Playing Jacks and Packing Light: The Odd Outlier Abilities I Have and Have not Got

Katherine today.

Several unrelated events met up recently to bring back the Malcolm Gladwell book about why folks succeed and where unique abilities originate.  Outliers makes me feel smart because it champions quantity as a vehicle to success.  10,000 repetitions of a skill creates extraordinary performance.  That means all those millions of Big Chief pages I made sophomores write were really valuable.  I believe strongly that schools suffer because drill work and repetition and quantity have been replaced with a bogus belief that poured-over long-time quality efforts lead to the same effect with less homework.  The effort to teach literacy without reading as homework is among the most baffling things I see in education.

I'm wandering though.  I was thinking about playing jacks and Jim's first comment to me this morning: "I'm going to take a record low number of things to Jenny Lake this time."  Good morning to you too sweetie.

I'll start with the packing.   Jim would never say anything like that in the morning if he hadn't been thinking about it and there is absolutely no sub-level manipulation or condemnation of my increasingly futile attempt to pack well.  I suck at packing.  I haven't even come close to 10,000 repetitions so my chances for improvement are limited and I just can't stomach the idea of practice packing.  Jim is a natural.  He hates clothes.

Jim has so many packing advantages.   His daywear consists of one outfit and he's just dealing with variations on a theme.  There are long shorts that go to the gym or go kayaking or go hiking or play tennis.  Most are black.  He couples these shorts with T-shirts--mostly grey.  Some have sleeves.  Some don't.  Sometimes he wears tennis shoes.  Sometimes he wears Keens or hiking shoes or flip flops.  He grabs a stack of black shorts and grey T-shirts and adds a lightweight jacket and he is done.  He brings some jeans and "good" T-shirts and a sport coat to cover nice nights out.  Maybe some dress loafers.  If he forgets anything, it's underwear.  This pretty much has him covered for two whole weeks.  If the weather is cold and wet, he's good.  If the weather is hot and icky, he's good.  He is the lowest maintenance fellow imaginable.  When he declared he was taking less than usual it occurred to me he might really mean it.  He is not a practiced packer honed by limitless travel opportunities--he just hates wearing clothes.  Two weeks is a long time to do with less than he normally brings in my mind.  I will try not to worry about this.

He also needs no potions or lotions.  He can use the shampoos and soaps at the hotel and his skin doesn't seem to wrinkle or look much different.  He doesn't have the nasty skin problems I deal with since the two cancer battles.  Recently,  I saw an age spot on his right arm and it took me aback.  I'd point it out to him, but he'd worry about it for several days.  I'm pretty sure I shouldn't mention it here either, but I can't edit my every thought.

On my side, there are all sorts of packing hurdles so I pack too much.  I need all sorts of potions for wrinkles and eczema (radiation treatments suck).  Eczema and fragrances are a really bad combo--no hotel products for me.  I really miss getting all excited when the hotel has really good shampoos and lotions and it feels like a treat.  There's something depressing about buying your skin creams at Walgreens instead of Nordstrom.

I also pack the wrong stuff.  I try to be prepared.  I make lists.  I look up weather reports.  The weather changes and my lists match some ideal for every situation that makes the usual and probable difficult to deal with when I arrive.  This is where Cosmic Banditos is the best book ever.  Almost every chapter ends with this phrase: "And then things didn't go according to plan."  These are words to live by.

I find myself with several problems.  I know lady light packers who mix and match and everything they bring along  (think Janet Simmons).  It's a lot like Jim's black/grey motif.  This is hard for me to do.  I'm a girl who doesn't really believe in matching so I can't pull out a stack of anything that would work that way.  You come stare at my closet and find a way to mix and match your way through that forest.

Shoes are a packing problem for me when I fly  If you don't believe in matching, you need to bring a lot of pairs of shoes to figure things out so you DON'T match.  Flying and multiple shoe options are out.  I use up any spare weight on a plane in my eczema stuff anyway.  My limited footgear is only one reason I'm not wild about flying.

When we are on the road, I bring the shoes I want.  I'm good enough to limit myself to one pair of cowboy boots, but that's about the only limit I acknowledge.  I bring multiple flip flops, some spiky heels, some tennis shoes, some water shoes, and one pair of yummy cowboy boots.  It's really hard to explain why this is necessary, but it is and I know this hampers the light packing ability.  I really like shoes.  Really.

