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For fun, and because I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about all the places I’ve been these last few years.

1. “Into the Airwaves,” by Jack’s Mannequin. Makes me think of sitting on the floor in my first apartment watching someone try to fix my computer. I’ve always been drawn to the evocative quality of his first album. One song on it has inspired two (totally different) short stories, though at least for the moment, this one brings back the strongest memory—though I’m not entirely convinced the memory is real the same way it is in my head.

2. “All These Things that I’ve Done,” by The Killers. I love this song, and this song brings back lots of small happy moments (more impressions really), but it also brings back one very sad one. My second party while I was in Spokane, I helped pick a song, then turned down an invitation, and had one hell of a bad night.

3. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. I’ve read this book a few times, and I loved it. In graduate school, however, in front of the professor I most respected and wanted to impress, I named this as the best book in the past twenty years—not because I thought it was a great answer, but because it was the only work of literary quality I’d read from the past twenty years. Since then, I’ve made a real effort to keep up with modern literature. I’m rereading this book now, and I’m hoping that it’s sparkle doesn’t dim for me, but so far it’s only good, not great.

4. Cold days, when the heating vents turn on in the morning. Our dog Jack used to love when the vents came on, and he’d run over and curl up over top of the vent. That in turn always reminded me of when I was a little girl and would do the same thing while my dad got my breakfast (Cheerios with brown sugar) ready for me.

5. Morrill Hall. I once spent a fall afternoon wandering around campus with a camera and a friend, and he took some cool pictures of me on the steps of Morrill Hall. Art, beauty, friendship—and now I hear they’re going to tear the building down.

6. Girls to the Rescue, by Bruce Lansky. I’m not even sure I still own a copy of this book of fairy tales (all of which have the females as heroines rather than damsels in distress), but I still think of it from time to time—and whenever I hear the word persnickety. I took this book to an MSU football game once, and it poured, and I tucked myself completely under my poncho and ate a bag on M&Ms while I read this book.

7. My senior year varsity soccer sweatshirt. And it’s not for the reasons you might think. I left this sweatshirt at the home of this guy I liked (though to this day I can’t tell you what I saw in him beyond someone else to help keep me as down on myself as possible), and after I finally broke away from his abusive attitude, I gave up on ever getting it back. And then one day it was left at my work for me. Then, a few months later, a friend of mine mentioned this guy in the context of having seen my ex-boyfriend, and I flipped out. I still can’t look at the sweatshirt, and I swear it still smells a bit like that house, but I’ve hidden it away against the day that it brings the good memories of soccer success again.

8. Long stretches of highway vanishing into the horizon. While I was in Spokane, feeling so very alone, I used to think that if I only had the guts, I could take the highway all the way home.

Read part I here.

April

April was not a good month, but I’ll start with the good things. I started my new position with the State, and I took a trip to Florida to visit my cousin, Erin. We spent a few days at Disney World, and we went to the beach and the zoo. But my last full day there, I got a phone call from my parents telling me that my dog, Jack, had died. My parents found him dead in his bed in the morning. Then, at the end of the month, my dad needed surgery for cancer that had been diagnosed earlier in the year. The bright light at the end of the tunnel, however, was that we brought home a new dog, Molly. My dad wasn’t ready for a new dog, but we asked him while he was…um…slightly out of it in the hospital. So that’s how we got Molly.

Suicide, by Edouard Levé
I read a review copy of this book, and you can find my review online here, so I’ll be succinct. Loved the book. Also, this was another book I read in translation this year (from the original French).

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, by Ally Carter
This is the second book in the Gallagher Girls series, and I brought it with me to Florida as my fun read. This book did suffer from a bit of the sophomore book syndrome (did I just coin a new phrase?), but it was still fun and exciting, and I liked getting to know Cammie and her friends even better.

