FLW

It's been over a month. I know. Sorry.

I've been reading a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright lately. As everybody knows, Wright was kind of the atom bomb of architecture in the 20th century. He's been dead for over fifty years, but his designs are still ubiquitous in books, documentaries, calendars, films, etc. His influence was so powerful and so wide-reaching that even after all this time, he's probably one of the only architects anywhere that your average joe can name. He was a big deal and continues to be.

What not many people know is that when I was growing up, before I wanted to draw comics or write poetry or do anything else, I wanted to be an architect. I don't know where the idea came from -- my mom probably -- but some of my earliest memories are of me drawing plans for ridiculously fanciful houses. (One, as I recall, used a rainbow as an entry sidewalk. That should tell you how young I was when I was making these drawings.) Anyway, when I was twelve, my dad arranged for me to visit an actual architect's office and hang out for a while. John Watson was a family friend and he had a small firm that at the time had its offices on the second floor of a beautiful old building just across from the river in Idaho Falls. I sat at giant drafting table and had my run of all the tools and materials I wanted. I talked with Mr. Watson and he answered all my questions. At the end of that visit, I was more of less resigned to not being an architect. Too much math, too much management and seemingly not enough creativity. I left with the impression that it was an architect's job to just sort of manage everyone else, and that idea didn't appeal to me in the slightest. So I left that idea behind and went on to study portrait painting, landscape painting, literature, and poetry. (Jeeze, is it any wonder I am poor? Look at that list. I might as well have taken classes in "Would you like fries with that?")

Anyway, even though I left it behind as a professional pursuit, I have always been interested in and moved by architectural design. A well-planned, beautifully designed building can be as exciting to me as a good poem, song, story, or movie. I just dig it. Working in downtown Detroit from 2006 to 2009 was kind of a thrill for me because, for all the homeless guys and decay, there were all the gorgeous buildings everywhere I looked. Narrow row houses and Victorian mansions in Corktown, art deco sky scrapers downtown, crazy Modernist and Brutalist campus buildings at Wayne State - it was an architectural bonanza.

So, like a lot of buffs, I'm fascinated by FLW's designs - his big, famous ones like Fallingwater and the Guggenheim but also his small, obscure ones like Teater's Knoll, a tiny artist studio perched on an outcropping of basalt above the Snake River, the only FLW design in the entire state of Idaho. Every aspect of his buildings is fascinating - exterior, interior, landscaping, lighting, all of it. His designs always catch my eye, are always distinct and, I think, really lovely.

So, out of curiosity, I've been reading about him lately. First I finished a small, narrowly focused non-fiction book called Death in a Prairie House by William R. Drennan. It focuses on a story I'd heard about but never really understood. In 1914, seven people were killed and a fire was set at Wright's Wisconsin estate, Taliesin. Written by an academic but with a nice literary flourish, the book carefully explains and contextualizes what Wright was doing in rural Wisconsin, who was in the house, who committed the murders, and a lot of other information about Wright's career and life at the time.

Once I finished that, I checked out The Women by T.C. Boyle. The book fictionalizes Wright's relationships with his first wife, Kitty; the mistress he builds Taliesin for, Mamah Borthwick; his crazy, heroin-addicted second wife, Miriam Noel; and his mistress-then-third-wife Olgivanna Lazovich. As that list might indicate, FLW had his issues with women.

While I've been reading these two books, I've been checking out big coffee table books filled with pictures of FLW's drawings, houses, office buildings, textile designs, etc. So I've been going back and forth between full-color evidence of the guy's obvious inspired brilliance and tales of his dishonesty, unfaithfulness, impatience, and just sort of ridiculous hypocrisy. It just combines into a really weird picture in my head.

The guy straight up abandoned his wife and six kids. Left them in the dust and took off with the wife of one of his clients. He was constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, borrowing here, taking out loans there, hawking prints and drawings, taking advances against projects he knew he'd never complete, the whole deal. He was a control freak who would manipulate his apprentices' personal lives, use their property as his own (if they brought a car to Taliesin, they had to repaint it to Cherokee red at their own expense to match everything else on site), and generally use them as slave labor on his property. While his creative work continues to influence the world even now, as a person he wasn't very admirable at all. In general, he comes across as deeply flawed and slightly ridiculous as a human being. It seems like he was almost a savant -- super brilliant in one area and almost completely helpless in every other way.

The more I read and watch about people who are the absolute best at what they do (pick anything - sports, arts, politics, etc.), the more it seems they all share a kind of extremity of personality. They're all focused on their pursuit in an intense way that excludes almost everything and everyone else around them. They shut out their families and children because they need to design, write, practice, whatever. Their focus allows them to excel in their field but it also almost always seems to encourage a really messy kind of selfishness in their personal dealings. It almost makes me wonder if someone can be the very best at what they do and still be a balanced, kind, faithful human being or if excellence automatically equates egomania. Or, more realistically, is it simply that they are people like everyone else but none of the rest of us have biographies or feature articles written about us? If anyone researched and wrote about your life, how good would you look? For myself, I imagine I'd come out looking a lot like FLW - deeply flawed and slightly ridiculous, but minus the famous, world-changing influence or lasting works of beauty.

These driven genius types are just regular human beings with hang ups and obsessions and mistakes, but amid all that, they manage to create stuff that lasts, that moves people, that changes the world. I guess I can admire their accomplishments and have compassion for the rest.

A Long Post About Nothing

One of my mother's favorite sayings was, "Everything is connected." She was a very faithful woman who saw God's hand in just about everything and believed strongly in a Mormon version of karma. Whatever happened in life, she was able to connect the dots and point out the ways in which this event was somehow the result of these earlier choices and actions. She simultaneously loved and didn't believe in coincidences. "Everything happens for a reason" was one of her other favorites.

I was thinking about this worldview of hers this morning as I was reflecting on my master's thesis. It was not nearly as big of a deal as my dissertation is turning out to be, but it was certainly important at the time. The last year of my MFA program was spent working on what eventually became The Book of Saint Anthony, a book-length series of poems about a Mormon kid named Tony who slowly falls away from his faith, makes bad choices, ends up accidentally shooting and killing his best friend while they are out target practicing, and gets sent to the Saint Anthony Juvenile Correction Center. Shakespeare it ain't.

Before it became this whole thing, it started as an idea I had a year and a half before while in a poetry workshop. I wanted to write a series of six or seven poems based on things that had happened to my best friend, Tony, and I when we were teenagers. There were four or five moments in our friendship when we probably should have died - driving too fast on icy roads, climbing too high on treacherous rocks, building fires in stupid places, etc. So I wanted to write this series of poems called "The Dangers." I liked the idea of calling some poems "The" something, you know? Like the name of a band - The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Commitments, etc.

I had an idea for a little chapbook and knew what I'd do for the cover, the binding, and so on. So I started tinkering with the poems and ended up writing a kind of preamble poem about Tony himself, a very loose, mostly fictionalized biography of him that I called "Hagiography." I'd recently learned that a hagiography is a biography of a saint in the Catholic church. I thought it was funny that, as Mormons, technically any biography of any of us would be a hagiography - because we're all saints, right? So I thought that was witty and wrote around that for a while.

