Pushing Pedals, Digging Clams

So ...what do you call those mid-calf pants, the ones that are neither proper knee-and-above shorts nor proper to-the-ankle pants? They seem to show up every decade or so, sometimes closer to the knee than the ankle, sometimes closer to the ankle than the knee, fitted or baggy, with pockets, without. No matter what, they are for people with good ankles and a well-turned calf (i.e. not me). I've heard them called toreador pants, calypso pants, pedal-pushers, capris, clamdiggers and, most recently, cropped pants. But for all those names, aren't they describing the same style of pants? Or are there differences? and if so, what are they?

Perhaps those with a better sense of fashion or fashion history can set me straight. Not that it would convince me to wear them; I just want to know. I wouldn't want to insult a pair of pedal-pushers by calling them clamdiggers. Lord knows I have enough trouble with putting together get-ups and outfits; I don't want to incur the wrath of the Fashion Gods or Gremlins with misplaced references. A Clothing Curse I can do without.

And if I should ever dig for clams (not very likely, just saying) I'd simply roll up my jeans.

8 Things About Books on Tape

1. Can fully appreciate the cadence and rhythm of beautifully written prose.
2. On the other hand, the horrible clunkiness of language is revealed as well. Some authors really can't be listened to.
3. Let's say you miss an important detail the author so craftily slipped by you. Trying to "re-read" a passage is a far different proposition: rewind, nope, rewind, nope, rewind, wait, this is before that important bit, FF...no, not yet...FF, too far! rewind, FF, rewind, where the heck is it, end up listening to the whole second chapter in reverse order of the scenes...oh, drat, just hand me the book. Over there, under the chair...
4. You can get dressed, feed the cat, wash dishes all while listening to a fabulous story! As long as there's no one to tease you when you scrub a pot for five minutes at the good part. And better check the mirror before you leave the house. Just in case.
5. Be forewarned, people will think you are demented if you start sobbing for no discernible (to them) reason. The pantomime explanation of "earbuds,listening, big woman shot by crass ex-lover, fell in canal, ....oh never mind!" only seals the deal, in their opinion.
6. Can't answer the phone. That's what voicemail is for.
7. All the aural pleasure of talk-radio without annoying callers or knuckleheaded hosts.
8. More mentally engaging and creative than tv or video. You can dress the characters anyway you want (until the author tells you otherwise), even vary it from scene to scene...who cares? You can have your own interpretation of wine-dark sea or bowlegged or flinty-voiced; maybe the Snopes's have an uncanny resemblance to your ex-spouse's cousins by marriage.

Worst Stoopid Cold Ever

Well, I'm finally down from 1 to .5 TBPD*; I think I'll make it. Don't know exactly what this disease is. Never snorted nor squealed, so it wasn't that Swine-ish Flu; didn't crave super-thin pancakes or meatballs in cream sauce so it wasn't the Swedish Flu either. But hands down, it was the Wickedest Damn Cold on the Planet. It sucked 4 days out my life like an anteater on an anthill. According to the Germ Theory of Disease, no one actually cursed me -- they just coughed in my general direction. This is the sort of thing people should keep to themselves, hiding it at home with the blinds drawn.

An absolutely wicked, awful, horrible, no-good, very bad head-cold and lung thingey. Been down for 5 days, shuffling from one resting spot to the other like a blind elderly cat, intermittently lapping up a bowl of soup, slurping a cup of Gypsy Cold Cure tea, batting at toast. Not enough energy to read much or even watch stoopid daytime tv. A good day was getting out to the hammock for the first mid-morning lay-about in the sun. Books-on-tape (and a humidifier, thanks, Cory!) saved me, getting me through the hacking afternoons and restless, sweat-drenched nights.

And I was blessed by having on hand a CD of Toni Morrison's "A Mercy," read by her. What a treat to listen to Morrison's remarkably beautiful and cadenced voice; I was lost in that fictive world so beloved by authors and readers alike. The poetry of her prose sprang out, was song; the story unfolded as if sitting around a fire late into the evening, each character's voice taking over the dirt stage in turn, speaking their truth. I was enthralled, entranced. I flung up my arm to stop hasty actions by Florens; I reached out a hand to wipe Rebekkah's brow as she lay abed with pox (then I snatched it back; wouldn't do to get pox, too); I tried to pound Sorrow's back when she was hauled out of the river.

Or maybe I was just plain delirious. Whatever, I'm back to work tomorrow, for as long as I last. I promise not to cough in your general direction.

*Tissue Boxes Per Day

Sotomayor ~ yes!

Funny that talk-radio right-wingers are all up in arms about the New Haven fireman's case Judge Sotomayor ruled on years ago. They are beginning to seem a bit desperate if this is what they resort to, dredging up one case and stomping all over it. Or a few remarks here and there. For one thing, I like to look at the overall picture, to consider her whole record, not simply one case. Certainly Judge Sotomayor's life experience is an invaluable viewpoint to bring into the Courts.

.. and the charge of her being racist? Give me a freaking break! Wasn't so long ago some of those folks were damnably proud of being racists their own selves; seen in that context, it could be a (perverse) complement. Puhhhhleeezze!

An Egretful Morning

Yes, some things are irresistible, like egrets and puns. When they occur simultaneously, well, pack me in cotton and send me to China, I'm a happy camper. (zoooom! I'm back now, whew.) Meanwhile, an essay was published in SSU's Newsbytes last month (April 10th, tbe) and I neglected to post the link. So here it is, An Egretful Morning.

Love to hear what you think....

A two-timing, Twleve-stepping, twentysomething temptress....

The other Saturday I went to a book signing party for a friend, Z Egloff, whose book "Verge," was just published this year by Bywater Books. This was a party with balloons, streamers, a signing table, a reading, a nun (ersatz but still!), a cake, a fire ceremony (which I regret that I missed) and a blue bike. Z was totally stoked; friends from all her many walks of life were there to cheer, clap, stomp and yell. At any moment dancing could break out, and for all I know, later on it did.

A bunch of us loitered by the wish-writing table and reminisced about reading the first chapters of "Verge" in it's maiden workshop up at Wellspring, when it was but a workshopping virgin. From the get-go, this was a dynamite story. We loved its pacing and verve and characters and smart-alecky voice. The bookjacket blurb pretty much captures it: "Can a two-timing, Twelve-stepping, twenty-something temptress find happiness with a nun?" Of course to discover the answer...you'll need to read the book. Don't forget, there's a bike involved.

How To ... what?

I don't know if anyone else caught this event, The White House Correspondent's Association Dinner (by Dinner we mean Roast) last Friday night, but this was the quip by President Obama that caught my attention:

"Dick Cheney was supposed to be here but he is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, 'How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People'."...and there's much more posted here along the same lines, some pretty darn hilarious lines. Plus some rather pointy barbs, amid the great giggles and guffaws.

Just had to share.

Quick and Quirky

The buzz bzzzt buzzz was annoying and close, disturbing the few minutes of peace I'd snagged to read in the back room that had once been a porch. Come to think of it, I'd been hearing it all afternoon. Stepping through the laundry room to the tiny back-stairs landing (what's left of the outside portion of the porch), I stood transfixed by the flit and flutter of some tiny upstart perky-tailed birds all around the back yard. Definitely them making all the noise.

There had to be a flock...or maybe just four or five, or wait, really just two moving around so fast they seemed like a multitude. Up on the eaves of the nearby garage, over in the roses, down on the end of the kid's slide below me, bouncing through the branches of the plum tree, moving too fast for my poor old eyes to track. And such a brash little thing, suddenly hopping along the railing not even two feet from me, flicking its standing-straight-up-at-attention tail, chut-chut-chut, it goes, posing for a micro-second, only long enough for me to glimpse a long thin white streak just above its pert eyes, like a uni-brow borrowed from Steve Martin. Then, down it flits, to weave in and out the lattice work along the steps in quick hops, reminding me of a game from my suddenly ancient childhood (and the song that went with it): Go In and Out the Window. Cheeky rascals; endearing.

It didn't take so long with Sibley's to identify the sassy little things. Bewick's wrens, facing extirpation in parts of the East Coast, but still abundant here in the West. And it's only taken me another day to realize they are nesting right under the porch.

Deborah Digges, 1950 - 2009:

"Darwin's Finches"

1
My mother always called it a nest,
the multi-colored mass harvested

from her six daughters' brushes,
and handed it to one of us

after she had shaped it, as we sat in front
of the fire drying our hair.

She said some birds steal anything, a strand
of spider's web, or horse's mane,

the residue of sheep's wool in the grasses
near a fold

where every summer of her girlhood
hundreds nested.

Since then I've seen it for myself, their genius—
how they transform the useless.

I've seen plastics stripped and whittled
into a brilliant straw,

and newspapers—the dates, the years—
supporting the underweavings.


2
As tonight in our bed by the window
you brush my hair to help me sleep, and clean

the brush as my mother did, offering
the nest to the updraft.

I'd like to think it will be lifted as far
as the river, and catch in some white sycamore,

or drift, too light to sink, into the shaded inlets,
the bank-moss, where small fish, frogs, and insects

lay their eggs.
Would this constitute an afterlife?

The story goes that sailors, moored for weeks
off islands they called paradise,

stood in the early sunlight
cutting their hair. And the rare

birds there, nameless, almost extinct,
came down around them

and cleaned the decks
and disappeared into the trees above the sea.

