Recent Reads

Read, read, read, write, write, write. Crossing things off the list, still. Most of my recent reads have been for class, although I did reread Gatsby so I can go see the new movie and complain about how different it is from the book. Also, I wanted to make sure I still hate Daisy.

Spoiler alert: YUP.

A lot of these are serious reads, for my very serious nonfiction class. Great writing, but really hard work to get through. At this point I have only one required book and one required critical paper left for my graduate program. I can't tell you how excited I am that I'm going to be able to read anything I want, soon, and I won't have to feel guilty about it, like I'm cheating on my school reading list.

But for the meantime, here's what's been on my nightstand lately:


The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I started reading this little novel (or rather, having Jake Gyllenhaal read it to me) again on a whim, and by the time I was finished with it, I had learned I'd be (probably) teaching juniors again next year. Which means I'll be (probably) teaching this book again for the first time in a while. So I guess that's good.

Gatsby is a quick read, so it's never a chore to get through. I'm always--and I don't think I could even count how many times I've read it at this point--surprised at how thin it feels when I'm reading it. Thin, in terms of the actual text. I tend to think of Hemingway as Mr. Sparse, and while Fitzgerald's descriptions are a bit more lush, this is still a book with very little actually in it. Somehow, though, Fitzgerald creates a world that's bigger than the sum of its parts, just like Gatsby does with his own persona. That's the magic of it. But when I look at what's actually on the page, there always seems to be less there than what I remember. It's like going back to a place I remember from childhood and finding it smaller than I remember in my mind.

Gatsby isn't my favorite book, but it's one of those books that you're just better off knowing. It's a good thing to have as a part of your literary vocabulary. I also have to admit that it brings me a lot of joy to hear it being discussed on such a widespread level--even when the movie is getting panned. All this talk about stories found in books can't be bad. If Baz Luhrmann and Jay-Z can make my former students read something that I couldn't, fine. At least they picked up a book.

My recommendation: You should read this at some point in your life. And good Lord, there's more to it than that stupid green light.


Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology by Lawrence Weschler

This is an odd little nonfiction book about an odd place in LA. Weschler writes about David Wilson's Museum of Jurasssic Technology in Los Angeles, an eclectic collection of science, history, anatomical anomalies, dioramas and hoaxes. Wilson himself is an interesting character. Weschler gives his reader a firsthand account of his visits to the museum, and traces the inception of the idea of the museum itself.

The writing in this book was great, and Wilson was a quirky, compelling character who was presented with fascination and respect. I just couldn't get into it.

My recommendation: A good read for museum buffs or fans of the supernatural. Definitely a quick read, and pushes the limits of what we accept in terms of normal, scientific, and historical.


Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer came to our residency last June and I hadn't read any of his work yet, so it was time I got to work on that. Out of Sheer Rage is his book about his attempt to write a book about D. H. Lawrence.

This book is unique, and I can see so many ways it could go wrong in another writer's hands. But somehow for Dyer, it works. He is a great writer. Basically in writing about all the ways he could not, did not, would not get to work on his Lawrence book, he ends up writing the Lawrence book. It's sort of a book by procrastination, which is, I guess, a thing. I enjoyed it, but I will say that by the end I was also ready for it to end.

My recommendation: This isn't a book that I think would appeal to everybody, I think, but the writing is stellar, and it's kind of amazing how Dyer manages to fill its pages with as much avoidance behavior as he does. This is a good, solid read. If you're a committed reader, you'd enjoy it.


The Book of My Lives Aleksander Hemon

This is another serious book. Hemon writes in this collection of (mostly previously published) essays about his early life in Sarejevo and his more recent life in Chicago. He is quite often a displaced person. He seems to be never fully in one place or another, and there is a lot of powerful stuff here about war, alienation, death, and defining oneself through contrast with other cultures.

But for me this book was about one essay, pure and simple. It's called "The Aquarium," and it was published in The New Yorker in June of 2011. You can read it here. In this essay, Hemon writes of the death of his infant daughter after her diagnosis and treatment for a brain tumor. It's some of the most raw, honest writing I've ever read. It's beautiful writing, but it ruined me. It is the final essay in the collection, and it elevated the rest of the book, shining new light on everything else he writes. I can't say it would have been the same book for me if Hemon wouldn't have included this piece, but it was so, so hard to read.

My recommendation: The Hemon book isn't one I'd probably recommend to most people. But I would say the New Yorker piece of writing is. It's one of the most honest, heart-wrenching things I've ever read.

