100 words a day

I’ve never seen magic eye pictures.  Everybody’d rave about hidden images, and I’d stare cross-eyed, feeling stupid and left out.  Same thing happens with poetry.  So in class when we discussed John Wieners’ A Poem for Trapped Things (http://stevesilberman.com/celestial/wieners/trapped.html), I listened, awed by brilliant interpretations while questioning the BS factor.  When we got to the last line, one student said the poet was horrified, another claimed state of amazement, while still another argued he was suppressing further articulation.  My favorite was when one guy said, “Or maybe he’s just trying to make sure the butterfly didn’t fly into his mouth.”

I wake up early Saturday.  After making eggs, a fruit plate and toast, my husband drops me off and wishes me luck.  I’ve been a student many times, albeit not recently, and I still have the jitters.  The class is 35 or so, young and less young, writers and poets.  The woman next to me smiles and asks what I write.  She writes children’s fiction but like me was here to focus on creative nonfiction.  Six hours of orientation, introductions, writing exercises and craft seminars later, I am fired up about the next two years.  Gotta go do my homework!

I have a gripe with the USPS that’s not worth doing much about except write 100 words. Two weeks ago I sent a handmade card to an in-state relative. Absent-mindedly, I put a 41-cent stamp. Five days later, the card was returned to me with a stamp of a big pointy finger and notation underneath that 1-cent postage was due. Out of 1-cent stamps and too lazy to get one, I stuck a 39-cent stamp on the envelop, thinking 41 + 39 is enough and then some. Today, the card is returned again. I guess I need a new envelope.

We regularly get a full night’s sleep.  We have fruit, cereal, and toast for breakfast.  We make dinners that contain most of the food groups.  I am the one who always insists on maintaining these habits, but when my husband is away on business this week, I averaged six hours a night.  I start the day empty and don’t pack lunch for work.  In the evening, I am too lazy to cook alone, so I scrounge around for leftovers, and when that fails, I make cup noodle.  Good thing he came home today.  I am no good at being single. 

The saying goes that family is a blessing.  Recently I’ve been reminded how bad it can be when this is not true.  My in-laws have a habit of throwing curve balls at us.  Sometimes I manage to laugh it off.  This one involves demand for money, insults to my husband and me, and broken relationships that we can’t fix. 

He says he has to learn to communicate better and I have to learn to be as cool as a cucumber.  What I don’t understand is why being sincere, honest and respectful is not enough when it comes to these people?

My friend K is a terrific, thoughtful Asian guy.  He’s seeing this new gal, and things are going well.  She admitted recently that she was reluctant to date him at first because of the stereotype that she and all her other Caucasian girlfriends have.  Asian American males have three characteristics: (1) can’t drive, (2) cheap, and (3) has a little you-know-what.
  
“Well, did you prove her wrong?”  I ask. 
 
“Yeah, she said she was happy to discover that I am not (1), (2) or (3).”
 
So that’s at least two I know who don’t fit the stereotype.  Spreading the word.

At  7, my running buddy and I ride the crowded #1 bus downtown to join some 60,000 for the 12 kilometer annual SF race.  By 9:15 I had seen: about 10 Elvises, half a dozen Vikings, numerous pink tutus half of which worn by hairy men, flight attendants with rolling luggage packed with beer cans, the Olympic torch and its body guards, Adam and Eve, Juno,  15 men in their birthday suits (one of which unfortunately ran against the current) and one woman in hers.   The only things that bugged me were the countless tortillas that were tossed and wasted. 

Mellow Sunday afternoon, we are on the road in no particular hurry, but I am impatient.  We are stuck behind an old
Toyota sedan, going way too slowly.  I open my mouth to say something uncharitable about the gomer I imagine sitting behind that wheel, when I notice all his bumper stickers:

War is not the answer.

Love, love, love.  Love is all you need.

There is no way to peace, peace is the way.