The idea of a series of biography poems about this fictionalized version of Tony started to take hold. I figured I could add in "The Dangers" in with all the other work. Somewhere along the line, I melded Tony's fictionalized story with an actual experience from high school - a friend of a friend who had accidentally shot and killed a kid while a bunch of kids were out on a group date.  I was supposed to be on this date. The plan was to go out to the riverbottoms to shoot cans and then roast marshmallows over a fire. I was too lazy to find a date and didn't like guns anyway. Tony, who was never too lazy to find a date, went. There wasn't any drinking - it was just an careless mistake. Sitting around the fire, a kid named Chad noticed he had a few of bullets left in the chamber of his rifle. He pointed the barrel up to the sky and pulled the trigger three times. The problem was that the barrel wasn't pointed straight up but instead slightly backwards. A kid named Matt had just gotten up to get something from his coat. One of the bullets hit him in the back of the head. His body hung on for two or three days, but he was probably brain dead from the moment Chad pulled the trigger. It was a horrible thing. Needless to say, it stayed with me for years.

Somehow, a version of these events found their way into these poems I was writing, and I had this idea to have my fictionalized Tony end up in juvenile detention in Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony is a real town and there is a juvie there. Again, like Tony's life, I took a vague bit of truth and had my way with it. I really liked that in the Catholic tradition, St. Anthony is, among other things, the patron saint of lost things. That seemed appropriate. Also, the idea that St. Anthony's creepy reliquary leftover was his tongue. Supposedly, his tongue never decayed and you could visit a reliquary to see it. A holy tongue seemed appropriate for a poetry project, I thought.

Around this time, the project evolved into a bookarts project that was going to be a file folder full of hospital and police reports, letters and postcards to and from St. Anthony, psychiatric notes, photographs, journal entries, and other ephemera that a reader could go through and end up creating their own version of the book.

That idea eventually shaped the different kinds of poems I wrote. I visited home and made a couple of special trips out to the Menan butte (where my version of the shooting takes place) and to Saint Anthony to take black and white pictures. I eventually incorporated the pictures and other images I found in public domain books into the final manuscript though the file folder of ephemera version never came to pass.

The title changed from "The Dangers" to "Hagiography" to "Casebook" to "The Book of Saint Anthony." I tinkered with it a little even after I submitted and defended it, and now both the library version (hardbound with an introduction and my committee's signatures) and the handmade version (chain stitched signatures between two cardstock covered bookboards) sit on my shelf.

When I think of what I originally intended and what actually happened, I am reminded of John Lennon's lyric, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." I thought I knew what I was doing, knew where I was going, knew what I wanted. Rather, I ended up with something entirely different and probably better and more interesting.

This has to do with my mother's favorite quote like this: everything is connected. Everything is part of God's larger plan. It isn't as though things happen in our lives (professional, personal, academic, or spiritual) and He's like "Hey, how did that happen? I did not see that coming!" He knows. It's all part of the gig. So, He can work through my bad ideas, my half starts, and my mistakes to get me to where I need to go. A small malformed idea I had in a poetry workshop in Martin Corless-Smith's living room in Boise, Idaho eventually evolved into something that allowed me to graduate, get a job, and be eligible for more schooling.

So often we see inspiration or revelation depicted as this big, light-filled moment in which we can see the whole picture from beginning to end. It probably happens like that sometimes, but I think more often than not, divine direction comes in the form of falling asleep at an unexpected moment so you miss the bus and are late for class and take the long way to campus and end up seeing the flyer advertising the job that you apply for but don't get but leads to the other job that you do get that eventually leads you to meet that really great friend that you otherwise never would have met.

Suzy got called to the nursery like two weeks after we'd been in the ward. No one in the Bishopric or any presidency met with us, asked about our skills or previous experiences, or knew a single thing about us. The call seemed totally uninformed and, frankly, kind of stupid. They just needed a body to fill a spot. A couple had just moved out, and the ward was short one nursery leader. No one likes to feel like your needs aren't being taken into consideration or like you're just a generic space filler. And for the Primary Presidency and Bishopric, I'm guessing that's all this was.

However, my point is, God can work through people's uninformed choices and dumb mistakes too. I'm not saying Suzy being in nursery for another year or two will necessarily result in the greatest spiritual experiences or best friendships of her life, but it could. Our mortal limitations don't necessarily thwart what God has in store for us.

I guess I am trying to see the world more the way my mom saw it: an organized, purposeful design that, while sometimes difficult and sad, is ultimately beautiful. I'm much more of a cynic than she ever was, and I don't think that tendency helps me when life gets hard. I think I would rather be a person who believes that everything is connected, rather than always doubting people's motives and always looking for the dark cloud in the silver lining.

Everydayness

I handed back my last batch of papers for this go-round last night. Today I spent my office hour recording odds and ends, updating grades, and planning the next essay (argument!), and so now I feel alright about spending a moment or two blogging before getting out of here.

It's that middle season when it's as cold as a winter day, but we don't have any snow and the sun is out most days. You look out the window and think, "Oh, it looks really nice outside. Maybe we should go for a walk!" But when you get outside, your nose hairs freeze together, and you scamper back into the house to watch some more tv. Ah well. It beats having cold weather AND cloudy skies and slushy snow everywhere.

We are getting used to the everydayness of life in Midland.

Our stake got a new president last Sunday. We didn't know the old one and don't know the new one, so it means about as much to us right now as a shift in the city council of Taos, New Mexico. It's just kind of a meh moment for us.

We had Parent/Teacher conferences this week which Northeast Middle School treats as a giant cattle call. Teachers sitting at tables and long, long lines of parents waiting to have their five minutes. There's no schedule or sign ups. You just dive into that pool of sweaty humanity and hope for the best. In an hour and a half, we made it to three teachers - one of Avery's and two of Maryn's. It was a sweaty, b-o filled night.

Parker started a new dance class last week and so is now interested in showing off her sweet moves every so often. She still had her tutu on yesterday when I got home so did a mini-recital in the living room which was a sight to behold. The thing is, you'd think all these things we have her doing (a dance class, an exercise class before that, preschool) would wear her out and make her sleep really well all night. But no. Apparently, Parker is some kind of life-force vampire who only gets stronger the more tired her poor parents become. Lately, she's taken to waking up somewhere between 3:30 and 5:30 to come into our bedroom to sleep. We've started turning her away so she'll go back to her own bed and, oh I don't know, go the heck back to sleep?! But instead, she just wanders around the house turning lights on. So instead of doing what I would like to be doing at 5:30 a.m. (you know, dreaming about unicorns and rivers of soup), I am corralling her back into her bed, shutting off lights, and praying that I can go back to sleep before my alarm goes off. I love Parker. More specifically, I'd love for her to stay in her own freaking bed and sleep through the night.

The semester is on the downhill slide now. Week after next is Thanksgiving and once that happens, the rest of the term is pretty much a bust. It feels like I just started here, so it's weird that the first semester is winding down already. But I'm glad. I need a couple of weeks off to reset and recalibrate. All the newness has thrown off my game quite a bit, and this has been far from my best teaching session. Hopefully, next semester will even out a little, and I'll feel a little more settled and less insecure. I think I really took tenure and the security it provided for granted back at IVCC. Now that I'm here, I feel all nervous and uncertain about everything again. That's a weird sensation to have at age (almost) 40 after teaching full time for over ten years. I'm not a fan.

Well, my office hour has run out. I'm due to head back to Midland for a dentist appointment. Suzy had her time there this morning and apparently they took two hours just to get through a basic cleaning. Awesome. Guess I'd better bring a book.

The Answer Is Love

I think a lot about tv. Probably more than I should given all that I have to do. But because I am Mormon and, therefore, not a beer drinker, tv is the thing that I use at the end of a long day to unwind and relax. Favorite shows come and go. We give some new, hyped-up program a chance, and sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. Some shows we watch out of morbid curiosity (most reality tv), and some we watch because, like a good book, they have characters and plots that we care about.

