Today's writing

Let’s do something. Wasn’t that the reason we came here, to flee the drive to act? That tart old trope: Wherever you go, there you are. No escape. But we try. Oh, do we try.

I might be tempted to say that this describes me more than Rob, but that’s not the case at all. We sometimes hide in different places – him internally and me speaking far more than anybody should – but in similar ways. They’re not unique. We hide in our phones, our stupid conversations about nothing at all. By petting the dog, doing breathing exercises. We hide by living, through the stuff of the everyday. And in that sense, we’re getting ready to die.

Science on a rainy day

 

Santa Barbara, 2015

 

On the Cusp - Green Apple, Jan. 20!

 

COVID negative!

Tested negative at 2:30 in the morning. Seriously thrilled. Isolation sucks. But weirdly, in a way I'm a little nervous to rejoin the world. The human brain is so bizarre. 

Have I mentioned

How much I loathe Christmas? And the people who make a big fucking deal out of it? 

Now I have. 

COVID Chanukah

We've all got it. I got it and gave it to the boys. They were not exactly thankful. But we're all together and we're doing okay, which is the most important thing. 

Six years ago

 

Today's writing

Oh, I’ve been attracted to women before. Dated them on occasion too. It just never really felt like my thing even when I was doing it. Women are just a pain. The feminists of Berkeley, the old hippie hags and the woke folk alike, would have my ass for saying that, for painting an entire gender with one dubious and cynical brush. Let them. My mind is not the place where they enter. It’s not the place most people enter. If I went loose with everything I think and feel, everyone would probably want to cut off my legs. 

John Lennon, "Nobody Told Me"

Three, four

Well, everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's matches in the bathroom, just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
Strange days indeed

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move
Well, everybody's a winner
And nothing left to lose
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu
Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Well, everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in movies
You just gotta lay around

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
Most peculiar, mama

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's UFO's over New York and I ain't too surprised

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
Most peculiar, Mama, roll

Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Nightingale Song"

We sing the nightingale song alive

Streets never border further than my eyes

We sing the nightingale song alive
We might be different but our hearts won't lie
And little ever changes if anything at all
But the song rings loudly through these halls

We sing the nightingale song alive
We might be different but our hearts won't lie
And little ever changes when you view it from the sky
The damage we encounter, Earth just passes by
Little ever changes, if anything at all
Just remind ourselves how small we are

My craft talk last night

"What We Can Learn about Writing from Reality TV"

Great editing. Amazing curation. We don’t see everything (bathroom breaks and such), nor do we have to unless it’s germane to the story. Comes off as fast and furious in reality shows, bur doesn’t necessarily need to. It just needs to be there in some strong structural form.

 

Repeated takes until it works. I realized this just yesterday when I was watching Hell’s Kitchen and they showed Gordon saying the same thing twice in different ways. Obviously they had done more than one take. Similarly, you will do way more than one take as you produce your work, whether it’s a short story, poem, novel-length work, or whatever.

 

You’re the director. It’s your job to orchestrate narrative structure as well as blocking and choreography so that we understand what’s going on here. Let your directorial muscle lapse and you’ll see it in sloppy writing.

 

Memorable personalities. You don’t go on a reality show if you’re bland. Likewise, bland characters are boring.

 

Tension. These people want things. They’re willing to go to great lengths to get them. How does this affect the interpersonal and community dynamic? The more tension the better!

 

Location has a purpose. These people are put there for a reason. That reason plays into  who they are and what they are willing to do to get what they want.

Drinks with Tony!

Check it out!

San Franciscan Magazine

I'm going to be featured there in spring! Exciting. Also, Writing Class Radio has tapped me to help develop a class with them. And I'm reading at The Racket Reading Series tomorrow and taping a Drinks with Tony podcast tonight. Shit's happening!

Residency envy

Once upon a time I did two weeks away without a blink. A month, twice. Now it's hard for me to get away for a few days.

I'm doing it, though. Next November I'm headed to The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow for a week. A blessed fucking week. I cannot wait. 

Sublime, "Santeria"

I don't practice santeria
I ain't got no crystal ball
But if I had a million dollars
I'd spend it all

Berkeleyside

 The article is here!

