Peer Response, Week 5

Response to Melissa's Oddity, Week 5

Melissa,

I noticed that you used something from your junkyard in this piece, the admonition to "'go outside of Azeroth' with your friends." I thought that was a loaded quote and was glad to see you use it. That on-screen reminder to embrace life outside of the game speaks to the obsession-like interactive gaming trend, but also makes me think of manufacturer responsibility.

It reminds me of the warnings on alcohol and tobacco labels, or the notices at Six Flags about how pregnant people or those with back problems should avoid a particular ride. Certain warnings are required by law, others are there as a kind of voluntary disclaimer that might offer protection (to the company) of some sort in case of a lawsuit. I wonder if Azeroth's on-screen prompt hints at something similar or if it's meant only as a cute reference to its own addictiveness, one that holds no seriously intended meaning or concern. You could use that angle as a jumping-off point to expand your essay, I think.

Since warnings or suggestions such as this one are typically there for our protection (or to suggest that the manufacturer must think for us in order to protect itself), you could even bring in your junkyard quote about the squigly words meant to "prove you're not a robot." I guess it prevents spam? The same kind of screening process works when you're buying tickets for a concert or something, maybe to prevent ticket scalpers from scooping up all the good seats first. I would love to read a piece about these warnings and what they accomplish or don't.

Also, the details in this entry are fabulous. You give us the population groups I remember from "Lord of the Rings," and sprinkle in those I don't know, like Draenei and Worgen. The idea that you're "pewing" things is fun to think about. I think your prose might benefit in a few places (as would my own) by switching out some of your "is," "was," and "are" verbs for some beefed up verbs. But that's an easy fix. This piece, I think, holds a lot of opportunity for a longer, quite fascinating tale of "Warcraft" and "warnings."

Improv, Week 5

(testing my prompt for this week)

Gorilla Warfare

"Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me." My daughter, swept up in the latest app for I-phone, keeps getting bashed by primates in her pursuit of something I have yet to identify. But I relate to the ambush. My gorilla that day was laundry. I, for the moment, measuring my life in scoops of Tide. I used to proclaim, with some sense of originality, that while polishing one piece of my life, I neglected other pieces dissolving undetected into disarray. The mounds of laundry the product of dustless bookshelves, spot-free drinking glasses, tubs free of iron stains. Then I learned everyone feels that way. I'm no exception.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. The five-pager due on Tuesday, buried in the prose of the hundred-pager up for discussion on Monday. My brain itches the word "write," my planner etches the word "read." What, Milton, should I remember from your tale? It won't be relevant. The relevant gorillas sneak up behind me in the robust analysis of a classmate. I remember fire. And ice. Damn primates. Reading the prose was not enough.

A gorilla. The word still evokes an image of my sister-in-law's dad, years before I was born, climbing into the gorilla habitat at the zoo, looking for a fight. I'm not kidding. He was inebriated, Denise says. That's her retelling the story he told her. I didn't know smuggling alcohol into a zoo was an option. Or desirable. He climbed in on a dare. He lost the fight. Lost two teeth. And some blood. Roger woke up the next morning in his own bed, where his friends left him and his mom found him. The gorillas I've seen seem sedated, content to let their leathery palms rest on the ground, staring in one direction for drawn out intervals. They looked bored, uninterested in the gawking audience, unfazed by our hankering to see them do something. Anything. Roger, I guess, determined to test the quiet. I'd like to see them in the wild.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. Once, while buying groceries with my two youngest children, anxious to check out with the essentials in tow, I let drift through my ears Emily's quiet request to find a bathroom. I accused her many times before that of a bizarre fascination with restroom decor, certain that she only wanted to see what every toilet in every venue in every town looked like. Wasn't there anything original anywhere? But this day, comparing the fat content of fat-free refried beans and original refried beans, I failed to respond. I checked items off my list, Emily jogging my memory as I grouped cans, boxes, toiletries and produce on the checkout belt. "Almost done," I promised distractedly. As I handed my card to the cashier, a flood ensued, an embarrassing apology, an intercom call for disinfectant and mop. I was sorry. So sorry that I didn't heed to the gorillas behind me. I failed as a parent that day. I hugged her tightly, trying to undo her embarrassment at something she couldn't help, accepting all the blame myself, as I should. Tomorrow, I would do better.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. The empty dog food bowl. The postponing of another date night. Sebastian trailing me with a ball in his mouth, wagging his tail. The stained coffee pot. The empty wine glass in the upstairs shower. The $30 field trip fee due yesterday. The empty toilet paper roll. Missing the deadline for a group rate at the Hilton DeSoto. Thesis research. The weeds around the lantanas. Forgetting to call my best friend. The unmopped floors, unanswered letters, 2,000 emails stuck in my inbox. Sometimes I forget, when I beg for consolation, there are gorillas behind you, too.

