Just Ray

There’s a novel by Dennis Lehane--and maybe you’ve heard of it--called “Mystic River.”  In the book Lehane introduces a character by the name of “Just Ray” Harris, a man named because all of the other gangster “_______ Ray” names were taken in Boston.

I don’t know why, but I thought of that when I heard that Ray Bradbury had passed way Tuesday night.  Maybe it was because when I hear the name Ray I don’t think of Ramono or my cousin’s husband or “Field of Dreams” first.  I think of Ray Bradbury.  I haven’t read his books in decades, but I can tell you when I did read them and how they affected me.

To ignore that influence would be like removing one of my senses.  It’s more than amputation.  It’s more than a lost tooth.  It would be a denial of my own skin.

*****

Somewhere in the storage unit in Missouri or in a wicker hamper under my childhood bed in Ohio is a pink, loose-leaf binder, a little bit bigger than an iPhone.  In that notebook are scrawlings of my experiences in a special school program called T.A.G.  Once I briefly explain what T.A.G. was--no, it wasn’t the playground game, or what you do to people in photos now on the social networks--you’re going to accuse me of tooting my own horn.  The best part was, I didn’t toot that horn, then or now.  I was God-awful at grade school; when I was in first grade I was so sluggish that I kept all of my homework assignments rather than turn them in half-finished, and on the last day of the school year had to stay in a classroom with a teacher’s aid to finish them while everyone else went to another location to watch a movie.  I looked to be doomed academically--I did way too much staring out of windows.

(My mother got on to me for that at first.  Years later she had to explain it to my best friend.  “That’s where her stories come from--it’s best to just leave her alone when she does that.”)

Ok...T.A.G.

T.A.G. stood for Talented And Gifted.  Not many kids were asked to be in this program; I think in my class there were four of us.  (I won’t name names--that’s their horn.)  I honestly can’t tell you how we were selected, but I do know this--my parents learned something from this program, and not just me.  The program had a county fair kind of thing at one of the schools so that all of the students could mingle and the parents could watch us in action and talk to the county coordinators.  My mother met the director of T.A.G. and made some sort of self-deprecating statement about how she couldn’t figure out how her kids could be chosen for this program.  “Mrs. Schlosser,” he responded, “You must have done something right.  If only three kids in Williams County could be in T.A.G., two of them would be yours.”

So, yes, my brother was in T.A.G., too.  Which is also pretty remarkable considering his early years, but I’ll let him tell that story.

I don’t begrudgingly state that my brother was in this program and shouldn’t have been.  I state that because for a long time I felt I shouldn’t be in T.A.G.  For a long time I felt that my brother deserved to be in and that I was just piggybacking on my genius brother’s reputation.  (He’s still smarter and more gifted than I am.  Just saying.)  I wrote about my frustration in the little pink notebook.  Because I was known for my love of words, that’s what the program was trying to develop in me, so I had to turn in that notebook occasionally for the teacher to review and guide my writing.  She read my fears and wrote a small note next to them in the margins:  “Your mother has a great story from meeting the director about this.  Ask her about it sometime.”  I did.  She shared the story with me.  I stayed where I belonged, and played with my words in essays and poetry.

The program believed in pushing us outside of our comfort zone, and one way they did that was having us read stuff we wouldn’t get to read in the standard curriculum.  To this day I couldn’t tell you if the rest of my classmates ever got to read “The Martian Chronicles” or “Fahrenheit 451,” or if they had to wait for high school or maybe a literature class in college to get it.  (By my senior year of high school I was reading Dorothy Parker, so I’m grateful for Mr. Friend, my journalism/English teacher at the time, for believing in my literary development enough to handle her at 18.)  I was not a fan of science fiction, and while the “The Martian Chronicles” were satisfying they were slow-going (even for my daydreaming).  But “Fahrenheit 451” was mind-blowing--the writing, the suggestions, the idea that life could be found and preserved in very fragile, very flammable dead trees.  (To this day I am still working on a short story that plays on the virtual/ebook counterpart of "Fahrenheit" and just realized it writing this.)

If I fell in love with Ray in middle school, and then in college the infatuation grew worse.  I was at a Barnes and Noble in Springfield, Missouri, poring over the section of writing how-to books, and stumbled into a familiar name with what for me was a new title:

“Zen in the Art of Writing,” by Ray Bradbury.

I’m willing to bet that whoever finds that compact pink notebook will find, nestled next to it, “Zen.”

*****

According to sources, Bradbury took exception to being called a science fiction writer.  He thought of “Fahrenheit 451” as his only science fiction work, and the rest of his fiction was fantasy.  I can see that, somewhat.  I always thought of his work as literature, though.  Just literature.

Like the detective stories of Mr. Lehane.  Just literature.

Just Ray.  Just right.

Post Script--The evening after writing the first draft of this post I asked my brother if he remembered T.A.G.  “Sure,” he said, a little tight-lipped.  Did he remember reading Ray Bradbury?  “Some of it,” he answered, a bit uncomfortably.  “I remembered reading ‘The Martian Chronicles’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’--I still have ‘Fahrenheit 451’ in my bookshelf in there--and what’s the one with the guy with words all over his body?”  The “Illustrated Man?”  “Yeah, that’s it.  But I only remember the first two.”  (I had forgotten about “The Illustrated Man,” so it was all the same to me as well.)  He paused.  “That’s when I stopped reading for fun.”  With Ray?  “No, they assigned ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ right after ‘Fahrenheit 451.’  I hated ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ but we had to read it.  So I just shut down and read it, and then ‘The Illustrated Man.’  I didn’t read anything else or didn’t remember any other required reading for ten years after that.  I didn’t enjoy reading again until you sent me ‘A Fool’s Progress.’”

Huh.  So I wasn’t the only one to struggle with T.A.G.  Or hang on to “Fahrenheit,” one way or another.

I'm Following Along As You Read Aloud

Most of the hip cats have a phrase for "I understand":  "I smell what you're steppin' in."  My lax version of "I understand" is "I'm following along as you read aloud."

Yes, I'm under the realization that this reference goes all the way back to kindergarten and the books with the records and headphones that played a "tone" when you were supposed to turn the pages.

That's the way things work in my world of flashback quotients.

*****

I come from a long line of discussion about reading aloud and being read to.  Here is the short list of memory:

• My mother reading to me before kindergarten (children's books were her favorite)
• My father reading the Reader's Digest issues to my mother while she made dinner
• My mother confessing to me while I was studying literature in college that she hated her literature classes in college because the professor read everything out loud (Mom?  Have you mentioned this to Dad?)
• Going to prose and poetry readings in college at the university during English Week at MSU
• Listening to Garrison Keillor read poetry on the Writer's Almanac
• Reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" to my mother the last two weeks of her life (You sure, Mom?  You wouldn't prefer music or, say, a book without dialect?)
• Selected Shorts
• Readings by the authors at LitQuake

All center me.

*****

"Writers write so that readers can read.  Let someone else read it."

~ "Finding Forrester"

During the two writing classes that I've taken in a college setting in my lifetime (one in Missouri, one at Berkeley), I was unable to read my work out loud.  I can read other's work really well (and make it sound better if needed), but mine is a problem.  Psychologically, it's on par with handing someone a magnifying glass and telling them to look very closely at my complexion.  Why would I want to put anyone through that?

