Breaking Out of Bedlam

Welcome Spring (and her rats)

2011-04-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Spring Warren, author of The Quarter Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for a Year and Turpentine, has graciously agreed to guest blog this week. At our very first meeting, Spring and I discovered that we share a deep and abiding interest in rats, and since then we haven't been able to get off the subject. No topic, even books, has proven to be as fascinating and all-consuming. We can't seem to stop exchanging stories. Spring has really outdone herself this time. She has even included some very moving photography, guaranteed to blow your mind.

Urban farmers, gourmet cooks, animal lovers, and rat connoisseurs—do yourself a favor and check out her website. Here's a description of her book:

The Quarter-Acre Farm is Warren’s account of deciding—despite all resistance—to take control of her family’s food choices, get her hands dirty, and create a garden in her suburban yard. It’s a story of bugs, worms, rot, and failure; of learning, replanting, harvesting, and eating. The road is long and riddled with mistakes, but by the end of her yearlong experiment, Warren’s sons and husband have become her biggest fans—in fact, they’re even eager to help harvest (and eat) the beautiful bounty she brings in.

Full of tips and recipes to help anyone interested in growing and preparing at least a small part of their diet at home, The Quarter-Acre Farm is a warm, witty tale about family, food, and the incredible gratification that accompanies self-sufficiency.

And here, without further ado, is Spring's account of the kinds of miracles, moral dilemmas, and moments of grace that happen every day in the garden:

When Leslie offered me the position of guest blogger on her blog, I knew what I should blog about. Leslie and I have a shared relationship to, if not interest in, rats.

Unfortunately, I’d shared all my rat stories with her already.

But here on the Quarter Acre Farm, the town lot on which I live and grow most of my own food, it seems that one is never finished with rats. First of all the Quarter Acre Farm is in California, where rat living is easy. Second, we have chickens, duck, and geese, and all of these creatures eat food that rats love. (Come to think of it -all creatures eat food that rats love.) Still, my husband puts out such a largess of birdseed, and fortified fowl food in nice little bowls so that the intended diners never manage finish it all up and so provides the rats with a welcome that apparently makes the rats feel unequivocally at home.

Luckily the cats do pretty well as an antidote for that welcome, and their ferocity keeps the rats from staying too long at chez Warren. We’ve had quite a few months of rat-free living lately - making me think the chicken coop down the street must provide even more chicken chow with even fewer cats than we have here.

Then again, maybe not.

Fixing up a new and improved rain shelter for the chickens, I moved a cinderblock to one side, tipping it over and disgorging a mass of leaves, fiber - and what appeared to be wriggling pink thumbs, into the dirt.

I can bet most of you said “Ewww!” as you guessed the thumbs were rat infants. I might have howled “ewww” myself except for the hens converging on the tiny rats. Any thought of an easy dispatch via chicken posse was too grisly to contemplate. I love my hens, but I’d been pecked by their rapier beaks myself and I couldn’t allow such a painful end to the wriggling pink babies.

I swept down and plucked the four rat pups out of the dirt to keep them from the ravening hens and waited for disgust to wash over me. But the little animals were warm and dry, and so cunningly miniature! The rat babies waved their pinhead paws, tails curled like a basenjii’s, and looked practically adorable. They smelled just like all babies seem to smell – a mix of milky sweet and somewhat sawdusty. Their skin was pink as bubblegum, and so fine I could see their dark eyes through their eyelids and the milk plumping their bellies. The siblings had obviously just enjoyed their afternoon meal, snuggled against their mama, warm, happy; I supposed they’d all been dozing happily when big monster me bumbled into their world and kicked over their concrete bunker that must have moments before seemed ideal- so safe and strong and situated handily besides the best restaurant in town.

As I stared down at them it seemed they looked somewhat familiar to me. I looked at them again with a measure of shock, as I realized what they reminded me of were the images in the first ultrasound photographs of human babies that newly pregnant couples seem to like to hang on the refrigerator.

