Universal application of Platitudes

In January, I made a decision to try to come up with a twelve step program for writers, primarily because I needed both something to blog about and a way to discipline my own writing.   My first "step" was "Take your time, hear the voices."  Then I went off to India and got distracted with my travel journal. Then I actually finished another draft of a work in progress (Invisible) and then in April I challenged myself.   In April I was determined to walk every day, encouraged by fitbit and an April walkabout, and to write at least a thousand words on 750words.com.  I got the words, but for the most part, they were just garbage, stuff you write when you are going for word count only. I didn't get all the walking in I wanted, but i did increase my activity level quite a bit.  I'm sorry to say that the activity increase was as tied to repainting the entire house, supervising installation of new floors, moving and removing furniture, cleaning carpets... you get the picture.  Whatever works.

Here it is half-way through May though, and all those good habits have gone by the wayside as I participated in "life."  I've had time with my grown up children, which is the best. I've had time with my spouse, a rarity we are getting happily used to.  I've even had time with the once woolly dogs, shorn now with summer cuts that reinforce their resemblance to lambs even more.  (My youngest son's Australian shepherd drives them crazy with the herding "pokes."

And I've been going to weight watchers again, lost a few pounds, but that's what prompted me to do the 12 Step theory, renamed here  Universal Platitudes.  Because really, don't the same rules work for all the things we are trying to do?

Weight watcher's program centers on three tenants:  accountability, group support, and environment.  By "tracking" your food and activity, you become self aware of where your calories (or carbs or whatever you want to count) are coming from.  You see how you spend your calories.

Applying that to writing, it is easy for me to see how 750 words a day can be written, yet no writing accomplished.  It becomes about numbers, and not quality. Weight watchers will let me spend my points anyway I want, so long as i write it down and 'quit' when I reach my limit. (I'm oversimplifying, of course, and the weight watchers folks will be quick to point out their Healthy guidlines. Bear with me as I stretch this metaphor a bit.)  While I can work the program by eating chocolate and taco chips all day, I will never be healthy on 26 points worth of m & m's.  Likewise, if the only writing I "indulge" in is word count words, nothing fit to be read will be created.  Better to slow down, worry about content, character and voice than to just type for words.

Group support is integral to twelve step programs. Missing the meeting is the first chink in the wall it seems, for those inclined to fall off the wagon/diet/self help whatever.  I've found the same to be true with writing. The more time I spend in the company of writers, the more likely I am to want to have new material to share, discuss and compare.  Writing is not lonely: my mind is filled with fictional characters who often just won't shut up... but it is important to shower, dress and talk to living people in the non fiction world.

Finally, environment plays a huge role in the Platitude Programs.  If there is an open wine bottle on the counter, it's going to be tough for the alcoholic to leave it alone.  If there is a dish of candy next to the computer, the dieter will have trouble not dipping in.  If the computer is sluggish, there are no pens or paper available and the desk is a mess with bills and catalogs, it will be a bigger challenge to coax fiction to come out and play.

Can you think of more similarities?

Happy Elephants

A trip to India wouldn’t really be complete without shopping, at least that is what I was led to expect. When we met up with the local people, they discouraged us from going to the old market near the Red Fort, probably the most famous market in Delhi, the Chandni Chowk market, dating back to the 1600s, because of the crowds, high crime rate and the fact that we’d just be overwhelmed.  If local people tell you that you will be overwhelmed when the things they take for granted overwhelm you, my advice is to listen to them.

They encouraged us instead to go to Delhi Heart (we thought) because it was a market representative of the 29 states of India and that vendors rotated bi weekly and therefore were encouraged to bargain reasonably.  So we told the hotel driver, who we engaged for the day because we really wanted someone who could speak English, to take us to the market and to the Akshardham temple, the newest Hindu temple in Delhi.

This driver was very proud of Delhi, and while his English was better than the company driver’s he still had some issues.  Some of his insights:  Too much money in the temples. Too much smart in the Jain religion. And my favorite: Too much Mother Theresa. 
First we went to the temple, and here we were required to leave leather bags in the car, and take off shoes.  It was warm that day, so not an issue and we’d been prepared for both so weren’t surprised. We were a little surprised that there was no fee to enter the temple grounds, and we were very impressed with the gardens, architecture and traditional art.   No pictures were allowed inside I’m afraid, but here are links to the web where you can get a better idea:

Temple  (elaborate… note all the hand carving!)
Lotus garden   (this was very pretty)

There was yet another separate line for women; while cell phones and cameras are not permitted inside, and security is tight.  I had an odd moment when they patted me down and discovered my little fitbit (pedometer.)  They wanted me to “open it”… which of course made no sense as it is simply a clip that slides over a pocket or waistband or belt.  I finally convinced them that there was no danger from it… demonstrating the steps and walking…while my husband and the driver laughed from their “men’s line.”  My husband told me I’d learn to use it as a money clip sooner or later… he had the same device and didn’t raise an eyebrow!
  Our judgmental driver considered this to be an excess of the "jannis" (Jain) particularly (we’d told him our son in law’s family was Jain)... too much money. We spent a couple of hours at the temple, and then asked the driver to take us to Delhi Heart. 

He asked “Which one?” and we explained what our friends had said.  (They said it as though everyone knows about Delhi Heart!)  He explained to us that since the new light rail line was being built, Delhi Heart was sliced in two, so he’d take us to the one he knew best.

He drove us to an area with signs that said “Delhi Haat” and were a line of very old, very dirty shops selling traditionally touristic goods:  saris, pashminas, carpets, marble carvings… and while the place technically met the description of what I’d read in the guide books, the fact that there were only about 5 shops in the area made me suspicious.  Nonetheless, we went inside, and let them show us all grades of pashminas and then they took us to the carpet room.

Now, I love a bargain, and the Indian government subsidizes these cottage industry stores, so they a) take credit cards, b) charge no tax, and c) ship to the U.S (or other countries) for free. So … always needing new carpets (remember I have puppies)(okay, they are a year old now, dogs) we let them bring us bottled water and show us their carpets.

Even cheap rugs are not cheap, these running in the thousands of dollars, depending on size. But the salesman, though very interesting to listen to, fell into what I know now as an Indian salesman’s habit:  he kept showing us more.  If he’d have just stopped, I think we’d have bought something, for the entertainment value at least.  But …when the overwhelming flags started going up, we told him we had three more days in India, and we might be back. And walked away.  What we knew was that we didn’t know enough about what we were dealing on to make good choices. When we got back to the hotel, we went and talked to the dealer in the hotel, who showed us what to watch for and what indicated fraud… and sure enough, I’m certain we were being shown machine made goods, in synthetics.  It was a fun experience though…and we didn’t spend anything on it. 

At the rug vendor.

But we still hadn’t seen what had been described to us as Delhi Heart. So we went to the hotel travel desk and asked for directions.  The Concierge showed us the site on the map, and we engaged yet another driver for the following day.

I’ve not mentioned food or drink. Mostly when we were out and about we avoided it… took water with us, and stuck to eating breakfast and dinner in the hotel, which featured a very international buffet for both meals.  I grew very fond of the Indian dishes, but my husband was less enamored, so this was a good choice for us.  And since our room came with “happy hour” for two hours every night, it was economical too.  Happy hour in India (Delhi at least) begins at 7 pm… they eat very late there.  So by 7 we tried to be at the bar, where they served us our drinks of choice and different chef specialties as “snacks”… a couple of nights this was enough for dinner.  The options there are not “western” and “non western” … but always veg and not veg.  At any rate, I enjoyed the Indian sparkling wine, and Sapphire Bombay Gin kept my spouse happy.  And yes, made it easier to go with the flow, if you will.

Bar in the hotel, felt very British

Thursday, we got up early and met the hotel driver. Once again, we asked to go to Delhi Heart… or Haat as it said on the map.  He took us to yet another slummy commercial district.  This time we were better prepared, and after a quick perusal of the goods, and asked to go to the place on the map.  The driver wasn’t pleased, but we’d been in Delhi long enough to know some of the landmarks, and were quite sure we weren’t close to the place indicated on the map.  We think the drivers and the shop owners have … arrangements… bring the tourists to me and I’ll give you a percentage kind of thing. 

We finally made it to Delhi Haat, which was much more tourist friendly. The place is like a craft market where the merchants from the different Indian states rotate on 15 day schedules and sell their wares.  They do the famous bargaining, but my little bit of experience says that they didn’t really have Indian prices to begin with. We had some rupees though, and they took credit cards as well, so we bought several 100% pashmina scarves and some other trinkets… happy elephants from a puppet maker and some vegetable on hand-made paper paintings.   It was clean, the merchants were nice, and we had fun.

