It was a nice Easter

NYC painter Ronnie DeNota paints his wife Lucy, and calls it:
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

It was a nice Easter
Monday April 17 2006
(a very slight story, but after I took it out, I put it back)

It was a nice Easter because of the glorious beauty of the day. The week which preceded it had been awful weather. It was only second week of April but heat had soared under a hazy cloud cover. So it was worst of both. The hazy cloud cover robbed us of our beauty, steamed up the heat, so all there was was hot awfulness. 4 days of hot awfulness is no big deal, except when you live on the desert, and know a very long hot summer awaits you, you think “O no! Has it already begun! Is this it!”

On the 4th day of it, we were driving around midtown traffic and there was huge sign high up above a car wash at a major intersection saying in huge letters “THE HEAT IS BACK.” It is because it was what we all feared that the sign was disturbing.

And then 2 days before Easter, in the evening, the miracle began. Cool air blew and blew and blew and blew. And day before Easter the day was absolutely lovely and Easter was the most gloriously beautiful day there ever was.

Then there was the strange phenomenon of sleeping. This too began week before Easter. Each time I closed my eyes for even an instant, before I even knew it, I was in the deepest sleep imaginable. It wasn’t like any other sleep, it was so deep, and waking up from it, was traveling huge distance.

This culminated the evening before Easter. At 7 PM I went in to lie down and watch tv, planning to get up an hour later for dinner. But the deep sleep happened and when I woke up it was early morning, I had slept thru dinner. Who falls asleep at 7 PM and sleeps thru dinner? The sleep was so strange, out of the ordinary, that I thought “this is like the sandman.”

So I woke up yesterday morning, Easter morning, from that round-the-clock sleep, and also to the most gloriously beautiful day ever. And of course Easter is such a subtle holiday, not the heavy sledgehammer of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is like a subtle flavoring to the day. You can remember it, or forget about it. And when you did remember it, it just flavored it, didn’t overpower it. It makes you realize all holidays should be this way. Just a subtle sweetening of the day. Like having a bouquet of flowers on your desk, a little loveliness and little sweet perfume, but harmonious with everything else.

We went to the pool. There was zero traffic. It made driving a joy that there were no cars on the road. And pool was semi deserted too, which was nice. I swam and dreamed along in my lane, until I started to get bored and then I looked up and there was Sue. I had really finished swimming but to be in that light and in that air, who wanted to go inside.

And Sue had just bought herself the most beautiful ring in the world at Mac’s Indian Jewelry. I had seen it flashing under water, and was about to comment on it, when the conversation took a turn and I forgot about it.

And then Sue said “see my new ring!” Some great artist did it. It had jet, it had coral, it had turquoise, and it had pink shell. 4 stones, 4 colors, pure beauty, and huge. Whoever created it had indulged a passion for beauty. And there it was on Sue’s finger. That ring was made for Sue.

She said “John and I had Easter buffet here, and then we went home, and I read your story on email, and then we decided to come back to swim, it is such a glorious day.” Sue said “I am having such a nice day.”

Even tho Sue and John are retired, Sue won’t retire. She had accepted a full-time teaching position at a Native American school, and for some reason it is an around-the-clock job. Every day all day and on weekends and holidays too, Sue works and works and works for them. Today was really her only real day off since job began in mid August of last year.

“This is how to live” Sue said, as she wriggled her toes in the water.

She said "we are now selling the house and moving back to Ann Arbor, Michigan." “We love Tucson” Sue said "but we want to be with our granddaughter. If we make money from selling this house and buying condo in Ann Arbor, we will use the money for lessons for the little girl.”

“But she is 4 years old, isn’t that too young for lessons?"

“Not in Ann Arbor” she said, “they begin school and lessons at 2, she will have ballet lessons and swim lessons.”

Then Lily arrived for her swim, she was wearing navy blue bathing suit in old fashioned style, she looked like '40s movie star in it. And after her swim we sat in the jacuzzi together, and talked about our astrology sign, she is born day after me. Because I had watched Lily express herself when she was stoned on pot as we sat on the grass in front of Alice’s art studio, when she was expressing herself to Roy. The argument was senseless to me but Lily’s expression of her point was like a dance. She didn’t express argumentably. She said “this is how I see it,” and it was like a beautiful modern dance on the stage. It all involved opening up her arms wide, and turning face of passion upwards. Sincere passion expressed in flowing arm movements, with neck arched to the heavens. So even tho I got her point in our conversation right away, I let her go thru the whole dance as she expressed it fully, because I knew it was about the dance, not the point. Lily likes to embrace the universe as she espouses. It is quite lovely. It made the time go by enchantingly as I waited for Billy to finish his swim.

Then Bill and I set off for Sunflower market.

Because we are now drinking tea in the mornings I was looking forward to the free teeny cup of coffee you can have at Sunflower. But they moved the coffee grinding machines to where the coffee urns are, so it was very crowded there. When I finally got in, I opened up 3 tiny little half-and-halfs to put in the tiny cup. And to be a good girl I immediately tried to put them in the trash, and of course one spilled milk all over the counter top, on the floor, and nearly on the girl’s shoe. So I took napkins and wiped everything. There were so many behind me waiting, and around me. And after I finally finished doing all that I turned the spigot on the coffee urn and there was no more coffee left. I burst out laughing. “After all that” I announced to no one in particular “there is no coffee left.” So someone said “try the decaf coffee.” I said “but I don’t like decaf coffee, I wanted this one, English Caramel coffee, it sounded delicious.” But the decaf urn had coffee in it so I did that one and it was delicious anyway. I was so worried about spilling it on my white dress as I marketed. I was careful not to do that but it did slosh all over the floor as I wheeled my cart.

Last Night's Writers Meeting at Barnes and Noble

"Arizona River" by Layla Edwards

Thursday September 21 2006

Last night was the writers meeting at Barnes and Noble. Before it began Maria called. She said she went to the Authors Luncheon at the Plaza Hotel on Sunday. That Steve (who used to run our writers meetings) was there. He must have flown in from LA for it, he has so many friends at the Luncheons he wanted to see them. Maria said she met DewAnne, who is going to be the new leader of our writers meetings. And she told me DewAnne cannot make it tonight, a replacement will be there, it is a man. And she met DewAnne and DewAnne is very nice.

And she said she is not coming to the meeting tonight because her friends from Poland arrive on Saturday to stay for two weeks, and she still has the last minute things to do to get the house ready for their visit. She had a glorious time at the Southwest Authors Luncheon, and I decided definitely I will go next month. She said it is at a different place and I wrote down the address.

I didn’t go swimming yesterday because it was cool and cloudy and swim pools are not heated yet. I wasn’t ready to face that cold water without hot dazzling Sun. So it was a long day in the house waiting for 7 PM to roll around when meeting starts. It was an even longer day for Bill because after we go swimming, he goes out on his bicycle and has his own adventure. At swim time in early afternoon neither of us wanted to leave cozy house for cold water, but by 7 PM both of us were very antsy.

Finally I found a channeling to read on the internet which totally held my interest, I was enthralled, and when I finished reading it, it was exactly the time to brush my teeth, choose a blouse and skirt, find earrings, find lipstick, find my pen, find my notebook, choose a purse, and get into truck to go to meeting. Instead of wearing the skirt I had planned to wear with black top, I wore pale yellow sleeveless cotton blouse with white ruffled skirt (and green bra!). The lipsticks were in my swim bag, and I put them on while Bill was driving. I wore white suede open-toed slingbacks, with heels. They were under the seat, and I put them on when we arrived at Barnes and Noble parking lot.

A man was sitting at the table when I arrived and I asked if he was in charge of the meeting and he said “yes” and his name is Chris. He looked like a lovely man, and we began to chat. I asked him about the Authors Luncheon next month and he knew everything about it. It will be held at the Shriners, it begins at 11:30. “I heard lunch will be $15 instead of $20.” He said “that is only if you make a reservation ahead of time, if you show up at the door it is $20.” He had a little flyer about the Southwest Authors Association and he gave it to me. And I was glad to see their phone number and web address on it. Because when Maria had decided to go Sunday morning at last minute, I had gone on google to try to find a phone number or web address, we wanted to know if luncheon was in same place or had already moved to new place, and I couldn’t find it anywhere.

The flyer also had the cost of membership 25 dollars, but the first time you join you have to pay 50 because the additional 25 is initiation fee. I said “what’s the advantage to being a member when I can just show up at the Luncheons?” He said “the advantage of being a member is there are writing groups you can join.” I said “O great I am looking for a writing group to join, maybe I will get a membership.”

