resonance

Catching up on my Reader, I see that Dave Eggers was in Beijing for a literary festival. Reading What is the What and Zeitoun probably would have been instructional/a good idea for me.

An excerpt from the interview:

I was really hesitant. I had no expertise in this...I hadn’t written a biography and I hadn’t thought of writing someone’s story like that.

I was naive because I thought it would take me a year to do it, and I promised him that it would be a year, and I was just a fool. It took four years. And the thing that drove it at that point was that you’re obligated to an actual person. If this were a book about Lincoln or something, I could have given it up and no one would have cared. But there was a guy waiting for the book on the other end. It was really difficult, that process, and knowing how many times I wanted to give up, and not having that option, was really hard.

And then when it was finally finished, I vowed never to do it again.

… Then I came across the Zeitoun story a few months after What is the What came out. And then I thought, "This story is incredible and no one knows it. And if I don’t write it it won’t be written." And then I again I was a fool. I thought, "This one for sure will only take a year to write. It’s domestic, and it just happened last year, and how long could it possibly take?"

But I’m an idiot when it comes to that stuff.

[from The Beijinger]

i feel love

I've been meaning to really for real organize my pictures in a navigable format for interested parties to peruse. This means I opened Picasa and looked through them myself without doing much by way of organization.

Currently I'm sitting not far (I mean, I can see it out the window here) from where the Sheboygan River spits out into Lake Michigan at Nana's. And since in Kansas City, I reflected on my Wisconsin heritage, I should, while in Wisconsin, reflect on my farther back heritage. Which means I'll post this picture and leave it at that (that Nana's, and therefore, my, people came from Slovenia) because it's 1am, and even though I'm rather wide awake, my brain cares not to think too much at this hour except to be amused by my motley bloodline, a fact mi nombre belies.

Slovenia Pavilion, World Expo in Shanghai, June 2010

'tis the season

no longer, unfortunately, despite the mounds of snow and chilly temps.

In early December we joined the KC Wildlands' effort to remove non-native red cedar trees from the land a tad east of town, and tromped through some tall grass looking for just the one non-native red cedar for our living room. We all agreed this was a good lookin' tree, hacked it, dragged it, shoved it into the car and set off on our merry way. (Oh, Christmas humor..)

Pulled out the back of the station wagon, our dear tree, so quaint and natural and perfect in its non-native habitat, suddenly dwarfed the back door. Thanks to some heavy duty shears and Dad's eye for aesthetics, the tree got lopped to about a third of its size and set up in the living room. Out house smelled like Kansas City wildlands, and the thing guzzled a whole tree stand of water its first night at home. Luckily the picture doesn't show the blunt branch ends that resulted from the pruning.

Ain't it cute in all its natural non-native perfect imperfection though?

missourah

'mafraid I might be more Missouri than I thought.

Some recent field trips through the northwestern corner, past the hometown of Sir Jesse James (site of cross country district championship win '02, hollerr), through slow rolling hills, past signs for the Stetson store, boot company, and Pendleton outlet (Gainfully employed, I would've stopped at each.), stirred my pioneer heart with fondness for the state I've never really accepted as my own.

Badger-bred and cheese-curd-cultured, I never felt much entrenched here in this state. As a first-generation Missourian I bled neither black and gold nor blue and red for the MU-KU rivalries and didn't know I-70 went east til I started heading there for meets, visits to Marcy's grandparents in Marshall, and State soccer cheerleading. Da YooPee? Yah, I know where dat is, but Rolla what? I know more about Wisconsin's geography and have seen more of it than Miss MO's. Kids here titter at my parents' long As and make fun of the way all we Kellys say "Wisconsin." Wisg-onsin. Not Wes-Consin. What are you, from Missourah?

But then I started to wonder when some nerds at Marquette freshman year thought I had a drawl. And my recent little drives got me thinking about Missouri's place in our fine country, at the edge of the plains and prairie, where the west began, and where south still meets midwest. Yeah, y'uall this is the heartland.

I have to say, I quite like my bicultural formation. Alternating between Spotted Cow and Boulevard, fish fries and barbeque. I can dig it. I'll don my Stetson, pick up my boots in St. Joseph, spin my spurs and hop on that Oregon Trail. With summer sausage in my wagon.

measured in music

Around this time last year I listened to the All Songs Considered podcast "The Year's Best Music," looking back on listeners' picks for 2009, and can't believe that the "Best Albums of 2010" has shown up in my iTunes library. I remember vividly spending the bus ride to Hangzhou at the start of winter break listening to The xx, Phoenix, Edward Sharpe, Metric. Most songs I would hear and ask Megan, "Have you heard...?" to which she would give me a seriously? look and say "Yyyeah..."

And now here I am, a total 180 from a Chinese bus, lounging in my nana's sun-stained arm chair in the comfort of the living room, already listening and looking back to 2010, including The National, Yeasayer, Sleigh Bells, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, and others I wasn't cool enough to catch.

everything i've ever wanted

Ft. Collins brewery Odell asks:

Ever been in a warm, cozy cabin and had a secret desire to get snowed in?

YES. and with you, o Isolation Ale, especially. The label itself has me packing a rucksack and snowshoes for a remote Montana cabin. A massive fireplace, beer chilled in the snow drift, and man in flannel await.

nostalgia

Yesterday my female roommate and I went to Hooper's to watch the Rose Bowl, which my pop was watching in person in California. The night before he and his buddies sought out a watering hole (no!) and were approached by a Badger-clad woman.

"Are you the guys that had the mud-wrestling party?"

Of course.

"I broke my leg there!" and she reached for her phone to call a mutual friend who had broken her tail bone at the same event.

My mother was telling me this exchange, giggling.

me: I wish I was that cool in college...
mom, boastful: We went through five half-barrels on Erin Street at one of our parties. You never had any keggers at your apartment?
me: no...
mom: Oh. [Clearly disappointed in me.] Sore-y!

not.

For a writing class I had to write an I-Search paper and chose the question What were my parents like in college? Raucous research conducted at a reunion ski trip yielded an entertaining write, and read. But the missing conclusion:

Way cooler than me.