I also have a hard time with audio books and/or lengthy podcasts.  The last audio book I listened to was when I lived back in Missouri eight years ago, and I didn't finish it.  I have a tendency to fall asleep when I try.  When it comes to podcasts like The New Yorker Fiction podcast, Selected Shorts, or This American Life, I usually end up breaking them off into bite-sized segments or listening to them more than once.  I have attributed this to an ever-decreasing attention span and a deep-seated fight with being read to.  Do I love it?  Do I hate it?

Did my mother know either?

*****

I haven't reached out enough when things look good.  Let's change that for a paragraph or two.

Whenever I'm going through a difficult moment (dental work, nausea, having to be present for others' arguments, etc) I touch my college class ring and my mother's wedding band and try to channel her and my strength, my composition.

Yesterday I found myself interlacing my fingers for a different reason:  sharing.

My sis-in-love volunteers for the local library here in Carlsbad, and yesterday was their appreciation "tea" at the Carlsbad Senior Center.  She asked me to go with her about a month ago when she received the invitation, and I, curious about volunteer opportunities and always looking for new ways to bond, said yes.  As frosting on the cake, the event promised a visit from a San Diego group called Write Out Loud, a troupe that "performs" short stories.  

The members of Write Out Loud do not write, or, if they do, they certainly don't read what they write.  Instead, they read obscure pieces from local or famous writers that fit into a theme, loose or clearly defined.  Yesterday they performed three stories, somewhat about marriage but about more, too.  The first performer, a woman, read a story of Twain's about a woman trying to marry a man who was continually maimed the night before his wedding day.  The second selection was a duet between the same woman and a man about a debutant who marries a man bound for Death Row and gets him acquitted, and the last selection was the same man alone, reading a selection about a father who refused to drive for the majority of his life.

When people perform stories, it's different than just reading them.  There's a love there, a lyric, a poetry to the prose.  Pauses are made, words are tasted and then released into the air like soap bubbles.  I sat there, getting more than a full effect, revolving my rings and thinking of my mother.  Mom, listen to this...

Maybe she did.  The dialect wasn't that far off.

Read on, dear reader.  Or listen, too.

That Song by Tony Bennett, Or, Home Game

Look, dear reader, at this long line of footprints in the sand.  It stretches all the way back to April 15th of this year, nine months ago in a week, long enough to give birth to another life.  If I would have known it was going to end up like this I can't say that I would have ever hunted for a job, but then, I would have missed out on getting glimpses into so many different lines of work in interviews.

Regret is a poison of any measure but particularly toxic on me; I tend to soak it up too quickly and steep in it before someone finds the antidote.  Regret was not what I was feeling last week, strangely enough, when I knew that my time in San Francisco was going to have to end in some way.  I didn't sit there and think, Gee, I should have never quit Grainger.  That wasn't the regret.  The regret was not spending more time with my writing.

I'm getting over that regret this week.

I had nine beautiful months with the love of my life, my City (as Carrie Bradshaw would tell you), mostly uninterrupted, and now my City and I have to part ways for a while.  I have to tell you that last week at this time I was torn between two choices, and you do not want to know what the other choice was.  So I am moving in with my brother to Southern California.  There maybe I can get in shape, write, and work on a telecommuting opportunity that will restore my hope in the world of education.

The responses from friends who have been told has been the following, paraphrased to protect us all:

• Look at this as an opportunity to start over;
• I'm so excited for you;
• I like Carlsbad better than San Francisco anyway;
• We'll be able to spot you right away in Petco because you'll be the one in Orange and Black;
• I'm not going to say goodbye, I'm going to say see you later.

That last one is from my writing group founder, whom I've worked with for four years, and it's my favorite of the collection.

To address the others:

• "Look at this as an opportunity to start over."  I did.  That logic kept me from choosing the other option last week.  When I come back here (and I will come back here) it will be strong, self-sufficient, and living independently;
• "I'm so excited for you."  I'm excited, too.  Trying to work it over to excited in a good way, but excited;
• "I like Carlsbad better than San Francisco anyway."  Umm...yeah.  I'll have to come back to this one in a minute;
• "We'll be able to spot you right away at Petco."  Not true but wonderful to imagine.  The last game that the Giants played at Petco there were more Giants fans than Padres fans.  The bonus is this:  if the Padres aren't playing the Giants, I have a Petco jersey to wear.  If the Padres ARE playing the Giants, then I will get to see my boyz play for about one quarter the price they would charge me at AT&T, and the seats would be warmer.

Now, back to that bit about Carlsbad being better than San Francisco.

I've lived in four places in my life:  Bryan, Ohio; Springfield, Missouri; San Francisco Bay Area, CA; and now Carlsbad, CA.  I don't take offense when people compare them, as people are wont to do.  But I can't compare them.  For me, that would be like asking which child you love best, or which songwriter in your iPod you would take on a deserted island with you.  Uh-uh.  No dice.  You are not going to sucker me into doing it.  Here are my kids, and my love for them:

• Bryan, Ohio:  The sensible eldest who went to medical school and married well, but who watches television every night;
• Springfield, Missouri:  The savvy middle kid who married well but changed careers a couple of times, with security, and coaches his kids and watches sports in a stadium he can drive to;
• San Francisco Bay Area, CA:  The artistic one that I have to worry about, but who doesn't know what tv is, and has season tickets at AT&T Park;
• Carlsbad, CA:  The youngest and most articulate of the crew.  He wants to be an artist, but the sun's out, and he's so damn conservative, and the barbecue is calling his name.

I hate the fact that in Bryan I could never be a writer.  I hate the fact that in Springfield I got booed for voting Democrat.  I hate the fact that you can't swing a cat in San Francisco with getting a crazed beggar in your face, or shitting on your stoop.  And I hate the fact that in Carlsbad everything is driving distance apart.

I love the fact that in Bryan my fear of the unknown is understood.  I love the fact that Springfield is rife with bluegrass, arts festivals, parks, the Mudhouse coffee shop, and my alma mater.  I love the fact that I can go anywhere and everywhere on foot in San Francisco.  And I love the fact that in Carlsbad, the young folks don't pepper their speech with "like" "like" "like."

(And all that said, if I ever have the wherewithal, I'd like to add another kid--New York City.)

At the end of the day, though, the kid that gets along best with me is San Francisco.  When I hate San Francisco I detest it (see homeless note, above), and when I love San Francisco I weep with joy (see Orange and Black note, above).  San Francisco should see me out of this world.

And it will.  But not today.

*****

There's a song that I'll always play getting off the plane at SFO to go back in the City, a song by Train.  For this Carlsbad bender, I played with the words a little.  If you know it, feel free to hum along.  If you don't, no worries.

I used to love the Tenderloin
Till I lost some tender coin
Then I met some fog from Marin
I took the highway to the 1
Down the coast to find the sun
It left me with these blisters on my skin


Don't know just what I had, but it took me down to Carlsbad
So I kept on going, going, going gone right there
I drove into the Grapevine range, stood up again and wrote my pain
Workin' to get right back home to you


I've been high, I've been low
I've been yes, and I've been Oh Hell No
I've been rock and roll and disco
Won't you save me San Francisco


Every day's so Prop 8-ed
I wish they were Golden Gated
Fillmore couldn't feel more miles away
So wrap me up return to sender
Let's forget this five year bender
Take me to my City by the Bay


I always knew just what I had
Now Alcatraz don't sound so bad
At least they'd have a hell of fine merlot
If I could wish upon a star
I would hitch a cable car 
TO THE PLACE THAT I COULD ALWAYS CALL MY OWN


To tell you the truth
I miss everything...everything
It's a wide, wide beautiful world
But there are wide-eyed boyz back there
And they mean everything, everything...


