Reading Challenge Update

It just occurred to me that I have already (nearly) failed my own reading challenge. I'm already behind--I have about 50 pages left of The Yiddish Policeman's Union and I only just started Super Sad True Love Story. I'm going to do my best to finish Yiddish tonight that way I'm only half a failure.

Hearing Yourself

This morning I went looking for a recording of Tobias Wolff reading Bullet in the Brain. We had discussed it last night in my creative writing workshop at George Washington University. I thought maybe the Workshop had recorded the event as part of Live from Prairie Lights. Sadly, they hadn't. I did however find this: a reading I gave in Iowa back during my second year. So weird to hear myself. You absolutely don't have to listen but it was kind of a treat to find this recording from my past. Here it.

My Office...

Is a complete mess right now. There are papers everywhere a broken espresso maker, too many boxes that have to do with the yearbook, and books. Lots of books.

But then there is this little bit of cork board. It has lots of my favorite things.

A postcard from vonHottie, the Little Lord poster from Jewqueen, a knitting postcard, my statement of educational philosophy, photobooth photos of me and my mama, miscellaneous postcards of my favorite travel destinations (Cambodia, Prague), snippets of writing, story titles (to be used), a Sarah Lawrence banner, and a fake minor slip from Halloween.

Just thought I would share.

The Letter I Wrote to Start Writing Again

I'm sharing this because I think it is an honest and accurate account of the way my writing life has changed over the last year and a half.

Letter of Interest

RE: Jenny McKean Moore Free Community Workshop

Five years ago I wrote, “The writing life I lead now exists in stolen moments, free time at the office, early morning alarms that call me to write something, anything.“  Less than a year after writing that sentence I quit my job, packed up my apartment and moved to middle of nowhere to write. I spent three years in a small college town, teaching and writing.  I was experiencing the kind of professional and artistic fulfillment most people only dream of. 

When I came to Baltimore to take a job in the fall of 2010 I had high expectations. I assumed that I would somehow make it possible to continue leading the kind of life I had been living. As it turns out, teaching ninth grade English and guiding anywhere between twenty and forty high school seniors through the college search process leaves time for very little. I write on a daily basis, letters of recommendation, comments on five paragraph essays, and course evaluations twice a year. But I don’t write.  My novel lies in pieces on my hard drive and I have several short stories that are varying states of completion. The writing groups I once a member of have disbanded and my attempts to recreate them have been unsuccessful.  It’s hard to devote time to writing when everything else shouts out for attention with a much louder voice.

            As a writer, I thrive in an environment where I am forced to consider not only my art, but also the art of those around me.  Between 2005 and 2010 I took nine fiction writing workshops and taught an additional five. During that time I believe that I have produced my best work because I have inspired by the simple fact that someone out there would be reading it, thinking about it and assisting me in making it better. I find that I am most motivated when my writing is given more than those few stolen moments in between meeting with frenzied seniors and terrified freshmen.  I look forward to having the opportunity to work with other gifted writers in the same kind of environment that first encouraged me to embrace a life in which writing is central.

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                                   

                                                                                   

Food Love

I've been realizing more and more that the way I show the Airman how much I love him is by cooking for him. I get it from my mother's family. I swear the way you know someone is in love with their partner by the way they make them a plate at a big (or small...not that we have many of these) dinner. Lately, I've become obsessed with cooking for him. Not only cooking but going a little on the gourmet side. Last night I actually plated dinner. What the fuck? You would have thought I was on Top Chef and Padma and Tom were waiting to taste. After last night's dinner I'm pretty sure I would not have been told to "Pack my knives and go." The recipe came from the Pioneer Woman. I love, love, love her blog. Her tv show, meh.

Her recipes are divine and I have yet to make one that didn't turn out awesome.  So last night, I made this for Airman: Braised beef ribs in a creamy wine sauce. Fanfuckingtastic. There are pictures to prove it.

This is when they got a little sear on them.

This is after I added the fresh rosemary, wine, and beef broth. The entire apartment smelled like rosemary, wine, and beef. I'm sure it's what heaven smells like.

