A Dish Best Served Cold

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Yesterday I saw on Twitter this video.

It’s about a young woman who received life in prison, without possibility of parole, for murdering her pimp. I believe all of that is strictly accurate. If you watch the video, you will know exactly as much as I do about the situation. There might be other things we don’t know here.

But I Re-Tweeted it and several people on Facebook commented on the link. The story takes you back. We talked a bit about the nature of justice and if all situations are the same. Sara was 16 when she committed this murder, which she admits she carefully planned out. We discussed some, in the short comments, whether it makes sense for her to spend the rest of her life in prison. I wonder what that’s accomplishing.

A friend from college chimed in and said “You’ve obviously never had a violent crime happen in your own family; if you did, you would understand why some people believe that spending your life in jail will never come close to paying for the crime of taking someone else’s life. Think about the victim’s families…”

Her father was murdered when she was very young. In an armed robbery as I recall. The details are murky, those that she told me when we first met over twenty years ago. I do remember that I told her my dad had died when I was a girl, too, and she said, “you do realize, don’t you, that there’s a world of difference between death and murder.”

And I thought, that I wasn’t sure what the difference was. Though I didn’t say so to her.

Both of our fathers were equally gone. Both here one moment and gone the next, so the shock was the same. In some ways, she has a focus, someone to blame, whereas we have only the happenstance of accident.

I asked my mother which of her husband’s deaths was more painful: the instantaneous loss of her first husband or the slow, lingering death of her second husband to chronic disease. Without hesitation, she said the second. Which is what I thought she’d pick. I knew how hard it was for her to watch over years as Leo declined in the prime of his life and withered away. With Ted’s death, it happened, it was over and she had to deal.

None of which addresses murder, I know.

“Think about the victim’s families,” my friend says.

I think it gets difficult when we try to parse out whose pain is greater than another’s. But if we administer justice on the basis of pain — which, I know, we absolutely do — then a prison term becomes more about punishment, about revenge than anything else, doesn’t it? If that’s what we want, so be it.

But if we’re operating on the level of emotion, basing our decisions on people’s pain, are we really thinking at all?

I don’t think Sara’s sentence makes any sense, from what I know. The judge told her that she had no moral scruples, which she says she had to look up. Clearly she needed to learn something. Perhaps still does.

My question is: what exactly is she learning?

I Love the Crescent Moon, Shining in the Sky

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That’s a really pretty crescent moon hanging over sunset’s final exhalation last night.

Were I a better photographer, you could probably even see it…

I added a cropped version, for better viewing. But then you lose the scope of the sunset.

I looked into photography classes this weekend. I figured, hey, I’m in the (relatively) big city now, there must be lots of photography-type workshops for me to take. And there are. I even got excited about this one taught by an Outside Magazine photographer and spent time debating whether I could brazen my way through as an “advanced amateur.” Turns out they had definitions, and advanced amateur requires the ability to understand the manual settings on your digital SLR camera. Since I’d have to Google “SLR” to discover what it stands for, I figure that’s not me. And who knew there were manual settings? Isn’t that why we all ditched those huge film cameras for our sleek little point-and-shoots with the nifty wizards?
I know, I know — my ignorance in this area knows no bounds.
So I determine that I fall into the lowest bracket: Enthusiast. Which I think means I have more enthusiasm than sense. Which actually sounds about right. It’s a nice way of patting me on the head and saying, “but at least you try, dear.” Besides, nifty workshop with Outside Magazine photographer? $1800 for the WEEK.
Yeah, I know.
Cheapest class I’ve found so far is $450, and that’s the “commuter rate” for another week-long deal.
Suddenly I’m a townie.
Apparently being in the Land of Art means that everyone thinks you’re wanting to shell out to be the next Stieglitz. Where is my Saturday afternoon $75 class for enthusiasts who don’t know their digital cameras have manual settings?
I might have to resort to a book. Self-study.
Hmmm…maybe I’ll even read the camera manual!

Rainy Days and Mondays

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Why yes, that IS a picture of my new rainfall showerhead.

Sometimes the little things make all the difference.

I remember when I was younger and heavy into my sci fi/fantasy phase — well, the heaviest — I read every book the library had on people being transported to other worlds, or times, or dimensions or what have you. I had my whole list of how I would handle it, should it happen to me. What songs I would sing, what I would reveal or not about my own world, and what I’d miss most.

Which was a hot shower.

