It Takes A Strong Woman To Raise A Neighborhood

Last night, I had a chat with a patient, like I always do.

Every night I chat with my patients in an effort to keep them calm, comfortable and focused on something other than the time it takes to put so many wires on them for a sleep study.  Usually, I'll talk about them: where they're from, what they do, their family and so on.  Sometimes, I talk about myself: the move from New York to Bellingham, being a Yankee fan in Mariners country, that I'm a writer, or how I got into sleep disorder treatment.

Last night, I talked for half an hour about my family, specifically my grandmother.

My grandmother at her 88th birthday.  She hasn't changed.

My grandmother is 95 years young.  If you've ever met her, young is absolutely the right way to say it.  When we were  kids, she lived with us.  My mom did the single mother thing and while that was an impressive and Herculean undertaking that I can't be grateful enough for, it's nearly impossible to do with seven children without some form of co-parenting.  My grandmother has been directly involved in our growth and raising since well before I was born.  She served as secret-keeper, disciplinarian, security guard, chef.  She told stories, offered guidance, encouraged moral values.  She got us out of bed (usually against our will) and made sure we got to school on time.  She helped guide my six older siblings and me to a strong work ethic and a sense of right and wrong.  And if the story stopped there, I'm sure all of you would be singing her praises.

What if I told you that she didn't stop there?

Starting from my earliest memories in the mid 1980's, my grandmother ran something of an impromptu day-care form our apartment. Flatbush was a working-class, Caribbean immigrant neighborhood back then.  New parents who simply had to return to work to make ends meet would drop children off at our apartment in the morning and come get them after work.  These children were young, some just a few weeks old, and my grandmother would care for them as she cared for us.  They would be in our apartment every day from the time they were little until their first day of school, with my grandmother charging a generously small fee ($50 a week, if I remember correctly).  And after their first day of school, those children would often end up in our apartment until their parents got home from work.

Now, no story is completely happy.  While most of those kids would go on to be normal, functioning members of society, some of them fell victim to the trappings of a bad neighborhood.  Some of them got involved with bad people who did messed-up things.  But they would see my grandmother in the street and they would stand up straight, smile a smile they likely forgot how, and politely say "Good morning, Mama, how are you today?" like they were the kids she remembered them as.  Respect, from people you wouldn't have expected it from.

My grandmother is 95 years young and thankfully still going strong.  While she can't lift children the way she used to and she can't chase around toddlers the way she'd want to, she still loves children.  I think they keep her young.  She's been telling me since my mid-20's that she's waiting around for me to have kids, that she wants to see my kids.  I tell her the same thing every time.

"Keep waiting.  I like having you here."

The Best Second Job, Ever. (No, seriously)

I'm at my job right now as a sleep tech with my one patient sleeping like a baby.  While I'm watching this person, I'm scouring the internet, looking for free review websites, looking for pay review websites, looking for bookstores that support indie authors.  I jot down numbers and email addresses and email my new list of people, asking what their indie book policies are, and if they'd be willing to carry my novel.  I'm taking the reviews I do have and cobbling them together in a press kit while cursing myself for not having enough scratch to hire a publicist.  I'm designing flyers for my first (ever) author event and trying to set up more in one of the stores that cautiously agrees to buy one copy of my book as a tester to see if it sells.

When I get off my 12-hour shift at 7:00 in the morning, I go home, try to eat something with at least one healthy ingredient and get back on the internet for another hour.  I send out a few more emails, a few more requests, and obsessively check my inbox for a reply from the previous day, or from earlier in the night.  By 9 I'm wiped and head to bed, but I keep my phone nearby on vibrate so I can hear it when and if someone eventually calls back.  I wake up at 3:00 in the afternoon and call the numbers from the previous night; it's my first opportunity to reach them since they opened while I was sleeping.  I speak to the book buyer, or whomever will actually listen to me, and I pitch them my book.

This is my experience at being an author.  This is my second job.

I'm completely untrained, totally inexperienced, an winging it as I go.  The only instruction I have is a three year old copy of The Indie Author Guide and my own notes as to what hasn't worked.   I'm my own marketing department, sales division, budgetary committee.  I'm my own press room, advertising firm.

