Family

The Proviso, 3rd edition: A confession

Moriah

It’s been seventeen years since I first published The Proviso, and a very hard ten since I put out the second edition. I can’t stop fiddling with these characters and I can’t stop feeling like I’ve missed something that will make the story richer.

My kids are grown and gone now, but not without a rough few years. Menopause has changed me in ways that have made me a stranger to myself—one I don’t like. My mother went through a medical scare that introduced a great deal of drama into my very large, previously drama-free family, which I never thought could happen. It’s not as intriguing in real life. I’m long past the pack’s age, and they are forever frozen in time. Read more →

A hot new writer

Moriah

One day, on a school bus, the bus driver was driving a load of kids to school. They were at an intersection when the bus driver made a right turn on red. A kindergartner who just so happened to be sitting in the front said, “Hey! You can’t make a right turn on red!”

The bus driver then turned around, not focusing on the road, yelled, “I CAN MAKE A RIGHT TURN ON RED!”

So since he wasn’t looking, a city bus came speeding and hit the school bus. Everybody died. The end.

This is why busses don’t turn right on red.

La Bodega

Moriah

labodega-boulevard-dining-room2I’ve been thinking about the way I eat (for various reasons) and how/why my eating habits are so bad, why I fall back on banal comfort food, why I’m not adventurous in the least.

As I was writing Paso Doble, I kept finding myself associating my characters’ meals at tapas bars with romance. Small bites in small dishes. Tasting. A meal of hors d’oeuvres, eaten slowly, from a lover’s hand. I wanted to be able to do that.

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Paint the corners

Moriah

Cm45YzwUMAAYRcfMy 10-year-old XY TD can’t wait to see Pitch. He wants to watch it because it’s something that’s never been done before, a woman pitching in MLB.1 He doesn’t see a girl. He sees himself. In her. The underdog2,3 misunderstood, not wanted or liked, basically alone with too few allies, too different to have as smooth a ride through malehood as his peers.

  1. Or, as Dude pointed out to me last night because we’re both kind of fascinated with XY’s reaction to the series (whereas 13-year-old XX is so not) (she already knows she’s a badass), a 17-year-old girl struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game and a woman hasn’t been in the MLB since. ↩
  2. “A girl will never be able to throw hard enough to compete with boys. It’s biology and we can’t change that.” My dad told me a girl would never be able to throw a curve ball because their elbows are constructed differently from a boy’s. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not interested enough to find out. But I was kind of shocked to hear it from someone else. ↩
  3. I introduced him to Rocky last year. He’s now a devoted disciple of underdog movies. He gets it from his mom. ↩

What is it about this game

Moriah

kansas-city-royals-logo-in-white-background-for-iPhone-6-Wallpaper-500x889that compels people to reflect and grants epiphanies like a fairy godmother?

Thirty years ago, I was at the KC Royals parade after they won the World Series. You know, George Brett. Bret Saberhagen. Those guys.

I didn’t care about baseball much before or after that, not that I was ever anything but a fan-in-name-only because I didn’t understand the game. A childhood watching Little League and trying to figure out radio announcers’ jargon tends to blunt one’s enthusiasm.

And then there was college and life and the strikes and the juicing and the Congressional hearings and who wants to get into baseball when they threw a big temper tantrum for a game that’s all fake anyway? You want more money for your steroid injections? Fuck you.

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Bas relief

Moriah
20150922_211601
Yep, those are mine.

Yesterday I threw out karate belts I earned between the ages of 18 and 20. They were musty. Hidden away, like all the stuff I haven’t found places to display yet. I like space. I value space. Open, empty space and shelves that say, “We don’t need to be filled to feel important.” What they need to be filled with is essentials for survival, but that’s another story.

A friend on Facebook asked me how I could bear to throw them away because I earned them. I see her point; they are a trophy and I did earn them. All these years I have not wanted to throw them out (if I thought about it), but something’s been changing in me for a while now, about carrying baggage and grudges.

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