Category: Uncategorized

10 Questions I Wish the Media Asked Trump

1. Who is your primary boss? Putin? Xi Jinping? Orbán? Musk? Bezos? Thiel? Who am I missing?
2. Have you stocked up on paper towels? Hurricanes are coming in hot and fast, and we’ll need you to toss the drowning a couple of rolls.
3. A new bird flu is adapting, recently jumping from chickens to pigs. Should we inject ourselves with bleach or Ivermectin now or later?
4. When the mass deportations begin and we hide our house keepers and gardeners in our homes, will the police storm the front door or the back?
5. Since women will be imprisoned for abortions and miscarriages, what private prison stock do you recommend?
6. Additionally, after you dismantle the department of education, won’t it be cheaper to turn schools into jails so the preschool to prison pipeline in perfectly streamlined?
7. On campus today, a young man shouted, “Your body, my choice” at my daughter. Are they effectively married now?
8. On a different campus, a young white man shouted at a Black student, “The cotton fields need picking.” Do you think we should ban the cotton gin so Black people can get those Black jobs?
9. When you stop sending social security checks, will you provide retirees who paid into social security with a tent and maybe a sleeping bag for when they lose their homes.
10. When you revoke the $35 insulin cap so pharmaceutical companies can again charge $800 per month to diabetics, will you provide a small tax credit to help pay for funerals?

In late September, after Erik and I deposited our daughter, Z, at the University of Arizona, we fell in love with the neighborhoods around the university. Sam Hughes, an historic district with houses covered in stucco and topped with Spanish tiles and sporting old wooden doors built from wood imported from Mexico, was beyond our price range. But the neighborhood just a little north from campus, Blenmen Elm, had a few houses that fit our budget. We drove by a few houses but didn’t look inside any. When we returned to Flagstaff, my BFF, B, put me in touch with a realtor. He toured a few houses for us using FaceTime. He found one that was in our price range but needed a little work. And, it was purple.

Or, perhaps you would call it lavender. I don’t know what kind of people buy a house via Facetime, but apparently, we are those people. The house had so many highlights: Close to U of A Neighborhood, 3 beds, 2 baths, a big back yard, a patio, an orange tree, a pomegranate tree, and a dragon fruit plant, plus a bunch of cacti. It is possible I wanted the house for its flora, but I also loved the blue and orange tiles on the counter in the kitchen, the wood floors, the fireplace. We put in an offer. I drove down on a Thursday for the inspection scheduled for that Friday. I came back on Saturday to prep for teaching the next Monday but the short trip not only afforded me a chance to see the house in person, but to see Z.

But, the inspection was hard on me. There were problems. The facia and soffit. The gutters. The house, upon looking at it more closely, was grimy. But nothing was really a deal breaker. Our realtor worked with a handyman who could do a lot of the repair work. And there is nothing I like more than cleaning. Or, so my children tease me. The living room needed almost no work, except for a new door, and, eventually, new windows.

The kitchen was another story. I actually liked the orange-lined cabinets and drawers because they echoed the orange in the tiles. But the paint had worn thin and had suffered the scuffs of time. But we wanted to save as much as we could of the original character of the place. Otherwise, why buy an older home? So J, our realtor’s handyman, painted them blue. His wife scrubbed the black handles to reveal they were actually brass. He also painted the walls and ceiling and tiled the floor with satillio, but the functionality of the kitchen was not tied to paint or flooring. The fridge didn’t work and the stove was old. There was no dishwasher or disposal. There were hookups for a washing machine in the carport but the carport didn’t seem like a very clean place to do laundry. Home Depot had a bundle sale going and we bought a washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, disposal, refrigerator, and new range hood.