(The Prop 8 reference is an homage to the fact that I'm wandering back into the Red part of the state.  *Sigh*)


*****


One final note I should mention, since there were people I introduced on the pages of this blog in 2011 that I haven't talked about in a while.

The Airman and the Healer.

I've worn out my welcome with both of them, with a combination of being excited about connection and trying to keep them in the loop with this change.  The most ironic part of this story is this:  these two people were my biggest cheerleaders for leaving my job in April.  Don't misunderstand--they didn't make me do it.  But they thought this was a great idea, when everyone else thought it was nuts.

They were right, even though it's still nuts.

The twist to this story is that I sent a lot of people this news early so that they could be aware and not ask me about the City and/or understand what was happening.  Of the list that I sent it to, two people never responded.

Yes, you guessed it.

And so things change, and they stay the same.

Onward, dear reader.  And if you're going to jump, please don't.  I'm on your side.

P.S. - This song is the inspiration of tonight's edition of Life For Rent.  While I'm away I'll write home every day and send all my loving to you.  See you later, City.

Out Loud

Back in the early sixties, my mother tried on college with the intent of going to medical school.  She thought that she would complete her general education requirement at Defiance College in Northwest Ohio.

When I started college based on a dare (my manager at the time dared me to audit a literature class by a teacher she had loved), my mother informed me on the phone one Saturday night, much to my heartbreak, that she hated her literature class in college.  This was difficult for a writer to hear, but I was patient.  “Why’s that, Mom?”

“The professor always read out loud to us.  As though we couldn’t read for ourselves.”

Since my mother was the only one in our immediate family without a degree (my father went to a community college to obtain his boiler operator’s certification, my brother has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio State University, and I have an Associate of Arts from Ozarks Tech and a Bachelor of Arts from Missouri State University), I won’t be disclosing a spoiler here by saying that my mother grew increasingly disillusioned with college and quit.  I’m not sure if it was just the literature class; she heard of JFK’s assassination during a class, and there were other issues with group projects.  College isn’t for everyone, and her leaving it didn’t set her apart from the rest of us.

When they married my father asked my mother to quit her job--he was traditional.  She stayed home, took care of him, and nearly three years after their wedding I came along.  Almost two years after that my brother arrived.  My most prominent childhood memory was of my father coming home from work, and, while my mother cooked dinner (and she cooked it, too; my father didn’t allow us to have a microwave because he thought it would give us cancer.  Ironic, given my mother’s fate), he would read to her from the Reader’s Digest or from one of Patrick McManus’s outdoor adventures.  When my mother revealed to me that she hated to have people read out loud to her, I reminded her of Dad’s ritual.  “Yeah, well, that made him happy,” she said.

She lied.

In the last two weeks of my mother’s life, she would drift in and out of consciousness.  Some moments she would be weak but perfectly lucid, others, completely out and eyes half-closed.  She ended up in the last week in the second phase, but the first week I would still have time with her.

“What’s happening?”

What do you mean, Mom?  You want the radio?  TV?

“No.  Tell me with your voice.”

Well, Dad and Mike went for a walk out to the pond, Mom.  The sun’s out.  It’s cold.

“Let me hear your voice.”

You want me to sing to you, Mom?  (I won vocal choir contests in high school.  I could make her cry with my singing.)

“No.”

What would you like me to say?

“Read to me.”

What?  I had graduated from both schools by that point--the distaste she had for reading was tattooed in my memory.

“Read to me.”

I stared at her.  She blinked.  “Please.”

What would you like me to read, Mom?  A book?  A newspaper?

“Twain.”

Oh, great.  Dialect Man.  Which Twain, Mom?

“Any of them.”

How about “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”?

“Yes.”

So I read, out loud, to my mother, who either no longer had the means to argue me reading out loud, or who finally had found someone who could read out loud well.  It’s comforting to think I could share my love of literature, somehow, when it was most needed.

*****

My mother hated literature classes and loved literature.  She sheltered me from a lot of fiction growing up, but when I got to college it was my mind to corrupt, my heart to burst open...  

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free...  

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years...  

Either it was drizzling or there was a lot of dust in the air.…

I loved to hear and read and taste good writing.  I drank it, got drunk on it, all through community college and university.  For five years (six if you count the year off between degrees in Ohio) I overdosed on literature, showed up, listened to people argue language and plot and characterization around me, listened to people read well out loud, and eventually had to graduate.  I went to college for two reasons.  The first was sort of the same reason people who are native speakers of another language speak to each other in that language, even if they can speak English--it’s a relief for me to speak literature with others.  The other reason was to make me a better writer.  

Well, Jo, you ask, why didn’t you go to school for writing?  Because then I wouldn’t have gotten to read as much...

*****

Years later and miles from those classrooms, I still read passages out loud.  I listen to others read as well.  Once a month my writing group sets their pens aside, we meet in a clean, well-lit cafe in the Mission, and we read our works to each other.  If we get too nervous, other people read our work for us.  Last time someone read my poetry for me.  I was touched.

The need to speak and hear a passage still drives me to all kinds of megaphones.  I sit by the window that faces west in my apartment, reading by the winter sun... 

The tides came upon San Francisco four times per day, lifting and lowering the city’s skirt with impunity...

I read that slowly, once, in a voice well-traveled, tasting consonants, vowels, and pauses in the punctuation.  Then I can’t help it; the world must know, the world needs to taste this too, and I post it on GoodReads, which in turn posts to Facebook and Twitter.  Messages curl up in virtual bottles, closer to the size of test tubes, just the smallest and sweetest slices of kumquat, thinly sliced beef, a delicate sheet of cheese.  I have to no spouse to read this to, so here you are, dear reader...can you hear the music of it, can you taste the language?

Oh, listen to this one...

P.S. - Passages above, in order from top to bottom, can be attributed to the following works of literature:

• “Araby” - James Joyce
• “A Rose For Emily” - William Faulkner
• “What I Have Been Doing Lately” - Jamaica Kincaid
• “Going To See the Elephant” - Rodes Fishburne

Back From the Amazon

There's been a lot of heated discussion lately, rising to a shrillness like that of Occupy, about the choice to buy from Amazon or to buy from independent bookstores.  I'll probably get burned at the stake for this post, but I thought I would offer up my take on the fight, as a writer, as a reader, and as someone who has lived in a graduating increase of immediate, surrounding population.  (What does that have to do with the price of eggs, you ask?  It will become apparent in a moment.)

So I'll start simply with the argument for the independent bookstore:

• I love bookstores;
• I love bookstores the way an alcoholic loves bars.  I could go home and drink, too, but it's more fun to drink with people;
• I love bookstores with a funky personality;
• I love bookstores that I can walk to, from work or from home;
• I love paper books.  I read more this year than I have in any other year (part of the perks of unemployment), and I still didn't read down the stack of books that I had accumulated from bookstores throughout the Bay Area over the years;
• I love having a stack of traditional books to read next to my bed;
• I love new and used bookstores.

