Carolina Blue

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Certain things are characteristic of the South. And I’m just in the piedmont region of North Carolina, not the Deep South, by any stretch. On top of that, the connected communities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel form the “research triangle:” an academic corridor created by proximity of Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So, this isn’t the barefoot-in-the-fields South or the living-in-a-house-on-stilts-in-the-swamp South. And yet.

And yet, to cross the street from the building where we’re working, we had to walk on grassy berms and dash across six lanes of traffic because there are no sidewalks, no crosswalks and no pedestrian signal. My colleague wondered why several cars honked or hooted at us, if they hadn’t seen women before. I replied that no, they just didn’t recognize people outside of their cars.

Once we reached the Dunkin’ Donuts across this busy road, I encountered language problems with the cashier. She believed that a “sugar-free” latte was one without sugar. I explained I wanted a sugar-free sweetner. She said it won’t be sweet without sugar. I finally hit upon “sugar substitute that enabled me to acquire at least Splenda, though sugar-free syrups were clearly not within the realm. Krispy Kreme donuts are, however, available at the hotel breakfast buffet.

I remember this, from coming to visit my grandmother in the summers. Once I suggested a walk after dinner, as I was accustomed to do at home with my foks. Always anxious to please me, my grandad and grandmother put me in the car and we drove in search of a park they’d heard of, a place people went on purpose to walk. They walked with me, too, though I feel certain they must have been hot, tired, and uncomfortable.

“Ross, give me some air,” Grandmother would say, an eternal plea for more air-conditioning. Outside was something she passed through from one inside to another. She taught me to decorate cakes, making the frosting from Crisco and powdered sugar.

Our hotel is in a new area of town, so there are interconnected trails, winding around picturesque scenery in a business park. I took a walk before dinner and passed several other women, walking and jogging. Tomorrow we’ll stop at a Starbucks we spotted, where they understand non-fat/sugar-free.

We won’t try to cross the street again.

Natural Causes

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An old college friend sent me a FaceBook request the other day. This isn’t unusual – I’ve only been “on” FaceBook for a couple of months now and I’ve been receiving a lot of “friend requests.” For the uninitiated, you have to be officially friends with someone for them to view your FaceBook information. You can find people you know through groups like your high school or college or what have you. When you find someone you know, you send a request that they add you as a friend. Once you’re friends, you can look at their list of friends and see if there’s anyone you know and want to add. Several people I haven’t talked to in twenty years have found me and it’s been fun to catch up. This person, who contacted me the other day: not so much.

I’m surprised she wanted to “friend” me. She has refused to see or talk to me for years. Before that, when we did communicate, she acted mean. Inserted little digs about me. Made herself generally disagreeable by doing pissy things.

I’m not stupid. I can take a hint – eventually. When only her husband (both were good friends – I introduced them) returned my voice message and wanted to visit with me when I was last in town, I asked him what her problem was. He said I’d have to take it up with her. I said, no, it was her anger, thus incumbent on her to bring it to me. Later, he sent me a very cold letter. Like I said, it takes me a while, but I’m not an idiot. I wrote them off as no longer friends of mine.

Three years later, she asks to be my FaceBook friend. I stared at the choices: Accept or Ignore. So far, in a rush of bonhomie, I’d accepted everyone, even friends of friends, who I haven’t met. I’ve friended people in high school who wouldn’t have noticed me in the school hallways. Why she wanted this friendship when she’d thrown the real one away, I didn’t know. Except that I know some people track their count of friends: at last a score for social connectedness. But I’d made my decision about her place in my life long ago. I clicked Ignore.

I’m thinking about this as I fly to North Carolina, place of my father’s birth. And, coincidentally, his death, nearly 40 years ago. My grandparents are gone, but his brother still lives there, along with his wife and two adult sons. In years past, when I’ve traveled to the area, we’ve met for dinner. I went out for a family reunion a few years ago. This time, I haven’t called. The last contact I had was went my uncle emailed me a photo of my younger cousin’s college graduation, though I received no other announcement. I called my cousin to offer my congratulations. I mailed him a card with a generous check. Cashed without a word.

