The Reveal

Fringes issued a not-so-subtle reminder in comments the other day (I believe she wrote only, "Well?") that I never revealed the truths and lies from my little icebreaker post earlier this month.

So:

I once grand marshaled Logansport, Indiana's Iron Horse Festival Parade, during which event I sat on the back of the same baby blue convertible Cadillac Larry Bird sat on during a parade in the movie Blue Chips.--This is true. There are a few Logansport people who've been stopping by the blog lately, and they may know that the reason I was one of three grand marshals in said parade was because I was somehow my high school's valedictorian. I don't remember much about the parade itself--other than a man in a lawn chair yelling out to me that he knew my father real well (my parents had skipped town a year earlier)--but I remember the driver and owner of the Cadillac telling me that her car was famous: that Larry Bird had sat right where I was sitting.

I didn't learn to read until I was seven.--This is false. I don't know how old I was when I learned to read. My mom claims I could do it before I turned three, but she also "claims" she was in labor with me for, like, seventy-three hours.

I spent one season as the head coach of both a Little League team and a Youth Football League team in Champaign, Illinois.--This is true. I opted out of library science school after moving to Urbana specifically to attend said program and instead worked for AmeriCorps for a year. I spent half my time co-directing a satellite Boys & Girls Club and half my time as a case manager for homeless men in a transitional program. As part of the Boys & Girls Club assignment, my co-director, Jamaal, and I coached a Little League team and a Youth Football League team. Coaching the baseball team was pretty great, except for the fact that on "off" nights the coaches had to serve as umpires. It was a little frightening, being behind the plate without a glove. Plus, our team's only decent catcher was also our best pitcher, and when he was on the mound, no one could catch him, so the umpire got tagged repeatedly throughout the game. Thus, when it was my time to squat behind the catcher, I'm pretty sure some of the coaches were (understandably) telling the kid to let a few go through.

I attended four schools as an undergraduate, but only one as a graduate student.--This is true. At one of those four schools I only took a chemistry course, but I still for a while had to request the stinking transcript while applying for grad school programs and whatnot. As for the other three, what can I say? I was kind of sad for a few years and thought moving around may help me find some kind of happiness.

When I was nine years old I decided I wanted to break the Guinness Book of World Records record for the longest fingernails on a living human being. I spent a total of four years growing them out before my mom came at me with a pair of scissors.--This is false. But I have always been pretty frightened of having my nails clipped. I realize it's one of those things you kind of have to do, but when I was a kid, it terrified me. I actually had an aunt who became my official manicurist for a few years. She would soak my hands in warm, soapy water for fifteen minutes or so, and then go at my nails quite gently with a pair of clippers. I would turn my head away, bury it in my folded arm, thinking that if I couldn't see what she was doing, it might hurt that much less.

I suppose there are a number of things in life I still approach in pretty much that same manner.

Genre Number Three

And it's my favorite: short fiction. We're reading three collections this term. Up first is Junot Diaz's Drown.

We began the unit by reading stories by Hemingway, Erdrich, Jin, Denis Johnson, D. Barthelme, and Helena Maria Viramontes.

Word around campus is that Viramontes is coming to give a reading spring term, and there are students trying to get Diaz, a former student of hers, to come along with. If those two make it, they'll be joining a long list of visitors that also includes one of my favorites: Mary Gaitskill. I do hope somebody invites me to the requisite dinner when she's in town.

Pre-Ordered

I'm ever inching closer to maximizing my technological capacities.

Two weeks ago, I received my usual iTunes email. I tend to neglect them, as they don't typically highlight the kind of stuff I'm looking for. This one was different, though. I saw an ad for the new album from The Shins. If I ordered it right then, I'd get a bonus track.

So I took them up on it. Then last Tuesday, I thought, "Hey, didn't I pre-order the new album from The Shins?" I checked iTunes and realized the album didn't come out until today. I mean, I'd done this weeks in advance.

Twenty minutes ago, though, I opened up my iTunes and realized the album--Wincing the Night Away--was waiting for me. It's playing as I type.

Oh, and another happy surprise this Tuesday: Veronica Mars returns tonight. I thought the season ended way back in November or whenever it was, but it turns out that was just the cliffhanger for the second half of the season. So stoked. I'm going to go set out a bag of microwave popcorn right now.

Adoption Day

This afternoon we celebrated Adoption Day with frozen pizza, chicken wings, and an assortment of fried foods.

D. has officially been a part of the family for three years now, and his parents have turned him into a raving Illini fan. So, after we feasted on the appetizer sampler mentioned above, we settled down to watch the Wisconsin vs. Illinois game--which turned out to be a pretty close battle.

