Today's wish

As I was going through papers, I found a drawing a former student gave to me on the last day of class.  And so my thoughts turned to the her and all my students who write and continue to write and hope that their work will be acknowledged.

I want their work to be acknowledged, too.  I have learned so much from them--important lessons about dedication and resilience and humility.  And I've been impressed with their work, too, knowing in my heart of hearts that they have often been more talented, more skilled than I am.

Just wanted to tell them all for being a part of my life.

Fog

I feel like I'm doing okay.  But then I realize I haven't responded to texts or emails or calls--not because I've deliberately chosen to ignore them, but because their existence has altogether slipped off the slick surface of my brain.  My brain which can't seem to hold onto an idea or a thought right now.

I'm also leaving things behind everywhere I go.  I've always done this--my parents used to lay bets on what I'd forget to bring home whenever I left--but I'm even worse than usual right now.

It occurred to me that maybe this is how the aftermath feels.  I did all my crying this summer.  And now there's this.

If you don't mind, would you share how your experience played out after the death of a family member?

Thanks.

Some thoughts on my life as a writer

I almost said "my career as a writer."  But then I thought that I haven't exactly had a career--at least not if a career is something that supports you (and your family) monetarily.  But writing has certainly been a huge part of my life.

The thing of it is this:  I never really had a plan when I started out in my twenties, although "getting published" somehow, somewhere was always a goal.  To that end I tried a little bit of everything and sent those bits everywhere.  Along the way a few things did, indeed, get published.

Meanwhile, certain unexpected opportunities presented themselves along the way, and I rarely said no--not even to the offer (when I was first starting out) to write manuals for MLMs that sold bee pollen and endorsed cryogenics.  This means I have a CV that lacks focus.  On the other hand, this tendency has taken me to this place--a chance to be the Salt Lake Tribune's Dear Abby.

Except for the part where I'm not dead.

It's kind of exciting at this age to be starting something brand new.  Am I nervous?  Yeah.  I am.  But feeling nervous makes you feel like a kid again.

I have a feeling

. . . that I may be writing a lot about my dad--about both parents, actually.

I'm actually doing well.  You don't need to worry or anything.  But it gives me a lot of pleasure (and some comfort) to think about him and to write down tiny snatches of memory.

Last night Geoff asked me about a certain person.  I thought things over and then I said, "Well, you know, he's a different cat."

Geoff laughed because that's what my dad would say sometimes.  I've said this about the Coach before, but he was an interesting mix of salt-of-the-earth farm boy and cool rat packer.  I can remember him leaning against the bleachers at one of my boy's games, wraparound sunglasses shielding his eyes, and saying about someone we both knew, "Yeah.  That guy's a different cat."

Listening to Tana French

Or maybe not actually listening to Tana herself--listening, instead, to her novel Broken Harbor, read as an audiobook.

Lisa B  is a great fan, so when I told her I was finally becoming acquainted with the French's work, Lisa told me to start at the beginning with In the Woods.  However, I had already become hooked on Broken Harbor--not so much on the story at first (although I am now), but because I am a sucker for stories read to me by men (sorry, ladies) with any kind of British (English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish) accent.

Meanwhile, I am marveling at Tana French's prose.  Soooooo amazingly fine.  I can't believe I've waited this long to invite into my life.

Oh, Sean Spicer

I can't tell you how much noise my jaw made as it dropped to the floor during Sean Spicer's press conference on Saturday when he said that the media had made up the story about Trump's rift with the intelligence community (because, yeah, the media is the entity that dropped the term "nazi," not Trump) and also that the media had lied about the number of people at the inauguration (because, yeah, size matters and the press deliberately framed photos to make the crowds look smaller).

I just felt so . . . depressed by Spicer's performance.

Here's the deal.  The press and the POTUS always have a contentious relationship.  If they don't, that means the press isn't doing its job.  But this attack from Trump's team is unwarranted, unprecedented, and unfair.  DUDES!  HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF THE FOURTH ESTATE?!

I can't believe that Spicer, in his heart of hearts, believed a single thing he said.  But I've come to the conclusion that this is Trump's end game.  He won't be able to deliver on all of his grandiose promises.  He ran for president.  Not dictator.  This means Trump has to work with other people who don't want the same things he wants.  So when it becomes clear that he can't deliver, Trump has already set up a perfect patsy.  The press.

He can point a finger and say, "I could have done everything I promised to do-- if only the press hadn't lied about me.  SAD!"

I'm rarely political online.  Not my style, really.  But this.  This made me ill.  I somehow expected better from Spicer.

What I'm reading

My friend Dr. Write had this to say about books.  Lovely, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I thought I'd account for what I've been reading.  Which isn't much, frankly, although I hope to change that.

This week I've read Advanced Reading Copies of soon-to-be-released graphic novels by Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale.  (Not married.  Not related.)  I liked them both.  (I mean the books written by the not-married Hales, not the Hales themselves.)  (Although I like the Hales themselves, too.)  And let me say that reading graphic novels is a pleasure because it takes me back to the days when I sat on Wendy and Diana's front porch during the summer, eating cookie dough while we read Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not comic books.  Also, I was a fan of Tales from the Crypt, although that series induced in me a life-long fear of accidentally being buried alive.