The weather never works the way it's supposed to either.  I look it up online.  I plan accordingly.  Then I worry about what will happen if the weather is wrong and it always is.  I decide to pack for all kinds of weather to compensate.  I end up with a little bit of stuff for every possibility and it never works out.

At Jenny Lake the weather ranges are wide and I worry about weather stretches.  It's always chilly when we arrive, but that can last a day or a week.  It's always too hot when we leave and the deer flies are annoying, but you can never tell if that will be just hitting as we leave or whether the heat will have been there for over a week.  It's the time lengths that do me in and there's never been a clear cut pattern there and I'm a girl who likes patterns.  I wonder if we will be in the wind and rain a lot?  This year, I feel pretty good about the wind and rain part at least.  I used our yearly REI dividend to help pay for these cool light weight wind/rain jackets that take no space at all.  The North Face description indicated they were great for scaling peaks.  That's us.  Besides,  I'm hoping the teeny jacket lowers my packing mass considerably.

Enough of that.  If Outliers is correct, I need a lot more travel to improve.  Jacks, on the other hand, is something I am practiced at and I'm getting ready to get in playing shape.

There are few devotees of jacks left.  When I was a kid, we played for hours and hours and hours.  I bet I got 10,000 reps in third grade alone.  Later on I played jacks with students during informal lunches we had with kids in our adjoining classrooms.  I beat most of determined teenagers wanting to bring down their Honors English teacher.  I laid some in waste.  Two or three boys became so obsessed they beat me.  I have really good memories of playing jacks with so many kids.

Yesterday when we went to Chris's house for a Father's Day Brunch, I realized it was time to think about teaching Brooklyn and Sammi to play and love jacks.  There are challenges.  Sammi is partially paralyzed and modifications will be necessary if she wants to play.  I can do that.  Brooklyn, on the other hand, is reluctant to do anything that doesn't require princess attire.  Brooklyn's starts all conversations with me about potential outings by asking if walking will be involved.  Walking is on Brooklyn's no-fun list.  That limits almost every good time I can think of.  Jacks, however involves no walking.  I just need to find a pink outfit covered in princesses or find a movie where a princess plays jacks.  Normally I just get out my jacks and start to dazzle my audience.  Brooklyn doesn't dazzle easily.  I'm not worried though.  She's young and I've got time to strategize.

It seems so odd to me that I can't pack a suitcase with normal restraint, but I can still sit on the floor and play a nasty round of jacks.  Repetition is everything.  Schools should take note.  Kids will read better if they read until their eyes fall out.  Kids will write better if they write until their arms fall off.  Practice is everything.  Quantity is everything when you are a beginner.  Homework is good.  I feel sure of it.

That's enough for now though.  I am going to restrain myself at least here.  Besides, I want to practice some jacks.

Father' Day

I don't put much stock in special days like Father's Day, Mother's Day, most national holidays, and birthdays.  Christmas and Thanksgiving I can tolerate, but it is getting harder every year.  I just don't like the idea of sending cards, giving flowers, or candy, or presents in general on those days.  I know this sounds cheesy as hell, but I think that if someone is special, you shouldn't wait for a birthday to do something about it.

Father's Day is the worst.  It is nothing more than a marketing attempt to cash in on the previous marketing of Mother's Day.  Who is the biggest beneficiary of such days?  Hallmark Cards, of course.  Oops!  I just spoke disrespectfully about a business, a Job Creator.  I'm going to quick get off the keyboard and genuflect.  I'll be right back.

There, that's better.  I think Father's Day is my least favorite because it brings all my father issues to the surface.  Remember the great feeling you used to get--still get--when you give the perfect present to your mom or dad?  That perfect aspen leaf pin for mommy.  A paisley tie for dad.  You saved up, or borrowed the cash from your grandmother.  You made the purchase yourself.  Went home and gift wrapped it and spent the whole night in bed dreaming about how happy mom would be when she fastened that pin on her blouse.  I mean, how sharp does that look?