I suppose I should include some kind of cute anecdote about D., since this was his day. Via his mom:

This morning, D. came downstairs, dressed from toe to head in camouflage, wearing his orange hunting vest. He knew it was Adoption Day, and he was having his dad take him squirrel hunting. He passed by the kitchen, where his mom was, wearing all that camouflage and carrying his four-ten in one hand and his pellet gun in the other, and he called out to her as he opened the side door, "Bye, mom. I'll be back. Thanks for adopting me.

In honor of Adoption Day, some links to things D.-related:

Fishing With D.

Fishing With D. Redux

How to Hunt Squirrels

"Functional, functional..."

A week or so ago I started reading a little essay/fiction over at DIAGRAM. I always forget about this particular online magazine, despite the fact it's one of my favorites and one that has published quite a few people I know in the really-real world, but that afternoon, for whatever reason, I'd thought to check to see if DIAGRAM had a new issue up. They did.

I tend to start reading whatever magazines--online or print--by choosing names I know, call me biased, and I recognized the name Sean Lovelace, so I started with his piece. It took all of three or four syllables for Lovelace to hook me. A couple syllables later, I happened to glance at the clock up in the right hand corner of my computer screen, though, and saw I had to get to work. So, I closed up shop and headed off, and I completely forgot about the little essay/fiction (I'm not quite sure what to call it) that had intrigued me.

A few days later I hopped over to Matt Bell's place online and saw that he was raving about the same piece by Sean Lovelace that had floored me. I left Matt a comment--something like, "Hey, thanks for the reminder."--and then I darted off to work again.

Just now, I sat down and finally read the thing from beginning to end--twice--and I must say I'm still impressed. The essay/fiction includes an epigraph by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it's definitely worth your time.

You can read Lovelace's essay here, and you can check out the rest of the table of contents for issue 6.6, including people you've both heard of and never heard of, here.

Poetry Thursday--Line

The theme over at Poetry Thursday this week is: Are you using a line on me? It's something of a game, and the gist of it goes like this: Borrow one of the posted lines and use it as a starting point for something new. I took my first line from Jillypoet: All I want for my girl is a bowl of fine soup. I doubt I did the original justice, but nonetheless, here's my little offering.

Fine Soup

All I want for my girl
is a bowl of fine soup.

Or Spaghetti-O's. She loves
Spaghetti-O's. She likes them

straight from the can, heated
over a medium flame, slightly scorched

to the insides of the pan--a fine
crimson film. She loves

Spaghetti-O's and her foot
is broken. She needs me

to serve her, and I would like
for her a bowl of fine soup

but Spaghetti-O's will do.
I'll bring them to her on a tray.

I'll offer her all I have to give,
not a bowl of fine soup, but

Spaghetti-O's. She will take
the bowl from the tray and feel

the heat of it in her hands--
the heat of all I have

to give--a bowl of Spaghetti-O's,
and she will take a spoon
to it, ravenous.

Cigarette Break Haiku

Overhead

Glassed with ice, the trees' branches
sound like wild animals
rummaging the trash.

Number Two

Genre, that is. In Intro to Literature. And up next is Anne Carson's novel-in-verse Autobiography of Red.

I may be teaching this same class Spring Term, and I'm thinking about doing the whole course on monsters. We could start with Beowulf, read Gardner's Grendel, Autobiography of Red, maybe Frankenstein, Steven Sherrill's The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break. I'd hate to repeat too much of what the students read in high school though, and I've heard a number of students say they've already read Grendel. Pretty much all of them, of course, are familiar with Beowulf. Anybody have any ideas about books that contain literal "monsters?"

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not to make the holiday all about me, but...I was thinking about the fact that Martin Luther King Day has been celebrated for only twenty-one years. That means I was nine, in fourth grade, the first time the day was observed. I remember some posters hanging on my classroom's bulletin board depicting Dr. King, as well as, oddly enough, Christopher Columbus, and some astronauts.

While I don't remember the inaugural celebration of MLK Day, I do remember an episode of the television sit-com Martin that aired a few years later, when I was in probably seventh or eighth grade. In the episode Martin becomes close to a little kid. I don't remember who the kid was, only that something of an unexpected bond forms between him and the show's main character. Eventually, if I remember right, Martin starts imagining the boy coming to live with him, and he gets kind of excited about it. The ball drops, though, when Martin learns the kid is going to live in Arizona.

So there's this kind of dramatic moment where Martin is getting a little choked up at saying goodbye to the kid he's become unexpectedly close to, and he's stifling his tears in this manly, faux-dramatic way, and then he turns to the kid and says, "Remember. Whatever they tell you out there in Arizona, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is a holiday."

And so, of course, however many years later, it is, even if a few of the holdout states call it by a slightly different name.

Ten Weeks, Three Genres...

but I'm actually teaching four in this term's Introduction to Literature.

Today, we're discussing Part I of this book by Davis McCombs.

You can read three of the (pretty amazing, in my opinion) poems here.