Oh great, I think, slow, unoriginal and corny.  Then I read the words around his license plate: the closer you get, the slower I go.

Introductions during a new writing class, I am the last to go, after a woman writing a travel memoir, a short story writer who has been publishing consistently this year, and a playwright of twenty-some years, among others.  I mention humbly that I’m trying to write with more discipline, that I sometimes contribute to an online women’s magazine, and incidentally that one of my pieces was included in the May issue that came out today.  One woman asks me, “How much did they pay you for it?” The room stiffens, and I am filled with an intense dislike for her. 

I searched long and hard for the perfect bookcase on Craigslist.  Finding none, I followed up on a cute bedside table.  When my husband and I went to check it out, the young couple selling it was also selling a mahogany ladder bookshelf.  In the course of discussing properly assembly of the bookshelf, the conversation flowed easily about fair division of household labor, how we met and wed our spouses, our favorite wine country town, and the best $1.75 tacos in city.  We left laughing, with the bedside table, the shelves, and a dinner date next weekend with new friends. 

Sunny Friday afternoon, my sister and I chatter happily at the intersection when the girl approaches us.  She is twenty-something, casually dressed, and on the verge of tears. 

“I’m sorry, this is so embarrassing,” she says, “I’ve never done this.” 

She apologizes and stutters some more, before I finally make out that she’s in college up north, lost her wallet, and needs gas money to get home. I give her a twenty, my name and address. 

“You’ll get a check in the mail next week, I promise.” 

Walking away, I ask my sister, “Was I being kind or just stupid?”

Saturday morning farmer’s market, my husband is in charge of fruits for the week and I the veggies.  I finish earlier than usual and spot him at one of the fruit stalls, paying for two large bags of oranges.  A young woman gives him change and a demure smile.  She brushes her blond curls away from her pretty eyes that say everything.  In his usual formal and quiet way, he thanks her politely. 

After we walk away, I tease, “She’s real friendly.” 

“She’s real friendly with everybody.”

“You sure?”  I’m tickled.

“Yeah, with everybody who spends $30 a week there.”

I make an effort to bring lunch to work.  Usually leftovers from dinner the night before, nothing fancy, but saves time and a few bucks.  Yesterday, as I am eating it and enjoying a little down time, a co-worker comes by.

“What smells so good?”  She asks. 

“It’s just sautéed whole Brussels sprouts and a chicken apple sausage over rice,” I say. 

She looks at it, tilts her head, and goes, “Oh my god, that looks totally phallic.” 

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, I think.  That plus something else about her I won’t say. 

that bug me:

I have an unhealthy attitude about being sick.  For ten days, I’ve been nursing a minor cold by taking walks, sweating it out in yoga, pushing hard at work, making plans business as usual, and generally bulldozing through each day.  I don’t take it easy, subscribing to the belief that I’m fine as long as it can’t get me down.  This morning at 3:23, waking up for the fourth time by my own coughs, I reevaluate my strategy.  As my husband brings me hot tea and rubs my back, I think maybe it’s time to give my body some sympathy. 

All week my husband’s been sick.  He spent last weekend in bed while I made him chicken noodle soup and ginger and brown sugar tea.  By Monday, despite being well enough to be up and about, he stayed in bed.  After being nurse and enduring sleepless nights with him coughing, I was grumpy.  I said, stop being lame and get better!  He sniffed, coughed and looked at me, eyes all watery.  I said, I’m sick of your being sick, especially when I’m never sick.

Today, he wakes up all better, and I wake up with a frog in my throat.

Check Yahoo mail.  Check Gmail.  Check 100wordsaday.  Stare out the window.  Flip through daily planner.  Read something for inspiration.  Use the lint roller where the cat just was.  Clean the litter box.  Wash hands.  Read label on tube of hand cream.  Sit back down.  Check Yahoo mail.  Check Gmail.  Check Craigslist for dream freelance project seeking stories about spas in
Tahiti, all expenses paid.  Resist the urge to nap.  Stare at the empty page.  Breathe.  Begin typing.  Get bombarded by Radio Station K-FKD*, streaming AM/PM on crystal-clear brain waves, now playing “Your Writing is So Bad, Why Bother?”  Grimace.  Type.   