I said “how come you know all these things?” And he said “because I am the president of the Southwest Authors Association.” And I thought 'I sure lucked out because anything I want to know he will know.'

He told me he is a playwright and that seemed like a lot of fun. I asked him who his favorite playwrights are, and some of the names were not familiar to me. It is a world I know nothing about, but I do watch movies all the time, I am starting to realize all those movies were written by someone.

He said he recently participated in “play-in-a-day.” This means in the morning two playwrights pair off and write a play together, then in the afternoon the actors are found, they rehearse it, and in the evening the play is performed. It is a play-in-a-day. I thought it must be thrilling for a playwright, to write a play in the morning, and that night he can watch it performed on a stage for an audience, to be able to share it with the world so fast.

Then a woman named Rebecca arrived, and a man named Joe, and another man named Ernie, and the meeting began. Rebecca is very young, she said she writes non-fiction/fiction, which I gather is the same as what I write. Also she has a job at U of A in Dept of Judaic Studies where she is writing a book about Ruth in the Bible. She said “no one ever wrote about Ruth.” She is very excited about her book.

Ernie is older man. He said he was born in Bisbee and then lived in Verde Valley near Phoenix for long time, but moved down to Tucson because his wife went to eye doctor here and he had given up driving and Tucson has great bus system. He must live in some senior citizens place because he said he tried to start a writers group there, but all they want to do is watch TV or go to the doctor. And he met someone, I forget who (maybe it was Chris), who told him to go here.

I nearly fell over when Ernie said he writes suspense romance. He just finished one book and is writing another. “Another romance?” I asked. “Yes” he said, “I like romance.”

He looked like the last person on earth who would be writing romances. He was not chatty. He had rough look. He was born in an Arizona mining town a very long time ago. He seemed as unlikely candidate for writing romance, as I would be for writing combat war stories. But he likes romance and that is what he writes. It sure perked up my interest in him.

Joe said his name is Joe Smith and when cops stop him they don’t believe that is his real name and he has to show his drivers license and he showed it to me, and it said Joseph Anthony Smith. He said he is massage therapist, and his name was in the paper recently because he led a demonstration in downtown Tucson. Here in Tucson they will let you do massage if you have been to Desert Institute or another one of the Institutes which teach it, but if you happen to have a talent for it and want to do it, they won’t let you do it. And Joe said “this is wrong” and I agree. His hobby is racing motorcycles, and his name was mentioned in the article about the fastest motorcycle racer of all time.

He said he is here cause he met Chris in a men’s group. “Men’s liberation?” I asked. “Yes” he said. And I realized I made booboo when I made that joke before the meeting began. Chris had been saying something about books, the kind of books put out, and mentioned “save the whales,” so Joe had said “and save the males,” and I giggled and said “why do men need to be saved, I’m sitting closer to Rebecca.” But if Joe and Chris were in a men’s liberation group together, they take it seriously. I said “I believe in liberation, liberation for everyone.” Joe had said “women had their turn, now it’s our turn.”

I liked Joe a lot and he liked me. When I spilt the ice water all over table when I was trying to pour cups of it for everyone, he got me napkins so I could put my notebook down and write in it.

Joe said he’s not a writer but he wants to be one which is why he is at this meeting. When Chris suggested we join writers’ groups, I said “yes the Southwest Authors Association has them, maybe I will join one of them.”And Chris got very nervous. He said “but those groups are very established, they’ve been together long time, they already have 8 members in them and they won’t want anymore people.”

And I thought to myself, ‘Why would I pay $50 to join it, so I could be in one of their writers groups and then find out their writers groups are closed because they don’t want anymore people in it.’

He suggested taking a writing class at Pima or U of A. I know that works. I have done that in New York City. I took a writing class at New School. It meant each one got up and read what they wrote and you got to find out if there is an audience for your work. But I’ve just recently expanded my life into going to the writers meeting at Barnes and Noble a mile away, and to Authors Luncheons. I am not quite ready for weekly class at a college.

Chris warned finding an agent is not very easy, and especially warned against any agent who asks for money up front, he said “the idea is for them to make money for you, not you give them money.”

And Ernie told about a terrible experience he had when he gave money in good faith to have a literary appraisal of his book given him. He said when he was in college back in 1951 he decided he wanted to learn how to dance, and there were Arthur Murray classes given. You could sign up for 3 classes, “they were half hour each and it cost 75 dollars, which was a lot of money back then.” He said the first class they danced for 20 minutes, then 10 minutes was sales pitch, second class they danced 10 minutes, 20 minutes was sales pitch, and third class whole half hour was sales pitch, they wanted him to pay $1200 for series of lessons. He said “all I got for my $75 was half-hour of dancing.” (I wonder if this story is accurate, just because Ernie is a laconic westerner and grew up in tiny mining town, does not mean he is not Leon, with my dad’s exaggerative mind.)

Ernie said he brought his book to self-publisher here in Tucson, and he asked about literary appraisal, this means someone reads your book and lets you know what are your chances of it selling, and gives you whole critique. They suggested an outfit in Illinois and he sent them his manuscript with check for $250. What he got back was a page. They said his commas are fine, his spelling is fine, and then were 5 sentences about the book. And he felt cheated, altho they said it was a very good book.

This is when Chris suggested writers groups as a solution and it is a good solution. Ernie could read one chapter at each meeting and he would get feedback. A writer must have feedback to have confidence in their work, else they won’t know if they communicated or not. But I am not sure if paying a professional to read it is the way to go, because it doesn’t clue you in if there is audience-- they would approach it as a chore, which is a strike against your work to begin with.

Maybe Ernie would like to read a chapter of his suspense romance book on Layla’s tv access Tucson show. Layla would interview him for few minutes and then he would read. Layla could ask him what I was too shy to ask him, how did he come to write romances? what is it he likes about it? and also what was Bisbee like back then? Bisbee is tiny town high up in mountains near Mexican border, when the mines closed it became hippy town.

There are a lot of interesting things to ask Ernie, and his suspense romance might be interesting to hear too. Ernie should loosen up a little, not sit there with that same stern face he had at meeting and look less glowering. Altho of course that is why I fell over when he said he writes romances.

Then Chris showed copies of books where we could send our work to. He showed a copy of Paris Review. And I thought ‘Forget it!’ I remembered when I lived in New York City sending all my stories to them and getting them all right back. My New York City stories were all better than my Tucson stories, I had so much more content to work with, plus I had my whole past. It is very rare now that I write a story about my past. And no way would Paris Review, now located in downtown Manhattan, want to publish my story about shopping at Grocery Outlet. I might find it very interesting what Grocery Outlet has on its shelves but I doubt Paris Review would. If they would not publish my story “Criminal Mischief” which was a hot little story, why would they publish my story about how I bought blueberry pancake syrup.

Ernie said his understanding is most authors self-publish now. And I perked up a lot at that. When I lived in New York self-publishing was called “Vanity Press,” and the idea was if your book wasn’t "good enough” to be published by a "real publisher” you could pay a fortune and publish it yourself.

This idea was enough to keep me banging my head against a brick wall and keep sending out my book to "real publishers" who always sent it back. Quite a lot of effort time money went into it and got me nowhere. In fact feelings got built up which I am going to have to deal with. That is what I read in that channeled thing before I left for the meeting. “You are going to have to admit that every single experience you have had in your life, you had because it was your own thoughts, words, actions which created it, your beliefs created it, your own mind brought these experiences into your life, and if you want new experiences which are better, you will have to change your beliefs and change your mind.”

I’m not ready right now to have long heart-to-heart with myself about the trillions and billions of editors who rejected my stories. There is no magazine I didn’t send them to. No book publisher I didn’t send whole book to. I covered the waterfront in my own way. I even sent them off to publishers in England.

When Chris suggested we send our work to The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly because they pay $1000 if they take your story, I just let it flow thru the top of my head. I’m sure I sent both of those magazines a zillion stories when I lived in New York. I would no more send a story to one of them now, than I would go swimming in a down jacket and dungarees.

Why repeat the stupidity I have done before. I just want to be very clear with myself. Yes it would be foolish for me to do what I mindlessly did before. I never had objective input whether the magazines I was sending my stuff to would want it. I didn’t want objective input. I just wanted to send it off to them and for them to take it.

