So I’m at the airport, waiting for the fabulous Laurie Halse Anderson’s flight to get in, and I see a man walk past with a pirate-themed pet carrier.
I was filled with an urge to ask, deadpan, if his cat was really a pirate.
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Comparisons, that is.
Yesterday I had my lunch hour Pilates class. This teacher does a mix of Pilates and yoga, and I’m fine with that since I’m a fan of both. We always do some balance poses.
Here’s the thing with balance poses. Say you’re hanging out in Dancer and you’re feeling really steady and good. So you start looking around and thinking, “Wow, some of these folks are pretty shaky. Look how she’s wobbling over there! Oh, but she looks great, she’s got really good extension, way more than I can get–”
That is the exact moment you will lose your balance.
Application to non-Pilates situations left as an exercise for the reader.
Dudes. I was totally the runner-up at the Define-A-Thon at Broadway Books. I had great trepidation about the Define-A-Thon (trepidation is a good Define-A-Thon-style word, actually) but it turned out to be super fun. It brought back memories of playing Around The World in elementary school, although I managed not to get sent out of the room for being too excited.
The event, excellently emceed by Gabriel Boehmer, brought out a bunch of writers, among them Katie Schneider, Ellen Urbani, Monica Drake, and Kassten Alonso. Kass won, and as previously stated I was the runner up. We were the two library employees in the room, so perhaps that conveyed an unfair advantage. The library school student who was present (also a bookseller) acquitted herself nobly as well. Cheers all around.
Other notable literary events of the day: Lessons From A Dead Girl appeared! And so, apparently, did a book by some guy named Colbert.
Also: all y’all in Portland should buy your tickets to see Laurie Halse Anderson this coming Monday night! It will be super fantastic.
Thanks to my fine, responsive brakes, the lady who blew through the stop sign at full speed, talking on her cell phone, did not end up slamming into my car.
I honked, and she sort of glanced back at me with this odd expression.
Immediately, I started wondering, wait, did I have a stop sign? Was it my fault we almost had an accident? I didn’t. It wasn’t. But I was ready to blame myself, just because of the way she was looking at me. You ever feel like that?
What I really wanted to tell you about, though, was Steve Earle’s cover of Way Down In The Hole, which will be the theme for Season Five of The Wire. He strips the song down, keeps the beat subtle but insistent. I’m calling this the “One Day At A Time” version. Maybe it’s just because I’m conflating Earle with Waylon, the character he plays on the show, but this version really makes me think of the quiet strength it takes to keep those particular devils down in the hole. And now that I’ve read this interview, I think maybe my interpretation isn’t that far off.
September 28th, 1997: I was on a train from Portland back to Ann Arbor. I’d just interviewed for a job. I’d done my first (and so far last) storytime. I read, among other things, Caps For Sale, a story featuring caps (as you might suspect) and monkeys.
September 28th, 2007: I wear Bill Mudron’s cap at a Stumptown pre-party.
(Also pictured, from right: Terri Nelson, Patrick Farley, and part of Steve Lieber. Photo by ocean yamaha.)
The next night, I take my one and only Stumptown photo, of the refrigerator downstairs at Cosmic Monkey.
In 1997, I could count the Portland people I knew on the fingers of one hand.
In 2007, I need both hands and both feet just to get through all the members of the studio.
How did it happen? The right place, the right time. But you don’t know if it’s the right place, you can’t know that it’s the right time. I remember the night, a few months after we’d moved to Portland, when I kept pushing the radio button presets in my car and getting nothing but static. Finally it dawned on me: they were still set to Ann Arbor stations.
I’ve sat at a lot of tables at a lot of comic conventions since. I used to be notorious for bailing out. Sometimes I’d come back with a sandwich for Steve. Not always. (Sorry, man.)
Then I started writing comics. (Remember about vampirism?) These days, not only do I not leave the con, I often don’t even leave the table.
Everything I bought at Stumptown 2007 was from Dylan Meconis: some original art from Click (not to be confused with the multiple-author novel of the same name, which sounds cool, though I have not yet read it) and a super Shrinky-Dink necklace of a two-page comics spread, panels and word balloons only. Congratulations, Dylan: you’ve made an identity badge for comics writers.
It was 1994, not 1997, when the Offspring released “Come Out And Play (Keep ‘Em Separated),” but allow me a little artistic license with my ten-years-ago vs. today musings, because for the longest time, I tried so hard to keep ‘em separated: librarian life, writer life — and it’s impossible. The library has a table at Stumptown. I didn’t work at it this year, but I have. Other library staff were at non-library tables. People who knew me from the library asked me library questions while I sat at my comics-writer table. I was on a panel about Comics in Libraries and I shifted between writer perspective and librarian perspective so many times I got a sort of mental whiplash. (It was nice to hear the library called “radical and anomalous,” though.) Both/and. Not either/or. You’d think I’d have figured that out sooner.
Two people asked me, “What themes do you usually write about?”
I think the question was code for: “Are there always queer girls and do they always make out?”
But I looked at everything on my table and said, “Relationships and performance.”
A few more things about Stumptown:
This was the first year for costumes.
Photo again by ocean yamaha.
Spacious Chinese restaurants work well for the inevitable Gigantic Con Dinner, but you can never order enough Pepper Salted Pei Pa Tofu, because no one who hasn’t had it before thinks they’re going to like it, but then they totally do.
