Miscellany

So much for my newly rekindled desire to write. Blame the hiatus on Omaha and midterm. Five days away for the wedding, and nonstop printer and copier problems the rest of the time.

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In Iowa there are apparently two kinds of rest stops: "modern" and parking only. There are many signs along I-80 announcing the number of miles to the next modern rest area. This is apparently synonymous with "sanitary," which was mentioned on another sign.

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I'm going to be a cousin. My new aunt is pregnant. I always wanted cousins on that side of the family; too bad I had to wait for my aunt to grow up first. Now I'm kind of out of the mood.

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On a related note, my uber-Catholic cousin on the other side of the family, whose baby's first birthday we just attended a few weeks ago, is also pregnant. It must be killing my mom.

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The officiant at my brother-in-law's wedding was supposed to be a Baptist minister from Elgin who he'd become close to while at NIU. This person is now living in Little Rock but was coming to Omaha for the wedding. He had declined a plane ticket months ago, but decided the Sunday before the wedding, after the ticket price had tripled, that he wanted one after all. They ended up being married by a Presbyterian lesbian. I don't think my father-in-law knows that, but it makes me happy nonetheless.

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The wedding was held in an alcove in a train station-turned-museum. I did the readings during the ceremony. There was no podium. There was also no microphone. The readings were on a crumpled sheet I'd printed out and stuffed in my pocket for the rehearsal. I ended up going to Target that morning and buying a leatherbound book to hide them in. I felt very ministerial with it.

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I drank four glasses of wine at the reception and made my father-in-law dance with me. I was also listed in the wedding program under my legal name. I believe I've officially cemented my black sheep status. Debbie is new to the family; I figure I might as well make her look good.

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M. Defarge is away this weekend at a conference. Apparently I'm neglecting the dog. Or maybe he's punishing himself. Regardless, he just put himself in the closet.

Why didn't we think of this?

A bookstore organized by country, Idlewild carries fiction and non-fiction from all parts of the world, including new and classic works in translation, travel guides, books about politics and culture, graphic lit, language-learning books, maps and more.

Yet another reason I need to go back to New York.

Food and travel writing class

Saturday was my half-day food and travel writing workshop. It was wonderful.

Actually, the day didn't start out that wonderful--I ended up being ten minutes late, which was mortifying. Mapquest said the trip would take 25 minutes. I allowed an hour--but then decided to take a quick detour to the local farmer's market (seemed appropriate, given the subject matter). After parking and walking and fruit and vegetable selecting, I had barely a half hour by the time I returned to my car.

I would have barely made it, too, but the street where the writing studio is located happens to have an elevated train running down the middle of it. The studio is on the east side of the tracks. I, unfortunately, approached from the west, saw the street sign immediately before the tracks, and turned. Then I spent five minutes driving around side streets (at least once going the wrong direction on a one-way) and dead-ending into--go figure--a farmer's market. Then I ditched my car and started wandering back and forth. Finally I noticed that the address numbers were all even and that I was looking for an odd number, and it occurred to me that there may be something beyond the elevated tracks. Voila. I also found the promised parking lot, which I had dismissed as a figment of someone's imagination.

So, short story long, I was late. But apparently Kate, the instructor, was too, and she was just finishing her opening remarks when I stumbled in and took the a seat by the door. She also didn't make me go first when we had to go around the room and introduce ourselves, because she said that'd be mean.

Kate was great--funny and self-deprecating and full of great travel stories about her time in Europe and elsewhere. Most of my fellow classmates had been to Europe as well, and several of them had traveled much more extensively, including one who had quit her job and embarked on a trip around the world. It was a little intimidating knowing they had so much more material.

Even though the title of the class was "Food and Travel Writing," Kate suggested that we focus on food as a lens through which to view our travel experiences, which was exactly what I was thinking.

The first thing we did (after some discussion of the 5Ws and the 5 senses) was a free writing assignment, which I hadn't done since the Morrison era. It was called "Sitting at the Table." She gave us a few prompts, one of which was "a table at a restaurant in a country where you don't speak the language." We had 12 minutes to write. I immediately thought of our dinner in Paris where the waiter was determined to speak to us in English and we used up both our Euros and our time and didn't get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I hadn't thought about it in a while, but the more I wrote, the more I remembered.

