Mellowing Out

Max: Mom says we need to learn a new trick. We need to learn to mellow out.

Bubba: Yeah, Dad says the same thing, but he says we’ve got to chill.

Max: I don’t know if I can learn any more tricks. I already do roll over, jump, dance and drool on dad’s pillow.

Bubba: Mellowing out isn’t a trick, it’s a state of being.

Max: Like the beings Mom puts in salad.

Bubba: Beans. Those are beans. Black beans, white beans, garbanzo beans.

Max: And carrots. She puts carrots in the salad. I like carrots. And celery.

Bubba: (Sighing) Mr. Attention Span. Okay, try to concentrate. (She flops to the floor) See, this is being mellow. Notice that I’m calm and quiet.

Max: Quiet. Sure, I get it. That’s what Mom wants us to be so she can write.

Bubba: And so we don’t have to go to the timeout place.

Max: You mean Dad’s office in the basement. He’s got a nice sofa and soft pillows and sometimes he eats snacks and drops stuff on the floor and after a while he lets us out.

Bubba: And then we run up and jump on Mom’s lap and tell her we’re sorry.

Max: But you’re really not because in a few minutes you’re sitting on the back of the loveseat and barking at anything that moves on the street.

Bubba: Oh, like you’re perfect. Every time that cat comes into our yard you yap your head off and keep going even after I stop. And don’t get me started about the day you chased the fly up and down the stairs.

Max: It was a big fly. It had a wingspan like an eagle.

Bubba: Eagle, schmeagle, it was a fly. A housefly. A baby housefly.

Max: Okay . . . well . . . so . . . but that fly had big teeth. You just didn’t see them. Besides, it’s my job to chase stuff that gets in here ‘cause I’m younger and faster and I have to protect Mom and Dad because they have opposable thumbs and credit cards and they buy the dog cookies.

Bubba: Well, I’m older and slower and it’s my job to bark at stuff on the street so it goes away and doesn’t get in here in the first place. I can’t mellow out and protect the house, too.

Max: Right, ‘cause if you were mellow you’d sound about as mean as Dad when he tells me to get off his pillow. You’d be all like, “Yo, dog on the street, don’t mean to bother you, dude, but you’re blocking my view. Would you mind shaking a leg instead of your tail?”

Bubba: I’m an intelligent female dog. I’ve never said “dude” in my life.

Max: (Sticking out his tongue) Wrong, you just did. Guess you’re not that intelligent after all.

Bubba: (Snarling) Oh, go chase a fly.

Max: (Sprawling on the bed) Later, dudette, right now I’m chilling out.

Back-to-school sales, fresh starts, plot twists, and promises

I’ve never been one to rise early to hit the opening minutes of a pre-Christmas sale. In fact, I’ve never been one to get up late—or any time—to get a bargain on holiday gifts for friends and family.

It’s not that we don’t exchange gifts—although lately we’re more inclined to give to charity instead of to each other—but because all the twinkling lights, shiny ornaments, and seasonal music remind me of wishes unfulfilled and dreams that never came true.

I was never good at holidays. Perhaps if I’d read more realistic books things might have been different. But there was a wide chasm between reality and those fictional descriptions of love and happiness, making the best of things, genuinely encouraging each other’s success, and building enduring togetherness. Too grounded in the way I wanted things to be, I did little to bridge that chasm, and now the memory of it overshadows the season.

Back-to-school sales, however, draw me in like a bass to a wiggling lure. I love to riffle the pages of blank notebooks, touch pens as yet untried, inhale the smell of new pencils, erasers, and glue sticks. I love the slick stacks of rulers and index cards and notebook dividers with colored tabs. I love to zip and unzip backpacks and imagine what will go into the pockets. I love new shoes and shirts and jeans. I love to see kids with fresh haircuts and eyes wide with a mix of fear and excitement and confidence.

But most of all, I love the sense of promise.

Like the pages in those new notebooks, the days of the school year ahead are blank pages on which students will write. There are possibilities and opportunities, tests to be aced and scholarships to be won.

And there are human dramas that, like a mystery with a plot twist in the middle, could change direction and have an ending other than the one we might expect. Struggling students could, this year, make connections. Shy kids could come out of the shadows at the back of the room. A bench warmer could win the big game. The girl who always painted sets for the drama club could get the starring role.

A back-to-school sale energizes me and makes me think about the possibilities in my own life. It makes me eager to plow into new writing projects and finish old ones.

And, to make sure that feeling comes home with me and lingers, I always buy a fresh notebook, a new pen, and a pack of pencils.

