5 Things I've learned.

I'm stealing this from a University of Texas publication. It was inspiring.

Robert King, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics —46 years at UT

1. Students remember you, not what you taught them. Life always comes down to people.
2. Don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Obvious.
3. Never, ever, whenever, talk more than 35 minutes. Lecture in class, lecture anywhere: 35 minutes max. People, especially students, tune out after that. People would rather hear themselves talk and ask questions, than hear some old phearte rattling on for an hour plus.
4. Quit relying on those goddamned “devices!” Start reading books again, at least one or two a month. If all you do is log on and read blogs, then you are doo doo.
5. You want a friend? You want a “mate?” You want a wife, a lover? Get a dog. Much better in the long run. I recommend a wirehaired fox terrier, but any dog will do.

link here: http://www.insideourcampus.com/2011/03/5-things-ive-learned/

Tender Mercies.

I entered the Texas Monthly blogging contest, where the Alamo Drafthouse and TM magazine put on a rolling roadshow of Texan movies...I wanted it so bad. I didn't get it. So here is my failed entry.


There are some films that hit you in your gut. There are some that hit you in your heart. And, there’s the occasional one that comes out of nowhere to hit you right smack in the nose, making you fall to the floor weeping like a two-year-old child. Tender Mercies did such a thing to me. I was blissfully unaware of the cathartic emotional breakdown I would go through in the 100 minutes of watching the 1983 Texan drama starring Robert Duvall and Tess Harper. It had popped up on my “suggested movies” list on Netflix, and being the good Texan and classic country music fan that I am, I willingly obliged.

Now, as a 26-year-old, I realize I haven’t had time yet for any real heartbreak and troubled past and drinking problems. But that’s how I realized what an honest and unflinching and true performance Robert Duvall gave--because I felt like a middle-aged, recovering alcoholic country singer after watching him as the faded Mac Sledge.

This film couldn’t have been shot on a sound stage in Los Angeles or a generic small town with good tax incentives in New Mexico. No sir, this kind of tangible magic could only happen in Waxahachie, Texas. The little town you glance over on your way to Dallas or Fort Worth, it’s a testament to big blue skies and waves of dead grass shimmering in the summer heat.

What I’m most drawn to watching Tender Mercies again is the sound--or lack of it. The scuff of a boot scraping mud against a door frame, the wind ruffling Sonny’s hair, Duvall’s sun-weathered hands delicately stroking the strings of his guitar--each sound is so pure and piercing that it further contributes to the movie’s stark, simplistic feel.

Not one note is overdone or false or pretentious. The acting, the weathered Mariposa Motel, the Slater Mill Boys band...it takes me back to a place I hope still exists. And Wilford Brimley. MY GOD Wilford Brimley. Is there a better character actor out there? (My apologies to Karl Malden.)

Though I wasn’t alive when Tender Mercies came out, I hope to sit on the steps of the Waxahachie courthouse this June and feel its emotional honesty in my gut, my heart, and my nose once more.

I just hope I can keep the crying to a minimum.

I wrote a poem in five minutes

I am in a writing workshop right now that I'm really enjoying. Writing workshops always make me think of the Todd Soldonz film Storytelling. Which is a really effed up film that I adore! There is something so cute and community college-y about sitting in a circle with a bunch of middle-aged women discussing Sandra Cisneros short stories. I love it! I was supposed to write a poem "inspired" by Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "I Am Offering This Poem." I forgot to do it and wrote this frantically at my desk ten minutes before the meeting.

So here you go.

I have nothing else to give you,
But a tiny one-bedroom house
With a shaded yard
Where your dog can run free and we can sip coffee in the mornings.
The front porch gets the best light,
But the back is quieter.

I can cook you meals.
Nothing that would be featured in Saveur or Food + Wine,
But I’ll buy the best ingredients
I’ll splurge on organic vegetables for you
And I’ll plan the menu for each night while I work during the day.

We can play hooky once a month
And go to the movies on a Tuesday afternoon
And sit in the dark with the retirees and unemployed,
And talk about our future with buttery popcorn and stale boxes of candy.

I will write bad poems about you,
That I will only share after a couple glasses of wine
And even though you might cringe at its earnestness,
You will think of it later and blush.

It’s all I have to give
And I hope it’s enough
But if not
I’ll find more.

Tennessee Me.

I just wanted to be Miss Cheerwine.

