Strange Times with Covid-19

It’s been two weeks since we last ate out. Sunday March 15th. We had bought more plants at Whitfill’s Nursery and decided, what the hell, we’re hungry, and Luci’s is right around the corner. The lunch crowd munched away under a celestially beautiful sky. Normal.

The healthcare company where I work sent us white-collar workers home early last week. Thankfully, what I do can be done anywhere with a laptop and Internet. Two days into my isolation, I woke up with a red rash under my right eye. I’ve had it a week now. That’s great timing for you! I write about contact allergic reactions to all kinds of shit in the dermatology area of the company. If my rash does not go away, do I drive down to see the dermatologist there? Or do I just wait for it to pass and hope it does not take over my face?

Last week, while taking our late afternoon walk, a perfectly normal-looking young man, standing by a bank of mailboxes across the street, caught our eye. His backpack lay on the ground nearby. He had one leg lifted. “He can’t be,” my husband said. But yes, he was. Changing his pants in broad daylight. I discreetly averted my eyes. He saw us and called out, “Sorry, I have to change my pants.” “Whatever you have to do, I replied.”

We did the 6:00 a.m. senior hour at Fry’s Tuesday morning. Rather dystopian, a whole store filled with fading people. Still, we got a 12-pack of toilet paper, so it was worth it.

A relative called yesterday with a tip he’d heard at a business meeting. “Listen,” he said. “I’m not supposed to spread this around, but I’m telling you. The governor is going to close the state. A Shelter-in-Place order is going to be announced on the weekend.” We immediately ran to Safeway to stock up even more. (Is this hoarding, I wonder.) It is now Saturday morning. Last word from the news is that such an order is not deemed necessary. My shelves are groaning.

My daughter in Oakland face-timed me yesterday. She lost her server job last week. For a few days distributing food from the restaurant to food pantries and shelters gave her purpose–800 eggs to responsibly dispose of. Now the deeper reality is setting in. She rents a room in a house with four other people, three of whom are also facing loss of income. They had a meeting with their landlord to discuss the situation. He was willing to take 800 dollars for April. Great, they all thought. But the remaining 24 hundred would be due down the line. They are considering rent strike. She thinks rage is the proper response to what is happening.

My husband informed me he has a slightly sore throat this morning. He is seventy-three years old. He talked on the phone and Skyped for hours yesterday, in between drags on a cigarette. I am going to assume all is well.

Through all this uncertainty, another question niggles my mind. When I recycle my milk and juice cartons, do I leave the little plastic cap screwed on? Or does that spoil the batch? If you know, do please share. It is driving me crazy.

Current Trends in Traditional Book Publishing: Fiction, Nonfiction and YA | Jane Friedman

Scanning a few nuggets from book publishing guru Jane Friedman this morning. Click through to read her salient analyses gleaned from prominent agents and editors in the field.

The rise of Millennial nostalgia and graphic novels, the decline of political tell-alls and publisher-driven marketing: all of this and more in 2019 trends.

Source: Current Trends in Traditional Book Publishing: Fiction, Nonfiction and YA | Jane Friedman

Fiction Writing Contests Worth Your Time in Spring 2019

I’m deep into writing toxicology reports at the moment (oh dear lord!) but keeping my eye out too, for opportunities on the larger literary scene. For you dedicated writers out there, Writer Unboxed brings you the current listings of writing contests for spring 2019. Write on!

This submissions season covers deadlines from March 1, 2019 through May 31, 2019. How was the start of your writing year? Deep into drafts and submissions or still working up to your first? Here’s …

Source: Fiction Writing Contests Worth Your Time in Spring 2019

Russell Baker, Pulitzer-Winning Times Columnist and Humorist, Dies at 93 – The New York Times

I was saddened to hear of Russell Baker’s death. If you have never read his Pulitzer-Prize-winning memoir, Growing Up, I highly recommend it. He brilliantly and humorously captured the world that died with our parents. Read more from the New York Times obituary.

 

Mr. Baker, a backwoods-born Virginian who became one of America’s most celebrated writers, spent decades at The New York Times and hosted “Masterpiece Theater” for years.

Source: Russell Baker, Pulitzer-Winning Times Columnist and Humorist, Dies at 93 – The New York Times

Fiction Writing Contests Worth Your Time in Winter 2018

Alas, I won’t be sending off any stories at this time, but I hope some of you may find this list from Writer Unblocked helpful! Many of them have an entry charge, so as always, use your discretion.

