'Faced & Twitterpated

It's official--I've given up social networking for the sake of "promotion."

To be honest, I've given up Facebook entirely on a surface level. One look at my Facebook page makes people think I'm still there in full force, with the occasional post about writing or baseball, but closer looks reveal the truth--I'm posting "via" a remote site on everything from GoodReads to the Rumpus to Blogger to MLB.com.

I wish I could say that I miss Facebook--involvement with such a site means that I'm normal and can play well with others, right? But I just can't bring myself to go there anymore. I like myself and my writing so much better without it. It's like walking away from the funhouse mirrors to outside and catching myself reflected in a garden pond. The introspective view is better, less self-focused strangely enough, and allows me to be more creative and speak with my own voice. (Emerson would roll his eyes at me, but let him--he didn't have this crowd to work with.)

As to Twitter--I used to have two outlets for Twitter: my laptop and a BlackBerry application called OpenBeak. OpenBeak wouldn't let me post pictures on Twitter, but it did this other lovely enabling action where it started the tweet stream right where I left off last time I logged in, and allowed me to scroll up to catch up. I call this an enabling action because it forced me to clear the que every two hours or I'd have all kinds of crap to scroll through (after waiting forever for it to load), so I could easily read EVERYTHING. That's part of what fed my frustration with social networking--having to be on top of every news item for writing, publishing, baseball, etc, when there is no way in hell you can do that unless it's a full time job that you're paid for. I wasn't getting paid. So I switched to Twitter for BlackBerry, which lets me post pictures, doesn't make me read EVERYTHING to catch up, and, if someone wants to get my attention, an @mention finally works to alert me on my phone desktop. (With OpenBeak, I had to go in and check for them.)

I'm trying to get away from @mentions to others myself--they don't get responses and that seems to feed back to the "no one's listening" aspect of my social networking frustration. A little over a week ago a friend of mine suggested that I was writing for all of the wrong reasons, and suggested that I might want to re-evaluate why I write. (This was after revealing to her that I wouldn't be blogging as much.) I didn't agree--I've loved writing for all of time, and didn't necessarily strive to publish it until friends in Missouri accused me of hiding my light under a bushel by not publishing it. Publishing my work on-line was like a bad boyfriend--maybe if I do this, this, and this over here I will get vindication for publishing--so I was networking and publishing for the wrong reasons, and therefore re-evaluated why I publish and social network. And it all comes back to what my mother used to tell me about the phone: "Sadie, the phone is there for your convenience, not theirs." I see Twitter and Facebook the same way, and use them accordingly.

Sadly enough for the friend who recommended that I re-evaluate my reason for writing, she's on Facebook. Well, when I'm ready to see who's won what Mafia war or whose kids have made honor roll, I'll tune back in...at my convenience. Meantime, I have tales to get down on paper.

Write on.

Step 1

Renovating my writing practices so that I can grow means that I have to prune things, like some of the showiest bushes and trees, so that new growth can occur or so that I can see the street signs. These are the steps I've taken so far:

• Set all blogs to be written once a week, including this one
• Removed all bookmarks, history, and computer and mobile notification to Facebook

The second bullet point means that if someone sent anything to me on Facebook after midnight Pacific time Sunday night, I won't see it. Oh, now, Jo, you'll see it SOMETIME, right? Yes, semantics. I will see it sometime. You ask me for a timeline, though, you're out of luck. My brother follows a good practice--the last time he checked his Facebook was May of this year, and the last time he checked it before that was September...of 2009. I envy him, unnecessarily. I could do that. I'm just afraid of being forgotten.

But Facebook isn't the only way to connect, and if I'm forgotten by those who think it is, then maybe that's better. I'm not closing my account--it sits there wide open, a plasma-screened canvas for those who want to say hello. I received correspondence from someone in the list of friends once a week. Not a note from each of the 87, but one person a week. But with a list of only 87 while most others have a list of over 150, I imagine my priority ranking doesn't sit very high. A friend that I discussed this with over the weekend told me I have the wrong motivation for writing. I was offended--I wasn't writing for the wrong reasons, I was networking and marketing that writing for the wrong reasons. To her, they were one and the same...and on Saturday I thought maybe I shouldn't be a writer.

The biggest distinction in this whole mess is the difference between effect and recognition. I would have been happy to think I was having an effect, which, when you're a writer, looks like you are asking for recognition. I don't want applause--I just want to know I've touched the reader. And I'm not reaching very many people on Facebook or my blogs, so why not redistribute that writing to writing something that will reach someone?

Even if it's me?

Write on.

Rotten Tomatoes, Via Apathy

Here's an excellent story idea: fiction writer from the past is forced to grapple with modern writing networking tools.

Hemingway would be great with Twitter's format. But he would hate its audience. The Great Gatsby would have never been published by marketing on Facebook.

