On Turning 30, The Inexorable March of Time, Promises, and Seeing the Success in Failure

Today is my thirtieth birthday.

Our culture puts a lot of emphasis on certain milestones, and some of them do make sense. At eighteen, you are almost completely legally an adult. You can participate in our Democracy by casting your vote. You can purchase pornography and tobacco products. You can have sex with anybody you want (who is also over the age of eighteen) and nobody can tell you otherwise (except, of course, for the other person involved, and if they say "no thank you" it's best to listen). It's the age that most Americans graduate from high school, the age at which many of them set off on their own for the first time ever. Now, sure, you can't drink yet, so, you're not fully an adult. But still.

At twenty, nothing really happens except that you're now in your 20's, which is supposed to involve some amount of maturity? Maybe? I don't know. There's really nothing special about twenty when you get right down to it. It's just a number with a zero in it. A year later, you can finally have a drink.

At twenty-five, you're a quarter of a century old, which was alarming to me at the time. Something about being able to easily quantify my age in terms of a century, albeit in terms that were fractions thereof. Also, your car insurance rates drop because apparently that maturity you're supposed to start acquiring in your twenties has kicked in notably in your driving skills. Or something.

Then what? Sure, thirty. Three-oh. Now you're really and truly a grown-up. I fell victim to this same fallacy. Now that I'm thirty, I'm a grown-up. A grown-up who is wearing a T-shirt with the name of a band I have liked since I was fifteen. Half a lifetime ago.

Thirty year olds can wear flies, right?

And I'm listening to records. Grown-ups, in all their practicality, should not own records. They take up so much space. And they're expensive. And they require archaic equipment to enjoy. Equipment that has pretty specific space requirements. I'm looking across the room at my record player, and I can see a guitar I have had since I was thirteen. It's covered in stickers. I still play this thing. Grown-ups who have guitars keep them in their cases. Grown-ups with guitars do not have stickers on their guitars. They're embarrassed by this sort of thing being leftover from their youth.

So many things about this picture scream "I'm an adult!"

But I also see pictures of my family; my wife, our daughter. A daughter who is growing up so fast. These pictures are over  a year old, and she barely looks the same now. She's a little girl, not a baby. She's currently napping. I am awake mostly through sheer force of will. In a little while, she'll wake up and come downstairs and she'll want to dance to the records I'm playing. Because I'm cultivating in her an appreciation for real music, not just music specifically marketed towards children. Side bar: why is this a thing? Music exists in the world, yes? I understand the idea that some music is not appropriate for kids. I get it. I can make that decision, I think, right? Like, if she came down here right now, I'd keep this Arcade Fire record on. Next, I'd play Broken Bells, or Simon & Garfunkel, or Fleet Foxes. I would not play AC/DC or Childish Gambino or 10cc. Not that there's anything wrong with the 10cc record I have, it just seems a little crazy for a two year old, no? I mean, I'm not sure I'd play any of the Dixieland or Hot Jazz I've got, just because she might dance too fast for me to keep up.

But Alice Cooper is perfectly fine for Jules. Right?

I guess what I'm saying is that, thirty is just an arbitrary number. Twenty-eight years separate myself from my daughter, and then thirty-one years exist in the space between me and my father. The three of us could groove to the same record at once. And we have. And we will again. Why should it matter, these designations? Now, talk to me on my 42nd birthday. That will be a whole other story. But for now, hey. So I'm thirty. Yesterday I was twenty-nine. I don't feel all that different. Okay, so at twenty I was able to spend hours at the City Museum in St. Louis, crawling around and running, and feel fine the next day. And now, having spent two hours there this past Saturday, my right shoulder could fall off at any moment. But that's fine. It happens. So I'm thirty. And a year from now, I'll be thirty-one. I'll still be long-winded, I'll still be listening to records, I'll still be writing.

Oh yeah, writing. I made a silly promise about writing and turning thirty. That silly promise was a hard deadline on completing my novel. Silly because I'm afraid of completing anything for fear of it being a failure. Silly because I would rather sleep in than get up early and work on it. Silly because I have a family whose company I enjoy far more than the self-inflicted torture of writing for hours on end. Silly because a good novel takes a good long while to complete. Silly because numbers are arbitrary (see above).

So it's been a while since I started writing it, I guess. The full history reaches back to the spring of 2008. I wrote a short story called "North for Salvation." The following autumn, I took the same characters and general situation, and changed the name to "Before Rock Attained Perfection." Then I stretched that concept out over the next two  and a half years, changing the name to What Place to Rest the Search, a nod to a Led Zeppelin lyric from the song "Achilles' Last Stand," which figured prominently in the narrative. Then, about a year ago, I threw out what I had written in first person and changed it to third person because, as I discovered, I had one main character and a whole lot of action taking place in the past. I wanted to tell a more present story and get into the heads of the other characters (who, in the first-person narrative, were flat and boring). First person worked for the short story versions. Not, it seems, for the novel, for which I have yet to find a good title.

Then I set an arbitrary goal, to have the whole thing completed by the time I turned thirty. Today.

Woops. I guess I failed.

Or...maybe not?

I could have easily finished...the original first person version. But then it wouldn't have been as good, in my opinion. You know what I mean?

So, I'm inclined to call this "failure" a "success." But, how? Well, that's a very good question, disembodied authorial stand-in for the audience! And I'll tell you how!

Writing is a process of discovery. Discovery of the author's limitations. Discovery of the author's strengths. Discovery of those in the life of the author who are supportive, and the subsequent partial or complete fare-thee-well to those discovered to be unsupportive. It is also about the discovery of the story. Sure, I sat down with an outline and a basic idea of where this story was going to go. And for the most part, I've followed it. But it's grown, and changed, and I've had to make adjustments along the way. And though in some ways I am farther from finishing a novel than I was when I threw out the first-person version, I am also much farther along in developing a real story that might have some teeth, legs, arms, and a torso as opposed to just some very misguided feet. That's a very strange metaphor, I'm sorry, but it makes sense to me, and I had that metaphor rattling around in my head and, trust me, it did not need to ever find its way into the book. Ever.

Sure, I missed my goal. But as the goal approached and I started to panic, I felt I should take a step back and look at what I had accomplished. The fact is, pushing myself toward the goal was more important than reaching the goal. Pushing and pushing got me off my lazy ass. I don't care if it's not perfect, now. I will finish it, and if it fails to sell or whatever, that's fine. I'll just write another one. Or a play. Something else. One failure doesn't mean an end to an endeavor, or exclude success from the future (see also my first attempt at college).

I even think I could have finished the third-person version of the book by today if I had been slightly less meticulous. Though, had I been more meticulous, I'd be about half-way through the second chapter. The point is, if I had rushed to get it done, I'd have a complete novel that I was only thirty-fifty percent happy with. Right now, I've got about forty percent of a novel that I am almost completely satisfied with. That's a fantastic feeling, believe it or not. A feeling that far outweighs any frustration I may have felt at not completing it.

As Wayne Gretzky once said, "You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take." And we all know how awesome Wayne Gretzky was.

Wayne Gretzky was one of the 19th Century Russian Romanticists, right?

Paternity Leave

I'm sure you've all noticed the sudden lack of new posts, and for that, I make no apology other than to say see my previous post. I've got very little time these days, it seems, with adjusting to this crazy awesome new little human being living in my house, with all the visitors streaming in bringing food and eager baby-yearning open arms, and with all the sleep I am not getting. So if the blog kind of falls to the wayside, you would do well, readers, to understand.

Just an update: Juliette is still doing great. Coming home was easier than I thought it would be, and at this point, it's hard to remember life without her. It's easy to see that I am enamored of her; my desktop background on my work computer has always been a silly picture from the internet but now it is my daughter. I even brought in my very first ever physical photograph in a frame and placed it on my desk - a picture of Juliette asleep on my chest. It's something special, I'll tell you, being a father. Even though I'm still very new at it, it's one of the most exciting adventures I've ever been on.

And the good things just seem to keep on happening, too. Monday, as I drove home from work (with the windows down and the radio up because even though it's August in St. Louis it was unseasonably gorgeous), the very first sentence of my novel fell from the sky, through my open moonroof and into my brain. I have been stuck on how to begin my novel since, well, since I began my novel. There's an event (it's no secret, I've said it before, the death of the narrator's father) that I was not sure where to place. Does it take place before the novel begins? In the first chapter? The first page? Later? The first sentence was my answer; the very first sentence saved my sanity and sparked my creativity.

You want to read my first sentence? Really? Okay.

Go buy my book when it comes out.

Zing!

But seriously, I think I'm done posting excerpts and rough chapter fragments from the book for a while. I need to hunker down and write the thing, so it gets done. I'd like to have a complete draft done by March, not completed but with enough polish and revision that it's readable and marketable. So no more dilly-dallying.

So...a few weeks ago I promised album reviews. I have not delivered. I have yet another album review I want to do, but I won't let myself until I get the two I promised done. So the third might just not happen.

Look for those at a future date.

Remembrance

Dear Readers,

There has been a lot going on right now, with getting ready for the baby's arrival, so apologies to you. Right now Kathy and I are in the midst of a home-improvement blitz so that we can actually have a safe home in which to raise a small child. You know, baby-proofing, moving hazards out of the way of a child on the move, that sort of thing. One of the dangers that resided in our house was our cat Acrodyl. The only people he liked were myself and Kathy, and that was only about 90% of the time (less so with Kathy, though when he liked her he loved her. He tolerated my father, which was good for when we would go out of town. But we did not feel comfortable with the idea of having a very scared, angry cat around a baby.

