Three challenges for the New Year. Yes, it is that time already.

I’m in a mood this evening. There could be any number of reasons for it. It’s Christmas Eve. My oldest daughter isn’t home for the holiday. My niece has suddenly grown into this little girl who carries on conversations with me. The neighbor’s dog hasn’t stopped barking since I got home this evening. The sun has not been out in days. Maybe it’s all these things. Or none.

Don’t worry—it’s not a bad mood. Not even a melancholic or nostalgic mood. It’s more a mood of sudden determination that has been months in the making. Within the next week, 2011 will be upon us (I have decided that the real New Year is on December 21st, the winter solstice, but no one is asking my opinions on such things). With the New Year comes resolutions. Face it—even deciding to not make a resolution is a resolution, so there’s no getting around it. But if resolution leaves a bad taste in your mouth, let me offer an alternative. This year, let us issue challenges rather than resolutions. The human race is a competitive sort, so when someone throws down the gauntlet we respond. Hell, sometimes we respond with no provocation whatsoever.

So, I will now issue any of you reading this, three challenges. I dare you to accept them. Double dog dare you. Here we go:

Challenge number one: Stop waiting for the perfect time. It’s here. Right now. If you wait, it will pass and it won’t come again. So, next time you want to go or do or say something, do not say ‘It’s not the right time.’ Just go or do or say it. Especially if you need to say I love you. Or I’m sorry. Or I forgive you. Really—those are kind of big ones.

Challenge number two: Pursue joy. Even if it’s just a teeny, tiny, miniscule piece of joy. If you can’t be a ballerina, you can still turn on the music and dance like you’re at the Bolshoi. Afraid someone will see you? No—hope they do! You just might inspire them to make a little piece of their own joy come true. And wouldn’t the world be a happier place if we all pushed each other towards delight rather than towards antagonism?

Challenge number three: Follow your bliss. Joseph Campbell knew what he was talking about:

…if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.



This is not the same as pursuing joy. Joy is the sensation of light breaking through after a long storm. Bliss is the sensation of coming home. You just know you’re where you belong. Can’t take the time to pursue the path you were meant to be on? See challenge number one. Too afraid to make a change? See challenge number two.

That’s it. Three simple tasks. Who’s in? Let me know. I will gladly offer words of support (or, if you’re of such a nature, I can offer glib comments that provoke you to action. You decide). I only ask that you return the favor.

Enchiladas, the color of taste, and a couple of great songs

On occasion, some of my posts result from challenges issued by my students, the proverbial glove tossed on the ground in front of me. This is one of those posts. It involves enchiladas and the color of taste.

I sometimes assign an essay to my students to describe their favorite food. The early drafts usually come back short and simple, but it becomes a canvas for revision, for working on details and using all five senses to bring the food to life for the reader.

One student this semester wrote about enchiladas. But not just any enchiladas—her enchiladas. The recipe is top secret stuff, the If-I-tell-you-I-have-to-kill-you-secret stuff. Her original piece was fine, but I began pushing her to add in the details that would make us beg her for a plate of the enchiladas. She’s a pragmatic student who doesn’t hesitate to tell me she likes staying in her box just fine, so she was hesitant to embellish what was, after all, an essay on food. I encouraged her to play with her writing, going so far as to ask, “What color do your enchiladas taste like?”

Long story short, several weeks after this conversation began, this student appeared at my office door with a pan of her enchiladas. Handing them over to me, she said, “You eat them and tell me what color they taste like.”

In other news: I love my job.

I’ll just lay it out right now—I couldn’t come up with a color to describe the taste. The actual color, however, is gold. Gold with various lighter and darker veins of the same color running through it, punctuated with moments of russet and small shots of ebony. When I took the pan from her, I was surprised by the heft and weight of it. And while I can’t tell you what color it tastes like, I can certainly tell you it smelled like the Hallelujah chorus. I detected the scent of cheddar cheese, ground beef, and—yes, yes, there it was—green chile. As any respectable New Mexican can tell you, the way to Heaven is paved with green chile.

Savannah and I served ourselves a helping immediately. As I lifted the first bite to my mouth, I reminded her, “Ok, I have to come up with the perfect way to describe this.”

