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Pining for Alpine

Aug25

I just attended my fourth writer’s retreat in Alpine, Texas. I can’t tell you how much good this does for the people who attend. We spend five days living, eating, and breathing writing. I come back feeling re-energized and ready to write.

Far West Texas is my favorite place to be in the hottest part of the summer. It’s always 10 to 12 degrees cooler than here, and it gets downright nippy at night. I get a week in my favorite place, doing my favorite thing, taught by some of the best writers around, and comparing notes with like-minded people. Heaven.

My teacher this year, Mike Hall, an editor at Texas Monthly, is a really nice guy. He was approachable and genuinely interested in helping us take the next step. I got my ego stroked and my confidence built, so much so I’m determined to finish the book I’ve been working on forever. The whole project is a lot clearer than it’s ever been, so maybe 2015 will be my year.

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

A big part of the fun on these trips is playing tourist with my husband. Bryan and I visited Marathon, Marfa, and Alpine. We’ve been to each one before, but there’s always something new to see. That’s something people don’t expect from tiny towns sitting in the desert.

Marfa has really grown and has turned into a clean, pretty little town. In addition to becoming quite the art colony and providing Marfa Radio which saves tourists suffering NPR withdrawal, it has two traditional claims to fame: the Presidio County Courthouse, which is one of the prettier members of the Tacky Texas Courthouse Club, and the Paisano Hotel, where the cast of Giant stayed while filming the movie in the mid-1950s. A young friend of mine announced she has never seen Giant but planned to rent it after hearing about it in Marfa.

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

“Or you can read the book,” I suggested.

“There’s a book?” she asked wide-eyed.

The exchange made me feel old, but I smiled picturing Edna Ferber watching us, thoroughly disgusted.

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Marathon Cafe

Marathon Cafe

Next Bryan and I headed for Marathon, pronounced MAR-a-thun. You swallow the last syllable. The one visible place to eat turned out to be a highpoint of the trip. Just the other side of the historic Gage Hotel sat the tiny Marathon Café.

We complimented our waitress, who turned out to be one of the three owners, and the floodgates opened. The residents of Far West Texas have learned to be polite to the tourists but not to get too friendly. We are different; we are The Others. And they never know exactly how we’ll react to open friendliness. I always try to get people to talk to me. It’s half the fun of traveling out there.

We found out the café was owned by three cousins, all older ladies with painful arthritic joints. As is normal there, none of them plan to retire anytime soon. Hard work is ingrained in them from childhood. You work until you get too ill or too dead to continue. A niece did the cooking. She had trained at the Gage Hotel and brought her considerable talents to the tiny family concern. Bryan said his chicken fried steak was excellent, served interestingly on top of the cream gravy. My hamburger quite simply was the best I’ve had in years, and she seemed surprised when I told her so. We will definitely go there again next year.

Sometimes we revisit favorite places, only to find them closed up or reincarnated as something else. Businesses come and go out there with the suddenness of death in the desert. Apparently you’ve got a window to make it or else. There’s always a little feeling of relief when we arrive and find a favorite haunt still standing and still in business.

Our last stop was Alpine. I had just spent a week there and had seen everything in town three times. But we discovered the Museum of the Big Bend on the Sul Ross University campus last year and decided to go back. For one thing, they have a great gift shop, and I always stock up on memorabilia there. The displays don’t change drastically, but one of the blessings of advancing age is short-term memory loss. I see places for the first time over and over.

One of my favorite exhibits is a large topographical representation of the entire area. Plates on each side list points of interest and landmarks. Push the large, red button next to the plate, and a tiny light goes on at the appropriate place on the map. In the vastness of the place it’s easy to get turned around, and I enjoy lighting up the places we’ve just seen.

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

I like the stuffed black bear, whose relatives are repopulating the area. I also like the life-size replica of a pterosaur, which won’t be back anytime soon, hanging from the ceiling. Between dinosaurs, and later on Comanches and Apaches that gave the settlers many a bad day, Far West Texas has always been a pretty busy place. I prefer the toned-down version of today.

Every time we visit, Bryan and I try to figure out a way to move out there, and every year we realize we can’t. There are down sides to living in such a remote place: medical care is sketchy and usually far away; there is no quick way to get out there or back here from out there; and I’d have to hold auditions to find people to talk to about politics. With kids and grandkids in Central Texas, there’s a lot to stay for.

