This Side Of Paradise

Life Means So Much You Have To Die

2012-01-08T13:01:00.005-05:00

Eleanor: When I was born, I was just a short story, and nobody knew what would happen to me. In the short story, I have a best friend named Antonya. We build a fort and we share our secrets and we are bullies. We are cruel. At least, Antonya is cruel. We make a boy strip naked and we toss his clothes onto the highway so he has to dodge cars and risk being killed just to put his socks back on. This is after we tease him with our young bodies, because we are so frigging sexy, you know? There's more to it than that, but it gives you an idea. We aren't afraid to risk the boy's life for our amusement. Antonya is cruel, but I go along with her cruelty, so I'm guilty as well.

This story is in a locked box. It isn't in the novel. For the longest time, and maybe even now still, I wanted my Biographer to put it into the novel, because I feel guilty about being part of such cruelty. Forget about Antonya. We aren't friends anymore. We aren't friends because she forgot about me, so that's why I say forget about her. Not because she's cruel. Or was cruel.

It's weird being born in a short story that's locked up. It's like all of my baby pictures and videos of my childhood and everything else like that, like things I drew for my Biographer to put on the refrigerator, or things I wrote down, or even things I said -- pieces of dialogue -- well, everything is locked up in the box. My Biographer says it's for the best, but then he says the story is one of his favorites and I don't know if he's being sentimental or really means it. If it's one of his favorites, truly, then why is it locked up? I know he sent it to The New Yorker after he wrote it, and an editor named Deborah Garrison wrote him a really cool letter back and said she really liked the story and everything but that it was too much like other stories about teenaged girls. Like it was too familiar, even if it was a different story from anybody else's. She said she wanted to see more of my Biographer's work. I don't think she said she wanted to see any more of me. Maybe I was the problem, and not Antonya. I've just always blamed Antonya.

These days, everybody is being a bully to everybody else, but when my Biographer wrote the story, there wasn't any Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or things like that for people to talk about how they are being bullied and how they wish it were different but life holds no meaning any longer, or rather it holds too much meaning and that's why it hurts so much and that's why they feel the only way out is to die. Because life means this much. Imagine that! Life is so important that they feel they have to die for it, because by meaning so much, it hurts even more. There's nothing fair about that, and there's nothing that makes sense in that. Nothing in the whole wide world that I know about.

These days I wonder if the me who's in the locked box is really me. She has the same name as I do. She has the same characteristics. She has the same personality. But does that make her me? I mean, have I grown up, or am I still that girl. (Maybe my Biographer has grown up, or maybe not. I know everything about him, I really do. I don't want to sound too vain, but I have more everything to know than he does. You might think this is really crazy, because I am supposed to just be a character. Here's the thing: I stopped being just a character a long time ago. But the kicker is -- I don't know what I am now.)

I've been thinking about this a lot as you can tell. This -- that I don't ever want to be a bully, and if I ever had the choice to be a bully or somebody who gets bullied, I would choose the person who gets bullied. There's less guilt. I could get all beat up. Or some bully could manipulate my mind and make me think I am crazy bad, as in a no-good person. As in, not worthy to even be in existence. My problem, though, is that I don't want to be a victim either. So I'm stuck. Trapped, you know?

When I stopped being just a character and turned into something else, but something less than a real human being because I can't just walk over to that locked box and open it up and find the story and shove it into my Biographer's hands and say, Here, please explain this to me. Because I'm sure that I know everything about who I am, but I don't know this Eleanor. She is so familiar, but I don't know her. So explain that why don't you?

If I am not a bully and I am not a victim, then am I a bystander? Do I really just watch what's going on and not do a damn thing? If I step into the action and beat up the bully, does that make me the bully? Once you taste blood, you want to taste more. I would replace the bully. I would be the hero, so everybody would want to say nice things about me, but they'd want to keep their distance too. You can't get too close to a real hero. A real hero has some quality inside that the rest of everybody else is afraid to find, or even look too hard for, even if everybody else has the same quality inside themselves. Unless they are psychopaths or something and can't feel anything.

Do you think this is the difference? That I can feel things, and that's why I stopped being a character a long time ago? I can feel things even if they don't happen on the page. And of course I feel everything my Biographer feels. If I wasn't so invisible to most people and if I wasn't able to fly about the way I can, light as a feather, I'd be weighted down by all of this. Literally. You could throw me into the river, and I'd drown. Then you would be the bully and I would be a victim. (Why would you do something like that?)

My mind keeps going in circles. It's kind of crazy or a lot crazy, but whatever -- the circles are happening. The honest-to-God truth is I want to be loved and sometimes I want to make people love me so hard I want to hit them over the head with some really good sentences that are the very best of me and see what happens. But it has to be natural. I mean, it has to be organic -- that people love me or don't love me. You can only whack so many people over the head with your best sentences before you begin losing some of your words and then you begin losing your entire self, one paragraph at a time maybe -- or one sentence, or one word, or even one punctuation mark. It sure adds up.

I can't waste my best sentences on perfect strangers.

When my mind goes in circles, I become vulnerable too, and then I have to be very careful. I need to be strong. I need to be strong enough that my sentences survive me, no matter what I do with them. That I can use one sentence again, even if I've already zonked somebody. I'm not sure I am to that level yet.

So I ask my Biographer if my sentences are strong enough. Even though I know everything about him and how his mind works. (I don't know this one.) He says he doesn't know either. He says he can't be the judge of that. He says it for other people to judge me. To judge my sentences. And that creates another mind circle, see? My question then is -- does this make anyone who reads my sentences a potential bully? If the person stops reading, I stop existing. Or the person can just plain not like me. The person could say, this is a really, really fun story -- wow, what fun this is I can almost not take it all in, all of this fun, but you know what? I hate this girl. (And I, Eleanor, can feel the kind of hurt that comes from that, believe me, I can. Love or hate, I can feel it.)

I ask my Biographer to open the locked box and take out that first story when I was a bully, or at least, in cahoots with a bully named Antonya.

It's about the sentences now. It's about whether those sentences are as good as my best sentences. If they are as good, it really doesn't matter if they fit into my life story. You always have to leave something out. Or you leave something out to create some mystery. But I would know, that's the thing.

I would know that I was just as good when I was bad. (I don't think I like the idea of that.)

Here's a riddle for you. What do you call something that used to live on paper -- one pecked-out letter at a time she lived like that. What do you call her now that she is not quite breathing as much as she wants to breathe. To breathe like her Biographer can breathe. And cough, and laugh, and talk, and all of the other things that come with breathing. Like being able to find the key to a lock to a box that holds pages and pages from many years ago. What do you call something which is not really a somebody yet, but is still afraid that she is best at her worst, and because of that, she cries real human tears. (I can't explain the tears. It's part of the transformation, I realize this.)

I know this is a long riddle. I'm sorry. I'll try again.

Okay, here's a riddle for you. What do you call something or somebody who once did something really bad but has such an ego that she wants to know how good she was at being so bad? Does that make for a better riddle?

If you know the answer, please tell me. Because I do not, and I sure wish I did.

Eleanor Takes "Blue TV Show" To Mexico!

2011-11-15T08:43:00.011-05:00

Eleanor is pleased to announce that her starring role in "Blue TV Show" is included as a short story in the inaugural issue of "In Other Words: Merida," a new online magazine based in the Yucatán Peninsula. Yes, that's Mexico. (Eleanor is doing a lot of traveling these days.)

Click here for the story:

"Blue TV Show"

Spontaneous Combustion -- The Video: Eleanor's Words

2011-04-17T07:16:00.007-04:00

Eleanor insisted we post "something" from the novel, but in video form -- and especially something dedicated to Olive Thomas. So, here is a short performance piece.

"Tell them about the ending, but not too much," Eleanor says. "Tell them Olive is always with us -- that no actress is ever forgotten, that the movies are forever and ever."

And so, too -- "you" are with us. Meanwhile, we now go back into The Little Room, and back to the words. There is still much work to be done before we sleep.

Click here:

For Olive Thomas, Eleanor & Page 43

The In-Betweens, Ghost People

2010-10-05T07:22:00.001-04:00

I grew tired of living in the part of life you see. I told myself that I'd rather exist somewhere among the in-betweens.

You know. It's like watching a movie from an old projector, and the naked eye misses that slight moment "in between" frames, when everything is a white out. We can’t see it, but just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. Well, I wanted to exist in that moment in between the frames, in the white out -- that place that's like a snowstorm, and I'm right there, inside it, but you can't see me. Doesn't mean I don't exist, because I do exist. Listen -- just slow down the film, and I’ll appear like a ghost; a ghost person if you want to call me that.

It’s a trap of course, wanting to exist among the in-betweens. But I've given it a go and here I am.

Now eventually I’ll grow tired of this and want a bigger part of the picture, the part you dosee. Eventually my ego is going to push me into asking for a starring role. Main feature, my name in lights on the marquee, and I live or die by my performance. But what if I can quell this ambition and keep on existing among the in-betweens until I get it right -- the performance, I mean.

Okay, let's play this one out, until it's for real. If you slow down the film, gradually at first to allow people’s eyes to adjust, the people being "you," the audience, and then slow it down even more, until they, or rather, "you" -- lose the main frames completely, and everything is in reverse –- light becomes dark and dark becomes light ... something like that. It’s not a perfect idea, but I'm no scientist either. Some people won't get it. They’ll look behind them, over their shoulders, to see if the projector is broken, or if this is going to be one of those times when the film melts and everything just stops.

Well, it won't stop, of course, and I’ll step out now, okay, and I'll have to say something simply marvelous to get the audience’s, or rather -- your attention.

“I’m a ghost, yes,” I say. “But through use of this imperfect technology, you are allowed to see me, and I know you can see me, and that scares me, let me tell you, it scares me to death. Being a ghost person, you probably think this is funny, me being scared to death that you can see me. There’s nothing funny about it. I want you to see me. I’ve been hidden among the in-betweens for much too long, so if I seem a bit eager to please, or if I say the occasional wrong thing, please understand that I don’t have the luxury of the editing room. I get one take to keep you interested. I blow that and you leave. I may be a ghost person, but I wasn’t always this way, and I want so desperately to please you with a show that’s better than what you were watching.”

And then a pause and nothing but white light, and not even me up there. But I have you watching and waiting and listening, at least for right now. I’m a mystery. What am I going to say next? Each of us are wondering the same thing.

Funny how this all works, because I am beginning to wonder how many others there are like me. People who live as ghosts -- the in-betweens. You've seen them, trust me. They are those people you pass on the street and think you see, sort of, but maybe not and you're in too much of a hurry anyway to bother a second look. Like a mosquito buzzing at your ear -- that kind of brief distraction, nothing more. Or -- get this -- they are so "in-between" you don't catch any sight at all.

And how many of us exist like this? Wandering about, just wandering about. Never bothering anybody, but never making any notice either. Just being, well, in-between. I mean, how many of me are there? Are you a ghost person too? Tell me what you're searching for. Wouldn't you like to be the star for once? To be noticed, and applauded -- just for being somebody, or something ... different. I guess that's what I'm saying.

It's not the fame, not fortune, certainly not the same old thing. It's the something different that gets people talking, and once the talking starts, better watch out. You aren't a ghost anymore. Better watch out for the flashbulbs. The photographers will put you right back where you started from, and that would be a crying shame.

Here's what you must remember. If you get into the open, protect what's yours, stick to being different, because nobody can take whatever that is away from you.

You Want To Be Noticed, So Nobody Will Notice You

2010-07-12T07:17:00.001-04:00

Eleanor says:

You want to be noticed in a very big way just so you can scream to the world so they won’t notice you anymore: “Stop looking at me! Let me be!” And then, you can fold up your chair, tuck it under your arm, and walk back inside, where nobody can see you and your life can become anonymous again. As if nothing at all had happened. You aren’t special. You aren’t old enough to be special. Not special enough for everybody to be hounding you like this, asking you questions. You didn’t even do anything. Maybe this is what being famous feels like, but you aren’t famous. Not for being good, and you’re not notorious for any bad qualities that have manifested themselves beyond your person. In other words, you don’t rob banks, as if somebody your age really robs banks, or, maybe this is more realistic for a pre-bank-robbing notorious kind of person. You don’t throw rocks from atop an overpass at passing cars for thrills. You aren’t anyone but a ten-year-old kid. And the more you don’t say anything, the more they ask. And they keep on asking, even after you’re standing there, tears overflowing your tiny eyes, your head shaking, your little hands knotted up in tight fists. That’s when you figure it all out on your own. That the best way to get people to leave you alone is to have them talk about you, but not to you. So you’ve figured it out, that you have to make yourself noticed – not just noticed, actually, but have people stop what they’re doing entirely, to have all of their senses focused on you, and then after that, so they call one another up on the phone. People in five other houses can see you in your backyard. They’ll watch. It’s only natural to look out the kitchen window. Dinner time. You know they’re watching. So you walk outside with a lawn chair, and you go to the very back of your yard, and you sit down, long enough that anybody watching is going to be wondering why you’re sitting there, what is he doing? And that’s the very moment you stand up and turn around and around and around in a circle, and scream, scream to them, and to the rest of the world you can’t see, with all of the lung power you can muster: “Stop looking at me!” And now, go inside to hide. The shadows are friendly. But even inside, even in the shadows, you still quiver, you’re still shaking, you’re still screaming, though in a whisper, “Let me be. Please, let me be.”

*
"Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area."
-- Nadine Gordimer

How To Write A Fairy Tale: Instructions

2010-07-10T10:18:00.002-04:00

Step One: Despite the description of such stories, fairy tales do not need include any appearance by a fairy, or fairies.

Step Two: Fairy tales do require an element of fear.

Which leads to,

Step Three: What frightens you? Or better yet, what frightens you more than anything else, more than anything you can imagine? And this begs the question, yes, if what frightens you is more than you can imagine, then even you do not know the answer to this question and must find out on your own, and you may or may not succeed by allowing yourself to go inside yourself, to places inside yourself you have never before visited, but have existed all along. You must take this journey, on your own, and face whatever it is you need to face –- one-on-one.

Ask the question again, What frightens you?

Step Four: Begin the fairy tale, and just go as fast as you can, without even thinking, really -- and see where it leads you, and maybe, somewhere deep along the way -- there, near the ending, you're almost to Step Five, now -- there, you will find the ultimate happiness, the kind that exists beyond the fear. Happily ever after.

Step Five: Fairy tales must be shared, not kept to yourself. Because once you share your fairy tale with the person of your choosing, you can begin getting better again. The person you're sharing your fairy tale with doesn't even have to know that you've been hurting. But you need to make it especially scary and convincing. That's all.

-- Eleanor, whispering into her biographer's ear.

*
"Now," Eleanor says, "you must release yourself from fear. Say it out loud. Write it down to remind yourself later. We've been through this -- you remember. We've been through this a million times. Release yourself from fear. Then the beginning -- begins."

Her Biographer thinks, It sounds way too easy. (Eleanor, inside his thoughts, shakes her head. You haven't learned how yet, she is thinking, and thinking this in a place where her Biographer can't find her.)

Everyone Is Scared Right Now & No One Knows Why

2010-06-29T16:58:00.004-04:00

Eleanor says: Everyone is scared right now, but nobody knows exactly why. It could be money, because people are always scared that they're going to go broke. Or it could be crime, even though we have very little crime in Great Falls. Or it could be this loss of identity, and that one, I can understand, but my take on it is so different, I think, from everybody else's. Everybody else is caught up in their little teeny tiny worlds that they get trapped, and I know exactly what my teeny tiny world looks like. My loss of identity is all about this bubble surrounding me -- I mean, how I am supposed to keep secrets, for example, about my mother, the famous actress. Or secrets from my father, because he seems at least as scared as I am, and I am pretty sure it's not about money or crime, but kind of about me, if that makes any sense at all. What father is scared of his daughter? But as I said, this whole being scared is just the feeling of doom, and none of us can really understand why. Not even me in my bubble. I think a major part of my problem is my own fault, but that said, I don't know where to start, you know? I don't know where to start in trying to solve things. So that's my dilemma. I think it's pretty huge, but you might go, well, I have plenty of money in the bank (this is you remember), and I don't think crime is ever going to be bad in Great Falls, and as far as the rest of it, well, sure, I have these days, you know, when I don't know what the hell is going on, but mostly -- I think I'm pretty well set. So okay (this is me talking again): have it your way. Deny everything. After you admit to yourself how bad your life is, deny everything else. But again, this is only me talking, and you could very well say, so, who are you, Eleanor Spain? Who are you to talk about my life? You're just a seventeen-year-old girl, and you have your whole life ahead of you. Isn't this the time in your life when you are NOT suppose to be scared? Huh?

So I just respond (to you, but if this is not you, it might be somebody you know -- and I am not trying to be mean -- I hope you understand that): you don't know anything, but you try, and when you try, you're kind of pitiful. I wish you could see yourself. I mean, I see my "self." I see exactly where I am. And where I am is here.

A Life In One Long Sentence, Part Two

2010-06-28T08:30:00.002-04:00

(for Part One, see December 2008)

Eleanor says: One day or maybe it was night that I appeared just like that or kind of like that as in a vision of sorts or maybe not a vision but more like an angel like maybe a guardian angel except I was never intending on being an angel but wanting instead to be as human as possible and so I took refuge inside the imagination of this rather intuitive boy -- so I thought him to be, intuitive, just from looking at him, from watching him type his words, and in the middle of winter, too, with no heat but blankets covering his upper body and another blanket on his lap, and a mug of black coffee steaming up the side of the computer -- and perhaps he wasn't a boy at all any longer but he seemed to possess all of the qualities of a boy, you know, from the look of wonder on his face when he typed a sentence that never occurred to him or that awful disgust and impatience when the right words failed him, and I waited for this, for the words to fail him, waited for him to drink from his coffee, and that's when I climbed into his head through on eyeball or maybe his ear or maybe I just can walk through walls and therefore I can walk through skulls and into the brain cells whereeverything is happening, all of the parties I mean, crazy parties with these brain cells dressed up in costumes like Mardi Gras and having parades and throwing words and thoughts instead of beads or candy -- and I suppose I knew I was really at home then when this boy or man who seemed like a boy typed my name in the opening line to a new story: he typed"Eleanor," and it was the first time he had ever used my name in any one of his stories or novels, so I knew it was me and only me and there could be no other me and that if I left then there might be another me come along to imposter me, so I dared not leave or make any kind of noise at all or make notice or anything like that because he just had to keep me, you know, even with the Mardi Gras parades happening and those words and thoughts just flying about and barely missing me, and I know or rather I knew then that I wanted to be (t)here so much, for as long as it would take, for the rest of my life if I needed to be, whatever life is, you know, to somebody like me who wants to be human but doesn't know how and has no interest whatsoever in being an angel, though I guess at times I have acted like a guardian angel in ways that the boy wouldn't be able to explain otherwise, when I told him to watch out, don't step off that curb into traffic, or, walk away from the desk before the rock shatters the window, or whatever you do make sure you keep feeling as alive as alive as alive as I feel that you're feeling -- you feel alive, see, I can feel this too, see, and I know I am closer than ever to humanity, and I also know, that you and I are meant for this thing, this -- you know -- whatever this thing is, this story of my life even as made up as parts of it seem at first glance to outsiders -- this story of my life that is really real if anyone asks because that's honest as anything pure in this world, that my story is real and my words are real and those thoughts being thrown during the Mardi Gras parades by the brain cells are instruments really (think about it), to help us along, and that sometimes it's better to be hit in the head with a thought, or a word (think about it), than to miss it entirely -- because if you miss it or it misses you (think about it), something is gone or never was there in the first place, and that is a tragedy that's worse than ever being typed as a name on a page in the first place -- "Eleanor" he wrote, and so I became, and I am still here, so look at me, because I am not going anywhere, not any time soon -- I mean -- do you know what I'm saying, when I say this?

