3) write a daily blog post, and if that becomes too difficult, reduce to three posts per week;
4) participate in at least one A Round of Words in 80 Days challenge, which is no problem for anyone who sets out suggestions and then blogs at least once a week;
5) fix up an office in the spare room;
6) go to bed before midnight so the rest of this list has a chance of being done;
7) keep a timesheet;
8) trim this list to #s 1, 2, and 5 if necessary; do some calculations and acknowledge that #s 1-6 won’t be a burden if the person doing them just gets up and DOES them.
Amen.
***
For the first week of A Round of Words for 80 Days, I’ll focus on Suggestion #2.
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 theSacred 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
Every week, I meet a friend for coffee at a shop near my house. Every week, she says, “What have you been doing?”
Every week, I pause and say, “I can’t remember.”
Memories (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Then I ask her the same question and she can’t remember what she did either.
We’ve agreed not to worry about our mutual amnesia. It doesn’t prevent us from conversing for the next two or three hours. And, all things considered, it isn’t surprising that nothing outstanding springs to mind. We have rich internal lives, but otherwise, our days do tend to swamp together once they’re past.
Oops. I just stopped and re-read the previous paragraph and realized it could herald the start of a downhill slide straight into a maudlin mire. Sort of like an inverse fiscal cliff.
But no. Here’s what I’m getting at: I intended to look back on 2012, capture its high points, before moving on. But suddenly my mind is a blank.
I didn’t keep a journal. The closest thing I have to a record of the year is this blog, and the problem there is–well, you know how I exaggerate. And you might have noticed I was absent for long stretches; that leaves some big holes in the narrative. I could elaborate, but I’ll say simply that I was not lying on the beach at Cannes, no was I in a mountain cabin finishing the Great American Novel. More’s the pity.
I’ll also say a sincere Thank you to those who kept on visiting here when I was neither reading nor writing, and also when I was writing but not answering mail. As Polly Pepper would say, you are all bricks.
(Fifty years after meeting Polly Pepper [my mother read Phronsie Pepperto me when I had the chickenpox and the measles in rapid succession], I (tonight) looked up you’re a brick and discovered it started, possibly, with King Lycurgus of Sparta describing his soldiers. It’s amazing what one can find to distract one from one’s purpose.)
This post is beginning to sound like one of those afternoons at the coffee shop, so I will end it. The waiters tolerate meandering because the shop is nearly empty, and because upon leaving we tip well. I don’t expect readers, who receive no gratuity at all, to mosey along for what’s likely to be a dead end.
So. I wish you a happy, healthy 2013.
Talk to you next year.
***
P.S. Regarding the photo above. That is exactly what I look like when I’m trying to remember what I did last week. Right down to the big black eyes, long black lashes, and dimpled elbow.
Since early November, when the media shifted focus from the presidential election to the next crisis, David’s favorite television show has been the evening news. To him, it’s comedy. Every time Diane Sawyer says “fiscal cliff,” he roars with laughter.
I haven’t laughed. The prospect of going over a cliff is scary. At first, the mere mention of John Boehner’s name gave me the fantods. But after being bombarded–fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff— over and over, on local news, network news, PBS News Hour, day after day for nearly two months, I became jaded. While David sat in the living room and guffawed, I muttered, Que sera, sera, and kept on chopping onions.
But two days ago, while rummaging through purpleborough’s blog, I stumbled upon this sentence: Nevertheless, I must decide what I am going to wear going over the fiscal cliff.
And I realized my error. The fiscal cliff isn’t something to dismiss with a chuckle. There’s a lot to be done before midnight. I haven’t decided what I’ll wear either.
At the top of the list is whether I can go with just the clothes on my back, or whether I’ll need a suitcase. What about toiletries? Cosmetics? I will take a lipstick–I always take a lipstick, because I think other people feel better when I wear it–but what about eye shadow? Will I be able to find my manicurist after we’ve gone over? Because he’s all booked up today.
I’ll have to take shampoo, conditioner, brush, dryer, curling iron. Millions of people will be going over that cliff. I’ll take several bars of deodorant soap. I hope everybody does.
