My 2008 Resolution. Yes, I said 2008

Be forewarned. This blog will disappoint. I'm just saying.

I used to keep New Year's resolutions the way you make a grocery list. I would fill it when I was hungry, and therefore made wild, unrealistic entries. I would randomly rip them off the top of my head as they came to me, excited at the possibilities of how much change I was going to wreak upon myself in the coming year.

Because of how much of a complete failure I was setting myself up to be, I stopped making lists a few years ago and instead implemented the one and done plan. One resolution. And not some supersize resolution either, to make up for the list of many. Like "Save Mankind". And not something vague that I could wriggle out of, like "Work out." Work out what? My Taxes?

I also made the decision to NOT publicize what that resolution is. Not because if I failed at it people could nag me, but because I superstitiously felt that telling others would jinx me.

So I will REFUSE to tell you what my New Year's 2009 resolution is, but I will gladly share with you my 2008 resolution.

To marry Corrine.

Okay. I can already hear the grumbling dissatisfaction in some of your heads, the ones who know me. You are saying "Well, that was a toughy. You had been living with her for two years and had two children together. Please."

Well, the truth is, there was a sub clause to my resolution. A sub-rez if you will. A dependent clause. One that finished the sentence with an ellipses, thusly:

To Marry Corrine...Because It Feels Good, Not Because Others Want Me to.

Basically, I wanted it straight in my head that I was marrying her out of no obligation other than for love. As Hallmark Card as that sounds, it's the truth. I had her already. I enjoyed a fulfilling happiness, a deep friendship and passionate connectedness. We had a house. We had two children together and each brought two more into the family to make it a cozy 8. We had a couple of pets.

We also had all the headaches every couple have. Mortgage and fuel and groceries and no money ever. We had tension. We had highs and lows in the same day. Hell, in the same minute.

Marriage was not going to change anything is my point. Not a thing, except legal status. Corrine would have the dubious honor of absorbing my debts and take my last name. Lucky lass!

So, to resolve to marry Corrine in 2008, it had to come with the supplemental tidbit that I would marry her purely and absolutely because it felt really good to do.

We got married in a Legion Hall down the street. She wore a dress designed by my niece. I wore a long-sleeved shirt and dress pants. We had hay bales and straw scarecrows and Christmas lights strung. (we had planned to do it outside at our house, but Mother Nature intervened.)

We had a justice of the peace. We had no processional music. We walked with all of our children to a stage, got it done, and then ate with our friends and family.

The beauty of it was in its simplicity and how it reflected who we are. It was what we wanted.

It felt right. It felt good to do.

Resolution made and kept.

Picture This

I am on a quest to prep hundreds of family photos, shaping each into 2-inch by 2-inch squares so that they will fit into stylized animated photo albums set to music.

The project is a chance to chronicle, as best as I can, both sides of the family: the Greenes (mom's side) and the Turners.

I've created folders within folders, in which I dump the prepped images, using a naming convention I will remember later. Like "mom_and_dad_1, mom_and_dad_2" etc. Or "sonny_1, sonny_2"

My mother has five siblings, and amongst them they have 12 children, and amongst those children are countless children. Add to that my mother's four children and all of our children. My father's family tree is similarly branched. Four siblings, 10 children, numerous offspring.

All of these humans - the Turners and the Greenes - have had their lives photographed in thousands of different occasions, in bad light and in good, cropped queerly by the photographer and framed perfectly by others. Taken digitally or by Polaroid and every type of camera in between.

Some photos are scratched and dog-eared. Others are so old and yet so pristine that you feel like you're handling the Mona Lisa when you slip them out of their frames.

There are long photos and short; rectangular and a few ovals too. There are images of cousins making goofy faces that, when I look at them, I think Hmm. That one's going to be used.

Until I come upon a picture of my sister and I flaring our nostrils and sticking out our lips. Then I think Hmmm. We'll conveniently lose that one

In the end I hope to build musical slide shows for each family, place them all onto a DVD and distribute them to the Greene/Turner masses.

