People Love This Book!

Since Old Buildings in North Texas was released in the states, finding reviewers has been difficult. Though copies have been sent out in return for promised reviews, few reviews have actually appeared. I prefer it when people do what they say they're going to do, but as I don't work for the book review enforcement agency I have no control, which makes me crazy. I was happy to see this one, posted on Lone Star Literary Life, a prestigious and popular site for Texas booklovers. Thanks, Michelle Newby, for your kind words about Old Buildings in North Texas. 

http://www.lonestarliterary.com

Sam's Brand

I could tell from the packaging that this is an elegant product.  

Because our son, Sam's, company is in Beijing, I figured it would take two weeks to get them, but they arrived in four days. When Sam says he has distribution in the states, he means it!

The +1 at the temples signifies Sam's business plan--for every pair of these glasses sold, a destitute child in rural China will be given an eye exam and, if necessary, glasses. I know China is viewed as a monster these days, but this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with children so far removed from our world that they have no access to eye care. 

The case is classy and plush, but the glasses also came with a flat soft case so, if you're like me and carry a small purse, they can easily fit into it.

I'm colorful today. 

Sam's been in China for eight years. Since we moved from Singapore we don't see him often. We miss him but are proud of the work he's doing. I thought nothing new could be done with glasses's styles, but Sam found a way. You can find your Mantra on the website, which is also topnotch. 

https://www.findyourmantra.com

Absurd Imposition

Faye, our yoga instructor, has an unusual request. 

“I have a project that needs your help,” she says to the class. “I have bits of paper and pencils up here on the stage and after class, if you would, I need you to write down something about me that makes me unique as an instructor.”

She smiles benevolently over us. It’s an absurd imposition. I look around to see if anybody thinks this is as silly as I do, but the faces around me glow with tolerance and good will. 

“I know,” she continues, “it sounds like I’m asking for compliments, but that’s not the case. I’m working with someone to discover what traits combine to make me who I am, and I really need your input.”

Huh. Working with someone. Translation: she’s seeing a therapist. I’m not surprised. She’s the type who would enjoy having someone focused solely on her for a full hour. 

At the end of class only three out of twenty respond to her request—the two Marys and me. 

This is what I write:

1) I like your class and your explanations of the poses are well-articulated. 

2) On Friday you spent twenty minutes talking about yourself, which means we only got forty minutes instead of the full hour. I came for yoga, not to hear about your flat tire or how you met your husband. 

3) Also, you say, “take a breath,” and right after that you say, “now, on your next inhale straighten your knee.” Take a breath and inhale mean the same thing, which is confusing to those of us who know the meanings of words. As it is, you’re asking us to inhale twice. It would be more accurate to say, “exhale,” or “release your breath” rather than “take a breath.” And it’s upsetting to someone as hypercritical as I am when you use a verb as a noun. 

I return my comments and pencil to the stage, where I meet the Marys, also turning their remarks in. I know them from Mahjong and they’re both sincerely kind.

“I wrote something mean,” I tell them, happy to have offset the praise that I’m sure they slathered on thickly. 

Short Mary rolls her eyes. She knows how I can be.  

“You need to be more tolerant,” Tall Mary says. 

“Oh, I’m way better than I used to be,” I tell her. “I used to be self-righteous and petty. Now I’m just cantankerous.”

(An aside: This is the first experience I’ve had living in a small town. In Marble Falls I run into someone I know everywhere I go. I know people from Mahjong, yoga, and church, along with folks I’ve met through David, who’s involved in Habitat for Humanity and the Helping Center Garden. What this means is that I’ve had to put aside vanity. It’s inevitable that at one time or another every person in town will see me with limp hair and no makeup. 

LJ and I came upon one another in the grocery store yesterday. Going at a fast pace across the back aisle, she stopped abruptly when she saw me. Wearing a full-brimmed hat and large sunglasses, she looked like she was shopping incognito. 

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” I told her as I wondered what her disguise was concealing. 

“Good,” she said. And away she buzzed. Obviously she hasn’t yet come to terms with the vanity issue.) 

Back to point. 

There is a type of woman who views herself as a bottomless well of wisdom, a sage to guide the growth of others. In her life she seeks a position where she can be a teacher, a mentor, a philosopher. She likes to be in front of other women and she enjoys it when they look at her from a lower position. She shares profound reflections about how much the rain nourishes her soul and how the most insignificant decision can change your life. That’s Faye to a T. She loves having us in front of her, looking up at her, mirroring her movements. We’re captive receptacles for her to pour her knowledge into.  

Is she narcissistic? Delusional? Lacking in confidence and overcompensating? 

And what tickles me is that I wrote her before I met her. In my Snoop series, Wendy is the facilitator of a grief support group. She’s always late; she’s condescending; and she believes that her every utterance is life-changing. Here’s an excerpt from a passage I wrote two years ago:

Wendy doesn’t allow anyone to go outside and smoke at break time. She thinks the separation of the group will disrupt the flow in the circle. So the few people who are longing for a cigarette are jittery and a little hostile. As we gather around the coffee pot all eyes are on Wendy who, taking the central position, commands our attention. During the session she dons a sympathetic expression and nods supportively when someone shares. But at the break it’s The Wendy Show all the way. Her gestures are flamboyant; her voice carries; her opinions are emphatic. She’s unable to tolerate a single conversation that doesn’t revolve around her. 

So intimately do I know this character, and so much does the self-absorbed yogi remind me of her, that the other day I called the yogi by the made-up name, Wendy, instead of her real name, Faye. I’m going to have to watch that.

It's a very trendy and clean facility with, as you can see, many services.

