Hair Today,…

This may not be accurate, but I don’t believe I’ve had a haircut since the last day in February. I know I went for one the afternoon before my book’s launch party, but I can’t recall one since. At any rate, it’s become rather shaggy, and at some point in that month-and-a-half-ish, out of some need for symmetry or to not make one or the other jealous or ashamed, I stopped trimming my beard as well.

So I look like a mountain man, or something. Someone in possession of a shack.

I haven’t sworn off haircuts, or anything like that. In fact, I was forced to cut one hair (or perhaps a whisker; it was right at the border) two days ago, about three inches in length, that I gazed into the mirror to find jutting out at a right angle from the side of my head. As to a full haircut, a number of things in the past weeks have taken precedence, the top three, probably, being grading, baby playtime, and episodes of Kitchen Nightmares frequently presented back-to-back on three different stations.

My hair never gets much attention as it is. I get a very simple haircut—2 on the sides and back, 4 on top—for the simple fact that it’s simple and—at least for the first two weeks—I simply don’t have to do anything to it. Just get up and go. After those two weeks, I typically put a ball cap on subsequent to showering and wear it until I get to work. To “hold it down,” so to speak.

Another advantage of my simple haircut is that it’s fast, though many barbers insist on drawing it out, perhaps embarrassed to charge fifteen dollars for four minutes of work. Two haircuts ago, having been lured into a previously unvisited establishment by their $6.99 and up sign, at the fifty-two minute mark, as the barber in question snip-snipped at what appeared to be thin air, I abruptly rose from the chair and announced, “That’s good! That’s good! You got it.”

He then charged twelve dollars.

The Carry-On Shuffle

I’ve been doing a bit of traveling lately. Week before last I was in Boston for the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference, where I signed copies of Parnucklian for Chocolate in the Red Hen Press booth, and last week I was in New York for a Red Hen Press reading at KGB Bar in the East Village.

It was tough being away from Liz and Tommy so much, and spending entire days on and off planes and in and out of airports is always a drag, but I’ve always found one positive aspect of such days to be the opportunity to get so much reading done. So I’ve always been a nonstop reader while traveling. Even when we lived in Brooklyn and I had my two-hour-twenty-minute round trip subway commute to and from my awful job in the Bronx, the second best part of each day (the first being arriving back at our apartment to Liz’s arms) was all that reading on that long train ride.

But these past two weeks I’ve stumbled upon a bit of entertainment that is worth momentarily closing the book and just watching: let’s call it the carry-on shuffle.

The reason for the carry-on shuffle appears to be that at some point (I would assume around the time the economy tanked) several airlines began charging $25, or some comparable amount, for checking a piece of luggage. So people have begun carrying, or attempting to carry, or more precisely rolling or attempting to roll, larger and larger bags onto the plane and hefting those bags into the overhead bins that were designed to stow briefcases and backpacks and jackets and the like and not suitcases.

On both of my recent trips, I checked a suitcase, despite the extra charge, and carried-on a backpack that fit neatly beneath the seat in front of me, allowing me to observe rather than participate in the aforementioned shuffle, which begins even before the plane begins to board as passengers, tightly-packed mini-suitcases in tow, regardless of group or zone number, begin to crowd the gate, aware of the lack of overhead space, desperate to avoid the awful fate of having their bag checked, the shuffle then continuing onto the plane, where the overhead space over one’s assigned seat is inevitably filled with the bags of someone seated god-knows-where, forcing one to hunt down an open space elsewhere and to endure the icy glares of their fellow shufflers as they struggle to stow their belongings and battle their way back to their row, only to relive the experience in reverse at flight’s end.

Though aggravating at the time, the high point, in terms of entertainment value, of my shuffle-observing the past few weeks came on a flight from Boston to JFK when a woman stood up on a seat—not her seat, mind you—and proceeded to repeatedly bash the overhead compartment door into her jutting out, oversized suitcase—full force, a dozen or so times—until the right side of said door was clearly broken from its hinge, at which point the woman stepped down from the stranger’s seat and declared, presumably in reference to the flight’s crew, “I’ll just let them do it.”

