Astral Projection: Part 1

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away called New York City, a Very Nice Man named Russell Galen wrote a clever essay about writing fiction. He titled this essay Astral Projection. While 1992 may seem a long time ago - especially to you younger earthlings - it barely moves the needle, in galactic terms. Russell Galen’s essay contains a universal truth, as big-bang-on today as it was in 1992.

Good writing interests me, which is why I find this piece of writing about writing so very interesting. 

Russell Galen is the founder of the estimable (look that up, if you must) Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, Inc., of New York. I’ll publish this essay in a couple of days, and thank Mr. Galen for allowing me to do so. In the meanwhile, let me yada-yada-yada.

I have many reasons for wanting to share Astral Projection with you. First: I suspect some of you are developing or established writers. If so, you can probably tell me how to write faster and better: I wrestle with words every day, and don’t always win. 

Second: Galen’s #1 tip on writing a can’t-put-it-down novel has more to do with character identification and less to do with strong writing. There! That allows us weaselly writers to sigh with relief when we’ve waltzed with the wrong participle or neglected to use the subjunctive. 

And third: I hope you’ll enjoy Galen’s clean, direct prose as much as I did. Writing, agenting, and publishing have seen some dark days, but I have the strong feeling the industry is bouncing back. 

Reading opens you up to new worlds and new ideas. It helps develop critical thinking skills. It makes you smarter, and more understanding, and more empathetic, and more curious.

Friends unfamiliar with the process of book-writing (of which I’ve done a teensy bit, a millenium ago) always ask: “So when can I buy a copy of Blankety-Blank?” They’re always surprised to hear a writer’s job doesn’t end when the last page is done. Writers who seek a traditional publisher almost always need an agent. Finding that agent can be a long and tiring process. 

An agent who believes in the book (and in the writer) will try to match your manuscript with the best publisher for it. This challenging process can take a week, a month, a year - or longer. A good agent is like stardust. And for that agent, so’s a good writer.

The team of writer/agent/publisher/editor/artist works as hard as possible for just one person - you. Not only do we want you to love the book on which we’ve labored - we want you to spread the word!

                                                     * * *   

So that’s a self-serving, round-about way of introducing you to Russell Galen, whose reputation as a smart, caring agent precedes him. Galen says agents and editors generally read just 1% of developing writers’ novels from start to finish. Of those, he says, agents and editors prefer “strongly plotted manuscripts (that) force you to finish ... (over) better written manuscripts which lack a strong plot …” 

BING! Time’s up! I’ll plunge straight into the meat of Russell Galen’s essay in a couple of days - and into what he calls “astral projection.” Doesn’t every writer want to write a better book? The universal truths in this essay could put you in that orbit. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Let Us Prey

What’s on my mind?

AN ORANGE CAT IS STALKING BIRDS. 

PLEASE BELL HIM, OR KEEP HIM IN.

Life isn’t simple. It should be. Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens.  

There’s a new cat in town. A hep cat - a term so old, it’s new again. An orange hep cat - and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. Our village (that pretends to be a town) is a Trump-Free Zone. 

Having made little posters to alert the neighbors and let the owners know what their cat was up to, I wanted to pin those words to trees and tape them to lamp posts.

No matter how well fed, cats always revert to type - fixating on birds and goldfish bowls. I don’t like asking for trouble, so our pond has no fish. Not only do we have fish-chomping raccoons,  but hungry mink and bears, too. And house cats - let’s not forget house cats.

House cats belong in houses. Not out on the street, extending claws, flexing muscles, licking lips, and hanging around with juvenile delinquent cats, asking for trouble. 

Rarely do we see cats around here. Responsible owners in this semi-rural area keep their cats indoors.

This orange cat must be new to the neighborhood. I’ve seen him twice this past week (Fast fact: 80% of orange tabbies are male). The first time, he was standing in the middle of a quiet street, sizing up the neighborhood, as trouble-makers do. 

The second, he was in our garden. Belly low to the ground, eyes locked on his prey, his clear intent was to play ping pong - his paw, the paddle; our birds, the ball. 

