Almost there

I'm down in the desert of southern California, near the town of 29 Palms, visiting my good friend Christine. I went out of town to finish my novel.

Christine, who was my lover long ago, moved down to the middle of nowhere -- otherwise known as Wonder Valley, an unincorporated area that is the last scattering of houses and shacks before 50 miles of moonscape before you get, by a back road, to old Route 66 -- about eight years ago. Since then, not only have several of her friends moved down here, but so have a number of other artists, including Deborah Iyall, a painter who is the former lead singer of the New Wave band Romeo Void ("Never Say Never," the song that goes "I might like you better if we slept together"). I keep meaning to buy a place here as well -- it's probably the cheapest real estate in California -- but in the meantime I satisfy my desert longings with frequent visits.

I knew the solitude and space, far from the business of keeping hearth and home together in San Francisco, would help my writing and allow me to put together the several-day-long push needed to complete my first draft. Dec. 31 was my self-imposed deadline, but due to various hangups back in San Francisco, and the storms that hit the Bay Area three days after Xmas, I got down here a day late. But I did get right down to work.

So today I can report that I wrote 2750 words yesterday and 5000 words today and have but two scenes left to go, which I will happily complete tomorrow, the first day of the new year. And that will be the complete first draft of the novel I've been working on since November of 1997. Stay tuned for that announcement.

Schadenfreude

Had enough holiday ho-ho? Then this story about a "family values" pastor who was caught with his pants down ought to cheer you up. Or try this excellent murder, also from the L.A. Times, as is this long story about the C-level celebrity crash-and-burn Blake murder.

Or if you want endless, fun, you can always go to BoingBoing, which day after day has the most interesting links on the web.

We're in Xmas cool-down here. Except for me going to church earlier today, it's been a day of hanging around, wrapping a few spare presents for people we haven't seen yet, adding up the checkbook to see if we have any money left after the holiday (having done our part for the economy once again) and watching the idiotic, condescending, off-putting and completely wrong 1965 teen movie, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, which, despite a great cast of Buster Keaton (!!), Mickey Rooney and others, manages to show exactly why the British Invasion of youth culture completely killed what Hollywood was pandering to American youth in those days. [ IMDB link | other link ]

Every day's a holiday when you're unemployed

I went last night to Jenny's house, not for a holiday party but for a birthday party. Jenny is someone I've known for ten years, since meeting her at Sybase, so she's a friend, but she's also a former co-worker and minion; I hired her at BEA and assigned her to a difficult, laborious, technically challenging but rewarding project. When I got laid off in October, she stayed, of course. I overheard her last night complaining that she would have to work over the holidays -- BEA forces people to use up their vacation at the end of the year, an increasingly widespread corporate practice -- to finish her project. I wanted to make a joke about having assigned her the project so she had to do a lot of work, whereas now I don't have to do beans, since I don't even have a job. But I couldn't think of a funny way to say it. And actually there's no joke there. It's just extremely thin irony, I think.

Anyway. I got an early Xmas present yesterday by getting two, count 'em, two pieces of fan mail in one day. Both had just read my book How I Adore You. An advertisement for the book, citing this review, just came out in Skin Two; I wonder if the ad had anything to do with the sudden fan mail. I hope so; I paid for the ad.

One more alternative dies

Rachel Pepper's Bernal Books, a tiny but splendid independent bookstore on Cortland St. in downtown Bernal Heights (a San Francisco neighborhood that is a bit of SF's version of Park Slope), is closing. I discovered this today as we were finishing up our Xmas shopping. Bernal Books is where I had my first-ever reading for my first-ever book. Rachel was a cheerful supporter of local authors, one of whom, Michelle Tea, worked there on and off for a long time. I always took care to order books from Rachel instead of Amazon.com, and it was always a pleasure to to by there and spend a few bucks.

While we were in there, people kept coming in to express their dismay at the closing. They kept saying how sorry they were and what a shame it was, which only seemed to make Rachel sound guilty as she explained why the place was closing -- because the lease is up and renewing it would be much more expensive, and because she was tired of simply scraping by year after year. So when it came time for Cris and I to make our final purchase, I just thanked her for being there all these years.

