, although I'm coughing, congested, and scratchy throated (sounds like a species of warbler, doesn't it?), I actually feel energetic and otherwise fine. Whereas yesterday, I could barely get up off the couch, today I'm running errands! Sweeping floors! Baking bread! Washing dishes! Logging major hours for work! Revising a piece to move toward submission! It's like a switch somewhere got turned on.

Of course, I expect that tomorrow I delve into the next stage of the cold and toss all my good energy out the window.

Finally, Seeing the Work of Peers

I've finally shipped off my last packet of writing to my mentor! And in the mix this month is a reading conference centered around our own work: I and the other handful of people assigned to my current mentor are submitting pieces and reading and responding to them.

I was curious, since the only time I've read others' work so far in this program was during the last residency. And that wasn't exactly a warm-and-fuzzy experience. I submitted a story that I'd been working on for a while, had received feedback from two of my teachers, and basically thought was in decent shape, even if the structure was unorthodox. Alas, my workshop group was a pile-on, with everyone weighing in on its many shortcomings and the ways that I could go back to the drawing board. One helpful soul opined that it was "melodrama" and had an unlikable, immature narrator. One guy who did start off with some positive comments and got drowned out by the group came up to me later to say that he didn't know what that was all about, and that he liked it.

If the works of the group had been brilliant and envy-inducing, I would have felt terrible and completely out of my depth. But they were just . . . okay. Problems with point of view, character, scene, and the standard laundry list you get with writing students at my old school or anywhere else. So the whole experience just baffled me and underscored that I was definitely not on the same reservation as these folks.

I definitely don't need universal praise, of course, though the opposite--the back-to-drawing-board-for-you and personal attacks--is unhelpful as well. I've always been of the viewpoint that most everyone has an interesting story to tell, and if they do that authentically, without trying to make it be something else, they generally get in the ballpark, even if technique needs some fine-tuning, from a reader perspective. As a reader, your job is to give that reader perspective, not tell someone how to write their own story. And you do it gently and constructively, because it's not a personal affront that someone else chose first person when the OBVIOUS solution, to you, is third.

So, we did the reader swap of our works in my tiny little online group. And I read all of their works! Which ranged from very nice (if done in a way I would have done differently) to okay but in need of some writing 101 skills to please-tell-me-this-is-a-satire-and-not-a-laundry-list-of-every-action-cliche-ever-seen. Not that I'm all that and a bag of chips. Hell no. I just expected another level among MFA students, the kind of writing that scared me away from my first class back in 2007. (Yeah, I'm a wee bit further along than I was then, but those people were objectively "Oh, I give up!" talented.)

And they have had pretty universally negative things to say about my piece. Not mean things, but more confused and tepid. (One woman actually apologized for being too critical.) The only thing I took serious umbrage at was the guy who couldn't bother to look up the literary term on teh Google to understand what I was even trying to do. In contrast, the works that are obviously in need of a lot of work are receiving effusive, almost ridiculous praise.

Again, I'm mostly scratching my head. It's an early draft that I meant to do more wholesale tweaking on after getting my mentor's perspective (she liked it as it wasn't and didn't have large edits to suggest). I get that tastes vary, and if you don't understand what someone is doing, it makes it hard to understand the piece.

But, still. Do I theorize over peoples' personal vendettas? Or do I say, as the dude did who came up to me after the first workshop experience: "When people are reacting that strongly, you must be doing something right."

And here I thought I was doing fun stuff for the masses.

Do You Think I Can Arrange Someone Singing My Writerly Praises Every Day? It's Such a Boost to Efficiency.

If you are interested at all in how my MFA program is progressing, let me give you an update. Unbelievably, I am nearly through the first semester of the program, with one more packet of writing to send to my current menor. The way it works is that once a month, I send off 20 pages or so to my assigned mentor, along with a book-report-type writeup of something I've chosen to read. (The writeup is supposed to analyze the craft tools that I'm trying to extract from my chosen reading.)

Our mentor then reads our submissions and writes up detailed responses, depending on what where we are with the piece and what type of feedback we tell her we want. If, for example, something is far along, she might look at it more for language than structure. If it's a first draft of a story, she might give ideas on how the ending does or doesn't work, or how the characters' motivations aren't really laid out.

It's been a strange setup, because one can (I'm not saying I do this, mind you) procrastinate all month until the days before the due date. In a regularly meet-once-or-twice-a-week class, one needs to crank out a certain number of pages a week, so there's not a lot of room for procrastination. Here, however, I find myself noodling around on three of four things I may or may not submit; then, hours before deadline, I realize I need to focus on one thing. So I crank until I have the one thing to turn in. It's mostly been new stories, which is great, because that's sort of the whole purpose of the effort here. But on the flip side, it also means that you begin lots of things and don't really get around to completing anything. Particularly if you're me and find the hard part to be powering through revisions, long after you've lost your love of the people and the story.

As much as I feel like I've been turning in first drafts that I've barely cleaned up for typos, I've been gratified by my mentor's responses to them. She gets what I'm doing with them, points out components that give me pause, and makes suggestions that simplify things that I've made too convoluted by overthinking. Excellent, and it makes me think that I'm pursuing a good path for myself and developing my own voice.

But I don't want to get too smug about my Absolute Genius when she tells me my things are more developed than I led her to believe by my "first draft" hand waving. (Oh my god!!! I'm a natural!! I'm like Mozart! First draft and done!!!)