PB Rippey Writes

Update 2: NaMeSitDif (etc.) Projekt

Posted on April 10, 2013 by PB Rippey

Since I forgot to Na on Monday, as I promised myself, and since I didn’t Na on Tuesday due to pressing engagements (Target, the teeth people), upon leaving the stables today I stopped at a No’ridge Starbucks on my way home, hobbling delicately inside, my inner thighs imploding from a mere 30 mins of struggling to stay astride a super-fit thoroughbred. Ow.

The line was almost out the door. 20 people worked the counter and yet all of us prospective coffee buyers did not move. Every stupid table was full. Pity. I felt inspired by the artwork—an African elephant, ears flared, a vaguely Warhol-esque silkscreen visual, spanned a dimly lit wall. I could have written under that elephant. I just know it.

So I hobbled a few shopfronts down to Western Bagel and purchased their atrocious coffee and plunked before one of many (vacant) tables stuck through the middle by orange WB umbrellas (tables stuck through middles, of course, not me—ha ha!) and I tried very hard to keep my eyes averted from the black and white awnings of DSW far across the lot (spring sandals collection!) or the $10 Or Less bookstore next to it (DSW, $10 Or Less books—please don’t ever ask me to choose).

And I pulled my awkwardly sized black journal from my satchel.

And. I. Drew. A. Flower.

To be continued…

Note: why are all wedge sandals so high? I’m 5’10”. I can’t run around town at 6’2″—besides falling and breaking my neck I am forced to shout down to the world—hate that…also hate sucking up car exhaust while sitting at a cafe table—but perhaps there’s no escaping it, whether seated here, or in Paris, Bath, Des Moines…perhaps cafe table is synonymous with exhaust…must be a poem in the Starbucks elephant’s silkscreen body…can’t seem to write with a pen anymore…I once knew a woman who renamed herself Ellipsis…seriously…she was a masseuse and the girlfriend of a misogynist…unfortunate, all that…but probably a poem in it.

And here is a horse.

Thank god that lady’s off my back.

Posted in books, Children's Books, Fiction, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing, Writing Progress, WTF | Tagged 2013, African elephant, DSW, fiction writing, middle grade writing, poetry, Starbucks, thoroughbred, Western Bagel, writer's angst, writing | 2 Comments

Update: NaMeSiDifStaDaiWri(expletive)Po

Posted on April 9, 2013 by PB Rippey

I forgot to go on Monday. Ummm…And here is a cat.

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, cats, fiction writing, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, Starbucks | 3 Comments

NaMeSiDifStarDaiWri%#*Po Week (Partial Week Edition)

Posted on April 3, 2013 by PB Rippey

A Starbucks in Seoul, Korea

Next week (because my son resumes PreK after a 2 week spring break) is National PB Sit in a Different Starbucks Daily and Write a (insert expletive) Poem Week. Well, at least monday through thursday. Actually not tuesday because that’s when I try to stay seated on a giant horse for 30 minutes while it cavorts around a ring and after that my thighs burn and wobble and I attempt to get prone as quickly as possible until it’s time to pick up my son. And probably not thursday, either, for the same reason. And definitely not friday because my son engages in Adventure Friday with Mama (nature walks, the study of caged animals and dino bones, etc). But Monday? Wednesday? Absolutely. I happen to be surrounded by a gazzilion Starbucks from Chatsworth to Tarzana. “Take advantage,” my husband suggested. “Get away from your–er, office–and see what happens writing-wise.” Because lately, as I work in my ~~bedroom~~ office, I’m distracted by everything from house finch chatter to listening for the UPS truck to the giant Baby Huey kitten asleep at my feet to the lovely colorful swirly images filling the Cavalia calendar on my wall to the arching, cat-chewed fake orchid on the loooooong dresser, to social media to anything but the words circling endlessly in my head, waiting (for how long?) for me to bring them on home.

Why Starbucks?

A Starbucks that used to live in the Forbidden City, Beijing, China.

Because I know I’ll go because I love their coffees and they’re not far away, like the botanical gardens, zoo, Huntington Library, the rose garden at Exposition Park, any sort of inspiring writing spot I can think of. Ha ha! I’m getting OUT. Starbucks, you hopefully clean and tidy and patio-bearing venue! Here I come.

Let NaMeSiDifStarDaiWri%#*Po Week commence! Next week, that is. Monday. And wednesday. And maybe friday if the little guy ends up having a playdate. But definitely monday. Just me, my iphone (muted) and my awkardly large black journal. And a pen. Clicker-type. With a big fat stem.

Yours in salted caramel frappucinos and fresh poetry,

Balinese Starbucks

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, Fiction, Poetry, Writer's Angst, WTF | Tagged 2013, April Poetry Month, children's literature, fiction writing, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, preschoolers, salted caramel frappucinos, Sarbucks, writer's block, writer's retreat, writing | 14 Comments

Adventures in Equality (Facebook Edition)

Posted on March 29, 2013 by PB Rippey

My friend, who changed her FB profile picture earlier in the week like so many of us, posted: same-sex marriage doesn’t hurt YOU.

And an FB Friend of hers went wild, responding: “They” should settle for civil unions! I have no choice but to say this because God invented marriage and He specifically said Man and Woman. “They” (my friend’s Friend insisted) should be happy with civil unions. God did not intend for “them” to be married! It’s unnatural.

And my friend (she’s wicked smart) suggested: Let’s agree to disagree.

And her Friend responded: God says 1 man and 1 woman equal marriage. You can reinvent God if you want to, but you are promoting polygamy because THAT’S WHERE YOU ARE HEADED IN THIS ARGUMENT AND (my friend’s Friend added) I respect your opinion so all I ask is that you respect mine.

And my friend wrote: Let’s agree to disagree.

And so my friend’s Friend’s husband jumped in the thread. And he was all: this is not about equal marriage rights, if it was, “they” would settle for civil unions. This is about “their forces” pursuing an agenda of changing textbooks in the schools to promote homosexuality. And (my friend’s Friend’s husband insisted): I love everyone, you KNOW me. But “they” or “anyone” who “feels like they might be homosexual” can’t be allowed to change the textbooks.

