DQ Isn't Always a Frozen Treat

From my last post, readers may have chalked up my recent absence to the assumption that I’ve rode off happily into the sunset, concluding this account of my life with a “happily ever after” feel. Perhaps the more cynical among you have surmised an ironically tragic fate in the form of a freak camping accident, or a mix-up in the Radiology reports.

But alas, I have spent much of the earlier parts of the week utterly convinced that a man was trying to ruin my life.

Although I have in my possession nearly 900 pages of documentation of this fellow’s lunacy, the long reach of Don Quixote’s broken lance is not to be underestimated.

This fictional foe managed to steal not only the ample chunk of time I’d penciled in for his literary exploits Monday evening, but a hefty portion of Tuesday as well. By nightfall, I saw my life vaporizing into a haze of makeshift armor, lance work, and sword fighting.

As if stealing my time wasn’t enough, he attempted to pick my pocket as well, robbing me of the ability to turn in a feel-good back to school article I’d hoped to put to bed on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I discovered that I’d read what my professor intended as an entire week’s worth of Quixote material within a 14-hour span. I softened slightly toward Quixote. Perhaps I could begin to view him in the same light as the rest of the unusual regulars that frequent my home, such as my daughter’s hungry friend, who is in my kitchen as I write this, eating a PBJ.

Today in class, I was quizzed on the extent to which I’ve retained data from my visits with DQ. Evidently I’ve been too chummy with Don, smiling and nodding during our visits when I should have assumed a therapist’s role with Mr. Quixote, taking notes on his case.

So, dear readers, don’t be too hasty to picture me heading off into the sunset, unless I’m fleeing an armored stalker on a scrawny horse.

Sunny and 75

There's an up-side to being a hypochondriac, and I have the good fortune of enjoying it at a perfect time.

I do not claim to be the Voice of Hypochondria, so I do not speak for hypochondriacs at large; however, I have found that the nature of the beast seems to run in waves.

Typically a "flare up" is put into motion with the advent of some disturbing or strange symptom. Depending on the nature and/or severity of the triggering symptom, a corresponding investigation/panic/general unrest ensues.

For instance, the time an ENT informed me that the sensation of fullness I felt in my right ear could be could be "a tumor, cancer, or worse", I plummeted quickly.

Worse than brain cancer? No web page anywhere on the trail I'd blazed through the worldwide web had mentioned possibilities that could stack up against such a prognosis. This was exactly the kind of situation I feared: an ongoing investigation in search of unknown and potentially terrifying horrors.

Without a doubt, I’d end up like the faceless patients I’d just read about in newspaper article on new advancements in facial reconstruction. I would be hideous, if I even lived, and would I want to, anyway?

My husband, the poor man, isn’t a lot of help at times like this. Having seen me through other tumors, gynecological uncertainties, and numerous suspicious moles, he’s become a bit hardened to medical drama.

“Your symptoms aren’t any different from the 20,000 other patients he’s seen,” he has said, resorting to factual statistics to back up his unnerving calm. “How many people have you seen walking around Hampton without a face?” he demanded.

“Maybe one,” I said, determined not to lose ground. There was the facial reconstruction article. Truthfully, I didn’t know where the woman featured in the piece actually lived, but she was in my local paper and that was certainly good enough for the purposes of this argument.

“One?” my husband raised his eyebrows in challenge. “And the newspaper doesn’t count.”

Transactional analysis, I remembered from my undergraduate psychology studies, purports the idea that we all live by a set of life scripts, or predetermined ways of responding to life events. TA- based therapy focuses on examining the predictable patterns, the scripts, by which we live by and changing or erasing those that are destructive or that we’ve outgrown.

As the author of scripts, director of productions, and small time actor, the concept of living by a psychological script intrigues me. On one hand, I don’t like the idea that I might interact with the world according to a limited range of predetermined responses. On the other hand, I am the author of the script, so the responses are mine.

Which brings me to the Dark Place. Over the past couple years, I have become much better at managing my spirals into this dim realm, but it's always a danger when I'm confronted with any type of medical uncertainty.

In the Dark Place, I shuffle around listlessly. I fall into inactivity. After all, with a host of disfiguring treatments and the grim reaper looming, there's no point in working on my novel. Ditto for working out.

Instead, I wonder if Brad and the kids will decorate for Christmas, and if they know the recipe for pasta fagoli. I burst into tears at the mere sight of any book from the Series of Unfortunate Events, because I’m certain I can’t hold on for enough family readings to see the Baudelaire’s through to The End.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Images of the Dark Place don’t quickly fade and I don’t want to burden you with them.

But the Dark Place isn't the only setting in which the Medical Drama script unfolds.

It was during the episode with the ENT that I realised that the promise of euphoria drives me to the Dark Place. I totally get off on the moment when the whole tawdry affair is laid to rest by whatever negative x-ray, lab result or simple a reassuring office visit the situation requires.

I’d get the good news and realize that I was going to live. After which the sky would seem bluer, the air would smell cleaner and life’s little trials would roll off my shoulders with ease. After all, I just last week I was dying. Reveling in life, I called it. It was a tremendous high that can only be achieved by going very, very low.

Once I identified this trend, I became better able to manage it. Now I don't often travel deep into the heart of the Dark Place, I just skirt the neighborhood periodically, get roughed up by a thug or two, and meander back home.

Consequently, the euphoria isn't quite as grand, either, but just as I'm still familiar with the outskirts of the Dark Place, I'm also pretty glad when I get to visit the suburbs of euphoria, and that's where I am today.

After my "look around" test was derailed by twists and turns in my internal terrain, I was sent for a CAT scan of my entire abdominal area. Evidently, things look pretty normal, and I get to be just a person who experiences occasional stomach aches, not a person with looming masses or chronic diseases.

