Most Creative Author Web Site Ever

Wish I'd done this.

Kudos to Miranda July. (If I had her name, I'd be more creative too.)

Live on the Michael Medved Show

I'll have the opportunity to talk about independent voters, and the independent voter movement, on the Michael Medved radio show tomorrow, Thursday, March 27, at 4 p.m. Eastern. The show, which airs on the Salem Radio Network, is heard on 200 or so stations nationwide and reaches a potential audience of 3.5 million listeners. To find out if it airs in your area, and on which station you can listen to it, go to the web site's station finder and click on your state.

For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, he was a well-known movie critic (co-hosting "Sneak Previews" with Jeffrey Lyons) and author before he became a well-known conservative talk-show host and commentator. (He pretty much stunned everyone when he converted from being a liberal to---some would say---an ultra conservative in the late '70s or early '80s, as I recall.) For those of you with long memories, he's also the guy who gave us the book What Really Happened to the Class of '65? and the subsequent TV show.

Regardless of what you think of his politics, Michael is a terrific and insightful interviewer. He's fair, and he always has interesting guests. (Pray that I'll keep that streak going for him!) This interview will provide me with a great opportunity to get the word out about independent activists and how we can impact the political system. I'm psyched!

(Cross-posted on We the Purple.)

Barack Obama and His Pastor

Aside from the obvious, something about this whole Barack Obama-Jeremiah Wright situation has been troubling me. Before I could get my act and my thoughts together to blog about it, I came across a related post by Diana Butler Bass on the God's Politics blog on Beliefnet. As always, Diana said it much better than I ever could. "Putting Rev. Wright's Preaching in Perspective" is worth reading in its entirety.

We the Purple Web Site Goes Live

Tyndale House has created an über-cool web site for We the Purple: Faith, Politics and the Independent Voter, and it's now up and running. The site features bonus content, an excerpt from the book, a poll on the presidential election, and an opportunity to sign up for my monthly newsletter on issues of concern to independent voters.

The site's URL is www.wethepurpleonline.com. I hope you'll bookmark it and visit from time to time. I'll be adding new content in the coming weeks.

Cross-posted on We the Purple.

"We the Purple" Has Released!

Having a book published has often been compared with giving birth to a baby. I've done both, and I can assure you that the analogy holds up. The last few months for me have been like the final trimester of my second pregnancy: I felt like I've been waddling through my days, wondering why on earth I got myself in this condition once again. Sure, the conception was fun and all that, and the first two trimesters were characterized by a flurry of activity, much like the nesting instinct that kicks in right about that time.

And then reality sets in. You start to feel like the elephant that you look like, and there are days when you totally believe that this is, in fact, a permanent situation. And during the worst part of labor, the pain is so intense that you're in denial that you really will get a baby out of the deal.

Today I officially gave birth to We the Purple: Faith, Politics and the Independent Voter, even though it officially released last week, because today is the day that I actually held a copy in my hands. And I have to tell you that after writing 20-plus books, this one felt incredibly good. It's clothbound, and the designers at Tyndale House pulled out all the stops to make this a classy book. Yes, I'm one proud, writing mama. 

Here's a link to the Amazon page for We the Purple:

http://tinyurl.com/35a3r7

Ignore Amazon's note about the book being out of stock. They should have it by now. If you buy We the Purple and like it, please post a review on Amazon and tell your friends about the book. I'm on a mission to clear up many of the misconceptions out there about independents, and I'd appreciate your help. And let me know what you think of it, okay?

Cross-posted on We the Purple.

"They Say It's Your Birthday"*

Today's date marks the day George Harrison was born. I know this not because of some "this day in history" list but because I have known this since 1964. I have no idea why this particular date has stuck in my mind, but I'm sure I've thought of George on February 25th pretty much every year since then. Sure, I was and still am a Beatle freak. But back when every Beatle-lovin' girl was pressured to declare who her favorite Beatle was, George wouldn't have made my top three. But he was in my top four, and if he hadn't had such blatantly British teeth, he might have edged out Ringo.

