My Bad

My mom and I made a delicious array of food last night for today's feast. She made/baked two pecan pies and a sugar-free pumpkin pie; I took care of the yams, stuffing, and cornbread. It all turned out good, for the most part.

Adding sour cream to almost any recipe makes the end result better. In the case of my cornbread, the sour cream ensures the loaf doesn't dry out. Last night during our marathon baking session, I forgot to incorporate sour cream in the cornbread. Thanksgiving is ruined because of me.

Brother, can you loan me a dime?

Has anybody seen this list of jobs for people who don't like people? Writer made the list, of course; it is one of the most perfect ways for an introvert to keep busy. But the thing that unsettles me about this article is the salary listed below Writer/Author. According to this list, the average Writer/Author makes $53,070. The reason this is unsettling: I don't think this figure accurately represents what the average writer makes. Or maybe I should rephrase that. I think the spectrum of different kinds of writers is too wide for them to be lumped together in this one category.

The writer working for a marketing or ad agency might make close to that figure. A journalist who has been working in the field for many years (and at a major market paper) could make that much, sure. But to include Authors in the group is where I think the disparity grows too wide. On one hand, you have a writer like Tom Wolfe who can get a $7 million advance for a book he hasn't finished; then you have a writer like David McGlynn who sold his already-written book for $500 and a box of contributor's copies. And maybe, if you add up all the advances and royalties from authors, combine that with the highest and lowest paid copy writers, journalists, and marketing/advertising/technical writers the average salary does come up to $50K a year.

My point here isn't to (poorly) display the financial injustice that plagues the American writer. What I want to point out is that that figure listed under a category that includes Author could give teens and young adults the wrong impression of how much writers make. Most authors in America have day jobs--like the "Ponzi Scheme" relationship between writer and teacher--in order to make money. Often, writing literature alone doesn't pay the bills. I worry that students might see this list and get the wrong idea about how easy it is to make money as an author or poet. Sure, it can be done, but the odds are against you. I'm glad my writing professors in undergrad reminded their classes of this constantly. I'm not so glad that I ignored them completely.

I guess it's only fair

If I'm going to reveal embarrassing episodes of Kate sleep-talking, then I should probably share mine, too. From last night:

Me: Mmm...AH-MEE

Kate: What?

Me: AH-MEE. We should get Oreos, AH-ME, and other things to put on the flattop grill. Mmm...

I then woke up and (kind of) remember Kate asking me what are the other things we need for the flattop. We tried figuring out what I was talking about in my sleep. I thought AH-MEE was a mispronunciation of my childhood word for ice cream: AH-MA-NEW. Don't ask why I called it that; I'm really not sure. Maybe I couldn't say the words 'ice cream' the way some kids can't pronounce the letter R. Kate's theory: I was trying to say Mommy. Which would make sense, since my mom will be visiting for Turkey Day. But that seems creepy, since I don't like the idea of having dreams about my mom and/or calling her Mommy. So I vehemently denied the possibility that I was trying to call out to my mom.

I still have dreams (nightmares would be a more accurate classification) where I'm working the food service jobs I held in High School. Usually, I'm working the oven at Nancy's Pizzeria. It's a conveyor belt oven that never stops and eventually, the number of pizzas coming at me becomes too much to handle. They spill over the side and land in the buckets of scalding hot water we keep on the floor to let the saucy, cheesy pizza soak in. And because my job at UPS--two years after working at Nancy's--was all conveyor belts al the time, the pizzas in this dream turn into packages. The summer before my first semester teaching, the boxes burst open when they landed in the water buckets, sending plumes of student essays into the air.

That's not what I dreamt of last night, though. I never worked with a flattop grill or served ice cream at Nancy's, and the closest thing we had to Oreos were cannoli. So maybe last night's dream had something to do with Thanksgiving. I had to go shopping today to buy the rest of the ingredients for cornbread and stuffing, and maybe the thought of doing so got me worked up to the point where the anxiety seeped into my subconscious. It wouldn't be the first time.