Still, I think we both started thinking about our next trip out there as we unloaded the car from this one. Far West Texas calls to both of us. As a friend, Joe Nick Patoski, said, “You either get this place or you don’t.” Bryan and I get it.

Pinball Wizard

Jul7

My thoughts don’t travel in a straight line; they never have. Their patterns resemble a pinball machine more than anything else. On dark nights when I’m having trouble falling asleep, I think I see an occasional flash of light-through-plastic. Sometimes I think I can hear the sound effects, too, the bings and bongs, points adding up, and an occasional TILT.

I’ve lived with this warped logic so long, I usually don’t notice my brain’s machinations. Today, however, I became aware of it on the way to the grocery store. It went something like:

I like that post on Facebook by the British nanny about what’s wrong with today’s parenting. I like that she used the word “subsuming.” There will always be an England, (glancing down at the Syrius radio display, I see the next song up is called “The Biggest Part of Me”), oh, no, I do NOT want to listen to a song about somebody’s bottom.

At this point I make the turn into the parking lot, interrupting the previous string and starting another.

I can hear Bryan now. I ask, “Don’t you ever think about things like this?” He answers, “Never!” and he looks glad.

Maybe that’s why I was so dysfunctional in Algebra. I hated being shackled and forced to think step-by-step. While I was inverting, cross-multiplying, and diligently looking for X, my brain was running in circles, thinking that my car, Beastie, needed a good wash, I liked Robert Burns’ long-leggety beasties, do they have Algebra in Scotland, and do they pronounce it Algebrrra?

Oddly, the only time I remember my mind not bouncing around like a pinball machine was when I was in labor. I just remember thinking Pain! and What the hell do you mean, don’t push?

A trip from Point A to Point B for me looks like a trip through the Shire on those twisty little roads. Another of my traits that appalls my husband is that I read the last few pages of a novel first. That just flies all over his poor, logical brain. We don’t discuss this anymore. The last time we did, I saw him looking at me like I drink blood.

Even as a child, I was surrounded by less-imaginative, plodding minds. I learned not to tell my mother what I was thinking; it just irritated her. My siblings thought I was crazy. I always felt my father understood, but he didn’t say much either way. It was easier to get along with my mother if he didn’t make personal comments.

Perhaps I got an old soul, one worn threadbare by others and often-mended. I can picture myself as Da Vinci’s housekeeper, sneaking peeks at his work and making occasional suggestions. I don’t see myself actually being Da Vinci or anyone like that, but maybe that’s the result of gender stereotypes ingrained during my childhood. I might have been Joan of Arc, though. I have a tendency toward the unladylike and an inordinate fear of being burned at the stake.

Now you see how my mind works, if you’re still here and trying to follow, you may be a pinball wizard, too. Here’s a test:

1. When asked a question, do you toss out at least five inappropriate answers before finding one you can use in polite company?

2. Do those five answers cover at least four different topics?

3. Do you think Jim Carrey is an intellectual?

4.  Can you watch “Cosmos” and understand it while compiling a list of shoes you wore in the 4th Grade?

5. Are you the go-to database of odd trivia for your entire family and several neighbors?

Five “yes” answers mean you’re either a pinball wizard or a complete loon. Either way, you’re too much like me for comfort. Get some help.

 

A Busy Summer Gets Busier

Jul6

Eddie Izzard

Every year I look forward to summer like a castaway watches for a ship on the horizon. I fantasize about all the rest I’ll get and all the writing I’ll get done. Not happening.

Instead of lazy days in a hammock, my schedule shifts into overdrive. I have more to do than at any other time of the year, and this summer is no exception.

On June 27 we continued the Kilgore family tradition of going to see Eddie Izzard as a family whenever he makes it to Texas. A few years ago we took our grown children to Dallas to see his performance. This year we lucked out because he came to Austin on his Force Majeure Tour. I’d had tickets for Bryan and me and our son and daughter for about three months. Unfortunately, our son had to cancel, so I was able to introduce Eddie to a friend who had never seen him before. She was suitably impressed, and a new Izzardette was born.

We happen to think he is the best stand-up comedian on the planet. His humor is educated and smart, much of it based on ancient history. Eddie Izzard maintains the Roman Empire fell because Latin was a silly language. By the time they conveyed how many barbarians were upon them (MCMXXXIVCCCCCXXIV), they were overrun.

