2 Weeks Vacation

Strangely, travelling is one of my more relaxing experiences. Not to overlook the strain of the TSA (complicating matters is the fact that I saved space in my suitcase by wearing my bulkiest jacket and high-heeled boots, not exactly easy to take off & put back on in a rush) or even the physical strain of lugging a backpack and suitcase for 12+ hours (ah, carry on). But at least things are simple. I never bother with WiFi while flying, so I am completely unlinked from the Internet for the duration of my trip, and have nothing to do but read, jot notes, and navigate terminals. Focusing on one thing at a time is refreshing.

And even after as much flying as I've done over the past 18 months, there's something to be said for getting  a window seat at 40,000 feet up.

My journey to California was actually a fair bit more than 12 hours. This wasn't only because of time zone differences--the longest portion of my journey took me from my doorstep to the C Terminal at Reagan National Airport. With a stop of about 10 hours at the baggage claim.

Pros of booking early morning flights: it's cheap; setting off early allows me to cross the North American continent and arrive at my sister's with some daylight left.

Con of booking and early morning flight out of DC: the buses were not running early enough to get me to Reagan in time to go through security, or even walk across the terminals.

You can read the rest of my adventure at Reagan International at the review I wrote for SleepingInAirports.com. This was the last time I expect to be at Reagan for a while--if I need to fly anywhere over the next 6 weeks, it will be because of an emergency--so I didn't mind a last hurrah sleepover. That doesn't mean I wasn't a teeny bit disgruntled at the fellow in the distinctly unslept-in suit behind me in line who complained about how early it was in line for check n at about 4:30 am.

Oh, about that 6 week figure--DC is a wonderful city, and I have made many friends here. But a number of push/pull factors, from the financial to the familial, have made me decide that I'll be moving back to Wisconsin by June. Lots of hopping about, I know. But in the meantime, the reason for this particular cross-country flight, was to visit my sister, an English grad student who is currently stuck in the state of California for a year because of residency requirements.

At the Sacramento airport, I, or at least the plush Eighth Doctor who is my travel companion (perhaps I am his), was greeted by my sister holding up a silly sign.

Accurate, too

First things first: after eating nothing but airport pretzels all day (I said travel was relaxing, not good for digestion), we broke my fast on In-n-Out Burgers, devoured as my sister drove at something like 80 miles per hour on a California rural roadway. At last we arrived in Davis, a town of 60,000 or so people that looked disconcertingly like a mixture of the Midwest and California, and not at all like DC. The mountains weren't visible in the torrential downfall I arrived in, but at least the drought was being broken.

My sister's apartment, shared among 3 English grad students, was very scenic--with everything from fresh flowers to Waterhouse prints to bike maps of Davis and, the crowning distraction, a poster of Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus. 

(As a self-indulgent aside, there's a simmering debate over exactly how much that shower scene was meant to pull in female viewers. In context, it's very painful and disturbing, but I think the fact that they put it on the posters is giving ammo to one party).

Her room was tastefully decorated in a blend of inherited antiques, Ikea pieces, and lots and lots of grad student books. Bookshelf, window ledge, and closet shelves were all crowded with pieces. I enjoyed reading about Victorians, the Gothic, queer theory, and...well, let's just say my sister thoughtfully bought me a gift:

The Powers of Evil by Richard Cavendish is actually an excellent reference for any dark fantasy or horror writer. Some of his theories may be out of date--the book is from 1975--but it's very fluently written and occasionally, as I discovered reading the introduction in the dark of a storm-tossed California night, bloody terrifying.

I spent most of Wednesday recovering from jet lag and enjoying a tour of Davis, from the Delta cafe to the university library. It was a glorious library.

On Thursday, there was a TA strike at the University of California, and my sister's classes were canceled in solidarity. And then--perhaps not so much in solidarity, not that I don't wish the striking workers the best--we went up to Napa and Sonoma. My sister worked in the liquor department of a grocery store long enough to recognize some of the names, while I just dazzled at the sight of grape vines, hills, flowers, and buildings that ranged from California ranches to Mediterranean villas of debatable taste, or at least fittingness with location. Apparently there is an honest to god castle somewhere in the valley, but I didn't get to see it. Perhaps because we didn't do our wine tasting until later in the day, after we'd have a full picnic lunch at Sattui and gelato in between window shopping in downtown Sonoma.