Today's writing

Easier to close your eyes. Easier to keep trying to pull higher themes out of a laundry list of qualities handed to you by a client, a bloodless task. You’ve climbed the ladder. The view is your reward. Rich shit like that. Sometimes my own writing makes me want to hurl all over myself. That’s not the worst feeling, though. The worst is when you just don’t give a holy good goddamn. When you’re so disconnected. When your life feels like something framed on a wall in front of you.

Tres Hermanas, Sacramento

 

August 2010

 

Cough, sniff, hack

We've all been sick. I think I'm finally starting to recover. I'd better be -- I'm taking Baz to Sac for an overnight to go to the Golden State Railroad Museum. It's one of his favorites (and mine too) and I don't want to have to postpone it.

I can feel things slowing down and getting into that holiday mode. It's not a bad thing. 

Tonight's Green Apple event is POSTPONED

Two out of three readers have family emergencies. It's raining. My whole family is sick. And Election Night. We're rescheduling. 

Sometimes

Your 48-year-old self wants to hug her 20-something counterpart. You, said while sipping an espresso or sucking on a bong, because does it really matter, are not as ugly or as unwanted as you believe you are. Also, he's an asshole. 

From a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains, good night

 

New interview!

Michael interviews me for Mary Tabor's Substack!

How?

How would I have told the police to find him? We've recently cut his hair short. He talks a lot about basketball. He loves going to cafes for chocolate-chip cookies, and if you go anywhere near a Trader Joe's he'll beg for a Z Bar. He'll learn your name quickly and hug you on the slightest provocation. 

Why the fuck am I thinking this way? 

Terror

Baz went missing yesterday. We found him after a half hour. It was fucking awful. He was supposed to attend an after-school basketball class, which was cancelled on a whim. They put him on the bus. We assumed we were picking him up, so we weren't home when he arrived. Fortunately, the bus driver is awesome and made sure he didn't get off. Instead they sent him back to school, where we were reunited.

Jesus Christ. My heart. 

Name-checked in Jane Friedman's blog!

 Check it out!

Only Three Lads podcast

Check it out!

Tori Amos, "Spark"

She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of the light in the dark 

Broke the Top 100 on Amazon!

BEARDED LADY is now no. 76 in its category!

This morning's writing

Jenner comes to us as in a dream, a beautiful wide spot in the road held softly by the Russian River and Pacific Ocean. A sign tells us that the population is less than 150 – 136 to be exact – and we feel a perceptible shift when we hit its town limits.

 

“It’s different here,” Rob says, and I agree, though I’m not sure why I agree, because at first I don’t feel anything, but that quickly changes. Soon I understand. The air here is cleaner, quieter. There is a certain slowness here, the pace endemic to small towns where you can call Information, ask for Buck, and not need to offer a last name.

 

When I roll through places like this, part of me wants to pull up stakes at home and move. Totally change my life, my existence, my everyday. Come to a place where anonymity is just a listing in the dictionary, where they know where you are. You’re held hard by the tininess of the place. Your license plate, memorized.

 

“You’d hate it,” Rob says now.

 

“I didn’t say anything.”

 

“Like you had to?”

 

Marriage, too, is a bit of a small town. You can’t hide in this universe, can’t duck or dive. You can keep secrets, but they will be detected. Just give it time.

Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Walk on the Ocean"

Somebody told me
That this is the place
Where everything's better
And everything's safe ...

Half an hour later

We packed up our things

Said we'd send letters

And all those little things

They knew we were lying

They smiled just the same

Seemed they'd already

Forgotten we came

Sometimes

Things become so absolute. Clarity lap-dances you, and you tip her and say thanks.

Peter Gabriel, "Big Time"

And my heaven will be a big heaven
And I will walk through the front door

Triumphant weekend

The launch at Jered's was wild. Full house. All books sold. Hugs. Flowers. A mixologist. Could I ask for anything more?

Then yesterday I went up to Fairfield to meet up with DR folks. Everyone bought the book. "You damn well better," I said. Or maybe I just thought it.

Tears

My East Bay launch at Jered's Pottery is tonight and I've been a stupid mess all morning. Sitting at a cafe crying over my arugula and eggs. I've written about things I never talked about to anyone. Written about people and never told them. Turned my deepest humiliations into entertainment. What have I done?

Just sent out a ton of books

 Signed copies, all. That wasn't my heart going out into the void. Nope. 

