Payment Is Expected at the Time of Service

“It is a cure with a cost,” said the doctor.”

“I am not very fond of my son’s left hand being the payment. Think of another form of less precious tender and get back to me,” said the mother.

Facebook Money Savings

Thank you Facebook for saving me hundreds of dollars on the travel costs for my high school reunion that I no longer need to attend. Everything I want to know I can find out from the comfort of my padded leather office chair. The weight gain, the homely children, the crows feet, the receding hairlines, the obvious breast augmentations that will be categorically denied, the dead-end jobs, the aborted degrees, the dashed childhood aspirations, the disciples of Elizabeth Taylor, the high school romances that imploded in college; the high school hook-ups that resulted in wedlock and legitimate births in adulthood, the realization that what comes around goes around is a myth, the relief that good things do happen to good people, the fantastic dye jobs, the successful careers in helping professions, the obnoxious vacations, the detailed accounts of grocery lists and dinner menus, the amazingly talented kids who speak Chinese, Spanish, win chess tournaments and lead their team in soccer goals (oh yeah, those are my kids, but there are probably other talented and accomplished children as well), and, then of course, all the shockingly reactive political opinions on healthcare and immigration from conservative parents, who were once horny, aimless teenagers whose only concerns were hanging out at the local mini-mart, hooking-up with upperclassman and going to beer parties on the cliffs after Friday night football games.

Oh, how times have changed, but really not that much. The past is just one mouse click and thousands of miles away--precisely where it should remain.

Driving without an Outline

My writing is like an impulsive Tuesday afternoon drive where the intended destination is always an art museum, a sculpture garden, a classical music concert, a ballet, or a theatre production, but the actual point of arrival is typically McDonald’s, a martini bar with a lunch buffet, the tattoo parlor, day old bread outlets, and used record stores with a healthy selection of Prince bootlegs.

Excessive Thoughts on T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain

Author’s Note: This post contains spoiler information about T.C. Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain. If you do not wish to know the ending, do not read this entry. I also caution you to stay away from the amateur book review hour at Amazon, loaded with spoilers. If you are a high school student or undergraduate looking for a summary to help you with your quiz or paper, get off the computer and go read the book. If you are in book club that I moderate, here is what I promised. Have a great meeting without me, and I apologize I will not be there to instigate tangential conversations on husbands, sex, thumb-sucking, potty training, sex, television shows, other books, ex-boyfriends, mother-in-laws and Prince. (If you are in a different book club, feel free to use any of my statements, but do not judge us for our tangents. The laughter thwarts our crying and minimizes our wine drinking).

When I closed the book cover of T.C. Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain for the last time, I felt like I do when I eat an entire bag of Dove chocolates for breakfast --- satiated, enriched, and nourished. Wonderful sensations overwhelmed me after reading this great book that challenged me, moved me, made me feel deeply for the characters, and prompted me to admire the author’s application of satire and social realism. But just like when I eat an entire bag of candy, the euphoria passed and the stomachache started….triggered this time by abyssal reviews, not sugar shock.

Time Magazine writes “This is weak, obvious stuff, worth a raised eyebrow and a shrug.” The review in New Statesman & Society states: “Boyle explores powerful issues through his parallel characters, but they operate just shy of caricature. They are more symbolic figures than real inhabitants of a state wallowing in economic downturn. The Mexicans are naive, but essentially good, while their Anglo counterparts grow increasingly ugly with rage.” And if those reviews weren’t harsh enough, World Literature Today wrote: “Perhaps if he had taken a harder-edged look, in the manner of Steinbeck, instead of the sometimes facetious one we find here, the results would have been more deeply affecting.”

The critics are right, and I have been duped into loving this book, being moved by this book, feeling deeply for these characters that might be nothing more than caricatures. It is true that Boyle’s message is simple: Mexicans are hard working and just want a shot at the American dream, and suburban whites are unemphatic, uncompassionate, and inconvenienced by illegal immigrants until they need some manual labor done for less than U.S. minimum wage.

Even though I grew up in a nearly all-white community (except for the one adopted black boy and the two adopted Vietnamese kids) and I currently live in a well-educated, affluent city with a miniscule Mexican population, I know that immigration is more complicated of an issue than the good and innocent Mexicans versus the empirical, greedy whites. So, why did I fall for this novel? Perhaps the characters are not as “flat” as the critics claim them to be. I would argue that three out of the four characters are somewhat plump if not fully round characters that are simply trapped in novel with a basic plot, a simple polemic, and puerile symbolism.

So, what do I mean by flat and round characters? These terms come from E.M. Forester’s Aspects of the Novel, and the definitions are simple. Flat characters are straight forward. They are what they are, and do not experience any changes throughout the book. These are typically characters that symbolize some type of idea like good or evil. Round characters are fully developed, thoroughly complex emotionally and socially, and undergo some type of conflict, change, and development for better or for worse. The most famous creator of flat characters is Charles Dickens. (FYI: Never call Charles Dickens’ characters flat while studying Victorian literature in England even if you have absolutely nothing else to say because you were out clubbing instead of reading Oliver Twist. The British are in denial, and they really don’t need more to put them in a dour mood. The bad weather and the bad food are plenty).