I have no taste for wine, none at all. It is an acquired taste, one I do not have the time or the depth of wallet to acquire. And as some have pointed out, there's a narrow delineation between "acquired taste" and "Stockholm syndrome." I've taught myself to like tofu, sushi, green beans, and black coffee, but wine continues to elude me. I may have scandalized our, ah, server? Administrator of the wine tasting? Holy high priest of the vine? when I honestly answered "sweet" when asked what wines I preferred. "We don't get those out here," he said, in a tone of voice that is the equivalent of a Catholic crossing herself. Or maybe that was just my self-conscious imagination. I did get to try a port for the first time, and it was splendid. Dessert wines and Door County fruit wines for me only, I think.

Not that I didn't taste any of the others. And, to be polite, I finished everything they poured me (although I knew this wasn't necessary). And so I experienced the most interesting state of floaty numbness, starting from the mouth and spreading outwards. I'm not sure I'd call it intoxication so much as anesthesia. You could have performed oral surgery on me and I'd have remained cheerful as bee buzzing from valley flower to valley flower.

My sister, who as a graduate student in Northern California is far more acquainted with the juice of the vine than I am, was unaffected and drove us home without incident.

Friday was another relatively non-eventful day--I had some client work (luckily nothing came up before I napped off the wine) to catch up on and generally enjoyed my sister's apartment swimming pool. Over the weekend, Davis had a tiny little conference on the history and philosophy of science. I'd taken one course on that in college and so knew enough to be fascinated with the presentations, even if I didn't entirely understand them. There were some heated debates about quantum mechanics that I just couldn't follow, however much I thought I'd absorbed the concept of quantum whatever from Dan Simmon's Ilium (that reminds me, I should do a book review one of these days. Ilium: riotous good fun. Olympos: terribly disappointing follow up. How could you go so wrong with Greek gods, robots, cosmic horror, time travel and quantum entanglement? Well, you could add random subplots with black hole bombs and Islamophobia aftertaste, plus some pretty dull depictions of the Amazons, for a start. Ooo, lady warriors are shrieking harridans,  what a fascinatingly unique take, Mr. Simmons).

For a less intellectual palate chaser, my sister and I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So nice to see Washington, D.C. again, even if it was frequently being blown up. Although not as challenging to the gray cells as quantum mechanics, it was engaging on more than a flashy pyrotechnical level. I teared up a few times, not just because I'm pretty sure I and/or several of my friends died during the climax (maybe not--my house is on high ground...but no spoilers) and there's plenty of political commentary to chew on.

Speaking of movies, the next presentation I went to at Davis was one on James Cameron's Avatar and activism. A year to the day of the colloquium, I had just returned from Ghana, and I still have a number of ideas for stories to write that include environmental sci-fi themes, so there was a lot in the presentation to interest me and also much I should take to heart, well-intentioned white writer that I am. As you might guess from the fact that the approach is described as "global feminist environmental justice cultural studies," it's a complex issue. Marxism was also involved, but then when isn't it. Meanwhile, I'm belatedly vindicated in my disappointment walking out of the theater years ago, because while I could enthuse to a limited extent with my friends about the fantastic graphics, the tired old storytelling and sexist storytelling (I wasn't yet as conscious of the racial issues) filled me with a deep sense of disappointment. Meanwhile, Winter Soldier is proof that you can tell a story that will actually have people arguing politics over it, and entertain without completely marginalizing everyone who isn't a white male (obligatory "Give us a Black Widow" movie here. Additional "I'd really enjoy a Falcon movie," because Anthony Mackie is delight personified). For all that, it was interesting to see how indigenous groups harnessed Avatar and James Cameron himself to further their causes. 