And so, of course, it was Savannah who got it. She took a bite, closing her eyes and letting that wicked, wonderful, witty mind of hers take over. She swallowed, took another bite. Then she pronounced, “They taste like a good folk song.”

And she is so right. These enchiladas embody everything folk music does—history, heritage, and life. Some of reason the analogy of a folk song fits is apparent—the dish consists of food like cheese, corn tortillas, ground beef, black beans and pinto beans, and the green chile sauce. There’s nothing uppity about this, no exotic ingredients, no extravagant cuisine or unidentifiable elements. And it’s the structure of the piece, the layers that fold into one another like the instruments of folk music do in a song. This is not techno dance music, hip-hop, R&B, or even classical. It isn’t flashy or fancy or rich or dull. It’s solid food.

In the Navajo tradition, there are two types of rain—the easy female rain that falls gently and soaks into the earth, nourishing the plants and trees. Then there is the male rain, the torrents that crash to the ground and race along, gathering in the arroyos and speeding away. If food can have a gender, this dish is feminine. It insists you slow down and take a seat. The textures of the enchiladas are playful—the smoothness of the cheese, the easy crunch of the corn tortillas, and the roughness of the ground beef remind me of home, of the chaos of the dinner table and the ritual of family.

And that is the tastiest part of this dish. To know someone made these enchiladas with me in mind makes this so much more than just food. This simple pan of enchiladas reminded me that eating is not merely about survival. It admonished me for allowing my food to come fast and easy, prepared by people I don’t know and who don’t know me, communing with chemicals whose names I can’t pronounce, and never once attempting to answer the age-old questions “Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas?” Perhaps many of us have lost the ancient memory of spiritual union that food represents-- the yin and yang of preparing the meal for others, taking in the meal prepared for us, feeding body and soul. Bona Vida.

I think I know what her secret ingredient is.

Fangirl Rises

I have just returned from Orlando and Disney’s Magical Kingdom, where I attended the National Writing Project Annual Meeting. It was a whirlwind three days of sessions and meetings that have the very strange effect of sending me home exhausted yet energized to look at my teaching and think about how to make it better.

I will discuss this in an upcoming new blog I’m creating focused on my teaching and writing career. I’m developing this in anticipation of requiring pre-service teachers to do the same this spring when I teach Teaching Writing, an adventure I’m excited to start. But for this space, I will keep to the adventures within the adventures. There was the trip to the Flying Fish, a wonderful restaurant located in Disney’s Boardwalk area. Six of the team gathered for food, wine, and laughter, and the taking of many pictures of our food.

Presentation is everything!

This was followed by an incident that I cannot do justice to, but I’m hopeful my colleague and fellow blogger Patrick Swope will expand on what it’s like to be rejected by Mickey at the bus stop. Even while clutching one of his $13.99 refillable mugs. I haven’t laughed like that since Mike Nelson’s imitation of Joseph Merrick in high school.

On Friday during our lunch, I teleported to another resort where the NCTE Conference had housed the vendors. Ok, I exaggerate. I rode the bus. But if you’ve never been to a meeting such as NWP or NCTE or AWP or any other combination of letters you can think of, I will try to describe what the vendor hall looks like: heaven. Anyway, to a book lover like me. In the vendor hall one can buy some books very inexpensively (I picked up My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me for FIVE DOLLARS!) and also pick up advance reading copies (ARCs) of other titles for free. There are also book bags, posters, magnets, pens, and other items that are free—until you pack it for the flight home and the airline charges you for the extra weight. But that’s another blog. (Along with my personal observation of a TSA pat-down. I’ll leave it at this—before anyone subjects me to one of those, I expect dinner first. With wine.)

I was meandering down one of the aisles with Sarah when I looked at a woman sitting at a display table. I stopped. I stared. I gave a sound that can only be described by Savannah’s term—SQUEE! There was Erin Gruwell, teacher, author, and inspiration for the film Freedom Writers. I admit it. I started fangirling (another term Savannah assures me is real). I had to meet her! I went to the end of the line, which was remarkably short, but then again, this is Disney World, where magic is suppose to happen. After a very short wait, I met her. I have to say, Erin Gruwell is one of the friendliest people you can hope to meet. She hugged me like we were old friends. She asked about my teaching. She signed my book. And the DVD. She posed for a picture with me. Fan. Freaking. Tastic.

