Aside from the usual, not much is going on at Casa West this week. But I did want to share something that’s making me happy lately:
I’ve run hundreds of miles, back and forth, on this path. It’s where I trained for my marathon in 2006 and where I developed the chronic achilles tendonitis a few years later that plagues me to this day. For a few years, Mick and I ran this path together (well, separately, because he runs much faster than I do, but together because we were on the path at the same time). But when we moved to Venice we got out of the habit. The distance to the path, though not far, required a car or a bike ride, and instead I joined a gym nearby. Mick pretty much stopped exercising altogether.
But our trip to Peru and our Wayna Picchu climb were good reminders for both of us that it’s incredibly important that we do what we can to stay in shape. I want to be skiing down mountains when I’m 80, after all. Though by nature I tend toward laziness and inertia, I can’t imagine not being able to do the things I want to do because I’ve allowed myself to become too sedentary. It’s no longer solely about my weight or appearance, it’s about enjoying life as much as I can, for as long as I can.
I’m happy to say that in recent weeks, Mick and I have begun running this path again. It’s great to have regular access to a gym and its equipment, but running outdoors is something that just can’t be duplicated on a treadmill. It’s harder, but it’s so much more rewarding. I’m getting close to running 3 miles without stopping to walk, which is my first benchmark for being in some sort of shape. Mick, of course, can already do it, and is working on his speed at the moment.
We earned that sweat, yo
So that’s what we’re up to. Do you have any plans, big or small, for this summer?
There’s something about traveling that turns my normally relaxed husband into a little old lady. His need to plan out every detail, complete with hand-drawn maps, is endearing, yet also annoying. He’s so fixated on getting things right that he gets little things–like what direction our hotel is in–wrong, then corrects me when I go the right way.
We’re in Lima, staying at the Marriott in Miraflores. It overlooks the ocean, and we’ve a lovely view of a park and the water beyond. Hang gliding is popular here and we saw quite a bit of it yesterday afternoon.
A walk in the park across from our hotel revealed that it seemed a popular place for young couples to go and make out. Perhaps it’s a welcome refuge from chaperoning eyes at home?
It wasn’t long before we partook of our first Pisco Sours. I’ve had two more since and so far, the one at the hotel bar wins.
Our first ceviche came from a restaurant called Amaz, which was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. While I was a bit disappointed in the rest of the meal, the ceviche was divine. I don’t generally like it in America (raw onions, don’t you know) but I was determined not to let that stop me. So we ordered a ceviche comprised of wild snails and mussels and we both loved it. Despite my dislike of onions, I do like to eat adventurously.
In less than one month, I will officially be the author of a published novel. <Obligatory promo: MISTRESS OF FORTUNE out on February 3! Pre-order your copy now>
One of the first rules of writing I learned was “avoid cliches.” And so I bow my head in shame as I’m about to commit to New Year’s Cliche #1: LOSE WEIGHT.
I’d tell you my goal isn’t actually to lose weight but to get healthy, but I’d be lying. And I won’t bore you with a long lament about how I found myself at my heaviest weight of all time. The only reason that counts is that I stopped exercising regularly and started eating ALL THE THINGS. Food is really good, ya know? And while exercise is good too, it takes a lot more effort than slathering a piece of bread with Nutella and shoving it into my mouth.
So there you have it.
What I willbore enthrall you with is a quick run down of my plan:
1) Adhere to the 80/20 principle (which basically means that 20% of the time I can throw most of the following out the window)
2) Eat a fruit and/or vegetable with every meal.
3) Avoid processed foods like cliches
4) Strength-training 30 minutes 3x a week
5) Walking/Running/Elliptical 30 minutes 5x a week
6) Whole grains only (or mostly)
7) Cut down on vino (this, alas, is the hardest one for me, as I LOVE my vino way too much)
Care to share your New Year’s goals? C’mon, you know you want to.
Today marks the 15th anniversary of my marriage to my partner in crime, Mick. We met through an online personal ad I placed in December 1996, and though I can’t find the text of the ad at the moment, I know I began it with Shakespeare’s sonnet #130:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. If have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more deight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.
Deep, huh? I thought so.
Within 48 hours, I received nearly 100 responses to that ad of mine. I only responded seriously to three or four. I remember one of them was an Indian fellow, and another was a single father of two children who was also a Christian minister.
What would my life have been if I had chosen one of them, I wonder?
Mick’s response to my ad stood out for its subtle humor, and I also liked that he was English (after all, I didn’t have much to go on at that point). I later found out he’d written it after a drunken night out with the boys. We talked on the phone the next day and met in person the next day.
For those of you who haven’t heard the story, my roommate and I were having a New Year’s Eve party and I invited Mick. He arrived some time after midnight and my first words to him in person were “Here, drink this quick,” as I held out a plastic glass filled with champagne. The date was January 1, 1997.
We’ve been more or less inseparable since that moment.
I don’t believe in soul mates and I don’t believe people are meant for each other in any cosmic sense. But I sure am glad my path crossed Mick’s and that we decided to merge our paths, because this life is damned good.
