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To My Friends on the Eve of their Marriage

A wassail to my friends as they embark on the crazy, fun, challenging, lovely, inspiring, and wondrous journey of marriage:
May you never stop making each other laugh.
May you never run out of games to play.
May there be some jokes that only the two of you will ever understand.
May you help each other grow.
May your family grow in joy.
May your disagreements be short and your make-up snuggles plentiful.
May your vacations take you to wherever you want to be together.
May your home forever emit warmth and welcome.
May you find yourselves stronger after the storms you face.
May you find yourselves blessed time and again, and always be grateful.
And may your memories last far longer than your bodies.
To J & J: Congratulations!

Nothing New Under the Sun

How funny that when I saw the word of the day today I thought "Oh, I know what that is- but when did roleplay terminology make it into the dictionary?" How surprised was I when I clicked on the entry and found that the term meant something entirely different than the context I knew it in.

But that shouldn't really be surprising. What's that saying? Nothing new under the sun? It's a concept I've struggled with a long time. If these ideas have been done a million times before than why are mine any different?

The answer? They're not, really. Creativity isn't usually much more than a new spin on an old idea. When it comes down to it they're the same characters in the same roles with the same struggles and quests and story arcs. The difference? Those little twists and idiosyncrasies that come from seeing the same story through someone else's eyes.

I was recently describing a brief synopsis of the novel I plan to start writing in a few weeks to a friend and I found myself labeling it in terms of movies and stories it was similar to. And you know what's funny about that? I didn't mind.

My novel, at its basis, is like a whole lot of other stories that have already been told. And that, for some strange reason, doesn't bother me.

I used to talk about ideas I had or stories I was thinking and I'd get reactions of "Oh, this sounds like this book" or "Oh, that's just like the so and so movie that came out a few years ago". When I got those reactions I'd get all defensive- trying to come up with some reasons why my story was different, unique, a completely new creation.

But I realize now- maybe because I'm older, maybe because I've been through NaNoWriMo once and found that I didn't care how many ideas I recycled if it filled my word count- that there is nothing really "new". And if there was, we probably wouldn't get it anyway.

The reason we can so easily connect with stories and characters and quests is because they are familiar to us, because we have seen them before. That's what allows us to connect with them. Even in science fiction and horror and fantasy where the laws of physics may not apply or the creatures aren't human or the universe is strange we still find a way to connect because of the familiar parts. The protagonist's struggle, their desires, their needs, their confusion. We've seen it all before so we can put ourselves in their shoes without thinking twice.

I'd even argue that if there was something so new that there was nothing even remotely familiar about it there'd be no story because the audience wouldn't be able to attach. Like the art of schizophrenics- it's amazingly creative, but no one really connects to it because that world is too foreign and alien to us, we can't see ourselves inside.

So whether mana is rechargeable magic needed to cast spells or another way to think of energy or someone's soul or the name of some random alternative rock group doesn't really matter- chances are some will recognize it. And in the end, that's a good thing.

The Acta Fumeria

"No, that is is not what I am saying. I am not- what did she say?" he rummaged on his desk for the newspaper article which had so enraged him. "Attempting to destroy the proud history of our small town by adding the memoir of a deranged mind to our town history," he said, slamming the offending paper back down on his desk. "All I am saying is that this happened here and we can't hide it!" he argued.

"It's damaging to admit that such a vivid trade took place here, it reverses a lot of what we thought we knew about the town's founders and-"

"Damaging? To who?" he interrupted his consultant. "We didn't run illegal Opium dens in order to fund the buildings. We didn't set down this "religious morality" society- we're not the hypocrites, they are. And if we lie about the history of this place then we become just like them. Look, I'm not the one who said let's hire these crazy archaeologists to dig a giant hole in the center of the square after some kid found a 19th century toothpick- that was you. And if you recall, it was you who argued that the damned book was such an important find. If I'd had my way this damned 'Acta Fumeria' would have stayed buried along with the crazy italian who wrote it and we could have kept having our 'Butt Out' day without ever thinking more of it. But we can't reverse history. So our smoke free town used to be the hottest opium emporium this side of San Francisco. At least now we can say that we learned from our mistakes, right?"

Check the Site First

Everyone had told him he was crazy to buy a piece of waterfront property in a place he'd never been.

"You gotta check the site first!" they'd told him.

"What if it's a scam?"

"My cousin brought property down in Florida that looked like beach front property in the brochure but ended up being in the middle of a swamp! That could happen to you!"

