Sneak Peeks by Louise Yeiser

June is Bustin' Out All Over

Make a Smilebox slideshow

From Louise

Driftwood

A girl sits cross-legged in her bed, leaning sideways from her pillow, with books, prayers, pen and journal strewn about her, to gaze out the window at brown branches, smothered in green, and the vivid blue sky of drifting hotcake-clouds, fluffy and sweet.  She daydreams about something elusive.  What is it exactly?  Zooming out, she looks back at her face, peering through the glass pane, shrinking to a pinprick lost in a sea of beauty and trouble.  She wonders.  Does anyone even know she is there?

Proud to be a Pittsburgher

Friday's List on Thursday

To all my fellow Carlow University MFA Writing classmates who are on their way to Ireland:

1)  Be especially kind to Victoria, who has gone to extraordinary lengths to fulfill this residency requirement.  She hasn't had the easiest winter either, so treat her with extra care.  Have fun, Victoria!  I wish I could be there for your last reading.

2)  Julie:  I don’t know who is going to entertain you in my absence, but I trust you’ll find someone.

3)  To a special friend (and you know who you are):  I encourage you to kiss as many Irishmen as you can find, and kiss them with wild abandon, whether they are ceiligh revelers or Joyce scholars, it matters not.  They all adore you.  Just be sure to email me the details.

4)  To all the Pens fans trapped in the jet, flying overseas during game 7:  Whenever I am able, I will email Brenda score updates as they occur and final scores of every period.

5)  To James Heaney, who calls out, “Is everybody here?” before he tells Basil to close the bus doors and drive off:  Maybe it’s time to actually count heads or ask folks to make sure their seat-partner is there.  Not everyone forgives as easily as I.

6) Regarding 7 Oaks breakfasts:  Please, please remember me during one of those special moments when you’re feasting on smooth, thick porridge, soaked in cream and brown sugar, with a pat of butter melting on the top.

7)  To the Creative Nonfiction group :  I’m so envious that while I’m sitting this one out, you get Carlo Gebler as your mentor.  You lucks!  Knock his socks off!  I will think of you every day.

8) Emme: Please check your email often, and write me!

9)  If you get bored during any of the seminars, don’t waste your time just falling asleep.  Look out the window through the trees at the kelly-green hills and lush meadows, dotted with grazing sheep, bless the beauty, and then fall asleep.  But make sure someone is blocking you, so Ellie doesn't see. 

Have a wonderful time!

  Hugs from Louise

The Other Side of the Rubicon

“I’m pathetic, I know I’m pathetic, and everyone else knows I’m pathetic,” I said to classmate, Karen, before picking up my orangeade and sipping, not an ounce of sweetness.  Tart and savory.  We were seated together at a celebratory dinner for another student, who had just received her MFA.

“Well, being in love probably gives you some great stories, tons of material to use in your writing,” Karen said.

“Not really.  It’s just a litany of clichés.  Floating on air, can’t concentrate on anything, everything feels new and alive.  All the usual stuff nobody wants to hear, nothing extraordinary.”

Karen smiled and shook her head.

“Except to me,” I said.  “Anyway, it’s too wonderful to write about.  I want to soak it all up and keep it to myself.  Somewhere safe, so I can get to it when I need it.”

Her face changed.

“See?" I said.  "Nobody wants to hear this stuff!”

We laughed.  Ken, engaged in a different conversation on my other side, reached for my hand.

A Home for Wishes

 

“Where there is great love, there are always wishes.”

-Willa Cather

Where's my Camera?

The beach―white sand dotted with tan bodies in bright colors.  The man in green trunks and sunglasses walks closer, looking up toward my window, his hand casting a shadow over his face.  Does he see me sitting here, I wonder, writing about him?  People are meandering in small groups and pairs.  Lots of hand-holding this morning, human chains of affection moving down the wet, packed sand, waves tickling toes, teasing.  The beach stretches white and fine―sweet, like sugar, salty, like tears.  The water-colors flow from a bright, translucent aqua to a deep turquoise blue, divided by foamy lines and white caps.  When I go home, I'll miss this exquisite panorama spread before me, like a buffet delight; but mostly, I'll miss my sister.  I hope she finds my camera.

