Upcycling Dirty Bags and Recycling Writing

I bought a messenger bag at the Slow Food headquarters in Bra, Italy (see the bad trip blog post, it was then: Dirty Laundry). It was an *upcycled* grain bag. Bits of plastic quickly crumbled and dandruffed all down me. On 2/9/13 I turned it into a notebook. I preserved the penholders/pouches, used the straps for straps.

I took old drafts, old paper work, old paper that had some crap on one side of it, and sewed it into a kind of binding into this book. This became my Pomodoro book.  I’m a devotee to the Pomodoro method. Google it.

This is the gist- pick a task that is reasonable to do in about two hours, do that task in 4 sets of 25 minute intervals. Mark each interval. When 4 are complete, you’ve done a “pom.” A thing to understand about the time-pom continuum: they get you going and most days you (or I) end up working past the pom-boundaries. All of the following counts are structural minimums.

It’s also important to note that I teaching as many classes as the uni will let me, plus working as many hours as possible as an ESL consultant. It barely pays the bills. Driving around has been a big chunk of my life. On average, I’d put this work and travel time at 45-50 hours a week. That’s important context.

From Italian for “tomato.” Dude that invented it used his kitchen timer that, allegedly, looked like a tomato. Here is mine. The tomato-looking ones are too rich for my blood. I do, however, have a pile of sticker that began with a Christmas tradition—I’d get stickers in my stocking if I had been good.

The stickers didn’t stop. As a woman in my early-30’s I had no idea how to use them in my life. (Didn’t feel right using them whilst grading college papers.)

Since 5/31/13 It has been my rock. My dates, times, durations, who, where, and what with. Defeats and successes, the place of my menstrual cycle in my writing process (if I’m being honest about biology), and souvenir stickers from friends that I may or may not have entrapped into doing poms with me).

This is what I know from my records: I began preparing for my PhD exams *on the record* as of  Friday 5/31/13 and ending on Sunday 11/10/13, I did 59 ¾ poms in prep. That’s 1,500 minutes. 25.833 hours. My exams took 24 poms. 600 minutes. 10 hours. A lot of Math follows.

I “officially” started my dissertation on 1/7/14 at 2:16 pm. In 2014 I did a total of 142 ½ poms. 3,562.5 minutes. 59.375 hours. Some of that was writing conference papers. Some of it was a chapter on Beowulf in Lessons in Disability . A large chunk went toward dissertating.

2015: 139 poms, 4,475 minutes, 57.91 hours. Just shy of 2014, but pretty much the same (142 ½ vs 139 poms).

 [That summer I only took 8 full days off of writing. I thought that was unhealthy, and determined to take more “time for me” this summer. I took two FULL days off recently (Sunday and Monday), felt like shit, and decided not to do that ever again.]

So far in 2016 I’ve done 103 poms. 2,575, 42.91 hours. And today I retired the pom book in favor of a recycled marc jacobs’ purse from sal-val, this time with binder rings so I can add more recycled-draft-pages as needed. My first stickers are ones I brought back from the Oxford Library gift shop.

This year I’ve revised a dis chapter into an article, completed the draft of my dissertation, wrote more conference papers, prepared a grad-level-seminar that I taught at Kent University, and upcycled an old seminar paper into an article called "Tales From Nowhere: Burma and the Lonely Planet Phenomena") in Antae .

Out of context, this time looks like nothing. “2016: 42.91 hours?! How is that anything?” I worked longer weeks in summer jobs in high school—let alone from Jan to June! But there’s the time the stickers don’t count.

They don’t count the time spent thinking and talking things out. The over-writing like over-running a base.  Presenting at conferences, travel time to libraries, gearing up to write, and cooling your brains off. The writing time of not writing. I have not marked that. Reduce/reuse/recycle it when you can (without self-plagiarizing, obvs).

I respect people that are transparent in how much time it takes to get shit done. And those that make the time to get shit done. Getting the butt in the chair (using stickers or not) and doing the work is the hard part. I respect people that have an honest dialogue with themselves about their time.

 

Author's Note: no blogging is counted in pom time. Ever. There are rules!

