Maps to Anywhere

As I was reading "Maps to Anywhere," I found it interesting how Bernard Cooper had many different subsections within his writing. I like how he made it feel as though there was more to his stories than just the words he uses. He uses great imagery. He found his name unique or different compared to "normal" names that were able to be printed on wallets or cups, or when he said his mother even had trouble remembering his name, "calling me home at dusk, she'd stand in the doorway and shout the names of my older brothers-- Richard, Robert, Ronald! - before she remembered mine." This is unique because his brothers names are rather normal and begin with the letter "R," while his is not-so-popular and starts with "B."

As I went on reading, I could feel the same feelings he was experiencing. He's able to draw the reader in. I found that rather enticing. I also like how he made it clear that there didn't have to be a certain way to write and that it's ok to jump around, which is what he did. He jumped back and forth between the subsections. My favorite was Nick the Barber in Atlantis. Nick never leaves the barber shop. "I've driven by and glimpsed him asleep in the barber chair, his face turned toward the street, his combs soaking in blue medicinal liquid, the barber pole softly aglow like a nightlight, the stripes cascading endlessly down, rivulets running toward a home in the ocean."He gave this image so simple and descriptive. He describes the balconies of a house or of buildings and how many were gorgeous. He uses vivid sense of imagery to help me imagine the minor details and how it seemed more than just a balcony.

Another one I enjoyed reading was Spontaneous Combustion. This starts with a firefighter talking to a class assembly telling them how to be safe with fire. I feel like anyone can relate to this. He made it feel like you can be brought back to your childhood when reading this. As it goes on though, I believe he focuses less on fire safety and more about children escaping their hometowns and following their dreams, "so burning their desire for a world beyond the walls." It also ends with "The wise children leap from ledges, disappear into another life, into cool cerulean blue."This is what I enjoyed about his essays. He can jump from one thing to another, but you still are able to follow along and get the meaning from it.

How to Draw is filled with a lot of context. It's interesting because most would oppose his concept of amateurs being more important than professionals artists. He feels amateurs work is better than someone who gets paid a million dollars for a painting.  "No one, to my knowledge, has been killed by a replica of the Jefferson Memorial made out of toothpicks, or a snowflake cut from folded paper, or a poodle composed of pink balloons." Very unique take on this. I can relate to what he is saying here. Sometimes the most valuable things are homemade.

Finishing the book I had a new appreciation for nonfiction essays. He wrote them in a way that I could enjoy reading them. He gives you a glimpse of his real life without ever really doing it. I got enough detail about him and his friends and family, but he didn't really focus on the things that didn't matter, if that makes sense. The stories were short, but to the point. They don't have to be long, he gives enough imagery to set the scene in your mind so you can follow along. I felt like I really got to know his life through these short stories.

Goldberg Blog

This was a very interesting piece of writing. Breaking it up into the short stories helped me to define the difference stages or strategies for good writing. It put things into perspective and gave really good advice.

Use Loneliness
Reading this I was able to put myself in her shoes and really felt what she was was trying to say. I too have been alone in the past so I could really relate to this. "Taste the bitterness of isolation, and from that place feel a kinship and compassion for all the people who have been alone." Good advice since everyone has felt loneliness in their lives at one point or another and using loneliness as a starting point lets you connect with more people.

Blue Lipstick and Cigarette hanging out your Mouth
Very unique advice given here, and one that works because it opens your mind to other different or unique things like, "Dye your hair green, paint your nails purple, get your nose pierced," all things that most of us would not do, but if we did, it would open our minds to write about different things and not the usual boring things we tend to write about. Great advice here!

Going Home
More great advice here. We tend to focus our writing on other people, places we've been, or past experiences, and we tend to avoid writing about our own families. I think it is because most of us find it boring since we had to live it. We tend to forget we are writing to inform other people and it just might be quite interesting for them to read about our family. The part that was intriguing to me was where she said to write about how your family may speak, "there are charming ways your family and region speak. Get to know that; appreciate it." My family has quirky sayings as I'm sure most families do, but I would have never thought to write about them. Interesting!

