Take him from the fire into the frying pan

I googled the Jerry Seinfeld episode where he traveled with his girlfriend and things did not go well. I was looking for a quote but couldn't find it. Instead I found about 3,490,000 Google results for traveling with your girlfriend. 3,150,000 results for traveling with your boyfriend. Who knew traveling with your bf/gf could cause over 6 million internet anxieties? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Anxiety is the new black.

As usual, I'm seeking information too late. That's a good thing. If I don't know ahead of time what to be worried about, I'm less likely to look for trouble or to spend a lot of energy second guessing, leaping to conclusions and seeking out ulterior motives.

The Electrician and I have already clocked two weeks of traveling together and I'd say it's going well. If he were speaking to me, I'd tell you what he thinks.*

It helps, that we're traveling for work, not pleasure. We're not trying to be entertained or to entertain 24/7. We're both working most of our waking hours so our time to get on each other's nerves is limited to the 4 hour drive and the couple of hours we're awake at the end of the day.

Now that his situation has changed and my work is portable, it makes sense for us to live in the same place even if that place is an economy hotel populated by other traveling workers who require the basics - no bed bugs, heat and air conditioning, hot water, a comfortable bed, free wifi and expanded cable.

We're developing a rhythm helped by the fact that we're both creatures of habit. He's up first and out early. I get up, shower, go to the lobby to fill my giant tumbler with an unhealthy amount of caffeine, grab the USA Today for later and return to the room to get to work. At the end of the day, he returns, showers, we eat, do the USA Today Crossword puzzle together, watch a little TV and go to bed.

This week the hotel's hot water tank blew and it was -2 degrees in the West Virginia Panhandle. It's perfectly reasonable for someone who's been doing physical labor outside all day to expect to come back to the hotel for a hot shower. There were probably 300 men who couldn't do that for nearly two days. A pall fell over the Days Inn. The housekeeping staff got a feral look in their eyes if you asked when the hot water might return. Discussions were held about vacating. I feared mutiny.

It's the closest I want to come to pioneer life. Out of desperation, I took a cold shower. So cold it hurt. Water like shards of glass. Or maybe it was ice. Thankfully I'd warmed enough water to rinse my hair. Thank goodness for the in-room microwave, the ice bucket and the coffee maker. I tried to fill the tub with enough hot water so The Electrician could take a bath, but was stymied by the non-functioning drain stopper. I even tried to Life Hack a stopper to no avail.  I'm taking that as a sign that I was right. Life is meant to be weird and difficult.

We survived the ordeal and smell clean again even if my hair does have a slight scent of coffee.

The trickiest part of traveling together is the drive. Four hours each way is plenty of time for me to get under anyone's skin. It's in that quiet car that The Electrician and I are still playing emotional chess - being ourselves, but not quite. We range from letting our freak flags fly to staring silently out the window at the mind-numbingly flat landscape of central Ohio.

I pull out my Kindle and play Solitaire. He jokes it's the most expensive deck of cards he ever purchased. I switch to reading a book until he's no longer paying attention. He recounts the plots and characters of his favorite TV series and movies. I listen and think if I ever have a script or a book completed, he's going to be my pitchman. Sophie Facetimes me and rides along in the car with us. There is much talk of cats.

The Electrician downloads music often. His tastes vary and he tends to play a song over and over until he's had enough. Last week's song was Yelawolf's Til It's Gone. This week's jam is Stephen Bishop's On and On. I had the 45 of that song when I was 10 and music was still pressed onto vinyl discs.

The music provides background for the conversation and filler for the silence. Last night, we rode along singing, neither of us surprised at the lyric muscle memory, both of us off somewhere in the mid 1970s when we couldn't have imagined the strange and wonderful turns our lives would take.

On and on...
You just keep on trying.....

*joke!

What's your song this week?

Some break the rules, and live to count the cost

MathMan and I rode together to work and the Howard Jones song No One Is to Blame played on the radio. I paused in my nostalgic and painful-to-listen-to warbling to note a specific line. It would come in handy some day.

The insecurity is the thing that won't get lost.

Insecurity. So many forms. Emotional. Financial. Professional. A euphemism for hunger. Food insecurity. Why use one word when you can use two?

