I threw out my back, everyone I know has head cold, I’ve had to deal with tedious passport issues, I’ve fallen behind on deadlines, and this is our first holiday without friends and relatives. These factors might have made for a terrible holiday, but in fact, we are having a brilliant time.
We purchased the last available turkey from the market square, convinced a farmer to bring a baking pumpkin to town, and watched Swedish choristers perform at Great St. Marys. We made a proper meal and opened gifts and went on walks. Now we are listening to BBC radio broadcasts. There is a spicy apple cake in the oven and the boy is practicing riding his new unicycle.
One of our British friends pointed out that our enthusiasm for life is rather frightening.
But it is also genuine.
12.14.04 education
Even though we know lots of really excellent teachers, and our kids were sometimes happy in certain schools, the whole thing was excessively tiresome and largely pointless. I let them go intermittently to make friends, not to be educated.
In our opinion, education happens wherever you happen to be.
By moving here we had to accept that some of our ideals would be sacrificed to give the kids a chance to assimilate in the new country. That means sending them to proper school for the first time in their lives.
First shock:
My offspring have no transferrable grades, so they were placed according to age and achievement. What achievement, you might ask? In both instances, the headmaster asked what level of education we parents achieved. Upon hearing that both of us possess advanced graduate degrees, the kids were promoted to top tier.
Second shock:
The girl is now studying advanced subjects like physics, chemistry, and maths. We didn’t know what she was capable of, but she instantly excelled in the most challenging English class available. With no prior foreign language studies she was placed in advanced French – and caught up with the class within a few short weeks.
Whenever she has trouble at school she simply asks for help; if the teachers tell her that she should know how to do the work she replies Listen, I went to hippie schools, and they laugh and give her the advice she needs.
The younger child has another whole set of issues, because this country does not separate church and state in the matter of education. He was placed in a Church of England school because he lives in the catchment, not because belief is required. The boy is highly suspicious of the rituals and routines; he thinks that it is not safe to burn candles in chapel.
But the school is really excellent, and they teach all the world religions in a comprehensive manner. They’ve done an incredibly deep study of ancient Greece. They go to museums and institutes. They have music, and art, and the children are from all over the world; at last count, thirty different languages are spoken in a population of perhaps one hundred children.
The school is the most diverse and highest quality primary school I have ever visited, and from what I can gather, most of the schools in this city are in fact just as good.
I don’t mind the religious curriculum because I think that children should have a fundamental understanding of the history of society. It is up to each individual to form their own belief system, but we should all have an opportunity to know how and why our culture evolved.
Plus, I’m a sap for sentiment, and the children sing carols! From my home to yours: happy Christingle!
12.11.2004 jump
This city is not really a proper city; it is a market town, with very small streets, lots of which are made of actual cobblestones. Much of the place is pedestrianized, and what isn’t should be. Outside of the center, even the so-called major roads are nothing like what I’m used to in the vast automobile nirvana that is the American West.
In Seattle and Portland cars and pedestrians and bicycles have lots of space and mostly avoid any problems. Sure, there are accidents, and people do dumb risky things. But the streets are definitely wide enough to accommodate everyone who wishes to be out.
Here, the bus drivers whip their enormous vehicles around corners so fast the bus comes up on the sidewalk and could literally squash an unsuspecting passerby. Taxis drive two or three times faster than they should. Delivery trucks do whatever they like, and woe to the person or object in their way. There are people swarming everywhere, and bicycles streaming by constantly.
Back in the states I was notoriously paranoid about safety and could barely manage to ride my bicycle three blocks on side streets to visit friends. I liked being in my car; it was a solid safety shield. Moving here meant changing lots of daily habits, and at first I was not able to ride down even easy streets like Trinity.
But now I cycle everywhere. I didn’t force myself to do it; I didn’t even notice it happening. Over the course of six months I have grown used to the implied peril of the cars streaming past. I ride on the streets without fear.
I’m still cautious, but I am completely capable of spending a day on the bike, doing errands, riding down dodgy streets, buying groceries, making my way back to the boat again.
This morning we were crossing the street at an appropriate crossing point. A taxi coming toward us realized we were there and accelerated to force us out of the way.
I was not amused. Instead of doing what I might have back home — ceding the space — I jumped in front of the car. I leaned forward and looked at the man, then Byron and I walked very, very slowly, forcing him to wait.
There was much rude gesturing and for the first time I really felt properly acclimated to England.
12.02.2004 tempted
The best part of spending all of my time on a boat is that I have no internet access and thus am never tempted to spend hours doing random internet research.
12.01.2004 mystery
James changed his site design awhile back and I forgot to mention it… but you should go over and look because he has added a series of photographs of the Winchester house, one of my favorite places in the world.
Not so coincidentally (I am home rummaging for publicity stuff), I have a stack of his early work here on the desk. He did a series of me with my infant daughter, and they are gorgeous photographs, because James is excessively talented.
The baby is just a blurred streak of white, and I am mainly depicted as hair, but that is as accurate as you could hope for given our personalities.
Sadly James burned all of his early work; the proof sheet and two prints on my desk are the only bits left. I should probably put them somewhere safe. But then I would likely not find them again.
12.01.2004 patron
The galleys for the book arrived a few days ago. I read the suggested edits and started to evaluate the manuscript for the final push to publication. This project is almost done. I am even somewhat thankful that the first manuscript was stolen. The book is definitely better for all the extra work.
Before she was my editor, AEM told me that I should only publish the thing if I want to be the patron saint of pariahs.
Today I walked around this quaint old city clutching the manuscript and considering the point. It is perhaps a bit too late to worry about such things; the contract is signed, the cover art is done, the book tour is being planned.
If I could have chosen a career I would have picked differently. I would have been anonymous, buried in a government agency, quietly controlling my small part of the world from a desk situated behind a row of filing cabinets.
Instead, here I am, about to release a nonfiction narrative of sorrow and secrets. It is interesting to know so many creative people and realize that their work often bears no resemblance to their life, that people who can evoke emotions or delineate values are often nothing like whatever they create.
This new book of mine will surprise lots of people. If you read it, keep in mind that it is a book, and I am a person.
12.01.04 knocking
Byron is in Zurich and at the end of his talk the audience started knocking.
We’re not celebrating Thanksgiving until the weekend; the children were in school, our friends are working, Stella and Al are taking turns going down to London.
Tonight I cooked a big pot of soup and wondered what the people back home are doing. I stopped attending extended family holidays after my grandmother died in 1994. Since it wasn’t fair to spend the time with in-laws if I wasn’t going to see my own mother, the boycott became comprehensive.
When I moved away I didn’t know if I would regret all those dinners I refused to attend. I took my children not to a new world, but the old one, and somehow this makes sense right now. This is a beautiful small city. I have my kids my work, my bicycle, my boat.
Thanksgiving has always been about friends. It is amazing that some of them flew all the way across the world to be with us.
Stella always asks what we’re thankful for, and it is a good question.
What is the most important thing? I am profoundly thankful to live in a place where everyone is entitled to health care.
11.23.2004 lights
Right after they arrived Al was reading the local newspaper and stumbled on a blazing controversy:
Santa has defended the choice of a punk band to switch on the Christmas lights in Cambridge.
Father Christmas, who will join the band’s Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian on the balcony of The Guildhall for Sunday’s switch-on, emailed the News to say he was looking forward to the event.
“I have no problems at all in sharing the balcony with The Damned,” Santa said.
Unfortunately we missed the penultimate moment, though we did see the Ice Queen parading through town on stilts as we walked by on our way to Grantchester.
11.22.2004 music
Before the trip Stella went over to Kill Rock Stars and asked Toby to suggest some cd’s to bring as gifts. She showed up with Shoplifting and Milk Man Deerhof, which we have not yet opened, and the phenomenally brilliant Stereo Total which is now on constant repeat.
We didn’t realize how much we miss the constant stream of new music that is the Pacific Northwest.
11.21.2004 tour
Tours are about endless train rides through beautiful landscape you never get to stop and visit, long hours idling at the edges of interesting cities you do not have time to explore. Someone is always sick, or sad, or agitated. You run out of clothes, or you packed too much, and you miss your home and miss your friends even when they are right in front of you. Because your attention is distracted by the job at hand, which is getting to the next event on time.
I’ve been in the opposite position many times and fully understand that luck and life intervene more often than people can predict. But I still wish I had more time to spend with my friends, aside from a few stolen moments in a crowd.
This trip featured countless fragmentary conversations with old beloved friends and new exciting strangers, hectic drives and train rides between events, epic efforts to acquire the goods and services I can’t find in the UK, and more fun that any person should be allowed to have.
11.14.2004 bureaucrat
At some point dashing up and down the east coast, I met Johnny to talk about the next tour (and hand over the cover art from Gabriel). He brought Lauren, the writer he is suggesting I go on the road with. We ate vegetarian dim sum and had an incredibly uplifting conversation about the nature of our work and the state of the publishing industry.
At one point I said that I was born a bureaucrat and Johnny said that he self-identifies as one too. I am always so pleased to meet practical people.
11.12.2004 reunion
Just before the KGB reading Felicia from Small Spiral Notebook handed me some packages; she said that a fellow named Bryan had dropped them off earlier. I peered at the bundles – they were labeled in Gabriel’s handwriting and I closed my eyes.
It could not possibly be true that Gabriel had an artist friend hand-carry packages from Portland to New York City, to be dropped off in a bar in a vague hope they would find me, right?
Beyond that, he absolutely would not send all the original art for the book via that route, right?
Hmm. Well, wrong. Gabriel is such an interesting young man.
After the reading someone tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned to look the man said Do you recognize me?
It was a breathtaking shock, but yes, of course always, anywhere: I would have known him in a second.
It was Byron Number One, misplaced since the 1980’s – what an amazing surprise and welcome reunion!
11.08.2004
During a tour layover Pam and Jeroen took us to Brighton Beach, where we visited a Russian grocery store and a Japanese dollar store. I hustled through grabbing as many pencils, chopsticks, and character bags as could reasonably be stuffed in my suitcase.
We ate pastries stuffed with cherries and cabbage and walked down to Coney Island, which although closed for the season was still thrilling. I forgot to take my camera or would offer a picture of me in front of the Shoot a Live Freak game.
