pomegranate

A Story of 2005

So, I was driving home tonight from the brand new Safeway Super Store, thinking about dressed up pigs.  They're very cute, but you're not going to mistake them for super models.  But I did have my cat's preferred brand of litter, two bags, in my trunk, and for that I would be forever grateful.

For some reason, while I drove, I thought of a story and I decided it was perhaps my favorite story of 2005, and I might have even written it down here before, but here it is. It's springtime, and we're on a cruise.  Actually we're at a port, passing a souvenir stand, and I spy what seems to be the most ridiculous shirts I've ever seen in my life. They were so ridiculous that I would be too embarrassed to write down what they said.  It's an opportunity here to use your imagination.  And I said to my friend, "I don't see how that stand can stay in business.  I can't imagine anyone ever buying that shirt."

We walked back on to the ship and wandered over to the bar.  There were three guys already there, each one wearing the ridiculous T shirt.  We sat near them.  They had apparently been there for a while.  I heard them ask the bartender who I had really grown to like over this cruise., "What would you do if I jumped over the bar and took one of those bottles?"

The bartender's name was Derek.  Every week, going from America to Mexico and back again, Derek experienced a time change.  He said after this tour, he planned to go into management.  He would stay with the cruise line, but from the distance of an office. 

At this moment, I watched him as he calmly addressed the questioner in the silly shirt. "Do you know what a brig is?" he asked.  The men said not a word.  Then Derek explained to them that it was a holding facility on the ship for people who break the law, and once they got back to our country, the authorities would be notiified, and then they would take care of the matter.

The men seemed to have lost several drinks from those words.  The one who asked said okay, and they quietly turned around and left. It was one of those moments plucked out of a hat that refused to be anything but in the top of the heap when I considered my favorite stories of the year.

The Big Idea

I told my friend, Miriam Engelberg , today why I liked her writing so much. "It's because it's personal," I said, "but you connect it to a big idea."

Miriam has a book coming out in 2006.  She's a Harper Collins writer now.  It's one of those infinitely cool facts that should be burned on a wall somewhere.  And if I was good with a torch, I'd be the woman to do it.

I had come to this realization after feeling burnt by personal essays lately.  My favorite form, but the thing about is if there isn't some grand notion attached somewhere, it just reads like somebody else's notes to themselves, and I end up often feeling like, "Why are you telling me this?  What's the point?"

But Miriam,when she talks about her work, she'll present it as an idea.  And it's often a concept slightly askew but so right at the same time, and then in the next sentence, she'll attach it to her life.  And it's like as natural as breathing to her, that one-two step, that gene that so many of us, perhaps myself included, certainly on many occasions, seems to lack.  She's got it down, and it's just the most awesome, gracious thing.

You can see her work at her Web site   I am so lucky that she's my friend.

Cannery Row

December is a time for reading.

I was an English major in college, and often that feels laughable to me, because I'm not that well versed in the classics.  How can I have majored in literature and not have read the big books?  I tell myself it's because I focused on the Lost Generation, which I kind of did.  I say that I also majored in French, which is true, but I can't remember any of those big books either, except there at least I know I read Sartre and Camus and Moliere and Flaubert, but I can only remember Trivial Pursuit like pieces from each.  Certainly nothing that would fill up a blue book any more.

So, I went to Hawaii once and my friend read Cannery Row on the plane.  And it seemed to me that he read it so thoughtfully and carefully and then he lent it to me, and I thought inside, "No, you can't lend me this book.  I'm a fraudulent English major." So, I ended up picking it up and then misplacing it over and over again for a year.  I think I started this book over five times, and  it's a slim book.  But that's not a bad thing, because it's also a truly wonderful book.  It's one of those books that reads poetic, where the language is so beautiful, and a lot of the beauty is from its simplicity and lack of pretension, and a lot of it is also from the heartfelt nature of the writing.  It's a book that tracks many characters.  Every chapter reads like a story.  Everyone comes out good, even when they botch things up, or even when they are looking to take advantage, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.  No one is criticized.  They're all looked upon lovingly.  It's easy to read this book and imagine knowing these people.  It's one of those books that when you put it down, you feel good about humanity.  How often does that happen?