Dirty Mycophilia and Crop Dusting

What to read if you have Mycophobia? Mycophilia; Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms.(2011) By Eugenia Bone. I learned a lot from this book. Most importantly, I learned that I am best conquering my fear when I focus on a different one.

Also, there are a lot of scary proverbs about them worth noting! “No Mushroom is poisonous until you eat it” (6); “Any mushroom is edible once” (20); “There are old mushroom eaters and bold mushroom eaters, but no old, bold mushroom eaters” (34).

Then there are piece of information that *aren’t* sayings, but should probably have one to catch the idea: “Fungi love to grow on cotton shirts but are less likely to grow on a silk blouse” (61). Please, Victoria’s Secret, take all of my money now. Take all the cotton. Take it and burn it.  

But then, in this big beautiful book, full of all the information, I stumbling upon this footnote. And it breaks my brain, and then my spirit, in that order. I stumble and I couldn’t get up:

              “*In 2010, Taliban insurgents and angry Afghan farmers accused the United States of dusting their poppy crops with F. oxysporum, affecting up to 50 percent of their opium crop. A program (funded by the USA) within the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime did seek to develop F. oxysporum to battle pot and poppy fields, but the project was terminated in 2002 without ever being used, the result of warnings from scientists that the fungus could mutate into hardier strains that could attack nontargeted crops. The poppy crop failure was likely the result of a natural fungal blight, possibly Macrosporium papverus, a type of root rot.” (87)

Ok, this isn't a bio-terrorism lab--it is from the botanical gardens in Atlanta. But scary image of growing maybe-fungi-in-containers, right?

So how would the fungi do the thing to take down a whole field? Well, “”Imagine you are lying on a giant steak. Your stomach enzymes seep out to predigest the steak, and then you absorb the steak through your skin” (49). This is how mushrooms get their nutrients. We have the disturbing video from the Planet Earth Series, “where life is built on decay.”

In the space of my brain devoted to food security and land rights, things still are not quite okay. Biological warfare scares the fungi out of me. I honestly cannot wrap my head around the above quoted idea, even though I know that it happens. All the time.

From time immemorial, people have attacked enemies’ crops. I know this. But if there is any unfair fight, it is fighting with fungus. Take other things that should have sayings, but aren’t: “mycorrhizal fungi function as a giant communications network between multiple trees in a forrest…. “nature’s internet”” (71). I’m glad we haven’t penetrated that underground cloud….

Or, “the cell walls of fungi are made of chitin—the same substance as crab shells and squid beaks—which doesn’t exist in plants” (42). They’re one step away (using my bad-science-logic) from having exoskeletons! I jest, but in seriousness, I do not like, and do not know how to proceed.

Mushrooms and scallops. Perhaps "Chitin" is why it works? IDK....

I do not wish to come off as a mycoalarmist. After all, “saprophytic fungi have been key to the civilizing process, if you consider good wine as an indicator of civilization” (81). Yes, that’s a fairly Eurocentric worldview, but damnit I like wine. And we need the myco for wine.

So in conclusion, in attempting to learn more about mushrooms I got sad about bioterrorism and scared about non-silk underwear. I still like porcinis, I think…. But those are 90 % water, and we clock in at about 80 %. Even they are better at being us than we are at being water. Hell thy mushrooms, indeed. 

Dirty Kids With Shovels/ SUNY CoW 2016

[stock image of child with shovel and sapling]

Today I write to you about what I'm going to be talking about this weekend. A while back I wrote about the July 2014 National Conference on Horticulture in Ohio (Hort’14), and the 66^th annual national convention for the Garden Writer's Association (GWA). Here's proof (with a very adorable bio):

http://gardenwritersgroup.org/darcy-mullen-english-professor/

Sustainability was a major focus of all the conversations. Specifically, the challenge of sustaining the industry by attracting young, creative, college-educated workers. With the average age of the American farmer at 58, there is a need to integrate actual millennials in all levels of agribusiness (beyond niche farming). Here they are trying to recruit me with an expensive trowel I won in a raffle. 

The closing keynote speaker at GWA 14, Paul Redman from Longwood Garden, stated that if agriculture is to be sustainable the first step is that “we need to stop taking pictures of students with shovels in their hands!" (Aug 11 2014).

