A risk

Below appears the first poem I've seriously worked on in 10 years. I don't want praise (or disapproval, I suppose). The thing gazes at my navel hard-core and may make no sense. Posting it here feels risky and unwise. That's why I'm doing it. I can always take it down, right?

The Lot

Our moon buzzes orange.

Other moons nearby, moth-tinged,

cast a local light, 

filling the moist air.

They multiply the shadows

of hatchbacks and mid-size sedans.

Leaning against our car, we perform the drama

of who has the lighter

and where to go for beers:

You decide. No, you.

We've snuck away from the film of my illness.

Between the sadness

and the irredeemable joy,

I'm in remission. I am remiss.

Extreme rhetoric

After adding a few entries to the blog roll, I went on a search to find comparable right-wing entries. A few of the better known sources, like The Economist and The Wall Street Journal, would be fine, but I wanted to find something more like the right's version of AlterNet. The other side's ideas would be enlightening. I've known some Reagan-style conservatives who persuasively argue their point of view. Unfortunately, none of them run blogs. 

(Left-leaning websites can get overwrought, but the hostility of some of the right-wing websites astounds me: "JaMarcus Obama"? Really?)

Instead of achieving my goal, I have rediscovered the joys of poking commenters with their own ideological sticks. It's fun, but I'm still at a loss for less mainstream right-wing websites. That run substantive, fact-based pieces. Whose supporters don't rely on their orotund demagogues. Whose commenters avoid using all caps to call people names.

Any ideas?

Open the doors and see all the people

Last evening, our friend Stephen came over to drink our beers, eat our pizza, and smoke our cigarettes. Conversation was a broken-in shoe, and Sam patiently listened while Stephen and I talked about poetry for a while. Then the conversation turned to hating the Brewers, gossiping about people we know, and kicking around ideas about the future. 

It was thoughtful and raucous. 

It was a comfortable mixture of the big and the small. 

It was an impious communion.

Jumping into the pool

 Sam and I had a great time together. Mussels, Natty, crab cake, Resurrections, very fresh old-water oysters, some things coated in Old Bay. I meant to pick up a couple of growlers of local beer, but with the joy over finding one of my favorite table wines at Beltway liquors, I forgot. We bootlegged a lot of Natty and quite a bit of cheap, good French wine, which is difficult to find in Nashville, comparatively. (I will buy anything with the words "flinty" or "mineral" or "slate" in the wine guy's description. If I can find something inexpensive with "a barnyard bouquet" in the nose, that's also going in my cart.) Sam had to prod me out the door.

I'm going back during Vanderbilt's fall break to revive some old academic connections, and I expect to go to a few of the places we missed this past week. 

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Being polite's an easy social habit to pick up in the South, and it smoothes life among strangers. In contrast, people in Baltimore don't expect to like you and don't feel the need to be polite, unless you're paying them to do something. Consequently, if you find yourself drinking on the same side of the bar with a bartender you just met—getting bartender drink prices and a royal drunk on—you have made a friend. 

In Baltimore, an exception to the politeness complex occurs at the pool table. Being cordial helps everyone control any aggro; otherwise, it can get ugly fast.

Any given pool player may choose a couple of play-for-pay tables to frequent. He learns the lay of a table, the bounce of the rail, the speed of the felt, and which cue is best. Newcomers discover their disadvantage quickly. Even if you can control the ball and understand the lay, you can still lose miserably.  

After Jamie and Bill's wedding, in full fancy-dress get-up, I played a game at an unfamiliar table, seeing that the players knew the table and expecting to lose. After the break, I used a subtle stroke to sink a ball in the side, and my competitor, Derrick, remarked, "Oh, look now, she's a shark." Typical pool banter, trying to slow a run. I replied, "Just because I'm in a dress and heels don't mean I'm a shark." Then I banked a ball into the corner, and we all laughed.

I lost by two balls, and I suspect he was being nice to me by letting me lose with a little dignity. But I got a couple of shots in that I was proud of, and we shook hands at the end of the game.  

Charm City

Yesterday, three hours in, I was overwhelmed. I'm homesick for Baltimore, even though I'm here right now. 

Nashville has a lot to offer. The contrast between the two cities is so sharp, it's impossible to draw comparisons. I had a 1 pound order of steamed mussels yesterday for the high price of $6, complimented by a couple of cans of Natty Boh. That's National Bohemian for those unfamiliar.

Baltimore is a dirty, dangerous city. I love it.

A souvenir from the Land of Pleasant Living:

Preparing for the semester

I taught 100 last spring, and I'm teaching 102 in the fall, which means I have a returning student who's willing to show up at 8 for my class. This makes me happy.

My goal as a teacher this semester is to have a better attitude about grading. 

I like teaching, however much I complain, and I look forward to every semester: learning names, eliciting the first tentative comments, getting the students to engage each other. I'm especially looking forward to teaching The Good Soldier. One day is reserved for an exercise in which I split them into groups of 3 and assign each group a major character to defend. The four major characters all have questionable motives and values, so the conversation can be pretty raucous as each group tries to get its say. The exercise requires them to read closely and helps them see the novel's intensity and brutality. 