See, Acrodyl was a rescue cat. He had been a litter of one, separated from his mother too soon and then abused. But at the shelter, he was taken care of very well and when we adopted him in 2004, he was very sweet. But the damage had been done in his youth, and loud noises and sudden movements always scared him. He was content sitting and laying quietly, playing with a string or a ball or a laser pointer, but he was not a cat who was into being played with physically. He took it as a threat. And a couple years ago, unaware of this, one of our friends played a little rough with him and he could never be around strangers again without hissing, swatting, screaming, lunging and biting. He had very powerful teeth, too, made sharp by the fact that he never chewed his food (he only licked it until it was soft and then swallowed it). He was not without other problems; he had a respiratory infection when we first adopted him and always had a little bit of a rasp in his breath. He was fickle about cleanliness in his litter box, to the point where he would develop bladder infections rather than use it. He got his tail caught in the bathroom door once and ran away from it, leaving a section behind (that required surgery, three days of sedation, two weeks of a head cone and three weeks of antibiotics). But he remained sweet, especially in the evenings, toward us, and we loved him. Amethyst, his little long-haired sister we adopted in December 2008, loved playing with him, chasing him around, and trying to do the things he did and he sort of tolerated her. I have pictures of them cuddling to prove it.

In December, when we found out we were expecting our first child, we were faced with a decision about what to do with the cat. We contemplated keeping him, because he was a part of the family and had been since our second week in our first home. He would greet me each evening by kneading his paws over my the laced part of my shoes (always the chagrin when he saw I was wearing sandals). He would snuggle up against Kathy's neck and purr louder than any cat I've ever heard, kneading her neck and shoulder every night. We didn't want to say goodbye to him.

But we knew it had to be done, and his mood swings got worse. When he was in a bad mood, it was sometimes terrifying to see. It was like there were two cats, one sweet and gentle and the other terrified and desperate. Only I could calm him down when he was in a mood like that. What would happen if he got in a mood like that when Kathy and the baby were home alone?

No shelters would take him because he was no longer adoptable. He was too scared of others to know that nobody was trying to hurt him. Some days, just trying to pet him made him feel threatened. So we made the hard decision and on April 28, 2010, Kathy, Amethyst and I said goodbye to him.

The saddest part of this isn't how much we cried that day, or how Amethyst wandered the house looking for him for a little bit, or how she's been afraid of strangers since that day (my father came over to pick me and Acrodyl up, and I came home alone, perhaps she got the wrong impression?), or the lack of shoe rubs. No, the saddest part is how easily we've adapted, how his memory pops up in this little instances that make it more painful than if we were constantly thinking about him. The other day, I was looking for a pencil in my desk drawer and found the pet microchip tag Acrodyl came with and subsequently chewed off his collar. The first time I cleaned the litter box afterward, I cried over scooping up the last of his poop. I cried over poop...who does that? We were working on our closet system the other night, listening to music on my computer, and my screensaver came on. It's the picture slideshow, and there were pictures of him every third or fourth one. I miss him. Kathy misses him. Amethyst misses him.

Worse is when we're doing something that Acrodyl used to involve himself in, like folding sheets. He used to get angry at us for doing that, because he just wanted to lay on them, and of course he reacted as if we were threatening him. The other night, we were folding sheets, and Amethyst was playfully trying to stop us. No fear, just playfulness, and we very easily distracted her. We both thought, "How easy is this without him?" One of us said something and the other concurred. What wasn't said, but I'm sure we both thought, was, "I don't care that it's easy. I miss him."

So, to get it out and provide a bit more closure, I'm going to list some of the things about him that were cute, hilarious, unique, and not sad.

The first day we had him, which was my first time meeting him, my sister and her husband came over to play board games, and Acrodyl fell asleep in my lap on the floor, purring.

He was so little at first, he couldn't get up on the bed. We had to help him up, but the joke was on us; he'd get up there, stand on a chest (whichever was most convenient), fart, and then run away.

We used to find him, on hot days, curled up in the bathroom sink. This got harder when we moved into the house, because he got bigger and the sink was more square, but he kept at it.

We bought him a crinkle bird, which is a kind of a cat toy, on his first day with us, which he loved dearly for three hours and then which he promptly lost. We never saw it again.

He used to put his paws in the food bowl when he ate. He tried this once with his water bowl, and was displeased with the result.

After a long day of Kathy and I running errands and being in and out of the house, Acrodyl would lay down on the rug in front of the door as if to say, "No more leaving!"

Every Christmas, Acrodyl would fall asleep on a pile of spent wrapping paper.

Always curious, Acrodyl jumped on top of the box our television came in, only to have the flaps give out underneath him. He spent three hours in the box, sleeping until Kathy called his name.

One night, at the apartment, when I got home late from work, he was so happy to see me he ran outside into the foyer when the door was open. I didn't notice until half an hour later, when he hadn't come to bed. I found him in the foyer, asleep in the corner, safe and sound and only a little annoyed.

The first time we brought home KFC Popcorn Chicken, Acrodyl went crazy for it. He kept sneaking up on us, leaping over our laps to grab pieces from our hands. It was the only people-food he liked.

We had the front door of the house open last summer, and Amethyst scampered out into the front yard. Acrodyl bolted out after her and chased her back inside. We had a hawk circling our neighborhood which Acrodyl had seen previously.

When he was sleeping, you could run your hand down his back and he would wake up with a noise that was half a purr, half a meow.

His favorite toys (beyond the misplaced crinkly bird) were twist ties.

Acrodyl figured out the laser pointer. He would play with the dot, but mostly, he looked at the thing in your hand and tried to figure out a way to get it. If you set it down on a flat surface he could get to, he would knock it to the floor and start batting it around.

He loved wet cat food, but would only lick away all the juices, leaving the meat alone. It was the wet part he liked.

Every evening at bed time, Kathy or I would grab a cup of water. Acrodyl always loved to drink out of the cup, sticking his head in it. He tried to teach Amethyst, but she just always stuck her paw in the water. She was a trying pupil and he was a patient teacher.

Acrodyl would watch movies with us. I don't mean that he would come downstairs and hang out while we watched movies, no; he would lie down on the love seat, face the television, and watch the movie. He really seemed to like Jane Austen films and the new Star Wars trilogy (for which he can be forgiven, as he did not know a world without the new trilogy).

From the day he joined the family, the only nights I spent sleeping without him nestled on the bed with me were nights spent not in my own bed. I could count on him never being more than three or four feet away from me when I woke up in the mornings, ready for some food. He never got too close when it was too hot, and he could never get too close when it was cold.

When I was younger, the first cat I remember loving was named Barney, and he died when I was in first grade. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Thum, gave me a book about a kid dealing with the death of his cat, called "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" which really helped me. It might have been the first time I realized that a good book can have an emotional impact. Though at the time, I guess I didn't quite process it like that. I just knew that it felt good to read of somebody struggling the same way I was struggling. I came back the next school year and read it to her class. I don't know where my copy of it is...I assume it is at my parents' house, though in all fairness it might be buried in a plastic box in my basement. You never know. But anyway, it was a great book at that time and just thinking about it now gives me a little comfort. So how many good things did I come up with about Acrodyl just now? Quite a few, it seems. Which is nice. I like that. I like remembering those things. I never want to forget them.

discussed in this post:

Float Trip

Well friends, the calendar is telling us that it’s early Spring, which is a time of year I generally love; baseball and cycling seasons start up, the days get longer, I can open my bedroom windows at night and hear the breeze stir the magnolia out front…my moonroof opens and lets in a wind which cools instead of freezes…the aforementioned magnolia tree explodes in shades of pink which then rain down on my front lawn, causing me to blog about it and make my readers question my sexuality…and summer is right around the corner, of course.

But that’s just what the calendar is telling us. And while baseball and cycling seasons are just starting, and the days are getting longer and my bedroom windows are open at night, the hot air coming in my moonroof, the browning magnolia petals on the lawn and the thermometer tell us a different story. They tell us that Summer is upon us. Or, rather, they’re telling us that if it’s Spring already, brace yourself for one hell of a nasty hot Summer.

Hot weather, I can mostly handle. My car does have a/c, as does the house and my office. I own shorts and sandals and t-shirts and the ice cream truck comes down my block at least once every other day during the months of June through August. But there are certain things I like to do in the summer which involve being outside, you know, where there is no air conditioning as a rule, and I’d like to be able to do those a) without collapsing from heat stroke and b) alongside my wife who is, as I mentioned before, pregnant, and who is therefore likely to be extra sensitive to things like heat indices firmly ensconced in the triple digit range.

One of my favorite ways to cool off on a hot day is to indulge in a cold treat. I believe I have mentioned before how I adore Fitz’s Root Beer, a locally brewed root beer of which I had cases shipped to me when I lived in Minneapolis. And fortunately for me, Fitz’s is sold at the local grocery stores around here, so even in the middle of a ridiculously hot night, if my wife (or I) start craving it, I can run to Schnucks or Shop n’ Save and pick up a 4 pack. Of course, if we start craving it during regular business hours, we could always run to the restaurant where the root beer is brewed and pick up a frosty bottomless mug or a heaping root beer float.

Of course another way to cool off is to go to Ted Drewe’s, which serves up some of the best Frozen Custard around (and the best Frozen Custard on Route 66, I should assert). They’ve got so many flavors to choose from, I still haven’t tried them all (and the combinations, OH! the combinations!!). They even serve up a great float, which makes you believe their vanilla custard was engineered specifically for such a purpose. It’s that good. And if they’re closed, again, I can pick some up at the grocery store.

