But I Can Always Rely on a Simile

I’m sitting down to my last Monday in my office for a while. The neighbor girl is playing her club music again and I am finding it difficult to concentrate. Back to school on Wednesday. To teaching and to my own studies, which means back to Animapoetics -although I am not happy with the way my doctorate is progressing at this point. I never thought it would get to the point of deciding to “just see it through”. Maybe the key is focusing on the poems themselves and not pleasing an advisor. Before I let the need to please get in the way of the poems. Maybe poetry in general.

I have been having one of those days when I stare at the page and wonder if I even know what a poem is. Forget what a good poem is. This may be because I have been working on the new issue of Babel Fruit and reading the hundreds of submissions. The “maybe” file growing out of control with work I admire but may not like, like but see weaknesses. Wish I had written. And every once in a while there is a piece that makes me think, “Wow. I don’t understand this, don’t like it, but know there is something there I should be able to see the genius of.” I put those poems aside until I have a few moments of feeling brighter. More sure of my poetics: a day unlike today, as I settle down here to write a poem and realize I am not blocked in the traditional sense of not knowing what to write about, but blocked in not knowing what a damn poem is in the first place.

But I know by evening I will push that aside and get something on the page. It doesn’t matter what. It’s like keeping the water running through the pipes in winter so they don’t freeze.

But I Can Always Rely on a Simile

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/08/but-i-can-always-rely-on-simile.html

Running With Blog Posts

Watching Running with Scissors and there is a scene in which the mother performs at a bookstore reading for an audience of one, to the accompaniment of a vacuum cleaner. And I wish I could say that my identification with the mother ends there. (It does end not too far from there, no need to call Child Services). But I am thinking I am not the only poet who sat uncomfortably watching this film and wondering how far this side of the parody they stand, talking about their “art”, fantasizing about black gowns and readings at Carnegie Hall?

Recently I read a posting on a listserv that ridiculed a perfectly fine blog post for not being precise in terminology, among other things. The person said it was a reminder of why they didn’t have a blog.

After so many hours over the years thinking about deleting my blog, being concerned about what kind of image it projects (and to whom) and whether I have anything interesting to say, whether thinking I have anything interesting to say is arrogant or even delusional, whether I will cross those personal boundaries that people with backgrounds like mine don’t often see… I have decided not to give a damn.

A few years ago I had quite a few readers and lost most of them after an incredibly ignorant posting. (Don’t go looking for it, I am not that ethical a blogger and it didn’t slander, offend or hurt anyone.) These days I tell myself it gave many people a thrill of feeling superior and expressing it their favorite colorful phrases. I guess we could say it was a gift. I made someone’s day. Week, probably.

Last year a Norwegian writer had to come up with an idea for a column and landed on my blog and pointed out how it lacked substance. I guess we could say my blog was a kind of gift then, too. As good as a book on breaking writer’s block.

Somewhere there is a magic spot on the ego. A balancing point. I have never found it. One day I am sewing my black gown for Carnegie Hall and spreading my wisdom regarding-and through-my “art”, the next whipping myself with birch branches for humiliating myself and ruining my chances of ever being thought of as one of THOSE poets. The kind who have that air of reserve and command respect through their very mystique, and the fact that they have never made their weaknesses public via a blog with imprecise terminology and (gasp) misspellings.

I don’t know if it is a sign of getting older, but this week I have decided to give up being and just do.

I will never be the poet who wears a big hat and reads at an inauguration. I have accepted that fact. Well. For today. There is a supermarket opening next week and maybe they will call… I bet I could do that.

Running With Blog Posts

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/08/running-with-blog-posts.html

Pinch Me

For 20 months I have been unwittingly participating in a personal experiment, counting on my fingers the number of times I have left the house each month. There were months when I only crossed the threshold to shout at the dog to come in and stop barking at the passing trucks. I have learned a lot.

1. It is a good idea to invest in a silent dog whistle.
2. When a prospective boss offers you a job and prefaces the offer with, “It wasn’t my choice to hire you, I wanted someone else”, don’t take it.
3. 20 months is too long to lick wounds and berate yourself even if you did take the job and turned into a bipolar basket-case with broken self-esteem.
4. One’s best writing is not necessarily done during a period of clinical depression.
5. One’s best writing can’t be done when one manically shopping online.
6. It’s okay to move on, with or without pharmaceuticals.

So I am going back to teaching this year. I think the most important thing I learned is that being able to write “writer” in the occupation box because you can sit at home in your lovely office and turn out 500 words using the word mortgage as many times as possible for a client, does not necessarily fuel the creative mind.

I have missed teaching*. Not only because I am a natural pedant, but because the teenagers who are studying something because they want to can bring so much energy to a classroom and to everyone’s lives. Yeah, I do fall for the self-congratulatory pride that teachers are entitled to and I can come close to tears listening to Taylor Mali make a difference, but I also appreciate the privilege of watching young people grow and explore their own ideas and beliefs, to be a witness to the process. It is inspiring. (I have to say; my future students have a lot to live up to because I have been lucky as a teacher in the past.)

So I am taking what is ostensibly a big step back, but truly a step forward. I am not going to cringe when I have to write “teacher” in the occupation box next time I fill out the landing card for border patrol. Like I used to. I have had an epiphany in regard to what is doing and what is being.

But pity my poor students and colleagues (not to mention pray that I don’t wind up in a lawsuit) because I am sure that for the first month I will be pinching and poking them just to reassure myself that they are real and not virtual.