Bill once said “why do you send your stories to the New Yorker, your stories are funny, and they have no sense of humor.” But I thought ‘what does Bill know.’ Quite a lot it turns out. I just didn’t want to hear it. It was the one thing I needed to hear if I were to succeed: who does want it and who doesn’t want it.

But I just didn’t want to know that then. The whole enterprise was mindless and resulted in fruitlessness. Which I don’t regret. Even from mindless fruitless enterprises there is a lot you learn. All experiences enrich you in some way. I just want to be sure the bitterness about it is healed. When I first moved to Tucson I went to a writers conference here and I was astonished at the heat of bitterness the word editor brought up in my mind. Each time an editor took the podium I made secret nasty remarks about editors in my mind.

By the time I went to Steve’s first writing group a year and half ago the word “editor” had no associations for me, it was neutral word, it didn’t recall my own vivid experiences. Steve would talk about New York editors, and I was so Tucson minded it had no reality to me. It was only when Chris showed us a copy of Paris Review last night and suggested we send our stories there, and then mentioned The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly right afterwards, that I remembered these are not unfamiliar names to me. And a slight wave rose.

I know the wave was very slight, but I don’t know what was under it. Even if I choose the route of self-publishing this time-- it seems so logical because the other enterprise I already did. I know I did it all wrong and it failed. Maybe if I have long heart-to-heart with myself I can undo the exhaustion and defeat at idea of doing it again. But I am not so sure I want to. I mean I want to have heart-to-heart to remove all the bitterness, to accept responsibility for everything which happened.

It happened the way it did because I did it, not because of what “they did to me.” I’m not saying I wouldn’t make 5 attempts. Harry found an agent in Los Angeles he likes a lot, I would send it to her. And Steve told us about a small press in Scottsdale and Sierra Vista, I would send it to them. And if there are small presses in Tucson, I would bring it to them. As long as it is fresh and new in some way.

But oddly enough I am gung-ho about self-publishing if I can afford it. I know it’s a big project, but it is a project which interests me. I have no ego about my books, I simply want them in the world. I have zero interest in things like recognition, why would I want recognition. All I want is for people to read them and enjoy them, that the gift I created when I made them, is delivered.

So when Ernie started to talk about how much it costs to publish our books I paid close attention and wrote down the figures. He said “don’t write down these figures, I am just guessing.” I said “but I just want an idea of the kind of money involved, I want to know if it is affordable.”

Then Joe went to get me another napkin, I had been using my fingers to get the stains off my notebook. And Ernie got concerned that Joe left, because Joe is going to drive him home. And everyone thanked Chris for the great meeting and said they learned a lot, and Chris was pleased because he had tried so hard. And Bill put down the football game magazine he was reading, and we got in truck to go home.

“Thanks Bill” I said when we got into our driveway, “I did learn a lot.” I didn’t know what I had learned, my mind was totally confused when I walked in the door, but these meetings have purpose for me.

The Girl Lifeguard at Randolph Pool

drawing by Helen Kritzler

"Simple Happiness"

Tuesday July 25 2006

It is a sweet early morning. I saw the golden sun peeping over the mountains to the East when I went out to open the windows on the truck (and put a towel over the steering wheel) and the air is soft and pleasant.


Caren’s huge green diesel truck is gone from her driveway, so I guess she has moved to Mexico.

If I knew Caren better I would know what precipitated this move, but I have no idea. All I know is 3 months ago she arrived at our door with huge shopping bag filled with bottles of vitamins and shampoo and conditioner and said “I am moving to Mexico, would you like this stuff?” She told us she would be moving in mid-July, which is exactly what she did. She said San Carlos is on the beach, but it is hot and humid in summer, altho nice the rest of the year. All things considered it is a stunningly adventurous thing she has done.

Caren’s great adventure is in marked contrast to my life now which seems like pure monotony. I am ashamed about the sameness of my days, and think there must be something wrong with me to live this way. And when I wake up in the morning and first open my eyes to new day, I don’t know whether it’s the hot stickiness on my skin or the monotony of my days, which makes me think ‘O no! Another day.’

It scares me this lack of enthusiasm. I think something must be wrong. But really how can I judge my life? I can observe that I am not waking up enthusiastically, but beyond that I don’t know anything. I can say it is the fault of the weather, or the fault of how I spend my time. I do not know. It could come from something else for all I know. But I jump to a lot of harsh judgments and frighten myself. And that changes my mind from lack of enthusiasm about new day to cauldron of all kinds of upset thoughts. Then I think maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all, and it is just mist in my mind which needs to be burned off as day starts up.


Bill went to the workout gym at Randolph Pool and said “after my work-out I want to take a quick dip, so stay in the pool and I will be there in one hour.”

I gamboled in the water for an hour. I don’t know if what I do is called swimming. It is more like dipping into deep water and resurfacing, over and over, from one side of pool to other. I swim deep touch bottom and come up, then go down again come up, half the time my legs are in the air. I like standing on my hands in the water. I did that for almost an hour. When I started to get a little bored I thought about Frank McCourt (I am reading "Angela's Ashes" now). It was interesting to have someone to think about. And I started to pick up my head up a lot and look around for Bill, it was now an hour.


Then I heard the lifeguard on the stand, the beautiful girl blond lifeguard, say in a loud voice to the guy lifeguard in the water, “Go into my wallet open up the zipper and take out all the money.” That was such an odd thing to call out in such a loud voice. I couldn’t imagine what she meant, it seemed unusual to trust someone so much to tell them to go into their wallet and take out all their money.

And then the next thing she called out in a loud voice, “I have nothing anymore, I have no boyfriend, my boyfriend cheated on me, I have no money.” Then she called out “Go into my wallet and take out my card and step on it.” And then I heard something about wanting her money back. I had no idea what went on? Her boyfriend cheated on her and someone took her money ??? Everyone was in the water clustered around her. It was clear she was someone loved. The blond young man lifeguard loved her.


He was the one she was directing her comments to. There was a little girl who loved her too, and another lifeguard with black hair and dark skin. I came close too, I wanted to hear more. But when I arrived the topic had changed.

The little girl asked her “what does P.S. mean,” and the lifeguard said “post script.” And someone said “ASAP means as soon as possible” and the little girl said “I know that.” And the beautiful blond high up in lifeguard chair said “pps means post post script which doesn’t make any sense.” And the little girl said “what does RSVP mean?” And the blond man lifeguard in water called out “respondez s’il vous plait” in an exquisite musical French accent. I was floored. Suddenly beautiful French was spoken around me.


And then the girl lifeguard’s shift was up, and she dived in the water with the blond man lifeguard and they played in the water together and I wondered if he was in love with her, it kept looking like he wanted to put his arms around her.


And then Bill arrived and I said “it is one hour and 25 minutes,” and he said “I didn’t know you were strict about time.” And he floated on his back, and at the other side he said “girl in gym told me Reed Park” (Randolph pool is in Reed Park) “has another pool, it is new pool, it just opened, it has tent over it.” And the man in next lane said “it is the Edith Ball Pool and it has a tent over it for people who don’t want to be out in the sun.” I didn’t know if I wanted to swim in a pool with tent over it, but at least it was outside. Bill said “when I come back on my bicycle to finish my work-out, I will ride over and check it out.” “Good!” I said “and get their schedule, it will be fun to find a new pool.”


I had woken up at very bad odds and ends yesterday morning, much worse than the mere lack of enthusiasm for day today that I woke up with this morning, and a whole hour and 25 minutes swimming underwater and then moving close to hear the beautiful blond lifeguard call out “I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, he cheated on me” and “go into my wallet open up the zipper and take out all my money,” and hanging out in pool for another 15 minutes while Bill drifted back and forth on his back. Somehow the whole combination had immensely soothing effect on me. Instead of my life feeling like a puzzle where all the pieces were scattered, all the pieces came back together. I guess this is called simple happiness....

1/19/07 “DewAnne tells us how to get published”

"Gypsy Dancer" etching by Layla

1/19/07 “Dew Anne tells us how to get published”

I hadn’t been to a writers’ meeting in a long time. I was glad to go. I wore the white blouse I had bought on sale at Lane Bryant a few days ago. There is nothing like a crisp white blouse. But I almost didn’t get it because I saw I never wore the pretty long-sleeved blouses I bought on clearance at Robinson-May two years ago, and because white picks up stains so fast. But the saleslady said “it is cute” so I bought it. And it was the perfect thing to wear to writers’ meeting at Barnes and Noble last night. The trick with buying brand new clothes I now see is wearing them right away. I always used to save them, but that meant they wound up in my closet never worn. I wore a black cotton ruffled long skirt with it. A white blouse and black skirt is perfect for a writers’ meeting, I looked like a writer. And I wore pink open-toed sling backs, with flowers on them. That was just for fun, I love pink.