On the way home we stopped to browse in a series of flea market stalls, and I found a genius holiday gift for my small boy: sword fighting puppets (shh, don’t tell him). One of my companions bargained with a Russian guy to get $15 off the asking price; I am capable of haggling for steep discounts on cars and houses but lose the skill entirely when it comes to antique toys.
11.04.2004 dates
I’m on tour to support Mamaphonic for the next few weeks. Baltimore, DC, CT, NY, multiple events in each location.
Look for updated dates and venues on the Soft Skull site.
11.03.2004 adequate
This morning I had an appointment in yet another special section of the Medical Oncology Clinic. There is zero chance that the variety of cancer that went marauding through my neck will recur so this particular annual check-up is never worrisome.
In fact, I generally avoid it whenever possible. But the drugs that replace my lost organ are not yet widely used in this country, and I had to go to the specialist to receive authorization.
Except it was more like a tribunal, or a court-martial. The appointment was conducted at a round table in a conference room, with five doctors staring silently as I reeled off all the facts one more time.
I am really bored with this whole narrative. Now that my new scar has settled into a dull red glow I can smack some makeup over it and proceed with life.
We can all go back to pretending that I am healthy.
Now I need to pack, and I am not at all prepared for this trip. My wool coat lost a few buttons and this town is so small I was not able to find adequate replacements; it was easier to go buy a new coat. But the only reasonably warm option that I could find is quite frumpy and rather huge, which is at least somewhat amusing.
I feel like that kid who falls in the snowbank in A Christmas Story. Now I need to find a shirt or two and throw them in a suitcase. Or something.
11.01.2004 halfway
I was halfway convinced that the whole surgery was a mistake, that I was a fool to let them cut me. But today I received a letter from the doctor verifying that the lesion was in fact cancerous.
In Seattle I had the best private health insurance available, and access to the finest medical centers and physicians. In Portland I went to a perfectly adequate HMO.
The thing on my face was large enough that it must have been there for at least four years, if not longer, and no doctor of any specialty noticed it.
I haven’t had a tumor that large since I was first diagnosed in 1983, and there is absolutely no acceptable reason that it was allowed to grow. I trusted my doctors to exercise their professional skills and look after me, but it took a move to a nationalized health care system for anyone to notice that I needed surgery.
The system here has many faults, including appalling wait lists and incomprehensible scheduling systems. But the actual care I have received has been of a much higher standard than what I encountered back home.
Byron managed to get my mother to the airport with plenty of time to spare, managed to make it to his train for the other airport with no worries even after the morning muddle. But in what we might call The Continuing Misadventures of Mathboy he realized that he had been relieved of some of his luggage. To be precise: the portion containing his extra clothes, money, and passport.
It is not possible to travel to Cyprus without a passport, no matter how important the journey might be. He had to turn around and head back to Cambridge and spend hours on the phone trying to sort out a solution. In the end he gave his conference presentation via speaker phone.
I observed from a distance, receiving text messages about his trials as I walked around town with the children getting ready for school to start and preparing for my own trip. It was all quite stressful, until I realized that the unexpected presence of a second parent would give me the time I need to make my deadline.
Last night we walked across Midsummer Common, staring up at the enormous orange harvest moon framed by the flash and sparkle of early fireworks. I turned toward the boat and Byron walked on to take the children to see the circus.
I was not disappointed to defer this task; the children are often less than happy when presented with such treats, because they know too many circus performers. If an act is not, in their opinion, as good as Feather’s mom, they scoff openly.
Which I find embarrassing and rude, and then we have to have lots of long boring conversations about supporting artists.
I worked for hours by the light of an oil lamp and about the time I was ready to stop heard them shouting and scampering across the common. They came running up with flashing electric swords and tiger painted faces.
The boat was filled with laughter and mock sword fights well into the night.
10.29.2004 palace
The other night I was walking across Jesus Green in the dark. I could see a group of people sitting next to the Lock in a circle, and then fire, a brilliant illumination against the backdrop of water coursing over the weir. A few puzzled swans had stopped to watch the spectacle.
I kept walking along the water toward my boat and started to think about the notion of home. When Sarah-Jane visited we talked about the towns we live in, and I told her that I am mystified not to feel more homesick since the latest move.
She shrugged and pointed out that I am a traveler; this surprised me because I have always imagined myself belonging in one place. But I suppose my former geographic stability had more to do with the limits imposed by the illness than any particular desire to live where I grew up.
But seeing the fire made me miss my friends. I thought about Bob and the Palace, with the trapeze in the living room and skate ramp in the backyard. I wondered what my friends might be doing this week.
When I got home there was email from both Bob and Marisa telling me about travels and adventures and plans. My friends never stay in one place either. I’m sure that I will see more people on this tour than I would if I tried to visit my old home.
10.29.2004 train
When I booked the trip for my mother I arranged her departure time to coincide with Byron’s flight to Cyprus so he could escort her to the airport. They left this morning, and when I called to check on their progress Byron reported that he put them on the wrong train.
Lucky I left enough time in the schedule for these adventures.
The visit was lots of fun, though she arrived with a virus and spent most of her holiday sleeping. We all caught variations of the bug but managed to persevere and show Grandma a bit of England.
We walked around many of the colleges, attended Evensong, went punting, walked to Grantchester for tea at The Orchard, and visited the Fitzwilliam.
Just as we all felt well again it was time for half-term holiday for the children and we set off on a series of trips to London. We went to the Tower of London, and the British Museum, and the youngest and oldest to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang musical (managing to snag the last two tickets for all of half-term).
We wandered through the Food Halls at Harrods, bought Lego at Hamleys, walked down the Portobello Road and found a little shop called where the children ordered kitty and hedgehog hats. The nice woman at the counter said that her mother is going on the British Antarctic Survey trip in a few weeks; we meet an extraordinary number of people connected with that organization.
While we were away in Ely visiting the Cathedral the wind came in off the Fens and blew my boat off her mooring. Luckily another boater caught the line and tied her down, and later had her boyfriend find me via the internet to explain what happened. We met near the boat later and had a lovely time talking to both of them.
Now it’s time to work again. I need to get my stuff organized for the book tour, set up places to stay, figure out how to acquire the champagne for the party, and do sundry promotional work.
Not to mention the fact that I have exactly five days to finish writing the next book – and it is still missing three chapters.
10.20.2004 leisure
Since my mother was here to hang out with the children (and they often have more fun without me to censor their activities) I went to Zurich for the weekend to hang out with Byron.
He was there on one of his work junkets. His normal schedule during these trips (and at home) involves writing papers all day, taking a dinner break, going back to work until four in the morning, crashing, then going back to work at seven.
I do not understand the concept of leisure travel, though I do make a diligent effort to engage in the designated activities. I wandered around the city, found the Lindenhof, had hot chocolate at an enchanted cafe, visited the church where Felix and Regula are buried, stared at the statue of Charlemagne.
I picked up some enlightening facts about the Zwingli aspect of the Reformation, and the fact that Swiss catholicism is a splinter that does not recognize the doctrine of infallibility. I was sickened by some incredibly sinister facts about the Swiss eugenics program. I remembered too late that one of the contributors to the new anthology lives in Zurich, and wished I had arranged to meet her.
But inevitably I spent most of my time in medical museums, doing research, taking notes.
My favorite part of the whole trip was the public transportation: the funicular system is gorgeous, the trams are punctual and pleasant, and the ferry around the lake reminded me of home.
10.18.2004 cake
Eight years ago I was languishing in the hospital bed that had been my home for over a month. I had argued successfully against a planned surgery, but this meant that we were all waiting for the crisis. That morning it finally happened; the baby flipped and I started to bleed. I asked to wait, asked for tests, and a quick evaluation showed that my infant was in fact not ready to be taken. But the risk was too severe, and I was too ill, and the baby was drowning in the blood.
They cut me fast, without surgical dressings to capture the blood, without appropriate anesthesia, slicing upward toward my belly button to save him.
It took an entire year for him to catch up and become the strapping fellow that he should have been at birth. It took another four years for the exquisite sensitivity of his premature arrival to fade.
Now he is eight. He stands as tall as my shoulder. He speaks in full vivid paragraphs. He rides his bicycle, reads books, creates fabulous structures with Lego, spends hours each day drawing in his journals. He is one of the most eccentric and interesting people I have had the privilege to know.
We celebrated the day with sushi for lunch and salmon for dinner. He opened a vast array of presents from family members far away and the visiting grandmother.
I gave him a proper bowler hat because he is obsessed with P. G. Wodehouse. He ran off to his closet to find a suit to wear. We all sat at the table laughing and eating chocolate cake and ice cream.
10.12.2004 nose
My mother arrived today. After a brief greeting at Heathrow she squinted at my face and asked about the scar. I told her the story as we rode the tube to Kings Cross and she blinked and said that it is better than losing half your nose to cancer.
This is a good point; I would not enjoy a nose amputation.
If you ever wondered exactly where I get my skewed sensibilities, now you know. She is such a tonic. The whole world makes sense when she is around to sort the important from the nonsensical.
10.10.2004 stitch
Tomorrow I get the stitches out, which means that the wound is healed well enough to venture forth without bandages. The trouble is, I don’t want to look at it. When I glance in the mirror I see not only my adult self but also the little kid with bleeding sores; the twelve year old with a lacerated neck; the seventeen year old with a smashed face.
When I look in the mirror I would like to put my fist through the image reflected back at me. But that is a childish impulse and not worth dwelling on. Instead I will revert to practical matters, like finishing the next book before I go on tour in a few weeks.
I am not yet willing to reveal the title but the cover (courtesy of Gabriel) is simply beautiful.
There are still two missing chapters and one long section needs to be spliced and moved around a bit. This is the hard part of the work – the details, the adjustments, the tedious editing tasks that can lead to doubt and despair if one is not careful to block out such thoughts.
I keep ranting that I either must go work on the book now or that I never want to work on the book again and my family members just nod with glazed expressions.
I’m sure they wish that I could go out and rubberneck with my pals. But I haven’t lived here long enough to find those people. My only local writer friend is away on a book tour right now and thus unavailable to trade tormented tales.
10.08.2004 journal
I really do look like I was on the losing end of a knife fight.
