Got up at 6 am. Wrote a piece about chickens. Published a piece about staying stoked. Felt blood pressure go up when Mom came in at 8:00 to ask about ‘boxes in guest bedroom’. Went outside to pool area to work. Saw thousands of dead ants on ground from where ‘they sprayed’. Went back in to put on flip flops. Edited a short story. Submitted it to Brevity. Read a Sherman Alexie story in Brevity. Felt like my story was good and real but that my bio ‘sucked’ and I wasn’t ‘famous enough’ to get story published. Submitted story to GlimmerTrain ‘without any hope whatsoever’. Read emails while listening to Basement Jaxx micromix sent by Tom Gates. Went to check on the girls. Gave Layla and Lau muchos besos. Went in to kitchen. Saw dad fixing a bagel for himself and recognized that as one of the ‘models of behavior’ I grew up with and still fight against. Started fixing bagels for everyone. Felt happy slicing tomatoes and onions and bagels. Thought about character in book I read last night [Kalahari Bushman who died of thirst] as I filled water glasses. Kept checking to see if Lau’s face at the table was real or acting. Ate bagels and opened bags of olive oil soap and spices Mom and Dad brought back from Mediterranean cruise. Felt like I was ‘acting’. Went into office. Applied for personal ‘signature’ loan with credit union. Had difficulty with fax machine. Felt very anxious for a few minutes ‘about the whole thing’ then realized this was just another ‘pattern of behavior.’ Thought ‘fuck it’. Got ready to go to park. Went to park with the girls. Talked about Mom never asking Lau how she was after the miscarriage. Felt like we were ‘bringing her here into the park with us.’ Made ‘concious effort’ to stop talking about her. Showed Lau Layla’s and my secret place back in the palmettos. Walked back to park. Saw nenas playing on slides. Helped Layla play with nenas. Watched Layla and youngest nena [age 3] sit next to each other and hold hands like sisters. Felt very peaceful and tired. Fell asleep on bench with head propped up on package of rice cakes. Felt Lau wake me up. Heard her say I’d been asleep for 30 minutes. Drove back home. Tried to work but felt ‘totally dead’. Talked about how being emotional makes you really tired. Read more about Kalahari Bushmen. Fell back asleep again. Woke up and took walk with Lau. Thought the air and the sky looked different and it was some important moment for some reason. Cooked potatoes with pepper and paprika. Cooked brussel sprouts. Cooked veggie brautwurst. Felt like mom was mad at me. Went to the ‘guest wing’ of the house to start evening work session. Sent Julie Schwietert a picture. Stoked on letter she published against ‘institutionalized racism’. Realized after reading letter how many of us are in bicultural marriages. Corresponded with filmmakers and pro kayakers. Showed Layla helmet cam footage of people flying in wing suits. Felt very lucky for a few minutes.
Blogged about this micromix by Atlas Sound. Notes: favorite part starts @ 29:40 when Bradford sings “Sing to the coffin that awaits you, sing to the coffin in you mind, sing to praise yourself, ” and then has this ill break that goes into harmonics and harmonica and sad hard chords.
Even when it gets wall-punching or wineglass-throwing bad I’ll think how things we’re screaming would sound in a story. Or as story titles. “Just Tell Me What You Want Me to Do Right Now.” But the point of course is to finish the fight or conversation with some kind of better flow than what started it. Forgetting stories is another way of remembering. Eventually the blood pressure goes back down and you start cleaning the walls. Later it’s nighttime. A glass of vodka cranberry on the front stairs. Your daughter pointing out the frogs on the wall. You don’t think of lines or titles then. None of the short stories you want to write could be as strange or real as the frogs or what’s actually happening to you right now.
Published what may have been the first collection of ultra-short (3 sentences or less) travel stories. Solid response. Almost 900 views so far. There were good writing ‘lessons’ it seemed–people had to leave out almost everything except one time and place and how it affected them. Some people thought ‘zen’ but I was looking at it all more as a kind of postcard from yourself to yourself, a placemarker.
1. Stoked for David Page, who won a Lowell Thomas award.
2. Stoked for Hal Amen, who wrote what’s in his head.
3. Wondering about this blog “Travel Blogging vs. Travel Writing.” Wondering in general about comparisons like this. Wondering in general about a conference (an ‘expo’) where people get together in rooms in Las Vegas to talk about this. I have no real ‘takeaway’. Only two things noted really, Arndt’s primary differentiation between travel writers and bloggers is “where your money comes from,” and the post was written in “a Las Vegas McDonalds.”
4. Stoked on Oaxaca and the Many Layers of Travel by Sarah Menkedick.