(This is a cross-post on the blog for Longacre, a great summer program that I attended as a teenager. I’ll be blogging for them for the next few months, alternating with 2015 debut novelist Cordelia Jensen, another alum. I’m excited for a bona fide chance to revisit some good parts of my teen years, and to see what someone else says about the role of Longacre in her own life. Stay tuned!)

So I was thrilled when Director Matt asked me to blog for Longacre, because my summers there had an enormous effect on me, and I’m eager to explain how. I can sum it up in one word: doughnuts.

Yes, so doughnuts are a big go-to in my life. There are certain streets I can’t walk without instantly thinking, “Can I get a doughnut now?” But here, doughnuts are relevant.

Lots of things about me were the same from ages 11 through 18: a love of reading, writing, and theatre; high levels of goofiness; an allergic reaction to anything I perceived as fake. The attitude toward the doughnuts, however, evolved.

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Container of joy and fear.

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Before I went to Longacre Farm, I went to a conventional camp. Sports, arts, and waterfront; Saturday night socials; Sunday breakfast in bed. We didn’t get served on trays, but we got to sleep in, and someone in the cabin would go up to the kitchen and get cereal, milk, and doughnuts for breakfast. (I hope you weren’t worried that I wouldn’t get to the doughnuts. I will always get to the doughnuts.)

In five summers at this camp, I never once went to pick up breakfast. I honestly don’t know how I managed this without a) anyone noticing or b) anyone slapping me. I was probably there for a total of twenty-eight Sundays, and for every single one of them, I slept in, played cards, and elbowed my way to a powdered doughnut without contributing a thing. Of course, I meant to volunteer for breakfast duty, one day. It was just—where did one go, really, to pick it up? No one had explained the location of the mysterious breakfast window. Would there be scary people I didn’t know there—maybe boys? (I liked boys, but our camp was gender-separated, and I didn’t want to run into them as I looked in the wrong place.) It was all just too scary. Better to let someone else get pushed into the job of breakfast retrieval.

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Why does summer camp ever end, really?

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Fast-forward to Longacre Farm. On our first night, we counted off into different work crews. As with most work crews, the jobs rotated: Showers and Latrines; Kitchen; Barn Chores … I don’t remember the rest, but there was one every day, and they took up serious time—kitchen, in fact, was an all-day adventure starting when everyone else was asleep and ending when you staggered out for dinner. We’d had a chore-wheel at Camp Generic, but even sweeping the cabin didn’t compare to mashing 35 potatoes—by hand.

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I kind of hope they have upgraded to electric.

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I don’t know why, but I didn’t mind these chores. I found it impossible to remove every hair from the countertops (I still do), but I realized early on that if we didn’t clean up after ourselves, nobody would, and if I did a lazy job, it would just annoy someone the next day. It was also fun to work with other people. I still remember a counselor singing back to Edie Brickell as he washed 80 plastic cups. (When she sang, “Don’t let me get too deep,” he would reply, “Don’t worry, baby, I won’t.”) At my high-pressure school, working hard had meant staying up late with grueling essays. I didn’t have that many chores at home (thanks, Mom and Dad), but the things I did felt like something I had to do, rather than something I got to provide. At Longacre, hard work meant sweat and ache, but pride, fun, and community, too.

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I bet you can guess how old I am within 5 years,

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I know it’s a luxury to have positive experiences with physical work. For many people, that work is not an option, and it’s nothing close to fun. Nevertheless, it was my experience, and it formed an ethos in me that has had unexpected and lasting effects. My best friend and I met in 10^th-grade math, but we didn’t really bond until we spent a Saturday making sandwiches at a soup kitchen. I have often gotten back-pats for lending a hand at work, and it’s because of that same Longacre realization: if I don’t do this, who will, and how badly would it stink for someone else to do it alone? And while I have the usual marital housework spats, part of the strength of my marriage comes from the mutual practice of my partner and I taking things off each others’ plates—and I don’t mean the last pierogi. I am no saint, believe me. I have often been accused of hoarding and then insufficiently washing dirty dishes. But I am better than I could have been.

All those summer-camp Sundays, playing spit and waiting for the breakfast delivery, I think I felt guilty, and afraid to be revealed as a shirker. Perhaps what really awaited me on the breakfast run was a pajama-walk over dewy grass and the pride of presenting my friends with their breakfast. I’ll never know what I missed on that front, but I’m glad I got the chance to make it up in the years to come.

Now … where’s the nearest doughnut?