Racing outside, I clapped my hands to scare him off. His response? A cool, insouciant stare and a flick-flick of his tail. As if in slow motion, he easily vaulted our 6 ft. fence. 

He’ll be back. I know it. There’s tender birdies in these parts! 

So I penned a version of the note above - opening with “YOUR” ORANGE CAT … and closing with a snippety “THANK YOU!” Why post these notices widely instead of dropping one at the owner’s door? Why would I write “YOUR” and annoy the whole neighborhood? Because I don’t know whose cat this is, that’s why. 

Why write “THANK YOU!” when the owner might not comply? I may as well have written “OR ELSE!” Where was my proof the cat had come over our fence? Foot-high cat … Six-foot fence … Hardly seems possible, though cats are acrobats. 

I originally wrote OUR birds. This sounded too proprietary - likely to get stuck in some bird’s craw. They are no one’s birds - or, more PC, they are their own birds, responsible for their own lives and decisions: #tweet-too. 

Where was my proof the orange cat was stalking birds? No lifeless, feathered bodies; no terrorized birds cowering in trees.

Who am I to order a pet owner to “PLEASE BELL HIM …”? Maybe the orange cat was a starving stray? Maybe I’d robbed him of breakfast. Which soul has greater moral equivalence - a bird’s or a cat’s? 

Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens. The orange cat was once a cute and fluffy kitten, innocent of the evils of the world. 

I’d maligned this cat. I’d wronged his owner. How dare I! Feeling guilty as hell, I ripped up my poster.

IMPORTANT PS! USA Today reports unbelled cats kill as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental US every year. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Naked Truth

What’s on my mind? Beach season! The umbrellas are out; the beach chairs are out; the bathing suits are on. Our little island is awash with tourists, some of whom wish those bathing suits were not. 

Our gender equality laws allow both sexes to walk around topless here (“Quick! Madge! Turn the RV around! Let’s vacation there!”), though almost no one does (“Forget it, Madge ...”). 

Some people here want to let it all hang out - as in “no secrets.” Why not? Most of the people on the island are seniors. They’d be a tourist attraction. They’d boost our gross domestic product. 

Our neighbors, Mr. Harris and Mrs. H, once went to one of those “free and breezy” places. Mrs. H had no idea they were in an “au naturel” resort. When Mr. H booked it, he told Mrs H to “Leave your glasses at home, honey! They’re only going to steam up in the hot weather!” Not to mention that it was always hot and steamy, where they were going. 

Mrs. H told me she’d ordered one of those fruit juice-rum-cognac specialities of the house, and because this was a vacation, said: “Make it a double.” God only knows what the bartender stirred it with.

Mr. Harris was keen to “see the sights,” as he put it, but Mrs H was content to loll and stroll and see where the day took her. Where the day took her was onto a nude beach, where everyone except Mrs H was starkers. 

She, of course, knew zip! about where she was and how she got there, having worked off only the fruit juice portion of her drink, with the rest still in her system. 

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into that one. When in Rome …? She wasn’t in Rome. Without her glasses, Mrs H wasn’t sure where she was, except that she normally wore more to take a shower than these people did walking around in public.

Mrs H suffers from full-frontal prudity. She was wide-eyed, and everyone else was bushy-tailed. Nudes, nudes, everywhere, and nary a thought to blink. Hoping to “blend in,” she took her socks off.

Everyone’s dangly bits were blowing in the breeze. To distract herself, she said, she tried to visualize the sea of naked bodies wearing goggles, snorkels, and swim fins. It didn’t work. All she saw were lumps and rumps. When she asked a man on the beach to “show me the way to go home,” he pointed east - without using his finger. She made a run for it.

This particular nude beach wasn’t easy to access. On either side were long sweeps of sand. To the north was water. To the south, a cliff. She decided the cliff was her best chance of escape. Resisting a rest, she did. No nudes is good nudes - for Mrs. H.

