Tag Archives: life

Semi-autobiographical, part 2

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I wrote before about one form of semi-autobiographic writing that can drive a reader nuts. There’s another kind that some audiences just eat up, which drives a lot of writers nuts.

It’s the fictional, semi-autobiographical best seller. This seems to occur in movies and television far more often in books—or maybe I’m just lucky and don’t read those kinds of books. It’s the tale of an author who wrote a semi-autobiographical novel or series of novels that became bestsellers, and she/he either a) has to eventually deal with the fallout of friends and relatives who felt betrayed or somehow stolen from, or b) it’s a big secret that it’s semi-autobiographical, because there is some tragedy or a long-hidden crime or something.

Continue reading Semi-autobiographical, part 2 →

Memory landmarks

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Navigating one’s own memory can be tricky. My husband has been talking about replacing the small laser printer on the upper shelf of his desk for a while, and when he recently mentioned that the one he has is about 10 years old I scoffed. I bought him that as an upgrade “just a couple Christmases ago.” I was certain.

Nope. Because of the way he obsessively backs up device drivers, he could show me that the original drivers he installed for the computer were for Windows 98, second edition. “Remember, when you upgraded to Win 2000 shortly after, we had trouble getting drivers that would work.”

“Ah!” I said, “I knew that printer was before I switched back to Apple, but didn’t realized how much Before Mac it was!”

Before Mac and Since Mac is a fuzzy divider, because sometimes I put the line in May ’09, when I replaced my desktop computer with a MacPro tower, and other times I put it in Jan ’09, when for laptop use I stopped bouncing back and forth between my Sharp PC and my Mac Powerbook, and bought myself a Macbook.

A much more solid mental landmark is the Before Layoff and After Layoff. Of course, having been employed at the same company for more than 20 years (having survived 5 or so previous recessions), June 30, 2008 sticks out quite prominently.

The previous major landmark was half-fuzzy, and half so hard-and-bright-it-hurt: Before Ray Died, and After. The Before is very, very clear. The only reason there’s fuzz at all is I kind of, sort of, almost completely went to pieces for a few months after my first husband died. I remember things that happened during that time, but I’m really unclear on the precise order some of them happened in.

That’s why there’s some fuzziness on another landmark. Michael had known Ray and I for a couple years before Ray’s death, and Michael and I started dating about three months after Ray died… But it was still during that period when my memory is a bit shattered. Don’t get me wrong, I remember dating and falling in love, just don’t ask me which date happened when.

There are lots of other landmarks. Before Grandma Died, Before Grandpa Died, Before I Came Out and Divorced, Before My First Marriage, Before Seattle, Before Longview, Before My Folks Split Up… and so on.

Others are less about the physical world. I’ve already mentioned Before Mac, and at least implied Before Win2000 but there are a lot more. Before InDesign, for instance, and much earlier, Before PageMaker. Then there’s many different phases of During WordPerfect (since my workplace swtiched to it, away from it, back to it and away; during most of which time and long after WP was my preferred word processor for personal use). There’s Before I Gave In And Got A Cell Phone, there’s Before I Embraced Word Processors, or Before I Figured Out Orson Scott Card Was An Evil Bigot And That’s Why So Much of His Writing Bothered Me, or Before I Read Wyrd Sisters And Became A Pratchett Fanatic.

That latter, by the way, is right up there with Before Star Wars, Before I Knew Who Asimov Was, and Before I Knew Where Books Come From.

So, what are your landmarks?

Sleep, interrupted

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Two nights in a row I’ve woken up, wide awake, at about 3am. Night before last, it was a sudden realization of why a scene I had struggled writing the night before wasn’t working. Last night it was a bad dream in which a bunch of my closest friends were upset and crying, and somehow it was my fault.

Neither interruption is being conducive to my recovery from the awful cold. Continue reading Sleep, interrupted →

Too young to remember

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“You’re probably too young to remember…” was a phrase that sometimes I dreaded. Other times it signaled a bit of a history lesson I would find interesting.

I’m not entirely happy with how often I find myself using that line. It’s just a natural consequence of getting older. But that’s the problem. We’re not socialized to be happy about getting older.

I’ve known people who got quite radical and angry when they heard that phrase. “It’s nothing more than an ageist attempt to disempower me for being young!” Which sometimes it can be, but most of the time it is simply a literal statement of fact: you weren’t alive when such and such happened, so you have no personal memories of the event.

I read the phrase this morning on a few news blogs because the man who played the clown host of a morning children’s show that was popular in the 60s and 70s died last night.

I don’t have the excuse of being too young to remember the glory days of his show, but I don’t remember them. It was a show produced and seen only on a Seattle channel, and when I was young enough to be in the target age, I lived far, far away. So I’m just as detached as a bunch of much younger people about this. I can understand, in the abstract, how people feel, but I may never quite get it.