Presentations and media crit/consumption aside, the other thing I did a lot in California was eat. Davis, not unexpectedly, has a farmer's market, which not only provided my sister with a supply of fresh vegetables to experiment with but also gave me a one-stop location to sample various eateries she has been telling me about since she arrived in September. And then there were all the other places--from the Delta Cafe (the full name, as I discovered on my last day, was Delta of Venus, and let's laugh together at all the obvious puns. The graffiti in their bathroom was something to see, too) to the Black Bear Diner to the mysteriously good "breakfast place" in the nearby hamlet of Winters my sister had heard rumor of. I got my sister back into the habit of eating breakfast, which finals week had knocked out of her, and introduced her to eel sushi. She introduced me to actually cooking with an oven and a well-stocked, well-organized kitchen. 

She also introduced me to that greatest of US Davis celebrations, lauded by multiple fliers, plenty of chatter, a myriad of closed-off roads, and a disconcerting number of police and campus statements asking people to please not repeat incidents involving alcohol and other such illegalities. Although the poor people at the coffee house we went to were neighbors of a fart house that had been welcoming visitors to the fraternal bosom of Davis with loud and profane exclamations since 5 that morning, literally everyone else in the entire city was excellently behaved. Included the students in the Picnic Day Parade who were protesting police violence. On a lighter note, there was the Whimcycle club (from tandem bicycles to arm power-driven bicycles to converted motorcycles to a bike that incorporated a hammock for the driver's slumbering offspring), a Cycle de Mayo and a Tour de...something with chickens (you had to be there), and the classics department of Davis sporting a Greek Underworld masquerade. Tantalus wore a colorful, fish-patterned shower curtain to represent the pool he is forever drowning in, which along with the ripe bunch of plastic grapes over his head threw me a bit because I wondered if he was supposed to be Dionysus thrown into the sea and turning sailors into dolphins. Sort of outsmarted myself there (I blame The Powers of Evil). 

The next day, my penultimate day in California, I attended my first craft fair of 2014. It looks like adorable crochet animals are in, which I do not protest in the slightest. Plushie Eighth Doctor did not get a little friend, though--I had no room in my luggage. 

We came home to some tragic news of a loss in the family back in Wisconsin. Frankly, it's a bit eerie--disaster struck back home the day my sister left me after her visit to DC last year. Does the universe not want us to ever split up? Are we cursed? Is it a curse I can only break by doing the one thing I am least inclined to do--stop seeing my sister?

I'm a rationalist, a philosophy major, a skeptic. But I also have a very deep sense--or call it a willingness to see--patterns. This is one of the few psychological tendencies of mine that actually appears in my writing. In my stories, perhaps especially the unpublished ones, structure recurs, patterns emerge, and the predominant themes are of echoing and returning. More echoes than returns, to be honest. Ever since I started writing, I have wanted to keep a sort of realism in place, and part of that realism, I am painfully aware, is that too few things ever really return. 

My sister used to be very "into" irony (being destined for a PhD in Literature makes one destined to get "into" literary devices, I suppose), and now I think I'm growing into it--dramatic irony being a wonderful tool. When it happens in real life it's more than a little unsettling. I have had times when I felt like a character in a story, where my actions were not constrained yet still felt recorded; incidents which I could look back on with a sense of satisfaction. It's much less fun to feel like you're in a horror story.

Perhaps I had read too much of Cavendish's Powers of Evil. 

If it helps, my dark feeling of doom was redeemed by a few grace moments on my trip home. My layover was in Milwaukee, and my mother came down to meet me at the gate. If you ever get the chance to meet friends during a layover, I highly recommend it--so long as you're prepared to go back through security again. Which I was. I had an hour.

Time passes quickly when you're talking with someone you haven't seen since Christmas, though, and next I knew my flight's boarding call was announced. As I got to security, my name was announced. I've had that happen twice before--once in Washington D.C. without even realizing it ("Don't tell me you've been sitting there all this time," the stewardess told me as I ambled up to the gate. "Um, no, I've just arrived," I blithely replied.  "Right answer.") and once in Milwaukee just after I'd got through security. That last time had led to me dashing for my gate, something I promised myself I would never do again. Just that morning in Sacramento I'd seen a well-dressed man running for his gate and laughed internally with a feeling of superiority.

