colum mccann

I miss Bob.

Whenever I read a book like Let the Great World Spin I think of Bob and I miss him more than ever.

Bob owned a bookstore. He could be a curmudgeon but he knew his books and he knew his customers. I used to have this kind of funny Sunday ritual (this was in the days before the internets and powell's books online and amazon dot com). I used to read every single review in the NY Times Review of Books and then in a notebook I would record the books I wanted to buy, trying to wait until they came out in paperback. I would date the entry and that way I knew to look for a particular book about a year later.

Bob got to know me and my lists. He was the kind of bookstore owner who would take a customer around the store and say "Here, read this first sentence" or he would just add a book to my stack without much in the way of commentary because he knew I rarely said no, like a sex addict.

That's how I came to read my first Colum McCann - This Side of Brightness - one of the most brilliant books I have ever read and subsequently I have read everything Colum McCann has written. I tried to hold off buying Let the Great World Spin until it came out in paperback but I couldn't wait. Only three pages in and I know it's a book I will not want to end.

At readings at Bob's bookstore we met so many authors I can't remember them all. Nuala O'faolain, Ian Rankin, Robert Crais, James Elroy, Frank McCourt. One night a friend and I joined Bob and Patrick McCabe for drinks as Mr. McCabe regaled us with story after story.

Now I'm in a town with one crappy bookstore. When I go back to that fishing village in Mexico there will no bookstore at all. I will have return to my Sunday ritual - making note of the books I want to buy a year from now.

I miss Bob and I miss independent bookstores.

airstreamin'

My trailer and van before desert sun and sea air took their tolls.

Today (or maybe yesterday) is my fifth year anniversary. I have been living in an 8 by 25 foot tin can for five years. I hate using the cliche "how time flies" but lordy how time has flown. When I left the Pacific NW that sunny November day I had no idea where I would be five years down the road. I didn't know if I'd still be living in my Airstream or if I would've grown tired of it and that lifestyle.

I am beginning to feel a little cramped. Staying at the Landlord's house I realize that it is nice to have rooms to expand into. A living room! A kitchen! A bed room! What I couldn't do with all these rooms.

Even though I'm feeling that way - and for some reason I can't quite pin down I'm dragging my feet about getting back to Mexico and my Airstream - I am happy that Airstreaming is my lifestyle for now. I don't currently have the income to move into an apartment or a house and even if I did, I still don't know where I would choose to do that. So living in a moveable house is the perfect solution for me.

I never trust people who say they have no regrets. I have tons of regrets. But moving into my Airstream five years ago isn't one of them.

Dear Pete Dexter

You probably don't remember me but I had you sign a copy of Spooner at Portland, Oregon's, Wordstock. You were pretty tired as this was the last stop on your book tour before you headed up to Puget Sound. BTW, in spite of that I really enjoyed your talk. Sorry you couldn't take more questions what with that long-winded announcement over the speaker system. You handled that interruption quite well.

Your wife asked me about the organic farm and I'm the one who worked at your local post office. Maybe those two things will jog your memory. In my book you wrote "Wave as you go by in Arizona."

I wasn't bullshitting when I said that I had read everything you'd written. I have yet to start Spooner. I'm saving it for my return to Mexico. What a treat that will be! There is a library in the trailer park office where the snowbirds leave their used paperbacks - mostly Tom Clancy and Nora Roberts. No thank you.

Meeting you rekindled my desire to get back to Arizona ASAP and to get back to my book which had been sitting on the back burner while I tried to work and earn enough gas money to return to Arizona. I didn't tell you about my book or the fact that I mention you in it. I didn't want to appear overly gushy or take up too much of your time. Anyway, since meeting you I've had all these fantasies about running into you at my favorite saloon or maybe seeing you at the post office or the local bookstore (which keeps its books shrink-wrapped. What the hell is up with that? How can someone buy a book without opening it?). I figured we'd strike up a conversation and you would moan about how you needed a research/personal assistant and I'd say, "Well hell, I can do that" and then you'd say, "Why don't you move your trailer up to our place? There's plenty of room." You would politely offer to read my book and you'd say it was pretty good but that it needed work and why don't you do this and that and then we'd send it to your agent. Then I'd have my own (smaller) home in southern Arizona and I'd have to get a personal assistant. But we would still be friends.

So that's about it. Thanks for being such a wonderful writer. Hope to see you soon.

