Much To My...

Much to my chagrin...I am going to become—if only for a moment—one of those bloggers who blogs about the weather (much more interesting to blog about the WHETHER, but no). I am once again in Lea's stinky gym which today also has the distinction of being sauna-y, sweltering, and stupor-inducing. To make matters worse, my laptop is so hot it's emitting steam. I placed it atop a magazine atop my lap, but still the heat, the heat, the relentless heat. I cannot place it to my left or my right for we parents, nannies, and whatnot are seated shoulder to shoulder (did I even roll on my beloved, ancient Old Spice deodorant this morning? It matters not! Your Nesting Ground Mistress always smells like...like...like...a clean person) and are constantly murmuring, "Oh, sorry," to each other whenever we move the slightest bit.

Much to my eternal gladness...California's Supreme Court today legalized same-sex marriages. I say to this what I said yesterday about John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama: it's about time.

Much to my (not particularly suprised) horror... this article in the Washington Post. The following quote suggests that perhaps Clinton field organizers should put their volunteers through some sort of screening process (a moot point at this juncture, of course):

Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

*shiver*

Much to my amusement...a little girl who looks to be about three-years-old is putting on her leotard, pointing to her little girl parts, and yelling, "Guess what this is, everybody! This is my vagina! This is my vagina!" And her mother is saying, "Shhhh, shhhhhh..."

Much to my relief...I'm outta here in ten minutes.

My Kingdom For a Jumpy Monitor or Two. Or Ten.

I'm sitting here frantically working, and it occurred to me that my current task is both sad and hilarious (not to mention ridiculous, meaningless, and fraught with anxiety). What am I doing? I'm coordinating all the volunteers for the girls' school carnival this Saturday, and I can't scare up enough people to monitor the dreaded jumpie things. Everyone's into the tattoos and face painting and games and food service, but the jumpies are anathema.

Truth be told, I can't blame them. I was a Jumpy Monitor (or as I referred to myself, "Matron of the Asylum") last year, and it was the longest 90 minutes of my life.

Perhaps the problem was that I oversaw the long, obstacle course jumpy that's reserved for the bigger kids. Bigger kids = not so fun.

Perhaps the problem was that I did not have a bullhorn and/or whistle. Raw throat = not so fun.

Perhaps the problem was that it was not okay to curse to make the severity of my threats truly understood. Restraints on language = not so fun.

Perhaps the problem was that I became obsessed with one particular kid who was an EVIL CHEATER, and I became determined (in a somewhat sitcom-like way) to exact my revenge on his EVIL CHEATING SELF. Revenge obsession = not so fun.

So, yeah. Not a lot of takers in jumpy land.

Just In Time For Mother's Day!

Here's a new book to help children cope with mommy's plastic surgery. According to the publisher's web site (which I refuse to link to), it will "help patients explain their transformation to their children."


I hope it comes with a companion book titled Mommy Explains Why You're Not Beautiful Just The Way You Are.

via Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish.

Rejected We Stand!

It turns out I wasn't the the only person pondering the already well-trod subject of rejection. In fact, there was quite the to-do in the Land of The Blogs when The Virginia Quarterly Review decided to make public some of the comments that the journal's readers have made while slogging through the slush pile. And they were, um, pretty mean. This set off a firestorm of such magnitude that VQR redacted the offensive comments and posted a mea culpa here.

I think the horrified reactions were a little much. But that's probably because I begin the submission process with the knowledge that my writing will likely be mocked by the anonymous reader at Journal X or Journal Y or Journal Z. That's a risk we sign up for, is it not? For me, it's not much different from wearing shoes with feathers on the heels and knowing full well that someone is going to think they're ridiculous. And it's okay! Because secretly, I know they're suprawondralistic. Just like secretly, I know that whatever story I send out is...really not that bad.

In other rejection-oriented linkage: Grace Talusan and Literary Rejections On Display.

And now...Nesting Ground bonus points for the reader who can identify whose shoes are in this previously posted 2-year-old photo, and on which occasion they were worn:

The Post That Does Not Hold Together Well

There is a dog at the loft. At first, it barked every time I entered the building. Then it barked occasionally, which was nerve wracking for a non-dog person such as myself, as I was constantly worried about whether or not I was going to be yakked at and, consequently, drop my sunglasses or my Diet Coke or my laptop. Now, the loft dog keeps its head resting on its paws and stares at me with as much disinterest as my sadly unrequited 8th grade crush. I say, "Hey, Doggie," and rush on past.

[insert awkward transition word of your choice here: "anyways," "anyhooters," "onward," "so."]

I'm writing this while I wait for Lea's gymnastics class to end. There are little people (including miniature teenagers) in sparkly leotards flinging their bodies all about. My daughter and her pal are the sole exceptions to the leotard phenomenon. They prefer to wear leggings and a t-shirt, and I don't blame them. More coverage provides more protection—at least psychologically—from The Odor. This place, you see, smells like a 55-year-old man's gym socks that have been urinated on repeatedly by a feral cat. I don't understand why. The gym, after all, appears to have been an airplane hangar in its previous life. There's plenty of ventilation, an 80-foot ceiling, and the doors are open, yet The Odor persists. Perhaps it exists solely to vex me.