It

I have been dating a wonderful man for three months—not dating really, more like visiting, sharing, writing to each other, holding hands, and laughing; yes, lots of laughing.  What is this exactly? I wonder.  Friendship, kinship, romance?   “You’re it,” he said once.  I should have been ecstatic.  Instead I thought, What is It?  Is It like a game of tag?  How long does It last?  Then another time, he called me his girlfriend.  I should have been pleased.  Instead, Does that mean I’m a friend who’s a girl?  Or does it mean we’re sort of an item?  The answer to these questions is simple, as I collide into my boundless insecurity that stares me down, hard, daring me to relax and be happy.

Thanksgiving on Memorial Day

 

I know I rewrite the same Memorial Day blog every year, but I do so because Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays.  Again this year, I celebrated by wearing my father’s World War II Navy jacket to the Sewickley Village parade, where I stood with friends, who joined me in saying thank you to the lines and columns of service people marching by.  After the parade, we attended a brief Memorial service at the Wolcott Gazebo, followed by another at the Sewickley Cemetery.

Memorial Day is the perfect opportunity to honor those who have paid the price for the many freedoms we Americans enjoy and often take for granted.  During this period in our history, where we have such large diversity of cultures within our borders, it is important to protect the most attacked minority—the individual—the minority that wishes to be judged not according to skin color, sexual orientation, or nationality, but by character.  While I fear this test of character is being actively threatened, I’d like to think it still exists, in some degree or another, throughout America.  To be considered on character alone is the mark of true freedom.

The cost of freedom was paid for, and continues to be paid for, by generations of military personnel.  These people come from all walks of life and all corners of the country.  They are our loved ones―fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, siblings, friends and children.  They are our precious resources.  Precious and loved.

Thank you to all of our present-day armed forces and past war veterans, and their families, for serving our country so selflessly, despite the dangers and risks inherent in doing so.  Because of you, our country and our world are safer places for everyone.

From Louise

Love in the Daylight

From my cousin in St. Louis, Janie Kaiser. Well done, Janie!

Friday Fancy

Thank you to Unconscious Mutterings, week no. 329, for words to play with.

Grocery store ::  Krogers.

Krogers is a proper name for a grocery store.   Krogers, Thriftway, Safeway, Publix, Kuhns, City Grocers, Whole Foods.  All reasonable names for grocery stores.  So who in the world came up with the brilliant idea of calling a grocery store, Giant Eagle?  What part of a giant or an eagle, or an oversized eagle, has anything to do with food or shopping?  No clue here.  But then again, I never understood Piggly-Wiggly either.

Twinkle  ::  Sparkle.

It seems I spend a great deal of time writing about sparkles―my mother’s engagement ring, the crystals in my parents' dining room chandelier, the brilliant flashes that fly off the waves in the Gulf that I watch from my father's window, the glitter of baubles at the five-and-dime, where I stood as a little girl, gazing at the twinkling that came in all the different birthstone colors.  Sparkles lure me over the edge, where I fall into something, I don't know what; and the trouble is, once I've slipped over, I don’t want to fall back out.

Optimistic moment  ::  Every moment since around the middle of March.

Life handed me an unexpected surprise; at least I think it did, or maybe it didn’t, but anyway, I’m hopeful, and both of us are happy, at least for the moment.  I think.  Oh, well, now I don't know what to say.  Never mind.  Don’t ask.

I hope your three-day weekend is less confusing than my blog.  Have a wonderful Memorial Day.

From Louise

Yawn

Before, I was too busy to write, but now I'm too tired to write.  So I'll send you here.

Have a refreshing weekend!

From Louise

Tonight Is Game 7 And I Don't Want To Write About Hockey Because I'm Nervous For My Team And I Don't Want To Hear One Word From My Friend in DC, Not One, and I Promise To Be A Good Winner/Sport If He Will Do The Same

“Don’t make me come up there,” I yelled into the tree.  I was sure Mama Mourning Dove was listening.

