Chapters Three and Four are now up on The Greening site. Check them out here.
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A Darker Shade of Green
I’ve decided to try something new with my latest book.
I’m putting it out for free on the web. This project will be published serially, one or two chapters at a time, starting today.
The Greening is the first volume in a contemporary fantasy trilogy about a young woman who goes on a quest to find her missing father and stumbles onto another world where magic still flourishes, just around the cosmic corner from Earth.
As is often the case in fantasy, there are castles, and dragons and elves. But the story unfolds in a vampire-free zone. Ditto werewolves, zombies, flesh-eating bacteria, etc. The premise of the story is that humanity is its own worst enemy. Our planet is in peril, largely as a result of human actions. Our real life “happy ending” depends on whether or not we can tame ourselves before we wreck the joint. Or will we face eviction?
History proves that humans are capable of monstrous behavior. Yet hope still burns because we are also occasionally capable of heroic action.
The Greening begins…
Slithering Toward Babylon
What’s 17-feet-long, weighs 164 pounds and can swallow a 75-pound deer whole?
If you guessed Burmese python, come on down and collect your Magic 8-Ball. Outlook: Dubious.
The breathtaking speed with which this particular invasive species has decimated the native wildlife of the Florida Everglades has been making headlines for several years now. But you know how it is with headlines. A few hours after reading one you’re hungry for another.
I imagine the Burmese pythons feel the same way after snacking on deer. And here’s where the reptile meets the road.
Let’s suppose you’re among those carefree scoffers of the scientific method who consider global warming another half-baked liberal notion aimed at suppressing the great capitalist surge. Well, be that as it may, the data collected by weather analysts over the last 100 years suggests that at the very least the pattern of milder winters and significantly hotter summers is here to stay. And the thing about snakes is: they love the heat. Can’t live without it. Also can’t live on love alone.
In fact, it seems likely that, once they’ve finished off the deer, alligators and raccoons in Florida they’ll start slithering north to find food. Plenty of deer, rabbits and dogs in Georgia, South Carolina and points north.
Normally I’m a live-and-let-live kind of gal. Snakes have never been high on my list of cute pet prospects, but as a former country gardener I learned to value their place on the food chain. Snakes excel at rodent control, and although mice and rats enjoy a special niche in the realm of children’s literature, I never warmed to their presence in my kitchen drawers. Still. If it came to a choice between a Burmese python and an ordinary house mouse, I’d take the mouse.
However, if things keep going at the current rate that choice won’t be available.
Currently there are an estimated couple hundred thousand Burmese pythons on the loose in Florida. The fact that the government has belatedly banned their importation is a bit of barn door slamming long after the horse is out of sight. The pythons already here are breeding at a blistering pace. That 17-footer mentioned above was carrying 87 eggs.
Eighty-seven. Do the math.
So, maybe the drill-baby-drill types don’t care about spotted owls or delicate forest ecosystems or even coral reefs. The Burmese pythons don’t care either. They’ll just eat your dog, your cat, possibly your toddler.
Government can’t fix all the problems we bring on ourselves. But I sure as hell hope they get a handle on this python thing, or it’s Maine, here I come.
What’s For Dinner?
Depending on whether you view religion as the answer to the world’s problems or the cause of a lot of them, you may or may not enjoy Tom Perrotta’s thought-provoking novel The Leftovers.
I liked it. But then, he had me at “leftovers.”
Many of us lucky enough to live in the world’s most obese and privileged nation share a common “problem.” After we’ve finished our dinners, whether we eat out or cook at home, what to do with the leftovers: save them or not?
This question is at the heart of Perrotta’s lightly satirical riff on the idea of The Rapture, the belief that when the end of the world comes, and it’s a’comin’ soon according to some folks, the good people who followed the rules and stuck to the straight and very narrow path will be whisked away to eternal joy, while those who strayed, or didn’t manage to follow the directions on the side of the box will be left behind to scratch their heads and lick their wounds in abject misery.
Or not.
And therein lies the tale. What makes Perrotta’s prose so delicious to me is how easily he weaves the absurd with the seemingly sensible. Thus, as the story reveals how the lives of the leftovers are dramatically changed, we see some characters accept the “Sudden Departure” as a judgement on their own behavior, while others take leave of their senses entirely. The premise mines a rich vein of human folly, but Perrotta always respects his characters. He reveals their weaknesses but never diminishes the effort it takes to stay sane in a world that no longer makes sense.
