What I Didn't Know

I'm always discovering new things. Last night, I learned the neighborhood dog park has a social caste system to rival the Hindus'. There's the retrivers, labs, and big dogs. They participate in group-fetching, where they vie for the same tennis ball. There's a little-dog clique that congregates away from the big-dog whirling dervish up on the small hill. Their owners seem to know each other, and chat while the dogs sit and look pretty. And there are the parents with children who keep their distance in the playground area.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of high school. It's a good primer for tonight's 10-year high school reunion.

Q

It's freakin hot.

Q + brick workout = hot triathlete.

Because I'm a louse, I postponed Saturday's brick (last long workout before beginning my Frog taper). So I had to do it today.

And since I am this previously mentioned louse, I returned to the house overheated, and took a cue from Louie.


I lay on the tile floor in front of a fan, ice cubes on my pulse points. Louie gave me a "this lady's crazy" look (it's the poodle part of him--very perceptive) and then munched on his own ice cubes.

After Saturday's lament about no responses from literary journals, three rejections arrived today. Don't editors have better things to do on Labor Day, like BBQ meat, than tell me I don't measure up?

The police in Mission Beach are donning riot gear today. The heat does strange things to people. Like cause them to brawl over a keg, or think they can make it as a fiction writer.

So Cruel

What's so cruel? A lifeguard changing the posted temperature as you're walking down to the ocean, from an already chilly 68 degrees to a punishing 65. We got in as soon as possible before it dropped again.

Silence from short story submissions. I'm guessing this is the lull before a storm. What I don't know is weather the storm will bring a downpour of acceptances or malestrom of denials. But surely the cold water that's been flushed into the Cove is preceding a weather change.

Memorization

Last month, I challenged myself to memorize a poem. One month + one day later I've finally selected one, "Hotel Insomnia" by Charles Simic. It's an unexpected piece with a strong sense of place, and by choosing it I'm giving a nod to this country's new Poet Laureate. I was lucky enough to hear Mr. Simic read while at New York. At the risk plagiarizing, I'll reprint the first stanza here, and post subsequent ones as I memorize them.

I liked my little hole,
its window facing a brick wall.
Next door there was a piano.
A few evenings a month
a crippled old man came to play
"My Blue Heaven."

The Mighty West Coast

While tilling the patchy areas of the lawn today, I got to thinking about the ways that west-coast literature is underrepresented. It's no secret that what gets published is influenced by a number of factors; it's a lot more complicated than simply printing the best stories.

To be sure, the stereotype of west-coast excess has led people to dismiss the place. The Hollywood lifestyle and those damn shows "The OC" and "The Real Housewives of Orange County" have done a good job of showing the rest of the country how vacuous southern California can be. It can lead people to believe the only stories coming out of here involve sun-kissed debauchery. Except this isn't true.

But even if it were, Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis did a superb job of writing "literary," "heady" works about east-coast excess. So what gives?

(Parenthetical aside--thank God for ZYZZYVA.)

I talked about this a bit with Rick Moody while at New York. His response was that it's due to the agents and publishing houses being on the east coast. They privilege what they know.

Sadly, this seems true. I thought people read literature to discover new worlds. Maybe they just want a mirror.

Gardening and Sewing

Annual flowers and lawn patch have come to excite me. I spent an hour breaking a sewing machine needle, then troubleshooting every other problem that can go wrong with a forty-year-old machine.

When did all this happen? I'm not trying to avoid any writer's block.

What I'm desperately trying to do is rewrite a story I had a one-on-one critique with at Squaw. But the backyard won't stop calling.

Travels with Louie

Louie is still perpetually scared, but dealing with new places, people, and dogs like a champ. In the past few days Louie and I have been to Bryan's lab, UCSD, the lagoon, the beach (sort of), Petco, and plenty of shopping centers. It won't be long until we're taking a cross-country road trip a la John Steinbeck.

I took him to Panera today to have lunch with a fellow Squaw participant and he did great. My friend brought her dog and the two of them got along wonderfully. It was great to talk with another struggling/burgeoning writer. And someone who's local, too! I received emails today from past workshop mates about readings in New York and the bay area. There is no writing community in San Diego.

I may be nearly done with a short story about a woman and a bird. It even has a title!

Louie gets really excited about rawhide "tortilla chips." And whenever I top a meal with salsa (which is quite often) he won't stop sniffing the plate. He has a link to Mexico by way of his former parents, so we're a real multi-cultural family. I just know he'll get along with Veronika's cat.