My Happy Life, by Lydia Millet
I’d read one of Millet’s short story collections in 2010 and really enjoyed it, and so this was the second book I picked up by her. We’d run an interview with her in Willow Springs, and I was really intrigued by the premise behind this book: that of a character who is happy despite all the bad (horrible) things that have happened to her. It’s a quick read, but very captivating, even when you’re unsure whether you really should be enjoying it, because some really awful things happen to the narrator. I’m probably not making a good sell here, but this was yet another fantastic book I read this year. Read more…

For 2011—a year without school for the first time in twenty-one years—I bumped my goal back up to 52 books and 20,000 pages. I hit the first goal (57 books), but I missed my page goal by quite a bit, for the first time in years (only hit 18,932). This will probably take a series of posts, but I’ll go month by month and then finish up with a general overview of the year. So. Here we go.

January

January found me still working at the State of Michigan, though I mostly kept to myself, especially after they forgot to invite me to the Christmas party (then I got scolded for not making an appearance) and then left me out of the secret santa exchange. This is also the month that I really started reaffirming my commitment to writing. I took some time off after grad school (my advisor wasn’t wrong about there being burnout after twenty-one years of school), but the new year felt like a good time to get back into it, and so I started 100 Days of Writing—a project where I tried to write 100 out of 110 days. The month was good for writing, but even better for reading. I got through nine books.

Cathedral, by Raymond Carver
Carver is hit or miss with me, but this book was mostly miss. The only story I remember from it now, a year later, is the title story, and I’d read that one before. There’s something really beautiful about this idea of these two men sitting there and drawing, but the execution falls flat for me. And now, I suppose the hate mail begins for me.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
This was a reread and, to be honest, I only waited a few hours after the ball dropped to restart it. Reading the book in a new year meant I could count it again, and even though I’d only first read it three months before, I couldn’t wait to get back to it. And just like the first time I read it, I loved it. I’ll be reading the book again this year, too, though not until right before the movie comes out in March. Read more…

I’ve got less than eleven months left on my Day Zero project, and I’m only a bit over halfway done. So now I ask you, dear reader, to help me out. Here are some goals I still see as possible, with some help.

• go to NYC (who can I visit?)
• learn a new song on guitar (what’s an easy song?)
• go ice skating (who wants to go with me?)
• take a yoga class (who wants to take one with me?)
• go horseback riding (who has a horse?)
• play kickball (who wants to help me start a team for this summer’s league?)
• go sledding (who has a sled?)
• host a wine and cheese party (who wants to come?)
• visit three museums (suggestions?)
• go to a Detroit sporting event (who wants to come? I’m thinking Tigers.)
• go swimming in a lake (who wants to come?)
• play poker at a casino (who wants to come with me?)

So. Any takers?

I sit here on New Year’s Eve, listening to music from ten years ago and debating whether or not I should wear my nice black shoes to my family’s Christmas today. We usually have the Hemond Christmas between Christmas and New Years, but this feels so late. I’ve already moved past the holidays, preparing myself for a new year. There are only a few things I have left to do before the clock strikes midnight tonight, and I’m ready to put this year to bed.

It’s been a year of extremes. We had cancer, back surgery, and Bell’s Palsy just in my immediate family this year. Our dog died. I spent half the year with insomnia so extreme it wasn’t uncommon for me to miss an entire night’s sleep. But I also got a new job at the university, published my second piece of writing, and rejoined the halls of literary journal editing. I started coaching a soccer team of eleven-year-old girls. My sister graduated.

But there are holes, too, in my experience, as there always are: friends who went unseen yet again, plans that fell apart or that never fully formed, possibilities left behind, choices made that so fully exclude others. Things left undone, and there aren’t enough hours left now.

I’m not big on making resolutions; I’ve never understood why the turn of the calendar should be the prompt, but here I am today, using the same coming occurrence to look back, to plan forward.

2012 will be many things. I will complete my first year with Michigan State University. I will turn twenty-eight. I will attend my ten-year high school reunion. And there are other things that I hope for: to become published (fiction this time), to finally move into my own apartment, to be kept on at MSU with a full teaching load, to travel back to France and learn to speak the language well enough to not need English while I’m there.

And now I’m listening to What Sarah Said, and it all feels so appropriate.

Perhaps it’s the weather, or the holidays, or genetics, or one of a thousand other things, but I always get a bit melancholy at this time of year. Reflection can do that I think, and for me, planning can, too. If I did set a resolution this year it might be to become a better planner. Not better at making plans, but better at letting them go, at making new ones, at thinking on my feet when things take a turn.