"What do you really see?" Eleanor says.

2010-06-14T16:53:00.002-04:00

Eleanor:

The floor is littered with her thoughts.

Look at me. I’m your psychological painting for the day. What do you really see? Look hard at me. I’m all here. What you see is not what you get. You think you can know me just by standing out there for a little while? Stick around. Everything you need to know about me is right here, in these postings. Look deeper and you'll find me. I want you to find me. Today I want you to find me. Tomorrow I might not want you to find me. I change my mind all the time. But today, when you see me, I want you to try to know me. (I do.)

She presses her palm over her heart.

Set yourself free to believe in the impossible.

Fall in love today.

How do you spell Geography? I’ll tell you how. "George Elmer’s Old Goose Ran A Pig Home Yesterday."

"The Show Must Go On, Whatever Else Happens"

2010-05-28T01:55:00.002-04:00

2-something in the morning. No coffee yet. We're not sure where sleep is -- where it's hiding. We tried to sleep, but something woke us up.

*
Eleanor said she was dreaming. In her dream, there were movie stars, but there weren't any movies left for the movie stars to star in, so the movie stars just wandered about, looking mostly lost, out of sorts, wondering (probably) what to do next. Eleanor went to one of the movie stars -- an A-lister, and told him she would write a play, and the play would have lots of parts, enough for everybody.

"But how will we be paid?" the A-lister said. "My house, my lifestyle -- it's all so expensive."

Eleanor smiled. "Applause, of course," she replied. "You'll be paid with applause, if it's a good play, that is, and if you're convincing."

"But where will we find the audience?" the A-lister said, very concerned and in a panic.

"We'll take turns," Eleanor said. "Everybody can't be on the stage at once, so we can be the actors and the audience. There will be plenty of applause to go around."

"What about my agent, my manager, my publicist -- all of my people?"

Eleanor looked to her right, and then to her left. "I don't see any of your people," she said. "I see you, and I see the other actors."

"Well, this is absolutely horrible," the A-lister proclaimed. "I won't have it! We need our movies back. I demand that someone take action."

"You're a funny man," Eleanor said. "I used to like you when you were bigger -- on the screen, I mean. I'm not sure that you're anything but funny now. Actually you're funny in kind of a sad way. I'm sorry. I don't want to be mean."

The A-lister gave Eleanor an odd stare. A questioning stare.

Eleanor said, "The show must go on. Whatever else happens."

But the A-lister began to walk in circles, talking to himself, and then to some of the other actors, and there was quite a commotion. Meanwhile, Eleanor sat down with a notebook and started to write.

Eleanor says: "There is no turning back"

2010-05-10T15:04:00.002-04:00

We are always standing on a precipice. We are always ready to fall. We are always ready to step away from the precipice. The key to all of this is being ready, whatever decision you decide to make. But once you make this decision, because it will determine your life, there is no turning back. And this is something you must understand. And then, after you understand this, you must believe in it, with all of your heart, with all of who you are. And then, you make your decision. Then – you are ready.

(photograph -- Rebecca Knaur)

Brainwashing: My Heart is Open, But My Head Remembers

2010-04-28T11:33:00.002-04:00

Eleanor, close to the end of the novel: They want to reprogram me. It’s sort of like brainwashing, except you get to keep everything, the old stuff and the new stuff, good and bad. They just want you to direct your thinking a new direction. I am wondering about the brainwashing, though, because maybe I’d like my brain washed, and cleaned, and the memories removed. I want to see everything as though I’ve never seen it before. Like the clouds, or a grassy lawn, or a sidewalk that’s been pushed out of shape from tree roots. The roots have broken it, changed it, but it’s still a sidewalk, see, because people are still walking over it (watch your step, don’t trip!). Maybe I’m more like that kind of sidewalk than anything else. I don’t know what the tree roots are, though. I guess the roots are all of my nasty stuff trying to climb out from deep inside of me, to get to the surface of me. So, you see, reprogramming me isn’t going to work. You need to wash my brain and scrub it clean. The nasty roots won’t have anything on me then, because I’ll just look at them and go, Huh? What are you, anyway? I'm not saying, who. I'm saying what. In case you didn't notice. Anyhow, about the tree roots -- I’ll step right over then, and be on my way.

Listen to me! (she screams at her Biographer): My heart is open, but my head remembers. Does yours? (The last two words are spoken in a whisper.)

Eleanor says, "Oblivious is bliss."

2010-04-26T11:23:00.003-04:00

Eleanor says, "How oblivious we can be, in our little teeny tiny worlds, our waking life, when we leave the one we love and go to the office or to school or wherever, without even once wondering what’s happening back home, and if we could anticipate an emergency, wouldn’t we have stayed home in the first place, but then again, what really constitutes an emergency – illness, death, a mental breakdown? Perhaps death should be last in this list, but a mental breakdown, or whatever you want to call it, is worse than death, or it can be, can’t it? I mean, how oblivious we can be, in our small worlds, after all. Really. I mean, oblivious is nowhere close to ignorant. Nobody ever says, being oblivious is bliss. It would make a good rhyme, though. No school kid would forget it. Oblivious is bliss, and you never have to feel pain, or hurt. You never have to feel anything, really. That’s the beauty of little teeny tiny worlds. Feelings are left in orbit somewhere. Ground level, it’s all good. It’s a grand place to be, to exist here, ground level. Yes, yes - yes! Oblivious is bliss, while ignorance is just plain being stupid."

Love Hate Pain Joy

2010-04-12T22:58:00.002-04:00

Eleanor: You must follow instructions. First, find a plate of glass. Now, place your hand on one side of the glass. I will place my hand on the other side of the glass. Spread your fingers, just slightly. Cover my hand with yours. Is the glass too cold for you? (Just be patient, please.)

Eleanor's Notes, From The Underground: My Biographer says to me that I need to be some kind of inspiration. I tell him that I am no one special. But I also tell him that I want to speak for all of the people who are also no one special. If you are no one special, I would like to speak for you. I would like to -- I mean, I need to know your thoughts, what you are thinking, what you feel, what you want. I need to know if you feel alone right now. I need to know if you are afraid. Is your hand still on the glass? We are separated by glass, but our hands, the heat from our flesh, is warming the glass. Can you feel this? Are you afraid?

If you are afraid, I cannot cure you. I cannot make you special, you know that. I don't know what it takes to make somebody important. I don't know what it takes to make somebody famous, or charismatic. But I can speak for you. I am not special. I am not important, not in the big scheme of things, see? I am here, in the underground, below the surface. You have discovered me, and maybe you think you know me, and in either case, you are welcome to stay with me. However, I must inform you of one thing. I do not know any more than you do. Except what I've already said. Even my Biographer cannot help me here -- he's waiting for me to make the next move, so we can move forward, so we can move on, so we can finish -- you know?

*
Once upon a time there was me.
Once upon a time there was you.

Things are changing all of the time.
I don't mind that things are changing.
What I don't understand is why nobody tells me why.
One reason why they are changing.
Any reason.

*
Once upon a time, we sat, down by the river. We sat, and we waited. There was a girl, not much older than me. She was with a boy, not much older than me. They walked down the steps and sat a few feet from us. They talked loud enough so we could hear them. They were in their own little world. We didn't matter. What I mean to say, is that being able to hear their words didn't matter.

Girl: Oh baby, you want to talk to me? (she is speaking in a maternal way, her arms around the boy, who is just sitting like he's frozen in place, and the girl, well, her tears are falling onto the boy's shoulder.)

Girl: He's a failure, three strikes. You think that when he gets out of prison, I'm going back to him, that I'll break up with you? You think I want to go back to that kind of life?

Girl: I love you. I want to be with you. My girls -- I've sent for my girls. They'll be with us. We can be a family. I won't go back with him. I want to be with you. How can I make you understand this?

Girl: I love you. Are you even listening to me?

Girl: Are you breaking up with me? (she puts her face into the boy's shoulder. he doesn't make a sound. he's listening, of course he is, but he doesn't make a sound, like he wants her to suffer through this or something, like this is important to him, to make her suffer through this.)

*
Once upon a time, we sat, down by the river. We listened to a girl and a boy try to figure out if they loved one another enough to keep on loving one another. There were all kinds of complications, to be sure. But today wasn't about those. Today was about the love part. Once upon a time, we sat, down by the river. We tried to pretend we were invisible. We didn't need to pretend. We were invisible.

The girl and the boy -- they got up, they walked up the steps, and away. They were gone. We will never know what happened to them.

*
Are you afraid? Are you afraid of the future, of what might happen next week or next month or next year? Are you afraid to say something sweet and kind to somebody you really care for? As in, I love you. Are you so afraid to say that?

*
I am not special. I am nobody of consequence. But this gives me freedom, doesn't it, because I can go anywhere and be anyone and NObody is going to give me a second look. Yes, I am invisible. Maybe you are, too, and maybe not. But if you are invisible with me, we can say what's on our mind, even if we aren't special or famous, or important in the big scheme of things. We can say what's on our mind, and listen to one another, and not ignore one another.

*
This is what I will tell my Biographer. I will tell my Biographer that by being nobody special, I am somebody. I stand out. The crowd will part for me. I will be seen and heard. People will stop talking when I walk close to them. People will want to touch my face, my arms, my hands.

*
Keep your hand on the plate of glass. Can you feel the warmth? It's almost time to go. We have to leave soon. Our bag is packed.

Go ahead now and take away the glass. Throw it against the ground, or the wall, or anything hard enough to make it shatter. Now, place your hand over mine -- this time for real. Clasp your fingers, over my fingers. Feel me. Be with me. Tell me what you think.

Tell me -- tell me. I won't leave you. I promise.

Eleanor Died, and she cried out, "No!"

2010-03-10T03:48:00.003-05:00

Eleanor's Biographer goes to the mailbox. There is a large envelope. He takes the envelope inside, puts it on the dining room table, has a cup of coffee, reads the newspaper, turns on the television but watches only for 15 minutes, perhaps even less, before he grows tired of the people on the screen complaining about this or that. The people on TV are inconsequential.

Enough, he thinks, and he picks up the envelope and goes to The Little Room. There is a photograph inside the envelope -- a partial view of a headstone -- with the words "Eleanor Died."

Now, this photograph causes Eleanor's Biographer no small amount of distress. In fact, distress is too small of a description. It is more of a devastation. And when he searches for Eleanor, he cannot find her. He calls out for her. He tries to imagine her, but can't. He goes to The Spirit House and asks her to show herself, but is met by silence. There has clearly been a mistake. Clearly, someone has played a practical joke by sending this photograph, and what a horrible joke it is. Eleanor has not died. He -- her Biographer -- has written no such words. To the contrary, he has made Eleanor very much alive.

He sits again and feels a sense of utter agony. This, he thinks, this -- this is not happening. This, he thinks, is absurd. He clutches his head with his hands, his fingers, and covers his eyes, and his thoughts are repeating themselves and exaggerating themselves and multiplying too, like a boom-boom-boom of firecrackers, or even a clickety-clack of a typewriter -- his words but not his words -- his words being written for him by some cruel prankster.

*
Eleanor says: This is your fault.
Her Biographer says: I didn't do anything.
E: Look around you, at all of the blank pages, and for what? I've told you more than you could ever fit on these pages.
B: You are alive. This is just a photograph.
E: You -- screwed -- up. You stopped writing and somebody noticed and now all you have is -- well, what exactly do you have?
B: This is another Eleanor.
E: When one of us goes, we all go. All of the Eleanors are dead. Your fault.
B: Here -- look -- see this piece of paper, see this pen in my hand, see how I'm ready to begin writing?
E: No! (she cried out) No!
B: I need more chances.
E: You've had plenty of opportunity. You're hysterical. You make me laugh at you. I am a ghost for real now, see, and you make me laugh. This is how I'll haunt you, and for the rest of your life, too. I'll be every laugh you hear. If you walk down the street and someone laughs, that'll be me. If someone tells you a joke and you laugh, it won't be you laughing but me laughing.
B: I need more chances.
E: No! (she cried out) No!
B: I've neglected you, yes, but I promise -- I promise this won't happen again. We will finish. I have the words in my head you've told me and I just need to get them down in the proper order and we can start a new session.
E: No! (she cried out) No!
B: You humble me. If this was your intention, you've succeeded.
E: I don't want to die.
B: This photograph is not you.
E: I don't want to die.
B: You will live beyond me. You will live long after I am gone.
E: But will I be good? Tell me -- will I be good, or good enough?
B: I'll write you so people will care. People will read you, and read you again, and again and again and again. You will be so filled with life. You will remind people of something inside of themselves. You will inspire people. You will make people cry, yes, and you will make people smile.
E: How can you decide what people will do. I'm saying this. I'm not asking this. How can you decide. You don't know.
B: You're right, I don't know.
E: This is all a terrible risk we're taking. You want to put me in places we can't even imagine. I'll feel naked. I'll be alone.
B: You might feel alone, yes. That's part of the bargain.
E: I don't want to be alone.
B: I will try to write you so you're not alone, but I can't promise you won't be.

*
Eleanor's Biographer lets go of the photograph. It lands at his feet, face up. He stares at the words, and inside his head, Eleanor is still crying out, "No!" -- and the word echoes and bounces and, well, it hurts. So he drowns Eleanor's voice until it is so distant, he can barely make out her whisper. From that whisper, he can bring her voice back, ever so slowly. It is necessary to regain control. He can change what she is saying.

He writes: The present will always overwrite the past.

What one does first is forget, ignore, disavow, destroy.

What one does next is make a new beginning. You cross out "Eleanor Died." You don't believe in photographs anyway, not really. You believe in the words. The words are the real photographs. You create the world you want to exist. It's your version of course. What people read -- it becomes their version. What people see inside their heads, coming from these words -- well, this is way more vivid than any photograph could ever be, if you write as though each one of them -- each letter within each word in fact -- is your last breath.
*

"You can't just own a stranger," Eleanor says.

2010-03-04T09:25:00.006-05:00

Eleanor says, Everybody thinks they know me. Nobody knows me. They want to think they do, because most people can be figured out so easily and it comforts them to think that I might be figured out so easily, but I'm not like that. You can't own a stranger because you think you know her. You think, that gives you some right -- some right to -- well, you just can't own a stranger.

*
(Eleanor's Biographer sits quietly. There's nothing to do but listen. For now, at least.)

*

"Even Inside Our Own Heads, We Make Typos"

2009-08-23T11:19:00.003-04:00

"Sometimes even inside our own heads, we make typos," Eleanor says.

*
She woke up early that day, and before her father knew she'd left the house, she was already a mile away, walking. Today was a day of embodiment. There was a world full of misplaced lives inside her head, and all around her as well -- a kind of misplaced life humidity so thick you can choke on it, breathe it in deeply and too fast, too all-at-once, choking on thoughts and dreams and to-do lists and loves and hates and did I forget to turn off the gas on the stove. During this walk at least, her body contained every single last missed connection from every last one of the latest styles and fads: the missed connections on purpose and the brokenhearted missed connections. It happened this way sometimes. As in, the answer comes first, like the TV show "Jeopardy," and then you spend way too much time figuring out what the original question was. Well, sometimes you miss what you never realized was there in the first place, you know?

*
She wanted some stranger to show up, out of nowhere, and take her hand, and walk with her. They wouldn't have to speak, not at all. In doing so, she could feel the touch of this other human being, this kind of closeness. The best thing of all was how the silence would protect her illusion, who she was, and perhaps, how missed she was (by somebody, she had to be missed -- it didn't make sense any other way), or how misplaced she was -- and not the embodiment of everyone else at all, not the whole wide big world, but one tiny misplaced life, one person, that's all -- one person. Eleanor Spain.

*
These other people seemed to know the destinations, and in such a hurry, too. They bumped into her. They made her feel part of a pinball machine. But the point was, she decided, the point remained, she decided -- this kind of reality at least, she decided -- was that as long as she kept moving -- well, point being, and scratch most of the rest of that thought -- she was alive, and there wouldn't be another girl to be the pinball, to replace her. If none of this made any sense to anyone else, that was okay too.

Well, okay, easy enough to say that was okay too. Yes, easy enough. But it would be nice to have maybe one person make some noise through the silence, and perhaps scream, and perhaps do something that was out of the ordinary and not what anyone else would do, but just like -- feeling. Really feeling. It could be one misplaced life, in addition to her own, and it could be like all of those missed connections people talk about in airy, what-if tones. Or the missed connection that defined all the rest -- the missing link of missed connections, if you wanted to see it in this way. As in, misplaced and missed aren't really so far apart from each other.

Eleanor decided she was an evolutionist. Which is the whole thing about connections (or connecting), missed or not, misplaced or not. Missed connections don't just happen by accident. There are no accidents. It's like reading a long story, and then forgetting it, except for the typo. This, she thought, was truth. That boiled down to almost nothing, your life can be one big typo if there's no spell check, and that's what people will remember.

*
"I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs." -- Zelda Fitzgerald

Three Words Between The Letters H & Z

2009-07-09T08:07:00.001-04:00

(Note: This was originally posted Sept. 11, 2008. It seems to fit better in this section of the scroll, however. -- Geoff)

("We are working through Eleanor's life stories," Eleanor's Biographer says)

Eleanor says, I am thinking of three words between the letters H and Z.

H and Z, she repeats. If you think about it, it almost sounds like a department store, but that's not what I'm thinking. Still -- okay then -- let's try it out, like this. H would be one of the old geezers who founded the department store, and Z would be the other old geezer. Let me work with this now, Eleanor says. We can call H -- Homer. We can call Z -- Zooey. Maybe Zooey isn't an old geezer at all, but she's somebody from a J.D. Salinger book. Homer can be the lone geezer, then, and Zooey can be the voice of reason, somebody young and beautiful but not married or otherwise involved or otherwise related to Homer. A business partnership, and a savvy one too, because Zooey had all of the money and Homer had the ancient connections, but he lost his money in the war, of course. One of the wars. Those forgotten wars, you know? H and Z would have opened its doors in the late 1970s sometime. By now, many years later, Homer has lost his mind, but Zooey can still run things from her assisted living facility. She's not the female version of an old geezer -- no no no, I repeat -- but she did have a horrible car-pedestrian accident. Zooey was the pedestrian. She was just trying to cross the street, like Margaret Mitchell, you know, of Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Except that Margaret Mitchell was killed and Zooey was only hurt and maimed. ("Only?") Zooey stayed up nights to read about pedestrians who did everything right, like look both ways, and then look both ways again, and then go with the green walk light. That was what she did. Then she read about cars that ran into crowds of people, intentionally or not. And then she read about the jaywalkers. Zooey got a lot of reading done. It was kind of funny, she thought -- Zooey thought, because here she was in a wheelchair with her legs useless, but she was so powerful because Homer had lost his mind, the old geezer, and the board members had to listen to her. Whatever decisions about the department store she felt like making. It could be so much fun at times, just to see them sweat. Oh but the fact was -- well, Zooey wished she had fallen from a horse, or had fallen down the stairs, as in, really, more like being pushed by a horrible violent ex-lover and getting the last laugh when she testified in court and sent him away to the big house. It wasn't remotely like that, of course. Accidents happen every day. The car that hit Zooey on a Tuesday could have run into a different pedestrian on a Wednesday and in the grand scheme of things, nothing much would be changed. There would be one more hurt and maimed person. Now, with all of her money, Zooey could have lived at home, with nurses caring for her, round the clock. She was too sensible though, that girl. She sold the house and invested the money, which only made her richer, and went to the assisted living facility because she knew she could meet people there -- people with stories. Zooey would always have the best story, because she could change it according to the person she met. As long as they have their minds, Zooey said often enough to her nurses. As long as they have their minds.