I'm not soliciting sympathy here, but I never had that experience with my father.  I made my mom cry over the perfect gift lots of time, but my father left long before I had a chance to give him something special.  If I had gotten him something, it probably would have been a roll of stamps so he could stop deducting the ten cent postage from the child support checks he sent my mother.  $24.90 every week like clockwork.  Oh well, at least he was punctual.  But enough of that.

The only real problem not having a father caused me was that I never developed an attraction for power tools.  I do go to Home Depot and Lowe's to get stuff for home projects, but you won't find me wandering through the power tool section sizing up the latest innovations in cordless drivers. (My favorite is the cordless screwdriver.  I remember my grandmother had one of those back in the fifties.)  I also never felt an urge to have a mancave where I could hang out with my buddies, drink beer, eat lots of nachos and guacamole and act like I care about who wins.  In short, Father's Day, like leaking sinks that refuse an easy fix and flapperballs that are less than reliable, makes me feel somehow inadequate.

I was looking through the Post yesterday and noticed on the feature pages a list of gift suggestions for Dad.  I knew the list would piss me off, but I read it anyway.  A Bosch articulated-arm miter saw was first on the list.  The article said it was perfect for a small workspace.  That would certainly apply to my, ahem, workspace.  If I had the slightest idea what an articulated-arm miter saw was I might want one.

Here is a better one:  the Rockler Insty-Drive, 18 Piece Self Centering & Countersink Set.  My mother always told me that I was too self-centered.  Maybe this piece of equipment would help.

The list left the power tool motif for a moment and suggested a JBL Charge Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker.  It will not only supply the driving bass line that any decent mancave requires, but it is sturdy enough and produces enough sound to go with Dad on his latest handy man project, like turning out table legs on his new lathe.

And the coup de grace, The Bottoms Up Home Unit Kit for dispensing draft beer in your mancave.  It fills the cup from the bottom up for a perfect glass of beer every time.  Finally, something practical.

There were other suggestions, but they pretty much followed the same theme:  Things To Insulate Dad From His Family On Weekends.  I just don't belong in the demographic that this list is speaking to.  I would mostly like Father's Day and all other such days to disappear, but since that isn't going to happen anytime soon (think what it would do to the economy), I do have one item I'd like.  I have a water color by my uncle (my mother's twin and my namesake) that I would like to put in an oversized mat and frame and hang on our big living room wall.  This is not the kind of gift you talk about with your buddies over a beer.  It would probably cost around $500.  I know, I know, I could probably pick up a perfectly good table saw for the same price, but it would look lousy in my living room.

Hey.  Happy Father's Day.  I hope everyone has a great day with their kids.  We're going to Chris' for brunch, but before I go I'm gonna get over to Lowe's and check out Black & Decker's Cordless Lithium-Ion Gyro Screwdriver.  My grandmother never had anything like that.

I Love Jeans, Shorts, Spiky Heels and Flip Flops--So There!

Katherine today.

It's chilly and rainy and not even 60 degrees outside and it's almost noon.  It's summer though.  Today is the first day I can remember when my fate is my own.  When I woke up, I didn't begin with a mental catalogue of the things that had to get done.

On most days, the items on my list are usually good and make me happy.  Cooking, knitting class, seeing family, meeting friends, planting posies--I love all these things.  They have to get done though.   Today I woke up and the to-do things could be done tomorrow.  Life will go on if I don't change the sheets or clean our bathroom or fold the last load of laundry.  I could do those things, but I don't have to do them.  To quote Willa, "Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy."  It's a good mantra to cultivate.

So here I am with choice number three on today's list.  I've knitted two rows and one had beads and I'm new at beads so that was a goodly amount of time.  Two rows before 6:00 AM--Ahhh.  Then the gym.  And now--I'm writing away instead of thinking about chores.

I was running around the track at the gym (pleased as punch that I was running a bit better) and decided I wanted to write about a Sunday column in The Denver Post about social "rules" that needed enforcing.  I broke the only four I read.  All were about appropriate clothing.  I decided I would postpone all bathroom work and spout off on the fashion rules this social guru insisted I broke. I broke them all.  To quote Willa, "Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy."

The first rule was about jeans.  Jeans are bad.  No one should wear them.  If you are in the woods and under 40, maybe.  If you were foolish enough to spend more than $58 on them--well, I stopped reading at that point.