It’s hard being back in my hometown now, feeling as if I’ve changed so much and yet so much around me is the same. I’d have never guessed, five or ten years ago, that I would be someone uncomfortable with comfort. I remember sitting in the car with a boyfriend once, maybe nine years ago, talking about that awful John Mayer song and debating comfort. But even then I said I wanted something more. It’s funny how even in change, some things stay the same, simply maturing, blossoming.

Now I leave, to go spend a few more hours inside this year. I will try to finish some of those things I’ve left undone: I will deliver my final Christmas gift, I will try to finish reading another book (Rivethead), I will read more story submissions. I will think on all the things I haven’t done: phone calls I haven’t made, things I haven’t said, stories I haven’t finished writing. So much, so much unfinished. Some, I will do in 2012, some I will try to push into the back corner of my closet and forget about, to be packed in boxes and taken with me wherever I go, until I finally forget, or find the courage to do.

May 2012 be a year of many blessings for you. May the stumbling blocks be ones you can climb over, teaching you important lessons as you do so. May there be smiles and laughter. And may we all find the strength to do those difficult things, or to let them go. Happy New Year, everyone.

In The Hunger Games, one of the main plotlines is, to put it in the simplest way possible, a love triangle. I remember being on Twitter prior to the release of the last book, and people couldn’t stop posting about whether they were Team Peeta or Team Gale as they waited for the author’s reveal. And now, now that we’re only a few months away from the release of the movie based on the first book, people discuss the three leads’ looks as much (if not more) than they do their acting abilities.

But I don’t think Suzanne Collins intended her books to be love stories. Katniss is far too concerned with other things to want to deal with choosing a boyfriend. I get a strong sense from her that she could live easily without either male (if “easy” is a word that can accurately be applied to the life of the Mockingjay), and that’s why it cuts Katniss so much when, in the third book, Gale says that she’ll pick the man she can’t live without. As if it’s about need. As if this type of romantic love is just as essential to survival as eating, breathing.

I’m beginning to get to that age where many people say it’s time to be thinking about starting a family, settling down. What people mean when they say this is that it’s time I found a man. Five or so years ago, I would have agreed. Back then I was stuck on that ever-pervasive idea that a woman’s worth is measured by the man or men who have interest in her. But like Katniss, I know better—or at least I do now. So many stories focus on love as the main plot (or at least one of the main plots). This is especially true when stories are aimed at girls or women. In many ways, I fall victim to this easy story myself, though I’m much more interested in the stories where relationships fall apart, where people just miss each other, where people are together but oh-so-wrong for each other.

Young girls—and even older women—need stories that speak of other things. Even in a trilogy like The Hunger Games, where the love story takes a back seat to much more engaging and important questions (of survival, of human nature, of our capacity for evil and destruction, of picking ourselves back up again and again, etc.,) however, the question of romantic love is too often the one we find ourselves focusing on. (Point: I was on a blog the other day where Hunger Games fans were asked what one question they would ask Katniss if given the chance, and a huge number asked questions about one or both of the boys in the story. In her own first-person narrative, her own character and her own story have come secondary to that of her potential loves.)

A few days ago, I happened to run into an old acquaintance who was in town for the holidays and who had brought his significant other with him. I remember those days of splitting the holidays, of one meal here, a long drive, then more holiday cheer, food, and gifts. I always felt bad that I had to work to be gracious, because while I really enjoyed spending time with my then-boyfriend’s family, I hurt for the time I missed with my own. There’s love for you, but of a different sort.

There’s not much point to that story, I suppose, except to note how pervasive the idea of “the other half” has become in our culture. I don’t like the idea (implied or otherwise) that I need someone else to make me the best I can be, that by myself I am only a part of something that could be much larger. That sharing a bathroom sink and a dresser means love means ultimate achievement means the thing that should be striven for.

