Smart-dressed man

My father ironed his own dress shirts and slacks for work on Sunday evenings in his pajamas. Collar first. Arms creased from the shoulder to cuff. Back to front he'd swivel the hot iron - shhhhh - top to bottom and back up. He was like a calligrapher with the steamer across the back of each shirt. I have no idea why I watched him iron. To be near him. To pay attention to a man who almost never asks for attention; only obedience. Post-gender role awareness, I used to kind of brag that he ironed his own clothes. It was not much to brag about compared to father's who had resisted the draft or raised their children without a wife. I was aware. Anyway, mom popped any idea about my father as progressive. "Your father doesn't like the way I iron," she said. I guess, I liked the way he ironed. In college, I ironed my button-down shirts just like he did. I used to tell my third wave feminist boyfriend, this is how my father ironed his shirts. 

Today is my father's birthday. 

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Wah, wah, wah! (A Book Review)

I'm an invisible monster, and I'm incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse.            - Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

            What do you get when you mix guns with AIDS with “Sorry, Mom. Sorry, God”?

A hot mess!

Or, a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

Never read any of Palahniuk’s other novels. New City’s quote encapsulates most of my reaction to Palahniuk’s skill as a storyteller, a master of plot and language:

“…his style – this time jumping through chronological time like a nervous whippet – breaks all rules and conventions, like he never learned them.” [bold is mine]

            Disagree with New City on one thing. It’s impossible to break a rule until you’ve learned it. Messy timelines confuse the reader and muddle the plot.

Everyone has had a writing instructor correct a story for jumping around a timeline too much. Mine advised me to cut out all but one flashback saying, if you find yourself covering a lot of backstory, then start over at the beginning.

The word ‘jump’ appears at least once per page in Invisible Monsters. OK, that is an exaggeration. However, occasionally three (page 176) or four (page 214) jumps in the timeline are made in a single page. Jump to childhood. Jump to pill popping. Jump back to everything is on fire.

And, you know what? I never once lost my place.

How does Palahniuk get away with it? That’s my burning question.

            Palahniuk is not the only writer in Portland who thinks that story telling does not mean chronology as a straightaway from birth to death. Lidia Yuknavitch, fellow Oregonian literati and member of Palahniuk’s inner circle, thinks that language is more than a marker on a story trail.  She writes in her memoir, “Language is a metaphor for experience. It’s as arbitrary as the mass of chaotic images we call memory – but we can put it into lines to narrativize over fear.”

            There is spontaneity and messiness to life that the linear “and then, and then, and then” cannot illuminate. Palahniuk addresses those who would hate him for jumping back and forth across narrative and trampling all over the tradition of storytelling on page 20.

“Don’t look for a contents page, buried magazine-style twenty pages back from the front. Don’t expect to find anything right off. There isn’t a real pattern to anything, either. Stories will start and then, three paragraphs later:

            Jump to whatever.

            Then, jump back.”

It was as if Palahniuk was ready for outcry from the literary community. It may have also been to reassure readers. Fear not! There was a method to his madness.

I’ll say right off that I love Palahniuk’s whippet-like movements in time and place. And it tore me up inside. How does he get away with this stuff? Is it because he found just the right context to make Memento-like breaks in time reliable? We know that when the word jump appears you are moving, travelling, and surrendering. Fortunately, Palahniuk delivers with every move. There are sad sack zingers like:

“It’s all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power.”

And

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”

Outlaws do not plod, they dart. Fashion does not conform, but transforms. Revenge is not predictable; it is dramatic. Jump. Now.

Palahniuk was out of his mind when he wrote this book. He is also the author of several bestselling novels. Two of his novels, Fight Club and Choke, were made into films. So, he has a niche and an adoring fan base that craves his brand of indulging in self-destruction.

In Invisible Monsters the heroine never fully redeems herself. She never apologizes for the fires or the attempts to destroy others lives. Instead, Shannon McFarland (aka Daisy St. Patience, Bubba-Joan, Bump, Miss Arden Scotia), our heroine-villain-victim, enables her savior bent on hurting herself with too much plastic surgery. Our heroine is narcissistic. She is pathological. She does not have a face. Her one selfless act gives life to someone who clearly does not want it.