This is sacred territory for me.  Saying anything negative about jeans is like saying you don't like skin.  I think a huge problem with old people is that they don't wear jeans.  What's up with that?  Where is the magic line that says this is the moment you stop wearing jeans?  Good-bye True Religion and Hello Dockers.  No thank you.

Whoever wrote the column clearly didn't understand other things about jeans.  They work with cowboy boots.  That's important for a girl like me.  I have some impressive boots (the baby blue ostrich with lime green goatskin Luchese's top the list) and unless you're really and truly line-dancing, you don't wear boots without jeans unless they have spiky heels.

Jeans force you to think about your weight.  What can I say?  I have jeans for my various weights, but I'm not buying a bigger pair than anything I have now.  It's as good a weight loss system as any of the others I've tried.

Look around.  People wear jeans.  They will always wear jeans.  So silly.

The second rule was about shorts.  To be avoided at all costs.    Absolutely not after 40.  Again.   Excuse me.  This is also silly.  Who gets to decide this stuff?  I didn't even check the reasoning.  People love shorts or they don't.

My mother wore shorts with pantyhose underneath--"Horrible, horrible, oh most horrible."  It was the pantyhose that made her shorts approach awful.  I never understood it at all.  It was the wosrt when we traveled.  She played tennis and walked in Yosemite that way and she looked at the geysers in Yellowstone that way.  I think if you're going to wear shorts, you should just wear shorts.  If you must make a rule about wearing shorts, I think a no pantyhose rule would be okay with me.

My father never wore shorts at all.  I never ever saw my father's legs until he was dying.  He wore his suits to work and khakis on the weekend when he went fishing in the mountains.  I only saw his forearms when he retired and took up golf.  It was okay he hid them all those years, you know. It's kind of amazing I love shorts so much given my background.  Maybe I'm just being a passive aggressive kid.

Like I said, people like shorts or they don't.  I'm okay with anybody wearing them unless they wear pantyhose underneath--I just get a Barney Fife feeling all over when that happens.  For me, there are perfect shorts for almost any function.  I have shorts for running, hiking, kayaking, dining on a patio with pretty plants, hanging out, playing tennis, going to a cool early evening cocktail party (it could happen), watching grandkids, gardening,  and typing.  Doesn't everybody?  To quote Willa, "Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy."

I skimmed through footwear too.  I didn't read much because it was clear I was a scofflaw in the shoe department through and through.  Spiky heels followed the jeans and the shorts pattern for rules.  We should all avoid them, but if they must be worn, make sure only young folks don them.  I don't wear spiky heels often, but I have two amazing pair and I wear them to Mizuna or at Jenny Lake sometimes or if there's a fancy-dancy wedding.  When I pull them out and put them on, I remember I have really nice legs for an old lady.

The last fashion taboo was flip flops.  For anyone at anytime.  Talk about making a rule folks won't follow.  Try that in Kauai.

 A world without flip flops would be like a world without jeans.  Stupid.  People were meant to be barefoot.  I'm sure of it.  Flip flops are the closest thing to barefoot that will still get you into a fine restaurant.  Like shorts, there are flip flops for any occasion.

I love Chacos for daily life.  They are made in Colorado.  They are sturdy and last forever and cost a bundle for what is essentially a flip flop.  They feel right on my feet.  The arch is right.  The width of the straps is good.  I like my black ones best.  There's a part of life that is a quest for the perfect daily flip flop.  If you don't have a favorite flip flop, part of me thinks something is wrong with you.

I love Tori Burch flip flops for dress up.  All of mine came from the Nordstrom Rack last year.  I somehow discovered when the weekly shipment Tori Burch shoes would arrive and my work schedule met up with the flip flop delivery schedule.  I like these because the soles of the shoes are incredibly thin and the straps are thin and I feel barefoot in a downtown kind of way.  I wouldn't go for long walks in these, but I feel good going to Bones.

That's all I read.  It's hard to read something that attacks the very core of your being.  No jeans, no shorts, no spiky heels, no flip flops.  I'm not giving these up--not yet.  To quote Willa, "Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy."