This is a not very good picture of my friend, Jane. I play Mahjong with her. I do yoga with her. And her husband works on the Habitat houses with David. We see each other all the time. 

Amarillo Disparaged

We had some brilliant minds in our Amarillo High School graduating class, young men and women who moved to distant places and made prodigious differences in the world. An astronaut, doctors, lawyers, Ivy League professors, artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and gifted musicians--all outstanding in their fields. I often think about the kids I went to high school with, and I'm amazed how so many great and successful people came out of that arid windy town where ideas are aborted immediately after conception. 

I know no one who lives there now. 

Because my novel, Old Buildings in North Texas, has recently been released here in the US, I’m concentrating on publicizing it. This is progressing here in the same way it did when the book was released in the UK, which means a publicist has arranged guest postings on blogs and reviews to go in newspapers and magazines throughout the country. 

As my books are published internationally and set in fictional Caprock, which is based on Amarillo, you’d think people in my hometown would be interested or, at the very least, curious. But I contacted the editor of the Amarillo Globe News two weeks ago, attaching a press release to communicate that this is a legitimate book published by an award-winning literary publisher. I haven’t heard back from him. This excerpt from one of the posts I did for a British blog will explain why I’m not at all surprised:

Having lived in seven countries over a thirty-year period, I’m often asked why I place my novels in a stark dry town in Northwest Texas. It’s because it’s the location I know best. Though the ex-pat life is enlightening, I don’t have other cultures in my bones the way I do Amarillo. I’ll point out that I say bones rather than heart. I hardly love the place. But its vernacular is mine and I comprehend on an intrinsic level the mindset of the people, who are stubborn, religious, big-hearted, abhorrent toward change, and suspicious of success.

In Amarillo, liberals are appreciated in the same way children are; they’re expected to keep their voices down and not touch anything. And, while outwardly the city appreciates the arts, it’s understood that any artist will be out of favor if he or she steps too far outside conventional societal boundaries. Also, if some performer or scientist shows outstanding talent or ability, well, Amarillo as a whole wishes they’d take their genius elsewhere. 

And though the population makes an effort to move forward, when it comes to cultural trends and economic development, they somehow manage to always be several years behind the rest of the country. 

Reading this a year after I wrote it, I realize that it comes off as supercilious, which is not truly the way I feel, though it’s obviously the way I felt at the time. All I can think is that I must have been in a mood. For the most part, Amarillo is composed of good people going about their daily business. Mainly what I remember from my years there is that the hands of the clock never seemed to move and nothing ever changed. 

Here’s another disparaging excerpt, this one in the voice of Olivia from OBiNT:

In Dallas I worked as the regulars’ editor for Dallas Flair, a local fashion magazine. It was my dream career, a grand life in the making.  Here in Caprock, with my background (and I am impressive—BA in English from Rice, MA in Journalism from Columbia, magna cum laudein both) I should’ve been able to get a job on the newspaper, the Caprock Chronicle, which, as far as I can tell, is none too choosy. And there’s a local magazine here, too, that I’m well-suited for. Called Caprock Comfort, it has more to do with home decorating than fashion, but still, it’s work I could do, a theme I could get behind. I like comfort as much as the next person.    

Oddly, the reason I’m not working for one of these publications isn’t because I’m an addict or that I’m unqualified. It’s because I left the area. 

“Tech not good enough for you?” asked Stanley Mason, editor of the Caprock Chronicle.  “Most of our staff went to Tech. Or Pan UT.”  Located two hours to the south, Texas Tech is as far as most people from Caprock go for their higher education. And Pan UT, the panhandle branch of the University of Texas system, is even closer—half an hour to the southwest, in Gorman.  

“Columbia? Isn’t that in New York?” asked Susan Riley, editor of Caprock Comfort.“Why’d you go way up there? That must have been horrible.”

As most ex-pats know, family and friends from home don’t want to hear about experiences from the outside world. They’re happy to see you, but they lack curiosity and are caught up in their own lives. This conversation between Olivia and her therapist offers another reason why someone from Amarillo might not appreciate OBiNT:

“Tell me about living in New York.” Jane dons an interested expression.  

“It’s busy,” I say, happy to comply. “There’s always something to do.  You can take a short subway ride and end up in a completely different neighborhood where they speak Chinese or Russian or Arabic or Portuguese. And the way people dress is fascinating—all the cultures shown in fabrics and designs right there on their backs, and you can see how one style influences another. And everybody walks. People are out and moving, not getting from place to place in their solitary cars.”

Her eyes have glazed over, which makes me stop talking. The prospect of a world beyond Caprock has rendered her catatonic. It takes her a few seconds to realize I’ve gone silent.

My treatment of Amarillo in my novels is hardly kind. I suppose it’s understandable that no one at the Amarillo Globe News would care to read a book that denigrates the town and its people. On the other hand, why wouldn’t they want to read it? If there’s anything folks in Amarillo enjoy, it’s becoming indignant and holding a grudge. 

My novels do offer some positive things about my hometown. At times I grow nostalgic when writing of the flat hard land and the shadows cast by the gnarled mesquite, the fierce wind and the blue, blue sky. Also the dialect has always pleased me—the fixin‘ tos and the ya’lls and the gunnawunnas (as in You’re gunnawunna take care of that). 

And the people also possess two of my favorite qualities: a sense of humor and a lack of pretention; after all, it looks like they named their new baseball team the Sod Poodles.  

This is Amarillo High's mascot. I think it's supposed to be a dust devil, or maybe a tornado. To me it looks like the lovechild of Mr. Peanut and a bowl of butterscotch pudding. 

Another good thing that can be said about Amarillo is that it has nice broad streets.