Now, there is a travesty in St. Louis when it comes to these two items; I have yet to find a restaurant that serves a Fitz’s Root Beer/Ted Drewe’s root beer float. To that I say, “What the hell, St. Louis? This is a serious problem we need to solve right away.” Look; when you go to Fitz’s, they serve you up a root beer float made with their amazing root beer and a very generous helping of Edy’s or Breyer’s ice cream (I can’t remember which, but I know it’s one of those). Really, Fitz’s? I mean, I guess it’s not generic Sam’s Club ice cream, but still. And at Ted Drewe’s, when you order your float, you get Barq’s Root Beer. And I guess, I could give these two places some leeway; Fitz’s chooses an ice cream that everybody can get their hands on, so they know what it tastes like with other root beers and they can tell the difference between other root beers in a float and theirs in a float. And it works the other way for Ted Drewe’s; everyone who’s had a root beer float has probably had a scoop of vanilla in a Barq’s root beer, so give them that familiar root beer with the unique floating mound of frozen custard. But…you other places? What’s your excuse? There are plenty of restaurants in St. Louis which offer Fitz’s Root Beer on their menus, and just as many serve Ted Drewe’s with their desserts. But the places I can think of that serve both do not serve them together (these are mostly places like Blues City Deli or Mom’s Deli which serve both of these in individual containers out of stand-up coolers). But think of it; this is the ultimate St. Louis dessert. The only way to get a more ultimate St. Louis dessert out of a frosted glass mug would be to liquefy a Gooey Butter Cake, and raise your hand if you think that sounds satisfying (Dad, you and your brothers need to put your hands down right now). Now, I have not been to every restaurant in St. Louis, so maybe there is a place that serves this amazing concoction (so amazing, it makes a cynical atheist like myself admit that if Heaven exists, it probably tastes something like a Fitz’s/Ted Drewe’s Float), but I haven’t found one. The only way I have ever been able to enjoy one of these is to purchase the two items separately and combine them at home. And you should try it, yourself. Right now. Don’t live in St. Louis? Come visit, and I’ll join you. Because nobody likes to drink alone, even if it is a root beer float.

Complaints and Then Traditions.

I have received several-not complaints per se but, comments I think we'll call them-lately to the tune of "Your last couple posts were way too long!" To that, I say, "Dem's da breaks, kiddo."

But really, here's a good summary: Downloaded music okay. Physical media better. Vinyl records best. Electronic books stupid. Physical books awesome. Electronic media mixed bag. Easy for new players to the media game. And finally, iPad stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

I know I have talked about my family a little bit in the past. I count myself lucky to count myself amongst not only my parents and sister, but also amongst my sister's husband, their two little girls (link), my wife, her parents and their nine other children and their various and varied family members. There are a lot. Six brothers, three sisters, five sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, three nieces, two nephews and one more nephew to be born in the next three weeks (so, you know, by the time you get around to finishing my last two posts and this one, that kid will be halfway through with his doctorate). So that's a lot of family for me to keep tabs on.

Add to that, I have close friends who I consider family. Sure, some of that family I may not see all that often, or call consistently, or...wait, now I look like a bad friend/relative. Anyway, I am getting to a point. That point is that with all this family plus the time that these families have spent together (separately and together) comes a slew of traditions.

The traditions range from the weekly to the annually and all other sorts of permutations. I think that traditions are important when building and maintaining a family, so I'm going to talk about some of my favorite ones.

Sunday Dinner - Growing up in my parents' house was kind of...odd. I don't intend that to sound mean, but, for most of my childhood, the house was in a constant state of flux. Not the household, but the house itself, the brick-and-mortar and four-walls-and-a-roof house. One of my earliest memories is of my dad and my uncle Tim working together on remodeling the bathroom. Then together (and with the help of other uncles from both sides of the family) they tackled the deck, tore the old one down and built a new one (which still stands). My sister and I had bedrooms upstairs in what had been the attic but which had been (as my father would say) remuddled into living space. But it had lackluster insulation and no air conditioning, which meant it got ridiculously cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. Winter wasn't a big deal, really, because there were always plenty of blankets. Summer, however, usually meant camping out in the couch in the living room. After a while, I just moved permanently onto the couch. My sister, however, got her own bedroom; what had been the dining room was remodeled into a bedroom and I couldn't understand why she got it and I didn't (at the time, anyway, but now I get it; she's a girl and she was entering those teenage years and I can't think of a better place for a teenage girl than locked up in her own room...haha, kidding Mo). What this meant was that we were now short a bedroom for me and a dining room. We ate a lot of our meals in the living room, which is where I slept.

Anyway, eventually the remodeling process took a huge leap and we had a real life second story to the house. Finally, I had my own bedroom and my own closet and I moved off the futon in the living room and onto a twin bed (later replaced by the futon, which is currently in the basement, and if you're a regular to the blog you've seen it as I am sitting on it in my video blogs). My sister's old room (which, remember, was the dining room) became the living room and we started working on turning the living room (and my parents' old room) into new space. The front half of the living room was going to remain living room, with my parents' old room becoming the rest of the living room. The old back part of the living room was going to become the dining room. But that took a few years. Meanwhile, we had a table in a small room we called the breakfast nook (a sun porch leading out to the deck, which, again, is still there to this day) but we ate most of our meals, again, in the living room. The temporary one. It wasn't until I was mostly done with high school that the whole project was finished. I don't want to make it look like my parents were lazy or anything like that, they just worked when they could and when they could afford it, and when you've got two kids to raise and you're looking at paying for them to go to college maybe, and my mother was in school for a majority of that time and working full time (I did it and I don't know how she did it because I was stressed enough without two kids to take care of), so it went slow and steady. And though I sometimes went without a bedroom, I never went without a bed and though I sometimes went without a dining room, I never went without dinner. So I'm not complaining.

The final piece of the remodel came after I left for college (attempt number one). The summer between my first and last semesters at the University of Minnesota was filled with tuckpointing, new driveway and no kitchen. That's right, that summer my parents remodeled their kitchen, which needed it, trust me. The old one was, shall we say, retro in a very not-cool-retro-but-actually-held-over-from-the-seventies way. The appliances, too (aside from the oven, which had been replaced due to the utter failure of the oven door of the old one, which is a long story I actually won't go into here, surprisingly). But, what that did mean was that summer is written in my memory as the summer of the grill. We grilled almost every meal we ate. We had a charcoal Weber kettle, my late Grandpa Rauscher's Char Broil gas grill, a Coleman camp stove...it was all set up outside on the deck. We ate so well. And we had a brand new refrigerator in the room that had been the dining room and then became my sister's room and then was the living room (side note; that room has actually been very many rooms since my parents moved in; dining room, bedroom, living room, kitchen, office, music room, storage room, pretty much every room my parents have in that house aside from the bathroom), so we had a good summer eating in the relatively-new-dining room. I went back to college before the counter tops arrived.

I am getting to Sunday Dinners here. When I moved back-well, no. After I moved back, actually, and my sister was living with Kevin (who is now her husband), she would come back and eat dinner with us on Sundays. It was nice. We had a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, all functioning. All those meals we had eaten in the living room in my youth, not to detract from them because the food was uniformly good and the company some of the best the world has to offer (sucking up to the family much? Elliot, do you need money or something? No, I promise, it's all part of the literaryness of the post), there is something about gathering around the table with the family once a week and catching up. We kept this going after Kathy and I got married and we moved into our apartment, and it's a tradition that has grown. My sister and her family spend alternating Sundays with her husband's family, which is only fair. We'd probably do the same it weren't distance prohibitive to drive to Kathy's parents' house just for dinner once every two weeks. My grandmother Mary Beth (my mother's mother) joins us. Other extended family members have come. Of course my sisters' girls come along with their parents. And whenever one of Kathy's family members is in town, they tag along as well. Basically it's a great comfort to me to know that each week, I get to spend one meal sitting at the table, laughing with my parents and spending time with people I love.

Gay Schnucks - Okay, having ended that last tradition on a sappy note, I'm going to go for funny now. And no, you didn't read that wrong, that says Gay Schnucks. Schnucks is a supermarket here in St. Louis (I'd link to them but 1. they're not paying me to and 2. I don't think they'd be too keen on any publicity that is preceded by the qualifier "Gay") which is quite nice in its selection, location and hours. The closest one to my parents' house is about a five minute drive and it's open 24 hours, which is helpful to someone planning a get-together in the midst of the holiday season.

That's right, Mom, I'm talking about our Christmas Eve tradition.

Early in the morning on Christmas Eve (or, really, generally late in the evening on Christmas Eve Eve), my mother will do the last minute shopping for the annual(ish) Christmas gathering she and my father host. This gathering consists of my mother, my father, myself, my wife's self, and some other selfs who are wont to comment on the blog occasionally (hi Bridget). This past year it grew in scope to quite an overwhelming proportion, so maybe next year it'll be toned down a smidge. Anyway, the last minute shopping takes place at the aforementioned nearby Schnucks, and the four years I was in high school (and the next couple years after when I lived at home), I would accompany my mother on this shopping trip to provide moral support/push the cart/keep her company. The reason this Schnucks is called "Gay" Schnucks is because it is located near a vibrant gay community, and many of the shoppers you see there are in fact gay couples. The first year I accompanied my mother on this trip I was fifteen, and as I recall this was the first time I had heard the store's unofficial nickname. I thought little of it; so what? Gay people shop there in large, noticeable numbers? Good for the boys! But we were there so late that they made an announcement at a quarter to two in the morning stating that if you had liquor you wished to purchase, buy now or regret it later. Or something to that effect. My mother indeed intended to buy several bottles of wine, so she left me with the list and the cart and rushed to buy the wine in one bulk purchase, promising to return so we could continue shopping together. This was not my first time alone in a grocery store, but it was the first time alone so late at night in a grocery store. I, again, didn't think much about it.

