On writing if not well, then at least some

Trying to keep my  nose to the grindstone in terms of writing. It's hard to stay motivated to write creatively when using your brainpower writing for clients -- especially if you have extremely limited capacity in that area. Still, I'm determined to stay focused with some writing classes and workshops in the future. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I'd applied to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference for August. I haven't heard anything back yet, but thought I'd post a little more info on it in case you're interested. It's well-reputed ten-day summer writing conference at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. You have to apply to be accepted.

The price is kind of steep for those on a shoe-string budget ($2,000-plus) but you can also apply as a scholarship student, meaning you wait tables during meals and get to attend the conference for free. The price does include lodging and meals. My friend Maureen (currently enjoying the adventure of opening a restaurant with her boyfriend Tom in Manchester, NH) went a few summers ago and highly recommends the experience, although she suggests skipping the work study part and splurging so you can enjoy the idyllic setting and seclusion to really immerse yourself in writing.

In July, my friend Fara and I are going to the Iowa Summer Writing Festival in Iowa City, Iowa. It's hosted by the infamous Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in June and July and week- and weekend-long workshops covering just about any range of topics. They have an impressive list of workshop leaders (past and present.) It costs $500-525 for each week long workshop and $250 for the weekend workshops -- you're on your own for lodging and meals.

Iowa City's a great little writers' town to spend a week or so in and I've enjoyed my workshops the past couple of years. You don't need to apply to get in -- your check just needs to clear. Which can be a good thing and a bad. You'll find yourself amidst eager, serious writers, hobbyists and a slew of post-middle-age housewives trying to find themselves through poetry. Not that I'm judging.

Today, my friend Margaret sent me an email with three wonderful sounding Summer Writing Workshops in Europe.They seem to be the brainchild of a handful of writers who are offering week-plus-long workshop this summer -- fiction writing in Florence, memoir writing in Barcelona, poetry in Dublin. Talk about a fantasy deal! Oh, I'm aching for some Euro-travel and the thought of playing around with words in Florence or Barcelona sounds too romantic and evocative!

Of course, it also sounds expensive. Although, considering the cost of Bread Loaf the about $2,000 price tag to study in Europe and be able to receive college credit for it too is pretty tempting. Lodging is included but not meals and you're on your own with airfare. Definitely out of my price range for this summer, assuming Bread Loaf comes through, but something to keep on the radar for next year, no?

I'm also feeling out a couple of friends here regarding forming a writing group. I'm really intrigued and inspired by Dave Eggers' advice to start with your one best anecdote. I thought it would be interesting to start a writing group on that premise -- everyone beginning with their one best anecdote and working to make it better and better. Everyone I know is so busy though and it's hard to gauge whether peoples' interest in an idea would translate into commitment in the follow-through.  

Also on the writing front, I've got another 826 Michigan volunteer project in the works while I await for my next workshop session to start again mid-April. One of the small, private schools here is trying to get its students interested in starting a newspaper. Right now, they've no one to help them figure out what that means or how to go about it. Chris and I volunteered (meaning I volunteered both of us) to help figure out what that might look like.

At this point I'm envisioning a four- or six-week project where I bring a different journalist into the school each week to discuss with the kids different aspects of journalism -- what makes a news story, how to write a lead, interviewing techniques. My hope is that, at the end of the session, they'd be in a place where the students and their advisor (a parent who is eager to learn but has no background in journalism) can fly solo. 

Wow. That sounds like an even bigger undertaking than before when I write it down on paper. I imagine I'll be keeping you updated on that, eh? Write on!  

Spring has sprung

It's not a particularly auspicious start to spring here in Ann Arbor. The skies are grey, the temperatures are chilly, the ground is muddy from the snow-'n-melt dance we've been doing for the past week or so. Still, I must admit there's something I like about just being able to say that it's spring. Maybe I can talk myself into feeling like spring. And while I'm ready for spring, there's also part of me that can't quite believe winter is over. Time seems to be flying. We've been back here since July and in some ways it feels like we just got here.

Not much to report at present -- working on editing the KWF newsletter, redoing the website and writing articles for a couple of clients and hanging in MFA limbo. It's enough to keep me out of trouble. Sigh.

What Dave Eggers said

I've driven past the Kerrytown Concert House countless times since I've been in Ann Arbor but I've always wondered what went on inside. Yesterday, the answer to that question was: Dave Eggers. Yes, that Dave Eggers, author of the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, founder of the fantastically original online lit mag McSweeney's and its publishing house, and founder of 826 Valencia, the parent organization of, among others, 826 Michigan. In fact, Eggers was in town for a couple of fundraisers for 826 Michigan, including a two-hour workshop entitled Writing & Publishing the Memoir, which I attended with my friends Fara and Jason. Let me start by saying that if some part of you is saying, "Man, Dave Eggers seems so annoying on account of how accomplished he is," the pisser is that he is extremely affable and in the intimate setting of the Kerrytown Concert House seemed genuine and generous with his passion for and knowledge about writing.

