I have the cover over at Piker Press this week. I don’t always mention when I’m published over there, but this one I rather like more than half the time.
Although there was one edit I wanted to make before it went live, and then I just plan forgot. D’oh!
It was early when I got to the little café near home. My batteries were already somewhat depleted and I didn’t have my power cord with me, so I didn’t figure on it being a long night.
The place was almost empty when I got there; the only two tables that were taken were the ones I normally gravitate toward. One is directly beneath the TV and close to the outlet, and the one next to it also has good access to electricity. They are both by the window, which can be chilly, but when things get smoky it’s a blessing. They also happen to be the tables that are most out of the way when things start to get crowded. (There are only six tables in all.) That didn’t seem like it was going to be an issue, however.
Soon, though, people started to arrive. One regular took over one of the two tables that can accommodate more than two people, and rounded up extra chairs. The other larger table was usurped soon after. There was talk of turning on the television. At first I thought people were gathering to watch Velký Bratr, the absurdly popular Czech version of Big Brother. Absurdly popular doesn’t even begin to describe it. Then I realized the gathering crowd was all male, except for a small knot of three girlfriends huddling up at the far end of the bar. Sports, then.
I put my head down into my story and raced the batteries. Just as the laptop gave it up, the game was starting. Fotbol. Soccer to the Americans in the audience. It was a big game, I knew, because the Czech Republic, an early favorite to qualify for the World Cup, had lost a couple of important games and was now fighting for one of the last spots.
The graphic came up on the screen: Norway vs. Czech Republic. Wait a minute, they just played Norway the other day. Is this a rerun? Luckily I did not know how to ask anyone and therefore display my ignorance. It was a two-game playoff, the winner going to the big dance.
It was crowded in there by then, but I decided to hang out and watch a bit of the game and see what words I could pick out of the conversations around me. People kept arriving, and when the game got boring there was plenty of activity around me to provide entertainment. By halftime I was sharing the table with a pair of drunk kids in their early twenties.
At the half, an older guy, a fixture at one of the barstools, saw I wasn’t working and came over and asked in czech, “Why aren’t you working? Where’s your computer?” I started to answer, but he had already assumed I couldn’t understand him and had turned to other regulars to translate. It took some time for me to get the six people all translating differently at once to understand that I understood in the first place, so they would stop explaining and let me answer. “batteries are kaput,” I said in Czech, (although the ‘Kaput’ may have been German).
“You need batteries? Batteries? I’ll get us some batteries!”
“He’s buying you a shot,” one of the kids said in English.
I knew that already. I don’t know if “Batteries” is common slang for shots or if it’s just one of those cases where anything would have been taken as a euphamism for booze. No matter, moments later I was holding a shot of Becherovka.
The night did not descend into a long and painful trail of trading shots. The game started, the game ended, the Czechs won, I talked to the drunk kids some more, I managed a few sentences in Czech, and fun was had by all. The bar closed at eleven on the dot, and we all went home.
In the two days since, I have studied my Czech harder than ever. I felt it while I was there. I was close. Afterwards I thought of many things I could have said had I had the presence of mind to dig the words up. A few more words, maybe throw in the past tense (which I hear is pretty easy), and I can have conversations in czech. Slow, painful, conversations, but that’s OK. Once I cross that threshold, I think things will speed up as I get more meaningful practice.
Today as I was walking I was greeted warmly by one of the Little Café regulars as I passed him on the street. It was early yet, and the Little Café was not yet open, so he was heading for the Budvar Pub on the next corner.
I have met many people who are owned by their possessions. I married one. (Before you get too carried away figuring names, you should know I’ve been married twice.) I watched the spirit be enslaved by atoms and I vowed not to fall under the same spell.
If you saw how much crap I have in storage, you’d know just how well I have done. In my defense, I gave away furniture, books, bags and bags of clothes, and anything else I could bear to unload. On an American scale, I chucked it in. I consider what is left the seed for the next home I own. Yeah, I know I’m rationalizing.
But there’s one thing, one physical object that I really should shed. Atoms. A machine. A car.
I sit here in Prague and extol the virtues of public transportation while clinging to a two-seater sports car. You have to cut me some slack; I crossed continents in that car, saw things, met folks, almost slid off the road and off a cliff in a Canadian hailstorm. And this is how things come to own you. They become containers of memories. Symbols.