            Why is Palahniuk crazy good? Maybe it’s because he rejected the status he achieved with Fight Club and got Invisible Monsters published anyway. Because he is not afraid of brutally attacking his characters by revealing their misguided thoughts of “being saved by chaos” or “What I really hate is me so I hate pretty much everybody.” Because his details are imaginative, his observations are sharp-witted, and he is hilarious.  This book will blow something up in you. Guaranteed. 

            Jump to me reading Choke.  

Day 401

If there are an infinite number ... from beginning to end, then...Begin The End.

   Those three ellipses encapsulate my 401 days since I started seriously applying myself to the craft of novel writing. It seems that the publisher does not want more. I am in a rut. There is no more of the old stuff. 

   Creating is a strange work to be in. It requires lots of sheep + goat cheese and red wine. It requires lots of carbs.

   New stuff needs a new locution. That is, in my protagonist's case, a new way of speaking. I'll find it somewhere.

   The novice novel writer needs a new end. THE GREAT END. Not to this book. No. That has been made sacrosanct by my character, my ethics, my devotion to his truth. He must be freshly made whole and tummy-full. 

On Day 401, I am recommitted to this novel to...The End.

Living More and More and More

I blame my parents. They were not big entertainers while I was growing up. They hosted the occasional Bible study that consisted of potluck surprise, sodas, and coffee. I especially loved Triscuits with thick slabs of whipped cheese that came in a shiny glazed crock with a red stay fresh rubber seal.  Sometimes there was ambrosia or Havarti with dill, but that was about as "fancy" as the food got at these events, as I recall. Fittingly, unpretentious food was served on paper plates that sagged from too many helpings of runny German potato salad and Dixie cups. It was after all, a gathering to enrich your spiritual life, not your palate. 


There is no reason to blame anyone for not showing me how to throw an amazing soiree. But, it seems to me, people who grew up with parents who entertain, do it with greater ease. Dinner parties require a plan, a menu, a grocery list, the right stemware, matching forks and knives, serving dishes, wine, music, and lots of yummy yummy food. Though, a group feast (hopefully) need not be an unattainable goal. However, when executed masterfully, dinner at your house can feel like a feat of Fête. 


Last night, two friends and my roommate joined me for a dinner that I have fancied recreating ever since I had something very similar in my friend's Belgian kitchen eight or nine years ago. Now, my hosts are practiced and talented entertainers. Pierre can throw together a sumptuous, three or four course meal in a small space, while drinking a whole bottle of wine and debating politics. His wife and my childhood friend, Jill, is his perfect assistant, filling his wine glass while she juliennes carrots, wraps enoki mushrooms with bacon, and keeps her hungry guests entertained with colorful stories. It was a delight to watch them work in tandem. He asks his wife, to please get the butter. She moves to the refrigerator and asks, more wine? He says, Yes, please! She brings out the butter, unwraps it, and cuts it into the portion that he needed before pouring all of us another glass. As I'm filling up with wine, bread, cheese, and Saucisson a Ail, the kitchen is also filling up with the smell of melting butter, boiling endive, and roasting bacon fat. In short, good friends, good food, great memory. The challenge for me was that I had not attempted to make these dishes before (that I can remember) and I do not often have a dinner party (I prefer to call it "dinner at my house") because of my Host Anxiety.


Yes. Host Anxiety is real. I know it is real because I saw it for seven years in the fundraising business in New York City. You show me an event planner without Host Anxiety and you will get one pathetic event. Add the desire to recreate some of those delicious moments of shared bliss over perfectly bubbling raclette, baby potatoes, and cornichons, and I am furtively searching on the internet for the right temperature to heat raclette. Why am I feeling guilty about this gathering of lovely women around my table? 


