From A to B

Do you remember how you learned how to read? Actual details, like how old you were, where you were, what you read and who you were with? I can't. By all accounts, I should have never ended up calling "writing" my profession because reading and me had a difficult start. We weren't pals.

My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hampton or Mrs. Washington, my memory fails, was a strict graying woman outta the '50s who wore stern-looking muted dresses to our classroom and had seating charts. This would have been around 1973. If my memory serves, I wasn't one of her favorites. I do recall a sweet little girl who sat by me, named Jackie, who was a pixie and wore the most enviable shiny white knee-high boots with heels. I was more interested in those boots than the alphabet. She wore them in our class photo.

One afternoon, the teacher pulled me into the hallway (this wouldn't be the last time) and sat me down with flashcards of the alphabet. Maybe terrified, I did my best to give her the answers she wanted though my responses had to have missed the mark a few times. I knew the basics, A, B, C, those early letters were a breeze, but the farther down in the alphabet, my familiarity dropped off like a sugar cube in black coffee. Plop. The U, W, Y, all looked the same to me. Can't you see a resemblance?

Not too long after our hallway visit, my mom started quizzing me in the car about billboards. What can you read there, honey? while pointing out the window. And I'd do my best to answer. Again, I have no idea what I said or if my interpretation of the Sinclair gasoline or the tires at Sears ads were right. If my mom had a heart-to-heart with me about my shortcomings, I can't recall that either. I just wasn't really interested in reading or writing. I was interested in my friend Jackie, her boots and playing at recess.

Mrs. Hampton/Washington kept me back from recess once. It was an ordinary day and didn't have anything to do with reading lessons or the alphabet. We were assigned an in-class exercise, and instead of following directions, I recruited another friend, Monica, to play a game. It could have been Candyland or Operation. We had just gotten out the game, and pulled our seats together, when the teacher stormed over and leered down at me, calling us out for failing to follow instructions. I got a paddling in the hall. I hope Monica did not but I was so humiliated, that part of the story is lost. It was extremely painful, and I still have a bad word or two for my kindergarten teacher floating in my head today about her choice of discipline. 

My efforts at reading probably, most likely, almost certainly didn't improve after that point. I caught up somewhere along the way. Though to this day, I couldn't tell you the title of the first book I ever read. It would have been along the lines of Flat Stanley or Judy Blume or somesuch. Reading never gave me the joy my teacher promised. It wasn't Mrs. Hampton/Washington's fault. I just got behind, and it took me decades to catch up. I'm still catching up. 

The fact that this didn't hold me back from learning how to write is a miracle. How is it possible that a half-hearted kindergartener with little interest in letters and books became a writer later? Other teachers, a poem or two, some speeches I wrote, helped. At one point, the letters started to click together easily. It all comes so easily now. It is a gift not taken for granted. 

Sending 2021 Out with a Swift Kick

Okay. I'll admit it. I was on Tinder this year. What an awful place. Whew, I survived and probably won't be going back. But if YOU are in the market and are an eligible bachelor who finds yourself on that (or any) humbling online dating site, here are a few words of gentle but sound advice. 

These missteps will likely reduce your sex appeal:

1. No photo

2. No introduction statement

3. Your age is ≧ 0 

4. Pictures include girlfriend OR unidentified female clinging to your neck

5. Majority of your pictures include your dog. Just your dog.

6. Head cut off in photo

7. Selfie in bathroom mirror (Does everyone think this is sexy?)

8. Toss-up, selfie in car (They sure think this is sexy!)

9. No clothes (Seriously, I saw more than I'd like.)

10. Frown or no smiling pics

11. Another toss-up, selfie with earbuds

12. All pictures include exercising

13. A third toss-up, posting pictures of feet, in socks, shoes, or bare

14. Wearing a clown costume with a blue wig. In every photo.

15. Misspelling the word “too”

16. You’re already married

17. Chastising anyone not searching for a hookup

18. Begging for a response: “C’mon ladies, swipe, please!”

19. There are more ellipses … than words … in your personal … statement.

20. Declaring: “I like to do it!”

21. Posting phone number because “If you don’t call, someone else will!”

22. Toss-up #4: Using acronyms/phrases/words requiring the use of the Urban Dictionary: ITB, sapiophile, AMA

23. Overusing emoticons ☹☹☹☹

24. Statements that life is short, so “Sister, you better take a chance on me!”

Well, I didn’t take a chance on many. I did laugh a lot. See ya, 2021. We had some fun.