It feels pretty good, especially since I'm headed out the door to spend the weekend at one of my favorite places. School starts Monday. Life is good.

Even the Title of This Post Eludes Me

I have no idea what’s has been shuffling around in my walls in the wee hours of the morning, but it wakes me up as it travels behind the headboard and by the time it makes its way to the ceiling I’m halfway out the door with my blankets and sheets.

Having this thing cavorting around inside the wall is unsettling enough, but directly above my head is an entirely different matter. I have a drop ceiling—you know the kind--compressed, cardboard-y type tiles that you can break with one hand and a knee. Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s heavy enough to break though those flimsy tiles and, as curious as I may be about the identity of this thing, I don’t need to find out in a 3 a.m. nosedive through a cloud of ceiling dust and rubble.

Don’t bother sending me comments assuring me that it’s is probably just a mouse—that’s why I have a husband. And he’s wrong. Just as surely as he was proven wrong on that November night in ’02 when months of speculation over “what’s living under the tub” ended when a Virginia Opossum feigned death on the bathroom floor after an altercation with my cat.

I’d like to report that the not-a-mouse is the only thing about which I’m currently unsure, but that would be sloppy journalism.

For instance, classes start Monday, but despite a rocky-but-ultimately successful roadside registration, I still wound up with a hole in my schedule. To my great joy, I recently found out that my full-ride scholarship really is a full ride—covering not only my master’s courses, but the undergraduate fill-in work I have to do as well. So I dropped the community college course in which I enrolled to save money. Only trouble is, classes are pretty slim pickings at this point, and I don’t really know if I’m going to find a class to fill that hole.

On the employment front, my editor is leaving the newspaper and we “don’t know yet what that will mean for the organization of the community news team,” according to an e-mail memo distributed last week.

On Thursday, I submitted myself to the long-avoid “looking around” test that Dr. M suggested as a tidy conclusion to all the stomach ache drama. The entire procedure was abruptly terminated upon realization that my insides feature more twists and turns than a Michael Crichton novel. Of course, it yielded only ambiguous results.

These uncertainties are merely representative of the steady stream of question marks that punctuate our lives. It would seem, then, that successful living requires the ability to carry forward in the midst of the unknown.

I’m not so good at that.

But then again, the Unknown is an untamed frontier that has stymied even our nation’s Secretary of Defense, I realized, recalling Donald Rumsfeld’s ruminations concerning “known knowns” and “unknown unknowns.”

I think I prefer the Yogi Berra approach to nebulous events. “You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there,” Yogi advises.

My first response to the arrival of the not-a-mouse was to move out of the room until a corpse was produced, but after two nights on the not-exactly-a-sleeper-sofa, I returned to the bedroom in the interest of reckless living. After all, the intruder might have been a hapless passer-by. Sticking firm on the corpse thing could leave me displaced for a very long time.

I hit the door running around 3 this morning. Yogi’s right. Caution is in order—but where I’m headed is no mystery. I’ll like the Known, and the not-exactly-a-sleeper-sofa is a fine place to wait for a corpse.

Classical Education

I have no idea who Scheherazade is, and I’m pretty sure this is a problem.

At various points over the past year, I’ve been impressed by my need to “bone up” on my knowledge of the classics, as in, I got caught with my pants down in one too many literary discussions with folks much more well read than I.

The magnitude of the affair came to light when I innocently attended a luncheon several months back and somehow wound up co-teaching a writing seminar with an author who may or may not have been named Buckaroo.

Now, Buckaroo was a man of great literary acumen, capable of wielding references to Faulkner and Hemingway with the same skill that you and I might handle a butter knife.

I got excited when he mentioned C.S. Lewis, but Mr. Buckaroo wanted to delve into The Space Trilogy and The Great Divorce and other of Lewis’ meatier works that I have on my shelf in an untouched boxed set, right next to my well-worn Narnia volumes.

No match for Buckaroo, I went home to read magazines. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon an article in one of my writing magazines that leaned heavily on references to classical literature to illustrate points. Updike was quoted heavily, as well as several selections from The Grapes of Wrath, along with large doses of Scheherazade, whoever he is.

Recalling a failed dinner conversation involving Gatsby a few weeks prior, I plucked a dog-eared copy of Fitzgerald’s capstone work from my shelves. It was time to expand my literary horizons. I went with The Great Gatsby, because as I explained to my sister, at trim 180-medium type pages it’s a “celebrated, yet manageable work.”

A week later, I was tossing about references to Gatsby’s shirts and Fitzgerald’s thematic use of the concept of time. How quick! How effective!

Wasting no time, I pressed on to Walden. Around chapter three, my graduate school application was due, and I stalled out.

But I figured that a master’s program in English was bound to, you know, remedy the situation.

So it was with a sense of excitement last week that I perused the reading list for the upcoming semester. Don Quixote! Great classical fare! Searching my mental database, I remembered some sort of humorous battle with an army of windmills, and I thought I recalled some wooing of women.

At the Barnes and Noble on Saturday, I spotted Don Quixote among a display of classics. Eagerly, I grabbed a copy off the top of the stack—until I realized that the single copy in my hands was the stack.

Don Quixote is a formidable work. 900 pages. Small print. Glancing across the display, I spotted Don Juan, and realized he was the Don responsible for the wooing of women—evidently working quickly, too, judging from the slim spine.

I fear that leaves Quixote with only windmills; although you never know—-maybe somewhere in those 900 pages he’ll meet Scheherazade.

Stranger Than Fiction

The first clue that I was in for an interesting afternoon came in the form of a sci-fi enthusiast who stopped by my table to offer a blow-by-blow account of a dragon warfare scene from a favorite novel.

I hoped the encounter would prove to be an isolated event in an otherwise productive afternoon of book promotion at Barnes and Noble, but those hopes were dashed in the form of a spindly, newbie writer of epic poems in search of a personal, on-the-spot reading and appraisal of said work.

