Category Archives: Things that smell

Public Libraries, Rhubarb, and Volatile Organic Compounds (P.U.) — June 2024 Month in Review

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Knitting, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Parenting, Poetry, Reading, Recommendations, Things that smell, , , ,

Starting is arguably the hardest part of anything, especially writing, where the beginning has to hook and promise and reveal enough ankle. Sometimes the Muppets might even show up.

I was going to start this Month in Review talking about how the cicadas are mercifully almost gone. (Just in time, too, because one flew into my face and then I had to consider taking a flamethrowing to my own puss.) Then I was going to wax not-exactly-poetic about the stench of them rotting by the trillions. If you want more information, check this out. However, if you want to avoid yet another closeup photo of the critters, the big take-away is “As microbes break down and digest the cicada carcasses, ammonia and volatile organic compounds are released…Ammonia has a strong odor, as do some VOCs containing nitrogen and phosphorus — which the bodies of periodical cicadas are rich in.” 

There were a lot of places in that quote where I wanted to set fire to my face again.

The whole cicadapocalypse/decomposition was going to be some sort of averagely-expressed metaphor about June.

But it just made me want to open a window, and that’s tricky these days. 

Since I was clearly on an off-gassing thematic thread, I considered opening with commentary about politics and world affairs. Each try degenerated into either something like a subtweet or a pitch for some sort of Toxic Positivity MLM.

That ain’t me, kid.

Not that I don’t believe in ripping myself open and spilling all the blood/tea, but “think good thoughts” isn’t my brand. I’m not unrelievedly sweet nor optimistic. I’m hilarious and cynical and misanthropic and ALSO a little optimistic. That’s hard to capture. 

(Also, I still write “80085” on my calculator and think it’s hilarious high art.)

(Also, I have a calculator.)

(Also, are we still using “subtweeting”? I’d ask my kids but they are still mad at me for randomly throwing “skibidi toilet” into some otherwise Quality Parenting Moments.™)

But yesterday on my social media, I wrote “I wish you all the wonderful communities of weirdos you need. If you lack one (or enough), I will enthusiastically be a charter member of yours.”

So that is also how I choose to start this wrap-up of June and the second half of the year. I will be here in a completely official capacity as part of your Weirdo Community. We don’t take a lot of selfies and there is always pastry.

Ooh, look: Weirdo! Muppet!

Here are some splashes of marvelous from June 2024

(i.e. things I enjoyed that you may also enjoy or possibly not if you are feeling contrarian and cross.)

  • For much of June, a percentage of my children were in poorly-timed camps and fun classes that made me do the precious calculation of “is it worth going home or should I stick around?” (My calculator is not used for such things, see above.) The quiet gift of this was spending time in the local public library of the town where they had these classes, and boy howdy was it fantastic. I love public libraries and all they stand for. Like most other libraries I’ve visited, I had the best, friendliest, fiercest, most welcoming people greeting me and who were very happy to tell me that in the winter they light the fireplace and people just hang out and read there. More adults need to rediscover our libraries beyond having meetings there. It brought back warm memories of Harper Library and the many happy semesters there rather than, you know, doing homework or going to class. Some things age well, like libraries. Some things do not age well, like cicada corpses.
  • We have started introducing a certain percentage of my children to Mel Brooks. Avoiding the whole non-argument about whether we could make something like Blazing Saddles nowadays, Happy June Birthday Mel Brooks! And can I just have a moment of appreciation for the glory that is Madeline Kahn?
  • I cleaned out my knitting nook. Unlike any knitter ever, I buy more supplies than I’ll use in a lifetime. It’s a bulwark against death, profound optimism, and maybe some self-delusion. I don’t knit that fast. I have the same problem with books. Maybe I can make a deal with someone in that department to keep me going until all the books are read and the wonky hats knit.
Why, no, I’m not a professional photographer OR a professional organizer. Why do you ask?

So I might not find the right way to start these months in review, but ending in cake is always the way. As Vincent said in the above link, my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

So, tell me about your favorite library. Or your favorite cake. Or your favorite weirdo community.

Chop Shop

Inspiration, Things that smell, Writing, Writing process, Writing the first book,

For the discerning ne’er-do-well wordsmith

For four coffee-stained years, I devoted myself to my novel. It was to be a cautionary tale: perceptive, tender, yet wildly satirical and entertaining — a stark look at the world made bearable through presentation.