Your Digital Footprint Or Finding Brad Land

Writers of fiction generally try to build a platform somewhere online. Be it Goodreads, a blog, an active Facebook page, a smart-ass Twitter account. But then there are the ones who don't. If I could ask Brad Land why he's not online, I would, but he's not online to send him an email or a snappy tweet. He has no digital footprint. Or he doesn't have one that I can find. He might be lurking under a psuedonym, like my kids do on Tumblr, but again, no one can find him that way.

Granted, a few interesting articles are available online about this enigmatic writer, but much of it is old, from when he became well-known in the literary world. He wrote a best-selling memoir in 2005, Goat, published by Random House about young adulthood and violence and two incidents that shaped his life. First, he was abducted and beaten by strangers from a party he attended; then he was hazed at Clemson University while pledging his brother's fraternity, Kappa Sigma. I read the slim, brooding book last month, and his writing threw me back to my own angst-ridden college experiences of trying to fit in (I rushed one fall but didn't pledge. It was a stomach-churning mistake, and sorority life wasn't for me.)

Land wrote his memoir while nearing the end of a graduate program at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. It became a national bestseller and next month, a movie will be released based on the book. I didn't know any of this while I was reading the book, but as I was reading, I wanted to know more about Brad Land and his more recent work. So I started to do what anyone in 2016 would do to find a person: google him.

Mostly, old press from Goat populated the search but nothing about him recently. None of my searches on Facebook or Twitter turned up anything, so I tried emailing the publisher. The only email I could find for Random House Trade Publications was to request review copies of books. I sent an email with a subject line, "Interview with author Brad Land," but I got a disheartening generic robo-reply that said, basically, tough cookies.

In a lucky twist, a writer friend of mine said she had interviewed Land once after a reading he gave in Asheville. A review she wrote about his second book, which is still posted online, gave me the best leads. It sent me to an old website of his, www.goatthebook.com, which must have been Land's attempt at the time of Goat's release to hurry up and put up a web presence. The site has some helpful links, but it's also a convoluted, writer-be-damned, who-gives-a-shit site that really doesn't mention Land by name. One of the links goes to an obvious Q&A about the book. I tried the email address on the site. My mail bounced back, undeliverable.

The last place he was known to have lived, according to my online search, was Carborro, NC, where another writer friend of mine also lives. My friend says that he remembers meeting Land once briefly around the time of the memoir's release. But has heard nothing more.

Why did I go through this rigmarole? Because he was from South Carolina, went to grad school for an MFA in creative writing in NC, and wrote a damn good memoir. (His second book, Pilgrims Upon the Earth, was not commercially well-reviewed.) I thought, why not find him and find out what he's working on and see if he can spare some insight on this writing life?

But he's off the grid. Which made me also wonder why so many of us want to be ON the damn grid. Who wants to be an open public record? Who wants to have to continually market or sacrifice privacy for the sake of the constant need for sales or to create searchable content or to feed the public's hunger for the dish? Not that Land is a celebrity, but he certainly made a splash and the subject matter of his book is intriguingly harsh, and the way he wrote the narrative is worth studying.

I had to stop when I felt the urge to google his obit. He's out there, just not interested in the rest of us.

