Writer’s Guild Conference – Day 1

This past weekend I went to the Nebraska Writer’s Guild Spring Conference. The event was held at Mahoney State Park between Omaha and Lincoln. I was a bit apprehensive. I had inquired about the event with a few friends who have published bestselling novels – none of whom knew about the event. Some friends at the paper were apprehensive for me. Writer’s guild sounded like a book club, and book clubs can be an excuse for drinking wine and gossiping.

The event started at 6:30 p.m. Friday, and I hit the park right at 6:30, so by the time I bought my park pass and drove to the lodge, it was about 6:40. I got my name tag and conference packet, then scurried into the room right behind someone else. This woman and I each grabbed a goblet of water and a plate of hors d’oeuvres. I slid into a seat near the front, in the middle of a sparsely-occupied row. I looked at the plate of food in my lap, then glanced around. Sitting two seats to my right was an African-American with a white beard, wearing a black shirt, slim-fitting jeans, white cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat. He had a half-drank glass of water on the floor beside a notebook with a purple yin-yang on the cover. Sitting in the row in front of me was a middle-aged woman wearing indistinct jeans and a sweatshirt. There was an empty plate on the floor beside her chair.

I looked at my plate again, avoided the carrots, and popped a piece of broccoli into my mouth. As I self-consciously chewed, someone was reading a story about a life-affecting illness. I learned several things, such as how using your left side poses its own unique set of challenges. As he finished reading, I sneaked a piece of cauliflower into my mouth and applauded.

Another reader towards the beginning was a woman who wrote a story about … the proliferation of cats on her farm.

The people in the room laughed several times throughout this reading, and the punchline was so funny, I nearly dropped my plate out of my lap.

This wasn’t a book-club-esque writing club, these were good, even great, writers.

A different lady came up to the front to read, and apologized before starting. “If you are offended by swear words, you might want to close your ears towards the end,” she said politely. She read the word “arse.” I popped a piece of cheese into my mouth as I applauded.

Two readers later, an old military man came up and said the “f” word … frequently. Another piece of cheese went into my mouth during the applause.

A lady wearing a suit and fashionable heels came in eventually, sitting between the cowboy and myself. I glanced at her, thinking, “Where do I know her from?” but others were reading, so I didn’t ask.

The cowboy, when it was his turn to read, stood up and deliberately walked to the front of the room. He took a breath, looked at everyone, and started in a clear strong voice … “Who has the right?” Poetry is not normally my genre, but I was blown away by this man’s skill, as were many others in the room. I crunched on a carrot afterwards.

Towards the end, the woman in the suit, identified as Lisa, stood up and read a piece about her job. As she read about a couple of characters who have walked into her publishing firm, the proverbial light bulb clicked on.

She sat back down, and I leaned over and asked quietly, “Do you work with Leo Adam Biga?”

The lady replied, “Yes, I have.”

“That’s where I know you from,” I said as the next person was walking to the front. “I’m Daisy. I’m with the Omaha Press Club.”

The night ended a bit after 10 p.m. I picked up my half drank glass of water and my plate of food, then walked to the front of the room with everyone else, putting in the trash one of the three carrots and two of four cubes of cheese.

I drove home with Gwen Stefani blaring on the stereo, which I turned down at the fast food drive-through window. Knowing that by now my husband, Wade, would already have eaten dinner, I ordered a two-taco meal with an extra order of potatoes. When I arrived at the house, I walked in ready to tell stories about all these writers. I set the bag on the table and saw a cup of salsa from the local Mexican restaurant already there.

“I figured you already ate, so I just got you two beef tacos,” I said, unloading potatoes and cheese dip from the bag.

“There’s also part of a veggie plate in the fridge,” Wade replied. A veggie plate is slightly-spicy rice topped with steamed broccoli, carrots and cauliflower then drizzled with cheese.

“You ate a veggie plate?”

“Well, I got shrimp on top, but I ate the shrimp,” Wade said. “How was the writer’s thing?”

A college education is … an education.

There’s been a lot of talk about college lately in my life. No, not about me going back to college – I graduated from the University of Iowa 15 years ago and while the idea of being a college student is a utopian dream, I don’t need to go back to college at this point in my life.

No, the talk about college has come from a variety of sources around me. The most irritating lately comes from the woman who sits over the wall from me at work. She has a tendency to irritate me in general – she’s loud where I tend to be more quiet – but she’s also the classic case of an overconfident (dare I say egotistical?) parent who thought her little darling was going to get a sports scholarship and is now finding out that those scholarships are fewer and farther between than she realized. Nearly every day lately this person has spent the majority of her time at work talking to colleges — griping about transcripts and entrance fees; and how is she going to pay for out-of-state tuition so her son can go to the college he really wants? (Oh, and I really want to throttle her when she talks to financial aid people about how her kid has always dreamed of going to this college. The way the college industry sees it, that just means she’s more willing to find ways to pay for this particular college, and probably means the financial people are going to suggest loans with a higher interest rate.)

