Silly and sillier...This is to announce that I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month, known to its friends as nanowrimo. My solemn intention is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, and submit it to their robot word-counter to win a place on their list of successful 1-month novelists. Nearly 80,000 people attempted this in November 2006, and over 10,000 completed their opus. Some of them, I have no idea how many, are serial novelists, repeat offenders who do it every year. And in case you're not worried yet, many apparently do it on laptops at any coffeehouse that will let them hog a table. And in my hometown of Berkeley over 900 are jockeying for position at the starting line, so don't plan on lingering over a latte at the Med anytime soon

For whatever comfort it is, I promise not to do much writing in cafes, and not to expect anyone to read more than a couple pages of what I write. In fact I don't intend to let anyone read most of it. The 1-month 50,000 word framework more or less guarantees that the product will be mostly very badly written, like this sentence!

I'm undertaking this because as of November I've been laid off, but I'm hoping to be called back, possibly in December, to a job I really enjoyed . By writing a NaNoWriMo novel, I'll be too busy to worry about it, and if I get called back in November, it won't kill me not to finish my fascinating narrative. If I don't get called back at all, maybe by December I will have developed the habit of writing seriously every day, and have a shot at succeeding in other writing projects--or even beating the November Novel into readable shape.

Meanwhile, with three days to go I'm trying to come up with a plot... any suggestions?

Wheelchair up Willow Creek without a paddle?

Well, not exactly, since it appears that the hike Bay Nature Magazine is sponsoring in the "Willow Creek Addition" to Sonoma State Park actually follows another Russian River tributary, Freezeout Creek, for about a mile but gets nowhere near Willow Creek. On the map, seems Willow Creek is accessible by road within the original State Park, and may have a wheelchair-usable trail in the Addition, what appears to be a gravel road. Something to ask about.

But as of today, October 8, I've reserved a ticket for the hike up Freezeout Creek next Saturday, with the hope of reviewing it for WheelchairTrails.net. There is a good chance of rain, which might make the trails too muddy for me, but otherwise, it looks like it will be a nice adventure, though a long drive. The Willow Creek park is open only to those who have attended a guided walk there with docents of the Stewards of the Coast, and learned the secret handshake, so I'm all excited.

The picture above is from a hike we took in Chabot Park with Bay Nature editor Dan Radamacher, who I hope can be trusted to lend any necessary assistance on Saturday (since my Dan has to work that day).

Check back next week for a full report!

How to Write English Properly
[These vital rules come via Jeanine Brown, who supervises writer coaches at Willard Middle School and takes the fine points of grammar and syntax almost as seriously as I do.]
1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be ignored.
20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations.Tell me what you know."
25 If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
26. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
29. Who needs rhetorical questions?
30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
31. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out

Year-End Letter

2006 started gloomily when we had the not-quite-indestructible little dog Daisy euthanized. It was hard to let her go, though she had lost most of the optimistic alertness that had kept her going for at least 21 years, mostly with my sister Kathryn, who learned of her death via email to her boat in the South Pacific, and sent an obituary:

…Digging for rodents, play fighting with the cat, sitting in [our parents’] laps at Gopher Acres. …Attacking dogs passing on the street, then darting to the side to let big dog Geordie take on the actual battle. Cornering two raccoons in the garage. The poor things had to be rescued. Ditto for the opossums. Winning second in the ugliest dog contest at the Healdsburg Future Farmers fair after a particularly bad haircut… What a powerful path she made through my life…. Click, click, click, of little dog paws.

Mongus did not complain of loneliness, but nevertheless in February we acquired another cat, Petya, who is best addressed as Your Gorgeousness. He devotes a lot of effort to deserving this sobriquet, lounging about decoratively and amusing the commoners by chasing cloth toys up and down the house like a feline Pele.

Foresta finished her lower division work at Laney CC in 2005, and applied to a bunch of state universities. Davis of all places, was the only one that rejected her. She was brokenhearted, but is bearing up well and has just finished her first term as a junior at Dan’s and my alma mater, Berkeley’s Big U. Major? Development Studies: like her cousin Brian, she has hopes of doing something useful about Third World suffering. Meanwhile, she’s still working about 20 hrs/week as a bike messenger, which keeps her fit but doesn’t leave much discretionary time.

