Out of the Land of the Lotus Eaters

I know I said last time that I would push my personal life under for a while, and make this a little more literary.  But this is a necessary exorcism.

Friday I went to a potluck with a number of people in my MFA program.  I made goulash from a simple recipe my mother sent me– the first such dish I’ve ever made.  Talked with Susan Straight, received a number of books.  And at about 8:30 I left and headed to Portland to see her.  Made it there around 1:00PM.   I won’t dwell on things because that’s not what this is about.

Portland is an amazing town.  I hate cities and I loved Portland.  It’s beautifully laid out.  The new buildings are pretty, the old buildings are gorgeous.  There’s enough old industry and there’s an absolute ton of art-blood to be found.  Hawthorne Street.  Wonderful place.  Buskers, coffee shops, record stores.  We saw Mimicking Birds at the White Eagle saloon, and they were pretty stellar.  I recommend them, highly.  We went to Powell’s and I picked up John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing, which I’m very excited to read.  We watched the premiere of the new season of Californication in my hotel room, along with Bored to Death, a pretty neat new show.

It didn’t work out.  Simply.  And I’m sorry for that.  Every girl I’ve ever loved I’ve wanted to love forever, but it hasn’t happened yet.  We tried our best, I think, I hope.  I fought like a bloody old cur, I know that much.

So, gave it my best, came home with my tail not quite between my legs.  But I didn’t feel all that bad.  I feel good about where my life is.  It’s strange, going 1000 miles in a day.  But good.

I got to see most of the land heading back that I missed going out.  Ridiculously golden hills.  Rolling gently but huge.  Plains covered in smoke.  Mountains.  There’s a good bit of Oregon that I actually liked, leaving.  Sheep country, from the looks of it.  I’m always rewarded by the country, the land.  Driving did me good.  A strange thing is that it felt good to get back into California.  That seemed somewhat odd to me, but it did.  And so did getting home.  This damn empty place and its poor lighting.  Life has carved away from me everything that tied me to any other place.  Right now it’s just me.  I talked to a friend that night before I left, pretty long into the night, and I told her that the one thing that hasn’t fallen through for me has been writing.  And that’s true.  Perhaps fittingly, it’s me and my writing from here on out.  Whatever comes after comes free of those old attachments.  You and me, California.  I’ve got the spirit of Bill Hicks on my side, so I think you’re fucked.

First fiction workshop was today and I was on the block, came out pretty well.  Lots of praise for my prose, dialogue.  Corrections for clarity and pacing.  Which were what I expected.  It was good just to do that again, to hear people talk about it.  And to get ideas for fixing things.  To think critically about fiction, to pit myself against my classmates and my professor– he said I was right about a certain line of dialogue, wrong about what fiction should do with it.  We construct lines to inform our reader, not just to recreate a reality as exactly as possible.  That’s a rough paraphrase.  I don’t know that I agree, and regardless, having reality as a standard is not a bad thing.  A lot of what is wrong with my work is a balance that needs to be struck between keeping a tone and letting the reader know more about the world.  I’ve always known that, but it seems like I’m going to get a little closer to a solution.

The good news finally came through.  I’m gonna have a short story out on Splinter Generation sometime in October.  Woo.  That everything?  I think so.  Lots of reading to do, not much writing.  Them’s the breaks for the moment.

Mm.  Couple odds and ends.  Some fun Byron corrrespondence, and an interactive map of banned books.