I was not expecting him to come across as...accessible as he did. Why? Probably because writers are, generally speaking, odd sorts and, frankly, if I had that man's success I think we all know my ego would be off the charts. But Dave Eggers is not me, as we all also know. He is, however, my age. In case you wanted to, say, compare accomplishments and, say, beat yourself up about it.

Eggers is also kind of dreamy in person. Maybe even a little McDreamy, with twinkly eyes and deep dimples when he smiles, plus a headful of thick, slightly unruly curly hair. Just sayin'. He kicked off the workshop -- which was really more of an informal discussion with questions and answers volleyed back and forth throughout -- by presenting a large pad of paper, propped on an easel. On the first page in large slightly slanted green marker, he had written: "Why? Good Lord, why?" Indeed, it's probably a question every memoir writer asks him or herself. Or, at least, should ask. Those who seem to be 100% convinced that their story is worth telling in the first place are often misguided.

So why, then, do we have the drive to tell our stories? According to Eggers we share our stories because we're supposed to. Language, paper, sentences, words -- they all exist for a purpose and we are, at our core, human beings who communicate our stories to one another. "It's much less logical to not tell your story than to tell it," he said. And once I battled through the double negatives there, I concluded that he may be right. "To not write your story own story is a very strange thing. We have a limited amount of time on this earth."

Eggers credits the memoir boom of the past decade to the fact that people are waking up to the fact that their story needs to be told. "They need to write themselves into existence," he said, talking specifically about working with kids and encouraging them to tell their own stories. "This is the greatest power that they have."

Eggers also said this: "You learn everything when you write your story." I think that's definitely true for me. Writing is a process of discovery and whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I rarely approach a piece of paper with any certainty about where I'm headed. There's a wonderful and frustrating magic to it that's nearly impossible to describe to someone who doesn't have that...thing that writers have.

Frankly, Eggers said a lot. Too much for me to convey here, but here are some ideas he tossed out there, which may prove useful to any of you toying with the idea of writing your own story:

- Memoir is a lot more democratic than other forms of writing. It belongs to anyone and everyone.

- Decide if you are writing your story for you (and your family, ancestors) or for them (readers). I agree that's important, but I also know that most people who want to write memoir are mostly interested in writing best-selling memoir and I think few people are enthusiastic about the idea of battling through the process only to have it sit in a dusty attic until your grandkids uncover it. In fact, most people I know who say they want to be writers don't even want to write -- they want to have written. And that's kind of a huge distinction.

- Start small. Pick your one best anecdote and start by getting that down on paper. (Memoir is, after all, essentially a collection of linked anecdotes.)

- The #1 problem with a lot of memoir is it reads like a pity party. Recount honestly. No weeping. Write scenes like commentary with as much emotional detachment as possible. Cut back on your anger. In dealing with adversaries, Eggers advised, "The villainy comes through if you just write down the facts."

- Then he contradicted himself a little. If your writing is driven by passion and anger, Eggers suggested getting the first draft out of you with all the anger and passion you have inside -- and then go back and cut it all back.

- Russell Baker calls memoir "inventing the truth" and Eggers himself says memoir "is an incredible amount of fiction." In the nonfiction I've written -- and even that I've read -- I've always struggled with the idea that scenes are recounted and recreated, characters combined. Eggers said of memoir: "It's truth but it's not fact." That's an important distinction for me and is helping to shape the way I think about some of my writing -- the idea that you can apply fiction techniques and recreate stuff so that it may not be factually accurate but still contains and represents the truth. Freeing notion and, as I'm sure James Frey would agree, a potentially slippery slope.

- So how do you cope with the reader's trust? Eggers suggests using notes, footnotes, and indexes if necessary to let the reader know where you stand from the start. You strike a bargain with the readers, let them know what you've done, how and why.

- Going back to the idea of anger and vengeance -- which seem to be all-too-common motives for memoir writing -- Eggers suggests extreme caution. Books are permanent and "anyone who gets hurt is going to get hurt for many years." What you put down on paper, what you publish, will never go away. Even stuff you write in passing can have much greater impact on the people you're writing about than you'd ever imagine.