Sometimes he talks about Bible stories. Eddie provides crackerjack impressions of James Mason as the Voice of God and Sean Connery as Noah. This year he added Liam Neeson, as Zeus, to his repertoire. We also had the distinction of witnessing his first sneeze during a routine. He seemed surprised, but no one in the audience was. Welcome to Austin, Eddie.

The very next day, first thing in the morning, I got ready and headed for photo (13)the Hyatt on Ladybird Lake for the Writers League of Texas Agents Conference. I got to introduce and assist Karleen Koen, one of my favorite writers and speakers. This year’s conference was sold out for the first time ever! Jeff Collins, the keynote speaker, was funny and fascinating, and, as always, I met some really interesting people.

If you’re a writer and have wondered if it is worth attending, I can tell you it is. This is my fourth conference, and I’m always impressed by the level of talented speakers and professional organization that goes into it.

While I was at the conference, my husband Bryan filled in for me in Georgetown. The San Gabriel Writers League had a booth at Hilltop Market, and Bryan delivered the canopy and fixings to the writers manning it. I love the way he steps in when I’m overbooked, never complaining and always efficient.

The Georgetown Animal Shelter was in attendance, as well. Between workshops I got a text from Bryan asking how I would feel about another dog. We already have three, but he attached a picture and a sad story about no one wanting this one because she’s eleven years old. Her 86-year-old daddy went into a nursing home, and Lexi had been at the Georgetown shelter for four weeks. I think he was already on his way home with her when he got my text, “Sure, I’m always up for another dog!” The man knows me.

So now we have four small dogs. I comfort myself with the thought that ifLexi you add all their weights together, you get one border collie. Lexi is totally at home, and the other dogs can’t even find anything about her worth a growl.

I’ve got a full dance card, and the cotillion ain’t over yet. Next in line will be the Writers League of Texas Writers Retreat in Alpine in August. I can’t wait: a week in one of my favorite places concentrating on writing. The part of heaven where they stash the writers probably looks a lot like this retreat; at least I hope so.

I can only hope all of you are as busy and having as much fun as I am this summer. If not, watch Eddie Izzard on YouTube and adopt a dog. That’s a start.

 

 

 

Five Christmases, a Birthday, a Broken Finger, and a Virus

Jan27

The title of this post is the answer to the questions:

1) How were your holidays?

2) Why haven’t you posted to your blog in such a long time?

We had five separate Christmas get-togethers. The evening after the first one, I fell in a parking lot and broke my pinky finger. Going with my upbringing (If there is no blood and no bones sticking out, you’re fine!) I continued the holidays wondering vaguely why my finger hurt so much.

The day after actual Christmas, I hosted a 65th birthday party/roast for a friend who has had a rough year. You can’t go wrong with 20 old friends and Threadgill’s comfort food. Then it was off to Longview for the last Christmas and to see our family there.

Every bit of all this was a blast. We had wonderful holidays and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. The first day back from the trip it was time, however, to get the finger checked out. Eight days after the fall I found out it had a hairline fracture. No wonder it hurt.

New Years came and went, and two days later I was wrestled to the ground by a virus. It had the earmarks of flu but no fever, so I just had to tough it out for two weeks with over the counter medicine. It ended the day the cedar pollen went through the roof, which landed me back in bed.

Okay, enough already. I am finally well and anxious to get back to my life. And back to my writing. My pinky finger can finally hit Enter without too much pain, and I’m ready to go forward.

One benefit of the illness, I was able to restart my diet. I had turned into an eating machine over the holidays, but that all changed with two weeks in bed. I’m pleased to report my stomach has adjusted to Small Bird Diet II, and I’m on my way to whipping my figure back into shape.

I’ve been fighting the battle of the bulge my whole life. I was a fat baby, child, and teenager. As an adult, my weight roller coastered so much, I collected enough different sizes of clothes to start my own thrift shop. But one of my New Year’s resolutions is to declare war on my body, get control of my weight this year and keep it under control. My other resolution is to cut back to three or four Christmases next year.

So if you haven’t seen or heard from me in a while, now you know why. But I’M BACK! Pull up your socks and tune in for adventures in 2014.

“President Kennedy has been shot…”

Nov21

 

Fifty years ago today, I came home from ninth grade, and my mother intoned her usual, “What did you learn In school today?” For once my answer came easily.  I had to come up with  an answer to that question every day. Sometimes I couldn’t think of anything special I’d learned, so I’d make something up. It didn’t seem to matter to them.