I have several friends who are going back to college or are talking about going back to college. Many of these friends either have bachelor’s degrees in a field in which they a) can’t find work, or b) no longer want to work. So, what to do, what to do? I’ve got it … let’s go get an advanced degree, or a degree in a different field.

In general, I find to this theory to be counter-productive at my age. We (meaning myself and most of my friends) are in our 30s and 40s now, not our 20s, and with each passing year, the ability to get a “better job” by going back to college decreases. The fact that we have fewer years in which to work means that employers are less willing to hire us, and the fact that people in their 30s and 40s frequently have more than just college debt (house payments, car loans, in some cases kids going to college) means that they can not afford to take on those entry-level jobs in their desired careers.

Today I read a blog post on the popular website “Hello Giggles” that was defending liberal arts degrees. This was a reaction to an article that was written for the blog site “Thought Catalog” titled “The case for removing (almost) all liberal arts from college.”

The author of the article in defense of liberal arts degrees wrote “ … the ‘people’ skills and effective communication that liberal arts majors learn in college are becoming more and more sought-after and useful in careers such as marketing, business, advertisement and other booming industries.”

The author of the article vying for the removal of liberal arts degrees wrote, “If someone can’t handle the STEM majors (science, technology, engineering and mathematics, for those who aren’t familiar with the acronym), they have no business in college.”

These authors both missed the mark. They focused on life after college – finding that all-important career. Oh, yes, it is important, but in reality, it is not the reason to go to college.

“But, yes it is!” Most people proclaim. “The statistics say that college graduates earn 85 percent more in their lifetime than high-school dropouts! The statistics say that 4.5 percent of people with a college degree are unemployed compared with nine percent of people without a degree!”

And those people are correct – but think for a moment. How did you get your first job out of college? What was your first job? Was it or was it not in your degree field?

Today I overheard an editor I work with offering freelance opportunities to an intern that she has been working with for several months. In my own case, my work in my college library lead to my first full-time job, which was in a medical library; my work as a journalism intern led to freelance opportunities.

The key to getting a good job is not getting a good degree, it’s working on getting work. The starting point can often be getting a degree. People who earn liberal arts degrees, and really want jobs in their degree fields, will find them, but the jobs often are not going to be waiting for them the moment they step out the door with their degree in hand. These people need to develop relationships with people in their career fields and gain practical experience.

College is school – and the purpose of school is to get an education. Becoming educated is the reason to go to college. Where else is a person hell-bent on studying modern literature going to learn to love paleontology? Where else would a mathematician take a course called Philosophy and Star Trek? (A true course, offered at the esteemed GeorgetownUniversity.)

School is expensive – there’s no denying that. But even primary and secondary schools cost money to run, and Americans are used to having the government put out money for public schools. According to the latest census, 11 percent of students in the U.S. are enrolled in private school. That means 89 percent of those students are in public school, or in other words, 89 percent of those students expect tax dollars to pay for their education.

Then these same students get to college, and all of a sudden the game changes. They (or their parents) are expected to pay money to gain knowledge? Incredulous! They just spent 12 years in school and nobody expected them to pay anything!

Their parents did pay, in the form of taxes, which is, of course, one of two guarantees in life (the other being death). These taxes paid the teachers’ salaries, the students’ books, the school building and a multitude of things people don’t think about, like light bulbs.

Colleges are great marketers, and they have become increasingly greater marketers in the 15 years since I graduated from the University of Iowa. I got to witness this first-hand in the early 2000s, when I worked (as a secretary, incidentally) at a community college. The first year that I was there, the people who worked in the recruitment office (mainly women) were people with psychology and sociology degrees. Why? Because their backgrounds in psychology and sociology helped them determine what students’ passions were, what they were truly good at doing, would enjoy studying and would make them happier, more well-rounded people. During the two years I worked at this college, nearly the entire recruitment office staff changed hands. Whereas before the recruitment office employees were counselors, now the employees were marketers (and mainly men). The employees that previously had psychology backgrounds now had advertising and marketing backgrounds. Their job was not to find out what people would enjoy studying, but to promote ideas that would get students in the door so the college could make money. These ideas have nothing to do with “being educated,” instead; they have to do with “making money.” Why become a historian when you can become an engineer? Why get an MFA in theater when you can get a Juris Doctor? Engineers and lawyers make money, lots and lots of money, some of which can then, potentially, be given back to the college.

