To TV or not to TV

The economy sucks. Most states are hovering around 8-10 percent unemployed. A much higher percentage go to work, serving coffee to bitchy bikers or hammering nails in the rain, but “live” in poverty.  If you can call drinking Western Family  coffee instead of fresh roasted beans living. 

Whew. That’s a hell of a lot of people making tough decisions every day. Decisions like: how long should a “check engine” light blink before you sell your kidney to raise the mechanic’s fee? Are dollar store multi vitamins a good replacement for fruits and vegetables? Is scurvy easy to cure?   Should you use the see-through packing tape to hold the broken window in place, or just give in and use the duct tape? Can you bring the patch-look back into fashion, or should you just make those pants into shorts? Will frostbite really lead to amputation?

The biggest decision of all? Should you cut off your cable. Turn off the tv? Live without the escapism? If you switch to Netflix to provide your tv crack cocaine, can you live without sports and news? Remember, you can always read. Reeeeeaaaaadddd. Because reading about the Blazers is better than watching them (well, sometimes it is). Time to break out the radio, revert back to grandma's kitchen, your hair in braids, bacon and eggs on the table, NPR or Tom Brokaw filling the greasy, sunny air. It's easy to say "oh, I never watch tv, it's disgusting" if you have the choice not to watch tv. High moral stands are easy to make when you have a sturdy platform of cash under you.  

You want funny? I got funny.

You want funny? I got funny.

(Hang on a second, I gotta find funny).

Ok.

How many of you have camped out of a car? If you have, you will understand the title of a feature story I’ve been researching/writing for years:  CAMPING OUT OF A CAR or How to Dig a Shallow Grave.  Granted, not everyone’s travel partner is chasing surf or wind like my partner but  . . . still, partner? Please. After a 24 hour period trapped in a bucket seat with a human fart machine that loves Rush the term partner morphs into “you mother@#$% moron,” whether it’s said aloud or not.

After six trips down to the tip of Baja, Mexico, from the top of Oregon, I’ve learned a few survival tricks. Self-hypnosis is one. Really, it’s handy. Other than that, I’ve created a comprehensive list of supplies, a list of anti-supplies, a list of tested and approved conversations for the sequestered, and a list of emergency skills and/or contacts. Some examples: bring your own tampons, condoms and a pregnancy test, those things are hard to find and can be sold for gold. Real gold. Do not drive a fully loaded car into the back woods; it’ll come out no-loaded, if it comes out at all.  Pepto Bismo tablets are delicious, the toilet paper is provided by you, only you, and coyotes love a full moon at night.

You think I’m kidding but I’m not. The article is already at page 12, thanks to years of journal entries. Some entries are so splotched and smeared by tequila and tears, they’re hard to read, but I’ve been able to decipher the gist of the messages: don’t do it.

But if you’re gonna do it, keep an eye out for my article. I'll let you know where it's published as soon as I know where it's published.  

Insurance company a.k.a. dark overlord

I approached noon happy . . . tired but happy. Then I got the mail. I did not see that bat to the head comin'.

Coping with being sick, being fatigued and foggy, is challenging enough. Losing the ability to teach was a whopper. Now the insurance company is saying I can work, just not teach, so it's the boot for me. Get a stationary job. Oh, yes, insurance company, I been sittin' around, stoked out about my diminished capacity to focus and verbalize for extended lengths of time, luxuriating in the inability to cope in a workplace. Yep. Good times. Recently, my "foggy" brain had me convinced I had a tumor or alzheimers. I started writing a book so my brain wouldn't totally evaporate, even when writing meant one sentence a day. Hence, two hundred and fifty pages taking me a year to produce. Believe you me, I want to be a worker bee again. Those of you who know me, know I'm a charge ahead kinda' gal. Frankly, having to convince some desk jockey that I'm not a loser is giving me insomnia. It makes me feel skungy, sketchy, vulnerable to an out of control train. And the fact that trying to work will incapacitate me, put me back in bed for weeks at a time, has my stomach crawling out my mouth.

I was a hard worker, loyal for so many years. Why is this happening to me? If I apologize to Karma, can we just sweep whatever mean-girl crap I pulled in a past life under the rug?

Next up: new round of doctor appointments, appeals, lawyers . . . I'm so tired. But I'm not giving up. How can I? Auggie Mar needs a momma, a momma that feeds him and washes his underwear.  He goes through a lot of underwear. Besides, we wrote a children's book together today. That puts me back to happy.

WHAT IS YOUR BOOK ABOUT?

May Day! I was awakened by a flute shrieking next to my head, a flute I thought was well hidden. The piercing squeal created flowers of lightening in the dark sky of my brain. . . which is perfect for the first day of May, the day to deliver flowers and run. But Auggie didn’t run quite fast enough. I am once again in possession of the flute. Happy May Day!

A question I expend a lot of energy to avoid: WHAT IS YOUR BOOK ABOUT?

Ugh, for such a straight-forward novel, it’s hard to explain. One, pinning it to a genre label is tough, no matter how badly publishers want to stab it neatly to a corkboard. Two, the basic storyline sounds so self-indulgent it’s embarrassing.