“We went through this last spring too, remember?”  I continued.  “And yet again, I see smushed baby-bird corpses on the driveway and porch steps.  You let them fall when they don't even have their feathers yet, for God's sake.  It's awful!  It’s a wonder you have any babies left.”

I assumed there was a baby left.  Why else would Mama Mourning Dove still be up there?

“How many times do I have to tell you?  Keep your little ones with you, until they’re old enough to fly.  Do not push them out, or let them fall, until they can handle it!  Why is this not inherently obvious?”

I looked out toward the street.  This year there were no witnesses.  No one jogging by, no one working in their gardens, no one walking their dogs, no one pushing a stroller.

I started back toward the house, muttering, “Honestly, do I have to tell you everything?  Get a grip, woman!”  I closed the front door firmly behind me.

Obviously, there are times when Mother Nature needs a little push.

Psychotic Silliness

Sidney and I are ignoring our age difference, and we couldn't be more delighted.  He has sweetly gone and dedicated tonight's game to me; so if the Pens win, it will bode well.  And if they lose, apparently, so will I.

I Understand He's Quite Mature For His Age

Friday List No. 1:

Five Things I forced myself not to do when I saw Sidney Crosby, standing next to a gray Range Rover, at the Citgo gas station in Sewickley:

1)  I did not swoon, honk, or scream.

2)  I did not rear-end anyone or cause any kind of an accident.

3)  I did not jump out of the car, run to him, and throw myself at his feet to declare my undying devotion.

4)  I did not hurl myself off the Sewickley Bridge, even though I was despondent about being older than his mother.

5)  I did not stalk him for the rest of the afternoon, although I did swing around the block a second time (oh, okay, it was three more times) to confirm his identity.

Friday List No. 2:

Five Things my friends had to say about List No. 1:

1)  You might be older than his mother, but I bet you’re lots prettier.

2)  Louise, you are a pedophile.  The guy was born in 1987, for crying out loud.

3)  I think you’ve grown as a person.

4)  Does he still have all his teeth, or were they implanted into his mouth, or photo-shopped into his internet pics?

5)  Cute, Louise.  Real cute.

Have a dreamy weekend, don't forget to laugh, and hug a hockey player.  Go, Pens! 

From Louise

I Just Want To Celebrate Another Day of Living

 

Tired of yelling "Yoo hoo!  Geno!" I would like to express my gratitude to Evgeni Malkin, who woke up last night and started playing his own brand of hockey, thereby rendering Obnoxious Ovechkin, or Oretchkin, as many call him, completely invisible, exactly as God intended.  Congrats to the Pens for their 3-2 win over the Caps.  See you on Friday from my happy seat in the igloo.

Survival of the Most Persistent

It was almost as big as the ones I see in the Naples apartment during the summer.

“What did you do, Weasie?” best friend, Annie, asked, leaning her elbows on the table, her coffee mug cradled between her fingers.

“Well, I sprayed it with hairspray, of course,” I said.

It had happened yesterday morning.  The cockroach, much too large for Sewickley, had jumped out of my towel when I removed it from its hook.  I screamed.

Looking around, I grabbed a large bottle of hairspray, and completely saturated the roach.  I figured it would be the kiss of death.  I was wrong.  Although it slowed down a little, it still tootled up the wall, scuttled off, and hid under the plant stand behind the weather vane on the ledge of the tub.

“You know.  The same tub I’ll never get into again for the rest of my life,” I said.

Annie laughed.  “Oh, that bathtub?” 

“Yeah, that one.”

I still needed to use the cockroach's towel, but I refused to wrap it around my shivering body.  Holding it with two fingers, I tried to dry myself.  Everywhere it touched me, I shriveled, thinking, Ew, ew ew.

“I’ll never use that towel again either.”

“Of course not,” Annie agreed.

“Then last night, on my way to bed, who do you think was sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor, taunting me?” 

“No way!”

“Way.  I ordered my arch-enemy not to move, ran downstairs, found my bug spray under the kitchen sink, ran back upstairs, and sprayed the living hell out of it.”

Annie wanted to know if it died.

