Every Christmas, David gives me a gift commemorating our visit to the UK ten years ago. The latest was a small figurine of the Queen, which resides on the lamp table beside my chair. The Queen seems comfortable there, upright, smiling yet dignified, never the focus of unseemly familiarity.
The Queen
Yesterday, though, returning from my critique group meeting, I found her toppled over and lying supine on the marble table top, a position she would not have assumed voluntarily. Then, this evening I caught Ernest standing on the back of the couch, his front paws on the table edge, snuffling her glove.
I shooed him down, but he refused to leave.
Ernest not leaving
Instead, he settled on the couch and gazed up at her, his green eyes wide.
It took just a moment to discover the reason for his interest.
Ernest and the Queen
On top of the Queen’s handbag is a solar panel. In the lamplight, it prompts her to move her hand at the wrist, back and forth, in a royal wave.
My friend Em informed me that she has found the Google Art Project and will therefore be incommunicado for about the next five years.
If she can drag herself away from the National Gallery of Everywhere, she might show up for dinner Sunday, an engagement we made months ago. If not, she’ll send her husband along by himself.
Em is an artist. One of her pieces hung in her office—a pencil drawing of opera star Marian Anderson. It is beautiful. She entered it in the county fair several years ago. I don’t remember how it placed, but it didn’t take first. Her husband said it would have done better if she’d put a pair of boots and some cactus in the background.
I wish I had Em’s passion for visual art, but I have neither the education nor the eye. I’m a word person. If I had my way, I would cover all my walls with words.
Which brings me to the point: I have discovered how to turn words into art without using talent or turpentine: Wordle.
I pasted the text of an old post into the Wordle website, clicked Go, and Voila! A post suitable for framing.
Linda Hoye, one of my sisters in Story Circle Network, reminded me today that SCN’s Stories from the Heart Conference 2012 will take place April 13-15, here in Austin. She’ll be there. Sisters I’ve met in person or online will be there. Sisters I would like to meet will be there.
Will I be there?
I’m dithering. But I think the answer is Yes.
You see, I attended the 2008 conference and benefited in ways I can’t begin to describe. In 2010, however, citing fiscal responsibility and restraint (aka saintly self-denial), I did not attend. Later, I told a friend it was a good thing I hadn’t arranged to go, because on the weekend of the conference I was sick in bed. She responded, “You were sick because you didn’t go to the conference.” She was right.
Story Circle Network, a nonprofit organization with an international membership, exists to help women write their life stories and share them with each other and with posterity. Conference workshops focus on ways to get those stories onto the page. There’s a keynote speech by a noted author, and social hours, and a farewell luncheon with entertainment, and an evening of sharing at an open mike. I could go into detail, but I won’t. All the information is on the webpage.
Anyway, some things can’t be scheduled. The most memorable moment of the 2008 conference wasn’t on the program.
It happened Saturday evening where a dozen or so strangers were gathered around a table in the hotel restaurant, having dinner and talking about our lives.
One of the women, Jean, said she had moved to San Antonio in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She had been traveling when the hurricane hit, and her home in New Orleans had been spared, but at her age, she could never feel secure living there again. She was seriously depressed; she had lost her home and way of life, the relative she had come to live with had died, and no one could understand the trauma she had experienced. She felt hopeless.
Midway through the meal, the restaurant manager, a tall, young African-American woman, stopped by the table to make sure service had been adequate. She asked about the conference. One of the diners explained why we were there and invited her to write with us.
“Oh, I’m not a writer.”
In Story Circle, that excuse means nothing. “Then maybe you have a story to tell.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I have a story.” And, in a voice that drew us in, she launched into an account that went something like this:
I was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. I managed the food services at a nursing home for elderly nuns. We helped get the nuns evacuated, but there was no room for anyone else, so all the staff stayed behind. Some of the people had gone and gotten their children, so they were with us, too. When the water began to rise, we went upstairs, but the water kept rising, so we got on the roof. We were up there for days, with helicopters going over, and us waving and shouting, but they ignored us. When the waters went down, some of us went looking for food, because we had nothing. We waded through the flood to a grocery store where we found some bread, and we carried it back, but our legs broke out in ulcers from the chemicals polluting the water. When the helicopters finally landed, they wanted to take the children, but we said, No, if you take the children, we’ll never see them again. We kept the children with us. We were up there for two weeks. When I finally got out, I found my brother in Chicago and went to him, but the city was too big. I needed somewhere smaller and more like home, so I came to Austin and got this job. But I can’t forget, and nobody here really understands what I’ve been through.
