Ravings of a Semi-Mad Woman

Quiet Forest

2012-01-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

A common treatise to one of the many philosophical questions concerning subjective and objective reality.

If I restructure it to fit my latest existential crisis, it would read:

If an author writes, but no one reads his books, is he really writing anything at all?

CRASH!

The sound I would hear if I heard the tree fall. So could I assume trees fall all the time? Can I imagine the sound in my head all day, every day in the hopes that I am privy to an event heretofore unseen by me, by anyone?

CRASH!

I write books and it can easily be compared to a tree falling. The Earth shakes, the wood splinters, ripping, tearing, and the trees around tremble and await the impact of the fall.

The dust settles, small animals scurry out and around the anomaly, and soon, the quiet of the forest prevails again. Until the next scene, chapter, part, book. Until the next tree falls.

There is a certain freedom in writing for an unknown audience. I have no expectations bearing down on me. I have no one calling out for TDTM part deux. I have accepted that my audience will ultimately be small. But if I'm to fell a tree, I want more than crickets and the sound of a solitary devotee, his applause the forlorn sound of metered clapping in an empty hall. I write, finally, to be read.

I lack the primitive desire to herald my tomes from the rooftops. I loathe selling myself. I want my words to sell me, to create a furor such that when one tree falls, the next has no choice but to

buckle under the Domino effect.

But this is not realistic thinking, is it? There are many who believe this process is just that. But the authors who have this kind of following had a good, loud jump-start. Take Dan Brown. His Angels & Demons tome never quite took off, even though Pocket Books--respectable enough, bought it. Only when The DaVinci Code exploded on the scene backed by Random House, did Angels & Demons get an audience.

But who was his audience? I can tell you who was not his audience: most of the writers I read and critics whom I respect.

So is it really, as Jonathan Franzen says, "status" vs. "contract?"

We can't do both? Oh, we can...we just choose not to. But ,wait, the American public cares about quality, right? They care about more than...than...okay. Example.

If the American public was given a choice between an awesome, talented actress of no notable beauty or sex appeal or Megan Fox, whom would they choose?

CRASH!

Oh, crap.

I'm going to conclude by saying that I'm off to the forest. I hope I'm not forever doomed to venturing it alone.

There is something inspiring and stunning about a naturally felled tree. I wish you could see it. I wish everyone could see it and know.

Chowder

The NutCreeper (Repost, Adult)--Dedicated to Uncle Kreepy :)

2011-12-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

"How YOU doin'?"

Last night we took Sparrow and Little Son to The Nutcracker. I'd always been severely perturbed by the premise, but it's a holiday tradition and magical and beautiful and.....totally perverted.

It starts innocuously enough.

A Christmas party, wives kissing cheeks, husbands shaking hands, children frolicking....ah, but one child isn't. A child, that is. Clara, the lead, is more of a young woman now, caught in that nubile stage between woman and girl. She doesn't quite fit in either world and it becomes obvious when she must surrender her Christmas doll to a late-coming little girl. I hear Nabokov sighing in his grave.

The doll represents young girlhood and the carefree domestic naivete children celebrate when they play "house", never fully understanding what goes on behind closed doors. Clara is availed of the illusion and understandably, she weeps.

But the scene turns dark as one final guest arrives. The Creepy Uncle. Uncle Drosselmeier appears, his eye patched so that he can only see the burgeoning young woman in Clara, the child hidden from him.

He brings all of the trappings of a magician--an irresistible character to children. But his top hat, cape and eye-patch are indicative not only of his dark desires, but of Clara's as well.

Clara tearfully greets her Uncle as he produces gifts for the children, and every gift he proffers to Clara is snatched away by a rambunctious young boy, the games and tethers she is destined to leave behind. Finally, Creepy Uncle D. produces the man of her dreams, a Nutcracker, we'll call him Woody. Clara is immediately in love, and begins dancing with her new ~~prince~~ prize. Naturally, she wants to bring him to her bed, unsure of why she wants to snuggle up to the hard, wooden figure, but feeling compelled to do so anyway.

Uncle Creepy D has a knowing smile as he watches her twist and writhe on the stage, and we almost see him imbue his very person into the doll with which she cavorts.

Soon, all of the children grow tired. Clara tries to bring her new ~~boy~~ toy to bed with her, but her mother, unwilling to see her young daughter grow up, intervenes.

Before he leaves, Creepy Uncle D. covers the Nutcracker with his cloak, awaiting the time when he can come to Clara as a full-grown man.

Meanwhile, rats infest the darkened room, gnawing on the couch where Clara lay, eating away at her self-control. The clock strikes and we see Creepy Uncle in the face of the clock, indicating it's "time". He sprinkles dust on the sleeping Clara and she awakens to giant rats, chasing and terrorizing her. She is in a flimsy, sheer nightgown displaying her young, yet womanly body.

As she falls onto the fainting couch, her dreams transport her to a land where giant rats fight toy soldiers. Ah, but one soldier seems familiar. One soldier has the package of a freaking elephant....Her Prince, the Nutcracker, is there to defend her!

Soon he takes Clara on a whirlwind tour of the Sugar Plum Fairy's kingdom, enticing her with sweets. In what can only be described as a strange threesome, Clara, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince wallow in the caliente, fiery dancers of Spain, the sensual, seduction of the Arabian dancers, the aerobatics of the Chinese and finally, the masculine, dominant Russian dance.

Dolls no longer apply to Clara's world, as Madame Gigogne lifts her skirts and shows Clara where dollies really come from and what she must expect as a woman.

Finally, Woody woos her with Dance of the Flower Petals, as she symbolically moves from childhood fancy with sweets and candy, to womanly desires of deep florals, stamens and pistons. They sit, side by side as the Sugar Plum Fairy performs the pas de deux with her cavalier, the dance representing the coupling of two people in perfect harmony. The Nutcracker prince simply can't decide with whom he should dance, so he goes between Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy, leaving one woman alone to watch as he lifts and spins the other...(more like a pas de trois if you ask me)

The finale displays all of the players as they converge into an orgy of color, light and sound while they bombard the stage and bend in graceful bows. Clara and her Prince are ~~consummated~~ crowned and carted away in a gilded sled, no doubt with tin cans tied to the bumper.

Clara wakes from her dream....satisfied.

***

As far as metaphors go, it's pretty clear. Clara wakes up and her Dream Boat Prince is actually just a little man with a big mouth.

*sigh*

The story of every woman at some point in her life.

Chew on THAT a spell.

Chowder

Life, Second Life, Reality and the Absurd

2011-11-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

I really can't say I'm bored. I am not a bored person. There are usually not enough hours in the day for me to do all I want and need to do.

So it remains a mystery to me why I was intrigued and seduced by the virtual on-line world called Second Life.

I'm not sure I know enough about it yet to even adequately describe what "SL" entails. But I know one thing: it is the Fantasy Island for the 21st Century. Minus the creepy little person.

Tattoo and Mr. Roarke: Creepiest and Creepy.

This SL world is one of your own making--but what is peculiar about it is this: the other "residents" you see in SL are actual, living, breathing people, just like you.

You can look how you want. You can live where you want. You can do what you want. You can work, you can travel, you can tele-port and you can fly. You can give yourself a sunburn. If you're a man, you can be a woman, or a unicorn, whatever floats your boat. You can have sex. Not kidding. Real, NC-17 sex.

And no, that's not why I signed up. Okay, maybe it was. Shut up.

Not surprisingly, everyone in SL is, well, hot. I mean, if you could look any way you wanted, you'd look hot, too, yeah?

Who wouldn't want to have sex with these women?

The discrepancies between the real live person and the SL person may be large or...well, humongous. Here is, I'm afraid, a real example.

SL Avatar:

Real Live Person:

Not sure I'd be able to peg her IRL if we met.

The site is free, but if you want to actually have fun, you have to buy things--with actual money that is then translated into currency called Linden Dollars. You can buy clothes, a house/real estate, bling, jewelry, furniture...and people. Yes, you can get a prostitute on SL.

You communicate via IMing. You can even get software that allows you to talk in real time. I learned all of this last night and I was intrigued. Since I had a whole bunch of stuff to do today, I naturally decided to research Second Life more fully. What intrigued me the most was making my SL avatar. I wanted to see ME in virtual, 3-D (will the narcissism never end?!)

I got on the site and they lured me in with a photo much like this:

How cool is that?

So...inch by inch, input by input, I found myself creating an account on Second Life. Apparently my Thanksgiving pies are going to make themselves.

I got to choose from a myriad of things for my avatar. You can be a random person, a creature, an animal, a vehicle, a vampire, you name it. Or you can specify exactly how you want to look. I thought they'd have some photo/facial recognition feature, but I was lost in the world, commands and frankly, could find no answers to my query on how to make "me." I decided that I could create a pretty good facsimile of me after seeing the avatar creation features. Talk about specific.

You can change the density of your eyebrows. Color of hair and length, of course. You can sculpt your own nose, your eyes, your chin, forehead, ears. You can add wrinkles and jowls (yeah, I'm sure everybody uses those features). So I went to work. I didn't want perfection--I wanted me on there. A rendition of me.

I tried to change my hair length but I ended up bald. When I was finally able to have the hair again, I just left that feature alone. I can have a half-pony tail. No biggie.

I tried to make my nose the French nose that it is. There was no "beakish" command. There was a crooked command, so I promptly slid my nose off to the left. I'm not vain; I wanted my avatar to be true to life. I added the wrinkles. I added jowls. I thinned out my lips. I tried my very hardest to NOT be perfect.

I made my body pear-shaped and curvy. I had to minimize the breasts (oh, it was so tempting....but no.) I shortened myself up. Thickened out the legs.

My finished project looked something like this:

I don't know. I'm thinking I should darken the eyes.

After spending way too much time on me, me, me...I decided it was time to start the cranberry relish. Maybe when I log back on, I'll have some friend requests? Sex in a virtual world is legal, right? Honey? I'll ask him later.

If I ever decide to visit SL again, maybe I'll see you there. Introduce yourself. I live in Paris.

Chowder.

Three Words

2011-11-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

Just the facts, Ma'am.

This is a painting by artist Jon McNaughton.

It is his top seller. TOP seller.

People in this country buy this painting because it "speaks" to them. So, if I may, I'd like to speak to them, too.

Politics are not simple. They can't be boiled down to Left vs. Right, Evil vs. Good, and yet every day many people are guilty of doing just that.

It is not the thinking of a compassionate, understanding people. It is not what most Christian Churches teach, yet many proclaim this a "Christian Nation." It is the thinking trajectory of a mob. And in a mob mentality, there are no rules. It's no wonder the political climate of today is volatile, unpredictable and frightening.

The common denominator of every person, right or left or even in-between, fringe or libertarian, are these three words:

I am right.

What would our political system look like if we took these three words away? What would our religious landscape look like if we eradicated them?

There are things, however, that are irrefutable. The above painting speaks to so many, but how can it when it is literally an absurdity? Why is it absurd? I'll get to that. Keep reading.

I read the artist's statement if defense so I am fairly confident that I can say, as a fact, that this is a Right-Wing, Republican, Christianity-promoting painting--"symbolic" is not how I would characterize it, although the artist contends that it is. I don't think he knows what "symbolic" means.

I'd like to tell him:

adjective

serving as a symbol of something (often followed by of).

of, pertaining to, or expressed by a symbol.

characterized by or involving the use of symbols: a highlysymbolic poem.

(in semantics, especially formerly) pertaining to a class ofwords that express only relations.

Down at Jesus's left is a group of people that have clearly been demonized. Symbolically. Of course. We have a lawyer counting his money, the evil liberal media, an ashamed Supreme Court judge, mourning the many horrible court decisions made over the years (cough, cough Roe vs. Wade cough, cough), Satan-a demon, in case anyone thinks I'm straying from my facts, a liberal Hollywood type, and a pregnant woman who is not going to get an abortion because it's wrong. My favorite is "the professor"--you know, those "intellectuals", carrying a Darwin book. Notice how he's trying to elevate himself to the level of God? Symbolically?

MoBlog

Someone ought to explain "on the nose" to Mr. McNaughton.

Now for the absurdity. A definition to expand our awareness:

adjective

utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contraryto all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false: anabsurd explanation.

Got it? Good. The most prominent Republican figures are, right now, the contenders for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. Let the absurdity begin.

Oh, I'll be using direct quotes. They're so much better than my own opinion.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!
Herman Cain

(CC)

"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."--Matthew 25: 35-40 (aka Jesus.)

"““It’s part of Satan I think to say that this is “gay.” It’s anything but gay.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him fist cast a stone at her."
-- John, 8:7 (aka Jesus.)

"Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man." --John 8:15 (aka Jesus)

"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the wealthiest White House contender from either party, is worth as much as $250 million, according to information released by his campaign Monday.

The former venture capitalist's wealth - reported in a range of $190 million to $250 million - is spread throughout a dizzying array of investments, that include banks, large investment management firms, foreign export credit corporations and real estate."--MSNBC

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God," Matthew 19:24 (aka Jesus.)