UPDATE: This is a post I wrote back in September 2007. I’ve updated it to reflect the current year, 2012.
Orlin Neville Horn. How’s that for a name?
Today is my grandpa’s 90th birthday. I’ll be heading up to Oregon soon to celebrate this milestone birthday with him.
I am very lucky to be 44 and still have a grandpa. He was 46 when I was born, which is kind of young to be a grandpa. But here’s the kicker–my grandma was 39 when I was born! I can’t imagine being a grandmother at the age I am now, considering I can’t even imagine being a mother. But I suppose it would feel very nice to know that I’d finished the hard work of raising my children and could now enjoy my grandchildren. Here is a photo of my grandparents holding me (left) and my brother (right):
Here is a picture of my grandpa when he was a boy (he’s the taller one on the left. The one on the right is his brother Hollis, who passed away a few of years ago):
Remember the old cliche “When I was a kid I had to walk five miles, barefoot, in the snow to school?” Well my grandpa really did!
My grandpa grew up in Arkansas during the depression. He was the oldest of eight children–four boys and four girls. All four girls are still living, but my grandpa is the only remaining boy. They were very poor. My great-grandfather worked as a field hand and so did his boys. During the depression, they were employed through the WPA.
My grandpa was a tractor mechanic for much of his life but basically did all sorts of ranch work during his entire career. He is missing his right index finger up to the knuckle–the result of a work accident years ago.
This is my favorite picture of my grandpa:
He stopped playing the guitar when he lost his finger. I have his guitar displayed in my house (it’s not the same guitar as in the picture though. Wonder what ever happened to that one?).
Here’s a bit of trivia for you: My grandparents used to bowl with Johnny Cash’s ex-wife, Vivian. They didn’t like the movie “Walk the Line” because they didn’t like the way it portrayed her.
Another bit of trivia: my grandpa used to haul cattle on Slauson Boulevard from a ranch very near the property now occupied by LAX.
There are very, very few people in the world who I love more than my grandpa. He is an old man now, despite the fact that I still see and think of him the way I did when I was a little girl. He taught me all I need to know to live to be 90:
1) Smoke at least a pack a day for 40 years
2) Drink at least one beer a day
3) Drink a Carnation Instant Breakfast every morning
4) Eat pinto beans at dinner every night
5) Watch a lot of Bonanza
6) Never give up your love of the casinos
7) Be married to the same woman for 65+ years
8) Love your family more than anything, especially your first born granddaughter
My grandpa probably won’t ever see this, but I’ll say it anyway:
Lenny Kravitz’s Mama Said album is one of my favorites of all time. I played the hell out of that sucker when it came out and for years afterward. It’s been awhile since I broke it out so maybe today it’s time. Let’s start with this:
When I first thought of this post it wasn’t supposed to be about Lenny Kravitz, but before I get to the meat and potatoes of it, I’d like to tell you a story from my archives.
Circa 1995 I lived in West Hollywood and worked in Mar Vista. My commute consisted of three streets: Right on Santa Monica Boulevard, left on La Brea Avenue, right on Venice Boulevard, reversed on the trip home. Easy, but traffic laden, so I generally spent about 30-45 minutes in the car each way.
Back then I had a fantasy that one day I would meet Lenny Kravitz, we’d hit it off, and fall in love. Okay, so I didn’t believe it would ever really happen (though at 25 I was nothing if not idealistic) but since I lived in LA and often had random celebrity sightings, it wasn’t such a far-fetched idea that I might actually see him one day. It was, as the title of the post indicates, “thinking positivity.”
So one day on the way home I was sitting in traffic on La Brea Avenue when I noticed a guy with long dreadlocks entering a furniture store on the right. It’s called Little Paris Antiques now but I’m fairly certain it was called something different back in the day.
There was no doubt in my mind it was Lenny Kravitz and it was an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up. Fortunately I was in the far right lane so I quickly pulled over and parked in front of the store.
It’s worth noting at this point that I’d skipped lunch that day and had stopped by the 7-11 on Venice and Sepulveda to buy a snack for the ride home. I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was crunchy and oniony, and left a powdery residue everywhere. I’d placed the open bag on the passenger seat and had been digging into it the whole ride home, so I’ll let you do the math on how I must’ve smelled. Still, I wasn’t about to let a little onion breath stand between me and my destiny. I ran into the store and it wasn’t long before I spied the man I’d seen enter.
Now, if this was a work of fiction, this is where I’d add the twist: the man turned around and it wasn’t Lenny Kravitz at all–it was just some poser. Cue the womp womp music.
But this was real life y’all! I found myself face to face with the man who was numero uno in my book. My Lenny radar had not failed me. It was the man himself.
I remember two things vividly about that meeting. 1) He was about as tall as I am, 5 ft. 4. 2) He had the most beautiful flaring nostrils I’d ever seen. Seriously, I could not stop looking at his nose.
He looked a bit panicked when I approached him. I quickly allayed his fears by telling him what a big fan I was and how much I respected him for being vocal about his commitment to Christianity. I loved me some Jesus big time back then. He just nodded politely while I spoke and then thanked me graciously, told me how sweet I was.