After I left, beaming like a good fangirl, I looked at the pictures. The first was a great shot of Erin’s wonderful smile, and my face covered by a sheet of paper someone was handing over to another person. The second shot showed me, but Erin had her eyes closed and was caught in motion, making her look like she was fighting to get away from me. Now I had a dilemma. Do I just accept my luck and remember my encounter with a personal hero? Do I go back to stand in line? Or do I just walk up to her and ask for a quick picture? In a rare moment of uber-aggression, I decided on door number three. I returned to the table and waited for her to finish talking. She looked up at me and said, “Did the picture not come out?” Then this incredibly warm woman stood up, gave me another big hug and said, “Let’s do it again!” And she remembered my name. Little squee. Someday, when it’s me sitting at a table signing my books, I want to be just like her. Of course, I’m absolutely challenged when it comes to remembering names, but I can always aspire to make people feel the way Erin Gruwell made me feel. And the picture came out great. 

                                                     ****************************

Of course, it isn’t a trip to the Magical Kingdom without a trip to the Magical Kingdom. After facilitating a session on Friday afternoon, (which started with me being turned away by a Mouse Henchman—a six-foot-plus mass of man who looked like he had been recruited from the Mafia and somehow made the mouse ears on his lapel look intimidating) Sarah Pope and I sprinted to the park to enjoy a couple of hours before going to see the Cirque du Soleil show “La Nouba.” We had purchased the tickets before leaving, and in hindsight that wasn’t such a good idea when it came to the park. As the friendly Cast Member gave me the ticket, he asked “Are you planning to use this tonight?” “Yes,” I told him, “I leave in the morning.” He shook his head and sadly informed me the park would close at seven pm, but then smiled and added, “Have a magical evening!”

It was now 6:10.

Sarah and I strategized our attack: “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Haunted Mansion.” We raced to both rides and were thrilled to find no waiting. After finishing “The Haunted Mansion,” it was 6:40. I think there may be a Guinness World Record waiting for us.

As we came out of the spook house, feeling quite smug I might add, we noticed how many people were still milling around the park. It didn’t look at all like a fantasy land about to turn off the lights. I went to a Cast Member working the entrance to the mansion, curiously dressed in period prairie style, and asked her to clarify for me when the park closed.

She looked around conspiratorially, making sure no one was listening to our conversation. Leaning towards me, she pointed to the green wrist band on my right arm and whispered, “Midnight. You get to stay for the Christmas party!”

Despite this stroke of luck, we couldn’t stay. We had to catch a bus across the kingdom for the show. As we worked our way through the crowds back towards the entrance, walking through the magical snow falling about us, we discussed the actual price of our magical evening—a magical dollar a minute.

In Which I Return

After a disastrous turn using WordPress (ugh...), I am back full-time on The Madre's public journal, I Dream and Wake and Wonder. And by full-time I mean plopping some half-arsed post every three weeks. But I have plans to make some more interesting posts hopefully maybe don't count on it.

For one, I am planning my rebuttal to some idiot with a gun who is ranting and raving about the overpopulation of wolves. Check the Endangered Species Act for more information on wolves. I will be examining his thesis-worthy blog post (complete with unintentionally hilarious arguments and captions). Next, I will be posting the transcript to my documentary, tentatively titled Misunderstood Genius Syndrome. In this landmark production, I will address how sufferers of this tragic condition must face eye rolls throughout life, including interviews with three misunderstood geniuses: Lady Gaga, Ke-dollarsign-ha, and Miley Cyrus. It might bring tears to your eyes. I know that it has forever changed me.

Slapping around the inner editor

The NaNo is coming along in bits of drivel. At this writing, I’m over 11,000 words. It’s such a challenge to just keep pushing forward, to not stop in the middle of a paragraph and scream “CRAP!” and hit the delete button. But that’s the whole point to this little adventure. I am learning to soundly smack the editor inside me to and fro and send her back where she came from every time she whispers “Well, about that sentence...” I’ll play nice later, when the words are on the page.


