I had a blast recording this new book by D. Vega. His easygoing, conversational style made it fun to relate his stories about middle-schoolers and how to inspire them to read for pleasure and write for discovery. It reminded me of writing and reading assignments during my middle school days back at Chaparral, plus the stories and novels my friends and I were writing outside of school.
Schoolteachers figure prominently in my life. In addition to being raised by a teacher, I am related to several, whose students range from kindergarten through high school – and a college professor. Many of my friends are also teachers, some in elementary school, some in music, some in special ed. This book reminded me of similar stories and struggles that these friends and relatives have shared, and I was happy to give them a voice.
If you’re new to Audible, follow this link to the book.
If you already have an Audible account or prefer the writer version, use this one instead.
I’ve got a few free promo codes as well. If you’re interested in free download, please “like” this post and send me an email at wndyruthwrites@gmail.com
Not only has Disneyland announced its re-opening date (April 30, 2021), the City of Anaheim is once again showing signs of life. There’s a lot going on, and it feels so good!
I live a short distance from Angels Stadium, the home of the Angels baseball team (formerly of Anaheim, now the Los Angeles Angels). It’s exciting to see the stadium alight, cars in the parking lots, and the halo on the “Big A” lit up to signify a win. Even the traffic on the nearby 57 freeway seems to signify that things are returning to normal. To be honest, it’s not *quite* back to normal and in this case it’s a good thing. My family made a trip up to downtown LA for a COVID-safe drive thru experience on Friday night. Typically at least an hour’s drive on a Friday evening, we made it in about 40 minutes! We could see improvements that have progressed on this freeway, which I used to drive five days a week, and probably contributed to the easier flow of traffic. There’s an example of a “COVID Silver Lining,” for sure.
Excuse the tangent. My brain is still recovering from all that free time wandering and thinking about whatever I please!
My real intent today is to shamelessly plug my book again!
While you’re waiting to be one of the 9,000 people able to attend an Angels game or be one of the lucky few to get a reservation for a visit to Disneyland, why not check out what else Anaheim has to offer? During the shutdowns last year, I took advantage of some free time to write about my family’s favorite places in and around Anaheim. Check out 50 Travel Tips from a Local – Anaheim, part of the Greater Than A Tourist travel series by CZYK Publishing. While I do not receive commissions from any of the places mentioned in the book, I do earn a small commission if you purchase the book through Amazon (at the link above) or through this link, for my store on Bookshop.com : Wendy’s Bookstore
Neighborhood restaurants and local merchants have really suffered over the past year and could use your support. Local museums, parks, and zoos are opening now while Orange County is holding steady in the Orange tier and easing towards the more permissive Yellow tier. Whether you’re visiting as a California resident or looking to the future, 50 Travel Tips from a Local – Anaheimhas something for everyone. There are even tips for LGBTQ+ visitors, for seniors, and for families traveling with teenagers. My teenagers have been staying safely at home for months and they can’t wait to go back out to play!
On a whim this summer, furloughed from work and staying safe at home during the pandemic, I submitted a story to a literary journal. The First Line invites writers to play with an interesting prompt – the first line of the story. All of the stories in the issue begin the same, and it’s up to the author to craft the rest. I jumped at the chance to write something off the top of my head. I could dive into my imagination and personal experience and create. It was exciting! This would be my story, my voice, my vision. I wouldn’t need to check on Intellectual Property restrictions from my entertainment conglomerate. There would be no executive to review and approve my work, rewrite with their version, or give me notes in several rounds before submission. I was on my own, alone but not lonely, in that way that writers like Margaret Atwood and Stephen King describe. Just me, my laptop, my characters, and the first line. To be alone, I had to hide from my children and avoid making dinner for the family for a couple of days but, buoyed by the company of my dogs and cats, I handled these hardships.
The idea reminded me of Creative Writing modules from middle school. Specifically, I recall one assignment called “show don’t tell,” in which we practiced using descriptions to bring images to life in the reader’s mind. We were assigned to write a “show don’t tell” paragraph with the prompt, “The pizza was delicious.” Having a penchant for adjectives, I thoroughly enjoyed the enticing assignment. I have a vague memory of the class reading some of the passages aloud. Being a theatre kid, I quickly volunteered to read mine – with feeling. Something about stringy cheese clinging to the roof of my mouth, burning it, yet not reducing the joy of the experience. I’m sure it was overblown and dramatic. Certainly, the reading was! My story was one of a few that were published in the school paper as an example of what the sixth grade was doing.