Some are symbols of wealth or power; the Rolex doesn’t do much for me. The beautiful sports car that is too valuable to drive, I can do without. Some things are symbols of accomplishments of other sorts – having the largest collection of bobblehead dolls on the Eastern Seaboard requires a great deal of dedication, but in the end, I’ll pass.
There is the One Treasured Thing. Here is a sort of material possession (possession is a verb there) that I can appreciate. I envy people the One Treasured Thing. It is an item of such deep personal significance that it passes beyond symbolism and becomes identity. It is part of who you are. The One Treasured Thing is much more than a simple thing.
The test: I could always buy another car. Therefore it is not a One Treasured Thing. But still I am reluctant to let go. Someday, I conceitedly imagine, that road trip I took in that car will inform the next great American road story, and that particular car will become an American icon. I am perfectly aware how ridiculous that conceit is, but to deny it would be to devalue my one work under way that might actually qualify as literature.
In Prince George, British Columbia, I was waiting at a traffic light, top down to the Canadian summer, car packed to the gills. The guy in the next lane towered over me, and looked down into my packed-full little car. “You need a truck,” he said.
“No, I need less crap,” I wish I answered.
I don’t need a car, I need to believe. And so a thing has become symbolic, unreasonably so, and it has trapped me.
In the previous post I mentioned that on a Sunday morning in the center of Prague you will find many more English speakers than Czech speakers. Soup Boy and I were in Kava Kava Kava, and because we ordered in Czech, the waitress told us the network password verbally, rather than writing it down. She left us to our geeky devices, and I wondered aloud about capitalization. A guy nearby said, “You should have just asked the computer guy,” in a louder-than-necessary voice, and handed me a slip of paper with the password written on it.
“Thanks,” I said, and turned back to my work.
“I’m just happy to hear some English,” he said. “I’ve been in Ukraine for seven months.” And so began the Ex-Pat Game. When you meet any traveler who had been abroad for a long time, one of the first questions they will ask you is, “How long have you been here?” In this game you gain status among other Ex-Pats if you have been abroad longer and if you have been to more exotic places. Noticeably lacking, at least among American Ex-Pats, are questions like “How many languages do you know?”, which might indicate someone who is not traveling with an insulating buffer of Americanness, but is rather making an attempt to integrate with the local culture.
This guy became increasingly annoying as he told everyone who would listen about his time in Ukraine. “They’re so fucked up!” he said over and over. “They have no clue at all!” The Englishman who had luckily installed himself at the table between us attempted to engage him. “The thing to do,” he said, “is when you see something that is obvious to you but not to them, think of it as a business opportunity.” I don’t think the Brit realized – or perhaps he did but still felt the need to fight the good fight – was that Ukranus was playing the Ex-Pat Game, and wasn’t really interested in constructive solutions. He was interested in being an expert, a worldly man, a voice of reason in a land of chaos. Someone Who Knows More Than You Do.
The Unimpressed Ex-Pat is also part of the game, and that’s the part I play. It’s easy, because I’m not acting. It really is frightfully easy to move to another country and live. Certainly it is easier for an American with no Czech to move to Prague than for a Czech who knows no English to move to San Diego. I give myself the right to be an unimpressed ex-pat as long as I remain unimpressed with myself as well. Soup Boy and I sat, unaffectedly unimpressed, trying to ignore the guy as he found new people to tell he had been in Ukraine, and how messed up it was there, and about how he was going back in a few days. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Of course Soup Boy and I talked about a lot of Ex-Pat stuff, too. I mean, heck, this place is different, and it’s about the only thing we have in common (OK, not true. We both know that life is mildly ridiculous, and if you can see that, the rest doesn’t matter). If it was the same as everywhere else, we wouldn’t be here. For me, a guy who doesn’t get out much, the differences are less significant, except for the cost of living, but still it’s fun to compare and contrast cultures. Occasionally I was aware of Ukranus listening in, and I realized that, consciously or no, I was still playing the game. I very much wanted him to know that I’d been around a bit as well, so he could stop trying to impress me. I tell myself that I just wanted peace and quiet, but come on, there’s more to it than that.
