The Knot, End of the Discussion (For Now)

Whenever I experience a change in my own habits, I tend to panic.  My subconscious says, "Nope, don't think so," and then I'm scrambling to figure out what the flip I really want, when what I really want I just established.

Since the advent of the novel, I have a problem:  I don't really want to read.  I can't wait to find out what happens next in my own story, so anything on-line, off-line, longer than a poem, smaller than a breadbox tends to be an obstacle.  (Hell, blogging tends to be an obstacle.  But I am here to record the truth of the matter, dear writer.)  Shut up, world, and let me see what the protagonist does now.

I know why I want to shut off the outside and just write:

• I'm afraid I'm going to lose this great story if I read someone else's; 
• I still have a whole bookcase of books not yet read.

Lack of work/life balance, that's all.  I still need to read; if I wrapped myself up in my own work I would be operating with a sense of hubris that is relative to that of a Yankee player or Top Gun pilot.  But by feeling this way about reading, I can come to a compromise; I no longer need to finish a book because I was dumb enough to buy it (even though it's bringing me down), and I no longer need to clean off a bookshelf in a month.  I've read down the stack to the point that all of the books from the floor are gone, everything's properly shelved, and if I stop myself in the bookstore with "hey Jo, you have enough books and your own book at home" then I can curl up with a book and stop clocking in at one hundred pages a sitting.

Unless, I'm writing, that is.

I'm grateful to finally be picky, and grateful to have a novel, strangely enough.  In the advent of no husband, no children, no pool and no pets, I'm grateful to have my version of a progeny, and one that I adore so freely, without having to learn about the subject matter from the ground up.

Write on.

The Knot, Part One

I'm going to take this in parts.  It's easier to unravel one thread at a time.

Things you should know about my current mood:

• Not the product of hormonal cycles.  I have two weeks until that.
• Not due to the weather.  Sun's out.
• Not due to money issues.  Yet.
• Not due to current events.

I have spent the weekend, and will probably continue to spend the coming week, trying to determine what causes it.  I do know this much:

• Whenever I walk away from the internet for entire days, the feeling abates.

And what is that feeling, you ask?

• Loneliness
• Hopelessness
• Uselessness
• Lack of ambition (on my part)
• Lack of creativity (on my part)

Why do I pick on the internet?  Because:

• My relationship with the Internet/Social Network feels like I'm married to a Yankee shortstop
• Said Spouse treats everyone else so well, and supports the kids (the "kids" here being my blogs) for free
• Everyone else loves the Spouse for the money they make, the sexy look they have, and the way they can do EVERYTHING
• Well, everything but create fulfillment.  

Why doesn't the Internet/Social Network bring me happiness?  After all, I explore all of the recommendations I get, I try all of the latest Network options, I follow all of the advice and check in at every interval possible.  I worship and completely support the Internet/Social Network.  Why do I feel like I'm one giant nervous tic, expecting my Virtual Spouse to fix "it?"  I don't even know what "it" is.

And why, when I walk away and think for a whole weekend, do I feel like I might be normal again?

Someone needs to get an amicable divorce.  I don't think counseling will work here.

Write on...while I call my lawyer. 

Encrypted

I've been carrying a Moleskine journal with me more and more lately, a soft companion with no rules.  I clip a gel-writing pen to the cover, usually with some outlandishly-colored blood in its veins, and I sit in bars, coffee shops, bookstores (not for the faint of heart, that; staff may think you are writing in a book of theirs) and park benches, spilling the beans.  I sometimes get out my BlackBerry and take pictures of the evidence, and put it on Foursquare for geographic reference or on Facebook with a fat cookie or cake piece to get comments...and I do get comments.  For the sweets.

Rarely do I get compliments on Facebook for my writing.  I'm starting to wonder if it's because I write in cursive, and if the friends who follow me on Facebook can read something that isn't a downloadable font.

I'm a minority in the pictures of this subject.  I'm also a minority in my writing groups.  Often in a group of three to fifteen people I am the only one going analog.  I adore analog.  I'm truly myself with analog, free to stumble, run, swim or fly over the pages.