So, why is Boyle lambasted for having flat characters and not afforded the same praise as Dickens as a socio-political novelist? And, how flat are the characters? Let’s quickly review the characters:

• Kyra Mossbacher is the flattest, most evil and least interesting character out of the four main characters. She is basically a dog-loving Cruella de Vil who has no compassion for immigrants and wants to wall out anyone who is different from her. She is an uninteresting caricature who slows the book down every time she shows a multi-million dollar house or complains about the illegals at the labor exchange, who are causing property values to drop. Does she have any redeemable qualities?
• Delaney Mossbacher is easily the character with the most potential for change and has the power to influence the most lives in the Topanga Canyon. As a perceptive nature writer, he holds dearly onto progressive liberal views about man and nature living harmoniously, but struggles with his views on immigration. He knows that the hysteria about illegals is racist; he knows our country is a land of immigrants. But at the same time, he is barely ruffled when he nearly kills a man with his car and throws $20 at him to make him go away once he realizes he is an illegal immigrant who won’t press charges or sue. He is far more devastated that a coyote jumped over his six foot fence and killed his two dogs. What are Delaney’s redeeming qualities? If Delaney would have been more complex and would have not sheepishly joined the xenophobic frenzy, would have the outcome been different? What other options did he have? We live in a community that is indisputably green and full of environmentalists and naturalists but is nowhere near the border; do you feel any of Delaney’s sentiments in our community? I don’t know much about immigration viewpoints in our community; I just know that I fear being mulled to death by wildlife far more than immigrants. (Not for comic effect, truly my most irrational fear).
• Cándido Rincon is less flat than Kyra, but he is essentially a caricature with an impeccable work ethic, fiery temperament and tragic childhood. Cándido becomes a symbol that Boyle uses to represent the entire Mexican culture, particularly Mexican males. He gives Candido a great sense of pride, determination, and anger; he is both protective and sexist. He is religious and traditional, particularly towards women working and his first-born child being a son. Boyle takes no risks with Cándido. He might as well be made out of cardboard. What are his redeeming qualities, and what steps could have Cándido taken to make the tragic outcome different?
• América Rincon is the most tragic character in the novel, and her story keeps the novel moving. As a pregnant seventeen-year-old from a small Mexican village, she starts out innocently looking for the American dream complete with a T.V., a tree in the yard and a place to raise chickens. Until crossing the border with the father of her unborn baby and the former husband of her oldest sister, she led a sheltered life in safety of her father’s protection. She left her father’s protection to give her baby what the United States of America could offer. In pursuit of the American dream, she experiences great personal triumph by earning her own money. Readers feel her hope and pride right alongside her. We want to see this potential heroine succeed, but instead her money is stolen and she is raped, leaving her with a sexually transmitted disease, unable to seek medical attention or contact her mother and sisters for help. Her dream only continues to unravel more as the labor exchange is closed, thugs rob Cándido of his money; she is forced to eat garbage in the city; and, live in the wilderness of the canyon like an animal; her mental condition deteriorates to a near catatonic state; and, she gives birth to a blind baby (caused by her gonorrhoea) who drowns in a mudslide. Wow, that is a lot of contrived devastation to pull at the heartstrings, but her story is gripping, heart-wrenching and thought-provoking from cover to cover.

Boyle uses characters that range from completely flat to symbolically round to make his political points. What other techniques does he use to elucidate the story? Symbolism, multiple points of views told in alternating chapters, and third person omniscient narrator.

• Symbolism: Boyle’s use of the coyotes to symbolize the immigrants and the community wall to represent border control is so blatantly obvious that it is unchallenging to the readers and somewhat insulting. Are there any other symbols that are not as obvious? What about the cat, the baby, the materials from the doghouse?
• Third person omniscient narrator is used by Boyle to convey a sense of neutrality, but all of the narrator’s smug foreshadowing titbits are just annoying and distracting. Did you notice the narrator’s foreshadowing? Did you think the narrator was completely neutral in the storytelling?
• Multiple points of views in alternating chapters: By no means is Boyle as gifted as Barbara Kingsolver in the Poisonwood Bible, but he definitely could teach Julia Alvarez a thing or two. In Saving the World, the alternating between Isabel and Alma’s stories did nothing to move the novel forward and were marginally linked. In contrast, Boyle’s use of alternating chapters about Cándido/ América and Kyra/Delaney keep the entire book together and conceal how simple the story really was. At the conclusion of each chapter, Boyle is able leave the readers in a state of suspense. Readers rapidly get through the next chapter to get back to the other story. He sprinkles the characters marginally into each other stories in order to keep the reader interested and not willing to skip one half of the novel (which is possible in both Larson’s Devil in the White City and Alvarez’s Saving the World, but probably better just to skip her whole novel .)

It is a truly skillful author that can use structure and form to make a simplistic idea and rudimentary symbolism seem like great literature. It is unfortunate that when Boyle broke the narrative structure and put the characters together in the final chapter, the entire novel collapsed. The ending reads like Boyle got bored with his characters, and just wanted to call it a wrap. So, he created a bunch of drama with the gun, the mudslide, and the river in order to the kill the baby (who symbolizes the American dream) and so that the brown man save the white man.

The conclusion is so heavy handed that the simplistic message probably eradicates any complexity that did exist in the book. Perhaps with a different ending, this book would not have been so widely panned by literary critics. So although I agree with critics that this novel is not literary fiction, I still love this book because it made me think; it made me feel; it made me focus on literary style and structure. I give it a big thumbs up and would recommend it to my patrons.

So, there you have it, 1,914 words that I wrote for you just for fun. Oh, it just would have been easier to have found a babysitter.

