Echoes in a Hollow Space

This morning, the pipes leading hot water to the kitchen went kaflooie. Lotsa money involved. It's an old house. Slowly but surely we're going to be forced to replace all the piping, but the timing always sucks. There is much chagrin in the land.

And Mercury didn't even go retrograde until yesterday. Damnable planet.

These are all small things, very small. No one is dead, we have a roof over our head, sufficient bread. This is the small stuff they tell you not to sweat.

Parts of me are feeling much better today, other parts much worse, but all-in-all I'm on the mend. And I have a lovely shiner! It should be interesting to see who avoids meeting my eye at work tomorrow (as I intend to go back). I remember that from my accident five years ago, how uncomfortable it made people to see a woman with black eyes, how some people scrupulously avoided asking what happened.

There's some kind of societal testament in that, isn't there? And not necessarily a good one.

Onward.

Random quote of the day:


"I think there's only one true form of greatness for a man. If a Man can bridge that gap between life and death, I mean, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man. When they talk about success, they talk about reaching the top. But there is no top. You've got to go on and on, NEVER STOP AT ANY POINT. To me, the only success, the only true greatness for a man lies in immortality."

—James Dean, age 20




( Illustrated version. )


The strange immortality of James Dean. This is a fairly balanced report. There are some lovely James Dean sites out there, but there are some strange ones, too. Many worshipful Dean sites on the interdweeb refuse to believe Mr. Dean was killed by something as mundane as an accident. Conspiracy theories and rumors of curses abound, and in many quarters there's still a great deal of hostility towards Mr. Turnupseed. But legends are just as liable as anyone to be taken out by accidents—not to mention irony: the Prince of Cool, taken out by a Turnipseed.

And am I the only one who finds it ironic that James Dean's middle name is Byron?


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

You know the kind, where laying your head on the railroad track actually seems attractive. Off with her head—that's where all the trouble starts, so off with it! Too much thinking is a deadly thing. And that's what I was doing yesterday. Nearly killed me. I'm better now.

The thing is, when it's a too much thinking kind of day, the least thing can send the train careening down the wrong track. And sweet reason gets pulverized by the fast moving freight of worry and paranoia; no consolation is strong enough to stand against that rushing onslaught. "Run fast! Jump off the train!" Or lie down and let it roll over you.

But I've learned a thing or two in this process of living, and a day's derailment rarely turns into a downward spiral anymore. The train was back on track this morning and I didn't feel like laying my head on the track ahead of it.

An editor said she liked the world I'd created and wanted to see more; someone else who rejected the same novel spoke disparagingly of its "type." I didn't take that personally. I really didn't think she meant me personally, just the type of fiction I was writing. But it made me wonder why I'm writing what I'm writing. Those are only two opinions, no matter what position these people occupy in the publishing world. But I tortured myself with thinking, "Is it a trend? And which way is the trend trending? Am I obsolete before I've even finished the journey?" The wheels go round and round; the high, lonesome whistle sounds; clickity clack clickity clack.

I've been doing a storm of writing lately. Usually that's enough to ward off the whangdoodles of uncertainty. After so not wanting to write a few weeks back at the beginning of my chapter 14, it came barreling through me and practically wrote itself—a blessed feeling, rich and rare. Chapter 15 has been much the same. I've now passed the 56,000 word mark (SMF), really in the zone, feeling pretty durned good about things. But it's another one of those "types" of novels and I'm well aware of the prejudice against them out there in certain quarters. Why am I writing it? Because it needs to be written. And the momentum is such that we should be arriving in Kankakee, ladies and gentleman, by morning. If that makes some editors happy—good on me. If it makes others unhappy—such is the price of your ticket, ladies and gentleman. Don't blame the conductor.

And to put things in a completely different perspective, I was almost run down in the parking lot of Costco the other day. In fact, I was run down in the parking lot of Costco. The inattentive woman in the Mercedes who was wheeling around a car waiting for a parking space hit my purse rather than my hip and sent the purse careening rather than my body—but it was a matter of inches. She refused to roll down her window, but that's okay. I enunciated very carefully. I'm sure she read my lips quite well before stepping on the gas and high-tailing it out of there.

I'm really glad I'm not really the Anna Karenina type. I'm really glad my last moments on the planet were not spent in the parking lot of Costco. Although who knows what the future holds? A friend of mine always used to say, "Irony is the leading cause of death in this country." I never quite understood what he meant, but I understood it well in that Costco parking lot the other night. I'd envisioned a somewhat more picturesque ending: perhaps reclining on a divan, coughing demurely between bouts of belting out a Puccini aria.

But life rarely gives you what you want in exactly the form you want it. Even your death.

Sometimes the scenery out the window is nice, though.