When she stopped talking, the room was hushed. We must have looked like wide-eyed children listening to a ghost story. Then someone said, “There’s a lady here who needs to talk to you,” and led her to Jean.
Later, discussing what had happened around that table, one of the listeners called it holy.
That’s exactly what it was.
And that’s why for all my dithering, I really have no choice. I’m going to have to say Yes.
What follows is a repost from January 2011. It’s one of my rants. And it’s worse than I remembered it. It’s an example of what happens when I write instead of withdrawing to a funk hole to get over it. (If you don’t know what in the world I’m talking about, see the previous post.)
14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, page 2. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last night I began a post about the proposed cuts to library funding now before the Texas Legislature. A 99% reduction to state funding to school libraries. Elimination of state funding for public library TexShare databases. Elimination of funding for K-12 data bases. Elimination of state funding for direct aid to public libraries.
I was a librarian when the Legislature–headed by pro-education Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock–put a chunk of money into school libraries. K-12 databases. A state-wide union catalog. A system of public school interlibrary loan. Later came the Loan Star Libraries program–the first time funds flowed directly from the State of Texas to individual public libraries. That money paid for summer reading programs, new books and media, conference registrations…Now it’s all on the table…Cities, counties, school districts are facing deep cuts of their own…Many won’t be able to pick up the increased costs…There’s talk of $25 million a year for ten years for a Formula 1 racetrack…
By paragraph five, I’d written myself into a tizzy. I saved and rummaged through the files for something without emotional significance.
I found the lie, lay, lay lecture. I wrote it for fun, as an offering to my paralegal study group. I posted it.
Tonight I began a post about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s statement that the U. S. Constitution does not prohibit discrimination on the basis or gender or sexual orientation: The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, applied to former slaves, and so the word person as it is used there does not refer to women. The first clause reads as follows:
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
As I wrote about the logical conclusion that the Constitution does not prohibit depriving women of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and that it does not prohibit denying women the equal protection of the laws…And wondered whether the Justice would, if push came to shove, follow the precedent set in 1971, when a unanimous Court held that the 14th Amendment does apply to women…I became a little testy. A little cross. A little agitated.
In other words, I’d written myself into another tizzy.
But I don’t have another ready-made piece suitable for posting. So I’m telling the truth about the process.
I learned a long time ago not to write when angry, irritated, agitated, tizzied. The result is never worth reading. The meaning comes through, but so do several other things, none of them impressive.
A critic–I think it was Ellen Moers, but since I read the comment in 1982, I can’t say for sure–compared Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte in the following way:
Austen is detached. She doesn’t betray her emotions in her fiction. She doesn’t intrude into her characters’ points of view.
Bronte doesn’t contain herself so well. When Jane Eyre, for example, speaks about the differences in the lives of men and women, her voice veers off–suddenly it’s Charlotte Bronte’s voice we hear, not Jane’s, and it’s Charlotte’s anger. And the anger poses a distraction.
Again, it’s been thirty years since I read that assessment, but I think it’s true. The principle applies to other types of writing as well.
Anger addles the brain. Words pour out in tangles. To the writer, the result sounds high-minded and righteously indignant when it’s really over-wrought and poorly reasoned and sometimes downright silly.
The tizzy-laden paragraphs above are longer than I intended. I got started and didn’t stop. At least one of them should have a violin playing in the background.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me.
If you care to read more about the library situation, links to articles appear below. Be sure to read the one from the Guardian.
And did you see the story about the community in England that checked out every single book in the library to protest impending cuts? Amazing.
Times are hard, and we can’t have everything we want. But surely libraries are as important as racetracks and pro football.
And no matter what anyone says, I think women are persons.
Portrait of King Charles I in the robes of the Order of the Garter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have been–to use a term I learned from fellow blogger Kate Shrewsday–in a funk hole.
Recent events in the American political arena have had me biting my tongue and wearing mittens to keep from making an abject fool of myself on this blog.
