Charlotte told me C.D. Wright is kind of a bitch

But I love this poem, the idea behind it, that it's driven by personal disclosures. I'm going to write the Tim version of this poem, and I'm going to disclose odd things, true things, entirely too many things. Just to see what happens. Watch out, y'all.

Personals
C.D. Wright

Some nights I sleep with my dress on. My teeth

are small and even. I don't get headaches.

Since 1971 or before, I have hunted a bench

where I could eat my pimento cheese in peace.

If this were Tennessee and across that river, Arkansas,

I'd meet you in West Memphis tonight. We could

have a big time. Danger, shoulder soft.

Do not lie or lean on me. I'm still trying to find a job

for which a simple machine isn't better suited.

I've seen people die of money. Look at Admiral Benbow. I wish

like certain fishes, we came equipped with light organs.

Which reminds me of a little known fact:

if we were going the speed of light, this dome

would be shrinking while we were gaining weight.

Isn't the road crooked and steep.

In this humidity, I make repairs by night. I'm not one

among millions who saw Monroe's face

in the moon. I go blank looking at that face.

If I could afford it I'd live in hotels. I won awards

in spelling and the Australian crawl. Long long ago.

Grandmother married a man named Ivan. The men called him

Eve. Stranger, to tell the truth, in dog years I am up there.

Cooking to Assuage

It's a Tuesday night, and I'm sitting at home, y'all. Normally, I'd be out at Barley's for pint night with the boys spending two dollars after two dollars on Sweetwater 420. But the boys, at least two of them, are packing up tonight for big moves on Wednesday and Thursday. Being the ESFJ I am, I've volunteered to wield boxes and furniture in exchange for very little, probably a few beers, on both days. But really that's fine with me. I'm a natural born helper. I get my kicks from feeling like I've done something useful and nice for another. If you don't believe me, check out my personality type.

Anyway, with all this free time I've been cooking up a storm. See, I cook to assuage. I cook when I'm bored or when I've got the blues, and particularly when I feel homesick or lovestruck. I cook as a means of replacing an overwhelming emotion with something productive, creative, and time consuming. I guess I should be writing poems, and I do that too, but cooking has more tangible results. The proof is in the pudding, and there isn't so much delayed gratification. I need commendation now, thank you.

Earlier today I made some veggie quesadillas with things I had on hand: flour tortillas, yellow squash, eggplant, portabellas, cilantro, and cheddar cheese. I wouldn't know how to begin to recount the recipe since I just chopped and sliced and grated and satueed and toasted until I had something that tasted good. But here's about what I used:

• 1 yellow squash
• 1 baby eggplant (both local!)
• 1 portabella cap
• 1/4 white onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• about 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• a couple pats of local unsalted butter
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper to taste
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice around the pan

Man, did it smell good as it sauteed. Looked pretty too. I piled the filling in between two tortillas and topped with grated cheddar, then toasted the whole thing in the toaster oven, sliced with a pizza cutter, and topped with my delicious homemade salsa.


It was quite yummy, and I think the filling would also be good over pasta or maybe in lasagna.

Ashley came over tonight right in the middle of Jeopardy! because I had a bunch of boxes for him. A pack rat from way back, I kept all the boxes I moved to Knoxville with in a storage room adjacent to my apartment. It was a stroll down memory lane to see all my TCBY and Subway product boxes go away in his Camry, like a piece of my past life as a fast food employee to be forever lost in some storage shed in McMinnville, TN. Oh well, they're just boxes. Plus, in return Ashley gave me all his baking stuff: mixes, sugars, bottles of vanilla extract, more cocoa than I'll ever use, rolled oats, chocolate. I used my bounty to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I plan on bringing to the Great Moving Event tomorrow. A true Southerner never shows up at an event with out a dish, and I'm hell with the cookies. Once I was unable to successfully complete a batch without burning the bottoms, but I'm learning, y'all. Mr. Sisk has a mean oven eye now.

My cookies turned out just scrumptious, though if I had them to make again, I'd have cut back on the sugars. They are a bit sweet, and that's saying something, because I've got a killer sweet tooth.