I blame the Mennonites. Specifically, Doris Janzen Longacre, for writing a book that parallels American wastefulness and its detrimental effects on the lives of millions in Africa and other third world countries with spiritual hunger. It was published in the conspicuous consumption 1980's. Copies must have flown off the shelf! Did you know that envelopes can be reused for note taking? Longacre's example of reusing an envelope seemed to say that recycling is kind of the existential equivalent to saving a life. I just want to make dinner for my friends. Incidentally, I did reuse some paper to write down my menu plan, my grocery list, and my order for preparation by course. Only, now the other side of paper is not caring enough. Newly aware of my puny efforts, I faced a tough decision about where to buy the ham? Local farmer? I tried last Saturday at the PSU farmers market. No one was selling the right kind of ham. Do I go to the neighborhood specialty store for the ham? Or would it be less waste to go to one place for all of the ingredients on the Max (Portland's mass transit)? Frankly, this is living more with less when compared to living in cities like Brussels or New York City, where you can always buy Jambon de Bayonne, year round, conveniently, AND at 3 a.m. I settled on the latter and took my own grocery sacks, because that is who I am now.  A socially self-conscious poser, rather not a Mennonite.


[This was supposed to be a post about the lovely dinner party last night, but instead, this writing has turned into part-confession, part-satire.  I'm going with it. So, stop here or read on...]


The reason for this dinner was not just to relive the past, but in celebration of a personal achievement, in which, these local ladies (and several other people living in Arizona, New York and Pennsylvania) played a major role as guinea pigs, critics, and cheerleaders. I wanted to throw a party for everyone but that just was not possible without bending our space-time continuum into a banyan tree knot. Messy! It was enough for me to prepare this meal for these ladies, with my heartfelt thanks and drool. 


Cheese is more than food. Cheese is creamy comfort and utterly fulfilling. My menu pivoted around raclette cheese and a bottle of 2009 Belle Pente Pinot Noir from grapes grown in the Dundee Hills, less than an hour south of Portland. As menus go, the one I chose last night was simple. The first course was a venison pate from Chop Butchery & Charcuterie served with french bread, cornichons, black mission figs, and ripened red pears. The second course was endive, wrapped in Niman Ranch Jambon Royal, covered in bechamel sauce and baked until done, topped with a mixture of asiago, parmesan, and romano cheeses. The final course was the baked raclette. The recipe I found online called for plates heated in 500 degrees until hot. The last time I turned up the oven to 500 all hell broke loose. So, I opted for 400 degrees. Well, after the Pinot Noir and then a Sangiovese from Trader Joe's, I was so enjoying the conversation that I OVERCOOKED the raclette! I brought the melted puddle of cheese to the table with boiled baby golden potatoes and we each scooped a bit of the cheesy puddle over our potatoes. They got the idea of raclette's wonderfully smooth texture and taste. [It is surprising that I do not own a fondue pot nor a raclette, the way I go on about cheese.] Let us not forget that cooking can also be about exploration and testing your limits. Unfortunately, my limit is two courses and two glasses of wine. Thankfully, my guests were appreciative and scooping up bechamel with bread crusts, eating almost every last bite placed before them.


I blame the heart for the follies of the body. Each one of us probably ate a pound of dairy. When you are an amateur entertainer, you cannot go wrong with dairy. Well, unless you overcook your cheese. But, it was still edible. And we ate it up! Upon reflection, I know that what I enjoyed last night, may have caused/ cause another soul harm. Not to mention, all that dairy may come to haunt me tonight. There are few other ways to illicite such joy in a group setting and fully clothed than a wonderful meal. For the smiles, the little moans, and sighs of delight from my fellow partiers, I would gladly do it all over again. Although, I would serve the pate at room temperature. I would bake the endive and ham closer to service. I would not melt the cheese. I would have two different types of Pinot Noir and enough red wine glasses to go around. I would serve on recyclable plates and serving dishes. And, I would make sure my camera worked in order to record that I am living more and more and more. 

Open Mic Night at White Eagle Saloon

Violence is playing guitar and singing at open mic night at the White Eagle Saloon. In your mind it is supposed to be transcendent but in reality it is killing you. Every millisecond you loose a piece of yourself. One singer-songwriter after the other steps up to the light, like a kamikaze. Huzzah!


Step up! to the microphone and sing your diddy. It sounds so straightforward, so comprehensible. You created something and you want people to hear it so that your creation will live. You are committed to giving your song life. Until, you are standing in front of strangers and you realize how useless it is to care about this life as there will be others. The end is TRUTH. Right about now, you are do or DIE. Art kills. So, you want to die with dignity. 