Deborah Digges
1950-2009

I didn't know Deborah Digges,had never met her, but I treasured her poetry, so enriched by her keen eye, her deeply reflective mind. I slurped up her memoir, "Stardust Lounge," too. She told it straight about raising her son through adolescence, about what it was really like with a difficult, challenging person, about paying attention to the teen, not the advice books. I didn't know her but whenever I read her forthright work, I feel like I'm with her; feeling the tug of hairbrush, setting the hair-nest free, waiting for a thirteen year old's call.

Here's a link through the Valparaiso Poetry Review of Deborah Digges reading her work just last month in Pasadena for an event co-sponsored by Red Hen Press and Claremont Graduate University.

over a month!?!?!?!?

since my last post?....jeepers, I was busier than I thought. Busy, busy, busy Limes as we used to say in grad school, being so busy we couldn't pronounce simple words like "lives," correctly. Busy: reading submissions for the Napa Conference, polishing up an essay for Newsbytes, attending a conference, signing up for physical therapy for my shoulders and wrists, putting together lesson plans for the Spring class (for all of one student), Tai Chi-ing, finishing my taxes, watching a tooth fall out of my head. Not all the way out; next week I'll go to an oral surgeon and they'll get the rest of the root out. Seems like I clench my teeth a wee bit too much; my incisors are snapping like match sticks.

But! this weekend, I'm off to a self-planned, solo-writing retreat at my favorite hide-in-the-woods place, Wellspring Renewal Center. aahhh! the best place to get un-busy.

Napa Valley Writer's Conference - 2009

The Napa Valley Writers Conference
is up and running, holey-moley, lickety-split. Once again, a fabulous faculty:

Fiction: Robert Boswell, Antonya Nelson, Peter Ho Davies and ZZ Packer.
Poetry: Elizabeth Alexander, Carl Dennis, Jane Hirshfeld, and David St John.

The application process is structured a bit differently this year, with rolling admissions, beginning March 1st. One advantage: the earlier you apply, the more likely you'll get your first choice. Plus quicker response from us. Another difference: those who have been accepted previously to the conference at least two times won't have to submit a qualifying manuscript; obviously we already know your work! Those applicants (fiction, that is) can then get cracking on their workshop manuscripts.

Environmental History Digital Collection

Snooping around the Jean and Charles Shultz Library (aka the Snoopy Library) website at SSU, I discovered the Environmental History Digital Archive. They've digitized rather an eclectic mix of historical material on Sonoma County: old maps, photos, plans, articles, letters, records pertaining to various contentious issues on the environment. Some unique items.

There's the whole history of the "Hole in the Head," the gaping foundation for a nuclear power plant that was to be built on Bodega Headlands. The plant was not only planned for one of the most beautiful whale-watching bluffs on our gorgeous ocean coast, but was also mere yards from the San Andreas fault. Like that made sense. But it was the 1960's, when suits felt they could do what they wanted and hippies and radical-nut protesters had other ideas and values. The plant was never built, but the shaft dug for the nuclear reactor is still there, a physical and metaphorical hole in the head.

This digital archive also contains two of my Nature's Way pieces, one on owls and ravens (#37), another on Western pond turtles (#51). They had asked permission a few months ago, but I'd neglected to look for them earlier. It's nice to be included.


SSU Historical Archive

Listening to Lucia

My friend Lucia was interviewed on BlogTalkRadio the other day, the 2/18 Moe Green Poetry Show, "Onword"

Lucia Galloway Interviewed by Rafael Alvarado You have to put up with an ad at the beginning, no way around it, but the rest is fun.

It's a kick to hear her read her work (villanelles, pantoums, sonnets, etc) and to remember those MFA Days in Marina del Rey. She read poems from her chapbook "Playing Outside," from Finishing Line Press, and new work from "Venus and Other Losses" coming out soon from Plain View Press. The conversation is freewheeling, casual and informative in the wonderful way of poets.

Frost and Sweet Pea

Been some pretty whack-a-doodle weather this winter: a few heat-wave days, some weeks of icy windshields and frosty lawns, some mornings foggy and soupy, some afternoons almost too bright and sunny. Yet little-to-none of the usual winter rain. Pretty confusing for the plant kingdom; bloom, not bloom, bloom, freeze your tiny little stamens off. I think we're all glad that ol' Punxsutawney Phil, that prognosticating groundhog, hit the snooze button and headed back to catch more zzzzz’s. Maybe this way, winter will regroup, revise and correct itself.


And maybe it is. Today the sky has been many mutable shades of gray. Over the past week, we've had spates of small, cold, drizzly storms; tonight a real rainstorm is predicted to hit. No one is complaining. If we're lucky, we might gain a few inches. Not much and not enough, but after three very dry winters, we're facing the very real possibility of a mandatory 50% water rationing. Perhaps each inch we receive will be one-percentage point less that we'll be asked to save? Well, I rather doubt it works in that tit-for-tat manner. But I will say that it makes for interesting times.

Double Trouble Birthdays

Happy Birthdays to Charlie Darwin and Abe Lincoln. Hard to know who had more influence on our current life - Lincoln for his vision, inherent humanity and dedication to equality for all or Darwin for his decoding of the process of evolution. Can you imagine a world in which neither of them were around? It seems like science fiction just thinking about it. Surely their discoveries and advancements would be accomplished by someone else but perhaps not in such a timely or fortuitous manner. Definitely an alternate universe.

Now, who's going to write that story?

Nests in Winter

....lordy, lordy almost two weeks have scooted by. Interesting weeks, though. Some of it was putting my keyboard to the grindstone and cranking out a Nature's Way essay titled Nests in Winter that was just published last Monday on NewsBytes. In the process of setting the link here, I discovered that half the links in the NW Archive were broken, so I fixed that. Apologies to any who tried to navigate those corrupted channels.

...and oh, yes! finally, I can watch a press conference again.

Seven Days, Six Sentences

Can you believe it has been only a week? Obama has done more righteous stuff in seven days than another, whom I can no longer mention by name, did in seven years. Finally, I can read the paper again and not be either outraged or nauseous; I can listen to an entire news broadcast without clicking it off when that noxious, self-serving, smirking voice came on. I am cheering Obama on with every step he takes, every program he initiates. The road ahead won't be smooth, but at least it will be heading in the right direction. The times might be rough, but it's easier to work together with a leader we respect.

Science is Coming, People.

On Tuesday at noon the
sun suddenly came out I
swear I said to my
daughter something was happening but
what and the stars don't
care about us who we
elect or when we listen to
the radio and hear it
say President Obama is going
to shut down the prison
the stars don't care they
are forever exploding hydrogen atoms
slowly depleting dying like us
to them if they thought
at all they'd think everything
we do is in prison
the president said we could
write poems again saying "president"
that people would have to
think about not just understand
like he said "science is
coming, people" to which my
son said "did he say
science?" I said "I know
it's hard to believe but
the new president said science"

Poem by Matt Rohrer
Day #2:

Courtesy of Paul Lisicky and Mark Doty, I discovered this fabulous project 100 Days Poems , a poem a day for Obama's First 100 Days. Matt Rohrer's poem (above) I found particularly apt, living and working with scientists as I do, but others are equally as stunning. And if you want to see Elizabeth Alexander's magnificent poem "Praise Song" as she wrote it, not as it was mangled/transcribed by the press, Mark Doty posted it on his blog here

Reports of Absence/Abcess/ Absinthe

When you work for any large institution, you gotta fill out forms. Lots of forms, and more of them every semester. Some forms, like Attendance and Absence Reports, can be filled out each time with pretty much the exact same wording. Easy to tell how code numbers and check boxes caught on.

This month, I endured some dental experiences that the designation "Dental Appointments" didn't quite describe. So on the Absence Report (that's a metaphor I have to follow some day), I wrote: Bent and broken canines. Bleeding gums, sutures, surgery, pain, soft foods.

I could have included: long afternoon lolling on the bed in a Vicodin stupor, listening to Books on Tape and drooling pinkishly on my pillow. But I didn't. Sometimes I can tell when I'm going too far.

Now, if the report comes back to me with red slashes and REDO stamped all over it, I know at least they do read the damn things. Which has to be even worse than filling them out. Next month, I'll include a plot. About absence. With absinthe. Excuse my lisp.

yaaahhhhooooo!

okay, so yes, I sniffled and teared up. Actually, I cried ... and I stomped my feet and cheered and hollered amen! That was my Praise Song for the Day.

Elizabeth Alexander was, of course, far more articulate. The last lines of her poem, Praise Song for the Day, were particularly so and particularly true.


"In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light."

Elizabeth Alexander, Jan 20, 2009

Daylight arrived, ready or not.

The rank and file of market umbrellas, somber green below,
a damp patina above, hunker around the patio in the fog-still morning.

Some are folded up on themselves, comatose, giant bats waiting
for nightfall; others are half-opened and slanted sideways,
coming in for a landing, caught in mid-flight.

On Mutts ... and Zebras

My family (of origin) moved a lot, like every two years or so. In each new town, I’d be asked where I came from, meaning what parentage we claimed. I used to think it was a way of asking what breed we were. My parents are from New England, I’d end up saying, we’re Yankees, because trying to describe my mother’s immigrant Finnish heritage and my father’s upright/uptight New England Unitarian genealogy going back generations was too difficult. To my father's parents, we must have been mutts: old blood & immigrant upstart. My son is a mutt and a half, born of myself (one mutt) and his Pakistani father (Pushto heritage, raised in Karachi, more of a displacement); my daughter, a sort of polyglot mutt: her father having German and English in various mixes on both sides, combining with my Yankee style Welsh-Finnish stew. Even my Finnish grandmother could have described my mom and her sisters as mutts, because their father, while Finnish, came from Swedish stock. Tsk, tsk, was the connotation.