“I saw President Kennedy today. His motorcade went right by our school on Broadway, and they had us all stand on the curb and wave. He looked orange.”

“Was Jackie with him,” she asked, mildly interested for once.

“Yes. She didn’t look orange. She looked normal.”

I never found out why the President of the United States looked orange that day, or if he always looked orange. Maybe it was make-up, maybe it was a bad artificial tan—they tended to turn you orange back then—but I remember that very clearly, my main impression of the two-second look I got of John Kennedy on his way to the Alamo to make a speech.

When my father came home later, he asked me the same question, “What did you learn in school today?”

“She saw Kennedy today,” my mother interrupted before I could get it out.

My father made a sound somewhere between a growl and a spit. He hated John Kennedy for his liberalism, his privileged background, and apparently most of all for his accent. Daddy thought  Kennedy had to be talking like that on purpose, putting on airs or something, because nobody talked like that naturally.

During the campaign three years before, my father pointed out to me a poem that appeared in the local newspaper:

Since Kennedy says “hawf,” then Johnson must agree,

That a Texas calf is now a “cawf,” as any fool can see.

So when  you go to the butcher’s, do not snicker and “lawf,”

Just go up and say, to be quite genteel,

“Please give me hawf a cawf.”

We all got a good “lawf” about that. My father’s politics, which were slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, meant he hated Kennedy as he had hated Franklin Roosevelt before him. Only 2/3 into his first term, Kennedy had had less time to incur his wrath, but he couldn’t stand him, end of conversation. I was still quite young, fourteen in 1963, and generally parroted my parents’ political opinions. It would be several years before I began to think for myself. From that time on, our conversations were limited to old times, and, like a Jane Austen novel, the weather and the condition of the roads.

The next day started off like any other, but after lunch our principal came on over the public address system. He announced that apparently someone had shot the president in Dallas. Using the cutting edge of 1963 technology, he held his transistor radio up to the microphone on his desk to let us hear the radio broadcasts and updates. It was no time at all before we knew for sure he was dead.

Even today I can’t describe what I felt. I wasn’t devastated like the kids who had actually liked him. I didn’t cry. But I definitely felt weird. It was the first time in my life when someone I had seen one day was dead the next. Things like that didn’t happen in my little world. Maybe during war or if you saw someone off on the Titanic, but people in my world didn’t just up and die. Not yet, anyway.

That night, as we watched the aftermath playing out on all three channels, my father expressed his sympathy. “Well, I hated the sonofabitch, but I didn’t necessarily  want him to die.” All things considered, it was a real gush of emotion.

Like everyone else my age, I can’t believe it’s been fifty years since the assassination. That is the watershed event for my generation. Everyone remembers where they were when they found out about it, as my parents’ generation remembered hearing about Pearl Harbor, and my children will remember finding out about 911.The girl who was barely a teenager in 1963 has five grandchildren now. I wonder what their watershed event will be, whether there will be a place deep inside them that is permanently chilled by it, and whether they will write about it fifty years later.

Aging, American Style

Oct2

Roger & Addie 2Roger & Addie 5

 

Roger & Addie 3

As someone approaching the Medicare Wonder Years, who anxiously awaits catalogs with the latest styles in knee braces, and who has a map of the Nile Delta etched in the skin at the corner of each eye, my recent trip to Georgetown to visit some older friends was profound. These friends, Addie and Roger Busfield, are just about ten or fifteen years older than my husband Bryan and I, and we’ve come to admire, respect, and  love them over the years.

Roger had a long career in theatre and teaching, and he wrote a textbook on writing plays that was translated into several languages.  It is still being used. Addie is a gifted artist, whose works can be seen on display in the Georgetown Public Library and on several friends’ book covers.  Both highly intelligent and interesting people, they mastered the art of being urbane and down-to-earth at the same time. Also, both of them are a hoot!

A few of their friends and Bryan and I joined them for a Dos Salsas food fest at the Wesleyan Nursing Home where Roger now lives. Ann Bell picked up Addie at Estrella Independent Living, and Joan Hall, Carol Menchu, Bryan, and I picked up fajita taco plates for all, Roger having requested that specifically. We ate, talked, ate, and talked some more, seven old friends around a large table, a great way to spend an afternoon.

It impressed me that with an age span of about 20 years around that table, we all were on the same page in life, give or take a page or two. I could easily see myself in five or ten years, an observation common to us all. The disadvantages of getting older are readily apparent, so I tried to think of advantages that will come–basically from here on out–as I approach the place on the highway of life where the pavement ends.