Things change, of course, and by the time George (I'm on a first-name basis with all of the Fab Four) released The Concert for Bangladesh, I saw his talent for what it was—a passionate expression of a heart that beat for those who suffer. Over the years, my admiration for him continued to grow.

George died of lung cancer in 2001. The following year, on the very day his last CD was released in the UK, I happened to be in Liverpool. I bought the CD that day at a Beatles shop across from the legendary Cavern (or rather, its replacement) and signed a memorial to him at a different Beatles site down by the Mersey. At times, the songs on Brainwashed still make me cry. If you were a Beatles fan, you understand. You may not be able to articulate why you sometimes start crying when you hear certain Beatles songs, but you understand.

George sought peace for others. He would have been 65 today; may he rest in peace.

*For the unBeatled, a lyric from "Birthday," written by John and Paul. It's on the 1968 album The Beatles, which no one knows by that name. We've just always called it The White Album.

Anglimergent, at Last!

I recently joined Anglimergent, the Anglican/Episcopal expression of the emerging church conversation. If you're Anglican and want to find out what the emerging church is all about and how we liturgicals fit in to it, come and join us at Anglimergent.ning.com!

Un-Valentine's Day

Here's to all the misfits who missed out on a box of chocolates and a fancy dinner and a bouquet of supermarket flowers today. Know that you are loved. Know that there has never been a moment in your life that you were not loved. Know that the Creator of the universe has loved you every minute of every day of every year of your life. Valentine's Day pales in comparison to that.

And here's to all the misfit schoolkids who didn't get a card or a rose or a candy bar from a secret admirer today. Tell them they are loved and that there has never been a moment in their lives when they were not loved. Tell them that the Creator of the universe has loved them every minute of every day of every year of their lives. It won't help to tell them that Valentine's Day pales in comparison to that. They're kids, after all. But tell them you love them anyway.

No, I don't like Valentine's Day. I never have. I never will. I come by my misfit identity honestly.

The MOB and Me

I'm currently reading Beth Webb Hart's The Wedding Machine, a novel about a group of Southern women who have inherited from their mothers the task of organizing every wedding that comes to one sleepy little lowland town. I'd tell you more, but you'll have to wait until my review of the book is posted on FaithfulReader.com next week.

I chose to review this particular book because I love Hart's writing. Her Grace at Low Tide and Adelaide Piper were among my favorite novels in recent years. I gave little thought to the title of the new release. A dozen or so pages into the book, though, it hit me: I'm living out my own version of the Wedding Machine.

Yes, I've taken on the role of the MOB: the Mother of the Bride. One of my daughters got engaged at Christmas, and suddenly I'm immersed in wedding plans. This has made me, a certified misfit, something of a schizophrenic. I'm socially paralyzed by day and a social planner by night. Or the other way around, but you get the point.

Finding myself in the position of having to help plan a real, live wedding gives me the willies. I didn't even do this for myself; my two weddings (yes, I had two) were as casual as they come and not exactly traditional. Thankfully, my daughter is keeping it small and also a bit untraditional. But still. There's the MOB, and then there's me, two people in one. I'm a mess already.

So I'm issuing this plea: if anyone knows of a really cool, beautiful, easily accessible, won't-break-the-budget, lodge-type place in the foothills or mountains in or around Colorado Springs or northward, where a couple of Floridians could get married in November or December and where 50 or so guests could stay, let me know, okay? Google is getting tired of me pestering him (or is Google a her?) all the time about this. I'd be ever so grateful.

Technorati Tags: Beth Webb Hart, FaithfulReader.com, weddings, Colorado, mother of the bride

The Happiest Place on Earth

Longtime readers of this blog, which means me, will remember my fascination with Iceland. It's the number one place in the world that I would like to visit, and as it turns out, it's also the happiest place on earth,* according to former NPR foreign correspondent and self-described grump Eric Weiner. After spending years traveling from one miserable place to another to report on mostly miserable events, he figured it was time to search for something radically different—happiness—and now has a book to show for it.