We're locked in the Battle Royale with our insecurities. We're swaddled in them. They are our shadow, our muse, our nail-biting, bed-wetting, bed-hopping eating disorder.

Sometimes they are the long pole helping us balance on the tightrope. Nothing but the pole, the air and way down below - - the net.

My insecurities and I are so tangled up together it's impossible to tell us apart. They borrow my clothes and force me to eat pie after 10pm. They twirl my hair and suggest that people who probably don't even know I exist are talking smack about me. And then they wonder aloud why those people don't know I exist. They make me ask MathMan if he really loves me and then to pick at the affirmative with a plaintive "why?"

Your insecurities might keep you up at night. Mine mostly keep me inert.

When I hear from someone who is in an insecure situation, I want to do whatever I can to help them out.

I know you guys are of a generous spirit and I've been so grateful for the help you've given us when we were struggling to keep the roof, the food, the lights, etc. Now I'm asking you to help out a friend who has been generous with us in the past.

Robert's car requires repairs so he can get to job interviews. His rent is also due. There isn't enough money for both things. These are the tough choices we make in this unequal world of ours. If you can slide a couple of dollars his way, I'm sure he'd be grateful.

Don't let Robert's gruff demeanor throw you. He's a kind guy who worried that the Golden kids wouldn't get Christmas gifts, who loves his cat Popeye and has blogged for social justice for as long as I've known him. He's also an unrecognized writing talent with a couple of novels in need of a publisher.

You know how much I hate to ask, but it's far easier to ask for someone else than it is for me. And as relieved as I am that we're on the road to financial recovery, I won't feel secure into we all feel, at least, some sense of financial security and justice.

 Until then, we buoy each other when our insecurities threaten to pull us under.

Take it away, Howard.

 

Girl in the war

Bethany (the hilarious Bethany) gave me a gentle tap, tagging me with the dreaded meme. I suspect she knows I'm not the meme type (too many rules), but Bethany is hardly one to bow to convention. Plus she's been one of my favorite Tweeter/Writer/Blogger/Fashion Icon/Mom to Preciousness/Sister/Ex-Pats for what seems like at least a couple of years now.

In internet time, that's like Dog Years.

So how could I say no?

This particular meme involves works in progress. It's specific to to writers, but anyone can get into the act as far as I'm concerned. You know the old saying, right? 

The more of us in the water, the better the game of Marco Polo.

Here are those blasted rules I mentioned:

    Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP.

    Go to line 7.

    Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them on your blog.

    Tag 7 authors and let them know Only if you want to. I'm not the boss of you.

Okay, so here's mine. From my most recent and now fallow schnovel.

Her root beer eyes blazed with all this new information. 

“Wow. Barack..?” 

“Obama.”

 “I don’t know what to say about any of this. It seems so fantastical. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.” She furrowed her brow.

“I wish you knew my mum and dad. I’d love to know how they’re doing. And my sister Josie. That’s the hardest part. Not knowing what’s happened to them.”

 I took a deep breath. Our light-hearted conversation had taken that wicked turn, back to our loved ones, the people left behind 

“Do you wonder if we’re dead?” 

“I did. I mean, when I first arrived in this time I often thought this was some sort of limbo. Or perhaps Purgatory? I never did go in much for church so I didn’t quite know how to explain it.” She released the mug and dropped her hands to her lap. 

“I suppose the longer I’m here, the less it will freak me out.” I needed something to hold on to. A half smile fluttered across her face. “That is true. But you’ll be reminded of your other life and then you’ll worry and wonder. It can make you feel quite hopeless if you let it. It’s been like that for me for nearly three years. I suppose that’s one good thing about this bloody war. It keeps me busy.” 

What have you in progress?

Bio-Hazard

On Monday, Averil Dean wrote about the difficulty of writing a bio.  Who is Averil Dean, you ask? That's exactly what she was trying to capture in a paragraph. Not an easy task for any of us, but perhaps even more so for a writer because without any formal training (as many of us do not have any), how does one tie a seemingly unrelated background to a legitimate standing in the world of publishing?

