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Okay, since inquiring minds want to know: yes, I did find a dress for the premiere, and yes I did find a pair of shoes. Among a gajillion other “girly” things, as Jess would say. The dress is great — black velvet, with a kind of inset tail, a very very red carpet kind of dress. I wish I had a bigger picture to post, but it’s sold out already on the site where I got it … for $22.99 on clearance. Originally lots more than that, but I actually forget how much. At any rate, here’s a tiny tiny little jpg to look at:

And the shoes are crazy high high heels, almost four inches. Wearing these requires trial runs at home, believe me. Owen thinks it’s very funny. Ha ha, Owen.

Here’s a link to a bigger image of the shoes: SHOES! They really are the kind of shoes that Carrie would see in a window and be moved to say: “Hello, Lover.” Yes, indeed.

I hear there will be photographers doing the red carpet thing at the premiere, and all those photographs will be posted on the internet for all to see as of, oh, next weekend. I’ll post a link…

Meanwhile, the anxiety dreams continue. A couple of nights ago, dreams about Buddy hurting himself (think Barbaro-type injury) and being shipped out to a terrible farm somewhere in Ohio and having to stand in the mud and the rain (and whinnying pitifully) and I don’t have a trailer or a pickup anymore and I couldn’t get him so I had to lead him through the rain and then we were on the streets of New York City and he really didn’t like the traffic, not at all. Then another dream last night about the sheriff’s mounted patrol appearing in my backyard and I was supposed to interview them, or be interviewed, or something and suddenly all I was wearing was a blanket (yes, one of Those Dreams!) and it was really cold and the deputies were snickering while their horses just stared at me. Oh, how weird.

Maybe if I just don’t sleep until after the premiere I’ll be fine.

If you’d like to see a little news thing about the premiere, click here: LINK I have no idea what I’m doing pointing at things on my desk and looking like a bobble-head, but apparently the reporter (a student, by the way, and nice job she did too) thought it looked professorial. Right. On we go…

I think, about now, I’m allowed to have some anxiety dreams about things coming up — a conference presentation in two days, more than a handful of radio and TV spots beginning today, the finishing of the film, the premiere of the film, another presentation — all in the next two weeks. However, I think my anxiety dreams are just plain weird. No showing up on stage in my underwear or showing up late for an exam. No, not for me. In my dreams, I’m doing complicated and sometimes dangerous athletic things while talking…a lot.

Last night? I was riding a bicycle through the streets of Lexington, Massachusetts, in the dark, while a van full of film reviewers followed behind. One of them kept asking, while hanging out of the van window, holding a microphone: “Aren’t you nervous? Won’t you be nervous speaking in front of 200 people?”

“Oh,” I said, while pedaling up a hill. “Is it 200?”

And then we were going down the hill and I out rode the van full of reviewers, who were all hanging out of the windows of the van now, all holding microphones. We rode all the way to Indiana, apparently, because suddenly we were on a basketball court, in a gymnasium, all the bleachers pulled out, and the audience filing in, but first we had to watch people shooting baskets from the three-point line. And they were all English professors. Look, it’s TJ! And Mary! And Laverne! And that film reviewer was still dogging me, although now my bicycle was gone and she had a notepad instead of a microphone, and I had a pile of laundry I was sorting, a lot of socks. The reviewer kept asking me if I was nervous.

“No, I’m not nervous,” I said. “Two hundred people, nah. It’s the same as twenty, only more.”

Ever logical I am, even in my dreams. And the reviewer wrote that down, I’ll have you know.

This little science trick is really fun. LINK All it requires is a frying pan, some marbles, and a stove. Fry away, my friends.

As of last week, I have fried all my marbles. That could be a metaphor, but alas, it’s actually true. As we get closer to the premiere of the film, I’m doing anything to keep myself busy.*

*Including, yes, schoolwork. Melissa, guess what: I am about to read the final draft of your thesis. Ha!

I deleted 800 some spam doodads from the “please moderate” queue today. Everything from Russian-spam to porn-spam to spam-spam to spam about tires, sandals, dog training, dire predictions about the weather, giddy predictions about the effects of mood- and organ-enhancing drugs (xanax, prozac, viagra, lexapro, celexa, aspirin, ben-gay), emails about the lotteries in landblocked countries in the heart of Africa (You’ve Won!) and emails about suddenly re-appearing longlost relatives (They’ve died!) and a thousand other weird things that people might buy or think about buying or be seduced into buying or signing or emailing back about or just simply believing in.

Clearly, it’s time for a better spam filter. A moat, or something. Grr.

Yesterday, when I went out to walk Owen — again — the snow stopped falling. And the sun began to come out. There it was, a rarity in Indiana, a sunny snowy day. I could have been in New England. Almost. It was so nice, Owen and I just walked for a long time. There were other people out — starting to shovel walks, the occasional driveway, clean off their cars. We passed one very old man in a black insulated jumpsuit, slowly cleaning off his very old Chevy truck.

“Crazy weather, huh?” I said.
Owen grinned at him.
The man shook his head, slowly, side to side. “Shoo,” he said. “Shooo.”

On another block, a voice called out:

“That a pit?”
“What?” I looked around, saw a kid, a block over, carrying a shovel.
“That a pitbull?” he said.
I looked at Owen, who looked up at me. I could be, he said. Then, he might have approximated a threatening look if he could, but he can’t. He just grinned again.
“No,” I called back to the kid. “He’s not a pitbull.”