I have a confession to make. I hate to write. Really. The struggle to get the characters out of my head and onto the screen is excruciating. I would rather just not, thank you. Putting the words into a computer seems such a tedious process, even a bit clinical. There’s an intimacy with the written word as the ink flows from the pen onto paper that I can’t capture on the keyboard. However, without getting the words onto the screen, I can’t quiet all the voices in my head, and it’s starting to get a bit crowded in there. Recently, a young girl named Eleanor and her guardian joined the other numerous characters residing in some lobe of my brain, so I have to make room. Besides, if I don’t get the words out I can’t move to what I really love—rewriting.

Rewriting is, for me, like returning to a great vacation place. When you go back you already know where the landmarks and historical sites are and you can really spend time exploring the nooks and crannies. You can get away from the tour guide and sneak down the alley and see what’s happening on the next street. And the more you visit, the more you find. That’s rewriting. Finding all the hidden parts of the story, all the colors and quirks, sometimes even finding out the story I’ve written isn’t even the real story, because I find the real one at the bottom of a long flight of stairs that I didn’t even know were there.

So, I keep putting the words onto the screen, one at a time. I don’t allow myself to reread what I’ve written, and I don’t stop in the middle of a scene. Excruciating. But I only have 39,000 words to go.

Fandom: An Anthropological Escapade

I wrote this for my anthropology class. The Madre asked me to post it here. *posts it here*


It was midnight and my time in the field was drawing to a close. My feet were bruised and blistered; I was shivering and trying to warm my icy fingers. I limped from the venue a little ways behind my companions, bitter to be leaving my experience behind. I had just walked away from the very first concert that I had ever attended- if, of course, I didn’t take my father’s performances into account. It was an experience that I shall not forget- the music, the lights, the calm-and-steady then rowdy-and-ready nature of the crowd. I walked into the theater in Phoenix after a ten hour drive; I limped away nearly six hours later, having been stomped, shoved around, and thrown into throngs of a mosh pit. The top layer of skin on my left big toe was gone, but I had experienced an entirely new culture and come to a conclusion about myself: I have made the descent into Fandom.

I’ve always known about the mysterious kingdom called Fandom. I grew up hearing about it and reading about it- this far-off world where packs of adolescent girls cluster in front of copies of Tiger Beat, squealing and pledging their eternal love to some kid with a good set of bangs. My sister left for Fandom when she was six or seven, I believe; she returned and regaled me with tales of Backstreet Boys, of late nights screaming, “A.J., I LOVE YOU!” As I grew older, I watched many around me depart for Fandom. They would camp out in makeshift Harry Potter conventions; they would spend times in coffee shops perfecting their fanfictions. I never thought that I would be visiting Fandom myself.

That’s not what I was thinking as I stood in line to see Jon Thor Birgisson, a quirky, loveable musician from Iceland. I was too wrapped up in the excitement of the night’s festivities. As I quickly learned, concerts are not what I expected. I was a stranger in a strange land- I didn’t realize that I had crossed the border between the rest of the human race and Fandom. There were three lines. The first was Will Call, where members of the culture are sent to pick up tickets that they had previously purchased. The second line was for members of the culture who had yet to purchase tickets; these individuals are referred to as To Purchase Tickets. The longest line was called Entrance- Must Go Through Security First. My party and I were members of the Will Call line.

I looked around me- there were fifteen people at most in our group. Directly in front of us, a young man and two young women were chatting and rocking back and forth on their heels, their hands thrust deep in their pockets. One woman had a dark purple outfit with neon orange paint splashed across her face. The man wore black plastic glasses. I myself had adopted the proper attire for the occasion: on my head perched a large purple peacock feather.

Our party moved to the front of the line and collected our tickets. With these four slips of pink and white paper, we were allowed to make our way to the Entrance line. In the Entrance line, male Fans were separated from female Fans. About ten minutes later, we arrived at the front doors and were searched by security. Past the gatekeepers, I could see the inside of the venue. It was much warmer in there and the volume seemed to increase the closer that we came to the doors. In order to get inside, certain rituals were necessary. All bags were required to be searched. All Fans were required to be patted down. All tickets were required to be checked.