So – what could I do? Any thought I might have had of dispatching the critters was now unthinkable. So I relocated the cinderblock two feet to the north, returned the stuffing to the western hole, wrapped the babies in a piece of terrycloth and put them back where they belonged - with a stern talking to.

“Just because the living is easy here, doesn’t mean it’s safe. We’ve got cats and hens and I’ve got a husband who isn’t above using rat traps. This is your moment of grace. Grow up here if necessary, but then head out to the ag fields, or even to the rental house just to the beyond the fence. Those students have parties four days a week, you can gorge on Fritos and beer and likely get stoned just by breathing. But don’t stay here. Spread the word.”

And so the rats got a reprieve. And I got a story and the chance to hold rat babies in hand and recognize how alike all us animals really are. And hopefully, our neighborhood party house got some new residents.

Reading at Mrs. Dalloway's

2011-03-07T21:51:00.000-08:00

If you're in the Bay Area and feel inclined, please stop by Mrs. Dalloway's Books on Thursday, March 10, @ 7:30, where I'll be reading from the newly-released paperback edition of Breaking Out of Bedlam.

Mrs. Dalloway's is a great independent bookstore that's even better since its expansion last year. Staff knows its stuff, shelves are well stocked, cafés and restaurants steps away.

Breaking Out of Bedlam Goes Paperback!

2011-02-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

The paperback edition of Breaking Out of Bedlam will be in bookstores tomorrow!

Literatty Discourse

2010-12-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

I recently read from Breaking Out of Bedlam at a benefit for Hedgebrook, where I met Spring Warren, author of Turpentine and The Quarter Acre Farm. I could go on and on about her books, her blog, her farm, and her food, but why not just check it out for yourself at her website?

The email she sent me after the reading spawned a rapid-fire exchange about some of our favorite topics. Turns out we have a lot in common, in particular an avid interest in rats. In case you'd like to eavesdrop on our high-falutin literary discussion, I include a portion of it below.

The stunning illustration above, by the way, is from the sketchbook Spring kept during her recent visit to Rome. It's called a Pharaoh's mouse, but it looks like a rat to me.

SPRING Warren wrote:

Hello, Leslie!

It was a pleasure to meet you the other night. I was sorry we didn't get to talk more. As is usual at big noisy crowded events I feel a little like a marble in a pinball machine, just madly beeping and bumping - then agonizing after I spin down the hole that I didn't bump and beep at the right people at the right time in just the right way.

Good writing!

Spring

Leslie Larson wrote:

Hi, Spring.

I just had a look at your website. Had I known you were so knowledgeable in the agriculture world, I would have been dogging your steps all Thursday night. I'm an avid back yard farmer. How'd you learn all that stuff?

All best,

Leslie

SPRING Warren wrote:

Avid backyard farmer? How was it we didn't sit down and talk manure? We will definitely have to get together and share tomato stories or some such thing.

Best,

Spring

Leslie Larson wrote:

Tomatoes are a sore subject right now. I have a treasure trove of rat stories—indoors, outdoors, you name it. I live in South Berkeley if you ever make it to this corner of the world.

SPRING Warren wrote:

Omigosh, rats! I was walking by the hot tub about 2 hours ago and heard gnaw crunch smacking noises. I upended the step that covers the motor housing and they shot out in all directions. I felt a little bad because they'd made such a nice place there, lots of leaves, a shredded washcloth, orange peels, even a corner with shiny stuff (art collection, no doubt). It was a total ratspa! If I were a rat, there I would be, and now homeless, what a comedown in the world. Yes, they've been nibbling tomatoes, too. AND sweetpotatoes. Good riddance, now that I think about it, nasty vermin!

And if you get to Davis, come on by, I'll put the kettle on, we'll drink tea and hate rats.

Leslie Larson wrote:

Wow, sounds like you broke up a real Shangri-la. Your description of the place makes ME want to live there.

A few months ago, I was turning over the compost when a geyser of teenage rats erupted from the middle and ran in all directions. It's nice to know the neighbors DO come out of their houses when they hear screaming.

You know, people can't get enough rat stories. We should edit a book of anecdotes. Or a coffee table book of full color photos of rat house interiors like the one you described. RATPADS!

