The Male Accessory

When some guys grow mustaches, they look like this:


or this



or this


or even this.

But then, there's the rest of us:



The world just ain't fair.

Despite the Sun

Driving home
from Dad’s funeral,
we pass Arimo –
a gas station
and six houses
in the middle of a valley.
September scoured
the pastures white
and left the cows
just black spots
on a solar field.
A million years ago,
this valley held
a long, wide arm
of Lake Bonneville,
ten miles across,
a mile deep, and blue
like evening shadows.
Arimo sits in what was
the deepest part of the river,
the darkest floor
of a vanished sea.
Harvested wheat fields
stretch in bands
between leopard skin
rows of cheatgrass,
juniper, sage, and stone.
The late afternoon sun
illuminates everything,
turns dust plumes
into diamond curtains
drawn across the valley.
Not for us though.
Not today.
My father pulled
a million years
and all the sun
under with him
this afternoon
and we, despite
the sun, drive through
the deepest part
of the river.

Sad News

What you are looking at is a very old photo of Peter Buck, Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, and Mike Mills, otherwise known as R.E.M. They started off as a tiny independent band from Georgia that was known for getting play on college radio stations. Eventually, they got mainstream recognition, won a boatload of Grammys, and at one point had the largest recording deal in music. Over the years, they got older and things changed -- Bill Berry had a brain aneurysm on stage and decided to retire, Micheal Stipe came out of the closet, they made some albums that were great and some that were pretty unsuccessful, Peter Buck started looking like a middle-aged woman named Marge. But they were always cool. To me anyway.


These guys are one third of my college music trinity (U2 and Indigo Girls being the other 2/3). Today they announced that, after 31 years together, they are "calling it a day." I appreciate that they have always done their own thing and followed their muse even when it didn't necessarily work. (Around the Sun anyone?) Anyway, they made music that moves me and they provided me with the greatest concert experience of my life (better even than U2 if you can believe it). I'm sad they're breaking up but I'm glad they're doing it with class and grace on their own terms. Thanks guys.

I'm supposed to be completing a Power Point presentation for my tenure portfolio right now but I just discovered that the version of PP we have here at home isn't compatible with what I have at work -- so I can't do anything until I'm at my office later. My students are workshopping this afternoon so I'll have about an hour to get stuff done while they're busily saying things like "Well, it just doesn't. . . flow, you know?" and "I think it flows really well." and, of course, "It's kind of choppy. You need to work on the flow." (Do not get me started on my feelings about this amorphous idea students have that they call "flow.")

Anyway, it's been a long while since I've posted so I figure I'll do that before folding the laundry and changing the sheets this morning. Suzy's at the Writing Center, the older two are at school, and Parker is wandering around the sunroom with my keys trying to put the van key into every doorknob available. It's a gloomy day outside -- foggy and cold. Tomorrow is supposed to be close to 80 degrees and sunny but then the weather will dip back down into "It's autumn, fool! Put on a jacket!" conditions.

I'm contemplating taking the 22nd off work. It will be the one year anniversary of Dad's death and I feel like there are two paths I could take. Path #1 would be to just go to work and get the job done and treat it like any other day. That's probably the path Dad would take if it were him. He wasn't much of a sentimentalist. This is the guy who, after all, got done with his own father's funeral and then changed clothes and helped Suzy and me load up a U-haul so we could move to Boise. He didn't see a lot of use in taking days off for much of anything. He worked when he was sick, he worked when the weather was bad, he worked when he had six months of vacation time banked up just sitting there wondering when it never got used.

Path #2 would be to take the day off and do something fun and distracting like taking the girls to Chicago to the Field Museum or something like that. While Dad wasn't one to take frivolous days off, he was always in favor of doing something nice for his grandkids. I think Dave and Melanie can attest to how he'd show up in the middle of a work day (often) with some new toy or treat or find for their kids. I doubt Dad would encourage any kind of moping or wussing around on the anniversary of his passing but I have no doubt if I told him about having a special day with Suzy and the girls, he'd offer to pay for our gas and send 20 bucks for each of the girls to spend at the gift shop or something like that.



So I don't know. I don't know how much of a big deal I want to make out of it. Given my natural aversion to work and preference for things like museums and Chicago hot dogs, I'm thinking I'll go with path #2 - but we'll see.

In other news, I'm presenting my tenure portfolio to my dean and one of the VPs on Wednesday. I think that's kind of the big deal and the meet-and-greet with the Board of Trustees that comes later is more of a formality. I imagine it will go well. They've kept a close eye on me over the last three years and if there were a problem, I'm sure I would have heard about it long before now. I think the tenure presentation is the sort of thing where, as long as I show up wearing pants, they'll take me. And since I am planning on wearing pants, it should go okay.


Speaking of Chicago, here is a little video I took when the girls and I were walking around downtown when Suzanne flew out to Colorado a few weeks ago. We were in Daley Plaza and while the older two played on the giant Picasso sculpture, Park-Foo and I terrorized some pigeons. Enjoy the joy.