Maria was in yellow. She is a girl who looks good in yellow. She wore a yellow cotton sweater and black pants. It was because of her yellow sweater, that when she said “Am I late? what time is it?” I looked in my purse, found my watch, and showed her it said 7 minutes after 7. And she said “what a beautiful watch!” It has a yellow leather band and the watch face is mermaids, with sparkles. Maria fell in love with my watch. And I gave it to her. Very occasionally I go into my purse to see what time it is, it is helpful when I want to know, but when I stacked that up against Maria falling in love with my watch, there was no contest. It gave me huge joy to give Maria the watch she fell in love with. She put it on her wrist right away and it looked beautiful.

I guess that was the highlight of the meeting.

How often does someone’s eyes light up with desire and you can gratify it instantly. The whole idea of presents is there. And there is no joy like giving a present. What made this so perfect was its simplicity. She saw the watch, she loved it, I said “it’s yours Maria, this watch was meant for you,” and she glowed with happiness and put it on her wrist. It all took place amidst 3 sentences of DewAnne advising one of the writers at the table, we only missed two sentences of our meeting. I guess that is the beauty of taking advantage of the instant, it only takes an instant.

It was the first time we had left Beanie alone at night. But the meeting is only one hour, Barnes and Noble is only ten minutes away, and he has Lulu. Bill said “I will leave the TV on for them, you know how warm and comfortable the TV makes everything.” I said “tune it to the basketball game you are going to watch when you get home.” He said “good idea.” When we got into the car he said “the dogs are watching Oregon play Stanford right now.” I said “I wonder who they will go for?” He said “Lulu will for the Ducks, because she walks like a duck, Beanie will go for Stanford because he is so ivy league.” It made the favor of him taking me to the meeting so sweet, that I knew our Wildcats were playing the instant we returned home. And whatever he found to look at in Barnes and Noble while I was at the meeting, he really loved. I heard about it as I prepared my dinner when I got home.

The long table was not put out for us when we arrived, and I thought “O no! the meeting has been called off.” But I went to the desk to ask and she said “it is being held in the café,” which seemed like a very nice idea. I was very tempted to order one of their delicious coffees with lots of whipped cream, but I didn’t want to spring for the 3 dollars for a cup of coffee.

There was a square table in the middle with 6 chairs around it, and a sign saying “writers meeting.” And I recognized the woman at the next table as DewAnne. But she was involved in going thru her papers and said “I will be there in a while,” so I sat at the table by myself.

Then DewAnne arrived, and I said “how was your holidays?” and she said “peaceful.” And she said “have you been writing?” and I didn’t know how to answer that. I had gotten much more caught up in my writing when my news forum turned dismal, I had so much more time and energy and attention to give it. But during the past week there was a wonderful development in the news, I got totally excited and went back to posting my heart out on my news forum, and completely forgot about my writing. I said “I did write one story after Christmas,” I was thinking of my carburetor story. And she said “good!” I asked her if she has been writing and she said she writes all the time. I said “do you write every day?” And she said “that is the idea.”

Then two women who had not been there before arrived, I wondered if they were sisters. And a woman who had been at several meetings before arrived. She had gotten herself one of those delicious coffees with whipped cream, and snack to go with it. There was no Maria, and I wondered what happened to Maria. And DewAnne began the meeting. It was all women.

O yes there was another woman too. She sat next to the woman who had been at several meetings. She said she is just beginning to write now. She had a beautiful ring which I wanted to look at close up to see the stone. And a lot of light coming from her face. She was a spark of loveliness across the table. One of the two women who looked like sisters said she had done PublishAmerica, and I was curious about that. She has a few books out with them, and so does her husband. That is a print-on-demand company. They gave her two free copies, and she gets percentage of whatever is sold. But she has to create the demand for the book herself. Her question to DewAnne was “how do I do that?”

The thrust of all the advice DewAnne gave at the meeting was really the opposite of what Steve had made such an effort to communicate to us. According to Steve, there is no way a big publisher will publish us, they have their pet authors, their best sellers, and that is all they want; if we send them stuff they will throw it out the window.

DewAnne’s attitude is, unless you are writing for friends and relatives or your church group, you don’t want small press or print-on-demand, you want a big publisher, because only they can publish for a mass audience. “Have a heart-to-heart talk with yourself,” she said. “Decide if your book is best seller or for your friends and relatives, based on that choose which way you will go.” I just don’t see how this applies to me. I want to reach a wide audience, I don’t write only for my friends and relatives and church group, but I don’t know what a best seller is. All I ever wanted was for my work to be published, and then find its own audience. Whatever audience it found for itself, I am content.

DewAnne said “choose where you send your book to, based on how many readers you think there will be, and how many books they can put out.” But she said “big publishers will only look at a book an agent brings to them.” And altho Harry was very lucky finding an agent right off the bat, finding an agent is not so easy.

DewAnne is right about a lot of things. She said “you want to send them a good package, the best writing, the best editing, all put together attractively.” Yes she is right on that. She said “they usually want to see the first 3 chapters, but if you don’t hold their interest in the first 3 pages you are finished.” And she is right about that too.

I really perked up when she said “you can send it all as an attachment.” That is news to me. It had never crossed my mind that the old way of doing it, putting a whole manuscript in a manuscript box, putting the box in a huge padded envelope, stuffing in a stamped self addressed huge padded envelope for them to return it, and then taking it all to post office, and have address label with their address, may not be the only way to do things now. It seemed so luxurious that we can email it to them. I said “DewAnne, is that true, can we email them our manuscript?” She said “you have to find out, they are very explicit on what they want, some want hard copy and some want it as attachment on email.”

I guess the reason everything DewAnne said sounded slightly unreal to me, and in the past, is because I already did everything she said, when I lived in New York City. I know the name of this game is you keep on doing it, and then eventually it would happen, how could it not? And I had appetite for the enterprise when I first started it. In the beginning I liked doing it. It was a challenge, and a labor, and interesting labor too. But it is a game of who will wear the other one down. When I was so determined there was no way they could wear me down, I just kept on. But now I have a problem with the whole premise of it. They don’t want me, and I somehow have to make them want me, and keep going till I find someone who does. The problem now is I have no zest for any of it.

And that is the whole truth in a nutshell. How can I do what I have no zest for doing. That is why I have to find a better way, and a new way. I have to find some way which intrigues my imagination, and which gives me hope. I don’t want to enter into another enterprise knowing it will be fruitless. When I did it the first time, I was sure I would succeed at it. It was entered into filled with hope, and expectation. That was what supplied all the energy for it. But if I don’t see it that way now, then I won’t do it. Who forces themself to do huge chore which they don’t feel will bear fruit. No one.

That is why I found it so thrilling to put up 40 of my Tucson stories on blog on internet. It was brand new enterprise. It thrilled me. It was filled with hope and joy. And it was so simple. I didn’t have to convince anyone of what they didn’t want to be convinced of. All I had to do was sign up for a blogspot, I was instantly given it. And bingo, it meant I could put up stories anyone could read. All I have to do is email them a link, and they can read 40 of my stories. And if I write a new one which turns out good, I can add it. It doesn’t solve the problem of publishing, some stories are too personal for an internet blog, too quiet. And some are too long. I still want a book of my stories to be out there. And I will still have to figure out a way to do this. But maybe until an idea comes to me, or some path opens up, I should continue with my blog.

The Southwest Authors Luncheon is this Sunday, and Maria and I are going to go. I wonder what that will be like?

Sophia and I return for another Authors Luncheon

Ronnie DeNota paints his wife Lucy
Madame Butterfly
Monday January, 22, 2007

Well it is snowy landscape out my window. It looks like a Christmas card. I never thought I would see this sight in Tucson. And all native Tucsonans are thrilled, because it is only the 2nd or 3rd time in their lives they have had this sight at home. They can travel to snow but snow does not come to them. O there is Lulu in the yard. I wonder if she knows what snow is. I never thought I would see Lulu in the snow. She is just sitting there looking totally confused. I wonder if Beanie is going to go out and play in the snow. It is a white world. The tree branches are all white with snow, the ground is all white with snow. My sun couch has an inch of snow on it, so does my outside table. O there is Beanie. He is walking around.