Holy Effing Manure. No truer words had been spoken. The thing, THE THING that had kept me from dropping out of grad school (on the worst, and poorest days) was the fact that I did not DID NOT want to end up being dirty, and doing manual labor for the rest of my life. And my fear was that if I were to stay in the family landscaping business, that my only option was a life with a dirty shovel. This is also a reason I have stayed away from the "Farmers Only" dating website.

I'm smart. I'm educated. Why didn't I realize prior to that moment that there were job-options in agribusiness that didn't require shovels? Why did I assume that I was just a dirty kid with a shovel, that would grow up to be a dirty adult with a shovel? At my college graduation party (which was landscape-themed) I rebelled with jewlry, straightened hair and makeup. And a hammer (one of the least-used tools in landscaping).

Paul made it pretty clear. The visual rhetoric of stereotypical, dirty farmer perpetuates the idea that agribusiness is fueled by underpaid, physical labor. The visual rhetoric of agribusiness in general perpetuates this myth. When I entered college, or grad school, there simply wasn't a pool of pictures of career options that were appealing to me as a critical-thinker.

Don't believe me? Google “students with shovels. These are the first 3, of 2,320,000 images returned to you. The first is an image of Emeril Lagasse's Foundation Kitchen Project.

 The next is from St. Paul's University College, University College, at the University of Waterloo. 

  

And the third is from Point Park University, PA.

 

These pictures were familiar to me. They were part of the vocabulary of "the only options" in agribusiness. What Paul pointed out that day was true. Moreover, it was reinforced by other things at the conference.  The opening keynote, Rick Darke, gave a talk called "Writing to The Palimpsest." The first words out of his mouth were directed at the audience. He said, "Palimpsest--how many of you use this word on a regular basis?" My hand shot up (lonely-like)..... People laughed, he and I talked afterwords.

In his talk he taught us about the landscape as palimpsest (and what that word meant--basically a text, or object, worked and reworked upon). Afterwords we talked about the need for bridging theory with horticulture. Finis Dunaway’s Seeing Green (2015) might argue that we have this hold-over of using images of young people in this way as a result of the visual history of the environmental movement. 

 

The great minds in Rural Literacies (Kim Donehower, Charlotte Hogg, and Eileen E. Schell; 2007) might explain this residual visual rhetoric as another element in "the rhetoric of lack" pervading discourses of rural space, and working in that space. So do I have an answer? No. But maybe if I had seen pictures of people using their noggins, instead of shovels, I would have gone into an agricultural job, or found a way to join the family business in the 21st century.

We already know the stigmas about 'going into a trade' rather than 'going to college.' But if this industry continues to use imagery that asks young people to choose between brute strength and brains, we are going to have some major sustainability problems. No more pictures of dirty kids with shovels.

Show a multiplicity of career options that include reading dirt as a palimpsest.

And come to SUNY CoW 2016:
https://sunycow2016.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/conference-4.pdf

---

Hooked on Dirt

Recently I introduced Dr. Randall Horton at a NYSWI event at SUNY Albany. The text follows bellow.

"For this occasion, I have written a letter to Dr. Horton that I am going to read now…. He has not read this.

'Dear Randall,

I’m happy you’re here. I am also so very thankful to have known you before I read your books. Had I not, I likely would have sent you embarrassing fan mail of the kind I may or may not have sent (in no particular order) to Neil Gaiman, Junot Diaz, Anne Carson, Roxanne Gay and/or Margaret Atwood. Since I *do* know you, I instead have the privilege of reading my most personal and heartfelt sentiments to you. And a room full of people. [and now the interwebs]

If I were to have written you a letter I would not recount your personal and professional accomplishments, such as: B.A. in English, from University of the District of Columbia, an M.F.A., in Poetry from Chicago State University, a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing, from SUNY Albany. And now your position at University of New Haven.

I would not recount these things, because you already know about them.

Instead, my letter would largely be about the words you’ve taught me. I would begin with the first word you ever taught me—ekphrastic! Poetry written about works of art, and describing in vivid detail. You taught me this word in the context of a poem about compost.

