kimville

I've returned to work on my novel, Unplanted. It's been a long time since I worked on it, and I am feeling fully connected to it right now. A great deal of my energy is going in that direction.

I have created a new blog where I will collect and post journal entries, drafts and other bits and pieces as I move through the project. There isn't too much there right now, but I thought I'd share the link:

unplanted.wordpress.com

Some entries (mostly drafts) will be password protected. If you'd like to read them, let me know and I'll send you the password.

Because I am so invested in Unplanted, I doubt I will be returning to this blog for a while.

I've been sick and bed/home bound for four days now. I'm beginning to feel the ickiness wear off, but it's a slow process. Simple things wear me out, like taking a shower, or playing fetch with my oh-so-very bored dog. And I'm having troubles staying focused, too. I'm reading Leviathan now, but it's slow going. I read each page a couple times, and this one is much easier to follow than Travels in the Scriptorium. I've been doing some work, too, but about all I've really accomplished is reading and responding to email.

In the meantime, I have a couple very interesting projects I need to work on.

A few months ago I was asked to be a judge for the Northshore school district's literary journal, Reflections. It's really a cool opportunity. I've been reading poetry and short stories by sixth through twelth graders and again I am reminded that there are some very good young writers out there. Once again I am thinking that maybe I should be teaching in public schools. But I know that would drive me crazy. As Robin says, I would likely end up either screaming and pulling my hair out, or breaking out in maniacal laughter. I don't really get an opportunity for either of those things in my current job.

I've also been helping Robin with her application to a post-graduate program. I told her when she began her application that this would be some of the most difficult writing she would ever have to do. She didn't believe me. And now the deadline is less than 24 hours away and we still have some work to do. It's fun for me, and very satisfying. Part of that satisfaction comes in knowing that I am helping her move into the next phase of her life, and another part comes in knowing that I am using my talents/abilities solely for her. We had a bit of a tiff last week about what it means to work for your partner, but the dust settled quickly and we agreed that I am not working for her, that I am giving her support in a way that most of the folks she knows can't or wouldn't.

Eventually I want to write about the fact that Robin kept telling me that she can't offer lactation coaching for me (because I'm not lactating, never have and likely never will), nor can she deliver or help deliver my baby (again, I'm not pregnant). In fact, I think that's what I sat down to write about--something about how people who are close to one another provide support through their areas of expertise. One of the questions I ask when I'm interviewing potential new tutors is: where do you go for help with your writing? They usually tell me that they ask friends or family members for help, rather than coming to the Writing Center. I always think it's interesting that they would seek support from someone other than a resource that's readily avaiable and trained specifically to help others with their writing. For me it'd be like asking a friend who only knows a little bit about cars to replace my brakes, rather than going to Les Schwab.

I think I was also going to write something about how weird I think lactation is, but I've forgotten what it was.

I'd feel pretty smarmy if I told you that Paul Auster is my new hero. Truth is, I don't have any heroes anyway, so saying that I have a new hero would be a falsehood in itself. But I do love Auster and I've decided that I will read all of his works this year. I'm starting with novels, interspersed with some autobiographical nonfiction. He's published a ton, more than I could ever imagine writing. I can't help but think of all that he's written that hasn't been published. One of the dominant themes in his work--both fiction and non--is failure. I wonder how many times he's thought of himself as a failure. (And yes, I am going to read the works he's translated, too. That should spice things up a bit.)

Auster makes me want to write; I suppose that fact along makes him eligible for hero status. But the more I read, the more I want to read and writing gets put on the back burner. Again and again.

I can hear you telling me that I need to make a schedule. Pick one hour a day to write, you say. Just do it, you say. Don't be such a hack, you say. 

I know, I know.

So here's what I've done/what I'm doing. I've started a new blog. Okay, so I found a name for a new blog and I registered it at blogger. I've heard wordpress is nice, too, and I'm looking into it. Really what I want is a blog/space where I can write without getting too distracted by bells, whistles and ads. True, I can (and do) write in Word and copy and paste into my blog. But I go back and read what I've written sometimes because I want to know what it looks like to other people. More than anything, though, I want something that's not just a blog in the sense of a 'look at me, I'm writing something' blog, but a place/space/blog where my writing will be a little more focused. in other words, rather than writing about my dog's yeast infection, I might write about the power of coincidence, or how I keep dreaming that I should get my PhD in literature and write a dissertation on Paul Auster.

(Total aside: I wonder if anyone's ever looked at Auster from a southern writer's perspective. I wonder what that would look like...)

More than anything, Auster has me thinking about the truth in fiction and the way truth is placed and conveyed in narrative. he has me thinking about how I need not worry about what is the truth and what is fiction. I shouldn't be trying so hard to come up with story ideas when the stories I need to tell are the truth and the truth is in me and I know these stories perfectly well. As a student in my graduate school cohort once said (regarding her thesis),  'I've finished my book. All I have to do is write it down.' Of course, she was being lame and pretentious and I still harbor bad feelings toward her. In my case, I do know the stories that will be in my book (or at least on my blog). All I have to do is conjure the images, change a few names and put it all on paper.

Easy as pie.

I finished reading The Book of Illusions this weekend. I stayed awake late into the night reading and when I was finished I felt incredibly sad and alone. I woke Robin and told her I'd finished. She promised to read it as soon as she can (when she's not applying to post-graduate programs or working on her master's thesis or taking care of her daughter or working or...). In the meantime, I continue to feel that sense of loneliness. I think it comes from not having anyone to talk to about the book. And another part of it comes from wanting to write, from knowing that Auster has set something off in me and that it is time for me to begin writing some very difficult stuff. After Robin promised me that she'd read The Book of Illusions, I told her how it made me want to write, and that it made me want to write my story/stories. And she told me, in that moment, in the middle of the night: Go write, now. Go.

And so I did then and so I must now.

Just last week, or maybe the week before, I sent my first text message. I can't remember what it said, I only know that I was texting for the sake of texting. You know, just to see what it's like. (The first one's free, kid.) It does nothing for me, really. True, I am interested in the way instant messaging and texting are creating a new language, or maybe that language is actually being established now. I think it was created years ago. I can remember the first time I saw someone write 'lol.' Actually, the person—who called himself Sneaky Pete—wrote 'rotflmao.' And I, being the chat room newbie, asked what it meant. Then I got a quick lesson in chat room speak. At first I resisted using the abbreviations. It just seemed silly. But then I found the benefits of using things like ‘brb’ (I spent a lot of my time in chat rooms in those days, and sometimes I had to eat or pee) and btw (honestly, I just like the way it looks) and I slowly developed a new accent.

