Can It Be About Secondary Characters?

Several months ago, I was talking with one of my writing partners about how we both loved our secondary characters, far more than we liked our MCs.

What's with that?

Is it okay?

Well, I finally got around to watching "The Black Swan" last week while Man Down with a kidney infection, and I realized why I had put it off for so long: I am not a fan of Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman). Yes, I do respect her long hours at training for the part--the ballet she took, the weight she lost, the craft she honed. But, simply, I am not in love with her, and have never been, not even in "Where The Heart Is."

Instead of going into all the blab about why I'm not a Portman superfan, I'll tell you that I am head over heels for "Swan" secondary characters Mila Kunis (who had me at "Book of Eli") and the talented and gorgeous Frenchman Vincent Cassel, who can give one look that can win an Oscar. So for me, these two carried me through the movie. Them, and plot, and setting.

The other night, my little family went to see Bill Rauch's rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" at the outdoor Shakespeare theater. It was magic: the sword fighting and swashbuckling and disco dance breakouts. The female lead sang way too high, though, and none of us could understand what she was saying (though she did have her some swanky kimono PJs), and the lead male was meh.

But the Pirate King! Aye, my friends! This lad was really something!

And Ruth, the nursemaid, was equally fantastic. And the rollicking Modern Major General? Unforgettable!

It probably shouldn't be so that a reader or movie watcher or play goer not like the MC. But it does seem to happen, and if it does, it's better to have some really amazing sidekicks to go with it.

Who Is Valedictorian?

Your odds are better at being one of Ashland High School's valedictorians if you're female, from a two-parent family, and have worked hard enough for 12 years to want to take a year off.

AHS, which consistently ranks in the top 3% of US News & World Report's "Best High Schools," has a legendary Speech & Debate Team, an honorable Math Team, a Quidditch Club, a Gay-Straight Alliance, Knit Wits, Model United Nations, Multicultural Club, Pagan Club, and Crew. Every year, the Drama Department partners up with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to produce, direct, costume, and choreograph a professional-level musical. (This year's performance of "Chicago" rivaled the production I'd seen on Broadway of Sacramento.)

According to the Medford Mail Tribune, of AHS' 14 Class of 2011 valedictorians, 12 are female. Eight of 12 are listed with parents of the same last name. Many scholars are in Honor Society, have math honors, played soccer, are musicians.

And several are planning on taking advantage of the new trend; they'll take a "Gap Year" of travel or volunteer service, or dabble in the arts before heading back to the books at Stanford, NYU, Pomona, or George Washington to study neuroscience, physics, engineering, or journalism.

I know some of their parents: professors, doctors, authors, entrepreneurs.

This morning at breakfast, Dave and I sat by an AHS grad from a few years ago. She went to Harvard for a year, and returned to work at an Ashland coffee shop.

A simple, quiet girl from my own high school in California went to Berkeley and is now the headmaster of a private school in Marin County.

You never can tell, I guess, who will succeed, and at what. Part of the fun mystery of life is the element of surprise.

Maybe it will be an AHS 2011 valedictorian who cures AIDS, or maybe it will be the kid who sat in science in the middle row, who graduated 60th in a class of 200, who went to community college first.

Instant Gratification: The Current Trend in Introduction

My kids and I were eight chapters into reading To Kill A Mockingbird (so we can see the OSF production of it this spring), when sixth-grade Daney groaned, "What is this book about, anyway? There is no plot, there is no conflict."

She was right.

Harper Lee took her sweet Southern time aquainting her readers with Scout's tiny life in Maycomb County: her admiration for her older brother, Jem; her relationships with summer visitor, Dill; the ladyfolk; the ghostly man-child, Boo Radley; her father.

We get the hot, dry dust, the simple-minded, struggling townspeople.

But it's not until page 85 when conflict rips us from the slow days of Scout's scounting about, and throws us into the political upheaval that becomes the essence of the book.

"This is like Dracula," Dominic (13) agreed. (He's reading the 500-word tome for his spring book report.) "It didn't get good until page 300, when stuff started happening."