And finally I was all: Whaaaaaa? Dude. Seriously. No. Where’s that love again?

And my friend’s Friend’s husband (who prefaced his original comment by writing: this will be my only comment) commented: PB RIPPLLEY, when you are ready to be rational instead of emotional, I will engage in this discussion. But since I am deleting my Facebook account tomorrow morning, this will not be happening!

And then my friend’s Friend’s husband posted a link about the threat of “them” promoting homosexuality in school textbooks.

And I was all: Duuuuuuuude–go in peace, man.

And I added (because I am a cruel, heartless heathen): hee hee

And then there was silence.

And I phoned my friend.

And we were all: sigh

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction | Tagged 2013, equal rights, Facebook, marriage equality | 10 Comments

Quote For The Weekend (Unchaste Edition)

Posted on March 22, 2013 by PB Rippey

I think villa living became him. I think Sappho was his muse. I think I’d like some homemade ice cream, now—perhaps pistachio.

True poets should be chaste, I know,
but wherefore should their lines be so?
—Catullus (Gaius Valerius, of course…)

Of course he loved Lesbia! Sheesh. Get over it. Hopefully he ultimately got over it, IF he wasn’t 30 when he died, but allowed to carry on: a social drop-out with descendants, crops, mind-soothing views. Maybe his (timeless, self-imposed) romantic hell compelled him to focus on healing his soul. Maybe he had children and realized he wanted to heal his soul. Maybe he realized he’d better heal, or else (gulp). Maybe that’s what most drop-outs (chaste, not chaste, or—otherwise) focus on—healing. And becoming wiser little beings. Especially when perusing the frozen foods aisle of Whole Foods. Maybe Catullus died at 30, or maybe he stayed right where he was, mired in an inherited oasis that pleased him, quietly writing the life out of himself, hoping we’d know, even though we don’t, or not hoping at all, just writing. I mean, living.

No, no. He must have died. He could never disappear unless he was dead. He was Catullus! He knew everyone. He fed Ceasar. He—maybe he sailed away. To Tahiti. Like Sappho (at least in my unwritten novel). Or to The Straits of Candid. Which might also be Hades. Or Target, or CVS, or Big Lots, where the checkers are spare…

Yours in the F word,

Posted in Adult writing, Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, Poetry, poetry reading, Writer quotes, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, Catullus, fiction writing, life, poetry, quotes on writing, Rome, Sappho, Whole Foods, writer, writer's angst, writing | 2 Comments

Courage! (Neigh Edition)

Posted on March 19, 2013 by PB Rippey

I was late to retrieve the boy from school because I Face Sucked like a fiend AND watched the latest episode of “Once” on hulu AND in another open hulu tab caught up on the latest episode of “Revenge” WHILE checking on what Masterpiece Theatre is coughing up now that Downton is hibernating, a tab here, a tab there, battling guilt for watching anything or Face Sucking even the tiniest bit when I should have been researching literary agents as I did yesterday and the day before when that one rejection on my full ms. came in, but I Face Sucked and tab hopped and encouraged a lot of noise to make itself right at home in my ~~bedroom~~ office and when it was almost 1pm I screamed because I’m the mom who is never late, not even by seconds (faithful to a vow made when I was a kid and continually mired outside my school gates waiting, waiting, waiting) and I quickly calculated I was going to be 2 minutes late because I still needed to make the kid’s spinach smoothie disguised as strawberry/blueberry smoothie as he doesn’t eat vegetables that come in green or carrot or even yellow unless he doesn’t know he’s eating them in squash-flaxseed-carrot-puree pancakes or smoothies or spaghetti sauce or homemade bread or homemade chicken nuggets or homemade meatloaf bites or cookies sometimes or pudding or even jam and, just once, a grilled cheese sandwich (seriously, neither of us could stomach that one), and I obsess on his not getting enough iron from vegetables or those ribo, carotin-ish bits he’s supposed to absorb and as I sped the minivan to the school I worried about ribo and carotin-ish bits and literary agents with bad advice and whether or not I am right in diving into part 2 of a novel when part 1 hasn’t even been picked up (yet) and I marveled over how synopsis sounds like snot or something nose-blowing-ish and wondered for maybe the zillionth time if that’s why I have such trouble writing synopses, because I’m thinking about snot instead of—and I remembered I was supposed to bring a CD of jpegs featuring special events in my kid’s class (Chinese New Year parade, St Patrick’s Day green snacks, Easter party, Valentine’s Day, last Halloween, the Christmas concert, the school pancake breakfast, back to school night, Dr. Seuss Day, the making of latkes, Wednesday share days, pajama days, crazy hair days, hat days) and as I’m the Room Mom it was mortifying to realize that not only was I late, but lacking the package I promised and when I reached the school the main gates were shut, so I was forced to zoom around back and use the pedestrian gate, tacking on another few minutes despite sprinting across the parking lot and by the time I burst into the classroom with apologies, the little naptime cots were all set up and giggling kids getting on them, further mortifying me, but the teachers told me to just bring the CD the following morning and one of them squeezed my hand sympathetically and said she was glad I wasn’t perfect and it was then I realized my Old Navy blue and white striped sailor’s type shirt was on inside out.

My son emerged from the play-kitchen area, shouted MAMA! and promptly resumed “cooking” with miniature pots and pans.

WTH, PB, I thought, holding hands with my boy as we skipped back to the minivan in sunshine and cool, breezy air. Take a little break.

So I started horse riding lessons. English. Like when I was 8 years old and waiting for my parents to pick me up from the stables, waiting, waiting, waiting…Only now, I am in control. I have minivan keys. I have a reliable waterproof wristwatch. I have a dollar in my pocket. And a carrot. I. Am. In. Control.

One day, hopefully, the horse will believe this.

Leroy is not letting me off the hook as far as the unicycle’s saddle. In fact, I’m sure he’d rather I ride that than him.

So there.