What's Left.

Not much is what's left of this school year. I think we're down to four days for my seniors and seven days for the freshmen. That's nothing, I know. So much to do between now and the end of the year, but there are things to be thankful for. I said a little prayer of thanksgiving to myself today that I've been lucky enough to stay in the same classroom so the last four years and I get to stay put again. I DO NOT miss having to pack up everything and move each year. That was a less-than-fun way to spend the first eight or so years I taught. I have a bunch of cleaning to do this year, but I'll survive.

Today was exhausting, but great. My seniors are preparing to workshop their creative writing pieces for the end of the year, and for the first time ever I'm getting to actually use things I'm doing in my MFA world in my teaching world. So that's cool. There has been a lot of tangential crossover, but it was nice to be able to say "this is what we do in my creative writing classes" and explain the process. They seem genuinely happy to write something creative rather than something for the test, and I've really wanted to give them more opportunities to do that. (Not everybody sees essay writing as creative writing, unfortunately. That's a hard-sell even to many a nerd.) I'm looking forward to seeing what they turn in next week. My freshmen presented scenes from Romeo and Juliet today, and they were awesomely clumsy and hilarious... but they got it. It's so obvious to me that they got it. Hearing Shakespeare's words come out of fifteen year olds' mouths (and knowing that the fifteen year olds didn't understand a lick of the play a few weeks ago) is just about as good as it gets, frankly. I left feeling proud of everybody today. Five for five.

But yeah, I'm beat. E tells me I need to stop saying that. He says every day is a long day, every week is a long week, blah, blah, I'm always exhausted. It's true, though. I'm doing so much. Last night Henry had his last playoff game for baseball and there's always a stack of reading on my nightstand for the ol' MFA. And we have to eat food, which seems to always need buying and cooking and cleaning up. It's all good stuff, it's just stuff. I've taken to a habit of laying on my couch to read or write during my prep period (shoes off, natch), and today after school I fell asleep in the backyard in my chair, "reading." Oopsie.

I'm just ready for summer. I'm ready for life to shrink to the size of a pinpoint. I'm ready for the longest drive I make to be from my house to my mom's. After school and residency and the end of quarters (teaching and learning) I'll start waking up every day to make a pot of coffee and sit by the window and read... and we'll swim... and I'll nap... and probably the only people I'll talk to most days will be the monkeys and E and K. And that will be fine by me, because hopefully it means I can focus on writing and only writing.

Right now I'm still having to look at too many people with my face.

Plant Stuff

Oops. Hi. Missed a day yesterday. Oh well. Still doing better than before.


E weeded and rototilled the vegetable garden for me the other day to get it ready to plant again. Basically I don't think I'd looked at it since August, and it was like the Land Before Time in there. Oops.

But lo and behold, we had some forgotten strawberry plants with ripe strawberries. Nothing like a surprise harvest to get us inspired to plant our little summer veggie farm. Yum.

This reminds me. Almost time to make some jam.


K helped me figure out what to buy for our planter next to the peach tree, too. I came home from the nursery with a trunk full of pretty pink and white geraniums and all sorts of veggies for the vegetable garden. Our backyard is officially complete, plant-wise. And I made sure to get everything in the ground last night so I didn't end up letting anything die.

Go, me.

Also, this: I love, love, love (have I not said this yet?) our backyard now. I love that it is such a nice place to hang out. We've never had that before. I've been out there every night after work and it just makes me happy. It's a tiny little space but it's awesome.

I've got plants on the brain right now. Life is hectic until school ends. Plants seem calm.

Anyway. Here's a poem about peonies. Just because.

Flowers!

Peonies
by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open--
pools of lace,
white and pink--
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities--
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again--
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

Watch this.

This time of year I always start to get a little sentimental as I send another group of seniors out into the world.

It's what led me to Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, On Being Perfect a few years ago.

So here is another new (to me) thing I love. I can't stop thinking about it this week, which means I needed to hear it just as badly as my kids do.

Watch it. Yes, it's 9 minutes, but I promise it's worth it.

From David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College:

This.

Today an AP student from 2008 came back just to say thank you. Just to look me in the face and say that I was a teacher who mattered, and that she was grateful for what I meant in her life.

She just graduated from USC with her masters and is about to start her first official job in the big, big world. But she wanted to come back to high school to say thanks, first.

This is a beautiful thing that overwhelms me. And I am reminded of how lucky I am to get to do this job.

