writewrite

The new dog is now named. Baxter. For me, he’s named after Charles Baxter, fiction writer and essayist; his name has other associations too, it seems. For K., Baxter calls up Baxter Black, cowboy poet. For Owen, Baxter is close enough to Booger to be satisfactory. And, there used to be a school in Richmond called Baxter Elementary; now it has an unimaginative name, something like Family Literacy and Stuff. (Sorry RCS, whatever the name truly is, it is rather forgettable.) However, you can still get Baxter t-shirts with the Baxter Bears logo on them. We all may do just that.

Meanwhile, Baxter has proven himself to be an able escape artist. Last night, at some ridiculous hour, he figured out how to wriggle under the fence and run off. So, Owen guarding the house (loudly), me on foot, the search began. How ridiculous is it to jog around a dark neighborhood calling a dog who doesn’t yet know his own name? Apparently just ridiculous enough that said dog will find his way home and be waiting on the deck when you (you being the me in this story) return dejected and worn out, without a dog in tow. Baxter! And there he was.

Now, the search for the camera continues. Pictures of the new little guy soon.

Here is the new dog, in a new state of repose. Finally!

And another one:

The image quality is crummy because this was taken with my cellphone; soon, when I figure out where my camera is, I’ll take some better ones. In the meantime, wish us all luck as this little guy settles in. He’s got a lot of potential, and we’re figuring out what he knows in life. So far it seems he knows “sit” and to ask to go outdoors and that cats are bad. And that begging is good. And that Owen is cool, but doesn’t like him very much yet. The key word being “yet.”

Stay tuned…

Hi. This is OWEN! I just want to tell everyone that I am getting a NEW BROTHER! He doesn’t have a name yet, and we don’t have a picture of him yet, but he kind of looks like that picture. I want to call him Booger, but Jean says no. I just want to hear her call him and say, HERE BOOGER!! Ha ha ha ha ha. That’s pretty funny. But that’s me, OWEN. I think everything is funny. When he comes home from the vet tomorrow Jean will post a picture of him.

What do YOU think he should be called?

PS from Jean
The dog is about two years old, and is — as far as we can tell — a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Maybe purebred, maybe not. A shelter dog who is just pretty darn cute. More soon…

I usually don’t like Christmas shopping very much, and really don’t like the people I meet while Christmas shopping very much at all either. The whole task of buying stuff has, in the past, made me very cranky. But today? It was as though some kind of Love fairy had sprinkled magic dust all across Richmond.

In Kroger’s, the grocery store, I stood in line, my arms way full of stuff (I always think I don’t need a cart, and then, oh guess what, I do.) Just as my arms were starting to go numb, and I was starting to wish dire things on the slow clerk, the slow customers, and the human race in general, the very eldery woman in front of me in line turned, gave me a smile that resembled — a lot — that of Mrs. Claus, and said, “Dearie, would you like my cart?” I kind of mumbled something like: Um? Really? “Oh, I don’t need it,” she said. “And you do!” And just like that, her cart was magically empty, and just as magically, I could put my stuff in it, and I swear right then I was next in line and before I knew it out the door and into my car and on my way to the next stop.

Which was Big Lots — oh I do love Big Lots — and there, as I was wandering the aisles looking for a Really Big Gift Bag, a woman in Carhaart overalls grabbed my arm and said, “Look!” Um, okay, I said. Where? “There! Lookit that! Ain’t that the funniest thing!?” I looked where she was pointing, and there in the middle of an aisle, sat a small boy on the floor, with two battery-operated toys in front of him, both toys singing, almost in harmony, “We Wish you a Merry Christmas!” And it was, indeed, the funniest thing. The Carhaart woman and I just grinned at each other.

And then I was in another store, buying another thing, something recommended by my brother-in-law as a Really Good Gift. The woman behind the counter was someone I knew from working in the greenhouse years and years ago. We share the same name, a low tolerance for fools, and an appreciation of the thing I was buying, the Really Good Gift. She admired my choice. “Mm, hmmmmmmmmmm,” she said. And then she added a comment I cannot repeat here lest I give away what the Really Good Gift might be. Suffice it to say, she Really Approved. Then, she rang up my purchase, came around the counter to hand it to me, and we exchanged a big hug.

I had to restrain myself then from going to the pet store after this, because I had a feeling that Santa himself would appear, bearing six tiny puppies I could not resist. So I went on home and wrapped all my gifts. And now? I’m thinking just this: this year, I really love Christmas.

Follow Santa around the world: LINK

Merry Christmas!