Feeling weird

On the flip side of all the hoopla is this crazy feeling of my brain being unwired. Like, something's off. Not comfortable. Not comfortable at all. 

The launch

 

My reader

 

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New podcast

Art Heals All Wounds!

And a piece on the Brevity Blog. 

Launch Day!

BEARDED LADY is alive and out in the world! I couldn't be more excited or touched by the response I'm already getting. This is a story that I have always felt needed to be told and I am honored that it is indeed going to be. <3

Today's writing

I’ve always been a puker. I puked on my wedding night, on the afternoon I walked into Jax’s room and life changed, tilted to that dizzying angle. Things just don’t stay down with me. They have to come up somehow, find some air, get some space. Days I’ll just go to the bathroom and stick my finger down my throat to rid myself of it, whatever it is. Not just a veal parm sandwich from Hoagie’s either. There is something refreshing, something real, about getting rid of what backs up inside of you. Even if it leaves you with watery eyes and this nasty taste inside your mouth, a taste like toothpaste gone horridly wrong, something you can’t rid yourself of no matter how many times you brush your teeth, so intrepid and insistent it is along your teeth, atop your tongue. It’s like chalk in a sense, this quasi-regret. Better to taste it than to feel it. Better to grimace than cry.

Today's writing

It’s not pretty scenery, that’s for sure. Driving through Richmond rarely is, from the freeway at least. From here you can see the green of the hills and the muck of the railroad tracks, and neither feels particularly appealing. I’m angry and I can’t figure out why. Part of me wants to throw my wedding ring at Rob and hop out of the car, but it’s not exactly a viable plan. Instead I just curl my toes inside my sandals and silently wish hateful shit on him for no apparent reason. It could be the headache. It’s aching worse now, the pain ebbing and flowing. I’m reminded of when I was pregnant, when Jax would kick me so hard that I would have to stop and catch my breath. I try to breathe, to open the constricted blood vessels. Then Rob puts his hand on my leg and it’s everything I can do not to smack the crap out of him.

 

Of course I know where all this is coming from. I can’t pretend otherwise. It presses at the back of my throat like bile, roils my stomach like something I wish I hadn’t eaten a half hour earlier.

 

Fact is, I don’t know if I’m in love with him anymore. In a way that’s what I’m going up to St. Orres to find out; that’s the knowledge I’m pursuing, the information I’m out to get. Why I think that Gualala has the answer is beside me; I only know that I do.

 

Mixed feelings

I watch Baz sleeping and think about everything that's meant to harness him. The meds, the interventions, the Meetings Meetings Meetings. Why can't we just let him be him?

Because of people like me, people who insist on the following of rules and social norms. That's who.

Memory Lane

Went up to hang out with Daily Republic folk today. It was fun! I saw Ian, Amy, her husband, and Bill Buchanan. TOTAL memories, but we were also able to connect in the present, which is great. Much fun. 

New Parents Magazine article

"How to Talk About the Death of a Pet to Your Kid." 

This is seven

 

Ezra's bar mitzvah, 2017

 

Today's writing

Then we gather Sid’s stuff: food, bowls, toys. I throw in a cow hoof for good measure. For some reason, this is depressing. Is this how it’s going to be when he –

 

He –

 

I can’t think about him dying. I can’t fathom gathering up his stuff, sweeping his fur from the floor. How do you dispose of a life?

 

Sid wanders over, sits on my foot, gives me the look.

 

Don’t consign me to the grave quite yet. Have faith in me. I want to stay with you at least a bit longer. I know I don’t have all the time I would like, but let’s face it: none of us do.

 

Volunteering

This morning I applied to volunteer at Berkeley Animal Care Services. It's been way too long. I have to do something. I have to make a difference. I'm going to make a difference. 

Marisa made this for my book!

 Check it out! 

Morning music

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
Dream the night away
And forget about everything

Santa Barbara, 2017

They're here!

Video here!

You know

Some bullets you dodge and say thank fucking God.  

From Marcus

Most importantly: This book is yours. It's your voice, your jokes, your patter. Nobody else could have written it, and your personality shines through from open to close without ever hiding behind jargon or generic descriptions. That's a a rare and impressive feat.

