State of the Oaf

So, whatcha think of the new look? Please glance to your right and notice the link to my spanking new Redbubble gallery, where the Bonelands series of prints is currently posted and ready for purchase. Also note a few changes in my blog roll -- I've added a couple of pals, deleted a few people who -- while certainly worthy -- were not particularly close to my circle.

See, it turns out that I passed 20,000 hits when I wasn't looking so I figured it was time to class the joint up. The banner? I didn't use 3D software; instead, I used Illustrator to draft a three-point perspective grid, then I drew the shapes in Photoshop, rendered them in Painter, and then brought the thing back to Photoshop for the lettering. Fun times.

So here's what's going on with me.

There's no need to go into the hell of last winter. If you're a reader, you've got an idea, if you're not, you don't need to read my pissing and moaning.

Things are different now.

I have a number of very specific plans to try and make some money. I'm going to be putting all my old art up on Redbubble and possibly DeviantArt galleries, and there will be prints available. My friend Deborah has recently approached me about doing a series of place mats with a dinosaur theme. I'll do those, and then use them as samples of my art when I try and sell a children's book on dinosaurs. And I'm entering the UC Extension editorial program this fall, and while I'm doing that I will be investigating the possibility of writing and editing manuals and tutorials for graphics software.

And I won't be going further into debt while pursuing these options. My sister has finally agreed to sell our family house in Merced, so I'll have enough money to get through the editorial program.

I will also be able to make a few changes in my studio that will make it a more effective creative space. Blinds on the west window so I can work in the late afternoon and early evening, a pillow to support a drawing board so I can sketch while at my workstation, a new stand for my light table so I can use it as a surface for blocking out plots with Post-It notes and file cards, and whatever I need to do podcasts. (That's right, by the end of the summer you'll be getting some spoken-word Oaf.)

The novel is cooking right along. I did some important writing yesterday, and will be doing a thorough re-reading in conjunction with the new plot outline generated at Taos Toolbox. I have every confidence that by the end of the summer, I'll be starting to circulate both the novel and the film script.

And Taos Toolbox was perfect. It set me back on my feet, made me feel that plot is learnable and the novel is under control, and the sheer pleasure of doing something well with people you respect is a difficult thing to beat.

I'm a little further along the process of coming to terms with myself. I am, like it or not, a classic crazy genius. If you were to go back and read this blog from the beginning, you'd find a fascinating if not always pleasant history of what seems to be a series of bipolar episodes. I run the gamut from sleepy croaks to extreme lucidity to hysterical ravings, and if you plot these out you do seem to get a sine wave.

So I am going to be experimenting with therapy, as well. But right now I'm riding the sweet edge of a manic state, and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

I'm grateful to all the people in my life who are patient enough to put up with me. I'm a rewarding person, I hope, but I'm not what you'd call easy on the nerves. Oh, well. Dealing with me is not always like dealing with a person. I'm a bit of a force of nature, a larger-than-life character, and that's just the way it is.

In the past I've felt kind of crappy about the fact that the personality I present to the outside world is one I deliberately tried to construct -- it's only bad craftsmanship on my part that keeps me from being arrestingly charismatic -- but I've come to realize that I had to assemble that personality from the parts I had laying around, and some of those parts are actually fairly admirable.

Yeah, I'm a weirdo. Even in the company of New Agers, stoners, junkies, writers, artists, and SF people I still stand out as an eccentric. What the fuck. You know what I am?

I am brilliant. Smart, talented, imaginative, and skilled. I have an excellent prose style, a fine control over composition, a rock-solid rhythm. I'm a brute, but I'm a good-natured brute. Having me around is like having a pet bear. And at the same time, I like to take care of people. I'm the kind of person people ask for advice, the kind of person children and animals automatically trust. People tend to open up to me if I'm around them for more than twenty minutes or so. That's because I really listen, and I really care. My raging insanity is balanced by a mind of exceptionally fine discipline, and the intense pressures involved in that balance are the source of my art.

I'm a man you don't meet every day.

My powerful drives toward self-negation and self-destruction are hard on the people who care for me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry -- but that is something that's going to come up. It just is. I can take responsibility for it, but sometimes I'm going to need help.

The thing is? I get that help. People think I'm worth the extra effort. I am so grateful for the kindness of those around me that it's hard to deal with sometimes, but it's enough to keep me going, to keep me motivated, to keep me interested in life. Every kind word and gesture extended to me carries a vital importance that I cannot ignore.

