Sunday Afternoon

It's nearly three in the afternoon and the house is quiet. Parker and Suzanne are napping, Thing One and Thing Two are watching a movie, and the cat is outside stalking mice and crickets. I'm here with a fizzy glass of diet 7-Up and Joan Sutherland singing Bizet's "L'amour Est un Oiseau Rebelle" on my itunes. (I know, mentioning that I'm listening to opera makes me sound immensely pretentious. If it makes you feel any better, it's the only opera I have out of thousands of songs, I don't even know what it means in English, and the only reason I bought it is because I remember hearing it on Sesame Street when I was kid.) Anyway, it's a one of those lovely late summer afternoons when the sky is filled with amorphous white clouds that seem too drowsy to even change shape. A little breeze is pushing the ash tree leaves around and our neighbor's abandoned sunflowers lean over like they'd really just like to take a nap. It's still and I appreciate that.

School started week before last and, in many ways, it's good to be back. Returning to a schedule came as a bit of a shock -- things like getting out of bed at a specific time, having places to go, shaving, etc. had become a little foreign to me. But overall, it's nice to have a specific purpose for each day, to have specific things that have to get done, to see my colleagues and friends around campus. I really do enjoy being in the classroom and so it's nice to be back.

At my school, the tenure process is radically different than other places I've taught. At IV, you're hired and then have what amounts to a three-year trial period. Your teaching is reviewed by your dean and one of the VPs twice a semester and you're asked to be on various committees, action groups, advisory whatevers, etc. At the end of three years, you present a portfolio of your work and accomplishments at the school during your trial period and then they either give you tenure OR they say "Thanks but no thanks. See you later." Yup, at IV you either get tenure or you get on the road. I'm not worried about whether or not I'll get it, I'm just a little overwhelmed at the prospect of assembling my portfolio. It's just one more project, you know? As any regular reader may gather from this blog, when I feel overwhelmed, I just kind of lock up and don't do anything. I suffer from AAP -- academic anxiety paralysis. I wish I was one of those hardcore doers, you know, someone who just gets crap done come hell or high water. But I'm not. I'm a guy who is glad it's Sunday so I can justify not doing "work" but can blog because it counts as journaling/family history.

Anyway, I have all my stuff assembled more or less in order, I just need to start putting it all in page protectors with the appropriate dividers, etc. I also need to finish writing a little introduction to both the portfolio itself as well as each of the five sections. I present to my dean and a couple of VPs in a few weeks and then to the Board of Trustees a week or so after that. So hopefully but October, I'll be a tenured professor of English. Won't that be cool? Not as cool as finishing my stupid stupid stupid PhD but still pretty cool.

Things I Like

Cooler days. Today was only 83 with no humidity and a nice breeze.

The Adjustment Bureau. It was interesting, entertaining, and beautiful. Few movies have ever made New York City look that cool. Plus, the chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt was totally believable. Best movie we've rented in a long time and easily one of the top three adaptations of a Philip K. Dick story. (Yes, better than Total Recall and Paycheck. Probably not as good as Blade Runner -- although lots more laughs.)

Rachel McAdams. She's usually the best, most-interesting thing in whatever she's in. Admittedly, she was a little outclassed in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes but she brought a lot of charm to Morning Glory which pretty much would have been a dud without her.

Mowing the lawn. Seriously. We have about an acre and it takes me about an hour and a half to do it all. I listen to This American Life or a playlist on my ipod and just sort of bliss out for a while. Besides just the relative peace of being able to focus entirely on one simple job, there's something really satisfying about the cleanliness and order of the grass when it's all done. I love looking out our back windows at the grass and seeing the lines made by the mower wheels. It's weird but whatever blows your hair back, right?

Imelda May. See for yourself:



She was on the Morning Glory soundtrack and I just dig her funky retro thing. Her album Love Tattoo is really cool and what's interesting about her is that she's Irish. I find it interesting when European singers reinterpret very American sounds -- Brits Duffy, Amy Winehouse, and Adele with the whole 60s girl-group sound and now Imelda May with the slinky 1950s rockabilly thing. I dig it.

Diet Pepsi. I drank a Diet Coke the other day and about spewed. I used to think there was no real difference between the two (that was back when I hardly drank either ever). Now that I am well-acquainted with both, Diet Pepsi is the clear winner. Light, sweet, fizzy, perfect. It is my ultimate summer beverage.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. Suzy and I caught an afternoon matinee today while the girls stayed with a sitter and I really enjoyed it. It was moving and exciting. The part when Harry's dead loved ones come back to speak to him before he goes into battle was very touching. I had to keep it under control because I didn't want the constantly-cell-phone-checking-teenagers in front of us to be all like, "Why's that old fat guy crying? What a wuss."

