Much Ado About Nothing

What Time is It?

2008-04-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Summa-time.

Finally--we are in the house. Love it and love it.

A few weeks ago I was with some friends and the question was asked, "what one word describes you?" Of course, like an idiot, I said "art". I don't think I can say one word. Ever. And so what I meant by art was not that I paint and sculpt and blah and blah, but that everything I see or do affects me positively or negatively. I could have said "beauty", but that would have been really pretentious.

I can't tell you what a difference being in the house means to me. There is something about the wood trim and the creek outside and the whole dishevelled appearance that makes me feel grounded. That is what I meant by art. I like to look at things I think are pretty--how's that? But, I know my idea of pretty is not what 98% of this country views as pretty.

Then, to be more of an artiste, I must say that I feel uninspired when I am surrounded by ugly (go ahead and take offense if I yawn around you). For the last while I have felt cluttered and preoccupied. School and moving has taken up most of my mental energy. Colin doesn't understand how my mind decorates and rearranges furniture a hundred times a day.

This summer I am planning on nothing but:
watching the girls play in the creek
writing and reading (not in that order, nor to scale)
staring at my new wallpaper and my old wood panelling.

Devil in blue jeans

2008-01-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

Whoa. Saw my first really gay advertisement the other night. Not the Ikea ones where the men sit at a table across from each other--inferring that they are gay. But a real, can't be interpreted any other way-gay one. And it was Levi.

I was watching Project Runway, where, of course, the only straight designer was auffed. Then that damn Levi commercial comes on where the guy pulls up his pants--it seems like his hands are delicate, with a tremor, but we learn it is the force of pulling them up that makes his hands shake. He pulls them up an inch and the earth starts to shake. For some reason this makes him feel secure--and curious--so he pulls them up a little more. Ceiling tiles fall and still he has no objection to causing the Armageddon, or that he will be caught with his pants down. He finally jerks them all the way up and a phone booth (who needs to use a phone booth these days?) pops up through the debris.

There she is--a stringy haired, skinny girl who also wears Levis and who is also not worried that the ground just tore apart. They walk off together, sharing one of those coy smiles that confuses me. And this is where the the "gay version" steps in so casually. While ABC and NBC are playing that commercial, Bravo is playing one that is exactly the same, except in the phantom tollbooth is a man--decidedly gay. He has that smoothed hair and that scrubbed look of a man who knows his facial products.
They, in their Levis, walk off into the misty street, the same one he once traveled with the girl on another channel.
So it brings me to the dude. I never thought he was attractive. In fact, he has this primative, monkey look to him, but not the attractive type like Matthew McConaughey or Clive Owen who have that testosterone-laden look, but just plain monkey. I thought they had done a bad casting, as if I wanted some jeans, I would not have been taken with this guy--pants on or off. But when I saw him with the gay man I realized that the casting was brilliant. He is a single-sex gender bender. His primal look can take him either way. His smile was now, not non-committal--but mysterious. His facial features were not an acquired taste, but so neutral that it took talent.
I believed the stringy-haired girl was into him and I believed the slick Liza was too. Bravo(a).

Best Invention Eva

2007-09-03T10:46:00.001-07:00

Best Invention Eva

I am culinary challenged. Though I have a deep creative streak, when faced with making something new out of those things in the food pyramid, I always end up with some sort of tacos--sans a major ingredient (like flavor packet)--and tell the family, "just eat it."
Whether I am missing a gene or the education system failed me (home-ec was no longer required by the time 80s feminists entered high school), I don't know. And it was never much of a problem. When I tried to make brownies out of a box for my college boyfriend and then ruined them, I just smooshed them down into a pretty glass and stuck cool whip on top. Kept the relationship going for another few months.
In my years of experience, I find cheese or bacon, draped across the top, will wake up a tired burger, chicken fillet or just other pieces of cheese and bacon.
My vegetarian years were actually more fruitful (love my unintentional puns). I had to look up what to make. I bought cookbooks and made intricate grocery lists or else I would starve. Being a vegetarian is not as easy as taking out a piece of fat back to defrost and then opening a can of corn. The can of corn ends up being the central ingredient, and if you want to keep any muscle on your bones (bad Courtney Love), you've got to have some protein in there. So I got into the habit of thinking ahead. And it totally stressed me out. Cooking is not a pleasure for me. I get really pissed while doing it. I leave a mess. Something is always missing that needs to be the focus of the meal and if one of my family even blinks an eye when I place the plates on the table I go ballistic.
Then, God invents Dinner A'Fare. Not only is the name adorable, but so is the idea. I've been twice, and like crack, now I can no longer function without it. You pick from a menu of meals and go to this very well-stocked kitchen, put on a cap and apron and let rip. They have the recipe right there in front of you, plus all the ingredients. It is like putting together Mouse Trap. The board is the meat, then the instructions tell you what to put in little bags for marinade or sides, until you have it all set up and you just go home, crank that little gear and let the plastic boot kick the bucket, releasing the ball and the whole thing works like magic until the mouse is trapped. That was a gross metaphor, but both the game and the Dinner A'Fare make me happy.
I have this Idea of wanting to be a good cook. And I have this Idea of being organized. It just has never naturally occurred. Now, I go with friends, spend two hours putting together 12 meals, that I would never be able to think of, and come home and stuff the freezer. Last month Colin took some of the pork tenderloin over to the neighbors to try. The neighbor called and said, "I've never seen your husband happier."
I saw that same look last night as I had him pack the freezer with my prey. He caressed each air-tight package. I felt a little proud of myself, despite the lack of talent it took to accomplish it.
While in that polished kitchen with food and clean workspaces, I feel like I am on Top Chef. Not nose-sweat Howie, but perhaps a female Sam Talbot (the cute diabetic). However, in reality, I know it is the crack-like delusion that makes things seem grander. I am actually more of a cafeteria lady, following directions and making sure my hair doesn’t get in the marinade.

Liam Rector 1949-2007

2007-08-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Now

Now I see it: a few years
To play around while being
Bossed around

By the taller ones, the ones
With the money
And more muscle, however

Tender or indifferent
They might be at being
Parents; then off to school

And the years of struggle
With authority while learning
Violent gobs of things one didn't

Want to know, with a few tender
And tough teachers thrown in
Who taught what one wanted

And needed to know; then time
To go out and make one's own
Money (on the day or in

The night-shift), playing around
A little longer ("Seed-time,"
"Salad days") with some

Young "discretionary income"
Before procreation (which
Brings one quickly, too quickly,

Into play with some variation
Of settling down); then,
Most often for most, the despised

Job (though some work their way
Around this with work of real
Delight, life's work, with the deepest

Pleasures of mastery); then years
Spent, forgotten, in the middle decades
Of repair, creation, money

Gathered and spent making the family
Happen, as one's own children busily
Work their way into and through

The cycle themselves,
Comic and tragic to see, with some
Fine moments playing with them;

Then, through no inherent virtue
Of one's own, but only because
The oldest ones are busy falling

Off the edge of the planet,
The years of governing,
Of being the dreaded authority

One's self; then the recognition
(Often requiring a stiff drink) that it
Will all soon be ending for one's self,

But not before Alzheimer's comes
For some, as Alzheimer's comes
For my father-in-law now (who

Has forgotten not only who
Shakespeare is but that he taught
Shakespeare for thirty years,

And who sings and dances amidst
The forgotten in the place
To which he's been taken); then

An ever-deepening sense of time
And how the end might really happen,
To really submit, bend, and go

(Raging against that night is really
An adolescent's idiot game).
Time soon to take my place

In the long line of my ancestors
(Whose names I mostly never knew
Or have recently forgotten)

Who took their place, spirit poised
In mature humility (or as jackasses
Braying against the inevitable)

Before me, having been moved
By time through time, having done
The time and their times.