Claim your Writing
This is how I feel when I have to write a story. I do not have the confidence and I believe my stories are garbage. "It is very difficult for us to comprehend and value our own lives." I see other peoples work as magnificent, but mine is worthless to me. I have to work on this and take her advice, "It is not as important for the world to claim as it is to claim it for ourselves." I need to stand behind my work and look at it as it is at that moment and worry about the other stuff later. If I claim my writing as it is, I will be able make adjustments later on (add, subtract, etc.).

Trust Yourself
This is kind of like the workshops we do in class where we passed around our work for the others in our group to critique. That helped me a little. I was able to take the criticism and revise my work using my classmates suggestions. Her suggestions here is to "listen to what people say; take in what they say, then make your own decision." Sometimes listening to other peoples suggestions will help you if your are struggling and cannot find the right words to use.

The Samurai
She talks here about rereading your notes and taking unnecessary things out, "cutting it out." "Be willing to look at your work honestly." If it works, keep it, "if it doesn't, quit beating a dead horse."Something good will eventually come to mind and then you will be able to write it down. I think patience is the key too. In fact I think it is the main thing.

All in all, very good advice to anyone just beginning to write. I really thought her advice given was right on key and hopefully I will be able to take her advice on these. She really knows how to describe things in ways we all can understand and like I said before, her breaking them down into little stories will help the writer-to-be stay focused. I got a lot of out this particular reading.

Juice

   This book was definitely strange and challenging to read and focus on. It was hard because the author would change direction and talk about something else. All the chapters seem to have one thing in common though and that is her love for juice. She seemed to have a liking to this particular drink. It didn't matter what kind it was she liked it. In the first part it was hard to understand what was going on, all I got out of it was she grew up in the mountains and described it in great detail. She kept referring to the number eight a lot also. "I was the youngest of eight very mild mannered kids," "I had not eaten in eight days," "I came upon a school of eight fish." I'm not sure what the meaning behind that is or what the crisis is she is trying to describe, but I think it might mean how long she has gone without juice, I am not sure.
   The first chapter also puts a lot of focus on her "hometown." She would explain her family in great detail, "attracted to facial markers," and "chose to live in mountains," "these now familiar stains and settled here." I thought she was very judgmental, but in a good way. She wanted to figure people out. She also does not want to be alone because she says she did not care if they came back happy or angry, as long as they came back. Maybe when she is alone she finds comfort in her juice.
   Loneliness seemed to be a reoccurring theme in this book. It scares her to death and she will do anything to stop that from happening. The third chapter "No Through Street," seemed to bounce around a lot. She would bounce around and talk about one thing and as soon as I was able to follow along with her she changed directions and talked about something else, then came back to the original topic. Very distracting and hard to follow along.

First Sleep

   In this story, she keeps referring to different sleeps she has had or is having and what she encountered in those sleeps. I am not sure exactly what she means by these "sleeps," but I get the impression maybe they are about sleepwalking or maybe sleep studies done on her. I believe she is referring to herself when she talks about Mrs. Gladman, "I usually say I am seeing myself when I am asleep." "A person walks out into the morning from a dream and connects the dreams to things." I think this means she remembers things vividly from her dream and tries to relate them to real life. "In one memorable night there were fourteen sleeps." Maybe this means she was awakened fourteen times during her sleep because she also says "three trips to the bathroom." I was intrigued about the part "The note eventually said everything about dreaming." I would like to know what this means. This was an interesting story. I think everyone in this story plays a role in her dreaming. Maybe they are all characters in her mind and she dreams about them. Maybe this is all one big dream since most times our dreams do not make any sense or we cannot put certain pieces together from our dreams. This is kinda how I feel about this story.
   
