Grandma, The Word Garden, A Leprechaun, A Cumquat and The Man of My dreams

Pictured here are some of the ladies of Word Garden East: Eva, Myself, Laura, Larissa and Melanie (not pictured: Julie, Lisa, Shannon, Jackie and Carol, whose voices I have missed and everyone I will miss you and your writing).

I believe that anyone who has a blog fancies themselves something of a writer, I definitely fit into that category. Every Wednesday night at the Word Garden we use different images and ideas like a yellow sponge, a blueberry or a Tarot card for healing to access the words inside for a story we are writing, or something totally new and unexpected. This exploration also brings up issues of craft and the writing life. One question I always find myself dealing with is that of Imagination vs. Experience. Could I be a writer and actually finish a novel if I locked myself in a closet? Or do I need life experience to propel a plot and give a story authentic detail? To me these are not rhetorical questions they can inform or validate decisions I have made in my life like say going all the way to the flippin’ Ukraine.

It seems that the purpose of travel is to have new experiences, to see the world, to have stories to tell, to understand other cultures, their customs and motivations and speak with authority about the pumpkin colored orange of a sunrise in Mexico. To bear witness to the rabid Rex Sox fans in Massachusetts and feel the wind whipping off the harbor and stinging your face in Boston (which is actually the windiest city in North America, not Chicago). Can I write about tripping over cobble stones in the streets of New Orleans because Tennessee Williams told me how treacherous they were or because I imagine that it is difficult, because especially after a Hurricane or two (the drink from Pat O’Brien’s with all the rum, not the natural disaster although the after affects can feel similar) I might appear like a drunk flamingo line dancing down Bourbon street, narrowly escaping the muscular cracks in the sidewalk as the city sinks into the Louisiana Swamp from which it came.

I suppose that I could not write with authority or authenticity about anywhere if I had not been there, but there is something about the worlds that I create myself. I take bits and pieces of say, Pullman, Washington and those little communities along the Russian River, borrow a little bit of San Jose and the spunky and sexually charged banter of my Grandmother (no this is not a typo, Grandma Nadine, with a pace-maker in her chest, who whistles like a construction worker at every good looking man she sees on the street), a little bit of my dream man and my nemesis, and a Leprechaun named Fin, a cumquat, A ceramic vase and a rabid dog. I add all these elements and brew a tale like a cup of tea and drink in a story that never happened but is supremely real, given authenticity and detail from the landscape of my own mind. Maybe this is what I will gain by going to the Ukraine a little authentic experience to work with my imagination, a backdrop for the greatest love story I’ll ever create in my mind (all those ones from high school don’t count). All I know is that the more wood I have the brighter the fire will burn. I guess I’m not here to argue Imagination v. Experience; I don’t want to argue because I understand that I need them both. Experience is the locomotive but Imagination is the engine; I need them both to lurch forward on the track to everywhere.

The Curious Quote Wall: 5

“Stupidity is the American disease, and Bush is the form’s master practitioner. He is inept at speaking the English language. And one of the things I believe is necessary about democracy is that the health of democracy- the vibrancy of democracy- depends on the use of language…The vibrancy of democracy depends on language and there’s Bush with his dead-ass language. It’s unforgivable.” –Norman Mailer

“America isn’t producing anymore maverick writers who have a galvanizing place in the cultural life of the nation.”- Norman Mailer

“The ambition of a writer like myself is to become consecutively more disruptive, more dangerous and more powerful.” –Norman Mailer

Two years is a long time, bring lost of Socks and some Cinnamon and a good Vegetable Peeler

Sorry it's been so long kids. I've missed you terribly. However, preparing to go away for over two years requires militaristic precision in the planning. Every item has to be carefully selected for color (will it show dirt and how hard will it be for me to wash this sweater by hand in sub-zero temperatures [that is sub-zero Celsius, not Fahrenheit]) and how much does this item weigh (will it be difficult for me to lug every thing around like a nomad from California to Chicago for staging to a conference center near Kiev to a home outside of Kiev to some god-forsaken small little village in the Ukrainian country side) and how useful is this item (can I use it at work and at home, can I put it on my walls and wear it if I need to, what features does a gal need on a Swiss army knife do I need a hook for carrying packages wrapped in twine, and a magnifying glass for starting fires with out matches or do I just need a cork screw for all the wine I'll be drinking?). My credit card is very tired. I need versatile shoes, a sleeping bag that can double as a bed spread. Apparently there is no peanut butter in the Ukrainian, or Cinnamon (an excellent organic ant killer as well as good on toast) and you need comfortable socks, because as Cliff Claven said in the final episode of Cheers, "The meaning of life comes down to comfortable footwear, Jesus, nice sandals." And every RPCV (returned Peace Corps Volunteer, it is important to know the lingo) from the Ukraine says you need a good vegetable peeler because you will be eating a lot of potatoes.

The Wild Turkey Mystery

When I say "Wild Turkey Abatement" I do not mean we need abstinence from Kentucky's best bourbon. Yes that picture of a wild turkey is in my own back yard. That turkey, we'll call her Wilma and her baby, we'll call her Pebbles (not pictured), flew into my backyard this afternoon over a 7 foot fence. They pecked around the Mexican poppies, yellow coriopsis and rabbit ears for a while, found the bark of the maple tree to be unsatisfactory and the mother/daughter combo flew up and perched on top of the fence and then I assume flew into the drainage ditch behind the fence, then would have waddled across Michael Ln, to the parking lot of St. Anslems Epsicoplian church to thrill the kids at the day care.
Far as I can tell from the website of the National Wild Turkey Federation the one's our back yard were Gould's Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana). I could tell this from the light brown and grey feathers and the size that it was the female of the species. But oddly they are usually only found as far north as Arizona. However, there have been sightings of them all over the East San Francisco Bay, here in Lafayette I have heard of many sightings and even in Danville. So this turkey issues gets more and more mysterious. I'm not an expert on what kind of damage these birds can cause if any, but I do not think that it will cause fewer traffic accidents for birds the size of dogs to be waddling through the streets of Lafayette, this raises the issues of Wild Turkey Abatement, maybe we will just wait until Thanksgiving, Wild Turkey is the most popular game bird in the United States.

