Why I Should Not Host Dinner Parties

I haven't posted in a while. And that's because, well, mainly because it's the end of the quarter and I'm getting married in, like, 20 days. Yeah, we thought doing this all at one time was a good idea because...

At any rate, I'm almost (finally) done with my first quarter of graduate school. And quite frankly, that's a little scary, because I'm not sure where it went. I feel like the last few months have flown by, I'm going home again in less then a week, and I'm just not sure I've accomplished quiet as much as I would like. But, I'm chalking that up to it just being a new experience, and the fact that I have all of this extra wedding stuff to do. So I've decided I'll just be better at life starting next quarter.

In other news, we had a dinner party tonight. Sort of a Christmas/end of the quarter celebration with friends from school. On our menu was cheesy potato soup, salad, and a chicken and pasta dish tossed in a white wine sauce. Sound too good to be true? That's because it is. Apparently, I got all of these kitchen gadgets and recipes for my wedding showers, and thought that that magically changed the fact that I can't cook. Hopefully, this fact will change soon (I'm trying!) but I think we learned never to try new recipes when you're having people over. We definitely ended up having to order pizza. So yeah....

Well I guess that's it for now. Like I said, I'm going home in a few days, and I highly doubt I'll have time to write on here during that time. So next time I talk to you all it will probably be a new year and I will be a married woman. How scary is that!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Big Sky Country

I went to Troy, Montana last weekend.

If you have never heard of Troy, Montana...there's a reason for that.

Troy is a small town. And when I say small, I mean it's about the size of three city blocks and there is absolutely no cell phone reception anywhere. And it's in the mountains. Which also means it's cold, and it reminded me of what winter looks like. Although I will admit that the drive was beautiful, I love the lakes and mountains that are in this part of the country, I just wouldn't want to actually live in them.

Speaking of the drive, it was a good time. Melissa and Amanda drove with me, and we listen to Broadway music and some country and sang and let me tell you, I'm not a big fan of country music, but it was fun. It only took us 2 and 1/2 hours to get there, which I think is kind of hilarious since we passed two different state lines and changed time zones in order to do so. Oh, and Idaho is a trip, that's all I'll say about that state...

Once we got to Troy, we ate dinner (and then breakfast) in a place called The Silver Spur. It's a Restaurant/Bar/Casino. Yeah. Our hotel was definitely something out of a horror film, and Melissa was sure a serial killer was coming in at any moment. When we got there, a 14 year old kid was walking around with some kind of gun (it might have been a pellet) but still, we were a bit freaked out.

So you may be asking yourself, why did she go to Troy, Montana? Well, every year, in a little place called the club bar, Eastern Washington, U. of Idaho, and U. of Montana get together to get drunk and have a poetry showdown of sorts. It's a little bit crazy and a little bit inappropriate and everyone wears flannel and general lumberjack gear. Overall, it was a pretty good time, but me and the girls got tired sort of early, so we went back to the hotel and played scrabble while watching over a very drunken classmate of ours named Danny who, unfortunately enough, turned out to be better at scrabble when he was totally hammered then some of us were sober. Overall, it was a pretty good time. I may go back next year.

Busy Week

Happy November! When did that happen?

So, it's been kind of a busy week. I got work shopped on Tuesday and, as predicted, it was pretty much a blood bath. But that's how these things go, and that's what I'm here for. I turn in my next story in a little over a week, so hopefully I'll write something brilliant between now and then.

We had a Willow Springs meeting on Thursday, a visiting writer on Friday, and then I had workshop class again on Saturday because our professor had to cancel for this coming Tuesday. Saturday class = not fun. Not fun at all.

My goal for this week is to figure out when my best writing time is. I mean, I'm writing, but I haven't quite figured out a schedule here like I used to have. So, we'll see how that goes.

Other then that, not too much going on. I'm going to Montana next weekend, so I'm sure I'll let you all know how that goes.

Later!

This is Halloween

So I've realized that all of my blog entries start with the word so... from now on I'm going to try to avoid that.

Friday night i went to a Halloween party and dressed up as a black cat, leopard thing. With a white cape. I don't know why the cape, but it was fun none the less. A picture of that will come shortly. Melissa and I won a game of cranium, although many of our fellow MFAers are a bit competitive so they insisted we won only because we were sober. I think it was because we were tired and wanted the game to end. Irregardless, it was fun. Michelle, our host, has a giant rabbit that was adorable and tried to eat my shoes. And I now have a little bat friend who has joined my ever growing collection of toys and distractions on my desk.

I'm finding myself very unmotivated in the last few days. I don't know why that is, but I better find a way to kick myself into gear here soon. I don't want to fall behind.

OK, that's all for now!

Drink, Drank, Drunk

So, I didn't get the job as the assistant managing editor of Willow Springs. However, is it weird that I'm sort of relieved? I mean, if I would have gotten it that would have been great, but now I get to have a life for the next two years, and I get more time to write, and I get to be slightly less stressed. Plus, I'm going to be an assistant fiction editor, so it's not like I'm not still involved.

On another note, I turned in my first story for workshop. It's now out of my hands and I'm not thinking about it till next Tuesday. After that, I'll let you all know how my slaughter goes (because I'm sure my class is going to hate it). But that's what workshops are for, right?