Weiner managed to score a spot on tonight's Colbert Report, which means his book, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World, will benefit from the Colbert Bump and hit a high spot on the major bestseller lists. I haven't read the book (hey, give me a break—I just heard about it an hour ago), but it did garner a solid four stars on Amazon. Since I tend to trust customer reviews, taking the most negative and the most positive reviews with a grain of salt, and since Weiner was booked on Colbert, I'm pretty sure it's worth checking out.

But back to Iceland. Call me crazy, but I love traveling to cold places. Give me Canada or Alaska any day over the heat and humidity of the tropics. Weiner's research tells me I'm no so crazy after all:

All things considered, colder is happier. Maybe we should all be vacationing in Iceland, not the Caribbean. And global warming takes on added significance…it's also likely to seriously bum us out. This might be the most inconvenient truth of all.

So there. Cold makes people happy. So does this, I suppose:

I want to stay in that house, somewhere on the frozen tundra outside of Reykjavik. Even though I'm living my bliss in Colorado, I wouldn't mind a week or two in another geographically blissful, glacially beautiful area.

 

* Okay, so it's one of the happiest places on earth, but I have no emotional tie with the others. Iceland it is.

The DMV and Me

Here's a thought. What if..?

But first, an update on my attempt at getting a Colorado driver's license. We've decided to make an outing of it. Instead of heading for the city and waiting in line for about four hours (I'm not exaggerating one bit), we've decided to spend that time driving through the scenic wonder of the mountains and go to a rural DMV office about an hour away. I mean, how busy can the office be with just a few thousand drivers to accommodate? I guess we'll find out.

But back to my thought. I know that DMVs across the land fall under the states' jurisdictions, but...what if we had a presidential candidate who would promise, under penalty of impeachment, to fix the DMV mess in all 50 states? No question about it: he/she would get my vote. Now that president would be a miracle worker indeed.

In Praise of (Readable) Church Signs

So there's this church that shall remain nameless. Said church sits on a rise in a semi-rural area that has seen a whole lot of growth in the past decade. Before then, all the area needed was a two-lane, 45 mph highway. And all the church needed was a weathered, barely readable sign. Shoot, it hardly needed that. Anyone who cared knew the name of the church and the time of the service, because there was only one church of its kind and only one service.

Alas, times change. The two-lane, 45 mph highway became a four-lane plus turn-lane, 55 mph highway, which we all know means it's really a 65 mph highway. But the unreadable-at-any-speed, weathered sign remained in place, forcing someone who was new to the area to search the Internet and the local newspaper and ask everyone she encountered trying to find out when the heck the Sunday service was held. No one seemed to know. So this someone got in her car, drove to the church, turned around after overshooting it because 1) the sign was unreadable and 2) she mistook the church for a doublewide, and pulled in the driveway, magnifying glass in hand, determined to find out the service time. Mission accomplished, but really, it shouldn't have become a mission in the first place.

Unbeknownst to her, since she hadn't been able to attend the church previously, a bitter dispute had been brewing over the very sign that had caused her and other would-be worshippers such anguish. We need a new sign! one faction insisted. But we've always had that sign! another faction protested. This went on for months, as disputes of that nature are wont to do in churches across the land.

And then, the breakthrough. The one incident that settled the argument forever. What was the situation that broke the nearly year-long stalemate? The denomination's regional bishop had been invited to speak at the church, and the bishop could not find the church. Like someone, he overshot it.

Within two weeks, the church sported a wonderfully readable sign.

Someone simply must thank the bishop.

"Let's Go Shopping"

Those are the three little words I never expected to hear my husband say. I am absolutely certain that he has not put those words together, in that order or any other, at any time in his 50-some years on earth. Frankly, I'm not sure I've said those words very often. But one day last week, he was driven to utter them, and I was driven to comply.

"Driven" is most appropriate in the context of that day. We had driven 28.62 miles, according to Mapquest, from our cozy home in the mountains to the strip mall in the city that is home to the closest DMV facility that so beneficently grants Colorado licenses to recent transplants.