Irony #1: the carry-on shuffle has become so ingrained into our travel culture that it is no less present on flight’s operated by airlines that don’t charge for checked bags, as this one was.

Irony #2: because the door could not be completely repaired but was rather temporarily secured for the flight, the entire contents of the compartment, including the woman’s suitcase, along with the contents of the compartments on each side of the broken compartment, had to all be removed from the cabin and checked.

From my seat several rows away, I could not see whether or not my fellow passengers, with their eyes, were adequately shaming the woman in question as we waited, prior to taking off, for forty minutes while a maintenance worker tinkered with the damaged door, coming and going in a mad search for parts, plus another thirty minutes as he filled out paperwork, but as I returned to my book, I could hope.

Liz’s Birthday

It’s been awhile since I’ve been broke. Really broke. I used to be really broke all the time. Really broke was the norm. Even the first few years after I began working full time, really broke was still the norm—not all the time, but certainly that last week—or two—of the month. It wasn’t really a question of being overdrawn at the end of the month, but of how much and how many of those 35 dollar a pop penalties I’d accrued.

I’ve got some good stories from the old broke days, most of which are quite embarrassing—one of the best involving eating the half-a-sandwich someone left on their plate at a restaurant, only to have them return for it as I took my final bite.

Those days are over, thanks to the influence of my lovely wife Liz, and I now end most months with some manner of surplus, and we’ve managed to squirrel away into savings more than I ever thought I’d have at one time. Ever.

But this last month, it being the first month, after the maternity leave and all, that we dropped to one paycheck, plus Christmas and infant rearing and all that, things got a bit tight. Which made Liz’s birthday and the acquirement of the accompanying gifts a bit tricky.

For my birthday, Liz had printed and framed pictures of me and the baby, and my plan was to do the same for her, plus make prints of all the baby pictures (hundreds) we had uploaded from camera to computer and (hundreds more) we had taken with our phones; all of which I did, though with work and baby and book and teaching I didn’t actually get all the pieces put together until day of.

Now Liz’s birthday was the 30th. Payday the 31st. Here’s what I was working with as I made my way to Walgreen’s: a twenty dollar bill (last of the 200 I’d taken from savings that week); 28 dollars on the debit card, most of which came from the 41 dollars in coins I’d deposited after spending the previous Saturday hunting down and rolling every quarter, nickel, and dime on the property; and 87 dollars of balance left on a credit card.

I knew that the pictures I’d ordered weren’t going to be cheap. I couldn’t remember, at the time, the exact amount, but I was thinking like sixty or seventy dollars. Leaving me enough, I estimated, for the six frames I needed for the six enlargements I’d had made.
I teach English. I don’t really do math. Now after picking up the pictures I very well could’ve added their price to the prices of the frames I was picking out before heading to the register, but I was operating more on feel, and I felt as if the 87 dollars on the credit card would cover the pictures and the frames. Plus one of those canned Starbucks drinks I grabbed from the little refrigerator by the register.

When the register display finally stopped at 130 dollars, I wasn’t panicked. I figured you could split it up. Like at Target. But the nice little old lady who works at the Walgreen’s—and is very nice but takes a really long time to do everything—not only didn’t think I could split it up but had no idea what on Earth I meant by split it up. So I started to just leave. Then I went back and asked the nice old lady to just keep my bag there for a while and I’d be back.

First I went across the street and tried to use this ATM card I had for the savings account. But I couldn’t remember the pin. Business hours were slipping away, and my one true love’s birthday was in jeopardy. I thought really hard—again, I don’t do math—and figured out how it had to go down.

I went back and had the little old lady take everything out of the bag. She tried to start with the Starbucks drink. I said Let’s put that back, which I did. We started instead with the pictures. When she got to eighty-something dollars, I stopped her and slid the credit card. Then the frames. When she got nearly to twenty-eight, I stopped her again, and ran the debit card. The last two frames rang up at sixteen dollars. I went back and got my Starbucks drink.

And returned home, gifts as yet unassembled but in stow, to my Lizzie, whose love, even in such times, makes me rich.
P.S. Someone may do the math on this post, and it won’t be right.

