Write it down and remember.

A month or so ago, an email came to my work inbox seeking volunteers to teach an advising/mentoring 101 class. Alone in my office, I looked around as if I was being watched. Maybe this was a prank.  I hadn’t been interviewed yet to come back for the 2013-2014 academic year at the university, but I replied back: “I’m in. I just have to be rehired.”  The one credit class for incoming freshmen designed to help them adjust to college life is the only class I remember from freshmen year, exactly ten years ago. How could I ignore this cyclical offering of the Universe?

Then last week, I got another email, this one confirming that I ‘d been chosen for one of the 101 slots, and also, stating my course abbreviation as “MT”. I considered asking for the abbreviation to be changed to “MPT” but thought twice.  Once the general excitement faded,  I was blindsided by the occurrence that I would have to do some planning. I would have to create a loose model for my theme: College is Not About the Classes. And I was immediately stumped. How does one go about teaching college freshmen about Life? Read more »

 
Walking through the National Gallery’s exhibit on the Ballets Russes, which employed artists such as Léon Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Giorgio de Chirico to design sets and costumes (Coco Chanel also designed some costumes), composers Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Erik Satie for the scores, and choreographers included Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine, revolutionizing ballet at the time (making it more Russian while making it more Avant-garde)—walking through these costumes and video clips of performances, I was reminded of the Leningrad Cowboys.

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Now I know what at least 3 of those brushes are for

When she asked if I want the professional makeup artist to do my makeup for the wedding, I said something like “no thanks, I’ll do it.”
When she asked if I want the professional hairstylist to do my hair, I said “I think I’ll just do my own hair.”

For the first time ever, I am in a bridal party. Being a bridesmaid. According to Hollywood’s standards, it’s going to be a zany, mad-cap romp of friendship, hilarity, and ultimately a reminder of what true love really means.

My college roommate is getting married in July and I am one of her bridesmaids. But in the months leading up to the wedding I’m continually being reminded: I know nothing about weddings. I don’t know how the rehearsal dinner works. I don’t know if a bridal shower gift is just for the bride or for both the bride and groom. I had no idea couples had websites. And I really, really, don’t know how to do my own makeup and hair.

I get by, day-to-day. I know how to straighten my hair and wear basic makeup, but anything more complicated and I end up looking like Heath Ledger (we still miss ya, Heath) in The Dark Knight. I don’t like to wake up any earlier than I have to, and as a result rarely leave much time for makeup. Most days I choose clothes based on how much they feel like pajamas. And because I can’t afford the professional makeup/hair artists for the wedding, I’ve foolishly told my friend I can do it myself.
But I can’t. Read more »

This is supposedly a cross section of grass. See how smiley it is?

Plants have their own mysteries (see left, but please note that a. snopes hasn’t verified that this image is real and b. they say that the smell of fresh mown grass is actually the lawn communicating intense fear, pain, sorrow, and trauma).

Apparently chewing fresh chamomile flowers can take the edge off of quitting smoking. Garlic has anti-fungal properties, but I have no idea why some people suggest you stick a clove in your ear if you have an infection, which is usually caused by bacteria or a virus. Many of my friends are still really excited about Bach flower remedies, but Edward Bach was a an English homeopath, and New Mexico’s wild flowers just aren’t the same as the UK’s. I started looking for something more local. To that end, I’m devoting some of my summer to learning about Mexican folk medicine and healers—curanderismo and curandero/as, respectively. If you’re looking for something other than running 5ks, home brewing, and decoupaging bird silhouettes on your furniture, here’s a reading list.

Get some lemonade ready and spend an afternoon on the porch reading Cheo Torres’s Curandero. This memoir weaves together Torres’s childhood memories of his mother’s garden and its various herbs, his developing interest in traditional healing, and information about some of the most famous folk saint healers. It’s a wonderful, personal introduction to the topic, history, and some of the Spanish terms you might not be familiar with (such as mal ojo, empacho, or bilis).
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As a celebration for a year’s worth of work, and the arrival of summer, I organized a cookout for my staff of fourteen college students. In our last meeting prior to the shindig, I asked the group to help me make a list of items to buy for the grilling and the snacking.

“Chips! Doritos!”

“Potato salad!”

“Chocolate chip cookies.”

“Hot dogs AND hamburgers.”

