Moonshawl

The moon, obscured by very little now that the rain's brought the rest of the leaves down, looks like it's wearing a shawl. Even my squinty nearsighted eyes can make out the craters from this good bit away, and the shadow wrapped around the top edge there appears to be made of the softest finest black yarn.

Catching UP

So. We hit the road on Saturday the 16th, and hadn't any internet access along the way. Hence, no posting. I'm back now, though, and plan to post enough to make up for the missed days. I have lots of photos to include, but I'm also catching up on novel pages with the Friday deadline fast approaching, so I may be a bit slow on the upload. Very funny. Ha, ha.

Missed you all and your commenting. More soon, including recent tax news, further career aspirations, and how the tomato plant grew while we were gone.

Sixteen

Martha is here. 'Tis divine. Too bad we couldn't offer up some more balmy weather for her, but the Alamo folks gave her a nice sporty little Volvo with which to make her way to us, and we'll show her a good time at LLBean tomorrow, before we high-tail it west, so all is well. And we will get her to de-privatize her blog any minute.

Fifteen

My students, all along the way while I was teaching, used to give me the hardest time when I would say "Oh. This is one of my favorites." I'd be talking about books. They'd say "You always say that. They can't all be your favorites."

Perhaps. But sometimes it really seems like so many are. Tonight in the car on the way back from hearing Cheryl Wheeler – one of my favorites – perform, I kept saying "Oh - that song with the part about... that is really one of my favorites." I was thinking, just now, that that's kind of a good problem to have. Too many favorites.

Delinquent Fourteen

In efforts to stave off a threatening cold, I dove into bed upon return from rehearsal last night, making it only halfway through November without a missed day. Alas. More later today. The cold seems to have been successfully staved. Off.

Thirteen, of course

Tonight, instead of posting, as promised last evening, the story of my recent bus commute, I stared somewhat forlornly at Form after Form and Publication after Publication on the comprehensive website of the United States Internal Revenue Service. Here is my favorite quotation so far this evening from said site:

"The United States income tax is a pay-as-you-go tax."

They can be maddeningly pleasant in their exquisitely subtle sarcasm, these writers. What they're saying here could more bluntly be stated in the following manner (pleasant tone partially retained): "We know what you're thinking, and we made sure we set it up so it wouldn't work out for you the way you're hoping it might, for the reasons you're hoping it might, so sit up and listen because we're about to tell you how it actually is."

And now it's time to tardily begin preparations of the ever delightful chickenless chicken salad. Which reminds me, though it is not actually an EW recipe, Martha appropriated a term today for an avid Eating Well cook: power user. More on that to come, I suspect.

Twelve

I spent too much time today playing with the color scheme for a New Septembers blog. It's almost ready to be looked at, but now I've no time left to post. So just scroll down and look at the pretty picture from yesterday. And tomorrow tune back in to hear about my recent green commuting experience.

Eleven Eleven

The generous November sun slipping in amongst the conifers, caught on film by my sweetheart who prefers an old fashioned camera but agreed to wield the digital for our walk in the woods. A good first photo post, I thought.

Ten/slight copout

I'm under some pressure here because we're headed out of town to a place where there are no computers. Well, OK, that's not really true. There's a computer, and it even has internet access, but it's DIAL up. So forget that.

As though I'm not feeling enough pressure already to come up with something good to write about, I've just visited Jonathan's collection of brief online essays, the description of which, as I understand it, takes a bit of a shot at postings on mundane topics. Fair enough. I was pretty sure I was at risk for such postings, and his commentary (with graph) on the world oil situation didn't help.

Then I realized that there's actually plenty to say about my trip to the grocery store this morning, as I spent most of it thinking about what it's going to be like when all we have left is the Whole Foods, which is imminent. (I tried to find out when our Wild Oats is closing, but look what happens when you try to visit wildoats.com.)

And then I realized that I don't have time to get into it, so instead I'm suggesting that you take a look at the nonblog of Jonathan, one of the smartest and funniest people I know, which has absolutely nothing to do with grocery stores, but offers lots of carefully considered and humourously expressed food for thought.