The situation didn't look very good from the parking lot, but maybe all those people standing outside in the frigid weather were just smoking.

Not so. They were in line. We peeked around them, saw countless people sitting and waiting, countless people standing and waiting, and then counted 10 people in line outside. And that's when my husband said it: "Let's go shopping."

So we did. All was not lost. I managed to score a three-piece Columbia Sportswear ski outfit in perfect condition for $15 at the thrift store several doors from the DMV.

A Colorado driver's license won't be so easy to score, I fear. What is it about the DMV? Why is that one agency such a joke in just about every state? Why in the heck can't they get it together?

Answers, anyone?

Vonnegut, Styron, or Mailer

You may have seen an AP story on Sunday about the year's literary losses---Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron (who actually died in late '06), and Norman Mailer. I have a personal favorite among the three. But what about you? Which of those authors, if any, had an impact on you? What was the nature of that impact? Let me know, and then I'll let you know my choice.

"The Dream of Publishing Success"?

Once again I came across that phrase in a brief item about an authors' symposium featuring four women who had realized just that---the dream of publishing success. Which got me to wondering: what would I do if I was ever invited to speak at such a symposium? Well, I'd accept the opportunity, of course. But I'm afraid my talk would have to start out something like this:

I must confess that I am here under false pretenses. That's not because I haven't had publishing success; I have. It's just that writing and seeing my work published was never a dream for me. Writing is what I do; a writer is what I am. There was never a dream attached to this path I've taken. I wanted to be an English professor; I became a writer---a journalist---to earn money for grad school. But then I realized I was a writer. And that was that.

Perhaps this podium should be reserved for writers who pursued a dream and found success. I don't know. But I think there should be a podium somewhere for those of us who simply discovered we were writers. We had little choice. We knew we would make lousy professors or restaurant servers or pretty much anything else. We could write. That was it.

Maybe I'd sit down at that point and turn the microphone over to someone who had dreamed all her life about becoming a writer and was still unpublished. I'm sure I could learn a lot about hope from such a person. I hate to think what would have become of me if I hadn't realized early on that I probably couldn't make a living at anything but writing, so limited were my other skills and talents. I guess that's why it was never a dream. It was just my reality.

All I Want for Christmas...

...is an iBlackBerryPhone. I mean world peace. And an iBlackBerryPhone.

Until somebody morphs the two, I can't decide which phone to get. Of course, I don't have to decide, because 1) nobody's getting me either one for Christmas, and 2) I don't need either one, at least not in the strictest meaning of the word "need." I mean, come on, I need food and water and clothing and shelter and central heating and plumbing. But I sure would like a combination BlackBerry/iPhone. At a BlackBerry price, that is.

So...somebody tell me which one I should ask Santa for, Santa being the only being likely to bring me one. Before you even ask, and I know you will, yes, I've done tons of research. I must have visited 20 iPhone vs. BlackBerry sites, and yes, I know what I want the device to do. I want it to do it all. I want it to be this industrial-strength, hard-working business accessory, but I want to have lots of fun with it as well. So in addition to everything I mentioned earlier, what I really need is help.

Help! Anyone? Should I just settle for world peace?

You Know You're in Colorado...

...when you wake up in a postcard and can't get out.



The bottom photo shows what the back of our house looked like earlier today. You've got to love a place where the high is 65 one day and 25 the next, with who knows how much snow having fallen during the night in between. (Our very cool wireless weather station measures 10 weather elements, but snowfall isn't one of them; we do know the wind chill was around 5 degrees at times throughout the day.) For a couple of Florida transplants, one of whom has not seen snow in more than a decade, this was a wonderful day indeed.

Oh, and that car you see near the back door? It's now stuck on our steep, red granite driveway. We can't go out until the snow starts to melt, and we couldn't be happier. There's something so comforting about knowing you're semi-stranded (we could walk, if we really had to go somewhere; "town" is only three blocks away). I'm able to kick back, knit a pair of warm woollen socks, watch the Red Sox wallop the Indians, sip a cup of hot chocolate by the fireplace, and never feel like I should be doing something more productive. This is productive. It's producing peace.

