Category: truth is stranger than…

A Writer Tries and Fails to Find A Metaphor in The Mud

Onion Scented Inspiration

 

Image by Mabel Amber from Pixabay

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When historic levels of rain and snow came through California this past winter, phrases like “atmospheric rivers” and “bomb cyclones” became just another Tuesday for those of us living in the Bay Area.

After each crazy storm ended, I would put on my muddin’ boots and find my way out to the wild and unkempt backyard to assess the latest damage.

I live in a rental home, and our yard has been neglected for years by several generations of tenants so it’s a bit wild and untamed. I like to garden and I work on it a little at a time, but it’s a lot.

As I pull back the layers of abandoned trash and weeds, I keep finding little surprises. Nature does have an admirable way of prevailing, even when we humans don’t keep up our end of the bargain.

One such little surprise arrived when I moved a plant pot that had sat in place for many months. In the soil underneath I found a tiny snakelike creature.

The conversation went like this (because yes, I talk to the wildlife), “Oh, let’s see, what are you? Are you a worm? Wait. You have arms and legs? WHAT?!”

Turns out I had found something called a California Slender Salamander. I have since found three more. Cute little things. A little creepy. But also cute.


The Odorous Discovery

After carefully returning the salamander to its home, and going about my business dumping water out of several overloaded plant pots, I finally got around to draining out a very large bucket that was filled with a variety of garden items.

I poured out black water, oh my did it stink. In addition to the rotting and molding funk, I could smell the very distinct aroma of onions.

I wondered to myself “Did that water get so gross it now smells like onions? Is that even possible”

As I continued to tromp around the yard, I kept smelling what was a fresh oniony smell and not a rotting leaf sort of oniony smell.

It took me a while but I finally looked down between my rubber boots and saw ’em. Green onions. In my yard. Everywhere.

The rains had come and apparently brought onions to the yard.

I didn’t remember onions being in the yard last year. Did birds or squirrels poop out seeds in our yard? Did the heavy rains wash onion seeds down the hill? Were onion seeds buried deep in the soil and the heavy rains brought them out?

I had no idea. What I did know was that I had several patches of green onion all over the place.

As I yanked them from the muck, I had a moment of clarity. “Oh,” I said aloud to the scrub jay supervising my work (I told you, I talk to wildlife), “That’s why the British call them Spring onions. It makes sense. I’d always wondered.”

There were a lot of onions and since onions’ main defense mechanism is their aroma, the more I yanked, the more my yard smelled like onion.


But where’s the metaphor?

Since I am a writer and observer of the world, I thought that these unasked for and unwanted onions were perhaps a good opportunity for a metaphor.

I envisioned a whole neatly written, clever, and profound essay where I tied the onions to something in my writing mind.

Say, for example, surprises grow among the clover. You never know what you might find when you explore the wilds of your brain.

Or maybe, be careful tromping around in the wilds of your brain, you might stumble upon something stinky and eye-watering.

Perhaps, you might plant green grass but be ready for green onions instead.

Nah, you know, none of those really seem to work. I’m pressing here.

I really thought I could be writerly and make a metaphor happen.

I guess sometimes an onion is just an onion.

And sometimes when I want to write something profound, what I get is squappity**.

So I guess I’ll keep exploring the wilds of both my yard and my brain trying to yank out both the real and the metaphorical green onions.

Tears are optional

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** Squappity is one of my favorite made up words meaning nothing, nada, the mental equivalent of TV static.

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This post was originally published on Medium and more of my work can be found over there @karenfayeth.

Wait, what?



Wait, what? I have a story published in Chicken Soup for the Soul? Yessss!!!
 
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons Learned from My Cat, in stores tomorrow, February 14, 2023



That’s me! Page 191!! “Status Report” is about trying to put a cat on a diet. Lesson Learned? Don’t.


I’ve learned plenty from Dahlia, who was adopted on this day, eight years ago (when she was 4 years old). Each year I give thanks Berkeley Humane for taking care of our girl until we could find her. Royalties from every copy of Chicken Soup for The Soul: Lessons Learned from My Cat go to American-Humane, the country’s first national humane organization.


