Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Usually, you know, he wears a suit with the sleeves down. But in this picture you can see his forearms and everything. I wonder if he will get a burn that way. Probably keeping the sleeves down at most outdoor events is a good idea.

As I wrote earlier, I have failed in my first attempt to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month. The goal was to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I burned out on the task on just the third day, finding it to be un-fun and feeling the need to accomplish other tasks.

I’m not going to jump back on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon for this year. But I have been thinking about why I fizzled. I think the answer is that I didn’t structure the attempt enough. I just had an idea in my head and jumped right in, flailing around for a few days and getting really tired in the process. I’m not ashamed to say I failed, big time. OK, maybe a bit ashamed. I’d like to do better.

So I’m going to start again at the beginning of next month, but I’m going to do things differently. December will be Figure Out the Parameters of How I’m Going to Structure My Novel Month. January will be Compose the Particulars of the Structure for My Novel Month, and the rest of the year will by my Novel Writing Year. It’s a longer period of time for a long project. I think this is more realistic, less rushed and panicky than National Novel Writing Month, and so I think I’m more likely to succeed. I will try again, at a less manic pace.

Wish me luck! I would appreciate any advice anyone might have to offer.

I’ve discovered myself during National Novel Writing Month. The exercise has helped me figure out with a bit more detail exactly who I am. I am… a person who is not really interested in writing fiction. I love to read fiction, and I love to write non-fiction. I thought the two would somehow combine into an interest in writing fiction. But no, no dice! I’ve been writing fiction for the past three days and it’s like driving a car with a really messed-up alignment. I keep on veering back into non-fiction. I’m writing little non-fiction passages from fictional non-fiction books inside my novel, and those are the parts of writing my “novel” that I enjoy the most. Getting back to the story and the plot and character development is so boring to me compared to that.

Up until right now, I’ve countered that tendency by taking a deep breath and diving right back in to the fictional parts. But why do that? I want, I very clearly want, to write non-fiction. I think I’m going to do that instead. Am I limiting myself? Maybe. Might I want to give fiction writing another shot some other year? Sure. But the situation is akin to my “new food” policy with my children; I won’t let them complain about and refuse food without at least trying one bite of it (I mean, you know, unless it’s horribly burnt or infused with radon or something like that). I’ve had my bites for now, three days’ worth of them, and right now I don’t like the dish. When my kids say they don’t like a food after tasting it, I’ll take it off their menu for a few months and then maybe try it again. Sometimes they like the food on the second go. Maybe I’ll enjoy writing a novel with my second attempt, even though I didn’t like it this time. We’ll see — next year.

I’m participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge for this year, in which the goal is to write 50,000 words of a fictional novel between November 1 and November 30, 2007. The goal is quantity, not quality, something that is designed to smash down the perfectionist’s writer’s block. I’m giving it a shot for the first time in my life. I’ve never so much as written a fictional short story, so this will be a real challenge and growth experience.

Here’s a fragment from yesterday’s writing:

“Why did he have to give me a name like ‘Bingley?’” asked the boy over a dinner of chicken drumsticks, jasmine rice and green peppers an hour and a half later.

With a teenager in the house, Carl had learned the value of maintaining what he called “meal sets” at the ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Not only could a kid in high school be occasionally too moody to come down for a scheduled dinner, but there were the second breakfasts, the midnight snacks, and the unannounced visitors who seemed to have a way of nudging a space open at the dinner table. Carl didn’t mind this challenge; on the contrary, he seemed to savor it as a test of his abilities as a parental surrogate not just for Bingley but for all the kids who found their way to his kitchen.

When he was growing up, Carl’s mother on occasion would tell him stories about his grandfather, who would bring all sorts of what she’d call “characters” home for dinner without so much as a phone call. Grandma would complain around the edges, but she always seemed to be able to pull a meal together out of the contents in the pantry, no matter how meager they were. Any complaints by Carl as a boy when he was denied a wanted toy were met by his mother’s story about the potato – one large russet potato split six ways to feed a family of four and two homeless guests.

Even now, the bare mention of the potato story would prompt Carl to roll his eyes. Nevertheless, the tale’s repetition had accomplished its intended purpose in setting a standard for Carl to meet in his domestic life as an adult. “Just in case,” Carl would mutter to himself at the grocery store when he encountered an unnecessary item that might prove useful in the future. A pork tenderloin that surely would fit in the basement freezer. A head of cabbage; now that would keep from wilting or rotting longer than most other fresh vegetables. Packets of ramen would do in a pinch, too, as long as there was some green onion, some leftover chicken to shred, and maybe an egg to scramble into it.