Why, pray tell, would I do this you say?

There is something therapeutic about taking an inventory of family pictures. You can't help but feel reconnected. As each image comes under the Photoshop knife, you are naturally forced to give pause and reflect. You name the people in the image and you try to recall when it was taken and what was happening at the time. A family reunion. Uncle so-and-so's birthday party at Whatchamacallit Lake in 19whatever. And who the hell is that little snot-nosed grubber there in the corner? Cousin Angus? Wow, he used to have hair?

And for those photos taken before my time I am particularly intrigued by. I wonder who took the shot. What the occasion was. And who the unfamiliar people are. I want to know their names, where they are now.

Photography captures only a single moment. No sound or motion. No running monologue you can listen to. It's a flash and a frame and that's it and with my writer's mind constantly in overdrive, I find myself adding a semi-fictional narrative to embellish what little I know.

Take a photo I have that includes my parents before they were married. Probably shot in 1955 or 1956. Now, I know as much about the mid to late 50s as the movies have taught me, which means I know a lot of cliches. The jukebox in the corner spinning Chubby Checker. Coke bottles. The rolled up cuffs of jeans and everyone smoking, even the girls. No-good kids draggin' out on Route 55.

Poodle skirts and The Stroll.

My father is wearing a tuxedo, so I'm guessing it's prom. He and his friends are all lounging about in someone's living room either before or after the dance. Did he take mom? Did they jitter bug together? Did they share a beer out behind the dance hall before they went in?

What was the topic of conversation among this bunch of rowdies? Girls? Sex? I doubt it was about the weather. Were they planning a rumble with the local college kids (it was in Farmington, home of the University of Maine)?

Did they all have switch blades? Were they gonna break out into song, snapping their fingers and singing as they lurch, in perfect formation, down a side alley toward the college pukes who were tryin' to steal their chicks?

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

Anyway. This quest I'm on. To prep and organize decades of history in the form of hundreds of images. It's more than a labor of love.

It's more like a history lesson wrapped into a trip down memory lane rolled into a Broadway Musical Soundtrack.

Crap. I can't get West Side Story out of my head now.

Consider Me Blessed

This morning, at 9 a.m., we trek to the local offices of DHHS for our second and final home study interview, the results of which (we hope) will clear the way for us to adopt.

This second interview will include our children. All six of them, answering questions about their home life with us. Three are teenagers. One is 11. The other two are too little to understand but they still need to be asked questions apparently.

The teens are predictably THRILLED to be dragged out of bed while on Christmas vacation to go talk about how often we beat them.

In truth, Corrine and I are nervous. This sort of exercise brings into focus, for the first time, what our children think of our parentage. Think about it. How often does a child get asked questions specific to their home life? It's one of the closely guarded secrets. I was certainly never asked, while I was growing up, by a total stranger. It puts the spotlight on us as parents. It exposes us in a way we've never been exposed before.

We're not afraid that they will reveal anything bad. We're afraid that their interpretation of growing up, and how they frame it to the DHHS social worker, might get misconstrued.

I picture Ty, the 11 year old, thusly:

DHHS: Does your mother or step-father ever hit you?
Ty: No, but Andy says the F word when he watches football.

DHHS: Is there alcohol in your house?
Ty: Yeah, but mom makes sure Andy doesn't drink out of the can. He has a special glass.

Or how about our 2-year-old, Gabrielle, whose favorite thing now is to wear a bikini top over her shirt and call it her "boobies"

DHHS: Do you like being with your mommy and daddy?
Gabi: Wanna see my boobies?

DHHS: Does mommy spank you?
Gabi: I have pretty boobies

You see, it's a matter of context and interpretation when it comes to the answers children give, something DHHS has no angle on. They read questions from a list on a piece of paper and jot down the answers. I fear, with our lot, DHHS will get some of the most outrageous answers and not being able to apply the proper filter.

The interview will conclude with a sit-down with Corrine and I to finish out the process. I will be dying to know what she gleaned from her talk with our kids.