Well, this time the Milwaukee TSA staff were very nice about helping to hustle me through when I suddenly discovered I was an intercom celebrity. And if you ever get the chance to run like hell is on your heels for your departing plane--I highly suggest you do it. For one thing, it's a great cardio workout (not only was I carting a heavy Samsonite carry-on, I also, unlike the well-heeled businessman in Sacramento, was wearing my high-heeled travel boots. Anything Fred Astaire did Ginger Rogers did in high heels, etc.). Even better, you become part of the airport ambiance, and a source of diversion to your fellow travelers. If this attention flusters you, I suppose you could always pretend to me the star of some romantic film rushing to meet your lover before they depart forever (passionately screaming out a name of any sex may encourage this image). I didn't, but I may have provided fitness inspiration to at least one woman whose "Woah," sounded vaguely approving as I flew by. The next guy's "Woah" sounded more disturbed than impressed, but it's not like I collided with him or anything. And the three preteens understood the script precisely, encouraging me to "Go go go!"

It's not that I genuinely thought I would miss my flight, but I'm a worrier by nature. So long as I was running, I wasn't worrying.

It probably took me the entire flight to DC to recover from that mad dash, though.

I returned to the district to pouring rain (I'm a rain-bringer, I guess). As the plane taxied to the terminal I got a text from my friend asking if we had time for our Tuesday night writing/library parties. Well, sort of. And I'm glad I did drop by to the library, because it gave me the chance to say goodbye to one of the Palisades librarians who is being moved to a different branch next week. She'd got the news suddenly and wasn't sure if she'd have the chance to see me one last time in person. I'm touched to be remembered (I guess becoming a weekly regular does make a difference). I wish her the best.

While I was there, I picked up the 3 most recent Best Food Writing anthologies. Perhaps because of my recent trip to Davis, or discussions my friends and I have had about sensuality/sensual experiences in writing, or else because food and culture have been a lifelong interest of mine (there's a series of historical cookbooks out there that I adored when I was younger--not that I was interested in cooking medieval pottage of Stuart anything myself, I just was interested to learn about them and wanted to be sure those long-ago peasants were well fed), I dug in. They've been fascinating so far. "On Killing," an essay on hunting by Hank Shaw in the 2012 anthology, brought chills. A sweeter story was "From Kenya, With Love" by Rick Nelson from 2011, which is about a Kenyan family growing Kenyan greens to sell among their 7,000-10,000 community in the Twin Cities, on land they purchased from a lesbian couple in Wisconsin. And "The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater," by Erica Strauss in 2013, was predictable yet amusing, and frighteningly verging on truth for either California or D.C. Come to think on it, Madison is supposed to have an excellent Slow Food movement, which whatever its virtues may also include such complicated soul-searching over vegetable sourcing (or, as Shaw would put it more bluntly: habitat is important to animals, too, and animal habitat is what your vegetables are grown on. "We all have animals' blood on our hands, only I can see it on mine.")

Still, it's perhaps a bit cruel to surround oneself with food anthologies when you have nothing to eat but leftover airplane pretzels. Wednesday was taken up by catching up on work and undertaking a grocery pilgrimage to Trader Joe's. How's that for a predictable pattern?

Conflict-free, Fair Trade, and 3D Printed: How Consumer Electronics can be made Ethical and Ecofriendly

As a writer, I'm acutely aware that my chosen profession is not exactly eco-friendly. Many trees have died for my journals and publications--although a handful of books are now being printed on recycled plastic, making them both waterproof and a potential solution to overcrowded landfills--and it seems like even when I move away from hard copies poor planet earth can't win. To say nothing of the conflict minerals that go into phones, computers, and other electronics.

So I was really excited to do the research for this week's Fair Trade Friday post at the Amani DC blog. The subject: ethical consumer electronics. There have been two interesting new developments: first, the Fairphone in Europe comes as close as possible to a fully ethical smartphone, built with conflict-free materials mined and constructed by workers earning living wages and designed to be long-lasting to minimize waste from disposing of old electronics.


Another way to keep more phones out of landfills comes from Motorola's Ara phone--constructed of puzzle-piece like "Phonebloks," some of which can be created through 3D printing, the Ara is designed for extreme user customization but also virtually eliminates the need to ever buy a new phone. Instead, you can upgrade or replace each Phoneblok as needed or desired--your cracked screen, old battery, or subpar camera can be switched out for a better blok without having to dispose of the entire phone. Plus, the Ara looks pretty awesome.



