This is just to tell the world that I'm going to the grocery store to buy chocolate chips so I can make cookies and that I might go to the movie store and rent "Amelie" although it would be better to just cowboy up and watch "The Business of Being Born" because I already have that one rented out. I'm just really scared that some of the opening sequences will be of a live birth and that doesn't feel like something I want to include in my evening.
I also plan to listen to the dirty rap music mated with Tom Waits that I started listening to this morning. It is fantastic. It is wonderful. It is the only reason I get out of bed most mornings (and because Bruno usually lands with a thud on my chest and peers intently and creepily at my face until I can't ignore him any longer. Also, sometimes my alarm goes off at the right time and I wake up because of noise... from the alarm.)
Anyway, that's all.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
against childhood
When established older writers get all cranky about kids who are self-publishing novels (a new trend, I hear), I remember when my younger brothers were allowed to see movies that, up until then, only L. and I had been able to watch because we were older (not because, as we assumed and argued, we alone deserved to watch them). I felt disinherited and debated like a member of Parliament arguing for continued colonial presence in angry foreign countries. So, in a similar pattern, the adult writers go on and on about how true publishing (through a publishing house, with agents and editors and titles you don't like or want slapped on your book) is a trial by fire, a study in adversity and perseverance, and you come out refined and burnished like gold. Which is why these traditionally published authors are such noble wonderful people. Self-publishing, especially by dewy and innocent children (has no one read "Lord of the Flies" recently or visited a school playground?), misses the point and is only for the lazy, the passive aggressive and the unsuccessful. Or something. I think the traditionally published authors are just jealous and don't want these upstarts mucking around "where they don't belong" so they do the older sibling thing and try to invalidate whatever the younger sibling is doing and hold tight to what they see as their exclusive domain.
You could argue (and the established authors do) that a kid hasn't done the sort of living you need to do to write a truly good book. Therefore what they write shouldn't be published. The characters and stories will likely be one-dimensional spin-offs with lots of cliches. Good thing that never happens in books written by adults and published through publishing houses. Only quality is allowed there.
Age-discrimination is making me angry apparently today.
And related: The lady who wrote "Tuck Everlasting" argues against talking down to children and writing insipid books for children. Children become people early in life, she said in an interview on NPR. We're always asking children what they want to be when they grow up, she said. We should ask them who they are right now.
I was reading a satirical article about writing the great American novel and the writer was begging future authors to stop writing children's books if they themselves are no longer children.
"You can follow them around and put their clothes on and roll around with their Transformers and I’m still pretty sure there’s just no way you’ll even begin to comprehend what it’s like to be a kid," he writes.
You could argue (and the established authors do) that a kid hasn't done the sort of living you need to do to write a truly good book. Therefore what they write shouldn't be published. The characters and stories will likely be one-dimensional spin-offs with lots of cliches. Good thing that never happens in books written by adults and published through publishing houses. Only quality is allowed there.
Age-discrimination is making me angry apparently today.
And related: The lady who wrote "Tuck Everlasting" argues against talking down to children and writing insipid books for children. Children become people early in life, she said in an interview on NPR. We're always asking children what they want to be when they grow up, she said. We should ask them who they are right now.
I was reading a satirical article about writing the great American novel and the writer was begging future authors to stop writing children's books if they themselves are no longer children.
"You can follow them around and put their clothes on and roll around with their Transformers and I’m still pretty sure there’s just no way you’ll even begin to comprehend what it’s like to be a kid," he writes.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
baybee owls
It's my day off! Both my jobs have started hiring people to help us cope with the uptick in business spring and summer always bring and this means fewer shifts for Katie. Good thing? Sort of. Once I recoop from taxes, it will be. Meanwhile I'm trying to stay positive and stay close to home and not spend money for a while. I completed a massive grocery trip yesterday (necessary money spenditure) and have organized my pantry to be more "cook-at-home" friendly. The decision to live a mostly vegan/vegetarian life has been fantastic for my cooking... "my cooking" not really being a phrase I ever used until recently since "my cooking" usually meant sauteed vegetables and rice or scrambled eggs & toast (if I was feeling fancy). Now, though, all the restrictions of a V diet have had the bizarre effect of catapulting me full into culinary domesticity after years of resistance to and dislike of.
One day at a time, I'm banishing my crippling fear of potlucks. Hooray!