Sophia and I went to the Southwest Authors Buffet Luncheon yesterday and we both had a great time. She picked me up. It didn’t matter that she was late. I had been ready at time she said she would come, and when she said she was running late, I just got under the covers (house was so cold) in my outfit and my high heels, and made my mind peaceful. I don’t mind having extra time if I can lounge and try to be close to my Higher Self.

Then I got up, got my stuff, and went into front yard to wait for her. Bill was with dogs at front door. Bill was happy he didn’t have to drive me because of big football game. And we arranged he would pick me up at 1:30 and we’d go swimming.

I wore same white blouse I had worn to writers’ meeting 3 days before, and black corduroy ruffled long skirt, because of the cold. I didn’t wear the pretty pink sling-backs this time, I wore black suede heels. I found them at top of closet. I hadn’t worn them in years. They weren’t pristine looking, I must have actually worn them the first summer I bought them. It was the first time I had been in Old Pueblo Traders. They had been on a fabulous sale because there was only one pair left, and it was two sizes smaller than my size. But they were designer from Italy, and I had never had suede shoes before, and they are elegant. They seemed perfect to wear to an authors luncheon, they are so dressy.

Most people there were not dressed up, but Sophia pointed out DewAnne, and she was dressed to kill. She looked like a Hollywood movie star. Her yellow hair was up in a French braid, she looked stunning. And she was wearing a black suit and she looked good in black. She looked totally elegant. No one else looked like DewAnne. The rest of us just looked like ourselves. Altho Sophia too had taken effort with her outfit. She wore a fancy red hat to arrive with. And the barrette to hold her chignon in place was huge and stunning. And she wore a fancy top.

They had moved the luncheon to the Knights of Columbus on Tucson Boulevard for the last two luncheons, because they were told the Plaza hotel was going to be torn down and a new one constructed to replace it. But apparently the luncheons at the Knights of Columbus were a disaster. The food was terrible, they were next door to the bingo parlor, so the bingo numbers were called in, they were next door to a bowling alley and heard all the bowling. It was noisy uncomfortable and bad food.

They were relieved when University said the Plaza can’t tear down the hotel because it goes over the power line to the University, all they can do is remodel. So the authors luncheon is back in the conference room until the time comes when they remodel the conference room.

So for me and Sophia we returned to a familiar place.

DewAnne had told us not to sit at the same table every time, there is no way we will network if we sit at the same table. Hahaha the theory about going to the authors luncheon is still “this is where we will network, and this will help us get published, or in Sophia’s case help her find a producer who wants her screenplay.”

But between me and the bedpost, I don’t think the Southwest Authors Luncheon has anything to do with networking, everyone there is in the same boat as me and Sophia. What the Southwest Authors Buffet Luncheon offers is a good time is had by all. This is secretly why everyone goes. Altho I can see how it helps to think, I am doing this for my writing. Otherwise you would have to say “it is a party and I am going to the party.” But it is a party.

The one single thing I learned there was from a man on line for food. Everyone asks each other “what do you write?” which makes starting a conversation easier. But it is just about conversation at a party I think. So I asked the man ahead of me, “what do you write?”

And he said he writes everything but he thinks his essays are the best. And he tried to get published but had no luck. But he wasn’t “courageous” enough to be persistent and keep trying. So he went down to Wheat Mark, which is a self-publishing company here in Tucson, to pay to have his book published.

I said “You did the right thing because I did what you wouldn’t do, I kept trying and trying and trying and it didn’t work anyway. How much does it cost to be self-published I am very interested.”

He said “675 dollars.”

I said “that’s all! I thought it cost $10,000, anyone can come up with 675 dollars.”

And another woman on line said “well that’s not quite true, it’s $675 to start but it wound up being $770.”

I thought “$770 is very affordable” and I began to think of ways I could come up with $770. I thought I could put it on Credit Card and pay a little at a time.

So in terms of networking, that was the most helpful thing which happened to me. I found out there is a press in Tucson which will publish you if you pay for it, and it is affordable.

Sophia and I looked for a table to sit at where we didn’t know anyone, per DewAnne’s instructions, and we found a table with two empty seats together. Sophia began talking to the woman on the other side of her, and I started to talk to the man on the other side of me.

“So what do you write?” I asked him.

He said he writes travel books. He was sitting with his wife, her name was Sidney, and it turned out they had just moved to Tucson 4 years ago, they had been living in Washington DC.

Altho he grew up in New Jersey. Because when I said how much I enjoyed that book about the Pine Barrens, he said his high school teacher used to read the essays of a student 20 years ago, and that was John McPhee. John McPhee is the author of the Pine Barrens and grew up in New Jersey.

He said he and his wife have lived all over the tropics. And when I asked “where?” he said a lot of names of places I had heard about, but really knew nothing about. He said that is what his book is, it is about exotic places people have heard about but know nothing about. He said the problem is now they can go to Wikipedia on the internet to learn about them.

“But that is not the same as lying in bed reading a book” I said. That was when I said how much I enjoyed the book about the Pine Barrens.

It turned out his wife had started off as a kindergarten teacher like me, we had both done it for year and a half. Altho she had done it in California and I had done it in lower Manhattan. I tried to include his wife in all the conversation, but he was very talkative and she was not talkative, so mainly I talked to him.

He didn’t seem Tucson, I am not surprised now he moved here from DC 4 years ago. When the meeting started he said “now we have to sit thru an hour of announcements.”

Tucsonans don’t have an edge to them, and they are not sarcastic.

And then he said “I want to hear the gossip. What took place when they switched to the other place? I heard it was awful. I want to hear all the details.”

I’ve never heard a Tucsonan say “I want to hear the gossip.” So I asked at the table “did anyone go to the other place?” And one man did. And he told us about the bowling alley, the bingo parlor, and the lousy food.

It’s odd that I wasn’t more interested in hearing the "gossip”. I mean I was interested in hearing the report but that excitement about gossip isn’t really in my mind anymore. My mind has turned much dreamier since I’ve been in Tucson.

I said “if you just moved here 4 years ago from DC, then you probably are not finding this winter unbearably cold.” I meant compared to DC this is not a cold winter but of course I am longing to have our beautiful warmth back. But he thought I meant compared to other Tucson winters and he said “we always travel in the winter so I have nothing to compare it to, this is our first winter in Tucson.”

I got to talk to one other woman at the table before they announced we can get on line to get our lunch. Her name was Elizabeth and she said she makes jewelry. We began to talk because she loved the bracelets Sally made for me. She is a very nice woman and I wish I had gotten to ask her what she writes, I am curious. But we got to talking about jewelry instead. I said “I love it, I look down at my hand and see Sally’s bracelets and my eyes light up with joy.” And she said she bought 3 pearl bracelets at the Gem Show last year and her eyes light up with joy when she looks at her wrist. And she sells her jewelry on Saturdays at Serrano’s farm on Houghton Road and I can come by.

Lining up for food has a great drama for me because I am strategizing how to slip the roast beef into plastic bag in my purse to bring home for Lulu and Beanie. I had asked Sophia if she was going to do it for her dog Seema, and she said no, and I said “I am going to do it for Lulu and Beanie.”

So the first thing I did was help myself to a very nice portion of roast beef. And then the other things I put on top of it to hide it. The vegetable lasagna and the mashed potatoes. I only took small portion of salad, but it turned out to be good with delicious dressing. And I took nice portion of the steamed vegetables, but they turned out to be hard, I didn’t eat them. And I took a roll. And almost everyone chose the delicious carrot cake but I chose the delicious chocolate cake. When the woman said, “do you want big piece or small piece?” I said “big.” Everyone else chose small piece.

And the food was scrumptious. That was really the happiest part of the meeting. There is nothing like sitting at a big round table, with very nice people, in a warm convivial atmosphere filled with friendship, and eating delicious food. And a nice glass of iced tea already poured for you. Wonderful cloth napkins. And waiter coming around with hot coffee. It is a banquet.

I managed to slip the roast beef into my purse. And when Sophia changed her mind, there were two slices of roast beef left over on her plate and she said “do you have extra plastic,” and I said “no,” and she tried to figure out how to use one of the flyers on the table to put the roast beef in but they were too small.