CAN'T YOU TELL I'M NOT DEAD, I imagined myself shouting.  From the crypt.

I've also read part of CLEOPATRA by Stacy Schiff and part of THE GIRL FROM VENICE by Martin Cruz Smith.  I like them both.

What are you reading?

Nude vs. Naked

For some reason this morning, I woke up thinking about my old seventh-grade art teacher, Mr. Greer at Farrer Jr. High, who was famous for his "Nude vs. Naked" lecture.

Mr. Greer looked like he could be a stunt double for Jacob Marley.  Or even for Scrooge himself, not counting the George C. Scott version of "A Christmas Carol."  He was thin and hunched with a skull sparsely populated by random hairs.  He wore a painter's coat over his clothes with paintbrushes sticking out of his pockets, and it was apparent that by that time in his career he genuinely disliked kids.

Still, we'd all heard about his "Nude vs. Naked" lecture and were eager to hear it for ourselves.  Also, I should point out here that when he said "Naked," it sounded like "Neked."   So yeah.  Bring on the "Nude vs. Neked" lecture, we all said.

Because this was titillating stuff in the late sixties before stuff like the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show hit network TV for all of us to see.  And see and see and see.

Good stuff, right?

And here is the difference, in case you want to know.  Nude is art.  Naked is pornography.  Or regular unglamorous people just crawling into the shower each morning.

(I made up that last distinction, actually.  Because I just got out of the shower myself.)

Gratified. But mystified.

So suddenly I realized I had a deadline and NO IDEAS for a column.  Somehow I ground out this one.  And I did think unto myself, "Yeah.  This probably really sucks."

But it's gotten more hits online than usual, which is a good thing in NewspaperWorld these days.  It's just . . . surprising to me.  I wonder why some things seem to work and other things don't.

I felt that way at the TKE today as I pulled for returns.  Why do some novels take off?  And other equally worthy novels never do?

It's a mystery for sure.

Trigger

My neighbor Johanna--a tall and beautiful Dutch woman in her sixties--told me that when she heard about my dad's death, she remembered how she used to pick berries with her own father when she was a little girl.

"I haven't thought about that in years," she said.  "It's like the floodgates have been opened.

It's strange how triggers work.  In the past few weeks I've been thinking as much about my grandparents as I have about my dad, hearing their stories and feeling thin Wyoming sunlight on my bare brown arms.

TRQ and I today at the Nordstrom Bistro

So TRQ and I met for lunch today at the Nordstrom Bistro.  I ordered the special--a kale salad with roasted Brussels Sprouts and cauliflower.  TRQ had a margarita pizza.  You know.  Ladies-Who-Lunch food.

She looked at my salad.

"Kale is going out of style," TRQ said.

"It's about time," I said.  "Who needs a high-maintenance vegetable that requires you to massage it before you can eat it?"

We both took bites of our food, thinking about how the three of us--TRQ, the Coach, and I--often met for lunch at the Bistro.

"Dad hated this place," I said.

"Yes," TRQ said.  "Yes, he did."

And we both burst out laughing.

How to be non-compliant

I was once whining to the Coach about how hard some of my kids seemed compared to other kids in our extended family.  He looked at me and said, "Their kids?  Compliant.  Your kids? Non-compliant."

This was not said critically at all.  In fact, there was more than a little non-compliance in that man's soul, as I remembered today when talking to one of my boys.

Shortly after the Coach had a major skin graft on the bottom of his foot (Melanoma!  Weird!) TRQ was eager for him to a) heal by b) not doing anything stupid.  So when the Coach wanted to plant flowers that spring, she called up my son, who was living in Provo at the time, to assist.

Mostly my son remembers his grandfather getting annoyed with him for not digging the holes in the right places.  Meanwhile, TRQ took off with these instructions, "DON'T LET YOUR GRANDFATHER PLANT THE FLOWERS!"

As soon as she backed out of the driveway, the Coach grabbed the shovel away from my son and started digging.

With his bad foot.

Non-compliance at its finest.

De-cluttering

Well, I love Christmas and I love Christmas crap.  BRING ON THE CHRISTMAS CRAP is my life motto, which means I have Santas and snowmen and candles and elves and fake reindeer tucked into every corner of my house during the holidays.  And I always hate to put the Christmas crap away.  Good-bye, Christmas Crap, I always say wistfully as I stuff another Santa into a box.

But this year it feels good to clean, to leave surfaces bare, to enjoy the clean lines of winter.

This won't last, of course.  I'll be putting out other crap soon enough.  But right now?  Peaceful.  That's how bareness feels.

I love you, my friends.

Attending to the living

As you all know, death is disruptive.

Even when you know it's coming, there's really no way to prepare for how it upends everything for awhile.  I realized this morning when I awoke that I haven't opened my mail, folded laundry, made my bed, or combed my hair (except for that once when KUTV asked me to do an interview) for almost a week now.

Here's what else I haven't done.  Watered plants or fed my animals.  Fortunately there have been people here who've taken take of the dogs and cats, although the parrot was overlooked some.  The plants, however, are suffering.

And so today my goal is to stay in my pajamas and tend to the living.  Not a bad way to begin a new year.