Sometimes, Mother Nature Bites

This is the disclaimer: I love nature. Hell, I'm surrounded by it. On good days, I feel lucky to live in a place where the racket that the birds make is louder than the traffic from the highway.

On bad days, its "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," because, well, the truth is, nature can be a little overwhelming at times. It scratches around in your basement, nibbles on your doorway (see Toad Lake Blotter), and dangles cobwebs in your corners. In the summertime, I feel like we have to fight just to keep our little corner of the property. Given one unrestrained summer, the vegetation would gladly take over and creep up and over the house, while the bunnies frolicked in our sunroom and the mice claimed our countertops. This makes the contrast even more great in the wintertime, when the fauna and flora retreat, and the elements do their best to batter us into submission (or at least severe depression).

Yeah, so, maybe I'm feeling bitter right now. I'm a city kid, but I spent summers in Wisconsin, in a rowboat chasing turtles, catching frogs, and being fascinated by the vivid molds and funguses that grew in the channel near my grandma's house. So you could say I've had a little of both worlds. And I know that nature is a delicate balance, and takes care of itself, and does what it needs to do.

But my birdies are dead, and right now, Mother Nature, I'd stay out of my way if I were you. There were six of them, all fuzzy with oversized yellow plastic-looking beaks, in the nest outside my window. I didn't open that curtain for a month, so as to avoid scaring the parental birdies away. We snuck through that door so as not to disturb, and used the other door whenever possible. But while I was gone, all the baby birdies died (this sounds like a twisted Ween song, I have to admit). And that happens, and its sad, and I cried. But the worst part is, we think the momma killed them. It's possible, I guess, that another bird swooped in and did their thing, but normally, don't other birds steal eggs and stuff? This was just birdie extermination. There were three dead in the nest, and the others had been dropped out of the nest onto the concrete steps. The parental birdies are still around. I see them hovering on the power line, on the handle of the rake. I don't think they use the nest anymore though.

Nature ain't for sissies, that's for sure. Part of me longs to head to the city, where people prey on other people, but at least you don't wake up on the mornings and find dead birdies on your stoop. Winos, maybe, but not birdies.

Back from Ioway

So I'm back. I got in early yesterday afternoon, and tried to catch up on my blog, but my brain felt dried out by the workshop, and then cured by the seemingly endless drive home into some kind of brain jerky. Yeah, yesterday I was a blank. I got home, and J and I had passed somewhere on the expressway. He was heading down to the Cities to just get the hell out. Some of his friends were going to the Mason Jennings show, which he wasn't going to, but wanted to just head down and see a good movie, shop at Utrecht, and mostly I think just breathe in the energy of some other folks. I, having gotten my fix, decided not to meet them in the Cities, but head right home. This worked fine for both of us, but it was a curious feeling arriving home without him to greet me.
Anyway, about the workshop. First let me say: Iowa City is a great town. It is the perfect size (30,000 without students, 60,000 with them), and features all those things you love about a college town: funky little shops, arty theaters, great bookstores, and kiosks selling grilled cheese and crepes. I felt curiously at home there, which is something that happens to me in a college town. I feel like I can breathe, and there is a strange sense of elation. The other thing - Iowa City has lots of green space. Parks, trees, green stretches of grass, winding paths. Oh, yeah, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Holy shit folks. I went, expecting something similar to most college art museums: beautiful collections of work that someone who knew something about art would probably recognize. I did not expect this:



Yes. According to what I've read, this painting, Pollack's Mural, is what started it all. And there's more - I saw Rothko, Miro, Gaugin, Chagall, Picasso, Lasansky, and a whole lot more beatiful and amazing art that I'm sure someone in the know could recognize. I got one-third of the way through the first time and had to leave. My brain was full. Needless to say, I'm a museum nerd, but this one quickly became a haunt for me during my stay. Enough about that - this post is already disturbingly long.
Let's talk about the workshop. I took Katherine Min's Advanced Short Story workshop. There were seven of us in the class. And here's the surprising thing: we all seemed to be at about the same place. You know how, when you're in a workshop, you hope to find one, or maybe two, people (if you're lucky) who are in the same spot you are, have similar insights and sensibilities? Well, not to say that everyone in there was trying to do the same thing. But I was amazed to find that just about everyone in the class (with one exception) was similarly well-read (different books, but same sensibility), intelligent, and insightful. My story was workshopped first (lucky me) and I expected awkward critiques and dancing around the subject. There was none of that. No one trying to figure out how to tell me, without hurting my feelings what was wrong with my story. We immediately dispensed with all those social niceties and got down to brass tacks. So refreshing! And it was that was for everyone's stories. The thing that was wrong, the thing that the author couldn't put her/his finger on, was promptly nailed by the workshop, and interesting discussions followed on how to work with it. Interwoven in this were lesson plans that used the strengths and weaknesses of our stories to discuss elements of the story, etc. I've never been in such a well-oiled workshop, where I walked out with energy, enthusiasm for my work, and concrete ideas on how to make it more complete. It was pretty thrilling.
That said, now I am here. Is this enthusiasm translating across 600 miles? Yes. I'm still excited. The distance between me and the workshop has not diminished that. Plus, I met some cool people, and we have a plan to do our own weekend writing retreats and workshops.
Okay, I admit, I'm a little cynical, jaded, and otherwise pessimistic and overcritical. But I really didn't expect this workshop to be a success in so many ways - in all the ways you hope it to be.

