I'm feeling pretty lame right now. The day has been pretty normal, nothing bad has happened. It's just one of those days where my thoughts start to snowball until I feel overwhelmed, and bummed.

My parents and little sister are moving to Idaho next week. My older sister is going back to California, and school will be starting soon. I'm not really looking forward to school starting. I hate the countdown of the final days of summer, knowing I only have so much time left with family and friends before everyone either moves away or becomes insanely busy.

I guess it's normal to just want to sit around and enjoy the summer days with my new husband, but I've been beginning to feel like I haven't been very productive since . . . well, since we got back from our honeymoon. Granted, settling into the new place is a process that still isn't finished, but there are so many little things I've been putting off, like mailing thank-you cards or setting up times to hang out with my friends who are among those leaving the state early next month.

It makes me wonder if I truly spend my time well, when every time a big change comes along, I'm always dwelling on what-ifs and wishes that there was more time to spend.

Work Thoughts

One thing that kind of bites about working retail is the late nights. When I worked at Hobby Lobby, a closing shift would usually be from 2:00 to 8:00. Six hours isn't an abnormally long shift, but it's a long time to be on your feet. At my new job, a gift shop, we don't close until 9:00, so if I'm on the closing shift I'm usually not driving home until close to 9:30.

All sorts of people come into the shop. Well, they're all tourists, or nearby merchants looking for a discounted soda, or, once in a while, someone looking to sell their products to the store. What I mean is, there are a lot of different types of customers:

The friendly, jovial type. They'll chat you up about the weather or what song is on the radio, and they usually buy something.

The opposite of those above: people who don't acknowledge you when you greet them, who may not even look you in the eye as they silently skulk around the shop. Maybe they'll buy something, but it won't be much.

Then there's the customer with a clear purpose. They know what they want, and they're not going to waste time browing. I had one man come in who, before I could even say "Hello", said to me, determinedly, "Pins that you put in baseball caps." He skipped the normal social graces of a greeting or a smile; he didn't even phrase his desire in the form of a question, that's how important it was. It was a simple, direct statement, and when we didn't have what he wanted, he left to seek elsewhere.

Some tourists are so, well, touristy. They don't want to spend money on anything that's not made in New Mexico. We carry small stone trinkets that are made in Peru; a little girl told her mother she liked them, but when mom noticed the "Made in Peru" sticker, she said, "Oh, put that back, we want something from here."

Of course, customers come in all shapes and sizes. Girls my age chatting about wedding plans and who seemed to pretend that I didn't exist once they got to the register. They wanted to talk to each other, buy their things, and leave, without making small talk, or much eye contact, with me. Excited kids, bored kids, kindly middle-aged couples, or angry parents, perhaps exhausted by walking in the heat. A mother asked her daughter to pick out a gift for someone; a friend or cousin, perhaps. The daughter responded in a murmur I couldn't hear, and the mother bent down and nearly shouted in her face, "I don't care!" I resolved on the spot to never shout in the faces of my children, unless it is truly for their benefit.

I'm working today for nine hours, and again tomorrow, which will make two Fridays in a row that I've closed. I'm hoping that Friday night closing shifts won't be a consistent trend.

Flash Fiction Experiment

The man does not say anything.

The woman gets up off of the sofa, walks into the kitchen, pours herself a glass of water, and drinks it silently in the dim bluish light of the television screen. The man looks at his hands. The woman sighs and turns to put her empty glass in the sink.

"You want anything, then?"

"Nope."

The woman walks into the bedroom and quietly closes the door. The man walks to the bookshelf, picks up a book, considers it for a moment, replaces it, and returns to the sofa. In the dim bluish light of the television screen, he reaches for a half-empty can of soda that sits on the coffee table and finishes it in two or three gulps.

