CHRIS ARVIDSON

words and art
 

OK, so I'm not keep up quite as much as proscribed by NANO rules, but I am working! I figure it's gotta be OK with a broken leg right? That's what I'm going for.

Anyway: Here's some words for you:

My little town, just about 5 miles up the road from the university center, afforded us a comfortable hide out. We contributed civically, served on boards, made nice with everyone really, without ill regard toward those with that “what church do you go to?” state of mind. Hell, we laughed those people off. They were kind of quaint, really, if sometimes annoying, in their persistence in the Jesus way of going about life.
Sure, sometimes I bristled at public meetings where Jesus was invoked in what I regarded as civic, not religious business. I tired of hearing the church bells, frankly. What seemed a delightful, small-town interlude on Sunday mornings, eventually seemed intrusive. Who were these “Christian Soldiers” and what were they moving “onward” to, anyway?
But, those of us academics here in the self-satisfied in town, along with our brethren cloistered up the road in the enclave of academe, we were above it all. Frankly, we didn’t pay enough attention -- beyond being annoyed. While we weren’t looking, beyond our own little snug homes and careers, those Christian soldiers were swiping things off us, and we weren’t just looking the other way, we were paying no attention at all. Read More 

Hanging tough, laying low, doing the Christmas movie/writing thing friends. Leg is up, computer is on my lap. So, here are some of my words from Day 9 of National Novel Writing Month:

“I know, James. The truth is, the shriller people got, the more I just wanted them to shut up. It’s not that I didn’t agree, I just didn’t see how getting all riled up was going to make any difference. I still don’t see what we can do about it. In fact, I told Rita this morning…”

“Rita! Holy shit, she must be having a stroke. Did she stand up and start hollering at the President during the meeting?” James was, I’m sure, remembering the tenure “discussion” at the last Faculty Senate meeting. Rita had launched a monumental harangue at that meeting, and she’d been met with silence, even from her own colleagues, who by that time had simply felt ineffectual at best — scared of their own jobs at worst.

“That’s the other news I have, James. Rita wasn’t at the meeting. She was home packing. She’s gone.” I just dropped the bomb. Boom. James just stared at me dumbfounded, pushing the floppy hair off his face, his mouth, literally hanging open. Read More 

Day 8 started out poopy. My leg was hurting and there was new swelling in my foot and ankle. I went in to the orthopedic doc's office, instead of waiting for the appointment schedule for the 17th. Of course, I was just paranoid - read too many entries on Web MD. or something. So, I dragged Henry to Boone, even though he is feeling crap with a terrible cold (timing is everything) himself. They x-rayed my leg and confirmed the fracture. The swelling is within the normal range. So, I got a new ace bandage, instructions to take the pain meds as prescribed, ice/heat alternating, lay low, use the walker at least to next week when I can probably switch to a cane, no driving for now… Like I said, poopy.

Anyway, I have done my words today anyway. Just as a kind of "F you" to the fractured-bone universe. Here's a few for you:

“Hey, Ivan, what’s the pup’s name?”

“Good morning, Rita. Hope you slept well and that it’s not too early. We’re early risers — we both always had 8 a.m. classes.”

“Ha, and here I thought you were early risers because you were farmers.”

“The dog is Ole’s, but I like him, too. His name is Doug. After the Douglas Fir tree - it’s one of Ole’s favorites. I told him that was a dumb name for a dog, but now that I’ve lived with him, I have to say, it suits the furry bastard.”

“Come here, Doug, and say hi.” The big standard poodle happily trotted over and enjoyed getting his thick curly head rubbed. Somehow, Doug was the perfect name for the big brown beast.

“God, Ivan, do you have to make this dog wear an orange vest during hunting season? He could completely be mistaken for a deer or a bear.”

“As a matter of fact…” Ole came into the kitchen, his scruffy graying hair gone haywire and sticking up everywhere, Doug’s got an orange vest he wore last fall.”  Read More 

It's NANO Day 7 and I'm behind. Not grievously mind you, just a bit.

Here's what happened. After I got my words all done for day 4, I went off to the courthouse here in Ashe County to finish up my duties for the election board. Mainly this consists of hanging around the election office, but it also includes some official stuff like opening all of the mail in absentee ballots we approved and putting them through the machine and signing off on the tally. Then we have to be there to receive the phoned in unofficial results and sign off on that tally and everyone brings in their materials from the precincts and up in one of the courtrooms on the third floor we set up screens to post the voting results as they get called in. I was walking down the stairs from the courtroom to our office on the 2nd floor with our Election Director and, of course, running my mouth, and BOOM I stumbled on the last step and hit the floor.

Those of you reading here that know me will be impressed to know that the only thing I said was, "what the hell" and not anything more colorful. It hurt. I dragged myself over to the bottom step and sat there thinking about it for a few minutes. Neither John or I could figure out quite what I'd done.

So much was going on, so, I slowly limped back into the office. One of the folks helping that night was an EMT, so she checked me out, and got me ice for my leg. We filled out an "incident report" for the county. I confess that I, at one point, did apparently go pretty white as I was sitting there, but it didn't seem like I'd done anything major. I pretty much stayed there in that chair and got through the next couple of hours of official duties.

My husband came in with the ballots and election stuff from the precinct he worked at all day a little after 8 p.m. Since I'm a frequent faller, he didn't bat too much of an eye. I drove myself home. But damn it did hurt.

And it hurt through a sleepless night, too. Early the next morning (Wednesday) amidst listening to and reading about all the un-fun results, I announced that after a shower I would appreciate him taking me to the ER. Which he did. And after and x-ray, I found out I had, in fact, broken my GD leg, no shit.

