Light Bulb Moment

I was able to change two bulbs in a bathroom fixture this morning.  The fixture was in an awkward position, and I had no experience with it.  I trusted that the glass would not fall on my head.

The act gave me such a feeling of accomplishment, I felt invincible for the first time in weeks.

Teacher. There Are Things...

When I have mornings like this, calm with coffee in a balcony garden, my brother's music from a speaker behind me, I am surprised to find this:

I need to trust my happiness when it comes.  I need to trust my sadness when it prevails.  I need to allow myself both to go on.

Simple, no?

Simple = no.

Write on.

Onward

I think the only things that are keeping me rising in the morning during this kind of loneliness are:

-I can't wait to see who I'll become next;
-I'm excited to know the people who will be here once the smoke clears, those who weathered this too, and did it because they too were excited to see me bloom out of it.

Small wonder, the number.

Write on.

Legacy

Ah, writing.  And random notes...

• Tried a new pen a couple of weeks back, called InkJoy.  Not really the joy I was hoping for, but, like a lemming, I bought the super-sized pack because I can't walk to ready supply.  Now I am stuck with temperamental pens that cross-dress between ballpoint and gel.  They don't do either well...
• Read this week that Steve Martin released a book of his tweets.  I used to follow him, but there were one too many tweets that fit the category of my mother's adage of "It must be good--I don't get it."  Still, I thought to myself, in fifty years, would it make for fascinatin' study of our times?  Which lead me to...
• I am continuing to meander through William Least Heat-Moon's "Roads to Quoz:  an American Mosey."  I began the damn thing over two years ago and don't mind if I do linger in it.  This past section is focusing on a wandering through New England via the Midwest (beginning in Columbia, Missouri and ending at the tip of Maine).  Least Heat-Moon is addressing the world through the memory of Jack Kerouac and his famous text that is shortened to "OTR" for the sheer worship of it and its famous form:  a scroll.  Jean-Louis gets about four chapters until I'm in love again too (still have the copy that I bought in Missouri and drove to California with), and then Bill takes a small segue into his love of US 40, a thoroughfare that, one way or another travels from the Atlantic to the Embarcadero in San Francisco.  One man that Bill meets along the way is a US 40 historian and photographer, and working on a book that may or may not see the light of a publisher.  Frank and Bill discuss the financial and emotional costs of being writers, and Bill states, "I told him about years ago when I was struggling along writing my first book, a road narrative of sorts [most likely "Blue Highways"], and how I often imagined the manuscript never finding a publisher and ending up in an attic where somebody would come across it a century later.  A readership of one, but one seemed better than none..."  Frank agrees that he is shooting for the same star, that "readership of [at least] one," and then I am struck as though by a brick...
• Yes, this is a dream world that I operate in.  But the real world does not want me.  The job that I took in January is incurring no income and multiplying expense, which is nice for taxes next year, but worthless to me in terms in paying this year's bills.  Is it really impossible to believe that my "dream world" of writing is the most lucrative thing I can find in this Occupying Age?  What if that Disney ending is the grittiest and the most Wall Street of the collection?  It's like a scene from a movie or tv show I can't remember, where the character states, "Have you noticed that it's always the last place you look?"  Damn it, no; I was too "practical" for forty years to finally do the F-IN THING I WAS MEANT TO DO.  The world's longest realm of denial because that path wasn't supposed to make me...it breaks people.

And that's where I am, practically delusional, hoping the damn writing, the last option, works at some point.  I just have to stop flinching and listening to every other damn expert and take a real chance on it.

Write on.

Dreaming

At some point I know that when I close my eyes at night I'll stop seeing walkways of San Francisco.

At some point I stopped dreaming of Missouri when I came here.

Just waiting.

Quit Screwing Around

Recently I came across a blog post recommended on Twitter about writing.  I read a lot of Twitter posts, blog posts, Facebook links, and Google News excerpts on writing.  I have at least a dozen books on writing, mostly by Natalie Goldberg, but also by the like Annie Dillard and Anne Lammott.  I read a lot about writing.