The Internet Exists in Central Pennsylvania

“Do you write about mom on your blog?” asks the little sister.

“What are you talking about? I never told you that I have a blog,” says the big sister.

“We don’t have a computer, but we know people who do,” the little sister replies.

Necessary Truths

“Do you ever consider the truth?” he asks.

“Only if it is funny, makes me look smart, or will get me what I want faster,” she replies.

Why I Won’t Read or Recommend David Pelzer

As an avid reader of essays and literary non-fiction, I never heard of David Pelzer. He simply wasn’t good enough to pop up on my radar of writers worth reading. Then, I became a public librarian, and at least once a week, someone would ask me for “A Child Called It.”

So I had to find out, why was Pelzer appealing to reluctant readers who normally just came into the library for DVDs, to glance at the Want Ads, and to use our computers? Pelzer’s allure is quite simple: he writes horror stories about child abuse with gruesome details in an easy to read style filled with colloquialisms and clichés, making his writings unintentional high-low books (high interest level/low reading level, which means content geared towards teens and adults at a basic reading level).

For every reason his books attract reluctant readers, there is a reason for library professionals not to recommend his books (although we should always give his books to our patrons if they ask for them by name and do not request our opinion): the gratuitous violence that has been reported by Pelzer’s family members to be absolutely false, Pelzer’s stature as a professional victim, the substantiated claim that he keeps himself on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Paperbacks by purchasing large quantities of his books at a discounted price and reselling them at his sold-out talks across the country. Although Pelzer’s behavior is despicable and unveracious, these reasons are not enough for me to suppress his books from my reader’s advisory service.

But, the fact that he calls himself “the Robin Williams of Child Abuse” is simply reprehensible.

Red!

If only my frequent use of the phrase “stain removal” was purely metaphorical.

On Thongs

Thongs for the feet and thongs for the derrière equally inflict pain. So, please pardon the full revealing of my panty lines and the partial concealing of my newly decorated toes behind Ecco sandals.

On Having an Faithful Readers

Knowing you are there wakes me up in morning and inspires me to push out the words. Knowing you are reading my writing makes me smile; makes me wonder if I make you smile. Makes me feel like I am bathing in public; makes me a little queasy; makes me talk to ghosts near and far; makes me even more neurotic; makes me want to be better.

Thank you.

The Best Essayist Who You Are Not Reading: Review of Arthur Krystal's The Half-Life of an American Essayist

I do not know Arthur Krystal. I do not what he looks like. I do not know if he is straight or gay; married or single. Knowing these specifics would not alter in anyway the enormous crush that I have on the author of The Half-Life an American Essayist, a smart and sexy collection essays that confirms that the “literary essay” and the “essay about literature” are not dead.

Perhaps I am only reviewer that would describe his work as sexy, but as someone who has always had a thing for smart guys; Arthur Krystal is the George Clooney of the essay world with his debonair vocabulary, utilization of complex but yet lucid sentence structure, spot-on pacing, and an understanding of the history of the essay.

Krystal seduces his audience with his conversational tone that oozes intellectualism minus the pomposity and elitism. In his enticing and persuasive title work of his diverse twelve essay collection, Krystal advocates for the return of traditional literature essays in a way that appeals to both casual and habitual readers of essays. He dismisses the popular trend of “creative nonfiction” by calling it a fancy word for memoir: ''Writing interestingly about Jane Austen requires more imagination than confessing to having slept with someone named Jane Austen from Beaumont, Texas.''

He further explains his refusal to sell himself for a quick buck in an interview with Harper’s Magazine stating: “Since I feel no inclination to write about my life except when I have to shore up some thesis about Life, I take on subjects that reveal my sensibility without revealing facts of a personal nature.”

Perhaps Krystal doesn’t relieve too many personal specifics, but his sensibilities that that consist of mostly witty cynicism and his charming disenchantment are enough to allure readers along with comments such as: "Optimists, of course, go forth into the world and tweak or chip away until the world, bit by bit, changes. Indeed, the world is buoyed by the enthusiasm and energy of such people. I seem to be talking about “such people” as if they comprised a different species. In a sense, they do. The lazy and the energetic, or the pessimistic and the optimistic, do not carry the same electrical charge."

Anyone who ridicules the optimists of the world wins my affection immediately and my adoration grows for Krystal when I read his further exploration of lethargy in his delightfully self-depreciating essay, “Who Speaks for the Lazy?” In this essay, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, Krystal describes himself as an “incurable lazybones” and discusses his “peripatetic, hand-to-mouth existence” in relation to his readings of Marlowe, Coleridge, and Bryon as well as his metabolism and circadian rhythms. While poking fun at his career choice he writes: ''Let's face it, some boys and girls become writers because the only workplace they're willing to visit is the one inside their heads.'' This laugh-out-loud essay about slothfulness and indolence contains all the personal charm of Sarah Vowell with the intellectualism of Edwin Denby. Only a consummate essayist could make jokes about his ridiculously small income and explain the historical medical condition of melancholia (an excess of black bile) in the same essay.

Indeed, Krystal’s self-mocking goes too far because no one that lazy could have written such an intelligent, wry and eclectic collection, which appeals to general readers and the academy. He offers his readers a diverse group of essays that range on topics from the history of the type-writer to the strange connection between writers and boxers to the life of Raymond Chandlier. Krystal style fluctuates from erudite scholarly writing in “Hello, Beautiful,” where he examines the history of aestheticism to the conversational prose aimed at general readers in his “My Holocaust Problem” that traces the proliferation of the Holocaust industry with a fine balance of journalistic neutrality and personal attachment that stems from his grandparents both dying in the camps.