Dying!

My Seven Wonders

Griffin Alan Kent
the little king of our hearts
whose smile is at the ready
warming in its brilliance
brilliant in its purest of love


Gabrielle Marrae
alone in a field of dandelions
the blue-eyed daisy
wanting to be picked
and held forever

Ty Gabriel
who marks time
unafraid to ask a question
twice or thrice
and yet his well of knowledge
will never be as full as his capacity to love

Alyssa Jean
the girl with a will
matched only by her mother
who raised her not to be a shrinking violet
but to stand as tall
as she is beautiful

Harrison Scott
my prince
my guide and my star
who embodies all the goodness
and achieves all the great things
I once dreamed of

Fallon Paige
will always be
the first of many things
for me
to see cry
to see laugh
to hold
to be hugged by
to see come
and to see go
but always always my first


Corrine
she will always be the
work of art
I had no hand in creating
but cherish the most

400 And Counting

I'm closing in on 400 pages of the new novel, and I'm at a pivotal point in the creative process.

There comes a time, at least for me anyway, when I have to put the brakes on and do a full review.

You see, I write from the seat of my pants, laying down the tracks just ahead of the engine, so to speak. I don't plot a thing. But there comes a time when, in the journey, I have to stop and look back. If I don't then the journey would never end.

That's what I've been doing these past few days: reading the entire rough draft. All 390 pages. I don't edit a word. I don't change a single punctuation mark. Rather, I write notes about the story in the margins. I ask questions about things like character motivation ("Why would Hamish say that?"; I express ideas of how I could tweak a certain passage ("Syssa would say more about this here") etc.

This is an important point for me. I know that if I've gotten to this stage, then there is a light at the other end. It means I'm probably a few weeks away from finishing the first draft, and that it's all downhill from there. In a good way, that is.

Someone with a lot more experience than me once said that the process of writing the first draft was like an archaeological dig. You know something is hidden deep down, so you've got to start somewhere. You begin with the miner's pick.

You're probing, chipping away, burrowing through layers, looking for the good stuff underneath. It's a very clear analogy as far as I'm concerned. Each word I type is a swing of the pick until, at some point, I've reached the skeletal remains of ... something. I'm never sure what it is until after the first draft.

I move to the softer archaeological implements at that point, like a brush, because I don't want to destroy what I've unearthed so far with heavy tools.

That's where I'm at. I've got a really good picture of what I've excavated, I just need to take stock and plan a course of action.

I need to see how far I've come before proceeding, and that's a great place to be in.

At some point I expect to reveal, at least in small ways, what I have, but I'm not ready to do that yet.

In the meantime I'll wipe the sweat off my brow, take a break, and then get back to work on the next stage.

Fran

My best friend's mother passed away last evening. I'm saddened by the loss, but heartened by the notion that she is, at last, no longer suffering.

Her single greatest attribute was her personality. That sounds odd, perhaps, but what I mean is that her soft-spoken, nurturing, and kindly disposition came to her easily the way I have brown eyes or you have five fingers on each hand. Fran just never had to put on, so to speak.

She was the type of best friend's mother who never got demonstrably angry. At the height of her anger the fiercest you could say she ever got was "a little cross." That set her apart from the adult women in my own life; aunts, mostly, on both sides of my family, whose anger was loud as a whip and never, ever left you in doubt of your transgression.

I knew Franny since birth, literally, when she visited my mother shortly after I was born. She was a nurse in the public school district. I'm not sure why she came to see me. I guess I always thought it was customary. Have a child and the school nurse stops by to check out the goods. This was 1968, mind you.

Or perhaps it was her affiliation with my parent's church, and therefore she came as a friend? I don't really know. I guess my mother's recollection (on which I have to rely because, let's face it, I don't remember) has had me thinking all these years that she came in her professional capacity as a nurse. This is because my mother said she "marked down on the form that you were a "preemie." My mother was appalled. She has insisted I was never premature. I think my mother mistook what she was saying. My mother went full-term, but I was tiny. My mother - and I'm guessing here - must have thought Fran was under the impression I came small and early.