After what I hoped was a gentle letdown in the form of an explanation that my presence on the premises was actually a work-related venture involving my own written prose, I settled in for a chat with Rain Man’s long lost twin brother. The conversation circled around a loop of instructions he was giving himself concerning what he referred to as “appropriate behavior.”

The conversation underscored why Dustin Hoffman’s deserved his Oscar, and why my BA in Psychology didn’t take. I attempted light and witty banter, before I remembered that savants are literal folk, not prone to levity. I helplessly offered the man a bookmark, actually finding myself wishing the poet would return.

Throughout the course of the afternoon, it became apparent that I need to add "Where's the restroom?" to my FAQ list. I also need to take note of the Barnes and Noble shelving policies, so I can better direct patrons to the works of other authors, although I was able to loan my book-signing pen to a gentleman wishing to jot down the name of an author he wanted to research later, at home.

Judging from the high-pitched incomprehensible chant I witnessed a woman delivering to the inside of a recently purchased book (not one of mine), I'd have to say that bizarre behavior wasn't limited to my little display table. An ill-wrapped sarong and cowboy-boot combo sported by one shopper indicated layers of complexity that transcend verbal interaction.

Perhaps the most shocking event of the afternoon was that I somehow managed to sell some books. The new characters I met along the way were simply a bonus.

The difference between lemon juice and lemonade

As I was heading out the door to give a book talk at the Gloucester Public Library yesterday, I found myself anticipating the Interesting Question. The Q and A segment invariably consists of a standard stable of stock questions that keep the rhythm, kind of like the drum line in a concert situation. But at every event, there’s always some off-beat query that calls for a bit of improv.

These are the questions that keep things fresh and fun, because, let’s face it, as relevant as it may be to discuss the origins of my literary pursuits (an early surviving work, The Happy Tree, dates back to 1977) and where I get my ideas (um, doesn’t everybody find 6 or 8 things utterly hilarious, significant or depressing before they get out of bed in the morning?) it’s much more fun to tackle questions like the one from the aspiring writer who wanted to know how many times his submissions could be rejected, as though there’s some kind of cap on the number of people who can dislike your work. (Wouldn’t that be great, if there were some sort of Writer’s Guarantee Program? Muster up the resilience to send something off, say, 30 or 40 times and then—bam! You’re a writer!)

Then there was the guy who wanted a breakdown of the “rules” governing exactly how mean or benevolent you’re allowed to make your characters.

I love that stuff.

Yesterday the question that caught me off-guard wasn’t strange or quirky, but it made me think. A young woman asked what gave me the confidence to think I could write in the first place.

Even though I gave her an honest answer involving some combination of feeling pretty in touch with the teen culture and all the encouragement I received from my supportive husband, I realized later that the question goes a lot deeper, because it really asks me to evaluate what kind of person I am.

See, I always thought of myself as someone who was up for a challenge. But I recently found myself wondering if that image is just a snapshot of Ideal Me, who we’ve already established as radically different from Actual Me. Because it seems Actual Me has a tendency to curl up into the fetal position at the first sign of adversity, a fact was underscored by a visit to the herbalist a couple weeks ago. During the course of the visit, Herbalist J suggested that the transient stomach aches that have starred in this summer’s medical melodrama could be gluten intolerance.

I received the suggestion with the enthusiasm of a six-year-old who’s just been taken off lollipops.

See, I don’t eat red meat. In fact, I don’t eat white meat, either, with the exception of fresh chicken breast cooked just so. I don’t like fish or seafood. Vegetables are good, but nothing too exotic, like artichokes or avacados. I like beans, but they make my stomach hurt.

Minus bread and pasta, I’ve got nothing.

At the mere suggestion of a gluten-free lifestyle, I envisioned an existence of corn meal and fritters. I was haunted by memories of mass cornbread baking late-seventies, when my mother filled little corn-ear shaped pans with a thick batter that baked into hard little corn-ear bricks. My dad, known for his indiscriminate ability to eat anything, made a valiant attempt to stomach the little cakes before taking them to work with a view toward eliminating a rogue band of mice. They didn’t take the bait.

So I went home and rebelled, gorging on wheat matter of all kinds. And I got a stomach ache.

So I decided to take my mind off things by curling up with the newspaper. An article outlining the progress of a major dig underway in Jamestown caught my eye. Turns out, they’re digging up a lot of teeth there these days. So they interviewed one of the archeologists to find out why. Here’s what he had to say:

“When the English settlers switched from their traditional wheat-based diet to a diet based on Indian corn, all the sugar in the corn led to what some of us call ‘Virginia mouth.’ They really suffered a noticeable decline in their dental health.”

Who knew? I altered my mental picture to reflect this new information: now I’ve got myself working through a bag of Fritos with a single blackened tooth, onward to the frame where I’m left gumming my way through a pan of cornbread.

Then I made a foray on to the information superhighway, and found a fellow blogger who goes by Gluten-Free Girl. I access her page, expecting nothing more than photos of a skeletal frame surrounded by corn husks and false teeth.

Instead, I’m greeted by pictures of plates of food and bouncy little stories featuring food as the protagonist. I figure I’ve clicked on the wrong blog mistake, but I read on to discover that it’s all for real. Every post is a celebration over some new perfected recipe or a fabulous dish or new restaurant she’s discovered.

Turns out this girl is one of those elusive famous bloggers we’ve all heard so much about. She also has a nice book contract and a new marriage to a chef who cooks gluten-free. I read and read for days, to the neglect of my own blog, fascinated by the fact that this woman’s career, even her life was jumpstarted by the very events I from which I’m seeking cover.

Isn’t it amazing that victims and adventurers can emerge from the same events?

