Sneak Peeks by Louise Yeiser

Marvy Monday

It seems I have learned a momentous new concept that will change the face of my blog forever. 

Embed

1.  to enclose closely in or as if in a matrix (like fossils embedded in stone).

2.  to make something an integral part of (like the prejudices embedded in our language).

3.  to prepare (a microscopy specimen) for sectioning by infiltrating with and enclosing in a supporting substance.

Cool, but who needs that last definition?  Anyway, below is an example of embedding, brought to you by my handy dandy cut-and-paste tool.  With it, I placed the secret code for my photo album from my own special page on the Six Sentences network main page and EMBEDDED it in the html background of today's blog.  So what you see is not the secret code that is there, but my photo album from a completely different location!  I guess a person can learn something new every day, even on Mondays.  Or some other moral, like I guess a person is never too old to learn tricks.  Or whatever.

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Writing Material

I like writing that turns the lights off and on at night, and whispers in my ear, shaping my dreams, when I'm sleeping.  I like writing that tastes like a hot fudge sundae; writing that's so thick and rich I could lick it off my fingers.  I like writing that sits in the middle of my yard and howls at the moon.  I like writing that steps up to a dare and takes a good, hard crack at it.  I like writing that purrs like a fuzzy, gray kitten in a pink bow, before stunning me through a narrow, dark alleyway littered with overturned garbage cans, used condoms, broken beer bottles and God knows what else.  I like writing that shakes its booty with me on the dance floor, gyrating like a crazed demon, sweaty and sultry, and then showers and changes into a long skirt and sandals to go home and read stories to the children.  I like writing that loves one-night stands as much as longterm, committed relationships, and does both, often and passionately.

I hope your weekend is filled with whatever writing you like!

From Louise

Railroad Tracks

I have been planning your first visit for almost two years.  Wanting my friends to meet you, to make you an honorary Steelers fan (of course), to show off our inclines that weren’t ripped out the way Cincinnati’s were, which happened before I was old enough to remember anything, maybe the mid-fifties.  I couldn’t wait to show you the historic landmark house where my great grandparents raised my grandmother, during the quiet years after Great Grandpa Joslin hung up his Oregon Trail spurs and took a job with the railroad.  My grandmother married an ENT surgeon and moved to Cincinnati, where my mother met you and I was born, the second of four.  It may have started there, but it will end here, as I live my days and years quietly, partially submerged in the woods surrounding the house; and I always stop and listen to the trains, as they chug and grind along the tracks that follow the river.  They bellow their sustained chords all night long, which causes some Sewickley suburbanites, rumpled and grumpy, to awaken and reach for their phones to complain, but the melodies only make me stir, conscious enough to wonder how I managed to wander home; so I drift back to sleep, smiling and soothed to remember.

A Bit About Me:  I am a Cincinnati native who settled in Pittsburgh after many restless changes of venue; and I recently entertained my father on the weekend of my graduation from the University of Pittsburgh with honors, which snagged me a BA in English Writing, parties, dinners and presents, and lots of time spent "steelerizing" my father.

I love Six Sentences because not only does it include me, but also because it almost never rejects me, and because it shows pictures of Ireland and other cool stuff and other cool people in its slideshow

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Dear literary magazines who rejected my work this morning:

Don’t you know who you’re dealing with here?  My first essay ever, in Nonfiction 1 four years ago, came back with an A+ and a stickie note on it that said, “You are a gifted writer.”  (see photo left)  My senior seminar teacher told me that my writing was reminiscent of Hemingway and that I was in the top 2% of all the writing students he has taught over the last 29 years.  Don’t you know who I am?

Well, that’s okay because I don’t either.  I can't send you my best stuff because it’s highly autobiographical, with liberal creative embellishments, and despite the fact it is entitled My Notebook Stories: My Father, My Joy, which sounds like a tribute and a compliment, my father would take it as nothing less than a reprehensible invasion of privacy that's not completely true, and he would probably never speak to me again.  Same goes with my sisters, who, after my weekend visits, sometimes prod me about the latest news from home, which I am unwilling to give, since I don’t want their ideas about my father formed by my less-than-perfect observations taken in a limited time frame.  So you get my second best work, not my very best, and you reward it with these damned rejection letters―some nice, some not so nice―and it's driving me nuts.

