does this guitar make me look fat?

via uulyrics

Whew. It has been a little while since I've written~sorry for the delay, everyone! Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to squeeze the very most out of my summer that I could...because today I'm back to work! (do you hear the song "back in the saddle again"? it's running through my head...)

But the last weeks of summer were totally sublime! They've included:

• touring Traverse City wine country with my mom and sis
• biking along Lake Michigan
• falling for some new books
• meeting Doug, of Hot Doug's fame
• trying out XOCO, the new Rick Bayless restuarant
• Discovering "Chicago's Premier Dive Bar"
• trying a new yoga class
• meeting up with the girls for brewery/swirlberry girls' nights!

I definitely will be writing more about these experiences, but I had to jot this quick list, so I don't lose any them! More detailed posts to follow...

Anywhoo...today was my first day back on campus, teaching writing for the Summer Incentive Program here at Eastern. It went great. My students are splendid, and I felt like even though we went over LOTS of stuff, they hung tough and I think that bodes very well for the next few busy months.

the ain country

I've been trying to streamline my reading lately. Usually, I'm sort-of-reading-but-not-getting-very-far in about half a dozen books. I've cut it in half. I'm right now officially only reading three books. Well, one I just started, so two?


This one just sucked me right in, which is weird, since I really couldn't get into it the first time I tried. It's one the hubs has been recommending...he even got a copy for me as a gift. I don't know what happened between that first sitting and this one, but now, I am committed. I think I despised the dreary grocery-store opening scene, couldn't really feel the rhythm.

It is a truly lyrical and fantastic read. The main characters are at once sad, and deeply charming and confused and good, in a twisty way. Like the pervasive twilight that hangs over the mystical "land" they find, the characters and the story that cradles them, are not quite dark, not quite daylight.

I read a bit on Ursula K. Le Guin's site. Man, that lady can write. Perusing her list of published books, I just drooled to see a writing life displayed on my laptop screen. I want that life...

...I think.

In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg tells me (yes, she is talking to me!):

"Naturally [your writing voice] will evolve a direction, and a need for one, but it will come from a different place than your need to be an achiever" (40-41).

I put so much pressure on myself. I look at Le Guin's lifetime of writing, and yearn for a list of all my achievements, just like she has, ignoring the fact that she has a life of writing and I am newly born. I am at the beginning place, tumbled into the ain country. And things aren't clear yet.