"Nearer my god to thee" I sing
On the deck of my personal Titanic,
An agnostic vessel in the mind.

Born alone, die alone—and sad, though
Vastly accompanied, to see
The sadness in the loved ones

To be left behind, and one more
Moment of wondering what,
If anything, comes next . . .

Never to have been completely
Certain what I was doing
Alive, but having stayed aloft

Amidst an almost sinister doubt.
I say to my children
Don't be afraid, be buoyed

—In its void the world is always
Falling apart, entropy its law
—I tell them those who build

And master are the ones invariably
Merry: Give and take quarter,
Create good meals within the slaughter,

A place for repose and laughter
In the consoling beds of being tender,
I tell them now, my son, my daughter.

Global Warning

2007-05-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am one who is interested in causes. I can put in the right energy-saving light bulb; I can turn off the water when I brush my pearly whites, etc. But the thing about me and causes is that I am nothing or all the way.
I remember when I was an argumentative teenager my mother, during one of our thrashings, asked me if I would rather have peace or be right. "Be right,” I said--like it was a no-brainer. Justice has always outweighed peace to me in that I think Justice leads to peace. At least in my demented mind.
So I've been interested in this whole Co2 thing. What are these people talking about (no, I didn’t see Al's film)? I heard a good explanation on NPR. Seems we are always putting out carbon--when we drive a car, turn on a light and chew our food. This got me to thinking of ways that we can all cut down on our carbon emissions. But it has to be a new way, not just telling people to drive smaller cars or use less toilet tissue. It has to be something that will benefit more than the earth, but humankind as well.
So I have come up with this equation. T-r2=silence.
If chewing a carrot gives off carbon that binds with oxygen and then heats up our planet, well then talking also releases carbon. So I conclude that there should be a ban on repeating things.
I think half the things I hear everyday are things I have heard before whether it is my kid calling my name fifty times or the news repeating that we are in a war in Iraq.

1) There is the incidental repeating such as "paper or plastic." We know it is coming, maybe the bagger can just give a little eye contact, where then the customer points to the kind of bag he/she wants.
2) Greetings. When we pass people we know, instead of saying "how are you," we will have to come up with new things to learn about each other such as,"when does you period start?"
3) Blah, blah conversations. There will be no more talk of diets, exercise, cholesterol, or anything we know we need to work on.

Only the first person you see on your birthday is allowed to wish you “Happy Birthday,” the others have to just nod.

4) Foreigners. People must stop asking Colin about The Crocodile Hunter, Crocodile Dundee, kangaroos and if “Fosters is really Australian for beer.” The poor guy is exhausted from doing his polite laugh and then having to explain it all.

It’s going to be a hard road for all of us. How am I going to resist when I meet someone who says their last name is Buttafuco not to ask the question that is on the tip of my tongue? But lord knows that person has been asked to the point that ice caps are melting in the arctic.

The burden weighs on me because I repeat stories to people, forgetting that I have already told them. I watch their eyes glaze over and let me politely go on. It could be my fault that whales are washing up on the California coast.

In sixth grade I won an essay contest about baby harp seals. They were really into clubbing them at the time and I had my award winning letter sent to Ronald Reagan. I know it was my catchy S.O.S. that made the cut (Save our seals). Reagan wrote my school back, sending a pic of himself happy as can be. They put it on our stucco wall, unframed, letting the edges curl. But everyday I looked up at it and thought he was smiling at me and remembering the S.O.S. girl, working in his office late to stop the manufacturing of these seal- battering clubs (always pictured them like what cavemen would use).

My goal is to have a picture of Bush on my office wall—that crooked smile looking down on me while I do my work. He will have written me a thank you note and will think of me every day as the woman who stopped global warming and got every one to shut up.

Don't Mess With Mama

2007-03-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

Violet has been our sweet, little kitty for over a year now. She’s a small cat. Very affectionate—almost annoyingly so.

She is so friendly that she got knocked up a while before Christmas. Colin is the one who found out…by saying her nipples felt bigger. Whatever.

So out pop the kitties. In the second picture they are pretty fresh. The first one is more recent. They are 3 and a half weeks now. One boy (the black) and two girls. Or so I think. I have looked at more pictures of kitten genitalia on the internet than I am willing to admit.

For those who I haven’t told about the birth, I found her holed up in Tassy’s bathroom, under the sink, in the cabinet. “What you doing in there, Sweetie?” I pulled her out, her claws scratching against the sides of the cupboard. And then a splat. A little squirmy thing the color of a grocery bag with a sack of blood attached fell on the linoleum floor. I panicked, ran and got on my gloves, as I had read all about helping in the delivery. Over the next three hours she squeaked out two more—all sans my help. Then she stood up and went to the back door and scratched frantically as if she wanted to find the guy who impregnated her and scratch the shit out of him.

She has been a good mama, feeding and taking care of them. But when too many little kids come petting the kitties she starts to freak out and hides them. This AM, Tassy’s friend, AnnaLevi was here and “Joke-alina” was missing. This is what the girls named the grey one since they think she is funny. So I go hunting and find her in a closet. Violet was trying to hide them but I caught her—yet again. I put her back in her comfy basket lined with towels that I lovingly put together weeks prior to the delivery.

Yesterday was the shocker though. She has wanted to get outside badly since the birthing. Of course she isn’t fixed yet, so we don’t want her to get out. She slips by our feet and lunges into the yard and the girls go shrieking and lecturing her, picking her up and hauling her back each time. Yesterday she got out and the three girls were in the back playing when I heard louder-than-usual girl shrieks. Violet had caught a bird and dragged it under the deck. I guess birthing her little ones had brought out some animalistic, hunt and gather-gene in her. The girls were screaming and the neighbor boy rushed over. Death, death, glorious death.

She then dragged the bird out, sat down beside it all proud and puffed up. AnnaLevi squirted Violet with the hose and we tried to get her away from her prey, which was still moving around, it’s beak open and ready to snip, but woefully unable to fly. Once again, I went into rescue mode, but this time I knew that euthanasia was necessary. But I just couldn’t do it. I still have flashbacks of my mother and I trying to kill a rat with a tennis racket.

I went next door to Jim’s house. He does something in the forest for his day job and his work truck says “Wildlife Resources” on the side. Perfect, I thought. Alas, no. Not at home. So I call John—he’s in insurance—but he’d have to do. He didn’t sound enthusiastic, nor experienced in what I thought most southern men were—twisting chicken heads off and such. He came over—supplying his own shovel, though I had a shovel, a saw and a leaf blower handy. The bird was scuttling across the yard at this point, not flying, but sort of twisting itself around and running in a zig zag. I corralled the girls into the front yard while John communed with the bird in the back. AnnaLevi’s dad happened to drive by just then and I called in his support, but John had done the deed and scooped the bird up and put it in our trash can.

I went to the front yard to see how the girls were handling all the blood and gore and found them happy as can be, spotting and picking four leaf clovers. They never mentioned it again. In the meantime my hands were shaking and I sprouted four new grey hairs.

Sharing my Wisdom

2007-03-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Since finishing my degree, I have spent a lot of time in "leisure therapy." This consists of television shows like Top Model (both American and Aussie), any true crime show and Lost; shopping (though I never seem to actually purchase anything); reading (The Glass Castle, The Miss America Family) and reading tmz.com hourly.
Within this busy schedule I have found time to obsess on certain things--such as cleaning the house, organizing, finding new hair products and exercising. I feel I've learned more about the world in the last two months since graduating, than I have in a long time. Since I can't encapsulate what I learned during my masters, I will tell you what I have l discovered post-op.

Hair--Pave shampoos and conditioners. Put out by Jessica Simpson's hairdresser friend who is in every pic with her until she hooked up with J. May. These products are at Walgreen's, made with no sulfates and donate to a charity. Most important--my hair is too fabulous since I've used it.