I said “why don’t you let me go get you two rolls, if you fold it into the rolls it will keep it dry.” And at first she said “no,” but when the flyers didn’t work, she said “OK, please get me a roll.” So I went back to get more lasagna and mashed potatoes for myself, and another portion of roast beef because last time when I gave it to the dogs it turned out Bill wanted it, and two rolls for Sophia.

And this time there was a woman there, one of the women who worked preparing the meal. It was just her and me. And I said “I want two rolls for my friend.” She thought I wanted a whole meal for my friend, she was so happy to help me. She put the two rolls on my plate.

And when I said “the lasagna is delicious,” she said “yes, it melts in your mouth.”

I said “the mashed potatoes is great too.”

She said “Is it? I haven’t tried it.”

I said “it is delicious.”

She said “do you want the vegetables?”

I said “they are too hard.”

And she said “for me too.” She said she loves cauliflower and broccoli, but cooked with butter and delicious, but everyone insists they make it steamed, and then it is hard as if it just came from the garden.

And she said “would you like a slice of cake?”

And I said “I already have chocolate cake.”

And she said “would you like butter for the rolls?”

And I said “I don’t think so.” I couldn’t make up my mind. The rolls were just to bring the roast beef home to Seema.

She said “let me put butter on the side for you.” She was such a sweet angel. It’s funny how much I related to all the people working the food. The chef was standing there when I was on line the first time with all the people. And I was standing back because there were so many people. And he was there in his white chef’s jacket. And I looked down at my white long sleeved blouse, and I giggled, “we are wearing the same blouse” I said. I just loved all the servers, the men and women who came around with the coffee, the sweet woman who helped me, the chef in his jacket which looked like my white blouse. They were warm wonderful and outgoing. You just felt connected in an instant, it felt so natural to talk to them.

I had another nice portion of roast beef on my plate now, this one was for Bill. And when it turned out I was too full to eat the second portion of mashed potatoes and lasagna, I took the plate back to serving area, to try to find plastic box to put it in or paper to wrap it in. But there was no plastic or paper. I was going to bring this home for Bill. I was very reluctant to do this, but only thing there was a cloth napkin stretched out, so I put it in that and wrapped it up and put it in my purse. When I go back I will bring the cloth napkin. I have to admit it made it more appetizing than the roast beef slopped into plastic bag for dogs. It made it like a nice meal when I unwrapped the cloth napkin at night for Bill to heat up while watching the game. There was even a dinner roll in there. And Sophia was happy with the solution of putting the roast beef for Seema in the dinner rolls I had brought to her.

I was too full to eat the chocolate cake so I put that in another cloth napkin at the table. Of course I got the chocolate all over my white blouse. Stealing one cloth napkin was huge, stealing the second one I didn’t even think about. But I want to return them, and I will.

Then the guest speakers began and they were entertaining, but I began to ask the travel writer what time it was. Bill was picking me up at 1:30, and about 5 minutes after that I gathered up my stuff to find him.

He was in the hotel lobby watching the football game on their huge screen TV. So I said “I will go back and stay till end.” But when I went back I realized I was finished. So I sat next to Bill on couch while he watched the game. There was a man with bag of Fritos watching the game too.

Then we went to Catalina Pool, the only one open. And even tho it was cold and cloudy and pool is not hot and showers are not hot, the lifeguard there knows me so well-- I said “I guess the pool is not hot, the showers are not hot,” she said “your favorite lane is open, rush right now and you can get it.” And the water was just warm enough to have perfectly lovely swim, and showers just warm enough to have perfectly lovely shower. I was totally refreshed and in great mood, and so was Bill, it all worked.

And we were both excited about returning home with roasty beef treat for pups. Which of course they loved. I served it to them instant I entered house. It had started to rain on way home, but neither of us really cared. There has been so much relentless bad weather, there’s no point in protesting anymore. As I was leaving I heard the lifeguards say, “they are forecasting real cold for tomorrow, it will be down in the 40s.”

Bill went in with the pups to watch the game, we turned the heat on in the house, and I sat down at computer to answer email. Alice had been working on her video at Access TV Studio late at night two nights before Christmas, and truckdriver had totaled her car.

She is fine, but the upshot is she’s not doing TV anymore, she is going back to her art. Also she wants money-making ideas to help pay for the brand new car. So she emailed me “let’s do a book together.” She has never even looked at my blog where I put up all her paintings. But I emailed back “Helen and Jan love your work.”

“Where did they see it?” she emailed.

“On my blog.”

She still didn’t get it. “Which painting did they like?” she emailed back.

I said “I put up a lot of your work.”

And she emailed back, “Thank you very much Anne.”

I haven’t pressed Alice to look at the blog because of all the stories about her on it, and I don’t know if she will like those stories. It’s one thing for her to tell me all this stuff in swimming pool, it’s another to read it on my blog. And she never read my stories, “Afternoon at Alice’s House,” or what happened down at Access TV when Dorfay and I did the video for her.

So the way it is now, Alice thinks we will put out a children’s book together, my stories about my dogs and her art work. And I think I will put out a book of my stories featuring Alice et al with her artwork. And I have my heart set on all of Alice’s beautiful color paintings in there and I know that will cost a fortune. I guess I can try one small press, before I figure out how to afford WheatMark. But the biggest unknown is when will Alice find out what my stories contain, and they are about her.

So the way we left it on email last night, is Alice thinks it will be children’s book about dogs, and in fact it will be a book about Alice and me. And at some point she will have to find out.

My friend Helen

drawing by Helen

Monday, June 6, 2005. Tucson AZ

I dreamt about Helen all night. She was my friend back in NYC. We were friends long time since the days of womens liberation in the '60s. I know Helen has friends who predate me because she has all her old friends. She is still best friends with the girl she played with when she was 7 years old, she is still best friends with the girls she went to camp with when she was 13, she is still best friends with her friends from college.

When you are friends with Helen you become friends with all her other best friends, with Joanie from when they were little girls, with Marlene and Judy who she met in camp, with Laura who she met in college, and with all her other best friends she made along the way. With Pat who became her best friend from womens liberation also. I probably have more in common with Pat than the other girls because Helen met both of us in womens liberation. At least we were in the same place at the same time. One of the girls Helen was best friends with in college, I met on my own, before I met Helen, and we had brief friendship of our own. It was one of the things which drew Helen to me when I first met her, that I knew her best friend from college, and also that I met a few times her old college boyfriend when he was dating a girl I knew.

Helen and I became closest half-way between the time when we first became friends and the time we are in now. When Pat moved out to marry Bruno and moved to CA. I remember calling her the day after Pat moved out and I said '“are you lonely” and she said “I spent last night sleeping in my clothes on the couch.” There is freedom in living alone. I guess it seemed like a vacancy in her wall of friends so I moved in into that space, plus I wanted to be close to Helen, we hadn't really been close. We began to spend time on the phone together. I was loving to Helen and she was loving to me. When I did some booboo to my foot she drove down with a shopping bag full of food for me. She was an angel. When she got married and my marriage ran into problems our closeness drifted away again but it was sweet time while it lasted.

When I moved to Tucson I was willing to let all my NYC friends go, not right away, but after about 4 years here. I decided not to hold so tight to them, just open up my palm and let them go. So they all drifted away, except for Helen, she held on to the friendship.

And then to everyone's shock about 5 years after that Helen moved to Hawaii, she ran away from her marriage and took their son and moved to Maui. And I think then she and I identified with each other because we had made the same move. We weren't together in physical space, but mentally we shared a space. I knew what she was going thru leaving New York, and arriving in Maui, where she didn't know a soul. And she knew then what I had gone thru moving to Tucson. Plus both of us were in paradise now and no longer in New York.

She may not be aware I know her whole experience of the move and she may not be aware I had the same experience. Because of course she moved with her young son and her whole focus was helping him settle in to new place, wanting him to be happy there. And because it is traumatic and emotional thing to move a son away from his dad and because it was end of Helen's marriage. Altho Helen's marriage was not gazillion years, she did not have to go thru the earthshaking change of being married woman to single woman, because she had been single woman her whole life till she married Gerardo, and it was not gazillion years she was with him. I think the part about picking up the thread of her single life was not so hard for Helen. I understood the ups and downs in her marriage too cause I had the same ups and downs. In fact it was those ups and downs which resulted, in their own way, in my moving to Tucson, just as it resulted in Helen moving to Hawaii. Except Helen left her husband behind in NYC, and I moved with my husband to Tucson for fresh start.