Luckily I have friends who point out that it makes me appear that much tougher (as though I needed to).
It is hard to smile because the stitches follow my laugh line but I am endlessly thankful to have Byron, AEM, and Gabriel around to find the humor in what is fundamentally a grim situation.
10.07.2004 well
I generally make a fierce effort to pretend that I am well. But right now half of my face is swollen and a preliminary check of the wound indicates that the scar is much larger than anticipated. The vestigial reaction to trauma is impossible to control; my whole body started to shake when I took off the dressing to investigate. I am not at all pleased to be flung backwards to the visceral experience of mutilation.
I went out to buy vitamins and homeopathic remedies and turned my thoughts resolutely away from the scar. This is what I will do instead: work.
The final proof of the Mamaphonic manuscript showed up last night and I will do the last proofread today.
A few weeks ago I turned in the first half of the next book and the publisher was happy with the structure I used to pull the stories together. There was talk about a book tour in the spring. Now I need to sit down and finish the second half.
Surgery is helpful insofar as I have brief access to memories otherwise not available; Byron laughed and said that I should finish quickly because this investigative journalism approach is no fun at all.
10.05.2004 cut
I sat in the churchyard of Little St. Marys on a golden day, staring at the profusion of wildflowers and bracken, the assorted jumble of gravestones moved to make a path. If I could have had a wish I would have wished myself well. But there is nothing so frivolous available and when the clock chimed two I had to walk back toward the city to catch a bus.
The driver argued with me, said that I should move back and catch a shorter route. But I wanted to be on the winding lost bus to nowhere. I was in no particular hurry and sat looking at the city through the window.
Waiting in the reception area at the hospital I could hear a small child screaming. The other patients sat dully around me, reading or talking to companions. The baby wailed — not in fear, oh no, much worse — the cry of someone who knows exactly what is happening and rages against the reality.
Hours passed and I sat, trying to read a book, listening to the baby howling, remembering my own lost childhood conducted in hospitals. Finally I was called back, the junior doctor stumbling over my silly name. She explained the procedure once again and asked if I had any questions before signing the consent form. What could I ask? It would surely be a metaphysical plea rather than a practical query. I shrugged.
I folded my glasses and set them on a chair next to my coat and book, hopped up on the operating table and settled under the blazing lights. I closed my eyes. Surgical drapes were placed across my body and clipped around my head.
The doctor swabbed the left side of my face with a cold solution that rolled down into my hair. She took a pen and drew a line across the critical area. She called out to check that the correct scalpels and sundry surgical tools were all at the ready. The doctor said the injection would be the worst part as she thrust the needle in. The nurse reached for my hand, offered me comfort, but I waved her off and mouthed that I was okay. I am okay. I am always okay.
I could hear the flesh being cut away, could smell the instruments cauterizing my flesh. The people in the operating suite gossiped about work and the weather; the sunshine had given way to a torrential rain storm. Occasionally someone informed me of their progress.
I started to wonder if the procedure was strictly necessary, wished fiercely that I had stayed on at Little St. Marys instead of catching the bus. The muscles of my back and neck seized and I realized that my jaw was so tense I might crack a tooth. I consciously moved to stop the process of panic, started to relax all the muscles and bones ready to jump off the table, and the doctor paused to ask if I was okay. Yes. Yes, I am okay.
Memories surged through my mind. The smell of the gloves, the tingle of the anesthesia, the blinding light. The pressure against my face as a doctor pressed in, digging away to remove yet another tumor. I slipped into a familiar meditative calm, perfectly relaxed, breathing lightly, as the doctor pressed against my face, smashing the nose slightly to the right as she sliced away at my skin.
I have been diagnosed. I have been treated. I have had over three hundred cancerous lesions removed from the exterior of my body, not to mention the diseased interior. But I still do not believe that this can be true; it is so improbable, so inconvenient, so odd.
Wouldn’t it be better to be whole, to be well?
The doctor started to sew me back together, threads trailing across my face. She tugged to make a knot and my cheek and upper lip lifted away from my skull with the force. I held my head still, observing the movement, feeling the twitch.
Finally it was done and I could sit up. The doctors skittered off to attend other patients and the kind nurse told me that I would need the stitches removed in five days. She suggested that I take a pain medication I have never heard of, recounted the essential rules about treating wounds. I was dizzy from shock and the pressure on my face but I nodded, tried to look intelligent. I refused the drugs, thanked her, and wandered out of the room.
The clinic was already closed so I could not schedule my follow-up appointments. I walked down the erratically constructed hallways to the toilet and looked in the mirror. A massive bandage conceals what will be my newest scar. I’ve not been bandaged so extensively in over twenty years, and realized with a jolt that they had not asked me about any allergies. Because, you see, I am allergic to surgical dressings.
I pulled on my cap and walked out to the bus stop with my head down. I remembered with a sense of wonder exactly why my hair is so long; I grew it out to cover the scar after my eyelid was slashed open in 1988.
I looked down at my clothes and shoes, all chosen for similar pragmatic reasons. To cover scars. To relieve pressure on wounds. To cosset broken bones. To prevent the sun from shining on my skin. Always, always in service to the disease.
Other memories drifted through my mind. Whenever possible I forget, but the fresh cut reminded me of an adolescence constrained by surgical procedures. I was not allowed to bathe after surgeries and my mother washed my hair in the sink for years, carefully folding towels across my neck to protect the incisions.
The sun came out again as I stood at the bus stop with my bandaged face turned away from fellow passengers. In my adult life in the states I would never have considered using public transportation after surgery, but now I have no car.
The night before I had reasoned that I rode the school bus throughout the most intense parts of the disease years, but standing at the bus stop I realized this was a fiction. I stopped riding the school bus in the eighth grade when the other kids started throwing rocks at me after school, and once attempted to set my hair on fire on the long ride home. Not that there was much for kindling; that was the year half of my hair fell out.
On the bus I wanted to hunch over and let my hair swing across my face like a curtain but sat straight up. There is no point in acting like a victim.
When I was young and frail I had to learn to stand up and keep moving; it was a survival strategy. I wasn’t strong enough to fight but I learned how to create an illusion of lethal intent. Because people do stare, and they do comment, and some people exploit weakness when they see it.
I have cancer. This is my permanent state. I do not choose to meet the gaze of the people who stare and I do not accept that anyone has the right to look at me. But I will in fact go wherever I like.
In her wisdom my mother always insisted that I live as normally as possible, that I move right back to regular activities as soon as I was strong enough to go. This was the best thing she ever taught me, and I thank her for giving me the strength and knowledge to walk out of surgery and go to the grocery store to purchase ingredients for dinner.
To walk through my newly adopted city and look at the church spires, the college buildings, the brick walls, the sunshine on one side and dark storm clouds on the other.
I unlocked my bicycle and pedaled home to my boat.
10.01.2004 freaks
Sarah-Jane has been wandering around Europe with Amanda (who performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, wish I had known in time to go see her!) and she dropped in to see us. The visit was far too brief; we all love SJ. The children are hard to impress, but having a circus clown in the house is definitely a thrill.
We talked about the break-up of the band (very sad) and family secrets (very funny) and walked around town in the rain. We went to Kettle’s Yard and drifted down winding streets and along the Backs, meandering along looking at the city and its inhabitants.
At one point SJ turned to me and asked Are there any freaks here… at all?
I shrugged and replied Not that I’ve noticed. Or at least none with the customary cultural markers.
After she departed for Paris I went to another appointment, this one in the helpfully titled Lesion Clinic. It is now factually true that I have spent more time at Addenbrookes than I have visiting with friends.
The appointment was once again predictable, with the small and surprising twist that in the UK they call my disease after the doctor who published the first research paper on the subject. This is not accepted protocol stateside, because that doctor made a point of refusing the dubious honor.
The other and more interesting difference is that the British appear to be a modest people; my body was completely covered and the gowns and blankets were peeled back in sections as the exam progressed.
The doctor didn’t make a big fuss over the fact that my case presents a challenge. Unfortunately she was thorough enough that she actually found a suspicious lesion.
I sighed and nodded as the nurse filled out the paperwork to schedule my first British biopsy. Which will require stitches; this means that the tumor is much larger than anything I’ve had taken off in the last few years. Apparently there is a four month wait for this procedure, even (as in my case) it is certain that the lesion is cancerous.
But I am such a special and lucky creature I get to go back on Tuesday.
Evidently these procedures frighten the general population, because I was loaded up with instructions and tip sheets and it was suggested that I might need a companion with me during the operation. I just blinked and tucked the papers in my bag.
I used to have a dozen or more tumors removed in morning sessions and go back to school the same day. Losing one small piece of skin and taking myself home does not compare.
Though I will not enjoy riding the bus with a bandaged face.
Last weekend I realized it was time to fill up the boat since it is best to have a full tank of diesel before winter commences. The only trouble is that the nearest fueling depot is three or four hours away on the River Great Ouse.
This journey would consequently be a serious endeavor, involving opening two locks. Which I did not know how to do. So off to a bookstore, where I purchased guides that served mainly to frighten me, and then early Sunday loaded the boat with children and snacks and set off.
Civilization drops off at the edge of Cambridge. It takes just a few minutes to go from crowded busy streets to deep country, with only the occasional herd of cattle gazing at us as we passed. You can go miles on the river without seeing any people, or even glimpsing a modern road in the far distance.
We passed a few pubs and country houses and found ourselves at the Baits Bite Lock. I jumped off and held the rope while Byron checked that our key worked the box. It did, so the next question became, where were the bollards?
We tied the boat down and took our guidebook over to stand next to the (abandoned) keepers house and ponder the question. I was reading the chapter on how to operate locks when a man hailed us from the other side. He wondered if we had a key?
We replied that we had a key but that it was our first time trying to go through. The stranger quickly walked across the footbridge and came down, patted my arm, and then started to rapidly explain all that we needed to know about getting through a guillotine lock.
I scrambled on to the boat and pushed off, Byron drove us into the lock, and the nice man shut the gates behind us, then opened the next set. He and Byron stood above talking and laughing while the children and I stood in the boat watching nervously as the water level dropped, taking the boat down seven or eight feet. Byron jumped down and we motored away, waving and shouting our thanks.
