That Song by Alison Krauss, or, A Way With Words

Formal-ly

I go through cycles of music and podcasts when I head out on my walks to the ocean these days.  If all of the podcasts are spent, I switch to a playlist that drives me to pick up my feet.  If there are podcasts waiting, they get first priority, for walking allows my brain the only multi-task that receives the information.

I listen to all kinds of programs:

• "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor;
• "The Rachel Maddow Show" with Rachel Maddow;
• "Here's the Thing" with Alec Baldwin (yes, THAT Alec Baldwin);
• "Selected Shorts" with various celebrities reading short works of fiction to an audience;
• "Alt.Latino" with Jasmine Garsd and Felix Contreras;
• "WTF" with Marc Maron;
• "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross;
• "A Way With Words" with Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.

Notice a pattern?  No?  Well, then just remember the last one on the list.  That one will stick out--like a sore thumb, as the saying goes--later.

*****

I've been in love with words all the way back to pre-kindergarten days.  According to legend, I'd run around the house playing with words (I was a neat freak even at that age and playing with my toys often meant, well, organizing them) that I heard from my parents, my live-in grandmother, and rare glances at television.  My mother was a huge proponent of children's literature, particularly rhyme, and I would beat out a song of Seuss or Silverstein until I drove everyone crazy or concerned.  When my mother saw how hungry I was for words, she collaborated with my father and grandmother to mispronounce some things, out of fear that my using words like "compromise," "obliterate" (say that one for a second...it's like a KA-POW from a comic book), etc would get me all kinds of teasing from my schoolmates on the first day.  So they "corrected" me to call that long, thin pasta with the accent on the first syllable instead of the second ("SPAG-hetti") and that "compromise" word as an altered promise instead of its own saying.  

As you can imagine, I got laughed at anyway, for the wrong reason.  I learned to shut up, in other words, which I guess is the blessing one is looking for when one's child is running around the house audibly tasting words like "obliterate."

As a side effect, I also learned to (quietly) be even better at grammar, spelling, and usage than most kids, then most adolescents (that wasn't hard--have you ever listened to teenagers?), and then most adults.  I wouldn't correct people, but I would look up what they said later if it was questionable.  It usually was, but, again, I didn't question the person who uttered the word or phrase--I just used it as a learning experience of my own.  I loved entertainers who played with correct and incorrect usage, or language that leaned to one tone or another: a favorite was David Letterman ("I don't think there's a man, woman, or child alive today who doesn't enjoy a good beverage," spoken with an extra-thick layer of cheeeeez).  I listened to Garrison Keillor on "A Prairie Home Companion" and spoke like a Minnesotan for hours after; I listened to my dad tell a story and would ask people the next day what the "Sam Hill" they meant by something.  I learned what was "formally correct" and loved the rest, just as much as a good beverage.

Somewhere in there, though, my mother's fears were realized.  I was a freak when it came to language, and she even admitted to me that when I went to college she was afraid to write me for fear I would sit at the receiving end with a red pen the size of a sword and proof her letters.  I found this both stunning and not surprising.  Sure, I loved English (with passing crushes on Spanish, French, German, Italian and varying dialects of English), but didn't everyone else, too?  Come ON, the word is "obliterate."  Slowly, roll it off your tongue.  The word is packed with passion, no?

Eh, not so much, answered the world.

College didn't help the addiction; rather, it festered there.  My first class was Intro to Literature, and there I read Joyce's "Araby," with its "music" in "horse harnesses."  Now I was hearing the music of words and the music that I was supposed to hear from description, and God help us all.  I took a Shakespeare course and learned that back in the Bard's day you had one way of talking to your friends and one way of talking to people higher in the classes than you were or could hope to be.  That taught me more about formal and informal usage than my French classes ("tu," "vous;" it's all you) and my required grammar course.  I put that grammar course off until the very end, thinking it was going to be some woman wearing a tight bun with a ruler in her hand ready to smack me if I mixed "I" and "me" the wrong way.  Turns out, that class was about shifting trends in English over the years, etymology, and the nuances of formal and informal.  No rulers would be damaged in the participation of that class, and the gentle provocations of my professor taught me to think about language with even more love and devotion.

Doktor Enabler.

After college I wrote training manuals and kick-ass emails on a corporate path to what I thought would be something phenomenal--a big City.  San Francisco must be not only full of metropolitan, worldly-wise English-speakers, but I was looking forward to hearing other languages, which didn't happen much in Southwest Missouri outside of a college campus.  I showed up in the Bay Area and soaked up the music of Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Italian (umm-HMMM, that's what I'm talking about), Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog...no French except from a friend who spoke it as a second (maybe third) language.  But the English in San Francisco...I was so disappointed, and had a hard time hiding it.  A regret now is that I shared my cringing at, like, you know, the vast, like, people who, like, talk like, well, you know, this.  Argh, I growled to anyone who knew me, half those words can be, what's the word, OBLITERATED, and we could have...English.  Musical, Seuss-ical, English.  Or I could stand to listen to your conversation.  Your, like, hesitating, is, like, killing my writing and wordsmith's ear.