Our little island really should allow nude sunbathing. Mr. Harris would enjoy it, Mrs. H might get used to it, and the gross domestic product - and other things - would probably rise.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Coffee, Anyone?

What’s on my mind? Something called a “cortado.” God only knows what it is. 

To me, “cortado” sounds like a bullfight. I don’t know about you, but I’d be worried about bullspit. 

Ask Google what a cortado is and Google cutely answers: ¿Cuál es el café cortado?

I feel like I’m channeling Desi Arnaz in an I Love Lucy rerun.

Google then responds with “People also ask …”

• What size is a cortado? 

• What is a Costa cortado? 

• What is the difference between a cortado and a macchiato? 

True confession: For most of my adult life, I assumed “macchiato” was a type of S+M involving fur handcuffs.

What I want to know is who these anonymous “people” are, asking all those questions. They surely know a whole lot more than I do, since they know enough to ask. If they don’t know, they probably don’t need to know - unless they’re baristas and their livelihood depends on it, because (ta-dah!) a “cortado” is a cup of coffee. 

I can say that with confidence because I spent hours of research (5 min. on Wikipedia) finding out. Can you believe “cortado” has an entire page in Wikipedia?  TMI, folks … TMI.

I had another clue when a writer friend young enough to be a fetus tweeted: “On days like today, when I’m working from home and my coffee cupboard is empty, I wish I had an assistant to bring me a flat white.”

To which I innocently tweeted back: “I make lattes. But not flat whites.” 

He: “Flat whites are pretty common these days. I find they have the best proportion of cream to espresso. Lattes are a touch too milky for me, but cortados aren’t quite creamy enough ... I also love a good cappuccino. Now I want coffee.”

This made me nervous. The only reason I can make lattes is because I have a fancy-schmancy machine that knows how to read a bar code to do it. My machine does not make cortados. My machine does not even know how to spell cortados. 

Cortados are obviously w-a-a-y higher in status than plebeian lattes and cappuccinos, which are so “yesterday.” 

Cortados are probably trendy. Himself and I are not trendy. Give us Folgers instant crystals and some boiling water and we’ll be perfectly fine.

I wouldn’t mind ordering a cortado, if only to see the terror in a barista’s eyes. I pity baristas. Being one must be like staying up all night studying for the final exam, only to learn there are questions on it no one thought to teach.

Another Twitteree (who bills himself as a former stand-up comic and a former Supreme Court clerk) seems to write about nothing but coffee. 

Example: “They tell me it’s Monday morning again, but with the help of #coffee, I’ll still be a force to be reckoned with.” 

Another example: “Everyone has to believe in something. This morning, I believe I’ll have #coffee.” 

#coffee is an actual hashtag - mostly coffee adverts and promos, but also some sleep-deprived fanatics. 

If I’d had to guess, I would have defined “cortado” as an opera singer. Or a maybe a Mexican dish served with salsa. 

The former Supreme Court clerk/comic has 116,000 Twitter followers. My cordato-drinking pal has 635. I’m betting every one of their friends knows what a cortado is.

I have 31 Twitter followers. This explains a lot.

© Nicole Parton, 2019 

Merry Christmas. In 195 Days

Only 195 days to Christmas, 2019, tra-la-la! Ohhh, the horror! Perhaps we should leave town ... I hear Borneo is pleasant in December. Last Christmas is etched so deeply on my memory that it has left a scar.  

Christmas, 2018, was when I took it upon myself to drag our tallest artificial tree from the garage into the living room - something I’ve never done before and will never do again.

The tallest tree is 3 ft. taller than I am, and I could barely lift it. Still, I managed to pick it up. Staggering blindly into the living room, I tripped.

Without warning, the tree’s bottom segment separated from the rest like a booster rocket, tumbling and twirling away as the tree’s top two segments flew straight at the cuckoo clock, ripping off its roof and silencing the two nodding birds’ moronic “CUCK-KOO! CUCK-KOO!” sung above their open-mouthed babies’ perpetual begging.

