Family Holiday Dinner

Easter was at my house yesterday. Relatives drove three hours each way to eat lunch with us. Since I'm famously not a cook, expectations were low on their side and anticipatory tension notable on mine.

I served heated up take-out from a Whole Foods grocery, and Husband Bob, who is more of a cook than I, supervised the heating up.

It turned out great. People ate like sawmill workers, and asked where to buy the frizzled beans, (no kidding, that's their real name.)

I've decided to change from viewing myself as a non-cook, to being a great take-out shopper. It puts a whole new light on the process.



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Turkey Town

The pig spa that I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago has been rivaled in real life.

A travel story in my local paper had turned out to be an April Fool’s trick on us readers. I believed it—and then posted here about the bold deception. The story described an inn where the happy guest can pat pigs, eat a pork diet, and have beauty treatments involving bacon fat.

So yesterday I was flipping through an old Guideposts magazine and came upon: Cornwell’s Turkeyville! This time the place is for real.

On a patch of farmland north of Marshall, Michigan, is a destination dedicated to pleasures provided by the turkey. In addition to the restaurant that cooks 20,000 birds a year, there’s a dinner theatre, an ice cream parlor offering Turkey Trax ice cream, a gift shop, a playground, and a turkey pen. Writer Mary Lou Carney noted some of the kinds of turkey sandwiches available, including buttered turkey, turkey salad, sloppy tom, smoked turkey. Or you could dig into turkey stir fry.

The only thing missing here was a turkey skin conditioner. At least it wasn’t noted in the article.

My point (aside from wonderment at the existence of such a place): If turkey’s your thing, don’t hold back. If you want to build a pig spa, do it. No joke. The world may very well beat a path to your door.





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Dealing with Bad Publicity

A fellow I know just got a blast of highly personal, heavily negative national publicity. It's the kind of scrutiny of a person that borders on inhuman, every aspect of his life touched on.

It must take big-time courage to show up at work, at lunch, at the gym, or wherever, after that kind of exposure. I'm not even going to say who or where the article was, so as not to further spread the stories. The fact that the writer said some good things doesn't really help a lot; it gives an air of credibility and balance and makes the watching of the man seem more unrelenting.

Unless you've sponsored a genocide, or at least committed a crime, I don't think this kind of treatment is warranted. Some arguable business decisions don't merit such an attack.

And I am someone who has spent decades as a reporter writing for magazines and newspapers, and who relishes reading the trashiest of gossip publications. So maybe I have a double standard for people I know and like. Or maybe I have a double standard for movie stars and other people. Likely both are true. Even so, this particularly brutal extreme close-up shocks me. I wouldn't want my own life treated this way. There aren't many people, if any, who'd look spotless in that kind of light.

Again: the guy is super-bold to keep showing up and making the effort.



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Singing a Song from the Unconscious

Skiing on a glacier in Austria some years ago on slopes (catwalks) far beyond my ability, I realized that I had been humming the same tune over and over all day. When I finally noticed I was doing it, I immediately recognized it: "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?"

It was true that I'd been scared--from mild to wild--all day. This was back in my mostly-travel-writing days when I made a long-running specialty of writing ski stories for beginners and bad skiers. It tickled me that I was unconsciously singing the message from myself that I was trying to ignore.

Since then, I've realized many times that I was mindlessly humming something that was terribly appropriate to the moment: "I've Got a Never-Ending Love For You," and "Release Me" (think Engelbert Humperdinck), for example.

Yesterday, I noted that I'd been humming all day. What was the tune? "This Little Light of Mine, I'm Going to Let It Shine." What could be more appropriate for a writer's theme song?

So what's your theme song today?

Could be it would work better to pick one, instead of letting the song pick me. But even when the song simply arises, it's useful information, always good to know what I'm feeling.




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College Admissions Mistakes

A guy I know is in the midst of his first personal encounter with injustice. He's a superbly accomplished and bright student and he didn't get into the schools he wanted. College admissions problems have happened to quite a number of excellent students this year.

It's not fair. He's right about that.

And he's angry. Which is healthy, of course. As long as that dies down and he replaces it with vigorous action to make the most of the situation he has now.

