Stories

Health Care: Why I Want Reform

2009-08-25T18:07:00.005-04:00

I grew up in one of those "middle of the road" states politically--in a family that votes both Republican and Democrat. My father's more of an Independent than anything, and my mother leans right. Growing up, I knew more about the right side of the aisle (just slightly) than I did the left.

The issue that shaped my political views most? Health care.

At 20, I took a summer job teaching summer school and Vacation Bible School in the Atlanta area. It was my first "big city" experience, and it's about when I started to realize how wide the gap between rich and poor--and, specifically, the gap between those who have health care and those who don't--could be.

While I was in Atlanta, my team partner, Shirley, developed a serious medical condition that required attention. The catch? She didn't have health insurance. Yes, at 20, she was in one of those groups that those who oppose health care reform may tell you shouldn't be counted as uninsured. From the way some talk, you'd think that anyone under 35 never has a health issue.

Of course, we know that's not true, and I believe every one of the more than 46 million Americans without health insurance needs to be counted.

Without health insurance, Shirley had one option to deal with significant pain: the emergency room. She and I were staying with a host family that dropped us off at an Atlanta hospital--they were too nervous about the neighborhood to stay with us, so they told us to call after Shirley got seen--and, once Shirley got registered, the waiting began. We waited a long time.

After awhile, Shirley got called to the second waiting room and, since I wasn't a patient, I waited in the outer room. All around me, people were coughing. People were bleeding. Patients on cots waited next to doors that seemed never to open. Some moaned. Most were quiet. I looked around, and it's not exaggerating to say I was shocked. I was disgusted. I think it's safe to say this: I was changed.

In Iowa, where I'd had health insurance all my life by virtue of my father's job, things were just different. Or maybe my life was different. I realized there were a lot of ways of living--a lot of situations--I'd never seen before. I realized that the gap between those who have good care and those who don't isn't small--it's huge.

Later, my own experiences confirmed what I learned that day: health care in America is broken. As a teacher in Queens, I had health insurance--an HMO. I lived in a working class neighborhood on a very low salary (try living in New York City in the 90's on $20,000 a year). Although I had better care than the uninsured, it wasn't superb by any stretch. Waiting rooms were not pretty places. Waits themselves were long. Doctors were not always top-notch. Yes, care was rationed: by income.

Later, I had health care connected with a job in Prince George's County, Maryland, and, again, I had HMO coverage, though for much of my tenure at the job, I had to pay about $400/month for it. The doctor's office I went to in Hyattsville, the office of Dr. Richard Lilly, had unquestionably the longest waits (often two hours and almost always one) I have ever experienced--and some of the most incompetent administrators.

I had pneumonia while I lived there. Though it was diagnosed right away and I was told to make a follow-up appointment as soon as the X-ray results came back, the office couldn't get me in to the same doctor who made the diagnosis. I had to see another doctor in a satellite office. After dragging myself out to the satellite office, I trusted that they would have had my records transferred--after all, the management was the same.

Instead, when I arrived, the doctor asked me, "Why are you here?" I told Doctor #2 that I had pneumonia and said that the other office, the main office, had already diagnosed me via X-ray. I suggested that she call that office to get my records. She declined. She couldn't even bother to make a phone call. After some arguing, she gave me a weak antibiotic that didn't work. A week later, I had to get another one.

What if I had been in less hearty overall health (sans pneumonia)? Though I know doctors are human and make mistakes, incompetent administrators and a lazy physician were factors in this case. That incompetence and poor care cost me a week of health--it could have cost much more. Was it because the office was in a low-income, mostly minority community? Is that why they could survive though they treated patients poorly--there were just few options for people in the area? I have to wonder.

As a small business owner, I tried to get health insurance that would be better than COBRA, which was running out and cost $400/month with no prescription coverage. I failed and was rejected because I have been treated for mild rosacea and had a shoulder injury along with outpatient counseling after a divorce a few years ago. I have never missed a day of work for any of these conditions, yet I was rejected. Fortunately, in my state, Maryland, a state health insurance program is available, and I qualified for that. What if there had been no such safety net?

What is it like to be uninsured? I know that, too. Briefly, I was uninsured when I was in my 20's--and I had a bicycle accident. I soon found out that no one could tell me how much an X-ray would cost, and I had to guess what care I could afford and ration my own care based on income available. While I was healing, I borrowed a sling from a friend. It didn't fit, but I just made the best of it.

I now have health care through a job, and that's great. But I know what it's like not to have that, or to have poor care. I understand the argument that government health care might lead to lower wages for doctors, but I have to say that I am much more concerned about the millions of people whose only recourse is the emergency room--something taxpayers pick up the bill for, anyway. It sickens me that the debate devolves into name-calling, lies, and exaggerations when so much is at stake.

Though I'm all for examining options carefully, I don't think shouting helps anyone. Though I value debate, I don't think lies about "death panels" or dangerous allegations that President Obama is a "Nazi" help anyone (plus, the latter makes light of something we should never take lightly).

Taxpayers already pay for the uninsured. Care is already rationed. Running health care as a purely market-driven business doesn't work.

So now you know: I'm in favor of health care reform.

Cure International

2009-08-24T20:43:00.001-04:00

True Confession from the Land of the Nerds

2009-08-07T18:25:00.010-04:00

I've thought often of blog posts I might write, but they just haven't written themselves. Some topics I've considered and even started to write about in my head include the following:

1. Michael Jackson's Death: Why (I'm Ashamed to Say) I Cried
2. Health Care Reform: Why We Need It
3. Homesteading in Wisconsin: Getting My Klemp On

Needless to say, these are very diverse topics, but I've finally decided on yet another topic for this post, with apologies for my long absence. In fairness, work has just been really busy lately, for which I am very grateful.

So, how did I come up with the topic I've finally chosen?

