This is an excerpt.
Geek. Loser. Whatever. It just happened. No matter how hard I worked to avoid it, a different arrow pointed down at me from the first day of kindergarten. In second grade I tried to leave school and start life fresh, but my mom wouldn't let me. In seventh grade I went the desperation route and played football, but my teammates asked me to sit out even though our side was three players down.
Going into the middle year of high school, I narrowed the problem down to Peer Interaction. I decided that by the end of the week, the end of the year, or the end of my life - whichever came first - I would be normal. Mr. Voleywall the vice principal would have to find someone else to reform, my friend Will would find someone else to kindly pity, the dogs would stop choosing my clean clothes to sleep on, and a girl would smile back at me. What made this only more difficult was no one in my family believed I needed changing.
I figured they were not the best ones to judge normal.
"You don't need to worry about impressing girls at your age," my mother said. "Just be yourself."
"I can't afford a big date on a social security check, and with the help you give me, that's about when it's going to happen."
"I didn't date at your age."
"Listen," I said as kindly as I could, "Growing up to be like my mother is not my top priority." I left my mother talking to the back to school shopping list, and looked up my brother, the football team captain, Honor Society president, and Boyfriend. Since he managed to avoid the family curse and actually acquire a girlfriend, I thought I could get some pointers. "This is the year," I said, standing in his doorway, "I'm going to get a girlfriend. Also get on a sports team, win over the vice principal, and be normal. Do you think you can help me out?"
"Are you still combing your hair once a year on Christmas Eve?" he asked. "You could start there."
"I hoped to make some progress before December," I answered. "But thanks anyway." My brother unfortunately considered himself a solo operator.
My father was watching the twentieth rerun of the Ice Bowl, but he swiveled from the tv to my question. "Just remember most things are a plot, and you can't really trust women to tell you if your fly is open," he admonished. "Also that you can't always get points when you need them, and sometimes neither can the other team." Since I wanted to find a female I could trust with more than basic neatness and football strategy concerns, I thanked my father and trotted back to my room.
After I locked the door, I sat down with the back to school newspaper circulars and began to plan.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
memories
When I think of Gran, I remember her sliding the roaster forward on the oven rack, lifting its cover to steam the kitchen, and poking the potatoes baking around a pork roast, frowning at them if they did not crumble into submission. The kitchen smelled like cooked celery, starched curtains of polished percale, and salt and pepper. The pantry, just steps away, was cold and dry: china, golden raisins, sugar and spices and string.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Grundle's Icons
The books cradled her feet; the overcoat lay heavy across her arm; but it was only mid-afternoon, and the color as noise of TerraeAndrae was all about her. Food she did not need; excitement she did. The citizens clad in blue and gold and orange jostled her, the sheep pushed past her, the children ran shouting about her, and the paving stones pushed their way along her shoes. In one of the streets spoking from a trading square, she turned in a circle, looking at the panoply of images. So much movement, she thought: and just outside the gates, all was quiet and empty. Empty was not always undesirable: she could welcome a little empty now, a small space in which to think about everything that was happening. No matter what the wares, how expensive or how cheap the prices: all was mobbed, every store and every stall. Her eyes moved down the shop fronts: dyed woolskins, draped over poles and fingered by buyers… hanks of root vegetables, smelling of dirt and sun, trading hands… strings of deep blue and turquoise, ruby and maroon yellow and periwinkle beads and silk rolled into beads, caressed by seller and eager purchasers…a many-paned window empty of viewers.
Empty? It must be an empty stall – but in all the streets she had walked, she had seen no space empty of buyer and seller. Pushing the overcoat further into the corner of her arms behind the package of boots, she walked along the paving stones, looking at this unusual place.
Grundle’s Icons read a gold-leafed and blue scrolled sign over the doorway. That too was strange: most of the marketers set up bins and poles in the open air. Few had sides to their shops; very few had doors that closed. Her hand was on the door latch before her mind could do more than offer that idea.