November 2015

 

Readability

Marcus started reading the book after the podcast. Throughout the afternoon and evening I got updates. By night he was finished, texting me his thoughts after midnight. This is gonna be a hell of a conversation!

Writing Class Radio podcast is up!

 Check it out here!

Writing Class Radio

Upcoming ...

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Honest

I didn't write it for revenge.

I wrote it because it was the truth.

Today's writing

Here’s the thing about loss: it hides and lurks in plain sight. That young mother who just wheeled her tiny baby past you in an expensive stroller? She had three miscarriages before this little boy and is terrified of losing him. The couple seemingly joined at the crotch coming out of the movie theater? He cheated on her a week ago and she knows it, but still she can’t fathom the idea of being without him. The crack in the sidewalk? It’ll break your back, but still you’ll step on it anyway.

Chris gives me (digital) ink

It's here. 

Missing him

 

How can this guy no longer be with us, as they say? So full of life, of naughtiness and mischief and adventure. At least it was quick we say, trying to hold back the tears. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we dissolve. 

The call

It was the vet's number. We listened, sharing my headphones, arms around each other. I'm concerned, she kept saying. Concerned.

We made the decision that had no alternative. Then we hung up and held on to one another. 

Tears

I told Maya last night that I've only seen Adam cry in two circumstances: putting a pet to sleep and when I've thrown something in his general direction. That's the damn truth.

Van Morrison, "And it Stoned Me"

Half a mile from the county fair
And the rain came pourin' down
Me and Billy standin' there
With a silver half a crown

Hands are full of a fishin' rod
And the tackle on our backs
We just stood there gettin' wet
With our backs against the fence

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Hope it don't rain all day

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

Then the rain let up and the sun came up
And we were gettin' dry
Almost let a pick-up truck nearly pass us by
So we jumped right in and the driver grinned

And he dropped us up the road
Yeah, we looked at the swim and we jumped right in
Not to mention fishing poles

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Let it run all over me

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

On the way back home we sang a song
But our throats were getting dry
Then we saw the man from across the road
With the sunshine in his eyes

Well he lived all alone in his own little home
With a great big gallon jar
There were bottles too, one for me and you
And he said Hey! There you are

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Get it myself from the mountain stream

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

BEARDED LADY launch: Oct. 4!

I'll be in conversation with my good friend Marcus Banks, who is coming all the way from New York for this! Click here to learn more and to buy tickets ... details below. Would love to see you there!

The 411:

DATE: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022

TIME: 7 p.m.

WHO: Me and Marcus Banks

WHY? Because BEARDED LADY is launching! See you there!

Ten years ago, Isla Vista

 

A year ago

 

Song lyric for an early morning

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life

Today's writing

Jax shrugged, his demeanor returned to its typically mild way. I would almost have preferred a continuation of the shit-fit, an elongation of the anger. I could have handled that, maybe. The departure from his previous self proved jarring, but maybe I could have switched gears quickly. I don’t know because he just went back to who he was: someone who would never punch anything, animate or not.

 

What precipitates that? Where does that 180-degree twist come in? It must be something in the brain, some sort of flip of the switch, a flick, a flight of fancy. All I knew was that it scared the shit out of me. Like, serial-killer type of fear. I’d birthed him but still I didn’t understand what went on in that head. That’s because we were always two separate beings, even when connected. Close as two creatures can get and yet still – two. Not one. I am not he and he is not me and we were not destined to always be together. Something like that.

 

I should mention that he was a gorgeous kid. I mean, seriously. Amazing-looking. Bangs that fell to just above his eyes, which were wide and blue and expressive. Redhead. He got his coloring from somewhere deep in our lineages, but I couldn’t tell you where to save my life. Genetics were always beyond me, both conceptually and in execution. I only knew that we existed because someone placed us here, and that that being had some loose handle on design.

 

I see you everywhere

Trotting across the bedroom floor. By the fireplace. In the trees where the wind rustles, telling me it's going to be okay.

Today's writing

Climbing through the depression, trying to tap away at my work in progress:

The store is a clutch of cutesy accessories of all stripes: shoes, jewelry, mugs, knickknacks that would take only one swipe of Po’s paw to break.

 

Then there is the doll.