This Interview Has Bieber Fever: The Next Big Thing

Fellow writer and University of Nebraska MFA alum David Atkinson kindly invited me to participate in the Next Big Thing interview, which has been getting around the internet and in which I answer the following questions. Here goes:

1) What is the working title of your next book?

Well, I’m not working on any next book right now, so I’ll just give you the title of my soon-to-be-released first book, due out March 1 from Red Hen Press. That title is Parnucklian for Chocolate.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

A sentence just sort of popped into my head, “Josiah eats chocolate,” then another, “Nothing but chocolate,” and it just took off from there.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Literary fiction. It’s kind of a bildungsroman.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I think, if a movie were made, Justin Bieber should play all the parts, like Eddie Murphy in one of those movies where he played all the parts.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Parnucklian for Chocolate is a dark comedy about what it is to grow up an alien in your family and your own life.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book will be published by Red Hen Press.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Right around three years.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Slaughterhouse Five, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. Those are good books, right?

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I wrote much of the first draft while sitting through inanely tedious teacher-credentialing classes. So boredom, at first.

After that, I was inspired and encouraged by my lovely wife, Liz, and my MFA faculty mentors, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Jim Peterson, Kate Gale, and Amy Hassinger, all of whom made this book possible.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Reading it may prevent premature balding.

And here are four other fabulous writers who may or may not be participating, and whom you should check out regardless:

Jen Lambert

Liz Kay

Sarah McKinstry-Brown

Joseph Michael Owens

Or anyone who wishes to join in can just answer the same questions on their blog and leave their link in a comment.

Bah Humbug!

Our first Christmas together, Liz and I established a now four-year-old tradition of reading aloud Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, having at the time recently acquired an 1892 edition of Christmas Books and Stories Vol. I (Vol. 34 of the Works of Charles Dickens—Chapman and Hall). It’s pages being delicate, this copy remained on the shelf the following year, replaced by a ninety-nine cent Dover Thrift edition we bought at Shakespeare and Co. (the Lower Manhattan one, not the Paris “we-published-Ulysses” one). That same Christmas, Liz and I were lucky enough to gawk at Dickens’ original handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol, on display for the Holidays at the Morgan Library.

And this being our baby Tom’s first Christmas, we have included him in our ritual, reading him the first half of the Christmas Present chapter in one installment and the Fezziwig scene in another, his attention span being at least slightly shorter than either of our own.

For whatever reasons, A Christmas Carol is a wildly popular story, the best evidence being how widely it has been adapted. Even It’s a Wonderful Life, a Christmas tradition unto itself (and possibly A Christmas Carol’s chief rival in that regard, A Christmas Story perhaps serving as the Ross Perot of the race) seems—though based on a short story—to borrow from or at least to be influenced by its predecessor’s plot.

Liz’s favorite version is Scrooged—with Bill Murray as a Gordan Gekko-esque Ebenezer. We both fondly remember the Mickey Mouse version, its “Uncle” Scrooge trailing us through childhood as the antihero of our generation’s after school staple, DuckTales.

But my adaptation of choice would have to be the 1970 musical, Scrooge, starring Albert Finney. Though my wife enjoys her declarations that I was alive in the 70s (she may also scoff at my earlier lumping—we being an entire five years removed in age—of the two of us into the same generation), 1970 is a bit before my time—I only personally experienced 13 months of the decade—yet I somehow came into possession of a VHS copy of the musical, taped from TV. In fact, this same VHS tape also included A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Garfield Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and possibly more, all taped from TV, with the aforementioned Scrooge at the end. I remember watching the tape, dozens if not hundreds of times, always rewinding to the beginning and watching those various Christmas specials—enjoyable enough, but ultimately obstacles to the true prize, Scrooge, which I enjoyed immensely—I would watch the tape all throughout the year, not just at Christmas—attracted, for the most part—though I enjoyed the story and a couple of the songs, “I Hate People,” particularly—to the general texture of sooty yet bustling Victorian London, a period and place which—thanks to both Dickens and Sherlock Holmes, and like the Old West or Medieval England or 1920s Chicago—I often imagined myself adventuring in.

