notes from the weekend

Calm. The sun kissed the air with warmth today, before it settled in among seashell clouds spread across the sky like they've been tossed with tides and left to be collected by a passerby, one more memory of a day spent with the sea.

I gather bright colored beach towels from around the pool, twelve of them, and half a dozen more fluffy white ones from my bathroom. The children who transformed from tank tops and cut off shorts to evening gowns and tuxes, and back again in a blink of an eye spread them to dry on the pool chairs. Now that they have gone, the scene is just more laundry.

What isn't just something else to clean or put away are the memories. The funny kid who kept coming back for more plates of eggs in the morning. The one who thought i believed his outrageous lies, simply because he wanted to go outside and smoke.The mother who wrote me a thank you note...before the party. That is optimism.

And my kid, smug, happy, in his element.

Anyone who wants to put down teenagers hasn't met the ones I know. They make me laugh. They make me know we are doing some things right.

That was Saturday night and Sunday. On Friday I had a date with a blue-eyed blond, with tousled curls who likes nachos and ice cream at the ball park, but doesn't care about hot dogs or beer. He taught me about the relative speed of sliders and curve balls and split fingers. And to pay attention to how Clemens winds up. It was with brutal honesty though that he explained that the rally hat was embarrassing. Well heck. We were down 3-2!

"Does it really look bad?"

"Lets just say you've had better days."

Maybe, but not many.

saturday morning

There is a wind blowing that I want to turn into a cliché about change and atmospheric pressure and storms. How lazy is that? Why not focus smaller, see the way the fronds from the Chinese fan palm click together like snapping fingers in a forest full of applause? Or the way the hair falls across your face when you look down, sheltering your eyes when it is too painful to look into mine? Or too honest? Easier to note the way that you stand, and turn to go.

Cliché. I want to fall back on you, write silly genre pieces that won't disturb anyone for long, leave your impressions of me intact, leave you untouched in anyplace that matters at all. But I can't. I can't settle for surface tension when beneath the water, deep, deep down there is a current, warm to the touch, steady, strong, that carries me to places you can't see from up there, a current once touched that won't release me until I've found the source of things, and then I am afraid to discover that there is no source of things, that it is all cyclical, circular, hop-on-let's-go-around-again the same.

So I choose. I pick a cliché here, a bud to slip into a crystal vase, a bit of green for contrast and let it be. But it is so lonely.

I awaken aroused, an image behind my eyelids I don't want to let go, Words that I know I need to write down … gentle words from an outlaw that don't belong there, the kind of contrast that makes me stop, listen, beg. I tremble, worried that any one spoken will change the tenuous balance, make you disappear, make you weep.

I don't want to open my eyes. I don't want to see that when I do the cat still lies at the foot of the bed, the dog beneath, each tuned to every movement I make, each guarding that what I do is only that which they can predict. It is too early, they will know that, and all the passion in the world won't matter if I disrupt someone's or something's routine.

There is a storm coming in from the Gulf, and the pressure changes again, the wind chills and I carry the energy of this naked moment with me to the tasks at hand, and all that I know for sure is that change is necessary, change is perfect. And that I owe nothing to the sunrise, and much to the dark.

spring fever

I truly hate it when I don't get any new words down in a day, and the truth is it's been almost a week now. Too much of that time has been spent fighting with software that is supposed to be seamless, and my inability to accept that it isn't… but can you think of anything more boring to talk about in a blog than computers? Me either.

It is definitely spring in most of the country… I can tell by the email and instant messages that I've been getting. I don't mind, really. It's fun to be human in the springtime.

I've been driving convertibles. If it doesn't get hot soon, I'll buy one. I love the feel of the wind in my hair, and the new ones don't even tangle it much. When I was a kid, my parents had two… both Oldsmobiles. One an F88, a tank of a thing, and the other a cute little F 85. (I have no idea if that means anything or not. I only know what the numbers mean for the moment in time that I'm actually listening to a car salesman…. Then I just forget. Not like the numbers are the tax code or a phone number after all.) Whenever we went on a trip, my hair, which I wore waist length at the time, was horribly twisted and tied up. My mother tried to make me wear scarves, ala Grace Kelly, and that just wasn't going to happen

Anyway…. my lease expires in June. I'll be traveling a good portion of the month, so need to decide to buy or turn my car in by the end of May. The question: is it too stereotypically middle age to buy a convertible? Better question, why on earth, when I feel the wind lifting my hair, the sun kissing my shoulders and the connection to the road rumbling all the way to my fingertips, do I care what it seems like?

Ah, spring. Gotta love it.

I'm working on a story that is at best sacrilegious, and at worst just plain kinky. It's sort of fun, too. I was called perverted yesterday. I'm so proud. And that person has never even MET Megg.

friday night tight

There is a lot of good to be said about champagne.

it is from france.

it is bubbly.

it makes me giggle.

i don't, as a rule, giggle.

jolly, jaunty, jovial, fun, cheerful.

April 20, 2005

Even though Word believes that to be the date, it is well past midnight and I've gotten my nights and days so confused again that I can't sleep. The cable is down for "scheduled maintenance" and I'm thinking that if Time Warner can send me newsletters trying to get me to enter contests for things I don't need or want, they could have actually advised me that we were going to be offline tonight.

But that requires customer service….

I've started to write several things here, a whole laundry list of potential topics spinning through my head…. But the needle doesn't seem to want to stop on any of them. I wish I had a menu of topics; I can ramble on about anything.

But I find I'm tired of my real life and want to give Lily or Megg a chance at the keyboard. Only Megg is sulking because she's not getting the attention she wants, and Lily is quite the girl about town lately. She's still trying to recover from the blow that her favorite writer crush is gay. Just breaks all the rules. He's a writer damn it! That carries responsibility!

Eh.

Okay, when worse comes to worst, I have a bunch of resources on my bookshelf, I could be like a, you know, REAL writer and open up a book with writing prompts. I could even dive into the Jar of Magic Writing Topics that the girls made for me one year when they got tired of brainstorming WITH me… it is a mason jar (where does that term come from you think? Like Masonic masons ala Da Vinci Code (I never did get through that) or like the Mason Dixon line? Preservation of food seems to be more of a southern thing… northerners had natures deep freeze if they could get things to last that long (I just made that theory up and yes, I know it makes no sense. Humor me here.) Anyway, inside the jar is black sheer fabric, speckled with gold stars, the kind you'd see on a wizard's cape. Inside the fabric lining are several tiny little scrolls. Each scroll is taped closed with Magic Transparent Tape. Inside each scroll is a writing prompt, intended to inspire short stories suitable for framing... er... giving away to my friends. I started to write a novel from them last fall during Nanowrimo, thinking if I got on a roll and let each story link to the next that it might serve several purposes… but I got stuck. The jar itself captured my imagination and I wasn't able to conjure up any magic from the prompts.

So here is a randomly chosen prompt from Megg's Jar of Magic… want to write with me?


Gay men in 19th Century England often wore green carnations in their lapels as a signal to those in the know. (The pun is that green carnations, like homosexuality, are "unnatural."

Now let's just set this record straight. I am not homophobic and neither are my daughters. They just think it's funny to try to get me to expose my ultra liberal thinking among my not so liberal colleagues. Any other day, and they'd get their wish. (He's a writer! What is that about? What's wrong with bisexuality anyway?)

Okay, you write about nature if you want. I'm pulling another prompt.

Get a dead man to tell a tale. Preferably sans help from supernatural la-la land.

That's just too easy. It's CSI. They must have been rushed on these. Not like someone in my family to push a deadline….

One more try.

Huysman's "Against Nature " features a protagonist who orders his life completely around aesthetics. (insert here from me…. Do we see a theme developing here???)(back to prompt)—giving a party at one point which is completely themed around the color black, with all black décor and costume, serving Black Forest cake, caviar, marinated Portobello, etc.; the garden done over only to feature igneous rock and of course it's on a moonless night. You're invited.

Well, who doesn't love a party?

you are simply striking

There is something about drinking dry champagne that is less like drinking and more like trying to quench something other than thirst. I think about what made someone bottle those first bottles in France so long ago, what made someone come up with the concept of wine or beer or whiskey in the first place. I like to know the source of things. The whys.

I'm really an outdoor girl at heart. I fell in love the first time at a place called Pine Hills. It was a nature preserve, basically untouched at the time, where you could hike backbones and ridges all day, but had to be out at night. There was a stream in Pine Hills that you could follow up to its source... a spring bubbling out of the side of the Indiana Limestone. Felt like going back in time.

Now my outdoor locale of choice is always a beach. I'm not a sun worshipper, I just need the water. And the woods seem so far away these days. Hard to climb to the source of streams with knees like mine. They are getting stronger though. Soon.

I started to look up the history of the seven dirty words, because I wanted to type them all out and add the term "alternative minimum tax" right there with them. But then the seven dirty words aren't all that dirty anymore, so that took the fun out of that little tantrum.

I don't feel like I've stretched myself with words for weeks, and it is necessary to get back to them. For one think I've got deadlines coming up that I want to meet, and for another I feel less detached when I write. It's good to loosen up here, because some of the junk gets out of the way and then I can proceed. I like that word. Proceed. The judges say that when you've won a point of law… but I also was always fond of the phrase "move to strike" which takes whatever language offended you as litigant from the record. I always want to use it in conversations when people say something that just isn't good. "I hate that person" "move to strike" "he's a fat slob" "move to strike" "she sure bumbled that opening" "move to strike!"

