Laughlin

I am spending today recovering; it seems that I have been go-go-go for weeks, and today I sit down with laptop, writing instruments, and a glass of water to set a stage or something.  I have witnessed two baseball games--one awful, one nail-biting--pushed and shoved two loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, my bathroom, and my bedroom, and now I'm here, fresh out of excuses not to be.

So, in the spirit of Jamaica Kincaid, here is what I have been doing lately:

• Not sitting in trees or dreaming, two things I wish for;
• Working without a day missed until Friday, when I made my first trip to the doctor in 2 years.  The result?  I may have a thyroid issue that goes beyond the regular symptoms instead of having a thyroid issue and Crohn's.  I can only hope.  I received a tetanus shot, a lecture on my cholesterol ("you're too young for that medication"--it's your call, Doc), a thorough exam, and a dosage of birth control.  The thyroid meds followed yesterday.  To describe what it is like to be without health insurance and the proper medication for years and then rejoin the healthy was overwhelming this morning as I took a pill that will bring me back to vitality, focus, and, hopefully, dropping forty pounds;
• Work is back to going well...and I am learning to let it affect me less.  I'm shopping for a position 470 miles north of here, but learning all I can while I stay;
• The desert continues to master me.  I hate it.  I hate the sprawl that it has prompted.  I hate the conservatism, homicidal tendencies, and entitlement it provokes.  But one day last weekend, on a Sunday morning with my sister-in-law watching from the beach, I stepped from the sand of Laughlin, Nevada and into the coldest summer river in my history.  The water was clear, the current strong, and, at best, the temperature of it was about 60 degrees.  60 sounds fine, but in water temperature it feels like it possesses a windchill factor of 30.  I stood ankle-deep, waited for the ache to pass, waded to knee deep, waited for the ache to pass, drifted to waist deep, waited for the ache to pass, and then dunked down and up quickly.  It was like dunking in menthol, peppermint oil, snow, lightning, vodka...anything cold and stripping.  Eighteen months of dry, baking, desert sun and wind fled my soul.  Down and up, gasp, down and up.  Bless the mighty Colorado;
• My writing has been limited to miles of journaling, free-writing the novel, and what you see here;
• But I read like a M.F.-er.

The podcasts and a boss who loves words as much as I keeps me sharp.  Talking workforce management eight hours a day is a gift, writing for my love of it is a gift, and that river was a gift.  (Are all a baptism?  I guess there is redemption there.)  

One more thing should be noted about Laughlin:  I am normally not a gambler.  Gambling (as with most games, save baseball) bores me senseless and rattled.  But our first day in Laughlin I could feel something was up.  I dropped $5 in a machine to expel it from me and landed $120.  About six hours later I landed $40 on $5, and the next morning I tried to break the hundred dollar bill from the first win and pulled in another $30.  So, my gut instincts still have it.  I say this not to roll in riches (the money went to the doctor and pharmacist this week), but to say that I know, I can feel, that I will go home, not only as a goal, but as an unavoidable destination.

I wonder what it will be like the second time.  A gamble, again.

Onward, dear reader.

...And Back Again.

The blog is back here, folks.  I didn't like the idea of being associated with Yahoo! again.  My blog was with Tumblr, which was bought by Yahoo!, etc and so on.  So back here we are.

Yes, I'm still not on WordPress.  I'm still not smart enough to operate WordPress, and I like content more than fancy programming, so here lies the Blogger snob.

On-word, dear reader.

The End of the Line...

Small change for those who regularly read the blog...I am moving all of my future blogposts to my Tumblr account.  For those who aren't aware, I currently write five blogs, in five different voices, it seems.  I'm hoping to consolidate all to one voice, at one location.

It should probably also be noted that my online presence will start to be more streamlined, too, at least for the holiday season (and I'm hoping beyond).  At present I post all over the map, constantly trying to catch up, constantly trying to remind others that I'm still there and still listening.  My life has turned into more of what "it looks like" than "what it is."  Moving forward, most of my postings will be on Tumblr, and even those will be limited.

I'm still here, reading everyone else.  Believe it or don't.  I'm also out finding life.  The mentality that I might "miss something on the 'net if I don't tune in" has moved to "I might miss life if I don't limit my internet time."

Thanks for reading.  Onward.

(Poem) "Hope is that stubborn thing"

“Hope is that stubborn thing,” he started, 

And I missed the rest, 
Thinking of the other metaphors for hope.
Feathers.  Beacons.  Trees.
The trees kept me for a bit, and I kept hope in the branches:
Hope as tenuous strength;
Hope as wide-flung web;
Hope as blinding light--
A tall oak; 
A sleepy willow;
A flaming maple, respectively.
If hope is the sturdiness, agility, and color of a growing thing, 
Standing without announcement,
Then what is its stubborn start or counterpart?
A heath?  The trash if a photo were taken or a painting rendered?
The one trunk with bandy enough roots
To look ugly daily
But stubborn enough to hang onto, and to save a life in a flood
Of muddy water
Rising?