Posted in Adult writing, Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Pets, Steps In Promotion, Writer's Angst, Writing Progress, WTF | Tagged 2013, chaos, children's literature, Downton Abbey, Facebook, fiction writing, horses, hulu, life, Los Angeles, Masterpiece Theatre, middle grade writing, Once Upon A time, personal goals, preschoolers, Revenge, smoothies, writer, writer's angst, writing | Leave a comment

To All Rejections

Posted on March 14, 2013 by PB Rippey

To all rejections:

I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral.

In the center of my empire.

Posted in books, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Poetry, Quotes, Writer's Angst, Writing, Writing Progress, Writing Publications, Writing Tips, WTF, YA Novels | Tagged 2013, cathedrals, children's literature, empires, fiction writing, life, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, quotes on writing, Salisbury Cathedral, writer, writer's angst, writing | 5 Comments

Old Town Poetry

Posted on March 11, 2013 by PB Rippey

I invited a friend to a poetry reading. 6 years ago this would have been a normal request of any of my friends. But now I’m a mom. Now most of my friends are mothers and working mothers and mothers with working-OT-husbands–thus my mom-friends are working-OT-mothers–and single working mothers and mothers worried about where their kids are going to kindergarten next year and most of the poet friends I have/had are elsewhere. Like at the AWP. Or deep into their 2nd or 3rd poetry manuscripts. Or growling in academia. Or in Venice, CA, light years away from my scorched valley. Places I rarely frequent, though not from a lack of respect.

The. Valley. You can get lost in here.

The last major poetry reading I went to was 4 or so years ago in a Hollywood rainstorm. I went alone. Poets were rude. Poets hated each other and were snide and critical of poetry (other poets’ poetry, the world) at the reception, where everyone heard everyone else’s gripes. Poets. Behaved. Badly. On my way home, the wipers working so furiously they were about to fly off the windshield, all of Hollywood out in their cars on the stormiest night of the year and driving (how else?) atrociously, I called my husband and declared I was never again leaving he and our son for poetry.

Imagine a rainstorm.

But my mom-friend said yes, so I picked up her up in the minivan and we zoomed to Pasadena. “I’ve long admired the featured reader,” I explained. But my friend didn’t require any explanation. She’d been mommying overtime. She was happy to have a break from domestics.

Old Town. I’d forgotten: that busy, twinkle-lights-charm. A warm, balmy Sunday. Swept sidewalks and old-fashioned street lamps in a gold twilight, jazz wafting from open cafe windows. We walked through a pretty brick corridor to an L-shaped boutique and there was the venue, mod, hung in paintings by local artists, MOCA-like cement floor (so that when that person’s coffee cup was kicked by the guest coming in late, spillage was no biggie), sunken lighting. My friend and I claimed metal chairs, nudged elbows, relaxed. The open mic portion of the reading, the often awkward bit before the featured reader, commenced.

See what I mean? Sort of?

Fast forward to 90 minutes later, Sushi Roku, its trendy bamboo displays and tiki-with-a-facelift atmosphere a brief walk from the poetry reading. My friend and I stuffed our mouths with spicy tuna on crispy rice. We discussed the reading, analyzed mommying, repeatedly commented on being out on a Sunday night, how weird, how wonderful. “I loved that guy’s poem about his childhood books,” my friend said, sipping her sparkling blueberry sake, in synch with the evening, a flower of the evening, certainly one of the evening’s brightest twinkles. I agreed with her, and whether I liked any of the poets, open-mic poets or my acclaimed featured poet, or not, was irrelevant. The little event mattered, that people showed up for poetry, to listen or to read. They showed up. With hope and with smiles and with gifts and supportive applause.

It’s good to be a grown-up.

No caption required.

Posted in Poetry, poetry reading, Writing | Tagged 2013, AWP, cocktails, fiction writing, life, Los Angeles, Pasadena, poetry, poetry readings, preschoolers, San Fernando Valley, Sushi Roku sushi, writer, writing | 4 Comments

Clues

Posted on March 3, 2013 by PB Rippey

So it’s time to leave the Little House and tear him away from several days of precious Pottery Barn living and Angry Birds on the Kindle at odd hours and foods we don’t normally eat at home, like grated-cheese-and-nitrate-free-bacon-quesadillas-for-breakfast-with-1-maraschino-cherry-on-top, and return to the pre-K routine and pre-Spring scorch that is the Ponderosa—and gakking cats and dust-layered patio furniture that also, without fail, comprise the Ponderosa—and the dog’s paws squashing bare feet and his sausage-body slamming you to the ground and the unicycle that still needs mastering and that stunning pink sky at twilight, marked by cypress tree points and dubiously strung power lines and absolutely nothing Pottery Barnish-precious that are, also, the Ponderosa (saying farewell to the sea is so very bittersweet for this writer). After a weekend of record March highs, the morning’s woolly clouds and a cold breeze make a last beachwalk unwise, freaking me (how can I not say goodbye to the ocean even though I hate saying goodbye), but I glance up and there are those cinematic mountains all purply and inviting in the gloom. So I zoom us to the botanical gardens and from there, that high, amidst Mission Canyon oaks, we look down on placid blue studded in Santa Cruz Island and we both, I swear, utter the awed ‘Ohhhh!’ you hear only from those totally overwhelmed by nature.

We are surrounded by wildflowers and ponds and succulents and giant, gangly Dr. Seuss growths and, after giving each other a wink, instantly having fun. Especially since the docent hands him a magnifying glass and a pair of binoculars to wear around his neck. That’s what I’m talking about, Mama! he declares and sets off along a trail lined in blooming cacti in search of ‘clues’. Bye, bye, I tell the ocean, glancing at my buzzing cell phone. It is my husband, calling from our (dusty!) desert oasis that is the Ponderosa and which he is tidying in our honor, eager for our return.