What we have not seen that we were warned to expect were the hoards of child beggars.  A few, when stopped in traffic, noting that we are in a rental car, and a Chevrolet at that.  Kind of like wearing white tennis shoes in Europe… just marks you as American.  The children motioned hunger, but they also laughed and the dancing that they did against the car made their gestures seem insincere. They just looked like kids.  One thing that did strike me was that two of the little girls, who could not have been more than 8, carried babies. One was a toddler, all toothy grins, the other a bald headed infant lolling in the girls arms.  It reminded me of the gimmick in Slumdog Millionaire. And I have to say that slumdog prepared us for most of the images of India, which gives the producers high marks for realism from me.

Let’s talk a little about women while I am typing here, waiting the 8 minutes to fully charge my laptop before we go.  First: I expected to see more women in the craft shops, the hotels etc.  Unless they were in the plentiful Ayurveda salons, they are few and far between.  In the craft shops and bazaars, even more so.  And when we are out in public, I’m barely granted courtesy, never deference, in this country where men rule.  No wonder the women are rising up and being pissed off. I saw dozens of women on the streets and in traffic, often dolled up in the colorful saris but never in the position of prominence.  Lots of women ride the backs of motorcycles, and hold children, but I have not yet seen a woman drive.  The local newspaper this morning recognizes the new voting block in India as the female vote, and the news is full of the demand for better protection under the law, especially for rape victims. Something to research.

We are on the plane to London now, ready to land soon, and so it is time to close out this narrative.  I want to remember the look of India falling away as the plane rose, a million postage stamp parcels in shades of green and brown, and tiny brown villages connected by almost roads scattered like seeds among the plains.  Then the jagged jolt of the Himalayas, darker brown, and empty, with the few settlements squares that look more like the remnants of pallets strewn about the land, and dusted with snow.  Then the snow caps themselves, so cold and empty and extreme.  They seem to separate the possibility that is India from the rest of the world, and I choose to think that rather than isolate the subcontinent, the mountains protect it, saving all those happy, contented people from the anger that seems to be Pakistan, the arrogance of Arabia, and the desperation that I think of when I think of Russia. I want to save them it seems, not from the poverty and stress that comes from being an underdeveloped third world, or emerging world, but from the silly stresses that come from westernization.  The need to fit in, to wear the right thing, say the right thing.  I want them to keep their pride in their heritage, their culture, their food, so that they can always share that lively wonder with sojourners like me. While I want to bestow on them self respect, I don’t want to take away their humbling humility.

I wonder how my market experience jives with that sentiment, and can hear the smiling handsome men beckon to me, “just take a look” “just one moment” and then not know when to stop to give me time to actually buy something.  I want to help, but I want to help in ways that let them earn their profits, not by handing out rupees and money, but encouraging their free enterprise, their joyful spirit, their undying energy. I feel as though I have just “taken a look” and have been sucked in by the entreaty.  I want to see more.

Happy elephants, for luck, from the heart of Delhi.

end of India journal. at last!

On to Agra

These are the days when I feel I’ve seen India. We began early, 5:30, so we could make it to Agra and back in a day. The morning was foggy, so the journey began in a dreamlike cloud.  There were clear things up close, not so much in the distance. When the fog hadn’t burned off by ten a.m., it was clear that it was not really fog, but smog. It wasn’t unusual to see people on the side of the road with their faces covered, not from any religious piety, but to keep from breathing the terrible air.

Side note. It is six thirty a.m. and I’ve been up for an hour and a half.  I got a brainstorm that today should be Muslim research day and wanted to put together a set of questions I’d ask the Muslims I meet.  Silly maybe, but there is no reason not to work on the book while I am here. And there is no reason my Khalid and Davis can’t be from Delhi as easily as from Saudi Arabia. Maybe easier, because there isn’t as much world focus on the extremism here, while there are still hostilities and terrorism.

So the trip to Agra. First, I believe our driver, a nice young man about my son’s age, was lost more than he knew his way.  He often stopped, rolled down the window and rattled off questions to strangers in Hindi. Many of the strangers looked like they had never left the particular corner they were on at the time… that they were in fact fixtures there.  Most often they just waved him on, indicating the same direction he was headed already.  Now all of that wouldn’t be such a notable thing, if we hadn’t spent nearly 9 hours in the car, there and back, when the drive was supposedly a two to three hour jaunt.  The livestock, cows, wild boars, along the road and so many dogs, all an indistinct lab like short hair breed and then the people in all manner of costume, from turban rags to elegant jeweled saris, made it an interesting drive, but the dirty dust of the “road” which was more hole than pothole, left us feeling, riding in the back of what is really a luxury vehicle in India, as though we’d been beaten up, the jostling was that extreme. 

And the slums.  I’ve seen slums, in Rio, in Mexico, Malaysia, and of course in the US… but I’ve never seen slums like these. The best constructed ‘homes’ were made of blue plastic tarps. They had common walls, one tent to the next and they were patched together with garbage bags and whatever else you can imagine.  People squatted, sometimes on old crates, others just on the ground, sometimes around an open fire, inside them as we passed by on this chilly morning.  Surrounding the slums were areas that reminded me more of garbage dumps than anything else, with ridges of dirt as though they’d been plowed up that way.  And yes, not a few people had their pants around their ankles, squatting to take care of their biological needs, right along the roadway, on top of the mounds, along concrete abutments, wherever. Men, mostly, but women too, with saris or other draping wrapped around them, both the butts and their faces the only bare parts in sight.  For anyone who thinks women’s privacy, even at that level, is sacred in India… no.  Biology and poverty seem to be the great equalizers in India.

As we drove along the road in the pre-dawn hours, we nearly hit a black cow, crossing the road.  I wonder if there is superstition about black cows the way there are around cats. My son in law explained when we got back that it was very fortunate we didn’t hit it, and that had we, there was a good chance we’d never make it out alive. All those nice people along the roadside would have, apparently, turned to an angry mob, complete with Mob Justice.

I saw only one cat, a skittish terrified creature that ran past us later in the week as we lounged by the pool. My son-in-law explains that Indians hate cats and consider them terrible omens.  (This doesn’t stop him from being the favorite of my daughter’s sweet gray tabby who lives with them.)

The visuals were overwhelming, but nothing prepared me for the noise.  Instead of driving in single lanes here, cars drive where they want to drive and then honk when they want to pass a vehicle in front of them. Multi-colored Tata (freight) trucks, which I am told are painted that way to ward off evil, rule the road, and since all goods are shipped into the city at night, night time is particularly perilous.  The Tata trucks are not as big as a semi trailer in the states, more like the size of a standard garbage truck, though without the rounding, if that makes sense ness. The trucks are tarped, (unlike in Houston, nothing flies out of them.) I sense pride in the ownership and operation of motor vehicles, and frankly, it is more like race car driving than driving on a highway. Starts and stops are frequent and plentiful, with the constant blaring of millions of horns.   “Honk horn and wait for aside” the trucks have painted on them. And at night, use the dippers.  As best I can tell, that means flash your headlights.

I haven’t mentioned the smell… which wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.  A kind of smokiness that I assume is from the pollution is the standard, and frankly, you get used to it.  Possibly because the air in Houston has my body already primed to reject it.

As the drive was long, and as we left so early, it wasn’t unusual that our driver wanted to stop.  As mentioned, his English wasn’t great, and he kept saying “repast” to us.  I don’t know if he meant he was offering it to us or just wanted a break, but no matter how many ways we said, “ we are fine” he pulled off the road to one of the myriad roadside cafes, known as dhabba’s.   These are three sided buildings, made of tin and tarps as best I could see, with what looked like an outdoor kitchen and steam tables.  There were plastic tables and chairs, enough to seat a hundred or so, scattered both under the roof and out in the “yard”… a cleared dirt area.  A two stalled Indian style bathroom was a few meters separated from the kitchen area in its own concrete building, with a sink for hand washing outside.  Monkeys climbed all over the roof, light brown thinly furred ones, and they reached down inside frequently, trying to steal food.  A brown dog curled in the dirt in the corner and her puppy, a sweet little girl who came to me right away for belly rubs, wandered the area.

Dhabba: note the "fog," the bathroom building to the right, and the monkey on the roof.

I’d have had to have been starving to eat, drink or use the facilities, but our driver sat down to what looked like a four course meal, and very much enjoyed it.  My husband and I walked around until the owner, who assumed his chairs must be wet, came out with a towel and dried a couple, turning them toward the road so we could watch the view.  We didn’t want to insult anyone, so we sat.  When I described this to my son in law, he got a dreamy look in his eyes.  He loves dhabba food and told us we screwed up by not eating.  He also says every time he comes back from India, he looks like a refugee because he always gets sick and loses weight.  He hasn’t put the two together yet. We were very big on hand sanitizer and washing, and didn't eat any roadside food. We also didn't get sick. Or lose weight for that matter!