There is another community of ex-pats here. Poets, musicians, and so on. There are a few of them I have met that I actually like (the ones who do not fit the following description, and there are thankfully several), and at least a couple are even talented, but as much as a long-term ex-pat will put on airs, the long-term ex-pat artiste can make for a long night at the coffee shop. If their conversation measured up their pretensions they would be a fun and challenging crowd to hang out with, but in the end it is just another extension of the Ex-Pat Game. To be fair, some of the gap is because we have very different backgrounds – I am not nearly as well-read or well-filmed as the rest of them. I don’t remember names well. It stops a lot of discussions short. But I sit and listen to them talk, even among themselves, and I swear I am the only one listening to any of it. Often the conversation is not a dialog but a pair of monologues. The whole game is to come up with something you have read that the other has not, and then expound the virtues of that work. “I’ve read Plato!” starts to sound a lot like “I’ve been in Ukraine for seven months!”
I’d rather sit by myself and get something done, thanks.
So a couple days ago I revived my Czech studies, for four reasons. First and foremost, it’s only polite to speak the language of your hosts. Second, it’s interesting. Third, I’m not finding that many people to hang with among the ranks of the English-speaking residents. Not that I hang out much anyway – Big D, one of the least pretentious and most likable people I’ve ever met, must think by now I’m shining him on. Finally, as an Unimpressed Ex-Pat, I can score a lot of points in the Ex-Pat Game with the question, “How is your Czech?”
Oh, yeah, and there are a lot of pretty bartenders who don’t speak English.
I’m at a popular coffee shop near the center of town. I’ve not been here before; it’s out of my ‘hood, but if you want Internet on a Sunday morning, options are limited. So, I’ve been out and about this morning. Everyone I have seen or heard falls into one of two categories: Americans and people being paid to serve Americans. No right-minded Praguite would be out on a Sunday morning.
I’ve been sitting at the Little Cave Near Home (typo retained), and people have been coming and going. I’m not going to explain all the interconnections (I couldn’t even if I wanted to), but there was a dude, and there was a chick. She was very pretty, blonde, here to support her girlfriend who was pissed off at her boyfriend. (By the way, if that were in czech, the pronoun ambiguity would have been automatically resolved. And I would not have been able to say ‘would have been’.)
Dude paused behind the girl’s chair. He played with her hair briefly, she didn’t complain. He made vague scratching motions at the tops of her biceps, and she didn’t respond, so he moved on. The message he gave: I want to touch you, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to give pleasure. They did not leave together.
Now me writing about the Art of Love is somewhat like George Bush on the Art of Diplomacy (and I wish we were both better at each, but let’s face it, neither of us is getting much practice), but from where I was I could tell he wanted to send her one message but instead sent the opposite. Or perhaps sent an extra message he didn’t intend.
It got me to thinking about hands. Not just the deaf and hula dancers speak with them, we all do, and, with varying degrees of skill, we give pleasure with our hands as well. Sure, you’ve got some other tools in your belt that can give great pleasure but most of those parts are greedy, more eager to be stimulated. If you want to get all analytical about it, your hands are for giving (although I once had a hand massage that was mind-expanding).
There’s a misunderstanding about hands that goes back to junior high. Did you touch it? It being the next mysterious organ on the list. Neither toucher nor touchee benefitted much except on the scorecard.
Ask Jesus. Hands are for giving, and when you touch someone you’re interested in, no matter how casually, that person should subtly know, “those hands know how to give”.
I mentioned above that he played with her hair. Perhaps better to say he kind of flapped it around, never thinking about how the nerve endings are in her scalp. Lots of nerve endings there. One of life’s simple pleasures is having someone else wash your hair. Nonetheless, and all the more frustrating, she was appreciative of the attention. Then came the vague and ineffective scratching attempts. That moment defined any relationship they hight have, and it made him the simpering bitch.
Certainly she was open to his advances, but he blew it, and he blew it in a classically czech way. I actually had my ass out of my chair to correct him before I stopped myself. He was past the part that I do so horribly – first contact – and on to my strongest suit. The fingers that type this are able to please. The best part about hands as a sexual organ is that they are the givers, and they can give pure physical pleasure that is not at all sexual. So I watched a guy tonight overcome that first threshold, stumbling into my wheelhouse and collapsing.