Old Friends, Part II

On the day I retired, I petulantly promised myself that I would never set foot in a public high school, particularly the one on Green Mountain, again.  So far, with the exception of attending my grandson's graduation in Orlando, I have kept that promise.

But yesterday afternoon I managed to revisit good old GMHS without having to actually walk into the place.  We went to the shower for Gavin's new child, Colton.  We met Todd and saw Ellison running around just like he did at their place in New York a few months ago.  And there at Nils Erickson's spectacular home we found all the people, well a lot of the people, who made Green Mountain such a great place back in its halcyon years, you know, the years when Kathie and I were there.  There was Carol and Harvey DeLockroy, Bud and Janet Simmons, Barb Amberg looking a lot like she did when she was in my Sophomore Lang Arts class.  Nancy Hardesty looking all spiked and tres avant garde.  Mostly there were kids, wonderful kids.  I know they are all in their 30's and 40's now, but they're still kids.

I had a wonderful talk with Nils about his children and the Montessori school close-by.  Tim Skillern and his wife (I'm sorry I forgot your name) were there.  Tim and I worked side by side on the newspaper for four years.  Our relationship was one of my favorite things about my career, yet I barely recognized him.  I almost cried when we hugged.  Kevin Williams and I spent a goodly amount of time talking about our favorite subject--restaurants.  We discovered we live in the same basic area as Stacy Lord and now will start looking for her at the grocery store.  And of course we saw Gavin and his wonderful family again.  It was a rare treat to see him two times in the last couple of months.

Afterwards, we went with Bud and Janet and had a terrific dinner at Gaetano's, one time mafia hang out and current neighborhood Italian joint.  They have surprisingly good food there if you're ever around 38th and Tejon.

Thanks to everyone for reminding me of all that I loved about school, yet allowing me to avoid the many things I learned to hate.

Old Friends

Old people are so irritating.  Maybe you've noticed.  I finished up my workout this morning and headed to the showers anticipating a long stint in the hot tub.  I mean hanging out in the hot tub is really the only thing that makes going to the Y worth the effort.  But this morning things didn't go according to plan.  I walked in the shower room and there in the hot tub were two really nice guys, guys that are ordinarily fun to talk with if the conversation sticks exclusively to travel, but they're evidently too old to deal with the hot tub jets and instead just sit in the still tub (when it is still you can see how dirty it actually is) and soak.  Whenever an individual asks them if it would be okay to turn on the jets, they shout NO in unison.  On those mornings when I see the two of them in the tub, I just sigh a little and take a quick shower and get the hell out.

At what age does a human being stop growing, stop reading the papers, stop watching the news (they watch Fox instead), stop thinking or liking or accepting anything that they have not already thought, or liked, or accepted?  When you read KING LEAR for example, you are supposed to be sympathetic toward the older generation as they are being eaten alive by the ravening wolves of the younger generation, but let's face it, if you really had to deal with Lear and Gloucester and Kent, if you had to give them rides in your car, or share a hot tub with them, or have dinner with them, you would end up hating them and rooting for good old Goneril and Regan to put them out of their misery.  Kent says plaintively that he is "too old to learn."  I used to well up when I read that; now I want to tell him that if he's so old to shut the fuck up about it.

I'm not just talking about chronology here.  There are all kinds of people younger than me who are clearly already in their dotage.  For instance, if I take an "old" person someplace in my car I can't open the sun roof, or keep all the side windows wide open.  And when I do keep everything shut down, I have to be careful that the air conditioner doesn't blast them in the face.  Even if the climate inside the car is acceptable, if it is sunny outside and the old person spaced out his/her sun glasses (old people are always spacing out things like their sun glasses), you would think the old geezer was being exposed to nuclear fall out the way he puts his hand over his eyes to protect himself from the same sun that has been beating down on him without effect for the past 80 years.  I always carry an extra pair of sun glasses in the glove compartment.  Ray Bans.  If I'm gonna help some oldie stay out of the sun, I want them to be stylin'.

And I don't like the way they dress.  Old people always think they have to dress appropriately, so they wear suits during the day and wear hose and wear khakis and never shorts.  I don't trust people who never wear shorts.  They cover up to protect themselves from that same intruding sun in the previous paragraph.