The store was closed: the door stuck. No, the door pulled open, but tight in its frame. And she was inside. A center space where customers might stand and bicker or visit. A long counter of dark wood in front of her, that ran the width of the store, and behind it two doorways – one on each end of the wall behind the counter – to a dimmer space she could not see, though there were not curtains on the doorways. The walls on either side of her were filled with closed bins and drawers, from the large ones at the floor, big enough for her to crawl inside, to the small ones near the ceiling. Most of the drawer fronts were square, but several were rectangles, and some were circles or star-shaped, or eight-sided. Each drawer or bin had a handle, and many of them were different from the others: many square-shaped, but some shaped like flowers, or half-moons, sea creatures, trees, tiny sun shapes, and some that looked like stones.
It was dim in the building, dim and smelling of spices: orris and clove, palm heart and sawgrass, with a nose-tickling smell she could not identify.
“It’s curiosity and time,” said a grizzled man behind the counter. “Time. Time’s the main ingredient.”
“Can you hold and compound time?”
“If you know how to do it, you can.”
“Would you want to?”
The man clapped his hands sharply and bits of yellow light flew from them. “Now there’s a questions I’ve not heard in a long time. ‘Would you want to?’ You’re not from here but you’re going to upset the ones who are here if you keep opening your mouth. The Telos would like you. You might even wake him.”
Empty? It must be an empty stall – but in all the streets she had walked, she had seen no space empty of buyer and seller. Pushing the overcoat further into the corner of her arms behind the package of boots, she walked along the paving stones, looking at this unusual place.
Grundle’s Icons read a gold-leafed and blue scrolled sign over the doorway. That too was strange: most of the marketers set up bins and poles in the open air. Few had sides to their shops; very few had doors that closed. Her hand was on the door latch before her mind could do more than offer that idea.
The store was closed: the door stuck. No, the door pulled open, but tight in its frame. And she was inside. A center space where customers might stand and bicker or visit. A long counter of dark wood in front of her, that ran the width of the store, and behind it two doorways – one on each end of the wall behind the counter – to a dimmer space she could not see, though there were not curtains on the doorways. The walls on either side of her were filled with closed bins and drawers, from the large ones at the floor, big enough for her to crawl inside, to the small ones near the ceiling. Most of the drawer fronts were square, but several were rectangles, and some were circles or star-shaped, or eight-sided. Each drawer or bin had a handle, and many of them were different from the others: many square-shaped, but some shaped like flowers, or half-moons, sea creatures, trees, tiny sun shapes, and some that looked like stones.
It was dim in the building, dim and smelling of spices: orris and clove, palm heart and sawgrass, with a nose-tickling smell she could not identify.
“It’s curiosity and time,” said a grizzled man behind the counter. “Time. Time’s the main ingredient.”
“Can you hold and compound time?”
“If you know how to do it, you can.”
“Would you want to?”
The man clapped his hands sharply and bits of yellow light flew from them. “Now there’s a questions I’ve not heard in a long time. ‘Would you want to?’ You’re not from here but you’re going to upset the ones who are here if you keep opening your mouth. The Telos would like you. You might even wake him.”
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A New Friend
Tina, who can be depended on not only to find new authors, but to produce the new authors that other books have told be about, recently sent a packet of Josephine Tey novels. Tey writes mysteries, and she’s been billed as “the best mystery writer.” There’s a title I need to explore, I thought when I first read that claim, because I don’t condone “best” being liberally applied to anyone: I’d like to see for myself. I told Tina about my quest to locate Tey stories, and as happens when I ask Tina about books, they appeared shortly after: four Tey stories, enough of a sampling for a few nights’ reading and a conclusion.