It's still a pretty bad accent. I'm not ashamed to admit that. More than speaking in this accent, I really enjoy listening to (watching) others use this new language. Right now I want to do some research and figure out what sorts of words I should be using here to better identify what I'm talking about. Not too many years ago, I thought I wanted to get a master's in linguistics. I took a great literacy class in grad school and thought then that it would be cool to study Ebonics. But then I realized that there were at least 37 other grad students in the country at that moment who were writing their theses on Snoop Dog, and the idea sort of fell away from me. It's situations like this that make me start thinking about going back to school again, or at least spending some time reading Wikipedia.

Let me tell you at least three stories, intertwined.

The other night, Maiana, a twelve year old girl I know quite well, sent me a text message that read 'im depressed.' And that was it. Two words that adults normally used. Of course, I ignored it for several reasons:

1) Why would a 12 year old be depressed? No more ice cream? Can't have a sleepover? Too much  homework?

2) It was a text message. A text message that said 'im depressed.' How do you respond to something like that via text? Why not call? 

3) It was a text message. Text messages don't require responses.

Or do they?

Yesterday I went to a three and a half hour seminar on working with people from different generations. You know, like what to do when an old person you're working with doesn't like it when you don't remove your earbuds when you're talking to him. Or what to do when a baby boomer gets too demanding and asks you to work over the weekend. Or what to do when a gen xer plops herself down in your office, unannounced, and wants to ‘yak about the annual reports for a sec.’

Truly, it was a waste of my time. I wish I'd had my cell phone with me so that I could have texted Maiana and asked what’s up. But I couldn't text her anyway, because her mom took her cell phone away on Sunday as a result of a play date text-a-thon gone wrong. (It's a long story that involves three 12 year olds, at least two camera phones and a whole lot of screaming and crying. It also involves me, a 35 year old who all of the above mentioned 12 year olds refer to as 'a very slow texter.' Luckily)

So there I was, in the seminar, without my laptop or any other mode of communication to anyone outside the room. It was just me and a bunch of babble that I could have come up with on my own. I couldn't even doodle, because they kept making us do group work and silly role-playing exercises. So I listened as much as I could and I learned a bit about some of the reasons older generations act like they do and why younger generations act like they do and why middle aged generations act like they do. Mostly I just learned that sometimes it's hard to know what other people are thinking. Really, though, I didn't even learn that. I already knew it.

We talked about the youngest generation--Generation Y, aka the Millennials. And I thought about Maiana and the text she'd sent me the night before. I thought about sharing it with the class but I was multi-tasking in my mind, making to-do lists and puzzling through my budget and trying to remember if my dog pooped before I left for work. At some point the class discussed the fact that Gen Yers are most inclined to multi-task and I wondered what else Maiana was doing when she sent me that message and I fell into thought about how awful it is to be 12 and how horrible girls are to one another and how I didn't have a cell phone when I was 12, how I didn't even know what cell phones were, wouldn't know for several years and really would much prefer to read Teen Beat and then clip out the photos of cute guys and cell them to girls in my school who would then hang the pictures in their lockers. I had a picture of Chicken Boy in my locker. I had other pictures from other Weekly World News stories in my locker, too.

There was a time I wanted to write for the Weekly World News. I sent them a query letter a ferw years ago, but got no reply.

But I digress.

I wanted to tell you all of this so that you would in some way begin to understand why I don't like text messaging. Aside from the fact that I think it's pointless (pick up the phone, or send an email, people!), I also am quite slow at it. When you are texting, you have only so much room to get your point across. In fact, you have to be pretty concise, I've learned. You have to use your characters sparingly, and--as I see it, anyway--the goal is to write a message as fast as you can that relays no more than two facts at a time. preferably just one fact. As in 'hes hot,' or 'im depressed,' or 'i wrote sumthin 2day.'

In the time it took me to write this, I might have been able to write about five text messages to you. And you'd know far less than you do now

I wanted to write something really great tonight. Something about how Robin and Maiana and I went to the International District for Chinese food this afternoon and how that sparked all kinds of memories and how the smell of hoisin sauce is still in my nostrils and I am still twitchy from the crowds and the lack of parking and the way that one fish in the bottom of the tank at the resturaunt just sat there, planted himself on the bottom.

But when I got home tonight I ran through my usual routine: check voicemail, check work email, do a little work, check personal email. Read the news.

And it's in the last step of this process that my stomach began to turn.

In New York, a 34 year old man was trampled to death in a Wal-Mart yesterday. He was trampled to death by dozens of greedy, horrible people. I cannot stop thinking about it. When Robin called to tell me good night, we talked about the news story and she told me to stop reading it. Stop thinking about it. But I can't. I am so, so very angry at the people who trampled the man, and at everyone who stood outside a retail store yesterday morning, waiting to get a good deal on something they didn't really need.

I haven't paid too much attention to politics since the election, but I have caught glimpses of quotes of people calling Obama a socialist. And I think about how capitalism leads people to want to get up in the wee hours of the morning and crowd outside a store and fight and even kill others. And I think about how I ashamed I am that I live in a country and an era when this sort of thing can happen. And I think about how much I would like to do something, though I've no idea what that something might be. All I know is that I am angry and horrified and hoping for a change much, much larger than our President Elect can bring.

But even with a major political or economic shift we will still be the same, wouldn't we? I will still be a person who chooses not to buy into such ruthless behavior. And some others will still choose to force their ways into stores very early in the morning, to shove one another out of the way, to throw each other down on the ground. All for the sake of buying something that they will likely wrap in paper, stick under a tree and give to a child on Christmas Day and tell that child that a kind, magical man named Santa brought it for them. 

I've been thinking about getting a new blog. Not so much a new blog, I guess, but a new location for the same sort of stuff I write here. I'm really bugged by that ad banner at the top of my livejournal page. I don't know where it came from or how to make it go away. No one's paying me to put it there. But then, I suppose, I'm not paying anyone to put my words here, either.

But it's not just the banners that are bugging me. It's something larger. I looked at my archive today and realized that I've had this account for just over four years. And then I started thinking about how long I've lived in this house--about three and a half years. I've had my current job that long, too. This is the most settled I've been since 1993. I was on the one to two year plan for more than a decade. Here's how it went:

1993--1995 in the Navy, mostly Bremerton, WA
1995-1996 out of the Navy, nearly married
1996--married, moved from WA to FL
1997--still married, moved from FL to SC and then Puerto Rico
1998--marriage really sucked. moved back to WA
1999--found a place of my own. worked crappy jobs. started school again, ended sucky marriage
2000--moved to a crappier apartment, continued school and crappy job
2001--finished school, kept one crappy job and one good job
2002--moved to OR, started grad school (ambitious)
2003--continued grad school (bitter)
2004--finished grad school, moved back to WA
2004--2005--lived in someone else's house, had several crappy jobs at once
2005--got current job with dental and medical and retirement. moved into current house
2006--got dog. dog continues to live in current house and i feed him with food i buy with money i earn from my current job, which i have had for three and a half years.