Lips--Physician's Formula Lip Palettes. You get four colors that plump and color for under five dollars! And doctor approved.

Drink--OceanSpray Pomegranate/Blueberry. Tasty and cancer-fighting.

Swiffer Wet Mop--Battery run to squirt out product on the floor. So fun to hear that little motor squirting the cleanser out. Makes me feel like something is really getting done. I've cleaned the floor twice in one week!

OxyClean Scrub-free bathroom cleanser--Just like Scrubbing Bubbles, but I assume better because of the "oxy" which brings me back to Oxy10 acne pads in high school that would burn the zits right off you.

Monkey King Green Jasmine tea--Bought loose with little tea bags to fill each time. Makes me feel loved by myself.

Christina Aguilera tunes--Uploaded into my MP3 player. I imagine that I am back in high school and am performing the songs in the gym in front of all my classmates. Their expressions are priceless, of course.

Old discoveries that still feel new: Annie's All Natural Godess Dressing and Tampax Pearl tampons. These have both changed my life.

More New Year Resolutions

2007-02-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

I have embarrassment phobia. I don't get too embarrassed myself, but I do get embarrassed for others--to the point of looking away. Karaoke taken too seriously, someone pronouncing "supposedly" "supposebly", dresses stuck in butt cracks and people tripping along sidewalks.

I am trying to break myself of this, much as smokers who go to clinics and sit in nicotine-laden rooms until they throw up. So...I am trying to watch 5 minutes of the Tyra Banks show once a month. I hope to build up to 10.

I first came across the show when she was talking about her beauty secrets. She's Tyra--I'll listen. Well, not only did she squeeze some guy's zit, but she got WAY too excited about her big beauty secret. Vaseline. She had psyched up the audience by saying she had a big secret at the end of the show and you could see the audience members whispering, "Well, we didn't get into Oprah; maybe we'll score some La Prairie." But then out comes the Vaseline jar and Tyra starts jumping up and down screaming, trying to make it as exciting as possible while the people in the audience are laughing nervously. The kicker was supposed to be that she was giving the whole audience a rhinestone covered bottle of the stuff. It looked ridiculous and as she began to run into the audience and then flail on the floor, I had to change the channel to the Wiggles.

It is Tyra's earnestness and her desire to be the next Oprah that is so embarrassing. Her show on racial stereotypes made me change after 3 minutes. Not only did Tyra try to be as intelligent as Jesse Jackson (coming a bit short) but her everyday people "panel" was made up of one of the girls that was on Flava of Love on VH1. Tyra was hugging her and telling her to get over her racism and I just thought--who does the background checks on your guests? Last month that girl was putting a full-nelson on another candidate for Flav's affection.

I tried Tyra again this week. As I surfed the channels I saw her sitting with some random women putting sticks in their mouths. I stopped and watched to figure it out and watched as Tyra talked the whole time this stick was between her well-insured lips. Seems "Itws thwiss eassy to see ifw I hawe HIV? I cwan't bewlive I nevew knew thiss." Then she gave the teaser that she would reveal the diagnosis--if she and the others had HIV--"Live."

Again, I had to stay and watch. As she stuck in another segment about drunk driving and the dangers, I realized what the deal is with this show. Not only is Tyra no Oprah, but she just doesn't have the capacity to think and experience at the same time. She repeats things over and over and even tells the audience what she is doing after she does it. "I just walked from that audience member back to my chair.” “I will soon be telling you if I have HIV. It is scary for me to think I might. Scary for anyone. But HIV is a serious thing. We must take it seriously. We…” She fills up space just as we did in speech class in high school when we had to get up and talk for 5 minutes but were done in 3.

On her little modeling show, Top Model, there is little improvisation. She can get away with looking intelligent and somewhat of an “expert”. On Tyra, she is revealed as knowing nothing except that her boobs are real and that she is really upset when people call her fat (not that anything is wrong with that).

This week Tyra is going inside a weight-problem clinic. It is this kind of save-the-world hurtling that makes me embarrassed for her. She takes on such big issues. I listened to her promo for the show—“Today we are going to step inside a weight CLINIC.” Her emphasis on what is scientific, intelligent; world newsy—and is said with such emphasis that I can’t tell if she is trying to make it sound dramatic or just trying to get the pronunciation right.

I am not saying that the girl needs to just talk about fashion and nail polish, but she is going to have to put her money where her mouth is if I am going to take her seriously. Open an African girl’s school, become a Scientologist, write a thriller, come out of the closet or enter rehab. I need to see something that matches this earnestness. Maybe she can shave her head “Live.”

Where Have I been? Where am I going?

2006-12-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, I haven’t written in a long time. Has anyone missed me? Probably not. But I am hoping the time between the last entry and now has made someone wonder if:

1) she has been battling a survivable, yet dramatic illness
2) been on a whirlwind book tour with her unpublished book (Kinko’s is just around the corner)
3) Been hopped up on Vitamin L and lost interest in peripheral life happenings

If you guessed L, you are a winner, though I am too medically laissez-faire to send you a prize.
Seeing that I am a writer and an Alea, I am prone to blue periods. Nothing fancy—no thoughts of ending my world or taking out an Amish community, just the usual middle-class, suburban housewife blue.
So I was put on Lexapro (why so familiar? Think Anna Nicole’s son mixing it with methadone and not waking up). So now I am so much better. No ups and downs, just sort of skimming on the ice on my butt—-somewhere in the middle of emotions. It isn't like what Botox does to forehead lines where the woman can’t make a real emotive expression, it is more just an easing of anxiety. However, I have now noticed that I am more relaxed and at the same time less driven. I have nothing out at publishers at the moment, though I have plenty to send. I sleep a lot. I haven’t exercised in eons and I am not obsessing about writing as much as I usually do. Mix that into the tasks that I rarely did anyway, such as cleaning the house, and one can imagine what hell looks like by peeking in my oven.
So is this medication a good or bad solution? There have been recent articles (New York Times, maybe?) about how medication is robbing us of our Picassos and Van Goghs (lest I brag). Obsession and drive may destroy families, but it does inspire Simon and Garfunkel to write Starry-Starry Night.
My conclusion is that Vitamin L is perfect for those with children, bad for single artists who will die for their work.
So if I don’t write as often, it isn’t because I have nothing to say or that I am down and out or even sick in the head, I am just drifting around my messy house glad to be on vacation.

The Cult of Karen

2006-08-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I am not the charismatic leader that I thought I was. Lately I have been reading a book about cults in research for the novel I am writing. Cults fascinate me, as I suspect they do most people. Not only did I find out interesting tidbits on the thousands of cults hanging around, but the statistics were staggering. There are more Jews in cults than in everyday society. Up to 50%. College recruitment is huge, having something like 60% of college students say they have been approached by a recruiter and most have been approached 3-5 times. Of course, they do the friendship route, being everyday people and then inviting them to a seminar of some sort, etc.

It makes me wonder if these people who approached me years ago in Nashville were not swingers as I have assumed, but in a cult. The man worked at some "wellness center." After reading the book, I am now suspicious of everyone, just as after reading Middlesex, I was convinced everyone is a hermaphrodite.

After that library reading I did the other week, the local paper called me to do an article. Seems with Castro dying, they wanted to find the only Cuban in town and capitalize on an article. It came out on a Tuesday with my face up in the top of the front page with a weird red slash next to it as if someone had thrown red blood on me al a P.E.T.A. demonstration. However, I later identified it as a map of Cuba.