Right now, Wednesday night is our primo night for good stuff. Our DVR hums with activity on Wednesday night and makes up for the wasteland of Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sunday. (Dancing With The Stars still brightens our Monday evenings with lots of glittery fringe.) On Wednesday, we get Revolution, Nashville, Top Chef, and Arrow - four hours of what I like to call "high quality programming."

Arrow is strictly for me. Suzy has never seen an episode, and that's okay. It's a modernized adaptation (a la Superman in Smallville) of the DC superhero Green Arrow. It's fun to see physical versions of characters I've been into since I was a kid, and the writing is good. Most every character has an arc and evolves a little with each episode. I bank up two or three of them and binge watch when Suzy goes to a church activity or something.

Top Chef is simply Top Chef. It's one of the less exploitive, more enjoyable reality shows. The personalities are big, but more importantly the talent is big. I enjoy watching experts do their thing. It fascinates me. Tom Colicchio is getting curt and crabby in his old age and Padma Lakshmi seems to be on auto-pilot in this, their 11th season, but it's still fun to watch.

This brings me to our other two shows: Revolution and Nashville. Thanks to the magic of DVR, we usually watch them one after the other after the girls have gone to bed and we have a solid two hour block to just veg out. Because they are always right up against each other, I've given some thought to the differences in the two shows and in our reactions to them.

Revolution is a sci fi show that takes place in a future when all electrical power is gone. Something happened and suddenly there was no power of any kind other than steam and other pre-electrical sources. The country falls apart and society basically devolves. The story focuses on one family who have various connections to the reason why the power went out in the first place as well as to the crazy military government that rose up after the fall of the United States.

It got a lot of hype leading up to its premiere last year, and Suzy and I were both intrigued. Dystopia can be fun, you know? So we started watching last year, and spent a lot of time making fun of some of the bad acting (Tracy Spiridakos, are there Razzie Awards for television? If so, you're gonna clean up, sister!) and counting how many people died literally by the sword in each episode. (Guns are in short supply, so most people defend themselves with knives and swords.) But we kept watching because we were interested in seeing what happened next.

Nashville is a drama set in the titular city and revolves around the lives of people involved at various levels  of the country music scene (struggling singer/songwriters, old established stars, agents, managers, etc.) The central character, Rayna James, is a Faith Hill/Reba Mcentire type - a "queen of country," and we follow her as she tries to continue her career while raising her daughters, dealing with her flawed but ambitious husband, navigating a relationship with the true love of her life and bandleader, and facing off with a young upstart Carrie Underwood type. Some would argue it's a soap opera, and it might be hard to argue otherwise. There's bedhopping, secrets, and dramatic revelations about fake pregnancies and that sort of thing. I would argue though that, if it is a soap opera, it's an excellent one and not because of it's extremity or absurdity (see Desperate Housewives.)

It's excellent for the same reason that I look forward to it far more than Revolution.

Before I go further, I should point out that, on the surface of things, I should enjoy Revolution way more than I do Nashville. R has action and an impressive speculative future where the WHOLE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND MAYBE THE WORLD hang in the balance. N is about country music which I don't really even like and has precious little in the way of what might be called "action." Lots of people talking in rooms, you know?

So why am always excited for Nashville and generally "meh" about Revolution? The answer is love. I don't mean Valentine's Day, hearts and flowers love, although there is that. I mean, the characters in Nashville experience love with and for each other. Parent/child, friends, mentor/student, husband/wife, etc. I am convinced that that these characters are, for the most part, three dimensional human beings who go through their lives giving and receiving love in its various forms - compassion, devotion, desire, forgiveness, affection, etc.

Revolution, for all its budget and big name talent (Jon Favreau co-created and produces), lacks love. It is ultimately a plot-driven show that cares more about what happens than about who it happens to. It is a puzzle to solve and little more. The characters, even those who are supposed to love each other, are simply cardboard cutouts with swords, acting as placeholders. They're meant to represent real people but aren't actually emotionally real in any way.

I took an acting class in college, and our textbook was by the famed teacher Uta Hagen. One of the chapters focused entirely on the importance of finding the love in every scene. Didn't matter if it was Shakespeare, Miller, Wilson, or a new scene fresh from the hands of some untested playwright - every human being experiences love, even if it's only in the form of wanting it or not having enough of it. Hagen argued that if you want your character on stage to be a real, convincing human being, you have to find the love in that person. I think that is absolutely true for any kind of character, written or performed.

So, I know I began by saying I was thinking about tv, but what I really mean is, I've been thinking a lot about stories. TV shows are just one form of storytelling in our 21st century world, and, I would argue, one of the most important and powerful. But because I am teaching a creative writing class this semester and have been reading a lot of stories that involve trick endings, jokey premises, and an almost rabid insistence of writing sci fi or fantasy, I have been trying to articulate what it is I want from stories of any kind.

There are lots of reasons to read or watch or listen to stories. But in the end, for me at least, I want stories because I want to feel something, and since we spend our lives (or should) pursuing love - for and from our family, for and from God, for and from our fellow man, doesn't it make sense to seek out stories that help me to experience and understand that emotion better?

One of my mentors, Scott Samuelson, once told me that he reads "in order to love people more." The older I get and the more I think about my relationship to stories and storytelling, the more this makes sense to me. I'm not saying Nashville is some kind of spiritual experience or a guide to how to live your life. Not at all. What I'm saying is is that it accomplishes what good stories do: it makes me care about not only what happens but who it's happening to.

Speed Post

I just let my morning class out fifteen minutes early. They'd worked hard, and I figured they deserved a little treat. What I should be doing is grading papers. I've gotten myself into the familiar place of procrastinating grading a large portion of papers until they've absolutely got to be handed back. So I do some crazy three-day grade-a-thon bonanza and get them off my back. As soon as I do it, I think, "Man, that feels good. Why don't I just do that first thing next time? Just get it over with and then have ten days to two weeks of nothing major hanging over my head?" And then I don't do it and suffer instead. I'm kind of an idiot sometimes.

Anyway, I'm going to use this little window to blog because I feel like I need to do something other than grade for a couple of minutes in order to maintain my humanity.

We spent the weekend in Detroit with family and loads of bees. We had an excellent dinner of soup and rolls at Ben and Erin's - and how can that not be awesome? Soup AND the Griswolds and Paul and Linda? It was fun. The soup was great but not as tasty as Addy, the world's most delicious baby. I could dine on her chubby awesomeness every day and be pretty happy. Saturday, we went to Parmenter's Cider Mill and fought the bee swarms in order to claim our birthright of spiced doughnuts and cider so fresh I wanted to slap it.

In the afternoon, Suzy and I went to the Detroit temple for a session. It was the first time we'd seen the new session film, and we both really enjoyed it and had a lot to talk about afterward. I think it's a huge improvement over the other two films they've been showing for the last couple of decades. The old ones were fine, but professional actors and 21st century production values go a long way to making it more of a compelling experience for me.

Now we're back in the Dow country ("Come to the where the dioxins are. Come to Dow country!") and back at the old grind. Class this morning, class this evening. School and meetings for the girls. Suzy is combating what we hope isn't the cold both her parents had last week. She is also battling for Parker's soul - little Parker who has decided recently that it's a good idea to be contrary in almost every way. When she sings songs, she even sings opposite lyrics - as in, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star. I DON'T wonder what you are." She seems to like the rise she gets out of me when I say, "Parker, you're such a good girl" and she says, "No, I'm not. I'm a bad girl!" So Suzy is trying to teach her to be obedient and sweet without Parker taking that as even more opportunities to be a contrary pain in the butt, you know?