He never completely retired, continuing to make public appearances, raise money for charity, and so on, showing up in his patchwork painted limosine. By random chance earlier this year I nearly attended his final public appearance. I was buying salmon at the wild salmon market at fisherman’s terminal and confused that there was a giant crowd of people, and a bunch were wearing red clown noses. Then, as I was driving home, I passed his limo going the other way.

The memories of some experiences we have sometimes carry far more emotional weight and importance to us years after the fact than we expect them to. And that can be hard to explain to another person. When we describe it, even to us, it sounds silly. So he told some jokes and acted silly on screen. And you watched it every single morning when you were supposed to be getting ready for school. And?

But we all have experiences like that. It might be a family ritual, or a thing we used to do in church, or a favorite food at a chain restaurant.

In the abstract it is no big deal. But the human heart doesn’t live in the abstract.

Sick and tired, for real!

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I keep getting very sleepy mid afternoon at work. Then, each night this week I have gone to sleep at least an hour earlier than usual. Last night it was nearly three hours early.

And then I over slept this morning and had to scramble to get to work.

My symptoms have merely been “bad hayfever” all week, and given the steadily rising pollen count, that’s to be expected. But Sunday’s symptoms were clearly a cold, so I’m assuming I am still carrying a low level infection that is mostly being lost in the noise of the hay fever. Except for the sleepiness part.

Oh, and yesterday I kept making stupid little mistakes at work. All day. So today I’m making little checklists for everything. It slows me down. But I am ahead of schedule on all my current projects, so slowing down to quadruple-check things for a couple of days isn’t going to hurt anything.

This has had the side effect of not leaving me much time in the evening to attack my writing problem or to finish the Omnibus layout I need to complete. Or collect that software I need to send to Mom.

*sigh*

Why I hate hay fever reason #5321

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I have hay fever. Lots of people do. When I was last assessed by an allergist, the verdict was that it was only mild to moderately severe, depending. Most people with hay fever are allergic to only a few species or categories of pollen.

Not me.

I seem to be allergic to every pollen, spore, and mold there is. Which means that in Seattle’s climate, hay fever season runs from mid- February through mid-December. And even longer if we have an especially mild winter.

So during this time of year I have congested sinuses 7 days a week. It would also be sinus headaches 7 days a week if not for my prescription allergic medication. As it is, I have sinus headaches, itchy eyes, and so forth, a couple days out of every week. Usually brought on by an increase in overall pollen count or simply a new species coming into bloom.

In other words, I feel as if I’m coming down with a cold every single day.

Which means I never know I’m sick (and thus possibly contagious) until many days after it starts.

Sunday morning we both had really bad sinus headaches. I’d had severe enough symptoms to require over-the-counter cold tablets on top of my usual meds for three days leading up to Sunday. Sunday was much worse, as there were also body aches and no energy. I kept falling asleep throughout the day. Which meant I was monopolizing the shared washer and dryer downstairs all day, because I was late to swap out loads again and again.

At one point I felt as if my head was horribly sick–all swollen, itchy, and feverish feeling?–while my body had another ailment altogether, achey and cold, oh, so cold. As if I were a member of the species of the king and queen of the moon from Baron Munchhausen with detachable heads.

I don’t know if I’d been able to do anything different if I had known sooner I was sick. But I’d like to think so…

Parading

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Several years ago I wrote descriptions of three parades I’d attended in Seattle. The Seafair Torchlight Family Parade had been full of drunkenness, near-nudity (and more than a few flashed nipples and butts), and many floats built around a sexual innuendo or erotic pun. The Fremont Arts Council Solstice Parade had featured (as it does every year) the nude bicyclists, among other things. While the Pride Parade that year had had a lot of families, several church groups, fully-clothed people dancing, one large group with their adorable Corgi dogs… and in general a lot less nudity and sexual innuendo than I had seen the year before at the Seafair Family parade.

Which isn’t to say there wasn’t nudity and innuendo, along with brightly-colored feathers, beads, and way more body glitter than you can imagine. But the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Parade and Freedom Day March (if I am correctly recalling what the official title was that year) contained a lot less flaunting of sexuality than either of the other two.

Another big difference between the Pride Parade and those others is a tradition that’s been around since the very first: as the parade goes by, members of the community that have been watching step off the curb and join, performing the simple (yet significant) act of walking up the street proclaiming that you refuse to keep hiding in the closet. That’s how a dozen fully clothed people with Gay Pride signs who started marching up New York City’s Fifth Avenue that June morning in 1970 became a crowd of thousands of Gay men and Lesbians by the time it reached Central Park.

It’s not the same closet that each of us is refusing to return to. The first time I joined the march, I was only at the, “I’m not sure where I fit, exactly, but I know I’m not heterosexual and I’m ready to stop hiding” stage. A couple years later I was at the “Yeah, I’m Gay or Queer or whatever you call it; You have a problem with that?” Then I mellowed to the “Yep! I’m Gay!” which quickly became “What do you mean, you didn’t know we’re Gay?”