I've been reading a book loaned to me. It's called The Girls from Ames, and it's about women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa and maintained their friendships into adulthood. As you may know if you saw my earlier post on pigs, I grew up in Iowa, too. So, my friend correctly figured I'd like to read The Girls from Ames.

As I've been reading, though, I learned something that I'm sure my friend didn't intend: I was a nerd. I might still be one. I'm not sure.

In the book, the author talks about parties the girls went to, drinking games they played, boys they flirted with. For the most part, that pretty much went on without my knowledge. I most definitely was interested in boys--I just couldn't figure out how to talk to them, and I was convinced I was so ugly I shouldn't. I wasn't a wannabe--I truly had no clue. Really!

NOTE: WHAT I WRITE NEXT IS NOT BRAGGING. IT IS HOW IT WAS. IT'S (SLIGHTLY) TRAGIC IN A VERY COMEDIC SORT OF WAY.

I think it all started when I was a kid. I learned to read before I went to school. The first thing I read was the JCPenney sign, my parents tell me. Apparently, though they thought at first I was just recognizing the shapes, I could read it even when it looked different in different towns--different colors and so on.

I didn't intend to learn to read, but I'm sure having two reading parents and being an only child for the first almost-four years of my life had something to do with it.

Anyway, by the time I got to kindergarten, I could read fluently. They had me read a book to the first graders (nerd alert: danger already presenting itself here). In first grade, I read with the second graders. In second grade, I read with the third graders, but I soon passed them up and ended up having my own reading program. I couldn't help it. I was also a great speller (I see this as an inborn ability having to do with "seeing" words in your head, not an indicator of intelligence).

So, the kicker is this: I was in a spelling bee. I was in second grade, up reading with the third graders who knew I'd already passed them up. Even though I basically had the self-esteem of a turnip, they might have wanted to see me get something wrong just because I usually didn't. I got up to spell and, as it turns out, the word I was given to spell was NERD.

Picture me: I've never heard that word. It doesn't exist in my family! The sad thing is, I didn't know it applied to me! So I spelled it n-u-r-d, and I lost the spelling bee.

When I look back, I am amazed at how clueless I was. I honestly envied the popular kids sometimes (through high school, too), but I can just as honestly say I didn't want to be one of them. I just knew it was, well, beyond me. I mean, I also wore my mother's green pointed sneakers with a pink shirt to school as well as purple pants and red, white, and blue sneakers another time.

I think we all know that academic excellence doesn't always or often equal increased social standing. As a good friend puts it, "If being a National Merit Finalist is so important, why am I still doing my own laundry?"

That's what I've learned this week. Wonder what to do with that?

I think it was nerdy to write this.

Especially on a Friday night.

BLAST Marketing

2009-04-27T15:17:00.002-04:00

I've been on LinkedIn for a couple of years now, and one of the best features I use is the "testimonials" feature. LinkedIn creates an easy way to get and show testimonials, something that I find to be of use when searching for a service.

When I first meet with a prospective client, I often find them on LinkedIn before or shortly after our first meeting---then I connect with them and give them a way to see the quality of my work without bombarding them with samples. Works for me!

Strange Fiction

2009-02-21T21:34:00.003-05:00

Ever heard of NANOWRIMO? It's also known as National Novel Writing Month--in which writers try to complete an ENTIRE novel in one month.

A few years ago, I made it to 40 pages. It was totally stream of consciousness writing, and what came out was, well, probably not publishable. I can tell it was heavily influenced by fiction like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams--though not a copy. Just in that vein of very strange fiction.

Here's the first minichapter of the mininovel:

Finky knew that standing on the roof-edge of a twenty-story building with his hands tied behind his back was not in his job description. But here he was, anyway.

He stared in front of him, wishing for a broom or King Kong or a huge bat (much as he hated the idea of a huge flying rodent). None of these appeared.

“Your time is up, buddy,” said the little orange man behind him. “Sayonara!”

“Japanese,” thought Finky. “He would have to use that at a time like this.”

He didn’t have much time to think about that, though, because the orange man pushed him hard, and he toppled off the building’s edge, giving a quick nod to the thirty-story building across the street.

A bird flew by, and Finky wondered how he could notice that at a time like this. Instead of his life passing before his eyes, it was a sparrow. “That figures,” he said to himself, thinking those were the lamest last words ever. He tried to think of something profound to say, something people could remember him by when he smashed into them on the sidewalk, but nothing came to mind. Until---“Yes,” he thought. “It’s good to start in the middle.”

He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but this time he had more time to think, because he landed in a truck full of cotton balls that was speeding by.

“Cotton,” thought Finky. “The other white meat.”

He promptly passed out. It had been a long day, and, as it turned out, it was only half over.

Shocking Statistic

2009-02-05T13:33:00.004-05:00

All seriousness aside, this is an illustration I created for a speech I gave yesterday.

According to 2008 statistics garnered from the U.S. Census Bureau and the USDA, there are more than six pigs for every person in the state of Iowa, my home state.

The state in which I now live, Maryland, is fifth in population density (it's five or six times smaller than Iowa but has 2.5 million more people), while Iowa is 35th.

It made for a good speech opener at Rotary and Toastmasters, I think. No deep meanings or criticisms intended--just interesting facts.

Single-Issue Voters?

2008-10-19T13:28:00.013-04:00

Politics can be tough, and it certainly is now.

There are many opinions yet to be read, many speeches yet to be heard, and a final outcome yet to be determined. At this point, I guess you'd say the gloves come off. Attack ads? We've got them. Gimmicks? They're readily apparent.

A statement I read in the local paper still sticks with me: "I'm a Christian, so I vote Republican," the author wrote in a note to the editor.

To me, that makes as much sense as saying, "I grew up in Iowa. Therefore, I lived on a farm."