It's not like other kinds of bios in that one doesn't often go from being say a mail carrier to an accountant without having some distinguishable, defining education, training and (hopefully) experience. No offense to postal workers because goodness knows I love them even if I don't always have money to give them at the holidays, but I don't want the guy whose bio reads "Can drive on the other side of the Jeep" doing my taxes.

And bios are weird things. They ask a lot of anyone. Do any of us really know who we are? And if we do - how do we boil it down, condense it, compact it into a few sentences packed with meaning?

What are the elements you're happy to share? What stays hidden? Best left to the shadows.What would you really like to say, but can't? Or won't?

What's relevant?

Most of us have at least one bio floating around the internet in the form of a profile. I've lost count of how many I have. Like me, they aren't consistent. My Twitter bio is one of my favorites, but I'm not about to have that on my LinkedIn profile.  Of course, google Lisa Golden twitter and voila! Now you know that everything they said about me in high school was true.


Someone asked me exactly what was it they said about me in high school? That conversation starter lead to many more interesting conversations.

It's all contextual. Who you are, or rather the relevant parts of who you are, depends on the situation, doesn't it? For example, when I wrote the bio requested of me for the staff newsletter, I kept it simple. A few words about my past job in a psychiatric hospital, a passing nod to my education (which turned out to be quite relevant because one of the people making the decision to hire me is also an I.U. grad), and a quick mention of the awards I've won in the International Administrative Assistants Olympics. (Silver medal in sorting out Fed-Ex Fuck-ups; Gold in Excel Spreadsheet Obstacle Courses, and an all expenses paid weekend at the Sybaris and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon for coming in fifth place in the Chicagoland Office Chair Demolition Derby 1994.)

I'll leave it to you to figure out which element of my experience is most relevant to my newish job. While you do that, I'll just sit here and watch the two Duty Officers rearrange the furniture in my boss's office and stack a pile of empty cookie containers in front of another person's closed office door.

Now, as for Averil's dilemma. Well, that's something all together perplexing. Pardon my hyperbole, but she's the best damn erotica-thriller writer I've read. Her prose, hot and tense in the it leaves good welts realm of superb, borders on the poetic. The hell with a bio. Her writing will speak for itself. Of course she has a fabulous imagination, but I suspect, like any writer, you can see shades of who Averil is by reading her.

The reason Averil must write a bio is because she recently signed with an agent. After much squealing and jumping around and group hugging, I thought it wise to tell you all because there may be a secret erotica fan or two hanging around here. Please take a minute and go congratulate Averil on her good news.

While Averil was trying to distill her essence into a few well-turned phrases, I was fretting that I'd reached Level Six of becoming my mother. My most recent symptoms include nagging Nate's girlfriend Bree to consider going to school to be an R.N.

My mother did the same thing to me. Naturally I didn't listen and the tear in the fabric of our mother/daughter relationship over that disappointment has never quite healed.

I left those chilling thoughts behind and moved on to musing that I'm also turning into MathMan's mother. I actually pulled an insert about the nursing profession out of Sunday's Atlanta Journal Constitution and gave it to Bree to read. Shit. My mother-in-law (may she rest in peace) surrounded herself with stacks of yellowing Chicago Tribunes and Sun-Times that you weren't allowed to move or throw away because she planned to go through them and cut out articles she thought her children would find interesting.

I arrived home feeling out of sorts. I changed my clothes and went out to wash the car before dinner.

Sponge in hand, I stared at the fading light behind the pine trees and had my last realization of the day. Last because after that, I self-medicated with enough Oreos to pass out.

While I stood contemplating whether or not to detail the car's interior, the sun sunk lower.

Now I was my father.

Be yourself they say. Sounds good, but it's not quite that easy.

And I quote:  Who are you?

My Dinner with Teri

Let's say you make friends with someone online.

She's part of a circle of friends you met on a well-known literary agent's blog. Now let's say that friend emails you that she's going to be in your town and would love to get together. The day finally arrives. What is the first thing you do when you see this friend?

Well, if you're me, you scream. With lots of volume.

She knocked on the window while I primped trying to yank my hair into some semblance of order.

I screamed because I'm a bit jumpy, I guess.