They don't laugh as much as they used to.  They don't get the jokes on "The Daily Show" and, of course, "Colbert" is a complete mystery.  Why does he pronounce his name that way?  They're on the look out for gay people who might want to molest them, poor people who might want to take their money, black people who might want to marry their daughters and become President.  They miss Johnny Carson, have grown grudgingly accustomed to David Letterman and are still relieved that Conan didn't take over.

They like to eat out, but don't chew their food as carefully and thoroughly as their age requires and end up punctuating every meal with terrifying choking fits usually during or right after the salad course.

Don't get me wrong.  Some of my best friends are old people.  Now that I think about it, ALL of my best friends are old people.  But if you ever catch me rolling up windows, shading my eyes from the sun, choking over an underchewed scallion, or worst of all, turning off the jets in a hot tub, I want you to shoot me.

The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland: A Good Book for Me

Katherine today.  Good Morning.

I think this is the last Monday I'm waking up with a pretty good sized To-Do list facing me.  The one vital item at the moment (moving some money into the cash-strapped checking account) can wait at least until the Schwarz Group wakes up.  This gives me time to build up the nerve to let the financial planner know I blew it again.  Things just aren't going according to plan around here.  It pisses me off.

For the last year or so I've watched my angry side grow up.  I've generally buried anger and lots of cancer stuff I've read has suggested that hiding anger inside is like a cancer invitation.  I've been actively working at being okay with being angry on the outside.  I'm not very practiced at it though.  I suck at it.

I know folks at the gym who have anger mastered.  The towels, the temperature of the pool, the temperature of the running track, the lack of Kleenex or the wasteful provision of Kleenex or the generic brand of the Kleenex, the politics of anybody, the weather (I can't remember a day that made a certain crinkly semi-swimmer happy), the kids waiting for a van to school, the crappy coffee--all of these things make these people really angry.  The weather and traffic can make some folks crazy mad and one man is ready to punch folks out because "Obama has cut the parking in downtown Littleton."  Like I said--lots of anger I could learn from if I was any good at taking tutorials.

My problem, however, is none of that stuff makes me mad.  My problem is that I'm vaguely angry.  I have pissed off days.  My doctor and one daughter-in-law suspect hormones because I can't take any.  I'm not sure why it's ok for fellows to get mad, but girls are hormonal if they get mad.  I don't think I'm hormonal.  I think I am unschooled in the whole anger business and it's just another bit of gender discrimination I'm coming to terms with in my sixties.  See--a little anger poking through here.

Now, general existential angst I can handle.  I feel strongly that I have worry and guilt mastered.  I had training here.  My mom made sure I would worry about everything.  She made sure that I would attack duties and complete them at a top-notch level and that I would feel guilty if I did not.   Give me a good existential crisis and I'm ready to roll--I can worry with the best of them.  I need help battling the gods though.

Mom didn't believe in saying anything about bad stuff.  Period.  Anger is bad stuff.  We, as girls, were not to get angry or express anger.  There was no battle practice growing up.  My parents didn't fight.  Mom didn't fight.  It was wrong to fight--but wrong because she was a girl, because I was a girl.   Now here I am and it's downright depressing when I am agitated that I just can't aim a tidy "Fuck you" in any accurate direction.  I'm working on it though.

I've begun to see clues.  I adore Lizbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and her other books.  I like a Pink song where she tells off her husband and the Amy Winehouse anti-rehab song and I looked at two of my playlists a bit ago and pissed off women were there big time.  When I picked them, I remember thinking these would be good for running.  They look angry now.  Lots of gender aiming here.

I'm also avoiding the news.  How can anyone keep from living in anger with what goes on outside--girls chained in basements, marathons blown up, churches on fire, a dysfunctional Congress.  Part of this is just plain age and seeing that the news today is no different than the news of my youth.  I read this morning that the Jackson Hole newspaper compared FDR to Hitler when the Teton National Park was created.  Nothing changes.  It wears on me and makes me mad, but I'm not sure at what.

All of this stuff is why I picked up The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland.  I bought it when it first came out, but I just got to it recently.  It seemed like a perfect title for my mood and I ended up really liking the book.  It wasn't a cure--I still feel a good deal of un-targeted anger and I'm not sure if I should identify the anger or not and I'm not feeling any closer to the sort of Buddhist enlightenment that would make dealing with the anger a kind of normal detachment.  None of that happened, but like I said, it's a good book and it's fun to read.