She’s no longer living at home, but most Mondays she and Ben join us for dinner and often, a few rounds of Gin Rummy, poker, or other games. Ben, who is still a shift supervisor at Whole Foods, has also been around to help Dan with a perennial project, rehabilitating our backyard shed, which was all but falling down till they rebuilt it from the framing up. They’ve had an interesting time using salvaged materials on the job, but the roof, which at last is waterproof, is of new asphalt shingles.

We had a number of great houseguests through this year, offering opportunities to tourist around the area. Walking along the Bay with a friend from Germany, and sharing her delight in the view and the bright April day awakened my appreciation of my home.

I can’t claim to have done much politically this year, but I do volunteer as a “writing coach “ at Willard middle school, and at the senior center where, among other things I run an early music singing group, “Three Beats for Nothing,” which had a very good year as we now number 8 or 9 members and can cover 4 part music more comfortably.

In May we took our annual car-camping trip, this time to southeast Oregon. We rented a minivan, and Ben joined us for 8 days and I think about 1100 miles. The weather was intermittently rainy, so Dan and Ben constructed tarp shelters in each new campsite. They got pretty good at it by the 5th one, but it was a lot of work. We were grateful Ben was there to help, and when we got home we bought a pop-up shelter like the ones used at craft fairs. We can telescope its legs to keep it low and add a tarp side if needed, and it should see us through any weather we care to stay out in. But we probably won’t have another rainy camping trip for 5 years.

Dan and the “kids” [now in their late 20s!] had good weather for another annual tradition, backpacking in August. They took on some tough terrain, and Dan came home saying he might try to avoid 3,500 foot climbs in the future, but that was another good trip

In September, we got around to celebrating our 30th anniversary with a nice 3 days out Highway 4. As on the 25th, we took a coolerful of gourmet food for a do-it-yourself luxury retreat, and camped at Alpine Lake near Ebbets Pass, where we found some pleasant hiking trails.

At home, we continue to hunt down local trails that are accessible by wheelchair. For a few years now I’ve been keeping up a website, WheelchairTrails.net offering reviews of these trails, illustrated by Dan’s photographs. Then this summer I got a call from Bay Nature Magazine to write an article and a batch of trail reviews for a supplement on “Disability Outdoors” in their fall issue. It was quite a project, eventually involving a “backpacking” overnight at Point Reyes, hauling our gear behind my wheelchair on Dan’s bike cart. I wrote about it, Dan took photos, and we ended up filling five glossy pages. It’s all online at BayNature.com; we feel good about how it came out. Icing on the cake is that we were paid for the work.

The editors at Bay Nature are the nicest people imaginable; I got addicted to the back-and-forth of emailing drafts for editing, and was delighted when they invited us to submit more work in the future (photos, general-interest trail reviews, or?) Please don’t tell me that if this letter is a sample, I can’t grow up to be a Writer!

My big Christmas present was the return of my sister Kathryn from a 2 year odyssey sailing in the South Pacific. They actually got back in late November, and are now living in Fresno to be close to her husband Dan’s mother. Not as close as I’d like, but a big improvement over emails from Tonga.

The year ended with one bittersweet change: we finally had the huge Monterey Pine in our backyard very expensively removed. The view from our kitchen is much changed, but all the shrubs and trees that had been in dark shade are already beginning to show improved photosynthesis. We’ll be able to grow vegetables back there.

As I finish this it’s January 2, 2007, and my New Year’s resolution will be accomplished as soon as I send it. I hope yours are coming along well, and that we can all look forward to a great New Year.

The War on Christmas

I’m for it.

Unlike the War on Holiday Commercialism, in which, if you’ll excuse the expression, we never had a prayer, the War on Christmas is one we can win. It may be the only war I’ve had the opportunity to join which can be won. The wars on drugs, apathy, poverty, television, and most recently terror… look at them. You never hear that we’re in abject retreat, but is there any hope of victory? (Don’t even ask how the War on Ignorance is going: I’m told more Americans attest to the superiority of Coke over Pepsi than believe in the theory of evolution.)

But the war on Christmas? It’s a slam-dunk. It’s two-thirds won already.

John Gibson identified our side as a “cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians — not just Jewish people.” My feelings are a bit hurt that a so-called human secularist like me wasn’t invited to even one meeting of this cozy clique, but no matter. A conspiracy is hardly required.