So I suppose I've settled down. Is that what they mean? I used to think settling down meant getting married, but now I think it means finding a comfortable place where you don't have to shift around all the time. But is that a good thing? Is it good for me to settle? I am in my mid-thirties, and I have a dog and a car payment and a 401k. I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I work nine to five Monday through Friday. I run errands on weekends.

There is a certain sense of contentment that comes with this settling, but there's also a bit of fear. Settling makes me feel unsettled. As if maybe this is the end of the line.

And with that thought I started looking for a new place to live. The house I rent now is great. It lacks natural light and the yard is small and not fenced, but it's fairly reasonable and the location is good. But I want something else. More space for the dog, more light for me. More than anything I want a change. What I found was that my options are few. I am a renter in a buyer's market. I am a renter in a market where apartments are turning into condos, where old houses are razed and condos and town homes pop up seemingly overnight.

I found only one place that suited me. The rent is a little more than what I pay now. There is a fenced front yard and more square footage.
 

The location isn't suitable to my needs, however.

The more I look, the fewer possibilities I find. So I'm back to thinking I should stay put and ride out this 'economic downturn' until I can find a place of my own.

Suddenly I feel like Lenny and George, hoping for that little place, trying to talk myself into waiting just a little while longer, trying to talk myself into putting everything I can into getting that little place. I find myself wanting to settle, really settle.

I can't think of Lenny and George without thinking of my own transient characters, Mattie and Joe. Mattie hates her life, resents Joe for bringing her along with him, for drawing her into this lifestyle. Joe has no desire to settle in one spot. His life is a path, not a place.

And here is where it all comes together. I have found another part of me that is Mattie, and another part of me that is Joe. I have found my characters, if only for one evening. I thought more about what they want, and for that I know them just a little better. So perhaps I should stop thinking of how I've settled and instead focus on the transience of my own writing, the ebbs and flows of it, the way my characters ring my doorbell and run away, the way I approach the page wanting nothing more than to pour out word after word, the way I think too much without writing enough. The way I put my craft aside and instead settle on a life of routine.

I was wondering earlier if I could write a story from the pov of a newborn.  I keep thinking of Zora, who is now ten days old. She's still adjusting to life outside the womb, and I wish I could remember what that was like. I wish any of us could remember our lives in utero and during and after birth so that we could have at least one story to share, one way of knowing what it is like to live inside someone and then, suddenly, be outside that person in a space that feels intensely large, cold and terribly unsafe.

I'm reading Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things. The protagonist makes the choice to enter a world in which she is forced to give up all comforts and learn a new set of rules for living. Her reasons for entering this world remain unclear to me, or at least I cannot find a rational explanation for her choice. And we are not told what life was like in the world she came from. We only know that it was better, and much more safe.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm still thinking of Zora and her sudden appearance, or if I'm really understanding Auster's intent, but (at this point, anyway) the book stands as an interesting metaphor for birth and our life after we are born, how we are forced to learn, and obey, a set of rules. How we are taught to interact differently with disparate groups. How nearly everything can change suddenly and without reason. How the one constant is that we are living and breathing and moving and that we know these things are true and we have to find ways to live and breathe and move with as little conflict as possible.

I'm really interested in Auster's work lately. A few weeks ago I referenced his autobiography in relation to failure, and I see now that failure is a familiar theme in his work. I see that his characters are aware of their failure and though I wouldn't say they resign themselves to it, I do think they settle into their worlds knowing that it is not where they are supposed to be, in the grand scheme of things.

I was thinking of bringing all of this back to notions of early childhood—very early childhood. I was thinking about how birth is the ultimate failure. There's a really bad movie called Look Who's Talking. I've been thinking about it a lot since Zora arrived. And I've been thinking of this quote:

It's weird, isn't it? You spend the first nine months trying to get out and the rest of your life trying to get back in.

And while that quote doesn't say quite what I'm thinking, and it certainly doesn't convey my thoughts with any profundity, it does at least capture the gist of what I'm trying to get at. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I guess citing a quote from a movie in which a taxi driver gets existential with a baby is not the best way to go about this explanation.

What I'm trying to say, what I think I am trying to say, is that we fail when we are born. We are meant to stay in the womb and we fail when we are no longer able to hold ourselves there. Or perhaps we are meant to exit the womb, as the taxi driver suggests, and it is because of our lack of awareness of the world that we fail when we exit the womb. I wonder if that is what Auster is suggesting. The way he depicts the great sense of loneliness, isolation, and fear certainly seems to align with what I can only imagine Zora is feeling. I am anxious to finish the book tonight and think about what his intent really is.

I am also anxious to see Zora again and ask her some questions she is not yet able to answer.

Sunday night my friend Nicole gave birth to a baby girl. Less than an hour later, her partner called me and asked if I could bring some diapers. (You should know that the baby came eleven days early, and that she was born at home. I think those two facts should explain the lack of diapers).

So I went to Nicole and Alex's house right away. Got there as fast as I could. Not because I knew they needed diapers, and not because I wanted to be one of the first to see little Zora, but because I was thrilled. I was thrilled and honored to be the one to buy Zora her first diaper. I was thrilled and honored that Alex called me.

I met Zora when she was less than two hours old. I've never met anyone that young. Most people I meet are adults. Occasionally I meet someone who's younger, but it's rare to meet a baby. Usually we talk about seeing a baby. Rarely do we talk about meeting them.

I knew Zora when (according to a website Nicole read throughout her pregnancy) she was the size of a lentil. I suppose that's when I met her, when she was in Nicole's uterus and was the size of a lentil.

I won't let this become a musing on the beginnings of life and what we are when we are inside our mothers. This has nothing to do with that. It's about knowing people. It's about getting to know them.

For the past eight or so months, we have all refered to Zora as T-bone. (A Seinfeld reference, and a nickname Zora's parents gave her before she had a name, before she even had a gender.) On Monday, though, Zora was named Zora and the nickname was, in a sense, retired. No one calls her T-bone anymore. We call her the baby; we call her Zora; we call her the cutest thing we've ever seen.

When no one's around, when I'm in my head and thinking of Zora, I call her Something Incredible. Amazing, really.

I don't subscribe to any religion, and I'm not very spiritual. I've had experiences that I can only describe as spiritual, and on Monday I went to the ocean knowing that that was where I was supposed to be, that was where I would be able to feel what I needed to feel. For weeks I prepared for the trip (mentally, mostly). I imagined it would be a difficult journey. I imagined Monday would be a terrible day.