The next lock was much the same, though we were in a queue and chatted with a new set of interesting strangers. Then we were off again in a vast flat wild landscape, with herons and all sorts of fabulous birds swooping and swimming around us. We waved at other boats when they passed, and eventually found a small private marina next to the Five Miles From Anywhere No Hurry pub (most famously the home of the Upware Republic) that the guide claimed would have diesel.
But alas, there was neither an attendant on duty nor any diesel pump to be seen, and the local residents regarded us with suspicion. In the process of turning the boat round we seemed to pick up a snaggle of weeds. Byron did the short term fix of putting the boat in forward and reverse rapidly, but from that point our progress was much more slow. The wind also picked up at that point, making it impossible to know if we had mechanical troubles.
Onward, and wondering if we would make it to the next possible source of fuel before closing (because everything closes early on Sunday) we were dazzled by a brilliantly sunny afternoon. The children settled in the cabin and I wandered around doing necessary tasks. Byron was stuck with the job of steering because at six foot six he is simply too tall to hang out inside the boat.
Eventually we drew up next to the Fish and Duck at Popes Corner. This pub has been serving river trade for nearly eight hundred years, standing sentinel at the junction of three rivers. We had just moored when we turned around and noticed with great surprise the people who sold us the boat.
The coincidence that they would drive out to an isolated riverside pub and arrive precisely at the same time we moored was felicitous if not a true miracle. We talked for a bit and after everyone enjoyed refreshments they kindly agreed to teach us how to pull the boat around for fuel. It was quite a tricky maneuver, and it is highly unlikely that we could have done it without assistance.
By the time we finished filling the tank it was nearly four in the afternoon. The entire day had been consumed by our quest for fuel, and we realized that it would be impossible to make it back to Cambridge before dark. We decided it would make more sense to continue on to Ely.
It was a short journey to this Fens city, once an island but now part of the undulating farmland. We moored near the train station and walked to the nearest pub, which offered tasty treats for the whole family and tables above the water. We were mystified by the seemingly derelict ducks that ambled about under the tables and along next to the boats.
After the food we walked up through the park to the Cathedral and the children gasped at the sunset turning the sky pink behind the enormity of the building.
9.25.04 voice
My throat hurts. I am not happy about it.
When I was twelve years old a surgeon sliced open my throat, pinned extraneous things to one side, and then gouged out as much of the cancer as possible without nicking other organs. That day, the massive tumor was deemed not just malignant but also terminal… so it was more important to be vigilant than careful.
As a result, my recurrent and superior laryngeal nerves are permanently damaged. This is why I sound like a demented child and have no projection. This is why I lose my voice during book tours, or whenever I catch a cold. Or at least someone told me that once. I tend to think that it is some kind of dreadful curse.
Byron helpfully suggested that I might have caught the hospital superbug during my recent appointment. I have in the past caught various strains of strep, staph, and a vicious case of hepatitis whilst in hospital.
But since I didn’t touch anything and watched carefully to make sure the doctor put on new gloves before digging around in my mouth, it seems unlikely that I have anything worse than a common cold.
9.23.04 jaw
My Seattle doctors were worried that I might not be able to get good medical attention in a nationalized health system.
I knew better, because I know exactly how extraordinary my body is. The GP nominally in charge of me did not even want to hear the details; he just put his head down and started scribbling referrals to send me off to specialists.
Today was my first appointment and it went exactly as I predicted. I was x-rayed and then had a long conversation with a physician who kept shaking his head at each major diagnosis. He wanted a comprehensive history but I shrugged.
I’m not even really sure how many surgeries I’ve had. I can only offer the bare outline of what has happened, and rarely care to bother with even that much information.
This particular appointment was in the oral surgery clinic and it is always interesting to see inside my damaged mouth. The tumors are easy enough to diagnose when they appear in the mandible, and I knew from a casual glance that the x-ray was clean. The physical exam was brief.
I can’t open my mouth wide enough to eat an apple but the degree of mobility I have is considered Excellent! Very good! by surgeons who know that it could be much worse. Several invasive surgeries inside the bone, a dislocation (or two) of the joint, and a fractured cheekbone should have left me in a sorry state.
But I’m okay. I just don’t eat apples.
Unfortunately going to the doctor leaves me in a black and seething mood. If the news is bad I feel nothing at all. But when the news is good I am calm and precise until I leave the clinic. Then I start to rage, silently, over the appalling injustice of living with this illness an entire lifetime.
But I’ll forget soon enough. I’ve never been healthy so there is nothing to feel nostalgic about.
I think that I’ll go work on my boat now.
9.22.04 fire
The day was chilly and grey and it seemed like a good time to try out the woodstove on my boat.
Those of you who know me in real life are probably worried that I set myself on fire.
This is a valid concern. But before I started the adventure I made sure that the fire extinguisher was close to hand and the hatch was unlatched in case I needed an escape route.
I was a Bluebird and went to Campfire Girl sleepaway summer camp for years. During the rest of the year, whenever I was not busy with the whole cancer thing (and often when I was fairly ill), my family went camping.
We went to the forests, the rivers, the coast. We even planned to camp at the farm when the family convened for my uncles funeral, though on the way a drunk driver hit the side of our vehicle. I was in the back of the truck but the tent and sleeping bags contracted around me, keeping me safely off the highway.
But unfortunately, throughout these adventures, I was not paying attention. I was reading a book. I do not know how to build or tend a fire.
Lucky me the previous owner left the stove in good condition with paper, kindling, and coal already prepared. In theory all I had to do was strike a match and it would all beautifully ignite and merrily twinkle as the cabin filled with heat.
But this is my life, and instead of fire I mostly got lots and lots of smoke. I rushed about opening windows, paced and pondered, trying to remember all of those camping skills I should have picked up. Finally I started to blow at the mess, because this once worked to start a VW with a locked engine. Which might seem inconsequential, but somehow was connected in my brain with managing flames.
The fire ignited and started to burn and the kindling lit the coals and for the next several hours I sat next to the stove reading about the evolution of curiosity cabinets and natural history museums.
9.21.04 chat
There are many advantages to living in this new pedestrian way. Picking up the younger child at school is not on the list.
I used to feel awkward around other parents because I was young (and looked even younger). It was difficult to communicate with people who waited until their thirties or forties to have kids. We simply did not have much in common.
Even when I had some kind of organizational status this was a problem. During the Co-Op years I participated in governance (and was drafted to be a co-President). But I hung out with Polly and Julia and their collective dozens of children in part because we had the fundamental connection of being teen parents. They were vastly more socially skilled than me and capable of ignoring the things that made me uncomfortable.
Eventually I found Gabriel and we sat in the halls with our heads down, scrawling in our journals. It was like having all the good parts of an adolescent friendship again, and I started to think about my own education. I realized that one of the things I did not enjoy about waiting in the halls was the fact that it was a school.
I’ve now tested this hypothesis and it appears to be true that if people had a bad time at school they do not enjoy visiting schools. Kind of a simple idea.
Now I am by no means the youngest parent in any given group. I am something like average in terms of age, and in this town the strangest thing about my appearance is my spectacles.
It’s not even a problem that we have the wrong accent; there is a steady turnover of people from all around the world and the kids go to schools that are dramatically more diverse than anything they encountered back home.
Yet I still feel just as awkward as I did a decade ago. The problem is apparently me. I do wish that I had the ability to chat.
I also wish that Gabriel could be here.
9.20.04 museums
The visit with Jen was far too brief. We walked around various colleges and checked out the Wren Library. We biked to Grantchester for tea at the Orchard and later went punting on the Cam.
We made dinner and stayed up late talking. It has been sixteen years since we met at Governors’ School but the intervening time has not changed either of us as much as I might have predicted. We share a commitment to ethical behavior that can be exacting, but this makes it easy to continue talking to each other.
On Saturday we took the train to London and visited the British Museum and the Tate Modern. I thought the children might be bored but the girl was pleased to see canvases and objects by Dali and Magritte. She liked the David Goldblatt photographs, especially Miss Lovely Legs Competition at the Pick ‘n’ Play Hypermarket Boksburg 1980. The boy was amazed by the Gerhard Richter Two Greys Juxtaposed, and intrigued by the Cy Twombly sculptures.
They nodded over the Anselm Kiefer canvasses Parsifal and Lilith but neither thought much of the Beuys Lightning with Stag in its Glare.
On the train ride home we played hangman and the children amused people with their antics over the game. Neither guessed the solution when I plotted my surname.
Upon seeing L – A – my son guessed lachrymose.
We all got up early to wave goodbye as Jen departed for her conference. It was strange and lovely to wander around with a friend from home.
9.19.04 npr
My new book will be featured on the Brian Lehrer Show on NYC’s NPR station WNYC 93.9 tomorrow at 10:30 AM.
9.16.04 history
Jen K showed up late last night and the kids adore her. They swarmed around, competing for her attention, rattling off theories about various subjects. We stayed up past midnight talking about philosophy, and history, and the vicissitudes of medical science. The children interrupted each other and talked in bursts of words, sentences, ideas tumbling so fast I could barely keep up.
Now the kids are off to school and the day is bright and chilly. I wonder what parts of Cambridge I should show a visiting academic? I haven’t figured out much except grocery stores and bicycle repairs.
Good thing I have a guidebook!
9.8.04 bicycles
When we first visited Cambridge I was nervous about riding a bicycle. I have too many broken pieces to stand much jiggling; the fractured tailbone, the shredded arms, the phantom flashes of accidents, all conspire to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
But I have a beautiful old Triumph, chopped and rebuilt in Portland by Erin Scarum and slowly improved by Eli and Bob to accommodate my various injuries. And this is a cycling city; it is just easier to get around using a bicycle. I started slowly, with little excursions to the grocery store, walking the bike when I got nervous.
I had an accident the second day out – because I was overly cautious. I slowed down to let a pram pass and listed over too far, toppling over and hitting a pedestrian. He laughed and dusted me off and put me back on the bicycle. But other than that, the injuries are generally sustained by my tights, which get caught on my wicked grip pedals.
The children complained at first. The boy said he could not, would not, not ever learn to ride his tiny vintage bicycle. But over the course of a weekend he picked up the skill and turned into a cycling fiend, weaving in and out of large crowds of tourists with nary a scratch. He asks to ride every day, several times a day, at night, at any available moment.