Here's dangerous mettle for you...silence. Perhaps you've experienced it. You call someone, and your call is never answered. You write something, and the publisher never even bothers to reject you (an ironic form of rejection). Or, we can go more subtle...you post things on vast, virtual walls, and they are greeted by...

SILENCE.

That's been happening to me for three days. It's on par with the unkind self-assumption that others have given up on you, or are rolling their eyes at you (dumb c***, who does she think she is, doesn't she know how to do that in this age and with this kind of communication, etc), laughing at you...

By the middle of the afternoon today I had been ignored long enough. I shut off the phone and the computer. I picked up a paper book and finished it. When I turned the phone back on there was a text message for me, from a guy who had ignored my texts the first two months after I left my last workplace, someone who I thought was a friend, after all that silence. His message was simple--to sneer at me for the Giants' performance in Cincinnati. He wasn't just teasing--his message was to rub my face in a dirty diaper.

[I don't own the Giants. I love them openly, which I guess, in the words of "The Franchise," puts "a target on my back" too. Everyone hates the Giants and hates Giants fans, so I'm either going to get ignored...or insulted. That's after three days of being ignored trying to play the networking game on Twitter and Facebook. That's after trying to mingle in the "virtual cafe." I sent him back a two-word reply.

I'll let you guess what it said.]

The last three days have reminded me, very pointedly, that I need to remember why I write. I have to write for me. I have to write regardless. And I have to write quality stuff for my sake, not write just to stay in the game in hopes of keeping people interested. I don't monitor my "views" and try to increase them or weed them out. I am balls-out, accelerator to the floor. Every time I try to do that network/stats stuff I just feel like slitting my wrists. Hell, I didn't even check the stats today...I knew that NO ONE WAS READING. So I have to go back to writing stuff I would want to read, and sail back to the water in between for a while.

There was hope, though...Becky Levine, a children's author on Twitter, posted the following message to the world:

"Think. Write. Repeat and rinse."

So simple and so helpful. So I re-Tweeted it.

And she thanked me for doing that. Not everyone thinks I'm invisible...after all, she knew what I needed in the smallest of gestures--a thanks for the shout-out.

You're welcome. Write on.

Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was injured in WW I, which gave him more than just a creative advantage--he had to stand up to write.

I could take a lesson from him. It's actually healthier for those with sedentary careers to get up several times during the course of the day and walk, or, if they prefer, work standing up for periods of the day. So I'm taking a tip from Hemingway at the moment and typing on my jewelry box. It's sturdy, it's a perfect height, and I need a reminder of good posture over the course of my day.

I don't need to lose weight. I need to feel better. Period.

*****

I belong to a group on Facebook called Writers on the Move, started by writer Christina Katz. So far most of my time in the group has been spent offering a thought here and there, reading the updates, but not doing much. I think by doing this I'm throwing away a gift horse.

I need to be more mindful when I read these posts in this group. This is about the only way that I can identify with Christina other than being a writer--I was recommended to her a few months back, but so much of her stuff is about motherhood it kind of got in the way of finding a kindred spirit. With the fitness AND the writing, however, I feel more of that kinship, and less of wanting to be a mother when I can't by one more networking center. It works, for now. I hope it keeps working, and while I don't skip the entries from the group about how the children are holding up the workout and the writing goals, I do give them the same amount of weight as my challenges. I'd like to think that's progress.

Write on...

From the Department of "Well, That Was Dumb"

I'm having one of those mornings where I got off to a weird start. I bought yet another laptop bag yesterday, and in the transfer of writing supplies to take with me to the library I forgot my pouch of back-up pens. I've Tweeted the fact, Facebooked the fact...I'm obsessed. This was supposed to be a writing session.

And it was. Just an on-line one, is all. I'm still working on adaptability issues, obviously. City writer, country writer. :) (Thanks, Robin.)

And for those of you following my bag count...I picked up this little gem at the outlet mall, Kenneth Cole, $17, AND it matches my current handbag. Oh, I'm such a girl.

I'm at the Carlsbad City Library this morning, the Georgina Cole branch, while Serena volunteers at the Senior Center. Yes, I could have volunteered with her. Yes, I was selfish about my writing and chose that instead this week. I'm used to the San Francisco Public Library, which isn't much different from this library at the satellite branches. The two biggest differences are:

• The librarians here are so friendly they greet you coming in, and they invite you to stay and read a while. "It's hot out there; you better stay put," was my instruction on Wednesday. I readily complied and read for two hours that day. (Had plenty of ink and I read the whole time--oh, for God's sake, let it GO already, Jo...) The San Francisco librarians are pleasant, but you have to get in front of them and make yourself known. I suspect that has to do with the second difference, below...
• About 30% of the patrons at the SF Public Library are homeless people, camping in the temperature control with free knowledge. I don't begrudge them that, although it lends an unmistakable aroma to a library in San Francisco that for the most part does an excellent job of keeping me from curling up with a book there. In this library there is just one homeless person, and none that I could find at the main branch over on Dove Lane. The homeless woman here seems disturbed but well-behaved--I imagine she doesn't want to be thrown out in this heat.