Anyway, time to proceed.

procrastinating. again.

The clouds this morning do appear to be lined in silver, backlit by the sun somewhere out there over the water. I need them to stick around because if they don't, I'll want to be out there, too.

I have no right to be scribbling here right now, have put this task off so long that I've given up my right to choose. Sure, I could file an extension, but it is a source of pride now, not to have ever done that. The fact that Grandpa's forms don't match and that the household paperwork, which is outside the scope of my responsibility, had to be dug out of Thelma's stacks doesn't matter. If they are not finished today, it is my fault.

Yet I can't keep from playing with words. Taxes. Spelled backwards… sex at… .hmm

But there are things I want to write, so:

- the possum on the baseball field. Just a baby, pink and fuzzy, snooping under the bleachers first then chased by the little kids whose big brothers were playing, into the dugout, then the pen where the pitchers warm up. It didn’t' seem to be afraid of people, as though it was happy to be a little league adoptive mascot. It even left the park when the game ended. Funny little creature; reminded me of rats.

- I haven't seen many rats in my life. One in Galveston that freaked me out and made the superstitious Midwestern voice in my head, the one I try to forget, whine about signs and bad luck. Another in New Orleans. Both times were times I wasn't sure I should be in that particular location at that particular time. The Galveston one was the beginning of the end of a great friendship, and some of my own naiveté, the New Orleans one was during Allison, and while I was watching rats, my house was flooding. Well not really. What really happened was that the pool overflowed and no one knew how to waste it. You can bring us to the city, but you can't give up common sense.

- there are always stories to be told that can't be told to certain audiences because the foundation for them necessary to make the story work comes across wrong. Like my story of the tollbooth in France. I was so proud to be DRIVING on the freeways in France, that I could read enough of the signs, that I could actually find the sea without help. But it had been a year of international meetings and I was not along for my brain. We'd been in Mexico the week before France and I am not good with currency. Not even US currency. So when the toll was (I don't remember how much the toll was. Five franks? Does that make sense? Doesn't matter really.) I handed the operator the change in my bag that added up to the correct amount, and didn't understand why she was asking for more. She kept saying "not a frank, not a frank" like it was some animatronic response. Only when I realized that I'd actually given her some pesos did it click. So cosmopolitan G.

- I'm going through something similar as my spouse finally gets the job he came here for. I have a sense of resentment that makes no sense at all and can only wonder if Hilary felt this way. I'm going to deal with it, because no one deserves resentment when they've worked this hard. I am going to drink champagne. After the taxes.

- My dog has major ocd. She cried to get out a while ago, and then just stared at the patio table whining. I finally went out to see what was going on and there were two tennis balls up on the table. Her sheep were out of the pasture I guess. She brought them in where she could watch them and is now curled happily beneath my desk. Yesterday she played so hard with the twelve year old that she came in with bleeding footpads. All the way to the bathroom there were little Scout blood prints, like a gruesome crime ending at the toilet where she of course had to get a drink. I'm not sure why there weren't prints back. She's smart enough; maybe she gave herself first aid while she was in there. What kind of pet fetches a ball on a sidewalk until her feet bleed? Today she is limping too. You'd think she were ancient. Just an old soul I guess.

- it is clear I have nothing really to write and am just stalling. Odd how it works the other way when I'm supposed to be writing.

basking

The sun has awakened cheerfully the past few days, lilac wisps of vapor fanning along the horizon. The dog and I walk in the morning, before the rest of them have to get up, and while it isn't as cerebral as writing until dawn, it feels right.

Savoring thoughts of summering… languishing in the day after a few hours with people I really like. How long must I wait before I can do it again? The feelings are the same, that warm toasting glow on the skin, just fragrant warm, and the perfume of good conversation. I forget how pleasant people are in my isolation here, lost in my head, (where I commune alone?)

Roller coaster emotions today as my daughter announced her first real job, right out of college, my husband moves up another rung and I argue with my son about alcohol and prom. Lily and Megg just want to play. I keep telling them, "after the taxes." They hand me extension forms and say, What about Hamilton pool, What about enchanted rock? I say… good night.

A memory though first.
When I was very young, my grandparents had a centennial farm. Not my grandparents really, my step grandfather's family, good old Charlie whose estate is still a mess… (Grandma's 4th husband) (What can I say? The women in my family know what they are doing!) Charlie's farm was situated a couple miles outside of a small town in Indiana near Greencastle (think the college town in "In and Out") The farm had a huge garden plot, a few acres, and that is why I found myself unattended and happy in a tire swing. The rope holding it to the walnut tree must have been fifty feet… that tree was enormous. The sun broke through the branches like the warm smiles of a thousand friends and if you twisted the rope around and around, the ride you would spin out on was breathtaking, like being on stage to a hundred curtain calls. The scent of walnut, tangy green when in their skins blended with the scent of hard work as the family came in with buckets of tomatoes.

Tomatoes deserve entries all their own though. You haven't lived until you've eaten a tomato sandwich made with Indiana tomatoes.

I'm typing words my mind hears but my consciousness doesn't so I'm giving in and going to sleep now. Yes. Now.

Franzen

From Franzen reading: (paraphrased from memory)


With reference to writers, particularly Kafka… just an individuals writing out there and there are things he doesn't understand in life, so he tells stories to try to understand them. That's what writers do.

Readers are an elite group… it is a luxury to read. And we come together in this thing we enjoy together communally, only for readers and writers, the communal experience we share with one another is that we are always alone. Sometimes our communal experience is even with dead people.


Three moments that struck me as worth preserving today.

--Sweat dripping, even if it is from artificial labor like an elliptical trainer, running down my face, my back… cleansing, purifying, oxygenating. Makes me stand straighter. If only to keep it from tickling.

--Driving and the trip to the city took me only 15 minutes. Some days it takes an hour and 15. But the weather was fine, the traffic sparse and moving. I moved to the left lane and let my zippy little car do what it was meant to do. I was going 75 when I went around the black Lexus convertible. A very sweet machine. The blonde woman driving and I made eye contact as I passed her. We smiled at each other. It was like yeah. I get it. It was a classic moment… one that I'm not sure everyone ever gets to feel. Freedom, brought to you courtesy of speed and the sunset and later the smile of the moon. And machines that look sexy and perform.

What more could a girl want after all?

--Finding my friend Keith after the reading. Keith is my image of the southern gentleman, from Louisiana, tall, well groomed, and soft spoken. He would no more make an untoward comment than he would let his 10 year old read the books he collects. (But he did get lost trying to get from the theater to the parking garage. A little flustered perhaps.) We meet by understanding in the autograph line after the reading, which is where we first met, just turned around and started talking. We have an amazing amount of things in common, and for someone I see only a couple of times a year, whose last name I don't know, and whose email address I don't have, we are very connected. We intended to sit together this time, but by the time I found him the reading had started. Neither his spouse nor mine care for the events. I go because I am addicted to words. He goes because he collects books with autographs. He has a whole room full of signed first editions. But he doesn't read them. When I ask him, he says he'd just as soon read a paperback mystery.

My favorite word when I was a kid was serendipity. Keith fits that definition. As do beautiful evenings in Houston, like today.

more

Another perfect morning where staying in bed only makes sense if you are having fun, because sleep wastes too much time. Tubby the cat knows this and wakes me earlier every day, he is careful, if he steps across the midline of my side of the bed, my husband will awaken and toss him to the floor. But if he is very careful, and walks only on me, he can quietly press his claws onto my shoulder, which wakes me instantly (it hurts!), and I will pet him, and he will purr loud in that way that boys do when they know no one else can hear them and they aren't afraid to let you know they love you the most. In his case, it is the thrill of getting up early to chase lizards, and then bring them in to show me. Or grasshoppers. Usually legless by the time I get them. Ugh.

Yesterday I finally nudged the committee I've been working on for two years, "cyberlaw"(not nearly as much fun as cyber... um. Never mind.) … to a place it needs to go, though those of us who stuck it out the last two years will miss it. It has been a meeting where the members almost show off… to present the issues that are unique and interesting to us, a bunch of senior lawyers who've grown jaded with all the simple stuff over time. I have seen it happen so many times. Minds like these need to be constantly stimulated, so rather than stay in an area that becomes rote and easy, they move to the next level of difficulty as though they are playing a video game. And then they wonder why nobody comes to talk to them, hear them speak. The point is that for most of the population, it isn't relevant. If it isn't relevant, it wastes too much time. And time as we all know, is m o n e y.

So I gently talked to them about target markets. They took the ball on their own then, and the point was made. We won't have our esoteric discussions of Grokster or UDRP's anymore, at least as a topic, and simple things like digital signatures and filing electronically will take over. It will bore the old guard, but it will appeal to the masses. And after all, we are here to serve.

As for me, I've moved from one area to the next so many times it is embarrassing... let's see, first five years or rotation so that I did everything once. I hated that. Debt collections, divorce, insurance defense, workers comp, litigation. I admit it was good training, to see what one had to go through if they screwed up a contract provision or failed to negotiate between spouses… then the specialty years… pension and profit sharing plans, then condos, then radio stations and bank mergers, in house issues (like securities) agriculture, then estate planning, all in Illinois. Off to Michigan where it became liquor licenses, then all mergers and acquisitions, buy outs and insolvencies, esoteric corporate matters like dissenters rights and freeze outs, Riparian rights, real estate development, then school law, then politics for a bit, campaigns. Then… what? Software licensing, health care, tax, always tax. And now publishing. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. So much law… and I never go to court, where most people think law is centered. I've always maintained that if my clients end up in court, I've failed enormously.