With a deep-awareness of the hypocritical action of creating a piece of art that complains about the plethora of Holocaust materials, he writes: "While scholarly books and serious documentaries about the Holocaust are invaluable in learning about what happened and why, a certain kind of excess breeds indifference, and even this essay may be in some measure a form of betrayal. There is a part of me that feels that whatever I say for public consumption somehow cheapens the suffering of those who died and those who survived. If I have any justification for writing this, it is that I promised my father I would present his alternative to the pomp and circumstance of remembrance." Krystal handles a gravely sensitive topic with refreshing buoyancy that never borders on offensive like the essay “Possession” by David Sedaris, which for simple shock value has him imaging how he would re-decorate Anne Frank’s kitchen.

Although some (loosely defined) essayists, like Sedaris and Sloane Crosley, use hyperbole and outrageous revelations to capture and keep their audience, Krystal needs no gimmicks other than his charming self-depreciative wit, thought-provoking arguments, and mature intellectualism to attract readers and entice them into reading more of his essays. Krystal’s work both pays homage to the traditional essay in the vein of Montaigne through Lionel Trilling and with great intention continues the tradition of letters. This collection is for both people who regularly read essays and for those don’t; for people who write essays and for those who don’t. However, if you are a person who writes essays, you might find yourself with a little crush on Krystal, or at very least, you’ll experience your electrical charge slowing creeping from pessimistic to cautiously optimistic.

Motivation

I once heard if you want to lose weight, you should plaster your refrigerator with pictures of skinny-minny supermodels.

So, I thought I would try a similar technique to motivate myself to write literary non-fiction instead of my usual low-brow humor. I placed this list on my monitor:

• Kenyon Review
• Parnassus
• Swanee Review
• Massachusetts Review
• Paris Review

The next morning, I glanced at it and headed straight to the refrigerator.

On Being Flat-Chested

Gravity cannot pull what is not there.

The Game of Sexism

Hey feminists, instead of spending so much time Barbie bashing, why don’t you challenge the classic childhood game, Old Maid?

In a world full of pairs, you are a loser if are alone, aging and a woman. What kind of message is that? And, is the negative image of the old maid in society so normalized and accepted that it took me more than three and half decades to realize the pejorative moral of the game?

My children will not be playing Old Maid again until I can go to the store and buy the “Stinky Middle-Aged Man Living in his Mom’s Basement” equivalent.

My Mother Tongue

“I only write about my kids if they make my writing better,” I recently said to a group of moms, while commenting on how the "mom-blog" is not art.

Some feigned smiles and laughs. Most looked mortified.

Prince for Dummies

Author’s Note: Hey, my favorite Kansan, who likes to tell me weekly that she doesn’t know much about Prince because she was in her infant, toddler, and pre-school years during the 80s, this one is for you.
Know your audience and write at your audience’s knowledge level are pretty basic fundamentals of writing. When I write about Prince, I normally assume that my audience knows who he is, what time period he became a huge pop star, and can name a few of his hits. I normally don’t have time to do Prince for Dummies. But today, I am feeling generous and I’ll give you the basics.

1. Who is Prince? He was a huge pop star in the 80s. Today, he is a Rock-n-Rock Hall of Famer and is one of the most prolific and diverse performers alive. If you still don’t know who he is, ask your parents, you were probably conceived to his music.
2. Does he still go by "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince?" No! If you want to piss off hardcore fans ask them that question or write it on their Facebook walls to guarantee an end to your real or virtual friendship. Prince has been Prince again for the past 10 years! He changed his name to the love symbol on June 7th, 1993 (his 35th birthday); it was part of his failed attempt to break his contract with Warner Bros. Records. On May 16th, 2000, when his contract expired, he resumed using his former performing moniker (His legal name is Prince Rogers Nelson, named after his dad’s band).
3. What should a casual fan know about his personal life? Nothing! Do not read any biographies about Prince or any interviews with him. Stick to his music only. He is a despicable person. The general rule is that Prince will screw or screw over anyone he knows. Females normally experience both. See number four for more on this subject.
4. What is Prince’s Sexual Orientation? Prince is straight although he is often perceived to be gay or bi-sexual primarily due to his androgynous appearance.
5.What race is Prince? He is black and is not bi-racial like most people assume because of his light skin color and the casting of a Mediterranean actress as his mom in Purple Rain. The creation of this misconception was intentional, on the part of Warner Bros., to garner a multi-racial audience for their rising star. Although he is not bi-racial, he is credited for creating a bi-racial style of music that blends rock and R&B to appeal to people of all colors.
6.How tall is Prince? This question is just rude and none of your business. But if you must know, he is reportedly 5’2. It is hard to tell with his high heels.
7. What Prince albums are best for the casual or new Prince listener? Really anything from 1978 and 1988 is quintessential Prince and pure perfection. Here is what you need for a starter collection in the order of importance:

