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that point and turn the microphone over to someone who had dreamed all her life about becoming a writer and was still unpublished.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.

My New Baby

That's it over there on the left, the cover of my next book. It releases in March, and it's my response to the rabid partisanship in Washington and the church that several years ago left me without a political party and without a church. But my response is no diatribe; not only would I never sink to that level, I also would never take my own opinions so seriously that I'd write a book without a healthy dose of subtle but sanity-preserving humor.

I mean, really, if we can't find humor in politics, we're all going to lose our minds as well as any hope of transforming the system. There's a reason why so many of us are addicted to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report; we know that the best humor reflects our everyday reality.

We the Purple reflects the everyday reality of both independent voters and independent candidates. The results of my research, my interviews with voters and candidates, and my interaction with other independents proved to be a real eye-opener. With the media calling 2008 the year of the independent voter, I'm grateful I had the opportunity to write this book, and I'm grateful to Tyndale House for publishing it. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Un-Freakin'-Believable

Atop the 14,000-plus-foot summit of Pikes Peak stands the appropriately named Summit House, part gift shop, part snack bar, part warmup area for tourists who have ventured to its heady, oxygen-derived, and often, very, very cold environs. It's a friendly little place and, one would think, a place safe from big-city crime.

Not so, it seems. Sometime during the night on Saturday, burglars broke into the Summit House and made off with a safe.

Here's the thing: the only way to get to the summit is via a cog railway or a toll road. The burglars not only traveled that treacherous toll road after dark, they did so in a stolen pickup belonging to the Pikes Peak Highway toll road agency, according to a story in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Hey, I'm not one to admire criminals, but you've got to give these guys credit. They managed to pull off a heist that promised an incredibly difficult getaway. I mean, really, you can't exactly speed off down the mountain on a road whose hairpin turns have claimed numerous victims over the years. Maybe they were able to clock their getaway at 30 miles per hour---maybe. In a stolen truck, no less. On a toll road that showed no telltale signs of foul play---no broken toll gates, nothing.

As admirable as all that is, I hope they get the buggers, and soon. The Summit House holds so many fond memories for so many people, and its employees ought to feel that they're still working in one of the safest places on earth. Well, safe from criminals, anyway.

A Plea to Sweet Tomatoes

I lost my status as a Sweet Tomatoes virgin this week. Lest you think that's something racy, let me assure you it isn't. Sweet Tomatoes is a chain restaurant, and I ate there for the first time on the way back from Denver to the Colorado Springs area on Friday.

My friend Alice had intended to treat me to the joys of Sweet Tomatoes numerous times over the past two years. We'd go to Denver frequently for her cancer treatments and pass several Sweet Tomatoes restaurants on the way, and she would vow to take me there for lunch following her appointment. But every single time, something would go wrong, and her one-hour appointment would be extended to three or four or five hours. (It once was extended to five days; hers is a complicated situation, obviously.)

On Friday, God graced Alice with an uncomplicated appointment, the first ever, I think, and the final in a long and arduous series. We celebrated by stopping at Sweet Tomatoes. Now I'm generally pretty satisfied with wherever I eat; unless the place is filthy or the age of food is questionable, food is just food to me. I don't eat out often, and it's just not worth it to critique a meal at a place I may never visit again. I just get my nourishment and move on. Plus, I don't expect a whole lot from a chain restaurant.

But holy Sweet Tomatoes! Please, please, you-who-rule-the-Sweet-Tomatoes-universe, please, please, bring a restaurant or two to El Paso County. Oh my. One can hardly begin to describe the exquisite pleasure of finding actual fresh food within sniffing distance of an interstate. It was pure joy, I tell you, pure joy.

OTN

Knitters know this abbreviation well; it stands for On The Needles and represents the project(s) the knitter currently has going. Well, in my knitting/reading life, it also stands for On The Nightstand, which in a perfect world would apply to the books I'm reading. In reality, there's no room on the nightstand for books; they're scattered all over the floor. But that's an OTF story and better left for another time.