Mark you, these are my reasons.  They aren't reasons for you to go, dear reader, but reasons you might go.

Now, my argument for buying from Amazon:

• I rent movies from Amazon.  Because I read so many books over the course of my free time, I don't spend enough time watching movies to warrant a Netflix subscription, and renting two movies a month from Amazon is cheaper than watching two movies a month on Netflix;
• I have a Kindle.  My primary reasons for loving the Kindle are listed here, but here's the short span--it's light and I can carry a whole freaking stack of books on it.  I can read the whole freaking stack on my phone, my laptop, or my Kindle.  And if I read the whole freaking stack on the Kindle the newsprint background (no, I do not own, nor will I ever own, a Kindle Fire) and the ability to increase the type size means my eyes get a break without my glasses.  If you have ever been a city commuter on mass transit, that lightweight aspect is a big thing;
• Some books are still cheaper on the Kindle (I don't know for how much longer, but they are);
• Sometimes Amazon is the only place to find a particular book, unless you want to wait a long turn-around time to order it from the local bookstore.  Case in point (and this book was on environmentalism).  I ended up getting that book from Green Apple here in the City, but that's because I held out and waited;
• I like the reviews on EVERYTHING in Amazon.  Not just selections that critics or bookstore employees deemed worthy to read, but anything I pick up and am torn about reading (although I have to admit, more and more I go to GoodReads for that);
• I haven't always lived in a great big, gloriously messy, cluttered and wonderful City.  The last known address before San Francisco was Sunnyvale, and the bookstores in the South and Central areas of the Peninsula aren't as numerous as they are here (rephrase:  NOT WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE).  Before that, I lived in Southwest Missouri, where there were library bookstores, a bookstore out by Chesterfield Village in Springfield, and the two chains, Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Before THAT, Branson, Missouri, which I think had a library...yep, it will get worse...lastly, before that, in Northwest Ohio, where one very small hole-in-the-wall bookstore existed five miles from me, one chain (Waldenbooks, Defiance Mall, Defiance Ohio) 30 minutes from me...or, if I was feeling really adventurous, bookstores an hour west or an hour east in either Fort Wayne, Indiana or Toledo, Ohio, respectively.  If I still lived in any of those places, with the exception of, well, here, for crying out loud, I would probably be ordering from Amazon.

*****

My mother loved books--her favorites fell under the category of children's literature, but when she passed my brother informed me that an adult favorite of hers was Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," which makes sense in the fact that my mother could love ANYTHING, no matter how depressing--and we had quite the collection growing up.  My grandmother on my father's side also loved books, and she lived with us in an addition that was built on the original house, so more than once during my childhood I would catch my father shaking his head as he looked around him and muttering, "God help us if a lighted match drops in here."  (He was a good one to talk--the guy was hooked on Reader's Digest magazine, In Fisherman, and Cabela's catalogs.)  The most books my mother had by one publisher could be spotted within four steps of walking in the door--she probably had every Reader's Digest Condensed Book ever published.  Condensed books were the scourge of literary society at that time, but I have enjoyed one or two in my day (one was a novel about the life of Annie Oakley, and watch it, the book is hard to find, so I had to give you a link to AMAZON...).  Every generation has its devils.

My belief is simple--there's room for all of it.  Mr. Russo wants to do away with Amazon.  Mr. Manjoo wants to do away with the independent bookstore.  Extremists.  

Here's the deal.

If I can possess and readily use writing instruments that are as varied and progressive as the fountain pen to the gel writer to the laptop to the iPhone, then I will want the same variety in my reading instruments.  I'm willing to read a damn scroll if I find it entertaining, and I have stood in line and went online for both fountain pens and paperbacks alike.  Why do we all have to fall in a neat, well-mannered row?  Why oh why do we all have to be the same?

Onward, dear reader, however you may roam.

That Song by The Boss, or, Where I Was

For the last two weeks, all kinds of media has asked me to remember.  "Share your story," demands Twitter, Facebook, the New Yorker, The New York Times, the LA Times, most cable networks, even some libraries.

You talkin' to me?

Ok, once upon a time, on September 11th, 2001, back in the States...

• I was working two jobs at the time.  I was working two jobs because I had thought that I would be in a higher paying job in New York City training people to make fundraising calls on behalf of art organizations like the opera and museums and such.  My training was to have been held, starting in August, 2001, in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  I turned it down because I would have to pay for the relocation.  I would have been fine with one job but my mother got sick and created a boatload of expense to go back and forth from Missouri to Ohio to take care of her.  That's why I had two jobs.
• My morning job, from 7 am to 12 pm, was to enter benefit paperwork for Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  My evening job, from 1:30 pm to 10 pm, was to train people how to be nice and knowledgeable on the phones at Bass Pro Shops.
• That morning I was wired, because my mother was starting radiation 680 miles away.
• My morning job was solely data entry.  During that time, because I missed learning and missed college so much that I ached, I listened to NPR on headsets.  Everyone else listened to rock stations.
• At around 7:55 am Central time, Carl Kasell came on the radio with his news update stating a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  At that point the news was being broadcast as though the crash were a malfunction.  I still found myself standing up, nevertheless.  The woman working next to me said, "What are you doing?"  I replied with the news.  "You're crazy," she said, and begged me to get back to work--we were measured on metrics.
• Five minutes later was our break.  We made our way to the breakroom and turned on the television.  By the time we had just about settled into watching the news, the second plane hit.
• When we all finished our break, everyone's radio was on NPR.
• In the distance between my first job and my apartment, gas prices were rising faster than I could drive.  And I was on a third of a tank.  Luckily, all of my workplaces were in one city.
• When I got home, my brother had left a message that WW III had started.  My parents had left no message at all.  I didn't eat lunch.  I just rotted in front of the television until 1 pm.
• When I got to my second workplace I sat and watched the news in the breakroom for my entire shift.  No calls were coming in to the call center, save for one notable one that someone got wanting to know why he had not received his camping gear when he paid for one day air.  We issued a credit and told him his gear was probably grounded, and that he might want to turn on the news.

That's where I was.  As to all this 9/11 remembrance hype, you've missed it with me, dear media.  That was the year my mother was sick.  In my selfish, scarred heart, I was just glad for the diversion that day from the silent phone from Ohio.  But I do remember 9/11 in my own way--every time a digital clock reads 9:11, either am or pm, I think of this song.  That number seems to remind me not to rot in front of the news.

P.S. - This song is where the title for today's post of Life For Rent comes from.  You can call me Jo.

That Song for the Orange and Black, or, Strike

I suck at bowling. There's no other way to describe my bowling skills. When I was in high school that was often the past-time of choice Back in the States, and on one such occasion I went out with a group of girlfriends to an alley that had a group of guys about our age from another school in the next lane. I had displayed my awesome prowess of suckage-ness consistently throughout the evening, until at one point I got creative and did the "Grandma" bowl stance.

We've all seen it, suffered by little children and extremely aged adults. You put the ball down on the lane, and push it. It rolls about .0002 mph. And then it knocks over one pin and you're done. The ball is going so slow that the pins mess the ball up, not the other way around.

