Movie #1 of 2015

Labor Day

I'd been looking forward to the release of this movie after reading Joyce Maynard's book of the same name, which, BTW, she'd outlined (written?) in eight weeks while at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Loved the book. Moderately liked the movie. (Release date: Jan. 31, 2014 ... I watched it on Netflix ...yay Google Fiber! ... two days ago, after my husband went to bed at 8:05 p.m. Once a farm boy, always a farm boy, but I digress.)
Look. I'll see anything with Kate Winslet in it, 'cause I'm a fan, and cutie-pie Josh Brolin is always a draw. Anything promising romance, even if it's not believable, is an additional perk.
The basic premise is this: It's a hot Labor Day weekend in 1987 and Henry needs his mom, played by Winslet, to drive him into town to pick up stuff for school. After Winslet's character, Adele, has a mild panic attack in the driveway, and again in the parking lot of the discount store, the two eventually make their way into the store, where 13-year-old Henry is calmly accosted by Brolin's fresh-out-of-prison escapee, who's limping and wearing a blood-stained white tee.
Because this is a movie, Brolin ends up riding home with Adele and Henry, where the plan is he'll lie low for the evening. He ties Winslet up rather loosely and already the attraction starts to build. Okaaaaaaay. Having already read the book, I knew this was coming, but it was too weird to accept from my armchair in my living room. (I was glad to be watching the movie by myself.)
Soon, a non-descript neighbor brings over a bushel of peaches and a warning to Henry to watch out for the escaped convict. In no time at all, the con and his new family prepare pie crust, peel peaches, and as a threesome carry out an unsettling let's-make-a-pie-and-get-that-baby-in-the-oven scene that is kinda hard to watch.
Regardless, I kept on with the movie because I couldn't remember how the book ended. That's the thing about having Adult ADD and living a menopausal life: I can't remember shit.
Labor Day's ending-ending is nice, although you have to wonder if it's truly possible to carry a 15-year torch for someone who kidnapped you, tied you up, fed you chili, changed the oil in your wood-sided station wagon (the convict is a handyman), made sweet love to you one night (really?), and taught your kid not only how to make pie, but be so good at it, and changed  by the process, that years down the road the kid is a successful pie entrepreneur.
But Labor Day is only a movie. Not terribly bad for my first movie of the new year. I've seen worse.

On government shutdowns, lack of money, bologna, and MacDowell

It's Day Two of the government shutdown and I am feeling pissy and sad and emotional. Very PMS-y, I might say. Part of me wants to log on to Facebook and rant and rave and call Republicans Retardicans or Repugnacans, because it is the GOP that I (and much of America, including our fine president) blame for the mess that is in Washington. Congress schmongress. Let's fire them all and get new idiots in there. Let's start with the Tea Partiers.
My husband, who's been with the Federal Aviation Administration for twenty-five years, went to work yesterday, and today, and he will go tomorrow and the next day, but he isn't getting paid right away. Government-issued IOUs. So of course I have a pony in this race, which makes me (somewhat) worthless because I bring in a whopping $275 weekly from my nanny jobs. (I love my morning and afternoon gigs; I am torn. Don't want to leave my families; might have to leave my families and get a 9-5 desk job, which is necessary at this stage in the race because my foot is still semi-broken and throbs ten hours a day. But then there's my adorable children, and a verbal promise that I will stay with them throughout the school year. As I said before, I am torn. Oh, and broke.)
My default plan, whenever the pissiness and sadness and OhmigodIneedtomakemoney sets in, I turn to my writing. Specifically, I am trying very, very, very hard to corral my ADD and focus on my Bologna book. I am particularly in support of this plan because it has been one year since I was at MacDowell, holed up in my cozy stone cottage in the woods of New Hampshire. It was ONE YEAR ago that I was at my laptop working on Bologna With the Red String, and now 365 days have gone by, and I am still not finished.
Not finished.
Getting closer, but ...
NOT FINISHED.
What to do?
Pretend I'm at MacDowell. Head to my writing room, which my dear husband helped make possible (the man I'm disappointing financially); spray Indigo Wild's Frankincense & Myrrh Zum Mist -- that's the scent I sprayed inside Mixter Studio; listen to Tony Bennett's Duets II album --that's the music I listened to on my iPod as I wrote, outlined, edited and cursed at the simple desk adjacent to the stone fireplace; set myself to a schedule: 9 a.m. to noon, write; break for lunch; write from 12:30 to 3 p.m. And yet ... I am missing (son of a bitch, oh, how I am missing) the screened-in porch and wooded surroundings of Mixter studio; I am missing the electric hotpot that I used four, five, six times a day to make decaf coffee or tea; I am missing the glorious absence of housekeeping; I am missing the wonderful Plunk! of my lunch basket hitting the porch; I am missing naptime. (At MacDowell, I napped from 3 to 5 each day, waking to shower and prepare for dinner.)