What a strange entry this is becoming. Where is all that pretty writing, those descriptions that remove me from the world of phrases likes "survive the execution" " not by way of exclusion" and "inure to the benefit" … where are they indeed.

I am thrilled with the turn out for our planned class dinner on Tuesday. So far nine of the potential 13 have confirmed. Some time the Jr. Leaguer in me won't stay quiet. Some day I will exploit that in fiction. I did in one of my "nano" novels… I wonder if that plot still holds water. Maybe that will be my summer project. The country club meets 9/11 was sort of the theme. My mind is quite sick sometimes.

Speaking of 9/11… I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It is a heartbreaker in the way that only fiction that feels like reality can be. If you ever wanted to capture the voice of a nine year old boy, especially precocious, you will have to read Oskar's story. I do wonder if it will stand the test of time, if its heartbreak is strong enough to do the job after 9/11 is consigned to a place in history like Pearl Harbor.

What shall I read next?

in which i ramble uncontrollably

An easy dawn, the brightness of the sun muted by clouds too thick to be pretty and too thin to bring rain. I wake happy, feeling the effects of physical labor, even if it is artificial labor, and I like it. Anything that feels like being alive gets my respect.


It was such a beautiful day that I couldn't be responsible and stay inside at my desk. I tried working out on the patio, but my heart wasn't in it. Went to see an old friend, then took my book to Le Madeleine where I thought I could read and have a salad. I've become extremely fond of dark leafy salads with fruit, spinach and strawberries are on the top of my list. When I took my tray outdoors, which was the whole point of paying seven dollars for an undressed salad and Perrier, the wind surprised me. I rarely use salad dressing, so the tender leaves blew off my plate like feathers. It was interesting to me, wondering if the cars out on the street would wonder why leaves of spinach were flying by their windshields… I know it would have made me wonder, had it been my wipers capturing those leaves.

A case of nerves tonight… the kind you will only understand if your child is at bat with bases loaded and two outs, with the team down by two. The pitcher walked him. The next batter hit a grand slam. A good game.

Another parent moment… when you realize that the boy out there who stands a foot taller than the others and runs without seeming to touch the ground, the one the coach puts into pinch run for his own kid, is the same one with a crush on his English teacher, and the same one who reminds you to turn left when you are lost in the time warp of a story in your brain but also happen to be behind the wheel of a car… and is the one who still wants you to kiss him good night. You never get too old for that stuff. You just don't.

In 55 days I will be able to put my manuscript in the drawer with the other ones, and start something new. I finished the story.... Undertow… unabashedly women's fiction, that had been waiting and waiting for its conclusion … for two years… last night, revised it with the help of a writer I don't know, and realized that it is the last of the old ones that I will polish instead of starting fresh. I can't imagine how good it will be to have the yoke of this last novel off my back too. I have been asked to write a horror novel next time. We'll see. Megg doesn't like to write more than three thousand words.

I'm tired of smelling paint, though the associative memory is interesting. With any luck, one more days will complete the job. Most of it has been under spousal duress and not done intelligently, with carefully planned decorator schemes or thought given to the themes of the room or even the furnishings. It is purely the result of builder khaki revolt. That's right, my avant-garde builder didn't paint the house in those time-honored shades of white. This is upscale paint! It is khaki! It is the result of buying a house not yet completed fifteen hundred miles away.

Here are the colors I've had it painted: Interactive Cream, Open Air, Lucky Green, Resolute Blue, Cyclamen, Breaktime, Misty and Bagel. Not to mention the Eggplant that I did myself before I realized just how stupid that was,

Two phrases from conversation: "Non computer mediated"… speaks for itself I think…

and Telematics: like when telephone call centers, for example, are connected to databases, so that when a person calls before you even lift the receiver you have a whole wealth of info about them –

Bet you didn't expect to be quoted, did you? I think Anthony Tedesco would call them money words. Maybe I should send them to him.

I still have hundreds of bits racing through my mind but the night last night only lasted two hours, and I have to be on my game tomorrow.

Ignore the typos, wrong words, extra spaces, etc, etc, etc. I'll fix them after I've slept.

miracles and challenges

A cup of green tea, no wine, no more beer. Not even that warming glass of scotch my skin asks for with its gooseflesh.

The word I needed to review today: Bohemian... somebody who does not live according to the conventions of society.
But whose conventions? Don't we all make those up as we go along?

I need to be more careful here. Some forget that my words are only words, that the interior voice belongs to whatever character is playing a role today. I don't need the trouble of the attribution back…. I always screw up my pronoun antecedents too… because you see I don't write the words, I live them first.

Last week I had to go back and change every verb. EVERY verb. When I wrote it, it was happening. But the text called for past tense. No wonder I forgot to change the pronouns.

A miraculous thing happened though, when I took the advice of my colleagues. They said: you don't get to know what happens to those kids if you stay true to your pov. And guess what? One of those kids said, phew, that was close, and he ran away. Poor soul has no clue what happens next. But it solved a plot problem and a bit of triteness I wasn't quite sure how to get around and the book is still alive. For the moment.

If that makes no sense, please don't worry. It isn't necessary, just a placeholder.

We drove to the beach today. I was hungry for the salt air and the soothing rhythm, and it had been months… I didn't realize they were reconstructing the bridge. The boys came begrudgingly (adverbs adverbs!) and brought their skim boards. But when we got there, it was too windy to be comfortable, the sting of sand blended with the chill off the water, and we opted instead for food. Don't we always?

The times book review featured Extremely Loud today, and I had to set the section aside so that it wouldn't spoil the ending for me, but I couldn't tear my eyes away fast enough not to notice what the review pointed out about the ending, and I had to flip to it in the novel, so now I feel a little cheated. I don't want to get too much farther because I know the ending is awful. Its like the train wreck though. I can't not keep reading. Just as I couldn't turn off the television after 9/11. In many ways the depression I've been dealing with these past years are tied to that day…. Many ways. Maybe it is the dragging on of war or maybe it is that I associate that event with sadness in my own life. I just know I've not been the same since then. I don't expect to be.

Ah well.

I've not done stream of consciousness memories for several weeks now. Let's spin the wheel and see where it stops. This is a writing exercise for me, much the way writing sunrises used to be, to try and free the demons caught up there in the crinkles of the gray matter, if you are new to this place. I close my eyes, and where ever the … bottle? Stops? Oh but I am not one to kiss and tell. {smile}

It is April third… that day has two significant attachments. It is the day my father was born, in 1913. He'd have been 92 if he'd lived. He died at 56. I don't remember much about his birthdays. I suppose it is because he must have been nice on them, and I refuse to remember him nice. I can be a bitter unforgiving bitch.

The other was the Tornado. My freshman year in college, a campus chosen because it sat on 500 acres of woods overlooking the Ohio river, one of the most beautiful places I'd been up until then, and still quite lovely today. 3:53 in the afternoon, I don't remember where I'd been but the sky was green and I'd lived in Indiana long enough to know it wasn't right. I went into my third (top) floor dorm room to find my British roommate, Laurey, whom I dearly loved, sitting listening to music and paying no attention to the sirens or the wind. It grew dark, the power went, and I remember grabbing her hand and telling her we had to go NOW. She trusted me, and we headed for the tunnels beneath the building… six flights down. We had reached the stairs between the first floor and the tunnels when the pressure changed. …like it does as an airplane takes off or lands…and the noise overpowered our voices. Laurey was screaming, but I just pulled her along until we were with the others and were safe.

The all clear was sounded sometime later… the girls whimpering in the tunnels were sure it was, as it always is, a drill…. Laurey and I knew better. She was quiet for a long time after that.

We emerged from the tunnels expecting life to be unchanged. But the dorm was missing its roof, and much of the third floor. Our room wasn't destroyed completely, but it was a mess. The worst part though was walking outside. On the beautiful quad, trees that had stood there for three hundred years were uprooted like carrots, pulled and left to dry in the sun. A block away, a sorority house was flattened.

Miraculously, there were only "minor" injuries. A professor walking in the woods had taken cover by a tree, and the wind pasted him too it… mostly shock for him. In the ad building, someone trying to close a door to the wind lost all the fingers on her hand when the door was sucked closed. There was 13 million dollars worth of damage to the campus, but no one put a value on the swath cut through the woods, as wide as a football field.

And for those of us who lived through it, a bond was formed, the kind that forms when you realize you've survived. Three days without electricity or water, and a blizzard followed the tornado. We got to see what we were made of.

That night of the tornado was the first night I slept with a writer. He held me close all night, assumed the nightmares were from the storm. He was my favorite person in college, with his shaggy hair and brown eyes, a day or two's growth of beard most of the time. It was odd to see him pulled together…. I tended not to like it much. Even now, I have a special place in my preferences, if you will, for the scruffy writer look. Together we solved many of the world's problems, and postulated, discussing Einstein over coffee, that life is indeed relative. If you stop existing for me, perhaps you don't exist at all, or perhaps you never did. Or maybe I don't?
Enough. Good night.

Turning a page

The sun is bright, the sky someplace between cobalt and periwinkle… it would look good on you…. The air 78 degrees and the wind strong enough to make the palm fronds applaud the song of birds whose names I don't know.

It is a perfect day.

I read the paper this morning, and am fixated on the reviews of the surrealists, who made great art while traveling at their whim, loving among themselves, and living outside the box of the moral strictures of their time. (I have concluded, however, that no one will ever make great art or much of a contribution to the world stuck in the suburbs of Houston.)