“It shriveled up, rolled over, and flailed its legs.  So I apologized profusely for giving it a premature death, scooped it up in toilet paper, and flushed it.  End of story, goodbye cockroach.”

"Even as we speak, I bet the toilet water is washing off the bug-spray and reviving the roach, so it can crawl back into your toilet, hop out, and give you another scare tomorrow," Annie said. 

“Probably,” I chuckled.  “But I will prevail.  We had different agendas, my cockroach and I.  And when I have a clash with nature that intrudes upon my peace and well-being, no contest.  I win.”

Annie leaned back in her chair, with an eyebrow raised.  "Oh, really?" she said.  "Should I be scared? 

“Just don't bug me, Annie,” I said. 

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said.

We toasted one another with our coffee mugs.  As far as I know, the cockroach has not returned.  It has apparently left the building.

A Peek into the Loop

I turn my back for one minute, and look what happens.  Friend, Carrie Klaiber, showing Blu (Ch. Landondale's Beyond Yankee Blu), takes Best of Breed at the Bucks County show, with a mastiff entry of 120.  Another friend, Lisa Gynn, of Leodess Mastiffs, with her army of sassy, old ladies, basically skunks everyone in the Veteran Bitch classes.  Now that I’m out of the show circuit loop, and having a hard time keeping up with whose line is doing what and who's showing whom, my friends are taking off and rocking the mastiff show world.  Way to go, ladies!  Nationals await. 

Waiting For a Star to Fall

But there’s another kind of love.  One that gives you the courage to be better than you are, not less than you are....  I want you to know that you can have that.  You deserve it.

Mother to Daughter

Nights in Rodanthe

 

 

Listening to the Sun Rise

Tossing and turning from 4:30 to 5:30, I finally gave up.   I rubbed my eyes, trudged downstairs, got some coffee, climbed back up the stairs, sat by my open window, gazed through the screen as the treeline grew more visible by the minute, sipped, and listened to the birds giving their morning symphony.   I could've stay there all day.   Writing deadline?   Fiddle dee dee!

Joy Abounds

Who was it that said the only constant is change?  He must have been sitting on my shoulder when I went from 80°, sunny weather in Naples, Florida, to this morning’s 50°, clear, Pittsburgh weather that inexplicably relapsed into winter, by flinging half-inch sized hail from the sky for a few minutes, while I tore through the house, ransacking each room, looking for my camera.  By the time I found it, the sun was shining and the hail had melted.  What was that all about?  It must have been about that little the-only-constant-is-change person, who is now howling with laughter, wherever he is.

Since it’s Friday and since I obviously have no clue about change, the weather, or anything else, I thought I would make today’s list about happiness.

With no further ado, here are some of my favorite video clips that make me happy:

Christian the Lion

Amazing Dressage Video:  Perfect synchronicity between a man and his horse.

Susan Boyle:    I know, I know.  Everyone's seen this by now, but it truly makes all of us happy.  In fact, it makes most of us cry like little girls.

Fun at Grand Central Station

Fun at the Mall

Fun at a Belgium's Antwerp Central Railway Station

Have some good happiness this weekend.  Please come back and re-watch these, if you need inspiration.

      

From Louise

Why I Love Afternoon Naps

I snapped awake and sat up in bed, flinging the covers off.

Where am I?  Am I safe? I asked myself.  Oh.  I’m in Naples.  Where are my glasses?  What time is it?  Where is my cell phone?

Outside, the voices arguing in Spanish got louder and louder.   At one point, they sounded no more than ten feet from my open window that looked out onto the nearby beach. 

Are they walking down the beach?  Are they riding in a beach vehicle or a boat offshore?

I was afraid to draw back the curtain and peer out the window.  My cell phone flickered through the dark, and I didn’t want to attract any attention.

On this beach trip, for the first time in twenty-three years, I had slept with my windows thrown wide open to the waves and the Gulf air.  I assumed I would never be able to do that, and doing it felt terrific.  And then, this.

I knew damned well this was some weird anomaly.  Some haphazard group of men passing by at 5 in the morning, going home from the night shift or on their way to work, arguing among themselves, with no thought of me.  They shouted over each other, and I knew that people who mean harm are quiet and sneaky.  Silent.  Plus, I knew how loudly the stiff Florida grass outside my window crunched beneath a person’s weight.  No one had stepped onto the grass, so they were on the other side of our hedge, on the beach.

