Wishful Slacker

Why I Write

In honor of the National Day on Writing, October 20th:


I write because I don't know how not to write.  I write because I am at the mercy of my muse, who comes to me at the oddest of times- in the shower, while driving in rush hour traffic, at the start of a work day- and breathes life into a gray murky day.  I write because it is in those moments that I find my voice, and can become me again.  Sometimes I can't get to the good stuff until I get out my demons- and the best way I can do that is through writing.  I write because there is no greater thrill than editing a really crappy first draft into something that finally works.  And then two days later editing THAT into something even better.  And better.  And better.

Last year, one of my writing teachers asked our class, "Do you realize that many people out there don't experience the need to write?"  The thought had not occurred to me before- that some are content to go through life without taking a pen to paper.  I really cannot imagine that.  Like a thirsty man searching for water, I claw through the underbrush and over prickly grass, desperate for the chance to write.

I am actually embarrassed of this sometimes, telling others that it is just a hobby, brushing it off into the world of flippant pastimes that blur together at the end of a week or month.  I don't know why it makes me bashful, but it does.  In the stress of day-to-day life, when a moment to write finally arrives, the words often won't flow.  They jam up and spill off the page in a mess, and I deem the exercise a waste of time and storm off.  This is when I feel my writing is pointless.  It is silly.

But it is a part of me.  Slowly, quietly, my muse creeps up and apologizes for the way it let me down, and I am inspired to sit down at a desk and write.  And once again I feel complete.

This is why I write. 

Evening Is The Whole Day

I had to pick up the baby early from daycare on Thursday for her 9 month pediatric check up.  For some reason (and my husband experienced this as well on the Brown line as he rode to Lincoln Park to meet us), the entire trip down to her daycare center at Wells and Division and back up to Diversey and Sheffield was pure bedlam.  I pulled my first of two illegal U-turns for the week (I am getting good at that now) and dodged a plethera of bikers, delivery vans, and pedestrians who just decided they would go ahead and cross the street where ever they wanted and that all cars around them would naturally give them the right of way.  Drives me nuts.  You know back in the days of traveling kiddie fairs and the Snow White ride at Disney World where all of these obstacles dart out at your little car as it clunks along a clickety track through the dark?  That is what driving in this city is like sometimes. 

While I was trying not to run anyone over by traveling up Lincoln Avenue, there was a very interesting show that came on NPR.  It was a man (didn't catch his name, of course) talking about word choices, and how so many words are cliché and inappropriate to describe the emotional intensity of a situation.  He cited words like "amazing" and "gorgeous" as falling into the category of being over-used and poor choices, and ever since then the only words I can think of to describe my daughter popping up to a stand or looking pretty in a dress are amazing and gorgeous.  I would really love to listen to the segment again but for the life of me cannot find it on the NPR website.  It was on at 1:45 pm, Thursday, August 11.  The more time that goes by between now and then, the less my chances are of finding it.  It is radio, after all. 

The segment came at a good time though, as I was nearing the end of what has been an amazing (damnit!) book- Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan.  This is a book of many gorgeous (damnit!) words.  Set in Malaysia in the late 70s and early 80s, the story follows a family and a servant that comes to take care of the aging matriarch of the family.  Only it is not just that primary storyline that grabs you, it is the way that Samarasan manages to paint their history leading up to those moments.  For every action of the main plotline, you understand the hidden feelings and pains that simmer beneath the surface for the characters.  Throughout the book you can feel and sense the smells and textures around them.  I found I stopped complaining about the summer heat while reading this :-)

 
I learned after reading it that Samarasan is a graduate of the University of Michigan (whoo hoo!) where she earned her MFA, and that she perfected her novel during her time there.  The way that Evening Is The Whole Day goes back and forth in time is truly breathtaking.  The tenses shift so slightly that they are easily missed, and we readers are taken two years ahead, twenty years back, and back to present day with such fluidity and ease that it is a truly amazing (damnit!) demonstration of her brilliance.  It would be a great book to study together in a writing or lit class, and if I ever have time in my life to reread this and to create a timeline as I go along, I think that allow me to gain even greater appreciation.

Which- as an aside- now that I own an ereader, I am torn sometimes as to the best way to experience a book.  I read this on my Kindle, but I think I'd want to read the actual paperback novel next time around to allow me greater ease in flipping back and forth.  It is difficult to do that with a Kindle.  However, the Kindle was fantastic for allowing me to quickly look up words that I didn't recognize, which was a vast collection.  The vocabulary in this book is unbelievable.  If I knew half of these delightful words, then I wouldn't be stuck using amazing to describe everything. 

