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.  :)

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.

Multiples, Briefly

Another short post this morning...as soon as I can sneak breakfast in after my roommate leaves, I have miles to go and promises to keep. Today is a TWO writing group day--I am trying out a new one in the Mission, and I'm hosting my first solo event in the Richmond tonight. This means I get to eat out in some pretty disparate locales today and that I'm going to be out among the people for a majority of my day, instead of hiding in the apartment until I make an appearance. I've attacked my morning pages, my career change blog, and now this...after this venture I'm checking e-mail and fueling up and hitting the road.

I'm pretty much in love.

Yesterday was a damn hard day. I had slept about three and a half, maybe four hours the night before because I was so incredibly revved up by the opportunity to lead two (three if you count my subbing gig on Wednesdays) writing groups that I couldn't stay prone. I was exhausted by the time I got to writing group last night, and, to add insult to injury, the backroom that we normally utilize for the meeting was crammed full of people and I couldn't find a book that should have been easily found in green San Francisco. I didn't want to do group last night. Where we gonna put 'em? I had forgotten the cardinal rule of cafes in San Francisco: despite the presence of internet, people do turn over. By some strange and yet predictable miracle, the place cleared out and everyone showed up (save, of course, for the guy who has me host instead of him). And I felt like I could fly.

It NEVER fails. I could walk in with a flesh wound and the process of attending group would make the whole world Willy Wonka-ed again.

Write on.

Men

Today, of course, was Father's Day. Since my relationship with my father is far from great and I am currently in the process of getting over yet another unhealthy relationship, I spent much of today thinking and writing about men.

You would think that with my overall experience with men (with the exception of a few good male friends) that I would be one of those ball-busting men-haters by now, but that's far from it. I am beginning to think that it's men (on average) who hate me. I wish I knew why. I can tell you why I bored the shit out of my father, and how that may of contributed, but that doesn't clear up the picture completely. And I grow tired of blaming parents for my relationships now--God knows I have no room to talk since God won't trust me with a family, and they didn't really have a chance to learn how to do it better (I think they were just struggling to be as good as their parents. In the case of my mother she was a vast improvement, and in the case of my father I have to give him a gold star just for staying alive past my twenties).

Still, I struggle with men. It probably won't get easier the older I get, but I'm determined to stop making it so hard on me.

Tonight I heard from a friend that I haven't talked to on the phone in nearly five years, and his gift was such that I felt valued without feeling used. He's not married (yeah, I know--hard for me to imagine too), and we talked so easily and freely about books and movies and--wait for it--agriculture. I started out the morning childishly angry that I had to celebrate my father and ended it with a renewed appreciation for why I love men--their strength, their humor, the funny, awkward way that they love you. I remembered their gifts.

And maybe, just maybe, dear reader, they don't hate me after all.

Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part the First - How to Care For a Self With No Self

Today in my part of the City it was foggy, like a rainy-day gift in the Midwest. So I took the day to take care of my ego:

• Writing, four and a half pages.
• Reading, one hundred and sixty pages.
• Importing music, 700 songs from CD to MP3 format.

And then I painted my toenails like a girl and relaxed in lamplight.

This is what I do when I'm not in love.

Coming Clean

Today is another Shut Up and Write Marathon...I haven't attended one of these in a while, and I can tell that my body feels strange to be back. My mind doesn't know what to do with all that paper, for starters--"what? You want to focus on yourself for a bit? How the hell does that work?"--and then there is the need to write the first draft long-hand, which means that the hand gets tired. The sun is out but it's freezing cold out there--my mother's voice is at the back of my head demanding to know why I don't go outside and play anyway, because if you want cold Lord knows there are days in the Midwest where you spit and it sounds like you dropped your car keys.

So get out there.

F, no.

I'm too old for a lecture, Mom.