“Can we have a watermelon?”

I had been yelling “Yes!” and pointing like an auctioneer at  each bidder, but at the mention of watermelon, I hesitated, just for a second. The student who’d asked for the watermelon was a white southern boy, raised just down the road from our small, private University in North Carolina. He was without a doubt, one of the most polite and respectful students I have ever encountered, and also one who was most proud of his southern roots. I knew that when he asked for a watermelon that he was only asking for a watermelon, and there was no underlying meaning in his question to me, his black supervisor. Still, I didn’t want to buy a watermelon. Read more »

1. France has perhaps the best bread and pastry products in the world. I especially love how fresh it all is. Yes, they sell a little bit of prepackaged bread at the grocery stores, but there are boulangeries every two or three blocks. I get a lot of croissants and baguettes since it’s only a ten minute walk to the closest boulangerie, but people who live more out in the country will buy thicker loaves because they only get to town once or twice per week.

2. The French are not afraid of traffic circles; I think they’re probably more common here than regular old intersections—at least in the area I’m in. However, the rules for the traffic circles make no sense to me. First, you are supposed to use your blinker—right for the first exit, none for the second exit, and left for the third exit. Then, right before you exit the circle, you turn on your right blinker no matter where you started out. Also, most traffic circles are wide enough for two or more lanes of traffic, yet there aren’t guidelines on which lane you should be in based on where you’re exiting. I’ve heard that, for all accidents at the circle surrounding the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, insurance companies split the liability 50/50 because there’s really no way to figure out who is at fault. That traffic circle has about six lanes of traffic. I’m convinced that the people in the inner-most lane have been driving in circles for years and years, unable to exit.

3. Contrary to the stereotype, the French are kind—to each other and to Americans. I rode the bus the other day, and every person who got off, even when they exited through the back door, took the time to say goodbye and thank you to the driver. And except for one girl at Carcassonne, everyone I’ve spoken to has been wonderfully nice, even when I’ve made a fool of myself with various language errors.

4. My Michigan drivers license works in France, but so far I’ve been too afraid to drive. There are too many differences (not to mention the too-narrow roads common in Europe): it is illegal to pass on the right, yet you are expected to pull off to the right side of your lane if there is a motorcycle behind you. Every driver must carry an emergency vest in the car that must be worn if they break down. There will be random checkpoints set up (that not everyone has to stop at, though I’m still unclear on who does) at which they will check your papers and to make sure you have your emergency vest.

5. Fresh is the name of the game. The weekly town markets are always ten times busier than the grocery stores (so far as I’ve seen, anyway). I walk into the market in Tournefeuille, and it just smells different. The dozens of vendors sell everything from fresh produce to skinned and gutted rabbits, from flowers and plants to prepared vats of paella. So far I’ve stuck to buying vegetables, though. I made myself duck confit last night, but I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a rabbit.

6. Strangely, the French also love their pizza. There are nearly as many pizza places as boulangeries, just don’t expect to find pepperoni. If you want eggs and fresh cream, though, you’re probably in luck. Delivery is free, which is nice, and most places also let you order carpaccio, too. Which is less nice, because, let’s be honest, if there’s one way I really won’t try raw meat, it’s after it’s been put in a box, strapped to the back of a motorcycle, and driven halfway across town.

Ericka and I were in the backyard, talking. We’d just decided that we were probably astrological twins, our lives never intersecting until now, she in a camp chair and I idly searching for four-leaf clovers.  Somehow, we landed on the topic of manic pixie dream girls, that flat but quirky character who saves some dullard by teaching him to embrace the whimsy of the world.

Writes Nathan Rabin, who coined the term in reaction to Kirsten Dunst’s 2005 character in Elizabethtown, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Garden State. New Girl. I think they create an expectation of salvation,” I said. “Some guy sees you hula-hooping once and he thinks you’ll teach him how to suck the marrow out of life.”

“Hula-hooping?” asked Ericka. “Isn’t that stereotypical manic pixie?”

“Only if it makes you late to work, but having fun and being responsible aren’t mutually exclusive personality traits,” I said. “You could juggle fruit while, say, being an argumentative downer. I think we’re in the process of forgetting that.”

Then she said, in a singsong way, “Mr. F.”