Liz and I recently rediscovered Scrooge (the musical) via YouTube. A couple of revelations:

As a child, I believed Albert Finney (in 1970) to be elderly, though this wouldn’t account for his being a young man in the flashbacks (the magic of cinema!). I also thought that he and George C. Scott were the same person. But then I also thought that everyone on TV with a moustache was the same person.
The YouTube version of Scrooge revealed a somewhat homoerotic scene cut from the TV broadcast I had long been viewing, in which Jacob Marley returns and drags Scrooge through hell, which is full of men with no shirts, and pulls on his chain. Alec Guinness, the original Obi-Wan Kenobi and religious figure to former and current nerds and fanboys galaxy-wide, plays a strangely effeminate Jacob Marley who is either constipated or can’t remember his lines. Or both.

Our New TV Could Eat Our Old TV

Three years ago, we didn’t have a TV. And were a bit uppity about it. As of last Saturday afternoon, we have three. And two are big. And one is officially “smart”.

My birthday was last week, and last Saturday my stepdad (Earl) and his wife (Deb) brought over my gift: a new 32” SMART TV + WI-FI, prompted no doubt by a previous visit that revealed our having outfitted our living room with a TV about the size of a desktop computer monitor, a TV that never seemed small in our tiny Brooklyn sublet but turned out to be exactly that when relocated to our relatively spacious living room in CA.

It was a bit awkward, though, for a moment, when Earl and Deb arrived, gift in tow, and could see through the front window that we had already replaced our dimensionally-challenged TV with a new 32” unit. In fact, we had gone out the day before Thanksgiving to gleefully do what we had discussed doing yet had failed to do for months: replace that puny little TV with a grown up TV, finally pulling the trigger on a $220 off-brander on pre-Black Friday sale for $150, which we promptly set up and attached to our handy little antenna (we’d been off cable for about a year) and marveled at for a solid four days—Alex Trebek had never looked so vibrant—before Earl and Deb’s aforementioned birthday visit, the aforementioned awkwardness of quickly assuaged upon the discovery that the two sets were not of the same ilk, the new arrival being, as the box prominently declared, “SMART + WI-FI”.

Last Christmas, Earl and Deb, who are generous gift-givers, gave us a Kindle Fire. It was our third Kindle of the season, as my mother and her now husband—also generously—got Liz and I each a Kindle reader. Liz and I had scoffed and guffawed for years at the idea of us, serious readers that we are, would do so on a machine, a sentiment that—perhaps revealingly—faded immediately upon our unexpectedly becoming owners of such devices. Personally, I’ve found my Kindle reader to be particularly useful when traveling—in the past, for big trips, I’d pack my bags at about a 50/50 books to clothes ratio (cuz you never know). And while electronic versions of current books can be pricy, you can load up the complete works of, like, Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare, Joyce, etc. all for around ninety-nine cents a pop. More recently, I’ve found the ability to one-handedly turn pages by push-button convenient while feeding a baby.

But it’s the Kindle Fire that gets the most use in our household, and it’s this particular device that—uppity as we were our year with no TV, perched in our respective chairs, tomes in hand, approaching social situations prepared to pounce on any and every opportunity to note our dismissal of that technological scourge of society—that reveals the somewhat embarrassing fact that given the choice of classical (or even not classical) literature versus shiny and colorful full seasons of The West Wing or Glee, the shiny and colorful win out every time.

It was the Kindle Fire that allowed us to ditch cable last year and that became our primary deliverer of passive entertainment, until our special delivery the past Saturday. The upshot is this: while we don’t see ourselves as the kind of people with a 32” TV in their bedroom and a 32” TV in their living room with cable and On-Demand and Netflix Instant Video and Amazon Instant Video and twenty other things, and while we don’t envision raising our child amongst such bombardment, for now we’re kind of enjoying it. (I mean, who doesn’t want to lie in bed watching Hoarders at six in the morning?)