While I let the ribs braise in the pan for three hours, I chopped up some portabello and shitake mushrooms, tossed them with olive oil, salt, and roasted 'em. The Airman questioned the amount of mushrooms I had purchased (about 2 1/2 pounds) but at the end of the night there were barely any for my lunch.

I took the ribs out of the pan after 3 hours. The meat was falling off the bones.

Then I plated that dish like a motherfucker. I started with a buttery helping of mashed potatoes, topped with mushrooms and then the delicious ribs. I topped it all off with a generous helping of the creamy wine sauce.

Food love.

Happy New Year!

Yeah....I know. I am a few weeks late but hey, I'm here. It's been a bumpy start to the new year. I kicked it off with bronchitis and and an upper respiratory infection that kept me in bed for four days past the start of school. My mom said "Well it's nice to not have to go back!" and I had to disagree with her. Even the doctor said that I looked like I wanted to die. I did. I was coughing as though I was going to hack up a lung. Then I read somewhere that a woman did actually cough up part of her lung and it terrified me.

I didn't cough up a lung. I made it back to work. I somehow, miraculously started 2012 in a bona fide, adult relationship that only gets better and better. And Hector the cat still likes to sleep in boxes. Things are good.

I'm also starting the new semester with some good writing news. I applied to the Jenny McKean More Community Workshop at The George Washington University using a sample from Until the Heart Stops Beating and a letter of interest that I will post later. I'm pleased to say that I've been accepted into the class! Hooray! This is both a good and terrifying thing.

Terrifying because I have to commute to DC every Tuesday: Yuck. It's also terrifying because I have written with any regularity in a year and a half (it looks sooo bad when I see that written down). I keep anxiously checking my email to see what my homework assignment will be! Homework! Ack!

But...It's a good thing because I do my best work when someone demands it of me. I'm really, really excited about writing for a small group of people. I can only hope that they are as excited about writing and read as I am. They must be if they took the time to apply, right?



That reading challenge I started? Oh yeah, that...Well, I'm going to try and finish up Yiddish Policeman tonight and tomorrow. And I'm reading a ton of short stories in preparation for the unit I am about to start with my class and hopefully this weekend I'll get to The Marriage Plot. But it's the Airman's birthday weekend so I make no promises.

I did begin and mostly finish these:

So I will have at least two knitting projects done! And I'm busting down my stash. Yay me again!

And because it's my blog and I can be obnoxious and gross and annoying here as much as I want, I'm still madly in love. #winning

Planning for 2012--The Reading Challenge

With the exception of Anna North's America Pacifica and Justin Torres' We the Animals, I haven't done as much reading as I would like. I'm finally reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I was pushed to get going on it so that I could sit in on classes with an11/12th grade English elective. I'm actually enjoying it quite a lot.

I have a lot of books I haven't read. Blame Iowa. Blame my book buying habits. Blame the insistence that I have a job and can no longer lounge about on my couch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette (on those days when I smoked, they were very, very, few) and get lost inside my books. There are so many things to blame but mostly, there never seems to be enough time. I have only knit one completed project this year. One. WTF? So....Next year, I'm knitting and I'm reading, and I'm writing.

Here's the starter list, the first 15 books that I'm going to attempt to tackle. Now, some of them are still in Iowa, some of them might be on their way as I write this. Some, I have yet to purchase.  I'll be adding and scratching off books from the list as I start reading. Since I decided not to join a formal reading challenge,--I couldn't find one I liked--I'm making my own. I'm calling it my: Read 100 Books from my TBR (to-be read) shelf, some of which might be considered "classic"works of literature and some I have not yet bought, Reading Challenge. 


(Feel free to make suggestions)


The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2666 by Roberto Bolano
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Endless Love by Scott Spencer
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Io no ho paura by Niccolo Ammaniti (in Italian, I'm going to be ambitious)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai


I will also knit one complete project a month. On the docket: Socks, shawls, fingerless gloves and headbands. I will attempt to sell the things I knit.

Wish me luck.