***

Not really sure what this is. I've been wanting to write some "flash fiction" ever since I was exposed to Amelia Gray's "AM/PM" a few months ago. I've also been wanting to see if and how characters develop when writing takes on a distant and observational tone, relaying actions and words without adding any kind of meaning to them that an omniscient narrator or first-person perspective allows. I kind of like this minimalistic form. We'll see what comes of it.

Career Choices

We all know how it goes.

There you are, standing at a crossroads, facing a choice: the non-practical one that you love, or the practical one that you can make money with?

I feel like I should say here that this is not necessary a right vs. wrong, or good vs. bad decision. Maybe I'm saying that mostly for myself, because it usually takes me so long just to sort out what I really want that it's sometimes hard for me to sacrifice even little things that I care about for the sake of the more practical path.

Here's an example. My first year and a half of college was spent in often gut-wrenching indecision. I didn't know what to major in, and I felt that the rest of my life and happiness rested on that one decision. Not to mention the fact that it made registering for classes a very stressful experience. So I took an acting class, and I took some music classes, and I knocked out a couple of gen-eds, but by the end of my first year I still felt like I had gone nowhere. Of course, that's not entirely true; I've learned that growth happens whether you realize it or not, but the question still remained, what was I going to do?

Third semester my interest in writing and radio really caught on fire. It started as a paper project, where for paper credit I produced and edited a short podcast about my experience being in a play. It was a blast, and I was very proud of the result, even though it's all quite amateur. I started thinking about journalism, and how much I love radio shows like This American Life, and I learned about a field of study and literature that I had never even heard of before: Literary Non-Fiction, or Creative Non-Fiction.

"Any or all forms of the essay may be enlivened and made more meaningful through attention to imagery, voice, character, setting and scene - the elements of imaginative writing. Such essays may be called literary non-fiction or creative non-fiction, terms to describe the kinds of essays that include the personal but don't necessarily stay there, that include the factual but search for the greater range and resonance."

That's from my great writing book, which I recommend to anybody interested in being a better and more thoughtful writer (or reader, or person in general); it's called "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft" by Janet Burroway. I used the 2nd edition, even though it's not the most recent, mostly because that's the one my creative writing instructor made us buy.

I love creative non-fiction because it's informative, and it has credence because it's about real people and real events (like the news), but it's not boring (in that way, unlike the news). I think Janet Burroway says it well, as she always does:

"In a first-person essay . . . you would have 'distance' [on your topic], a perspective that embraces not just the immediate event but its place in a human, social, historical, even cosmic context. Because creative non-fiction has this deeper (or wider, or more universal, or significant) subject, it won't necessarily date in the manner of yesterday's newspaper."

Okay, enough examples of why I love creative non-fiction. The point is, last fall I finally had somewhat of a grasp on what I wanted to do. I wanted to write! I wanted to learn how to be an imaginative, creative non-fiction writer, and I wanted to (maybe) work in radio someday, maybe for a show like This American Life, brining thoughtful, insightful, funny, real stories to my audience. And I decided to choose my major: English, with an emphasis in creative writing.

And now, I'm considering changing it. Probably not drastically, but I may switch to the more practical technical/professional writing emphasis, and take creative writing classes as electives.

When I first started thinking about this, it upset me. Finally, I had found something in college that I wanted to study, and now I was facing the possibility of letting that go. But the more I thought about it and looked into it, the more reasonable it started to seem. The classes sound interesting, and practicality can't be ignored entirely. Jordan and I are on a tight budget right now, and when he goes to grad school I'll be the one working more and making most of the money (which is what he's doing now while I finish my undergrad). We want to have children someday, and those children are going to need a good home, good schools, and college funds. Maybe that's looking too far ahead; maybe not. There is a future that we want, and there are certain pragmatic steps to be taken in order to prepare for it.

It's a constant struggle, it seems, the practical vs. the . . . I'm not really sure what to call it. Non-practical? Purely enjoyable? Hobby-ish? I believe there is value to things like music and art and creative writing, and I know other people do, too; if not, those kinds of things wouldn't be out there, it wouldn't even be an option. But as my World Literature professor once said, we may say we value certain things very highly, but our actions say otherwise (i.e. who doesn't value education? Yet how much do we pay teachers for their efforts?)