I’d bet my bottom dollar that your family is part mutt, too.

and by the way: less than 12 hours! just can't wait!

An Inauguration for The People

For the first time ever, I not only know people who are going to this Presidential Inauguration but some who have been invited to it (Mark Doty, Paul Lisicky, among others) and someone who's going to speak, the poet Elizabeth Alexander. (no, don't know her well, but well enough--she was at the Napa Valley Writers Conference in 2007 and will be again this summer. Excellent choice, Obama!) Highly unusual on all accounts for moi. Generally speaking, my people go to Washington, DC either for protesting or touristing, although a couple of them have gone there for work, and one of them went to testify before a Congressional Committee of sort; I don't remember which one or about what, it was along time ago, and we've since forgiven him.

This is different. I even considered going myself except for the money, time, huge crowds, below-freezing temps. I am a temperature wimp these days. But people from my town, my work, my vocation, my community, from every strata that I deal with, are going. My people are going. And my people are welcome. I would not say that was true of many other Inaugurations; Bill Clinton's excepted, perhaps. Certainly not a G.W.Bush Inauguration. Not to say that many of my people would have wanted to go, but really, the little people, the worker-bees, the fabric of America? We didn't count for much in that regime, his protests to the contrary.

This outpouring of support, emotion, even gratitude, is the result of Obama's own sense of grace, his intelligent compassion, his attention to what matters to the vast majority of Americans, rather than the elite minority who attempt to wheel and deal their hold on power. The millions flooding into Washington this weekend are not just representatives of his constituency; they are his constituency: everyone, the full gamut, the entire enchilada. We worked for him; we believed in him. We couldn't offer him influence or even much money, but we volunteered what time and effort we could. We talked to strangers, to our friends and family, we blogged; we drove to other states, made phone calls, contributed $25 or $30 when we could. And he remembers that.

It just makes my little heart go pitta-patt.

Books 2008

well, nothing like no explanation, eh? I wanted to shorten my posted book list but didn't want to lose the titles....so I plopped them onto a post, and then was called away. This isn't conclusive, just what I managed to note. It would be difficult to pick a favorite of these, but Junot Diaz's novel might be it. I still recall the vibrancy of both tale and language. I see I didn't include any of the Toni Nelson books I know I read, nor the Ann Patchett books, either. Such an inadequate list. Oh well.


Home Remedies; Angela Pnueman
Rope Bridge; Nan Cohen
Bearing the Body; Ehud Havazalet
Mendocino Stories; Ann Packer
Dive from Clausen's Pier; Ann Packer
Poetics of Space; Gaston Bachelard
Mind of the Raven; Bernd Heneich
Self Storage; Gayle Brandeis
Eat, Pray, Love; Elizabeth Gilbert
Ron Carlson Writes a Story; Ron Carlson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Junot Diaz
The Road; Cormac McCarthy

Balmy/ Barmy in January

It's weirdly warm today; a Santa Ana without winds in mid-winter. 81 degrees; the very definition of balmy. In January. In Sonoma County. Granted it rarely snows much here, but still, we don't walk around in shorts and flip-flops all year. Or most of us don't, anyway.

I heard mutterings of "earthquake weather," but some people say that about any odd thing. It's spooky though. I considered swimming in the campus's outdoor pool at noon; people were swimming at noon, normal people not just the ballsy (or knuckleheaded) Polar Bear Club folks who brave the SF Bay on New Year's Day. It's especially un-nerving after the past several weeks of quite severe cold (for us Bay Areans), when we had to cover up the citrus and scrape ice (not just frost) off the windshields. Warm up the cars and wear mittens,too! jimminy cricket, what the hell is going on? Everyone is confused, pixie-headed, twitterpated. The usual words won't suffice. "So warm," describes the temperature, but doesn't convey how bizarre it is to be 80 degrees in the middle of our winter. Like we were in Australia, like the climates were switching sides. Soon whirlpools and drains will twirl out widdershins and we'll be throwing Barbies at the shrimp, who'll scuttle off in absolute disgust that we can't even get that right.

Blog Hopping

My latest muse-avoidance technique is blog-hopping. You know, skipping from one blog to another on those seductive little links, each one a small step over the edge into the unknown, a present begging to be unwrapped. I've become fascinated by a blog's blogroll, that side-ladder of possibilities, each rung a leap into a separate distinct entire universe, all coexisting, many of them linked to each other in necklaces of connection. String Theory in action.

So I've been bagging a few writerly blogs of my own. (Well-written ones, of course). Rather than merely run the list, I'll try to introduce some of them as I go along, kinda like the notes scientists use to describe their captured quarry.

One of the best spots to start, kind of a 6-degrees-from-anyone spot, is Paul Lisicky's blog. First of all, he posts about his own travels and writing life, puts up poems, photos, fabulous quotes from what he's reading (he reads a lot), etc. The usual what-have-you of blogs, perhaps, but done well. He's also the author of two books, "Lawn Boy" and "Famous Builders" and teaches and reads, like, all over. I first met him when he taught at Antioch LA a few years ago (5?) and then again at Napa Valley Writers Conference last summer. I've always enjoyed his poetic prose and hands-on workshops. Anyway, you can get his full Monty (figuratively speaking) from his blog and also visit his eclectic blogroll, rife with fascinating blogs, which are, in turn, linked to other fascinating blogs, linked to...etc. It's a serially opening flower, a lotus blossom, a quagmire. The web-thing. And as great a way to meet other writers as I know.

And from there, I went to Avoiding the Muse, written by C.Dale Young, a poet, teacher, editor and doctor in San Francisco (I think this means you can do it all), a treasure-trove of riches, which led me to Luna which isn't a blog so much as a Journal of Poetry and Translation, with widely spaced postings, but! it hosts a tidy collection of links to other journals. For those who are submitting, it's a compact resource of journals. As opposed to those monstrous, every-journal-known-to-humankind sorts of lists that are just too overwhelming to comprehend or wade through. And so you don't.

I lost track of how I got to bookeywookey, but does it matter what steps I take? I put the shortcut up. Perhaps from Mark Doty's excellent blog. And there I will leave you, friends, in the hands of a poet. Where else would one want to be?

Peace on Earth?

The gift wrap is all gone, the photos have been shared, the kids have gone back to their respective homes, taking cookies with them, thank the Goddess of Sweet Snacks, and the place has returned to its winter somnolence.

Sort of.

Our neighbor, who would probably like to remain nameless, decided that he needed to re-orient his above-ground pool. In order to do that, he needed to police the margins of the new spot it now, already, occupies. In order to do that, he needed to climb the two trees on our shared property line and trim all the large and small branches that stretched over his side, so leaves and doot-skreet wouldn't fall in his pool. In order to do that, he had to use a chain saw. Right above my head, while I was trying to work on a recalcitrant essay about the joys of nature. Joys which evaporated as branches swished past my little window and thunked to the concrete on my neighbor's property, right next to my little garden-shed studio. Which is I how I discovered his nefarious plan. I say nefarious because now my studio, which was once more or less quiet, somewhat secluded and tucked discreetly under the spreading branches of the two locust tree, their trunks acting as protective barrier between his yard and ours, now stands brightly revealed. Exposed. Not secret.

I don't like it.

Writing, for some reason, is a very private act for me. I don't like being observed while writing; for a long time I wouldn't even tell anyone I was writing, just "working on something." Even now I'll say: "I'm going out to the studio for a while," or "I've got a project going on." I can edit or write at a coffeehouse or in libraries, but that is privacy gained from anonymity. I prefer, when possible, to wait for everyone to go to bed before I start writing, as if it needs to be done surreptitiously. Un-noticed. Why this is, eludes me. It's a comfort thing, I guess, a way of ensuring no distractions or interruptions, or a way for the imagination to be paramount, run rampant, with no fear of witnesses.

The trees, after a day and half of his efforts, were quite lopsided, unbalanced and potentially unsafe, ready to topple in a windstorm, with the heavy side of the tree right over MY STUDIO. So Heroic Spouse has spent the past two days sawing opposing limbs off our side and making cord-wood out of it. (No one wants me handling a chain saw.) Then there was all the clean-up: twigs, leaves, sawdust, branchlets. etc. It was not the activity we'd scheduled for our weekend.

Today, after stacking, raking, sweeping and stuffing our Garden Waste can to overflowing, after finally putting the saws and clippers away, this neighbor suggested taking the trees out completely, because as he points out, now they are pretty much butt-ugly. No, duh. In which case there will be nothing between my studio and HIS POOL. Just a chain link fence, some headphones and my seething attitude.

I'm googling thick, fast-growing, climbing vines. Honeysuckle. Jasmine. Trumpet flower. I hear they are good bee habitat. Now there's some nature I can enjoy.

Cookie Glut

This has been an especially heavy Christmas for cookies; it's a Cookie Glut, really. There's a tradition to pass out collections of homemade (or not) cookies to those you're happy/obligated to give to but not willing to spend much braintime figuring out something more personal. Like your landlord or your co-workers down the hall or distant relatives. Distant in the sense of not close as in, can barely stand being in the same state together. And face it, most adults we know seriously lack for nothing. Except cash, home equity and maybe a job or two in 2009, none of which I can grant. But I digress.

This year we received no less than five containers (large Tupperwares) of homemade cookies, all of them delicious and all of them welcome, but it's a bit much. I mean, I can't turn them down, I love them (esp. those Russian Teacakes, honey, you know those are gone) but the two of us can only eat so much, even if we needed to rack up another ten pounds in the next two weeks. But with no teens in the house now (they are both young adults and in home-spaces of their own), we don't have those extra appetites (or the extra friends with appetites) lurking around, ready and eager to perform cookie-sweeps at the drop of a hat. Lordy, lordy what I really need are five teen boys who can wolf down a very large platter of cookies over the course of a short afternoon. And then ask what's for dinner. You laugh. I have it on tape.