Virtually no one had thought he was sane. But no one had his passion for adventure and steadfast belief that he could make such a leap and be better for it. No one considered that thrid world fisherman probably didn't have the skills to swindle a well educated American. No believed in the global connectivity that allowed him to discover and take advantage of this opportunity. But they would see they were wrong.

... At least that's what he'd told himself on the flight over as his nerves started to finally kick in with shock waves of that terrifying "uh-oh" feeling.

If he'd seen a brochure he would had said that it certainly didn't match but as was all he'd to go off of was the fisherman's description and his own imagination. And his imagination had envision a vast channel leading to an ocean teeming with fish, lush tropical plant life providing ample shade, a sandy spot set back from the shore to build a hut and a small village the closest sign of civilization.

What he saw was not what he imagined.

"Um- er... sam- samahani?" he said trying to get the attention of the man in the nearby boat pulling a crab cage out of the water. "Is this.. um... bahari mtazamo?"

"hakuna, hii ni tiba ya maji taka kupanda" the man yelled back.

He fumbled through his translation book trying to find the words the man had yelled. "Waste" was the first one he discovered, then eventually "Water" and "Treatment". The man in his little boat had set off long before he finally formulated the sentence "waste water treatment plant". Looking at the map again he found the piece of land he had paid for- "Sea View." And indeed, sitting on a slab of concrete in front of him was a large sewage plant with the words "Bahari Mtazamo" on the banner.

He couldn't help but think that it would've been cheaper to buy a swamp in Florida.

The Unanswerable Question

Mr. Charles Wilkes saw himself as one of the few remaining ‘true believers’. He didn’t teach because of the pay which was considerably better than many other professions. Or because he loved kids far more than adults who he saw as lacking the nympholepsy for life that children naturally possessed and which kept them in state of unending curiosity. Or because of the summers off which allowed him to continue working on his unpublishable novel while sleeping late and catching the occasional thunderstorm on the beach.

No, he taught because he genuinely believed in teaching the next generation, in the ability of inheritors to make a change with what is passed down. He taught because he honestly loved it. And it was this, he thought, that made him a good teacher. It wasn't because he was “cool” and let the kids call him Charlie. It wasn’t because he rewarded good grades with baking parties or class trips that were purely for fun. It wasn’t even because of his bonus questions.

He had devised the bonus question system years ago as a way to allow children to naturally let off the steam they needed to let off at the end of a test. After handing out the exam and allowing the allotted amount of time for the students to enter their answers he would collect them back, hand out a few blank pieces of paper to each child, and then raise the projector screen to show the hidden question on the board.

His questions weren’t brilliant, he was the first to admit. But they allowed for a great deal of imagination and creativity which he desired above all other qualities. Especially because you didn’t win by getting the question right, you won by coming up with the most creative answer you could devise in five minutes.

The student who answered “A little boy and a stuffed tiger” to the question “Who are Calvin & Hobbes?” scored no points. A student who answered “Two famous philosophers” also scored no points. No, the entry that won was the little boy who answered “Calvin was a famous jet fighter pilot who single-handedly turned the tide of the Great Indo-China war of 1741 simply because he loved the crumb cakes of a famous baker named Hobbes and didn’t want his bakery to be destroyed in the war. Oh, he really liked his black and white cookies, too.” That little boy was Alexander.

Alexander won far more often than any other student in the class simply because his answers were so intricately woven in such a short period of time and never took the obvious into consideration. He won for drawing a complex diagram in answer to the question “What would chairs look like if our knees were on the back of our legs?” He won for writing a recipe with several difficult steps in answer to the question “How do you make a flying melon?” And he won for creating a series of dance steps in answer to the question “What is an elastic conversion?”

Partially because Alexander won so often, and partially because he was a good student the bonus test points originally offered as reward became boring and Alexander asked from something different. After a brief discussion, the class concluded that in reward for answering the question the winning student should be able to ask the teacher a question in return.

In the beginning, Charlie got some boring questions like “How do you skin a cat?” and “What is the air-speed velocity of unladen swallow traveling through the forest at noon?” which didn’t require too much thought and ended up with answers that seemed to rival Alexander’s, at least to Charlie.

But one particular afternoon, after learning that he was once again the winner of the bonus question, Alexander got a very serious, very concerned look on his face. His brow furrowed, his lip tucked firmly between his teeth and his thumbs furiously circled each other as Alexander looked down at his desk and sat in silence. Charlie was enticed by this, expecting that the boy was coming up with a masterful conundrum for him to solve. After what seemed like far longer than his fellow students could possibly bear Alexander nodded his head and looked up to his teacher with a determined expression.