Literary genres are delightful. And by delightful I mean acidic rubs on scalped skin. They’re helpful for readers who want to find dystopian science fiction, or feline erotica; they’re helpful for publishers looking to sell vampire fantasy or historical meta-romance. They are not helpful for writers of general novels that can fall, partially, into the following: comedic coming of age lit, commercial lit, general lit, school lit, chick lit (noooo!), sport lit.  In order to understand what I’m saying, I guess I’ll have to tell you what the book is about . . .

Let’s start with theme. The big picture: David versus Goliath. Littler pictures: coming of age, discovering inner strength. Next, the storyline: Addy, a brand new English teacher, starting out at a tiny rural school. She is afraid of conflict, rarely speaking up for herself (her internal monologue is sarcastic, biting, but never leaves her mouth). The first day on the job ends with her being forced to coach a debate team, a job that provides plenty of internal, love interest, administration, and competitive conflict. There’s even conflict with Mother Nature.

Yeah, I know. It sounds somewhat like my life. But let me remind you, I’m not afraid of conflict. Just ask my husband. Or co-workers.  Speaking of co-workers – no, you are not in the book. Stop asking me. I swear, your secrets are safe with me. Unless you piss me off. Bwahaha. For instance, the woman who showed up to work with her pants on backwards and mismatched men’s socks . . . you might consider sending me a supersize Carmello. Perhaps a case.

The characters in the book are made up people, though I do pull from stories, experiences, values, traits and dressing habits of the many people who came through the school doors, including myself.  I’ve enjoyed reviewing my classroom and speech team experiences through storytelling.

I hope to be done with all edits and revisions in the next couple weeks and then have an agent and publisher fall in my lap, bearing a case of large bills. While I’m working on that, I’m also writing three other projects. One is a children’s book that Auggie and I have been writing together. He is an excellent storyteller, which plays out with every elaborate lie he tells. I’m predicting he’ll be a famous author or a successful Congressman. 

I'm baaa...aack

I'm baaa...aack.

 crackling static


Seriously. I'm back. I'm back from Indonesia. I'm back from my identity crisis. I'm back from a long ride on the couch . . . well, that part's more wish than reality. Now I sit in a chair.

Two weeks ago, on Friday the 13th, I resigned from my teaching job and I finished my first novel. That's right. In the same day. I designed it that way. Not the Friday the 13th part, that kinda' freaked me out. But the resignation and the completion of the novel . . .

One year ago, my school district told me they would hold my teaching job until this spring, at which time a doctor would have to release me.  Mid-April, my doctor did not release me. The Epstein Barr Virus is alive and strong. The district, acting at the behest of the students, accepted my resignation. I don't begrudge my administration at all, especially since they saved my position for two years, hoping I'd be able to come back to the classroom. I hoped for that, too, but I'm still sick and the kids need to have a stable, full-time teacher.

Knowing my illness and my career were intertwined on a timetable, last spring I began to prepare myself for either outcome. My first year out on sick-leave I had spent in a coma of despair, sick in body and heart, no part of myself available for comment. I couldn't do that for a second year, and I certainly didn't want to do it forever. So I set a goal for this past year, to complete a novel before the medical decision had to be made.

Writing a fictional book helped me get up in the morning, helped me fight the brain "fog" associated with my disease, helped me build a new identity, helped me gain emotional equanimity in face of losing my beloved career. I'm not gonna' lie, writing wasn't always easy, not when I have so little energy most days. Some days I wrote one sentence, sometimes a paragraph, thrilled if I was kicking out two or more pages. But, goddammit, I did it. I finished a novel.

Smart Mouth. Currently, it stands at 252 pages but it will probably round out at 280 by the time I make  the final edits.

Anyway, I'm back to bloglandia and I'm not going away. I have a lot to say, a lot of stories to tell. Like the time I met this agent . . .

open air bathrooms

Resolved: Open Air Bathrooms should be abolished.

Have you gone the bathroom in an open air restroom?

At first, the experience is enlivening, warm night air sitting on the skin, a light breeze touching the face. Frankly, it seems logical to eject the “unwanteds” from the body in an open space, fresh air taking away the evil smells and bacteria.

But the harms outweigh the benefits. 

1.     Privacy. A half wall separating a toilet user from a dinner party is not enough privacy, not for anyone involved. The outsiders do not want to listen to sqeaky or squishy noises while eating . . . or at all. The insider does a painful dance with his or her bowels, trying to slow the process down, control the noises, even the toilet flush. Merging back with the group is a process of avoiding eye contact and eschewing liquids or solids for the rest of the night in order to avoid a repeat showing.

 If the outdoor toilet is in a small villa backed up to a motorcycle lot and laundry, the “dinner party” on the other side of the half wall never goes away, they just roast pigs and drink beer while the toilet user tries to pretend it is normal to poop in public.