Samarasan writes so beautifully.  Her sentences take you for such a ride, and her metaphors and similes are just perfect.  The family's culture transends so well through their mannerisms and dialogue.  Here are some excerpts that I highlighted:

"Aasha threw herself down on the marble floor and loosed a wordless series of ascending wails that floated like bright scarves- purple, fuchsia, puce- towards the ceiling, to be blown into the street by the fan as Amma set the chair down by the dustbin and shook her head."

"Oh, she's caught forty winks here and a catnap there, but the winks are carefully rationed, thirty-eight thirty-nine forty okay enough, and the catnaps are not the cozy indulgences of the happy housepet but the vigilant sleep of the one-eye-open one-ear-missing stray."

"At the front gate, Appa's voice is like a pair of scissors on smooth cloth, snip-snip-snip-snip, a voice he reserves for all the undesirables of this world, the theatrical tramps, the limping armies who offer unwanted parking assistance outside his office, the glib urchins who rush towards his already clean windscreen with wet rags."

If anyone else reads Evening Is The Whole Day and wishes to discuss it further, let me know!  I would love to hear others' thoughts. 

I also found this interview with Samarasan that looks interesting :-)

And next on the reading list, Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch.

Thursday afternooo-ooon (think Moody Blues)

What I originally thought was a very, very bad thing is turning into a somewhat good thing.  Or a mixture of good and bad, oscillating with my mood, which is dependent on how easily I find parking around work or if I've made it through our morning pre-work race without getting spit up on. 

Up until recently, Jim was able to work from home with the baby on Thursday mornings, which is when I go into work for a half day.  He found out a few weeks ago that he could no longer do this, and so we have had to add another day at the daycare for the baby. 

The killer is that this extra day of daycare will essentially slice my already meager take-home pay in half.  Ugh! 

So when I was grumpy about this (after dragging out the calculator and thinking over our budget), I started dragging out the questions that invariably surface anytime I brood about these things.  Why work?  Why go through these crazy mornings of pumping, getting the kid ready, us ready, lunch ready, bottles ready, solid baby food ready, diapers ready, changing after getting spit up on, dragging ourselves back to the elevator after I realize I've left my cell phone upstairs, feeling frazzled all the time, etc etc?  Why why why?

After asking this question, I always feel two pangs in my gut.
Pang #1: I can't imagine giving up my work- my coworkers, clinic, and working with our families.
Pang #2: Even if I stopped working, I wouldn't want to take the baby out of her daycare.

Sometimes you have to trust your gut, and on this topic, I do.

We LOVE our daycare (a Bright Horizons center downtown), and we love what the daycare has to offer the baby.  I really believe that it does her some good to have time outside of her home and away from us, and to learn to trust other caregivers.  I think it is helping Eleanor become a very social baby too- she smiles and laughs at her teachers and at the other babies in her room (sometimes when they are crying...this is a social skill that we will have to work on if it persists.  hehe).  She truly seems to enjoy it there, and I couldn't imagine taking that away from her. 

So I work to work, but there are many benefits.  With this attitude adjustment, I began thinking more about this situation.  This means I will have Thursday afternoons...free?  Open?  All to myself?  It is a strange new revelation.  And for the past three Thursdays, Jim and I have met for lunch (Pequods, Emerald Loop, and The Pasta Bowl).  Three dates, three weeks in a row.  I can't complain about that. 

I am faced with the decision of what to do during those remaining few hours before picking up the baby from daycare.  Today, armed with a notebook and my ipod, I ventured into Noble Tree, an independently owned coffee shop on Clark (wedged between The Galway Arms and Mickeys).  I climbed the stairs to the second floor after getting some tea and could not believe my eyes.  There were robust circular tables throughout the room, several occupied with people typing on laptops or reading.  And it was quiet.  Trickles of conversation made their way up from downstairs, and music played through the speakers, but no one was gabbing on a phone or engaged in lively conversation.  It was almost like it was a set aside quiet work space, though no signs advertised it as such.  I was in heaven- this was truly what I have been hoping for to get me into a writing zone.  I sat down, put on my headphones, and I wrote for two straight hours.  It was more than I have done in over a year, not since I was taking classes at Story Studio. 