The book became a crucible for all I cherish in craft and in belief. My identity and my claim to legitimacy. Who I am and what I believe. My reason for getting out of bed.

Yet, it unraveled despite all efforts. Effort, whether redoubled or relaxed, seemed only to push the work further from my vision.

So I am stopping.

A pen rests atop an open notebook that has a coffee stain on its otherwise blank page.

The moment of realization was unceremonious, arriving via movie preview. There on the screen flashed my book, but better. This wasn’t the sole reason for halting — I am familiar with “there are only so many stories” and “my voice is unique” — but it was a signpost.

Despite being armed with skill and passion, envisioning a battle of wits I could win, I found myself at odds with my work for nearly the entire four years. I believed that with enough precision, focus, energy, and writing ability, I could make it work. As the pages accumulated, so did the work’s inadequacy. Sentences, then pages, then characters, plot, and message — all crumpled. But questions of capability haunt every writer, yes? Isn’t a book nothing more than countless decisions? Just fix it.

“Fix it” was my daily mantra for the last three years. With each attempted fix, new problems emerged. I mistook determination to patch up cascading disasters as a well-defined writing process. Let it sit, come back, remember why I started writing, more research, less research. Keep it to myself. Share it. Writing courses. Different times, places, ways. Illustrations. Iterations. Incantations.

It was a relentless test of artistic endurance. More, harder, better. Any progress was never binding.

There is a quiet and small kind of madness in continuing to write a book that fails to thrive.

The book remains as far from being satisfying, cohesive, substantive — most precisely, good — as it was three years into its drafting. And almost as far from The End.

This is a mercy killing.

With a thimbleful of courage, I acknowledge the end of this story’s journey.

This is a hard thing.

The once robust potential of the “Shitty 1st Draft” withered into the “Shitty 18th Draft.” A failure of sorts, but the greater failure would be to persist in futility.

This is a demoralizing thing.

The novel was like that okay-ish boyfriend from when you were 27 — the relationship you stick with because the alternative seems worse. Both the ex-boyfriend and this book offer harsh truths: the impossibility of manufacturing something good with only jaw-clenched sheer will, the futility of persisting with the untenable. Lessons in limits and misalignments of perceptions, and whatnot.

In the aftermath, I strive for equanimity, grappling with the singular shame of abandoning a four-year project, a project that, in my stubborn moments, I contend I should have been able to complete. I also seek to embrace the dizzying liberation that accompanies this loss.

Shockingly, this good and right decision does not come unencumbered by pesky human emotion.

There were good enough parts: some great passages, some solid scenes peopled with strange and familiar characters and their strange and familiar delights and horrors. Yet, a few bright sparks could not ignite the whole.

Still, oh, the legitimacy of writing a novel! Claiming space among the revered, the excellent, the mighty. Those with stick-to-itness like oatmeal that’s overstayed its welcome. But I’ve gotten this far without being outrightly dismissed as a dum-dum, so perhaps my place among novelists remains waiting. For now, I can only plant my flag in other places where I have already staked a claim.

The task now is to reset the board and pulverize the “If I stop writing a novel will I just…disappear?” and the “Am I nothing but a wordsmithing ne’er-do-well?” and the brief isolation this moment brings.

My early writing thrived on humor, political, and cultural essays. It’s also an election year, and the world isn’t getting less nutty. A visit to those realms is in order, but I’m wary of committing too quickly even though I expect my first (rebound) piece will be smoother, better, and fun. And likely shorter.

Some people might urge me to revisit the unfinished book. It’s tempting to romanticize a future reunion in 5–10 years, that I’m just exiling it to the hinterlands, or letting it hang out in the transporter’s pattern buffer. But I’m a realist. I can learn a great deal from my novel’s absence and gain much from its years-long presence.

In other words, I’m chopping it up for parts.

Say what you will, but I never did that to my ex-boyfriends.

The Scent of Mother’s Day

Gratitude, Humor, Parenting, Things that smell, Under 750, Writing, ,

Oy. The things I’m seeing about Mother’s Day.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve tried to selectively apply a version of sainthood to motherhood. Or vice versa.

Now bear with me because I don’t know a lot about sainthood, and I don’t have an exhaustive understanding of motherhood in full, but “exhaustion” and “motherhood” are two words that, if I am ever turned into a school worksheet, will be included in the word bank.

Continue reading The Scent of Mother’s Day →