Antonia

lone some

Lonesome. A word I can't shake.

I am lone some.
Somewhat alone.

Doesn't lonesome just conjure up images of cowboys and the desert? Lonesome Dove. High Lonesome Cafe.

Or how about this from Hank Williams Sr:

The silence of a falling star
lights up a purple sky
and as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry.

the creature behind my bed

I keep this blog anonymous - who I am, where I am - so I can write things like "The Landlord's house is a pigsty." Has he ever cleaned it? Granted, it's a work in progress. Floors need to be laid (or is that lain?), walls painted, window panes replaced but good grief. And even though I'm not much of a housekeeper, I do keep things dusted and wiped down. Not so here. At least the neighbor cleaned the bathroom and changed the bed linens before I arrived.

So the other night I went to change the sheets and I saw a big black bug-type leg sicking out from behind the headboard. As I jumped back, it seemed to withdraw. I ran out of the room, grabbed a fly swatter and a giant stick. The black leg reappeared when I waved the fly swatter between the wall and the headboard.

In an "Annie Hall" move I went looking for someone to get the creature. My neighbor's lights were out so I called the Italian. He is total type A and I knew he'd be up and wouldn't mind an excursion to save a damsel in distress. He came down to the Landlord's house, moved the bed out from the wall. There on the floor was a white postcard with black lines on it. Was that my creature? Had it fallen from a perch somewhere when I jostled the bed? Just to make sure, we lifted the mattress. All we saw were a shitload of spiders scurrying about but none of them big enough to be my creature.

Before going to bed I went into the bathroom where I found two ticks lolly-gagging, one on the floor and another on the side of the tub. I picked them up and deposited them in the toilet. I must've brought them in from the Landlord's truck when we went to lunch. Out at the ranch where he is staying they have - wait, let me count them - six, I think, big dogs and his dog always rides in the truck with him. Last week, when we went to the emergency room so the Landlord could get rehydrated, I had to laugh as he picked ticks off his body, squeezed them, and dropped them onto the ER floor. Well, it was funny because I was not going to be the next person to use that emergency room bed.

Spiders, ticks...I did not sleep at all that night. I felt like a meth addict - my skin crawling with imaginary bugs. Scratch, scratch, arms, legs, scalp. I guess it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty of cleaning. But first I need lots of music, a hazmat suit, and a thermos-full of martinis. Cheers.

twenty beds

It took a lot to run me off the beach: the unrelenting heat, the humidity, electricity going out every day. Then some ants moved in with their tour guide - a mouse. Finally two earthquakes struck in the Sea of Cortez and I cried "uncle." I threw some clothes in my truck, locked up the trailer, and headed for Estates Unidos for, oh I don't know, I figured a couple weeks. That was on August 3.

Ninety days, 4000 miles and about twenty beds later I'm back in that little blue dot town in southern Arizona. I was sure I'd be back in Mexico by the first of November but then The Landlord got sick - seriously sick - and so I'm hangin' here till he has surgery and a prognosis. It was just a few days after I crossed the border in August that the Yoga Teacher died, suddenly, in his sleep. There went the core of my 11:11 club.

It was the day I reached Portland, around September 1st, that a Portland barfly friend of mine died.

I felt as though this impromptu road trip - from AZ to OR - was a death tour. As I roamed the streets of Portland I saw dead friends. Isn't that the bookstore owner? Isn't that the writer? My friend the recycler and beer brewer? My favorite waiter? No, it couldn't be. They're all dead.

When I got back to this little AZ town I thought The Landlord was a goner. Damn, I'd never seen someone look so bad so fast. But with a new doctor, a new surgeon, and a little bit of pot to enhance his appetite, he's looking pretty good and we're all feeling quite optimistic.

Tomorrow is 11/11/2009 (2009 which adds up to 11). The club continues. The Yoga Teacher is here in spirit and I will drink a shot of tequila in his honor at 11:11 . Hell, maybe at both 11:11's.

CPR for bloggie

I heard Keith Olbermann say that Facebook was for people too lazy to blog. No kidding. I joined FB and there went Blogger.

It's time to revive it. Breathe some new life into the thing. But how to revamp it? Make it more interesting? I can't really think about that now. I'm off to Safeway for orange juice. Oh, yeah, I'm temporarily not in Mexico but I should be returning soon-ish.