This was back in the day when I had to be at school at 7:05 am for 7th grade. Brutally early for non-early bird me. I woke to the alarm in the dark of morning and stumbled into the hot shower. In many ways, that was when I woke up, under the hot water. My stepfather tried to get me to use less water, less hot, but in this I defied him. It helped that he couldn’t really make me, only complain.

It’s funny to me, that, now that I’ve written my own transported-to-another-world novel, that the hot shower doesn’t play in for my character. The difference between 42 and 12, I suppose. It’s noteworthy, however, that a major turning point in the book occurs in the chapter called “In Which It Rains.” Maybe my shower-thing has morphed into a rain-thing.

The rainfall showerhead? Oh yes yes yes.

When we were prepping our old house to sell, we replace some of the inadequate plumbing with shiny new stuff, including buyer-seducing updated rainfall showerheads.

And my life was transformed. I lurved mine with a love that was pure and true.

When I rhapsodized on the subject, several of my colleagues said they hated theirs, because the showerhead couldn’t be used to scrub down the shower.

This is so not my priority. Call me a hedonist. I’m at peace with that.

When we moved, though the new house is wonderful and gorgeous, I sorely missed my rainfall showerhead. The showerhead here spit and drizzled in a most unsatisfying way. But, over the weekend, I bought and installed a new rainfall showerhead. Yes, my own self.

And today I have gorgeous day outside and hot rainfall in.

You know how I feel.

From the Nerd Journal

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Some of my writing friends refer to them as the “fur family.”

I love how the two cats and the dog seem to enjoy each other’s company, as unnatural as the relationship may be. It’s warming to see them be affectionate with each other.

One of the small things that make daily life a joy.

Sometimes, I wonder if it’s true that life is all about high school. My mom once told me that a counselor-type said that we spend our whole lives living down or living up to what we were in high school.

This has been on my mind lately, because I’ve been back in touch with people from high school. On Facebook mainly. It’s interesting to see how the social positions have blurred and changed — or remained exactly the same — over the years.

One of my old friends started an online literary magazine. She doesn’t exactly count as a high school friend, because our friendship blew up just before 7th grade. And it was about popularity. She wanted it and was determined to have it. I wanted it, but was sure it couldn’t be mine. In her indominitable way, she seized our new school by the throat and became the cool girl. I kept my nose in a book.

We’ve since repaired those fences. I wrote about our adolescent angst in Wyo Trucks without her permission. She since read it and gave me her blessing, which meant a great deal. And she asked me to submit to her magazine. Which I did. And she’s holding onto a couple of pieces for future issues. She asked another friend of ours from school to contribute her photos.

When the first issue came out, there was much excitement in our little group. Photographer gal wrote a nice thing about it on her blog.

I felt left out of the party.

To make it worse, another boy from high school had several pieces in there. And yes, he was way more cool than me (part of the “Best Couple”) and, in all truth, still is. He’s got a new book out and is in a cool band. My book is five years old and no one has read my novel yet, which is (gasp!) genre anyway.

And it’s stupid, but I’m feeling all those things I felt in the hallowed halls of our school. All the ways in which I was not A-list. I was not the “Most” or “Best” anything.

In some ways, everything does continue to be about popularity. Marketing your work as an artist is about drawing attention and having people like you. Some try to pretend that it doesn’t matter, that your work stands for itself, but does it really? If you want to make any money on it, people have to pay money to have it — and that’s all about them wanting it, which in a very direct way is about wanting you.

What’s funny is, the other half of the “Best Couple” wrote in my yearbook that she admired the way I’d stayed true to myself all through school, that I hadn’t changed to be popular. And here, I just thought I was stubborn. Perhaps something of a coward.

So, am I living up to what I was, or living it down? Would I go back and change my choices?

And all I come up with is, I wouldn’t change who or where I am today. I might feel my nose is pressed to the glass while the party goes on inside, but I think we all do, depending on what party we feel left out of.

Really, I never liked parties that much. I’d rather be reading a book.

Thrashing About

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Our curved-bill thrasher says good morning.

And yeah, he always has that annoyed look. He lands on the feeder and launches into an ear-splitting song, then proceeds to whip his bill back and forth through the seeds, scattering them hither and yon. Every once in a while, he pecks at the glass sides. He eats a few seeds, also.

I’m not sure what is driving the behavior. Maybe birds do weirdly obsessive things, too.

Jeri Smith-Ready (@jsmithready, a wonderful author and terrific gal — if you haven’t checked out her series about all-night vampire DJs, it’s worth doing) tweeted yesterday that “Checked e-mail so many times today, fingers permanently frozen in Ctrl-Shift-T position. Will bang head on wall instead.”