Anyway, it is now 12:02 and I do have papers to grade. Eeesh. Wish me luck. Maybe next time, I won't put so many of them off. (Fingers crossed.)

Afternoon at the Park

I’m writing this at the playground of the Methodist church across the street from our house. Parker is sliding down the slides, climbing stairs, and poking her head through portholes. Unlike most Wednesday afternoons, I didn’t have any meetings today. Suzy and P picked me up from work and we had some pretty darn good Middle Eastern food at a place in Saginaw called Taboon.  Now, I still have an hour until my evening class, and so we are here at the playground. It feels luxurious to have an hour to just sit. That kind of extra time just doesn’t come around a lot right now. 

It’s almost completely still here in the neighborhood.  A Schwan’s truck went by about five minutes ago, but otherwise, there’s no traffic at all. Parker has the place to herself. The only sound is the breeze rattling through the ash tree behind me. Leaves are beginning to yellow and turn here and there. Michigan is gearing up for its big autumn show. The soy bean and corn fields that surround my school have all turned yellow and brassy. It’s officially fall, and there aren’t too many other places I can think of that are better to be at this time than Michigan.

Things are going okay. Suzy and I were talking over lunch about how each of us in the back of our heads kind of thought this move was going to be the silver bullet for all of our problems, that the glittering magic of a bigger town/school/ward/etc. was somehow going to cure all our ills. Obviously, that’s silly. Moving here has remedied some problems but created others. There are always problems and worries wherever you go. It’s never really a question of if, but more when, where, and what kind of problems you’ll have.

One thing that’s weird for me is starting over at work. At IVCC, I’d been there long enough and was established enough that I felt confident in almost any situation. There wasn’t a question or a concern a student or colleague could fire at me that I didn’t feel  reasonably well-equipped to handle. Now though, even though I’ve been a teacher of one kind of another for thirteen years, I haven’t been a teacher here, you know? Being untenured again, relearning a new culture and a new bureaucracy, and dealing with a different set of students have got me feeling slightly shaky. I’m not as confident in the classroom today as I was two months ago. And that’s a weird feeling that I don’t enjoy very much.

There’s nothing to do but teach through it and let time and experience accrue. Some classes are more fun to teach than others, so I’ll just let myself be nourished by them so I can handle the others. Just like any other job, right? Use the good moments to help you endure the not-so-good.

It’s been about twenty minutes since I started writing. Parker has filled up several pieces of playground equipment with pea gravel and is now brandishing a spear-like stick. I fear for my life at this moment. Time to shut down, walk home, and prep for my Wednesday night 5 -9 (yeah, you read that right – 4 hours of one class all in one shot – it’s like trying to inhale a Buick through a straw). Wish me luck.

Update

That last post was actually only half finished. It was late when I was writing it, and I'd decided to finish the rest the next day. Instead of pushing "Save," I apparently clicked on "Publish." Ah well. My devoted reader Linda commented on it anyway, thinking it was meant to be an interactive, finish-this-sentence activity. Yay for her giving me more credit than I deserve.

It's morning here, and I just dropped the older two off at school. We've been in Midland for about a month now, and we are still trying to figure things out. So far, Maryn has already had a more positive social experience here than she ever did in Illinois. There's a girl in her grade who lives just down the street and she has been a real sweetheart about stopping by and checking on Maryn regularly. She's been a valuable source of information about the school and neighborhood for us while making Maryn feel welcomed. It's been really nice.

What we thought might happen with Ave is happening. She started school in Tonica in the first grade and so was more or less an insider from the start. She had her little crew of friends there and even had her bestie, Faith. Here, for the first time in her life, she's the new kid and doesn't have a built-in social set. It's clear she feels unsettled and uncomfortable right now. You know how different people react to stress? Some people get weepy, some people withdraw, some people get all proactive about things? Well, some people turn into angry crab creatures from the Crab Nebula. Avery is of this sort, so the peace level in our home is a little low at the moment. It's only the second week of school so I'm not too worried about it. Ave is outgoing, funny, and confident (most of the time). I have a feeling she's going to find her footing sooner rather than later. (And hopefully she'll cheer the freak up when that happens. That kid is like Hurricane Avery when she's unhappy. Eeeesh.)

Parker is slowly adjusting too. Her first two Sundays in Primary at church were rocky, but she has stayed put for the last two weeks so we are moving in the right direction. She's very excited to start preschool at Chippewa. The way she even says the school's name is hilarious to me. You can hear her enthusiasm when she blares, "I'm going to Chip-uh-WAH!"

The ward here is funny. It's big, well-staffed, and full of very experienced members of the church. On the whole, members are very sincere and earnest. It's also kind of a humorless, not overly friendly place. It feels as though the entire place is made of skinny, marathon-running Dow chemists with crew cuts and six kids. It's a little Stepford in that way.

I should point out that it's not an unfriendly place per se, it's just not very warm. I think that comes from the fact that there are a lot of transient members that come through. Dow brings in interns and contract workers for nine months or a year here and there, so members are used to people showing up, renting for a bit, and then leaving. Consequently, it seems they hold back on really investing in welcoming new people. Ah well. I'm confident I won't hold three callings here, nor will there be a Sunday when I literally teach or speak all three hours of the block. Humorless, Dow-android members or not, that's got to be worth something.

The job is good. My students here skew younger than at IVCC. I have more traditional, fresh-out-of-high-school students here than before. But they seem open and game for what I've got going on in class, so I don't mind. My colleagues are pretty nice and welcoming. The facilities are a million times nicer than what I had at IV, and generally speaking, I'm just really happy with it.

Moving just kind of sucks. It takes a long time, it's expensive, it's tedious and sweaty, but also it just means dislocation and discomfort. It puts you in this new place and, even if it's a better place (which this is), it's still unfamiliar and you have to figure out how to make friends, how to fit in, how to get around and get along. It's uncomfortable, you know? I am not complaining. I'm merely pointing out some of the challenges inherent to our new situation. They are welcome problems to have but still problems.

Anyway, last week was Parker Faye's 4th birthday - which is bonkers - and next week is our own Avery Jane's 11th birthday. My, how time flies. We drove a mere hour and a half and met the Griswolds at Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate Park Fu's big day and then went over to Paul and Linda's for dog-shaped cake. It was so wonderful to feel like we could just hop on the road, visit family, and be back by evening. I mean, how great is that? We are just right up the road from family more or less. Suzy and Linda and Erin and Amy can meet up at Birch Run for lunch. When some big superhero movie comes out, Ben and I can go catch it together instead of lamenting the fact that our wives hate stuff like that. Our kids can see their kids. Our kids get to have nearby grandparents. That, to me, is worth any discomfort and any number of weirdo Dow employees with very short hair. (Seriously, the hair thing is almost cult-like here.)

Anyway, it's probably time for me to prep for work. I only have one ENG 111 class today and a couple of office hours. I'm going to get some prep done for my classes next week and get myself organized so I can return to work on other projects (i.e. the dissertation - shhhhh - don't say its name too loudly. We don't want to scare it off again.)

So it's been days of orientation, days of inservice, and I have an all-day division meeting tomorrow. It's exciting to get familiar with a new school, meet new people, and all that stuff, but it's also exhausting. It took me three hours to get my office unpacked and put together yesterday because people kept stopping by to introduce themselves and chat. I've come every day wrung out like a dishrag, and classes haven't even started yet. Eeeesh. Still - high class problems, you know?