One day he woke up two inches taller than the day before and we went to see Ric at the bike stall in the market square. He reckoned he could find a stylish replacement and the next day my son owned a miniature version of the bike that all the elderly academics ride.
Old men in the park stop and exclaim I say, chap! That is quite a bicycle!
Now we ride everywhere possible, and when the children are in school I go places they find boring. This week I’ve been all round the city, from Romsey town to the far end of the Stourbridge common. I have gone to Fen Ditton, Coton, and had tea in Grantchester.
Riding bicycles in Cambridge is brilliant and officially one of my favorite experiences ever.
9.6.04 clear
Several months ago, as I herded the family toward our flight to Barcelona, we stumbled across Rich Jensen arriving home from a trip to New York. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes and I told him that we were moving to England later in the year.
Even though I neglected to tell almost everyone about the move, Rich remembered and tracked me down to send along the newest Clear Cut Press book. This one is called Core Sample: Portland Art Now and it includes a disk of “work involving moving images / parts / bodies.”
Holding this object in my hands, I feel overwhelmed with sadness. The intangibles of Portland made up the value. I do not miss the grubby flat boring city but I feel an intense longing for the place. The factors that allow the art scene and underground communities in Portland to flourish were in some sense the same reasons I had to leave. But that doesn’t make me miss it any less.
When I left Portland I really did not care. I was happy to have enough room to think and work, separate from the demands of my friends. I wanted to move on, I wanted to be back with the mountains and water of my youth.
Now I want to be in England.
This nostalgia for what I left behind is a puzzle. I suppose it is like an optical illusion, a refraction of experience. Now I remember only the parts of that life that are worth missing.
But whenever I go to the market and pick out apples I feel a wrench. I do not want to buy food from strangers. If I go to the store I want Meadow or Patrice be on the other side of the counter. I want to see Erin Yanke in the aisles of the co-op. I want to go back to Lynn’s house and our vegetable buying club, and that guy who brought scales on his bicycle, and thirty pound boxes of apples and flats of strawberries and endless delicious vegetables divvied up from the back of an ancient Volvo station wagon.
9.5.04 food
I’ve been moaning about the fact that I cannot cook for countless years.
People have attempted to teach me — Polly and Moe both made good progress and showed me essential skills like how to chop garlic.
I picked up occasional tricks but until this summer managed to poke along just fine with a limited repertoire of four or five simple things. The rest of the time we ate out. Given the fact that we did not know how to prepare food, it was less stressful to pay $2.85 for a bowl of pho. Or $2.50 for a burrito. Or $1.50 for a tofu sandwich with pickled vegetables and fresh cilantro.
England has a terrible reputation when it comes to food. While I reserved judgment at first, I can now say with some certainty that the stereotype is true. Most restaurant food is mediocre at best, and it is all terribly expensive. The good restaurants are exorbitant – or in London. I’ve had what people swear is the best of this-or-that variety of food and it just doesn’t rate.
But the cost of food in general is actually quite low, even after I mentally calculate the exchange rate, and all stores have an abundance of organic options. I can buy high quality non-GMO food for a fraction of what I used to spend in Seattle, and I don’t have to drive for an hour to find it. Just one example: a half pound of fresh organic butter costs 90p at the local grocer. The same item would have been $4.00 (or more) in Seattle, if I could get it at all without a vast commitment of time.
However, though staples are cheap, many items I relied on back home are not available. How can a person survive without a daily dose of fresh salsa? I don’t need the corn chips – forget the tortillas – I just want the sauce! So, inevitably, it happened.
I have started to cook. Pico de gallo was the first and most essential thing to learn. Then an assortment of rice and veggie dishes. Then salmon, and chicken, and eventually a soup involving carrots and coriander. I can make apple crumble, and cookies, and chopped up a chocolate bar for chips when the stores did not have what I needed.
I bought a basil plant for the window sill.
Several years ago Stella gave me The Joy of Cooking and I have mostly read it for enjoyment. Now I am using it like a map to sort out what to learn next.
9.2.04 normal
I’ve been a parent since 1990.
In all that time I have never once left my children with a babysitter — at least not the random teenage stranger version. There have been occasions when the children have been watched by trusted and vetted friends for a few hours at a time, but my inclination has been to keep them with me.
If I’m not with them, Byron takes over. This was necessary to protect them from danger but also because the children are not exactly average in their needs or behavior. When I decided to have kids my fundamental belief was that they were my own responsibility, and that I would make a good life for them.
When they started nursery school I was very careful to select programs that would work with their individual eccentricities, even if that meant an extraordinary commitment of travel time. They were always enrolled in special programs, alternative schools with substantial commitment to specific philosophical ideas.
Beyond that, I’ve never forced my children to go to school; if they were unhappy I moved on to the next solution. Mostly this meant letting them stay home.
Why? Because I know that I will not live forever and need to do well with the time left. Because children are only small for a little while. Because my kids are the most interesting people I have ever met. Because it is fun to hang out with my family.
But mostly because I did not have societal permission to produce children. I was young, and poor, and sick. Things that people in other situations take for granted were never part of my daily existence. It was a political act to have children – and I had to be good, the best. It was necessary to excel at every aspect of parenting. There was no acceptable alternative.
So here we are on the other side of the world, proper adults with careers. These children I have nurtured for half a lifetime are sturdy, healthy, loquacious.
Moving here was a choice, and accepting the differences in the educational system is part of living in a new country.
Today I sent them to school. Regular, normal, state-funded British schools, with religious education and PE kits and a dress code and conduct rules.
I find this shocking.
The children do not appear to mind.
Somewhere in the years of our late adolescence, when I still knew the people I grew up with, I gave a friend a ride from his parents house to the ferry terminal.
I was a mixed up kid, still living at home even though I was already a mother. My friend was the music snob of our teen social scene and he was living what had always seemed like the unattainable dream, with an apartment across the water in the city.
When the car started he flinched and said You like Tom Waits? in a surprised voice, then added Of course, this is the album true fans hate.
His opinion was that the album was maudlin, sentimental, and thus annoying. It should not be in the discography, it should have been issued under another name. The tape didn’t belong to me, so I just laughed and turned up the volume to listen to Martha.
I like songs that tell a story. I like songs that use cheap narrative tricks to solicit an emotional response. Maybe because nothing else can, I like songs that make me cry.
This morning I opened the files and started to work on the next book. I am still puzzled by the audience reaction to some of the stories; it honestly did not occur to me that the tales were sad as I lived the reality.
The thing I fear most in finishing the manuscript is losing the fun of it all, the exhilarating edge, the hilarious side of the horror. I do not want this book to be like the story songs that make me cry.
I do not want to allow any reader — not even one — to come away from the book feeling inspired in the way they would be after listening to a John Denver album.
8.20.04 fantasy
I had a clear and compelling fantasy of working in a luscious back garden, seated at a table with a pot of tea and a fat manuscript. And while it is true that the garden is lovely, the roses newly bloomed, the working reality is that I cannot sit outside during a thunder storm.
Retreating indoors is not tempting, given the fact that my house is waist-deep in stacks of books and I have to edge past towers of boxes to get to the computer. Oh, and musn’t forget the small detail of bored children.
Once again I am editing a book on the fly, scurrying from cafe to bookstore to pub, buying work time with 50p rounds of video games and promises of ice cream cones and fill-in-the-blank-whatever if they will just help and be patient, just for a few more minutes, please.
But I did it – without the benefit of childcare, relatives, friends, television, or any of the other boons of modern civilization. I’m walking out the door right now to put the final copyedited version of Mamaphonic in the mail.
8.16.04 miss
This is what I miss today:
Sushi.
Vietnamese tofu sandwiches with pickled vegetables from that shop on Jackson.
The burrito bus down in the Rainier Valley.
Champagne breakfasts with Stella and Al.
8.16.04 anniversary
The sixteenth anniversary of the accident came and went and I have no idea what I did on that day this year; maybe we were in London, maybe we were lazing about having a picnic in a meadow next to a river.
One thing is certain — I was not thinking about carnage on a rural highway. There is a chance that I have started to forget, though that is not terribly plausible. The better explanation is that I moved to a place where it is neither necessary nor desirable to drive.
Instead of overcoming a paralyzing fear that limited my daily life, I simply moved to a place where I am not required to perform the task that was forever fraught with emotion.
This is a clever trick. I should have thought of it years ago.
8.10.04 dress
The last time I saw Marisa we talked about clothes, and the contrast between her style and mine. She has known me a long time but she has forgotten that when we met I had short black hair and dressed in work pants, tshirts, and a black tattered hoodie, the correct urban camouflage for that time and place.
But looking right always makes me squeamish and I moved on to a phase of wearing square dancing dresses, cocktail dresses, swishy polyester, dazzling sequined antique skirts. I carried handbags to match each outfit. I grew out my hair and dyed it three colors and gave up my old round spectacles for blue flashy frames. Because nobody else in my vicinity was doing any of those things.
I have been collecting things my entire life. Not generally on purpose, not with intent, not even always with my consent. It just happens — particularly clothes. For each incarnation of my identity I have had a compulsion to create a new wardrobe, and around the edges of this desire people give me gifts and oddities.
In Portland I had endless access to cheap vintage clothes and a dry basement with 800 square feet of storage. By the time we moved the entire area was full of boxes and dressers and stacks of hats, piles of shoes, racks of clothing.
During the Seattle years I was in a state of mourning. I was distraught over broken bones and betrayal, the deliberate cessation of certain friendships. I was trying to understand the reality of living in the landscape of my dreams.
I wore basic black every single day and paced the floors of my sweet little house, staring at the mountains through the picture windows, and then sat down to write with ferocity. I worked and played with my kids and went swimming. Eventually I cut my hair and dyed it back to a natural state and moved from black clothes to shades of brown and blue. But I did not wear my beautiful dresses; I was not feeling frivolous.
I gave away or sold half of my clothes when we moved to Seattle. Packing to come here I whittled the remaining allotment down by three quarters. But even after purging that volume I was left with a fabulous wardrobe, an entirely amazing set of clothes that would cost a fortune if I had to replace them. Not that I could replace them; I do not have the body type that is most valued by owners of vintage clothing stores. The outfits I’ve found over the years are in fact remarkably special.