The Peanut Butter of Peace

Well, I lost the Peanut Butter Wars.

I stood my ground for a long time, taking a stand against the dual evils of Jif and Skippy, but in the end I was no match for an all-out processed nut butter blitz that involved the extended family.

This story starts with me buying wholesome natural peanut butters for my family and ends with a jar of chocolate Jif in my pantry.

For years--years, I tell you--I used my power as sole purchaser of groceries to buy peanut butter that was as close as I could get to pure: containing no added oils or sugars. I like my peanut butter to be simple: peanuts, salt. The end. For health reasons, not because something is wrong with my tastebuds. We went over this before: Do Skippy and Jif taste like heaven? Yes. (So does candy.) Are processed peanut butters with additives good for you? Not as good as they could be. So given the mass amount of PB we consume around here with our J, I made a conscious effort to buy the healthier--if less spreadable and more grainy--natural kind.

Yes, she admitted, the annoying kind with the oil on top that you have to stir in. Not everything in life that's good can be easy. Read some Robert Frost.

But E is an old Skippy fan from way back, and as the children grew older he enlisted them in his protest. And one night at a family BBQ at my sister's, it slipped out that I was subjecting my children to such indescribable horrors as homemade yogurt and natural peanut butter.

The poor babies. Gasp! What did they do without their hydrogenated oils?

So haha, everyone in the family had a good laugh at my expense and asked me when I was moving to a hippie commune to make my artisanal cheese and granola. And because such things never end there and always turn into Christmas presents, E and the kids received an assorted box of peanut butters for Christmas from my Auntie Anne: Jif, Skippy, Reese's, you name it. About eight jars of the stuff. All varieties. All brands. All processed.

I wasn't about to throw out free food, so they ate it. Until we ran out about a month ago, and then I had to make a choice.

In the meantime, my descent into do-it-yourselfing has gotten even more nutty. I experimented with making my own nut butters and decided I like the taste of peanut (and almond) butter I make better than the natural brand from the store. You can't get much fresher than the peanut butter you just made out of a bunch of nuts.

Anyhoo, I gave. I was in Costco and I saw the price tag on the double Skippy pack and I couldn't resist. I knew the fam was way less likely to go for my new PDawg-ground PB blend, so I brought home the two tubs of processed nut butter happiness and presented them to E: The Peanut Butter of Peace.

We are now a two peanut butter household:


Skippy and homemade.

I left the room after the presentation of the PBOP, but apparently there was a ceremony wherein he and the monkeys each dipped a finger in the top of the new jar to celebrate their victory. They allowed me to retreat quietly to the bedroom so I wouldn't have to see this bold act and feel shame.

All has been well on the two peanut butter track, save for the day I opened the cupboard and found the chocolate Jif. There might have been a "what the hell is this?" uttered that day. Might have. And we might have remembered why I buy the groceries, not E.

Last Game (Sorta)

Today was Henry's last game of the regular season. We have playoffs this week (and here's where I apologize, because if I was a more sporty mom, the kind who knew what to say in such situations so as not to embarrass her son when he looks back upon such things once he's old enough to read them, I would know how to say this more delicately), but we're not so good and we're gonna get creamed. So I'm pretty sure playoffs won't last very long.

Listen. I didn't say we weren't the cutest. Or the trying-hardest. We have heart. We have spunk. We play by the rules. We just don't really win, so I think the whole playoff thing isn't going to take so long.

Anyway, today was the last game for ol' Hanko. He started off getting to play first base. While he was warming up, a ball bounced off the ground and hit him right in the eye. So he ended up sitting out the first inning to ice it. Poor dude. I think the worst part of it was that he wanted to play first base so badly and he missed out on it. The game after that point was okay, but I think it threw him and he looked to be kind of nervous. We played a tough team and though we held our own, Henry ended up crawling into his shell a little bit and I didn't see the same bold kid that played Thursday night against the parents.

But by the end of the night tonight before bed, he seemed fully recovered. We made a family plan to meet up on the back porch for campfire time once it was dark (translation: sit around a fire pot in our patio furniture and eat Oreos). Henry ate about ten Double Stufs, so I'd say he was doing okay. He also dragged out a book of Weird Al History and regaled us all with Weird Al factoids by the light of his tiny LCD book light and the glow of the Sterno in the fire pot.

This is a new level of exhaustion, but it's happy-through-exhaustion I'm feeling tonight.

(And relief... I'm ready for baseball to be over until next year.)