Biting through in your area

Day 8 of the suddenly extreme winter storm cycle had me running errands, having lunch with former minions Jenny and Brad and hearing some delicious gissip from my former workplace, and grinding out another 1600 words in my novel. I now have only about five scenes left to write. I may not quite finish the first draft by Xmas, but definitely by year's end.

Our kitchen work is done. Now all we have to do is put everything back. If you imagine taking everything out of your kitchen that could possibly be carried out of it, and putting it all in the dining room -- well, tomorrow we have to put it all back. And shop for a new glass kitchen tabletop.

The kitchen floor is now a black and white checkerboard. Cris's idea of fun: "Now we should use it as a game board somehow involving the cats."

Holiday frolic

In Catalonia, tradition dictates that Nativity scenes -- those dioramas you set up on the mantel or beneath the tree with little figures showing the birth of Christ in a stable, complete with shepherds, animals, angels and the three kings -- are not complete without the addition of a Caganer -- a little man in a red beret hidden in the background, looking on as he squats and takes a dump. (link courtesy Abracapocus)

At this Catholic church in Hilo, Hawaii, the now-retired "Father George has been known to invite non-Catholics to the church, to allow them to participate in the eucharist, to support the movement to ordain women priests, to encourage distribution of food bank supplies to anyone, including non-Catholics, to sing hymns in the Hawaiian language, to allow the hula to celebrate God's presence, to suggest that God loves everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, and to speak out against the impending War with Iraq." Yes, that's right -- liturgical hula. We'll miss you, Father George.

Today's best pickup line, courtesy of the utterly unknown Kambri Crews: "I mean, woah, look at you. Your thighs are beautiful. Your ass is beautiful. You breasts are beautiful. Your lips are beautiful. And your eyes, man! Your eyes are wonderful. But I'm not hitting on you."

Corporate mores through humor

This joke is from http://ph8.blogspot.com, which features several jokes with corporate-speak morals at the end. Here's the best one. I usually don't do things like reprint jokes, but there's precious little humor in the world on this particular day, so I think it's worth it.

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. After a few seconds of arguing over which one should go and answer the doorbell, the wife gives up, quickly wraps herself up in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says "I'll give you 800 dollars to drop that towel that you have on." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her 800 dollars and leaves.

Confused, but excited about her good fortune, the woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets back to the bathroom, her husband asks from the shower, "Who was that?"

"It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.

"Great," the husband says, "did he say anything about the 800 dollars he owes me?"

Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk in time with your stakeholders, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Cris's comment: If it was me, I would have answered my husband: "No -- what 800 dollars?"

Flying the coop

I'm back home, still living with the kitchen remodel project. The rain's stopped and I walked over to 24th St. for a slice of pizza for brunch. There's this pizza place on 24th and Shotwell called Mr. Pizza Man, run by Brazilians; they've opened other branches around the city now. A gigantic slice with four topings will run about $3.50 -- expensive for a "slice" of pizza, but actually equivalent to a small pizza you might order at a national chain. The post-storm sky was a brilliant mix of soft blue and blindingly white clouds. A squall still blows over from time to time.

I meant to go away for a few more days this week, but I'm staying home to help out around here. At least Cris has actually gone in to work today -- a rare occurrence, she telecommutes 9/10th of the time. So I have the house to myself, except for the carpenters, and they're shut off in the kitchen, much to the dismay of the cats, who are afraid of but also curious about what's going on in there.

Link of the day: some pretty pictures by Tim Davis. (link courtesy randomwalks)

Speaking of carpenters: In my slovenly laid-off state I was watching "Today" this morning, and they had a segment on some advertisements that neo-liberal columnist Arianna Huffington has produced for television. Huffington is worthy of her own biopic; she's sort of the Tammy Faye Bakker of the political right. The ex-wife of a formerly prominent Republican politician, she's reinvented herself after that politician -- a former candidate for California governor who was defeated in 1996 -- came out as gay and dropped from sight. Before then, she was a sort of Ann Coulter figure, if older and heavier -- a lacerating conservative macher who used her wealth and connections to influence national policy. Since then she's turned around and become a neo-liberal. So her latest thing is a series of television advertisements alleging that driving an SUV supports terrorism -- the same logic used by the government's anti-drug commercials. On "Today" she debated against the editor of "Car and Driver" magazine, who quipped, "Never mind those ads [not the same as Arianna's ads, by the way] that say 'Jesus wouldn't drive an SUV' -- Jesus was a carpenter, and if he were alive today, he'd probably be driving the biggest pickup truck he could find!"

