take that, Thomas Wolfe

Wolfe claimed that you can't go home again. Yeah, he's an important writer and he's got a stamp and all that, but so what.

I just finished a draft of a new book about Norbert, a smart-ass alien who comes to live in the nose of a small-town kid named Alan Dingwall. Norbert and Alan dominated my literary life for a few years in the late 90s and early 2000s. I wrote four books about them. Had some success and a lot of fun. And then put them aside. That was ten years ago.

A lot has happened in the last decade. Not in Toronto team sports -- we still haven't won a title -- but other things have happened in the world.  Some good, some not so good. Some downright awful. On a personal level, I have written a bunch of books that don't feature Norbert or Alan.

I left them on Jupiter in the middle of an adventure.  And, a few months ago, after umpty-thousand questions from fans about whether I would ever write another Norbert book and bring Alan home, I found myself without a deadline and decided - for no particular reason - to give it a try.

I don't write the same way I used to. Yes, my stories are still quirky with some darkness underneath, but I'm different.  More gray hair, less certainty.  Could I go back?  Could I find Alan's voice again?  I re-read parts of the old books to remind myself of the groove, and started in.

I finished last week.  I had fun, which is an important part of writing.  Will Tundra publish the new book?  Wait and see.

OK, don't worry too much. I think I did most of what I set out to do.  The story is called Boy To The World, and it's about Alan finishing his quest on the planet Jupiter and getting back to earth where - surprise, surprise - he comes up against a problem that requires him to use what he learnt on the faraway planet. The plot is full of action and goofiness, as usual.  There is an upside-down castle.  There are bird-fish and snake-women, vacuum hatches and a rocking horse who poops all the time. There are knights with punning names, and useless footnotes.  Maybe the book is not as clever as earlier ones.  (I may not be as clever myself.)  But it might be wiser and simpler.

In writing, I learned that you can go home again -- not to stay, perhaps, but to visit.  Your folks are frailer, and they've changed your bed for a pull-out couch.  But the cabbage rolls taste great, the air smells springy, and you can still get a good night's sleep.

salutary moment

And we're back.

Updates.  I am still driving my aunt's car - badly. (Stalling, finding 6th gear instead of reverse, you know the kind of thing.)  But honks and eye rolls are better than torches and pitchforks, so it could be worse.


Kids are fine. Work is, well, work. (I'm travelling now, trying to cram teaching and editing and creativity into a series of air bnbs.) Love life is at the intersection of Risible and Complicated.  (A corner I know pretty well.)  What else is new? 

Apropos of car ownership, I had a great life lesson the other week. I haven't felt this proud to be Canadian in a long time.  (That's why the picture, if you were wondering.)

I was in line at Service Ontario.  Nothing to be proud of there. You know what it's like.

When I got to the head of the line, the clerk who was free held up a hand for me to wait. "Sorry, no English," he said. And gestured to the woman behind me. I stepped aside for her, and she and the guy proceeded in Cantonese or Mandarin (I guess).  I checked: was I the only Anglo in line? Maybe.  It took another few minutes for a clerk who spoke English to get free.

I've had to wait for a translator before, but I was always on another continent. This was a first inside my own country.  I wasn't angry.  Not even close.  A little startled, I confess, aware that the joke was on me.  We Canadians are proud of our (mostly) welcoming attitude to brave souls making a new life here.  Waiting for someone who speaks your language must be a near-universal immigrant experience.

I am glad to have had a small taste of it. 

target marketing

You invite all the people you have ever emailed in your whole life to your book launch. Six of them actually show up to drink your booze and eat your canapes.  Two of them buy a book.  And that's a win. Until recently, this was my  experience of marketing. 

So what is going on? Last week I wrote a blog in which I said I didn't really want my aunt's car. Not a sale pitch, just a passing comment. And I have received no less than six offers to buy it.  (No more than six either. It was in fact six.)