That's, purely and simply, faulty reasoning and fractured logic. A doesn't follow from B.

There are a lot of issues that have to do with life, issues that matter in education, health care, the economy. To me, to look at just one issue in this election ignores the proverbial forest for one tree.

By all means, I respect everyone's right to vote according to his or her conscience. I believe that praying about the election is good thing. And I value everyone's right to make a decision based on the priorities he or she values.

I'm just hoping we all consider that there is more than one priority, more than one issue at stake--and that we avoid judgment about the decisions of others.

And, by the way, I grew up in Iowa, but I never lived on a farm. Not ever.

Through a Glass Dimly

2008-06-14T09:50:00.023-04:00

"There is a new kind of literature abroad in the land, whose only obvious fault is that no one can understand it." Time (March 3, 1923)

I found the above quote--thanks to Time's Web archives--after I found my old copy of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." The Time author was referring to "The Waste Land" as well as to Ulysses by James Joyce.

Eliot and I go pretty far back. I first encountered his poem "Ash Wednesday" when I was in high school. A classmate suggested that we do a reader's theatre performance of the poem for our advanced speech class. In part, the poem reads as follows:

"And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word."

I can see the Time author's point--this is not easily accessible writing. I can't say I usually sit down to read Eliot when I've got time off--but as I re-familiarize myself with this poem, I do think it uniquely expresses the frustration we all feel in life sometimes--the tension between seen and unseen, between what is and what is to be and what could be and what should be. There's a tension between intellect and faith, between love and hate, between life and death, between what we want the world to be and what it is. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, and I think Eliot knew that.

As part of a class I took in modern literature at Queens College, I wrote a paper on Eliot's "The Waste Land" and how Ezra Pound influenced Eliot's writing. Both Eliot and Pound worked to make poetry a different thing than it had been before---more of an object, almost, from which the reader could make his or or her own interpretation. They eschewed Romanticism's expressive language and emotional tones in order to make the poem more of an object, more like a plum sitting on the table that we can pick up and examine (rather than a sermon about why plums are good to eat).

How privileged I felt to study Eliot's work! In order to complete our project, we had to go to the New York City Public Library--the iconic one with the big lions out front--and request a manuscript, rarely printed, that shows Eliot's original handwriting with Pound's notes.

One author influenced another. Each expressed what he saw to be of value in the world, what he thought about, what he dreamed, what he wanted to create, what he loved, and what he hated. Each wanted to do this without forcing it on the reader, but by letting the reader draw his or her own conclusions.

Some writing is, by definition, opaque. Some writing is designed to let the reader make up his or her own mind. On the other hand, I've argued in a recent workshop that business writing should ALWAYS be extremely clear and error-free.

I can relate to what the Time writer expressed in terms of lack of clarity--I felt that way about Jacques Derrida (my apologies to those who love his work) when I was in graduate school. His main point seemed to be that we can never understand each other since language is imperfect. My question was this: if that's true, why write?

Eliot and Pound are men I admire, but I wouldn't use their writing style every day. I value it, though, as I value pretty much every form of literature. I sometimes prefer words that ask questions rather than those that give answers.

At the end of "The Wasteland," Eliot uses what I think is a reference to a Vedic prayer (the Vedas, from what I've gathered so far, are ancient texts sacred to Hindus, and I know very little about them):

"Shantih shantih shantih."

Next to that I wrote, "the peace that passes all understanding." I think my instructor said that, or I thought it. That was how we interpreted the end of the poem.

And perhaps that's the point of this entry. Interpretations may vary, even when there is an ultimate truth, an ultimate and everlasting Word, at the heart of the matter. Those who believe struggle to understand that this Word will never fail, even when we do.

We see through a keyhole, "through a glass dimly," as it were. One day we will see clearly. One day we will see the Word face to face, and we will no longer be afraid. Every tear we have ever cried will be wiped from our eyes forever, just as every failure on our part has already been forgotten in forgiveness.

Today, even words, something I unabashedly love, can fail us. "About the Word the unstilled world still whirls," wrote Eliot.

That might not be easy to understand. That might be the point.

Stop Hatin'

2008-05-27T14:04:00.006-04:00

In April, my good friend and "pwipwi" Nasako visited to see the Pope; we worked it out so that we could also have a good catch-up visit after ten years.

Although I'm not Catholic, I agreed to join the crowds who gathered to see the Popemobile as it drove by Catholic University and, I'll admit, it was a good experience to hear the singing and to see the man who is arguably the most notable church leader in the world.

That didn't disturb me, but the hecklers did.

Bearing huge banners with the words, "You're going to hell," "Roman Catholicism is of the devil," etc., representatives who claimed to be from a group called Cry to God spoke through bullhorns to tell the crowd that we were all going to hell.

My friend is not known for her lack of strength and conviction, and I wasn't surprised when she started responding. Who wouldn't?

The biggest conflict came after the Pope had left and, as we made our way back to the Metro station, Nasako and I passed a few men who apparently had feelings similar to those of the hecklers; I don't know for sure if they were from the same organization.

One of them, then both of them, starting yelling at Nasako and me about going to hell, etc., and Nasako yelled back. Realizing that the conversation wouldn't get anywhere, she turned to go.

"You have no peace!" one of the men called behind her back (talk about bravery).

"Yes, she does," I said. "And thank you for being God! Only God can judge who goes to heaven or hell."

This threw him for a moment. "I'm not being God!" he said. Then he and his friend turned back to the more comfortable routine of shouting invective and shaking a Bible at me.

I told them I wasn't Catholic, but I don't think that mattered to them. They just kept yelling.

And even if I were Catholic, what good would yelling like this do? It saddened me because this is what some people think of when they think of faith--apparent lunatics yelling at people.

Whatever happened to speaking the truth in love? Some may have the gift of prophecy and may even be called to speak a harsher truth than others, but if they read the Bible they were pushing in my face, they'd see that no gift is worth anything without love.