Eulogy for my Grandfather Dick Deller, NRCHA Hall of Famer

The following is the eulogy I gave yesterday for my grandfather, Richard (Dick) Deller, who passed away last Tuesday:

The best way to describe Dick is as a man full of idiosyncrasy. He had these little ticks, most of which all came back to everything needing to be arranged and done in exactly the right way. The table setting had to be just so; the bed had to be made just so; everything from the rain gauge to dirty socks and halters and bridles and the hat on your head had to be placed in a precise spot in a precise way. The last time I saw him out of bed—though his straw hat was well-placed—I took his uncharacteristically un-tucked shirt as a significant sign.

“Correct” was the word he used and that we often turned around on him and teased him with. He liked things “correct”. Good luck going out to eat, asking him if he enjoyed his meal, and getting a response other than a) Not particularly, or b) That was the worst G.D. thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. At Christmas, you were well-advised to keep your newly-opened gifts nearby and neatly stacked, else they be scooped up with the bags, shirt boxes, and wrapping paper that he would begin collecting—before everyone had finished opening gifts—and taking out to the burn barrel.

We rolled our eyes at his mandates for correctness, but I think it’s fair to say that the successes he had in life—particularly with his horses [my grandfather was an inductee into the National Reined Cowhorse Association Hall of Fame and recipient of their prestigious Vaquero Award]—are attributable to that trait. He had a firm view of what was “correct” and he stubbornly stuck to it.

And when things were not correct, he had a broad vocabulary at hand to signify it, most of which is inappropriate for this venue [Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Ione, CA]. His most frequently-used phrase, “Jesus Christ,” would seem appropriate, but the difference is in the context. When he really meant it, he put the “H” in the middle.

Another favorite phrase of his was “What in the world?”—emphasis on the first and last word. He often seemed concerned about the world and what was in it—especially all the people clearly not doing things “correct”. He’d watch TV and shake his head or say, “Look at this A.H.” Sometimes we’d be driving and suddenly he’d say “47” or “34”. “Counted 34 cars, Biege [his moniker for me]. Where do you think all those A.H’s are going?”

But that was all “behind the scenes” so to speak—what he’d call, “running his big mouth”. Never once in my life did I see him fail to treat another human being—from old friends to bank tellers—with courtesy and respect. And when gratitude was due someone, he paid in full. Whether I drove him to church or cleaned his gutters or brought him a sandwich, he thanked me repeatedly and spiritedly.

Over the years he talked a lot about growing up around Sacramento and Pat Hoy and “those old guys” being willing to put up with him and help him with his horses and answer his questions, and he was truly grateful for what those men did for him, and he paid it forward in his openness to helping “these young guys”.

He did help me with my rope horses over the years, but I know I should’ve and would’ve gotten a lot more out of him if I—or maybe we—had been less stubborn, but there is consolation in knowing that his knowledge may go to use in those more willing to listen.

There is no better example of the courtesy and respect he showed to people than in his marriage to my grandmother—and no better example of the love and care one person can show to another. At my wedding, just a year and a week ago, I said that I aspired to be the kind of husband that Dick was to Genevieve, and I can think of nothing now to which I’d rather aspire.

A few images of their love come to mind:

When Genevieve had hip surgery a handful of years ago and had to stay in recovery for several weeks, one of us would drive him in to Stockton in the morning and drop him off and he’d sit with her all day and we’d drive him back in the evening. The notion of him spending a single day without her was out of the question, and the ritual of endearments and kisses upon their separation each night was precious.

Getting into the car the morning of her brother’s funeral, again a few years ago, Dick turned to Genevieve and with sincere wonder and amazement declared, “Babe, you look beautiful!”

Genevieve passed away on a Friday morning [June 15 of this year], and that evening my mother happened to be standing in the room as Dick turned down her sheets for her on her side of the bed, just as he must have done nearly every day for 69 years, and it is these images that make it clear for me that—though I will miss my Gramp—he is in the place he wishes to be, beside the person he wishes to be with.

Like Taxidermy But for Sewing: Anniversaries and Cable TV

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It (the wedding) was one heckuva memorable day, which, if you’d like, you can read about right now at www.connotationpress.com. Our friend Erin Badillo also has some great pictures up on her photo blog, which you can check out here.

It’s been a great year as man and wife, and the three-and-a-half years we’ve been together have honestly been the best of my life.