But Zora's arrival changed that. She changed the way this time of year feels for me. I can grieve a loss and celebrate a new life all at once. And I suppose each year I will do that. I have a feeling I am going to know Zora for a long time--at least I hope I will. I have seen her three times now. Today I held her for the first time and it felt wonderful. I've never held someone quite that young. I've never held someone quite that powerful.

I wish I'd had more time at the ocean. Being there for a couple days was exactly what I needed. I suppose it was something of a spiritual retreat. And it was spiritual. I had some beautiful moments on the beach, just walking and feeling. The air was heavy with memories.

But, as I said in my last post, I don't want to write about those things, not here anyway. I did plenty of writing last night, another reason for the trip.

I stayed in a crappy motel, perhaps the crappiest in Westport, Washington. I should have been tipped off by the photo on the website, of a lighthouse that obviously isn't the Grays Harbor lighthouse. I should have also been tipped off by the fact that the website said the motel is 'centrally located.' By that they meant that the place is stuck at the end of a dead end road, right between the VFW and a doublewide.

No matter, though. The place was quiet and, in spite of its lack of charm or wifi, it was free of distractions. I suppose charm and wifi count as distractions, so really, there was nothing to do in that room but think, sleep and write.

The place was chock full of fodder. Consider the guy who runs the place. His name's Tom and he's a musician. Tom plays in a band (actually just a duo) called Timeless. I asked him what kind of music he plays, and he told me it's a romp through the past one hundred years. They play four to ten songs from each decade per gig. At fancy events, Tom wears a tuxedo. They don't play too many fancy events, mostly just the VFW next door. Another thing you should know about Tom is that he plays in a pirate band that plays, you know, pirate music. Tom told me is he head pirate in Westport. I thought he was messing with me until I got home and did a little poking around on the internets.

Tom wasn't lying. He's the head of the Rusty Scupper Pirates (www.rustyscupperpirates.com).

So there's one character.

Another person to write about is the gal at the drugstore where I went to buy some food and water bowls for Petey. I'd made a quick stop by the liquor store next door for a couple mini bottles and when I put the paper sack on the counter, the cashier said (quite excitedly), 'I recognize that sound!' She asked what I was drinking and before I could answer she started telling me all about her love for sex on the beach (the drink, you know). There's a place in Westport called the X-Rated, or something like that, that makes the best sex on the beach you can get--not too fruity and chock full of booze. Gina (I don't know her name, but she looked like a Gina) also loves her some pommegranet martinis. Really, she just loves to drink. Gina wears a flannel shirt three sizes too big, a yellow dew rag and a black t-shirt. She picked up both of my purchases (a couple tupperware bowls and a juice glass) and examined them carefully. Maybe she was trying to figure out why they only cost a dollar each. Maybe she was trying to figure out which I'd put the booze in--the bowls or the glass. Really I think she was just trying to extend our conversation as long as she could. Gina was obviously lonely and she loved to shoot the shit with the tourists. And since I was the only tourist in Westport, WA, Gina wanted to know all about me. Unfortunately for her I was too creeped out to stick around and I told her I had to go because my dog was in my car. I'm still surprised, and a little disappointed, that she didn't ask what kind of dog I have.

The population of Westport is 2,400. In my two days I estimate I saw fifteen people. This is not because I stayed in my room. It's just that Westport sort of disappears in the wintertime. The stores are shut down and the only open restaurant was a place called Original Pizza. It was original alright. Originally crappy. The waitress is pregnant and for reasons I'll never know, put a piece of plastic (looked like a drycleaner bag) over her belly to show off how pregnant she is. I don't have much else to tell you about her, but I'm sure I can make something up.

In fact, it won't be too difficult to make up a lot about the folks in Westport. There are lots of blanks to fill in, but I'm feeling up to the task. I'm anxious to go back there to stay in crappy motels and eat crappy food and watching the less than one percent of the folks who are said to live there.

Oh, and there are deer and pelicans and feral cats there, too. I could make up some stuff about them, too.

I have been sifting through my books, trying to find something good to take to bed with me tonight. But nothing appeals. I have hundreds of books, and have probably not read half of them. I tend to accumulate them faster than I can or care to read. So here is my library, and here I am pulling books off my shelves, scanning the jacket and the first few pages and putting it back on the shelf. One after another. And here I am, unable to find any words that speak to me.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for exactly. Something that matches my mood, maybe. Something that resonates heavily. Something that will keep me from thinking too much before I fall asleep.

But nothing is there. And it occurs to me that maybe the words that will resonate are not on my shelves. Maybe the words are inside me. Maybe they will come onto the page tonight.

Tonight I am thinking.

Tonight I am remembering.

I am remembering a time, nearly five years ago.

I have thought a lot lately about writing about that time, or of writing about the time that stands between here and that moment, or set of moments, five years ago. But while I am able to go there in my mind, sometimes without willing it, I am not willing to write it down. I do not want to tell you about it all.

Some of it you already know.

But most of it you will not be able to understand.

So I try to steer my thoughts away from those moments and instead let them settle on something else. Those words that need to resonate are not coming and I cannot find that something else.

Tonight I am remembering and the remembering is so strong I cannot will it away. I have been able to will it away when I am at work. I can throw myself into meetings and email and make it all dissolve into my day to day. At least, temporarily.

It is when I am at home, after my day has ended that it comes to me. Here is when it is so powerful it seems, in some spaces, all consuming. Like it could pick me up and carry me away. My memories are that strong.

But, as I told you, I do not want to write about them.

I wrote a bit last week about how much I’ve been listening to NPR lately, but I don’t think I wrote about how much smarter it’s made me feel. I’ve always been self conscious of my intellect. I know that part of it is directly related to the way I was brought up. Picture this:

It’s suppertime. Nineteen-eighty-something. Rural South Carolina. I am maybe 12 or 13, probably a little younger. Here is my sister, four years older. Here is my brother, four years younger. Mom and Dad at opposite ends of the table. My father’s end is known as the ‘head.’ We know this is the head of the table because it is the only spot you can sit in and get a full view of the TV in the living room. Suppertime is quiet. Forks and knives are in conversation with each other, but my family says nothing. The news is on. The only person who gets to speak during the news is my father. If he initiates conversation with you during the news, pond you respond. But briefly. If you are asked a question, you respond with ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir.’

If the nightly news is over and the local news is on, it is sometimes okay to speak, especially during the sports and weather. We all are quite good at having conversations during commercials, too.