Unable to see a damned thing, careening wildly, I felt the tree’s second segment separate seconds before it rammed the naked babies’ open beaks. The stupid little Junge und Mädchen who pop in and out their stupid little doorway to dance their stupid little dance froze, probably in shock.

Himself personally selected that very clock after spending about 100 hours in some stupid little clock shop in the Black Forest about 1,000 years ago. He paid to have it shipped home from Germany. He winds it. He cleans it. He loves it.

He’d been in another part of the house when I tripped. He hadn’t heard a thing. I thought I’d break the news gradually.

“Himself …” I said, twiddling the curls on his semi-bald head, “How much do you love me?”

I may as well have said: “How well do you know me?” because his immediate response was: “WHAT DID YOU BREAK???” 

“Um …” I said.

“MY CLOCK! MY CLOCK! MY CLOCK!” he screamed, running into the living room.

“Um …” I said again, secretly thinking: “If you're going to divorce me, I want the car.”

One hour later, he’d glued and clamped the clock.

Although Himself looked very red in the face, the clock looked as it always had: The parent birds fed the baby birds, the stupid little Junge und Mädchen entered and exited their stupid little doorway to dance their stupid little dance. The tree? Even though it’s now only 2-3/4 ft. taller than I am, it - and its booster rockets - survived.

The best part? Himself still loves me and we’ll continue to share the car. Merry Christmas. In 195 days.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Himself Doesn’t Beat His Wife

What’s on my mind? Himself doesn’t beat his wife; has never beaten his wife; will never beat his wife. There! With that out in the open, let’s proceed.

Not being the tallest kid on the block, I sometimes improvise creative ways to reach the tantalizing Top Shelf Stuff from the kitchen cupboard when I can’t be bothered to fetch the step stool. Some people (I won’t name names) don’t even need a step stool because they’re ta-a-all.

Himself effortlessly skims whatever he wants from the top shelf while I scamper at his feet, hoping for crumbs. Although his height comes in handy, I tend to be the independent type who doesn’t like whinging “Hims-e-lf … Hims-e-lf  …” too often. I’m also lazy, knowing how to get what I want. But let’s not talk about sex, just now.

We have one of those fancy pod-coffee machines; you’ve probably seen them. A year or so ago, I bought about 2.3 million coffee pods because they were on sale (Want some? I have 2.1 million left). 

This coffee is a premium brand that would probably taste great to an Italian, but not to us. Too black. Too strong (Have I told you Himself doesn’t beat his wife? I’ll get to that part).

So happy was I to buy these pods that I kept no receipts. With the hoarded coffee tasting like BLECH! I entombed the pods in two airtight plastic boxes (Qua-lity plastic! Hea-vy plastic! Lid-ded plastic!). Out of sight, out of mind, as the old saying goes. 

I put the boxes on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard to RIP. Our house has a storage room containing still more dark Italian roast coffee pods. I pretended they weren't there; I never looked at them. BLECH! BLECH! BLECH!

I’m the waste-not, want-not type. The money I’d sunk into this coffee bothered me, so I resurrected the pods. I discovered that preparing a couple of pods in our fancy coffee maker and diluting the coffee with boiling water made a passable pot of coffee. Who knew?

You would have figured that out pretty fast. But as the dull-witted, short person I am, it took a year (BING!) before I realized I could water down this too-strong coffee. 

Cut to those plastic boxes loaded with strong Italian coffee pods on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. Cut to the step stool. Cut to Himself, contentedly snoring as I crept around the house, trying not to disturb him. Hauling the step stool (DRA-A-A-G) from its (SQUE-E-E-EAK!) cupboard seemed too noisy and too much trouble.

To reach the pods laid out in their plastic tombs, I stood on my toes while trying to wiggle them from the cupboard with a metal cooking spoon. When gentle prying achieved nothing, I resorted to a forceful yank. 

Everything happened at once. Not only did the two coffee-stuffed plastic boxes tumble down, but so did two others containing metal bolts or hammers or whatever else needed to be out of sight, out of mind. All these boxes (and the cooking spoon) fell on my EYE-YI-EYE!