"As conservatives we believe in the sanctity of life."--Rick Perry

"“Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times,” NBC’s Brian Williams told Perry as the conservative audience broke into cheers and applause.

"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."--Matthew 5:7 (aka Jesus.)

***

There are so many. Those who oppose health care for all of their fellow citizens, using scare tactics and misinformation, embrace that Jesus healed the sick for free.

The cheering crowd at the Republican debates when Rick Perry boasted how many people his state has executed.

Jesus was not a patriot. He was a dissenter. But the absurdity goes even deeper. Too many people believe that God has chosen the United States; that WE are God's chosen. We are right.

Yet we do not minister to our poor, our sick. We charge them money, we judge them, we imprison them.

But....we are right.

If we are a Christian nation we can't pick and choose who to save and care for. Just like we can't pick and choose what parts of the bible we can ignore and believe.

The bottom line is, we are only a Christian nation when it comes to certain issues--hand-picked issues that hold no mercy and no compassion for our fellow human beings.

Can you imagine the Jesus they accept and in whom they believe going to the Koch brother's mansion for dinner?

I don't think that's where he'd be.

The Jesus in the painting would not be standing on a step holding The Constitution. He would be on Wall Street, picketing the wealthiest of the wealthy and advocating change. He'd get pepper sprayed. He'd be in the slums, administering to the poor and afflicted. He'd feed the hungry.

For the record, I don't much believe in Jesus other than an historical figure. But I'm constantly fascinated by those who call themselves Christian and followers of Jesus, yet who seem to know very little about his life and show little interest in following his example. Jesus didn't own a weapon. He used his cheek.

Yes, I wonder if we replaced those words, I am right.

I wonder if we could replace them with,"love one another."

What would our world look like then?

Chowder

Distraction

2011-10-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share something with you concerning writing and it's meaning--at least to me.

"If the remission of pain is happiness, then the emergence from distraction is aesthetic bliss.

When you open a novel, and I mean of course the real thing, you enter into a state of intimacy with its writer. You hear a voice, or more significantly, an individual tone under the words. This tone, you the reader, will identify not so much by a name, the name of the author, as by a distinct and unique human quality. It seems to issue from the bosom, from a place beneath the breastbone. It is more musical than verbal and it is the characteristic signature of a person, of a soul. Such a writer has power over distraction and fragmentation and out of distressing unrest, even from the edge of chaos, he can bring unity and carry us to a state of intransitive attention. People hunger for this.

But this is why the artist competes with other claimants to attention. He cannot compete in the athletic sense of the word, as if his object was to drive his rivals from the field. He will never win a clear victory. Nothing will ever be clear. The elements are too mixed for that. The opposing powers are too great to overcome. They are the powers of an electrified world and of a transformation of human life, the outcome of which cannot be forseen. Toqueville predicted that in democratic countries, the public would demand larger and larger doses of excitement and increasingly stronger stimulants from its writers. He probably did not expect that public to dramatize itself so extensively to make the world seem everybody’s theater or in the developed countries to take to alcohol or drugs in order to get relief from the horrors of ceaseless intensity, the torment of thrills and distractions. A great many writers have done little more than meet the mounting demand for thrills. I think that this demand has in the language of marketing, peaked.

Can so much excitement, so much disorder be brought under control? Such questions must be addressed to analysts and experts in a variety of fields. Prediction is their business. The concern of tale tellers and novelists is with the human essences, neglected and forgotten by a distracted world."

~Saul Bellow

A Woman

2011-10-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Do you see her? Isn't she stunning?

She's everything a man could dream of...she's--wait, you don't see her? What do you mean you can't tell what she looks like? You don't know the color of her hair? Her eyes?

Ah, I see. Allow me to help. Or, rather, let my newest author find help you out.

The Act of Love, Howard Jacobson

Marisa took off her jacket—beautifully tailored it was, single-buttoned with wide lapels and a peplum that graced her hips—she told me all I needed to know about myself. I was gone. In fact a waiter helped her out of it, a test of confidence in itself, but she responded to his movements—leaning into him and then shaking herself free—as though men had helped her out of jackets all her life.

Under the jacket she wore a filmy, lovesick satin shirt that seemed more to haunt her body than to clothe it. No cleavage. She was not, as I was to discover, a cleavage type. She owned nothing low cut. There is always something desperate about women who want you to look down into their breasts.

Marisa carried hers with a full-on assurance, knowing that the beauty of her chest was frontal not abysmal, a matter of the harmonious interrelation of thorax and abdomen, of arms and back and shoulders, not the mere shape and protuberance of her mammaries.

I stress this because I have never been particularly moved by breasts as discrete objects, to be enjoyed independently of the woman to whom they belong. It was the way Marisa carried her chest as a sort of introduction or frontispiece to herself—at once soft and sculpted, the breasts themselves not large, though the general effect luxurious—that moved me.

At the moment of her sitting down, anyway, I had to look away. It was that or go blind. Whether that was why she laughed I couldn’t tell, but she was one of those women who know they must laugh at the disturbance of which their voluptuousness is the cause. And hers was a rich contralto laugh, full of depths, like everything else about her somehow material and evanescent all at once, evoking the laughter of summers long gone or summers yet to be.

***

THAT, ladies and gentleman, is how you write a woman. Now can you see her?

Isn't she absolutely stunning?

Chowder

Flight of Fancy

2011-10-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

Salvador Dali, Passionate Woman

I have been accused of being capricious. I make no bones about the fact.

Nothing moves me above and below like the written word. Contrary to my last post, I could do without them all.

This is who I am reading. He is my new paramour des mots.

Howard Jacobson.

I don't recall the last book I've read that kept me smiling and giggling throughout. And I'm only on Chapter 3.

To the question "Are you a Jewish Jane Austen or an English Philip Roth?" he replied:

"I am their love child."

God help me.

Chowder

Just One

2011-10-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not greedy and I don't see the big deal.

Let me back up.

My brother-in-law is, as we speak, in New Zealand watching rugby. WE were supposed to be in New Zealand-- watching rugby.

But we aren't and he is. Repeat: we are NOT and he is.

Adding insult injury, he is staying in the same hotel as the New Zealand All Blacks. Doesn't mean anything to you? Let me help you out:

Okay, okay, a bunch of rugby players. Big deal. Right? But...you know what they say don't you? Soccer is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played gentleman. And WHAT, may I ask you, it hotter than a bunch of BAD-ASS gentlemen?

Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

Further proof of their bad-assed-ness is seen here, as they perform the traditional haka. I encourage you to watch.

Pretty bone chilling from an opponent's POV, wouldn't you say? (take the time to notice the looks on the other team's faces....they look scared shitless, and it's only the beginning.)

Okay, so my request was small to my brother-in-law. Since he's staying in the hotel with the All Blacks, I asked him to bring me one.

The obvious choice is Dan Carter.

He has a groin injury and I am sure with a little R&R in my care he'd be as right as rain for the 2012 games.

For God's sake people, I said just one.

You'd think I was asking for a freaking souvenir t-shirt or something.

Haka Chowder

To Be Kind

2011-09-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

I had lunch with a very dear, old friend today. We were talking about noses (don't ask), and I told her that her nose has always been one of my favorite features on her. It is long, aquiline, prominent, sort of Roman-esque...

...and I love it. It fits her face. It fits her. It's beautiful, and I told her so.

She pooh-poohed my compliment, saying her nose was too big, and then said one of the worst things she could have possibly said to me. (I consider this particular thing to be an insult, btw, for those of you who care to know). She said:

"You're too nice."

I stopped and gazed at her in astonishment. "Nice? I'm nice? Do you not know me at all?" I asked. "I," says a very insulted me, "am not nice. I am honest, I can BE kind, but I am not nice. I am a bitch."

She agreed without further adieu, which was wise of her because a) she has known me for thirty years, and b) I am, well...a bitch.

I wanted to share this story because I feel it's an apropos introduction to my topic today: Kindness.

What does it mean to be kind?
What does it mean to be compassionate?
Why, oh, why does the word "nice" send me into a frenzy of anger?

Last week a well-meaning friend sent out a group-mail to everyone on her list (me included) with a link to a blog (if you read this, no offense D.S., you know I love you) and the blog affected me in two very distinct ways. One, I was touched. Two, I was irritated. The irritation overrode the touchy-feelie.

I'll include a link so you can decide for yourself how you want to feel about it. After reading you may indeed decide I'm a bitch. Or you'll see my point.

The blog is entitled We Must See Past What it Seems.

I think the title ought to have been Poor Me, and Don't You Feel Sorry For Me, Too?

The blog author talks about "signs" and how most human beings miss them. She isn't referring to EAT AT JOE'S signs either. She writes:

"As we move along…I want you to think about some of the big signs with big messages that I bet you wish you could wear around your neck sometimes so that people would be more gentle….or even that you could put around the neck of someone you love….so that you didn’t have to go into a big long story to defend yourself or someone else….so that people would just stop judging and and just be kind."

The blog author then goes on to give an account of how her husband was in an accident and sustained a TBI (traumatic brain injury) to his frontal lobe. This is a tragedy and let me be clear: it's unfortunate and very sad that this happened to him, and to his family. It must have been horrific.

The blog author then moves on to say that her husband had been in charge of a large business, a life, she says that "HE managed" while she got to do the "fun and creative stuff."

Post accident, however, their lives began to fall apart. The reasons listed:

--medical bills

--lots of sorrow

--lots of distractions

--lots of KIDS

--no one competent to manage the business.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that there were probably a hundred other factors that caused the downfall that she didn't list.

This is the part where I started to have second thoughts.

She told her husband, while he was in a "lucid state", how bad things were for them financially. He tried to solve the problem by selling their belongings in front of their property hoisting up a neon sign. A "HUGE" neon sign.

They were selling:

A Suburban

Two trucks

A tractor and implements for said tractor

a Classic Thunderbird (a birthday gift he'd given her)

and a boat.

After the litany of sale items, she tells us this:

"You have to understand that we had worked for MANY years for those things. We started a business in our twenties and we sacrificed everything we had for all of those years to make it work. We owned almost all of it outright…….but, when I told him that the business was struggling….this is what he did….
Sooooo…..there it was….all in a row……all of our stuff…..out in our field."

She then goes on to say that their lawn became over-run with weeds instead of being perfectly coiffed, as it had been in years past.

Well, their neighbors were none-too-happy about a tacky neon sign being on the side of the road and the weeds to boot...so they began to complain. In response to one of their complaints, her husband nailed one neighbor with a doozy of a retort:

“Sir,” he said, “There was a time in this country, in this community…when if you drove past your neighbor’s house and saw every single thing they own was for sale in front of their house…and that their lawn had not been mowed for weeks….that you would stop and say….WHAT IS GOING ON, SOMETHING MUST BE TERRIBLY WRONG, WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP YOU?”

Of course, with the good Christian guilt coursing through his veins, the neighbor quickly apologized and began to help them sell....their stuff.

Alllllll that stuff.

The blog concludes with the author wishing we could ALL wear signs so that people would just BE KIND, darn it!

The topping on the woe is me, of course, is the 186 comments thanking her for sharing and, of course, as many people are wont to do, a litany of their own woes in their comments... . One-hundred and eighty-six of them.

Kindness. Compassion. How are they different than "nice?"

I'll tell you what I think. I think that kindness and compassion are active; they are sentient and conscious.

Niceness is not. Niceness is inanimate, passive. If you dive in a pool of "nice", you'd break your damned neck. Nice is nothing.

I'm sure the blog author is nice. I'm sure all of her neighbors would classify her as nice. But I'm going to quote a hymn--that's right, one of my mother's favorite hymns.

Hymn #223

Have I Done Any Good

Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.

Has anyone’s burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there?

Then wake up and do something more
Than dream of your mansion above.
Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,
A blessing of duty and love.

There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.

’Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.

***

I've got to wonder. How did kindness and compassion fit into her life before her husband's accident? How active was she in her neighbor's lives, that when the accident happened, she couldn't call one for help? Could it be, perhaps, that she was just a little too busy with her trucks, her T-Bird, her boat? All of those children? Fun? Creativity?

I wonder.

See, I can't judge, folks because I don't know. I can't say one way or the other, because her blog makes no mention whatsoever of her good works, her thoughtfulness toward others. Her blog makes no mention of the people she actively helps and loads she lightens. In fact, the only information we get, the only specifics were......her stuff.

I see people downtown waiting for the bus. Their legs are curled onto a wooden platform and the wheels attached to it is how they move from place to place. I'm not sure they've ever been on a boat.

I see single mother's trying to feed their children, and I'm not sure they have a giant farm to go home to. Weeds, or no. Perhaps not even a home.

I see them, I watch for it in their eyes as I peruse the aisles in stores, on the street. I can see the pain and desperation in their eyes. And you know what?

They don't need a sign. If you pay attention, you know.