While reading Pitch Dark Anarchy you taught me more words.

First, “roseate.” Yes, as in the color. But also as a bird—a seabird, a tern, related to seagulls. They can exhibit kleptoparasitic behavior! That means sometimes they steal fish from other birds! They aren’t highly defensive of their nests, instead relying on the colony and the conditions of their surroundings to protect their eggs.

Second word: “Brogans.” Shoes, boots, originating in 16^th century Scotland, used in the American Civil War and up through WWII. One of their nicknames is “little tanks.”

Third Word: “Palmate.” A leaf with lobes of more than three, almost shaped like a hand. Think a horse chestnut or maple leaf.

In The Definition of Place you taught me words, yes. But you taught me about how they move together. As in,

              “both of them walking across hell on a spider web” or

“So I emulate his defiance practicing in front of full length mirrors anywhere I can; perfect my own variation of the lean until it feels natural and I can express my entire belief system in a walk.”

And now, Randall, in Hook, you open with “Location only matters because of conditions that create location.” Here, you taught me about what happens when words get stuck.

Stuck on our tongues before we know what words are, stuck in our blood, in our throats. Stuck in books, in sanitized documents, in our constructs, in trusting our readers. In the glue that keeps us from slipping into fragments. In telling someone they belong and that They Are Loved. In erasure. In blue prints. In the entire scope of American Letters.

When I return to your writing it is out of a need to feel words make movement.

A need to see the vivid recreation of these little tanks flying to hide eggs under a palmate cover. A need to walk my own belief system across a spider web, to a place where I can see words made new.

Thank you, Randall, for these places.

All my love,

Darcy

Everyone, Dr. Randall Horton'."

I'm, begging you like a soup hound. Read.

Hell Thy Mushrooms!

Guys! Guys! Guys! So this thing happened..... I am interrupting my regularly scheduled mushroom narrative to tell you about the thing that happened! And it might have something applicable for the SuperFoods tomorrow, so I'm posting it now!

I ended up back in Oneonta, NY for dinner. (Oneonta will be later referenced in the open letter to students, which is coming as soon as I let go of some rage re: bus attack.) I was at the Red Caboose. I got to try 3 ground meats! 2 in burger form, 2 in meatballs! Win-win-win.

Got to chatting with my, in my opinion, Anna Paquin look-a-like waitress about the things. Told her I thought she was a doppelganger, and she was like, "cool, because I want to be famous someday!"

"For what?"
"Food stuff. My boyfriend and I have a youtube/videoblog thing (I don't remember what she said, making things up) for healthy junk food!"
"OMG no way, I blog about food, kinda! Do you have anything on mushrooms?"

And thus threads were formed. I asked her to send me two videos, one with a mushroom thing, and one that is more of her favorite-stuff they do.

The one she likes, the one she sent me cold, that is more her style, HAS WILLIAM SHATNER IN IT. Synchronicity is a bitter, bitter mistress (see my "Dirty 33" for more on this http://storiesofsoil.blogspot.com/2015/05/dirty-33.html).

More importantly, watch their video on HOW TO MAKE KFC Nashville Hot Chicken!

Granted, I don't eat the chickens, so let me know how it goes.

And then came.... the mycophilia. The Portobello Cocktail Melts.

Their name, Hellthyjunkfood, reads as a Shakespearian condemnation to me. "Hell, thy food is but hands without fingers!" --Adapted from Titus Andronicus. And I like it.

More importantly they're funny. She told me the story of why they started doing it, why they kept doing it and where they want to go with it. I can dig it.

And yes, if someone makes me these gf-sandwiches, I will eats them.

Go watch all their videos:
http://www.hellthyjunkfood.com/

Dirty Food: Mushroom Resolution Update I

Since the last post I have eaten mushrooms. Like, a lot.

I began at the store. I stood in the unfamiliar area of the produce section (the section that holds the things). They started to swarm me like Hitchcock creatures. I needed help.

I found the oldest person in proximity. I asked her to teach me about mushrooms. In a very thick german accent, tells me the portabellas were good to marinade and grill. Tells me about the others that she and her daughter used to find in the forest, didn't have them at the store. Can make a nice sauce with those.