Additionally, Tuesday night after class everyone goes out, because all the genres have workshop so afterward we all meet at this bar around the corner called The Globe. It's a good place (but don't order the Cesar salad, very fishy). Anyway, so we went out their last night and afterward went to this great little all night diner called the Satellite. Half of it is a bar and half is a diner and you can order whatever you want at either one. So we're all their getting breakfast at like one in the morning and Terry, a poet from Rochester NY, orders a short stack of pancakes and a double jack and coke. It was fantastic. Plus he's very Irish, so it kind of reminded me of being back home in west park.
My mother thinks I'm regressing, since I go out drinking so much (and it's partially true, damn I thought I drank a lot in undergrad...). But here's the thing, writers are traditionally big drinkers. Some of the best authors (Hemingway, Poe, etc.) have been complete drunks. So we're kind of just following in their amazing writerly footsteps. right? right.
And, in my defense, I only had one drink last night because I was driving. It was called a washington pear. I don't know what was in it, the bartender just kind of made it up, but it was pretty tasty.

News from the Week

So, It's Sunday and my first story is due for workshop on Tuesday...and i only have five pages written. And yet, I'm procrastinating by playing around on my blog... yea...

In other news, I have a second interview for Assistant Managing Editor of Willow Springs on Monday... yea... I'm not a little stressed or anything...

Also, Torren and I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D the other night, that was a lot of fun, and I highly recomend it. You also get to keep the glasses. Good times.

We also had our first dinner party on Thursday. We had three of my friends from the MFA program over and it was a good time. We got to make real food (lasagna) and drink wine (a whole bottle for some people...) and hear about dog's being eaten by neighbors in Africa (wholly depressing).

I'm a little freaked out that our wedding invitations are not in the mail yet. Warning, you will have less then a month to get them back to us. Sorry folks. I guess that's what happens when you decide to move across the country and get married all in about five months. Still trying to remember why I thought that was a good idea...

Well, that's all for now kids. Take care!

Attack of the Spokanites

That's right, I said Spokanites. Torren and I used to fight about this frequently. As residents of Cleveland, my family always referred to ourselves as Clevelanders and apparently Torren was a Toledoan. But apparently, the good citizens of Spokane, WA call themselves Spokanites. I can't quite get over it. However, I do have it on rather good authority: that is, another first year student named Yvonne who has lived here with her husband for several years. I told Torren this and he looked at me rather puzzled. "So we're Spokanites now?" he asked me. I guess at least we won't disagree about -an's or -er's anymore. Now we have -ites. However, whenever I hear the word, Spokanites, I can't help but think of small green men in space suits and get the strange feeling that I'm being invaded...

Sick Sucks and/or Insecurity

So,I'm sick and it sucks. My throat is soar and my head feels like it's full of cotton. It's no fun. OK, I'm done complaining.
Anyway, the first voice over is tonight, voice over is the graduate run reading program at EWU, and I'm super excited to go and hear some of the second years read. And there is a party afterward, so the whole thing should be a good time. But here's the thing, I still feel so overwhelmed when I go to all of these events. It's like, I feel like I need to prove myself, and until I have I'm going to continue fumbling around trying to figure out what I'm doing here. And I know that tonight is suppose to be fun, but I'll feel anxious all night worrying about making a good impression. I'm sure i"ll feel better once i either a.) send my work out for workshop or b.) find out about the Willow Springs internship stuff. But until then, I guess I'll just keep meandering through life.

MFAing

So, I finally got to start classes this week, and it is so good to get into school again. I know, I'm a big dork. But I've missed workshops and writing and such. Plus, it doesn't help that it's already October (when did that happen??) and I've been here five weeks feeling pointless. But here's the thing, whenever I start something new, something seems to go wrong or just change somehow for the worst. Case and point - the MFA program just got moved to another place, and it sort of sucks. It's reminiscent of a bad 80's office building, including the maroon carpets, and we get a corner of the forth floor across from AG Edwards where the professors are squeezed into cubicles and my workshop class is currently filled with empty boxes. It's only temporary, but it will probably last as long as I'm here. They claim something about the university wanting to move all of the Spokane branch of the university to the same campus, but I think they just found out I was coming.

4am in Spokane

So I took Torren to work this morning, because I needed the car. On the way home I heard a song called “I Went Back to Ohio.” At 4am it seemed ironic. I need to look it up, although apparently it's an older song. I also learned that at 4 in the morning the grocery store next to our apartment building is baking for the day, so everything smells faintly of bread and donuts. This is one more thing I can say I like about Spokane. Torren thinks that Spokane hit its peak in the early nineties and has never fully recovered. In some ways this is true, some of the buildings do have a nineties edge to them, and some of the people do as well. But I like Spokane. It is clean here. And considerably safer. Walking home from a bar at 3am is par for the course, your only concern being the occasional meth addict. But they’ll only rob you, and so far I haven’t seen any, though my friend Melisa is dieing to get a picture of one. I like it a lot downtown. Its well within walking distance and in the middle of it is a park where the waterfall is. The park is very green, and sprawling, and there is a goat statue there that eats trash. It’s fantastic.

WA

Sometimes, I forget that I am in Washington. I will be somewhere very ordinary, like at Target looking at towels or at JCPenney searching for a zip up hoody (I left my black one in Ohio, and it's cold here), and I will see something out of the corner of my eye. A little thing perhaps; a wisp of dark hair, glasses frames, and I will forget. I will forget that it could not possibly be my aunt Debbie turning the corner with an overflowing cart, that my mother is not holding those placemats. I forget that Jenny is in class and Emily is teaching school, and that all of these things are happening thousands of miles away. No one I know is nearby. And then I go outside, and I see foothills and unfamiliar parking lots, and I remember. I am in Washington.
This feeling has become more complicated with Torren's arrival last Monday. Sometimes now he will be the one coming around the corner, and I will not look twice at him, thinking he is in my imagination. And other times, when I see him walking next to me through the grocery store, it seems all the more apparent that the elderly woman who just stopped in the bakery must be my grandmother, and that someone I know will happen around the corner at any minute. But no one ever does.