Writing Life

I’m always searching for metaphors in the specifics of science, art, sport, nature, and history that can be used to illuminate a larger human truth. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent blog entry, I mentioned in passing something known as the Mercator Projection. Invented in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, the Mercator Projection is a formula that allows a round object (usually the Earth) to be entirely mapped on a flat surface. The major flaw in the Mercator Projection is that it causes landmasses near the North and South Poles to appear larger than they really are. On a standard Mercator map, landmasses at the equator maintain their relative size in relation to the earth, while landmasses near the poles can appear many times their actual size. The reason for this is fairly simple. Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Darrell calls me every morning from Ashland, Oregon, to air a few grievances before he begins the day. Today his main grievance was a writer named Melissa Febos. He heard her interviewed on National Public Radio yesterday and has been incensed ever since. Read the rest of this entry »

Today Julie and I visited three of our “almost houses.” Six years ago, when we first made up our minds to move from Placerville to Sacramento, we began spending nearly every weekend in Sacramento, touring houses in the presence of a Realtor. We must have toured more than three dozen houses, but only five of them really tempted us. One of those five temptresses is our current home. The other four sirens are all located in our region of Sacramento, and three of them are within easy walking distance of our home. About once every year we make a visual inspection of our four almost houses, walking (or driving) by each of them in order to see how well they are being cared for. Today was visiting day. Read the rest of this entry »

Eddie comes home from the oil field one night last January and goes, “Guess what, we’re moving to Saudi Arabia.” Just like that. No “What do you think?” Or “Is that all right with you?” He’d seen this ad in the union newsletter that said Exxon had several assistant driller positions available in its Saudi Arabian oil fields. Apparently, the terrain in Saudi Arabia is similar to certain parts of Utah. So the company was sending a representative out here to recruit drillers for its Middle Eastern operation. Eddie had been a derrickman for seven years and was eager to become a driller. Now his chance had finally come. “All I need is a couple years’ work as an assistant driller over in Saudi Arabia,” he said, “then I can come back to America and get hired on as a driller anyplace I want.” Derrickmen make only about $3000 a month. A top driller can earn up to $8000. So naturally Eddie is all hyped up to leave behind the only house we’ve lived in for the whole eight years of our married life and take off for the middle of some godforsaken desert. Never mind what I might think about having to spend the next two years wearing a veil over my face and pouring sand out of my shoes. Talk about inconsiderate! Read the rest of this entry »

Julie has long been a fan of musical sequences contained in nonmusical films. Don’t get me wrong, she loves musicals also. But she is always delighted when, for a moment or so, a nonmusical film bursts into song. Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend, my wife and I visited an antiques mall in Carmichael, California. Early in our visit we came upon a cheap reproduction of Thomas Gainsborough’s famous painting known as The Blue Boy. Right alongside The Blue Boy was a copy of a painting known as Pinkie, so called because its subject, a young girl, is wearing a pink bonnet on her head and a wide pink sash around her waist. Later on in our visit, we once again came upon Blue Boy and Pinkie, this time in the form of matching bas-relief wall-hangings. Kitschy copies of these two famous paintings, in a variety of media, are ubiquitous at garage sales, yard sales, flea markets, and antiques shops. Years ago, an antiques dealer told Julie and me that Pinkie and Blue Boy were both painted by Gainsborough and were portraits of a brother and his sister. For many years we assumed this to be true. Why else would they always be found together? Read the rest of this entry »

Mr. Flitcrab was a fiftysomething real-estate agent who worked for a small firm in Sacramento. The company’s brochure claimed that his specialty was “handling residential properties,” but he didn’t like that description. “Handling” sounded too much like “fondling,” and he feared it would give people the impression that he was some kind of real-estate pervert. He had lobbied the office manager to change the wording to “specializes in residential property,” but to no avail. “Those brochures are expensive,” the office manager told him, “and we are not going to alter the text until all of the current brochures are gone.” A dozen or more heavy boxes of brochures monopolized one corner of the office supply closet. Mr. Flitcrab estimated that they contained enough brochures to last another five years or more. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday Julie and I attended an antiques faire in Auburn, California. In a vast assemblage of paper collectibles Julie spotted an unpublished original manuscript titled “Stories Grandmother Told Me.” The dealer was asking twenty dollars for it. We eventually got him to sell it to us for ten. The manuscript is about fifty pages long. The first half is typewritten and the second half is handwritten. Contained within those pages are dozens of short vignettes from the life of the author’s grandmother. The author doesn’t identify herself. But the grandmother is identified in the very first paragraph: Read the rest of this entry »

One day last fall, I was in my car, waiting at a stoplight, when a clock began to chime in the trunk of my Corolla. It chimed four or five times and then stopped. A few minutes later, after arriving at my home, I investigated. Read the rest of this entry »