Sometimes, though, the pages represent time wasted eternal to an outsider.  "You go to so many writing group meetings," say non-writing friends, and even some fellow members.  "Is your bedroom overflowing with filled journals?"  No, but more because I am a slow writer, a careful writer, even in private.  I got my very deliberate cursive from a strict teacher in the sixth grade, who told me my handwriting was awful (it was legible), and that if I made a concentrated effort to improve it, then I would be accepted into her special class for something called Calligraphy, where I could dip a pen in ink and create fancy letters like the ancients.  Few kids bit at this bribe, but I was lonely enough then to bite at anything...sort of like I am lonely enough now to bite at any social networking site or technology just to find companionship.  With the calligraphy class I learned to change my handwriting (my fifth-grade handwriting and my seventh-grade handwriting look like two different people--I'm lucky I didn't have to sign things at that age), and grip the pen with such worry that two things happen when I write:

• You can't take my pen from me--the hand will come along for the ride;
• I cramp up about a page in and can no longer feel my middle finger at the tip.

I have been told to loosen up by other teachers, physiological medical professionals, even psychiatrists.  I've tried, but then the distinctive art is lost.  I would rather be in pain and combative when it comes to my writing than relax and lose the picture.

Occasionally, someone will shock me and be on my side.  I'm used to my handwriting, so the shock comes from seeing the beauty again from the outside.  There's a cafe in North Beach in San Francisco that has fallen in love, collectively, with my pages--I have been known to get free drinks with my letters.  I've written for charity without a laptop, contributing by the page, for the penmanship.  And occasionally someone in the writing group will see me prepare for the session and their jaw will drop on the table.  "That paper is unlined," they'll say, and point, as though I just hurled a submarine pitch and the ump called it fair.  "How come you can do that and the paper is UNLINED?"  Because I'm a freak, I think, but just smile to the inquisitor.  My control issues work FOR me in this department.

This afternoon I was skimming my news feed through Twitter and found this, tucked in amongst the baseball stats, Kindle Fire announcements, and publication pointers.  My favorite journal manufacturer is sponsoring a project to collect something that may be a lost art in just a few generations, and that art is HANDWRITING?  You mean at some point someone is going to need a comparable Rosetta Stone to decipher me?  You mean that I, the least hip person and probably not one of the smartest people on the face of the planet, is using something akin to Navajo spy messages or passing down an oral tradition in recipe?  

Or code?

And all of the apathy toward my life from outsiders, all of the things I'm not smart enough to see and all of the things I have to keep up with to be published and "liked," were washed away.  I have a gift.  I have the writing equivalent of the knuckleball, long lost to pitchers because they can't maintain control of it.  I can maintain control of it, in the knot between my fingernail and my hand.  I have the ball at the seams, and I send the curves flying, so slowly that the page thinks it can be hit out of the park, still swinging at something lost in the tomorrows.  Suddenly, I feel relevant, and...surprisingly precious to an unsuspecting world.

Write on...a lost art.

When To Let Go

The baseball season is over.

Well, at least for me and the other die-hard Giants' fans.

The bandwagon fans will be completely gone again in a few more weeks.  For those of us who will always wear the orange and black, this is a relief--with any luck, ticket prices next year will be reasonable.  We have our reasons for heroes.  The only thing left to endure is "Not so hot now, are you?"

Beating my head against a wall, I keep the common sense to myself, only to write it here...

People.  The Giants were never hot.  They were scrappy.  And they weren't scrappy enough this year.

I'm good with that.  But I'm also content that at this point, Bochy is pulling a Ohio State University coaching trick, only in reverse.  Ohio State University coaches, two of them now, tend to put in their greener, second string if they are light years ahead of the opposition in the second half.  It makes them look like good sports, their second string becomes deep, and they have a better team.

Bochy is operating on the same principle, in the reverse.  He's losing, and losing so badly that he is using this time for "development."  I won't see a lot of the same faces next year because Bochy needs a new hitting team.  (He needs a new hitting coach, too--but I digress.)  He's so far behind he can put in his second string and give them time to learn to be his hitting heroes.  He's creating a deeper team than he has right now.