I love the Main Branch of the SF Public Library for it's grandeur, but I must say that I love these little libraries for their humanity. Today I had to journey upstairs for a vacant writing table, but Wednesday I got a table right by checkout, and got to talk to children. One little girl who I swear came up to my knee insisted on showing me the correct way to self-checkout (Tina Fey, Jr.), and another little girl passed my table and demanded that she wish me goodbye and that I have a good day. This friendliness seems consistent with much of Carlsbad--Mike and Serena's neighbors invite me over to their units and show me pets and renovations with relish, offer up sunburn cure-alls, and ask if I'm looking for a vacancy down here. They even nod in agreement about my love of San Francisco--"Oh, I understand, hon. Just saying you have a home here if you want it." At the cafe yesterday two people stopped to ask me about the library book I was reading, and if I was reading it for work. STRANGERS. It's like Mayberry meets Surf City.

Well that's enough writing for now...I'm going to finish that book I started on Wednesday and wait to see what the tide will bring.

Write on. :)

Shut Up and Write, Dammit

This week I've been working on a project, a.k.a., short story. I haven't written a short story since the extension course in spring of 2009 that I took with UC Berkeley extension, and about 60 days after finishing that class I broke my writing hand. I'm just now writing short stories again. You could say my bounce-back abilities suck.

But here's the wonderful transition--based on my past experiences in writing, and my past superstitions, you would have thought that I would have given up writing altogether by now. My father would say that the gods were trying to tell me something. My mother, however, would point to Job and ask, what would God (or the devil) have to do to you in order to shut down your writing? Would you write no matter what?

God damn it, yes, I would.

Would you lose your job, your livelihood, for your writing?

Yep.

Would you lose your family for your writing?

Yep.

Would you lose your home?

I have. Whenever I put the pen down, I've lost my home. If I'm writing, I'm home.

Would you lose your sense of self?

I don't have a sense of self to start with. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

I get my sense of self from writing. You'd have to take away the writing to diminish my sense of self.

Would you give up your health?

Again, seems like if you take away my writing you take away my health. Can't happen.

There is a part of the story of Job, from what I remember, where Job pushes back at God. I'm not going to look it up and quote it exactly, but Job says something the extent of "God, I give up. Why do you pick on me? Why do you take away everything? Why take away my happiness?" And God says something back about how Job can't possibly know WHY things happen--his tiny little brain can't handle that part. Job's job (heh) is to handle it and ask God for strength.

My job is not to ask, "Hey, what's with the timing? I just wrote a short story about a man not unlike my father who becomes a widower and adopts a dog to take the dead wife's place, and you hit me with this crap about my mother dying of cancer. I finally feel like I write a story again, and you crack my hand two months later."

And God answers, in my mind, "You don't get to know the big picture. You don't get to know why. YOU JUST HAVE TO KEEP WRITING. IS...THAT...WHAT...YOU...WANT?"

Yep.

God damn it, yes, I said, yes, I do, yes.

So I've taken this week off and learned how to write a short story with the same lack of fear and the same day-to-day determination that I would a blog. I want to write short stor-IES. Plural. Not one every 7 years, or one every 2 years. I want to crank them out on at least a monthly basis, for at least an hour a day, like I do my blogs and my free-writing. I want a short story to come easily to me, and not pick up the concept like a loaded gun and holding it out at arm's length between two fingers, afraid I'm going to hurt myself or kill a relative because it's loaded. It's LOADED. Take it out in the field and fire it. Point it at tin cans at first if you must, stand four feet from the target or closer until you can hit it, but PULL THE TRIGGER. LOAD IT AGAIN AND PULL THE TRIGGER. And if I do that every day for an hour, then the loaded gun becomes the art of marksmanship instead of the dreaded thing we keep in the house because it looks wicked or because we live in an area of necessary self-defense. Keep backing up from the tin can. Get better. Move on to moving clay pigeons. Move on to birds. Move on to harvest.

I didn't mean to go all Sarah Palin, but that was the best analogy I had.

Technically, I'm back. But I'm back in a capacity that is nowhere NEAR what it was before. The capacity of before was keeping up with trends. That will still be the goal, but on MY terms. Facebook was down to an assigned day when I left--now it will just be used for a posting of stuff that I do on other sites, like when I finish reading a book, when I write a blog, when I watch a movie, and when I sign up for a Meetup. I can do all of that stuff and never go to Facebook. And I think from now on that would be best. I was spending too much time on Twitter and Google Reader, too, so they will be limited to time like writing gets allocated, not just every time I'm bored. I'm still working out the kinks there.

