Creative Writing I and II

So I'm taking a writing class. This particular class deals with the effective writing of essays, which seem to be my stock in trade. It's interesting to learn that there are different techniques for writing quality essays, depending on what effect you wish them to have. So in that regard, I'm enjoying it even if I feel like I'm a little bit in over my head, especially since we are "workshopping" which means we all read and comment on each other's work. I'm taking the class with a friend who is a fabulous and accomplished writer, so I derive comfort from having her there to discuss the work. But can we talk about the rest of the class for a moment? I recognize that perhaps these groups are like AA, so I'm not supposed to judge lest I be judged. But, seriously, folks. At least 80% of this class seems to be populated by what I can only call Professional Writing Class Attendees.

We went around the room for introductions/background/favorite books, etc. Me? "Hi, I'm E. I was in nonprofit and political work before being a stay-at-home. I write a blog read by tens of people. I'd like to learn how to do it better and to perhaps expand some previous posts for potential publishing. This is my first class ever. My favorite author is Flannery O'Connor." Almost everyone else: "Hi, I'm Jimbob. I work in IT for a major publishing company I won't name. Heh heh. This is my seventh course. I took Memoir I, Memoir II, Navelgazing III, Character Sketch I and II, Creative Nonfiction and Publishers: Friend or Foe." I'd like to find out how to have my book on antiques published. My favorite authors in no particular order are (insert 9 names here)...I'm hoping to get (insert long-winded somethingorother here) out of this class."

At first these introductions made me feel scared, like, wow, I am so green. How will my writing measure up to the writing of these experienced individuals? They are totally going to hate my writing, so lacking in formal writing education that it is. Oh my god, should I have taken Memoir I and Memoir II before doing this? Sh*t! Why didn't I sign up for Character Sketch I For Beginners before jumping into this Intermediate level class?!! I have no business being here! GAAAH! Then I gave myself the same advice I give Bambina when she is overtired and getting jiggy and silly: "Calm your body down now. Let's calm our bodies, okay?" So I took a breath, settled down, and decided to just let it happen. If I suck, I suck. It's not like I'm getting a grade. It's not like the world will open up and swallow me if Jimbob hates my essay. Let's assume these are all nice people, however literarily fat-headed, who aren't getting psyched up to wield a red pen on poor E's beginner works.

But then I got worked up again as we read Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf. I was thinking, "Wow, this is the most boring thing I've ever read." Meanwhile, the rest of the class was waxing rhapsodic on how "it was at this point in the narrative that I really started to care about the moth," and "I can sense the narrator's ambivalence when she writes...." It was like people were competing to say the most erudite thing about anything we read. Meanwhile, I got none of those erudite things from the essay. None of them. So cue the internal drama once again: Oh my god, I don't get literature, I shouldn't be here..." Then we read Sacagawea by Sherman Alexie, whom I love, and I felt better, realizing that I don't have to like everything or pretend to just for the benefit of my classmates. I felt immensely better after the class when I confided my heresy to my accomplished writer friend, who said, "Oh my god! 'I started to care about the moth'?! I still don't care about the moth! That was boring!" I love her. For being so real--and for being real enough to not feel like she has to compete to be the "literati" of the class.

So this is my plan: Learn to write essays. Have fun doing it. Have fun exploring new things that make me feel unqualified. Live in that uncertainty and enjoy it. Know that I am SO using these people and this class as fodder for my first book. :)

Resignation Consternation

Please promise me you will watch--or at least read--the Sarah Palin resignation speech:
huffingtonpost.com

Wowity wow wow wow. I generally don't find myself speechless about speeches, but darlings, Governor Palin has shut my mouth. A week ago I could not conceive of a political speech that would "out-Sanford" Mark Sanford's, but here we are. I can only describe it as manic, rambling, bizarre and delivered in precisely the same way in which I delivered the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" mandatory speech back in high school. You know of which I speak: when you have memorized something for immediate consumption, and you must breathlessly blurt it as fast as you can in order to not forget any of it; pausing for effect = death.

What to make of this speech's content, then? She talks at length about all the "wasted" money spent investigating her dealings, and how that is not fair to the people of Alaska. She talks about the attacks on her new baby Trig. And then she boils it down to the fact that she doesn't want to be a lame duck governor who will "travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. And then I thought - that's what's wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and "milk it". I'm not putting Alaska through that - I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! That's not how I am wired."