Then we read a couple of passages from books by Bill Bryson and Peg Bracken and talked about why they worked. There were a couple more Xeroxed selections in our packets that we didn't get to as well, and I eventually read and loved them all and now I have several more books to add to my "to-read" list. Bill Bryson, in particular, sounds crabby and sarcastic--right up my alley.

The class was only four hours, and by that time it was more than half over. So Kate gave us the option of taking a short break (no lunch break in a food writing class--that was a little rough) or getting started. We had about 40 minutes and then we'd break up into workshop groups, do a quick read and critique, and then debrief.

Of course I started writing--I write horribly slow in longhand, and I wanted to get going right away. I decided to write about the dinner in Paris, since I'd already been thinking about it and had some ideas. Not to mention an opening line that I was very proud of: "Rick Steves must not eat."

The writing time flew by, and then she divided us up into workshop groups of 3 or 4. I was in the group of 3, along with the two people next to me--a children's book editor (very cool) and the woman who had introduced herself by saying that she was having some physical/emotional problems and her doctor had assigned her to write and submit an article to a magazine by next week as part of her therapy. She was completely panicked about this, and kept getting up and asking Kate breathless questions during the writing portion of the class.

Since we didn't have much time, we were just supposed to make general comments, rather than going into too much detail. The children's book editor read a funny little piece about a visit she and her husband had made to his parents' retirement community and how they'd gone to a party and no one had wanted to sit with them. The hyper magazine woman read a short sketch (she had apparently started over several times) about a dog at a Paris cafe who looked and acted just like the cafe owner. And I read mine. My group members were very nice and asked questions and wanted to know more about what happened. They both said that they liked how Rick Steves was almost like a character in the story.

Then we all got back together for a lightning-quick debriefing, a few tips from Kate about getting published, and it was all over. She did mention that the studio is thinking about offering an actual multi-week food and travel writing class, which I would sign up for in a heartbeat (although the $300 price tag would probably give M. Defarge a heart attack.

I left really excited about writing again. Hopefully it will last. Kate said that having a website or blog is a good way to "publish" your work so that if you're trying to get magazine work or whatever, you can point to it online. Regardless, I think it's a good outlet for giving myself little writing assignments and seeing where they take me.

This weekend's destination: beautiful, scenic Omaha, and my brother-in-law's wedding. I'm going to bring my notebook.

Food and travel writing class: What I wrote

This is what I managed to get down on paper in the 40 minutes we had to write during the food and travel writing workshop. It's transcribed straight from my notebook--no editing (other than a couple of notes). I really missed my computer--my pen just does not move fast enough.

Rick Steves must not eat. At least it must not be a priority of his. We planned our day trip to Paris around the timetable in our London guidebook for a day trip to Paris. It wasn't until it was all down on paper and the Eurostar ticket booked that we realized that the schedule didn't include any meal breaks.

But being turned away from Sainte-Chappelle (for their 2-hour lunch break--go figure) had left us with some extra time, and the chocolate crepe (mine) and croque monsieur [ed note: it was actually a crudite gruyere] (his) that we'd grabbed from a street vendor that morning had long since worn off. And after a rocky start and a death-defying cab ride, we'd done a pretty creditable job navigating the Metro and checking off the sites on our list--Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Louvre. It wasn't even 5:00 and there was only one more stop that we had planned. We still had a couple of hours before we had to be back at the Gare du Nord to check in for our train ride back to London. I had even managed to do a reasonable job expressing myself in French. So, to celebrate, we decided to stop for an actual meal.

Not a fancy meal--that was out of the question. For one thing, we were wearing jeans. For another, I wasn't confident enough about my ability to order a multi-course meal. But sandwiches seemed possible.

We got off the Metro at Trocadero, which Rick said was a bit of a hike but offered an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower. Unlike the taxi tips, he was right on about this. The Jekyll-and-Hyde weather seemed to have settled on a Dr. Jekyll evening--the sun was really out, the sky was a less threatening shade of blue--and the neighborhood looked semi-authentic but still tourist-friendly. After surveying a couple of menus chalked on sidewalk easels, we settled on the Cafe Korsakoff [ed. note: actually called Le Malakoff (but I was close)], which boasted a decent selection of sandwiches as well as a prix-fixe dinner menu.

