One of Those People

Sometimes you meet someone.

Someone who is just one of those people.

Someone who has an enormous effect-they might reawaken something in you, they might inspire you. They didn't mean to do it it, they were just being themselves. Many times they don't even realize what they did. They were just the right person at the right time. It could be just in passing like the lady in white Mr Bernstein reminisces fondly about in "Citizen Kane"-he only saw her once but remembered her for the rest of his life-or they could become what Madeleine L'Engle calls 'a friend of the right hand'. Regardless of original duration, the ripples they cause stay with you and you feel an enormous debt, one you might never be able to repay but are better for the trying to do so. Whatever you call them-beacon, lighthouse, lifeline, touchstone-those people are one of the flat out cool perks of being human.

This subject was already on my mind (today is an anniversary of me meeting one of mine) but it was brought home even more strongly on Thursday when one of my employees gave me a gift-she had made me a scarf but the real gift was her telling me that I was one of those people for her.

It was a fabulous, fabulous thing.

Another Great Entrepreneurial Idea

As I was watching yet another commercial for yet another Curves for Women knockoff on one of the lesser cable channels I thought their marketing is fine but somehow misses the mark. Support and positive encouragement might work great for some but that's not what really motivates me best. The two things that motivate me best are anger and competition. So why not harness those in some way? Why not have a deck of cards that feature quotes designed to bring out those emotions? Kind of like a negative affirmation deck. Then I thought where better to look for those kind of quotes than in noir?

"She was about two years and ten pounds away from her looks."
"The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us" George Pelecanos

Yeah, that'd make you wanna work out. Or maybe you need to cut down on the food or the booze?

"She'd eat a cow if someone took the horns off."
from "The Devil Thumbs a Ride"

"She was a charming middle aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get to the bottle."
Murder My Sweet Raymond Chandler

Yeah, a negative affirmation deck designed to motivate by pissing you off. Perhaps the artists who do the covers for the Hard Case Crime series could illustrate the opposite side so if someone just wanted to have the cards for athethics sake that could work too.

Think about it.

I am Officially Old

I did not go to a rock and roll show last night because I was afraid I'd be too tired.


Yes, I am officially old.


I knew it already, of course. But it's heavy sigh inducing just the same.

Sure, there were many reasons why it wasn't a good idea-I had to work at 7am which means getting up at 5am, I had to go to the hospital immediately after work which can be trying even on a full night's sleep and the show was at a no curfew club with 2 bands before the one I was going to see (The Long Winters) but now I'm feeling more like 308 than 38. I'm scared to check out their website today for fear it'll proclaim the Ann Arbor show their best ever, scared it'll say they had live horns on "Teaspoon", hell, I'm scared it might say they're playing still.

I didn't go support a band I think is great, I missed a chance to tell John Broderick that "Scared Straight" pysches me up so much I once listened to it 18 times in a row before an important event, just because I thought I might be too tired the next day.

I am officially old.

Subdural Hemotoma

The morale of the story is if you get a bad feeling when you see the person who is going to draw your blood grab your paperwork and beat it on out of there. Except I couldn't, of course, since I had waited until the very last minute. I'm famous for that. I even tried to reschedule the doctor's appointment but waiting 4 months wasn't possible. So I offered up my arm and hoped for the best.

Bad idea.

I am not good at needles. And for you smart asses who'd point smirkingly at my multiple tattoos it is most definately not the same thing. So I have my little ritual down, my own little Miranda speech all the women (and in my experience they are all women) approaching me with a needle get to hear. I have to lie down and they have to use a butterfly needle in the left arm. Yet somehow, though I offer this as much for their sake as my own, it amazes me how often I get the brushoff-"Oh honey, nobody likes it."

No really. I have 2 autoimmune disorders that require near constant monitoring of my blood, I've kind of gotten the hang of it. You might laugh hearing it but I have actually gotten much better at it than I used to be. I now have a teeny tiny bit of bravery, like 2 minutes worth. If I have to wait too long, get a glimpse of something I shouldn't or if, God forbid, you don't get it the first time, I'll be gone-no longer able to be recalled by Mission Control. And what's with the wiggling the needle once you're in? I don't mean to tell you your business but if you don't get it on the first try I think you need to pull out and try again. And for pete's sake don't talk to me about what a difficult stick I am or what a mess you're making while things are ongoing. There's a reason I'm looking away ladies, come on, work with me here. Those are the times I leave with my arm black and blue, like a farsighted junkie.