 

Somehow I find it in my hands and I’m not letting it go. It’s not that it looks a little like Jax’s beloved Mr. Bear; it’s exactly the same. I don’t know how that’s possible. Mr. Bear came from some uncle or cousin and if it had made its way from Red Stella, I didn’t know about it. Yet here he is, soft again, young, untrammeled. Jax Velveteen Rabbit-ed the shit out of that bear. Eventually it lost an eye, an ear, found its arm permanently raised from Jax’s brutal grasp.

 

He never really got over Mr. Bear. He just grew a little more embarrassed, as kids do once they begin to grow up. They don’t want their youthful loves in evidence, but they do want them at the ready. Disloyal? Unfaithful? Certainly. The truth? You bet.

 

I wanted to bury him with Mr. Bear. Rob said that was morbid. Sweetheart, I’ll give you morbid: burying your teenage son to begin with. All the rest is sour, tangy icing.

This is how I will remember you

 

Because

The vet held her stethoscope to his chest. "Gone?" I asked.

"Faint heartbeat."

I pictured it as the ash glowing from the cigarette I borrowed from Adam tonight. One minute alive and pulsing, the next dead and dull. Crossed that line, just like that. 

Random writing tips

1) Readers love to be fucked with. Surprise them. Delight them. Break their hearts. They'll thank you for it.

2) Don't bother kicking the editor out of the room. Make friends with the bitch and maybe she'll shut up.

3) Muses are good. Mine come in the form of black Lab mixes and chocolate (not combined). Your mileage may vary.

The Berkeley special

There's a certain Berkeley type who doesn't know how to mind their own business. We ran into one of these at PETS Referral Center, where we took Jack when we were struggling and failing to save his life. As we sat on the floor with him -- with him unable to walk -- a woman came up to us and started talking to us.

"That's nice," I said. "We don't want to hear it."

She'd bothered us once or twice before, making empathetic noises as she walked by. Fuck her. All I wanted was to be alone with my baby.

So I flipped her off on the way out. It felt good. 

My sweetheart

A cruel week left us without our Jack. Hemangiosarcoma is an ugly, ugly word. 

I can't write much more because I'm going to break into tears, and I'm in a cafe in San Diego awaiting my 30th high-school reunion. But maybe I can. He is an amazing dog. Beautiful, sweet, kind, the whole package. He isn't perfect. But he is (and no, I won't use the past tense) ours. 

We miss and love you, sweet boy. 

My Mr. Baba

God damn I love my Jack dog. I mean, the guy is nuts. Loony tunes. Shrieks at squirrels. Barks at just about everyone. Twists and wiggles and loses his shit all the time. Always in motion.

So when he stopped being able to walk, we were stymied and scared as hell. Yesterday we got X-rays and bloodwork and I'm starting to suspect FCE -- also known as a spinal stroke. While we're waiting for results, I'm looking into rehab as well as slings and wheelchairs. 

Look, this is our baby. We're in his corner. He's always been in ours.

Through the dark what do I see

Toad the Wet Sprocket was playing the day my mother dropped me off at UCSB. It was fall 1992. The summer was brutal. Hot in Poway, true, but that was honestly the least of it. I would later write and rewrite, struggling to make sense of the insensible, heal from the insensitive, find the higher themes in what was just genuinely beyond fucked up.

Today she is in rehab recovering from a fall. I will see her when I'm down in San Diego next weekend. Mixed feelings? You think?

And it feels so good

Next weekend will be my 30-year high school reunion. I'm bummed that Adam won't be able to come with me as he did for my 20th, but I'm excited. Why? Well, other than having a book coming out, I've achieved so many of my dreams. Is life perfect? Does it need to be?

BEARDED LADY cover reveal!

 

Yesterday's writing

None of them knew, of course. That’s the whole point. Were there a way to predict what was to come, it still wouldn’t have rested with them, been dust on their shoulders, grit along their boots. They would have entered the morning as they entered every morning: a birth of sorts, a resurgence of life into the day. Shrugs, sighs, the occasional shit, awakening a path we each travel at our own pace. Yet somehow it all ends the same: fall of cloth upon body, assault of brush on hair and teeth. By the time the shoes encase the feet it’s almost too late for them.

 

There would be others, of course, but this story is not theirs. They would once again see daylight, whatever that meant to them. Not all got away unscathed. No one does in the end.