My department has over thirty people in it - that's more than four times the size of my last department. It's fascinating to meet everyone and see this little subculture at work without having any preconceived notions. Some things just seem so obvious from the get -go.

I can see the department cynic who questions everything. I can see the faculty member who expects the department to be her whole social life.  I see the

Home Safe

One week ago, we were sweeping the empty floors of our Tonica house, anticipating our drive to Midland the next day. We were soaked in sweat, bone-weary, and sad to be leaving the best house we ever lived in.

Tonight, we are comfortably settled in our little rental on Gary Street. After six days of pretty constant effort, the main floor looks like a home and not the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The house is small but comfortable, and as usual, Suzy has worked her feng shui magic to make it look better than it actually is. The neighborhood is quiet and tree-lined with a couple of parks just around the corner. The girls' school is a mile away, and, all in all, it seems pretty nice.

I started work on Monday and went through three-days of new employee orientation. There was lots of good information, and I'm sure I'll remember at least 18 % of it. Comparatively speaking, Delta is huge. Its campus, its enrollment, its number of employees -- there's a lot to take in. But my overall impression is that people really strive for excellence there. IVCC was a pretty disheartened place over the last couple of years with its massive budget shortfall and all the resultant cutbacks and resentment. It's a huge relief to be in this bright, well-staffed, well-designed place where people take pride in what they do.

Anyway, the point is that we are here. We are on the other side of THE MOVE, that event that we have been both praying for and dreading. We had a ton of help and had some miraculous things happen that allowed us to get here on time and in one piece. Thanks to all of you who sent good vibes and/or prayers our way. We felt the difference for sure.

On the clutter front, we took five boxes of books to the Midland library today as well as a ton of old VHS tapes and a box of bricabrac to Goodwill. This is just the first step. We will have less stuff in a year than we have now, I guarantee it.

Our Shame

So here it is: our stuff won't fit in a 26 foot truck.

In fact, it wouldn't fit in a 26 foot truck, a completely packed pickup truck bed, and a large trailer loaded Beverly Hillbillies-style. Nope. After all that, we still had to rent an additional U-Haul truck, a 15 footer, to empty the Tonica house of all our belongings.

Frankly, it was embarrassing. We had close to thirty people helping us pack, and, while that made a lot of work go very quickly, it also means that a third of our ward was witness to our shame - we have too much stuff. I could see people looking at the truck and talking in hushed tones. I know they were saying, "There's no way they're going to get all of these things on that truck." and "I just can't believe they have this many plastic tubs. How long have they lived in this house?" Eeeesh.

It's not like we're hoarders. We don't have feral cats living in our house. I don't have a room full of empty milk cartons and Christmas lights. We've never needed a snow shovel to carve a path in the stacks of newspapers from the door to the kitchen. All of you who have been to our house know that it was clean, orderly, open, and neat.

No, the problem is not that we can't control our belongings. The problem is that we had a very spacious house. Again, most of you know that it wasn't some ridiculous, look-at-me-look-at-me McMansion. It was just a roomy ranch with sizeable bedrooms and closets and a cavernous basement with all the storage space you could shake a stick at. This is the thing I have learned from this experience: unless you consciously choose to do otherwise, you will generally fill up however much space you have. If you have a little, you'll fill it. If you have a lot, you will fill it too. We had a lot of space and so, over the last four and a half years, we have slowly but surely filled up the space we had.

It's all well and good when it's in orderly, labeled stacks in the basement, but when it's spread out on my lawn and driveway as though my house drank Tijuana tap water, it becomes clear that it's a problem.

We are moving again within a year. We are renting a small (!) three bedroom house for 9-12 months until we find something more permanent that we want to buy. Consequently, we will not be opening or unpacking most of these boxes. They'll go straight the basement and stay there until it's time to move them to another house. More than that though, I want to downsize what we have. Suzy and I both made stabs at getting rid of excess during the packing process. While I got rid of a box or two worth of things, the last couple of days has made me rethink what kinds of stuff is really important to keep. The question is no longer, "Do I like this object?" The questions now are, "Do I like this object enough to haul it up steps, into a truck, out of the truck, and down some other steps? Is it really important enough that it's worth hanging onto? Would I miss it in two weeks or two months or a year if I just got rid of it today?"

I'm even reconsidering my devotion to physical copies of books. Now you know I loves me a good, solid book in my hand. However, it occurs to me that after I read a book, I put it on the shelf and it sits there. Rarely do I actually go back to it and reread it or check it for information. Most books I read once and then it sits on my shelf like a trophy, like the head of a gazelle after a safari. I think most of my books sit on my shelf as a kind of sign to visitors saying, "Why, yes, I AM an English major! Read a lot? Do I ever! Smarter than you? Oh, I wouldn't say that..." You know what I mean? Why do I need shelf after shelf of books? For the most part, I don't.

So, I don't know what we'll actually do in terms of downsizing over the next year, but I do know this: my goal is to not buy another physical book, DVD, or CD for at least the year we are in the rental. I will not add anything new to my stacks of stuff this year.

The CD thing is covered. I don't think I've actually bought a CD since 2011 or something - and that was just because the physical album was cheaper than the digital version on itunes. (Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs, if you must know.) So that won't be a big deal, but I will also get rid of the giant, heavy tub of old CDs that I have already burned to itunes long ago. Why am I still carrying them around? Insurance? Just in case the INTERNET crashes and itunes disappears? Whatever. If the zombie apocalypse comes, having a hard copy of Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend album will probably be the least of my worries.

Books? Easy. Library or Kindle. As much as I love them, I don't need the physical object of a book in order to enjoy them. Or if I really want to hold the book itself as a I read and not just the Kindle, why do I need to own the thing and carry it around with me ever after? Why not just check it out from the library and turn it back when I'm done? There is no need for me to buy a brick of paper just so it can sit on a shelf.

What's more, I'm going to go through the books I have and really evaluate whether not I need to keep them. I have a copy of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game that was a gift from the excellent Clark Draney when I left Twin Falls. That stays. My copy of Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, a book that I pretty much forgot as soon as I was done reading it? Goodwill can have it. If I don't absolutely love it or need it, I am going to let it go and find another home.

It is time to pare down, my friends. Less is the new more.

It's late here. We are holed up in the Best Western in Midland, Michigan. Tomorrow I'll get up early and head over to the rental house and start moving stuff in. Whatever ward members are going to show up will do so around ten. Honestly, the thing I worry about now is what all these new people will think when they see the new family pulled up with three separate trucks at a house that's not much bigger than an IKEA model apartment. I have a feeling we are going to be the subject of stories both back in Illinois and here. Bleh.

Here's my new living space goal:

Maybe after Parker graduates high school.

T-minus...

Tomorrow we pack the truck. I'm so sick of packing, it's not even funny. I am astounded at the amount of crap we have accumulated. It makes me want to live like a monk. A bed, one plate, one fork, one really well-equipped DVR.

For the record, the rest of the reunion was terrific. There was more eating, joking around, storytelling, and overall good times. One of my favorite moments was listening to SIL Shauna recreate the insurance commercial with the camel and shout, "Hump dayyyyyy!" at the top of her lungs. Made me laugh.

Anyway, we came home Saturday night, went to church on Sunday, and started the last big push on Monday. We've been going full-tilt since then, and I've kind of had it. Packing to move is about the only thing I hate more than painting. It kills my soul. I'm just a husk at this point. Erg.