Colin Hay. The first album I ever bought wasn't really an album, it was a cassette tape. Yep, Men at Work's Cargo. I bought it with my own money (6.99 I want to say) from a grocery store in American Falls, Idaho. I think I bought it on the strength of their song "Down Under" and the fact that I had cousins from Australia which is where the band originates. I listened to that thing until it was a worn-out mess. Now, all these years later, I come to discover that MAW's lead singer, Colin Hay, has gone on to have a nice solo career and does some really cool acoustic stuff, including a version of the old MAW work classic, "Overkill."



Cucumbers and tomatoes. Slice them up and put them in a bowl with a little Italian dressing -- is there anything better or more summery than that?

Park Foo's first haircut:

Summer

Meh. Summer feels as though it's coming to an end. August is like the February of summer. It's the last brutal example of the season before things change. We've had an unprecedented streak of hot, humid weather here and it's been pretty awful. Well over two weeks of temps in the 90s and a heat index over a hundred. It's just not cool to start sweating just from stepping out on your porch, you know? Sweat when you work. Sweat when you exercise. Sweat when you rock out to 80s hair bands. Don't sweat from just . . . standing.

So the girls registered for school today. They came home with their school-issue planners and seemed excited to get back to their friends and that world. I got word last week that the creative writing class I was going to teach at our satellite campus didn't get the enrollment it needed so instead I've been handed a twice-a-week 8-freaking-a.m. comp 2 class. This, succinctly put, blows. Blows chunks. Hate it. Besides the fact that I hate teaching (or doing anything) early in the morning and besides the fact that it's inconvenient because it messes with our schedule of me dropping off the girls at school on my way to work, it means I'll be teaching four hour-and-fifteen minute classes back to back every Tuesday and Thursday with only ten minute breaks between them. Remember that blowing thing I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it's that again.

So I sent an email to my colleagues who are normally very cool, accommodating people and explained the situation, asking if anyone would like to trade. There are at least a couple of people who like getting their classes out of the way first thing so I thought someone might actually jump at the chance. Not so. It's more like this:


No takers. Bleh. It's not a big deal. It isn't as though I'm working swing-shift at a factory or something. Having to get up and teach a little earlier than usual for two days a week is hardly a hardship. Frankly, in this economy, it's a pretty high class problem to have.

Anyway, our kitchen is done, our vacation is over, the girls' camps are through, and the garden is bearing fruit. (Zucchini anyone?) Are there any surer signs that summer is winding down? As nice as many aspects of this summer have been, I will be glad to get back to a little bit of a routine.

How's the dissertation going? Funny you should ask. It isn't. It's been nearly six weeks since ol Mr. Dissertation and I even spoke. It's remarkable how fast life just steps right in your way when you really, really want to get something done. Prepping for the vacation, taking the vacation, returning and decompressing from the vacation, living in a house 45% destroyed for two weeks, etc. It's just always freaking something, it seems. Even this week -- this week, I was supposed to get back to work and we had everything all mapped out. But then Parker developed a fever and stopped sleeping for three nights in a row. Sick baby = no work for Mark. Bad baby. Bad. (Just kidding. She's neither bad nor really a baby any more. She ran into the room this evening stripped of her pants. When we said, "Where are your pants?" She squealed, ran away, and called, "I took them off!" This is not a baby. This is our new overlord.)

So I'm a little bummed at how little I've accomplished this summer. I rewrote my prospectus, sent it off, got some feedback, and that's where it stopped. I was supposed to take two weeks to revise and send back another draft. That was six weeks ago. I kind of suck. Maybe next week will be better.

Anyway, a couple of things:

The new Captain America movie is well-done and fun. Maryn, Avery, and I went and had a good time. I love that I have nerdy little compatriots who will watch stuff like that with me. For the record, the new movie is much better than the 1979 made-for-tv movie featuring complete non-actor Reb Brown (no relation). Perhaps this goes without saying. Observe:


I've really enjoyed being a reader/judge for the Irreantum fiction, essay, and poetry contests. Some of the stuff I read was just really, really excellent. It gave me that feeling of "I've never thought of that before but now that you mention it, that's exactly right." Not all of it, of course, but a lot and it's nice to be able to read a lot of good, well-crafted, thought-provoking writing.

We visited Rockford, IL today in our quest to get out of our little valley and find cool things beyond our regular environs. Unfortunately, today that quest was a bust. Rockford is ghetto with a capital G. Gehhh-heh-toooooo. Dirty, run-down, abandoned. We went to the Discovery Center Museum which would have been fine if it hadn't been located in Rockford. So it looks like for the foreseeable future, we'll be keeping with Bloomington and Peoria for our bigger city adventures rather than heading north to Skeevyville.

I watch a lot of really feminine programming. I kind of worry about it a little. SYTYCD, Project Runway, Design Star, Food Network Star. Shouldn't I be watching hunting shows or NASCAR or something? Sadly, I don't. Most of the shows I watch feature super-gay people cursing at each other. And I like it. Ah well. We love what we love, right?

I have other things to tell but it's late so I'm closing up shop for the night.

