So You Wanna Stress Therapy Dog?

Yale law school now has a therapy dog available to students. A stress therapy dog. I guess it goes something like this – you take an absurdly difficult Torts exam (yes, for you fortunate non-lawyers, there’s a subject called Torts, and it isn’t remotely like tortes), after which you head over to the-well I’m not sure where they keep the therapy dog . . . wherever you must go to sign out Fido the terrier. (No, wait. This is law school. The poor pooch will have some dorky lawyer-y name like Habeas or Res Ipsa. And while I’m at it, a terrier? Really? Seems a bit of a yippy breed to be remotely relaxing, but I digress.) So you check out Habeas, take him home and curl around him in a fetal position. Problem solved? I don’t think so. And I’m not maligning stress therapy dogs. Or therapy. Or dogs. I’ve had plenty of both over the years and I’m a kinder, gentler Kris (or perhaps just a marginally less crazy Kris) for it. But I guess it’s the notion that the profession (as early as the poor budding baby lawyers in law school) is so inherently stressful that we need the likes of a therapy dog to get us through our days. It seems like a pretty clear case of treating the symptom rather than the condition. But how do you treat such an entrenched condition, with its white shoes and top tiers and all that? I don’t know. And in my defense (one can take the girl out of the law firm, but . . .) this blog only promises "tenuously related insights into the legal profession", not answers.

What I do know is that law firm culture, unless it experiences a significant shift, will continue to suck the souls from and ravage the bodies of those ambitious yet naive enough to pursue this path. It’s why David Kazzie’s Xtra Normal Video “So You Wanna Go To Law School” was not only a web sensation, but also reposted on Facebook by every lawyer I know. It’s why my former firm lost four brilliant women in a matter of two months, and shortly thereafter, every man who wanted to see his children, or perhaps just do some pleasure reading. It's why every third lawyer you know dreams of writing a bestseller and jettisoning the whole wretched practice, present company included. And yes, there is personal choice and responsibility, and sure, there are manageable firms and more mellow jobs, and fine, this post might be infused with a tad bit of hyperbole, but doesn’t the stress therapy terrier say it all?

It Was The Best Of Times

It's Friday, and it's been raining for 40 days and nights (not the proverbial 40 days and nights, people, I'm talking true blue rain) and I haven't had a glass of wine all week and I'm out of Taco Bell sauce (again) and one kid said the "F" word and the other brought home an "F" and I busted out nearly 6,000 words over the past 72 hours. So, yea, I'm a little punchy. Maybe that's why today's The Book or Bust post hit me so hard. The blogger sent the first 50 pages of her manuscript to a requesting agent yesterday. Sigh. Oh how I remember those days. Full of waiting and hoping and casting the movie and spending the advance. We wish her the best of luck - shiny pennies found on street corners, four-leaf clovers, and the feet of rabbits. And we also encourage her, and other writers in her position, to cherish this time, as nerve-wracking as it may be. Because it is a rich, rich time. A time measured in units of possibility.

For us, the age of querying agents and readying manuscripts for editors and crossing our fingers (and toes and legs and eyes and any other body part capable of crossing) began (believe it or not!) nearly 7 years ago. And, for The Pecking Order, it has come to an end. We are now entering a new era with respect to that book, one equally rich, equally teeming with potential. So stay tuned for an exciting announcement in the next few days. Long live The Pecking Order!

Oh, and p.s., to all you naysayers: I really didn't drink wine for a week. Not since St. Patrick's Day. Which I spent with Kris. I won't go into the sordid details, but her first words to me the next morning, via text no less (because neither of us could make the short walk to the other end of her house), were, "Dude. You with a tolerance is a bad bad thing." Cheers my friends:)

The Book or Bust: We're Off To See The Wizard#links

All the Ladies in the House!

I love women. Not in the Sapphic sense (though there was a rockin’ mom at school pick-up last week . . . I’m talking ink, pixie-cut, yoga body . . .), but in the divine secrets/traveling pants/ride shotgun with Thelma sort of way. In the way girlfriends can sense a shift in each other’s moods over the span of hundreds of miles. In the way a night out with the ladies can act as an intravenous drip for the soul. In the way even the most gut-wrenching laments inevitably evolve into gut-busting laughter in the presence of certain women. Sisters, you know what I’m talking about. (And guys, in case you’re wondering, yep . . . we talk about everything. It’s a good thing. A necessary thing. Get over it.)

For some reason, though, women can be the harshest critics of one another. Who among us hasn’t judged or been judged by body type or clothing style or parenting choices? (My kid used a pacifier until he was 5, so I've received my fair share of snarky comments.) If you work outside the home, you’re likely familiar with that particular breed of professional woman, more senior to you, who views your ascent up the ladder as a threat and is more likely to step on your fingers than lend a hand and hoist you up a rung or two. It used to baffle me, this lack of gender solidarity, but I think I’ve figured it out. I guess maybe it boils down to a feeling, however misguided, that her success/happiness/ability to eat 17 bowls of ice cream without gaining an ounce somehow negatively affects my ability to do the same.