“Ok, Charlie. I have a real question. One that I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from out of anyone.”

At this Charlie’s heartbeat jumped and he tried to brace himself for what seemed like it would be something completely inappropriate for a class of 8th graders.

“Why,” Alexander continued, “do we die?”

The class turned in anticipation to look at the silent teacher in front of the room. Charlie considered the young boy standing at his desk. He knew the look in his eyes as it was one he’d had himself many times. When you look to an adult you respect and hope that they will be honest and tell you the truth that you need to hear. When you wait for a piece of invaluable information to be dispensed.

Unfortunately for Charlie, he didn’t know a deserving answer. He could refer him to a science lesson about how the cells of the human body break down over time or point him in the direction of a philosophical discussion or tell him to ask his parents what their religion teaches them or cite some old country expressions his grandmother used to tell him which always seemed profound. But none of those would have given him the answer he was seeking. So, he told him the only answer that would treat the question with the respect it deserved.

“I don’t know,” he said.

A Conversation Overheard in the Ale House

“Ah, Grews- where the hell have ya been?”
“Oh you know, same ‘ol, same ‘ol. A scrap o’ wood here, a bit o’ paint there, stack the hay in the barn and if I’m lucky I end up at the end of me day with enough for a pint. What ya been about?”
“Ah, well- funny you should mention but I’ve found meself a new profession.”
“Oh, have ye? Well, don’t keep us waiting ol’ Douf- what are ya doing?”
“I’ve been digging the graves down at the Ol’ Barley.”
“Grave digger? Well, why, man?”
“Because there’s no better place to fossick for riches, me dull friend!”
“Ya… ya steal from the bodies?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it stealin- they got no use for ‘em no more. Who needs a pocket watch in eternity? It’s ludicrous the things people send to be buried in the ground.”
“But aren’t ye afraid of yer eternity?”
“Nah, that’s all rubbish they tell ya to keep ya actin all good n’ proper. I never did take for such tales.”
“But… but what about the grim?”
“The grim? What are ya blatherin’ on about now?”
“The GRIM- don’t you know anything? The grim ain’t no tale- he’s real. I heard of this ol Barley man back when I was a wee one- he got himself the same scheme as you… and the Grim got ‘im.”
“What do ya mean ‘got ‘im’?”
“I mean he pulled him right down into the ground an ate ‘im alive. No one could hear him howlin’ and wailin’ under all that dirt. And when they found his bones they were licked dry. That’s what I mean the grim got ‘im.”
“How do ya know it was ‘the grim’? He coulda’ been eaten by a pack of wolves.”
“No, no- the bite marks, they were human-sized. No animal fur or paw prints or nothing, just a nice set ‘a clean bones.”
“Oh, you’re all full feathers an ticks- there ain’t no grim. I bet ya mammy just tell ya that to keep you from snoopin’ around in the Barley.”
“Nope, it’s true, I tell ya- ask around the mill, they’ll tell ya. Lost a lot of souls wanderin’ through the Barley lookin’ for riches, just like ya.”
“I ain’t got time for ya mad rambling, I got me a grave to dig.”
“Be careful- the Grim might be feelin’ a bit peckish bout now!”

Don't Wake the Baby

He walked into the room half asleep without really thinking of his surroundings or the caution he should have taken. Inevitably, he knocked over the book which had been precariously placed on the edge of the table and it fell to the floor with a small but audible clatter.

A fierce “Sshhhh!” came from behind him and he turned to see his wife leaning over the crib of their new born, feverishly mussitating the words “I just got her to sleep!”

He held a finger to his lips and tiptoed back out of the room, careful not to breathe too loudly.

Zen in everday life

Portrait of a moment in time:

A young woman sits at her desk, buzzing with caffeine and nervous energy, eying her phone nervously. She is clearly trying not to focus on the phone: she searches the binder in front of her for information, enters it into her excel sheet, strives to work productively. But her eyes involuntarily wander back to the phone.

She picks it up, checks for voicemail. There is none. Of course there wouldn't be, she thinks to herself, it didn't ring. She puts it back down and mentally chastises herself.

The phone rings. She jumps, fumbling to answer it. Her light eyes instantly dull as she realizes it is not the call she's been waiting for. And so the day moves on... This young woman is me, of course. And this moment in time is my Friday.