High on this gal’s list of least favorites is the annual checkup.  The exhibition, the cold examination room, the steel instruments, the brutish stirrups, and the impersonal fingers – being private, warm and fuzzy, she’s not a fan.

I take it like a woman.  Just when the worse is over, doctor orders a blood test for good measure.  Making it through the tying of the rubber strip, the rubbing alcohol, even the needle poke, it’s all good till I see the stained cotton ball. 

Finally, I wobble out, but not before the nurse gives me the receipt and a paper cut. 

I didn’t want to do it, but I was pressured into it.  My writing teacher said, “Why won’t you?  Give me one good reason.”  I didn’t have one, other than the fact that I was being chicken.

All day, my palms were clammy, and I was shaking, which didn’t help since my story was about someone with Parkinson’s disease.  But once I got up there, once I announced the title to the little crowd in that bookstore, I felt right.  It was a story I’d worked with for more than a year, and it was time I made it proud. 

It’s been a good week.  On Sunday, I receive a personal email from a professor at one of the two writing programs I applied to.  She offers me admission and includes specific, kind comments on my writing sample. On Tuesday, I get a call from the director of the same program offering me a fellowship.  Today, I have a voicemail from the other writing program.  The professor says he has good news for me and perhaps a little more good news on top of that.  Encouragement comes rarely during the solitary days of writing that seems to go nowhere.  Yay!

I stayed up late finishing Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.  It’s about a girl who is dying of leukemia and her sister who is genetically conceived to be her donor.  All in all, I didn’t love the book, mainly because the plot twists, multiple narrative points of view and heavy symbolism made me feel too obviously manipulated as a reader.  On the other hand, I did get sucked into the story.  After attempting a handful of short stories last month that went nowhere, I am appreciating how hard it is to write fiction that actually succeeds in telling a story.

Almost year round, my husband is a pleasing bedfellow.  But as the weather warms, I am waking up entrenched in his sweat.  So I swap out our down comforter for a flannel blanket.  Next morning, I wake up shivering after he’s burritoed himself.  I add one more blanket, but we still wake up chilled.  Finally, after adding a couple more blankets, we are covered and not overheating.  Last night, as he’s busy unfurling each blanket and tucking us in, my husband says to me, “I wish there was a way to get comfortable without having to make lasagna every night.”

Last year I turned down an opportunity.  Had I taken it, I’d likely be in a suit, conferencing with bilinguals about some multi-million dollar deal, perched on the 49^th floor of the fifth tallest building in the world.  I’d go home to TV and takeout.  Instead, I am at home in yoga wear, my feet firmly grounded, writing to a whistled song by the pressure cooker readying dinner for two.

Tomorrow, I see someone from that other world, just passing through.  I brace myself.  Good reasons keep me here, but I often wonder about that other fork in the road.

Yoga helps me, among other things, to focus, breathe, find balance and relax. 

A girlfriend and I try out a new early morning class.  In between the vinyasas and warriors, the thirty-something teacher has us swirling our wrists, swaying on hands and knees, pulsing the chatarangas, and undulating in bridge.  He demonstrates all this with his dancer’s body.   

“Feel the energy,” he says, “be alive in the celebration of your body.”  He intimates in his foreign accent. 

After class, it takes a few cups of tea before my friend and I are able to focus, breathe, find balance and relax.

I’ve never been much into online networking sites.  Email sucks enough of my time from actual face time.  I ignore invitations from Linked In, Myspace, Friendster.  Then I caved and set up a Facebook account.  It was an easy medium for sharing photos with overseas family without crashing my computer or theirs. 

