a good reason to stay away from Lake Merritt

So I flew across the country today. That gave me the opportunity to browse Southwest Airlines' Spirit magazine. Its featured destination on page 34 was Oakland. The first item in the summary was this "Best Factoid":

Not only is the formerly undamned tidal marsh now known as Lake Merritt the largest urban saltwater lake in the United States, it is also the country's first wildlife sanctuary.

OK, perhaps I missed a news item. Lake Merrit was recently undamned? If it is "formerly undamned," that would mean that it is no longer "undamned," which would make it damned, right?

Maybe it was just a misspelling of dammed, but just to be safe, I'm going to start wearing garlic around my neck whenever I go to downtown Oakland.

Rejected No Longer

Boy, was I surprised to check my email this morning and find that one of my stories had been accepted for publication. It's a small, literary journal, a new one. My story (a personal essay, actually), will appear in their first print issue. One publication does not a career make, but it has come more quickly than I anticipated. And, even though I don't think I will actually get paid for the story, I find I am euphoric today--difficult to concentrate, but generally in a very good mood.

liquid sunshine rains
all butterflies and sugar
accepted at last

Another Downed Tree!

Remember The Tree That Fell?

Now, we've got the sequel: The Tree That Really Fell! This is the story. These are the photos.

Shortly after noon today, after a hard morning of yardwork and paperwork, I sat down for a few minutes on the couch. Then, a loud noise like one of the boys riding his bike full speed into the garage door had me up and running for the door. Partly to make sure no one was hurt, and partly to deliver some heck to the kid that did whatever it was.

As I sped out the front door, I saw something quite unexpected (see the photos below). The irony in this is that on Thursday, we called the city and had the sidewalk guy come out. For years, the sidewalk next to this tree has been buckling, pushed up by the roots of this tree. It finally got out of hand, and the city guy put some tar on the trip hazard and said he'd schedule someone to come out later this summer to take down the tree and fix the sidewalk.

Fortunately, it was a city-planted tree, and the policeman who responded to our call got the tree guys out within an hour. They cut it all up and got rid of it except the thick stem, which requires "heavy equipment and a dump truck." Also fortunately, no car was parked there at the time and no children were playing in that area.

Cal to win NCAA basketball national championship

You heard it here first. Cal is going to win not one, but BOTH NCAA basketball championships this year. Men's and Women's. After they do, I will be hailed as the only genius in the country to have predicted it.

There is a fine line between genius and a lot of other things. I've been called a lot of other things.

Writing update: Still waiting for rejection on four submissions made at the end of February. I don't expect to hear for a while, so I'm just sitting tight. I have written another story which is currently in revision for submission to a contest at the end of March. So that's that.

W

Warning: Liberal Content Ahead

I find it hard to believe that many people in my town still appear proud of their "W in '04" bumper stickers. Don't they realize by now that they've been had?

Does anyone know what the W in George W. Bush stands for? I've never learned that. I know his father's W stood for Walker. Here are some possibilities:

• Waffle. As in, waffle on the reasons for sending over 2,300 GIs to their deaths. Was it WMDs? Spreading democracy? Affiliation with Al Quaida?
• Waver. As in, wavering on his "mandate" from his landslide 2004 election victory. What were his top priorities? Oh, yeah: Social Security reform, right?
• Wimp. As in, the tag his dad picked up and W clearly has been desperate to shed from the family name with his "Bring 'em on" bravado and "Mission Accomplished" idiocy.
• Weak. As in, the administration's response to Katrina devastation.
• Whoops. As in signing a deal to turn over control of our nation's ports to a company housed in a prime Al Quaida country. Or as in, "Whoops, guess we goofed on the Iraq thing." Or as in, "Whoops, maybe we should make sure we have the right target before we start spraying the buckshot." (Guess it's really the same mistake, isn't it?)
• Warrant. The GOP is pretty familiar with the concept of warrants and indictments.
• Where? Back to that WMD thing again.
  
