~ Telling the Truth, Mainly
Names have been deleted to protect the innocent.
***
Here are links that should work:
http://airportsmadesimple.com/
https://www.sitorsquat.com/ [Note: This site {if I understand it} appears to require interface with Facebook before allowing access. I wasn’t comfortable making the connection, so I didn’t get to use the website. However, I’m probably in the minority, so if you do gain access, please let me know what it’s like. :-)]
***
Back in the ’80s, while on a road trip, my mother and I decided to write a book: Restrooms of the Southeastern United States. If successful–and we knew it would be–it would pave the way for a series: Restrooms of the Great Plains, Restrooms of the Midwest, Restrooms of New England. . .
We might have branched out: Restrooms of London, of Paris, of Rome. . .
We didn’t get to write any books, but now, Airports Made Simple reports, there’s an app for that.
At Christmas play and make good cheer
For Christmas comes but once a year.
~ Thomas Tusse
David and I met friends Geoff and Emme at the Root Cellar yesterday morning for a belated Christmas breakfast. Our plan for a Christmas-David’s Birthday-New Year’s dinner in December fell through when both Emme and I came down with whatever people get at this time of year and we had to cancel.
The breakfast worked out better, however, because we dressed less formally (if such a thing be possible) and because I didn’t have to make a salad.
The gift exchange comprised books, homemade granola, a kazoo, cute little plastic thingeys to bind cords and cables, and a Christmas ornament.
The best, however, were the gifts exchanged by the cats and Geoff and Emme’s dogs, Tuck and Abbey. Tuck and Abbey received toys best described as big blue squeaking Scrubbing Bubbles covered with jiggly cilia. I would describe Tuck and Abbey, but I can’t do them justice, except to say that if you turn your back and walk away from Abbey, you’ll never do it again. More info in the form of photos will be provided at a later date.
Ernest and William hit the jackpot. They received fancy sequined mice and a variety of balls, most with noisemakers–jingle, rattle, clack–inside. In little more than twenty-four hours, half the balls have disappeared.
William and Ernest have always found it convenient to store toys under the bed for spontaneous midnight romps. By morning, I may know where they’ve hidden these.
*****
ROW80 Report:
1. I wrote for an hour a day for five days and took two days off.
2. I tried to stay awake all week. Slight exaggeration, but not much.
Next weeks goals:
1. Write for an hour a day on the novel. The blog doesn’t count.
2. Go do bed before midnight. Before 10:30 p.m. Before 10:00 p.m.
To see what other ROW80 writers are up to, click here.
I’m watching Patterns, a movie written by Rod Serling. Van Heflin plays a young production engineer hired by a ruthless industrialist to replace his vice-president, whose ethics and integrity make him, in his superior’s eyes, a liability to the company. The new executive finds himself caught in a pattern he’s determined to break.
The movie’s name reminded me of the Amy Lowell poem, in which a woman trapped in a different pattern wishes to break free.
PATTERNS
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the
paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles
on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon —
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
“Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se’nnight.”
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
“Any answer, Madam,” said my footman.
“No,” I told him.
“See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer.”
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.”
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe —
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!”
Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea —
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish —
Never afeard are we”;
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam —
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
‘Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea —
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
~ Eugene Field
“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” is one of the poems my mother read to me from the Bumper Book every night at bedtime when I was very young. I didn’t want to sleep then any more than I do now, so she read a lot of poems. I heard this one so many times that I was reciting it from memory when I was two years old. I’ve always had a tape recorder in my head.
Since the first of the year, I’ve written for an hour a day, one of the suggestions I made for myself for the first week of ROW80. But I continue a slave to my habit of night-owling.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished. ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, III.ii
They are free men, but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But “banished” to kill me? “Banished”? ~ Romeo and Juliet, III.iii
Lake Superior State University has published its 2013 List of Banished Words, and, judging from what I found on Google, so has everyone else.
I intended to write about the LSSU list, which introduced me to the word YOLO. (That shows how far behind I am with regard to popular culture.) But while researching, I came across LSSU’s archive of banished words and decided to share them–as many as I can before I have to post this–starting at the beginning.
(Since 9:00 a.m., I’ve changed topics about fifteen times.)
1976 At this point in time – A holdover from the Watergate hearings
1977 To Share – Do we still do this?
1978 Nuk-U-Lar – Still here, but not widely used since President Obama took office
1979 Energy Crisis – Still here, and for good reason
1980 Interface – From a full professor in a faculty meeting I attended, regarding an outside candidate for a tenured position: “I’m not voting for anyone who says he wants to interface with students.”
1981 De-plane – Gone. No one de-planes any more. Airlines make travelers stay on planes for hours before taking off and after landing.