When we finally arrived in Agra, I was a little surprised to find the big city atmosphere.  At 1.7 million, it is only the 19th most populous city in India.  They don’t mess around with population in India, and I’m pretty sure the concept of “small town” is lost on them. When my husband first introduced himself to the employees there, he explained to them that he’d come from a small town. They wanted to know how small…. 500,000?  A million?
He grew up in a tiny place in Iowa with 37 other people living there. They shook their heads.  37 people in a house might be remarkable, but it is no town.

At any rate, Agra houses the Taj Mahal, another UNESCO site, so tourism is the biggest industry. In fact, to halt pollution, the city has banned industry, and there is no tax on goods produced by hand created in Agra.  So it is a thriving area of crafts, though I had no real use for the carved marble reproductions of the place.  Thriving on Tourism, there is racket after racket and you have the sense that each level is paying off the next one.  You must park a half-mile or so away from the Taj. To get there, you must ride either a city taxi (three wheeled, open air electric rickshaw thing) or ride in a cart pulled by a camel. You must have a guide.  He meets you in the parking lot, where he explains his fee and the fee of the transport, who is his brother.  He sticks to you like glue, explaining his favorite features over and over. 
He takes your rupees to buy himself and the driver entrance (20 rupees apiece, again) while you wait in line to buy Foreign tickets, (750 rupees) and go through security.  Your 750 buys you not only admission, but a bottle of water and shoe covers… the same thing delivery people put on so they don’t have to take off their shoes.  The Indian line just took off their shoes and went barefoot.

He leads you to the entrance, explaining the structures, the architect and the history. For the most part, you will have already read up on this, so you lag behind and appreciate the craftsmanship and beauty, letting him do his job.  If you hear one more time that it took 22 years to build the Taj, you will try to feed the guide to the resident parrots.

(transportation to front gate)                                                 (driver and the entrance)

The Taj is really a tomb. From trip advisor: 
Where better to go for a romantic vacation than to the great testament of love, the Taj Mahal? Built by the grieving Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his late wife Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal’s unrivaled beauty explains why it’s regarded as one of the eight wonders of the world. A visit to India wouldn’t be complete without it.

The building itself is nothing short of beautiful, but I expected that.

We are accosted first thing with the guides, who must be hired I fear… though now that I think of it none of the Indians had guides.  Ours was clearly on the take with both vendors and cabs. We road a camel cart the mile into the TM complex from the designated parking areas… more jostling… and spent time admiring the entry “gates” gardens and hearing the story of the mosque and quarters that flank the Taj itself.  The marble for the Taj, and it is all mare only things that aren’t perfectly balanced are the graves themselves. The Taj’s dead wife was laid to rest in the exact center of the complex. When he died, they buried him next to her.  There is no grave on the other side.

Marble of the Taj is inlaid with semi precious jewels, (another item that they want to sell us in the Kasbah we must walk through to get back to the car.)  It is built with several optical illusions, inlay of dark stone so that columns that are flat look three dimensional, etc.  It is definitely worth the trip; photographs can’t capture the luminescence of the marble, the sense of calm that permeates even among the tourists.

(Marble details, including optical illusion columns (those zig zags are flat) and residence built to match the identical mosque on the other side)

View from the back (the back is identical to the front) with armed guard.

I do feel like I’m becoming an expert on Muslim art and architecture though. 

After leaving the Taj, we took the “new highway” out of Agra, which was supposed to get us back in 2.5 hours.  You already know the end of that story.  I soon found that my senses were overloaded. It no longer surprised me to see herds of cattle sharing the roadside, the tiny thin children walking around with no pants, the hundreds of uniformed boys and girls getting off and on busses, the motorcycles carrying at minimum a young man in western type clothing, a young woman in full sari and a child all at once, other motorcycles loaded with plywood, or crates of goods or mattresses, held on precariously by string or just the hands of the men, darting in and around traffic, without helmets or other protection. It didn’t surprise me to see an elephant walking alongside the road.  I am ashamed to have lost my wonder and empathy.

from inside the car. Sharing the road.

More from India

On our way to meet with our local friends,  we stopped by a monument to Shiva,  rising out of a part of Delhi that could only be called squalor. The forty foot high bronze statues, the largest of Shiva, surrounded by flowers and other gods reigned over a lovely park, where we could buy marigolds to leave as offerings, but otherwise cost nothing.  Our hindu driver for the day, M, took off his shoes, flattened his palms in prayer, kissed his hand, and then touched his chest and the earth.  He motioned for us to take off our shoes and get a closer look at the statues.  Clearly the place was sacred to him. We didn’t feel the spirituality but it was really cool. (When we left Delhi the next day, we were amazed to see similar statues dotting the countryside, behind fields, whatever. There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to their location, but they were beautiful.)

We then met up with the India CEO and his wife to see the Kingdom of Dreams and the Bollywood style production of Zangoora, the gypsy prince.  There was no photography allowed inside, and they were very Disney-like… lots of photo ops where they took the photo and offered it to you after the show.  There is a you tube video that was a preview of the show, here: which gives you a taste. It lasted for three hours.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC2QHQ6juY

Before we went to the show we went through a bit of Culture Gully… felt a bit like an Indian version of Epcot, with shops showcasing each of the Indian states, both in food and artisans.  We ate at one from Lucknow, and tried the kabobs, which are not kabobs at all, but patties of fried mush, whether vegetable or . ick…Mutton. (They don’t eat beef or pork at all in India as far as I could tell. That was fine for  me, but my poor husband really missed his red meat!) We were polite and tried everything… it wasn’t as spicy as I’d expected it to be, but was full of flavor.  We also drank Kingfisher beer, which I liked.

 The production was a truly amazing feat of light and dance and special effects like I’ve never seen, and I’ve seen a lot of live theater.  It was completely three dimensional, with side screens that were used to bring the sets all the way around the audience.  Of course most of the action was from the live actors on stage, but they used many aerial acts as well. Costumes were fantastic, from the belly dance (which is more hip than belly,) to sparkling sequined swim trunks and amazing abs.  And the music and energy were on fire… I’ve never seen a cast so lit up, especially for a Monday matinee.  The production was all in Hindi, and I admit to falling asleep a few times, but I got the gist of it.  Interesting that at the end of the show they performed the same “jai ho” number that ends slum dog millionaire, with just as much energy and fun.  It felt good to watch… all positives.

 Also after the show Qutub Minar, the tallest minaret in India. When we arrived, the entrance near us was already closed, and there was a large crowd waiting for a popular light show to begin.  We decided to admire it from afar, and elected to come back to the hotel, our safe haven of western-ness amid the mess that is Delhi.

An Interlude in India

 I'll get back to the twelve steps soon, but this is where I put my travel notes, and i've just spent several days in the UK and India.  Travel journal being edited, but here are my "I'm home" thoughts.

I've actually been back since Saturday night, but the travel and time changes and all the things that go with coming back after two weeks abroad had all my time yesterday.  My sleep schedule will take a while to get readjusted... it was 11 and a half hours to adjust the time zones. I didn't reset my watch, just remembered that it was half an hour fast, and morning instead of night, etc.

No crises while I was gone. The dogs were clean and fluffy and happy to see us, and seem to be none the worse for wear. The fear is always that they will regress in behavior or get sick or ... all those things we doggy moms worry about.  But they seem to be just fine.

I've kept a running journal of the India trip, and will try to clean it up for posting this week.  Quick impressions for you... India is amazing. All the bad things you've ever seen are there, but if you think that is the gist of the country, you would be very wrong.  It is full of joy.  The people, from the lowliest beggars to the loftiest business people seem to have made peace with their lives and exude an essence of being thrilled to be alive.  Of all the things I saw and did, that is the take home message for me.

The country reminds me of what I think the US must have been like at the turn of the century.  The industrial revolution has sort of passed it by.. infrastructure, except in the biggest cities is non existent.  Their most abundant and greatest asset is their people, and the population continues to challenge well meaning politicians.  We talked to a banker at a dinner one night, and he said that 50% of the people are doing fine, but the other 50%, the very poor, the homeless who give India its reputation, is a problem no one can figure out. And they are trying, because these are not people who don't care.  It is very hard to change what has become an accepted way of life for so many though.