No. It happened differently. After some time, Zooey found herself attracted to the people who had lost their minds. They didn't know where they were. They lived inside memory vacuums. They lived in harmony with everything around them. They smiled when spoken to -- when spoken to, well, you know, as in who knows what world they were currently living in. If you can smile like that, in your different world, or worlds, who's to say you aren't happy-go-lucky.

*
Happy-go-lucky. Eleanor allows the word "lucky" to settle inside her head. I am thinking of three words between H and Z. No, lucky is not one of the words. Wrong! You lose! Next player!

*
Zooey was better than the word lucky, obviously ... this, the Zooey Eleanor made up, the Zooey who was named after Zooey in Salinger, the tragic (from the outside looking in) Zooey who chose to live around crazy, sick people because some of them weren't sad and forgotten. Some of them were still smiling after all these years, and would always be smiling. That's a very good thing, yes?

*
Eleanor thought of herself as Zooey, and then she thought of herself in one of those memory vacuum worlds. And this is what it was like. It was always sunny, but not too hot. There was a seashore. There were people having a grand old time at the seashore. Maybe it was the South of France, and maybe it was the 1920s, like with Fitzgerald and their friends the Murphys and the other wealthy and talented types who threw parties that lasted from one day to the next. There weren't any drunks -- just parties and the sunshine and the lapping of waves. If you walked down the beach a little way, you could find a quiet spot. You'd still be invited to the parties, yes, but in your quiet spot, for a few hours at least, you could stretch out (alone) and feel the sun across your body and listen to the waves, and hear the sea birds, and even some faint laughter -- laughter carried by the breeze to tickle your nose.

In your quiet spot, you could close your eyes but see the world. Absolutely stunning! This was freedom. This was being alive, whatever your circumstances -- however you got here.

*
Eleanor says, I am thinking of three words between the letters H and Z.

Eleanor says, Words can set you free.

Eleanor says, I need to be set free.

*
Eleanor says, I am thinking of three words between H and Z. Please don't guess "lucky." That's not one of them. I already told you. That's so done with. That's so gone. That's so ... not right. (But I wish it, sometimes. Luck. You know? If I can't have the three words, I mean.)

"Please," she says. "St. Therese," he says.

2009-07-07T12:32:00.005-04:00

Eleanor to her Biographer: I am saying Please, God quite a lot lately. I think I'm praying, but maybe I'm not, because you still haven't told me -- I mean, you haven't written me -- this part -- you know -- you haven't given me any information at all about what I do believe in. Do I believe in God? What kind of religion do I have if I do believe in God? Or is religion somehow beneath me, because I'm supposed to have such angst? I mean, is this whole concept about God or no God beneath a made-up character like I am? I just want to know, because we're getting so close to the end. I guess I need to know. Yes, I need to know, and you need to tell me.

Eleanor's Biographer: You favorite Saint is Saint Therese. I've told you this. I've written it down. So, it's a fact -- part of your life. But I don't know the rest yet, even as close as we are to the end. About your beliefs, your convictions. It might be that you just like having a favorite Saint, and there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of people have favorite Saints but don't really go for the idea of God at all. It's like history. You pick your martyr. Your favorite martyr. Kind of like that.

Eleanor: But you do know! You know!

Eleanor (after a pause, and in a whisper): I need to know. Please. Please, write this down for me, and don't cut it out when you revise me. Leave it in, whatever you decide to write. I just want consistency. It's so difficult right now. Maybe not for you, but for me it is.

Eleanor Wants A New Ending, She Says

2009-07-05T07:54:00.007-04:00

Excerpt. Discussion between Eleanor and her Biographer, about the process, leading to the end of her story.

Eleanor: I turned to the last page of my story. I know what your plans are. I've read the last line.

Biographer: Then you know.

-- It's not that I don't like the ending, but I want a new one is all I'm saying.
-- I expected you to say something like this. Why do you think I left the pages out, in plain sight?
-- I'm inside your head, stupid. I could have jumped ahead anytime. I just -- well, I guess I held back, because I was hoping for more.
-- You surprise me, Eleanor. By not jumping ahead. You know I write the endings before I finish the middle parts.
-- You underestimate me. I have terrific self-restraint. You could learn from me, you know.
-- I never underestimate you. You still surprise me, Eleanor. You have that power, which is why I wanted to write your story in the first place. Why I had to write your story. To get it right. And I'm still not done. The middle parts, remember. I need to finish those.
-- It's kind of funny, because I imagine you having all of the power. Even though I want the power. But you're human and I want to be human, and it's up to you to make me real, like my story. Getting it right.
-- What does a person say to a voice inside his head? Come on, Eleanor. You talk so much, sometimes I listen to your voice and I drift off, and I'm hoping that what you tell me will stick around in my subconscious.
-- I am everywhere, yes! And it's true, sometimes I whisper. And sometimes I talk in a low voice so you won't hear me. Sometimes I cover my mouth so you won't be able to make out what I'm saying. You can sue me if you want, I don't mind. You wouldn't win, but we'd have fun in court. I love the judicial system.
-- You like to play, Eleanor, this we both know. I almost think you're playing with me now, this nonsense you're talking.
-- I like fun and games, of course I do. But it's not nonsense. I am completely serious. And the judicial system does kind of suck, don't you think? But as long as I win, I'm okay with that.
-- So what's wrong with the ending? You say, it's not that you don't like it the current ending, but ... but -- what?
-- I want explosions.
-- Explosions.
-- I want car chases.
-- How do you suppose I write this kind of dramatic ending? It wouldn't make sense. We already have a dramatic ending that's going to knock people off their feet. Or out of their chairs. Or make them gasp on the subway, reading you. All those people riding the subway and zoning out to their books, and then, suddenly -- crash, boom, whatever.
-- That's just it, don't you see? Don't you understand? The ending, it makes sense. You say it doesn't, but it does. It makes too much sense, in a weird way at least. I want to have people read my story and go, Wow. I never expected so many explosions and car chases. What's up with that?
-- Anything else?
-- I want a musical score. I want you to write me with a beat.
-- You do like Kerouac.
-- I'm one of the mad ones, you know.
-- Okay, anything I've missed here?
-- (pause) I think I want more doughnuts. Definitely more doughnuts.
-- Just so I'm hearing you correctly, you want explosions, car chases and doughnuts?
-- People wouldn't expect that kind of combination. You could probably even keep what you have and just add the explosions and car chases. The doughnuts are the easy part.
-- So it's all said and done, and then we sit down and eat doughnuts?
-- And listen to the music. The music has to be just right. You need to get my story right, just like I've told you all along, but the music needs to be exactly right too. I want people to pick out their favorite songs and download them and put them on their Walkmans.
-- I'm not sure how many people out there still use Walkmans, Eleanor.
-- Well, they should. I guess I am half-Luddite or something. I like Walkmans.
-- Well, I'm not sure people will be able to download songs to Walkmans.
-- With all of the technology out there, why not? Even a half-Luddite knows this much. Anything is possible. And if they can't, it just proves my point that Walkmans are coming back. People need their cassettes. People forget they have all of their cassettes and then they have nothing to listen to them with. It's like having a door that used to lead somewhere and now it doesn't because people want new toys. People forget there's still a door there, but if they step outside, they fall. That's kind of crazy. It's not being prepared, is all.
-- How about this, Eleanor. How about you write your own ending, and I'll be your editor.
-- I'm not the writer. I'm the character. Your character. I can't write my own ending. That would be silly. It would be like, why have I kept you around all these years as my Biographer?
-- I think you just have, Eleanor. But I'm not sure about the car chases. Explosions we can probably do, and, really, you've made me hungry for a doughnut.
-- I hope it's strawberry frosted. Explosions, and then strawberry frosteds for everybody. (Eleanor smiles.)

Eleanor: "Take my life, and let it be."

2009-06-11T12:36:00.006-04:00

from the novel

note: the following three (3) posts are meant to be read in succession, as a kind of word triptych ....

Eleanor: If I had a lot of money, I might know what to do, because money is supposed to solve everything except for love, maybe. But the rest of it, besides love, money can solve, yes? So if I get my hands on some money and travel as far away as I can from here, I’ll be there, and there has to be a better place. I can start over. I’d bring my Biographer. No. I’d let my Biographer talk to me. On pay phones. I’ll find a pay phone and give him the number and he can call me back, but if he tries to trace the call or anything, I’m gone. I should be gone anyway. First I’m there, from here, and then I’m here again, except it’s another different place, different from all of the theres and heres I’ve ever known. I don’t even care if I get scared. I just want to find a motel room somewhere and buy lots of food at the grocery store so I’ll have my provisions, and then I want to watch TV. I’ll keep the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. I’ll pay them for a week ahead of time. I’ll say, no housekeeping, please, I’m fine, yes, I’ll be just fine, thank you very much. And I’ll watch TV and I’ll make my meals from my provisions and I’ll sit in the bathtub for an hour or maybe even two hours – with the TV on of course, and loud, so I can hear it from the other room – and I’ll soak my body until I’m like a raisin and then I’ll be so clean that if I think hard enough the good thoughts – the thoughts about all of the places I want to go and all of the people I want to become, because there are so many people I want to become someday, and this is different from wanting careers, you know, because it’s being different people entirely, like going from there to here to here to there to here and you get so confused sometimes but then you’re where you’re supposed to be all along – if I think hard enough the good thoughts, I will be cleansed. I will be clean. I will have washed everything bad from my body. When my skin gets like a raisin, it will keep the good stuff in and keep the bad stuff out. It doesn’t even matter what’s on TV, you know? Just as long as the TV is loud, and just as long as I have the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the front door, and just as long as I have provisions, I will be A-OK. I will be better than fine. I will be good. I will be good here. Right here. Not there – here. This is where I want to be. This is the exact right place. The rest of it, well, I’ll figure it out later, but for now, this is right here good want to be here good and there’s really no rest of it except for that. I can hear David Letterman talking. I am going to close my eyes now and sink down closer to the bubbles. It feels so good to be clean, you know? I mean – cleansed is what I mean - cleansed.

"All of the things you told me"

2009-05-27T15:21:00.009-04:00

Eleanor: I am thinking about all of the things you told me when I didn’t know any better. I am thinking you knew better. I am thinking I thought for the longest time you thought that I was thinking these were lies, but I know they weren’t lies. You wanted to tell me what you knew I would need to understand someday but you didn’t want to wait that long or you were afraid of telling me when I would understand because I would have questions and I might get angry or upset and instead you only wanted me to smile like it was okay –- it was all okay, what you were telling me. Or it was going to be okay. I don’t blame you, I guess. I might have done the same thing, maybe I would have. Maybe. But I don’t think I would have, now that I think of it, because it’s a cowardly thing to do, to disguise your words and your stories and make the world -– our world –- seem so normal, that nothing –- nothing at all –- was out of the ordinary. That when I grew older and could understand, maybe I would forgive you. I suppose you were hoping for that, weren’t you? I suppose you thought you weren’t hurting me by telling me the truth when I believed everything, when anything you said was golden. I wish you had lied. Did you think I would forget? Did you really? See the thing is this. I haven’t forgotten a word you said. If you had told me lies and pretty stories, I would have remembered those instead. You can tell a seven-year-old girl bedtime stories that are all about magical places and you can make her fall asleep dreaming that she’s something special or something because of all of the attention and because of the magical places, but didn’t you for one split second one moment one breath of remembering you were my father and I was your little girl and you don’t confess things to your little girl and you don’t use her like that just because you need to get it all off your chest and that maybe it feels kind of good to be able to tell yourself that yes you told me, and perhaps I would never bring it up again. I just hate the idea of you doing this to me.

I want my bedtime stories. I want the lies. I want to remember things I know could never in a million years be true, but make me smile anyway just because.

Eleanor: A Virus Is Not A Living Thing

2009-05-26T12:40:00.005-04:00

Eleanor to her Biographer: My words are nothing compared to your words. I don't know why I even bother speaking, really. I don't know why you take the time to listen, even worse. I feel like a virus. I am a virus. I have this all figured out. You know, how a virus is not a living thing, how a virus needs a host body or whatever in order to do any harm -- or even any good, I suppose, if a virus can do good. I'm a virus that's infected you, and you better watch out, because once I'm inside you, I can become two Eleanors or four Eleanors or as many of me as your body and mind will allow before you're no good to me anymore. I can kill you. I'm like a rock falling off a cliff. I'm not alive, but I move, and when I move, I am dangerous.

Eleanor says: I am so frightened of losing you. I am so scared that I will fill you up with too much of me that you will die.

Eleanor says: Sometimes I am afraid that you will die in your sleep, of natural causes, not even because of me, and I'll be left, by myself, or with all of these versions of myself, and I won't want to leave you for anyone else, so I'll slowly die too. I mean, I would die, if I were alive to begin with.

*
She walks into the courtyard. She is alone. The only movement is the water in the fountain. The warmth is the sun above her. She sits on a bench.

I'm not waiting for anyone, she says. (The audience applauds.)

I am like a flower that blossoms and you think, how beautiful she is, but you forget what I'm called, or you don't even know what I'm called, what kind of flower I am. It's not like you can go to the florist and say, A dozen of her, please.

You like me best when I'm shades of a color, or perhaps two complementary colors. You aren't one for the red roses, because they're so common, and besides, anyone can ask for a dozen red roses. You know what roses look like.

Well, I am nobody's red rose, sorry. (The audience gives a standing ovation. Encore, encore!)

*
Okay, okay. Let me say it like this. One upon a time, there was this girl. Let's just say she was me, for the sake of argument. She was a very patient girl. She would wait for hours on end. She would sit on a bench in some secluded courtyard and just wait. What is she waiting for? you might ask. And she might answer, I am waiting to be alive. I am waiting for life to catch up with me, because somehow, well -- somehow or somewhere -- at some instant, you know -- some time ago, life fell behind. I wasn't patient. I went too fast. I sped ahead. I didn't wait. I was impatient. Life could not keep up with me. Not the life I wanted, I mean. There were plenty of other lives along the way. It was like window shopping, you know? I could have had any of these lives. I could have gone inside, and said, I'll take that life in the window over there. Yes, the third window over. The window with the Aimee Mann music.

Well, I want Aimee Mann to write the soundtrack for my life. I want her to start with one sentence, one lyric. I want to be a virus in that first song and then I want to be inside the next song, and the next song, until I fill an entire record. And that will be my soundtrack.

*
If you want a simpler story, more easily understood, then listen to this. Once upon a time, there was me and there was you, and by mere chance or coincidence, we happened to be in the same quiet courtyard -- the one with that fountain. Except I did not see you on your bench, and you did not see me on my bench. So we just sat for the longest time, waiting. We both had grown patient. Too patient.

And then the clouds became dark, and the breeze picked up, and the storm moved toward us. We could see the clouds, and how fast they approached.

I took shelter by the door.

*
Perhaps you were always more patient than I was, because I was there first, at the door, and you were so patient that the rain had started to fall and you were sprinkled with the wet and when you stepped into my space, you realized you were not alone, and this startled you. You even jumped a little, I swear to God you did.

I saw you coming of course. I saw you, yes. I watched you, more like it, and I wondered where you came from. (This would be one entire Aimee Mann song in my soundtrack -- how you walked into my space.)

You smiled at me, and I told you the honest-to-God truth. Honest, I said, even before I told you. I told you, I am a virus. I am not a living thing, but I could exist inside of you. You don't want to be too close to me. You don't want me inside of you.

*
You said:
I have been waiting for you.
I did not see you, but I was waiting just the same.
I knew I would see you eventually.
I knew I would find you.
I knew we would be together.
We were meant to be together.
We are like two peas in a pod, you know.
We are like bees to honey.
But we are not, nor have we ever been, a cliche.

*
You said:
Once upon a time, I believed in everything.

You said:
Once upon a time, I believed in you.

You said:
Now you want to infect me, but I believed in you.

*
I felt the tears or the rain or whatever. I felt my face and it was numb. I could not believe you were saying these things. I could not believe how cruel you could be.

So I said:
I never believed in you. I'm sorry, but I didn't.

(And I was lying, of course. It was a big fat lie. But you knew it was a lie, didn't you? Because of your smile, and because of the way you took my hand, and because there was no amount of rain that could melt us.)

The Waiting Game

2009-04-26T13:30:00.004-04:00

Eleanor says: We are sorry for the (slight) delay in the completion of this project. We have 20 postings to go to reach 500, and we take this responsibility quite seriously. My Biographer and I have agreed that our next step is the make-or-break moment for us, so if you're stopping by now for more, please check back soon. This is a creative process, after all. Once we begin again, we won't stop until the project reaches its conclusion.

Eleanor says: I'm so so sorry about all of that formality of what I just said. It's one of those silly prepared statements. Blame it on my Biographer. He just wanted to be sure everything was okay and in place and all of that. If it was me saying that, I'd just go, we've gone fishing or something like that and stop by again and please don't be afraid to scroll down, because that's what this page is all about. Scrolling through the words. It's a kind of exercise for the eyes, don't you think? Anyhow, I just wanted to add that, so you wouldn't be worried that I wasn't me or something. Because I am still me and I always will be me, and that is that.
*

"... all the things you could have done"

2009-04-22T11:47:00.005-04:00

Eleanor to her Biographer: "Just think of all the things you could have done if you had stopped when you were batting 1.000."

Her Biographer looks at her. "That's not fair. When was I ever batting 1.000?"

Eleanor: "It was more than once. You only get so many chances."

The Voices

2009-04-14T11:10:00.002-04:00

There are all of these voices, and some, or at least one of them, is speaking truth, and some are just playing with me, speaking nonsense, and the others, or at least one of them, is my very own self-destruct button, and if I pick the wrong voice to listen to, I just might be pushing that button, and the end is the end. But I am a believer that truth must prevail, so I need to listen closely, and pick and choose, and always, always, continue forward. If I look back, the voices are right behind me, racing to see who gets to me first.

2 Hours, 40 Minutes

2009-04-03T06:09:00.004-04:00

March 5, 1999, a Friday. (Ten years and one month ago, give or take a few days.)

*
He positioned a camcorder on a stack of books. He drank vodka. He took two Tylenol PM caplets. When he was ready, he leaned forward and he pushed the record button. He rested his head on two pillows. The vodka made his head spin. The Tylenol PM made his eyes heavy. For 2 hours and 40 minutes, he slept.

*
-- Let's begin with the obvious. Why?
-- I needed to see myself. As I slept. I needed proof.
-- Proof that you were sleeping?
-- No, not that.
-- Proof that you were able to dream?
-- Of course I was able to dream.
-- I'm not talking about sleep dreams.
-- Of course I was able to dream, of course.
-- But you still needed proof, that you could.
-- I suppose so, yes.
-- You thought you had lost everything.
-- My world. My life. (He tries to muffle an uncomfortable laugh.)
-- Your life was maybe too complicated. Your life seemed so surreal.
-- My whole world was surreal. No. Listen, I was just tired. I was so tired, you know?
-- You couldn't trust yourself.
-- I had to see it. I had to see what I looked like.
-- You wanted to see if you were tortured.
-- Tormented is more like the word. I needed proof of the torment, yes.
-- So that's why you did it.
-- You know, you can think you're going places, and instead, you're sinking. You're not even running in place. It's worse than that.
-- Eventually the sinking stops. You hit a bottom.
-- No, I was still in motion. I was still sinking. There was nothing to stop my sinking.
-- Did you really lose everything?
-- Well of course nobody ever loses everything. But things do change.
-- Like evolution change?
-- I mean, sometimes it isn't evolving. It isn't that easy to define, I mean. Sometimes I guess it's just changing. And sometimes it goes too fast, and you have to find a way to step back.
-- And watching yourself sleep?
-- It took the thoughts from my head and put them outside of me. It gave me a sort of perspective I'd been missing. It allowed me to see, even with my eyes closed. But that wasn't real either, because I had to force myself to sleep.
-- So you could isolate your torment.
-- Maybe torture was the word after all. Maybe I was torturing myself. Or allowing myself to be tortured? Who could tell. Not me, I'll say that. Not me.
-- What happened then?
-- I didn't feel well. I didn't feel ... right.
-- Was this before or after you watched the videotape?
-- Both.
-- So how do you feel now, 10 years later?
-- Funny you should ask that.