1. Pie will be reclassified as a vegetable, and no one will care if I eat my dessert first.

2. Having forgotten her name and phone number, I will no longer have to deal with my sister.

3. I will no longer care about getting to watch what I want on television; my favorite show will be Progressive commercials with Flo.

4. My grandkids will remain little forever. When they bring their children to visit me , I will assume they are all my grandchildren and be permanently delighted.

5. My mind will eventually migrate to a time and place I was happiest, probably the Sixties when the music was good, and all the deceased ones I’ve missed will come visit me at night–by invitation only.

6. I won’t own any clothes that aren’t comfortable, and I won’t notice whether they match. My dress-up shoes will be socks with non-skid patches on the bottoms.

7. My beloved Bryan will still be with me, although he will n0 longer care about sports and will have developed an interest in true crime programming.

8. My dogs will return from Pet Paradise to visit me but will no longer poop on the floor.

9. My face will have a permanently pleasant expression, carefully cultivated over the years, so people will be nice to me and want to talk to me.

10. I will not “find God,” (not having mislaid Him, as far as I can tell) or be more religious than I was earlier in life when all my screws were countersunk, when I knew exactly what I was doing, and what the cosmic consequences were likely to be. I will not expect amnesty because I am old. Instead, I will count on His having a sense of humor.

I hope I can age as gracefully as Roger and Addie have. I hope my friends will want to throw a shindig for me at the nursing home. I hope I will still be able to make them laugh.

I would also like to get  my order in now for a Dos Salsas Enchilada Plate.  I will tell you where to bring it when I make my final blog entry.

 

Guilty Pleasures

Sep17

janis joplinzodiakjane austen

duck dynastyapple pie

I wish I loved opera. Or abstract art. Or The Catcher in the Rye. The truth of the matter is, I never hum “Don Giovanni” in the shower. I can’t look at abstract art without noting the folly of not wearing a seatbelt. And one paragraph into J. D. Salinger”s novel, I wanted to slap him and his whiney main character, Holden Caulfield. I am afraid my tastes are downright plebeian.

‘Fess up, now. We all have guilty pleasures, those little diversions we don’t mention to strangers. We enjoy them, despite the fact they are nerdy, uncool, and sometimes downright tacky. They almost never include any of the things we are supposed to enjoy. But since we’re all friends here, I’ll confess my top five.

When it comes to music, I don’t listen to much of anything recorded after 1975. As far as I’m concerned, disco heralded the end of civilization. I wrap myself in oldies and sing along to lyrics seared in my brain. There were a few dicey moments when Austin, a city stuck in the ’60s, decided it no longer needed an oldies radio station. Thanks to Sirius, I’m back on the road in my time machine, radio buttons programmed by decades, ending with the ’70s. And I’ll keep going to those tribute concerts, like Janis Joplin and the Fab Four. Heck! I may never have to catch up.

Although I have never paid to have my horoscope done, I admit I check out the forecasts for me and various friends and family members each morning. It’s not that I actually believe in it or depend on it. I just like to see what it says lies in store for the day. It’s completely coincidental that I pay especial attention to it when my life is in crisis, or I want to see if a friend’s new sugar is compatible or an axe murderer.

When it comes to literature, you’d think as a writer I would have more intellectual tastes. Of the authors I had to read in school, I liked only a handful. I loved Harper Lee, Dorothy Parker, and Oscar Wilde. Stream of consciousness, a la William Faulkner and James Joyce left me frustrated and angry. Mostly I read nonfiction: history, especially World War II, biography, and true crime.

There’s one exception, Jane Austen. I have her complete works on my Kindle, and whenever I’m waiting for something, or when I’ve had a whole day of dealing with the masses of asses that make up too much of today’s society, I retreat into Jane Austen’s world. It had its share of asses, too, but at least they were painstakingly civil.

As for reality television programming, the next time I swallow some deadly poison, I’ll just tune into Honey Boo Boo. Forget ipecac; that show makes me violently nauseous. There is, however, one reality show I like, and it’s definitely a guilty pleasure. I’ve gotten a little hooked on Duck Dynasty. At first I had my doubts, but I watched to humor Bryan, who seemed just about ready to dash off a fan letter. Once I got past the beards, I realized these are well-educated, articulate people who espouse values I can get behind. No women’s work/men’s work sexism here. Men’s work consists of duck hunting and anything else the women will let them do. The truths of life, even delivered with a southern accent, are still valuable and refreshing

And then there is food. Gourmet food is lost on my peasant’s palate. Three bites of thinly-sliced something, drizzled with squiggles of some sauce from a mustard squeeze bottle will never get me through the night or cheer me up, much less make me want to slap my mama.