Which isn't hard, since these guys have nowhere to go but up.

*****

About a month ago I was in the shower, and I was happy when a story idea bloomed in my brain.  What I wasn't happy about was that it was a story for a novel.

I guess it's a good development that I recognized it as a novel instead of trying to write it first.  But I ground my teeth anyway...I'm just now getting the hang of writing short stories.

And a damn novel shows up.  I haven't even published a short story, or even submitted one.

So I wrote around the novel for a few weeks, daydreamed it, free-writing.  Tried to talk myself out of it by writing around it.  What actually dampened it was reading the book "Moneyball," by Michael Lewis.

You guessed it.  The novel was about baseball.  And reading "Moneyball" made the novel unbelievable.  That, and the Giants had a homeless fan who has been missing since July, which was a part of my novel before I knew they had a homeless fan that they were looking for.

Let me reiterate--the novel has dampened.  But it hasn't gone away.  It just makes me think of how to write it better, or how to re-shape the idea.

I can't help it...I so love baseball.  It seems stupid not to write about it.  It seems stupid not to do it, better.

And, since I'm not such a hot writer, but scrappy instead, I have nothing to lose.

Thanks, Jim Tressel.  Thanks, Bruce Bochy.

Write on.

An-tici-pa-tion...

It's a gloomy morning here in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco, although God knows the sun is trying to burn through the fog. I am moving around the apartment, doing "knucklehead" stuff, as they would call certain tasks on "West Wing" that fell below the radar of POTUS. I got cleaned up, had my healthy breakfast, did one load of dishes (there were two loads in the sink, so I have more knucklehead stuff for this afternoon), paid bills, filed papers, and in a few minutes will get to the job search. I am doing knucklehead stuff for a couple of reasons: I do this garbage every Monday; and I am waiting for UPS to deliver a package. Last month I signed up for something called Lost Crates, where, once a month, the recipient gets a sampling of the latest and greatest in art and/or writing supplies, without knowing what they'll be. It's probably the last thing I can afford, but I was intrigued, just to see what it would be, to have the anticipation of looking forward to something akin to a care package, as though I was still young enough and still learning enough to get those.

It's been a couple of months like that, though...looking forward to Giants games, to the Treme tour concert, to the Woody Allen movie, all at discounts, and all unexpected. This package will be the last big event for a while, and then I'll have to create events of my own--maybe a new job in the traditional sense, maybe a story sold.

*****

For a long time I thought of Meetups as something formal, only operated by the truly sane and secure in themselves. The founder and original organizer of the Meetup series that I attend, "Shut Up and Write!" set the bar high. He's the perfect vision of manager/facilitator/mentor/motivator; when one of the group's members says, "Hey, why don't we have one in Berkeley?" his response is, "Yes, why don't YOU look into that?" This empowerment has created a spreading of the group throughout the Bay Area and continued it to New York City (with two groups there) and a new possibility now in Toronto. It's a great way to spread the word and the concept of the group geographically.

It's creating a bit of skirmish back here in the home turf, though.

Different organizers take different accountability for their groups, to be sure. The founder wants to make sure that every Shut Up and Write session is consistent, so that if you like Shut Up and Write you'll tell your friends, and either they'll come with you or go to a Shut Up and Write in their neighborhood. Keep in mind that the group has reached that level--this past week there were meetings in Berkeley, SoMA, the Mission, the Inner Richmond, and the Castro/Duboce Park area. I love that layout--I can finally go to Meetups close to me (for me, a Meetup that's close is one bus-line away from me), and I'm sure others find the locations that aren't close to me close to their homes or workplaces. It's a great idea. And so what if meetings fall on the same day as other meetings? It's still a great way to choose.