Usually, I'd send the extra goodies off with the Spouse to share at work but it seems they all are suffering from Cookie Gluts of their own. And when hardwood floor installers have trouble sucking up a bag or two of cookies, you know they are getting plenty on the side. In fact, one platter of cookies came from one of those fellas (or more accurately, his wife). I guess it's bad taste (ha, ha) to send them back to the source. Drats and dagnabit. Looks like the squirrels will get lucky this year.

Six Sentences

You've heard of, if not written, one of those Six Word Novels, right? Like Ernest Hemingway's : "For sale: baby shoes, never used." Or Augusten Burroughs': "Oh, that? It's nothing. Not contagious." (Here's some more at Perpetual Folly... an older post but worth the visit. The blog, too.)

But what about a story in six sentences? More words -- should be easier, n'est-ce pas? You'd think. What I can tell you is that it's absolute fun. And once you've written a keeper, you can submit it to Six Sentences, which just so coincidentally publishes only six-sentence stories.

This is such a cool idea and the site (set up as a blog) is easy to read. The submitting is easy, too, just an email. Really, there's no darn excuse. Quality ranges in the submissions from freakin' fabulous to hmmm but they're all stories in six sentences, every one.

But wait, wait, there's more. If you can whip up a six-sentencer in the next 48 hours, you can make the deadline (Dec 31st, midnight) for their second print volume of Six Sentence Stories. Volume One is due out in March. More info here.

So get a move on, get your pencil flying, your keyboard clacking. Write them fast, write 'em slow. Skewer your ex-boyfriend, honor your dog. Include just enough description to keep us located. Find the sweet spot of tension. Then submit.

... and when yours is published, send us the link! Yeehaaah!

Yet Another Writing Blog

Skipping around from blog to blog (a fabulous writing avoidance technique) has its own damn rewards. And this is one of them: Words in Place. It's written by Gay Degani who has some cogent thoughts about the process of writing, mainly that it's all about the seat-time. She refers to Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers and his contention that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to succeed in any venture. She also refers to Ron Carlson's book Ron Carlson Writes a Story, one of my absolute-can't-get-much-better writing bibles. Carlson has a version of the 10,000 hours concept; for him it's getting to your tenth short story. Not that you'll be an expert at that point, but you'll have wrestled with most of the elements of fiction. And aren't so nervous about the whole process. There are other neat things and links on the blog; check it out.

But now I gotta get Outliers. Thanks the goddess of indie bookstores for the two Gift Certificates the merry little elves left under my pillow for me. Yeah, they were a little confused this year. Could have been the punch and rum balls we left out instead of the milk and cookies.

Secret Santa Literary Style - unpacking the present

My Literary Secret Santa gift arrived in inventive & inspiring packaging wrapped around a book equally so. Or so it seems from the few times I've been able to dip into it. The full-on roar of the family events has begun to subside, so now I'll get to all the reading that came my way. Not to mention some of the books that I gave to various family members that I intend to read before they take them back to their house!

Anyway, many thanks, Secret Santa, this is a cool surprise! btw, the packaging in on the left and the book itself is on the right. Isn't the photo on the package too cool?

There are times when Christmas is laid right out at your feet.



And other times when it arrives by post, i.e. the Winter Fiction issue of the New Yorker. Five new stories! I feel rich!

Craftier Than We Even Thought

Radio, supermarket checkouts, furious flying emails, holiday and graduation parties: everywhere the talk has been about Obama's surprising move in choosing Rev Rick Warren for his inaugural invocation. Didn't sit well with many of his supporters. I have no love for the Reverend myself and am rather offended, to say the least, as were most of the people I came across. But. This is no casual move on Obama's part. I suspect that he's quote deliberately setting the tone of his administration from the very first moment. A tone of tolerance and acceptance rather than exclusion and demonizing. He's going to bring everyone, regardless of their position or viewpoint to the table, even if he disagrees with them, and get them to acknowledge each others right to their ideas and viewpoints. Or at the very least, be civil.

Tolerance goes both ways, I hate to say. Obama probably doesn't see eye-to-eye with Rev Warren on many issues, or even on any. But he's willing to listen to everyone, as he stated repeatedly during his campaign. Rev Warren certainly doesn't agree with Obama or his supporters. But that doesn't mean he must be shut out. That's the old way. We have to get past this all-or-nothing type of thinking. We have to be able to acknowledge that we all have our different viewpoints and opinions and come up with tolerant, inclusionary solutions for everyone rather than the current it's-my-way-or-the-highway.

Obama is way smarter than we think. I think he's capable of true Christian compassion, of being able to say: I don't agree with you, but I respect you; I think you are wrong, but to and for yourself, you are right. That's a toughie, isn't it? To fully grasp that other people have right ideas, too. And not all right ideas are the same ideas. Very post-modern. I think he's going to work hard to get us out of the dichotomies we are so stuck in and move us to higher ground and a higher discourse. This is his strength, this is how he operates. These are the true skills of a Community Organizer. And it will be a very new way of doing business.

Classes in Petaluma

So here's the deal. I'm leading two classes this coming spring through Petaluma Parks and Rec, held at the Luchessi Center on North McDowell Blvd. Both are on Tuesday nights and will run in 3 five-week sessions. "Forms of Fiction" goes from 5:30 to 7 p.m and "Writing Nature" from 7:30 to 9 p.m. In both classes we'll work on the craft of writing and write, of course. In "Forms of Fiction" we'll concentrate on different ways that fiction is shaped and try out a few formats for ourselves. In "Writing Nature" we'll develop personal essays based on our observations of the natural world around us. Freewrites will be involved in both classes, so bring paper and your favored pens or pencils.

If you're interested, this will take you to a page with links to the Activity Guide and Online Registration.

What...

... would you do if your creativity died? How would you resuscitate it? Whump it upside the head, perhaps? But it would just sulk for days afterward. Not a good solution, that.

However, a few people offered better solutions on the Searchlights and Signal Flares page in the latest edition of the online Tiny Lights Journal, including myself. In fact, I was invited to be the featured writer on the question, not that my solution was much better than the one at the top of this post. But check it out and see for yourself.

And while you're at it, look around and find the upcoming question (How do you get started?)and consider posting your own reply.

Cool little writing blog

In the daisy-chain manner of the interwebs, I stumbled upon, no wait, that's a real site, I happened upon a CLWB (a cool little writing blog)titled The Bookshelf Muse. It's a compendium of so much writer-ore, I haven't even uncoverd the half of it. The two writers, Angela and Becca, have developed (I think they've created it: I haven't seen anything else like it, but I don't get out much) a whole slew of Thesuaruses, Thesuari? based on settings and emotions. Sounds odd, but it is soooo cool. A Setting Thesaurus is a list of everything possible thing that one might see, hear, feel, smell or taste at a given location, such a kitchen or hospital. An entry in the Feeling Thesaurus will list the many ways a feeling might be expressed in the body. Seems like a great resource, to me.

There's far more to the blog than this, so go check it out.

Two Classes in Spring

Yep, it's official; I'll be teaching two classes this spring! Tuesday nights: "Forms of Fiction" from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. and "Writing Nature" from 7:30 to 9 p.m. $50 for a 5 week session. This is through the Petaluma Parks and Recreation Center, which means it will be dependent on folks signing up. So I'm spreading the word far and wide, wide and far...around Sonoma County that is. Sooo...if you know someone who might possibly be interested, or who might possibly consider being interested, direct them here!

Folks should contact me though the Comments section until the official Petaluma Parks and Recreation Spring 2009 Activity guide is posted. Then you'll be able to enroll online and all that good stuff.

Secret Santa Literary Style

If, like me, you're always ready to share/recommend books and cool journals with all and sundry, here's a neat idea: The Literary Secret Santa. Don your red suit, round up those merry little elves and direct the dog-drawn sleigh to your nearest Indie bookstore for a treat of anonymous giving.

Of course, working in a bookstore gives me some advantage in the pushing-books-on-strangers process, but it's easy to pick up. Trust me, you'll enjoy it.

Oh, yeah, check the link attached to my title for all the details.

Etruscan Dysfunction

Lately, I've had a plugged-up ear that's been driving me crazy; it came with a spate of dizzy-spells, a touch of queasiness and a pervasive, all-around crankiness. When I finally got around to seeing a doc, she prescribed heavy-duty antihistamines for my Etruscan Tube Dysfunction.

Wasn't sure I'd heard it quite right but it did explain my sudden interest in root vegetables and seared meat. I also had an inclination to lounge on the settee during dinner, secretly hoping my sweetie would feed me small bites and grapes while toga-clad musicians strummed lyres and tootled double-barreled flutes in the background. Roasted wild boar for Thanksgiving, why not? If it was good enough for the Etruscans, should be good enough for us.

But then, what about this "tube" business? Had I just narrowly missed switching my wardrobe to include tube-tops and tube-socks (not a sight for the faint of heart on either account), signing up for tube-a-thons down the raging Russian River, shifting to a diet of sausage, carrots, bread sticks? Penne pasta would count, yes, but what about burritos? I could only hope.

I mentioned my concerns to the doc, who at first looked quizzical, then perplexed and finally laughed outright.

"No, no," she said, "Eustachian Tube Dysfunction, the tube that runs from your ears down into the back of your throat."