I’m no longer part of their world, as I was when the boys were younger. As I was before both sons decided to devote themselves to ministry. Before my aunt made it clear how much she disapproved of my godless lifestyle. The part of me that’s still 12 years old, is stunned that they don’t seem to love me anymore.

I suppose it’s part of life, the pruning back of connections. People can be friends for a while and the friendship can die, or be cut away. Family members move in different directions. It’s maybe one of the great lies of love, that it cannot die. Love dies just as we do, from neglect and starvation, from disease, from critical trauma. No matter the venue, death arrives. In the end, they’re all natural causes. And nature can be cruel.

LIMITED Lifetime Warranty

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Surprised? No, of course not. You knew when you read my post the other day that this is the kind of answer I’d get. Don’t deny it — I heard you all snickering that I asked McKlein why their lifetime warranty doesn’t cover a faulty zipper. Several of you emailed me with suggestions for luggage repair places, gently preparing me for this moment.

This is the (now typical) garbled email answer I received:

You would be in charge of the shipping cost to us and back you and also the cost
of the repair. This no longer covered under McKlein warranty is limited lifetime
warranty which only covers one year only that’s the reason of the charge.

Thanx & Best Regards,
Nancy Usueta

McKlein
Company, LLC
P: 773. 378. 5400 x 30
F: 773. 378. 5800
nancy@mckleinusa.com

Alas. Should I even be annoyed that they play these games? That they believe they can add the word “limited” before “lifetime” to mitigate the meaning of lifetime to “one year?” Obviously they can, because I have no power to affect this. And it’s old news to all of us isn’t it? You pay the money for something of high quality, but it means nothing. I do believe if you buy the cheapy thing and it falls apart in a few months, you get what you deserve. That’s the whole basis of the disposable society, isn’t it? Cheaper to buy a new one than to repair the old one. Since I get to be “in charge” of the shipping costs (this reminds me of being in charge of cleaning the erasers in the classroom, a very dubious honor), I’m guessing I’d be out around $150 by the time we’re done. Now, however, even the high-quality, high-dollar, lifetime guaranteed stuff falls apart in a couple of years and the manufacturers are deliberately obtuse and obstinate about repairs. Clearly they don’t care about selling me the next bag.

It’s the first 30 pages syndrome, all over again. All marketing today seems to be based on this sale, this quarter. The sale next year, down the road a few years doesn’t matter.

And it really should.

My friend, the writer and photographer RoseMarie London, reminded me that it’s up to the writer to make sure the book is good after the first 30 pages, if she wants readers to come back, since no one else apparently cares. She has a good point. So who’s out there making sure I buy another McKlein bag (which I obviously won’t)? Where are the craftsmen? With all the focus on the stimulus package and rescuing our cancer-ridden economy, I wonder if anyone is thinking beyond next year. President Obama, with great honesty and integrity, I thought, said we won’t see major changes in the economy for a year. But we can all see that changes are happening: my friend who works at Hewlett-Packard reports that all employees are taking a 5% pay cut starting next month. The CEO is taking a 20% cut (on a $24 million salary, so there’s some cynicism there, but nevertheless). We’re wondering if the unions will fall before the needed revisions in the way we do business; I’m surprised by how many very liberal folks I know hope they do.

I heard on All Things Considered that the mobile phone industry promised to standardize phone chargers by 2012. So, that we don’t have to get new ones every two years with our new phones. Along with new car chargers. So that we don’t have to pitch the now-useless old ones. It’s a great move. Oh, except Apple isn’t participating.

Times they are a-changin’. Is it too much to hope that we could go back to having craftsmen repair our perfectly good stuff, rather than bowing to the forces that just want to sell us more inferior shit that we’ll toss into the landfill in a year? Maybe Apple will feel the social pressure and join in on this eminently rational plan.

Still surprises me that I’m idealist at heart.

Service’Ain’t’Us

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I’ve mentioned that I live in a small town. More, it’s a remote town — which means at least an hour’s drive through antelope country to the next outpost of civilization, i.e., shopping. It’s two hours to Denver, which is really where you go for major shopping. But we have a lovely old-fashioned downtown area with lots of local merchants. It’s a big deal for us, to support the local merchants.