Helen had been a career woman in NYC. She had good jobs because she got in computers early and she had flair for computers. Before that she had been like the rest of us, just taking the jobs which were around, working on and off for the school system like the rest of us. But her jobs with computer were real jobs out in the world. And then she found the perfect job for her. She worked at Yeshiva University helping their students learn computer. Helen is a great teacher. She taught me how to learn computer. She was very happy on that job but she had to leave it when she moved to Hawaii.

In Hawaii she didn't go back into the working world. It turned out her talent for reading palms was in demand, she earned money that way. Also she did substitute teaching. Also she acts in plays. Also she sets up computer ads on line for people. She has more of gypsy life in terms of earning money and she loves it. She loves the opportunity to express more of her creativity. And she bought a house there and her son goes to private school. Things are working out beautifully for Helen in Hawaii. Altho the change from having so many friends to having no friends at all is an oasis of quiet in her life. She will start to make friends, it happens naturally, I saw how it happened for me in Tucson, but it doesn't come right away. It has something to do with putting roots down in the new place. Friendship is one of the flowers on the plant as the plant emerges from below ground to above ground, and takes its own time.

When she moved to Hawaii the very first thing she did was set me up on email and internet. I did not know how to go on them before. And of course it opened up a huge new world for me. Strictly speaking you could say I have been an internet addict almost from the instant Helen set me up on internet. It's always clear what a friend offers you, but you never have an idea of what you offer a friend. It seems like I have always been on the receiving end of Helen's gifts. Altho I am the one who helped her write her resume which launched her whole new career woman life.

Luckily I have talent for writing resumes, and my talent increased when Trudy showed me the resumes she wrote for people. Trudy had talent for writing resumes too, and when she showed me her resumes, I got some new ideas to add. I had just seen Trudy's resumes the week before, when Helen called to ask me to help her write her resume. And it was because of what I saw on Trudy's resumes that I added to Helen's resume she got all As in her computer courses at NYU. And it's possible that in the job she did land, the one at Atari, that was the one where the interviewer started to ask her how she did in computer and then he said “O I see, it is right here, you got all As,” and he hired her.

I was not on computer then myself, I typed up her resume on my selectric typewriter, but I was into xeroxing my stories then. I knew what the xerox store had to offer, so we went together to choose the paper for it, a nice paper. And Helen could choose the color of the paper she wanted and she chose a nice shade, of ivory I think, unless it was tan, I don't remember, but it was attractive. And it worked, Helen got the job.

Her friend Wendy helped out too by buying her a suit for interviews. It was suit by Hallston, the designer Jackie Kennedy liked, and Helen looked ravishing in her Jackie Kennedy suit. That girl looks good in a suit and it was a nice suit. So between her suit and my resume, and the fact that Helen really did have talent for it and she wanted it, and she is a nice girl, she got the job and she loved the job.

And of course Helen's peculiar behavior when she arrived at my house for her resume made us so much closer. I put the chair by my desk and I said “now we will write your resume together.”

But Helen would not. She lied on my bed, put my pillow on her face, and she said ''I refuse to write my resume, you can pull out my hair but I won't write my resume.” Luckily that was no problem for me. I said “fine you can lie there with the pillow over your face, I will just go ahead and write your resume for you.” Of course in real life how can I write a resume for someone with a pillow over their face who refuses to talk, I don't know their job history. But I rolled a piece of paper in my machine and I began. I had to ask her a few questions to get started, like what is her address and I wrote down her phone number. And for a while she answered the questions from the bed in a mumble. But then she relaxed herself and I think she sat on the chair next to me and we finished up her resume.

I only wrote one page resumes. Because I didn't have computer I would retype it several times to make it all fit on one page. And Helen was delighted with it. She read it a few times and she liked it. I had two different copies. That was it. We made one copy for jobs where we thought they'd like Helen for her artistic qualities too, and then one copy which was totally straight. We called it "the artistic resume" and the "straight resume". And when she went to choose the paper and the color of the paper at the xerox store, she chose prettier color (was it lilac) for the artistic resume.

After we finished the resume Helen gave me a haircut. At that time I had opened up a business doing resumes, and Helen opened up a business doing haircuts, but in fact our businesses never really went anywhere. I never intended to charge my dear friend Helen money for doing her resume, but she gave me 50 dollars, and she gave me a beautiful haircut, and I was floored at her overflowing gifts to me. And after the lovely haircut we went to xerox store together. And now she had two manila folders, one said artistic resume on top, and one said regular resume. And Helen was pleased as punch. And she sent off her artistic resume to Atari and that is the job she got. And that began off one new chapter in her life.

We spent time again at my desk when her friend Wendy bought me a computer and Helen came over to teach me how to word process on it. People had tried to teach me before and I even went to a tutorial, the man in the computer store gave me a tutorial, but nothing was working till Helen came over. What Helen said was “just begin to write on it, you'll learn as you go.” And that is what did the trick. I began to write on it like I did on my typewriter, and once I started to write on it I saw it worked for writing. And then Helen explained to me about customer help. And the first time I called customer help I was in awe. I could not believe it. Someone would patiently spend all that time walking me thru everything on the telephone. I was so grateful. I called customer help all the time. I was someone who needed a lot of help starting off. It was really a gift from heaven what customer help would do for you back then.

It must have been between jobs, after Helen had that job for a few years, she went to Nicaragua to teach computers there, and that is where she met Gerardo. And when she came back they were husband and wife and her mom had bought her a co-op in the Bronx so they moved into it together. Then they went back to Nicaragua to adopt a baby son and then Helen began working at Yeshiva teaching computer there to their students.

When their son was one year old, a few months later, I moved to Tucson, so I don't know anything about Helen's New York life after that, except for a few phone calls and what she wrote in short stories she sent me. I know her mom came from Florida to live with them, and Gerardo's brother came up from Nicaragua and was living with them too, and Gerardo and his brother were very nice to her mom, and I am sure that meant a lot to Helen. And I talked on the phone to both Helen and her brother when her mom went to Heaven.

I realize now that even tho I knew some of the events during Helen's life in the Bronx while I was in Tucson for those 9 years until she moved to Hawaii, I have no sense of what really went on. She must have worked hard tho, she had fulltime job, she had her son, she was cooking dinner everynight for her husband, mom, his brother, and their son. But no one moves to Hawaii or Tucson unless their NYC life collapses. And now both Helen and I have our brand new renovated life in Hawaii and Tucson.

Under the desk with Helen

Helen draws herself


Sunday, September 17, 2006

First bird just chirped. Now several are chirping, unless it is the same one, whistling and chirping. The early bird. O that may be a second one, it had a different music in its chirp. It’s funny to think of him, all soft and sleepy in his nest, opening his eyes, and letting out these chirps because dawn is breaking. It’s fun to think of all the birds I see in my yard all day, snoozing happily in their nests right now, all soft and warm in this very cool September morning.

There must be a lot of nests because there are a lot of birds in my yard. But maybe families sleep together and keep each other warm. All the birds are still in their nests, none has made appearance yet. In my home too both dogs and man sleep, I am only one awake.

Helen made a glorious video and put it on internet so all could see it. She had given a class in palmistry two years ago. Helen is a palmist, she reads palms, she has done this for 40 years, her mom was palmist before her, she learned it from her mom, altho she has studied the literature on it.

Back in NYC Helen had worked for Yeshiva University as their computer person. This meant students who wanted to learn how to go on computer and work it came to Helen. She was my computer teacher, she taught me how to go on computer, so I can attest to what a great teacher Helen is. She has talent for teaching and talent for computer. I am on computer now because of Helen.

She moved from the Bronx to Maui in Hawaii 7 years ago when her son was 8 years old, and I am sure at first she tried to find the same job she had had in NYC. Then after that, when she could not, she tried to find work as free-lance computer teacher. She would come to anyone’s house and teach them, as she had come to my apartment in lower Manhattan and taught me. But no one responded to these ads either.

Instead what happened is she began to read people’s palms as she always had. And a woman hired her to come to her party and read the palms there. Helen was a huge success. They say water helps psychic abilities, and Helen was now in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and maybe being in Maui instead of New York City helped too.

Because her palm readings were on much higher level, she surprised herself. People lined up to get their palms read. And then one thing led to another, and Helen had clientele. And she advertises her services and has thriving business. I think when she was getting started she put a sign up in front of supermarket and read palms there. And of course the more she does it the better she gets. So now Helen is superlative palm reader.