I plan to bust them out when we need an energy boost tomorrow. Hope Ben and Ashley like them.

Welp, that's what I've done with my Tuesday. Now I'm going to run and catch Law and Order: SVU. Elliot Stabler is a dream.

P.S.-- I had picture of my food, and I tried 4 times to resize and post them, but the skill escapes me. I'll work on it later, but now SVU!

What I Was Going To Write

I was going to write about how I've been depressed the last couple of days, as this has been The Weekend of Goodbyes.

I was going to tell you all how quickly people come and go in graduate school. How some of my closest friends in Knoxville all decided to play the cruel trick of making me love them and then leaving, all of them in the same week.

I was going to tell you how much I will miss Ashley, his random text messages about country songs and Miley Cyrus. His super cool dog, Mercutio.

And Becca, the nicest person I've ever met, my favorite party hopping mate, my friend.

And Emily, the nicest Ohioan, the gentlest soul I've found.

But I was walking today on the nature trail, and a little blond boy on training wheels looked up at me, smiled and said, "It's a beautiful day today."

It is. My summer's been full of beautiful days because of my beautiful friends, and I wish them the best of luck.

Only three weeks of summer left, then I go into Mr. Sisk mode for nine full months. I'm scared and excited.



To all my buddies moving on to bigger and better things, good luck. I will think of you often.
To all my students (all 46 of them!) entering my classroom door in August, welcome to college, y'all!

I Want to Ride My Bicycle...

I've been doing some thinking, y'all, and I've decided what I really need is a bicycle. A zippy one with a bell and hand brakes and a detachable front tire and an alloy rear rack. I want one that is good for street cruising but that can also take the rugged hills of Knoxville. I don't want a mountain bike, since I won't be mountain biking. I just want t road bike that I can ride to school since I live close enough to do so and forgo purchasing a $162 parking permit that only lasts 9 months.

My dream bike would look similar to this one:

I can get that beauty there for $124.00 on line, but I'm leery of buying a bicycle on line. Dear God, how much would the shipping be? And are they expecting me to put it together after its shipped in a million little pieces? I can barely put my Crock-Pot together, and it only has two!

I checked out Craigslist and found an awesome sounding bike for $75, which is perfectly within my price range. But when I emailed the seller for a picture, some country gal named Debbie down in Seymour, TN, she told me that she did not see the sense in developing an entire roll of film for one picture to scan and send to me. Hmph. I told Deb that I don't buy goods without first seeing them, and therefore she could keep her damned bicycle and shove it up her...well, I didn't go that far.

So I'm bikeless still.

I also checked out the Goodwill down the road from my apartment and found a whole slew of bikes for $15 a pop. However, none looked like they were in working order, and I'm not looking for a fixer upper. I want one I can hop on and ride right out of the store and into the sunset. Or at least until I get too hot and need to stop under a shade tree for a spell.

So it looks like a bike shop or the Walmart is my best option. The thing is, I checked out the bike shop near my house, and most of their merchandise cost as much as my car. My name is not Lance Armstrong; I don't need a $2,500 racing bike. And as far as Walmart goes, well, I just hate going there. Not because I'm a liberal pseudo-intellectual who finds the corporation repulsive; I'm actually not anti-Walmart (which doesn't mean I'm pro-Walmart, either), but don't tell my grad school counterparts that lest an argument at the pizza buffet ensue (we'll save that story for another time). It's just Walmart makes me mad, with all the long lines and rude salespeople and items housed in the most poorly thought out places--like sandwich bags not beside the trash bags. That store makes my blood pressure go up, so I try to avoid it for the sake of my mental and physical health.

But I might need to take a whiskey shot or bong hit or meditation session and just go in, get a bike, and get out. It can be like a reconaissance mission. Hell, maybe I should even take a rifle with me. Just kidding, y'all. Still, I shudder to think about braving the wilds of the falling prices, though.