When I tried my Hail Grandma Mary push down the lane, the guys in the next lane broke into deep giggles. When the ball finally reached the pins, however, it knocked over EVERY. SINGLE. PIN. I got a strike.

"Oh, HELL no!" half the guys shouted, pointing at my strike.

That's what I said pointing at Brian Wilson's last strike on the night of November 1st, 2010.

*****

Once a year folks, at least, you gotta put up with a baseball post from me. It usually happens during trades, like this post about my beloved Bengie from last year from my writing blog. I hate trades. I go to sleep after a game the week of trades and wake up the next morning and the chess players are all rearranged. (No, I do not have a black and orange chess set. Maybe Santa will be nice to me for Christmas. Stop giggling.) I lost Bengie to trades and I was afraid this past weekend that I was going to lose Pat the Bat to trades (it's still possible, but I'm in denial). At one point the team beat writers on Twitter had me all worked up that there was a possibility that Bengie's brother Jose was getting traded to us from Toronto. I was genuinely happy for about 30 minutes--even though Zito was playing batting practice--until someone killed that off.

Last year at this time here's what was different with my favorite pastime:

• Getting seats at a decent price in places like Club Level at AT&T Park were easy--I went to one game a month there
• I got teased about my orange and black at Grainger. I was surrounded by White Sox, Reds, and A's fans. They just thought I was adorably naive and overly-devotional to the quirks of my guys rather than having my eyes open to the lack of offense in them
• I could walk down the street and through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in my Giants' cap and get a "Go Giants" and a grin, every time

That was before we threw that Grandma Strike last November. Now:

• Decent-priced seats at AT&T now come from Stub Hub and usually involve freezing in the outfield, even though I still go once a month
• A former employee of mine that I used to be friends with hurled all kinds of frenzied gloating via text at me on Sunday when the Giants were swept by the Reds. I've experienced teasing--this wasn't teasing. This was pure hate all over my phone. I have to admit that I pitied him for being soooo victorious
• If I wear my Giants cap in the City either people smile or they tell me off. As though I own the team. And they are in San Francisco...not the East Bay

Let's reiterate something from last year and this year--I don't brag on these guys. I don't say, "Philly, just you wait." (That one's for Charlie Manuel.) I didn't send this Reds guy on Sunday a text prior to that series saying, "We gonna womp yo ass, yo." (In fact, this guy stopped texting me after I left Grainger, so I figured he was a flake and took his number out of my phone.) I also don't exclusively love the Giants...I tend to have a fondness for any underdog, because even when they suck they still have to play and they have to play with heart. They defy gravity, in terms of individual players like Kirby Puckett, Pablo Sandoval, and Prince Fielder, and in terms of teams, like the Tampa Bay Rays, the Texas Rangers, and the New York Mets. I love them because they play scrappy baseball, not the high-dollar, game-show, theme-park baseball that the fans of the Yankees and the Phillies enjoy. I love teams like the Giants who are in fact average athletes who have found a way to mill a diamond (no pun intended) out of a game with nothing else but sheer, unadulterated will.

It's a shame that the diamond milled was SO big last year, because now everyone hates the Giants or decided to jump on a bandwagon to love them just this past spring. But I'm still going. I'm a die-hard. I love my boys because they are good men that occasionally make great things happen.

*****

All throughout the playoff season of 2010, as the team beat each obstacle in their way, I found myself evoking a prayer. A simple prayer, one regardless of outcome, and probably most useful for any underdog winning the impossible:

"Please God, whatever happens, make them okay with it."

I still say it.

Onward, boys of summer.

P.S. - This song is where the inspiration of today's post of Life For Rent comes from. Hellll, yeah.

That Song by Eddie Vedder From That Movie with Julia Roberts, or, Audience Participation

[Editor's Note: It struck me, last week when I established my next quest of getting in shape, that such a quest was a solitary one. Herein lies a quest with those in the audience who wish to participate in mind.]

In the latter half of 2001 my brother and I were feeling particularly isolated in a way that neither one of us could articulate very well (due to my mother's illness), and a friend of mine recommended a book entitled "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," by Dave Eggers. In brief, the book was a slightly fictionalized account of Eggers's struggle to raise his youngest brother after both of his parents died of cancer only months apart of each other. The book was graphic, hilarious (my funniest moment was reading the copyright page), touching, and amazingly healing for both my brother and I. Ever since that book we've been loyal Eggers readers.

After moving from Lake Forest, Illinois to San Francisco, and establishing a publishing hub of his own in the Bay Area, Eggers started a non-profit organization in San Francisco called 826 Valencia, named after the address of the organization. If you live in the Bay Area and have never been, it's an interesting experience. The study areas are fronted by a Pirate Store and one of the quirkiest storefronts you will ever encounter. The Pirate Store sells anything a pirate could ever need (from tar and feathers, to glass eyes and eye patches--no foolin'), as well as paperback and hardback published writings of the students who join the 826 family, regardless of age from 5 to 18. (You grow up, and you have to move on...just like Peter Pan. If you don't want to grow up, you can mentor and tutor kids on weeknights and Sundays--but more on that in a moment.) Eventually Eggers expanded this organization to one called 826 National, which got my attention during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when they set up a temporary chapter in New Orleans and Houston. At that point I wanted to get involved, and started tutoring on alternate Sundays of the month at the San Francisco location during the school year for a majority of the years since. (I took 2008-2009 off due to personal issues.) The kids who came to these sessions soon became the closest thing to me having kids to teach and love--and not just with writing mentorship. They came in on Sundays wanting to work on all kinds of homework, from math to biology to history to reading, and I jumped in and helped best I could. They made me laugh and I tried to give them the same, they taught me something and I tried to do the same. And, of course, lucky me--I got the priviledge to teach. That's always the love I go back to, no matter child or adult.

Last year 826 Valencia held its first ever 8/26 Day Write-A-Thon, held on August 26th and a fundraiser to celebrate nine years in the City. I didn't make the effort to do it last year--to my recollection I had shipper out at Grainger at that time due to paternity leave, and I didn't have a relationship with even my writing group at that point. This year is different. This year I'm doing this, because I'm passionate about the cause, because I'm a sucker for any excuse to blow half a gallon of ink on fourteen dead trees, and, maybe through my involvement, one other person will find their passion, too. Here are the details of this year's event, and I welcome the help of any readers who want to help with this quest.

Now, let me be ABUNDANTLY CLEAR, here. I don't like soliciting. Over the next three weeks I will be posting reminders of my quest on Facebook and Twitter, but they are just REMINDERS...because I don't want anyone saying, "I didn't know you were doing that and I would've sponsored you" because they don't read my blog. If there's one thing I struggle with, it's a Facebook or Twitter message that informs people that if they loved me they'd sponsor me for "Save The Whales" or something. That's not my intent. My intent is to open up the door for you to get involved in something fun, if you are so inclined. Your level of participation is up to you.

What you can do (any one or more of the following):

• Sponsor me for one written page of your choice, at $10/page. By "one page of your choice," see choices to follow in a moment. You can also sponsor me for more than one page, but please, no fractions of pages. My math stinks. That's why I'm a writer and literature freak.
• Have patience with my occasional Facebook/Twitter updates through the month of August, up to 8/26. I don't see a problem with this since some folks block me on Facebook (I have more followers on Twitter) or since most of my Facebook friends have so many friends that they miss most of my updates, but just sayin'.
• Stay quiet and say a prayer for the success of myself and the other writers jumping in on this.