It's not easy to be heroic when the difficulty is not life-and-death, but instead disappointment and having to plow on anyway. Plowing on doesn't get the kind of credit and appreciation that it's due.

I've often thought that so-called "loss of innocence" has nothing to do with sex or with seeing the seamy side of life. It comes from personal experience of something going wrong that can't be fixed. When that happens, it becomes necessary to take a new road. And after that, one is more watchful, less reflexively sure that things will turn out "right."

I wish the guy had gotten into the schools he wanted. I hope he will gather the courage to design his own new road and make the most of his new knowledge.


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The Solitary Freelance Writer

Have I mentioned? On the morning of April 18, I'll be giving the keynote for the Triangle Area Freelancers conference on "Seven Secrets of Freelancing I Wish I'd Known from the Start." If you're in central North Carolina, I hope you'll come. I also wish there had been a TAF years ago when I was getting started in magazines and newspapers.

I remember when the feeling of solitude started to feel heavy at some point in the second half of my first year. I decided that maybe going out to lunch would help, but couldn't find anybody loose to join me that day. So I went by myself to a semi-hip restaurant where they had booths placed in odd settings within the restaurant. Mine, as it happened, was in a jail cell. So I sat there by myself looking through actual bars.

Nobody needs networking more than writers, for information, contacts, and mental health.



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Garrison Keillor Gets Sexy

The ever-cheeky Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion set a new standard for home-spun boldness Saturday. If you missed it, do go listen to his song "Fatherhood", a bebopping rendition of the heroic journey of a sperm. It's in Segment 3, just after "Bailout Boogie."

(I'd offer a sample of those daring lines, but ever since I paid for the right to quote from "Puff the Magic Dragon" in my first novel Revelation, I've been careful to stay out of song lyrics.)




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Unhappy Puppy

While I was planting verbena this afternoon, our new puppy Aura had her first encounter with the electric fence of her little corral. I'd never been around when such a thing happened and I was almost as upset as she was.

She yowled, then ran, but wasn't sure where to run. Didn't know what was safe.

I couldn't stand it. I got her out of there and spent the rest of my gardening time trying to stop her from walking on the columbine and eating the daffodil fronds.

I don't know whether I'm too soft-hearted to train a dog or a child, or simply too squeamish: unwilling to suffer myself in seeing them hurt.

I do know that Aura, shocked, dramatically illustrated how all kinds of creatures tend to behave after a broadside. Not sure what to trust, desperate to avoid further hurt. It's hard at such moments -- takes boldness -- to figure out what caused the pain and not blame it on any and every thing in sight.




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The Snake in My Head

A garter snake is on the list of entities I've always thought of as ridiculously harmless. Like dandelions, cotton candy, soap bubbles, toads, puppies, primary colors, large print, milkshakes, and the board game Candyland.

So today I was weeding the periwinkle and startled a two-and-a-half foot striped snake sunning his/herself on the ledge at the back of the bed. I jumped back. The snake fell still, head raised in my direction. I yelled for Bob. He came out and told me it was not a copperhead at all, instead a garter snake. First time I realized I'd never seen one. It didn't look like bubbles or cotton candy at all. More like, say, a pygmy rattler. But I let him/her alone and went back to my gardening -- at a little distance. Next time I looked the snake was gone.

I didn't want to make a pet of the creature, but neither did I have any sense of lingering alarm. Hours later near dusk, I grabbed a handful of weeds and dead leaves that squirmed in my hand. I gasped and tossed it, then discovered that the live thing was a toad that was hopping away from me at top toad speed.

What interests most me about all this is that the mini-burst of adrenaline on grabbing the toad probably would not have happened it not been for the earlier moment of alarm over the snake. Without even realizing it, I was expecting to stumble onto trouble.

This secondary reaction made me wonder what other and larger ways I may have conditioned myself to unnecessary wariness.




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The Courage to Relax

The ability to relax is underrated as an act of courage. I tend to have tense shoulders all the time. And I've just now come from the dentist where I tend to turn into a 5 foot 8 inch steel plank. A snootful of nitrous helps, but still I can be fairly tense.

Somehow tight muscles feel like the proper state of readiness for everything, good or bad. Never mind that I almost never resort to a physical solution to problems. I don't actually engage in fight or flight. Instead, I ponder, revise, negotiate, think, chat. These activities don't require the muscle tone of a shark.