I don't know what it means. If it will just frustrate me more, or if it just gives me intellectual permission to do that which I love most, to inspire and encourage people who have the talent, the calling if you will, to make art. Whether it is words or sculpture or music or photos or landscaping. Your work gives me joy. It inspires me in turn. It pushes me sometimes.

I am the best I've ever been. I've loved, lost, lived, died. I've made a lot of money, a million friends and enjoyed my children. I've been a good wife, friend, lawyer, lover, leader. All of that has brought me to this balmy tropical paradise of a day. I'm not finished yet.

So this morning I am leaving melancholy to it's creative corner, letting it mature, fester if it must. I don't live in a box, and I don't answer to anyone but myself.
And neither, my lovely friends, do you. You are the best you've ever been right now. I can't wait to see what you do next.

meltdown day

I'm not sure what I expected, except more from myself. I hate endings, hate good-byes, avoid them whenever I can. There have been so many lately it seems.

Class is over, which means not only will I not see most of the people I came to care about again, most likely I'll never know what happened to the ones they created. In many ways, they are more real to me than my classmates. I knew what they were thinking, how they reacted to the world. All I really know about most of my classmates is how they wrote. I don't know if they are married or have children. I don't know if they ever had a broken heart, though how could you write at all if you hadn't? I don't know what their dreams are or their fears. But I learned those things about their characters. I have that sense of grief that goes with unfinished business.

Statistics show that most of them, us, won't ever publish the novels. My guess is that two of the twelve or so we were reading/writing are publishable, though there is a third I'd love to read. I say would love to read because my sense is that I'd never buy it unless I knew it was the novel it is… that doesn't make sense…. But what I mean is that the story was compelling to me, but I know I'd never buy it on a bookflap recommendation.

But then, there are so many books I like.

Mine? Hasn't enough been said about tragedy and pain? Do I really need to add to it? I'm not able to make this story have a happy ending, too much cynicism and the logical conclusion is even less attractive. So I will put it away. I opened my short story files last night, and tried to apply what I've learned to the one I've wanted to finish for three years... "Undertow." I have learned of some weaknesses that I can fix. What more could one ask of a class?

Flights of Fancy

posted by request, from my journal, feb 2002

The colors are muted today, a thick lint blanket cuddling the mountain in white, finally snow for them. The landscape has taken on the colors of a faded painting, the adobe beige of the city mirrored in a yellow fog clinging to the horizon. The charm of traveling is fading, too, and I feel a need to be productive. I wish I could see the sun once more before I leave here though.

Sunday morning found us out on the dessert....learning to crew for a hot air balloon. A little like crewing for a sailboat, but all we really did was help to "fill" the balloon, and then fold it into it's bag when the trip was over. It was cold, and interesting, not like flying up as much as it is like the earth slipping away... (plagiarized unabashedly from the literature) until we were aloft. Then it was more like being on top of a tall building... but floating with the gentle breezes. I expected to be nervous, but the only scary part was trying to figure out exactly who thought it was okay to give me a boost into the five foot high basket. No one I knew was still on the ground behind me.

The sun was already up by the time we got the thing filled and launched, and by the time we came down, folded the balloon and were back in the van, coffee would have been very nice. But tradition required champagne. It seems balloonists used to have problems landing on foreign soil and being considered... well... foreign, so they began carrying a bottle of wine with them on each trip. The theory was that sharing local vintage with the inhabitants would convince them of the friendly nature of the balloonists, even without being able to speak the language. A little wine goes a long way for friendliness.

It was Sunday morning, and we finished our little ceremony with this Irish prayer:

The winds have welcomed you with softness.
The sun has blessed you with his warm hands.
You have flown so high and so well that
God has joined us together in laughter and set us
gently back into the loving arms of Mother Earth.


I realized when I got to the airport that this trip had really been a flight of fancy for me. A recognition that I was not afraid of the mountain, or the sky, or the planes. It was a time to set free the anxiety that has hovered over my mind since September, and reclaim some of the spirit that I have grown into. As I wandered the airport waiting for my flight, I heard a man speaking to another passenger, and was enchanted by his voice. It was deep and resonant and overwhelmingly sensual. I took my book and sat a few rows from him, just so I could listen to him speak. I wasn't eavesdropping, couldn't even tell you the subject of his conversation, but his tones were lyrical, and magnetic. When it was time to board, I was among the first "thirty" passengers, so got on the plane first. I made eye contact with him because I wanted to see the eyes of that voice, and smiled. He was traveling with a woman, but carried a book titled Annulment, and his gestures indicated that it was the subject of their conversation.

Deep brown by the way. The color of polished walnut. Dark black hair, thick and straight, cut to frame his face. Features carved from the tinted palette of the southwest, clearly native American. He was tall, I would guess six foot four, though I confess that I am not tall enough for most men not to seem tall to me. He had an athletic build, and was dressed completely in black... turtleneck, slacks, shoes. Gorgeous. At least my age, perhaps a few years older. When he smiled back, I noticed his teeth were not quite straight, one of those little imperfections that makes a handsome man easy to like. I felt like it was a perfect ending to the trip, and promised myself to write him into a story.

I took my seat by the window, arranged my notebooks and paraphernalia, and was writing that description as I waited for the plane to take off.

Guess who sat next to me?

So much for reading. Or writing.

I tried for a while, as he was finishing his book on Annulment. Now I don't know about you, but I've never seen anyone read a book on annulment before, and couldn't resist the comment.

Turns out he studied to be a priest. Decided he wasn't cut out to be celibate (proof that there is a God) and married. Had two daughters and a son, in their twenties. But his wife died, 17 months, 29 days and 4 hours from the time we were speaking.

It also turned out that a lot of people wanted him to date. Them. (Imagine that.) (I quickly crumpled up the piece of paper with the names of all my single friends.) He is a devout Catholic, and didn't want to do anything "wrong." (shhh! I was good!) Seems there are a lot of women in "our age group" that are not quite as picky. He was glad to learn from his book that the church was even more liberal than he.

But the really fascinating part of this man was what he does for a living.

He is an Ethics Officer for a nuclear weapons facility.

I was surprised that there was such a thing.

I think I feel a little safer in the world knowing someone like him holds the position.

I'll try not to hold the fact that he wanted to know where to go Country Western dancing against him. Nobody's perfect.

The airport in Albuquerque has a beautiful bronze statue by Lincoln Fox of a Native American taking flight on the heels of an eagle. The inscription on the bronze Dream of Flight reminded me, once more, not to fear flying.

The dream of flight is born within the heart of
man, embracing the desire to be free from the
confines of the earth's surface.

Hopefully the dream includes the possibility
of freedom from limiting thought and action.

As our imagination is freed to receive greater
truths, the fears, closed thinking and poverty
of spirit will be left behind ... far below.

It was good to be close to the sun.

Dawn on the Sandia Mountains

Another day

relative lives

Finally a productive day…. Though not many people would find ten pages very productive, I'm satisfied with it. Especially since it took hours of research to get it and make it authentic.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about war, mostly because of what I'm reading, but also how sometimes I feel like we Americans are so clueless. One of the books I was reading, written by an immigrant from Viet Nam. The woman came here in 1970… married a middle aged "red neck" from San Diego and while happy to be safe from the war for the first time in her memory, was confronted with the callousness of culture shock. She cited the example of the news… how every night there were clips from the war, and she would watch them, knowing her aunt lived in one village, her brother was in another company, villages where there were only women and children left destroyed, etc… and she would weep. Her American Family ignored that segment of the news. In one poignant contrast, and some of you will remember this, there was extended coverage of a little girl who'd fallen down a well. That made her family weep. The author didn't understand why one life deserved so much more attention than all the others. I guess I don't either.

A few years ago Dustin Hoffman made a move… Wag the Dog I think was the name, that illustrated the actions of government to distract the attention of the public from the issues it should be examining up close with some sentimental headline grabbers that succeed. I am deeply disturbed that we are experiencing this today. What makes the life of Terry Schiavo so much more important than the lives of our men and women in Iraq, and the people for whom they are fighting? Why on earth does the most powerful man in the free world think he needs to have a say in such a heartbreaking but PERSONAL matter? When my mother had a breathing tube last year, the last thing our family could have handled was some stranger… ANY stranger, let alone the president, butting in to tell us who was right and who was wrong. One of my sisters would have kept her on the tube forever. The decisions are very hard, and not easy for anyone, least of all the person who knows the patient best. But maybe its just we are supposed to look there for awhile and not be so concerned about the 20 year olds who'll never get a chance to grow up.

Lest you misconstrue, while yes, I am liberal, democrat to a fault and anti Bush, I am not so sure I am anti Iraq War. I am anti lying. I believe we could have been told the truth about what was happening in Iraq and authorized troops with fact instead of scare tactics. I'm not one that would want to repeat the holocaust before we get involved militarily. But the lies and the misinformation…and the misdirection? All take away our presidents credibility not only with the world, but with us as well. I don't believe anything he says, and usually now if he says it, I can't even listen without bristling.

Hey, it's my blog, and I can say anything I want. I have it in writing from the experts!

I picked up Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (kind of an interesting web site, not as much fun as J.K.Rowlings, but still has potential. I wonder if all the links work on a pc? I'm on a mac and have the urge to go validate the site for him, but wtf? I don't have time for that.) the other day, and like the voice, though I know it is disloyal (sorry Marcus) to enjoy anything from the McSweeneys crowd. It’s written, at least in part, from the pov of a boy who lost his father in the WTC tragedy. Like how I designated that as WTC instead of 9/11? Or 9/22 as my slipping fingers wanted to type.

on a tuesday night...