It's more of a daunting task than I expected.

So why do it myself?  Why not go the traditional route?  A few reasons.  For starters, the traditional publishing industry has changed dramatically than what you may remember.  I hear stories of authors putting together their own book tours, contacting news media on their own... basically doing everything I'm doing now.  So if the only difference is the name of the company on the spine and the percentage of royalty you get (I hear it's low by the way), then why not do it yourself?

And if the truth were to be known, I rather enjoy it.

For the first time in my adult life, success or failure is completely, expressly in my hands, AND directly affects me.  This isn't like being productive at the desk that we sit behind at work (incidentally, I need to periodically check on my patient while I rant).   In that environment, there is a higher margin for error, and your best efforts make your bosses' bosses' bosses  rich, not you.  I'm happy to know that I only go as far as my abilities take me.  I like this.

Don't get me wrong, I like being a writer more, and there is a distinct difference between the two, but this is great!  I'm getting a list together of today's emails, moving south to see who wants to join Village Books in Bellingham and Edmonds Bookshop (both in Washington, and yes I'm name dropping).  This is the best second job you could have.]

It's about 4:00 AM now.  I've got my new list to create, new numbers to pull, and a flyer design to refine.

Changing of the Guard

I've been in deep thought since the recent death of my father.

One of the things I keep thinking about is how my childhood is really, officially over.  I know, I'm almost 35, my childhood should have been over almost two decades ago.  I'm not talking about being grown up, I'm talking about not having the previous generation available for guidance.

And such is the circle of life, I guess.  Every generation tries to teach the next through guidance and absence, through lessons and examples both good and bad.  They try to teach how to be.  How to be a provider, or how not to be one.  How to be responsible for a life, or how not to be.  How to gain or lose respect.  And while they're around and able, they're a valuable resource to have in your back pocket.  They are a valuable sounding board, they are your biggest cheerleaders, they believe in you without reason, or at the barest minimum give you a continuing example of what you either want or don't want.  Once they're gone or infirm, or to a lesser extent relocated, the time for theory is over.  The responsibility is not of the teacher anymore to teach us, but of the student to apply what we have learned and to infer what the proper course of action.  Training is over.  The keys to the world are bequeathed to us.

My father was a flawed man, as we all are, but at his core he was a good man.  While he was never as much a presence in my life as either one of us would have liked, I do feel the absence.  I have learned all the lessons I can from him in regards to how to be a man, and how to balance pride and humility, joy and pain, success and failure.  My brothers and I can only hope to apply the lessons learned from this man's life to our children when the time comes.

And in doing so, prepare the world for its next keyholders.

Review: Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore is far and away my favorite author.  I own every novel he's written,
read most of them multiple times, and no longer require any information other than the
fact a new one is coming out to pre-order.  Admittedly, I read his often hilarious
works out of order, and it's a good thing.  Had I started with his first published
novel, Practical Demonkeeping, I'd either be incredibly impressed by his evolution over
the last 20 years or I would have been shocked his career lasted this long.  That's not
to say it's a bad book, just not one to hinge the two decades of success he's had.

Set in the fictional small town of Pine Cove, California, Practical Demonkeeping
introduces us to an entire town of slightly-off, small-town characters, all of whom
have slightly-off, small town issues.  From the owner of the local bait shop/general
store, to the workers in the local diner, to the local bar where everyone knows your
name, Pine Cove is an "everyone-knows-everyone" setting.  So when Travis O'Hearn shows
up with his sometimes-invisible demon, Catch, all hell breaks loose.  You see, Catch
eats people, and has been eating people for a very long time, and the sudden
disappearance and death of people in tiny Pine Cove sets the town on its ear.  A djinn
tasked with defeating Catch has also traveled to Pine Cove and aligns itself with the
local bait shop owner, Augustus Brine, and they search for a way to stem Catch's
appetite for destruction.

Moore does a really good job of taking stock characters and making them into a
believable small town. These are characters he re-uses in several of his later works,
which extends the payoff in investing in these characters.  Having read his entire
bibliography, it is difficult to separate this from the larger universe he's created in
Pine Cove, but when you do you find that this story is the weakest of them all.  Again,
not to say it's bad, just to say I'm spoiled by his later work.  I wouldn't recommend
someone new to this author read this novel first.  It is however, worth reading.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Public Service Announcement

This is a message in two parts.  Part one is positive.  Part two is a call to arms.