As David Whyte writes in my all-time favorite poem Self-Portrait:

"It doesn't interest me if there is one god
or many gods,
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair and can see it in others..."

Can you? Can you see despair? Or are you so busy being nice, looking nice on the outside, that you miss it entirely? Does the blog author have any knowledge of any pain outside of her own? How about the incredible 186 commentors who open their coats to show us their "Wares of Woe?"

I know a woman who is married to a paraplegic. She has devoted over twenty-five years to him, and people talk about how selfless and good she is. One small thing I should mention: the man to whom she is married is horrifically abusive to her. Verbally, mentally and even physically at times. Her children can barely stand to be around them, because they can't stomach watching their mother be disrespected and abused constantly.

Tell me, oh, bleeding hearts; is she good? Is she nice? Is she kind? What is she?

Simple. She is a prime example of when "nice" turns horrid. She is an example of what true compassion would be, COULD be, if she had the courage to leave him.

There is a particular area in our lives where K and I have been nice. Nice, nice, nice. According to everyone around--although with no appreciation or acknowledgement from them, we were nice.

But over the course of time, we realized that the "nice" had turned horrid. We realized that, like with many other aspects of our lives, it was time for us to be kind and compassionate. But the kindness and compassion didn't feel particularly good. "Nice" felt better because people approved of "nice".

Our kindness, love and compassion had to come in the form of revoking our "nice." It was and is the most compassionate thing we could have done, and it was done out of love, care and deep concern.

But now...we are no longer "nice."

I'd like to say that bothers me, but it doesn't (see above). As a bitch, I never seek out to do harm on purpose, to be treacherous or ruinous. I protect those I love, I say what I mean, I am honest and I don't expect that people NOT make mistakes; but I do expect that they pay for them. B-I-T-C-H. Yep. That's me.

The biggest problem I see with the blog author, the people who commented, the people around me and us....they can only see as far out as the end of their own noses. Me. Me. Me.

Many don't need that sign around their necks.

Many use their verbal skills to say what a sign would.

"Poor me. Poor me. Poor me."

Okay. What about poor him? What about poor her?

Has it occurred to them that someone has it worse?

The blog author wanted to tell us to stop thinking of ourselves and realize that....she has problems too!

She does the very thing she eschews--she isn't showing kindness to anyone. She's placing a giant, neon sign around her neck. And 186 people followed suit.

Anyone spending one single day at the VA hospital or homeless shelter wouldn't have the balls to write, "Woe is me, we lost our boat."

And, with this lofty blog post of mine, what good have I done in the world today? Do I put my money where my mouth is?

I like to think so. My eyes are constantly open and seeking the eyes of those in despair. Unfortunately for many people, however, I seem to miss those with the giant, neon signs hanging around their necks entirely. Those folks are getting their payoff with their sign. They don't need me.

And while their busy making all of their signs, I'll be busy trying to practice what I preach. And it isn't nice.

Chowder

:)

2011-09-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

Snagged from some pictures on FB, sent to me by Birdman. Thanks honey :)

Chowder

The Hard Stuff

2011-09-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

My first car was a tan Ford Escort with decidedly un-cool brown and white "racing stripes". I'd wanted the car my brother had and I'd driven it my Sophomore year, but he'd taken off to college, so I was stuck without a car. HIS car was a '62 powder blue VW Bug with a black leather bra. Jerk.

My car had FM stereo, no tape deck and that sucked because I had lots of tapes. I vowed to remedy that as soon as I could.

The first thing I did (after I learned to drive the stick) was pick up my friend and drive to the one gas station in my neighborhood that would sell a 17 year old cigarettes. My teen years were mostly spent figuring out ways to mortify my parents. Smoking had the simultaneous quality of mortification as well as a lovely nicotine high, so it was a no-brainer that I smoked.

After putting gas in my car and buying my smokes, the car wouldn't start. I tried and tried, feeling more and more foolish as the seconds went by. Finally, my friend asked me if I'd named the car yet. No, I told her, I haven't.

Well apparently that was the problem, because when I turned the car on to start it, I vowed to name it whatever came on the radio. The song being played was the Police's Roxanne. I dubbed the tan little go-cart Roxanne, and, like magic, she started right up.

My dad hadn't consulted me about the purchase of Roxanne, probably because he knew I'd want a Saab or a VW Cabriolet. When he brought it home, he informed me that my paychecks would go toward the car payment and the insurance. He would provide me with gas. It sounded like a stellar deal to me. And it was.

I had good grades so my insurance payment was low; the car had been cheap so my payment to him was a mere $103 a month to be free and independent. And free of the loaner car I'd been forced to drive the year before, derisively known as The Boat.

Our boat was sort of a sickly metallic poo color with a dark chocolate brown top. You could run over a small building and it was barely bounce the shocks. A boat.

Roxanne was an improvement not only in size, but it had FM stereo.

I moved out a year later at 18 and made a big show of asking for all of my tax information, bills I owed and other information so that I could properly leave childhood behind and be An Adult. I even took over the car loan myself.

My father informed me that Adults pay for their own gas. I accepted this show of "pettiness" by saying something dignified and grown up, probably something like, "Oh yeah, well I don't need you or your stupid gas because you suck!"

I moved into my one bedroom in Sugarhouse and proceeded to learn what it was like to be on my own. The first night I slept alone I awoke with every noise, convinced I would be attacked at any moment by the bogey man who had surely followed me from my closet at home.

I worked three jobs; one full time, two part time on the weekends. Roxanne and I were getting along smashingly well except the radio went out. THIS....was a problem. Music I had to have.

Tail between my legs, I went to my parents and asked my dad for a loan to buy a car stereo. He said "no".

I was chagrined and upset--and depressed, but I knew that I had enough money in the bank to get a JVC stereo, installed that very day. I went to Radio Shack, and did the deed. Four-hundred and thirty nine dollars later I was blasting my music with the windows rolled down and singing at the top of my lungs. I brought my car complete with new purchase home to mom and dad. See? I don't need you! They were happy for me and even took a ride with me in my car. I made sure to play music they liked even. Bridging the gap.

It felt so good.

Until...

A week later I had no food.

Tail between my legs once again, I drove to my parents and--knowing they would never let their youngest and favorite child starve, showed up, asking for money.

They asked me to stay for dinner...and while I appreciated the sentiment...I needed food! I figure I'd soften them up a bit by eating with them, agreeing with most of what they said for a change and expressing my gratitude (which, by this time, I had copious amounts of after living alone--there IS no milk fairy, FYI) and then hit them up again for a grocery visit.

My dad asked me to drive. I was so relieved.

We got to my car but before I could start the car he sat in the front seat and said, "Hold on a minute; I want to show you something."

He pointed to my stereo, lights ablaze, and said, very gently, "That is your groceries."

I didn't get it. Then I did. My face flushed and I found myself in tears--something my dad could never withstand, and I sniffed and cried and told him I had no food...and he reminded me that he and mom did have food, and if I came over for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and lectures) for the next week, I would be welcome. Then he said, "Julie, this is the hard stuff. The choices you make determine who you are. Who you are determines everything."

My dad taught me so much, but the biggest and grandest thing he taught me was how to have integrity with money, and incidentally, with myself.

I went to his house every day and ate. Every day I listened to their lectures disguised as helpful advice for their growing daughter, I would give anything--anything, if I had listened to half of what they had told me.

I would give anything if I could hear them now. I have a feeling they'd have things to say that would help me as much today as they did back then.

Chowder

How To Create a Cipher

2011-09-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

There is a sure-fire way to create a cipher, a non-persona, someone so easily discounted that their very existence can be dismissed without so much as a consideration:

All you have to do is become an Amateur Psychiatrist.

Now, if you're a REAL psychiatrist, this will not apply, because real psychiatrists are not ignorant ass hats and they know the truth* (see later). But Amateur Psychiatrists? Oh, the ignorance abounds.

Now, as an Amateur Psychiatrist, an AP, if you will, the first thing you'll need is a rudimentary understanding of a mental illness. Please, for your sake and mine, do NOT consult an expert for this--in this case, too much knowledge can be a detriment, and do not read the DSM IV (although if you haven't spoken directly to your soon-to-be-Cipher, the DSM IV is fine because most of it requires personal observation and interview, something, as an AP, you don't do). Try reading an article from Redbook, Cosmo or Good Housekeeping with an article entitled:

Is Someone You Know Bi-Polar?

If you want to be an extremely good AP, make sure you Google the mental illness and read blogs about it. Personal stories, especially by other APs, will help you immensely in diagnosing your Cipher.

Now, as an AP you have to be very certain which mental illness you're going to diagnose. Obviously the most popular one is Bi-Polar Disorder. (Hey all you APs, make sure you follow the helpful link--scads of info for you!)

Here's why bi-polar is popular among APs:

1) because it's so easy to misdiagnose by an AP

2) because it has the most negative social connotations of all the mental illnesses, and

3) it's easily the most misunderstood of all mental illnesses and carries with it all of the earmarks of the makings of a Cipher.

See, Bi-polars are crrrrrazy! Nothing they say or do makes any sense! Everyone knows it!

You see, you can't "diagnose" someone with plain and simple uni-polar depression. That carries with it a certain empathy and understanding in most people and doesn't have the "person-nullifying" results you're seeking. As you can see here:

Ordinary citizen #1: "Oh, did you know Martha suffers from severe depression?"

Ordinary citizen #2: "Oh, the poor thing. Bless her heart. My cousin's sister-in-law had that after her...."

Now, you can't go the other direction and call them an outright schizophrenic. Especially since the person you're attempting to diagnose doesn't display the more common signs of schizophrenia such as disorganized thinking, impaired verbal, social and cognitive functions and verbal or visual hallucinations. And to call someone that out of pure spite wouldn't elicit the persona non grata response you're seeking from others, either. Take this dialogue for example:

AP: "Ooh, she is so--so schizophrenic!"

Ordinary citizen #1: "She is? Oh, that's so awful. Poor woman, bless her--"

AP: "No, no, what I'm saying is that she's an insufferable bitch and I hate her!"

Ordinary Citizen #1: "That's a horrible thing to call someone! Schizophrenia is a serious medical condition! Why would you call a person with a serious medical condition a bitch if she's ill?"

AP: "No, no I didn't mean she's really ill, just that she's--"

Ordinary citizen #1: "Maybe you ought to go to a doctor!" (Stomps off.)

Do you see? Do you see, AP, how this can backfire on you rather quickly? And forget diagnosing Personality Disorders for your would-be Cipher. Most people don't even have a rudimentary understanding of PD's to differentiation all of them, so it's kind of the same thing as calling your would-be Cipher a crude name; you might as well stick to the crude name and avoid confusion:

AP: "He is such a Borderline!"

Ordinary citizen #1: "A what?"

AP: "You know...a--a Borderline Personality....oh, fine, he's a bastard, okay? A fucking bastard!"

Ordinary citizen #1: "Ohhhh....I see."

(as a cautionary note, you yourself most likely suffer from a Personality Disorder, so this can be ultimately very sticky.) Remember, this is all about them! Never take any responsibility yourself. But, I digress; another lesson for another day.

What I want to underscore for you AP, is to stick to what you don't know: Bi-polar. Anything else can be misconstrued too easily and might elicit the unwanted (and face it, unwarranted) response of sympathy and compassion from others whom you are trying to poison.

Now, choosing your Cipher. This is a no-brainer. The Ex. Ex anything, really: Ex-lover, ex-boss, ex-friend, but the most popular is, of course, your ex-spouse.

Have you noticed the strange epidemic of Exs? They all--every one, have Bi-polar! Diagnosed (properly, I'll wager) by their former spouses who are budding or accomplished APs.

Now this is the most crucial part, AP. Make sure your former spouse doesn't actually have Bi-polar disorder. This can backfire on you in unexpected ways, too. You see, usually if a person is being treated for bi-polar medically, they are *typically (continued from above) more self-aware, psychologically healthier, and more intelligent than you are, and their psychiatrist (the real one who went to medical school) will corroborate this. So tread carefully when spouting off pure spite at a person who responsibly treats their illness medically and works hard to manage it and understand it.

This is where your uninformed opinion comes in. AP: You can announce to everyone that your Ex is an untreated Bi-polar. That's right--oh, and to make sure you do as much damage as possible, make sure you tell the kiddies you share with the Ex.

And tell everyone else, too. If you do your job correctly, the conversation should go like this:

AP: "Well, my Ex is totally Bi-polar."

Ordinary citizen. "Oh, well no wonder you got a divorce!"

AP: "Yep. Biiiiiii-polar. I mean, after the divorce, he was so...so depressed...."

Ordinary citizen: "Oh you poor thing..."

AP: "And now, look at him. As happy as a clam. Text book Bi-polar."

Ordinary citizen: "The rotten bastard."

AP: "I know, right?"

You see? Commiseration. Understanding. A total avoidance of responsibility. And as the cake-topper, you have created in your children's eyes and anyone else ignorant enough to listen to you, a Cipher, a non-person. Congratulations!

Chowder

(On a cautionary side note---just a very remote complication: when you denigrate and smear your Ex to your shared children, you directly attack your own child's self-esteem, well-being, and damage their concept of who they are and where they fit in this world.)

BUT--the satisfaction you glean will surely make up for any suffering you cause them.

The Helllllllppppp! or Why I Don't See Chick Flicks

2011-09-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

(*I'd issue a "spoiler alert", but you've already seen this movie. A gah-zillion times.)

There is a reason I don't see chick flicks. It's the same reason I don't read chick lit. But. BUT.

The Help wasn't a chick flick. It was a serious movie examining the racial prejudice of the early 1960's in Jackson, Mississippi. Right? RIGHT?

Assessment FAIL. And I'm pissed.

This is not a movie about race. I have not read the book, so I'll keep my comments solely to the movie. However, I've no desire to read the book because if it's anything at all like the movie, I've already read it, seen it, heard it, lived it.

The movie was filled with predictable, stock characters. First we have the gutsy, tom-boy- closet-lesbian-but-not-really girl who went to college and who, through her own trials of not being utterly stunning as all of the other Southern Belles in the area, has a soft spot for the black resident underclass, aka The Help.

She alone speaks up for the disgusting way all of the other women her age and older treat The Help. Of course, she's a drain on her poor, ill mother because she's the only girl her age not married and poppin' out little future KKK members. Of course.

Smart=unattractive=smart=inexplicably non-racist in a world where everyone around her IS a racist. Simple. A very not-so-subtle sub-plot is, of course, everyone's hunt for her to find a husband. She meets a man who *seems* pretty cool. Until the end, when he does something totally out of character. But then, one can play around with character when there really isn't a character...you see, a typical chick lit/flick device is to make every male character a vapor, a non sequitur. In other words--cardboard.

But I digress.

The next important character, I dare say, is the maid who broke the silence and did the right thing by breaking the silence. And her breaking her silence did....well....okay, absolutely squat for her and anyone else in her black community...but, BUT she did the right thing. Oh and a book got written and so the super-smart heroine of course sent all of them 1/15th of the royalty check.

And finally, we can't have a good chick flick without the Bitch, can we? Oh and she's a really mean one.

Oops; wrong one. Sorry.

whoops. Sorry...

Oh THERE you are. Silly, silly moi.

Everything, of course, works out in the end. The spunky main character's sick mother is recovering from cancer (miraculously), and the main gal gets a job offer in the big city. No, THE big city--New Yawk! Oh, but she can't possibly go...she has a new-found respect for her once racist mama....ah, this is where The Help becomes oh, so helpful:

"Ah cain't go to New Yawk. My mama needs me--"

"Oh Miss Skeetuh, yo mama, she doin' jus fine, now. Now you go'on. You go make sumfun uh yo-sef Miss, you go live yo life" ('cause you ruined ours forever here in ol' Jackson, but oh well, they wuz ruined anyways).

Psst. This is the part where you're supposed to simultaneously tear up AND feel a warm fuzzy ball growing in your chest.

*****

I hate chick flicks. This movie was not about race. This movie was about bitchy women. Race was just a vehicle the movie, and I suspect book, used to tell the story of bitchy, mean women.

All of the white women--besides our smarty-pants heroine and one social outcast-white trash woman, were heartless, maternal and human decency-lacking bitches. All of the black people in the movie were stellar examples of humanity--with the exception of an off-screen wife beater and one maid--who we can forgive because she only stole that ring to send both her twin boys to college. A totally acceptable theft. Of course, when she got arrested, we, the audience--as well as all of the maids in the movie, were outraged that she had been caught and arrested.

Wait...theft is still illegal, yes?

The moments of "tenderness" were contrived and emotionally manipulative and that, friends, is how you can tell a chick lit/chick flick concoction from anything and everything else. They use cheap devices to elicit a tear and juxtapose them with some comic relief so you are left with a feeling of drained emotional abatement mixed with a false sense of "rightness" about the world.

I loathe being manipulated and I can smell it a mile away. It pisses me off, it's contrived and it's over done. STOP making 2-hour Hallmark commercials! Stop writing 79k-word Hallmark cards! Just STOP IT!

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is....I didn't really enjoy the movie, The Help. It was a chick flick disguised as a movie about race. And if you consider the history of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's, it makes you wonder what the author and movie makers could have done to illuminate the actual struggles the blacks faced at this time. You know, if they'd tried to have a social conscience. Imagine....doing something enlightening and important with art. What a concept.

Instead, we just get another story about bitchy women.

Chowder

Plumb Idiocy

2011-08-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

Unlike many blue-collared skilled professions, plumbing services have a plethora of comic possibilities that, say, electricians don't have.

Two examples of the low-brow yet titter-worthy fare:

And my personal favorite:

But the winner goes to the plumbing company's truck I saw on the street the other day. The joke is always best when no one is trying to be funny.

I couldn't snap a picture, but I made one for your viewing, head-scratching pleasure:

Hm.

Finally, a plumber that will come to you instead of you hauling your clogged drain/pipe/toilet to their office. That was such a wet and royal pain, wasn't it?

*sigh*

That's what you get when you let your brother-in-law come up with your business logo, folks:

Plumb Idiocy.

Chowder

What Do I Want.

2011-08-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

"I don't wish to touch hearts, I don't even want to

affect minds very much. What I really want to produce

is that little sob in the spine of the artist-reader."

~Vladimir Nabokov

Much like this quote, what more is there to say?

I purposely placed a period after my title rather than a question mark because it isn't, in fact, a question. I suppose I could have written "What I Want", but the "do" is there because I want to engage you, my readers, in the question, however rhetorical it may be.

With art, there is a process to appreciation; a process and degrees. I'll use a painting by Jackson Pollock as an example.

First, I assess if I like it or not based on the color and how it makes me feel when I look at it. It doesn't necessarily have to be a positive feeling, either--as long as I have a visceral, gut reaction. I note how the colors are used, the texture. I find layers and composition within the layers, and finally, I assess whether or not it touches me...if it creates "a little sob in the spine."

Some people look at the above painting and say "Meh, my three year old could do better." Some say, "The colors don't match my decor." Some may say, "I like pictures that are actual pictures of things or people." These people don't "get" abstract art and they may never get it--and that's okay. The degree and ability they have to see what goes into the creation of such a work is different than, say, another painter's ability to see.

Alas, Pollock doesn't create a stirring emotion for me, but many artists do. Since I work with words, authors are the creators of this "sob in the spine."

The latest and greatest of all would be Philip Roth.

How do I wax poetic about words that do themselves more justice than I could do them? Like with various passages by Robert Olen Butler, Henry Miller, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and many others, Roth has the ability to write words that, after reading them, feel like a hand has been thrust into my chest; I have to stagger backward to gain my equilibrium.

The difference between Roth and all of the others is that he does it consistently. There isn't a book that hasn't knocked me on my ear, whether in the first scene, the last scene or the many scenes in-between. I started his second novel, Letting Go, last night. He wrote it at the age of 29. I read the first three pages, noting he was breaking every rule in the book, and when I was done I had chills covering my body. He was 29.

My first inclination is to toss every word I've ever written into the cyber-trash. How can I ever compare? My next inclination is to sit at my computer and try.

See, Roth has it down. Something in his writing comes to him, forms in him, and flows out of him the way we see it. Yes, he edits. But probably not much anymore. The way he crafts a story, a moment, a scene in his head is what compels us to read the second we gulp his words down our throats. His instinct for tension and hooking us with ever sentence is innate, natural--instinctive. I can say this because I am reading his second book. Ever. And he had me at the first sentence. That can come with practice; with him? I'm betting it's a part of him.

What do I want.

That ability. His ability. Not to write like him, but to be able to hook, yank, pull, nudge and lead my reader, breathless and eager, toward my story's every twist and turn. I don't write for everyone. I don't write for the crowd who seeks something familiar. I write for the "artist-reader" who inherently knows how difficult it is to pull off such literary feats as Philip Roth. I want to pull off such feats. Not the cheap-chills of over-sentimentality, but the genuine chills of understated provocation.

What do I want.

I want to move you. I want to make someone breathless. I want to have them stop reading a passage, put down the book and shake their heads until the overwhelming feeling in their chest passes.

Do I have what it takes?

I don't know. But I won't stop until I do, at least for someone, somewhere--preferably someone who sees all the layers, colors, textures and can say, with certainty, that I created a "little sob in their spine."

Chowder

"It"

2011-08-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

A lot has been written about "it". And a lot has been written about writing about "it".

Many people can't understand sexuality in literature. They can't. Sexuality is primal and visceral and touches us in the most intimate places...our minds. And as most people know, no one is without neuroses when it comes to sex.

I'm reading a book right now by an especially confused connoisseur of sex literature. The book is called "101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written", by Barnaby Conrad (yes the name should have tipped me off.)

I was expecting a literary sexual romp with promises of excerpts from Miller, Nin, Hemingway, Updike, Roth, Nabakov...

What I'm getting, however, is all of the above, mingled with the author's clear and distinct puritanical penchant for seeing in his mind's eye, the couple walking into the bedroom and the door closing in his face.

According to Conrad, the best sex scenes...aren't. As quoted from the book after a particularly tame sex scene by author James M. Cain, Conrad writes:

"Does the reader need any more than we did plenty? Most people have done plenty in a car at one time or another and can easily fill in the blanks."

Conrad seems to think that it reflects superior skill as a writer to insinuate, use innuendo and imply rather than talk about "it" in detail.

Well, sometimes it does. And sometimes the story calls for more. Let me repeat: THE STORY calls for more.

Writing erotically and sexually is not always erotica. It is not always intended to titillate. It is not always intended to signify the beginning of a "meaningful relationship" (see genre romance--usually the last chapter, and genre...well, practically anything--usually in the middle of the story before forces beyond the protagonist's control threaten to tear asunder what was co-mingled in her bed the very day before). Yes, sometimes sex in writing, as in life, means more than one, singular thing.

I write about life and sex is a part of life. I used to write erotica, primarily to titillate (my bank account). I'm not ashamed of this. But then I backed off of sex entirely because I didn't want to be pegged as an erotic writer masquerading as a regular old novelist. But I couldn't get away from sex. It was always....on the table, so to speak. In my latest novel, The Rub, due to be released sometime next month, sex is a huge theme. Themes and motifs are different than simply gratuitous sex. Many people can't see this, as I rant on this blog.

Sex is a metaphor even while we're doing it.

It can mean, among other things:

I love you.

I want you;

you're desirable to me;

I want to be closer to you;

I want a commitment;

I'm sorry;

(and a certain ex's favorite) pretty please can I have a new diamond bracelet?

This doesn't even come close to the myriad of meanings sex has for us. And no one assimilates one single thing from a single word. So imagine an entire book of words and how, strung together to form a cohesive story, it can take an individual, with all of his or her neuroses, to beyond and back when it comes to sex.

I've read some hot scenes in my life. I've written some hot scenes in my life. Some are explicit; some are implied, but none were gratuitous--even in my erotica, ironically. The story must come first. Even in erotica, people.

To say that the only good sex scenes are subtle is to cut out some of the greatest sex scenes in the history of literature. Those who are too provincial and austere to enjoy the more ribald, animalistic, human side of sex should avoid my books and, as I mentioned above, many other authors who felt and feel as though the reader, for the sake of the story, must feel every thrust, every pulse and every bead of sweat.

Like great writing, great sex is nuanced and filled with layers and layers of meaning. When sex is a meaningless collision of bodies in real life, it holds little interest to those who seek something more, something deeper. This holds true for sexual writing. If you read a sex scene, find the nuance, the meaning, the metaphor, then you may learn about the characters, the motifs, the themes of the book in a way that you can't via a tame implied scene.

But if you find yourself peeking at the words through your fingers or clenched teeth and disgust, then perhaps the more Jane Austen you ought to read. Nothing wrong with Austen, but in her writing there are many closed doors at which you must stare.

As an afterthought, might I suggest a passage from Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls--easily one of the most beautiful, sexual and, ehem, moving scenes in literary history:

“Well, then. Oh, then. Oh, then. Oh.

Then there was the smell of heather crushed and the roughness of the bent stalks under her head and the sun bright on her closed eyes and all his life he would remember the curve of her throat with her head pushed back into the heather roots and her lips that moved smally and by themselves and the fluttering of the lashes on the eyes tight closed against the sun and against everything, and for her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color.

For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them."

***

Oh, indeed.

So enjoy; enjoy doing it. I mean writing about sex, of course.

Chowder

The Trip...Down His Memory Lane

2011-08-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

The good news is I didn't actually trip. The bad news is the trip was as sweet as pie and as acidic as lemons, and as trippy as LSD. Which makes for a really weird dessert or side dish. Or something.

K and I went to his high school reunion. At the pre-reunion party and I was faced with a table full of people, minus one, who I didn't know. I shook hands, introduced myself, we sat and we watched. People scurried in and hugged and commented on how great they looked. I looked at the people with whom my husband shares a small band of his history and the plethora of faces and individuals was stunning. One man and his wife, from Portland, looked as though they had just gotten off the plane, complete with long hair, pagan-esque jewelry and smiles. They were my favorite. My friend Natalie and her husband Jeff soon joined our table. I officially knew four people. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sit by or talk to the Portland folks because a former neighbor of my husband AND Natalie AND her husband, Jeff (God it's a small, inter-bred town) decided to commandeer the seat right across from us. I knew I was in trouble when she said to my friend, Natalie, "Okay, so don't think I'm bitchy, but...."

It was downhill from there because, indeed, she was bitchy and all I heard her do, the entire time she sat there, was gossip and whine about how "mean" Sally Sue and Debbie Jo were to her in high school and--although she's above it and so totally over it, "were they planning on coming tonight?"

Two words. Therapy.

Anyway. Portland Couple were too far away for us to talk to, so we just spoke to whomever popped down by us, who, incidentally, happened to be an old flame of K's. She was nice. Although, when she offered to whisk him away to the parking lot with some smuggled mini-bottles in an email sent to him earlier, she failed to invite me to her private party.

Eh, bygones.

What interested me the most were and are two women whom I met prior to the reunion night. One of the women was the sister of a friend of mine who took his own life recently. I blogged about it here and here. In the blog I talk about the Facebook page fiasco, where I tried--and failed--to bring some semblance of dignity and compassion to the situation for my friend's daughters, who were called out by one woman, insensitively, since it hadn't even been three days since their father's death, to "share some fun memories of him."

As usual, my attempt to ameliorate the obvious insensitivity backfired on me. In the fracas, rather than in the quiet of a private email like I had sent, the woman who had been insensitive made my intentions public in the hopes of getting all the other kids to gang up on me and pooh pooh my chastisement. It worked. I was "outed" as an atheist (oh my) and summarily my comments, ideas and attempt at compassion were rejected completely by everyone there.

His sister was at the reunion and it was fascinating to watch her completely ignore K and I as if we had The VD. I stood up for her brother, her nieces....and I am the pariah? Oh, that's right. I didn't take the positive spin like I ought to have. I should have kept my mouth shut, and sat in squeamish, wincing silence as the daughters were plied to "share, share, share!"

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I know! Maybe they could talk about who found him! Oh, no, I know, let's talk about how he won't be there for the birth of their first child! Oh, but he WILL be there, won't he? In heaven.

The second woman had been my friend, and my friend Natalie's, and K's on Facebook until about...around that time. I met her at Natalie's wedding and she seemed a perfectly nice, pleasant person. She, too made it a point to obviously and pointedly snub K and me.

It's not that I care. I don't. What fascinates me about their snubbish-ness is their subsequent "happy, happy, joy, joy" on their Facebook reunion page, as if nothing was errant, nothing was wrong, nothing was uncomfortable...it was all just....happy!

AND I quote.

" love you, girlfriend...stay cool ;)"

This quote is from Faux Femme #2. This is to my friend, Natalie--Natalie, whom she de-friended on Facebook because Natalie doesn't believe in her religion anymore.

To you FF#2, I say, "Stay REAL!"

This heart-felt sentiment is from FF#1, my friend's sister.

"Wow I had an amazing summer.... but what a perfect ending. Last nights reunion was a blast. I was so fun seeing so many wonderful people from the past and catching up on where life has taken everyone.. I reconnected with so many wonderful friends. And thanks to everyone who came and shared the evening together.. The class of 81 is truly a class act.. LOVE YOU ALL.. thanks for the awesome memories.."

To you, FF#1 I say--"We LOVE you too. So very, very much."

Faux Femme #2 responded to FF#1's sentiment thusly:

"...thank you ___....everything you said is how I feel. You are a class act..."

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It is so classy to snub people you know because they don't believe the same as you. It is so classy to pointedly ignore people who clearly loved someone you loved simply because they brought some compassion to the table.

Cuh-LASS-ACT.

Yes, we love you ALL, we adore and cherish you ALL, and we are happy, happy, joy, joy and FAKE FAKE as a pair of tits in L.A....

GOD BLESS, ladies! Thanks for showing up and showing who you really are. Don't worry, personal tragedy gives you license and permission to do anything you want, and treat anyone any way you want. It gives you privilege and no one will call you out, no one will cry "hypocrites"! because you, and only you, have suffered.

In conclusion, thanks for making K's trip down memory lane...a real trip.

Chowder

Either/ Or

2011-08-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, K got wind of his immanent 30-year class reunion. I felt disinclined to attend until recently, when the time started to draw near and I could see he wanted to go with me.

Some of his classmates set up a High School Reunion page on Facebook and I took the time to read some of the discussions. The only reason I took the time, however, is that K had also been reading them, and frankly....the insulin shock was too much for him.

Amid the happy-happy-joy-joy comments was pictorial evidence of just how good those days really were.
Apparently, the best days of some people's lives--a fact I find either pathetically sad, or patently untrue. I'm going to go with the latter.

For even the most vapid of persons, high school is a combination of insecurity, upheaval and nerves. One day is the best day ever, which can then quickly devolve into the biggest catastrophe of your life. He loves me, he loves me not. She looked at me, she wasn't looking at me. I'm popular; nobody likes me. I don't exist. I stand out like a pimply, broken, sore thumb. Are they talking about me? Do they even know my name? Did she roll her eyes at me, or is it an eyelash caught in her tear duct?

Academics may have been the simplest and most straight-forward aspect of all of it. Socially? A nightmare. But interestingly, 30 years into the future, no one recalls the agonizing reality of eating lunch alone or if they will get asked to prom. No; now, thirty years later, at the age of 48, everyone on the reunion page talks about high school as if the years were indeed golden, as if the harsh and cruel realities of Life up until this point has somehow diminished the cruel realities of our tender teens.

Of course, looking back, one can see with the perspective of 30 years that 'he loves me, he loves me not' is a mere drop in the bucket of anguish in the years to come. We laugh at the silly rivalries we once had, the competition, the nasty comments. We shrug off the pants-ing incident in the locker room, the cruel chant using your name and a derogatory one simultaneously; we laugh it off, we forget....we don't care...do we?

It seems some people do care. They don't just see high school as a rose-colored memory through rose lenses on a rosy hilltop. They remember the pain.

More than that, they are aware of the pain that has occurred over the past 30 years, to themselves, each other, to families, to communities, to countries. This is what struck my husband the most; the forgetting. The "Nostalgia as analgesic." If we talk about how cute the cheerleaders were, we can escape, if only for a moment, how the world, our world, has changed. Not just the inner world, but the greater world in which we live. So K wrote about it on a blog post. It was beautiful and poignant. I want to share a snippet:

Statistics are bastards, because the Class of 81 is not immune to them. We can recognize the 12 deaths, but what about the deaths of children and spouses? What about the mental illness, adultery, divorce, imprisonment, alcohol and drug addiction, unemployment (quite possibly at least 10% of our class right now, probably more)? In other words, no special treatment for our minions. And oh yes, didn’t the D-ettes look hot in those boots.

But not everyone thought it was poignant and beautiful. In fact, most thought it was, to put it mildly...negative. The "N" word.

Interestingly, when K posted his thoughts on the page, he received many comments that admonished him for being negative. But it also opened a door.

The few silent who were on the reunion mailing list who did not--could not respond with happy, happy, joy, joy, now had permission to share what really went on with them in high school. Many posted of their pain, their inability to fit in, their feelings of isolation. I know how cathartic this can be--to open up and say "it hurt" and be heard. It can heal even the oldest of wounds. But those people? Yeah.

"N."

There is no in-between witch. You are either a good witch, or a bad witch. You are either positive, or you are negative. There is no room for gray, and there is no room for humanity.

After the spell of people being "N", the happy, happy joy, joy began anew. Many people, positively relieved that "all that negativity had stopped" began posting again, Some had even written on the site that they had stopped visiting the page because it had become, for a moment, so negative.

Yes....negative--the irrational ideology that permeates all religions and cultures which stamps a label on the negative person as an undesirable; a malcontent. A misanthrope. Never a realist, never balanced and sturdy. No, never those things. Because gray has no white in it. A bad witch has no good. A negative person can't be positive. And memories can't ever be tainted with anything unpopular, or the person who remembers with both negative and positive recollections will be ostracized, outcast. They will have no one with whom they can eat their lunch. Not even in a vast medium as a Facebook reunion page, and not even as a 48 year old with the perspective of 30 years can outrun the public's need to eradicate reality.

We bought our tickets to the event, and we're going. I'm sure there will be many moments when the smiles of the positive folk will dim upon realizing that we see things differently, we remember and see a whole worldview that doesn't include the truth-numbing revision of history. It doesn't include all white. It doesn't include the good witch alone.

For those who choose this positive-only mentality, I say carry on. It's your life. But when life, as it tends to do, becomes so black, you can't find a white thought within miles, keep in mind, there are many of us out here who can see gray. We can take your white and your black, your good and your bad. You can sit at our table, There's room.

Chowder

Irony

2011-06-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I'm judgmental.

My response to this assertion is...yes. And?

This epithet is flung about by Christians and non-Christians alike, I suspect because of the famous exhortation of Jesus to "judge not, that ye be not judged." (Matthew 7:1). There's also the whole "mote" in the eye analogy and "he who is without sin, cast the first stone." (John 8: 1-11).

Yes, it's in the bible, so people take not judging verrrrrry seriously. (Which is so ironic on so many levels....)

What they don't seem to grasp, conveniently, is the actual message of these stories. Oh, and they leave out some information as well. But let's back up.

The harsh and simple fact is we are hard-wired to judge. It's in our biology and our chemistry. It is part of our high-level cognitive processes and, conversely, part of our most primitive cognitive instincts.

Thanks to new findings in Neuroscience, brain function "in action" can be monitored through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), particularly when an individual makes a decision concerning responsibility and punishment.

What researchers found was that presented with a crime perpetrated by a criminal, subjects were able to assign the level of responsibility to the fictitious criminal based on the presence--or lack, of extenuating circumstances. The interesting part of this research is that while the criminal had two sets of circumstances, one with circumstances mitigating his responsibility, and one without, the participants in the study were able to assess the criminal's level of responsibility based on the variables, while holding constant the crime itself.

"Buckholtz and colleagues found a peak of activation in the right doroslateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), a brain region on the top surface of the right frontal lobe that is known to be involved in high-level cognitive processes such as reasoning and decision-making. In addition, this same region was more active when subjects thought a diminished-responsibility crime deserved punishment compared with when it did not." Scientific American

What this means is, we are instilled with the function to judge and we use it on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis.

Between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, we are constantly judging our current situation. Are we safe? Are we comfortable? Are we in danger? Are we alert? Are we under attack? Are we calm? These systems alert the Amygdala, which attaches emotional significance to the information received and mediates both aggressive or defensive behaviors.

So why, oh, why would the big JC tell us not to judge if we were made to judge (oh that's a whole 'nother can 'o worms, there, eh?) And why would he say it if he himself continually made judgments?

The answer lies in the scriptures themselves, believe it or not. Those parts people tend to "conveniently" forget.

The complete text:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7: 1-5)

My take on this is if you judge with hatred, bigotry, malice and apathy, this is how you will ultimately be judged in the hereafter. If you judge using extremes, exaggerations and ignoble means, this will be your measure. But if you judge with fairness and compassion, this will be your standard when your time comes to be judged.

"How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye ? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye ."

This scripture clearly refers not to the fallacy that one must be perfect in order to judge, but rather it is hypocritical to point out the sins of others while, by pretense, thinking ourselves above them and not culpable in any wrong doing. It means that there are sins in our lives just as grievous as another's, but when we do nothing about them and refuse to "look" at our own faults, we are hypocrites.

It then goes on to say that you must remove the plank from your own eye, in other words, work on yourself, improve yourself and become aware of your imperfections, and THEN you will see clearly to help another with their struggles.

If you're going to fling the term "you're judgmental" about as an insult, please, oh please be aware of the irony that:

First, in ascertaining that a person is judgmental, you yourself are being judgmental, the very thing you eschew.

Second, take into consideration how you perceive the person judges you. With malice? With apathy? Or with compassion, love and the desire to help?

As for me, I will continue to hack away at the planks in my eyes so that I may see clearly. I will continue to employ compassion and understanding. I will continue to call it like I see it, and I will most assuredly continue to speak my mind.

Am I judgmental? Yep. And so are you. Use it wisely.

Chowder

America--Grow Up

2011-06-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

(

I have watched the "Weinergate scandal" with the same slightly prurient interest as many Americans over the last few days and, although many won't hear me, I have to say it:

America--growthefuckup.

When are we going to sit at the grown-up's table? When will we graduate out of middle school? When, oh when, America, are we going to stop projecting antiquated, hypocritical standards to our politicians in regards to sex?

Now, to be fair to the hypocrites in our public service, I must say that if you profess to stand for monogamy and you're caught cheating--you're fair game. If you are a staunch supporter of "traditional marriage" and you like getting your junk sucked by male prostitutes, your in for some damage. If you hold yourself up as a paragon of morality and you like to do lines off of prostitute's bare ass cheeks, then you deserve to be called out on the carpet.

But if you are a person who believes that grown-up adult-like persons in our society ought to have some modicum of privacy in regards to their personal sexual lives, and you get caught and exploited doing something in your private life, completely separate from your public/professional life, then....why can't America's favorite spectator sport ie: hyperbolically exploiting errant sexual behavior, be mitigated by that fact?

Last night my sister-in-law asserted that Weiner should not have lied. Agreed. It was dumb, it was poor judgement on his part, and it made his situation much, much worse.

But who, faced with the annihilation of one's life's work, career, family and very public reputation, wouldn't use poor judgement, even deception, as a way to ameliorate some of the damage? I've done it. Chances are, you've done it, too. Maybe not on a grand scale, but you've done it. A little white lie about your private activities to your parents? Maybe rounding back a number when asked how much you spent at Target? A slightly unflattering bit of gossip you may have passed on? Now, take your micro-community, say your church congregation and your immediate neighbors, and let's take every indiscretion you've committed and give a nice slide show in Sunday School, shall we?

Now imagine the whole of your neighborhood watching that slide show while you watch helplessly on, knowing that a wildfire is spreading through your community, burning people's houses down.

Welcome to Weinergate and our country.

Andrew Breibart, the pasty wing-nut of doctored propaganda, has made Congressman Weiner's very private life--public. His exposure is and was nothing more than an act of spiteful disclosure in the hopes of destroying another man's life. And congress, afraid to seem to lackadaisical about "morality", has turned on Weiner in a show of solidarity with the hypocritical public's scorn. I wonder if Andrew Breibart would be willing to have his privates, so to speak, scrutinized this way. You know, being above reproach and all.

The public? Hypocritical? Well, let's see...from Menstuff :

22 percent of married men have strayed at least once during their married lives.
14 percent of married women have had affairs at least once during their married lives.
Younger people are more likely candidates; in fact, younger women are as likely as younger men to be unfaithful.
70 percent of married women and 54 percent of married men did not know of their spouses' extramarital activity.
5 percent of married men and 3 percent of married women reported having sex with someone other than their spouse in the year1997.
22 percent of men and 14 percent of women admitted to having sexual relations outside their marriage sometime in their past.
90 percent of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong.
50 percent of Americans say President Clinton's adultery makes his moral standard "about the same as the average married man,'' according to a Time-CNN poll.
61 percent of Americans thought adultery should not be a crime in the United states; 35 percent thought it should; 4 percent had no opinion.
17 percent of divorces in the United States are caused by infidelity.
Source: Associated Press
Up to 37% of men and 22% of women admit to having affairs. Researchers think the vast majority of the millions of people who visit chat rooms, have multiple "special friends”. Dr. Bob Lanier.
Recent studies reveal that 45-55% of married women and 50-60% of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time or another during their relationship (Atwood & Schwartz, 2002 - Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy)
Only 46% of men believe that online affairs are adultery. DivorceMag
80% think it's Ok to talk with a stranger identified as the opposite sex. 75% thinks it's ok to visit an adult site.
About 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair at some point in some marriage "Monogamy Myth", Therapist Peggy Vaugn
About 24 percent of men and 14 percent of women have had sex outside their marriages, according to a Dec. 21, 1998 report in USA Today on a national study by the University of California, San Francisco.
Affairs affect one of every 2.7 couples, according to counselor Janis Abrahms Spring, author of After the Affair,as reported by the Washington Post on March 30, 1999. Ten percent of extramarital affairs last one day, 10 percent last more than one day but less than a month, 50 percent last more than a month but less than a year, but 40 percent last two or more years. Few extramarital affairs last more than four years.
A lesser known fact is that those who divorce rarely marry the person with whom they are having the affair. For example, Dr. Jan Halper’s study of successful men (executives, entrepreneurs, professionals) found that very few men who have affairs divorce their wife and marry their lovers. Only 3 percent of the 4,100 successful men surveyed eventually married their lovers.
Frank Pittman has found that the divorce rate among those who married their lovers was 75 percent. The reasons for the high divorce rate include: intervention of reality, guilt, expectations, a general distrust of marriage, and a distrust of the affairee.
One-third of divorce litigation is caused by online affairs. This Is An Internet E-Mergency, The Fortino Group
Approximately 70% of time on-line is spent in chat rooms or sending e-mail; of these interactions, the vast majority are romantic in nature. Dr. Michael Adamse, PhD., co-author of Affairs of the Net: The Cybershrinks' Guide to Online Relationships
Because of the anonymity, affordability, and accessibility of Internet sexual resources, the computer can accelerate the transition from "at risk" to "addicted," as well as the progression of sex addiction in those with a history of prior sexual compulsivity. Cooper et al Survey
8-10 percent of Internet users become hooked on cybersex. Dr. Bob Lanier.
Spouses who get hooked on Internet porn are a growing complaint among spouses filing for divorce, according to a survey of 350 divorce attorneys. "If there's dissatisfaction in the existing relationship, the Internet is an easy way for people to scratch the itch," said lawyer J. Lindsey Short, Jr., president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, which conducted the study.
57% of people have used the Internet to flirt.
38% of people have engaged in explicit online sexual conversation and 50% of people have made phone contact with someone they chatted with online.
Evidence proves there is a high correlation between on-line infidelity and subsequent real-time sexual affairs.
Evidence supports the existence of disinhibition, accelerated intimacy, and hyper-sexual online behavior that can easily lead to real-time infidelity
31% of people have had an online conversation that has led to real-time sex.
It is estimated that 53% of all people will have one or more affairs during their lifetime.
Look at the numbers from Playboy Magazine:
-2 out of 3 women and 3 out of 4 men admit they have sexual thoughts about co-workers.
-86% of men and 81% of women admit they routinely flirt with the opposite sex.
-75% of men and 65% of women admit to having sex with people they work with.
The fact is that human beings are NOT monogamous by nature. That means they cheat.
Experts say that a gut instinct is the most powerful indicator of a cheating lover. Adultery statistics state that 85% of woman who feel their lover is cheating are correct. 50% of men who feel their lover is cheating are right. The first clue is seldom obvious. Typically, it's a "feeling" that something is different.
Cheating spouse statistics confirm that 50 and 70 percent of married men (between 38 and 53 million men) have cheated or will cheat on their wives. One study found that 2/3 of the wives (26 to 36 million women) whose husbands were cheating had no idea their husbands were having an affair - largely because they failed to recognize the telltale signs.
According to Annette Lawson, author of Adultery, published in 1989 by Basic Books. "The various researchers arrive at a general consensus…suggesting that above one-quarter to about one-half of married women have at least one lover after they are married in any given marriage. Married men probably still stray more often than married women—perhaps from 50 percent to 65 percent by the age of forty." According to Maggie Scarf, author ofIntimate Partners, first published in 1987 by Random House, re-issued in 1996 by Ballentine.
"Most experts do consider the 'educated guess' that at the present time some 50 to 65 percent of husbands and 45 to 55 percent of wives become extramaritally involved by the age of 40 to be a relatively sound and reasonable one." According to Peggy Vaughan, author of The Monogamy Myth, first published in 1989 by Newmarket Press (third edition published 2003).
Conservative infidelity statistics estimate that “60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. These figures are even more significant when we consider the total number of marriages involved, since it's unlikely that all the men and women having affairs happen to be married to each other. If even half of the women having affairs (or 20 percent) are married to men not included in the 60 percent having affairs, then at least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80 percent of all marriages. With this many marriages affected, it's unreasonable to think affairs are due only to the failures and shortcomings of individual husbands or wives."

Note that the above adultry statistics of the prevalence of affairs were made more than a decade ago; so based on changes in society during the intervening years, the current percentage of the population who have had affairs is probably somewhat HIGHER. For instance, the continuing increase of women in the workplace and the increase of women having affairs on the Internet means that the numbers for women having affairs is probably similar to those for men—about 60%.

***

These are your neighbors. These are your friends. These are your family members. These are your bishops, butchers, internists, postmen, co-workers and pastors.

I don't note these stats to exonerate bad behavior. But Glass Houses, people. Pots n' kettles. "He who is without sin..." (We are still considered a "Christian nation" by many, aren't we? Hmm.)

Meanwhile, our country is burning. People are having to choose between medications and a roof over their heads. People must die alone rather than get professional help for their illnesses. Children are going hungry.

Anthony Weiner's private life has been exposed to public scrutiny. If we are to be fair, let those who cast the stones open up their lives, their computers, their secrets for us to scorn and ridicule as well.

OR, we can grow up and treat this as what it is: a personal issue between him and him. The real, public issues, the one's of which we ought to be ashamed, lie in the lack of support for national healthcare, the slashing of teacher's wages, the hyper-focus on attempting to legislate morality and keeping people who love each other from marrying.

Immoral? You bet. So what does that say about us, as a nation, when we care more about the slide show than the destruction of our citizens? To me it says that it's time to look in the mirror, have some self-honestly and compassion, and "judge not."

Chowder

Saying OOPS

2011-05-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of mistakes. The OOPS variety, of which I am guilty due to ignorance/negligence, and the OOPS variety that comes from bad judgement, or in the case I will illustrate, backpedaling to correct what might have been true at the time, but after some thought....remains true but unpopular.

Ignorance/negligence.

All of your comments had mysteriously ended up in my SPAM folder in my email. I wondered why no one ever commented and I now realize...you were. So sorry. I will get to all of them, promise.

Bad Judgement.

My last post quoted a flustered and slightly stunned Jennifer Egan, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, where (after literally just finding she won) in an interveiw she calls works that were plagiarized by a graduate student "banal" and "derivative."

As you know, a giant hissy-fit occurred in the form of Jennifer Weiner (pronounced "whiner" in case you want to know) screeching far and wide that Egan was a snob. (Oh, and I'm sure the "Weiner"-"whiner" thing has been over-done for her, but it wouldn't be so darn ironic if she wasn't such a poster child for whining. I mean it. Try, without cringing, reading her Twitter page over the past few months. Agonizingly...well, whiny.)

I posted an open letter from a private email I sent Jennifer Egan. In true, gracious form, she emailed me back. She stands by her public apology and I can see why. No one wants to appear ungracious and no one wants to be perceived as a snob. I think, however, that the authors, sorry FEMALE authors who outcried in unison over her original comment, made it a gender issue--not Egan. Why is it that male authors can diss each others' work, say they don't like certain classic authors, etc., and no one writes them mean notes and ignores them at lunch? Hm?

Because they are grown ups. That's why.

I received a pretty strong reaction to my previous blog from my friend and fellow author, Natalie R. Collins. She disagreed with me completely and if you'd like to read why, you can go check out her argument. I commented on her blog and my comments are to follow.

Basically, Ms. Collins asserts that literary snobbery is alive and well and it's uncalled for. She sanctions Jennifer Weiner's reaction as well as other chicklit aficionados and decries the myth that chiklit is indeed banal and derivative. My responses.

(Natalie)~Hmm. Well, you did tell me to shoot back.
So here I am, wracking my brain for anyone who refers to themselves as a “literary snob.” But I can’t think of one. I have, however, heard many accusations flung about calling various authors that moniker. Funny….I’ve never heard of any backlash when that term is tossed forth because frankly, there never is. But if someone refers to a genre writer as “banal and derivative”, an awful “tweeting” and spiteful blogging moves across the land. Why?

I think it’s relatively simple to see. It’s a matter of class.

Jennifer Weiner may write well and she might sell a lot of books. I think she even stated that she was going to go “cry into her royalty check.” Wow. SUPER classy.

You’re right, Weiner has every right to be pissed about all of the perceived slights she receives on a daily basis. That IS her right. Good luck with that, Jenny. And to tell people that they read “drivel” is Egan’s right (although she never actually said that.)

Your blog jumps around a lot and states that people get to have an opinion. Then they don’t. Then they do. Which is it? Since I’m of the opinion that we all get to have an opinion no matter what, I can say with some certainty that, based on interviews, her words, and what I’ve read about her, Jennifer Weiner is a classless harpy. If the term “literary” is so repugnant, then why all the fuss that she and others…are not?

Reminds me of a topless dancer. She can pole dance like no one out there; she executes her spins and twirls with aplomb and at the end of the night, she gets to roll around naked in her cigarette-saturated twenty dollar bills. Successful? Well to her, perhaps she is. But when all is said and done, at the end of the day, she’s still a stripper.

And the stripper is mad because the dancers at Juilliard’s won’t refer to her as an “artist.”

But…but…lookie at how much money she makes! And I’ll bet she gets more people that see her in a weekend than those uptight ballerinas in a whole year!

It’s the strangest thing. To eschew a label and yet so obviously and fervently yearn for it… it’s rather tragic.

The problem I see it this: Jennifer Weiner and the ChickLit crowd have their collective panties in a bunch because the “snobs” don’t acknowledge them as literary. And why should they? The whole point, the whole purpose of genre fiction is to give readers what they want—what they expect. No one wants to go into a McDonald’s and be surprised, do they? And I’ll bet more people go to McDonald’s than a hole in the wall restaurant in one location that serves superb food.

You asked if Egan should have out-sold Weiner and my answer is: who cares? I’ll bet any amount of money Egan doesn’t. See, that’s the other difference between the two. Art doesn’t always translate into commercial success and vice versa. Literary snobbery? The only crowd that seems upset is the commercial crowd. The literary voices are uniformly silent.

Who decides what is literary? The LITERARY WORLD decides, and that, Natalie, is why Weiner and Cabot and other ChickLit writers will never win the Pulitzer. The literary world doesn’t respect them and they’re pissed. Are they popular? Sure. So is McDonald’s.

Jennifer Egan had just won the prize and was asked a question about her advice to young women authors. She answered and she answered well: aim high and don’t cower. If you write for money, then own it, say it, and move on. Some writers write for more. Some aspire to more. And Jennifer Weiner will fade away and never enter a classroom to be dissected, deconstructed and lauded because frankly, at the end of the day, she’s just a stripper.

As a side note: the book by Franzen I listed was Freedom, not The Corrections.

Second note: ever heard of e.e. Cummings or Mark Twain? They had some issues with the Merriam-Webster, and so does Egan. So if you like it by the book, so to speak, I wouldn’t read her novel. It just might change a paradigm or two, and if that’s not your cup of “oatmeal” then I’d pass on it. For me, I can’t think of a higher aspiration than impacting the world in that way. But that’s me.

***

Natalie replied to my comment and my final comment reads after.

Hey JA,

First of all, Google “literary snob.” You will find many people who are MORE than happy to call themselves a literary snob. You may not know them personally, but they are out there.

Secondly, WHO IS the literary world? Who are “THEY?” Tell me who is deciding this, besides the Pulitzer Prize committee, because there aren’t enough of them to count, and most books, even the ones considered “literary,” never see the “Pulitzer” light of day. It’s that big “THEY” again. You know, the very vague, “Well, THEY said….” Who is THEY? There is no “literary” committee that makes these pronouncements. It’s just people who read.

Thirdly, is thirdly a word? I’ll look it up later.

I love Mark Twain but have always found Cummings very hard to digest. I know this is my background in editing and proofreading. I was trained by the grammar Nazi. Please do not think I am kidding. Heh. I am not.

As for my blog jumping around, wellll, that sounds kind of like my mind right now. I had a lot to say and wasn’t sure I was getting it across. Obviously, I didn’t do a very good job.

After reading your comment, I have this to say. I consider all your points well-stated and backed up. And I was not trying to misquote you or change your stance. For example, on the Franzen book, I brought up THE CORRECTIONS because I have read it. I have not read FREEDOM, and I don’t really like to discuss things I haven’t read. That’s not an informed opinion.

And now I shall go digest what you wrote, and see if there is any other things i feel I need to say. Right now, I don’t.

Thanks for responding!

***

(Natalie)~

I know you didn't mean to misquote me—I didn’t think anything of it, I just wanted to correct it.

Well, I Googled “literary snob” and you’re right; there are many people who refer to themselves as such.

However, in your blog you intimated that Jennifer Egan was one based on your assessment that she was “condescending” and her comment “elitist” (synonyms, I’m sure, for the literati.) Jonathan Franzen has been called one. So has David Foster Wallace. My point? The people flinging the term typically fling it at the writers themselves. I have yet, in all my Googling, to find an author who refers to him or herself as a literary snob. Outside of the Industry, who cares what people call themselves? Hell, I’m a beer and wine snob.

Now, the ubiquitous “they” and the Literary World are not identical or interchangeable. The Literary World is comprised of much more than angsty bloggers crowing at their superb literary tastes. Consider the judges and committees for these awards:

The Nobel Prize in Literature
The Pulitzer Prize for Literature
Aga Khan Prize for Fiction
Ambassador Book Award
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals in Belles Lettres, Criticism and Essays
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Drama
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, Novels, Short Stories
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry
American Book Awards
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Arab American Book Award
Arthur Rense Prize
Asian American Literary Awards
Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature
Autumn House Press Poetry Prize for a full-length book manuscript
Autumn House Press Fiction Prize for a full-length book manuscript
Bancroft Prize
The Best American Poetry series
Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry
Bollingen Prize
The Dana Award
Donna J. Stone National Literary Awards
Edgar Allan Poe Award
Edward Lewis Wallant Award
Fabri Literary Prize
Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
Frost Medal
Goldsmith Book Prize
Harold Morton Landon Translation Award
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature
Hopwood Award
Hugo Award
James Duval Phelan Award
James Laughlin Award
Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize
Joseph Henry Jackson Award
Kate Tufts Discovery Award
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lannan Literary Awards
Mary Tanenbaum Award for Nonfiction
Michael Braude Award for Light Verse
Micro Award for Flash Fiction
National Book Award
National Book Critics Circle Award

That’s just to the “N’s”. Do I need to list them all? Now, include with them the editors, contributors and consumers of literary magazines such as McSweeny’s, The Paris Review, and hundreds of others. How about editors and publishers of the literary tomes themselves? Now let’s include writers who identify themselves as literary authors. Finally, the consumers and readers of literary fiction. This, Natalie, is the literary world, not a vague, anonymous, unlimited group of nameless, faceless people spanning across time. These are the people who would not publish, read, or award anything to the Jennifer Weiners in this business. (How apropos that her name corresponds phonetically with “whiner”.)

There is no doubt that she can write. There is no doubt she is successful. That isn’t the point. The difference between literary works and, for example, chicklit, goes much deeper than whether or not people can string a coherent sentence together.

The pivotal and central heart of the differences lies in the themes and motifs of the work. In chicklit, the themes are all very similar. Self-esteem, big thighs, shoe fetishes, “can’t a fat girl find true love?”, girlfriend relationships, dysfunctional and/or quirky parents, cheeky, sarcastic protagonists, cardboard cut-out male characters who always manage to “see the light” at the end of the book (a.k.a. finally seeing who’s really in front of him and LOVING her!) and learning to be strong in a “man’s world” at the office, in love or in life.

While no one can disregard or ignore that these are contemporary themes, and in truth, much of the female population can relate to them, they lack the universality that spans across gender, race, culture, socio-economics and, ultimately, TIME.

Many people want this type of book. There’s no denying this. Many people like romantic comedies. Many people want escape. Again, nothing wrong with this. For those writers (or movie makers, for that matter) who want to provide this escape, I say ‘carry on’. But don’t get pissed off when “Bridget Jones’s Diary” isn’t up for a damn Oscar. DEAL. That’s NOT why they made the movie, that’s NOT the compelling force of the movie, and it WILL NOT make a difference in the average life of the average person. It was never slated for that kind of impact. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun, well executed or well-acted.

Jennifer Weiner is mad because she wants to be well-regarded in a world that esteems unique, universal and influential endeavors over entertainment. She’s having a hissy.

Oh, and by the way, it’s erroneous to believe that literature has to be “dark and angsty”. Try HELL by Robert Olen-Butler, THE LONELY POLYGAMIST by Brady Udall, PORTONY’S COMPLAINT or NEMISIS by Philip Roth. Dark? Depressing? No. Universal, unique and influential? You bet.

***

My point in reiterating all of this is that there is indeed a difference between writing styles and genres. Some deserve critical acclaim, and some deserve what they get: sales from people who want to be entertained. If money and popularity are what you're seeking--AND you're getting it, then why be butt-hurt that someone doesn't like your work or the work of your genre?

In other words, growthefuckup.

Chowder

Cat Fight and an Open Letter to Jennifer Egan

2011-05-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

Contrary to the certain prurient fantasies of most male NASCAR fans, there is nothing hot, sexy, attractive or entertaining about women fighting.

In the real world, women do not fight physically anyway unless you've got your hands on the sweet cinematographic morsel: Girls Gone Wild: The Compton Edition. No, in almost every situation, women fight in a subversive, treacherous fashion that leaves most males wondering if a conflict had even occurred.

Women fight in a place men will never go: below the belt, below the mud and blood, someplace deeper, uglier and more brutal.

I've been mulling over a certain conflict that's been happening in the literary world for about a week. I was reluctant to join in the fray because it's beneath me. I know where I stand and that was good enough. But yesterday I made a decision.

To get you up to speed.

Recently, an author by the name of Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize Award for fiction. I am in the midst of reading her winning book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, So far it is difficult to put down; or rather, it's difficult to look away--like a car crash on the Interstate. It reads with a dazzling foreboding and tension that creates in the story a cohesive ball of energy. It spans generations and hops around in time and its completely compelling. I think the award is well-deserved and I am very happy for her.

During an interview (a good 20 minutes after she found out she won) Jennifer Egan spoke these words:

"My focus is less on the need for women to trumpet their own achievements than to shoot high and achieve a lot. What I want to see is young, ambitious writers. And there are tons of them. Look at The Tiger’s Wife. There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models?…My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower."

I found the advice to be good, solid advice.

But the cats began to hiss.

One particular cat, an author named Jennifer Weiner actually....tweeted.

"And there goes my chance to be happy that a lady won the big prize. Thanks, Jenny Egan. You’re a model of graciousness.”

Emphasis on "lady" was added by me. I was confused. Why the arched backs? Why the snub?

Ah, apparently the books to which Egan had referred to as banal and derivative were none other than the darlings of the "Chick Lit" crowd: Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic) and Megan McCafferty (the Jessica Darling series). It all began to make sense.

Weiner, an outspoken advocate of her genre took special care to sharpen her claws and attack in every venue that would listen to her hiss. She didn't just go after Egan; she also went after Jonathan Franzen, author of the novel Freedom, sardonically calling him Jonathon "genius" Franzen in an interview.

Apparently this is a gender issue.

Women everywhere are boycotting Egan's work. They have accused her of perpetrating "girl-on-girl crime," that she has set back feminism 50 years. Let me repeat, THEY are saying SHE has set back feminism 50 years. Because "chick lit" is so....so....womyn! For God's sake, they're calling her mean!

Can you see my cyber eye-roll from here?

This is not a gender issue. When Eleanor Roosevelt stated that "there is a special place in Hell for women who do not help other women" she wasn't referring to blind support of anything and everything done by a woman. You are not going to hell if you didn't vote for Hillary. So yesterday, I read a bunch more....meeeooooorrrrrwwwwww-ing about Ms. Egan, and a subsequent interview she gave where she thoroughly apologized for her comment, and I got tweaked. Peeved. P-i-s-s-e-d.

So here is my letter to Jennifer Egan in the hopes she doesn't feel all alone out there in the seventh grade cafeteria while the other girls talk behind her back and roll their eyes at her:

Dear Ms. Egan,

I know you are probably inundated by now with all types of intrusions, but I hope you read what I have to say--and I thank you for your time in advance.

First, allow me to congratulate you on your recent and deserved Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I have Goon Squad on my Kindle and it's up next to read. I look forward to it and don't worry, I haven't placed laurels around it so as to doom it's significance or value. A Pulitzer is a bitch to live up to, I can only imagine.

My name is JulieAnn and I'm also a published author of fiction, but I eschew the"chick lit" label vehemently. I wanted you to know that although you recently apologized for your remarks about the banality and derivative nature of chick lit, I don't think you have anything for which you need to apologize.

I believe that we are beset by an old school standard (the standard being the white, middle-aged male author who writes literary fiction) and your award gives those of us who aspire to be read great hope. Writers, whatever their gender, need to aim high. I don't believe this is a gender issue; I think you touched on the real issue, which is literary fiction vs. commercial fiction.

Jennifer Weiner and the like are kicking and screaming and "protesting too much." If one's writing is not banal and derivative, then why the soft skin? If someone called my writing banal et. al., I would assert that they a) haven't read me, or b) didn't "get" me. Period.

I am truly sorry for the ridiculous backlash your comment has incurred. The fact that these women have their panties in such a bunch is further proof to males of the world as well as sane, professional and mature women writers that the chick lit crowd and their work is still firmly and immutably entrenched in the 9th grade. I mean, she TWEETED for God's sake?

I just wanted you to know that your original comment was a cause de celebre for me and many others, who would just as soon see the chick lit moniker fall off the face of the Earth. These women are literally shooting themselves and other female writers in the foot by allowing such a derogatory label to be placed on their work. However, I'm not sure what else to call their books other than a prolonged, exhaustive Hallmark card.

Anyway, I felt moved to write you after following the blog circuits and watching the cat fight going on between women bloggers and writers. I know that every word you say can be twisted and construed into awful things once you become a public figure, but the less vocal of us, the one's who stay out of the fracas because it's beneath us, concur with your original statement. I personally feel that we, as writers, not women, need to stick together and promote quality and art, not bubble gum mind-candy for the intellectually bored.

I wish you gobs of success and luck and (here is my Shameless Self Promotion portion because, well, I'm a writer), if you ever want a new read and you have a Nook or Kindle, my books are available and I hear from my grandmother, best friend and butcher that they are very, very good (ha ha).

All my best,

JulieAnn

***
I'll let you know if I hear back. I doubt it, but I've said my piece.

Chowder

Overheard at the Hair Salon...

2011-05-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

"Isn't it funny how atheists conveniently remember there's a God when they have a crisis?"

My response. Aloud :

"Almost as funny as Christians who conveniently forget there IS a God when it comes to compassion."

*chirp chirp*

Chowder

Silent Battle

2011-05-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting a silent battle.

It began about three years ago, when a medication I'd been taking turned on me. I began to gain weight on it. I got out of the habit of working out regularly and only went to the gym sporadically. Finally, my blood pressure went up and the doctor concluded I wasn't safe on the medicine anymore.

Meanwhile, I've gained a significant amount of weight in the past 4 years.

A new medicine was administered that didn't increase my blood lipids or pressure, but has the side effect of....you guessed it....weight gain.

I began watching what I ate and eating more healthy. I began going to the gym. I had no results. I finally went to a specialist who helps monitor your weight by measuring your metabolism, and at what rate your heart ought to be during exercise for you to burn fat instead of just sugar. I have been following the plan religiously. I went back in to be measured, weighed and tested. I have gained.

The woman was perplexed; I keep a copious food and exercise journal. "How could you have gained?" she asked. I told her about the medication and she tried to make me feel better. "Well, think of how much you would have put on had you not been working at it."

I did not feel any better. At all.

I'm not used to this. I don't like it. It has changed everything, including my social agenda--I have none. I have no desire to go "out there" when I'm toting an extra 40 pounds. I'm humiliated. I feel invisible and on center stage all at once. I feel unattractive and out of control. What motivation do I have to get on the treadmill and work out for an hour every day when, no matter what I do, no matter what I eat, I'm fighting an up-hill battle?

Mostly, it has added a feeling of despair. I feel, for the first time in my life, like I have no control over what my body is doing. My body is the enemy and I have no weaponry to fight it. In the past, all I'd need to do is work out and change eating habits. Now, because of medications and inevitable aging, I'm stuck. My metabolism is normal, healthy in fact. I learned this as I got tested by the weight management specialist. I go in and see my doctor next week and I have to tell him I can't do this anymore. There has to be something else I can take.

Then, it all starts over again.

Some days, I just want to let the boulder go.

Chowder

On Conflation and Idiocy

2011-05-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

They ought to know better. But most of them don't.

Book reviewers and critics are supposed to be the bastions of acumen, the arbiters of taste, the judges upon whom we place the mantle of discernment.

The problem with most of them is they don't get it.

They don't get what it takes to write a book. They are walking around in the dark with a penlight at most when it comes to themes and characterization. They attempt to read between the lines and all it does is get messy.

I recently read The Humbling by Philip Roth and I was surprised that it was panned by several reviewers--mostly female critics.

They seem to forget that fiction is a world of consistency not PC.

If you write a character who is 65 and a male has-been actor, he's going to act that way in the book, right?

There were reports of female readers (these aren't even the critics) who were throwing it away on the street. Typical of most readers--why should they get it? But critics? The "professionals"? Shouldn't they be a beacon of understanding?

The Humbling is a brilliant and hauntingly beautiful work...of fiction. Why must critics and readers alike conflate the artist with his art?

Here's the beef most of them have: The main character, Axler, a retired stage actor, has an affair with a lesbian. Yes, that's right. Now, I know in REAL life lesbians never, ever, ever, ever sleep with men (that would be traitorous and wrong a la Anne Heche) and if they do not in fact sleep with men, how do you explain the inordinate amount of lesbian women with children (which, frankly, cannot be explained by this writer because of the never, ever, ever). Yet this beef is at the top of beefs with critics of the book. I mean, how could a 65 year old aging actor sleep with an attractive woman twenty-five years his junior who is also a lesbian if, in fact, the creator of such a protagonist didn't wish it so for himself?

One word: Fiction.

Please, people, come with me to a land where fiction exists. Accompany me to a place where a writer creates a character based on an amalgam of life's experiences and his imagination, and creates a character consistent with him or herself through the entire book, who acts according to how Everyman-who-is-this-character would act, given his situation. Can we go there? To this place?

Critics of the book can't. Neo-feminists the nation over have decried The Humbling as a misogynist piece of drivel--from the NY Times:

"A lazy work, “The Humbling” lacks its author’s genius — all that would help us, as it has so many times before, to forgive him his prejudices and blind spots."

Yes, he is prejudiced because he depicted a lesbian with a strap-on. He is blind because what 40 year old could possibly sleep with a 65-year old man?

I had this experience with my first book. A couple of rabid "reviewers" (they had blogs with negligible followings) were convinced that I was a man-hating, sex-loathing prude because my main character "concluded" that her husband was a sex and pornography addict based on his behaviors--behaviors that I wrote out of the textbook criteria for a sex and porn addict. But I didn't convince these two reviewers. No-siree. Frankly, I'm amazed I didn't have to draw illustrations in the book for them to conclude that my protag was a female and her husband was a male. I mean, where's the definitive proof?! Show me a vagina!

Therefore, they made assumptions that my book=my life and although there were some parallels, they were unforeseen by me until the book was well under way. It was fiction.

–noun

the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose form.

works of this class, as novels or short stories: detectivefiction.

something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story.

Are we clear now, folks?

I am irked because I write. I create art. (There are those who disparage my work because they feel they need to. Good. Have a happy, happy hate party. Bottom line? You can't stop conflating my writing with me, either. Hate me? Fine. But you can admit to yourself that I can write and you won't melt.) According to would-be critics, I'm probably a misogynist. I'm also a man hater. I'm also a homophobic, bigoted, racist misanthrope. I mean, LOOK at what I write! No puppies! No fluffy bunnies? I'm also a baby seal killer, too!

Can we stop this idiocy, people?

We are artists, creators. We are not our characters. We do not necessarily believe and think as they believe and think. We do not yearn and pine for that which our characters yearn and pine. Unless it's a million dollars, I could pine for that.

The point?

Stop it, stop it, stop it. If you want to review our books, review them on the merits of the work, framed by the story and themes/characters therein. Stop, stop, stop conflating US with our work. How would you like us picking you apart based on your work?

Oh, she's a teacher. She must not have the ability to "do" anything else but teach.

Oh, he works in computers. Misanthrope.

He sells insurance? Pessimistic bastard.

She sculpts flowers. She's a slut.

It seems utterly silly that I even have to say it.

Chowder

The Itch

2011-05-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

creative commons

I have the itch to create.

I penned the denouement of my seventh novel yesterday. Yes, yes, bells and whistles. Frankly, the fun part is over. Edits begin. While I wait....

I wanted to pen some short stories, maybe kick around the premise for my next novel.

The point is, when I'm not creating, I feel a slight void in my life.

Painting is one way I used to fill the gaps in novels. But I just can't bring myself to use my painting studio as it is--too buggy and too dusty.

Suffice to say, this ennui I'm feeling comes across this blog loud and clear. I can hear you yawning. Close your mouth before a bird comes a-nesting.

I don't know what this spark in me is, this compulsion to create. I try to identify it, and all I see is

creative commons

I'm reading a book by Philip Roth called The Humbling, and it centers around a stage actor who has lost his mojo, his talent, his raison d'etre. I don't know what I would do if that happened to me. I can pretend to be fulfilled in numerous other ways, but if I lost the ability to write, I might go mad...der.

I think the best way to describe this feeling I have is a yearning. I yearn to create beauty; I yearn to create art that enriches, enlivens and edifies. I yearn.

And so I write here to find the spark that accesses the above flames. I write here to meld my words with my fire, but nothing I write sparks anything in me at all.

This leads me to believe that I need to fill up my well.

So I'm going to exercise, read, and get filled.

There. Back to your regularly scheduled boredom.

Chow-dah

The Past Present

2011-04-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Kimberly Johnson

The past hovers in my periphery constantly as of late. In my mind's eye, an overlay of thoughts and sounds and smells trigger memories that are at once painful and nostalgic.

My mother used to speak of her childhood with a dreamy smile on her face and I wonder if that comes from the belief that she would see her parents again, and even experience childhood again.

According to Mormon doctrine, when the Second Coming is here, we will all be reunited with our bodies and they will be in a state of perfection. What does this mean? We were perfect right out of the baptismal waters at eight? Will God be managing millions of rabid eight year old's in heaven? Or perhaps we will all be twenty. Perhaps every body reached perfection at different ages, and some people will be twenty while some infants. This could be awkward in a family if everyone had different--or even the same, ages upon that First Morning. What will become of all of the silicone the bodies of Mormon women harbor? What of people who were born with abnormalities? What if God is a dwarf? It boggles the mind how a thinking person, even going just this far into logic, could accept such an idea. The common-held mantra of the devout is "God will work it all out." I see. This is the same God who has the world worked out as well, is it? Excuse me if I don't have high hopes.

But my mother did and it brought her great peace and happiness.

I can't regale my children with tales of my childhood without dissolving into tears. It's as though I don't just mourn my parents; I mourn everything associated with childhood and growing up. I mourn the loss of my childhood home, I mourn the green carpet in the family room, I mourn my mom's cooking. I mourn the smell of my dad's too-strong aftershave, English Leather. I mourn the smell of the unfinished basement my powder-blue bedroom. I mourn Sunday evening meals, ping-pong and card games, and I even mourn the days of going to church as a family. I mourn roast beef dinners and holidays. I mourn knowing without a doubt, that I was loved.

The Carter Family--I'm the babe-in-arms.

Being loved as a child is different than being loved as a parent or as a spouse. As a child, nothing is expected of you; the love is an omnipresent, centrifugal force emanating from your parents and you are awash with it constantly. I think I mourn this the most.

I mourn the fact that I can't carry on the mighty legacy that they left behind for me. My mother was the quintessential home maker, mother and grandmother. My father, a musical genius and competent head-of-household. I am an ineffectual and extremely watered-down version of both.

I live in a home, but it isn't my childhood home where I grew up; because the past seems to be super-imposed on everything lately, I don't feel entirely at home. It is disconcerting, to say the least. I learned from my brother recently that he, too, suffered pangs of grief heretofore unexperienced and I wonder if three years is how long it takes for the shock of loss to wear off and the reality of abandonment to settle in.

I have found other parts of my past--just as disturbing and unsettling and just as present, overshadowing me. It feels as though things that have long since resolved are fresh and new again; old hurts, old betrayals, old wounds. As if my skin has sloughed off and revealed a shiny, new abrasion, red and raw with grief.

And it isn't fair to those around me, this re-visit. Things that are over and done are now front and center and how does one deal with that? They are my feelings, and they are very real. But the events that generated the feelings have long since passed and should be weathered and withered away like so much dried grass in the March wind. But it's there, ever-present and fresh, as if the buds grow anew from the fecund soil.

I wish I had the ability to live more in the present, to BE in the present. That's the advice I'll receive--focus on the present.

The problem with that advice is, I am focused on the present. The past, it seems, has converged on it and I can't extricate the two. So do I start over? Do I grieve again, hurt again, put myself together piece by piece until I'm whole again?

Do I have any other choice?

Or am I doomed to meet every holiday, every gathering, every jaunt into public as a terrible trip down Memory Lane, a trip that at once, leaves me wholly un-whole and riddled with pain....

I don't have the answer. I can't go back and change what has happened; I can't even change what happens now. It seems everywhere I turn, someone or something is ripe and ready to peel off another scab. And it feels like I have no defense against them. I can't run, I can't hide; they invade my home, my presence, and even my family. You would think people would have some compunction about blatantly hurting someone close to them.

You would think.

Chowder

Ravings of a Semi-Mad Woman

Quiet Forest

The NutCreeper (Repost, Adult)--Dedicated to Uncle Kreepy :)

Life, Second Life, Reality and the Absurd

Three Words

sym·bol·ic

ab·surd

Distraction

A Woman

Flight of Fancy

Just One

To Be Kind

:)

The Hard Stuff

How To Create a Cipher

The Helllllllppppp! or Why I Don't See Chick Flicks

Plumb Idiocy

What Do I Want.

"It"

The Trip...Down His Memory Lane

Either/ Or

Irony

America--Grow Up

Saying OOPS

Cat Fight and an Open Letter to Jennifer Egan

Overheard at the Hair Salon...

Silent Battle

On Conflation and Idiocy

fic·tion

The Itch

The Past Present