• Purple Rain (1984): His most famous and highest selling album to date. It is flawless from start to finish, and is the album where you will find “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Darling Nikki,” and the “Beautiful Ones,” a deconstructed ballad that is nothing short of amazing. Even better than the recording of this song is watching Prince hump the piano during the performance of the "Beautiful Ones" in the movie Purple Rain. Speaking of Purple Rain, it is an awesomely bad movie with horrible dialogue and no plot, but worth purchasing for the performances, which have stood the test of time.
• Sign o’ the Times (1987): his two-disc opus that is his most critically acclaimed work. This album is proof that Prince was years ahead of his time; it sounds just as relevant today as it was in 1987. The accompanying concert DVD is equally outstanding.
• 1999 (1982): This album was Prince’s breakout album containing the hits "Little Red Corvette," "1999" and "Delirious,” this rockabilly tune made me a fan. The double album can best be summarized by the song: “Dance, Music, Sex, Romance.” It all in there, in no particular order, on all the tracks. 1999 is Pure Purple Perfection that foreshadows the great things to come for Prince and the Revelation with their next album. This album is an absolute must have for even the most casual of Prince listeners.
• Dirty Mind (1980): Everyone should have at least one Prince album filled with sex songs. This album gives you "Head" (an ode to oral sex) and "Sister" (the incest tune that makes you dance).
• The Gold Experience (1995): Although most of Prince’s work in 1990s can be dismissed, the Gold Experience is required listening. It is considered, by most fans, to be his Purple Rain of the 1990s. It contains the last big hit of his career "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," which he no longer plays live because it was written for his first wife. He now prefers “I love U but I don't trust U anymore,” which chronicles her adultery. Although his second wife was already on the scene before the first one left. See this is precisely why you shouldn’t read his biography.
• 3121 (2006): Prince experienced a resurgence in his career in the 21st century with his critically acclaimed but horribly boring Musicology (2004) and his album 3121, which garnered him several Grammy nominations. 3121 works as fun dance album as long as you don’t have any of Prince songs from 1980s in your playlist. Still a solid offering that is worth giving a listen.
• LOtUSFLOW3R (2009): Although this three-disc set received mixed critical reviews, some fans and critics argue that his latest offering stands up well against his best work from the 80s. Although that statement is too strong, this album is intriguing enough to make it worth buying. (Plus, you get it now at your local Target for $4.99) The set consists of the main disc Lotusflow3r, which is a brilliant Jimi Hendrix inspired rock guitar album, a moderately fulfilling dance album called MPLSoUND (which stands for Minneapolis Sound – the music style associated with Prince and his protégées), and also silver coaster, called Elixer [sic] by Bria Valente, the debut CD by his latest protégée. Prince has a perpetually bad habit of giving record deals to the talentless bimbos he happens to banging at the time. But nonetheless, buy this album for the Prince meets Jimi Hendrix aura; it will either change or reaffirm your view on the legalization of pot.

So, there you have it, a guide to get you started. So, pick up a Prince CD at your local used record store, and let the dancing and shagging commence!

Position and Perspective

Opinions on healthcare are proportionally related to the health and well-being of the person forming the opinion. The physically and financially healthy conservative middle class can afford to complain about the burden of healthcare on their wallets after they come home from their staple high paying jobs complete with 401Ks and Cadillac insurance plans and tuck their healthy children in nice warm beds, draped in comforters from Kids Pottery Barn.

So, what happens when they lose their jobs along with their insurance, and someone in the family gets cancer or needs heart surgery? Bet, then, they’ll be thankful for ObamaCare.

Perhaps the fiscal conservatives should drink a few less Starbuck cappuccinos, run around the block instead of going to Bally Total Fitness to see the hotties, and reduce their contributions to Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. With those reductions in spending, they won’t even notice a small increase in their taxes to benefit humankind, which should appeal to all those good Christians out there if they are not too busy making posters to save unborn children opposed to helping kids who are already here and are in need.

Percentage of Sick People is on the Rise and Getting Higher

Based on the number of medicinal marijuana clinics in our town, chronic pain must be an epidemic.

Just legalize it already!

An Extremity to Spare

Making breakfast with only one hand is slow and messy; waffles veer to the right while being slathered in cream cheese and jelly. Pulling up underwear and jeans is possible. Buttons require patient maneuvering . It only takes one extremity to brush hair and teeth. Typing is a breeze, and so is doing laundry if imprecise folding is allowed.

Life with one hand is difficult, but it is doable. I am ready. Trust me when I say, someone as lazy as me doesn’t need two hands. Whether I use one hand, two hands or both my feet to clean my house, the results are the same. If you take a close look at my hair and make-up, you would think both of my hands were removed years ago. Plus, I could be a perfectly functioning, delightful one-handed librarian; I don’t need two hands to wake up homeless people, give pre-pubescent boys The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or help patrons with their Facebook accounts. If anyone ever had an extremity spare, it is me.

So, here I am and ready to offer my left hand. Take mine and spare my son’s, please.

Are You Talking to Me? Review of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones

“Garbageman’s Daughter, your voice as a writer is strong and brave but as a person you are a wimp. This is what creates your craziness. The chasm between the great love you feel for the world when you sit and write about it and the disregard you give it in your life," writes Natalie Goldberg in her writing manual Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. She later adds: “You often use writing as a way to receive notice, attention, love."

Okay, so perhaps, Goldberg doesn’t address me by name. But, it sure seems like she is talking to me. Goldberg understands the writing life, and the anxieties that accompany it. In her classic 1986 guidebook, she offers advice for writers of all experience levels from novice to widely-published authors and for practitioners of all genres from poetry to novels (with a huge bias towards verse).