Packing would be easier if I knew what’s at the bottom of the fiscal cliff. If a river’s down there, I would wear my bathing suit, but for anything else, denim is more serviceable. My jeans have gotten a little scruffy, so if there’s mud, they’ll do fine. It would be a shame for my good black slacks to get dirty. I want to wear them to dinner later with my with my new red cowl-necked sweater. I hope there’s mud. For that matter, I hope there’s dinner.
What will Diane Sawyer wear going over the fiscal cliff?
The probability of a hard landing means I’ll have to take the travel first-aid kit I picked up at Target last year. Gauze and antibacterial ointment can come in awfully handy. Plus mosquito repellent. Anti-itch cream. Aspirin, ibuprofen. Cough drops. A couple of Ace bandages for wrapping sprained ankles. Ichthyol for mesquite thorns. Moleskin for blisters (I assume we will not be met by a string of limos). Sunscreen, hat.
Books. I don’t go anywhere without books.
Laptop, notebook, pens, index cards. I assume there will be WiFi somewhere in the vicinity of the landing site. Mouse. Camera and USB cable. Flash drive. Printer and paper? I might be able to print at a library. Are there libraries over the fiscal cliff?
Cats. I can’t go without the cats. I won’t go without the cats. Neither will David. But he’ll have to deal with them. They’re so heavy that every time I pick up one of the carriers, I throw my back out.
Insurance cards, passport, driver’s license, birth certificate. Purpleborough thinks we won’t need any form of ID, but I’m going to take what I have. If we get down there and they change their minds, we’ll probably need ID to get back up.
It’s obvious I’m going at this haphazardly. There’s so much to do and so little time in which to do it. If you see anything I’ve missed, please leave a comment. If you’ll do the same thing for Purpleborough, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.
I have to go now and do a load of laundry. I was going to make peanut butter sandwiches to carry along, but I’ve decided against it. The one thing I’m sure of is this: even at the bottom of the fiscal cliff, we’re bound to find a McDonald’s.
Before I go, let me be clear: I’m not complaining about going over the fiscal cliff–I want to do my part, just like everyone else–but if we go over and then they tell us to turn around and come back, I expect transportation to be provided. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Mules will do. I just don’t think I should have to scale the fiscal cliff under my own steam. There’s too much stuff to carry.
Toy basketChristmas Eve giftGift basketCautionary measure
Christmas Day
SnufflingTrying out new doormat (itchy)AssemblingKibitzingMore assemblingStill assemblingStill kibitzingExaminingAdmiringCharred cheese toastGreek yogurt with scruffy sections of clementineMessing with Texas (aka litter)Cleaning upWatching the clock
The rest of the story: David and I watched the clock for twenty minutes and then headed for the nearest movie theater to see Hitchcock. Of the seven viewers, six lasted to the end of the movie. One bailed out early. He looked too young to know who Alfred Hitchcock was. If he’d stayed, he’d have seen a pretty good show.
Tuesday marked my first visit a movie theater on Christmas Day. For my first four or five decades, my mother’s family clumped together every Christmas, singing carols, tearing into packages, eating too much, laughing, watching my grandmother try out a toy in the living room accompanied by protests that we kids had to play with them out by the garage.
But time passes and things change, and now David and I are the family. Our holiday was quiet. Since we’ve been married, I’ve cooked Christmas turkey, duck, Cornish hens, and goose, the last in homage to the Cratchit family. The experience of parboiling a goose prompted me to give up the pretense of enjoying domesticity. After the movie, we went to a Chinese restaurant, where the scales fell from my eyes. Everybody in Austin was at the Asian Lion, most of them queued up in front of David and me. But the chicken and green beans made the wait worthwhile. I came away feeling no guilt for breaking with tradition.
That wasn’t the first time I stepped out of my comfort zone around the holiday. Our first Christmas together, David and I spent Christmas Eve night in Cuidad Acuna, across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas. It was cold. David managed to turn off the hotel room heater the wrong way, and it refused to come back on when needed.
He had originally wanted to spend Christmas in San Miguel de Allende, but I knew we would be beset by banditos or federales and wouldn’t get home for New Year’s, so he settled for Acuna. I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t realize at the time that David knows what he’s doing, and he has no intention of walking into danger. But the moment has passed, and now I’ll probably never get to see the church that I’m told looks like a birthday cake.