So what would be OTN if my world was perfect and there was room on the nightstand? Lots of books to review, plus these two gems:

• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A memoir of life in a Muslim culture that practiced female circumcision (a.k.a. genital mutilation), a growing discontent with male domination and other cultural and Islamic concepts, gaining asylum and political influence in Holland, and working for a think tank in Washington. Riveting and eye-opening, even for those who have a decent working knowledge of Islam and its treatment of women.
  


• Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting. It's so nice to have a book like this to follow Infidel. I needed something light, and this filled the bill. If you're an OCK---an Obsessive Compulsive Knitter---or know one, this is a great primer for understanding the disorder. Which, of course, is no disorder at all. We OCKs know without question that knitting is what keeps us sane even if it makes us crazy at times. This book provides all the validation we need.

So that's what's OTN in my reading life. What's OTN in my knitting life includes a scrollbar scarf I started for my daughter in '06, I think (it's way cool, with a movable slider and all; the link shows the designer's crocheted version); a pair of socks for myself that I started on a drive from Florida to Colorado in April; a Fun Fur patchwork throw that I'm determined to finish before the snow flies; and at least a half-dozen other projects buried in the mound of yarn, supplies, books, and other knitting paraphernalia I've yet to sort out from the move.

Scorin' Some Sofrito

Living in a small mountain town has its challenges, especially when you need a specialty product. I never considered sofrito to be a "specialty" product before; living in Florida, I could put my hands on a jar or frozen tub of sofrito, a Latino sauce, at any number of stores within a five-mile radius of my home. I could even make my own, because all the fresh ingredients I needed were also available at said stores.

Little did I realize how hard it would be to find sofrito in the town where I'm now living. Not only that, I had a devil of a time finding it in neighboring Colorado Springs (population: a lot, including a fair percentage of Latinos). The first Latino market I visited in the Springs had closed a week earlier for nonpayment of rent; another highly touted mega-carniceria hadn't even opened for business yet. I was about to start making the rounds of the Mexican restaurants in our town--there are a half-dozen in our town of 7,000 people--sidle up to the cooks, and whisper oh so softly, Psst! Know where I can score some sofrito? I'm telling you, I felt as if I was trying to buy a controlled illegal substance.

I finally found some at a Latino market called Leonela's in Colorado Springs. I mention the name of the store for one reason: utter gratitude. I bought four jars, plus four more of recaito, a sauce I use less often but one that is even harder to find. Oh, and a box of cilantro cubes and a package of powdered achiote, two products I didn't know existed in those forms and which I may never need, but what the heck. There they were, and there I was, and I wasn't about to leave the store without them. The store isn't exactly around the corner, more like 30 miles away.

My fortunes are about to change, however, but don't tell anyone how pleased I am about this. Wal-Mart is opening a supercenter two miles from my house at 7:30 tomorrow morning. Of course, I hate Wal-Mart, just as everyone else does. But I also shop there, just as most everyone else does. If I have any hope of scoring some sofrito at 8,500 feet, it will be at the dreaded, evil, dastardly, always well-stocked Wal-Mart Supercenter. Yep, I'll feel dirty and slimy and traitorous and all that, but I'll have my sofrito.

The Life I've Always Wanted

Last month my husband and I moved from Florida to Colorado.

Just eleven words, but those eleven words represent a thirty-five year journey that took me from New Jersey to Delaware to Florida and finally to Colorado. Back in New Jersey in 1972, a couple I knew from college decided they'd had it with the East Coast; they were heading for Colorado, and in true hippie fashion, they were selling all their earthly goods, which amounted to one stereo, to fund the trip. I was the buyer. I'd never owned a stereo, and I was happy to help them out. But more than anything, I wanted to go with them. I promised myself I'd follow up on that and connect with them as soon as...well, I don't know what I was thinking. As soon as I graduated? As soon as I graduated and got a car that might make it that far? As soon as I graduated and got a car that might make it that far and Jupiter aligned with Mars and peace would rule the planet and all that? It was the Age of Aquarius, after all, and maybe there was something to all that cosmic stuff.