Uh oh, Dahlia just realized the story isn’t about her. It’s about Gypsy our lovely, naughty, food loving cat who looked a whole lot like the cat on the cover of the book. We miss her, she was a great cat.

The End of a Dry Spell

Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash

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This crazy ol’ 2020 has been weird in a lot of ways. I think we are all getting used to a “new normal,” whatever that means.

During this time of shelter in place a lot of things have changed. Our old routines may be out of whack. How we go about the day is certainly different.

But these crazy days also have a lot of us searching for comfort in the same routines, if they are possible to keep. “Trying to normalize,” is what I keep saying. What did I do before? How did that go? Can do I that now and will it help me to feel normal during a time that is anything but?

One thing I have kept up with is my submissions of short stories. I have been doing my best to keep my work out there for well over a decade, and I didn’t want to let that drop right now. Even as most days I just want to slouch in a big chair and forget about the world outside.

I have found that being creative is very hard for me right now, too many things are occupying my mind. Working on getting submissions of work already complete out to the world is a normalizing process these days.

Despite my keeping the submission train running on time, 2020 has been a bit of a dry spell for acceptances. I had a lovely story published for Valentine’s Day in February (which had been accepted in December) and then the well dried right up after that.

Part of working to be published is knowing that these dry spells happen. They are normal and to be expected, and possibly a little more expected during this time of pandemic as we all figure things out.

So it was with great joy that in mid-September I opened an email from the editors at Bindweed Magazine with an acceptance. Whew! Feels good, you know? I get hundreds of emails with a no, so that yes every once is a while is tonic to a hardworking writer’s soul.

I’m now pleased to share my story “Possibilities. And Turtles.” with you. If you have a moment to give it a read, I would greatly appreciate it. And stay a while over there at Bindweed, there are some beautiful works to find in their pages.

Now more than ever, supporting the arts and artists matters, so I thank you in advance for the read.

Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to go do a whoop and a little click of the heels, then get back to the business of submitting my stories.

 

 

I Went to a Hipster Dentist

And I’ve never felt more like George Washington



This little bit of goofiness was written in response to a satire writing contest and I must have been in some sort of weird state of mind. I had a lot of fun writing it. My story didn’t go anywhere in the contest, but it found a home on Medium and I wanted to share it here.


Image for post

Photo by Nathalia Belfort on Unsplash

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After working four years and six months at my Angel Investor-backed, cash-infused, market-disrupting employer, I finally qualified for benefits. Whew! I know, I know. As far as unpaid internships go, that was on the short side.

After unironically eating too many Flintstone gummy vitamins from the company breakroom, my back tooth started to ache, so I found a company plan-approved dentist in the rapidly gentrifying part of town.

Okay, it was the only approved dentist, but no matter. I have insurance!

Well, color me delighted when I arrived at Dr. Ethan’s one-room office in the backroom of a nail salon and was greeted by the sight of so many archaic dental implements scattered about. What a collection!

Never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d actually use the hand drill on me. But he did. Without novocaine.

 

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An illustration of dental keys for tooth extraction from Savigny’s catalog of surgery implements, circa 1798, and found here

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I guess the screaming upset the mani-pedi customers, so Dr Ethan handed me a half-empty fifth of gin and an old Iomega at Comdex giveaway stress ball to squeeze. It was all very Old West and I feel honored to be a part of the vintage dental ways.

I can’t believe people actually lived through this! I bet my brother — the one with good job — has never experienced anything so cool.

After the rotten roots were properly canal’ed, Dr Ethan offered me a wide range of replacement teeth in many colors, none of them white and porcelain.

Oh, I could have chosen a gold tooth (not covered by insurance), an amalgam of something toxic and something radioactive (also not covered by insurance), or a nice assortment of wooden teeth.

I don’t know if it was the gin or the blood loss, but I was pleased to have the chance to choose between a knotty pine, a beautiful mahogany, or a nice hard teak.

Well, I chose mahogany that day and haven’t looked back. Sure, the varnish is seeping into my salivary glands and small splinters of tooth fly off when I eat oatmeal, but I am now the coolest, most throwback guy in the office. I can hardly wait for the next tooth to rot out of my head! And for this infection to go away.