First Day of the New: "The Entire World"

2009-04-01T05:34:00.007-04:00

(excerpt from the novel, Eleanor, by Geoff Schutt)

"The Entire World"

1.

Sometime between 3:45 and 4:30 a.m. she opened her eyes. She wasn't sure if she'd been dreaming and she wasn't sure why she woke up. She could see shadow images on the wall in the other room. The streetlamps outside were like a kind of spotlight, or a film projector after the movie ends and there's only the glowing white. She watched as the cat washed himself, his shadow reflected in the light. His shadow image was two or three times his real size. She kept watching for five minutes, or maybe it was 10, or maybe 15.

*
Her cheeks were wet. They were wet when she opened her eyes. She did not notice until this moment -- the five or 10 or 15 minutes later. And her cheeks were cold. She wasn't sure if she'd been dreaming. She wasn't sure why she woke up. It was completely silent. Except for the shadow image of the cat, everything was still.

*
She blinked her eyes hard and held them together. She wondered if there was anything left inside of her, because she felt an emptiness, but it was like feeling empty and feeling desire at the same time. It was confusing, this.

She wondered if this had been a nightmare, but she wasn't scared, and she didn't think she felt sad either. The desire convinced her that she was not sad, even with the emptiness.

She might have gone back to sleep, kept her eyes closed like this, and drifted back into whatever it was. But a single tear was collecting itself in her left eye. There was nothing in her right eye. There was indeed something left inside of her, and it felt warm, and when she opened her eyes, that single tear began to slowly make its way over her cheekbone. It temporarily stopped there, but collected itself again, and made it over the slight ridge. The tear was leaving behind its residue -- more of the wet, the warm over the cold.

She thought, This isn't a tear anymore. She thought, this is a teardrop. Then she thought No -- that although some tears come gushing out so fast in a flurry of weeping that some of them do in fact drop, but this tear was more of a slide. A tearslide. She decided she liked the word "tear" best.

*
She glanced beside her. There was enough of the indirect light from outside to see the bed, and the sheets and covers next to her looked slept in. She reached over to touch them. It was as though she were touching a body that wasn't there, but had been there, and that would be again.

The tear was almost to her chin, and she reached up the tip of her index finger to take it from her face. She tasted the tear, her tear. She imagined it would be salty, but perhaps there wasn't enough left in this tear, and so it tasted like nothing at all.

She thought, quite out of nowhere, as if the thought had been placed inside her head, The entire world is in this one tear.

And she thought, The word is misleading. Tear or tear. Or maybe it's the same thing. You tear a piece of paper. You can even tear your own heart open. (Or somebody else can do that for you.) And then you can tear up as in cry over why you're suddenly awake for no apparent reason, and try to figure out if something hurts, something that's physical or emotional or even both of them.

The entire world is in this one tear, she thought again, and then repeated the thought a dozen times; actually, many more than a dozen times. She wasn't keeping track. She was in fact repeating the line over and over: The entire world is in this one tear.

She even tried to alter the line slightly. The entire world is in my tear. But that didn't feel right, saying it like that. It was too close, too personal. She went back to thinking: The entire world is in this one tear.

*
The cat was still washing himself.

2.

She wondered if she had been the one sleeping on the other side of the bed and then later shifted, moved over, still asleep, to this side. She also wondered if someone else had been sleeping next to her and would be coming back.

Her face was cold again, but when she tasted the tear, it was still warm. She had it on the tip of her tongue. She didn't remember swallowing. She was curious about lots of things, and one of these -- whether the tear was still on the tip of her tongue.

It probably had been absorbed, she thought. She didn't need to swallow, because by the time she'd reached for the tear, and by the time she placed it on her tongue, it was very small, what was left of it.

*
There once was a girl who fell asleep without a single worry, without a single notion in her head, other than being sleepy and needing to close her eyes.

There once was a girl who woke up in the middle of the night, thinking way too much, curious, wondering.

*
My world is defined by what I feel, she was thinking.

And now, there were too many notions in her head. There were worry and insecurity and doubt, and there was also an odd sensation that didn't seem to quite fit. There was bliss.

*
I will never forget right now, she promised herself. I will never forget watching the shadow image of the cat. I will never forget squeezing that one last tear from my eye. I will never forget looking next to me on the bed and even though I am alone, thinking there is someone here -- was someone here -- asleep next to me. Perhaps, she thought, this is why I woke up. The person next to me got out of bed. I don't know where the person went. There were no other shadow images. None other than the cat, washing.

She was telling herself a bedtime story, her own word lullaby. She had decided how it should go. It was entirely imagined, or reality, but did it really matter, after all, which of these it was.

*
I know who you are, she thought, and you were sleeping here, yes. You were next to me, and I know who you are.

I am 15 years old -- old enough but not old enough.

I know who you are, really I do.

You made me weep in my sleep until I was almost empty. Then you left. But I fooled you. I had one tear left. I fooled you, because the very last tear holds the entire world's existence. But maybe you already knew that, and this is why you left when you did, so I could close my eyes hard and force the tear out of me.

Is this why you left me?

You know, she thought, you are part of this world.

*
I am thinking of a place. I am thinking of another country. I am thinking of Paris. If you come back to bed, will you take me to Paris? Will you walk the streets with me? Will you show me everything you remember about Paris? Will you pretend to know the parts of Paris you've forgotten, and show them to me anyway, even if we have to wander a while to find them. You could tell me your stories while we walk. I would be mesmerized, you know. I would, I promise you.

You could take me to the Latin Quarter. You could take me up that spiraling metal staircase to the floors and rooms above Shakespeare & Company. You could show me the writers working on their manuscripts. You will probably tell me this is a fool's work, to be writing down stories. But also, that telling stories is a whole different matter.

You will take me to that nightclub, Le Caveau de la Huchette. We will go downstairs and watch the people dancing, those girls in their very short skirts, and the boys who seem so filled with confidence that a dance, one dance, is like my tear, is like the world, you know?

And then, will you walk with me along the Seine? Will we hear our footsteps? It will be 3:45 or 4:30 in the morning, and as we listen to our footsteps, and as you reach for my hand, I very well may cry that one tear again. Except that this time, you will gently take it from my face, and you will put it on your tongue, and you will be the one who smiles.

And I will tell you: The entire world is in this one tear, so be careful what you wish for, but I'm hoping that you will wish for me, that you will say these words, but quickly now before that man comes over to bum a cigarette. You will say: Only you. I'll be smiling with you, see? We have the whole world inside of us. To release the whole world, all we need to do is break down the walls, is to be vulnerable, is to believe, like I believe you really were next to me, sleeping -- like that -- that kind of belief. Trust. And we need to allow ourselves the word with the same spelling, with the different meanings: tear or tear. Whatever happens, you know? Yes, yes -- the world is waiting for us, can't you see it now? It's out there -- waiting, and I will grow up soon. You might need to show me how to grow up. You may need to show me everything.

An Important Message From Eleanor

2009-03-23T11:20:00.003-04:00

Eleanor: It's quite a fine thing to be moving ahead at a decent rate of speed, and even sometimes going too fast for your own good, and it's another thing when you can see this big wall ahead of you that says, "500." I told my Biographer to slow down, to stop the engines for a little bit, but not to stop writing, of course. We will take the best of the best for these final postings, and though I cannot predict when they will begin, I have a pretty strong feeling that it's going to be very soon. To become part of the creative process, all you need to do is read. There are no entry or admission fees, and everyone is invited. My Biographer is in The Little Room as I speak, writing in his Moleskine notebook, and deciding on the strategy. The strategy after all is everything. The approach, I mean. He already knows my wishes (or my demands, depending on how you look at them). And I just wanted to let you all in on what's about to happen.

"If I Needed You"

2009-03-14T16:47:00.005-04:00

Eleanor: We are still here. We have not disappeared. We have not run away. Right now we are listening to Townes Van Zandt singing "If I Needed You" on repeat mode, and we are weeping, because we know how Townes died, and that maybe it didn't have to happen like that, you know? We have been thinking. We have been thinking about the world, our world. We have been thinking about what happens next.

E: We have 26 postings left, after this one. To 500. Then we're finished. Done. Over. What happens? We go up in smoke?

I don't know, to be honest.

E: Well, maybe I sort of need to know.

Some people want us to delete everything. That would be a kind of performance art, wouldn't it? Just hit the delete button.

E: Would I still exist?

You will always exist, Eleanor. You will exist long after I am gone from this world.

E: Why do people die?

Because they have to -- eventually, I mean.

E: But I won't die.

I don't plan on doing anything drastic. You might live forever. I don't know. Just one person has to keep believing in you. One person is all. Ten years from now, 50 years, 100 years.

E: Will I still make sense to people then?

I need to make sure of that. Yes, you will.

E: What will I do when you're gone?

You mean, when I die?

E: Yes. I'm afraid of that.

You don't need to be afraid.

E: But I am. Will you sing "If I Needed You" to me? We can turn off the music, and you could just sing it -- for me, and maybe I would not be so afraid anymore.

Eleanor & Martha Graham:

2009-03-05T12:29:00.004-05:00

"I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being."
-- Martha Graham

*
Eleanor asks: Was I a dancer in a former life? I mean, in some of those pages you discarded, in those files that got lost? (I always thought it was suspicious how you could just allow files to be lost. That isn't fair, you know. To me.)

Was I ever a dancer? Please tell me, because I guess what I'm really trying to say is, I want to be a miracle.

Here, I'll give this to you and you read this quote and you tell me -- am I going to be a miracle in the final draft? Because if I am anything less, I might as well be a a leaf on a tree. And a leaf, it dies. It falls. It dries up into nothing.

Hemingway: "I like to listen."

2009-03-02T13:31:00.000-05:00

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."
-- Ernest Hemingway

*
Any comment, Eleanor? her Biographer asks.

Shhhh -- I'm listening, she says.

Farewell, My Zelda

2009-03-01T15:56:00.005-05:00

"Like all pure creatures, cats are practical."
-- William S. Burroughs

*
Zelda was 18 years, 9 months old. She was indeed a pure creature. And she was practical in terms of self-preservation/ survival. She had to be practical with all of the moves she made with me -- a dozen or so since 1990, and through the up times and the down times. She adjusted to her surroundings. We were together.

Zelda (after Zelda Fitzgerald) was my beloved companion, best friend, a muse. She was always there for me, and I tried to be the same for her.

Zelda died last Friday morning, her last breath taken as I held her. She also got one final purr in. And I held her for as long as I could, until my body warmth was making her body warm. I couldn't help but feel everything that was once Zelda, in feline form, was slipping away from me, even as I held her tighter, closer.

A co-worker at the hospital I was working at in 1990 gave me Zelda. She was already a survivor. She came from a farm, and most of the other kittens met tragic ends. Not Zelda. She was one intelligent animal. She knew she had a long life ahead of her. And so she did.

Zelda arrived at work in a big brown box. She stuck her head out to see what was happening. She was so small, but her eyes told me the world about her. Those big eyes, always watching, always curious, always inquisitive. I left the office, took her home right away.

*
She had to grow into her eyes, but they remained wide open through the years as she listened to me talk about writing, or talk about mundane things like the weather. She liked the sound of my voice. She was quick to purr, and she showed unconditional love that taught me so much about how to love another human being. That may sound a bit strange, but we learn so much from so many sources -- if we keep our senses open. None of these sources should be denied.

To me, Zelda was as much human as cat. All of my Little Rooms I've had, my writing spaces -- Zelda wanted to be a part of them. She wanted to sit at my feet and listen to me click away at the keyboard.

*
Friday afternoon, I buried Zelda in a flowerbed in front of the house. I covered her with part of a blanket I had as a child. I sprinkled catnip over her. (She loved her 'nip, and when she needed more, I had to personally sniff all of the catnip at the pet store to make sure I found the most potent variety.) I also placed some flower seeds with her -- "Forget-Me-Nots." I doubt they'll grow that far under the ground, so this, a symbolic gesture. Later this Spring, I'll find the perfect plant to place above her.

Yesterday I went to the store and bought two red roses, one for Zelda, and one for the Little Room.

We are in mourning here, yes.

The rose I put atop her resting place seems to like it there. The rose inside the Little Room is nodding my direction.

Although she couldn't get around as easily these past months, Zelda never lost the kitten in her. I hope I never lose the child in me. She remained curious, and intuitive, and she also kept listening, and the longer I'd talk to her, the longer she'd purr, and we both knew we were going to be okay. She trusted me. I never took that trust lightly.

*
Damn it.

Zelda was supposed to be around when I had my first novel published. I am taking too long, perhaps. She gave me all of those years, and was with Eleanor from her creation as a thought in my head to a fully developed character on the page.

Damn it, I miss her.

See, we looked out for one another, and I am wondering if I failed her somehow. If I did, I hope she forgives me. I hope she's in a version of a better place. I do still feel her presence. I hope I always will.

*
Zelda -- you were loved. Deeply. I know I was loved, too. We set out to conquer the literary world, and we almost made it when you were alive. I always imagined you sitting on my first novel, quite content to rest there, to fall asleep, gently -- creating something poetic as you did.

I realize that not everyone will "get" this posting, but anyone who has had a faithful companion like Zelda will understand completely. For those of you who have emailed me about Zelda, I'm grateful. I'll do my best to make this grieving process productive. More now than ever, I am determined. I can't control the timing of the industry, but I can control my output, and in making Eleanor's story something "better than good."

*
I'm going to turn the comments off on this one. There is nothing more to be said, really. Just things to be felt.

Perhaps Zelda did what she was meant to do -- she showed me the way. This path I'm on -- this is the right direction. Thank you, Zelda. Thank you.

I need this grieving process to stop, Zelda, so I can celebrate you and your life properly.

An Unexpected Find: "Fate loves the fearless"

2009-03-01T05:14:00.008-05:00

"Fate loves the fearless." -- James Russell Lowell

*
Eleanor Spain: "You learn by losing. You learn by losing your parents. You learn by losing your identity. You win by forgetting everything you've lost and figuring out your own new beginning. That way you can be friends with life again. That way you can get back the parts you've lost, the parts that really matter. You learn by jumping off a cliff."

*
Eleanor's Biographer: I am sitting in May Baily's Place, which was once a bordello in Storyville, which is now part of the Dauphine Orleans, a hotel in the French Quarter. I have a drink. I try always to stay at the Dauphine when I'm in New Orleans.

There is a lending library of sorts at May Baily's. It's just as you walk in, or, just as you walk out. Not so much a lending library as a few bookshelves, and the books on the shelves are an odd collection of works that the barkeep tells me he mostly gets from the used bookstore across the street -- the books that are going to be thrown away.

If you want to leave a book and take one, it's okay. If you just see something you like, take it, that's okay, too. I am drawn to a red hardcover that has "Dailyaide 1991" on its spine. The front cover calls this "The Silent Secretary." The book is a daily planner, or a diary, or a bit of both. I take the book with me.

The first few pages are dated December 1990, and are written in red ink, and in French. I can make out a few words, and I keep going.

The first entry in English is dated Jan. 4, 1991. "The shortness of breath gets worse and now my kidneys are killing me at night. I must go to the VA and face the music or die here. Let's face it. I am almost 62, and that's quite a long run. G. will miss me but he'll adjust and take care of (illegible) and the kids. I did the best I could. If only he could get away from the Quarter. Those soulless dead people! I am breathing better but can't lie down. I choke. God help me and save me!"

The next entry isn't until March, and it's written in black ink, and from a different voice. On March 10, 1991, G. (I assume) writes at the top of the page, "I am writing this March 17, 1991."

G. continues: "Joe has been in the VA hospital since Feb. 2. I tried to get him in the VA weeks before Feb. 2, but Joe hates to go there. I suggested Charity or even Tulane but he is as stubborn as a mule! At 1:30 a.m. I get the dreaded call from VA. I was allowed to see him at 1:45. I was sure they made a mistake, but no. Joe, my soulmate, the person most dear to my heart, my one and only love, my tower of strength these past 21 years and two weeks and three days ...."

Next entry, Palm Sunday, black ink. "Started out at 8:30 to see Joe. Got the bus to Biloxi at 9:50 (33.95 round trip). Arrived in Biloxi 11:45. Took a cab to National Cemetery (10 dollars). Stayed with Joe for an hour. A gentleman whose wife passed away came to talk to me. I had trouble finding Joe because they did not put his middle name at the temporary marker. Home at 6 p.m. The TV died Saturday so I am listening to the radio station for the sight impaired. I love you Joe."

The final words, or at least the words at the back of the book -- most likely were written by Joe, probably at the same time be began to put down his thoughts, his fears. It's in red ink, and on the very last page, under the heading of "Memorandum." But I cannot make out the words. Again, I recognize the language -- French.

Throughout the book, Joe (red ink) has underlined some of the "quotes of the day." One of them is this. "The deeper the sorrow, the less tongue it has. -- Talmud." And that quote being underlined, there are so many empty pages. Most of the pages are empty in fact. There are no pages torn out. The book is intact.

G. must have held on to the book, for a while or maybe longer, and somehow it shows up at May Baily's, on a shelf mixed with novels and biographies. I feel it has been a lonely book for some time. Perhaps it came from the bookstore across the street. But you can't really sell something like this. Perhaps G. came into May Baily's and put the book on the shelf, hoping someone would find it.

There are plenty of mysteries that come with this book. Whatever happened to G., for example? And, why should I be the one to find the book, and take it with me, protecting it like a family heirloom -- but this is not my family.

I will translate the French someday, though I suspect it will tell me little more than I've already read. I will keep the book, because I sense more love in it than sadness. I sense heartbreak too, but only in terms of the dying part.

I wonder if some of the pages are written in invisible ink.

I wonder a lot of things.

But the book is calming to me, as though it really was meant for me, for whatever reason. There are lots of stories I could write about the book, turning life into fiction. For now, I'd like just to hold it. In my hands. To feel the warmth. For now, I want to keep it real, non-fiction. For now, I will be the guardian, the protector.

This was an unexpected find, but I suppose every "find" is somewhat unexpected.

*
Does fate really love the fearless? Eleanor says. Will you write the parts of me that you've lost -- that I have lost? Will you catch me as I jump off the cliff? We can learn together. I know we can. We can start today, can't we?

Of course we can. Of course, of course.

*
(for angiecd, "on topic")

Hunters & Gatherers: Looking To March

2009-02-23T11:45:00.003-05:00

Eleanor says: I am setting the tone and atmosphere for the rest of my story -- the creation of it, at least. The "process," as I am reminded. My Biographer and I will be spending much of this week going through archived manuscript pages ... some of them 18 years old, and some of them, collected -- several inches high, maybe even a foot (I need to find a yardstick, actually). We plan to begin posting again (our final 31 entries) in earnest beginning Sunday, March 1, so please mark your calendars and -- please -- please, please, please -- come back for a look. Thank you. (I mean this as an "invitation," as I am reminded to write.) (Perhaps I am only setting part of the tone and only part of the atmosphere, but whatever happens, you can see it unfold.)