Carl didn’t stock his kitchen like this for the hobos. Really, Carl had no idea how he would even find people to help out like that. Maybe homeless travelers didn’t make themselves public like they used to; almost nobody hitchhiked any more or stayed in the parks past dawn. Maybe Carl’s grandfather’d just had the knack, or maybe he’d had an open face. Or maybe it was Carl who had an unusual deficit in that regard. Carl had joked more a few too many times to his friends that he wouldn’t know how to find recreational drugs if he’d even wanted to try them, or how to find a prostitute if he’d been feeling lonely and inclined. His friends would to pause a few uncomfortable seconds before bringing up another more wholesome subject.

No, Carl wouldn’t know how to find such people to bring home for dinner. The way it had worked instead was that the kids found Carl. He’d stocked his kitchen well-enough, and treated area kids to delicious snacks and meals at odd times of the day for long enough, that eventually one of those kids would get locked out of the house accidentally and just know where to go until mom came home with her extra key. From there it was a combination of word spreading from friend to friend and the acceleration of events. From a kid getting locked out accidentally, to a kid who’d gotten drunk and didn’t want to face the music at home just yet, to a kid needing refuge from fights at school, to a kid getting locked out on purpose, to a kid finding refuge from getting knocked around at home. Because Carl worked from home, his kitchen was pretty much always open, and he just wasn’t the kind of man to say no to someone with a need. With some of the kids, he’d never even get to know their name; they’d just come in on the trails of someone else and drift out before anybody noticed. Some of the kids would stick around a while longer.

If I can write this dreck, surely you can write something better. Go ahead, give it a shot.

Eventually, all the scam artists get to their point:

The Sadgurus gives the right knowledge, even without your service. When you are convinced then only, you can do service to him which will help him, to help others. In fact a Satguru does not need your service because He is the God. He can help others, by his own powers. But you will not have the right benefit, because you did not show, the gratefulness to him. Suppose a doctor gives you medicines, without taking any fees and you get good health. If you are not paying the fees, even though you are capable, due to greediness, you will die, with a new disease. So, only for your safety, Satguru advises you to participate in the service.

Service consists of two parts.
 Paying the fees in terms of money, which you have earned by your work.
 Doing some work for the Guru.
You can do either of these or both as per you convenience.

Yes, for our safety. Oh, that Satguru Lord Datta sure does have our interests at heart. Thank you for saving our lives by taking money and work. Oh, thank you.

A final round of thanks goes out to Frank Liberal, who I imagine with a brassy voice making Aunt Gertrude drop her silverware in embarrassment at Thanksgiving dinner. Frank’s not afraid to say what I’m not sure most of us are thinking, but which I imagine a lot of us come close to thinking. I’d never before thought about the curiosity of bottling plants going at full tilt in a time of drought. I should have.

These are only a few of the people whose words, for varying reasons, I find it really enjoyable to read here. You are the anti-Dattaswamis, and I wanted you to know (sniff! honk!) that I care. Cue the violins. Sweeping arpeggios!

I never know what to expect from Iroquois’ diary postings, and that’s a good thing. Iroquois is eclectic, particular, general, biting, forgiving, questioning, answering and always challenging. Thank you, Iroquois, for shoving my brain out in different directions whether I like it or not. Thanks for helping me to laugh. You can have the part of Antarctica I was saving for the icegoing cephalopod mutants.

I appreciate it when Damen posts news articles on topics that the main Irregular Times page might not be covering. It’s a digestion of what Damen considers critical, and although I’m hungry to hear more about what Damen thinks about these stories, I often find myself discovering something I didn’t know, and there’s a lot of value in that. Thanks, Damen.

Another shout-out goes to Scott. We haven’t heard from Scott lately, but he has a very thoughtful short series here in the diaries on religious thought. Thanks for provoking my thought, Scott. Scott’s latest diary was entitled Mocking God and was written on April 24, 2007.

Dattaswami’s latest bout of religious diarrhea gives me pause, since his is a cut-and-paste job, one that bullies space away from other writers without even being especially thoughtful. It says a lot that Dattaswami has chosen to demonstrate such negative character traits in the name of the true religion for which he claims to hold swami status.