But I'm writing. Things, not just journal entries.

Thank God, I'm free at last.

Onward, dear reader.

Better Now

Stayed away from Facebook and the news today and did much better, mood-wise. Cleared up two reading assignments, completed morning pages, and did some freewriting. And took a walk in my Backyard. That was refreshing, and I was hungry for ideas and food for the first time in two days.

Tomorrow? God knows. But I feel much better knowing that there's no calendar for tomorrow. Perhaps that's trying to tell me something.

Onward, dear reader.

Anti-Climax

It's been a very blah day, and the internet is just depressing me. Today was my designated Facebook day, and that depressed me more. I think what might be best is stop with the news items and the internet for the weekend--hang everything up and give myself a little space to appreciate myself. Right now I feel like an old, fat wallflower. And I shouldn't. Not with the week that I've had.

It might have something to do with the weather, the silence, or, being on this side of this week. Any way that you slice it, I'm just ready to eat the solitude for a while and remember why I liked me so much. Without getting an ego about it.

Clutter Patrol

Heh, heh...just organized all of my favorites on Safari, so now I get to do mind melt every time I try to find stuff for a little while...

Have had a really good couple of days of writing, and so was absent from here yesterday. I'd like to think of this as a running on-line journal, so when I miss a day I start to get that feeling like I mis-buttoned my shirt or something. But most of the day happenings for yesterday and today went into a blog post on Sea Level that I'll point out on Facebook tomorrow. I am trying to get in the habit of only going into Facebook on Fridays, with marginal success. It's a work in progress and a goal I'm not going to hit overnight, but I'll still try for it. The plan is to only hit up Facebook on Friday, and on Friday on Twitter point my Twitter followers to Facebook for news. Changes things up and maybe some of the readers will follow back and forth. We'll see.

Twitter = Reader's Digest Condensed Book.

Facebook = Reader's Digest Condensed Book with the paper illustrated book jacket still on

Debating an event tomorrow night...the Bookswap thing at Booksmith. The weather is supposed to be crappy, I want to give readers a chance to go, I've never been to Booksmith (and yet I write about 'em--just call me Stephen Crane, war hero, and get it overwith), and I don't have a book to swap because I give all of them away as I read them, damn it. On the other hand I just added "Writing Down the Bones" to my Kindle and have a pocket copy that I could trade. That book has probably been the greatest writing teacher I have ever had. I was going to give the pocket copy to a friend of mine, but only because her therapist has her journal-writing, and not because she is normally a writer. Probably not the best reason if I don't want this copy to get dusty. We'll see. I'll head over there now, see if there are tickets, and check out the store. (Removes a couple of the cons on the list, I guess.)

You ever hit one of those strides where you don't care if anyone's reading--you're just glad to be writing?

Hells, yeah. I'm there.

HOME RUN

Here's a note to say that if you're debating something, take a chance.

I was published twice today on one article. Once by me, and once by a bookstore who loved my post announcing a slightly quirky event that will occur on Friday.

Behold.

And people LIKE the article. Like, Sally-Field-like the article. Holy reaching the reader, Batman.

Strangers like my article. And Booksmith shouted out the article to my employers on Facebook, so now I've kudos. TWICE.

Cue "Song 2" by Blur. The Giants' biggest fan just hit a personal home run. Ever try not to scream from your bedroom at 10:30 at night? (Uh, don't answer that.)

Ok, time to shut up now, Jo. Celebrate in the morning.

Write on.

Resolutions, a Work in Progress

Good morning, kids, and welcome to a long-lost blogger. Posting here will probably prompt a barrage of crap from a number on-line pimp stores for Asian porn (don't ask me why, they tend to love me), but I'll risk it to post my latest offering, a work in progress we like to call "New Year's Resolutions."

Here's the first draft:

• Try one new thing every day
• Do not buy any new books in 2011--if I want to read a book, I have to beg, borrow, or steal.
• Do not buy any new pens in 2011--I have enough now to last me through Armageddon.
• Give up Facebook.
• Tweet more.
• Blog more, regardless.

Read on, dear reader...hopefully. :)

On Writing

I started a new blog specifically with a Facebook audience in mind yesterday, which was a long time in the thought process of coming. I was torn between several options:

• Tearing down this blog and starting a new one (which might be a good idea given the continuing spamming of the Asian pimp circuit)
• Starting a new blog with a different blog site, like Wordpress. At this point I realize that anyone who can go from Blogger to Wordpress probably should be in Mensa. I'm not at that level of savvy-ness yet, and, for the purpose of just importing the thing to Facebook anyway, probably don't necessarily need to be.
• Just writing a note when I feel like blogging on Facebook. And that option seemed too immediate for some reason--and who wants to write a straight note, for heaven's sake? Shouldn't there be something fancy it links to?