So is that the choice? Stay and be a milker, or resign and be noble? How about staying and--since you are not facing reelection--be bold for the people of Alaska without regard to your electoral prospects? It could be liberating, and it's been done before by many many people. Which raises the questions: Why resign? Why now? Why so speedily? Why the nod to the unfair investigations? Well, the thought is afoot that some kind of corruption scandal is about to break, regarding state contracts awarded to companies who essentially built her house for free, among other things.

Time will tell. Is this really about family and the good people of Alaska? Or is it about something more? We'll find out. In the meantime, we can take heart with the following wise words to the people of Alaska from Governor Palin: "Our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, AND oil and gas. It's energy! God gave us energy."

Obligatory Michael Jackson Post

1. I did love him back when he was normal. I thought he was so cute in his Off The Wall days (oh like you didn't own it!) However, I was well into hair bands by the time Thriller rolled around so I couldn't have cared less about him by that point. That said--he made some truly monumental contributions to the music scene then--and now if you consider the artists who try to emulate or best him.

2. But...I recall him being a pedophile, right? Are we not supposed to remember that?

3. I realize he was acquitted in one case and settled out of court in another, all of which should absolve him. But I remember watching the interview in which he talked about how he and a bunch of boys not his children would hang out in his bed. I remember thinking, "On what f&(ing planet is this not an outrage--even if not criminal;--on what planet is this not profoundly creepy and Not Okay?!!" Apparently, on Earth.

4. I'm glad I didn't die on the same day as Michael Jackson. Farrah Who? Ed McWho? Joe Shmowho?

5. Seeing Joseph Jackson (MJ's father) at the BET awards last night answered all my questions about how a man with so much could end up so completely f*&ked up. His father, when asked about Michael, said, "I can't talk about Michael and the funeral right now, but my friend and I have started a new record label! Hey Marshall, tell 'em about the record label!" I shit you not. Three days since his son died and he's pimping his new record label. That's what my friend Andre would call "triflin'." Andre is right.

6. I'm pretty sure that all of Michael's famous debts will be paid in full now that his music is selling like it's 1985.

7. I wish him--as I do almost all people who've passed--peace at long last.

Moon-Spoon-June-Crap Typhoon

Folks, June cannot end soon enough for this girl. That's all I'm sayin'. Wow. What a hellish month. I'm aware many world-shattering events took place on a global scale, but what I'm speaking of is, of course, moi.

First up, I got Fifth Disease. You know Fifth Disease. It's that childhood disease you've never heard of but that SUCKS if you get it as an adult. It's such a crap disease that the people who compiled the list of the six childhood rash diseases never actually named it. It didn't even merit "Measles, Jr." It was just the fifth disease on the list and that was that. Friends, that disease TORE through Bambina's preschool. Eight out of the ten kids got it, the teachers got it (one very seriously to the point of almost rheumatoid arthritis), I got it, then Bambina got it, then two other parents got it, rounded out by a final parent who presented last week with massive joint inflammation and soul-crushing fatigue. I do not even want to tell you how rotten Fifth Disease was (Oh hell, of course I do). I seriously could barely move my feet in the morning. I limped around my house for 15 minutes till it passed. I was certain I was getting rheumatoid arthritis. I couldn't move my wrists very well, could barely walk on my knees, could not rotate my shoulders. I'm not kidding. I was seriously scared that I had either far-reaching GVHD of the joints or that I was getting RA. Was going to bed at 8pm, sleeping all night and still feeling like I hadn't rested at all. I had to be retrieved by my MIL and her friend from the Ikea 40 minutes away because I felt like I was going to pass out in the middle of the Skvargnen display. Can you imagine how pathetic a scene that is?! Falling into a giant basket of Ndorglingkvorsten? Not to mention I had Bambina with me, so it was scary as well as ludicrous. After that I went to my doctor who diagnosed Fifth after I mentioned that some kids in Bambina's class had it. He was like, "DUH!! Textbook! It's a virus, so you're just going to have to live through it." Fabulous.

But then it got better. By which I mean much, much worse. Bambina got it next. Only, she got the classic childhood symptoms which are: None, except for a spreading rash that starts on the face. This child (read = I) was awake every night for 5 nights ALL NIGHT itching and crying. I swear to god, I was on the edge of my sanity for lack of sleep. We went to the doctor after realizing that cortisone and every single other OTC product was useless against this itch, and finally got some prescription relief--and thank god--some sleep.

