Taking Candy From Strangers

I trust people at face value. One could say its because I have always been surrounded by relatively safe Mennonite Communities and to my chagrin that is a possibility. But I like to think I am more knowledgeable than that and this trust comes from me, nature, not stifling nurture.

The summer makes me bonkers as does Christmas break. I cant be at home all day it feels like life isn't happening. "I am missing life!" I will whine laying face down on the living room carpet as dignified 20 year old women are wont to do. My mom send me on errands because somehow to her that is an adequate solution to my disillusionment. Sometimes it works sometimes I meet people.

 I take my time in the cereal aisle and ask the elderly lady next to me whether the "Giant" brand of Honey Bunches of Oats is as good as the Bunches themselves. She tells me they are adequate. I tell her I like her necklace, I really dont feel anything towards it. She tells me how she bought it from a man who set up a booth downtown, she tells me how he is from Africa, she tells me how she used to have to place textbooks on the sides of her typewriter in college because you needed to press the keys so hard it would spring around, she tells me that someday she wants to visit her high school best friend in Greenland. I buy the "Giant" brand.

I flick through the cartons of half price vinyl. I ask the owner what his current favorite is. He talks to me about Amanda Palmer. He shows me glossy pink album art. The small Record shop doesn't have air-conditioning and as he speaks wet runs from his hairline down his pocked cheeks and leak off his several loose chins. He offers to sell the album to me for half-off. It makes me feel slimy. I say no thanks and go home and lay on top of my childish green comforter and listen to The XX not Amanda Palmer.

Whose on First

When I run with my roommate she tells me I am active but not athletic. This isn't the stab it would appear to an outside observer but her way of telling me I have some level of talent. I have gone my whole life not being athletic. Athleticism is society's golden child. In elementary school the fastest boy gets all the girls, in middle school the football player hands off his letter jacket to a wispy blond, and in high school colleges offer the athletes thousands of dollars to play for them. It makes sense that athletic ability would affect self -worth, it isn't currently a contingency of self -worth according to a study by Ohio State University the contingencies are familial support, competition, appearance, God's love, academic competition, virtue and morals, and approval from others.
I spent a good part of high school playing the part of the athlete. I wasn't cool enough to play soccer and didn't grow up with basketball so I decided to try softball. They were the underdog sports team so I felt no pressure entering the fold late. I bought my first softball glove when I was 16 and caught my first pop fly later that day. I played on the JV team and was the third worse. It is easy to tell in softball who is the best because it is literally written in list format called batting order. In the higher up ball games batting order is more strategic but at our level it was this is how good you are. Look see, it calls to us, you are actually the worst. I was to my relief only the third worst. I never once made contact with the ball when up to bat but once the ball hit me so I got on base. That is how I passed the two girls below me, they didn't have the good fortune of possessing a large surface area for the ball to bang against. It seemed poor compensation for continually towering over the boys in my grade but it was something.
I was fine that my team was quite honestly pathetic, winning one game a season didn't bother me, in fact I found it charming how much effort we kept putting in. Team underdog was okay but self underdog was not. I didn't feel adorable when I swung and missed and missed and missed. I felt large and gawky when at the plate.  My mom came to one game she brought my grandma. They sat in navy blue collapsible chairs and gossiped throughout the entire game pausing briefly to watch me strike out. I would practice on the weekend. My friend who tried out for the team with me (she played capture on varsity and I promised her I wasn't bitter) would play imaginary games with me. We would laugh as we we tried to remember which figment occupied which base as we batted for them. I played for the JV softball team three years. I had the heart and the effort but those things must be more alluring from the outside.

Kindness comes with Practice

Masquerade was Mennonite's (student lingo for Lancaster Mennonite High School, teachers and administrators preferred LMH) attempt to give us homecoming. They couldn't officially sponsor short dresses, dancing, and inter-sex mingling so instead we got costume party, barn, and bobbing for apples. Mr. Evans awarded prizes to each costume, since declaring one winner was not in true Mennonite fashion. My group got "most expensive" which feels like a fake award, who wants to win "most expensive" what a disappointing adverb.
We had all adorned prom dresses from out mothers closets and neighbors dress up bins. Jackie was the only one of our in-group of strong females with a boyfriend he wore a tux and we were the Bachelor. It was a show I neither supported nor had actually seen but it was a costume that eight girls and one guy could participate in together and in high school every ones greatest concern was being included so we were all willing to settle in order to avoid heartache.
These eight girls, I don't think junior year we were ready to be women no matter what our biological clock was telling us, were extensions of my self. We had the self confident communication and responses of one body. If I told Beks something I knew I could pick up the conversation with Maria. The information we passed around was not gossip but a courtesy. While this dynamic was accepted by all eight of us it didn't create an open invitation to others. Meghan had transferred to our school that year, she had been subject to hearsay of our adventures through Jackie who went to her church and was excited to make new friends. We all liked Meghan but it wasn't as simple as liking her because we were all in a place were our own thought processes and over thinking was the end all.
Assumption was that everyone would come to my house after Masquerade because my house was home base. As we filtered out after the event was over, I saw Meghan trotting self-consciously behind my gang of gigglers. I asked her to join us over at my house. I don't think I was being kind because I asked without thinking, it was a reflex not a conscious act of empathy. Meghan came and joined happily but warily as my friends laughed at jokes we all knew were supposed to be funny and interacted comfortably with my parents and brother. She didn't speak much but ate the grilled cheeses we made at midnight and didn't complain about sitting on the cold tile of the kitchen when the saggy couches and trow pillows were just a room over. She pulled me aside at 12:30 and told me her mom was on the way to pick her up. She had forgotten she had a swim meet the next morning and decided she should get as much sleep as possible. Meghan slipped out without anyone really taking notice.
I don't think I was wrong to invite her but, perhaps, I was ignorant to. Supporting the out-group in reality isn't as easy as making a statement at a basketball game or in a study.

Playing Piano

Child's pose was when I fell to the floor exhaustion and defiance turning my bones to cartilage. They bent with only the slight resistance of my outer ear. I would bury my face into the white carpet wary to avoid the gunky stain which could have been spilled hot chocolate but also might have been mud.I would whine long throaty hums that paralleled the ringing noises of the piano that lead me to this spectacle. Deep Breathes honey my mom would say, the honey standing as more of a formality than a term of endearment. My fits did not spark in her maternal passion. My piano regiment dictated I practice for at least 45 minutes a day. My mother was one to pick in chose her battles so as long as I practiced for 20 minutes everyone considered it a win. Often, however I ended up in child's pose--arms stretched above head, knees bent, spine lengthened, vertebrae stacked, face smooshed into floor.
Milena and Kate and Laura would come to my recitals. I would wear a unnaturally silky dress and play variations of twinkle, "Happy Farmer," and "A Short Story." Afterwards we all eat strawberry shortcake and are careful not to drop any red sauce on the carpet.

Writing Prompt- March 11: In group/out group

Hello Grace,

I know you were never impressed by the fact that I ran, jogged, moved, what have you. I know it was your thing. I am aware I never quite fit the club, I did try though. When I asked you to run with me I was excited to have this shared interest with you, runners are definitely an exclusive group. There is a difference between people who run and runners. Runners, like you, are allowed to wear the shirts that say "Irun" or "Runners High" they can post articles on facebook about how to spot a runner (standing looking pissed at a crosswalk while cars pass instead of jogging in place) specifics I would never intrinsically know as somehow you did. My body isn't made to run, it bangs and bounds and flops, but I run anyway because I like the idea that my body is the one thing in this world that I have control over so if I tell it to run it has to. That's not why you run. I wish I could say here why you do but I don't   know and that's why I haven't yet been invited to be part of your club. If I knew I would work towards that thought process because even though I have my reasons now I want the shared reason so I can join cross-country or track instead of running alone in the evenings. I ran every morning in high school  and you knew. Maybe that was the problem, I talked about it, runners aren't supposed to do that because it is such an internal spiritual matter or something, I am hypothesizing here. I sometimes run with my roommate, she is one of the only people I feel comfortable running with. She is on both track and cross-country but she isn't in the club. Even without being a member I can tell. She runs for company and scholarships. The external rewards that marathoner would scoff at. You have run multiple half marathons and I am so proud. I want to do one someday I don't know if i'll tell you. You would be really supportive but it would make me feel fake.