So think of it this way. If you're going to care about me, expect a fucking rollercoaster -- but you can count on a scenic ride. Yes, I make extra demands on the people around me. I wish I didn't. But I'm a rewarding person to be around in ways you won't get from anyone else. It's my job to be as good a person as I can be, but I simply am not going to be an easy person, and I'm through thinking I should be. I am big and hard and complicated and frequently difficult, because that's who I am.

I just have to try and be worth the trouble.

Mystery!

Guess what?

Green Chili Ratatouille

Okay, someone asked me for the recipe so I did the art real fast, and then I remembered what my day's been like, and I started to giggle. Now aren't you sorry you asked? Jesus, I'm the goddamned king of too much information.

Okay, here's the deal. Since I'm not the kind of person who cooks by measuring and following recipes, I won't tell you how to cook anything until after you've cooked it. But I will tell you how I cooked it, and it is on that basis that I once wrote a recipe. I am starting to suspect I may have more of these in me.

And so...

Green Chili Ratatouille
for the Missus, my beloved Karen,
who puts up with me

So when you're shopping, the missus will ask you what vegetables you'd be interested in cooking. You've been struggling with a roasted zucchini, yellow summer squash, eggplant, and pepper salad, so you get eggplant, yellow summer squash, and zucchini.

When you get back to the cart, the missus is holding up a sack of ultrasoft tomatoes from the used vegetable section, where the produce is cheap and rotting. She asks if you would be willing to do something with the tomatoes and basil. Inspect the bag; cringe at the condensed droplets of fetid moisture on the inside surface; decide enough are salvageable to make a tomato sauce a possibility. Impulsively agree out of mingled culinary curiosity and the pliability induced by a waxing libido.

While in line, avoid staring at the young woman in the blue blouse and blue jeans two lines over by staring into the cart. Think about the idea that Mrs. Popeyehead is a sort of a Greek Chorus while Mr. Popeyehead is a Threshold Guardian. Wonder where the living fuck your copy of The Writer's Journey is; it seemed kinda shitty when you looked at it before, but Nancy Kress gave it kudos, and she's Nancy motherfucking Kress and all.

Looking at the eggplant, zucchini, yellow summer squash, tomatoes and basil, you suddenly remember MFK Fisher (oh, man. Back in the day... and she liked men. She liked artists and intellectuals, but the bit she did about that butcher meant that she also had at least an aesthetic appreciation of sweaty loudmouthed brutally masculine basically offensive types... Jesus. MFK Fisher. What would it be like to be with someone who could cook?)

The Missus will lean against you and ask you if you would want to be with someone who was really tall. Explain that as long as the woman is substantial enough so that it doesn't make you feel as though you're with a child, height is no issue. Remind her of the ex, who is exactly the same height as the missus. (Jesus, she was strong. You were stronger, heh heh heh, but it was always fun wrazzlin' around with her. Felt like you were accomplishing something. She always started it, and she always got mad when she lost. What is it in me that takes such delight in pissing off my objects of desire?) Look down at the Missus -- yep. Still the one you fell in love with. Give her a hug; yeah, we're in line at the grocery. Fuck you all. Go on; try me out, motherfucker. Ha!

Someone comes up and takes over bagging the groceries. Stare at the Missus. Yep, yep, yep. Stare around the store in general.

Oh, my lord. Does she even understand what that means, or is she just trying shit out? You're not complaining, just... Jesus. Fucking college kids look like they're twelve; briefly feel like the lowest, most bestial lecher on the planet.

Wheel the cart out to the car. Some motherfucker in a car just keep coming at you. Push the cart right into his fucking car -- his window's open, so you can grab his fucking head, pull it out, and lean on the motherfucker...

Jesus motherfucking christ, dude. Don't do that. That's horrible! You're a horrible fucking vicious animal and if they're smart they'll pin you down in a steel net and systematically blow you apart with a shotgun. Anyway, it would piss the Missus off and you want to stay on her good side.

What was that about MFK Fisher?

Eggplant, zucchini, yellow summer squash. Soft, ripe red tomatoes. Oh, yeah -- she had a recipe for something called Minorcan Stew, sort of a ratatouille thing with red peppers in it. You know who was hot? The Willendorf Venus. Don't kid yourself.

... it would be easier to just cut that shit up and put it in a crock pot than do the roast vegetable salad. And it would use up those tomatoes, and if you threw some of that fresh basil down on it when you serve it up...