- Eggers suggests showing drafts to your family (or whoever is featured in your memoir) as you go along. You need their help to make sure you have things factually accurate, but also to make sure your perspective is fair. You may not agree with everything your family remembers (and vice versa), but Eggers suggests measuring each battle carefully. Consider the consequences and ask yourself, is it worth it as a writer?

- It may take years before you develop enough perspective to write about certain periods of your life. You have to be far enough away to see it with a dispassionate distance to really know the shape of your story. "Usually to have the distance to see a shape," Eggers said, "it's going to take a long time."

- Show your work to people as you go. Pick people to whom the story matters and other people who don't have anything invested in the story. Eggers suggests having five to ten readers for any story or piece. If you're writing about a specific topic, pick an expert on that topic and see if it rings true to them. Think about people you know who seem like your ideal readers and give it to them, people you need to like or appreciate it. Make sure you knock the socks off your 5-10 readers before you even think about showing it to an agent or publisher or submitting it somewhere.

- What if not much has happened to you in your life? Eggers says there's an inverse relationship here - the less that happens to you, the better writer you need to be. "You have to breathe life into the little things -- that's what being a writer is." Also, know what your story is. Know what the interesting part is, know the motifs of your life.

- In terms of publishing, be honest with yourself about where your work belongs. Eggers believe there's no better time to be trying, with more literary magazines abounding than ever before. Don't submit your work just anywhere. If you think you're not going to bother writing unless it winds up in the pages of Harper's, you'll miss out on a million other opportunities.

- And about that whole writing thing. I love to quote Dorothy Parker (who doesn't?) who said, "The art of writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat." I cannot tell you how much I appreciated Eggers' honesty when he said that for every four hours he spends at his computer, he estimates that he gets about 45 minutes of real writing done. The rest is farting around, delaying and procrastinating. That's why, he said, it's important to give yourself specific chunks of time to write -- "acres of time, as far as the eye can see." Goals are useful too. Hemingway, he said, set a daily word count goal of 400 words and when he'd met that, he quit. Of course, then he went out and drank and eventually killed himself, but that's probably not the point to take from that.

Eggers mentioned the following works during his talk as essential memoir reading, in addition to Frank McCourt's seminal Angela's Ashes:

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy

The Devil is in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood by Jennifer Traig. (Traig is a volunteer at 826 Valencia and is working with Eggers on a book about writing memoir that will be published soon by 826.)

Oh, the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey

Smith Memoir - a website devoted to the genre of short memoir

Also, not memoir, but worth noting, Eggers called The Known World by Edward P. Jones the "best American novel in the last ten years."

What season is this?

Two days ago it was 70 degrees in Ann Arbor. After dinner, Chris and I got coffees from Espresso Royale and wandered over into the Diag to see the campus come alive with the promise of spring. Students were everywhere with pale limbs and soft bellies, squinting mole-faced into the light, tossing frisbees and baseballs back and forth, all self-conscious and pliable as if being seen for the first time in months. They sat on the concrete benches in front of the library, their feet resting on the last remnants of snow -- random ice piles covered in dirt. The ground was squelchy and brown from all the melting.

Yesterday it was still in the 60s and a warm rain melted the stubborn patches of snow that clung to shaded parts of front lawns and even the corners of our deck.

And this morning, I woke to an inch of fresh snow, light and fluffy, coating the branches of trees like a picture postcard.

How odd.

It seems...

...I created a disproportionate amount of suspense by announcing the loss of the last entry. Believe me, people, it was nothing grand. I think the whole first half of it was whining about my health as the last month has been particularly trying for me with my fibromyalgia and its treatment, coupled with an uncooperative thyroid. All of it conspired to keep me pretty much exhuasted for weeks on end and even simple tasks seemed monumental. Someone asked me what fibromyalgia feels like. It's hard to explain because there are system-wide symptoms ranging from total exhaustion accompanied by insomnia (a nice dichotomy indeed), a lot of muscle pain, headaches, the delightful irritible bowel syndrome (just like on the commercials!) and a crippling loss of memory and concentration.

The treatment that I'm on (the mysterious sounding and rather controversial alternative treatment, the guaifenesin protocol) operates on the theory that people with FMS (that's fibromyalgia syndrome) cannot flush calcium phosphate out of our kidneys. The phosphate builds up in our bodies in lesions, causing all sorts of system-wide problems.

Guaifenesin, which is a harmless ingredient found mostly in cough medicine, somehow helps the body flush out the build-up of phosphates in cycles. However, as the phosphates move through the system, you get much sicker; all the symptoms are magnified. Generally, my neck and shoulders burn or ache all the time anyway. When I'm cycling, as they say, it's much worse. I'm completely exhausted and the pain in other areas -- mostly my quads, arms and hips -- gets pretty bad. My arm muscles burn to move glasses from the dishwasher to the cabinets and I have to pause every couple of glasses. My leg muscles burn after four or five steps to the point that I have to stop and blink back tears.

