Starting and Stopping

I am a wuss. Example: I claim that I like to have my errand-running all planned and efficient, but this somehow leads to a billion different reasons to delay the running of the errands:
Am I sure this is all the dry cleaning?
Surely there is a coupon somewhere for that.
It would be better if I waited until I was going out anyway, that way, I will waste less gas. Besides, it’s awfully unpleasant out there.
With these and other thoughts like them, I stay home for days. Stuff piles up at the door. The pantry contains only dried kidney beans I once used for pie weights and Jell-o.
That was 2011. This is 2012.
January 3rd, 2012, I am conquering you, I thought. I will go to the dry cleaners with the two items I want cleaned. I will fill up my tank with gas. I will relish the cold. I will pick up groceries at the most consistently inexpensive store and not worry about the coupons.
All this before 10 a.m.? Victory! I turned west toward home, the day’s battle against lethargy won. But a new war awaited.
A creature appeared in the distance, walking in the eastbound lane. A single car sat near it, then sped  from shoulder to shoulder, swerving around the animal.
I was a little miffed. Surely the dude (I assumed it was a dude) could have stopped to let the poor thing by.
As I drove closer, I realized the poor thing was a wild turkey. Unlike the dude, I, the conqueror of the errands, could offer a little benevolence. The turkey ran toward the ditch, so I stopped and gave him (I assumed it was a him) some room to be sensible.
The turkey froze. He turned and looked around. He looked at me. And then, he ran … directly at the grill of my car.
Now I looked around. I wasn't sure what to do, so I treated him like a distracted driver and honked my horn. The turkey turned out to have a case of road rage. He stopped momentarily, then charged my car and disappeared.
I honked again. A greyish-white head popped over the hood of my car, gave me the eye, and then vanished.
I imagined him pecking at my bumper with demented fervor, or reenacting that scene from Cape Fear. I checked the rearview mirror. The nearest vehicle was far enough away: I put my car in reverse and eased back a few yards. Retreat only angered him more. He charged me again. People were now coming eastbound, so I put the car in drive and tried to sneak by on the shoulder. He headed me off like a sheepdog.
I slowly returned to my lane and hit the brakes as the jake once again disappeared. Eastbound traffic paused. The turkey head shot up again. The driver opposite went wide-eyed. I was playing chicken with a turkey.
Now a line of cars formed behind me. I realized that from their point of view, I was merely a crazy woman impeding their progress for no obvious reason. So I honked again. The eastbound driver moved, and the westbound drivers took their turns staring at me, first in disgust, then with disbelieve.
Finally, all traffic cleared. I threw the car into reverse and aimed for the shoulder. As the turkey came my way, I threw the car back into drive and — like the dude five minutes before me — gunned it. I swerved and flew back into my own lane, leaving, I’m sure, a distant motorist with the same temptation as me.
To her (I assume it’s a her) I say, it’s easy to rush to judgment, but for 2012, I’m quitting that. Cold turkey.

Sci-Nonfi: RoboRoaches

On an otherwise unremarkable day in May, I spent time with high school students and neuroscientists and their remote-controlled cockroaches.

Two live RoboRoaches on a lab table

My essay appears in The Curator today. An excerpt:

The students finish the SpikerBoxes; the cockroach experience begins. A few Blaberus discoidalis cockroaches will have a limb surgically removed. The legs, the scientists explain, have neurons firing in them, even after they are amputated, and will remain alive for up to two days.

Volunteers take on the roles of anesthesiologist and surgeon. Marzullo guides them through the procedure. The cockroaches are removed from their habitat and submerged in ice water. Using small, curved scissors, the leg is quickly and carefully cut and pinned to a SpikerBox. Students huddle around it, waiting to hear the spikes. It sounds like static. Gage and Marzullo then connect the box to an iPad, and students can see a visual representation of the sounds.

They discuss possible responses of the leg to stimuli, and reveal what will be one of the student’s favorite experiments: How will a cockroach leg respond to the sound vibrations of hip-hop, specifically the song “Love the Way You Lie?”

Read the entire story here.

You can read The Oakland Press article, learn more about Backyard Brains, or prepare for the coming RoboRoach invasion.

Creative Nonfiction Dilemmas

I struggle when I write personal essays.

The writing isn't the struggle. I enjoy striving to tell it straight and true, discovering real life moments worthy of examination and wonder. It's a satisfying process, from the glimmer of an idea to the first words, from the crafting and shaping to that final bit of polish.

It's good work until that moment when I have to send it off to a publication or editor. If you saw me in that moment, you'd think that my decision to send a story was akin to triggering a nuclear war. It's not the fear of rejection making my palms sweat. It's not my financial situation, either, although if I could afford an accountant I'm sure he'd convince me to reconsider. The closing of my eyes as I face the screen, my finger pausing over my mouse, my stopping and restarting the submission process, all this hesitancy is borne from the fear that I might be misunderstood, that my appreciation of people in general might be clouded because of my words. Worse, I fear that the specific people who are a part of my story might be hurt by my rendering.

In the very best case scenario, someone who reads about themselves through my eyes feels special. That was the lovely reaction of my neighbor (featured here). My husband and parents have been great, amazing actually, understanding that a humorous poke or a family story told is just my point of view. It doesn't negate their memories, their experiences or how they might see the situation. Other people, I know, have a harder time. At least one person has told me that I may not mention him or her by name in anything I write. I can sympathize; I will honor that request.

Despite sweaty hands and 20 minutes of pacing, I pushed the button yesterday, on a story called "Ruined". We'll see where it goes. Until then, I'll keep writing. Maybe I'll search for opportunities to write profile essays. The advantage of that sort of piece is that the subjects know they're subjects. Even with that knowledge, it's still tough.

Loving my genre, yet secretly wishing I was better at fiction, LT

Class dismissed

Dear diary, it's been two months since my last blog post.

(I believe that sentence is a mixed metaphor. Ahh well.)

During my time away from the blogging life, I took a class in creative nonfiction from Creative Nonfiction. The class, Basics in a Nutshell, covered the personal, profile, immersion, and fact-heavy essays. The course satisfied my desire to learn, to improve as a writer, and to test myself. Here are my big takeaways:

1) I love to write creative nonfiction. Other people's stories stir me. What could be better than to share in a person's life and then write it down, so that others might be a part of it too?

2) Sometimes, it is more humble to include yourself in the story. When you write about another person, you bring your own insight, and biases, to the telling. Traditional journalism strives to be unbiased, and pushes the reporter to be the invisible narrator. This can give the sense that the journalist's version of the story is the only way to see the story, or the people in the story. By including the context, and the perspective of the reporter, the reader is more aware of the limits of the piece.

I think this becomes less important the more time you spend with a subject, but I'll probably never be able follow a subject around the world. Better to just admit it: I'll never be Gay Talese except in my fantasy life.

(My fantasy life is pretty vivid. Let's amend that last admission. I'll PROBABLY never be Gay Talese.)

Over the next few months I'll be polishing my work from this class and then submitting it for publication.  I'm going to try to return to blogging, and will begin writing some sketches with a partner for Script Frenzy in April. But first, I'm going to go breathe. Yay spring!