To encourage my focus and discipline, I tell myself that I will to return to MacDowell once I publish the food memoir. You will go back, Kathleen, you will get there.

It will happen for you. Now sit your ass down in that chair. Finish the fucking book.

On Meredith Maran, her book, and the MacDowell Colony

I just finished reading Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They do What They Do, edited by Meredith Maran, whom I met this fall at MacDowell. She was witty and charming and beautiful and tanned and thin and smart and a Democrat. Also, talented. What stood out most, though, about Maran was her choice to write inside Bond Hall, the communal meeting place for MacDowell artists-in-residence. That's where the phone was, and the pool table, and the ping-pong table. It's where artists presented their work each night after supper. Maran had a studio reserved for her, Wood, but she chose not to use it. I heard something about there not being enough sun around her studio; I heard something about needing to be where the people were.
What I remember most about Maran, however, was overhearing her talking to the chef in the kitchen one night, about how much love was obviously put into the food. It doesn't have to be this good, you know, she said, but it is. It is this good because it's made with love. Thank you, thank you.
I liked that about her, that she took the time to say that.
And it's true, about love being in that food. I have never eaten so consistently well, never been so gloriously fed. Before leaving the colony, I hitched a ride into town with a glorious soul named Risa Mickenberg. a funny writer-singer lady from Manhattan. We stopped to buy bottled soda and a pack of cigarettes, then we walked across the street to Peterborough Basket Co., a metal building that smelled of bug spray and microwave popcorn. There, I bought a facsimile of the basket my lunches came in each day around noon at the colony, thinking that its presence back in Kansas City would serve as a wonderful reminder of my twenty-four MacDowell lunches; instead, I look at it every day and feel sadness that I am eating a grilled cheese prepared with store-bought bread and processed American cheese slices. My soup here at home comes out of a can.
***
While at MacDowell, I read Maran's first novel, A Theory of Small Earthquakes, which I liked well enough. It is about a lesbian couple who have a baby together during the time California is being rocked with earthquakes. Although I never grew to like the main character, Maran's writing was good and had a clean, nonfiction feel to it, so I persevered and made it to the final page. Before I could talk to Maran about the ending, which bothered me only a small bit, she had left the colony.
But that's MacDowell. Artists come and go on a regular basis. You have breakfast with Playwright A and Novelist H and Composer D and Filmmaker M and before you know it, those folks are gone and Playwright B and Novelist T are sitting across from you sipping their coffee. One of my favorite people there, a writer named Steve, said at dinner one evening that it was like a series of small deaths, watching people you've become friends with all of a sudden disappear. I agreed.
***
Sometimes I wish, truly wish, that I could read a book like a normal person (i.e. not a writer), and not have to write notes in the margins and highlight passages and circle certain words or phrases. For this reason, I can never get library books. Maran's Why We Write came to my doorstep in an Amazon box on Wednesday (sometimes I hate myself for ordering from Amazon), and by Friday, around noon, I had finished reading it.  That's how I know I really like a book, when I read it fast, sometimes all at once, because I can't put it down. If it had not been for an intermittent raging headache and having to go to work, Why We Write would have been read in about ninety minutes.
You should see my copy. It is yellow highlighted and underlined in blue Sharpie and annotated in pink ink. There is a small hole on page 73 from where I got a bit too enthusiastic with the Sharpie. This is what I underlined: "Writing is a lonely job. You have to be willing to work for months and months without anyone saying, 'You're doing well; keep going.' You have to be willing to live in a constant state of uncertainty. Not very many personalities are well suited for it. Fortunately, mine is."
(Kathryn Harrison)
Fortunately for me, Maran's newest book, which hit bookstores last week, has enough advice and good-will commiseration to keep me at the keyboard for a while.