We've had a lot of help from our ward. A strikeforce squadron of Relief Society ladies came and packed the living heck out of our kitchen and food storage. We've got a Navy nuclear engineer who has appointed himself our logistics officer and plans to direct the packing of every box into the Uhaul. The youth of the ward are coming tomorrow night along with a bunch of the Elders quorum to move stuff, clean, and keep us civil with each other. (Thank heavens for the civilizing influence of other people. Without them, I'm pretty sure all three of our kids might have ended up sold to the gypsies this week, and Suzy and I might not be speaking to each other.)

It's weird to think that 48 hours from now, we will be in Midland to stay. That's hard to wrap my mind around. (Although, we may not be able to say goodbye to Tonica forever. There's a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not all our junk is going to fit in the truck. There may be stuff left over - in which case....what? We're still trying to figure it out.) One way or the other, I'll be at work on Monday morning. That's nuts.

Wish us luck.

The Days Go On

Yesterday was the tubing activity here at Daypalooza 2013, and I was not looking forward to it. I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to comfort and tubing conjured up images of being on a fast, rocky river in a black rubber inner tube and either frying or freezing. I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to do it - Maryn had already punked out and there were clouds and a chilly breeze all morning. But then my BIL Ryan asked if I'd be in charge of his son, Max, because neither Ryan nor his wife wanted to go. So, I was committed - not happily.

But here's the thing, I'm confident now that when I look back on this week in years to come, the tubing trip will undoubtedly be one of the highlights. I'm glad I went and I'd happily go again. The river was almost hypnotically slow and smooth, the tubes were big and comfortable, the sky turned a hard, intense, summer blue, and the company was excellent. Suzy and I had talked about how the main problem with our hotel is that it doesn't have a central gathering place where the adults can talk and hang out. Well, the river turned out to be it - two hours of uninterrupted time to talk and joke. No cell phones, no running back to the room to check on whatever, no quick trips to the store for another loaf of bread. Just me and some of my in-laws talking about anything and everything under the sun (literally).I loved it and I am glad that circumstance made me get over my wussiness and get out on the water.

 Day before yesterday was the all-family lunch at the Cold Water Cafe. The entire family is present this year, and we all wedged ourselves into a little place in downtown Beulah. It won't win any awards for ambiance and the waitresses were more than a little harried, but my Smokey Mountain Chicken Sandwich was big enough to both have its own zip code and be seen from the International Space Station, so by the time it arrived, I was happy. Having everyone there was chaotic and joyous at the same time. It was loud and remarkably hot, but worth it all the same.

Maryn and Avery are enjoying being with their cousins like nothing else. Several of the tween and teenage girl cousins are even staying in their own room together (a room that smells like nail polish, fruity lotion, and estrogen, by the way) and so are deliriously happy. In a way, it's kind of poetic, especially for Maryn, because she's had so many years in Tonica of having no one really get her, you know? Her quirky, smart-but-nerdy sense of humor, her love of crafts and jewelry, her interest in theater and performing have all made her a curiosity more than anything else at school. Here with Larae, Hallie, and the others, it's as though she's finally come home to her people. I think it's a nice way for her to mark the end of her time in Illinois with a week of kindred spirits in Michigan.

On the down side of all this cousin love is the fact that normal things that parents like such as having your children remember to wear shoes, to bathe, to come when they're called, etc. aren't really happening. We don't want to harsh the girls' mellow at this reunion, but at the same time, they still have to behave like human beings (that belong to the Brown family) and not just go native while we're here, you know?

Anyway, the other big highlight to yesterday was Avery and Suzy winning the first ever Day Family Reunion Chopped Championship. SIL Melanie and others put together a cooking competition like the show Chopped - a bag of secret ingredients and a time limit for contestants to put it all together. There were two rounds, desserts and appetizers, and our own little A and S ended up the winners out of the entire family. The prize was an embroidered apron that declares them the 2013 champions. It was fun to see them win, but it was equally fun to see the whole family playing together.

My other favorite moment of the Chopped competition was when BIL Ben brought nephew Braden over to congratulate Suzy and Avery. I guess B had a tough time when his team wasn't chosen as winner for the first round. He's a very competitive little guy, but here he was, at our door, saying congratulations. I was really proud of him. (Impressed with Ben too. That's some good parenting at work, I think.)

Today is Thursday and it's about nine o'clock in the morning at I write this. In about an hour, we'll gather in the parking lot and head out to Sleeping Bear Dunes to play in the sand, collect rocks and fossils, and wear ourselves out in the sun and wind. Tomorrow? Karaoke!

Blogging the Reunion

Booking hotels always gives me anxiety. You never know what you're going to get. Photos can be manipulated, customer reviews can be faked, and the low, low price they offer never includes the additional 30 bucks in taxes. You're never sure about the neighborhood where they're located, and there's always the possibility of getting some dirty fleabag in ghetto central. That's exactly what happened to us the last time we traveled to Idaho. We stayed at some filmy, funk-laden Rodeway Inn somewhere next to the railroad tracks in nowhere Wyoming. I was aiming for affordable and ended up traumatized.

So I'm not a fan.

On the bright side, it's always a happy surprise when you take the chance and end up with something that doesn't utterly suck. So we're at a Comfort Inn in New Buffalo, Michigan and it's not horrible.

The once-every-three-years Day Family reunion officially kicks off tomorrow in Beulah, Michigan on the sandy shores of Crystal Lake. Because Beulah is a long ol' drive from our beloved and soon-to-be-abandoned Tonica, we decided to break the drive up and get a few hours down the road tonight. Suzanne taught her final class and turned in her grades this evening, and as soon as she was done, we got on the road and headed out. Now we're all sitting in room 307 laughing at people falling down and getting hit in the crotch on America's Funniest Home Videos. Ah, hotel life. You eat things and watch things you would normally never consider.

Anyway, tomorrow at two is the family lunch that officially starts things off. It's supposed to be a little cool at the beach this week so we''ll see what ends up happening. But if it's anything like last time, there will be boating, swimming, sandcastles, ice cream, skits, ladder ball, picture taking, all-out-gonzo-insanity featuring Jeff Day and Shauna Pierson, and other Day family staples. This is our one week of vacation this summer, and everyone in my family is looking forward to it.

I'm not making any promises, but I will try to update daily on the goings on in Beulah. Stay tuned!

In other news, today was my last day at IVCC too. It was quiet, uneventful, and a little sad. I took care of my final grades, passed a few projects off to other people, said goodbye to a few folks, and then turned in my keys, ID badge, and parking pass. I signed a resignation form and walked out the front door. I felt a little melancholy because, for better or worse, this place has been where I've spent the majority of my waking hours for almost half a decade. Some people are utterly unsentimental about work. However, I am not one of those people. I'm pretty sappy and misty about stuff, so even though there was a lot about IVCC I didn't like and even though I am completely enthusiastic about starting at Delta in two weeks, I am a little sad to be leaving IV. Ah well. So it goes.

This week isn't time to be thinking about work anyway, old or new. It's time for tubing, karaoke, and games. Work will come soon enough. No need to rush it.

July

It's been a month since my last post, but in my defense, it's been a busy month.

Since the beginning of July, we got our realtor over here and made plans to sell, did a bunch of projects over the course of a week to prep the house, put the house up for sale, had four showings, ended up accepting an offer for almost 5K over what we were asking after 48 hours of being on the market, passed our appraisal, passed our home inspection, signed limited power of attorney over to our lawyer so he can take care of our closing, spent a weekend in Midland agonizing over rentals, applied for the one we decided was best, got accepted for it, and packed 75% of our house.

Do I need to point out that I am freaking exhausted? My bones feel like they're made out of lead and my muscles feel like they're just so many thin, sun-baked rubber bands.