Curious about Longacre, or maybe just want to see pictures of cute kids in grubby clothes? Head on over to Longacre.

Sandy Green, a local author whose funny blog features a purple car-spotting meme and the tagline, “Everyone’s sandy at the beach,” interviewed me on her blog! Check it out:

Writing is Always Better with Cake.

No idea how she came up with that title. Will have to ponder.

Have I told you yet about Cake-Out, which makes amazing layered cakes in take-out containers, somehow managing to maintain amazing freshness even with layers of frosting and ganache? Probably not, because I am only marginally interested in cake.

Brothers and sisters, guess where I was Monday night?

A showtunes sing-a-long. And if you’re going to read on in the hopes of an ironic sneer at the process, forget it! I love showtunes, and I love singing with people. It’s the closest thing in my life right now to organized religion: everybody engaged, with common knowledge and enthusiasm. Okay, we’re not seeking moral guidance, and for sure the carolers aren’t wrestling with the problematics of the song “Mame” (“The whole plantation’s hummin?” And really, people still do this show?). Still, I love singing with people, especially songs from musicals, which I’ve listened to all my life.

I did walk into Signature Theatre, who was hosting this month, with trepidation. I’d

I am no Fraulein Sally Bowles. Alas.

thought it was going to be songbook-style, but when I came in late (since I can never manage to reach any DC destination without getting lost), only one person was singing, in a very jazzy cabaret. Uh-oh. Would this be amateur piano karaoke? I like to sing, but I”m nothing to make people listen to, and I definitely wasn’t going to belt out “Maria” for a crowd of strangers. I started to wonder if I’d driven extra on Glebe Road for nothing.

However, when I reached the friend who worked there, she assured me that the event was, in fact, sing-a-long style; the lounge lizard was just doing a little publicity for an upcoming Signature show. Phew. I happily abandoned myself to the 50-page songbook and crooning crowd. Singing! Belting! With others and a piano! The piano player was totally into it, adding little flourishes that you hear on the soundtrack but have to add in on your own when you a capella in your car. I’m in my 30s and was definitely below the median age, but I was touched by the cluster of men in their 60s, letting others use the songbooks and signaling to the piano player to pause as they looked up the words to “Impossible Dream” and “Tomorrow” on their iPads. They were straight-seeming, too, which surprised and charmed me. People had come out of their demographic for the night, and I gave my gamest alto along with them.

Not without moments of self-consciousness, of course. We ventured into the late 20th century with “525,600 minutes” from “Rent,” and one young redhead in too short of a shirt-dress got WAY more into it than I thought was seemly, doing little kicky dances and flirting cutely with her friend across the circle. Or–even worse–the crowd requested “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Miserables and then proceeded to belt it out from memory, since it wasn’t in the songbook.

There was an unwritten rule to loving musical theatre, I decided. It was perfectly fine to know the words to “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No,” or “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Those songs were just in the vernacular. Your parents sang from those shows, or you were in a production of one of them at camp. But to know the words to any song other than the major ballads of “Les Miserables” was just shameful. People shouldn’t admit to that sort of malarkey. Or maybe I didn’t want to be there when they did.

Just as I was feeling the need for a bathroom escape, though, two new, young women sauntered through in impressively tailored coats. The one with glossy curls caught my eye and intoned, “The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!” I couldn’t help but laugh. There was a little irony in the night after all. Or at least, just enough.

Now, pardon me while I play a game of Spider solitaire so I can pay attention to the words to “Impossible Dream.” That’s a good song, yo!

Teen me had a passing interest in Escher

Did you ever wish you could go back in time and give a message to your younger self?  And did you maybe wish that other people could benefit from hearing that message?  That’s the philosophy behind Dear Teen Me, a blog created by my webly friend Emily Krisin Morse and others.  I recently had my turn talking to my teen self, and here’s what I had to say.  I’m glad I finally got it off my chest.

There are other great entries here, many by friends of mine, like this one and this one.   You could really spend an afternoon thinking about different peoples’ experiences then and now.  In fact, maybe this will be the afternoon!

Especially the one on the right

Today, anyway.

You know that writer whose blog is read and referenced far and wide?  The one run by a faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts (the finest grad school in all the land) where you can’t believe she has time to learn about and connect with so many professionals because she also is hugely prolific as a writer and has many devoted advisees?  I’m talking about Cynthia Leitich Smith and her blog, Cynsations (obviously.)  And I am honored to say that I am today’s New Voice–the new writer she interviews for her blog.

That's Cyn. She's a hoot.