A person becomes a historian because he/she loves history. A theater lover gets an MFA in theater because they love learning about and being in theater. Industry may not care that someone loves theater or history, but the individual does … and after all, isn’t going to college an individual choice, not an industries’ choice?

“It is industry’s choice!” People proclaim. This may be true, but look carefully at the want ads. Many job descriptions say “4-year degree, or applicable experience, required.” That means they are willing to overlook college if someone has experience.

I am not saying do not go to college. I went to college, and I adored it. I spent four blissful years of my life in Iowa City, soaking up theories of journalism, literature, theater, anthropology, and a multitude of other subjects. What I am saying, ultimately, is to realize that college is school – not a job interview.

Lenten project 2013

Carnevale, Carnival, Mardi Gras, Shrovetide … the party is full swing as I write this. I will need to remind myself of that when I take my lunchtime walk on Tuesday, which frequently takes me past Jazz restaurant.

I am not partaking of any of these festivities, as I don’t live near a festival and I have no religious reason to rid my house of fattening foods before a fasting season.

I do, however, give up something for Lent every year, which helps me get healthier. Last year, I wanted to practice yoga three times a week, so I gave up television and most electronic media in favor of practicing yoga in the evenings.

This year, I am not necessarily giving up anything, I am adding something to my daily routine.

This is how I plan to spend the Lenten Season

My 2013 motto is Write More. I haven’t done too badly thus far, but I haven’t written much for myself. So, this year, I vow to spend at least 30 to 60 minutes writing something for myself. I might blog, but I am more interested in working on the fiction that I started during that foggy, gloomy night last month.

I plan to write for 30 of the next 40 days. Why 30 days? Because I am a realist. I have a couple of evening meetings at the Omaha Press Club, a Valentine’s Day Social and a visit from my parents in mid-March. I owe my husband some of my time and when I write, I retreat into myself.

Besides, while I do not intend on having a novel finished at the end of the project, NANOWRIMO is 30 days, and since I have friends who have completed NANOWRITMO, I know I can do this.

Grey writing days

Tags

Novels, writing

A present for you all on a grey winter day.

Happy snowy day! As I sit here looking out the window, it is a grey and gloomy, and the snow is blowing around lightly.

Winter has quite fully arrived. Two nights ago Wade picked me up from work and we slowly drove over to the grocery store – slowly because there was a blanket of fog outside, reducing visibility on the roads. We picked up food for the cupboards, which we badly needed, and walked back out to the car. Perhaps we should have driven home and ordered a pizza, because what we thought was thick fog an hour ago was nothing compared to what we encountered once we left the store.

Snoopy would write, “It was a dark and stormy night …” It wasn’t stormy, but it was dark. As we drove down the back highway (why we did not take the Interstate, I still do not know), the novel that has been burning inside my head began to spin unto itself. When I got home, I put food in the oven (new recipe, it’s on the vegetarian page), found my black notebook stating on one cover “It was the best of times …”, flipped it over to the side reading “It was the worst of times …”, found a blood-red pen, and began to put words on paper. I did not get far, but I did start.

I recently found a writer’s group, courtesy of Jared, a new friend I made through the Steampunk Society. Jared enthusiastically told me the group meets on Saturday nights at 7 p.m. in a well-known chain restaurant, so I decided to check it out a week ago.

Allow me to rewind a bit. This restaurant is part of the same chain that I used to frequent with my friend Rick when we were at the University of Iowa. We would walk in with our notebooks and his laptop, a new invention in the late 1990s. I will never forget the look the waitress gave us, as seniors, the first time we answered “uh … outlet?” to the question “Would you like a booth or a table?” The waitress cocked her head to one side and thought – “uh, OK,” as she contemplated where to seat us. After two hours of snacking on cheese fries, coffee, and sodas, the waitress came back to tell us our time was up, and we moved on to a similar chain restaurant, ordered cheese fries and drinks, and continued until that place kicked us out. Rick and I often hit four to six different restaurants in one night, finally retiring to our respective places of residence as the sun arose.

This past Saturday night, figuring on a two-hour time limit, I arrived at said restaurant promptly at 7 p.m. with notebook and purse full of pens in hand. The server was about to ask me if I was waiting for anyone when Jared began waving his hand in the air and calling to me.

“Uh, I’m supposed to be meeting a writer’s group,” I said.