Where G(is that who i am here?) types under the influence of three glasses of wine…

Had my next to last class tonight. By the time I was called on I'd already started into the third glass (a definite no no) and so I had to speak very carefully and thoughtfully in that way in which you are aware of your own voice. NOT good. Tomorrow I will pull out one more segment from my book to send to the class for crucifixion, or not. Still wondering, given the negative response from the professor, why the material was accepted into the class at all. eh. The beauty of that third glass of wine is I really don't give a damn.

The cats are happy that the house is back to normal, in fact Tubby has been overly affectionate today. I indulged the weather and let it coax me out to the patio, fully clothed for a change, to finish my reading today, and he, Tubby the cat, named for his girth and rate of growth, and to contrast his twin sister Buffy, named for entirely different reasons which I am not going into right now… anyway he hated the sun so kept jumping up on the back of my chair and rubbing his head on the bottom which felt rather… strange... if you must know.

Scout, dear Scout, the devoted border collie, woke me from a bad dream last night at 2:30. I used to have bad dreams a lot, then didn't for a few years, mostly because I had a good friend who helped me with the issues that caused them. When he "moved on" they slowly crept back. I must have been pretty agitated to awaken Scout, but not my husband. That ought to raise an eyebrow or two.

I am going to Hawaii this summer with my family to celebrate my birthday. I need to find someone to house sit. Probably ten days. I'm afraid Scout will go mad... she doesn't eat when we leave her a day. sigh.

Ah, a funny story. When I lived in Michigan, I was pretty active in local politics. One of the candidates whose campaign I ran became a good friend. In reality, she liked me much more than I did her… ever notice that women do that? Do men with one another? There is almost always an imbalance in the relationship, who likes whom more…. Anyway, this friend decided to throw me a surprise birthday party. Now I was born on a national holiday, the one that caused my father to declare me a "firecracker without a fuse" at birth… so it's pretty hard both to confuse the date, and to plan a party for the actual date.

So she held the party in mid august. Like the 14th. A fortieth birthday party.

But I was 42.

Yeah it was a good surprise….

I'm avoiding email tonight because that old friend has been sending me off the wall things that I'm hoping he sobers up about and retracts by morning. I'm not in the mood for that shit.

I am sounding a bit harsh tonight huh?

Let's just blame the wine and not worry about it.

Just had to delete a paragraph of bitching that I have promised myself not to include here.

That was close.

I guess it's time to finish up.

I miss the words though. I don't expect that to make sense.

weekend

Finally, spring break is over, and it is back to business as usual tomorrow. It's been an interesting weekend…. I don't know why I can't do things in moderation. Started with Thursday night, when my spouse was advised of a long deserved promotion, and in celebration we consumed the better portion of two bottles of wine. That wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't had a beer with my writing pals before going home… and he hadn't had scotch waiting for me. Oops. At least we weren't driving. Two glasses is my limit, and I've been trying to make up for the dehydration since then.

Friday night I sold food tickets at the intermediate school dance. Nothing makes you feel older though than having little girls hit on your child in your presence. I know my boys are hot, but this one is TWELVE. Have to admit the young lady who asked for his number (really, at 12!!) was gorgeous. Kids seem to bypass that ugly duckling stage now. I shudder to think of how I looked at 12, that was go-go boot year. Enough of that memory. Suppression is a wonderful thing.

Saturday… Opening day for Little League. In this phase of the weekend, we had the over achiever mothers, of which I am not a member, decorating a float for the parade and competing for the honor of being chosen the "best" float. There have been times that I wished I could fit in with the Barbie doll mom's whose lives depend on such things, but only when I'm going through some sort of insanity.

Then the art fair. From 1 to a little after five I stood in a wooden booth and sold tickets for $8 a person. The other person at my station was a twenty something very cute blond from Estonia…. Tough to keep up with.

I love to watch people at play… but the most interesting thing was watching the artists. Thousands of people walking by their work… the things they created from their imagination and their hands… and they seemed to be separated from the whole thing. Near the end of the fair, I stopped to by some tiny silver bells on chains. I wasn't looking for a bargain; I just thought they were unique and pretty. The artist kept telling me which ones had the best sound. I'm not sure if anyone who wore one around her neck would be concerned with the pitch of the bell. Perhaps that was his way of showing his nervousness. I bought two… just regular little bells. Pretty pendants. I was drawn to the lighthouse bell, but that is a little bit much, don't you think?

And now, now I am tired, but I am afraid of letting this journal go for too many days without writing. I have already lost the rhythm of my memory writing, and much like my own personality in the past two weeks, I feel like I am losing complete touch.

I hate how fast time is going.

Writing resources

I know if I were a great blogger I'd have all these links out there in those lovely rose-colored margins, and I'd quote from the New Yorker and give links to all the witty articles I find out there, and on and on. But I'm not a great blogger.

I had a great time yesterday critiquing some work of other writers though, and was pretty shocked at some of the basics they didn't know. So I thought maybe I'd pull out some of the links in my bookmarks lists. But I think though, rather than putting them all in one entry, I'll tease a bit. You like to be teased don't you? It is Friday after all….

My favorite place for writers on the web is Zoetrope. Go and join it. I mean it. Even if you don't want to critique or submit stories for critique, there is more information in that site that is easier to find than any other place I've found, and you'll see I've found a few. If you do, and you know my real name, which is how most of us are listed there, send me a zmail and I'll show you around. There is erotica in my private office right now, so you might not get in there, but there are places you want to know about.

If you don't read Writers Digest, or Poets and Writers you are missing a lot of real world info too. They send out email newsletters. One of those things I don't always read when it hits my email, but I always keep to read.

Angela Hoy spoke at a conference I went to once, and is wonderfully personable, energetic and knowledgeable. Writers Weekly is a good place to kill time. You might get perturbed at some of the promotional information for their products, but just work around it. Lots of free information, especially if you want to make money writing. This is where the addictive 24-hour short story contest is held quarterly. I've made Honorable Mention a few times, but more importantly, each time I write for one, I end up with the skeleton of something I eventually develop, usually for the. Horror Library (some of it is that horrible!) But really, it is fun. Why else would I write?

Allison Joseph at CROWPPS is a saint in my opinion, because if I ever feel like submitting something, all I have to do is open the email folder and there is always a contest or call for submissions. Once I even submitted an ...ahem… poem. It was summarily rejected, as it should have been (what the heck is a poem anyway?) But it was easy. You don't have to sign up for the emails, just get on the list.

Another list that is important if you take your writing seriously at all is Publishers Marketplace. The closer you get to wanting to see your novel bound and wearing those nifty "25% off Bestseller" stickers, the more you will want to pay attention there.

My current writing professor turned me onto The Writers Almanac … I'd listened to it on the radio whenever I was on the right side of town at the right time of day… I can't pick up NPR from home, sadly. I was thrilled to be able to get it online.

That is only a drop in the bucket I'm afraid, but I am out of time for now. This weekend I get to put my volunteer hat…er… t shirt I guess … on and sell tickets or something…. Here Bayou City Arts Festival . I suppose it would be appropriate to link one more organization, Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts especially for the local readers, because it is with this group that I am volunteering.

It is 74 and sunny here right now, so it's definitely time to walk away from the computer. What was that we like to do on Friday again?

beware the ides...

The sun and I woke up together today, or rather got up, as I was awake long before the first light slithered under the blinds. It was peaceful to sense it there, I can't say watch as I didn't have my glasses on. It never got very bright; there is a storm out over the water today I think, so no color came along with dawn. I suppose that is fair after the splendid days we've had.

It is too quiet. There is already more work sitting on my desk than I have any hope of completing today, so I moved out of the office to sit with the laptop and the cats by a window where yes, the sun occasionally breaks through the clouds. And here I am writing nonsense, when there are contracts and critiques and opinions to complete.

I've been reflecting on ageism this morning. A friend wants to go to law school, mid life career change, and I can't help but want to discourage him.I think it takes five years, realistically, of training for a good lawyer AFTER law school. I'm not sure there are firms out there willing to invest that in someone who'll be in his sixties by the time the training is completed. I know all about the ADEA... age discrimination in employment act.... but I really can't say i think this is subterfuge. While I want the philosophy of the act to apply, professional services are so personal. So I'm stuck in the moderate world of confusion.

Another friend struggles with his PhD program, at the beginning of his professional career, and I wonder if he will wish he'd done something else when he reaches this magic age of confusion. Of course, I have to try to apply in to myself, and find that I'm okay, I've done what I wanted, for the most part, and now have freedom to play with words. Even if things stack up on my desk. (Now if only they'd cooperate and play back.)

Today is supposed to be the launch day for submissions for the summer issue of LSL. Truth is I've already bought one story and have an idea how the layout goes. I need to finish the site design so that I don't have to create more (ack) email names for subs. I found a format for online submissions that I like… NFG,(is it back yet?) Glimmer Train, Thirteen and some others, all use it so it must work okay. If only I could get my designer to code it for me. She has to wake up first. Spring break is not for sissies either.