Yesterday, I get a Facebook “poke” from a long lost childhood friend.  We were thrilled to find each other.  She reminded me about things that only she could.  I started remembering who I was and who I could be.  Maybe something real can come from being social online.

Yesterday, I had a vivid dream.  I dreamt that there were people all over my house, people I’d never met, and I was one of them.  We came bearing gifts.  One brought a white cat with black spots.  I woke up thinking about this cat.  I’d never seen such a cat in real life. 

Today, my sister thanks me for the birthday party I threw for her this weekend at my house.  She said that it made her happy that so many of her friends came.  She enjoyed playing charades, especially when someone pantomimed 101 Dalmatians, and she guessed it.  

I’m writing a story about a fishmonger.  It’s so bad, I stop.

Instead, I read a book.  It says:

You can dismiss miracles as coincidence or you can begin to label coincidence as miracle….expect to be supported and you will be.  Support can come from any quarter at any time….Sometimes it’s a timely hint…Sometimes it’s the “break” that gives us encouragement when we need it.   

Today, my sister says to me, “I got salmon, and the fish guy at the store was cute.”

“You mean fishmonger.”

“Is that what they’re called?”

I sit down and work on the story again.

My twenty-something sister just started seeing this nice guy.  They’re getting to know each other and holding hands. 

Mom calls midday, panic in her voice, for a favor:  “Will you do something for me, honey?  Can you talk to your sister about condoms?” 

My assurances that said topic is unnecessary and premature for this relationship fall on deaf ears.  She tumbles her way down an avalanche of what if’s and urges me to make this my number one priority. 

Finally, I say, “Alright, I’ll talk to her if you think that won’t up the ante.”  She quickly changes her mind.   

Miso’s got it made.  She sleeps in, enjoys readily available fresh water and kibbles, and wet food several times a week, gets brushed down after playtime every night.  All this, plus one gigantic living space with views of trees front and back and two adoring, gentle giants serving her paw to paw.  Almost everyday is a good day. 

Sunny morning, I wake up hopeful of spring and on a mission to clean.  Laundry, vacuum, dusting, and scrubbing.  When it’s all done, Miso sashays by with the air of being above it all.  I decide there’s just one more cleaning left. 

It’s raining heavily when I wake up this morning.  I tip toe downstairs, open the fridge, and take out a box.  My husband sits up sleepily when I present it to him.  When he sees the cupcakes – coconut sprinkles, chocolate frosting, and colorful swirls on top – he smiles like he’s turning six all over again.

Later, we get groceries at the farmer’s market. Rained out, there are few farmers and shoppers.  But there is one huge puddle and an ankle-biter.  She’s wearing a pink raincoat and red boots.  Jumping up and down, she splashes and laughs to her heart’s content. 

We catch up over lunch.  It was one of those days.  She says she’s going in circles and doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life.  Equally clueless, I eat my salad.  Maybe we’ve grown complacent, I say, maybe we should do more. 

My mother-in-law is well-educated, modern and attractive.  We get along, but we don’t share the same views on certain things that matter.  When I see her, once or twice a year, I find myself getting worked up over petty things.  It is ridiculous behavior, but I can’t help it.  I am still learning to understand her and relate in a way that makes sense.   

When she saw us off at the airport, she lost her usual grace and wept uncontrollably.  As I held her tightly and she me, I realized, for a brief moment, that none of our differences mattered.

Next morning, I am back at the beach.  Instead of playful, the tide makes aggressive advances.  My afternoon hunt had been relaxed, a delight over every find.  This morning, I am on a mission, and no shell seems good enough. 

After a futile hour, I retreat with only a couple finds.  I clean them at the basin, carefully this time.  In the bright day, something shimmers at the bottom.  Reaching in arm-length, I retrieve a shell, one of many from yesterday.  My hair and head get soaked, but I don’t care.  I laugh at myself as I recover them all. 

Sunset over Jimbaran Bay, and the Indian Ocean has me ankle-deep.  The tide is a tease.  In her flirtatious dance, I harvest colorful gems:  spotted cones, a purple hunchback with an orange eye, ridged fans.