Such a big deal, in fact, that everyone gets sick of the exhortations to buy local. Don’t make the drive! Save gas! Inevitably these urgings will include the assertion that the local merchants can fulfill our needs just as well as any shop we might drive to or find online.

Which simply isn’t true.

Yesterday, I went down to our local, independent purveyor of childrens’ things. It’s a nice shop, with lots of fun toys and clothes and baby accessories. So much so, that when several of us met to plan a friend’s baby shower, we decided that she should register at the local shop along with Walmart. Yes, of course we have one. I try to buy local first, so I left work early to catch this shop in our quaint downtown, because of course they don’t keep evening hours.

Then the salesgirl tells me they don’t “do” baby registries. What? Why on earth wouldn’t they?? “We do our tickets by hand,” she says, “so we don’t have a hand scanner to do a registry.” It’s not her fault; she just works there. So, I don’t tell her that I remember shopping for a wedding gift at the NYC Bloomingdales with a PAPER LIST that I had to check off with my selection and return to the counter. It’s insane that a little store like this chooses not to serve their customers this way.

But I picked something out, since I hate going to Walmart and I didn’t want to waste any more time. At the same time, I’m certain this merchant proclaims her grief and indignation at all the people who shop at Walmart instead of her place. Or register online with Babies’R’Us, where shoppers can pull up a list and have a gift automatically shipped to the parents.

We can decry the demise of the small business owner, crushed under the big boxes. And then we’ll go to whoever gives us the best service. How hard is this to figure out?

Clear-cutting

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I’ve been editing my novel. Not for the first time, naturally. I finished it almost exactly a year ago and have edited the work several times since.

Right now, though, I’m whittling down the first 30 pages. In genre fiction — maybe all kinds, I don’t know — much rests on the first 30 pages. Contests generally ask for it (or the first 20 or 25, if they’re chintzy), because agents generally ask for that. Then hopefully they ask to read the whole thing.

But everything really hinges off of the first 30 pages. They’ll argue it’s a Blink thing, that a good agent or editor knows within a few sentences if the work is what they can market. Or rather, they know right away if it’s NOT. What this means though, is there’s no room for leisurely introductions or backstory. An editor at the RWA convention complained of writers who tell her the story “really gets going in the third chapter.” That, she said, is where the story should start.

Okay, I can see this. That a genre novel’s glory is its ability to sweep you away. In our increasingly impatient society, there’s little patience for the slow build. Selling books is selling excitement. Capture the reader on the first page and you’ve sold the book.

What I’m noticing as a reader, however, is how many books start off great and completely fall apart. Sometimes the first three chapters promise something that vanishes or was never really there. And the second half of the book is frequently terrible. To the point that I wonder if the editor ever read the second half.

And then I wonder, do they care? Is the market such that all the emphasis is on selling that book. Mabye it’s become immaterial whether the reader will then buy or borrow that author again.

Not that I’m not playing the game. My book is one of those where the exciting action kicks in around Chapter 3 or 4. I felt like the slow build-up was important, but I’m capitulating. I’ve condensed 60 pages into 30. No point, I figure, in holding onto the perfect opening to an unpublished book.

A lot of what goes in that kind of slash-and-burn edit is description. A (terrible) contest judge recently slammed me for too much description, which she compared to Anne Rice. The judge invited me to recall how much people hated how she’d describe the wallpaper. I’m thinking, uh, Anne Rice? Multi-million dollar best-seller, Anne Rice? One of my favorite authors before she went off the deep end, Anne Rice? Oh no, don’t write like she does!

But, I concede to the gateway and have cut cut cut. My delete key is dripping black font. I really hope, though, that the rest of the story satisfies. Perhaps a lean, mean beginning can lead to a meaty repast with a lovely, fatty, overblown dessert at the end. In a room with gold, flocked wallpaper…

Lifetime Warranty

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About two years ago, I bought a fancy, wheeled laptop bag. In fact, it was October, 2006. I know this because I recently had to look up my receipt for proof of puchase.