 

Walking The Baby To The Liquor Store

   I chose to write about the short story "walking the baby to the liquor store." This story is unique in that it focuses on how the baby enjoys going to the liquor store when in reality the baby just likes going for a walk and has no comprehension where she is going in particular, but it makes you believe that she knows where she is going. "The baby adores going to the liquor store. In her infant mind there is, nothing so beautiful or significant in the world as sitting up in her yellow stroller and rolling bravely west towards some exotically remote BUNNY'S or, on Sundays, a place as unimaginably far away as KIRBY'S LIQUOR". I think it gives great detail to the story because it lets you imagine what these stores might look like in your eyes and in the baby's eyes too.
   There a part in the story where it wants us to imagine that the baby is so focused on going to the liquor store that even a german pinscher barking is not a distraction at all, "And when the snarling German Pinscher throws himself, all teeth and slather, she doesn't turn a hair." I envision this in my head and can actually see the dog barking at the fence. It states again that the baby is focused on one thing and one thing only, getting to the liquor store. "This morning she's Cleopatra and the liquor store is Rome."
   Towards the end of this story, it seems to focus on the fathers priorities and it seems his daughter is his main one. "I wouldn't miss these excursions for the world." Any person that has a child has said or felt this same thing and I really believed this part of the story. "How much trouble is it, after all, to go out walking with the baby." I used to love walking my kids around in the stroller because it seemed to calm them down and maybe this father does because it calms his daughter down.  He would give up anything for his daughter to make her happy, "How much work could one possible do in that brief half-hour? And measured against such joy, such infant bliss(which may well indeed anticipate a lifetime's happiness), how important is it that I go to work at all?" He would even be willing to give up the National Book Award just so he would not miss that walk with his infant daughter.
   I really believe in this story that the father has true love and compassion for his infant daughter. He would be willing to give up his career for her. I was able to feel the love he has for her and found it to be true. I believe he hopes these walks he is taking her on will lead to a great relationship between the two of them in the future, "Which may well indeed anticipate a lifetime's happiness." I also liked the part when they got home from their walk and they both had a drink in the kitchen, "Sometimes, when we get home from the liquor store, the baby and I are so happy we even do the dishes and have a drink."
   The baby, even though an infant still, has a great impact on her fathers life. I believed his daughter gives him the inspiration to write,"The baby knows four words: mommy, daddy, banana and doggy. Could anyone write a novel more interesting that that?" He writes in the kitchen after his daughter has gone to sleep, maybe after a long day spent with her, it gives him the motivation and inspiration to keep writing, "It's something I think about often in the glittering fluorescent kitchen after the baby's gone to sleep. And who knows what she'll come up with next?" This story shows a great love between a father and his daughter and I really enjoyed this short story. It has a lot of information in such a small story and it makes it believable.


 

Shakespeare sonnet 115

   I chose this sonnet, to be honest, because it was one of the easiest to comprehend for me. In this poem I believe he is talking about how love can still grow stronger everyday even though he originally thought he could not love anymore, "Even those that said I could not love you dearer." He talks about how deep he thought his love was only to find out he can still love more or have a deeper love than he first believed to be true, "Might I not then say, Now I love you best." I think he believes here that it is impossible to love any greater than he knows right now. He was sure of his love, "When I was certain O'er uncertainty."
     "Love is a babe; might I not say so," I believe he is referring to cupid or maybe to someone he loved in the past and thought he could never love that way again.  His love is growing for this person and he is surprised by how he is feeling. We never think we could love someone or something as much as we actually do and we are surprised to find out that we actually can love deeper and more everyday and this is what I believe he is talking about.
   This was an interesting view on love and like I said before, something we all encounter in our lives. When you love someone you never think your love can ever be any greater than it is at that moment and we are all surprised to find out that this is not the case at all. Love is a powerful tool and I believed he touched on it the only way he knew how to and that was from his heart. Love is truly a feeling we all enjoy and the more we love something or someone the better we feel and I believe he touched on that in this poem.
 
 

Introduction!

My name is Julie Umlah and I live in Canton, Mi. My major is nursing and I recently graduated from the University of Phoenix with an associates degree in Health Care Administration. This is my first semester at Eastern. I am finishing my general ed classes at Eastern in hopes of getting into the nursing school next May (fingers crossed). I am married with 2 boys who are grown and have kids of their own. I am excited to be this close to my dream of becoming a nurse. It is really exciting! I am looking forward to the hard work ahead of me and welcome the challenges it will bring.