At the edge of the beach, there is a deep stone basin trickling fresh water and a bamboo ladle for cleaning sandy feet.  I drop my treasures into a ladle of water.  My hand still over the basin, I notice an exotic multi-legged creature crawling up my arm.  I jump and by the time I hear my scream, the basin has swallowed the shells whole. 

Gifts have been prepared.  The bags are packed.  Miso will be taken care of.  We’re ready to go. 

Lately I’ve noticed that I give out my address way too often.  When I go to pay at a bookstore, I am asked for my address.  I am at a yoga studio purchasing a gift certificate, I am asked for my address.  Same goes for the yarn store, the skincare place, even a swim shop.  

Be great to figure out a polite, chill way to say “I don’t know you, what makes you think I want you to know where I live.  Quit asking like it’s perfectly acceptable and just let me pay.” 

Or maybe, I just oughta stop shopping.

We usually prepare dinner together.  Today I lose my temper when he doesn’t help.  Apologizing, he says he got stuck doing something and lost track of time.

Later, we plan our trip.  We’re seeing his parents soon, but they haven’t told us the logistics. 

“Typical,” he says, “They aren’t good about communicating.  My dad especially, he gets wrapped up in his own thing and forgets the bigger picture.”

 “Annoying,” I say, a little too pointedly, “My parents always communicate, and they stick to a plan.” 

“True,” he says, then adds gingerly, “they’re almost perfect, except for your dad’s wicked temper.”

We got raincoats this winter.  Hers, a hooded splatter of pretty pinks – magenta, French rose, amaranth.  Mine, a fitted geometry of black diagonals and dots on white.  We’ve been waiting, praying,

Our rain dances worked too well.  Today it rained so hard, trees fell over cars, highways closed. 

After the storm, we ventured out in the drizzle and met at Peet’s Coffee.  While she picked up her order, I secured a table.  A woman sitting nearby exclaimed to me, “What an adorable raincoat!”

Afterwards, Christiana came to the table all smiles.  She said, “Guess what the barista said to me?”

A girl’s lucky to have a shoulder to cry on; a partner in crime for splurging; someone who tells the truth, gives the sugar-coated version, and knows which for when; a friend who knows you so well that when she laughs at you, you think it’s funny too. 

My friend is all this, with a wicked sense of humor to boot.  We made it through law school, miserable employment and unemployment, jerky boyfriends and SAD (single and depressed), and a near falling out. 

Her 2008 resolution is being enough and knowing it. 

A girl’s lucky to have a wise friend. 

I had dinner with high maintenance friends at a Thai place.  Here was their order:

“Could we have the lettuce wraps, but without any minced pork?  The shredded beef papaya salad, but with the beef on the side?  The fresh rolls without shrimp, pork or cilantro and just half the regular amount of basil?  Also, we’d love the sauteed tofu, but could you check if the chef could make it with the soft tofu instead of the fried tofu?”

I was mortified by the order not to mention worried that our special tofu would come with the chef’s special spittle.

My husband’s three cousins, his brother and wife, my sister, plus us make a fun group.  We play Taboo.  Married vs. Not.  My turn, the word is “Chemistry” and the Taboo words I can’t use are: laboratory, experiment, subject, chemicals, and molecules.   

Me:  Uh, this is something hard you study.  Um, oh crap.  Okay, okay, boy meets girl. 

My husband and sister-in-law simultaneously:  Dating! Romance! 

Me:  Right, they like each other, a spark! 

My brother-in-law:  SEX!! 

Time runs out.  Afterwards amidst the laughter, 

The guys:  Chemistry???  Hello, test tubes, beakers, H2O. 

The gals:  Sex?  Boy meets girl. Spark equals sex?

I went to my ex-boss’ holiday party.  My husband agreed to come along provided I didn’t get sucked back into that life and/or feel the need to justify myself. 