"What did Bram Stoker write in the 300 pages of 'nothing?'" I'd asked.

"Setting," Dominic said. "And setting. And setting. He took a long time setting it up."

So right now, my kids are seeped in two worlds: in 1930s Alabama, and 19th Century Transylvania. And though they're finally capitivated, it cost a lot of hearing them complain in getting them here.

We writers could never do this today. We could never "waste" a third of our stories on establishing setting. The present trend is to drop blood, or mystery, or vengance, or some kind of conflict right on page one.

What does that mean?

What are we missing out on?

Putting It Out There

Ashland is definitely a place where you can be your quirkiest self. And last night, we were at the very hub of it, at Rees' elementary school talent show.

It was unbelievable: the jokes, the hulu-hooping, the poi dancing/Katy Perry lip-syncing/stomach rolling. There was unicycling, original piano pieces, ventriloquism, all from kindergarten through fifth graders.

What amazed me most was not so much the...um..."talent," but the way these kids just put it all out there. Honestly, when I was in third grade, I never would have squeezed myself into a fluorescent unitard and belted out "Don't Stop Believin'."

How can I do this in writing, I asked myself from Row 28, Seat M. How can I let my story just flow -- with confidence, with uniqueness, with a slight awareness of but not an obsession with what the audience thinks?
It takes ambition, right? And some serious liberation. And just giving it a shot.

Can do?

Ashland Icon

Today I borrowed Reesie from school and took him to Omar's Steakhouse for the $1.64 Anniversary meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

It was yummy!

While we noshed, we admired the folks in their 80s and 90s who surrounded us. They've been coming here for 64 years now, I told Reesie.

This is a feat for Omar's. Not just any eatery can survive in Ashland. Since Dave and I moved here in 1993, these national restaurant chains have folded:

McDonald's
Pizza Hut
Dairy Queen
Quiznos
Denny's
KFC
A & W
Papa John's

Yep, Ashlanders are definitely picky about their food.

And that meatloaf and potatoes today, it won Rees' taste test!

Homo-phone

Say what you will about Ashland's first gay pride parade, but if you love words like I do, you have to smile about this real estate float's sign:

How They Sit Here

In Ashland, the people, they sit very close.

Tables don't divide partners, pairs.

Families,friends, lovebugs, they sit side-by-side.

Laughing, chatting, whispering

By the creek on the plaza across from the park.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Have you noticed Your People?

How they sit?

Share!

Middle School Must-Have

Oh my gosh, one of you writers who's drafting a middle-grade MS has to put this in:

My sixth-grader, Daney, now has two weeks of middle school under her sparkly rainbow belt.

And mostly, she's nailed it.

But.

There's this one guy, an aide or something, at the school, who blocks off the hallways at lunch, everywhere Daney's trying to go. Library, bathroom, homeroom, gym, it seems this guy is everywhere with his sign: "No Students Past This Point."

So Daney has had to wear chocolate-milk stained white leggins around because she couldn't go wash them off. She showed up in class without the library book she was supposed to check out at lunch. And she roamed the cafeteria all alone when her friends got past Sign Dude and into the gym somehow.

To be continued...?

CONTAINERS!!! (and pants) (and other stuff)

Last weekend at the Ashland High School Water Polo garage sale, the boys and I scored!

While the boys stocked up on containers--tackle boxes filled with tackle boxes, Pokemon Tupperware, tiny plastic boxes for Star Wars guns--I rifled through the pants, and came out with two pairs of jeans each for them.

After an hour, Dave took them home, and Daney and I stayed for hours, browsing the books and the jewelry and other lovely girl things.

The biggest treasures of the day: a four-pack of vintage Star Wars figures for $1!, little blue and silver earrings for Daney, and a turn-of-the-century vaudeville novel for me! Mmm hmmm!

Giving Ol' Will A Chance

So, after 16 years of living here in Ashland, I finally hit up a real Shakespeare play -- "Twelfth Night" last night.

What was keeping me away? you might ask.

I mean, I've seen almost all the other OSF plays, and nearly everything Off-Bardway (isn't that the funniest word? it means all the other theaters in the area.)