Although writing instructors frequently use Goldberg’s work as a textbook, it reads more like a collection of Zen meditations than a primer. The longtime Zen disciple recommends a free form, non-rule oriented approach to writing. She follows her own advice by a creating a loosely structured book (containing 64 chapters of varying lengths plus an introduction and epilogue). The manual frequently reads like a writer’s notebook or a random collection of essays. Readers can easily jump around to chapters with clever names like “Fighting Tofu,” “Don’t Marry the Fly,” “One Plus One Equals a Mercedes Benz” and “Blue Lipstick and a Cigarette Hanging Out Your Mouth.”

Goldberg’s message is pretty simple: embrace who you are and write anywhere. Her approach is nicely summarized here with my bizarre hybridization of Writing Down the Bones and Green Eggs and Ham:

You may like to write
in a tree!

If not in a tree,
try a car!

Write in a box.
Write with a fox.

Write in a house.
Write with a mouse.
Write here or there.
Write anywhere.

Yes, her message is that simple: Write anywhere and doing anything you need to do to get the words out. Write solo, write with a partner, write in restaurants, join a writing group, have a writing circle around a camp fire, set-up a poetry booth and write for strangers upon request, or use props like an unlit cigarette hanging from your mouth or blue lipstick.

At times her techniques are contrived and ridiculous, but her enthusiasm and sincerity inspires people to write. Goldberg’s gentle approach emphasizes the idea that writers need multiple options for tackling their writing, and there is no one specific methodology for writing, which is strikingly different from strict, theoretical approaches that emphasis structure and rules.

Sure, she gives her readers a Zen beat down with her excessive optimism and nauseating oneness with the world, when she writes advice such as: “Best come to writing with everything in you. And when you’re done writing, best to walk out in the street with everything you are, including your common sense or Buddha nature—something good at the center, to tell you the names of the streets, so you won’t get lost.”

Nice sentiment, but my GPS will tell me the street names. Second, I do not have a Buddha nature. I am motivated more by a goddess of resentful bitchiness and a muse of bitter self-indulgence. However, I still think Goldberg would be pleased that something motivates to me write even if it is more self-absorption than eastern philosophies. She would greet me with positive sentiments such as: “Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.”

The part about being kind isn’t likely to happen and I don’t buy that writing while being surrounded by beautiful scenery will make my writing better or more authentic. No amount of picturesque beaches and gorgeous sunsets could improve my crappy poetry. Crappy poetry is crappy poetry is crappy poetry.

But, I do take some of her other advice such as using a samurai, which means to take out a metaphorical knife and cut the clutter from the page. To make her argument, she uses a quote from William Carlos Williams to Allen Ginsberg: “If only one line in the poem has energy, then cut the rest out and leave the one line.” This technique has completely changed my approach to writing. This method empowers me to actually complete works even if they are just a few sentences opposed to having a long queue of unfinished partial pieces. (Note to husband, I do not measure my love for you by the number of words it takes for me to tell our story. Sorry, you do not like my short pieces of late, but three sentences of passionate cleverness supersede a full page of lukewarm sentimental dribble any day).

Although not all Goldberg’s advice makes sense, she gets people writing for trade and for fun. Yes, her approach is excruciatingly sweet like a perverse combination of a hallmark card, a doting grandmother and a pre-school teacher. But her style is a welcomed change from the harsh world of letters where there is no shortage of people to tell you that your writing sucks. There are the apathetic professors who will scribble red all over your paper and give you a C+ with limited explanation and the magazine editors who will send a form letter with the dreaded: “Thank you for submitting, but at this time, your submission does not meet the requirements for inclusion in our publication. Good luck with your future endeavors.” And of course, all the blog readers who generously leave comments, such as: “Why do you even bother?” or “So, were you trying to be funny?”

In an environment with so much cruelty and criticism, aren’t there times when we all just need some milk, chocolate chip cookies, a hug and a gentle dose of Zen philosophy?

Is It a Good Book or Just Good for Me?

For librarians and readers with advanced degrees in English, literary fiction is like porn; you know it when you see it. For folks who have lives outside the pages of books, literary fiction is not as easily recognizable. Unlike genres such as mystery, science fiction, romance and chick lit., there are no specific techniques that govern and easily distinguish it.

At its best, literary fiction makes you grow smart exponentially with its big words and deeper psychological, sociological, or historical context. But at its worse, literary fiction feels like school and is just plain boring.

Here are some basic guidelines to help you determine if it is literary fiction:

· Beach Read – NO

· Anything with a pink or mint green cover -- NO

· Award Winner – YES (except for the genre awards in mystery, horror and western writing)

· You need to have a dictionary nearby to understand what you are reading -- YES

· The sentences are long and fluid with advanced punctuation techniques like semi-colons and ellipses – YES

· A New Times Best Seller – Typically NO, Occasionally YES

· A book sold at the check-out counter at Wal-Mart – NO

· A book for adults that your third grader can read with ease -- NO

· Novels about vampires – Typically NO for Contemporary Works Maybe YES for Gothic Novels

· James Patterson – HELL NO

A Librarian's Favorite Question

So, do you even need a high school diploma to be a librarian? Yes! Yes! The answer is “yes,” you need a high school diploma, a Bachelors degree in any subject, and another degree that adds to our already heaping student loan amounts called the Master of Library Science or MLS. A good portion of us also have what is a called a subject specialist master's or a second master’s although for most of us the second master's came first. Many of us have master degrees in English, history, art history, philosophy, psychology or sociology. The kind of degrees that make you ask: “What the hell, do I do now,” since those cankerous, almost senile tenured professors aren’t being forced to retire and aren’t dying any time soon.