I also can't stomach spending over $100 on any single item at once. I get nauseous just thinking about it, which is completely irrational. I regularly spend that much in a day or so on groceries, gas, and dinner and a movie with friends. But I feel like I'm getting more for my money then for some reason. I should really get past this over-$100 fear if I'm ever going to be a successful adult or parent or benefactor of the Barak Obama campaign.

I'll keep on toiling over the bicycle situation until I either just break down and get one or cough up the money for the parking pass. Either way, I'm sure all the worry warting will cause my hairline to recede even more. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for a cheap bike for Mr. Sisk

Note on the Fridge for Barbara Kingsolver

Dear Barbara,

I curse you and thank you for many things as I read your latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Firstly, you've made me feel sufficiently guilty for all the foods I have consumed in my life. To my credit, I never considered that when I buy produce from California, it's drenched in fossil fuels from transcontinental transportation. I also didn't realize the health and economic monstrosities of high fructose corn syrup. Now I do, and I feel badly for drinking a Coke today.

But I'm trying, Barb. No more fast food for this young man, and I'm doing my best to kick the soda pop habit. Really, the one I had today was the first I'd had in a week. From here on out, I swear off CAFO produced meat, and I'm cutting back on meat altogether. I'd already quit the red meat, but my dearly beloved poultry is taking a dietary hit, too. I'm shopping at the farmer's market, despite how scanty it can be, and I've been making my own pantry staples from local ingredients: pasta sauce, salsa. I'm even going to try my hand at bread making. Because I care about my local community, and I want to do more to decrease my carbon footprint. I don't think recycling is enough anymore.

Thanks for showing me that I don't have to be a vegan to eat responsibly, because I really don't get the health, economic, or moral benefits of such a dietary choice, and I don't think you do either. And thanks for showing me that just making small changes in the way I eat will help me make the world a better place. But please don't hate me if I still shop at Kroger occasionally. I'm a poor graduate student.

Sincerely,
Tim

The Cars of My Life: From Rattle Trap to Hatchback

Thanks, Donna, for posting about the cars of your life. It inspired me to do the same, as I was only just thinking fondly about my old cars the other day.

When I was a little boy my favorite toys were Matchbox cars. I liked Matchbox better than Hot Wheels because the latter were just too unrealistic. Cars that looked like lizzards, school buses painted blindingly silver, rocket ship cars, no thanks; I've always preferred verisimilitude. I used to fantasize about the type of car I'd get when I was a teenager. I remember being in love with VW Beetles, and right around the time I was getting ready to get behind the wheel, the New Beetle was introduced. I wanted a green one so badly, I could taste it. I remember telling my aunt when I was around 14 how I wanted my first car to be a New Beetle. She just scoffed. "You'll get a rattle trap piece of shit, just like we all did," she said. Boy was she right. I started driving in October 2000 when I was 15. My first car was a 1989 Toyota Tercel.

My Tercel looked exactly like the one in the above picture: 2-door sedan, mud flaps, maroon. It had a carburetor instead of fuel injection, and the damned thing took forever to warm up. I was the first of my friends to have a car, and I was on top of the world in this little Dr. Pepper can. I loved driving around listening to low-quality home recordings of my angry girl music c.d.'s on the Tercel's tape deck and pumping my own gas. Momma bought it from a used car lot in Nesbit and it had an amazing new car smell, mixed with the satisfying stench of motor oil. Daddy made me keep a half a quart of Penzoil in the trunk because the Tercel "only burned a little oil."
Sadly, my love affair with the maroon Tercel was short-lived. After being a licensed driver for a mere two weeks, I totaled the car on my way to school one foggy morning. I couldn't see a thing, swerved into the left lane, and hit a mini bus for Phoenix Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church head on. To make matters worse, I was dressed as a Spartan cheerleader for costume day during Homecoming week at school. Luckily, the only thing that got hurt were my feelings, and I went on to school late that day after the car was towed and my mom and step dad lectured me endlessly about being a responsible driver.