To add more confusion to my already muddled thinking, I have chosen a piece entitled Dark Edges for my MFA master thesis, and the Admissions director, who is also my adviser, preferred My Notebook Stories: My Father, My Joy.  “Brilliantly constructed,” she said over the phone, “So intricate and revealing, yet sensitive.”  Oh, brother, wouldn’t you know?  “Here’s Dark Edges,” I think.  “Please take another look.”

Anyway, back to the reject guys.  You aren’t even the best magazines that have rejected me.  You are the also-rans, the second bests, like my submissions.  I have been rejected by the fine likes of Brevity and Dislocate and Collision and I’m sure a dozen other premier sites whose names I’ve thankfully forgotten by now.  Selective memory keeps my pride in place, and God only knows where I'd be without my pride.

As I sit here, I am aware of the critic on my shoulder, who, as I ramble on purposelessly, is telling me that if this ragtag writing is my blog for today, I am a very unfocused, very shallow person.  I should be writing about sultry, dark sex with a secret, forbidden partner who worships me, or a poignant moment, where I wanted to throw myself off a bridge, but couldn’t because the sun was setting to make room for the full moon as it glowed brighter and brighter in the deepening twilight sky.  Or the heartache of some unrequited love (and there are so many), or an earth-shattering self revelation that stopped me dead in my tracks, or a triumph over an unimaginable hardship that would submerge a less hearty soul.  Life-changing, pivotal, weighty moments.  Ah, hell.  Sometimes I’m there, sometimes not.

So I look through my window to see a spring day, loaded with steel-wool balls that have hijacked the blue and broil around in the sky, threatening to unleash buckets and bolts, and make everyone complain bitterly about our lack of sun.  I love these days.  Perfect writing days, with the sky looming about, reminding us how little control we really have.  What we do have is our opinions, our petty, ego-driven opinions, which we form from evidence that we bend in order to support our opinions.  Imperfection at its best.

Okay, that’s my deep for today.  Shallow is as shallow does.  Rambling is as rambling does.  And I’m content to sit here typing and be okay with coming up with nothing mind-boggling―no conclusions, no startling revelations―which is okay for now because all is well in my world, despite the two rejection letters I received this morning.  “Good,” I say, forcing my fists to unclench and my lips to smile.  “I have two more pieces to circulate into other markets.”  Onward and ahoy! (or whatever)

The end.

From Louise

Uncensored, Unedited Joy, Rapture

Yesterday my diploma was handed to me by renowned poet and memoirist, Toi Derricotte, whose brilliantly written The Black Notebooks was assigned reading in our memoir-writing class last year.  If only some of her talent and courage could have rubbed off on me during that handshake and quick kiss on the cheek, then I would forever be one happy University of Pittsburgh graduate!  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Dad is here, my son Nicholas is here and my Jeffrey is here.  Last night, I dined with friends and family, received hugs and presents, and slowly savored a pistachio crème brulee for dessert, which topped off a perfectly broiled fillet.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Today, I’m piling everyone in the car so we can toot around the city, explore the river banks and take rides up and down Pittsburgh’s inclines that are crowned with the most brilliant view of the city imaginable.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Tonight we dine at the Grand Concourse with an old family friend, the godson of my father’s best friend, who is a scout for the Pittsburgh Steelers; so I plan to poke, prod and pry to get the inside scoop on the weekend’s NFL draft.  During dessert, I am presenting dad with a hand-knitted, black-and-gold scarf (to go with his terrible towel I gave him last year), and making him an honorary Steelers fan.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

I think these are the most unforgettable two days I’ve experienced in my entire life and I know it’s only going to last another 24 hours, so I plan to savor, relish, love, memorize, freeze-frame every single, solitary moment of it.  I will seal these soon-to-be memories in an airtight container for permanent storage in a gray vault, which will be brought out and relived, whenever I need them.  And it doesn't get any better than that.