So I sat down yesterday afternoon and knocked out a blog on Blogger in about ten minutes. Yes, I'll reap what I sow, I suppose, and, given enough time, talent, and desire to read instructions I could have killed with something fancier, but I opted against it. Learning what a networking site is for = priceless. So here's what roles mine has adopted:

• Stories of what I love about California (blog)
• Reviews of what movies I watch (used to be Netflix, until their app stopped working, and is now Flixter)
• Reviews of books (Goodreads)
• YouTube (usually of the music that I love)
• And any news that goes to my core

That should suffice for now. This blog will remain, but not shared on Facebook--here is where I put my struggles, and, occasionally, a triumph or epiphany. And if you like that sort of thing...

Read on, dear reader.

Go For Launch

And this blog is no longer on Facebook. Now I can develop my writing and improve it. Not to mention hopefully having more of it.

Happy Easter, dear reader.

Test

I'm removing the blog from Facebook...and testing to see if this will post or if it's off the page.

An Adjustment

Ok, this may make me some enemies.

*Deep breath.*

I have a new BlackBerry that I love, and the new BlackBerry has a new version of Facebook that I love. It's all wonderful.

*Another deep breath.*

But here's the problem...I wish I could see good stuff on Facebook, like status messages...or writings on walls...

Don't get me wrong--I am very proud of everyone who has a cafe and a farm and mob and whatever everyone belongs to. I know it's fun. But I would rather read a status message. The updates of the farms and cafes and mobs and such is like logging on to the New York Times and getting...um...the Examiner, maybe.

There, I said it. I'm sorry. Carry on...I'm going to play with the settings and see what I can do to filter to the good stuff. :)

(P.S.--I found it...on both the laptop and the BlackBerry. Now I can curl up with my status messages and you folks go grow and cook and kill, um, people, I guess... :/

Nuns and Paddle Ball

Since I am, in fact, the biggest nerd on the planet, I possess a reading journal. I made it myself years ago, back in the States. It's a 6" x 8" three-ring binder with sleeves in the covers for inserting my own pictures. On the front cover is a picture of a room with bare walls and filled waist-deep with books, surrounded by the quote "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." It's a quote from the late great Flannery O'Connor.

Inside the book are a bouquet of bookmarks, then a great deal of notes in the binder, and then in the back cover is another photo, of an elderly nun playing paddle ball. The quote around this photo is "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" That one's from Satchel Paige.

A reset, of sorts.

So if I didn't know a lot of things, like all the stuff I assault myself with all day long, then maybe I would be a little more free. If I didn't check Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, would I feel a little less inadequate? Would I stop comparing my life with the lives of other people? Would I go out and find life, instead of following the plotline of everyone else's?

Not to walk away for just a day or a week.

How about walking away until next year?

Everyone that I follow on Facebook and Twitter has their life in order, with families and boatloads of friends and travel and fulfilling lifestyles. I feel empty, uninspired, lost, and (this is going to be politically incorrect, brace for it), retarded. I feel light years behind the world when I should be standing in my own shoes anyway. I have talents that I have forgotten, focus I've lost, all to my stinky self-esteem, which drags in the water like sprays of seaweed, heavy and off-balance.

How about one focus?

How about just one thing to follow?

More to come.

Restoration

I woke up this morning and thought to myself that I needed some time in the fresh air--yesterday a good majority of my time was spent in bed. I wasn't sick yesterday, just tired, and usually when I'm tired there are forty things that have to be done that day. Yesterday nothing had to be done. So I stayed in bed for most of the day with books tucking me in as though a high wind might come in the room and blow me away. I finished a book, even. And I got a good deal of writing done, regardless of the fact that it went nowhere--just putting a pen to the page was enough of a treat.

This morning it was so tempting to do the same, but my mother had been speaking to me from the past about how nice the weather was ("get out there in the sunshine, young lady, before the heat wave hits"), so I picked up some Arizmendi brioche and a coffee and made for my Backyard, aka the Golden Gate Park, which is, by far, my favorite breakfast spot, regardless of what Kate's and Stacks can do. I sit on the parameter of the Music Concourse and watch the pale dirt floor traffic below the trees. Tourists of all nationalities walk there, some with cigarettes lit, and I have some private fun with a Facebook status that I don't post:

• Sarah is drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes this morning for breakfast.
• Sarah is drinking coffee and smoking other peoples' cigarettes for breakfast.
• Sarah is drinking coffee and attempting to eat breakfast while the birds around her light up.

Pretty soon I'm in a fit of inexplicable giggles and have to think of something somber to calm down. Trick is, I can't think of something somber. All I can think about is what a smart-ass I am. That doesn't help. I am my own best entertainer, but I often don't know when to shut up. I finish off the brioche, still smiling, take some ibuprofen, and call my brother to wish him a happy birthday, coffee still in hand. I get to talk to Serena for a bit, and then I finish off the coffee and write for 30 minutes or so. I talk to myself, challenge myself, all on paper. I gaze across at the deYoung, and think to myself, "Jo, how abouts we see some paintings and such this morning?" So I pack up and head across the concourse.