My next car was a 1986 Toyota Camry. Unlike the zippy red one above, mine was the color of dirt and it went dead in the rain. Daddy found the car for $2,500 at a used car lot in Memphis, and upon discovering its low mileage and that it had only had one owner, he lovingly scooped it up for me. I hated that car at first. I remember when I got it. It was the first of November my 10th grade year, and Momma made me ride with her down to Daddy's house, but she didn't tell me why. When we got there, he was standing beside the ugliest car I had ever seen. Boxy. Dirty. Old womanish. My heart sank, because I knew this was to be my new car.
My response to the car was not as joyous as he had hoped for, especially since my father had spent his afternoon washing, waxing, and scrubbing its tires. At times, I could be a bratty teenager.

I learned to love that Camry, though, and I still think about it fondly. I loved the way its gear selector fit the palm of my hand, and I haven't had a car since that has fit as well. The damn thing had a leaky distributor cap and it would go dead every time a hard rain came. Even when I was driving down the road. More than once I was certain I would be killed when my car stalled out in the fast lane with a redneck in a pickup truck zooming up behind me. Luckily, the only incidents I had in that car were minor. Once, it went dead on me on I-240 way out in East Memphis because the timing belt broke. Once I had to have the muffler replaced. Jeffrey backed into the driver's side door early one Christmas morning on his way to the deer woods. But it was only a minor dent and the door still opened. I drove that car until almost the end of high school, when after working and saving for 3 years I bought this beauty out of a man's front yard for $4,500:

This beauty is a 1996 Geo Prizm LSi. Mine looked just like that one, those same hub caps, that same beautiful baby blue. It was the car of my dreams when I was 17. That Prizm had everything: power locks and windows, a factory c.d. player, cruise control. I had the nicest car of all my friends until Candi's daddy bought her a brand new Pontiac Grand Am, but I always rectified the situation in my head by saying at least I bought my own car. I burned up the roads in this baby. It took me to New Orleans and back twice. I got my first speeding ticket in that car. And my second. And my third. All within the same month. It got me through my first two years of college, making the 180-mile trek across I-40 from Horn Lake, MS to Conway, AR many, many times. Only mishap I ever had in it (besides the speeding tickets) happened the weekend before I was to move away to college. I was 18 and always in a hurry. One night, I was leaving the tennis courts at the park by my old high school and backed right into a lamp post. It knocked a big dent in my bumper and broke out a tail light. Daddy got the light fixed, but he made be pay for it.

Dent and all, I loved that car and was really sad to let it go. But Muffy made me a deal that I couldn't pass up. She told me she'd sign one of her cars over to me if I let her sell mine to my aunt. Muffy's car was older but in better shape with less miles and no body damage. So I switched, but I still hate to see my aunt in my old car when I'm back home. She doesn't keep in clean or love it the way I did.

Which brings me to my current car, a 1992 Honda Civic hatchback. Mine's white, and that's the single thing I don't like about it. I can't keep the tree sap off of it, I can't keep the fenders clean. But I do love the zippy little car. I have been driving in since 2005, and it has been an invaluable asset in moving me from all the apartments and dorm rooms where I've lived. Seriously, y'all: fold down the backseats and you can fit a small island nation in the back of my car. My Civic is sixteen years old and only just now has 100,000 miles on it. It gets great gas mileage and has low emissions. That car has pedaled me all over I-40, West to East, from Conway to Knoxville and back again. I recently had to put a new muffler on it, but the folks at the shop gave me a deal because I told them I teach at UT. People really do bleed orange up here, and now so does my car with its Volunteers vanity plate, courtesy of my father. I plan to drive this baby until it absolutely falls apart, which might be a while because I hear Hondas last forever. Which is good, seeing as how personal cars are an endangered species, or so I hear.

My Mother's Handwriting

I was a writer long before I knew how to string words together to form meaningful phrases. Even before I could tell a good story, I could write with the prettiest penmanship any four-year-old trailer trash boy has and will ever have. I thank my momma for that. Of all the things she's taught me, most important are always to say yes ma'am and no sir and that pretty handwriting is testament to a pretty soul. My momma has the prettiest soul. It blooms in the curlicues of her S's, the precision of her cursive T's.

