Florida: Where Dreams Become Words

A couple of months ago, on Facebook, I reconnected with Sara, a former 9th grade crush from Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines, Florida, who let me down easily enough then with the information that she was in a long-distance relationship that she wanted to stick with. I'm glad I kept up with her, but not for reasons of hoping to rekindle whatever I thought there might be if we had begun dating.

Sara is one of the smartest people I know, and no, that's not a generalization. These people have the same brain type as me. There's also another good friend in Texas, Blake, who loves movies just as much as I do, and is currently attending film school. Why film school in Texas? Think about Robert Rodriguez. That's why. You can do it anywhere.

I think it was last month that Sara decided she was done with Facebook, that whenever she went to the beach, whenever she had a fun time doing something she liked, she always framed it in terms of the kind of Facebook status update it could be. She didn't want that anymore. She wanted to have life slow down considerably from the fast dash it becomes on the Internet. And she did. She let her friends and "friends" on Facebook know when she was deactivating her account, and that day came, and she was gone. But before she did, I asked her if she'd want to keep in touch. Not through e-mail (though I often send her jokes by e-mail), not by phone, but by letters. Actual, handwritten letters. And she was game.

So I wrote my first letter to her early on this month and got her first letter last week. Where I prefer to write on a legal pad for sentimental reasons (my maternal great-grandfather was a lawyer, used them all the time, and once wrote me a letter on a sheet of one when I was very little), her way is far more novel than mine: She writes inside a blank card, which, on the front, has understated artwork of a tree with multi-colored bubbles as leaves. At first, when I took her envelope out of my mailbox, I was disappointed, not because I had written so much and it seemed like she had written so little, but because I was worried it would turn out that she didn't want to write much of anything. My only measurement for this sort of thing at that point was from Blake, my erudite and dryly funny Texan friend, with whom I had started the same thing.

When I opened the envelope, took out that card and began reading, wow. She's just like me. We can say so much with fewer words, though I'm sure she would differ in her opinion, because my latest letter to her was 11 pages, with a separate 5-page follow-up because I had forgotten something else that I love about California, as she had requested in her letter. And yet, in those 11 pages, in those 5 pages, I had gotten right to the point, while including very detailed descriptions of things.

She still lives in Florida, "on a barrier island off the coast of northern Central Florida," as she put it in her first letter. In my first letter, I had imagined where she lived to be so peaceful, and she confirmed it was, but without a fountain, as I had thought. She told me about her cul-de-sac area, the flowers around her house, the makeup of her town. I was thinking about her card letter this morning when I realized that I was indeed born and raised in the right state. Not that I had had any nagging doubts; how could I when part of my childhood was spent going to Walt Disney World every weekend and sometimes during the week just for dinner? How could I when the two biggest things for me at Old Town (http://www.old-town.com/) were the taffy-pulling machine and the candle store, watching those candle makers dip the wax into various colors and then carve it to reveal a different-colored rainbow inside each one?

Florida is not a land of expectations. It is a land of dreams. It is where if one dream deflates, you find another one to carry with you. There is a social strata, but only behind gated communities, of which I lived in one, Grand Palms, in Pembroke Pines, but it was too spread out to be considered a community. It took us two miles after the gate to get home to our condominium, and two miles out again. We didn't live in one of the ritzier developments, and that was fine. It was enough to have the view of the golf course, to occasionally piss off the golfers playing when my sister and I would sometimes walk the sidewalks of the course. It wasn't only their course, and I don't care that they were peeved. My father and mother's money went into it each month. It was ours, too, in our own way.

In Florida, you live however you wish. You work, of course, in order to have what you need, if you can work, but you go about your life the way you see fit. One of the greatest governors Florida ever had was Lawton Chiles, Walkin' Lawton. In 1970, when he ran for the United States Senate, he decided to campaign by walking 1,003 miles from Pensacola to Key West. It took 91 days. He met people of all kinds throughout Florida, and it was by that close, personal attention that he became a senator through 1989, after which he ran for governor in 1990 and was elected, and served two terms, up until his death, which brought his lieutenant governor into office for a little over three weeks until Jeb Bush was sworn in. Chiles was one of the great men of Florida history. He lived his life the way he saw fit. That's how we do it.