Love,
ELizabeth

Once More to the Lake
E.B. White

Quality of Voice? The voice talks on the lazy feel of fishing but with a darker undertone, a sense of foreboding urgency. “As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” The sentence preceding that one uses words such as “vitals” and wince” strong intense words.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you?  I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn’t know which rod I was at the end of.” The greater theme of the essay comes through here as the author grapples with how fleeting he is how nature continues and people continue even though he won’t. Time is seemingly endless for nature as he assumes it should for himself though it is no longer him as a child that walks beside him but a new child.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “In the shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was plain.” The nature centric piece allows White ample opportunity to paint slow specific imagery.

Where does this writer “tell?” “Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? There are many long descriptive sentences that make the piece seem to stretch out. “We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond’s extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside…”

Questions:

Was the detail created by returning to the location or by sheer memory?

There are several instances that you incorporate statements in parenthesis, how and why did you choose to place those comments in parentheses, when the whole essay was your commentary?

My mom can list the name and year of every city that has ever hosted the olympics. She watches religiously and unloads the years of Mennonite patriotism aversion into fearfully intense support. The Winter Olympics are the favorite because iceskating- pairs, singles, and dance. She was always disappointed that I would never watch with quite the level of passion she would but my brother filled that gap. He would stay up until midnight with her watching Sasha Cohen leap and twirl. "I just watch because I like seeing them fall," he has admitted to me. My mother's support is based not just on quality of performance but on what she observes as happiness. This year Javier Fernadez, ice skater, won her affection. His moves were good not great but he displayed unabashed joy about skating.

How to recognize an underdog
1. Possibly born on the "wrong side of the tracks"
2. They have created themselves through shear force of will
3. They are not lucky
4. They are passionate about what they do

Extended Essay New Beginning

Elizabeth Derstine

Ann Hostter

Creative Nonfiction

We never quite know how our parents died. Phoebe sometimes wants to start the story while her parents are still alive and trial through their death but that never interests Iona and me much. It wasn’t that Phoebe’s detailed back stories of her huddled unnoticed in the closet while her parents are stabbed in their sleep scares us. I had seen the torture machine in Princess Bride, I had memorized “remember remember the 5^th of November the gunpowder treason and plot” for my British second grade teacher, I know that evil exists. But, the exposition focuses too much on our parents and the point of our imaginary games is not that they are gone but that we are still here.

During recess a smattering of students play “the ground is lava” on the jungle gym, a gaggle of girls crack the acorns that fall from the great big tree in the center of the macadam and set the soft insides in a pile for squirrels, and our teacher referees several games of four square because they could get out of hand. Iona, Phoebe and I play orphans-- normally orphaned cats. We press into a corner of the court yard, sheltered by the brick walls of the school building, and crawl around on all fours, gravel sticking to our bare knees as our colorful stretchy shorts inching up our midriffs. As we crawl we talk out our story, which always follows a similar plot line—are parents are dead and we were trying to survive on our own. Sometimes a man adopts us but he always turns out to have sinister motives (such as feeding us to his shark or forcing us to clean for him using our cat fur as mops) so we run away and learn how to live by nothing but our own wits.

None of us had read Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Harry Potter, or Jane Eyre but we already knew that orphans were awarded main character. “When orphans succeed against all odds, their success ultimately becomes ours. We can look to orphans and say, ‘you see, there is hope for all of us if even this orphan child can overcome obstacles and succeed (Kimball 559).”  Since the orphan is the epitome of loneliness in literature it is through their own virtue and self- motivation that they overcome the obstacles they do.

***

Let’s say you and I are walking down a city street when a woman approaches you with a handful of ten dollar bills. She tells you that you can keep some of the money as long as you offer some to me and I accept it. The amount you offer me is up to you but if I don’t accept what you offer, then neither of us gets to keep any of the money.  When you offer me a 60-40 split, $60 for you $40 for me, we would both walk away richer than we had been but I feel a strong sense of unfairness. I refuse and the woman walks away with the money.

This scenario, also called the Ultimatum game, is an economic experiment. It led to the discovery of inequity aversion. Even primates demonstrate something resembling inequity aversion. Researchers experimented with brown capuchin monkeys. They would ask the trained monkeys to perform certain tasks and the monkeys, after observing a companion of similar social rank receive a juicy grape for performing the same task, would become uncooperative if offered a cucumber.

                               

David Housman – fairness and equity research

The Hazing of Swans

Suzanne Paola

Tell it Slant

Quality of Voice? “The boys found both self-preservation and swan- watching equally unworthy.” The voice is’nt lacking humor but even in sections such as this there is a certain scholarly quality.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you?  “I can imagine that we would seem strange, fetishistic to that age, crowding in whale watching trawlers to chase orcas and whatever, blackening out eyes with binoculars.” This drew to mind for me the way people travel in order to see certain animals and natural happenings in the wild and through that process, travel, pollution, are eliminating them.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “When swans walk it’s like seeing a piece of your grandmother’s ceramic collection rise and waddle.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “if time fluctuated just a little, these babies, scrunched and out of it, might wear trumpeter swan-skin onesies, be rubbed with ambergris.” This is more of a thought but in it she is telling how she views the fluidity of time and change.

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? Towards the end she includes a scene with dialogue which gives the piece energy. The inclusion of the conversation in a paper heavy on description and fact kept it lively.

Questions:

Was it ever discovered why only some birds in family groups were dying if they all fed together?

What separate threads did you actively create when writing this piece?

A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay
Brenda Miller
Tell it Slant

This essay beyond being about the braided form was a "how to" guide in itself. The braid that wound through the piece felt very obvious in an instructional way.

Quality of Voice? “and his email reply said (in a voice so much like the rabbis of my youth! Slightly contemptuous, a little annoyed…) that the Sabbath bread…” This phrase really shows the style of voice the author uses. The parentheses, exclamation point, and ellipses, I think all lead to a very laid back, causal interpretation of her writing.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you? “the fragmentation, however, allowed me—almost forced me – not to approach the essay head-on but to search for a more circuitous way into the essay.” I also thought her advice on focusing on the silences, the caesuras was descriptive of the essay itself.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “ You take the sticky dough in your hands and knead, folding the dough toward you, then pushing away with the heel of your hand, turning and repeating, working and working your entire body—your legs, your abdomen, your strong heart.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “I love the fact their separate parts intersecting, creating the illusion of wholeness but with the oh-so-pleasurable texture of separation.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? “Bread had always been a miracle. As has poetry, and language itself, this tremendous urge to communicate.” The incredibly informal attitude of the piece opens it up to creative sentence structure such as beginning with “and”.

Questions:

How obvious to like your thread to be?

How does using or not using headings for different sections effect a piece?

Happiness is divided into three segments pre--activity, activity, and post-activity.