Back in the spring I purchased two museum memberships--one to the deYoung (which also admits two into the Legion of Honor free of charge), and one to the SFMoMA. At the time I was sending in the checks I was feeling some guilt--shouldn't I be saving this money? But since then I have paid for both memberships just in the amount of time that I have spent at the museums alone, considering how much it is to visit each time, and especially considering the exhibits that I have had the pleasure to enjoy. The memberships also give me the chance to know the museums better. I cannot yet name the paintings or artists there, but my list of favorites grows by the day. For instance, when I started out visiting the deYoung my favorites could all be found in the Saxe gallery, where all of the glassworks were held. Now I go to the observation tower, and then the wing that lies just behind the Saxe gallery. In this wing there are galleries of African American and modern art...a giant mirrored chess set with abstract mirrored chess pieces (not the true description of it, but the true one for me), a cathedral sculpted entirely of amunition, and a sculpture of an African American woman called "Steppin Out," made entirely of a sculpted hardwood with just enough features to tell that she's fiiiine. I look at her coming in and going out of the wing--I want to be her, I want an ass like hers, legs like hers, attitude like hers, shoes like her pumps. The wood she is made from is the smoothest, warmest color--I find myself in a reverse Pinocchio: "Make me of wood like that!"

Then I go upstairs, to the galleries just behind the African artifacts, to the ages of America. There I see the Revolution, the Civil War, the Hudson School, and a portrait of George Washington done in stitched dollar bills. It's a damn fine likeness, too, for being stitched AND only made of differing folding of dollar bills. It's not easy being green, is it, George? When I walk past him and to the west side of the building, there is an entire gallery of vistas. A good measure of them are of the natural parts of the Bay Area, mostly Marin, Tamalpias, and the ocean. One large one that is the size of my bedroom wall is of San Quentin in the fog. I linger with them. Then I walk through that gallery to the overlook, where a long bench of wood from New Zealand is built along one wall and faces a glass wall, where you can look out to the west side of the Music Concourse and on the sculpture garden below. I usually camp there for at least twenty minutes. Then I make my way back through the galleries and go back downstairs to the cafe to write. (With the showing of Tut at the museum, I don't get to do much writing there these days--the cafe is usually packed when I get there and I have to write elsewhere.)

Remarkably, I leave the museum every time feeling better about myself. I'm not saying that the people that I work with are stupid when I say this--but when I am continuously surrounded by people who don't care about art and literature, I start feeling like the stupid one, like art and literature don't matter, and as though I am caring about the wrong things in life. Then I go to these places and it's like the pictures are hanging on my walls, my friends are in the gallery with me, and I'm free to love what I love, without ridicule for what I love. Last week one of my employees in Oakland asked me if I saw the speech Obama made about health care. Unfortunately, I did not (was out running that night), but the employee said, "You know, I like how he talks...as though even though he could talk smarter he doesn't try to." I had to agree with him--plain-spoken articulate speech is a gift, but I have to wonder if Obama ever feels like he can't talk about the art he saw in the gallery. I have to wonder if he ever gets lonely that way. I get the feeling Obama's smart lies somewhere between the multitudes and the geniuses, and while the geniuses bore him the world secretly breaks his heart. But it can be better, I can talk them and act them to better, he may be thinking, all the while remembering the pictures at the exhibition.

I can't name the pictures at the exhibition--I too am too busy relating to Taylor Swift--but I love where they take me.

Intense, or, Another Damn Facebook List

There's a LOT of alone time spent when you are injured, a lot of alone time and describing pain to people who asked after your health (most politely, some with genuine concern--I can tell which people feel like which to me).

None of this time is spent feeling beautiful.

I have one 3/4ths coordinated left hand and three good fingers on my right that can do a good majority of my tasks. Application of things requiring a graceful or careful hand isn't possible yet. Shampoo still comes out too fast. Q-tips are clumsy. Brushing my teeth is surely done in a poor process. Inserting a tampon is one of those things I just set my jaw and force in right-handed, pain be damned. Even washing my hands is a joke because the left hand gets clean and the right hand just drags around next to it.

I'm at the awkward stage, you might say.

Also, men shrink from me. They see the brace and run. I am still losing weight (dunno why...I'm not running) and the physical therapy for my back is tightening up the legs even more, but the comments and compliments on my ass are gone--AAAAACK! She's got a brace on her right hand! She's dying! She's diseased! So alone turns into the ugly girl I felt like in the Midwest. Alone is the one who used to hide in clothes two sizes too big so that no one would see her.