Posted in Children's Books, dog, Fiction, Me and Us, ocean related, Poetry, Santa Barbara, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, angry birds, beach, dog, Dr. Seuss, fiction writing, Kindle Fire, labrador, middle grade writing, ocean, personal goals, poetry, preschoolers, Santa Barbara, writer, writing | 4 Comments

Flu 2

Posted on February 28, 2013 by PB Rippey

When I’m sick like this (somewhere near the darker side of the middle line between healthy and barely-not-dead), my limbs melted into the mattress, not asleep, though not alert, vaguely hearing my son and husband pretend-Kung-Fu in the living room, my brain distresses me by remaining consistently ON FIRE. Agony! Eyes shut, I see myself blogging or working on a poem or browsing the websites of literary agents. But I don’t sit up and bring about any imaginings. I remain in my strained limbo of Walter Mitty-ing. Look! There I am typing The End on my 5th novel—on a remote beach in Kauai deep in a turquoise June. Agony! That short story of Aimee Bender’s about the guy immobile on his couch—suddenly it makes complete sense and is more terrifying than clever. And, suddenly: I am officially older than Pi, Marie Callender’s and ancient Egyptians. Nessie and the Titanic and sedimentary cherts. The man in the moon, Mars’ anger, stars above and those burning so prettily on the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. The cat’s collar’s bell is a clocktower’s kabong. The bedside lamp’s light is a comet exploding. There is nowhere to go but everywhere and I’m not going anywhere. I am frenzy, paralyzed. Agony! You are the most dramatic flu victim I’ve ever known, my husband says. He hands me a bottle of sparkling water and 4 Advil. Sleep, he insists, clicking off the lamp. You’ll feel better in the morning. At 3 a.m. my eyes open and I lie in darkness listening to the dog snore. I am tempted to read, Swann’s Way by the light of my iphone, but I’m not that sick, I’ll never be that sick, if I’m ever that sick, just—never mind. If anything, I think, rolling over and accidentally clonking my husband’s spine with my elbow, I’m better. Around 10 a.m., bolstered by couch pillows and a mug of coffee, I’m typing. The view through the windows is not turquoise ocean, but a mockingbird dive bombing my cat’s head as he hurries across struggling yard,

but it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay—not an ounce of agony creeps (eyes shut or otherwise).

Remote Kauaian Beach

Relief.

Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, Aimee Bender, children's literature, fiction writing, flu, Hollywood, Kauai, Marcel Proust, ocean, writing | 7 Comments

Birthday Edition

Posted on February 22, 2013 by PB Rippey

On the eve of my hubbadobubbaboblah birthday: tucked my son into Pre-K, FB’d (i.e. avoided yoga), did yoga, even Superman, even V-ups, edited poems, sighed at the unicycle, edited poems, zoomed the boy to karate testing for his green stripe belt, watched him succeed, fixed dinner, threw the ball for the dog and spent the rest of the evening building a Lego Chima thing with kick-ass wheels, to my son’s shrieked delight, Pandora on the iphone shuffling out Elbow after Coldplay after those many other boy bands that sound just like the previously mentioned, after Elbow and more Elbow. I’m tired, Mama, my son said. It was 8:30p.m. Where the bluebird did the time go? I quickly brought about bedtime, read stories, tucked him in and here I recline, the dog snoring next to me, and I am, of course, wondering how it is I can be having another birthday when the last one was yesterday. Or, truthfully?: seconds ago.

TIME never ceases to baffle and amaze, which means there’s something superbly wrong with me as TIME is so easy to comprehend, like hulu or Joan Collins’ sister’s novels or yellow blossoms twitching in a breeze. TIME. WTH? When you’re 90 you’ll back and say, why in the name of Frodo and sardines dipped in pepper cheddar cheese fondue didn’t I just enjoy my hubbabdubsnrrrg birthday? suggests my husband. The same thing he’s said every birthday since I’ve known him. Meaning 8 years, which, when you think about it, is not very long—8 years of knowing each other, married for 6, raising our boy for 5? A BLINK! It’s crazy. You know it is. TIME is: the Sherlock and the hemlock and the white sunburst always out there and the seashell’s muddled whisper and the rock in the rain and pink ice cream on the tongue and fingers working aging keys, revising. I’ll never get used to TIME. Perhaps I should sell T-shirts in the manner of those that read: FREE BATES. A red cirle, and inside: TIME, and a red line slashing through. NO TIME. Or, you know, a Jonathan L Seagull flying (on the T-shirt), TIME in delicate script font beneath. And a slashing red line. Or a mouth open uber-wide, the word TIME shoved down it. And a slashing red line. TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME. Etc. Look, my husband insists, TIME is in the living, the living is inside every minute. Just enjoy your dang birthday, PB.

Waking up to birthday cake for breakfast and a laundry basket full of presents, a supremely optimistic husband and excited little boy?: helps.

Unicycle thus far. 9 seconds…

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, books, Faction, Fiction, Me and Us, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, birthdays, chaos, Coldplay, Downton Abbey, Elbow, fiction writing, Joan Collins, karate, Lego, poetry, preschoolers, time, unicycle, writing, yoga | 2 Comments

February Mini-Break

Posted on February 18, 2013 by PB Rippey

This visit, Dana Point-by-the-tru-la-la-ocean was hotter than Reseda by 1, February-heatwaving degree. 79 vs. 78. So of course we escorted my father into the minivan and drove to The Pilgrim and admired its masts and restoration for the gazzilionth time and after a bit left my father to harbor-gaze and ran the boy along the path morphing from concrete to tan sand and down the rocks to Ecology Beach, wending through the masses gathered for the pending sunset and, for the first time since bringing him to Ecology Beach, meaning since he was 3 months old, we explained to our Pre-K’er that Ecology

Beach is protected, meaning you can’t take anything from it, meaning he had to drop the shell and tell it goodbye and, for the first time in all his 5 years of exploring Ecology Beach and making every grain of sand, every mussel and godwit his, he grappled with this information, teetering between tears and “listening” as his parents waited, exchanging secret glances as they weathered the suspense—until he decided to place the shell back on the sand and run, run all-out to the point, while I trotted after father and son, trying not to worry about unstable cliff looming: crumbling (save that). We retrieved my father. Fixated on water, recent baffling harbor construction, the explosion of a beach town he grew up in, when Dana Point was moored fishing boats and not much else, except, of course, beach, he insisted (indignant) that he really wasn’t so wheezy, so of course we drove to the Wind and Sea and ate dinner on tiered patio and, with awed-by-weather locals, chatted while absorbing this between sentences: beauty, beauty, lucky. Even my father, who (as he will tell you, wheezing or not) knows everything and has seen it all, was affected by dusk-colors deepening, the warmth of winter and members of his perky family sitting so close in life. Even our son ignored his crayons and gazed at the first stars pricking purple sky, taken in by world made specific by bobbing pelicans and sailboats slipping quietly by us with their chevron wakes, annoyed by his mother pointing her iphone’s camera at his thoughtful face, capturing, no, hoarding—no deletions allowed.