I can't claim to always show love myself--sometimes I fail miserably. As a matter of fact, I'm trying hard as I write this not to do the same judging I said the men along the Pope's route were doing.

I'm not sure if I've succeeded in that, but I do want to say this: can we stop the hatin'?

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty

2008-04-15T10:37:00.004-04:00

John Keats, as you might well know, wrote the above lines at the end of his poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn," a poem I've liked since I first encountered it.

I understand that, for many, definitions of truth and beauty may differ from mine. That doesn't mean truth isn't truth and, once you know it and it becomes beautiful to you, you are not able to turn your back on it--even if it really hurts. I can't choose darkness, even though it might seem easier, when I know light.

I know I'm being cryptic. It's just that kind of day.

Truth--real truth--is the ultimate beauty. I believe that much more than I believe some of the false definitions out there.

Are you beautiful? My answer, no matter who you are, is this: yes! Not because of who you are, but because of who God is.

You are loved. That is truth. It's beautiful--even when it hurts.

Curiosity

2008-02-16T13:25:00.006-05:00

A recent bout of flu left me able to do very little except read and sleep, so I indulged my curiosity about some recent middle-grade novels.

I'll mention just two of my new favorites here:

Holes by Louis Sachar
The story takes place in a Texas desert-like wasteland. Kids get sent there as an alternative to juvenile detention centers, and there they get sentenced to what amounts to hard labor: digging holes. Why do they have to dig holes? The answer ties in wonderfully with the protagonist's own past. This one, I think, deserved every honor it got.

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck (an author I read when I was combing the "J" section in the library as a kid) I enjoyed this one particularly because it took me away from present-day reality (things moving quickly, computers, and, when I read it, my own red nose). The grandmother in the story is one of those heroines you can't forget--the old-fashioned tough-but-tender Grandma who will do anything--even catch and kill a couple of foxes--so her granddaughter can have a good holiday season.

Well, okay, here's a third, but I can't reveal the title. It's a secret because my friend Susan is getting ready to send it out to agents. But--love it! It's a great tale, and I hope that soon you'll see it on the bookshelves with the others I just mentioned.

Snoopy, Marketing Executive?

2008-01-02T14:01:00.001-05:00

I read a bit today about marketing, specifically about a conference at which marketing will be defined as storytelling.

I totally agree with that concept--story is "it" for me. I find narrative, or story, to be the most pervasive form of communication, whether it be in business, in literature, or in life. What is a complaint letter but a story about the complaint? What is a sales pitch but a story about a need a customer has (whether real, perceived, or created) and how someone can meet it? And, by story, I don't mean long, rambling tales. I mean creating interest. I mean vivid language. I mean, "Work it, baby! Work it!"

One of the lines describing the marketing conference particularly caught my eye. It read, basically, "Use your pet for marketing purposes!"

Snoopy, above, is my pet. He is a diabetic five-year-old cat who was rescued by the Patuxent Animal Welfare Society (PAWS, in case you're wondering). I adopted him after that.

They found him under a car with grease marks on his back, but since then, he's had a pretty poshy life. I've even identified him as a possible part-Turkish Angora. He's a thoroughbred, he'd have you know.

It's about time he earned his keep.

How could he help with marketing? Hmmm. Could I "pitch" an article about Snoopy to Cat Fancy magazine?

That's not really marketing, though--that's development.

Could Snoopy pass out flyers? Doubtful.

Could Snoopy work on my Web site? Occasionally, he walks across my keyboard, but he doesn't really help much.

Could I bring Snoopy on office visits? Maybe, but I don't think most offices have a company litter box, and they probably wouldn't like a visitor using it if they did.

I suppose Snoopy could be a logo. There's the gecko for Geico and the duck for Aflac. Those of us who were sentient beings in the late 70's remember Morris the Cat, but I don't think there's been a good cat marketing agent since then.

I'm also a little uneasy about the woman/cat stereotype (woman with cat loves cat and eschews people). I love my cat, but I love people, too:)

I'll think about it.

Why I Write

2007-12-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

Why do I write?

My parents are both readers, and I was an only child until I was 4, so that might be why I started reading early and never looked back. I wrote my first full-length story at the age of 7; I remember spreading out my pages on the picnic table while we were camping at Backbone State Park in Iowa. The story, called "Miricle [sic; remember, I was 7] at Porter's Airport," involved various rescue scenes, illustrations of various islands that the adventurous pilot in the story visited in his quest for home, and an eventual happy ending.

My first motivation to write, I think, came from a love of words and, sometimes, loneliness.

In school in small-town Iowa, I was set apart as a nerdy child who read well and voraciously, speeding through the reading books at a pace that got me the dubious position of being ahead academically, but not socially. I had glasses at 8. I had friends, too, but mostly in the neighborhood rather than at school, so thankfully the library wasn't my only friend. (I have great siblings, too, in case they're reading).

I wrote a newsletter for my parents (including fiction) that they dutifully pretended to be surprised about when it showed up in their mailbox. At school, I wrote stories; at home, I hand-copied library books I liked, wrote stories, created games, and generally continued to indulge my love for words.

It was a no-brainer to major in English and speech/drama (one of my other artistic outlets is theatre) in college. I ended up teaching English and creative writing at a high school in NYC at the age of 23. I scribbled a lot of poems during that time, often during study halls when my 100+ teenagers a day were driving me crazy.

After five years, I took the plunge and went back to school for another degree, again in English with a writing emphasis. I tell people that the student loans I got from that are like having a new car without the car, but I never have regretted this decision and the time to soak myself in literature and writing for almost two years.

Thankfully, the student loans are very close to paid off, too:)

I followed that up with writing, doing graphic design, and managing publications for the National American Indian Housing Council, teaching composition at Northern Virginia Community College, and teaching writing at Bowie State University.