Today I made two vegan ice creams, a chocolate and a vanilla banana, and they're going to be fantastic. I hope. In about 45 minutes, I will start on a vegan Indian feast of creamy curry & assorted other spices soup and traditional flat bread for M. because this is what we do: cook stuff and make each other (and other people) partake. It's a very satisfying activity and as long as I do most of it in the late afternoon Bruno doesn't bother me. His prime cat-nap times are between noon and 5 and he curls up in the bowl chair and glares at me sleepily if I disturb him. If I try to make anything in the morning, he's all over the kitchen, gnawing on my ankles and trying to jump up on the stove top.
But that's not why I'm online right now. I really am writing to share THIS with you. Read it. Love it. I stole it from Tiffany's blog and have already made one of the pictures my desktop background.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
lost and found (or bought)
The hard drive in my old computer gasped its last wheezing breath and collapsed in the hallway (actually it was a coffee shop) and died. It took all my writing and photography with it. After a couple days of mourning ("It's not like someone died," M said and I kind of wanted to punch him in the nose) and a lot of self-abuse (what WOULD have been so difficult about backing up my files? REALLY?), I borrowed time on a friend's computer and ordered a MacBook Pro. It arrived today while I was sitting at my dining room table and using my fork to keep the cat away from my Thai food.
So yay.
Meanwhile, there's a girl sitting across the room from me who looks just like the mom in "Mary Poppins"... you know, votes for women! Sister suffragette! Shoulder and shoulder into the fray! JUST LIKE HER. It's all in the nose, I think, and the large but closely set together eyes.
---
I'm ready for winter to be over. Really really ready. I get so sad at night because I'm cold and it's dark and it feels like it will never end and then it starts to hail and I feel like elk turds, talentless, stinky (but I'm taking a shower tonight, so I'll only feel talentless).
---
Dum de dum de dum. Oh! If you haven't listened to the Carolina Chocolate Drops yet, you should, because they are fantastic.
---
Joel and Mom visited me yesterday and the weather was terrible but the afternoon spent with them was wonderful. Then I went over to M.'s house for Spencer's famous lasagna and was the last man (or woman, I guess) standing, watching a movie while the rest of them collapsed into snoring baby angel lasagana-fed heaps on various couches. Food and the male constitution... naps are always imminent.
---
Work tonight. Meh. Work tomorrow. Eh.
So yay.
Meanwhile, there's a girl sitting across the room from me who looks just like the mom in "Mary Poppins"... you know, votes for women! Sister suffragette! Shoulder and shoulder into the fray! JUST LIKE HER. It's all in the nose, I think, and the large but closely set together eyes.
---
I'm ready for winter to be over. Really really ready. I get so sad at night because I'm cold and it's dark and it feels like it will never end and then it starts to hail and I feel like elk turds, talentless, stinky (but I'm taking a shower tonight, so I'll only feel talentless).
---
Dum de dum de dum. Oh! If you haven't listened to the Carolina Chocolate Drops yet, you should, because they are fantastic.
---
Joel and Mom visited me yesterday and the weather was terrible but the afternoon spent with them was wonderful. Then I went over to M.'s house for Spencer's famous lasagna and was the last man (or woman, I guess) standing, watching a movie while the rest of them collapsed into snoring baby angel lasagana-fed heaps on various couches. Food and the male constitution... naps are always imminent.
---
Work tonight. Meh. Work tomorrow. Eh.
Monday, February 20, 2012
a semi-comprehensive update with bolded text
At Toby's wedding in January, Adam A. pointed out to me that I am no longer a journalist and (despite how obvious this should have been seeing as *I* quit the newspaper job over four months ago and haven't been living in amnesiac confusion in the woods since September) I felt an electric shock shoot through... my liver? Not a journalist? How could I not be a journalist? The answer, of course, being that one stops being a journalist when one is no longer doing any sort of journalistic work. "Journalist" is not a personality type or a hair color or an ethnic identity. Huh.
---
Listening to: a lot of "Barton Hollow" by The Civil Wars. Exquisite harmonies make me cry in public. It gets very awkward. Last night, listening to NPR on the drive to M's house, they played a segment from a female composer's voice project and it made me gasp. What I learned in the CCC music program was that we respond so strongly to stringed instruments because they remind us of the human voice. The segment NPR played had a woman's voice falling almost dissonant over very low male voices and then bleeding effortlessly into a violin solo. It was lovely.