Eleanor, on a tangent or two

2009-02-20T14:01:00.003-05:00

Eleanor: My Biographer and I are somewhere along the Atlantic Ocean, but he tells me we'll be back in The Little Room by next week. I have so much to tell you, I can't even begin here or I'll get carried away. As it is, I'm getting these words in while my Biographer is making friends with the seagulls. I suppose that makes sense, since his honorary Native American name is "Brave Falling Feather." But we all need to be brave, yes? -- whether we're falling or not, or whether we're feathers or not. I don't even really know what the name means, but he tells me that it means as much as any name, which is really quite a lot. Now I fear I'm going off on all kinds of tangents, and it's because of everything I have to tell you! I need to wait, for now -- I know, I know. Oh, one more thing before my Biographer notices I'm here, typing. We are getting so close to Posting No. 500. I shouldn't even be using up one of the precious final postings. I just wanted to let you know that we're okay, and that we'll be home soon, and that Gatsby's green light will show us the way. Okay -- if you want more words about our adventures, just scroll down. We don't keep too many secrets. It's all here. Most of it, at least. All of it so far, anyhow.

Eleanor Hands Over Definitions:

2009-02-12T18:35:00.007-05:00

Eleanor hands her Biographer a list of words, and their definitions. "We need to remember these," she says with conviction. "We can define the words, or let them define us. It's our choice, right? But everything will fit together through these, the good parts -- and even the bad parts."

Her Biographer looks at the list, sets it down, and says a simple: "Okay."

*
Serendipity - the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for. Etymology: from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip" - Date: 1754.

--------
Kismet - Destiny; fate.
---------
Destiny -
1. something to which a person or thing is destined: FORTUNE.
2. a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency -
synonym see FATE.
-----------
Fortune -
1. often capitalized: a hypothetical force or personified power
that unpredictably determines events and issues favorably or unfavorably.
2. obsolete: ACCIDENT, INCIDENT.
3. a: prosperity attained partly through luck: SUCCESS
b: LUCK - the turns and courses of luck accompanying one's progress (as through life).
4: DESTINY, FATE; also: a prediction of fortune.
------------
Fate -
1. the principle or determining cause or will by which things in general
are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do: DESTINY.
2. a: an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end.
b: DISASTER; especially: DEATH.
3. a: final outcome.
b: the expected result of normal development.
4. plural, capitalized: the three goddesses who determine the course of human life
in classical mythology.
synonyms FATE, DESTINY, LOT, PORTION, DOOM mean a predetermined state or end.
FATE implies an inevitable and usually an adverse outcome.
DESTINY implies something foreordained and often suggests a great or noble course or end.
LOT and PORTION imply a distribution by fate or destiny,
LOT suggesting blind chance,
PORTION implying the apportioning of good and evil.
DOOM distinctly implies a grim or calamitous fate.
------------
Providence - 1. a: often capitalized: divine guidance or care.
b: capitalized: God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny.

(Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Eleanor & Her Biographer: On The Road

2009-02-09T03:14:00.011-05:00

Eleanor and her Biographer are spending much of February on the road, collecting thoughts and words as they go. They plan to return to the refurbished Little Room, with the manic energy necessary for the final 34 postings on This Side of Paradise.

They have jointly issued the following statement:

"We thank you for reading, and sincerely hope that you will scroll down on this page -- if you have not already -- and read some of our adventures to date. This has been a year-long journey into the creative process. We plan to finish our ascent to Posting Number 500 with both drama and a bit of whimsy. We hope you will keep following the 'ascent' with us, right up to the wire. We appreciate your patience."

In addition, Eleanor has issued
her own statement:

"I collected some of my moondust (I finally remembered where I hid my ultra-secret stash) and traded it in for several more Moleskine notebooks. I'm not going to let a single word from a single thought get away from my Biographer and my story. I like road trips, though, and we've seen some magical things so far. Like the Full Moon, happening today. I've already collected enough new moondust to replace my stash, and it should last for the rest of the month. It's going to be moondust tea and inspiration and perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll get to interview my Biographer again (see January 22, 2009). He thinks I'm keeping things from him, which I probably am to be honest, but really, I mean, really -- nobody's ever truly an open book, and, well, he's been keeping a lot from me, this I know, and I need to see how what he's been keeping from me relates to his writing, and then, specifically, what it means for me, you know? Now, I have one last comment to make, and I hope that everyone reading this will pay special attention, because --."

(Please Note: The last section of Eleanor's statement is smudged -- most likely from the abundance of moondust. We regret that we have been unable to reach Eleanor to fill in the blanks.)

(Addendum: Eleanor insists that she didn't smudge anything and blames the messenger.)

*

"In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed."
-- William S. Burroughs

"The Little Room" -- Reconfiguration

2009-01-31T18:23:00.009-05:00

Eleanor says: My Biographer and I are reconfiguring The Little Room, to ensure that the feng shui energy we need for the words is in the absolute, ideal alignment. We are also cleansing the room, and getting rid of anything that might distract us from the goal -- which continues to be the conclusion to my story, Volume One.

It's that perfect time of Winter, when the clouds open just a little bit wider and allow us to see everything with more -- well -- clarity. This is our window, our precious time, and as we are now more than 460 postings toward No. 500, we need to make each of them count. Please stay tuned, please, won't you? -- and meanwhile, you're welcome to scroll down, at your leisure. These 460-plus postings are all on one long page, remember. And my Biographer would say this, so I am going to say it as well: "To the words!"

"I write and I understand."

2009-01-31T18:16:00.002-05:00

"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand."
-- Chinese Proverb

On Richard Brautigan's Birthday:

2009-01-30T10:16:00.003-05:00

"All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds."
-- Richard Brautigan

*
Eleanor wants to fish for trout today, on Richard Brautigan's birthday.

"And I also want to look into the clouds, and see the faces of everybody living there," she says. "I wonder when typewriters will begin falling from the sky? Everybody knows that words float."

Guest Poet David Wayne Dunn:

2009-01-29T21:16:00.006-05:00

Guest Poet David Wayne Dunn, one of Eleanor's favorite writers, offers us a new poem for the "Save Me" scroll from his studio in Big Sur. Thank you, David, for once again sharing your work with us.
-- Geoff
*

"wind from the moon"
by david wayne dunn

wind from the moon
transfixing the trees
life in winter when the days
dwindle and the light beckons
golden upon the face of the world
day moon upon the faces of the beloveds
everywhere it is present a glance
a finger a leg a smile
a bird somewhere a tree waving
or a sea stirring the heart
of a need the world is pregnant
with want of you

copyright dwd 2009

*
David Wayne Dunn lives and works in Big Sur, California. You can check out more of David's words and images here: http://www.myspace.com/davidwdunn
*

Alfred Lord Tennyson:

2009-01-28T13:58:00.002-05:00

"I am a part of all that I have seen."
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson

*
Eleanor Spain: "I am part of all that have seen me, or read me, or listened to me whisper in a breeze. I want to linger for as long as I can. I want to find the beauty in the pain, but never pain in the beautiful."

"We stop being random -- stop being numbers."

2009-01-26T21:18:00.005-05:00

Eleanor: This is just one of those things, like numbers, like random numbers, you know? I mean, how numbers follow patterns but they're still random, like the lottery, like those little white ping pong balls bouncing around in the machine and what number pops out after the next number after the next number, well -- if you look at yesterday's numbers and tomorrow's numbers, you're sure to see at least one or two duplicates, but if you look at two or three days ago, you won't see any duplicates, unless you are comparing that day with the day after or the day before. But then, on very rare occasions, one number can go from day one to day three, and then repeat on day six, and come up a dozen times more in the next twenty bounces in the machine, and then after that, not bounce out for weeks or months. This is just one of those things that seems like it's random but you start noticing the patterns, and if you notice the patterns, you can follow them -- the patterns -- are you hearing me? -- you can follow them until they tell what the missing pieces of the puzzle are, or what the missing last sentence is, or even what the beginning sentence should be. You can work the patterns forward for backward, it doesn't matter, because random thinks both ways. It tries to trick you. And people, they know this trickery, by God they know, even if they don't think they do. Just follow me a moment on this. I mean, how many times you hear somebody talk about a baby being born. And somebody in the family will say years later, or sooner: your number was called, and so you arrived, and we've been so happy ever since. Or -- it works at the end, this trickery, with dying. Your number has been called, sorry buddy but you're a goner, dead as a doornail -- or dead as the random number that came up and won't ping pong bounce out again for another three months. By then -- and this is what I'm getting at -- by then -- well, by then ... it's not your random number anymore. It's somebody else's. So you need to look out for the numbers and notice the patterns and see the beginnings and the endings and take good care, because if you see all of this -- if you are so intuitive and notice -- you just might be saving somebody's life, and that even might be your own life, and if you're a writer, for example, it might even be the character you've created. Because she has a number too, you know? But you need to remember than in all of this randomness with all of its patterns, that eventually the numbers, like the character you've created, or the person you know or the person you are -- well, everybody -- I mean, we -- have -- a -- name. We stop being numbers. Right then and there. We stop being random. We stop being part of the pattern, part of the machine. And then -- that's when we start being, you know? I mean, being, you hear me? Being!

Anton Chekhov:

2009-01-25T18:32:00.001-05:00

"If you cry 'forward,' you must without fail make plain in what direction to go."
-- Anton Chekhov

Robert Burns Day & The Chinese New Year

2009-01-25T11:55:00.003-05:00

Eleanor says: My Biographer is a bit under the weather, and my emergency stock of moondust for the moondust tea is depleted. I don't know what happened, and there's not another Full Moon until next month! Still, I plan a big celebration for Robert Burns Day (today) and the Chinese New Year. (Tonight is New Year's Eve.) We'll be enjoying some Ramen noodles with a couple of fortune cookies from my collection.

Thank you, everybody, who has been reading and commenting on the recent interview I conducted with my Biographer. Perhaps my questions weren't tough enough, or perhaps I asked questions that touched a nerve, and that's why he's not feeling so well. In any case, I'm determined to get him back to good health and writing again. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again -- we have a lot of work to do, and many words to write before we sleep.

Where Are We?

2009-01-23T16:53:00.005-05:00

"I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then."
-- Lewis Carroll

The Interview: Eleanor & Her Biographer

2009-01-22T02:55:00.005-05:00

Eleanor: I think it's time that I interview you, my Biographer, for the record.

Biographer: For the record.

Eleanor: Truth. Your version of it, at least. What you consider the truth.

Biographer: We can try this, sure. Ask whatever you want.

Eleanor: No questions are off limits?

Biographer: None. I might choose not to answer, but you may ask anything.

Eleanor (smiling): Okay then, here we go. Seatbelts fastened? Okay, okay. I have lots of notes. I've been keeping tabs on you, you know.

B: For more than 18 years, yes, I know.

E: You talk about your Little Room, but you like the exotic. You like the adventure.

B: I'm not sure how to answer that one.

E: Well, examples then. You were married once in Rome. You honeymooned once in Iceland. Your favorite cities are Paris and Dublin.

B: Okay, yes.

E: You've always said that once my story is finished -- really finished, as in, this is the correct version of me, you're ready to die. You will have nothing left to accomplish, you say. I am your epic, your opus, your masterpiece -- if you have a masterpiece in you.

B: I've said these things. I'm not sure you can take anything at face value. But yes, I do keep trying to get your story right, and I know I can't leave this world until I do.

E: So what you're saying is -- I'm to die for! (Eleanor giggles.) To have my story written and published and have people say, wow, this is pretty darn good and we should keep this in print forever.

B: I think that you're the star, Eleanor. I'm just a player in this, a conduit for something larger, and that something is you, plain and simple. And the story, the themes I want to address with your story. I do think that you deserve to stay in print. And I think it's up to me to make sure I write you well enough that it happens this way.

E: How many pages of me do you suppose you've written -- to date, since 1990, when you say I first climbed inside your head?

B: I have no idea. Thousands. Lots of drafts. You've already lived many lives, and most of those lives were all wrong. Completely wrong.

E: But I remember each one I lived. You can't just write me, and then delete that part of me. It would be like asking you to forget parts of your own life, yes?

B: I suppose.

E: You spent nine days in Paris, by yourself -- this was your first trip there, and you barely spoke a word to another person. You slept in the afternoon. You sat on the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower and ate your lunch. You felt the sun on your face. You couldn't believe that you could close your eyes, and open them, and see the Eiffel Tower. You thought, this is what's pictured on calendars, not real. What's real is mundane and repetitive. It's not the Eiffel Tower. You walked the streets long after the Metro shut down for the night. You returned to your hotel when the garbage collectors were just beginning their routes.

B: I could hear my footsteps on the street as I walked. I could hear my footsteps echo, in fact. Even Paris sleeps sometimes.

E: The bums -- the homeless. They always wanted your cigarettes.

B: And I didn't smoke! But in Europe, everyone smokes. So I bought cigarettes, just to give them out when somebody asked.

E: There was a club in the Latin Quarter you loved. You liked to watch the pretty girls in their short dresses while they danced to swing music.

B: Le Caveau de la Huchette. The doorman didn't speak much English, but he let me in for free as long as I promised to get drunk. He took pity on an American who obviously wasn't your average tourist.

E: What about Notre Dame, the first time?

B: I was finished with the night, I was drunk and stumbling along, and I wanted to walk on the other side of the Seine for a change, so I crossed a bridge, somehow made it to a bench. There were a couple of others there. Nobody talked. It was too late for talking. I looked up. It was Notre Dame. It felt surreal.

E: You wrote entire chapters about me, about me and my father, Jay Spain, visiting Paris. What happened to those chapters?

B: Deleted. I lost the hard copy, too, I think. That was a few years ago.

E: You did the same thing with Dublin, except for that trip, you had me visiting with a girl named Mary, and Mary was my lover. Was I old enough to have a lover?

B: Those were mistaken attempts to tell your story. I didn't get it right.

E: But I loved that trip! Mary was kind -- I didn't care that we kissed. I was more interested in being in Dublin.

B: I never had you visit Rome, or London, or Madrid, or Morocco. I was selective.

E: You also had me in a jacuzzi room with Mary in Upper Sandusky, Ohio -- at a Comfort Inn or something. I remember that. We stole my father's credit card and were charging everything. Mary was seducing this guy we met, so we could steal his money. We didn't know when the credit card would be cut off.

B: You remember too much, Eleanor. It was all wrong though -- you were never meant to be in those places, not for the final draft.

E: But I was, and I can't forget any of it.

B: I wrote chapters about you going to college, too.

E: Even though my story is supposed to end when I'm 17 -- 18?

B: I guess I was thinking more than one book. Or maybe I was thinking, you needed a back story and a front story. I had to know what kind of person you would grow up to be, so I could write the earlier parts.

E: You wrote me as a killer once, too. Before we heard about school shootings on the news like this is so routine. Before it became so common, and I know it's horrible to say that. But you made me ahead of my time, and not in a good way either, walking into my school and taking hostages, and then that reporter from Rolling Stone visiting me in prison to write my story.

B: He would have been your Biographer in that version.

E: But I'm not a killer. I don't like guns.

B: I don't like guns, Eleanor -- so, no, you're not a killer. No one will ever see that draft of your story, I promise.

E: When did you decide on the doughnuts?

B: Nobody who's reading this is going to know what we're talking about!

E: That's what makes it fun. There are doughnuts in my story, in the version you say is the real story of me.

B: Yes. Your favorite flavor is strawberry frosted. We can say that much.

E: I like sweets, I do.

B: You like to drink, too. That hasn't changed. You always drank too much, too early in life. I'm not sure why I did that -- why I wrote that.

E: Because you were no rebel when you were young.

B: (Laughs.) I didn't have my first beer until college, but I made up for it. In high school, it was the girl I was dating, who didn't drink, or the beer and parties and the rest of it. I guess I chose the girl. I'm always choosing the girl, aren't I? Sometimes it gets me into trouble. But for you, Eleanor -- you get to experience all of it at once. Sometimes too much. You live through me, and I live through you -- a weird sort of arrangement.

E: How do I know that this is the version of my story that's going to stick with people, that's going to resonate? How do I know that this version of my story will stay in print, or that anybody will want to publish it?

B: The good stories -- the good words -- they eventually find a home. You will always have a home, Eleanor, but eventually, the world will be your home. I have to make that happen, if it takes me the rest of my life. So, no, I can't die before the world sees you and loves you. Or understands you. Or gets you.

E: Well, anyhow -- let me see, I have so many questions left. We've barely scratched the surface of what I want to ask.

B: We should get back to your story, not mine, and not all of the versions of you that didn't work out.

E: Sometimes I miss Mary.

B: Maybe she'll make a cameo appearance.

E: I'd like that, if you could manage it.

B: Are we ready to get back to the new words?

E: I want to hear more about Iceland, and what it was like getting married in Rome.

B: Those were other lifetimes for me, Eleanor. Those were my personal stories that didn't get lived right. I'm evolving too. My story isn't finished. We're on parallel paths in this thing.

E: The right story, the story you want people to remember you for. Not the literary biography, you mean.

B: There's plenty of literary biography. I'll leave that for somebody else.

Eleanor Wonders:

2009-01-21T10:01:00.004-05:00

"I am full of all kinds of interior monologues," Eleanor says to her Biographer, "but how is that possible, when I'm supposed to be your interior monologue? Am I my own person, or not?"

Thoughts are noisy tonight.

2009-01-20T23:04:00.007-05:00


"The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak."
-- Frederich Nietzsche

*
And so, here we are, Eleanor's Biographer says. (Or thinks. He isn't sure if words have actually been spoken. Thoughts are noisy tonight.)

First, I will tell you what it was like, growing up inside your head, Eleanor responds, out loud or in a thought. In any case, the air has been punctured and begins to leak.

Then, she says, after that, she says, I want you to change certain incidents -- some details.

The air is making its own sounds, at first like a balloon slowly bleeding, and then like a train traveling leisurely down the tracks.

*
The Moleskine notebook is out, the pen at the ready, and the hand steadied by a shot (or two) of Evan Williams whiskey.

Make that three shots of Evan Williams, as Eleanor keeps counting her fingers, from one to five, and then five to one -- just one hand counting the fingers on the other hand, back and forth like this, as the darkness becomes like a heavy wool blanket and the punctured air -- well, it begins to smell of oranges. The sweet, juice oranges -- the kind with lots of pulp. (Not the ones you buy at the grocery story, big and pretty but hollow. These are the small, ugly oranges with spots on their skin to discourage you; yet inside is a tall glass of nectar. This is the good sticky stuff with all of the vitamins -- to help you remember, Eleanor says, somewhat abruptly, what you most likely have forgotten.)

In Which Eleanor Quotes Jane Austen

2009-01-19T22:30:00.003-05:00

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
-- Jane Austen

*
Eleanor to her Biographer: You understand now why I've been a just little bit quiet these past few days? I'm not sure how to say what I need to say next. Please -- give me a little more time, okay? That is, unless we're like so running out of time that you're just going to give up on me -- you know, walk away, put me on the shelf, whatever. But you just need to understand why it's been like this -- the silence, I mean -- my silence.

I'll be ready when you are, Eleanor, her Biographer replies.

You already know, don't you? Eleanor says.

William Stafford:

2009-01-17T10:19:00.002-05:00

"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken."
-- William Stafford

"I am so frightened," she says.

2009-01-16T21:23:00.004-05:00

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."
-- Charles Dickens

*
I need to be brave now, Eleanor says, and the truth will come with being brave, I'm sure of it. I am going to start sending out postcards to complete strangers, and ask them, Will you be brave with me? Will you tell me what's in your soul? Will you write it all down for me, so I know you're serious?