In the end, Katniss does get married, but it’s not a love story. She makes a choice, but she doesn’t make it out of some fluttery feeling in her stomach. It’s about hard work, and shared experience, and companionship. It’s when she’s ready, and there’s no sense that she would be lessened in any way had she never been ready. The story, in the end, is about her, and not about her+Peeta or her+Gale. It’s about her strength, fear, survival, experience, growth. It’s about her humanity, and, whether fiction of not, that should be enough for anyone.

A few random things that have been knocking around in my head lately.

1. Where are all the giving trees? One of my Day Zero goals has been to donate off a giving tree, but the one that’s usually at the mall was not set up this year. It’s less than two weeks to Christmas, and my Day Zero challenge finishes next November, so I think I’m going to have to mark this goal up as a failure.

2. As of yesterday, I have added another business to the list of places I try my best to not do business with. Dominoes, Amazon, and now Lowes, though I’m sure there are others that I just can’t think of right now. This holiday season, while I am buying two gifts from Amazon (couldn’t find elsewhere), I am still doing most of my shopping at small or locally owned businesses. Some days it seems like I’m single-handedly trying to keep Schuler Books and Music in business.

3. I don’t have a problem with being told “Merry Christmas,” but I do have a problem with the assumption that it doesn’t bother some people. Even though I’m not religious (I think some of my family still don’t know this, but seeing how I haven’t said Grace or gone to church in years, I’m hoping this isn’t a bombshell), I was raised in the Christian tradition and am therefore in the majority in this country. I can only imagine, therefore, that for some people, constantly having your religion overlooked and forgotten is frustrating and painful.

3.1. I was thinking the other day that I’m much more interested in the stories that surround Chanukah than I am in those surrounding Christmas. I have theories as to why I feel this way, but I think I’ll leave those unsaid. When I mentioned these thoughts to my dad yesterday, he arched his eyebrows and said, “Are you sure you want to write that?”

4. Gift giving is hard. I’m realizing, as I get older, that a lot of the gift buying I did as a kid/teenager was probably crap. I think I bought a lot of gifts that cluttered people’s houses and that they didn’t want. These days I try really hard to get people things they will like, appreciate, and use, and I’ve noticed that gift giving has gotten increasingly difficult.

5. A sad thing about the holiday season is how good television shows stop airing new episodes. To make room, I can only assume, for all those holiday specials. The next episode of Once Upon a Time isn’t until January!

6. My dog Molly apparently hates the Christmas—or at least Santa Claus. She ate a Santa hat today. And she did not like the reindeer ears I put on her while we decorated our tree. As an aside, my cats also refuse to wear hats.

I haven’t stopped working toward my Day Zero goals, but I have mostly stopped updating about them. Why? Because I’m lazy. Here are a few I’ve finished in the past few months:

• add five new pieces to my online portfolio
• join a professional organization (got a complimentary year-long AWP membership, but it counts)
• find a job in my desired career field
• try a new ice cream flavor
• try five new foods (the final three: blueberries, strawberries, lobster)
• learn my credit score
• get rid of 101 items
• buy a pair of jeans that aren’t Silvers
• buy 25 books from independent book stores
• donate to three causes/organizations I care about

I’ve also increased my progress toward the following

• read 50 new novels
• reevaluate 10 books from my childhood
• finish HP2 in French
• finish book of French verb review
• publishing a story in a print journal
• read five books of poetry
• lose 5 pounds, get down to 115 (which now means lose 10 pounds; two months ago it was lose 13 pounds)

I plan on getting to the spa soon, and on getting through a lot of the holiday-related goals. As of right now, I have 46 done and another 14 started. Still a lot to go.

Michigan State’s season opener was Friday, but more importantly, Friday was my last day working for the Michigan Department of Education. I may take on some very minimal contract work from them in the future (writing stories or test items from the comfort of my home), but I gave my notice, turned in my badge, and left the Hannah building for the last time.

A few weeks before that, you see, I had been hired as an assistant professor at Michigan State University. I now teach two sections of one of the first-year writing courses offered at MSU, and I’m focusing my course on new media literacies.

It’s nothing short of wonderful to once again be part of the MSU community. I have an office in Bessey Hall (the building I spent more time in than any other while I was a student in the professional writing program), a faculty parking pass (which still excites me  beyond reason), and a brand new MSU ID (though I really don’t look like I’ve aged nine years). My colleagues are good, my students are good, and campus is beautiful.

