Happy Birthday to Louisa May Alcott

I am writing one of the final parts of my book, in which my grandmother visits Boston with me and my family; it would be the last time she visited Massachusetts (this also has a very important scene with me and my great-grandmother, for we visited her there, too). My grandmother went to Concord with my family and visited Louisa May Alcott's house. I have been happily re-reading Little Women as I work on this scene--I had forgotten how important this book was to me as a child. I never wanted to be like any of the sisters except Jo March--I wanted to the be exactly like her, down to the fact that she was a writer who had the house garret to herself as a place to write and think. I hated that she married Mr. Bhaer and not Laurie--that always rang so false to me, even when I was a kid (in fact, Alcott didn't originally want to marry Jo March off at all, but her publishers insisted that this was done). So, it was interesting to mention the book to Mr. Strega today, and find out from him that Garrison Keillor mentioned Alcott on The Writer's Almanac recently. Today, November 29th, is her birthday. I remember arguments with my friends over which of the March sisters from Little Women
were our favorites, a topic more heated sometimes than choosing which Beatle we liked best.


The reason for the trip to the Alcott house in my book is that it was the first time I learned something about what a writer could do (my book ends with the indication that I am beginning to become a writer and that writing was a way for me to survive). My grandmother loved Little Women and so was eager to go to Orchard House (the Alcott's residence). I was just as excited, having read an abridged version of Little Women when I was very young. I fell in love with Orchard House and wonder if it didn't influence the kind of old houses I am drawn to even now. At any rate, my grandmother and I looked all around for the big Laurence house, where Laurie had lived--I had been so eager to see this, and yet there was nothing like that anywhere. Finally, my grandmother went to the docent and said, "Excuse me, where is the Lawrence house?" The docent was very kind, and said, "I'm sorry, the Laurence house doesn't exist. It was all in her imagination." Talk about shock!
My grandmother was so disappointed, and I felt a mixture of disappointment mixed with complete awe that someone could create a whole world like that.

By the way, don't despair, all you Little Women fans--Laurie was based on a real person, a Polish freedom fighter Alcott nicknamed Laddie and with whom she had an unchaperoned two weeks' visit, in Paris (gasp!).

Wireless

The Highway 17 bus, which I take when I go to the alma mater, now has wireless access. This makes things easier in some ways (for one thing, I can check email from students and so forth before I get to my office), though most of the time I put on my headphones and listen to any one of a number of meditation CDs that take about 45 minutes to run (that's how long the commute takes on the bus). Due to the usual ailment, I no longer drive Highway 17 (driving for any distance longer than about 30-40 minutes just about takes the wind out of my sails for the rest of the day--so I am very grateful for the Highway 17 bus, which makes it possible for me to be a lot more mobile and have far less sun exposure than when I drive a car).

I have to say that, though it has not been easy at all for me physically and I probably should not push my illness by teaching, something always keeps me trying to go back. I currently teach 2.5 hours a week (one class), and it is pushing me to the very limits of my physical abilities (for those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia in 1993). I have very much been reminded every day of my illness since I returned, and it takes a lot out of me. I moved up a tiny notch, from teaching associate to lecturer, and am content with the fact that, because I cannot teach very many classes, I may always stay a lecturer. Just being a teacher again, in whatever capacity, is good for my spirit. It did make finishing the book more difficult (actually, my illness is the biggest reason it's taken me 7 years to finish this book), but at least I have a quiet office to work in sometimes, with a nice view.

It was very disorienting to go back after two years of relative freedom, and yet I really believe that my Higher Power had some sort of plan for me--the decision felt more right than wrong. At first, I wondered if I had made the right decision--but then I saw old friends and professors, and I got a wonderful class with whom I have bonded tremendously--I shall miss them terribly at semester's end, but most of them are trying to register for my next class, so maybe I won't have to miss them all that much! What happens beyond this semester, I don't know. I hope I can be well enough to go back in the Fall. I am keeping my fingers crossed, as always.

This has nothing at all to do with the Highway 17 bus having wireless access now, except that I am grateful for it, as it makes my life a little bit easier.

Oh--but I did want to tell a story here. My dear friend Harvey Birenbaum, who was my professor of mythology and of William Blake's poetry, always encouraged me to try and find ways to work with my illness and find the gifts within it (he was extremely ill with heart trouble and died of it in September of 2005). Harvey was the most brilliant man I ever met, and yet one day, in our mythology class, I stumped him!
He was talking about how William Blake didn't like circles (circle imagery, etc.), and I remembered a few lines from a Blake poem which I loved:

I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate
Built in Jerusalem's wall.