It's neither here nor there.

I'm just relating a story about the first time I "met" Fran Coulombe, my best friend's mother. I imagine her wearing a starched, white nurses uniform, with the little nurses hat, holding me, smiling, cooing to me in that petite voice she always had. It was Minnie Mouse cute. Adorable, even when I became an adult. I loved her childlike, small voice.

Ted, her oldest of two children, and I became friends later on so I spent countless overnights at their house or at their summer camp. Those were the moments you recall later on. The times you spend with the closest of friends. A best friend, and I had but one. And I will say it was because of Franny that Ted became that for me.

I can't recite, with any fairness, why that was. All I can say, at the risk of being unoriginal, is that Fran made me feel like I was more of a son than her son's best friend. To put it another way, I never felt like I was visiting someone's house, but their home. That's the best I can do today. Maybe, as time has worn on, things will clear out and become crystalline.

Her death, late last night, came at the end of about 20 years of battling cancer and the residual effects that the treatment brings about. I'm not intimate with the details, all I know is that she has fought, off and on, since around 1988 when she was first diagnosed and Ted was a student at Bates College.

I am glad she is with her God this morning.

I am grateful that she finally must not have to fight and that she can be forever at peace.

But Alice, I'm HUGE in India

Show of hands. How many remember David Hasselhoff? I do. I used to like watching that racy, popular show he starred in back in the day. You know. Night Rider?

Anyway, David secured himself in the celebrity pantheon by not once, but FOUR TIMES making a comeback after his 15 minutes were over.

First, they canceled Night Rider and hundreds of avid fans were crushed. Like me. He was dropped from the celebrity A List faster than you could say "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

Then, out of the blue Pacific ocean he sprang, jogging up onto the beach and into our hearts. Glinting smile, perfectly coiffed chest hair, chiseled abs. You know. Like me. Except for the chest hair. Ewwww.

Anyway, Baywatch was so damn popular that the Shah of Fucking Iran used to watch it, and I'm not kidding. Entire generations of Middle Eastern boys thought every woman in America looked like Pamela Anderson, and all the men .. well, they really never looked at the men, let's face it.

So, David was back on top. Then, the show's popularity eroded (Get it? Baywatch. Eroded...never mind) and David once again fell out of the limelight.

Until, that is, he started a singing career. I shit you not. A pop singing career. And once again he was a huge hit.

In Germany.

In America he was laughed at. In Germany, girls were throwing their silk höschen at him and screaming "Ich liebe dich! Haben mein Baby!" at the tall drink of water.

Then, just recently, he made his most recent comeback by being one of three hosts on some talent show. I don't know what it's called. Something like Americans With No Talent or Americans With As Much Talent As David or You Too Can Be A Star In Germany.

Anyway, I told you all of that to tell you this.

Last night I couldn't sleep. So, what do I do when I can't sleep? Surf for midget porn, of course. It's a short list of sites, of course. There's very little to choose from. Not a very tall order to find them.

Okay, enough.

Actually, I Googled my name: Andrew Scott Turner, and I discovered, aside from my Facebook page and this blog, my name comes up in numerous sites for the novel. I was amazed. But what really excited me was that many of them were listed outside of the country. There was an online store from New Zealand. Oy! Several from the UK. And, drum roll please, three from India!

India! Isn't that wicked cool?

Okay, so I'm not really selling in these markets, but still. I was elated to see my name on these book seller's sites. It was a thrill. To know that, if some 13-year-old in India did a search for "books about girls who swim that takes place in the future and underground" MY NAME would appear!

Small steps. Small steps. It only takes ONE New Zealander to happen upon this book and presto! I'm selling like hot cakes.

I wonder what the German translation would read like.

"Strengere!"
"Ja, ich weiß! Ich weiß! Ich versuche"
Liv unraveled dem breiten Band der Stoff

....