Come to think of it, there was an atmosphere of anxiety during the trip. That was the Christmas Osama bin Laden had threatened to attack the U. S. At that time, I was oblivious to the possibilities (as were most of us before 2001), and focused on eating tacos Tapatios, tacos pastor, and tacos barbacoa, and on using as much of my thirty-year-old Spanish as I remembered, which consisted mostly of saying to David things like, “Como se llama soap?”
Anxiety arose on the way out of the country. A lot of traffic goes across the International Bridge every day, and pre-9/11 it seemed a mere formality. But, showing my drivers license to the guard, I remembered that this weekend, authorities were on alert. The guard asked where we were from. David, with his lawyerly background, answered the question he was asked:”Austin.” The guard looked a me, and my mind shattered: I was from Austin, well, I’d driven from Austin, but I lived in Fentress, but I was born in Luling…” I forgot to mention three years in the dormitory in San Marcos.
The guard gave me a l-o-n-g, speculative stare. I looked him straight in the eye. Finally, he nodded us through. I resumed breathing. I’m sure he’d concluded that if I had a secret, it would have tumbled out by then.
Well. I started out to say we had a good Christmas, and I wind up nearly eight hundred words later trying to get back across the Mexican border. But it’s a pleasant memory, right down to my bare feet on that cold, cold tile, so I’m glad I allowed myself to meander.
The Formula 1 United States Grand Prix drew fans from all over the world to the grand opening of The Circuit of the Americas near Austin this weekend.
COTA Formula 1 11-16-2012 3-34-56 PM (Photo credit: Smarter Within)
I myself wasn’t one of the drawn, but after reading and listening to friends and complaining about the Circuit of the Americas for the past couple of years, I’ve gathered enough information to comment in a semi-reliable fashion.
According to its website, CoTA is a “world-class motorsports and entertainment venue,” “designed to be the only purpose-built facility in the U.S. to host the FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX™ through 2021 and V8 SUPERCARS from 2013-2018.” It covers 375 acres and lies fifteen miles from downtown Austin.
Politicians have been patting each others’ backs all ’round, just tickled pink–or maybe green–because the track will bring money into the city and the state and will create jobs. Can’t complain about that. Money and jobs are good.
And such a Big Deal, covering months of negotiations and construction, helps drive
the water shortage,
underfunded schools,
rising property taxes,
feral hogs, and
how much will remain of San Antonio after Texas has seceded from the Union and all those military installations have packed up their guns and airplanes and hit the road for Iowa,
from the headlines to page 3 of the classifieds, right below Doonsbury.
I haven’t shared the politicians’ or anyone else’s enthusiasm. I’ve railed against CoTA ever since it hit the six o’clock news:
paving pasture- and farmland,
wasting fossil fuel,
spending state tax money to fund what should be a private venture,
plopping the facility down in an area with inadequate infrastructure and expecting the taxpayers to pay for repair and upkeep,
causing land values and property taxes to skyrocket, and
other objections too numerous to mention.
However, on Saturday, while the elite, who the night before had drunk gold-infused champagne at Austin’s finest hotels (I didn’t make that up) were descending from helicopters onto a former field near Elroy, our friend Millie shared with the Fifteen Minutes of Fame writing practice group some facts that tempered my pessimism. She said the CoTA will eventually
be open 365 days a year,
host concerts, charity runs, sports events, and the like,
create hundreds of both full-time and part-time jobs,
attract a million people a year,
pour oodles into the economy, and
promote research that will influence medicine, transportation, and other areas we can’t yet predict.
After listening to her reassurances, FMoF members gave Millie a round of applause and left in better spirits.
But even before Millie’s talk, all my objections had become moot. Because on Friday, I had learned that the Teacher Retirement System of Texas has invested $200 million in Formula 1, for “about a 3% stake in the global racing series.”
Circuit of the Americas Chairman Bobby Epstein said, “Now the teachers win when F1 makes money and when new dollars come into our state as a result of the Grand Prix.”
Consequently, I have become Formula 1’s biggest fan. I will say kind words about it, I will look for it in the sports pages, I may even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. Whatever I can do to promote Formula 1 racing, I will do.