In the early 90's, I went with my cousin and his family to a Ukrainian summer camp in Canada. My dad had talked up the fishing in Canada so much that my cousin and I thought we would be catching our daily limit in trophy-winning fish each time we went out. He told us that because of the high temperatures and because we would be fishing from shore, the best time to catch walleye and pike would be early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to warm the water and chase the fish into deeper water. When we arrived at the camp, it was past eleven. We could see the Northern Lights above the tree line that surrounded the camp. I remember thinking it was one of the coolest sights I had ever seen. Then we all entered our cabin and saw several unraveled rolls of paper dangling from the ceiling. Each twisted strip was polka-dotted with dead flies. That was the last thing I remember before passing out. Kind of...

I have a vague recollection of talking to my aunt in the middle of the night--she in her bed, me struggling to open our cabin door. Apparently, I could not wait to go fishing because when my aunt asked me why I was up, I told her I was on my way to the lake. Not only had I been sleeptalking, I was also doing some very real sleepwalking. I wonder what would have happened had I made it outside.

Could that be what my dream last night was about? An inability to contain my excitement? I am super excited to make food for Turkey Day. And in preparation, I've been watching a lot of cooking shows on the Food Network, the Travel Channel, and PBS, though I'd probably be doing that regardless of whether or not I was cooking. Maybe I just want to get it done with so that I don't have to worry about it anymore and can enjoy hanging out with some pretty fantastic people. I'd like to think my dream was something as reasonable as that and not some nightmarish recreation of the past.

Putting a lid on it...kinda

So it's been over a week since I've last updated this blog, and there are plenty reasons why I haven't posted anything new in that time, but I feel that listing all of it would make me a hypocrite. The reason: I'm getting increasingly annoyed with some of the writers and artists on Facebook who constantly update their statuses by letting everyone know how much work they've gotten done. I'm not talking about the occasional update or the updates about upcoming shows and readings; I'm talking about those who are dead set on reminding their virtual friends a dozen times a day that they are, in fact, hardworking artists.

Maybe they provide updates on their progress--not their process--as a way to stay on track, Facebook acting as some sort of support system. Maybe I'm on Facebook too much. The problem I have with the incessant writerly updates is that it seems to border on being obnoxious. "In case you may have forgotten--and since it's been almost half an hour since my last update--I am a writer!" For some reason, it seems like an inappropriate medium for delivering such messages. I mean, isn't that what blogs are for?

Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, and maybe I didn't need to engage the "hide" function for those few offenders, but they really got to me, and I needed to blow off some steam. Which brings me to my next order of business: I apologize for the rant. Hopefully I can keep that to a minimum now that I've setup a new blog dedicated to ranting about one of my (many) arch nemeses. TV commercials.

You can find the blog here: Your Commercial Blows Goats

I needed a forum, separate from the personal blog, where I could let loose on the hacks that interrupt my TV stories. This way, if you want to read my blog but don't want to hear me bitch, you can still pay me a visit here. And if you do want to hear me rant, check out the new site. The choice is yours; I'm not forcing it down your throats the way Facebook sometimes can.

If you're going to be a creep, be prepared to face facts

I'm a creep. That's not news, really; I've been a creep for quite some time. Specifically, though, I engage in a practice that I'm sure colleagues and other teachers have performed but might not talk about openly. I Facebook stalk my students.

This usually occurs twice during a semester: before the first class meets and after Final's week. I look up everyone on my roster before the semester starts because I like to get a feel for who's in my class, and I check after the last meeting to see if anyone's bitching about me or my class. Side note: it's amazing how many of these students don't privatize their accounts. Anyway, I would tell myself that my FB stalking at the beginning of the semester was a way to match students' names to their faces quicker. Until last semester, while performing my FB search in one window, class roster open in another, I called bullshit on myself, realizing I could care less which name belonged to each face. Bottom line: I'm just a nosey little bitch.