Well, whatever the forces were that converged to make this happen (before you get all upset, yes, of course, I know it was God, all right?), I am grateful beyond measure. Here I am, finally living in the Rockies, on an amazingly private piece of property at the top of a rise three blocks from the center of a wonderful small town, surrounded on three sides by evergreens with an awesome view of Pikes Peak on the fourth side, working from home, and loving every single thing about my new life.

The "getting here" wasn't much fun, though. As my regular readers know, I haven't blogged in a while. At first, that was due to a very tight book deadline involving dozens of interviews and tons of research, a temporary living situation with spotty Internet service, and time-consuming real estate problems in both Florida and Colorado. I figured everything would settle down once we closed and I turned the book in to the publisher---did I mention that the closing date and the book deadline fell on the exact same day?---but that was not to be.

First, the buyer's mortgage company went bankrupt the day before the closing on our house in Florida. I can't begin to describe what that nightmare was like. The guy performed nothing less than a miracle in acquiring a new mortgage in record time, but the stress was unbelievable. I had already moved to Colorado, my husband had quit his job, and the movers were scheduled to start loading up.

So we closed, but we had no place to live in Colorado. We planned to rent for the first year, and one rental after another didn't pan out. So even as our stuff was barreling down I-70 in Kansas, we didn't know where to tell the driver to deliver it. We ended up putting everything in storage and paying for a second move from the storage unit to the house we rented.

And then my friend Margaret Rex passed away. Margaret, who was in her 70s, had the spunk and energy of a woman half her age until the cancer that had been in remission for years reared its ugly head again. She was a lifechanger, and I told her as much the last time I saw her. You could not know this woman and not be touched by her in a deep and profound way; she was one of those people who brought joy and laughter and meaning to life in every situation and in every encounter you had with her.

Margaret patiently taught me to knit socks.

Margaret lived in Colorado Springs, where I had spent much of the last few years, and I was looking forward to spending time with her when I moved to Colorado permanently. We hadn't even unpacked when we got the call that she was failing; four days later, she was gone. I miss her, and yet I am comforted knowing that her struggle is finally over.

So it's been an eventful summer. There's lots more, of course: a close relative ended up in a mental health facility, called me as much as five times a day after his discharge, and is now living in a homeless shelter; I spent most of three weeks in bed with a phantom illness; at times, chaos seemed to be the new norm for our lives. But here I am today---and I can't say this often enough---living the life I've always wanted.

How many people can say that? Can you? In 1972, I didn't expect to live past my 20s. I lived recklessly, and I knew it. Something was bound to get me sooner rather than later. But here I am, 35 years later, living a reality that was just a dream back than. I am blessed. Truly, unbelievably blessed---blessed beyond measure.

Okay, Okay

Yes, I've been away for a while, and yes, I promised to keep this blog relatively free of political content. But as I wrote on my other blog, I'm desperately seeking younger independent voters to interview for my next book, We the Purple: Faith, Politics, and the Independent Voter. Contact me if you're interested.

"Relatively free of political content," by the way, means I get to ask this one question, prompted by last week's televised faith forum hosted by Jim Wallis: If I ever become so demented that I vote for a candidate based on his or her views on evolution, would someone out there please put me out of my misery?

Virginia Tech

As I wrote on my other blog, it's been hard for me to write about anything over the past two days other than the Blacksburg massacre. And I have nothing, really, to say—no new insights, no great wisdom, no fresh perspective. Just a reminder to continue to keep everyone affected by this tragedy in your prayers; the reality is probably just now beginning to set in. It's incredibly sad.

How to Make a Veggie Burger

Okay, so I added the Video Bar feature over there on the left. I'm assured that you just have to hover over an image to see what the video is about, click on it, and it will begin playing at the top of the post column. Just click on "I'm done watching this" to end the video.