Until...a creepy man started tailing me. Smiling at me, but not in a "Oh, I'm just being polite and we made eye contact" kind of way. More in a, "So...come here often?" Kind of way. I smiled in a way that I was sure said, "No, especially not this late because generally I have a curfew and I'm only fifteen and my mother is just getting some wine. Really, I'm awfully flattered but, as I said, I'm fifteen years old and also, not that there's anything wrong with that but I don't play for that team. Did I mention my mother is just buying some wine? Yeah, she'll be right back any minute. I appreciate the smile, you have lovely teeth for sure but, honestly, I'm fifteen and you're kind of creeping me out and you're standing in front of the milk and I really need a gallon of it so if you could just, say, shove off in a totally different direction, life would be a lot less stressful for me at this moment in time." I'm not sure how it came off, but eventually he wandered away.

You'd think I'd have been deterred by this, but no. I kept coming back. At least five more years. And every year, I think, "Oh, I should go help my mom. This time, though, I'll pick up the wine myself and leave her getting the rest of the groceries."

Weier Family Classic - My wife's family is large, as I said, but they're also spread out across five states (Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado and Missouri). With ten children and a branching family tree, it's difficult to get everyone together. So several years ago, they initiated the Weier (and that's pronounced like the conjunction for "we are" or, if you prefer, like the last name of US Figure Skating pretty boy Johnny Weir though spelled differently) Family Classic. The idea is that each year, the family gets together and holds a contest of some kind, and the winner gets to take home a trophy which is as tall as my wife.

The first year, it was a fishing challenge, and the trophy went to my wife for catching the biggest fish. She wasn't even using bait. And the fish isn't a legal fish to catch, as it's endangered. Of course it's endangered! It bites unbaited hooks (this one bit hers not once but twice). The second year it went to my niece Morgan for "Best New Attraction" (they scrambled for a category that year). The third year (my first participating year, as my wife's fiance) we went bowling, and the trophy went to my wife's brother Joe for getting the most strikes in a row. The fourth year we bet pennies on a minor league baseball game (we were each assigned a batter and for each hit they got, everybody else gave you a penny for a single, two for a double, etc). This contest was held a week after I had married Kathy. And I won.

We've had lawn olympics, rock-paper-scissor tournaments and Diet-Coke/Mentos fountain contests. It's a good way to get the family together and see each other at least once a year. It's been a couple years now, as families have grown it's gotten even harder, but the trophy (wherever it now resides, I can't remember) beckons to each of us. There are those who still lust after it, upset that startups (like myself) can just stroll in off the street and claim the title. They're still waiting for their day. For past champs like myself, we miss the thrill of competition. Also, there's always food involved. Really, ridiculously good food.

Olympic Ribs - This is a relatively new tradition. And by relatively new, I mean it's only happened once, and that in the very recent past. Though it has its roots elsewhere.

The roots lie in another tradition that Kathy and I started; Each night, before we go to sleep, we generally watch one or two episodes of M*A*S*H. You know that show, right? It's been in syndication for my entire life almost, held a viewership record that stood until the most recent Superbowl for most viewers watching a single program (the series finale in 1982). Alan Alda, Jamie Farr wearing dresses, Harry Morgan, Korean War...you've got it now I'm sure. Well, there is an episode in I want to say Season Two called Adams Ribs, in which Hawkeye (Alan Alda) is sick and tired of army food and calls a BBQ joint in Chicago and orders forty pounds of frozen ribs and two gallons of barbecue sauce, then has to have his tent-mate Trapper call up a girl he used to know in Chicago to pick it up, pay for it and put it in a box marked "Medical Supplies-URGENT!" and send it to them in Korea. Every time we watch this episode, we crave ribs.

One night, the craving hit us so hard we called in an order to Applebee's and I picked it up. The ribs were...disappointing. Another time, we had our own barbecued ribs at my parents' house (for a Sunday Dinner). And in 2008, a few days after we watched this episode some friends of ours came over to watch Olympic Gymnastics, and they offered to get dinner. They asked us what we wanted, and we told them, duh, ribs! So we recently started watching the series again (for the nth and not the final time), and two days before the Vancouver Winter Olympics opened, we saw that episode. We knew that we would be glued to the opening ceremonies on that Friday (because we're suckers for that kind of stuff) so we decided to get ribs and watch them. So we did, and I decided that regardless of when the last time we watched that particular episode of M*A*S*H was, come the 2012 Summer Games in London, we will be ordering a slab of ribs from Bandana's BBQ here in town, with some cole slaw and potato salad, and we'll watch those opening ceremonies while we stuff our face with ribs. That's the kind of tradition Kathy has no problem getting behind.

So why bring up all these traditions, anyway? Surely these things would have been more present in my mind over the holidays or directly after the rib-sauce-soaked opening ceremonies? Well, sure, but we've had other things on our minds. My digital music/book rant one of those things, maybe. Watching the Olympics, perhaps. But mostly, we've been preoccupied with the thought of incorporating a new family member into these traditions. This isn't just idle speculation, either. Come August 19th or thereabouts of this year, I'm Not Just o.k., I'm not Just All Write, I'm also a father. Which makes Kathy a mother, and that way we keep it all in the family. And that means the blog might take on a little bit of a different character (again, link for some perspective).

So you've all got that to look forward to. Who's excited?

I know I am.

I Know Where My Towel Is

Warning: The post you are about to read is long, rambling, and certain to take up way more of your time than you currently have budgeted for reading this blog. You might want to tackle this one in spurts. And you're probably going to need a cup of coffee while you're at it. And a donut. In fact, get me a donut, too. Thanks.

I am going to broach a subject that I'm pretty sure I have never broached before on this platform, possibly because it seemed so redundant to anyone who knows me to for me to speak on this subject, but also because...well, no I don't really know why at all. I just, for some reason, haven't talked about this on the blog yet and I feel that, what with certain things currently in the works in the wide world outside of my own writing, I thought now is as good a time as any to do so.

What I am gradually coming to the point of is this: DNA. Not DNA as in Deoxyribonucleic acid but DNA as in Douglas Noel Adams, British humourist, scriptwriter, performer, environmentalist, atheist, tech-head, and (both most importantly and least effectively) author. I'll clarify that in a moment. This man's work has had a profound effect on my life, my sensibilities, my thoughts, and my early approach to writing. And though I have read many many books that are technically, verbally, artistically and generally better than his books, no book will ever supplant the Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the crown jewel of my book collection.

When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden. In fact, as recently as the year before she had been Ms. Derby (which is how I knew her anyway, because my sister had, three years before me, sat in Ms. Derby's classroom on a daily basis) but had, as many women see fit to do (thankfully my wife included, otherwise I'd likely be a shiftless bum) gotten married to a rather sensible gentleman by the name of Mr. McFadden (I am basing my assessment of his sensibility solely on the fact that he asked Ms. Derby n/k/a Mrs. McFadden to marry him). This is not the point of the story. I shall return to the beginning.

When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden, who had, three years previous and under her unmarried name of Ms. Derby, taught my sister in fourth grade. It was sheer luck I got her as my teacher, as there were four teachers for each grade at my elementary school (I think that's right, but it has been a number of years) and there was no system whereby you could request specific teachers (but I think if a parent asked gently enough, it could only help, which I think is why the next year, in fifth grade, I avoided a disaster my sister was not so lucky to have missed), but having seen how wonderful Ms. Derby was for my sister, my parents were thrilled for me to have Mrs. McFadden. I guess the general thought was that having gotten married would not negatively affect her teaching ability. And, thankfully, it didn't. She recognized my sense of humour, my (not to toot my own horn here) intelligence, and my skills with words. She was the first teacher I remember truly encouraging me to explore creative writing. But what was cool, looking back, was the way in which she encouraged it. She encouraged me not just to write, but also to read, which is a doctrine that each and every writing teacher I've had at any level of creative writing since has preached.

I had always been an avid reader, and had many times put pen (or, I guess back then, #2 pencil) to (wide-ruled loose leaf) paper. I was even, during fourth grade, in the midst of writing a comic book (based on the adventures of my stuffed animals) as well as a novel (called "Aliens In The Backyard") about a group of kids who get abducted by aliens in an attempt to better understand humans' fascination with baseball. These are the things I would work on when we'd have a free period, or when recess was confined to the classroom due to inclement weather. Both of these pursuits were grounded in material I was reading, not for class but for personal pleasure. I was reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (perhaps a precursor to my college days, when I took a philosophy class and read several treatises by Calvin and Hobbes?) and also the My Teacher is an Alien series. You can see how easily it was for me to write in such a genre if I was so immersed in it.

There was only one problem with my comic strip, just a tiny little one; I couldn't draw a straight line unless I were trying to draw a curved or squiggly one, and that was just the beginning of my drawing problems. Let's face it; while my wife and I are both artists, only one of us can draw, and it's not the one who's words you are reading right now (unless, at that moment, you got an e-mail from her or read one of her comments or something). And the problem with my novel was that I was ten, and had no idea how to structure a story, really. There were all kinds of POV shifts and narrative lapses and tense shifts and (as I recall I agonized over this) even an inclusion of the word dammit, which I remember at the time made me blush just to type (and, shit, now would ya fuckin' look at this damn mess?) and which I'm pretty sure I eventually removed thinking it was too risky.