I Have Not Succumbed to PVIRA or Other Ailments

Readers, I know I assured you that my blogging slump was a thing of the past, and that my current visible productivity does not match that rosy report. Please be assured that a post of reasonable length is the works. Go, do an errand. Sip some tea on the patio. Listen to a ball game. Then check back. In your absence, I will have returned with a post of substance and content.

And the Band Played on...

I caught the first whiff of the latent but impending danger as my daughter was preparing dinner. The smell was vaguely familiar, in a bad way, but was lost in a jumble of wonderful cooking aromas and quickly forgotten.

In the following hours, the smell of meatloaf permeated our home. Friends and family may be surprised to learn that I was entranced by the fragrant smell of the cooking flesh as red meat hasn’t passed my lips in years; however this loaf was loaded with veggies and bread which undoubtedly contributed to its enticing aroma.

The meal was cooked, served and consumed without incident, a detail I will insert at this point—once again for the benefit of family and friends who will be tempted to jump to hasty and inaccurate conclusions as the story unfolds.

Fire, you see, is a normal component of kitchen life in our home. Just as you might ask as family member to say, grab the flour from the pantry, we might ask someone to drop a flaming spatula into the sink; or open the windows to dissipate the haze.

Regulars no longer bat an eye at the sight of flames leaping from my stove top or oven; although once a kitchen conversation with my friend, Kathy, ended in some commotion over the discovery that my sleeve was on fire. Her fireman husband actually heard the “I’m on fire!” cry in the living room, but he disregarded the alarm as commonplace conversation and failed to respond.

Despite reasonable expectations to the contrary, casualties have been limited to the occasional spatula, bread bag or item of Tupperware.

Which was why a wave of recognition washed over me when the fumes reemerged as we were cleaning up after dinner. I’d smelled that chemical, laced-with-death scent in the aftermath of many a kitchen fire. Burning plastic!

For a steady fifteen minutes we searched to no avail for the spatula that had fallen, aflame, beneath the stove, or the piece smoldering Tupperware lurking somewhere beneath the scrubbed-down surface of our kitchen counters.

Nothing. Not so much as a plume of smoke or a warm surface was found.

Puzzled, we widened the parameter of our search, and discovered a crispy plug hanging tentatively from an outlet in our daughter’s room. Half in and half out, the plug must have shorted the circuit. Could have been worse, we thought as we headed out for ice cream.

Arriving home, we found the house had filled anew with the troublesome stench. Our daughter went to her room and returned with the report that her wall was hot. I wanted to call the fire department, but my husband insisted on “checking things out” for himself. Cutting the power to the upstairs, he ascended the steps with a flashlight. Feeling like a fiddler aboard the Titanic, I carried on--puttering about the kitchen, fixing a plate of leftovers for one of my daughter’s hungry friends, puzzling over the impending headlines: Woman Feeds Teen, Washes Sink While House Burns.

With the power off, the wall eventually cooled and the smell disappeared.

While we still have no power in the upper regions of our home, and our daughter continues to camp on a downstairs sofa, my husband’s electrician friends assure us that a sound plan is in place to rectify our electrical issues.

Perhaps, then those ill-fated musicians aboard the sinking craft had it right after all. Perhaps in the face of danger there are those who simply must carry on, feeding the young, entertaining the masses, carrying on the specter of normal in the face of the unthinkable.

So, my friends, should you pass my home and hear cries of fire or smell the stench of flame—-fear not. Carry on in full confidence that you are bearing witness to nothing more than a normal day.

Is there an Awareness Ribbon for PVIRA?

This post comes to you at the peak of a productive day of artistic craftsmanship, journalistic acumen and feats of home management. Oh, wait—that’s what Ideal Me did today.

Reality is a bit harsher. Actual Self has a well-documented history of Post Vacation Inability to ReAssimilate (PVIRA), last seen when I fell from the public eye for much of August ’06 following my return from Mexico.

I’d like to tell you that I use these periods for contemplation of my travels—but that’s the domain of my Ideal Self who would be engaged in writing elegant prose, crafting queries to magazines, and selecting photos for submission to contests.

Actual Self tends toward wandering…lost, bereft, prone to moping. A lot of choppy, start-and-stop activity. I drift from room to room, project to project, thought to thought.

It’s not that I’m doing nothing. In fact, at moments I’m somewhat impressed at the number of things I’ve checked off my little post-vacation to-do list.

It’s just that Ideal Me was going to do so much more. Ideal Me was scheduled to have completed a survey of American and English Literature and have taken 12 credit hours worth of CLEP tests. Ideal Me was at the helm of an ambitious promotional campaign destined to have propelled my new book within striking range of the New York Times bestseller list.

Ideal Me isn’t walking about with even a hint of vacation flab. She’s toned, on top of her game and working on a number of incisive stories with local flair and meaty angles.

Which reminds me that another new culinary establishment has debuted within city limits. Dean’s Dollar Dogs and Carnival Foods is now open for business, reportedly catering to the recently-escaped-from-the-Circus crowd, according to one eyewitness. Kim Bab is not on the menu, although I’ve learned since my last post that the Korean specialty follows a free-form spelling policy on a routine basis. One word, two words, bab, bop or even bob are all acceptable variations by which to spell the ethnic fare.

Although I won’t be pitching any culinary story ideas to my editor, the silver lining in my hazy sky is that I think the blogging slump is officially over. Unless this post is just another display of erratic, on-again-off again behavior. Time will tell. PVIRA follows its own course.

Extra! Extra!

In the interest of journalistic responsibility, it is my duty to report that you should not go looking for kim bap.

Further research has revealed that—gasp—a repeated typo in the New York Times led to my inaccurate report concerning the delicacy known correctly known as kim bab.

Evidently, the NY Times reporter suffers from the confusion of p’s and b’s, a malady that has oft afflicted me as well, albeit not in print in a publication of world-wide renown. In a humorous aside, I will confess that upon proofreading the preceding sentence, I had to correct the portion that referred to a “bublication of world-wide renown.”

