The Writer's Journey

 One of our early writing instructors always talked about "The Writer's Journey," framing it as some kind of mystical process, wherein you would travel to a place where a great novel would spring unimpeded from your brain and onto the page.

I find myself wondering if you could use Google Maps to track your writer's journey. You know, enter your current location in one space and "best-selling novel" in the other and see what kind of route it would plot. (Take a left at metaphor street and then an immediate right at "collect rejection letters.)

Carolyn and I set out on another more reality-based writer's journey to a book fair in Florence, Oregon to meet other authors and flog our books. After leaving Nikki (our hyper-active and entitled little rescue dog) with her Uncle Viper (our Godson) we drove south, boxes of books in the back of Big Red and anticipation tingling in our . . . Oh, alright not tingling. But we weren't by any means dreading the experience. 

We found the Florence Book Fair to be attractively laid out, well organized and peopled by smiling, helpful volunteers. Our assigned table, the by now infamous number 23 was in one corner, directly across from a gesticulating poets table and just a stone's throw from where the Jehovah's Witnesses were saving souls by osmosis. Here's a shot of our area. 

Here, alongside a loveable nut job promoting his unfinished opus and a former Lane County Commissioner turned mystery writer, we spent 6 hours smiling, laughing and running our spiel past a parade of strangers that they really need a book about a former pro-wrestling villain/private detective traipsing around the woods looking for a missing Bigfoot Hunter. (Hey, it could happen!)

Or, failing that we'd work at convincing them their next read should be a funny mystery about a woman whose three friends, tragically killed in an auto accident, have come back as ghosts to help her rid their Senior Living center of its tyrannical director. 

We met lots of nice folks, sold some books and after picking up our detritus, set out to enjoy the real reason for our 200 mile trek; A chance to enjoy the charm of Florence, eat some deep-fried clams strips and lollygag our way up the spectacular Oregon Coast. 

Our Writer's Journey complete, we rolled up highway 101. Bonus. We found gasoline for only $4.57 a gallon. (insert sarcasm emoji here). We went by and picked up Nikki, who, under the Viper's tutelage had discarded any level of discipline we had instilled in her (admittedly not much) and returned home to begin  our next prose odyssey. 

Pierced Ears and the Pandemic

 

Carolyn J. Rose

As a little girl, I loved to rummage through my grandmother’s jewelry box. To me, it was a pirate’s treasure chest filled with gold and silver and glittering gems. Or, with the accuracy of time and knowledge, it was filled with brooches and clips and bracelets she referred to as costume jewelry. My perception of what “costume” meant was that the jewelry should be used to adorn the costumes I created out of articles scavenged from her closet—scarves and belts and shoes and a coat with a balding mink collar.

 

There were a few other pieces, less glitzy and almost forlorn: lockets missing pictures, a bent bracelet, broken chains, and single earrings kept with the hope a mate might one day reappear. Some of those earrings had clips or tiny blunt-headed screws that tightened against the lobe. Other, however, had posts or wires and were meant to pass through pierced holes.

 

I recall shuddering at the idea of poking something through solid flesh. My grandmother assured me it didn’t hurt and pointed out tiny dark spots on her earlobes. Those, she said, had been holes. But they’d grown closed because she never wore pierced earrings anymore and seldom wore earrings at all.

 

That surprised me more than the idea of going through what I imagined was a painful experience only to let scar tissue take over. Why collect all those sparkly bits and keep them around if you didn’t use them? And why wear pinchy clip-on earrings if there was an alternative?

 

My mother used to say that she knew it was time to leave the party when her earrings started to pinch. It could also have been a sign that another cocktail was required. But I didn’t know that until I reached drinking age.

 

I decided that I’d definitely have my ears pierced. But the project went on the back burner along with my intention to wear makeup (“Not until you’re 16,” my father decreed) and shorter skirts.

 

I didn’t get around to turning on that back burner until I went off to college, 2000+ miles from home. But it wasn’t until my sophomore year that the possibilities for style and statement outweighed the known pain of clip-on earrings and the anticipated pain of piercing. So I went for it and allowed a roommate to hold an ice cube against my earlobe for a minute and then jab a self-piercing earring through as I clenched my fists and entertained about a hundred second thoughts.

 

Kids today, kids who get their ears pierced sometimes long before they head off to kindergarten, won’t get this. Kids who sport tattoos and lip rings and piercings in places I don’t want to think about, won’t understand what a big deal it was.