Lightbulb!

Every time I set out to write a new blog, I find myself wondering why I never have any new material.  I think I've been reworking the same old stuff over and over for weeks now, maybe months.  I know I have a good excuse, since I'm getting ready to graduate and getting ready to pursue further study in Ireland this summer and have about hundred jillion books about Ireland to read and about a thousand jillion more books to read that were written by Irish authors in Irish settings.  I suppose it would help if I actually wrote something in my journal now and then, instead of digging up rejects from the corners of my computer's basement and reworking them.  Oh, the challenge of breathing some semblance of life back into dead scrolls.  I may love the rewrite, but it keeps me from producing anything new.  And today, on the brink of graduation, with spring going nuts outside my window, blossoming here, bursting out there, I'm all about new.  Maybe this is the reason my "Memoir Writing" instructor required three pages in our journal for every day of the term last fall.  He was trying to cultivate healthy writing habits, yes?  Oh.  I get it.

Have a terrific weekend and may you discover something fresh and new while you're having it!

From Louise

Rounding the Corner, Striding, Crawling or Flying, Can't Tell Yet, The Jury's Still Out: My Blog for Today

The countdown has begun.  I am only a few days away from my graduation, in the throes of excitement, as I bustle about, trying to prep the house for an onslaught of fullness—laundry, flowers, clean towels in every bathroom, toilet paper. Oh, my God!  Don’t let me run out of toilet paper! A local son moving back for the weekend, another son flying in from LA (thank God I have HD ESPN or he’d just skip the whole thing for the Stanley Cup) and a father flying in from Cincinnati. Needless to say, I’m squirreling my resident 125, 155 and 180-pound mastiffs off-site. All my big ole Charlie  has to do to throw my back out is bump me the wrong way and pop! out it goes. Imagine what he could to do an octogenarian.  Not to mention the liberal imparting of drool. Drool that I washed off the walls and ceiling of the hall and family room last weekend. No.  Off they will go for the weekend, safely out of the way.  Dad will be relieved, the boys will be mad.  Oh, well.  We do our best.

Anyway, with the long weekend poised to happen, I have nothing to write, nothing to say.  Except private things, non-bloggy things. Soppy things.  Weepy things.  Things like disbelief that I’m graduating with honors in the top 15% of my class, or things like second chances, or things like it’s never too late to start something new, and other things like that. Things nobody wants to read about or hear.  Too flowery, too sentimental.  So I’ll just keep them to myself ― and delight in them.

Spring Things

Telephone Pole

It bristles with possibility.  Never slumping during sorrows or jumping for joys.  Ambulance, fire truck, police car, accident.  Another sorrow added.  The first bike ride, the first walk pushing the pram, strolling by snapping pictures, another joy.  It confesses its favorite pastime is smelling the new daffodils, as they creep out of their hiding places around his feet.

Branches

Powder puff corals on the tips of bareness, which last week shivered spindly with cold, begging for a shawl or even a blessed blanket of snow—any covering would be better than that icy nakedness.  Alone.  Today, they are blushing with their first spring kiss.

Rawhide Bone

My mastiff’s prize possession, untied and shortened.  Pieces have wandered into his huge jowls and stayed, as if resting in a swaying hammock, sipping lemonade through a straw.  Tart, icy, with a single bead of sweat blazing a cool trail down the sides of the glass. Now all he needs is a warm, spring day filled with bright sun.

Wishing you a terrific spring weekend!

From Louise

Prescription for Peace

Today is one of those gorgeous spring days with a sky so intensely blue that it wants to suck you right into itself.  Indeed this is the very weather Pittsburgh is totally not known for, so I am feeling joyously non-productive, yearning to loll around the yard, watching the mastiffs play, and reading my latest book.  The sun's warmth reminds me that when I was young, I was passionately committed to losing my winter death pallor by spending four hours a day, 10 am to 2 pm, primetime, soaking up the spring and summer rays, which we believed to be healthy, not the cancer-producing, killer bolts they have turned into today.  We knew the sun sprinkled vitamin D into our pores or something, sort of the same way Tinkerbell dispensed her magic pixie dust, not that pixie dust actually soaked into the pores, but you get my drift.  Anyway, I am personally in favor of sunshine and pixie dust, and think everyone should have a good, healthy dose of each at least three times a day.  I think that would fix things up quite nicely, don't you?