So when you get home, you start off by taking the tomatoes -- oh, those are soft -- and sorting and rinsing them. The missus comes up and says she forgot to get tomatoes for her salad. Invite her to take her pick of those you've cleaned; damn. There's this and there's that and she's still fucking got it...

You're got two long Chinese eggplants, seven tiny zucchini, and six medium yellow summer squash. But you didn't get any fucking red peppers. Ratatouille? Minorcan stew? Oh, fuck, you need peppers, dude, or the whole flavor profile will be fucked. Maybe there's a jar of roasted red peppers in the pantry...

No.

But there are those canned Hatch chilis from Trader Joe's. Hmmm... Hmmm...

You know who's hot? That lady on Modern Family, Sophia Vergera or something. She seems like she's got a sense of humor, too. Someone you could actually fucking stand to be around... Ruben's wife was hella cute but she was probably a total dope. Fucking a stupid person is the crassest form of bestiality... no matter how big her ass is.

Right. Right. Back to work.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the tomatoes. Rub it in until they're coated and slippery all over. Put 'em in the oven at 550 -- as hot as it gets.

Dude, get a fucking grip. Maybe you should think about pulling Nixon's face apart jowl by jowl. They'd stick together like Velcro...

Heh, heh, heh. You really are a sick fucker, you know? What a visual imagination -- 's like watching a movie. That paranoid fuck taught America to expect and accept criminal behavior from its presidents, and that legacy led directly to the horrors of the Bush regime. Bastards...

The missus comes in and asks if she can cook beets in the oven with the tomatoes. Sure, sure... Huh. This is okay; usually she just kind of barges in and gets in the way but this time it seems like she's got the dance, where both can work continuously without making each other get out of the way... Cool. You're not gonna expect it to happen again, but hey. She's got the dance.

If your hands weren't so greasy... She'd fucking kill you if you got greasy handprints all over...

Okay, chop up one yellow onion, and one Vidalia onion. Heat up the big skillet, then add a drizzle of olive oil and throw in the onions. Chop up two big shallots -- jesus, the shallots you bought today were pathetic, when they're that small they aren't worth fucking with. Wait until the big ones come back in season, dude.

Throw the shallots in with the onion; stir, scraping up the caramelized juices from the bottom. Hmmm... Add a little water and deglaze the pan. Let it brown again; deglaze again.

Thinly slice six cloves of garlic. Chuck 'em in the pan, stir, deglaze, caramelize.

Take the tomatoes out of the oven. The missus will come in and offer to peel them. "The peels come off the way skin skin comes off," she says.

You say, "Well, then, just imagine they're boils." She laughs. Some people appreciate a sick fuck, thank god.

Slice the vegetables. Remove cores from the tomatoes and squeeze the juice into the pan with the bouquet of stinking lilies, using it to deglaze. Damn, those are still hot. Ow, ow, ow -- pain is good for you, you fucking... Ow. Don't be a pussy, dude.

Crush the tomatoes. Use them to scrub up the traces of caramelized tomato juice from the bottom of the pan.

Get out the big crockpot. You were going to make beans today, but there's no way to fit all this crap in the small crockpot. Put down a layer of caramelized onions, etc. Put down one can of Hatch green chilis. You'll eat Ortega if that's what there is, but still. Fuck Ortega.

Put down a layer of squashes and eggplant. Put down a layer of tomatoes. Salt heavily. Repeat. Pour all the various deglazings and juices over the top and shit that smells good already. Put the top on the crockpot and put it on high.

You know who's hot?

Four hours later, it's the fucking green chili ratatouille that's hot. Oh, man. That's actually way better than the salad would have been, and the green chilis really work. Oh, man, that is sweet...

Is it you or did spring come late this year?

People Who Rocked My World When I Needed It

Behold the mighty meat from Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue.

I don't mean everybody. If I tried to give credit to everyone who's helped keep me on this Planet of the Dopes, I'd wind up forgetting a bunch of important ones. But when I was gripped in the jaws of melancholy this winter/spring, I had a couple of very nice things happen, and I'd like to give credit where credit is due. First off, Catherine Schaff-Stump of Writer Tamago and Viable Paradise XIII did a really nifty profile of me.

When she talks about my oscillation, I have to admit that I've wondered if people noticed when I did that... Basically, I can only focus on one thing at a time, and a lot of the time that one thing is inside my head. So I'm either hyper-grounded in reality or completely lost in the ozone, and the shift frequently happens in social situations. Ah, well. It could be worse.