So. Great. Now I'm Etruscan and I'm going deaf.

Night Songs

Once long ago, on a dark, crisp night near the end of summer, when the snap in the air presaged fall and the stars blinked on before we were sent to our cots for sleep, we kids lounged against the pines, trying to squeeze every last moment out of the day. Glancing up, I gasped: the aurora borealis, those glowing neon curtains, wavered over the lake. Sheer, celestial beauty; a singing of light. Even now, my insides get fluttery with the memory. I wanted to stay up all night, every night to see them. But they did not always show themselves, even as far north as we were. And so some nights, many nights, I’d be put to bed disappointed. Sometimes I cried, an inconsolable 8 year old, the bitterness of not seeing them overshadowing the times I did.

I was young then. And though decades have passed, I’m not really so much older. I still seek beauty during my day, dream of it at night. I’m still hurt, sometimes devastated, when I can not find it.

This does not mean that beauty, those electric celestial curtains, the muscled fabric that stretches through time and contains all space, isn’t there. Just that I have not sat still enough to touch it.

A Resident for this President

This morning I realized that for the first time in 8 years I could stand to read the paper. I know the news is not all that pretty, but finally we have a real president, someone who can handle the situation, rather than make it worse. Someone who gets the big picture. I mean, doesn't Obama look presidential? sound presidential? act presidential?

I won't have to move to Canada, after all.

Yipppee kiy YAAAAAYYY

Okay, we can all breathe again.

I've been mulling over this Obama-phenomenon for a few weeks(an eternity in the blogosphere, sorry), thinking about why I, my kids, my co-workers, shop-keepers, grandparents, professors, maintenance workers, voters of all stripes and inclinations are drawn to Obama -- President-elect Obama!

There is the historic aspect. That can't be denied, esp. for us older folks, who suffered through those terrible years when humans acted like animals, beating on their own kind; we who witnessed the horror, the bombings, the dogs, the malevolence, even if we didn't experience it directed at us first hand. The pain still resides, but maybe it no longer abides.

But for younger voters, race was really not the issue. Obama speaks to them directly about their desire for a more honorable country, for a country they can beleive in. He understands the way technology is embedded in their world, the economies they live under. He knows the power of many minds linked in a common cause; he understands that with the internet, a true grass-roots organization can function. Not only understands, but uses effectively, brilliantly.

Obama, in his run for the Presidency, brought honor and dignity to the campaign and to our nation. He knew that we are tired of the name-calling, fear-mongering, excluding world view of the old-style politics and the older minds. Obama understands we are a pluralisitc society and we are proud of it. He gets that young people often didn't vote because there hadn't been anyone to vote for. He operates with an attitude of respect for all, even his opponents, rather than hatred towards some, and I think this is his true nature. In that respect he's more of a Christian than the current, sitting (lame-duck) president and others of that ilk.

Obama has a vision for this country that honors the principles and ideals that created it. To me, he ran not so much because he wanted to be President (although I'm sure that desire is there, too, otherwise...how could one put up with the ordeal?), but because that was the way to re-instill these values, to re-set the nation on our course,to return hope to our country. He wants to revive that combination of acceptance and opportunity that makes this country great, fabulous and unique. He means it when he says that in no other country is his story possible and we all know that to be gospel.

McCain wanted to be president, period. In the end, he sold out, resorted to doing anything to accomplish that. That's when he lost the nation's respect. He used smear tactics, he fed into the hatreds of immature, unsophisticated voters, he pandered to the right-wing evangelicals. (I can't call them Christians when they hate others so much.) And who won? Perhaps now, the Republican Party will understand that the rightwing evangelicals are a splinter group. That they don't represent America or American ideals in the slightest. That there are few young Republicans for a reason.

Only in this country is his story possible. Only this country can redeem itself so spectacularly.

President Obama!

Here we go...

I just can't take it anymore and I know you all are going bezerko-nutz, so here's a link to a sweet news story from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire: First Voters. I think they have the right idea.
One down, several hundred thousand to go.
Enjoy!

Election Eve

It's been a day of spitting rain, soggy coats and a sudden rainbow at 4 o'clock. As we drove home from work, the sun slid behind an enormous bank of foaming clouds boiling over the horizon, obscuring the hills. Perhaps it was fog rising to meet the dissipating rain. Perhaps it was a whole new storm moving in to consume the hills, wash out the creeks and rivers, push debris to the ocean.

But there was no wind. The calm before the storm, perhaps, this election eve. For we, as a nation, are taking a collective breath, holding it, awaiting the results of tomorrow, all of us eager for a change in the political weather.

We Stand for Change

The other evening, armed with my cell-phone, I went halfway across town to join about a dozen complete (though quite friendly) strangers to do some phone-banking. I can hear you now: "You did what? I can't even get you to go to the movies." Well, I did. These are desperate times. Faced with the specter of another Republican president, even us de-motivated, low-energy, depressed peoples are restless and unable to sit still . We've learned the hard way what can happen when we assume no one could possibly vote twice for the same idiot a village in Texas has been looking for. The village can't believe it either.

The house, tucked down a side-court off a minor cross road, was easily identified by the row of cars in front all sporting Obama/Biden spots, linked to corresponding signs on the lawn and in the windows. I was welcomed at the front door; the greeter took me to a table in the den for a 10-minute briefing. All around me, on the sofa, in every corner, in the two bedrooms and scattered about the back yard, women and men sat with phones to ears and a few pages in front of them. I found a recently vacated patio love seat, the cushions still warm from the previous phone-banker, and set to work in the quickly chilling air. We were contacting supporters, so I shouldn't have been so surprised when most of the people I talked to said they'd already voted, or contributed last week and/or were ready to join us for another round of calling this weekend. Still, I was charmed,encouraged and thrilled.

So where is this going? to this music video that I received today from one of the crew. Check it out. We Stand For Change .

If you think you hear some David Grisman influence, you would be right. Snoop around the Cast and Crew links on the video.

Another Limerick!

John McCain said " I've Picked Palin;
"We love Micheal" we said "We're all in"
But it's not Micheal, but Sarah,
and if that doesn,t scare ya,
it's a whole different kind of a Laugh In.

October 30, 2008 7:35 PM
submitted by Anonymous

Limericks!

A submission

Senator stodgy explosive McMean
picked Palin to be his new queen
150 grand to play dress up
weak interviews, troopergate misconduct
poll numbers heading down the latrine

by Anonymous...

Foaming Pipe Snake

You think I made that up, don't you? I'd love to take credit for such a fortuitous choice of words and images, but no. It's a real ad, for drains. from Liquid Plumr. Their spelling, not mine. Though,personally, I think some SNL writers are on the loose, creating chaos, having too much fun...think we can get away with it, in the "real" world?? I talking about the OG SNL writers, the ones who brought us Swill, the bottled essence of Lake Erie, Puppy Uppers, Jamitol, Bassomatic.

Maybe they're acting on a dare, maybe they want to see if we're paying attention, maybe they just want to give us some comic interludes.

Candygram, ma'am.

Landshark.

Three Limericks starring Palin and McCain

In Wasilla there once was a Mayor
whose knowledge of geography was, errr, fair.
On her porch with a friend, she said, "yeeup that's Russia
but enough on foreign stuff, so hush'ya --
Say what? running for Veep? Good lord, I have nothing to wear!

yeah, this is harder than I thought.

There once was a Mayor of Wasilla
who said to a moose, I'm gonna kill'ya
But with her new togs and a bun
ten winks and a gun,
she sure as hell looked mighty silly-ah.

okay.... next?

There once was a Governor of Alaska
to whom John McCain said " I'll ask ya
to run as my Veep
though you know less than my sheep
about history, foreign affairs and math-yeah!

that took all weekend. Aaarrrrgh!

Caution, Gnomes at Work

not a limerick...but the gal has her heart in the right spot. Hit the title above to find the Tax & Spend Gnomes

McPalin Limericks

yessss! a take-off on the Sarah Palin Haiku Hysteria sponsored by People For The American Way. Check the link out:
McPalin Haiku Hysteria...and vote for your favorite. Then, just for ducks, come back and send me a limerick starring McPalin (or components) via Comments and I'll post it. Unless it is just too vicious or way past bawdy, of course. No name calling! This is serious literature!

Here's one to get the ball rolling;

For a Veep, he picked quite a dear
though why, is not immediately clear
while she can handle Wasilia
a dead moose and Alaska --
what'll happen when Putin draws near?

I didn't say they had to be good

Joe Hearts Joe

So the word is out. Joe Six Pack and Joe the Plumber are getting married at San Francisco's City Hall. McCain of course, dropped his support and wants his "incentives" back. So much for reasoned arguments and researched positions.

Someone scooped me, too, getting a look at the wedding announcements already and posting it in his or her column. As soon as I find the original post that this came from, I'll post the link.

Andy Goldsworthy in San Francisco

Hit the title or link below for the complete story, but the upshot is that Andy Goldsworthy is building a sculpture/installation this month in the Presidio. I was alerted to this via Zyzzyva and Howard Junker's blog, in which he stumbles by the installation site on one of his walks. Only in SF. (Junker also announced his immanent resignation as editor of the Journal. that's an era )

http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/spire.htm

Goldsworthy's work is inspirational; I am entranced by his imaginative use of natural materials. To me, he personifies the drive we have in us to create something, anything, whether it's useful or not. It's a drive that can sometimes be seen in animals, too, though we usually see their more useful creations: nests, burrows, dens. It's the sort of thing that children often do, just making things out of what's around them. But Goldsworthy takes it all one mega-step further. Not just in size but in concept and stunning beauty. But it's not something so easily described, so if you aren't familiar with him, here are some links.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=andy+goldsworthy&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html>

and...any of you Bay Area folks up for a field trip to the Presidio?