I loved taking those classes at Story Studio, and would love to take more, but that would likely be fiscally irresponsible at this moment in time (please refer to the third paragraph of this post).  Besides though- similar to how paying for gym membership makes you work out, even though you have the natural and free availability to go out for a jog anytime and anywhere, taking writing classes is what has gotten me to write.  I am not very happy with the fact that this was the only way I became dedicated to the process of writing, and it is time that I become a big kid and do this on my own.  I got a great start today, and I hope to get into a comfortable groove and really take advantage of this time. 

The baby saw and smiled at me through the window to her classroom when I arrived at 5 to take her home.  Her teachers told me that they think she may have her first tooth coming in.  I looked at her in surprise and said, "Oh my goodness is this true?"  She gave me a big gummy smile and let out this funny guffaw laugh that she has now.  It sounds like she is yelling, "Eh-huuuuuuuhhhh!" while she leans forward and bats her arms.

These new Thursdays are a good thing and a bad thing.  But I am thinking this is all mostly good.

Along the lines of motherhood and free time, I found this article a few weeks ago which spoke to me:

Happy Birthday Wishful Slacker!

I took a fondant cake decorating class with my friend Rachelle yesterday.  I didn't realize it then, but it was the one year anniversary of my first post on this website!  Too bad- I could have tried making some fancy wishful slacker-themed cake, as opposed to the overdone big top circus clown that it became! 

ANYWAYS!  My intention when I started this site was really to create a renewed hobby for myself.  I didn't mind if the only one reading this was my mom.  I have always loved writing and there are times when I just want to get it down on paper (or on a computer screen).  When I was in junior high school, I used to actually daydream in class and "type" my thoughts out on the desk in front of me, describing the view outside the window or writing stories about the torture of 7th grade geography (hmmm...could this have contributed to my dorky years?).  I even joined the writing club, spending an hour after school in the computer lab typing because I knew I'd never get to it if I just went home instead.  Why can't I have that discipline now, by golly? 

I mentioned this earlier on this site that I have been taking some writing classes at StoryStudio Chicago.  I have had the HARDEST time doing the weekly work for the memoir class in which I am currently enrolled.  Oh pregnancy, why do you make everything so hard?!  This morning I said to my husband, "Okay, tonight I am going to write for my class."  But what did I do instead?  I am now sitting on the couch, catching up on last week's Biggest Loser on Tivo, and typing this.  ARGH (oh- and yay- Biggest Loser is down to the final four!)!  I could squeak by with the weekly assignments alone, but in 3 weeks I need to turn in a 10 page manuscript for peer review.  Hmmmm...that may be a problem.  Sure, I am technically "writing" now, but to really work on my actual writing involves thought and dedicated time and revision.  I'm just not feeling it at the moment.  Trying not to vomit each night takes a lot out of you!

Anyways though, I am excited to have had this site going for a year now.  Here's to another fun year of wishful slacking!

My Sister is a Pest

We were all home in Michigan last weekend, and my sister came across this old relic while looking for something in my parents' basement.  I remember making this book, and I must say that all these stories are completely true.  :-)

Summerworkstoryidea.doc

I was just digging through my writing folder on my laptop and came across the word document titled above that I apparently created on Wednesday, June 3, 2009. 

Being that it is winter, and dark, and cold, I thought I would share it!

The peaceful quiet of a summer evening

            Little bugs fluttering in the evening sunlight

            Sound of insects

            Swaying in the hammock

            Knowing you don’t have to go to bed

            Watching your mother or father flick on the light inside the living room

            Smacking at a mosquito on your leg

            Sprinklers

            Smell of grass

            Sound of a lawnmower

            Smell of barbeque

 

Remembering this, in the middle of my working adult life

            Having forgotten what that moment of peace is like

            Forgetting that feeling of stillness

            Always having a to do list

            Always having to watch the clock for bedtime

 

Food Certainty

I am starting another writing class tomorrow, and over the past couple weeks I've gotten back to doing some writing warm ups.  One of the resources I've consulted is Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones.  In it, she strongly encourages making "writing practice" a part of one's writing regimen.  "Writing practice" involves sitting down with pen and paper and just writing about WHATEVER.  The pen should never stop and there should be little thought to proper form or punctuation.  It should be almost meditative.  And if your mind is full of self-deprecating thoughts, she recommends starting your writing practice by getting it all out.  So I sat down tonight with my notebook and started writing about how no matter how much I would love to become a writer, all my work will come to nothing and I will be burned out forever (again- Natalie says the more we get all this crap out, the more we learn to just ignore it.  So I decided to go all out with Sunday night negativity). 