• Whopper. OK, back to that WMD thing again.
• Wrong. I would say "back to that WMD thing again," but this one applies to so many, many aspects of Bush, his staff, and his presidency that it doesn't even come close.
• Waste. Over 2,300 American lives have been wasted bringing civil war, terrorism, and instability to a country that, while run by a ruthless dictator, had been pretty stable and non-threatening to the USA. What a waste of people, power, prestige, equipment, and money.
  
• War. Clearly, Bush's middle name is War. It's defined everything about his presidency. A guy who could have been known forever as a truly heroic leader after 9/11 by going after and demolishing Al Quaida instead chose what he no doubt thought would be an easy war for the greatest military power on Earth. I believe that Bush will, after a hundred years of hindsight has been applied, be known as one of the worst presidents in our nation's history.

I read recently that the Democrats are so wrapped up in W-hating that they have lost the ability to put forth a proactive agenda or plan of any kind. Perhaps. But right now the most proactive, right, forward-thinking plan is any plan that counteracts even a small amount of damage Bush and his administration have done to our country.

It's my belief that the simple truth is that the country has become too big for human beings to run effectively. The problems have become too large, change too rapid. In such an environment, even the best people get caught up in a cycle of confusion, special interests, and power brokering on small levels. The big issues (health care costs, the economy, security, ethical behavior of corporations, the environment, the deficit) get lip service because no one in Washington really has any idea how to change the existing systems so they actually work.

It is a cynical view, but I don't believe Democrats in charge would be any more effective at creating positive change than Republicans. The difference is that while Republicans are in charge, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. While Democrats are in charge, the gap tends to narrow and the environment gets more attention and deficits are smaller. As part of the disenfranchised "middle" class, I tend to fall on the side of the poor people, the workers, the environmentalists, the people in favor of religious freedom, those in favor of restrictions on corporate behavior, etc.

I guess I'd make a great writer...

Here is the quiz.

Here is the result I got: 93 points. That grades out to the following:

You'll probably make a great writer. You should think very carefully before getting married, having children, or buying a pet, however. Walking into your livingroom and discovering the dust-covered skeleton that was your cat -- or your spouse -- can be really bad for morale.

I never thought I'd say this...

I wrote a sestina today. It wasn't in my mind to do that when I woke up, or even when I started writing it. I won't post it here because I plan on submitting it for rejection by an online publication. After the rejection I might post it. Or not. I might save it for a later compilation of my rejected stories, poems, haiku, and essays. So there.

A sestina, by the way, is defined thus:
A fixed form consisting of six 6-line (usually unrhymed) stanzas in which the end words of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five stanzas in a successively rotating order and as the middle and end words of each of the lines of a concluding envoi in the form of a tercet. The usual ending word order for a sestina is as follows:

First stanza, 1- 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
Second stanza, 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3
Third stanza, 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5
Fourth stanza, 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4
Fifth stanza, 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2
Sixth stanza, 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1
Concluding tercet:
middle of first line - 2, end of first line - 5
middle of second line - 4, end of second line - 3
middle if third line - 6, end of third line - 1

But you already knew that, I'm sure.

blue funk day

The time is out of joint, and things seem no longer to be what they used to be. Some days it's hard to see all the good. Blue funk days. But I know there's plenty of good, in fact more than my share, and now guilt piles on the wagon, straining the axles and creaking the joints and making the horses sweat and snort with the strain of dragging the wagon past nine a.m. Sunny warmth outside, though the forecast is torrential rain. Same as yesterday. But other things are different, and I get tired thinking how many more years I have to hitch those horses to the same wagon. And I wonder how many more times the forecast will be wrong, and I'll wake up on a blue funk day while the rest of the world smiles sunny and warm.

three more out for deliberation

I recently sent three more stories out for rejection. Now I am in a very focused period where I will spend an entire month writing one short story for one contest and ignore all other writing opportunities. We shall see how it goes.

they always write back
I know they really like me
one more rejection

so, THAT didn't work.

I now have no stories out there awaiting rejection letters. They have all already been rejected. One novel submission and three short stories (one of them rejected twice!). I will, however, be sending out two more stories tomorrow, and then a personal essay later this week, and finally another short-short submitted to a web site. Oh, and I sent my novel to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. But they can't reject it... they can only fail to give it a prize. So that's nice.