Alternatives off the top of my head:
anatomically knowledgeable upper back rub. Message: Ain’t no if’s and why’s or buts, I can make you feel good.
moving from the vague hair mainpulation to a fleeting scalp scratch. Message: I, also, am sensual.
a very light sweeping motion that starts high on the neck and drifts across the shoulder, lingers, and departs. Maybe.
There must be a thousand other messages to give that are less lame than the one he pulled off. I’m not trying to give anyone a formula for love. Those who know me will vouch that I am the last guy for that. I’ve been married and all, but the fact I’m not married anymore is all you need to know. There is no formula. If there was, I would have derived it by now, ’cause I think way too much already.
Wait, I lied, there is a formula for love, but I can’t write it here because you have to discover you own formula for yourself. Then you have to teach your partner, because they won’t know if you don’t guide them to the promised land. The most horrible thing you can do to your partner is expect them to understand.
Up there somewhere I was talking about hands. I’m looking at my hands now. I’m pretty happy with ’em. These fingers, once my brain overcomes the almost impossibly steep first-contact threshold, they do all right. I am perhaps unjustifiably proud of my ability to rub backs, scalps, and especially feet. Oh, yeah, I do feet. Back I do well, except, oddly, with Amz. Hers is the only back I’ve ever met where my fingers cannot automatically discover the secrets that lie there in tension. Perhaps, in that case, I am the timid one. Or maybe she’s even more messed up than I am.
Nothin’ says it can’t be both.
They say you can tell a lot about a person by the books on his bookshelf. Tonight during a period of navel-gazing I wondered what one could conclude about the bookmarks saved in my browser. In the end, I decided “Prime Numbers from 2 to 999,983” is my geekiest bookmark, but I’m not the only geek out there, not by a long shot. What’s yours?
It’s an interesting story, surely. It has all the elements a good story needs – technology, a baseball bat, beer, and lingerie. But… it belongs elsewhere. So hopefully by providing the previous lurid tease I can leave it behind and get back to the business at hand. And in November, uninformed political raving is replaced by NaNoWriMo as the Single Most Tedious Blog Subject.
So let’s talk about NaNoWriMo, shall we? How many others out there have trained their spelling checkers to recognize this word? Today I haven’t been as prolific (yet), but I still managed to cross 10K here on day three. The story is just plain writing itself. I’m not one of those writers who just rambles on and lets characters surprise them with their behavior (well, if you don’t count the eels); I’ve got plans for these folks. But things are coming together nicely. My biggest concern is that the wisdom of some of the people is showing too early, while they’re just supposed to be caricatures. But that’s a rich man’s problem. There is wisdom.
It is not laugh-a-minute funny, but (if you ask me) it is coming out nicely. It’s that half-smile nudge-nudge funny. I only have to sustain it for 27 more days.
Enough of that. On a less happy note, there are a bazillion NaNoWriMo folks using Jer’s Novel Writer, and there’s a bug. People have lost work. The bug has been lying dormant for a while, but wouldn’t you know it? It’s in the word count feature. Suddenly, in November, people are very, very interested in their word count.
I got a rather irate message from some guy about losing a whole night’s work. It’s bad, and I’m not trying to duck out on folks who have a lot going on, but who the hell uses beta software all night without hitting save once? Maybe because I am often using very dodgy versions of the software I’m more save-conscious, but I’ve been a saver from way back. I just don’t trust these damn machines. You have backed up your work recently, haven’t you?
Happily, earlier today I finally found the problem. I had seen the evidence before, but tonight I turned my thinking ninety degrees and saw the answer. Tomorrow I will release a better version of the software. Meanwhile I’m sure there are posts all over the place warning people away from JNW. I can’t blame them. Once I discovered the problem, I posted warnings myself. Still, there’s a black eye there to overcome.
And finally, as we’re cleaning up the odds and ends, I must tell you that the Non-Stop Snack Bar is really the Herna Snack Bar. It doesn’t say Non-Stop anywhere on it. I’m just so accustomed to associating Herna (casino) with Non-Stop that I never looked twice. I have visited that place again three times, and on none of those occasions was Hanka working. I had hopes for tonight, since the last time I saw her was on a Thursday, but no. Last Thursday, however, was a holiday weekend eve, and Pavel did mention something about coming in on Fridays. Maybe tomorrow…
The non-stop snack bar stopped. I had no business being there at that point, anyway, but Pavel (the guy on the next stool) and Hanka (the bartender) turned out to be very friendly folk. I was there much longer than I had planned to be. At one point, near the end, Hanka took the keys and locked the front door. “She is closing,” Pavel explained to me, “but she says it is all right if we stay.”