The Fairphone seems pretty popular in Europe (25,000 phones sold so far--not a lot in the scheme of things, but a nice amount given it's barely been released yet), but the Ara is still in the tinkering stage and it's unclear if it'll really catch on. If it does, though, the potential impact could be amazing, especially if these innovations are scaled up to other electronics besides phones. Laptopbloks, anyone?

Say Yes! Women's Crowdfunding Campaign

I am not done with blogging about crowdfunding, it seems. Today my Fair Trade Friday post up at the Amani DC page is dedicated to an awesome new campaign which combines ecofriendly 'upcycling' (recycling in a way that creates a product with greater value than the original) with women's empowerment by supporting refugees in the Austin, Texas area: Open Arms and Blue Avocado's "Say YES!" campaign.

As you might be able to guess, I am also becoming a big fan of the site Moola-Hoop.

We didn't choose the Folklife, the Folklife chose us--and other updates

So I'll start with the sad news, because the past two weeks have been tough: I got to visit Las Vegas for the first time, but under some of the worst possible circumstances. My uncle living there passed away and I went to attend the funeral and visit with my cousins (and also some immediate family members--we welcomed the chance to offer face-to-face support after certain recent events, which I might add are completely unrelated to this funeral. Troubles never come one at a time).

Sad as the reason for our visit might be, it was amusing to drive down the Strip with my mom and aunt, who tried to remember the place as it had been decades ago when they visited their sister--I only know the place from TV and felt like I recognized more than they did!

A forest fire is currently raging in the mountains, so we got treated (if that's the word) to the most appalling skies gone yellow with smoke. In the Midwest that would be the sign for a tornado. I'm not sure forest fires are much better--there can't be many trees to burn out there. Plus my last semester of college taught me just enough to know that trees are carbon storage devices and thus burning them is bad for multiple reasons. Although compared to the city of Las Vegas, the carbon released by burning forests can't be that impressive.

Las Vegas reminded me half of Hollywood (there's a certain sort of atmosphere, 'touristy' doesn't even come close to describing it--I live in DC, I get touristy, but this is aggressively, loudly, capitalistically touristy) and a surprising bit of Ghana, with the tropical architecture and the heat. If anything Vegas felt hotter, and also drier than any atmosphere I've ever stood in. I'm used to humidity, so that the lack of it felt unsettling.

Speaking of heat, I enjoyed (again, if that's the word) the experience of nearly blacking out this past weekend while waiting in line for water at the DC Folklife Festival. Scary and embarrassing. Despite that, I'm very glad I went and got to hear Kalmyk music and see the Hungarian fashion show. It reminds me though, to keep hydrated in urban environments as much as in the desert.

Blogging will hopefully be less interrupted in the future, as I have plans for, if nothing else, some more book reviews. I've had the chance to work on my reading list while waiting in airports. I got to gamble a bit in the Las Vegas airport but neither won nor lost any impressive amount. Although I did have my Swiss Army Knife confiscated when I forgot to put it in my checked luggage, and now I have to wait for it to be mailed to me. Nor was the TSA through with me--when I opened my suitcase I found their calling card. Well, I hope they took a peek at the copy of Aqua Vitae lying among my undies and consider buying a copy ;D.

Speaking of books, the Kickstarter for my Starter Guide for Professional Writers has met its funding goal, although the campaign continues to run until the end of July. I'm on track to have the revisions of the book complete by then, although if I've learned anything these past weeks it's that nothing is actually predictable. It will certainly get done, though. And even when editing my own manuscript becomes a drag, I'm looking forward to the chance to read and offer feedback on the manuscripts I'll be reviewing as a reward for my funders! They'll provide some escapism from my own preoccupations, plus I'll have the chance to live vicariously through talented new writers. So double escapism. Better than a weekend in Vegas.