This message resonates all too clearly in our real world, where the incidence of unbalanced individuals committing mass murder appears to be a trend rather than a rarity.
People in pain can lose their ability to behave rationally. People without hope are like dry leaves in the path of a wildfire. Any little spark can set them off.
As Bob Dylan once wrote:
Too much of nothing can make a man ill at ease
One man’s temper might rise, another man’s temper might freeze
In the day of confession we cannot mock a soul
When there’s too much of nothing, no one has control.
We live in dangerous times. Some people turn to religion for answers. Others turn on religion.
And then there’s Tom Perrotta, who offers a fresh perspective on the human need for connection, for love, for hope, with or without religion. In The Leftovers he seems to suggest that, as any good cook knows, even the saddest, homeliest looking leftovers can still make a fine meal. They just need to be carefully warmed up and served with love.
Don’t we all?
Where Hot and Cool Are One
Steamy? Check.
Blazing heat? Check.
Chance of thunderstorms? Check.
D.C. in the summer? Yes indeed.
Heat wimps need not apply. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the District.
But for those insaniacs who actually feel more alive when bathed in a fresh glaze of sweat, few places rival our Nation’s Capitol for bringing it on.
And when the going gets sweaty, the sweaty dance.
Sometimes in the parks, sometimes in the streets, sometimes in the fountains while sharing their tweets.
It’s a good life if you don’t melt.
One of a Kind
Being a Mariners fan just got a little harder.
Ichiro Suzuki changed his uniform yesterday.
The longtime “face of the franchise” turned in his Seattle Mariners number 51, trading it for the Yankees’ number 31.
The deal went down so quickly that many teammates and most shocked fans never saw it coming. Since he first arrived as a rookie for the Mariners in 2001, the year they made a run at the American League championships and Ichiro earned both the MVP and the Rookie of the Year awards, the Japanese outfielder has established himself as someone unique in a sport where flashy, brash and outspoken characters tend to hog the spotlight.
Quiet, methodical, graceful and uncannily gifted, Ichiro won the hearts of fans in Seattle and Japan through his amazingly consistent play. For ten years running he had more than 200 hits a season, won the Golden Glove award, and was named to the All Star team.
Yet the Mariners haven’t been back to the playoffs since 2001. In fact, during the six years I lived in Seattle, we considered it a good year if the team came anywhere close to a winning season. For a couple of those years the Mariners and the Nationals both languished at the bottom of their respective leagues.
Now, suddenly, the Nats are contenders. The Mariners, not so much.
So it’s easy to imagine why Ichiro would welcome the chance to play for the most bodacious, ego-loaded, winning machine in baseball. The Yankees, win or lose, are more than just a team of ball players. They are a team of superstars.
And Ichiro deserves the chance to shine with them.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw him play, and witnessed his signature routine at the plate – the bat held out like a painter sighting along his brush, the tugging at his uniform, the adjusting of his elbow strap – and his remarkable ability to create quality hits on pitches outside the strike zone. You could close your eyes and feel the whole stadium like a giant heart beating as the crowd chanted his name: “I-chi-ro! I-chi-ro!”
Will they love him with the same passion in New York? Somehow, I doubt it. After all, the Yankees are stuffed with talent. They may be jaded to superstars. But I hope they appreciate what just happened.
Ichiro is a Yankee. I’ll be damned.
The World is a Franchise
Election years are like flu season. Try as you might to avoid that sick feeling, sooner or later the rhetoric and bombast, the foolishness and outrage kick you in the gut, and you may find yourself dreaming of a simpler life – perhaps a better world, where happiness and satisfaction aren’t chain-linked to material consumption and power.
Or you may choose to abandon reality altogether and strike out into the final fantasy frontier. Should you be considering such a move, you might be interested in the following document, which I chanced upon buried in a Tupperware container in the garden. It explains a lot.
A World Of Your Own™
Congratulations on the purchase of a World Of Your Own™!
This one of a kind product offers almost endless opportunities to build, plant, harvest, explore, even govern a World Of Your Own™!
This custom built WOYO™ comes complete with land masses, oceans, mountains, ice caps, and all the fixin’s, and is generously stocked with a wide array of creatures including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and Yeti to use as you desire. Tame, hunt, breed, barbecue – whatever suits your fancy!