Tomorrow I have to teach what will hopefully be my last lesson to the teenagers for Sunday School. Then I have to read and grade a stack of papers so I can figure final grades which I will submit on Monday. Once I get that done, I will turn in my ID badge, parking pass, and keys to HR, and I will no longer be an employee of Illinois Valley Community College. That night, after Suzy finishes teaching her last class, we will probably drive a few hours so we can get a leg up on our trip to Beulah, Michigan for the once-every-three-years, week-long Day family reunion. There's a lunch at 2 p.m. on Tuesday that everyone's supposed to attend, and since we don't want to leave at 5:30 a.m. that morning, we need to get on the road Monday evening.

Saturday, once the reunion wraps up, we will drive over to Midland and drop off one of our cars so we don't have to tow anything when we move. Once that's done, we'll turn right around and head home. Supposedly, we will be in good enough shape to get up and make it to church the next day. If that actually happens, it will be our last Sunday in the Ottawa ward. Then we'll spend the next few days finishing up the packing so that when our 26 foot U-Haul appears on Thursday the 15th, we will be ready to just load it up and head off for Midland on the 16th. Hopefully, we'll have plenty of people to help on both ends of the trip. Hopefully, we'll be able to fit everything in one trip. Hopefully, the truck and van run smoothly and everyone makes it safely.

Whew. 

It's a lot to do, and it feels a little overwhelming. But we are remarkably blessed in how the sale of the house has gone, and more than anything else, I need to remember that all of this is a direct (though unexpected) answer to prayer. We pretty much begged for this exact series of events for six months. Now that it's happening, I should just be grateful, keep my mouth shut, and keep packing boxes.

Twenty Five Ways of Looking at Portage, Indiana

Portage, Indiana is....

the amber-colored, unwashed ashtray in a 40-year smoker's house.
the sheen of ear grease on the screen of your smart phone.
a piece of corn pulp wedged between your two front teeth.
month-old flypaper in the corner of a desert gas station.
a charlie horse after unexpectedly having to sprint across the street.
an out-of-order sign on the elevator door of a six story building.
a radio station with a weak fuzzy, weak signal.
a hailstorm when you're a mile from the car.
a city-sized episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
a mustard-covered sheet of wax paper blown out of the trash.
a birthday party held at White Castle.
a sleep-deprivation headache.
like throwing up in the snow on a first date.
an old tattoo that's lost its shape and turned into just a blue blob on a sailor's forearm.
a phlegmy cough that won't dry up.
a McDonald's dumpster on a 100 degree August afternoon.
that one shoe sitting on the side of the road on Highway 20.
a tennis racket with no strings.
Saturday mid-morning television.
a can of Aquanet left on a drugstore shelf since 1991.
an ABC After School Special about the dangers of dropping out.
a poodle with stomach flu.
a lukewarm, generic brand can of cola.
an ingrown toenail in new shoes.
microwave pizza in a cheap hotel room at 11:30 at night.

Weird. Really Weird.

So.

You remember Delta College? Nice, little two-year school up in Michigan? You may recall I applied for a job there last year and then waited for approximately a million years only to hear that I was not their choice for the gig?

That Delta College?

Yeah.

Well, they called me last Monday and said they had an unexpected opening in the English department and that they were wondering if I'd like to be considered for the position. I said yes and they said they'd get back to me.

I spent a couple of days mystified, not sure what was going on. Were they looking at just me? At just the other three finalists who weren't selected? The entire universe?

Thursday, I got a call from Delta again saying they hadn't heard back from my references and asking could I get in touch with them and get them to respond. I pressed for a little more info and HR lady said that I was the one who had definitely been recommended for the job but that she couldn't do anything until she heard back from my references.

So I called the former colleague and two former profs she mentioned and probably sounded to them like I had rabies or was on meth or something. They agreed to get in touch with HR lady ASAP. Delta is closed on Fridays in the summer and so I knew I wouldn't hear anything until Monday.

Well, it's Monday. This afternoon, just as Suzy and I were pulling out of the garage to go wash and vacuum the van, the phone rang and it was Delta's HR lady calling to officially offer me the job.

I said yes. I start on August 19th.

As my good friend, Liz Lemon, is fond of saying, "What the what?!"

So.

Know anyone who wants to buy a roomy house with a big yard in rural nowhere Illinois?

A (Very) Brief History of Movie Crime

A post about my time as a not-so-hardened movie theater criminal.

Randomness

My 1002 students are workshopping their first essay. People are reading aloud, others are reading along, everyone looks pretty involved and interested. Yay. Any day I don't have to do all the talking and the students shoulder the majority of the work is a good day.

It's summer. Hot, humid, ridonkulously buggy summer. I mowed the lawn yesterday and, at one point, stopped and looked up at the sky at what I thought was a flock of buzzards crazily circling above me, waiting to consume my rotten flesh. Nope, turns out it was just mosquitoes - really, really big mosquitoes. Walking outside feels like I'm taking a stroll through the middle of a South American river. Every afternoon (and sometimes the mornings, sometimes the evenings), the sky turns black, lightning starts striking everywhere, wind rips off a few tree branches, and rain comes at us like it's being dumped out of a bucket. Our garden is a weed-choked bog. Our potted flowers are flourishing because they think they live in a rain forest.

This week has been a nice break activity-wise. For the last three or four weeks, the girls have had some kind of camp (or two) going on. Basketball camp, tennis camp, musical theater camp, science camp, etc. I'm always glad to have the girls learning new things and having their horizons broadened, as it were, but holy crap, it was a ton of driving. We criss-crossed this valley like OCD mailmen, dropping off and picking up everywhere we went. This week, blessed stillness. No camps, no real obligations beyond the usual work and church stuff. Consequently, the girls have spent the week lumbering around (shuffling side to side as if their boredom is physically incapacitating them), saying, "So. Bored." I took them to the library Monday, and they checked out their body weight in angsty YA novels about girls whose friends just don't understand or whose parents just don't understand or whose teachers just don't...well, you know.

We've spent a lot of time with other people's kids lately, either babysitting them or having play dates or whatever. What we've learned is that Parker, for all her sassy genius, is kind of behind some other kids in some ways. We watched some kids whose parents are decidedly hands-off. They are the "I need to work so you guys go outside and play until I tell you to come back in. I don't care what you do as long as you don't set anything on fire" kind of parents. So on the one hand, these kids were thrilled that we paid attention to them, played with them, etc.  But on the other hand, these kids poured their own cereal and milk, tied their own shoes, took care of all their own bathroom business without help, etc. because that's what they've had to do.

Suzy and I are kind of overprotective and hovery, I think. Partly, we worry for our kids and want to make sure they're okay. Partly, we just want to make sure stuff gets done right. Parker has adapted to this and not only lets us but expects us to do a lot of things for her that she needs to learn to do for herself. She'll be in five-day-a-week preschool this fall, and there are certain things she's just got to get under control before we can turn her over to her teachers and peers, you know? First item on list? Stop stripping entirely naked in order to pee. Not necessary, Parker. Not necessary at all.

Star Trek Into Darkness came and went without me seeing it in the theater. That was a little disappointing. Man of Steel is still around but is getting such middling reviews, I don't know if I want to take the time and effort. Sounds like a renter for sure. Pacific Rim? Giant robots fighting giant monsters from beneath the surface of the earth? What? Are you kidding me? I might even have to drive somewhere to find an IMAX 3D for that business.