I belong to a group that admonishes me to shut up and write.  The basis of our meetings is simple--sit down, introduce yourself and your work, and then the organizer tells us to put pen to paper and write for an hour.  I belong to another group that does the same thing, only in the Twitterverse.

Still, I put up walls for myself.

At some point I’ll probably stop handwriting my first drafts of my work, despite the fact that I’m in good company (think Virginia Woolf).  And since I started morning pages in December of 2010, I had been utilizing them to “warm up,” to say whatever I wanted to for three pages before I had to get down to business in a different notebook.  By December of 2011 I was resenting the hell out of morning pages.  I wanted to get down to business, but felt it imperative that I “warm up.”  Did all of my teachers and mentors in writing say to “warm up”?  So I did.

In January I moved to Carlsbad, and my writing time diminished considerably.  Certain members of my household assumed that I would take over house hold chores that no one else wanted to do, which are most of the household chores.  I was presented with a commission-only job, with a start-up, that took a full day’s effort every day to start up.  On top of all of this was a lengthy walking commute to the library, where the internet was more reliable than at home.  Fiction?  Poetry?  Blogs?  Short stories?  Perhaps now would be the perfect time to give up on writing.

Telling me to give up on writing usually produces implosions, however, and then along came this magic blog post.  At that point I was presented with common sense, which made me feel sort of silly for my light years of “warming up” and “practice.”

Here’s the thing:  I think there is still space for practice, although not for me anymore.  I think when you’re a young or new writer, and fragile, practice is better than nothing.  Practice gives you a way to get in the pool without drowning in the deep end.  Practice is a nice easing in, and develops commitment.  But sitting in practice beyond your comfort zone establishment threshold is like have the same meal every day due to fear of cooking or fear of eating (or both) anything different.  The establishment becomes bleak.  You wonder why you eat, er, write, at all.

So here I am, on a Sunday morning, cranking out a three-page rough draft of a blog post.  I try to remain a little disciplined about the whole thing.  Weekday pages are for the novel.  Weekends I hop around--one Saturday with my brother on the dock before fishing I cranked out three pages of nature poetry, and the rest of the weekend entries so far have been blog posts.  Blog entries are moving to once a month now instead of once a week--I want to get better fiction, bolder at fiction, and my internet time is too limited to dwell on so much of a presence on it anyway.  Fiction seems more forgiving than blogs anyway.  If people don’t like what you say in a blog, it’s your message they stop listening to.  If people don’t like what your character says in a novel or a short story, they may say something like, “I knew someone like that once,” but they may give the message a second chance.

And, save for the critics, who don’t necessarily have to be acknowledged, and editors, who can be traded for another editor who has the same vision, there are no trolls commenting on fiction.  With blogs you have to respond to comments, acknowledge them, or you lose readers.  Blogs rule the writer.  Fiction flows through the writer.

Since this shift from “practice” and “warming up” to taking my three pages and cranking out what I publish, there have been all kinds of transformations in my writing:

• I’m better at revision;
• I don’t feel the urge to publish so much or publish immediately;
• I trust my own voice more;
• I possess a hell of a lot less resentment;
• I don’t feel my writing life is a waste;
• I feel in charge of my development.

And one more thing...which will stir the pot, so to speak (but, after all, this is a blog post)...

I have no desire to read one more damn tweet, blog post, book, etc., about how to write and what to do with that writing.  It’s not due to thinking about these posts as bad advice--they are surely helping someone somewhere.  It’s not because I consider myself an expert on the subject, not by any means.  It’s just that, as with any activity, from cooking, to eating, to flying on the trapeze...

Eventually you just have to sit down, shut up, and do it.

Write on.

New Life, Continued

This blog is going to be smatterings for a while...I’m lucky to get to write when I do, and this is the backdoor writing that talks of what I do with my days.

I was thinking this afternoon about prolific authors, authors that have about 60 tons of fiction, poetry, criticism, post-humous journals, etc., etc., etc., and how they got to be that way.  How did Hemingway write so many letters?  How did Woolf produce so many journals?  Lack of social networks, I suppose, and therefore no slavery to the net.  I’m rapidly losing that slavery myself--limited and poor internet access reduces me to broadcasting from a third world country about 70% of the time.  I’m starting to love it.  When I go back to good internet with an instant response time I’m going to resent the hell out of modernity.

I do miss Spotify, though.  Jo iz hongry fo new music, yo.

The food situation got a little better this week--UPS finally got their head out of their...ahem, UPS finally got their act together and delivered a care package from a friend in San Francisco.  The package contained:

• Two cases of instant soup;
• Three cases of different crackers spread with cheeses and peanut butter in sandwich form;
• Two boxes of biscotti;
• Three bags of cat treats (for Bob, bless her);
• A pack of gum with two different flavors in it (the gum manufacturer’s current ad features a tiger in a toe trap snarling, “Do I really need to holler?”);
• A Costco sized-box of granola bars;
• A box of Fiber One bars (I have Crohn’s, but her heart’s in the right place);
• A shrink-wrapped collection of six boxes of raisins;
• Three MRE-style packets of tuna salad;
• One round tin of chicken salad.

Considering the fact that my family will eat about half of that, I’m probably looking at that lasting about a week, but that’s a week of good eating.

Good eating is relative, people.  Yes, I used to eat better stuff than that in San Francisco, but at this point it’s the alternative to starving.  Beggars, stay away from choosers.

*****

One more note and I’ll shut up...

I have found nothing more significant here than watch pelicans fish.  Heap big SPLASH!, then majestic tucking of the beak, then tilt up and GULP, and then, bye now, I’m off to find another unlucky fish to kick the butt and take away the birthday of.

Write on.

New Life

Two weeks in, and I've had time to start working on a routine.  Here's what I do in the new world:

• Monday and Wednesday mornings I ride with the sis-in-love to the library, where she volunteers.  I work on as much on-line writing as possible (you'll see why in a moment) and browse books;
• Tuesdays and Thursdays I walk to the library, two and a half miles, a mile of that without sidewalks.  I've written about that elsewhere;
• Wi-fi and cell phone service in this area are about par with Northwest Ohio.  I cannot get cell phone service in the Cove save for about an 18-inch square on my bed (which I am threatening to mark off with police chalk).  If I need to have a long conversation, I save it for when I'm at the library, and I call them outside in the picnic area.  My brother has wi-fi, but it isn't compatible with my Apple products, so if I want to get on-line in the apartment I have to use my 1 GB HP netbook and get on when my sis-in-love isn't on, which is rare;
• You'd think this reduced access would make me restless.  Not so much...I like not having the pressure of selling myself on-line 24/7.  It only irritates the crap out of me when I'm trying to do my new job, or wanting to listen to something on Spotify;
• Fridays I stay home and do laundry, vacuum Bob the Cat fuzz out of rugs and furniture, take out the recycling and trash, clean the stove, and generally revamp the world I live in.  I also do the dishes daily and keep my bathroom clean;
• Food.

Um, that last one requires a bit of narrative.  Bear with me--it's got a hopeful ending.

My brother and sis-in-love have created a distribution of the bills and groceries so that she could do go this lengthy amount of time without working.  (I should mention here that S does volunteer--Mondays and Wednesdays at the library, Tuesdays and Thursdays with the City of Carlsbad, and Fridays at the Senior Center.  This is commendable, but she doesn't job hunt much.  After being here two weeks I can almost see why if she limits herself to Carlsbad, but there are jobs in San Diego, many of which I have sent out feelers on.)  This distribution of bills is a compromise that puts the majority of the weight on my brother.  Keep in mind that S owns a property in Fresno and doesn't rent it out (although they are looking into that option).

This is a wary subject for me because technically they didn't have to take me in.  My brother offered, though, and the other option was to discontinue existence, so I can't say that this is such a bad option.  However, I don't know if everyone involved was onboard with the solution when it was offered.  Needless to say, when you're suicidal you don't want to hear how much you are costing one member of the party.  There were no outright statements--just how expensive everything is.  I starved myself for about four days trying to avoid the lectures, and then found out that regardless of how little I ate it was still too much.  There is nothing worse than being hungry, depressed, and a burden.

