Letting Go-A Rebel in Sparkly Sandals

There was this girl. Let's call her Bitsy.

Bitsy was the young woman my middle class self always wished she had been. Moneyed. Athletic. White-blonde, and very lightly freckled. East coast-educated, sorority-bred. Brilliant taste in clothes. Rarely wore more than one or two pieces of jewelry, and never carried a purse--only her wallet.  She didn't have a gorgeous figure, but she had killer green eyes, and more confidence in her pinky than I had in my head and heart, combined. She was a rung ahead of me on the corporate ladder and was secretly dating a guy in the office. Together, they looked like an advertisement for WASP Weekly. I wanted to hate her, but I was conflicted because I didn't want to hate the thing I wanted to be.

Me: Just out of college on the 5-year, once-divorced plan. Sketchy taste in clothes, though I tried. (By way of a back-handed compliment, one jerk of a guy in the office said, "That's a great-looking coat. You didn't pick it out, did you?" I lied and said I had, but it was my mother who had suggested it.) Mostly I went for expensive, to be on the safe side. Fortunately it was the eighties, and back then expensive didn't really include trashy the way it does now. I drove a Chevette that had the entire passenger door mashed in because some drunk had crashed into it in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, and drove away. When I went to work, I parked as far away as I could from the entrance to the building. But everyone teased me about the car, anyway. I smoked cigarettes like a fiend so I could stay thin, wore inappropriate shoes, and wrote really bad poetry and prose at night in my studio apartment.

At work, I would watch Bitsy in action. She was every guy's buddy, could tell a dirty joke with a straight face, never cursed, and was competent at her job. She rarely had drama around her, and if she gossiped, I never knew about it. I envied her tan, too. (Now, though, I bet she looks like a spotted prune.) Sometimes I think, though, that Bitsy wasn't all that smart. I once went to her apartment with her to pick up something for a project and was surprised to see a decaying goldfish floating in a giant glass bottle in her living room. She explained that she thought it would look cool to have a goldfish in a bottle, and so had filled the bottom with colored rocks, and added water and the fish. But the opening to the giant bottle was only about two inches in diameter, and so she couldn't change the water without emptying out all the water and the rocks. The fish was traumatized the first time and got brieftly stuck in the bottle's neck. So she hadn't tried to change the water again and the fish soon died. I expect that was the first gray hole I noticed in Bitsy's golden aura.

Secretly, I didn't want to be on Bitsy's radar at all. I knew I was very much NOCD (Not Our Class, Darling) and was desperately afraid of her. How sad is that? Our culture ostensibly has no class system, but of course it does and has forever. Money and/or fame are the class distinctions here. No one really knows what old money is anymore. It's now just money. Period. But back when I knew Bitsy, the vestiges of old money habits and manners--even manners without a bank account--were still extant.

As I write this now, I truly feel ridiculous. Here are the words that came from Bitsy's mouth that stung me the most during the five years I knew her:

"Are those sapphires or something in your earrings? No one wears precious stones before 6 p.m." And then she walked away.

At that moment, I wished that a hole would have opened in the ugly beige office carpet so I could just crawl in it and die. My life was over. I was a hopeless, classless schmuck.

I held onto that useless bit of jewelry wisdom for more than twenty years, keeping it safe beside the match shoes to purse rule, the jewelry/clothing color rule of seven, and the no white shoes before Derby Day rule. (A day far more important than Memorial Day in Louisville, where I grew up.)
I firmly believe that cultural norms are important. A common language is useful. As is a common currency. I like that we all use the same kind of eating utensils, and feel a little thrill when I get to use chopsticks to eat Japanese food. It's nice that pretty much everyone keeps their grass mowed so it doesn't harbor snakes. There are a few practices that I don't see much of anymore and kind of miss: people dressed up for any dinner out that doesn't include a cafeteria tray or paper napkins; little girls wearing white gloves with their patent leather shoes, and boys in ties; slow dancing that isn't actually just sex-to-music-while-wearing-clothes. Yes, I'm old and kind of nostalgic that way. I'm not trying to hark back to the good old days in general, because there's never been a perfect time/place combination in the history of the world. I'm just thinking about a few little things that make me feel, well, absurdly happy. They aren't rules--or at least I think they shouldn't be. They're choice details.

I wonder if adhering to the no-stones-before-six rule made Bitsy happy. I wonder what other rules she had stuck in her head that made her life seem more civilized to her. Or did she learn those rules from someone who thought that rules about earrings necessarily separated her from people she didn't want to be close to, or associated with? How strange that we define ourselves through rules--even rules that may have long ago lost their meaning to the people living by them.