Missing MacDowell and the freedom to create

Here it is, Saturday morning, the third day of November, and I have written very little since returning from MacDowell, glorious MacDowell.
I have figured out the difference ~ and this was not difficult to theorize ~ but the difference between MacDowell and my home in Kansas City is all about responsibilities.
At MacDowell, I had long, long, long hours to fill, sitting at my laptop, or standing (which is frequently my preference), whereby my only responsibility was to write, and then show up for breakfast and dinner, 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., respectively. Lunch was a thunk on my porch that came to me: delicious soup and sandwiches, fruit, and dessert.
At MacDowell, I made my bed, but did not get distracted by laundry or dust on my dresser, or a dog that wanted me to throw a ball ... over and over ... over and over ... over and over.
I love my dogs, but they are a HUGE time suck. They want in, they want out, they want in, they want out, they want me to take them for a walk, they want me to fetch them a biscuit, they want to go "bye-bye," they want to be fed, they want new water, they want me to pet them, to play with them, to let them in, to let them out, to let them in, to let them out.
I can deal with letting housekeeping wait; I can deal with eating sandwiches from Price Chopper and apples and pears when I am hungry; I don't need to cook big meals anymore: the children are grown, it's just me and my husband, and he's fine with sandwiches from Price Chopper, or dinner from the All-You-Can-Eat salad bar there.
It's the dogs. Millie and Bella, so damned cute and so damned needy.
They are the primary reason I have written so very little since coming home. Well, also, there's work responsibilities: yesterday I subbed at Liberty High School and then went right away to help out a neighbor ~ get her children off the bus and into the house; prepare a snack.
But it's the dogs, and the constant attention they seem to need, that's been my Achilles heel now that I am home.
When Tuesday rolls around, I am taking Miss Millie to doggy daycare so I can get some writing done. Without Millie, Bella quiets down. She will sleep for me.
Well. It's a plan.
I need a plan. I have written only 1,070 words on my NaNoWriMo project; I am still not finished with my Bologna book ~and I have put myself on strict deadline to be DONE by December 31.
My short short story for contest needs half a day of attention (deadline Nov. 15). And I haven't begun to solicit literary journals for another five short stories.
***

Anyone need an adorable cocker spaniel?

Something's happening ~

The planets are aligning; the universe is listening to me; my dead parents are pulling for me. Next thing I know, my new friend from craigslist will announce her second cousin is Kevin Bacon.
Something is happening.
MacDowell Colony coincidences?
Why, all of a sudden, are there books seemingly falling into my lap, books whose authors spent time in New Hampshire at MacDowell?
Consider this, from last month: I am going to Goin' Postal to get fingerprinted so I can substitute teach. Goin' Postal is a place where not only can I buy stamps and send packages, but can plunk down $48 and have a complete stranger manipulate my fingerpads, searching for past or current criminal activity. On this hot-ass day in August, there's a line. For customer convenience, there exists a tiny bookshelf. "Take one, lend one," a sign reads, rendered in blue magic marker.
There are six books on top. I decide, randomly (?) to choose one from the middle. It is Our Town, by Thornton Wilder. Probably my favorite little play in the entire world. There's an excerpt posted on this blog, the part about Mama's sunflowers, new-ironed dresses and coffee. I pick up the book, an edition larger than I've seen. There's a foreward by Donald Margulies. There's an afterword, which I turn to, randomly (?), a specific page, 145. And there, on this page, in a book that I never in a million years would have planned on seeing at a freaking Goin' Postal, on this page is a black and white photo of the studio where Wilder wrote Our Town. It is a picture of Veltin Studio. Which is one of the studios at The MacDowell Colony. Which is the picture posted at the top of my blog, which I had chosen randomly (?) a few weeks ago, not remembering that Veltin was Wilder's hangout.
MacDowell Colony: Where I will be in thirteen days.
But that's not all.
Tonight, after reading book 25 of my FiftyFifty challenge (to read fifty books in 2012 and watch fifty movies ~), I decide to google "domestic fiction," because domestic fiction is the genre I most like to read; it is the genre The Hour of Lead will be labeled upon its publication. (I will be rewriting The Hour of Lead at MacDowell ~). I am wanting to find other domestic fiction book titles. Three pop up on the first page of my iPhone screen: Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard, between sisters, by Kristin Hannah, and Still Alice, by Lisa Genova.
And, wouldn't you know, I happen to have all three of those books on my shelves in my library, books I picked up at Borders when they were going out of business a couple of years ago. Books I have not yet read. In my personal library, I have more than a thousand titles, of which I've read, tops, 60 percent.
But it's a rainy and chilly day here in Kansas City, and so I decide to go ahead and start one of these books. I choose Labor Day first because I like its cover the most: a bowl of peaches, with two outstretched hands, hovering. Besides, Labor Day recently came and went. It's relevant, I think.
Maynard's teen narrator sucks me in, and next thing I know, the story line has me hooked. I am amazed at what is happening in this novel. I am thinking, Why in the hell didn't I think of this? and then ... and then ... I feel compelled to turn to the back of the book and here's what I find, under Acknowledgments: "I offer deep thanks to the MacDowell Colony ~ and all who make it possible ~ for providing the most supportive environment an artist colony (sic ) could hope to encounter, and to the artists with whom I shared residencies at MacDowell and at the Corporation of Yaddo, whose shared love of their work nurtured my own."
I cannot effing believe it. A random google search. Random titles. Titles I already own. A cover to seduce me. And it turns out to have been written by a MacDowell fellow.
Holy shit.
Love you, Mommy and Daddy.