Nine

This will be the first of my novel-related posts. In case anyone is reading who doesn't know, I got conned into taking a writing challenge originating on www.nanowrimo.org. The object of the game is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Not necessarily a good novel. Just a novel. A done one. This is a very bad idea for me, but also the best idea ever. I have a very hard time writing full speed ahead, and that is the only way I can possibly do this.

I've been trying to stay away from the whining about it, but just now I discovered that what I wrote yesterday (dork that I am, I immediately divided 50,000 by 30 and committed to writing 1666 words per day, which is what I've averaged so far, give or take ten or twenty) didn't save on my thumb drive, and I don't think I backed it up. I can't tell from here because I did the writing at my office.

It doesn't matter that much - I remember what I wrote and I don't think it was all that spectacular, but I feel like I'm only keeping my head above water with it by keeping up with the word count. And I already didn't feel like writing tonight. I can feel myself getting worried about annoying things like plot, arc, completion. I was hoping those things wouldn't start to plague me until, at the earliest, after Thanksgiving. So far I've just been playing with the characters, which is mostly all that interests me anyway. One of my students said, after asking me to read an excerpt of the draft the other day, "Is anything actually going to happen?" It's a fair question, to be sure.

But actually, I don't think it's time for that yet. I'm just getting the hang of writing without a net - of letting go of knowing where things are going. It never seems like a very good idea, but I'm always an easier person to be around when I give this sort of thing a try.

Eight

There's a point in one of the episodes of Sports Night at which Sam Donovan the ratings expert says in exasperation, as people are pestering him about this and that, "Listen. I have two priorities. The first is getting from the beginning of the day to the end of the day without having a drink. The second is raising the ratings of this show."

I love this line, and not only because it reminds me that there are struggles much more persistent and vicious than most of mine, like staying sober. It also seems to acknowledge that you can't see the project ahead (like, say, the ratings) until you've got some sort of grip on getting from morning to evening. I've got it pretty easy over here, relatively speaking, for sure. I sometimes forget that that doesn't mean I don't have to figure out how to manage the beginning of day –> end of day thing (which for me means things like remembering to eat, drink water, and keep the dishes from swallowing the kitchen whole) before I can expect to take on... well, anything else.

Seven Plus

The afternoon started out well enough. I had only two things to do. Pick up the car, and get ready for writers' group. Not a bad life. I strolled over to the garage, VISA in hand, chanting the mantra: the more it costs, the more cash back. I don't recommend that as a spending approach, but it works on big ticket involuntaries. I slid the card across the counter and took the hit. $340.70. OK.

I pulled out of the driveway, letting myself forget for the moment that the cooler car is not technically mine. Its zippy little 4-cylinder-self roared appropriately for the sudden grade leading up to High Street. I'd need only a little brake to stop for the light.

The technician would later say, when I pulled back into the yard having left only minutes before, "feel a little soft?" in reference to the brake pedal.

But "a little soft" is not how it felt, when my foot, with 17 years of braking under its belt, found none of the resistance it expected, not until the very last moment before, had it hit the floor having not taken hold, it would have been too late. Soft is not the way it felt. Hollow would be a better word. Or whatever it's called when for a time, everything is gone, everything on the inside and everything on the outside, and what you're thankful for later is that it doesn't last long enough that you have time to think about how this will be the last red light you see, or, of course, all the much worse things that are about to happen and not.

The brakes are OK now. There was air in the system, which apparently keeps the whole business from operating properly. So when you get the brakes worked on, please make sure you take your ride around the parking lot a time or two before you put it on the road.

Seven

I'm dragging my heels about letting go of the growing season. I might have to post my first photo to give you a visual. First I will try words:

Currently, there are two tomato plants which have not given up on ripening sitting behind me in the living room. On the sill of the tiny south-facing window, through which they're receiving the desperate few rays of daily sunlight, sit a handful of tomatoes rescued from the plants that didn't make the come-inside cut. On the other side of the room, hanging from a clothes drying rack, hang the three plants that still had viable-looking green fruit as of Sunday afternoon, and which are hanging upside down because a gardener friend said that if you do that to them the nutrients can make their way down into the fruit. We'll see. I remain, as ever, skeptical. On the floor by the door, sitting in the boot tray (I like to think of it spelled more Frenchly: bootré) are the remains of the herb section of the garden. Two dead cilantros and two dead basils. The basils'd have survived if not for that one last too-cold night. Well, and the aphids. Also in the dead herb area is the bolting lettuce that survived extra long because it was under the patio table during the big rain that did the others in. And the lone surviving herb - a tough as nails rosemary.