I've studied the power of now. I've talked about living in the moment. I've even studied buddhism at a monastery when I was younger: learning to meditate, trying to imagine life outside of the realm I know it in. During calm periods of life I've actually lived in the moment- for a moment or so. I've always thought, in that way that someone who isn't a buddhist monk might think, that if I spent all day everyday mediating and studying the words of those much more enlightened than me, and had nothing more to distract from these practices than sunlight, wind and the occasional chirping of a grasshopper that I might be capable of reaching satori, too. (Maybe even nirvana, eventually.)

But I don't. My life is real. I have nothing but attachments to the physical world. Every second of everyday I am constantly pulled into it, like gravity. Sure, you can jump- but you always come back down to earth. It makes sense that monks must seek such a simple existence in order to achieve enlightenment: there's just too much noise otherwise.

So I think that hoping for a higher way of living that would somehow allow me to walk the path of enlightenment while still living in the real world is just too tall of an order. At least for me.

No, I think the key that I should seek is not to understand the true nature of existence. I think what I should seek, and what I might actually have a shot at, is being at peace with NOT KNOWING.

Not knowing when or if I will get what I want, what my life will look like in the future, how I will handle the challenges I face, or what the hell it all means. To know, in an enlightened way, that I DON'T know and to be ok with that? Now that's enlightenment worth seeking.

Alive! ...and writing again

Any of you who have still bothered to check the site over the past several months of my absence have probably wondered where I’ve been. Well, I’ll tell you.
On a whim, I joined a Uruguayan rugby team. You know- for shits and giggles. Well, wouldn’t you know that right on the eve of the first big match our plane goes down smack dab in the middle of the Andes mountains. A whole butt load of people died and those of us that survived did so by resorting to acts no human being should ever dream of, let alone perform. Oh, and it was freakin’ cold, too! But, I survived. Safe to say, I’ve quit rugby.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing…. Or it may be some book I read a while ago. Whatever.
Either way, I’m back. And it’s getting to be that time again. Time to gear up for my favorite holiday and for the biggest writing challenge I’ve taken on in my life thus far. No, not the Pulitzer Prize but NaNoWriMo! I live with the belief that if I did it last year I can do it again.
But, it’s only a month away and I’ve got a lot of warming up to do if I expect to be able to pump out well over 1,000 words a day! So, towards that end, I have selected a warm up challenge for myself to perform over the next month.
It starts with the aid of a favorite site of mine, Dictionary.com. Despite having gone to a good school with some of the most intelligent and well-read people I’ve ever met my vocabulary is still limited. So, in order to improve my vocabulary I signed up for Dictionary.com’s Word of Day in which they send me a random word and definition every single day.
Since it’s common knowledge that you have to actually USE a word in order to absorb it I plan to use each “Word of the Day” for the month of October. One word, everyday, for the next 31 days.
In order to give myself room to experiment and to warm up writing muscles which have atrophied from inactivity I will attempt to use more than just one sentence to house each word. I’ll do random blog entries about various observations or thoughts, try to throw some short stories in there, some non-fiction, some outrageous fiction, some holiday-based entries (it is October, after all) and maybe even a poem or two.
I promise nothing about quality or clarity, simply to use the word in a way that demonstrates my understanding of it. I’ve added a link on the side so you can check the definition and judge whether or not I’ve used it correctly.
Should I complete this task I should be in pretty good shape to start NaNoWriMo on November 1st and actually stand a chance at crossing the 50K word mark by the end of the month.
So, if you’re at all interested, stay tuned! You can be literary judges, hecklers, cheerleaders, whatever. I’ll happily read any comments you post (and promptly delete them if they are links to Japanese porn sites*_*).
Wish me luck, everybody!

Yes, It is Better to Laugh at Yourself

A dear friend of mine, who is largely why this blog still exists despite a writer who believes that she is incapable of writing anything worthwhile, sent me an article recently published in the Huffington Post. I’ve never read the Huffington Post so I have no idea what kinds of articles they publish in general, but this seemed to be a bit of an editorial on the danger of taking ourselves- and our work- too seriously. It’s by Thomas Moore, and you can read it here.

Anyway, in the article, Moore says that “Seriousness without fun is the sign of an exaggerated ego.” Now, I’ve never seen myself as having any kind of an ego because I always associated ego with narcissism and I have more self loathing than you can fit into a football stadium. But if I remember what one of my mentors Freud said about ego being simply an extension of self, one that houses conscious awareness, than I can see Moore’s point.