After I screamed, we hugged and then headed out to dinner where we talked for hours. We could have kept talking, too, but it was getting late and we'd taken up the booth of the super nice waitress at Applebees for far too long.  We discussed topics ranging from family to politics to mutual friends and, of course, writing. Funnily enough, writing is the thing we talked least about. Even though this was our first meeting in person, I felt like I'd known Teri for a long time. Trite, but true. Midwesterners of the same age, we could have gone to high school together.

Teri, in case you don't know, is an avid reader. No, scratch that. Is there a stronger word for avid because that's what Teri is. She is, without a doubt, the pace setter for what this crowd of writers/readers have their noses buried in. Recently she read and raved about Wild - From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir by Cheryl Strayed (aka Sugar).

You have to read this book, she said.

And then she saw to it that I would.

Thank you for the gift of your time, your friendship and the book, Teri. I hope I'll see you again very soon.

When is the last time you had an evening you wished could last longer?

30 Day Photography Challenge: Green

Today.

Lunatique. My friend Cindy is so talented. Go look.

I love seeing her and her husband Ken. And Michele. I'm so lucky to have such delightful people in my life.

So cool. Made from recycled bottles. Especially wine bottles. I should donate my empties to them.

The grounds of Rose Lawn are so lush and beautiful.

The birdhouses are a labor of love, each a memorial to a son gone too soon. They're built to last, the man who creates this told me. The idea came about after the death of the couple's son. He used to love to come and sit with his mama in the backyard and watch the birds. Then one day three years ago, this man in his forties was on a business trip and died, just dropped dead in the bathroom of the B&B where he was staying. Tears came to his mother's eyes as she shared the story.

After he died, she'd go and sit in the backyard and remember. She'd talk to God. She asked for a sign and while she sat there in the porch swing, a flock of birds descended onto the lawn until it was covered up in them hopping around and making a quiet racket.

Birdhouses. Built to last.

 It's not a festival without food, y'all.

Alan Young can paint. This is just a sampling because I was sticking the green for this post, but when you see his website, you'll see the rainbow. Congratulations, Alan, on your upcoming exhibit at Fernbank!

Steampunk. The stuff some of my favorite dreams are made of. 

And the young woman who makes these rocked her goggles and corset.

 My favorite drive home.

 Geoffrey has his own take on green. Universal and true.

What Ryan Adams said

It's funny how in the span of a couple of days one can go from this:

Central Park, Across the Reservoir

Central Park West

Strawberry Fields in the morning.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sackler Room

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sackler Room

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sackler Room

Metropolitan Museum of Art

She was so close she could see each of Van Gogh's brushstrokes. Quiet squeals of joy.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Picasso.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monet's Rouen Series

Near the end of the trip. You can tell, right?

And bam! We're back. Sophie is back to school today and I'm back to this.

Except she looks much better than I do while I'm doing chores.

From magical adventure to loading the dishwasher, scooping the litterboxes and wondering how much fiber can be counted in all that cat hair you inadvertently consume. This is life, isn't it? If it weren't for the dreary days of the mundane, I suppose we wouldn't appreciate the little sidetrips into fun and whimsy.

And still, I titled this one I know how she feels......

Thank you for the well wishes. We had a great time. It's something we wouldn't have done if we'd thought it through properly because there were definitely a couple of times where I fretted about the details, but there was no turning back. We tossed a few clothes and toiletries in a bag and left our comfort zone. We were rewarded for it by learning that we can manage a trip like this on very little money and have lots of fun together on our own. And that's the lesson I'm sure Sophie and I will take from this. Oh, and that the Cuban food at Sophie's rocks. Right, GMB? (Thanks for lunch!)

What's the most spontaneous trip you've ever taken?

The third time's the charm

I'm writing this on exactly 1.5 hours of sleep since Saturday night, so please excuse me if my you're is a your.

Saturday we got an email message from a friend, do you remember the blogger Eebie? Well, he was flying back to Honduras to his home in New York City. His flight was canceled due to Hurricane Irene and he was going to need a place to stay in Atlanta. Most of the hotels were booked up.

We offered him a place in our home and went to pick him up at Hartsfield Jackson. Eebie, or let's call him by his real name Martin took us out for dinner at our fabulous local place Okinawa, then we all settled in for the night.