Worse than alienating people with my love of language was when they asked me to help them correct the issue and I discovered that most of them possessed a) no love of language, and/or b) a strong aversion to learning a love of it after grade school.  My first roommate in San Francisco asked me to proof her college papers for a comp class.  I did, returned them, and she took offense.  "My instructor said this sentence was fine, and he used to work for the New York Times."  I swallowed the urge to point out to her that he used to work for the New York Times.  I backed away, telling her that I was probably wrong, and that I wouldn't mess her up by proofing her pieces anymore.  She looked relieved.  I felt relieved myself, but a little lonelier for the confrontation.  Didn't she love words enough to play with them?  Didn't she respect herself enough to question the instructor?

Maybe, though, I thought in a scary supposition to myself, I had been in the City so long that I was mispronouncing spaghetti all over again.

*****

These days, unemployed, I see plenty of assaults on the English language by people who are supposed to guide the rest of us to success.  I see people who are gainfully employed getting paid to treat words like dollar bills at Magic Mike's.  I see entry-level, middle management, and top leadership communicating poorly.  And I'm expected to expect less.

I do.  Because, regrettably, in the last few years expecting more has cost me friendships, and, still not regrettably, brownie points with managers.  But privately, secretly, in the dark of night or on those morning walks to the ocean, if no one's around, I correct myself, or correct big shots in media (NBC Olympic commentators, mostly, or business leaders who had it in for me).  I never correct friends or my beloved baseball players that don't speak English so well...not because I couldn't, but because I don't speak Spanish so well and I have no desire to correct people I love.  I guess that's part of the problem.  I should have remembered that regarding correcting myself.

Obliterate.  Ok, Rainman, enough...

Back to my podcasts...for in them lies the most release if there is no music playing.  (Can I just say that the best song lyrics are better than the words I used to say wandering around the house as a toddler?)  The last podcast on that list, "A Way With Words," is one of the rare cultural gems of San Diego County.  The show is recorded and produced here, where people used to, as late as last year, speak in golden sentences and now talk, like, you know, San Franciscan, like, English.  This morning I listened to this week's podcast with relish.  I learned why the word "colonel" is said with an "r" sound.  And then a caller came on and asked why we couldn't just readily exchange "I" and "me" in a sentence, and why the heck all the rules, and blah, blah, blah.

I held my breath, hoping there were no rulers in the room.

The hosts, as gently as they could, sympathized with the caller.  They expressed the belief that people who felt the need to correct others should probably be selective about the time and place for the correction.  And then The Reason came in, and my loneliness in love of language was relieved for a moment.  The female host expressed the belief that there are different applications of language for different situations in our world...formal and informal.  While use of "me and my friends went to the movies" isn't incorrect, it's not as formal as "My friends and I went to the movies."  There's a time and place for "Me and my friends went to the movies," and there's a time and place for "My friends and I went to the movies."  Knowing the difference, she explained, is like dressing for the party.  One kind of party requires t-shirt and jeans.  Another kind of party requires a floor-length gown.  It dresses the speaker for the situation.  She also mentioned that knowing the difference and using the difference is a form of respect for others.  Fitting the language to the situation works to respect the other person not only in fitting in with the group, but, she said, in putting others first.  "If you say, 'My friends and I,'" she said, "the placement in the sentence is putting others--'my friends'--before myself."

Wow.

And that, dear reader, says it all for me.  Que milagro, as they would say just south of here.  And I'll say nothing at all again about the subject for a little while, again, now. 

P.S. - This song is the inspiration for today's rendition of Life For Rent.  Silence, and golden considerations.

That Song by Enya, or, The Neighborhood

Come to think of it, I've never written of where I live.  I rarely think about where I live in relation to the City I love.

I tend to think of my home in terms of the entire City, and not necessarily its parts.  To draw generalizations about San Francisco (or any city--I just learned yesterday that Denver has a neighborhood called LoDo, for Lower Downtown, and the baseball announcers were trying to sew that place up neatly, and probably failing to any local listening) is to invite criticism from someone who lives there, used to live there, had a sainted uncle living there, etc.  I don't like to grant generalizations either...the practice assumes the door's closed.  I am simply thrilled to suddenly be made aware of my neighborhood in terms of description from my perspective, which is through the eyes of an amateur writer.