Nevertheless, the habit persists. This morning at my dentist's I made a point of using not just the nitrous but as much muscle-loosening as I could muster. I made my hands feel heavy. It felt good.

And I have an idea I could probably think better with loose muscles. If you happen to have any studies or experiences that demonstrate that, I'd love to know. I fear it's going to take all the king's horses to get my shoulders to move to a different position on a regular basis.





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Pig Spa

I'm ever scanning the world for sterling examples of boldness to report on, and I found some true moxie yesterday in my local News & Observer.

The story by Kathleen Purvis was about Hog Heaven, an inn and spa devoted to an appreciation of pork. "'I figured if California could have the Napa Valley, maybe it was time for the South to celebrate what makes us truly happy,'" owner Sue Trotter says. "'And no place appreciates bacon like the South.'"

This North Carolina mini-resort doesn't stop with a pork-heavy menu and opportunities to spend time with the cute little piglets: "...You can relax under a cooling raw-bacon eye mask while you get a facial with high-quality leaf lard, prized for its antioxidant content."

I was worrying a bit about how comfortable it would be to eat pork while patting a pig; especially since I liked the hogs that wandered the streets near where I lived in India, found them surprisingly personable. And then of course I came to the final punch line: April Fool's Day. I'd been completely suckered up to that very last sentence.

What was bold was that story. And the photograph that went with it.





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The Confident Camel

I picked out this camel pin (for Husband Bob to give me) just because I liked it. Probably also at the back of my mind was the fact that when I was a kid my mother smoked three packs a day of unfiltered Camels and I have good memories of the image.
I also think my camel is an excellent reminder of persistence and steady long haul effort. The camel tends to get where she's going. She also knows her worth; if you've ever been around camels (as I was now and again in India), then you know there's no loftier manner in the animal queendom.

So I've been wearing her image on a pocketbook, the equivalent of heart-on-sleeve for visibility. I like the combo of confident persistence and regal bearing. And as you can see, my camel is smokin'!!!




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My Polka-Dot Woodland Semi-Shade Garden

By popular request (Regular Contributor Debbie Whaley suggested it), I've posted here a few of the bold blossoms around my house. They're bold to peep out because we live in woodland amongst herds of deer and large swathes of shade and voles and other diggers, including something that can only be the Tunneling Yeti. And I tend to plant what I want even if it would like more sun, (these pics are prior to the arrival of the summer leaves.) My strategy yields a few courageous blooms that are much-appreciated. They're all the more admirable for venturing out under such adverse circumstances.










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Blount Wisdom on the Economy

The hilarious and wise Roy Blount, Jr. writes a don't-miss column in the Authors Guild Bulletin (he's president of that group.) His most recent entry is about the economy and writers. It applies to more people than writers.

"Look. It was imprudent of us, in the first place, to become authors....For 33 years I have been a freelance writer, literally never knowing where my next dollar is coming from, even when I knew from whence it was supposed to have come three or four months ago....But I know this: Authors have been scared before, and not deterred."

That's the key strategy idea here: "NOT DETERRED." And that definitely applies to all of us.



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Bringing Home the Mastiff Puppy

The new puppy arrived at our house yesterday. What does this have to do with bold?

Well, Husband Bob is extremely bold to take on this dog. She--Aura--is a sweet soft, though rather large, mastiff puppy now. She'll become a 140 pound animal, a Boerboel, bred as a guard dog. Already, at about four months old, she's over sixty pounds and hyperalert.

Bob likes big, challenging dogs from faraway places. He already has a Kangal dog, Kaya, a Turkish mastiff-type, a strong-willed fellow who outweighs me.

Last night, little Aura met big Kaya for the first time. The puppy rushed up to the big guy. Kaya, on a leash, stayed cool but had a fiercely interested look in his eye. Aura (gutsy puppy) would back off a little but then dash forward again. I think we're all going to get along fine. In the meantime, it's quite a household adventure.








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Sky-Diving In Without a Laptop

When I got to my office today, I discovered that I'd left home the cord that goes between my laptop and the power strip-- called a power supply? or battery pack or something like that. And of course the battery in the machine was out of juice. And I had appointments etc. and no time to get back home.