That, combined with an afternoon bout of lethargy a week back, led me to conduct a midsemester FB search of my students. And of course, one of the search results yielded exactly what I was hoping no to find: a student bashing my course in his status updates. Every Monday, either before class or after, there was a negative review of my class. "Are there any justifiable reasons not to go to class a class?" read one status, posted half an hour before our meeting time. Another said, "[Name] Wishes he wouldnt have taken intro to creative writing, not one of my better ideas....." The most recent simply stated, "intro to creative writing sucks."

A story recently appeared in the news about a woman who was fired for saying nasty things about her boss on Facebook. Now I know I'm not this student's boss, and he wasn't saying anything about me personally, but it got me wondering about the limits of my jurisdiction. What if someone committed academic dishonesty and posted something about it on Facebook? Could I be like this teacher and enforce some sort of punishment? Would it just be considered hearsay? And would I be investigated for Facebook stalking if I were the whistle-blower?

This student sits along the left side of the classroom. He's in my periphery when I'm standing up front, delivering the lecture or leading a discussion. Often I see him roll his eyes, but it hasn't looked like a sign of disgust. The way he rolls his eyes--quick, and in groups of threes--had made me think it was some sort of a tick, like he had Tourette's. Maybe I'm just naive, delusional, or in a massive state of denial. But now I'm aware that's rolling his eyes in disgust, and that my Intro to Creative Writing class totally sucks balls.

It's an insecurity I've been clinging to while this whole job search has generated few job interviews and ever fewer jobs: I'm under-qualified to teach any subject at any level. This FB status, along with the student's classroom presence, seemed to validate the notion. He represented the entire class, along with every class I've taught. My mind continued rolling down the slippery slope, until I got to class. Instead of letting my insecurity rattle my nerves, I let my insecurities fire up my cruel side. I lectured, never posing questions or giving the students a chance to speak. I maintained a firm tone and didn't vary the lengths of my sentences. When it came time to discuss upcoming due dates, the discussion remained one-sided. I told them not to bother turning in work late because anyone who didn't turn in their assignments on time would receive zeros. I had gone over everything I possibly could in preparation for the next three weeks in this curt manner. It was brutally boring and completely satisfying. I had reasserted my power as the almighty Instructor.

Then I checked the clock. Only an hour had passed; the class was supposed to go another two hours and forty-five minutes. I had nothing left to say. That's when I took a breath and realized that I had misdirected my anger for what one student had said and projected toward the whole class. I was pretty sure it didn't teach that one student a lesson, and the rest of the class was probably wondering what was up my ass. So I toned it down and opened up the class for questions. They came flying from every direction, so I slowly explained everything they needed to know in order to get a passing grade in my class. Whether I took it too far while acting like a jackass, or whether ended up pussing out, one thing remains constant: when it comes to Facebook, I'm a creep.

Sleep Talkin' Woman

At Five this morning, I woke up to a very interesting situation. I was having a dream—a very lucid one—where I was driving on a highway that goes through a rural town. The speed limit reduced from something very high to something more residential, and I was in the right lane behind a semi truck. A very loud shrieking noise, maybe even a snap, caused me to slow down quickly, distancing my car from the semi, which was then sidewinding over two lanes and causing its now-malleable trailer bed to crack the whip toward my car.

The semi ended up missing me but crashed into a farmhouse at the edge of the upcoming town, and its occupants—along with the driver himself—were already on top of the truck’s hood assessing the damage by the time I slowly rolled by. The driver ratcheted something with a wrench while smoking a cigarette; they were all talking about how to get the truck back on the road. I’m that close to this group of people and also, now—for reasons I can’t explain—I’m no longer in a vehicle; I’m walking by the scene of the accident.

That’s when I Kate woke me up by talking in her sleep. She spoke very clearly, to the level where I thought she was messing with me. I couldn’t remember everything she said; she said a lot, about two minutes worth of material. But I’ve written down several lines.

Kate: So much. So much. SO MUCH…poo. SO MUCH. Kate. Kate. Kate.

Kate: What. What. What. Kate. Kate. Kate. (More chants that sound as if she adopted the persona of one or all of the clients where she works)

Kate: (I accidentally pulled part of the covers away from her shoulder) Burrrrr. What the what, yo? I’m half-cheekin’ over here, dude.