What are your submission or rejection goals for 2018? Inspired by Lit Hub’s 100 rejections per year post, I got 93 rejections 2017 and aimed to cross 100 this year. Since my last contest roundup, I…

Source: Fiction Writing Contests Worth Your Time in Winter 2018

Sheriff Joe’s Jails: An Escape Story

“America’s toughest sheriff” has escaped a fate so poetically just as to make the gods weep. Unlike the inmates in his county jails, he will never peer from the other side of the bars. He will never eat the green bologna sandwiches. He will never be paraded around in chains and striped pajamas or pass a 110 ℉ summer day in his “tent city” “concentration camp.” He will never be subject to the harassment of ill-educated detention officers. He will never wear the threadbare pink underwear warmed by a hundred asses before his.

It’s been my privilege to to get an inside view of Sheriff Joe’s jails. Back in the relatively progressive late nineties, I taught English through a local college program to largely Hispanic inmates at Durango and Towers jails. I remember dodging a puddle on a dank November morning, the nauseating smell of the nearby dog pound greeting me on my first day. I, of course, my freedom but a few hours away, could sweep aside the dismal emotions provoked by that scene.

A Short Escape from the Sheriff’s Clutches

My stint in the Maricopa jails lasted a year. Five mornings a week, I passed through the clanging doors with my hand-outs, took possession of my bundle of stubby bowling-score-card pencils, and held court with my captive audience for four hours. They were an appreciative group, but not because I wowed them with my superior teaching skills. My class was one of their only opportunities to escape the tedium, the institutional squalor, and the hostile provocations of both other inmates and some of the staff. (I once witnessed a detention officer taunting an inmate in a holding cell, the latter clearly crazed and already out of control.) Sadly, the program was discontinued. A waste of taxpayer money.

Some prisoners found escape in other ways. One day, a student presented me with a small gift: a woven necklace of a cross embedded in a heart. Fine and delicate, it had been fashioned from pale pink and white thread. The workmanship amazed me. I should have guessed how my student had managed to get his material, but I had to ask. It was only when he smilingly pulled at the band of his pink underwear that I understood. It seems such weaving was  a kind of folk art practiced by several of the Mexican students in my class. And lacking few other resources—save snack bags or gum wrappers— they picked the thread from their prison garb.

While that job gave me a look inside the jails, it was not my only encounter with Sheriff Joe’s domain. Between 2014 and 2016, my son was a guest in those very jails on several occasions, each visit stemming in one way or another from his addiction to heroin and associated infractions. On each occasion, after detoxing on the filthy floor of the holding cell and later the sick pod, he fell in with the dull routine.

For him escape came in the way of a dog-eared book, a smoke in the yard, a talk with me on the phone—which entirely depended on my being able to pick up before the call went to voice mail. He never got a visit, though. It seemed to involve some labyrinthine procedure through an online application the exact instructions of which I could not understand from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website. We both knew, however, that even if I did go down to the jail, the visit wouldn’t be in person but over closed circuit video.

Luckily my son did not stay in Tent City. But he did send me the entertaining piece of mail at the top of this post, one of a couple of edifying picture postcards available for purchase. Here’s another one:

Image of postcard of Sheriff Joe with dead camel, a waarning against the sale of tobacco to minors.

My son was also fortunate that his mug shot did not appear on the “playful” “Mugshot of the Day” feature of the MCSO website, a truly awful practice that from 2011 to late 2016 allowed viewers to vote on the most pathetic mugshot of the last 24 hours.

A Sheriff Not Loved by All Arizonans

These are just a few personal reflections on the now discredited sheriff. The Phoenix New Times, among many other news outlets, has documented many of his serious abuses, not the least of which is the racial profiling Arpaio refused to discontinue after being ordered to do so by a federal judge. And let’s get the record straight here. Although Donald Trump may claim, as he did in defense of his recent pardon of Arpaio, that he (the sheriff) “is loved in Arizona,” the estimated 50 percent of us Arizonans who disapproved of the pardon are incensed that he has escaped his day in court.

Once again my inspiration for today’s post is Charli Mill’s Flash Fiction Challenge.

Graphic of tree-lined shore and "August 24: Flash Fiction Challenge"August 17, 2017 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an escape artist. It can even be you, the writer, escaping into a different realm or space in imagination. It can be any genre, including BOTS (based on a true story) or fantasy. You can focus on the escape, the twist or the person who is the escape artist.

Escape Artist

Only his hands and eyes existed. And the thin strands. Cross, loop, knot; cross, loop, knot.

He wanted to give her something. The nice gringa teacher. Who looked him in the eye. Who smiled. Who explained in Spanish when he couldn’t understand.

The fat gringo voices around him faded. The rows of bunks. The sweating walls. The smell of urine.

Cross, loop, knot. A cross. A heart. A simple cord necklace.

He fingered his small creation. Thought of his village outside Culiacán. His mother. The smell of tortillas and the simmering pot of frijoles.