ANTICIPATION: One third of the enjoyment reaped from a certain situation is anticipation. Looking forward to an event is exciting, playing around with the possibilities in your mind awards possibilities hard to glean in reality. Especially if it is a first. There is a power in firsts. I haven't ever kissed anyone and people tell it me it won’t be as a good as I imagine it to me. But that’s the thing, until I have it will be, and right now, in my mind, there are freaking fireworks

ACTUALITY: This is the part people focus on-- the doing. I am bad at planning ahead. On a Thursday I have trouble making plans for Friday, I feel I am at the time in my life that I can truly let the chips fall where they may. I am responsible to no one but me. Due to that, I chose to live as much in the moment as I can. "No Obstacles" is a game my friends and I play. We go outside pick a direction and walk that way for as long as feasibly possible. And we push "feasibly" past its dictionary definition. We shoulder each other over fences, we climb up than down the only tree in a 30 feet vicinity, we trip through streams.

RETROSPECTION: Laughter happens after the fact. It is reminiscing that side stitches and cackles come in. Rosy retrospection my AP Psych teacher called it. I love those who can tell a compelling story, I have a friend whose stories crackle with passion and even the ones that involve negative experiences cause her to sparkle. She told us about the time a dog she was pet sitting felt the call of the wild and trapped her in the bathroom slamming itself against the door over and over again. It caused shivers to run down my arms even as she laughed and laughed describing in too specific humorous detail how the dog would wind up before leaping at the door. Reliving an event can shift it into something more exciting or desirable then it ever had the capability of being in the present. The world takes on a glossy finish.

Three Spheres
Lauren Slater
Creative NonFiction Journal

Quality of Voice? The voice is very reminiscent of a journal entry, very informal and at times meandering. “Of all the hundreds of hospitals in Massachusetts, why did it have to be that one?” I can see this in a journal with the word “that” written all in capitals and underlined several times.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you? “ I am now a psychologist who, over the years, has learned to give up her Indian print sundresses and bulky smocks for tailored skirts, who carries a black Coach leather briefcase.” The amount of importance placed on appearance when grouping people is acknowledged by Slater. Because she now appears in control she is given the respect people reserve for those who have everything together. Slater’s piece attacks this way of viewing things.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “our house swells with raw and echoing sounds, with crashing crescendos and wails that shiver up inside mu skin, lodging there a fear…” “the way night looked as it fell behind the bars and the stars were sliced into even segments.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “Sometimes I wish time stayed solid, in separable chunks as distinct as the sound of the ticking clock on my mantle right now.” “Wound’s, I think, are never confined to a single skin.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? “Safe again. Trapped again. Safe again. Trapped aga—“ “ I am standing on the other side of that door—the wrong, I mean this right, side of the door—and I ring the buzzer.” Lines such as these add to the immediacy of the piece.

Questions:

How did she achieve such a easy blending of past, present, and processing?

Where was she career-wise was she when this piece was published? Did she feel exposed? 

Love Letters
Megan Foss
Creative Nonfiction Journal

The first time Foss used "mighta" I was taken aback and intrigued by the linguistic choice. The story is compelling through her use of tension. The line "I never mailed a single one," was chilling in its simplicity at upsetting the status quo from the get go. Foss leads her reader through the story as she slowly reveals who she is. The story itself is part of the story, which creates even more tension. As a reader I was drawn into how she got to the place where she was writing this piece. She creates a camaraderie with the reader when she mentions pieces written for her English teachers as though she expects the reader to have already read them and understand there purpose.

The final section, section 3, was very powerful. My initial feelings of the piece were explained to me, as Foss explained how everything is purposeful. the way she weaves the words together is a expression of where she came from and a blending of lives that society is determined to keep separate and uncomfortable at blending "language was the biggest con of all," Foss says, it is the way one says something not the content that she felt was being considered. "I think I understand that to accept that the drug-addicted hooker that I was could have possessed intelligence and critical thinking somehow speaks to a societal failure as well as my own."

Questions
What is her current attitude on the power of language? Thoughts as a published author?
Does she see her style transforming as she does or is she attached to the blending of languages?

A Possible Beginning 

.Let’s say you and I are walking down a city street when a woman approaches you with a handful of ten dollar bills. She tells you that you can keep some of the money as long as you offer some to me and I accept it. The amount you offer me is up to you but if I don’t accept what you offer, then neither of us gets to keep any of the money.  When you offer me a 60-40 spilt I feel a strong sense of unfairness, so I refuse. The woman walks away with the money.

This scenario, also called the Ultimatum game, is an economic experiment. It led to the discovers of inequity aversion. Even primates demonstrate something resembling inequity aversion. Researchers experimented with brown capuchin monkeys. They would ask the trained monkeys to perform certain tasks and the monkeys, after observing a companion of similar social rank receive a juicy grape for  performing the same task, would become uncooperative if offered a cucumber.

Things in My Pocket

Directions for how to use colored Polaroid film: My roommate got me Polaroid film for Christmas I thought it would work the same as the sepia I had been using. I shoved the directions in my pocket without reading them. The film in fact doesn't. The first picture has a textured blue border. It looks kind of cool.
A too-large too-flashy sticker for a summer camp: I said I want to work at Rocky Mountain summer camp this summer. They said take a sticker and application anyway. I said I am not really interested in applying. They said well at least take a sticker. I didn't want to be rude.
A quarter: I never pick up change. I drop change. If a purchase ever requires coins to be returned to me I scatter them. I like the idea that it could be almost anyone who has it next but not the randomness of anyone such as handing a dollar to a store clerk and then he or she passes it on to the next costumer, the next owner of the coin owns it with purpose. It is someone who went out of their way only if by a smidgen to pick it up. This quarter was tucked into the crease of my pocket. It is now on the sidewalk outside my house.
A pocketknife: My dad got me a Swiss army knife for Christmas years ago I keep it in my backpack just in case of a Hatchet situation. In Shakespeare and Film class a couple days ago I noticed I had a repulsive amount of split ends. After class I used the tiny serrated scissors on the pocketknife to hack of the ends of my hair. Then I put it in my pocket.
A contact case: I thought there was the possibility we would stay over night afterwards. I hate being the person with contacts who has to bring things along. I want to be more go with the flow than that. Just jump in the van, my body all I need to be ready for anything. But if I did life would be blurry and that doesn't sound ideal either.

PA to IN and Back Again

To those Lancaster bound,

You know that moment around the 7th hour when you come to the realization that you will be in that car forever and you are slowly forgetting that you have ever been anywhere else? When all of a sudden those 3 to 4 strangers you have been begrudgingly letting to DJ and unhappily offering to share your trail mix with become your universe and you can say anything you want at whatever volume you want and it is okay? There is a bond in that moment that can be felt no where else. Then if an upbeat song comes on you will all sing along and you feel more complete than you do anywhere else because you realize that this specific moment is as good as it can possibly get. You can't grasp this emotion anywhere else because the world is full of possibilities, it's an oyster.  But, after being in a car for 7 hours with 3 plus more to go you realize that you have nothing but hubcaps, too little legroom, and Ipod cords. In this way you experience what might be pure happiness, contentment.

