David Gessner Review

I’m interested in environmental issues, so I looked forward to hearing what Gessner had to say on his subject. Many environmentalists take a very serious approach, almost like they’re pleading to their audience to act out and change the world. But Gessner was humorous and had a fresh perspective on what an environmentalist actually was. Instead of asking us to transform into tree-huggers, he said that what was needed was “more hypocrites”. He admitted that no one in the world is a pure environmentalist. In other words, no one can claim to have zero energy waste or carbon footprint. But that shouldn’t stop people from trying to make a difference.

I also like how he said that the first step for everyone was to start with a small project, and the momentum that we gathered might carry us forward into something that had a larger influence. Asking people to jump up and change the world right away is daunting, and no one would know where to start.

He didn’t threaten anyone with the doom of the world, which has become the traditional approach lately. From a writing perspective, threats of “we’re all gonna die” don’t incite most people to action, they just discourage them. I liked his analogy of a spouse constantly saying “this marriage is all over! It’s hopeless!”

His comparison of humans to gannets made sense to me. No one can blame humans for wanting the best quality of life they can get. It’s our nature. The only problems arise when the resources we use to obtain that quality of life run out. I really liked the way he explained that. He wasn’t putting the blame on the squandering ways of humans for the environmental issues than need to be dealt with, he was just saying that what happened happened, and we will have to adapt. Because we are adaptable humans, we can do it, and we have a responsibility to do it.

I thought the intro to his book trailer was great. It wasn’t what I was expecting, and it made me laugh. He claimed that “he wasn’t normal”, but I think that’s a good thing. I don’t want to listen to normal people talk about normal things in a normal way. You have to have a healthy dose of weirdness and originality to interest people and get them to pay attention to what you want to say, and I think he had that.

One Destiny

In the future I see

dejavu.

A paradox of times,

not one true.

Monotony that is

always new.

The past is the future’s

melody,

they spiral together

crazily

Through the vortex only

One can see.

Still searching for the one

path to keep.

There it is take a chance,

skydive leap.

Forever comes and I

fall asleep.

Changing my "Now"

During the workshop this morning, I was told I had two different "Now"s in my narrative. I decided to write the last few paragraphs of the piece both ways to see which "Now" would work better.

Now #1

I want to go out of state for college to have an adventure. But after I’m there, I’ll probably see that life with you and the rest of our family was just as exciting. What would it be like, if you visit me at Penn State sometime? How will I have to save you? Will I scale the roof of Old Main? Jump in front of a moving bicycle? Hurtle over four foot bushes? Dive down an open manhole? Just the thought of all the possibilities thrill me.

This one was a lot shorter, because this was the only paragraph that directly contradicted my other "Now".

Now #2

Eight years later, you were still alive, and it was almost time for me to leave. I wanted to leave, I was so ready to leave, but at the same time I knew what I was leaving behind. Even so, I had no regrets. I tried to be the best sister I could in those short years, and I knew you’d forgive me for not being around for the rest of them.

Your blonde curls had darkened and grew in waves down your back. I wouldn’t have been able to put them into a fountain ponytail if I tried, and anyway you would never have let me. You no longer needed a 24 hour body guard to protect you from yourself, so I knew you’d be fine when I was gone.

It was your turn on the soccer field, running around on tiptoe with your jersey hanging down almost to your knees. Six goals in one game? That’s my girl.

Your favorite things to ask me were “Do you need help?” and “What should I do now?” Being the youngest meant you didn’t always have a playmate, since everyone was so busy most of the time.

“Tell me the stories about how you saved me when I was little,” you asked sometimes. When I did, you laughed. We both did.

I was amazed when I saw you dancing and singing along to popular songs like that was what you were born to do. You did actual moves that make sense, as opposed to a lot of people (including me) that just shuffled around and jerked their limbs as if they were on the verge of a seizure.

In the evenings, I watched you kiss your stuffed animals goodnight and arrange them on your bed so they were comfortable. You saw me watching and smiled bashfully. I looked away so you could finish.

Even though I knew there was no danger of you hurting yourself, I still worried about what would happen to you when I wasn’t there. I had to remind you to eat breakfast three times before you consented and nibbled a piece of fruit. Things like eating just didn’t occur to you, unless it involved treats or dessert.

“Bye, Coriana.”

“Bye, Chloella. I love you.” I don’t know why I called you that sometimes instead of “Chloelle”. Your name just seemed to flow out of my mouth like that. I bent down to give you a hug, and you were still small. But I still had to go.

“I love you too.”

But would you still after months pass and I haven’t come home? I couldn’t protect you, should you need protection. When you woke up coughing with sickness, I wouldn’t be there with a cup of water. If you fell off your bike, skinning your hands and knees, Connor would have to be the one to carry you home.

I wanted to go out of state for college to have an adventure. But now that I’m here, I see that life with you and the rest of our family was just as exciting. What would it be like, if you were with me at Penn State right now? How would I have to save you? Would I be scaling the roof Old Main? Jumping in front of a moving bicycle? Hurtling over four foot bushes? Diving down an open manhole? Just the thought of all the possibilities thrill me.