Then, as my pen flowed across the paper, I started writing about my typical day of work.  Not work as I know it now, but work as I would love it to be.  Without going into much detail, let's just say that it involved coffee, a cozy home office, midday cucumber sandwiches, and sprints to the local coffee shop for a change in scenery.

Sha-right.  As if.  We know life does not just align itself the way we desire (there's that whole issue of money and health insurance and groceries and rent), and even our "dream" situation would come with its own list of pros and cons.  I think this is why I love to cook.  Whoa- change of subject, yes?  But hear me out- food and cooking creates for us a constant.  It is stable and inviting.  You don't cook because you HAVE to.  While we HAVE to work, none of us HAVE to cook- we could just stock up on tator tots and frozen meals if we wanted.  And if a meal causes us a lot of stress because the garlic burns while our backs are turned, well there is always the option to pitch it and call for a pizza.  No matter how sucky my day is, no matter how drained I am, I can always look forward to cooking a good meal.  And I know I just posted a similar sentiment last week, but it's just a thought I've been considering a lot recently.  We cooked some great meals last week, and looking back, I felt happier as the week progressed, even though I had a lot on my plate at work.  It probably also helped that I had last Monday off.  Curses! 

So, speaking of food, here's a great meal we had TWICE this week, three-cheese broccoli lasagna.  This is another Real Simple recipe, and it was great.  The recipe does not make a huge tray of lasagna, though you could of course easily double the size.  I ended up with a large amount of the broccoli-cheese mixture left over from when we had the dish last week.  I used the leftover mixture tonight for an encore lasagna, which we had with my brother- and sister-in-law and nephew.  Just like last week, it tasted good tonight.  As our 4 year nephew exclaimed after he took his first bite, "THIS IS SUPER!"  What greater endorsement do you need than that?

Broccoli and Three-Cheese Lasagna
From Real Simple magazine, December 2009

Serves 4Hands-On Time: 15m

Total Time: 1hr 10m

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce container ricotta (about 1 3/4 cups)
• 1 pound frozen broccoli florets—thawed, patted dry, and chopped
• 2 1/4 cups grated mozzarella (9 ounces)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 ounces)
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 1 16-ounce jar marinara sauce (we used a 24 oz jar and 2/3 c cream)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 no-boil lasagna noodles
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the foil
• 4 cups mixed greens
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400º F. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, broccoli, 2 cups of the mozzarella, ¼ cup of the Parmesan,½  teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. In a small bowl, combine the marinara sauce and cream.
2. Spoon a thin layer of the sauce into the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish. Top with 2 noodles, a quarter of the remaining sauce, and a third of the broccoli mixture; repeat twice. Top with the remaining 2 noodles and sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup of mozzarella and ¼ cup of Parmesan.
3. Cover tightly with an oiled piece of foil and bake until the noodles are tender, 35 to 40 minutes. Uncover and bake until the top is golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Toss the greens with the olive oil, lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Serve with the lasagna.

Thanks a lot, Muse

To all my friends and family, I wish you a very happy new year!  I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season. 

I have not made many blog posts lately, and sadly it is because my Muse took a December holiday without informing me first.  So rude.  You see, my Muse typically makes numerous appearances to me throughout a typical week, secretly whispering to me as I walk to the train or stare at my computer screen at work.  She tells me, "why don't you write about this?!" to which I reply, "You know, Muse, that's a good one!"  Then we ponder the topic over the course of a few hours before sitting together by the laptop and beginning to type. 

But then, without warning, she left me all alone and with a very busy and stressful work schedule and a laundry list of pre-Christmas to-do's.  I mean, no wonder I've had so few blog posts!  I am now sitting here on the first day of the year, looking about my new apartment that is finally feeling like home, and hoping that my Muse will return from her sojourn so that we can get back to work.

Even with my missing Muse, I've been doing some thinking about the 2000's, and all that this decade has given me.  I don't think I will have another ten years as heavily influential on my life as this past one (and no, that's not me being pessimistic and cryptic.  I am thoroughly looking forward to the many years ahead, have no worries).  At the turn of Y2K, I was a college newbie, and in these ten years I chose and developed my career, met and married my husband, moved out of my home state, and experienced a glorious resolution to a family crisis.