Not pleasant.

But...the idea is that once you cycle out all the built-up phosphates, which could take a coupe of years, you'll feel much better. And you'll have decent days in between the cycles. What's the alternative? Well, there isn't one. The standard medical response to FMS is that there is no treatment or cure, that it's debilitating and you just have to learn to manage the symptoms, which get worse over time. So I might as well try it, right?

The only other catch is that, for some reason, salicylates applied topically block the efficacy of the guaifenesin. What does that mean? Well, salicylates are found in plant oils and extracts, so you can't use any topical products -- makeup, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, etc. -- that contain those or take aspirin or any medicine that contains aspirin (which is, after all, salycilic acid.) It makes for some complicated shopping, let me tell you. Plant essences seem to have been the marketing buzzwords of the last decade and while it probably wasn't that hard once to find products that are almost entirely synthetic, it is now. Let me tell you, Aveda is suffering a big financial hit from my doing this protocol.

So, there. Now you know. Not that you were wondering, although maybe you did wonder why I can't seem to get stuff done sometimes. Or why I start a sentence and can't remember the end of it. Or why I look perfectly fine but claim not to have enough energy to get up and take a walk. It's the FMS, people. And it's mine, all mine!

Oh, dammit!

I had this whole new post written and then things went wonky on the server and it's gone. GONE! There's a possibility I will get around to rewriting it later this afternoon. There is an equal (or perhaps greater) possibility that I won't. Thus, I leave you dying of curiosity. What golden nuggets have you missed out on?  

A couple of sites worth checking out

Feeling undervalued as a writer trying to make a buck? So is the Craigslist Curmudgeon. This site basically exists to make fun of all the ridiculous ads people post for writers on Craigslist. Funnier than you'd think: http://craigslistcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/ Many of you know that the real reason I relocated to Ann Arbor was because they were opening an Ikea in Canton, a mere 20 miles away. I just love Ikea. Nothing like mass-produced, cheapo yet slick-lookin' goods you can tote home flat in your car. LOVE it! Anyhoo, I recently stumbled upon a cool site called Ikea Hacker where people share their ideas for using Ikea products as a starting point then "hacking" them to make them their own. Some cool ideas, most of which I would never actually get around to doing, but I applaud other peoples' creativity even as I indulge my own laziness: http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

If you live in Ann Arbor or you just like reading, writing, cooking and/or knitting, then you should check out a local blog called Four Obsessions. It's one of those rare finds - an interesting and well-written personal blog (unlike this one, you might say) that touches on a lot of my passions. Great combo of knitting tales, book reviews and even recipes for dishes so lovely it almost makes me think about cooking. Almost: http://4obsessions.blogspot.com/index.html

The Audacity of Hope

I've had a few days to mull it over now. Last Wednesday, I got an email from the University of Michigan MFA Program telling me that while I am amazing and fantastic and terrific, I wasn't quite amazing and fantastic and terrific enough to be admitted to their highly competitive program. But...

I am amazing and fantastic and terrific enough to be wait-listed.

Remember that episode of Friends where Rachel thought she might be pregnant and she peed on the stick but she couldn't look at it, so Phoebe looked at it and told her she wasn't pregnant and Rachel was all disappointed -- only Phoebe lied and Rachel WAS pregnant but Phoebe said this way she knew how she really felt?

Yeah, I never really understood that logic, either. Only, I think I might feel a bit like that. Like, how I've talked a lot over the past six months about how my hopes aren't really pegged on getting into the MFA program and I think I meant it until I found out I didn't get in and then when my heart pounded uncontrollably and the tears rolled forward, then I discovered that I really did want the baby after all.

You know what I mean.

So I cried for a couple of hours. Or days. Who's counting? Until I spoke with a couple of friends in academia who surprised me by telling me that being placed on the waiting list is a good thing. It's a little ray of hope. But hope, sometimes, is annoying, especially when your heart is pounding and your stomach aches and you just want to know whether or not you'll spend the next two years in school trying to become a better writer and a better writing teacher or lying on the couch eating bon-bons and waiting for Richard Simmons to have you air-lifted from your home for an intervention.

The way it works is this -- they offer spots to their preferred candidates. If any of those candidates choose to go to another school, then they offer the spot to, hypothetically, the next person on the wait-list. Equally hypothetically, if a good half of the people who were offered spots were to die mysterious and untraceable deaths, a whole lot of us on the wait-list would get in.