Why that perspective?  Well, I find it a great starting point, since branching out our writing group to this neighborhood has opened my eyes to the fact that this neighborhood--in fact, the whole western half of the City--is crawling with closeted creatives.

Why would I say such a thing?  What makes them closeted?  What puts them all out here in the Avenues, desperate for the creative acknowledgment that it's acceptable to be a writer?

Some points to consider:

• The Inner Sunset is, for the most part, NOT a tourist destination in San Francisco.  Tourists pass through here on their way to the ocean, to the Park, or to the museums;
• The Inner Sunset is mostly residential.  We don't have THE bar the hipster crowd is chasing.  We don't have THE best of any one ethnic cuisine (although there are some eclectic delights here).  There are a lot of family places.  It's very much like living in a suburb;
• Graffiti, if found here, is usually tagging, not art;
• It's cold and dark, mostly (ask Garrison Keillor and Natalie Goldberg about differences in writers from cold climates to warmer climates);
• By assumption, more writers are seen working in cafes in North Beach, the Mission, the Haight, or the Castro.  If you look over someone's shoulder in a cafe in the Inner Sunset you're more likely to find a medical case study (UCSF is up the hill) or a spreadsheet;
• Residents here live here to get away from the "weird" San Francisco.

So we're all closeted weird, I suppose.  I know that's why I love it here...it seems sane compared to the rest of the City.  MaryAnn of "Tales" would have thought she went back to Ohio--until the fog started. But in that sane comfort, there's a compromise--lack of creativity.  So when I announce a writing group in this area and the relief floods out like a swarm, it's, "Thank you SO much for putting this together!"  You're welcome, but...are you afraid of coming out in the light on your own?

No matter.  I was too, in my own small way, and had to head to a tourist trap to write in the past.  No more.

Onward, dear reader.

(By the way, I was writing at the beach this morning, longhand, and a woman walking her dog drew up short next to me on the bench.  "My goodness," she gasped, "look at your handwriting.  It's like graphic art."  I smiled and thanked her, patted her dog, and they continued in the sun.  The waves of my up- and downstrokes lapped the page edges, and I was grateful to be standing alone, tagging a blank page like a gangsta from the Haight.)

P.S. - This song is the inspiration for the title of this post of Life For Rent.  Waves waving...Ruskin's rolling in his grave.

That Song by Deborah Kerr, or, Fake It 'Til You Make It

Sometimes you just have to do what you don't want to do.

Today is no exception.

I'm overcoming two challenges today:

• Leading a writing group three blocks from the protest-ridden Mission office of the SFPD when I really want to curl up at the Carlsbad library, where the librarians greet you at the door.
• I am to the point in my current short story writing where I have to write a sex scene.

Depending on how you look at my past employment, the fear factors are a toss-up. After spending three years working in Oakland, I'm more scared of the writing assignment. After working in California for seven years, I'm more scared of the protestors.

Flip a coin and whistle a little and dance on-ward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is where the title of today's post of Life For Rent comes from. This is song I'm playing to be brave...it serves dual duty. It makes me feel sexy. No white boy has ever called me "mama," so Mat is turning me on. Well, that, and the lyrics help. :) Standin' there like a Tennessee queen sayin' 'Don't look at me, don't look at me...'

*Picture courtesy of my sis-in-love Serena. Find Bob in the picture and win keys to the Buick. To borrow from Shakira: "No hiding, no hiding."

That Song by the Beatles, Or, Misconceptions

No, this post is not about lonely people or Jude. The Beatles' song came up on the iPod and made me think of what I've been chewing on this week--the preconceptions of how the person who chooses to be unemployed spends two things: time and money. So I'll steal from other music and explain.

Tiiiiime, Is On My Side, Yes It Is Now

Here is what I do not do with my time:

• Watch television. I probably rack up about two hours a week, or six hours a week if I happen to watch a Giants game.
• Eat bonbons. They have too much sugar. I prefer a plain 1x1 inch square of dark chocolate, and usually just one of those. Another reason to avoid television...a lot of food does look good in the ads.
• Read all day. I read about two hours a day during the week, sometimes all day on weekends. I'd be reading all day on weekends if I were working a traditional job, so that's not a big change. The big change is the two hours a day. I'm not too tired during the day to do that now.
• Sleep in. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Most of the time I'm up at 6:30 and writing and job hunting until 8:30 or 9, at which point I have breakfast.