Today I'm wearing my cute little diamond solitaire earrings. It's only 5:37 and I put them in my ears around 2:00. I feel like such a rebel, wearing diamond earrings with the cotton pants and cardigan I threw on to go and pick up my son at school. I'm also wearing beaded Beverly Feldman sandals. They're not white, but it's March. March! And they're beaded--with flowers. There are voices in my head that screamed that I shouldn't be wearing sandals in March unless I'm on vacation somewhere warm and sunny. I'm living on the edge, I tell you. And I'm loving it!

I wonder what Bitsy's wearing. Teeny-tiny surgical bandages, I bet, from having her age spots zapped at the dermatologist's office. (Did I say that out loud? Shame on me.)

Discount Noir. Hot and cheap, the way crime should be.

One of the many fun things that came out of my Wardrobe by Sam project--besides many recent shopping trips to replace all those cut-rate fall & winter clothes--was an invitation to submit a piece of fiction to a new crime anthology, Discount Noir.

During all the days and hours that I spent in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club looking for wearables, I never saw an actual crime being committed. (There was that suspicious couple in the shoe department. I still wonder what they were up to.) But my imagination runs well beyond the occasional parking lot fender-bender and parking place-aggression dust-up: Petty thievery, grand larceny, drug deals, perhaps illicit sex in a back room or parking lot, the occasional murder-for-hire inquiry, maybe embezzlement, domestic abuse, or, dare I say, murder--or at least manslaughter. In real life, there are tragedies everywhere--but the prosaic discount store usually only gets really dangerous on Black Friday.

It seems I'm not alone in my wild wonderings. Writers Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle gathered together dozens of like-minded fiction folk to explore the seamy side of our love/hate relationship with the megamarts of the world. Discount Noir is a feast of dirty deeds limited to a thousand words or less. I'm thrilled to have my short story, Tenderloin, alongside the work of so many terrific writers, including my good friends J.T. Ellison, Kyle Minor, Sophie Littlefield, and Toni McGee Causey.

If you have a computer or e-reader, you can start reading Discount Noir in a matter of minutes. The publisher, Untreed Reads, has it available for download for the appropriately-discounted price of $4.49 (at the time of this post). That's a lot of entertainment for less than you'd pay for a dozen partially-hydrogenated fat & sugar cupcakes or one of those terrible straight-to-dvd movies from the giant bin at you local megamart!

Love this trailer whipped up by contributor Daniel O'Shea:

Oh, How I Love Book Clubs!

It's been several months since I was on the road. I think the workshop at the Hindman Settlement School was my last gig. And it's been almost a year since I toured for CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS. I can hardly believe it.

Today I had a welcome break from my looooong winter writing schedule. I had donated copies of ISABELLA MOON and a book club visit to the Inspiring Women's Gala auction at SIU last fall. And I was delighted to get together with the ladies of the club today at Panera here in Carbondale. Book clubs are such a pleasure to visit. I get to talk with readers in a relaxed atmosphere, and everyone has something interesting to say.

I loved the energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity of all the women I met today. The time just flew by, and I came home energized myself--ready to finish writing the last couple of chapters of DEVIL'S OVEN. So if you don't hear from me, you know where I am. Oh, and what I'm wearing. ; )

Aren't they gorgeous? Thanks so much, ladies!

Just When I Thought It Was Safe to Blog Again...

You knew it had to happen. Right after I posted about how I almost never blog about writing, here's a post that's (kind of) about writing. Revision, specifically.

Why do so many writers dislike revising their work? I see many updates on Facebook and Twitter from writers who are agonizing over their edits or revisions. Of course, writers with editors often wrestle with unwanted criticism, unclear direction, painful truths about their work or, even, no guidance at all. But to me a chance to revise is a chance to revitalize and bring new energy into my work. Writing a draft is agonizing to me, like pulling out my own teeth. Revising, though...revising is delicious.

Wait. Wait...Today I wrote about revising on my other blog, Wardrobe by Sam. That's the one on which I chronicle my adventures wearing only clothes from Wal-Mart and Sam's Club through mid-September. So, go visit there if you want to read how I compare revising words to revising a wardrobe (I think it works....)

Oh, darn. Am I cheating? Probably so. But as I write this, it's officially the gloomiest day of the year. Time to lighten up!

P.S. What I'm (still) reading this week: Unclutter Your Life in One Week. (I'm doing it in six weeks, btw...too many shiny objects about.)