I knew all those things.  The problem was that once, and all it takes is once, I woke up in the middle of the night to see a man standing at the foot of my bed, a man whose only purpose was to harm me.  Once something like that happens, a line is crossed.  Or is broken.  The illusion of safety that holds us together snaps and, in healing, remains fragile, even twenty-three years later.

I’m sure it’s nothing, I told myself.

Those words fell, hollow and empty, so I tried again.

My bedroom door is locked.  And the other door, separating me from the living room, is locked, and both the outside doors are locked, and I have a cell phone that can dial 911.

Not one word mattered.  It also didn’t matter that years ago, I slept with a loaded gun under my pillow, my response to the man’s promise that he would return to hurt my children, if I called the police.  It didn’t matter that I took a year of martial arts and learned how to completely incapacitate a 6’4” man weighing over 210 pounds.  It didn’t matter that I slept with two 200-pound, male mastiffs scattered around my bed, making a live obstacle course that would give anyone pause.

Quite simply, I have lost the capacity to talk myself out of a good night’s fright.  I can’t shake it off the way other people can.

Oh, it’s nothing.  I wish I could return to that, I do.  However, the nothing already happened, so its repeat remains forever possible.  Rats!

All I can do is clutch my cell phone, sleep with my glasses on, and doze until the morning light.  It happened at night, so once the sun comes up, I feel perfectly safe.

What an event, this complicated process of surviving a dark, spooky night.  Is it any wonder I love my afternoon naps?

Poor, Pitiful Pearl Trumps Mr. Lizard

Since I’m working on my manuscript today, I won’t spend time writing about the lizard that jumped out of the toaster the first morning I was here.  I had pulled the cover off and pulled the toaster out of the corner to plop my bread in, and screamed after a short-tailed, dark-brown monster flew into my face.  So today, when I open drawers and cabinet doors, and root around in the backs of shelves, and pull the cover off the 50-year old toaster , I move tentatively, with both feet aimed toward the living room, ready to make a run for it at the slightest provocation.  No, I’m not going to write about that.  Instead, I will include a tidbit from my manuscript.

I never understood why Pearl was supposed to be poor and pitiful.  She arrived one Christmas in a box with a see-through plastic window on the lid, and she wore a perfectly fine polka-dotted, navy blue dress with a zigzag hemline and a red kerchief tied over her sandy-brown hair.  Packed with her was a fancy, pink dress over a stiff petticoat, white Mary-Janes and ankle socks edged in lace, which I ignored.

Her fancy clothes stayed in the box, which found its way to a top shelf in my closet and eventually vanished.  I never saw the dress and accessories as beautiful, rich clothes compared to poor, pitiful rags, never saw the need to transform her out of herself.  I saw dress-up, party clothes compared to play clothes.  I knew she was more comfortable in her play clothes, so these she wore to tea.  In fact, these she wore every day for everything.

Delayed

The weather has been beautiful, and the Bahama Club filled with people, including my cousins and others I have known most of my life, and whose parents knew my parents, and so on, down the line.  Their bustle and laughter has made my self-imposed writing isolation difficult, with the beach patio right outside my window.  My last Naples excursion was marked by dark clouds, cold temperatures and very few people around, which was inspiring, if not downright broody.  I sat here at my writing station overlooking the Gulf, typing away while daredevils on surfboards with para-sails,  flew back and forth over waves and whitecaps up and down the foamy, gray horizon.  It was amazing.  Southwestern Floridians―in particular the young, athletic ones―really know how to make the best of a good, hard cold front. 

My cousins left yesterday afternoon and the Bahama Club empties out today.  Judging by the white hurricane shutters barricading porches and windows that are usually thrown wide open, I’m guessing the exodus occurred before I woke up.  Aha!  Loneliness and a gray day?  Perfect.  Please excuse me.  With my last deadline a week away, I have some writing to do.

Hi, Jessie! This is your puppy!