That's what's happening inside. Outside it's a deck garden graveyard. I was just getting things under control, consolidating the dirt and picking out the drainage rocks to return both to their respective natural habitats, when it poured again last night. Now I have pots and pots full of mud. Overturned crates that used to keep things up closer to the sun, yogurt containers that took on the smell of compost such that I wasn't allowed to bring them back in to reuse and didn't get around to recycling, and little bits of floss that used to hold the tomatoes to their stakes. It's depressing, but I'm apparently not yet convinced it's more depressing than a naked deck. I might just have to wrap the railing in Christmas lights early to stave off the end-of-growing season blues.

Six

I created my New Septembers blog today, though I don't know if I'm going to use it. I haven't figured out how to host it on my website and if I do that whether or not it's going to work the way I want it to. So in the meantime, something that belongs on there will appear here. God knows I can't add another writing commitment to November.

I've got one of my young students playing the write-a-novel-in-November game with me, and he's not generally big on writing. Loves books, and has recently taken great leaps in his ability to read them, and also loves creating stories, but can't stand the act of putting them on paper. It has proven for him, as for me, that the challenge of word count has unexpected power. I can normally count on him to generate a couple of pages of writing per week, at about 20 words per page, letters sized at around a half a square inch. Today he penned three pages, averaging 160 words per page. But that's not the good part.

As he neared the end of page three, he said, "Darn it. I keep using things from other books." I asked him what he meant, and he read a passage that used a construction he said he recognized as stolen from the Chronicles of Narnia. "The narrator's always talking like that," he said. He gave an example. He'd never before gotten far enough into his writing to catch himself borrowing from the stories he most loved reading. I can't even imagine what else is to come.

Five

I was going to write about my favorite thing that happened today, but I can't think of a favorite happening. The highlight was definitely talking to Michele in the early evening, when we both were relaxed enough to just plain chat for a few minutes. A rare treat.

It's 9:40, but feels like much later, and I don't think it's just the time change. I was thinking on the way home from my office about how after someone important has passed away, and whatever ceremony will happen has happened, you have to get used to how the world is a little quieter all the time. I didn't even talk to Gram, probably didn't even think about her that much, as recently as a month ago, but now knowing that she's not there - waiting for a letter from one of us, making her way quickly and quietly through piles of large print books, and scolding my grandfather for saying things that don't make sense - makes it seem as though someone turned the volume down on the world.

Day Four

Back from a whirlwind visit to southern New England, I'm scrambling to get ready for the week and keep my writing promises. I need to hit a word count of 3,332 words on my novel project, and I've got about 500 to go. That's double the usual amount, because I took yesterday off for the service. I'm alternating between pulling tomato plants (I waited until it got so cold that my fingers get freezing after about one) and writing and chopping vegetables for dinner and sending emails that need to go out by tomorrow morning. And it's dark. Which doesn't help.

A quick word about funerals. In case anyone had forgotten, a memorial service has this bittersweet habit of pulling people (back) together. We squeezed ourselves into the narrow pews of the congregational church to remember my mother's mother as Connecticut's taste of Noel flung maple leaves against the tall windows. My brother and I, in the same moment, looked up into the balcony to see our two aunts from my dad's side, whom we haven't seen in 7 years since they entered into a rift of unknown origin with our dad and his brothers, file into the front pew. There were, by day's end, all manner of possible explanations for their appearance from various interested parties, but I decided to believe that they came because family's family and that eventually, even the water from the worst of storms can find its way under the proverbial bridge.