 

Erica, James, Fiona, Cheryl. Four people laced together by that fucker named fate and little else. Sure, it was predetermined. What isn’t?

 

What isn’t? 

From my seventh-grade best friend

I just saw your FB post and wanted to let you know that if you ever need an extra set of eyes for your manuscript, I'm here for you! And let me take this opportunity to say that I'm so happy for you, so excited for you, and so proud of you. I knew you were a good writer back when we were writing notes in Mr. Lanthorne's class so I'm not at all surprised that your book is getting published, but it's still worth saying that this is an amazing accomplishment. Soon the whole world will know what a great writer you are too!

PJs Day

Exhaustion

I've been stupid tired for the better part of a week. Longer, really, if I think about it. I know why, in part at least. Shit is like a fucking cycle, a hamster wheel. Get up, get ready, take Baz to school, make the most out of the three intervening hours, pick him up, bring him to ABA therapy or take him home depending on the day, work some more. Have conversations that I've had 1000 times before. Check my cell phone. Check my email. Check my Facebook. I'm tired. Tired of all that. Tired of all this. I need more. I want more. 

Raleigh's, 2017

 

Yup

 

The fall of Roe v. Wade

I was fucked up for days. Still am. The best thing anyone said to me was when Marcus texted: I'll engage, but only if you want to. I didn't in that moment. I didn't have a clear head. I still don't.

My Writing Salon voice class is July 9!

Join us!

Ministering

I used to think I had to be constantly available. Always open. At the ready to listen, to caretake, to support, to help.

Fuck that, man.

Idan and Sharaine's wedding

 

Happy Father's Day

 

Sacramento, breakfast

 

Today's writing

I’m not a natural-born partner. I’m not the world’s easiest wife. And what does this say about my mothering skills? Does that even matter anymore?

Damn. That last line. Does that even matter. That’s some seriously callous bullshit floating through my brain. I can only imagine if I said it out loud or, God forbid, put it out on Facebook. There are just things you don’t say. That you don’t express. That you rarely let yourself even consider because what does that say about you? When Jax was still alive, I knocked on wood all the time. There was plenty to knock about. He was not an easy person. Then again, how much of an easy mother was I? Rob used to take me to task all the time about my parenting choices. I’d lock myself in the bathroom and mutter over and over: asshole.

 

Sunday night

 

Last Thursday

I saw David Sedaris at Book Passage in Marin. What a great show. We saw him 10 years ago at Zellerbach and he was great too. "Cows," he said then. "Assholes." Genius!

As posted on Facebook

Dog days of June

Hot as hell today. I haven't written much here more than a few song lyrics and pictures. The book is coming along great ... or I should say preparations for the book launch. The main events will be at Booksmith, followed by Jered's Pottery, followed by Green Apple Books. It's going to get busy.

My mother is also getting released from rehab next Friday. She had a fall and has been in the hospital, followed by the rehab, which does NOT make her happy. That's the reason I went to San Diego last week. I sat on it for a while, but I don't think she'll care if I make it public. Hell, it's not like she reads this blog anyway.

My 30-year high-school reunion is next month, so San Diego and I shall meet again soon. Or Bland Diego, as I tend to call it. It's a nice city. Nice. That's really about it.

End of check-in for now.

San Diego

I went down this weekend to handle a few family matters.  I was all over the damn city. This is what it looked like from the air on Friday.

 

I got a grant!

Big thanks to the Center for Cultural Innovation for awarding me a Berkeley Recovery Grant!

Van Morrison, "And It Stoned Me"

Half a mile from the county fair

And the rain came pourin' down
Me and Billy standin' there
With a silver half a crown

Hands are full of a fishin' rod
And the tackle on our backs
We just stood there gettin' wet
With our backs against the fence

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Hope it don't rain all day

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

Then the rain let up and the sun came up
And we were gettin' dry
Almost let a pick-up truck nearly pass us by
So we jumped right in and the driver grinned

And he dropped us up the road
Yeah, we looked at the swim and we jumped right in
Not to mention fishing poles

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Let it run all over me

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

On the way back home we sang a song
But our throats were getting dry
Then we saw the man from across the road
With the sunshine in his eyes

Well he lived all alone in his own little home
With a great big gallon jar
There were bottles too, one for me and you
And he said Hey! There you are

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Get it myself from the mountain stream

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me