SPRING Warren wrote:

You are a genius - We'll be rich! Start collecting stories—and pictures of Ratpads—and by this time next year, we'll have ratspas of our own.

Leslie Larson wrote:

I've been thinking a lot about the rat book and I'm wondering if RATPADS should be a chapter rather than the subject of the whole book. Other chapters might be personal experiences with rats by famous writers (do you know Toni Morrison?), profiles of particular rats, and general background on rats—though I think we should concentrate on California rats (who have vegetarian diets and hot tubs as opposed to slimy east coast rats who live in sewers, eat garbage, and hang out with cock roaches). I was awake @ 3am this morning composing the introduction in my mind.

The book will make more money than all our novels combined!

SPRING Warren wrote:

Sure, that sounds good, and maybe a chapter on famous rats like Ben, Willard, Wormtail and the rats in that Disney chef rat movie, and how famous rats differ from basic rats (narcissism).

In research for a book I'm working on I found rats ate corpse's eyeballs and livers first in the WWI trenches. Hard to see how that could be incorporated...recipes?

Leslie Larson wrote:

European rats sound even worse than New York rats.

SPRING Warren wrote:

Eurotrash rats must really be bad. Hot tub repairman came by to check out the gnawing problem on our wires and left a message on the phone later that "the wire that had been....bothered.....by......mice....was ordered" and he would be replacing it in a few days.

I told him there had been rats in there, but I guess he couldn't bear to even speak the word rat. Doesn't go well with the image they sell of someone bobbing around in a hot tub with a Cosmo, apparently.

Leslie Larson wrote:

The rats must have been wearing their mouse masks when the repairman was there. Anyway, hope they lay off the wires.

SPRING Warren wrote:

There is now a rat in my attic, I kid you not, that sounds like it is the size of a beagle. It sits on the heating duct and gnaws something (please god, not the electric cables) and the reverberations through the aluminum flumes makes a sound akin to chopping wood. It might have been a mistake to evict the rats from the hot tub.

*****

I'll end there, although rats, their pads, and their relationship to our own species provide endless stories—like the time I thought there was a pink, foot-long snake hanging out of the magazine rack next to the toilet, but it was only a rat tail!

Watch for RATPADS in bookstores or, better yet, pre-order The Quarter Acre Farm, which will hit shelves March 1.

Time To Dye

2010-05-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

In my mother's day you dyed your hair, but now you color it. I often use the wrong term, which sends my hair stylist into a furious Rumplestiltskin-like jig. At any rate, moments ago I colored my hair and am now sitting at the keyboard waiting for it to take, as my grandmother—whose color for forty years was “Saucy Brown”—would say. With my membrane-sheathed hair plastered to the top of my head, I resemble a cross between a Cupie doll and a calf so new to the world, it hasn’t yet shed its caul.

Some day I hope to be able to stroll blithely into the world in this state—to pick lettuce in the garden or walk to the mailbox on the corner—even to chat with the teenage boys who gather in front of my house every afternoon to spit and smoke pot. But I’m not there yet. Far from it. I’m housebound for the forty minutes it takes to brown up, scuttling from room to room, ducking when I pass in front of a window, freezing if I hear someone coming up the steps.

I never thought I’d color, but when I turned forty and saw a picture of myself fresh out of the shower with a suffering look on my face and long, mousy hair, I was struck by the resemblance to paintings of Christ on the cross. Christ, only older. “Gray Jesus,” I said to my girlfriend, who promised then and there that if I decided to dye, she would always do the dying. She’s been true to her word. She even reminds me. I might be grinding coffee, checking out at Walgreens, or waiting for the train. All she has to say is, “Gray Jesus,” and I know it’s time to dye.

Rocky Mountain High

2010-04-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

Off to Denver tomorrow for the Associated Writing Programs conference. I’m not speaking, reading, or contributing to a panel. Nope. I’m on a junket with my girlfriend who IS on a panel. I get a spouse discount, plus free hotel. Oh, and a free frequent flyer ticket on Southwest. Okay, I’m thrifty.