2.     Creatures. Mosquitoes love water; apparently, that is doubly true of shower water in outside showers. My ankles and shoulders get eaten alive whenever I take a shower. I stopped taking showers. Who needs to be clean? I can’t dry my hair anyway, thanks to my crappy hairdryer dying on day one.  Another creature fond of the outdoor bathrooms are the geckos, but I have to list them as a benefit. I love their sticky feet, their calls, their cute little eyes – and the fact that they eat mosquitoes.

3.     Showers. Showers next to the toilet in a small outdoor bathroom are practical. But disgusting. Very goddamm disgusting. The water runs over the toilet and all the germs then run onto the floor, over my feet. I don’t not want urine or feces on my feet, I don’t care how diluted it is.  I realize most of the germs are inside the toilet but I’m also a realist – I’ve seen my five year old go the bathroom. Further, the floor of the bathroom is then wet, creating squishy, icky toe syndrome for a couple of hours.  Maybe I would be a little more forgiving if the water was actually warm.

If I lived on acres of secluded land, all by myself, with no visitors, I may like an outdoor bathroom, complete with a bug zapper, hot water, and full walls. Until then, I’m happy with skylights, paintings of the ocean and a fan. Or just four walls and a ceiling.

I was famous

I was famous.

I just woke from a dream in which I was frantically trying to get ready for a stage appearance, 30 minutes to go, in a strange room with no clothes that fit and a very athletically-strong woman hovering, yelling at me to hurry up. At first some friends were there, trying to help me pull something together but then they all abandoned me. I was left with too-small clothes, finally trying to create an alternative, kooky look, or the sexy librarian look. It worked for me in my early 20’s, at speech and debate tournaments. It was not working now, in my late 30’s with an entirely different body. I was getting hysterical, pulling on gaping shirts and skirts meant for third graders, the “entirely different body” fighting for freedom in all the wrong places.  Is this how a famous author looks when she gets in front of an audience, a cross between Rosie O’Donnell and Courtney Love?

Well, thank god I don’t have to deal with this in real life. True, I can barely decide what to wear to the market without having a nervous breakdown, trying to avoid my two biggest wardrobe pitfalls, looking pudgy or looking old – but I’m pretty sure no one cares except me. I certainly don’t have thousands of adoring fans critiquing my wardrobe.  Sometimes one of my high school students might mock the dog hair, the hole, the out of date turtleneck, but who pays attention to a kid dressed like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, wearing lime green bands on his braces? And Andre can equally be ignored since he has on more than one occasion worn mismatched socks and a paisley patterned dress shirt (he has rescued it from the Good Will bag a number of times).

No need to worry about socks or uncouth clothing choices here on Lembongan. I have three tshirts, one pair of shorts, two skirts, a pair of linen pants, a long sleeved shirt, three bathing suits and a light cardigan (If you know me at all, you know I could not travel without a cardigan. And, yes, I’ve worn it.) The biggest problem is timing. The laundry next door (three ladies, two washing machines, one big system of drying ropes) usually takes 1-2 days to return clothes, so I have to carefully choose what I can live without for a 48 hour period.  For instance, how long am I willing to go without underwear? Only I know the answer to that question. And the laundry ladies.

Andre is still on another island, surfing and kiting his brains out. SusieJo, Auggie and I will meet him back in Ubud on the 31^st.  (Looking back over those two sentences, I just realized my name is pedestrian compared to my family: Holly vs SusieJo? Holly vs Auggie? I have a stripper’s name. Andre has the name of a lord. Actually, he is a lord. But that is a story for another time.)

A funny thing happened last night.

SusieJo called me into the kitchen, sure that the roof rat, Patrick, was in the cupboard. I checked it out. Nothing. Then SusieJo tentatively stuck her head in the cupboard, looking about. I couldn’t help it: I grabbed her arm and yelled “rat!” She screamed, springing away from the cabinet with the agility of a 16-year-old.  I whinnied like a horse, laughing, while she punched my arm two or three times. (It hurt. She’s a tough grandma.) Unfortunately for her, Auggie had emerged from the bedroom just in time to see her hitting me. Not realizing the context of the event, he instantly went Kamikaze, hurling himself at SusieJo, pelting her with windmilling fists of fury.

“Auggie, no!” I was trying to stop laughing, not wanting him to think it was ok to hit grandma. I had to physically restrain him, make him look me in the eye. He was furious. “Auggie, Auggie! Grandma was just playing! We were laughing. I promise, grandma was not hurting me.”

He wasn’t buying it. He glared at SusieJo.  He was standing stiff, seething, sure his mommy had been harmed. The only harm, however was to Grandma Susie, emotionally wounded after having been tackled by the grandson she adored.

It was not okay he physically attacked someone and I felt bad SusieJo was disheartened. But, because I am a weak person, I was secretly flattered to have someone love me so much that, without thought of consequence, he launched himself into the fray to protect me. Granted he was taking on a 5’3” 60-year-old -- but she is one daunting, physically-fit elf. I hugged his angry little body to me and carried him off to bed, cuddling my pint-sized savior. As we lay in bed, reading, Patrick looked on from the ceiling beam, a smug grin on his rat face.

 I’m well aware that this confession speaks volumes about me.