On some nights, though, there is little news. Not much has happened in the world on, say, a Friday evening, and my father is a little more relaxed knowing he won’t have to work quite as long tomorrow, and that he will likely have Sunday off. Maybe he drinks a beer. Maybe we have pizza, or cheap frozen seafood.

He asks a question, some sort of trivia, usually having something to do with something that was on the news earlier that week. Or maybe he asks a question about history, or social studies. Usually it is something I know.

This is a game. This is the game my family plays when the news is over and we are still eating and we can talk.

The question is not asked of one of us, but of all of us. It is ‘Quick! Who knows__________?’

I usually know the answer. Sometimes, though, it’s best if I just stay quiet.

Sometimes my sister will guess. And often she is not right. My father laughs at her. Thinking we should do what he does, my brother and I laugh at her too. She was wrong. If you are wrong, you are laughed at.

I wrote a bit last week about how much I’ve been listening to NPR lately, but I don’t think I wrote about how much smarter it’s made me feel. I’ve always been self conscious of my intellect. I know that part of it is directly related to the way I was brought up. Picture this:

It’s suppertime. Nineteen-eighty-something. Rural South Carolina. I am maybe 12 or 13, probably a little younger. Here is my sister, four years older. Here is my brother, four years younger. Mom and Dad at opposite ends of the table. My father’s end is known as the ‘head.’ We know this is the head of the table because it is the only spot you can sit in and get a full view of the TV in the living room. Suppertime is quiet. Forks and knives are in conversation with each other, but my family says nothing. The news is on. The only person who gets to speak during the news is my father. If he initiates conversation with you during the news, pond you respond. But briefly. If you are asked a question, you respond with ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir.’

 

If the nightly news is over and the local news is on, it is sometimes okay to speak, especially during the sports and weather. We all are quite good at having conversations during commercials, too.

On some nights, though, there is little news. Not much has happened in the world on, say, a Friday evening, and my father is a little more relaxed knowing he won’t have to work quite as long tomorrow, and that he will likely have Sunday off. Maybe he drinks a beer. Maybe we have pizza, or cheap frozen seafood.

He asks a question, some sort of trivia, usually having something to do with something that was on the news earlier that week. Or maybe he asks a question about history, or social studies. Usually it is something I know.

This is a game. This is the game my family plays when the news is over and we are still eating and we can talk.

The question is not asked of one of us, but of all of us. It is ‘Quick! Who knows__________?’

I usually know the answer. Sometimes, though, it’s best if I just stay quiet.

Sometimes my sister will guess. And often she is not right. My father laughs at her. Thinking we should do what he does, my brother and I laugh at her too. She was wrong. If you are wrong, you are laughed at.

And it's killing me that I can't talk to Scott right now.
.

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2008/02/17/sports/venture/1vent01_wray.txt

For the record, I want it known that Binky Chastain was my character's name first.

It's a little too coincidental that this article appears in the Corvallis Gazette Times.

Someone is stealing from me, I just know it. I will find this person. And I will do something.

I’ve just spent several minutes searching the Internet for Obama’s infomercial. I was stuck in traffic this evening while it aired, and by the time I got home it was already over. So instead of plunking myself in front of the TV to watch even more political banter, I got to go outside and play with my dog.

I’ve never paid so much to politics. I’ve only voted in a few elections and I’ve never really thought much about who I was voting for. Yes, I’ve always voted democrat (except that one time when I voted for Perot, but I was young, I didn’t know better).  This year, though, I’ve been paying attention. I watched the debates. I watched the conventions. I’ve read new articles, engaged in political conversation with friends and co-workers.

But at some point you just have to say enough, I suppose. I’ve gotten to that point where I know enough. I never really had to pay attention in the first place. There’s no way I would have voted Republican. There was no decision to be made. Many of the things I believe in are more aligned with the Green Party, but I know they don’t have a chance of winning, and that a vote for them is a vote that’s taken away from the Democrats. That’s all I need to know, really. I know that the way to make things better is to get Obama in office. I don’t really need to watch his infomercial.

Until this election, I never really thought about what those things that could make things better  might be. I never cared much about economics, but I’ve lived on minimum wage. I’ve been unemployed and broke. I’ve paid ridiculous amounts of money for food and gas. A couple weeks ago I began a food drive for my department and I helped load a car with boxes of food that would be taken to a local food bank that has been running out of food a lot lately.

I never cared much about military issues, but I know that war is wrong, and I know that the war in Iraq is senseless. And now my nephew is in the Army. He just graduated from boot camp a few weeks ago.  I never wanted him to think that joining the military could be a good thing. I talked to him at length about my time in the Navy, and why I didn’t think he should join. I tried to help him figure out what else he could do after he graduated from high school. And now I spend a lot of time hoping that he will not have to go to war.

There are other issues I have begun to feel strongly about. Or what I should say is that I’ve felt strongly about those issues in the past in the past but never did anything about it—there’s nothing about this election that’s changed my attitudes about any issues that are on the table. I remain a little left of Obama. But the thing is, I’ve begun to see this election as a larger landscape, rather than just a piece at a time.

It’s all coming together for me. I suppose that’s the trite way of saying it. I can see now how it all matters, how it is all, in one way or another, affecting me.

…………………..

I told you yesterday that I took a drive to Mt Vernon on Monday. It was a work-related trip and, instead of using the campus car, I drove my own car. I could have driven the campus Prius. I could have saved my own gas—I could have saved a lot of gas, really. But I feel more comfortable driving my car, much for the same reason I carry my keys everywhere I go. If I need to make a quick escape I don’t have to rely on anyone else. I can just go.

I don’t take the bus, either. I could do it; the bus stop is three blocks from my house, and the bus would drop me off very close to where I work. But the commute would be 90 minutes each way, compared to 30 minutes if I drive myself. And I can’t read on the bus; I get motion sickness. So all that time would be wasted. Three hours a day spent on the bus, doing nothing but watching out the window, scooting over so that someone could sit next to me, not wanting to talk to anyone, not wanting to do anything but get there.

I feel bad sometimes for the amount of money I spend on gas. I feel bad about what I am doing to the environment by driving alone every day. But that’s just how it has to be.

When I am driving, I am in control. I don’t get distracted by others. I can choose my route. I can stop anywhere along the way. I can speed a little if I want to get somewhere sooner. And if someone gets in my way, I can show them my middle finger.

There’s a lot of satisfaction in all of that.

I don’t have to listen to others babbling on their cell phones, talking with each other, or asking the driver inane questions. I don’t have to listen to the bus driver announce each stop. Instead I can listen to the radio—and I do, pretty much all the time.