Sunday it became clear that Martin was going to have a hard time getting another flight, bus or ride. He was pretty agitated by this because he really needed to get back to work. I jokingly offered to drive him back.

Today is Monday, I think. Anyway, I drove Martin back to NYC. Sophie came with me. In exchange for the ride, Martin offered to pay our gasoline and gave Sophie and me a place to crash. We left Georgia at 5pm Sunday and arrived at Martin's great apartment in a fabulous neighborhood at 10:00 a.m. Monday.

Today is a blur because I haven't slept since Saturday night, but here's what we did:
Walked to Central Park to see Strawberry Fields.
Walked to Times Square. Gawked like the tourists we are.
Ate street meat and loved it.
Bought a subway card and took the train north to Martins apartment.
Laid around for half an hour and caught our breath then showered.
Went back to explore more of Central Park and then sat and people watched at Strawberry Fields. Loved that.
Ate a giant pretzel for dinner because I could.
Counted 42 people speaking languages other than English. Loved that, too.

We're heading back tomorrow afternoon because Sophie has to get back to school. I think I'll write her an absent note and say that she was on the best damn field trip ever.

Before we leave, we're going to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And having lunch, I hope, with Pissed in NYC!!!

I think we'll arrive back home around 5 a.m. on Wednesday. I'll wake up on Friday, around noon. Maybe. I should note that we disappointed Martin by not having the energy to go back out and see Times Square at night, but next time. Next time. Lots of next times.

This is the first time I've been back to New York since the bad thing happened.What did I learn from this? I will never let fear stop me from living.

And now you're all caught up, she said with a satisfied grin. Right before she toppled over snoring.

xoxoxoxoxox

Lisa

P.S. I still love Utz potato chips.

The One Where I Get Booed

DAY ONE

We actually left on time-ish. For us. Okay, we were a half hour behind schedule, but it was no big deal. Unless, of course, you ask Nathan to whom everything is a big deal.

Mathman drove for a while and I snapped photos, handed out gum to help pop ears as we drove through the mountains and refereed when the kids fussed about who had more space. Kitty Noir, aka PorkChop, mewed from his cat carrier. He was confused. I'd tried doping him with the tranquilizers from the vet, but didn't give him a large enough dose so he was sleepy and confused.

Finally, Sophie took the cat out of the carrier and he settled right down.

We drove through North Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Like Erma Bombeck, I entered most states butt first as I hung over the backseat sorting out one thing or another. Kitty Noir aka Porkchop curled up on top of the cat carrier and slept.

Nathan's new fun habit is to boo things that displease him. During the drive north, he booed traffic, his parents, a man in a car next to us who accidentally swerved into our lane, his sister, the Congress, MSNBC, Bob Hope and Tchaikovsky.

We looked at the pretty scenery. And talked about everything and nothing at all.

Nickajack Lake in Tennessee

We reached Indiana, the longest, most boring state through which to drive north to south and vice versa. So I took a photo at the rest stop where we stopped to relieve ourselves and paw through the brochures. I love seeing how my homestate markets itself.

We'd originally planned to stop at the halfway point which would have been just north of Louisville, but MathMan's sister said she didn't mind if we disrupted her sleep by arriving in the wee hours so we pushed on through.

Between Indianapolis and Chicago, we noticed red lights dotting the landscape. They blinked in sync. What is that?

Windmills. A wind farm in Indiana. Alternative energy in the same state that has privatized its toll road? That privatization sucks, by the way. They cut their costs by replacing the human beings with ATM machines. I've never sat in such long lines at a toll booth. And the road quality? Horrible. Mitch Daniels Fail. Illinois hasn't gone that way and by comparison, their tollroads are a delight.

We arrived in Des Plaines and tumbled from the car, but not before we drove around the block and gawked at our old house in the dark. It looked okay, new siding, new fence, but the huge tree in the back yard was gone and so were the Chinese Elms that I'd planted as sticks. When we left in 2003, they were well over ten feet tall. I had Nathan boo the new owners.

We woke up and went for breakfast at a traditional coffee shop. No Starbucks when there's a Sugarbowl, thank you.