Eating My Words

While I have lots of love for the MFA program at the Ohio State University, I don't care much for the Buckeyes' football team. In fact, I kind of despise them. Call it my newfound love for the underdog.

Nonetheless, here's an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend about twenty minutes before the BCS Championship game kickoff:

"I watch as much college football as I can, and...Florida has played some sloppy football this year. I'm still pretty shocked they managed to lose only one game. [...] I don't think they have much of a shot if OSU plays to half their capabilities (And, yeah, I think the SEC is overrated, too)."*

Right now, of course, it's half-time, and the Univeristy of Florida Gators are up 34-14 on the Buckeyes.

If they can hold on, I'd be glad to eat my words. But I must say, Troy Smith looks so calm on the sidelines, I'd be surprised if he doesn't make something happen in the second half.

*The funny thing is that this same friend, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, sent me an incredibly disparaging email about the Cards just before they entered the playoffs this past fall. After they won the World Series, I copied and pasted the email he'd sent so he could re-read it, and we laughed about how, um, un-prophetic he was. Maybe I should send him some email saying something about how I could never win the National Book Award, how I'll probably never even publish a book.

Das Boot

As Lisa guessed in comments the other day, J.C.'s foot was, indeed, broken. The ER doctor missed the fracture. The podiatrist, though, indicated the ER doctor had the diagnosis at least half-right; J.C. both broke and sprained her foot. Hence the swelling, the bruising, the inability to put any pressure at all on it.

So, she has a boot now, which just this morning I dubbed Das Boot. It's easier for her to get around on her crutches, so the crutch rage has subsided a little, but it looks like I'm going to be her taxi for another two weeks minimum, which makes me think I'm not quite out of danger yet.

In other news, my first day jitters never really subsided, but I made it through Wednesday's classes. I was way more nervous than usual in Intro to Lit, and I think I know why: the classroom. There's new media equipment in the room--a wireless keyboard and an enormous flat-screen monitor--that takes up pretty much an entire corner. So, I was sitting next to a desk adjacent the media equipment, and the students were sitting in this arc that pretty much surrounded me. Plus, the room will only hold twenty-five students, and the class has twenty-four. During attendance, I felt a little like I was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

I had never realized how much the shape and arrangement of a classroom could affect my brain. Maybe I've just gotten used to sitting around tables with groups of twelve or fourteen students. It's definitely going to require some adjustments. Or, you know, a new classroom. There just happens to be one available on the second floor, directly beneath my room. The tables, even, are arranged into a large square. I think I'm going to have to take it.

Bruise

J.C. is still in a lot of pain.

She called the orthopedist yesterday to make a follow-up appointment, and when she told them the bruising was pretty bad around her ankle, the swelling hadn't gone down in her toes, and she still couldn't put any pressure on her foot at all, the podiatrist took another look at her emergency room X-rays and asked her to come in today.

We're hoping there's a fracture of some sort. Then she'll get fitted for a walking cast, and she can ditch her crutches. She's starting to experience what she calls crutch-rage: an anger that makes her want to put her crutches through things. Unfortunately for me, I'm usually about the only thing in striking distance. Well, me or Disco--the cat.

So far, both Disco and I remain unscathed, but J.C. is losing patience with her injury. Our general well being may not last much longer. If she gets a walking cast, though, J.C.'ll be able to use the clutch in her car. Maybe then she can drive out to the mall or something, let a few taillights have it.

School--You--Icebreaker

First-day jitters are setting in. I'm teaching workshop again, which should be fine, but I'm also teaching a new prep: Intro to Literature. My first assignment, in light of Time Magazine's naming "You"--the creators and purveyors of information--the person(s?) of the year, asks the students to define what literature is, and whether or not it has changed over the course of the past twenty, one hundred, five hundred years. As a part of this assignment, I'm giving them eight texts--poems, blog entries, short stories, flash fictions--but I didn't identify any of the works' authors or genres. The deal is, once the students define what they think literature is, and its importance in the world, they have to attempt to rank the texts in order from most "literary" to least "literary." So, there's a chance some of "your" work may end up ranked ahead of Hemingway's or Robert Frost's.

And since I'll be doing that old icebreaker thing two times again today...here are five statements about me--three true, two false.

I once grand marshaled Logansport, Indiana's Iron Horse Festival Parade, during which event I sat on the back of the same baby blue convertible Cadillac Larry Bird sat on during a parade in the movie Blue Chips.

I didn't learn to read until I was seven.

I spent one season as the head coach of both a Little League team and a Youth Football League team in Champaign, Illinois.

I attended four schools as an undergraduate, but only one as a graduate student.

When I was nine years old I decided I wanted to break the Guinness Book of World Records record for the longest fingernails on a living human being. I spent a total of four years growing them out before my mom came at me with a pair of scissors.