Over the past several months I’ve been listening to NPR. I’m not sure when or why I started doing it. I don’t remember programming the station into my stereo’s preset buttons. I don’t remember when I stopped listening to KEXP in the mornings. Somewhere I made the transition, and it’s been working out pretty well for me.

So during my commute I get a good dose of world and national news. I hear exposés and cool interviews. I time my commute so that I get to hear BirdNote, a quick little show about the lives and habitats of birds.

I’m learning all sorts of things. I feel smarter just telling you that I listen to NPR. Sometimes I feel like a bit of an elitist, I suppose. And sometimes I feel like I have this air of privilege around me just because I am listening to NPR. I know this especially when I am at the corner of Aurora and 105^th. There’s a homeless man who stands on the southwest corner every morning. He’s in poor health; he limps; his speech is slurred; his hands and arms are swollen and covered with sores.

I don’t know his story, but I wish I did. I give him a dollar every now and then, when I’m in the far right lane and traffic stops long enough for me to turn down the radio and roll down my window and get his attention, which isn’t hard, as he moves slowly yet steadily from car to car. Every day he asks:

Can you help me, please?

That’s his only line. He asks it again and again, once for each car he stands near. When I give him my dollar he thanks me, and tells me God bless.

I wish him luck, and I roll up my window and I turn the volume back up and I try to figure out what I missed when I wasn’t listening to NPR.

I likely missed something about the economy, about the unemployment rate or the rising cost of food.

I probably missed an overly intellectualized message from the privileged elite. I probably missed someone on the radio telling me the same thing the homeless man on Aurora and 105^th is telling me.

Some people are really in need. And it aches to need so much.

…………………..

I like to think that I do what I can to help. I like to think that the dollar I give that man actually does him some good. I like to think that when I send in my ballot this week, I will be helping to enact some change.

There’ve been a couple elections when I chose not to vote, when I really didn’t think it mattered. I suppose I thought someone else would take care of it, that the majority would locate the problems, define the issues and care enough to do something about it all. I suppose I thought that I was either being taken care of by others who shared my beliefs.

There’ve been times, too, when I chose not to give money to the homeless guy on the corner, when I saw someone in the car in front of me hand him a bill or a palmful of coins.

…………………..

Like everything else I’ve been writing about lately, all this thinking has brought me back to the notion of writing. I never really thought I’d write something with any sort of political bent to it at all. I never really wanted to. Even now, having written a couple pages about voting and social change, I’m not quite satisfied. It all feels too big, and like I said earlier, there comes a point when I have to turn away from it all, when I feel like I have taken in enough.  I switch from NPR to another station. Sometimes I find a way to move a conversation from political topics to something else. Sometimes I look away from the southwest corner of Aurora and 105^th and pretend to watch something else as the homeless man walks by.

Sometimes I have to stop writing about writing and just plunge in to whatever comes to mind first.

I've started to realize that this is the place I want to post my writing--for now, anyway. And I can see that some of the things I will be posting here are things I don't necessarily want to share with most people. So I'll be making some private 'friends-only' entries from time to time. If you're a friend, and you want to read my senseless drivel, let me know. I think you have to have a LiveJournal account and then I add you as a friend, or something like that. At any rate, I feel pretty honored that anyone would want to read anything of mine anyway.

Today I got an email from a company in SC called Cromer’s. I don’t know why they sent me an email. It was just one of those things that happened that I can’t spend too much time questioning.

Cromer’s has been around forever. Their claim to fame is their peanuts, though when I was little they were sort of a party supply store, too. My grandma would take me there every now and then—or maybe it was my grandpa who took me there, I can’t remember. What I can remember, quite distinctly, is the smell—a mixture of cheap plastic, balloons, popcorn, roasting peanuts and candy. The aisles, as I remember, were full of what would now seem to me like junk. Cheap toys that worked well as party favors, but not much more. Bags and bags of balloons. Novelty items, though not like the ones my grandpa kept that were either risque or somehow related to poop or pee.

The main thing I loved about Cromer’s though was the monkeys. The location we always went to was a smallish store in a smallish mall. Imagine aisles of crap on one side, a big counter with popcorn and peanuts on the other. And in the back, in a glass case that hovered over all the circus-ness of it all were monkeys. Probably about four or five little chimps swinging on ropes and limbs.

You could get the best view from the front of the store. Just stand there and look up and there were the monkeys, bouncing around, guarding the popcorn and peanuts.

It was, to me, the best of the best. Monkeys, candy and popcorn all in one place. You didn’t have to stand in line, no one made you go anywhere or wait your turn. You were just there, in the mall, with the monkeys and the cheap crap and the smell of it all.

By the time I was a teenager, or probably around the time I was 12 or 13, that location of Cromer’s closed for good. If I use my adult intellect, I can pretty easily figure out why they closed, but to my kid-mind, it seemed senseless. Mostly I was concerned about the monkeys.

Cromer’s had another location, in downtown Columbia, and I went there when I was a freshman in college. It wasn’t the same. The popcorn and peanuts were there, but there was less junk, and no monkeys.

And today when I looked Cromer’s up online, I found even more disappointment. No mention of the monkeys, no mention of cheap crap. Just the popcorn, and not even that much about the peanuts.

I found something else. I read the history of Cromer’s and—finally, finally—I learned how they earned their famous slogan “Guaranteed Worst in Town.”

Here’s what the website says:

In 1935, Julian D. Cromer sold peanuts and a variety of vegetables at his one-man stand in the Assembly Street Curb Market in Columbia, SC. Every morning he packed up his produce and drove downtown to the market where he roasted his own peanuts. The fresh taste was a hit with the locals who were sick and tired of snacking on stale peanuts.

By 1937, Cromer's one-man produce stand was booming, but his success could not go on unchallenged - another enterprising local (who will not be mentioned here) set up his own peanut stand directly across the aisle from Cromer's.

To lure customers, the new competition promised the Best Peanuts in Town. He even went so far as to tell everyone who walked by that Cromer had the worst peanuts in the market.

Cromer was appalled. He called the man a scoundrel, a charlatan and declared his tactics were underhanded and downright dastardly. Infuriated, Cromer walked back to his produce stand and made a cardboard sign saying "Worst In Town." Later while he was still in a huff, he added one more word "Guaranteed." His competitor was astonished that any man in his right mind would advertise his products that way.

When customers walked by and chose between peanut purveyors they made the logical decision--everyone flocked to Cromer's and Guaranteed Worst in Town was born.

Business was so good in 1939 that Cromer quit selling other produce to devote all his time to the peanut business. For 67 years, Cromer's was a landmark in downtown Columbia, proudly displaying their infamous slogan.