And yet I'm not. Over the last year I have made three monumental mistakes because I thought I deserved to make them in order to "feel good," which is sort of roughly on par with justifying smoking by saying you're stressed out by your mother's cancer. It doesn't make sense and makes perfect sense. The other night I came clean to a friend, ready, braced, for the lecture. Her response, "You aren't evil." YES, I AM. "Nope." As though what I had done was, well, human. (And I would repeat it here, but I'm still not sold on the part that I'm not evil. So saying it makes me a bit nauseous. I am my own crazy aunt at the family gathering.)

The lecture I got wasn't to stop, by the way--telling me to stop any kind of behavior is probably the least effective mode of getting me to stop. The lecture I got was to start worshipping myself, which is completely opposite from my normal behavior. About a month ago my boss gave me the assignment to complete a self-evaluation and then warned me not to get my feelings hurt when he got a hold of it and gave it back to me for not being harsh enough. I gave him an even, steady look and said, "Believe me, I'll make your idea of harsh look like a tea party." He shrank back a little in his chair. "You wouldn't stun me by sending it back," I continued. "What would stun me is if you kept it, liked it, or was kind to it. THAT would throw me off my game." And with that head's up he followed my advice and accepted it, which meant that I was back off balance.

Kindness usually puts me off. I don't know what to do with it, or how to thank those who bestow it. Sadly, since moving here, my thought process is that if you grant me kindness you must be ready to ask for something--and if you're a man the motives that cross my mind are twice as sinister. So the lecture of kindness that my friend gave me was on par with putting me in a blindfold and spinning me about 40 times and then telling me to find the door. She put the extra confusion in the mix by adding this to the lecture:

You have to be nice to yourself too. Kind to yourself. Worship yourself. Or you'll keep making this decision.

Oh shit. How the hell do I do that? Be nice? Worship? To THIS?

YEAH, TO THIS, JO. But how...

I'm about to find out. Be nice, dear reader.

Sunday Whisper

I wanted breakfast.

I dressed, and left the mess in the bedroom.

I walked in the cold fog down the hill.

Two brioche, $4.50, taken from a ten.

Cross Irving, face 9th's light. The sidewalk work is done.

Bagel/egg sandwich. Cheese. Bacon that I didn't ask for. Bagel has pesto baked right inside.

Rooibos tea.

Back up the hill.

Back through the fog.

Back to the bedroom. Tea and food rested, strip, add pyjamas, push body under covers like crawling into a pool.

Flannel. Food. Gray light through the shade.

Whispered Sunday.

Filed in the "You've Got to Be Kidding" Department

For those of you who follow along in my dating life, you will remember a guy standing me up at the end of January.

Today he called to ask if I was "still mad."

Mad? No...but I don't give a rat crap if you exist, Mister.

It's MARCH. I barely remember your last name.

My Significant Other

There's a scene in the movie "Jerry Maguire" where Renee Zellweger's character explains her reasoning for dating Jerry Maguire to Bonnie Hunt's character. She states that most men she has been with can be beat with a "good book and a warm bath."

I'm there.

And I'm not a man-hater or man-eater. I don't hate men. And while I don't believe that men hate me, I just believe that they have never looked at me. Or want to. They want to use me for something, but they don't want to look at me.

So a friend of mine had a great idea that I'm finally trying. I'm not available. I'm dating me. If a guy asks me out, I'm seeing someone. Me.

I picked me because I'm tired of looking outside of myself for validation that I won't get.

Love on, dear reader.

Sell Me

For those of you in tune with my Facebook statuses, you learned about two weeks ago that I was to have a date today, details to follow. There will be no details. The date will not be occurring, due to a recent lack of interest by the asking party.

What's odd is that I'm relieved. The guy who asked me out is a seller for my company, and my experience with sellers is that they tend to lean toward the flaky side--there's a few competent ones (my brother is a seller for his company), but most say they will do something for you and then forget, or that they will get you information and then forget. What struck me into thinking he might be different is that he knows that the other men in my past have been shallow pricks, and he knows that I have a very low threshold for bullshit. Yet, despite all of this I saw him on Tuesday and no details were mentioned of said date, and seeing me didn't jog his memory about the date. I would have even thought he would have called me later that day--nope. Not on his priority list.