Posted in Fiction, Me and Us, ocean related, Poetry, Writing | Tagged 2013, beach, Dana Point, Ecology Beach, fiction writing, ocean, The Pilgrim, writing | 4 Comments

Quote For The Weekend: Early Edition (Due To Colds, Flu, Pediatric Dental ER’s, Close-Family Close Calls, Going Away For The Weekend & A Unicycle That Still Needs Mastering…)

Posted on February 14, 2013 by PB Rippey

Try, fail. Try again, fail better.
—Samuel Beckett

In Sunday’s typically heat-knit twilight, I glance up from pinching pie crust into old-fashioned, part curtains patterned in fat cherries. A palomino trots down my street, its rider guiding with the blithe sway of a professional. Hup, Marian. The gallop. By the time I scream for the world and make it outside, man and horse are a yellow star bouncing, a juicy glistening on the wane, the clopping echoing into epic—towards Chatsworth’s deformed cliffs, red as goblins in the last of this sun: boulder-chop a madwoman’s teeth, baring. On, on…

Posted in Poetry, Theatre, Writer quotes, Writing | Tagged 2013, fiction, palominos, personal goals, poetry, unicycles, writing | Leave a comment

And The Seat Moved

Posted on January 22, 2013 by PB Rippey

My sliced finger salved and bandaged, wiping cat gak off my bare foot, it was about then I remembered my promise to learn to ride the unicycle before my next birthday, so I went outside, snatched up my son’s helmet from the fake stove in the playhouse and put it on, the chin strap, let out as far as it could go, cutting into the swatch of skin I’m pretty positive will one day be referred to as wattle. Hanging onto a post on the patio, I heaved myself onto the clownish seat. It swiveled, throwing me. Actually throwing me. I went back inside for knee pads and tried again and of course the seat moved because once they start moving they move with quickening ease and a tool is required to keep them on the straight and narrow. So down I went, using handblocks and feeling like an idiot and limped into the house for another unicycle YouTube tutorial after which I decided to ignore all advice and bypass the patio post and just get out there, on the lawn, push myself up and go DSCF5900 for it—at which point the seat moved and I fell and went into the garage for a tarp which I laid out on the grass in the freaky 80 degree weather we’re having in winter and I tried again and the seat moved, etc. I was avoiding the fix-the-seat tool because I have no idea where it lives, only that it is somewhere deep in the meticulously placed boxes of the man-cave, a non-insulated realm I enter only to use the stationary bike, or fetch kid’s birthday wrapping paper. I decided to utilize the swingset for balance and positioned the tarp and myself and when things started creaking, I panicked and a half pedal later slammed into the gazebo, denting the front corner stand and almost bringing the whole thing down, windsock, delightfully stretched canopy the blue of a Greek Orthodox church, glass butterfly on a decorative spring, and all. It was about then I realized I was going to have to wait until he returned and manhandled the man-cave himself and that was a relief, that thought. I went inside and poured a glass of cranberry lemon juice. I drank, surviving tartness. Sunblock, I said, distracted by poems (other people’s) until it was time to fetch the boy from pre-K. When we returned, the dog was sleeping outside on the tarp, his head cushioned on the seat of the unicycle, a cat (not, for once, gakking) posing Egyptian style in the sun, watching, watching.

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, dog, Fiction, Pets, Poetry, To Explain, Writing, Writing Progress, WTF | Tagged 2013, cats, dog, domestic bliss, fiction writing, labrador, personal goals, poetry, preschoolers, unicycle, writing | 4 Comments

Quote For The Weekend

Posted on January 19, 2013 by PB Rippey

The Dapper Diaz

In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
― Junot Díaz

Today I am a 56 year old academic who wrote only one good poem in his life and enjoyed torturing his smart young(er) wife by drinking too much in front of her and constantly spouting the lewdest Catullus he could pull from rapidly fraying synapses. Once, he refused to help friends bury a great white shark in the dead of night. Good friends. His only friends. He watched them, instead, swigging grand marnier from a flask on moonlit beach as they dug and sweated and pushed and heaved and finally buried their monster. I’m not a very good poet, he told his friends morosely when they collapsed next to him and begged him for the flask. We know, they said, but not unkindly. It was the last good time he ever had in his life. I don’t like being this man. He disturbs and disgusts me, especially when he his awful to his wife. But he is my necessary alcoholic academic, beacon. I will go and shower now and try and rinse him off until tonight, when I will revisit his condition with a glass of wine and a cat curled on my legs. I won’t let him ruin my weekend. Perhaps I should, Mr. Diaz, but I won’t. This post may come back to haunt me.

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Tagged 2013, Catallus, fiction, fiction writing, Junot Diaz, quotes on writing, writer, writing | 5 Comments

Beach Break

Posted on January 14, 2013 by PB Rippey

This was last weekend, all Winter beachness, crisp, clear light, air cold enough for us to wear sweaters we haven’t seen in over a year, sweaters with jeans and sweats and bare feet as we ran on glassy beach, Anacapa, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands clearly visible and doing their magic trick of seeming 20 feet away instead of 20 or so miles and once, as my eyes skimmed the horizon, I’m pretty sure I received San Miguel’s tiny image, but I couldn’t find it again. Dolphins made an appearance, kids wore themselves out runnning in an icy yet intoxicating ocean breeze as the tide, once again, became minus, exposing the ocean’s rough fingers and backbones and multi-colored baubles, her countless jewels. As I watched my family gallop and explore, I thought: this is what it means to benefit from the world, to be brought instantly awake in it, to know you are subject and mirror and student and guest and 100% home. And then I thought: there’s no poem in this? Really, PB? And so tonight I get busy.