As correcting the error in my previous post would completely ruin its title, I will follow the great journalistic tradition of referencing inaccuracies in later publication as opposed to a recall and reprint of the erred text.

In other journalistic news, I am happy to report that I do have a new assignment. However, it will be challenging to write the riveting slice of local Americana that I alluded to in my prior post, as the story concerns heartwarming yet commonplace happenings at the neighborhood Target.

At least I wasn’t sent to cover the opening of the new hot dog stand.

On the Map Without Kim Bap?

Having spent much of the past four weeks seeing a large portion of America, I’m left with a single burning question.

Why do I live here?

After all, in the grand scheme of things, Hampton, VA isn’t prime real estate, although the city sends us frequent communications to the contrary in the form of city property assessments.

Most of the email in my inbox would suggest that I live in New York, or failing that, South Africa. Both locales send me online newspapers and update me daily on items of culture and artistic concern.

Why just today, the New York Times sent me a “snack food alert” informing me where I can score the best kim bap—"a crunchy, chewy jumble of savory and sweet, spicy and cool, familiar and surprising"sort of entrée served in Koreatown. We have no kim bap. In fact, the biggest thing we have in culinary news is the new hot dog shop that opened near Wal-Mart.

Which calls to mind my city’s shopping situation, the centerpiece of which is a JCPenney surrounded by a pile of rubble that used to be a mall. Outside of the aforementioned, we have Target—and did I mention Wal-Mart?

I can’t offer much in the way of first-hand Wal-Mart commentary, although my husband and daughter assure me the police had the clientele pretty much under control during their trip last evening.

We have a lot of traffic, too—but none of it headed toward a ticket quite as hot as Negativland—a band playing in Midtown NYC tonight with a repertoire consisting of nothing but “found sounds.” I’ve never heard “found sounds” assembled into a concert, although I’ve stumbled across quite a bit of racquet that I imagine holds potential for riveting melody if properly assembled.

Considering my two-day plus blogging slump, I suppose I should put all the out-of-town literature aside and find some local art or culture to get the creativity flowing again. Maybe I’ll stumble across something I can pitch to my editor for an assignment.

I’ll write with such panache that when the online edition of the Daily Press finds its way to an inbox in New York or Johannesburg, folks will wistfully quote my prose on their blogs, wishing only for the opportunity to live right here, in Hampton, VA.

Transitions

You don’t have to be the author of much more than a term paper or book report to understand the difficulty transitions pose for the writer. Sliding seemingly seamlessly from one scene, concept, or thought to another can be jarring. Choppy. Sloppy.

I’m sure my sister would be happy if I were to report some sort of breakthrough or insight into the mastery of the craft, as she has encountered some tricky transitional elements in a novel she has undertaken; however, the only wisdom I can impart comes from the hard-knocks school of first-hand experience, and I can’t say I’m impressed with the curriculum.

Transitions can’t be simple on paper, because there’s nothing simple about them.

In Stranger than Fiction, Dustin Hoffman’s character, Professor Hilbert, explains to the Harold Crick, the protagonist who hears a voice narrating his life, that plots are driven forward by action. For instance, he explained, exiting his office continues his story--the story of him through the door. On the other hand, staying in the room would halt the plot altogether.

When I woke up this morning, I was tempted not to advance my plot. At the time, it seemed preferable to let my story just kind of drift off—you know, go back to sleep and avoid the next scene.

I decided I liked the vacation passages of my story, and I really wasn’t all that interested in opening the scene with the laundry and dirty camping equipment set in the house with no food. I wasn’t too jazzed about the heavy rain and rolling thunder backdrop, either.

I realized that in upcoming chapters, I’d no longer be driving a new car, but rather a slightly scarred model with a vanishing warranty. Furthermore, with a full time course load and a lot of field work on the horizion, the plot is taking a decisive turn in a direction that seems to involve a lot of work.

Having served their purpose, foreshadowing devices--the map on the kitchen door, covered in stickers marking our route; the now-depleted collection jar on the counter where we used to dump our change to fund our journey— would have no longer hold meaning.

In short, the pultzer-prize quality plotline I’d been following for the past month ran cold, and I just couldn't find a good lead with the material with which I was left.

Fortunately, I have hoarded dozens of writers’ magazines addressing sticky transitions, and I knew the articles all offered the same advice.

If you don’t know exactly how to get your characters from point A to point B, you just have to go to the next thing you do know. Press forward. Get the characters moving--or at least out of bed. Just keep typing--or cleaning out coolers as the case may be--and sooner or later, you’ll hit on something.

In the meantime, I discovered that coffee has the ability to smooth over even the rockiest of transitions. After the first pot, I had the sense to throw a little bit of foreshadowing into the otherwise dreary scene by dumping all the change I found into the collection jar. The glass is nearly half full.

Putting on my Game Face

"You're not the manager," I said to my husband as we wove through heavy traffic en route to PA to retrieve our dogs from my parents' house.

Men seem to categorize highway driving as a sport, drafting themselves in key roles such as coach, manager, or quarterback. Instead of just acknowledging that there's a traffic jam, they seem to have the need to analyze the situation to determine where the players need to move, or who needs to take a bench in a rest area.

"It's the red SUV," my husband announced with satisfaction. "He needs to move to the right." Later, he charged an error to the driver of a silver sedan for botching a play through improper use of the deceleration lane.

Fortunately, we travelled nearly 10,000 miles without experiencing any real traffic, save small pockets near the Golden Gate Bridge and a sector near Boise, so my husband's highway managerial prowess was not a component of our vacation.

However, since returning to home field, I've found myself in the midst of more mental traffic than I encountered in 10,000 miles.

Right now I've got thoughts of my upcoming school semester wrestling with practical concerns like an empty fridge, a filthy van, and Dr. M's tests.