Buckets of rain

Here's an update from the writing front. In our last episode, I had two chapters to go before finishing the first draft of my novel. Well, I wrote a whole chapter in the last few days... and I still have two chapters to go.

This is typical of what happens when I'm not sure of the outline of a section I'm about to work on. I write through the problem without locking up, but it always takes me twice as many scenes to resolve the problem I thought I started out with. So I still have two chapters to go, but less to put in them than I did at the start of the week. I hope that makes sense.

Meanwhile winter has blown in with a vengance. Up in the Russian River area where I've been for the last few days, it's been raining since Friday morning. I think they got about six inches total. Today I drove back to San Francisco through some of the heaviest rain I've ever driven in; but either everyone was already at the mall or they were scared off the road by the weather, for I drove all the way from Healdsburg to the Golden Gate Bridge in 90 minutes. Then, of course, it took me another half hour to drive across the city.

I came back for the 50th birthday party of Sara, my writing coach and friend. I just had to stop and get her something, even though we're not supposed to bring presents; I got her a big red cushion for her butt.

And then I'm going back to Healdsburg tonight; I have to be back at the retreat center by 7:00 a.m. to lead the Matins service. The rain seems to have stopped for the moment, but I'm not betting on that being the case by the time I have to drive back.

Retreat

I’m off today for Healdsburg, a picturesque northern California town in the Russian River valley where the Episcopal Church has a retreat center. I’ll work on my book and attend a weekend of Benedictine prayer. I have only two chapters left to do on this draft, and I have hopes of finishing the penultimate one this week.

We had a nice soaking rain that lasted about 12 hours longer than forecast -- the first rain we’ve had since the beginning of November and only the second of the season. It depressed me briefly yesterday while I was downtown shopping, but in the evening hours it was comforting.

In fact the real reason I was depressed is that I was shopping for a sportscoat and had to deal with how fat I’ve gotten. Even though I’m regularly using the treadmill, I haven’t lost any weight, and I’m afraid Cris is going to make me to go Weight Watchers. I hope to avoid that indignity but looking at myself in a three-way mirror at the Men’s Warehouse was undignified enough.

My friend Sara is back from a vacation in Ghana. She brought me a couple of booklets that are part erotica, part sex manual, and part sex education. There is a long section in one, for example, about how women may avoid and treat yeast infections. The drawings look like they were done by a high school freshman, and the whole effect is rather sweet. She also brought back a garish rendering of the Holy Family, a gift to her church from the Episcopal bishop of Accra. It’s done using lots of colored glitter and is really something.

Progress is our most important product

For most of last week I made little progress on my book. The work on the kitchen -- which was supposed to be finished by Friday but which, of course, continues -- and especially the effects of the work, namely the dust and disruption and its affect on me, Cris, and the cats -- occupied much of my time and attention. Actually I spent much of each day I wasn't able to work sitting at the dining room table listlessly surfing the web, or watching television, so that I could babysit our handyman -- to call him a contractor would be an insult to contractors -- and the cats, which were contaminated with dust and soot along with most of the rest of the house. One of the cats got so sick that Friday was taken up largely with two trips to the vet out on Taraval St.

Finally Saturday loomed as the first day I could possibly get any work done, and even then, I didn't get a chance to leave the house until after 2:00 pm. When I finally got away, I went straight to a movie in order to wash my mind of all the house-related thoughts and feelings. I saw War Photographer, a documentary about American war photojournalist Jim Nachtwey, who is apparently well known for his fearless descents into hellish, dangerous conditions. The film gives us plenty of these, as well as a few tributes from colleagues. Seeing the film certainly served the purpose of getting my mind off my own insignificant problems.

After that I was ready to go do my own work, and after eating some dinner I finally sat down a little before 6 pm. But I did 1500 words very quickly and fruitfully, finishing chapter 26. There are only two chapters to write now, and though they will be difficult because they will contain all the climactic stuff and all the loose ends typing-up, I feel I can say I'm truly in the home stretch.