I'm just saying.

So...I've spent the past week ricocheting between feeling hope and disappointment, trying to deliver myself to a place of acceptance no matter what the outcome. Which is big talk. But I think I might be there.

A few days before I got the letter, I was pulling into a parking lot when the thought hit me like a ton of bricks: You haven't written fiction in 15 years and you just applied, out of the blue, to one of the top fiction MFA programs in the country. That is, depending on how you like to look at these things, incredibly audacious, ballsy and/or deluded.

It will only make sense to the writers out there when I say that the reason I haven't tackled fiction in so long is because it matters so much to me. My mother assured me that I'd never make a living as a fiction writer and the rest of my fears were only too happy to comply. Other types of writing came to me far more easily and mattered far less. It seemed to make sense.

This is what it means to be on the wait-list, I think: It means that I should keep trying. It means that I might be good enough to keep working at this. It means that I show promise. And that's something I've never felt confident about when it comes to writing fiction.

So I still don't know what will happen. By April 15, everyone offered an MFA spot at Michigan will have had to give their answer, so I'll know if my flutter of hope pans out. In the meantime, I'll keep teaching the fiction workshop at 826 Michigan. I've signed up for a July week-long short story workshop at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival and I've applied to the fancy-pants Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont for August.

I am, as some might say, just gonna keep truckin'.

My favorite quotes of the week

"Here's an inconvenient truth, Al: cake is not a food group." - John Stewart in reference to Gore's girth at the Oscars. "Honey, it's not an iPod, it's a wePod." - Chris when I asked to borrow his iPod.

"The manatee becomes the mento." - Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock. Tough to explain if you didn't see, but his character was trying to say that the mentee had become the mentor...

From the "no duh" files

I love scientific studies that back up my own opinions. It always seems like such a wise use of resources. Thus, I was pleased to see this headline on MSNBC.com today about a new study:

College students think they're so special

Study finds alarming rise in narcissism, self-centeredness in "Generation Me"

However, they probably could have saved a few pennies by skipping the scientific method and just spending an afternoon in a college town like Ann Arbor.

Download this: Wintery Mix

I awoke today to the threat (promise?) of a wintery mix which is not, unfortunately, a kicky compilation of seasonal dance hits. Rather, it referred to the snow/sleet/rain that was drifting down, sideways, when I got up. But now it's stopped coming down, whatever it was, leaving behind only a nominal non-dangerous dusting on the ground and a dull, oppressive grey sky. I keep forgetting that this is the time when things slow down. February, in all its dullness, seems to go on forever. Much like this cold, which Chris and I and the rest of the world seem to be pushing back and forth. It seems I don't quite know if I'll wake up clear-headed and with energy to accomplish much or stupped up and snupply and feeling as though I've valium-laced gelatin coursing through my veins.

Today falls in the latter category. So while I should be working on the many projects in my lap right now, I'm wedged into a corner of our giant, comfy couch, covered in the soft fuzzy blankie my sweet nieces gave me for my birthday. I'm trying to be remotely productive, on a level that my stuffy head can handle. So I'm trying to clear up space on my laptop hard drive.

I'm also in the process of converting a bunch of our CDs to digital files. Now that Chris has an iPod with a 30 gig hard drive, we're trying to pare down our CD collection by getting rid of those that only hold a handful of songs we like. It's slow-going and, although I'm fairly tech-savvy, I'm still dazzled by the idea that this lovely little piece of metal that fits in my hand can hold up to 7,500 songs.

While I've claimed in previous posts to be a consumer through-and-through -- and I am, just ask the folks at Target -- I do have a conflicted conscience when it comes to acquiring stuff. I mean, I love to spend unnecessary money on bath salts and fun shampoos, but I worry about the sheer volume of stuff we owned. Not things that we will use, but things that are just taking up space in our lives.

I felt a ping of that when I bought Chris the iPod, feeling as though I was selling out in a way, to the constant iPod advertising and the marketing message that nothing else will do. The thing is, I did extensive research before buying the iPod, even hopefully looking into other brands, but the evidence seems to suggest -- at least at this point in time -- that nothing else will do. I just couldn't get the same heritage of quality and functionality from any other brand.

And now I think the thing is genius. It's not my first MP3 player -- I have a small one that's more convenient for the gym, where it doesn't matter if it only holds a couple hours of tunes. (Sorry, just had to pause and laugh at the idea that I would EVER be in the gym for anything close to a couple of hours.) But this little machine, the video iPod -- which has much, much more storage than the Nano and Shuffle music models -- is essentially a portable hard drive.