I now have a doozy of a shiner. And by the way, if you meet me on the street, Himself doesn’t beat his wife.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Perfect Dinner Party

What’s on my mind? Gave a dinner party in the garden, last night. Weather? Perfect. Food? Perfect. Company? Perfect.

Moving in synch, Himself and I were the perfect hosts. PERFECT.

Some small or large detail usually goes wrong at my dinner parties: “Ooops! Left the buns in the freezer!” or “Ooops! Forgot the cutlery!” That sort of thing. Not this time. Last night, everything was perfect. Almost.

(Never mind my past dinner party disasters - the worst of which was the Baked Alaska that - hard as it is to imagine or believe - EXPLODED INTO FLAMES, upon which I SCREAMED so loudly that everyone RAN from the dining room INTO THE KITCHEN as the Baked Alaska HURTLED TO THE GROUND like a RED-HOT METEOR on a COLLISION COURSE with their feet. Oh, well. Having gone through all the effort of making such a fancy dessert, I slopped it onto their plates DIRECTLY FROM THE FLOOR. True story.)

Relaxing in the garden, we spoke of many things. It wasn’t long before the conversation between two female guests turned to laundry (“Laundry???” I thought). One said: “It would be nice to hang the laundry out in this weather, but our neighborhood’s bylaws don’t allow it.” 

Another said: “Fred built me a laundry line high enough for our king-sized sheets to blow in the breeze! You can do anything you like with your laundry when you live in a rural area.” 

Laundry not being the highlight of my life, I pretended to be fascinated by their conversation while actually zoning out. I gazed over our familiar garden - trees, bushes, flowers, planters, lawn swing, brassiere draped over a chair, side tables … brassiere draped over a chair??? 

Bursting from the table, I sprinted into the garden to grab and hide the freshly washed bra drying in the sun. 

The woman who’d initiated the laundry conversation was sitting at the table with her back to the garden. Ever so casually, she asked: “Was that your black bra? Don’t worry … I didn’t see it.”

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Problem with Peeing

What’s on my mind? Dreams. The sleeping kind - not the “If only I had a million bucks” kind.

My dreams tend to have … Dialogue! Action! Color! 

The post immediately below discusses (in a scientifically anatomical way, with diagrams ... Don’t all stampede to read it at once) the complications of peeing while camping. I find the very idea of peeing + camping unnatural. Hell, anything could come along in the wilderness of a campsite - like pee-loving bears or skunks or a whole mess of slugs.

So traumatized was I by the Pee Problem (the communal bathroom being a 984-mile hike from our tent) that we agreed our camping days were over. We’d blown our entire vacation budget on a six-night, no-refund campground reservation where we stayed just one night. Such is life. 

Home again, we snuggled into our comfy bed and fell asleep. Which was when the horror of my latest dream began unspooling. Himself wasn’t in the dream, perhaps because I feared he might propose: “Let’s go camping again, for old times’ sake.” If he’d done that (even in a dream), he’d be in traction.

In my dream, I decided to buy a fly-speck of a unit on the top floor of a 31-storey Big City apartment complex: I must have won the lottery in some previous dream I’ve forgotten.

To my shock, on the day I moved in, I discovered that a realtor was sitting at a desk where the bathroom had been when I signed the purchase agreement.

“Where’s the bathroom???” I shrieked.

“Didn’t you read the contract?” he asked. “It clearly said that as a condition of sale, we’d be removing the bathroom and replacing it with our sales office.” 

“But how can I go to the toilet?” I mewled.

“Just take the elevator to the basement. Unlock the room where we keep the dumpsters (appropriate term). You’ll find a toilet there. Here’s the key.”

“B-b-but that’s 31 storeys down!” Technically, it was 32, but who’s counting?

He shrugged. 

“Where can I shower?” 

“You agreed to the contract!” he said, airily. “Surely you have friends …”

At 3 am, when I usually rise to pee, I donned my dressing gown, rode the elevator to the basement, unlocked the dumpster room door, relieved myself, and attempted to unlock the door to return to the elevator. That’s when I learned the key to let me IN wasn’t the key to let me OUT. The realtor had neglected to give me that particular key. 