Joe Six-Pack.

Who the heck is this fella? That guy down at 7-Eleven with a six-pack of beer in each hand? Bud or Coors, usually. Always wears a baseball cap. That guy? Why is anyone pandering to his vote? If he's putting a six-pack away each night, he probably doesn't have much brain-function left and will probably won't get around to voting, if he even remembers. Because, you know, Tuesday is the day after Monday, which is a lost day, and Tuesday he's gotta work doubletime to get caught up, so he's too tired to do anything after work. Maybe if the Election was on a Weds.

But, jeeez. Is this the fella whose opinion counts so much? Oh, wait, maybe they mean the fellas with the six-pack abs. Riiiiight. They're really paying attention to trade agreements, balance of power and the finer points of de-regulation. After all, they seem to think that drilling offshore will bring in enough oil to amount to a hill of beans.

Barak Hussein Obama

As most of us know, sharing a notorious name does not mean one shares those notorious qualities, despite what some Republicans currently running for office try to say. If it did, then all Timothys or McVeighs should be rounded up and put away because, of course, one day they’re bound to blow up a few government buildings.

Nevertheless, some continue to make a big fuss about Barak Obama’s middle name, Hussein, trying to make a link to extremists that simply doesn't exist. Obama deals with the issue so elegantly and honorably, refusing to be baited with this most ridiculous of arguments, directing the discussion instead back to the more important issues facing the country: the economy, energy and education.

Hussein is an extremely popular name in the Arabic world; it comes from "hasan," meaning good, handsome or beautiful. (Wikipedia:Hussein) It’s the name of one of Muhammad's two grandsons, who became the revered leader of the Shia sect of the Muslim faith. Giving the name Hussein to a child is the same as giving the name Jesus or Mary or Linda; we want to infect him or her with the wisdom, heroism or beauty carried in the name. That some people with such a name cannot live up to it does not poison the name for everyone else.

McCain’s attempts to use such shoddy tactics to frighten voters dries up any respect I have for him. It reveals his hypocrisy, for honorable men, men of principle, true mavericks, wouldn't stoop so low ... just to win.

funnier than you ever thought

Now is all around us, ready for the watching

Now, on a more sedate note. Two weeks ago, we went on a fall vacation up to the Mendocino woodlands. It was a good week to go. This is what it was like.

For a few moments, as the fog fell away to reveal a blue ground, the valley held its own concert: an interlacing of croaky bassoon notes in 4/4 time, high squeals interspersed with cheet-wheet-wheet's, a run of knockety-knockety-knockety's like coconut-shell horse hooves, and a rapid kakakaka-keer! kakakakaka-keer! Though usually the names of birds will flash or rumble through my mind, for this short time, I could not identify the singers, or even if they bore feathers or fur; I could only listen to the songs, the tapestries of sound.

Final Debate 08

...did everyone else hiss when McCain said that Sarah Palin reached out to women? maybe to the Stepford Wives.....but I wouldn't want her to touch my dirty laundry.

....what about the statement that she "understands Special Needs kids more than anyone else." Ha! Her baby's only a few months old and there's a nanny involved. I think my friend Gail who has raised her Down's Syndrome kid at home for the past 18 years and about half of that as a single mom (no nanny ever), knows a whole hell of a lot more than Mrs Sarah "I can too fire you" Palin.

....for McCain to say that "the health of the mother issue has been overblown" ? Hello! Guess you've never been in 48 hour labor with a breach baby with one leg behind his shoulder. Guess we know what he thinks about women, too. They're expendable. They are not precious, like "children." Especially boy-children, I bet. "Get the baby out of there, to hell with my wife." Feels so good to be appreciated for bringing life into the world. They forget that in a biological sense it's far more important to have 10 women and 1 man, than the other way around. In the actual fact of it, men are more expendable. That's why women are in general healthier and live longer. Get it, McButthead?

As you can tell, someone pissed the living hell out of me.

I will also say, that on presence alone, Obama is Presidential: he kept his cool, stuck to the issues, promoted his program, revealed his plans, pointed out all the times that McButthead distorted the truth (lied), maintained a confidential manner, and was neither ruffled or flappable. He looks like he could handle any situation and any head of state.

McButthead looked desperate.

'nuff said.

Squirrelling Summer Away

A short, squirrelly piece was published in Newsbytes today. Some days I actually feel like a writer.

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/nb/2008/09_26/nature.shtml

If the link above does not work, hit the title of this piece. For some reason, the links in the enclosure are acting, well, squirrelly. (couldn't resist. yes, well, of course, I could...but I didn't want to today.)

Exit Exams

A comrade of ours, leaving our workplace for bigger and better things, was asked to take an audiogram as part of her exit interview. This was, we assumed, to determine that she suffered no hearing loss during the course of her employment. Why not a vision test, I wondered, since so many of us use computers all day long and we all know what that can do to even a pristine set of eyeballs. What about a height test? ...just to be sure we haven't been squashed shorter by the burdens of our job. I'm thinking there might be a few other qualities that should be evaluated.

1) Bitterness (rated on a scale from everything's-keen peachy to burned-coffee black).

How does the employee feel about their work experience here? Did it live up to, exceed or fall short of their expectations? Were their projects accomplished without undue resistance from other departments, divisions, personnel? Were they repeatedly blamed for failures that occurred under circumstances beyond their control? Were they ever thanked for the times they worked above and beyond the call of duty, even if it was just a teensy bit beyond or merely a meager, "hey, thanks"? Were their efforts sidelined, forgotten, delayed until useless? And then asked, where the hell were those widget designs when we needed them?

2) Illusionment, dis- or otherwise (rated on a scale from rainbow-hued fantasy to bleak).

Has the employee come to accept the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same..or become even worse? Have they realized that every new form that is created in the name of efficiency always needs even more signatures than before? Had they begun to suspect (rightly) that all the previous people (male) in their position had been paid 20 % more than what they (female) were getting? Were they required to be in more than one meeting a day...and still get their work done?

3) Morale (rated on a scale from rah-rah-rah to kill-me-now).
Are they thoroughly demoralized? If so, then they are good to go. If not, maybe they should be required to stay on an extra month to train their replacement--for half-pay; after all, there would be two of them.

DFW -9/12/2008

David Foster Wallace--what to say beyond the sorrow, the loss. Anyone who's witnessed this depth of depression, either themselves or in a loved one, can only bow their heads in respect for his struggles. It shows us that, in a way, we are victims (if not prisoners) of our own minds. My thoughts go out to his family, in this darkest of times.

Maverick:...right!

It gave me great comfort the other day to hear on NPR that the definition of "maverick" is unbranded cow. Unbranded in this sense meaning not a part of society and so out of touch with reality. Able, for example, to deny saying what in recorded fact they have said; able to support a Bridge to Nowhere (too apt to be even funny), then switch positions a few months later ; able to think that an income of $200,000 defines the middle class (of course it might look like that when you own 7 houses; after all who can afford 1 house on $200,000 in the Bay Area?); able to insist one is proposing a whole new platform when it is identical to the previous Administration's, i.e. a cow following the herd after all.

Headscratcher

If you bring your own bottle of wine to a restaurant, there's a corkage fee.
But what if it's a screwtop...is there screwage?

Napa Valley Writers Conference: First Report

Yes, well, obviously I was having too good a time to blog from the Napa Valley Writers Conference (hi, Nan!). Make that too good a time and way too busy. I was pretty much on the go from 8:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. But it was work I wanted to do -- a race I wanted to run and a track I wanted to run on. Re-entry to the work-a-day world has been rather wrenching, as if riding the wind-shears on a turbulent flight. I stayed in most of the weekend, hoping to stabilize. Now it's more of a slowing down, cutting back from gallop to lope to amble and today, barely a notch above shuffle. It's jet-lag, really, coming down from the excitement of the conference, the conversation, the stories, the laughter,. Of meeting old writing buddies and friends: Gary Silva, Z Egloff, and new: Angela Pnueman, Angela Watrous, of hanging with a Limester, Jane Alynn, but not for long enough.

Be that as it may, I snagged some terrific reads:
Bearing the Body, novel, by Ehud Havazalet
Mendocino, short stories, by Ann Packer
Hunger, short stories, by Lan Samantha Chang
Home Remedies, short stories, by Angela Pnueman
Fire to Fire, poems, by Mark Doty
Famous Builder, memoir, by Paul Lisicky
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, memoir, by Nick Flynn
Rope Bridge, poems, by Nan Cohen

So if nothing else I can read my fool head off until the next conference. Or residency. Or whathaveyou. Because there better be another one ... soon!

A-Conferencing We Go

haven't attended to this blog lately, been pre-occupied with getting ready for: ta da!!! The Napa Valley Writers Conference! Yep, yep, starts tomorrow and I'm ready to roll.

I may...or may not...blog from there. As a staffer this time, I'll have plenty to do. For one thing, I'll be running the cam-corder of the lectures and readings for documentation. For another, one of my best buds from graduate school will be there; lots of catching up to do. The in-person kind, cause we do the email thing plenty. Also, I'm introducing Ron Carlson, who is one of my writing heroes--we all have to have one or two in order to keep putting one word after the other, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot as he might say. He's not the only one; Faulkner is another and Woolf and Nabokov and Cheever; Annie Poulx, Jane Hamilton Jim Krusoe, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz, Annie Dillard, Alan Gurganus. The list goes on. Lorrie Moore, can't forget her. Or Antonya Nelson. So of course, I want to do the intro right. But I'll settle for being coherent on stage and not making a fool of myself in some god-forsaken, unforseen way

The weather promises to be pretty good; sorta hot (90's) but not super hot, like two years ago, when the temp climbed into the 100's. That's when your eyeballs crisped up just walking across the parking lot and your lungs melted a tad with each intake. I'm not much for 100+, even if it is dry. With most of (but not all) the fires put out, the air is pretty clean, though occasionally the wind pushes some old smoke, slightly brown and stale-smelling, down the valley.