Christmas carries the seeds of its own demise. We are winning easily with the weapons provided by the holiday itself.

It’s an unwieldy assemblage of winter solstice celebrations very easy to remodel, though someone will miss almost any part that gets left out. Commercial interests may or may not call it Christmas, but they ride it hard from Halloween to New Years without a word about Jesus or even Mary’s adorable donkey. This is probably Good Taste, but maybe Gibson didn’t include them in his enemy lineup because, as we learned when we were fighting Christmas Materialism (was he there?) any one of them can mop the floor with us while toting up profits with the other hand. If the Christmas defenders knew the Chamber of Commerce was in our camp on this one they’d all be hiding under the bed.

Beyond that I’m counting on the profound message of Peace on Earth and Good Will to All (sentient beings). It’s a component of Christmas rooted in the teachings of its namesake, but once unsuspecting victims accept it they’re on a slippery slope to the belief that including everyone and celebrating together is more important than agreeing on what is being celebrated. The next thing you know we’re decorating “Holiday Trees” and saying “Merry Solstice!” even if it rolls a bit roughly off the tongue, to confused but probably unoffended strangers.

The spread of Solstice secularism won’t be halted by the grinchlike desire to stake out the season for a select elite, or turn it into a battleground in the larger Culture War (which is guaranteed to be fought down to a bloody draw, again and again and again.) Most people who like Christmas hope to make money or reach out to others, or both, and neither goal is usually compatible with a narrow religious interpretation.

What I really want is not to defeat Christmas, but to hijack my favorite parts of it. I like to call it Solstice, but around here we skip the human sacrifice.

What do we do when the darkening days at last begin to grow brighter, as the sun returns to us once again?

Celebrate hope and loving kindness toward family, friends and strangers, with food and drink. (Oh dear, this brings us to the War on Drugs, about which you don’t want to know).

Put up the tree and lights, send cards, sing songs, give gifts… small gifts, and not too many, what with the War on Materialism.

I was raised hopefully putting out cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer and watching Amahl’s mother tell the three kings that she knows a child “…but no one will bring him silver and gold, though sick and poor and hungry and cold.” Should not all children have gifts, and be adored if not worshipped?

That might be a message that could unite us all just for a little while.

***Satan Claus***

To help us all get in the spirit.

The information below is condensed from a post from Cliff Pickover on http://wikidumper.blogspot.com/, where entries being considered for deletion by Wikipedia get a probably undeserved second chance.

Satan Claus is a theory that Santa Claus is actually an alias for Satan. The theory is based primarily on the fact that "Santa" could be an anagram for "Satan."

Other evidence is the fact that Saint Nicholas, the origin of Santa, could have never existed. Ole Nick was a fallen Angel. Nick is a common nickname for Santa. (e.g. Old Saint Nicholas) Old Nick is a British term for "the devil". Nicholas is one of the most common names for the devil, for Germans.

Santa shares, or in some cases takes the spotlight from Jesus at Christmas time. Jesus and Santa are both Omniscient. They are both Omnipresent. They both have beards.

Claus is old English for "Hoof-Claws." Claus can be rearranged to spell "Lucas" which resembles Lucifer. Kriss Kringle means "little Christ child".

Does all this increase the likelihood that those pesky elves are moonlighting for the Homeland Security folks, and if our shopping runs to large quantities of fertilizer or small sharp devices we'll get far worse than the traditional lump of coal and stick-to-beat-you-with in our stockings?

Cat Picture ***

Blogging is a mystery to me, but I have noticed that a proper blog needs a cat picture, so here is mine. That's the Thanksgiving turkey on the table, and yeah, it's not too appetizing that I was stuffing it and playing with Petya-the-gorgeous at the same time. If it's any comfort [in case we invite you to dinner] I ordinarily never give scraps to begging creatures, and since the pictured lapse I've been very sorry. Petya has been following me around in the forlorn hope that it will happen again. Who would have thought a blob of turkey fat was that tasty to a guy who often turns up his wet black nose at the "tuna and whitefish banquet" and other creatively titled entrees we serve up daily to him and his co-feline Mongus

A Great Link...

This is National Geographic's camcorder at Pete's Pond in Botswana, if you have bandwidth and time to fritter...lots of time! http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/index.html