At some point I will have to rebuild my personal web site (not this blog) to showcase all my rejection letters and my works-in-progress. And, hopefully, one day my actual publications! (I mean fiction. I already have a few published articles posted there.)

knew it was coming
at least they got my name right
those rejection blues

Bombs Away

If at first you don't succeed, revise it and send it somewhere else. That's what I've done with a story that got rejected last week. I have revised the hell out of it, and I hope I didn't make it worse. If you calculate it all out, I believe I spent about six hours on it. At 417 words, that works out to 69.5 words per hour, or 1.16 words per minute.

During NaNoWriMo, I averaged about 1,250 words per hour, but that did not include revision time.

The new place I've submitted accepts only eight stories for each quarterly issue, and I am imagining they get several hundred submissions. So I'm not holding out much hope. But until I get that return email saying "no way jose, your story stinks," I still cling to a fool's hope.

PS: Seattle is beautiful this week. Despite the rain, the Olympics are glorious across the Sound from the 14th floor of the Wells Fargo building. I do miss living in this city.

Go Bears

Bears beat Stanford. Though why the Cronicle claims it was the first-ever sellout of Haas Pavilion, I'm not sure. Particularly when Cal's release, right there on their web site, says Haas was sold out when Stanford visited two years ago.

REJECTED AGAIN!

Egads. Both my "flash fiction" pieces were rejected by QuickFiction. I may submit one of them to another magazine, so I won't post them here now, but to commemorate the occasion, here is a flash haiku:

dreams dashed, no glory
battle lost, a war to win
rejected story

Baseball may be gone, but...

My faith in the international sporting community has been restored. I have been vaguely disturbed over the years by the trend in the Olympics of not only allowing but encouraging the participation of professional athletes. It's happened in basketball and hockey and baseball, and it's made me wonder about the meaning of the Olympics. Is it to become just another money-making venue for highly paid prima donnas to strut in front of cameras and adoring throngs? It's already sold out to corporate sponsorship and TV contracts, but at least they could rely on the emotion and integrity of using "amateur" athletes in most sports.

Then, in one fell swoop, the IOC got rid of baseball, and some of the balance was restored. (They also got rid of softball, which I think is a tragedy, and not just because the USA won every game.) At least we wouldn't have to hear about how A-Rod and Barry Bonds were waffling about whether their hangnail was bad enough to keep them from joining the US National team.

Now, more news comes from the Olympics to restore my faith further. Curling, one of the weirdest sports I've seen, will no doubt have center stage during these Olympics in Turin, Italy, thanks to a special calendar that helps promote the sport's exquisite athletes. (No, I have not purchased this calendar.) I mean, who could fail to love an ice sport that does not use skates, instead utilizing brooms and stones? Alas, there is no swimsuit division, but I still will be sure to catch the high definition broadcast (if there is one).

Writing Update
I have written two new short stories but have not yet heard back from either QuickFiction or The First Line. I don't expect to until some time probably near the end of March.

pins & needles (or, update from the author)

Although I've already received my first novel rejection letter, I am currently on pins and needles awaiting the result of three short story submissions, all due today. Two are "flash fiction" submitted to Quick Fiction, and the other is a 2,000 word story submitted to The First Line. I've already got another story in first draft to submit to Thema, though they have been affected by the hurricanes. (If any of my regular readers would like to read any of these stories, let me know. I would be happy to share them privately and accept any comments.)

kicked, raw, from the nest
will it fly or will it fail?
story submitted

Kudos to the Organizers

Last night, the annual "pinewood derby" was run for our local Cub Scout pack. It's one of the two events my scout loves each year, though his dad (me) has woeful woodworking skill. Actually, it's not the lack of skill but rather the lack of patience. When I think of all the things I could be doing on a Saturday afternoon, spending hours and hours perfecting a little, wooden car is not really near the top of the list. In fact, I would say it falls slightly below "laundry" and "mowing the lawn."