It's a great selection for everyone but one of the organizers, that is. Last week two of the organizers scheduled for the same time slot--one a long-established meeting in the Mission, one a first-time meeting in the Inner Richmond. Delightfully, the Inner Richmond is not only closer but in a library, so that I have a shorter commute AND I don't have to buy coffee and snacks to write. Surprisingly, the first-time meeting had more people sign up and actually show up than the long-established meeting, and I know from talking to that facilitator before that he was probably livid. He is a facilitator that does contract work, and he's in the middle of a project right now and doesn't come to his own meeting very often, but he hates it when other groups try to copy-cat or try to borrow the Shut Up and Write concept. I've always bit my tongue to keep from reminding him that we borrowed the concept from Natalie Goldberg.

I see this week, on Monday, that neither Wednesday group has scheduled. I can almost bet what has happened. Either neither one of the facilitators are scheduling, waiting to see if the other one will, or, they are both duking it out with the founder to see if this is ethical. Either way it seems a bit erratic--there's no Wednesday night meeting yet, and, if you want to grow your group, shouldn't you get a calendar up as soon as possible so that potential group members would want to make plans? Don't you at least want to LOOK stable?

All I could think of was Natalie Goldberg's final pages of "Long Quiet Highway," where she sat for peace in downtown Santa Fe every weekday from noon to twelve-thirty. She had been practicing Zen for years, and this wasn't a protest, it wasn't "partisan," it was just her way of dealing with the first Gulf War. I look at it this way--if I could write regardless, like Nat, then I'm grounded, I'm stable, and maybe others will join me. I'm thinking that they will be more likely to join me if I show up myself, but if not, well, that's their practice. Maybe it's time to establish a practice of my own, a Shut Up and Write of my own, to show up to regardless.

And it would be something to look forward to, without any doubt at all.

Damn. Baseball.

It's been a rough stretch here in Mudville. And for a girl whose desk, up until yesterday, was covered with Giants' paraphernalia, it's been a shameful week. I work with men as a majority, and men don't care about fondness for a player or players, or even understand how I can have a fondness for THESE players, and I can't help it, which makes it worse.

When I joined the club called "Giants' fans," I was a long-time dormant baseball fan. The best part about baseball back in the states was the location of my apartment to the minor league ballpark and how they set off fireworks every other week right over my balcony. My first baseball game ever was in SBC Park (as it was called then)--I never saw the Cardinals or Royals play, or, even further back in the states, never saw the Tigers, Reds, Indians, or any Chicago team play (those were the closest geographical baseball locations in my childhood). My last passion for baseball was the Twins' victory in 1991, and that's because I had a crush on Kirby Puckett. And why did I have a crush on Kirby? Because he was a freak of nature--he didn't look like an athlete. From the point that I was aware of Kirby I started an unconscious hunt for players like him, players who didn't look like athletes, and I found a lot of them in baseball. Football players, basketball players, boxers--they all fit stereotypes most of the time, but not baseball players. In those days, baseball players looked like real people.

And then Kirby took drugs and went blind and died, and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire came along, and with college and work and steroid use by a lot of players I sort of forgot about baseball. I remembered it again when my brother took me to a game my third month here, but then it went back to sleep--the Giants still had Bonds at that point, and I wanted a team of real people. Post-Bonds (ironically, that looks like a sign you'd see on Bryant and 7th), I started to pay attention, and went to more games. The field was full of regular guys again--my favorite one at that time being Mike Matheny. Mike was followed by Omar, Dave Roberts...and I started knowing the names of the players. This year I knew them all, up until yesterday, and I knew their quirks and their challenges and their strengths. I knew their rituals. I knew their good-luck charms.

According to the men I work with, knowing these things are laughable.

Yes, Molina can no longer heavy-hit. Yes, Molina is a heavy runner. There are a million reasons to trade him. But here's what I'll miss...the big guy that calmed down pitchers, the gentle role model that jogged out to the Junior Giant standing at home plate who was waiting for a signed ball in Molina's girlish scrawl, and that grin...that grin that was so difficult to produce and nearly always impossible to see behind the mask, but that you'd catch from a team photographer occasionally. I'll miss, too, his brother coming to visit with the Cardinals and the way they greet each other at home plate, Yadier and Bengie, two big guys with the egos of monks.