J installed the appliances for us. There was even a spot for the dishwasher, although it was on the far side of the kitchen away from the sink. Z and her friends, who were living in the dorms, were most immediately excited about the washing machine. One night, Z and her friends went over to do their laundry, then promptly left for Target. When J came the next day, the tiles he had just laid were broken under the washing machine. Z was in trouble for leaving the washing machine alone while she went to Target, but it wasn’t really her fault. Erik called a guy to come look at it. We thought he fixed it and then my in-laws and I went down to work on the house and the washing machine still jumped like beans. With a little research, I found that we had indeed not removed the SHIPPING BOLTS. The instructions for installation shouted these words loud, but having not been there when Home Depot delivered them, perhaps we assumed they had already been removed? Perhaps reading instructions is many people’s strong point.

J retiled and repainted. A few weeks later, my mother-in-law dusted and washed and organized the dishes we brought down into the cabinets. My father-in-law took the tape that held the fridge together and, happily, it didn’t collapse into piles at his feet. Now, the purple house has a kitchen so functional one could actually cook in it. And do dishes.

J also repaired several broken countertop tiles with ones I found on eBay that matched the beige ones. Fortunately, none of the orange and blue tiles were broken. The next biggest project was the kind you can’t see, but matters most. A swamp cooler was the only cooling system the house had–we had an evaporative cooler in Salt Lake, where it worked marginally well, but Salt Lake doesn’t get big monsoon storms like Tucson. Tucson turns humid after rain. An old gas furnace took up a lot of room in the hallway to the back bedroom. So for efficiency and efficacy, we had a heat pump installed, which can heat with far less energy than a gas furnace and that can cool the air so it is actually cold.

Another room that seemed challenging was one of the back rooms. It was painted red. Dark red. All red.

Not everyone hates a red room but if you want to sleep or study or do anything besides foment anger, red doesn’t seem the best color. I admit. I’m boring. J had to paint not only two coats of primer but two coats of regular paint. There was a pink stage that was kind of lovely, in a Pepto Bismol kind of way. Still, I’m boring and now it’s cotton white.

Speaking of Pepto Bismol, the bathroom had exciting colors too.

Pink and green might not be so bad, but the colors distracted from a cadre of sins. The floor was bad. The toilet and bath stained yellow. I spent two full days scrubbing the bathtub and toilet with CLR but in the end, it was extra-strength vinegar that removed the yellow stains around the sink faucet and rust and soap stains on the soap dish.

We did not remove the Grateful Dead tile, however.

Also, I bought Trefoil-flavored body wash. A mistake, I admit. No one wants to smell like butter and vanilla all day.

The second bath was in worse shape than the main. A shower insert. A vanity from the sad aisle of Home Depot. Another stained toilet. This space needed to be gutted, especially because drywall covered a 4 foot by 4 foot space that had just been lost to bad remodeling or pretty good hiding of a marijuana operation.

J took the wall down, jackhammered a new drain, and tiled the shower with these cool tiles Erik chose.

Which you can’t really see here because Z has a lot of hair products. Still, new shower faucet, little shelves! The floor is also covered in cool tile but I forgot to take a picture of it. And, the vanity has ALMOST enough space for the rest of Z’s beauty products.

I’m still working on de-staining the toilet. More vinegar, please!

The back room was one giant cavern. It might have been good for an office or maybe an extra large workout room. Or a place to destem your marijuana plants that you’d grown in the bathroom’s hidden wall before growing your own became legal.

Erik and I waffled too long on the flooring. We should have asked J to lay tile. But now, it’s too late because Z has moved in and heavy furniture sits upon the concrete floor. We did what we could to hide the floor with rugs and cute items. It’s an ongoing battle.

The last thing we did before we drove back to Flagstaff was to ask the neighbor’s landscaping guy if he’d come do our yard. It has never been this organized. I’m happy not to be the messy yard people anymore! Also, J completely lifted up the walkway bricks, flattened the underlayment, and re-bricked in a cool pattern.