Anyway, it was the language.

I just never felt driven to sit for three hours and decipher mid-sixteenth century English.

But I don't know what I'd been worrying about.

The language was so not a problem!

I want to go again! I want to see everything -- the dramas, the comedies.

And the setting -- the open, outdoor theater, with bugs and bats and the teeniest breeze!

And the costumes -- the lace and brocade and rhinestones!

Oh, and the actors! They were charming, funny, incredibly pro! Veteran Michael Hume is always a treat to see. And "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" director (and my new friend) Chris Moore made the perfect Malvolio.

Okay, I was home late (11) looking up words like "pestilence" and "accost" and "usurp." And I still can't figure out why the whole thing was titled as such.

But now I know where this comes from: "If music be the food of love, then play on!"

Oh, and this little gem I tucked under my shiny belt: "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."

Gas & Groceries -- Days Three Through Five

For the last three days, we've been mostly on track.

If it wasn't for that darn fruit stand again, I'd have spent almost no money.

And yet, we've spent a whole day at the incredible American River canyon catching minnows and tadpoles, and jumping off rocks, and riding rapids. Again, we'd packed up a picnic, and my sister Amy and I set our beach chairs in the water while we sipped Diet Coke and watched her 8 year-old, Maddy, splash around with my water babies.

We've dug out a bunch of old toys from my dad's house, and the kids spent hours rummagine through boxes. The boys' treasures were mini Star Wars figures and an almost new GI Joe and his ten billion guns.

We've gone swimming at Maddy's house, and to her birthday party at some indoor trampolines, and my dad has taken us to Mel's Diner and Chevy's. MMmmm...

I've made my own mocha every day, and there's been afternoon time for reading and resting and even doing a little math.

Today Mackie is home from his orientation at UC Santa Cruz. Bacon is sizzling on the stove, and I'm already whipping up a pasta salad to take to the Folsom city pool this afternoon, where Daney will meet up with her best girlfriend, Gracia.

And I don't think I've said yet that Daney had strep throat our first couple of days here. $42 went to the Target pharmacy, but cheerfully, to get my girl back on her feet!

Sickness. Penny-pinching. It's a lot of work down here.

When I get home, I'm treating myself to a day of vacation in Ashland!

No Limits

Last night before the Oregon Shakespeare Festival plays started, we watched the Green Show, a free 30-minute performance every Sunday-Tuesday.

It's different every night: taiko drummers, washboard bands, Thai dancers, acapela, comedians...

Yesterday, we were lucky enough to see Jen & Nate, acro/arial artists, who have performed for Brittany Spears, Prime Ministers, and at Disney World.

Jen and Nate spun, swung, and bounced. They narrated between acts.

There's something really extraordinary about this duo. Check out this link to see what it is, and to be truly inspired.

The Big Weekend -- How It Went

My adorable dad was here over the weekend. So was my brother Mac (18) and his girlfriend Sarah, my sister Erika and her husband Ryan, our niece Maddy (7), and my silly old friend from high school: Steve.

We went to the park, to the river, to the Redwoods, to the ocean. Dave gave us a ride in the fire engines. We watched the crazy Ashland parade. Of course we had Noble Coffee. And Mexican food. And Yogurt Hut.

There was crying. There was laughing. There was a lot of laundry and little sleep.

I finished up teaching the Lego class and swept the floor and hung on every word of my dad's immigration story.

And then, when it was time for them to go, after Maddy's sobs became fainter and fainter down the driveway, I went out. I sat down in Blue and I told the server, "Look. Here's what we need. We need these lyres and castanets turned way down. We need minimal attention. And I'll have a drink, any drink, you pick it."

But five minutes in, I missed all those guys already.

Big Weekend

The Fourth of July is Ashland's craziest holiday (Halloween is definitely first). This year, we're sharing it with my dad, Mac and his girlfriend, Erika and Ryan, and my friend Steve from high school.

It should be chaos!

Will post pictures after it's all over, so stay tuned!

And hey, America, happy birthday! Hope you're celebrating with her and us.

Marriage is Hard

It is.