There was outdoor seating but we were unsure how to secure a table, so we tiptoed inside. The restaurant was largely empty, save for a few tables near the windows, where scattered groups of two or three were sipping their cafe cremes and espressos. It was 5:00, after all. Even in Chicago, it wasn't exactly time for the dinner rush.

I might have turned around and left, but it was too late--a smiling French waiter was already upon us. His starched white shirt and black bow tie matched the shiny black-and-white tile. He even had a tidy little moustache--the very picture of a French waiter. He sized us up, and in heavily accented but nonetheless flawless English, said, "Hello! Here for dinner?" [ed. note: I can't remember exactly what he said, dammit.] Chastened and feeling very American, we allowed ourselves to be led to a long leather booth near the windows--a good view, he told us--and seated.

So much for my triumphant moment exercising my high school French--the menu was in English. Chris was relieved--saying "deux" in the ticket line at the Louvre had been more than enough French speaking for him. But I had started to relax into my new role as the navigator and communicator, and I was reluctant to give it up. I flipped over the menu--the reverse was in French. I'd show them.

Regardless of the language, the menu read the same, and there was not a sandwich to be seen. It was a full, multi-course dinner menu, complete with dinnertime prices and a wine list.

One of the reasons I'd been reluctant to have a real meal was because I was nervous about ordering wine.

And that's as far as I got. But it was fun to write, and now that I'm at home with my computer and the trusty notebook I used during the trip to jot down things like where and what we ate, I think I'd like to keep working on it and see what happens. Stay tuned.

And one more thing

Holy crap.

And yet, this was less disturbing to me than that scary prequel.

More miscellany

I'm on a roll today.

I was putting a reference book away the other day at work when I noticed that in the Library of Congress classification system, the call number of the Bible (at least the version we have) begins with BS. Coincidence, or wacky atheist librarian humor?

Possibly my worst nightmare

I saw the worst thing on Lake Shore Drive on Friday. We were headed to Evanston for a wedding and sitting in early-rush-hour traffic. We were in the left lane and there was a Prius next to us. All of a sudden the driver (a woman about my age) opened the door, leaned out so that her head was almost touching the pavement, and threw up. Traffic started moving again, but she wasn't. I was terrified that she was going to get rear-ended. Eventually she recovered enough to pull the door mostly shut and move her car, but as soon as we stopped again, she was back out. I was about ready to get in the car with her and tell her to move over, I'd take her wherever she needed to go. But then we got stuck behind some left-turners and lost her.

At the rehearsal dinner I mentioned it to someone and said how I couldn't imagine anything more awful. He said, "Bet she was pregnant."

My guess as well. I think that episode set me back at least another six months. Being sick while driving is bad enough, but how would that possibly work on the El?

Encore, encore

Yesterday was my big "from college to career" speech. I have a feeling that most people come in and just speak extemporaneously, but god knows I can't do that. So I practiced it about 10 times, made myself a set of notecards, and spent so much time on it Tuesday morning (my late day, so the talk was the very first thing I did upon arrival) that I almost was late for my own lecture.

I think I've mentioned that a consequence of our odd block scheduling is that the entire student body, as well as the faculty, have the same 45-minute period for lunch. That makes scheduling this type of thing difficult enough. This semester, there's an added wrinkle in that the new gen ed schedule cuts into the beginning of that period by another 15 minutes, so some people have 11-11:45 open and others only have 11:15-11:45.

I was scheduled to start at 11. At 11:00 it was just me. At 11:05 two students showed up. At 11:10, one faculty member. The coordinator said to just go ahead and start, so I did. I felt really damn stupid giving a prepared speech, notecards and all, to such a small audience, but I don't think I could have said anything coherent otherwise, so I went ahead. By the time I was midway through, the audience had swelled to about 12.

I didn't expect a talk by the librarian to draw a huge crowd, but it was a little depressing. However, the people who did attend said nice things and my theme of "you never know where you're going to end up, so you might as well keep your options open" seemed to go over well. Nevertheless, it was with a profound sense of relief that I returned to the library and threw my notecards in the recycling bin.

