I came to the coffee shop with "The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor" under my arm intending to read them. I didn't. Instead I read this: "Northern Gothic," by a woman whose writing I love and you should too.
STORY EXCERPT (to encourage you):
"Will sin persist without a captive audience?
'Course it will,' mutters Flannery O’Connor, 'there’s always sin, girl...'"
I still wonder who woke up and said, "Darling, I've had a vision. We must name our only child Flannery!" Mother or father? If Father: bad taste, sir. If Mother: you probably knew better but you also probably knew what you were about. Because they actually named her Mary Flannery O'Connor but that middle name was persuasive and had its way in the end, too much of a temptation for a mind bent towards writing. Nothing more is known of Mary, but we all know about Flannery.
I brought the book with me because I'm working on short stories and I'm bad at them. Or I lack the courage to create conflict and carry through to logical conclusions regarding illogical human behavior. Flannery, as the above story comments, has a lot of gall. Okay then, instruct, Flannery. I'm looking to you for a tip, or two (if you're feeling generous).
The story I'm working on currently is from a very real experience and I'm trying it out from the viewpoint of someone who is not me. It's a little awkward since I've suddenly realized I will not allow certain people to read it (certain people who were there, for instance). It's completely different from what happened, but I'm stealing things left and right. Things perhaps some people will not appreciate stolen. T says writers are thieves and bandits. Joan Didion said a writer is always selling someone out.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
#234: assembly line
This morning, in Safeway, an ambulance driver turned to another EMT. He had found a sparkly pom-pom on a shelf full of holiday-type stuff.
"We should have these in the van for calls," he said, waving it in the other man's face. "See (pom-pom-pom-pom): 'You're feeling better!'"
I imagine the astonished face of the next car accident victim they encounter will look a bit like the astonished face of the EMT.
---
I'm in Portland for a wedding and taking my weekend (my weekend only lasts a couple hours this week apparently) at a coffee shop until Tiffany is out of yoga and can play with me. I'm feeling several things:
- my bum knee and how much it HUUUUUURTS
- and (more), I feel like I'm in the gift shop of a factory that produces ready-made boys who wear skinny legs in skinny jeans, black rimmed glasses and have slightly-mussed hair, interesting facial hair, shaggy golden dogs and, atop their heads, are wearing variations on a newsboy cap.
The factory also makes girls but these come with more options: skirts and boots or skinny jeans and boots and a vast selection of other accessories including handbags, bookbags, rings, necklaces, and bracelets. You can purchase these extras anywhere or make them yourself! We have patterns for sale. However, the method of crafting the Sour Expression is a trade secret, sorry. We're not allowed to talk about it except in low tones over coffee with a Mac computer on the table between us (guarantees the proper emotional detachment to intimate moment ratio).
I'm always amazed by how good yet similar everyone looks in Portland. I feel like a backwoodsman and it took me an hour this morning to figure out what I should wear to the wedding. Everything I was picking seemed too casual, too earth-colored. To combat the earth colors, I brought with me the Disco Ball Dress... with which I will wear a ... brown sweater.
---
I slept for almost 12 hours last night. I was not supposed to, but I got off work and went to take a 15 minute nap. Woke up at seven and somehow called Marta to tell her there was no way I could get out of bed and go to her house for dinner (I'm trying to remember if I was really even awake when this happened. I don't think I was. I wonder what I said... if it was actually such a smooth translation from what I was saying in my mind). Then back to sleepsy. Slept through several "where are you?" texts and answered them when I woke a second time around 10 or 11. Didn't wake again until 5:30 this morning. Whew. Feels good and also excessive.
This is what an open/bake at the coffee shop go immediately to close at the restaurant schedule will do to me.
And bake-bake-baking is fantastic. I work in a little ghetto kitchen in the bowels of an old building. It's a separate room built in the center of the basement, surrounded by exposed beams and darkness piled in the corners where giant burlap bags of coffee beans, the freezer and other items abide. Down there, the only living things are me and the Norwegian River Rats. These rats are (apparently) as big as sin with a mean streak a mile wide. They will stop it nothing to get into the kitchen. Their only goal: general befoulment.
"It is imperative," said my boss on my first baking day, "that you always shut this door." She slammed the kitchen screen door behind her and I thought I saw beady eyes flashing as furry bodies lurking outside turned suddenly and naked tails whipped away into the basement dark.