If you read this far, I thank you for allowing me the self-indulgence to write what I just wrote above. What matters now is this: how much am I writing now? What motivates me now?

All along, during all of my "other" work, I've written stories and poems and general essay-type pieces. In addition to that, I tried "ghost writing" a Sweet Valley High piece when I was in my 20's and got a very nice letter in reply that said that my characters thought and said too much and didn't do enough. Good advice that I will remember.

I wrote a very strange and unpublishable half-novel involving things like cotton balls and orange men as part of NaNoWriMo (Nat'l Novel Writing Month) last year, and now I'm at work on another one for middle grades to young adults.

What motivates me? I see any art as an act of giving, and I think I'm finally through much of my self-indulgent writing (though this post might give lie to that) and ready to give more in my writing. I want to write for the child who is like I was---a reader, perhaps slightly set apart, imaginative, and maybe a little lonely and sad sometimes. It might sound silly to say, but I think that I want to write for children to help them know that they are not alone. I think that as a child, if I had known that
others felt the same way, my childhood could have been a lot easier.

I'd like also to give my readers work of the highest quality I can, work that acknowledges their imagination and intelligence and worth. Madeleine L'Engle, the famous children's writer who died this fall, is probably my biggest inspiration and her kind of work my aspiration (though I know it doesn't do anyone any good to try to copy--I don't mean that). It's interesting how publishers--many of them--first thought "A Wrinkle in Time" was too sophisticated for children--and how it later became an enduring classic and award-winner.

I want to write a good story, or many of them, to be exact.

That's what motivates me.

Logo Again...Does This Look Different?

2007-12-11T19:16:00.000-05:00

It shouldn't look too different, though a little smoother. I used to think "anti-alias" meant someone's unassumed name. Now I know better. I still wonder why it's called that, though.

I'm trying to decide if I like the colors or not....but mostly, I worked on freelance article research today. The specifics remain embargoed until the article is purchased.

Reuters said today that in 2007, for the first time ever, renewable energy expenditures will top $100 billion.

Here's to hybrids, wind energy, and solar energy!

Now, if only most of the world could actually afford a hybrid...

Logo Ongoing

2007-12-10T16:23:00.000-05:00

Today I've been working on my new logo design. I started with "The Writing Lounge" a few years ago; I've been doing design, too, so I decided to change my company name, make it more official, and use my grandmother's maiden name, Pasley.

The logo appears here as it is so far. I want it to look good in black ink only as well as in color, so that's why I've kept it pretty simple.

I'm also working on the new site design (Writing Lounge, my current site, will end up being an offshoot of what will become the main site, Pasley Communications). I need to call a few possible sources for an article I'm proposing, too.

Joie de Vivre

2007-11-17T18:25:00.002-05:00

I've always liked the French expression "joie de vivre," or, in English, "joy of living." According to Wikipedia, this expression can describe an overall enjoyment of life and all its facets and activities, an optimism and thankfulness. My niece, Katelyn, shown above, relishes eating, even as she works out some of the technicalities of actually getting the food into (rather than near) her mouth.

I think there's a lesson there for those of us with a few more years behind us. We might not get excited by the same things our infant selves found joy-inspiring--but there is much to relish that we may sometimes miss.

I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project yesterday. Interestingly enough, this erudite scholar, who is, by virtue of study and time, more sophisticated than my niece by a longshot (it's not her fault, since she's just turned one-year-old), shares an important quality with her: he finds great joy in life, and, in his case, finds joy in the littlest things that make up life--our DNA.

Dr. Collins finds joy in having been the leader who helped a team find the very map of our DNA, the blueprint of chromosomes we all share, the building blocks that make us all 99.9% the same regardless of race or ethnicity.

At the same time, he finds his faith enriched by such discovery. He finds that mapping the "little things" common to each of us enriches us as individuals rather than making us all just so much cellular matter.

Bones, Mermaids, and Angels

2007-10-07T19:25:00.000-04:00

As part of my profile, you'll see a short list of books I've been listening to or reading lately--among them are Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair. I just started listening to Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, so I can't tell you too much about that one yet.

The tapes for The Lovely Bones included an interview with Alice Sebold, who spoke about the process of writing her first (and very succcessful) novel. She said that the first fifteen pages or so came quickly---and the rest of the book emerged from that. There's no question that Sebold was influenced by events in her own life, including a brutal rape she endured as a younger woman. I liked The Lovely Bones enough to order Sebold's memoir Lucky.

In both Sebold's and Monk Kidd's work, I was reminded of some unique attributes of fiction. In fiction, we can make things come out the way we wish they would. We can right wrongs and find justice that we might not always see in exactly the way we wish to see it. We can more easily forgive ourselves and think, "Yes, I've made that mistake, too. I've lived that joy, too. I've wanted that, too." We can help others avoid some of the delays we've had in healing while bringing more loveliness into their lives. We can entertain, for sure, and that has value, too.

As a writer, Sebold said, one of the lessons she's learned is to "inhabit your weirdness." She said that she often felt weird as a child and young adult and that finally, now, she can enjoy that and celebrate her personal creativity rather than lament it.

I take that to mean this: do what only you can do. Now is the time to stop worrying about what people think and do that which only you can do.

A Song on the Walk: Madeleine L'Engle

2007-09-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

My favorite author, Madeleine L'Engle, died just a few days ago.

I first "met" her through her book A Wrinkle in Time, the Newbery Award-winning work that was rejected by many publishers and later became one of the best-selling children's books of all time. It was also banned in some circles.

I met L'Engle in person once when I was teaching high school in Queens. Asked to speak to a group of teachers, L'Engle agreed and requested only cab fare from her Manhattan home to Queens and back.