I recognize that I travel in a bubble. We stayed in the same hotel in Delhi every night, mostly because it was a known and India must be taken in small bites.  The first day we ventured out of Delhi, my husband cautioned me that I would now see the "real" India. Twelve hours later, I knew that if I had days like that at the first of the trip, I'd have been booking earlier flights home.

And that would have been a mistake, as I wouldn't have had the time to fall in love with the country. With its spirit, its problems, its pride.  It is humbling for me as a person, and like the best of travel, will make me appreciate all the more what there is at home, and what there is to do, everywhere.

I'm not ready to download all the details from my mind yet, and have quite a bit of work to catch up on, so I'll beg off the travelogue for now, and hopefully sprinkle experiences in as things get back to normal.

In the meantime, namaste.

Mangal Manjusha, Delhi, India, February 2013

12 steps for Writers

Some of the most successful programs for self improvement in the world are what is know as a twelve step program.  Modeled, I think, after the system used by Alcoholics Anonymous since its inception, the programs are outlines for healing.
So like any good netizen, I googled Twelve steps for Writers.  And yes, there are lots of articles out there. Mostly they appear to be comedic, tongue in cheek articles that are entertaining, but not really helpful. There were some that made sense for article writers, maybe even blog writers. But what we are dealing with here are writers of fiction.  Story telling.

So I thought I'd see if i could come up with twelve steps.  Maybe even helpful steps.  Rather than force myself to come up with all of them in one sitting, I'll do what will necessarily end up on the list, and take my time. In fact, let's make that number 1.

1. Take your time.  Hear the voices.

By this I mean that it is great to stream of consciousness write whatever comes to your head.  Most writers I know do ten minutes of free writing, or three pages or 750 words. Or they open a paper journal and go outside and just write the weather.  Remember the sunrises I used to write?  Like that.

All of those are just methods of clearing the cobwebs.  They let you move from the focus on life as you know it, from the kids and puppies and telephone and clock and all the other things that insist, demand your attention. Until you can give yourself a chance to put them aside, it is going to be tough for your characters to whisper to you what they want to do.  Impossible for your plot to show you the interlocking pieces.

And when the characters do speak, or the plot unfolds in your head, get it down on paper, but don't go running to Aunt Martha, your biggest fan just yet.  Let it sit. For hours, days, or in some cases, even years. Good writing doesn't expire.  Later on we'll have a step on revising, but for now, just take the time you need to go a little crazy and hear the voices.

(by the way, if you stumble across this blog and think, how sad, she's writing and no one is reading, don't worry.  I've been around a long time, and I'll get the hang of marketing some day.  I think that may be step 12.)

If you are reading and you have things you think should be included on this list, don't hesitate to comment or shoot me an email.  I think I'm all linked up now.

40 days...

Thanks to the folks at Inprint I'm back in regular writing workshops again.  I don't know that I learn a lot from workshops anymore... I suspect I have enough writing books and critical essays to have earned an MFA by now, but given the number of "drafts" that have taken up residence on my desk, I clearly need the discipline of deadlines. I don't know what possessed me to think that printing out drafts was a good idea, other than the ability to "not edit" while sitting in positions not conducive to a notebook computer, but these pages now haunt me every time I sit at my desk.

So my commitment to myself is to a) write new things for workshop, and b) FINISH something.  So not only have I signed up for another round of workshopping at Inprint, I've agreed to a less formal group with classmates from the last workshop.  That means I will have new eyes for some of the drafts and I will have deadlines to get them moving. Even if they move to the trash or back to a box in the desk that I'll save for the day I have a publisher begging me for anything...

What's that saying I like?  It costs nothing to dream, and everything not to.

Tomorrow I'm with the Old group, and am taking them a short flash piece I wrote in 2009 and a longer one I wrote way back in 2000.  Both of them inspired by the state of Michigan, one winter, one summer.  Since it has been almost fifteen years since I've lived in Michigan, it interests me that this is the work I feel safest with.  Now I've been in Texas longer than I was in Michigan, so it may be time to take some Texan sized risks.  The last two novels I've worked on have major Texas scenes... all i need to do is edit 300 pages before I can get back to them.

at 7.5 pages a day....that's only 40 days.  And nights.  We all know what can happen to the world in 40 days!

Resolved...

January is resolution time.  For writers, that means time to renew our commitment to our characters, our word count, or at least our butt in the chair time.  I'm  no different.  In fact, I made several resolutions, for the year, about writing.  One of them had to do with editing. One had to do with publishing. One even had to do with actually writing.  Here we are two thirds through January though, and the only one I am faithful to is the writing.  Sad to say, I write because I love to write. Not edit, not publish.  Unfortunately, I already have hard drives and baskets and folders full of "writing."  It's time to do something with it.

Challenges are helpful.  I am competitive, and I like winning, so I have accepted the challange from a writer friend to enter a non prize winning contest.  Why? The winner gets their work read on stage. Hmm.  Maybe being read is enough of an incentive to get me to polish up a few things.

Fear is also helpful.  I signed up for another workshop, and have to have stories or chapters reader ready at least two times in the next ten weeks.  That doesn't sound like much, but I've challenged myself to make it "new writing." That's right. no pulling a tried and true and already work-shopped story from the baskets. That's too easy. Those stories are old and the emotion that created them is long gone. I'm no longer attached to them, so when I read them cold, they don't elicit a need from me to fix them, while preserving the passion from which they were created.  Great for editing. Not so great for creating.  And I want the encouragement that comes from having someone read what I'm working on now, and want more.

What gets you to keep your resolutions?

On Democracy

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.  Winston Churchill

Over the years, I've been involved in many facets of Democracy.  I've run campaigns for local candidates, I've volunteered for national ones. I've given speeches, monitored voting counts, hung up posters.  As a political science major in college, I learned more about the process of elections than anyone should, and I admit it left me somewhat.. jaded.  Even back in the 70s the academics believed that politics were about one thing, and that was getting re elected.  I think now they'd agree it is about control of resources and power as well, which can't be accomplished without re election.
I also, as many of you know, participated in some experiments with democracy in the Virtual World of Second life.  One of those projects was a Euro style system, where parliamentarians were elected by factions.  The other was a direct democracy, one person, one vote on all issues. One thing stands out among all those systems, all that experience, both real and virtual that never ceases to amaze me, and that is the number of people who don't exercise their right to vote.

People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of the those who make themselves heard and who vote-- a very different thing. Walter H. Judd.

There are good reasons not to exercise the right to vote, but most of them have to do with someone doing something wrong. My youngest son was looking forward to voting in his first election this year.  He filled out the paperwork and sent it in with plenty of time to get an absentee ballot.  (He's registered at home, but is at college now, 5 hours away.)  He never received his ballot. That isn't right.  I'm still toying with flying him home after class so he can vote, but that's a bit drastic.  I'll watch the polls.. if it looks like it might make a difference, you bet I'll do it.   Because one thing is for sure: 
Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote. William E Simon.

If you have the right to vote in the election today, please exercise it.  I may not agree with your choices, but I believe completely in the collective choice of all our voices.   We just have to make ourselves heard.

November again.

The sun was relentless today, perhaps mocking the biorhythms that adapted to daylight savings time, and thrust itself into the world like a too long denied lover.  It lights the morning now, silver rays stabbing through the trees and prodding me. There are things I am supposed to do today.

It is November again, and once again I am writing new words. I am taking a break from the relentless editing that haunts me year after year because I write these fifty thousand word novels and then have to do something with them.  I love the new words.  I don’t even mind the editing.  I just have to convince myself that this is what I do now.  I’ve been flirting with it for a long time, looking through the side of my eyes, slipping behind my desk or just opening documents on my computer and typing, always something that can be stopped or interrupted. And that is why I’ve never finished anything, because I never say, this is my job. This is my work. 

For the first time in the 12 years I’ve been doing this casually, I feel that it is okay to say it. I don’t have to say, “and I write” as a tag line to whatever else I am doing.  I don’t have to stand in front of a group and say, my name is Georgiana and I’m addicted to words.  It is socially acceptable, sort of, and mentally necessary. 

I’m going to get out of my way now and go see where my story takes me.

Time for Change

For a long time now I've been thinking of upgrading this hidden blog to a full fledged real life writers website. I think I've hesitated because that means I'll actually have to be connected to it and responsible. No more family secrets exposed in the tiny wrinkles of the internet I've let in. No more pretense. No more flirting... well maybe a little. A writer's website should reflect the writer after all.

So what has changed? A couple of things. I'm no longer embarrassed by the things I've written. Part of that comes from getting older and that don't give a damn attitude that comes with age. Part of it comes from reading and reading and reading and realizing that my words may not be the best ever written, but they aren't the worst, at least in my opinion, either.

