by Susan Juby
60. Button blankets are used as ceremonial garments and gifts by the Northwest tribes. They’re usually made of wool and show a family crest. Hers was a fleece blanket with the green, red, yellow, and black Hudson’s Bay Company stripes on it and some random buttons attached hither and yon around . . . you guessed it: a red starfish.
61. Ms. Fowler, do you sometimes marvel at the budget this school has? I do, and I’m only sixteen. I’ve seen Season Four of The Wire, at Mr. Wells’s suggestion. Not every school has studio pods, theaters, and roundhouses. Thanks be to our Founding Farmer!
62. Here’s a disturbing detail: a fleshing beam is used to scrape the extra flesh off the hide of an animal.
63. “Contributing to the cultural life of this country.” Yes, I know the whole mission statement for G. P. Academy.
64. Yes, yes, I know that metaphor doesn’t hold up. But I do sort of like comparing my dad to puppies.
65.
66. You know how there’s a chapter in As I Lay Dying that consists of only five words: “My mother is a fish”? Well, in the interest of pushing the envelope, footnote-wise, I offer you a chapter that contains only a single footnote. Hilarious, right?
Here is what I wrote to Lisette DeVries: Do you really think you are aboriginal? Or are you just lying? Again.
The second I sent it, I wanted to delete it. I settled for deleting my fake profile and prayed that the message would disappear with it.
For sure, not my finest moment.
67. Speaking of disapproving adults, you were pretty free with the green pen on my Q&A chapter. You used it with such vigor that part of me thinks you were reacting to more than just a chapter with minimal action. It’s okay. Teachers are allowed to be not self-aware, just like everyone except me. I saw you and Mr. W. talking in the parking lot. It looked intense, but not in a bad way. Maybe you two are having troubles and you took it out on my chapter? It’s fine. I’m used to being held to the highest standard at all times.
68. A fascination with a small format and precision, maybe?
69. I’d never really aspired to feel gritty before, and dressing like a character in a movie isn’t exactly the essence of personal authenticity, but there was something fun about it.
70. My dialogue in this scene was less than sparkling. This is a constant problem in scenes and in life.
71. Her boyfriend.
72. I really want to end this chapter here. I know most of what happens in this chapter is flashback, a bunch of thoughts, a list, and some text messages. This is not the stuff of narrative greatness, unless you are Marcel Proust, who, as you pointed out in your last set of comments, could write pages about a single cookie and make it great. I think we can agree that I am no Marcel Proust. Please note that I took In Search of Lost Time out of the library. I think I may have strained something just lifting it off the shelf. Imagine if he wrote about an entire cake or something! I know. I’ll insert a scene break and then go for another partial scene. Sweet! I’m getting the hang of this structure thing!
73.
74. Here’s a question: If I become a better writer, will my details become less blatantly symbolic? Will my life be more subtle? I mean seriously: ostriches, closets? These would be frowned on by the Annie Dillards of the world. Her symbols are always like wind and shit like that. Sorry for the swear.
75. I’m not even sure you’re allowed to be an art student if you don’t worship at the Anderson altar.
76. Mr. Wells is sort of cute when he’s being authoritarian and teacher-ish. I can see what you see in him! Not that I see you seeing anything in him. Ahem. How is that going, by the way? I haven’t seen you guys together lately. I know, I know: out-of-bounds footnote!
77. If I ever write a novel, I might do some experiments with point of view, even though I’m finding it hard to even figure out my own point of view.
78. That’s not just me sucking up in preparation for Mr. Wells to be the second reader of this project. His remarks really were interesting.
79. Interesting fact about Mr. Wells and something I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, Ms. Fowler: he can say things that would sound snotty if another teacher said them but somehow coming from him they sound friendly and sincere. That is a pretty great quality.
80. I know you said that nodding is the cheapest and most pointless thing characters can do and that authors rely far too much on nodding and staring to convey meaning. But what about when people actually nod a lot? I can’t pretend Dusk scratched her nose significantly or that Neil rubbed his temples. Sigh. Writing is hard. Especially true writing.
81. Which was excellent.
82. I hope it’s not too jarring. You said in class that using present tense is like making everything a little speedier and emphatic. It’s the tense equivalent of shouting. This experience felt pretty emphatic to me.
83. A member of the Group of Seven.
84. Hence the lack of a question mark.
85. My guess is that you see her a lot in your capacity as a guidance counselor, because she probably needs to talk about issues pertaining to excellence.
86. For those who are not currently taking advanced gym, muscle-fiber types are divided into two types: fast twitch and slow twitch. If you have superstar slow-twitch muscles you can run marathons and do other unpleasant-sounding activities. If you have top-notch fast-twitch muscles, you can go very fast for short distances, which also sounds unpleasant. That pretty much sums up what I know about muscle twitch.
87. If you know nothing about Nordic skiing, “classic” is the regular kind of two-track cross-country skiing. It’s approximately as exciting as walking on a treadmill in an empty, windowless room. Skate skiing is different from classic skiing in the way that ice climbing, up sheer and unstable glaciers, is different from having naps in cozy daybeds.
