Writers

So I'm sitting in The Pub Friday night with some friends. We spent the evening driving around town for First Friday, where every month there are art exhibits with free wine and snacks. We've settled at The Pub because there's a band playing, and another friend and TA (Teaching Assistant) we know is in it, playing the harmonica. He pretty much makes the band, in my opinion. Behind them the mural is of polar bears, moose, mountain goats. I take a sip of my beer, and that's when I realize: I live in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Took me long enough.

During the past two weeks, we had intensive training and planning for teaching our classes of Intro to Academic Writing, as well as our first two days of school. It took awhile for the TA's to bond, but after we all made a mutual decision to skip out on the second half of the general grad school orientation (highly geared towards the sciences and pretty much irrelevant to the liberal arts) and go to the botanical gardens instead, we've started to feel like a cohesive group of friends.

I'm always in love with getting to know new people, but these are people who make fun of scientists for their nerdy jokes, and then make literary jokes that most of the world doesn't understand. They are men who carry journals tucked in the back of their pants, just in case. Half drunk, they're asking you if you've read any of Rick Bass's fiction. They insist that Moleskin is the kind of journal you want -- but don't waste it on a teaching class. When you ask them to define a difficult word, such as abyss, they quote Milton.

After writing practically nothing in regards to fiction over the past few months, I'm coming to my computer every night with ideas, wanting to write. On Wednesday, we start workshop. I can't wait.


On an unrelated note: Doug made my outhouse pretty and put in electricity last week! Good thing, as it's actually getting dark at night now.