 

I heard a sharp pop as the point passed through the cartilage and then, except for swabbing on alcohol and turning the earrings regularly, it was done. Well, done except for worrying about infection and soothing those worries by gazing at the trove of earrings waiting to swing from the holes. I’d bought perhaps a dozen—tiny bananas being my favorites at the time.

 

In the 50 years since then I’ve owned about 200 sets of earrings—studs and dangles, gold and silver, feathers and stones, and in all colors. I’ve had tiny dragons and cats, birds and bells, spiders and webs, and once a set made from IUDs. (Don’t ask me what I was thinking because I have no idea.) I wore earrings every day.

 

When the pandemic came and we shut ourselves in, the earrings came out of my ears. Before I realized it, the holes in my lobes were growing shut. For a time I considered just going with it. Then a friend sent me a new pair, studs bearing tiny photographs of bags of Cheetos.

 

You all know how much I love Cheetos.

 

Obviously, those pierced holes have to stay.

 

Bright Shiny Objects

 

 

         The way I figure it, I was born 40 years too late.

         If I’d come along in, say, 1988 instead of 1948, my elementary school report card would not have been crammed with a clown car full of bullet points like “must refrain from distracting others,” “does not use his available time to the greatest advantage,” and “often acts inappropriately.”

         Instead, I would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, forgiven my transgressions, and encouraged to ignore the teacher instead of being frog-marched to the principal’s office for our regularly scheduled 10:15 soul-searching encounter session and therapeutic tongue-lashing.

         Of course, this tendency to view life through a flickering focus has carried over into adulthood. I chose the life of a radio deejay (in truth it chose me), where there’s something entirely new to do every two and a half to three minutes when a song ends, and it doesn’t neccesarily matter if you make any sense when you speak. In all modesty, I have excelled at this, starting at the rock bottom of my profession, quickly rocketing to a position firmly in the lower middle, and only occasionally dipping back down to ground zero. As a grown-up, I’ve pursued a variety of interests and hobbies, each lasting for a span of between two and three minutes and once for an entire half an hour. Typical was the time I decided to become a concert oboist. By the time I found a store that sold those instruments, I’d moved on to foosball.

         As a writer, my inquisitive but mercurial imagination is both a blessing and a curse. While I excel at playing the “what if?” game, I’m profoundly poor at the sport of “what then?”

Students in my short-story writing class and the novel-writing boot camp I co-teach with my wife often ask where ideas for stories come from. Usually, I’ll respond: “Excuse me, were you talking to me?” Then, after they’ve restated the question, I’ll tell them the truth. I don’t know. They just seem to be there, all around me, and all I have to do is stop and pluck one, as if it were an overripe cherry.

But that’s when my difficulties begin.

         Bright shiny object.

         I’m easily . . . easily . . . uh . . . er . . . is that a bunny? Did you see a bunny? Oh, yeh, uh, distracted.  My wife, a woman of infinite patience and pretty darn nice legs is alternately amused and disgusted by my inability to turn inspiration into perspiration.

         She contends that every time I’m distracted it reminds her of when we’re agate-hunting together on a rocky beach and I spot something sparkling in the sand. My pupils grow larger, my breathing accelerates, and a child-like grin spreads across my face. Bright shiny object. Ooh. Pretty.

Carolyn can take the germ of a plot, a handful of interesting characters, and an idea of where she wants the story to take place and then immerse herself in the process of writing a novel. Three pages one day, five pages the next, only two the third (there was something she wanted to watch on television); before long there’s a complete book in a three-ring binder beside her desk. A month or so later it’s been rewritten and she’s querying agents to find someone to rep it.

Meanwhile, in the same period of time, I’ve started and discarded five novels, written a rough draft of a short story, generated ten other ideas for novels I’d like to write, played golf seventeen times, downloaded eighty songs from the internet and—

Bright shiny object.

Look at it sparkle in the sun.

Despite my stuttering synapses, I’ve managed to co-write five novels with my wife and several on my own. Guess whose rock-solid resolve and discipline made those come together? A clue. It was someone who was not, in any way, even by the wildest stretch of your imagination, remotely resembling me. As we collaborated, Carolyn, to her credit, never frog-marched me to the principal’s office. She did use a variety of tactics to keep me on task, including, but not limited to: threats, intimidation, shame, leg chains, firearms, and yogurt.

