Seven Things I'll Miss About Spring Break

1. See picture above.

2. Lounging around in unattractive sweats all day.

3. Reading whatever I want, whenever I want.

4. Leisurely coffee in the morning from a pot I made myself.

5. Unhurried, inspired scribbling at odd hours.

6. Extended, guiltless Ebay searching.

7. Snuggling up on the couch, watching the Backyardigans with that boy in the picture.

Moleskine and Etsy and the Seven Stages of Cahier Grief

I've been a little put out ever since Moleskine discontinued production of my beloved black, extra large, ruled cahiers. A friend who went to the AWP conference gifted me with Moleskine's 2009 catalog and - adding insult to injury - now there's a glorious, deep red XL cahier - in blank and gridded paper only. No! Moleskine also added an 8x11 hardbound ruled "folio" notebook, but I can't find this one online anywhere. There's the barest mention of it here, but no picture or price.

I need to make peace with this loss. There's a reason people make fun of Moleskine addicts. There are seven stages of grief, you know, and I'm floating somewhere between #4 and #5. It's not a pretty place.

So off to Etsy. I figure if Big Business isn't interested in me, I can send my couch-cushion change to someone who cares. I love supporting artists and they love making art. It's a match made in heaven.

There are so many gorgeous choices. It's taking me too long to figure out how to link the pictures to each site, so I've included the links below each one. (A little help, techies?)

Neilsonhandmade has a stunning How to Win Boys "upcycled" book. I may need to rob more than just my couch-cushions to get it, but it's a contender. The Trouble book is another, but there just aren't enough couches to bankroll that one. When I win the lottery, this will be one of my first stops.

Allibell has handmade journals are a little closer to my price range. Thirty pages of mulberry paper and all that vintage ephemera for only $9.00.

Ah, Afiori. This jewel is only 4"x6", but it has a hundred pages (x2 of you write on both sides) of mixed papers. The cover is one of Afiori's prints on frosted plastic, so it doesn't have to be so preciously guarded against coffee spills and such. Only $12. Lovely.

There are literally hundreds more upcycled, recycled, hand sewn, vintage, breathtaking journals on Etsy. I even found quite a few artistically enhanced Moleskines there. Sadly, none of them are extra large, ruled cahiers. When I've moved ahead a bit in the grieving process, I'll give them more attention. Right now it hurts too much.

Recession-Fabulous Was Here

Since I began this blog a year and a half ago, I've struggled with a direction. Today it finally became crystal clear. No Telling will never, ever have a unified, clear purpose. It's the mishmash from which all other blogs spring. My love for writing prompts and a fun scribbling contest here birthed Easy Street Prompts. An obsession for collecting old typewriters convinced me to start Fresh Ribbon. And now, this Capital-R Recession and Kathi's suggestion have me slamming the keys on something new.

So slide on over to Recession-Fabulous, where coolness and survival actually meet and shake hands. Maybe we'll start a revolution. Maybe we'll just trade great ideas and soup recipes. Who knows?

How to Eat Recession-Fabulous

Down here in Arkansas we've been biting the bullet for a few years, so this recession is old news to most of us. "AIG" is how most of us pronounce "egg," and no one around here knows anyone who brings home a bonus worth mentioning. There used to be free turkeys at Christmas, but no one has seen those since the late 90s.

When the hiring and salary freezes started about two years ago, most folks around here did what they always do when times get lean: they planted bigger gardens. In addition, they pulled out all the old iron skillets and started eating in. No one knows how to feed a family of five on a couple of dollars quite like a Southern woman, even in these perilous grocery-bill times.

Shop Fabulous

1) If you're unfamiliar with the local day-old bread store, introduce yourself.

2) Hit the sales at local grocery stores, use the coupons, and get over your love affair with that saucy brie you usually buy. You won't miss it. Much. Instead, buy block cheese and hope for the best.

3) Grow your own. A couple of tomato plants can be a thing of joy forever. Be careful when planning your crops, though, and always check with your friends. Only one of you should be growing yellow squash. A single plant produces enough for a small city. Grow yard-long beans instead - these grow up in flowering vines and are lovely as well as crazy-delicious.

4) If gardening's out of the question, get up early on Saturday morning and hit your local farmer's market. The produce is in season, delicious, inexpensive, and you'll add a couple of stars to your heavenly crown for helping out local growers.

Cook Fabulous

Do you have any idea how much you spend eating out? It's crazy. Eat out less, cook more. Make Beans and Cornbread with a Side of Greens - All you really need are some pinto beans, some navy beans, an onion, and a ham hock. Greens come out of a garden - either yours or someone else's because we share - and the whole thing is finished up with scratch cornbread made in an iron skillet. Sure, it takes some time. This isn't fast food, it's cheap food. Make this at least once a week and keep the leftovers handy. They get better every day.

If carb-heavy, pigfat-laden Southern food isn't your thing, make a big pot of chili or soup once a week. If you freeze some in little containers, there's your portable work lunch.

What about those kids who all want something different at the same meal and fail to see the fabulousness? Well, Mama's not the drive-thru window. This is dinner. Eat it. Quit your whining. There are children starving in Mississippi who'd be glad to have that food.

Serve Fabulous

Eating in front of the television? In the car? Standing up over the sink? Most women I know are appalled by such dining behavior, but these gals still wear pearls all day long and never leave the house without lipstick. It doesn't matter if dinner is a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, serve it on a real plate. At a table. And sit down.