Gives me lots of time to think.

Here's the list I get from thinking. In this one my mom is tagged...poor thing, she didn't get to know "in sickness and in health" either.

What I Look For In The Love of My Life

• One who can't take his eyes off my body but stays for my laugh
• One who knows the Oscar Wao reference I've made on my Facebook status every weeknight this week
• One who laughs at Christopher Guest movies
• One who proposes to me at a broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion," at the middle part where people bring their messages to the stage for Garrison to read
• One who tries to please me in bed. OFTEN.
• One who doesn't care if the world is going to Kindles or staying on paper
• One who doesn't have a food pet peeve
• One who graces me with good and yet simple surprises
• One who's not afraid of me--in any mood
• One who doesn't try to convince me that I'm crazy and therefore that my thoughts are worthless in their craziness
• One who is curious
• One who thinks the whole world is great, not just one place
• One who can show me he loves me and loves looking foolish showing me
• One who can be with me in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer...

Sure, I know. He doesn't exist. He's a figment of my romantic imagination. I'm setting the bar too high.

But reader, you're not here. So my list can be anything I want it to be. And since I'm alone, all of it is possible.

About Me...Courtesy of Trish on FB...

1) What is your salad dressing of choice?Orange Poppyseed Dressing.
2) What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? That's incredibly hard to say, because there are so many great restaurants here.
3) What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of it? Nutella.
4) What are your pizza toppings of choice? Ham and crushed pineapple.
5) What do you like to put on your toast? Nutella. :)
6) How many televisions are in your house? One.
7) What color cell phone do you have? Silver.
8) Are you right-handed or left-handed? Left-handed at the moment for everything but writing.
9) Have you ever had anything removed from your body?Wisdom Teeth.
10) What is the last heavy item you lifted? My own body, one-handed.
11) Have you ever been knocked unconscious? By alcohol, yes. By an object to the head, no.
12) If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Nope. My genetics have already given me a rough idea.
13) If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Charlotte. So people could call me something fun and tomboy-ish, like Charly. And a shorter, pronounce-able last name.
14) Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? Are you kidding? When I'm stressed my body can't even handle milk.
15) How many pairs of flip flops do you own? One.
16) What's your goal for the year? To read 26 books.
17) Last person you talked to? Talked, literally, my boss.
18) Last person you hugged? Jennifer H.
19) Favorite Season? There aren't seasons in California, unless you count the sunny and rainy season. I like them both.
20) Favorite Holiday? Thanksgiving.
21) Favorite day of the week? Saturday
22) Favorite Month? April. I like stuff blooming, and because of the book "The Enchanted April."
23) First place you went this morning? The cleaners.
24) What's the last movie you saw? In the theatre, can't remember. On tv, The Darjeeling Limited.
25) Do you smile often? If I'm not at work, all the time.
26) Do you always answer your phone? Depends on if half my employees have called in sick. Then I hate my phone.
27) It's four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it? Probably an employee calling in sick. But they usually wait until 4 minutes before their shift starts.
28) If you could change your eye color what would it be?Nah, mine already change depending on what I'm wearing (blue to green) and who processes my driver's license (according to the state of California, I have brown eyes :/)
29) What flavor drink do you get at Sonic?I miss Sonic, particularly the tots. I would say the largest size of cherry limeade.
30) Have you ever had a pet fish?Yep. Angelfish when I was a kid.
31) Favorite Christmas song?I'll Be Home For Christmas and River by Joni Mitchell (tie).
32) What's on your wish list for your birthday? A new job and to spend time with family.
33) Can you do push ups? Um, no.
34) Can you do a chin up? Um, no. (Don't ask the one-handed girl these questions. I'm not Jack Palance. ;)
35) Does the future make you more nervous or excited? Neither. More like curious.
36) Do you have any saved texts? Yep, but they are pictures...my brother sent me some Hoover Dam shots.
37) Ever been in a car wreck? Just fender-benders.
38) Do you have an accent?I've been told I sound like I'm from the Midwest.
39) What is the last song to make you cry? Ordinary Miracle in the movie Charlotte's Web.
40) Plans tonight? Writing.
41) Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? Yep, a week and a half ago. It improved, thank God.
42) Name 3 things you bought yesterday. Ben and Jerry's Raspberry Chocolate Chunk Light Ice Cream, Stouffer's frozen lasagna, and Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" on iTunes.
43) Have you ever been given roses? Yes.
44) Current hate right now? Chicken-shit bicyclists who are too scared to ride in their lane on the street so they run over pedestrians on the sidewalk.
45) Met someone who changed your life? Yep, the day I was born.
46) How did you bring in the New Year? Don't remember...
47) What song represents you? "Home" by Marc Broussard. "Hummin' the funk..."
48) Name three people who might complete this. LOL...no clue.
49) What were you doing 12am last night (or is it this morning?)?Sleeping like a rock on muscle relaxers.
50) What was the first thing you thought of this morning? It's Saturday. And then I started humming that song by The Lettermen: "Come Saturday morning..."

