In less than three weeks, I'll have packed up my bags in preparation to move to Los Angeles, a visit to Washington, and an eventual placement in Busan. Joining the cavalcade of students graduating on to become something else, I'll fly away and my room in this house will likely end up being an extra study for the girls.

In slow preparation for this transition, I've dug out my books from their boxes, stacks, and bags and set about diligently sorting through which to keep, which to give away, which to sell, and which to leave behind at home.

A book of lyric and poetry is marked to a recently forgotten friend in Hamilton, for the memories.

A novel I recently finished promised to a friend, along with two collections by Andrea Barrett, who seamlessly weaves fact and data with human intimacy--all three books reminding me of her whimsy.

Flannery O'Connor and Anne Bogart are coming with me.

Next to my desk sit two stacks of books I've read or hadn't bothered to read--either way, they are were all listed on Amazon (all fifty or so of them) for a few dollars apiece. Immediately, notifications for shipment began. It's almost surprising that somebody in San Antonio purchased 1984, that a Texan bought an old anthology of short stories, or that somebody in Arkansas wants to learn How to Read Literature Like a Professor. All right: I purchased 1984 too. I enjoyed those short stories, noted its authors, and wanted to see how Professors read literature.

I suppose it is greed that piled these books in my possession, trolling through the library's tent sales and quietly pining through used bookstores; it is greed again that brings me to hesitate wrapping, addressing, and sending them off to various corners of the U.S. There are a few that I am ready to part with after having read through them; I wouldn't read them again and I know it, beautiful as they are. But most of the sixteen that I've sent so far are accompanied with a packing slip on which I have scribbled a note to their new owners: "Thanks for the purchase. Please enjoy this terrifying and wonderful novel, this small collection of poetry. If it is anything less than you expected, please don't hesitate to contact me for a refund; I'll take it back. Enjoy the smell." I hesitate leaving instruction to let me know what they think.

Anyway--does anybody out there want some books? Say yes, and I'll send you something that fits.

I once read an article by Seth Godin, whom many claim to be a marketing genius. At the time, my brother--the one who quickly and quietly did well in school, impassively so--had just graduated with a degree in finance from Michigan State's business school. The economy was on its initial descent and even those graduating in the practical sciences were struggling to find placement after receiving their degrees. So it was with my brother, and we all held our breath for him as his interviewing skill sharpened to a numbing point. Much like he does now, well into his current job at 5/3 Bank in Grand Rapids and recently promoted to a less entry-level and less boring position, his enthusiasm was, as usual, impassive. The article I'm talking about was brief, and the bulk of its content was a quick list of ideas for what the unemployed can do in their "spare time" in order to fortify their resume--volunteer, take a course, organize, learn a language (Spanish, html, Illustrator, or otherwise), and so forth. What would it be like to get up of your own accord at 8 AM every morning to diligently continue learning? I've always thought this "work ethic," or curiosity, was something to take note of--something to consciously strive towards. And while this mentality can very easily overlap with restlessness--perhaps even frenzy--I don't know that the absolute alternative would be any better. "Onward and upward," some people once said, though there are better arguments than that.

My mom and I realized earlier today that all the kids of the family, all three of her sons, are done being students. (And for the moment, please disregard that all three of us are enormously likely to pursue higher education; that's another good thought, but it detracts from this one.) I'm sitting in a hotel room outside of Chicago. We're on our way back from Grand Rapids and Paul's graduating from Calvin Seminary. Between that and my graduating from Dordt a week ago (it seems like it happened the day before), the family went through a gauntlet of social graces and the more festive side on the spectrum of emotions. We enjoy being with people--our friends of various capacities--but there have been more and more moments lately where we'd look at each other while preparing for the next activity and you could see in our eyes and slumped shoulders that we just want to sit down and pass the day together. I guess that's why we're in a hotel instead of staying with friends as we did on our way in. We want to continue our lives: Dad has faculty meetings to attend, Mom has the girls to take care of, Paul has two interviews in the next week or so, David has, and has had, work, and I have documents to fill out, introductory essays to write, and summer jobs to pursue. One more day to be under the same roof, please but no obligations--socially, or otherwise--this time. No? We concede; life intervenes and carries on.

Just a few minutes ago, I physically strained to hold in my laughter because I was reading Shit My Dad Says. My abs hurt. They shot a pilot with William Shatner playing, I assume, the dad and I'm astounded that they didn't get Alan Arkin to do it. Not that he needs the work, but that I heard his voice as I read these lines--Alan Arkin's and my own father's, but that would be too hilarious. Anyway, the pilot got picked up and I sincerely hope Shatner does well, but I can't imagine him saying "fuck" and "shit" without a huge, dopey grin on his face.