Day Three early

I can't promise I'll be able to get at a computer tomorrow, so I'm double posting today. I've still got noveling to do, so I'm a bit behind, but here's my favorite thing that's happened so far today:

My dad and brother, on their way through to Connecticut themselves, called at nine to ask if I was going to be at my office and if so, if they could come by. They had an hour to kill and my brother hadn't seen the place yet. I wasn't. Going to be. And I had just finished overscheduling the day. But I said yes. There was a time not too long ago when I wouldn't have. Life will go on if I don't get the whole list done today.

We were only there for 15 or 20 minutes in which the two men of my immediate family took turns telling me this and that I should do with the office furniture and fixtures, asking about the house I was tempted to buy the other day, telling me again I should really buy something that's an investment rather than a dream house, met the folks who work downstairs, and went on their way.

I'm way behind, now. I'll be scrambling at 6 to get showered and packed and finish the writing I promised to do today. And I'll probably think it's because I spent an hour with my dad and brother. But it won't have been. The scrambling, I know by now, is more of a design feature than a function of actual time. And even if it were, they don't come to town that often, so, what the heck.

Day Two

Tonight we head south to Connecticut for my maternal grandmother's memorial service. I said I'd talk at the service, but had no idea what I'd say until the day before yesterday (cutting it a little close) when I remembered a conversation she and I had had, several times, in the past couple of years. Suddenly it was obvious, and I had the unusual experience this morning of sitting down at the computer and writing, in one stroke (though, yes, I'll admit, later, after reading it to myself a few times, I had to make some changes) wrote the two paragraphs I'll read at the service tomorrow. Here they are, serving as today's post, followed by something to click on, as I don't have permission to include the second part:

A few years back, Gram and Grampa arrived for a visit with a small cooler in tow – to keep the snacks that sustained them through the long journey to Maine. As she unpacked, Gram asked me to fetch the cheese. “It’s over there in the, uh, blickie,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. “The what?” She laughed, and said, “I don’t know – something my brothers used to call that sort of thing - anything that carried anything, a bucket, usually. Just a silly old word.”

A silly old word, perhaps, but it was Gram’s words that made her who she was to us in myriad ways. There were the ones she used often, the ones she maybe didn’t use enough, the ones we didn’t recognize, the many she wrote in cards and letters, and then, too, the ones she made it her business to be sure we didn’t forget. The last few times I sat across the room from her at Evergreen Woods, on the firm corduroy-clad couch, she would at least once during my visit remind me that kids these days are missing out on all the good old books and stories and rhymes. “No one reads Pooh anymore,” she lamented. “His picture is all over everything but the kids don’t know the rhymes from the books.” I assured her each time that those of us who loved those rhymes as children would be sure to share them with younger folks – that we already had – with students, babysitting charges, our own children. She remained unconvinced, so I thought I’d give it one more try:

[Click here for the poem, from When We Were Very Young]

Day One

My favorite thing that happened today was this. I went to the library, to return an about-to-be overdue magazine and pay (in pennies and nickels) for a couple of books I just discovered were already overdue. I was feeling guilty, and stupid, and helpless, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have been trying to get myself a part time job at the library, and I figure overdue books is maybe not one of the better marks on my record where that is concerned. Second of all, you wouldn't think it would be that difficult to keep track of books and return them on time. But third of all, it is. I check out something new every couple of days, whether to entertain myself or to use with my students, and I haven't found a system yet that works for keeping up with the incessant and scattered dueness of it all.

So when I got there the head librarian and the part-time librarian were discussing something such that they didn't greet me when I walked in, as they usually do. Which was no big deal, just unusual and indicative of the intensity of their conversation. I didn't eavesdrop, which is somewhat unusual for me. I love libraries, and librarianism, and I love the chatter that goes on behind the desk. I was focused on whether I would take out the new Oprah or the new New Yorker. As it turned out, I didn't have to. After only a moment or two, the head librarian, let's call him Matthew, said to her "let's ask Meredith," and called across the room to me. (This is a gritty little urban library attached to an elementary school, so "Shhhh" and quiet were dispensed with long ago.) "What do you think?"

As it turns out, this is my favorite kind of conversation. You can keep a librarian busy with this sort of thing for, well, at least, minutes, until it's time to actually put something on a shelf or help someone find something. I love my job, but I still miss the library.