Reading: "Beasts of No Nation" by Uzodinma Iweala. About a boy in a West African nation who is pressed into child soldiery. I don't even know how to describe it yet. I had to fall asleep for a while after reading the first couple of chapters. It's like my mind and soul couldn't handle it. It's too terrifying and rending. It probably didn't help that I was going over my old domestic violence newspaper stories to include in the writer residency application. All I could think of was pain and how right in the moment I'm reading about it, there are child soldiers out there sleeping or dying or eating or peeing or being born.
Thinking: About how the Bible says to do all things for the glory of God. I kind of wonder if God says that because he knows it's going to be consuming enough and wearying enough to find out just how to live a decent life in the short time we're given. We're not all going to be Bible scholars and most of the time we're going to be desperately trying to survive. However, if we give everything to God in the first place it kind of takes care of setting aside extra extra time to God. All time is God's, or something. We don't have to tack it on in addition to all the other stuff we need to get around to doing. Is that heretical? It made better sense in my mind.
Writing: Still working on the residency application. It needs to be finished soon. I'm sending the bulk of it off to Tiffany today for editing (THANK YOU, MY DEAR) and hopefully M. will take a look at it tonight and maybe you, Dad/Mumsy? Except, as my parents your job is to tell me it's perfect so that I can stretch like a cat and take a nap.
Oh Yeah and I Also Read: "Harriet the Spy" which I think might be my favorite book of all time (or close to it). I identify with Harriet in many ways. The constant note-taking. The story-telling. The sacredness of privacy: NOBODY BETTER TRY TO READ MY NOTEBOOKS. The sneaking around into people's lives... although I never went into houses. Clarke told me once it was cold and scientific how I would fall suddenly silent and watch people. I think I believe I'm invisible and I do love to observe.
Eating: Mostly vegan and vegetarian and feeling fantastic about it. I prepared a fully vegan dinner last week and it came out so good and now my cooking confidence has been boosted about a million points. I'm making a vegan butternut squash & tomato soup tomorrow.
Planning: A trip out of town with M. to visit friends up and down Oregon next week and hopefully seeing the fam-fam at some point. We're going to Coos Bay and then Eugene. Oh man oh man, Eugene! I haven't been back in almost a year. I can't believe it. I'm way overdue for some Kari Spohn and Diana Glasser time plus the other dozen or so people I miss so much who still live there. Plus I need to wander through the university and feel nostalgic about ye old collegiate days of scholarship and camaraderie. Or something.
---
Listening to: a lot of "Barton Hollow" by The Civil Wars. Exquisite harmonies make me cry in public. It gets very awkward. Last night, listening to NPR on the drive to M's house, they played a segment from a female composer's voice project and it made me gasp. What I learned in the CCC music program was that we respond so strongly to stringed instruments because they remind us of the human voice. The segment NPR played had a woman's voice falling almost dissonant over very low male voices and then bleeding effortlessly into a violin solo. It was lovely.
Reading: "Beasts of No Nation" by Uzodinma Iweala. About a boy in a West African nation who is pressed into child soldiery. I don't even know how to describe it yet. I had to fall asleep for a while after reading the first couple of chapters. It's like my mind and soul couldn't handle it. It's too terrifying and rending. It probably didn't help that I was going over my old domestic violence newspaper stories to include in the writer residency application. All I could think of was pain and how right in the moment I'm reading about it, there are child soldiers out there sleeping or dying or eating or peeing or being born.
Thinking: About how the Bible says to do all things for the glory of God. I kind of wonder if God says that because he knows it's going to be consuming enough and wearying enough to find out just how to live a decent life in the short time we're given. We're not all going to be Bible scholars and most of the time we're going to be desperately trying to survive. However, if we give everything to God in the first place it kind of takes care of setting aside extra extra time to God. All time is God's, or something. We don't have to tack it on in addition to all the other stuff we need to get around to doing. Is that heretical? It made better sense in my mind.
Writing: Still working on the residency application. It needs to be finished soon. I'm sending the bulk of it off to Tiffany today for editing (THANK YOU, MY DEAR) and hopefully M. will take a look at it tonight and maybe you, Dad/Mumsy? Except, as my parents your job is to tell me it's perfect so that I can stretch like a cat and take a nap.
Oh Yeah and I Also Read: "Harriet the Spy" which I think might be my favorite book of all time (or close to it). I identify with Harriet in many ways. The constant note-taking. The story-telling. The sacredness of privacy: NOBODY BETTER TRY TO READ MY NOTEBOOKS. The sneaking around into people's lives... although I never went into houses. Clarke told me once it was cold and scientific how I would fall suddenly silent and watch people. I think I believe I'm invisible and I do love to observe.