Strangely though, as I said, I'm relieved. I enjoy talking to him, and I think about him sometimes for no reason, but I was never physically attracted to the guy. And it's a relief that I can now let him go emotionally as well.

On to the next...

Dreaming With a Broken Heart

It's fall again. The air has gone cold here, at last...well, at least for a few days. I put on the sweaters and scarves and enjoy color for a bit, even though the leaves don't change here. And I want more.

Another birthday is about to pass without the entrance of the following:

• A meaningful romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex (hell, with any sex, but I'm not wanting one with the same sex)
• A baby
• A trip out of the country
• A job that's my caliber of intellect

These things, as everyone will tell me, are missing because I messed up somewhere. I'm sure of it. Still, small steps are made, no matter how fruitless. Last night I spent about four hours revamping my job search. I dispensed with the distractions that were keeping me from looking out for the partner I want. I don't know what to do about the baby thing, but I'm thinking it may already be too late, with my age. And a trip out of the country just needs to be planned. Where do I want to go? What will I gain from the experience? What do I want to gain?

Can't I just...as they say in the zen monasteries, "be?"

October sort of allows me that. I bundle up, walk down the hill with a fat volume of Rowling's, eat a high-carb breakfast of brioche french toast, and then walk back up the hill. I make tea for one in a four-cup teapot and then sit down with Beethoven and look deep into the screen, or deep into the page. "Drink tea," said Julia Roberts's character in the movie "Notting Hill." "There's lots of tea." I'm mindful of the tea, but the page lends no help. I feel as though writing is suddenly the dumbest idea on the face of the planet and I should be out picking up men, pushing things along.

That's not how it's supposed to happen, though.

So it's writing. For now. A lousy reason to write, but all I know.

Good Sunday to you, dear reader.

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.

Seemed to Fit

For some reason, when I heard a cover of this song for the second time today in the movie "Waitress" the lyrics said something...about me.

No One Is To Blame

You can look at the menu but you just can't eat
You can feel the cushions but you can't have a seat
You can dip your foot in the pool but you can't have a swim
You can feel the punishment but you can't commit the sin

And you want him and he wants you
We want everyone
And you want him and he wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame

You can build a mansion but you just can't live in it
You're the fastest runner but you're not allowed to win
Some break the rules
And live to count the cost
The insecurity is the thing that wont get lost

And you want him and he wants you
We want everyone
And you want him and he wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame

You can see the summit but you can't reach it
It's the last piece of the puzzle but you just can't make it fit
Doctor says you're cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain

And you want him and he wants you
We want everyone
And you want him and he wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame.

Coming to the Surface...A Night At the Herbst

I roamed the Park on Saturday, June 6th, spending the morning at the deYoung, spending the afternoon at the Conservatory. I was feeling grey and heavy because two of my employees had not been paid, and I had no idea of how to solve this problem quickly, since it is out of my hands far away in Chicago. We changed our payroll to be more self-sufficient for the employee the week of Memorial Day. Naturally, there are going to be people who aren't going to do it right. And because I hold up the whole works, those people got left behind when I went home early on Friday, May 29th. (Remarkably, that's also the day the phone service levels crashed. I have to live at work or things collapse. A lot of things collapse, at times.)





So two people didn't get paid Friday, and I walk around wearing that guilt like a hot, damp, wool blanket that I can't shed. Then I came home, my stomach gave out, and I was about 10 lbs lighter in 100 seconds. I cleaned up, dressed, and went out to gather my ticket for "77 Love Sonnets," a performance by Garrison Keillor sponsored by City Arts and Lectures. I left a little early, to look for a collection of Lorrie Moore short stories and the poems from Keillor in book form.





