Wandering among the ancient lakes

I realize that it is Blog-Every-Day-Month and I haven't blogged for four whole days.

I was backpacking for two of those days without any Internet access but never mind the excuses. I'll tell you about my trip instead.

We went to the Ancient Lakes and Dusty Lakes area  (nearest town: Quincy, Washington). There we wandered among tiny lakes in a sagebrush-scented area sculpted by ancient volcanoes.

 This is a landscape you couldn't find in lush, rainy, Western Washington. It was pure desert - filled with coulees, striking basalt columns of rock, endless sunshine, and very little shade. Plus rattlesnakes, naturellement.  And raptors, who soared above the jagged rock in lazy circles.

I haven't felt that much warmth since I was in Mexico in January. It was so hot, in fact, that a few of us jumped in Dusty Lake (pictured to the left), despite the rumor that these waters are tainted with irrigation runoff. (People fish there, and eat the fish, so water can't be that contaminated, right?)

We did carry in all our own water, just in case - no easy feat. But worth it to spend time in this sun-dazzled, geological wonderland so different from my urban, rainy home. And to feel like I was  experiencing actual summer, complete with a symphony of singing bugs and birds in the warm night air.

Anyway, now it's back to the real world after the sunshine and peace of eastern Washington. I start a new editing project today, which is a good thing for ye olde wallet. But it also means I must go groom myself presently. So toodaloo!

Rebecca

Off to the hills

I waited until too late in the day to blog and now my mind is blank. Abosolutely devoid of the slightest bit of creativity. Nada. Zilch.

So, instead, here is a photo the Ancient Lakes area, where I'll be leading a backpacking trip this weekend. It's in Central Washington, where it's all dry, and desert-y, and oh-so-different than lush green Western Washington. I hope to see lots of wildflowers. The only bummer about this hike is you have to pack in all your water because these lovely lakes are tainted by irrigation run-off. 

On the bright side, the hike is flat. And short. So maybe ten pounds of water won't be so bad.

These photos are from 2008. I don't expect it's changed much. Except this time I'm going earlier in the year so hopefully it will be cooler and there will be even more flowers than last time.

In that picture there is Mary Rohlman, also a hike leader for the Seattle Mountaineers. She has a great Web site with tons of photos of all the Northwest hikes she does. You can definitely get some ideas from her about where to go hiking in Washington.

Oh, and just for fun, here's a picture of me and my sister backpacking in the good old days. Bet you can't guess which one of us is which.

Hint: I am the more stylish one.

Celebrity obsessed author hard at work

I clearly have an obsession with celebrity.

For one, my favorite Web site is Go Fug Yourself. Next, since BreakupBabe, I've written drafts or partial drafts of at least six other novels, and four of those are celebrity-themed in some way.

There is, for example, the story of two adolescent girls and best friends who are in a rock band together. The experience, naturally, tests the limit of their friendship (2006). There's the one about the woman who has a son with a guy who later becomes a famous rock star and the rock star comes back to meet his son fifteen years later (though the son has no idea who is father is) (2008).

Oh yes, and let's not forget the one about the barista with the cute stoner musician boyfriend who become an "accidental" celebrity when she stars in an ad campaign put on by her mega-Starbucks-like coffee (2007).

There's more where that came from too.

As you can see I've been quite busy since the publication of my roman a clef. It's not like I've stopped writing or anything. Au contraire.

It's just that...well...I can't explain how my own writing process works. One of these days the right celebrity-themed story will come along again, and so will the right way to tell it - as long as I keep sitting myself in this chair day after day.

If not, I will just have to console myself with being another Harper Lee or Ralph Ellison or other such genius who produced only one perfect book in their career. Wink wink. (I am winking so you understand that I understand that To Kill a Mockingbird will, of course, never quite compare to the sweep and literary perfection of BreakupBabe.)

Anyhow, I know I missed Day 10 of Blog Every Day Month and for that I profusely apologize to all two of you who might be keeping track.

Happy birthday BB!

I just realized we're coming up on BreakupBabe: A Novel's  fourth birthday. A celebration of some sort is in order I think! Hmm...what should it be? It needs be special for my only child and should definitely involve hot but inappropriate guys. (HBIBs).

I'll have to see what I can come up with. Maybe a party in which we get all Breakup Babe's HBIBs together. Silent But Deadly Boy, Alt Country Boy, Indie Rock Dad, Cute Train Boy, The Charming Canadian, The Doctor, The Propagandist...(and so many more).

Where are they all now, I wonder? At least four of the above are married now. At least two of the married ones have kids, or so I hear.

But I'm sure they look back with fondness from their diaper-filled domestic bliss on their days as Breakup Babe's muse. When the music played, the good times rolled, the cocktails were drunk.

And, of course, when the secret blog entries were written: celebrating their commitment-phobia, mocking their manhood, drooling over their dashing good looks...and so on.