As does the mean old lady who sasses me if I park anywhere near her house. Evil has a name, I tell you, and it's whatever this woman's name is. About a month ago I saw her walking towards my car, and I thought she was going to ask me a question of some sort, so I rolled down my window and smiled. And she said, "Don't park here."

"Excuse me?"

"I said, 'don't park here.'"

"Why not?"

"You're not allowed to park here. This is for residents."

"First of all, I am a resident. And this is street parking, so I AM allowed to park here."

"There's parking around the school."

"Yes, I know, but it's only 10-minute parking, and I'll be here about 20 minutes."

"I don't care. Don't park here."

"I'll tell you what. When the city comes and paints this curb red, then I won't park here."

Then I closed my window and drove off. Yesterday, I once again exercised my rights as a driver and parked on her street. I urged the girls out of the car. "Come on, girlies, let's go. We're gonna be late."

EOL (that's EVIL OLD LADY) showed up in her little red Chanel jacket and her thin red lips and her EOL hairdo and our paths crossed briefly. She said, "Fine example you're setting for your children."

"What?! What does that mean?"

But EOL then decided that since she dropped what she obviously felt was the zinger of all zingers, she would just purse her mouth and pretend I didn't exist.

"I do NOT like the way you speak to me," I said. Such a stupid thing to say, but what do you do when you're crazy mad at an EOL? I couldn't exactly tell her I was going to beat her up in the girls bathroom after school. The encounter was sooooo absurd. Since she refused to look at me, I turned to her husband. "She's unbelievable," I said.

And he didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking Tell me about it. I live with her.

Conversation With Myself

So...I'm flummoxed. I have a story ready to send out (cue the clouds parting, the reveille, the blinding sun), but I don't know where to send it. Is there any point in sending it to my dream markets, all of which receive thousands of manuscripts every cycle, take 400 years to respond, and frown on simultaneous submissions? Because what's the point of that, really? Isn't the definition of madness doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? According to that definition, I'm mad. The madwoman in the loft (paging Gilbert & Gubar!). In other words, my dream markets should be called "in-your-frickin'-dreams" markets.

It's not the inevitable rejections that bother me; I'm used to them, and I know as well as anyone that hearing, "Um, not even close," is just part of the process. So if I'm not whining about rejection, what am I whining about? I don't even know. Maybe I'm whining about not being sure where my writing belongs and about the realization that maybe it doesn't belong anywhere. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it just requires a mental adjustment.

Well, I guess while I'm figuring all this out, I'll send the damn thing on its way. Because that's what madwomen in lofts SHOULD do.

"Something Amazing"

I picked up the new issue of Zoetrope: All-Story over the weekend and turned to the first story, "Something Amazing," by Elizabeth McCracken. I think she titled it "Something Amazing" not necessarily because something amazing happens in the story (although it does), but because the story itself is something amazing.

It opens with the ghost of 6-year-old Missy Goodby—once the town's little hellion—knocking a plastic jack o' lantern bucket against her knees, and ends with her VERY off-kilter mother...

1) ...bathing a 5-year-old neighborhood boy she's just met. Said boy's sadistic older brother locked him in a steamer trunk in their attic, but being a spunky little thing, he managed to kick free.

2) ...unsealing her dead daughter's room, which she shut up because she believed it was rife with allergens.

3) ...and letting the now naked boy, who is already being searched for by the police, ride Missy's old rocking horse.

Into this final scene walks Missy Goodby's older brother Gerry who, having shouldered the emotional burden of his sister's death, his crazy mother's existence, and his father's abandonment, is somehow still sane. "Look," his mother says.

Inside Missy Goodby's room, Gerry obeys his mother: he looks at the little boy. He wonders how to sneak him back home. He wonders how to keep him forever.

*shiver* I hope the rest of the issue is this good.

P.S. Hey, you can read it online here! I adores the internets.

Poet/Soldier

The Washington Post says that Brian Turner's poem "Here, Bullet" (from his collection, Here, Bullet) is being passed from American soldier to American soldier in Iraq.

HERE, BULLET

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta's opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable fight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

—Brian Turner

The Post That Happens When You Have To Leave In Five Minutes

I conveniently forgot that April marks the mad rush to the end of the school year. Um, I remember now.

My lunatic father (hi Dad!) and delightful mother have unloaded their albatross of a house in the city and are moving—hooray!—down here where the skies are sunny and the grandchildren plenty. I'm scoping out possible new digs within a 10-minute radius. Very exciting. This may be the year when I finally figure out how to pan fry a steak like my mom. In case you were wondering, if there was such a thing as The World Cup of Pan-Fried Steak, she would trounce you. It has something to do with the Maggi, I think.

The spousal unit is in Alaska at the moment. I just had to type that because it sounds so weird. It's also true.

I have to go to Round Table Pizza now. I just had to type that because it sounds so weird. It's also true.