When I was a little boy about to embark on kindergarten, my momma sat me down at the dining table and taught me cursive handwriting. On tablets of lined paper, she would write words in luscious script--dog, car, Timothy--skipping a line between each so that I could mimic her cursive underneath. This was our after supper ritual for weeks before school started, a sort of call and response akin to Catholic prayers. My mother bidding me beauty, and me reciprocating. I learned cursive writing before I was adept at writing in print.

Once I started school, my kindergarten teacher, bless her heart, didn't know what to do with the too nice, too sensitive little boy in her class who always wrote in cursive. I remember being constantly told that I'd learn that kind of handwriting in third grade, that in kindergarten I must print. But I liked the curlicues, the connectedness of cursive letters. I liked how it bound me up in my mother.

Things came to a head when my teacher, having had enough of my haut couture penmanship, escorted me into the hallway for a private scolding. I cried uncontrollably for the rest of the day, because until that point I'd never been scolded at school. My momma told me from day one of my academic career that if I ever, ever got in trouble at school, things would be even worse for me when I got home. She assured me she'd know if I had gotten in trouble so there was no point in keeping my transgression secret from her. A precocious but overly-dramatic child, I was certain my mother would kill me for writing in cursive.

But she didn't. Instead she made cursive handwriting special , by creating writing time with me each night at home. I was to print at school, but at nighttime, after my bath and before sleep, I'd lay across her bed in an over-sized t-shirt with a pen and pad and we'd write. Not stories or poems, mind you, but words. Cursive words, usually names, family members', pets'. That's how I know all of my aunts', uncles', and cousins' full names, from writing them out with my momma each night.

Years of schooling have deteriorating my beautiful hand. Exquisite penmanship is an art form that takes patience and leisure that in-class notetaking doesn't afford. When I leave notes for my momma back home--short things telling her where I've gone, when I'll be back, what I'd like for her to pick up at the store--she scowls at the disrepair my handwriting has fallen into. I've taken her gift and thrown it by the wayside, she thinks, my mother whose handwriting still flourishes and flicks across the page.

Do the Whirlwind

I've been quite the man about town this week, y'all. I got a little dab of culture on Wednesday when, walking to the farmer's market in Market Square, I saw a sign for free admission at the Knoxville Museum of Art. I decided I'd make a detour on my way back from the market, and with a canvas bag full of white cucumbers, fresh peppers, and a $5 loaf of bakery fresh whole grain bread in tow, that's precisely what I did.

The museum has four galleries, so it's on the small side, but one of them is dedicated entirely to East Tennessee art, and I enjoyed that. Local art really helps me get the home-feel of a place, and Knoxville is feeling more and more like home for me. The collection ranged from folk art (which I proudly admit to admiring) to more traditional oil-on-canvas type stuff. I'm sure there's a more precise term for what I mean, but I don't know too much about art, and I'm moderately ashamed.

But only moderately.

There was also photography exhibit called A New Tribe which featured photos of local women of color and their bios underneath. Interesting photos, and I even knew one of the women featured, but the best part of the entire exhibit was Ms. Nancy Taylor Hawes' bio indicating her position as Deaconess at Zion A.M.E. Chapel and Licensed Exhorter. I thought I'd found my new calling until I did some research and realized these licentiates don't drive demons from the damned and suffering. Guess I'll stick with being an English teacher.

Since yesterday, I've been hosting an old college friend whose coming to UT for his Master's in English in the fall and an old high school friend who wanted an excuse to get out of Mississippi for the weekend in my cozy, one-bedroom apartment. Having house guests usually stresses me out, but these two are phenomenally easy to deal with, the types who don't constantly need to be entertained because they like to venture out into the city on their own. So that's what they are doing while I'm at work in the Writing Center for Athletes And Athletes Only (and they will kick you out if you are not one, dammit. Ludicrous). It's a pretty sweet job, though. I get paid to be available if a football player needs help with a paper. But they never seem to need help, so I blog. Or read. Or daydream about being a homeowner.

It's been a whirlwind week, and next week's only going to get twistier. But I'll just dance right on through with my best shoes on. You should join me.