And now it may all be ruined. I have no idea; the laundry has not called to report.
I have not allowed myself to be upset – yet – but uncertainty is not a favored emotion. I do not want to be compensated for the loss of my wardrobe.
I want my clothes.
8.9.04 paging
The most precious of my possessions arrived whole and well. The dental plate collection, false eye, glass slippers, antique ashtrays – everything in my scientific cabinet and the cabinet itself arrived without any damage. I’ve hung the paintings and photographs, sorted the zines, opened all the boxes to cull the best bits.
Even though this was the second big move in less than two years I still have random things that nobody should keep in their lives; old receipts (for example a faded record of grocery purchases in Olympia circa 1990), books I never plan to read, all the letters I have ever received and many of the tens of thousands I have sent.
Down at the bottom of a big box I found the songbooks. Now if the mood strikes I can look up the words to all the songs I used to know, though paging through these small handmade books makes me feel sad.
I put together the pamphlet we distributed at the Mudwrestling Hoedown, and it took hours of library research to find the perfect images of square dance instructions and wrestling guides, then an unknown number of additional hours to laboriously cut and paste the assemblage.
That particular event was a fundraiser but it was mostly just an excuse for lots of people to wear crazy outfits and roll around in the mud. There was a kissing booth and I was a popcorn girl.
Who won the wrestling competition? I cannot recall.
Later that summer, during my Travelers Party, this kid showed up in the middle of the night and sat on the porch with assorted people including James and Per. We traded macabre childhood stories and toward dawn he said that the place was a punk retirement community, the place people go when they can no longer deal with real cities.
These are the maudlin thoughts of a rainy afternoon in England:
I miss my friends, miss singing. But that place was not my home and I do not think I will ever find one. I doubt that such a thing exists. It will have to be enough that I have so many dear friends all over the world, that I have this eccentric small family, that I can keep moving on.
8.8.04 description
Because of the extreme chaos of the last few weeks, and limited internet access, I missed the deadline to turn in the catalog description of my new book.
This is disconcerting because several of my friends offered up excellent ideas of how to describe the thing — it is not actually a cancer memoir but rather a book about danger and safety.
The content and perspective is difficult to convey in a succinct way that works in catalog format. I am not in fact capable of describing it in conversation, let alone writing a precis.
When I downloaded all my email there were hundreds if not thousands of urgent tasks that went untended and this message from AEM:
Dude! Get on the ball. I had to stop in and write your book blurb for the catalog on the way through Chicago. I described it as “pure fluff,” “head candy” and “rib-tickling!!!” Hope you don’t mind.
I haven’t laughed so much all month. But the funniest thing is that she actually does agree with me that the stories are hilarious.
Which is why I love her.
8.6.04 damp
On Tuesday we popped down to London to do the touristy things we will never get around to once we have acclimated to living here. The idea was to take advantage of a brief rest before our household goods arrived, because unpacking is so chaotic and stressful. We saw the changing of the guard (or at least the start before we grew bored and wandered off), took in the view from the top of Westminster Cathedral, toured the Cutty Sark, and when the skies started to spark with lightning took a boat tour of the Thames.
The next day the movers showed up with the 20 foot box we packed in early June in Seattle. It was still sealed shut, and when they cracked the bolts and opened doors water poured out of the container.
We all jumped back. Then we realized it wasn’t just water – the liquid running out was oily and dark. The movers described the smell as putrid, wretched. It smelled of the sea, and fish, and oil, and putrefaction.
As the day progressed they said they had never seen a shipment damaged to this degree.
Everything packed in the bottom of the container was wrecked.
The soft goods are permeated with a ghastly smell. Every single item of clothing, all the bedding, all plush toys, and most of the books have been ruined.
Also wrecked in the process, mostly by negligence on the part of the shippers, were sundries such as four bicycles. My hypoallergenic and very expensive mattress. The kids bed frames. Too many other things to list.
I am not fazed nor even particularly upset (I’ll save that for later). I just have a lot of work to do. I’ve spent the better part of three days and nights systematically surveying all the damage, making lists, throwing away the debris.
The insurance has already kicked in, a handyman is coming to fix our furniture and bikes, and I’m going to try and find a new mattress today (this will be challenging as bed sizes are different here). We have decamped to a hotel in the meanwhile.
I do apologize to everyone waiting to hear from me about manuscripts and book tours. Life has intervened and I will not be able to check email for a little while.
The new house is narrow and three stories high and furnished with not much more than a baby grand piano.
Other than sitting on the piano bench and looking out through french doors at the garden I am still at a loss — the household goods passed customs but have not yet been released to our care.
I have urgent deadlines predicated on work that cannot be completed without my other computer, bored children who want their rooms back, and a traveling husband who keeps ending up in the emergency room.
I miss my friends and my mother. Though my opinion is that they should all just follow me here.
When I unpacked the suitcases I found another set of random mix tapes that seem to consist almost entirely of the music I listened to in 1985. The current theme song is What Difference Does it Make?
Internet access is once again sketchy, so if you are expecting email, please pardon my silence.
7.18.04 piano
Everything we own was shipped in early June. The only cds left out of the shipment were simply overlooked, not chosen. For the last several weeks we have had a grand total selection of three mix tapes and the Dennis Driscoll Talent Show album.
Since the teenager will only let us play the Dennis Driscoll, this move will forevermore be associated with that whimsical young man and his musings about love, longing, and Ilwaco WA.
This is the last day in our temporary apartment. I need to pack the suitcases once again, coaxing the children to locate whatever precious things they have stashed around the place.
Byron is in Boston, selling our Seattle house via fax from his hotel and visiting as many friends as possible when he isn’t at the conference. He is supposed to come back to England tomorrow, then fly back to Seattle at the weekend, and somewhere in the middle of all this our household goods will have passed customs and we will celebrate the girls birthday with a short trip to London.
Oh, and we have to unpack, start the utilities, get a phone number, arrange internet access, and the kids need to visit their new schools.
Not to mention the fact that Byron has to actually go to work.
Whereas I have to do the final copyedits on the anthology, and finish the memoir.
In addition to my full-time job running a digital media empire.
The idyll has ended and I’m going to be a wee bit busy this week. But at least I’ll have my cds back.
7.17.04 risk
The first few weeks in a new country have passed rapidly in part because we are staying in temporary digs and still living out of suitcases.
This is not much fun, even though the apartment is more posh than we deserve, and our collective family anxiety level was slowly rising even before Byron ended up in hospital with an asthma attack the morning before he flew back to the states for a conference.
We are now so disheveled that we have reverted to the comforting strategy of singing Chorus songs while meandering about Stourbridge Common.
Though we have no songbook at hand and have forgotten many verses – so we go from a fragment of Union Maid to a snippet of Barrett’s Privateers to a mixed up rendition of Rote Zora. The song I wish we knew all the way through is Ramblin’ Rover but we only retain this verse:
Well there’s many who feign enjoyment
At merciless employment
Their ambition is this deployment
From the minute they left the school
And they save and scrape and ponder
While the rest go out and squander
Roam the world and rove and wander
And we’re happier as a rule….
Back in the temporary apartment we have been entranced by copious lashings of television time. It is in fact amazing to sit here and watch the BBC for hours on end, in part because the quality is much lower than I had imagined growing up on imports.
The regular programming consists almost entirely of tedious reality shows, many of which are based around the theme of real estate. People sell houses. Buy houses. Decorate houses. Renovate houses.
I watch even though I’m not particularly interested, mainly because I haven’t had a television in so long it has taken on the allure of a secret vice.
Beyond the home shows this country is mad for relocation stories – an hour doesn’t pass without some dramatic short documentary about people going off to start a new life somewhere. Though they never seem to have capital, savings, or jobs, which seems rather stupid to me.
Maybe I’m just too keen on stability. Despite my cultural and aesthetic preference for risk and adventure, I always have an infrastructure… or at least a plan.
It is possible that my puzzlement over these shows may have more to do with the fact that I would never want to be a hotelier, takeaway shop owner, or tour guide for rich tourists.
7.15.04 shock
I am not (yet) experiencing culture shock by definition. This is after all the country where my primary language was devised. However, having said that, there are a few strange differences between the UK and the US.
First of all, instead of pronouncing Adidas Uh – dee – duhs they say A – eh – dee – dass. Which might not have come to my attention except they seem mad for the brand.
Secondly, the washing machine has a capacity of perhaps three towels, which it can successfully launder and dry if you allow four hours.
I’m not joking.
Many of our friends line dry to circumvent the process but our allergies preclude this solution so my days are dogged by washing clothes.
The only other general observations are more regional than cultural.
The weather here is much like my memories of growing up on the Kitsap Peninsula: cold and wet with occasional sun.
Also, people had assured me that the English are reticent and polite but my spectacles are soliciting full-on stares of a nature I have never had to deal with. Strange.
7.04.04 moving
We’re moving to England today.
During our trip to Barcelona, after walking around in the rain for days but before my wallet was stolen, I changed my personal motto.
Until that moment it was I live to serve.
In the shadow of the Sagrada Familia I decided it had better be Don’t be a dumbass.
The whole thing is working out rather well…. my life is much more pleasant now. However. It appears that it is necessary to reduce operating costs, which means that with exactly a week until we move to a different country, we have decided to sell the house.
I keep waking up in the middle of the night to wander around admiring the coved ceilings.
Onward!
Watch as your new style lofi superheroes Asthma Boy and Cancer Girl throw themselves recklessly into the maelstrom of home repairs! No skills or stamina? No problem!
We’ll hold our breath to avoid the paint fumes; we’ll wrap our weak wrists in elastic bandages when the muscles shred! We might end up in the hospital by the end of this escapade, but at least we won’t show our weakness by asking our friends for help!
Though really, it hasn’t been that difficult. I bought environmentally sensitive paint and we’re almost done. The only pressing thing left to decide is whether or not I should paint over the foot high stencil downstairs that reads DIME CHICKS ICED UP * * * MINKED OUT * * * TROLLY SICK.
Luckily the previous tenant already covered the murals that said SACRIFICE and RESIST PSYCHIC DEATH.