Print Books that are *Good* for the Planet

Being surrounded by the printed word (and intending to remain so my entire life--much as I enjoy ebooks, I like to keep paper copies for backup), I remain acutely conscious that it's called "dead tree"s for a reason. Also, ever since my trip to Ghana I've had a horror of plastic. It's bad enough seeing litter at the side of the road in the US, but I saw bags and discarded packaging piling up in places I never would have expected--water canals, forest, even the borders of cemeteries--and on a staggering scale. The thing is, Americans produce far more of the stuff than Ghana does, we just cram ours in landfills where it can't be seen...for now...

So I was ecstatic to discover it is possible with current technology to make books out of recycled plastic. I know of only one book made this way so far--Cradle to Cradle by Michael Braungart--by I live in hope that the method may catch on. 

Simon and Schuster also has a series of children's books printed on recycled materials.

I'm disappointed that the only recycled books I can find so far are explicitly on environmental topics. The innovation runs the risk of remaining inbred, while I think if it works it should be used where it counts--in all genres, fiction and nonfiction. Especially since plastic books, being waterproof, can be read in the bathtub. And I don't know about you, but I'm much more likely to read sweet romances or can't-put-it-down thrillers in the bathtub than proposals for environmental policy, however well-presented.

The Plants of Middle-Earth: Botany and Sub-Creation by Dinah Hazell

What a charming book!

Like The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, this was a find made in the American University library shelves. It stood out not only for the title (of all things it was sub-creation I was drawn to; the concept is Tolkien's gift to the fantasy genre far more than any number of medieval worlds and elves) but also its soothingly soft green cloth binding with gold letters. Inside, it is gorgeously illustrated with drawings and watercolors of the planets, flowers, and trees discussed. The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges... is a book you can put on your bookshelf to look intimidatingly smart; The Plants of Middle-Earth belongs on a coffee table or anywhere you'd like a guest to see it, pick it up, and feel welcome.

An unusual mixture of herb lore and literary criticism, Hazell's book traces the significance of the plants featured throughout The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's related works. The history and myth surrounding plants can guide reader interpretation of the fictional events and cultures they appear in. The brief chapters were a pleasure to browse through on quiet evenings, studying the illustrations and learning the old names, uses, and superstitions of the herbs, flowers, and trees. The prose is simple but has a certain whimsical poetry that shares observations and the occasional new insight (I jotted down the line "roses escape commonality" to share with a friend who I associate with roses yet who is anything but common). I did not find the book particularly challenging or groundbreaking, although it had more texture than an ordinary book on botany and more real-world connections than most literary criticism.

I chose to say 'real-world' in the above paragraph advisedly; The Plants of Middle-Earth is less about the botany unique to Tolkien's creation (though Hazell briefly discusses the possible inspirations of athelas and other fictional plants, including the Ents) and more about those shared with Earth and its own rich botanical traditions. This relates to the point Hazell wants to make about sub-creation: because the herbs, flowers, and trees which inhabit and form Middle Earth are familiar to us, we are willing to accept the otherwise unbelievable things that happen with them as a background. However, this potentially runs the risk of erasing an author's work in creating his (or her) setting by over-reliance on what we know of the primary world. The folk magic that offers insight into the significance of Hobbit women's names is based on the beliefs of medieval England, rather than anything Tolkien writes his Hobbits as believing. What if their superstitions about the Sweet Briar Rose are different? Does that matter, given real-world readers will form their impressions of a character named Eglantine based first and foremost on our own experiences and half-remembered knowledge? On a subject different from botany, Saruman the White's choice of colors may be deceptive or ironic to Western readers familiar with white as the color of purity and goodness and black as the shade for corruption and evil, but I wonder if the turn his character takes would be less shocking to readers from cultures where white is the color of death and funerals.

As with The Unimaginable Mathematics, the target audiences for this work make up a Venn diagram: gardeners, folklorists, and Tolkien fans. Of course, there's quite a bit of overlap (as there is, I suspect, between lovers of vast numbers, arcane mathematics fans, and Borges aficionados). I learned more about botany than Tolkien in reading it, and though it prompted some thinking about the role of environment in fiction and in the real world as well it is not by any means rigorous literary criticism; yet it sticks in my mind as a singularly unusual and enjoyable read.

Find It At: Goodreads   Amazon  Barnes and Noble   Better World Books