But that’s just crazy-talk. What if Kris—Kris my writing partner, my kindred spirit, the doppelganger of my very heart—what if she had refused to pass my resume on to the rest of the firm’s hiring committee because she didn’t want the competition? We’d have missed out on not only a deep friendship and rare creative partnership, but also on the little things that make life rich--late-night wine-fests in the office and Mah Jongg tournaments and repeated viewings of the O.C. (Seth Cohen, I still love you; Coop, I wish you’d died earlier; Oliver, I’ve erased you from my memory).

I guess what I’m saying is, other women gettin’ theirs doesn’t preclude you from gettin’ yours. In fact, I’d argue it serves as inspiration, a light to guide you on your own path. Case in point: the go fug girls, hilarious purveyors of my favorite website, have co-authored a novel, Spoiled, coming out in hardcover on June 1. The two-worlds colliding storyline appeals to every fiber of my young-adult-chick-lit-Pretty-in-Pink-loving being. (And, really, with characters named Molly Dix and Brooke Berlin, how can you go wrong?) But, aside from the book itself, I dig that two women have realized a dream. If they can make it happen, we can, too. And so can you. And you. And all of you. I hope they sell a gazillion copies. Love and luck to them . . . and to all my gurls.

Seeing the Color

There are a number of things that differentiate people who write. And not in some highfalutin, elitist way. And I don't just mean professional writers or writers who have work published. I mean writers in the broadest sense of the word. Those who write letters and long e-mails and meticulously crafted Facebook status updates. Those whose love to read and cherish words, especially when they are strung together in prescient and precise metaphors and similes. Take this one from my new favorite book, This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathon Tropper (do yourself a favor and read it): "These middle-aged women in the early stages of disrepair…genetics help some more than others, but they are all like melting ice cream bars, slowly sliding down the stick as they come apart." My goodness, that's good. But I digress.

What do these people have in common? Many things, I suppose, but certainly the art of observation. Of taking in their surroundings, appreciating the nuances, the absurdities, the cliches, the beauty, the offensive. (This is, by the way, what makes Tropper's work so brilliant, so engaging, so freaking hilarious. Apologies, this post is apparently now doubling as a plug for my new favorite book.) A dear friend of mine sums up this quality as seeing the color in life, and seeing it as brightly in the grocery store as in the Yosemite Valley. This week, while I was traveling for work, there was plenty of color to see. Is there a better place than the airport, where time seems to melt and bend, to take stock of your surroundings, welcome epiphanies, and consider the existential? Okay, well, maybe I left the epiphanies and the existential for another day, but what follows are my observations from four airports in two days:

A woman, late twenties, early thirties, dressed fashionably with all the trappings of upper middle class-dom, an iphone, a Netbook, a purse with a name I recognized. The first time I looked her way, she had three fingers in her mouth. And I mean in there. Up to the second knuckle. Okay, that's fine. We all get that pesky popcorn kernel wedged between a molar now and then. And if you don't have floss, who am I to begrudge you going in for it. (I will spare you a diatribe on the germ factor in airports . . .). When I looked at her a second time, probably five minutes later, her fingers are still in there, deep enough to tickle her uvula. Only those time she was taking a different angle, leading me to believe this was not a battle against a popcorn kernel shell. The next time, 15ish minutes later (and before you wonder who's the strange one here, she was in my direct line of sight to the gate from which I'd be boarding), Fingers. Still. In. Mouth. And, again, we're not talking biting off a hangnail. We're talking four fingers all in. So I had to wonder, what is going on there? Is it a fetish? Did she just have oral surgery? What would make someone who appears to conform to social norms flout them so obviously right there in the mini micro brew at the Portland airport?

I accidentally walked into the men's restroom at the Spokane airport (no, I wasn't drunk or tired or anything, really, other than, wait for it . . ., nonobservant). I skated in, somehow missing the five unoccupied urinals on the wall, with no problem. When I went to leave, those urinals had occupants so I had to hide in the stall and wait for the entitled to exit. Eventually they did. And neither washed their hands. What is that, men?

A Medicare eligible woman with a nose ring. Nothing else about her tipped its hat toward counter culture. That intrigued me. And not because I have some misguided notion that people with the wisdom of years subscribe strictly to the mainstream. I understand that people now in their 60s were doing things in the 60s and 70s that I've never imagined. I get that. But let's be honest, those folks, if they still embrace the spirit of that time on into their golden years, usually wear it on their skin in the form of tattoos or something else other than piercings. Nose rings seem so, I don't know, Portlandia. So 90s. So Eddie Vedder. And I'm interested in when this woman decided to pierce her nose and what led her to finally say, yeah, let's do this.

