Updates

Oops. No "What I'm Reading" this week. #2 and #3 will be posted together on Tuesday. Blame it on Obama. Anyway, here's a teaser:


Q: Your prose seems to demonstrate a healthy loathing for dullness. Poetry readings these days often tend to be shockingly dull events. What would be your idea of a truly entertaining poetry reading?

A: A beautiful, naked 25 year old woman reading "Tintern Abbey" exquisitely well and in a Northumbrian accent.


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I'm on a mission to eat more fruits and vegetables. For some reason, I never manage to buy the right amount of fresh versus frozen/canned. Something always goes bad. This week--about 1/3 a crate of clementines.

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I'm very glad we're finally going to learn why Izzy can see/talk to/sleep with her dead ex-fiance. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a beautiful man and a pretty good actor, but I'm not a fan of characters coming back from the dead. Unless the show is called Supernatural, in which case, people coming back from the dead is perfectly understandable. Which reminds me--how did this guy get such a bum deal? Two parts on two networks on the same night at the same time and both characters get killed? He should fire his agent.

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I'm getting very excited about AWP. I need to buy some shoes.

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I'm about to watch The Holiday. I hope it's good. Which reminds me. I am dying to see Revolutionary Road. Or maybe I should just read it.

Clams

If you were driving west on 224 yesterday, you would have seen something like this. I'm kind of disappointed in fall this year. I don't know if it was the extended summer (90's in the first two weeks of October) or what, but it seems the leaves are falling off before they turn. For the most part. I do have to say that the weather was nearly perfect yesterday, the sky just the right shade of blue.

My family liked the chocolate pie I made, and the ranch bread was all right. Let's face it, Traceys will eat anything with melted cheese, so it wasn't too difficult to make people happy. But my god, the smell of clams was driving me insane. To tell the truth, I can't remember the last time I tried a clam or anything made with clam juice, because I hate the smell. And I don't know about you, but I can't eat something that smells bad.

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My mom sometimes reads my blog. She asked me yesterday if it was very professional to use the acronym WTF in something that a future employer or publisher might read. Now, you should know that my mother hates "the f word" and any word that sounds like it or is a euphamism for it. "Oh fudge" is a little offensive, frigging or fricking is just as bad as the real thing. She once caught me flipping her off (my bedroom door was shut, she came in without knocking--I would have never done it to her face!) and didn't talk to me for three days. But WTF seems pretty tame to me. What do you think?

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A while back, I mentioned my final project for my non-fiction class--the one about me being a klutz. I wrote a 5 page mini-essay a few weeks ago that morphed into something more about body image and family, but I think they can work together. Now, I have to write a five page object essay for tomorrow, and the object I'm writing about is my folks' kitchen table. Somehow, some way, these two little essays are going to fit together. I'm not quite sure how yet.

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The rejection letters have been streaming in steadily over the last week or so. About half of my HFS has come back already. At least it's a constant reminder to keep sending stuff out.

Ingredients

Almost every year, my family puts together a clam bake in the fall. It's a great tradition, but I hate clams. In fact, I hate clams so much that I won't eat anything that was cooked in the steamer with them. And I certainly won't eat the chowder.

Since I don't eat the clams, I make a bunch of munchies. I have a serious weakness for finger food. So, by this time tomorrow, all the food in the picture will become: zesty ranch bread, spicy sausage dip, and some sort of chocolate mousse pie (I forget what the cookbook calls it...hence the lack of cheesy adjectival description). The only one I've made before is the sausage dip. I hope the rest is good.

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I don't know what my deal is with blast-from-the-past photos, but here's one of me and my nephew (now roommate) scrubbing clams. That's the best part about not living at home any more. There are really few things grosser than scrubbing the sand and grit off of live clams. (Oh, and this is during my never-ending awkward phase, around 14. And I had a cold. I'm not always a mouth breather.) You know, I forgot I used to be taller than Michael. Weird.