I received this image when our team was visiting Hani and Danielle's team on our last shooting days. Our teams were sharing vans and drivers and I remember our groups were processing the end of our respective trips in different ways: Kelly, Pete, and I were exhausted--further exacerbated with the bumpy ride to the outskirts of the city, and wondering what would happen to all the people we got to know. We arrived, pulled ourselves out of the van and stood in front of a block of makeshift shelters; our friends were working busily somewhere in that maze. These two fine gentlemen fought through the language barrier and led us to them.

This was shot at a wildlife sanctuary. You can't see it, but all the tourists with their prosumer cameras, pleated khakis, and carefully protected skin are straining to get a good look at the baby elephants. Michelle and I grew weary of the spectacle, and found that observing the fellow tourists was much more interesting. I love the posture of the woman at the center, carefully and politely trying to get around for a better view.

His name is Peru. His interest is comedy. He told us this on the first day, surrounded by his brothers and using English when we were advised that they would be too embarrassed to try. No excuses; play like a champion. That is correct.

I don't know what to say about this man toiling in the street as I never shook his hand and learned his name. I want to say that he's resilient and, here, fighting through the economic turmoil that Kenyans were struggling to endure. Perhaps he was a victim of the matatu* strike that was in place during our visit. (That, and the New Years holiday gave us clear streets in the heart of Nairobi for a few days.) The irony was, of course, that in their efforts to quell police harassment and unfair regulations, the working man couldn't get to work. The streets were lined with pedestrians in commute, having to leave home hours earlier, and returning home hours later. Resilience is a necessity.

More.

*Matatu: minibus transportation. We couldn't find whether these were state regulated or not, but that's largely irrelevant. Policy enforcement was, as we saw, almost nonexistent. Some issues that were being contested were passenger limit and safety measures. Many Kenyans are unable to afford Matatu transportation; our driver was repeatedly hounded for a ride to the other side of town.

[Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unarmed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves, and an evasion of the visible and sensible world. But to say all this is only to say what you know already, if you have felt poetry and thought about your feelings.

-T. S. Eliot. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism.

You say you lost your faith, but that's not where it's at; you have no faith to lose and you know it.

-Bob Dylan. Positively 4th Street.

Laura wishes to lie down, she is tired of her hairpins and the feel of her long tight sleeves, but she says to him, "Have you a new song for me this evening?" If he says yes, she asks him to sing it. If he says no, she remembers his favorite one, and asks him to sing it again.

-Katherine Anne Porter. Flowering Judas.

Thoughts from Spring Break.

The view is Escondido or, more specifically, the "backyard" of the Veldkamps' house. Vineyard, pool, hot tub, mountains, palm trees, sun, breeze, birds and so forth. Birds of paradise is right; they're everywhere. We will pack up and head back east tomorrow morning, amidst a flutter of arguments, protests and bickering on who will sit where, and in which car. I've been told the snow has all but melted back in Sioux Center--a town I've come to love and defend--and even that recent dusting (that, reportedly, hasn't stuck to the ground) is of no significance. Leaving California's steadily bronzing sun will be unpleasant, but there is no journey or location without the varying levels of individual context.

For example, in reading through Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey into Night, one suggestion is that being in love is not the same as being happy. The state, or condition, of one should not imply the other... though having both is assumed in how we've grown... in how I've grown to understand it... thus far.

This theme casts a light upon everyone I see. It's enough to occupy my mind though, in many ways and for many reasons, I wish it weren't.

My heart swelled with emotion during various individual images and words of the Academy Awards tonight. Now, I'm listening to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Would you like to fight about it?

I dreamt that I had a snowball fight with Dave and Jeri Schelhaas as we were leaving a dinner party.

I dreamt that Bailey, Val and I were in an expensive room, dressed to the nines as they used to say. Caviar on the table. I've never had caviar, and Bailey and I indulged until we saw Val wasn't eating, her mouth set to a stern pout and her arms crossed against her gown. Our gentle pleading escalated to anger and throwing china. The crystal chandelier shattered and blood spilled.

It's been ten days since I actualized a desire for a change in course. As a result, I've been approaching moments (mine or otherwise) through the question of ability. Much of this is a result of analyzing Naturalism in Dengler's American Lit. (Kate Chopin, Henry James, Edith Wharton), no doubt. The outcome of my prideful dissatisfaction and, you could say, shaking my fist at the heavens--what am I capable of? At the least, and dastardly ambitious at the same time, I'll learn to accept my insufficiencies and keep from making excuses. The short of it could be... I am in control of very little; the fault is mine. The emphasis is on the latter, I assure you. This is unacceptable still (and more terrible than confusing), but this is a crude translation of my restless constitution. I wonder what I'll say in a year, when I pull this page up and read it over again.