Me: (Cracking up) Kate, you’re talking in your sleep.

Kate: Uh-uh

Me: You’ve been doing it for over a minute now.

Kate: (Rolls over to face the other way) I definitely haven’t been. That’s part of the counter [work] at Jakeeno’s.

Kate: Ja-Kee-No’s shufflin’ (indecipherable, but sing-songy)

Me: Kate, wake up; you’re talking in your sleep.

Kate: No way. You’re pure evil. Pure evil.

At that point, I got up--I had to--and wrote as much as I could remember. When I got back into bed, Kate woke up and we talked about what had just taken place. She thought I had made the whole thing up; she would never say those kinds of things. This was, in her mind, my way of messing with her. Which I do pretty often, because she talks in her sleep every night. Usually, though, the words are mumbled and can hardly be classified as being words. It kind of freaked me out that what she had said was so clear and understandable.

I didn't think about at the time, not until I woke up a few hours later, but I probably shouldn't have tried to wake her. Can't that cause a person to go into shock or react violently? Or am I thinking about sleepwalkers? I'm sure it can be embarrassing for the sleeper to realize they've been communicating without knowing it, but that didn't seem to be an issue; she's a heavy sleeper and didn't even remember having the 5am conversation about her sleeptalking. (Also, I got her persmission to post this, proving she's pretty tough.) I'm wondering what she'll say when we're asleep tonight. Hopefully, I'll get to hear it again.

Mix and Match Mess

Call it consumer advocacy or some sort of good will: Kohl's won't let you buy a pair of shoes if the sizes don't match. Even if one of Kohl's employees put the mismatched pair together and slapped a clearance sticker on the box. Even if you tell them it's okay, it's not that bad, you're only going to wear these shoes a few times. They'll call someone in that department to check it out for you, but in the end they won't let you buy it. They're looking out for you, right?

I call it a conspiratorial passive-aggressive upsale of epic proportions.

Instead of getting the $30 pair of mismatched black dress shoes--which I need for the job interview/meeting on Wednesday--I had to spring for the $65 pair of brown shoes, because I wasn't about to shell out nearly $100 for the only other acceptable black pair. They had some black loafers for about $70, but those shoes either looked like plastic or like the kind a five-year-old might wear or like a combination of the two. So I went with the brown shoes and decided I'd wear khakis.

Here's what I didn't take into account with the brown shoes until I got home:

That a black belt--which is the only color of dress belt I own--doesn't go with brown shoes.

That none of my ties go with brown shoes, either.

That I don't own brown, beige, or tan socks of any kind (hopefully my pant legs are long enough to conceal my whities).

Also, the wrinkle-free tag on my dress shirt must have been meant for another shirt and accidentally sewn onto mine, because it looks like it had been stuffed in a toiletry duffel. And no, I don't own an iron.

On top of all that, I have to be in Mankato all day tomorrow. No time to shop. And when I finished shopping today, I got home to find a sale flier for Kohl's--though, upon further review, I wouldn't have been able to use the discount until Wednesday, which would end up making me pressed for time. The circus never ends.

Since my schedule's pretty full for the next three days--and since I clearly don't have much to say, based on today's post--my updates might not be so spectacular this week. But, c'mon; have they ever been?

And the painting's done...

...for now, at least. I finished up the bedroom last night, and I'm exhausted, my back is sore, and I'm pretty sure the paint fumes fucked (and, today, continue to fuck) my lungs. I already briefly mentioned the issue I ran into--painting in tight quarters, among other things--while working on the office. The bedroom, however, posed a completely different problem. Them walls done soaked up all my paint!

Either the walls in this room haven't been painted as much as the others, or the temperature in there caused them to react this way. I didn't even use an entire gallon in the office, while I used a gallon plus in the bedroom. On the second coat, when I saw that I was going to run out, I made sure to save the area behind the bed for last, since it would be covered up.Thankfully, you can't really see that the Majolica Green is lighter just above the pillows (pay no mind to the floating orbs).