So I grab a pack of baby portabellas (they are right in the middle. That was how I chose). My plans are to use Julia's recipe. A trusted ally confirmed that they are the best. I sautee them in pounds of butter. I don't overcrowd the pan. I let them brown. I add shallots. I deglaze with brandy.

I eat them. I make other people eat them. "Yeah, this is how they should taste. But, you know, on a steak or something. Not just on their own." We watch "Gaslight." I think I'm crazy to try and convince myself of liking the thing I don't.
 
Next I eat a burger, sans bun, with bacon and cheese. Mushrooms under cheese and bacon are great. They taste just like bacon and cheese. Crazy.

I also try Chinese take out. Beef with fresh mushrooms in brown sauce with vegetables. I don't like. I put mustard all over. I like mustard. I don't like when they pop between my teeth.

Am starting to get concerned with the nutritional content of mushrooms.

I go to a restaurant in town. I drink a lot. I ask if I can just get a side of the most popular mushrooms and steak with sauce, hold the steak. Drumroll, and wowza.

I like these. I actually want to eat them like they are a food. I ate almost the whole bowl. So my conclusions so far: I am still terrified, but I have had good experiences with porcinis.

Neophobia in regards to food is that you need to try a new food at least 13 times before you like it. I will continue trying and doing math. Please send more ideas and recipes.

Dirty Resolution: Mushrooms

Pinterest has printable forms to make your resolutions. Because making one is too easy, we must make lists of Many Things that we will fix about our selves. We will be complete this year. We are incomplete if we don't do all the things! So I filled in the blanks. Watch me fill in the blanks!

A NEW FOOD TO TRY! I will try all the foods with mushrooms until I find one I like. The neophobia theory (regarding food) states that it takes 13 exposures to an untrusted food before you can like it. I don't trust mushrooms (for many reasons). They are nature's zombies.

More importantly, when I was little, my dad once made portabella mushrooms for dinner. He told me they were Dumbo's ears. Terrified, I had to sit at the table until I finished them. It fucked me up.

Please suggest restaurants or recipes that will make me like mushrooms. I want to learn to like them this year. I mean it, send me a message on the forum you've read this, or leave a comment below. I need suggestions. And I'm all ears.

A BAD HABIT I WILL BREAK! I will not zone out when listening. I will improve my active listening skills!

A NEW SKILL TO LEARN! I need to learn to forgive faster, better, harder.  Below is a note from a midterm class evaluation. I asked all the student to write down, separately what they'd like to see me do more of in the class. I walk back into the room to see only a single piece a paper. It says "you are doing a fine job...."

I framed it. I must remember that I am doing a fine job, and chances are you are, too. If twenty-something twenty-somethings can agree on that, on one piece of paper, I can agree on that as well (in one long sentence).


A PERSON TO BE MORE LIKE! My student's son, he's 19 months old. He knows all the things I need to know. He is willing to throw tantrums when the pacifier doesn't work. I would like to be brave enough say screw it and throw a legit tantrum.

A GOOD DEED TO DO! Pay more attention to love. Don't be afraid to love because we as a society haven't gotten good at collectively defining it. Live by love, in love, with love, and all the prepositions of love. Be brave, because loving is being brave. 

Pay attention to things the way they are. Love them. Even if they are gross, they might be perfect.

A PLACE TO VISIT! The Outdoors. More. Always. Be brave and go outdoors more! 

A BOOK TO READ! All the books read by Don Draper. See link below. Finally read the scandalous Lady Chatterley's lover. Gasp. And Atlas Shrugged. (Ug).

May your 2016 be filled with all the things you bravely fill in your blanks with. May you learn to love a scary thing. May you be brave and self-soothe, and learn throw tantrum. If you throw too many, stop. Read all the books, listen to all the people, forgive and love until you split open with it.

(God I hate mushrooms.)

Mad Men Reading List:
http://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/09/13/mad-men-reading-list

Again, many thanks to the brilliant Leah for making me put a mushroom in my mouth and taking the pictures that I'm lucky enough to start the year with!