*Full disclosure: I am an incurable pedant and have been teaching all along as a distance graduate advisor through Prescott College’s Master of Arts Program.

Pinch Me

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/08/pinch-me.html

Don't Touch the Purple Sand

This summer my youngest shot up and every day he sings to me. Well, E. chants, "I'm taller than you are."

So now I really have hit it. Mid-life. Mother of teenage boys. But I find that after my year of self-indulgence, of studying and exploring, I am okay with it. After all, we all knew it was coming.

Still, I have to admit, I never expected that I would have anything to talk with them about once they started thinking for themselves. I never knew that I would have so much to learn from them. The past year I have been able to travel alone with each of them, to spend "quality" time - by that I mean time sharing experiences that are new to all of us. Gone are the days of taking them to the zoo so I can see the look on their faces when the lion's roars (not to mention when the tapir pees like a geyser).

Last weekend E. and I rode our bikes to the beach, just the two of us. I put a disposable grill* in my backpack, some fish (for me) some hot dogs (for E.) and we set off. We chatted the 2 hours it takes to get there. The whole time I am thinking: remember this, appreciate this, make this a memorable day.

What we learned at the beach:

1. (When the disposable grill wouldn't flame:) Where there is smoke there might not be fire.
2. (When it cooked our food none-the-less:) Where there is smoke there is heat.
3. Never touch purple sand.

When you are finished with a disposable grill you can fill it with sand to help smother the embers. We did so. But when we did, the grill slid down the dune about 6 inches, revealing six inches of purple sand. And when I tried to stand up, that is exactly the 6 inches I pressed my hand down upon to brace myself.

It is possible to cook meat on the sand upon which a disposable grill has been in use.

It is a good thing the North Sea is so cold. After realizing that the sea wasn't cold enough, we took a cab to the emergency clinic to have my hand cleaned and wrapped. Most importantly to get drugs because, although childbirth is a bit of a distant memory to me now, my opinion is that it is less painful that roasting one's palm.

E. spent a half hour in the waiting room waiting on me. When I apologized, he promised me that I had definitely made it a memorable day.


*I have had some misgivings about the whole disposable grill concept in regard to the recycle-ability of the grill itself, and now I have no problem choosing instead to eat cold peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the beach.

**After taking a bus to the pharmacy to get painkillers, then walking home, we did go back to retrieve the disposable grill (and the bikes).

Don't Touch the Purple Sand

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/08/dont-touch-purple-sand.html

Back to School and Purple Sand

Summer vacation is over. My shoulder is on the mend after several weeks of rest and the hand that I burned on the purple sand is healing nicely*, though it feels like it is coated in candle wax.

I am looking forward to picking up where I left off with the animations and to writing more regularly than I have this past year.

*It is after one and that story will keep until tomorrow.

Back to School and Purple Sand

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/08/back-to-school-and-purple-sand.html

The Disingenuousness of All of Us

I can’t believe I am going to write about Susan Boyle.

I got an email from a friend a few weeks ago, just like just about everyone else. But like many, I didn’t buy it. Not the judges overreaction and self-recriminations on Larry King. But it is damn clever (if not familiar) exploitation - and fun, too.

It is fun, admitting as a group that we really do make judgments about people based on their appearance. Unattractive people are clowns: a frumpy woman couldn’t possibly sing well.

Really? Who believes that? What surprised us is that a frumpy woman would be allowed to sing well on television.

We are accustomed to the reality show’s exploitation of our stereotypes. But that they would capitalize on the “redeeming talent” of a nerd shouldn’t be a surprise. Teen films have been exploiting that fantasy for years.

At least I have had that fantasy for years and watched those movies with my fingers crossed it would happen to me. I wasn’t popular in high school, so I knew someday someone would discover my secret talent (which morphed in my fantasy from month to month as I was forced to admit a lack of talent in all my secret aspirations). I still have that fantasy. All the people who snub me at social gatherings, who didn’t hire me for jobs, they will be sorry. Next week, next month I will finally discover my redeeming talent. . . even if it is creative shoe-lacing.

So, yeah, long live the legend of Susan Boyle! Even on Sky News: “Mr Clifford, who represented Jade Goody, has called the new look a major risk. He said: ‘Keep her as natural as possible for as long as possible. It's more about protection than promotion.’”

Ooooo. The second part of the teen fantasy: We, the cool people, in order to form a more perfect icon… must “protect” this diamond in the rough* from becoming spoiled by superficial beauty. Like we are. (blush)

“In fact, Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden had vowed not to let Boyle have a makeover.” (Sky News)

The thing is, even if my creative shoe-lacing videos go viral, I know how all those movies ended. The nerd figures out she really didn’t want to be one of the beautiful people after all, and nothing changes. We need it that way: if the nerd actually becomes one of the beautiful people, we have no exception to prove our true depth beneath “society's” superficiality. There will be nothing for us to morally overcome, no weakness to confess to and absolve ourselves of before going back to weeding the beauties with talent from the merely talented. The nerd will decide this for herself, of course.

Or we will criticize her for it.

“Holden had said: ‘She needs to stay exactly as she is. That's the reason we love her. The minute we turn her into a glamour-puss it's spoilt.’"

We will have nothing to admire ourselves for in admiring Ms. Boyle. Is that what he means?


*Sorry, that was Amanda Holden’s comment regarding Paul Potts, not Susan Boyle.

The Disingenuousness of All of Us

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/04/disingenuousness-of-all-of-us.html

I'll have what he's having...

I'll have what he's having...

http://sidesteppingreal.blogspot.com/2009/04/ill-have-what-hes-having.html