It was great to introduce friends to other friends. I had a good conversation with an exhibitor up from L.A., remembered how much I’d liked talking with her last year, and finally deployed the power of the Internet to learn her last name. She wants to move to Portland, it turns out.
October 1, 2007: I’m paying for breakfast, entirely in ones. The barista smiles, raises an eyebrow, and asks, “Are you moonlighting?”
Yes, actually. Have been for years.
I came for a job. I got a community. Thanks, everyone.
P.S. Because I didn’t remember to tag my previous Stumptown posts with News/Appearances (my lack of tagging skills is perhaps the subject of another post), I will tag this one and take this opportunity to let y’all know about the next couple places I’ll be:
- Assembly on Literature for Adolescents Workshop: Helping Teens Discover A Sense of Place and Self Through YA Literature, New York: November 19-20.
- Mid-Ohio-Con, Columbus: November 24-25.
For a while now, Steve’s been agitating for us to get a GPS for the car. Now, I’m notorious for getting lost. As Susan Cooper once said, “I don’t have a bump of direction, I have a dent.” So the idea does make some sense.
Yet, I’ve always resisted. Some weird robot voice telling me where to go? I’d want to mess with it, see if I could break it. Or, you know, I just wouldn’t believe what it was saying.
But I’ve recently realized that under very specific conditions, I would very much like to get in on the GPS action.
See, you know how there’s that thing at some hotels where you can get wake-up calls from celebrities?
Well, what I want is a GPS system voiced entirely by the cast of The Wire. I mean, if I had, say, Clarke Peters, Idris Elba, Wendell Pierce, Lance Reddick, and Michael K. Williams telling me where to go?
I’d never get lost again.
If you could have a personalized GPS, who would the voices be?
1. We’re at a coffeeshop, and I’ve just ordered. The nice lady behind the counter gives me a total. Steve says, “Wait, I’m going to order too!”
Nice lady looks slightly sheepish, takes his order, and then says, “I should have asked if you were together, but you know, I’ve found that when I ask, it actually often creates a really awkward situation for people — like, they haven’t thought about it, but once I ask, one of them feels like they ought to pay for them both, and then they’re all flustered — so anyway, lately I just don’t ask.”
Which would be a fascinating observation of social dynamics in any case, but it was particularly so because I’ve been filling my life with Thomas Hine’s work. One of the phenomena he writes about is what a tense moment the point-of-purchase is: the buyer feels judged by the seller; there’s concern about spending too much or too little; if the seller is rude or even simply disinterested, the buyer may feel regret and remorse, etc.
2. A girl asked me, “Okay, you want to know how to pick a graphic novel?”
“Sure.”
“If the cover is cute, and with, like, a cool font, then you look inside and see, you know, if the cartooning is good. And if it’s not, well, you can read the back and see if the story sounds like it might be kind of good, and then you might read it anyway.”
Ah, this time of year. It’s my favorite. I’ve written about it before — this time last year, logically enough.
What I didn’t say then: as the leaves turn, as the rain starts falling, it’s harder and harder to get me out of the house. That’s exacerbated this year because of my Summer-Full-Of-Travel. All I want to do is alternate between curling up with a book (or, god help me, a shelter magazine, because I’m that kind of girl), writing, being online, and puttering around the house, the stereo on, but not loud, so the music just adds a subtle evocative layer to the already-lovely experience of just being home. It’s the time of year I feel most like a hobbit, or a hibernating sort of mammal. Slowing down, contemplating, staring into space.
Sadly, my subconscious doesn’t comply. My dreams are ludicrously easy to interpret: I get out of my car while it’s still running. I watch it smash into one vehicle after another, and an aghast crowd watches, too. I’m in court, and it’s somehow also a job interview, and I’m justifying, explaining, rationalizing, and no one believes me.
What are your recurring anxiety dreams?
1. Costume Designer — hurray! Katrina would be proud.
15. Computer Trainer — Another one I’ve done. And still do.
16. Animator — See above re: if I could draw.
17. Pet Groomer — Only Snag.
18. Multimedia Developer — “Developer”? Is that where I tell the people who actually can animate what to do?
19. Personal Trainer — “Do as I say, not as I do.”
20. Social Worker — See above re: psychologist.
21. Plasterer — Um.
22. Addictions Counselor — Sweet! Just like Waylon to Bubbles! (Sorry, obligatory Wire reference.)
23. Makeup Artist — If I wore any.
24. Magician — I’d make myself disappear.
25. Foreign Service Officer — If I knew more languages.
26. Professor — Considered this one seriously, too. Library school didn’t take as long.
27. School Counselor — If I could pick the students.
28. Comedian — No.
29. Casting Director — Yes.
30. Activist — Intermittently. Mostly via writing.
31. Graphic Designer — I think I’d love this, actually. With a bunch of training. And probably a new glasses prescription. Except, do you have to know how to draw?
32. Artist — See above re: cartoonist.
33. Print Journalist — I prefer fiction. Then again, so do some print journalists.
34. Critic — I am supremely unable to be objective.
35. ESL Teacher — See above re: Foreign Service Officer.
36. Foreign Language Instructor — And again!
37. Communications Specialist — I don’t even know what this means. PR?
38. Writer — Finally!
39. Musician — If there were more call for rusty violinists and untutored altos.
40. Computer Animator — Why does this test persist in thinking I can draw?
I came home for lunch today. There was a car, parked but still running, across the street, and the stereo was cranked.
Cranked, specifically, with the soothing sounds of Mr. Al Green. It was so nice to hear unexpectedly that I felt compelled to share.