It had started when Pavel asked me what I did for a living. “I’m a writer,” I said. something something Spisovatel something he said to Hanka. something something piš something she said back to him. “She is worried you will write about this place,” he translated.
“I already have,” I said.
Things just got rolling from there. I paid for Pavel’s next beer. I was at my limit by that time, but then Pavel bought me a beer. Now it’s tomorrow afternoon.
Names of businesses are descriptive here, and Non-Stop Snack Bar is a perfect example. It’s a snack bar (emphasis on bar), and it never closes. This place is a little unusual in that the beer served is not prominently displayed. There are only two things a czech bar patron wants to know: when is the bar open and what beer is served. The rest is inconsequential.
This is the closest all-night place to where I live, and I have never been here before. Strašnica is not really your party-all-night kind of neighborhood.
I was just getting ready to write “this is a cash on the barrelhead kind of place.” I paid for my first two beers when they arrived, and I’ve watched other patrons, some obviously regulars, do the same. Third beer (laptop open), she marked a piece of paper and waved off the payment. I think the real reason is that she’s too busy scarfing down Buffalo Wings that she had delivered from somewhere else. Yes, it’s a snack bar, but the emphasis really is on bar. And Herna. There are slot machines all around me, taking the space where my favorite table would be, but they’re in quiet mode, softly purring in an almost soothing manner.
The TV is on. There’s a movie on with Harrison Ford in it. There is a limited pool of good dubbing actors, and the one who is playing whoever the hell Harrison Ford is supposed to be has a distinctive voice – kind of high and nasal. I don’t hear much czech TV, but I hear this guy all the time. Tonight the movie went into commercial break and we were treated to an ad for cold medicine where the guy had the same distinctive voice as the lead actor in the feature. There was another commercial that didn’t include him, but then the next one did.
I have been sensitized to his voice to the point where any time I’m listening to the television I can’t help but say, “There’s that guy again!”
Many years ago, one pit-digging day (Ah, pit-digging day. One of the most hallowed days of the year. The Friday before the first Saturday after the first full moon in July. Big dogs with dirty tongues, kegs of beer, shovels, and campfires. Twenty years after the first pit-diggig day celebration, four of the five key participants contribute to this blog), I lamented to Jess that none of us present had a camera.
“Some people make history,” he said, “others record it.”
This blog shows pretty well which side of that divide I have landed on. Other people go to bars to drink with their friends; I go to bars to watch people and write about them. Keith asked if thinking about how I’m going to record an event alters the way I experience it. (Actually, I don’t think he was talking about me in particular, he made some comment about quality or some other nonsense.)
I may not be the one to answer a question like that in the first place. You have to understand that when I write, “I’m in the Cheap Beer Place…” I really am in the Cheap Beer Place, right then, as I’m writing it. (I’m in the Cheap Beer Place right now. Tall Brunette Slivovice-Pusher has been replaced by Little Blonde Cutie. LBC is new here, and hasn’t been around enough to earn anything more than a purely descriptive nickname.) In general, I’m not just thinking about how I might record the experience, I’m actively recording it. I’m like the photographer at the wedding – I’m not really part of the festivities at all. When I’m not writing about the events and people around me, I’m writing about the events and people in my head, who are usually more interesting.
Still, there are times I go out without my laptop. Those times aren’t frequent, and I always have a moment of panic when I leave a place without my backpack. Phantom laptop syndrome. When the laptop is closed, however, I can usually stop writing and enjoy the moment. When I’m having an interesting conversation, I’m not thinking about how to describe it later. If I’m hanging in a bar watching sports on TV, that’s pretty much all I’m doing. In the words of Pink Floyd, I have amazing powers of concentration. That means I’m either all the way with you or all the way gone. If my head is somewhere else, I can still struggle along with a conversation, but it is frustrating for both parties.
