Long Division
July 16
I take it all back-- all the nasty things I said about the California DMV. I went this morning and breezed through. They were courteous and competent and not contemptuous. Maybe it was only such a nice experience because I had an appointment... but if so, that's fine. I'll just always make appointments in the future.
My car is now registered in the great State of California, and it didn't even cost all that much. Of course, they didn't have any actual license plates (they're waiting for a shipment from Sacramento), but I have a temporary tag thingy in my back window, and I'm street-legal. Whee! No more living in mortal terror of being stopped when I drive!
*******
So. About my singing. I tend to wake up very quickly and very completely in the mornings, and I sometimes sing, because I'm just that happy to be conscious again. Until recently, this didn't bother Heather-- indeed, even a week ago, she found the behavior rather cute.
That was before this weekend, however. This weekend I listened to some Old 97's songs I hadn't heard before, and became addicted to two in particular-- "Barrier Reef" and "Singular." Having only recently become familiar with the songs, I don't know all the words, but bits of them have stuck with me, and I find myself singing those lines absently quite often-- lines like "Talking to you, girl, is like long division," and "What's so Great about the Barrier Reef? What's so Fine about Art?" and "You can blame it on the moonlight, blame it on plate tectonics." Great lines, neh? And even better in the context of the songs. And yet, perhaps I'm singing them a *little* too much, because I was evidently driving Heather crazy. She didn't act annoyed until I started singing to her on Sunday morning, when she said that if she heard that line about long division one more time she would... well, I don't remember what she said precisely, but it wasn't nice. It wouldn't be so bad, she said, if I knew the whole songs, but I don't, so I just incessantly sing the same isolated lines again and again, parrot-like.
I made a sincere effort to stop, really I did, but these things happen sometimes without me even realizing it, and I sang on...
Anyway, this morning, at 7 o'clock, nothing ahead of me but the DMV and a dreary Heatherless Monday, she took her revenge. She began singing. I don't even remember what she sang, but it was too high-pitched and boisterous by half. I couldn't bear it. Sing, sing, sing.
So I rolled over, scooped Heather up off the bed, deposited her gently on the floor, and curled up under the cover to go back to sleep.
She sat on the floor for a few moments, with a rather adorably shocked and appalled expression on her face.
Hee.
*******
I had a great weekend. One of the best Heather and I have ever had. We were just so good together, with writing and talking and everything... effortless, beautiful. And it didn't feel like the thrill of newness... it felt like the ongoing delight of a maturing relationship. Mmm.
*******
New favorite ice cream: Kaberry Kaboom, by Ben and Jerry's. So good it's nearabout criminal.
New favorite beverage (and strong contender for Best New Crack of 2001): Hansen's Cherry Vanilla Creme Soda. Oh, yum. I don't even like that carbonated stuff, usually, but this stuff is so astonishingly good. And it's clear-- no goopy stupid artificial coloring, just transparent yumminess.
*******
Me and Scott and D. used to play the blues together. Scott is an astonishingly gifted singer, songwriter, and musician, so he made up the "talent" section of our little triumvirate. D. mostly got drunk, did beer-bottle percussion, sang with great enthusiasm, and wrote some pretty damned funny lyrics. I sang (badly), played bass (competently, but only because blues bass lines tend toward the simplistic), and wrote some lyrics. We created songs like "The Bitches and Beans Blues," (title taken, not from any misogynistic tendencies of our own, but from an old Rudy Ray Wheatstraw bit) "The Three Mens in Coat Blues," "The G-Funk (Actually in F Sharp) Blues," "The Red-Headed Heart-Breakin' Psycho Hose-Wearin' Bitch Cheatin' and Lyin' Blues" and, my favorite, "The Blues Done Beat Me Down."
I subjected Heather to these songs, on tape, over the weekend. Beautiful dear that she was, she hardly cringed a bit. I got somewhat nostalgic for those blues-singing days, for college in general... I had a fabulous college experience. And Scott's still in my life, and so's D, but somehow we don't do the blues anymore, we're not the same... which doesn't mean we're bad. Just different.
I'm not gifted at music. Never have been. But I always had a lot of fun.
*******
Oh, what a wonderful click.
I've been struggling for a while now with the beginning of Rangergirl. I knew the novel didn't start the way the novella does-- it's a different story-- but that's all I knew. I kept mulling things over-- should I describe the murals? Or Marzi's drawings? Start with Lacey drinking Guinness through a straw, or with Beej emptying his pockets full of arcane trash onto the counter? What's the first scene? How do I get in?
I was wandering around the house this evening, empty-headed but vaguely troubled, all this book-work happening in the back of my head, under the floorboards, in the engine room. I started talking to myself. I said:
"I knew how the other books started, it was perfectly clear. Shannon's God began with the monster in the hallway; it couldn't start anywhere else. Infants and Tyrants began when Junior learned to move books on his own. Raveling started with Lucinda going to the Dream Cathedral. Genius began with Ganesha eating a cookie-- or maybe with the murder, but I had to pick one, and I picked the cookie. I even know where the books I haven't written yet begin-- White Buffalo Woman starts with Gilles waking up in his tomb, the Mona book starts with the blue man sitting in the hallway. So where in the hell does Rangergirl--
And then I had it. I stopped in the hallway, by the pantry, and stood there for a minute, dumb, light breaking loose inside my head.
"It begins when Jonathan arrives," I said. I said it just like that, out loud, telling it to myself: "It begins when Jonathan arrives."
And it does.
So now I can start writing that book.
*******
I read Sturgeon's Godbody tonight (it's a short book). I admire the craft of this novel. It's told in eight sections, each section narrated by a different character. The voices are absolutely crisp and unambiguous-- they're all well-fleshed-out, and no section could be mistaken for another. But as a novel it doesn't work for me very well. Sturgeon is writing about the same things he usually does, and they're good subjects-- love above all, be good to one another, sex isn't dirty, nudity isn't any cause for shame. All that yummy stuff. But... well... Karen really hits on the crux with this entry. Good fiction is about story foremost, not with story as a convenient vector for the dissemination of lessons or philosophy. Sturgeon isn't telling a story, really; he's creating characters to espouse various points of view. They're mouthpieces. Godbody is less a novel and more a thinly-disguised tract. To paraphrase my Clarion classmate Fred: "I don't mind preachy, especially when the writer's saying something I agree with." I agree with what Sturgeon has to say, mostly... I just wish he'd said it with his customary subtlety and art, instead of bludgeoning us over the head. The last chapter is literally a sermon, delivered by a preacher character... I admire Sturgeon's goals, and his skills-- in general I admire him more than just about any other writer-- but I didn't dig Godbody. Then again, it was posthumously published, and I don't really know the circumstances of its publication-- whether it was ready to go to press when he died, or whether someone just pulled it out of a trunk and published it... Maybe Sturgeon wasn't happy with it, either.
*******
I feel like I've had... well, an oddly useless night. I went out to dinner with D. I read a book. I did laundry. I sent out half a dozen résumés. And yet... I don't know. I didn't write, so it doesn't feel like I accomplished anything. Stupid brain.