I am definitely aware. Ridiculously aware. Of my mistakes, my downfalls, my failures, my shortcomings. So aware, in fact, that I often lose sight of everything else. I get stuck there, I live there, I set up house there. And all the facts that may contradict that little dark hole I’ve dug myself into go by without notice.

I’ve been reminded of some of those facts recently. Not by huge, grandiose events but rather by small, simple reminders. Reminders of “Yes, your friends are pretty damned cool.” And “Yes, you are very loved.” And “Your house is pretty nice and your car has working AC.” And “Isn’t it nice that you can afford to go to the Ren Faire and buy a few of the pretty tinkets there without breaking the bank?” And “Hey, how about the fact that you can get into and out of the car, walk up and down the stairs, even do a jumping crescent kick half-way decent without any significant pain or discomfort- unlike that nice woman who can’t even open a jar of jam on her own. How about that?”

I do not believe that I am unique in having dug myself into this hole. I know that we all do it, that it’s part of human nature. That if we look at the adversities we have to face and lose sight of the things that we have to keep us going we can get dug down in the seriousness and self-pity and hopelessness of it all. And I know myself. I’ve been here before, many times.

One of my favoirte poems about change is Portia Nelson’s “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters”. I’m sure you’ve all read it. Well, my epiphany for today is that I am in the hole again. And I’ve been here for a while. And I know better. And I need to get the hell out. Thank you, John.

Losing Faith

I was ten years old when I found out there was no Santa Clause. I used to be terribly embarrassed by that fact because all of my wiser, more mature friends had known long before they hit double digits. But now I look back at that- that ten years of believing so fiercely that whatever doubt may have been introduced in my mind by my peers was almost instantly dismissed because I refused to let go of something so magical- and I am proud of who I was. I was a little girl who didn't just love fairy tales and magic creatures and science fiction and fantasy and all the other things of that nature. I was a little girl who believed.

I believed in magic. Maybe not with wizard hats and magic wands- but in the quiet, invisible kind. That electricity underneath the static of life that you could only hear humming if you stopped listening to all the people telling you to pay attention. That possibility of something extrodinary, something oustide the bounds of reality that only the true believers can see.

I believed in love. Maybe not TRUE LOVE like in The Princess Bride or love at first site. But in the humble, almost unnoticeable kind that exists between two people who choose to spend their lives together. Who grow and change together. Who become better people because of each other.

I believed in greatness. Maybe I wouldn't grow up to become the famous author I dreamed of being when I was really young. The one who would write a book so good that not only would it remain famous for centuries after its publishing, but it would even crack its way into High School lit class cause no one could argue that it didn't need to be taught. But I would do something. Something important. Something that would last in some way long beyond my years of life and have a bigger impact than I could foresee while living.

I believed in these things so wholeheartedly that I refused- vehemently, passionately, rebelliously refused- to give up on them. Even after my family started to unravel when I entered adolescence. Even after High School proved far more rejecting than any of my childhood imaginings could have possibly prepared me for. Even after my first relationships proved that all the ideals I held about being in love had nothing- NOTHING to do with reality. Even after life got hard.

I still believed, I still held out hope. Partially because I went to a college that encouraged its students to hold onto those beliefs. We were supposed to be great. We were supposed to be artistic. We were supposed to be revolutionarily creative. SO many that had come before us were, why couldn't we be?

I entered my adult life with some fear, but a lot of hope. Hope that my dreams could still come true. Not the way I imagined them. More real somehow. But that they could come true.

I'm losing that hope now. I'm losing those beliefs. Magic? Only in the movies, only in stories and books and graphic novels. That's why that fierce creativity is so damned important- because being able to live in that world long enough to write it takes a willful forgetting of everyday life. Love? Sure, it happens. But it happens with palimony agreements and mortgage payments and years without sex while you raise kids and lots and lots of therapy. And that's if you're lucky. Greatness? Read my past few blog posts and you'll see that that belief is firmly dead, replaced by a generalized moroseness that I can't seem to shake.

Sometimes when I'm walking out among the trees, listening to the wind, feeling the hairs on my arms pick up the temperature so I can feel it deeper than skin level I remember that little girl. So full of dreams, so firm in her beliefs, so full of potential. I remember her, but I don't feel her anymore. I can't lose myself in that childhood world view and allow myself to fantasize the way I used to. There's always something pulling me back to reality and a voice chastising me for being so silly and wasting time when there's work to be done.