I could go on and on, but this post is already much too long so I will leave you with this. A woman who walked to the plane with me, wearing polyester slacks, the kind with the coarse seam down the front and an elastic waist. The kind my kindergarten teacher used to wear in, lo, 1978. She was talkative, steady on her feet, younger than the woman with the nose ring, and headed to Spokane. She told me with pride that she hadn't flown in 30 years. 30 years. Almost as long as I've been alive. (Yes, if you've done your math, you know that's a little generous to me). So why was she there? What finally spurred her to get on a plane after 30 years? A funeral? She certainly didn't have an air of mourning or sadness about her. A graduation? Not the right time of year.

There are so many questions and so many possible explanations for all of these things. And, in reality, I could have struck up conversation on all accounts and found answers. But that's the thing about writing and observations; if I had asked, I couldn't craft my own characters and write my own endings.

Roshambo!

In an uncharacteristic move (and a possibly unsettling one for those who know me), I'm keeping this brief. In short, I’ve had an epiphany, courtesy of my kids fighting over the last of the gummi cherry hearts. It goes like this: to achieve balance, sanity, success as a writer, I must get my Roshambo on . . . play a little Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Let’s start with Paper, the medium of my chosen art form (ignoring, for the purposes of this strained metaphor, the Kindle and all Kindle-like devices). You wanna write? Then do it. Get your ideas on paper. Sit down and scratch out some prose. And do it often. But remember, as even the youngest Roshambo player quickly learns, you can't throw Paper every time and expect to win. At some point, those Scissors have to come along . . .

. . . and shear off the useless, the superfluous, that which hinders forward progress. Yes, I’m talking about cutting from manuscripts (you should have seen the carnage from our first professional edit), but also about life. Sure, it’s nice to make homemade confections for your kid’s bake sale, but what are those gooey chocolately squares doing for your characters, your plot, your agent search? A whole lot of nothing. Carve away the unnecessary. Stop by the bakery on the way home and call it good. Get some wine while you're at it. It helps.

And don't forget the Rock. (Anyone else picturing Dwayne Johnson? Shirtless? But I digress...) I’m relying on homonyms here to make this work but, again, it’s my strained metaphor so my prerogative. Rock. Not a stone for skipping, but Rock as in I Wanna Rock and R.O.C.K. in the USA and, dare I say it, Rock Lobster. In other words, ROCK! Surround yourself with kick-ass music. With transcendental art. With film and theatre and dance and paintings and clothing and humor and food that beckon your muse. That expand your mind creatively. Talk with people who challenge and inspire you. And then take that inspiration (and your glass of Cab, and one of the brownies you pilfered before shipping 'em off to a bunch of ungrateful third-graders), and start throwing Paper all over again.

'sall good

A word about rejection—not Rejection with a capital “R,” but simple puny plain vanilla everyday mundane rejection. (Because that shift key does make a difference. Think about “right” vs. “Right,” for example. See?)

Okay, fine, for comparison’s sake let’s talk briefly about Rejection. Rejection of the capital variety--professional Rejection--is painful, but also expected and somewhat anonymous. Over time, you get used to agents scribbling “good luck with another agency,” or “not for us,” or, simply “NO!” (“Good God, no” is obviously implied) in the margins of your carefully crafted, blood-soaked and tear-stained queries. At some point (if you stick with it long enough), though you’re disappointed, you really do develop that duck’s back. The Rejections slide right off. I’m not saying you won’t harbor a vendetta against a particularly nasty agent or two, perhaps one who felt the need to say something akin to “how could I possibly sell this you stupid stupid fat smelly writer?” But I digress. Once you land an agent, you face publisher Rejections. These are the biggest and scariest of the big “Rs,” especially when you get the type of Rejection your agent labels the “kiss of death.” (As an aside, why is it a "kiss?" Bitch-slap seems more appropriate.) Which means the publisher “loves your writing style” but doesn’t know “how to sell the book.” In other words, “we dig the book you’ve forgone school plays and promotions and any hint of a normal sex life for, but not enough to go to bat for it.” And there’s nothing you can do to fix it, short of writing an entirely different book. Which is the opposite of awesome. But, again, though you may not like it, you can handle Rejection from these faceless powers that be who sit atop slush piles drinking Manhattans and mocking your font choice.

Lowercase rejection--that’s another animal altogether. It involves watching your mom’s face contort in pain as she reads your manuscript. It’s your friend asking how your “little project” is going before launching into details about her pug’s hemorrhoids. It’s posting your blog on Facebook and getting no love, while your drunken rant likening goldfish crackers to manna from heaven garners a host of thumbs-ups and a page of comments. It’s real and it’s painful and it plays into all your insecurities and fears and co-dependencies. And it sucks. Because I think we all can agree, rejection from someone you know is exponentially worse than a stranger’s rejection.