Our celebrating actually began Saturday. My mother babysat while Liz and I partook in a couple’s massage at a swanky spa—where mostly you’re paying for ambiance created by dimmed lights and general cleanliness and lots of wood-burning stoves but which ultimately made for a pleasant and enjoyable way to take a nap—and stayed the night at Lodi’s Hampton Inn, where we’d stayed on our wedding night.

There are lots of nice things about staying at a hotel, one of which is guilt-free cable watching. We don’t have cable at the moment, but as I learned when we did, there’s a certain shame that follows the watching of four consecutive episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter or Storage Wars, a shame that seems not to exist, or at least to be significantly diminished, when doing the same at a hotel.

Here’s a conversation Liz and I had Sunday during our third straight episode of Say Yes to the Dress:

Me: I think we should open a dress shop.

Liz: And what would be your contribution?

Me (after several beats): Bookkeeper.

Liz: Sure.

Me: Or I could learn…whatever the noun form of “seamstress” is.

Liz: You mean “sewing”?

Me: Like I’m sure there’s an official word for it. Like “taxidermy” but for sewing.

Liz: “Alterations”?

Me: Maybe.

Liz: I’m picturing you with a stapler and scotch tape.

Me: I think my strategy would be more to talk them out of the alteration. Like convince them it’s fine.

Liz: This is the worst dress shop ever.

Clearly meant to be together.

Curb Walking and Hitler

So we have this baby due in 8 days. 8 days doesn’t seem like much, but nonetheless we’re both getting pretty impatient, especially since as of 6 days ago, the doctor told us it could happen at any moment. Which we took to mean it would happen right away, leading us to plan on having a baby this past weekend. Which didn’t happen. Leading to some interesting reactions. Such as Liz deciding, rather adamantly, on Sunday morning that she wanted to punch something. Or someone. It started with wanting to punch the lady on the local news. It ended with me hiding the cat in a closet.

For the first time ever, we washed every glass and dish and bowl and pot or pan in the house (so that when we came back from the hospital everything would be easy and nice). We cleaned every surface and washed every article of clothing . Then we’d sit and wait. And wait. And eat something. Or wear something. Then wash. Then wait.

Liz got her toenails done. She’s been shaving her legs twice a day.

Liz has also taken to curb walking, which a friend recommended and which I thought the friend had made up to mess with her, but I googled it and here’s a person from the internet doing it elegantly:

It’s supposed to induce labor. It looks kind of silly, to be honest.

Sunday we decided that we were changing Thomas(the baby)’s name to Donald as a penalty for taking too long. Donald Englebert. The next day: Englebert Gaylord. Then Gaylord Cuthbert. At the end of the week, his name will be Hitler. Hitler Judas.

Avoiding Grading

Here’s a list of things I did, over this three-day weekend, to avoid grading 50-plus summer reading papers:

4 loads of dishes
7 hours of The West Wing
Swept kitchen
Mopped kitchen
Assembled bassinette
Assembled multi-featured electronic mobile that hangs over bassinette
Studied how to turn off replay of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in attempt to retain sanity while assembling multi-featured electronic mobile—eventually just removing batteries in frantic fashion
Naps
7-9 hours attempting to put video on website
Downloaded DVD Shrink 3.2
Watched YouTube video some kid made on how to use DVD Shrink 3.2
Created YouTube channel
Vacuumed
More naps (including dreams in which employed in West Wing)
Installed baby car seat
Visited nursing home (grandfather)
Walked around block
Downloaded Adobe Flash update in hopes of being again able to watch Daily Show online
Read 6 articles on novel publicity, all of which I’d read before
Read 20 pages of Tender is the Night
True Romance (the movie) on Amazon
Googled name of every new hire on Creative Writing Wiki (mostly in search of their age)
Helped sister-in-law move furniture
Chicken pot pie at Marie Callendar’s
Brainstormed how cats could be used to create book trailer
Watched other people’s book trailers
Watched other people’s Kickstarter videos
Scrubbed toilet
Scrubbed tub
Swept bathroom
Mopped bathroom
Food-4-Less
Wine coolers
One dozen donuts
Traded pregnant English teacher wife numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 15, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 34 for her grading of 50-plus summer reading papers