Fall 2012- To Goshen:  I sat in the back surrounded by everything I owned plus some. I memorized "The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock" and thought about how my life was changing.
Thanksgiving Break- To Lancaster: I sat in the middle back seat. On my left was a boy watching Scooby-Doo on his laptop on my right was a boy watching Schindlers list.
Thanksgiving Break- To Goshen: The girls driving and her companion sitting shotgun gossiped the whole time. It was very informative about people I didn't know.
Christmas Break- To Lancaster: A junior boy whipped out his flute and played for the rest of the car. If it was a Christmas carol we all sang along.
Christmas Break- To Goshen: The van door wasn't shut properly so while on the turnpike I had to open and slam it again. I shut it on my hair and it jammed.
Summer Break- To Lancaster: We did the trip in two days. We spent the night at the relatives of the car owners. We slept in a fluffy basement and watched Pitch Perfect.
Fall 2013- To Goshen: One of my car companions mother handed him a plastic bag of things for the car. The contents: three stale rolls, damped paper towels, and a Ziploc bag full of nickels.
Christmas Break- To Lancaster: I drove the entire just under 10 hours. From 6:30pm to 4:15am.
Christmas Break- To Goshen: We crashed. The car was totaled.
Spring Break- To Lancaster: We constantly rotated seats and alternated between listening to episodes of "Wait wait don't tell me" and Coldplay remixes.

Based on "I cannot explain my fear"

Fear of cartoon blood. I saw an episode of the Simpsons with my dad when I was 10 there were killer dolphins, the orange people got satirically mauled and squirted red. Fear of dolphins. Fear of shots. My parents had the doctor come to our house at night and administer a shot to me in my sleep when I was 4 because I wouldn't stop screaming. He was friends with them and it was a third world country so it was legal. I had to get a tetanus shot a week ago, I began silently weeping so the nurse gave me a juice box and animal crackers. Then she made me lay down. Fear of going bald. Fear of being too cold to handle. Fear of hurting people feelings. Fear of being forgotten, because I am as unimportant as everyone else. Fear of hating my career. Fear of being no good at doing what I love. Fear of never knowing I am not good at it. Fear of the future. I think in the now. Fear of breaking other peoples belongings. Fear of appearing ditzy. I love pop culture. I know when Jennifer Aniston’s birthday is. It’s February 11^th.  Fear of spending money on things I don’t need. Fear of being trampled to death by horses. Multiple horses. Fear of missing the opportune moment. Fear of myself. I know I have the power to destroy me. 

Alexandra

Alexandra was never Alex. Once she was Andra Pandra Gloop. Nicky Veronas called her that in the hallway while she was drinking from the water fountain. She reacted in an uncomfortably upset manner, Nicky was used to anger, girls would cockily stamp their feet while batting their eyelashes. Alexandra's eyelashes were better than most because she was using mascara already even though she was 10 but her anger was undiluted by the flippy hair and brace-less teeth of Nicky, so bat she did not. She has been soley Alexandra for 16 years.

Alexandra loved makeup and clothes in a way that caused her to match her toenails with her underwear. She wasn't  ditzy though she managed to make the observer understand that it benefited the feminist movement that she was color coded. She never used the word feminist though. She didn't avoid it but was almost so progressive she was unaware that there was a cause that advocated women as equals. It was assumed in her mind that she was as smart as capable as willful as any other human. and that was why she could match and polish and decorate herself because it meant nothing.

She wanted to be First Lady, she wanted to never have to watch another movie with Christian Bale ever again because he was abusive, she wanted people to think she was funny. She was funny like a sitcom. Her wit was premeditated and punny and catered to frequent viewers.

She had been dancing since she was three. She was a decent dancer but often kept as background because she was big boned. She was all calf muscle and shoulders. None of the wiry male ballet boys could lift her. She was never upset about it because she loved dancing and also knew she had better hair then them. "Their buns are all so small," her mother would say, "you have such a nice large bun. so much thick hair."

The American Man: Age 10
Susan Orlean
The New Kings of NonFiction

The voice of this essay was perfect for the topic. I was continually amazed with the ease Orlean included all her information. She created a childlike vibe to the profile.  She approaches her subject with respect yet curiosity-- "For fun, we would load a slingshot with dog food and shoot it at my butt. we would have a very good life."

The combination of quotes and explanation I felt balanced well. "The girls in Collins class at school are named Cortnerd, Terror, Spacey, Lizard, Maggot, and Diarrhea, 'They do have other names, but that's what we call them,' Colin told me."

Orlean has decent but not over the top imagery which lends itself well to her subject-- "The walls are mostly bare, except for a Spiderman poster and a few ads torn out of magazines he has thumbtacked up."

The ending provided a deeper conclusion than I had expected from such a story-- "That's the point,' he said. 'You could do it with thread, but the fishing line is invisible. Now I have this perfect thing and the only one who knows about it is me." The author hands us this child who is on the edge of innocence and unaware of it. He is content to yet be perfect for no one other than himself.

Questions:

How long did you observe Collin?
How much do you see being observed affecting Collin's behavior?

My High School Vice Principal

I sit with my knees pressed to the back of the bus seat in front of me. I hate it when the people do that. When I can feel the bump of the knees of the person behind me. Butt today I am not feeling particularly compassionate. The golden rule as taken the day off. I focus on the way the extra flesh around my hips pooches out due to my position instead of the cameras by the gate. I concentrate on the place on my inner thigh where my knock-off jean material is ripping instead of the news vans. I wonder how I managed to tear my pants there. I decide probably trampoline basketball. But the way the soles of my shoes are wearing thin by my heel and instep doesn’t tune out the voices of the other students on the bus.

“I hope they give him the death penalty.” I shift making the greasy rubber seat squeak.

“I heard his wife was in on it. That they took turns.” I wish I wanted to comment. 

“Remember how he would dress as Santa every year. What a sicko.” I feel like I am going to throw up. I drop my head between my knees. I try to calm myself breathing deeply but just gag on the bus taste of sweaty gym clothes and old bologna. 

I have a voice and I have words but not the will to blow them into the ears of these rubber necking middle school students. I feel young and mature. I wish I felt anger or tears or strength instead of this useless emptiness. 

The Hostess Diaries: My Year at a Hotspot
Coco Henson Scales
The New Kings of NonFiction

This piece drew me in right away. Initially it was because Ira Glass summarized in it in an extremely effective way-- "It is possibly the greatest New York Times "Styles Section" that will ever be written." I also have an intense fascination with the rich and powerful. The lives of the "haves" bewilders and amazes me. Once I began reading however I was grasped by the narrator. I found her wholly unappealing which, for me makes her appealing. I love honest unlikeable protagonists. The first glimpse the reader is awarded of this women is how she is "patiently waiting for costumers, so that I can turn them away." That is followed by her mocking sincerity "I bite my bottom lip as though I am genuinely concerned for them" and ego trips "I turn away--or even better- pick the group behind them."

The narrator is honest in herself. She is proud of the average of her life and in that way creates an interesting contrast to the celebrities she caters too. Celebrities who are much the same as her but discontent in the symbolence of power they hold. Scales is aware of how mundane life is "with so much time together, we end up repeating the same stories over and over" which makes it interesting how she holds the power against these people who believe that their own lives are so fascinating. When Naomi Campbell wears the same dress to Hue that she had the previous time the owner of the restaurant comments on it in a way that shows a disappointment in Campbell because she would be ashamed of the repetition unlike Scales who owns it.

I also was intrigued by how politicians and super models are reduced to the same personality in Scales stories. You treat someone like a celebrity and they will act like it.

Questions;

Did you in honesty enjoy the people who frequented the restaurant?
Did the focus on appearances empower you or make you fell belittled?

Then You'll Be Straight
Margret Price
Creative NonFiction Journal

This piece felt incredible topical. It has relevance both in what we have been discussing in class concerning Eula Biss and the ongoing campus discussions on the open letter. Price's voice is straight (pun unintended) and clear. "I feel so queer," she says "I feel so white." She lets the reader experience her insecurities and how she reacts to them herself-- "I feel  like I'm in a badly written television movie about a lesbian professor," "I assure myself it has nothing to do with my mangling of their names on the first day."
I enjoyed the form of the essay. The short topic specific paragraphs made it the piece easy to process. Though all short, they vary somewhat in length, the shortest being four lines long. The theme (I would say the quote "I would say that talking about my race strengthens ethos by increasing the sense of common ground while talking about my sexuality weakens it by decreasing the sense of common ground" sums it up) is stretched out and explained in different ways through the sections.
Within the larger segments Price is quite descriptive, especially of what she herself is experiencing-- "I stood , dry-erase marker poised an inch from the board, while my face, already warm with nervousness, flushed even pinker," "Racism sticks to my skin, glints in my blue eyes, lolls on my tongue."

