24 Jun

First Day of Summer

School got out a week and half ago, but I taught a class at Write by the Lake, a week-long writing retreat here in Madison, so my summer vacation has just begun. I now become a part-time stay-at-home dad, which I’m mostly looking forward to. (The only thing bridling my enthusiasm is the whole nap thing, which continues to be a “trying” time in multiple sense of the word: the baby tries to stay awake, and I try to maintain my sanity. I’m sure the arrangement will result in the occasional poignant scene: a father and daughter in two separate rooms in the same small house, both crying.)

We’ll have to establish some sort of routine in the next few weeks; I’m hoping to work in lots of bike riding (we have a nice new bike trailer for Cora), lots of work on creative projects and writing, and at least 50 pages of reading a day, which, I just calculated, should get me through 3,150 pages by summer’s end. I may also try to update here with some more regularity, though I can’t make any promises about what sort of content may come–other than a relatively confident assertion that this will not turn into a daddy blog.

On that note, here’s my daughter in a laundry basket:
Cora in basket

02 Jun

Proposal (patent pending)

Dear Sirs or Madams,
Since the dawn of time, dolls have fascinated children. Though they may be of varying sophistication, dolls in every age and culture—from sock puppets to American Girls—offer children an opportunity to practice responsibility and compassion. Such play begins, no doubt, as an imitation of Mommy and Daddy, whose comfort-bringing authority is surely worthy of emulation. When little girls and boys pretend to preside over their helpless playthings, they get to feel more grown-up. And doll-play facilitates emotional and mental growth, as various studies have shown.

In recent decades, doll manufacturers have developed some pretty imaginative models of dolls. Baby Alive Whoopsie Doo dirties her diaper with both varieties of soilings. The anatomically-correct Baby Wee Wee wets his pants, and, according to the Irish advertisement, can even projectile pee while naked. Baby Fart and Burp does just what it suggests it might. Little Mommy My Very Real Baby Doll can do all sorts of things: it responds to touch; it blinks; it speaks 150 words; it eats popsicles. But it doesn’t require breast-feeding, like the Breast Milk Baby does.

All of the above models, realistic though they may attempt to be, fall short of the real thing. They provide only pale imitations of real babies, and are thus limited in what they can offer the child owner. The care-giving, I contend, will only be as good as the need for care. And so, I present to you Little Baby Four in the Morning, whose need for care is unparalleled among other dolls. Not only does she poop and pee, burp and fart, require endless breast-feeding, spit up, respond to touch and voice, and squirm around a whole lot, but she also wakes up at random times throughout the night and screams. Little Baby Four in the Morning will assure that your little caregiver gets no rest and that he or she will thus come to know more fully the joys of parenting.

My wife and I have created a prototype (photo attached). We look forward to hearing from you and working on future prototypes.

Sincerely,

Tim Storm

31 Dec

MFA

So here it is. My notes from the past two years of my MFA program (at Pacific University) uploaded to wordle yields that nifty graphic above. I accrued about 77,000 words worth of notes (about 170 pages) from 45 days worth of craft talks, workshops, and classes at the five required “residencies,” which alternated between Seaside (in January) and Forest Grove, Oregon (in June). In between residencies, I was paired with an advisor, who commented upon my work and sent lengthy replies to my creative manuscripts and essays. I produced 24 short essays (3-4 pages), a research paper (20-pages), 15 short stories (averaging 15 pages), and 5 flash-fiction pieces. I read approximately 80 books. It’s been a humbling and edifying experience.

19 Oct

Ghost in the Valley

We had a white barn cat named Ghost who disappeared when I was six. Mom said she saw a hawk take him away. I pictured the two of them—the cat and the hawk—soaring over the valley like a couple of tandem hang gliders. I told Mom I bet Ghost liked flying. “Oh, honey,” she said. She covered her mouth with her hand. And then my older brother Jason, who’d been eavesdropping from across the room, laughed and said, “You’re the weirdest little kid.” I could see Mom’s smile spilling around the hand covering her mouth.

I ran out the door to the barn where Ghost used to hunt mice. Mom called after me.

I climbed the ladder to the hay loft and meowed, hoping to see Ghost emerge from some dark corner, arching his white back in anticipation of a scratch. Over the bales of hay I crawled, with stray spires pricking my palms and knees. And then I opened the loft door and sat at the ledge, letting my legs dangle.