Some come on down to Cynsations, read what I have to say about outlining vs. plunging into the story, how teaching has influenced my writing, and writerly self-promotion.  And then stick around and click through to read some other new voices!

(On a side note, the playwriting program I teach for is called New Voices.  We’re just voicey all over the place here!)

And on a p.s. note: On Monday, I talked to 250 kids at Scribner Middle School in Indiana!  They were awesome.  The auditorium was huge and I walked with my hand-held mike up the aisles, just like Oprah.  Photos of that to come.

I hazily remember that back when I used to work full-time, I used to do things like go into other peoples’ offices or classrooms to jabber when I needed a break.  I even remember a Catchy Jingles War with my boss Elizabeth, in which we’d wait until the other one stepped away from her desk, call each other up, and sing or whistle an annoyingly catchy tune–“I’d rather buy at PC [that’s PC Richards!” or “Can-can, Shop-Rite has the can cans!”  There was also the time that Angie and I plotted a hella bad April Fool’s Day prank that I couldn’t laugh about for a long time.  But it’s a good thing I have these memories, because when I do things like watch clips from the Fame movie during writing breaks, I don’t feel like such a lout.

I had a really good reason for watching Fame.  I needed a good poem quote about swimming for the big moment when Luke takes the plunge, and I found one from Walt Whitman–

Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

This is so apropos you don’t even know it.  But then I thought, “Oh, ‘I sing the body electric’–just like that song from Fame!  I need to watch that.  And do you:

For those of you tragically not in the know, Fame was a masterpiece of 80s cinema.  It followed the lives of several students at the High School for the Performing Arts in NYC  and starred such luminaries as Irene Cara, the guy who played Rocket Romano on ‘er,’ a really cute cellist, and Debbie Allen. (“You’re going to work!  You’re going to sweat!”)  It got turned into a TV show that was on too late for me to watch (actually, the movie was too racy for me when it came out, too; it was only in later years that I rented it)–but everybody knew the songs (I think we sang them at day camp), and

everybody wanted to go to The Fame School.  It’s probably a good thing I didn’t get to watch the movie when I was little, or there’d have been much I was freaked out about, but the singing and dancing were great!

And “I sing the body electric” is such a great number, too.  I hope that one day WordPress will allow inset commentary a la Mystery Science Theatre, because there’s so much I need to say about this one.  F’rinstance:

-did someone tell everybody except the black kids who get the falsetto duet not to have any expression when they sing, a la 90% of high school students?  These guys look totally divorced from the awesome emotional content of their song.  It’s hilariously realistic.

-Mr. Shorofsky!  The coolest non-crusty teacher ever!  I wonder what happened to him?

-The dancing during the rocking-out portion–is that considered ballet?  It’s kind of just people picking each other up, albeit in really cool combos.  I eagerly await a balletomane’s opinion.

-Look at that thin, wide camera!  I’d totally forgotten about those!

-The guy they focus on during the line, “I toast to my own reunion–my own reunion” looks like the one who plays Big Love on Season 4 of House!  I’m sure he was in diapers when this came out, so maybe it was his Papa?

Oh, and.  I just found the TV theme song so I could share that with you, too, and I think some serious Fame watching is going to need to commence.  (I wonder if Wild and Woolly Video carries it?)  I haven’t seen it in years, but I have no doubt that it beats the dance-belt off of Glee, which, I’m sorry, is the most heartbreaking misuse of  story ever.  And hello, Janet Jackson and Michael Cerveris are in this?  Why didn’t anybody tell me?

One final note: watching  the credits of multi-racial kids, all struggling to rock out and fit in actually reminds me of my work in progress!  I’m sure that in some episode, there’s some Fame equivalent to the aforementioned Luke, doing something similar to swimming with his shirt off.  Yes!  This was not a totally loutish digression after all.

Remember my name–Fame!

[note: this post was originally titled, “My first Friday Five!” but by the time I had reached 500 words, no Fives had yet appeared.  So it’ll be the Saturday Five. Or maybe Sunday.  We’ll see.]

No way!  I am participating in a meme–Friday Five! 

When an esteemed grad school classmate asked, “Jess, what is a meme?” I was not very well prepared to answer.  (“In literature, it’s like a theme, although I don’t know why they don’t just call it a theme.  But on the web, a ‘meme’ is like a thing you participate in–kind of like a theme.  Um, yeah.”)  So maybe I’ll just teach by example and say that Friday Five is a meme in which bloggers note on Fridays the top five things they’re grateful for that week.  (At least, I think that’s what they are. Quick, nobody disabuse me before I write this next post.)