For those who choose to sponsor me at $10/page, your page(s) can be written in any of the following formats of your choice:

• Blog post (dedicated to you or a subject of your choice)
• Fiction
• Poetry
• Letter (to you, to a friend, to a relative, of recommendation, to an editor, etc)
• Advertisement
• Obituary
• Review (movies, restaurants, books, albums, you name it)
• Or anything else you can think of. The only limit is I won't write legal documents, death threats, or porn. I'm open to everything else.

For those sponsoring at $10/page, the following action can be taken, either singularly or combined, with your page(s):

• Published in my blog, in Notes From Sea Level, with a credit line to you
• Submitted to 826 Valencia as proof of our combined devotion
• Submitted only to you for your descendants to open in 50 years to marvel at ("Look! Who wrote this great stuff about Dad/Mom?")
• Locked up in my safe-keeping to remember you by
• Submitted to a publication of your choice. In this case, you get the money from the publication if I'm published or the rejection letter if I'm not.
• Any combination of the above or any other outcome of your choice

Now, finally...my sponsor goal.

I'm from the Midwest. As Garrison Keillor would say, we have low, "aw-shucks-ma'am" expectations. When I headed up a Red Cross recruitment with Grainger back in 2007, I told my peers that I would be happy if ONE OTHER PERSON joined with me. Everyone else I got to join was frosting on the cake. (In that case, I got 89 tablespoons of frosting--rich, baby.) I am sponsoring myself for four pages for this event--two for me, and two in the name of my mom (that's another quest post, later in the month). I only ask for one other sponsor, but I will write up to 30 pages. (No worries, folks...I have EIGHT HOURS AND TWENTY-SIX MINUTES. I should be able to clear 30 pages in that time...depending on your choice of typed or hand-written.) With me and my four pages, that means if that one other person wants to sponsor me for $260, the rest of the potential sponsors are out of luck. But if you want just a page, for fun...I'd rather have 26 sponsors. The bigger the party the better. :)

All I'm hoping for is one. That person will be the cake...any more than that, frosting. (Yum.) But if I don't get one...that's okay, too. I get to write a couple of pages for me, a couple of pages for my mom, and watch other, more talented writers with more deserved readerships write their contributions.

If you are interested in sponsoring, please message me for details of where you can send your sponsorship. I plan on writing at 826 Valencia that day, or, if it's jam-packed, writing at a series of cafes in the area and stopping by 826 at 8 pm to drop off donations that are sent to me directly. (You do not have to send me donations directly--they can be sent to 826 Valencia directly if you feel more comfortable doing that, and that's information that I can include in the message back to you.) If you are sponsoring me, please e-mail me/submit sponsorships by August 22nd at the latest--you won't get a writing for sponsorships after that point, but any donations submitted after that point will be forwarded to 826 Valencia the following week (I pass by there every Wednesday night for my writing group meeting).

Questions? Comments? Message me at Facebook or my e-mail at jostraveler@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading such a long post. It's good to have you along for this quest, in any way, shape, or form.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - The title of this post of Life for Rent comes from this inspiration. The video sucks but the audio was the best I could find. We all walk the long road, she sings softly as she picks up the next pen, the next sheet of paper...

That Song by Eric Clapton, or, Daddy

Ah, Wednesday. A good day. I figured out that sex scene for my short story--it's actually written better than the rest of the story, so I have to figure out how to lay that template on the rest of the piece, so to speak.

There were no protests in the Mission during my writing group. The angriest person I encountered was a guy yelling at a beggar, "I already GAVE you a quarter, asshole!" Not a bad night at all. The weather was warm. I had just inspired two writers. I was headed home to look up library hours for Thursday.

Then my brother called. My brother only calls on weeknights for three reasons: he's coming into town, he's bored driving back from L.A., or my father has done something monumental.

By monumental I do not mean things like "won the lottery" or "gotten married." Monumental usually = hospital.

What I know at the time of this writing is that he is in ICU due to a possible heart attack (the doctor won't confirm but my father thinks that's what it was), gall stones, and kidney stones. He's getting all of the tests on Thursday. [Editor's Note: I'm writing this Wednesday night. I don't know what my frame of mind will be Thursday.] My brother gave me the low-down. I listened attentively, asked questions in all the right places, and then gave my brother the funny story about "Desert Solitaire" to cheer him up.

I'm not flying to Ohio. And neither is my brother.

Yet.

My brother would have no trouble, except he's not good at care-taking. My father has a girlfriend who can take care of him, and I think my brother is relying on that. And then there's me.

God, if I gave you the entire story between my father and I, you would still be reading this damn post a week from now. It all boils down to this--I have to love him. My mother asked me to. That doesn't mean that I have to go home--that's a no-win, especially with me unemployed and with our relationship so strained. Going home would just upset him. I'd get off the plane and that disputed heart-attack of my father's would be a confirmed one in about twenty minutes. "You don't have to like him," my mother said. "But you do have to love him. He's your father." I told the Airman this story once, and he gritted his teeth. "She's right, you know." I glared at him, but he had every right to tell me this--his father was no prince, either. But he was still his father.

So, I have to love him. I think on him like I try to think on all of the other "princes," the men that I've been intimate with who, in one form or another, pop up in my life wanting to know why I walked away from someone who "really cared for me" (referring to them--strange, but they have wives they can go back to. I've moved ON, already). I was pestered by one of these princes while I was in Carlsbad--he sent me an e-mail. I went about my day...fished with my brother, wrote, read, and then jumped in the pool. "Please," I whispered to Prince E-mail, "please please PLEASE let me go. Don't make me get mean..." And I remembered something from Liz Gilbert. (This is where it pays off tremendously to read and watch films.) "Love him, then, send him light, and let him go." And I swam in that pool and let him go. I filed the e-mail. I never responded.

I was thinking of my father in that regard earlier this evening while I was getting ready for bed. I don't wish my father dead--he has the power to make some people happy in the world, and therefore still contributes to society. I knew I had to love him. I don't like him much, but I have to love him. "Well," whispers the page, "love him, then, send him light, and let him go."

Sending you love tonight, Daddy. Wishing you well. Letting someone else take on the rest.

Onward.

P.S. - This is where today's title for the blog series Life For Rent comes from. Waiting for my/Prince to come. [Editor's Note: Barring any last-minute trips east, this blog will resume on Monday. Have a good weekend, all.]

iPod Stuck On Repeat, or Still Playing That Song by U2

Stay with me on this one. There's a story and I'm a storyteller, so we'll start with that.

Last week I posted a tale of how I couldn't find Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" for sale in San Francisco. I got lots of great advice, from the Healer on where to find it with Amazon, to this bit of advice from a friend of mine:

Just do what I do - put a hold on it in the library web site. This makes them do the searching in those outlying branches, and if they find it, ship it to your local library at no cost. This eliminates the risk of "I spent two hours on Muni and now it's not on the shelf WTF?"

You're going to see how ironic this all is in about a paragraph. Or two.