The barn looked out over a valley that years later would flood when torrential rains made the rivers swell. I squinted into the distance, willing superpower vision to reveal Ghost stalking mice in the fields or soaring over treetops with his buddy the hawk. But it was a foggy morning, and no hawk’s vision would help me find my lost cat.

There were so many things I couldn’t see in those days—like the liquor Jason stole from the kitchen cabinet or the late night conversations between Mom and Dad over the piles of past-due bills. So many things weren’t ever going to come back. But what did I know? I imagined flying over the foggy treetops, gripped by a hawk who I thought was my friend, and stretching my padded paws earthward toward home.

25 Aug

Paternity Test

Need something new here, so I decided to post this fun little experiment from last year. I gave myself the challenge of writing a story in interview format.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to record this rest of this consultation.
Right on.

You’ve made some very interesting claims, Mr. Travolta.
I have.

Is your name really John Travolta?
Sure it is.

Okay. Why don’t we start from the beginning.
Good idea. It’s all pretty crazy, I know. I mean, I never thought this thing would be as complicated as it turned out to be. It was your basic stealth operation. Sneak in, grab the goods, sneak out. I figured I’d dress in black, spray myself with fire retardant, put on my fucking ninja shoes, make Steinman happy.

Steinman is . . . ?
He’s my, uh, employer. From time to time. AKA, my uncle. He helped me and Mom out after our house burned down that one time.

And he told you about this so-called dragon’s lair?
Not right away. He just said there was a cave somewhere in Ecuador that held an ancient treasure. Don’t get greedy, he said. Just bring back a coin or two or you’ll get yourself killed. “Killed?” I said. “What’re you getting me into, Steinman?” That’s when he mentioned the dragon. I almost walked out, but then he told me no one’s ever succeeded. I’m a sucker for a challenge.

You know what’s funny? When a job really excites me, I get a craving for grape Bubblicious.

Grape Bubblicious?
Yep. It was the first thing I ever stole. I was in fifth grade and I’d just gotten glasses. You should see my school pictures. The frames were tortoise shell and they were enormous. They were the size of those ridiculously large sunglasses that celebrities wear nowadays. At recess, this kid named Zach Hardacre kept making fun of me. Called me four eyes and shit. I told him to fuck off. Some teacher heard me and pointed to the door, which meant I was supposed to go inside for detention. Zach laughed and pushed me down. The teacher was scolding another group of kids. She didn’t see. Zach spit on me and ran. Man, that kid was a twat.

At home, I told my parents about it and my dad called me a pansy. He said I had to toughen up. “You, of all people, shouldn’t be scared of some pre-pubescent dildo.” He was pretty foul-mouthed. He jabbed me in the ribs a few times, trying to piss me off. I told him to stop and he started jabbing my head. He didn’t appreciate it when I told him to fuck off. I ran.

I ran out the door and down the street to the Stop-N-Go. Wandering up and down the aisles, it occurred to me that I could take things. I had pockets! So I stole some gum and paid for a small Coke. That’s a good technique, by the way. I’m surprised I did that my very first time. Most amateurs go into a store and then leave without buying anything. Dumb shits.

Why are you telling me this?
It’s a distraction technique. Thieves are a lot like magicians. We get our victims to believe in our innocence or naivete while we steal their cellphones and wallets.

Hey, give me those back.
You ever hear about the Picasso heist in Switzerland? The paintings that got stolen and then showed up at the Children’s Museum of Lucerne?

Or what about that high-end, prototype laptop that got boosted from TGM Microlabs?

In college I used to take kitchen appliances from Sears and sneak them into Macy’s. I picked the pockets of opera-goers and swapped their tickets with symphony-goers. See? I live for the challenge. I’m not out to take what isn’t mine. That ain’t right.

Nowadays, I get hired by rich guys to steal diamonds or rubies from other rich guys. And this dragon, I figured he was just another rich bastard sitting on too much money, you know? I’ve never been caught, by the way.

Impressive. So how did you get to the cave?
Steinman gave me the GPS coordinates. I took a commercial flight to Quito. Had to fly through Houston, where some TSA a-hole confiscated my fire retardant because it was more than three ounces. I stole his wallet but then felt bad later and put it in the lost and found. He was just doing his job, right?