Catching Up

So much to cover I'm going to have to short-hand it.

Two weeks ago, there was this:








The U2 concert at Soldier Field made me deliriously happy. There's so much I could write about it but suffice it say that it was worth 20 years of waiting. I had a hot date too as you can see.

Last week, there was this:






We spent last week in a little condo on the bank of Silver Lake about ten miles from Lake Michigan. We swam, made smores, picked berries, visited with fabulous Erin and hilarious Cole, ate excellent food, went letterboxing, hiked, and had an all-around good time.

This week, there is this:


and therefore, there is this:


Our real kitchen is in the process of getting new tile, new walls, new paint, new cabinets, and a couple of new appliances. While that's happening (and happening and happening and happening), we take refuge in the basement and cook in the microwave and on an electric griddle. It's like camping but not pretty.

So that's where we're at. Work on my dissertation has been halted for the last three weeks but will hopefully start back up next week. I've also got a tenure portfolio to prepare in order to ensure that I can keep my job. Busy, busy.

One other development is that the dreaded Illinois heat and humidity have returned. It's been over 90 degrees every day this week and the heat index has been over a hundred. Bleah.

In other news, Shalee did correctly identify the last FQF quote as being from Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart. Well done, Shalee. If I were making you a fabulous virtual prize it would be a picture of your house completely finished and a contractor with a black eye and a few missing teeth. This will probably be the last FQF for a while. I am indefinitely suspending all FQF activity until further notice. It's been a fun summer game but now is the time for other things.

One other thing is that just today I was notified that my short story "The Iron Door" will be published in the Fall issue of Irreantum, a Review of Mormon Literature and Film. I had a story published there a couple of years ago and I see this as kind of a companion piece -- although it's a better story and needs less work than the first one did. The fiction editor emailed me and promised that I "won't have to suffer as much as last time." Yay for less suffering.

Anyway, hopefully by this time next week, we'll have a functioning kitchen again and I'll be thismuch closer to keeping my job and getting my PhD. We shall see.

Joy

Texting with my brother David yesterday, he mentioned that his family will spend the 4th of July camping in their trailer at the same place they went last year. It struck me that last year both of my parents were with him for that little trip and this year they're both gone. I still get sad sometimes when I feel my parents' absence and think about how sucky it is that they both left so quickly, so close together.

Suzanne and I have been talking about it more lately. There was a while when I don't think either of us really wanted to discuss my parents or their deaths any more. It was too sad and we had life to think about and our girls and work and school and all the hardships and tasks that come with mortality. But in the last week or two, she and I have had a couple of long conversations about Dennis and Laurie and how we miss them, how we sometimes feel their presence near (more Dad than Mom), and what a powerful role each of them played in our lives - as a couple and as individuals. When I think about it too much, it makes me a little blue so I try to think about good things, happy stuff that I enjoy.

So here are some things I have really been enjoying lately:

The Next Food Network Star - It's not as high-power as Top Chef but it's still fun to watch. I am surprised by how emotionally involved I become with these people. For anyone else watching, can I get an "amen" to the fact that Penny is the freaking devil?

Foo Fighters - I think I've written before about how, underneath my college English professor exterior, there's an 80's mullet rocker waiting to come out. Well, it's true. Some part of me really enjoys big stupid rock music and Foo Fighters really fit the bill. Actually, I don't think they're music is stupid. I think lead singer/songwriter Dave Grohl is really smart and some of his songs are quite moving - in an arena rock sort of way. "Times Like These," "All My Life," "Back and Forth," "Walk" -- all make me raise my imaginary lighter in appreciation.

The Lonely Polygamist - Novelist Brady Udall came to the Boise State MFA after I'd left but I still feel some ownership there so when he came out with a ginormous novel about a modern-day polygamist family living in Utah that was reportedly very funny, I had to investigate. I got it for Christmas and it sat on the shelf for a long time. I'd read the first page or two and then get distracted. Finally, a month ago, I decided to just get to it and see if it was worth the effort. Turns out, it was. The book is funny - I laughed out loud several times. The character of Rusty, an angry, anxious kid forgotten among the swell of his brothers and sisters, is the best, saddest, funniest thing about the whole book. It's not a perfect novel but I did enjoy it an awful lot.

Ice cream sandwiches - For me, there is no better summertime confection. I get them from the Casey's a mile from our house. It's so hot and humid here that they start to disintegrate as soon as I get them out of the store. So I eat them as fast as I can so they don't melt all over me. At least that's the excuse I'm using. I'm sticking to it.

This American Life - I've subscribed to the weekly podcast because I'm never near a radio when the local NPR affiliate broadcasts this Chicago-based gem. Ira Glass isn't for everyone and I get that -- but the stories and voices that his show presents are just more interesting, funnier, more heartbreaking, more surprising, and more joyful than anything else you're going to hear on the radio. I usually listen to an episode while I'm mowing the lawn and it makes the time fly by.

This whole situation -