The Candy Box Time Machine

            A few years back, my older sister gave me an old candy box. Across the top the words Gobelin Chocolates, share space with an illustration of three pieces of candy, one cross-sectioned to reveal a pink core. At the bottom of the faded and chipped yellow and blue box are the words 

"ALL SOFT CENTERS."        

            "What?" I asked with my eyebrows.

            "Love letters. From our father to our mother."

            The second question, also verbally unasked was why? Why are you giving them to me now? What am I supposed to do with them? He didn't talk dirty in them, did he?

            Recently, during my bi-decadal swamping out of my basement office, pool room and guy cave, I spotted the box on a bookshelf. Needing a break from cleaning (I'd spent a grueling ten minutes already), I pried off the lid and examined at a collection of envelopes, sent to my mother in the late fall and early winter of 1942 and 43.

            To read, or not to read?

            There are several good reasons I've held them in abeyance in the years since my sister dropped them on me.

            I can't get past the idea that, somehow, even though my mother died in 1983 and my father nearly ten years later, that I would be invading their privacy. My father wrote those letters for my mother's eyes only. Who am I, nearly seventy years later, to eavesdrop on a confidential correspondence?

            The second reason betrays the ego-centric tunnel vision of most human beings. Since I wasn't born until November 7, 1948, my parents, in my reality, didn't really exist prior to that time. Their life, as mine, didn't begin until that day. Oh, sure, I knew that all six of my older brothers and sisters were products of my widowed father's first marriage and my mother's earlier, unsuccessful relationship, but those were abstract concepts. The Carroll and Jo Eleanor Nettleton I knew were an older couple (I came along very late in their lives. Probably not a poster child for successful contraception), who worked hard at a variety of low-paying jobs,  were involved in their community, taught me life lessons by example, and supported me in everything I did or attempted to do. They were not, by any stretch of my young imagination, two people who'd carried on a love affair, either via mail or face to face, six years before my birth. No how, no way. Even now, at 62, the same age my father was when I started high school, the perception is hard to shake. Your mom and dad, for crying out loud, were never people. They were your parents. A totally different genus and species.

            Except here was the evidence, in a box that was once packed with sweet confections from a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

            I slid off the lid and drew the first envelope, dated November 2, 1942 out. Using my thumb and forefinger, I plucked out a single sheet, filled on one side with my father's small, neat hand, and began reading.

            Darling, Jo: it began. Over a period of several days I read most of the letters. Much of it was a chronicle of the trials and tribulations of two people, during the difficult days of World War 2, trying to come to grips with their feelings for one another and the complications caused by my mother's rapidly disintegrating common-law marriage. I was struck by the depth of my father's love for my mother and the heartfelt expression of his ache for her. He used fanciful words, (all G-rated, thank you very much) that I would have never guessed were in his vocabulary.

            I'm glad I read the letters, even though the mere mention of them still makes my eyes go moist. It brings my folks, gone these many years, back into sharp focus. It's almost like a blank silhouette of them has been suddenly filled with color and light and fully animated. They lived, they loved, they did the best they could. It's all any of us can hope for.

Thanks, sis.

Goblin Chocolates

"ALL SOFT CENTERS"

Existential Highwayism

I came within inches of being involved in a nasty wreck Saturday night. Had it not been for driving the speed limit, my habitual use of side mirrors, good reflexes and even better brakes on my 06 Prius, I d have found myself scrunched against the guard rail of the southbound Marquam Bridge

      Like all traffic accidents or near misses, this one seemed to develop in a split second. A glimmer in the passenger's side mirror made me swivel in time to see a green SUV bearing down on me from three lanes over. I fought the impulse to crush the brake pedal, which would have sent me into a death spiral and make me a target for every car behind me. Instead, I let up on the gas, put heavy but steady pressure on the brakes and said a dirty word  As I slewed toward the guard rail, the SUV was on top of me in a nanosecond. Luckily, the driver chose to accelerate at the same time I slowed and his rear end cleared my front fender by something approximating width of his walnut-sized brain.

       Notice I used the words his rear end. Unfair, since there was no way of gauging the sex of the reality-challenged yahoo behind the wheel of the SUV. I couldn't see the driver through the tinted windows. Besides, it's irrelevant. But I'll use he, for convenience sake in the rest of this blog.

      He sped away. I said another, much dirtier word and leaned on my horn. Several other drivers joined in venting with me.

       I reached Lovejoy Fountain, where I was performing for the final time in the Portland Actors Ensemble production of TheTempest without further incident.  As I prepared for the show's opening, I found myself wondering what the driver of that Utility Vehicle had been thinking when he made that multiple lane change and nearly hit me.