But wait! There's more!
"Whenever I'm dehydrated, I drink coffee," said a girl with shaking hands and bruisy looking eyes.
I'm calling HANGOVER, right now. There's a trio sitting and doing one activity each with as much focus as they can and each of the activities they have chosen don't require them to do much except hold onto a coffee cup and flip through books with lots of pictures.
I think I have a 65-year-old alter ego because often when I look at girls my age, I start pursing my lips and handing out modesty ratings, wondering quietly and inwardly if they were raised by wolves (nasty-minded, pervy wolves who told them every morning, "There's no such thing as too much glitter or naked leg.")
I think: "Honey, God gave you cleavage for a reason but it's not THAT reason." I consider carrying around a bag full of cotton sheets to drape over them (in a motherly fashion intended to instruct and nurture not demean).
"We should have these in the van for calls," he said, waving it in the other man's face. "See (pom-pom-pom-pom): 'You're feeling better!'"
I imagine the astonished face of the next car accident victim they encounter will look a bit like the astonished face of the EMT.
---
I'm in Portland for a wedding and taking my weekend (my weekend only lasts a couple hours this week apparently) at a coffee shop until Tiffany is out of yoga and can play with me. I'm feeling several things:
- my bum knee and how much it HUUUUUURTS
- and (more), I feel like I'm in the gift shop of a factory that produces ready-made boys who wear skinny legs in skinny jeans, black rimmed glasses and have slightly-mussed hair, interesting facial hair, shaggy golden dogs and, atop their heads, are wearing variations on a newsboy cap.
The factory also makes girls but these come with more options: skirts and boots or skinny jeans and boots and a vast selection of other accessories including handbags, bookbags, rings, necklaces, and bracelets. You can purchase these extras anywhere or make them yourself! We have patterns for sale. However, the method of crafting the Sour Expression is a trade secret, sorry. We're not allowed to talk about it except in low tones over coffee with a Mac computer on the table between us (guarantees the proper emotional detachment to intimate moment ratio).
I'm always amazed by how good yet similar everyone looks in Portland. I feel like a backwoodsman and it took me an hour this morning to figure out what I should wear to the wedding. Everything I was picking seemed too casual, too earth-colored. To combat the earth colors, I brought with me the Disco Ball Dress... with which I will wear a ... brown sweater.
---
I slept for almost 12 hours last night. I was not supposed to, but I got off work and went to take a 15 minute nap. Woke up at seven and somehow called Marta to tell her there was no way I could get out of bed and go to her house for dinner (I'm trying to remember if I was really even awake when this happened. I don't think I was. I wonder what I said... if it was actually such a smooth translation from what I was saying in my mind). Then back to sleepsy. Slept through several "where are you?" texts and answered them when I woke a second time around 10 or 11. Didn't wake again until 5:30 this morning. Whew. Feels good and also excessive.
This is what an open/bake at the coffee shop go immediately to close at the restaurant schedule will do to me.
And bake-bake-baking is fantastic. I work in a little ghetto kitchen in the bowels of an old building. It's a separate room built in the center of the basement, surrounded by exposed beams and darkness piled in the corners where giant burlap bags of coffee beans, the freezer and other items abide. Down there, the only living things are me and the Norwegian River Rats. These rats are (apparently) as big as sin with a mean streak a mile wide. They will stop it nothing to get into the kitchen. Their only goal: general befoulment.
"It is imperative," said my boss on my first baking day, "that you always shut this door." She slammed the kitchen screen door behind her and I thought I saw beady eyes flashing as furry bodies lurking outside turned suddenly and naked tails whipped away into the basement dark.
But wait! There's more!
"Whenever I'm dehydrated, I drink coffee," said a girl with shaking hands and bruisy looking eyes.
I'm calling HANGOVER, right now. There's a trio sitting and doing one activity each with as much focus as they can and each of the activities they have chosen don't require them to do much except hold onto a coffee cup and flip through books with lots of pictures.
I think I have a 65-year-old alter ego because often when I look at girls my age, I start pursing my lips and handing out modesty ratings, wondering quietly and inwardly if they were raised by wolves (nasty-minded, pervy wolves who told them every morning, "There's no such thing as too much glitter or naked leg.")