Shortly thereafter I came down with what I thought was C. Diff. I'll let you google it so that I can maintain a meager shred of dignity in this forum. Suffice to say: ugliness on a truly unbearable scale. We traveled to NJ for a family event before the situation had reached its critical mass, and I can honestly say that it's the first time in my life I've ever been thinking to myself in polite company, "Do not shit your pants, E. Do not shit your pants." I'm all about the dignity, you see. Anyway, we ended up leaving NJ early because I spiked a fever and (see above) became aware that I was finding it harder and harder to "manage my personal situation," shall we say, even though I hadn't eaten in 3 days. We headed to the ER, where they gave me perhaps the most horrifying and ass-kicking antibiotic second only to vancomycin: flagyl. So now I was not only crapping myself, I was vomiting as well. GOOD TIMES!!!

Now here's where I learned my lesson. I contacted my transplant doctor as well as my PCP. Transplant doc says, "You don't have c. diff; you have an adenovirus. Stop the flagyl. I"m not extremely concerned about this." Me: "WHAT THE F*CK?!!! I guess I wouldn't be 'extremely concerned' either about losing 5 pounds in 3 days if I wasn't the one doing it, a**hole!" I was hating him so much because I was terror-stricken at stopping the flagyl and having it all come roaring back. I mean, everyone said I had c. diff. I had all the symptoms of c. diff. I was the poster child for someone who had c. diff. My website popped up if you googled "c. diff." But Dr. KnowItAll was positive I'm getting marginally better not because of the flagyl but because the virus was simply running its course. Dr. KnowItAll claimed to have seen all this before. Dr. KnowItAll kept talking to me like 'why are you hoping it's c. diff?' Dr. KnowItAll was on my last, hungry-but-nauseous, physically-drained, spent nerve.

Dr. KnowItAll was--as you probably surmised--right. I got completely better 2 days after stopping the flagyl.

Happy days, right?! WRONG! A few days later, Bambina got it. And she's still not totally better. She missed her first day of camp today, still isn't really eating, had an obligatory ER visit for dehydration at 2am Sunday, and generally is struggling. Which means so am I. Which means all of us at Chez Haggis are ready to bid adieu to June in the hope for a better July.

So yeah, I know that Iran has erupted, politicians are poking their peckers everywhere, Congress is dithering on health care, and that Michael Jackson "The King of Pop" died. I know it. I'll just care more as soon as I can free myself from monitoring the bowel movements of other humans.

ps--On a serious note, the Ikea Incident actually gave Bambina and I the opportunity to have a really important chat about what she should do if an adult she is with is ever incapacitated. It's something we generally never think to discuss with our kids, but believe me, the only thing keeping me vertical that morning was the fact that I knew she would not have known what to do if I had dropped. Would some "well-meaning" stranger tell her to go with him or her? Would she know to tell them who to contact for me? Would she know to STAY WITH ME NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS until a family member or the following 3 pre-approved friends arrived? The answer at that time was NO. But now it's yes. Which you might want to consider for your own kid too. Just in case you ever get Fifth Disease. :)

El Gobierno del Amor

First, massive sympathy for his wife and kids. Disclaimer accepted?

Okay.

I LOVED Mark Sanford's press conference today. Rambling, self-indulgent, stream-of-consciousness. An absolute disaster.

Oh sure, the GOPers who like to circle wagons at times like these will say, "He showed courage" and "What honesty!" But let's be clear on motivation here: Dude got honest 'cause dude got caught. So all his talk of violating "God's laws" and asking for "forgiveness" will no doubt get him the Christian Right's support, but anyone else listening will likely think as I did: "You are a selfish fuck, Mark Sanford." Kinda like Bill Clinton. You remember him, right? The man of whom Mark Sanford said:

"I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)... I come from the business side, if you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone."

About voting to impeach Clinton, "I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible... I feel very comfortable with my vote."

Let's ask a few additional questions, shall we?

