NORTH DAKOTA!

I love the Plains. They are so beautiful and I feel good in the wide open. This year, the plains are green, the rains have come. My father claims it is because he is building a house. If he didn't need to worry about materials being soaked, they'd still have drought.

We went to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Along with one of the worst miniature golf courses we had ever seen (buckled carpet, large chipped concrete elk, bear, and buffalo hazards) there were wonderful real animals.

SIGNAGE ON THE ROAD

One of the interesting things about being on the road is the intersection of what one is supposed to look at, and the obtrusive signage beside it.


What looms larger? Monument Valley or the Monument to that city of momentary desire-Las Vegas?



Then there's the signs that explain things. Tell you what you see at places like Mesa Verde.


Here's a sign-Lewis and Clark were here...and enough vandals to make it necessary to encase the signature under glass.


This sign was our all time favorite. What, exactly were they getting at? Were they cautioning against leaving your personal animal remains, or were they assuring that if you were to camp here you would not be fussed by the animal remains the last camper so rudely left behind?

MORE WYOMING-THE RANCH

This guy, by the way, sat on the dashboard the entire trip, once I had found him on the sidewalk in San Diego. We thought he was black, but after we came home I peeled him off the dash of the rental car and stuck him in my pocket... my jeans went through the wash...and the lizard came out green. Ew.


Here's one of my favorite places on the ranch. A high meadow on the North side.

Louis looking South, the Missouri Buttes in the background.


The whitetail deer did not appreciate our company.


Sam scratched the outline on his hand on the name rock. The first time he did it, his hand was sooo tiny.

Next stop- North Dakota

THE WOMBAT

Next stop the ranch where one of the most surprisingly...large...cats I've ever seen resides.
Here's another view, in case you don't believe me. Funny thing, she is not at all aggressive about eating. You don't see her eat much, actually. She's a get up at midnight and eat a box of twinkies (bowl of kibble) kind of cat, I guess.

For Jenn's Mama and Janet Riehl

Here are the Scottsdale boots, JM. I love the stitching on the toe (which matches my dress) and note; pegged soles!

Janet Riehl (see her blog www.riehlife.com) asked about Ucross. To go on a writer's residency at the Ucross Foundation is like heading to heaven to write. It is beautiful. A working ranch out by the Powder River Breaks with big sky, and not only ranch animals to paint thumbnails of in one's journal (I've got a notebook full of these) but lots of other fauna as well...including fawns, though in Nov, when I went, they're hardly fawns anymore.

Ucross provides their prose writers, poets, filmakers, screenwriters, ceramicists, painters, bookartists, woodworkers (etc) with a beautiful place to sleep (private rooms) a place to work (I had an office downstairs from my bedroom with windows on three sides, bookcase, desk, chairs, couch) and GREAT meals.

One of my favorite parts of the day was just before noon when a sack lunch (and what a sack lunch!) was delivered outside my door. There was no knock, no call because at Ucross everyone is VERY careful to allow the people to work, careful about privacy, noise, needs...
All the artists at Ucross met for dinner. The chef (I hope Ruthie is still there) provided a fantastic meal which was enjoyed amidst lots of laughter and conversations. The artists washed up afterwards and then either went back to their offices to work or had a drink and played pool, watched TV, checked their e-mail, made phone calls. I heartily recommend applying for a residency if you can manage it at all, for on top of the good food, the artists, the digs, I also got a huge amount of work done on Turpentine, the novel that was published a little less than a year ago.

JACKALOPE! FRIES! Douglas, Wyoming.

After Scottsdale we headed toward Wyoming. When we got to Douglas I told Sam and Louis about "The Koop" where my mom had eaten as a kid when Bert would take her from the ranch into town. They had fries made from one continuous line of potato swiveled off the potato with a gadget and thrown into the deep fryer. After my mom grew up, had us, she took us there as well and we were amazed at the fries.
Louis and Sam and I drove into town, and there is was, THE KOOP. We went in and, alas, they were closing, but they assured me that yes, they still had those continuous fries.