Perhaps I need a coaching staff to to come in and manage the chaos. You know, issue some yellow cards for hypochondriatic ideation, or perhaps put a playbook together to dictate the position of all the other players.

But alas, this assemblage of miscreant thoughts and rogue ideas is mine alone to manage. It is with a heavy sigh that I grab my whistle and clip board and take the field.

Numbers

Zero

The number of diamonds we unearthed at the mine. You know the old phrase, finding a needle in a haystack? Well, finding a diamond in a mine is now a more meaningful metaphor to me.

Here's the mine:

Here's the diamond Brad found. Note its pre-cut state and plastic appearance.


I have new respect for the prospectors--those stalwart souls that embarked on the route I've just taken, but for months or years instead of weeks, without Best Westerns or restaurants or even travel fridges.

Back in Yosemite, we made two failed attemps to ride a stagecoach--after an hour of travel from our campsite the first afternoon, we arrived to find the Wells Fargo office completely shut down. Upon our return the next morning, we purchased tickets and sat on a bench to wait. We waited for almost an hour before we were finally told that the stage coach just wasn't going to show that day, which lended an authentic feel of historical realism to the entire experience. While waiting, however, we had the opportunity to look over some old coaches on display. I gave the children one of those reflective, just-think-children type missives similar to the one above. When I got to the part about the prospectors possibly never seeing their families again, I said: "Imagine your cousins and aunt waving goodbye from the driveway as we left, and knowing you might never see them again.
To which my daughter replied, "We still don't know that we'll see them again."

Seventy

The number of flavors we sampled at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta yesterday. Allison and I like Simba, from Latin America. It has a bubble-gummy type edge--pretty tasty in a sample, but I'm guessing in full-sized form, it would get too sweet really fast. Over at the European station, I encountered Fanta Magic--probably the worst beverage I've ever encountered in my life. It was situated right next to Beverly, a beverage that the Coke people say is uniformly rejected by visitors. I didn't think it was that bad, but it's an Italian beverage, so I suppose I'm genetically predisposed to at least tolerate it. My daughter likened the experience to a wine tasting and we systematically went around taking little sips of all seventy selections. After becoming woosy and sluggish, I now understand why wine tasters have adopted the swish-and-spit format.

And my son? I just turned him loose with a cup. It was the last day of vacation. after all.

Allison's Trip Mix CD #2, Track 5

Daughtry's Home--I'm going to crank it when we hit I-64 late this afternoon.

After an incredible 25 days, we'll be sleeping in our own beds tonight. But just for tonight. Saturday morning, we have to head full circle back to PA to get out dogs.

Along an Arkansas Highway

So…what do OnStar, Verizon, and something called “Gemini” have in common?

Although one may be tempted to reply that these are essential must-haves for the safety-conscious highway traveler, please heed the following and resist the urge to fall into this popular line of thought.

The collective power of these pricy, peace-of-mind style “”guarantees” could offer none of either when put to the test this evening on a busy Arkansas highway.

The van took another step toward the possibility of filling in as a stunt-double for the SUV Ice-T or Cube drove in Are We There Yet when one of the beefy, high-end tires we splurged on for their peace of mind and warrantee properties imploded into smithereens just after the close of normal business hours.
At first, this seemed to represent little more than a minor setback. Brad got to work on the spare while I pulled out information from Gemini, the organization backing our guaranteed tires.

Gemini entertained me with a little game—a sort of scavenger hunt—that followed a little trail of interconnected phone numbers that ran in a little loop.

In desperation, we called the outfit that sold us the Gemini deal, and reached a live person who actually suggested that I turn to the internet for help. I’m in a smoking van on the side of a busy highway and the best he can offer is the internet?

I finally reached a live Gemini worker and explained our plight, to which she replied, “I’m not OnStar, you know,” and repeatedly stressed the untimelyness of a 5;30 PM blowout, as opposed to say, a four o'clock. She then proceeded to explain to me that if we didn’t have a type of special stickers, we really didn’t have a warranty with them, after all.

Do I actually need to waste the keystrokes to explain that I didn’t have the stickers?

So, I figure it’s time to get OnStar involved. Would you believe that OnStar was down? All they could manage was a little recording pleading technical difficulties, unless I was near death. Then I could use the red button. They seemed sure that was operational.

My husband suggested that I use my phone to call OnStar. For clarity, I’ll reiterate that the phone in question was the one that had just sustained connection throughout the entire sticker argument with the Gemini rep. Although mere moments had passed, the call to OnStar couldn’t be placed due to a sudden influx of heavy circuit activity.

So we drove on. Without the aid of Gemini, OnStar, or Verizon, just as any family would have twenty, thirty, or even fifty years ago. We’ll drive on with our spare until we find a Goodyear dealer where we’ll purchase a new tire out of pocket.

I’ve determined that the only value in these we’ve-got-you-covered programs is the feeling of confidence during times of smooth sailing. It’s a little illusion you get to carry around to help you feel secure and on top of things.

I’m sure friends will jump in to remind me of times OnStar has bailed me out in the past, but really, it’s all been pretty namby-pamby stuff. It’s nice that they’re able to unlock a car that’s sitting in front of my house, but they’d really dazzle me if they could save their best stuff for when I’m in a thick haze of smoldering rubber astride a foreign highway.

At several of the more remote points on the trip, I was tempted to press the OnStar button just to, you know, see if they were there. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to shatter my image of the army of information at assistance at my fingertip. After all, that’s what I’m paying for.

After all this, will I continue paying for these services? You betcha’. I love that feeling of carefree confidence I get to walk around with, on average, 360-plus days a year. Once you understand what you’re really buying, you’re better able to appreciate the value of your purchase.

Hope, AR

"I feel like I'm an archaeologist," my son said, meticulously sweeping debris from the pavement with random plant matter.