(Photo courtesy A.N. Erlandson, arborsmith.com)

Marcel

Vanity Fair magazine interviews celebrities from time to time with the following questions, taken in the spirit of what Proust used to pose to his friends and acquaintances.  Since I haven't seen such a monster on the social networks (Facebook, I be lookin' at you, yo) in some time, and it's a slow writing day, here's a little near-bullet-point list for your reading round-up...

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Teaching anything and watching the learner suddenly get it.

What is your greatest fear?

Being ignored.

Which living person do you most admire?

Barack Obama.

What is your favorite journey?

The one my pen takes on a blank page, with no end in sight, accompanied by a cup of strong, black coffee.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Chastity.

On what occasion do you lie?

When someone asks me what I think of the food.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

My hindquarters.  Apparently, and mysteriously to me, it’s desirable.  I’d rather have a knock-out set of, say, eyes.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“Loathe.”  “Absolutely.” 

What is your greatest regret?

The men I have been intimate with.

Who or what is the greatest love of your life?

Writing.

When and where were you happiest?

When I was getting my bachelor’s degree.  I was teaching, men admired me for my brain, and I could read good books without being labeled a snob.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Playing the guitar.

What is your current state of mind?

Precarious.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

My mother would still be living.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Having the courage to leave a “good” job with an abusive employer.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?

A coffee bean.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

Shortstop/Mathematician. (Tie.)

What is your most treasured possession?

My penmanship.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being seen but not heard.

Where would you like to live?

San Francisco.

What is your most marked characteristic?

My “mace face.”

What do you most value in your friends?

A sense of humor.

Who are your heroes in real life?

People who hear what can’t be done and do it in spite of the rest of us to make the world a better place.

What are your favorite names?

Moonlight Graham if it’s a boy, Charlotte if it’s a girl, D'artagnan if it’s a pet, Homer if it's a baseball pitcher, and Moleskine if it’s a notebook.

What is it that you most dislike?

Anything that “should” be done.  I don’t keep up with appearances well.

How would you like to die?

Quickly, not now, and accidentally.

What is your motto?

“Write what you mean.”

Just One More Place...

I've mentioned this everywhere else, save here. So I'll just post it one more time and then move on...

I was published by The Rumpus yesterday. For me, that's like a jazz musician getting asked to play with Louis Armstrong, or a comedian visiting Second City, or a cook standing next to Julia Child. Here's the link...
http://therumpus.net/2012/09/where-im-reading-then-and-now/

Onward, dear reader, to the next.

Book and Music, By...

As I write this today I am listening to a collection of music that I own but haven't heard yet.  Every Tuesday I lengthen this listen:  my Starbucks Rewards app on my phone holds up a red-circled "1" like an auction bidder, and I go in to check the notification and find a free iTunes song waiting for my redeem, and every Tuesday iTunes itself features a free song for downloading from the home page.  The current playlist of new stuff looks like this:

• "Amsterdam" by Imagine Dragons
• "If Only" by Dave Matthews Band
• "My Dear" by Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics
• "How Do You Ruin Me?" by Black Prairie
• "Trouble" by Jose James

I don't know if any of these songs or the artists singing them are the latest "in" thing.  It's free music.  It's not likely I'll remember the songs or the artists in the morning.  Music is my one-night stand.  That explains why I probably knew who Amy Winehouse was but couldn't remember who she was when her death was announced.  Unless your name is Bruce Springsteen or Mary Chapin Carpenter, I probably love you, but not enough to marry your music.

It's free.  I'm no judge, going either way.

*****

I am reading a LOT of library books this year.  More than I ever have since I was a kid.  When I was a kid, all the way up to when my mother passed away, I hoarded books.  At one point in Missouri I had over 500 books, most of them literature (technically, I still have them--they're in storage in Missouri with a collection of other things), and I organized them by color.  I expected to live out my life in Missouri, even though my life of nomad behavior pointed to moving again at least once more in my life.  When my mother died, though, something no longer connected there.  I read books and donated them to the library.  I packed up the unread ones when I moved to California, and when I read most books in California I donated them to the library, sold them in my last weeks in San Francisco, or "set them free" through an application called BookCrossing.  I still considered books precious and requiring a physical care, but I could let them go when I read them, with few exceptions.

This year I've evolved again...books, through reading them, are starting to morph into the vehicles that I am sure they have been all along.  Don't get me wrong--I would not arbitrarily deface or destroy a book, but I am learning of ways where it is acceptable to do so:

• If you have decided to journey a substantial length of a mountain range on foot, and your backpack starts out too heavy; read Cheryl Strayed's "Wild" for particulars on burning your books along the trail for fire starters;
• If you want to write in a book but you don't want others reading what you have written, tuck your secrets in the negative spaces of others' books; read "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje;
• If you want to pack a fat novel that you've always wanted to read but it won't fit in your bicycle's handlebar pack, slice up the book and pack it in your backpack, deep in the gaps...but don't toss the wrong section; ask Willie Weir in his blog of his experience of reading "Atlas Shrugged" in cycling through South America.

Or just borrow a book from the library and return it after.  Whichever is lighter and fits the journey.  Borrowing a book from the library preserves it, yes, but...someday (I write this smacking my lips in some sort of lust) I want to be on a journey where a book becomes that one-night stand, that song that I remember but can't name, either by title or artist.

Onward, dear reader.