I think: "Honey, God gave you cleavage for a reason but it's not THAT reason." I consider carrying around a bag full of cotton sheets to drape over them (in a motherly fashion intended to instruct and nurture not demean).
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
negative ye burr, pre-music version
I'm having a neurotic moment -- like what T was describing when he called to tell me he's sending me the first part of his novel to read. He's a little nervous. He said he imagines it as if we are sitting in a coffee shop together and I push the manuscript across the table to him, lean back, maybe suck on the end of my pen then take a deep breath (rather like a sigh) and say, "Look. This is horrible. You're horrible. Please stop writing. We can't be friends." He admits that this is not likely to happen and totally irrational.
So along those lines. I'm going to a concert tonight. A city concert that will be dense with trendy young people and I'm trying to remember what that's like and (oh lord) what I should wear. I don't want to be too cold, too hot, too practical, too impractical. Basically I want to wear a smock, leggings and a comfortable sort of face covering. And slippers. I'm realizing I've lived too long outside civilization, in a rural county. The city is dark and evil and I believe that if I show any skin (ANKLES!) I will be hunted down and assaulted by lustful men-types. Rapists and murders lurk in every shadow. Peace, peace, but there is no peace. Etc.
So we'll see how it goes.
So along those lines. I'm going to a concert tonight. A city concert that will be dense with trendy young people and I'm trying to remember what that's like and (oh lord) what I should wear. I don't want to be too cold, too hot, too practical, too impractical. Basically I want to wear a smock, leggings and a comfortable sort of face covering. And slippers. I'm realizing I've lived too long outside civilization, in a rural county. The city is dark and evil and I believe that if I show any skin (ANKLES!) I will be hunted down and assaulted by lustful men-types. Rapists and murders lurk in every shadow. Peace, peace, but there is no peace. Etc.
So we'll see how it goes.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
I thought we were an autonomous collective
Originally I was going to go to the snowboard/ski expo in preparation for the Montana trip that the two M's and I are going on in January, but I keep sabotaging myself by reading amazing things and having weird dreams and overhearing conversations that make me want to write and write and write. So now I'm conflicted. I think I'll still head out that way, maybe catch lunch with a former co-worker. But I'm taking my computer too just in case I get there and need to spend some time drinking coffee and typing (all I've done this morning besides watch 15 minutes of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail").
Such good times recently. Marta and I drove to Portland this week for dinner with my fam-fam then went to Binks for some of Marta's adopted family and then home, talking all the long way, in bed by 2:30. Then yesterday was a fantastic work shift at the restaurant with my pony-tailed co-worker and enough eaters to keep us busy. Plus everyone was in such good moods. One older couple joked with me so awkwardly that it wasn't until halfway through their lunch that I realized they really liked me and just thought they were being hilarious. I had spent the first part of their visit wondering if they were going to complain to management and spit their food back on their plates.
From work went to wrassle with a wolf dog and clean a very dirty house (I let the wolf dog run around until it came to cleaning the floors then she was banished to the outdoors). So satisfying to see that dirt come up and to make all things sparkle and gleam.
THEN (and then and then) went out for a beer with the Sarahs. The Sarahs apparently are always planning nights on the town. "This time, Sarah," they say to each other, "we're going to go CRAZY." They told me this while yawning and talking about one Sarah's kiddo who she already misses, having not been apart from him for a night out in months. It was 8:30 and they didn't think they were going to last. "Stick with it, Sarah!" they yelled at each other.
Then it was a quick hi to Marta and my pony-tailed co-worker and then to bed. Slept like a rock but a rock with weird dreams... I feel like shale would have weird dreams. Perhaps I am shale.
Such good times recently. Marta and I drove to Portland this week for dinner with my fam-fam then went to Binks for some of Marta's adopted family and then home, talking all the long way, in bed by 2:30. Then yesterday was a fantastic work shift at the restaurant with my pony-tailed co-worker and enough eaters to keep us busy. Plus everyone was in such good moods. One older couple joked with me so awkwardly that it wasn't until halfway through their lunch that I realized they really liked me and just thought they were being hilarious. I had spent the first part of their visit wondering if they were going to complain to management and spit their food back on their plates.
From work went to wrassle with a wolf dog and clean a very dirty house (I let the wolf dog run around until it came to cleaning the floors then she was banished to the outdoors). So satisfying to see that dirt come up and to make all things sparkle and gleam.