My husband and I had just about given up searching for our initials under the park bench at LeTourneau University, where we'd etched them in wet pavement as newlyweds.

At first brush, it appeared that our historical monument had fallen victim either to university revitalization efforts or memory error on our part.

Then our son spotted a scuff in the concrete and began to carefully brush away the dirt that had accumulated in the crevices.

"There's the "C"," he said. I took a twig, tracing my initial. He was right! But I still couldn't make out the other letters.

"I can," he said, pointing each one out in turn as he unearthed them.

I hadn't expected the day to take on an Indiana Jones theme. Although a snake encounter or the need to dodge a large boulder probably wouldn't have surprised me, I wasn't expecting any actual archeology.

But following a morning visit to the Caldwell Zoo (which now rivals the sculpture park for the top rating on my daughter's vacation favorites list) the trek into Longview to search for evidence of our former lives had taken on the feel of a archaeological dig--metaphorically and literally.

After a time tootling the streets, I was beginning to wonder if our lives there had just been a dream. Nothing looked familiar. Not the streets, the stores, or even the B-B-Q restaurant I could have sworn we used to frequent.

I began to feel disturbed. Nervous. Antsy. After all, I had a full time job, not to mention various part time and temporary posts. I attended university. I acted in community theater. I had friends. Where was the evidence that any of it had happened?

I am happy to report that archaeological evidence confirms that I did live in Longview. It wasn't a dream. My son identified the initials, although I can't claim to be impressed by our engraving font or technique.

He then went with me to the preschool where I used to work, to provide "visual stimuli" of how my life turned out.

It wasn't a dream, after all. I was recognized on sight at the school where I had a nice visit with a teacher with who I used to work, the very one who first told me I was well suited for the profession and encouraged me to pursue it.

We resume digging this morning, only this time for diamonds.

Texas

So far, my daughter isn't impressed with Texas. Something to do with the large insect population and the propensity of Texans to mold everything into the shape of the state.

I, too, was distressed by these very facts during my year-long tenure in the Lonestar State in the early '90s.

Pre-Texas, I'd never seen a roach--at least not one of hearty Texas stock. Real Texan roaches are large enough to sport ten gallon hats and handlebar moustaches. Disturbing as it was to see them congregating in parking lots and institutional facilities, I took a small measure of comfort in the fact that my apartment was too clean to be of interest to such vermin.

The look of disgust on my daughter's face as we weave our way around carcasses strewn across parking lots and foyers evoked fond memories of the first time I was forced to engage one of thir number in a combat. During a routine washing of the dinner dishes, I lifted a hefty iron skillet and discovered a specimen of Guinness Book proportions. I threw the skillet violently in the beast's general direction and bolted for the couch where I screamed until I was drenched in sweat.

I missed. Newly married, my husband wasn't able to quickly assess his duties in the situation--comfort me or stalk the intruder? He choked, and the roach walked.

I wouldn’t stay alone in the apartment—for a week. This meant I had to go to my day job as well as Brad’s night job with the eleven o’clock news team. It was a tough schedule to keep, and I eventually gave it up out of sheer exhaustion.

Although Allison hasn't screamed or broken a sweat, she treads warily and walks about with her forehead creased in worry.

Her disillusionment with Texas-shaped objects stems from a nasty breakfast incident.

We've stayed in our fair share of Best Westerns of late, and we pretty much know the Continental breakfast drill. Little pre-measured cups of waffle batter are lined up by a self-service waffle iron, and in other states, folks tend to do a pretty good job taking turns. Everyone gets a waffle. Everyone is happy.

In Amarillo this morning, I approached the waffle station only to have a hotel worker position herself ominously between me and the waffle iron.

Figuring we were dealing with a new format, I grabbed a plate and stood in front of her as though in line. She proceeded to ignore me, while calling out warm greetings to each new patron that came though the door.

I eventually sat down at a table a foot or two from her station, waiting until she stopped doling out little Texas shaped waffles and greetings to everyone else in the room.

Figuring it had all been a misunderstanding, I grabbed my plate and stood before the woman now known as the Waffle Nazi. Once more she completely ignored me as she handed a steaming plate to another new arrival.

Finally, she told me that I could be 6th on a waffle-waiting list.

For Seinfeld fans, let me summerize the story by simply saying the plot here changed from the Soup Nazi episode to the Chinese Restaurant script--in other words, I never moved up in status. Although theoritically, with each golden, Texas-molded waffle the Nazi dispensed, I should have been closer to breakfast--but alas, there was always another more deserving than I.

My daugher watched this unfold in disbelief--half because of the absurdity of the situation, and half because she couldn't get over the fact that anyone would serve waffles in the shape of their state.

This being a driving day, we all had plenty of opportunity to see the shape of Texas depicted on buildings, banners and billboards--some promoting lawn mower racing events or adversiting establishments such as the "It'll Do" Motel.

Fortunately, a freak Texas storm suddenly brewed on the horizon, immediatly improving my daughter's opinion of the state, and battering several layers of bugs and dirt from our filthy van.

The day concluded with a multi-hour hotel search, as we're told the Baptists have decended on the region for their national convention. Just as I began to fear we'd have to double back several hours to the "It'll Do", we found a room at a little Super 8. Although the accomodations are modest, so far we've seen nothing either state shaped or on 6 legs.

Things are looking up.

Four Corners to Amarillo

“I’m sure he’ll get tired soon,” I said, attempting to console my daughter.

We arrived at the Four Corners only to discover a young Native American in full regalia dancing on the four states marker medallion.

My daughter wasn’t happy. “This is so awkward,” she said, “How am I going to stand in all the states with him dancing there?”

In an effort to circumvent further deterioration in Euro-Native American relations, we encouraged Allison to shop at the surrounding booths while we waited for the little tyke to tire.