And I have time now. I've stopped taking new legal clients. I don't find the thrill in law I once did. If I could represent only writers and artists all the time, and could separate my right brain functions from my left long enough to stop sighing around them and actually give them the answers they need AND make it pay for the overhead, I would. But that doesn't seem likely, given that I don't live in New York or L.A.

So I'll keep doing my pro bono kind of work, and keep writing, and just own what I do.

I promise to make this prettier soon. I'm taking a workshop!

p.s. here is a duplicate site I'm experimenting with too. http://rosesrefuge.tumblr.com/

November

It's almost halfway through November, my tenth year of participating, at least on some level, in Nanowrimo. This is the first year, believe it or not, when I've actually had a day or two where i was ahead of the daily word count goal. I think it will stay that way from here on out, mostly because after ten years, it becomes an institution to be honored, and somewhat of a family tradition. Only my kids are participating this year, from the ten year accumulation of writing buddies. I have to wonder what all those other writers are doing these days. Maybe they published best sellers and are doing world wide book tours under their real names. Let's go with that.

At the risk of jinxing it, I'll confess that I'm well on the way to having a rewrite finished. By the end of 2011, it is my expectation to have work out there in Agent-ville. I don't feel nervous about that. I don't feel that if what I submit is not published, that I will quit. When I look through my comuter files, and my credenza files and the stacks of paper that keep me company in my office, I know that writing isn't optional for me. I'm okay with that too.

It is a muggy November morning, and I've got characters trapped in some space and time warp that none of us quite understand. That's the beauty of Nanowrimo. It lets you play.

another Oscar Wilde quote

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

- Oscar Wilde

Resurrection

In the process of preparing my old computer files for migration to the new laptop, i have come across a happy discovery of journal entries that were once posted elsewhere and which i thought were lost. I'm not so vain as to think anyone will want to go back and read my ancient musings, but i'm happy to have the writing just the same. I'll be plugging them in to their rightful chronologocial space as time permits.

I think I've once again talked myself out of signing up for an MFA program. I read a whole book comparing programs and found 4 that sounded promising. Then i went to the sites and looked at the specific curricula and realized that I don't want to spend a lot of time on critical reading of other people's work. I just want to write. So i will embark on a "semester" of self discipline, taking the guides from the programs i was interested in and self motivating, but not spending time socializing or getting to know the voices of other students. And if i don't do it... perhaps that is my answer. No point in letting others count on me to not do the work.

It is Texas Summer now, which is the equivalent of an Iowa Winter. Neither are times when there is much room for outdoor pursuits so it is the perfect time to read and write and work on the computer. I'm going to see if i can rebuild my website. How long have i been saying that?

Thoughts about process

Shall I just get it over with and admit to having slept too late to see sunrise today? I did open my eyes, and got up before the kid left for school, but it got light without me noticing. That's how it goes sometimes.

I got another thousand words on Invisible, the latest WIP today. This is the novel I worked on during November, for NANOWRIMO, and i was pleased to see that most of the writing actually wasn't so bad. I had stopped writing in November at the point in the story just before climax, and had begun thinking of it as "novelitus interruptus," fearful that I'd never actually get back to it to write the climax. Honestly, I didn't know what happened, and even though I'm a thousand words closer, I still don't.

The fun part though, is that this is a bit of a mystery story... no, it is all mystery I guess, though you, precious reader, have met both sides, you know the villain and what he's thinking, and you know the victims. You have been getting to know the protagonist, but she needs a little more work. She keeps surprising me, so I have to admit I don't know her fully yet either.

Today though, she figured out a piece of the puzzle that was missing, that if she ever goes down the stairs to dinner with her friends, where all the parties will be in the same room (well, they don't know the villain is "there") She might be able to talk about what she is thinking and the 4 adults involved will put it all together. Or at least have a good idea.

The writing process continues to fascinate me. Anyone who knows me personally will tell you how much I do not like horror, suspense or mystery. Yet I am drawn to write them over and over, always the escape from the literary prose that I *want* to write. I have learned though to just go with it. No sense trying to make myself drink from a dry well.

The frosting

Monday, January 3, 2011

The sunrise is so consistently beautiful at the beach that it is hard to find new words to describe it, like too much vacation, I just start to take it for granted. Today, the fire-y pink oozed over the horizon like melted frosting on a too-warm cake, and I remember, it is the last day of the holiday break, and time to throw out all the excess from the celebrations. Time to get back to work, but not quite yet, one more day of radiant warmth, of writing when I want, reading, napping and enjoying the lack of schedule.
And taking down the tree, washing clothes, organizing the week, organizing the work, organizing the travel schedule, and oh my god, look at my desk. When is the next day off?

jam and bread

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The sun rose quickly today, painting the horizon with a layer of strawberry foam, like what forms on the top of homemade jam, and layered like that, the deepest red next to the horizon, the lightest pink toward the sky. The sweetness didn't last long, as soon as the sun itself was over the horizon it was sharp and metallic, a knife cutting through the morning, silver white and intense, almost threatening. And I still feel soft and sleepy, so I guess that makes me the bread, because the heat of it is what made me get reluctantly out of bed. I'm going to have to remember to either close the blinds, or sleep facing the other way.

celebrate

Saturday, January 1, 2011

I watched the sun lift inch by inch above the sea this morning, and saw as the fog kissed the waves, rolling to shore wrapped in them, an infant swaddled, then gently released on the land as the waves unrolled. It would have felt spooky and mysterious, the way it did two nights ago when it was so dark I got claustrophobic under the open sky. But the sun was there to turn the cloud to glitter and the sensation of a joyous birth reflected off the sparks—it reminded me to celebrate all these perfect days of sensations.

Sunrises and such.

Happy New Year! I have decided to revive an old writing drill to kick start the new year and re connect with my most successful writing routine. For about 6 years at the beginning of the last decade, I made an effort to write every day from about 4:30 A.M. ending at sunrise every day, with a description of the sunrise and an attempt to tie that to something in my subconscious memory. Most of the people who read this blog have been part of this exercise. To keep the practice focused not on astrology but on writing, my "rule" is that I don't post the sunrise on the day I write it, giving myself a day to review and edit.

I wrote one this morning, and spent some time reviewing notes from 2002-2004 when I was contemplating a publishing project called Lake Shore Lit. The project died with my mother, my focus so distorted that I knew it couldn't be successful without concerted effort and concentration that I couldn't sustain. So I let it drop. Then epublishing hit and I see that had I taken on the project, the struggle would have been excessive.

Each time I get involved in something like that, I am reminded that it is the writing that matters, not the game of publication. But without publication, the writing is a silent scream, a masterpiece left in the closet.

It's time to be seen, and heard and read. Come along with me.

Focus

Anyone who knows me knows me to generally be the kind of person who gets hold of something and then chews it up until all the flavor is gone and its completely "handled." The problem is that i can't stay in any one subject area for very long without getting bored. So I'll hit writing hard for months at a time, then disappear from the writing world, reappearing at bar meetings and taking on pro bono clients and proving that yes, i still can change the world! This characteristic makes both law and fiction good options for me simply because the facts always change. Maybe not the rules or language or laws, but the facts always have new twists.

Overlap is hell though. If you are the "last client" on my desk before the creative writing monster grabs hold, I resist finishing your work, not because it is hard or I don't want to, it is just that my focus has already moved on.

This week is the last week of October, so NaNoWriMo starts Monday... which is a creative sprint for 50,000 new words of fiction. I really like Nano months, because they fit my personality.

But I really like the two clients on my desk, too, so discipline must set in and i must get their work sent off before the week ends. And hope they are satisfied and happy so when writing loses its tartness in a couple of months, I'll have work to come back to.

And what I have really lost my taste for is virtual worlds, so if that is where you've found me in the past, you might want to go to twitter or facebook or even... gasp... email! Who knows if that will light back up for me? Some things i guess we just outgrow.

I'm heading off on another trip this weekend, a little business, a little fun, in Sacramento. I don't think I've been to Sacramento before, other than a fly through, so I look forward to the adventure.

The next two months will rival my traditional summer travel spree though, with 4 more trips before the end of the year, and of course two major holidatys. Add that I want to have a birthday party for my spouse this year, and our traditional Christmas Eve Eve party, and then the events other people have, and you'll understand my nerves.

But in true form, I'll add to them all. I'll do Nanowrimo, and I've committed to finishing up the nagging files on my desk that I actually assumed would be finished this time last year.

And I still have three doctors to deal with… two are just doing those nasty tests people my age do, and one is a six month follow up from the tests I did last winter with the cardiologist. We are all determined, despite awful hereditary stuff, that I will not have cardiological issues! It really is all preventative at this point. Well, I never said I wasn't a control freak.