Wardrobe by Sam--aka "What the Hell is Laura Up To Now?"

Focus is a big issue for me. I often don't do it so well. When I was finally diagnosed with ADHD last year, I felt a huge sense of relief because I no longer felt like a moral reprobate for the fact that I can hardly sit still for a 1/2 hour t.v. show, a church sermon, an intense conversation, or, worse, an afternoon's writing. My prioritizing app is permanently disabled. But when I do focus, it's with an intensity that delights and amazes me. And, strangely enough, after being on medication (Adderall)for nine months, I find that I can keep myself together reasonably well without medication--well enough to get some work done, anyway.

In the end, I've discovered that I've neglected an important part of myself over the years: I'm actually an all-or-nothing kind of girl at heart. Sure, there are those days when I start out at eight to empty the dishwasher and around three o'clock I fall over the open dishwasher door and realize that, in between emptying the top rack and the bottom, I've half-bathed the dog, gotten half-dressed, cleaned a closet by dumping everything out of it, gone to the grocery store only to forget what I went for, forgotten to pick up the kids, decided to become a ping-pong champion and bought a $200 paddle set online, spent two hours on twitter, forgot to eat lunch, and accidentally left the living room t.v. remote beside my husband's razor in the bathroom--and feel like a complete and total loser because of it all. (Sound familiar?) But what I prize, what I treasure, what I can't live without is the thrill of throwing myself into one--and only one--thing completely, and with utter abandon.

Folks will complain about living under restrictions. One thing? One focus? One goal? But I've found there's a brilliant kind of freedom in a life lived with limits--arbitrary or otherwise.

That's how I quit smoking. I can't have a cigarette ever again. Not even a puff. That's why I'm a serial monogamist. There's so much to marriage, so much possibility within the confines of a single, defined relationship. That's why, if I decide to plant a garden, I can't just put in a few flowers here and there. I have to follow whatever wacky vision I have and spend every available moment getting it just how I want it. That's why I don't write many short stories--they're too short! They don't satisfy my craving for long-term application of random rules.

Ah, randomness. Or novelty, as I've come to call it. "Novelty" sounds so much more fun, so much less frightening. Or how about spontaneity? That sounds good to me, too.

That's the other side of my personality. During the periods when I'm not completely obsessed, I drift. But not in an unpleasant way. Far from it! I remember that, yes, I have friends and I've been missing them. I fuss over my bemused family. I take walks and hikes. I travel. I watch t.v. I remember that I can swing a golf club in the backyard. I leave a trail of laundry and gardening implements strewn behind me.

But when those two parts of me intersect, that's something new.

Which brings me to my point. Something new.

I'm nearly finished writing Familiar Tales of Uncommon Horror, Book One: The Devil's Oven. (can you guess which tale The Devil's Oven represents? I've mentioned it before). I like to have projects that kind of leap-frog one another. This time I've decided to make myself the next project.

No, I'm not talking plastic surgery, or a radical diet. Or a new religion. I'm talking about something far more elemental and important....My wardrobe!

Sounds trivial, doesn't it? I have had, on occasion, certain people criticize me for being a less-than-serious person. Despite our culture's apparent love of the bon mot and the pithy snark, we are oddly obsessed with maintaining various poses of seriousness. It's as though everyone imagines that they're just waiting for their star turn at the Algonquin's fabled Round Table. Oh, please.




I have what is probably a pathological attachment to my clothes. I'll go into greater detail as my project unfolds, but, suffice it to say, it's time to cut the proverbial cord and see what happens.

So, I've boxed up my designer duds--pants, sweaters, skirts, shorts, jewelry, belts, scarves, shoes, and even, yes, lingerie and makeup. I'll live without my precious facade for one year. (I love these one-year experiments, thought Julie Powell's cookbook project was brilliant as soon as I reviewed her book years ago.) But I won't be living in a nudist colony or anything like that (that would not be pretty!). I'll be shopping exclusively at Wal-Mart stores and Wal-Mart.com. (Occasionally including Sam's Club.)

I'll be blogging about the experience several times a week, if not every day. You'll find my completely arbitrary rules there, too. What's it called? Wardrobe by Sam: Can a Self-Confessed Clothing Snob Find a Year's Worth of Fashion Happiness at the World's Biggest Discount Store? A mouthful, I know. I think Wardrobe by Sam is quite enough, but I always was one for the grand gesture.

Please come by. Critique my ensembles. Poke fun at me. Question my motives. Cheer me on. Make suggestions. I love an adventure, but adventures are much more fun when they're shared!