I got off the Number 6 at the Van Ness and Market stop. I walked up Van Ness with my cream-colored scarf blowing about me, and giving myself a break from worry with each step and the traceable wind from my scarf. I planned to stop in Books, Inc., just north of the theatre, to look for Garrison's collection and to look for another story collection by Lorrie Moore. I walked into Books, Inc. I took a leisurely walk around, picked up the Moore collection, and found another pair of reading glasses. Fancy. Then I still had time, nearly an hour, so I thought maybe a drink and a nibble at Max's Opera Cafe, next to Books, Inc. I had heard wonderful things about Max's.



They're all true.



So I ordered at the bar--it was half-empty, and I don't like to take up a table by myself in a crowded cafe unless it's the only option. I hoisted myself up on the high chair, placed my jacket and bag in the chair next to me, and ordered a Grey Goose Cosmo and an appetizer called "Shrimp and Steak Bites with Potato Croutons."



Keep in mind, when you walk into Max's you walk past the counter where you would see the pastry selection and where the kitchen lines up the plates of warm food to the wait staff. Above this counter is a long billboard of several pledges that Max's makes to their customers. One of them, my favorite, says this:

"If we ask you 'Just one?' we'll buy you a drink."

No one asked me just one, and I found myself refraining from it when I approached the hostess. "Would it be possible for me to order food at the bar?" "Absolutely." And I perched at the bar and read the rest of the billboard--"We fresh brew iced tea at your table--let it steep for the perfect glass of iced tea." "We will buy you a slice of Niagra Falls cake if we ask you if you want change with your check." They even have a piano player, and occasionally the wait staff sings with him. My drink and nibblies were delicious, and I even got ideas for next time--potato latkes and the lamb patties. There looks to be a wealth of a menu.

Then I was joined by another woman at the bar. She was in her 50's and was also going to see Garrison. His performance was to benefit 826 Valencia, and I got to talk about that organization to the point of getting myself excited again about volunteering next school year. Then I departed at 7 to pick up my will call ticket, and walk into the lobby of the theatre, where a long table stacked with his books stood stretched between the doors. People were milling around, and there, mere feet to my left, was the great man himself, signing books and greeting, a stately tall man in frumpled linens, faded denim, and red running shoes. I purchased the book of sonnets and stood in line, feeling my mother come to the surface of me. When it came my turn, I was so nervous that I could barely speak. "Do you want me to sign this for you, dear?" he asked gently. "Yes." "To you?" "Yes. Sarah..." "With an 'h'?" "Yes. Thank you for asking." I walked away nearly weeping. Did you see that, Mom? We got to meet him, Mom.

Here was the inscription:
To Sarah.
love.
Garrison Keillor
All in neat, softly curved, blocked letters.

The theatre was ornate and intricate, like the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. On the stage a grand piano was parked off to the left, like a casual car, and the motif against the back of the stage was of a trolley car turned into a diner. Garrison's stool was center stage, with a microphone in front of it, a music stand to his right, and to the right of the music stand a small, square, white table with a glass of water and a little orange mantel clock on it.

Half the sonnets he sang (accompanied by Rich Dworsky), some were spoken, some commented on, and toward the end he told how he came to write sonnets. Some of the sonnets were about his daughter, some on things he loves, one on Obama, and the rest were varying shades of sex.

There was the remembrance of love. Love of the female form and of lying with the female form, and all was washed away--everything everyone else wants me to be, everything I'm supposed to be at the stage of. That song, that series of songs, that's the kind of man that I desire. He exists. He is possible.

Post Script: As with any other California experience, one of the homeless, mentally derranged, or rude members of the population does deflate the ecstasy a little and brings me back to earth, and this experience was no different. But those details don't belong here. I won't give those details creedance beyond mentioning that they occurred.