On another note… with three women in the family, all still enjoying the hormonal delights of femininity, there is a clear need for chocolate from time to time in my house. During holidays, my mother always made homemade fudge… none of that marshmallow stuff for Peg… she was a real cook after all. It was a tradition I brought away from Indiana with me and the kids demanded it from the time they were old enough to say the words. My youngest daughter, when she was about two, christened it more appropriately, and now when we indulge we call it by its rightful name:"pudge."

Last night, after having had their fill of cucumbers and mushrooms and kumquats (yes!) and greens, which is all they've found in the fridge since stopping in for a few days before enjoying their respective spring break plans, the two girls went back to the mall. (I am on strike… three out of five days in a mall, especially with the weather we've had, is cruel and unusual punishment and I'm not THAT bad a mother!) Perhaps to appease the beast that emerges when I've been left to too many hats, they stopped by the store and brought home Bridge Mix. You know, that candy that is worse than a box of chocolates because some of them are nuts or jellies (yuck) or crème filled or raisins or caramels (pronounced with two syllables like any good Midwesterner will tell you) or... who knows what, covered in chocolate...

It is one of those things we use for mood control, or at least did when the girls were in high school and peace was more necessary. I guess maybe I've been a little short with them lately. They brought home a good pound (to share!) and said they'd come up with a new moniker for it, too: "Bitch Mix. Like Pudge without the innocence."

They ought to be in advertising.

The boys appropriately declined. Smart kids.

hats

The only sound I like better than the wind through the palms on a seventy-three degree tropical morning, complete with birdsong and tree frogs, are waves crashing on the beach. The quiet symphony that demands nothing, not that I analyze the chords and instruments or listen hard to the lyrics or try to adjust my major key ear to someone else's minor. It is most freeing at dawn, when really, who can ask anything of another beyond sleep? Or sex I suppose. There is that. But the wind in the palms this morning gives me permission to write. Finally.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really complaining. I wear a lot of hats. I like to add new ones to the collection, trying them on, taking the persona that goes with them and letting her out to play. How else would I have found megg in her black fedora, tipped over an eye while slicking on her blood red lipstick, or lily with her ponytail through a baseball cap, a kiss of gloss and ready for anything, or god help us good old rose who doesn't care what hat she wears, so long as she can toss it off?

There are others, hats that stay out of the words, usually frowning on them. The proper spring-green-straw-with –silk-flowers, which instantly transforms the wearer to junior league proper complete with feeling naked without her white gloves. And the Practical Winter Felt, one simple silk band, black of course, designed to keep snow off the hair so that it stays straight and tidy and oh-so-corporate. The bonnets tied with pink ribbons to match the expectation of wide-eyed children who expect and deserve Donna Reed perfection. The lightweight beach straw, protection from too much sun, requiring the hair to be pulled back in a braid, only to escape into screwed up tendrils, And the southern belle picture hat, Nawhlins style, which must be accompanied by a smile that holds back more than it tells…..

But hats need to be worn separately, given time to let their personality take hold, let each part have its moment on the stage. But this week it is like some crazy vaudeville skit (or is that the effect of Wise Children, the book writing class is reading?) where someone has taken hold of all the hats, jammed them one on top of the other and required me to wear them all at once.

And you know what? All that dancing, marching, leading and following exhausts me. My feet hurt.

Ah well, as my mother used to say, I made my bed. But I think, rather than lie in it this morning, I'm going to go to the gym. Without a hat at all.

And I promise to change these terrible colors soon. Rose picked them out. What can I say?

wicker park, etc

I admit to having a thing for Josh Hartnett but even if he weren’t starring in this one I'd have liked Wicker Park, because it shows that a story doesn't have to be told in a linear fashion to succeed. And that you have to pay attention and stay present sometimes, or what you are looking for passes right by you.

It's a whole new class of films I think, Garden State, Sideways, some others where the story actually matters. I don't guess it is any big surprise that story is much more important to me than special effects, superstars or box office take… or that I'd rather read the book than see the movie. I know how hard it is to do the weaving and blending of characters and themes to make it work though, and I like seeing how others have tackled the job. Sometimes. Some storytellers lose the forest for the trees.

I also have a thing for IMDB the internet movie data base.

I've lost so many days the past two weeks. It makes no sense… yesterday was my youngest child's birthday so I know what day it is. It just doesn't register sometimes. I need to go to Michigan in April… it will just be turning spring there and I will get to talk to my friends in town about the space I want. Unless I've gambled wrong, this will be the third summer of vacancy and if I know the broker like I think I do, he'll be desperate for someone to occupy it. We'll see, he calls the project Phoenix, after all. I need to remember to take more risks.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to jumble up the things you want to remember, like dates and times, but how old pain is always so close and clear and easy to dredge back up? What kind of plan is that anyway?

I wanted to write more, but found the need to wallow in it all and now I've lost time once again. The moon is nearly full after all, so I have an excuse for my lunacy.

Just what I need, more excuses.

remembering Charles

Charles Bukowski, as reported by Anthony Tedesco in his newsletter today:



"Keep your bones in good motion, kid, and quietly consume and digest
what is necessary. I think it is not so much important to build a
literary thing as it is not to hurt things. I think it is important to
be quiet and in love with park benches; solve whole areas of pain by
walking across a rug."

I do love park benches.

Ah Camelot.

Texas is a place that people who are from other places try to define, but mostly, we don't get it. We don't understand the bigger than life attitude or open spaces or vast expanses of everything, whether oil fields or ranches or the hills or the cities. Let me rephrase that: I don't get it. I don't feel the need to make sense of everything, however.

I spent the weekend in Dallas, looking over yet another college campus. (finally agreed on this one).

Last night we spent in The Dome, atop the Reunion tower. It's been a long time since I was in a revolving restaurant and the boys thought it was fun. The twelve year old thought it would be cool to have various food stationed on the two foot ledge that moved by the table as the floor rotated. Older son remarked that it would be more fun to leave notes for pretty girls at tables along the window behind us on the circuit. Funny the things your kids pick up from you, isn't it….

In the hallway of the hotel there was a bigger than life photograph of JFK. It was taken at the airport on November 22, 1963.

The kids had no idea the assassination occurred in Dallas.

I wanted to confirm the date, and to do so went here Kennedy Assassination Home page I was surprised that " In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died"… and remembered my mother's fascination with the whole thing. I was pretty young, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself for not paying attention to those details, after all there were so many things in the news that we needed to filter in those days.

Even more circular images. What will I do with these?

but are you fulfilled?

Early Sunday morning…. Light rain, no sunrise. Everything is beginning to look very green though, so the rain isn't bad.

I've been going through a lot of self doubt lately. A major problem of working alone is that there are so few people around that "know what you know"… whether it is writing or law or even the routine of the cats and dogs. We all specialize to an extent I suppose. I know that makes no sense, as the thoughts that support the statement are still in my head, and I'm not in the mood to go back and lay the foundation this morning.

My son's class is competing with MacLeish's J.B… his version of the book of Job from the Bible. Job (not to be confused with Jobs of Apple Computer fame) was the man so faithful to the Christian God of the Old Testament that God let Satan test him…. Taking first his wealth, his family and finally his health, to see if he would eventually curse God. Of course in the old testament story, he never did, his life was restored to him, his health wealth, wife and more children (interesting to me that the first round, stricken dead, were considered interchangeable with the new crop, but I suspect scholars can run away with that for pages, and as I've already pointed out, I'm not interested in being full and complete with the text and background today.)

In this version of the story as interpreted by the high school kids… who incidentally amaze me. These are the same boys and girls I see several times a week hanging out in the kitchen or stopping in the office to try to distract me, borrowing movies, or computer equipment of playing with the dog, yet onstage, they transform. They lose the baggage of their childhood and convince me to suspend my disbelief. They are no longer Matt and Daniel and Aleia, they ARE Job, Satan, and yes, God. What trick is this I wonder?

Back to the point, this version lets Job suffer, lets him be restored, but in the end, rather than praising or condemning God, he turns to his wife and says something to the effect of "this happens all the time. It's our choice how we choose to live this life." The synopsis of the play says this: "We are deep in the unanswered problems of man's relationship to God in an era of cruel injustices."

Well now, there is an understatement isn't it? Absent the deism, it is the question I most want to explore. I have been trying to for four years now in this silly novel I am writing, but I keep letting myself get sidetracked... write about the kids, or the strippers or make the plot move faster. Yes, yes, it is a novel and there are too many things I'm leaving out as I plod toward what I really want to say. Maybe I will put that on a stickie and leave it open on my computer as I write. "We are deep in the unanswered problem's of relationships in an era of cruel injustices."


I think of my sisters, the people who should have had the same background as I, the people whose lives should, to some extent, be mirroring mine. We suffered the same childhood, though I'll claim the worst, as the oldest, their protector if you will. But what I know is that if they had all the desires their minds contain right now fulfilled, their wishes would be to be "me." I look around my pretty rooms on this peaceful morning, and I see the things that make up the hopes and dreams of so many, and I have to say, acknowledging all the bourgeois irony, that there is no satisfaction.

When I was in the "home with little kids" phase of my life, there was a woman who was one of "those" people who you look back and understand that they were in your life for a specific purpose… no matter how much you liked them, once their message was delivered, the relationship ended, not dramatically or anything, just ended. What she said to me, when I tried to settle in and be complacent with the enormity of being "home" with young children was a very simple question. "But are you fulfilled?"

It was rhetorical of course. Children aren't an accomplishment or point of definition, they are more the corpus of a trust, the parents merely trustees; a child's accomplishments and failures belongs to him.