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

This was a case of reader's remorse.  I had enjoyed "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" so much that I felt certain that I would love any book of essays that David Sedaris wrote.  But I really didn't like this book. At first, I thought there should have been more editorial interference, that the problem with these pieces were that they weren't fully pieces, that someone needed to push Sedaris and say, "They're not done.  These are nice little seeds of ideas, but they're not going anywhere yet.  Keep working."  Then I wondered if I read "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" again now, if I would enjoy it as much I had when I had read it several years ago.  In this book, as I continued to read, I grew more and more uneasy.  It's that "writer talking about his or her life" concern.  When are you talking about your stuff and when are you crossing lines?  To me, the stuff Sedaris wrote about his family was mean.  It got in the way of my reading, because it felt unfair and something that shouldn't be put down on a page.   And often when I felt he wasn't being mean, I thought he was immature.   There wasn't any take aways from this for me, although I can remember two I loved from his past book.  One was the frustration of being an older American person in France, trying to learn the language, and not being able to remember the gender of words.  It's something that if you grow up as a kid in that country, it's just the way it is and you know it.  A chair is feminine; a cat is masculine.  C'est ca.  As an adult, it makes no sense.  I loved that, and also the notion of going to a foreign country and spending your time watching American movies.  That's something I've done, and something that I could see myself doing again, and I thought it was a quirky, interesting thing to note.   Those were two things that I remembered from his last book that still stay with me.  Would the rest?  I don't know.  But  I didn't like this book at all, and that so surprised me.

The Cat Theory

My latest theory on life is that things generally go well when I treat people like cats. I don't know if I was born into this world feeling this or whether it's something I just decided as a child, but long ago, I realized that for me, cats are divine creatures. That I was lucky to spend time in their company, that I enjoyed their companionship. That they are loving and loyal souls. That we sometimes both need space. That we needed to learn each other's language. That it's surprisingly easy to figure it out with the desire to know and the willingness to learn and to listen. That there are still boundaries set, decisions made. But the time is often this communion, where another's divinity is acknowledged and honored and a soul is seen as a soul.

75% Done

In the end of November, I made a bold statement, which at the time felt like a random comment made while drinking Starbuck's coffee. I was in my friend's truck, and I turned to him and said, "I'm 75% done with my Christmas shopping." A few days earlier, I had run through my list and shopped online, because the energy of most stores and parking lots during the holiday season make me want to cocoon even more than I usually want to cocoon.  So, I had given it some thought and purchased things, and now I was 75% done, or so I said. But then things happened.  Like I remember that last year, I had bought small gifts for my friend's cats, one of which was a tremendous success, the catnip mice, and now I'm kicking myself, because the store of the catnip mice is right across the street from one of my client's offices, and I had just been there to drop off some work, but I hadn't thought of the cats and their mice. Or there was the potluck gift gathering where this year, we actually created gift lists for each other.  I think it was because we had missteped so terribly with each other the year before.  These gifts were actually in the 25% that I had factored in as not getting.  But then I went to the event, feeling good about what I had gotten for everyone, only to discover that they had each gotten me several things.  It reminded me of those birthday parties where people say, "No gifts," but then everyone shows up with one.  And no one had ever said "only get one gift," but somehow that's what I thought, and it was one of those moments where I wondered, "Where did everyone figure this out and I didn't?"   And today I find out that I will be seeing more friends before Christmas, and the other friends will be there, so perhaps I can get them a small gift or three.   It seems I'm permanently set at 75%.

Moneyball

As an A's fan, it's hard to believe that I'm so late to the party in reading this book.  But I did indeed just finish it and learned many things.  Such as I never knew that Billy Beane had been slated to be such a successful ballplayer.  And I was one of those fans who listened to Joe Morgan and wished that the A's would play more small ball, without  ever realizing that there was in fact this whole rationale about the importance of outs, and how sacrifices such as bunts and hit and run and stealing a base don't fit into that whole approach. 

And after reading the book, the whole approach made sense, although I have to say that I still like to see small ball.  I still like the strategy.  Although I understand the philosophy, the notion of just wanting guys who can slug and who know the strike zone and can get on base just seems so limited to me still in my heart, although my mind now knows that the numbers back them up.    It's something that I've always just attributed before to the A's low budget, but now after reading this book, I realized that no, what they know so far statistically is that offense matters more than defense--at least they can measure it more effectively up to this point--and so if you have to make a choice, you choose offense.