We are all possessed of something special.  We all have something that sets us apart.  It's not necessarily physical, although some of us are athletic, or tall, or beautiful.  It is not necessarily mental, even though some of us are intelligent or creative.  It is not necessarily social, although some of us are funny, charming or charismatic.  It may be all of these things or none.  But we all have the ability to change the world.

At the lowest common denominator, life is made of impact ripples.  One thing impacts another, which impacts another and more until we inexorably feel the impact, big or small in return.  It's a greasy frictionless pool table with no pockets.  And everyone -- EVERYONE -- is capable of setting something in motion.  Everyone is special.  Whether you impact one person or a thousand, you make an impact.  And because of your existence, your direct or indirect impact, someone's life has been altered.  We would all do well to keep this in mind when we question our place in the world.

Part two.

I am not alone in thinking that I am not meant to be simply a cog in the great machine.  I am not just a little part who keeps spinning until worn to nothing, then replaced and discarded.  I am not alone in this.

We have the power, you, me, all of us, to remove ourselves from the machine, to become more than just parts.  We have the ability to do it ourselves and/or with others.  We have passions that will elevate us from the machine, even if we are not entirely sure what they are or how to properly use them.

I encourage you, writers, thinkers, creators, artists, athletes... step outside the machine.  Let us create our own machine.  Let us fulfill our destinies.

Benediction (short post)

Okay, so it's the closing hours of... well everything.  The Mayans, who couldn't predict their end at the hands of the Conquistadors, foretold that the world will end sometime in the next 24 hours.  Of course, this is nonsense, but let's assume for a second that they're right, and all my efforts to save the world (basically drinking and partying) fail.  I'm not worried about how it'll happen, or what it'll be like.  I'm worried about dying and not getting to say what I have to say.  The most important thing I'll ever say, ever again.

I love you.

And you.  You too, over there in the back.  All of you.  Even you, right there.  All the family, the friends I've had, the loves, the haters, the critics and the supporters.  I love each and every last one of you.  More than any of you can possibly realize.  The experience of knowing you, of being in the presence of your words and emotions, good and bad, has shaped me into who I am and who I've tried to be.  Even if I haven't spoken to you in years, or we just talked yesterday.

I'm going to do everything I can to save us (read: party and drink).  In the event I'm not successful, you should know this.  And if I am successful...

Th world as we know it should end.  The hatred should be replaced with love.  The apathy should be exchanged for compassion.  Division should be countered by unity.  There's more that we have in common than we have different.  Remember that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a world to save.

Politics: In Case The Revolution Comes

Living in Brooklyn in the early 1990's meant dealing with gun violence.

In Flatbush at night, shots were frequently fired into the air and sent many of my friends diving for cover, even in the relative safety of their own homes.  Gunshots broke through windows and splintered doors, and it seems that almost nightly there was news of someone dying in a violent shootout somewhere in the borough. suffice it to say, it wasn't exactly fun.  Fast-forward 20-some years: the Second Amendment is touted as one of our most sacred of rights, that the threat of losing the right to bear arms is tantamount to the dissolution of civilization itself.

Take away our guns, and the terrorists win.

Before branding me the liberal that I am, let me say out loud and on the record that yes, I do understand that there is a difference between the guns that were fired on the block back home are different from the guns that everyone else is talking about.  Those guns were obtained "illegally" and likely were bought to perpetrate some evil crime or something or another.  The guns that the "good" people are talking about make everyone safer; after all, good responsible folk don't go around shooting people randomly, do they?

Living in the Pacific Northwest has been an eye opener to me.  New York State's gun laws are restrictive and nearly oppressive, being highly punitive to unlicensed weaponry.  Assault weaponry is banned, particularly in New York City, and the emphasis is keeping guns out of the hands of unbalanced people, and off the streets for potential criminal activity.  This makes New York State, despite the proliferation of illegal firearms in the State, one of the safest places from the threat of firearms.  By contrast, Washington State's culture regarding firearms is a bit different.  The laws are more lax, the attitudes are more lax.  Should it be surprising, then, that according to the FBI's unified statistics on crime, there are more violent crimes by handgun per capita in Washington State than in New York?  It shouldn't be but I bet people are shocked.