Here he is!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Icy Flowers

I wonder why I'm not writing regularly on my blog.  I'm a little puzzled by this.  I have only one more four-week period (oops—actually it’s three) of hard writing before my leave of absence from school starts, so I should be feeling those first baby breaths of a certain freedom—writing what I want, when I want.  Right?  Well, I guess right; however, I haven’t written for fun in so long that I don’t remember what it's like.  Sitting here typing these words, I'm looking around the room, as if I'm waiting for someone to slam through the door, swoop in and shake me, my comeuppance for doing something naughty.  Such a strange feeling.  In an effort to shake it off, I'll end on a positive note.  I love diamonds and daffodils.

April Fools!

"Louise–Weasie we had always called her–is a real character.  You’ll love her.”

“I thought you said she was a fruitcake,” her father interrupted.

“Well, she’s a bit eccentric.  That’s because she’s an arty type.  She’s an actress.”

“Thought she lived with a god-damned bunch of cats.”

“Yes, she did last time I checked.  But she lives in a nice old house in a good safe area.”

--written by Sandra Bunting, For A Song Published in Criterion

Kiss Me, I'm Irish

Not really, but do it anyway.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day, a day of  magic and mischief, not to mention green beer and all-day drinking.  I will celebrate with my son, Nicholas, who is home for a St. Patty’s evening hockey game.  Tomorrow he leaves for Cincinnati to visit his dad, while I stay behind for writer’s lockdown, a miserable state of rigid isolation that increases in hysteria and intensity the closer I get to deadline, which is, appropriately enough, April Fool’s Day.  That doesn't bode well for me, does it?  Ah, well.  All the more reason for the aforementioned hysteria. 

For today, I’ll give the party-ers their green beer, while I fill my head with those mystical pots of gold, magical leprechauns, good fortune and the gracious green of Ireland.  Today we’re all Irish, even me, so each of us is eligible for good luck and kisses.  Be on the lookout.  You never know when they’ll strike.

Click here for an Irish jam session in a hotel bar.

Click here for some lively Irish dancing.

Click here for your Irish blessing.

Happy St. Pat's Day, yeah. 

  From Louise

Penguins Win, Subaru Loses

Yesterday the Pittsburgh Penguins slid into fifth place by picking off the Boston Bruins, no. 1 in our conference, and I am euphoric.  So much so that even a tire blowing off my car, taking half my fender with it, didn’t bring me down one bit.  Nobody was hurt except my Subaru, checkbook and pride, but a girl simply must know her priorities.  A damaged, undrivable station wagon isn’t half as important as a Pittsburgh win over the Bruins in a game that was heart-stoppingly, joltingly unforgettable.  Cars come and go, but dramatic home team wins are absolutely priceless.

Excuse this for being so short, but I have to go now and call the car service place, garage, whatever, where I was towed.  Have a winner of a week.

Pens v. Writing

It wasn't so long ago that I promised I would be writing more often.  I haven't.  But I have a good alibi.  Two actually.  I am mired in my manuscript for school and Penguins hockey for my town.  Can't help it.  That's the way it is.  Both my manuscript and the Pens have slowed down because they've entered tricky places and both require my undivided attention and support.  Take today, for example.  I began my morning by editing 14 pages that I printed out last night and I'm finishing the afternoon by going to the Pens v. Bruins hockey game that starts at 3:00.  The Bruins are no. 1 in conference standings and my boys are hanging on by the skin of their teeth to position no. 6.  The Penguins are going to get creamed if they play this afternoon's game like they played yesterday.  Nice hockey, but lacking intensity and focus.  They need to step it up a notch, turn it on, whatever they do that clicks them into that demons-gone-wild and hell-bent on winning mode, which is what we saw on their recent 7-game winning streak that's been followed by a 2-game bout of heart-wrenching, nail-biting losses that involved overtimes and shoot-outs.  I hate shoot-outs.  It's a bad way to lose.  Anyway, I should probably set hockey aside and jump wholeheartedly into my writing with only two more weeks till deadline.  But the Pens need me and I can only do one win at a time.  The Penguins are it for now.  Go, Pens!