Two years ago she gave a little class in palmistry, and she asked her friend to video it so she could see herself as a teacher. And she found the video so interesting, that when she began to put photos up on her web page, she realized she would be able to put up her video, that she could share it. But it would require editing.

It was one of those plans which take a long time to put in operation. You decide you want to do it, and then you never get around to doing it. And the whole time you are not getting around to doing it, you are busy hating yourself for not doing what you said you would do. You assume because you are not getting around to doing it now, you will never do it, and you hate yourself for never doing it. Which is totally unfair. Because sometime down the line you will do it, but that is the one thing you never realize, so you beat yourself up instead.

But eventually the time did come when she decided to do it now. So then she had to find the video, and that is always a problem because you have no idea where it is. But she found the video and began to edit it. She discovered she could not use the whole video, there were parts in it which embarrassed her, and a lot of it was her bending over reading someone’s palm. But she discovered that the introduction she gave before it began, her story of how palmistry came into being, what palmistry is and its history and its meaning, her 6 minute introduction, was perfect. People might enjoy seeing Helen telling that story, and hearing her insights and understandings of its deeper meaning.

So she edited that and put it up on her web page. But she was too shy to show it to anyone, she thought "maybe I look foolish." So she called her friend Wendy back in NYC and asked her to look at it.

And Wendy said “it’s wonderful Helen, go share it with everyone.”

And so Helen gave the link to friends, and then to her family. And a woman in Maui who recently moved there, who gives workshops on women and spirituality, offered to make a trade. “If you read my palm Helen, I will link to your video on my email list, I have an email list which goes out to thousands.” And so the trade was made.

So last week I got the email with the link and then phone call from Helen saying “watch it Anne.”

But I had no idea where the speakers for my computer were. They used to be on my desk, but now they were no longer on my desk. I assumed I must have put them away somewhere. And I said “tomorrow I will look for them,” and Helen said “press the link to the video, at least you will be able to see me.”

But when I pressed the link nothing showed. Helen called again the next day, and when nothing showed again the next day, something came on saying if I download adobe flash reader I will be able to see it. So I downloaded it, but again nothing showed. So I assumed I had computer problems, and Helen was so heart broken.

But the next day I pressed Helen’s link again, and this time the whole video showed, but there was no sound, but it was so thrilling for me to see my friend Helen. That was exciting. I looked all over for my speakers, and eventually I found them, they had fallen off behind my desk, and the wires seemed to be still plugged in. Because when I pressed the “on” button, a green light went on, showing me it was on, but no matter what I did I could not get sound.

When Helen called I told her I loved the video picture but I could not get sound. And she had me try to play a song to see if sound worked for anything. And when the song didn’t play, she said “the problem is your speakers, Walmart sells them for 30 dollars, you need new speakers.”

Then I got email from her saying she will send me the 30 dollars so I can buy new speakers. And I thought “Walmart is too far away, Office Depot is right on way to swim pool, I will use her 30 towards the speakers and pay the rest out of my own money.” And I planned to call them to ask how much they cost. That was yesterday. All day long I was planning to call and ask how much they cost.

Then in the evening while Bill was watching our team, the Arizona Wildcats, play Steve Austin in our stadium in Tucson, a big and very important game, Helen called and said “I am writing out the check now, what is your house address?”

But before I gave her my house address, we discussed my speakers. I told her how the green light is on so it is connected, and I assume when they fell down in back of desk for whole year that dust and dog hair etc must have gotten into them and ruined them.

Helen said “maybe it is attached to wrong outlet in your computer, maybe you have it attached to microphone.”

I said “but I listened to something last year, and no one has changed the connection since then, Bill had connected them for me then.”

Helen said the green light going on when I press “on” simply means the speakers are attached to electricity, that electricity is flowing into them, it doesn’t mean it is attached to the computer, and why don’t I look.

I said “but it is dark now Helen, and my desk light is so small, I can’t see anything.”

And she said “do you have a flashlight?” and I said “yes we do.”

So I said “Bill is the technician, I don’t know how to do anything, I will ask him to come in during the commercial of the football game and see if the wire from the speaker is attached to the computer in the right place.”

So I went in and asked Bill. And he said "it is too dark, he will do it next morning."

And I said “what about with a flashlight?”

And he said “I don’t want to crawl under your desk with a flashlight now, I am watching the game, I will do it next morning.”

So Helen said “why don’t you do it then, Anne.”

So I asked Bill “where is the flashlight?”

And he turned it on for me because flashlights are no longer the same as when I was little girl. And he got the flashlight and turned it on for me, and he said “I don’t know why you want to do it now, it is so messy behind your desk, it is dark, there are so many cords there, you will break your computer and it is not my fault.”

I told Helen what he said but neither of us were daunted by it. Once I had had a problem with something and called the technician, I no longer remember what it was. The technician was a woman. And at first when she told me what to do, I said “wait let me get my husband, he is the technician, I don’t know how to do anything.” But either Bill was not available or I had a brainstorm. I changed my mind. I said “maybe I can do it, I am so used to thinking he can do everything and I can’t do anything, but maybe I can do it, you tell me what to do.”

And she said, “there you go, you can do it, I’ll help you, you can do it.” She had so much confidence in me that I got confidence and I followed her instructions and I did it.

And I remembered that when Helen said “why don’t you do it Anne.”

And I got so excited, everyone likes a challenge, a project; it is fun and exciting, an adventure.

I reported to Helen “there are 3 wires going out of my speaker.”

And she said “one goes to the computer, that is the one we have to find.”

I crawled under my desk and saw the 3 wires coming from it, and saw that one went into the little hole in back of computer cabinet leading to computer. Then Helen tried to explain to me the right place in computer where it should be.

And I said “wait, the first thing is for me to find that small white cord, because when I took the computer out, there was no small white cord attached to it.”

I took the little flashlight and sure enough there was a little white cord just dangling, not attached to anything. Eureka! Maybe that explained why I wasn’t getting any sound. So then Helen tried to explain the place it should go in. And there were the 3 little holes next to each other at the bottom with 3 different colors next to them. And Helen said “we will just try all of them, and see which one works.”

So I plugged it into the middle one. And Helen said “see if the song I sent you on email comes on.” And we both looked on our computers to try to find that email so we could find the link to the song.

And Helen said “here it is, scroll up in your email,” and she gave me the date and topic. It was under another email Helen had written me in response to a story I wrote.

So I clicked on the link to the song, and “Music Match” came on. I had downloaded “Music Match” when Helen had tried to see if I got any sound when I did the song.

And then instantly the song began to play. I heard it, it had “happy birthday” in it. Helen heard it too. “Great!” she said, “now x out of it.”

I was going to look for the email where she sent me link to her video, but I remembered I had saved it on “favorites,” it had been so much fun to see Helen and I wanted to show Bill. So I clicked on “favorites” and there it was. And I clicked it on, and instantly there was Helen, I could see her and there was Helen talking I could hear her, it was so exciting.

And then we both got very quiet and listened to Helen and watched her on our computers while I was on the phone. It was much better than watching Helen with no sound. With no sound, even tho it was thrilling to see Helen, because there was no content to what she was doing, the gestures she was making, all I did was make observations like “maybe Helen should be wearing lipstick.” Her voice was extremely lovely. I had never heard Helen talk in that lovely voice before, and every word she said was fascinating.

I know nothing about palmistry. I had no idea it would be so interesting to learn its history. The ancients had studied it, but it was the French who gave us modern palmistry. Apparently after the French revolution, interest in all these things was awakening. All the lore of the ancients, and a French man had studied all the ancient texts on palmistry and written a text now so it could be shared. People had not known that each fingerprint was different, but the Chinese potters used their fingerprint as signature, they knew it. And then Scotland Yard decided to investigate if it were true, and fingerprinted all their prisoners and discovered it was true. No two fingerprints are the same. And there are two kinds of palmistry, one does the palm and one does the fingertips.

Of course listening to all this interesting information, via Helen’s lovely voice, captivated my mind, and I wasn’t so focused on watching her face as I was when I had no sound. It just all came together as a package for me. And her expressions took on meaning when she was expressing ideas she was communicating.

Without mind the video was lifeless and pointless, with mind expressed, it was tremendously rich alive thrilling experience. Two opposite universes really. Without mind all that mattered was whether Helen should have worn lipstick or not. With mind, it was rich glowing experience of the whole of Helen’s being. Contact with a tremendous mind, fully alive fully creative, the source of creativity itself.