Counting down the days to MacDowell

In fifteen days, I'll board a Southwest Airlines flight to Manchester, New Hampshire.
From there, I'll take a one-hour shuttle to Peterborough, New Hampshire,
home of The MacDowell Colony's 450-acre wooded artists' retreat.
In fifteen days, I'll meet the many folks I've been emailing. It will be wonderful
to put a face to a name. I will finally figure out how to pronounce this name: "Kyle,"
who, as it turns out, is a girl.
In fifteen days, I'll be shown my private studio in the woods. I'll unpack my suitcase
and set out my supplies. I'll examine the "tombstones" that are already in the
studio. I'll freak out to find Alice Walker's name, or Michael Chabon's, or his wife's, Ayelet
Waldman's. I'll be starstruck. I'll have to say the Hail Mary to calm myself down,
or Psalm 23, which, this past summer, I finally memorized. After I Get My Shit Together (*cold
water splashed on face*), I'll eat dinner (or is it supper there?) with thirty or so other
artists at the colony.
I will probably hyperventilate; I will probably talk too much, because that's what
happens when I am in a new environment; I will probably need to find a toilet Right Effing Now,
because that's what I do when I am in a new environment and I am nervous: my irritable
bowel works itself into a frenzy.
I have already begun losing sleep: I am anxious; I am excited; I am pumped.
Mostly, I am a bit undone about what it is, exactly, that I'll be writing once I get there.
I have great plans to rewrite the novel I started the summer before my dad died (2006).
I have great plans to finish the collection of essays I started this summer.
I have great plans to write more short stories.
***
Today I called the pharmacy to get a refill on my Xanax, a script I so infrequently
use that the prescription number was worn off the bottle, having rolled around in my
purse, unused, for the better part of half a year. I might need the little white pill; might not.
Better be there, though, just in case.

MacDowell Colony fellowship ...

Yesterday, at precisely 2:06 p.m. CST, I received this email:

Dear Kathleen,
I am writing to let you know that we have space available for a Fall residency at The MacDowell Colony. We are happy to offer you a 3 week residency between 9/26/12 and 10/19/12.
Please let us know at your earliest convenience if you are able to accept this offer. Once we hear back from you, I will send further instructions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
MaryRuth*

To which I immediately replied, hand shaking:

Oh. My. Goodness.
Yes. Yes! YES!!!
I (joyfully) accept your residency offer!
You have made my day, week, month, year.
Gratefully yours ~
Kathleen

To which "MaryRuth" (not her real name) replied:

Wonderful!
I will follow up with formal email and further instructions shortly.
After you receive that email, please let me know if you have
any questions.
Best,
MaryRuth*

And shortly thereafter came this, on Colony "letterhead":