In Quito, I met Abner Greene, Helicopter Pilot. He flew me to within a couple miles of the dragon’s lair, landed on some plateau just outside the tourist town of Baños. I hoofed it from there.

Might this dragon’s lair simply have been a crevasse in the side of some volcano?
Tungarahua.

What?
That’s the volcano. Near Baños. Apparently, it’s illegal for foreign dignitaries to spend the night in Baños because if Tungarahua exploded, they’d have 45 minutes to get out of town, and, you know, they’re too important to die. You know what my real calling is? I just figured this out. Abolitionist. I should have smuggled slaves out of the South. Wouldn’t that be sweet? You could rob the important people of their source of income: unimportant people.

Did Abner Greene accompany you to the cave?
No. He wanted to stay with his baby, he said. He meant his helicopter. He took a sandwich and a couple of beers out of a cooler and got to work on killing time.

So you were completely alone at the cave?
I know what you’re getting at.

Well. It’s all somewhat hard to believe, you know?
Yeah. It’s also hard to believe that the CEO of TGM Microlabs makes a million dollars a day. It’s hard to believe a Jackson Pollack painting sold for 150 million dollars. It’s hard to believe a lot of things.

So you got to the cave. You saw it. Was there a dragon inside?
No. There was a man.

A man?
Yes. A man I hadn’t seen in 13 years. My father. The asshole. He was sitting in front of a campfire, making origami swans. We’re talking about the guy who was gone on business trips for 20 days out of every month before he finally left me and Mom altogether, and now he shows up in some fucking cave in Ecuador? Shit.

Did you speak with him?
Oh yeah. Here’s where shit gets really weird.

He had a stack of origami squares and as he folded each one, it felt like a pair of hands were tying my internal organs together, making balloon animals out of my intestines and lungs. I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen. I could tell he heard me ‘cause he smiled, but he kept on folding that paper. He smiled that shit-eating smile he used to smile when I told him he wasn’t being fair or when he’d hidden my favorite stuffed animals. You know, all throughout my childhood, the man was under the impression that I idolized him, that I was in awe of his importance and status. I was a kid. I didn’t give a shit that he had more money than God. I didn’t care that he could pull puss like Tom Selleck. But his fucking smug confidence was unshakable.

I told him to stop a second time and he just smiled again. He finished his swan, flapped its wings, and threw the thing into the fire. It felt like a punch to the gut. “See?” he said. “This is kind of fun.”

I knew what I had to do. I clenched my jaw and walked inside the cave. I sat down next to him and started folding my own origami square, knowing it was going to hurt like hell. I made an airplane. It didn’t take as much time as a swan. When I threw it on the fire, I doubled over in pain. “Don’t be such a pussy,” my dad said.

I forced myself to crawl. I heard the crackling fire and tasted bile. My knees dug into the stony ground.

“It doesn’t take much, does it?” my dad said. He laughed. “Too bad you’re not as strong as your old man.”

I kept crawling. He threw the last swan on the fire. I could feel it. It was like a hernia, a kidney stone, a burst appendix. Shit hurt. But I kept moving.

Then I heard him shuffling around. “Hey!” he shouted. “You stole my paper. Bring that back here!”

I was close to the mouth of the cave. I crawled for my life. I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I threw the stack of origami paper. It fluttered in the air like a swarm of butterflies. A hot wind scorched the back of my neck. And then everything went still.

Were you hurt?
No. Half an hour later, I came to, and I found the ground covered not in origami squares, but in money. Large bills from all over the world. The cave was dark. I didn’t stick around for long; I stuffed my pockets and returned to Abner.

And your theory. Did you come up with it immediately?
No. Not at all. Abner and me were up in the copter probably halfway to Quito when I told him what happened. “Holy shit!” he said. “Your dad’s a dragon.” And I was like ha. Good one. But fuck! It explains some things. Like the house fire after Mom divorced him. Why he liked his meat rare. His restlessness. His superiority complex.

So that’s why you came to us?
Yeah. You do a DNA test on me, maybe I can find out the truth.

And if you find out your father is a dragon?
Well, it’s better than the alternative.

Which is what?
That he’s just a man.