Then there was my big face on the front of the local news page. If you know me, you and I both would think I would love this. However, it terrified me. I hated it. And I was shocked at my own reaction. I love to speak in public, I have no problem with being in front of a crowd, but this was awkward. Of course, I analyzed my face. Collagen injections for lips are definitely due. And my hair looked Fabulous from the shoulder down, which was not included in the snapshot. But most of all it was the fact that this picture and article was being seen by people I don't know. Maybe it was because the writing was not mine and I felt out of control about what was coming "from me." Maybe I am just psychotic. Whichever, I became disillusioned that I reacted so adversely to the attention. I am not the future cult leader I so have the talent for. I am not the one who can have my face on tee-shirts and mugs. I will never reach my potential as an icon. I have become J.D. Salinger overnight (minus the success thing).

I've posted the pic here for self-shock therapy. Some way to immune myself and prepare myself for the throne.

I want to start my own cult. It will have much to do with Little Debbie snack cakes and little to do with sandalwood incense. The fees will be minimal and the robes are going to be fab. Once I get over my latest neurosis about this article, I will post an application form and mission statement.

Inspired to write
By DOUG DAVIS
dougdavis@dnj.com

When West Palm Beach native Karen Alea heard Jose Almeida's story of how he was involved in the Bay of Pigs, she thought it was a story which needed to be told.

"I couldn't find a book about the subject that wasn't about the military or about politics," said Alea, author of the book "For Which He Stands: The True Tale of the CIA, Castro and a Catholic."

The story is especially timely now with Cuban leader Fidel Castro's recent illness and the potential of a change in command in the Communist country south of Florida.

Alea moved with her family to Murfreesboro several years ago.

"When 9/11 happened my husband and I decided if we were going to die it wasn't going to be in Florida," she said.

The family headed toward Nashville in 2002, where she had lived for a couple of years in the early 1990s.

"We worked our way down to Murfreesboro where schools and real estate prices were better," she said.

Amy Staples, associate professor of history at MTSU, said the Bay of Pigs was an attempt to overpower Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in April 1961.

"The (Dwight D.) Eisenhower administration is responsible for the planning of the Bay of Pigs," she said. "When (President John F.) Kennedy was elected, the CIA came to him with a plan they had already developed. "Kennedy accepted the CIA's plan with one exception — he removed U.S air cover of the 1,453 trained commandos."

Alea met the subject of her book — Almeida— through her father, who is Cuban. She wanted to write a personal story about the Bay of Pigs.

"I have never met anyone like Jose 'Pepin Almeida," she writes on Amazon.com. "He is a kind, fun-loving man who has not hidden his painful past, but embraced it and used it for triumph. This book gives a glimpse of a man, and a whole group of men, who fought for what they knew was right. It must never be forgotten."

Almeida was in his last year in medical school when he was recruited for the mission by the CIA.

"He and his friend were in a Catholic organization for students at the University of Havana in 1958-59," said Alea. "They saw that Castro was beginning to shut down the churches and this group became outspoken. The CIA targeted them to recruit because the CIA knew (the students) would be on their side against Castro."

Almeida was trained to be the chief medical officer of the invasion and had eight men under him.

"In mid-April (1961), 1,453 CIA trained commandos departed Nicaragua for Cuba," said Staples. "They met early resistance from Castro's militia. No sympathetic insurrection occurred" among Cuban citizens.

Alea's book says that 1,800 men were involved in the operation.

"A New York Times journalist blew the story and said there were 10,000 men in this operation," said Alea.

Two things happened as a result. Castro found out about it and no more Cubans joined the brigade, according to the subject of her book.

The invaders moved to Cuba's shore from boats.

"They looked overhead and saw airplanes that they thought were the Americans protecting them," said Alea. "But they were actually the Cuban militia. My hero ran into the swamp and hid for 11 days. He lived on tree bark and frogs. They would collect water that would be on leaves."

Almeida was ultimately captured by the Cuban militia, the book recounts.

"He was thrilled to have food (a mixture of rice and beans)," said Alea. "They were brought to an arena and put on television."

Almeida was imprisoned for approximately two years at an island prison with other leaders of the group.

"There were about 50 leaders and they formed their own classes. Even though they had no food, the prisoners talked about cooking. A group of singers put on music programs," Alea said. "The (two) priests (in the group) were involved in religion. They tried to survive by becoming a working society."

Almeida met his wife-to-be in the late 1950s and married her by proxy while he was in prison.

'Toty' Almeida was allowed to visit her husband in prison. Once, she smuggled into jail a small vial of wine and a communion wafer so that she and her husband could observe mass together.

Jose Almeida was put in solitary confinement twice and his life was threatened and tortured, Alea recounts in her book.

The other captured members of the invading group were taken to a prison in Havana.

Jose Almeida and other prisoners were released in December 1962, in exchange for millions of dollars in food and medicine.

The paperback book, published in 2001 by Old Mountain Press, is 150 pages and includes 17 chapters and 16 pages of photos. Alea recently appeared at Linebaugh Library with other local authors to promote her book.

"I thought it was good," said Joan Speyrer, of Murfreesboro, who purchased a copy. "I knew nothing about the Cuban revolution, so I learned a lot by reading it."

— Doug Davis, 278-5152

Originally published August 15, 2006

Feeling Stuffy

2006-08-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

I have been a bundle of emotions lately, many of which I have let flow on my true friends, despite the cell phone converge cutting off half my tirades. The truth is, I have run across my fair share of unsavory situations lately, and they are getting under my skin.

On Sunday I gave a ten minute speech about my non-fiction book at the library. I was among 7 other local authors. It was no big thing, just a handful of people who either really loved non-fiction or had nothing better to do on a Sunday.

I followed a “poet” who was un-freaking-believable. He started by rattling off the awards he had won and how many places he was published (he told us a few times later too) and how writing is all about marketing. He was the kind who threw in how prejudiced people are against blacks and how he has had to fight his way to where he is. He went on to say that he could tell any of the other authors how to sell our work, since most of us are not as smart as he is. I was eyeing my friend, Denis’, whose eyes were growing bigger as the speech went on (she is too nice to write a blog like this). He mixed up God and marketing and blacks and writing in such a way that I felt ill afterwards. Mostly because it made me take on a new layer of prejudice! What is being taught to the young blacks of today? Marketing outweighs talent and studying the craft?

The guy went on forever and then took his seat in the back, opened a magazine and did not listen to any of the other authors. Colin was in the back cussing up a blue streak while the girls were taking pictures of table legs and carpet stains with the new disposable cameras we had bought them.

I have been awed recently at the grubby-handed claw for power in my society. It seems to be getting confused with working hard and being appreciated for your labor. If someone does a good job, they are suddenly too big for their britches. Knock them down and show them a thing or two. But it is fine for those without the talent (see above) to rise and lead because they are just average folk. I swear I don’t get this. It is like those who like Bush because he is the type you could have a beer with, an average guy. I don’t want an ordinary guy in the oval office, I want an extraordinary one.

My friend, Andrea, had her second book, To Feel Stuff, come out recently. It is wonderful. Full of youthful angst, doubt and oddity. The characters, especially Chess, seems so realistic to me. A young guy who makes long disparate metaphors out of his feelings since he doesn’t have the appropriate words to describe them. And frankly, the paranormal stuff scared me a little bit.

However, since it is her second book, and her first did so well, it is time to take her down a notch, right? Though some critics see it for what it is, others try to bring her first book into the mix (Like the Red Panda). She has talent, and what is more, she works at what she does, without the silly preoccupation of marketing and sales. So here comes the untalented group (that is ALWAYS the case) that says, you are already up on top, so we need to take you down a bit. Though the joke is on them, since her fan base is not likely to read reviews and all the big reviewers "get" the book.

When are people going to be judged by what they do, rather than what people see them as?

Okay, yes, this whole blog is all about me and how pissed off I am at people who judge me, not by my work, but how much attention I get, or don’t get. I can see why writers can be such hermits. It is easier to not have to deal with people.

Tune in next time to see which mood I will be in then….