“Yep, they’re in the back, go on ahead,” the server said. I walked to the back of the restaurant, where a separate room full of tables was already in place. Jared, and mutual friend Aimee, were already there, with their choice of caffeine set out before them.

“Hi,” I said. “So, what’s the procedure?”

“Well, people will start coming in before long,” Jared said. “Just hang out and write.”

“OK … what about food? Do you guys all order at one time, or what happens?”

“If you’re hungry, order, if not, don’t. I ate dinner a while ago, but I’m probably going to order something before long. I’m still hungry,” Jared said as the waitress approached me.

I ordered a sandwich with fries, a small salad, and a Coke. The waitress left, put in my order, and we began to talk.

The waitress came back, set my food on the table and left. “Uh …,” I thought, looking around for a fork.

“Here,” Jared said, grabbing a roll of silverware from another table. “They know us around here, we’re pretty self-sufficient.”

“Wow,” I thought.

Several people came in over the course of the couple of hours I sat there. I was introduced to them all, although I will admit I won’t remember all the names. Some people plugged into headphones and began diligently typing away, some people began discussing the movies they watched earlier, some people began playing on Facebook.

I didn’t get anything written that night, but I met interesting new people, I discovered the rhythm of the group, and I sat in awe of the experience.

Iowa City is a town full of writers, with a strong writing community, which is why it needs places where people can hang out for hours on end drinking cheap black coffee. Omaha is not. I have been making small attempts to find a fiction writing community over the last year or so, and have met with small success – until that Saturday night.

Perhaps I shall get this novel burning in my head into print, or at least start getting it onto paper. I hope to go back this coming Saturday night, hopefully with chapter one written.

Halfway through January

Tags

January Project, yoga

January is halfway done, and thus, perhaps it is time to make myself accountable for those goals I made for myself in late December.

Most of them are going well. I am about 50 pages away from finishing the January project … Anil’s Ghost. This is not nearly as absorbing as The English Patient, but it is not bad. It took me a few days to get into the rhythm of this book. Generally I slip into my pajamas about an hour before going to sleep and read until a) Wade comes upstairs to bed and b) I reach the end of a chapter. This particular book has sections, and each section has its own chapters. For the first couple of nights, I stopped at the end of a chapter, as I am used to doing. That resulted in me coming back to the book the next night and having to get back into the book. After a couple of days, I realized I have to read each section as a short story. Once I realized that, the book began to flow better. Next book will probably be Interview With the Vampire (which I have unsuccessfully tried to read a couple of times), and then The Castle of Otronto.

I have been eating salads for lunch every day at work. Unfortunately, it is a little more expensive. I paid about $5 and change for a small vegetarian sandwich, a bag of low-fat chips and a soda from the sandwich shop; or a grilled cheese, fries and a soda from the cafeteria. A salad from the sandwich shop is $5 and change, or a salad and cottage cheese from the salad bar in the cafeteria is $5 and change. Drink not included.

The goal in eating salads was, in large part, to quit eating so much bread and cheese (which I adore). It has been successful, for the most part. Earlier this week, with Wade feeling congested and unwell, I stopped by a soup/sandwich shop we like. As I looked at the menu, I saw that they just started a new promotion – a quart of soup and four small round loaves of bread for a discount price. So, I bought a soup both of us like, two half sandwiches, and a bowl of the soup I originally wanted for myself. I arrived home and realized the server had loaded my bag with everything I had asked for, plus four huge chunks of bread (basically a whole loaf). It has lasted all week (Wade is finishing the last loaf with some tapenade as I write), it was just funny that I want to cut back on bread and I walk out of the store with more bread than ever.

The yoga, however, is not going as well as it did last January. This past week I used the excuse that Wade was laying on the couch ill, but I could just as easily have gone downstairs. This morning, Wade and I woke up with the cat, who didn’t realize that it was Saturday and wanted his breakfast. Wade said let’s go take a walk, and then you can come back and do yoga. So, before the sunrise, we took a brisk stroll around the neighborhood (surprisingly, several people still had Christmas lights lit, it was quite pretty). We came back, and I practiced yoga for the first time in several days. Next week will be a good week to get back into it, and I am also thinking about purchasing a new DVD that I saw online – Warrior Yoga. Warrior poses are my favorites.

Have a good week everyone.

Happy 2013

A new year started this week, and with it comes the anticipation of new and exciting adventures.

Ah, New Year’s Eve. That magical evening when we eat too much before the diets begin, drink too much and wear our last party outfits of the season.  Normally, for my husband and I, New Year’s Eve means a bottle of champagne, a nice supper and Dick Clark.

But Dick Clark died last year – so what were we to do?  We could have stayed home and watched the show, but we found something very different, and very cool.  