Now here's the question I want people to answer for me.  I understand why we have the right to bear arms, but why do we have the need to bear arms?  The answer I hear most is for protection, which seems kind of absurd to me.  I mean, only scared people need protection, and only scared people are likely shoot other people.  Why do people need to carry guns outside of the home?

I am, obviously, a big supporter of strict gun control.  I've seen too many funerals of too many friends from too many shootouts.  I believe the Second Amendment was made in a time of war, where the last thing anyone wanted to do was be unprepared in the event of an invasion by the British.  The times have passed, and unless we're waiting for the Revolution to come, we don't need to be armed like that.

I do believe the Federal Government should impose strict gun control laws.  I believe that there should be a yearly cap on the amount of firearms and ammunition produced for anything other than military and law enforcement purposes.  I believe that the right to carry in public or conceal and carry is ludicrous and should be repealed.

Unless, of course, the Revolution gon' come.

Is the Civil Rights Movement over? (short post)

Today, the state of North Carolina will pass a constitutional amendment strictly defining marriage as between a man and a woman, thereby banning gay marriage, and becoming the 30th state to do so.  I'm not gay, and I can  still see how this affects me directly.

We are regressing as a nation, folks.  We have gotten to the point where we are selectively disallowing certain American citizens certain rights.  We've been down this road before, in the Jim Crow-era South, and it didn't work out so well.  The law banning the practice of Islam, as short-sighted and asinine as it would be, is just around the corner should this come to pass.  After all, one of the reasons this is even a conversation is that "we're a Christian nation."

The collective xenophobia (fear of the unknown) of the powers-that-be are going to descend this nation into a very dark time.  The turbulent 60's, the movements of Dr. King and Malcolm X may have been in the short term about black Americans, but the bigger picture of what they fought for is that legislated injustice should not be allowed to stand.  The differences between us should not empower one individual over another, should not entitle one to basic human rights over another.

So I posit this thought; is the Civil Rights Movement over?  I mean, we got what we wanted out of it, and we even have a President in office to show for it.  Is this as far as it goes?

"Believe me, that IS hard work."

Warning:  The following post is of a political nature, exemplifying my pinko leftist commie beliefs and railing against wealthy right-wingers.  It also contains sexual wordplay involving politicians and their wives.  Reader discretion is advised.

The most demeaning thing that's ever happened to me happened when I was about 19 years old, living in New York, and making just a hair above minimum wage at a thankless job I worked after school.  It was at a home heating fuel company, and the grandson of the owner was brought in to meet the staff.  He was about 12 or 13 at the time.  My older brother and I were the only people of color who worked in the office as opposed to out on the trucks, and he paid particular attention to us.  He came to me (and my brother, I later found out) and asked what it was like to work and go to school.  After I told him the answer (it sucked and I was always broke), he said to me "Keep at it.  That sort of thing builds character."

I'm sure he thought he was being inspirational.

I bring this up because of a conversation I had with a co-worker.  I've been largely ignorant of the political scene this election cycle because as we get closer to a one-on-one battle, the rhetoric gets ramped up to unpleasantly ugly attacks and I want no part of it.  I know who I'm voting for already, and have no time or patience for what amounts to a high stakes playground game of "the dozens."  That said, it was brought to my attention that a woman publicly criticized Ann Romney, the wife of probably Republican candidate Mitt Romney, as being unfit to comment on the state of women in the workplace considering that as a stay-at-home mom and wife of a gajillionaire, she's never worked a day in her life.  Her response:  "I was a stay at home mom raising five boys.  Believe me, that IS hard work."

Huh.