Now for the issue of covering up the light spot. Sherwin Williams doesn't sell quarts of the Classic 99 in a flat finish, and I wouldn't need that much anyway. I'm not buying a whole gallon--even though another coat wouldn't hurt, if I decided to go that route. I think about the way Kate rationalized not painting the ceilings (which have some cracks along the surface), when deciding whether or not buy another gallon: if we owned the place, it would be worth putting that much more time into this project. Besides, what if another gallon still isn't enough?

So we talked about getting a headboard. Which would be awesome and is something we hope to get eventually, but right now it's not a priority. Here's my idea: I go to Sherwin Williams and ask for one or two of those paint samples that cost a few bucks each. We'll see I can pull that one off. Here are some pictures of the office/guest bedroom, painted the same color:

(Zappa poster's throwing a weird glare on the wall. Just wanted to point out that it's not another missed spot.)

College Anxiety

Let's just say that when the Dean of Faculty from Rasmussen called on Thursday, I was indisposed. Figures. My insides have a staunch record of going to war with each other at the most inconvenient times: minutes before taking the ACT, during a student conference and, most recently, after Kate's sister's wedding dinner at an Indian restaurant. These interruptions, they happen. Sure. And doesn't it seem like you completely re-prioritize your life when they occur? They always seem to cost me, whether it's my dignity or, in the Rasmussen case, a potential job.

My phone had been on silent because the night before, Kate and I went to the Parkway to watch Trekkies and I never turned the ringer back on. I didn't end up checking my phone until half an hour after my interruption. I had a missed call from an unknown number and initially figured it was the DFL calling again. They had called several times a day leading up to the election, and I hadn't bothered answering because I didn't recognize the numbers and figured a message would be left if the call was important (I found out it was the DFL by performing reverse phone look-ups online). Two things made me realize this call wasn't the DFl, though: the election ended two days earlier and unlike the missed calls from the DFL, this person had left a message.

The Dean of Faculty had said in her message that she'd like to talk to me about possibly teaching an English Comp class for the Winter Quarter and to call her back at her direct line. This was a job listing I had found on Craigslist while I should have been writing cover letters for three jobs I had been putting off applying to for nearly a week. Instead of getting those applications out there, I had decided to do another job search and when I found this listing, I jumped all over it. This position didn't pay as well as the other listings, nor was it as stable of a job. But it was a teaching position--the others weren't--and while I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up, I like the flexibility and opportunities that adjuncting affords at this time. Even if I can barely afford to live on the wages these positions pay.

So I called her back immediately, maybe a little too hastily. Because several problems occurred when I returned her call: 1.) I couldn't really catch her name in the message, 2.) I didn't initially know her title at the school, 3.) I didn't really know too much about the school, aside from what friends who work there have told me, 4.) I had no idea what I would say, and 5.) I was so shocked/excited/nervous while listening to the voicemail message that I must have stopped breathing, because while her phone rang I thought my heavy panting was going to blow out the mic in my cellphone.

She didn't answer; it went to her voicemail. Great, I thought. Now we'll have to play phone-tag game. Her voicemail greeting did identify her title; however, I still couldn't understand her when she said her name. I left a terse and awkwardly stressed message, mumbling her name in case I got it wrong. Should I have been surprised that she didn't call back that day? She didn't call back, which I thought was odd. I mean, she left a message for me to return her call, I returned it a half hour later--still early in the afternoon, mind you--and then nothing. Of course, I panicked about the message I had left her, replaying the tiny details that may have led to her reneging on the possibility of a phone conversation. Like I said, I mumbled her name. Maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe she didn't like the fact that I said, "If youneed to get back to me..." which I immediately realized made me sound disinterested, so I overcompensated with an emphatic, "TODAY!" Whatever I said, I had come to the conclusion that this message was her way of testing me, a pre-interview of sorts, and I did not pass.