1982 Sit on It – To discourage graffiti in the boys’ restroom, one of my principals hung a small chalkboard and some chalk there. During a subsequent potty patrol, he discovered the message, “Sit on it.”
TBC
“I think the biggest myth that writers might have about themselves is that we’re somehow more important than we really are. I always cringe a little when I hear a writer say it’s our duty to make social commentary, expose social injustice, etc. I don’t think it’s my duty at all. My duty as a writer is to tell a good story, and to tell it well. If I’m faithful to my characters first and foremost, then it often happens that some sort of social commentary occurs. But honestly, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It’s not my job to be lofty, or to somehow ‘have my finger on the pulse of the nation.’ I’m just a writer, a modern-day storyteller. If I thought I was anything more, I’d get frightened and completely shut down.”
~ Nancy Peacock, A Broom of One’s Own: Words on Writing, Housecleaning & Life
I speak on behalf of Edith Crawley.
Granted, the second of Lord Grantham’s daughters behaves like a real stinker, exposing Lady Mary’s extreme indiscretion in season one of Downton Abbey and rendering her, in Lady Grantham’s words, damaged goods.
But consider: Edith has spent her life sandwiched between the beautiful Lady Mary and the stunning and sweet Lady Sybil. Mary hasn’t a kind word to say to or about her, at least when I’ve been listening, and neither Lord nor Lady Grantham appears concerned about Mary’s evil tongue. (Lady Mary, in my estimation, should have had a good talking to before she was out of rompers. And several weeks in time-out.)
In addition, Edith is the only member of the family who doesn’t whine about turning the Abbey into a convalescent home for officers during the war. She pitches in and makes herself useful. If Mary had done something besides yearn for Matthew and worry about her marriage prospects, she would have been happier.
And this viewer would have been happier, too.
I’m pleased to see Lady Edith finally getting together with the gentleman she lost because of Mary’s retaliative backstabbing several years before. I haven’t one hope in Habana that he will survive to the wedding, or even to the engagement, since Edith is the hard-luck kid of the series. I only hope Mary isn’t the agent of her disappointment this time. I’ve about had it with Mary.
***
Round 1 of ROW80 2013 begins tomorrow. I set out my Eight Suggestions in a post last week. This week, I plan to concentrate on #s 2 and 6: Write for an hour a day and get to bed before midnight. I’m not doing too well with #6, so that one will take extra effort. I’ll check in again Wednesday.
***
To see what other ROW80 participants are up to, click here.
When Millie invited is over for dinner, she said she would cook a chili rellenos casserole.
Oh, said I, don’t go to any trouble for us, all the while praying she would.
She did.
I helped. She asked what the difference is between Poblano and Anaheim peppers, so I set up my laptop on her kitchen table and googled.
For the record, Poblanos are hotter than Anaheims, which were bred to be mild to suit the taste of Californians around 1900.
She also made guacamole and sauteed onions and yellow squash. I make squash the same way, but hers tastes good.
Everything tasted good. (I know commenting on the quality of the food one is served violates the rules of etiquette, but bloggers are exempt from that rule as well as from several others.)
Millie shared the chili rellenos recipe, but I doubt I’ll ever recreate tonight’s experience. There’s something–a je ne sais quoi, if Millie had served crepes–about a home cooked meal–cooked in someone else’s home–that restaurant fare can’t duplicate.
I could go on and on, but the movie is about to begin. They’re hollering for me to bring the bowl of fresh cherries I’m hogging to the living room. They said I have to share.
Despite all the time I’ve wasted scrolling through Facebook, I’ve received more from the site than I’ve lost. It’s allowed me to reconnect with students I taught thirty years ago.
Last night I was chatting with a member of the class of 1982. She gave me permission to link to her website. She didn’t give me permission to comment, but I will anyway. What can she do–flunk me?
I want to make it clear that I never taught Judy anything. I couldn’t have taught her anything. She already knew what she needed to know. She was a writer. A poet.
She entertained us periodically with essays describing her part-time job at a nearby country club. I have vivid memories of long, furry tendrils reaching out and wrapping themselves around her legs while she was cleaning out the walk-in refrigerator. Those memories, and others, told in nauseating detail, made me laugh even as I vowed to avoid that particular dining room.
In her junior year, Judy placed in a poetry contest at a nearby college. One of the judges said she’d wanted to place the poem higher, but it was too short. The next year, she won the competition with another poem–the same length as last year’s. I memorized it and later, when I was teaching at a local university, posted a copy of it on the door of my office.
After Judy graduated, I found her mentioned in an article in the Austin newspaper: UT student Judith Edwards had appeared at Eeyore’s Birthday Party in Pease Park wearing a python draped across her shoulders. The accessory seemed to me entirely appropriate. Her goals had never included conformity.