Amidst all of this, though, Mrs. McFadden (ah, you thought I'd forgotten about her all ready, I'll bet) kept encouraging me to write, to draw (though once she actually saw my drawings, I think she mostly encouraged me to write), and to read, and to listen to the things happening around me. And she let me borrow a set of tapes.

These tapes were my introduction to the world of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a rather large sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. These tapes were a recording of that wholly remarkable radio series about a wholly remarkable book which was eventually then turned into a wholly remarkable book based on the radio series about a wholly remarkable book, all of which shared the same title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

At this point, let me interject more relevant past; I can remember staying up late and sneaking halfway down the stairs (and often getting caught doing so) trying to catch snippets of Doctor Who, which my parents used to watch on PBS. And in my household, Saturday nights were held sacred in that we would sit in the living room with popcorn and soda and watch the newest episode of Star Trek. The relevance of these points are as follows: 1) Being an avid Star Trek fan meant I had a foothold on the general world of science fiction (and, trust me, I grew up in the 80's and had every intention of becoming a Jedi someday) and 2) Even though I was little and didn't understand why it was funny, I understood that Doctor Who was funny in a particularly different way than most funny television I was familiar with was funny. And it wasn't just their funny accents. Also, Douglas Adams wrote scripts and was for a time the script editor for Doctor Who in 1979). Okay, background info to the background info done.

I took these tapes home and decided it would be a good idea to play them on my boom box while I tried to fall asleep (at this time, due to construction at my house, I was without a room of my own and was sleeping on the futon in the living room, so I had to keep the radio low) but this was clearly a mistake. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was that good. And it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. I would have to corroborate this story with my parents, but I am fairly sure I woke them up with my laughing. I finished the set of tapes Mrs. McFadden had given me and started them over. And again. In fact, I'd probably still be doing that if, after three weeks, she hadn't said, "Elliot, have you finished with them? I've got other things I wish to share with you."

I returned them, but told her she had to let other kids listen to them. She agreed, but warned me that not everybody would like it as much as I did. I picked out three friends I thought would get it (all of whom, by the way, did like it as much as I did) and she gave me-gasp of gasps-another set of tapes, these bearing the title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was more of the same, and three weeks later she had to ask for them back again.

This patter continued throughout the year, though sadly no more Douglas Adams was forthcoming. I did not see the books in fourth grade (I think Mrs. McFadden thought, quite rightly, that perhaps the books were a bit more mature than the radio show, which was all ready pushing it for a fourth grader). I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth at her suggestion, but sadly I can't think of any more books she suggested I read. I know I read them all, but it was, as I said, many years ago.

Fast forward several years to seventh grade; I'm older, much less wise though I think I know everything, and I'm perusing the bookshelf in my English teacher's classroom when I happen upon something that jolts my memory.

It had been three years since I had seen the title, and I remembered it mostly as a tape recording, so to find it on the shelf was exciting. I pulled it off. It was a very dog-eared copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was held together with tape and looked like it had actually seen the galaxy. I started reading it. I read it twice, three times. My English teacher (Mr. Eckert, I believe) told me to take it home, that he had his own copies at home and anyway the only books in the series he had left in the classroom were the first and the fourth and I might as well take that one, too.

Wait...the...the fourth? There are more of these books out there? I embarked on a quest (after gathering up the fourth book, entitled So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) to find all of the books. I even read the fourth one before acquiring the second and third, in the interest of reading something, anything, by Douglas Adams that I hadn't read before. I began collecting.

At it's height, I had, decidedly, too many Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books. I had the original dog-eared copy of book one I had taken from Mr. Eckert's class room, as well as the even more dilapidated book four. I had a mass market paperback set of books one through four (the fourth being identical in cover to the fourth I all ready had, the first being very different and in fact containing several typos and omissions which, I found out in much later research, resulted from the fact that the copy I had originally was a British pressing and the second one I got an American pressing of the third run, after which they finally stopped editing out all the British references they thought Americans were too dumb to get...for instance, in the American version there is a reference to a "crosswalk" while in the British version it was a "Zebra Crossing." Apparently, the American publisher thought American readers would think it was a street crossing specifically for Zebras). I had a trade paperback version of the fifth book. I had an over sized "illustrated" version of book one as well (mainly illustrated with photographs and computer-rendered landscapes, and it was quite beautiful really). I had a cloth-hardbound omnibus edition with an introduction from the author himself and an extra short story between books four and five. But that wasn't all. I obtained copies of some of DNA's other works, notably both of his Dirk Gently novels and also a strange book called Starship Titanic which was actually written by Footlighter and Monty Python alumn Terry Jones (the novel is billed as "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic; a Novel by Terry Jones" and is based on a computer game Adams was working on, which in turn was based on a short passage of text in the third book of the Hitchhiker series called Life, The Universe and Everything which was, in turn, actually, adapted from a "Doctor Who" script treatment written by Adams titled "Doctor Who and the Cricket Men"). I could never, however, find cheap copies of Last Chance to See or The Meaning of Liff, both of which he co-wrote, the former with biologist Mark Carwardine and the latter with his friend John Lloyd (the two also worked on an updated version called The Deeper Meaning of Liff several years later which was, counter-intuitively, even harder to find).

At some point, though, I lost track of the Illustrated Guide (Jon, Zach, Will, I'm looking in your directions. Ah hell, I think Dave has it. Shit, it's in Alaska, I'll never get it back now) while my pristine new copies of books one and four dissolved into tatters quicker than books two, three and five for some reason. I lost the dust jacket to the omnibus edition. And about a year ago, I finally gave up the paperback editions of each book...except for that original dog-eared copy I pulled off the shelf in seventh grade. Also, I now have a leather bound, gold-leafed edition of the omnibus collection. It looks like a bible and I truly do treat it as a holy book. I'm strange like that.

There are gaps in that history. I started a band named "The Hitchhikers" and we had songs like "I'm Sold on Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters" because we were all really into the books. I wrote stories through high school which were at first imitations of Douglas Adams' style but gradually became my own voice, a voice which has now little of the Adams influence apparent, unless, of course, I, as I am doing now, allow it to seep in, ever so softly, to the edges of my speech, from time to time, now and again.

But the simplicity of some of his work is astounding. The idea that one need only to know where their towel is, and everything will be just fine, is a great metaphor. You just have to find what your towel is, and then find it, and know where it is at all times. My towel is writing, I guess. The day I lost the ability to write, to use my voice, I'm lost. I don't mean writer's block, oh no. Even days when I can't get word one on the page, I at least have the desire to do so, the drive, and I can muster out a little here and there and, perhaps, get the creativity flowing. I mean if I ever sit down to write and realize, "Nope. Not any more. Can't do it now, won't be able to ever again. Might as well go buy an automatic transmissioned Buick and drive with my blinker on and never remember which meal I've just eaten or where I put my damn keys that were, I swear, right here in my left pocket just a minute ago, or was that last month?

Whoa, where did I go there?

You know what I mean, though. I think. The towel; your lifeline. And maybe even your answer, or even your question to match your answer. These are things that will make sense if/when you've read the books. It nothing else, it should clear up any confusion you may have over my seeming obsession with the number forty-two.

Anyway, the point of all of this; Douglas Adams was a profound and confounding person. Ever novel he wrote was a best seller, which is a great track record, but the problem is that while ostensibly it would take him three or four years to actually write a novel, he would do most of the actual writing in the month or so before the unusually mobile deadline, which would likely have been passed and extended more times than should be allowed by law, if there were people sensible enough to make such laws. When he died in May of 2001, he was rumored to be working on what was either going to be the third Dirk Gently novel, something entirely new or, much to the delight and subsequent sadness of millions of fans who felt Mostly Harmless was a sub-par and thoroughly depressing fifth book in the series, the sixth Hitchhiker novel. He was also working on the feature film version of the original novel, which he had been working on for over twenty years (and which was finally completed in 2005, possibly the only incarnation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we're likely to see on a big screen for many years, if ever again).

The fragments from this novel in progress (the most completed of which were quite clearly meant to be the third Dirk Gently novel) were collected alongside several letters, speeches and articles Adams had written over the years and published as The Salmon of Doubt, which had been the working title of the novel.

Over the next few weeks, I will be talking more about Douglas Adams, his effect on me, and his work. I'll do reviews of each of the books in his two series, and finish with analysis of the next bit of news I am about to drop.

As I mentioned above, many fans believed Mostly Harmless to be rather bleak, and Adams admitted as such. I, for one, have always been upset at the end of it. Each year, I re-read the series, and each year I contemplate stopping at the end of book four (some years, when I was feeling really wretched about things, I would even consider stopping at book three or book two or, chuck it all, not even starting) but each time I read all the way through. Earlier this year I was greeted with news that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been selected to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker series. He has the blessings of the publisher, the estate of Douglas Adams and also Adams' widow. He even initially turned it down, fearing what he could not avoid should he accept; the wrath of the fan boy. It's like spending tax money; no matter how he does it, he'll be wrong. Yet, I will support him. I will take his book with a grain of salt. It is not the sixth book in the series by Douglas Adams. It is the first book in the series of six books not written by Douglas Adams. I can only hope it's a tenth as good as Adams himself would have made it, were he still alive today.

I have a sense, right now, of looking up, up through the words I have written at this lofty and gangly British man named Douglas Adams, standing atop the words I have written like some sort of God. I don't feel good about doing that. I don't want to elevate him that much. But it's hard not to; so much of the last, what, almost twenty years now, my life has been peppered with his words. I'm afraid I've built him up too much, but the good thing about that is, now I will never have to meet him and embarass him by being starry-eyed.