After more than 70 years of business, Cromer's is stronger than ever. Today Cromer's is back in downtown Columbia and is owned by Julian's granddaughter, Carolette Cromer Turner. In the years since Julian Cromer first started his one man produce stand, Cromer's has grown to sell all kinds of fresh and flavorful snacks, as well as concession equipment, party supplies and advertising specialties. Of course, you can still get fresh roasted peanuts. And everything at Cromer's is still...

Guaranteed Worst in Town.

………………

And after reading this my adult mind shifts not back into my kid memory, but into my now, where thoughts of failure feel fresh and familiar.

On the door to my office, I have a quote from Samuel Beckett from Worstword Ho:
Ever tried.

Ever failed.

No matter.

Try again.

Fail again.

Fail better.

 

It’s there every morning when I get to work, it’s the first thing I see before I open my office door, before I begin my morning routine of checking email, making sure the tutors are doing what they should be doing, making sure all is well in the Center.

 

I enter my morning thinking I could fail better.

 

I think every day that I could fail better.

Mr. Cromer failed better. It has been his slogan for nearly seventy years, and it’s worked pretty well for his company.

 

………………..

 

I’ve been sifting through Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and Paul Auster’s Hand to Mouth: a Chronicle of Early Failure over the past few weeks. It’s an odd combination of voices, yes, but in some ways their messages are similar. Auster’s story smacks of narcissism, and the more I read, the angrier I become. Auster did as many writers do: he moved to Paris, where he got his ‘start’ as a writer. He did quite well for himself, so to frame his story in a book that he considers to be about failure is, well, pretty fucked up. He had a fairly privileged time of it all. Going to Europe was cheap, and he had the cash. True, he had to take on some odd jobs—translating weird stuff, writing strange scripts for strange people—but the money was coming in and once he got his feet wet he was able to find his rhythm in the writing life.

 

Rilke’s words to Kappus are beautiful and I’m finding a lot of inspiration here, just as I thought I would. I suppose the thing I see in this collection and Auster’s book is that push to write, to write and write and tap into that thing that tells you you must do it, that screams to you that this is your life and you are a writer and without writing you cannot live.

 

Some of it does conjure images of Horatio Alger and all that bootstraps crap, but that little bit, those moments when the writers are at their worst, those moments when it seems Rilke could rip through his letter and grab Kappus by the collar and shake him and scream at him for his lack of confidence, that’s the stuff I cling to. That’s the stuff that makes me want to find my rhythm again.

 

…………………

 

Today is Maiana’s twelfth birthday. Her life is so different from mine when I was that age. To me, everything happened when I was twelve. Maia asks me questions now—‘when did this happen to you?’ or ‘how old were you when that happened’? and nearly every time I tell her ‘I guess I was about your age.’ So much of my life lives in that time when I was eleven, turning twelve, twelve, turning away from eleven.

 

My character, June, is that age, too. Of course she is. She is telling my stories for me. Stories of the time I was baptized. When I realized that people grow old. When I learned what sex truly is, what it means and how suddenly everything is sexualized. I think I have other stories to tell from that time, too. I want to tell the story of how my sister left in the middle of the night to live with her boyfriend and begin her adult life way too early. I want to tell the story of how I took care of my family when my mother’s mental illness became so large that she couldn’t take care of us. I want to tell the story of the day my dad took me to the plant where he worked and he drove me around  in a forklift and I finally began to realize what it was he did all day, and I realized that what he did in that plant all day is what gave my family the money we lived on. I want to tell the story of the time we moved into a crappy apartment that was full of cockroaches and how poor we must have been then, and how I became fascinated with a guy named Jimmy, who rode a motorcycle even though he had only one leg.

 

Maiana’s life is so different from what mine was then. She has unlimited text-messaging; I didn’t have any friends to call, and if I did, I would have to ask permission to use the phone. Maia is on a soccer team; I played dodge ball in the parking lot. Maia plays the flute, and sings in girl’s choir; my music teacher told me I was tone deaf and shouldn’t try to sing anymore. Maia bakes cupcakes and decorates them with great care; I cooked fish sticks and cube steak for dinner when my mom couldn’t get out of bed. Maia learned about sex from her mom; my mom told me that sex was when a man put his organ in a woman’s organ; I learned everything else from our encyclopedias.

 

I want to ask Maia a few things. I want to know what it feels like to be twelve. I want to know what she’s afraid of, what, if anything, makes her want to not turn twelve. I want her to tell me how to write about June again.

 

…………………

 

I can’t remember where I was going with all of this. There was something I meant to say about writing and failure and childhood. Earlier I could see how it was all connected. But now my mind bounces around from one thing to another—from Rilke to Mr. Cromer, to those monkeys, to June, to Paul Auster.

 

I have failed to make the connections I was trying to make in my mind.

 

But I have also failed to make those connections in what I have written here. And for that I suppose I have failed better.

I went to see Ivan Doing read last night. It was the first time I'd gone to a reading in I don’t know how long. And though the it wasn’t particularly good, it did get me thinking about writing, which is always a good thing. I noticed more about the author than his words. I noticed his neatly trimmed yet somehow still scraggly beard, the way his trousers hung, his mostly pressed shirt that was obviously ironed and not dry cleaned. I noticed his stance, the timber of his voice, his engagement (and sometimes lack of) with his own words. I noticed his air of pretense, the stiff white hairs that stuck up from his balding head. The way he changed his glasses, one pair reading, another pair for seeing the audience. How his frames were almost exactly the same.

And I spent a great deal of time just wondering about him. Wondering about what he looks like when he writes, what his process his, what—to him—makes a good story. I didn't ask him any questions. Somehow, I didn't want to hear his answers.

Doig spoke mostly about his research and the particulars of the world he’d created. He spoke only a little about his characters. He seemed distanced from him, maybe as if he didn’t even really know them.

And I wondered about my own characters, what they’re doing now with me so far away from them. I listened for them. I wanted to hear them call me back to the page.

But I couldn’t hear them.

And now, a few hours after the reading I am still listening for my characters, still waiting for them to tell me about their worlds, to ask me to give them more. More details of their world, more interaction with each other. More life.

This morning I got up early, showered and headed off to a coffee shop for an Americano, a muffin and I the possibility of writing again. But it seems this is the best I can do for now. I’ve been away from the page for so long that I’ve forgotten how to reapproach it.

I can’t explain my reason for my absence. I truly don’t know what’s kept me away. It’s not that I don’t want to write. I do—very badly. But I feel, I suppose, like I can’t. I don’t know where that feeling comes from, or why it hangs over me every day. With that feeling comes the guilt of not writing, and the terror of knowing that if I don’t, I may not get back into it again.

I’ve been watching my friend John Paul for the past few weeks. I watch him from a distance. I check his blog every day to see what he’s been doing. He’s been writing. I imagine him as he was in grad school, serious about writing, nearly connected to his laptop. Pouring out story.

