Trailer Wife

The snow can't melt fast enough for me. With a week of above freezing temps, the roads are clear for the first time in months and there are actually puddles of liquid water among the snow drifts and broken plates of ice. Though it is far from the vernal ides of Marchs past, the increased sunlight and chorus of dripping eaves feels a little like rebirth. Fertile, fecund and full of movement.

But before saying a final goodbye to the deep freeze, I took the opportunity to go see the famous Ice Art exhibit one last time. A truly amazing feat of craftsmanship and creativity, the ice sculptures on display are even more stunning at night, when each entry is lit up with carefully placed lights. Many of the huge blocks of ice were already starting to dwindle away, but I'm so glad I made the effort to capture (sometimes quite badly) the incredible show.

This one was ENORMOUS. Easily 30 feet tall.

Yes, those are French Poodles taking in the view.

Santa driving the ice parade train. North Pole is only a few miles away, after all.

Oh, the irony.

AMAZING sledding slides.

Last night, I woke out of a sound sleep thinking about Madison House. This is what Sam and I have come to call the house we rented in Corvallis for 5 years just before we moved to Scotland. A seventy-five year old craftsman a park-block away from campus, Madison House embodies "home" to me in a way that no other address ever has.

It's hard to overstate how firmly this house is lodged into the subcockles of my homesick heart. It was where I discovered who I was and what I wanted; where life became meaningful; where my rehearsal dinner, college graduation party, anti-valentines day feasts, countless poker nights and trivial pursuit tournaments took place. We sewed my sister's double wedding ring quilt on the dining room table. The most perfect Christmas tree in the history of the world sat in the front window in 2003. I spent hours and hours and hours and hours sitting in the dusty stillness of the front porch, reading.

For one thing, the five years I spent at Madison House was the longest stretch I had ever spent living in one place. We moved over two dozen times before I graduated from high school, and in early adulthood, I found myself once again wandering every year or so, searching for a place that felt right. I knew from the moment we walked into Madison House that it was home. We fit together, the three of us, in a way that made me feel safe and whole.

The funny thing is that, by some gift or curse (I'm not sure which it is), I knew they were the best years of my life while I was living them. I remember so clearly sitting at the table and watching the apple blossoms fall in the yard, feeling so goddamned fortunate I could barely breathe. Even when I was ready to move on from Corvallis, from Oregon, from the familiar, the knowledge that I would have to leave that house was a dull ache for months. And the day we left Madison House for good, it felt like an amputation of some vital part of myself.

So I guess it's no surprise that I'm feeling phantom pain. It was 3:09 AM last night when I woke up, and I spent at least two solid hours walking through the rooms of Madison House, picking up knick-knacks, finding the light switches, opening the kitchen cupboards, remembering where we kept the thumb tacks, the fruit bowl, the gardening tools. I laid in our Madison House bed in my mind, feeling the rainy breeze coming in through the open window and listening to the myriad of small neighborhood noises I thought I had forgotten.

Stunningly, I have no surviving photos of Madison House. I had to pull this one from Google Earth. And I don't have a cheerful end-note to this post, either. The truth is, I'm not feeling particularly cheerful. I've been sick for two months and if I never see a snowflake again it will be too soon. It could be that spending so much time in a memory house isn't the answer, but in the face of so much that is unfamiliar, it makes me feel at home. So if you're in Corvallis anytime soon, swing by 9th and Madison and tell my house I miss her.

I love love love awards shows. Back in the glory days, I would have fabulous Oscar parties where no one would dress up, but we'd all eat only yellow/golden/orange food. I get very excited about monochromatic edibles. We'd all sit around sipping champagne, eating twinkies, Mac n' Cheese, kettle korn and petite quiche. With a completed ballot at hand, of course.

So here are my Oscar predictions - based NOT on who I think will win, but who I think DESERVES to win. Always a sure loser. (I left out a few that I don't care about)

Leading Actor - Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
Supporting Actor - Christopher Waltz, "Inglorious Bastards"
Leading Actress - Carey Mulligan, "An Education"
Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, "Precious"
Animated Feature - "Up"
Art Direction - "Avatar"
Cinematography - "Inglorious Bastards"
Costume Design - "Coco before Chanel"
Directing - "Inglorious Bastards"
Film Editing - "District 9"
Original Score - "Fantastic Mr. Fox"
Original Song - "The Weary Kind," from "Crazy Heart"
Visual Effects - "Avatar" (grudgingly)
Adapted Screenplay - "District 9"
Original Screenplay - "Inglorious Bastards"
Best Picture - a tie between "Inglorious Bastards" and "District 9" (Blind Side? Are you F-ing kidding me?? If Bullock wins you'll hear me screaming from the arctic)

Need your own ballot? Go here

Flannery O'Connor once said, "Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. "

But, against every practical notion and a bucketful of glaring cliches.... I'll be joining the ranks of the University of Alaska Fairbanks MFA program this fall. It has been in the works for a long time, but I just got the official word that I was accepted this week. Three years with a teaching fellowship (huge sigh of relief).