For those Hitchhiker fans who have not heard of it yet, the new novel will be called And Another Thing... and you can find out more information about it here on the official website.

That is all for now, folks. See you next time!

Are We Lost Yet?

It was Gertrude Stein, supposedly, who coined the phrase "Lost Generation" to describe those men and women of the world who came of age and fought through The Great War. Of course, they're also known for living through the Great Depression and then the Second World War, some of them even making it all the way to the moon landing.

And then it was the character Tyler Durden who said of Generation X (and I'm using the movie as the quote source), "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." And he was right about them. They came of age after the tumult of the 60's, after the disaster of Vietnam. They came of age during the Cold War, during the 80's when music was either overproduced or totally raw, when yuppies were using cocaine and Reagonomics reigned.

So who are we? Are we lost?

We don't have a great war, either. Only the war on terror. In a way, I guess it's more like the Cold War than either World War; it creates global tensions and is a fight over ideologies, though not exactly political ideologies on both sides. Except it's dragging on, like Vietnam (which is a hot part of the Cold War). But whatever.

We also don't exactly have a great depression. Except, what are we in?

Like Generation X, we were made promises. But our promises seemed more realistic on the surface; we didn't all expect to become rock stars (although with reality TV and youtube it's easier than ever for some unknown to become known), but we were given a very simple recipe for success.

"Go to college, get a bachelor's degree, and when you graduate you can get a nice office job at the very least and have the life you want." Then when we started graduating, that happened. And we very easily bought houses, nice cars, giant televisions and Playstations and laptops and iPods.

But now what?

Ten per cent unemployment? I know they keep saying that we're going to hit that soon. But I have news; we're well beyond it. That unemployment rate you hear them talk about on the news, that's a number that is arrived at very carefully. Nine and a half per cent of the employable population currently receives unemployment insurance. That doesn't count the unemployed who never filed for benefits. It doesn't count the people who were laid off and applied for benefits and didn't receive them. It doesn't count the people who applied, received, and then ran out of benefits without finding a job (many of whom are in such despair they have stopped searching for jobs).

And it doesn't count the millions of college graduates who followed that simple advice of going to college, getting their bachelor's degree with the ultimate goal of gainful employment, and then were unable to get hired. You can't apply for unemployment benefits if you never had a job.

A friend of mine who graduated in May 2008 has been looking for a job since then. Last week, I went to the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens with a group of eight people, all of whom are either in college now or have graduated in the last five years. Only two of us had jobs. Two are still in school, three graduated and haven't been able to find jobs, and one was laid off five months ago and hasn't had so much as an interview in all that time.

Each time I think of the Lost Generation, I think of them gathering at cafes in Paris, drinking heavily, maybe to forget their reason for being lost. Perhaps that is what sets our generation apart from theirs; when we drink, we're hopeful. We toast, to the future. To what it may hold. We're waiting to be handed the reins, to shoulder the responsibility of running the world. Maybe we are drinking to forget. We're trying to forget the fact that while we hope someday to inherit stewartship of this planet, so few of us are in a position to even get a glimpse of what that may be like. They keep shutting us out.

I guess we'll all run to grad school, get our PhDs, and wait for the current leaders to fix things up for us. But let's not do that. We want a shot at helping. Somebody give us a chance. Otherwise, we'll be woefully underprepared to take over when those of us who have been where we want to go start leaving.

A Free Write Friday of Sorts...

I have not been posting, and there is a reason for that.

I have been very angry. Those who know me well, are friends with/stalk me on facebook or follow my tweets, you already know what is making me angry. For those of you in the dark, I don't want to get into it. It's been all I could think about for something like two weeks, and every time I sat down to write I couldn't, because I wanted to write for my novel and not in anger. Let us leave it at that.

As to the rumors I've been hearing through the pipeline that I have forsaken blogspot for twitter, or that I feel my art should be only used for pay, or that I'm stuck in a tunnel, or that I've gone so crazy I forgot I had a blog, or whatever other crazy rumors are out there, they're all wrong. Each and every one of them. Trust me. I've just explained myself.

First things first, before I get into the writing: a quick update. The month of June was fairly uneventful. my sister and her husband celebrated their 4th anniversary. My brother-in-law Joe got married, which meant I got to attend my second wedding of the year. The first one was a low key deal in March in Iowa. This was rather a bigger deal and took place in Puerto Rico. The trip was very nice, if I do say so myself. Very nice indeed. Of course, sunny and beautiful just about every day, and the wedding was amazingly awesome. The flight back was a terror, but we're going for the highlights and not the lowlights on our way through June.

Skip forward to this past weekend, when my old roommate Chris came to town for a Twins v. Cardinals showdown. Of course we hit up the City Museum, Ted Drewes and drank ourselves some Schlafly Pale Ale (I believe Chris went with the dry-hopped American Pale Ale here at the house, and then the regular Pale Ale at Beatnik Bob's). Good times were, indeed, had by all. I can't remember who won the baseball game, though.

Anyway, that about wraps up the update. Work is still going well, Kathy is still looking for a job (leads? leads? anyone?) but in a slightly ironic twist of fate she received word this week that the bi-monthly program guide published by the television station from which she was laid off won an award for its design, and that her name is on that award because (fancy this) she was the designer. So with that tidbit added to her resume, she can't possibly be too far from employment now!

Okay, now on to the Free Write Friday of sorts. I've been stuck writing my novel lately, as I said I wasn't exactly in the right mood. But I need to keep my head down and power through. So in the interest of doing so, I'm going to write for a little bit and do it here, on my blog, spontaneously. Well, maybe not so spontaneously, as I've been thinking about how to go about constructing my novel for about two months now, and have actually already written some down. But this is a part of the envisioned novel that exists only in my head and as a scribbled note in my composition book.

Now I know that usually, my Free Write Fridays are done via suggestion; I ask around Tuesday or Wednesday, I check comments, I pick the most creative or the one with most potential (or I sandbag it and post an anonymous suggestion myself and take off with that...wait, did I just admit that?) and on Friday write it. But instead, this time it's just going for the overarching idea in my head of the novel about the guy in a band working through the relationships and the music, and one of the more specific ways in which I was planning on presenting the idea. So we'll give it a try. Here we go.

===

July 2009

One of the most important lessons about rock 'n' roll my father taught me was the idea that a song belongs to the person who wrote it in much the same way a true story belongs to the person to whom it happened. But, he was always careful to point out, that doesn't stop others from trying to tell the story or play the song.

There are two ways to cover a song, my father used to say. Make it sound like it did on the original recording, or make it your own in some way. He made it very clear which method he preferred.

"If it's a fast song originally, try to speed it up. If the main instrument is a guitar, transpose it to piano. If it was sung with a twinge of longing, amp it up."

I had a hundred perfect examples for him the last time we had this conversation. "Dad, you know that song 'Superstar' by The Carpenters?"

"Yeah," he answered, "originally written by Delaney, Bonnie & Friends, sung by Bette Midler of all people on The Tonight Show, but made famous by The Carpenters," and he started singing it.

"Yeah, that one. The way they do it, you know, it's, you feel sad for the singer."

"'Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear' yeah, 'but you're not really here...'"

I should have stopped there, tried to talk about that song, because I knew where the conversation would end. But I went on anyway. "Well, there was a tribute album to the Carpenters, you know, back in 1994?"

"'You said you'd be coming back this way again baby...'"

"And, well, Sonic Youth did a version of it, and..."

"What do I always tell you about covering tunes?" He had stopped singing, was looking at me, had even taken his glasses off so I could see how serious he was.

"Well, it was a tribute album," I tried to stall him. "It was released ten years ago, dad, and Sonic Youth..."

"And what do I always tell you about rock 'n' roll?"

I knew his rules, the gray areas. I tried to stall a little longer, hoping to pique his curiosity enough to at least ask if he could hear what I knew he would ultimately decry as a bastardized version of one of his treasured musical masterpieces. He liked to do that, to claim all the music that came before 1976 as his own. "But dad, look, it's a tribute album, for a band that made music from 1969 until 1982."

"Eighty-three," he corrected me. I couldn't let him go any further until I had said more.

"Fine, eighty-three. They made music before and after. And the tribute isn't about a bunch of people thinking they can repackage the songs and sell them to a younger crowd, they're paying tribute to them."

He was speechless. I thought he might actually want to hear the song this time. My heart pumped in my throat. "What I wanted to say was, though, that the way Sonic Youth does it, that you don't feel sorry for the singer at all, you feel kind of, kind of creeped out. Like with The Carpenters, you feel like the guy lied to the singer just to get her into bed or something, but with Sonic Youth, you know? Not that! You feel like, like, like...you feel like there never was any actual connection between the singer of the song and the person they're singing about. You get the sense that the singer's kind of, like, a stalker or something. It's really very cool, they do what you say, they make it their own."

I had just contradicted myself, and I knew it; after trying to convince my father that Sonic Youth had not usurped the song, had paid tribute to The Carpenters, I then told him flat out they had made it their own. And he caught me.

"I thought you said it was a tribute."

"It is, but..."

"That's not a very nice tribute, huh? Changing the meaning of their song?" And that was that.

"Nobody should ever be allowed to cover a song," he said to me, and I mouthed along with the next part of his statement; "except for Joe Cocker." I rolled my eyes. "And," he continued, "speak of the devil, Mad Dogs and Englishmen covered the tune before anybody else. Delaney, Mad Dogs, Bette Midler, Cher, some Australian lady, then The Carpenters. Maybe this Sonic band's paying tribute to somebody else, and they shouldn't be."