Today I took Scout on the "long" walk we do, about 4 miles I think. Last week when we tried it, she fell down in the street and had a seizure. It didn't last long, but signals a change in her disease… she's never had one when she was actually active before, they generally hit her in the middle of the night. She had two more short ones in the next 24 hour period, but has been fine since then. No issues today, and now she's resting. She will be ten years old in December… it makes me pay attention.

What I noticed on the way was that the trees are actually dropping some leaves this fall. Not beautiful, they mostly go from green to brown, but remind me of past vibrant falls, mostly the ones in Michigan. There used to be one maple by the Y where I played tennis a couple times a week that turned the most gorgeous shades of gold that I looked forward to it all year. It also signaled the end of nice weather, when that Maple's trees were gone, winter set in, and the long dark season is not part of living there that I miss.

It is hot this morning in Texas, but not by Texas standards. The pollen is debilitating, but the humidity has lifted, and for now, the trade off is acceptable. Just one more pill!

Full moon this week… I'll add photos of last month's harvest moon at the beach. Not great photography, but a great memory.

Make new friends, but keep the old…

That's the first line of a song we learned in Brownies, many years ago, and sang it in a round. The other line to the simple ditty: one is silver and the other gold.

I've not been a good friend over the years. In fact, my life is divided into segments in my mind when I was involved in one thing or another and it was always accompanied by one or two people who were special. Then I'd leave the project, leave the community and completely fall out of touch. For years, I tried to keep up with Holiday cards, or email, or an occasional phone call. Now, I find myself lurking on Facebook pages or twitter accounts, wanting to know what is going on with the people I have cared about, but apparently not enough to actually invest time in them.

So as summer turns to fall, I have decided to try some new things. One of those things will be the reconnection project. I don't anticipate that I will renew and revitalize all the relationships I've left behind, but I do think I can make some connections with the people, who like me, didn't mean to fall out of touch so much, but rather fell into the rhythm of the life they were living in each moment.

I don't have regrets about living. I just don't want people to feel forgotten.

I'll try to keep up a report.

Today, I wrote a letter to an old friend I used to write with, chat with daily. A good man, kind, compassionate, thoughtful. I know I won't ever fall back into the daily connection routine, but there is no reason to be miserly with my words. I know he will be happy to hear from me.

Some of the connections won't be happy, and I won't hear replies. I am promising myself not to take it personally. How many times have I done the same?

If our friends are the measure of our treasury, then I've accumulated a fortune. I just have to figure out now how much of it I've spent.

Travel Weary

As summer winds down, I can finally take a breath, and when I do it is the humity of Houston I breathe in, at last. Two weeks in Michigan, a week in California and what feels like every weekend since April in Galveston have taken a toll on my writing and my need for routine. (When the plane landed last night and they opened the door, the heat was so intense that it rushed to the back of the plane like a fireball, or a puppy who couldn't wait to leap on us to welcome us home.)

But why, when I crave routine so much, do I find it so boring?!

Up at dawn this morning, yoga and journalling complete, the choices now are the book, the files, the ever present files or the gym. I've convinced myself that competition is good for me, so I'll enter some fiction contests again, and am picking out 5k's to train for. I know, 5k isn't much of a goal, but it is a good start, and manageable, the way a short story can be when compared to a novel.

Or there is coffee. None in the house, and the call of starbucks is getting stronger each moment...

And having fallen in love with both California and Michigan again, it is important that I distract myself with something, or the longing will, as falling in love has taught me over and over, turn to depression, then an attempt to fix it, and ultimately, loss. I'm finished with all that for now.

Love Beads

Grandma wore bright plastic to town on Friday nights,
Poppy beads, she called them
I could pull them apart with little fingers,
Snap them in, and out, with ease.
Unbreakable, those beads.

Later I passed hippie beads from neck to neck
as we chanted peace and love to one another,
and hung them in streams in doorways,
clicking open as we walked through
and showered back down.

Now I wear two bracelets.
On one wrist, hard pink plastic,
held together with elastic
etched with symbols of romance.
It stretches and adapts.

And on the other, my husband's pearls.
Silk thread weaves through the golden clasp
Elegant against the creamy luster
To work, it must turn all the way around
before it slips in smoothly with a click,

The silk knots around each pearl
Have grown old and I'm not careful.
It weakens with age and breaks.
The pearls drop, bounce and scatter.

Together we look for them, and count,
some have rolled beneath the sofa.
Some clear across the room.
We retrieve what we can find.
Don't worry, he tells me.
They can be restrung.

Lilacs

Lilacs

Their scent perfumes my memory,
Purple, pink and white,
Full beards of the branches
Droop heavy

They bloom only a week or two
So abundant
Armfuls cut from the stems
Leave plenty

I crush the star shaped blossoms
Like damp tears against my cheek
They leave me longing
For home.

poem "what love is"

Come dance with me on cloudspray
Splash froth at my ankles
Let your bare feet sink into the mist,
Soaking in the steam of passion
And leave the world below behind

Come test this featherbed,
pillowed against the azure dawn
Let's taste the nectar, ignite the lightning,
and dissolve into each other, floating,
so light that we become the sky,

Then tie a silken rope swing to the stars;
I'll push you first, then you push me,
with each thrust flying higher,
We will wonder at the colors
that tint the clouds at sunrise,
but close our blinds at night.

Poem in your pocket day

I am not a poet, though I've always wished I was. This month, being poetry month, I've actually written a few. But they tell me today is Poem in your Pocket day. And that means print one and carry it with you.

I know Keats is a little overdone, and love poems may seem trite. But this is the one I thought of first when I heard about PIYP day, and so I felt the need to honor that.

When You are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats

and a draft.

Lilacs
Their scent perfumes my memory,
Purple, pink and white,
Full beards of the branches
Droop heavy

They bloom only a week or two
So abundant
Armfuls cut from the stems
Leave plenty

I crush the star shaped blossoms
Like damp tears against my cheek
They leave me longing
For home.

a quote from my jr. league days

"Never spend your life's work doing something that ultimately does not count."

Tomorrow,I will remember this.

just because i want this poem in my blog

Cuando yo muera quiero tus manos en mis ojos;

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes;
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears to still hear the wind, I want you
to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.

I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else
to continue to flourish full-flowered:

so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,
so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song.

Pablo Neruda

Dolphin's Delight?

or, what would you name a house on the island?

Finally signed a contract on the beach house to be. It has been a long road, and tested all my common business sense. This was the 5th property we've bid on since January, and were within 20K of the last one on Wednesday. We were set to increase our offer to a level that *should* have been accepted, but for some reason, i just couldn't get excited, and asked the realtor to show me what else there was. She had only two properties we'd not seen, one that literally came on the market Thursday morning, one over the weekend.

Maybe it was instinct, but I asked to see them. The new listing was first, and though out of the price range we were hoping to stay in, it was perfect. Not really perfect.. perfect for us. The kicker was the third story office with windows all around, and a view so clear we can see the island curve. Add to that the building specs which met Florida code, (much better than Texas) and the price per square foot at nearly $40 below the least expensive one we found...

Spouse was out of the country, but flew in exhausted Friday morning. The day was beautiful though and we drove with the top down. As we turned west at the seawall and followed the Gulf to the realtor's office, we watched the water. Out a few hundred feet from shore, a pod of dolphins frolicked in the waves. I've seen dolphins a lot, but only a few times from the land. They always make me feel happy.

We were at the house by 9:30, and made a full price offer by 11. He says it was the stars in my eyes, but I know he loves it too. Now to sweet talk the loan officer...

Closing April 26. ;)

profile subjectes

Read some advice about Twitter tonight that suggests that one should be focused and actually post about the things she is focused on. But I'm a scavenger, always scouring others words for the one that makes me stop and reflect. Wouldn't it be funny to be always retweeting someone's quips because I like the words? Embarrassing.

I got to listen to Mary Karr read from Lit last week. I enjoyed her presentation a lot... and part of it was her Texan-isms, about which I wrote when I first moved to Texas... more of the plethora of essays and stories that are in my personal slush pile, unpublished and un posted with yet another breakdown of websites. The one she added to my collection of colorful phrases: "Signing doctor to your signature when you can't write prescriptions is like being a General in the Salvation Army." She recommended that writers watch for metaphor like this in everyday speech, and with northern jealousy, I realized how much more color there is in the south, in so many respects.

My profile says, mom, lawyer, writer and virtual world personality. See above re expansion on writing thoughts.