But fulfillment? Things don't do it. People don't do it. The quest? Perhaps. I suspect, like an algebra problem, it is more how you get to where you get, than the ultimate conclusion. What am I talking about? That silly self-actualization chart? Wasn't that used as a tool to organize and understand what has already occurred, and not a map to reach the destination? Or as one friend always reminds me, isn't the joy in the ride?

I've written journals all my life, typed them for the past five years into the computer, but never had anyone I knew outside my head read the words. It is a strange feeling, more like writing stories and reading them aloud. The acceptable blog format seems to be someplace between thought and reflections and commentary on life as reported or observed by others, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it at all. This, for those still reading and paying attention, is the loop back to the original self doubt thesis.

Anyway. Sunday morning. The paper waits for me on the front step, the coffee is strong and ready, the pool is warm, the spa is hot. The light rain only adds texture to the morning, and the back gate is unlocked. Always.

less fluff

And for you blog readers who want to read more than mind fluff, this in from Bookselling This Week. By way of explanation, I am putting together a small press to develop into something bigger in a few years when I have more freedom. The company, LakeShoreLit, has four phases: web presence, quarterly journals, publication of … say it with me… plot driven literary fiction… and ultimately writers workshops, possibly in conjunction with an independent bookstore, when I can get the financials figured out. The first phase starts whenever I get around to designing the site, or can convince my actually talented offspring to do it for me. The second phase begins as soon as I code the email into the site,(this weekend?) as I have decided to take a prototype of the journal to the appropriate arts council to see what kind of support I can get. I'll give you more details when I'm ready, but the RELEVANT information is that I've joined a myriad of organizations and get all kinds of interesting information in my email, most of which I don't keep up with (right now there are 117 pieces of unread email from the last three days alone, and none of it is spam. Ugh)(also why I love the distraction of personal mail … hint hint)

Patriot Act Battle Begins Anew
On Wednesday, March 9, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is expected to hold a press conference in Washington, D.C., to announce that he is reintroducing the Freedom to Read Protection Act, legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act to protect the privacy of bookstore and library patrons. In advance of the reintroduction of Sanders' legislation, ABA is encouraging booksellers to send a letter to their members of Congress to urge them to support Sanders' legislation and to become a co-sponsor of the bill.
freedom to read

I think we all have an interest here, not just booksellers. Yes?

discouraged

That's how I was after class last night, more so today. I know all the reasons, I even know which ones are wrong, but there is that deep dark hole of depression and it's so damn cozy in there. I just wonder sometimes, if I'll ever leave it when I finally let go and just dive in. I don't know.

Today, today it rained. And I did the right thing and gave blood, though the tech was new and couldn't even get a sample for iron from my fingertip, and then missed the vein and it hurt the whole time. It never hurts and I've been giving blood a long long time. When she finally did get the needle into the vein, she left the tourniquet on and it filled the bag in 7 minutes... needless to say I was a bit light headed and had to crash for a while just to rebuild.

Ah well. I can make more.

I started working out with C the Trainer yesterday. Every time I do something I hurt my stupid knee again. P.T. taught me that I'd adapted to so much in the years it was hurt that I do a lot of things (like walk) wrong. I guess 12 weeks weren't enough to break the muscles of the old habits. C has decided to make me work. Consequently, my shoulders and back are hurting, but in that way that you know is good. I'll take it. It's the only feeling of accomplishment I've had in days.

Tonight, I saw Les Miz for the first time, and cried. (My twelve year old tried to prepare me. Something really wrong with the dynamics of that.) Even before the ending, which was a bit too... something.. for my taste. Dead boys on the barricade seemed legitimate to me. It was like the only passage in Ragtime that i was moved to mark, because it reminded me so much of what has been going on with the Al Queada; (pp 284 in my edition(

...he sat down with a sheet over his shoulders and permitted one of the young men to shave his head and his neat moustache. The change in him was striking. His shaven head seemed massive. Younger Brother understood that whatever it's practical justification, this was no less than a ritualistic grooming for the final battle.

No memory tonight. The last one made me feel like a pompous ass. Not sure what I was trying to do there.

But tomorrow, I get to try again.

busy

There is a great thunderstorm going on outside, I'll give this a few minutes and them I'm out there… I want to shower before I go to bed anyway and feeling cold rain against my skin is a carnal pleasure of mine. So I'm odd.

sue me.

Usually I like having a lot to do. I'm one of those people for whom the "task fits the time" so when I have more to do, I do more.

The last two weeks got to be a little overwhelming though. Family illness, travel, writing deadlines, work. Got to where the things I do for fun seemed like work. Then there was work. Thursday meetings with people to learn the ins and outs of outsourcing. Then a seminar on the business of filmmaking… pretty interesting. It is hard to go to classes that aren't either too basic or too detailed, yet it is a requirement and a way to network a bit.

The meeting Thursday was on the 21st floor of the Houston center, and I was pretty blown away by the view. It was a grim reminder of what can happen though, as I looked out at the oil fields and refineries. I wish I could tell you it was beautiful, but it wasn't. It had that dreary Houston pallor. The subject matter was pretty depressing too, but I don't want to talk about that.

The class on Saturday was more fun, at least in the things I learned. One of the things I do is pro bono work for artists, yes, including my beloved writers. I know, not like poverty law, but it is something I enjoy. I've already paid my dues on that other stuff. Anyway, I got to learn about rights negotiations and a few tax issues… what more could I ask? AND I got to watch some clips of films that will never be released, because the rights weren't properly secured. So I guess there is justification for lawyers sometimes!

I had a dozen things I wanted to write about, and now of course none of them are still here in my head. So I'll write up a memory from when I first started practicing, since this is a sort of law related entry.

A little scene setting first. I was always a tax wiz in law school, it was the way the numbers fit together and made loopholes that appealed to me. So it was natural that I was recruited by the IRS during my last year of school. They have an "honors" program, where they hire a certain number of law grads (I have no idea if they still do this) early in the 3rd year to be placed in the offices where there are openings somewhere in the country. You don't know when you accept the position where they will send you, kind of Northern Exposure-esque that way… though you get to list your top five locales.

That works fine for the people who are the only career to consider, but of course, I was married already then so didn't really have that luxury. The separated married couples you hear so much about were only the actors and celebs, I guarantee that the Midwesterners who made up my peer group didn't support arrangements like that. It would be considered the prelude to divorce.

Now you need to understand that the money was phenomenal then… the IRS was competing for the best and brightest, not just in Des Moines where I was, but also in Chicago, New York, etc. So the starting salary had to be competitive… I want to say it was $32,500. almost twice the rate for even the silk stocking firms in Des Moines at the time. It was a real coup. (by way of contrast, the starting salary for beginning lawyers from top schools in good firms in Houston TODAY is $120,000. The government hasn't kept up.)

When they finally gave me a location, it wasn't Des Moines, where I had requested. I took a job in a bank and nearly died of boredom. Six months later, the IRS let me know that they had an opening in St Louis. My husband was able to work out a deal with his company to transfer to Illinois… and by November, we were looking for houses half way between his office and the city. I know it was November, because the day after we had signed a contract to buy a house, and were headed back to Des Moines to close up my bank job… where I'd already given notice, we turned on the TV to hear the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan, declare a federal hiring freeze. And make it retroactive to the date of the election. My official offer had been signed on November 4… my start date was January 2. I was out of a job.

You want to know other reasons I've never voted for a republican? [smile]

That isn't the story I meant to tell, but this is too long. Another night I will write about TW. (Things turned out fine.)

bedtime

Here is an off the wall question for you. Are "friends" and by that I mean people with whom we have no romantic or sexual entanglement, neuter? Sexless? Or does gender matter in all relationships? Something I'm pondering.

I added almost 3000 words to my novel today. 3000 words that I rewrote enough times to feel pretty sure they will stay. I'm nearly drained of energy though. That and being up four times in the night last night. I do hate the telephone sometimes.

It's been a long time since I wrote a memory. It is late, and I am tired, but I want to get back to it so hopefully a short one will stop by tonight.

When I was 7 and my brother was 8, it was our responsibility to do the dishes. We had several other chores too, but the dishes could be a problem. My mother worked nights then, in a factory, and my father worked days, as a steamfitter. Mom left for work at 3:30 in the afternoon, had a supper break at 8:00 and got off work at midnight. She made dinner before she went to work, so all my dad had to do was heat it up, and we all ate with Mom at 8. Her job was only a couple of blocks away, which gives you some sense of the neighborhood I grew up in.

Mom was one of those great cooks that never measured or studied or anything. She never served the same meal twice in memory, probably more than two weeks, and she never made traditional kid food. I had to have kids of my own to know that things such as chicken fingers existed. But salmon patties, liver and onions, Swiss steak… those were the kinds of meals mom made for weeknights. Never pizza or spaghetti or hot dogs. I smile now, thinking of how deprived I was!

Bedtime was always 9 pm, so when mom went back to work at 8:30, we had half an hour to wash and dry the dishes. Of course if we weren't finished by 9, we had to stay (oh no!!) until they were completed…we used to listen to top 40 radio and flip each other with dish towels and fight over washing and drying. The song that plays on the radio now that reminds me of those times is So Happy Together… was that the turtles? Can't remember. What I do remember is that my brother and I had many important serious talks over dishes.