Because Rock 'n' Roll, I knew, attained perfection in 1976 with Led Zeppelin's release of "Achilles' Last Stand."

This was just the last of many conversations I had with my father about covering music. I asked him when I first started my band if we should play some Rolling Stones tunes, and he said no. "Not unless you intend on dressing up like them, looking like them, and playing only their music, and call yourselves The Ruby Tuesdays or something like that. Be a tribute band. You're no Joe Cocker."

To be honest, though, there were three kinds of bands that could play rock 'n' roll cover tunes, and my father acknowledged all three of them: Joe Cocker (not really a kind of band, but he goes on the list), tribute bands and wedding bands. And there is a reason they go in that order, too. Joe Cocker is the ultimate, because according to my father Joe Cocker is creating art from the remnants of previously shattered art (and what shattered that art? I'll let you know when I find the answer). Tribute bands fall next because they are providing a service that is like but not equal to the service provided by bands and artists who have passed this world and entered the crowded venues of Rock heaven. Wedding bands go last because they provide a very basic service which is always better than hiring a DJ but nonetheless nothing to get excited about.

These rules only ever applied to rock 'n' roll, though, never to any other kind of music, at least according to my father. Together, he and I had spent every Christmas since I was thirteen playing in a community orchestra together. My first year out of college, the band wasn't touring for various reasons and so I joined my father full time with the orchestra. He played timpani, I played whatever other percussion instruments needed to be played, and one night after playing some Holst and Mahler I asked him about the rules.

"If we're going to open with Mahler, dad, shouldn't we stick with Mahler? I mean, unless you're at a wedding gig, you wouldn't open with 'Twist and Shout' and then go on to 'Misty Mountain Hop' now would you?" We were packing up the music and still standing on the stage while the audience dispersed.

"You probably wouldn't play 'Misty Mountain Hop' at a wedding anyway," he answered, "but you're right. Only, this is different. Nobody in our audience ever got a chance to see Mahler. You can't run down to the record store about buy a recording of Mahler conducting himself, you know. He wrote it down so that others may play it. So much of the enjoyment of classical music isn't happening out there," and he waved toward the seats in the auditorium, "but up here, with the musicians. Rock, you know, the enjoyment...there's a lot of it up on stage, but even more of it out there. And out there, they want to see what they hear. They don't want to see Blood Sweat and Tears playing 'Stairway to Heaven.' Give 'em 'Spinning Wheel,' give 'em 'Lucretia MacEvil.'"

My father's first Christmas without his own father came upon all of us suddenly. My grandfather had died in February, but when December 15th came everyone in the family realized how different this year would be. Grandpa always played his tuba at an event called "Tuba Christmas" in one of the malls in town every year, up until the year before he died, and there it was, Tuba Christmas, upon us. We had almost forgotten about it, until one night there we were, rehearsing for the orchestra's holiday concert, and one of the tuba players mentioned it in passing. Of course. Tuba Christmas.

We called all of my father's brothers, even the ones we never talked to in Alabama, and invited them all up to come see Tuba Christmas one last time. Only the ones who were still in St. Louis came. So on a Saturday afternoon, we went to the Galleria and picked out a spot to watch and listen to all the tubas. We sat. We watched. We listened. I was the only one of my cousins to show up, but then for some reason Grandpa Schulz had always seemed especially fond of me over his other grandsons. While others would get a card with a five dollar bill for their birthdays, sent in the mail no matter how close they lived, Grandpa would always come down and visit with me, take me to a movie, usually war films or flicks about baseball. We sat for a long time, even after the tubas had all been packed up and hauled off. We were trading stories, and my father was telling all about the last camping trip before Robert, the oldest brother, moved out on his own. He told the whole story, and we laughed at the right spots, except for my uncle James, the second youngest.

When the story was over, James frowned. "Gerald, that's not how it happened. We weren't lost in the woods for six hours, it was more like half an hour. And it only rained for the whole day one of the days we were there. And dad had spare gas, he didn't use Robert's whiskey to fuel the boat, he just threatened to."

"Maybe you're right," my father said, after a silence. Robert sat, grinning, not willing or wanting to settle the matter of what happened to his whiskey.

"I am right," James said. "And it wasn't the sixty-two Pontiac anymore, it was the sixty-five. Remember, Dale had totalled the sixty-two on his seventeenth birthday?"

"That, you're right about," Robert chimed in. "It was the sixty-five. The Bonneville. Maroon."

When all was said and done that day, my father and I got back into his car to head home. "Why does James always insist on contradicting you?" I asked.

"What, about the story?" I nodded. "He's right. About the time lost, the rain, the whiskey. Dad's not around, James feels like he should correct history. But sometimes, you know, when you cover a song, you gotta change it a little. Make it your own." He turned the radio on, perhaps somehow knowing that Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" would be on the classic hit station. "Besides, your uncle James has never been able to change it up that way. He's in a wedding band."

===

A little (very) disjointed, but remember, this only existed as a sliver of an idea in my head when I started. But the important thing is that I kept my head down and powered through. I've made an important step. Yay!

No promises about blogging. You can follow me on twitter, though!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Something Big...

...is in the works.

It's got to do with Rock 'n' Roll, Pontiacs, and father-son relationships.

Just know that I have recently watched American Graffiti, and also watched and read High Fidelity so I am on a bit of a Rock kick. Also, I am promising myself to own a nice component stereo system with a turntable by the end of the year so that I can listen to all the records I bought in my teens (I know that makes me sound old, but I really did buy a bunch of used records in my teens because they were cheaper than CDs and my parents have a working record player).

This project is based on the short story "Before Rock Attained Perfection" which in turn was a top-to-bottom rewrite of "North For Salvation" (from which you can read an excerpt here). It will incorporate aspects of both stories, and in fact much of "Before Rock" will be within this work, just not altogether, and a lot of "North for Salvation" may be salvaged and reintroduced as a chapter.

That's right, a chapter. As in, chapter of a novel or novella. I've got a lot of good ideas brewing for this, and it will be nice after having an entire semester devoted to writing for the stage to work on this for the summer. Not that I'm putting my bard-style quill down just yet, I want to polish up Still Life and send it to some festivals and contests (it really is about the most complete thing I've ever written I think), but that shouldn't take me more than a week, but as I said I'm coming off a semester where all of my creative writing went into Still Life and rewrites of Spice.

Speaking of Spice, I promise that within the next week, I will post the video. I have been lazy in that regard while I've been working hard finishing up school and working as much as I can before my vacation in mid-June.

I know, I know, a vacation now? With Kathy still unemployed (yes, Kathy is still unemployed)? Well, we paid for our plane tickets in December, and we're splitting the hotel room with my brother-in-law, and we can't miss it because how often is there a family wedding in Puerto Rico? Only, like, one in ten people get married in Puerto Rico (the percentage is much higher for those who, you know, live there...) so we can't miss it. Plus, it's our first real vacation together since our honeymoon. When we went to New York City two years ago, it was only a vacation for me. And weekend trips don't count as vacations. They're just little road trips.

Anyway, keep checking back here for updates on any and all situations. Again, look here in a week or so for the video of Spice and everybody please have a happy and safe summer.

But before you go, what will you be reading this summer? Something new? An old favorite? Nothing? A classic you've somehow missed all these years? That book you were supposed to have read in your Sophomore year American Lit class but just checked sparknotes and scraped a B- on the paper and vowed to read it eventually? Let me know in the comments!

Way Overdue

I apologize. I've been busier than I've ever been. Trying to squeeze as much money out of my job as I can, trying to do all of my homework, trying to spend time with my friends and family. Something had to fall by the wayside. Something had to take not just a backseat, but a spot in the trunk, next to my bottle of windshield washer fluid and the golf clubs that were supposed to be used as props in one of the plays at this year's Surfacing, but which never made it into the theatre for whatever reason. And that something was my blog. And it's unfair to you, my readers, for me to have done that.

I haven't been totally silent, though. I have been twittering quite a bit. If you've come here at all and paid attention to the twitter feed at right (----->), you'd notice how active I've been there. You could put all of those together to form one post.

Sadly, for those who have been watching the blog only for information, I hate to say that you missed Surfacing, only because I never posted about it. That's been my biggest screw up. I really am upset at myself for that. If you're friends with me on Facebook or follow me on twitter, again, you probably heard all about it. Or if you saw me in person any time over the last few weeks. It was basically all I could think of/talk about.

Not that this helps, but there will be videos posted. Again, it's not the same.

This year's Surfacing was incredible, though. I told the cast and director of my show today that this was the best experience I've had in theatre, and I meant that. All the shows I was a part of growing up, in high school, community theatre, last year's Surfacing...all good, some great. But this year was different. I don't know why. I feel closer this year to my cast, even though I spent more time last year. I didn't have to direct this year; maybe that's the difference. I want to thank my director, Mac, for taking my play and trimming the fat from the script. I'm sure you're aware, readers, of how verbose I can sometimes be. I'd like to thank Madeline, the Assistant Director, for doing everything that I would have not thought of if I had been left in control, like organizing props backstage beforehand. I want to thank Max, Christina and Dexter for their portrayals of (respectively) Chris, Janette and Kai. I wrote these parts with certain things in mind, but you each interpreted them in your own way, and brought something new and exciting and awesome to the table.