P.S.-- Crazy Texas Mommy, when are you going to tell me about your jaunt in East Tennessee? And pix of you in the Dolly clothes ASAP!

When Life Gives You Lemons, Put Them In Your Sweet Tea and Thank God You're From the South

I've been MIA for nearly a week because I made a little jaunt back to the homestead to celebrate the fourth with my family and old chum from my pre-college years, Christy. One week, over 800 miles, nearly $150 in gas, a whole slough of new teacher clothes, two fireworks shows, and a cooler full of homegrown food later, I'm back in Knoxville, preparing meals for the week and doing what I can to tucker myself out so I'll sleep well tonight. I have to wake up at early thirty tomorrow to be on campus by 8 o'clock and work in the Writing Center. Oh, the Writing Center. And I thought I was through with it. But hey, it's easy money for four weeks' worth of work.

Whenever I go home, I come back with a carload of crap, most of it really good stuff. Between Momma and Muffy, I can't make it across the state line without a boxful of kitschy junk from Goodwill and fresh food from the farm. I hit the motherlode this trip, acquiring so much food from Muffy that dear sweet Daddy had to sacrifice his new blue ice chest so I could get my goodies home without them spoiling. Here's the list:

8 homegrown tomatoes
2 gallons of freshly picked-and-snapped green beans. (I did the picking, Muffy did the snapping)
2 grilled chicken breasts (leftover from the fourth of July barbecue)
1 head of lettuce
1 dozen fresh eggs from Muffy's sitting hens
2 cucumbers straight out of the garden
1 quart jar of home canned tomatoes
1 pint jar of home canned fig preserves
1 pint jar of home canned orange marmalade
1 quart jar of what Muffy says is peach preserves but its clearly labeled orange marmalade
1 loaf of bread
1/2 bag of plain potato chips (left over from the fourth of July barbecue)
1 cabbage

Then

Momma gave me a 2 quart pitcher that holds just the right amount of iced tea for me, two large baskets I've used in my linen closet for organized toiletry storage, and a delightfully trashy recipe for Mountain Dew cake that I'll probably make only because mother dear ranted so much about it (recipe to follow).

And

Daddy not only gave me his new blue ice chest, but he also put a University of Tennessee vanity plate on the front of my little Civic, replacing the old, dented UCA one, and he filled my tank up with gas.

Plus

I hit the outlet mall in Tunica and got a nice pair of slacks, a green striped v-neck t-shirt, two oxford shirts (in pale pink and pale blue), a black sweater, a sea green zip up sweatshirt, and two pairs of argyle socks for only $41.37. My Muffy raised a bargian shopper indeed.

Today I've been cooking up a storm, preparing green beans and potatoes, cabbage soup (sounds nasty but tastes divine), corn bread, a baked chicken thigh, and seared mahi mahi (it was on sale at Kroger). I love cooking more than just about anything, except maybe eating and scribbling. Oh, and reading. And that's all I've done today, which is why I love my life. And I love my family, the good country people who make sure this Southern boy has plenty to eat, wear, and sit around his house to collect dust every few months when he rolls into town.

Now, some pictures from the trip!

I am the queen of this double-wide trailer


My seven-year-old cousin, Lily, modeling the fish goggles I gave her.


Action shot of my brother, Jeffrey, playing with Lily


Me, complete with battered nose, and Muffy. And Rosie the chihuahua.


Sunset on the Mississippi River, July 4th


Christy and me at the fireworks show. Note the green striped v-neck t-shirt and battered nose.


Fireworks over the River

Finally, Momma's Slap Your Momma Mountain Dew Cake

• 1 lemon cake mix
• 1 pkg. lemon pudding mix
• 1 (12 oz.) can Mountain Dew
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs

Beat all ingredients until smooth. Pour in a greased bundt pan. Bake 25-30 minutes, until done.

Momma knows I've been on a healthy eating kick recently and she told me in all earnestness that I could make a healthy version of this cake with sugar-free pudding mix and diet Mountain Dew. Bless her heart.