Later that day the coordinator came in, praised my talk, and asked if I'd be willing to do it again in the spring. I honestly thought he was kidding. He said that he thought it was important for the students to hear and that he'd try to do a better job of marketing it to ensure a larger turnout.

So I fished the notecards out of the trash and filed them away. We'll see what happens next time around.

At least I know I'll be able to update one thing. I started off my talk by telling them how I was completely confident at 18 that I was going to be a famous novelist. Then I described how my career plans had changed course. But I ended up by telling them that I had signed up for the food and travel writing class, so maybe my writing days weren't over.

The class is this Saturday. I'm a little scared, but I can't wait, either.

Extracurricular activities

So much for September. Due to the fact that I have yet to include the word "no" in my vocabulary, it passed in a ridiculous blur. Hence the long silence, although if I'd realized that my unfortunate copier soliloquy was at the top of the blog this whole time, I probably would have written something sooner. (Incidentally, the copier is functioning in that capacity but still not set up for printing.)

The last time I posted was one of the first days of classes; we're now finishing up week 5 of the semester. September always tends to be a busy month for me because I do a lot of those "what the library can do for you" presentations, but this year there was a couple of new twists. For one thing, I was responsible for a session on library resources in each section of the new freshman seminar (6 in all). (It was supposed to be a hands-on database discovery activity, but I was denied grant funding and the hinted-at institutional funding for my mobile laptop lab, so it ended up being yet another library resource show-and-tell.) For another, the instructor for whom I do most of the quick library show-and-tell presentations took two weeks off to get married (the nerve) and asked me to fill in as a sub for one session of each of her classes (another 6 in all). Oh, and I scheduled the annual field trip to the big Chicago Public Library for the freshman comp classes (4 of those). And, amusingly enough, all of those things (with the exception of two field trip groups) happened in the last two weeks. What's more, all but two of the presentations and one of the field trips happened between last Tuesday and last Friday. Did I mention that I need to learn to say no?

My experiences as a substitute were quite enlightening, in that I discovered I'm not much of a teacher. I'm definitely getting better; a couple of years ago I wouldn't have even been able to handle standing up in front of a room full of students. At this point I think I can safely say I've got the lecturing part down, but I haven't really gotten a grasp on the interacting-with-students part. Five of the six classes I subbed for involved talking about library resources for an upcoming assignment (three different assignments, but all art history). For those, I did an expanded version of my usual show-and-tell, talked through an online resource guide that I made, then gave them a half hour or so of library research and question-asking time and dismissed class a little early.

The sixth class was a professional writing course that I was supposed to be talking to about online resources for networking. I thought this one was going to be a piece of cake, so I started by preparing all the art history stuff, and I ended up completely running out of time. I did throw together a little outline with questions to ask and places for class discussion, as well as another little web page to use as a basis for discussion. But when I walked in to the classroom full of openly bored upperclassmen, I forgot everything. I ended up stumbling and stammering my way through a monologue based on the resource guide and then sent them all to the computer lab to cover my failure. Not my most shining moment.

That's not to say that I think I can't do it. If anything, I'd like more opportunities to practice, as well as a little guidance. That's the crappy thing about this librarian outreach concept--it's a great idea, but we're mostly unprepared to actually carry it out. My one library instruction class covered everything from education theory to technology troubleshooting, but I only got the opportunity to do one short and one medium-length instruction session of my own.

The experience made me a tiny bit relieved that I got denied the opportunity to teach my own freshman seminar section this semester. That relief was compounded by the section of the class that I had to face on Monday. Even though the regular classroom teacher was there and I was doing a very short library services overview (complete with scavenger hunt activity and bribe!), I was no match for a small knot of completely disrespectful 18-year-olds whispering in the back row. I'd like to say I'd learn to deal with them if I were their regular teacher, but I'm a little afraid they'd make me cry.

Thankfully, my time on the lecture circuit is just about finished--I've fulfilled my first-quarter obligation to the freshmen (they'll see me again for technology training in November) and my instructor friend returns on Monday. However, Tuesday is my big "all about me" talk as part of the faculty/staff lecture series. The co-curricular activities coordinator has billed it as "How Did I Get Here? The Journey from College to Career." I can't wait to find out what I'm going to say about that.