There is so much here to dissect.  Let's start with the fact that the woman, Hilary Rosen, an LGBT activist, was forced to apologize.  For exercising her First Amendment rights.  Simply because this rich chick got offended.  Is that where we are now?  It's okay to call Trayvon Martin a thug, or say on radio that women who require contraceptives should be made to videotape their sex lives, but offend a rich chick who had the good fortune to blow the stock broker who became Governor, and all hell breaks loose?  Certain factions of the populations make derogatory racial remarks about our PRESIDENT, but offend a rich white lady and you have to apologize.  I call bullshit.  The people who are so fervent about protecting certain rights seem to be very pissed off when these rights extend past them to the rest of us.

Secondly, Ms. Rosen was right.  Ann Romney hasn't had to work hard a day in her life, and between Mormon missionary work and the "job" that got her married, she hasn't ever had to punch a clock.  She's never had to make ends meet.  And let's be real, I find it hard to believe this rich missionary lady ever really had to do very much of the actual raising of her five boys.  It's easy to be a stay at home mom when you never have to even worry about paying the bills.  My mother never had that luxury.  She worked, put herself through school and fed seven hungry mouths.  Now believe me, THAT is hard work.

I have a huge problem with this "let them eat cake" attitude with which the wealthy 1% regards the rest of us.  This culture of entitlement they seem to have engendered has only gotten more brazen in the wake of the Bush years, that they are supposed to walk over us, and we are supposed to genuflect before them and that is just supposed to be the status quo.  No.  Hell no.  That's not the country the Founding Fathers signed on for.

Reality Check.

Once upon a time, when we were children, we all said we would save the world.  I remember a particular English class in IS 391 (Thanks, Ms. Amy Greenberg) in which we wrote our own eulogies, and listed the accomplishments we would have made.  Some of us said we'd cure cancer or AIDS, some said we'd be rappers or movie stars, or famous lawyers and authors.  And while we have all enjoyed a modicum of success, I hazard to guess that very few of my friends from IS 391's class of 1992 have impacted the world the way we thought we would.  I guess that's a consequence of the reality of adulthood, putting away the bigger dreams of our childhood in favor of more practical ones.

I came across a YouTube clip of someone around my age who, when she was a child, actually TRIED to save the world, and is actively still doing so.

The young woman in question is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who at 12 was an environmental activist.  She gives a compelling speech 20 years ago at a UN Environmental summit that is painfully relevant today.  It silenced a room full of adults in 1992, and very likely would do so again today.  It was honest and heartfelt, and filtered only through the honesty of a child.  In it was no political maneuvering, no base to pander to.  It was a direct, simple statement that showed how we did, and still, make things like communicating as adults more difficult and complicated than we need to. While some would criticize her naivete, her lack of understanding of how the world works, I believe that same quality is what makes it resonate so strongly.  She doesn't understand the way the works, not because she doesn't know but because it makes no sense. It moved me very nearly to tears and put a couple of things very sharply into perspective.

For starters, though we are taught differently as children, we are very wasteful people as adults.  We seek to consume and dominate without ever seeking balance, and what doesn't fit gets thrown to the wayside.  Our society is like this in every phase, from living environment and feeding, to work, to play, to religion, and everything in between.  Human nature seems to be about creating and overcoming struggle, and it doesn't need to be about all that.  Especially not us in the Western world, especially not in this day and age.  And a quickie review of the things in my life that are wasteful, I on a personal level don't need to completely rewrite my life to make things better for the people around me.

The other thing that was put into perspective was the definition of impact.  Ms. Suzuki made an impact that is still rippling today, as evidenced by the fact that the things she was right about in the above 1992 video, she's still right about now.  We are still watching her humble a room full of delegates, businessmen and "important people."   It made me stop and think about the lasting impact my actions have had, or will have.  How have I affected the world around me?  How will I?

And that's the big reality check.  I wrote in my eulogy in 1992 that I would cure cancer and AIDS before dying old and rich in the arms of my young supermodel wife.  It's funny now, but I genuinely believed I would back then, and that it would be no big deal.  I haven't done anything more important in my life than have that dream when I was 13.  And though some of us have families to provide for, mouths to feed, lives to help shape, I would dare say that most of us have never had dreams wider in scope than when we were 13.

And that, my friends, is a tragedy.  We have become the adults in the video.

PS: Severn Cullis-Suzuki is STILL trying to save the world, these days for her child and that generation.