I don't ask for much-listen to my speech with respect, find that little bastard vein and get me on my way.

About Mary Oliver

First, I cannot say it strongly enough-I think Mary Oliver is great. She is my favorite living poet. If you could see my dogeared, old-love-letter-filled copy of her New and Collected Poems Vol 1 you might be able to appreciate just how much I think of her. (Purists beware-I believe in marking up the books I love. What greater compliment to an author than my own margin scrawls or the food smears in my most used cookbooks? Anyone reading after me would be able to follow my steps easily for they are clearly marked.)

So when I discovered, while looking for something else completely, her CD "At Blackwater Pond Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver" it was a delightful surprise. I didn't even know she had a CD! And since I had been struggling with a bad dismount in a poem of my own it was actually more than delight, it felt like poetic Providence. Excited, I hurried home and put it in. And it was good, it wasn't all the poems I would have picked (no "The Journey"? no "Dogfish"?) but, like with a live performance, a bit of that feeling is probably inevitable unless it's a command performance. Yes, it was good but (and you knew there was a 'but' coming) I have to say, though I feel like the worst kind of cocky upstart for doing so, that I think she reads them wrong.

I know she is a National Book Award winner. I know she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Most importantly I know they are her poems but I still gotta say she reads them wrong. Her poems are so alive-with more nature metaphors than you can shake a walking stick at-they cry out for a dynamic, full throated performance (with gestures, gestures would be good). What is offered instead is a modestly formal reading that sounds like, well like she's reading with a Robert Frost stick up her butt.

Mary, Mary, Mary you have to sell these.

The last line of "When Death Comes" is a powerhouse, you have to emphasize it. It's your manifesto line that could sum up your entire body of work. Please, deliver it accordingly.

Fun With Brackets

I discovered a fun new book this week, The Enlightened Bracketologist:The Final Four of Everything. In it experts in various fields celebrate March Madness by creating a bracket of their own passion. It's one of those fun books you can't put down-you keep 'thinking one more page' then suddenly it's 15 minutes later and someone's knocking on the bathroom door saying, "Everything okay in there?".

My favorite was William Nack's in which he ranked famous horses and surprisingly, cause it's William Nack, Secretariat did not come out on top. (Alexander the Great's horse did.) But with this kind of book it's not your favorites that hold the true appeal, it's the ones you disagree with that are the most fun. Peach is the best fruit? "Two Little Hitlers" is the best Elvis Costello song? What were they thinking?

March madness indeed.

So you know I had to try it myself.

http://docs.google.com/DOC?id=d49kbd5_0fx3527

Something Else to Bitch and Moan About

First, I read in a magazine about a new movie in preproduction, a dark comedy about a cleaning crew that specializes in cleaning crime scenes called "The Sunshine Company".

Then, today I read about a forthcoming book called Aftermath: What Happens After CSI Leaves again about the down and dirty business of crime scene cleanup.

Dammit!

Now these ideas are not the same as my book premise it's true but they are close enough to give me a proprietery pang. I know

1) I should be happy there's a zeitgeist building out there in buzz land.

and

2) That it's too early to even be worried about this. When you haven't finished the writing part yet it's not even putting the cart before the horse, it's the wheel hasn't been invented yet.

As my Joe wisely says, "Just write it." I know, I know.

But dammit.

More About Megan

Flu + Computer problems = no blog fun for days and days. Fortunately both seem to have passed.

The Megan Abbott event was a blast. Megan was as funny and sharp as her books are dark. The contrast tickles me still. And her mom? Megan's mom is a force to be reckoned with-sending out invites, dragging over stools for people to sit on when the chairs ran out-let's just say if Mrs. Abbott was Britney Spears' mom, Britney would still have hair.

I brought Megan a gift which I heard later from the events person went over big. Since she has so many award events coming up I gave her a vintage hankerchief with the hope that she may have occasion for tears of joy. What I didn't say then is that it was actually a regift-the hankerchief was given to me many years ago by a dirty old man so I figured, given her subject matter, it worked both ways. And since she was so delighted to be blogged about on the same page as Ron Jeremy (she even included that in one of the books she signed for me) I trust she won't mind.

Megan also said that she plans on being back in the area in the summer for a Noir Night at a local restaurant to promote her next book, Queenpin. Sounds like fun to me with plenty of time for the all important wardrobe considerations. Perhaps I can go as the bookstore girl from "The Big Sleep" who shares a bottle of rye (and more?) with Bogie on a stakeout.


Again the books are Die a Little and The Song is You. Check them out.