Because I am committed to imparting huge wads of useless information to all and sundry, I chose the Do-It-Yourself category. I believe everyone has the right to learn how to perform arthroscopic surgery, how to use a t-shirt folding machine, and how to conduct a do-it-yourself impeachment.

And hey, I'm not responsible for the content. Ever. Okay?

The End of TV

For me, anyway. Someday soon. Because I cannot abide the promotional stuff that clutters the screen during shows, not just during commercial breaks. You know what I mean? You're watching something like, oh, I don't know, a can't-miss rerun of Law and Order when all of a sudden there's little ol' Brenda Leigh Johnson just a-sneakin' under that-there police tape like a felon slinkin' away from a parole officer. Now I agree, there really ain't no sunshine when she's gone, and she really is always gone too long, but please. I don't want to see a promo for The Closer during another show. I've been renting TV seasons from the library for some time now, and I'm thinking that's the only way to go from now on.

Am I the only one? Is anyone else sick of these promos that nearly every station is running during shows?

Got Books?

Need more? Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Praying at Burger King by Richard Mouw
• The Culturally-Savvy Christian by Dick Staub

I can vouch for Richard Mouw's book because my very own endorsement appears on the back cover of the book. (Yes! I really did read it!) And I can vouch for Staub's book because 1) Dick Staub knows his stuff; 2) bookseller Byron Borger recommends the book, and since he has written favorably about my writing, well, I have to trust his opinion. Borger's March 28 post on his blog, which is a great site for book lovers, mentions both books. It's worth reading.

Whew!

Okay, that was one long break. Next time I'm sick for two weeks, I'm going to blog my little brains out anyway just to keep up the habit.

Moving is taking up major portions of real estate in that little brain these days, with my move to Colorado Springs a mere two weeks away. So if life was perfect, and I could live anywhere I wanted to, here's where I'd live:

• Colorado Springs (Hey, I'm not about to jinx the move by placing this one lower on the list)


• Montreal


• A remote cabin in Yellowstone (remember, we're talking "perfect world" here)


• Santa Fe


• Asheville


• Alaska, even if just for a year or so


• Way up in the Colorado mountains


• Somewhere along the coast of Maine


• Newfoundland, just to experience it


• Any village in the French countryside

What's your top 10? And what keeps you from living where you really want to live?

The Power of Seven

I posted most of this on my We the Purple blog, but I deleted the political stuff and added some new information below. Honest.

Anyway, just seven letters—that's all it took for the office of one member of Congress to sit up and pay attention to an issue of concern among constituents. Seven people took the time to write a letter—not an email—and an aide to the Congressman remembered them.

That's truly amazing. Annie Gill-Bloyer, who is the faith outreach organizer for the ONE Campaign, met with the aide to discuss the goals of ONE and the non-profit she works for, Bread for the World. The aide recalled having received a "number" of letters about the ONE effort ("the campaign to make poverty history"). When Annie asked how many exactly, the aide replied, "Oh...seven," in a manner that suggested this was a significant amount. Annie was stunned; that's all it took to get noticed? Seven letters?

Annie's experience reflects the ever-shifting realities of our 21st century existence. I'll bet good money that one handwritten letter is remembered long after those useless Internet petitions have evaporated into cyberspace. (Is there anyone left who actually believes that an Internet petition does any good—or is even opened? They're not worth, um, the paper they're printed on.) Letters—especially those that are handwritten and not printed out or photocopied—have got to be such a rarity these days that it makes sense that they'd get noticed.

In her presentations, Annie shows a video about an anti-poverty program that I hadn't heard of before. WORTH is designed to empower poor women in developing nations to work their way out of poverty through "literacy training, group savings, micro-enterprise development, and entrepreneurship." The effort has proven to be remarkably successful in the parts of Asia and Africa where it's been introduced.

I love to hear about programs that genuinely change lives. Part of the program's genius, in my opinion, lies in the group effort; assemble a team of highly motivated women, and they'll be in it for the long haul.