Questions:
What was the significance of the last story?
The first section of your class you said you never connected with them. What do you mean by this?

Free Write
A Decision My Parents Made

My parents decided to send me to private school in 7th grade. They thought I was sad. They thought I deserved better than sad. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I did. I didn't know it though, that I was sad.  I was on the red team. The 6th grade program was divided into colors. Red was my existence and learning was what I knew I was good for. I didn't understand how my parents would felt when I talked about what the "other kids" would say and play. I was awkward and uncomfortable and unaware. Lancaster Mennonite was different. I became aware. I cried almost everyday for the first week because everyone was interesting and uninterested. I cried because for the first time I wanted them to be. And then I made friends. And then I moved on. I spoke in class and had birthday parties and pool parties and my peers knew my house was fun. I always say highs and lows are not reliant on each other. My parents moved me from and knowledgeable quiet to a social energy that overruled everything else. John Green says in his book The Fault in Our Stars that "the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate." So not through comparisons but through a karmic give and take are the two related?

Place- Millrace

I am not a natural runner. My body doesn't move fluidly, gracefully. I stumble and bound and bobble. I love it though or at least like it. My body is the only thing in the world that is completely mine and I enjoy knowing that I can control it. I began running regularly senior year of high school. I woke up half an hour earlier than I needed to and would run for 20 minutes before school. I liked running outside alone in the damp darkness of morning. At Goshen I found a regularity in running that was missing from the entrance into college life. My roommate showed me the Mill Race trail. She runs track and cross country and spoke trail easily. Running there did not mimic running at home. I no longer had the energy to wake early to run and in the afternoon the trail was littered with bicycles, baby strollers, and other joggers. The trail is 2.75 miles long and sticks to a canal that winds through back yards. It claims a serenity that the visitor must create.

Free Write

Broom

A broom hangs on the wall in the backroom, the sun room, of my house. It is a strange small broom. An orphan girl would use it to sweep the floor in the movie adaptation of a Charles Dickens novel. It isn't exactly my families interior decorating taste. It fits with nothing else hanging in my house. It isn't from India or Bangladesh or crafted by my brother or I. It is a broom purchased for my Halloween costume in 2nd grade. I was a witch because I was creative. I bought a tall stiff black hat, a silky black cape that was meant for Dracula and that rigid little broom. I didn't even carry it around. I handed it off to my parent chaperon after a block and focused my spindly arms on the pumpkin  full of dense nutty chocolates. My neighbors were good at Halloween.

Black News
Eula Biss
Notes From No Man's Land

"It is a place where the cities imagination of itself resides." Biss in the essay uses her specific experiences with a African American Community newspaper to make a larger point on the reality that society accepts. The brunt of the essay is made up of news stories  on the racist tendencies of Child Protection Services in particularly a Ms. Johnson who was repeatedly denied custody of her Grandchildren.

Biss subtly draws you into the injustice and anger she feels. The story is framed within larger news stories that show system collapse and societal unrest. Because the news ignores the small issues of injustice the big issues create feelings of unreliability. By placing the issues of a small section of America that she was a part of inside issues of more agreed upon significance she links the ideas together.

She ends most paragraphs in a short strong statements-- "But that was not something I could report," They were not brought to McDonald's, and CPS did not return her calls,"But she didn't have the children." She ends the story in much the same vain. A curt punchy statement "This doesn't seem like America,' they kept seeing, 'this just doesn't seem possible in America." These concluding sentences echoes the feel of the topic she is covering.  Both the journalist techniques of saying it like it is and the finality of families having their children taken from them.

Questions:
What happened in the Ms. Johnson case?
What else can I find about how this "nurture" aspect is destroying "black culture"?

No Man's Land
Eula Biss
 Note From No Man's Land

The title essay is divided into 6 sections each one designating a place ( On the Border, In the Water, In the Prairie.) It is an extreme version of the place essay we are working on. She uses place as a motif to ground the essay while she explores the theme of fear. The essay is primarily her experience. She quotes other people and The Little House on the Prairie books but they are in relation to her experience with them.

A found that the statement her cousin made to her "I realized this is what white people do to each other- they cultivate each others fears. Its very violent." Biss writes fear as a branch of racism. When she first moved to Chicago she didn't know what she was supposed to be afraid of and therefore she wasn't. Ignorance--innocence-- is bliss. She said once she learned what she was supposed to avoid she no longer felt compelled to because she knew better.

Biss creates a wholesome image of the park near her home during the summer-- "Spanish-speaking families make picnics on the grass and Indian families have games of cricket and father dip their babies in the lake and black teenagers sit ont eh benches and young men play volleyball in great cloud of dust till dusk." She contrasts what her landlord says about how the summer "brings out the riffraff." Biss uses description to leT the reader draw their own conclusion about whether or not these people should be feared.

Questions:
What is the area like today? was it completely gentrified?
When your husband comments about how he likes the area you live how it is were you in agreement with him or making some larger point about romanticizing an area?

Place- Reality

I am afraid I am ruining reality for myself. I am pursuing a career in the imaginary. Working towards a Film Studies and English Writing double major causes me to reshape events immediately after they happen I am constantly creating a reality worth sharing. Emotional truth had overpowered the factual. The statements the caricatured me would have said are actually spoken.
Last year I bumped, physically into a friend as she was going to print a paper. She printed his paper than sat and talked with me sitting on the floor. We talked about the shit people talk about at night- time travel, how you see yourself, how others see you, different layers of perception. Ghostly yellow lights caused her skin to look like she had scurvy. She said "If I had known this was going to happen I would have already thought through all this conversation. I am glad I didn't know so this is the first time I am having it."
We live through the same moments so many times that the real one becomes inconsequential. In 7th grade a boy sat next to me on the bus on the way to the science museum. I told my friends afterwards that he had sat with his leg pressed against mine the whole time. I think this was a lie but I don't know I told the story so many times it no longer matters if it happened or not because I have lived my life and they have lived there lives like it had. I can make myself feel the pressure of his khaki clad leg.
Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted saying "History is a set of lies agreed upon." What does that say about reality? If we shape the present based on the past, we are building a house without a foundation. I would argue that this isn't a bad thing though people die for what they believe the past is. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for their reality.

Writing Literary Criticism

I don't write from an outline-- research papers being the exception. I also seldom brainstorm. I have a small journal in my backpack where I write ideas that hit me with unnatural precision, pieces of conversation I hear and notes I take during movies but it I don't often resort to that. I write from the moment I am in. I write from one thought that tumbles into two than three. I began writing about listening to my father read. I didn't know where I was going with it but I knew it was an image I wanted to create. From there I wanted to explain the difference in reading to yourself. I wrote about "The Giver" and the trouble I had processing the book on my own. I found that both these segments paralleled the particular stages of life I was in at the time. I continued on, searching through my memory of books and finding which ones I associated with a particular stage of life, like a smell can bring a memory back so can the written word.
I worked at changing tone as my voice developed through maturing. I gradual increased the amount of information I gave but hope that even in the shorter sections the experience of being that age comes through. I began with a straightforward segment on my parents giving a glimpse into how books came into my life, which I later cut for lack of space. I decided to focus on my own memories of the books rather than those pressed onto me. The final section  is more stylized as I come into my own.
The ending is conveying the fact that I am still unsure of reality mimics the thoughts I had during The Giver section and interpretive of the young adult stage of life. Nothing is for sure or permanent and I am lost between fiction and fantasy. The only concrete I have after college graduation are stories both my own and other peoples. I don't yet know enough to claim the theme of my own story, my own life but I am confident that some day it will make sense. That even that moment too will one day be nothing more than words on a page.
During the writing workshop I received feedback on pinpointing my voice by using conjunctions. I also made the substantial switch from past to present tense which was well received.