We'll see how it all turns out. Another thing I'm learning is that a lot of things turn out differently than you expect, or even plan, them to. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yesterday was the busiest day I've/we've had in a while.

We got up, had some breakfast, and then I went through all of our cards from the wedding and organized the money, checks and gift cards people had sent to us. And then, it was errand time.

First we went to get me new tires for my car. Somehow my old tires had been messed up by tar; not sure if it's just because I've had them for three years, or if I accidentally drove on the not-yet-dry pavement when they were re-paving the apartment complex. It wasn't my fault - they usually had it blocked off by cones or caution tape, but for some reason it had been taken down, or maybe knocked down by another carless driver.

Next we stopped by my old work, Hobby Lobby, and I got a W2 request form. Apparently I never got one, or it never got logged, last year, and I need one for taxes and records.

Then we went to Target. We returned a few duplicates from our registry (still don't know how that happened; that's what a registry's for, right?) and then picked up a few things we need: a mixer, some wine glasses to replace a gift that got broken (also not our fault - Jordan was hand-washing a glass and suddenly it cracked down the side.), and some proper bedding. That last part turned into a bit of a trial. We browsed around the bedding aisles, and I had to call my mom to discern exactly what a "coverlet" is. We got one that we thought we liked, and then when I noticed it was part polyester I got worried that it would be too hot. Jordan found some basic cotton blankets, but they didn't have a very good color selection. We were both getting frustrated, so I took the one we had originally picked out and we headed for the register. Then the woman at the register tells us that "coverlets" are mainly decorative, but I told Jordan to get them anyway because I thought it would be OK.

We headed back to Hobby Lobby to get a specific kind of storage jar Jordan has been wanting to keep his pipe tobacco in, and on the way we talked it over and decided that the "coverlet" wasn't really what we wanted. So, after Hobby Lobby, we went back to Target and found my sister-in-law Nicole, whom we had seen going in as we were leaving. Nicole saved the day; she helped us pick out a nice quilt and gave us great suggestions on color, decorating, and type of pillowcase (go for the cheaper ones, like a jersey, unless you're really concerned about thread count). We left Target a second time feeling much, much better.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store, and when we got home there was just enough time to put away everything and then Jordan had to run to work. Half an hour after he left, I left for UNM to go to a meeting for an all student-run radio program called Lobo Growl that's getting started. Jon told me about it last week, I emailed the guy in charge, and this was the second official meeting for the program.

There weren't that many people there, and I was the only girl; the student whose putting it all together is actually a PhD student, I think I was one of four undergrads, and then there was one law student/writing instructor as well as one of the managers from the local public radio station, whom we're partnering with to get this off the ground.

I am really excited about this program. I emailed KUNM, the local public radio station, earlier this week to ask about volunteering and internship opportunities, but Lobo Growl seems like exactly what I've been looking for. I may want to do some training with KUNM on the side, if that's possible, while everything's still getting started, but through this program it looks like I'll get experience not only in administrative duties, but also in the technical aspects of radio production and developing an artistic aesthetic. One of our first projects is to answer questions like, what will Lobo Growl offer that no other radio station does? Do we have a particular "sound"? What will our logo look like? What kind of music will we play, and what will our sources of content be?

We have a week to brainstorm, and we're meeting again a week from today.

After that, I went back home to start dinner. Jordan's friend and best man Trevor came over, and we had spaghetti and key lime pie and watched SNL's "The Best of Will Ferrell."

It was a very full day, and very rewarding. As I was reflecting on the day yesterday evening, I thought about how much I cherish these times with Jordan, early in our marriage, when we have entire days to spend together, even if it's just running errands. Doing things with him, my husband, makes menial things into meaningful things, and I am thankful for these special times.