2006-07-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

For Sofia’s fifth birthday, Colin and I thought it would be a good idea to take her to a rock concert. Don’t ask me why we thought this would be good, and as I write it, I know how deranged we sound. The “rock” was the Disney type. Aly and AJ, two sisters who are now whining their way onto TRL but still have that soft Disney center. The concert was at the Ryman Theatre, the old Grand Ol Opry place that used to be a church before that. You sit in pews with stained glass to the sides and watch bejeweled 8-13 year olds scream their heads off at the opening boy acts. I was thrown back to my days at Genesis’s Invisible Touch Tour or Bryan Adams in his good--bad days.

Concerts were a right of passage, a time to say I am a teen, if not an adult. Now there are concerts for every age group, starting with the Wiggles for toddlers.

Even the performers are jaded. I have never seen such bored attitude than watching Aly jump around wishing that her crowd was cooler and trying to make Aerosmith jabs at the air only to be followed by her sister’s sweet harmony. It was sad. Waving lighters were replaced by green glow sticks.

After the concert we waited an hour in the back alley for them to come out to get their picture. Colin and I were not into it, but we thought, we’re here and the girls want to see them, so…. Of course we waited forever only to hear that they snuck onto their bus and “were not coming out.” Not very Disney.

The appalling thing concerned the mothers I talked to in the alley. I had heard of stage mothers, but not back-stage mothers. Two recognized each other from the Hillary Duff concert in Indianapolis. They exchanged emails. One kept getting secret phone calls from an unknown source telling her where AJ and Aly were in the building and posted herself near a window to see when they would be coming down. These women were serious, running back and forth, sending their kids to go around the corner and report back. Each of them had their own sharpie pens ready for the attack.

Colin went to his first AC/DC concert when he was 10. His mom stayed in the car and knitted and he was thrown in among the riff-raff for a few hours. I can only think that this is the way to go. A little risk and a lot of chutzpah. No glow sticks, no kids with birthday hats on (yes). This is the big league. A concert is the losing of innocence--as it should be.

Again, it comes back to Disney and the idea that they water down everything, even our rights of passage. My only consolation was that while all the kids were doing the two-step and hand clap, Tassy was rocking her head off, her hair flying everywhere. There’s hope yet.

PR & PMS

2006-06-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I co-chaired a conference in Nashville. It was such a success that it frightens and bewilders me that I had any part of it. Ann Patchett was the keynote speaker—big coup. She barely ever speaks and she did it for us for free since her friend is my close friend and co-chair, Gloria.

Then we had Tony Earley, another person who rarely does speaking engagements. David Daniel flew down from Boston. He is the poetry editor for Ploughshares. Bob Bradley (rock on mother f---er), Helen Hemphill, Joyce Dyer and Ray Waddle. It was crazy good.

So why do I find myself organizing these things? Readings for friends, get-togethers for writers, etc. I asked my friend Darnell yesterday, “When am I going to get it that this is what I like to do?”

So then I checked my horoscope on iwon.com today.

You will see some big bright signs that will prove to you that you are on to something -- keep following your instincts and keep going in the direction that feels right. There is a role that you never thought would fit that you're starting to get comfortable in -- just goes to show you that life always has surprises that help keep you on you toes. Community involvement could give you a bigger sense of purpose, so consider moving into a volunteer situation.

Hmmmm.
I am an unorganized mess, but if I have someone to help with that part, my strength is passion and making people feel included. I think.

Tonight I’m going to see my good friend, Darnell Arnoult read. Her poetry book came out this year and now she has a novel. The novel is flying off the shelves. It sells at Costco, she is #8,000 on amazon.com and will be in People magazine. She lives in a trailer now, so all this success is deserving.

I notice that many writers are jealous of others’ successes. I don’t have much of that, though I admit I have a bit. But I wonder if this again points me in the direction of helping promote writing as well as doing the writing. I don’t have anything against giving someone a leg up.

I am headed to Bennington in 2 days. There I will feel the opposite as I do here. There people will be picking apart other people’s writing, posturing and making fools of themselves. I have been one of those in the past, but have found that it is too exhausting. Let people write what they want, let style and experience work itself out. I have no interest in the creation of other people’s work, only in the advancement of it once the work is done.

I must admit, for all its lack of culture, I like it here---where a pat on the back is sincere, not just a restrained slap.

Ode to Red Rose Café

2006-05-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I wake now with the faint smell of ground coffee and dust mites and long for that place, that glorious cavern, where I once spread my work, my pens laid carefully in the grooves of the tiled table, and cry for what is past. Death came quickly. The long bars of your door, like bronze sausages, immovable. The sign taped to the window telling lovers “No longer.”

I cling to those days of hours spent scribbling my uninspired verse to the sound of NPR, the daytime choice for us older clientele. I heard rumors of the night time, the young ones, the music, guitars and drums, beer and smoke. But for me, my life lingered among the fruit tea and Vietnam vets, the long-haired boy behind the counter who gave me extra Ranch dressing.

My lungs fill with angst at the disappearance of the kick-ass beer cheese soup, the frothy liquid, that when attempted to imitate at home becomes diluted in the tears of my loss.

The Disney trivia game, the Scrabble from which my youngest learned her letters (sans the vowels). Oh yes, Rose, you were the more than a coffee house, but a bed of learning and literacy and Disney.

Who now will replace you? Who now will step forward, bring their pee-stained couch onto the stage, their dull paperbacks and lesbian art to the ‘Boro? Who will let the wayward and the lovely in? Serve them a mocha or a falafel? Though some have tried, the Rose cannot grow again. And here we are, left in the wake, destined to sip coffee next to teenagers doing Bible studies or pasty men luring young graduates into Amway.

Oh ‘Boro, you throw your Moseses into to the water, you drag your dogs behind your cars, you rid our fertile soil of fresh trees and flowers and replace it with eateries designed for Realtors and bank workers. Give me that church of yesteryear, that place where my soul felt fed.

There are rumors on the wind, they whisper of your return. But I shan’t listen; I shan’t believe. I will not allow that spiraling fall to happen to me again. And if this rumor is true, if…then I will lay a sacrifice in front of the grand doors. A thanks to the gods and goddesses who saw that all that is wrong in this world has not been solved by strip malls and more red-bricked banks, but by a haven for those of us who feel that without the Rose we are wandering in the wilderness of mediocrity.

(for those wanting to save the Red Rose, go to http://www.redrosecoffee.com/)

Boob Tube Top

2006-04-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

To procrastinate the important things of life, I watch television. The Apprentice, American Idol-- all the shows that I regret having watched the first of, since now I must watch to the end.
So I am flipping through trying to find my latest crush (it ended up being God or the Girl on A&E) I came across Yo Momma on MTV. It is hilarious. And sadly, it is not supposed to be hilarious.
Ashton Kutcher pulled some strings for his best friend, Wilmer Valderama, to host this West Side Story-esque joke-off.
Wilmer (I conceded I see why he is good boyfriend material) should not be speaking English that is not written by professional writers. And he should not think that he has street cred. And he should not say Yo Momma anymore.
The show consists of finding two people who do a strange street fight, back dropped by graffiti and parked cars. The “fight” consists of throwing Yo momma is so fat… jokes. Wilmer has his two sidekicks who give the harsh rules such as, “OK, now we are going to do jokes that only have to do with hair.” Then Wilmer throws down his hand like he is starting the Indy 500. It feels like a spoof on Rebel Without a Cause or Michael Jackson’s Bad video. There is an eerie amount of pleather and fingerless gloves.
When did Wilmer come up with this idea? Why did he think this would be his foray into coolness? Were there no other ideas that seemed slightly less juvenile and hokey? No one can take seriously pairing jokes with street fights. I can handle the dance off, the rapping feud, but not “Yo momma is so cross-eyed your daddy thought she was seeing someone on the side,” while the jokester’s feet are firmly planted on the asphalt as if the wrath of the Cripps will come down on him if his punch line bombs.
When the “battle” is finished, Wilmer looks at his peeps and says, “Okay guys, I’ve got to think about this.” The three walk away into the fake smoke of the back lot and then return to announce the winner. I think it will keep going until there is some super match like on Jeopardy.
History circles around, they say. Maybe this is the old way of shooting insults like in the day of Shakespeare and Marlow. Maybe Yo Momma is just this decade’s homage to Mark Twain. I’m not sure.
I just know that Ashton has done his friend no favors. Maybe Wilmer is being Punk’d.