We drove around the old haunts until it was time to take Pork Chop to his new home. The photo below is from the drive north. I didn't want you to think we forced the kitten to drive around Chicago and its environs.

MathMan and Nate took the train downtown where they walked from Madison and State up to the Water Tower and back. Sophie and I took kitty to his new home. One word. Love. We love Lyra and her family and PorkChop is going to be so loved. He even has his own perch, lucky kitty. Lyra tells the story best.

We had dinner with MathMan's brother and his family. It was nice and lowkey. While talking to my sister-in-law, I was struck once again with how nice it is to be able to hang out with someone you've known a long time and it's like no time has passed at all.

Nathan didn't boo a single thing while we were there.

DAY TWO

Mathman, Nate and I went out for our traditional bagels at Bagel Country in Skokie. I had toasted with cream cheese, MathMan had untoasted with lox and the full plate, Nate had PBandJ. We ate like it was 1999 all over again. Nate noted that he could never be an Orthodox Jew, it's too restrictive. Yeah, I get that. But wouldn't you like to be part of a community like this sometimes? I wanted to know. He scanned the room as he chewed his PBandJ bagel and nodded. Sometimes.

This face was anxious to get to the beach. It would be her first time that she remembered going.

But first we had to have Super Dawg. Hiya!

Joe the Cop aka Bubs joined us at Super Dawg. We've known Joe for about four or five years now as bloggers. It was so nice to sit and visit with him. Joe is as awesome as I expected, even more.

We made it to the beach. It was a gorgeous day for it.

MathMan and Nate took another train to go see the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field. We picked them up after the game and went to Joe the Cop's police station for a tour. It was so cool.

I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say, but we had a very thorough tour of the facilities, including the firing range where they have these targets featuring Chuck Norris and Gary Coleman. I mean, right?

We also saw the room with the confiscated firearms including the first one Joe had to take from a suspect. We got to hold a rifle from WWII. Dang. Those soldiers were toting some heavy kit.

Joe asked for volunteers to spend a few minutes in a cell. Nate and I said sure. That's an experience I wouldn't want to live through involuntarily. There was a bed attached t the wall, a sink and a toilet. There was a slot in the door where you get your food. The sound of the door clanging shut is what really gets to you. I have video of the door closing behind us and I'll post it if I can figure out how to download it from my phone. All that time spent in jail slowed down my technological learning, you know?

Come to think of it, if they left the lights on, that cell would be the perfect place to finish my novel.

Yes, Nathan booed when the door went clunk. Of course.

Joe knows his business. If I'm ever arrested, I hope it's in (redacted), Illinois. I mean, my brother could arrest me, too, but then my parents would hear about it and it would turn into a big thing and everyone would get involved and there'd be yelling and tears and oh I'd never live that shit down. So (redacted) it is.

We arrived at MathMan's sisters to a Lane Tech Band party in full swing. I met people I've only heard of for years. Good people, all tied together because of the influence of my late father-in-law who I never got a chance to meet. Looking around at all those people who still love making music, I can tell you, he left his mark on the world.


DAY THREE

Mathman dragged me from my hiding place and made me get in the car. I pouted as I drove south on I294. Nathan booed us all for good measure. We made great time, considering the construction traffic jam somewhere on I65. At my behest, Nate booed the construction workers. Then we took it back because I can tell you, after crossing many, many bridges, this country needs to put some money into infrastructure improvements.

The wind farm in the daylight. It's wild. You can learn about it here. We actually saw some of the rotors on trailers being hauled by large trucks. Enormous. No booing. We cheered the ingenuity of it all.

On the way back, we did get to visit amyg. It is such a kick to meet in person the people who make up this wonderful community. Amy is as gorgeous and full of life in person as she is online. Before we met, I phoned her to let her know that we were a pretty surly bunch. I was driving, Mathman was shotgun and referee and the kids just wanted to be home already. Amy was undeterred. She brought along her two little ones and joined us for some Big Boy outside of Louisville. We had a great time, as always, too short. Amy's kids are precious and my own even behaved. Nathan didn't boo anyone.

Cliched as it is, it's good to be "home." Now to get busy finding a way to get back to where I really want to be...