       Was he drunk? Texting a restaurant reservation in? Playing charades with the other occupants of the car? Was his thinking limited to the simple realization "I'm over here, I need to be over there?  Did the concept that there might be another car in the space he wanted to occupy even cross his mind? Did he think the other car (me) had a lot of nerve being there.

       How about the aftermath of the inches-from-disaster incident. Did he realize how close he came to causing a freeway tangling multiple vehicle crash? What did he think the hallelujah chorus of car horns chasing him down the 405 was about? Did he try to laugh it off and try to rationalize it to his white-knuckled passengers?

       Living in an urban environment and driving in the worst examples of Portland's gridlocked morning and afternoon traffic for 16 years, I've witnessed numerous incidents of what my wife calls "Existential Highwayism."

       People back out of driveways into the flow of a busy four-lane street without looking, taking it on faith that the other drivers will stop for them. Texting pedestrians step off a curb and into the path of onrushing vehicles without glancing up. "I'm in a huge hurry" types tailgate at eighty miles per hour while checking their voice mail.

       Let's be honest. All of us, at one time or another has let our attention waver and have caused or nearly caused an accident. But the lack of focus behind the wheel seems to have grown to epidemic proportions.

      Blame technology. With all of the distractions built into today's lifestyles, we've become a society that believes it's own hype about multi-tasking. Focusing on one thing and performing it to the best of our abilities is "so day before yesterday." This would not only explain the actions of the driver who nearly T-boned me, but the driver I saw playing a ukulele and reading the funnies at a stop sign the other morning.

Coping with Rejection

(Honesty/Laziness Alert. This blog ran a year ago on Melanie Sherman’s blog, http://melaniesherman.blogspot.com/ If you haven’t been there, visit soon and treat yourself to a laugh.)

 Rejection.

 It’s as much a part of my writing life as carpal tunnel syndrome, brain cramps, and a butt that looks best in a bathrobe.

Being rejected cuts as deep as not being asked to the prom or being stood up on your wedding day. (Although, for the record, I had a darn good time not going to the prom, and have been guilty once or twice—in the midst of a discussion that wasn’t going my way—of wishing there’d been nobody waiting at the end of that aisle.)

Just as there are stages of grief, there are also stages of rejection—in fact, the first few stages are almost identical.

Shock and Denial. Check. I find myself staring at a rejection notice confident that if I look long enough I’ll see someone else’s name at the top or that the “not” will disappear and I’ll see that an agent is “interested.”

Pain and Guilt. Check. I feel I failed my story by not saying the right things in that query letter, by not writing a better first sentence for the first chapter, or by not being worthy to tell the tale.

Anger and Bargaining. Been there, done that. I’m guilty of crumpling rejections and hurling them against walls, and guilty of promising to drive within the speed limit, be nicer to those with too many items in the express line, and eat more fruit and vegetables if only . . .

Depression and loneliness. Oh yeah. Writing can be a lonely experience at the best of times, and loneliness can be a slippery slope into the depths of What’s the Point? Canyon.

So, unless you’re one of those rare writers who lands a publisher with the first toss of the query net, you might want to have a coping strategy—or several coping strategies—to get you through these early stages of rejection. And you might want to be aware of the potential cost of each course of action.

Here are some of the strategies I’ve employed in the past and the benefits and drawbacks I’ve discovered:

          Vacuuming

          Imagining that agents are the dirt beneath the beater bar, I charge around the house sucking them up. On the plus side, I discover the carpet has a pattern. On the minus side, I pinch a nerve in my shoulder and wear out the carpet attachment. Dirt returns and brings along its close friends, dust and pet dander. I put away the vacuum and start

          Taking long walks

Going with the theory that a tired writer is a less angry writer, I set out to see my neighborhood. I raise my metabolic rate, strengthen my heart, and lose a few pounds. But I develop planters fasciitis, suffer excruciating pain in my heels, and have to fork out $400 for special orthotic devices that make it feel like I’m standing on a pipe. I give up walking in favor of

Water Aerobics

Telling myself that others will suffer more from the sight of me in a bathing suit than I do, I hit the pool six days a week, strap on a flotation belt, and start building something I never knew I had—core muscles. Within two weeks, I’m doing the cross-country ski maneuver and tuck jumping jacks with the best of them. Within three weeks I develop dry skin, split fingernails, and things on my neck that look a lot like gills. I cut back on water aerobics and substitute

          Gardening

Pretending that weeds are agents, I uproot them by the dozen and trim back shrubs with a vengeance. The lack of weeds and overhanging branches reveals numerous bare places. I spend a small fortune on bulbs and plantings to fill them. My dog eats several and digs up more. Others are attacked by grubs and bugs devour most of the rest. I retreat to the deck and the strategy of