The Steampunk Society of Nebraska put on a ball.  The what?  That’s right, steampunk society.  Steampunk is a variety of things to a variety of people, but for the purpose of this blog’s readers, let’s focus on it being an aesthetic movement – Victorian-era dress with science fiction accessories thrown in.

Wade dressed in his suit trousers, white shirt, bow tie, suspenders and bowler (with goggles on top).  I found a great black ball gown that I wore with a wide belt, a feather fascinator, and a really cool necklace.  Actually, I wore two necklaces.  You see, Wade and I found this fun, HUGE necklace that looked like wings, and Wade got the idea to combine it with the crystal necklace we found so that the wing-ish portion went down my back.  However, as he was bending the pieces so that it could lie correctly on my back, he broke it.  Whoops!  No matter – Wade knows how to weld.  So downstairs he goes, where he spreads out a piece of junk wood, a blowtorch, and other assorted welding stuff on the kitchen table.  Yes, the kitchen table.  As he welded the broken piece, the cheap metal discolored, and so he began to burnish the whole piece.  In the end, he created a really cool piece of jewelry that could be shown from my front or my back.

By the way, I completed my look by painting my fingernails Tardis-blue.

The ball was a LOT of fun.  We didn’t know many people there, but that was fine.  We spent a lot of time people watching and we actually danced.  We learned the Virginia reel and we watched people dancing to something called  “Oppa is Gangnam style.”  This is a wretched earworm, which is probably why the DJ played it three times.  Yes, we had a couple of rum-and-cokes and a couple glasses of champagne.

The ball ended at 2 a.m., but at 1 a.m., we decided to hit the roads before the bars closed.

New Year’s Day 2013 was a lazy, sleepy day, spent in warm, comfortable University of Iowa pajamas.  We did not take down the Christmas trees, because I simply was not in the mood.

I did start the January project – Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje.

I did not do yoga. Last year I did really well until July, and then I got too busy and the yoga got pushed aside. This year I plan to do yoga three times a week all year.

I also was not at work January 1, so I did not start my other New Year’s resolution until January 2.  I plan to eat salads instead of sandwiches at work.  Until last year, I spent most of each lunch hour walking, followed by a quick stop into a sandwich shop for a vegetarian sandwich.  Last year, I started spending time in the cafeteria at work.  I have made a couple of new friends, which is good, but I also discovered that they have a grill, which makes lovely, sticky grilled cheese sandwiches.

Those are my resolutions – yoga three times a week, and salads four to five time a week. So tell me, what are your resolutions for 2013?

2012 in Review

I started this blog in January as a way to write more frequently. I blogged once a week through Easter, but then I fizzled out. I discovered that blogging, to me, is both too personal and too impersonal. Too personal because I’m putting my life out there for the entire world to see; too impersonal because I’m writing information to be spread out on the World Wide Web, and for all anyone knows, I could be fictionalizing my entire life for you.

The goal, however, was to write more frequently, and that I achieved. My overall motto for 2012 had been “Write On 2012.” In 2012, my byline appeared on 19 stories in the Opinion-Tribune, 10 Omaha World-Herald Special Sections, four OWH Hotel Wraps, and two Wedding Essentials magazine articles.

Along with writing and being published more frequently, I have also been trying to introduce myself to the literati. In July Wade and I went to “A Wilde Time at the Castle,” a truly fun event at the Joslyn castle where we tasted different types of Absinthe (we had never tasted this before) and listened to readings from the Opium den scene of the “Picture of Dorian Grey.” I went back the next week to hear a different reading.

Castles and gothica just seem to go together, don’t they? One other literary event I attended in October was Poe at the Castle, a series of Poe readings done in various rooms of the castle. That was a lot of fun.

Wade’s cousin Jeff Lacey now runs a publishing company called Rogue Faculty Press, and in April we attended a reading of one of the first books to be published “What Teaching Means.” We wish he and his fellow publishers well in this venture.

I achieved one longtime goal of attending Omaha Lit Fest. Every year that event has been stacked on top of another event, and I always end up at the other event. This year, the Lit Fest was stacked on top of Bustoberfest (late October). I really wrestled for three days whether to attend Lit Fest or Bustoberfest, and on Wednesday, an editor made the decision for me when he called and asked if I could take photos for him on Saturday morning. Lit Fest it was. I attended the Friday night party, with a poetry slam, a lovely student string quartet, a literary cake decorating contest, and … uh … Jell-O shots. Anyway, the next morning, I woke up, took nearly 100 photos of kiddos in costume for the paper, turned the 20 best ones in to the editor, and went back to Omaha for a day of literary lectures and book buying. I was very impressed and I hope to be able to go again next year.