I've still got it.

2006-03-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

In college I attracted stalkers. Something about me that said, hmmm….I would enjoy scaring her and then cutting her limbs off and stuffing them in my freezer. Lucky for all of us, this never happened, but as I’ve grown older… I’ve missed the attention.

Today, however, that old feeling returned. I was sitting in the ‘Boro at a miniscule table at Starbucks writing. Along came an elderly man and sat right with me. Scraggly clothes, weathered face. Told me he liked my hair and then asked me about his “laptop”. I told him I knew nothing about his invisible laptop. He then went on to get in my face, calling me sweetheart and spewing things that were “just between you and me”. He told me about his friend Donald Trump. He told me how when he couldn’t get his electricity turned on here in TN he called Rudy Giuliani, Bill Frist and Bob Bradley who in turn called the Middle TN Electric Company for him.

He asked me what I did and I told him I was a writer. He asked what I wrote, (my least favorite question) and I wanted to answer that there will soon be a story about him no doubt. He said he approached me because I had lovely hair (Loving Care Copper Penny) and a serene and intelligent look. That’s serial killer talk if I ever heard it.

Funny thing is I was just emailing my friend Dan about my lack of stalkers. He said he used to have one until she realized he only left his house for coffee and hair gel.

Now it seems I only draw mini-stalkers, one-off encounters with crazies who move on to bigger and better targets. There must not be enough left in me for the hunt, just the peck.

Years ago there used to be this restaurant in Nashville that had napkin holders on each table with a flag attached to the top. You could stick it up in the air with a little antenna attachment and it read “hey, waiter.” The waiter had to be there within 30 seconds. I think I’ll make my own, carry it in my purse and set it atop tables, a flag that says “Freak Alert” with the word “Ayuda” on the other side. Maybe I will just fashion a pen that has a little waving sign on the top that says, “Let me be.”

I seem to gather the strange ones around me. Maybe they feel akin; maybe they think I am more pitiful than them, sitting at a table alone. I am flattered and insulted. Flattered that they see a kind ear to listen, insulted that they think I have nothing more important to do.

Sofia has this little baby that cries and goos. I am thinking about attaching it to my breast with duct tape while I am sitting there typing. Of course, then there will be the woman who says, “Oh, let me see the little one.” And then the tape ripping sounds and the head turns and there I’ll be—the odd one, the one that people flee from. Not a bad idea.

Round Up

2006-01-26T12:27:00.000-08:00

I’m barley out of my post-residency depression when Colin and I go to King Kong. Wanted to see Walk the Line, but it sold out before we got there. So while I contemplate how frighteningly similar Naomi Watt's mouth is to her best friend Nicole Kidman's, Kong gets on top of that damn building and I am telling Colin that the aerial shots are making me dizzy.

I wake up Sunday with vertigo and have been housebound ever since. The meds were not doing the trick and after not being able to drive or read (that leaves me with nothing) I was put on Valium. Seems to be doing the trick, or do I just imagine it is doing the trick? Either way, I'm grateful.

I know I am pitiful when I nearly cry when a neighbor happens to call and ask if I want anything from the grocery (can't drive, remember). I tell her ricotta cheese. Tonight I will make lasagna, the first thing I have DONE in five days. I have never been this thrilled about cheese.

Oh, and if you are reading this, give me some comments. I never get comments and might have to stay on Valium until I get some. (Except from the Spaniard who wants me to put all my blogs in Castilian)

Am I the Picasso of my time?

2006-01-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

Back from school, and sadly, have nothing to say about it.

However, while I was gone, a few things happened. Seems every time I have something published, I am out of town. While I was gone this time, two articles came out in the new Murfreesboro Pulse. One cut from my blog about Rent, another that I wrote spur of the moment.

What is amusing is that when I asked my brother if he saw it, he said yes, but that he didn’t read it. What? I never understand this. It is worse with my parents who read my stuff and then don’t comment. No “this sucks”, or “amazing, my love”. Just nothing.

I would like to say I don’t write to please my family, but that would be untrue. Everything we do is in one way or another related to pleasing or displeasing parents. Does it bother me hugely that they don’t pay attention to what I do? On the small scale –little articles and short stories?--no. But on the large scale—I am a writer?—yes.

Maybe in years from now I won’t mind that my family isn’t interested in what I do. That is one less voice in my head to push away when I write.

Is this why most artists go mad?

Below I include my literary coup d’état that ran in the paper while I was gone. What wouldn’t a parent love?

Beauty is on the Outside
by
Karen Alea

Since the demographics of this paper are mostly the young ‘uns, and young ‘uns have such a hard time in relationships, I’ve put together an easy guide by which to assist when finding, then judging your potential mate. (For those already in a relationship or marriage, below guidelines may also be used when forcing change on your partner)

As I look at the current books about relationships, I see they all have zingy acronyms, training couples into seeing their relationship tied up in three or four words: commitment, caring, coupling, or whatever. I, myself, have come up with an acronym, one that no doubt will combust once this hits the stands and soon I’ll find myself the Dave Ramsey of love, taking calls from Sally in Smyrna and Billy Bob in Bell Buckle.

For now, I want to pass it on to you, because when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, those psychologists and relationship “experts”, are full of crap. Repeat after me FAP. That’s it. That’s your new mantra. When you sit across from that new girlfriend or your husband of two years and you’re not sure if you two will last the distance, just inhale and breathe out “Fap”. Measure them up and make cuts at will.

F-Fashion. You think it doesn’t matter. Oh, think again my brother. I myself, having imported a husband from Australia, had to put up with those black socks and Bermuda shorts. We can fool ourselves into thinking that it is what is underneath that matters, but isn’t what they choose to portray to the world, really who they are? Will a girl with the shirt “With these, who needs brains,” be able to handle the unemployment forms each moth, will the guy wearing an ‘80’s pastel plaid button down get your embers burning? Don’t look deep into their eyes, don’t try and search out that inner essence. If their clothes are hanging off, pinching in, glowing or starched, no session of counseling will ever be enough.

A-Adjectives. Just hearing the words wicked, awesome or tubular makes you line up a person’s personality in seconds. Just like a man who still uses the word, gnarly, I assume hasn’t taken his head out of a bong since March of ’93, adjectives are the window into the head. (Souls are so overrated.)

Granted my husband sneaks in the word obsequious a few too many times, I have to let it slide. But a persnickety, titillating or fastidious would be the deathblow to the whole relationship.

Listen closely my friend. Don’t think that a sentence is just a sentence, less you find yourself doing 10-20 in a relationship laced with super-dupers or copasetics.

P-Phlegm. I can’t stress this enough. The phlegm and/or saliva that your mate possesses at the beginning of your relationship will only increase with the years you are together. And what you overlook at the beginning of a marriage, what you might even call adorable, will make you murderous later on (approximately day 23).

To test this before you have consummated the relationship, make the person say “Sister Sledge swallowed screwdrivers at Stampede”. If the saliva accumulates in the back teeth, possibly making white bubbles appear at the corner of the lips, “check please.” However, if you have already consummated, which is the unfortunate time to realize, “yes, we have phlegm,” then a cupboard of citrus fruits and drinks is recommended to transform him/her back into being Fapalicious.