Whoever labeled Tey “best” certainly has a point. If you are hunting for mysteries with a lot of flash-bang, a high body count, and buildings regularly set on fire, she’s not your author. If on the other hand, you would like to know about the society where problems take place, and perhaps why the problems occur, and even where we might go from those problems to forestall more of them from happening, then Tey is definitely a read for you.
It’s another world, completely furnished (just as the Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs novels are; and if you enjoy Maisie, you are likely to be just as entertained by Tey). Not for Tey the “a man walked down the dark alley, pulled out a revolver, and pumped ten rounds in to the person cowering behind trash cans.” Before the body, it’s likely we have a story, set in England. It’s not the England of rich aristocrats or jet set glamour [sic]; it’s the England of the people who go to work, who term themselves “civil servant” rather than Scotland Yard Inspector (your conversationalists are much more likely to talk). It’s the England of people who know where they live: the vagaries of the local river (Bodies dumped above the Rushmere bridge don’t surface for more than thirty years – if ever; bodies dumped below the bridge may surface in a day.) There are home crafted fishing lures, topographical maps of the land, and someone standing on the outer edges of the Scottish Islands can look across the crashing waves toward America.
Inspector Grant, that human and humane Scotland Yard civil servant shares quite a few qualities with Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey (Where my Whimsy leads me). He’s thoughtful, unorthodox, intelligent, and humane. He deduces and (like Maisie) he faces his own demons. These are not confined to England; the personality quirks and lack are also the ones that tear apart the United States in the 21st Century.
Miss Pym, another Tey character has been surprised by her own literary success, and at the importuning of her school years’ friend, is guest speaker at a girls’ college: we learn about the fields of study, we follow the collegiates’ worries and The Nut Tart’s escapades; by the end of the story we understand completely why Miss Pym makes the decisions she does, and why the murderer will never be punished. We know why Innes’ face looks the type to support nations. We feel for her.
Tey was worth four books of reading, and she’s worth quite a few more. Humor, irony, insight, character development. Reasoning. Good stories bring us not only plot, but people and national character. Thank you, Josephine Tey. Thank you, Tina.
Whoever labeled Tey “best” certainly has a point. If you are hunting for mysteries with a lot of flash-bang, a high body count, and buildings regularly set on fire, she’s not your author. If on the other hand, you would like to know about the society where problems take place, and perhaps why the problems occur, and even where we might go from those problems to forestall more of them from happening, then Tey is definitely a read for you.
It’s another world, completely furnished (just as the Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs novels are; and if you enjoy Maisie, you are likely to be just as entertained by Tey). Not for Tey the “a man walked down the dark alley, pulled out a revolver, and pumped ten rounds in to the person cowering behind trash cans.” Before the body, it’s likely we have a story, set in England. It’s not the England of rich aristocrats or jet set glamour [sic]; it’s the England of the people who go to work, who term themselves “civil servant” rather than Scotland Yard Inspector (your conversationalists are much more likely to talk). It’s the England of people who know where they live: the vagaries of the local river (Bodies dumped above the Rushmere bridge don’t surface for more than thirty years – if ever; bodies dumped below the bridge may surface in a day.) There are home crafted fishing lures, topographical maps of the land, and someone standing on the outer edges of the Scottish Islands can look across the crashing waves toward America.
Inspector Grant, that human and humane Scotland Yard civil servant shares quite a few qualities with Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey (Where my Whimsy leads me). He’s thoughtful, unorthodox, intelligent, and humane. He deduces and (like Maisie) he faces his own demons. These are not confined to England; the personality quirks and lack are also the ones that tear apart the United States in the 21st Century.
Miss Pym, another Tey character has been surprised by her own literary success, and at the importuning of her school years’ friend, is guest speaker at a girls’ college: we learn about the fields of study, we follow the collegiates’ worries and The Nut Tart’s escapades; by the end of the story we understand completely why Miss Pym makes the decisions she does, and why the murderer will never be punished. We know why Innes’ face looks the type to support nations. We feel for her.