In other words, I'll miss his special brand of humanity. Each of the Giant players has their own--Wilson with his crossed arms, Rowand and his magnetic physique that keeps drawing pitches, Pablo and his dance up to bat, Lincecum's hurl, arm back there somewhere in McCovey Cove, and then whiplashed past that hair and through the strike zone. Yes, they suck right now. We all suck at certain points in our lives, and get paid a lot less than these boys to do it. And goodness knows I would love to see wins or a pennant or anything substantial in the second half of the season. But those aren't the main reason I go to the ballpark. I go to see my boys. I can't help it. In the words of Dido--"I'm in love, and always will be."

Only a girl could bring Dido to the field. Swing on, dear hitter. Thanks, Bengie.

Me

I woke up this morning and wrapped music around my bicep.

I wrapped music around my bicep and shouldered my laundry bag.

I shouldered the laundry bag and dropped it off at the cleaners. I walked down the hill at a stagger that only gravity creates. I stopped by the bagel chain and picked up an egg and ham sandwich, which I took with me to the park at a clip. I listened to Toto sing "Africa." After eating the sandwich at the Music Concourse I stood by the evergreens and looked west.

And then I ran to the ocean. My blood burned. My blood burned and I ran out of breath and stopped to walk and gain it, then ran again, gained breath, ran again...

I didn't run this morning for the physicality of it, to get my body beautiful. I ran this morning to focus on ME. ME. I couldn't focus on anyone else, not fighting for air.

And it shone in my face...the whole day.

In Flight Movie

I am training to do two things. See the pictures, attached.

So far, my obstacles have been getting a regular routine, not accomplishing a work/life balance, and nutrition. Not to mention having a constant cycle of abuse and recovery that I allow myself to ride.

Tomorrow morning, I am trying yet another routine--working out before work, and eating a packed lunch every day.

Simple, but REALLY challenging. We'll see if it works.

I'll keep you posted.

Fight Club

Keep in mind that when I woke up this morning I was tremendously crushed that there was no rain. For three winters that I have lived in the City proper now, I have looked forward to each rainy season as a perfect excuse to take a few months' break from exploring the City and to either camp in the apartment tapping away on the keys or make camp in an old and freshly re-painted cafe with my fountain pens and journals, looking out a streaming world beyond the plate-glass backward letters of the cafe windows. For three winters I have been disappointed and discombobulated in this respect.

You see, I hail from the Midwest, where most mothers, particularly the rural ones, often admonished their kids on sunny days to "go outside while it's nice." For those readers in the coastal land I live in now, rain/snow/hail/ice happens year-round in the Midwest, a constant threat of spoiling a good day of vitamin D. For those of us in the Golden State, though, rain comes all at once, well-organized that way, and very convenient for hybernators such as myself.

Until we hit a three year drought. Thanks, global warmers.

So today was a compromise--first, climb Moraga while the weather is nice. Second, go see "The Wrestler."

Yeah, I can see you wrinkling your eyebrows on that one. Jo, WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, WANT TO SEE "THE WRESTLER?"

• I heard it was good.


• I heard Springsteen sang a song in it.


• It's up for Academy Awards. (Hey, I don't care for hip-hop or pimps and loved "Hustle & Flow," which won an Academy for best song.)


• I had a crush on Mickey Rourke in earlier years. Can't remember which movie right now, but it was early Rourke.


• I heard Springsteen sang a song in it. Oh.

It would probably be safe to say that I don't like wrestling, at all, as a sport. (As a sexual position is a different matter...ahem.) This movie didn't sugar-coat the gruesome aspects either. The match that brings on Randy "The Ram" Robinson's heart attack (Randy is played by Rourke) is probably the ugliest violence I have seen since the opening Normandy scenes of "Saving Private Ryan"--no one is missing body parts, but they should be (not to mention the fact that two men should have a pretty healthy bout of tetanus from that scene), and after the match the scene stays grisly while Randy fights the nausea that comes with the heart attack. Barring the gore, though, the scene (as well as the whole movie) is shot with exquisite balance. The camera dances back and forth from the fight to the objects being removed from Randy's body, as though the fight is offering a lame explanation for the staples, barbs, pushpins, and glass fragments extracted from Randy with tweezers. The entire aftermath shows Randy fighting the nausea as the medics work on him, and you don't blame him, but it turns out these props are par for the course, and the nausea has nothing to do with the foreign, inexplicable objects in him. It's an incredible piece of cinema.