After much researching, I settled on this lovely leather bag from McKlein. In this great burgundy color — just say no to black luggage. Plus they had a great reputation and a lifetime warranty. Sign me up.

Everywhere I dragged it, which is a lot of places when you fly once or twice a month, people complimented me on my bag. It has all kinds of wonderful features.

Except that the teeth in the zippler tore out. Everything else about the bag is perfect. The leather looks new; the wheels are barely dinged. But it no longer zips. Which is problematic, especially when you go to lift it into the overhead bin and everything in the bag dumps out on your head. Yes. This really happened to me. And nice nearby businessmen helped me pick up all my stuff and didn’t even laugh at me. To my face.

I looked up what to do online, which involved sending in information like my proof of purchase so I could get some kind of trouble ticket and go from there. Naturally I procrastinated at this point, which is almost certainly what they hope you’ll do.

But after slogging around Delaware lopsided, weighed down with my shoulder-strap bag, (I can only carry it on one shoulder — it falls right off the other. Why? Why? Why?) I bit the bullet and engaged in the process.

I don’t have to tell you the details. You already know how this goes. The email exchange. The photos of the damage. The email I finally receive:

I have advise my boss regarding your damage item she has determined that the
item is not repairable the estimate cost to repair the item is $100.00.

Never mind the broken English — I love the whole Orwellian view of repairability. So after I asked which it was, repairable for $100 or not repairable? and she responded that I was correct, I volleyed back with a challenge to explain why the clearly inferior zipper construction doesn’t fall under their lifetime warranty covering materials and workmanship.

Yeah, we know what’s coming next. But I’m kind of entertained to see what excuse they’ll give. The real question is: do I pay $100, plus shipping two ways, I presume, to repair a two-year-old $200 bag? Or do I just pay less money for an inferior bag that I can count on falling apart in two years also, but that I won’t have invested so much confidence in?

I wish they wouldn’t bother with the warranty that guarantees nothing. Perhaps I’ll look for the bag with truth in advertising: “This bag will last two years in reasonable condition, at which point the wheels will fall off and it will explode in the overhead bin, causing your overstressed fellow passengers to throw you out the emergency exit at a low enough altitude to kill you but not suck them out the door also, at which point you will no longer need a laptop bag.”

I’d buy that one.

The Movie and the Mirror

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Laramie has one movie theater.

To speak of. There’s actually a second one, but they show the $2 movies and the every-other Sunday film series movies that come out on DVD a week later in an ancient and virtually unheated venue. I kid you not — people bring blankets with them. It’s not a cosmopolitan town.

So, the real movie theater has six screens and if we’re lucky, they’ll slip an Academy Award nominee in with the flicks intended to entice the high school and college crowd. Six screens is a big step up for us, because there used to be only two and now the one side that was split into four parts has stadium seating. Big excitement for us.

But the bathrooms are exactly the same as when I first moved to town, exactly 20 years ago last August. This means I’ve been dashing out of movies to pee in the exact same stall (second one down, because the first is for handicapped access) since I was 21 years old. The wall of mirrors over the sinks have reflected the last 20 years of aging, and the full length mirror to the right of the door has provided proof that I weigh 20 pounds more than I did then. I would say a pound a year isn’t that bad, but it was a fair amount more than that for a while and is thankfully back down again.

It’s funny — I like the image in the mirror now more than I did then. Any of those thens, really. I dashed out of “Taken” last night (the best of the six possibililties and pretty decent, though I was pouting over not getting to see “The Wrestler” or “Slumdog Millionaire”) to hit the loo and thought of this on the way out. Sunday night, I’ve been cleaning house all day: I did not cute up to go to the movies. But in my jeans, sweater and make-up free state, I looked just fine as I opened the door to head back in. I didn’t even pause to pivot for the critical side-angle/backside evaluation.

Which is what it comes down to, I suppose. Greater generosity with myself. In fact, I forgot at first to pay attention to the mirror, until it hit me that we’re moving in six months. I’ll lose my chronicle of appearance. All those me’s will stay behind, recorded in the women’s restroom mirrors. Grad student, young stepmother, older stepmother. The me of today. The me yet to come won’t be seen in those mirrors.

