Yesterday, my very first girlfriend (term defined loosely; it was the kind of thing that, for me, solidified what I'd suspected -- that boobs and soft skin are, indeed, far preferable to dangly bits and hairyness, for her; denied what she'd suspected -- that we're all a little bit bisexual, that she could be just as happy mating with either gender. A touchstone for both of us, a turning toward for me, a turning away for her.) turned 33. I don't know where she is, though I heard that she's in our hometown still, married to a guy we went to high school with, but didn't know at the time.

I hope that's true and that you're happy. I'd still love to hear from you sometime, but if I don't, wherever you are, Michelle, Happy 33rd.

Goddamn, we're getting old. Weren't we just 16 the other day, me learning to drive stick in that 1980 Corolla wagon, you learning to be an expert co-pilot?

Once again, The Onion comes up big with Mom Finds out about Blog. Which leads me into a dicey discussion. What do you do when the people you write about find your blog, when they see things I've written about them and assume that because I'm being honest, that I meant to hurt them?

The answer? I don't know.

I feel strongly that I have every right to write whatever I choose here. That said, I filter myself very carefully, leaving out parts that would identify people who wouldn't want to be identified and to tone down things that happened between us that I may have perceived as hurtful, regardless of your intent.

For those who know me well in real life (honestly, about 3 of you, and that's who I write this for), you know that my dearest virtue is honesty, that I'll go to great lengths to avoid lying. You also know that it would take a great wrong done unto me in order for me to speak maliciously about or towards someone in a public forum like this blog.

This blog is not the New York Times or CNN. Hordes of people do not stream to this site every day via well-placed ads on other sites or to follow a well-earned repuation for accurate news reporting the way visitors to NYT and CNN would. They come here because they know me, or know of me, and want to know what I'm up to. If you're here, you're somehow interested in what I have to say.

What I'm trying to tell you, my 3 dear readers and the rest of you, is that whatever I say here is merely my interpretation of things that happen in my world. As you would with any other narrator, take my words with a grain of salt. If you were with me, and I wrote about the event, I could well have remembered parts of it differently than you. You're welcome to write your own version on your own blog. That's the power we all have.

Nothing I say here is intended to be malicious or mean-spirited. Nothing. This blog is merely a re-counting of my own experience and sometimes, that involves mixing in the good with the bad. An experience that might have been great for you could have been terrible for me. Rather than be upset with me for telling it like I saw it, I'd urge you to stop and think, to consider how very painful it must have been for me in order to come back and write something that spills a part of my soul here, for my 3 readers, and the rest of you, to see.

I'm sure you've read between the lines by now. I hope this message gets to the 3 readers who need to see it, because I just don't know how else to say it.

I hope this also explains why I've been kind of quiet lately. There are a number of things going on in my life besides school and work, many of those things suck. A lot. But they're not my story to tell, they're someone else's.

There are a few hard things about grad school: not having enough time to do the quality of work I'd like to be doing, thinking all the time, so much that I often have a headache, wondering if I'll ever fully grasp the differences between MLA and APA style. But the hardest one is taking a critical look at some of my favorite authors (still knee-deep in projects based on Alice Sebold's work), at the exquisite way they construct a sentence. Immediately after this activity, I am usually struck by a wave of inadequacy. I can never write like them.

What I would tell myself, were I not myself, is that I don't have to write like them. Alice Sebold already has a corner on the market, as far as being Alice Sebold goes. There's a place out there for Liz Doughty's original work (a place larger and slightly more well-paying than this blog), I just need to find it. But right now, I'm telling myself that; I find that I'm just not listening.

I am so ready for this fucking foster dog to go away. She's very high-energy and makes our dogs spazzy and loud in her presense. I've had the hardest time writing since she's been here, with the end of the semester approaching, I'm really starting to get stressed out about not having a room of my own to write in. Let's hope the school decides I can have the lottery money for a laptop, then I can make the library or other quiet, dog-free places my own personal writing space.

Today, I am not that comfortable in my own skin. Nothing I put on seemed to fit right. Did I re-shape myself during the night last night?

It must be said that immediately after knocking the woman in the photo (below) over, I stood there, legs apart, looming over her like the Angel of Death (or at least the Angel of Just Knocked Your Ass Over). She stared up at me with this astonished look on her face. I looked at her, stepped over her and ran to get the puck, which was now loose.

In better stories, I would've taken that puck, ran it coast to coast and scored. In this story, the real story, I got it out of the zone. But I still knocked her over.

For more fine photos of the team in action, check out this fine link. These nice people take pictures during each of the games and allow you to buy Liz Doughty trading cards if you'd like.

My Proudest Hockey Moment
Liz Doughty, flattener of the other team, not getter of penalties.

A Tucson highlight was Friday's visit to AMARC, "the Aerospace Maintenance And Regeneration Center, a joint service facility managed by the US Air Force Material Command located in the town of Tucson, Arizona, USA." We first visited the Pima Air & Space Museum across the street. I'd been there before with my parents, who do not share my affinity for looking at planes, so I was eager to get back there and really take my time looking at Things (aka Planes). We saw all there was to see, then boarded the bus to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, home to AMARC. Andrea and Meena were wiped out, they fell asleep before we got past 'Celebrity Row' (a cousin, no doubt, of Contestant's Row), where one of each kind of aircraft they have at AMARC is on display. They missed the other side of the street, where the planes are decapitated for parts. All was fascinating. Despite my extreme fatigue, I stayed awake so I didn't miss a thing.

A lot of very exciting things have happened lately. One of them is a new job, working 10 hours a week in the English Department office at school. Today was my first official day of work (though I didn't know it until I got there, I thought we were just going to talk about my hours). I am now:
Liz Doughty, Master of Making Copies
Collator of MFA Thesis proposals
Accepter of official MFA handiwork

So far, I am not:
Liz Doughty, bringer of coffee
buyer of gifts for your wife
collector of dry cleaning

Though later in the week, I may be
Liz Doughty, helper of dinner set-up for visiting poets

Which I think is okay. I have no plans to fawn over this poet, but rather to see if he has any good things to say about living a writer's life, things that I haven't figured out already.

Tucson Report
This tournament was much better than the last one. We won 2 out of our 4 games, handily losing to 2 better teams and handily dominating over 2 lesser teams. 4 games in two days, with the last two yesterday morning at 8:15 and 11:30. The only saving grace was that the other team had slightly less rest between games than we did. The group was very mellow, not much agression on the bench, though plenty on the ice (I broke the seal on penalties, starting off with a tripping call 4 minutes into the first game, thank you thank you).

Our fans were once again fantastic, thanks to Andrea (and her lovely hotel blanket), Walt and Dena for cheering us to both victory and defeat. No matter how badly we did, it was comforting to see them there, cheering us on to the brutal or triumphant end.

We just got in, I'm exhausted but pleased that this tourney didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth.