Fashionably Late

Here's a not-so-secret: I don't get invited to many parties.

I don't know why not. It probably has something to do with halitosis and appalling small talk. When  I was younger, I used to dream of fancy cocktail parties and freeze-frame moments of glamorous frivolity. I'd show up in black and heels and turn heads and say amazing things and laugh with my head thrown back, just so. Dah-ling! You are too much! Oddly, this is not exactly how my life has turned out.

I got invited to a party, though. Larissa is throwing a link-up shindig over at Papa Is A Preacher and I don't even have to wear pantyhose and make up. It started yesterday, so I am as per usual, late. Patience please, with the chronologically challenged among us. I thought yesterday was both Wednesday and Tuesday for the better part of the day. Don't ask. It's amazing I get anything done, actually.

So, here I am. A little late, a little out of breath, and my cupcakes got crushed in the car on the way here. Fortunately, Larissa is a gracious hostess and you can't see any of this anyway. I brushed my teeth and now for the appalling small talk: What have I been up to?

First and foremost, I have been contemplating my light switches. You know how when you have two switches that turn on the same light and then the up/down/off/on thing gets all out of sync? I have a switch that's up when the light is off and it makes me a little bit edgy. So sometimes I engage all of my mental faculties trying to figure out the exact sequence of switch flips to get this sorted out. Up = on. Down = off.

I have also been melting crayons with a hair dryer. This is so fun. It's all over Pinterest, so the law of averages says that at least some of the people who pinned it will actually do it. It's like the strip mall  of DIY - you can walk into any number of homes in any region in America (and sometimes Canada) and find the same cheap art. In a few years, you'll be able to find waxy canvas messes in Goodwills across the country, too. But for now... for now... watching those multicolored drips fall down the canvas are worth the price of admission. I will be hanging these in the monkeys' rooms to use as message boards. Everyone needs a message board.

So, the writing. This is the portion of the cocktail party where the dreaded "What do you do?" gets asked. The only worse question for me is "Where are you from?" I answer that one with "Nowhere" and then if people are interested I can elaborate. What do I do? I write. What do I write? Nonsense. Um, OK, then. Seriously, though, I'm working on several essays at once right now. They may become blog fodder, or they may actually turn into something I'd like to send out somewhere. It remains to be seen, really. I don't want to talk about them much because I'm coy like that. Not really. I find that discussing a project rather than just working on a project tends to suck the life out of it. For now, though, let me tell you this: for the writing, I have been spending a couple hours a day dwelling in a lonely, confused and angry place to get these things written, so I am not always a whole lot of fun to be around. It's worth it to me, though, in the service of authenticity. Some of the fumes from these particular gas leaks may show up on the blog from time to time. Just hold your nose and try not to inhale too deeply. It's all good.

Here is my most useful tidbit, though: pick up a copy of The Writer's Idea Book by Jack Heffron and keep it handy. There are so many useful kinds of prompts in there and just the right kind of encouragement when you need it. Keep creating, folks. 

Dear John Jeremiah Sullivan: An Epistolary Book Review

Dear John Jeremiah Sullivan,

I just recently picked up your collection of essays, Pulphead. Someone, somewhere recommended it to me and I have no idea whosoever it was. I can't thank them, so I will thank you instead.

Thank you for being exactly my age. Thank you for your perspective on this world we who were born under the sign of Nixon's resignation have inherited. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of topics that generally just send knees jerking. Thank you for not being smug and condescending from your literary perch. Thank you for using phrases like "facty-facty" and making me laugh. Thank you for treating topics like Hurricane Katrina to a Christian rock festival to the Real World with equal parts seriousness and levity. Thank you for not taking yourself, nor this world we live in too seriously. Thank you for taking it seriously enough to really examine it. Thank you for writing in a voice that is authentic and entertaining. Thank you for encapsulating the beauty of our twisted human experience in ways that make me cry with recognition.

I aspire to write, to find my collection of essays in a book somewhere, some day. I plug away and ship them off; I sit and cringe and think I have nothing valuable to say. I know on some level that isn't true, but I wonder if there's a place for me in this great big literary world with my silly words and my self-deprecation, my goody-two-shoes roots, my irritability and my unconventional views. I wonder sometimes if it's even worth it. I struggle against the notion that fiction is the crown-jewel of genre, and I wonder if I'm just biased because I suck at it.

Reading your book has reminded me, yet again, of the value of essays, of literary non-fiction. It has reminded me of the beauty of examining closely a tiny facet of a larger whole and trying to figure out how it all fits together. It has reminded me that under seemingly "shallow" pop-culture references and icons lie much larger, deeper ideas. It has reminded me that a well written piece, even if it is about Axl Rose, has the power to move. Mostly, and less selfishly, your collection of essays has reminded me that in a world of sound bites and status updates and Tweets and platitudes and aphorisms, there is still a place for the long-form article, for opinions that are backed up with the heft of research and experience, for observations that sometimes go against the grain of the expected. Thank you most of all for that.

Sincerely,
Tangled Up In Lou
Aspiring essayist and not-at-all-creepy fan-girl

The Price Is Right

One of my favorite things about staying home sick from school when I was a kid, was watching The Price Is Right. I loved Bob Barker's way with the ladies, I was fascinated by his long skinny microphone, the sets and the prizes mesmerized me. The blinking lights and shining teeth. The "New car!", the dinette set. They were what glamour was made of. I always wanted to do the game with the punch wall. You know the one with the paper circles you could punch through and then Bob would take out a slip of Price Is Right paper and read off the prizes? I could tell you the price of a can of tuna and that it was definitely less than the hand mixer. The box of laundry detergent was the black horse, though. The price could go either way. It always cost more than I thought it did. Lower! Lower! I'd shout with the crowd and watch the contestant sadly kiss Bob on the cheek and head off stage; or else jump up and down and hug him and bump his microphone and go dance on the red spot near the Big Wheel.

What I loved best about the show, though, was when it was time for a new contestant. All these schlubs, sitting in the audience with their great big price tag name stickers waiting for the big, disembodied voice to shout their name: "And the next contestant is... Come on down!" I loved the idea that one minute you could be sitting there, a hapless spectator, and the next you are tripping through the aisles, hyperventilating, high-fiving and shaking hands on your way to your brightly colored spot on Contestants' Row. You start your day an average person and then someone, somewhere decides you're ready for the show. "Come on down!"

Right now I'm reading The Lie That Tells a Truth by John Dufresne. It is his book on writing. Add it to your list, if for no other reason than to read the introduction. I promise you won't be sorry. If you're unfamiliar with John Dufresne, I suggest picking up a copy of his novel, Louisiana Power and Light, first. Then you'll know the man knows a thing or two about writing. He focuses primarily on the writing of fiction, but it's helpful for other kinds of writing too. Most memoir is a form of fiction anyway. It's full of ideas and exercises and admonition and encouragement, all written in his earthy, conversational, and often hilarious prose. Even if you don't write, it's an interesting read.

I was plowing my way through when I discovered this quote from Joyce Carol Oates which resonated with me:

"What one has lost, or never had, feeds the work. There is a chance to make things right, to explain and explore, and aided by memory and its transmutations, find a new place where I have not been and did not wish to go."

I have been intrigued by loss these last few weeks. No particular reason, just an idea my hamster has bedded down in. I wrote a little bit about loss last week. I will probably write some more in the coming weeks. But I want to know what you have to write about loss. Think back to the first time you can remember feeling that sense of loss? What was it about? How did you feel? Did it change you? If so, how? Now here's the dinette set: Can you bid on this in up to 250 words without going over?

I'm no Bob Barker - not by a long shot - but isn't that why we write? That hope of one day hearing your name called and being able to run, giddy and bouncing, to Contestants' Row? Dufresne says this: "... there is a cost. You have to pay for the privilege of writing with your time... You pay with your time, your patience, your passion, your persistence."

Is the price right?
So, you there! Come on down!

My Kind of Exercise

I have an on-again-off-again love affair with yoga. I love the simple contemplative art of it. I like to feel each muscle as it stretches and works with the others. I like to feel like I have a big ball of breathing light in the center of me besides a messy jumble of organs and half-digested food. I like the way my mind reconnects in its simplest form with my body - simply as a driver, not as a commentator. I love the focus of in and out and filling myself with new air and releasing the old. I especially like that it's a solitary form of exercise and that there is no need for bouncy pop music and overly enthusiastic cheerleading: "O-K! One! Two! Up! Two! Clap! Two! Feel the burn!" I like to do yoga by my wood stove in the winter for the whole Bikram experience in the privacy of my own home. It is one of the few occasions on which it is not only acceptable, but encouraged, to sweat like a farm hand. I imagine the tiny demons pouring out through my pores and dissolving in my salty sweat. This is the sort of exercise I love but alas, life gets rearranged with alarming regularity and my exercise ritual disappears for a while.

I have been doing a different sort of exercise lately. Not the kind that burn very many calories or keep my muscles strong and limber, but the kind that keep my brain oiled and focused. I picked up a book at the library, The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach, that has become a useful tool. I dabble in poetry, don't really consider myself a poet in any sort of exclusive way, but the exercises are great for really any kind of writing. Most of them focus on freeing up your thoughts for breaking the bonds of regular association of words and for enabling the play and rhythm of language. That may sound like so much hokum to some, but my writing style lends itself to hokum. Besides, any sort of kick in the rear end in the direction of regular writing practice is a good thing for me. I want to share an exercise I stumbled upon last night that tickled my fancy.

It's called the "Ten Minute Spill" and is suggested by Rita Dove - she was a US Poet Laureate and has assorted hardware to her credit, so I think she might know a thing or two about writing.
Here's the gist of it:
Write ten lines in ten minutes- she suggests poetry, but I think it would work for lyrical prose, too.
These ten lines must include the following:
- A proverb, adage, or familiar phrase that you have changed in some way.
- Five of the following words:

cliff           blackberry

needle           cloud

voice                 mother

whir           lick

How fun is that?! I'm going to give it a go, but because one of the wonderful things about blogging can be the interactivity of it, I found myself thinking about what various other bloggers would do with it. I want to see. If you feel inclined, join me in this exercise and post a link or even just your ten lines in the comments or on my Facebook page. It will be fun. We will get to stretch our writing muscles, distill and focus, maybe sweat - but nobody will actually see us!