That wasn’t the last time my name appeared in print. In eighth grade, I was the Features editor for the middle school paper, so my byline appeared monthly. The ability to share my fiction remained elusive, though. I had a drawer full of stories in notebooks, and as soon as my family got an Apple IIe, I filled floppy after floppy (disks) with unrealized YA novels. The stories I turned in for assignments in middle school and high school were well received by a few of my teachers and once, memorably ripped to shreds by another. (I came to question that teacher’s intellectual capacity over the course of that year, but clearly, it still stings.) In college and as a young adult, I submitted a few stories to literary journals, collecting rejection letters as bravely as possible. I had a harder time dismissing the intellectual capacity of those editors. Still, I persisted and was pleased to receive an invitation to publish in Mosaic, the arts magazine at my university.
A few decades and a handful of rejection letters later, deep in the lockdown of 2020, I received an email from the editor of The First Line. He asked to publish my story. A little back and forth with the editor was good: a nip here, a tuck there, a keen eye to catch an error, a discussion about a certain point for clarity, choosing a title. Productive dialogue between writer and editor, no submission required. I agreed that they could include my story in this edition and signed a contract. A copy of the book arrived this weekend, with a check for the small stipend. I’ve been writing for my entertainment conglomerate for decades, but today I am a paid writer. Something about finally crossing that “first line” into the literary world…not tied to my university… the acknowledgment by strangers who read a lot of stories and who don’t know me personally…this feels like a milestone. A validation of a craft I’ve practiced all my life. I don’t know the circulation of this magazine and I don’t care. I got one across the line.
“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”
The exterior, interior, lid, and drawers are all a lovely, saturated black stain (Varathane Poly +Stain, Black Satin). The lid has been attached with its original hinges, with layers of polyurethane removed. The drawer pulls have been replaced, removing the old brass “colonial” look with a mottled, stamped cast iron model. I spent a little extra on the pulls because I liked them so much!
New Drawer Pulls – Sturdy & attractive, like me!
Still need to replace the plate around the keyhole on the lid. The lock is intact but the skeleton key is missing, and it’s not like I will be storing valuables in the desk, but it’s a really cool part of the vintage design. I visited Muff’s Antiques in the Orange Plaza (http://www.muffshardware.com) and my mind was blown with the selection and the artful displays of vintage knobs, slides, locks, hinges, lids, hooks, and more. Oh, and they have skeleton keys, too! They had a variety of keyhole plates in different colors, sizes and finishes, but none leapt out as “the one.” I was able to do a quick assessment of how much my old colonial brass drawer pulls might be worth, though. I wonder if Muff’s would be willing to do a swap…
The desk is missing one metal arm that pulls out the pieces to support the desk lid, when open. It’s a very simple piece that sits low against the desk, and attaches with screws. So far, we haven’t been able to locate anything similar online or at Muff’s. The owners there suggested a salvage place in LA, and my wife reached out to them via email. No word yet, so we are still looking, and considering hitting up friends who do a little metalworking. It’s a fun treasure hunt, and it won’t hold up the progress.
Finally, I need to paint the insert. With a lot of elbow grease and determination, the interior letter organizer is almost to a bare wood state. It has taken DAYS. We had even upgraded the stripping agent to the “extra strength,” but it still took some scraping to get the original finish out of the detail work. Sandpaper, razor blade, wire brush, wet, dry, steel wool, you name it, I tried it! With a few hard-to-reach areas and a few stubborn spots left to go, I’m thinking paint will be more forgiving than stain.
It occurs to me that the furniture I had previously refinished must have had very little detail work. Let’s see…patio furniture, picnic table, wooden couch frame by IKEA, early-American style dresser, and my first parentally-assigned effort, a faded ping-pong table…yep, nope…lots of flat surfaces and nary a beveled edge in the lot. The extra work is fine, though. The attention to detail is good for me.