I’ve already X-ed out the piece I wrote last week about a dystopian future when we run out of fossil fuel and CoTA descends to hosting chariot races.
But there’s another however: TRS stated, “To be clear, F1 is a completely separate company that is unrelated to Circuit of the Americas, which will host an F1 Grand Prix race near Austin in November 2012. None of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, CVC Capital Partners, or Formula One Group has any ownership interest or business relationship with the Circuit of the Americas.”
So I’ll also continue to wail about the paved-over paradise on which my pocketbook depends.
*****
P. S. One of my objections was that state and city tax money had funded CoTA. The CoTA website carries this note:
“NOTE: To date, State money has not been paid to the developers of Circuit of The Americas and no local community, including the City of Austin, is providing incentive funding to the developers. As is the case with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four and other large-scale events in Texas, the Formula 1 event is eligible for expense reimbursements from the state’s Major Events Trust Fund. This reimbursement is performance-based and may be applied for after the first event in November 2012. Any state reimbursement is based on the amount of incremental tax revenue generated by event-related activity that would not have come to Texas if the event were not here.”
So I’m not sure what all the media hoop-la was about. Maybe it concerned lumping CoTA in with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, “and other large-scale events in Texas.” Which, in light of the TRS investment, is from my point of view peachy-keen. Until I read this paragraph, I didn’t know the state reimburses the Superbowl and other such large events. I hope the Texas Library Association Conference gets its share.
Clockwise from lower left: Donald Waller, Maurice Waller, Joe Waller, Bill Waller, Graham Waller.
Five Sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller Are Servicemen
The Record is glad to present in its Service Men’s Corner this week another group of five fine young men, all brothers, now in the service of their country.
These are sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller of Fentress. An interesting and significant feature of this story is that the young men pictured here are first cousins of the five Graham brothers that were featured in a recent issue of the Record, all being in the service. Their mothers, Vida Waller and Bruce Graham, are sisters and their fathers, Ed. Graham and Frank Waller, are cousins.
The Waller brothers pictured above are as follows: Joe Waller, U. S. Navy; Pfc. Maurice Waller, overseas; Pfc. Bill Waller, Hd. Co. 32 A. B., Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania; Cpl. Donald Waller, Base Weather Station, Luke Field, Phoenix, Ariz.; Pfc. Graham Waller, Co. B. 155 Inf., Camp Shelby, Miss.
The above pictures and script appeared in the San Marcos Record of January 29th and are reproduced here by the permission of that newspaper.
Mr. and Mrs. Waller and their sons are due thanks and admiration of all Americans for the sacrifices they are making for their country.
Source: Lockhart (TX) Post Register, 1943
*****
Joe, Donald, and Graham served in the Pacific. Bill and Maurice served in Northern Europe. All returned. Bill came home deaf from bomb concussion and spent the next twenty years telling curious children that his hearing aid was a telephone. In 1967 and ’68, a new surgery being taught at the VA hospital in Houston restored his conversational hearing.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. ~ Herman Melville
National Novel Writing Month–NaNoWriMo–started yesterday. Because I can’t resist challenges, I’d already registered as a participant. All I had to do was begin. Boot up the laptop, write 1667 words every day for a month, and pat myself on the back. And publicize my accomplishment. Publicizing allows other people to pat your back, too.
The number of the beast is 666 by William Blake. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here I must digress. 1667 reminds me of a story:
When my library converted to an automated circulation system, the staff typed, barcoded, laminated, and distributed several zillion library cards. A couple of days later, a freshman girl appeared at the circ desk and told me she wanted a different card.
She pointed to the barcode. “This one is against my religion.”
I examined it for heresy: # 1666.
I was tempted to say–quite reasonably–“No, dear. The number 666 is against your religion. This is 1-666, a different thing entirely. Now run along and have a nice day.”
Instead, I said, “It’ll take about five minutes.”
Some things aren’t worth arguing about.
NaNo isn’t worth arguing about either, and that’s what NaNo makes me do. Argue. With myself.
Every year, I sign up to write 50,000 words in thirty days, and as soon as November 1 arrives, I tie myself in knots.