Posted in Fiction, Me and Us, Poetry, Santa Barbara, Writing | Tagged 2013, beach, fiction writing, life, middle grade writing, ocean, poetry, preschoolers, Santa Barbara, writing | 4 Comments

This Just In

Posted on January 10, 2013 by PB Rippey

Rhapsodomancy has officially announced the reading I’m participating in on Sunday, February 3rd, 2013, 7:30p.m. Be there! And have a sidecar with me afterwards. Or, you know, a martini.

PB Reads

The Good Luck has just the right amount of dim and is a pleasant hangout. I’m just grateful to be reading in a venue Amy Gerstler has graced.

Posted in Poetry, poetry reading, Steps In Promotion, Writing, Writing Progress | Tagged 2013, Amy Gerstler, Good Luck Bar, Los Angeles, Los Feliz, martinis, personal goals, poetry, poetry readings, Rhapsodomancy, sidecars, T | 6 Comments

Reading List 2013 (So Far)

Posted on January 5, 2013 by PB Rippey

Ooooooooo!

This morning my husband burst through the front door, yanked the tiny earphones out of his ears and, flushed from his post-run endorphin rush, declared: The Death Of Bees, we must own it!

The Death Of Bees, by Lisa O’Donnell (check out NPR for an interview with the author). Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers, by Anne Lamott. And Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple. I just happened to stumble across Semple’s book through a little madcap Amazon link-clicking episode. Know what I mean? I wish I’d stumbled across the book literally (and it would have been literally, just ask my son) in the Topanga Canyon mall Barnes & Noble, but it’s closing. Dammit.

Currently reading on the kindle: Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline: The Seven Basic Skills For Turning Conflict. You know how sometimes you ask for a certain kind of help from a certain kind of book and suddenly the book not only arrives but is so timely it makes you sit up and pay attention like never before? I don’t like time outs. I don’t want to make him sit in a corner. I don’t want to battle or (heaven forbid) break his magnificent spirit. I do want to talk to him, with him, not at him. Thank you, Becky A. Bailey, for writing this book. Teaching is learning. So true. What I’m learning, I hope to teach well.

Still reading Bel Canto, Ann Patchett, probably giving up on Hologram For The King, Dave Eggers (don’t hate me), gave away Bossy Pants, Tina Fey, without completing the read (don’t hate me–or, you know, go ahead), and three quarters finished with—what the he** is it called. You know. That really important, amazingly beautifully written book that became a classic the second it was published…Oh, PB…Really?…hang on…Am tired mother!…do dee do dee do…just keep swimming, just keep swimming…The Known World, Edward P. Jones, of course…blrrrrrrrgh…

Also looking forward to second books from the YA Muses. Happy 2013, Muses!

Happy reading to you this year! Feel free to leave recommendations at any time in the comments section. And maybe check my “Library” page if you fancy more suggestions–fiction, YA and MG.

Yours in February poetry readings, future unicycle rides and quiet time alone with a book,

P (juggling 3 oranges) B.

Posted in Adult writing, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Poetry, poetry reading, Writing, YA Novels | Tagged 2013, Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott, Dave Eggers, Dragons Love Tacos, Edward P. Jones, fiction writing, Help Thanks Wow, Lisa O'Donnell, Maria Semple, poetry, The Death Of Bees, The Known World, Tina Fey, unicycles, Where'd You Go Bernadette, writing, YA Muses | 5 Comments

2013: Resolute

Posted on January 1, 2013 by PB Rippey

1. Stand taller.

2. Be wiser.

3. Mother better.

4. Honor date nights.
4a. find a babysitter after 5 years of not
4b. either more or less caffeine @8pm any Friday night—search for successful eye-propping balance! Ha ha! Fun!

5. Learn to ride the unicycle you just ordered on Amazon by February 22nd. Or else.
5a. drink wheatgrass smoothies?
5b. buy helmet from Target

6. Honor everything writing related that is challenging and must be improved and expanded upon and created and indulged and researched and acquired and never, never, never, never give up, even when you feel like the slings and arrows you’re launching are cotton balls instead of crude metals and stones and you’re saying ouch regarding your metaphors and similes and your writing angst is biting you in the a** about 50 times a day…
6a. blrrrrrrgh

7. Keep exercising using the mantra: tracyandersonmattworkoutyouaremybff
7a. enter 911 on speedial
7b. blrrrrrgh

8. Continue Paleo Diet exploration, i.e. put everything on lettuce instead of bread…

9. Remember to scoot resolution #6 to #1 slot regularly—or at least slot #2, but never to slot #10.

10. Stop growling at horrible Los Angeles drivers and tend your own doorstep
10a. sweep doorstep often
10b. sweep well
10c. sit on swept doorstep with faintly chilled glass of Sunstone Chardonnay and marvel over world’s wonders, like the house finch colony in your front trees, how the Boxwood Christmas wreath that hung on the house is still lying in the geranium plot months after Christmas is over and still retaining its festive shape; your son, the cats and the dog running to meet your husband as he pulls into the driveway; honestly, your great, great fortune, PB. Abundance. Look to the sea, PB. Never turn your back on it.