Tey was worth four books of reading, and she’s worth quite a few more. Humor, irony, insight, character development. Reasoning. Good stories bring us not only plot, but people and national character. Thank you, Josephine Tey. Thank you, Tina.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Divots in the Yard
Today I made divots in the yard: enormous wedges of dirt that turned over the ends of worms: startled out of their darkness, searching for the next bit of soul to till. Their tails (heads?) hung like looping cables. Their middles swung from the dirt molded into shovel shape. Tree rootlets came along with the dirt, in scratching tearing pieces. The shovel tore white grass roots from the soil. And all to plant some flowers.
One of the rites of spring is when one of us is busy counting clumps of flowers naturalized in the grass, and the other of us is pondering how a clandestine lawn mowing can guillotine their blossoms, leaving a level field behind. “Just another week,” I beg. “Have you seen what the lawn looks like? It’s ragged.” is the answer.
My fascination with scilla was born many years ago, when I marveled at their sky blue petals in my grandparents’ yard. Summer sky blue color, backlit by the rising sun, beaded with dew, the flowers bent over their grass-blade leaves. They come before the roses, and frolic below the heavy-belled tulips, like baby goats dancing amid cows.
Then one spring in Madison, we saw two ordinary yards, that were extraordinary for their rivers of blue: scilla packed tightly together in a tossing curling cloud of color. “That’s what I want in our yard,” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he answered.
I planted 25 bulbs, hoping to see them spread across the yard. The first year, we had a sprinkle of blooms, almost invisible in the grass. I planted 50 the next year, hoping the original 25 had multiplied, and would now greet their friends. There were blooms, but not enough. After some years, the scilla have formed clumps of flowers, nodding in the wind, making blue in the green spring grass. But not enough. And not close enough together.
“At least let me cut part of the lawn,” he said. So this afternoon, apologizing to the worms and tree roots for disturbing their existence, I planted 400 scilla bulbs in the front yard, where we can see them from the window. May they and their relations have a safe sleep and a bright spring.
One of the rites of spring is when one of us is busy counting clumps of flowers naturalized in the grass, and the other of us is pondering how a clandestine lawn mowing can guillotine their blossoms, leaving a level field behind. “Just another week,” I beg. “Have you seen what the lawn looks like? It’s ragged.” is the answer.
My fascination with scilla was born many years ago, when I marveled at their sky blue petals in my grandparents’ yard. Summer sky blue color, backlit by the rising sun, beaded with dew, the flowers bent over their grass-blade leaves. They come before the roses, and frolic below the heavy-belled tulips, like baby goats dancing amid cows.
Then one spring in Madison, we saw two ordinary yards, that were extraordinary for their rivers of blue: scilla packed tightly together in a tossing curling cloud of color. “That’s what I want in our yard,” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he answered.
I planted 25 bulbs, hoping to see them spread across the yard. The first year, we had a sprinkle of blooms, almost invisible in the grass. I planted 50 the next year, hoping the original 25 had multiplied, and would now greet their friends. There were blooms, but not enough. After some years, the scilla have formed clumps of flowers, nodding in the wind, making blue in the green spring grass. But not enough. And not close enough together.
“At least let me cut part of the lawn,” he said. So this afternoon, apologizing to the worms and tree roots for disturbing their existence, I planted 400 scilla bulbs in the front yard, where we can see them from the window. May they and their relations have a safe sleep and a bright spring.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Cafe Curtains
Never say never, as my mother would tell us.
I’ve never wanted café curtains: if a prowler is taller than 5 feet (and what prowler isn’t), he’s going to be looking in from the dark scary night to our lighted home, anyway. Curtaining the bottom two-thirds of the window blocks sunlight and my view of what’s happening outside (a rabbit crosses the lawn, a squirrel considers hacking off a geranium head for his lunch, and decides it resembles cauliflower: don’t bother). But just lately, with the noise aspect of the house, I’m thinking café curtains are not as evil as their pseudo French origins.