There's no need to go all Martha Stewart in times like these, so don't spend six hours tying ribbons to hand-printed place cards or anything. Just use candles now and then and turn off the damn TV. In addition to saving a bit on the light bill, it's delightful. Talk to each other. That's delightful, too.

How is all this "fabulous"? It's easy. Just make it trendy to be broke. I don't mean make it a fad like pretending to be a hippie by wearing Abercrombie and Fitch hoodies and torn up hundred-dollar tennis shoes, I'm talking about recreating "making do" so it's cool again. Those "Go Green" folks did it, and so can you.

Look out. I feel a whole series of Recession-Fabulous posts coming on.

(Update - I got a little carried away. The evidence is HERE.)

Warning: Whining Woman Ahead

It's been a very long day. It's been a longer five weeks and I feel like having a little bit of a whine. I'm due.

I'll keep it brief. I limped around for a few weeks on a bad knee before one day it just quit me with a loud pop. Lots of drama, x-rays, nine days in a wheelchair, now a fancy rolling walker, MRI, knee specialist, more x-rays, knee specialist scratching head, that sort of thing. Maybe cracked bone, certainly bruised bone, maybe torn meniscus, osteoarthritis from old injuries, Doppler for blood clots, found none. Like that. Surgery on April 3rd.

April 3rd. The pop heard round the campus was five weeks ago. April 3rd is 2 1/2 weeks from now. The rolling walker, not nearly as sexy as the one above but almost, is getting old. The pain is getting old. I'm also getting old. Rapidly.

I've kept a sunny disposition thus far, but I'm flagging. Everyone has been helpful beyond words - all my classes moved in one building, folks helping with Em and The Perfect Grandson, rides to and from work, even concierge service in the rain since I can't hold the umbrella and the walker simultaneously. Em has been my legs around the house and an angel.

I know there are people out there much, much, MUCH worse off than I am. This is temporary and I'll get over it. But in the meantime, I can't pick up The Perfect Grandson or babysit him while his mom's in class. I can't lift him out of his bed in the morning for our conspiratorial, dark-thirty goofing off. I miss it all something terrible.

I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning with a new and grateful attitude. A little sleep does wonders. So do anti-inflammatory drugs. Eighteen more days. I can do this.

Note on the Fridge to my Daughter

You've become an amazing woman. I'm just lucky to be your mama.

The Perfect Grandson, in all his no-pants glory, is going to have a fine life. It will all be due to you.

As for the rest of you out there, go read How Girls learn About Freight Trains and you'll see what I mean. This should be required reading for Bristol Palin and every other young woman out there staring down life with a baby on her hip.

I love you, sweetie. You're going to make it and you're going to shine.

Geezers on Twitter

Yep, I finally did it. I'm Twittering. I'm not doing it well, but I'm slinging tweets here and there all the same. This isn't throw-down, addictive twittering, though, because 1) I still refuse to text and so have limited A-B-C skills with a cell phone, and 2) I can't answer the "What are you doing?" question with anything interesting. Really, who cares that I graded papers and whined about Daylight Savings Time last night? Nobody.

And most people I know aren't twittering. None of my friends, anyway, who might actually commiserate on the grading thing. My family's generational/technological divide makes twittering any of them a complete waste of time. My daughter and all her Gen Y buddies are still living and dying on Facebook, and my parents (bless their hearts) still call to tell me they've sent an email. Maybe my sister - in all her Gen X splendor - is a twitterer. I'll send her an email today to find out, because that's how we Gen Jonesers roll. I do all my twittering on a laptop anyway.

My colleagues? Forget about it. There's no way a whole department of writing professors can can keep it to 140 characters. Ever.

Other folks leave fascinating tweets and I'm following a few of them. Some leave must-read links and information randomly throughout the day, but there have been a few addicts who, while they initially seemed interesting, have turned out to be even more dull than I am. It's a mystery to me why someone with a thousand "followers" thinks we care what kind of coffee they just bought or what time they plan to call it a night. Life's too short to waste it reading inane shit like that.

I suspect I just haven't found my Twitter-Voice yet. I'll get to work on that and tell you how it goes, although you could probably follow me on Twitter and find out for yourself. I don't recommend it, really. Until I figure out my basic rhetorical strategy, it's pointless anyway.

I Heart Scribbling Students who Read Poetry Aloud for the First Time

You know, the ones with the secret notebooks who sit there at the poetry reading flipping raggedy stained pages over and over, listening to the brave one up there reading, and thinking, hey - my stuff is this good, I'll do this. But the chair they're sitting in is too far away or the clapping quits too soon or goes too long and the time they semi-rise to take the moment they're beat by by some other sweaty-handed poet. There's defeat and safety in that second when the butt hits the bottom of the chair. Exhale.

See, what happens then is they make the decision to close the notebook or just take the goddamn room like a poetry-slinging Visigoth, and when the clapping stops for the last one I can read it all over them in bold, black, Sharpie slashes under their eyes, boiling warrior adrenaline and ready, I tell you, ready.

So when they finally do lift off their seats there's no looking right or left, just the stark front of the room where the distance between teller and crowd is a coliseum staring you down, harboring literary expectations, demanding: Don't. You. Dare. Suck.

And they don't. Much.

After, the body still pumps hard-wash through them. Glazed eyes and fingers crazed, wringing that sacred notebook until the covers go soft, curl to fit in a fist. The next poet is on the floor but the last one is still blood-pressured, eye glazed, sweating into a t-shirt and writing in his head the better one for next time. When it's over he'll write for hours scratching cheap ballpoint pens on disfigured pages and that chemistry homework will just have to be late.