Short stories are a natural for me. I can generate an idea; pressure spray the contents of my brain onto a page and have a rough draft in the matter of a couple of hours. Then, between brainstorming, noodling, and discarding four or five new ideas, I can generally force myself to sit still long enough to steam clean the original story, peeling away glaring logic dropouts, sappy syntax, and rogue adverbs. Next comes the self-flagellation portion of the writing exercise—playing bend-over dodge-ball with several dozen dysfunctional endings. (Whack. Thank you, sir. May I have another? Whack.)

Endings are a bitch. My standard M.O. is to spend several hours more on the last two paragraphs of a short story than I did the ten pages that preceded it. I know the way the story is brought to a conclusion is of critical importance. It must satisfy the reader, answering their inner need for a symbolic answer to today’s most perplexing conundrums. It must wrap up all loose ends and bring the characters to their inevitable—but not totally predictable—rendezvous with destiny. And most importantly, it must have some kind of punctuation following the final word.

I know that if I’m to succeed as a writer, I must find a way to stay on task. A friend, creative in his own right, suggested that I have to tell myself it’s okay to ignore the whack-a-mole idea farm in my brain and plod forward on whatever project I’ve begun. He claims inspiration isn’t hopping a bus for Pocatello or running an ad in Craig’s list for a new spawning ground. He assures me that ideas will always be lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to call out to them.

I’m not so sure. And that may be the root cause of my problem. Deep down, I’m afraid that if I ignore the muse, she’ll stop showing up, like a guest who finds her party invitation sported the wrong address.  

But, I’ll try. Like right now I’m plotting out a novel where the detective is a professional midwife who . . .

Bright shiny object.

Or maybe I should work on the one with the tuna fisherman who hauls up his net to find Nazi gold in the . . .

Cold Water Ears

 

Carolyn J. Rose

 

 

Recently my brother’s doctor peered into his ears and announced “You must have done a lot of swimming in cold water when you were young.”

Indeed we did.

 

 

That’s how my brother developed the bony growths the doctor spotted.

 

I’m sure I have them as well, although a medical professional has never brought them up.

 

When summer finally came to the Catskill Mountains where we grew up, we chose between cold water and colder water. We headed either for the Sawkill or the family pool.

 

The Sawkill (note that “kill” means “creek” in that neck of the woods) was off limits in the early spring when it ran high after heavy rains. For one thing, the high water was an opaque rusty red from clay deposits upstream. For another, we could hear rocks slamming together and see limbs thrashing in the current. Even at an age when we had little idea of what mortality was all about, we knew enough to pass on a rock-slamming swim.

 

In summer, however, the stream ran clear. But the level was usually low and the pools only a few feet deep and a few wide. Not exactly conducive to swimming laps or executing wave-creating cannon balls.

 

So mostly we picked the family pool. Built in 1941 and now no more, it wasn’t fancy. It was an in-ground concrete-lined rectangular box with a sloping bottom that filled and was replenished with water from a hillside spring. Shaded by that hillside and plenty of trees, the water remained chilly for weeks. By the end of August, it began to cool down when the days weren’t long enough to replace heat that lengthening nights sucked from the water.

 

So, the window of opportunity was short. But we were hardy souls. And, let’s face it, without computers, smart phones, and more than the two TV channels our set picked up, there wasn’t much else to do. The days seemed to stretch forever and then compress suddenly as the start of another school year loomed. So, we crammed in all the swimming we could. We splashed and sunned and bet who could swim farther underwater, or knock someone else off a tube, or do a complete flip, or bring up a quarter from the corner of the pool where water didn’t circulate much and green slime grew thicker every day.

 

There was no filter system on that pool, and no chlorine to kill germs. My father tossed in a handful of copper sulfate now and then, but it didn’t deter the algae. It did, however, seep into my hair and by the end of the summer it was a brassy green that kids at school would tease me about.

 

It a weird way, I didn’t mind that. Green hair set me apart. At least for a few weeks. Then, like my summer tan, the tint faded. I don’t have many pictures from those days. Perhaps my brother will ask his doctor to take some shots of the interior of his ears to remind me of how it was.

 

 

 

The Indy 500 of the future.

PA Announcer: “Gentlemen Start Your Engines!”

Dead silence.

A field of 27 high-powered EVs zip silently for the first turn.