But I learned something this week. Somewhere along this crazy path to publication (or maybe to financial ruin and cirrhosis of the liver; the jury’s still out), rejection stopped slaying me. I have a friend--an uncommonly bright and talented friend--with whom I shared my work recently. I’d shared short stories and excerpts with her before but, I have to admit, only those I’d chosen carefully because I knew they fit her style—dark and gloomy and decidedly non-mainstream, bleeding into the margins of acceptable subject matter. I knew my current novel wasn’t her brand of artisanal whiskey. I knew that from the first time I told her about it over breakfast and she raised her eyebrows, impaled her pancake, and changed the subject to some new foreign film about excrement. But I sent her the first chapter anyway, just for shiggles. Because if you aren’t willing to put yourself out there, then what’s the point? Might as well keep your desk job.

I believe our subsequent conversation went something like this . . .

“Ummm . . . I read your chapter.”

“Yea?”

“Yea.”

Awkward pause.

“I’ll tell you what I did like about it. I liked the setting.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sniffle. Cough. Yawn.

“You write kind of flowery.”

“Yep.”

“Maybe if you, like, toned that down a bit . . . .”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“Anyway, Lou and and I had an amazing time in Napa. We never left the bed, and let me tell you . . . .”

So, you know, essentially she hated it. I guess I should feel honored she said anything at all; she has a rule that if she can’t honestly heap praise, she keeps her mouth shut. (Clearly she’s not cut from the same “pleaser” cloth that I am.) Though I think she must have strained to find something nice to say. I mean, I appreciate the effort, but the setting? Really?

But here’s the upshot (to borrow one of Kris’s favorite phrases) . . . it didn’t bother me. I get it. It’s not her style or a subject matter that interests her. And I am a flowery writer. I lean toward the verbose and I never met a metaphor I didn’t want to whisk off to Vegas. I think it works for this book and the demographic I’m wooing. I’ve been writing long enough and had enough input over the years to feel secure in my vision. That doesn’t mean I won’t take another look at it with her comments in mind--criticism is always helpful. I may tone it down a bit, but I don’t anticipate a major overhaul. One person’s excrement is another person’s art and vice versa. It’s nice to finally live here, in a place where rejection doesn’t sour me on my work. In fact, I might even invite my friend over for pancakes when the book is published.

RSVP Oui

You know when you first hear a word or phrase and then you hear it again and again in a matter of days? My latest iteration of this phenomenon, which really should have a name (yes, I know awareness is probably sufficient, but a quippy name would be so much better), is with the french term "mise en place". Credit goes to an episode of Top Chef, after which it showed up in varying contexts and situations. I've comandeered it as my own now, terrible accent and all. And while mise en place is a beautiful thing to say, not to mention a lovely concept for we type-A-the-Container-Store-might-be-my-heaven folks, the phenomenon I will call awareness (for lack of that quippy term) has recently spoken to me in a more profound way--not with a word or a phrase, but in an idea, a notion, a lesson, if you will.

The weeks leading up to the holidays included for me a book club meeting, a Mahjong game (if you don't know it, learn it, its fantastic, not to mention addictive and, in my house, always involves wine), and a fair amount of yoga. Out of each of these delightful endeavors came a consistent theme. At book club, we read Last Night in Montreal about a girl, Lilia, who, as a result of a vagabond childhood, couldn't stay in one place, emotionally or physically. She remained on what she called the surface of life, never diving in, never taking the risks, feeling the fear, experiencing the pain, or relishing the joy. At Mahjong, a dear friend discussed her fear of buying a dog for her kids, already anticipating the death of the animal they don't yet have but know they will love like a family member. All of this made me think about what is required of us, in the bigger sense. How invested must we become in our own existences? I found the answer at yoga - sweet, blessed yoga, where construct is meaningless and questions can be cast aside for their cosmic irrelevance. At the end of a practice, sweaty and splayed out on our mats, we were told to thank ourselves for showing up. Just showing up. Not for executing the best downward dog or flying into crow. But for being there, ready to take on whatever the body and the universe was offering up that day. Showing up. That is what is required of us.

For you fellow over-achievers, showing up might connote mediocrity, but to my mind, it is anything but mailing it in. Showing up is engaging, opening up, being vulnerable to all that life has to offer, the good and the bad. Because, to be sure, you can't have one without the other. That might mean bringing home that new fluffy puppy, or allowing yourself to finally fall in love, or continuing to write in the face of repeated rejection and failure, all of which bring both joy and pain. So this is me, showing up. I hope to see you here.