I admire John Paul—always have. I think about how writing is part of his life. From here it seems it is his life. And these observations make me quite jealous. Jealous and ashamed.

I spent two years in grad school, learning to be a writer, honing my skill and finding my characters. They spoke loudly to me then, even at that time when my life fell completely apart and I didn’t know how to reengage. John Paul was there with me, and I still think of him when I think of writing. I think of going to coffee shops and locking ourselves away in rooms in the library. I think of how much we worked, how our laptops faced each other and our fingers moved.

I want to find that rhythm again. I need to. Yet, even after writing a full page of nothing more than stream of consciousness, I still feel stuck.

Now Robin is the one who I watch write. Her work is quite different from mine. It is based entirely on fact and must be succinct and accurate. She doesn’t deal with character or dialogue. She works instead with a set formula. And though her fingers move considerably more slowly than mine or John Paul’s they still move across the keyboard with that sense of confidence (knowing, of course, that the fingers are the most confident tool in anyone’s writing life).  

I think, too, of how my life has changed. How I spend so much of my time with Robin or on the phone with her. I think of how much I work now, how even when I am not at work I am working—checking email or identifying new strategies, new ways to fix problems or to grow the Center. These are the two pieces of my life and they are quite large. I have let them stand in the way of my writing and I am realizing—I am admitting—how I need to not let that happen. I am realizing this morning how comfortable here, hunkered over my computer, watching my fingers move.

This was once my Sunday routine and I fell away from it.

This is my today and I am writing. And for now I have to let that be enough.

I'm really surprised it's been so long since I last wrote anything here. So much for consistency.

At any rate, I developed the bug to write tonight, and by god, I'm gonna do it.

Here's how it's all gone down in the past couple of weeks: It started when I got a Facebook page, at the insistence of a couple of friends. It didn't take long for me to get hooked on the thing. I've sought out friends near and far, and have been pretty successful at making some connections. I've never been particularly good at keeping in touch with folks. Email makes it easier, sure, but sometimes just don't know what parts of my life I should reveal, or what I am capable of sharing. 

When I take a quick glance at my life, I see nothing spectacular, nothing particularly worth sharing. I live in Seattle. I have a decent enough job. I have a dog. I'm a writer, but I don't write too much these days. I've published one story. And that's about it really. That's my day to day. It seems rather boring to share that kind of stuff with anyone.

So I could say more, I suppose. I could talk about relationships. Love and loss. Grief and depression, discoveries made in the midst of psychotherapy, the benefits of anti-depressants and the way grief wanes with time, but will never leave. The way life looks and feels when a depression lifts and you see your life and realize how lucky you are, how good things can be. 

Or I could talk about my family--how I rarely talk to them, how horrible their lives often seem from my point of view. How sick my mom has become, how stressful my dad's life has become. My angry brother. My sister.

But none of those things seem appropriate to talk about to a once-friend-turned-stranger. I don't feel like telling them about Scott, even though his presence and then absence has had a profound impact on every aspect of my life. Nor do I feel like telling anyone in my life's periphery about Robin. It's hard to go into details about something you care so deeply about yet can barely understand yourself.

So I wind up swooping back and giving a quick survey of a ten-year landscape. Puerto Rico to Seattle, Seattle to Corvallis, Corvallis to Seattle. Jobless, and then fully employed with a decent salary and benefits and retirement package. A dog named Petey.

I suppose this is it: I feel as though I should be providing details of my life, stuff you can put on a time line or resume. But it's not always satisfactory to leave it at that. I want to ask these people with whom I've become reacquaintedfor more. What's it like to live in Slovakia? What was it like to leave home? Did you want three kids? How do you manage to get anything done? Why are you working there? Why aren't you living somewhere else? 

The you I knew then is not the you I've been reintroduced to. And the me you once knew has changed, too.We are quite different, and that is what I want to know about, that's what I want to ask. How are you different now from the person I used to know? Are you happy?

I hope you're happy. 

I am.

I'm not one to pride myself on my adult-like behavior.  I'm not too fond of adulthood, to tell you the truth.  Yes, I had a sometimes lousy childhood, but that doesn't mean that I should like my adult years any better.  I'm especially anti-responsibility.  And by responsibility I mean:

-working at a job just so that I can have money to pay my bills
-going to the bank to deposit money to pay my bills
-paying my bills
-doing errands on the weekend
-looking forward to the weekend because that's the time I can truly enjoy myself and get my errands done
-vacuuming, damning the man, etc. 

But every now and then I look at some of the things I've done and I get a little excited.  Take the past couple weeks, for example:

I set up a checking and a savings account at a credit union.  I've been giving my money to a corporate bank for ten years now and it's finally time I say enough's enough.  It felt pretty good to make the switch.  This is how I know I am an adult--when opening a bank account feels good.

I sent a story out last week, and I just finished fine tuning another.  It's ready to be printed and mailed.  

I have made a list of things to do and have crossed most of those things off the list.  This alone creates a feeling of accomplishment.

I rearranged my furniture.  My desk is now in my living room, and even though I rarely use it, I like that it's in a place where I'll at least look at it every day.  Once we shift into standard time, I will move my tv into what used to be my office.  

This, too, is how I know I am an adult.  Adults have offices.  I have one in my house and one at work.  I am a two-timing adult.

 I've been thinking about my grandpa a lot the past couple days.  A few nights ago I had a dream that I was shopping for a new flask to give him.  Today I got into a conversation at work--I don't know how it began--about my grandpa.  I fell into the conversation and lost track of time and became a little disconnected from the fact that I was telling co-workers some stories I usually save for, well, other times.  And I was thinking about how much I miss my grandpa, how much I've changed just in the years since he died, how different I am from the Kim I was when I was young and he was alive.  Really, it hasn't been that long since he died.  But it feels like a long, long time. 

And it feels even longer since I last sat and laughed with him, since he asked me if I wanted to take a little nip of his booze, since I stared blankly while he told me a racist joke or made an otherwise offensive comment.  

I am thinking a lot about him tonight and wondering how much I am like him.  I know how different we are, but I wonder what of his qualities I have.  His wit, yes.  But what else?  What is there about how I see the world that I got from my grandfather?  I don't know for sure.  I spent much more time with him when I was little than in my teens and twenties.  By the time he died I barely knew him.  

I wish I could sit with you and tell you some stories right now.  I'd like to see your reaction to a few things.  But, since that can't happen right now, I'll share with you something that I wrote when Grandpa was dying.  I was living in Oregon and he was three thousand miles away and the cancer was eating away at him and I wrote this: