POP-u-lerr, Think of It As Personality Dialysis

Yeah.  I love musicals.

*****

Every Monday and Tuesday night, in some cafe in the City, me and a few of my closest fellow writers sit ourselves down, introduce ourselves, and then shut up for an hour and put our thoughts on paper.  We sit mere feet from the tracks of the N Judah line, on opposite ends of it, clanging bells and espresso machines and the chef's choice of either jazz tunes or KFOG visions peppering our gumbo of thoughts.  I am the one calling time so that the pens can fly and the keyboards click.  I'm wired.  I'm sitting with a band of writers and my last corporate mentor sits at the back of my brain and gives me a stern stare:  "Show me your discipline, your focus."

I can't write a word.

Then I tell myself, "Free up, we'll keep it in the journal.  You don't have to publish this one."  And I don't publish yet another one.  I don't share yet another set of words with the universe, either because I know it's not intelligent enough to warrant comments, or because the kind of comments it would generate would stump me.  Or, worse, I would assault someone just by publishing the piece.

So my writing comes out in small, furious, tentative slivers, barely a wisp of smoke from where I'm standing.

I'm sitting waist deep in a river of writers and dying of fear of my own shadow.  The Tea Party can publish treatises that would make Dick Cheney sing the Hallelujah chorus, but I'm afraid to ruffle feathers or lose the last of a few fragile friendships.  I can't seem to comprehend a friend supporting me regardless of my opinion, and yet others who I haven't seen in twenty years could not only express a differing opinion but tell me that as a writer I shouldn't have missed on something so obvious, and I embrace their opinion.  I don't consider any of my ideas mature enough to present, even when I've read all over the board on the subject matter and have written the resolve out in my mind.  When no one else has presented my side of the argument, I see it as a miss on my part, not innovation.  Hmm...if no one's invented the light bulb, it's because there's something wrong with wanting artificial light, right?

Then I explode with my opinion.  Case in point, my post on another blog about the BART protests.

I opened up that post with fair warning--I was not going to respond to comments on that post.  I was angry at two aspects of the world when I wrote that:  a) I couldn't side with the sloppy, ineffective and reckless approach of the protesters; and b) I am probably the most inarticulate person on Earth.  I love words, nuance, and a slew of other inconvenient aspects of literature so damn much that they stop me from being a good, and intelligent writer.

Not to say I can't learn.  I apparently do not know how.

On a daily basis I come to the typewriter angry, and entirely at my own responsibility.  I hold myself back until I explode, when I should be writing, should be falling, should be placing my foot squarely in my mouth, if for no other purpose than to learn.  I need to learn that making mistakes and writing those mistakes gives me permission to get it right next time.

And by "right" I mean in my own voice.  Not closer to the trend.  Closer instead to authentic for me, and closer to what my perception is.  If I don't trust the voice of my perception, then I am no better than those reviewers on Amazon and Yelp who are paid $5 a review to express praise they don't truly believe.  I'm preparing a recipe in which I hate the smell of the primary ingredient.  That could generate enough creative anger to last a (albeit shortened by stress) lifetime.

I realize I don't have to tear the door down with a battering ram.  While my goal is not to be popular or safe in my approach, it's also not to shock readers just for the sake of shocking them.  I'm no Madonna or Lady Gaga.

I have to write to discover.  No matter how unpleasant the outcome is.

Lastly, and probably the most difficult part to learn, is what to do about the comments, or lack of them.  I obviously have some unnatural phobia of apathy and criticism.  I often want an honest discussion and end up getting silence, total and yet vague agreement, or incredulous disbelief that I could be so wrong. My growth opportunity is in embracing comments for whatever form they come in, even if the trolls, strike, or if the post generates no commentary at all.  I need to strike boldly forward and have a self-discussion or self-critique ready, but not a self-censorship.  I doubt that my readership will grow beyond what it is now, but just in case my self-censorship and consequential outbursts are what is limiting my readership, I have to make changes.

And I have to ask myself:  do I want to be the resident expert, or do I want to be on a quest?

God, I love quests.

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...

Back to the Paper...

I've been working in some rather unorthodox circumstances for the last week, as though I am holding my breath or hurrying through my writing so that I could go do something else.

Today is all about the writing.

I get to stay home, pull the old typing desk out of the corner and place it where I can look out the window, and work my way through all kinds of projects, that before San Diego, I was keeping perfect pace with. I have quite the list.

And my heart is finally calm, with no rush or flutter.

Write on.

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.

Patterns In the Chaos? Possible?

God, I hope so.

Right now, my life is run by a collection of people. This collection of people doesn't talk to each other much, even though they all belong to the same organization, so it's sort of like having an out-of-synch Greek chorus, all yelling their own lyrics, in their own time.

I'm not really a manager. I'm managed. Time management is no longer possible. And I'm imploding.

Which means I'm probably about less than a week from a monumentally dumb decision. I'm already making small ones, just to show that I still can decide something, that I'm still in charge of something. I make dumb decisions about my health, my work, my limits...and the next step that usually happens is that I do something really dumb, like sleep with the wrong person, buy an item I can't afford and don't need, or...

Break a bone.

By the way, the number of people in my Greek chorus is 23. All with their own agenda. And they outnumber the amount of people in my support system. By quite a large count.

Time to decide what's important and tell the Greek chorus to go smoke a muse. And less of what's important and more of WHO is.

Like me. Before I lose me.

NJS and QAL

It's February 1st, which brings reflection every year.

Queen Anne's Lace, Mom...trying to stay away from wild carrots.

Fruitvale. Read Instructions Before Panicking.

Dear reader,

In case you don't live in the Bay Area, please type the word BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in a Google News search and skim what's happening in the last couple of weeks. I'll wait while you take a look.

Now, know this.

I take one of the lines that goes through Fruitvale and stops at another Oakland station going to and coming from work. I go back to work on Monday. As you can see from tonight's news, you know that at some point I run a pretty big risk.

This post isn't meant as alarmist. I just want to say a couple of things, just in case something happens that I can't get out of:

• I loved my family.
• I loved my friends.
• I loved rhubarb, kayaks, thick soups and dark chocolate, and anything Springsteen.
• I wish you all well.

NOW, we can go on living our lives and not live in fear, right?

Oh, and did I mention that I have a guardian angel and her name is Nancy and SHE KICKS CELESTIAL ASS?

Good.

:)

Warts and All

Woke up this morning at six a.m. (don't scowl--that's two hours sleeping in for me) and finished the latest Netflix (a reunion with the movie "San Francisco" with Clark Gable), downloaded the latest podcasts, and then gathered up the laundry, dressed and walked out into the warm sunshine. I dropped off the laundry and waited for the Number 6. Two 6's passed us up--they headed up the hill fully operational and came down the hill past us with "GARAGE" on the marquee. Knowing Muni you have to wonder if they just slapped that up there to avoid passengers and get back, but I left it alone--wait for the third.

Once it came I plugged in DJ Shadow and coyly watched a handsome guy trying to figure me out in the seat on my left. (Sometimes you're attracted but not enough to ask for the date, make sense?) I got off at Kate's Kitchen, non-chalantly seated myself at a table for two, ordered juice and cheese/onion biscuits and sausage gravy and read the Kindle. Peace. After breakfast I thought I might walk to the trolley stop on Market and go downtown, but everyone was heading that way for the Prop 8 protests, so I camped at Caffe Trieste and caught up on the handwritten work. Still peace. Like an a-freight-train-probably-won't-stop-this-contentment kind of peace.

At noon I walked to Church Street Station and headed to West Portal for therapy, and then, after the appointment stopped for ice cream at Shaw's.

Enter freight train.

Usually when the peace starts peeling away is when I have worked my ass off all week and listened to everyone else whining at work and worked for my employees because that's this company's mentality (inmates running the asylum), and then I come into the weekend, indulge in myself, and right in the middle of the rare indulgence the City wants me to bleed even more from the turnip. Example: worked ass off all week taking care of everyone else, run errands and work on psyche with doctor, and then treat myself to a cone and have about two bites in my mouth out on the sidewalk when this happens:

"Can you spare a dollar?"

Chrissakes. Obviously the message is that I can--nobody stops into a mom-and-pop business in the City and pays for a three dollar and fifty-cent cone with a debit card. And I was the one balls-y enough to buy a cone and eat in front of everyone on the sidewalk in the sunshine, so I am fair game, right? The attitude of panhandlers in the City is stand in front of a business or ATM and ask for cash. Who in their right mind will turn you down?

But that's where Jo shamefully turns into a Republican, and the sky that was full of peace and sunshine darkens a little and Jo grits out of her cold-sensitive teeth, "No, I can't," because she WORKED HARD ALL DAMN WEEK FOR NEARLY 70 HOURS TO GET PAID FOR FORTY OF THEM AND THIS JACKASS IS ASKING FOR A FREE RIDE. I CAN'T EVEN ENJOY AN ICE CREAM CONE OUTDOORS WITHOUT HAVING TO BRING ENOUGH FOR THE WHOLE CLASS.

The panhandler passes and I find something to please my eye before the ice cream turns to poison in my mouth. Right about that time a guy walks up to where I'm standing, taps on a pack of cigarettes, and lights up.

WHAT THE FU...

Panhandler to smoker finding the only space on the sidewalk where someone is eating to smoke, AND he picks upwind. Full inhale of Marlboro, I get. Not knocking the habit, I'm not. BUT HONEST TO GOD, DO YOU HAVE TO COME TO ME, STAND TWO FEET FROM ME, ACKNOWLEDGE ME, AND SMOKE WHILE I EAT? FIFTY PLACES YOU COULD HAVE STOOD WHERE NO ONE IS STANDING, AND YOU WANT TO SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH ME OF ALL PEOPLE?

Anyone want to stand on the other side of me and talk on their cell phone?

I look up in the sky, as if to ask the question of all pessimists, and remember what I have in my hand. I have a mexican chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone. It is not in fact poison and it can't in fact be taken away from me unless I let it. I remember the glow I felt on the bus with the handsome guy and the City watching me out of the corner of their eyes. I remember the better parts of the City. I walk down the sidewalk a ways and stand in shade and feel cooler and calmer.

This City is wonderful. But a relationship with it is hard work. Worth it, yes, but hard work.

And I completely understand if you think me un-Christian for not giving the panhandler a dollar. That won't change. I'm okay with heading to hell for that.

Never Blend In, Part 2

But where's part 1, you ask. That was yesterday, under a different name.

:)

The therapist wants me to be more "datable," and since you can't be datable in Keens (the shoes on the left, above), I decided to find some winter dress shoes that were date-rated. I met a friend for coffee this morning after breakfast downtown, and thought that I might give it a shot at a couple of the discount shoe places around Union Square. Shoe Pavilion was first--I thought that since they were going out of business they might have prices I can't pass up--but they were down to two styles and that was it. So I walked around the cable car turn around and headed for DSW on Powell.

Shoe-shopping is NO treat for me. I have a good foundation (aka large feet), and boot shopping is worse because I have a continued good foundation (aka muscular calves). I don't know who designs most boots, but they seemed to be constructed for women with no calves at all. I know, I could have looked for ankle-cut boots, but if that's the alternative I figure I might as well just buy shoes, and if I buy shoes I end up buying something comfortable and borderline lesbian like Danskos. (FANTASTICALLY comfortable, but sexy women and Oprah don't push them. And, they are designed here in SF.) On top of all of this hindrance I have criteria for all my shoes--no synthetic leather uppers because when my feet sweat they stink in the worst way, no stilettos (I have a pretty poor sense of balance to start with, so why entertain a broken ankle?), and no pointed toes.

Take all of THAT and try to make it happen, I tell you.

So I walked the aisles of Nine West and Kenneth Cole and Liz Claiborne at DSW and became more and more discouraged. When I did find a couple pairs that were size AHEM and tried them on, I discovered you can't "suck in" a calf muscle like you can suck in a stomach to try on jeans. It was heart-breaking. Feeling as though I would never get the chance to stop traffic, I put the pairs up and tried the last-ditch effort...the clearance in the basement.

I have purchased most of my shoes clearance at DSW, and I don't know why I don't start there. I guess it's the aversion that I remotely connect to garage sales (I had WAY too many garage sale clothes growing up), and the belief that if I pay full price for shoes somehow I will be even more beautiful. (Yep, definitely warped.) When I went down there this time there were all kinds of boots, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM SYNTHETIC MATERIALS.

The boots you see in the picture, though, are leather with rubber soles. (By the way, you can't have wooden or leather soles in this City and stay upright for long; the grade of the street is too steep and there is too much rain this time of year.) They are one size up from AHEM, but that's okay because then I can wear warm socks, even my mismatched ones! (Only my pediatrist knows for sure.) They were $37 cheaper than the ones upstairs, and the calf-cut is slouchy, deliciously slouchy. The clerk was amazed at the price and wanted a pair for herself. "What size are these?" she gushed.

Ahem.

But we gushed over them together, the svelt salesgirl and the former farmgirl whose last pair of boots were all rubber and knee-high and covered with cow shit. I asked her for a bag for my current shoes and changed into these to break them in. Yes, I'm in pain. I don't wear heels except to funerals and job interviews and this new "girlishness" will take some getting used to. But I felt more like a woman...nay, more like a tricked up racehorse who knows she's gonna win today because the saddle is NOT "manmade synthetic material."

When I was in community college for university prep, a friend of mine named Heidi and I were out in the parking lot of the college once killing a few minutes before biology class, and we were picking out our favorite cars if we had all the cash in the world. I looked around, contemplating, and she said, "Wait, don't tell me," and pointed to a pick-up truck. Back then I used to pride myself on being outdoorsy and plainspoken and I was flattered by her guess.