There was a local company called Pie Fixes Everything. They made miniature pies that contained absolutely no guilt. Unfortunately they went out of business after eight years. If only I’d found them sooner! In their honor, however, I have adopted their company name as my personal credo. If I ever design a family crest, Pie Fixes Everything will be emblazoned on a field of rhubarb and meringue. I’ve been known to drown my sorrows in a Hostess Fruit Pie, so I can’t imagine a more appropriate family motto.

Okay, now it’s your turn. Guilty pleasures. Dish! I can’t wait to hear…

Candlestick Maker, Indian Chief…Writer?

Apr10

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.” Everyone knows the nursery rhyme. Along with “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker,” it was the only career counseling I received in my youth. And the fact I was female ruled out most of the above.

At one point it looked like I might turn out to be a thief, one of the few equal opportunity professions back then. At the age of six, I stole a roll of Five Flavored Lifesavers from the Handy Andy grocery store where we “traded.” When my mother discovered them in my sock drawer, she took me back to the store, asked for the manager, and had me confess my crime and beg him not to call the police and have me arrested. That experience pretty well cured me of a life of crime. As an adult, I once went back to HEB in a driving rain storm because the cashier had given me too much change.

My parents made it very clear there were only two occupations open to proper young ladies, my mother’s Number 2 goal for me and my sister. Number 1, of course, was getting married and having babies (in that order). On the off chance we had to work a few years until we could retire to housewifery and be “taken care of” the rest of our lives, we could consider only teaching and nursing. We weren’t choosing a career; we were just killing time while waiting to be taken care of.

It’s not that I was a feminist in those days. Being taken care of didn’t make me nauseous back then. I did wonder if women ever worked at jobs they enjoyed and weren’t ready to ditch at a moment’s notice. I had seen pictures of World War II’s Rosie the Riveter, dressed in pants (!) assembling aircraft and tanks to lick the Axis. I also knew those women left the factories in droves, supposedly happily, to return to the kitchen and nursery when Johnny came marching home.

My choices were further narrowed by my mother’s ban against being in the same room with naked people. Hospitals were full of the naked and near-naked, and were not the kind of places for me. That left teaching, and it was understood that if I wasn’t married within a week of my Senior Prom, I would go to college and double-major in teaching and virginity.

My point is, if I had told my parents I wanted to be a writer, they would have taken me to the family doctor for a penicillin shot. If I had persisted, they would have checked me into one of the places Mama went when she became “nervous.” They could have more readily pictured me as a candelabra-carving Native American.

I tried hard to fit in, to be what they wanted. I refused to become a teacher, mainly because they were so determined to make me one, but I did conform enough to get married, have a baby, and make a stab at caring about dirty yellow wax buildup and collecting recipes involving ground beef.

But writers have little choice in whether they write. Mostly, we have to do it, like fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. I finally succumbed in my 40s. Both my parents had passed, blissfully unaware of my latest trip down the road to Perdition. I started writing for real in 1997, and I’ve been feeding my writing jones ever since.

Making enough money as a writer to call it a career happens to only a very gifted few. The rest of us have day jobs, night jobs, or sugar-daddies/mamas. And still we soldier on, filling up pages of paper or cyberspace  with words that  will hardly live forever. Mine have the life expectancy of a May fly, not a Hemingway. Not that it will stop me. And I’m grateful I don’t have to convince people to lay out good money to read my words. Getting them to read them for free is hard enough .

Like Popeye, “I yam what I yam.” I’ll continue to write as long as I can stick two thoughts together with super glue. When I can’t write anymore, it will be time to move to a nursing home, and I hope you’ll come visit me. You’ll recognize me. I’ll be the old lady wearing a Cheyenne war bonnet.

Channeling George Gobel

Jan14
Lonesome George Gobel

Lonesome George Gobel

Did you ever have one of those weeks when the last thing you wanted to do was write something funny? Well, actually that was the next-to-last thing. The last was being pregnant. Possibilities and impossibilities aside, I’ve just waded through a very unfunny week and come out the other side.