Depending on whether you opted for the WOYO™ Starter version, or the Deluxe Super-Size 2000 Edition MO-WOYO™, your new world is supplied with a starter pack of two humans, one of each gender, or, in the Deluxe edition, 20 billion humans in a rainbow assortment of genders, no two alike.
Terms and Conditions: The Maker(s) of World Of Your Own™ guarantee that each WOYO™ is free of certainty, chock full of unknowable hazards, and comes fully assembled with functional gravity, electro-magnetics, hot and cold random weather systems and a lifetime supply ozone layer. Should any of these systems fail while in your possession you may send a detailed description of the problem(s) to support@worldofyourown.com
Your satisfaction is just one of the limitless possibilities.
Limited Warranty: World Of Your Own™ provides a limited 5,000 year warranty on all of its products. World Of Your Own™ maintains a strict no refund policy. However, should you feel dissatisfied at any time with your world, you may leave at any time. Death is guaranteed.*
*Miracles sold separately.
The Beat Goes On
When I was a child growing up on the rim of the Beltway, D.C. was as exotic as Paris to me.
Okay, maybe not Paris. Let’s say London.
In any event, it was the place to both lose and find yourself. No one knew you there – you could be anybody. In the early ’60s freak flags weren’t common in D.C., but it was still a good time to rebel, explore, go a little crazy.
And in all of D.C., no neighborhood offered a more magnetic opportunity for the budding eccentric than Georgetown. It had a funky offbeat atmosphere in which the very well-to-do and the ne’er-do-wells shared the same bumpy brick sidewalks. It seemed magical to me as a teenager. I thought it would always be.
In the forty years since, as the current of my life has taken me further from that time and place, the memory of it remained unchanged. Now, having returned to my hot steamy hometown, I find it altered in many ways, some great, some not so much.
This is only natural, of course. Cities rise and fall, humans come and go. But the changes in Georgetown – at least along the main commercial arteries – seem more insidious – sort of like the malling of New York City, where the once affordable districts of warehouses and artists’ lofts, seedy bars and pawn shops, the gritty soul of the city, seem to have been dispossessed, replaced by trendy eateries, high-end shops, expensive hotels. The poets, musicians and artists appear to have relocated to Brooklyn. Wouldn’t Walt Whitman be pleased?
A similar shift seems underway in Georgetown. The M Street I remember from my wild youth was filled with bars where live bands played late into the night. The Shadows, which later moved down the street, is where I heard the Mugwumps, a short-lived band whose members included Cass Elliott, before she became a Mamma, and Zal Yanovsky– before he became a Lovin’ Spoonful.
There was the Crazy Horse, the Shamrock, and, a couple of blocks below M, the old Bayou, where primal rock bands like The Telstars tore it up.
The classiest of all the old Georgetown clubs, The Cellar Door, where I once had the great good fortune to hear Miles Davis when Keith Jarrett was in his group, is boarded up. Judging by the sign in its window it ended its days as a Philadelphia Cheesecake Factory.
And no list of D.C. rock venues would be complete without The Emergency, at the far end of M Street, the little all ages club that could and did change the world, at least for me.
D.C. is a city dense with history. You can’t throw a brick without hitting some spot where somebody famous once did something. And Georgetown has its share of that revered legacy.
But the Georgetown I remember, that scruffy eccentric neighborhood with deep roots, has been subjected to a corporate takeover, upscaled into near Disney-esque quaintness. The live music venues have been replaced by cupcake franchises. Lines form outside Georgetown Cupcakes and Sprinkles.
I love a good cupcake, but it’s no substitute for rock ‘n roll.
Ah well. I hear the kids these days do their reinventing and rebelling over in Adams Morgan. Times change. The moveable feast relocates. The repast goes on.
When the Bough Breaks
The lights have been gradually coming back on since Friday night’s knockout storm that brought down trees and power lines across the entire metro D.C. area.
But not in our building.
In the big picture, ours is a boutique blackout. The huge apartment complex across the street had power the day after the storm. The somewhat more modest buildings behind us have lights, cameras, action.
We have flashlights, flickering through the pitch-dark stairwells and halls.