The unexpected upside was how warm people were and their interest in my writing life. The unexpected downside was when my ex-boss offered to set me up part-time. 

Wouldn’t it be easier to have a profession the world recognized?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have colleagues again?  And money?  But it wouldn’t be me or would it?  

Having choices is supposed to be a good thing.  If only good meant easy.

I’ll preface that I’m a neat freak.  Nothing bugs me more than a dirty home.   

For two weeks, I’ve been sharing my kitchen with armies of ants.  We tried Raid and Terro.  We even blockaded their entry point with scotch tape covered with smelly Chinese tiger balm.  (My husband’s theory: “If we can’t stand the smell, maybe they can’t either.”)                

This morning I’m ecstatic to find only a few wobbly soldiers remain. 

This afternoon I comb Miso.  I notice something between the teeth of the comb.  A tiny red dot with legs, still moving!  I comb again and find another. 

We go out for dim sum, Cantonese small plates served with tea.  The scene is typical – loud, crowded, no service, chaotic free for all.  Worthwhile, for the shrimp dumplings, pot stickers, BBQ pork buns, sticky rice, and more.  In attempt to get tea, I shout across the dining room and succeed with the help of another diner who hears me and motions to the waiter.  I order chicken feet (traditionally prepared, meat falling off the bones) and devour them.

My husband says he is not embarrassed by me, just for me.  Happily stuffed, I chalk it up to cultural difference. 

She gets the hiccups on our walk.  We are discussing meatloaf recipes and holiday party attire when she asks,

“Hey, isn’t that, hic, what’s called, hic, a flying buttress?” 

I look up towards where she is pointing and see the grey, Gothic arches of St. Dominic’s Church and diagonal beams supporting its vaulted walls. 

“What in the world is a flying BUTTress?”  I ask giggling.

“Didn’t you, hic, ever take art history, and hic learn about flying buttresses?”

I am laughing too hard to respond.

“Are you, hic, ten?”  She asks before succumbing to a fit of hics and giggles.

Things I did today:  Sent an email to my parents, thanking them for all that they’ve done so I could be happy today.  Brunched with a girlfriend who drove a long ways to celebrate with me.  Chased the UPS truck down the street for the package I missed.  Came back triumphant and surprised by a box filled with irises, lilies and a tall vase.  Organized my study so I could begin again tomorrow.  Was driven to a restaurant of mystery.  Enjoyed a sweet, quiet meal at Café Jaqueline, which serves only soufflés.  Teared up reading the card from my husband. 

A girlfriend was over for dinner.  After dinner, we moved to the living room, where we put out magazines, old maps, paper scraps, and art supplies.  We hunted for things that spoke to us, collaging them on 5×5 canvases.  After a week of solitary writing, it felt liberating to be working with images alongside a friend.

While we collaged, my husband made tarte tatin for dessert.  The house was filled with Billie Holiday and the smell of caramelized fruit and puff pastry.  My friend looks up from her canvas, catches my eye, and whispers, “Your husband, he’s a good apple.” 

It’s been a while since I’ve read a really good book.  These days, I pick up something from the independent bookstore at the corner of Fillmore and Sacramento, thinking it looks intriguing, only to find out 311 pages later that it hasn’t inspired me to see the world differently. 

Here are a few that have:  David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Anne Lamott’s bird by bird, David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, Dorianne Laux’s Smoke, Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging, and The Kite Runner.

Would love your recommendations.

Last evening of Mom’s visit, we settled in for a chick-flick marathon.  The first was one of my faves, but I should have known better.  Neither Mom nor my sister had seen Kissing Jessica Stein, about a neurotic, straight Jewish woman who finds love by first falling for another woman.  The film is witty, hilarious, a fresh take on love.  

My sister liked it.  Mom did not.  We got into a huge discussion about the “natural” order of things.  I tried to enlighten her that love was love regardless of gender.  She left America thinking it had turned me wicked.