She spoke about imagination and faith. She spoke about how some institutions, particularly schools and churches, sometimes make the mistake of killing, rather than encouraging, imagination. She signed one of my favorite books of hers: Walking on Water--Reflections on Faith and Art.

She inscribed my book with her autograph and the words, "A song on the walk."

I have purchased and read many of her books over the years. Hers were always the books I wanted to have for my own rather than borrow from the library, even with an admittedly limited budget.

I even read her very first (published) novel, The Small Rain, in which I could see how first efforts, though often good, are not usually as great as later artistic efforts.

In some way, reading an author's works over time and identifying with the characters in them helps me feel as if I really know the author--and perhaps, in some way, I do. Like many readers, I expect, I feel like I have lost a friend.

The written words I remember best of L'Engle's come from Walking on Water, and they follow her discussion of being reluctant to classify herself as a "Christian writer," while at the same time refusing to deny her faith. In an interview, she once said that rather than being labeled "Christian writer," she preferred to be called, "A writer who struggles to be Christian."

For a writer, semantics matter.

She wrote about how she saw Bach as the consummate artist of Christian faith, and how his work, "Oh, Sacred Head Now Wounded," was based on a common street song.

"There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred," L'Engle wrote, explaining her dislike of the division of art between "Christian art" and "non-Christian art."

I believe she saw writing as her calling, like any other calling, and perhaps she thought that just as a plumber who struggles to be Christian would not need to limit himself or herself to working only on church basement sinks, so the writer who struggles similarly need not write only about what some think of as "Christian" topics.

She wrote also about how every artist feeds into a great stream, a flood, really, of creative work, and how every work is important. Some artists, she wrote, may produce more and more lasting work. Others may produce only a trickle. Each artist's work, though, is important.

And, she wrote, “We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are, to see through plastic sham to living, breathing reality, and to break down our defenses of self-protection in order to be free to receive and give love.”

L'Engle wrote about the artist as one who, in being brave, becomes a servant--the artist as someone who has to get out of the way and let the work speak through him or her, whether that work is a book, a song, a painting, or a photograph.

As a long-time friend of mine wrote yesterday, L'Engle is surely someone about whom it can be said, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

I am glad she served her works (and through them, her God), as she put it. She gave many of us enduring songs we'll sing on the walk.

Unusual Beauty

2007-08-25T22:18:00.000-04:00

This water lily stands at the edge of a pond in Middletown, Maryland, at Surreybrooke, a collection of garden rooms and nurseries. I was taken with the lily's unusual shape (though there were other water lilies, as you can see in the background here, most of the plants in the gardens were of the also-lovely and still-flowering kind). This one, along with some of the other lilies, had already begun its preparation for next season's seeds and next year's plants.

Something Real

2007-08-15T22:38:00.000-04:00

I'm not immune to the pressures and preferences of our culture, though there has always been a part of me that rebels at them.

When I get to the crux of the matter, though, I don't think appearances matter nearly so much as we sometimes think.

At the same time, I'm a designer and artist who cares very much about how things look, and I'm meticulous about details when I need to be. It's a tension, I'll admit.

A few years ago, I wrote a letter that included what appears below. It's also something of a tribute to my grandmother, the one who has not yet been pictured here.

At my grandmother's funeral, I looked at her before they closed the casket and I had a fuller realization of something that's important to me. I have always known this, and maybe, to some extent, we all do---but it hit home with me in a very real way when I saw her.

I looked at her body there, and I knew for certain it was not her, or not what consituted the main part of her.

It is what was inside—her spirit, her soul—that was the most important part of her. It manifested itself in little things about her—how she played the piano with passion even in her 80’s, how she spoke with a sexy voice without meaning to and blushed when we teased her about it, how she fed the dog at the table even though Grandpa told her not to, how she was so gentle that birds would eat from her hand.

She was my grandmother who was a constant in my life, who stroked my head gently when I sat next to her while we watched Grandpa’s slides, who rejoiced when I learned how to read and gave me books as soon as I could ask for them.

She was my grandma who wrote poetry about trees, who would not let Grandpa record her playing because it was not “perfect” (but he did anyway on the sly), who could listen to music and nearly swoon, who had her faults. But even all this is only part of the sum of her. It is her spirit, her soul, that was, that is, her.

I have a friend who told me that she knew her first marriage was doomed when she discovered it was mostly about looks and status; I agree. Those things don't last and they don't matter nearly as much as we sometimes think. If that was what my grandparents' union had been mostly about, I doubt that it would have lasted, either.

Yes, I think we need to take care of our physical selves---I've learned that later in life. Sure, the outside matters, too.

But it's the inside that counts most. That's my opinion, anyway.

NYC, After

2007-08-13T20:20:00.000-04:00

It's been almost six years since September 11, and the photo at left shows the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood.

Something that struck me: the trains still travel on a track that used to be beneath the towers. I have ridden that train before.

Now, temporary shelters stand above the tracks. The steel girders that anchored the towers are still there, sticking out like uneven rows of teeth.

New York City, though, has broad shoulders. It's brash. It's bold. I know Carl Sandburg described Chicago similarly, but I think his description, or one like it, applies to NYC, too.

Maybe this is most important, given that we can't bring back the greatest treasures lost almost six years ago: it's (re)building.

Iowa Savanna

2007-08-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

Last month, I visited my birthplace, Iowa, and I learned that Iowa's pre-agricultural land was not just prairie, but also bona fide savanna.

I usually think of savanna as a place in Africa where you'd find lions, not pigs, but I can't deny that Iowa's savanna, its grasslands punctuated by bur oaks and, this time of year, black-eyed Susans, has a beauty all its own.

I've thought this before: growing up in a place that's not the splashiest tourist attraction in the world can help you learn to see loveliness wherever you are.