On the first day after the treepocalypse, as we adjusted to the new status quo in our building – no air conditioning, no refrigeration, no internet – our hearts raced every time we heard the throaty rumble of a Pepco truck’s approach. But in the first two days the electric crews had their hands full.
People died in this storm. It shot through our steamy region like a tornado without the twist. It was, we’re told, a thing of historic proportions. So, we hunkered down to wait. And considering that many people lost houses, cars and more, we count ourselves lucky to be among the flashlight brigade.
Ironically, among the things I’m thankful for are the enormous trees still standing around town. D.C. is known as a city of monuments, public places and policy makers. But it’s the stunning expansive tree canopy which cloaks the hard lines, shades the glare, and gives the city its air of grace and charm.
Some of these trees are centuries old, their limbs reaching out fifty feet and more, turning many a tree-lined street into a vaulted leafy cathedral. It’s heaven for a tree-worshipper.
But when a ferocious derechos – a rare storm system which moves in a straight line – packing winds of 65 mph and up, lashes into trees heavy with lush wet leaves, something’s got to give.
It was a record-breaking 104 degrees the day the storm arrived. Some people say this is the sort of extreme weather we can expect more of as global warming gets its act in gear. Others, of course, say global warming is just one of those silly scientific theories. Like evolution.
Ah, humanity. So proud, so nuts.
And on the third day
Pepco trucks massed on our street.
Chainsaws sounded sweet.
When, after a full day of sawing, chipping and shredding, they finally drove off, we assumed that the power would be restored.
Silly humans.
Today, the fifth without power for those of you playing along somewhere else, the routine has lost its novelty. Crankiness festers. Fun’s fun, but even flashlight tag grows tiresome. Especially when the batteries lose their zip.
However, the sun came up today. In the distance you can hear the strident beep of a backup horn, no doubt another Pepco “reliability” agent on the job. The rush and bustle of the careworn world goes on, with or without AC/DC, even in D.C.
Perhaps tomorrow, on the Fourth of July, even if things haven’t improved, we can all join hands for a moment or two and share the buzz of excitement. Who knows? Maybe freedom from electricity will be the next Big Thing.
My Own Private Nora
She was the sister I never had.
The funny, outspoken, irreverent, sentimental fool who could make me cry and laugh at the same time.
And so, even though I never knew her personally, the loss of writer, director and all around cool human Nora Ephron at age 71 feels personal to me.
I still recall the gut-wrenching pain and anger I experienced watching “Heartburn” in 1983. That was one of the first movies that really expressed the fury and misery of a bad marriage from a woman’s perspective. But what made it an outstanding book and movie was how Nora mined this vein of emotional upheaval for laughs.
That was her great gift, in my book. She had the rare ability to make light of things, especially the sad, awkward, uncomfortable things that come with the territory of being a fully engaged human.
I’ve read how she was the daughter of writers, how her mother encouraged her to develop stories out of her personal experiences, and no doubt that had a lot to do with her successes. But throughout her career, in films primarily, I loved the stories she chose to tell. Even some of the ones that the critics found wanting.
Of course I loved “When Harry Met Sally,” a cocktail of cynicism and sappiness made when both Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were in their prime – it was a big hair home run, and the famous scene in the diner, “I’ll have what she’s having,” will live in highlight montages till the end of time.
And, having spent the last six years living in Seattle, I’ve watched “Sleepless in Seattle” so many times I should probably join a support group.
But among Nora’s so-called failures are some of my favorites. “Mixed Nuts,” an antic madcap comedy about a group of misfits at a suicide hotline on Christmas eve, was roundly panned by most critics in spite of an all-star cast that included Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Juliette Lewis and Liev Schreiber. Sure, it has a corny holiday message, but so what? The scene where Martin and Schreiber dance together provides a few moments of transcendent pleasure.
I also liked “My Blue Heaven” another wacky film about a criminal in the witness protection program (Steve Martin again) who befriends an uptight neighbor (Rick Moranis). Dancing ensues.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen every film nor read every essay she wrote, but through the years I learned to trust Nora Ephron to deliver great, funny, heartfelt stories, whether they were essays about herself, or complete fantasies starring the likes of Meryl Streep or Nicole Kidman.
That’s right, sports fans, I liked Nora’s “Bewitched.” Really, really liked it. So there.
The curtain has fallen too soon on her life, but her brilliant, funny work will continue to lighten up this dark world. And for that I am grateful.