The Dire Dash

I came across this photo while searching through some folders today. This photo was taken in a moment of desperation, while I was crying in a borrowed car.

This was just after I had dropped my camera during a wedding photo shoot. My grandfather had lent me a neck strap because I didn't own one at the time, and I soon found out that the strap was faulty. I had been standing on a chair trying to get an interesting shot of the bride having her make-up done when my camera fell from my neck and onto the floor with a thud. At least it didn't land on the bride, I remember thinking. But when I picked up the camera to continue, my lens wouldn't focus, the shutter speed wouldn't adjust, and I couldn't access the menu. The camera I had saved up for for a year was suddenly rendered useless, and I didn't have the means to repair it, much less get a new one. The next day I was scheduled to fly out for the sole purpose of taking my mother's author photo.

My uncle, who had invited me to shoot the wedding with him, must have seen all this cross my face. He tried to console me saying he'd been there before when he dropped his Canon in a stream once. He immediately offered me his car keys and told me to drive to a local camera shop to have it checked out, see just what the damage was, and get an estimate. Perhaps the mirror just needed to be adjusted, perhaps it was a simple fix.

I drove around Portland lost, not because I didn't know the streets but because I just couldn't get myself together. So much more had happened that day to lead up to that awful moment. Seve and I stressed about our finances, stressed about finding a job. Stressed about leaving Simon behind for the day for a photo shoot none of us were being paid for. Stressed over a thousand other things I can't even remember now.

I eventually found the camera shop where a kind man in a paisley shirt named Tom fiddled with my camera only to tell me he wasn't sure what was wrong, not specifically, but something on the interior must have been damaged and it would likely be cheaper to replace the camera than repair it. An estimate of about $1000 was given to open the body and find out for sure. Having held my emotions in check up until this point, I headed back out to the car where I locked myself inside. Cried. Felt stupid.

At that time everything felt so dire. It's weird to look back on it now. I remember praying, though I don't remember what I said. It wasn't all about the camera, but some group of words all blubbered together about everything I was terrified over. And after that prayer, I picked up my camera to take a shot, which actually took. The lens whirred and the shutter shutted and that's where the picture for this post came from. So, this shot, this boring shot of a borrowed car's dashboard, actually means a lot to me, as it was the revival of my camera in my moment of need. And my camera works fine to this day.

Thanks for letting me borrow your car, Uncle John. Thanks for the neck strap, Gramps, but unfortunately I'll just need to buy my own. Should have bought one a long time ago. And thanks for my answered prayer, Father. Things have worked out after all.

Linked

On a lighter note from the previous heavy post, here are some snippets of projects I was working on last week. Business card, poster, blog header.

I recently got around to updating my LinkedIn account after ignoring it for . . . three years? A long time. Their emails were so frequent they were on the verge of being spam, and thus I chose to unsubscribe forever and ever. As a SAHM the need to keep up my resume hasn't been pressing, and as a freelancer my active online presence doesn't really need any help from LinkedIn. I do just fine working with indie authors and friends/family, and I'm not jonesing for a busy schedule because, you know, the Mom thing. If I consider working at a brick and mortar building again, it will be after the kids are in school.

But after signing up for an ipsy account, I checked out ipsy's careers page to see that they were hiring a copywriter (starting salary is probably more than my teacher-husband makes . . .) and they requested a LinkedIn profile. Ugh. So, with the future in mind, I gave in finally updated my profile. And who knows what that gleaming, dropping-off-the-kids-at-kindergarten future will bring? I used to say if I worked for a company again it would be with one that gave the same amount of side-eye to LinkedIn that I did, but they've proved themselves over the years to be worth their salt, so whatevs.

Do any of you do make up subscriptions? I used to do Birchbox, but wasn't terribly impressed as a lot of the samples were tiny. Meaning I could get the same thing by just being barraged by salespeople during a brief walk through Macy's. ipsy is supposed to include a lot of full size items, along with a make up bag each month. And they intentionally don't capitalize their brand name because that's just how artsy they are. Awesome.

Art & Artist

I've had a few blog posts lined up, but have been passing on them since they were kind of abrupt and silly and I've had more serious things on my mind.

Have you guys heard of Woody Allen? Of course you have. Have you read that piece Dylan Farrow published in the New York Times? The one about Woody Allen sexually abusing her as a child? And how her whole life it's kind of been brushed aside because "it's Woody! Annie Hall was so good!" I've been thinking about this, about how easily media wants to debate/disprove her claim of abuse because they love the accused . . .