So instead of becoming the grim reaper of the academic world, we go to library school to become trained information professionals. We know information and how to access it. We can find you authoritative information that isn’t on Google and Wikipedia. Librarians are your search engines with a smile, who will also recommend books for you based on your current mood and not your buying habits, like Amazon. We help you track down bus routes, give you lists for accountants three days before tax day, and if you need tax forms, we will help you print them out. We do more than check the catalog and look in Google and that’s why you need more than a high school diploma to do our job.

So just remember: Everyone who works in a hospital isn't a doctor, and not everybody that works in a library is a librarian.

Stop Obsessing: Your Child Will Learn To Use the Potty

The Dewey Decimal number for potty training is 649.62. I know this because there isn’t a day that goes by at the library when I am not approached by a spastic parent convinced that their children will still be peeing in their pants in college (probably, but that will be more likely caused by binge drinking and Greek life rituals than never acquiring bladder control skills).

Let me assure you that your child will indeed learn to both pee and poop in the potty. And, you probably don’t need all those play by play instruction manuals, written by child psychologists, pediatricians, behavioral therapists and stay-at-home moms, who are looking for away to prey upon other moms’ insecurities to make a quick buck from home with kids in tow.

No matter if you use the “Potty Training in a Day” method, the "Naked Baby" technique of allowing your child to pee and poo on your floor for a few days, the “Infant Method” of randomly holding babies who can’t even sit up on their own over a toilet until you learn their body rhythms, or embrace the logic of “introduce the potty, and they will go when they are ready,” the results will be the same – a potty proficient child. (By the way, just because your kids ditch the diapers before age two doesn't mean they are any smarter than those who wait till a few months before kindergarten to use the potty).

So stop obsessing, stop driving you and child nuts with constant potty practice, stop boring all your friends with poo-poo stories, talk about something else at your playgroups, check-out a book at the library that you really want to read.

However, there is one downside to letting your potty training obsession go: You’ll have to find a new Facebook status update.

A Scrap Off of the Garbage Pile

“My friends can’t see past their fifth grade bubble of happiness. They still play Nickjr.com and do not know all Disney stars look alike,” says the eleven-year-old grandson of a garbageman.

This kid needs a blog.

The New Ted and Sylvia

Sylvia Plath, in speaking about life with her husband, British poet, Ted Hughes, once said: “We drink coffee in the morning in concession to America , and we drink tea in the afternoon in concession to England. “

My husband and I listen to Willie Nelson on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to pay homage to Texas, and we listen to Prince on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday to pay homage to Minnesota (for absolutely no reason since I am not from Minnesota and have never been there).

But, anyway we are the new Ted and Sylvia – well minus the adultery, the divorce, the mother’s abandonment of the children through suicide, the shacking up with the mistress who later gases herself and her daughter who could be the kids’ illegitimate half-sister , the abandonment of the adult children by the father due to cancer, which results in the youngest child’s depression and ultimate suicide.

Okay, so we are nothing like Ted and Sylvia.

Anyway, we listen to Willie Nelson on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Prince on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday unless my husband is out of town then I listen to Prince every day. Well actually even if he is home, I go to the basement and listen to Prince every day when I am drinking tea. I drink tea and my husband drinks coffee. Okay, we are nothing like Ted and Sylvia. We are just a couple who listens to Willie and Prince and drinks our daily coffee and tea.

Let the Living Vicariously Commence

“I signed you up for a writing workshop this summer. You are at the age, where it is time to get serious about your writing,” she said.

“Mom, I am 11,” he replied.

Hope

Author’s Note: I am still struggling with how to get accurate information to our friends as well as chronicling how we are coping with our son’s diagnosis without revealing too much personal information about our son and family. It seems incongruous to place true accounts on such a grave matter amongst excessive Prince posts and low-brow humor. But for now, allowing my blog to mirror the sprawling, anxiety-filled state of my mind seems organic.

A good feature news story captures the imagination with interesting information and pulls at your heart strings. This is exactly what a recent story about a little girl who traveled from North Carolina to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland to have half of her brain removed to stop debilitating seizures, restore her cognitive abilities and, ultimately, to save her life. With half of a brain, she is a happy and functional child, which is an inspiring story of overcoming adversity.

But for our family, Cameron Mott’s journey is more than a feel-good story to watch on a morning show while drinking coffee and getting the kids ready for school. We discovered this story about six days after receiving the news that our five-year-old son has Rasmussen’s Syndrome, a devastating disease that causes destruction to one side of the brain, single-side paralysis, and mental retardation if the condition is allowed to progress. The only cure is a life-altering brain surgery known as a hemispherectomy, where one side of the brain is either removed or turned off.

Brain surgery followed by intensive physical therapy will most likely occur in a few weeks for my son. Albeit terrifying, we accepted the surgery as a positive that will prevent us from losing our son to mental retardation. During this arduous time for our family, seeing Cameron Mott’s story gave us hope when we didn’t think there was any to be found.