The only downside: My urge to chop down cherry trees has never been stronger.

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This item first appeared on Medium, find more of my work @karenfayeth over there

Talking About That Little Lady

Pondering What it Means to be Ladylike in the Modern Era


Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

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Several years ago, my husband and I had some friends who were members of one of the Yacht Clubs in San Francisco. We would occasionally join the couple for dinner after a day of sailing.

The views were fantastic, the bartenders gave a deep pour, and the food was good (but not great).

San Francisco is well known for its more liberal political leanings, but the yacht clubs are where the more conservative (i.e. wealthy) can be found in the notorious hippie city. The rules of the yacht club dictated that we had to mind our p’s and q’s while there.

On one memorable night after a hearty dinner, the four of us retired to the bar with drinks in hand and began a rousing and competitive game of liar’s dice.

Just as things really got rolling, as it were, an Admiral of the club who was a huffing old man with a bulbous nose blooming with red capillaries, bustled over to us. He leaned over the bar and blurted, “Ladies do NOT throw dice in bars!”

Remember when you were a kid riding in the front seat of the car? And that moment when your mom would hit the brakes and throw out that strong mom arm to protectively keep you from flying through the windshield?

That is roughly the approach my husband took to keep me from getting very unladylike in a real hurry.

After the adrenaline dissipated and another drink was poured, I remember thinking how far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to go.


The George Moro Dancers at El Rancho Vegas, 1949 — Photo by Don English, photo courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau

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These days I’m a lot older and a lot less inclined to take any guff off of anyone, particularly a stuffy old rich man. But this concept of “being a lady” and acting ladylike is still something I think about. In fact, as I age, it’s on my mind more than ever.

My parents grew up during the Great Depression and had me late in life so I ended up with a more old fashioned set of values than many of my peers in school. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, women weren’t having kids into their late thirties, so my parents were a generation older than my friend’s parents.

Where they had cool bell bottom pant wearing moms and sideburn wearing dads who were easy, open, and permissive, my folks were stodgy and carried a depression-era sensibility about almost everything, including but not limited to: money, discipline, and politics.

But to their credit, where many of my female friends grew up with their parents saying, “When you grow up and get married…” mine were saying, “When you grow up and graduate from college…”

Pretty forward thinking for my ultra conservative folks.

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So I followed their advice, went to college, got a post graduate degree and these days I work in operations to support scientists, including both physicists and engineers. While the percentage of women in the various STEM fields is still small, it is certainly growing. I am lucky to work with a lot of strong women in non-traditionally female professions. This has me thinking more and more about what it means to be a lady.

If clothes make the man, does how a woman dresses define whether or not she is a lady? With each passing year, the dress code of employers becomes more casual. Both men and women can wear khakis and a button down, so maybe clothes are no longer a deciding factor.

Once the measure of being a lady was being demure, subservient, speaking in low and melodic tones. My mother’s 1950’s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook explains that my job as wife is to have the children clean and tidy for when my husband comes home. I should dress in a pleasing way and greet him at the door. That advice was prudent for the times, but is no longer the measure of what makes me, or anyone, a lady.

I’ve been noodling over writing this piece for a little over a month. I had started getting down the words when the Be a Lady They Said video went viral. I saw it posted on all of the social platforms. I didn’t want to seem like riding the coattails of that sentiment so I set this story aside. Perhaps I’m not the only one thinking on this topic.

This question of what it means to be a lady continues to rattle around in my brain so I dusted this story off and starting thinking about it again. As I enter the time of my life where I will no longer have the ability to bear children, an aspect some say defines the very nature of womanliness, I wonder who and what I am now that I am no longer young, with the power and energy that youth brings.

My face in the mirror is changing, my hair is rapidly turning gray, and what it means to be a lady, for myself anyway, is also changing.

So I haven’t yet answered the question of what it means to be a lady, and maybe I never will. Or maybe the answer is being a lady means whatever I want it to mean.

And for the record, ladies most certainly do throw dice in bars.


Royalty Free image from corbisimages.com

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This item first appeared on Medium, find more of my work @karenfayeth over there