Place- Linway Cinema

I think I am supposed to like Art House Movie Theaters. No one has ever told me this but I like documentaries, I like bands with "and the" in the name-- Edward Sharp and The Magnetic Zeros, Florence and the Machine, Fitz and the Tantrums,-- I like Polaroid cameras. I own a Polaroid camera with which I took a photo of my roommate standing in the snow with no shirt on. Her thick blond hair keeps the image G rated. It looks like a Free People ad. I feel shame when I look at it. But yet, I am ambivalent towards Indie movie theaters. I genuinely want to fall into the active support section of the spectrum but I am at most a passive support, more honestly neutral.

I like large and impersonal when it comes to my movie theaters. I like Linway Cinema in Goshen, Indiana. I bike there not on the adorable and quaint alley ways that one would take to the local art house theater (called in fact Art House) but on a main street where cars whip by me mercilessly spitting water and ice in my boots and down the back of my coat. The bikes I borrow sputter and jerk through potholes and slush. I am too warm on top and too cold on bottom. My thighs burn where the sprayed water freezes. I am pleased with the discomfort. It makes me feel both focused and free.

The theater doesn't like me. The ticket takers don't greet me by name. I have to lock my bike several stores down because Linway does not cater to the green movement. There are too many ways to enter. The doors confuse themselves "Enter Here?" They question their motive. There are two windows were you can buy your ticket. There are three locations where you can purchase snacks. Linway is proud of their market enterprise. I am charmed by the in your face consumerism. At these concession stands every size is refillable- popcorn and soda. This is fairly unorthodox. This is the complexity of Linway Cinema. They are so blatantly trying to make money they almost forget how.

Linway taught me how to be in a “together”. I held my first sweaty boy hand during James Bond, swirled in with strangers. Everyone saw, no one noticed. The power of being a sheep. Linway also taught me how to be in an “alone”.  I am bad at alone. I shuffle uneasily through my own mind when left in the company of solely me. I saw my first alone movie at Linway. I felt judged. I felt swallowed by florescents and nobby carpet and theaters too half full. Alone in an empty theater would have been so lame it would have passed into acceptable and alone in a full theater, surrounded by those experiencing “together”,  would have made me inconsequential. But I was just enough alone and everyone else was just enough together.

The next movie I saw by myself was at an art house theater in Lancaster, PA, Zoetropolis. When I showed up alone everyone assumed I was on the tip of trendy. I looked single and proud and like I was probably going to take notes or something during the movie. I am not looking for affirmation at the theaters. I have my go to places for self confidence boosts and when at the theater I want to matter significantly less than the characters projected.

I typically go to see movies with Sam, my friend with an infatuation for foreign films that he attempts to satiate with critically acclaimed dramas. He holds a delighted disdain for Linway. As we sit in the theater attempting to be witty about the commercials that preview the previews he comments "The only movie goers are middle school students or middle aged couples who no longer have anything in common so they go to movies." Linway does indeed cater to this market. I make a furious attempt every year to see all the Oscar best picture nominees before the big night and Linway makes that very difficult. They are not carrying 12 Years a Slave one of the most nominated movies. They just don't have the audience for a film on history, a film on race.

Linway can be well summarized by my experience trying to contact them. I thought I should add a factual elements to this essay—“when was it built?” “How many renovations have been done (‘I like movie theaters with very large seats,’ Sam said ‘after many renovations Linway has left the seats causing the whole theater to be a mismatched progression of time.’)?” After listening to a recorded list of the many numerals I could press. I was told in order to contact them I needed to call a number not advertised on their website. I call said number and after listening to the phone ring and ring I am subjected to a shrieking scratching buzz the likes of which should only be used in torture or those experiments to see how old you are by how high you can hear. In conclusion no one picked up the phone. Linway is much too self assured for customer feedback.

The word about town is that the movie theater is a dying breed. This is false. In fact the amount of money spent on movie tickets  (10.8 billion according to CNNMoney) in 2012, was higher the year before, the first time in three years that had happened. So obviously soulless theaters are doing something right besides wooing me. 

Strange Fact- Woman in Film

Women directors have been nominated for an Oscar 4 times in the past 85 years. Since there are less women directors the bar ends up being raised. A man creates a film that flops that okay there are other men. A women creates a film that leaks money it is a grievance on all Women as creative directors because the pool is smaller. According to an article published by Huffington Post in October women make up only 18% of all key behind the scenes roles in Hollywood. How can in expect to create movies that fairly represent women if these movies are shot and written by men? Well we can't. In 2013 64% of the top grossing movies starred male leads, 14% female leads, and 22% ensemble casts (Huffington Post).  I want to work in film. I dream, I strive, I aspire to work in film.  I have a job currently, a production assistant at a small film production company- FiveCore Media. My first couple months working there I was one of two female employees. There were  3 male employees excluding our male boss. I was lucky to be part of a nearly evenly split, unorthodox in the industry, work space. Yet I still felt the need to prove myself. Was it because I entered the work environment conscious of my sex's dismal sample? It had to have been. I would have no other reason for feeling that I had to work harder and take on more shifts than my male counterparts. I was especially aware of this during strike (tearing down a shoot). Film equipment can be heavy and I was prone to attempting to carry the most not out of an inner call of discipleship but because if I didn't I feared it would be assumed I couldn't. In an industry where there are very few women film decisions are not critiqued  as artistic choices but as capabilities.
A book I read within the last year had an essay on the competitiveness of women. It said that while women were competitive with each other and would contend for the highest position in the work force that spirit of competition did not often extend to the men they worked with. It is hard for me to accept that I am still being judged on a criteria separate from that of men. A criteria that questions capability.

Goodbye to All That
Eula Biss
Notes From No Man's Land

I read this version of  "Goodbye To All That" after Didions. I think this essay is the one I have connected with the most out of Biss's so far. I think this essay offers the clearest picture of her. The opening statement after the initial story-- "That is not how it really happened. That is how I learned to tell the story of my life in New York"--sums up all creative nonfiction for me. As authors we learn to mold our experiences in a way that will appeal to those not present in our mind.That is what story telling is, shaping the internal for the external. I think Biss's ability to break that down and keep the reader engaged was testament to her power as a writer.
I was also able to connect with her statements on being young. She understands and is able to articulate the desire to be part of reality. Several quotes that express this are " and I learned every detail of the story just as I discovered its falsehood," and " I didn't just want to live there I wanted to be made real myself." Biss in this piece shows her capacity to explain the understandings and premonitions that society and individuals hold.

Why did you choose to live in New York?
Would your general statements have external validity? Are your points able to be extended to all large romanticized cities?

"Goodbye To All That "
Joan Didion
The Electronic Typewriter


This piece felt immensely more descriptive than anything I have read so far by Eula Biss. Didion uses strong sensory details-- "I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume."  The voice is self savvy while still claiming innocence and questioning the world. She asks questions and makes statements on matters thought to be understood but never mentioned-- "I know now that almost everyone wonders something like that, sooner or later and no matter what he or she is doing, but one of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before."