They’d keep the dogs from looking out. Dogs behave on the pack mentality: you bark, I bark, we all bark. You have a treat, I want it, and of course it’s mine. We can have three dogs barking, but their combined din sounds like thirty, reverberating off the uncarpeted floor (with all those little feet tracking in dirt, who needs carpeting).
Curtains would keep the squirrels feeling safer, the grass able to blow without canine commentary, and the human lives quieter. Quiet is good.
I’ve never wanted café curtains: if a prowler is taller than 5 feet (and what prowler isn’t), he’s going to be looking in from the dark scary night to our lighted home, anyway. Curtaining the bottom two-thirds of the window blocks sunlight and my view of what’s happening outside (a rabbit crosses the lawn, a squirrel considers hacking off a geranium head for his lunch, and decides it resembles cauliflower: don’t bother). But just lately, with the noise aspect of the house, I’m thinking café curtains are not as evil as their pseudo French origins.
They’d keep the dogs from looking out. Dogs behave on the pack mentality: you bark, I bark, we all bark. You have a treat, I want it, and of course it’s mine. We can have three dogs barking, but their combined din sounds like thirty, reverberating off the uncarpeted floor (with all those little feet tracking in dirt, who needs carpeting).
Curtains would keep the squirrels feeling safer, the grass able to blow without canine commentary, and the human lives quieter. Quiet is good.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Trimming the Size of Dreams
Over the summer, we built an Arts & Crafts style bookcase: solid wood, heavy as a piano, six feet tall, and bearing that sweeping curve combined with straight lines that sing Arts & Crafts. At the same time, the family room was undergoing a facelift, with board and stile paneling. The two projects would look beautiful together. When we moved the bookcase in though, the extended stiles plus the decrease in wall width of 1.5” meant that the bookcase didn’t fit in its designated niche. We could have moved it to the center of the wall, where it could be admired (who needs a sofa anyway). We could have displaced the tv (but the sports teams would have missed us).
We moved the bookcase to another room, and said, “We’ll build another with adjusted dimensions next year.” Maybe we will; maybe we will be following another project’s lure. [Arts & Crafts style end table with a cabin underneath for the dogs.]
We could say that we muffed the project: should have, could have. We say, we built something that we enjoyed building. We’re happy it turned out as well as it did. We learned things. And we had fun.
This dream turned out to need a decrease of 6” to fit easily into the space; we chose to use another space. That’s okay. I’d rather start with a dream too big, than one too small; rather want to earn enough money that I have money to share with others, than earn just enough to pay my bills, budgeting to the penny each month.
If we have a dream that’s too large for the existing space, maybe we need to look for a larger space. Don’t dream too small. Yes, we need to ensure that the dream is right for us. We need to find a dream that we can devote our energy and time to. We need to match our dreams and our souls. But we also need to remember that when we trim the size of our dreams so they don’t require us to stretch our beings, then we are settling, not dreaming.
We moved the bookcase to another room, and said, “We’ll build another with adjusted dimensions next year.” Maybe we will; maybe we will be following another project’s lure. [Arts & Crafts style end table with a cabin underneath for the dogs.]
We could say that we muffed the project: should have, could have. We say, we built something that we enjoyed building. We’re happy it turned out as well as it did. We learned things. And we had fun.
This dream turned out to need a decrease of 6” to fit easily into the space; we chose to use another space. That’s okay. I’d rather start with a dream too big, than one too small; rather want to earn enough money that I have money to share with others, than earn just enough to pay my bills, budgeting to the penny each month.
If we have a dream that’s too large for the existing space, maybe we need to look for a larger space. Don’t dream too small. Yes, we need to ensure that the dream is right for us. We need to find a dream that we can devote our energy and time to. We need to match our dreams and our souls. But we also need to remember that when we trim the size of our dreams so they don’t require us to stretch our beings, then we are settling, not dreaming.
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