Eleanor says, I want to read your handwriting. I want to know you, so you can know me.

Eleanor says, Nothing's real, unless it's in writing -- unless it's in the writing you can only do with your own hand, with a pen or pencil. I want to feel the texture of your words. I want to feel your honesty. I want to feel that it's going to be okay, you know? These are tough times, so why should anybody care about me? I know what you're thinking. I know you're thinking that I am discretionary. You want bread and wine. You don't want me. You can't afford me, you'll say -- even if I offer myself up for free. You will be too suspicious. You will say, Nobody gets anything for free.

Eleanor says, My Biographer is keeping count of these postings, and he tells me we're getting closer and closer to the final chapter. And what I want to know is why there has to be a final chapter to anything? I want to begin. I don't want to end. I want to begin before the beginning. I want a prologue. I want to make me last as long as I can.

Eleanor says, I want to say Hello, not Goodbye.

Eleanor says, I wish I had something more profound to say right now. You say you get me but do you really? I don't want to be mean. I want to be reassured. I want to be tucked into bed at night. I want to hear the birds sing when I wake up. I'm so tired, you know? I've stayed up non-stop for months now, and I am so tired of staying up.

Eleanor says, I want to travel the world, and learn everything about everything. Then I want to sit on the street corner, against a wall, with a handwritten sign beside me. I'm not asking for handouts. I'm asking you to tell me what I don't know, even after traveling the world and learning everything about everything. I want you to show me your heart, so I believe you. I want you to see me.

Eleanor says, It's no fun being invisible. Not anymore. But how can I make you see me? And what will you see, when you look at me?

Eleanor says, I am so very afraid you might be disappointed, and never come back again. How can I ever live up to your expectations? I am expecting too much of myself probably. I am expecting too much of my Biographer, probably. You have to see me, like right this moment, and you have to know that right now, this very moment, I am shivering. But I'm not cold or anything like that. I am shivering and I do not like this feeling.

Eleanor says, What do you do when you shiver and have goosebumps and it has nothing to do with being warm, but everything to do with being -- how do I even tell you this? How do I say it? How do I let you know?

Eleanor says, My heart doesn't bleed blood, that's my big problem you see. It bleeds words. Do you see the words? Just look down at the pavement, where you're standing. There are my words. I am bleeding them. I need you to read me. I need you to read all of me. I need you to make sense of me.

Eleanor says, I am so frightened. I'm brave as brave can be, but I am also scared to death. I hate that word -- death. I hate it. I am a warrior. I am in complete control. Why should I be so frightened then? You tell me. Please -- you tell me, okay? This -- hurts. Those people who keep walking by and ignoring me -- they are stepping on my words, my blood, my life. They don't even realize what they're doing. They are so damn oblivious.

Allen Ginsberg:

2009-01-15T13:30:00.003-05:00

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."
-- Allen Ginsberg

*
"Allen Ginsberg gets me," Eleanor says. "He knew the honest-to-God truth and he made it happen and then he made it keep on happening, and that's even more amazing. And all of that -- well, that's what I aim to do."

"Greedy"

2009-01-14T13:58:00.003-05:00

Learn Chinese -- the word for today is "Greedy."

Eleanor shakes her head, No.

*
Her fortune reads: "Joys are often the shadows, cast by sorrows."

She turns up "The Weeping Song" even louder. Nick Cave is screaming in her ears. Eleanor finds a release in his screaming, but she keeps quiet herself. The day is still early.

Eleanor Smiles

2009-01-14T10:19:00.003-05:00

Eleanor is listening to "The Weeping Song" by Nick Cave, on repeat, on cassette, on her Walkman.

Eleanor is listening, and now she smiles. I know these people, she says. I know the fathers and the mothers and the children. The ones who got away, they live with me in The Spirit House.

*
Eleanor has decided to become a post-Luddite-Luddite (she's working on the terminology), in which she can keep using her older (but still very functional) technology, and start a trend backwards, when people weren't so caught up in the newest this or that -- when you could paint a picture or read a book or write a letter and put it in the mail, or watch TV in black and white, or listen to the radio with lots of static and you really need to pay attention, too, because you're doing half the work, she says.

Eleanor is at peace with her world today.

She's still listening, and she's still smiling.

Sylvia Plath:

2009-01-10T05:46:00.002-05:00

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."
-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 8

Walt Whitman To Eleanor:

2009-01-10T02:59:00.004-05:00

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes," Walt Whitman writes.

Eleanor shows this to her Biographer. See? she says, see?

Her Biographer remarks, Walt Whitman is Walt Whitman, and you, Eleanor -- are you. There's only one Walt Whitman, and there's only one Eleanor.

You sound so familiar, Eleanor says, a fake yawn, hand to her mouth several times like an obscene gesture of the obvious. So familiar, she says, but I'll tell you what. I'm going to grow a white beard and write poetry all day and all night and totally contradict myself but that's going to be okay, because I am filled with everybody. I am multitudes like Walt Whitman!

In fact, Eleanor continues with no small measure of bravado -- who's to say that I'm not the Biographer, and that you aren't MY character?

(She is dancing about like a ballerina. She dances wildly, provocatively. She dances a kind of seduction, but this is all about the words. It's always all about the words.)

Please do write my story then, her Biographer says. In fact, I dare you to.

*
They prepare to drink Moondust tea, and Eleanor's Biographer knows this could knock him out for a few days, if it's like last month's brew. But so it goes -- so it goes, indeed, he thinks, on Full Moon Day.

Herman Melville, Mighty Themes, Moondust

2009-01-09T05:51:00.007-05:00

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme."

-- Herman Melville

*
"I do not believe that I am a small story. I will not accept being a small story," Eleanor tells her Biographer. "I do not believe that I am a small book, either. I believe that I am timeless. I believe that whatever my theme is, it has to be timeless too -- and it has to be a big, big theme. Don't you agree?"

Eleanor goes on: "So, Mister Biographer, what is my theme? Or are you going to keep that part a secret from me? I hope you realize that it isn't up for your character to tell you, you know. I'm not the director. I'm the star. And I don't care how much work it takes for you to get me right. What's important is that you do get me right. You can't argue with me on this. You know how right I am even saying these words. You know it. I know you do."

*
Eleanor reminds her Biographer that the first Full Moon of 2009 is almost here. At 10:27 p.m. (ET) on Saturday, January 10, Eleanor will once again be outside, bare feet on the wet grass, collecting Moodust as it sprinkles down, in that moment just before it lands. "Like snowflakes," she says, "except that pure Moondust never melts. It's like energy. You cannot destroy energy. You can only change it into something else."

Anne Lamott & Eleanor:

2009-01-06T15:26:00.003-05:00


"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little."
-- Anne Lamott

*
"My longing is to be so real you could slap me in the face and I'd feel it, or you could kiss me and I'd feel it, or you even could ignore me -- and I'd feel that too. My longing is to be so real that you and everybody else will never take me for granted. My longing is to be the girl version of Jack Kerouac. My longing hurts sometimes. I think my longing is more real than I am -- but I vow to catch up. My longing is to be the girl version of Valentino. I want to take my longing and satiate it with my story. My longing is to understand why this all isn't happening faster. I need to know right now, you know? -- as in everything. And then I can try to understand why it has to be the way it is, whatever it is. My longing is to be the girl version of Tom Waits. And I will say this, for the record, that if you ignore me, you'll never be rid of me. If you slap me in the face, I will slap you back. And I will say this, also for the record, that If you kiss me, I will kiss you in return. My longing is like the sun. It burns, even after the sun has set. My longing is to show you everything I am capable of being. My longing is to surprise you -- in ways I do not know yet - how could I know? My longing is to have my longing not hurt so much anymore, you know? My longing defines me, and it tears me apart and keeps me whole. My longing makes me desire you -- really want you -- your company, your companionship, your listening, your talking. My longing makes me trust you to trust me because there's no other way. I am not afraid of my longing. But my longing is ferocious, like a grizzly bear! My longing is strong enough to frighten away the nightmares. My longing is that you will never leave me, that you will never make me run after you. My longing isn't stalking you, but it clings. It holds on, my longing does. My longing is like a disease that needs the most powerful drugs to cure it, and even then it might only be in remission, because my longing isn't perfect. My longing is to be imperfect, so you will love me even more. My longing is to jump off this damn pedestal. My longing is filled with contradictions, but that's okay. My longing is to have a complete world. My longing is to have so much to do that I'm actually bored. My longing is for excitement and adventure. Do you get me? Do you get that my longing is inescapable? Do you get that my longing is like that star you're looking at, the one twinkling in the sky. My longing is to explode like a firework, and make you open your mouth and eyes and ears in awe of my fancy colors and the way I sparkle and how I fall to the ground and then become invisible, like being part of the dirt. I have so much to tell you that my longing is overwhelming. Do you get now that my long is ferocious? Did I say that already? My longing is ferocious! Yes, it is. Did I say that already? I'll say this then. My longing is infinite."
-- Eleanor Spain (as told to her Biographer)

Andre Gide:

2009-01-04T04:23:00.001-05:00

"The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say -- because they were too obvious."
-- Andre Gide

Eleanor says, "You need to love me like this."

2009-01-03T15:07:00.005-05:00

Eleanor hands her Biographer her book of Shakespeare's Sonnets. She has a page marked. "You need to love me like this," she says. "Everything I told you, everything so far -- it won't mean anything unless I know you love me like this."

"Your insecurities are showing, Eleanor," her Biographer replies.

"So what if they are?" she says. "And anyway, who says they're insecurities. And -- you know, who's to say that these aren't your insecurities, not mine, that you aren't reading too much of the wrong thing into me, that just when I think you understand -- I start to think that ... maybe you don't."

The thin trail of smoke from the incense burns their eyes.

"I love you," Eleanor says. "I love you -- like this. Like these words. So why can't you just accept something I say without asking another question?"

Eleanor is waiting for him to say it. For her Biographer to say, Eleanor, you're just a made-up character. Inside my head. You aren't real. You'll never be real. You'll never be human. Anything to shut her up. For good.

Eleanor is waiting for him to say it, but he doesn't, of course.

And her Biographer is thinking, Eleanor, if you only knew what your words, the words about you -- your story -- what your story -- means to me -- how it's keeping me alive -- if I could tell you this, if I could -- would you understand? What you mean to me. How you are keeping me alive.

Eleanor blows more of the incense smoke into his eyes, enough to irritate them thoroughly, enough to draw moisture.

"I can make you cry but I can't make you love me?"

And still, her Biographer remains silent, because something hurts, and he can't explain what exactly.

*
"Sonnet # 116"
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

T. S. Eliot:

2009-01-01T10:15:00.003-05:00

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
-- T. S. Eliot

Days 25-28: Eleanor's New Place

2008-12-31T13:08:00.005-05:00

Eleanor opens her fortune cookie. You know the routine. Break the cookie in two while still inside the plastic, then gently pull out one half of the cookie before reading the fortune, eat that half of the cookie, read the fortune, then eat the second half of the cookie to complete the deal. Good fortune or bad fortune, once you break the cookie, you make the commitment. There's no turning back. It's like a contract.

Here goes.

Eleanor's fortune for this, the final day of 2008, is: "Others take notice of your radiance. Share your happiness." Lucky numbers 8, 20, 22, 42, 45, 48

*
I want to start a new place, Eleanor tells her Biographer. Not a new world, she clarifies. Not a new home either. A place -- where anybody is welcome, but nobody's allowed unless they know why.

Eleanor's Biographer writes none of this down. He's already drinking some of the cheap (inexpensive) Champagne he's saved for later. Later can be now. Later can be any time from this moment forward. He is thinking this, almost as an apology or an excuse, but he doesn't say a word of it to Eleanor.

A new place, is what he says, quietly, after a couple of sips. This is the California Champagne. The fake "American Champagne." The label looks elegant. "Cook's Grand Reserve." Each bottle of Grand Reserve has a nip of brandy to give it that delicate aftertaste. Check out the website for yourself. It used to say so right on the bottle, couple of years back. The brandy part. Now Cook's keeps it off the label. Eleanor's Biographer finds this curious, but it doesn't really matter.

A new place, he repeats. Tell me about this new place.

Oh, don't worry, she says. It wouldn't mean the end of The Little Room or The Spirit House or anything I already have, she continues in a quick rush of words.

It would be a kind of -- silence, she says.

Silence, her Biographer says. (An echo, and not a question, not a statement -- just the word, back at her, but softly, like a word floating on a feather.)

This is why anybody can visit, Eleanor says. Because if there's silence, nobody is going to bother anybody else. Nobody is going to say anything rude. Nobody is going to break anyone's heart. Nobody is going to speak about regrets, or make promises they can't keep. No one will need to justify anything.

So -- when will you go to your new place? her Biographer asks.

Soon, she says. When it's ready. When it's finished.

Someone is building this place for you?

Not exactly, Eleanor says. It sort of -- it kind of builds itself. You think about it first, and you think long and hard about it -- for a really long time, and then, after a while, it's finished building itself, and you can go. You know when it's time. And then after that, you can go whenever you want.

What about the other people -- are these friends of yours?

If you mean, are these made-up characters like me, maybe some of them are, she says, but it's open to anybody who knows why.

Her Biographer puts down his glass. It's nearly empty anyway. He looks at Eleanor, the kind of look he gives her when he knows that she's saying something terribly important and yet, he doesn't quite understand how to interpret it, let alone put this down on paper, into her story.

He looks at her, and he says, Knows why -- what does why mean?

Eleanor has folded her fortune in half. Are you sharing in my happiness, she says? Do you notice my radiance? This is a paint-by-numbers fortune. It's so paint-by-numbers that it's funny, don't you think?

Eleanor opens the fortune to read it once more. She looks up. She looks with a vacancy. Not a vacant stare -- that would be different, entirely different. No, this is a look of vacancy.

Do you think if people had to be quiet all of the time, when they weren't quiet, they would listen more? she says.

Do you think that if silence was mandatory, but you didn't care because it was all you wanted -- the peace and quiet, you know -- do you think that people -- that people would -- would maybe -- find something -- that's it -- find something? In their heads or their hearts or somewhere.

I want you to make me clean, Eleanor says. I want you to wash everything out of me. I want to start a new place, so that when people or made-up characters -- anybody who means anything to anybody else, even just to themselves -- go there -- when they go there, to this new place, when I go to this new place, I can listen without being afraid. And I don't have to worry about talking either. I don't have to be anything except quiet, completely quiet -- silent.

*
You know, Eleanor says to her Biographer, once people find out about my new place, there's not going to be enough room for everybody. We're going to have to build more new places, until there are new places as far as the eye can see. And then maybe it will be like a new world, maybe.

*
Eleanor smiles. I am happy. I am radiant. This is the perfect fortune, she says. Sometimes paint-by-numbers is okay, I guess. As long as you know why.

She looks again to her Biographer and says, What do you think?

Days 23 & 24: Small People Leading Extraordinary Lives

2008-12-26T08:48:00.003-05:00

eleanor, third person, lower case love

the tear was halfway down her face before she noticed it. she did not expect to be weeping. with her right hand she touched the moisture, and then began to swat at it, as she would a swat fly or a mosquito. she did not let up either. when the swat turned into a slap she began to feel better, or at least feel something, you know? there were no more tears. she was slapping dry skin before she noticed it. the dry skin, that is. she was numb before she could feel anything at all, and then, when she was numb, she looked up. she looked at everyone watching her, that is. she was a one-person show. this was her stage. it was a lower case stage. everyone was tall, standing up tall, that is, and at least five feet away from her, but close enough, that is, that she could pick out their faces in the crowd. don't you see me here? don't you want to help me? don't you want to put your arms around me and hold me and make sure I don't start weeping again? aren't you afraid that I might hurt myself? she closed her eyes and closed them hard. they -- everyone watching, that is -- applauded. so she felt loved, as much as she felt distance, as much as she could understand what numbness is, and how careful you must be with it, that is, being numb that is, how careful you must be, how very very careful you must be, you know? you might prick yourself, accidentally of course, and draw blood, and never know that you're bleeding. you might do that. you might even think that it's the right thing to do, after the fact, after it's over, that is. you are just one more small person leading one more extraordinary life. lower case love is the best kind of love, in times like these.

Silent Movie Eleanor

2008-12-25T20:31:00.005-05:00

Eleanor remarks: "Sometimes I am thinking that the only place I can go not to be alone is a place where there is nothing but NOTHING around me. Like total aloneness. I could be a nomad, a traveler, a gypsy. But I would never have to feel alone again. Ever."

She takes a step between the shadows, reveals herself like a frame from a silent movie.

She mouths a few words.

The card on the screen would read: "Eleanor makes three wishes." The card on the screen has nothing to do with what she has just said -- or rather, mouthed.

She steps again, between the shadows. Frame by frame, she exposes herself. Frame by frame she feels -- what do you feel, Eleanor?

"I feel in control," Eleanor says.

*
The card on the screen would read:

"Eleanor makes her first wish."

The card on the screen gets it wrong every time.

Day 22: Eleanor Defines Time

2008-12-25T18:08:00.005-05:00

"This is what I can hear, where I live. Almost all day, at least from 6 in the morning until perhaps 11 or 12 in the evening, I hear the planes flying overhead, one right after the other. Then, when the planes finally stop flying for the day, that's when I can hear the trains -- it's either very late or very early, depending on what you consider your day as, and whether or not you consider yourself getting ready for sleep or just waking up. Inside The Spirit House, inside The Little Room, there's no need for sleep -- we're all made-up characters, you have to remember, in this story or in the next story or the one after that -- so it's never really early, and it's never really late. The time is always now. The time is always -- this very moment, and that for me, is everything I need to know."
-- Eleanor Spain

Days 20 & 21: Eleanor, Samurai Principles

2008-12-24T06:49:00.005-05:00

Eleanor has decided to adopt the Seven Principles of the Samurai, as we head toward the final 70 or so postings on this scroll.

The Principles:
1. Honesty & Justice
2. Polite Courtesy
3. Heroic Courage
4. Honor ("You cannot hide from yourself.")
5. Compassion
6. Complete Sincerity ("Speaking and doing are the same action.")
7. Duty & Loyalty ("To those he is responsible for, he remains fiercely true.")

*
Eleanor tells her Biographer: "Our duty is to my story -- to our story."

"It has become our story, yes," her Biographer remarks.

"Then this should not be a problem," Eleanor says. "This is the new beginning. This is the beginning that matters. This is the only beginning that matters, and that it comes so near the end, that makes little difference at all."

And so we begin Act Three, the final part of this journey.

Day 19: "Let the beautiful stuff out."

2008-12-22T21:55:00.004-05:00

Eleanor insists that because we have written so much recently about spoons, we must move on to other tableware. So, in honor of cups, she has uncovered this insightful commentary.

"We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."
-- Ray Bradbury

Days 17 & 18: "The Eleanor Solstice"

2008-12-21T11:03:00.000-05:00

"A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us."
-- W. H. Auden

Eleanor "Spoons" Redux, & Shelley Short

2008-12-20T17:54:00.006-05:00

BACKGROUND: The story, (and novel excerpt) "Spoons," below, was originally published on this scroll on May 27, 2008. Since that time, we've been introduced to a terrific new song by Shelley Short, entitled "A Canoe." (Thank You to our good friend Rebecca Knaur for sharing this with us.) "A Canoe" and "Spoons" seem to be kindred spirits, in different genres. Listen to the song first, or read the story first, doesn't matter which -- Eleanor says she hopes you enjoy both. -- Geoff

http://daytrotter.com/article/1510/shelley-short

*
"Spoons,"
from Eleanor,
a novel by Geoff Schutt

("Spoons" was originally published in The Wastelands Review 1993, in a slightly different version.)