There’s a contrast between what Dattaswami has done and what others have done using the diary system. Rather than cede the stage to this fakir’s song and dance, I thought I’d take the opportunity today to express appreciation to some diaries and diarists whose efforts I really appreciate. Perhaps I haven’t taken enough time to express that appreciation before now; now is the perfect time to do so.

The first diarist I’d like to single out for appreciation is Red Dave, whose ongoing Iraq Body Count series is a daily effort to keep count of what many people would like to forget — the toll of dead and injured in Iraq. Thanks, Red Dave, for ringing a reminder out loudly and persistently. His latest post, the Iraq Body count for October 25, 2007, is here.

The whole world is the kingdom of Visa

You must realize that the whole world is the kingdom of Visa as stated by Mastercard. Because I said so, that’s why. Any injustice will be punished by Customer Service and you need not worry about it. Your view of the debt limit is revenge but our CEO’s view of interest rates are to transform the blah blah blah blah blah…

Sorry, I lost steam. Here, let me start again:

The more definitively someone tells you they know what God is, the more desperate they are to nab your cash.

Fair? Unfair? True? Untrue?

This morning, as I was sending off the latest set of anti-Bush buttons in the mail to people who had ordered them, I lingered for a moment over the address of one recipient: Mankato, Minnesota. The name “Mankato” brought me right back to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books, which I read over and over as a kid, and the Little House TV series, complete with Melissa Gilbert flying down a hill with her little arms stuck out wide at the end of each show.

Another town I think of is Skokie, Illinois. When I hear “Skokie,” I think of Nazis, and so for me the name Skokie is associated with white racism. That’s unfair, because Skokie is a fairly liberal-friendly place, picked on by Nazis outsiders back in the 1970s because it has a lot of Jewish people living there.

What place names can’t you hear without some association, fair or unfair, to the past?

I know it’s hopelessly out of my age and gender group, but I just don’t care. I loved watching the CBC’s production of Anne of Green Gables last night. That’s Anne with an “e.” How comforting to know that in these trying times, with a little bit of pluck and a fair number of freckles we can find that bosom friend. I found it to be the perfect childish retreat for a world that is increasingly intolerant of innocence.

Are there any other closet Anne of Green Gables fans out there? Or am I alone in my admiration of the corny and sweet?

“We almost got killed back there!”
“No, honey. it was just a close call.”

This may change tomorrow, but right now Twister is my favorite bad movie. It’s full of doozies like this, either messed up by the writing or messed up by the delivery: “He’s not in it for the science. He’s in it for the money!”

What’s your favorite bad movie, and why?

Tonight I tried…

A splash of cranberry juice mixed with lime-flavored carbonated water: standard rice-cake yummy.

A splash of Midori melon liqueur mixed with lime-flavored carbonated water: oh yummy yum yum yum yum.

What’s your preferred form of liquid enjoyment?

I’ve been starting up a worm composting bin in my basement, and I’ve had a problem with fruit flies. Lots and lots of fruit flies. Fruit flies in my coffee. Fruit flies up my nose. Fruit flies, fruit flies, fruit flies!

The Recycling Council of Ontario suggests a beer trap:

Pour a half-cup of beer into a small glass jar. Place a plastic bag over the mouth of the jar with one corner reaching down into the jar. Poke a small hole in the corner of the bag with a pencil. Secure the bag around the rim with a rubber band. Fruit flies will be attracted by the beer, make their way through the hole, and be unable to get out.

This sounded pretty fishy to me, but in my desperation I decided to give it a shot. And by gum, it works! Overnight, scores of fruit flies met their end in a cup of hefeweizen. What a sight. Who needs religion for amusement when you’ve got deadly beer?

In response to USMARINE’s plagiarized “Make You Think”:

This’ll make ya stop & take a whizz!

Your alarm goes off, you hit your kid in the mouth instead of the snooze button, and go back to sleep.
She’s been cleaning out toilets at no charge since 3 this morning.

You drink coffee sitting in your comfortable chair in the suburbs.
She can’t drink coffee. It makes her indigestion flare up.

You complain of a “headache”, and don’t sleep with your significant other for a month.
Headache? She wishes she just had a headache! With that ear infection and that funny feeling in her tooth, things just haven’t been the same since 1987.

You put on your conservative christian conformist polo shirt, and go meet up with your lily white congregation.
While you’re walking in, she notices that your polo shirt has tomato sauce on it.

