Volvos to the left of me, Volvos to the right, stuck in the middle

Yesterday, I looked at one of the three high performance Swedish driving machines that I own. The registration tag was out of date. Well, I’ll be, it is past March isn’t it? So, today I went to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles. I know, I know, some people break out in hives if they set foot inside the doors of the DMV. Nothing says, “government bureaucracy” quite like the DMV. They have a nice system that lets you make an appointment. No sooner had I walked through the automatic doors under DMV’s slogan “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” (it sounds classier than “Abandon all hope, you who enter here”), than I met the person at the window. It’s one of the benefits of living in a rural area.

It turns out that, according to DMV’s records, the fine 1995 Swedish driving machine hadn’t been registered for two years. Oh dear. You may wonder how this happened. I know I did. It turns out that Mary and I had our hands full two years ago then. Around that time, my father was growing progressively weaker. His caregiver had called to let us know he had started falling. One loses track of things when going through hospitals, dementia, convalescent homes, and mortuaries. Not to mention selling a house in Washington, estate stuff, and memorials. It’s been two years on May 28 that Pop’s been gone.

So, a mere $250 later, I think I have the cars registered. I think. Now where did I put my car keys. . . .

A Way With Words

Back in February, I’d come across a word—catachresis—in my American Heritage Dictionary. I forget what I had been looking for originally. Catatonic? Doesn’t matter. Catachresis means the “misapplication of a word or phrase” such as “the use of blatant to mean ‘flagrant’.”

Mary and I have been podcasting KPBS’s A Way With Words (AWWW) and so I called them to ask what on earth the difference could be. If you’re not familiar with AWWW, it’s sort of like Car Talk for word geeks. I got a call from AWWWs’ exec producer, Stefanie Levine, and we set up a talk with Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett the hosts of the show in early March.

My call (actually, they call you) aired on May 12, 2007. Here’s the link if you’re interested in knowing the difference between blatant and flagrant (about 25 minutes into the broadcast).

Rejection by the rejected

Nate Carpenter, the protagonist in my story The God of Trees muses, “Unlike relationships, my line of work is dirt simple…you grow trees, you cut trees, you plant trees. I’ve planted thousands of seedlings during my life, some grow, some don’t. It all boils down to location and luck.”

I’ve been posting the first chapters of my story to a British website called YouWriteOn.com since October 2006 and found that so much depends on luck. Who YWO assigns to review one’s story makes/breaks its overall ranking. The top five in the month’s ratings get a professional review. The effect is akin to having dozens of teacher’s assistants grading papers.

It’s sort of like a writer’s Russian roulette for word geeks. Some of the things people write cut to the bone. Words have tremendous power. I heard a Barnes and Noble “Meet the Writers” interview with Chuck Palahniuk. He has people faint at his readings. After some reviews and ratings I consider suicide by pastry.

Ah well, it is all part of the writer’s development of thick skin. It’s natural that we want people to like us, I suppose. And, therefore we want people to like our writing. Ain’t gonna happen.

Would you pass another scone please…oh yes, slathered in jam and butter would be great!