And, yes, there are more pigs than people in Iowa. A story appeared in the Washington Post to this effect while I was in graduate school, and a mischievous coworker from Boston teased me unmercifully about it. I checked it out today, and it's still true that pigs come in first by a longshot: people number just under 3 million, while pigs top 15 million, according to the Iowa Pork Newsroom.

Birth of the Boot

2007-07-29T13:05:00.000-04:00

Olathe, Kansas celebrates its 150th anniversary this year with big boots placed strategically throughout the city. One of these is pictured at left.

Why boots? Olathe resident and harness-maker (circa 1872) Charles Hyer of the Hyer Boot Company is credited with being one of the first to craft the cowboy boot.

According to the Kansas State Historical Society, "a Colorado cowboy stopped by the Hyer shop on his way home from the Kansas City stockyards in 1875, requesting a new pair of boots that were different from his Civil War-style boots. He wanted a boot with a pointed toe that would slide more easily into a stirrup, a high, slanted heel that would hold a stirrup, and a high top with scalloped front and back so he could get in and out of his boots more easily. Charles accepted the challenge. The unknown cowboy was so pleased with Hyer's work that he returned to Colorado and told others about his new boots."

Check it out, if you like, at the KSHS's Cool Things pages.

Writing Conference & Rest

2007-07-08T17:44:00.000-04:00

Soon I'll be boarding a plane for a brief respite away from everything here. Right now, I need it; I can feel it.

I just learned more about children's book writing at a conference I absolutely recommend---the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' MD/WV/DE chapter sponsored it. I met agents, editors, writers.

I heard so much good, inspiring information that it was encouraging; I know this is something I was born to do. I heard artists talk about their art and I felt like I was home.

I am just tired.

The Little Red Car That Could

2007-07-02T10:55:00.000-04:00

Instead of just writing about stories, I'm about to tell one, apropos of, really, nothing.

I find that whether I'm happy or sad, hot or cold, rich or poor, I get what I'd call (for lack of a better description) "alien transmissions." Once it was the urge to write a poem about a lobster; another time it was a poem about blueberry yogurt; another time it was about bees buzzing under a glass in a bar (entitled "Bees Under Glass"). I also seem to have a need for humor, even when I feel basically like an open sore.

My first car's last journey is pictured here; it's Photoshopped to death to cover for the fact that the photo started out horribly underexposed (hey, I had a cheap camera then), but not so much that you can't see the details: the smashed-in side, the fact that it's being towed away, my neighborhood (at the time) in Ridgewood, Queens.

That car and I went through a lot together.

I first got the idea to buy a car right before my fifth year of college. I had effectively decided to drop out of school for a semester so I'd finish in May rather than December and, truth be told, to wait for my then sort-of boyfriend to finish college (notwithstanding the fact that he was flunking every class and known in his dorm mostly for his tendency to get knock-down, drag-out drunk and fall out of bed).

Sight unseen (I had mailed in my application), I had already been hired to work full-time as a nurse aide, and I thought that it might be a good idea to have a car to get to work---I'd gotten by with just walking and riding a bike before then.

I'd also been working in a factory---Interbake Foods in North Sioux City, South Dakota.

The point is---I had a little money, but not too much, I was taking a semester off, and I had a job lined up.

And so Dad and I (I was 20, so Dad still figured in these decisions) made a trip to the used car lot on Floyd Boulevard in Sioux City, Iowa.

We looked at several cars, and this is the one I liked, mostly because it was red (in car heaven, I assume it's still red, though I can't really say for sure).

It also did not have power steering, air conditioning, an FM radio, or automatic transmission. My theory, given that my funds were very limited: the fewer frills it had, the fewer possibilities that things could go wrong with it.

An approximation of the conversation between my father and me follows (I will refer to him as MBF, or My Beleaguered Father, and I'm A for Anne).

A: I want the red car.

MBF: I think you just want that car because you feel sorry for it. What about this nice brown car? It has power steering.

A: I just like the red car.

MBF: But, Anne, you can't drive a stick shift! You don't even know how to drive this car! You can't even drive it off the lot! But you can drive this brown car right away.

A: I'll learn. Dad, I just like this car.

MBF (sighing): It's your factory money---I know. I'm just saying that this brown car is very nice.

A: It's shiny. It's red. I like it.

Car salesman (CS): I see you looking at that car. Are you interested?

A: Yes.

MBF: She's not sure.

A: Yes, I think I want this car. It says $1100 on it, though, and I can't afford that much.

CS: Well, maybe we can cut a deal. How much can you afford?

A: $600.

CS (after raucous laughter): I'm sorry, but that is just not possible. Can you afford any more?

A: No. I really only have $600.

NOTE: This wasn't hard bargaining. That's really all I could afford.

CS: Well, I'll take your number down in case we get another car. But, really, don't expect it.

A: Okay.

MBF (secretly relieved): Oh, well, we can keep looking.

We left the used car lot, but I wasn't sweatin' it too much. I figured somehow I would get a car. In fact, I think I probably went swimming.

A few days later, the used car salesman called. "It's very strange," he said, "but that car you wanted didn't sell at auction. Do you still want it?"

I did! So, anyway, I bought the car. I remember looking out at it the next morning with pride. It was so red and so shiny.

The next week I fell up a hill and tore all of the ligaments in my left knee.

Orthopedic surgeon's suggestion: avoid surgery by letting the leg heal on its own, but wear a brace.

It was difficult to learn to drive the car in hilly Sioux City, and the leg brace just added to the challenge---but I did it. And I was glad to have the car because, without it, the usual options of walking and biking just weren't in the picture for awhile.

That August, my friend Kristin flew in so we could make the Triumphal Journey back to Seward, Nebraska (my college town) when my job and her classes started.

In the meantime, my sister and I had outfitted my car with a few accessories: a button with Val Kilmer's picture on it attached to the column (I thought he was SO HOT in the film Real Genius), a styrofoam dolphin and penguin that hung from the rearview mirror, and a kazoo in case anyone complained about the lack of an FM radio.