So, Harvey was going on about how William Blake didn't like circles, and I piped up and said, "But what about the golden string, the one that gets wound up into a ball?"
Harvey sat and thought and thought--and finally laughed said, "I do not know!" We had a good chuckle about that.

Upon my return to the alma mater this semester, I sat at my desk on my first day, feeling physically awful (too much sun exposure at State, always, in August). I asked Harvey for some kind of sign that I had made the right decision. Then I opened my desk drawers to put things away and arrange them. When I opened the first drawer, I heard something roll into the far end, and opened it wider to discover that the only thing in that drawer--in the entirety of my side of the desk, in fact--was a rather long length of beige string, neatly wound into a tight and perfect ball.

Not quite golden, but good enough to say, "Thanks."

Happy Turkey Day!

I wanted to take a pause from dusting, cleaning, and cooking to wish all my readers a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What's on the menu at the Ponderosa? We're having a simpler Thanksgiving this year, due to the fact that Mr. Strega and I are both busy, with things due right up until the turkey day. So, this is what we are having:

1) A turkey (we have run the gamut from heirloom turkeys, which are like wild turkeys, to all-organic, but this time it's just the nostalgic Butterball. And it is HUGE. It's the Godzilla of turkeys. We stuffed the crop with a bulger wheat stuffing, as I am on Weight Watchers and this is allowed on the Core program I follow, and have Mrs. Cubbison's dressing in the main chamber of the turkey). The turkey will be basted with lots of butter (this is the one day I use up a lot of WW points).

2) Cranberry relish, both fresh and from the can--the jellied kind that must show ridges when placed into the bowl.

3) A veritable Everest of mashed taters

4) Gravy

5) Yams (mashed with fresh orange juice, butter, brown sugar, orange zest, and a touch of maple syrup--just a touch of the sweet stuff. No marshmallow yams this year--forgot the marshmallows).

6) Green beans

7) Homemade bread (I resurrected my breadmaker from the dead recently).

8) Pumpkin pie for dessert, and zucchini bread. I fear my pumpkin pie is not what it usually is--the organic pumpkin from Trader Joe's was not up to snuff, and I am going back to Libby's next year. People ask me where I get my "incredible" pumpkin pie recipe. It is from the Libby's can.

Mr. Strega has called me forth to mash the yams, so I must go--with wishes for all to have a joyful and happy Thanksgiving!

P.S.--forgot to mention this, but the link is to a wonderful blog which made me feel very grateful for all I have in my own life right now.

Dancing The Day Away

Had a great time this weekend taking a beginner-level African dance class from Youssouf Koumbassa, a master teacher from Guinea, West Africa. I had a blast, even if I didn't do all the steps right (the class was much easier than the dancing in this video, which shows Youssouf--in the yellow T-shirt and colorful pants--teaching in very much the same way he did on Sunday).

Click on the link to learn more about this great teacher.

Always Open Your Envelopes

Santa Clara Review just accepted a long-ish nonfiction piece, Tidal Navigation, which I wrote long ago in grad school. I am very grateful for this--I didn't know whether this particular would ever be published, as it is long-ish and about love--specifically about finding love again after heartbreak, though I hope its real themes run deeper than that (I thanked Mr. Strega for his continuing inspiration).

I went to check my mail after a long day, in a haze of Wellness Formula, Airborne, and Emergen-C because I am fighting a cold (like many with a chronic illness, I do not like to be in bed, sick, any more than I have to be). I saw the envelope from Santa Clara Review and figured it was a rejection, as the envelope looked fat (ie containing the rejected manuscript). I actually thought I would take the whole envelope, roll it up, and use it to nurse along the fire I had started in my woodstove--and I am awfully glad I looked inside, for there was my acceptance letter, forms to fill out, and my galley sheets! Almost the same thing happened when I got into Poetry a gazillion years ago, so my word of wisdom for the day is: always look inside the envelope!!

Got to go drink some more Emergen-C (achoo!)

Not Coming to My Holiday Table

How about a Christmas tree-flavored soda? Are lights and tinsel included in the bouquet? There's a ham-flavored soda as well. You can find out if you buy Jones soda's Christmas pack (there's a Hanukkah pack,too which includes soda that tastes like latkes).

I'm waiting for the pagan edition, which for me would include cakes and ale!

Some Thoughts

I got what seems like a pretty firm request to remove a link from this blog, complete with caps, which is considered "shouting" (I was more than happy to oblige with the removal). I certainly don't want to link to people who do not want this and meant only to do something positive for a fellow blogger.

I had linked to this person because they had sent some nice comments about this blog and I thought I would link to them. Linking is a way in which I hope to increase readership of blogs I like and think deserve to be read more widely. I meant no harm whatsoever by putting a link to their blog.