Why I Love School

Juggling armloads of books and papers, we stepped from the lobby and piled into the parking garage elevator to go down to lower level 2.  The three girls and their tall, male companion were engrossed in conversation.  They were discussing someone’s performance in a class or a job.  Maybe an oral presentation of some kind?  This is not surprising, since we University of Pittsburgh students are coming up on finals, which some professors waive in favor of end-of-term projects due during the last weeks of class.  Alas, it is once again that sink-or-swim, performance-eval time of year.

“He did a really awesome job,” girl no. 1 said.  They all stood facing the elevator door, squinting up at the numbers, which were slow like the elevator was, but not as creaky.

“God, he, like, always does.  He’s really cool,” opined girl no. 2.  Rigorous head nodding ensued.

“And he’s, like, really nice to look at too,” girl no. 3 chimed in.

"Yeah, but he’s married,” said girl no. 2, which brought about a vast array of grimaces, head shakes and frowns.  The guy in the back swayed, as if he had shifted his weight onto the other leg.

“God.  They, like, all are,” said girl no. 1, which resulted in titters and renewed head-shaking.

“Well, I’m not,” the guy in the back of the elevator finally chimed in.  I was hopeful for him, since I thought he was cute.   "I'm not married," he said.

At this, girl no. 2 leaned against the side wall of the elevator, looked directly at me through thick, brown glasses, and then at him, and said, “But you’re in a serious relationship; what do you want from us?”  She turned and rested her eyes directly on me with no hint of a smile.  Serious.  Even grave.  Then they all burst out laughing.

I laughed all the way to my car.  And that, my friends, is exactly why I love being a student at the University of Pittsburgh, despite the fact that I'm almost 60 years old.

Study well this weekend and have a good laugh or two in spite of it all!

From Louise

Havin' a Ball

People’s ingenuity never ceases to amaze me.  Take my father, for example.  Having bumped the rear garage wall, the wall near the kitchen, with the front of his Beamer on numerous occasions, he has figured out a remedy.  If I were to walk through the garage from the driveway, which I do once a month upon my arrival for my weekend visits, I would observe dad’s Beamer, with windshield resting against a fluorescent, green tennis ball that dangles by a sturdy string from the ceiling.

“Stop right there!” the ball shouts as dad creeps toward it, in his quest to return home from an afternoon at the office and pull his car into the garage, listening to one last Count Basie song on his super-duper, deluxe, ultra modern car speakers, unusual toys for this terribly low-tech octogenarian.  He doesn’t want to worry about where the wall begins and his car ends, or having to explain what that loud bang was in the garage a minute ago that shook the house and scared everyone inside half to death.  He simply wants to sit with my stepmom and enjoy cocktail hour of gin and tonic, wine, chips and nuts, and spend a few minutes watching the early evening news.  The stop spot makes it all happen.

With that in mind, have a ball this weekend.

From Louise

Carlow, Warm Baths and Chocolate

I have surprised myself, but apparently none of my friends or teachers, by being accepted into Carlow University's low-residency MFA Creative Writing program, which offers two 11-day writing residencies per year, one in Carlow, Ireland in June and one here in Pittsburgh in January.  And while I may sound all matter-of-fact and reporty about it, I am actually bouncing off the walls, fighting for my composure, since I am in the throes of planning a writer's residency in Ireland this summer!  At the moment, it is 4:45 am, I have been awake and tossing around in my bed since about 3, and have so many questions, excitements, worries, concerns, ecstasies and yearnings that I can hardly think.  Should I put on my coffee pot and get an early start to my day, or soak in a warm tub to lull myself back to sleep, or knit, or read a book to pass the time until I know what to do with myself?  And why the hell is there no chocolate in this house when I need it?

Memoir Writing 101

But my clamoring persistence, bent into words, bounces off canyon walls like the most earnest of echoes, and fades, once I realize (and I always do), that my fervor isn’t shared, that all our present-day positions are colored by decades and lifetimes of personal understandings and individual interpretations, choices (so many choices), good memories, and harsh resentments that hold our egos into place; and all these things are gathered into piles of feather dust or steel bricks.  Their weight is what we imagine it, and it guides our futures.  So I acknowledge, once again and again, that my sense of urgency is mine alone, based on the miracle of a prodigal daughter’s return.  The others never left, so I cannot impulsively grab one by the hand, her hair flying behind her, and pull her with me.  She is traveling in her own direction, a direction that needs neither repair, nor advice, nor interference.  But I keep forgetting that.

I sat back and waited for my professor to tell me how terrific it was, so word-intensive, so literary.  “Nice job, Louise,” he would say.  “I can see the early bloom of a true poet.”

Instead, he looked up and said, “You're dancing around something.  What are you really trying to say here?”

In that spirit, I must ask, "What are you really doing this weekend?"  Whatever it is, don't forget to dance and throw in a step or two for me! 

From Louise

Survival of the Best Trained

"Why can’t you hit him?” she had demanded, during my first class in her dojo.  When Teacher was in Sensei mode, she was fierce.  Her eyes flashed black and her solid, bull-dog, Hawaiian body became even more square, more firmly connected with the ground.  Her voice had a growl to it.  She would move belligerently up and down the rows of men and women, who were practicing their moves.  Block.  Strike.  Round-house kick.  Front kick.  Back kick.  Pick a partner.  Grab arts.  Hit the mats.  100 sit-ups.  Sets of ten.  Counting in Japanese.  She was the most powerful woman I had ever met, with tan skin, arms that were shaped like clubs usually crossed over her generous front, and long black hair.  Not thin, not fat, just large, solid and strong.  Unrelenting.  Fiery.  As well as startlingly beautiful.  I loved her, feared her, and did everything I could to follow her directions.  We had met twice to talk.  I had been given my gi and spent the last hour and a half doing drills and non-contact exercises with a partner in my first class.  And now I was on the mat with Dennis and I couldn’t hit him.

Eventually, I could.  And did.  Many times.  In fact, I liked hitting him so much that the black belts finally split us up and assigned us to different partners.  We had become too comfortable with one another.  That was twenty years ago, in a ken-ka-kung-fu martial arts school in San Diego, CA.  Ken-ka-kung-fu is an offshoot of kajukenbo, a no-nonsense, survival-not-sport style that began in Hawaii during World War II.  One motto that clearly defines this martial arts style:  Fighters respect us, tournaments disqualify us, truly we're the black sheep in the family.  People say they never heard of Kajukenbo.  I say: "you never heard of survival at all cost?"

Thank you to Teacher/Master Janice Reinhardt, wherever she may be, for helping me find my way back to well-being after somehow surviving a violent crime that temporarily knocked the life right out of me.  Thank you, Sensei.

Happy Easter!

I simply could not resist.  This is Winston from Easter, 2003.

Cheers from Louise!

What is....

"a writer?" my teacher wanted to know.  I couldn't come up with anything at the time, so after a respectable amount of musing and stewing, I came up with a satisfactory definition.  A writer is a person whose brain will explode if the words, gathering steam while they churn and boil about in the mind's inner chambers, are not permitted to be released onto a piece of paper or mutate into a new life form on a computer screen.  Nifty, huh?  Ah, well.  Tomorrow, I'll think it's something else.

"a misogynist?" Someone outside was saying that all Republicans were misogynists.  At first I thought he said all Republicans were massaging ists, which was why I did a double-take.  Once I realized what he said, I was already inside, so I asked a group of students, clustered at the bottom of the stairwell talking, and then a second group.  Nobody knew.  So I went into the computer room and looked it up: "someone who hates women."  Personally, I like the idea of massaging ists much better, but then I'd have to find out what an ist is.

Happy Good Friday, happy Easter and happy weekend!