Because really, you can’t tell the difference between the manic pixie dream girl in Arrested Development and the “Mentally Retarded Female” she really is, which is the joke. The ability to pair a coonskin cap with a sundress, inside-out jean jacket, and a teddy bear backpack must signal this stunted development. Or is it playing hooky to roll down a hill? Read more »

An entire section from the middle of the bridge was gone. Cranes and vehicles surrounded the gap-toothed structure as my road trip companions and I took a detour through Mount Vernon.
People stood on the bank of the river holding cameras and cell phones up to the bridge like a crowd holding lighters to a stage. The bridge had performed for over fifty years and its grand finale, though unplanned, gave it national headline status.

“I-5 Bridge Collapses in Washington”

I didn’t know a bridge collapsed in Northern Washington until a friend texted me. She knew my weekend plans included a trip up north, to the San Juan Islands, and she wanted to make sure I knew about the bridge.
Bridges, of course, duh, most obvious metaphor ever, always make me think of support.
As in “But how will you support yourself?” the question posed to me by more than one stranger or family member when I tell them I want to be a poet. When asked what I want to do in life, I honestly can’t be positive; but I know I want to write.

And so I write about driving during Memorial Day weekend: While driving back across the state of Washington I passed not one, but two bridges that were already being either restructured or investigated. I had to detour off the freeway (off one ramp, past the small overpass, immediately back on freeway) to bypass one bridge. And while I didn’t have any way of knowing, I felt pretty certain it had a lot to do with the collapsed bridge I’d passed several days prior. We often delay fixing things until something bad happens and we can’t ignore it any longer. It’s like my teeth.

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MSP: Old friends are forever near your gate in Minneapolis St. Paul. A man from grad school—haven’t seen him in years—he’s from some state demonstrated by a palm outward and a thumb acting as a peninsula—there he is, tapping your shoulder while you try to curl horizontally around the seats and sleep. You look ridiculous, pretending you were alone in a sea of Lutherans. Bloodshot eyes meet blue ones and the best thing you can say when he asks about life after school? “I still owe money to the money to the money I owe.” Old acquaintances only exist to disturb your sleep. When the pilot has swine flu, the engine fails mechanically, or you’re caught in a blizzard, a friend isn’t to be found.

DCA: Do not stand within thirty minutes of landing or you will be tazed, then arrested upon exiting the plane. Do not wait in the red zone or the white zone. Load and unload in the cellphone waiting area, ten minutes down the road. Do not disagree with the wee security man about anything; he will fine you.

CVG: Wait a second. I’m actually in Northern Kentucky, not Cincinnati?

DEN: Flying into and out of a series of circus tents does wonders for the imagination. Are they mountains? Snow-capped teats? Everything Anglicized, conquered, a city that won’t hold you at night, but still you wake singing.
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Last night I gave a talk on Eastern Washington University’s Riverpoint campus about literary and photographic representations of diversity in a small town called San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile. I described how the archeological research performed by the local priest was broadcasted nationally and internationally, thereby defining the town by the work of the father. I also tried to show how, despite the priest’s efforts to give the indigenous population an identity more complex than their classification as second-class citizens and indians, the attention on the archeological discoveries of the region eclipsed the diverse, contemporary stories of the local people.

While the story of San Pedro is a good case study for diversity, I think the most provocative question of the evening was, “what is diversity?” The literature of Eastern’s Diversity week promoted a standard definition of the word. The two most prominently advertised events were a World Cup Soccer Tournament and a presentation by the keynote speaker, Dr. Caprice D. Hollins, who was the Director of Equity, Race, and Learning Support for Seattle Public Schools. Diversity, according to the advertisements, is cultural and racial distinctiveness.

However, the woman who asked “what is diversity?” at my presentation talked about it in terms of gender, access, socio-economic class, age, life experience, and worldviews, essentially any factor that significantly impacts the way an individual inhabits this world. Perhaps one of the inhibitors of diversity on our college campuses is our definition of diversity. It may be that the best thing we can do to celebrate diversity is to amplify our definition of the word. Diversity is all differences, not just those related to geography or ethnicity. It is differences in opinions, religions, political affiliations, physical build and ability, and brain chemistry. Perhaps all of these varieties of uniqueness, when acknowledged and valued, can be assets and agents of growth and change on a college campus.