I work with crazy people. Not neurotic "I have relationship issues" or "I drink too much" people but "I think you have a camera implanted in your forehead to record my thoughts" kind-of people. My boss talks about how scary it must be for them. To lose touch with reality, to be unable to distinguish what is real. Part of me- the logical part- agrees with her. I can't imagine how frightening it is. But another part of me can't help but wonder if maybe, in some ways, they're the lucky ones. Sure, they'll never have what we call a normal life- jobs and mortgages and marriages and teacher conferences. But they don't have that voice telling them that this can't be real, either. They can be lost in that other world. Scary at times, isolated, uncontrollable. But maybe, just maybe, magic.

Reality Bites? Yeah, sorta

You know that movie Reality Bites? Back when Winona Ryder was a big star and didn't need to shoplift because everyone wanted to cast her? And before Ben Stiller was famous in his own right for being the hysterical man he is so he had to recite other people's dialog? When Ethan Hawke was still young and hot and pulled off the tortured artist oh so well?

Well, i'm sure it comes as no surprise to you that when I was younger I absolutely LOVED that movie. I related to Winona Ryder (even though I was still in high school) and I, like every other young teenage girl watching that movie, had the biggest crush on Ethan Hawke. And I thought Ben Stiller was a yuppie schmuck.

I loved their passion, their fierce devotion to a life less ordinary, their struggle to stay creative and original in a world full of standardized expectations and planned-out lifestyles. They were messed up and they were somewhat naive but they were true to their inner selves and they struggled on. I ate it up with a spoon.

Now? Now looking through the eyes of a jaded, cynical, downright hateful person I see stupidity where I saw creativity. I see a common tale of post graduates rather than originality. I see a few dumb kids getting their butts kicked by the world which has no interest in letting them continue on with their ideals intact.

And Ben Stiller? The intelligent, well off yuppie with a great career that pays him enough to buy a big house and live a traditional lifestyle? I envy him. And I don't feel bad that Winona Ryder dumps him for the artsy Ethan Hawke because I think HE is too good for HER. Because she's unemployed, and naive and will inevitably end up overwhelmed with debt, breaking up with her artsy boyfriend because they fight about money all the time and eventually moving back in with her stupid parents who don't understand her.

I no longer want to be her, I want to be him. Monotonous job, maybe. Maybe you have to wear a suit and tie and suck up a little. But living well off, advancing in his career, surviving? That's what I want.

I went into my career thinking that because I loved the field and felt passionate that would be all I needed. Now i'm so jaded that I couldn't care less about passion. It's not even on my list of things I want in a new job.

So I guess maybe I still relate to Winona Ryder. My butt got kicked by the world and my ideals are no longer intact. Reality does bite.

An L.A. Story

No, this is not an ode to Steve Martin (although I do believe him to be the single funniest writer I’ve ever read). This is a story of a trip. A story of how uncomfortable a person who is, at heart, an east coaster can be in southern California. And of one terribly comforting moment in a strange city.

I was recently in L.A. for a wedding. As much as I complained to everyone before I left that I had no hope for enjoying anything about the trip due to the short period of time we had out there and the activities of the wedding that would dominate our few days I had some hopes for an escape of some kind. Not a real vacation, but comfort in the knowledge that work and all if its stress were over two and half thousand miles away. It was not the escape I’d hoped for.

We did have one good day, I must admit. I can’t say for sure that the La Brea Tar Pits are the only worthwhile tourist attraction in L.A. but I can’t help but think that they might be. They are, without a doubt, the most remarkable geological encounter I’ve ever had and I’ve never seen so many fossils in one place. But if given the choice would I plan a trip out there just for that? No.

And the rest of the trip was as bad as I could have anticipated- cocktail parties with strangers and my unending inability to make small talk with them. More activities than I could have predicted which kept my boyfriend occupied for hours while I sat back in the hotel room wondering how much I could hate one wedding. (Being the date of a best man is not as fun as it might seem.) And the characteristics that make up L.A. smacking me in the face every other minute.

I know that some people love L.A. I met a few of them. They had a fierce defensiveness for their home and loved all of the things about it that drove me crazy. The constant sunlight, the endless urban sprawl, the landscape (which I must admit is remarkable in comparison to what grows out here), the new-agey consumerist vibe of everything, even the Hollywood back street seediness. None of it’s for me.

And this hatred of all things L.A. dominated most of my thoughts while I was there. Especially one long afternoon when I ventured out into downtown L.A. because I wasn’t about to kill the hours I had to spend alone while my boyfriend was at the church rehearsing the ceremony stuck inside the hotel room watching bad t.v. So I went down to the street and started walking.