The entire movie, though, as I have said before, is pretty incredible. It's about 30% fighting and about 70% life, by the way, in case you're gauging whether it's worth it. Scenes with costar Marisa Tomei, as Cassidy/Pam the stripper, are ringed with 1980's love of culture, as though a strange new poet popped up as a dancing wrestler. (If you love '80's metal, you will need the soundtrack to this movie. Randy and Cassidy agree that the music of the '90's "fuckin' sucked.") Randy gives Cassidy a lap dance in an afternoon bar scene, and both are fully clothed, and the dance makes the big bear of Rourke damn near cuddly. Randy also does some great dancing with his daughter Stephanie, played by Evan Rachel Wood. (I found her distracting through her scenes, though..."where have I scene this chick?" Got home and found out I had seen her in "The Upside of Anger" and an "West Wing" episode.)

*****

In contrast to this work of art by Rourke et al, I offer up some link of real life fighting, which is the passing of Jose Torres this past week at the age of 72 in Puerto Rico. As I said, I don't follow fighting of any kind much, and even though Torres was a light/heavyweight champion of the world, I didn't know him from that. Torres was familiar to me because of his literary ties.

You heard me.

Torres was close friends with authors Pete Hamill (who gave him his first book in English) and Norman Mailer (who traded boxing tips from Torres in exchange for editing Torres's writings). Torres also wrote books about other famous boxers, like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. This past week on the radio program "Fresh Air," Teri Gross replayed an interview with Torres from 1989, and asked Torres about his interview with Mike Tyson and Tyson's claim of sleeping with 24 women in one night. Torres remarked that he shrugged when Tyson told him, as though it was no big deal, and joked with Tyson that most of Tyson's orgasms must last longer than Tyson's fights. Tyson didn't find that funny. Torres and Gross did though, and I have to admit that I got a pretty good laugh from that myself.

The question that Gross asked Torres that blew me away, however, was this one: "What was the worst punch you ever took?"

And Torres started his reply with, "The best punch I ever took was..." Oh, I'm sure he heard her. Oh, I'm sure he understood her. The whole interview was like that--what's bad, worn leather flipped over to reveal its soft, supple suede side. Randy "The Ram" Robinson tries on the same thing in the last match of the movie. He takes the mic from the announcer and tells us all that this looks bad, and he royally fucked up a lot of things, but he's still here. Look at him, he's still here. Seemed to work for Torres in 1989, The Ram in this film, and Rourke in Hollywood. Bless their failing/war-torn hearts.

Entry to Make Up For Laziness On December 12th

Company Holiday Party last night...bowling in Alameda.

And yes, I got at least one strike. So PHBHBHBHBHBHB...

;)

For Eight Belles

For those of you who saw this on video or tv as well...my heart goes with you...

Born in the valley
And raised in the trees
Of western kentucky
On wobbly knees
With mama beside you
To help you along
You’ll soon be a growing up strong.
All the long, lazy mornings
In pastures of green
The sun on your withers
The wind in your mane
Could never prepare you
For what lies ahead

The run for the roses so red --

And it’s run for the roses
As fast as you can
Your fate is delivered
Your moment’s at hand
It’s the chance of a lifetime
In a lifetime of chance
And it’s high time you joined
In the dance
It’s high time you joined
In the dance --

From sire to sire
It’s born in the blood
The fire of a mare
And the strength of a stud
It’s breeding and it’s training
And it’s something unknown
That drives you and carries
You home.

And it’s run for the roses
As fast as you can
Your fate is delivered
Your moment’s at hand
It’s the chance of a lifetime
In a lifetime of chance
And it’s high time you joined
In the dance
It’s high time you joined
In the dance --

-D. Fogelberg