Internet works on micro-rents.  600,000 people look at something, you make six cents. Is my blog regularly read by 600,000 people?  Don't think so.  6000? More likely but still seems high. 600?  60? 16?  Now we're getting close (16 of the coolest, most insightful, fun loving folks around, mind you!  And Stephanie too.)  In which case, almost half the people who read my blog made an unsolicited offer on my late aunt's car. Now that is target marketing.  

I wonder why I had so much more success with my aunt's car than my own books?

Oh.  That's why. 

Thing is, I am feeling different about the car after another week of ownership.  Sorry, y'all.  I'm getting used to the thing.  Couple days ago I visited a pal in Oakville at the last minute.  Only one teeny crisis when I tried to find 6th gear and found 2nd by mistake.  (I didn't know the tachometer went that high!)  I'm off to the gym in a bit, and the only way I figure I won't die of exposure is if I take the car.  (Of course I'm way more likely to die in an accident, but that's another story.) So the car is still there, but I am using it more and more.

Back to target marketing.  Let's test this.  Hey there, you wonderful sixteen (or 60 or 600,000). You guys are the best!  I mean it!  Give yourselves a hand!  You too, Stephanie.  Now, have you considered what might become of your loved ones if (God forbid!) something were to happen to you?  It's a cold winter, and there are crazies on the road (I know!) and, well, anything can happen.  Wouldn't you want to be prepared? I have some forms you might want to look at.  Just a suggestion....

my part-Scottish heritage

One of my operating principles - a mission statement that underlies many aspects of my behaviour and being - is thrift.  I want to get the most value out of things.  It's not about saving money per se. I'll happily pay more for better-tasting wine or coffee.  But I feel strongly about things being used efficiently.

So to my late aunt's car. (Not going to talk about my aunt this time. Later, maybe.)  That's it up there - same model anyway.  The machine is part of the estate.  What to do about it?

I live downtown and so do my kids. None of us wants the trouble and expense of a car.  My brother, out in Scarborough, has more cars than he can use and his kids don't drive.

Can we sell it?  Here's where the thrift issue comes in.  The car is a mid-price sedan with very low mileage. But it's ten years old and has some minor scrapes and dings. (Another reason my brother doesn't want it.  Aunt Mary Lee didn't park as well as she used to towards the end.)  A dealer would offer a few hundred dollars. I know it's worth ten times more.  Someone who doesn't care about the way the car looks could enjoy it for another 300,00 kms.

I didn't have to think too long or hard to realize that the most thrifty answer was (sigh) for me to take the car.  I don't mind dings and dents. Insurance will cost me about the same as car rentals.  And I can make use of my (until now vacant) parking space.

The kicker is that I am not as good a driver as my late aunt was or my brother is.  The car has a stick shift and a peppy engine. 

I foresee hilarity (I've already stalled in the middle of several major intersections, eliciting car horn serenades) and possible trouble. But until I end up in a ditch or blazing inferno, I will be making efficient use of the asset. Triumph of the thrift principle.

random thoughts

New York Times gave Clinton an 85% chance of winning.  Which meant Trump was a 7-1 shot. Do horses win at 7-1? Only all the time. Would you get on a plane with a 85% chance of landing safely?

Post-election analysis points to feelings of disenfranchisement, alienation, being ignored or snubbed by political power elites. An op-ed piece in my paper today says the election was all about race. My daughter (and her gal pals) say it came down to sex - people simply couldn't pull the lever for a woman.

I think everyone is right. Because they are all talking about their own experiences, their strongest feelings of fear and anger. And the election was about fear and anger.  Trump tapped into basic feelings.  Not good ones - base ones, in fact.  But they are strong. 

Interesting that 2008 was also about a basic feeling - hope. 

Poll error - I wonder how much lying went on?  People not admitting to Trump support in case they got laughed at.  Cooler to say you didn't approve of either candidate.  Reminds me of those college lifestyle surveys, where, apparently, the average undergrad has monkey sex 7-10 times a week with multiple partners and vast quantities of drugs.  Yeah, sure.

