Category Archives: Adventures at Home

I just recieved a call from a woman asking me if I was Tim Storm. I said yeah, and she explained that George was having some ear pain and so they went into the hospital and he’s there now and he might have an infection and they’re going to stay there for a few more hours, so there’s just no way he can give Sarah her piano lesson tonight. I was thinking about interrupting her, but it was an interesting story.

When she was done, I said, “Ok, um, I’m sorry. What piano lessons?” Honest to God, that’s what I said. Not simply “Uh, I think you have the wrong number,” but “What piano lessons?” See, that’s how my brain works sometimes — the logic being, I’m a teacher, so lessons makes sense; and we actually do have a piano, so that’s possible; and my wife’s an audiologist (in training), so the ear thing fits. . .

I think it’s a literary thing. When you’re hearing the story for the first time, you’ve got to suspend disbelief, collect your questions as the plot’s being developed, and see if they get answered later. As a teacher, I’m so immersed in the task of making sense , of interpreting meaning, that I’m slow to change modes from “explicator of poetry” to “receiver of phone call.”

Last night, while I was working on the computer, Eileen said to me, “So, Tember just ate a Tums. Is that okay?”

On Friday night, Eileen and I drove out to the High Noon Saloon to get tickets for the Erin McKeown/Mike Doughty concert that would take place there later in the evening. The show was slated to start at 9:30, so we got there around 7:15 or so to assure ourselves of getting tickets. We figured we’d get the tickets, then go somewhere for dinner, and return in time for the start of the show. Both of us were looking forward to the concert, which we just learned about last Sunday when I decided to check out Erin McKeown’s website and see if she was on tour. It just so happened that she would be coming five days later, and holy cow!

As we arrived at the “saloon,” there was a young guy, about Eileen’s height, standing outside, smoking a cigarette and holding a glass of beer. He wore glasses and looked harmless. I wondered if maybe he worked for the place. He said something like, “hey, how you doin’?” and I nodded back and kinda mouthed the word “hey.” We turned toward the entrance, and saw a sign posted on the door that said, “Tonight’s show is sold out.” We were both struck with disbelief. I think I may have said, “you’re kidding me.” We entered anyway, hoping for some vague possibility, like maybe that “sold out” actually meant “there are only two tickets left.” But the bar was practically empty on the inside, so we came back out. Outside was clearly not the place to be solving the problem — at least logically. Eileen said later that she had a premonition that the guy who said hi to us would help us out somehow. I don’t know. Maybe I did, too.

As soon as we got outside, the smoker could tell we were a little upset. He asked if we were trying to get into the show, and we said yes as we approached him. “Yeah, I was at work this afternoon and I opened up an Onion and saw that Mike Doughty was playing, so I hopped on my bike and came straight here.” He was one of those guys who turned the conversation toward himself. He also chuckled at himself constantly. “Rode here all the way from Spring Green, ha!” I wasn’t really sure if he was serious, but he wasn’t the kind of guy you asked follow-up questions. He had enough to say. “So how do you guys know about Mike Doughty?”

“Well, I just kinda got into him about a month ago, but we’re really here more so for Erin McKeown. She’s great.”

“Oh, really? Yeah, this is like the fourth Mike Doughty show I’ve been to and he’s really good. I mean he’s a good performer, you know? And the thing is, he gets better every time I see him, ha!”

The conversation went on like this, Eileen and I smiling and nodding a lot; at one point, he referred to himself in the third person as “Jack,” and soon after, he asked our names. “I’m Tim,” I said, and then pointed to Eileen, ready to introduce her, but giving her the chance to say, “and I’m Eileen.” “You’re Jack, I take it?”

“Well, yeah, ha. Jack, John, or Jack Jack. Or Shut the F Up! Or Get Out of My Face! Ha.” He wished us luck and went inside; we stood, waiting, still kinda dumbstruck and not knowing what to do. Another couple came up and discovered the show was sold out. We followed them into the bar, hoping to maybe piggyback off of their problem-solving skills. Inside, it was slightly less deserted. We glanced at the merchandise tables. I considered a few options: lie and say we drove all the way from LaCrosse; hide in the bathroom for the next two hours.

Just then, Jack Jack came over and said excitedly, “Hey, I may have found you guys two tickets, ha.” He left and came back with a couple of guys in their mid twenties.

I spoke with Markus about how we would have to enter with him and his group of friends since the tickets were “will call.” Eileen spoke with Paul, the other guy, about how they came to have two extra tickets since his girlfriend had just broken up with him. And Jack Jack just kinda kept talking to anyone and no one. At one point, I heard him say, “Yeah, so then they told me I had to go into counseling.”

We arranged to meet Markus and Paul outside the saloon an hour later or so. In the meantime, Jack Jack told us how he read a lot of Stephen King. “Yeah, it’s kinda weird. I mean all I read is Stephen King and Dan Brown, which is kinda a strange combination. I mean Stephen King is like really f!@#ed up and Dan Brown is like crazy-ass sh@#. Well, so, I guess maybe it’s not strange. It’s all f!@#ed up sh!@.”

Yeah. Anyway, Jack Jack, thanks for getting us in. Erin McKeown was sick, so her singing was a little off, but she had a good attitude about it all. And Mike Doughty was pretty good too. I’m sure he was better than his last show, ha.

So, my students have been commenting on the poem. They kinda like it. Though they’re also giving some good feedback, which is moreso the purpose. Eileen told me that she should be the one to write the next bad poem cuz I don’t do a good enough job. So I challenged her to come up with something right this minute and she did. Here’s hers:

Her eyes
bored, searching, wanting
Her eyes
tell me a story
Theyre brown
She has nice eyes
Her eyes sigh like the wind
on a lazy summer day
I look into them with wonderment
and think about what might have been.

Wow! Now that’s bad. Almost too bad.

I just spent the past five minutes typing up a poem to show to my Creative Writing class. It’s a bad poem; I’m using it as fodder for a discussion on editing and grading. High schoolers are a little put off by the evaluation of their creative work, and understandably so. It’s very personal: a lot of them are genuinely trying to get their hormonally-imbalanced emotions down on paper. So we need to practice critiquing poetry in a humane way. And we also need to talk about grading creative writing. Many of them have this idea that you can’t label poetry as good or bad. So, I wrote the following poem, which I hope they’ll recognize as bad.

September

I dreamt last night
Of a woman named September.
She arrived in a bikini and stood with folded arms.
When I said hi,
she didn’t reply
but stared down at the ground.

The wind and rain outside awoke me,
and I rose to close the window.
But I paused at the sill,
took a breath of the cool, earthy air;
smelled the wet grass, thirsty from the past month’s heat,
and went back to sleep.

Incidentally, it’s a lot of fun writing bad poetry. It’s not quite as rewarding as writing something that’s good — the pleased feeling only lasts for a couple minutes — but it’s a blast. And actually, the above poem is not my best work — meaning it’s not the worst I’ve written.