Every year, between Christmas and New Years, the Modern Language Association holds its annual conference. It is, arguably, the largest academic conference in the world. Approximately 10,000 people attend each year. I’ve been a couple of times, and it’s an adventure. Most of the people who attend are vying for jobs in academia, jobs which attract as many as 300 - 500 applicants for one position. That’s a little nuts. And it makes people nuts.

In the years I went, a couple of which I was on the job market, I was one of the herd of supplicants with my CV and writing samples in tow, waiting for my turn at the interview table. That “table” is usually in a hotel room, which is odd enough to begin with. Sometimes a hotel room with a large bed in it. One interview I had was in a room so small two of the members of the interview committee sat on the bed during the interview. Creepy? A little.

The creepiest part of all isn’t the interview logistics, or the hordes of newly minted graduate students (dressed in the requisite black clothing, uniform for all English professors, apparently) jockeying for position at the hotel elevators, or the slinky minxes and studly creative writers (you know how they are) cruising in the cocktail lounges. The most creepy part of all is the jobs themselves. People are vying for positions as assistant professors of X, most with starting salaries that range from $35,000 to — if you’re clever and good at negotiating in this crappy economic climate — around $50,000. And for that? You get to teach three or four sections of classes a semester, serve on a bunch of committees, advise students, hold office hours, and in your spare time write your next book, shmooze pleasantly with the senior faculty who will determine your fate (aka tenure), and juggle a thousand other projects that come your way. Oh, and carve out your niche, guard your turf, make yourself known on campus, in your field, and if you’re lucky, beyond the walls of academia.

Just for fun, here’s a job description from one of those jobs currently out there, and I’m not making this up:

Primary expertise will be in 20th century and contemporary British literature, and expertise in Irish and/or post-colonial literatures and experience in teaching creative writing and/or film studies are desirable. The successful candidate will be expected to teach composition and critical thinking, and will work closely with undergraduate majors and with graduate students in a multifaceted MA program.

And, I’m betting, “other duties” as assigned. You betcha.

Tonight and tomorrow night, I have Christmas parties to go to. I know exactly one person at the party tonight; tomorrow night I know just about everyone, including many of the spouses and partners of friends and coworkers who will appear. Tonight feels like a real party; tomorrow feels a bit more like a festive work meeting. I used to hate parties not so long ago. I’d worry about what to wear, what to say, how to act, what people would think about what I wore or said or how I acted. Hmm. But now? I just go, wear something that doesn’t look too silly, or sometimes does if I’m in the mood, say what I think, act how I feel, and have a good time.

I love being fifty.

Last night, in my dreams, Buddy was alive again. Alive again and dying again. In this dream, which seemed to last all night, there were all the requisite Freudian things (yes, there was a train), things that may have been Jungian (a garden, my parents’ home, a veterinarian who shaves his head into a blond mullet, a river, and two huge luxury busses). There were details from my life with Buddy — a really lousy boarding stable, populated by all the strange people who once were there; Buddy colicking, slowly; Buddy, himself: trotting, grazing, looking worried.

When I woke up my first thought — full of my own worry, and ready to take action — was this: I hope Buddy is okay. And in that moment, he was alive again. And then, in the next, fully awake, I realized: No. No, he’s not alive. Not anymore. Buddy, my buddy. He is dead.

A new member of the club has recently joined. All Hail Liz!

Tonight was the second to last official meeting of my creative nonfiction class. Next week we will meet one more time to share writing, cookies, thoughts about writing. At this point in the semester, I never know what I have accomplished. Some students enter and then leave my classes untouched. Others become transformed, blooming into a love of writing. Others seem to drift through in various states of being: distracted, overworked, annoyed, thoughtful, curious, worried.

I don’t know whether it’s a good idea or not, but I always try to leave the students with something to think about. Usually something I’m writing, or thinking about writing. Tonight, I talked about the importance of keeping a notebook with you at all times. You know. That little book you jot things down in when they occur to you. Right. That one. The one you carry always because you are a writer, because everything must be turned into writing. Everything.

Even the death of your beloved horse, dead now just over a week. In the notebook, my notebook, I have written only fragments of things about Buddy’s death. Images. Sounds. Smells. Words people said aloud. The beginnings of sentences to hold these things. I read some of that aloud in the classroom tonight. Facts, details, the tangible stuff of which life — and writing — is made.

I read a few pages, as much as I could manage, then set down my notebook. This, I said — tapping the tough little book on my desk — this is what you do if you are a writer. You cast your life into words. All of it.

I’d like to believe the pure silence in the classroom tonight was a room of students listening hard, taking note. Maybe so.