With all of this reflection, I expect myself to be feeling pretty darn good about my present life.  I am very grateful.  But I am also incredibly stressed about my job.  I am drowning in work no matter how many hours I work each day, as I scramble to minimize the "to do" list that increases faster than my ability to check a task as done.  It...just...sucks.  Which is why I depend so much on my Muse to get me through.  And for her to have left now, well, it is just incredibly inconsiderate.

When she does return, I will try to not become angry with her.  I will pour us a drink and allow her to put her feet up.  And when she feels a tickle of inspiration to pass along to me, I will accept it with the sincerest appreciation.             

Homework!

I've been taking a creative writing class at StoryStudio Chicago for the past few weeks.  It's been a lot of fun.  The best part is just being in a classroom again.  Gee wiz I sure like it!  We have writing assignments and HOMEWORK.  I was good and tried doing some of it last weekend right after the class (we each drew slips of paper and had to write about the person described.  I got "tollbooth attendant on a Monday morning."  I named her Louise).  However I sort of waited on finishing the rest until this evening.  I guess procrastination never truly abandons us.  I went out with some of my coworkers after work today for a drink, and as I was sipping my martini and thinking about the start of the weekend I thought, hmmm, now that I'm imbibing, maybe I should have done my homework earlier!  But that thought didn't last too long as my attention returned to my 4 coworkers and our immense pride in ourselves for actually GOING OUT after work- as in, SEEING EACH OTHER OUTSIDE OF THE OFFICE.  Not only that, but a group of us actually peeled ourselves away from the computer and the phone and ate lunch TOGETHER today and AWAY FROM OUR DESKS.  This never happens.  And it made me happy.

With this feeling of satisfaction, I got home and was picking up the cat and cooing into his face and telling him how much I love him, when that rotten animal lunged at me with his TEETH, hard, so that I now have this huge scratch going down my nose.  I mean what kind of "congrats on being halfway done with being on call" greeting is that?  That boy is in some trouble. 

So, I cleaned up my nose, sat down on the couch, and worked on finishing my assignment for tomorrow.  And I wanted to share this assignment, because I've really enjoyed working on it and it's a good "get me started" exercise.  We were all given a copy of the poem Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon (who I guess is a woman named George???).  What we had to do was make our own version of the poem.  We read our rough drafts in class last week and had to polish them up for tomorrow.  Y'all should try it- it's kinda cool to see what comes to mind!  Here's mine:

I am from Windex,

from the wet vac and the spot remover

I am from the hobbly nobbly roots

and the shade that never allowed the annuals to grow.

I’m from the lilac bush,

deep purple piercing through the windshield gleam

on a country dirt road,

its shoots rescued by DeLisle women

before the earth was churned into a subdivision.

I am from Shake n’ Bake pork and mashed potato flakes.

Keep your elbows off the table, and

Say Please and Thank you.

Place the fork and knife on the side of your plate when you’re done.

I’m from green customs labels and packages on the doorstep,

chocolate digestives, custard creams, and ginger snaps

nestled within bubble wrap and

Marks and Spencer socks.

I’m from the cacophony of barks and toe nails

scrambling on Pergo floors

to the frightened person standing on the porch.

I’m from latchkey mornings and papers to grade,

Working parents dissolving in the June warmth.

One summer was filled with musty library books

and crinkly laminated covers,

“Shelby Township’s top readers” rolled into the newspaper box,

and my sister’s face in newsprint.

Then came a crisp morning and we trudged off,

backpacks bouncing with each step

taken through the dew.                                   Lindsay Walker Rhodes

 

 

 

Website of the Week

This week I am featuring a nifty little place in Irving Park called StoryStudio, where I took an evening writing workshop this past Monday.  Recently, I've felt the urge to reconnect with the creative me that science has squashed into oblivion these past few years.  By googling "creative writing" I came across this place, and I was very impressed on Monday.  I am a big fan of using extra curricular activities to help decrease the feeling of being swallowed by work, and the thought of returning to writing is appealing.  But, I definitely need some help getting started!  This center has a very comfortable and accepting atmosphere.  We did several free-writing exercises (yes, we SHARED our work.  Eek!), and it was very cool to hear what everyone came up with at the spur of the moment and without self-censorship (the rule was that we couldn't stop writing once we put pen to paper with each exercise).  

So, for those of you nearby who may be interested in something like this, I recommend you give it a shot.  This one night workshop was only $35, and I am now considering taking one of their multi-week classes (which are not $35!).  And here is a link to their online magazine.  Check it out! :-)