6.18.04 grief
The extra teenager who lived with us all year just moved out.
Grief, despair: there are actual tears escaping from my head.
6.14.04 expo
This tour started in Madison with plenty of time to make a futile attempt to find an ATM that would accept a deposit for Anne. Ten banks along in the process I started to make helpful suggestions involving overnight mail service that did not go over too well.
The Inevitable Banking Emergency always happens when I travel, but usually because I’ve done something trenchantly weird with my money. I felt rather pleased that it wasn’t my deposit going so seriously awry.
We arrived early to help set up. Lisa had everything well in hand so we ended up hanging out with Dan Sinker, who just started a line of books with Akashic, and Joe Meno, the author of the first in the series, a novel titled Hairstyles of the Damned.
Beth, Lisa, and Joe read interesting and good stuff and then it was my turn to go up. As I walked toward the stage I decided to read a piece called Fighting. I’ve been performing this essay for about a year now and the audiences have always been rather twitchy about the whole thing.
I mean that to be taken literally; they recoil and shudder. But for whatever reason, the Madison crowd laughed at the right places
The next day we headed to Chicago for BEA. Trade shows are always . . . interesting.
The best part of the whole event was hanging out in the Soft Skull booth with Richard Nash, Ammi Emergency, and other SSP writers. I’ve spent significant and lamentable amounts of time with PR professionals and was completely amazed to find that Richard is in fact a world class gladhander. It was extremely amusing to see our raggedy crew being marketed and sold, each of us taking turns nodding solemnly and answering questions as best we could.
Before the event I knew that SSP was good but now that I’ve met more people I am honored to be associated with this group of writers. Those who showed up for the Expo included Daphne Gottlieb, Matthew Sharpe, Josh MacPhee, Jared Maher (Justin begged off sick), Derek McCormack, Billy Wimsatt, One Ring Zero (with instruments), and possibly others I should list but failed to write in my notebook.
The AK, Akashic, Arsenal, and other small presses were all staffed by people who were so much fun it was hard to drag myself away, but I but ventured outside of SSP land and managed to see Michelle Tea, Lawrence Schimel, Gayle Brandeis, and Jim Monroe. It was rather unbelievable… not to make too much of a generalization, but it was like finding that mythical peer group I always wanted to have in high school. Like being a band geek without having to actually play an instrument, or something.
Though when I mentioned this to Matt he replied that he was first chair flute in high school.
The sense of camaraderie between the writers and the publishers I spent time with is probably at least in part because we were all marooned in the midst of a massive commercial trade show; it could have been grim and grinding but instead it was great.
On Friday the Quimby’s audience was even more receptive than the crowd in Madison. They even laughed at what I see as the funniest line in the whole performance: I was a bleeder.
After the reading we went out with Daphne, Ammi, Jared, and scads of other interesting people. Just as the party broke up Dan Sinker paused in front of me and asked Is that piece part of a book?
I shrugged an indifferent yes.
He said I would like to publish it.
I blinked at him and said Okay.
6.11.04 empty
My house is empty.
I have no amusing anecdotes, except the fact that one of the movers was almost certainly my cousin by marriage (although I did not inquire to verify). I was able to woo him with my proletariat charms when he threw a tantrum toward the end of the day.
Now that the furnishings are gone I cannot avoid the fact that the house needs to be painted.
Luckily Gabriel arrived to save the day – he always turns up when I need help. We toodled around town trying to match paint colors for the better part of the available daylight hours, and chose all the wrong things, but at least the kitchen is well under way.
I’m making a pasta dinner and hoping the paint brush doesn’t fall in the water. I suppose I could have cooked in the other kitchen but during the move it acted as the repository of important papers and assorted items we cannot take to the UK.
Every single time I walk in the room I jump in fright at the sight of an animal on the counter, even though I know perfectly well it is just my taxidermy deer head.
6.10.04 degenerate
I have no choice in this process; the company will only pay for professional movers. It would be better for me if I could do all the work myself, but that is not how it has been organized.
There is nothing quite like the experience of having strangers sort your possessions. Not that I’m complaining; no, I worry about the strangers.
They arrive imagining that we are a respectable sort of family and quickly uncover the degenerate truth… from the assortment of cracked Madonna statues to the santeria candles, the dental prostheses collection to the taxidermy, the punk posters to glass eyeballs — we make a poor showing.
These nice men do not know what to say and I just hope they will not be offended.
I lurk around feeling awkward because I think that I should be doing the work, not standing here with a clipboard.
My house is full of boxes and the container arrives any minute to whisk it all away across the ocean.
Weeks before we can even apply for the visas.
This is alarming.
I’ve been to England for the first time. Cambridge was brilliant.
However: my friends weren’t joking when they warned me that most houses have carpeting everywhere. Even in the kitchen and bathroom.
Fathom.
Home now for a brief respite before heading off to Chicago. We might have found a place to live but we won’t be sure until we have a signed lease in hand.
Now I need to find someone to rent this place and sell the cars (aside from finishing the visa process and etc.).
5.4.04 salt
Sunday morning we had arranged to visit Stella and Al and when we arrived we were surprised to learn that it was their twelfth anniversary. We were honored to spend the day with them, eating a picnic feast of salmon and champagne on the beach where they were married.
I held up my skirt and waded out in the salt water of the Sound, with tiny crabs and jellyfish all around. Later we stretched out in the shade under an alder tree and talked.
Stella told us about the flowers people donated to decorate the cabin, about the friends who brought food and cake and gifts.
The day was perfect – lovely in every possible way.
A couple of weeks ago my son wanted to go to the toy store but I said no.
He stared up at me in a charming fashion, and said I’ll make a deal with you. If you take me to the toy store I promise that I will be nice about our move to England. Forever.
I was astonished but thought to clarify: Do you mean that you will be happy and excited about the move?
He said Yes.
I quickly replied Okay! It’s a deal!
Later as we drove toward a bribe that would surely cost less than ten dollars we talked more and it came out that he wasn’t offering to lie. He was in fact offering to reveal his true feelings about the move.
Yesterday he said I can’t stand the suspense. I wish we could move tomorrow!
4.29.04 yellow
Yesterday three different people whistled at me; a couple of drunk guys at the bus stop wanted to discuss my putative beauty; a man wandering down the street with a mop leered up close to ask after my health; and an indie rocker tried to strike up a conversation in line at the grocery store.
I’ve never had to deal with this kind of nonsense. Even when I was young and cute people left me alone. I’ve gone through various phases of wandering about in lingerie or dresses that unravel without soliciting the comment of strangers. I do not look like someone who will suffer the attentions – I look like someone who will punch you in the face if you bother me.
People have never had the impression that they could approach me for any reason (with the exception of scared children and lost tourists, who sense that I can help).
I keep the tattoo covered and lately my preference is for dark sensible clothing. The only possible explanation for all of this new attention is my hair. Nine months ago, when it was six different colors, people left me alone. Now it seems that bleached blond hair is some kind of universal please harass me sign.
Who knew that such an ordinary color would be so annoying.
4.25.04 square
I am sitting here suffering with the effort to get our documented life in order before the move, interspersed with mad drives back and forth across the county for various kid activities.
Byron is lounging around a castle in the Alps having stimulating intellectual conversations.
But then again, I didn’t have to eat pigs knuckles for lunch. So we’re square.
4.23.04 migration
We started our grand migration away from Portland in May of 2002 and before we reach the second anniversary of what seemed to be a permanent decision we will be in Cambridge looking for a place to live.
I have essentially been in the middle of packing and unpacking for two years now, and it will not end until later this summer.
I feel burdened by these possessions, yet when I make a decision to rid our lives of a whole category (say, of stuffed animals) I get caught up in nostalgia. The League of Animals helped both of the children feel better in our temporary accommodation; how can I consign them to the thrift boxes?
Looking through my journal I realized that other than wrestling with boxes and working on the new anthology I haven’t really been in town much since we moved here. It seems like my suitcase is never unpacked; certainly that is true for Byron.
He is off to meetings in Portland and Olympia the rest of this week, then to DC, and then to Germany twice before we go to Cambridge next month. He will be so busy during these trips he won’t even have time to see the friends in the various cities.
If I had known that we would only be here for eighteen months I would have made an effort to see the people who will not visit us overseas. I definitely would have visited my grandmother more often.
Perhaps life on another continent will be less encumbered with material goods and responsibilities and I can have a regular sort of existence.
Though somehow I doubt it.
4.23.04 fuzzy
Several years ago I purchased a bag made of red craft fur. It was too fuzzy for me but also too odd to pass up. After contemplating the problem I decided the purse surely belonged to Ayun and sent it along as a congratulatory gift for some major event (baby? book? I cannot recall).
Every time we’ve visited since I’ve been mildly surprised to see the thing still dangling from her shoulder. The mail today included the new East Village Inky and I was amazed to learn that the bag went along on vacation to Tokyo. I had no idea the present would be so durable and handy.
My kids are still upset that I didn’t take them to see Urinetown in New York before it closed so I had to shell out for the touring show that will hit Seattle next month. It was either that or Germany – and I don’t think that the children would be amused to see the performance in a language other than the one they memorized the songs in.
4.22.04 serious
I must be serious about this move – I just put all five of my square dancing crinolines in a box marked sell.
Last night I sorted the last of the castoff clothing. My son has outgrown all of what he calls handy-downs; I know for sure that I will not have another baby so these small things are going away forever.
I’ll keep a couple of his blazers and ties but the small black turtlenecks and assorted overalls will move on to a new home. Looking through the photographs I am glad that I had these children so young – I am too old now to even consider taking on the rigorous challenge of tending an infant. Especially the eccentric sort that I produced.
Going through the papers I discovered some treats, like Byron’s high school transcripts (they expected him to be a novelist!) and a few remnants of half-forgotten horror. I still have the x-rays from my car accident. I still have paper copies documenting various scandals with the magazine – proof at least that my memory of what happened is accurate and precise.
Strange that we live in a world where it is necessary to maintain records of ephemeral internet conversations. If it were just my reputation at stake I would burn it all right now; I have no desire to defend my decisions by revealing the true character of those who chatter and gossip. But since law enforcement was involved twice, I should keep these files for the time being. I’m going to save them with my tax records and assume that the seven-year rule is wise.