Original Prompt, Week 5

In "The Date," Brenda Miller anchors the piece with the first line: "A man I like is coming for dinner tonight" (381). Miller repeats close versions of this line four times at the beginning of paragraphs, then closes the piece "casually walk[ing] out to greet this man I like, this man who's coming to dinner" (388). The repetition of this loaded fact works to keep the writer focused on the anxiety and expectations permeating it, giving her a new opportunity each time to reflect on a specific association. For example, after the first mention, Miller admits to sleeping very little, getting up early and mulling over rearranging the photos on her fridge, the ones he might use to read her life in some way, to decide if she's worth pursuing. In other sections, Miller talks about "[choosing] and [discarding] recipes as if trying on dresses" (383), whether or not she should "wash the sheets, just in case" (384), whether to get ready early and how much effort she should invest, and, finally, when he's late, she stresses over the possibility that he won't show.

Especially since Dr. Davidson has pointed out the need to incorporate more reflection in our work, I thought a prompt taken from Miller's strategy might prod us (emphasis on me) in the right direction. Repeating an anchor line may represent the opposite approach to starting an essay with a thread that serves only as a trigger into something else, but as an exercise to trigger reflection, I see it as a positive exception. Besides, Miller found an escape into a brief exposition of the word "date," playing off the title to discuss date orchards and her memories of eating fruit on summer car trips as a child (386). In fact, the fruit paragraph may be the only one that mentions the word "date," and the context contrasts with and complements nicely the essay's primary focus.

Davidson (rightly, I think) cautioned us that trying to come up with a great idea for an essay can lead to anxiety and inhibit the writing process. Hence, the benefit of object studies and the like. Instead of pulling a one-liner from the air, revisit one of your essays or journal entries that you want to expand and look for a grounding sentence that you can repeat and reflect on every so often in your piece.

(Edited to add: You might find a loaded one-liner in your junkyard. Imagine using a quote you admire as an anchor for an essay.)

Memory, Week 5

The Stanley Transplant

An unnatural respect for John Deere tractors gets you an honorary uncle title in my mom's family. We don't have a guidebook to family inclusion or an official ceremony of any sort, but experience shows this to be the case. We adopted Stanley, a country-solid lover of green farm equipment he never uses and the polar opposite to my Aunt Nora, the proper anecdote to unsightly manners and dirty boots. Stanley came to Christmas gatherings, once deducing "that ain't no shop vac" while manhandling a freshly unwrapped box clearly labeled "Shop-Vac" but housing rather facetiously John Deere salt and pepper shakers and a matching hardback picture book.

Once, on our way to surprise Uncle Hughey preaching at Highlands United Methodist Church in downtown Birmingham, our car in the lead, Stanley caught up to us, his head out the passenger window, his arm wildly waving a two-way, informing us that Aunt Nora needed coffee. It was a cruel prank of my mom's to put Nora and Stanley in the same car, Nora's lips pursed, her eyebrows perfectly painted, her consternation conspicuously awkward.

I remember Nora's outstretched manicured hand, the starched dollar bill poised to pay for her java, followed by Stanley's large labor-marked counterpart forcing hers down to her side. "Put your money up. It ain't no good here, woman."