So yesterday we were having some things done at the apartment in the morning and I thought to myself, how can I turn this into an adventure for me? I thought, hey, where is that Abbey book I wanted? Which branch of the library? And found out it was in West Portal. Now, I could have followed my friend's recommendation, but I had a hang-up: you mean I'm having someone drive this book to me? This book is an environmental treatise about how they are paving over Arches National Park so that people can wheel themselves up to nature instead of discovering it through roughing it, and I'm supposed to wait for someone to pave the way to the book for me? Seems sacrilegious to what I was supposed to be learning from the book. I felt like I'd be booking a room in the Marriott to read about Walden. (By the way, I have journeyed to Walden. And I've done the Marriott thing. Poor comparison.)

Besides, I had unfinished nostalgia with West Portal. West Portal during the day reads like a forgotten Main Street--families and markets and bookstores and an old, cramped movie theatre. So here was my plan for yesterday:

1. Write at Starbucks, check.
2. Look for the next Maupin book in the "Tales of the City" series, check. I also found a book on the sales table called "Baseball Haiku" that I couldn't resist. (Yes, I looked for Abbey. No dice.)
3. Lunch at Mozzerella di Bufala, where they make my favorite spaghetti bolognese, check.
4. See the last Harry Potter film, check. (Which, by the way, was my first one in a theatre.)
5. Visit Walgreens, check. (West Portal has the Walgreens in the City. Very very little of their garbage is locked up. I love that Walgreens.)
6. Go to the library and pick up "Desert Solitaire."

Yeah, that last one is missing the "check."

It was on hold and in transit. Now, Glen Park library has it. I could have it driven to me. Or I could have tried to hunt down Glen Park Library, before some nimrod put it on hold. And I say "some nimrod" with all of the love in the world, because before I started this crusade last week there were missing copies from the Main Library and four "Check Shelf" copies at the other branches. Now there's ONE open at Glen Park. In other words, between my feed on Twitter and here, I've started a movement.

Well, a four-book movement anyway.

Yes, I said FOUR book movement...because there's more.

I had a lovely day in West Portal, regardless of the main purpose getting lost in the shuffle. I came back to the apartment, changed into cooler clothes (summer sneaked in for a few hours yesterday), and watched "Shrek Forever After" on HBO On Demand. About an hour into the movie my Twitter feed revealed to me a reply from an inquiry I sent a week ago, from a challenge to Green Apple Books and Booksmith--Green Apple had "Desert Solitaire." (Booksmith never said boo, which is odd considering I've talked up their store on the Examiner before.)

I waited until the movie was over and took the 44 bus down to Green Apple. I looked. They didn't have it. (By the way, if you look under their website and click the little "Other Editions of this Title" link, it says they still have it today.) So I went to the counter. Inquired. Told the lovely young lady where I had looked, after a smart aleck behind me said, "Why don't you look under Abbey?" The lovely young lady behind the counter said it might be in the mass market field guides on the floor next to the nature section I looked in. Excellent. I went back up and looked there. Nothing.

I left the library giggling. I left Green Apple ready to cry. Either someone saw the Twitter exchange and bee-lined it for Green Apple, or Green Apple has no frickin' clue of half the titles in its repertoire. (Both are highly possible.) You may ask, Sarah/Jo/Sadie, when you go into these bookstores, where are you looking for this book? It's non-fiction, so here's where I look:

• Nature
• Environmental
• Memoir
• Biography
• Travel
• And, if I get desperate, I assume the worst possible intelligence in the bookstore clerks and look for it with his Fiction

Here are my remaining options:

• Wait for the hype to go down and for me to catch up on the rest of my reading (I now have a stack of books up to my belt buckle), and then go get the damn thing from the library in a manner that would make Abbey spin in his desert pyre--by transferring it to my local branch.
• Order the thing from Alexander's, which has never promised me anything or ignored me for any reason, read the book when it comes in, and donate the book to the library, which obviously needs it.
• Order the thing from Amazon, to ship to me, and wait for Abbey to strike me with lightning. Read the damn thing and donate it to the library.
• Wait and finish the book when I go back down to see my brother again. I think he has the only copy I'm able to touch, but it could have been a mirage.

I like that last one. Kill two birds with one stone, by the method of airline fuel. Curse you, Abbey.

By the way, the Carlsbad Library, my brother and sis-in-love's local, also has just one copy. And it's on hold. Okay, I'm back to giggling. You'll have to wait, Edward. I'm on a quest, and it doesn't involve Amazon or Borders liquidation or empty promises. When you're ready to drop back into my life, I'll find you.

I will climb/Highest mountains/I will run/Through the fields.

And yes, this book is JUST...THAT...GOOD.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is still the inspiration of where the title of today's Life For Rent comes from. Since we had the Boss last time, thought I would go with the original this time.

That Song by U2, or, Disappointment

My brother is a huge devotee of Edward Abbey. Back when I lived in the States I introduced him to "A Fool's Progress," a novel that I thought was hilarious and sad, and he took the horse by the reins and opened it up on the plains, reading and buying anything Abbey. He loved in particular Abbey's works on the desert, and traveled to Page, Arizona on a dare that he read between Abbey's lines.

This past week in Carlsbad my brother and I got in an impassioned discussion about nature and society and he loaned me "Desert Solitaire" to read. I made it to a chapter entitled "Cowboys and Indians" before I had to give it back. Since I now hail from a City entrenched in environmentalism and green, I thought I would find a gazillion copies of "Desert Solitaire" over a span of the San Francisco libraries and bookstores.

The Main Branch of the San Francisco Library no longer has it--they are all overdue and billed or missing. (How fitting, given Abbey's anarchy.) There are copies available in two other branches that I don't often go to, but I may have to make a special trip, for the book is not to be found on the shelves of bookstores in San Francisco. If you want Abbey in this town, you can read "The Monkey Wrench Gang." THAT'S IT. Not "A Fool's Progress," which I could readily find in Southwest Missouri. Not "Desert Solitaire."

What. The. F....

To add insult to injury, if you go to the websites of two Pacific Northwest favorites of mine, Powell's Books of Portland, Oregon, and Elliott Bay Book Company of Seattle, Washington, Abbey is readily available in nearly all of his forms.

Our big-time, supposedly literary and environmental City, is shown up by the grunge capitals of the universe. It may be time for me to move north.

My hope was this: I have the free time. I'll find this book in my City, my beloved land of culture and anarchy and nature-loving, tree-hugging freaks. I'll find it and see the City again and I'll be proud to BUY LOCAL. But local doesn't have it. So I'll have to check it out of the library, instead of reading it and donating it to the library.

It's a heartache.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is where the title of this post of Life For Rent comes from. Thought I'd pick one with my Boss in it, as well. Enjoy.

That Song by Rufus Wainwright, or, Running in Place

Within the last two weeks I have seen a familiar face at many of my writing Meetups in a woman who moved here from Alabama via Los Angeles. She is nice enough; she always has a friendly smile and is always eager to talk.

At the writing Meetup "marathons" on Saturdays or Sundays the day is comprised of three sessions of writing, separated by breaks where you can snack, check your messages, chat with other members, etc. before you get back to the business of writing. In last Sunday's Meetup I was asked about my farm/rural childhood between the first and second sessions, and during the break between the second and third sessions this new San Franciscan asked me how long it took me to get used to California. (Four years, although some days I'm still stumped, albeit not heartbreakingly so.) Then she asked me if I ever miss the Midwest. (Sure, when they have snow. When the leaves change. When it comes to barbecue. And the work ethic.) Then she asked what I did to get over the homesickness of back home.