Dear Kathleen,
We are glad to be able to offer you a MacDowell Colony Fellowship
during the Fall/Winter 2012 season.We have a studio set aside for you
from 9/26/2012 to 10/19/2012.  Skide.cmslufe.cudr. dur.d vi'w.xiens.blsuengls
slucs.ufffiejvns.ekthsocieht.shdofke.vbsodured.d.vyspoemruyggjuslv.nslku
ekslsox.wjf';aa;eic.sjdriiilw/fdfules.Djdulw d,sleudllsiec,dkeoslg mslepovhes,
pfkr oixkwodlpv mdkeiduhsl;mboeidhjsl. Pcsmeols jamplwendlsjweibomhlsjs
uwnmv;po ikslmcjwuydh;mlkjut fsjvnkspqwosdlvmcjhyeuifkvmssksk.
Wekdicl dmeldomlspod mslodjcnmwlptdglkmxposmlx;poiwhslmxvcojsm.
Qksolv mnw vsblops jhglasedopldmoe.
Congratulations on your upcoming residency, we look forward
to having you at the Colony!
Best wishes,
Morgan S. Alderman*
Executive Director

*Not her real name

(Once I read "We have a studio set aside for you ... " all the other words
became unreadable. I was in some kind of shock.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We are glad to be able to offer you a MacDowell Colony Fellowship
during the Fall/Winter 2012 season. We have a studio set aside for you
from 9/26/2012 to 10/19/2012."

"We are glad to be able to offer you a MacDowell Colony Fellowship
during the Fall/Winter 2012 season. We have a studio set aside for you
from 9/26/2012 to 10/19/2012."

"We are glad to be able to offer you a MacDowell Colony Fellowship
during the Fall/Winter 2012 season. We have a studio set aside for you
from 9/26/2012 to 10/19/2012."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have a studio set up for you ...
We have a studio set up for you...
We have a studio set up for you...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was eating lunch at Chili's in Kansas City North with my daughter, Estee, when the email
came in. I'd been Debbie Downer earlier in the day, feeling sorry for myself. A dead mother.
Inability to get a teaching job. An ever-growing fat roll on my torso. Four-hundred thirty-two dollars left in my checking account after paying the month's bills (with no income to count on).
"Let's go to lunch," my daughter proffered. "You'll feel better."
I dragged my feet out to the car; drove like an old farmer on a slow Sunday to the restaurant; ordered a water; waited for my daughter to decide what she wanted. (Me? Chili's is easy: Get the chicken fajitas.) And while she decided, I got out my iPhone and checked my email.
And there it was, the email that had brought on heart palpitations and a thin layer of sweat.
Later, my daughter told me that she'd thought someone had died, the look on my face.
I couldn't even open the entire email; I made her do it.
"You're gonna like this," she said, smiling broadly, her orthodontically enhanced teeth glistening. (Oh, to be twenty-six again. And beautiful.)
Yeah. I liked it. Told the waitress to change my drink order to a margarita.
It was time to celebrate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The celebration lasted approximately 15 minutes, and then paranoia set in.
I am somewhat neurotic. I am a writer. I am definitely a neurotic writer.
(If you only knew the things I go through to write ... .)

1) This has been a mistake, this offer of residency. There is another person with a name similar to mine and a like-email address. I have received the "We want you" email in error. Next Tuesday, I will receive a "Sorry, but we screwed up" email from MacDowell. "Never mind, Kathleen Stander. We were looking for Kathleen Strander."
2) I will die before Sept. 26. What will it be? An accident? GERD gone BAD? Developing MRSA on that bug-bite looking thing on my chest?
3) The MacDowell Colony will shut down before Sept. 26. Budget cuts.
4) The airplane I am flying on to New Hampshire will crash. I will: a) die in the crash, or b) become mentally incapacitated on account of the crash.
5) I will forget how to write between now and Sept. 26.
6) I will remember HOW to write between now and Sept. 26, but everything will suck.

My Screw-This-Paranoia Plan:

1) Feel the paranoia. Look at what I just wrote up there. Note its patheticness. (Consult dictionary to see if patheticness is even a word ~) Indulge the paranoia for one day only and then let it go.
2) Write for a minimum of five hours every day between now and Sept. 26.
3) Pray.
4) Troll The MacDowell Colony's website every day between now and Sept. 26.
5) Pray some more.

www.macdowellcolony.org