The bags are packed; I'm ready to go. Better get some sleep and take my vitamins first, though.

100 Things - exit stage left!

I'm making progress on the Remove One Thing A Day project. I've tossed out a wobbly folding chair that no longer folded, let go of a Deskjet 840C that finally started chuttering rather than printing and returned the canopy that fell apart after one use, and (get this!) didn't replace it with another one.

There's also a box in my living room with a growing mountain of stuff: toys someone else's kids can chew; a zip-up jacket and two winter scarves that were probably left here by friends of my kids when they were all in junior high a decade ago; those special dorm sheets and pillow cases used for one semester of college and then I don't want to know what they slept in or where; some extraneous holiday-themed table linens and a faux-sombrero from Chevy's. Now I just have to get the box from my living room to the Goodwill. How hard is that?

Obviously hard enough because the box is still sitting there. Dang!

We won't go into the bizarre and probably latent-OCD reasons why I simply can't put the box in the back of the car and then take it out when I get to Saks Thrift Avenue (clever name, no?). I think maybe I'm waiting to fill it up. But how full is full? Is the box going to sit there for 6 months slowly gathering random small things, a thick layer of dust and cat dander? The correct answer is yes.

So I've come up with yet another plan (stick with me long enough and we'll have enough to wallpaper the Oval Office). The other day, I was out in my studio, which is one of those built-in-day garden shed kits, roughly 10 by 12 feet. But I treat it like one of those magic bottomless bags. I'm constantly bringing things out to it: books, notebooks, tchotchkes I think I can't write without, another cozy blanket for winter, a fan for summer -- while rarely taking anything out unless there's an odor involved. It became so crowded I could barely turn around in it; my ideas got all tangled every time I looked up. Then I lost a cat in a corner behind a few piles. Boy, was he pissed when I finally realized he'd gone missing and came to let him out. Standing in the doorway, enduring the silent wrath of one indignant tabby, I stared at the over-full shelves, the stacks of books and papers, the piles of blankets, the encroaching tide of magazines and odd socks on the floor; it occurred to me that I could probably take 100 things out and still have plenty of stuff to spare. It would be the inverse of the original proposal of owning only 100 things, though I'd settled on having only 100 things in any given room--not counting books.

Of course, hypocrites that we are, when we take them out, we'll count books as one thing.

p.s. I've taken 66 things out so far and I like the result. So spacious, so airy...well, it will never be airy exactly, but at least now we have air flow.

100 Things = Fewer Things to Lose

With the fires to the west, north and east of us more or less under control, the skies have returned to a more normal summertime blue, undimmed by smoke or haze. Even the fog is being kicked to the curb by a high pressure system and we are on our way to another heat wave. But to the south, in Big Sur and Goleta, the fires rage on, consuming thousands of acres, jumping fire lines, roaring closer to towns and homes. Evacuation orders wobble between mandatory to recommended and back again as the fire lines advance, retreat, curl back around.

Most people in the affected areas by now are prepared, cars packed and pets close by, ready to drive out at a moments notice. I look around my house, wondering what I would pack besides the kids (if they were home), the cat, (if I could find them) and the essential documents (ditto). My laptop, of course, Norm’s sculptures, the small cat figurines the kids have given me for my collection, some of the art they’ve made, some photos, the few prints we have. But beyond that…well, suddenly, the 100 Things system has an obvious practical side. If I'd gotten with the program, I'd have already shed the clutter and crap and figured out what I couldn’t give up. Yet even then, would I put even half of those things in the car, if I had 20 or 30 minutes to get out? I doubt it. When the fire comes, most objects become non-essential; life itself is what counts. While photos and works of art cannot be replaced, I would rather have the kids, than the kids' watercolors or photos.

But let's not dissemble here too much: I do like my things. I’m a packrat, descended from a long line of packrats. I haven’t met an object yet that I could reasonably refuse to house. (This is why I have a spouse; otherwise I’d be living in one of those houses with narrow paths between towering collections of … stuff.) In due time, I’m sure I would pine for the antique settee, the 1000-plus books, the few odd things from my grandparents whom I never quite knew, the deer tooth from a best buddy (yes, someday, sometime, I'll tell that story), the entire collection of cat-figurines, the mirror framed in carved-wood maple leaves that has hung in my bedroom from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I’m sure regret and loss would have its day with me.

But maybe I should take advantage of the situation, and use the threat of fire as an impetus. Perhaps I could evaluate things on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 designating those objects worthy of a spot in the car and 10 designating what I would gladly let burn. And if I’m smart, I’ll remove all the 10’s well before we're ever ordered to evacuate. And if I’m super-smart, I’ll load all the important photos onto cd’s and put them in a fireproof case with all our birth certificates. Once I find them. Sorry, kids, I know they're here somewhere.

A Bit More About Carlin

My friend Carol, who posted a bit about George Carlin here, along with a great photo (and kindly linked to my piece), reminded me of his movie roles and especially the first SNL episode he hosted. Hate to date myself this much, but I distinctly remember that first SNL: the usual gang had gathered at our house to watch what was rumored to be this hot new show. Some of us had our doubts, but what the hey. Mostly I remember we laughed so hard we just about choked on the popcorn we'd made back-in-the-day style: a layer of popcorn kernels in a bit of oil, shaken in a pan on the stove, loaded up with lots of butter and salt, passed around in a large ceramic bowl. By the time Andy Kaufman came on, we knew this was going to be a hit. Of course, I had to watch the dvd of it to recall the actual personnel: Andy Kaufman (lip-synching the Mighty Mouse song, which I still sing to this day complete with the hand gestures, embarrassing any number of kids who happen to be around), John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman; they were all there. Father Guido Sarducci came later, but that's a whole 'nother story.

But Carlin as host convinced us to watch the show, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here's the Smoke. There's the Fire.

The sun rose today a vibrant tangerine fuzz-ball in the thick haze of smoke like something out of a sci-fi flick. Fires to the east, fires to the northwest, fires to the south; just no fires exactly here. But we got the smoke, greasy grey and thick as Hades. Over 7,000 lightening strikes in California last weekend, over 800 1,000 fires still rage. The fire brigades are stretched thin and work ceaselessly; they are overwhelmed. Only one or two of the largest blazes are more than 20% contained; the smoke that fills our valley could be here for weeks, they say, depending on wind patterns.

Though I'm more or less okay while I'm inside, the coughing starts as soon as I open the front door. I've been abusing my albuterol inhaler over the past three days to avoid asthmatic hacking; I'll be moving onto the harder stuff tonight. Everyone's breathing is compromised, eyes are red and itchy, throats are sore. The air reeks like the bars of yore, without the underlying hints of spilled beer and wayward piss; it is unhealthy; it is downright nasty at times. Closer to the fires, roads are closed because of the wretchedly poor visibility; deer, foxes, raccoons fleeing the fires crash down the canyons, across roads and highways.

All day the sky hangs low, Sonoma Mountain invisible behind the murk. An eerie red sun sinks down the thick leaden sky, limning the world in a peculiar rosy-gold. Planes fly overhead, low and weary, returning to home bases for the night. They will fly out again tomorrow in the peachy-amber light of another smokey dawn.

George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Today, in honor of George Carlin, I used all seven words you can't say on TV (or radio), quarreled with God on the way he's running the damn Universe ( the Goddess, imho, could do so much better with 6 of her 8 hands tied behind her back, two toddlers and guests coming over for diner) and moved a bunch of my stuff to a better stuff-location. Even in my sorrow, I was laughing.

wtf. We've lost one of the best: a giant among comedians; a word-smith extraordinaire; an intelligence to be admired. Even as he skewered us on our pretensions and un-considered habits, we were peeing our pants and gasping for breath from laughter. He nailed us in all our bad habits of thought and entranced us with the sheer poetry of his own mind and word-wizardry. And even as our guts cramped up from guffawing, we knew he was right on.

Bye, George, thanks for the laughs.

100 Things Challenge

So have you heard about this particular challenge to our madcrazy consumeristic world? It's a movement, as some call it, to limit our personal belongings to 100 things. But really, it's a guy named Dave, blogging at stuckinstuff (click post title for link) He's concerned about the rampant, unconscious, unconsidered consumerism we suffer from and the small mountains of stuff that subsequently accrete around each and every one of us (cue George Carlin on Stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac).

Doing his bit for Less Stuff = More Fun, Dave's been working on purging his own pile.

But as any of us who have repeatedly failed De-Cluttering 101, purging is a helluva lot harder than acquiring. So Dave gave himself this challenge: pare down to 100 personal items. Yes, faint if you must, because I just about did. I mean, I have at least 50 tchotchkes on my desk right now. Maybe, just maybe, I could get down to 1000 items, if there was like, money involved, say $10 an item disposed of..... What I find more interesting in conversations with friends and online are the things that are immediately declared off limits to the decree: books, dvds, records, tools, shoes, unders, paintings, photographs, bug collections, car paraphernalia, inherited ancestral stuff. Where would you draw the line?

And then what to do with the stuff you can finally bear to part with?