And that, dear friends, was when claustrophobia entered my dream like a bear and a skunk and a whole mess of slugs, and I began to scream. The storage room for the dumpsters, you see, looked precisely like our tent.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Unhappy Campers

What’s on my mind? Camping. In a dog tent. Which is about a million times bigger than a pup tent. Himself and I have made a pact. We have a six-night reservation at a campsite. Although it’s less than seven miles from our house, we’ve pinky-sworn that no way, no-siree, are we going home for any reason whatsoever. 

Day 1, June 2: 

10 am: “Take a warm jacket,” Himself says. “I’m perfectly fine,” I say. “You’ll freeze,” he says. “I won’t,” I say.

10:05 am: I apply my makeup as Himself packs the wine, the beer, the vodka, the food, the cooler, the ax, the rope, the tarps, the collapsible chairs, the propane, the bird book, the binoculars, the pots, the plastic plates, the plastic cups, the metal cups, the three-way cutlery, the block of ice, the garlic press, the knife, the vegetable peeler, the air mattress, the pump for the air mattress, the sleeping bags, the bug spray, the giant orange water cooler that holds about 10,000 gallons, the firewood, the propane stove, the fire starters, the towels, the tent, the tent pegs, and lots of other stuff. I’m hot (Yeah, baby ... Yeah!). I deliberately leave my warm jacket at home.

12 pm: We arrive at the campground. Himself starts setting up camp. 

2 pm: Himself finishes setting up camp.

2:05 pm: “I’m freezing!” I say. “Put on your warm jacket,” says Himself. I Velcro my lips shut. 

2:10 pm: Clouds roll in like bowling balls, heavy and black. Rain threatens. “I’m freezing!” I repeat. 

2:45 pm: “I’m freezing!” We’ve been in camp 2-3/4 hours. We drive home to get my triple-insulated hoodie jacket, my thermal underwear, and the fixings for hot buttered rum. Our neighbor, Mr. Harris, asks: “Home so soon?”

3:00 pm: “Why do you need an ax, Himself? ” “The better to chop things with, my dear.” 

4:00 pm: “I’m roasting!” Himself says nothing (What pearly white teeth you have, my dear).

6:00 pm: Who knew dish detergent and cooking oil look exactly the same in unlabeled jars?

9:30 pm: We sit around the campfire, trying to read The New Yorker with our flashlights. Himself says I’ll melt the sole of my shoe if I prop it against the firepit. I melt the sole of my shoe.

9:45 pm: The communal camp bathrooms are about 10,000 miles from our tent, so we use them before bed. We enter the tent, bounce around on the air mattress, zip the tent flap, wriggle into our PJs, and cocoon ourselves in our sleeping bags. Himself immediately falls asleep. 

Two minutes later, I urgently need to pee again, so - with no idea how to find the communal bathrooms - un-cocoon, bounce around on the air mattress, unzip the tent flap, fall out of the tent (!), creep into the woods, relieve myself, do it again in reverse (including now falling into the tent), and start sawing logs.

Day 2, June 3:

2:30 am: “Vake up! You must go on ze klo.” It’s my long-dead Austrian mother, urging me to get up and pee. My Belgian father stands beside her - same message, French accent. I repeat my vaudevillian routine.

5:30 am: Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

6:00 am: People really do know when they’re being stared at. Himself snaps awake, my face three inches from his. I tell him about the air-mattress-bouncing and the tent-falling-out-of and the tent-falling-into and my voice begins to quaver. 

“Let’s start the day with a good breakfast!” he says. 

7:00 am: Two Denver omelets, coming right up! We’ve started this particular day at the local diner.

8:00 am: We break camp.  As we do, I see two kids and their parents struggling to carry bowls of water to their campsite. “Would you like to have a giant orange water cooler that holds about 10,000 gallons?” I didn't need to ask twice.

8:53 am: We’re outta here.

© Nicole Parton, 2019