Day 8 sees me wondering if I really should be blogging every day

It's that time of year when flowers are blooming everywhere and people are going crazy in their gardens. Even moi, who has not had a garden in eight years joined the hordes of people at Home Depot yesterday.

There I bought window boxes to hang on the railing of my teeny-tiny deck. It is not actually a deck because it is so small and there is probably some technical term for a teeny-tiny deck but I do not know what it is so I will just call it a teeny-tiny deck

Anyway, last time I had a garden I lived with You-Know-Who. I had a lovely container garden that I cherished and fawned over. Then when things went haywire between us, I went to stay elsewhere for a while and he let my flowers die. That's when my heart really broke.

I wrote about it very eloquently (IMHO) on Breakup Babe, and since I am all out of ideas for *fresh* things to write, I'll recycle that flowery prose here. I'm realizing belatedly, that I should write something about my mother, it being mother's day and all, but maybe I'll do that later this week. Mom will understand.

SCRATCH THAT. I cannot seem to find that erstwhile entry in my cobwebbed-covered Breakup Babe archives.

Now I've really failed to produce a worthwhile blog entry but at least I've produced something, which maybe, in this case, is NOT better than nothing.

xo
Rebecca

Breakup Babe in illustrious company

The Victory Review - an online magazine about the Seattle acoustic music scene - featured an article a a few months ago that mentioned my Breakup Babe blog.

The article is called "I Can't Stand the Rain, " and it's all about artists and musicians who've been inspired by the rain. Here Breakup Babe and I are mentioned in such illustrious company as Janis Joplin, Gary Snyder, and Glenn Gould.

We were very flattered!

This article was written by my old coworker Hank Davis, with whom I shared one of those windowless cells at ye olde Empire Corporation. See what Hank had to say below and definitely and check out his article too! It's fun to see how he weaves all his thoughts about music and the rain together. His mention of BB a tiny part of a much longer piece.

A pair of contrasting rainy days from 2005 and 2006 turn up on the "Breakup Babe" blog. For a brief while, I shared a cramped writer's room at a software company with blogger and author Rebecca Agiewich, who converted her blog into the popular book Breakup Babe. (No one quite so earnest as a hungry writer with literary aspirations and a Web site.) She likes the rain:

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 (5:33 PM)

[Rebecca] It rained. Finally! ...Do you remember the days that playing in the rain was just something you did? Running around with your friends, splashing through the gutters, getting as wet as can be? Without a care for what it might do to your hair, your clothes...

On the other hand, the rain doesn't always like her. When she heard Australian country singer Kasey Chambers sing that the rain was useful for washing away tears, this happened:

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 (8:58 AM)

[Rebecca] All through this overly sunny week, the Kasey Chambers song "On a Bad Day" has been running through my head:

Every time my tears

have ever fallen

I've kept 'em in my pocket

for a rainy day.

So when it's pouring

I take them outside

I let the rain start washing

my tears away.

[Rebecca] Then it poured down rain yesterday and instead of

washing all my tears away, it just got me really, really wet

Day 7 of Blog Every Day Month a a bit slow. Yawn.

So it's Blog Every Day Month and I am out of things to stay.

So without further ado check out one of my favorite  videos. Don't worry it's only about five seconds long. And no, this is not my pug, though he is equally dramatic.  (Be sure to have your sound on; it's the music that makes this video).

This video apparently has a long and distinguished history; it hails from the even more famous Dramatic Chipmunk,which I will not subject you to. (But which is worth watching in moments of boredom.)

The jailbird and the hummingbird

I was out walking the dog a while ago on my peaceful urban street. I'd noticed two police cars on the street as we walked to the park, and then forgot about them.

But as we sauntered home, I saw a cop leading a guy in handcuffs to one of the cruisers. Neither of them spoke a word.

Without meaning to, I caught a good glimpse of the handcuffed man. He was youngish and white, with a scruffy beard and a baseball cap. Unremarkable looking.

Except for his expression. Fear and regret wrote themselves all over his pale face and wide-open eyes. He looked doomed.

It struck me that I'd never seen anyone get arrested before except on television. It's much more jarring in real life, on a tranquil street, when just a moment before you'd been enjoying a shady park where a grandfather fed his little granddaughter with tender care.

I felt so sad, suddenly, for that guy, even if he had done something bad. So sorry for whatever hard circumstances in his life led to him this humiliating and frightening moment.

Just after the cop car pulled away, a flash of green caught my eye. I saw a hummingbird hovering over a nearby bush. I'd never seen a hummingbird in the neighborhood either. The bird flitted about, shimmering and free.

And suddenly I felt even worse for the poor doomed guy in the cop car, and for all of us who are held by shackles of any kind.

I watched the hummingbird for just a few seconds before it disappeared, upward into the lightening sky.