*
You can find your friends in inanimate objects, like spoons, for example. For example, you tell a spoon a story and it keeps it quiet. For example, you tell a spoon anything you want and it will be patient with you and it will never change because a spoon is a spoon.

There are friendship spoons. You give one to your best friend, and your best friend gives you one back. The spoon isn’t inanimate anymore because it holds your deepest, truest friendship, the kind of friendship you would do anything for. Sometimes you might even think you love your friend more than your parents, because who really understands you? Who can you really talk to? Who can you tell your secrets to, and not be afraid your secrets will be stolen and shared with the whole wide world?

You can tell a spoon anything. A spoon doesn’t get angry with you. A spoon doesn’t grow up and move away. A spoon is always a spoon. It will never let you down.

*
See, the party food was meant for fingers. The guests were drinking. They would not care for spoons when they got drunk.

Eleanor knew the type of person who would come to a party given by the Spains - you must mention Nina Spain first, because party-going was always her idea, and Jay Spain was just Eleanor's father, Nina's husband. You would never call Nina Jay's wife and get away with it, not around Nina at least. Eleanor listened in to enough telephone calls to know how her mother felt, hearing Nina Spain screaming at somebody trying to sell her something as the wife of Mr. Jay Spain.

*
Eleanor had to concentrate to keep this going. She collected the spoons from the silverware drawer. She took the sterling silver spoons from the china cabinet and went through the picnic supplies (which were a wedding gift, her father told her) for the plastic spoons.

There were dishes soaking, but after several hours, the water was cold and the soapy bubbles had disappeared. A dirty ring orbited the sink. A pan extended above the water like an iceberg. A cup floated on its side. Eleanor reached into the water for the spoons she might have missed.

Her parents didn't use the little spoons. They used the big spoons for stirring things they cooked in pans on the stove. They used the soup spoons for soup and the medium-sized spoons for eating ice cream, except sometimes her father used a big spoon for ice cream.

Eleanor counted her spoons.

Somewhere out there are spoons that will tell you stories instead of you always telling them. There are spoons for everything. There are Paul Revere's Ride spoons and Apostle spoons and World Series spoons.

Eleanor's mother and father owned seventy-eight bastard spoons.

She imagined herself as a spoon licked dry because her good stuff inside had run out.

*
She watched a lot of TV, when her parents weren't looking, late at night, when they thought she was asleep. There was one show on for three days straight. She committed it to memory. It was so much a part of her, that the fake talk show host and the fake guests, who were all trying to sell some intestinal cleansing miracle drink, began talking to Eleanor.

She began to ask them questions back. She was so tired, but she had to know the answers. Except, she hated the baby talk they tried to use on her.

"Why do you stare at me?" she said.

"We like you, Eleanor."

"Why do you like me?"

"We envy you. Your beautiful face. Your incredible intellect."

"Well," Eleanor said, "I hate you."

"We're sorry, Eleanor."

"Have you been lying to me?" she asked them.

*
Spoons are different. You can't kill a spoon, can you? Spoons are survivors, not people.

She went into the den and pick up the telephone and dialed a number, just a number off the top of her head. A man answered. He seemed willing to talk to her, to play along with this wrong number.

“Hello, my name is Eleanor,” she said.

“Where do you live, Eleanor?”

“I live in a castle, way up high in the clouds. I'm a forgotten princess.”

“Who forgot you, Eleanor?”

“A nasty green dragon brought me here. I sat on its wings. I toasted marshmallows over its fiery breath.”

She hung up the phone.

*
There was assertiveness training on TV. When people at work get you down because they don't listen to you, because you're maybe a little shy, or a lot shy, the end result doesn't change, but you can change. You can meet the challenge straight on.

That morning, Eleanor's mother rehearsed her party stories for her father. Nina Spain made Jay Spain practice his party stories, too. Everything was going to be just like those parties in The Great Gatsby, Nina Spain said. Which made Jay Spain give her a funny glance. Robert Redford was so gorgeous in that film, Nina said, and so Jay smiled. You will always need pictures and movement to go along with the words, won't you? he said sarcastically.

Eleanor was sitting at the breakfast table too, feeling ignored. She watched one parent and then watched the other. They were so alike and so different. It was like their worlds were the same worlds but they each had to be the king. And since they couldn't be king in the other's world, they went back to their own world, which was exactly the same, except for the fact it was all theirs to do with as they pleased.

*
Eleanor crawled along the floor as if there were a fire and this was the only safe place to be. Then she went outside.

They were living in an apartment then. The Spains had reserved the recreation room for the party, though of course it had already spilled back over into their apartment. Nina had hired decorators. She paid people to tend bar and to serve the party food you had to eat with your fingers, or at most, with a toothpick. There was more preparation for this party than for most wedding receptions. That's what Jay Spain said. But in order for his world not to contradict Nina's world, he had to be like a neutral kingdom, like Switzerland. Be part of it but don't get involved.

Eleanor watched the guests stroll into the party. This is what they did, too, how they moved: strolled. Arm in arm. Very elegant. Everybody's a show-off, Eleanor thought. Everybody needs to be the best. Tell the best stories, the funniest jokes, wear the prettiest dress, talk about the brightest children (but children should be talked about and not seen).

*
Eleanor smiled because she had her seventy-eight bastard spoons in a paper sack under her arm. The spoons were heavy but she was strong.

She kept track of which cars the party guests drove. She wrote down the license numbers of the neighbors' cars. She had nothing against the neighbors. She didn't even know the neighbors.

She didn't know the party guests either, but the party guests knew her parents, so it was the same difference. The party guests and her parents. They were part of the same crowd.

Eleanor opened the gas tank of the first party guest car and slid in one of the spoons. It was a sugar spoon and went all the way down. She heard a splash when it hit the gasoline.

In four gas tanks, the spoons disappeared completely. In two gas tanks, the spoons wouldn't go in entirely because of their shape, so Eleanor left them half in and half out. She placed the gas tank covers on the pavement, underneath the cars.

When she finished, she began stabbing spoons into the grass next to the parking lot. She filled up a glass jar with gasoline siphoned from one of the tanks. She'd seen it done in a movie. It was easy enough to do. She was surprised by how easy it was to siphon somebody's gas. If people knew how easy it was, and how many gas tanks don't have those locks on the covers, they'd never have to buy their gas again.

She had collected her baby pictures earlier, before the party started, and now she was spreading these out on the grass in between her spoons. It was like a weird game of croquet.

The TV people were back, watching her. They were saying, Who's that on the grass? There's some girl on the grass! (Why didn't they recognize her? Eleanor wondered.)

She was a giant compared to her baby pictures. Eleanor could hear them talking among themselves. What a princess, they said. She must be one lucky girl, they said. She must be very rich and she must have many brothers and sisters, all as beautiful as she is.

Wrong! Eleanor wanted to scream. Wrong!

Her mother disowned her. She's not my little girl, her mother said.

Next she saw her father. Her father said, Those aren't real baby pictures, can't you tell? These are pictures cut from a magazine.

Her mother said, Who could have done this to our grass?

Her father agreed that it was very tragic. Her father said, Why do bad things always happen to good people like us? We're funny and people like us, so why are we so picked on?

*
She had all of the TV happy endings memorized. And she was going to be the star of this happy ending and her spoons were her friends and their kingdom was the party guests and the fortune, the gold and the jewels, was that she had forgotten to blow up the cars because it really wasn't any of their faults, not the party guests. She was so small, any one of them could have walked right by and not even noticed her.

One of the party guests was leaving early. He unlocked his car. His car had one of the spoons that wouldn't fit all the way in the gas tank. The end of the spoon was a shining star that reflected off the moon as the car weaved down the driveway.

She gathered up the spoons that were left. She pulled them out of the ground one by one, but she left her baby pictures on the grass. Maybe somebody would find her baby pictures, except Eleanor would have to break the news that she wasn't that sweet pretty baby anymore. She'd grown up along the way. Would they want to love her just the same? Or would she be like one of the leftover older girls at the orphanage.

*
She was inside the apartment. People weren't supposed to be inside the apartment but they were. They were supposed to be in the rec room. This was a party out of control. She had crawled like a commando so no one could see her. She hid under the kitchen table, which was draped with one of those plastic party table covers. She could see the legs of the party guests. The legs were circling the table. It was as if they were fighting a duel. Or dancing a tango without music. Eleanor dared not breathe. She closed her eyes. She could toss on the spoons onto the floor and what would the party guests say?

This is what they would say, Eleanor thought. They would run to her mother and say, You have ghosts or something. The legs would find her and would put her on top of the table. Eleanor was thinking about that old TV show, Love Connection, in reruns on the Game Show Channel. She liked the bad dates best when the guests got nasty and the host, Chuck Woolery, had to change the subject.

Her mother was waving her arms. Don't do this, Eleanor. You don't know what you're doing!

My spoons will protect me, Eleanor said. I watched it on TV, Eleanor said.

And the late-night TV people, if they were there too, they would say, Yes, Eleanor, you are glowing. Your reflection from the spoons is a sight to behold.

*
She crawled along the wall from the kitchen to the hallway, then to her bedroom. She didn't know why there were all these people inside the apartment anyway, when the rec room was all reserved for their party. People just naturally go where they are not supposed to go.

They will want to go behind every closed door. They will want to peek on her when she is sleeping. She'll sit up quickly and go, Boo!

She was in her own bed now. Where she started from. She had an ashtray on her lap. She struck a match and watched it flicker. Her room lit up like a cave. Just Eleanor and her spoons, spread over her blankets in front of her.

She could smell her mother's perfume.

She heard her father's muffled cough.

But in her cave, even though her matches were all gone, Eleanor felt warm. She'd gone on a mission and returned with hardly a scratch. She was stronger now than when she started. Her parents couldn't keep her from improving herself.

*
At times like this, Eleanor felt perfect. Her spoons danced for her and told her funny little stories and she could hear her mother and father snoring so loud the walls shook and no one bothered her and her TV show didn't come on for another hour and there was a chocolate cake mix in the cupboard and plenty of fried chicken in the freezer and someday she would take her spoons to Disney World to see Mickey Mouse but for now, she was all her spoons needed.

Day 16: A Conversation, Part Two

2008-12-19T19:40:00.004-05:00

Eleanor says: There might be people out there who think we are just walking along like we're going fishing or having a picnic or something -- that we're just taking our time and walking toward nowhere in particular, and we pick a place to stop and we start talking and we start thinking about everything we've been through and how our whole life has been a revision, and how trying to figure out when it started might help in making the hurting part stop, because this is really killing us, when we can't keep fighting it, and the pain just rises to the surface and yes -- it may sound like we're talking about nothing in the woods or wherever but what we're talking about is as much life or death as spelling the words out on pieces of paper and folding the pieces up and then dropping them into a hat and giving the hat a little shake and then deciding who's going to choose -- which piece of paper wins, and where to do we go from here, because it's been a long road through all of these many words and pictures and images and whatever, and we try to put on smiles when there aren't any left and we try to pretend that our words mean something to people who don't even care (this does not mean you).

We are trying to say this -- that we are trying to say something, and maybe it's not meant for any ears but our own (can anyone understand that?) but we have to say the first part out loud anyway, where anybody can hear us. That's what makes the rest of it count, you know?

*
Recommended Listening:
"Bird On The Wire,"
by Leonard Cohen
(on repeat mode)

Recommended Drink:
Champagne

Recommended Food:
Shrimp Cocktail

Recommended Film:
"Everybody's Sweetheart,"
starring Olive Thomas

Day 16: A Conversation, Part One

2008-12-19T14:18:00.005-05:00

Eleanor: Where we started. That's what I'm asking, Do you remember where we started?

Eleanor's Biographer: When you were conceived?

E: Not like that.

EB: How?

E: Where we started? When this all became so important -- to both of us. For both of us.

EB: I don't remember, no.

E: I suppose it doesn't matter much, when -- I mean.

EB: I suppose not.

E: Sometimes, you -- me -- anybody -- I guess we want to know answers to stupid questions that really don't matter.

EB: I didn't say anything about what mattered and what didn't.

E: (Smile.) I guess not.

EB: So.

E: So. Yes.

EB: Are you thinking about how close we got, once?

E: To -- what -- being accepted?

EB: Yes.

E: Being accepted isn't everything it's made out to be. But I think we both know this much.

John Milton:

2008-12-18T22:29:00.000-05:00

"The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
-- John Milton

Days 14 & 15: Walking

2008-12-17T18:34:00.005-05:00

Eleanor: We are grouping our days into twos now. One for me, and one for my Biographer. Even though we are together in this. Sometimes you just need to begin walking. That's right, wherever you are right now, put on a good pair of walking shoes, and if it's cold out, dress for the weather, and even if it's the dark of night, you need to just walk. Walk in a straight line at first, so you get as far away as possible. So that your old neighborhood looks nothing like the neighborhood you're in now. You just need to keep walking, even if you're frightened.

See that building over there? We used to have neighbors living in that building, but they walked away. I don't know exactly when, but it's been a while. All of them left, but not at once. First it was just a single person, but then they learned it was better to go in twos, and threes, and then more -- groups of them, just walking as far away as they could get.

My Biographer and I are only two.

We need to keep walking.

After a while, we'll turn this way or that, but it will still be away from here, or wherever here was, because we've grown too comfortable here, and my Biographer has to begin to think for himself again, not like I'm thinking, not every thought in my head, but for himself.

When we find a good place to stop, we'll take a picture, and we'll say, this is it. This is where we are.

And my Biographer will say, Eleanor, I am thinking on my own again. And he will thank me for this, no matter how tired he is.

That's the plan, at least.

We are walking.

We need to remember everything I just said.

Everything.

John Irving (and Eleanor):

2008-12-17T14:18:00.002-05:00


"Half my life is an act of revision."
-- John Irving

*
"My entire life has been an act of revision."
-- Eleanor

489 Pages

2008-12-16T13:01:00.004-05:00

This Side of Paradise's Chief Archivist, Jason Archer, completed his regular back-up of just the text -- the words -- on this one long scroll of a page, and to date, after more than 425 entries, we have 489 pages of manuscript.

"Like a novel on one page!" Eleanor says. True, it's been a journey, and will continue to be so.

(As an addendum, these many pages of manuscript are following the creative "process" in the revision of a novel-in-progress, not writing a brand new one. Of course, what's old can become new in such a process.)

We'll keep going until Post No. 500.

In the meanwhile, from all of us at This Side of Paradise, "Thank You" for reading! -- Geoff

Days 12 & 13: One Jane Austen Observation

2008-12-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."
-- Jane Austen

Day 11: Eleanor's Revelation

2008-12-14T16:47:00.003-05:00

Eleanor's Revelation: After all of this time, and after all of these years, the truth has finally come to me, about who I am and what I represent and what my purpose is. For now, I can tell you what my purpose is, and if you asked me this even 15 minutes ago I would have laughed in your face. But my purpose is to save my Biographer's life. All this time, I thought this was about my Biographer saving me -- writing my story so that I could live, so that I could be somehow eternal, and also, somehow ... human. But that isn't it at all. So when my Biographer writes words like, 'save us,' he is in fact making a declaration. Not a plea, because he is too proud for that. But a declaration, to save him. For both of us yes, but to save him first. I am still working on how he got to this point, and why his need for me is so great -- so profound, I guess you might say. I need to get inside his head even more. He's still feeling sick from his cold, so this is my chance to uncover the parts of the story that I never knew, and would have never known. He would not have told me himself. Never. I'm sure he would have kept this secret. I have purpose! Now I have to find a way. Or rather, to find out why, and then to find out how, if that makes sense to anyone but me. I know I can save him, and then save me at the same time. I just need his thoughts a little longer. I need to know why I became. Because now that I know that I was never just a notion or a random thought, I also understand that I was and am a reason."

"It is not down in any map."

2008-12-13T17:44:00.007-05:00

"It is not down in any map; true places never are."
-- Herman Melville

*
"I want to go to the truest place I can find, and build a castle there," Eleanor says.

*
Photo credit:
Robyn Tipton,
for Eleanor's Journey.

For more of Robyn's amazing work
-- her images and her words,
click here.

Day 10: Eleanor Gives Her Biographer A Cold

2008-12-13T10:14:00.003-05:00

Eleanor: It's weird to me that my Biographer keeps posting these variations on theme of what I'm saying about my life. And I've been reading all of this -- what I've said, I mean, because these are mostly my words, transcribed to this page -- and half of me seems to want a long life with lots of words and paragraphs, and then another part of me wants to condense myself into one long sentence without paragraphs -- maybe a sentence that lasts hundreds of pages, I don't know. So maybe, I'm thinking now, I should try for a short sentence life of me? I know I'm confounding my Biographer, and on top of that, I must admit this, and this is really weird too, I got a cold from one of the other characters in The Spirit House, which I did not think was possible (getting a cold), and I have somehow passed this on to my Biographer, which I also did not think was possible. Unless, of course, I am becoming more human. Can a made-up character pass on a disease to her Biographer? Could I become somehow toxic to him? I always thought he had most of the control, because he does you know -- so it's not really a thought but a fact, that he can wipe me out with one push of a button on the keyboard. Delete me. (And I would just dare him to do that, because then I would find a way to haunt him through all of his other characters!) (I do not think he would ever delete me.) But now I am wondering about this -- that if I can make him physically sick, in a way this is a good thing, right? Because of my evolution? So now I need to make him some tea to drink and clear his head of my thoughts so he can sleep and dream (maybe I'll sneak in that way, through his dreams), and get well again.

He has a lot of work to do, and so do I.

Day Eight: A Life In One Long Sentence, Part One

2008-12-11T09:01:00.005-05:00

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
-- Mark Twain

*
There are two chairs on the balcony. Eleanor asks her Biographer to sit in one, as she sits in the other. They are not outside to watch the people. They are outside, on the balcony, to watch one another.

I'm trying to remember my whole life in one sentence, Eleanor says.

It's going to be a mighty long sentence -- or maybe not, she says.

If I just focus on what's really, really important, I can fit all of me into that one sentence, she says.

It's going to be a doozy of a sentence, let me tell you, she says.

*
Her Biographer has his Moleskine notebook on his lap. He has an extra pen, in case one gives out. He's ready to take it down. He's ready to listen.

But Eleanor knows his thoughts.

You're ready to listen, she says. Are you ready to hear?

Day Seven: Emily Dickinson

2008-12-10T11:45:00.002-05:00

"Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door."
-- Emily Dickinson

*
Posted by Eleanor "Emily" Spain, for her Biographer.

For Day Seven: The Full Moon -- "Luna"

2008-12-09T11:38:00.024-05:00

"If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out."
-- William Blake

*
At 11:37 a.m. (Eastern Time) this Friday, Dec. 12, 2008, we will experience the final Full Moon of calendar year 2008. This December moon is also known as the "Full Cold Moon," according to The Farmers' Almanac.

Eleanor, as many of this page's readers know, gets especially excited around the time of the Full Moon. ("Moondust!" Eleanor exclaims.)

In recognition of the December Full Moon, This Side of Paradise is pleased to welcome our latest guest artist -- one of the best poets currently working online or off, and who certainly deserves wider recognition. barbara k. mackenzie has become a friend both of Eleanor (nicknamed "E" by barbara), and of Eleanor's Biographer (who has no nickname as far as we know).

barbara k. mackenzie was raised in the Midwest and now resides in a small farming community in Northern California along the Pacific Flyway. She says that "she loves life and learning and uses writing as means of self expression."

barbara has two wonderful sites filled with poetry and images. One is designed for adults (Soul Intention), and the other is brand new, working with poetry for children (A Children's Garden). barbara is a magical writer, with a keen eye to the senses and emotions, and This Side of Paradise takes great honor in posting "Luna."