Out of those 20 photos, I got three published, but I had several other photos published along the way this year. A different editor told me this spring that learning to shoot photos properly would make me more marketable, so in July we sold Wade’s stereo speakers (which have been kind of a hassle for the last few years, anyway) and bought a Canon T3 digital camera, with an extra lens. I followed said editor/photographer around like a little puppy several times, shooting the Omaha Art Festival, Taste of Omaha and Ralston’s Fourth of July festival. Once I had spent about a month doing that, I started shooting things on my own. With the colder weather and the holiday season, I haven’t shot photos lately, but I will again soon.

When I wasn’t going to literary events or working for the media, I could normally be found partaking reading or partaking of arts events. I read 21 books in 2012.

The best, far and away, was The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. This was a gorgeous book in many ways – intriguing gothic/romantic plot, beautiful writing, a foreign setting, and historical enough to feel long ago without really being long ago.

My second favorite of the year had to be Shadow of the Wind. My dear friend Heather Jack had told me about this book quite some time ago, but I just hadn’t gotten around to reading it. When I called one day to inquire about suggestions, she suggested only that because “I’m so mad at you for not having read it yet!” OK, I give – and I’m very glad I did. No other books were really notable this year. In fact, the last two I read (Secret Scripture and Lovely Bones) both showed great promise, but were so terrible at the end I wanted to throw them away!

As for the arts events, this was quite the year. On the large scale, I only went to one Broadway Across America production this year (Billy Elliott in November), and Opera Omaha’s Mikado, but I went to a lot of smaller events. In March I went to the Fantasticks at Omaha Playhouse and Bye, Bye Birdie at the Barton Theater in Glenwood. I went to two Tuesday Musicals in April and then in June, the Tuesday Musical season closed out with a breathtaking performance by violinist Kiril Troussov and his sister, pianist Alexandra Troussova. The season started again in October with a violinist, and I missed the latest performance because it was on election night.

In this visual arts world, Joslyn Art Museum opened a great exhibit in February called To Live Forever, Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum. Egypt exhibits always draw a big crowd, and this one was no different. We also attended the opening night of Under Pressure: Contemporary Prints.

In between all these fine arts activities, I went to a few different events.
Probably the best article I wrote this year for the World-Herald was for the program for the Omaha International equestrian event. I could not and did not, ethically, accept tickets from the interviewee, but when a ticket was presented to me by someone else, I could not pass up the chance to go. I ended up with a great seat and thoroughly enjoyed learning about the sport.

Wade and I also traveled to Weston, Mo., for the Mo-Kan VW Show in May. We loved spending time with our VW friends, and we also loved this charming little town. We loved it so much, in fact, that the following weekend we ran back down there and spent a little more time.

In November, Heather came back to Omaha from Pasadena for Thanksgiving, and she and I, and my friend Jennifer Carter, went to Faces Day Spa for a wonderful day out. Mani/pedi/massage/facial, followed by lunch at McFoster’s vegetarian restaurant and shopping.

In January, I started practicing yoga in earnest. I faithfully unrolled the yoga mat three times a week in January, February and March, and when March 15 rolled around, I also started practicing Bikram (hot) yoga. I loved it, but when mid-summer came, I got very busy with other activities, and the yoga went on the back burner. It’s a very good winter activity for me, however, so I am going to start again at the first of the year.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Quiet, please

Tags

classical music, solitude, Summer

Lately I desire electronic detox and solitude.

It partially started when I attended an amazing Tuesday Musical concert on June 12. The performance was by siblings Kiril Troussov and Alexandra Troussova. Kiril is a violinist who plays Antonio Stradivari’s 1702 violin named “The Brodsky,” on which Adolph Brodsky performed the world premiere of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto on Dec. 4, 1881. Alexandra is a pianist. The siblings were supposed to have played in April for the official 120^th anniversary of Tuesday Musical, but there were problems with their visa. I am still in awe of this event – the caliber of talent was incredible.  I was pleased with the fact that there were more people at the concert than normal, but I do wish that the concert hall had been packed for this free event.

Wade (and I, by proximity) was watching a show on TV not long ago about the “100 Greatest Hooks,” hooks being those choruses or beginning notes to songs that get stuck in one’s head. In my case, having the hook in my head is about as pleasant as having a strawberry seed in my teeth.  It wasn’t my choice to watch this, but I wasn’t bothered by it, at least until I heard one specific song come on by rapper 50-cent. I do not know why, but I was actually able to hear the lyrics for the first time that night, and I was disgusted – the song was misogynistic. Unforutnately, the chorus, or “hook” did its trick.  It popped into my head and to get rid of it, it took an hour of “The Only Classical CD You’ll Ever Need” (meaning it defines classical as Pachabel’s “Canon,” Beethoven’s Fifth and Tchaikovsky’s “SwanLake,” then condenses this onto one CD.)