You let your voice S-A-I-L out. You pluck and pull that beat. With each pulse your corporeal essence (your essere) gives way to the sea. Did you know that waves sound like one hand slapping the bar at the White Eagle Saloon?

Kansas Flats, Quiet Room, and Coffee Euphoria

Margaret had an incredible urge to scream at the Mountain View coffee company for giving her mild Breakfast Blend rather than the anticipated full-bodied French roast. Someone in Flats, California had filled thousands of shiny plastic bags decorated with a generic snow capped mountain logo with the wrong blend of beans. These erroneously labeled bags were then distributed across the country to unsuspecting wholesalers and grocery chain stores.  Finally, several boxes of the mislabeled ground coffee ended up tucked away in the cupboard above te kitchen sink  of Northwest Care where Margaret was a customer service representative. She spat out the mild brew, just missing Janice, the only Filipina in the office. "This isn't French roast!" she cried.


It offended Margaret that no one had opened a bag and sniffed it before accepting shipment - that would have been a ridiculous waste of time! Unfortunately for Margaret, who was in need of something stronger and not this useless mellow roast, someone else's lack of follow-through was now her reality.  Margaret swore loudly and stormed across the hall to the Quiet Room.  She needed ten seconds to pummel the idiot in Flats, Kanses who filled the wrong bags with the wrong coffee and ruined her morning; possibly her entire day.


Janice rolled her eyes and used a napkin to wipe up the coffee Margaret had spit all over the floor.  It was going to be an interesting day, she thought.


By 12:30 Margaret was stiff-necked and listless.  Her first caller was from Russia, was very old, and tool long pauses between every- single- word. Her second call was a serious complaint that made her despair.  The member called about his physician on the north side of town who made discriminatory remarks about his sexual orientation during a routine check-up, which took some time to type out, repeat, correct and then explain the complaint process to this tearful member. The call landed her in the Quiet Room for the second time.  The rest of her morning was comprised of internal emails, follow-up calls, and a few more member questions.  


Margaret kept her eye on the sky the whole morning. First, it was a blanket of grayish cotton.  By mid-morning, Margaret could see more blue sky. When a sun break seemed imminent, she logged off her computer, grabbed her parka, and threw her purse over her shoulder, and walked out without a word to her manager.


Walking through the front door of her office building, she realized that if she was going to have any satisfaction the entire day, she needed a great cup of coffee and she knew exactly where to get it - downtown. Margaret felt like an early settler in search of her place in the world as she sped to the MAX, jaywalking and then crossing the parking lot. The light rail cars arrived just as she set foot on the platform, the doors opened, and she glided on through.


A man in a puffy black jacket, dirtied from several nights sleep on the streets, was talking to his red-faced buddy abou this skill as a salesman.


"How many times you sat down on a toilet with your cell phone in your back pocket? I can't tell you how many times I done that. I got the solution and I'm going to sell 500 of 'em today. Right now, in fact, I'm going to St. Mark's and to the Department of Transportation. It's been approved by a scientist, a physical therapist and the Department of Health.  This is a genius idea right here! It'll take care of your problems. No more...[makes a sound like straining]. It'll pop the cover right up for ya!"


It tickled Margaret that so many people were obviously annoyed by this man's speech, but too polite to tell him to shut it.  This is Portland, not New York City.  Portland respects the rights of the other to say what they want, no matter how inconvenient, unnecessary, or inconsiderate the actions of the other are for the rest of us.  The people of Portland are tolerant. Margaret was just about ready to turn and tell the potty salesman to keep it down, she was caffeine deprived, when an announcement came over the loud-speaker.  The female conductor, in her most professional tone delivered a public service announcement to the riders of her Clackamas Town Center bound train, idling at stop 5416.


"Please do not hold the doors open. The reason for this is that it will disrupt service. When you hold the doors open it delays the train and makes everyone unhappy.  So, please do not hold the doors open. Holding doors open can result in a fine and is dangerous as well.  Please just wait for the next train. You could delay the train unnecessarily and harm yourself.  It is best for everyone to leave the doors alone and let the train keep to its regular schedule. Thank you for your help to keep this train and others safe and on time."