88. Apologies for the lengthy flashback. As per your lecture, I tried to make it more compelling by writing it as a scene rather than summarizing the experience. I’m sure a BP-worthy flood of green ink will inform me if I’m wrong.
89. Which means “speed play” in Swedish.
90. Bad paragraph. I need to work on it. I know what I’m trying to say but it’s not really coming across. God, writing is hard. Sometimes I worry that I’ll never get good enough to earn an extraordinary writer face.
91. A few too many times, if your editorial comments are to be believed.
92. Gone with the Wind, The Hunger Games, Twilight, Bridget Jones’s Diary. And every single one of them would be better without a love triangle. Maybe I’m just prejudiced. And also a touch bitter.
93. I’m on the verge of throwing up. I may not be able to finish this project due to how badly I’m writing it right now.
94. Except, apparently, ad nauseam in my work of creative nonfiction.
95. Which I will not attempt to reproduce here for the reason of not wanting to cause mental distress in my project supervisor or the gentle reader.
96. The philosopher Martin Buber, Ich und Du, or I and Thou.
97. I hope you appreciate the Cold War reference, Ms. Fowler! Do you think there still is a red button? What must it be like to carry that thing around?
98. That would be you, Ms. Fowler.
99. When she was still in high school, my sister read some Buddhist mantra about stacking wood, and spent the next two days stacking the first part of our woodpile. The blocks were so neatly and intricately arranged that neighbors actually stopped by to take pictures. We could never bear to burn her beautiful woodpile, so we just added to it. None of us is the wood stacker my sister was.
100. You will notice, Ms. Fowler, that the last points are crossed out. That’s because I was not ready to go there.
101. Sorry to be weirdly self-referential but this feels relevant. If you’re a footnote sk
ipper, this would be a good one to skip.
Anyway, my story was about a girl who is trying to create a top-notch compost. It was sort of a horror story. In the story, too many people donate their scraps, and pretty soon the compost pile gets overwhelmed and nothing really breaks down. Instead, it starts to rot and stink. Then a strange man comes along and tells the girl that composts need straw and dirt and things like that. He also gives her a mysterious powder and tells her to sprinkle it on the pile. It’s like “Jack and the Beanstalk,” only with composting powder. She does so, and suddenly the compost pile becomes superefficient and hot. It’s a solid mass of worms and they turn out soil so rich and powerful that people come from all over town to get a bucketful. But the compost needs to be fed constantly, and one day the man puts a hand in to turn over a large savoy cabbage, and the compost pulls him in. The end.
102. There are a surprising number of ways human love arrangements can be organized: polygamy, polyandry, polygyny, polyamory. . . . Lot of polys to choose from.
103. Good fictional characters are supposed to make things happen.
104. Correct use of “amount”? God, it really feels like the only time one can safely use that word is when writing about sums. Too bad.
105.
106. This was the point at which I went to your office and had that little meltdown. Sorry. And thanks. You are a very good guidance counselor as well as an outstanding teacher of writing.
107. I will do my best to “unpeel” my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
108. Which turned into this here piece of creative nonfiction. Such an excellent idea on your part, Ms. Fowler!
109. Careless Whispers is our school’s literary and art journal. I wrote a modern retelling of “Catskin,” which is one of my favorite fairy tales. It reminds me of those old John Hughes movies, only creepier and more violent.
110. Which reminds me, Ms. Fowler. I saw Mr. Wells in the store the other day. And he was with a woman. She had a bit of a wife look to her. Something about her pants. They were maternity fit. I don’t know what’s going on with you two. But I hope you weren’t misled. I’m really sorry to do this in a footnote.
111. See the first line of Anna Karenina.
112. It’s truly a mark of Keira’s skill that she turned the most overused and boring action performed by fictional characters (staring/looking) into something totally fascinating and hilarious.
113. As I write this story, I keep thinking about unreliable narrators. Art is always problematic, from a truth perspective even in a supposedly true story. You’re always leaving something out and choosing to put something else in. I’m starting to think that pure truth is impossible, and that all narrators and all people are at least a little unreliable.
114. Sorry to have to put it like that, but it’s what happened.
115. Back when she was still doing publicity, interviewers compared her to variously a fairy, an angel, and one of those big-eyed children featured in cheap drug store art. Which is to say that she’s short, slender, and has slightly oversized eyes that are a hint too far apart. Slight alien influence there. It could be said that my sister is a little Vermeer-ish around the edges.
116. I only know this because a couple of them wrote to me to ask if I’d be willing to join their classes via Skype to talk about our issues. Terms such as “historiographic metafiction” and “fictional autobiography” and “genre slippage” led me to give the virtual visits a pass. Plus my computer’s crap at Skype.
117. Such as “Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art” from “The Decay of Lying.” I think we can agree that particular quote is not a good fit for this particular story.
118. Okay, I just paraphrased Wilde there.
Also, I don’t need to tell you that sometimes the truth is a turd, Ms. Fowler. I’m sorry about you and Mr. Wells. I’ve decided to remove some of these footnotes before the manuscript goes to Principal Manhas, who has agreed to be my second reader. I’ve decided that Mr. Wells needs to focus on other things, such as learning to be a little more truthful in his dealings with colleagues.
119. Shout-out to J-Franz!
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