I knew my way around to some extent because our non rehearsal dinner diet had consisted almost entirely of sandwiches from a 24 hour Subway which was a few blocks from the hotel. (The one fast-food edge L.A. has over the east.) And my boyfriend had pointed out the small used bookstore on the way, so I figured I’d check it out.

I love books. Ever since I became able to read (which took special education in the second grade for me to master and thus did not come easily) I’ve loved losing myself inside the mind of a character. Not murder mysteries or stories about things or events- I could never get into those. No, I prefer first person narratives that allow you to see the world through another person’s eyes. I lose myself in them so much that years after I’ve read them I still hold a fondness for them. Like old friends.

It is for this reason that I never really got into libraries. Why, after connecting with a story- loving the characters, feeling their emotions, bonding with them- would I want to let them go? I can’t bear the thought of it. This is why I am a book buyer. It doesn’t matter if I ever read the thing again- knowing it’s there, sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to come back and reconnect- is comforting.

Thus, I am attracted not to libraries but to Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and small, independent bookstores. And the used bookstores? They are a treasure like no other. Where else can you find out of print pulp fiction novels and collections of short stories from the sixties and seventies written by truly brilliant writers way before their time? And where else can you find that smell? The smell of old, used books.

I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if the glue in the rib breaks up and decays, I don’t know if paper ages like cheese, I don’t if the dust on the shelves collects in such a way as to release that odor but I love it. To me, the smell of old books is the smell of knowledge, the smell of creativity, the smell of words themselves. Whatever it is, I love it.

It is partially because of this that I was so taken with this particular small bookstore- that smell greeted me as soon as I walked in the door. The Caravan Bookstore on South Grand Avenue in L.A., specializing in “Old & Rare Curious Books” and a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America was a treasure. Not just because of the smell and the volumes of old books ranging from classic literature to non-fiction on everything from African cooking to Russian history. But because of what I found there.

It caught my eye as soon as I walked in the door- the only brightly colored cover in a sea of dark green and dark blue books with faded gold print on the covers. Strange to find a new hardback on the front table of an antique bookstore, but there it was. The title struck me like something I’d seen in a billion redundant romantic comedies: Love, or Something Like It. But I opened a few pages in and read a paragraph and instantly loved the writer’s style. I could get inside this character’s head and stay for a while. Forget about my overpriced hotel room or how long it would be till I could go home and get a good night’s sleep. It was exactly what I needed.

I tucked it under my arm and went on perusing the rest of the books. It was a small store so it didn’t take long. Plus, as much as I’d like to pretend that I am really interested in nautical history or the political tactics of the Third Reich I’m not really that kind-of girl. I love history, yes. But I’m not about to spend 46 dollars on an out-of print historical account of Stalin’s right-hand man, no matter how good it may smell.

I lingered mainly because of that smell, and because I didn’t want to miss an unexpected treasure hiding in the back of the store behind the globes and other dusty antiques. And because the only thing waiting for me was an empty hotel room. The only other thing I found that I wanted was another new book: Michael J. Fox’s Always Looking Up exploration of optimism which I’d been meaning to buy ever since he did his special about it on ABC a few months back. So I grabbed it, jumped at the shockingly low price, and made my way to the register.

An elderly man wearing a pair of glasses that looked to be about as old as I am asked me a polite “Did you find everything ok?” as he made his way to his antique print-out calculator. I said yes, and that I loved his store to which he gave a quick ‘thank you’ without looking up. He must have been able to tell that I wasn’t a real enthusiast based on my selections, but what did I care? It’s not like I was ever going to see him again.

He rang me up and pulled off a sheet of brown paper which he began to wrap my books in as I signed my receipt. And I walked out with a neatly wrapped brown package of books, marveling at how I’d never had such an interesting shopping bag. I got a kick out of walking around downtown L.A. with what appeared to be a package of shirts wrapped by a woman in a New York apartment in the forties who ironed and starched white collared shirts for her wealthier neighbors.

The book, it turned out, was better than that first paragraph would have suggested and I plan on finding other stories by Deirdre Shaw when I’m finished. But the book was not the treasure of the afternoon, only a token of it. The treasure was that in the city of L.A. which I’d judgmentally concluded had nothing to offer me, I found a reprieve in a small, dusty bookstore tucked in among the Starbucks and Jamba Juices and over-priced clothing outlets. In a terribly large, terribly discomforting city- I found a friend.