Since I started working for the newspaper seven years ago, I often have the desire to listen to classical music during the summer. I suspect it is because I get so busy in the summer that I want the quiet and the solitude that can not be provided by pop/rock/etc.  I prefer instrumental music, as some days I have been surrounded by so much noise and so many people chattering that even the sound of voices singing is irritating.

Likewise I have been holed up reading novels featuring places and times where there are no smart phones or iPads. There is no internet and no TV. In the past two weeks I have read two novels, each was neither fantastic nor horrible. They both allowed me to forget about being a 21^st-Century American woman for a while.  My next novel continues this thread. I have started “When We Were Orphans,” by Kazuo Ishiguro, set in the 1930s.  His novels are fabulously thick in subject and require quiet, solitude and lots of attention.

My favorite place to read these books is on my upstairs porch, which has a lack of phones, internet and TV.  In fact, this quiet space is so sacred to me that I hardly bring food onto this porch with me, only a periodic cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade. The cats frequently come in and spend time with me, but they nearly always hang out on the window sill or the chunks of carpet on the floor.  I think they realize this is my space, which is why they don’t jump on me as they do when I am reading in my big green chair downstairs.

Last night I went to One Tree Yoga for the first time in several weeks.  With all the photos I have shot, music I have listened to, and books I have read lately, I let the yoga practice slip under the radar. It was more than 90 degrees at 6 p.m. last night, and the temperature inside the room was at least ten degrees higher, humidity notwithstanding.  There were at least 20 people in the class last night, which means we were packed into the room like sardines – there were merely two inches between each person’s yoga mat. Despite the close proximity to each other, the practice was solitary, and I came away from One Tree Yoga drenched in sweat, but feeling physically and mentally wonderful. Tonight I am going home to a solitary yoga session with my far less hot, less sweat-inducing DVD.

July is the season of community festivals and ice cream socials.  Perhaps in the coming month I will metamorph into a social butterfly, but I have certainly enjoyed my quiet June.

Summer in the City

It’s summer, and that means activity abounds, both in my life and in the city.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been shooting photos.  Mind you, I am no great photographer, but writers must be able to photograph, even in the most basic of ways, so on top of writing, I have pulled my Canon Rebel out of the closet, dusted it off, and loaded it with film.  Yes, film.

The past two Fridays, I have gone out to shoot photos with my friend and editor Howard.  He is a very good photographer, so it works well for me to follow him and watch what he is shooting.  We went to Taste of Omaha at 2 p.m. – we should have gone an hour earlier.  The crowd that came for lunch had thinned out, so I got some good shots of, well, geese, and some good overall stock photos.

This past Friday, we went to the Art Fair.  I got down to the Art Fair earlier than Howard, then called him and said he’d better get down there before the crowd thinned out again.  Then I started shooting without him.  I got a few nice shots of glass pieces, but that seems to be about it.  I used up that roll on some interesting shots downtown.  There were many lovely pieces of art to be bought, but this year I bought nothing.  I usually set aside a chunk of money for a piece of jewelry or a hand-painted/hand dyed top, but I’m looking at buying a digital Canon Rebel in the next few weeks, so I resisted.

Saturday was the Excellence in Journalism banquet.  I must say, it was odd.  The event itself was lovely – kudos to Nicole Lindquist for filling the Omaha Press Club with media people – but it was odd because I did not have a lot to do.  I served as a greeter, opening the door for people and directing traffic, but after having run this event for the past five years, it was kind of hard to sit down and eat dinner and not have to worry about whether anything was going to go awry.

Next weekend is the Omaha VW Club’s annual Show ‘N Shine.  In a similar situation, I do not have much to do at this event.  I distributed press releases and will help tally votes, but for many years I did everything from writing press releases to cataloging raffle prizes to running to Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. for car parts to spending half the show day behind a computer creating a database. I think it will be strange to be able to enjoy the show and spend time with people instead of running around taking care of multiple things.

In between attending all of these events, I have been trying to read.  I spent about two weeks picking up books and then putting them down again.  The entire house was littered with literature, until I finally decided that enough was enough on Sunday and picked up the house.  I have left off the yoga, about which I feel a bit guilty, but I also realize that I will go back to it when the summer festival season leaves me with more time.