Here’s a link to Judy’s website: http://www.judywords.info/
Browse through her poems and stories. You’ll get an idea of the pleasure I had being her student.
***
P.S. I hesitate to add this–I mean, I hate to give readers who live outside the United States such a…truthful…view of Texas, but if you have a mind to, read Judy’s story “The Big Texan.” She didn’t make it up. I wasn’t there, but I know it really happened.
Last night I did the unthinkable. Or the un-thought-out.
I stumbled upon StumbleUpon, joined, and stumbled upon websites I would be better off not knowing about. I could click click click for hours, and did. Quotations. The Pre-Raphaelites. Cats…
One site, however, has oodles of redeeming creative value–so many oodles, in fact, that I wanted to pass the word. Once I began, I thought of other worthwhile online resources that have been shared with me.
So here, beginning with the stumbledupon, are four places any writer battling a surfing habit can visit safely and without guilt.
Oneword offers a one-word prompt–and then sixty seconds in which to write–on the site itself. You can use the site free or join–free. If you join, you can submit what you’ve written to a members-only page. You also get access to the archive of words.
Oneword is social media site, if you want to use it as such. I’m interested in seeing what I can write in only 60 seconds. And in finding out whether I improve with practice. And in stumbling upon a few lines that spark an idea for a story. Here’s what I wrote tonight using the word placed.
placed
He placed the plate on the table in front of her.
Tacos? she said. They’ll crumble and spill all over my dress.
Why’d you wear white? he said.
Men, she thought. They don’t understand anything.
Write or Die allows you to set goals–# of words and # of minutes–plus consequences and a grace period if you fail to hit your targets. Choice of consequence and grace period comprise such words as gentle/normal/kamikaze/electric shock and forgiving/strict/evil.
I’ve used this site several times when I needed external stimulation; at one particular setting, if you pause too long to think, the backspace function starts eating the words you’ve already written. It’s fun if you’re not the anxious type. If you are, set it at the lowest levels. (Scroll down till you see the free Web App Online, unless you want to pay for a download to your desktop.)
Written? Kitten! (writtenkitten.net) gives you a picture of a kitten every time you complete your target word count: 100, 200, 500, or 1000. No restriction on time. Strictly reward, no punishment. No words are gobbled up. Great for cat lovers, but if cats give you the fantods, skip it.
Note that Written? Kitten! is a dot net, not a dot com like the other sites described here. If you look for dot com, you’ll find something you don’t want.
Rescuetime tracks the sites and programs you use and analyzes your productivity. To use the site, you must join, but it’s free. RescueTime gives you points (+, 0, -) for the sites you use during each accounting period. You can reset values–for instance, you may designate your blog site as productive for +2 points rather than as entertainment (social media, -2 points). You can also target when you want RescureTime to track–if you write in the afternoon, set it to track just the afternoon. Check how productive you are by by day, week, month.
There’s a great deal of information here, lots of graphs and charts, more than you need if all you want tracked is time you’re writing/not writing. Still, it can be an eye-opener. So far, it’s told me I’m a first-class slacker, but that was less of an eye-opener than a confirmation. Which is why I’m using RescueTime.
Have you found any online resources that aid your writing or creativity? Would you share?
Yesterday I said I would post my Seven Suggestions for 2013. Copying them, I found there were eight.
5) fix up an office in the spare room;
I’ve done it again. Gotten my days mixed up.
Earlier today, I decided to enter the WordPress Post Every Day 2013 challenge. I added the badge, which had just become available, to the blog’s sidebar and congratulated myself on having already posted on January 1.
At 11:58 p.m., something moved me to look at the date of the previous post, which I’d published on January 1. It read, December 31, 2012.
I won’t explain the mental gyrations I went through to turn today into yesterday and tomorrow into today, but for a person of my genius, it was nothing, really nothing.
Something, really something would have been composing and publishing the January 1 post in less than two minutes.
Here’s where genius stepped back in and righted things. I entered an appropriate title, saved the empty draft, and clicked Publish.
To some, this might seem dishonest, underhanded, unscrupulous, unethical–cast your own aspersion–but I see it as artful and astute. Foxy, but in the nicest way.
If the calendar hadn’t betrayed me, I would have laid out my New Year’s Suggestions. But I’ve already messed up on Suggestion #5 (Go to bed before midnight), which is the foundation for #2 (Honor the Sacred Writing Time Pledge, 2013 that I signed this morning), which, in turn supports Suggestion # 1 (Write for at least one hour a day.)
And because I don’t want to spend a second midnight scrambling for a calendar, I’ll retire at the first opportunity. Like now.
***
Coming tomorrow (aka later today): The Seven Suggestions
Kathy Waller 