Looking forward to hanging out with all my pals from the Macondo Writing Workshop—that hotbed of talent and good-time Charlies that meets once a year in San Antonio. Excited about seeing what’s going on in the reading and writing world and being part of the swarm of writers from all over the country.

From Someone Who Knows

2010-04-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Readers have told me that the atmosphere of The Palisades, the nursing home where my book is set, is remarkably similar to where their relative or friend lives—right down to the people who share Cora’s table and the aides who mop the floors. Last week I got a note from a woman who actually lives there herself:

“I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading your book. I currently live in a nursing home and the way you wrote it, it felt like you had been in my room with me! In fact, some of my aides were reading it and we took turns reading it together. I wish there were more books written like yours. Do you know of any? It sure helped passed the time away!”

The Wireless

2010-04-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

I did three live radio interviews last month. Hit the prime time on Sunday morning: 1:00 am until 2:00 am. Who’s up then? People driving home after a night on the town, insomniacs, speed freaks, shift workers? Well, it could be anyone. Pat Thurston was a great host. She was informed and enthusiastic about Bedlam. It was fun. The hour flew by.

The other two hosts—Liz St. John and Jeff Schechtman were just as engaged and engaging. They take the art of chatting to the max and convey the intimacy of a two-way conversation to an audience of unknowns. They directed the interview to both the social aspects of Bedlam—where will we spend the latter part of our lives, who will make decisions for us, what are our options?—and to the actual writing. What’s my routine, how did Cora Sledge take shape in my mind, who is my intended audience?

Reminded me again of the great reach and potential of radio.

Dog Daze

2010-02-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

Love dogs? Love coffee? Love books?

If you answer yes to at least one of these questions, check out Coffee with a Canine. The latest post features my own wonder dog Leyla.

Archives are categorized by breed so you can browse your favorites.

Follow Yours

2010-02-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

Breaking Out of Bedlam got a five-star review in Instinct Magazine. What’s Instinct? I’d never heard of it, but the sizzling Brazilian he-man wearing nothing but a tiny bikini on the cover suggested a readership of either hungry cougars or boys of a certain persuasion. The sheerness of the briefs and what they revealed made me suspect the latter. Sure enough, inside the magazine were grooming tips, info about hip vacation spots, and plenty of celebrity gossip…for men.

I didn’t think a magazine like Instinct would review my book, much less give it five stars, much less call it “A fun—and inspiring—read that proves you’re never too old to really start living.” Wow. I had assumed that gay men would not be a targeted audience for a novel about an 82-year-old, 300 pound woman forced to live in an elder care facility. The book does have a gay character, a medical tech who’s in love with someone half his age and who befriends my protagonist. Naturally he’s done dirty, just like the heroine.

Which just goes to show you that alliances crop up in unexpected places. As the tag line on the cover of Instinct instructs, Follow Yours.

Oops, I forgot to blog. Again.

2010-01-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a whacked-out back to make you turn to things you otherwise wouldn’t. Was it the 40 lb bags of Kirkland dog food? Over-zealous vacuuming? (Forgot to do that, too—for two weeks.) Or spending too much time cross-legged in my desk chair? Probably a combination. It’s depressing but a little nice to enjoy painkillers while wallowing in bed surrounded by coffee, the newspaper, books, the phone, pens, half-finished meals, and the cat.

Breaking Out of Bedlam will be on bookshelves next week. Advance copies, three boxes of them, are sitting in my living room. I have four readings, two workshops, and two radio interviews lined up in the next month. I had an anxiety dream that I had to lecture on cotton while crouching on all fours, and another that the 747 that was supposed to fly me to my reading decided to take the freeway instead of the sky.

It’s time to dream about movie deals, glowing NYT reviews, and of course Oprah. (Every writer dreams about Oprah, even the ones who deny it. Especially the ones who deny it.) Dollars signs in the eyeballs. Fantasies of home improvements, enhanced wardrobe, lavish vacations. Really, though, I’ll be happy if there are a minimum of five people at each reading, my Amazon numbers stay out of the seven figures, and no one rips me a new one in print. It's asking a lot, but it doesn't hurt to hope.