Posted in books, Children's Books, Fiction, ocean related, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing | Tagged 2013, beach, cats, chaos, children's literature, fiction writing, middle grade writing, ocean, personal goals, poetry, preK kids, writer, writer's angst, writing | 1 Comment

Holidaze

Posted on December 27, 2012 by PB Rippey

Fa la la la–zzzzz…

Seabiscuit. I’m working backwards—Seabiscuit with a cheesecake glopped in cognac whipped cream. Also called Vital Precedence due to a greed it’s important (vitally so) to indulge this time of year. A dozen kids galloping around our yard, dogs weaving between (or dodging) Ninja moves and soccer kicks and instant monkeys (no accidents, no tears—I barely had time to marvel over this). I was given books and bookstore gift certificates and a picture of my son from my son. A festive, reddish rug with a plumed rooster emblazoned on it appeared in the mini-foyer of my home. Somehow it enhanced the twinkle lights and faintly glittering wreaths (none of them real, all of them well-appled). When the garlands and lights and triangle-tree disappear, it will be as if the Madonna Inn came and went and we will want to follow it, like traveling circus addicts. I had a list on the pantry cupboard that was meant to guide helpfully. I never looked at it once. I recall running (flat out runs) from the back of the house to the kitchen, searching for my camera as masterpieces were swiftly built and destroyed in my son’s room. I’m fairly certain there’s a new sake set (boxed bottles with cups) somewhere in the house. Also a Farmer’s Almanac cookbook I’d like to browse. And once again I walk the dog in winter, at night, just me and the big galumph, because certain houses beam outdoor Christmas displays visible from Space, standing in for the streetlamps that don’t exist here and I. Feel. Safe.

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Tagged 2012, cheesecake, Christmas, Madonna Inn, poetry, preschoolers, Seabiscuit, writing | 5 Comments

Quote For The Weekend: Christmas Poem Edition

Posted on December 23, 2012 by PB Rippey

Full Howling Moon

Southern California’s brittle December 24^th:
swells, surfboards, fire-skin, a holiday bbq
by a slide-dunked swimming pool blooming
algae, all palms standing by–city logo,
city tattoos.

The Hollywood Hills Gelson’s Market evacuates
delicacies when a parking lot palm tree’s head
explodes, ignited by a derelict power line.
From bland foothills, precarious beneath a faux-
Mediterranean portico, juggling my Christmas scotch
and emergency binoculars, I can tell you

it resembles a single birthday candle, lit.

Hello, New England? Hello, DC? Hello, Dear Baltic.
LA calling. Keep your troikas and furs and ploughs, but send all bells
and much of your ice. The trees are on fire. The palm trees
are on fire. It’s December the 24^th.I am…

O my longing, my

longing.

Cataract-riddled eye rising
over shuffling Pacific. We carol
(rote, stoned, irreverent) in shorts
and flip flops from Hollywood
to the post-eutrophic canals
of Venice Beach, the Santa Ana
twisting in from desert, snuffing
candles in wide open windows
(O frankincense, O myrrh),
rippling rum punch
in the communal wassail bowl.
We fear nothing, coasting
through our toasty season.
We enjoy our shade of blonde,
our token brown, dancing strangers
lit by hard-boiled moon (pitted sad-sack
belly-up over fuss: O dead thing).

Stars bloom.

On lawn stumped by foothills
a coyote waits with her hunger,
not a howl to her name. I toss
her scrapped fat and she’s off. Swallow
after swallow I toast the Christmas scotch
(sunburn for lungs) and soon (or not)
the hills press their simmered silence
upon my house, the moon a casualty
swarmed by wriggly city lights down
there—overcome.
Meanwhile,

Finland rises. The continental ice sheet melts.
Baltic Sea stagnates, plumbed with oil spills,
Estonian run-off, Latvian grunge, Polish sewage,
Russian waste. Water doesn’t freeze like it used to.
Midnight.

On the Eastern bank,

the waltzy white wolf.

Opposite: the poacher, gun swallowed by the hole

formed when his boot punched ice.

His fate is the moon’s secret

gaily spotlighting the duel.

The poacher raises his red fists, the wolf

her fine, fine snout

to the call.

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Tagged 2012, fiction writing, poetry, writing | Leave a comment

Mother Nature Wins

Posted on December 19, 2012 by PB Rippey

Really sorry.

Around here, the skies are flannel and pursed. We can wear sweaters and scarves, for once, as we bring in our trash barrels from alleys.

Pulling in the second recycling barrel, enjoying the feel of my silly polka-dot rain boots I never get to wear, I thought I heard hints of that flock of wild parrots winging by our house at any old time, flapping crazily, all members screeching competitively. Odd, I thought. Sounds like 1 parrot, not a flock, why not a flock, they’re always—huh.

As I tugged the barrel across the lawn, something clicked in my brain: Distress. And I looked up just in time to see a hawk leaving our potato vine tree thing, not a wild parrot (or a small child, if you’ve been viewing that FB clip of the golden eagle attempting to make off with the babe), but a house finch in its talons.

I flashed on, A Cry In The Dark, Thumbelina, Frodo and Sam (even though that was a good abduction). And I yelled.

We have three trees candlesticking our front yard. They are taller than the house and their branches expound, are elegant flourishes accentuated by berries (small, black, catch-in-your-hair berries). A colony of house finches lives in these trees. Around 6am they start talking and an hour or so later move to the back yard and the potato vine trees things. When it’s twilight, they form a cloud and return to the front yard trees. You can time them. They are predictable. There are hundreds of them. So no wonder the hawk picked us.

But I am not rational when it comes to Mother Nature’s scythe of death.

I ran to the potato vine tree thing with a gibberish shout representing outrage. A sense of possession overwhelmed me–my finches, my finches!I scanned the treetops visible beyond our yard’s wall. If I had seen the hawk in a distant tree with the house finch, what would I have done? Called 911? Set out on foot? Ordered the thief to return my finch? AWOFGLOJHAK! I sputtered, wild with rage, and my preschooler came outside in his socks, clutching his blue apatosaurus. What’s wrong, Mama?

1 silly polka-dot rain boot was coming off. My hands were muddy from tripping when I ran to the tree. My fist was raised at the sky. I saw myself. With humbling clarity.

PB, I thought. You forget yourself. I’m—weeding. Darn weeds! They aren’t good for our grass. Ha ha! Weeds. Go away weeds. I brushed myself off and turned to my son. What’s up, Lovecup? I said.