Eating: Mostly vegan and vegetarian and feeling fantastic about it. I prepared a fully vegan dinner last week and it came out so good and now my cooking confidence has been boosted about a million points. I'm making a vegan butternut squash & tomato soup tomorrow.
Planning: A trip out of town with M. to visit friends up and down Oregon next week and hopefully seeing the fam-fam at some point. We're going to Coos Bay and then Eugene. Oh man oh man, Eugene! I haven't been back in almost a year. I can't believe it. I'm way overdue for some Kari Spohn and Diana Glasser time plus the other dozen or so people I miss so much who still live there. Plus I need to wander through the university and feel nostalgic about ye old collegiate days of scholarship and camaraderie. Or something.
Monday, February 13, 2012
musing
A coffee shop regular was telling me about how humans are the only animals that (conceivably) sit around wondering about things. He said the word "wonder" comes from a Latin word that means something like "mirror" or "reflection." I didn't check any of this but I like the idea. We wonder and that sounds kind of aimless but really wondering is an action: a self reflecting self. Self reflection is an odd concept. We use props to self-reflect: experiences, memories, other people, places. People use the ocean. They sit on rocks and stare and reflect. Music helps. Things recall other things and we aren't necessarily moving but our brain is leaping and whatever it is that is our soul is also doing something.
Anyway. I'm working on my application for the writer residency in Nevada and reflecting on how events come in threes: A cop was shot last night at a motel just down from M's house and, this morning, a man was hit by a car downtown and died. Across the river, several days ago, M. was saying, a man picked up a hatchet and slaughtered his sons.
Tiffany and I talked last night about how discouraging a writing career can be. Most of the time we sit around wondering if we're crazy. Turns out writing means you just have to keep writing no matter how much time it feels like you're wasting. Stephen King said you write and write and sometimes you accomplish something but you don't always realize it and if you do realize it, you probably have no idea how you did it. So every day is starting over anew, maybe.
Now I'm going to work.
Anyway. I'm working on my application for the writer residency in Nevada and reflecting on how events come in threes: A cop was shot last night at a motel just down from M's house and, this morning, a man was hit by a car downtown and died. Across the river, several days ago, M. was saying, a man picked up a hatchet and slaughtered his sons.
Tiffany and I talked last night about how discouraging a writing career can be. Most of the time we sit around wondering if we're crazy. Turns out writing means you just have to keep writing no matter how much time it feels like you're wasting. Stephen King said you write and write and sometimes you accomplish something but you don't always realize it and if you do realize it, you probably have no idea how you did it. So every day is starting over anew, maybe.
Now I'm going to work.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
grumpy bad mood face plant
When I'm in a bad mood my first thought is always about how much I don't want to go to work.
Followed quickly by a snap judgment of someone I don't know. For example: a woman who clomped by me a minute ago wearing high heels. She is walking like she's wearing high heels (spine at a balancing angle, sending bottom skyward and arms forward to dangle like vines without a wall to climb). No chin and her face looks like it hurts... kind of like how portraits of George Washington's face make it seem like his face should hurt just because it's his face.
So I'm sitting behind my computer thinking: Women should practice wearing shoes at home before they try to hike around town in them. Yeah, that's right, boo and etc.
Completely pointless to sit and think this. Who cares? Why do I care? Why all the sudden hostility (which I just tried to spell as "histility" which just goes to show you... something or other). I also have suddenly realized my earbuds are in my ears and I'm not listening to anything. Probably I should be judging myself.
So anywayzzzz.
I'm tempted to take up Nina on her offer to cover my Friday shift. I feel brainless and behind. There are about a million people I need to call back but haven't because of my bizarre work schedule this week and I've forgotten to recharge my phone. There's so much writing I've been holding back and the Alcohol Server test I need to take sometime before the end of tomorrow and an apartment to clean and an application for GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK to fill out.
Yesterday, on my coffeehouse shift, I poured coffee into a cup for Stephen-from-the-County and I told him about Great Basin National Park (now: GBNP, for convenience and laziness) and he was like, "Oh yeah, Lehman Caves, bam, this mountain that's there, bam, off that highway, bam, BAM!" So yeah, he knows of it apparently. First person so far.
It's in Nevada. In the wilderness. I'm trying to live there for a month this year. I looked at the past recipients of this arts residency I'm applying for and they were all people in their latter days who paint mountains in garish colors and do things with stained glass so I think I'll be a novelty: young, writer, female. Also, I want to make my time there really work for the park, bring in the journalism a bit, give them all sorts of free marketing labor. I'm crafting an IDEA and I think it's awesome. Hopefully they do too otherwise I need a new plan.