What I'm getting at, clearly very slowly, is that by acquiring this one thing, we're going to be able to get rid of a whole bunch of CDs that are just taking up space in our house. So this acquisition sort of karmically evens out, at least in my little mind.

Which is, I think, kinda cool.

The Walls Did Not Collapse

It's been two weeks, but I finally made it back to the YMCA yesterday for an extremely gentle workout. Not because I am still ailing (I'm not) but because I'm so friggin' out of shape the equipment looked at me and giggled.

I would love to be one of those people who is naturally athletically gifted. I'm married to a man who runs marathons. On purpose. Perhaps it's a genetic thing. I don't hail from athletic stock. Historically, my people were inside baking (and, more often, eating) while others were out moving around. In fact, I'd throw in the towel on this whole exercise thing were it not for the related life-expectancy thing and, frankly, the fact that I feel like a whole 'nother person when I'm being even moderately active.

And the only reason I'm even writing about this here is on the off-chance that it gives me a little accountability for being more active and so that next time you see me and say, "How's the Y?" I don't haul off and slug you.

O Neighbor, Where Art Thou?

I just read this story on CNN.com, about a 70-year-old man in Hampton Bays, New York, who died of natural causes in his home a year ago -- and nobody noticed. Until a water pipe burst, no one realized he had died. Neighbors assumed that the man, who was diabetic and blind, was in hospital or in a long-term treatment facility. This touches on a couple of human tragedies, I think. The idea of dying alone and having no one notice is a particularly terrible fate. It pains me to think of how lonely this man's life must have been before death in order to be able to disappear and not be missed by anyone.

Then there's the whole issue of loss of relationships with neighbors. No one talks to their neighbors anymore. Everyone's so concerned about their privacy and keeping to themselves. In St. Louis, we had a good relationship with only one set of neighbors who would certainly have noticed if we disappeared. Here, even in what seems like idyllic Ann Arbor, we know none of our immediate neighbors. Thank God our landlord would notice if the rent check didn't arrive.

And all I got was this lousy cold!

Yesterday was the birthday of one Chris Carey, to whom I happen to be married. As said wife, it fell to me to make it a special day. This is a challenge for two reasons. One, as many of you well know, he is the best spoiler on birthdays. He spends way too much money and puts a ridiculous amount of thought into his gifts. It's hard not to feel like the most loved person on earth on your birthday, even if, like me, you have a heart of stone. I would highly recommend being married to him. Except you can't, because I am. Reason two is even more tricky -- the man never wants anything. If you ask me what I want for my birthday, I could whip out a file folder of Material Goods I Must Acquire, arranged by categories, level of desire, color and scent. I am a consumer through and through. There is ALWAYS something that I want, a thing to be acquired that will no doubt make my life better, bring me more happiness, make me thinner and prettier.

Conversely, my husband wants nothing. I ask him every year, "What would you like for your birthday?" He thinks long and hard about this before saying, completely seriously, "Really, there's nothing I can think of. I already have everything I need." I can't begin to express how humbling and annoying this is. Because he MEANS it.

This year, I caught him a little off guard with a couple of surprises for his big day. After a morning spent snuggling in bed, sipping coffee, eating the last of the Valentine's Day chocolates and playing computer games on the laptop, I surprised him with tickets to yesterday afternoon's Michigan-IU basketball game. (IU's his alma mater.)

Since he's been suffering from a cold, Chris actually took a little nap beforehand and then we headed off to the game, which was our first visit to Crisler Arena. It's a pretty compact space, which means that even though I couldn't get great seats, the ones we had were pretty darn good. Originally, we were supposed to be in Austin for his birthday weekend and I was going to celebrate his big day by letting him run the Austin Marathon. But we scrapped that plan a couple of weekends ago and so I was too late to get good seats to the game. That said, I would like to know who all you people are with the good seats who don't bother to turn up for the games. That's just rude!

It was a pretty good game, too. Michigan started out with a sizable lead for the first half and then by the last 10 minutes, it was a close game, with Michigan winning by an inch in the end. It was kind of cool, too, to root for both teams. It seems only polite to root for the Wolverines since we live here but I've been pro-IU since my sister went there for college. As Chris "The Nicest Man on Earth" Carey put it, we were cheering for "good basketball." Word.

After the game, I had Chris scheduled for a 7pm massage but we got out of the parking lot a lot faster than I thought so I managed to kill some time without his suspicion with a drive-through of some of the streets around our neighborhood. We've had some good snow the past few days -- nothing major, but enough to keep a fresh dusting on the streets and make all the little bungalows glow warmly. We have great fantasies about actually being able to afford a house here, so it was quite nice to drive around a bit.