Which made me laugh.

I have my Outlook set so that send/recieve occurs every five minutes. On both laptops. When my IT guy was autopiloting my work laptop (have you done this? it’s kind of freaky: I relinquish control and watch while he runs through my computer settings from the other side of the country. it’s kind of Poltergeist-ish), when he saw this, he somewhat primily informed me that HE has HIS set to every 30 minutes.

So?

What? Like he’s more patient or something?

I didn’t tell him I also hit my send/receive button all the time, too. Anyway.

Which is how all this came up, because my work laptop Outlook started being weird. It’s connected to our Exchange server in Arlington, and so is kind of a real-time “live” connection. This is apparently why I shouldn’t need to hit send/receive ever. Or why 30 minutes is plenty long enough, because it’s always synching. But it’s a habit, okay? Only now, when I hit send/receive, it sends Outlook into some kind of loop from computer hell and it helplessly cycles until it crashes.

IT guy doesn’t know why. His solution: don’t hit send/receive. This is logical, because I don’t have to.

But I can’t seem to stop.

I know. I know. It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. I tell myself not to touch it. I know I can’t. And then I’ll be working away, click over to my Outlook and reflexively hit send/receive. Scattering those seeds willy-nilly with an angry orange eye.

At least I have company.

Tweets for the Sweet

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So, I caved.

I’m doing the Twitter thing.

I know, I know — all of you out there are either scoffing that I’m late to the game or stubbornly reaffirming in your heads that you are NOT going to do it.

That always seems to be my place in the pack. I’m never the first kid on the block to have the new thing. But neither am I the one who holds out forever.

I’m a third wave kind of gal, apparently.

So far it’s pretty fun, now that I’m getting the rhythm of it. It’s a bit lonelier than Facebook, because people don’t seem to respond as much. My tweets go out into the world, often to vaporize to indifference. Or passing interest. Hard to tell which.

And this could be just be me. After all, I’m not that fascinating.

I did get a bit of response to my tweeted pic above. (So pleased I figured out how to do it!) But as mediocre as my camera photos are, my Blackberry camera ones are apparently worse. I kept this one small, to minimize the fuzziness. Are there workshops on taking good camera phone pics??

At any rate, this was part of my Connecticut series of tweets. I’m thinking of them like paintings. Or a serial story. On the way in I tweeted about the really need video-poster ads that scatter like rose petals when you wave your hands at it, then coalesce again. On my return flight, however, I was on a different airline, American, which is apparently low dog enough to be relegated to the “B” terminal in Hartford. As in “B” movie.
All the shops and restaurants outside of security were closed, temporarily or permanently — and this at 4:30 in the afternoon. Security was a wasteland, with this very odd Gorey-style guy who held out his hand for my boarding pass at the magnetic arch, never looked at it, but gave me the hairy eyeball and didn’t step back for me to pass. I half expected him to grope me as I sidled past him.
The above pic shows my one option for sustenance. Not pretty. The couple of people who replied to my tweet enthusiastically endorsed sticking to a wine-only meal.
It was fun to have the conversation about it. Which is what this is all about: exchange. Even if it’s about airport trauma.
However, many people, I’ve noticed, are more interested in sending than receiving. Another symptom of our culture, that people seem to want to talk more than they want to listen.
I have one writer-friend who started Twitter quite a while ago. And started a blog, to build an audience for her new book. I supported her by “following” her blog. And by commenting on her tweets that went to Facebook.
I can’t help but notice that she hasn’t returned the favor.
I try not to let it bother me, but I do notice. And I really notice which authors respond to my responses to their tweets. Who is interested in engaging with me and who, it feels like, holds me as beneath their notice.
It colors how I feel. One author who replies to me? I just bought five of her books to catch up on the series. Another who has never once acknowledged me? I’m losing enthusiasm.
A professor from college once told me that I was an unusual student because I took information and gave back interesting things from it. I was surprised that he told me a lot of students don’t do this. To me, it’s a crucial part of engaging with the world.
No one can read everything that’s out there. Respond to everything. I firmly believe in the meritocracy of all these forms of communication: say interesting things and you’ll be deserving of listeners.
But do be sure to let people know that you’re listening.

A Western Gal on Connecticut’s Highway

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The view from my hotel room in Hartford, Connecticut.

Which sums up for me all that odd about many parts of New England. I don’t mind the view. There’s lots of sky and it’s a Homewood Suites over in Glastonbury. Nothing to write home about. Good for a few days’ stay and the linens are nice.