Vital Information

You know that feeling that you have when you're absolutely sure that there is vital information that you need to know if you have any chance of surviving and you're not sure what it is or how to get it but you're positive you don't have it? That feeling of doom that comes from the understanding that not having this knowledge is guaranteed to make you incapable of either performing the duties you're expected to perform or successfully navigating a tricky situation? That old metaphor of the lack of instruction manual when it comes to life?

Well that's the feeling I've had for the duration of my adult life.

When I was growing up, I lived with the assumption that someday, somehow, I would become an adult. There would be some transition wherein I would become a capable, independent, intelligent woman who was able to successfully navigate difficult life situations with wisdom and acceptance rather than stupidity and panic. I would learn, perhaps magically, to balance a checkbook, to hold my temper, to take charge of a chaotic situation, to respond calmly to people who were out of control, to do basic household maintenance by washing the dishes and doing the laundry and going grocery shopping on a timely, regular schedule.

This was what being an adult was to me. And I believed, whole heartedly, that it would happen. I didn't know how or why exactly, but I trusted that if I made responsible choices I would reap the rewards of an organized lifestyle.

Nearing the end of my twenties I can no longer make the excuse that perhaps I'm just in prolonged adolescence. The belief that I was just like everyone else because so many people nowadays do not accomplish basic adult milestones until later in life. The hope that I was simply a little late in gaining an understanding of the rules I need to play by. I don't think that anymore, it's just been too long.

Especially because, unlike a lot of other people from my generation, I didn't take time off from school to backpack around Europe or move to an exciting city to "discover myself" or take so many drugs that it took me a few years to emerge from the haze and start living. No, I was responsible. I went straight to college after high school and straight from college to grad school and straight from grad school to a job. I studied a skill, started my career- no pause, no break. I had one big trip- after grad school, and I did back pack around Europe. But my job was already set in stone with a return date before I left and that three weeks passed by far quicker than I could have realized it would.

Now, five years later with an educational background that firmly places me in the felid that I've been working in I feel more lost than ever before.

This is not the life I thought I was working towards. I hate my job on a level I thought was reserved to those who burned out after twenty years in the field. After only five years I have become so jaded that I no longer believe in my career path. I would happily go back to working in a boring office if it meant more money and less stress and the saddest thing is that despite 6 years of college and over $40K in student loans and five years of work experience I think that I could easily make more as an administrative assistant and have a fuck of a lot less stress.

And that naive belief that I had before that the money meant nothing in comparison to the knowledge that I was helping people? I don't have that anymore. I've become so cynical that I would happily say "Fuck off" to every client I've ever had if I could earn a decent living and go home at night without a billion worries on my mind.

And all those adult skills I thought I'd have learned by now? Balancing a checkbook, staying calm and rational in chaotic situations, handling drama with wisdom and composure, maintaining a household? I don't have any of them. Am I as bad as I used to be? Hell no. But am I nowhere near what I envisioned? Ions away from it, it seems.

And I don't think there are any other adult milestones that might suddenly bring that knowledge I seek. A career? We've already covered that disaster. A relationship? I'm with the man I'm going to stay with for the rest of my life. We just went to a wedding (not ours, obviously). People talked about the bride groom like they were "adults" now because they were considering another person's needs as importantly as their own. I couldn't help but wonder how long it would take for them to become as dysfunctional and miserable as most married couples. I certainly don't think they're any less stupid than I am, probably a lot more so because they actually believe it'll work out. And kids? If my belief system isn't jaded enough to convince me that bringing a child into the world would be the biggest mistake I could possibly make then I don't know what is. I'm messed up enough, I don't need to mess up anyone else. So there's no other milestones I'm expecting to magically transform me into a responsible adult.

And that thought- that I don't know something I really need to know in order to survive- it plagues me. I feel more naive now- with my years of experience and lessons learned- than I did before college.
Then again, maybe that's what's wisdom is. Knowing enough to know that you really don't know anything. That you're only as smart as the smart people you parrot. That you only have half a chance of any given situation ending well, despite how many times you've done it before. That no matter how hard you try to prepare and organize there will always be a billion factors beyond your control that can easily fuck things up irrevocably and all you can possibly do is try not to drown in the mess left over.

I don't know. I'd like to think not. I'd like to think that that wisdom, that composure, that ability to handle the things that come my way will grow over time. Maybe it's not an "adulthood" thing. Maybe it's a "mid life" thing or even a "senior" thing. I don't know. All I know is if I lay on my death bed many, many years from now and I still have that feeling that I didn't know vital information I really needed- I'm going to be pissed.