Somehow, I wonder if I’m the one who needs you to need me. You can do perfectly well on your own now, I’m sure. And that’s what scares me. If I don’t have to be around you, will you still want me there? If you don’t feel my absence when I’m gone, will it be easy for you to overlook me when I’m home? They say long distance relationships never last, but no one ever said anything about sisterships. I can only hope those are different.

I had to change a lot more, but I'm leaning toward this one.

Of Insomnia

I think people tell me to count sheep to fall asleep because sheep are the most boring characters out there. I shouldn’t be able to help but snooze if I’m forced to watch them jumping over a fence over and over. But in my mind, the sheep don’t just jump like they’re supposed to. The first one does a front flip, the next a triple axel. From then on, the moves get more complicated, as do the costumes adorning the sheep. There’s one that’s fond of pole vaulting. Biker-sheep revs the engine of its Harley, then drives up a ramp and soars over, black leather jacket flapping in the wind. The next sheep, adorned in swim trunks, surfs over as a wave engulfs the fence.

The sheep in the back are impatient. Running up to the front, they try to steal a spot closer in line, but there is no line anymore, it’s just a mob.

“Hey! Get baaa-a-a-a-a-k to your spot!” One sheep complains.

“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes!” another one asserts.

One tough looking ewe with an eye patch pulls a bazooka out of her wool. Another sheep, all in black, unsheathes a machete. Ninja stars fly. Flame throwers torch. Someone activates a wolf-launcher, and everything goes haywire.

Ah! Insomnia! It turns my mind into a leaf blower, droning on and on at a steady buzz. Never resting. Thoughts pinwheel through, twisting together like the colors on a candy cane. Sheep blow each other up with hand grenades as I try to remember what the highest occupied molecular orbital of acetate is for chemistry. Under the Capitol’s orders, peacekeepers abduct a litter of kittens. I have to drive on a road with more windy turns than an overcooked noodle. The road turns out to be a river with a waterfall at the end.

I try to concentrate on nothing and let my mind go blank, but since nothing in essence is something, it doesn’t help. My limbs don’t really exist, I tell myself. But my foot itches, so they do. I listen to my own even breathing, but the breaths turn into seashore waves that wash me into the ocean and drown me beneath the crushing pressure of colorful coral reef thoughts.

Is there no solution? Must I lie on this bed until the shadows shift into the fuzzy light of early morning and the dawn claims me? Then I’d have to drag myself to my 8:00 class as if I were the ghost of Christmas past, moaning and wrapped in chains.

I had several options. I could do nothing, letting my thoughts spin like a cotton candy maker until the candy ran out and I fell asleep. I could get up and do some productive studying. Or I could chug some Nyquil. One thing was for sure. Never again would I drink coffee an hour before I went to bed.

Reflecting on the Tayari Jones Reading

The way Tayari Jones gave inflection to her reading made the story come alive. I could picture everything happening as plausible. Though I couldn’t relate much to any of her characters, I didn’t mind much because they were interesting to hear about. After she’d finished reading, I found myself wondering what happened next.

I liked how she said that it didn’t matter what your writing process was. If you ended up with a book at the end, then than was the way to do it. She admitted that she usually deletes two thirds of what she wrote in order to come up with the right story, which is encouraging to me. Sometimes I feel that if I have to spend too much time with a piece, and the words don’t flow from the pencil like magic, I’m doing something wrong, or the story isn’t any good and I should just delete the whole thing and start again with something fresh. But sometimes that’s just the way it works.

Even though the book is fiction, she included things that happened in her own life, like putting paper between her teeth, or her father giving her mother a carving knife for their anniversary. I’ve often wondered how writers come up with quirky details like those to make the characters seem more real. When I read fiction, I tend to think that everything is made up.

I’m glad she mentioned how reading aloud helps her edit dialogue. I admit it – I hate reading my writing out loud. Especially formal essays. I can see how it would help, though. It’s much easier to tell if my writing is stuffy, corny, or nonsensical if I listen to it. That’s probably why I hate doing it. The stupidity that jumps out is so obvious that I despair of ever turning it into something worthwhile. If I want to improve, though, I should probably start proof-reading out loud.

The Fitz family was proud to say they were NOT perfectly normal, thank you very much.

“She needs to sort out her priorities,” my brother Connor said. “Okay, who said that, who to, what movie?”

Without skipping a beat, I said, “Ron Weasley, to Harry Potter, in the Sorcerer’s Stone.” That one was easy. Now it was my turn. “I can mend bones in a heartbeat, but growing them back - !”

“Madame Pomphrey, to Harry Potter, in the Chamber of Secrets.” He paused a second to gather his thoughts. “And they say I’m mad!”

“Mad-eye Moody, to Barty Crouch, in the Goblet of Fire,” my little sister Carmalyn interjected. Then she said, “I knew I could do it, because, well, I’d already done it!”

“Harry Potter, to Hermoine Granger, in the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

The three of us could do this all day. They didn’t have to be long quotes, either. “Only one”, “We’ve heard”, “Absolutely spiffing!”, “Always”.

“Mermaid, to Harry Potter, in the Goblet of Fire.”