Every time I started a post, I immediately thought of a number of men whose names I will not mention–yes, always men–and my chosen topic veered off the rails into an area I prefer not to traverse.
I felt like Mr. Dick, David Copperfield’s friend, whose attempts to complete his Memorial were repeatedly obstructed by the intrusion of King Charles’ Head.
Lacking Mr. Dick’s good sense, sweet temper, and ability to construct a kite from a laptop monitor, I went underground. Crawled under the porch. Played Bookworm for two or three weeks.
Bookworm is a good game. One evening I racked up 2,000,000 points before my library burned up. This is not a boast. It is a source of shame. But it kept me from posting.
I’ve also watched all the P. D. James mystery adaptations on Netflix, some of them twice. And all the episodes of Kingdom three or four times. I was so unhappy to learn Kingdom ran only three seasons. Here I am left hanging, wondering who Peter Kingdom really is.
But I believe my topic has once again taken off on its own.
The point is that you, Dear Reader, do not come here to read what I think of the current U. S. political scene, nor do you need to know about my obsessive-compulsive personality. Or my sharp tongue.
I prefer that you think of me as a kindly, marshmallowy creature, constitutionally incapable of an unrefined thought. Kind of like Jane Bennett.
And to that end, I found myself a funk hole and crawled in.
When I came out to test the waters, I wrote about cats, the subject least likely to attract King Charles’ Head.
Having passed that test, I now return to the fold.
Round #2 of A Round of Words in 80 Days begins this week. I flunked–if that’s possible–Round #1–but I’m willing to give it another try.
My Round #2 goal is to submit to my critique group every week. Period.
King Charles and the U. S. Congress can go fly a kite.
Last week, Ernest claimed the chair I consider mine. When I got out, he jumped in. When I wanted to sit down, I had to wrestle him out. That’s why the photo shows Ernest lying in the chair.
The laptop is in the chair because one night several months ago, when the laptop was sitting on the floor beside the chair, its usual resting place, Ernest chewed through the cable running from the laptop to the fan beneath. The cable was hardwired, so I had to buy a new fan. The next night Ernest chewed through the cable running to the new fan. Fortunately, that cable was replaceable.
Ernest had never shown interest in any of the cables decorating our home, and he’d been peacefully coexisting with the fan cable for two years. I don’t know why he snapped.
I’ve now treated all wires and cables with dishwashing soap.
Anyway, since Ernest’s oral fixation got the best of him, the laptop has spent its nights in the chair, covered by a pillow. William sometimes sleeps on the pillow. On the day I took the photo, Ernest took possession of the chair before the laptop was tucked in.
That’s why Ernest is lying on the laptop.
While we’re on the topic, here’s a picture of the stationary bicycle I bought in January. At Academy. Brand new.
(William, I fear, though he’s neither gnawer nor clawer, may not be entirely innocent in this matter.)
When I discovered the bike’s new look, I wasn’t pleased. I’ve managed to convince myself, however, that function is more important than form. And form can be altered.
I could knit the bike a sweater. And buy Ernest a straightjacket.*
*
*I can hear readers saying, “What is wrong with this woman? Why does she put up with this?” For three reasons: 1. I love the cats, even Ernest. 2. They’re not generally destructive–don’t tear up carpets, baseboards, cabinet doors, so far haven’t broken any china (although I once came upon William on the verge of pushing the salt shaker off the table, so china isn’t a slam dunk,) and spend most days sleeping and being cute. 3. I don’t want a divorce.
The Boomtown Film and Music Festival went off without a hitch—at least in the view of the four Austinites there to watch David’s video.
One mini-hitch occurred at the party downtown Saturday night: the hotel shuttle stopped running at 11:00 p.m. but the party ended at 2:00 a.m. David called for a taxi at 1:00 a.m., which arrived about 2:30 a.m., and reached the hotel about 2:45 a.m. The driver said there was only one taxi available. The other one was busy elsewhere.
David also said the music was so loud that he and the two friends who were with him couldn’t hear each other speak.
I couldn’t hear them either because I didn’t attend. After insufficient sleep the night before, I didn’t feel like partying. Furthermore, my father returned from World War II profoundly deaf from bomb concussion, and I see no reason to play games with my possible genetic inheritance by allowing myself to be bombarded by zillions of decibels.