NaNo is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be about freedom. It’s about pouring words onto paper. It’s about turning off the inner critic and going with the flow.
I’ve never been good at fun. And I like to do things right the first time so I don’t have to do them over. These are not the best traits for a NaNo participant. Or for any aspiring writer.
Here’s another story. About ten years ago, I read Tracy Chevalier’s Falling Angels. I’d loved her Girl With a Pearl Earring, but Falling Angels was better. Exquisite.
Later I read an article in which Chevalier told how she’d written the novel. She’d completed the manuscript but felt something about it–she couldn’t say exactly what–was wrong. So she set it aside. Then she read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which is told from multiple points of view, and saw potential. She completely rewrote her manuscript, changing the third-person narrative to multiple first-person points of view.
Chevalier’s description of her “process” impressed me, but for the wrong reason. I should have focused on her dedication, her craftsmanship, her openness, her perseverance in the pursuit of art. Instead–and I’m ashamed to admit this–I put down that article thinking, “How could she bear to write an entire manuscript,draft after draft,hundreds of pages, and then cast it aside and write the whole thing all over again?”
I had hardly enough energy to read about it, much less to contemplate doing it.
Well, there’s my dirty little secret, spilled all over cyberspace.
I’m not lazy. I just have an active imagination. I become exhausted in advance of need.
And the thought of the NaNo variety of freedom leaves me in shackles of my own design.
Gosh, it’s so nice to have a blog. There’s nothing I like better than sharing my neuroses with people I don’t know. And some I do.
On the other hand–looking at the subject from, as it were, a different point of view–it’s possible that my neuroses are responsible for everything I write. For my compulsion to return to the keyboard. For my love-hate relationship with NaNo. For my ability to jabber all over a blog and then have the fantods at the sight of a blank MS Word screen.
I started this post intending to thank my critique partners for encouraging me to dive into NaNoWriMo, letting the devil and my 3400-word deficit take the hindmost. Unfortunately, in the course of self-psychoanalysis, I wandered off topic, and now I can’t think of an appropriate transition.
Nevermind.
This is November. NaNoWriMo. Freedom. Death to transitions! Throw convention to the wind! Write bad drafts! Worse drafts! Quantity, not quality, counts.
So thanks, Austin Mystery Writers, for aiding me in this damp, drizzly November in my soul.
And thanks, dear reader, for enduring another 700+ words of self-indulgent cliched prattle.
Writing about the pain of writing is such sweet sorrow, I could prattle on till it be morrow.
Several readers have commented about Ernest’s eyes in the Halloween post, so I will clarify: their evil glow was merely the reflection of late-night lamplight.
Similar to the eyes of a wild animal caught in the headlights on a dark, deserted highway.
But there’s nothing wild about Ernest. He generally looks like this:
Or this:
That trick of light is the scariest thing about him. He’s three years old, and when he hears a knock on the door, he still runs upstairs and crawls under the bed.
We’re proud of the recent strides he’s made. After hiding from guests for over a year, he’s started prancing downstairs, snuffling shoes, and jumping into the lap of one human per evening. We thought at first he wanted make friends. It finally dawned on us that he always zeroes in on the person sitting in the recliner. That’s my chair. He considers it his chair. I am allowed to sit there, but he wants strangers evicted.
Speaking of scary, the most frightening thing in our house is William in repose. Because this snuggly strawberry blond is a canny creature, sharp and shrewd, possessed of a sly wit and a subtle intellect. William doesn’t sleep. He schemes.
Last night, while I was working–aka playing Bookworm–William jumped into my lap. Fortunately, the camera was within reach, so I was able to document the adjustments he made searching for the perfect position of repose.
Note on Position #1: What looks like a spot of mange near his tail is merely the result of being rubbed too hard, too often, in the same place. He approves mightily of the petting, but I’m afraid to withstand even a Texas winter, he will require a pair of pantaloons.
Position #1: Kitty plants posterior firmly on my chest.Position #2: Kitty drapes torso across keyboard.
Position #3: Kitty shifts from right to left.
Position #4: Kitty discovers burning tiles.
Position #5: Kitty settles into state of companionable repose.
M. K. Waller 