One Person's Crazy is Another Person's Courage

"To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become; that is courage." ~ Charles Dubois

"Crazy is as crazy does." ~ Forrest Gump

A year ago this week, I chose to leave my life in Portland, Ore. After three difficult years, my decision had the tone of reactionary. I tried not to view it as rash. It felt necessary for survival. I wanted out of Hell. I don't use this word lightly and do not direct it at the city of Portland itself. Portland is world class. Progressive, eclectic, sexy, infused with food and fanatics. I fit into Portland, personality-wise. We just had poor timing.

I anguished over whether to leave. The allure of the place had definitely hooked into my ego. Portland caters to writers. If you're a writer, go there. If you're already a writer in Portland, stay there. It carries great potential along with cachet. Even if you're a bad writer, the line "Portland writer" on your resume puts you in a different section of the train car -- one reserved for notables.

The writing scene there is vibrant, supportive, irritatingly creative. I had stars in my eyes, literally. Cheryl Strayed, Chuck Palahniuk. Powell's City of Books paraded all the literary roadshows through its cavernous rooms. No name in publishing would pass up a chance to read at the distinguished standard-bearer for independent book stores.

Powell's was a scene unto itself. A tourist destination, of course. But an overdose of nook-and-crammed; book lovers left drunk on lit. I suffered Powell's Paralysis. I'd browse and end up empty-handed because of the overwhelming choices. When everything is at your fingertips, the best choice is elusive. (Blame it on being a Virgo.)

I left it all behind. I left a good job. And two writers' groups and professional support networks and my growing group of writer friends and parenting cohorts. Phhtt. Gone.

I fled because my husband died.

I fled because I thought it would make me feel better.

I fled because my extended family lived 2000 miles on the other side of the country.

I fled because when life gets too hard, you cut your losses and hope a change of address will bring you peace.

I fled because I felt insane.

An ironic, but important, aside: The comment I heard frequently about my decision to relocate, solo-new-widow-mom, across the country was -- you are so courageous. 

For a month on the road, I felt pretty good. Maybe a tad heroic. It's easy to feel good when you don't have a house to keep up, an electric bill to pay, a clock ticking in the night beside your bed, calling you to wake up and make some money.

Friends commented before, during and after my escape about my incredible journey. Someone, she knows who, called me Oh Wandering One. It was sarcastic, meant to goad me back to the ticking clock.

My clock ticks now. As I write this. Maybe a digital would be better.  A year later, my plan to leave the strain behind has disappointed me some. Would it surprise you that there are days I pine for Portland? Of course not, you say. It could be a longing for the normalcy of my old neurosis. The bad that I knew. Not the bad that is new.

Did I make a courageous choice to leave? That's debatable. I wear my stiff upper lip headlong into single parenthood, into discovering myself again, into holding my breath, into dating (oh, what a blogpost that could be -- my working title is Sex, Grief, and the Young-ish Widow; or maybe, Girl, Don't Date w/o Meds).

All is not bad. I arrive at a place with possibilities. More specifically, this is a time full of potential and not a physical place in the road. Change often evolves when great adversity strikes. I have been struck and struck again. It isn't time for another change of scenery, but a change of psyche.

Six-Word Memoir

"The book was better, they said."

On Being a Maniac

Philip Roth is making the circuit. His new book is Nemesis. For the record, I haven't read him although he's on the list. The NYT Book Review critic offered her mea culpa on Roth's work. NPR interviewed him. He's been writing for 55 years and isn't stopping. He writes nearly every day - seven, eight, often more, hours each session. He calls it maniacal, admittedly, as if it were evil-doing.

You have to have a little of that trait to do this. Having read some about his work, I gather he's taken huge dumps of criticism, yet still he writes. He says he can't do anything else. It's like a pathology. Makes you sick in the head.

I kinda like that feeling. It's like doing something subversive when you're really not. There's nothing illegal about it (at least, not in this country). Take a step back, because it would be horrible to live without free access to information and ideas. We still ban books (sad, but true), but we find ways to weasel them into the public realm. Thankfully.

BTW, I recommend the Roth interview over the written version. His voice conveys his infliction.