So a Grasshopper Walks Into a Bar...Or, Skipping to the Good Parts

This past week in writing class we had a discussion about how to hold and keep the reader, albeit a brief conversation. Strangely enough, the other person who was just as passionate about this topic as I was was a man. He is a tall, imposing aging lawyer (and before you get excited and start to set me up, he's married. Not that that should stop me, but I'm not going there with this guy), and when we got on this topic he said, "You know, I spill out this long, drawn out story with too much action and not enough details because I'm afraid my audience will walk away before the end of the story." I was stunned to hear this--someone else feels this way? And he's a GUY? I thought that men kept each other's attention when telling stories because they respected each other a lot more than they respected a women's point of view (I mean, a woman's point of view is going to drift off on some emotional tangent, right? Sort of like this post...). But a man was experiencing waning interest. This blew my mind, and I stated that I often felt the same way, that I made my stories short and that I summarized way too much of the plot because otherwise the reader walks away. Like telling stories in a bar or a coffee shop. He nodded in complete understanding there.

Of course, it wasn't always a male thing with me--I should bring up that exception. There was a friend of mine in Missouri who used to asked me to tell her a story and then cloud over with boredom after the first three sentences. I started responding with "I don't have any stories," when she would request one. I could understand why she asked when she was so bored so quickly. And I started thinking my life was boring.

Fast forward to California. There is very little boring in my life now--in fact it's got WAY too much self-inflicted drama. But I have discovered something in looking at how I tell a story. Throughout my life men have walked away from conversations with me--my father, my brother, guys I was attracted to in high school--and then in California I discovered how to keep them in the conversation, at least until the morning after: go to talk of sex. That tack won't keep my brother and father (I don't go to that subject with them, and they still walk away), but it keeps the rest. And, having problems in this department like I do, I don't even enjoy that conversation. I just enjoy that I've kept them.

Don't get me wrong--I have men friends who don't have to be spoken to in double-entendres in order to have a conversation with them. But if I want to be with them romantically? Hell, we never get to romance. The process is skipped, for fear they will be lost, and I latch on with the hot stuff first. Is it no wonder that I end up with the scum of the earth?

What this lawyer classmate and I need to do is trust ourselves. We need to walk well and strong without trying to catch a fish (reader/audience) and just allow the fish to come to our line. And that's what the professor assured us. I could balk at this--it feels like my life is dwindling and I have to act fast, so I skip to the parts, but that gives me a quick greed fix that has an empty, addictive feel to it. No real satisfaction.

Slow down.

So, dear reader, this grasshopper walks into a bar...

Stay tuned for the rest. :)

Edelweiss

Yes, I finally made it back here for a few words.

*****

One of my favorite musicals is "The Sound of Music." A former friend of mine used to call it the "cult that Sarah belongs to," for I would go and see it at sing-a-longs on the outdoor park theatre screens in Missouri and sing with my favorites: "Edelweiss," "Climb Every Mountain," and "Something Good." (The last one was always kind of a hopeful thing going on--I felt sure that if I waited long enough that I would redeem the "wicked childhood" I'd had with a love of my life. That doesn't feel so realistic now.) I was thinking about "Climb Every Mountain" tonight--in the movie as the song opens the Reverend Mother is informing Maria that you don't run away or hide in the abby to avoid whatever is haunting you--you face the ghosts. I always marvelled at this irony, because, of course, Maria hides in the abby with her husband and step-children later at the end of the movie to avoid the SS. But for the time being, that particular song grips me tonight.

I abhor writing about work in here this year, but here is my demon, which stretches from work to home to transit: I have a tendency to expect entirely too much from myself. I beat the holy hell out of myself this week because I couldn't fully be there for my father, I couldn't be there for the 1400 people at work who need me, and I felt lost for help. I didn't want someone to come and rescue me--I wanted someone to say: "Hey, want me to come over and make you some tea?" Simple stuff. People are uncomfortable with silence, sickness or grief (Michael J. Fox was on Oprah yesterday and gave the best advice of the day, from a freakin' movie star of all people: "You learn to accept the looking away"), for they are afraid it is contagious. I always felt best when I felt needed, and worst when I felt used. The line resting between them is incredibly thin, like spider-spinnings. Charlotte, give me Some Message.