As broken legs go, it's not a bad one. It's the fibula, on the right side on the outside of my leg. No cast. Orthopedic visit in 10 days. They did want me to get a walker, however. That thing. Oh. It has so many unpleasant associations. I used it Wednesday and Thursday, but today I'm feeling pretty OK without it. I think it's more for when you're taking the Vicodin anyway.

So that, my friends, is the story of how I did not write any NANO words on days 5 and 6. They are a pain med haze. All I really remember is the brownies that Becky brought over yesterday.

However, I am not letting this broken leg thing stop me. I am back in the saddle today, making a serious dent in my word count. I'm not completely caught up, but very much in closing distance, and I'm sure I'll be able to get totally caught up to my per day word count by tomorrow. On that note, here are a few of the words I wrote today:

It was welcoming and cozy warm. As I opened up my pack to get out something to sleep in, I heard the boys continuing their conversation downstairs. The old vent register in my room that opened up to the kitchen provided a direct pipeline to their conversation. I didn’t know whether to quietly listen, or holler down “Hey guys, remember I’m up here and I can hear you…”

Oh, what the hell. I decided to just get ready for bed and not focus on listening, they’d probably soon be off to bed, too.

Then I heard Ole say to Ivan, “What do you honestly think we should do, Ivan?” And that was the end of me trying to be polite and ignore what they were saying.
“Well” Ivan was saying,” I’m just thinking that maybe we should think about moving across the border, too, maybe before winter comes.” I could hear him moving around the kitchen as he was talking, probably finishing cleaning up after dinner. Read More 

OK - I got home for long enough this busy election day to do my words! Aren't you proud of me? I sure am. Here's the words for today:

One of the old guys from the Philosophy Department, Henry Tabor I think, stopped short of the door he was about to walk out and hollered up at the President, “And who will choose the three representatives - if we are allowed to ask?”

There was that stupid separated-from-reality smile again from the President. “We haven’t yet ironed out all of the procedures in that regard. We will be sure to get you an official memorandum before the mid-term.”

You know that scene in Animal House where the snotty frat guys are making their presentation to the student government board and the student audience starts barking/sneezing “bullshit?” I swear, some of our faculty actually started doing that. Others were hissing.  Read More 

Well, it's Day Three and I'm still on schedule. It was tough because I had an early morning job to do and so had to be elsewhere when I'm usually writing. But I got back to it this afternoon and got the words done before I have to be at the Election Board for a meeting to approve all the absentees that have come in by mail by 5 today.

Tomorrow will be tough -- I'll be out visiting precincts by 6:30 a.m. I should be able to work in a couple of hours of writing in the early afternoon, before I'll have to be back at the courthouse for the duration. Mostly, that means answering questions and monitoring results once the polls close at 7:30. With all that is computerized anymore, we'll likely have preliminary results by 9 or 9:30 in our county races, no matter the turn out. I'm guessing I'll get home by 10-10:30. There are a couple of races I'm watching around the country that I'll tune in to and, of course, my news source for Election Night on the television has got to be Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. That'll save my head from exploding!

Here's your words from today's writing:

“So, I just said FUCK THIS, and packed up. They had screwed me out of any classes I had any interest in teaching, and school was about to begin. Fuck ‘em. Let them hire a last-minute adjunct for slave wages to teach those classes. They, literally, had provided mandatory syllabi and you weren’t allowed to choose your textbooks - make any additions or changes to the class. What the hell did they need me for anyway? They didn’t. So, I just made them happy and left. It’s what they’ve been wanting the last few years anyway.”

“But, you left more than your university, you left your home and friends and husband…” Ole wasn’t going to let her off quite so easy. Read More 

So, I think to keep my own feet to the fire, I'm going to post a very, very short bit of my daily NANOWRIMO.org writing here on my blog.

If you're interested in following along with me, or, if it might spur you on yourself -- please check in with me and, as always, leave me a comment!

Here's today's snippet:

“OK, enough about us, now it’s your turn.” Ivan went for the pie server, and without asking permission, sliced off a healthy chunk, plopped it on a plate, handed me a fork and slid it over.
“I’m a college professor…was a college professor.”
“I thought so,” Ivan noted quietly, looking right at Ole.
“Kindred spirits, eh, Ivan?” Ole replied. Read More 

Well, here it is. November 1. Time to start, time to finish, time to organize, put together, figure it the f*** out already! It's putting up or shutting up time. NANOWRIMO is here, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is you write 50,000 words in the month of November, and you do that by writing 1666 words a day. That's not really that many. I got the lion's share of 50,000 done last year, not quite 100% successful, but I've been working with my writing group ever since on what I did get done. This year, I'm going to write those 1666 words every day, and I'm also going to be dusting off what I've already done and try to bring some organization to it all. My goal is to have a serious draft completed by the end of the month.

It was an inspiring morning to start this year's adventure. Overnight we had 4" of snow and I woke up early, around 6 a.m., it was still dark. What a wonderful sight out the back door when I flipped on the light. Snow. Real snow. Not just pretend snow or snow to tease me. It's continued throughout today, although it's petered out considerably.

And it looked great from my upstairs office window, too. Which was good. Because I got those first NANO words done. Here are just a few sentences:

“City kids. Young. Probably not even 21 yet. They’ll be OK, they’re young enough to adapt. You though, if you don’t mind my saying, appear to be more in my era. We don’t see too many folks our age making the crossing out here and on foot. You running away, or running to?” Read More