From Louise

O, Memories of Comfort and Joy, Comfort and Joy

I remember when I was dating Harvey Molles and I went to New York to join him at a book-signing for this fabulously successful Cincinnati writer-friend whose name I can’t remember; and Mary Ann or Marion or Maryanne Whitney, the well-known New York philanthropist whose name I can't remember, was the hostess; and I bought a sleek, sassy, sequined cocktail dress and went to a midtown Manhattan hair salon to acquire a French braid, and I showed up at the private 6pm drinks-and-hors d'œuvres reception on Harvey’s arm, only to realize that everyone else had gone dressy-caj, and some of the men, including the guest of honor, hadn't even bothered with a tie or a sports jacket.  Yeah, that was a fun night.

a Bit o' Luck, a Lot o' Skill

St. Patrick's Day is much more meaningful to me this year, since it's a celebration not only of the beloved saint, but also of Ireland, and I am hoping to go to the emerald isle this summer to write under the tutelage of Carlo Gébler, as part of the Carlow University's low-residency MFA Creative Writing program.  I just finished reading Father and I: a memoir and I am awestruck by his incredible writing style.  Plus I can't help but notice the lucky-charm coincidence in my 25-page writing sample that includes a 14-page piece entitled My Notebook Stories: My Father, My Joy.  How terrific it would be to continue working on this with such a memoir master looking over my shoulder.  So while today may be the day for green, shamrocks, pots of gold at ends of rainbows, leprechauns, magic and the luck o’ the Irish, I am wishing for every ounce of pure writing skill existing in my body, mind and spirit to form compelling, stunning, breath-taking ideas and sentences and paragraphs and descriptions and titles in my head and come pouring out of my fingers onto the keyboard, to be flashed onto this flickering screen in front of me, so I can edit and rewrite what I hope to be the most ingenious, knock-your-socks-off, wickedly beautiful and introspectively haunting 25 pages of creative nonfiction I have ever written.  Because, you see, Ireland beckons. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, yeah.

A Strange, Sunny End

Vacation.  Usually I detach―reflect, ponder, meditate―and I emerge with intricate lists of changes, resolutions, switched priorities.  But this vacation has been spent writing, rewriting, reading, icing and resting a back injury, meeting deadlines and making electronic submissions, and staying in touch with crises large and small back home and trying to absorb them.  A betrayal here, a shock there, a death, a terminal illness much too close, hospice.  It’s been life as usual, with its gains and losses, going a little heavy on the losses, but at least I've had the added benefit of a shoreline and pelicans and sandpipers and palm trees and waves and blue and bathing suits and dolphins and warmth and sand filled with shells and juicy, fresh fruit in the bottom drawer of the fridge that must be savored standing in the middle of the kitchen because I can't wait to walk all the way into the dining nook to take the first bite.  As usual in mid-March, Naples is hopping with vacationers and tourists.  I bump into them everywhere, red faced with their white straps etched into scarlet shoulders, hair tousled, new shades that hide their eyes, so I can't see where they're looking.  On second thought, maybe it has been a real vacation.  Just a different sort.  Kind of uncomfortable and strange, but at least partly sunny.  I think I might be glad to be heading home today.  Naples vacation ending to a Pittsburgh spring beginning.

Good weekend to you.

      

From Louise

Water's Edge

The sun hasn’t come up yet and our stretch of glassy, gray Gulf needs its warmth to explode into opalescent blues and greens; but for now, it looks as inviting as the cold steel of a revolver.  When the sun does decide to peek over the horizon, it will paint the tops of the palm trees coral and orange before it hits the water and warms it.  The sky is a wash of charcoals, pinks and blues with a few wispy gray clouds trying to break off and quietly float away.  They had better hurry before the pastels overtake them and swallow them whole.  A man in a yellow shirt, tan shorts, white gym shoes and eggshell golf hat is sauntering down the beach, his eyes glued to the sand in front of his feet, missing the glorious display of seashore-morning unfolding around him.  An old woman, arms swinging, and an old man, feet shuffling, are moving up the beach, with her leading the way.  Once they are closer to my window, I can see that he cannot keep up, but she cannot wait.  I resist the urge to run out and join them.  “Go on at your own pace,” I would say to her, shooing her away.  “I’ll walk with him.”  While she exercises her newfound freedom and hurries down the beach, taking deep, cleansing breaths and looking out for dolphins lazing by and swiping at the schools of small fish they slice through, he and I could peck through the sand for coquinas, who present themselves in infinite patterns in infinite color combinations.  I like the plaid ones best.