Or imagine a Daytona race with only a high-pitched humming for a soundtrack.

The makers of America’s traditional muscle cars, notably Dodge Challenger and Charger and Ford Mustang are now marketing Electric Vehicles that will outperform their gasoline-powered namesakes. Tesla, Lucid and a number of others are also hitting the market.

For  gearhead skeptics, the quickest EV, the Lucid Air Sapphire will go from 0-60 in under 2 seconds. 1.85 to be precise.

Part of the change that will be hard for some to cope with is cultural. The ritual of idling at a stop light alongside another muscle car, pumping the gas pedal and personal testosterone levels up to the rumble and roar of a 396 or 427 eight-cylinder mega-beast will fade into our collective memories.

My million-dollar idea, (Which Dodge has already pre-empted. More on that in a second) is creating a device that incorporates a tiny mp3 player loaded with muscle car sounds from our automotive past. It would be set up to correspond to different levels of foot pressure on the accelerator. Users could dial up the engine sound they wanted to pump into high-quality rear mounted speakers and the relative volume they wanted to inflict on other motorists and pedestrians. I’m working on brand names. I’m thinking either Vroomblaster or Growlplifier. Other small steps that might help ease the motorhead angst include flame decals, fuzzy dice for the rear-view mirror and a device that sprays a delicate mist of gasoline smell into the car's cockpit.   

Dodge’s new EV Challengers and Chargers will come standard with built in massive gas engine sounds. They’ll also have exhaust pipes and manual gear shifts, neither of which is necessary (or useful) in operating the vehicle. But they hope the devices will act as an attractant for those who still get an almost sexual charge from hearing their car burble and rumble as they wait for the light to change.

        The other cultural shift will be adapting our rich library of hot rod songs to the new EV reality. A couple of possible examples.

        She unplugged her daddy’s car and cruised to the hamburger stand now. She forgot all about the library like she told her old man now!

    Little GTO. You’re really looking fine. Eight anodes and a quick jolt. You really glide off the line.

It's the little old lady from Pasadena (Go granny, go granny, go granny, go)

Has a pretty little flowerbed of white gardenias (Go granny, go granny, go granny, go)

But plugged in at her rickety old garage. There's a brand new shiny red EV Dodge

    Kidding aside, I love my Nissan Leaf E.V. Quiet, quick and non-polluting. I love driving by gas stations and thumbing my nose at the insane prices they’re asking for gasoline. I love getting a gasoline bill with the number 0 in the total charges' column.

        My prediction. (And I have a horrible track record of predicting the future. For example, I never saw Trump coming.) Within ten years EVs will be the dominant vehicle on America’s roads and highways. If I’m right, remember you read it here. And if I’m wrong, refer to the words in the prior parentheses.

 

        

        

Chickening Out

 

Carolyn J. Rose

When he was growing up in the Catskill Mountains during the Depression, one of my father’s chores was cleaning the chicken coop. Another was getting the chicken ready to be the main dish at Sunday dinner. He wasn’t a fan of either job.

 When he joined what is now the Air Force on the day after Pearl Harbor, he made a vow:  when the war was over, he was done with chickens. Then he went a step further—he swore he’d never eat chicken again.

 

I never saw him break his vows. Even though my mother sometimes returned from the store and, in a voice implying scandal or a travesty of consumer justice, complained about the price of eggs, the conversation never turned to raising chickens to cut costs.

 

Consequently, my experience with these birds was limited to spotting them pecking in farmyards or seeing them packaged and ready to cook. My lack of a comprehensive resume, however, didn’t discourage my neighbors. They entrusted me with the care and feeding of their four hens while they went on vacation.

 

Three of the hens tolerate my excursions into the run and my egg-gathering activities. They cluck and mill about my legs and lead me to the bin where the mealworms are stored. Fortunately for them, and for me, the mealworms are not alive and wiggling, so I often scoop some out as a treat. I also—after searching the Internet to determine what chickens can and can’t eat—bring them kitchen scraps. Kale, spinach, peas, and blueberries are big hits.

 At least they’re big hits with the brown hens. The fourth one, a large white bird with a crooked beak, views me with the kind of disdain I reserve for Hawaiian pizza, fennel, and litterbugs. 

She would rather peck at me than at the provisions I offer. She’s the reason I wear heavy rubber gardening clogs and gloves into the coop.