30 Random Songs On My iPod

For any readers on Facebook, here's a new list, inspired by Jen Lancaster, one of my favorite authors (and whom I have seen on her last tour!)...

30 Random Songs On My iPod

1. Straight Time, Bruce Springsteen - You think it's hard to live with life's "rules"? Try doing it with a criminal past that ain't quite past.
2. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Carly Simon - From the "Sleepless In Seattle" soundtrack. Simon's full, breathing words kind of soothe me into, well, relaxed repose. Funny since the song is about insomnia.
3. The John Dunbar Theme, John Barry - From the movie "Dances With Wolves." Want to make this song really kick ass and give you gooseflesh? Ride a train through the Peninsula on an evening when the sunset is busting up stormclouds. The faster version later in the soundtrack is great for Muni bus rides.
4. Lullaby, Dixie Chicks - From the "we were shunned and now we are back" album. Makes me want kids. Even more than I usually do, if that is possible.
5. No Wonder, Barbra Streisand - From my favorite Streisand musical, the thinking-girl's musical, "Yentl." Awful lot of movie stuff on this 'pod...
6. Makambo, Geoffrey Oryema - Bess's goodbye song. I didn't think the iPod would betray me like this. This song was loaded on my laptop the day Bess passed away (it's one of my brother's cds, and I was in Fresno for her cremation). I always think of Girl when this plays...fetching Q-tips, curling up in my lap when I tried to write...how I didn't know how I was going to live without her. And now I do.
7. When The Heartache Is Over, Tina Turner/Vonda Shepard - CHICKS KICK ASS SONG. All about the girl power. Good exercise song.
8. Idaho, Train - I like all of Train's music just for the sound, but this song isn't what I would call a "favorite." Just like it, more or less...
9. Powerless (Say What You Want), Nelly Furtado - The only Nelly F song I like. Think it has to do with the banjos...
10. Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone, Jewel - Guitar brings it on this one, very BLUES/ROCKABILLY. Her lyrics are always a little jacked up, but I like 'em...reminds me of me, lovin' on words 'cause they taste good.
11. Land of 1000 Dances, Wilson Pickett - Really? I need to say WHY this is on my 'pod? You're really gonna ask? Sheesh...
12. Never Change, Bill Conti - Instrumental jazz from the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair." Reminds me of rainy day in Paris, for some reason. And I've never been to Paris.
13. Superman, Barbra Streisand - Idolizing men, girl not good enough, sigh...
14. Orchestra Suite Number 1 in C, Johann Sebastian Bach - Good writin' music, as is all classical.
15. A Heart in New York, Simon & Garfunkel - First brought to my attention by Garth Brooks, this song renewed a love affair with the music of Art and Paul...
16. Here With Me, Dido - Applied to every man I ever loved who didn't love me. That list is long, compared to reciprocated, which is empty.
17. You're Just a Country Boy, Alison Krauss - Soft, slow, delicate, I want a boy like the boy in the song, thanks Miss Krauss, I don't care how poor he is...
18. Peace In Our Time, Eddie Money - Cheesy as hell and one of my very favorites from the 80's. Had the cassette single. Stop snickering.
19. Uninvited, Alanis Morrisette - Delightfully good break-up song.
20. Thank You, Dido - Okay, just me, or do I have too much Dido and Streisand on this 'pod? :)
21. It Must Have Been Love, Roxette - Can't think of this without thinking of the name Cinder-fucking-rella...
22. Closer and Closer Apart, Mary Chapin Carpenter - Favorite country artist of all time, although I would call her closer to folk...deep, simple, like soup on a cold day in nourishment.
23. Why Walk When You Can Fly, Mary Chapin Carpenter - My 'pod likes her as much as I do. ;)
24. Ain't It Heavy, Melissa Etheridge - Used to work out to this song back in the Branson, Missouri days...good pumping iron song. Get it? Heavy? Yeah, yeah...
25. This Hard Land, Bruce Springsteen - OH YEAH. ANGRY BALLAD. LOTSA HARMONICA. THE BOSS. BEAT US SENSELESS WITH THAT GUITAR AND DRUMS, E STREET.
26. Independence Day, Martina McBride - Good strong-woman song--a little violent, but it works.
27. Desperado, The Eagles - From the "Hell Freezes Over" concert album. Yes, I am all in solitude with this song.
28. (Back to Bach's Suite from earlier...see number 14, different movement.)
29. Lonely Avenue, Ray Charles - Swing it, Ray. Somebody pour me a JD...
30. You Sexy Thing, Hot Chocolate - Oh, yeah...ahem, and with that, the list is a wrap! (Blushes...)

;)