To tell you the truth, I actually like green beans. I cooked these by putting salt into my big enamel skillet and dry-frying/steaming them -- the salt brings out the juices, which steam the beans. 's good, easy, and digestible.

And Brent Bowen, another Viable Paradise XIII veteran, sent his VP roomie good ol' Christopher Cornell and I a care package from the heartland. Real barbecue, my friends. I try my hand at smoking meat from time to time, but alas, skill and resources are limited. It's nice to get a notion of the standards of the field.

The ribs were the best. Tender rather than stringy, the fat perfectly melted into the meat, which clung to the bone before pulling off cleanly. The smoke ring was about three-eighths of an inch of ruby red goodness. Ahhh...

The burnt ends were dense and tasty nubbins that went particularly nicely with the sauce.

The beans really rocked -- I've done a similar style myself. Sort of smokey baked beans with shreds of beef.

And the corn casserole with ham and cheese? Chris described it as, "Macaroni and cheese, but with corn instead of macaroni." I've got to say that a) it tasted really, really weird to me and b) I wound up licking the pot clean.

So thank you, Brent and Catherine. Sorry to have been such a slug about this, but it's been all I can do not to go on a multi-state crime spree of a magnitude that would render the concept of punishment meaningless. Alas, simple human courtesies were beyond my feeble capacities.

So. Y'all can expect another post tomorrow. And I suspect you may be surprised...

Taos Report 2

So it's about eleven right now and my flight leaves at two. So I figure I may as well put up a new blog post... Right now I'm in fine spirits and yet feel vaguely as though I'd been ate by a coyote and crapped off a cliff. It has been a time, and the nature of that time has been swell.

I'm a stronger writer than I was when I came. I'm still gonna be wrestling with plot and storytelling, but they're within my grasp. I wasn't expecting to sharpen my prose -- I am, he said modestly, a damned good prose stylist (that's right, folks, the Oaf acknowledged that he isn't a steaming pile of shit in all regards) -- but that Nancy Kress had some thoughts and specifics that will prove useful in the future.

I also had the privilege to meet a collection of anthropoids of a particularly fine quality. If these are my colleagues, then I"m in the right business. There is no doubt in my mind that I'll be seeing some of these names, quite possibly all of them, on book covers in the foreseeable future.

(The orange security alert was just announced. If you read this, you may well have some idea of my thoughts on politics, national security and so on. I need not describe the mingled amusement and disgust that announcement inspired.)

This really felt like a necessary and natural follow-up to Viable Paradise. I learned a hell of a lot at VP, but the most valuable thing I came away with was a sense that I am a real writer. That was one of the many factors that led to this last winter, which I spent in hell. I wasn't ready to know that -- but if I had showed up at Taos Toolbox without that self-knowledge, I would have been crushed by the excellent criticisms I recieved. As it was, I took them in with pleasure and confidence, and the results are already being felt. I'm feeling confident and capable, and I'm regarding the future with pleasure rather than fear. It's been a long time sense I had this basic sense of well-being, and I owe it all to the people around me.

In other words, I fucking well needed this. May I extend my thanks to the woman who made this possible? Karen, I love you.

And I can hardly wait until tomorrow so I can get to work. I hope you all are feeling as good as I am. If not, lemme know and I'll try and do something about it.

Adios!

Taos Report 1

This is a very, very rare occurance on this blog -- a post with no art. Right now I"m far away from my home, my work computer, and a scanner... I could talk about my temporary retreat from the web, I could talk about my current plans for the near future -- which are interesting -- but there's something going on.

I"m in the mountains of New Mexico, at the Taos Toolbox workshop.

Sunday was a true day of adventure. I had a direct flight from the Bay Area to Albequerque (being able to spell the word 'Albesquerque' without using spellcheck has been the first unexpected side-effect of this trip), writing pal and fellow VP vet E.F. Kelley was going to pick me up at the airport, I'd be at the workshop by early noon.

Up at four-thirty in the morning out of the house by five-thirty, dropped off in San Francisco. As she drops me off, the missus flips into full Control Freak mode and starts telling me how to roll my suitcase and where to sit on the plane. (I know it means she loves me.) I go to check in my baggage, and am informed that my flight does not leave from San Francisco.

Karen dropped me off at the wrong airport.