A friend from San Francisco sent me a care package, and she can't much afford it.  Someday, when I have more money than a five dollar bill in my wallet, I'll find a way to repay her.  But something else happened after those four days--something shifted in me.  The mace-faced girl who used to work in Oakland kicked in and sat back and watched the dynamic.  For you see, S does this penny-pinching with my brother, too. And while I don't want to interfere with their dynamic, I know that I have to find a way to let the miser-umbrella wash away.  So I'm eating again.  And no, I'm not stuffing myself to be obstinate.  I'm just eating enough to survive.  

Which is only what I deserve.

Fuel.  To write on.

The Reason I (Am) Here

(Yes, this lovely little ditty is showing up at 5 am.  I wake up at weird hours and use the time to write.  The fun side of being a creative.)

Present and future tense.  I've snatched at it lately, like music.  I am here.  I have a reason to be here.  When I get married.  It's shadings like this that make a girl hopeful.

I'm working on my novel more and more right now; with the holidays the job search and inquiries can pretty much be wrapped up in 90 minutes a day and then I sit down and work on being productive, in any sense possible.  I blog about customer service finds and frustrations.  I read.  I write on what I read.  And then I work on the novel.

My character in the novel is a woman with a lot of similarities to me.  She's a baseball fan.  She works in an industrial setting.  She suffers a workplace injury.  She spends about 60 percent of her free time alone, and, in the off-season, 100 percent of her free time alone.  (To be fair, she has differences from me as well.  She doesn't think women should play professional baseball.  She's thin.  She's of Irish descent.  She has no siblings.  She's not a writer and she doesn't read fiction.)

The one aspect of her that is easiest to write is her solitude.  My protagonist is the definition of "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"  For some odd reason, I always think of Isak Dinesen's accounts of Africa when I think of that phrase..."will Africa remember me?"  Was I really here?  At several points in the novel the protagonist does the incredible--she has batting practice with the San Francisco Giants before each of their home games, for FOUR YEARS.  As they say on the social networks these days, "Pictures or it didn't really happen."  But she agreed not to take pictures.  She agreed not to tell anyone.  And her love for the men she plays with is strong enough that when another character asks, "How am I supposed to believe that?  Why would I believe that?" her answer is, "Then don't."  Alone, sitting on everyone else's more credible and documented side of the world, more people have doubted her, and contributed to her self-doubt, than these 25 men in a batting practice that she can't prove.  They not only believe her life but they want to be part of it.  Her loyalties lie with those who think she exists, and who acknowledge her existence.

I often wonder if I exist, living as solitary as I do.  Social networking responses to my work often shock me not for their content but for their appearance.  I was speaking with a friend yesterday about this, and he was patient and kind enough to explain why it was so rare to connect with others on social networks, and what other factors are involved when the tree falls.  He didn't lecture, he didn't instruct, he just posed considerations.  There's a small chance I'm heard.  There's a minute or no chance that I'm acknowledged, and I'm looking in the wrong place for that acknowledgment.  It was good to have that kind of weighing in, and then go to writing group afterword, where others were grateful that I had hosted the group and made them comfortable.  I could see my contribution to the world reflected back for an afternoon.  There IS a reason that I AM here.

Present tense.

I hear leaves rustling in the forest.  :)

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner (Not Even Herself)

Or, if you prefer continuity, "The Knot, Part Three."

I am torn by two similar but opposing views.  Are we more deterred by the world around us?  Or more deterred by the people who say we can't change the world around us and tell us to live in the parameters of what we see?

In a similar post this morning on Notes From Sea Level, I mentioned how refreshing it was to spend time with authors and journalists at the Bay Area literary festival Litquake.  I found it refreshing because these artists were optimistic in the face of the world, innovative in the face of the world, instead of just showing readers and audiences how shitty the world is in new ways.  For me, it was the difference between being stuck in a cave with a candle and matches and giving them a try vs. being stuck in a cave with candle and matches and being told you don't have enough oxygen for the flame.  You'd have to test it, I suppose.  You'd have to take the risk.