Okay, I'm hallucinating with fatigue… white tigers?? Must be my cats.

petal dropping

The writing for today began with a "catch more flies with honey" letter to someone I barely know, but I do that so well that it made no sense not to. Then there was the continual referral out and out and out (divorce? No I don't do that. Real estate? No, not taking new cases in that area right now. Class action? Puhlease. I work alone! And I can't decide why I haven't called Martindale to cancel my listing. Only takes so many months of paying before I finally figure out, I am not going to do it anymore. I just don't want to. Until I get that call that makes me plummet back into a world of justice and loopholes and neg-o-shee-a-shun…. And the words roll out of my mouth and off my fingers like warm honey and before I know it I'm committed again.

"Outsourcing" is the forbidden fruit this week. A concept, a method of doing business. I do hate to get behind. I get to learn the inside secrets on Thursday.

Add three more books to my reading list today, Wide Sargasso Sea, Feast of Love, which I own, and Dogs of Babel. Why is it that when I am really into writing, everyone wants me to stop and read? It isn't like I don't read. It isn't like I don't read a nice variety… I think it is the ultimate in literary snobbery… "I've read such and such and I know it will change your life if you read it too"… yet who can read them all? I'd be happy right now if I had read just the ones I've bought. I'm such a slut when it comes to books.

I'm about ready to go public with my blog again.

Not really, just thought I'd type that and see how it felt.

Every once in a while you meet someone and you know, just know that person is going to make a difference in your life somehow. Not talking about that buzz you get when you are attracted to someone in a primal manner, but that sense you get when you make eye contact and you know you are speaking the same language. It’s a rare thing.
I had a friend tell me today that he wanted to branch out, write about people instead of things.

Why would you want to write about anything else, I wonder?

manipulation

People who have to have control all the time get on my nerves. I have friends who are master manipulators. I used to be more gullible than I am now, but now, it just makes me angry. The trump card that is always pulled is "their feelings"… I'm sorry but you don't go around bulldozing other people and then try to gain sympathy by saying you have feelings too.

I should know. I think I wrote the book on it. It does create a lonely landscape though.

Just cooling off here. Don't mind me

Today was Valentine's Day. If the contacts I've had today are any indication, I'm one of the few people left in the world that loves the holiday. I'm sure it's partly because I've been married for so long, and that my husband does a good job with romantic holidays, but it is also a time when you don't have to focus on negative things. My younger daughter is not in a relationship, hasn't been for a long time, yet even she bought silly cards with cartoon temporary tattoos to hand out to her friends. Side note to make my musician friend jealous, this daughter just turned me down for a trip to NYC for spring break--- we are NYC junkies--- (meaning we love the city!) in exchange for a SXSW wrist band. I feel… abandoned!!

No, not really. I'm glad she gets to go. I'll be in NYC in June anyway. Plenty of time.

It's been a while since I did a memory… tonight I have just filed through a whole list of them in my head… the recurring dream I had as a child, falling out of the back seat car door as the car went over a very high bridge, the first (and last) birthday party I was invited to as an elementary student … we lived in a trailer and the girl who had the party had to invite everyone in class. She lived in a big house across the road from the trailer park (yes, they were trailers then, not mobile homes) I remember the gift I took was something off the grocery store rack. A set of jacks or something silly like that, and that no doubt it was wrapped in the bag from the store… my family wasn't into gift wrap. I remember my embarrassment when the girl opened the gifts, and the other children brought Barbies or Board games or play make up, and there were my jacks. No wonder I didn't get invited back huh? … but as you can see, all the memories seem to be regretful tonight, so let’s just leave it at that, shall we?

things i've noticed

Man standing at baggage claim. Startling blue eyes, red hair. He sports a goatee that is inches long, maybe three but the odd thing is that it hangs beneath his chin like goat hair, and it's trimmed so close on the sides that it reminds me of a woman's pubic hair trimmed into a landing strip. Odd. His hair is long, shoulder length, and straight, I wonder why he looks at me.

Woman I sat next to, in her St.John knit pantset, perfect hair and acrylic French manicure that I wore long enough to know she's gone through some pain to have them look that nice. There is something about here that says "older" though I cannot figure it out … There is no gray in her hair, no wrinkles, not even the tell tale bagging of her neck or eyes. Perhaps it is the single strand of silver encircling her neck…or the book on winning negotiation that she reads like it is an assignment. I think she may be a lawyer, clearly an exec… she pulls her blackberry out from time to time and touches it with the nails that are truly too long for my taste. He skin is tanned… is that what ages her? I think now yes. No creamy complexion, no shine of youth. It must be that. That and the absence of layers. Layers matter.

I make it a point to try to guess the ages of people on the plane, there are always clues, but most often I try to decide if they are older or younger than me, and I know that is not a good test, as I have no clue how old I am most days. It still shocks me to look in the mirror and see either my older sister or my mom, or somedays my grandmother looking back at me.

At breakfast this morning, after we refused the way-too-much buffet and opted instead for single breakfasts, me a waffle, him an omelet with everything and good strong coffee, a small finch landed on our table.. Yellow underneath, black on top it stayed but a moment, looked at me, and cocked it's head. I remembered that I am to write bird by bird. Yesterday, I saw a pelican, though I wasn't positive it was a pelican… and that while sitting on the patio. It worries me that my vision is so unclear. It looked like a pelican moving, but when it stood still, I thought I tmore a crane. Does it matter? Only if I'm writing about birds.

I hate that after this weekend I have so little left to say. My mind is nearly empty of words. I think I am trading my brains for one fuck after another, one more glass of wine. I wonder if that is it?

My feet are cold and would be fine if I could get my shoes back on, but they are still tied and there isn't enough space to untie them and do it right, so I'm all stuffed into the backs of them. They are warmer that way I guess. I'm going to open another file now, and try to do something productive.

is it the dance, or the music?

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher
(1844-1900)

How is that for a quote? Lovely yes?

I am very fond of journaling. I like to close the day with a few minutes here, just recovering from the day, remembering, reflecting. Especially days like today when the minutes tumbled one into the next and the matter that filled them spread out like so much sweetness….

I'm feeling sort of poetic. I learned some new words today.

Things are different here. People don't seem to appreciate the awesome qualities of this city. The laugh at its politics or its lack of pristine beauty or its chemical cloud that is never far from a breath away. And honestly, I don't understand. No, I'm not much for chemical breaths, or strip clubs or the sense of unharnessed consumption that is very much alive and well. I think though, that it is important to understand that there is more to every city, every person than we will ever be able to see with our eyes, ever be able to hear with our ears… taste with our… oops… well. You see what I mean.

Houston has its beauty. It takes a while to find, but it is all over the place.

I used to give speeches on the value of diversity, and the best explanation I ever heard was that people are like flowers. It is in the mixing of the colors and types, and if I may, the ages, of them, that makes the bouquet complete, and oh so satisfying.

What kind of flower are you?

13 more days

and i've still done almost no shopping. It is sunday, and we should have been out there all day, but we aren't.... just has been a long and tough week and we needed the weekend more than we needed to mail gifts. I'll make progress yet this afternoon, and more tomorrow. Girls will be home wednesday, perhaps then i'll feel the holiday?

I am feeling the need to write again... perhaps if i open this window to fiction i can get ideas. A million have come into and back out of my head this week... i hate that.

one that i did think of yesterday was erotic in nature... "feed me." been a while since one of those came to call. We shall see. Off to best buy, yippee.

sunrise, or not

it is a gray november morning, and i'm waivering between productivity and depression. It is monday after all. but there is work to be done.

Girlfriends

Girlfriends. The kind that go back to diaper days with you, or drinking too much the first time, or your first trip to Planned Parenthood. The ones you told when you were pregnant and didn't want to be, the ones you cried with after the miscarriage. Somehow, they understood.

Over my last vacation i got to see two of them. Anne, my artist friend who had the foresight to convene the playgroup that was my sanity when my kids were little. It was good to connect to them each in their own way

Anne shared her art with me, as she has done for 20 years now, inspiring me to pursue my own. For an artist, she is the practical one. I remember learning about "complete proteins" from her, and when i asked her if she wanted to go on a trip with me, she said yes. I said, "when" and she said, "Next summer." Perfect answer, yes?

And Deb, whose business has consumed her life, in that way that is much like being in love, where you hate it when you aren't doing it, but you can't wait to do it again. Perspective, one of those things that keeps balance. Deb, my neighbor for just enough years to make it feel like forever. Her mother said of our neighborhood... it only happens once in your life when you are all young and like each other. Enjoy it.

back from the lake

The lemony light of late summer in houston is deceptive. It seems calm and fragrant and welcoming from indoors, but as soon as you go outside the air feels thick and heavy, as though walking into a sauna with too much light. The plants with full sun fade with sunburn, the water is too warm to refresh. It is still here, no one ventures outside except in the early morning or the late evening. A time of reflection before the renewal of fall.

I have just returned from vacation and started taking calls again today; the phone has been ringing all day and i am glad for that. Nothing quite as scary as coming back to work caught up.

A new client advised me that the law site is down, i will need to check into that.

Lake Shore Lit has reverted to the five year plan. The general scheme involved writer's workshops, writer's in residence and small press publishing. Because the site I liked best was a restoration project with three floors, the first floor being retail, I'd been considering a satellite bookstore through the summer months as the town is mostly populated by summer people. However i don't think working with B & N is feasible on that basis, and the wonderful independent closed down under the shadow of the giant, i'd have to recreate the wheel. I am hoping to learn more about that end of the project from ABA.. in this instance the American Booksellers Association.

I got a whole list of needy artists from TALA today so that part of the new venture is proceeding as planned. There is so much to learn, and it is good to be able to combine my two worlds for a change.