I do have a thought, though: if your blog is so personal that you don't want people linking to it, that should be indicated loud and clear somewhere early in the blog and make that visible, otherwise people who like your blog might link to it. Blogs are completely public and anyone can read and access them--unless you make them private, of course. Some blog hosts have password access-only blogs that allows you to screen your readers. Just a thought.

Writing Goals, Post-Book

All of these will probably be broken, modified, and otherwise transformed!

When the book is done, I will:

1) Keep sending out my poetry manuscript. Why, I keep asking myself, has it taken so long for this to happen again? Probably because it took so long to re-format, and because I didn't feel I was a poet anymore after a certain time in my life. That's changed and I am writing poetry again, slowly (an elegy for my beloved Maudie this time). Contained in this goal: keep writing poetry, do not stop.

2) Work on collaborative book with Mr. Strega, a much lighter tale than The Strega's Story. Mr. Strega is a marvelous creative writer, which didn't surprise me in the least. When we were first dating and talking on the phone, I asked him to go down to his bookshelves and read me the titles (hoping for a bit more than an array of science fiction--I was more than pleasantly surprised).

3) Get some articles done for Blogcritics

4) Think about the subject of my next book after the "sorbet" of my collaborative book with Mr. Strega is done. One subject has been "planted" at the end of The Strega's Story.

5) Oh, and pat myself on the back for getting a 400-plus page book done, having written barely a word of creative prose before taking classes at San Jose State.

6) Get back to writing three pages in my journal every day, which I have reduced to one page during the final leg of work on my book.

7) God forbid, take a class unrelated to writing or exercise.

Amazing When That Happens

I have been struggling over a chapter for weeks now, and suddenly it fell into place.
I guess there's a point when I stopped struggling and just made the decision to write it--and the chapter was good! "Bridging" the scenes to make a coherent book has really been the most difficult part for me.

I have about 30 pages more to write on the book, plus one chapter to revise slightly, and a few recipes to write (each chapter is prefaced by a recipe), and then--it's done! I have been revising all along (I do some revision every day), so 90 percent of what's been written is in the final draft.

I have never worked so hard on one project in my life--well, maybe on my poetry manuscript, but that's only 60 pages. I learned a lot about the writing process, too, especially what NOT to do next time! I'm glad I just plunged into the book the way I did, though, no matter how hard it made for me at the end (spending nearly two years revising it). And at some point, very soon, it will be time to let it go. This book took six years of work to write, and I am really proud that I stuck with it, no matter what else happens. I am also so grateful that Mr. Strega has been my unfailing support with this, as well as many friends and readers of this blog. For that, I am beyond grateful.

All Boxed Up

I've been blessed in my work life at the alma mater to have been in real faculty offices, though always shared (once, when I was a teaching associate, I shared an office with five other people. It was in the same recessed entryway as the women's bathroom--one witty person called our office "the fourth stall"). That office was actually a lot of fun--we had a couch, covered with a purple-and-black throw with a pattern of Aztec warriors, a little coffeemaker, a plant or two, and files with years and years of essay prompts and writing ideas, stretching back for at least a decade. The conversations in that office were some of the liveliest and most fun I've ever had. My offices have tended to be very spacious and with nice views, so there's much to be grateful for in that regard.

Still, not everyone is blessed with real office space. Wired magazine has had a contest for the saddest office cubicles--here they are, in all their cramped and utilitarian glory. Amazing how people make the best with whatever they have. The winner (?) of the Sad Cubicle Contest got the robot whose picture precedes this entry. Perhaps they will use it to jazz up their Sad Cubicle, if they can shoehorn it in somewhere between those filing cabinets!

The Quake

Oh, and by the way....yes, I did feel the quake. I've been through two major quakes in my life, the Sylmar quake of 1971, and the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. I was just five miles from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake when it hit, and believe me, it was nothing like the quake we just went through. The Loma Prieta quake did start out with a bit of an easy shake, just like this last one, but then, as I remember, the full force hit, and it was as if several freight trains hit my house. My front window literally exploded from the force. Not to say going through a major quake like that has made me some sort of jaded old quake curmudgeon, sitting on the porch and saying, "Wellll, in MY time, we had HUGE earthquakes,"--I'm still terrified of them.
My office at home is partially underground (it used to be a storage room and is dug into the hillside), so I had the incredibly weird experience of being BELOW ground during an earthquake--it was as if the the walls of my office suddenly became liquified and began moving. Totally freaky.

Apparently, after this last quake, a message came over the loudspeaker at the local Trader Joe's: "Santa Cruz ROCKS!" Yes!