Law, well. I still believe that my clients confidences include not telling anyone they have a lawyer, especially if it's me. Not getting much from me on this, perhaps I should take that reference down. But .. I work alone most of the time, and most of the time I don't even come across lawyers in opposition. But I LIKE lawyers. Might come from having gone to law school when the men exponentially outnumbered the women... but I still find lawyers to be great friends. So I'll leave it in. And break rules. Heh.

I'm debating my scavenger role in life as well, as we contemplate buying a condo on the beach in Galveston. I can't decide if it is a negative, particularly in light of the tragedy in Haiti... doesn't it make more sense to send more aid? Or positive... Galveston needs investments to recover.

But this is a longtime dream, to fight saltwater spray on windows that I can open and leave that way if i choose. Couple the sad real estate market with the last hurricane and you find a depressed buyers market for a resource that there will not be more of. We would keep it for the time when we are ready to sever ties with suburban real estate, and not yet ready to sever ties with the children we've launched into this part of the world.

And I've got a terrible case of land lust. I've quenched it the last couple of years with virtual land in Second Life, but this is not a lust that knows satisfaction.

harbored

All day I work at my computer or sometimes other places in my house and mentally collect bits of things I think might be something I could write about. And then I don't write until so very late that remembering anything is hard. Today would have been the same, but I only slept about three hours last night and ended up falling asleep for a while and now my state of consciousness is a bit upset. So here I am.

I remember I wanted to write about Grace Hopper. You may not know who Grace Hopper is, in the front of your brain, but if I tell you it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, you will know who she is. Or debugging computers. Or my favorite of late,"a ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for."

Sometimes I feel like a ship. Or the harbor. I think if I wanted to focus on that phrase I could write a whole essay about being a harbor. This week for example, my husband is in Cuba. Nice, yes. And I'm home. Agoraphobic a little bit, and sort of challenging myself to see if I can get through the week without leaving the house. Hunker down with my writing, my work, and let my sons run what errands need to be run.... there is a kind of magnetism to the idea. Showering and bras, optional. (Not really, sadly, both would drive me insane to go without.)

But my daughter wants to meet up and write on Wednesday. I've signed up for a law class on Friday. And the week I had laid out in my head to be so productive and ... quiet... seems to be slipping away.

But it's only a week. I'm reading Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked, and the characters in the book are faced with 15 or 20 years of life which they feel has slipped away from them. I am glad I don't feel like them, but then I'm only half way through the book, so I don't know if I will keep that sentiment. Here is a description I bookmarked, thinking when I did so that I wanted to collect quotes describing the sea. It is delightful to find one that is original: "The sea was hurling itself at the beach over and over again, like a nasty and particularly stupid pit bull..." Charming, yes?

My son is upstairs playing a mournful melody on his guitar. He learned to play classical guitar in college... something I encouraged right along with bribing him to take literature courses. (I do believe in Liberal Arts.) We've bought so many musical instruments for the four of them over the years, it is nice to hear one. Though the melody makes me feel sad... until his phone rings and I hear him laughing.

Laughter of my children is like a buoy in the harbor.

Farewell Geocities and Ode to the Corporate Wife.

It was ten years ago that I realized that "real" writers had websites, and I knew nothing about them. So I took a class, learned basic html, volunteered to edit for three different ezines, one of which I actually learned from, (and is still in existence) and decided to put my own writing site together. I was deep into writing sunrises then... I think there are 6 years of them in the files and I was committed to posting them. I never posted them the day I wrote them though. I wrote one day, then came back the next day and edited. Between times I'd write the journal entry or essay or story that the sunrise seemed to suggest, so the postings were always a day behind, a little cleaner and a little less random. At least in my mind.

The site was named the same as this blog, and lived on Geocities. Geocities, as a free site anyway, died this week. I pulled all the pages.. now I have two complete folders of web pages, one for my law site, one for the writing, that I really should take the time to upload. But i'm too busy playing around with twitter, facebook, plurk, and these new blogs to actually do something that I SHOULD be doing. I have finally requested the release of the domain name from Martindale for my legal site though, so ... progress?

Speaking of Loose Ends....A friend, in chatting innocently the other day, touched a nerve that I didn't realize was still raw. I hope I didn't let on how unsettled it made me when he referred to my Corporate Wife status. I was a little surprised he honed in on that... I seem to spend less time on that particular aspect of my life now than I ever have. I had also forgotten about the book I was going to write ten years ago, parodying the whole lifestyle. Can't decide if i just got lazy, busy, or swallowed the kool aid.

Determined to find out why that phrase unsettled me in the circumstance, particularly because I sprinkle it into my own conversations with some frequency, I did what any self respecting lazy over achiever does. I googled "corporate wife."

As I suspected, the literature on the topic is dated. The articles I found, mostly dealing with the uber rich breed, didn't reach past 2003, with the most in depth one done in 2000.

Hmm, I mused with myself... I wonder if my research from back then is still on my computer?

Hurray for Spotlight, and Mac :) Another seach of my hard drive and I found that "corporate wife" has been consistently in my subconscious, making its way into two nearly complete short stories, both of which I like (though one of which I clearly was having hormonal spikes as it turned the corner from emotional to erotic in ten pages or less!), one "novelette" and is a recurring theme for the women in my almost finished novel. When I planned the original book, I had NOT intended to include the usual crap... ."have your husband approve what you wear" (really?) but instead some of the more human aspects, which ...well... are funny. Or were to me, in my disrespectful attitude toward everything remotely discriminatory.

Has my attitude hurt my spouses career? Looking at where he is and where he came from, I am pretty sure the answer to that is no. I'm also pretty sure I'm well known among the industry as being outspoken (rude? nah. Sassy, maybe.) and more fun to sit by at a dinner than the usual pretty wife. And I'm lucky, in that we didn't either one ever set out on this road, and have written our own rules along the way. We get by with a healthy dose of "whatever works" tempered by "say yes whenever you can."

And I started thinking about the friend who jarred this memory, and about how he is doing a bit of the gig himself, and about my daughters, and think maybe I should update those files, send out those books, and write one more. I have research from ten years ago... how much fun this will be to go back to my chosen interview candidates and update.

If you think you have something to add... you know how to reach me.

Gaps

"Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself. "

From The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai

i should blame stewart

But I suppose that wouldn't do. He did after all, post a pretty sunrise/sunset before he closed me out of his blog. tsk tsk.

But one of my favorite quotes... okay, one of the thosand quotes i have stuck here and there on postit notes, stickies in mac vernacular, is this one:

When you blame others, you give up your power to change. -Douglas Noel Adams
So Stewart is off the hook, as are the rest of the writing group, and the pompous neighbor who had the audacity to die without letting me know.... imagine that! And so are my brothers and my sister and the cyberlaw boys and and and.

Writing became another chore I was fitting in, and the minute it became something to cross off a list was the minute it no longer felt like art, but craft. Now i'm sure there are elements in all writing of both, but the important point is what it FELT like. And when i no longer felt that i was creating, it became just another boring exercise.

So why now?

Because i find myself speaking in poetic quotes, things i've heard and said aloud so i would remember them. I am meeting new people behind the veil of sleep, characters fully considered, fully alive, tempting me like a man who wants me, but doesn't want me to know it.Poems in magazines in drs' offices, repeating like new budding branches. I am again drifting to literary fiction, putting aside the non fiction, the popular novels, even the classics that have kept my attention for the last year. Clean, clear writing, mesmerizing characters, plot i have to think to follow.

it's what i want to be when i grow up.

Do you think it is time yet?

poor brad

Where did you go, the person in my mind, the one who can muster up anything from a murder to an orgasm and let me feel the terror, taste the blood, come screaming down the other side? Where buried in the chasms… that's the word I misspelled to lose the Indiana State Spelling Bee…. where are you hiding? Did you take all the words and leave? Did you gather my friends one by one and form a perfect V in the sky as you flew south?

Wait. I am south. Did you go back home?

I dreamed I had sex with Brad Pitt last night. Very bad sex. His penis was tiny, like that of an anatomically correct boy doll, and I think he was as disappointed in me as I was him. After, he didn't run or act shallow, I didn't cover my naked skin, I guess we figured the jig was up (is that the phrase? Why does it sound awkward and what does it mean? I could google it, but if I did I'd be swallowed by the internet and never come back again, so the jig will simply have to be up.) We talked about his condo resort development, named in my dream head Redfield, which I know is a photoshop plug in…. and as I looked out at the mountains from the old farm house (the resort was all booked up of course, I asked him, which one do you own, and he said, with awe in his own voice, all of it. I like thinking of famous rich confident people in terms of their most base parts...like Brad as a young boy who just can't quite believe he is where he is. (Disclaimer, I don't know Brad Pitt, only like about half his movies and really never fantasize about movie stars… I think this dream had more to do with things not being as they appear, don't you?)(Unless you really want to believe that rich famous beautiful men have tiny cocks that look like plastic)

Today, I will take pictures of jasmine, magnolia and azaleas. I'm working on a project and I want all the flowers of the tropics in my files to finish it.