It's easy to believe in the lack of oxygen.  My father did.  My mother kept lighting candles.

My father was considered to be the "smart" one, by the way, and my mother the compassionate one.

Two nights a week I supply other writers with candles and matches and tell them that while I don't know the way out either, I'm happy to keep lighting candles with them.  Writing on this inspiration that I received this week so gratefully, I thought about my recent relations with the Internet, our separation, our supposedly healthy distance.  Did my mother develop a healthy distance from the gardens when she was frustrated?  Not really.  Sure, to keep with the metaphor, there is a burning of the candle at both ends I suppose, but she would have been lost without her "babies," as she called the little shoots pushing out of the ground.  Her biggest mental deterioration was when she could no longer walk out to the gardens.  The Internet, like her gardens, is my cave, and the damn naysayers are saying you'll never get out with a candle and matches.

I believed them until Litquake, and on Friday with my thoughts on the ineptitude of UPS.  I spread my own version of "There's no oxygen, so get used to it" on the Internet.  I fed off of the fact that others had the same problem.  MORE.  BAD.  NEWS.  Except this time, I contributed.  No candles.  Sitting in the dark, waiting for proof that there is oxygen, when, well, I'm breathing.  Need oxygen for that, I would think.

I could perpetuate the bad news, because that's what the world is addicted to, that's what people would read, and since I can't seem to learn that, then people insist on telling me.  But I'm thinking it would be SO MUCH HEALTHIER for me (and maybe the world at large?) to write something that would uplift me, in the face of the world.  Using my smarts to find a compassionate way out of here.  I can't change the cave, I don't know where the exit is, but I can refuse to believe that I can't say something hopeful myself, even if optimism isn't "smart."  That's the best way for me to enjoy the cave exploration, and maybe give others light as well.

Write on.

That'll Learn Ya

Talked back to the Internet tonight.  Feel like a relapsed drunk.  Feel like a wild bird who's beat itself to death in a cage, missing feathers, covered in bruises.

Argh.

Just listen, Jo.  Just listen.

That'll be easy tomorrow...going out exploring.  Stow the phone, watch the world.

Write on.

The Knot, Part Two

Feeling about ten times better about my life and my writing these days.  I'm adding a very simple and very   difficult lesson to every session with my ex, the Internet, and it seems to be working.  Here's the process:

• Don't avoid the Internet, but don't court it, either.  Which means I am spending a LOT less time with it
• When I do meet with Internet, I just listen.  All good therapy starts with listening.  I don't talk back much
• When I do meet with Internet, I listen without experiencing everything as a personal insult or a reason for me to change.  I just listen, without changing my stripes every fourteen feet and without getting defensive
• Internet just IS

And then we've got what I do instead:

• I took a radical new approach with my resume, and got an interview
• I am just throwing myself into dates with Novel, who seems far less judgmental than Internet
• I don't spend every waking minute with Novel, so that when Novel and I part ways we can say it was a good experience
• I read books SO.  MUCH.  BETTER.  I just sit there and relish them, swim in them, until my fingers get all pruney with someone else's poetry and stories
• I have reduced my complaining by half.  I'll never eliminate it--I catch myself complaining in my head, and then realize how much I sound like Andy Rooney after a while, and it's not my intention to sound like him

Yes, the kids (blogs) may suffer at first from my amicable break-up with Internet, and friends may forget me, but God, did you see that turn of phrase in the second-to-last sentence of my third chapter of Novel?  Did you catch that cool breeze this morning in the Park?  Did you hear the Blue Angels rock the Casbah on Thursday while you chewed on a coffee-soaked mint leaf from a little place by the ballpark?

I did.  God, it was fun.  And Internet seems to be healing just fine after our divorce.

Write on.

Barriers

I'm overcoming two challenges today:

• The writing group I'm leading tonight at 6:30 pm is held about three blocks from the Mission office of the SFPD. If yesterday's protests in that area repeat, I may have a story tomorrow of "you should see the other guy." Or maybe I won't have a story tomorrow. Depends on whether I get bailed out or shot. (Seriously, this is the part of San Francisco I loathe and despise.)
• I have to write a sex scene.