It's almost lunch time. My body will head home but my heart and my head will go over the river to the Dog House. It has been far too long since I've had a Chicago dog (or two) with some hot, crispy fries and a cold, sweet diet Pepsi. That sounds like the greatest thing a human could eat for lunch today. I'm confident nothing would be better.

I am listening to a student read his profile paper to his peers. The idea was for them to interview someone and write a profile that provides an overall, dominant impression of that person. He interviewed his lazy, slacker best friend. He wrote the whole thing like a nature documentary that's trying to track down some rare animal. I just heard the line, "Much like the majestic platypus, the Ryan Johnson doesn't actually do much." Nice. I can tell this kid's going to do well on this paper.

Only seven minutes left in class. Time to check back in with my young charges and get them on their way for tomorrow. 

Movie Palaces

A scattered, uninteresting post about movie theaters here.

Dad

(Warning: This is a longish post.)

For most of my childhood, I didn't have much of a relationship with my dad. When I was really young, I remember he would play with me and Jason a lot. We'd "wrestle" him which meant he'd lay on the floor and let a hyperactive five and seven year old crawl all over him, jump on him, and do our best to "pin" him. He'd let us do that for a while, and then he'd clamp his giant bear paw hands onto our chests and hold us against the ground until we squealed. I'm pretty sure he was a fun dad when we were little, but sometime in the mid-Eighties, things just changed.

Dad became the angry guy who came home from work late, loaded his plate with leftover dinner, plodded downstairs, ate in front of MASH reruns, and stayed in his recliner until he fell asleep, lights on, tv still blaring. We never talked in any kind of real way. He was the disciplinarian, the one we were afraid of when we'd done something wrong. He worked, he yelled, he slept. That was kind of it, and for a lot of years, I resented the heck out of him for it.

This isn't to say he was a bad father. He wasn't. He always provided for us materially. We weren't rich, of course, but we always had a comfortable house, two cars, plenty of food, a family vacation once a year, and all the unnecessary things that made life nice - a computer, comics, toys, etc. He'd come to our events, whatever they were, and give us the awkward side-hug afterwards - "Proud of ya," he'd mutter, kind of embarrassed. He set a good example of church service and hard work. He was a good man. We just didn't have a lot to talk about for the better part of a decade.

Part of that had more to do with me than him, of course. I mean, Dad was raised on a farm in a tiny corner of Idaho. The guy was built to work, to fix, to do. He was a laconic problem solver. Along comes son #2 - a talker who didn't really care for work in any form, who'd rather sit around and think or write than actually do. I painted. I was in plays. I read comics and was afraid of guns. We didn't have much in common. I'm positive he often shook his head at how little of him seemed to manifest itself in me.

Things changed in my early twenties. I was back from my mission and had gone through kind of a catastrophic break-up. Moping around the house, half-heartedly trying to get myself together to start a new semester in college, I was lost. Dad, either on his own or at my mother's suggestion, offered to take me on a trip. "Anywhere you want to go," he said. He said we could go anywhere we could reach within two or three days of driving. Mount Rushmore, northern California, the Grand Canyon - "Where do you want to go?" he asked.

In the end, we picked northern Idaho, Coeur d'Alene and than maybe over to Spokane or something like that. We'd both been up there in the past for different things, and it seemed both far and close enough to make for a good trip. So we took off on a Thursday, I think, and spent four days just driving around. Coeur d'Alene, Spokane, Moscow, Wallace, Boise - we made a giant loop around Idaho, eventually landing back in Rexburg.

It's not like we had some giant hash-it-out conversation about our relationship. Nothing like it really. Mostly, we just talked like guys talk - about work, about girls, about family. Dad treated me like an equal, a friend. He told me stories about his dad and about growing up on the farm. He listened to me complain about the hurt I still felt over my breakup. He heard me say, "Yeah, I just got an email from this girl I used to know. Her name is Suzy Day. I'll probably go see her the next time I'm in Logan." We ate out a lot and stopped to look at things whenever the fancy struck us. The night we stayed in CDA, we found a movie theater and went to see U.S. Marshals with Tommy Lee Jones. It's a manly action film with gun fights and car chases, and yet whenever I see it on TV, it makes me a little misty because that's the one Dad took me to.

There are a lot of things like that - seemingly silly, incongruous things that make me sentimental for Dad. His affection and devotion were never flowery or even traditional. His love came out in the extra Whopper he bought at Burger King because he thought you might be hungry, or the socket set he gave you because he knew yours was missing pieces. Taking you to a movie when you were down. Going for a drive to the dump or to the sod farm. Staying awake during your part of the play. A random call just to check in when he was on his way to inspect a farm. Buying your kids more toys than they could ever wear out.

Things changed between Dad and I on that trip. I felt like we were friends a little bit after that, and that was new for me. We kept at it and took many more drives in the ensuing years. If I was around and Dad said, "I need to go to X, do you want to come?" my answer was always yes. Going for drives and going to the movies were the two activities where Dad and I could absolutely meet in the middle and be friends. Over the next fourteen years or so, Dad became a man that I could trust with just about anything. He became a person whose phone call I looked forward to. He became the person I could rely on without question.  I knew that he loved me. I came to appreciate the power of his loyalty and his humility.

Dad was always a little bit of a prickly character. Even after evolving into a warm parent and doting grandparent, he still didn't do well in big groups. When we'd get together at the Rigby house, he'd still kind of hide out in his bedroom and watch Law and Order reruns when we were all sitting in the living room talking. He'd still snap at my mom over seemingly small things. I think he struggled more than any of our will ever really know with depression over Mom's cancer and the threat of being left alone. He was never perfect, and yet he was still one of the very best men I have ever known.

This September, he will have been gone for three years. In some ways, it feels so much longer than that. In other ways, it seems like he was just here visiting last week. He's so present in my mind through so much of my regular day, and yet I feel his absence really sharply a lot of the time. He is here and yet he is so obviously not here. I feel like I understand more about him now - not just kind, silly grandfatherly Dennis, but young, overworked, slightly depressed young Dennis. I think back to the anger and resentment I felt for him and want to say to my younger self, "Hey, cut him some slack. He's doing the best he can." I think young me and young Dad can both be forgiven for their shortcomings.

I stopped feeling guilty for Dad's death a while ago. For the first year or so, I felt like the fact that he was working hard, straining himself, sweating like he'd been swimming all at my house made it my responsibility that he died. If only I could fix my own house, if only I'd done more of the work, if only I'd never asked him in the first place to help, maybe he'd still be with us. Maybe that heart attack wouldn't have happened. These feelings ate me alive for several months. But then, without any fanfare or announcement, they just kind of went away. It just dawned on me that I didn't feel that way any more.

The feeling I was left with was a strange sense of gratitude that, of everyone in his life, I was the one person who got to be there with him in that final moment. I so wish that I somehow could have saved or revived him. I wish it had just turned out to be a scary story he could tell his grand kids for years to come. But it just wasn't within my power -or probably anyone else's. He had to go, and I was there when he did. I wish it had never happened, but it did and I'm touched in ways I can't articulate that I was there for it.

He was my dad, and I miss him tremendously. More than that though, I'm glad I knew him. I'm glad that he found a way to cut through my haze of self-involvement and resentment so that we could become friends and I could realize what a remarkable man he was. I am lucky, lucky, lucky - or blessed, rather, to have had him as a father. I think the best thing a dad can do for his kids is make them feel loved and give them something to aspire to be. Dennis Brown did both of those things for me, and I'm grateful for him.

(This is a scrapbook page from back in our Boise days. I love how entertained Dad and Maryn both look.)