Morning in Naples

Every time I come to Naples, on waking to my first beach morning, I raise the blinds, position my favorite chair in just the right spot, make sure I have a paper towel on the ledge, a makeshift coaster for my morning coffee, and take the same picture.  I must have at least two dozen of these saved on my computer, going back to when I first started using digital, 2002.  It’s my favorite view of the Gulf and it doesn't matter that the shot is taken through a thick, salty, hurricane-proof glass window that sometimes is decorated with lizards or snails, and always has shade slats reflected in it somewhere.  Some things never change and that isn’t always bad.

Today is my fourth morning here and it’s a cloudy one, which I love.  The sky is the ultimate drama queen, with the grays hovering inside purples, pinks and blues in streaks and balls, which threaten to stew and broil above the water-line, and all of it sweeps across the sky before disappearing beyond my window, exiting stage right.  I can tell the temperature by watching the people who walk by, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups.  Today there are no sleeveless shirts.  Mostly long sleeves and jackets (except for the joggers, who wear practically nothing, for reasons that are inherently obvious); so I know, without having to open the sliding kitchen door or going outside, that the temperature is in the low-to-mid-60’s and feels cooler because of the coastal breezes that play up and down the shoreline.

The sun is not scheduled to appear today, so it will be a good writing day, a good reading day, a good movie day.  Whatever, I say.  It’s still a change from the cold and ice of Pittsburgh, and a reprieve from my daily routine, an opportunity to stand at a distance and come up with a new perspective or insight.  Hasn't happened yet, so I think I'm ready for my second cup of coffee.

57 Ways to Agree with a Stranger

What does ketchup taste like?” asks a heavily accented woman’s voice.  Trying not to laugh or answer the question aloud, I lift the menu and study it intently.

“Well," and there is a long pause, "it tastes like ketchup, of course."  A man’s voice, muffled.  I am betting he has a mustache, but I am not going to turn around and stare at him to find out.

"Ketchup tastes like ketchup.  Of course!” I think.  "How could it be otherwise?"  I decide on the scrambled eggs as I glance at the full bottle of Heinz, lying upside down on my table next to the salt and pepper shakers with their shiny, silver tops.  I close my menu and motion to the server.  My flight leaves in less than an hour.

From Louise

P.S.  Have an agreeable weekend!

Coffee Made

I thought I had the whole morning free to write—no distractions, no meetings—well, there was something minor. . . I just couldn’t remember what.  I hurried downstairs and turned into the hallway, knowing that my coffee had finished brewing only moments before.  Its fragrance greeted me as I walked into the kitchen.  I breathed it in, soaked it in, and made my way to the counter.  There sat my softly gurgling coffeemaker, mug, spoon, creamer and appointment book, exactly the way I had placed them the night before, the coffee paraphernalia sitting prettily on a white paper towel.  I love waking up in the mornings, feeling like someone has taken care of me, even if that someone is I. 

After my first joyful sip, I reached for the appointment book to figure out what it was I had forgotten.  When I found the correct page, I read, "11 am: Mammogram.”   I set my coffee down, took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes, shook out my hair, put my glasses back on and looked again.  “11 am: Mammogram.”

"Damn it to hell!” I shouted at the ceiling.  "Damn it!  "  I started back upstairs to get the mastiffs moving, for now I had to hurry.  I laughed without humor, knowing I had boomeranged back into my life, reminded once again that reality is the best good-mood buster in town.

Take it Easy

I’ll take it any way I want.  This was the automatic response of one of my ninth grade heart throbs.  His name was Steve.  Steve was the starting linebacker for the local public school varsity football team and he wore a special jacket with a letter on it, which I knew was some sort of honor.  I didn't know what, but I wasn’t going to ask; I certainly knew the difference between cool and uncool.