The book takes place in desert California and Jimmy Duke is the protagonist.  He's been recently forced out of the police department in a suburb of Palm Springs because he didn't kill a dog he was ordered to kill.  Jimmy is angry about this and lots of other things in his world.  His all-image brother Randall is running for re-election against a very Sarah Palin-ish woman in a Congressional race.  Randall wants to use Jimmy and a recently paroled third brother, Dale, as political props.  There is lots of political fuel for Jimmy's anger here as well.

Lots of odd characters float through adding fun and fire.  There's a bisexual tennis coach/tanning salon girl and a political advisor both scheming their way to the tops of their weirdo worlds.  There's a hard-ass local police chief (named Hard) who forced Jimmy off the force and he discovers some folks can get angrier than he can.  There are lots of folks who remind me of the dolt in Fargo--sometimes crime needs to be left to the criminals.

Because of the dog (happily living with Jimmy), our hero did a small stint with anger management classes the department required him to take before his ultimate departrure.  He found his way to some beginning Zen teachings and as his asshole political brother keeps pushing his buttons, Jimmy imagines Randall in pink bubbles and has the bubbles float off the horizon of his mind.  It doesn't work long or very well for Jimmy.  I've tried floating away some thoughts in pink bubbles a couple of times.  It didn't work for me.  I just can't think in pink.

This is a fun and funny book.  It attacks politics and the people in politics and how the only thing a politician can do is run for office.  The remaining circus of characters make fun of the self-importance we all suffer from--I mean I'm writing my wee thoughts on this wee blog with its wee following.  I know I overweigh my thoughts, but the characters surrounding Jimmy are superstars at over-valuing everything about themselves.  Mostly, The Angry Buddhist is a really good time.

Watching Jim Write

Katherine today.

We've spent our lives as teachers and even though we left our classrooms eight years ago, we think of ourselves as teachers still.  It creeps me out a bit--you spend the heart of your life trying to define yourself and to get others to value that definition and then you discover you have to shed the definition and find another definition.   At least in terms of profession.  We were teaching professionals.  It really was life for us.   Now we aren't.  How about that?

Generally Jim and I share our definitions.  We both define ourselves as parents and outdoorsy types and literary types and foodies as well as defining ourselves as teachers.  It's only the professional definition sparking this today.

Without the teacher definition, we both have had to train ourselves to read books without making notes in the margins.  We both have had to realize that we'll never control any part of our world the way we controlled a classroom.  We both have had to learn that it's okay to have a snow storm and not pray for a snow day.  We both have had to learn that we don't need to check out new staplers in the hopes one will finally not jam when faced with teenagers.    I have had to learn new reasons to buy shoes.  At least that part was easy.

Because I am still involved with teachers and schools with my Job at Metro, learning a new definition has obvious stumbling blocks for me.  I do look for other jobs--I need to fund my desires somehow.  I check the Ritz Carlton and the Four Seasons every month or so to see if they are looking for somebody to take care of guest services here in town.  No luck so far, but I'm having a hard time looking for jobs when I'm not at all sure what I'd like to do.   Travel writer appeals to me, but my stuff just seems too personal.  I'm betting the description I posted about me drinking tamarind juice and vodka in Belize is not what SUNSET MAGAZINE has in mind.   I think that's true for a lot of what Jim and I write.  We aren't what the mainstream has in mind.

Jim has done better with new definitions than I have.   He launched his retirement with a handyman period that still pays off in various improvements around here.  He's off on a rare outing into the hammer and nail world as I write this.  For the last two years he's been in writer mode.  It's the first time I've watched a person redefine himself without assigning a grade while he or she went through the process.  High school kids redefine themselves often.  I like that about them.  Adults hang on far too long at times--I am a prime example.   Anyway, Jim is redefining himself and I have a technicolor view.  He's a writer.  He's not a teacher.  Mostly.

Jim does lots of writer-type things.  In AP/Honors classes I always did some work on the nature of artists.  I taught kids that artists live in different worlds and get obsessed and generally don't behave like regular people.  Back then I lived with a teacher and I was a teacher and lesson plan obsessions and evenings where nobody did anything but read made sense.  Only one of us is a writer now though.  I think we're both on a learning curve here, but it's a good ride.