We probably spent more money on the house than we intended and I probably inhaled too much concentrated vinegar, comet, CLR (calcium lime rust remover), but the purple house is truly one of my favorite places. It has a good feeling. A good yard. And is pretty clean! I’m excited for Z’s roommates to move in although I’m going to miss sitting in the backyard, watching the hummingbirds flit to the pomegranate flowers. I bet, if I don’t mom it up too much, they will even let me visit.

I haven’t been the same since I lost Zane. Which is OK because I was a fool then. I’m probably still a fool, but a little quieter.

I’m going to let these guys talk for me from now on. They can also change the toilet paper rolls from now on.

Fools of toilet paper. Fools of tile and grout. Fools of cats named Pico and Fools of cats named Trout.

Falstaff was the fool that helped Henry the IV become Henry the V.

Lear’s Fool knew better than the King himself where love and truth overlapped and where they parted.

My friend Peter Friederici wrote a book about not so much changing the narrative but changing from narrative to dramatic story. Narratives are plotted and finished. If the Climate story is a narrative, we know how it ends. Tragedy means we had a choice in the way of our fate, buta tragic flaw means that we cannot escape our fate, even if there was a moment for the tide to turn. A drama conspires with the audience. What they know matter to the story. The Greek Chorus helps them participate. Comedy, even more so, “holds that any people can find agency” (127).

Moments of foolhardiness can be real mistakes–tapping someone on the butt to say, ‘go get ’em’ might feel like abuse. Staying out instead of coming home. Walking in high heels. Telling that joke. Talking too loud. Saying it’s all going to be OK. Saying that it’s not. Letting your kid take the bus. Making your kid take the bus. Driving 8 hours to see your family. Saying you don’t believe in: therapy, drugs (they don’t work), alcoholism, trucks, phones, chicken broth, grades, human evolution (aka, humans are done), water buffalo versus wildebeests, the singularity, makes you a fool. But you have to draw the line somewhere. Take a stand. Overmother your own mother. Take your medicine that you don’t believe in. Make some pies.

Happy Thanksgiving, cats and fools.

On June 30th, I went with my good friend Beya and our youngest borns, to Clear Creek to Paddleboard. The wind was strong. The water was murky. The sun was hot. We managed to make it around the reeds but no further. When I emerged from the water, I found a horrifying sight. My paddleboard fin had come out of its socket and had fallen to the reservoir floor. Max and Ian searched the mud for it, but it was nowhere to be found. No worries, I thought. That’s what Amazon is for. But this fin is particular. It has little notches to anchor the fin (not so well if you don’t slide the lock all the way through). I called CA Paddleboards. They haven’t made that kind in years. Someone in Utah had just lost his and they’d had to share the disappointing news to him. Erik wasn’t happy. He teased that maybe I could go to the Maker Lab at NAU to get a new one printed. That seemed impossible to me. Farfetched to him. I searched the internet as deeply as the boys searched Clear Creek river. Nada. There was none. So I called the Maker Lab people. I learned Tinkercad. I tinkered and prototyped and screwed up measurements. Zoe kept telling me I needed calipers. Max, who told me when I had almost finished drawing the fin, having bruised my head hitting it against the wall of three dimensional learning, “oh yeah. I learned Tinkercad in science last year.” I made one fin. It was too small. I made another fin. The notches were in the wrong place. I made another fin. The base was too wide. But five prototypes later, I finally have a fin that slides into the notch inside the Paddleboard. Perhaps it will warm up enough for us to make it to the water one more time before winter.

Appleseed–Matt Bell

Beloved–Toni Morrison (my number one fave?)