The Triumphal Journey to Seward began, so-called because I was returning to the place where my sort-of boyfriend had stolen all of my luggage just a few months earlier. And I was returning with a Shiny Red Car.

We got as far as Onawa, Iowa, which is, oddly enough, the birthplace of the Eskimo Pie.

There, the radiator overheated and Kristin and I had to wait overnight for the service station technicians to repair it. The car's first Triumphal Journey had lasted about 30 minutes.

But then it was fixed.

We continued on, and we arrived in Seward. A neighbor later told my parents that every morning at 5:30 a.m. she heard me trying to pump the gas and actually get the thing to start.

But start it did, and the car eventually took me to both my nursing home job and an additional job at Sheldon's, a bar in Garland, Nebraska (oddly enough, Garland is the home of Poet Laureate Ted Kooser). I even backed it into a ditch once, but that's another story.

On its biggest voyage, the car drove from the Midwest to New York City with my friend Andrea and me in tow, putt-putting up mountains (despite its 4-cylinder engine) at a rousing 40 mph.

And so it happened that the car's real Triumphal Journey was emerging onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for the first time and actually making it to my first NYC-area home in Flushing.

Later, my friend Rachel's mom told people back in Nebraska that she was very afraid because I was actually driving the old Fairmont on the Long Island Expressway (if you've ever been on the Long Island Expressway, you'll understand).

I drove that car to upstate New York time and time again. It went camping when I did. One day, I drove it all the way out to Montauk just to see a lighthouse and take some photos. It didn't complain when I took it to Jones Beach.

I drove the car to Vermont's ski country twice in two subsequent winters with trusting friends along, and it putt-putted up those mountains, too, amid snow and ice. It just kept going.

Once, when I was away for a few weeks, someone stole the battery out of the car. I got a new battery and a chain for the hood to avoid future theft. The car kept going. It just looked tougher.

Sure, there were a few repairs along the way, some of them costing hundreds of dollars, but the car's greatest injury came when a driver coming down Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn didn't look where he was going. Unfortunately, simultaneously, another driver backed out of a driveway without looking where she was going, and the poor parked Fairmont got the side injury you see in the photo. The driver's side door would never open again.

I made the necessary insurance inquiries and found out the driver who struck the car was uninsured; the driveway driver who caused the accident was insured, but her insurance would only pay half the cost of the car's worth. The insurance estimator said the car was worth $500, so the half they gave me was $250.

I still drove the car for the next year until inspection rolled around, though it was pretty difficult to get in on the passenger side and over the stick shift, especially in a skirt.

In the meantime, the car developed a serious drinking problem---I couldn't give it oil fast enough.

Finally, inspection time came and I knew it wouldn't pass, so I reluctantly called a junkyard owner who gave me $50 for the car. They towed it away down Metropolitan Avenue and I took pictures. I told the guy who towed it, "I know it's kind of weird to take pictures of my car."

"Not at all," he said. "A lot of people do it."

And so, the Fairmont's five years in my possession ended. Five years for $600 with $300 back at the end, I thought as I watched my car fade into the sunset and smog of Metropolitan Avenue, headed for an unknown junkyard.

Not a bad deal.

What Makes a Good Story?

2007-06-21T17:11:00.000-04:00

My grandmother, pictured here, was my first inspiration for telling and writing stories; my other grandmother was a poet and musician who loved to read and encouraged me to do so, so it would have been surprising if story didn't mean a lot to me.

What makes a good story?

Grandma (the one shown here) told a good story by including just enough details to make you feel like you were there (in the one about meeting Judy Garland, details included an account of Judy pinching her when they sang a song together at the old AA club in St. Louis). Other factors: conflict (Grandpa didn't like to dance and she did, and when she danced, they stood back to watch) and surprising plot twists (like the fact that her father with the long black hair didn't live past her fifth year).

What else? I think we have to care about the characters, and, of course, when she told a story, that was a given.

This photo, of course, is not my work. I have a good excuse: I wasn't born yet.

Travel Writing

2007-06-12T21:33:00.000-04:00

I just listened to a teleconference on travel writing sponsored by a group called American Writers and Artists. I would say, guardedly, that it was worthwhile. There was quite a sales pitch for the group's weekend conference coming up, which is beyond my budget for that sort of thing at present. There were some good tips, though, too.

The tip I remember most applies to any kind of writing, not just travel writing: delete adjectives whenever possible (a slightly more focused version of "be concise").

Question that's come up as I'm working on the novel: how do things in our memories intertwine with purely figments of our imagination to weave what is fiction? I find that bits and pieces come to me as I write, mixing with "real life" experiences, sort of like a dream.

But I must also have RIGOR.

Beginnings

2007-06-11T21:06:00.000-04:00

I've written fiction since I was seven years old and wrote my first story, "Miricle [sic] at Porter's Airport," a seven- or eight-page masterpiece :) that was fully illustrated with photos of various rescue scenes, islands, airplane landings, etc. A theme was "rescue." Today I've dedicated this blog to telling my story of starting up with fiction writing once again, for "real" this time, at age 40. I have taught writing, I've edited countless papers, I've written many articles, and I'll continue to work on nonfiction.
But this space is mostly just for fiction. I'd love to hear comments from any other fiction afficionados and/or writers out there.

My work in progress is a novel for preteens. I wrote three pages today, bringing the grand total up to 8!

A few weeks ago, I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

This week, I'm listening in on a teleconference on travel writing and going to a workshop on freelance writing.

I even got some wonderful design software lately, the whole Adobe Design Premium Suite. I've done plenty of desktop design, so I'm looking forward to using all the new Adobe tools.

Any advice is welcome as I take on these challenges!

In fact, HELP!!!