He was an enormous, hunky, handsome guy, with startlingly blue eyes, long lashes and a perfectly square jawline, who stood by laughing, while other girls threw themselves at him, a phenom which required no effort on his part.  I think he liked me because I was a cute novelty in a tiny package, with a certain attitude, who knew nothing about anything, and went to a different school, a girl’s private school no less, and I hadn’t figured out yet what a catch he was.  As soon as I figured it out, he was gone.

 

Movin' On

Published again!  I haven't the slightest idea why Newspaper Boy from my last entry intimidated me so.  I must have been ripe for a meltdown anyway, and simply read his comments at exactly the wrong moment.

I'm zooming about in hot pursuit of admission materials for Carlow University's MFA low-residency Creative Writing program.  If I am accepted, I will get to spend eleven blissful days writing and receiving instruction at Carlow's sister school in Carlow, Ireland, a golden and wonderful opportunity.  I'm hurrying the process along as fast as I can and have already submitted two essays to mentors at Pitt for their comments before my final rewrites.  A lick of a 41¢ stamp (or two, depending on the thickness of the packet) and then off I will go into the cold, snow and ice, to the post office's outdoor, drive-by mailbox with the slot that my car's side mirror always wants to bump.  Once I readjust my mirror, my next step will be to gather together and tweak twenty five pages of work, which I consider daunting, despite the strong encouragement and soothing reassurances from my current professor.  "Don't worry, be happy," he suggests, right?  Of course, right.

So off I go!  See you next week.

From Louise

M is for Meltdown

It began in my car, not far from the Starbucks on the corner.  It continued past the bank and down my street, and into my driveway, and during my wait for the garage door.  It continued after I was cocooned within the cement-block walls, the door closed behind me.  As long as I hid in my car, in the garage, no one in the whole world knew where I was.  I wasn’t really at home, nor was I really out.  Temporarily tucked into a safe place nowhere.

What was I thinking?  I had stripped myself naked, put the image on computer pages, edited and rewrote, edited and rewrote, edited and rewrote, and submitted the 4,000 words to the class's online bulletin board within the allotted assignment time.  It had been sitting there for a week, inviting peer review.  Peer, being the pivotal word.  I’m talking about a bunch of 20-year olds here.

I described my first real-life free-fall with no safety net.  A violent crime committed against me in my own home in the middle of the night.  Unsympathetic police, and friends who expected me to correct them.  A face that stayed marred and bruised for weeks.  A family who had no idea how to respond.  Panic attacks that struck without warning and sent me fleeing home to a fetal position in a bathrobe.  A life that seemed meaningless and foreboding, once the dust cleared.  I scratched and clawed my way back to normalcy.  The piece should have made a reader cry.  “If I can have these experiences and survive, you can,” I paint into each word.  “If I can find my way back, you can.  These things happen to normal people.  We are together.  We must have compassion for one another.  Compassion, no matter what.”

“You need to figure out which parts of your piece make for a good story,” was the comment that set me off.  “I want to hear more about how you slept with a revolver under your pillow and popped xanax in the bathtub.”  Clearly, he missed my point, which reflects on my ability as a writer.  I gave descriptions of horror against hope, never leaving the reader long to linger in the shadow places, but giving relief as soon as I could.  The juxtaposition was meant to be startling.  The story was in the evoking.  I wanted to bring the reader into the feelings with me.  But this 20-year old journalist who thinks he’s a creative nonfiction writer will never figure me out and he’ll never figure out my writing.  His youth and arrogance and lack of emotional involvement prevent it.  "Shakespeare's writing is alright, I guess," I heard him say once.  The meltdown happened anyway.

So back to my original question: what was I thinking?  I don’t know.  I was just doing what I do.  Writing.  To celebrate and mourn the human experience from my vantage point, and share it with a reader, with readers, with whomever will read it, to the best of my ability.  So how important is this one critique?  Not so very.  As soon as I figure this out, I’m back on my feet and on my way.  Experiencing yet another episode that will pass.