Jim has finished one book and is in the process of looking for an agent to sell it.   Another book is in its second draft and in the editing process.  A section of the first book looks like it will get morphed into a play soon.  There is a third book outlined in his mind.  Each explores music and requires research (blues in the first and string quartets in the second one) and he needs to do a bunch of research on Jack Kerouac and jazz in Five Points and around Denver before he gets rolling.  I think the play is a way for him to keep writing while he's researching.  I think this is addictive stuff.  He's getting better and faster and his ideas are getting ahead of his time alone and home projects we can afford.

Jim's life is wonderfully ritualized from my outside point of view.  He makes me coffee each morning, we either head to the gym or we don't, and I go off to schools until this time of year.  He reads his political stuff and then puts his current effort on the screen.  Notes on the left.  Text on the right.  He reads some of yesterday's stuff and he leaves the computer to nod off.

Stuff happens around the house at this point.  Decks get built.  The lawn gets mowed.  The kitchen floor gets washed.  He returns to the computer and writes.  Sometimes more work gets done around the house.  That happens if he gets stuck.  There was a moment during the first book when I was working in the garden and he was building a path to the backyard.  It was kind of a Eureka moment.  The flagstone went into the sand and he went to the computer and wrote a single sentence that shifted everything.  I mean, I saw that happen.  I knew the sentence when I read the book.  That was pretty cool.

Jim writes and does stuff around the house until he stops writing for the day.  Then sometimes he plays the guitar or does research or cooks.  It'd be a great life without some of the hurdles he faces.  The amount of thought that goes into a paragraph is hard to measure.  Dickens got paid by the word.  I wish Jim could get paid by the thought.

Sometimes he doesn't sleep.  Well, he rarely sleeps, but sometimes this makes it worse.  He thinks about what the people in the book will do or not do.  He worries about writing things he's never done.  There is a cool chase scene in the second book.  Characters jump off a dirt road onto a steep hill and have to struggle to get up the hill.  It's scary and it's supposed to be scary.  It took him lots of drafts and it still worries him.  I'm pretty sure Stephen King hasn't done all the stuff he's written about so I think it'll be okay if Jim has never barely escaped up a rocky slope after being chased by two weird Larry's.    Another time Jim lost sleep over what his invented ritzy music camp would serve for dinner.  You can see this gets obsessive.  I try to help.  I told him the ramps as part of the camp meal were a bit much.  The ramps are now wild ramps.  Like I said, I try to help.  Try to tell George Seurat not to use dots.

My best obsessive story happened about a year ago when he was trying to work out an ending for the first book.  He's had a plan for each book before he started writing, but when he actually started typing, the stories evolved and they didn't necessarily go according to the original plan.   At this time he was struggling between what he planned for the book and where the book seemed to be going of its own free will and I was having my own little pity party at the same time and I was crying and being my emotional self and our struggles met over wine one afternoon.  I was weeping and making no doubt ridiculous hormonal statements about something and I thought he was really hearing me and then he started jotting notes.  Had I looked at those notes at that moment, I think it would have been really bad.  I know it would have been.  I managed to wait though and I looked at the notes the next morning.  Sure enough--all about the book and the solution the book needed.  It's a good solution.  I needed to cry more than anything that day.  It worked out okay.

Sometimes Jim gets bad news that he has no control over.  That's the hardest thing to watch.  I don't know what to do.  It makes me mad mostly.  He keeps plugging away.  He survives better than I ever could.  Bad news is hard.

Jim writes because he loves it and he can see he's getting better at his craft and he's rediscovering all the creative stuff he did in a classroom and as a handyman.  There are such wondrous moments when something he writes and works on is good and we both know it.  I love watching this.

He'd like to be published.  I'd like that too.  It would be way cool.  He ardently works at that side too even though it is more opposed to his real nature.  This boy was not built to sell himself.   All three of our kids have to sell themselves to succeed.  I'm learning to respect their abilities here more and more.

What Jim is doing is both beautiful and painful.  He's being a writer.  It's amazing to watch.