The downside to all of this is that I’m not full time, nor am I eligible for benefits (my contract is only for one semester at the moment; I’ll find out in October if it will be renewed). I also took a slight pay cut. But, at the end of the day, when I come home exhilarated, excited to do some specific lesson planning for the next class, and ready to go back the next day, I know I’m in the right place. I still would love to move to editing some day, but if that day never comes, I have a truly magnificent job and community.

I’m departing from the usual in this blog, and especially the tone of my most recent post (though perhaps recent isn’t the best word) to bring you something silly and fun. Silly and fun? you ask. Why yes, I am capable. I know it might be a surprise. So without further ado, here are ten things I would do if there were one, maybe two more hours in the day.

1. Exercise more: I’m trying to be more active, to do at least one physical thing each day. Mostly because I miss the way certain parts of my body used to look, no small bit because it’s rather embarrassing when I’m winded after two flights of stairs (and I NEVER take the elevator), but also because I spend way too much time sitting each day. With more time in each day I would go on more bike rides, go on more walks with my dogs, finally start an ab program that I stayed faithful to.

2. Learn more: It’s no secret right now that I’m learning French (I try to spend at least 15 minutes a day on it), but less well-known is the fact that I have a stack of old textbooks that I have every intention of reading. Sitting on my shelf right now I have books on chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, linguistics, feminist theory, and literature. And yeah, when I do find the time to pull one of those out, I do the exercises.

3. Bake more: I love to bake, especially bread. And not with a bread machine either. No, you’ve got to get your hands in there. It’s the physical connection, the smell—the absolutely yummy food you get to eat. I can’t even think of the last thing I baked, though. Maybe those ginger molasses cookies at Christmas?

4. Play more video games: I really try to make an effort to not spend too much time in front of the television—TV doesn’t interest me all that much unless it’s the Food Network—but I do have a soft spot for certain video games. But right now I do limit my time rather severely. Plus—and this has nothing to do with how much time there is or isn’t in the day—my Xbox is broken right now.

5. Sleep more: I like to sleep, I do. But I also am not a fan of sleeping in until 11. I like to be up by 9:30 at the latest, but when I stay up reading until 4 a.m. some nights, I end up really tired the next day. I really do need my full eight hours.

6. Be more social: Sometimes I think my friends must think I don’t want to hang out with them, because I’m very good at being busy when they call. With more time I could better show them that, yes, I care.

7. Straighten my hair more: Okay, I know this one sounds silly, but I stopped straightening my hair regularly about the time I started graduate school. There were just other things that needed to be done—it felt silly to spend half an hour with a straightening iron in front of the bathroom mirror. But—call me vain—I really do love having straight hair.

8. Spend more time on forgotten or new hobbies: I’m really, really good at filling my time. And there are so many things in life I wish I could try, could be good at. Take my guitar playing. It was a hobby for a few years, but now I hardly ever touch it. And I’d really like to finish that one cross stitch piece I started four or so years ago. And I’d really like to learn more about history. And I wish I knew how to use Flash. I wish I could identify the birds that come to our bird feeder without looking in the book. There’s so much knowledge out there, and I really do want it pretty much all of it.

9. Read more: I have so many books that I want to read, and yet I don’t often seem to have the time to really dive in to books. Oh, I read pretty much daily, and I do spend some nights reading when I should be sleeping (see number 5), but I wish I had time enough that I am able to read faster than I buy books.

10. Write more: Too much lately this has been the first thing falling off my plate. I’ve got work, I want to write a book review, I try to stay networked, I’ve got errands to run, I’ve got to plan for that community ed class I want to teach in the fall… I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that. My family/friends want to spend time with me. The dog is lonely. I’ve got another darn migraine. And somehow, too much of my writing is being done in my head. Despite being number 10, this is the number one reason I’d like more time. Though I do worry that even with all the time in the world, I’d still find reasons (numbers 1-9 for starters) to put off writing.

But I’m working on it. I promise.