Thankfully, the gentleman behind the desk was able to fix things for me. I should have noted his name. Roy, Duane, whoever the hell you are, thanks, dude. SF to Phoenix, Phoenix to Albequerque.

As we left San Francisco, rising through the clouds, I saw something I'd never seen before. It was a perfectly circular rainbow. And inside that circle? The shadow of the plane. It was an absolutely perfect logo.

Landing in Phoenix, the waiting area for my flight was crowded, so I had to do something I hate to do. I sat down next to a human being. All things being equal, I decided to sit next to a human being who was cute and female. Sometimes petty motives are the only variables in a situation, and fuck you. Another young woman sat down across from us. A few pages of Francis Bacon interviews later (fascinating stuff, an understandable mind whose aesthetics are highly intellectualized and very different from my own), the woman next to me pulls out her cell phone and made a call. The woman across from us answered her phone. They put down their phones, amused at the coincidence, and started talking.

They were talking about Taos Toolbox. And that's how I met Amy and Hallie.

Eric met me in Albequerque, and we rode out in his blue Mustang, Roxxie. I've got to confess, I"m a non-driver, but there is something about a muscle car... As always I found myself fascinated by the differences in the sky, in the landscape. I'm always fascinated by the quality of light in different locations, and the light here is crisper, sharper, more highly-focused than the light back home. The plants are duller, the ground more brightly colored, the shape of the land is different. The clouds are incredible and the sky is a stronger, darker blue than I"m used to. Just lovely.

So we climb up into the mountains, we get to the lodge, we get checked in. We'd been warned about the altitude, and sure enough, I found myself periodically becoming short of breath. And at dinner, I found myself with a badly impaired appetite. In fact, the food disgusted me. About halfway through my hamburger, I found that I simply could not swallow. So I got up from the table, silently went to my room, and began puking.

Altitude sickness? It is a real thing.

Sunday night was the most physically miserable I have ever been in my life, and I have had a few unpleasant experiences. Nausea is worse than pain for me -- I suspect I'm not alone in this -- and after a while I realized that this was not just stress puking, this was something wrong with me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Puke, lay down, get up and puke again. There was a point where I said to my gut, "You are so empty, dude. Now you're just making shit up," and my digestive tract responded by just reaching a little deeper. By the end, I swear I was vomiting crap.

When I wasn't puking, I was sweating. I am a great big sweaty fellow. It's kinda gross. But this? I was sweating so much it felt as if I was under a low shower, a constant liquid flow across my whole body. My bedclothes were saturated. We are talking pints and quarts of fluid. My bedclothes were so sodden that it was like sleeping in wet towels, and they clung to my body so the sheets kept coming loose and when is this over?

So between the puking and the sweating my electrolytes went funky and I began to curse myself for not having access to Emergen-C or Gatorade or some goddamned sea salt. My muscles started to go into spasm, so now in addition to everything else I had pain. But thankfully, some time in the early morning, my symptoms started to fade and I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep in. I was afraid I might have to leave, but things have settled down. But let's put it this way. We've been told not to drink until we're acclimated -- the alcohol interacts with the altitude -- so I ain't drinking. That's right, I'm surrounded by writers and I"m fucking sober. What the fuck, people?

Anyway. It's nearly seven, I've got work to do, and while yesterday was good solid worktime, it wasn't generating a blog post. But I did get a very nice compliment from Nancy Kress on my critiques. I'm putting it up on the wall next to the other compliments that I turn to from time to time during states of emergency. Both she and Walter seem easy to work with so far, the group is hard-working and disciplined...

Lemme put it this way. Viable Paradise had a sort of summer camp/sleepover vibe that was a hell of a lot of fun and really helped bring us together as a group. This? This ain't vacation. This is school.

Which is what I want.

Now all I have to do is survive until I get my crit. I know I shouldn't worry, but I am intimidated. Christ. Is the novel salvageable, or is it a dizzy piece of shit and it's time for me to move on? I will confess, I am on tenterhooks.

And on that note, I sign off. First to look up 'tenterhooks,' and then to think about breakfast. There's some green chili cheese bagels about, and while I'm not a fan of freak bagels, I think I"d eat a tire if it had green chili and cheese on it.

Later.

Incommunicado

Just putting up a recent experiment, and letting y'all know that I'm getting on with getting on... I've decided to focus as tightly as possible on producing work for the next few days, so please pardon me if I'm a little distant.