Chex Mate

I DESPISE Steve Almond *. I met the guy briefly at Sewanee Writers Conference a few years ago. He was walking around in a dirty undershirt and Dockers, reading his dick-lit and getting googly eyes from the editor of StoryQuarterly. I, a lowly, and rarely sober, newcomer introduced myself over the chex mix (love some chex mix) at the French House. “Did you do something different?” I asked. What I wanted to say was, “It’s been a week and now suddenly you look clean.” Without names being exchanged, he said, “I just trimmed my pubic hair.” Then he took some chex mix, and I am not surprised if he picked out the bagel chips that I lust for.

Then I get home and the guy pops up everywhere. Never heard of him and here he is in every “Poets and Writers”, every anthology, lit. mag and book store. “I know this guy,” I wanted to say to innocent book shoppers. But then really, all I knew is the pubic hair and chex mix tidbits and “knowing” was a far stretch.

Then here he comes through TN, reading at Davis Kidd bookstore. I drag my husband, who actually likes his writing. There he is in a slightly clean undershirt and Dockers, a flannel shirt thrown over for evening. The funny thing was that the audience was this family after-this-we’re-going-to-Disney-On-Ice crowd. I could see him squirm as the curse words got stuck in his front teeth and he had to swallow.

Then, since he was hawking Candyfreak, he passed out Goo-Goo Clusters. Long story, but Steve broke through bestseller lists eating chocolate one summer. So I take one. ONE. I could have gotten that little log roll or the plain Goo-Goo, but I got the one with some kind of demonic nut.

So here this guy is everywhere, no agent, no dress sense and I’m sitting thinking, how did this guy wheedle his way into my life, my conferences, my reading and my beloved Davis Kidd? I had to walk away. When I told him bye, he held it in, but I think he felt it.

So then I ate the Goo-Goo and broke my tooth. My f@#$%^ tooth. $700. Two visits. Still sensitive. Plus it broke my 14 year ban on dentists, who I think are just scrub-wearing ceramic salesmen.

So, obviously, I think he owes me something. Inclusion in some crazy anthology someone’s letting him edit. A candy kickback.

But it’s not enough. I want my time in the sun. I want to grab a little Almond cyberspace. So Steve, I’m sending this to you and am giving you a week to get me on Salon.com. I know you are into threesomes.

* No response to this blog will force me to change it to "hate."

Live Poets, Live

So I'm here to jump on the poetry bandwagon that has been started by my friends Bree and Andrea (see their blogs to the right--no, the right, idiot). Seems we can all work ourselves up into a poet-like frenzy over our disgust or disappointment in the genre.

I have been surrounded by the short, stubby verse lately. At the Southern Festival of Books where my friend Darnell Arnoult read from her wonderful new book of poems by LSU press, her magnificent cousin, Aaron Smith who wrote Blue On Blue Ground, and even at Colin's birthday party, I found myself in a corner with a construction worker/poet.

I think what I said to the constuction worker/poet, and what he said back, is what it is all about. There is poetry for poets and there is poetry for humans. There is poetry that is singular and there is poetry that talks to all.

I think people think writers are very into themselves. That it is all about looking inside yourself and being introspective and all that. Totally untrue. It is about being born so observant that you see everything and almost everything hurts and becomes personal, thus why many of us have our guard up, drink or sniff, hide and grumble. We have to so that we don't implode. Maybe poets more so.

Poets get the short end of the stick. Poetry was a form we used when stories had to be short, rhyme and be musical so that we could pass on legends. It was what men had to write when they wanted to write more, but had no paper (thus true). It is a form that's repected today only due to the fact that it has survived, much as we respect Amish people for building those houses without nails.

Aaron, the poet, told me that last week a NY poet's work fell into the water. He jumped in to save it and drowned. Of course, the caring person I am wondered why he didn't have it on his hardrive, BUT this is a POET. They cause their own extinction.

Fiction writers would never jump in. We don't like to get soiled.

Snow White Stripes

I am messed up. Fairytales did it. Everything black and white, the witch was 100% evil and the princess 100% chaste. The whole lot of us grew up with dreams of castles and being rescued and all the other foibles of the genre that Madonna has pointed out to us.

Times have changed. I watched a movie with my girls the other day. Just like our movies were crammed with princes and dragons, their movies, the ones made for girls born after 1995, have a new bent. I dare say, we are in line for another onslaught of psychological mishaps when they grow up.

My girls' favorite (I mean "fave") is Polly Pocket. She's cute and perfect and the plotline is the EXACT same as the other 17 movies that have come out recently. Now the witch is played by a trio of girls and the princess is played by a privileged, perky, talented chick with her own merchandise line.

The problems start when the two groups of girls are pitted against each other and have to utter things to each other like- "as if" and "not on my watch." A particular touching scene is when some girls are in a shopping mall (preferred backdrop setting) and one says, "did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Hear that cute dress calling my name."
"Not over this skirt calling mine."

After the climax, where alpha girl of the bad-girl group says , "She's goin down" of Polly Pocket, it soon gets resolved by...putting together a band and singing some ubiquitous song about being your best and shining and all that stuff. Lots of synthesizers too.

It makes me wonder what problems the girls will have when they are older. Will they be looking out for that group of unkind girls at school? Will groups form only because they have been written in the script of their generation? And what about the bands? How many bands can we deal with? My girls already want to be in one and my five-year-old neice claims she is the piano player for a band called "The Eagles" despite her not playing the piano.