In fact, there's a whole industry, and we writers are part of it, that capitalizes on this.

Take "Sex & the City 2," for example, in which Carrie tries to define and adjust to the concept of marriage. She can't do it. So she gets her own apartment changes her clothes twenty times and hooks up with another guy. And her husband rewards her with a big diamond while they snuggle up on their new sofa.

Okay, bad example.

Take the play I saw the other day, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Now that was an interesting perspective on marriage: 1955 Mississippi, where the women were oppressed, and expected to have broods of children, but where they were beginning to voice their dissatisfaction and longing for better relationships. Maggie (the Cat) craves attention and love from the washed-up athlete. She scrambles for security--emotional, economic--and clings desperately to her uninterested husband.

In both stories, there is sacrifice. There is conflict between maintaining autonomy and preserving tradition.

But we girls don't need to go to the movie or the theater to know this.

We live it every day.

Dave and I have been married almost 18 years. (Yes, we were young. Incredibly.) Believe me, when you fall in love at 8, there's some stuff that has to get worked out, though, and it seems to take years, no, decades.

It's been good, most of it, but it's been hard, too. Last summer we hit a rough spot that took some serious work and commitment (and a big setting aside of egos).

Like Carrie and Maggie Cat, (I think) I sacrifice quite a bit. But Dave definitely gives up a lot, too. I have to remember this. It's my job. (It's literally my job. I teach Critical Thinking, which is considering plural perspectives.)

It's easy to take marriage--husbands--for granted. What's hard, what's better, is to see them for what they are: men, strong but fragile, putting forth effort but falling short, hoping to achieve perfection but falling short.

Human.

Just like us.

Book Birthday!

Last night at the charming Bloomsbury Books, my writing partner, Christy Raedeke, debuted Prophecy of Days--Book One: The Daykeeper's Grimoire!

Here's the group:








And the very intellectual husbands:








And of course the offspring, brand-new Baby PoD included:

Stand Off! Tightroper Walker VS The Woman in the Yellow Dress

My friend Leslie turned 44 a couple of weeks ago. She shared her celebration with John Javna, author of Uncle John's Bathroom Readers.

The party was at ScienceWorks; Leslie's husband, Alan, and a few other hands had put together an amazing circus spread, with dart throwing, aerial silk spinners, and Cracker Jacks.

I had called Alan an hour before the party and asked if we were to dress nicely, or dress up, or what. Alan told me that everyone would be dressed as circus folk. So I wore a black suit with a red boa, some gloves, fake eyelashes, and a nice big feather. Like...a tightrope walker. Or something.

It turned out, Alan (the ringmaster) and I were the only ones in costume. After a half-hour of people thinking I was a party performer (embarrassingly, I was more dressed up than even the silk spinners), I shed some of my bling in the car, and looked, for the most part, normal.

A couple hundred of Ashland's upper tier, the now 60 year-olds who came to Ashland from Berkeley, etc., tossed rings at milk bottles, gawked at jugglers on unicycles, and filled and re-filled their wine glasses.

I visited the fortune teller, who foresaw right away what I was there for (without giving it all away, I can say it has to do with an agent and a certain MS I've scribbled). While I heartily accepted my cards that told of my lovely marriage, true friends, a happy home, I tried to defy the card I picked from the stack second-to-last, the one with the woman in the yellow dress: "He Commeth Not."

After some lemon cake and sultry singing by Javna's high school daughter, I went to my happy home to my lovely marriage, and my solid, loyal husband said that the paper woman in the yellow-dress could kiss my red-feathered ass.

Field Trip!

My friends, give your fingers and your brain a little rest. Because WE are going on a field trip today! Yay!

WE will be touring Ashland, Oregon, where I've lived (off and on--another story) for sixteen glorious years. Dave and I looked all over the nation for somewhere to move from California. I liked Boston; he liked Montana. Because we couldn't find the place we both loved, we decided to stay one more year in Sacramento, and we headed to Oregon for a plain old vacation.