Toad Lake Blotter

News from the Wierd and Wonderful World of Big Toad Lake

The baby birdies outside my window are coming along nicely. Of course, I haven't been able to open the curtains on that window since they were born, because the momma won't fly to the nest when there's a big gaping window with dark shapes moving around behind it. Can't say I blame her. But you can see the little ones now, three of them, with fuzzy gray heads. They like to prop their heads on the edge of the nest, and sometimes when I go out there, all I can see is three little yellow beaks poking over the edge of the moss.

The other night, a porcupine tried very hard to gain access to our home. I was up late, late, reading, and around three a.m. I started hearing these noises, sort of rhythmic bumping and scraping. I didn't really think twice about it until I realized that I no longer live in a crappy apartment in Aspen, and it wasn't just one of the surrounding neighbors getting lucky after the bars closed. So I walked around the house and tried to pinpoint the noise, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Eventually it stopped, and so I chalked it up to the dog having wierd dreams (she runs often in her sleep), or some mousy type activity going on down in the basement (yeah, I love living in an old house). The next day, when I woke up, J took me outside and showed me what was causing the noise. He hadn't heard it, but was perceptive enough to notice that something had gnawed quite a dent into the trim around our mudroom door. Honestly, that critter was working. I can't imagine what he was after, I don't think we have any porcupine-type foodstuffs in the mudroom. Oh, yeah, we know it was a porcupine because as we were standing in awe of the havoc wreaked by one critter, we noticed that we were standing, barefoot, among a scattering of porcupine quills. We collected what we could and then tiptoed back inside. Massive potential for ouchiness. Some days nature just smacks you in the face, reminding you just who is on whose turf.

Third and final notice: J planted some lovely little cauliflower plants, and some strawberries too. Zoe ate them. Cauliflower seedlings. Who knew her palate was so refined? They were potted, and out on the deck for sun, and she just plucked them right out of the pots. The only trace that remained of the poor brave seedlings were the little rectangular indentations from the flats he popped the plants and dirt out of. Luckily, the strawberry plants were out of reach on the railing. But she was definitely checking them out, trying not to look suspicious as she stretched her nose up to sniff them. Sneaky bitch.

Final news: I'm getting ready to head to Iowa on Sunday for a week-long writing workshop. Pretty excited about that. Knowing me, I'll probably be more excited when I get back. And hopefully full of new ideas!

Wild Strawberries

No, not the Bergman flick. In my backyard, an area that has gotten mowed every year but this one because we have been too lazy. And now we get to reap the benefits of our laziness with those tiny magenta wild strawberries that each pack a punch equal to a carton of the store-bought ones.

And the birds that nested in the eave outside my office window had babies, and when I stand quietly by the window I can hear tiny cheeps from the nest. Jason peeked at them, he says they're still hairless, and basically lack the strength to do anything but open their mouths. The male bird sits on the handle of our rake and keeps a weather eye while the female bird flies back and forth to the nest with food. I spend a lot of time watching them.

Some days I really do believe it's as good as it's ever going to get.

Back Inside

Oy. Slowly returning to electronica from about 10 days of semi-enforced computer abstinence. I forced myself to get outside and enjoy the summer and blow off some work. Yup. It was tough to talk myself into that one, but I twisted my arm, you know? Anyway, basically I've been doing things like mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, transplanting pine trees, good stuff like that. Then all of a sudden, today, while I was mowing the lawn (again - we have a lot of lawn), a story that's been hovering over my head finally came down to say hello. You know, when you realize you're narrating and you're not sure if you've been doing it out loud? I was trying something new, because I was scared and stuck (see earlier post). Instead of just sitting in front of the computer feeling miserable for not accomplishing anything, and simultaneously feeling guilty and miserable for not being outside enjoying the beautiful weather (two whammies with one stone), I was just utterly ignoring my work, to see if it would creep out to me, like the chipmunk that lives under our deck and likes to lick the milk out of my cereal bowl. And it did! Granted, not a very efficient or productive way to work, but it was nice way to pass the time during writer's block.