And it's fun. No, really. It is as Leonora describes the girl: "not no good."

Baltimore

Mobtown. Charm City. Rat City. The Greatest City in the World. The Murder Capital of the Country. The City that Reads. Get in on it. Believe. 

Party politics; or, soapboxing it

Standing on your principles can be pretty lonely.  I'm not going to the Londkes' party this afternoon. [long pedantic paragraphs grudgingly redacted. Short didactic paragraphs to follow]

It's simple: The Oxford American Dictionary defines prejudice on three levels: unfounded opinion, biased behavior, and the consequence (hurt or injury) of such behavior. 

Speaking is a behavior, for example.

I understand that a person's culture forms many of those irrational opinions and that no one can escape culture's force. But you must try to recognize your irrational opinions and personally work against them. Part of being an American, for example, is being chauvinist but condemning bigotry.

A person—even a friend or acquaintance—who chooses to embrace his or her bigotry rejects the possible benefit of your doubt. (Yes, T, even the benefits you wish to extend through doubt, although I know you mean to act through generosity and charity.) Taking a person at her word means acknowledging that she is responsible for her behavior. It's a way of honoring someone's human individuality, even if she rejects someone else's. 

As a consequence, I don't go to a person's house if he or she exhibits prejudice without reservation. Even when no one else chooses to act on principle. Even if my choice makes me lonely, unpopular, or sad. I refuse.

Eats

Some of my favorite dishes and meals are simple: real ice cream, which can have as few as four ingredients; an arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette, baguette, and wine; scrambled eggs; goat cheese and figs; crab cakes with remoulade; anything pommes; mussels with mignonette; steamed shrimp coated in Old Bay; a good, crusty NY strip. (It's a much longer list, but this time I'll exercise some restraint.)

Simplicity requires great technique and a good palate, however, and I've lost my touch a little after having cooked so little over the past several years. I don't think most of our friends in Nash know this, but I used to cook a lot, experimenting with new ingredients and approaches. The cookbook collection I cultivated in Baltimore began its slow transformation into mere theory during my first year at VU. No more time to prepare meals with courses or to host cocktail parties with several hors d'oeuvres. (Sometimes in the winter I crave bagna càuda, but who has the time?) The Pines' kitchen has little counter or storage space, so my favorite small appliances are out of reach and it's hard to keep all of the parts of, say, the ricer or the mandolin in the same place. 

Nostalgia wields a strong hand in any good memory, I realize. But thinking about our personal food microculture in B'more makes me conscious of how lucky we were: gas stove, space for the cuisinart, a Whole Foods a few blocks down and next door to the wine store, a selection of small specialty stores, like the Italian bakery up the street. (There was a bit of a language barrier between me and the couple who ran the bakery—they were recent emigrants—but it was always worth going and they usually threw in a couple of buttery, delicate, small cookies.) I look forward to going to Baltimore in August, and I hope we can hit some of these places or at least one of the markets. 

The inspiration for this post, as rangy as it seems, is the simple, delicious meal that Sam prepared for me last night: grilled steaks and vegetable kebabs; a green salad with olive oil, white wine vinegar, and flakes of parmesan; and a great Côtes du Rhône. Prosecco before dinner and GM after. I loved every minute of it. 

Because a birthday can be a personal New Year's Day, I'm resolving to give a greater effort to cooking and enjoying it during our last years in Nashville. Let's see how that goes.

"A birthday is the annual anniversary of the day on which a person was born."

Of the dozen or so composition classes I've taught so far, that's my favorite terrible first sentence. It seems à propos. 

If you imagine the course of a life as shaped like a bell curve, birthdays become less and less remarkable the closer to the middle you get. 

But not for being less happy. Sam. What can I say? You always kno

w what to tell a girl. And it's always heartwarming to get birthday wishes from friends and family. It usually rains on my birthday (maybe about 70% of the time), but this year, the rain is holding off until tomorrow. So, my baby and I are dining al fresco, with the puppy under the table and four inscrutable kitty eyes staring at us through the window. (Dave is currently to my right, draped over a stack of papers and books, as only a cat can be.)

Today's been lazy, which is great. Time for thinking is essential to me, and it can feel luxurious. Over the past hour or so, I've been thinking about a story I'm going to write called "The Designated Hitler" and a movie concept based on that Michael Pollan book everyone talks about. Really, what if all our corn crops failed, forever? Might it not yield a slow apocalypse? I'm imagining a Michael Bay–style blockbuster. Now I just have to figure out a few things, like the resolution of the conflict, the cinematic time of the story, and what everyone says and does.

I think after I finish this post, I'm going to go outside, lie in the hammock, and listen to the end of a crap post-apocalyptic novel. Maybe I'll take some iced tea with me. I'll just relax and think about the end of the world as we know it. It'll be fine.