If you're reading this, I'm sure you come to these words armed and braced to encounter a level of unbridled melodrama. If I may continue perpetuating this tone, if I may be so asinine and ridiculous:

There are a few times every year that I desire to introduce a turning point in my life. This desire is often large, and sometimes quiet like a whispered affirmation about a time of deliberation. And who can tell what prompts them? An image of snow, building up softly and pervasively across the fields, even blocking out the sun and one hopes that it comes to such a degree that not only would roads, work places and schools concede to its quiet tenacity, but electricity and heat as well. Those living in the Midwest have a few stories of such times, I'm sure, when the snow/ice/freezing rain/hail was so bad that year and we just didn't bother trying to do anything outside of our doors -- physically or digitally -- for a few days, until it passed through and we could assess the damage. Thank God for the wood-burning fireplace and all that. My story involves being blessed with that fireplace (as well as lots of peanut butter and beef jerky and the brothers returning home with a month of groceries just after the electricity went out.) I want that debilitation again, to shock the hourly/daily/weekly regressions of academia and established community and humble us to the point where, instead of working around nature, we are stilled to bear it.

And yesterday, the stories, notes, essays, pens, pencils and emails sat quietly in my bag and read through the pages of food blogs, the Momofuku cookbook, organized a series of spices next to a bowl of salt, quartered and cleaned a turkey, seasoned it and let it refrigerate for a few hours to let the juices draw toward the surface. I spent the day anticipating and preparing for a meal, excited in the overwhelming volume of food that a whole turkey brings and how will my roommates be fed? I spent the day preparing, consuming and reveling in that meal and the quiet slurping it brought. Oddly, this was one of the few suggestions for post-grad endeavors, offered in partial jest, that my parents were legitimately excited about.

Compilation

He: You can't trust a thing girls say because it's all conditional; there's no way to tell what they mean to say, or even what they want to say.

She: You don't need to know.
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Alice Haskett -- Alice Varick -- Alice Waythorn -- she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.
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She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as a victim.
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But the young man was conscious at the same moment that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be "talked about" by low-minded menials.
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It struck him, with a curious pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial incidents of her day.
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He kept looking at her; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place.
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Then he asked her if she would not be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down.
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In class, we spoke about the value in that response for our creative actions and how in presenting something, we're attempting to make others experience at least a glimpse of something so powerful and intangible. By placing an object on display, we're grabbing passers-by and saying, Look at this!
David Sedaris wrote about how he would type up passages from his favorite authors on his typewriter before he left town on the off-chance that, should someone break in, they might read it and mistakenly assume that he was the one who wrote it.
There's a short story called The King of Sentences where a couple find unbridled stimulating passion in beautiful sentences -- even when taken out of context. The cadence and meticulous construction enthrall the ear that cares to listen.

When I was in high school, my family moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Sioux Center, Iowa. My two older brothers, Paul and David, had already begun their college years then -- something I envied -- and, after making that first-of-several twelve-hour drives with us, they returned home to the winding roads and rapidly-developing properties that I hope to always remember, and fear that, very quickly, I will have to. I went back (not home) to visit in the fall, during the first break we had and stayed at Paul's apartment. David was away at Michigan State, but managed to come back for the weekend as he would often do. I was sixteen years old. I made myself very aware of this as I lay in a sleeping bag on the floor next to Paul's bed, trying to still my nerves from the conscious reality of my life, "Iowa... are you kidding?" It will be beneficial for you to know that I was born in Grand Rapids and haven't lived anywhere else before the move, and also that, yes, I realize how dramatic I was being and, of course, I am very embarrassed to even be telling this story. Sixteen years old -- what can I say? I lay awake in the middle of the night and asked my older brother of twenty-one years (my current age) if life got any easier. The panic he must have felt, no? I remember his hesitating before trying the words out loud, "Not really... no. But it sometimes helps to realize how it gets harder, and you get better at that." I don't know that I found comfort in it at the time; I still haven't decided, I guess. Neither can I say what I wish I would have heard instead, but I have become used to that inability to sleep for fear, anxiety and an overwhelming volume for thoughts of the like. Every night requires a solid and deliberate time of processing down from the day and I've found that the most effective avenue of doing so is in reading a piece of fiction, watching a movie or talking to someone about their day. Perhaps there's an element of escapism in this; I remain unapologetic if there is. I am hesitant, however, if I begin to use others and what they offer up of themselves for my own benefit of alleviation. What they offer up, and what "works best" is conflict (like in every short story or film) and it's clear that a part of my inclination to listen is in consuming that very real sense of struggle. I become invested in it then; it enthralls me and, somehow because of it, I can rest.