A big smile crossed Margaret's face when a nasal tone rang out from the back, "Shut up!" right in the middle of the friendly conductor's announcement. People in Portland are just afraid to confront anyone to their face, she thought. Or was it that voices of authority were meant to be challenged as was the natural order of things in a democracy? She decided on her first instinct.


Margaret stepped onto the wide, sun-glittered sidewalk downtown. She removed her parka to let the sunlight warm her head and shoulders. A man wearing a shiny blue button-down shirt smiled at her as she walked by.  She did not return this smile. People in Portland always seemed to be goading her into a smile and it made her feel like a monkey in a hurdy gurdy costume. Smile at me fancy lady! the people seemed to be saying with their cheerful grins. 


Margaret felt a rumble in her stomach. So, she picked up the pace. Her body began to warm up and she welcomed the cool shaded doorway of her favorite coffee shop. Behind the wooden counter, a girl wearing large framed glasses, doning a pixie haircut took her order - a large Americano. Margaret took a seat at the espresso bar and watched the people walking by. 


Another customer, a large man, wearing a droopy, grey wool knit cap, suddenly laughed and cried out: "Look at that woman!" 


Across the street a woman wearing a tiered top, decorated with an eighties pallet of bright flowers was bent over, head first in the front seat of her car. She pulled out a mint green sweater and hastily covered her white arms. 


"Not quite!" the man said gleefully. He took his double shot latte and gave Margaret a wave and mouthed the greeting, "Hey!"


There is nothing more exhilarating than the moment a perfectly pulled hot Americano is delivered to a parched and tired mouth.  Margaret purred with satisfaction. She moaned a little. The girl behind the counter had seen it before - coffee euphoria is common in Portland. 


Margaret skipped out the door and swung her hips wantonly as she waltzed down the street that had already gone flat from an overcast sky.  Her sun break was over. 

Nothing I hate more than nothing

Thursday in working-bee parlance means, one more day to Friday and Shangri-La or, at least, margari-ta. Being back in an office for nine hours a day has made me face how much my perspective has changed toward work. I spend six hours a day writing in my kitchen without any human interaction and feel more alive than in these past ten days at my temp job. I am grateful for the money. Money buys me a large, airy, comfortable apartment.  Money buys me time to write. 


During my time at the office, I read at work, news sources mainly, but I have also been reading more about what's happening in the philanthropic world, artist retreats around Oregon and Washington, and Sen. Paul Ryan's "The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise." Which I bring up not to complain, but to comment that my presence is not exactly profitable for this managed health care company, which grates on me. The non-profit hired a temporary administrative assistant to answer the phone that hardly ever rings or ask a lot of questions that create a lot of circuitous emails, and take notes at meetings mainly focused on improving their productivity and effectiveness within this managed health care operation.  If I do next to nothing all day, they are to blame, not me. I am a worker-bee who shows up on time, is pleasant, capable, conscientious, and respectful. Yet, it drives me crazy that the department who hired me does not have the capacity to train me, nor the guts to go back to the temp agency and demand a temp with experience in health care, not some middle-manager who used to fundraise for the arts.  So, I go to work ready for nothing really to happen and nothing really does. I leave feeling as though I got next to nothing out of the actual work and neither did my department. Now, imagine if you worked for a major corporation and you felt this way? I know people who do. How utterly futile! 


Senator Ryan's aim at fiscal responsibility in Washington is to "restore America's promise." I say, budget cuts alone will not restore what worker-bees in this country need more than anything else - a sense of accomplishment.  What American workers need is a sense that what they are doing is SOMEthing. And, I believe, workers should not be punished for accepting less in an existential reward from their job in exchange for the safety and security of health benefits, cost of living increases, and a pension. There is an inherent assumption in Senator Ryan's premise of America's Promise, which is that all men are created equal, but not all men's choices are equal. 


I choose (I am fortunate. No sarcasm intended. At. All.) to go to my desk job today. I will probably read more about what is happening in Libya, Japan, and on Capitol HIll.  Maybe I'll do something really useful, something that will contribute to the increase productivity of my department today. So, here's to the promise of something!