So I partied back at the hotel, lying on the bed, eating vanilla crème cookies from the vending machine across the hall, and reading Elizabeth George’s latest mystery. [Insert smiley face here.]
I’m sharing some pictures I snapped at the festival. Most were taken before and during the red-carpet ceremony on Friday afternoon. They demonstrate, among other things, that I was right to abstain from shopping for new clothes. Jeans and sweaters were just the ticket.
Put down your Hat —
You must have walked —
How out of Breath you are —
Dear March, Come right upstairs with me —
I have so much to tell —
I got your Letter, and the Birds —
The Maples never knew that you were coming — till I called
I declare — how Red their Faces grew —
But March, forgive me — and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue —
There was no Purple suitable —
You took it all with you —
Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door —
I will not be pursued —
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied —
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame —
When I was very young, I had a pet chicken, a white bantam hen named Dickie.
I don’t remember how she, of all the chickens my parents raised for fun and drumsticks, became a pet. I think she belonged to a clutch of chicks my mother raised in the kitchen closet beside the water heater. As such, she would have had an advantage over the yard chicks.
Dickie wasn’t much of a playmate. She preferred wandering around the yard scratching for bugs. In summer, when the back door was open, she spent the mornings on the porch, looking through the screen door while mother worked in the kitchen. They conversed. Dickie clucked, Mother answered. Discussions were superficial but pleasant.
My pictures of Dickie are packed away, but I remember them well. In the best shot, I held her up for a good view of the camera. I wore jeans, a long-sleeved striped t-shirt, a scarf, and a straw cowboy hat. A six-gun was holstered on each hip. We were a couple of tough customers, Dickie and me.
The only thing detracting from our dauntless image was the scarf that covered my head and tied under the chin. It made the hat fit more snugly than usual, and it made me look like a sissy. Dale Evans never wore a scarf. But it was winter, and I was subject to sinus infections. Anyway, whenever my mother was cold, she made me wear a scarf.
Dickie’s claim to family fame lay in her refusal to lay. While other hens were fruitful and multiplied, Dickie just kept up the daily kaffeeklatsche. She didn’t bother to produce even the occasional breakfast egg. My parents discussed the un-hen-like behavior.
Then she stopped appearing at the back door. Mother found her in a dark corner of the garage, where, after barbecuing, my father had set a lidless cardboard box of charcoal briquettes.
Dickie had transformed the box into a nest. She intended to hatch charcoal.
At first we thought was it cute. Then it turned serious. She was obsessed. Every time my parents removed her from the nest, she returned. Her appearance altered: her back remained white, but her underside was as black as the eggs.
This led to more discussion. Mother said hens would “set themselves to death” and that Dickie was on the path.
So Mother hatched a plan.* We visited the Luling hatchery and purchased a half-dozen baby chicks. Unable to get white, to match Dickie, we settled for black, to match the charcoal.
Back at home, Mother tiptoed into the garage and placed the chicks, one by one, under their new mama.
Instead of welcoming the hatchlings, however, Dickie went ballistic, squawking, scratching, flapping her wings. Mother scooped the babies back into their ventilated box and retreated.
Dickie lowered herself onto the briquets and resumed setting.
Later, Mother said it had been a mistake to attempt the transfer during the day. Chickens are more easily deceived in the dark.
That night, my parents discussed the situation over dinner, again, and decided on a new strategy.
The next day, my father evicted Dickie and trashed the box of charcoal.
Mother prepared to raise more poultry in the kitchen closet.
Dickie picked up where she’d left off, scratching for bugs, visiting with Mother, occasionally helping me gun down a horse thief.
I am pleased—but not surprised—to announce that Kaye George’s CHOKE: An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.
The Agathas, which honor the “traditional mystery” (“loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or violence”), are awarded annually at the Malice Domestic convention in Bethesda, Maryland.
A review of Choke appeared here last June. After almost nine months of deliberation, I still agree with what I wrote then. So instead repeating myself, I’ll provide a link.
I will add, however, that although Choke contains no explicit sex, would-be PI Immy Duckworthy wouldn’t mind if it did contain just a bit. She runs across some awfully good-looking guys in the unlicensed private detective business. Both Saltlick, Texas and Wymee Falls have more than their fair share.