Author Karleen Koen asked our Writers Retreat class to describe what our writing muse would look like if we had one. George Gobel immediately leapt into my mind and wouldn’t leave. If I had a writer’s muse, he would definitely look like Lonesome George.

For those of you only recently able to drink legally, Gobel was a television comedian during the Golden Age of that medium. His show ran from 1954 to 1960, and after that he was a regular on Hollywood Squares, a game show for quick-witted celebrities. Easy-going to the point of semi-coma, George was short, ordinary-looking, and sported a brush-cut flat-top, out of style even then. His beatific countenance concealed a dry, wicked, and thoroughly skewed sense of humor.

One of his comedic foils was his wife, the never-seen “Spooky Old Alice.” They were married over fifty years, and they died the same year. He liked to pretend he was a hen-pecked husband, but it was clear he was just in love.

Some of his famous quotes are: “If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching television by candlelight.” “If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.” “I’ve never been drunk, but often I’ve been overserved.” And the classic, “Did you ever get the feeling that the world is a tuxedo and you’re a pair of brown shoes?” George Gobel taught me an appreciation for things that bring a smile to your face fifty years after you hear them the first time. He also taught me ordinary is funny. The harder you have to work to make something funny, the less funny it is.

So Lonesome George and I are out here on this deserted island together. I tell him about my most recent knee surgery, #3. I tell him #4 may be in the near future. He says, “You know, I’m as much of a fan of bi-lateral symmetry as anyone, but it seems to me if you have to have two knees, there should be some way to sync them, like electronics. You get one knee operated on, knock it against the other one, and hey-presto, they’re exactly the same.”

I say, “But then wouldn’t my surgeon be forced to drive a Mercedes with only two wheels?”

“No problem,” he counters. “He just tells his friends it’s a Segway.”

Some women might want to be marooned on a desert island with Hugh Grant or Daniel Craig. I’ll take Lonesome George every time. He’s a-Musing.

 

Grammar Crimes and Misdemeanors

Oct21

All right, class. It’s time to rant against grammar atrocities. I may only write about them once a year or so, but anyone who spends much time with me hears about them frequently. This could account for my Native American name, “Sits Alone Grumbling.”

Several years ago I published a monthly newsletter, “Janet Grammarseed’s Advice to the Wordlorn,” grammar wisdom directed at middle schoolers. If I started it up again, the target audience would be much larger. Just as Booth Tarkington’s classic, Seventeen, today would be retitled Eleven, Maybe Twelve, my little newsletter would be renamed, “Watch Your Damn Language!”

Whereas Janet Grammarseed skipped across the Heartland, gently correcting grammar and spreading good syntax wherever she went, today’s approach would require a much tougher avatar. Enter the Gramminator, roughing up anyone who fails to reach agreement between subjects and verbs, amputating dangling participles, and kicking ands and buts.

When our children were young, if they made a grammar mistake, say, at the dinner table, my husband and I would grab our throats, pretend to choke, fall on the floor, and feign unconsciousness. Perhaps that was a bit extreme, but our son sends grammatically correct, perfectly punctuated texts. Our daughter is poised for a career in journalism—the last bastion of complete sentences.

I admit I’ve mellowed. I’ve given up trying to explain the subjunctive (If I were, if it were…) When confronted with most grammar atrocities, I close my eyes and peacefully chant, Om-m-m-m. Now I focus on only one grammarcide. I’ve drawn a line in the sand of my Zen garden regarding that particular pockmark on the face of my Mother Tongue, and  I refuse to budge.

I am dedicated to bringing The Word about the past tense of sneak…one small step for grammar, one giant leap for grammarkind. The faux pas that has me digging in my heels is so legitimized by use, it actually appears in some dictionaries, obviously those toadying to teenagers and the news media.

The past tense of sneak is sneaked—not snuck.

Snuck is the sound one makes when trying to rid oneself of nasal congestion. It is the result of phlegm, not stealth. Be honest. Does snuck sound like the language of Shakespeare and Churchill? I think not.

I’m not asking for much. Please, teach your children and yourselves along with them: a word that sounds like a goose with post nasal drip has no place in the Land of the Well-spoken and the Home of the Grammatically Correct.

If I could just eradicate that one atrocity, the use of snuck, I might earn a mention in Wikipedia as the Eradicator of Snuck. Move over Jonas Salk. Perhaps then I could hang up my grammar spurs and live out my Golden Years in peace.

Or not.