You make sure your cell phone is in your pocket.
She clutches the satanic emblem she had branded above her left nipple last month. Damn, but it still hurts.

You talk trash on your “buddies” that haven’t shown up for the Wayne County Republican Party Steering Committee Meeting for two months in a row.
She knows that you went down on your “buddies” last week in the rec room.

You walk down the beach, thinking about how much your conservative ideals make you want to rob people.
She was robbed just last week by a conservative meanie just like you.

You complain about how hot it is.
“Hot?” she says. “Well, it isn’t the heat so much as the humidity, is it, and let me tell you it has been so humid here that I don’t think I can get out of the house, but I do have to feed those 300 homeless kids down at the shelter.”

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant sent you a Mexican waiter.
She kisses Mexicans waiters.

Your Mexican maid makes your bed and washes your clothes. Then you fire her and report her to the INS.
She teaches Mexican maids English as a Second Language.

You go to the mall and buy a “What Would Jesus Do?” bumper sticker, and run over a bunny rabbit on the way.
She makes bumper stickers using her leftover fingernail clippings, and gives all the proceeds to kids with leukemia.

You voted for George W. Bush, and sent him an illegal campaign contribution.
She votes Green Party all the way and has perfect white teeth.

You kick babies.
She loves babies.

Your kids are healthy and have a big trust fund.
Her kids are afflicted with chronic diseases affecting every major organ system.

You make jokes about Green Party voters.
She has to collect her own urine for some obscure medical reason.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
She sees the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

You are asked to save the little baby rabbits in the path of the lawn mower. You don’t.
She saves baby rabbits, all righty.

You sit there and judge her, saying that people who help people are stupid fucking idiots. Then you hit your mom in the teeth with a tire iron.
If only there were more Green Party voters like her.

If you love babies and the little fluffy bunnies repost this.
If you don’t repost this, you hate babies and the little fluffy bunnies.

It’s when I am falling asleep that my brain most often wanders in strange directions. As I was about to nod off last night, the phrase “Get All Your Ducks In A Row” popped into my mind.

Well, why would you want to get all your ducks in a row? For what purpose? What good does it do, except to have them in a row, instead of in a clump or V-formation?

Where does this odd expression come from?

Over at Pursuing Holiness, Laura cuts and pastes a piece of an IMAO post she admires:

Iran will talk, but they say they won’t give up their “nuclear rights.” What? First, it was a “right” to free healthcare and now it’s a “right” to nuclear missiles. Stupid liberals. They’re going to get us all nuked and then we’ll have to wait two weeks for a doctor to see us about our horrible radioactive mutations.

Oh, come on, Laura and IMAO. Name a real, honest-to-goodness “stupid liberal” who says that Iran has “a right to nuclear missiles.”

The leader of Iran, the man who is actually making this claim, is a religious conservative.

Pop quiz for Laura: who was the American president who distributed a big, whopping load of weapons to Muslim extremists? Was he a liberal?

These people are being really unreasonable, and it undercuts the moral authority they so highly prize.

Just seen: a red pickup truck driving on University Boulevard in Durham, North Carolina with the following hand-painted words across one side:

“DUKE/LASIK Trashed My Vision”

This may or may not be true. But I know for sure that I was glad to see the truck from the relative safety of the sidewalk.

I just finished listening to a radio segment about Salvia Divinorum, an herb from the sage family that is legal to procure and that is apparently hallucinogenic in nature. I’ve never taken it, but am very curious.

Has anyone here taken Salvia Divinorum, or does anyone here know someone who has? I’d be really interested to hear about your experiences with the herb, and to read your recommendations regarding it.

Thanks.

Today was the day. I found out my wife has been assigned to a hospital in Columbus, Ohio for her medical residency. We’ll be making the move in June, which leaves us relatively little time to learn more about Columbus, find a place to live, get our son enrolled in an elementary school, move and unpack.

I sure could use your help. What do you know about Columbus, OH? What are your favorite hip Columbus neighborhoods? What are the most affordable places to live? Which neighborhoods combine the two? Which are the great public elementary schools, and which ones are poorly run?

This is a chance for Columbus lovers, Columbus haters, and those who just know a lot about Columbus to share their strong feelings or knowledge about the city. I’ll listen intently to what you have to say; since I’ve never been into the city itself, your knowledge will be a strong guide.

Thanks.

P.S. Can you say “swing state”? Boy, that part is definitely going to be fun.