It reminds me of this one time, years ago, when I saw Billy Beane at spring training, and I yelled, "Billy, get rid of Rich Becker."  Becker was our centerfielder at that point, he just butchered the job in the field.  Billy stopped in his tracks and said, "He went 3 for 4 today."  And now reading this book, I truly get it. It's an interesting book, one that I would recommend to people who weren't even interested in the A's, who didn't even like baseball, because there's a lot of great human stories in it, and then there's also a lot of great stories about not considering humans as humans.  After reading this book, I would never want the third base coach, Ron Washington, to ever become manager, because he's old school and he would hate being in a system where the front office would basically want to make his decisions based on stats spit out of a computer.  It's a book about taking all the stories you were ever told about baseball, all the romantic notions that you thought that you could see with your own eyes, and tossing them aside.  It's about people who were considered losers by many who became surprisingly effective.  It's just a great book.

The Power of Intention

This month has not gone according to my expectations. December is traditionally slow for transcriptionists. I planned on learning more about computers and creating spreadsheets and reading technical books and ironing. I have a lot of clothes that need to be ironed. And the month started out according to my thoughts. No work, and so I turned on the TV and contemplated bringing out the ironing board, and there was Wayne Dyer. I had just been thinking about his book, The Power of Intention, which is one of my favorite books, a touchstone for me that I had lent out, and it had not come back, and I had been thinking about whether I wanted to call it in again, or whether it could actually just end up being a gift. So, I turn on the TV, and there's Wayne Dyer talking about the power of intention. It turned out to be pledge time for this public television station, and I ended up making a pledge and so I'll get another copy of the book and also help public television. It was a marathon show, three hours, I think, and now that some weeks have passed--the day after I watched it, work started pouring in, and so it feels like I've been too busy to think about things he said, but I remember a few. One was to wish others well, to treat people kindly and sincerely want the best for them. Another one was to really imagine what it would be like to be where you want to be. Another was to meditate. Those are all I can remember, but it was so helpful, and it truly turned this month around.

Behind the Booth

The other night, my friend and I presided over a merchandise booth.

We know these musicians who when they come to town, they ask us to do this for them.  We get in for free, and they give us free swag, and then we work.  There's CDs and T shirts and fashion consultations and music discussions.  It seems that once you're behind the booth, you exude an authority that goes away when you enter real life again.  So, I was asked often my opinon on which CD to buy and what size shirt to get.  And I dispensed with my thoughts freely, because there was often a line of people waiting, and hey, once I'm behind the booth, I feel free with my thoughts.

It's kind of a fun thing to do, although you watch the concert in a divided manner, not sitting down, standing up near the booth, because a surprising number of people will come by during the show.  They'll hear a song they really liked, and then want to know what it was and where they could find it.  One woman left her credit card with me.  It was the dangdest thing.  She said, "I'll be back" and I was new with the machine and still kind of focused on just the operational aspect of things, and luckily I saw her talking with a friend, because then when she did not return and was longer in my field of vision, I went and spoke to her friend, telling her,  "I have your friend's credit card.  This is not a good thing."  So she said she'd tell her friend, but this is from someone who's been parked on a bar stool all night.  I had to really stop worrying about it, although I first discussed the option of going upstairs and trying to find her myself, which my friend wisely advised against.  So, I listened to more music and held T shirts up to people and pushed my favorite CD on anyone who asked, and they did. And the woman did eventually return, and I kept my small lecture to myself, because this music does not go well with small lectures.  It would take away from the beauty occurring.  All in all,  It was a pretty fun night.

My Buddy

My friend emailed me the other day and said, "Here's a picture of your buddy."

I thought it was going to be George Clooney.  The other day, my friend had sent me a video clip of "my buddy" and it had been George talking about oil policies and his new film.  But this picture was actually of an animal, of a llama, to be exact, who lives down the way from my friend.  He's part of our walking route.  Sometimes he's standing up by the fence.  Sometimes he's further back in the grass.  Occasionally he's sleeping, but not often.  It seems he likes to keep his eye on us.  He has this cranky exterior, which I just adore.  He just makes me laugh, because he acts so annoyed, and yet he seems to enjoy our company.  I mean, I'm not foolish enough to try to pet him and I wouldn't offer him any food, because he's not my animal, and he could bite me.  But in this picture, he seems so happy to be a model for a moment. When I looked it, after laughing, I said, "My gosh, he's striking a pose!"  He is sweetly photogenic, and I am so happy to have his  picture.