Douglas also still has a giant jackalope.

SCOTTSDALE-I GOT NEW (OLD) BOOTS!

Here I am at the Mass booksigning in Scottsdale. What you can't see is that I've got on a GREAT pair of boots that I purchased for a ten dollar bid at the Western Writers of America Auction. They match my dress. What a deal.

Also there-my friend Loren Estleman signing his new book, "Gas City"-

-the wonderful Louis Warren (I got to sit by him because our names both start with W!) with his book, "Buffalo Bill's America"- Beside him (and beside me when I was sitting and not taking pictures) Max McCoy, "A Breed Apart." Max does underwater cave exploration in his non-writing time. He seemed so nice and not crazy, however, when talking to him. Go figure.

-the illustrious and prolific Johhny Boggs (Check out "The Hart Brand!")

-and my great pal, Deb Morgan (if you love mysteries and antiques, buy some of her books, "The Majolica Mysteries" available at Amazon) standing next to a smiling Tracy Hutton, wife of author/documentarian Paul Hutton. ("Phil Sheridan and his Army")

San Diego and Art

In San Diego we visited two wonderful artists, two wonderful friends, Gail Schneider and David Matlin. David is a poet and a novelist. Read "How the Night is Divided" (fiction) or "Vernooykill Creek" (Nonfiction).

Gail is a visual artist of great talent. She had a show at Soka University in Aliso Viejo. This is one of my favorite pieces, cast in concrete and polished.

This is another gorgeous head, glazed in terra sigalata, and raku fired.

I keep a close watch...Johnny's Star

Before leaving LA, we took a trip to Hollywood to meet friends for lunch. Walking to the restaurant I looked down and saw stars. Somehow I always expect the stars to be...showier, cleaner, maybe with a few actors milling around to give autographs. Instead there they are in a sidewalk. Being stepped on. Gum and grime abound, there are chips out of the sidewalk. Some of the stars are blank as if there is no more talent to fill them. I was glad to see Johnny Cash's star. He is someone who made art early, and continued to make art all the way to the end. I very much like his last album and it gives me hope that there is time to make things no matter the age.

Urban River, LA Style

The first stop on our trip was LA where we have a friend who is wildly talented and does fascinating things like write books (FLIGHT MAPS by Jenny Price) and give tours of the LA River to people like me who wondered why they had never seen the river if it runs right through LA. Well, because it is hurried elsewhere, run along concrete causeways where it often disappears to nothing, and dumped into the ocean.

Parts of the River, however, look downright idyllic. One would think they were in the country considering the reeds and the ducks, the egrets, the soft rush of water. However if you look up, there's LA screaming along the banks, across the bridges.



Much of the river looks nothing like a river. Concrete pylons and walls enclose the river so that it looks more like run-off than anything.

It is a good place to shoot a movie, however. See Chinatown, Grease.

And, man, some of the tagging is gorgeous.

I'm back and you didn't even know I left

One of the first things I did when we got home is give the guys haircuts. Not that I minded their long hair, I liked it. It is summertime,however, and they wanted short hair. So, I got out the scissors, the clippers, and cleaned them up, leaving enough hair on the floor to manufacture a cat.

Where were we? Three thousand miles worth of away. Penultimate destination-North Dakota. The new novel (full draft is finished!) required a visit. But I'll get to that later. As I said before, it is summertime, a period of travel, so I might just make this trip last for a month of blogging. First stop-the LA River.

YAY! UCROSS!