Bastard Out of Carolina–Dorothy Allison

Braiding Sweetgrass–Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born–Ayi Kwei Armah

The Brother’s K–David James Duncan

The Bone People–Keri Hulme

The Color Purple–Alice Walker

Cloud Cuckoo Nest–Anthony Doerr

Control of Nature–John McPhee

Dear Committee Members–Julie Schumacher

Detransition, Baby–Torrey Peters

The Every (Dave Eggers–I didn’t really like but I got stuck on E)

The Echomaker–Richard Powers (thought of my actual favorite E)

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds–Paul Zindel

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues–Tom Robbins

Finnegan’s Wake (hahaha)

Flight Behavior–Barbara Kingsolver

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates–Tom Robbins

Franny and Zooey–JD Salinger

Geek Love–Katherine Dunn

Gut Symmetries–Jeanette Winterson

Galatea 2.2–Richard Powers

Heavy–Kiese Laymon

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas–Tom Robbins

Hamnet–Maggie O’Farrell

H is for Hawk–Helen McDonald

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy–Douglas Adams

Homegoing–Yaa Gyasi

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel–Alexander Chee

I Been in Sorrows Kitchen and Licked Out all The Pots–Susan Straight

It’s Like This Cat–Emily Neville

I’ve Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up From Here–Richard Fariña

I Am the Cheese–Robert Cromier

In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods–Matt Bell

Jitterbug Perfume–Tom Robbins

The Kite Runner–Khaled Hosseini

Lincoln in the Bardo–George Saunders

Let the Great World Spin–Collum McCann

Light in August–William Faulkner (this might be my second favorite)

Moby Dick–Herman Melville

Master Butchers Singing Club–Louise Erdrich

My Darling, My Hamburger–Paul Zindel

The Night Watchman–Louise Erdrich

Neck Deep and Other Predicaments–Ander Monson

One Hundred Years of Solitude–Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Overstory–Richard Powers

Poisonwood Bible–Barbara Kingsolver

Persuasion–Jane Austen

Queen of the Night–Alexander Chee

The Quiet American–Graham Greene

The Round House–Louise Erdrich

The Road–Cormac McCarthy

The River Why–David James Duncan

Sometimes a Great Notion–Ken Kesey

Song of Solomon–Toni Morrison

She’s Come Undone–Wally Lamb

Sexing the Cherry–Jeannette Winterson

Snow–Orham Pamuk

Salvage the Bones–Jesmyn Ward

Slaughterhouse Five–Kurt Vonnegut

Stones from a River–Ursula Hegi

Swamplandia–Karen Russell

Things Fall Apart–Chinua Achebe

This Cold Heaven–Gretel Ehrlich

Under the Banner of Heaven–Jon Krakauer

Underground Railroad–Colson Whitehead

A Visit from the Good Squad–Jennifer Egan

Wolf Hall–Hilary Mantel

Xanadu–Olivia Newton John

Yellow House–Sarah Broom

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance–Robert Pirsig

Hello from inside of my summer class. I am teaching a short May term class. I love this class. It’s so organized and fast. The students go from 0 to 60 in 3 short weeks. However, because I broke my wrist while dancing too close to the mosh pit at the Built to Spill show in town, it is hard to type. So now that I’ve finished the four hours of commenting I had to mark on student papers, my wrist is not up to writing but if I don’t write, I might go a little crazy. So, I’m off to take some ibuprofen and write about Nina Simone on the Colorado and me and my sister on the road to visit the brine shrimp.