Traveling way too much, you get picky about stuff like linens. You wouldn’t believe how a rough sheet or thin towel can push you right over that edge, the one that’s been waiting for you.

The edge that, apparently, many Hartford drivers fell off, years ago.

In some ways, New England is so bucolic. With these gorgeous wooden farmhouses and real red barns.

There are dense trees all around, so one scarcely notices the busy highway just beyond.

Then there’s the whole industrial side. Both the shabby warehouses and crumbling parking lots and the gorgeously rehabbed buildings that pay homage to the past while providing reasonably green and pleasant working environments.

But underneath the pretty farmhouses and the chain stores all made to look Colonial, is this anger.

Granted my co-worker is a hesitant driver, the worst kind to be amongst the aggressive kind. And no, we so don’t know where we’re going or what lane to be in. But we were honked at four times yesterday and three times today. Not a get-going beep. Not even an impatient pop. But full-on rage-filled honking. And as the people speed by, their faces are set in dour, pissed-off lines.

I mentioned it on Facebook and a number of people commented that Connecticut drivers are worse, even than Boston. I can see it. Boston drivers are scary agressive and fast, but they don’t exhibit this level of sheer rage.

It’s interesing to be in this milieu, following Rep. Joe Wilson’s angry outburst, in a solemn and public setting, no less. And then, in a considerably less formal setting, but no less disconcerting for that, Kanye West’s bratly behavior at the Video Music Awards.

I wonder if it’s just that people’s filters are wearing thin. Which is okay, in many ways, since the what know are always telling us to vent our emotions, rather than bottling them up in repressed Puritan-throwback ways.

It could be, I suppose, that everyone is all stirred up. It’s been a hard year, in many ways.

People feel uncertain and insecure, which is understandable. Anger is what drives us to make a change really. If you’re pissed-off enough, then you finally act to change whatever it is that’s sticking in your craw.

But, at the risk of going Justice League, it seems that anger needs to be used for the powers of good. To create change, not to attack other people.

What does throwing a fit do? The angry honking. The yelling. The body-shaking frustration.

If only we could bottle the stuff…

But What IS Normal?

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I left our new house today, almost exactly one month after we first arrived.

And yes, there was an unreality to it.

My schedule doesn’t often allow for an unbroken four weeks at home, so that was a blessing. But last night, as I packed for this business trip, a part of me pictured the old house in Laramie. As if I’d be returning there after this trip, as I did for so many years.

In fact, it felt a bit like the vacation was over.

We’ve been feeling that way, less so now than at first. We’ve been feeling like we’re simply renting this vacation house and we’ll return to real life sooner or later. I’m not sure where that comes from. We’ve certainly done that before, rented a house in a beautiful place for a week or two. With always the return to normal life after.

And the new house is beautiful enough to be that. I remember when we moved into our last house, it took me a while to become accustomed to the new circumstances. I wouldn’t habitually drive to the old house, the one we lived in for 11 years, but I’d feel the impulse to go that direction. Sometimes I’d drive by the old house, just to see it, even though the new house was a step up in every way.

That move though, was only from the fifth block north to the fourth block south, and from 6th Street to 11th Street. Our new house was only around the corner from the apartment I first rented when I moved to Laramie as a grad student in 1988.

So the relocation has something to do with it. Though I don’t remember feeling this way when I moved from Denver to St. Louis at 18, or from St. Louis to Laramie at 22.

I’m really wondering if this isn’t habit so much as age.

Yesterday, David bought a field guide to the local plants, insects and animals. He needs a real grounding in the nature around him, so different from Wyoming’s.

Leaving the house this morning, I felt funny about it. Packing had been weird, since I was out of step on my habits. Still learning where I’ve put everything.

“Will it be strange for you,” I asked David, “being in this house without me?”

“Probably,” he answered, and looked a little sad. Then he shrugged. “Just another new thing to get used to.”

It’s good for us, to make this change. To stimulate our mental flexibility and learn a new place and culture.

I wonder when it will begin to feel like normal life.

Cracks in the Glass

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I have this tendency to drop my right shoulder.

It’s the scoliosus, I suspect. I was diagnosed with the sideways spinal curve when I was 12. Girls develop it then quite a bit, I understand, a result of the emotional and phsyical spurts of adolescence. I am now the height I was at 12 and managed to avoid the back surgery by doing a lot of exercises and wearing a Milwaukee brace (think Judy Blume’s Deenie). My back is pretty good now, which I attribute mainly to years of Tai Chi. But I still tend to drop my right shoulder, so many of my photographs come out with a slight downward slide. I often correct them, to make the horizon level. I nearly did on this one, but decided to leave it. A stamp of who I am, flaws and all, in this photograph.