Later during church service, Stanley went missing, returning a good half hour later with a steaming vessel of Starbucks between his palms, scooting back to Nora's side, her guardian for the day. I later learned he had offered to bring her a cup back, which she politely refused. Church concessions, I suppose, being too avant-garde for her taste.

Reportage, Week 5

Gourmet Gas Station

I stumbled yesterday upon what Savannah's locals christened the "gourmet gas station." At Parker's Market, you can purchase a bottle of wine and cool it in the "chilling station" for sixty seconds, the equivalent (according to the signage) of three hours in your fridge. Grab your fruit of choice, cream cheese, a can of caviar, or sushi rolls, if you like. The deli boasts cullings of pasta salads, tabbouleh, fresh baked artisan breads, and seafood hoagies. The cheese station--all asiago, bleu, munster, gouda--contrasts with the two gas pumps, outside lane only, the modest parking splitting the fuel center from the double glass doors, open 24 hours.

Between the merlot and the rice rolls, you can indulge in the expected on the candy aisle--Snickers, Starburst, Skittles--and the unexpected chocolate-covered espresso beans sold by the half pound. The chip aisle, the cigarettes, gum, beer, lottery tickets, toilet paper, and bath soap grounding the genre. I needed maximum hold. "Sorry," the unibrowed clerk pronounced, ringing up condoms and caviar for a more satisfied customer, "we don't carry hairspray."

I hurried on to the Hilton DeSoto and into the cookie-cutter gift shop, all souvenirs and necessities, where I spent $4.89 on 1.5 ounces of TRESemmé. Taming my curls in the ladies' room, adjusting my skirt one last time before picking up my conference packet, my thoughts turned to gourmet dinner options.

Oddity, Week 5

Heavy

You can predict how much you'll weigh in the morning by weighing yourself at night. When I confessed to my best friend Patricia how I, impatient to track my progress, devised a way to celebrate or self deprecate a few hours early, all relative to the order of three weighty digits, she grinned in recognition. My confided secret, my unsound obsession, was hers, too. And Gina's. And Sherry's. And, I guess, a majority of our colleagues who add points, calories, or ounces of water in order, optimally, to subtract pounds from last week's tally.

Most any weight loss regimen promotes a once a week weigh in, on the same day, at the same time, and in the same clothes. Morning weigh-ins are the ones that count, at least for me. And I, like many determined to lose those last ten pounds or the first ten, ignore the once-a-week mandate in order to get the insider's scoop on just how detrimental that pint of ice cream was to a day otherwise fueled by spinach, diet soda, black beans, and brown rice. Or, perhaps I forgot to count the cashews or underestimated the calories in four fig newtons. Perhaps my run was shorter than planned or I never got around to "Boot Camp" intervals of body resistance and cardio.

I find my backbone softer than the women who, blogging about weight loss success, say they just stop eating once they reach their daily limit, even if they meet it at noon. Weaker than others who claim to up their workout duration or intensity to compensate for the sweet tea and red velvet cake indulgence at a Sunday afternoon baby shower. Unfazed by the revelation that each human tends to eat the same volume of food today as yesterday, rather than the same number of calories--a discovery meant to inspire us to eat the weight of a chocolate bar in lettuce or fruit, to make less calorie-dense choices.

And the mantra meant to nourish my will, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," fails by association because I've never been skinny. But I know how good "Moose Tracks" tastes, the fudgy imprints, the drops of coated peanut butter. I know the comfort of homemade french fries, the contentment of honey butter slathered yeast rolls, the creamy warmth of fettuccine alfredo. I know what it means to scour the pantry for something sweet, come up empty, and turn to the can of cocoa for relief, consoled to learn that I do indeed have all the ingredients to make the "'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Frosting" printed on the back.

Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Week 5

~Q: "What's your favorite vegetable?" A: "Lima Beans! They're like little pockets of mashed potatoes."

~"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

~"Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me."

~The phenomenon of people posting pictures of their dinner on facebook. It's just dinner, right? And pictures are a bit different than telling us about a great-tasting recipe you just tried. I'm talking a photoshoot featuring the pot roast and all its (apparently) newsworthy trimmings.