The Ribbon Drawer

When I was younger, read birth through age ten, we had a ribbon drawer in my kitchen growing up. The ribbons were for my hair. Every color of the rainbow so as never to clash with my outfit. Anyone who knows me knows that these ribbons were not my idea, that credit belongs only to Mom. There were many knock down, drag out back-alley bar room brawls in my house over the wearing of ribbon and eventually I always ended up wearing one. I hated bows and the ribbons they came from and thought I always would. But at the previously mentioned wedding I wore a ribbon in my hair, circled around my up-do with the pieces flowing down my back. So one of my old babysitters, Alyssa, was at this wedding and she comes over to me and says, you still love ribbons!! I had to break it to her that this was my first ribbon back after over a decade away from the ribbonn world. I'm not sure if ribbons are going to make a comeback in my life but how crazy is it for your past to come trotting out of left field in a grass-stained uniform after missing the pop-fly. So maybe it turns out that my mother wasn't so wrong about ribbons and bows, maybe this is all a sign that I've truly changed from who I was then as Kelly claims to some one who enjoys blue satin ribbons. But in a house where the ribbon drawer has turned into a very large ribbon box, maybe it isn't such a bad thing to dress things up a little bit in case it turns out I am actually a grown up, but I feel like actual grown ups say adult instead.

Not Getting Married is One of My Hobbies

Congratulations to Meghan and Mike who will be stuck together forever after 3pm today.
Everyone around me is getting married. I am going to a wedding later today in fact. I am attending the marriage of Mike and soon to be Meghan Hetke, which promises to be a glorious affair to celebrate two people who are very right together. And everyone I went to middle school with seems to be getting married as well. Caitlin, one of my dearest and oldest friends, is getting married in about a year and she keeps saying how old we must be at 23 to have everyone we know be getting married and starting businesses and moving away (I officially accepted my invitation to serve in Peace Corps/Ukraine on Thursday). Maybe it is the prospect of settling down that makes her feel old but I think that we are very young. It is not only our age that makes us young but the fact that we are at the beginning of something, anything. I see that when one is at the beginning of any endeavor large or small we are an infant in that moment, in that thing, and we must crawl there at first and earn the knowledge that makes us adults and allows us to walk and then run and then fly.
The most vivacious women I know of any age are in their fifties and sixties. These women understand if not intellectually, than emotionally down deep in their bones, the necessity of newness. They are embarking on new adventures in new relationships, in dancing, sailing, painting or writing (I a sending my love to Jackie now). They are children in these pursuits and smile as if they never had a line on their face. This maybe the nature of any new thing forced or chosen in ones life,but maybe that is just the magic of these women, to always be bringing themselves to the front door of an unfamiliar building, fresh-faced and ready for the next adventure.
Now, if you will excuse me, all this typing is chipping my nail polish and I have a wedding to attend.

The Curious Quote Wall: 4

"Artists are in love with their own shit, but their skill is to make others love it too."-David Galef

"My characters are galley slaves...I am the perfect dictator of that private world insofar as I alone am responsible for its stability and truth."- Nabokov on the subject of characters taking over a story.

The Easy Embargo

Easy as Pie, Easy like Sunday Morning, eggs over easy. All of these phrases are hence forth stricken from my vocabulary along with the word 'easy' itself, except when referring to slutty women, because it describes certain females with such razor like accuracy. The reason for the Easy Embargo is because I did not make the easy choice by going into the Peace Corps (PC) so the word easy suddenly seems obsolete, cruel in fact. Case in point, the Cyrillic alphabet (seen above). I have expressed how much the Cyrillic alphabet scares me. But I have started to study and determined how many letters make the same sound in English and look the same (8 of 33), six of the characters look the same as letters I know but make different sounds and the rest, well lets just say when I was studying at work the other day someone looked over my shoulder and exclaimed "You're studying chemistry?!" Craziness.
All of this may seem a tad dramatic, but I received my official invitation from the PC today, the other notification came by e-mail. This packet is very official, not really a packet, but an inch thick cardboard filing folder with tabs about a new passport (a special PC passport), insurance, plane tickets, visas, a lobotomy (just making sure you are paying attention). The conclusion to this all is that I knew in theory how much work there was going to be involved in this particular adventure that I am so hungry for, but when I look at the list which includes learning new teaching techniques and doing a teaching and technology practicum in country in my first three months there not to mention having to learn Ukrainian and Russian (it looks like I will have to learn both pretty proficiently). Now I am seeing how much there is to do and I am doing it, learning my alphabet so that it will be like second nature (one of my little kids [7 years old] saw me studying and I told her what I was doing and she said well if you are learning the alphabet then just sing the alphabet song. One of the sweetest things I have ever heard, and the smartest so I am trying to develop the Cyrillic alphabet song, but so far no dice as I do not know what phlegmy-cough type back of the throat sounds I have to make for each character) and I am filling out all the new fucking paperwork. Once the paper work is over things will never be easy, but they will exciting. I always keep that in mind.

The Curious Quote Wall: 3

"Democracy is the worst form of government, save all the other kinds."-Churchill

"I am not a sexual idiot."- Lindsay

Me: You drank for 13 hours yesterday, wow your liver really must hate you.
Neuc: Yeah, all my livers hate me.