THEN (and then and then) went out for a beer with the Sarahs. The Sarahs apparently are always planning nights on the town. "This time, Sarah," they say to each other, "we're going to go CRAZY." They told me this while yawning and talking about one Sarah's kiddo who she already misses, having not been apart from him for a night out in months. It was 8:30 and they didn't think they were going to last. "Stick with it, Sarah!" they yelled at each other.
Then it was a quick hi to Marta and my pony-tailed co-worker and then to bed. Slept like a rock but a rock with weird dreams... I feel like shale would have weird dreams. Perhaps I am shale.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
wampum
Last night I had a dream that my hair was long and straight-ish (like it was when I was ... 12? 13? Somewhere) and that I was in a nice hotel room with a huge grand piano made out of some sort of blond wood and I was a piano expert and almost wept because it was such a nice piano but when I tried to play it L. showed up as her 8-year-old self and kept belittling me until I (responding like my 9-year-old self) got angry and peevish and refused to do anything except wander the room alone. Also everything I tried to play sounded terrible so... I woke up realizing I needed to memorize more pieces and/or write a tango.
Need the sleeps. Been opening/baking at the coffee shop and then going straight to closing/opening shifts at the restaurant with (at the most) an hour between jobs. Then I get off work and read "Madame Bovary" until I fall asleep and wonder what she had to take to be so stupid, or if Charles (recounted in a chapter later expunged from the text for morality reasons) grew pot and his "doctor" work was conveniently mistranslated from the original which read "cannabis dispenser."
But anyway. Work = $$$$!
which more often feels like
$$$$?
because I remember that I don't care a whole lot about money (suddenly I remember that I also must PAY RENT and for ELECTRICITY). Still, not doing too bad in the dollar department. My mind is at ease which is not normally the case when I contemplate money. Booo money. I wonder what people would do if I tried to pay for everything with mussel shells.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but this is not money."
"I'm sorry, sir, but this is wampum. I'm reporting you to the Bureau of Indian Affairs."
Don't mess around with the BIA. I hear they have friends at the BLM and the BLM (as we all know) has weaponized what's left of the wild mustang herds.
Need the sleeps. Been opening/baking at the coffee shop and then going straight to closing/opening shifts at the restaurant with (at the most) an hour between jobs. Then I get off work and read "Madame Bovary" until I fall asleep and wonder what she had to take to be so stupid, or if Charles (recounted in a chapter later expunged from the text for morality reasons) grew pot and his "doctor" work was conveniently mistranslated from the original which read "cannabis dispenser."
But anyway. Work = $$$$!
which more often feels like
$$$$?
because I remember that I don't care a whole lot about money (suddenly I remember that I also must PAY RENT and for ELECTRICITY). Still, not doing too bad in the dollar department. My mind is at ease which is not normally the case when I contemplate money. Booo money. I wonder what people would do if I tried to pay for everything with mussel shells.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but this is not money."
"I'm sorry, sir, but this is wampum. I'm reporting you to the Bureau of Indian Affairs."
Don't mess around with the BIA. I hear they have friends at the BLM and the BLM (as we all know) has weaponized what's left of the wild mustang herds.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
run away
A county sign showing escape routes from a house in case of tsunami or other flood-type event read: "PLAN YOUR ESCAPE." But instead of educating me, it just made me think of all the things you could plan to escape from. I have made a list. Forgive me.
PLAN YOUR ESCAPE! from:
- cardboard boxes (possibly the type that contain refrigerators)
- conversations that are
a. tedious
b. too personal
c. insulting
d. interesting
- Celtic music
- knotted up aprons
a. straight from the drying machine
b. shoved into a drawer
c. in a plastic bag (as was mine this morning)
- too small shirt sleeves
a.(this list is drawn from personal experiences)
b.(painful personal experiences)
c.(as you can tell)
- wedding photos
- all photos
- strangers with judgmental eyes
- tourist traffic
- enslavement
- Cormac McCarthy novels
a. THE CROSSING!!!!!!! ANYONE? HOLY LORDY.