I have never understood the phrase "Just the writer" in theatre. Until this weekend. I was humbled, but in a good way. Lines that I wrote were getting laughs. Sure, some of them were written to get laughs. Others were delivered in a way I didn't think when I wrote them. I thought, "this line should go here" and put it there. I never thought they would get a laugh. And they did. It was very interesting. I could have sat there with a scorecard and divied up the laughs as they came; that one goes to me for clever writing, that one goes to Mac for clever directing, and this one goes to Dexter for clever delivery. It probably would have come out even.

Anyway, back to my apology. I can't say that you'll be inundated with updates. You know that won't happen. But don't give up on me. I graduate in three weeks. Expect a doozy of an update sometime thereafter. Okay? And please, feel free to drop me a comment any time. Encouraging ones are always appreciated. Snarky ones are likely to be returned at a later date with extra snark attached. Sort of like an interest bearing deposit. Ye be warned.

Update

Okay, time for the update.

Let me start off talking about the bad news, then work my way to the good news. I find that's the nicest way to do things to you, my reader, who may also have bad news and may want to read some good news.

First and foremost: Kathy was laid off from KETC Channel 9 on February 27th. Everybody knows somebody who's been laid off now, I think. Now I live with somebody who has been laid off.

This has actually been kind of a blow to us, as you can imagine. Looking at our monthly income pre lay-off, I'd say Kathy brought in around 60% of the money. Sometimes, my paychecks would be bigger, but you have to remember that Kathy paid for our health and dental insurance out of her paycheck, and that she also had money taken out and put into a 403(b) (which is a 401(k) but for non-profits). So this impacts us in huge ways.

Suddenly, we can't even afford the four boxes of Girl Scout cookies we ordered. We're conserving milk and baking potatoes we might have thrown out a year ago (I know the grammar of that sentence is confusing; obviously we're not eating potatoes we've had since last year). We're skimming the ads for great deals and coupons and changing habits. We used to buy Oberweis milk, and now we're back to store brand plastic gallons. Instead of meat from the deli, we're getting pre-packaged processed meat. And we're struggling.

Kathy got a severance package. Meager. Two weeks' pay. So one paycheck. Not only have we already gotten that check, we've already spent most of it. Covering our mortgage payment.

We've called our cell phone provider and knocked ourselves down to bare-bones service, and cut that bill almost in half. We're cancelling home phone service but not sacrificing internet (I can't live without it in school, and Kathy needs to pick up some freelance work and also can't be without it). We never had cable or satellite. With Kathy driving less, we're saving money on gas. However, I'm taking long trips a lot for work. Why? Because if I take a long trip, I get reimbursed for a portion of the mileage. Generally, the reimbursed amount more than covers the gas for the trip, so that's extra money in the paycheck. But in the meantime, I need to spend money on the gas to get me places. We don't have any magazine subscriptions, cancelled our Post Dispatch delivery months ago. Car payments, student loan payments, and credit card payments? We used to pay beyond the minimum every month, in an effort to pay them down. Now, we're down to minimum payments on all of them, which saves us money in the here and now I know but will cost us more in interest in the long run. But it's the here and now that matters. Unfortunately, we added extra charges to our insurance bill; we signed up for catastrophic through our home/auto provider. Just in case of emergency. I have to tell you, I don't like to think about me driving around all day without health insurance.

Also unfortunate is our mortgage bill. With the fall in the housing market, the equity we expected to have after three and a half years has vanished, and we're under water by about $6000 on our mortgage. With no down payment, we've been paying Primary Mortgage Insurance every month along with the standard interest/principal/escrow. We've tried several times to get this removed, because it would save us money. We have never even been late with a payment, let alone missed one. But our mortgage servicer refuses to work with us.

The stimulus bill has been passed. There are provisions for home owners. I don't know all the details; despite the fact that I am on spring break, I am no less busy, working as hard as I can this week to put in a full week or more, to help make ends meet. So I don't know what all the details are. But I thought there was supposed to be something about helping home owners who are facing financial hardship.

So we called our mortgage servicer, told them that one of us was recently laid off, and we need some of that financial hardship assistance. They told us they could not offer it to us, because since Kathy was laid-off, we are now spending more in a month than we are making. And I'm thinking, isn't that the definition of financial hardship? I was at a banquet tonight (more on that later). The M.C. was a banker. She told a joke. "The banks have money to loan. They just won't loan it to you unless you can prove that you're rich enough not to need it." Lots of people laughed. Kathy and I didn't. Mo & Kevin sort of laughed, then sighed. They're currently selling their house and moving into a new one.

So that's the picture. We're not sure what we're doing. Kathy has her Mary Kay Business so if you need any cosmetics, please buy from her. I know she would appreciate it. Also, as mentioned above, she is picking up any freelance design jobs you may have (no website as of yet; coming soon though). So if you have any loose graphic design jobs you need taken care of, drop me a line and I'll put you in contact with her. I can't do much more than I am doing; full time employee, full time student, full time writer. Kathy is, of course, seeking full time employment.

The announcement comes now. Though it's not set in stone. This is a likely scenario: Kathy will continue to seek a career in the St. Louis area for another month or so. If nothing comes to fruition, she will begin seeking a career in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. And we will put our house up on the market. Despite being under water on the mortgage (according to St. Louis County assessments, the mortgage company, et al), I believe we could get a fair price for our home if it came down to it. After graduation (and more on that later, too), we'd likely be moving up to the Twin Cities, provided both of us can find work. We have a good support network of friends and family here in St. Louis, but we have a similar network in Minneapolis. We know our way around up there. But again, that's if Kathy can't find a career in St. Louis. If she does find one, we'll be staying here. So, if you're in StL or MSP, please keep your ear to the ground.

Moving away from the doom and gloom of the financiapocalypse, I'd like to move on to the idea that my Karma has a flat tire. I must mention Kathy getting laid-off again, because that's part of how I came to this conclusion.

A few weeks ago, I was driving my car and heard a flapping noise and found the handling had suddenly gone a little wonky. It was a flat tire. Passenger side rear. But, hey, you know, that happens. I changed the tire (thanking the good people at Volkswagen for a standard full-size spare) and admitted that it was time to replace my tires anyway. So, I got them replaced. But just the rear ones, mind, the front ones are relatively new. However, the price of the tires I had on the front went up. Significantly. So I got a comparable set for less. But I like all of my tires to match; I'm weird like that. I kept thinking I should have sprung for the more expensive tires. And two days later, Kathy got laid off. And last Friday, a week after this, Kathy called me in tears; reality had sunk in, she had visited channel nine to pick up some things for her portfolio and had to be escorted out of the building, like she's some crazed security risk, and then as she was on her way out to run an errand, her car wouldn't start. And then this morning, first thing that happened to me on my way to work was I got a flat tire. Passenger side rear. Big old fat old shiny sharp metal f*ck you right in the tread. So once again, thank you Volkswagen, for providing a full size spare.

I've been thinking a lot about this full size spare as a metaphor. Like Kathy losing her job is a flat tire, and it's no big deal. But driving on a donut isn't exactly great. You can't move as fast. You can't go as far. You have to get that regular sized tire back on ASAP. Actually, driving with a donut tire is a big impetus for getting that thing into the tire shop quickly. The only thing that was really driving me to get the car into the shop the first time was that because the spare doesn't have the VW hubcap, the car looked uneven. But now, this time, I want to get it fixed right away. Because there's really not much worse than driving around without a spare tire. No insurance. No crutch. Nothing to bridge the gap.

Okay. Now on to more pleasant thoughts. My father was awarded Teacher of the Year at his high school by the Lemay Chamber of Commerce. It's a pretty sweat deal, when you get right down to it. He's taught at Hancock Place High School for sixteen years (is that right? Maybe seventeen...) and has built the music program into one with a reputation. They may not have the biggest band, and they may not have the best band, but they've got (in my opinion) the best band director. Congratulations, Dad!

Also, I've been working on a play called Still Life, which is based on a piece of artwork by Belgian Artist Wim Delvoye entitled Tim. I heard about it on NPR (read the story here) and was, honestly, disgusted. Immediately, I began writing a play about it for Surfacing. I originally envisioned it as a comedy, but the more I thought about it, the less funny it was becoming. And also, the more I thought about it, the more ambitious it started to sound. I wrote half of a scene and abandoned the project as having too much scope.

But then this semester, taking what will be my last undergraduate level creative writing workshop, I got to thinking about it some more. The scope still seemed too big. But I thought, well, give it a try. So I wrote the second half of the first scene and then a second scene. People responded well. I hit a wall. I could not write any more. It sat at two scenes and 14 pages for a month. And then I burst through the wall. I think I decided it was time either to become the writer I wanted to be or hang up my typing fingers.

I didn't hang up.

Peers in my playwriting class have praised it. And the teacher compared it to GB Shaw. That's actually partially why I got blocked. It was like, "Shaw is a master. How could I compete?" But I read part of Pygmalion. And I realized that Shaw is a master. A genius. Don't be scared. It's a compliment. I realized I don't have to be the next GB Shaw. All I have to do is be the first Elliot M. Rauscher.

Anyway, sorry for the novella update. I'll try to be better in the future. To those who read my blog on a feed or a reader, you may want to swing by the actual website and check out my twitter feed on the right hand side. Or, you know, if you twitter, you could follow me there. It's much easier to update. I'll be using twitter to share links, short thoughts, and writing/surfacing progress updates.

And now, the following GB Shaw quotes to ponder:

"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."

"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

"An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."

With that last one being the most ironic because I have just blogged all about my personal life, let me introduce you to another American I know. His name is Andy, he's a fellow Webster Gorlock and friend. He's a good kid. He plays music, writes, and rides his bicycle. Sound familiar yet? Go check out his blog.