I have learned all kinds of things in the last week, and forgotten them, and then remembered them. I learned that for all of time people will try to manipulate each other with guilt, and they don't even have to be related. The least amount of guilt I received this week was from my father, fresh from surgery, and he doesn't have that track record. I have learned that people forget you pretty quickly when someone new steps in, and that was in regards to social and emotional charity. I learned that people will change overnight, or stay the same but reveal what you should have seen all along, or, in extreme cases of delightful rarity, will fight to keep your friendship, no matter what it costs them. I was stunned by this last one, and, hoping that I am not a sucker for the 40th time in my life, I call on my mother. Mom, what would you do if someone who hadn't shown themselves deserving of my friendship in the past year suddenly offered me the world for it again? She was a freakin' saint, so I probably should forgive this person. But there remains a guard.

Strangely though, that guard is mine because I know that I ask entirely too much. That is the one thing that no one accepted in me. It's something I will always struggle to let go of. And something I do not accept in myself, the never-ending prison, like a mime in a park. I wish I had one person to talk to but not whine to, one person to sit with and not unload on, one person to tell stories to but not bore.

I guess God is the one who can withstand that kind of weight. We'll see.

Sleep well, dear reader.

In Defense of Sex

Yep. This post is going to be about what you think it's going to be about. No use sugar-coating it.

Unless you're of a kinky inclination.

Last night I was at my Tuesday night short-story writin', darn tootin' Meetup and I got to a point where sex comes into the plot. What's funny is that seven years ago, the last time I was writing regularly, I was a virgin. I thought that I would still be able to write about sex, but more like from the viewpoint of a virgin.

Which is sort of like writing about the Sistine Chapel from the point of view of an aetheist.

There's a portion of my favorite book of all time, "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," by Betty Smith, where the protagonist, Francie, submits a series of stories about her life to her middle school teacher. The teacher seems miffed by the stories--they are base and mean in her opinion. "Why can't you write about something pretty and blooming?" seems to be the general sentiment, and Francie is hurt because this writing is beautiful. She's in love with the story of her family. But her teacher wants beauty we ALL think is beauty. So Francie sits down to write a story of a girl who can order any food that she wants...and actually drools on the page because she described the food so beautifully and because she is too poor to afford this kind of food. The same thing went for me with writing about sex when I was a virgin. I made myself hungry and awkward on paper. I forgot the emotions and got hung up on the physics.

Now, after having had sex with a whole two men (which doesn't make me an expert, but lends me some perspective), I find that I can skip the physics some and write the emotion. Neither man loved me, but I loved both of them at the time, so I can give an accurate rendition of what we would have experienced if we were both on the same page, or nearly. Since when are men and women on the same page, sexually? DK had a great observation he shared with me once in an e-mail--"Men use love to get sex, and women use sex to get love." But somewhere in the middle in good stories of love there's a jagged meeting of the puzzle pieces, or, more to the point, a forcing of the two nearly-matched pieces together.

There is another force of habit that kept me from writing sex into short stories in the past--intimidation due to lack of experience. Here, in 2009, I've had a crash course. I imagine that here in this place where I finally gained the experience there will be more men who think that they can "teach" me or use my lack of experience to inform me of "how things work" in terms of manners and such, but I ignore that now. The man would have to draw me in, to woo me.

Another literary character comes to mind--Celie from "The Color Purple." "Why, Miz Celie, you're still a virgin. You ain't never been loved," says Sug, and every man who meets her calls her poor and ugly. "But dear God, I'm here!" she declares, and she finds fulfillment in the children she gave up. I don't have children in Africa, but dear God, I'm here. I'm a sensual woman who knows exactly what she wants after the loveless experience of two completely different fellas in Shrek suits, and if another fella comes along he is going to have to do some old-fashioned courting. In the same venue, he's experience. Would I write about him? Probably not directly. I have worked some of G and FG into my paintings, but not enough so's they'd notice. (Neither of them read anyway.) And they gave me a great ballast--er, what I mean to say is they gave me a leverage point from which to write about something other than the physics. I'm sorry I gave it up to them. But I'm not sorry that I gave it up, and I can imagine, having loved without sex, the beautiful and rich rest.