One of my favorite songs is playing: "Down in the Valley" by... wait it'll come to me... The Head and The Heart. It makes me think of last spring/summer... mostly of a trip Spencer, M., Sasha and I took down to Newport and I discovered the Good Parts of Newport, about two streets worth: the Irish public house (at which real Irish people work) and the progressive bakery with amazing breakfast sandwiches and people who look like they spend a lot of time thinking about moving to places like Portland.
Ok. I have to go to work soon. Some quick thoughts to jolt me into positive thinking so I don't age prematurely (I've been worried about this recently. Ridiculous. Or is it?):
- baking tomorrow morning! (I love my bake shifts with all my heart heart heart)
- maybe going to Portland on Saturday (brothers! parents! friends! SOPHIE!!!!)
- maybe staying here on Saturday but going hiking with M (exercise! outdoors! vistas! beer!)
- Sunday (God! piano playing! naps!)
- Martha comes home tomorrow (home-making! Marta hugs! Marta kisses!)
- tonight (movie night with Spencer! "Fivel Goes West"! We've already watched "The Prince of Egypt" and "Milo & Otis" and we usually sip on whiskey and relive our childhoods and it's amazing)
Followed quickly by a snap judgment of someone I don't know. For example: a woman who clomped by me a minute ago wearing high heels. She is walking like she's wearing high heels (spine at a balancing angle, sending bottom skyward and arms forward to dangle like vines without a wall to climb). No chin and her face looks like it hurts... kind of like how portraits of George Washington's face make it seem like his face should hurt just because it's his face.
So I'm sitting behind my computer thinking: Women should practice wearing shoes at home before they try to hike around town in them. Yeah, that's right, boo and etc.
Completely pointless to sit and think this. Who cares? Why do I care? Why all the sudden hostility (which I just tried to spell as "histility" which just goes to show you... something or other). I also have suddenly realized my earbuds are in my ears and I'm not listening to anything. Probably I should be judging myself.
So anywayzzzz.
I'm tempted to take up Nina on her offer to cover my Friday shift. I feel brainless and behind. There are about a million people I need to call back but haven't because of my bizarre work schedule this week and I've forgotten to recharge my phone. There's so much writing I've been holding back and the Alcohol Server test I need to take sometime before the end of tomorrow and an apartment to clean and an application for GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK to fill out.
Yesterday, on my coffeehouse shift, I poured coffee into a cup for Stephen-from-the-County and I told him about Great Basin National Park (now: GBNP, for convenience and laziness) and he was like, "Oh yeah, Lehman Caves, bam, this mountain that's there, bam, off that highway, bam, BAM!" So yeah, he knows of it apparently. First person so far.
It's in Nevada. In the wilderness. I'm trying to live there for a month this year. I looked at the past recipients of this arts residency I'm applying for and they were all people in their latter days who paint mountains in garish colors and do things with stained glass so I think I'll be a novelty: young, writer, female. Also, I want to make my time there really work for the park, bring in the journalism a bit, give them all sorts of free marketing labor. I'm crafting an IDEA and I think it's awesome. Hopefully they do too otherwise I need a new plan.
One of my favorite songs is playing: "Down in the Valley" by... wait it'll come to me... The Head and The Heart. It makes me think of last spring/summer... mostly of a trip Spencer, M., Sasha and I took down to Newport and I discovered the Good Parts of Newport, about two streets worth: the Irish public house (at which real Irish people work) and the progressive bakery with amazing breakfast sandwiches and people who look like they spend a lot of time thinking about moving to places like Portland.
Ok. I have to go to work soon. Some quick thoughts to jolt me into positive thinking so I don't age prematurely (I've been worried about this recently. Ridiculous. Or is it?):
- baking tomorrow morning! (I love my bake shifts with all my heart heart heart)
- maybe going to Portland on Saturday (brothers! parents! friends! SOPHIE!!!!)
- maybe staying here on Saturday but going hiking with M (exercise! outdoors! vistas! beer!)
- Sunday (God! piano playing! naps!)
- Martha comes home tomorrow (home-making! Marta hugs! Marta kisses!)
- tonight (movie night with Spencer! "Fivel Goes West"! We've already watched "The Prince of Egypt" and "Milo & Otis" and we usually sip on whiskey and relive our childhoods and it's amazing)
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