I forgot the inspiring change of clothes scene, where they take the main character and change her look *poof* to the tune of more girl-power music. They always sneak in an outfit in the middle where she looks like a snorkeler or snow skier for the comic relief. So now my girls change their clothes ten times a day. I assume they think the clothes hold some power of transformation. Okay, I still think that too.

I sort of like the old version of fairytales better. At least the witch is a witch, an entity I never came across in the halls of my high school. The fight is usually related to virtue or truth, with no electric guitars present. And at least Cinderella spoke grammatically.

Of course they have done well by doing away with the rescue-syndrome. No guys or horses even play a part in these cartoons. It is all about the girls and friendships and sticking together forever.

So now I am worried that my girls will be lesbians. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hindsight

I thought after my rant yesterday, I'd treat everyone to my favorite view.

Whacka doodle-do

Writers are messed up. Forty percent of fiction writers suffer from depression sometime in their lives and 60% of poets. Writers are ultimately observant (yes, your right eye is lower than your left). Narcissistic, paranoid and annoying. I am all of these. Not overwhelmingly so, and sometimes one of these "symptoms" is absent for days at a time. But for as messed up as I am, there are some more annoying writers out there.
My year is spent with two groups of people, my family, and writers. A whole month is dedicated to schooling at Bennington for my MFA and today I was in a three hour meeting of a writing association set in the middle of a book festival. Most of my good friends are writers. I am surrounded.
So why do I hang out with these unbalanced people? Because we understand each other. They understand when my hip hurts that self-diagnosing myself with bone cancer is reasonable. They get that half of my life is spent inside my own head. Mostly, they understand when I have to "work," though I am not getting paid or have an office, even if that includes me just staring into space. Because books are written in our head, not on paper. As Graham Greene says, we don't create books; we remember them and copy them down.
Although my comrades are the most intelligent, interesting and eclectic people, there are always those few who should be thrown out on their butts, burned at the stake, stoned with John Grisham hardbacks.
I have come across one of these people lately via an email. A nice friend of mine had written "said writer" and this person wrote back tearing him up, using his/her/its power of language (although he/she misspelled a word) to try and injure my friend. If you feel you need to know the whole story to find out if the attack was at all warranted, I will tell you that you don't. Reread above. Writers are paranoid and narcissistic. What they imagine is reality becomes their reality and they go forth with a passion. When they miss the mark they are usually ousted (see Garcia Marquez or Ezra Pound). However, in this age of political correctness, no one gets the boot. They are whispered about, possibly given the evil eye, but since writers are known to be a little off, all types of behavior are tolerated, and sometimes, because it is trendy--celebrated.
I can only rest back on my "generosity begets generosity" and "kindness begets kindness" beliefs at times like this. Hoping that writers who think they are above human kindness and decency will get their just punishment-- remaining unpublished, or worse yet, a short run that ends up quickly in the bargain bin with used Nicholas Sparks books.

Sour cherries

I have never felt like life is random. I can prove that with something that just happened. When Colin was naturalized in N'ville, we ran into a woman I hadn't seen for a while. She invited us out to their farm last weekend. On the drive there Colin and I remarked how their driveway was just like the driveway of our friends, Hannah and Carl, people we haven't seen since we lived in NC ten years ago. We pull up and there is an arrangement of people sitting outside. There was a big bike race for MS and some of the riders were camping out at the farm. We met speech therapists and lawyers, architects and little puppies.
I got talking to a nice woman named Toby. We hit it off and about thirty minutes into the conversation I asked her where she was from. "A small town in VA." Where, I ask. I think it is polite to go further when someone says that, becasue every town deserves a mention. "Lynchburg." I only know one person from there, I tell her. Hannah (reread the driveway part). "I know Hannah H." she said. And this is where things fall into place. I haven't thought of Hannah in years and then there I say her name not an hour before. Thus, thinking that the universe is talking to me, I search her down on the internet and am going to call her this week. Seems they have been thinking about us too.
So where does that put us now? For those of you who know me, you know we have had a bit of a dark cloud over us for a few months. Colin has no job, though he is working day and night on applications and interviews. Our tree had to be cut down, I've got a cold, our rug was one in a million with a defect and had to be torn up. Lots on major or minor things that make us feel like we are in a funk. So I walk into my coffee shop today and run into Vickie. Vickie and I met at another coffee shop about two years ago and have become good friends. I tell her about my black cloud and her eyes lit up. Not that she wanted me to be stuck under one, but she was excited about my acknowledgement of bigger things at work in the universe. She's coming over to do some cleansing ceremony. She studies in Belize and with shamans and I totally respect her advice. I've always had a spiritual leaning, whether it be in the organized church or not.
I joked that I'll know she's here for the ceremony when she pulls up with a Uhaul with tamborines and bells and five shamen jumping out the back.
I think sometimes things work out like magic (finding Hannah) and sometimes it feels like you keep running into a wall no matter what you do. And when that happens for long enough, you are willing to look beyond your usual explanations and expand your beliefs. Not such a bad thing.
It's sort of like Sofia. Here she is at a festival. The woman put her blindfold on and just as she went to fish for a duck that has a number on its butt that corresponds with a prize, she yanked it down. Humans like to be in control.