Have a Helena Day!

I was tempted to use a catchy title for my first blog since moving to Montana, but it seems like everyone has their hands on the phrase "Helena Handbasket." I found a god-loving basket weaver in Indiana who talks to her baskets and uses the moniker, a rock band comprised of middle-aged men in the Fargo-Moorhead area, apparently the local start-up roller derby team also goes by the name, along with seemingly right-leaning political blogger in a neighborhood near me. Instead, I'll use another local phrase dear to some Helena folk and heavily marketed by local artist Aaron Farseth and the local ice cream maker, Big Dipper Ice Cream. Instead of telling you I've gone to Helena Handbasket, I'm here to say, "Have a Helena Day!"

As you may already know, my welcome into this community hasn't sucked at all. I landed a job at both the local colleges (one private, one public) and was invited to teach creative writing classes to adults within the first two weeks of my arrival. I've just concluded teaching summer classes at UM-Helena, a small vocation college about three blocks from my house (hooray for bike commuting), and will start again in a week teaching three composition course for the fall. My students there range from too-smart-for-high-school kids to women in their sixties attending college for the first time. The diversity makes for interesting class conversations when I bring in controversial reading materials, but that is typically the case with the readings I choose. On Monday, I'll start teaching a argument/rhetoric course at the local Catholic private liberal arts institution, Carroll College. While I was once terrified that I'd burn up at the feet of the Mary Magdalene statue that greets me as I walk onto campus daily, I've found that my fellow professors (and even a couple of Carroll kids who took my summer class at UMH) are pretty damn cool. In fact, the dean of my department teaches a class titled "Truth, Lies, and Bullshit." Pfew. That really takes the pressure off. Anyway, Carroll is a beautiful little campus with approximately 1500 kids. Not surprising considering it costs about three times as much a year to attend than it does to go to a publicly owned college. Nonetheless, the kids are pretty traditional, mostly white with a median age of twenty, mostly from the northwest. And Carroll is no more than two miles from my house and UMH, so I'll get some good bike rides in before the snow falls... in about a month.

Besides the college classes, I'm also teaching in a small studio space in Reeder's Alley, a historic walkway in downtown Helena. We've named ourselves The Mad Muse Writing Studio. This picture actually shows the doorway to the studio space. See that narrow door right on the corner? Nope, not that one, it's the one to the left of it. There! Anyway, the exciting part about teaching in this space is that I get to teach classes I design to small groups of adults. Six max. For this fall, I've got two on tap: a Women's Writing Workshop and Breaking Through Writer's Block. So, if you know someone around here who might be interested in this kind of stuff--here comes the plug--send 'em my way!

Besides the job, our home is nice and quiet--well, quiet if you ignore the 28 trains that daily pass by just two blocks away. We are surrounded by a park on three sides and an empty lot on the other. Every night we have at least one and even up to five or six mule deer nesting in our back or side yard. We've had a lot of little Bambis lately, but we also have bucks with serious racks. Sharla throws firecrackers at them, I tend to walk and clap real loud yelling "yah yah" or something, but that will probably change in the fall when the bucks get a little more aggressive. This is part of the reason why we chase away the bucks (we're too tender to chase away the lone doe or the Bambis). The mule deer have been known to kill big dogs by stomping on them, so we'll not be taking our chances with the little wieners. Also, the deer like to snack on just about anything. We're trying to protect our gardens too.

Besides the deer, we also deal with teenagers selling drugs in the pull out between our house and the park, and when we get bored we call the cops on them. But most of the time, we're lazy from dealing with students all day long, and so their petty weed smoking gets overlooked. But really, besides the deer and the teenagers, the wildlife in these parts are pretty spectacular. Just east of town, and just about anywhere in the rolling dead-grass hills of Montana, one can find pronghorns, aka: antelope. We call them "white butts" because that's about the only identifying feature visible on them, as they blend into the landscape. . I haven't seen any moose yet, nor bear, not even elk, but I have seen some pretty spectacular birds. Today we saw a Common Shrike, a not so common bird whose numbers have been declining as of lately. I also saw a Lazuli Bunting at my feeder the first week I got here, then I never saw one again. Sharla has a particularly good eye for Sandhill Cranes and Bald Eagles and we see those all the time. Yes, turns out Montana is rich in wildlife. It's not just a rumor.

Well, I oughta save a little of my Helena adventures for later, because goodness knows there will be more to come. I just knew that it was time to start blogging again now that I'm all settled in. Hopefully, I'll have more for you, and you'll still read my rants when the infrequently occur.

"Have a Helena Day!"