He could taste them now.

 

 

Goop? Riding the “All Natural” Gravy Train

100% Natural Logo for "goop"Dr. Jen Gunter is my new hero. She shines a crystalline light on the current crop of snake oil sales(wo)men like Gwyneth Paltrow and her multi-million- dollar GOOP women’s lifestyle brand.

Full transparency here. I have spent $30 on a bottle of sulfate-free shampoo with “emollient-rich Red Sea kelp.” I have been swayed to spend more on a beauty product if it contains the words “natural,” “organic,” or “botanical” on the label. And (I am ashamed to admit) I have even been persuaded to insert a vaginal egg into my “sacred female space.” Otherwise known as “love eggs,” “jade eggs,” and “yoni eggs,” these pelvic galvinizers purportedly possess the power to help you develop a more loving relationship with your “yoni” (vagina) while  powering up your kegel capacities.

Still, it was with a smirking delight that I saw the recent Stephen Colbert send-up  of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Wellness Summit, the tickets to which ranged in price between $500 and $1500.

The Goop Media Wars

And it was with an eager finger that I clicked on an op-ed piece in the New York Times over the weekend by Dr. Gunter, an OB/GYN and pain medicine specialist dedicated to  “Wielding the lasso of truth” about dangerous health fads aimed at women. Dr. Gunter has raised the ire and media backlash of Paltrow and her goopy promoters by pointing out the dangerous disinformation her brand peddles to women. Those vaginal eggs, for example, may have a connection to toxic shock syndrome because superatigens are reintroduced vaginally with air during jade egg insertion .

It would seem that women are especially vulnerable to the false promise of advertising. Not that I haven’t lived with a “metrosexual” man who spent far more that I ever did on spas and gels and oils, even hair implants. But I’m sure his excesses pale in comparison to what the average woman spends in the $20 billion dollar hair and nail industry. And this newer focus on “pure” and “natural” products only opens the door to more price gouging.

No Face Goop Can Turn Back Time

Why are we so vulnerable to the cons? Why do we suppress our common sense that tells us, no, there is no such thing as an “anti-aging” agent; no, you may be super fit and you may look great for your age but you are aging nonetheless; no, that hair color looks great but it does not take ten years off your face. The bloom of my fertile years is fading. The maiden and mother phases are behind me. I can get rather wistful about it sometimes. But what I want is not eternal youth. What I want is to be a healthy, beautiful, and even desirable crone, one whose age makes her less, not more, susceptible to advertising claims that manipulate my valid concerns about environmental toxins.

The women who attend Goop summits are no doubt younger that I am. And they must have a lot more disposable income than I do. I guess they don’t blink at spending $60 on a .17 ounce compact of “Multipurpose Balm (packed with carrot seed, Marula oil, and Jojoba seed oil.”) They must really buy the hype that it will do more “to moisturize dry lips and to smooth out the wrinkle-prone areas around the mouth and eyes” than, say, my $2 tube of Nivea kissable lip moisturizer or my extravagant purchase of $12 emu oil eye cream.

But the issue is not money. Given Paltrow’s outsized influence, her lack of expertise, and her underlying profit motive, I’m thankful that professionals like Dr. Gunter are (wo)manning the watchtowers and making us think more carefully about our healthcare and beauty consumption. And while I certainly look for alternatives to products that use toxins or test on animals, I think I’ll stick with my $10 Sprouts tub of coconut oil and vials of herbal essences, even if I do splurge on that shampoo.

Crystalline lake waves washing over rocks

 

Today’s post was inspired by  Charli Mills’s flash fiction challenge for July 27, 2017 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story using the word crystalline.

My Crystalline Complexion

The sales associate was all of 20.

“I just want some eye cream,” I said.

“I have the perfect product for you,” she enthused. “The Gone in 60 Seconds Instant Wrinkle Eraser.”

“C’mon, nothing is going to erase my wrinkles,” I said.

“This one will. With all-natural sodium silicate, it instantly erases fine lines and wrinkles. It’ll provide that little bit of a ‘lift’ you need. ”

“Hmmm” I said, my skepticism deepening the frown between my eyebrows.

“Really, I use both the eye and the face cream in the line. I’ve been told I have a crystalline complexion.”

 

 

 

 

 

The WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without | Jane Friedman

Plugins are one of the most wonderful and useful things about WordPress. Here are some of my favorites that I recommend for writers.

Source: The WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without | Jane Friedman

Just had to pass this post on. I took a webinar from Jane Friedman when I moved from a simple BlogSpot Memoir Crafter blog to my self-hosted WordPress site. I still have much to learn, but the plugins Jane mentions here are great. I highly recommend Yoast!

Would love to hear what plugins you are using!