I certainly don't want to just dump stuff, especially indestructible plastic, into the waste-stream. This guy named Dave has managed to donate, sell and recycle most of his stuff (not all of it was junk, that helped) and I could probably do the same with some of it. But, getting beyond the question of why I still have this crapola, consider what I wouldn't want to just toss and no one in their right mind could possibly want: old analog tapes, Beta tapes, teething rings, cracked Tupperware, parts of machines the kids took apart, plastic doodads, thingamajigs, lick'em-ups and wham-whams. Guess I could stuff it all into boxes and then store them in the basement? Yikes, isn't this where we started? Wouldn't those those boxes have to be declared off limits. too?

It is all a bit much. Perhaps I'll resort to an old practice and just try to remove at least one thing from my household per day by whatever means possible: recycle, sell, donate. That too is harder than it sounds. I tried this a few years ago and I only lasted two weeks.

Say, anyone interested in a hot tub?

The Point Reyes National Seashore is a treasure of the first order, which most people who have been there know. That space between ocean and land, water and air has the power to create change. In my notebook from the retreat there two (three?) weekends ago, I found this response to being there.

On Pelicans

They glide silently and in snug formation with barely a wing beat--just an acute sense of wind and upwelling, sometimes a mere foot or two over the rocking water. Their necks are crooked back, their prehistoric pouchy beaks furled tight underneath. One wing beat, two, ripples the fluid line; they skim along the bluff below, wheel the corner, skim back-- a mottled brown and white necklace sailing loose and flung free

Something in me, that feathered thing perhaps, rises with them as they flash over the rim of the bluff and float swiftly onward over the land of water, on an ocean of air.

heckled fetlock

(sometimes you get these bogus snake-oil emails touting remedies for the-dysfunction-of-the-moment that have their own poetry within; see below for an almost direct quote. The title is word-for-word real. lk)

Ever tell you I saw him once?
Dude, had a good lol time.
said I could have other employment than lacemaking.bayeux@home.
Gothither, o king, in all thy prosperity, he said. He stood on the earthdam before me.
Think I want a fresh hogshead of beer, the lowenbrau, I answered.
I refuse to marry you. Is that clear? he shouted, citing the basic principles of self-government in the territories.
We heckled the fetlock into a twee dawn; then he was flew the little deuce coop.

rearranged by Lakin Khan

Blogcast, Publishing and the Rejection Carousel

For writers, publication is the holy grail, the magic elixir that gives meaning to the slogging drudgery required to finish a manuscript. Suddenly, it was all worthwhile, every gnashed tooth, every smacked forehead, every expletive. In fact, the agony is often forgotten altogether, like childbirth. (Oh, yeah, took me only 40 months, not too bad, no back labor, just shooting pains in the wrists and a threatened divorce. No, no, everything's fine now; it's a healthy little book.)

But as anyone who has sent their babies out on the Rejection Carousel can testify, publication itself seems more like a crap shoot than a reflection of the quality of our little darlings. Unfortunately, publication is our proof of the pudding; it is the accepted way writers, as artists, are acknowledged. Our words exist primarily as a private conversation between us and the keyboard, either ephemerally as bytes on a hard drive or more tangibly as weighty reams of recycled paper, serving most usefully as a doorstop for our studio or fodder for our writers group. Unless some other entity agrees to publish, it doesn’t exist for a larger audience. Without that tangible published work (no matter where or by whom) to wave and crow about our endless hours in studio can look like more like an excuse to be willfully anti-social.

The way I see it, most other artists don't need an intermediary to produce their work. Artists who paint, draw or sculpt always have the object that represents their thousands of studio hours ; they can point to it, display it, hang it on a wall. Musicians, after their years of scales and practice, can pull out an instrument and play tunes, whether at a gig, a party or their home where it can be heard by another person instantaneiously. (I agree, the professional part is a bit different, but bear with me.) A dancer can reveal his or her ability on any dance floor. But the writer? We are still bound to a feudal system in which we create the work and then seek a second party for it's manitestation. Except for occassional readings, impromptu recitations or odd requests by Aunt Agatha for a sweet piece for Bertie's engagement party, we are invisible. Without the concrete proof of a published work, no one knows what the hell we’re doing secluded in a studio while the rest of the world parties, goes to movies, takes their first baby steps, graduates cum laude, or blows itself to smithereens.

And so our struggle is two-fold: to make the best work possible and then convince someone to take it.

But I see this changing even as I type. Although I'll continue to submit work, now for the first time, writers can dodge the editors, the arbiters of what will and won’t get published. We can blog, e-publish, podcast and let the audiences be the judge. No more second guessing, no more trying to please some old crotchety guy in Wichita; now we can work to please our own standards, high, low or inbetween, and our own niche-y audience. Maybe we’ll only have 15 readers, but that’s 15 more than we would have had, working the old system.

Don’t get me wrong, if someone agrees to publish any of my stuff, I’d come unglued, salivate like a starving boxer at a barbeque and I agree to just about any terms (yes, you can just call me Print Slut anytime now). But until then,I'll blog, blog away and let the publishers take the hindmost. For these days, the proof is in the blogcast.

What's Writing Got To Do With It?

What's writing but second-hand emotions--or, as it's been said, re-living your experiences with commentary and editing? Just a passing comment...

Lately, the conversation in various webby-circles has turned to rejection, perseverance and why the hell we do this thing called writing anyway. First of all, you have to sit down and produce anywhere from 5,000 to 100,000 words, not just any words, but the "right word in the right place," as Mark Twain said. We won't speculate on the amount of time this might take, you all know it's far more than anyone would pay you for a real job. At the end of this you have maybe a ream of paper with endless lines of tiny black marks or the more ephemeral billions of bytes. But as an object, it doesn't have much of an existence to be shared as a communication... until it's been published.

Wherein lies the rub. After you've bled all over the keyboard, bored your friends to tears, strained/wrecked your marriage, provided fodder for your children's abandonment issues and consequently expensive therapist, after all that, now you get to send it out on the Rejection Carousel. Here's an eloquent page on that subject from ZYZZYVASPEAKS: Passed On

It only stands to reason, then, that after the 20th, 30th or even 50th rejection, we pause to give ourselves a reality check. Why should we want to continue?

E-Flash News: Semi-finalists Gather for World's First Annual Post-Kegger Belching Contest.

At least that's what it sounded like, down on the beach of Drake's Bay in the Pt Reyes National Seashore, about a mile or two from a recently established elephant seal rookery. Those guys are way loud, even though at this time of year only the weaned pups (merely a few hundred pounds) were still lurking about. Twenty-five of us gathered last weekend for a Writing Retreat Field Seminar at the refurbished Lifeboat Station, just below Chimney Rock, somewhat south-east of the Pt Reyes Lighthouse. We were here to commune with nature, write ourselves silly and talk shop. The elephant seals trolled along the small beach, watching us wander around with notebooks in hand and our minds off in left field. Whether their explosive guttural outbursts were comments on our looniness, or a mere fact of biology was, at times, a bit difficult to determine.

The elephant seals were not the only creatures around. With the low tide, the sea stars and sea anemones were exposed among the kelpy rocks, seagulls hovered about hoping for handouts, and pelicans, those prehistoric-looking birds, floated by in long banners. And of course, us writers, soaking up sensations and inspiration, working on prompts and/or our own stuff, listening to the ocean, the world, our words, ourselves.

The leaders, Patti Trimble and Susan Bono, did a magnificent job with the diverse range of writing experience and orientations, giving us all room to roam and time to report back. On the first day, they took us on a hike up to the top of the bluff; in the mizzle and mist, we stood there, on the spine of the world, eye-level with the pelicans, one side ocean, the other side bay. The mournful foghorns, the booming waves and the long, low, loud belches filled our ears.

Nature: isn't it grand?

Here's the link to the Pt Reyes Field Seminars, though the Writing Retreat, since it's over, is no longer listed. But there's tons of other seminars .... and there's always next year. Keep your eyes peeled!

http://www.ptreyes.org/fieldseminars/

Looking for a Few More Good Writers

Yes, fictioneer folks, the Napa Valley Writer's Conference is still accepting applications. I urge anyone who relishes a week immersed in writing to apply. Can't beat great faculty (Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Ehud Havazelet, Ann Packer), stunning location (the Wine Country), fabulous meals (majority of meals catered by the culinary school on campus), high-quality students. As noted on the Conference website, "Vanessa Hua, who attended in 2006, has won first place in the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest for the story she worked on in ZZ Packer’s workshop."

Of course, I have to reveal that I'm working on staff this year. But! I have attended the conference two previous summers and been just amazed at having this top-notch conference in my backyard, so to speak. I's like a best-kept secret, or an undiscovered treasure. Check out the website, and see what you think.

http://www.napawritersconf.org/

Nature's Way pub: Swallows and Owls

It's been a good three weeks since my last post, I'm rather embarrassed to say. Hectic-wild at work for one week, then it was hella hot and I wimpered in the shade with my feet in a wading pool waiting for the 100 degree temps to disappear. But the marine layer (weatherman talk for fog-starter) is making its way back and this evening, I've been shutting windows against the chill.

But I did manage to complete an essay for Newsbytes and it ran last Friday, so here is the link, for those who are interested. It's titled: Owl Boxes and Swallows Nests.

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/nb/05_16_08/naturesway.shtml

I haven't abandoned my Wildlife Backyard Project willy-nilly; more on that later. Gonna get some pix of my improvements, too. But first, I have to find the camera. That thing is so small, sometimes I'll find it in the couch cushions along with the spare change and gum wrappers.