Enjoy the words, and please do live and breathe the experience (the poem here, and above us, this week's moon) -- Geoff

*

"Luna"
by bkmackenzie

The full moon fell through her bedroom window

She took the unconventional arrival as a sign of a personal gift

The moons rounded face mirrored the roundness of her own face,

its glow like that of her own heart light

The first night she held the moon to her ear and listened

to the waves she created during high tide

“My moon” she said, “my moon.”

She coddled her moon in her arms like a baby,

rocking her back and forth singing a soft lullaby

Sleeping with her moon at night close to her side

covering her roundness; only its crescent exposed

She ran her fingertips gently across her face and her soft light

“My moon,” she said, “my moon.”

One day they came walking through the bedroom door

They said the world is asking for her moon back;

to return home

That without the moon the world

and everyone would soon perish

“My moon,” she cried, “my moon.”

She hid the moon under her bed out of fear

No light could be seen, not from the moon, not from her face

Only she knew where the moon was hidden

After much anguish she pulled the moon out from her confinement

and held her close whispering to her

“My moon,” she said, “my moon.”

Soon she gave the moon to the ones who came

through her bedroom door

Who then gave the moon back to the world who was in such need

They returned to her asking why she gave up her moon

“Moon cry,” she said, “moon cry.”

The worlds balance renewed itself, harmony revisited

The tides flowed in and out, the winds blew, hearts beat to the moons rhythm

The animals remembered the cycles of days and of life

“Good Moon,” she said, “good moon.”

Every night she would run to her bedroom window

She would pull back the curtains to allow the moons rays to filter through

She ran her fingertips across the glass

tracing the round outline of the moons face

“My moon,” she said, “my moon.”

Below: Nearly Full Moon, illuminated and distorted by parking lot lights, 2008.

Photo -- Geoff Schutt

Day Six: Eleanor & Her Biographer, Word Cloud

2008-12-09T07:25:00.009-05:00

Our gratitude to http://www.wordle.net/ and This Side of Paradise's Archivist and Busker-in-Chief, Jason Archer -- a selection of 150 random words from this page highlighting the two most significant for us -- "Eleanor" and "Biographer" -- and placing them in a word cloud.

Today, this is all we need to see, to remind ourselves -- the rest will follow as we reassemble the words, and find proper places for each of them.

Day Five: Thomas Paine

2008-12-08T09:31:00.003-05:00

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
-- Thomas Paine

*
Eleanor says: "Now we don't mean to offend anyone, at least I don't, and I don't think my Biographer does either, but if it happens along the way, you know we're being honest above all else -- from those places that DO hurt sometimes as well as those places that are filled with good stuff, and that no offense is ever meant to be 'mean' in the least, (though my Biographer tells me that I am both 'wicked and sweet,' he says, 'wicked' being in the eye of the beholder, which would be his eye-s, and not wicked in the dictionary sense necessarily) -- but merely as a kind of rebellion, for me I suppose, growing up, growing into some kind of my Biographer's reality, and growing into my own reality, you know?"

Day Four: "The Life of Eleanor"

2008-12-07T02:38:00.011-05:00

INTRODUCTION: Eleanor has written a story of her own -- about her story, which her Biographer has faithfully transcribed, not changing a word.

*
Recommended Listening: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, "The Weeping Song" -- also any version of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

Recommended Reading: The Quarterly No. 25, Edited by Gordon Lish (Random House/Vintage Books, 1993)

Recommended Beverage: Strong, black coffee or a Red Bull, or a shot of Evan Williams whiskey, or all three (but in moderation)

Recommended Food: Strawberry frosted doughnut or cotton candy

Recommended Incense: Nag Champa

*
"The Short, (Generally) Happy Life of Eleanor."
by Eleanor Spain

1.

There was this girl named Eleanor who wasn't really a girl at all but a notion inside a writer's head. That's how she started. Not as a complete thought, but a notion. This was 18 years ago.

Early on, Eleanor decided that this writer was good enough to put her story to the page, and so began the first draft of many drafts of her biography. The writer became her official, authorized Biographer, and that's how she thought of him.

In the early days, there wasn't a novel, but a series of short stories. Most of those stories are long since gone. They've been rewritten or lost. One day, her Biographer sent an early Eleanor story to The New Yorker, and he received a long, typewritten reply. It was a rejection, but not a form letter, and not of Eleanor, either. The letter said (basically) that Eleanor's story was good, that her Biographer's writing was good, but the story was derivative, whatever that means. It's all subjective, right? Every story has already been told in some version, anyway.

The New Yorker editor who sent the letter asked to see more of Eleanor's story, so for several weeks, her Biographer wrote episode after episode, and each one of these was also sent back, but with nice typewritten notes. Another editor at The Atlantic Monthly said pretty much the same thing, and sent back his variation of the same nice typewritten notes. But for the longest time, nothing was published.

Eventually though, one of Eleanor's stories ("Spoons") was published in The Wastelands Review. Another short-short story was published by Gordon Lish in The Quarterly, from Vintage Books/Random House. This was pretty cool, because Eleanor and her Biographer could go to the bookstore and buy a copy of the book. That story was about Eleanor's father (not her Biographer, but her real father) as a child. None of the characters had names in the story. There was a boy, and a mother and a father. They talked about secrets, and the sun and the moon, and the universe. They also spent a long time talking about milk for such a short-short story. It was kind of weird. The story was originally called "Milk," in fact, but Gordon Lish decided he liked the title "Hygiene" better, for whatever reason. Who was to argue with Gordon Lish, because at the time, he was like God almost. He was Raymond Carver's editor for so long, by gosh. Eleanor's Biographer felt an obligation to listen. (But Eleanor still preferred the original title, "Milk.")

2.

After a while, Eleanor's Biographer stopped sending out excerpts of her life, and instead, just wrote and wrote and wrote. There were so many versions of Eleanor's story that neither she nor her Biographer could think straight.

Up until this happened, Eleanor's Biographer was in control. But then, one day, Eleanor decided that she was old enough to think for herself. And that's where we are today. Eleanor tells her story, but not in chronological order. The excerpts are written like you would shoot a movie, except this is a book and not a movie, and a movie would have a shooting script anyway, so the entire story would be there. (Eleanor's entire story wasn't and isn't entirely there, so it was and is difficult.)

Along the way, an agent looked at Eleanor from a slush pile of plenty of other novels and decided that Eleanor's Biographer had some good words in him, and signed him up. But he kept writing new and different versions of the biography, and so far, this agent has been extraordinarily patient. She believes in the words as much as Eleanor does, and as much as Eleanor's Biographer does.

Some things -- some stories, well, they just take time to tell, you know? To unfold. Lots of people would have given up after 18 years, and it's true that there were times when Eleanor's Biographer worked on other novels and other stories. A few of those stories were published, but the novels are still unpublished. Eleanor was proud of her Biographer for being so productive, but she was also upset and even angry when her story was put aside in favor of somebody else's. (Whenever that happened, Eleanor had to go back inside The Spirit House, with all of her Biographer's other characters, also waiting for homes.)

For the past few months, and a lot of this process and progress has been documented on this scroll of a page, Eleanor's Biographer has finally begun to understand how the story should be written.

3.

Eleanor thinks she is a patient person, too. She has all the time in the world, really, being a made-up character, right?

Sometimes, her Biographer jokes about being hit and killed by a bus, because he walks a lot, and jaywalks too. (Isn't that against the law? Somebody should make a citizen's arrest. I mean, come on. Jaywalking at his age?) Anyhow, this pisses off Eleanor to no small degree, and she could punch her Biographer in the nose, if she wasn't such a pacifist.

Now, the short and (generally) happy life of Eleanor is only as good as the brain cells in her Biographer's head. So maybe Eleanor isn't so patient anymore after all. Her Biographer is getting older, after all. Even though Eleanor is in charge now, who is to say he won't abandon her again? This worries her as much as the getting hit by a bus worries her.

Eleanor does worry quite a lot. Or maybe it's her Biographer doing the worrying.

You see, after 18 years of being part of each other, the two of them -- Eleanor and her Biographer -- have become very close. It's almost like Eleanor has two fathers. One is on the page and the other is her Biographer.

And -- all of this started with a notion, so that just shows you what can happen when you have a notion. Facts are facts, and one of these is this. You need to follow your notions. You can't ever give up on your notions, if they lead you somewhere good. Eleanor feels she is in a good place now. Sure, sometimes she has a good scream, but doesn't everybody? And sometimes, she cries. When she is crying, an amazing thing is happening. Her Biographer is crying too. The same thing with smiles and laughter.

4.

Have you ever listened to that record by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds called "The Weeping Song?" You can find it on YouTube, or one of those music places, or on Nick Cave's album that's titled "The Good Son."

A lot of Eleanor's recent life is like that song, and you might think this doesn't sound so happy after all, with all of the weeping going on, but it generally is happy. The song is like a circle, see. Eleanor and her Biographer -- "we" -- "we" are back at the beginning. We have a middle and an end. Things are still all out of order and Eleanor keeps thinking of new aspects of her life that she feels need to be addressed, but that's part of having your biography written. You don't think it all at once, or remember every small detail at once. Somehow, you can complete the circle, though, if you work at it long enough.

If this were a movie, we would be shooting the Second Act right now. The First Act and the Third Act are finished. It's the darned Second Act that's taking the time. We know the destination and we know how we started out, but the in-between, well -- what the heck is this about? Shouldn't we have already lived the journey? (On this scroll, we have talked about how it feels to be inside the "in-between," and that can be both good and creepy at the same time. You can find it all, on this page, if you go searching hard enough.)

5.

Okay, so right this moment, It is the middle of the night as this story about the story is being told, in somewhat unconventional fashion. But this is a good hour of the day for telling and writing. But Eleanor knows that she can't just tell her story. She has to keep living it. One day soon, the biography will be finished. This is kind of scary to think about. What happens then? Is Eleanor stuck in time. Eighteen years old, but never any older? Get real, why don't you!

Eleanor wants sequels, even before the first volume is finished. Eleanor is going to make her Biographer sign a contract. The contract will basically say that neither one of them will ever, ever give up on each other. They will always believe. (Eleanor will be sure to include a provision in the contract about not jaywalking in front of buses, don't you worry about that!)

And what happens next? Well, a person -- a made-up character -- never really knows. Like that song, "Tomorrow Never Knows." So, for now, Eleanor and her Biographer are thinking present tense.

Present tense is the best tense, Eleanor is convinced.

If there is any moral to this story, this story about the story of Eleanor, it is this:
"If you're in present tense, you can live forever."

And that is crazy good thinking, isn't it?

Day Three: "Character"

2008-12-06T21:17:00.003-05:00

"I never started from ideas but always from character."
-- Ivan Turgenev

*
Eleanor to her Biographer: "Good thing you posted that one."

(Sarcasm noted.)

Day Two: "The Art of Ending"

2008-12-05T22:46:00.003-05:00

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending."
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

*
We find ourselves in the middle somewhere, and Eleanor swears to me that she can see all the way to the end, but she won't tell what's there. It's a game, I'm thinking, and I need to play along, to get from here to there.

"It is not a game," Eleanor says. "You foolish Biographer! We've played enough games."

*
We are reading the new issue of Atlanta Creative Loafing (Dec. 3, 2008). There is a cover story on the hip-hop artist Jax, who recently died -- still a young man -- while on stage, while performing his art.

Jax, born Christopher Charles Thurston, once remarked to his mother, "... When I'm suffering it makes me rhyme better."

Day One: "All life is an experiment."

2008-12-04T23:03:00.006-05:00

Eleanor's fortune for today reads: "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."

*
The date, December 4, does not escape us. Including today, 28 days left in calendar year 2008. Yes, in The Little Room, we often times find ourselves in an incremental state. Earlier this calendar year, we went through a similar period of what we termed "Creative Rehab." This did not mean that our words were blocked. And we were still inspired by the everyday small and big as we usually were. We still looked with childlike wonder to the sky, shielding our eyes in daylight, and opening them even wider at night. But what we discovered was happening ... was this: the words were coming out wrong.

In the wrong order.
Sentences misplaced.
Paragraphs overwritten or making no sense at all.
Structure was gone.
Forget about story.

Eleanor at times became invisible, and this was most frightening of all. She was beginning to disappear, even as she was vocal as ever, loud and pushy, soft and tender -- the sweet and the wicked.

*
We are addicted to the words. We are addicted to the words as much as we would/could be to any drug, or anything else that is possible/plausible cause for abuse.

Without the words, the right words, the words in the proper here and now and up and down and sideways and vertical and horizontal -- well, it was crazy, and we felt more than a bit crazy, and we felt life was obscenely surreal.

Listen up, because surreal by itself is fascinating and good and feels like you have 20 fingers instead of 10, and can leap buildings and dig a hole to China. It's a Dali painting come to life in the most magical of ways. It's listening to a Tom Waits' song and trying to get underneath the layers, the layers like multi-colored blankets, or the sweetest sweets, and yet -- YET: you sometimes want it raw.

You may think this a contradiction, but listen up. Take away what "seems" raw or surreal, and you find truth. Or honesty. Whatever you want to call it.

Authenticity. The ability to connect. We need to connect.

*
And here we are.

We need the edge back. We need these 28 days. Desperately. So, one by one, we will once again, as we did earlier in 2008 (just scroll down for that experience), document the time and the process, and add stories and narrative ... and the rest, along the way.

*
There are things that Eleanor and I are learning about each other every day. But it's a mad rush of things, so we need to slow the stimuli, slow time as it were, and grab hold of what's going to make it happen, and toss away what's not.

For example -- Eleanor wants to be a drummer, she says. In a band. I don't know what this means. (yet)

Eleanor wants the spotlight, she says. Okay, I can understand this more than the drummer part.

Eleanor says she wants to take the words and make them into a boom-tap-beat-roar-exclamation-whisper-sing until your vocal cords explode (... and then sigh into a dream). Oh man, just hearing her say those words is beautiful -- forget about the actual experience waiting to happen!

*
We are ready. "All life is an experiment." So this is Day One. Or the end of Day One. The Night of Day One. The realization. We've got our Mojo, no problem with that (and more on this later) (2008 Version 3.0 in fact).

It's -- simply put -- again -- the edge. And without falling off. Without coming up for air except when absolutely necessary. Without losing the heart and hope that feeds everything we put down on the page -- even when it hurts like hell, and sometimes it sure does hurt like hell when you're digging so deep inside.

As Eleanor would say, and in fact, has said: "Stick around. The next ride is about to begin. Do you want the front car, or the back? You don't want to be in the middle. That's playing it safe, you know? You're not going to play it safe, are you?"

We know that we cannot play it safe.
We don't have that kind of time.
-- Geoff
*

"The White Butterfly"

2008-11-30T12:52:00.006-05:00

"My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel -- it is, before all, to make you see. That -- and no more, and it is everything."
-- Joseph Conrad

I may add a comment or two to this Nov. 30 entry, updating it as I go, before the all-important first "next posting." Today, Dec. 3, is Conrad's birthday, and I had to include the quote above.
-- Geoff

*
Dec. 1:
For all of the loyal readers of This Side of Paradise, please stick with us, and enjoy the other 412 postings on this page. (As always, just scroll down, or use the archives at the top left column to make a quick selection).

Eleanor and I are "retreating" for a week or two into a kind of Little Room exile. What we come out with, well -- the words will tell the story, most definitely, and Eleanor is counting on a manic rush of them. ("I am," she says, with a nod of her head.) This puts the pressure on her Biographer, of course, to keep up.

Thank You for reading to this point, and also remember that we only have until Post No. 500 to complete this project.

That leaves us with 87 entries, after this one. And it's not as many as it seems!

ALSO TO NOTE, & A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE, INDEED:
Your support and readership mean more than you can ever realize. Eleanor and I hope you find some "hidden gems" in the scroll below, and also keep passing the word to anyone you think might be interested that we exist here ... This Side of Paradise.
-- Geoff (and Eleanor)

*
from Nov. 30:

Eleanor is asking me to assure those of you who may be wondering that we have not forgotten The White Butterfly. We still do not know what the butterfly means, but we will figure this out, and decide whether or not it belongs in Eleanor's story. -- Geoff

"Please stay tuned," Eleanor says, a little groggy from November, and getting psyched for the last month of the calendar year, and 31 days at that -- December.

Hemingway, On Writing A Good Book:

2008-11-29T23:01:00.002-05:00

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."
-- Ernest Hemingway

Bob Dylan & Phil Ochs:

2008-11-28T08:24:00.002-05:00

"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours."
-- Bob Dylan

*
"Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality."
-- Phil Ochs

Breathe.

2008-11-26T23:43:00.002-05:00

"Breathe as a child does, and the world will sing to you in return."
-- Eleanor Spain (as told to her Biographer, Thanksgiving Eve)

Eleanor Quotes Shakespeare

2008-11-26T11:29:00.005-05:00

Geoff: Eleanor insists she is not my muse. "You are my Biographer," she insists. "A muse is an entirely different kind of relationship."

This said, Eleanor found me the following Shakespeare sonnet.

"If you substitute my name for muse every time it appears in the sonnet," Eleanor says, "it still won't work. You are stuck with me ... same way I am stuck with you."

"We aren't stuck with one another, Eleanor," I respond. "This is a choice. We found each other. You decided to stay. I decided to stay."

Eleanor, utilizing her (most) wicked smile, says, "Well, perhaps -- I am stuck on you."

*
Sonnet # 100
by William Shakespeare

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

"River Lesson" -- Michael K. Gause

2008-11-25T09:46:00.005-05:00

Michael K.Gause is with us for a second time as a guest writer/artist at This Side of Paradise.

Having just returned from the banks of the Mississippi, we find Michael's poem much like a kind and persistent shadow, following us home, and then becoming a permanent and welcome resident.

Michael's web address is below the poem, so be sure to pay him a visit. -- Geoff

*

"River Lesson"

by Michael K. Gause

When standing before her
You are unaware
You have been summoned

Drawn by how she moves
What's inside
The history of the world rising to ripples
Ending right where you stand

Each wave is a catch and release
The past and future in constant succession:

The shape of her lips - the end of the line
What you believed - what the world knew all along

And in that endless rhythm, a lesson

But the river teaches best
In what she withholds

Lets us do in ourselves

Michael K.Gause writes in Minnesota. His first self-published chapbook, The Tequila Chronicles, received honorable mention in The Carbon Based Mistake’s 2004 Art Exchange Program Contest. His second, I Want To Look Like Henry Bataille, was published in 2006 by Little Poem Press and to his knowledge hasn’t won squat. He is currently working toward a PhD in Solipsism. His website is www.thedayonfire.com.

"The Secret Garden:

2008-11-24T07:20:00.007-05:00

"I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden."
-- Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden and other classics

... born on this day, so "Happy Birthday, FHB," from all of us at This Side of Paradise.

*
Eleanor and I have just returned from New Orleans, but need sleep desperately. Keep your eyes on this page for more updates. -- Geoff

P.S. from Eleanor: "We were thrilled when Ted Turner stood up, like a 70-year old schoolboy, proud as can be, and sang an a cappella version of Stephen Foster's 'My Old Kentucky Home.'"

Yes, a cappella, and right on key too.

"We also had a wonderful conversation with the filmmaker Ron Shelton," Eleanor says. (Bull Durham, etc.) "He advised us to stay true to our title, that perhaps 'Save Me' has not been overused after all. No title is completely new anymore, anyway. Thank you, Mr. Shelton, for telling us to follow our instincts, just like Fitzgerald, and even the tragic but immortal Jay Gatsby."