So I told the story to Jorge while he was over here the next day. And he gave me some advice that seemed way too logical: How about calling her again? I thought about it, but didn't want to sound too desperate or seem like I was being a pest. Plus, that level of directness has no place in the passive-aggressive state of Minnesota. But with the weekend only a few hours away, I figured what the hell. So I did and she answered (again, mumbling her name) and I spoke her name quickly and she asked if I'd be interested in checking out the campus. Whew. That wasn't so bad.

But now I'm not sure what to expect about this campus walk-through. Is it an interview? Do I need to dress up? Should I research the school? I'm going to prepare for this meeting as if it's an interview--better to be safe than sorry, right? I've been feeling good about this; really good, in fact. It's a huge weight off my shoulders to know that my applications materials haven't been total shit, that not getting interviews from all the other places I've applied wasn't necessarily my fault. That, in a way, I've been accepted, even if I'm not offered the job. But I know that come Wednesday, I'll start to freak out. Traffic will be worse than expected and I'll be late. When I get there, my palms will sweat and my voice will shake. No matter how much I try to mentally prepare myself, I'll be a nervous wreck. Something might interrupt our walk-through, causing me to re-prioritize my entire Rasmussen visit.

Broken Strings

In June, I broke a guitar string and because I didn’t have an extra one lying around or the money to buy new strings, I put my electric guitar in its case and haven’t touched it since. I’ve strummed the acoustic a few times in that time, but never for any extended lengths of time. I haven’t jammed or worked on new songs or played the typical go-through-the-motions warm up riffs. I’ve just stopped playing.

The longest I’ve gone without playing guitar was during junior year of high school. That hiatus began around early November and ended in late May, the entire length of my tenure working as a pizza maker at Nancy’s. Work and school consumed so much of my time that I never really went out on weekends or saw my friends in a social setting. I had a reason (or excuse) for not playing guitar: there just wasn’t enough time in the day. I’d have an hour between work and school, which I’d spend half watching TV and half watching the clock, agonizing how badly work would be that night. And after work, I’d have to complete my homework, or—depending on how awful the shift was—watch a movie in order to come down so I could fall asleep and do it all again the next day.

Back then, I didn’t look at playing guitar as a way to collect my thoughts, relax, or unwind. It was a chore, something that made the blues get bluer. It was after I had quit the job from Nancy’s, when I started hanging out with my friends—all of whom played guitar, especially when they were hanging out—again that I realized how far behind I had fallen in terms of playing ability. They were all better than me, and I felt this need to catch up. So I played constantly—even while watching TV or movies, which bugged the shit out of my little sister—and I got to the point where I could keep up with my friends.

While there was that competitive reasoning for sticking with guitar, I also really loved making music and playing in bands. The dream of being in a touring band, however, ended for me after college. It seemed like I had reached a plateau in my ability to play, like I was never going to get any better than I already was. I could barely write a song for shit, and everything I did write was pretty generic. I wasn’t breaking any new ground or rocking the foundations of preexisting musical genres. To put it simply: I wasn’t saying or playing anything that hadn’t already been done to death.

I haven’t come to that realization with writing stories yet, though I’ll likely reach that point eventually. But one of the ways I’m able to stew over ideas, phrasings, figuring out what I want to say or how I want to say it, is by picking up my electric guitar and playing scales or riffs or any other runs that I’ve retained in my muscle memory, so that I can focus on completing the piece of writing in front of me. I must have taken thousands of guitar breaks over the course of the last three years, while working on the stories in my thesis. It’s never failed.

This stretch of not playing guitar is the second longest I’ve had since I bought my first electric guitar in 7^th grade. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since I broke that string I haven’t finished a single short story, contributed any additional revisions to my collection, or broke any new ground on the novel I stopped working on almost two years ago. I’ve got my folder of start-stops, along with my rationale (excuses) as to why my writing has slowed, but thinking about all that brings the kind of discouragement that would make me slip even farther away from wanting to write. Definitely not a place I want to be.

