In which we have an adventure--

Although this blog is a books blog, I can't resist talking about the occasional ridiculous event. Yesterday my husband and I and our eldest went out of town to look for a used car, as Ben is moving back to North Carolina. I had researched places in the region and picked one I thought was especially informative and had prices that seemed quite fair. My husband has a great sense of direction, so I didn't pay much attention to where we were going...

We get there; I mention my surprise at finding that the online cars were already sold. There's one that's in the right price range. I don't feel that it looks quite as substantial as I thought that price range would look. In fact, it looks like a little blue tin can and reminds me of my family's Opel Kadett from a zillion years ago, when I was a mere sprat of 15. I have never even heard of the model. The brand is vaguely familiar. We chat with the salesman, and Mike tells a funny story about his grandfather buying a Cadillac, and how it caught on fire on the way home.

We get in with the friendly, large salesman. We head out, accompanied by the noise of several lawnmowers. We go a mile or so and then veer toward the interstate. I always find it a wee bit disconcerting to be driven about by anyone whose diapers I recall changing, and so I jumped a bit at a loud, ratcheting noise when we moved vigorously to the left.

A wisp of smoke passed my window. More wisps. Or was it steam? I write DUBIOUS on my printout of cars and show it to be husband. He looks at the word for a moment as though considering and then looks at me. He is wearing sunglasses so I can't see his eyes, but I know what he means. Then more and more wisps sprout from the hood, and I start to wonder if we should stop, and all leap from the little blue car. I wonder how quickly the salesman can leap, as he is wedged into the rather small passenger seat with little space to spare.

But we putter on with the not-terribly-musical noise of lawnmowers, the right side of the car streaming with smoke or steam. I am glad Ben cannot see all that whatever-it-is too well from the driver's seat. In the distance, I make out the car lot. Finally we are back! The car dies halfway into the parking spot and will not budge.

How'd you make out, the manager begins to say as we are enveloped in clouds. The little blue dragon car steams--it is steam, not smoke--mightily, oozing scarves all along the hood's edge. I start to laugh but manage to control myself. Then we all laugh, taking turns and trying to be polite in between. Mike says he must have jinxed it with the Cadillac story. Then they drag open the hood, and whoosh! steam geysers into the sky. Ah. It's the water pump, snapped right off.

We are all very friendly, but Mike and Ben and I pile into my little Corolla and zip off. We stop at the next car dealer, just to walk around and stare at the cars, even though it's too late to talk to a salesman. As we are walking, I begin to grasp what happened. The thought creeps into my head that there was a reason none of the cars were on the lot--that the place we went was entirely the wrong spot, that this is not the right road. I laugh. And I laugh some more. I hold hands with my husband and laugh it all out. Nearly. Every now and then I laugh again.

I feel absurdly happy.

We survived!

We find the right place at the very start of twilight, somewhere in the country and surrounded by fields, and there are most of the cars that I had looked at online. We like an Accord and an Alero, which Ben likes especially because . . . well, it is red. This morning we go back and test drive them both and then put down a deposit on the silver Honda.

My 4th

How I celebrated my fourth of July: finished reading a novel-in-manuscript by an old friend; had a barbecue at Glimmerglass State Park, near the swimming beach; skunked my husband and boys at croquet by the lake; ate homemade raspbery ice cream at Tunnicliff Creamery; and stopped on a little road by the lake to watch fireworks from the Busch compound... It was altogether pleasant (aside from missing my daughter--I might have skunked her as well!) and celebratory. I hope yours was as well, if you are a celebrator of the day. Thought for Independence Day: "The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." --John Adams

4th publication of "An Incident at Agate Beach"

"Ocean Sky" by Nathan Allworth.
On the Oregon coast. Courtesy
of the photographer and www.sxc.hu.

“An Incident at Agate Beach” is online! The story originally appeared in James Artimus Owen's handsome Argosy Quarterly 3 (2005) and has proved popular. It was reprinted in the anthology Northwest Passage: A Cascadian Odyssey (Windstorm, 2005) and in The Year’s Best in Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006.)

Today the tale is published for the fourth time at weirdfictionreview.com, a site (what an attractive home page!) dreamed up by the well-known-for-weird team of Jeff and Ann Vandermeer and managed by also weirdoholic Adam Mills. It is, indeed, a strange, fantastic thing, and I hope will find many new readers.

The day I visited Agate Beach in Oregon, I knew that I would write a story about the place. But this is not the one I expected. If you have comments, there's a spot to leave them at the close of the story. Enjoy!

Oh, and thanks to Rebecca Beatrice Miller for that leading-with-the-chin, uncanny eyebrow portrait...

More reading, more writing--

Think of someone like Frederick Douglass, who brought himself up out of slavery by sneaking out and teaching himself to read. Books weren’t some idle pursuit or pastime to him, they were survival itself. And despite this dire situation, he managed to read and, as the writer Thomas Sowell once put it, “educate himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today’s expensively under-educated generation.” --Ryan Holiday, "How To Read More--a Lot More" (hat tip to Prufrock)

Phoenicia Publishing, 2012

This little article answers a lot of questions people ask about reading--how to make reading an integral part of your life, how and why to spend money on reading (although he misses the thought that buying mid-list books supports the writers you care about, since new contracts depend on prior sales these days), and the purpose of reading. This last is a thing I see the government trying to explain and justify, often poorly. Holiday does a better, more convincing job than most.

The "trick" that people expect to underlie Holiday's extensive reading reminds me of what people say about writing. People often ask me about quantity when it comes to writing. It's probably the most frequent question I hear. "How do you get so much done?" It usually seems like a silly issue to me because writing is not in the least about quantity. For one rather lurid example, the young Chidiock Tichbourne--wonderful name--is remembered for a single lovely poem, written just before he was eviscerated, hanged, and drawn and quartered. Two of his other poems survive. Meanwhile, poets who wrote hundreds or thousands of pages have vanished into oblivion, with none of their words remaining for later times.

For once, though, I'll take the question seriously.

On the inside, what I accomplish doesn't feel like so much, particularly of late when I had all my usual duties plus serving as a judge for a national award and having the surprise of two adult children returning to the nest for a year. As a member of a busy family with five members, I decided to let go all thought of writing a novel; I didn't want to feel resentful about any increased work that would prevent daily writing. In fact, I decided that I would only write poetry, and not a long, sustained poem like Thaliad but poems under three pages. Still, on some days I am drowning in errands and old-house repair and drudgery, and my three children have needs that must be addressed. It seems impossible to be a writer then.

UK: Stanza Press, 2012

But I am really never away from the act of writing; I'm always looking, sifting, or dreaming, even while I do something mundane--while I fold clothes or mop or weed my unruly garden. (Bishop's weed is my green Yankee nemesis!) It's like the famous Pauline injunction to "Pray without ceasing." On the surface it's hyperbole, surely; an impossible call. But it demands a determination not to give up. With writing, gumption and persistence are essential. That is, even if you are over-worked and feel you have little time, it's about being attentive, listening and looking, open to little motes of possibility, and conscious of what's in and beyond the moment. For me, that's the way to fruitfulness. It's the path to delight, and delight makes us hungry to find out more of the same.

It's not so very different from Holiday's advice to readers...