Others march to say, “I’m way too fabulous for any label!” While others march to say, “People I knew and loved have died, but I’ve survived, and I will not let you forget them!” or “No matter how many times you beat me down, I’m standing back up!” Others join the march to say, “I’m not gay or bisexual or any of those things, but people I love are, and if you have a problem with them, then you’ve got a problem with me!”

And because there are people who do have problems with us, because kids are bullied (sometimes to death) just because other people think they might be one of us, because we’ve come so far, because we’ve still got battles before us, because each and every person is a miracle, because no one should be ashamed to love, we need to keep having these parades.

So, let’s celebrate!

Failing to learn from history…

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Growing up in Southern Baptist Churches (though not, technically, in the South), I was taught that the denomination was formed during the Civil War. Because there was an actual war going on, annual conventions couldn’t meet. Also, I was told, a lot of the northern churches were mixed up in politics and had been looking for an excuse to ditch the southern churches who were more concerned with missionary work.

Later, I learned that almost every last one of those details was utterly false.

The Southern Baptist Churches split off from the nationwide Triennial Baptist Convention 15 years prior to the Civil War. The primary reason they split was that the Southern Churches were pro-slavery. They were extremely pro-slavery, arguing that God picked which people were born one race or another because he knew which ones needed to be subservient, and which needed to be in charge. Most of the people who attended Baptist churches in the North were anti-slavery, and thought that all humans, being God’s children, should be equal before the law.

Continue reading Failing to learn from history… →

Fly season

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As the weather warms, we open more windows, sometimes prop open the door, and generally open up the house. We also start eating more fresh fruit and produce.

One of the side effects of all of that is the appearance of flies.

Over the years, I’ve learned way more about flies than I care to know.

The little gnat-like flies that hang out around the houseplants? Those actually live and breed down in the soil. You can spray the plant with every insecticide you dare, and it won’t bother the flies. To get rid of those flies, you need at least an inch of clean sand or gravel on top of the soil. The adult flies have difficulty getting down to the fertile soil to lay their eggs. The larvae that do get down there, can’t climb high enough to avoid drowning fast enough when you water. Takes a couple months, but it works a charm. Just be warned that about every other year you’ll need to replace the sand or gravel.

The other little gnat-like flies that hang around the kitchen? They don’t fly in from outside. You brought them in with that fresh fruit you picked up at the store. Their microscopic eggs were on or in the skin of the fruit. Washing the fruit before eating it and eating it quickly can slow down the arrival of the flies, but that doesn’t really knock them out. You’re just going to need to trap them. Homemade traps can be made by pouring honey, syrup, or a sweet red wine into shallow cups (though I think that only gets half—the other half just eat and get away). You have to change them often, and it’s more than a bit gross.

Slathering bleach on every surface in the kitchen does nothing about the flies, but people keep trying. Yeah, go to extra effort to clean, but the idea is to eliminate their food—spilled edible substances. Bleach is way overrated as a household cleaner, anyway. Vinegar often does a better job of getting rid of what you’re trying to eliminate with the bleach, and it’s less dangerous to the environment.

I have had people suggest that if I were more tolerant of spiders, I would have fewer flies. To which I say: half the reason I want to get rid of flies is to deprive the spiders of food!

Weather is not climate

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Last week we received an amount of rain slightly greater than the average for the entire month of June.

June in Western Washington is cool and damp. This freaks out a lot of people. Newcomers more than long time residents, but the long timers over react, too. Thanks to the way atmospheric patterns of the pacific change as the northern hemisphere transitions through spring, we always wind up with several weeks in May where the sun comes out and warms us not to summer temps, but certainly warm enough for people to switch to shorts and t-shirts. We get virtually no rain for a few weeks, and people start thinking summer is here.

But the atmosphere is far fromthe summer pattern. As it gets closer to that summer shift, a curious thing happens. High pressure over the Pacific starts pushing cold, but not terribly wet, air at the northwest corner of the continent. Prevailing airflow from the inlands traps that air over a narrow band, and we get several weeks of overcast.

We call it June Gloom.

Now here’s the thing. It happens every year. This is part of our spring. People who complain, including long time residents, are suffering from some kind of amnesia.

The June Gloom is mostly about clouds, not rain. Yeah, it drizzles a bit, usually at night (Cliff Mass’s weather blog has a nice explanation for why most of our June rain happens before dawn), but June is not our wettest month, by any means. So getting an amount of rain equal tothewhole month ofJune inasingle week, well, it’s nothing compared to a week of rain in November.

If we get only typical rain for the rest of the month, we won’t even set a new record.

And remember: official summer in most of the Northern Hemisphere is still ten days away.

While for Seatle, you’ve got a bit over a month.