What’s on my desk?

2009-12-23T16:11:00.000-08:00

Though I didn’t realize it until this inventory, most of the things on my desk are talisman that I hope will lend me their magical powers while I write. I try to cover all my bases with a variety of charms.

I’ll skip all the usual stuff—pens, paperclips, books. Here’s my list:

Photo of my dad. His wristwatch.

He’s very happy in the photo because he’s catching a fish. A big one. The watch has a black face and a black leather strap. It’s very worn. He used to take it off and let me wear it when I was a kid, but only for a minute. He died recently. I ask him to send help from the other side.

Deck of cards

Solitaire is a great way to waste time and to tap into your unconscious simultaneously.

Evil Eye begone (not pictured)
Obvious reasons

Toothpick holder with a different swimsuit-clad Mexican movie star on each side

My girlfriend Carla gave it to me. She included a photo of herself, poolside. Before I stopped smoking many moons ago, I toked constantly while I was writing. Now when the going gets tough, a toothpick is a good substitute.

Bar coasters, lots of them

For all the water and the many cups of tea and coffee. Plus they’re good to wing across the room when I’m frustrated. My favorites are Lagunitas (dog’s head), Aziza (light blue circle) and the Kona Club (mermaid in a martini glass).

Candle (not pictured)
Code Blue help for the worst writing crises

A clay stashbox

I made it in Art class in the 11th grade. It was San Diego in the 1970s. Almost everyone in the class made a stashbox. The ones who didn’t made ashtrays.

My dog Leyla as a puppy

The adult version is usually sprawled on the floor beside me. If I’m really stuck, I lie down beside her. Her animal energy pushes my reset button.

Various stones, shells, bits of glass, and plant debris
For creative energy and inspiration. I don’t dust them as often as I should.

Chapstick

I’m addicted

That’s me. How about you? I’d love to know…

2009-12-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

Crystal Persuasion

I didn’t know much about crystals and their powers when I began Breaking Out of Bedlam, but I wanted my protagonist, Cora Sledge, to have—and lose—a powerful talisman from her past. Because stones and rocks play an important part in the novel, I chose a crystal.

While researching the Cora’s stone, I became absorbed with the folklore surrounding the crystals found in parts of Arkansas. Locals believe in their power, and many of them carry them around in their pockets. You can pay a $10 fee and spend the whole day in a hot dirt field digging crystals and filling as many buckets as you can. Each stone has unique characteristics that are described with intriguing words like keys, ladders, wands, fairy frost, etc. I had a lot of fun describing Cora’s rock and what she sees in it. I came to feel its power in the story, the way she drew comfort and strength from it and why she was thrown out of whack when it disappeared.

I talked to a woman who was sick from the chemo and radiation treatments she’d received for cancer. She was very ill when she began wading in a lake near the place she was living in Arkansas. Locals told her there was quartz under the lake and that Native Americans, as well as more recent inhabitants, believed in its healing properties. She gradually got better until she could write, paint, and live again. She became obsessed with the crystals, began digging them herself, and now sells them over the internet, placing each one (whose energy she intuits and describes) up for “adoption.”

I explained why I needed a crystal and she picked one for me—a pointed one called a hand-holder because it fits exactly into your closed hand. When I wanted to know how Cora drew comfort from it, I held it to my face like she did. The climactic scene where she finds her stolen rock signals the recovery her essential self, of the person she was before life intervened.

Here’s an excerpt from Breaking Out of Bedlam, where Cora talks about her crystal:

This rock came from my great aunt Alpha, who dug it herself in the Ouachita Mountains down there in Arkansas, where my daddy’s family’s from. They’re known for their crystals, some of the most beautiful in the world. People around there wear them, or carry them in their pockets. Say they’re sacred, with magical powers for healing, and for seeing into the past and the future.
Aunt Alpha, she used them rocks for scrying, or what you’d call fortune-telling. People came from all over to ask her advice or to talk with people who’d passed on. She had a room at the back of her house where she lit candles, burned some kind of smelly brush, and looked into those crystals to make contact with the other world. She smoked a corncob pipe and kept a thousand cats. Us kids were scared to death of her.
My crystal is what you call a hand holder because it fits right in your palm. It’s quartz, like a big lump of ice. One end is pointed and as clear as water. The other end, where it broke off from the ground, is frosty. It’s called phantom crystal because of the shapes inside it—pictures like the mountains it came from, a waterfall, and a fish. There’s a face with a beard and a broke-off branch. The more you stare into it, the more you see. Pretty soon you yourself are inside the rock, walking between icy cliffs, with that fairy frost swirling around you. Up toward the point, my crystal has two bubbles of water locked in it, like they’re dancing with each other, floating to the top. That water’s been in there forever. Millions of years.
My daddy gave me that crystal when I was seventeen years old, a few months before I married Abel. That was one of the blackest periods of my life. I was desperate, let’s just say that. Young as I was, I was backed into a corner I couldn’t see my way out of. It’s one of those things I never talked about. Too much pain, and too much torment. But that rock. He gave it to me as something hard, something to hold on to.
I like to hold it against my cheek or neck, or sometimes my forehead. If you’re hot or have a fever, it feels like a big chunk of ice. If you’re cold, it’s like a hot water bottle. I feel the life inside it, and the place it comes from, the place where I grew up, the rivers and lakes, and the springs bubbling up through the rocks. This far from home, way out here by this ocean that I never even saw ‘til I was all grown up, I remember the smells of my family and how my ma’s hands felt when she pulled the comforter up under my chin at night.
Sometimes when I stare into it I see the faces of men I might have married, children I might have had, or houses I might have lived in. I see storms moving in and the sun coming out. Lightning strikes, hoot owls, and car wrecks. I don’t have Aunt Alpha’s gift, but I’ve asked the crystal what’s going to become of me. Or I try to ask those that’s passed over to the other side what it’s like. If they’re happy and what’s in store for me. I hold the rock against my temple and ask the dead ones, my mother and father, to protect me. To use what they’ve learned to guide me and keep me safe.
Your rock Abel called it, and that’s what it is. He’d bring it out of the china cabinet to show people when they came to call. He drove me crazy. He kept a bone he’d found while he was digging out the backyard. Just a chicken bone as far as I could see, but that man acted like it fell out of King Tut’s tomb. He always had to show people something, even if it meant running out in the yard and pulling an orange off the tree.

I couldn’t help but tease him about the shapes inside. “You don’t see that elephant standing there by the circus tent?” I asked, and he’d stare into that thing ‘til his eyes bugged out. “And them fields with the cows grazing near a windmill?”
I swear, that man had the imagination of a newt. “Oh, yeah. There it is! I can make it out now!” he might say. He looked real hurt when I snorted and shook my head. Poor old bastard. He must have gone fishing the day they handed out brains.

Maiden Voyage

2009-11-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

As my mother used to say, you start smoking pot, and before long you’re shooting heroin. That’s what happened with me and Facebook. I succumbed to peer pressure and joined up. I posted sparingly at first—mostly on weekends. Before long I was hooking up with FB every morning, maybe not posting myself, but reading my friends’ posts from the night before. Then I started posting a fair amount. Next thing I knew, I felt shaky if I didn’t check in several times a day. Now look at me. Blogging. How did that happen?

I’m going to blame it on the marketing director at Crown. She said I had to. She said my novel [Plug: Breaking Out of Bedlam (BOOB), on bookshelves January 12, 2010] won’t sell without it, that everyone’s doing it, and that if I’m at all serious about making money, I shouldn’t have to ask. Well, not quite. She said it would be a good idea. She recommended it—or at least suggested it. No pressure. She said if an author enjoys it, it’s worth doing, but if it takes too much time away from writing, or if someone plain old hates it, don’t bother. I said my writing time is precious and I don’t like to broadcast my private life all over the blogosphere. She said she understood and that was fine. I was unexpectedly disappointed. Maybe I’d try. Good, she said. Try. If it drives you crazy after a few weeks, don’t bother.

There’s only one way to find out.