My 1500 words took me over 150,000 words for the first draft. So finishing the last two chapters is just the end of the beginning of working on my book. I'll have to shape, cut, consolidate, cut, reshape, and cut some more in the coming months.

Holiday greetings

Two weeks ago the Detroit Free Press published a profile of a sleazy character who had become a millionaire through operating email spamming services. The unrepentant, arrogant shit even bragged about how much more spam he would send out in coming years. Well, now he's getting a taste of his own medicine, as disgusted computer users route thousands of catalogs and other "snail mail spam" to his McMansion.

In other news, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has resigned. O'Neill, in the tradition of Republicans making fantastically absurd statements, once said "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear (power) is really very good."

Some news

California now has five queer state legislators, the makings of the first lesbian/gay caucus on the state level, says this chatty and informative SJ Mercury News story.

Unionized dancers at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco picketed the theater Tuesday to protest wage cuts and working conditions. Their contract's up in January.

There's lots of literary stuff at Alt-X, including this amazing Kathy Acker interview. (The fifth anniversary of Acker's death just passed; she died on Nov. 30, 1997.)

Today's link from BoingBoing, the best place for interesting links: a large gallery of weird LP covers.

Here at home, we're having done what we thought was a minor remodeling job. Of course, there is no such thing as a minor remodeling job. Removing a wall and obsolete stove pipe in the kitchen, workers discovered evidence of an ancient stove fire and managed to get fifty-year-old soot all over the place. Carcinogenic? You bet!

That great big jackpot

Most people have received at least one version of the Nigerian scam email that is some of the most entertaining form of spam (if any spam can be said to be entertaining). I get at least one a day, and they're all a little different. Today's was a big variation on the usual message having to do with relatives of former African leaders and the difficulty of getting all their stolen money out of the country. It contained the story, supposedly related by a doctor, of a German businessman who had just deposited millions of dollars in a Nigerian bank and who then "unfortunately" died. (This phrase "But as I said above, he unfortunately died" is used as a sort of refrain throughout the message.) The "Specialist Doctor" asks the recipient's help in scamming all the money from the unfortunately dead German's accounts. It's almost like a Graham Greene story.

I deleted it before I thought to save it, but no matter, there'll be another one tomorrow.

Pluggin' away

I finished chapter 25, for the most part, on the 30th, doing about 2000 words all told. Then yesterday I spent the day at the library, reading the L.A. Times for the period leading up to and including the Democratic Convention in 1960. There were a number of details I needed. It was tedious, and I felt at the end of the day that I hadn’t found out that much. But writing today on 26a and 26b, I put in little bits I’d found out, so it was valuable to do. I hadn’t done much research on the convention and here I was writing about it for the last week.

Today I’m writing another one of my long-awaited scenes, the one where Bobby and Peter go to the Mississippi delegation to try to talk them into supporting Kennedy, even though they were the ones booing Sammy on the first night of the convention. (It used to be Alabama, but I found that more sources said it was the Mississippi delegation. The L.A. Times didn’t mention the incident at all, that I could see. But I’m going with Mississippi.) I did more than 1400 words today, not only in ch. 26 but by putting in words here and there in the previous two chapters as well.

The writing is coming pretty easily. There’s little to worry about in terms of plot points in these chapters. The next ones will be tougher.

And I’m also conscious of the need to go back and rewrite like the whole of Part 2 -- smoothing it out and making it seem less aimless, while at the same time putting in more details of setting and characterization. I almost don’t want to show it to Sara in its present state even when I finish the first draft, because I’m am so conscious of what needs to be done next. But I’ll print it out and give it to her anyway. Her and Katia and Christine and Cris, my readers.

Live Nude Girls Unite!

Dancers at the Lusty Lady Theater -- the only unionized strip club in San Francisco -- are picketing the club today to protest a wage cut. I'm going down there to lend my support!

In other news, the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether states may declare private homosexual conduct between consenting individuals illegal. Geez, do you think it has anything to do with the pursuit of happiness? That little phrase from the Declaration of Independence is much overlooked these days, when happiness is equated with the ability to choose between 57 kinds of cars or 137 different kinds of breakfast cereal.

And finally: though it reads like it, this story is not from The Onion: Tampa Men say Starbucks is 'Nothing Unique'