That, and I'm a sensual woman in her sexual prime. My imagination hatch-eth and spring-eth stronger than ever it did in the younger years.

Get ready for my fiction. :)

Do You Believe In Magic

Yep, I'm supposed to be in writing group right now, probably leading them. No moderator tonight, and I got to the Mission on time, but I felt like writing alone this evening for some reason. So I am at a cafe two doors down.

Shame on me.

But I am still writing. And I can imagine that there are other writers in this cafe as well.

Had a wonderful dinner...authentic Mexican cuisine, not the "fifty-food-groups-wrapped-in-a-tortilla-for-five-bucks" that visitors to the Mission might normally think of. I partook of the following:

• White wine
• Tortilla soup
• Salsa with roasted tomatoes and peppers
• A chicken dish called Tinga de Pollo, with shredded chicken, chipotle sauce, onions, and avacado salsa
• Rice
• Fresh and HOT tortillas (so fresh that they melt in the mouth, and perish fast)
• Flan...ah, flaaaan...
• And a cup of strong, black coffee

The waiter was attentive and when he brought my check he said, "Are you visiting the City?" Ahahahaha...I still look like a freakin' Amish girl. "I'm visiting from the Sunset," I said. "But I'm in the neighborhood once a week." "Ahhh," he nodded, pleased. "Then you must come back. We have seasonal dishes. They change all the time. Are you a reader?" READER? AM I IN DISNEYLAND OR SOMETHING? "Yes, I am a reader." "Then you must read 'Like Water For Chocolate'," he said, only he said it first in Spanish. I could only recognize "chocolate" in the litany. He said it again, patiently, in English. "Oh, yes, I have heard of it!" (Haven't read it yet--I'm so lame in this town...) "You must read it. The owner has read it and that's how he cooks. Everything is fresh." Yes, fresh, and the onions had a distinctive carmelization I have never tasted before, and the flan was like whipping cream...

"You must read it."

My God. I have died and gone to Latino heaven. He reads and he preaches good food. (Bites lip and halts an orgasm.)

The name of the restaurant is Regalito Rosticeria, at 18th and Valencia. Not cheap, but if you do decide to treat yourself...but then, I'm prejudiced. They READ...

It's like a magical kingdom.

What's In a Name?

In case anyone new joins in the readership...haven't covered this topic in a while...

My pseudonyms, past and present:

• Jo - My middle name, my mother's middle name, and often called this, particularly in writing or reading circles, for the character Jo March in "Little Women."
• Sis - What my brother calls me, for only he and Serena can.
• Sadie Sue - My mother's name for me. Sarah Jo...Sadie Sue...I think my mother was a closeted redneck.
• Sarah Lee - What coworkers usually end up resorting to.
• Soups - Gary's name for me. He called me "Soupless in San Francisco" when he and a few other friends challenged me to give up SF Soup Co for a week in 2005. It's how the whole crappy business started...
• Red - I was even called this before the garnet color in 2005/2006, just not as often.
• The Bear - by high school classmate Dawn Burkholder and by my boss in Missouri, who knew my temper and tacked "Don't Poke the Bear" on my desk partition.
• Kiddo - By two or three women who thought they were my "other" mother.

I've probably forgotten a few.

Funny story about how I got my real name for those who haven't heard it...my mother racked her brain for a name for me, and thought, "I don't know any Sarahs. I'll name her that." When she told the attending nurse, the woman wrinkled her nose. "She's gonna hate that name."

Why? my mother wanted to know.

"Because I hate that name. It's mine."

It's mine too, but I don't hate it. Unless you say it with my middle/pen name. Then it sounds like Petticoat Junction.

"You can call me Jo/Buy me a drink and shake my hand..."

See, even Bruce knew. ;)