He was completely surprised by the massage part and it turned out to be a good thing I got him in there. While I'm a firm believer in bodywork, Chris has only had a couple of massages in his lengthy, lengthy life. When I picked him up, the massage therapist told me how tense and stressed Chris' muscles are, so I'm hoping I can get him back there more regularly. And they didn't even get to work on his legs and runner's legs are notoriously tight.

We had 8:30 dinner reservations at Kerrytown restaurant Eve. We had a really lovely dinner there on our anniversary this year, but we weren't as wild about our first weekend-night visit. The restaurant has no real waiting area, so we found ourselves crammed inside a tiny entryway with four other couples. The hostess was largely absent and largely inattentive. (Turns out she was also delivering drinks and setting tables inside.) All of the couples waiting had 8:30 reservations and the first of us was seated at 8:50, without a word of apology. Not good, people.

Our service, however, was pretty good for the most part. The menu changes seasonally and we weren't as bowled over by the options for winter as we had been for the summer, but I still had some nice lamb (although its lavender and garlic seasoning and delicate flavor were overwhelmed by a too-rich mustard cream sauce) and Chris enjoyed the scallops (although, again, the less-than-subtle coconut flavoring to the accompnying rice overwhelmed). It's a nice space and I enjoy being there but I do wish restaurants would forego the (understandable) desire to fit as many tables in as possible for a little old-fasioned elbow room. I hate having to worry about shoving my rear in my neighbor's face when I get up to go to the rest room.

We came home and I put Chris in an epsom salt bath to help ease his tender muscles and then we did presents and enjoyed some birthday pastries from the Eastern Accents bakery on Fourth Street. Our friend Birgit had raved about the mango cream cake she got there and, since mango is the birthday boy's favorite fruit, I picked up a slice of that and some other fun goodies.

While we sampled the sweets, Chris opened his presents. As I said, he never really wants much of anything, so there were some little bits of this 'n that. But his real present was an iPod. Yes, we're finally moving into the 21st century people. This one should let us transfer nearly our entire CD collection onto it and maybe put our CDs into storage or get rid of the ones we only like a couple songs from anyway. And maybe even end the constant CD clutter in the car. Maybe.

The day was pretty cool, all in all. I finally got to experience what Chris does when he blows me away with his thoughtfulness. It's a terrific experience to spoil your loved one rotten and to really make them feel special. Love those experiences that are selfishly rewarding!

In return for my many, many incredible and amazing efforts, I woke up this morning with the same rotten cold that plagued the hubby for a couple of days. Some thanks, eh? Sigh. It's hard to feel appreciated when you're as fantastic as I am.

 

The difference a year makes

It's not often that I know precisely where I was one year ago, but this time last year I was boarding a plane with the rest of the Knight-Wallace crew to head to Istanbul. It's incredible to think that it was only a year ago and, also, how much has changed since then. At that time, we were excited about our trip but filled with a nagging sense of melancholy, knowing that the last couple months of the fellowship were awaiting us upon our return. We would be packing up our stuff and returning to our life in St. Louis. Chris would return to the Post-Dispatch and I would return to doing freelance work.

Either the day before the trip or the afternoon we left -- that part is a little fuzzy -- Chris had received a positive response from Mark Cuban to his shot-in-the-dark email trying to gauge Cuban's interest in an investigative reporting website.

And everything changed. Our life today looks nothing like we thought it would a year and a day ago. Cuban went on to partner with Chris and fund what is now www.sharesleuth.com, meaning Chris essentially has a dream job where he is his own boss and gets to spend all his time investigating white collar crime, his passion.

I took a short fiction workshop after we returned from Istanbul and when the teacher, Valerie Laken, encouraged me to apply to U-M's MFA program in creative writing, I did. Despite the fact that I hadn't written fiction in nearly 15 years.

Somewhere in there, we made the decision to embark on this new life together here in Ann Arbor. Although I remember discussing it, it wasn't so much a decision as it felt like following a clear path. I still can't explain it, but we both felt right being here -- and that's coming from two people who love St. Louis dearly and hadn't planned on relocating.

So now, here we are. The new year of Fellows have just arrived in Istanbul. Chris is working away on his next big story and working on some plans to expand Sharesleuth. I'm editing the Knight-Wallace newsletter and tackling a few freelance projects while I wait for mid-March to hear about my MFA application.

Our life looks nothing like we expected it to 364 days ago. I'm just sayin'.