He squinted at me as though I was vanishing and scratched his bottom. Is it dinnertime yet? he asked. Yes, I said enthusiastically, marching to him with a limp and a huge smile on my face to distract him from my dislodged rainboot. Let’s eat!

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, Me and Us, Writing, WTF | Tagged 2012, fiction writing, Frodo, house finches, preschoolers, rain, red tailed hawks | 2 Comments

Beads, Snowflakes, Hopeful Friends

Posted on December 17, 2012 by PB Rippey

But you can only stay fused to your child’s side for so long.

And there are a million poems to read in dark times—and then there are simply no poems, no words. None.

A friend realized this and went to Newtown, CT. She sat in a bead shop for a bit with the owner and others and they made things and talked and didn’t talk and just sat and did busywork or just sat and felt, felt, felt. When my friend was ready to go, she left gifts for the families. The shop owner assured my friend they would be distributed. Some gifts my friend had brought with her on her trek to Newtown, some she had made that day in the shop. When she arrived home, she posted about her experience on Facebook. She posted about the sitting, the beadwork, the tearful moments, the silence, the talk, all of which left her with a sense of–well, this: When I left, my heart had shifted as I felt the families, though ruined beyond pale, will be held up completely by their community. I felt less terrified for them (though no less saddened).

My friend’s post is, for me, a gift. It overshadowed all the terribly inappropriate FB posts on December 14th (see previous blog post). I don’t expect my friend’s post to change anyone, but I like it out in the world, belonging.

If you’d like to know exactly where she went, it’s here: A Bead Of Roses

My porch light is on.

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Tagged 2012, beads, CT, hope, Newtown, snowflakes, writing | 1 Comment

Quote For The Weekend: Seriously, WTF

Posted on December 16, 2012 by PB Rippey

I was going to publish a post 2 days ago, but after returning home with my preschooler from his Christmas/holiday/everything party, I heard about Newtown, CT. And then I made the mistake of logging onto Facebook and reading posts from “friends” and their “friends” and so on that made anything I had been planning to publish seem alien. As my son ate his lunch, I ducked into the garage and silent-screamed and sobbed for 5 minutes. And then I pulled myself together and fused myself to my child’s side.

“good grief. gun control. do not take away my right to bear arms because somebody else breaks the law.”

“According to the FBI, more people are killed from baseball bats than anything else, including guns. So, I say, LET’S OUTLAW BASEBALL.”

“Barbara Boxer should mandate boxing classes for all high-school kids. It would give them a non-lethal way to settle differences of opinion regarding who baddest.”

“If more kids had guns or if teachers had guns and self-defense classes then 1 shooter would have been taken care of.”

“Virginia Tech was bragging about how it was a gun-free zone prior to that shooting a few years ago that took out 33 people. If 5% of the people on that campus had had guns, a lot of lives would have been saved.”

And today other FB “friends” posted the (supposedly) Morgan Freeman piece, which is a nice piece, until the ending, which says don’t support gun control, but mental health reform. Alarums, alarums.

I offer this bit of information:

In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.
—Nicholas D. Kristof

You can read the article, Do We Have The Courage To Stop This, and about that law here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Then go to the blackboard. Write Kristof’s above quote 100 times. Write it 100 more.

Shhhhhhh…No. Comments.

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Quote For The Weekend: Squirrel Edition Via Eliot

Posted on December 9, 2012 by PB Rippey

Such a handsome fox squirrel. No chasing allowed! sob, sob

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar, which is the other side of silence.
—George Eliot

We lived in a city condo until our son was 10 months old. The lot next to us was recent, huge, and, when it rained, so full of water Canadian geese mistook it for a lake and stopped in. Far across the lot was a pole. Just your average, tall, abandoned wooden pole candle-sticking earth. And one extremely early morning as I bounced our son in my arms and gazed blearily out the living room’s picture window, I watched two squirrels chase each other up that pole in quick, frantic circles and, when they reached the top, one squirrel fall.

I ran into the bedroom and woke my husband. SQUIRREL DOWN, WE HAVE A SQUIRREL DOWN, I whisper-hissed so as not to traumatize our son, and yet convey intense urgency. 10 minutes later, our son cooing in the Bjorn, we went to investigate.

There was the squirrel. Bad, it was bad. We returned home, me repeating over and over in a sing-song voice that would never traumatize a 10 month old, how I just couldn’t understand how a squirrel, A SQUIRREL, could fall from a pole, as my husband phoned animal control. SHE came right over. My husband went down to meet her and from the picture window I watched them cross the lot, get the squirrel into a container, move to the center of the lot, set the container down and keep chatting, at which point I left the window because I thought it was all over, squirrel going to shelter, done.

BANG. BANG. BANGBANGBANG.

Returning to the window, heart in my throat, surpressing outraged sounds because my son was finally asleep in my arms and who would want to traumatize a sleeping child, I thought this: WTF. And, actually, this: RUF***INGKIDDINGME. And something resembling: CAN’T THERE JUST BE PEACE FOR 1 F***ING MINUTE! Etc.

My husband vaulted up the outside stairs and into the condo. I pointed to our comatose son and he whispered:

She had to shoot it, babe, it was horribly hurt and suffering, but she missed with the first shot and then she said SCHEISE, she was German, babe, and kept on shooting and saying SCHEISE because she kept missing and then she asked me, VY EM I MISSINK EET? and she was crying, babe, she didn’t want to kill the squirrel, but she said it was better as the lineup for euthanasia at the shelter was super slow and squirrel would have suffered for a long time–

I pressed my hand to his mouth. We went into the bedroom and lay down with our snoozing son. We held found a way to hold hands and link arms with our little boy between us. It was only 8:00 a.m. and we’d been through an eon.

We live in leafy suburbs now. There are more trees here than poles. The squirrels keep their footing, although they do chase each other, taunt our cats and scold me daily from the fluffy pines. I just wave. And scatter our property with endless bread crusts.

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, Me and Us, Writer quotes, WTF | Tagged 2012, chaos, falling snow plugin, fiction writing, George Eliot, quotes on writing, squirrels, suburbia, writing | 6 Comments