So last week I ordered new guitar strings, and today they arrived in the mail. I unwound the remaining strings and wiped away the dust from between the pickups. The unstrung electric has a way of looking naked, incomplete. The strings give the guitar its voice; they’re what make it an instrument. Seeing them stretched over the fretboard and through the bridge is a visual reminder that this hunk of wood can be played and make music. Any time I change the strings, strip them from the guitar, I get this small flash of compassion for the thing, like seeing an animal with a missing limb. Sounds stupid, I know.

But I’m pleased to report that the new strings are on the guitar, it’s tuned up, and I’ve already gotten in some playing time. I was pretty surprised how much dexterity I had both lost and retained over the five-month hiatus. I thought I’d be worse at some scales and better with pull-offs and hammer-ons, which have frustrated me today since there has been some noticeable atrophy in my left ring and pinkie fingers. It’s going to take some time to get fully back on track; I’ve just got to keep at it.

Squirrels are Passing from Our Lives

One morning a little over a month ago, I stumbled into the kitchen to make some coffee. In that hazy state of waking up, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until I began pouring hot water into the French press and saw a small hole in the plastic bag covering a loaf of bread. I had double bagged this bread because it was from the bakery, and the bags those loaves are packaged in don’t keep them very fresh. Plus it adds extra protection against bugs and critters. Or so I thought.

The cone-shaped hole looked like a mouse had bore into the loaf, which made me panic to the point of becoming fully awake. I knew this apartment was too good to be true. There had to be something wrong with it, and this was it: we had mice. I inspected the loaf, hoping to find that some sort of bug had crawled through a gap in the window screen and then burrowed into the bread. When I couldn’t prove this theory true, I turned and noticed the loaf of pre-sliced, store-bought bread on the kitchen table. Its packaging had been ripped to shreds; the slices had been reduced to crumbs. All signs again pointed to mice, until my vision traveled up to the kitchen window, where I spotted a plum-size hole in the screen. We didn’t have mice; we had squirrels.

When we first moved into this place and it was still AC weather, I had installed these foam panels on either side of the window unit to keep in the cold. And in that respect, they worked great. They did not, however, keep the squirrels out. The squirrels chewed right through the panels; and after I had duct taped cardboard over the panels, these fearless, wall-scaling, window-ruining Minneapolis squirrels still kept coming back, scratching at the cardboard like dogs begging to be let back inside.

So when I saw the hole in the window screen, I knew it was the squirrels. I closed the window, then the kitchen door, followed by a search of the cabinets for any intruders. The thought of having squirrels traipsing around the apartment while I sleep made me fearful of ever sleeping again. I forgot about the coffee—it was no longer needed—I had to make sure there weren’t any squirrels in the rest of the apartment. Kate and I searched each room at least twice and didn’t find anything, so we left a message for our landlord in case he happened to look up and see a whole in his screen the next time he was in the backyard.

Our landlord is really down to earth, a great guy, but I’m kind of afraid that something’s going to happen that’ll put us into poor favor with him. Like the fact that we keep odd hours and when we walk around the apartment the floors creak. Since he lives in the unit directly below us and has a regular eight to four job, I’m worried he secretly hates us or is looking for a reason to kick us out. This is an amazing apartment, and I have this weird feeling that our living here will be more temporary than we hope.

Which is why I was hesitant to talk to the landlord about the squirrels. What if this was what cast us into the doghouse?

Of course, my paranoia got the best of me in this case. The landlord told us about how the squirrels have been a problem he’s fought for the last eleven years. He seemed more concerned about whether any of our belongings were damaged. Like I said, he’s awesome. He suggested we put a tray of rat poison mixed with peanut butter in the windowsill. And when we did this, the squirrels took the bait. The problem, here: the lethal concoction drew more squirrels to our window than we had ever seen scale the building. And what happened when we caught them in the act of snacking? They posed.

It wasn't easy to scare them away...


...and when we did succeed at scaring them, they just came back ten minutes later.