There’s something to be said for that.

Good-bye Lucy

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On Friday, my mom had her Himalayan cat put to sleep. This sort of event occurs regularly through our lives, marking the eras in 10, 15, or 20 year increments — less if illness strikes. One beloved pet dies and we acquire another. For a family like ours, who keeps cats, we might have five or six primary cats through our own lives.
Lucy was 16 and it was her time.
My mom posted Lucy’s obituary via email:

Dear Friends,

It is with sadness that I tell you that Lucy had to be put to sleep yesterday. She was apparently suffering from kidney failure which went undetected until it was too late to cure her.

She had a very full sixteen years and got to experience travels to many fun destinations including Dauphin Island, New Orleans, and Tucson. She probably logged more car miles than most other felines. She was a comforting companion to Leo during his illness and a highly adaptable friend to me. She will be missed.

Leo was my stepfather, who died a few years ago. Lucy loved Leo, the boyfriend who followed and my mom’s new husband, Dave. She was always a man’s cat, loving my mom’s men as she loved them.
So Lucy’s passing now marks the end of this 16 year increment. Now begins a time when my mom has no cats. This is new, too. Dave has said they can get another, which is lovely of him. But she wants a little time of driving back and forth without dragging a cat along. I can’t help but think that the next cat will see my mom through the last increment of her life.
Or maybe there will be two more. I find myself adopting the leapfrogging cat method. Our two cats are 12 and 3. While this muddies the life increments, it’s also an insurance policy against being completely bereft.
I’m big on ensuring I won’t be completely bereft.

Travel weary

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I’m tempted to say I failed.

I certainly didn’t succeed in following my intentions, so that amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?

I really wanted to be able to continue to post to the blog while I was on work travel. Clearly I didn’t. You can see my pleased, self-satisfied (a number of people have used that phrase to describe me lately and I’m wondering how to take it) post from the plane on Monday. Then nothing nothing nothing for the next four days. I got home at about 1 o’clock in the morning Thursday night, slept in and worked all day catching up. No 1K words, no blog posts. So much for resolutions.

I really thought I might post pithy observations about being in Dover, Delaware. About their coastal farmlands and abandoned malls. But I didn’t. Penelope Trunk says your day job can’t suck away your creative energy, but I’m not sure I agree. When I’m on my work trips, they drain me dry. I get back to the hotel in the evening with nothing left. Often I can’t even summon the energy just to read. Only inane television can hold my attention until I fall asleep. I don’t understand why.

But, as I’ve broken into this new schedule gradually, so I’ll try with this. I’m home this week, then off to Raleigh/Durham the week after. Cross your fingers and look for the daily blogs!

A Wing and a Blog

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I’m posting from the airplane today.

Well, more precisely, I’m drafting this on the airplane. I believe, though, that the day is not far off that we will be able to post to our blogs and continue our internet connectedness from the air. Yes, I’ve become one of those business travelers you see, who pull out their laptops as soon as they give the go ahead to use electronic devices that don’t broadcast a signal. Have you noticed that some of the newer airplanes have a little light for electronic device use now? The light-up icons for seatbelts and our symbiotic technology now displayed where the cigarette emblem used to be.

I have no idea what the implications of that may be. Perhaps we’ve only traded one kind of encroaching cancer for another. Feeding our lives into just another bad habit.
But it makes a difference to me, as much as I travel for the day job, to keep up with my connectedness. I wrote my 1K first, cozied into my cocoon of Bose headphones playing the very same writing music as I play in my skylit studio at home. (There’s a bit of my ritual, replicated there.) It feels good to have that done. My numbers safely recorded for the day. Then I replied to a few emails, set aside because other things had been on fire. They can leisurely wend their way over the ‘net when I land.

Now for this. As much as I ranted about computers disrupting my ritual, here the technology allows me to bring pieces of my life with me. Everything I accomplish here in 5C is one less thing I’ll have to sandwich elsewhere into my life.

Not a bad deal at all.