The  essay is  written in retrospection so while the reader is following Didion as she grows to understand New York they are aware in a tonal sense where the essay is headed. It is formatted chronologically as she changes and experiences different parts of city life. Though the story isn't one continuous the sections and thought process are told through a rising action formula.
Questions:
Quotes:
When I first saw New York I was twenty, and it was summertime, and I got off a DC-7 at the old Idlewild temporary terminal in a new dress which had seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already, even in the old Idlewild temporary terminal, and the warm air smelled of mildew and some instinct, programmed by all the movies I had ever seen and all the songs I had ever read about New York, informed me that it would never be quite the same again


What specifically happened at the end? Does she blame NY for her depression?
Why did she initially decide to move to NY

I could write a syndicated column for teenagers under the name “Debbi Lynn” or I could smuggle gold into India or I could become a $100 call girl, and none of would matter.

 It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. To think of “living” there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not “live” at Xanadu.

Scenes and Sound

The boy driving is a maniac. He his gangly and bordering on sickeningly skinny. He has hair that bounces up to brush the ceiling of the car. His black springs press against cigarette burns on the fabric-y interior. I feel justified in proclaiming him nuts since he is my best female friends ex- fling. He was a tornado of intellect and anger. The other two boys in the car could combine to make him. One equally skinny and dark and the other small and hobbit-ish but with thick tumbling hair and a charming face. I sit my knees nearly hitting my chin trying to contort around the limited leg room hair whipping into the face of the boy, the stocky one, Andrew, next to me. The windows are done because there is a heat wave oozing through the east coast and the air conditioning in the car is broken. The music is everything around us. It is turned up past maximum to challenge the barking wind and tired motors of cars on the highway. Brandon had called me and asked if I wanted to drive to Hershey. There is nothing to do in Hershey we are driving the hour and a half there to drive the hour and a half back. I said yes because slow sloppy summer days were piling up and I needed something to do for the memory.

Dinner at my Aunts

I feel blurry with food. Rice has expanded in my stomach and is inching its way up my torso. The curry has made me ache with thirst but there is no room left for water. A handful of other people spill over comfortably tattered armchairs and dog haired couches echoing my feelings. Rugs and thick magazines and pottery clutter the space.  I burble something about the movies I saw over the weekend and there is a smattering of generic responses. My conversation attempt dissipates into a wisp of smoke melding with the steam from the fire place.  I try again true to form perpetually uncomfortable with silence even with these people who I have grown up with, some with whom I share blood.

"I am auditing a class"

 My Aunt shifts and the moment settles on her. I am my mothers daughter and she is my mothers sisters. She too is itched by the need for the comfort of something verbal.

"Wow, why don't you take it as a normal class? Who teaches it? Did you buy the textbook? Suzanne might have the textbook? You probably don't even need the textbook? What other classes do you have?

Feeling mentally at ease with the sea of questions I answer as my mother does . I tell her where I think of living next year and whom with. The words don't matter so much as the audibility. The lack of I imidiate family is strongest here, with my aunt and uncle. The Goshen Students from my Lancaster Church congregation invited over for Indian food. My aunt tattles about her sons son, their first grandchild.

" I just got a photo she took with a Polaroid camera. Can you imagine she has a Polaroid. She bought it at a flea market they have tons of those in the area around her house. They have gorgeous handmade crafts..."

I am content with my stomach full of rice and my ears full of words.

Land Mines
Eula Biss
Notes From No Man's Land

I connected least with this story out of all of the ones I have read by Biss so far. While in the past I have praised her braided technique I felt this one was disjointed and compartmentalized. The pieces of history on the emancipation felt forced. That could be perhaps the story for once was nearly one whole tale. The topic was focused solely on the education of children and the teachers part and desegregation. The story would have worked better with just one section or with more such as the previous essay's. The stories on teaching were all drawn from personal experience or hearsay and the historical portions were all purely factual which also could have lead to the fractured feeling.

The piece is broken into 9 blocked sections with paragraphs within each section but the breaks are less obvious then "Three Songs of Salvation"

An overarching theme is fear of the innocent. Before African Americans and children are given the opportunity to be shaped and molded with societal norms there is greater chance of actions that people cant understand and with that lack of understanding comes fear. She also comments "They are aware of injustices we have learned to ignore."

Questions:

How did Biss move from teaching to writing?
Does she have any of those inspiring teacher stories or had her experience teaching been wholly negative as the essay has led the reader to believe?

Three Songs of Salvage

Eula Biss

Notes From No Man's Land

The piece is divided into three sections. The first is about keeping track of ones life. What is worth remembering and how does one wish to remember it? With emotions? With facts? The second is about her mothers enthusiasm and whole bodied devotion to the Yoruba tradition and the last is about loss and reclaiming either a new form of the lost or something new all together. The three sections are tied to together through quotations from religious pamphlets Biss has been handed while on the street and descriptions of those who publicly advertise and sell spirituality.

Biss is able to grasp some fundamental ideas of what religion means to people through unconventional means. She juxtaposes the people who hope to help her find salvation through God pamphlets with how she actually came to understand it. "The more distance my mother put between herself and what she knew, between her mind and the words it understood, the closer she felt to the unponderable."

Compared to the other pieces of Biss's I have read this far this one is significantly more personal. Even the more factual elements, quotations from pamphlets and the history of relatives, come from her life.  The essay is wonderfully descriptive. Biss uses imagery since her thesis seems to be that experience is where spirituality comes from she places the reader in the moments she has had in order for them to grasp her full understanding. "We watched the drummers sweat and the dancers shake, and we ate salty beans and rice with the other kids."

Questions:
Why did she begin collecting the pamphlets she had been handed?
How did her mother come accross the Yoruba tradition?

A Place

Our Veranda had white concrete floors, it had long, horizontal long, smoggy windows. They were always open. It was bright light in there. A glossy sun warmth warped the hard white room. A blue-green circular woven carpet was supposed to be in the center of the room but was constantly scooting one way or the other. My brother's and I's pulsing, pushing feet bunched it this way and that. There was a small red table, with two small red chairs. The table was sized for children 8 and younger. It was always sticky with the glue not thick enough to pull off. I would squirt Elmers glue on the table and wait for it to harden. Tugging the the gooey white bubbles from the table was so satisfying. The cornerstone of the room was a tepee. It was a conglomeration of beige's. The pointy top had a little tuft of straw poking out. It was supposed to be authentic. A hole is carved out the side I have to drop to all fours to scramble in. Inside it is a furry sanctum. The light is splintered, probing through the thin material. Stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows are piled three thirds of the way up, some spill out the opening. It is always hot and we don't have air conditioning so the fluff of the objects is slightly matted by humidity and the sweat of my brother and me. It isn't complete comfortable in there not just because of the moisture but because of the books we drag in. The corners of Make Way for Ducklings and The Very Hungry Caterpillar jab in your neck and behind your knees.

Young Adult

Where's Waldo

My parents brag that I could find Waldo at 16 months. It sounds accomplished. Makes them seem accomplished by the transitive property.

Little House on the Prairie

 My dad read to me every night sitting on the floor by my bed. I would peer from a hole in my nest of turned-grey teddy bears and beanie babies with tags still on because they were going to be “worth something someday.” I liked seeing the words while he read. I couldn’t read ahead but the visual aid of the slick sliding words relaxed me. Sometimes I would pop a hand out from the pile and rub my dad’s head. I didn’t particularly like the feel of his stubbly hair but he liked head rubs. He read to me every night until high school.

