My Articles:
Diamonds in the Rough
One night, after our toddler was asleep, I poured wine for my husband, Michael, and me. I told him that I needed more help with Nicholas. I took his hand and explained that I didn’t want to make it sound like he wasn’t doing his part. I knew I dominated taking care of Nicholas, and I wanted to change. I thought I sounded reasonable.
Michael blew up. He jerked his hand from mine and starting pointing his index finger at me. I was bossy and always correcting him. He wanted to do more but got tired of my interfering. But what really bothered Michael, what really upset him, was he felt he’d lost his wife, his lover and his best friend. For two years, he’d watched me disappear with our son. Continue… »
The True Spirit of Community at Squaw
Jessica O’Dwyer was one of the first women I met when I joined the Writing Mamas. She introduced herself, asked me about my family and my writing and helped me feel I was in the right place. Her insecurities around the quality of her writing were weirdly reassuring to me.
We both applied for admission to the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley in 2006. Jessica was accepted. I was not. She had a tough and wonderful week and came back so overwhelmed she could not write for a short period. But Jessica had a story to tell, the story of adopting her beautiful daughter Olivia from Guatemala, and she got back to work, returning to Squaw in 2007 as a stronger writer who had found her voice.
Jessica kept moving forward, improving her writing through classes and workshops. She wrote and rewrote, searching for the story arc that would grab and hold readers. She had two young children and a husband with a demanding job. Sometimes she could only write at night in cafes or at the library after her husband got home at night and dinner had been cooked. It would have been easy to put off the book, to wait until the children got older, until there was more time to write. Continue… »
Writing Mamas Keep Each Other Grounded
I’m thrilled and so honored to have been accepted into the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. And don’t tell anyone, but I’m also terrified and intimidated each day. I have to walk into a big room full of strangers a few times a day to hear speakers. I have to voice my critiques of work twice a day, advising wonderful writers what they need to do to improve their work. I have to insert myself at a table of strangers every night for dinner.
That’s the easy stuff. I also had to sit still and listen for 90 minutes while 11 other writers critiqued my novel. And I met one-on-one with one of the most well known editors in the business to get her comments on my nonfiction entry. Continue… »
Bike helmet…check, bike shorts….oh-oh
Well, Janine has certainly set the tone about The Writing Mamas week at the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference. Too soon to tell about key learnings, workshop glee and despair. We’re too rummy with information and emotion right now.
I so over-packed for the conference. Six pairs of shoes – flip flops, black semi-fancy sandals, sneakers, hiking boots, and two pairs of walking shoes, one blue pair, one brown. Five pairs of pants. Two sun hats. Three notebooks – one for the workshops, one for the speakers and panel discussions and one just in case, for whatever. A 20-can box of Diet Coke. One box of 12 of my favorite mechanical pencils. I’m too lazy to get up from this table and count how many tee shirts and blouses hang in the closet. Continue… »
Unemployment – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
I’ve been unemployed for four months now and keep telling myself to enjoy it, but that’s just not completely possible. Here’s the bad things about not working:
Duh! We can’t pay our monthly bills on one income. And we blew though our rainy day fund (that we had for 10 years) a couple of years ago when some other s*#@* happened. So we’re in debt and will have to figure out how to get back on track. I think the retirement funds are history.
May Greetings
Greetings, I’m the Writing Mamas website guest editor for the month of May. At the February salon, someone asked me how long I’d been a Writing Mama. I said about 3 years. Then I started reading a book I’d bought when the author, Tucker Malarkey, came to speak to the group. She’d signed it in 2006! So 2010 started my fifth year with Writing Mamas. How time does fly when you’re in the company of wonderful interesting women.
I’ve been writing for several years and feel like I’m still finding my way. I’m most comfortable writing personal essays but have also tried short stories. I have a novel I keep committing to but not progressing much with. I’ve got a story to tell but what’s on the page doesn’t match what’s in my head.
Jumping For Joy!
My 13-year-old son Nick is taking weekly trampoline lessons. His good buddy Anthony goes too. Driving the boys to the cold spacious warehouse building in a risky part of Oakland takes about a half hour. Class is 90 minutes and then another half hour to drive home. Yet I keep turning down offers from Anthony’s mother to alternate driving duties.
I like watching Nick jump with abandon and try new moves each week. Nick has never embraced physical activity so it’s great to see him finding pleasure in the trampoline. Doing mid air somersaults is a thrill for both of us. Continue… »
My Dad and Harding Golf Course
It felt odd and a bit sad that my dad wasn’t at Harding Park Golf Course to watch the President’s Cup tournament last October. Now 83, my dad’s been hanging out at Harding for more than 70 years. He and Ken Venturi golfed there as teenagers, forging a life long friendship. While Ken went on to fame and fortune, my dad joined the South San Francisco Fire Department, fathered eight children, and played at Harding two to three times a week. Sometimes he’d take me with him to walk the course. We never rode a golf cart—why waste the money?
We’d scavenge for golf balls inadvertently hit outside of Harding. My dad knew all the spots around Lake Merced where overshot balls landed. I scrambled down slopes, grabbing under trees and bushes. In less time than it takes to play nine holes, I’d fill a bucket.
For years after he retired, Dad worked as a starter at Harding. He loved the early morning drive through the foggy streets and the razzing with the golfers lucky enough to get one of the early start times. He was anxious when computerized cash registers replaced the old-fashioned ones, but he got the hang of the new-fangled equipment pretty quickly. He was able to change with the times.
Doggy Does Facebook
I’m not sure if my family’s Facebook habit is getting out of hand or if our doggy love has gone over the deep end. But Kashi, our oh-so-adorable white fluff ball of a dog, has more friends on Facebook than I do. He hit the 200 mark weeks ago. I don’t even look at the count anymore—why make myself feel like a reject? I’ve been on Facebook way longer than he has. His profile picture is awfully darn cute. He is irresistible while I, apparently, can be easily resisted.
Not only that, but his friends actually pay attention to what he’s doing and comment on it. I’ll post something I think is pretty interesting or important or worth a chuckle and I get zip comments. Kashi posts something pithy like “Wish I had a chewy treat right now” and ten friends pipe in with what they’ d like to give him.
Don’t even get me started on how many girlfriends he has. “Wanna play with me this weekend?” his bud Indigo asks. And some cute little mutt who goes by the name Poppy Fluff Flower pretended they were married for awhile to keep other bitches away. Kashi’s pleading dark eyes shine a light into the vulnerability behind his machismo.