Last year's race was a tremendous success for us. We created an inspired design of the USS Hornet that won a "most original design" trophy. The quality of the woodworking was questionable at best, and it was slow as a snail compared to the fast cars, but there he was, up on stage receiving a trophy.

This year, I felt it important to have a discussion about expectations.

By the end of the race night, we had achieved our goal of getting a 2nd place run in one of the heats, and we never finished lower than 4th, but still the car (a tugboat design) was, shall we say, less than speedy. Tugs are not designed for speed, after all. And, looking at the other designs, and knowing that he'd won a trophy for design the previous year, we were not expecting much.

My hat, however, is off to the organizing committee. In addition to the trophies, they awarded certificates to all the other boys who entered cars. Ours was, by luck, the very last one to be awarded, for "Best Maritime Design." Other awards included "Most Heavily Armed" (for a tank car), "Most Likely to Pull Someone Over" (for a police car), and "Best Use of Hardware" (for another police car with real lights that blinked).

The transformation simply amazed me. The last half hour of the night, E was desperate to go home, knowing he wasn't going to win anything. He was frustrated, tired, disappointed, bored. Then, he walked up on stage, shook hands with the race official, and got his certificate. As we walked out of the venue, he was all smiles and showed me his certificate. He asked, "Can we frame this?"

Right before bed, he got out last year's car and last year's trophy and lined them up next to this year's car and this year's certificate right near his bedroom door, so he would see them right when he woke up. What magic a simple thing like a certificate can bring to a little boy's life.

REJECTED

I failed to interest the small, independent, mid-list publisher in my first novel, "Across the Stream." Their rejection letter says they publish two books per year, and mine didn't make the cut. No indication of how many submissions they get.

Back to the Writer's Market to submit again.

travel poetry

coffee-stained papers
crumpled on an airplane seat
haiku from the road


channels mislabled
Law & Order on AGAIN?!
I wish I could sleep


sudden gusts of wind
sweep across bare, white plateau
farts in hotel bed


big mac for dinner
taxi stinks like an ashtray
how was your flight, sir?


smiling stewardess
no, I don't wear red makeup
pen leaking again

2222 and counting

Do you ever watch your odometer when it gets close to some milestone number? Do you ever watch it to try to see the exact moment when it rolls onto that number, to the point of endangering everyone on the road while you glue your eyes to your dashboard?

Oh. Um... well, me neither.

Anyway, I just noticed that 2,222 is a pretty palindromic number. That happens to be the number of dead American soldiers due to the Iraq war at this moment (as reported by icasualties.org).

Unfortunately, like a car odometer, it can't go any lower once it's hit that number. Or rather, maybe it can. You know, an unscrupulous person could set the odometer back in order to sell a used car. It's not unprecedented for the current administration to work a little creativity into figures they report, particularly about the war.

that's interesting makeup...

Today I flew through Chicago to Washington, DC. The flights were really quite nice except this little episode.

I like to use the pens we have at work. They are microball-roller style, very fine point, very smooth feel. The only problem: Put them on an airplane, and one out of three times they'll spring a leak, right at the tip where your fingers are.

It was the red pen today. I realized before it got too out of hand, though very quickly my hands looked like I'd lost a fight with a kindergarten art project. The pen was tossed, and I switched to traditional ball-point.

About ten minutes later, the snack cart came by. The flight attendant gave me a nice smile and for some reason made sure to let me know that the drink cart was right behind her. Sure enough, a few minutes later the drink cart came by. They gave me what I asked for, then as an afterthought I figured I'd ask for some napkins to try to clean up my hands.

That's when she nodded and said, "I was going to ask." Odd; she couldn't possibly see the ink on my hands from the aisle. I was in the window seat. As she handed me a stack of napkins, she said, "I thought it was some sort of new thing, like an Indian red ink mark, only to the side." The Japanese guy in the aisle seat then nodded gravely and said something along the lines of, "It's pretty bad."

They coached me through wiping as much of the red smudges off my nose and chin as possible, but it wasn't until two hours later when I visited the restroom that I was able to wipe most of it off, at least to the point where it didn't look worse than a minor skin irritation.

Other than that, the flight was great.