Rewind

Although we were deluged during the last week with images and remembrances of President Kennedy's assassination, I want to capture a few thoughts, and let it go for another twenty-five years.

I was in our Algebra II class with Mr Shane.  I was a junior in high school, a Catholic, a Democrat (thanks to my paternal Irish grandmother, Mary Ellen Donegan) and a flippant, smart-ass confident kid.  We lived in a Dutch Reformed community and a Catholic president was a big deal.

Our principal, Mr Purlee, personally delivered the news to each classroom.  We were stunned, tears ran down Mr Shane's cheeks, he looked as if he'd been poleaxed.  We were dismissed, the halls echoed with intermittent sobs.  I can still remember going to my locker, getting my coat and walking out the front door in a daze.  Our school was rural, all the bus drivers had been notified and we wended home to weeping parents, to unbelievable newscasts, to shocked broadcasters, to silent suppers with the television in the background.

Fifty years later, I get goosebumps writing about it.  It was awful.  Purely awful.  Fifty years later, I look at the footage and wonder what the hell - I want to look at it one more time and have it come out differently.  As the motorcade turned the corner into Dealey Plaza and into the ages, I am glued to the images, hoping against hope that it won't happen, that somehow he will deliver that speech, that Mrs Kennedy's pink Chanel suit will remain unstained, and that we will never have a conversation about where we were November 22, 1963.

On, Wisconsin

I went to a writers' workshop a weekend ago in Madison sponsored by the U's continuing education department.  Totally impressed with the continuing education program and the willingness of the faculty and staff to support the attendees/students.  And totally impressed with the quality of the writing by the attendees.  Good grief!  Very humbling, I must say.  So again, I confront my misgivings about my writing, my lack of confidence and my procrastination.  But the weekend spurred me to once again pick up the threads of the story, to create a sense of place, to finish the damned thing.  My aim is to get it in the form of a final draft by Spring - say six months or so.  I may have to give myself a real deadline, a date rather than a season - my favorite advice from the workshop:  get your characters in hot water as soon as possible, and keep them there as long as possible.

So, on to the mischief-making!

'Strays' Logline

Jane Burns, a seasonal ranger at New Mexico’s El Mapais National Monument, returns to the Midwest to identify a body presumed to be her sister. The corpse isn’t Marti, but Marti cannot be found.  As Jane searches for her sister, secrets from the past shroud the present and force Jane to re-think her future.

I seem to be writing and re-writing the logline - it's for a novel I've had in my computer for years - not that I want to publish it as much as I'd just like to finish it.  So that's my task:  in the next six to eight months, have a final draft of the book.  The logline was an assignment from my latest writing workshop.  I love workshops, homework, writing exercises, all manner of distraction.  It's time to finish the book.  I'll think of it as homework.

MAC Attack

I recently ran out of my latest experiment in tinted moisturizers - which honestly do not provide the coverage a woman of a certain age requires.  But I persist in trying them, my bathroom cabinet cluttered with trial samples and ancient tubes of war paint, none quite the right shade.  While visiting a friend, we came upon a MAC store.  I love MAC cosmetics.  They look good on me, they carry the right shades and tints and tools.  Why I persist in drifting off into the cosmetic hinterlands just baffles me.  I came home and threw away the blue eyeshadow palette, the odd ancient creme blush (that probably harbored mold), the lipstick in the wrong shade of red, and a riot of nail enamel in colors that my daughter might wear.

The real question here:  if we know what works, why don't we just use it?  We distract ourselves, we experiment, we look for the greener eyeshadow on the new horizon.  I'm an adman's dream - I'll try about anything, and end up going back to MAC.  There should be a lesson in this - some metaphor for my life path.  As soon as I get my face on, I'll think about it.

driftless

she's attending church picnics
and watching
the Hawkeyes
on autumn afternoons,
trolling for a kindred spirit
seeking her new self
and a partner in crime

Driftless
becoming part of a new geography
unbounded by mountain ranges,
undefined by the ribs
of a continent.
Nothing to snag your conscience on
out here
on the high rolling plains
a new start
in the heartland

Play Misty for Me

'Play Misty for Me'

Somewhere inside me,

beneath the Old White Lady,

lives Strong Black Woman.

Don't you be messin' with her.

A poem for my friend, Susan, who has an amazing Jazzercize leader, Misty.  We all want to be Misty, believe me.  Especially us OWLs.