Single British Female, or, Random Thoughts on Recent Things

1. Notes on a Scandal I was mightly excited to finally get to see this film this past weekend but wound up a bit disappointed. Not that Dame Judi Dench doesn't give a delicious performance -- for which she has rightfully received an Oscar nomination. In fact, you can almost see that joy an actor must feel at having such a juicy, evil role to play. And I really, really wanted to like this movie more than I did. It's a dark and eerie tale of deception and friendship and sin and emotional blackmail that's incredibly well done and well-acted. But I thought it devolved into a sort of Single British Female soap opera by the end of things, seizing on the worst stereotypes about women in general (and lesbians in particular). Plus, the entire plot turned on a completely inexplicable device -- an all-too-conveniently crumpled piece of paper Cate Blanchett's character just happens to come across in a trash can. There's no explanation or reason that it should have been there and seemed so implausible that all three of us who saw it together were pulled out of the movie in one of those "wait...seriously?" moments. Not a bad movie but I wasn't as wild about it as the critics were.

2. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Okay, so I'm about a year behind in jumping on the bandwagon o' praise for this Jonathan Safran Foer oeuvre but what can I say? I'm only now getting back into novels after reading mostly screenplays and short stories the past year. It's a terrifically moving book revolving around 9-year-old Oskar Schell's search for meaning in his life after the death of his father, who was at a meeting in the World Trade Center the morning of September 11, 2001. Oskar is a compelling and heartbreaking narrator and although the book got a tad trying at points when switching narration to Oskar's grandfather and grandmother, I thought the times I got to spend inside the nine-year-old's amazing little mind were really great. He's one of those characters with such a balance of "realness" and quirkiness that you develop a deep and abiding affection for him. I'm not sure how many other authors could tackle the delicate subject of 9-11 with such grace and humor and unique perspective.

3. Conversations with Other Women

I rented this movie from Netflix over the weekend and while it didn't impress many critics, I have to say I loved it. It's the story of a man and a woman who meet at a wedding reception and while they initially appear not to know each other, their intimate past is slowly revealed through their flirtation. The director uses a split-screen effect throughout the movie and although I can see where people could find it a bit too much, I actually liked the way it served as a narrative device so that you could see both actors at the same time or, in some cases, see a visual expression of a character's conflicted emotions. It stars Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart and I found both of them charming enough to make up for a general lack of plot. Not sure everyone would agree though. Don't think Chris found it nearly as intriguing as I did. I think it might be of particular interest to people who are fascinated with the way stories are told, the way perspective shifts the reality of events and the way people relate to each other.

4. The Year of Magical Thinking

I tried reading this book, by Joan Didion, last year and couldn't quite get into it. It's a memoir about the sudden death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne in 2003 from a sudden cardiac event -- just after her daughter lapsed into a coma following what seemed initially a routine bout of the flu. I don't think I would have been ready to read it a couple of years ago, but it's a brave and honest look at death, grief and the insanity of the way we think, the way our brains and our hearts process loss and the shift in reality.

You know, in case you were wondering.

February is a drag

Around this time every year, I swear I can feel the motivation draining out of me. Today's the epitome -- the sky is grey, it's too cold to go outside and walk around. I feel tired down to my bones. According to that one hedgehog, or whatever the hell he is, spring is around the corner. In the meantime, I'm trying to put a positive spin on this, the dullest month. Thus, I present to you a list of other things February is...

American Heart Month. This one's close to my you-know-what, so brush up on your

Library Lovers Month. Click here for tips on how to love your library. It's not dirty or anything.

National Hot Breakfast Month. If you're cooking, I'd like oatmeal or, perhaps, a nice frittata. With goat cheese, of course.

National Bird-Feeding Month. Naturally, feeding birds a nice, hot breakfast is good way to kill two...um...nevermind.

National "Shake Your Booty" Month. I can find no source for this claim other than Wikipedia, so I think we can pretty much deduce that it's not true. However, I think we should MAKE it true and right now, as you read this, just shake your booty. Even a little. Go on. Do it. No one's watching. There! Don't you feel better? I know I do.

International Boost Self Esteem Month. Whoever came up with this idea is a loser.

National African American History Month. If you didn't already know that part, you're not really paying attention.

Marijuana Awareness Month. I like this one 'cause it's home-grown.

National Cherry Pie Month. If any of you are celebrating this holiday, Chris would like to come over for dinner.

National Pet Dental Health Month. Just don't try to apply Crest White Strips to your cat.'s teeth Trust me.

National Time Management Month. Now's a good time to quit being late to stuff. Seriously. It bugs me.

Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month. I have nothing to add.

Please observe accordingly.