I'm putting together two class baskets for the upcoming carnival (they'll be auctioned off, along with 18 other class baskets). One is a "Stargazer Basket," and it'll have astronomy-related goodies. The other is a "Backyard Adventure" basket, and I don't know what to put in it. So far, I have a canister of plastic bugs and two bug books. This does not thrill me. If you were gong to bid on a "Backyard Adventure" basket, what would you want in it? How about an ant farm? Or one of those bug catcher boxes that have a magnifying glass on top? A butterfly net? Holey moley, help me out.

Article of the Day: Michael Chabon On Pittsburgh, Robinson, Clemente, and Obama

Pittsburgh native (and fictionist extraordinnaire) Michael Chabon is a voice of reason for those trying to make sense of the wackiness currently taking place in Pennsylvania:

Though there was mistrust and misunderstanding on both sides, and a certain necessary amount of forgetting, with the passage of time Clemente and the city of Pittsburgh built a bridge. They came to honor, respect and even treasure each other. Like the people of Pittsburgh, Barack Obama understands that we live in a Nation of Bridges -- his life and his history are the proof of it. In steel, stone or acts of human daring, that is the grace bestowed on all of us by those who, in spite of the terrible downward pressures of gravity, or bitterness, or fear, build bridges.

Read the whole thing here.

Friday Fist-Waving OR Things I Should Be Doing Right Now

1. Renewing library books to avoid fines (*waves fist at self*).

2. Shoe shopping because these flats are soooooo old (*waves fist at old shoes*).

3. Stocking up on Kleenex (*waves fist at imaginary acacia trees*).

4. Putting more money in the meter (*waves fist at imaginary meter person*).

5. Sending an e-mail to my friend K. to say that though I love her (I love you!) I don't want to go to our high school reunion. This one includes every class from the 80s, and it makes my head hurt to think about it (*waves fist just for fun*).

6. Writing to the Governor (again) to register my extreme piss-off-ed-ness at the proposed 4.8 billion (that's not a typo) dollar budget cuts for K-14 education (*waves fist in direction of Sacramento*).

7. Putting my Mexico pictures up so my travelmates can see them (*waves fist at flickr for being slow*).

Week 2 @ Nesting Ground HQ

Maybe it's too early to say, but I'm going to say it: this is the most brilliant move your Nesting Ground Mistress has ever made. I'm getting so much done up here in my loft that it's (slightly) freaking me out. The other day I was happily working away on an article that's due in a few weeks, and I completely forgot that I was supposed to be volunteering in Lea's classroom. I showed up 45 minutes late with an oh-my-God-I'm-so-sorry look on my face. Since then I've been minding the clock a little better.

The spousal unit picked me up here on Friday night, looked around, and wondered what the deal was with my uncharacteristically stark aesthetic, so I explained that I don't want anything around me. My desk at home is covered in the detritus of life; this one just has my laptop and a few books. Oh, and a box of Kleenex. It's allergy season, after all.

It's hard to take a proper picture, so here's a bad one. My desk is in the foreground:



...And whaddaya know? School just called to say that Risa is sick and needs to be picked up...

Getting Graphic

I'm way behind the curve when it comes to graphic lit. Though I am attracted to what I understand to be the stories told in Persepolis or Maus, for example, there's something about the graphic element that leaves me cold. This is a strange reaction, since I think the use of illustration is meant to create a certain intimacy or to draw the reader in with an immediacy that words alone cannot. But a large part of my reading enjoyment comes from being able to conjure up my own images as I go, so to have it done for me already is kind of a bummer. It turns out, though, that I enjoy the form when it's used to deal with history as in Howard Zinn's A People's HIstory of American Empire (adapted from his classic A People's History of the United States).


This is probably because the graphics help me process the historical facts (I'm simple like that). Plus, I love the illustration of the Pinoy soldier who screams, "THE AMERICANS HAVE ATTACKED OUR TROOPS AT SANTA MESA!" and its uncanny depiction of the classic Filipino nose. I'm serious.

Speaking of Mr. Zinn, take a look at the trailer for The People Speak, coming in September 2008:



John Legend increases his sexy with this. As does Marisa Tomei. I'm just saying.

Word of the Day

Vacation, Defined.

Last week, when we and our band of merry friends took in the view from our house, we saw this:


And when we took in the opposite view, we saw this:


Now we are home and seeing neither. But I suppose that's why it's called "vacation." Another reason why it's called "vacation" is because inside the house there is a full-time chef making chicken mole. Or shrimp with chunks of mango. Or his favorite dessert from his hometown of Guadalajara. Or whatnot.

Other possible reasons:

a) uninterrupted reading time
b) disinterest in Internet (with exception of election news)
c) meditative quality of staring at ocean
d) children who begin to look like mermaids:


e) crazy morning fruit platters:


f) no shoes required
g) appearance of freckles

I must now continue the arduous process of re-entry, dear ones. Unfortunately, this re-entry requires stops at Kinko's, Trader Joe's, Target, and Safeway. Wish me buena suerte.