- sugar high
- commitments
- ambiguous decisions
- current situations
- coffee shops with "bad atmosphere"
- phrases like "good energy"
PLAN YOUR ESCAPE! from:
- cardboard boxes (possibly the type that contain refrigerators)
- conversations that are
a. tedious
b. too personal
c. insulting
d. interesting
- Celtic music
- knotted up aprons
a. straight from the drying machine
b. shoved into a drawer
c. in a plastic bag (as was mine this morning)
- too small shirt sleeves
a.(this list is drawn from personal experiences)
b.(painful personal experiences)
c.(as you can tell)
- wedding photos
- all photos
- strangers with judgmental eyes
- tourist traffic
- enslavement
- Cormac McCarthy novels
a. THE CROSSING!!!!!!! ANYONE? HOLY LORDY.
- sugar high
- commitments
- ambiguous decisions
- current situations
- coffee shops with "bad atmosphere"
- phrases like "good energy"
Friday, October 28, 2011
the porpoise/purpose dilemmas
There is only one conclusion that I can come to: I have become a bad writer. I mean, I write poorly. Impoverished is my writing. I think it's because my subjects are lean (not in the well-muscled sense... I mean, they are scrawny). I've been reading through the blog archives and have decided that however vague it was at times, my best writing on here happened during my internship when this blog had purpose and scope. After the internship, it just became a diary. When I was employed at the paper, it became a sad and secret vault. I struggled to mask events in obscurity and I didn't tell you the whole story because we've all read about those employees who gripe about Things and then get fired. And now? It's a chronicle of my confusion and the trials of seating tourists in restaurants. Wheeee.
I ran across an old entry where I outlined some projects and goals. I'm going to do that again. This is the best time since this winter will be known as the Very Cold Winter of Poverty in which I plan to live paycheck to paycheck and not touch my savings. I know I will make a killing this summer if I just stick it out. In the meantime, the writing needs some work and the life needs some push.
So I will...
1. Edit select old completed short stories and start sending them out
2. Write new material and start sending it out (M says he will slap me if I stop writing. He claims others will support him in this including the police. I am doubtful but I don't want to call bluff)
3. Put together applications for several Writer-in-Residence programs for next year
(Been planning this/thinking about this for almost a year now and already made all sorts of outrageous plans in a very public way and will lose face if I don't follow through. Also, I just found out that the National Park Service has a lot of residences and I could live in the wilderness for a month FOR FREE and write.)
4. Be in a Writer-in-Residence program next year (in the wilderness)
5. Solve the problems associated with the incomplete circle rug for Mumsy which I promised her last Christmas
6. Find a purpose (porpoise! ... surely I'm not the only person who automatically substitutes the word "porpoise" for "purpose"? Anyone?)... Anyway, find a PURPOSE (...porpoise...) for this blog. Like so:
Oh lordy, stop the madness. I'm sorry. I've been loopy all morning and (while we're being truthful) all last evening too. I can't turn it off. I don't know where it's coming from... I need to work more maybe or have a religious crisis. Well too bad. I'm feeling quite all right God-wise, thanks, and I'm happy and I like being happy.
I ran across an old entry where I outlined some projects and goals. I'm going to do that again. This is the best time since this winter will be known as the Very Cold Winter of Poverty in which I plan to live paycheck to paycheck and not touch my savings. I know I will make a killing this summer if I just stick it out. In the meantime, the writing needs some work and the life needs some push.
So I will...
1. Edit select old completed short stories and start sending them out
2. Write new material and start sending it out (M says he will slap me if I stop writing. He claims others will support him in this including the police. I am doubtful but I don't want to call bluff)
3. Put together applications for several Writer-in-Residence programs for next year
(Been planning this/thinking about this for almost a year now and already made all sorts of outrageous plans in a very public way and will lose face if I don't follow through. Also, I just found out that the National Park Service has a lot of residences and I could live in the wilderness for a month FOR FREE and write.)
4. Be in a Writer-in-Residence program next year (in the wilderness)
5. Solve the problems associated with the incomplete circle rug for Mumsy which I promised her last Christmas
6. Find a purpose (porpoise! ... surely I'm not the only person who automatically substitutes the word "porpoise" for "purpose"? Anyone?)... Anyway, find a PURPOSE (...porpoise...) for this blog. Like so:
Oh lordy, stop the madness. I'm sorry. I've been loopy all morning and (while we're being truthful) all last evening too. I can't turn it off. I don't know where it's coming from... I need to work more maybe or have a religious crisis. Well too bad. I'm feeling quite all right God-wise, thanks, and I'm happy and I like being happy.
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