**Cartoon discovered and originally posted by the fantabulous Taylor Boulware.

Oh man.

When my UK BFF gave me this book for my birthday last year, I was intrigued. She explained that she hadn't read the book herself, but had heard a lot about it, and knew I would be interested. She said this in the sort of shame-faced, halting, more than a little embarrassed way that one might use to notice you are a fan of strip clubs, or conservative talk radio. Because having to admit that you know what this book is about, not to mention the fact that you've actually spent the time to read it, is (it seems to me) risky business.

I was so intrigued by Amanda's description and the snippets I read on the internet, that I didn't read it. I do this sometimes with books. I save them. I don't want the delicious anticipation of what I hope will be a good book to end. I wait until the perfect moment, when I can fully appreciate the experience - - or conversely, when it can serve as a much-needed pick-me-up. Using this logic, I picked it up one day during this wretched winter sickness of mine.

Narrated by 18 year old Helen, Wetlands is a incredibly graphic novel focusing on the double bind the author finds modern women in: constantly confronted with the pervasive nature of female sexuality, while at the same time bidden to neutralize their bodies. Helen, suffering from a brutal case of hemorrhoids, is landed in the hospital, where she spends her time flirting with nurses and entertaining herself with reminiscence of her sexual exploits.

First of all, I don't recommend that anyone over the age of 45 read this book (an exception: Robert Nye - Bob I hope you read this and tell me what you think!). In fact, I'm going to extend that to anyone who has not earned a liberal arts degree in the last ten years. Because without a bit of literary perspective, this book is a bit of a horror show. Reviewers have described it as taboo-busting, disgusting, and deeply-perturbing; some have dismissed is as pornography, some credit it with the boundary-breaking chutzpah of Catcher in the Rye or The Female Eunuch.

The author, a German television personality named Charlotte Roche, explains to interviewers that she sought to "write about the ugly parts of the human body. The smelly bits. The juices of the female body. . . . I created a heroine that has a totally creative attitude towards her body — someone who has never even heard that women are supposedly smelly between their legs. A real free spirit."

With my background in the history of sexuality (my undergrad thesis was on the great first literary lecher - the Marquis de Sade) I had pretty high expectations as I began to read. And let me tell you - Wetlands is definitely a page turner. (My sweet friend Amy - of 2009 Outlander Driving Tour fame - read it in one sitting when she visited us in Scotland last year). But with each chapter, I felt the build up to some kind of meaningful conclusion slip further and further away. Yes, Roche's Helen proudly touts her sexual entrepreneurship, and I kept marveling at how different the tone would be had this main character been male. And yet, I failed to find anything to connect with in the novel. Helen seems almost like an automaton as she moved through the story, leaving me with nothing to latch on to.

To sum up - I'm really glad I read it. But I will NEVER read it again. Sallie Tisdale of the NYT has written an excellent review of the book and I agree with every word. Though I wouldn't check it out unless you don't plan to read the book.

Grade: C-

Seriously. For most of 2010 I have been in constant warfare with my sinuses. Yeah, gross, I know. But now the snarging nasal drainage horror show has run its course, leaving me with constant pressure, zero sense of smell and DEAF in my right ear. This is in spite of the handfuls of antibiotics, decongestants and expectorants I'm taking every four hours. My tolerance for pain and discomfort is pretty high, but clogged ears are crazy-makers for me. It's like a bad international connection, when you keep hearing yourself on the line and can't focus on anything the other person says. The pounding of the shower on my head; the constant, high frequency squeal of my tortured ear canals; the utter tastelessness of everything I consume. UNCLE.

Anyways - I'm miserable, Alaska sucks, blah blah blah. I'll get back to posting when I locate the will to live.

PS - I have NEVER in my life had any sinus issues before moving to The Land that Water Forgot. To all of you who didn't receive massive sympathy from me when suffering from past sinus infections (which I've always sort of thought are imaginary), my deepest apologies.