We completed the ceremony and graduated to the inside of the venue. Around me, more people whizzed around buying concert shirts, albums, videos, posters, and beer. The venue did not have chairs- Fans could either stand close to the stage or sit further away from Jónsi. I must confess- I was not prepared for this. We arrived at the theater shortly after six-o’-clock and the show did not begin until after eight-o’-clock; before the music even started, I was already sandwiched between two total strangers and already in a fair amount of pain. This was a challenge that I did not anticipate.

Shortly before the opening act took the stage, my sister and I encountered another problem. We were among the shorter Fans present and could not see over the taller Fans. The mosh pit encircled us and we could not back out or move to a more suitable location. A boy with a miniature afro blocked my view of the stage.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“Casually wedge yourself between people. You’ll get closer,” Kailee whispered back.

This plan do not go as well as Kailee had implied that it would. We were four rows of Fans back from Jónsi; I was feeling desperate. I just didn’t know how to wedge; I’m not a wedger. Evidently, this is common behavior at concerts- wedging or else simply stealing seats closer to the stage; but I was a novice in these waters and so took a few timid steps forward and stopped when I could finally see a string of microphones.

After what seemed like a few years of being stomped on by the boy with the afro, the lights went down. In Fandom, this signifies the beginning of something special. We Fans raised our voices to deafening levels, chanting, “JÓN-SI! JÓN-SI!” I stopped screaming for a moment. A thought encroached upon my happiness when I realized who I sounded like- the six-year-old version of Kailee crying over the Backstreet Boys. I was not an outsider, a stranger in a strange land. I was in Fandom. I had crossed over without realizing it. This was my culture. We were a culture of colorful Fans. Some Fans had beers and afros while others had peacock feathers and neon orange face paint. Fandom required a lot more patience and determination than I had anticipated- but I was determined not to lose my spot to another afro by sitting down somewhere in the back.

I have since left Phoenix. But I have not yet left Fandom. My experiences in Fandom have created a sense of community, like a bubble, around me and all of the other Jónsi/Sigur Rós (the name of Jónsi’s band back in Iceland) Fans. We are a smaller kingdom within the kingdom, but we are a vocal minority. Somewhere in the corner of Fandom, we come out in droves to listen to great music and mosh pit. The only thing that unsettles me is that Jónsi writes ambient music; I’m not sure exactly what our mosh looked like to outsiders.

National Day of Writing

Today is the National Day of Writing. All over the country writing is springing forth in honor—and now, as my day winds down, I can join the fray. I’ve thought about it all day, as I conferenced with students, reviewed and commented on portfolios, and sat through a school meeting. Does that count as writing?

Actually, I have craved some writing time for several days now. Last night I wrote briefly about how difficult it is to write in the midst of portfolios, which happens twice per semester. I find myself spent by the end of the day, all creative fire properly extinguished with gallons of metaphorical water and stirred to make sure no hot spots remain. Every time I experience this, I have the same fear—what if, this time, the muse doesn’t return? What if I’ve finally pushed her away once too many times? What if she just throws her hands up in the air and pronounces herself done with me? Why is she a she?

So far the fear hasn’t materialized as reality. Maybe she just likes me that much.

Next month I am embarking on an episode of total insanity. I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, in which I will attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s a lot of zeros after that five. And it’s not a lot of zeros after the three. Please don’t ask me why I would do this; I have no real answer other than life is short and so is November. Worse case, I’ll be wearing a brace for carpal tunnel by Christmas. Best case—I’ll finally get the book drafted, the one that has chased me around for years. Imagine its surprise when I turn around and say “Fine! Let’s do this!”


Today is also Spirit day. I wore purple in honor and memory of six young men and boys who have recently committed suicide: Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Eric Mohat, Meredith Rezak, Raymond Chase, and Billy Lucas. All of these males were gay, and all were bullied. I don’t care what anyone’s personal beliefs are about homosexuality, we must take a stand against the hate-mongering that leads our youth to taking their own lives. We cannot come to this dance and just lean up against a wall. We must take care of our children.

And, of course, my heart is not only with these boys and men, but all those who face the hatred of others for any number of reasons, whether it’s their sexuality, religious beliefs, race, color, appearance, the way they talk or walk or dance or take out the trash—we must say it very clearly, very loudly:

No more.