Here is the link:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36032653/ns/today-today_health/

Facebook and People Who Suck

With a few keystrokes, Facebook users can let their closest 600 virtual friends know what they are doing perpetually. Going to the store, picking up the kids from school, cleaning the house, painting toenails, and on, and on, and on until pulling stubble from you calves becomes less painful than reading one more banal status update. Then to add irrationality to triviality, you got your political soapbox Facebookers with their uninformed knee-jerk reactions to ObamaCare. Then of course, there are the clever people with their insipid punchlines; everybody is a comedian on Facebook. If the comedians are not jamming up the news feeds, the hypochondriacs are letting you know about every headache, backpain, and hang nail experienced. Once the words “intestines” or “fungus” appear anywhere in the update, I am out there.

Very really rarely do people say anything meaningful, worthwhile or important. I can know what someone is making for dinner, what color of bra they are wearing, learn their middle name, find out what famous person they look , and see their big hair from the 80s without really learning much about them.

But, does Facebook work when you have important information to disseminate? Yes, but it depends on how willing you are to share the information with near strangers. A few months ago, one of my close friends from elementary school lost her father. She wrote beautiful, deeply moving personal status updates that allowed her to get the news out quickly without her having to contact many people, and she could control how specific information was presented. People were able to write condolences on her wall and offer her support both locally and from far away. In that case, Facebook served a practical function.

But, I am skeptical about social networking websites as a communication tool because of their highly voyeuristic nature. Right now, my family is in crisis. I don’t want to exploit my child’s pain. But at the same time, I like the idea of getting information out quickly to the people who matter. A few lines blasted to friends and family gives me more time to spend with the people who really matter.

In theory, Facebook would be an effective tool if I wasn’t virtual friends with so many people who suck. Yes, people I really don’t like and don’t care much about. But I just don’t have the will power to delete them or to turn off their feeds. This is my Facebook addiction, following people who suck. Mostly people who sucked back in the day still stuck. They were teenage assholes who grew-up to be adult assholes, but I just can’t divest myself of virtual voyeurism. Perhaps I am just hanging out to see some weight gain and a homely spouse. Perhaps it is some type of perverse online self-flagellation.

So for now because I am too selfish and nosy to forgo my daily entertainment of checking for wrinkles and gray hair and watching ridiculous home-videos of babies clapping, walking, sneezing and licking their toes, I’ll continue to let you know on Facebook how our goldfish is doing and what desserts I am making. But, when it comes to things that really matter, you’ll get an email from me if you matter.

A Radical Proposition

Author's Note: This piece is not written in the voice of Garbageman's Daughter but instead the real voice of a worried mother, and the content here is not exaggerated as in most of my other entries.

My son has 20 seizures a day. He has bruises all over his face from all of the falls, and he is losing the use of the left side of his body. He must wear a helmet when we leave the house. This once soccer star and pre-school switch hitter with extraordinary speed and overall athletic ability has been reduced to being a sit-all-day, movie watching, video game playing kid.

We thought he would be diagnosed with Epilepsy, take some medicine for a few years and eventually out grow the seizures. This is not the case. My five-year-old has Rasmussen’s Syndrome, which is a rare progressive neurologic disorder that causes deterioration of one side of the brain, single-side paralysis and eventual mental retardation.

Fortunately, there is a now radical procedure called a hemispherectomy that stops the seizures forever, prevents mental retardation and eliminates most of the paralysis. This surgery involves removing half of the brain. In my son’s case, the right side of his brain will be turned off but not actually detached and taken out of the body as previously done with early occurrences of the surgery.

Wow, my son is going to have half of a brain. I think I am still in shock. Four weeks ago, he was a perfectly happy five-year-old, and then he just started falling down for no reason. This syndrome has aggressively and swiftly attacked his body without giving him much of an opportunity to fight back—no recourse but to have half of his brain turned off.

The good news is the brain is phenomenally adaptable and will rewire itself. Most of the functions once performed by the right brain will be taken over by the left side. He will not lose any cognitive ability. He’ll be able walk and even run (with a slight limp) and use his left hand a little (although fine motor skills in that hand will elude him). But, lots of people live limited use in one hand and this is a small price to pay to not lose our child to mental retardation or something worse.

Our third child will have more challenges in his life than his three siblings, and it seems so unfair. But since he is so young, he will have no memory of ever climbing play equipment with both hands or swinging a baseball from both sides. Fortunately, time will make him forget the anger and pain he feels when we tell him that he cannot play soccer or baseball. These losses will just make him find new ways to express himself. He will not lose his creativity and his sharp-wit. And some day, this grandson of a garbageman could even have his own blog to write highly inappropriate jokes about having half of a brain. He will be okay…someday.

Don’t Ask Me….You Don’t Want To Know

You say: “How are you?”

I say: “Fine. Thank you.”

But, I am not fine.

I am angry. I am scared. I am sad. I hate God if I even believe there is a God. I am jealous of your healthy children. I want to cry so hard that I’ll cleanse myself from the inside out. I am exhausted. I am tired of putting a positive spin on the fact my kid is sick. That is how I am.

Glad you asked?

Boiling Over!

Too many over-boiling pots on the stove. Turned up the heat way too high on one and had to move it to the backburner. Will I ever learn to boil milk without setting off the smoke alarm and damaging the pot?

I am so ill-equipped for a four-pot stovetop; hotplates are more my thing.

A Little FYI for the Casual Prince Fan

When you are talking to a hardcore Prince fan you might want to try a little harder than “Purple Rain is the one the greatest albums ever?” True. It is a masterpiece, but mentioning Purple Rain is too little and about 25 years and 10 months too late. 

Bet you love Thriller and Like a Virgin too.