Anyway, it's been on my mind because I recently found out someone I knew was sexually abused by Stanley Marsh 3. For those who don't know, I grew up in Amarillo, TX and millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 is kind of our Andy Warhol. The rest of the world sees him as this inspiring and quirky artist (best known for Cadillac Ranch) but those of us in Amarillo know him as a pedophile. It was known in our community that he targeted young guys in the punk scene and would invite them to his mansion to become fellow "artists." Plenty of allegations had been brought on him before, but he always, always, paid them off. I remember laughing about it as a kid. "Oh, that Stanley, what an awful man!"

Why I ever found it funny is beyond me. After reading the previously linked article I sat in my room, alone, feeling dark and disgusting, thinking of my friend and all he went through. Looking back at our relationship, I know the time period it happened, when everything changed between us, when he started running with Stanley's crowd, how what was possibly happening to him always lingered in the back of my mind and I never said anything. How, after moving from Texas, people would ask where I was from and when I said "Amarillo!" they said "Stanley Marsh 3!" and I would say, "Yes, the terrible pedophile," and they would dismiss it, because no no no, he's a great artist.

"Separate the art from the artist."

We're more important than art, aren't we? Human beings and our experiences, more important than art? I had a friend once tell me she wouldn't read or go see Ender's Game because Orson Scott Card belongs to a church that doesn't support marriage equality, and no matter how good a story, she couldn't support him. And I respect that. I, too, struggle with my church not supporting marriage equality, because I belong to the same church Orson Scott Card does. And even though I want change and he doesn't, at the end of the day we still belong to the same organization, and if someone decides never to read my work because of that, I'll respect that decision too.

If you ever do decide to go see Cadillac Ranch, I want you to notice the group of boys lingering to the side in lawn chairs. They're there to spray paint the cars at the end of the day, so the canvas is fresh for the new set of tourists to graffiti tomorrow. That's what they do, maintain the art for Stanley. They've been there for years, faces always changing, ages always the same. Maybe they're not there anymore, now that Stanley's had a stroke, now that the pile of paid-off allegations has gotten too high. But the fact that they were ever there, instead of some professional, middle-aged paint crew . . . if you ever do decide to go see Cadillac Ranch, I challenge you to try and separate Stanley's art from Stanley's darker activities when they're standing side by side in front of you.
 
Andy Warhol's studio was called "The Factory" because he was able to produce several works of art on an assembly line. But, after reading a biography on Warhol, I think it was called "The Factory" because it treated people as nothing more than objects to be exploited, used, and recycled. I'm wary of the artist who uses people for art, and those who insist I separate art from people. Why? The artist doesn't.

In The Dead Of

A lot of people don't like winter, and I respect that. It gets dark and dank and dreary. Muddy snow looks like snot. Driving is tricky. But summer's the season that makes me uncomfortable. Heat makes me slow down and feel lethargic. I hate sweating. I don't like being immersed in bodies of water, or the inevitable bareness of swimsuit attire. I don't like being without the security blanket my several layers of clothing provides. I prefer snowballs to water balloons, hot chocolate to lemonade, scarves to sunscreen.

This isn't to say I don't like summer, just that summer heat makes me feel uncomfortable and stupid, like I'm not enough of what the world wants me to be. Not sporty enough, not sexy enough, not drive-down-the-highway-with-the-top-down-and-your-hair-flying-around enough. I don't like my hair flying around.

Winter reminds me that I'm not actually the uncool shut-in summer makes me feel. I love being outside in the cold, bundled up and playing in the dead leaves or snow, stomping around in boots. I'm all about that.

But for everyone who's struggled this winter, and is looking forward to summer: I get it, I do. I hope the sunshine comes for you soon.

The Wall

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! I hope you all had good ones. Did you make any resolutions? Mine are simply to write more, complete last year's creative projects, and . . . eat food? Tone my butt? I don't know. Seve and I have talked about taking up slacklining.

I got an email recently from Goodreads congratulating me on another great year of reading and calculating my literary consumption of 2013 to be . . . 2 books. Now, I read voraciously in 2013, but I clearly never updated that to reflect on my Goodreads account. I'm not one to read or write reviews, but I do regret not at least keeping a log of the books I read.