“You can stay here in New Mexico, I’m heading over to Colorado,” my easy-going son said, moving from my right side to my left. “Enough of that. I’m off to Utah,” he called with a wave.

If you’ve never been to Four Corners, I can assure you that it in no way resembles my daughter’s childhood images, which she says I have reported inaccurately. She pictured four major interstate highways converging at a massively dangerous intersection, not the four pastoral streets intersecting at a pole-mounted traffic light I insinuated. This is probably no surprise to regular readers who may have noted her propensity toward morbid fascination.

In any case, when I mentioned that by-passing Four Corners might help preserve whatever distorted images she may wish to retain, she looked at me in horror and said “Why would I ever want to do that?”

Although it was “exactly” as my son imagined--he did independent research-- the conglomeration of arts and crafts booths surrounding a medallion with an overlook wasn’t what my daughter was expecting. She claims that she’s not disappointed, but it was “a little weird.”

Meanwhile, we’re making up for lost time by setting a new record for hours logged in the car. I’m composing this post as we travel through Texas en route to the Best Western du jour.

In food news, I’ve been meaning to report that there’s a box of Spaghetti Western pasta at large somewhere between a gift shop adjoining the restaurant and the south rim of the Grand Canyon. In an unrelated event, an entire box of dry pasta was discovered scattered across the back of the van mere seconds after the loss of the boxed dinner was announced.

In further irony, my sister reports via blog that there was a near simultaneous pasta spill in her home. The simple quirk of fate brings to mind the Dom Delouse dream sequence of the early 90’s, when I told my sister one morning that the previous night had been filled with dreams starring the heavy set cook. She gasped in shock. Her dreams had revolved around an event that had to be cancelled because Dom Delouse failed to show up.

At this late hour, I don’t really care if any celebrities show up for my dreams. My sister can have them all. I just hope no one is dancing on the bed when we arrive at the hotel. I’m pretty tired.

Today's stats:

Total miles to date: 6933
Creature list: mouse
Total states to date: 22

Note to regular readers: The Grand Canyon post is now up, with pics from the professional photoshoot

Four Corners or No Corners?

We had to by-pass one of our stopping points last night. We'd been travelling though desolate desert for hours on end, and it was dark by the time we reached the Four Corners region--where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico merge.

We had to travel an hour beyond the Four Corners to secure accommodations--and we had a firm list of "non-negotiables", the most urgent being laundry facilities as yesterday morning our son was found distraught in the van wearing the last of his pants--a pair he couldn't zip, as he'd outgrown them. His sister classifies their inclusion in his luggage as a packing error on her part. She took it upon herself to pack his luggage, as trips to Pennsylvania invariably end up with my son showing up with a suitcase full of comics and Gameboy paraphernalia. Usually by day three, my sister stops marvelling at the similarities between our sons' wardrobes and catches on to the fact that my boy is raiding his cousin's closet every morning. As my nephew isn't along to keep my son from cobbling together outfits from comic book pages and software, my daughter did his packing. She only packed items found in his drawers, and as he claimed to have organized and purged his wardrobe mere weeks ago, I'm not sure why the pants were available for her to pack. However, I digress into the murky terrain of family mysteries that aren't worth the effort of solving.

So, the question this morning is, do we double back the hour to the Four Corners, thus losing two hours of travel time, in addition to any time we might spend there--adding to our ever-widening gap between where our schedule says we should be and where we actually are--or do we simply press forward?

Besides, my daughter has long-standing image of the Four Corners that she's not sure she wants reality to alter. She pictures roads from the four states converging at an intersection with a traffic light smack in the middle. She likes that image.

Alas, I suspect that in the spirit of adventure, we'll risk deficits and possible disappointment and rewind to the Four Corners.

Grand Canyon

Having mere hours to spend at the Grand Canyon--a location many families choose as their sole vacation destination—is fairly daunting. Upon entering the park we were presented with enough literature to induce a deer in the headlights reaction: do we ride burros into the canyon? Do an aerial surveillance by helicopter? Catch a current via raft?

Our late afternoon arrival made our first move a no-brainer. After securing accommodations and a quick dinner at Spaghetti Western, we arrived at the canyon in time to watch a sunset.

Thanks to a combination of good luck, excellent timing and decisiveness not typically characteristic of our family, we found a morning activity that has made all of our highlight lists.

We went on a photo shoot with internationally renowned photographers using high end lenses and equipment supplied by Canon. And unlike the burros and ‘copters, this was completely free.

Our family’s combined photo count numbers well into the thousands. One could effectively argue that the amount of hours we are behind in our schedule is directly proportional to the time we’ve invested in lingering at various locals for “just one more shot” or pulling over to “capture” this or that along the roadside.

There’s no less than three photography contests I’ve been shooting with an eye toward—including a National Parks contest sponsored by Canon.

So the opportunity to shoot in the Grand Canyon under the tutelage of pros with way-beyond-reach equipment—another no-brainer. To sweeten the deal, I discovered that the instructor of the advanced group, Adam Jones, is actually a judge of the National Parks contest.

What luck! I thought. No more excuses about lack of equipment! No more guess work about settings! All I have to do is click the shutter! Hello winnings!

Not long into the shoot, Adam actually handed me his whole operation—one of those lenses that could substitute for a telescope at the planetarium attached to a camera body the size of a Yankee lunch box.

A squirrel posed at the rim of the canyon. Here it is, I thought, gingerly adjusting Adam’s lens and composing my shot.

Here’s what $30,000 of equipment is capable of in my hands:


Following the shoot, our family reassembled, eager to put our new knowledge to use on some family photos. Here’s what studying under combined instruction of three seasoned pros can accomplish:










The good news is that the pros say they often shoot upwards of a thousand bad images for every winner, so statistically speaking, the winning entry is in my computer somewhere. I’ll keep looking