Today I will buy tickets to Madrid. I am meeting my daughter there in April. We will fly into Madrid, then train to Cordoba, and then see Granada, Seville and the coast. I am thinking I will rent a car and we will drive to Lisbon then. Ten days. I do not think I will take my computer. I want to travel light.

The first trip time I took my daughters to Europe was the summer we moved from Michigan to Iowa, the summer I actually started writing, really. It had been a whirlwind career year for my spouse, and a good one for me as well… I broke all my personal income records that year. But we'd been on several Corporate trips, all over the world. For this trip, I sent my boys, 4 and 9, to stay with my mother, and packed the girls up with me (middle school and high school).

It was a trip with all sorts of typical family mishaps… passports late in arriving, missed connections, lost luggage, etc, but by the time we had toured Paris and headed to Toulouse for my spouses meeting, we were relaxed. While he did business, we chose to go to the coast… I was given a rental car. I was actually quite proud of being able to drive in France, and the girls were thrilled with the independence the car gave us. We were even doing well with the foreign road signs, until we got to the tollbooth. The fare was something like ten francs (yes. Well before Euros) and I tried to give the toll taker the coin in my bag with the 10 on it

She refused it. I looked again, yes, it said 10, as did her sign, and tried again. She blew her bangs up in the disgusted way the French have and huffed "not a franc not a franc" over and over. My alert daughter finally figured out that I was trying to pay in Mexican Pesos.

We all love that story, but recognize it has limited appeal and sounds very snobby. So we only tell it in the family. If you are reading this now, does it make you family?

So yes, now it's Euros, and I think I can drive. But do I want to? I do love trains. We'll see. First I have to book the flight.

And before I can go, spring break will be here. I believe I am the only person in the world who does not like all the holidays. I miss routine, I miss work.

Wow, bad sex with Brad, and negative on holidays. I think my inner psyche is shouting "not a franc."

on living and dying fast

i went as soon as my husband was home from his travels, and could watch our son. I was lucky, i got to spend a good day with my sister, where she was awake, mostly, and alert, and she knew me.

I didn't know what to do. Terminal illness, when treatment has concluded, doesn't take a lot of time. My other sister, my one remaining sister, and my stepfather had the routine perfected. And the pride of the patient, which always came between us, wouldn't allow me a lot of hands on time.

But i couldn't just walk away, and just as i knew in my guts on Friday it was time to get up there, i woke up Saturday morning knowing exactly what i had to do. It was like i was channeling my mother. They needed someone to cook.

To be fair, my oldest sister was the best cook, the one who had the most years and most attention from mom. I was always destined for a career, so it surprises me still when i know how to do things without looking up directions. Osmosis.

It is also Thanksgiving week. Being in my mother's house, despite the circumstances, meant it was wrong not to have things around for guests to nibble on, for distraught family members to take nourishment from.

So I went to the grocery store, and i cooked. I bought thigns for sandwiches, soup, casseroles, and pie Yes. Pie.

I believe that those things, the soup and the pie, chocolate, made from scratch, were the last things on this earth my sister tasted.

My flight home took six hours. When i left her this morning, she was resting peacefully, breathing well, but sound asleep. I stroked her hair and said, I'll see you later.

I knew as i said the words, the same ones i said to my mother the last time i saw her, that i wouldn't.


She lived fast. She didn't finish high school, though she got a GED later. She married 4 times, though twice to the same man. She had three children. She leaves a grandson.

She started smoking cigarrettes across the street from the jr high when she was 12, because it was cool, and because her sister who was such a "good girl" wouldn't like it.

She had a bad cough that she saw the doctor for in June. By then the cancer was stage 4.

She was 48 years old.

She died before my plane landed in Houston.

She once said, when asked about current events, that she didn't care about that stuff. If it didn't touch her world directly, then it didn't really matter. Life is relative, you know.

I thought that way about her for many years. But I was wrong.

i was wrong.

Rest in peace, little sister.

Still trying

So i've been telling the folks at Ipowerweb, who host my website, that it hasn't been working, since March. Actually, as I review past entries, i see it's been since may. Still, i can't edit, can't upload and even though i think that i don't really care if anyone reads these little blurbs, it seems i do... if i didn't care, i'd continue to write entries and save to draft.

I'd switch to blogger save, but then anyone who clicked my domain link would not see. So frustrating. My annual fee is up for renewal in a few days.. i suppose that means they will handle it.

or not.

anyone know a good hosting service?

just more late night words

Busy week, full and stressful, just the way i like them. But I've neglected the non profit, must get the 501 c3 app filed soon, and the novel lies in dusty stacks all around the office.

I got a copy of the latest anthology in which my work appears in the mail, and even my critical editor child gave the book and the contents good marks. And i got paid.. which makes it even more of a banner week. I know, a good promoter would link her to the amazon site to order, would shamelessly pim the project, but i'm not doing that here. Maybe on the website if i ever get the isp to respond to the publishing issues. The contract is up the end of this month, so if nothing else, i'll switch then. There are just sooo many files.

A few months ago i created another blog for my second life character. i will link you here to it, but not it to you... too much crossover I think. But so far in my almost one year of SL, I've gone through three careers. And I always come back to words for solace.

Depression has been at clinical levels for about a month now. I've promised myself that if i can't break the patterns this week, i'll go in for the medication. Or take the one that i've left sealed in my bathroom vanity since 2004.

but that's another story, and these posts aren't showing up, so i'll leave this to edit another day.

yet another test

trying again... going to switch isp's

august

Reading my friend Fred always makes me want to write as well as he does. He's just journaling. I remember just journaling, but for almost 8 months now, I've abstained. In some ways, it got to feeling like those Christmas letters I quite sending about five years ago… like what I was doing was putting my life out there like I was bragging or something. Not sure why, especially when most of the people who read me lead far more interesting lives, but I guess it's the way I was brought up. You share bad things; you keep good things quiet so that the people around you who aren't feeling so good don't feel worse. It was an upbringing where the negative was always stressed, the positive taken in stride. I don't much care for that.

Right now I am sitting outside the cottage in Michigan, the view of the blue lake available over my shoulder, across the empty lot and through some trees. Not the perfect view of a bluff side cottage, but the safe view of one far enough back for mortgages. When we bought the place, banks wouldn't lend lakeside. The risk of their collateral ending up as trinkets on the beach was just too high.

The air is warm with an edge of crisp morning chill. The newscasters say it is the hottest week in Michigan so far this year. Coming from the sauna of Texas, I feel like I am breathing for the first time in a year. Maybe that is why I am finally writing.

I have bare feet. Grains of sand cling to them and make me a bit uncomfortable, like I am dirty. I am not. Except for the grains of sand.

There is a different value system at a lake cottage in Michigan and a suburb in Houston. Grains of sand on bare feet are valued here, but there, I feel under dressed if my toes aren't perfectly polished and encased in new or nearly new shoes. Part of it is beach mentality I know. Part of it is just not caring about details. Or maybe recognizing which details matter. I don't know.

Today is my last day here this year. I think that has more to do with the writing today than anything else. It took eight months away, and two weeks at the lake to want to do this, and I am afraid the next break will not have an ending.

And I ask myself, so what?

i'm having issues with uploading photos, and am now wondering if words are a problem too. If this works, i'll be back

playing with words

Recently I had a conversation with a songwriter that reminded me how easy it is to play with words and how much fun it can be. I think that many of us who consider ourselves "writers" fall into a trap of taking ourselves too seriously, trying to hard to be good and forgetting the value of telling a story, or expressing an emotion just the way we feel it.

Last week, for example, I had a few "moments" where I found myself saying, this, this is the essence of what I want to say, just remember this scene, write it down, feel it. Oh so artistic! But when I finally got back to my desk, booted up Word, (so dusty from non use!) I could only remember the place, and not the sensations. So much for writing when I get to it.

Today begins the challenge of "summer." The last day of school marks freedom for my son, but increased pressure on making time for work and writing for me. It has been this way every year since I moved my office home. Every summer I think about moving back out to the commercial district, but then I go to a meeting or conference and remember that I was at the beginning of a trend, not a follower, and that it is easier now than ever to work from a home office.

I promised myself that I would write something before my 10 o clock meeting, and it's time to leave for that now. This will place hold for that "moments" thoughts I had, and will make me get back to them. I'm going to seriously attempt daily blogging for a while, see if I can get back into a mode of discipline.