1. Who paid for these trips to Argentina?
2. Isn't leaving your state with no contingency, no succession plan a gross violation of the duties of the office?
3. How did The State (the local newspaper) get those embarrassingly-cheesy emails between him and his girlfriend?
4. Can we put paid to the lie that the Left is hypocritical because we'd be supporting him if he were a Dem? We sure wouldn't--if he were a Dem who RAN and WON on being a God-fearing Christian who is therefore better and more moral than others.
5. What kind of guy uses the two week separation he and his wife agreed upon--as a linchpin of their marital repair--to go to Argentina to see his girlfriend?
6. Why is it that the GOP of SC wanted his head on a stick when they thought he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but now that he's said he was actually shtupping a lady in Buenos Aires, they think he's courageous and "honest?" That's a pretty good deal if you think about it, isn't it?
7. Why was Governor Sanford OUTSOURCING his infidelity to South America? That is just unfair to good old American homewreckers.

Again, I don't care who the guy sleeps with. I simply care that he held himself up as someone better than those who faced similar troubles, someone who had little sympathy for those who faced similar troubles--and now he's asking forgiveness for those troubles. Cry me a river, Sanford.

Englsh Fiirst

I love when a conference dedicated to issues such as "English First" has a misspelled banner. Thank God Pat Buchanan is holding off the barbarians at the gate who would ruin our blessed language. I find everything Buchanan does to be reprehensible, but especially his remarks at the conference deriding Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor. She had said that she “spent summers reading children’s classics she had missed in a Spanish-speaking home and ‘re-teaching’ herself to write ‘proper English’ by reading elementary grammar books.”

Buchanan finds this all very funny. I find it to be rather inspiring. Here is a woman who humbled herself to learn all she could. Who shows contempt for someone doing what she needs to do to better write English and understand some great books from literature? Only Pat Buchanan can take what would be--to a non-diseased mind--an inspiring example of someone raised in a Spanish-speaking home who worked tirelessly to learn and absorb English, and turn it into a means of diminishing her entire educational history.

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but it must be said again: Buchanan is an asshole in any language.

Iran So Far Away

Oh my. What a scene over in Iran, the protests in reaction to the election results in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently won handily, even in areas heavily populated by opposition supporters. There are many talking heads calling for President Obama to speak more "forcefully" on the matter, lest he prove that he is indeed soft and weak on foreign policy.

McCain said, "He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights."

Various rightie blogs are calling on him to stop giving aid and comfort to the Iranian regime. Various leftie blogs are calling on him to fully support the protesters so as to enhance their position.

But this from George W. Bush's chief diplomat in Iran: “President Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to see a very aggressive series of statements by the United States that would try to put the U.S. in the center of this, and I think President Obama is avoiding that quite rightly...This is not a dispute for the U.S. to be the center of; it’s up to Iranians to decide who Iran’s future leaders will be. He said he respects Iran’s sovereignty. I think it was important to do that.”

I think Obama has this situation sussed, as well as one can. He's playing the long game:

Obama noted that Iranian policy would not be much different under Mousavi, particularly since the real rulers of Iran are the clerics, headed up by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, in terms of their actual policies, may not be as great as has been advertised...either way we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons."

This is a man who understands the situation, the history, the stakes. Contrast that--those of you who wonder what foreign policy under President John McCain might have been like--with the immediate reaction of the Senator from Arizona. The neocons are angling for a fight with Iran, want to avoid direct talks, and generally can't envision a future without some kind of conflict between our two countries. That conflict may come, but Obama knows well enough to let it play out of its own volition, rather than inserting the US and our baggage into the current crisis.

It's Always Something

Blogging will be light in the coming days since preschool has ended and we find ourselves in the interminable interregnum before camp begins. This means 24-hour mommy duty. Made worse by Bambina's recovery from Fifth Disease. She's fine except for The Rash That Will Not Leave. The doctor said it can take 20 days till it clears. In the meantime, she is itchy to the point of crawling out of her skin--particularly at night, on maxed-out doses of zyrtec and benadryl, and is generally too itchy or drowsy to do anything. She's fine but if she gets overheated or sun exposed or anything--blam--the itch is back with a vengeance. So we sat up most of two nights ago, most of last night, and tonight is shaping up to be no exception as my agitated child keeps calling for me. This obviously means that I'm sleeping and blogging very little, which is misery because now there are finally compelling things to rant about. So--I'm not on another sabbatical. I'm just doing my mommy job around the clock is all.

Honk if you can't wait for camp!