So, I turned my attention, in my non-appointment time, to doing everything in my office that could be done without my computer. By 6 o'clock I'd finished my taxes and filed receipts going back to October. And paid some bills. I could have put these off a bit longer. But, laptopless, I was forced to face them. Not such a bad thing.

And my desktop, the upper surface of my physical desk is clean, except for a few notes and a Fresca can.

This is the third time I've left that cord in the wrong place. And I've gotten a lot done every time. So maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. Sort of like getting pushed out of the plane when it's time to make your first parachute jump. Ordinarily I don't like that kind of help, but I did do this to myself. So I can't complain.

(Note: Sky-diving is one thing I declined to do even back in my more reckless years. Parasailing twice around Puerto Vallarta Harbor is as close as I ever want to come. I got the second trip around for free because there was difficulty getting me down, and when I finally skidded in for a landing, I came to a halt lying across a sunbathing gentlemen who had seen me approaching in the last seconds and desperately tried to get out of my way.)

(Note 2: My process in writing novels is very much the same as that used in this post. Start off with a missing cord and wind up in Puerta Vallarta. I like that.)




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The Creative Unconscious

I sat down this morning to start proofreading my novel and wound up making substantial and marvelous changes to the opening. (Some might not call these substantial since the events didn’t change, but I do: the emotion became clearer and stronger.)

This reminds me once again: it’s not only our will and resolve and conscious minds with the capacity be bold. The unconscious can at the most unexpected times kick in with some pretty cheeky ideas as well. Thank God! I’d hate to think I was on this job entirely on my own.





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In Bold Chase of Dad

A man whose father left him as a baby decided he wanted to find out about his father and where he'd gone. After decades and networks of research and with the help of some DNA detective work, he learned at the age of 82 what he wanted to know.

This story, "DNA Reveals Story of Dad's Disappearance," was in my local paper, the News & Observer, yesterday--written, as it happens, by my sister-in-law, Ruth Sheehan.

The story got an enormous outrageous shocking number of hits.

I wonder if it was because DNA and genealogy are hot topics. Or because the story of a guy who kept on looking is inspiring. ('Course, Ruth's a really good writer, it could've been entirely that.)

Whatever else the attraction, I'm pretty sure that the story of someone keeping on--for more than six decades, even into old age--and succeeding is always a hot topic.





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A Passion for Mastiffs

A big piece of the boldness equation is going full-tilt after what draws you, what you care about.

Saturday night my dear old friend Susie came to dinner; we had not seen each other in 41 years. Until our mid-teens, we lived one door away from each other, and had played together from my earliest memory. Then she moved.

The Internet (with the assistance of my brother Harry) reconnected us. She lives only three hours away, and she was traveling with four Tibetan mastiffs.

Turns out that she, Susie Ochsenbein, has a passion for these huge beautiful dogs and has traveled over much of the world showing, judging, visiting, and studying them. She's a global expert on these animals. And has 13 of her own. That's pretty close to an actual ton of live dog.

The one I got to meet was a sweet-tempered, quiet girl with a gorgeous fluffy coat, as they all seem to have. She's only a year old and about the size of a very large bulldog.

What strikes me even more than the wonder of these handsome dogs is Susie's devotion to them, her knowledge and her passion. I love to see anyone seize life that way; and that's what I think is happening when we follow our true and abiding interests.

It's especially nice when it's my old pal.



From a Joseph Campbell interview with Bill Moyers: "...If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."






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"Bold, Persistent Experimentation"

A Newsweek article, "America's New Shrink", on Obama said that his model is FDR (we all knew that), who based his New Deal on (here's the juicy item): faith in "bold, persistent experimentation."

I love the phrase: bold, persistent experimentation. And I too have faith in that method. It's so often the basis for revising a manuscript. I'll know from feedback that there's some problem I need to solve. But usually if a reader offers a prescription for solving the problem, it doesn't quite work. So I sit and experiment -- on and on -- and then try the results on that reader again. And if the problem isn't solved, then back to work on it again.

Sort of like Thomas Edison's famous approach to invention: keep changing the recipe, and if that doesn't work then change it again, thousands of times.

It's a pretty good strategy. And all three ideas in this mantra are crucial: bold, persistent, experimentation.





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