Before I go ahead with my list (I know, you’re just dying of anticipation; I am, too, to see whether I have five or actually ten), I wanted to note that I’ve been thinking lately about how if all you knew about me was from the web, you’d probably think I did nothing but read, write, occasionally give readings, and watch Mad Men.  Not that I don’t spend a ton of time on these things, but there is so much of my life that doesn’t even enter in here because it seems like so much is verboten on the web, and with good reason.  I don’t want to jeopardize anything at any of my freelance jobs, and I don’t want friends to feel like they have to watch themselves around me because they might be quoted on here.  I also don’t want friends to feel left out if I write about other friends!  With all these things I don’t want to discuss, it leaves precious little that I can include.

And this is sad to me.  Because I really wish I could have written about the  afternoon a few weeks ago when I ended up hanging out with some people who had previously intimidated me and we had such a rockingly hilarious time that I’m still thinking about some of our jokes and cracking up.  Or the way a recent interaction with a previously prickly person turned out to be really terrific.  Because what if these women read this and thought, “Hey, why do you say I’m intimidating?” or “Well, I never knew you found me so annoying before!”  Argh argh argh.  I mean, it’s a good thing I write fiction, so I can get out some of these ya-yas, but when I’m supposed to have a public blog persona and then feel like I can’t write about anything that’s actually emotionally important to me, I think I end up sounding like a total hermit.

Hm. 437 words and still no Friday Five.  I think I’ll save them for tomorrow.  But at least now you may think I have some kind of social life.  But do any of you bloggers either worry about the impact of what you post, or fear that you seem like you have no life?

Does everyone learn that quotation in high school?  Or college, maybe, as I did from Waterland, about stepping in the same river twice?  It was Heraclitus, and I’m sure his observations were more metaphysical than the context in which i learned them, but it’s basically another way of saying, You can’t go home again.  Any time you step in a river, it’s a different river than the last time you stepped there.

I’ve had a couple of fun recent river steppings with another on the horizon.  This past weekend, my partner and I went up to the B&B where we got married last year.  It was so wonderful–the smell of the breakfast nook!  The main building lit with fairy lights!  the falls, which we finally got to hike to–but there was also a sense of what had passed.  Walking from our little cottage up to the barn where we got married, my insides twisted a little that I couldn’t see the rest of our guests, hiking up their dresses in the mud, on the way up to the ceremony.  My whole life, I will wish that I could recapture the Saturday morning I walked into the breakfast nook and knew and loved every single person in there.  I even missed the unbelievable sloven that A. and I had accrued from a few days of staying in the lodge–half-drafted cards and wilting flowers, cake with melted frosting, tissue paper and wrappings…that, too, was one of my favorite images from our wedding.

Now I’m about to step into a different kind of river: a reunion.  Vermont College, the best grad school in all the land, has a mini-residency for its graduates, which I think is very smart–keeps us involved and feeds our minds.  Lest you think it’s all a big fest of NECI cookies (sorry, joke for insiders), the mini-rez features master classes by Jacqueline Woodson and talks on fantasy by superstars no less than Gregory Maguire and Holly Black!  I am not very knowledgeable in the world of fantasy writing, though I do like to read in that genre, and I can’t wait to see what I learn by going outside of my usual realm of knowledge.

But I’m also nervous.  If I live my live occasionally nostalgic for that Saturday morning last summer, I also live it in deep regret that I did not preserve for posterity a scrap of paper I found at my little sister’s bedside before she went off to summer camp for the first time.  In her uneven third-grade handwriting,  it said, “What will it be like?  Will it be fun?”

I can’t even tell you how many times those words have come to mind as I contemplated any of the big occasions life has set before me, and, I must admit, the extremely minor ones as well.  I’m pretty sure the weekend will be fun, but what will it be like, to have my position as an actual student displaced, with others running the roost?  Will the faculty remember me?  Care?  (Okay, I have pretty much no doubt that they’ll remember me, since it’s a small program, but still.)  What will it be like to talk with my former classmates about the real-world events in our lives, instead of the business of grad school that takes over your life when you are there?  I am grateful for the chance to step in the river again; not everyone can find time and money to go to the mini-rez, and not every program is thoughtful enough to provide alums with a river path.  But still: What will it be like?  Will it be fun?

I bought some Chacos this year for my honeymoon–excellent water shoes, better than Tevas, so comfortable.  With luck, I will have my metaphorical Chacos on, too.

Riverbound!