Now my hand and neck are too sore to do much of anything. I suppose that I should just go take a bath and stop fretting.
4.21.04 couch
When we lived in Portland I whiled away many days at the bins – a huge warehouse full of random junk, mostly bought by the pound. The furniture was usually priced erratically, but every so often I found really great stuff.
Two of the best were a massive industrial desk with a rubber work surface, and a white vinyl couch with a fold out bed. They cost $1.00 each and I could not possibly resist, even though they were unwieldy and heavy.
When we moved here both objects had been loved to the edge of annihilation. The couch was too torn up to use any longer and we put it in the garage. The desk went down to the teenager zone, where it languished as a stereo and television stand.
Yesterday Erin Scarum and Shugs moved both out of these massive objects out of our lives.
This involved taking doors off hinges and much extreme wrangling. Goodwill wouldn’t take them so they went to the dump, where we were informed that the couch weighed 300 pounds, the desk 200.
I’m still awfully impressed with my $1.00 bargains. Even though it was more than slightly foolish to drag them from one state to another.
4.10.04 home
Yesterday I was still congested from the pollen and since it is so difficult to cry I just let the allergies do the work. I drove around and parked by the water and contemplated the fact that I actually love this place, eyes steadily streaming.
The Puget Sound is my home.
When I live elsewhere I feel sick with longing for the water and mountains.
But even though I could actually identify the feeling welling up inside of me (grief) it was tempered by two things. First, the fact that I do not actually go outside. Second, the raw and unkempt NW of my childhood is disappearing in favor of suburban development.
Since the things I loved are almost gone, and I have no desire to go kayaking, I will probably be fine living elsewhere. It was helpful to be here and figure out that I actually don’t care that much. I am not ruled by nostalgia.
Back at home I talked to Marisa on the phone about a show we’re doing, a special event on the coast right before I move. She said that she still misses seeing me every day in Portland when our lives were intertwined. She said that she will miss us, that we will be too far away. She said that she is glad to know me.
There will be new and good things to do in England, and I will be fascinated and charmed by whatever happens. But I am in fact giving up something solid and true when I leave.
4.06.04 home
On our last evening in Barcelona, as we crossed the street in front of the Sagrada Familia, the children tumbled in a frolicsome fashion and knocked me flat to the ground.
I have whiplash, a sprained wrist, and a wonky hip…. but I’ll be better soon. Off to recuperate now; more later.
Whenever I think of leaving this place I feel uneasy. Not necessarily because I want to stay – my problem appears to be regret that I did not properly enjoy the experience of living here. I spend most of my time in the house. I like the place. But I didn’t even finish unpacking until last week – and I never truly expected to be here longer than five years.
Tomorrow we fly to Barcelona, where Byron will present a paper and we will spend time with our friends from his field. Lucian will be there, and perhaps Satnam, along with some other Seattle friends, but we will see other people we only meet during the conferences because they are scattered all over the world. In the past when I’ve talked to these friends I have experienced a peevish jealousy because I wanted to be the kind of person who lives elsewhere.
Now that my wish has come true – in such a startling, abrupt, and amazing way – I am confused by the fact that everything seems so correct and appropriate. I haven’t had a moment of jumping up and down joy even though England was my childhood dream; if there had been a Make a Wish foundation during the cancer years I would have asked to go to the UK.
Instead of pure exhilaration I feel… vindicated and satisfied.
Maybe this is normal; I hope that it isn’t a sign of encroaching complacency.
Recently I heard from the publisher of my new anthology that the press is absolutely besotted with the work. They suggested no changes whatsoever to our final version. I know from the other anthology I’ve published, and talking to writer friends, that it is unheard of to have such a good relationship with a publisher. But I do not experience deep pleasure over this knowledge. I just think of course – at last.
Right now I feel sad to leave this place but happy to go to Cambridge. Which seems like an awfullly tepid response. This could just be the inevitable maturity of age.
Growing up can be so difficult.
3.25.04 ferry
The thing I will miss the most?
Riding the ferry.
3.23.04 success
This morning I received email from Clint Catalyst announcing that Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache is on the LA Times Bestseller List. This is excellent for the book, the editors, and all of the writers. It is also quite encouraging that the book is doing well and getting positive reviews in major outlets, given that it is a small press anthology.
The next piece of email in my inbox was a discussion amongst professional writers on a listserve about an article detailing the tribulations of a midlist writer. I found the article interesting and funny, though I have never had any fantasies about my writing career.
The whole endeavor is mostly toil with a few erratic flashes of luck. Even the good things – the major interviews, nice reviews, being quoted in big mainstream magazines – are not what they would seem from the outside. I’ve always thought that publishing was a business much like the gas station my grandparents used to own. My experiences so far have supported this theory.
Most writers are never published at all. Those who establish a consistent visible career work hard. The few serious writers who break out and make money are the rare exceptions. This has always been true; the industry has changed in the last few decades but it was never as idyllic as people might wish to believe.
Experimental and serious writing is hard to sell. The major publishing houses want to earn a profit on the work they promote. Smaller and independent firms publish more diverse work but do not have the promotional clout of the larger firms. These facts are just true – and always will be.
Even those few writers who have achieved a level of notoriety are not generally earning a living wage. It is in fact possible to be famous and poor.
I know many brilliant people who can sell out events based on their reputation, but still need to work boring day jobs. Those who work in fields related to their art are no more (or less) inclined to be satisfied or productive.
The latent expectation on the part of writers and the audience that making work leads inevitably to a reasonable fee for service is simply misguided. It would in fact be easier to make a profit running a gas station (though that industry has consolidated and changed in much the same way as the publishing industry). Writing does not lead to riches. There are other reasons to write; most of them soppy but still worthy.
My essay in the Pills anthology is part of a piece of work that has been called “brilliant” and “beautiful” and “frightening” and “haunting” and, most telling of all, “not commercial.”
One version sold out a limited edition chapbook; more than 9,000 copies are in circulation and I can’t fulfill the additional orders. How can this be quantified? I know that the zine has sold better than many books, with absolutely no promotion or support except the goodwill of distributors and friends.
In book form, would it sell that well? No idea, because no publisher wants it. Too risky.
I am not trying to imply that I am above the sordid commercial aspects of publishing; I am not pure. I just know that money is not the only measure of success in a writing career.
3.22.04 titles
I just booked our May visit to Cambridge. When I clicked on “title” the ordinary list of Mr, Mrs, Ms, and Dr was enhanced with Sir, Lord, Lady, Capt, Prof, Rev.
3.18.04 announcing
According to the relocation fellow, if we don’t find an apartment by the end of May our kids have zero chance of getting good school assignments.
We can’t apply for visas or schools until we have an address. But we won’t be able to find an apartment until June. Which is too late to apply for visas and schools.
Byron says rather unhelpful things like: Relax. People have been moving back and forth across the Atlantic for hundreds of years. It will work out. The Pilgrims did not work for Microsoft.
To which I reply: The Pilgrims didn’t have to rent an apartment ahead of time.
Byron: That’s true. So you’re saying that the modern English housing market is worse than the Irish famine?
Me: The Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution, not a famine.
And so on and so forth.
Planning brain, engaged! It looks like we need to visit Cambridge the third week of May.
This decision has been hampered by the fact that the relocation fellow has a computer virus that is bouncing email, Byron is interviewing interns all day, phone calls are happening between the two of them during breaks and across the time difference, and I’m getting only whatever fragments of information falls between the cracks.
I guess this is kind of funny. Maybe a little.
3.12.04 hierarchy
Recently I took the kids in for basic checkups. One needed blood tests and the other needed a tetanus shot. After the appointment we had the following conversation:
Boy: My arm hurts.
Girl: My arm hurts worse! A blood draw is worse than a shot!
Me: No. There is no hierarchy of oppression. What you need to say is – this sucks for me! That sucks for you too? Then look at each other with sympathy…
Girl interrupts to finish: And say, Brother, let’s start a union!
3.11.04 girl
Last weekend I took a crew of teenagers to see The Shape of a Girl at SCT. I didn’t know what to expect; the tickets were in my pocket all week and I never looked up information about the show.
The narrator of the play is unreliable, not a bystander but actually complicit in the torment of another child who was once her friend. The character evokes the female culture of censure, the desperate danger of isolation, and the risks inherent in speaking out.
During the performance there were moments when I was literally doubled over with the horror of the piece – it was a visceral experience for me not only because of the rural NW setting but also because I was victimized by other children during the cancer years.
It would have been hard to watch the play just on that level, but it is also true that I was never simply a victim. I fought back – with words but also with my body. I learned to fight not just for myself but for others who were weak. I could never, would never, passively allow someone to be injured. I would rather not have a community if the tradeoff means looking the other way and ignoring abuse.
I’ve walked away from relationships, friends, more than I care to contemplate because I refuse to compromise this belief.
As we left the theatre my daughter urged me to tell some of the stories from my reckless youth but I shook my head, too overwhelmed. I said that my tooth hurt and that she could tell the stories later.
If you have an opportunity to see the play – you should. It is really very good.
3.05.04 books
I decided to sell all of my extra books. There are at least three hundred that mainly serve to collect dust; no matter how much I enjoyed reading them they are not applicable to current projects. I have an appointment with a dealer tomorrow. Cross your fingers that he will want such illustrious titles as:
Reflections on Gender and Science
The Fiscal Crisis of the State
Images of Organization
The Data Game: Controversies in Social Science Statistics
Statistics for Social Change
The Sociological Imagination
Experience, Research, Social Change
Crisis, Health, and Medicine
Human Inquiry in Action
3.03.04 tooth
Dental technology has evidently advanced during the seven years I ignored a rotten tooth. My third root canal on this dratted molar went swimmingly; new tools were able to slip down all the way to the source of the infection.
Now I feel ill, but not bad enough to require pain medication. Good news all around.
3.02.04 change
Last weekend Satnam and Susan moved to town; Jenni and Paul came to look at houses and schools; Eli and Ruby showed up with travel stories.
I cleared out our storage area and gave away carloads of stuff. I was so busy I didn’t even have time to go to a show I helped organize.
Change is definitely in the air, the sun is shining, and this life is sometimes an excessively strange adventure.