• 1998–Twister (Twister board as toga, spinning device as mortar board.) Party at Craig and Satina’s. Car shot with automatic rifle sometime in the middle of the night. Fortunately, I’m not in it and no one got hurt.
• 1999–Costume? This is the one year I can’t remember. I blame it on PTSD from the previous party at Craig and Satina’s, where it was held again this year, but in their new house. That’s what I should have gone as–PTSD.
• 2000–Group project with KJ (my sister, Paige) and co as The Monkey Wrench Gang. Party at Mary Anne’s. Halfway through, KJ and I realized we should have gone as The Blair Witch Project. If only we’d brought our video camera. Erik was Private Ryan.
• 2001–Martha Stewart. I came prepared with edible scary treats marshmallow and licorice spiders, scary dismembered hands made from gloves and popcorn and other Stewarty like crafty-foods. I wore a button down Oxford. Party at Kate’s. Erik was Hank Williams.
• 2002–Lemon Fresh Scent. Shorts and shirt adorned with lemons–car scent tree hanging from neck. Lemon drops in pockets. Kate again hosts. Kate’s porch suffers from too much fun.
• 2003–The Drought–sand glued to dusty clothes, empty water bottles dragging behind like so many ghostly chains from a Christmas Carol. Party at Rebecca L.’s.
• 2004–Binicula. Party at Erik’s friend’s house. No one gets the bunny ears and vampire teeth.
• 2005–Stuccoe’d O’er with Quadrepeds. Zoe, newly born, goes as one of the quadrapeds (a lamb) other four-legged Beanie Babies pinned to outfit. No one gets the Whitman reference. I send a photo to my dissertation director.
• 2006–The Forest Floor. Again with the safety pins. Amanita muscaria of red felt with white dots and fall leaves stuck to me. Zoe goes as a bear. I carry her to make the sense of floor more (or possibly less) clear.
• 2007–The Michigan Real Estate Market–Cheap and Easy. Blue eye shadow. Glitter. A sign (safety pin) on my bum reading “Price Reduced.”
• 2008—Today’s Mail. Junk mail safety-pinned to clothes.
• 2009—VW Volkswagen Bug (very pregnant).  VW emblem necklace, fairy wings.
• 2010—Twister (again! But this time with crazy hair and spinning. Like a tornado. Or a movie).  (Erik was big Labowski.)
• 2011—Black Box Theater (mime face. Carry around a box of Black Box wine.)
• 2012—Bi-polar (a north sign on one hand, a south sign on the other. Plus half day of the dead face. I hope)
• 2013—Woodsy the Owl—owl wings from kite, garbage bin with “Don’t be a Litter Bug” taped to a garbage can.
• 2014—Hans and Franz
• 2015—The NonfictioNOW conference bags.
• 2016—Caged Free Eggs.
• 2017—The Ghost of Elections Past (white wig, white face, raven, voter registration forms)
• 2018—Black Box Theater (Box of wine. White face.)
• 2019—Didn’t dress up.
• 2020—Great British baking show—I was Noel, Erik was Paul Hollywood, Max was Sandi, Zoe was Mel.
• 2021—Max and me, Zoom windows, Zoe and Max, Peanut butter and jellyfish. Erik Dan. Later, Zoe wore her pink onesie with Erik’s “Dan” nametag

Processed Meats: Essays on Food, Flesh, and Navigating Disaster has been out for two weeks and two days–a little less time that it takes to make pancetta. Pancetta is the Italian bacon–pork belly, cured, then, instead of cold-smoked like bacon, it’s dried in a garage. Or a garage-like entity. It’s supposed to be humid, the garage, but there is no humidity in this Arizona climate although it has snowed and, since snow tunnels under the garage door, when the snow melts, the garage approximates a humidor. If humidors were just lightly humid.

The Charcuterie Bible, by Michael Ruhlman does not expressly give permission to eat the pancetta raw. He says something like, “since you’ll be cooking it anyway, you don’t have to worry about…..” But I was always going to eat it raw as I do bacon and carpaccio and yellow tail. I feel the microorganisms in my gut get bored and need some work to do. I have a strong stomach. I don’t know. I should worry but I can’t because it’s delicious raw and it seems to not trouble my stomach.

One of the best things about publishing a book is you find out what you’re not supposed to do. I get questions about whether writing about my kids invades their privacy and why I eat meat and still claim to be an environmentalist and why I keep writing about climate change even though no one wants to talk about it. It’s not that raw is more delicious or better, necessarily. But it’s the thing that comes first. Prima facie. It presents itself without embellishment. I like fully cooked bacon but the meat, yes, processed, but straight from the garage of non-humidity, feels immediate and a little feral. Should writing be feral? Like pancetta, probably not all the time, but, for those whose stomachs don’t mind, sometimes seems right.