Strangely, after spending three years working in Oakland, the thing I'm most scared of on that list is writing the sex scene.

Write on.

A Lake House

I'm not quite sure who exactly still reads this blog, which probably makes it the safest thing on the planet to write in. I sit here looking at my dashboard with Blogger, and I realize that since I haven't been here since January it's probably a great place to play with writing, experiment, write with the truest voice I can without trying to impress, and then take that practice and write "better" with the blogs that may be more promoted.

Since I have been writing in other blogs for some time now, I don't feel guilty for neglecting this one. This one is like what relatives of mine used to own in lake houses--those summer places that you button up in the fall with boards and dropcloths and other protective measures and that you open up, usually just before or on the first big three-day holiday weekend of the spring, like Memorial Day. I wander into this one now, take the boards off the windows, shake out and fold up the dropcloths, and head, as E.B. White would write, "once more to the lake."

It's been a strange day, which it normally is when I am hormonal. I tend to have strange sleeping schedules, I tend to eat the strangest things, I'm wired for sound but too exhausted to execute, and I tend to panic easily. All I had planned for today were two things: read 100 pages of David Mitchell's "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet," and visit Hayes Valley to taste ice cream. I never got to Hayes Valley, and I kept falling asleep during the novel. The sun wouldn't stay out, the Giants were offering up Jonathan Sanchez, and my downstairs neighbors were noisy. There were a million excuses not to do what I planned. At 3:30 I finally gave up, broke out all of the tools I should have for the reading, forgave myself for not getting down to Hayes Valley, and made my reading goal with the help of coffee and reading glasses. I turned on the fan in the living room for white noise. There's still time for Hayes Valley, another day.

When I finished the reading goal, I wandered the apartment, restless. What to do now? Pick up the pen and try to write something? The journal didn't yield much--about five ruled lines. I wandered, paced, again. I reached for a well-read, well-worn copy of a book that was written by a teacher of mine, even though we have only met once: "Long Quiet Highway" by Natalie Goldberg. Everything spinning in me settled in a series of ever-slowing circles until I was still. I could think. I had to find it in another voice, but find it I did. The sunset filled the lake house windows and I put on a jacket and went to find food to prepare for dinner. Pasta, sauce, and wine later, I am still calm, the lake house ready for me to spend a summer here, and write anything I damn well want to, without fear of repercussion or judgment.

And now, for a swim. Write on, dear writer.

A Wonderful Life

Last night I wrote a post on the impact of three teachers on me...and when I woke up this morning the first thing through my head was the line, "You see, George, you've had a wonderful life," from the Capra film. That line scared the shit out of me--I think the last time I could use it would have been 2002, and even then it was during my mother's illness. Once she died, my opinion mattered little in how my father, brother, and I would proceed in terms of legally and ceremoniously.

2002. Imagine being expendable for 9 years.

Read on, dear reader.

Sitting With Fear

Ever feel really stupid for being afraid, even while you're still afraid?

That's where I am this evening.

Two things are about to happen: the Johannes Mehserle trial is about to be over in Los Angeles and I'm about to have yet another summer of being extremely short-staffed at work. One way or another, a bone's gonna get broken--either because I have to work on the other side of the world, or because I have to work without enough help.

The *only* upside to this is that usually during times like this I lose an incredible amount of weight. Not in a good way--I either end up not getting to eat, or I lose whatever I eat within the hour of eating it and then stumble around dehydrated.

Ah, yes, stumbling. That's the part where I broke something last year.

The problem here is that I'm supposed to be smart enough to do this without completely killing myself and here I am again, unable to see forest for trees and feeling really dumb about the whole thing.

So here's my little prayer to God or the muses or whomever is listening--please make this be worse in my mind. Please don't let it come true. And if it has to come true, please let some good come from it...or find some way to make it end so that I don't have to keep doing it.

And what I've been reading to try to settle my nerves:

• The poetry of Billy Collins
• Tao Te Ching
• Natalie Goldberg
• And listening to anything calming I can find on my iPod

Just breathe, dear reader.