Now that you are at the end of my diatribe, I know you are thinking, “wow.” I agree. It is about time people put the truth out there rather than this Dr. Phil crap that has couples talking face to face with each other. A quick trip to Old Navy, a ban of VH1 the ‘80’s as well as The Apprentice and a case of Mountain Dew should put any couple on the right track to eternity.

Festival of Lights

2005-12-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

My friend’s house burned down Christmas morning. Not down, but in. Nonetheless, I feel terrible. While she was pulling her special papers out of the smoke, the firefighters wheeling up her drive, I was on a raft in the Opryland Hotel with my daughters and niece, looking at overfed catfish.

There is that guilt. The kind that people tell me I am crazy for feeling. What could I have done? It wasn’t my fault. But it’s not that. It is the fact that I am safe and warm while people suffer in tsunamis and Katrina and I don’t do enough to help. It is in my DNA to feel this way. That is why my first adult career was a Christian missionary (more about that later). I was told there were people “without hope, without faith,” and when I got there, thought “Crap, where did you get this hope and this faith? They said you were all out.”

I had been handed something to deliver to people that would solve problems and offer help. Of course I was devastated to find it wasn’t true, that the people from the land of diabetes and mortgages had little to offer those whose religion predated mine and left them smiling as they lived in thatched houses.

So when there is something that I can do that is tangible, help someone who just lost their belongings, it becomes sort of an emotional emergency for me. It is my need, more than theirs that drives me.

Recently scientists have found that there is a “God gene”, a prewired place in us that makes many of us “sure” there is higher power. There is discussion that maybe the gene is the transmitter. God to gene to us. But what if the gene is God? No middleman? What if that is all there is to it? Right there in us? Maybe some genes are more attune, more developed, swollen perhaps. Maybe some are suppressed or have been overridden by the sex gene or the alcohol one.

It would explain why I feel more at home with the God that is in my head than the one in the church. And it would explain why I feel a compulsion to give something and do something when people suffer. I can’t help it. It’s in my wiring. So, scientifically, it has been proven that this compulsion to help has nothing to do with being a “good person.” It is just fate. I have red hair, brown eyes and a swollen God gene. Lord, help me.

My Holiday Letter

2005-12-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

I spent today in bed until two. Then an hour bath, a little reading and writing. Basically hiding out after a stressful week.

The end of the year and the holidays always get me going. Then before I know it--the New Year. Add my birthday on that and a dose of PMS and I am emotional and introspective. Most of my time is spent living in my head having fake arguments or loving conversations with people I barely know. I would say I am going crazy, but it is pretty par for the course for me. Fortunately this mood is also short-lived, usually followed by an energetic streak where I accomplish everything I have put off for the last few weeks.

It doesn’t help that I got one of those “This is what I did this year” letters. I am not morally opposed to these letters as I like to know what people have been up to. But as I read them I think, well, what I have I been up to? What would I put in a letter and send someone? The trips? School news? What the kids are doing? Would that make people know me better? Was that what my year was about? (see, I told you I was introspective)

Here’s my year for you:
I became disillusioned with my government, large and local. Boo.
I learned to shun friends that were toxic. Yay.
I have begun to thicken around the middle. Boo.
I’ve gained some spiritual insight into myself. Yay.
I am becoming bored with where I live(see Christmas Parade snapshot above). Boo.
Suddenly material things have dropped significantly in their importance. Yay.
The material things I am attracted to are shiny and sparkly. Boo.
I am spending more time alone. Yay and Boo.

Frankly, when I look at the events of this past year there have been some hard times in my family. Yet, when I look at the impact they have made on me, it’s all good. There is some deep energy I get from struggles, something I miss in those good years. Also, there is some type of thought process that occurs in my creative mind when there is stress all around me. It is as if I go further down in myself to hide and unearth all these truths I can use in my writing or living.

It’s not that things were so bad this year and man have I suffered. The opposite. It has been a good year. A different type of year. Probably what the girls will refer to, in decades from now, as their innocence.

Renting some youth for two hours

2005-11-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

It’s getting colder in the ‘Boro. I can tell because my Viactin multi-vitamins are harder to chew.

But that’s beside the point. Last night Colin and I went to go see Rent. You have to understand that the last movie we saw was Chicken Little, so this was special. Compounded by the fact that Colin saw it on Broadway and bought the soundtrack, so we knew all the words. I’ve always been thankful that my husband is this athletic, manly guy who also appreciates art, no matter what the subject matter.

So we go to the movie, a movie that is a remake of La Boheme and deals with AIDS, drug use, poverty and art.

Here in the ‘Boro, a smallish town south of Nashville, there are only two theatres—the “good one” and the “scary one.” We chose the good one, because seeing a larger than life musical deserves a big screen. Alas no. They stuck us in this puny theatre that fits about 100 people.

As the annoying Fandango ads and dancing hot dog ran on the screen, we looked around at our Rent-loving compadres. I felt time-warped. Tons of teenagers. Mostly girls. Cell phone lights dotted the room punctuated with giggles and hair-flipping. Then in walked a couple about our age. They sat right behind us, and like when I was pregnant and ran into another pregnant woman, I felt akin. Who were these people our age who appreciated a little music and AZT-popping?

Seeing that I make most of my friends in public places, I was tempted to turn around and introduce myself. Colin teases me for my friend-making techniques. No longer do I have friends named Claire, Marge and Sally, but “Coffee Shop Carol”, “Bookstore Belinda” and “Playground Patti.” So I was sitting thinking if this woman might turn out to be Rent Rachael, Movie Marnie or (hold me down) -- Cinema Selena.

Besides the adolescent laughs and “oh my Gods” during the chaste gay romantic scenes, the movie got an interesting reception in these parts. Frankly, I don’t think the movie made a smooth transition to the screen. What is theatrical cannot always be cinematic, and there were part of the movie that seemed laughable because the timing and rhythm were not right. Maybe an intermission would have helped.

Nonetheless, it is a kick-ass revolt against what this town I live in is about, where art is NASCAR and music is Toby Keith. This movie talked about compassion and creation is a way that left the Baptist-going audience a bit confused, where only Christians are allowed to possess compassion and only God can create.

And thus, our new best friends, the couple behind us, walked out a third of the way through. My husband looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking. Oh, and I was wrong, there was another couple our age there—down in front. I know because they too walked out.

So we were stuck with the fifteen year olds.

I wonder if the couples left because it was too much an assault of reality, or they were repulsed by the gayness—done tactfully. (Frankly, Jessie L. Martin is still fine, gay, straight or dead.) And did they then think that Colin was gay for staying, much less liking the movie?

So once again, Colin and I find that we are at home with people half our age or gays.

So ‘Boro, once again, you mystify me. How long are you going to stay in your bleached-blonde, John Deere driving bubble?

By the way, your kids are down with it. At the end, as the credits rolled, there they were applauding.

There’s a line in the song , “La Vie Boheme”, that says “The opposite of war isn’t peace--it’s creation.” But, of course, the South walked out before they got to hear that line.

Sequins in my eyes

2005-11-10T17:25:00.000-08:00

It’s my time of year. Catalog time. Love it more than the actual holidays, frankly. They are all about promise. What I would purchase if I was generous or on the ball or had any friends. What I might receive, if I was generous or had any friends.

There is quite a hierarchy in the catalog market. Heifer International is the break-your-heart one. Can’t resist those little kids cradling little chickens and thanking faceless readers for funding his HIV drug therapy.

Then comes the frivolous stuff—and I’m a sucker for it. Shirts with cute sayings, hand-stitched Christmas stockings, chocolates stacked to make a pyramid. Today I received Amazon’s catalog. I don’t know if it is their first one, but a letter from me will be going out to assist. They have the website going pretty well, but the hardcopy mail-out is droll and boring. Exactly what I would find at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Twelve choices of cookware and some ugly dishes.