The Giver

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Pyle, loved loaning me books. It was okay, though, because in fourth grade it was still cool for the teacher to like you. I think she thought she was keeping me away from drugs. She loaned me The Giver. I read it sitting in a musky, army green armchair in my Grandmother's basement. I cried and cried. I had no control since confusion was making me cry, not sadness--confusion that wouldn’t let me process how to stop the tears. I didn’t read the last couple chapters of the book till 5 years later. It was the closest i'd come to not finishing a book.

Algebra 1

I was on the cusp of young adult literature; teachers no longer applauded me for consuming books with secondary characters, subplots, and symbolism. Books with chapters were no longer "chapter books" they were novels. I was transitioning from "some pig" and magic tree houses to broken families and self harm. I was fascinated by books on the Hollocaust. I wondered if that made me a bad person. No one had ever told me if it was wrong to watch people die in your mind. I read bulky paperbacks bent into my math textbooks never got in trouble. I 

The Princess Bride

Favorites were very important in middle school. The term “best friend” is a pact not with just said friend, but with the society of adolescence. My best friend was- Milena, my favorite movie was Dirty Dancing, my favorite book had been A Wrinkle in Time. When I finished The Princess Bride I went through the turbulent process of changing loyalties. I took pride in my favorites they made me feel self- actualized.

The Hobbit

A neighborhood boy and I were playing the messy game of self-aware pre-dating. We would have sharp moments of talk, bursting laughter, and stinging silence.  I told him my favorite book was The Princess Bride, it was a book with enough quirk that I thought I came off as open and sophisticated. His was The Hobbit. I hadn’t read it so the conversation bumbled back to The Princess Bride. The boy said he had read it and thought it was funny how some people thought that the author was being truthful during the personal anecdotes. I had thought that the author was truthful. I felt dumb and lied to. 

Breakfast of Champions

The summer after high school graduation I fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut.  I worked at a warehouse and spent eight hours a day counting merchandise-- earrings, love god statues, marble geese-- into recycled chicken crates.  My co-workers were special needs adults and volunteers from an assisted living home for the elderly. Ricky volunteered from 2-5 on Wednesdays. He would tug a scratchy stool over to my work table and smear price stickers onto items while I processed them. Ricky had a large face, he had a wife that proposed to him when he was 21 and was supposed to have three children but she hadn’t worn her seat belt. I spent every break reading-- J.D. Salinger, Chuck Palahniuk, Khaled Hosseini—and Ricky noticed. He gave me a tired back broken copy of Breakfast of Champions. He asked every Wednesday how I was liking it. I told him it was eloquent and inspiring, I think he knew I wasn’t reading it. I finally read it my first week of college. The people and social life I had been told would dominate my time hadn't appeared yet. So instead I fell in love. I used my complimentary college pen to etch "So it goes" and "Etc." onto the crease in my elbow. I was flirting with the idea of a tattoo. I knew I didn't yet have the commitment capabilities but I also knew someday I could.

Relations
Eula Biss
Notes from No Man's Land

The format of this essay seemed to closely parallel the first essay I read by Biss "Time and Distance Overcome." Both began with engrossing stories that transition into her main point in unexpected ways. I didn't expect the custody battle over a child to turn into a race issue that pulled on past feelings of slavery and ownership. I would love to find a overarching topic that can be used to draw force a variety of personal experience and clinching historical events and stories like Biss is able to do. She connects memories of her mother, living in different areas of New York with her cousin, a mixed race women, census's, doll studies, and twins all within this one essay and yet until I wrote that I hadn't noticed how many topics she covered. She moves form one to another so seamlessly it seems like the natural course the thought process would go. She keeps the reader hooked by braiding the topics through each other and beginning the next anecdote before concluding the one she was on.

I drew enjoyment from Biss's unexpected humor. She brought forth a inquisitive and relatable voice. For example she threw in statements such as "there is something moving to me now about the idea of that man, who left Germany in the 1920s, just as the Nazi party was gathering power, laboring at his lathe, perfecting the fancy legs of a maple dining table for a beloved toy known as Black Doll."

Questions:

How does she find stories such as the one of the mother who had biologically unrelated twins?
In her personal stories how much does she rely on emotional truth?

Introduction
Ira Glass
The New Kings of Nonfiction

I grew up with Ira Glass. He narrated errands with my mother and drives to youth group in the next burrough over. He is through and through a story teller. In his writing you can feel his excitement at sharing with the readers all the stories he has collected. Every time he mentions a story or an author included in the larger text he has to give the reader a brief synopsis. Glass is able to make a story enticing in just a few lines-- "Coco Henson Scales describes what happens inside a trendy New York restaurant and-- even more interesting-- inside her head as the hostess there. in her story, celebrities show up and preform  exactly as you'd want them to, but never get to see in print. it is possibly the greatest New York Times "Styles Section" feature that will ever be written." I found his melding of personal thoughts on creative nonfiction and specific excerpts to back up his claims very smooth. It worked well since he set a precedent for it from the beginning, he started with a story.

I love his advice on having empathy for ones subject. Give stories warmth. Glass informs the reader immediately on his take on Creative nonfiction. He thinks it can be informative and fun. His voice is strong and chatty as he states "Phooey" to all who think journalism should avoid amusing. I found his excitement contagious and after finishing the Introduction went on to skim the remainder of the book reading whole chunks from stories.

The piece is organized through different touchstones Glass sees essential in creative nonfiction going from entertainment to plot and ideas, then empathy for your subject.


Questions:

How did Glass end up at a place where he had the authority to edit a book on creative nonfiction?
How does he go about finding such unique stories?

On the Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting
Lee Gutkind
Creative Nonfiction

This essay took awhile to find its stride. Gutkind's voice didn't feel developed until he began to chronicle his life. I began to feel invested in his story once he began writing. His first college English class which hooked him on writing hooked me as a reader. The prologue and first section felt dry and informative without the spark of creative nonfiction he was championing. Some information was essential to set the stage of what people believed of creative nonfiction at the time but other pieces felt overdone. There was too much name dropping and details of authors and specifics I knew wouldn't reappear enough in the following sections to be worth my time.

I enjoyed the way he let us discover the magazine with him. Even though as readers we are aware of the ultimate outcome as we hold the 50th edition, he carries us along as he hunts for sponsors and submissions.

Tension is built well in the final scenes before he speaks at the AWP conference. The essay is mostly informative so the lengthier description within this section set it apart-- "so i walked around town and drank an extra coffee, with my heart literally pounding with anxiety."

If he had to what would Gutkinds simplest definition of creative nonfiction be?
What does he feel the current attitude to creative nonfiction is like?

Field Guide to Resisting Temptation
Sarah Wells
Brevity

Wells begins by creating a connection with the reader through mention of topical practices-- song lyrics on Facebook and Youtube music videos. I thought Well's divulging that the "you" was having an affair was brilliant. "When you think of something funny text it to your husband," she writes. This was such a subtle way to slip into what began as breakup angst that something larger was going on. I think that is what I would most like to mimic from this author, her ability to create tension. The story isn't suspense but she propels you through it by taking her time leaking exposition material. For example the line "Later they will know it wasn't , was you, all you. And him. And him" is so strong as information is slowly shared. The reader feels how the author both completely blames herself but also him. The blame isn't split but entirely whole for each of them.

I was captivated by the specifics in the world created-- "baked sweet potatoes and guacamole" doesn't just offer description but offer insight on the type of person the "you" is. She is someone how eats sweet potato fries over regular. That is a concerned person, someone who has planned in advance. 

I would like to question the author why she decided to use the second person. I am a fan of the third person but wonder what she thought it would add to her story. I would also like to know why in such a short essay she spent so many words setting the stage with the anecdote on online communicating.