But here, at this age, the rugged look no longer works--it DOES make men forget that I am a woman. The Timbuk2 bags, God bless 'em, the Keens, the zip-off cargo pants--all of these are great choices for Angel Island but none of them reveal the girl who wants daffodils and Queen Anne's Lace and pearls and poetry on a daily basis. I suppose by definition this would be me trying to blend in, but I look at the QAL side of it, the Nancy Schlosser side of it, as revealing more of one side of me than the other for a change, the part of me that is a smart (all leather upper, thank you), sexy (wedge heel, rowrrr), beautiful (supple folds at the calf) WOMAN. It feels wonderful.

And yes, men do notice. ;) And yes, I am still plainspoken.

Sight Unseen, or, Hamlet's Nutshell

Yeah, I'm playing with words again.

Good day in Salinas...I didn't have to work the counter, or, I should say, I went into the situation hellbent on not working the counter/showroom and therefore avoided it.

Scheduled to work tomorrow because it's the only day that I can catch up (I'm not allowed keys to the building, despite saving it on numerous occasions) with the manager there, and therefore have to cancel therapy. The canceling of therapy makes me EXTREMELY ANGRY. I already have losers for employees and then have to pay even more through the nose by doing their work for them after a 60-70 hour workweek by having to come in on a Saturday.

Getting tired of "making the effort." I'm getting angry and not caring who I show it to, either. (Skipping therapy, therefore, is a ROTTEN sacrifice to make.) This evening on the way home from Salinas I stopped in Palo Alto for dinner at NOLA's and was behind a line of stopped cars and got rubbed by a person who passed me to do a U-turn in an intersection and made contact with my car when she backed up to correct. "I'm so sorry...you were in my blind spot." Which blind spot was that? The one she passed to make the U-turn? Or the car-length one behind her when she had to use the full width of the street to take a parking space that should be taken travelling in the opposite direction? Sadly, yours truly unleashed on her, referring to colorful synonyms for bodily fluids, functions, and Fathers in Heaven.

I have become an animal.

OVER A CAR THAT IS NOT EVEN MINE.

I went to dinner and didn't taste it, and then went back to Sunnyvale to see the old neighborhood...the Starbucks where I used to write on Washington and Mary, the route along Washington where I used to run...the house with the fancy new windows with stuffed animals in them, ivy ground cover, the Catholic school. Another meltdown. These are getting tiresome. I rip the heads off of strangers like gingerbread men and my nutshell of infinite space is carpeted with a work uniform and my normal routine now is to sit or hide somewhere and sob like the youngest daughter in the movie "The Patriot." I'm absolutely positive that this process is no fun to read, either.

Channeling my mother...

This has to get better...

Right, Mom?

Queen Anne's Lace?

Mom?

The Clearest Air Dwells Out Over the Cliff In The Mist

Spent some time reading Springsteen's blogroll on his website this weekend. Just getting a feel for how to breathe life into this page and give my readers something fresh.

A couple of things that struck me in odd moments during the last 24 hours...

1. Had a dream last night that I killed two mice in my mother's presence in her kitchen, and then apologized. I killed them with the hot dog roasting sticks that we always kept in the basement stairwell just off the kitchen, and then placed them outside in a puddle to drown. Then I apologized to my mother for the person I had become.
2. Coming out of an addiction, regardless of the drug (in this case, bad men), sheds moments of raucous clarity. I have moments where everything makes sense for about 3 minutes. I'm hoping that my stamina builds to where everything makes sense for about 6 minutes. And so on.
3. I was at my desk for a moment this afternoon, and found that I was remembering an Ohio road and a street in San Francisco as if they felt and looked the same.

Okay, that's more than a couple. But sometimes you need three.

Sleep well, dear reader. I'll make the mice into pets tonight.

Aww, See? AAAALLLLL Better...

God bless the fine folks at Amazon.

Kindle is now working fine AND I found another hidden menu screen in the bargain. Wild carrots to Queen Anne's Lace in 4 seconds flat.

Turns out my Kindle has the same "quirk" that my iPod does. Strangely, since day one, ye olde Nano can't be recognized for a laptop sync unless I completely reboot it before hooking it up to the USB cable. The Kindle needed to be completely rebooted in order to recognize my stuff that I downloaded after hooking it up to the USB cable one time.

So it's kind of like having two kids with the same food allergies. :)

Or, the frickin' HP laptop is a pain in the ass to everything it touches.

Easy, Jo...QAL, QAL....