When we hit Ashland, a town 14 miles north of the California border, we loved it! Nestled in below the Cascade Mountains and consistently at the tops of "Best Places to Live" lists, Ashland hosts the internationally acclaimed Shakespeare Festival--and is home to cattle farms.

It was culture for me, and cows for Dave. Perfect!

But, since this is my field trip, we'll be skipping the pastures.

Instead, we'll grab a mocha at Noble Coffee. Anjie will save us a spot at the Big Table. We'll browse Bloomsbury Books and stroll the Bear Creek bike path and have Pangea's Ipanama Wrap as a grill (best secret ever, it's not even on the menu).

Next, a play. For three hours, we'll feast our eyes on the rich set and lavish costumes of Hamlet, directed by OSF artistic director Bill Rauch, whose hand I held two weeks ago at our kids' school.

"Grease" is playing at Ashland High; it's choreographed and engineered by OSF directors in their off-season.

Then there's the Oregon Cabaret, my fave. We've missed "Men on Ice," "Alter Boyz," and "The Pageant." But there is the knee-slapping "Red, White, and Tuna."

We can hike Pilot Rock or the White Rabbit Trail. Many acclaimed artists and actors have homes here; we have a good chance of bumping into a serious somebody!

We can stroll the SOU campus, check out the bubble room at ScienceWorks, watch the flame throwers in Lithia Park.

Are you tired?

For $30, we can have an hour massage, courtesy of The Ashland Institute of Massage.

Dinner? Kobe's tasty dragon roll. And because you were so much field-trip fun, a lemon tart from Mix.

Me(me)

My BCF (Best Cyber Friend) Shannon tagged me with this meme. Shannon is wise and hopeful and I would bet anything, a really good teacher. Like her, I love a HOT cup of good coffee, and hate dirty floors, and that my sisters live so far away.

Do you want to play?

Fill in the blanks after each bold word and tag 3 of your friends with your meme!

Here's Me(me):

I like musicals: live, on disc, or in the stereo
I like mochas
I like my friends--from Mo, who I met in kindergarten, to Anjie, my new writing partner
I like the fall
I like art
I like teaching and practicing critical thinking
I like decaf green tea
I like collecting Los Dias De Los Muertos skeletons with my kids
I like living in Ashland
I like living in America
I like when my kids lay in bed and read together
I like how I feel after I do yoga

I love my incredible husband. And San Francisco

Today is a new opportunity to be a more patient mom, to be a better house cleaner, to be a stronger writer, and to serve my students and community

I hate the word "hate"
I hate doing yoga
I hate ignorance
I hate that I hate ignorance
I hate girl drama

I (secretly) like weekdays when I'm off work and have the whole, quiet house to myself

I love my two families: my little one, where I'm the mom, and my big one, where I'm the sister

MLK Days

In perfect timeliness, I've recently finished The Help.

This debut novel by Kathryn Stockett is narrated by three Southern voices in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s. Two of the narrators are maids; the third is a misfit young white woman who is unmarried but educated. Each tries to balance their lives--love, loss, family, and work--amidst political and social upheaval. Which isn't so different from now.

What is striking, though, is that the Civil Rights Movement happened only 66 years ago. During our parents' lives!

When we were kids, my dad showed us the Park Merced Apartments in San Francisco. This huge building didn't allow any African American tennants until 1971. The year I was born! Even after the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination was still taking place. In the west!

The Help reminded me how fortunate we are to live in a tolerant, compassionate community. Ashland is not enormously ethnically diverse, but we have vast varieties of socioeconomic status, of religion, of ages, of sexual orientation, politics, and culture.

It reminded me to keep teaching my kids the essence of the book, of humanity: that we're all just people. That we're all the same.

It reminded me about a trip to Harlem we took our kids on three years ago. Where we had to pay extra for the cabbie to drive us there. Where all the windows and doors were barred up. Where people hung out in groups on doorsteps.

When I'd asked the kids if Harlem is different from Ashland, Daney said, "Yes, really different. There's way more..." she paused, and I held my breath.

Please don't see it, I thought about The Big Difference. Don't see it yet.

Daney went on. "...There's way more...um...fried chicken restaurants."