          Catching up on the TBR pile

I inhale some great literature and feel energized, then come across some not-so-great literature and contemplate unfairness of life. Feeling  sorry for myself once more, I resort to

          Whining to friends

On the first day I collect 10 “poor baby” responses. On day two, I rake in 6 “poor babies” and 4 “I’ve got a call on the other line.” On day three I get two “poor babies” and 8 message machines. On day 4, no one answers. With one foot sliding down that slippery slope I mentioned earlier, I sulk to the bottle-filled cabinet in the buffet and begin on my new strategy of

          Indulging in chilled adult beverages

Determined to numb myself to the pain of rejection, I drink too fast and get a stabbing headache. After self-medicating to treat that headache, I wake up the next day experiencing hangover Armageddon. Furious at myself, I hit on a new strategy

          Writing another novel

          “I’ll show them,” I chortle. “They haven’t seen the last of me. I will learn more about plotting, characterization, scene structure, subtext, and backstory. I will never quit. I will never give up. They’ll have to pry this keyboard from my cold, dead fingers.” Finally, a strategy that combines time-consuming, distracting reaction to failure with time-consuming, distracting forward action.

To my surprise I found that, for the wrong reasons (spite and revenge), I did the right thing—burned off the negative energy and faced up to the realities of writing for publication. The next step was to accept those realities and the fact that I couldn’t change them. That enabled me to move on, to reconstruct myself, to practice discipline, to nurture others. Over the years, I published a number of mysteries through small presses and recently landed a contract with Five Star for Hemlock Lake.

Reviews so far have been positive and with each one I tell myself, “You wouldn’t be reading this if you hadn’t stopped arguing, avoiding, indulging, and whining.”

Like writing itself, I found coping with rejection was a journey during which I learned much about myself. I’m not the same person I was when I got my first rejection slip. I think that’s a good thing. I think my friends—who now take my calls again—would agree.

W.W.W.H.D? (What Would Will Have Done?)

Performing Shakespeare live, in a public park, has the feel of controlled anarchy to it. Despite the fact that the Portland Actor's Ensemble has a permit to stage The Tempest in Lovejoy Fountain Park Thursday-Saturday between now and mid-July, there is a vibe of being in a group of kids who have snuck into the area and begun acting out for the amusement of themselves and anyone else who happens by and wants to watch. Here's a picture of our theater, which also acts as a space for dog walkers, street punks and harmonica-playing vodka-swilling street people. More on that in a moment.

The spontaneous feel of bringing The Tempest to life is not in any way hindered by the fact that we rehearsed it for nearly two months before starting the run. The reason? We're dealing with elements that are beyond the control of the actors and our stage manager. Take opening night for example. A long-haired heavyset fellow sat, shirtless, drinking vodka from a bottle in a paper bag and playing riffs on his harmonica. The trilling was loud, random, and mostly non-musical. When we gathered in our warm-up circle to stretch, vocalize and otherwise get ourselves into the right frame-of-mind to perform, we found we'd added a cast member. The drunk had sauntered over and joined in. He also kept a running commentary going that was apropos of . . . well . . . nothing. My fellow cast members, being, basically, a mellow bunch just went about their business and tried to ignore him. This strategy worked fine until we actually began the play and he took a seat in the audience. Here's the first scene of the second act in which my character Gonzalo a loyal, optimistic and somewhat delusional advisor to the king is being harassed within an inch of his life by the King's brother and Prospero's usurper, who later plot to kill us both. 

 

Problem is, while they were harassing me, our friendly mouth-harp player and drooling drunk was laughing hysterically at non-existent punch lines, advising the actors on technique and muttering loudly. 

We played on. One of the board members of the Portland Actor's Ensemble sat down next to our problem drunk and managed to mellow him out for a time. Or perhaps he took a little Smirnoff fueled nap. We did encounter him backstage (behind the sculpture) early in the third act  where he seemed to be enraged that we were returning to the actor's area after finishing our scene. "Get the bleeeep back here." He commanded. "You're not done yet." Maybe he had access to pages of the script we'd never seen? After that he returned to the audience and continued his running commentary. We forged ahead and made it to the last ten minutes of the show, the dramatic climax, when he snapped to life and began blowing the mouth-harp in the middle of one of Prospero's speeches. 

Once again an arm-over-the-shoulder and a quiet word from the Actor's Ensemble's resident diplomat managed to bring him under control.