We watched The Soloist last night. At one point, Nathaniel Ayers, a mentally ill musician who bombed out of Juliard and now wanders the streets of Los Angeles with a shopping cart of precious garbage, asks the reporter, Steve Lopez, who champions him if he sees writers. Nathaniel sees Beethoven and Mozart hovering in the air, embodying the music that drives him. Steve says that he writes for a living, so it’s not like that.

I really wonder if it ever is for writers.

Where are the Shine, August Rush and The Soloist movies about writers? Are we just not crazy interesting enough?

I’ve written about this before. The difference between being an artist like a musician and being a writer. With music, there’s a vast learning curve involved in being able to read, play and eventually create music. With writing, we all learn to create a sentence in school. After that, anyone can write and it becomes a matter of opinion, to some extent, whether or not you’re good enough. I suppose that can be also true for the garage-band approach to music. Strum a few chords and see if anyone will pay to listen.

Maybe this is the same for all artists: it’s so hard to know when you’ve done enough.

I’m in the midst of this ruthless revision of my novel (which I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about). I revised the first third, and a bit more, according to some detailed notes from an agent. Then I moved, which vaporized everything in my life not involved with moving for nearly two months. Coming back to the book, I ended up revising the beginning twice more.

I can’t seem to stop.

And yet, each time I feel closer. I feel like I’m weaving in the things I need to have there.

I told Allison that I wanted this book to be brilliant. And she didn’t laugh at me, which I appreciated. Though I suspect this may be a character flaw in myself. Another agent told me the book was a page-turner and exactly what she was looking for, but that she wasn’t quite obsessed with it, as she needed to be.

I want my readers to be obsessed.

Maybe I don’t see Jane Austen and William Shakespeare floating in the air, but I have shaken books by Ann Patchett, A.S. Byatt and Jacqueline Carey in my hands and shrieked “I want this to be MY book!”

See? We writers can make for crazy drama too.

It’s just that the soundtracks aren’t nearly so compelling.

The Great Grape Pie Gastronomical Experiment

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A little while back, I mentioned that we have a grape arbor here.

My friend, author Keena Kincaid, suggested that I make grape pie. Actually she said: “If the grapes are ripe, bake a pie. Grape pie is my absolute favorite.”

Which, I suppose, is more of a demand than a suggestion.

But, since Keena and I were apparently separated at birth, because we share all sorts of common opinions — such as the same favorite restaurant in Charleston, SC, while niether one of us lives remotely near there — I figure if Keena likes it, I will too.

Never mind that I’ve never HEARD of grape pie before this.

So I dutifully requested the recipe, which Keena doesn’t have. Clearly she’s not a plotter. This is what she tells me:

Mmmm…I don’t really have a recipe. Just squeeze pulp from grape skins. I remove the seeds. You’ll need about 5 cups of fruit (depending upon depth of pie shell), 1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet the grapes are) and 1 tbs butter. Mix sugar and grapes, pour in the shell, dot with butter, put in top crust and bake.

Fortunately, I never plot either, so I’m fine with this. I know the ending — that’s enough for me.

I made the crust like my grandmother taught me. Okay, I use the pastry blade and my food processor instead of two butter knives, but hey…that’s the freaking point of technology.

I also use whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose, so it never looks quite as pretty. But it’s healthier. Actually, the grape pie overall was reasonably low-fat, low-sugar, which is a bonus.

I started squeezing out the pulp like Keena said to and, after about ten, I lost interest and threw them all in the aforementioned food processor.

Yes, there is a common thread here.

My friend, Kathy-now-Kathryn (Marin –I think you’re so funny!), posts amazing pics of her culinary creations and whrrls the whole process. I am not her.

But, my pantster pie-making method worked out just fine. I ended up adding just 1/2 cup of turbinado sugar, since the grapes were super sweet. I figured we needed some sugar to make it gel. I baked it at a conservative 350, just in case, (oh, and yes, hardened the bottom crust about 20 minutes in the oven first before adding the filling). It ended up
taking about an hour to bake.

I never let pies cool long enough (see impatient food-processor approaches above), so the pie wasn’t perfectly gelled. But hey. Also note super-cool high-heeled pie server in background from my super-cool stepsister, Hope.

Verdict? Tres yummy! Like sunshine and grape jelly in a pie shell.

Now, what do I do with the REST of the grapes???