When I added this to my list, I had hoped to make more of a habit out of making bread. Growing up the majority of bread in the house was homemade by my mom. For me there are few foods in the world that can compare to the warm heel of a crusty loaf of bread, a small sliver of butter melting in the center. It seems like a grown up thing to do, making bread. A sign that maybe I have my shit together.

It's little wonder that I haven't had the time or occasion to make much bread in the last ten months, since most days I feel like neither of those things. But this loaf was mostly a success, and nice with a warm bowl of tomato soup on a cold windy "summer" evening in San Francisco.

It's ok.  The stories are good enough for a thesis.  They are good enough to get me my degree.  I still have some days (weeks, even) left to work out the bigger problems, to fluff out scenes that need it and copy edit for typos and awkward sentences.  I am going to be excited and proud and relieved when I turn it in.  I am going to clutch the thing to my chest out of happiness, I'm going to high-five my friends and and I will allow myself to tweet and facebook and email my accomplishment in capital letters with more explanation points than necessary.  It will be fun, it will be good, but it will still only be good enough.

And as far as writing goes, I hope it's the last time I settle for "good enough."

I am not a perfectionist.  I am not a straight-A student.  To my embarrassment, I am not even the person in workshop who reads over my manuscript before turning it in for typos.  I reach an ending, a place that feels good enough and I go with it.  So it is sort of surprising to realize that I'm decididly not ok with "good enough" anymore.  I will accept it for my thesis, but I know I can't accept it after that, when I'm looking towards publishing.  Publishing is a strange beast I've been approaching slowly, with one eye closed.  I've submitted things and been rejected a dozen or so times, but each submission has been somewhat impulsive, each story has been work I am fond of, but not work I love.  Not work that's fully baked, work that I know is 100% done and delicious.  Which is probably where I've gone wrong.  I'm starting to think more seriously about what happens after the MFA and what kind of writer I want to be.  If I ignore the desperate desire to just be published, anywhere, just to see my name in print, just for the validation of it, just to feel like I have something (anything) to show for myself, then what do I want from publishing?  What do I want when someone reads one of my stories?  I don't want them to read it and think, gee, that's good enough.  Certianly that's not what will please the beast, either.

Dogfight: And Other Stories is a beautiful collection.  The blurb on the front cover says, "Stories cut like gems from American family life" (Los Angeles Times) and even a few stories in it wasn't hard to where that comparison came from.  Though each story was contained, they felt small, as if dug from a mine of similar stories.  The characters were similar, their thoughts always wondering slightly farther than the realities of their own lives.

One of Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing a short story is "Every sentence must do one of two things- reveal character or advance the action."  It's a rule that Knight has mastered, seemingly effortlessly.

This is the kind of book that makes me want to strive as a writer.  The kind of book I know I'll dip back into.  The kind of book I'd recommend to most everyone, despite my vague and short review.

I like to refer to DC as "The District." I'm not sure why. I refer to SF as, well, "SF", so it's not as though I'm against using city initials. Maybe it is because The District sounds a bit more regal. The Library of Congress was pretty regal, all tall columns and meticulously painted ceilings, carved staircases, marble and U's written as V's.

But maybe if you watch the trailer for the MOTION PICTURE EVENT OF A GENERATION you'll feel a bit better?

You have to admit.  It looks awesome.  (Try not to dwell on the fact that they are keeping Part 2 from us until July 2011.)

• Yay! Jeff!
• I'm really hot.
• Why is writing this damn story/novella so damn hard?
• When can I go back inside to an air conditioned space?  (Also, I must walk more quickly towards that patch of weak looking shade.)
• It's so fun being a new city with a cute boy.

Today is the second day I've decided not to go out and see a museum or monument while Jeff is at work and just write.  I took my laptop to a coffee shop that came highly recommended.  I got here about the time the second half of the US v. Algeria World Cup game started.  It was packed with people watching the game.  Some people were on laptops and some not.  Somehow I scored a table and set up.  In between major plays it felt like a normal cafe, but when the teams neared either goal ripples of groans and shouts moved through the crowd.  Watching these games in the midst of large groups has been a great deal of fun.  I dare anyone who says soccer is boring to watch a game in a charged atmosphere and stick to their guns.  Also, I think everyone should read this article about why soccer is the world's sport.  It's great writing and really interesting.

USA!  USA!

I care not at all about the Olympics, for the most part.  I'm redirecting all my patriotic sports pride into the World Cup, I think.  Also, I'd like to channel some of whatever Landon Donovan has and get this first draft done in my (metaphorical) 91st minute, please.  I have to send whatever I have to my adviser next week.  If only I could pull of the tension of a heated soccer match in my prose.

My dad has a very loud voice. Later, when I call him to wish him a happy Father's Day, if there is anyone else in the room with me, that person will also be able to hear my father on the phone. Not on purpose, or because he is yelling, but just because he's speaking and his voice happens to be something that can be heard across rooms, soccer fields and anywhere in the house if he happens to talk back to either the TV or newspaper. When I get worked up, opinionated or drunk my voice becomes his. "Shh, Margaret" someone will say and my pink cheeks will turn a little pinker. I blame my father.

I also blame my father for my hair, my height and the fact that I was never late to high school. Every morning, just to give me an extra half hour of sleep, my dad drove me across town to school. Often we picked up one or two of my friends, both who had a tendency to be running late and we'd idle in front of their houses, my dad letting me punch at the radio dials.

When I was young my dad coached my soccer team. He was an enthusiastic coach and he would often times call to us on the field, "Keep those legs moving!" I have only recently starting going to the gym and running on the treadmill and when I (nearly immediately) start to lag I'll think of him on the sidelines. This is clearly entirely his fault.

Though it is not entirely his fault, my father probably deserves some of the blame for my being a feminist, and a writer and a person who is generally not too afraid of following my dreams. My dad never treated me like a "princess", or acted as though because I was a girl he expected anything different of me than my brother. Once, when I sitting in front of my dollhouse, acting out some elaborate melodrama my dad said, "You know, Margaret, I just want you to know that I don't think any of your playing is wasted. I know you're learning a lot, just doing what you're doing." At the time I thought it was a weird thing to say, but I know now it was just my dad encouraging me and letting me know he took me seriously. Now, when we talk in my writing program of writing as "serious play", I get it.  Turns out, he always did.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.