Here's what I do with it:

• Every morning the first thing I do when I wake up is write three pages, longhand, about anything. Better than a cup of coffee and clears my head.
• I spend the first two hours of the day job-hunting, networking, reading tips and tricks on landing the job of my choice.
• After breakfast I hike the hill from the apartment to the Moraga and back. Gets my blood going after the sedentary task of the three pages. I do this hike again several times during the day instead of drinking Monster or Starbucks.
• The rest of the workday hours are spent writing. I clear about four pages longhand of a short story rough draft, and any blogging that I get to.
• Housework: Dishes, trash, laundry, etc.

And my evenings? These are usually taken with my writing groups, but I may do writing or reading in the evenings if I don't have a group or if I took the afternoon off to see a Giants game. I'm trying to work more author and music events in my schedule, but after a day of writing I usually just want to read, so that's taking slow progression.

Speaking of social events, that brings me to the second focus of the unemployed/self-employed/freelancing...

Money Money Money Money...MON-EY!

Here's what I don't do with my money:

• Pay full price for much anymore. When I worked in Oakland I often missed happy hour over here in the City due to getting home after it ended. I also drank more when I was traditionally employed. Now I pay half-price for drinks that I only drink at about 10% the rate that I used to. When it comes to entertainment, I find deals on-line or don't by the front row tickets (Giants promotions on Facebook, or the Treme tickets at the symphony that cost me $60 less than the Springsteen concert that I went to four years ago--and the Treme show was a better show. Not sorry I went to Springsteen, just saying that the jazz concert was top notch and was an f-in' BARGAIN.)
• Eat entrees. I usually make due with appetizers or sandwiches.
• Eat out as much as I used to. I still eat out, but about 80% less than I used to.
• Reward myself. I used to spend money on stuff to reward myself (handbags, journals, fountain pens, books). I have a whole can of pens I'm happily working through, I have a whole basket of journals I'm working through (and pretty quickly on both, since 90% of my written work is longhand), and I love how I spend my time and what my work is now. My reward is my time.

Here's what I do with my money now:

• See my City.
• Donate the books I have read to the library instead of selling them to bookstores. (My community contribution is in books, not money. If a homeless guy every asks me for a book I'll hand over. You can get drunk on a book better than any tequila or wine I've ever sampled, and you can escape.)
• Get around. I'm saving about $190 in transit fees not going to Oakland. I'm also saving about $140 a month additionally in City Car Share fees from not going to physical therapy or renting the car to drive to manager meetings or branch events. With that gap I can visit towns like Palo Alto and San Jose for art events, or to catch up with old friends via Caltrain, which is my favorite mass transit. (No other mass transit agency in the Bay Area lets you eat and drink on the transit, none other will sell you alcohol before you get on in San Francisco--little wine bottles be cute, yo--and none other has restrooms on the train. And the homeless really can't get on.)
• Buy groceries and cook more.
• On what I need to fulfill me. That can come in some strange packages (and more on that in future posts).

The Healer once said to me that I didn't owe anyone an explanation of my time or my finances. I know this, but I offer it freely anyway. I realize that there are those who see my situation and have one of two reactions:

1. "Yeah, sure you're doing that, whatever."
2. "Must be nice."

To the first group, I could take pictures of my activities and show you, display receipts, etc., but I do think there's a line where I have better things to do. To the second group I say, you're right. It is nice. After 50-hour workdays during inventories and dreaming about how I'm going to cover for three people out at Christmas and four years of digestive issues and broken bones and lifting things my ObGyn would rip me a new one for lifting, it's very, very nice to be where I am. To those of you in the second group I think fondly of those nights when you were with your families while I cleaned up an accounting snafu, while you were on vacation or watching a ball game while I put away a trailer in the dark, when you were watching "American Idol" the next day and chatting it up while I missed it cleaning up after production shortfalls. Thanksgivings, birthdays, holidays missed...dentist and doctor appointments rescheduled...yes, this is nice. I didn't win the freakin' lottery. I'm making a career change and I'm discovering work/life balance, which, compared to the life that I used to have, is going to make me look like a selfish slacker. As long as I possibly can. The life of a traditionally-employed martyr was killing me.

With my genetics I have a 50% chance of living to retirement. I've been told this. I don't have to tell you what retirement age is--you've probably got in your crosshairs too. I look at it this way--if I get to work at a profession that I love deeply, I'll beat the odds. I'll make it to retirement, but I won't want to retire. You'll find me walking the path of Larry King or Oprah, "retiring" to work on something else that I'm passionate about that I've always wanted to master.

Regardless, I won't be rocking in a chair. Or spending money on an RV. Or eating bonbons.

That's at two months out in this ocean.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S.--This is where the title of today's post of Life For Rent comes from. And no, I'm not going to start wearing suspenders or buying up cocker spaniel pups, although the idea of my own book club sounds intriguing.