This is one of the really great things about being a writer. Writer's Residencies. I just heard that I get to go to Ucross once again. I began work on Turpentine the last time I was there and it was such a great experience, I've wanted to go back ever since. Ucross provides very nice rooms (bedroom and private study) delicious food prepared by a talented chef, lunch brought to your study every day and left quietly by your door as to not disturb, beautiful views and places to walk, and a number of fellow guests who are prose writers, poets, visual artists, film-makers, to talk to after hours.
You should apply.

roller derby for OBAMA

I went to see my darling niece chew up the competition at her roller derby bout in Seattle...(she is beautiful) and saw this button on this bag. May Obama be as successful in his bout as the Pink Pistols were in theirs!

edit, clarify, converge, clean-up, understand

Three chapters when one would do. Two scenes that are point for point alike, but set in different places in the novel. A character protests three times, four times... and all that nodding! I'm at the end of the novel, and more than anything else, I'm trying to clarify, simplify. The shadow on the edge, the out of focus figure, the attempt to see what's there (is it there?) by paring away the extra.

Protest

Standing in a crowd of people, coming to the line that the authorities say you must not cross. To acquiesce means your shout is not as loud, your message may not be heard. To go forward-risk arrest, injury, perhaps. It is a time in which a larger import, yet one distant, more abstract, is in conflict with the personal self. I don't want to get hurt, arrested. I don't even want to be rude.




Protesting is like voting, but corporeal. Standing in a crowd one easily recognizes you could go home and no one would even notice. Your body among all those bodies is negligible. However, it is the act of letting go of the ego, the insistence that only the recognition of the individual matters, that allows for the great movements of idea, of humanitarianism... and even evil. The great power is the balance between the individual and the crowd; to both think for oneself and be willing to act, vote, protest, arm and arm with many.

Closer, closer, closer...

I am at the last stages of the book. This is what I keep telling myself. However I seem to be nearing completion in a geometric progression. Once I was a hundred miles away, then fifty, then twenty five....... four inches away, then two, then one, then a half...a sort of sisyphus of the written word.

On a positive note, I did get out and run this morning before the deluge hit. It is raining right now, likely won't stop for days, but on my run I managed to jog some ideas loose and am ready to remedy a few snags in the novel. Sometimes running works that way for me, I solve problems. Sometimes I run and the only thing that goes through my head is how slow I am and wondering if I could just turn around and go home now. Here's to problem solving and that half inch closer to finishing a book.

Surfing Stress Away

A friend of mine, when stressed at work, surfs a site that has pictures of cute animals. I sometimes window shop at e-bay. Typing in some odd combination such as "vintage metal carrots" and seeing what comes up. But lately I've found another stress reliever-hitting the next blog button on blogger.com. You never get to the same blog twice and the blogs are so happy.

People post photographs of birthday parties or the new car, Grandma's perm or the beach vacation. Today I found a Japanese surfer on the driving range with his Dad and walking his dog, a guy in Ecuador cutting a hole into the ceiling so he can use the attic for a room, and The Vetrans de Catluya who have their futball pictures posted with captions like "Vamos Chavales!" "Nooooooooooo!" "Uuuuuuuuuuuy!" and "Autografos? Venga trae ese papel"

On the Mamalaya site you can see the baby dresses she makes with thai silk, fully lined in chiffon, net slips, lace headbands- while in Indanapolis Ayden is having a dinosaur egg pinata and a dinosaur cake at his birthday.

I read that Wyloozka means cool in Polish, and a Greek woman traveling in Malaysia with a Croat met up with some German guys who told them if you eat Durian and drink alcohol it could kill you. The world is suddenly close and familiar while at the same time fantastic, huge.

And while tool use was once the thing that separated us from other animals, I think a nice human trait is that people from North Africa to Iceland take pictures with friends, arm in arm, smiling for the camera, throwing hang ten, peace signs or bunny ears.

Spring hopes eternal

I keep saying the next book will be a comedy. Spending so much time in the one I am currently writing- "The Kandee Widows"- set in North Dakota right after the first world war, I feel down. I want an escape. I want to escape.

Maybe the real trouble is that it is almost springtime. Having made it through winter, one wants the world to look different, be different. Warmer, better, a different challenge than those failed before. A challenge suffused with hope. Most emigrants left their countries in the spring hoping for something better. They would settled down in a false hopeful green of that season; believing the grass will always be this high, this lush, the freshets ever flowing, the winds balmy.