While working on the desk, I’ve been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert read her book, Big Magic. Her soothing voice and gentle chuckle accompany me as I scrape and stain. Her ideas of how to lead a “creative life” are coming at just the right time. While staying safely at home and furloughed from work due to the pandemic, I have time to consider what I’d like my life to be like, when and if things return to “normal.” The repeated motion of sanding, scraping, and brushing is hypnotic, contemplative, and allows me to quiet the rest of my mind and hear her words. I don’t have to drive my kids somewhere, there’s no video meeting I must attend, and my wife is on duty for making dinner tonight. In the book, Liz Gilbert focuses mostly on her writing, her process, and draws parallels of what the listener (or reader) could do to lead a more creative life. Mind freed by repetitive motion and lack of obligation, I’m able to hear and understand, and to apply some ideas as she says them. For example, her mother’s adage that it’s better to have something “done” than to have it “done perfectly” allowed me to accept some imperfections in the desk lid and call it “done.” Liz’s own assertion that ideas are separate entities sounds perfectly reasonable when I need to stop sanding or staining and type an idea into my Notes app, or take time to write down last night’s dream before I continue working on the desk on a given day. I have often had the distinct sense of an idea “hitting” me – actually, this will be a blog post at a later time – and Gilbert’s discussion of this theory keeps me focused and sanding for the better part of an afternoon. This influx, this permission, to do something differently and explore my own vision is infused in this desk restoration, and both the desk and I are better for it.
I think I’ll paint the organizer a different color than black. It’ll be a cool surprise when the lid is opened. My daughter pointed out that a lighter color would camouflage any letters in the organizer, while a dark color would make them stand out – an aspect I hadn’t considered at all. Hmmm… I happen to have a warm gray leftover from a past home improvement project, but you know what? There’s also a can of purple!
It’s what’s on the inside that matters….
Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you’re interested in the drawer pulls or Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, click the link. If you make a purchase through the link, I may receive a small fee.
Sometimes, you just need to make a change in something you see every day. The goal this time: transform a piece of inherited vintage furniture into something I really loved.
This “Dr. Lid Desk” welcomed visitors to my parents’ home as long as I can remember. The front piece – or “lid” – folds down to create a sizable writing surface. We always referred to this item as “the Secretary.”
“Dust the Secretary.”
“It’s in the Secretary. Top drawer.”
“Look behind the Secretary.”
When I was a child, the top drawer was where my mom kept the books of Disneyland tickets. The “E” tickets had all been removed from the ticket books, of course, having been used on a trip to the theme park, but sometimes a coveted “C” still remained. That’s about as magical as it got. The interior, behind the lid, has always been something of a catch-all. I think the only time I remember seeing someone using it as a desk was when my mom would put the lid down to create a surface to write a check or sign a note for school. One drawer held a large Tripoley game board, and another held vinyl or plastic placemats.
I’ve had possession of the Secretary for about 20 years, when my widowed mother downsized from our beloved family home to a somewhat depressing condo. She didn’t have room for the piece, so it came to live with my sister and me. I’ve kept up the traditions of slathering it with Pledge, dumping random things behind the lid, and yanking the drawer pulls off of their stripped screws. I keep tablecloths and fabric napkins in the drawers, with the top two drawers full of gift bags, wrapping paper, and ribbons. Never really loved the Early American design of the Secretary. I’m surrounded by it in the pieces I inherited from my parents and various other relatives, but I lack the resources to purchase new furniture and I have a hard time getting rid of items made from Real Wood in favor of lesser-quality particle board. It was overdue for a makeover.
The original order slip was still stapled to the back of the desk. The date of order – September 1953 – meant that this preceded my parents’ marriage, and was apparently purchased by my maternal grandparents. No wonder it’s in my earliest memories, and seen in our earliest home movies!
This is a perfect manifestation of the creative exploration and practice that has been occupying my mind and my time while on furlough. While I could have just refreshed the color and replaced the missing pieces, I have decided to change the look of the piece significantly. Sanding is complete and stripping is underway, and the new drawer pulls have arrived. (I love them!!) Patience and elbow grease, plus my wife’s fun array of cordless tools, are making progress possible. My previous makeover effort can be seen in the photos. The red furniture was originally natural eucalyptus, and the construction was flat and simple. On this new project, the detailing and the factory-grade varnish on the Dr. Lid Desk are definitely providing new challenge! Stay tuned…