Fear of being laughed at is a real thing. And that fear - and the resulting anger - my well impact American foreign policy.  How will Trump react to world leaders who can not disguise their superior smiles, their deprecation?


The next few years could well be laughable, tragic, terrifying, incredible, or a combination of all of these.  They probably won't be boring.

NOT (much) ABOUT TRUMP

OK, I that's not true. I was channelling The Donald there and told a whopper. This is about Trump. But it's not what you think. I am not going to rag on the guy.  Yes I worry about the world, and I have all the trad liberal values, so I find his racist sexist xenophobic bullying and barefaced falsifications tiresome, scary, and darn near risible. All right, maybe I'm ragging on him a bit.

But.

One of the sticks Trump is being beaten with now is his comment about the underage kid he may be dating in ten years. And that comment shows an almost (almost) likable side.

Nothing to do with underage kids. Nothing to do with him saying what we're all thinking. I hope no grownup is thinking about dating underage kids. Geez.

But.

The comment is (follow me closely here) a joke. Trump is laughing. And who's he laughing at? Himself, that's who.  He's laughing at his own creepiness.  That's rare.  How often does a politician point at his own weakness? Did George W make jokes about how stupid he is?  Did Bill Clinton make jokes about his libido?  Hell, does Obama laugh at his perceived desire to please everyone, his inability to play hardball with Congress?  

I am not saying politicians should laugh at themselves.  Politics is power.  I used to wait tables at corporate functions, and it was easy to spot the CEO - the one who was not smiling. So Trump's ability to laugh at himself (now and then) does not make him a better leader.  What it makes him is the sort of person I could imagine having as a friend IF -- if he weren't such a gigantic knob in every other way.

That's all.

fantasy - guy and gal

I love the 'Wee Libraries' in my neighborhood.  I always check on them when I walk by, often drop off a book or two.  This past week I picked up a recent thriller by Lee Child.  (Not that one over there, but that's the one I could find a picture of.)

I have read several of these.  I love the king of the road fantasy  Child sells: observant hyper-physical superman working for justice, with no ties, no fears, and new girl every adventure.  James Bond and Travis McGee come close to this fantasy but Jack Reacher is freer from the world than they are. No boss, no best friend, not even a change of clothes. He is an ideal, really, the purest example I know -- almost an abstract extension of 'guy'.  It's easy to laugh at him, and perhaps he should lay off the head butting before he ends up with CTE, but I think there is a small yearning towards Reacher in most of us Y-chromosome types.

Know who he reminds me of?  Bella, from Twilight.  Yup.  Now, here I am talking without a lot of knowledge (I've been unable to get through one of the books) but ignorance has never slowed me up before. And I am aware of Bella as an icon.  She seems to embody a certain aspect of femininity -- pliant and submissive, seeming to exist only for relationship, succeeding through manipulation.  And what a success she is! Not one but two sexy powerful guys will do anything -- anything -- for her.  Like Reacher, her girl fantasy is almost perfect. She doesn't even have to walk by herself if there is a guy to carry her.   Again, it's easy to laugh.  But pay attention to the bit inside that is somehow satisfied by Bella -- or what's her name from 50 Shades, who is virtually the same character.

I am not judging here. I am interested.  The Twilight and 50 Shades books have sold umpty million copies despite being fairly badly written. There's something there.  Don't let's hate ourselves for liking them.  What's the appeal?  I mean, I didn't race through Thunderball because of the prose style.

Bella is a heroine who gets what she wants using her best girl powers.  Is that it?  Maybe.  When Reacher takes 4 big bullies down at once using elbows, feet and head, we go, Huzzah.  Guy power.  When Bella puckers up, is it the same thing?  (And she's not risking CTE.)  One of my favorite heroines is Eliza Bennett, who uses charm, humour and belief in herself to succeed.  But what she succeeds in doing is asking Darcy to marry her.