 I tell myself a 75% approval rating is pretty darn good—at least it is in the political arena. I tell myself it’s okay if not everyone likes me. But I sometimes wonder what I did to offend her.

 No, I don’t lie awake at night reviewing our interactions to determine what I said and did, but incidents have come to mind. There was the time I mentioned she evolved from dinosaurs. And the time I inquired if she’d like to be fried or baked. And the time I wondered how she’d like a one-way ticket to almost anywhere. And the time I wondered how far a drop-kicked chicken would travel.

 Okay, so we have baggage. And I’m not blameless.

 But, what to do?

 I can’t imagine lugging her to a therapist to resolve our issues. And I won’t call in a chicken whisperer. Our relationship, such as it is, will end when my neighbors return. In the meantime, however, a needy little part of me wonders if there’s some way to win her over.

 If you have an idea that doesn’t involve installing air conditioning in the coop, providing designer water, or worms that are still wiggling, let me know.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Watery Workout in the Lagoon of Perpetual Gossip

         

I am a creature of habit. Which, I must tell you, doesn’t mean I regularly take to the streets garbed in nun’s clothing. (Although, I would admit, the impulse has crossed my mind more than once.) What it means in this case is that every weekday morning, at somewhere near 8:15, I’m staying atop the water, (flotation belt-aided) in the rectangle of deep water occupying one corner of the community center swimming pool.

        There, with my trusty water-weenie (or noodle if you prefer) I conduct a carefully designed set of “core” exercises designed to keep me from becoming any more of a wrinkly, paunchy old man than I already am. I refer to this as my workout. My wife calls it aerobic wallowing. The truth lies somewhere in between.

        Occupying the dead center of this liquid gymnasia are three, occasionally four and on one occasion six full-figured older women, treading water in one place (water weenie-aided) and moving their mouths twice as rapidly as their legs. They use up a lot of watery acreage, making trans-pool crossing challenging.

Now, I don’t want to come across as a chauvinist. It could just as easily be three to half a dozen men hogging the space, talking about, oh, I don’t know, tractor pulls or barbecuing ribs or ammunition, instead of the chatter about uncomfortable brassieres, cock-a-poos or bitchy daughters-in-law that I overhear every time I dolphin kick past the scuttlebutt mongers kvetching mid-lagoon.

Despite wearing ear buds connected to my waterproof mp3 player I can still hear the stream of mindless nattering floating in from the stationary gab fest as I kick past as rapidly as my chubby little legs will churn. Ironically the song thundering from the mp3 player is “Talk Talk” an oldie but goodie from The Music Machine.

“I told her that would happen over my dead body!”

“If I can get him off the couch, maybe he’ll mow the lawn!”

“Nathan’s a good kid, even if he’s a little unsure of his—

Kick kick splash, kick, kick splash. I successfully clear the conversational cloud, only to enter the perfume miasma created by another substantial woman. I’m pretty sure she buys her eau d’ cologne in the handy five-gallon power spritzer at Costco.

Whew! I make it to the far side of the pool, turn around and shove off to begin another lap of stomach-crunching flagellation. I approach the lip-flapping legion again.

“You wouldn’t believe what she puts in the lasagna!”

“You’d think the man would have the decency to draw his curtains. I almost dropped the binoculars when he . . .

“Her hair looks like she was attacked with a weed-eater.”

Whew again! I make it to the near end of the pool and hover there for a moment.

For a mini-moment I regret changing over my exercise plan from swimming laps to my current deep water core regimen. Or aerobic wallowing. What Ev !!! But I got tired of watching middle-aged water nymphs and old guys in speedos (they should know better) zoom past me like I was standing still. Which, to be perfectly honest I nearly was.

        Oh, well, if I’m going to live forever (so far so good) I’m going to have to suck it up and paddle past the tongue-taggling triumvirate treading treacherously thereupon. I start my next lap.

        “That teenage lifeguard looks like a young Brad Pitt.”

        “And if she does that again, I’ll bitch-slap her so hard she’ll have to—"

I turn up the music and redouble my dolphin kick.
“I’m a little red rooster. Please drive me home!” Muddy Waters

moans through my ear buds. Giddyup dolphin!!!

        “You won’t believe who’s sleeping with Mandy Morley.”

        I can’t help myself. I slow down and lean toward the center of the pool. Hold on. Hold the H20 on. This I gotta hear. This could be really juicy. Something I can pass on to Marvin on the other end of the pool.