I don't often recommend things either, but I will now: the other day I was loading up our Netflix account and a foreign film called "The Wall" popped up on my dash. I was immediately intrigued by its premise (A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside). I started it right then and there instead of browsing to whatever it was I had originally wanted to watch. And I'm glad I did, as the film has stayed with me for days. It was sci-fi but not really? Not at all? YouTube markets it as scary, but it's not that either, not in the least. I won't tell you much more than that because after watching the film I looked up as much information on it as possible and sort of regret it because other people's interpretations have tainted that initial beautiful and immersing feeling I felt while watching it. Just know that it's beautiful, and immersing, and on Netflix, so go watch it right now.

Also, I recently learned to crack open an egg with one hand and I'm feeling terribly accomplished at the moment.

Precious & Red

I'm never quite sure which part of social media to dedicate myself to. When I have an idea I usually stick it on Twitter if it's minor and stupid and fleeting but if it's long and complicated and artsy I'll put it here. Not really sure how to present myself on Tumblr other than through reblogs, but recently I've started following a lot of fellow Mormons who are also of a leftist nature and it's been reassuring.

All of this is just to say I might indulge in some cross-posting of ideas. Not word for word, but tailored for each medium.

I read a quote recently about taking the "preciousness" out of writing if you're going to make a business out of it; like stop thinking the magic can only happen if you're writing in your favorite cafe, listening to your specific playlist, using Word as opposed to Google Docs. Turn writing into something you can do anywhere, anytime, for the sake of your deadlines and productivity. Write at night, write in the morning, write in between classes, write to noise, write to silence, write in the middle of reading, write during a film, etc, etc. I'm slowly working on it, and though the beast within me grinds against the settings so opposed to my usual, my mind is slowly evolving to the comfort of it. Being able to just write the way we're able to just eat. Wherever, whenever.

Once, while driving by myself through Utah, someone ahead of me dropped a bouquet of roses from their passenger side. We were going around 70 mph, and the result was bizarre little red explosions all over the highway, smattering in a wave from that window all the way up to my windshield. It looked so violent, like a car crash without the car, blood everywhere, bloody little petals. The image scared me, unnerving me for several minutes. I was driving back from Seve's brother's play in SLC to our hotel in Provo. I wasn't enjoying the trip very much because we had to coordinate seeing Ben's play around who-could-watch-the-kids-when, and Graham was only a month old, and Utah isn't my favorite place. The image seemed like some bad omen. Until suddenly it wasn't, it was just a beautiful thing I'd just seen, a highway baptism awash in red roses to get me to just be in a better mood already.

I try and remember that whenever I think of Utah, being frustrated, or the color red.

Human Again

Attempts at a profile pic that descended into hairy madness.

Time for some reflection on this year's NaNoWriMo.

Seve hosted a race-to-the-finish party at his classroom where I wasn't able to get wifi, so I verified my word count early, pulling the extra 8K I needed from a previous story. This resulted in a final word count of 55,285, which I was sure couldn't have been right . . . where did that extra 5K come from? Did I really only need 3K? Nevertheless, that night at the party I finished with fifteen minutes to spare having written the full 8K in a mere three hours. My hands were shaking by the time it was over, and I'm pretty sure those last four pages descended into complete and utter gibberish.

But I did it! So on top of the initial 20K I wrote for the story back in China, I now have a fully completed 70K manuscript. In heavy need of revisions, of course, but I'll tackle that come January. I don't think I even want to look at the thing until January.

Seve also completed his NaNo on the dot at midnight after an equally frenzied writing session. Cowabunga, dude!

Tackling the NaNo this year wasn't like past NaNos . . . for once I knew the entire story from front to back, nothing was a mystery. I always thought that would help me write better, but it didn't. The writing and pace remained as it always had any time I sat down to write. Rather than dishearten me it gave me hope; that the other stories I have logged away and unsolved will reveal themselves to me in time, as long as I keep writing.

In fact, on days where I procrastinated my word count I kept returning to my 2010 NaNo. I hadn't bothered to read it since writing it three years ago, thinking it was awful and an eyesore. But I loved reading it! The 1950s werewolf story? I vaguely remember blogging about it at the time. I was sorely tempted to abandon my NaNo and just finish that werewolf effort. It's a full 50K after all, and only needs maybe 30K or so to wrap up the story. But then I remembered that's how this year's effort was brought about . . . a resurrection of 2007's NaNo, realizing it wasn't as bad as I thought, a sudden desire to finish it . . . so I pressed on, and finally made it to the finish line.

How did your NaNo go? Did you finish? Are you enjoying JustSleepAndEatDecember? Me too.