My favorite is Pier 1 Imports. They are the Bronté or Hemingway, or even Coetzee of catalogs. Just like a well-told story, their pictures highlight that product on an uncluttered backdrop. A sparse table with no bills and magic markers holds a single candlestick, so glittery and luminescent that if I buy it, I too might be transferred into the solitude and hope of the picture. Jewel colors, thin glass, silver sequins. Heaven.

I used to be partial to Pottery Barn. The way all the houses overlook some Maine bay and the walls and furniture are white with a single blue egg sitting on top of a coffee table. Then the wispy little kids, always barefoot and wearing linen dresses and thick headband doing a wooden puzzle. They have conned middle America into emulating what we think is going on in the Hamptons, while I am sure Pottery Barn is synonymous with Woolworth in the Hamptons.

The sucky ones are the ones that are all fruit or Christmas cards. I wonder how that Christmas card market fares. What with computer software these days that can do all the personalizing for you. Don’t get me started on fruit. If you want to say Merry Christmas, don’t send me a pound of oranges. Pulp does not say love.

Every year I tell myself I am going to do a catalog-only Christmas. Just dog-ear the pages and make one order that arrives the week before Santa does. But for the same reason they don’t let people live in lofts above Main Street USA in Disney World, I don’t want to spoil the magic. That candlestick from Pier 1 wouldn’t be able to live up to my dreams. Just like my writing, that ends up jumbled and unclear, that candlestick would end up amid a Judy Moody book, three pencils, glasses, a half-eaten apple and the acorns my daughter has collected to “dress up” our kitchen table.

Years ago, we went to visit the in-laws in Australia. We left our resilient cat, Tequila Mockingbird, home with some neighbors. But while we were Down Under, he went on walkabout. A year later I opened a Pottery Barn catalog and there he was, lounging on a white cotton couch, the bay glistening out his window. He’s a model now and I’m sure he’s yucking it up with the headband girls and chino-wearing mothers about me. “She doesn’t even live near a bay,” he says and they all look at each other and burst out laughing.

Chex Mate

2005-10-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

Whacka doodle-do

2005-10-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Natural woman

2005-09-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

It is only when recounting what I did over the weekend to a friend, that I realize my life is a bit off-kilter.
Working backwards-- we went to a party on Sat. night at my girl Cindy's. Cindy is this meek woman who teaches Tassy piano and also works with me on the newsletter for TN Writers Alliance. The woman wears skirts, bakes brownies and plays the tamborine to hymns. So when I tell you she has the best parties around, you might tend to think I am in my dellusional phase again. But no doubt, they are great. The people are always artsy hang-on-the-perimeter-of-society people and the guitars and keyboard get dragged into the back yard where the wine is flowing and people are laughing. Except for one tiny disagreement over the benefits of soy, it was an immaculate night. I carried on the interpretive dancing that I learned in Bennington under the tutelage of Andrea. "Daniel" by Elton John was a hit, what with all those twinkling stars and tears in the eye.
Prior to that though, we weren't going to go. We didn't have a babysitter. My parents only live here 6 months of the year and it is the six months that no one invites us to anything.
So I called Cindy to decline. Within a few hours she called back telling me she had procured a babysitter for me. A sweet young girl named L.
This girl has a great family, experience with little sisters and plays soccor for her high school soccer team. And she only has one arm. Frankly, she proves that we only really need one arm in life and therefore saps the "intelligent" out of the intelligent design debate.
So when I talk to the midgets in the morning, I ask them what they did. Oh, they had great fun and played games. Oh, what games? Twister. Twister? So then I wonder if my oldest has a bit of a competitive streak. Of all the Candy Land and Strawberry Shortcake games, the MouseTrap and Hungry Hungry Hippos, which game is going to make the babysitter lose when the little spinny wheel lands on "Right hand on red?"
To start the weekend, my family and I enjoyed a moving ceremony at the Nashville courthouse where my husband became "naturalized." He is now a citizen of America, as well as Australia.
We took Tassy out of school so we all could go. It was a solemn affair and neither Colin nor I thought that it would affect us as much as it did. The speech written by the judge was very inspiring, and as I watched each person, one by one, stand and say their name and what country they were leaving to come here, I got a little teary. Granted, Australia is not a horrible place where people shack up in freight containers to escape from. But when an old Iraqi man can barely stand to say his name and a young Chinese girl next to him helps him to his feet, it is really moving.
Afterward, we went out to celebrate. So there we were, an Australian-American sitting with his half Cuban wife (whose father still celebrates the day he naturlaized fifty plus years ago) with one stark white-haired girl and other curly-top girl, eating knishes and blintzes in a jewish deli in downtown Music City restaurant called Noshville. So natural.

Hedging bets

2005-09-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

So I start this blog. One measly entry and then here comes my friend Bree, going ape on me and telling me that now SHE has to have a blog. Her first entry, an ode to me. So sweet.
But since then she has actually been adding to hers, while I sort of forgot I had even done one. And then there was this whole email stream between the Bennington Five (like Ben Folds five without the adverbs) about needing a focus to one's blog. I hadn't really thought of that. Surpsire, surprise. I got a blog because we don't have a puppy. I just wanted someone to silenty listen to me.
Then some other writing friends were over and asked, "why are you doing a blog?" Yet another question I hadn't thought of. Frankly, I thought that it was called a blog because it sounds like "blah, blah, blah." I am crossing my fingers that this is true.
Then I realized I do have a reason to start a blog. A noble one at that. Seems I have attracted the wrong type of people with my website. Unbeknownst to some out there, people can actually see, not only who comes to their website, but why. (this little tidbit put my friend P. into a tailspin. Guess the stalkfest is over, huh?)
I've had a few who are actually looking for me, a few looking for stuff on Cuba or a local event. But I have had three searching the web for "wetback jokes" and ending up on my doorstep. Yes. It is not like they are looking for something general like "office jokes" or "dirty jokes". They have zoned in on their target. And tomorrow around the watercooler they are going to let go a zinger. Manuel is going to laugh his head off!
I have "wetback jokes" written in my bio. I heard a lot of them growing up because no one thought that the redhead girl was Cuban. That one about bloated bodies washing up on shore cracks me up every time.
I'm vain as the next guy. I want people to come to my website. So here is a new slew of keywords that will bring them in like flies:

Jessica Alba
Jessica Simpson
Marge Simpson
The Zone diet
sex
rhinoplasty
mojito recipe
Discount Disney Tickets
Kanye West
Bush hates Latinos

So, now I'll sit back and watch the bloated web surfers wash up at my website. Joke's on them.

Making it safer out there

2005-09-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Religious Freedom Week!

In the beginning...

2005-09-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm really not much for small talk. I don't journal (see how we made a verb out of it) or write three pages a morning (a fascist technique forced on writers to make them feel guilty about yet another failure). So I decided I will use this space to do all the above. I think this is what they refer to as "dumbing down."
I assume you will find nothing here useful. I almost feel bad for using up the cyberspace, but since I understand that it is unlimited, I'm going to get my piece of the pie.
Unfortunately, if you know me, there will be plenty of sentences dedicated to complaining or whining about something. At times it will be significant--that Katrina stuff is messed up. Sometimes it will be trivial--I don't understand the attraction of Eva Longoria. Sometimes it may be a mixture, a fantasy, where I combine it all and make Eva Longoria stuck in Katrina, mud, toxic waste and all, and then try to see if she remains pert.
Half my life is spent in the world of children, girl children. The other half is in books or writing. This leaves little room (13%?) for reality or interesting conversation. However, if you are surfing the web and realize that you are in the mood for some good ol' bellyaching, please drop by and give this a read. I'll be here, putting off real life for a while longer.