“Hagrid, to Bane the centaur, in the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

“Fred Weasley, to Harry Potter, in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Severus Snape, to Dumbledore, in the Deathly Hallows.”

“Part one or part two?”

“Part two.”

Both movie and book quotes were fair game. Since all of us had read the seven book series at least three times, it was only fair. Besides, so much good stuff had been taken out of the movies! JK Rowling deserved credit as an author.

As for the movies themselves, we’d watched all of them except for the Deathly Hallows ones innumerable times. But I’d been thrilled when I got the DVDs for Part one and two of the last movie for Christmas. Finally, the collection was complete, and we could start watching the last two again and again! So many quotes to mine…

“He’s covered in blood. Why is he always covered in blood?”

“Ginny Weasley, to Ron and Hermione, in the Half Blood Prince.”

“I’ll tell my father about this!”

“Draco Malfoy, to Harry Potter, in the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

“Nice one, James!”

“Sirius Black, to Harry Potter, in the Order of the Phoenix.”

The books spanned our childhood. We’d grown up pointing sticks at each other and shouting at least two dozen memorized spells while playing in the backyard. After copying the Hogwarts school supply list from the Sorcerer’s Stone book, we pillaged the house for books on herbs, stuffed animal owls, and huge pots we dubbed “cauldrons”, pretending we were about to become first year students. The marbles in our colorful collections were named after Harry Potter characters.

“Fifty points if it goes through her HEAD!”

“Moaning Myrtle, to Harry and Ron, in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“It unscrews the other way.”

“Professor McGonagall, to Peeves, in the Order of the Phoenix.”

Even though we were all very disappointed when our letter from Hogwarts didn’t come on our eleventh birthday, we knew reality from fantasy by then and contented ourselves with our imaginings.

“Oi! There’s a war going on here!”

“Harry Potter, to Ron and Hermione, in the Deathly Hallows.”

“Part one or two?”

“Neither. That’s from the book.”

“Can you… hear me?”

“Harry Potter, to a boa constrictor, in the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

“The first sentence in the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Even if it wasn’t dialogue, we could still play the game just as well.

It’s just what we do. It’s something we all agree on. Being siblings, things like that are sometimes hard to come by. I hope the magic of the books never wanes and we never grow too old to see it.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth does that mean it is not real?”

Wilson: Dog, not Volleyball

Wilson is seventy two. In dog years, that is. In people years, he’s eight. At his age, he should be languishing by the fireside on a nice, soft pillow while eating dog biscuits. But fate hasn’t favored him. For as long as can remember, Wilson hasn’t known a caring family, warm bed, or easy-to-come-by food.

Instead, chill morning mists dampen his shabby reddish gold coat as he limps toward the docks. His fur would be beautiful if brushed, but there is no one to brush it. He limps because his nails have grown so long that they are underneath his paws, digging painfully into his pads with every step. Sniffing the air, he swings his head so his one good eye can see the fishing boat before him.

There are scraps on the boat, left over from the fishing expedition the day before. Not much, but enough to tempt a half starved stray dog. Without hesitation, Wilson scrabbles into the boat and laps up every tidbit he can find.

He doesn’t even realize the fishermen are coming back until too late. While the men cast off, he has no choice but to hide in the shadows. As he watches the land dwindle until his eye can hardly see it anymore, he lets out an involuntary whine.

“Mangy mutt! Trying to steal my work, eh?” One of the men abruptly turns to him, scooping him up by the scruff and tossing him out of the boat as if he’s had to do the same thing countless times before. To the fisherman, he is simply garbage, a waste of space. Worse, because he would eat the man’s fish if given the chance.

Wilson’s paws flail as he soars through the air, and then start paddling to the surface furiously as he hits the water with a splash. Salty water sloshes up his nose and stings his good eye – his poor eye is ablaze with fiery pain. Though he tries to dog-paddle after the boat, it has sails to aid its escape, and soon he can no longer see it among the bobbing waves.

But which way should he go now? There is no land anywhere, and his long furry coat and ears are weighing him down in the water. It’s all he can do to keep his nose afloat, and sometimes he goes under, breathing in more water and almost choking.

He has two choices: give up to the vast expanse of churning water that’s just waiting for its chance to swallow him up, or keep paddling. It would be easier for him to let the tugging waves have him, let himself be taken away from the world that has no use for him, but his will is strong. He keeps swimming, despite the ever persistent water around him.

There is nowhere to go, but he goes. There is nothing to live for, but he lives. For two days, stranded in the middle of the sea, he survives. When rescuers find him and bring him to shore, he slips into a week long slumber.

Because of his multitude of medical issues and all the salt water in his ears in stomach, no one thinks he will survive. Again, he proves the world wrong. He lives to be taken to Whitecourt Homeless Animal Rescue Foundation(WHARF). There, Janet Talbott falls in love with him when his story breaks her heart in two.

After adopting him, she whispers in his ear, “You will have the life every day that every animal deserves.” Kissing the top of his now glossy head, she adds, “You will receive love on a daily basis.”

http://news.discovery.com/animals/mexico-stray-dogs-121301.html

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/pets/Edmonton+lover+gives+Wilson+life+deserves+last/5967215/story.html