We went through almost an entire box of rat poison trays when we decided they just weren’t working. I had gone back home for a wedding—more specifically, Jenny Hartigan’s kickass wedding (which I’ll be writing about in the very near future)—and while I was home, Mama D received some advice from the fix-it dude about how to possibly get rid of the raccoons living beneath the back deck. Mothballs. Animals apparently hate mothballs, and after I returned to Minneapolis and Kate had purchased a box of mothballs, I found out why animals hate them. They smell like old people. And if there’s one thing that every being in this world can agree to hate, it’s the smell of old people. Dear fucking God, the horror.

Over the span of a week, the squirrels were no long rapping at our window. Either the mothballs worked, or all the squirrels had died from the rat poison. We were able to move on with our lives, and I tried to by finishing up the grand painting project. I only had two rooms left to paint: the bedroom and the office. I decided to paint the office first, because I had found out from talking to our landlord about the squirrels that he used that back room in his unit as the bedroom. I figured: paint that room first, get it over with in case I can’t finish it in one day, so I don’t piss him off and get kicked off. It doesn’t really make sense now that I think about it, but at the time I equated it to ripping off a bandage in one fell swoop, banking on the fact that ripping the bandage off wouldn’t open the wound of eviction.

So I got up early and had finished painting around all of the trim just after noon. I took a small break to check my email, see if maybe one of my students had sent me questions about homework and whatnot, then complete a crossword or three. Two hours later, it was time to paint again, so I unplugged my laptop and got back to it. At this point I was rolling. Not the ecstasy kind of rolling, or the ‘I’m on a roll type,’ but the painting with a roller kind. It wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped because space was at a minimum. I didn’t initially move everything out of the room; it would have taken too long and caused some issues in the hall and other rooms. I just pushed the spare bed, the desk, filing cabinet, bookshelves and printer stand to the center of the room. In order to roll the area below the windows, I had to wedge myself between the wall and all the shit in the center of the room without touching the wall. My legs started to cramp in this position, and my back felt like it was on the verge of tweaking out. That’s when the world came to an end.

Just outside the office window, in the alley out back, I saw a white flash of light at the same moment I heard a zap so startling I though it had come from within my chest. The zap was followed by a hollow bang, like a large metal object had collided with an empty metal silo. A fireball fell to the alley. This all took place in less than five seconds and in that time, I thought a plane had experienced a malfunction upon takeoff and crashed into my neighborhood, ending my life as well as terminating my lease. It had finally happened: the dream apartment was no more.

Of course, my gut shot reaction was incorrect; I was fine. But I couldn’t stop shaking. The noise had been very unexpected and I had been trapped in a vulnerable position. When I finally regained my bearings and made it outside, I saw in the alley the charred remains of a squirrel, curled in the fetal position. A chorus of squirrels—all of whom started moving one way on their respective branches, then turned back and ultimately stayed in place, as if they were just as startled—began croaking in near syncopation. It sounded like they were morning the death of a fallen comrade, or maybe, perhaps, they were warning each other not to go near the live wire. Stay put, think things through, you’ll be okay, they said.

When the Fire Department showed up—the neighbors had called them—they asked what I had seen and if my power was out. I told them I saw the fireball and that my power had only flickered. I said this while keeping my hands in my pockets because I wasn’t sure if they were still shaking. They quickly left, seemingly disappointed that a plane hadn’t crashed into my building. I returned to my apartment and reset all the clocks that had gone out, then picked up my computer. I had unplugged it because I’ve heard too many friends and family tell me how their computers have gotten zapped for reasons beyond their control. Here, I thought, was an instance where my paranoia paid off.

Squirrels and electrical mishaps: you’re no match for this worrier.

TMI or NEI?

Let's say it's an issue of accessibility, but I always leave open the front gate. Could come in handy in the event of an emergency. The problem: sometimes monsieur l'homme makes a break for it and tumbles into the...uh...parkway--past the first level, we'll say, but not into the open air. He can't go far, I know this; but when I'm speaking in front of a class full of twenty-somethings about a Sharon Olds poem--which, of course, is quite sexual--well, the realization of having "breached level one" can be both uncomfortable and shocking.