The first screening of “Invisible Men Invade Earth” was an unqualified success.
I should say the first two screenings.
David’s video was scheduled to run at 7:00 p.m. However, due to the enthusiasm of the folks operating the projector, it began at 6:47, right after the Doc Bloc had finished.
Most of the audience had left the theater for the break, so very few saw “Invisible Men.” Just in time, however, the manager appeared and announced the mistake. And “Invisible Men” ran again at the official time.
Now about the unqualified success: The audience laughed. Those who saw it the first time returned after the break telling others, “It’s about a space ship and aliens and cats.” Then they watched and laughed again. So did newcomers.
I don’t know what David learned from the experience, but here’s what I took away from it: When making videos, cast cats in starring roles. Viewers laugh at cats, even when said cats do nothing but lie around being cats.
Viewers laughed at David’s script, too. One line in particular drew a roar. It elicited the same response during a showing for friends in our living room.
The laughter of friends is good.
But when strangers laugh, you know you’ve done something right.
And if David doesn’t know that, something is radically wrong. Because Mrs. Producer Davis has informed him of the fact at least ten times this evening alone.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. ~ Henry David Thoreau
David’s video “Invisible Men Invade Earth” will be screened at the Boomtown Film and Music Festival in Beaumont.
Asked whether he’s excited about the event, David said, “Well, I will be.” He doesn’t like to expend emotion in advance of need. At just over three minutes, it’s the shortest of the Short Narrative Fiction, so it will be the first in that category to be shown.
I, on the other hand, feel rather giddy. I will be going as the Producer’s Wife. Mrs. Producer Davis, to be exact. At times like this it’s okay for a liberated woman to drop Ms. MaidenName and assume her husband’s surname.
(It’s also okay to do that without a film festival, but this Ms. MaidenName is afraid she’ll slip up and then various governmental agencies will get things all out of whack. And then she’ll never get her passport renewed ever again. She wants to return to the family castle [several times removed] on the Isle of Mull and to eat haggis in Oban. She can’t do that if TSA agents bar her from boarding the plane.)
Anyway. Wanting to dress appropriately, I googled “film festival dress” and pulled up several million hits, most of them concerning what to wear to Sundance. First on the list was a Sundance catalog, the highlight of which (to my mind) was a pair of denim crops (pedal pushers for those who remember their first incarnation) that have been “destructed by hand” to look like something my mother would not have let me wear in public if I had ever managed to destruct any denim to that degree. Price: $176.00.
Moving right along, I searched for images of past Boomtown festivals.There was no Boomtown catalog, nor was there any photo that suggested I should grab my checkbook and run out to the mall. The festival is in Beaumont, not Dallas. Thank goodness. My Austin wardrobe will suffice. That’s just as well, because David and I will match. His Austin wardrobe goes everywhere.
“Invisible Men Invade Earth” stars William and Ernest. They’re born thespians. Rotten at taking direction, but good when called upon to ad lib. And they work cheap.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein (maybe)
Image via Wikipedia
Regarding the whingeing still audible from the previous post, silverneurotic has come through with a solution:
“Blogger will not let you comment IF you log in with your wordpress account…however, if there is an option to comment using the name/url option…your comment WILL go through that way. If the blog doesn’t allow that, you can always comment using your google id.”
I tried logging in with my name and URL. It worked.
Thank you, silverneurotic, for clearing up this knotty problem.
Image via Wikipedia
The one question remaining is why I kept trying to log in with my WordPress account—aka beating my head against the wall—when the other possibilities were staring me in the face.
Never let it be said I lack perseverance.
Mostly.
Image via Wikipedia
Once more regarding the whingeing: I meant no disrespect to Blogger, just to whatever glitch has turned it against WordPress.
A couple of years ago, impressed with the Blogger templates I was seeing online, I set up my own account there. It didn’t take me long to discover that those attractive sites were attractive because their respective bloggers had made all the right choices when setting up their sites: blue here, red there, green along the border, ivory background…
Image via Wikipedia
It was like having a No. 64 box of Crayolas and no idea where to start. The pressure was too much. I scuttled back to WordPress.
Image via Wikipedia
Once in a while I drop in on Blogger, but just to play with the crayons.
M. K. Waller 