There are times when I’ve realized that someone was talking to me, but I was someplace else entirely. Once you get to know me you start to recognize the faraway look that tells you I’m writing at the moment, even if it looks like I’m staring into space. Those are the moments when Amy and Melinda would steal my shoes.
One place you can just forget about me is at a live concert when the music is good. I don’t know what it is about those events, but as soon as the band starts to blow I disconnect from the place entirely. Occasionally I’ll think about writing about the concert, but more often I’m off in some fiction-world, either one built from scratch just for the occasion, or one already under construction. Unless the music’s really, really, good. Then I’m in the concert hall and a fully participating member of the band. Either way my friends are ignored unless the music sucks.
Some people make history, other people record it. Some, a very few, make history by recording it well. That’s what I’m shooting for.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks hammering on the word processor, fixing bugs, improving performance, and adding some of the little things that make good software great. (Along with a dangerous excursion into Photoshop to make less-ugly interface icons.) The number of users is climbing steadily as well; there’s a buzz building which is bringing a bunch of new users. With more users comes more work supporting them, and if I’m not careful I can lose an entire afternoon Takin’ Care of Business.
I haven’t gotten much writing done lately. There’s always a slump for me before November, but this year the tasks around JNW have really grown. Imagine when I start charging money for it. I think my customer service is already far better than that of most companies, but it’s going to be a real challenge to keep that up in the future. Maybe I’ll just overcharge for the software to keep my customer base small.
Even when I do sit to write, my brain is still working in a very technical space. It’s a good zone to be in, and probably why I’ve been able to make so much progress on the software, but it’s not so good for writing or planning novels. It’s time to shift my priorities, and concentrate on the more difficult and risky task of writing good prose.
I got a release out today, and it’s a good one, and I plan to do one more little release with the ability to turn off some of the warnings and alerts. Then its time to put the code on the shelf for a couple of weeks and use the software for its intended purpose.
A couple of days later I was talking with Soup Boy. Soup Boy is certainly popular with the ladies, and has a healthy and active social life. He was bugging me about working fourteen hours every day and not getting out and meeting people. In my own defense I mentioned my encounter at De Brug. I started to describe her, but I didn’t get far.
“Black hair down to her butt?” Soup Boy asked.
“Yeah, ” I said.
“I know her. Damn, it’s a small town. She’s a trip. And she’s hot.”
“She just broke up with her boyfriend,” I said.
“Reeealy…”
“Yeah, we spent the afternoon disparaging North Carolina. He sounded like a real goober.”
“I never could figure out what she saw in that guy.”
“Well, she’s not seeing it any more.”
The conversation continued like that for a while, mostly at Goober’s expense. I wondered if I would hear from her again about her writing. She had said her life could fill ten books, and from what I heard from Soup Boy, she might not have been exaggerating.
Two days later Soup Boy and I were on a tram, and he says, “I have some gossip for you. It’s about Cleo.” It took me a moment to figure out who Cleo was, but then I was all ears. “I was at a party last night,” he said, “and I thought she might be there. I asked about her and they said she was in the hospital.”
“Holy cow.”
“Not the hospital, really, the psycho ward. I guess she’s kind of freaking out about her boyfriend.” She had seemed sad when I met her, but hardly freaking out. Still, people keep things inside. Then Soup Boy dropped the bomb. “Apparently she stabbed herself pretty seriously, a couple of times.”
Not even ‘holy cow’ could convey what I felt then, so I didn’t say anything at first. Eventually conversation turned to the futility of grand gestures of desperation, the fleeting nature of life, Soup Boy’s ex-girlfriends, and what a goober Goober was.
I understand her stay in the hospital was brief, but I have not heard from her since. I hope she does write her ten volumes, and I hope writing them brings her peace.
I haven’t seen her for a while; I was starting to wonder if she still worked here at Crazy Daisy. No worries, on a quiet Sunday afternoon we are here together, and just as far apart as ever.
At one point as she was approaching my table I looked up, and I read her thoughts with startling clarity. She was preparing herself in case I smiled at her as she passed by, mustering the resolve to perhaps smile back a little if she had to. I looked back down at my work but smiled anyway, letting her off the hook but perhaps still sharing a little cheer.
I did get one smile, as she was taking my menu. It wasn’t even particularly forced.