Did you hear that? He told me I was sweet. Unsurprisingly, that was the extent of our romance.
Okay, so this post wasn’t supposed to be about Lenny Kravitz. It was supposed to be about positivity.
Recently I started writing at a coffee shop on Sunday mornings with a couple of fellow writers. I noticed that we seem to spend a good deal of our time (when not writing of course) berating ourselves for not writing more. For not being more dedicated. For being slackers.
And yes, by some writers’ example, perhaps we are. But spending so much time talking about how we fail keeps us from being proud of how much we’ve achieved. With that in mind, I started reflecting on what I’ve accomplished since 2012 began:
1) Finished a major revision of DIARY OF BEDLAM, thereby greatly improving the manuscript
2) Started querying agents again
3) Had a flash fiction story published online
4) Contributed one short story to an upcoming anthology (a story, by the way, that I’m very proud of)
5) Been asked to contribute a second short story to a charity anthology
6) Hired a professional editor to edit DIARY OF BEDLAM
7) Begun implementing the suggestions of said editor
8) Started a new WIP
9) Started working with a critique group
Not too shabby!
This isn’t to say I can’t improve my work ethic, but sometimes it’s good for me to step back and look at what I have accomplished instead of dwelling on all the ways I don’t live up to my own expectations.
Naming one all-time favorite book is like choosing your favorite song–nearly impossible. Even as I was thinking about this post I thought well, really, it’s a toss up between two. Then I stopped myself and said NO. You get one and only one.
Sometimes I can be really hard on myself.
So I thought about it a little more. It became pretty clear what the favorite was, and so I shall name it:
It’s about as far from crime fiction as you can get, but I so dearly love this novel that I kinda-sorta get choked up just thinking about it. The ending is so bittersweet that I’ve never read it and not cried. And I’ve read it many, many times.
It’s not a sad book, not at all. It’s the story of Marjorie Morgenstern, a 17-year old, beautiful Jewish girl growing up in Manhattan in the 1930s. Her Russian immigrant parents have worked hard to make certain she has the perfect future: marriage to a prosperous Jewish boy and a family. But Marjorie has no interest in living the dull life her parents lead and has a different idea; she wants to be an actress on the Broadway stage. The book is a chronicle of her road to the stardom she dreams of, her struggle between what she thinks she wants and what society expects of her, and what, ultimately, she really wants out of life and love.
I so wish there was something brilliant I could say to make you understand how great this book is, but alas, I feel I’ve failed.
I first read MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR when I was around 15 years old. One could argue that I still view it with the idealistic eyes of a teenager and thus it might not be worthy of the title MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME. I’d concede that might be true but it doesn’t change the fact that Wouk’s characterizations, his portrayal of pre-war New York City, and the world in which Marjorie lives are so vivid and charming I can only say “idealization be damned, this is a kick-ass book.”
I’m turning 44 tomorrow so perhaps I’m feeling nostalgic, but MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR sums up much of what life is all about–endeavoring to achieve our dreams because we think that’s what will bring us happiness but realizing when it’s time to leave them behind.
See what I wrote there? Realizing when it’s time to leave your dreams behind.
I get misty just thinking about it.
But enough about me–I want to hear what your FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME is. And none of this toss-up crap. You get one and only one.
On Tuesday we celebrate the one year anniversary of living in our house. To celebrate, I thought I'd post pictures of my office space.
John Hornor Jacobs started this "trend" of writers showing their office a couple of months ago. It took me that long to clean up and rearrange my office, but over the weekend I finally got it in some kind of working order.
Here is the wide shot:
The room is pretty big, but since it's got to function as both my office, my gym, and our guest room, space must be used wisely.
Well, maybe not so wisely, because my desk is huge, and I love it. I got it from a Craigslist ad about four months ago.
There are actually no bookcases in the room since I've got a big one in the hallway right outside the door. But these are the books I use on a regular basis or that inspire me so I keep them close.
I know three monitors seems excessive but really, they are very useful.
The picture below is my treadmill desk. It's really not very high tech–Mick just built me a little wooden platform I can rest my laptop on. I try to go 10,000 steps a day, and most days, that means I have to spend a little quality time on the treadmill.
I was going for a Mad Men vibe with my furnishings. Didn't quite acheive it, but I'm very happy with it just the same. I got this chandelier for less than $100 on Overstock.com.
Another Craigslist find. This dresser is actually one of my favorite pieces of furniture in the house.
So I mentioned my office is also the guest room. This is actually a trundle bed that pulls out to make a king-size bed. Buying this was one of the best decisions we ever made because it saves so much space but allows our guests to be comfy.
Finally, this chair (another Craigslist item) doesn't serve much of a purpose other than to be awesome (it's partner is in the living room).
I still need to paint since the mint green doesn't quite do it for me, but that might not happen for awhile.
So this is where I work most days. If I'm writing a first draft I use a yellow legal pad and write all over the house. Sometimes I sit at the dining room table too because for some reason I find it hard to sit in the same spot all the time.
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