Uh-oh.

Three years ago that question would have gotten her a dirty look. These days, and I never thought I would say this, but I am never homesick. I haven't been back to Ohio in nine years and I haven't been back to Missouri since I left in 2004. There are a number of reasons for this. Smug natives of the land of California think it's because Ohio and Missouri don't warrant visiting. They do. But I know from friends and relatives that things have changed there and what I loved about the states I can't find in a "visit"--I'd have to go back. And those things aren't powerful enough to go back for.

I have a feeling this woman wants someone to rag on California with, and she's a little late. I have my brother. Both of us know California about the same, and we don't even rag on the entire state--just the two most prominent metropolitan areas. (My sister-in-love, from the Central Valley, hates these discussions but is fully aware that we consider the Central Valley to be like the Midwest in many aspects, so she knows we aren't picking on her.) We both hate the work ethic that we encounter much of the time, or the state motto that both of us have informally attributed to the state regarding many of its inhabitants: "It's Ok, Someone Will Come Along and Take Care of It." My brother and I also recognize that there ARE people here who have a work ethic, and we are friends with those people. (My brother also firmly believes that to increase your chances of getting an employee with a solid work ethic, the employee should have been born outside the state of California. That counts in terms of immigration as well.) We both make fun of California drivers. We both make fun of crowd mentality in the cities here. (I have more fun with that one than he does, since he's agoraphobic.) And we both make fun of the transportation issues in this state, whether by Caltrans or by mass transit.

Knowing all of this, my brother and I were talking last week when he came up about travel. He knows I have a huge crush on New Orleans right now (the only thing keeping me from going is the heat and humidity), and he asked me, "Anywhere else you thinking of going?" I shrugged. "Maybe to see you guys," I said, "but honestly? I live in my vacation destination." My brother nodded emphatically. "Me too," he said. "My buddies back in the Midwest don't get it. If I had a week or two off, I would just comb the lagoon in Carlsbad for bat-rays. They have to go somewhere." We don't understand a lot about our state, and we wish we could change a lot about our state. But we love it, all the same.

When I first moved here, however, I wanted to do what this woman wants to do--I wanted to downplay it. The rest of America is constantly told how great California is, and it is wondrous, but that opinion has to be earned. If she knocks California to me, I get rankled. Only I can knock California, and I can only do it with the guy who did the same thing I did. If this woman wants to catch up with me in seven years, she can, but by then I will have been here for fourteen years and I will have a whole new slant on the world. It's just not the right time.

I feel empathetic for her situation, but my best advice to her? Join more Meetups. Join the ones in particular that are among new transplants. When you want to get back to talking about writing, come back to this one. She didn't take that advice, and I don't know how much writing she's getting done, but I didn't bring that up in last night's Meetup with her. She's responsible for her acclimation...just like I was.

Just like I still am.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is where the title of this post of Life For Rent comes from. I'm a huge fan of Rufus, and I wish he was available to play on my team...but alas. He can talk about California with me any time, if you get me.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing, Part the Last

In this last installment of my thoughts on writing, I would like to offer up a short prayer of thanks to the following writing mentors:

• Natalie Goldberg ~ Taught me how to set loose and just write. About anything. No dead white men from the 1800's had the monopoly on my writing, or gothic Southern writers, neither. Just write. I've been following her example, with a Sheaffer pen, by the way, since 1990.
• Dr. Clark Closser ~ Taught me how to trust my love of reading, and fed that hunger. He also taught me that it was okay to look for patterns in the cosmos between what was around me and literature. Gave me a love of Camus. I've been following his example, complete with a German name, since 1998.
• Tim Friend ~ My high school English teacher let me publish stuff in his paper. Well, the school's paper. And I had no threshold of common decency. I think that was a prerequisite to write for him. :) I've been following his example, with a green pen on some days, since 1987.
• Nancy Schlosser ~ "I don't get it; it must be good." Nothing determines my writing, in any medium, like that line. If I hear that, I know it's no good. My mother kept/keeps me real. I've been trying to follow her example, with the same middle name, since 1972.

There's Springsteen, too, but he didn't teach me anything. I just love his work.

That, and he's the only one of the group who's never read me.

Onward, dear reader, and writers. Back to the single posts per week, unless my mind takes off on other tangents.

AD HOC: Back Home

Technically, I'm not from southwest Missouri. I'm from northwest Ohio, born and raised. But when someone asks me, "Where are you from?" and I'm sitting in my City or the Bay Area, I say, "Southwest Missouri." (Digression: If I'm visiting my brother and someone asks, I say, "San Francisco." It was kind of cool when we were in Vegas and the two hick kids from Ohio got to answer the question, "San Francisco and San Diego." We've come a long way, bay-bee.)

These days my Facebook feed looks more like a news ticker on CNN than shout-out page. I have feeds from all of my artsy-fartsy corporate sites, and then stuff from the Giants, and then feeds from the Bryan Times (of Bryan, Ohio, my hometown) and the Springfield News-Leader (from Springfield, Missouri, my college town). Last night around 6-ish the News-Leader was dropping FB feeds like bombs--feeds about how Joplin, Missouri (a town about 45 minutes from Springfield) was decimated by a tornado. One of the tornado's primary targets was St. John's, a branch of one of two healthcare facilities based out of Springfield. I was talking to a friend in Springfield on text message at the time and he said they were waiting to see if it would hit Springfield. Later, he let me know they were in the all-clear.

I've only been to/through Joplin three times: once to visit the Precious Moments Chapel back in the 90's when I first moved to Missouri, once at three o'clock in the morning driving a friend to Waggoner, Oklahoma, and once in July of 2004, on my way west to California. It doesn't stand out all that much from southwest Missouri in general for me, but to see what it looks like this morning reminds me of many times in my mind I've mentally said goodbye to parts of that time in my life, by force or by choice. Do I miss Missouri? Sometimes:

• The food. Good burgers, barbecue, frozen custard.
• I miss the Mudhouse, a coffee shop downtown. I'm afraid to check and see if it's still in business after seven years out.
• I miss green. I miss shade. I miss trees.
• I miss my last apartment. A minor league ballpark was in the backyard and I had a balcony. I raised herbs, flowers. I had a hammock chair.
• I miss the way no one had a southern accent until you drove to south or north out of town.
• I miss my college and my literature professors.
• I miss my friends.

But...other times:

• I'm Unitarian. Try that in southwest Missouri, land of Assembly of God, and see how far that takes you.
• I left there making $22k a year. I started here in CA at $45k a year. And I split rent with my brother.
• Fresh produce in Missouri? Fogettaboutit. And avocados are a memory.
• Humidity. Walk into an oven and drape a hot, wet towel around your head and cinch it at your neck. 'Nuff said.
• Ice storms.
• Tornados...particularly at dark.

I don't mind tornados during the day--I can see them. But tornados in the dark, well, that's like shaking your house for no reason, kind of like an...um...EARTHQUAKE.

My fellow Ozarkians...my heart goes out to you.

Onward, dear reader.