We've been in our house for almost nine years now. I have never lived in a single house this long. I wish we could move. Plan a new garden, tear a wall out, paint. It would be a better place where I'd grow sweeter tomatoes, I'd have space to plant more fruit trees. The house would be filled with light. My office would be warm. The geese would have their own pond instead of a bright blue wading pool.

It is warmer this week. Almost seventy degrees yesterday. I should be glad I only visit the North Dakota February in the novel and I get to step out into California sunshine and the days' lengthening light. I think it is the season, however, to be dissatisfied. It is time to travel, to look beyond, to hope for something better and to believe it exists.

Happy Valentine's Day!

celebration

I want to send a big YAHOO! out to friends of mine who have been lately smitten with success. I will dance the happy dance for Shawna Yang Ryan who was given the Carp(e) Libris Award for "Locke 1928", John Lescroart whose novel "The Suspect" won Best American Novel of 2007 from the American Author's Association , A.L. Kennedy who received the Costa Book Award for her novel, "Day," and friend Alex Webb, who has his work in this month's National Geographic Magazine. Celebrations abound! Further cause for celebration, that these are excellent people as well as excellent artists-- skill and heart don't always keep such good company. Cheers!

DENTIST

Reading the informed consent forms at the oral surgeons was the grown-up equivalent to sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room listening to some kid screaming their lungs out, obviously getting the world's most painful shot, the brother of which was waiting for you.

Every line on this form ended in "and/or death." And the middles weren't so good either. "...may hit a nerve causing nerve damage to the lip and cheek which may result in permanent disfigurement...and/or death."

I asked the surgeon how he was going to pull the tooth. The tooth had broken, so what was there to pull? He said that 'pulling a tooth' was actually a misnomer. Really, they do everything but pull. They pry, they push, they crack, they drill, they twist, anything to result in getting that tooth out..(and/or death)

He told me dry socket was a possible complication of tooth extraction, and if I had pain continuing past 2 days, I should come in again. I asked what IS dry socket anyway. It turns out dry socket has nothing to do with dry anything at all. It is a nerve reaction; the nerves become inflamed and cause a great deal of pain. Sometimes one loses the clot that was lodged in the hole the tooth left.

Ten minutes was the time an extraction usually took. I figured all I had to do was count to 600. I could get through practically anything if that's all it took. 600.

When I was all numbed up he took up a wicked looking, not quite miniature, prybar and I took up counting. I only got to 278. But I figured I counted to 278 about four times. "78, 79, 40, 41..."

I left the office a little more than an hour after going in, went home and slept all afternoon. "Pry, crack, twist, clot, socket', never reaching 600.

A NEW YEAR OF WRITING, begun

Yesterday I was pulling together images of the covers that never were for a presentation I will be giving for the OLLI group in Davis. I think that one of the surprisingly difficult things I've encountered having a novel published is trying to keep up a writing schedule while keeping up a publicity schedule as well. I would not want to let either go, but the two pressures feel sometimes like children with sibling rivalry. As soon as I get busy with one, the other demands attention.

Eileen Rendahl (chick-lit writer extraordinaire) and I took a writing weekend to try to catch up on the writing part of things. We went to Richmond. Got a room at the Marriot. Ate at Chevvy's one night, and ate chocolate almonds, cheese, crackers, roasted and heavily salted almonds, Good and Plenty's (that's me, Eileen doesn't share my love of licorice), bread and drank wine the rest of the time. We got a lot done.

I enjoy writing with friends. Shawna Ryan (Locke 1928) and I often write together, more often in writing sprints (see her blog for a wonderful description of a writing day for Shawna in particular and just a great blog generally)

Eileen and I usually write in a marathon. Every time I slow and think I can't type another word, I hear her tapping away and I sigh and keep at it. She says the same goes for her, but I think, in actuality, she is a robot. Nothing stops her.