Happy summer everyone.  Enjoy the art fairs and food festivals.  Enjoy the farmer’s markets and car shows.

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

Tags

literature, Summer, travel

Wade and I went to Weston, Mo., this weekend, again. Last weekend we were introduced to this charming town full of unique stores at Volksweston – the Mo-Kan VW Club’s annual show.

This has always been one of our Volkswagen favorite shows to attend. Several years ago it was held in Lawrence, Kan., a college town as full of artists and utopian spirit as any in the Midwest. It was during this time we drove our utopian Psychedelic Sweet Pea and spent our mid-20s going from VW show to VW show, but Mo-Kan was always close to our hearts.

The 2011 show was held on the grounds of a casino outside of Kansas City near the river, but the floods drove the club out of that location, so Weston became the destination. Wade and I took turns staying near Gutenberg the bus during the show and wandering around the downtown seeing friends, Volkswagens and shops. Among our favorite places were Mort’s Classic Cameras and the Celtic Ranch, where I walked to the back of the store through fairyland to pet the pony that they keep there – no, it’s true, I swear I wasn’t hallucinating. I was also excited to find a Heather Gem. I had seen these on the Travel Channel about two years ago and thought they were really cool.

The campground for the weekend was on a former tobacco plantation, set on a hill from which soldiers could view Leavenworth during the Civil War. The original part of the plantation house was built in 1842. We saw many friends old and new, ate lots of good food, and generally enjoyed the experience of being carefree and on the road.

We ended our weekend with a trip to Atchison, Kan., for breakfast with our good friend Matt Ramsey.

Thank you so much to the Mo-Kan VW Club for a wonderful weekend.

Many of my friends in Omaha have heard this story – I was impressed with the southern (yes, southern) hospitality and the decompression I experienced from being with people I love and trust.

Wade has been looking for a Bolex 16-mm film camera for quite some time, and he found one at the camera shop, so this weekend, we woke up at 6:30 a.m., loaded up his Bolex 8-mm cameras and drove back down to Weston. In the Jetta, it’s a cute little day trip. We arrived in Weston just at 10 a.m., so some stores were just opening, some were not yet open. We walked into the McCormick distillery store, sampled two liquors each (Irish creme and vanilla vodka for me, aged whiskey and peach vodka for Wade) and then went to the Celtic Ranch, where I proved to Wade that I am not crazy – there IS a pony in the store – and we got a recommendation for a lovely bistro in an old mansion named White Lace. Lunch was one of the highlights of this trip. Wade had the Ahi tuna special, I ate a portabello mushroom/goat cheese sandwich and drank a glass of local blackberry mead. I do not know who does their baking, but that person has to be a pastry chef. Wade finished his lunch with the flan, I finished my lunch with the most perfect apple tart I have ever eaten. The layered pastry crust was absolutely tender AND flaky.

After lunch, we went to the camera shop, where Wade was able to trade his Bolex 8-mm for a Bolex 16-mm. Not the exact deal he wanted, but he is still happy. We walked through a couple of other stores we did not hit last weekend, such as the old-school hardware store, the cigar store and the book store, and then we loaded up again and hit I-29 toward Brownville, Neb.

We got to Brownville about 3 p.m. and hit the Antiquarium. We were both pleasantly surprised to find it open. We had been there a couple of times since the store moved, and both times it was closed. We spent two hours there yesterday. The new store has enough room that everything is really well organized, but it is still the same Antiquarium – the same owner waxing politics and literature with you over mismatched cups filled with black coffee, the same thousands and thousands of books both familiar and unique. We walked out with a book on Impressionist art, several children’s books, several of my favorite classics, a book I want to re-read because I read it too fast the first time, and a couple of antiquarian books that I picked up because the artwork both on the cover and inside was gorgeous. I really miss this gem of a store being in downtown Omaha.

We took a quick turn through the town’s Memorial Day Weekend flea market, but as it was just at 5 p.m. when we went, the vendors were closing up shop. We arrived in Glenwood about 6 p.m., hit the Mexican restaurant in Glenwood for dinner, and came home, road-weary and over-stuffed but happy.

Today we took it a bit easier, driving to a barbecue joint for lunch (we somehow managed to get really close to Kansas City two weekends in a row without eating barbecue) and went to an antique store but did not find anything we needed. We went to the movie theater, but did not see any movies we wanted to see, so we came back home and took a nap indoors while the temperature outdoors continued to rise.

Tomorrow, Wade is going to work (TV does not sleep) and I have the house to myself. My plan is to keep the TV off and get some writing done – not for any paper, but for me.

Happy summer everyone. Let the season of road trips and carefree days begin.