Backstory: There was a contest on Facebook to find the next "Miss Cheerwine." Cheerwine is a super Southern bottled beverage favored by NASCAR drivers and Carolina frat boys. So--me in a nutshell. I had to write an essay and submit some semi-sexy pictures. I wrote my essay in about thirty minutes, as it'd been sitting inside me for ten years or so. Done. Easy peasy. I had this shit down. Then I tried to submit it. Oops. Error. Pictures too sexy? No. No, it wasn't that. I was too fucking OLD. I was 26. The cut-off age was 25. I desperately tried to change my DOB. Nope, Facebook was too smart for that. Okay...panic set in. I had written a Paris Review-worthy Cheerwine essay and it deserved to be read. So...nothing to do now but lie. Make a fake Facebook page. (This was all done at my work, by the way. No shame here.) So I made the fake Facebook, where I lied about my age, and also about my current city, as you also had to live in the Carolinas or Tennessee to qualify. The whole thing was just becoming a giant failure of my life but I had to complete this sad task. Needless to say, I did not win Miss Cheerwine. But I now have this essay to remind me of what could have been...


I’m a Southern girl through and through. Born and raised in Austin, TX, I’ve always been amazed by the beauty and history of our southeastern states. From the sandy shores of North Carolina to the plains of West Texas, our history runs true and deep.

Cheerwine represents the South at its finest. A locally owned product with a history that goes almost as far back as North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the bubbly beverage is the only kind in our country still produced by the same family.

To call it a crowd-pleaser is an understatement. The love of Cheerwine borders on fanaticism. This is a brand that benefited from crowd-sourcing and user-generated content and word-of-mouth before all those silly Internet buzzwords even existed. Cheerwine is successful after 90 years because of one simple reason: it’s delicious. And it invokes memories of long, hot, Southern summers: lazy afternoons in hammocks, front porch talks with your neighbors, pickup trucks and swimming holes.

I see myself as the ideal Miss Cheerwine. My experience in public relations, event planning, and customer-facing jobs are ideal for the role. A brand ambassador is essential in knowing what makes their brand unique, and communicating their love for the product and its history to the world. I would be honored to represent Cheerwine and its effervescent brand this summer. I see 2011 as the year Cheerwine becames not just the soft drink of the Carolinas, but the cherry-flavored beverage of our great country.

Friday Poetry

New thing I just decided two minutes ago. I'm going to post a couple poems I like each Friday. They can be super shitty/corny (by me), or they can actually be good (by someone else). My coworker is real sweet and sends me lots of fun little poems and stories every week. So today I have a poem by Sherman Alexie. After having worked in the airline industry for a couple years, I can definitely relate:

Sherman Alexie (born 1966)

"On Airplanes"

I am always amused.
By those couples—

Lovers and spouses—
Who perform and ask

Others to perform
Musical chairs

Wherever they, by
Random seat selection,

Are separated
From each other.

“Can you switch
Seats with me?”

A woman asked me.
“So I can sit

With my husband?”
She wanted me,

A big man, who
Always books early,

And will gratefully
Pay extra for the exit row,

To trade my aisle seat
For her middle seat.

By asking me to change
My location for hers,

The woman is actually
Saying to me:

“Dear stranger, dear
Sir, my comfort is

More important than yours.
Dear solitary traveler,

My love and fear—
As contained

Within my marriage—
Are larger than yours.”

O, the insult!
O, the condescension!

And this is not
An isolated incident.

I’ve been asked
To trade seats

Twenty or thirty times
Over the years.

How dare you!
How dare you

Ask me to change
My life for you!

How imperial!
How colonial!

But, ah, here is
The strange truth:

Whenever I’m asked
To trade seats

For somebody else’s love,
I do, I always do. (149-151)


from War Dances. New York: Grove, 2009. Copyright 2009 by Sherman Alexie.

And, being that I'm in an unusual, romantical mood (for reasons I'm not ready to go into) I will also post this:

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt. [1978]

Pavement on a rainy Thursday.

Do you think Stephen Malkmus is embarrassed by this video? It's absolutely precious how unself-conscious he is in this: waggling his eyebrows, striking some pin-up poses on a rock, wearing some baggy K-mart sweater, practically making love to the camera. I miss the early to mid 90s. People are too worried today about being ironic and jaded and cool to just let their hair down and kiss a rock.