We kept walking. And then, there on another block, there was the kid again, crossing the street headed east; we were headed north.

“Hey, there’s that wanna be pitbull,” he said.
I just laughed. “Right.”
The kid brandished his shovel like a sword. “I think pitbulls should be the only dogs in the world!”
“Okay…” We kept walking.
“Hey! Know anyone who needs shoveled?”
I looked back. The kid was standing in the middle of the intersection, on the snow covered street, leaning on his shovel. “No, sorry,” I said.
“Hey!” he called again. “Do you need yours?”
“Nope, I’m good.”

Owen and kept walking, now in the middle of the street ourselves, the sidewalks too deep for Owen to manage. Okay, me too. And the kid called again: Hey, Hey! We just kept going. I think now he was just lonely, bored, probably wanted to talk about pitbulls, maybe wanted to make at least five or ten or some dollars shoveling something.

Finally, we’d had enough walking and headed back home. We turned to go up the alley, come in the back way. Just as we did, a blue two door, some odd little make of a car, came skidding out of the alley, not going really fast, just fishtailing in all that snow. I yanked Owen back and we just missed getting wholloped. The car lurched to a stop and the driver lowered the window. It was one of the neighbor kids. A kid I’ve had in class — he wants to be a writer, or maybe a musician, get out of Indiana, go somewhere better, bigger. For now, he works in the mall, at the music store. He called out to us:

“Sorry! Sorry!”
He did look sorry, and not a little scared.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re okay!”

Then he drove off, and Owen and I went home, tired but very happy.

Real weather, at last. Here it is:

Wayne County
Blizzard Warning:
Blizzard warning remains in effect until 4 pm est this afternoon,

Snow will continue today and will be heavy at times. An additional accumulation of 1 to 3 inches can be expected today with a storm total of 6 to 10 inches. Strong winds with gusts up to 40 mph will cause significant blowing and drifting. The snow and blowing snow will reduce visibilities to near zero at times causing whiteout and blizzard conditions today.
Do not travel unless absolutely necessary. Conditions can deteriorate rapidly in blizzard situations. If you must travel, slow down and allow extra time when traveling. Practice your winter safety rules, keep an extra flashlight, food, and water in your car in case of emergency.

I’m not quite sure what my “winter safety rules” are, however. Mittens, scarf, boots for me and Owen must wear his coat when we go out and walk in this blizzard? Okay then. We did that. It was very cold, but very fun to walk in the snow. Owen loves it. I suppose I do too. After a long winter of drizzle and gray clouds, a good foot of snow on the ground is just great. And great snow it is too: light, fluffy, easy to shovel, perfect for Owen to dive into. We’re going out again, as a matter of fact. Right now.

Haiku is quite fun –
addictive even — as the
snow falls all around –

still — I realize
I don’t quite have the real thing
here: this is Faux-ku

entertaining on
a cold winter Friday night
better than sitcoms

and never meant to
comment on real Haiku, which
goes something like this:

snow curls in white drifts
we sleep alone in winter
awaiting lush spring

Ah. Even that fails
Image next to image — that’s
the thing, and nature,

seasons, the ebbing
of chill and darkness, daily,
then the return of

life, warmth, light, rebirth –
the real Easter when the earth
is reborn in green.

****
Right. What do I know. Happy Daylight saving weekend. May the winter hibernation be over. Stop snowing already. Stop being cold. Bring forth the season of mud!

Sick again: virus
lodged in my head, throat, chest, soul
winter is loathsome

Hey. It’s a new month. The one with Spring in it. Here, in the big flat Midwest it already feels like Spring today. At 5:30 this morning, when Owen insisted we get up and go out, immediately, the air was warm, almost humid. The weather website says the windchill is 22, but that’s ridiculous, given the fact that there is no wind. None.

In honor of the new month, this blog is rethinking itself. Rather, yes, right: I am rethinking it. The sheer randomness of this little space is starting to seem irrelevant. My brother’s blog LINK is the use of blog space that seems relevant. My sister’s blog LINK is also. They each use their blogs to deal, in writing, with issues relevant to their work. Yes, there’s the occasional random entry, but on balance you can turn to their blogs for insights into the world of UUs or the world of children’s books. Good work there.

My blog? Um, as my students would say, not so much. Frankly, I don’t have much enthusiasm for inaugurating a blog about teaching writing. Noooooo, no. Would you want to read about comma splices or how to write a works cited page in MLA style? I didn’t think so. Nor do I want this to become a writer blog, a blog where I turn into one of those annoying writers who writes about themselves, their writing process, their latest book/article/reading/tour/award. We would call this then windbag.com/blogspot. Nor do I want to write about the Writing Profession. There are writers who do that. I think they are silly. And pretentious. All of the writers who write about themselves and The Profession — especially those who do that and then make very windy presentations at, oh, AWP or MLA — these writers will be forgotten heaps of lint fifty years from now. No, I’m not naming names. But we know who they are.

So then what does this blog become? Given half a chance I’d write about Owen daily. Or Buddy, the horse. Or the Sparring Partners, Milo and Harry the cats. But then that would make this blog into a Cute Pet Blog. Equally annoying.

There’s always fashion. Shoes, particularly. There is the pair of four inch heels I recently purchased and have a serious crush on. Oh, they are lovely things. Why is it that women love shoes? That could be a blog, all in itself, with daily entries.

All right. Enough. I’ll think about this space, and get back to you.