And to think it's only October.

Knit 'n Kneel

That's what I'm calling my knitting weekend at the abbey. 'Twas wondrous in every way---16 very cool, very real women; one very cool, very real instructor; Lord knows how many very cool, very real nuns; and great accommodations, meals, weather, and northern Colorado scenery. Oh, and church.

Mary Gildersleeve, knitting teacher extraordinaire, gets high praise for putting together a series of workshop sessions that were just right---not too much, not too little, with just the right amount of time for one-on-one help. Mary is so generous with her time that I'm surprised she got any sleep at all. Maybe she didn't, but it didn't show. She somehow managed to coordinate the workshop schedule with the many daily services at the chapel. The weekend never felt tiring, overwhelming, or rushed.

And the nuns---what a delightful group! One nun was a former knitter who gave a great presentation on creativity and the value of just sitting and knitting; another wore a perpetually amused expression that let you know that she knew something you didn't know, and she was not about to share; and a third seemed to think we were entertaining in a puzzling sort of way.

My favorite image from the weekend, though, had nothing to do with knitting or kneeling: a nun speeding down a dirt road on an ATV, her habit and veil flapping in the considerable wind, doing her best to steer with one hand and with the other hold down the straw hat that threatened to fly off to Wyoming. It was priceless.

Off to the Abbey

I'll be living my bliss this weekend, attending a knitting retreat at an abbey in northern Colorado. How cool is that, I ask you? One Mary Gildersleeve, a certified hand-knitting expert and knitwear designer, will be leading the retreat and causing the rest of us to do penance for being so envious of her skills and creativity. Keeping us in line* will be Sister Hildegard, guest house director of the Abbey of St. Walburga** in Virginia Dale, Colorado.

The last time I experienced anything that sounded this medieval, I was in a real live medieval castle in England. Really now---Gildersleeve! Hildegard! Walburga! How can you not have great expectations for a weekend filled with such a wondrous array of appellations?

Alas and alack, there will be no cell service, no Internet connection, no technology more advanced than electricity, so there will be no real-time blogging from the big event. Rest assured, my lads and lassies, I shall report on this extraordinary journey back in time when I return to the 21st century. If I return.

* Not really.

** St. Walburga lived in 8th-century England, and to this day her bones produce a healing "oil" throughout the winter.

The Colorado Rockies Rule!

Whoo-hoo! They did it! They pulled off a miracle in the last few weeks of the regular season! Heck, they pulled off a miracle in the last few hours of the regular season!

Okay, let's back up the cheering truck a minute. The last time I actually rooted for a baseball team was circa 1989, and my team was the Yankees. Oh, I continued to follow them after we left the New York metro area that year, but since we only had 2.5 television stations in rural Delaware, it was mighty difficult to maintain any enthusiasm for the team for the next five years. Then we moved to Florida in 1994, and it was pretty much over.

Until late August of this year, anyway. That's when my husband and I moved to Colorado and resumed our love of minor league baseball at a game between the Colorado Springs Sky Sox and some other team whose name I intentionally ignored by the sixth inning or so, because by the fifth I had become a rabid Sky Sox fan. I do love minor league games.

Fast forward to Monday night's deciding game between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres. Suddenly, I had become a fan not only of a major league team not called the Yankees but also of a National League team. I haven't been a fan of a National League team since I lost interest in the Phillies in 1967 or so.

This only goes to prove just how impressionable I am. At some point during the 12th inning of Monday night's 13-inning game, I realized how little it had taken to convert me to major league baseball's dark side, the National League. Yes, I am ashamed of my behavior, my betrayal, my base duplicity.

I'm sure I'll continue to root for the Rockies this week. If the Yankees win the AL pennant and the Rockies win the NL, though, I'm going to be in deep you-know-what. What to do?

I wish all life's dilemmas were this difficult.