 After that, the next two nights of the show were a piece of cake. All we had to deal with was inclement weather, a collection of street punks and their barking dog backstage, people passing by carrying on loud cell phone conversations and a 3-year old who escaped the clutches of her father and ran onto the stage. Apparently she had some strong opinions about Caliban's plot to whack Prospero. 

So, I can see the question forming on your lips. Why on earth would anyone want to subject themselves to this kind of pandemonium and fear-based adrenaline? Here's what it boils down to for me. So much of life is predictable, repetitive and frankly, boring. We go about our day-to-day routines, act responsibly and meet our obligations. There's something life-affirming about putting yourself in a situation where anything can happen and probably will. Since The Tempest occurs on a desert isle, populated by strange-and-wonderful creatures, our talented and unflappable cast view Mr. Vodka Mouth-Harp man, the opinionated toddler, street kids, jets passing by drowning out the dialogue, sirens wailing and the loud hum of traffic as part of the adventure. These wacky and random encounters provide us with ammunition as we gather after the show at nearby Karaoke bars and pubs to commiserate, revel and toast each other for not panicking, staying in character and entertaining our "peeps." despite anything God or vodka could throw at us. Personally, I feel like I'm creating memories that I'll take to the grave with me. Some families you're born into. Others you acquire.

I'd like to think that Will Shakespeare would have laughed at our travails and totally understood how we felt. After all, his plays were performed in front of an audience of rabble who stood in the mud and talked, gambled and even fornicated while they tried to remember the Bard's words in their proper order. The nobles, who sat in the higher reaches of the theater, viewed the swirling, swearing, drunken crowd below as much a part of the show as Caliban doing a spit-take on Prospero. What would Shakespeare have done with our heckler? Hard to tell. But Will knew, as all of us do, that the play's the thing.

For performance times and directions to the park check out the web site for the Portland Actor's Ensemble. 

http://portlandactors.com/

The Pit Bull and the Pendulum

Bubba:  Okay, squirrel boy, pay attention.

Max: (lunging against sliding glass door) Of course. I'm listening to 

every . . .every . . .

Bubba: Word I say?

Max: Word you say. Right!

Bubba: The topic today is Pit Bulls.

Max:  That's our topic?

Bubba:  Right.

Max:  No problem. I've got an opinion. Me, me, call on me.

Bubba:  (sighs) Max, go ahead what's your opinion?

Max:  I'm all for them. Absolutely. 100% in favor without question.

Bubba: Really. You feel that way? You like Pit Bulls?  Big scary dogs with teeth that lock down on you like a land shark on steroid?

Max:  Pit Bulls. Oh. (he blushes) Geez, I thought you said pet bowls. Where our food lives. (long pause) Never mind.

Bubba: Here in Vancouver, dogs and their people have been attacked by Pit Bulls whose owners didn't have them on a leash or weren't strong enough to hold on to them.

Max: We've got some in our neighborhood, huh?

Bubba: Before you came along, when we still had Dudley, the wonder dog, one came after us. Mom screamed and scooped me up and he rushed to defend us.

Max: Wow, I bet that was exciting. (thinks about it) and scary.

Bubba: The Pit Bull got Dudley by the neck and wouldn't let go. Dad tried to pull it off, and got bit.

Max: Wow! What happened.

Bubba: Finally, Dudley got loose, and the women grabbed the Pit Bull and Dad called them some very dirty names.

Max:  Like the ones he calls me when I get him out of bed at 2am to let me out so I can chase squirrels?

Bubba: Like that, only worse. Anyway, they're talking about whether or not to outlaw Pit Bulls in the city limits.

Max: Uh, well, maybe, I could see that. Couldn't I?

Bubba: The problem is that when nice people raise Pit Bulls and keep them under control they're okay.

Max: I see a big, hairy, Schnorkie but coming here.

Bubba: But, some really scary, nasty, mean, stupid and inconsiderate people like to raise Pit Bulls and use them to show people how tough they are.

Max: Ooh, big dilemma. Like when I'm trying to decide whether to play little football down the stairs or sleep in Dad's lap.

Bubba: But if they ban them all, what's to keep somebody who doesn't like, say Maltese, from banning them? Or if somebody gets bit by a renegade Pomeranian, and the next thing you know, dinky dogs like us are forced to become outlaws. Or move to La Center.

Max: So what do we do?

Bubba: That's a tough one. I guess maybe we just bark like crazy at any dog bigger than us . . .

Max: Pretty much all of them, right?

Bubba: Right. And hope for the best. Say, isn't it almost dinner time?

Max: I think I heard the can opener. Race you to the Pit Bull.

Bubba: You mean pet bowl.

Max: What you said.