In the years of my dreams (a.k.a. real life) in Florida, there was also the space shuttle. In Casselberry, we lived close enough to Cape Canaveral, that on the radio, there would be an announcement about the shuttle lifting off, and we would rush outside to the backyard, and see the shuttle, so close that we could see the American flag on one of the wings. And we would be well aware of the shuttle's return, listening closely for word of when it would re-enter Earth's atmosphere, because when that sonic boom hit, everything shook in the house. We've only had that experience twice here in the Santa Clarita Valley, and it was milder compared to those days. But I didn't mind it. Where else in the United States could you live like this, where it seems like the shuttle is taking off a mere few feet in front of you, and where Mickey Mouse is not only always close, but also inside your house? We were, and still are, Disney nuts. In that house, we had big Mickey and Minnie mirrors that faced each other on one wall, a Mickey telephone, I had Disney bedsheets, and whenever we went to the Land pavilion at EPCOT, I would always have the kids meal which included a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Amidst my research for my second book, I'm also using the opportunity to track down exactly what kind of peanut butter that was in that sandwich because I can still remember the taste, and I wish I could have it again), and a Mickey's sorcerer apprentice figurine. At home, I filled up a whole bucket with just those.

Also at that house in Casselberry, I remember the basketball hoop next to the driveway, which began my lifelong love for basketball. I remember the tangerine tree next to one side of the house that survived many cold winters, except for the last one, which was the most bitter of all, at least when we were there. I remember the big tree plop-smack in the front yard, across from the front door. Could it have been oak, just like the one Sara says is in her front yard? Maybe. I just remember that it was big enough to inspire me to want to build a tree house, which happened just like the time machine I wanted to build. The biggest thing I did in that tree was fall out of it once, but I remember sometimes climbing into it and sitting there, imagining, but never dreaming. I already had the dreams all around me.

The biggest regret I have in my dreams was in 2000, when we visited Orlando for the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC), which my dad went to every year for a few years. I forgot where we stayed, but British tourists were also around at the same time, which meant British girls and lots of musical accents. I remember one night at the hotel, their clocks were running differently than our American ones, because at 9 p.m., they were still at the pool and in the pool. I wanted so badly to boldly go over there and just strike up a conversation, but I was too nervous. I watched them get out of the pool, go back to their rooms, and then those doors closed.

The last time we visited our old home was in 2003, starting on the Friday that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released (It was a 36-hour visit, and as soon as we got to Orlando, my parents dropped off Meridith and I at the AMC Pleasure Island 24 so we could see it. While we were there, our parents checked into the hotel), and it looked very run down. I don't remember if the basketball hoop was still there, but it was clear that even with the occasional messes to clean up inside the house, even with the salamanders that had managed to get inside the patio, even on those days where the house didn't always look its best, it still looked better than it did in that condition. It saddened me; I couldn't believe that someone would dare treat my dream like that. But that's how people are. And perhaps those who live there now aren't from Florida, but decided to spend the rest of their decades there. I hope it's at least in partly better shape than it was when we saw it.

I know I can't live my dreams again. Those times are gone. But I strive to still live my dreams in a different fashion. It's why I write. And with this second book, I'm living it all again. I'm remembering riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority at the Magic Kingdom over and over when we visited from South Florida. I'm remembering that same time in 2000 during the FETC, when my mom and sister and I went to the Magic Kingdom (My dad, still at the conference, came by later in the afternoon), and it was a morning of Early Entry for hotel guests. This very nice older gentleman who was manning one of the gates to the monorails listened to our stories of how we used to live in Casselberry, how we visited Walt Disney World every weekend, and he let us go through. We didn't tell those stories in the hope of that happening, but we were just recounting who we were when we lived there. We loved it. And I remember that because of that guy, I rode Space Mountain, my beloved Space Mountain, three times before it began to get crowded.

On that same day, we ate at the Crystal Palace buffet, and the Pooh that was walking around wrote me a note indicating that he knew me. I asked who, and Pooh wrote his name. It was Beth Lambert, who I went to school with at Silver Trail Middle. She disappeared into the back after her moments as Pooh were over, she re-emerged as herself, and we hugged, talked about the past, and about our current lives. I look on Facebook occasionally, haven't found Beth yet, but I want to know what she's up to now.

I started reading in Florida when I was 2, and I started writing when I was 11. I remember the exact moment that inspired me to become a writer. I was in a thrift store in South Florida, a big one, with racks and racks of clothing, merchandise in glass cases, and bookcases full. I looked through the books they had, and found one, a compilation of four of Andy Rooney's books. We watched 60 Minutes every Sunday night, and I remember seeing Andy Rooney once in a while, but I remember it most as the time of the week that had the most car commercials. I flipped through that book, looking at the various headings, and I was amazed. You could actually write about restaurants, about barber shops, about road trips? You could write about pencils, Sunday mornings, and beds? I was a voracious reader, but I thought those kinds of things were just part of the everyday norm. You just live them and that's that. He wrote about those like they belonged in a book, and I know they were, which astonished me. I wanted to do this.

At home, I tried writing about what Andy Rooney wrote about, exactly as he wrote about them. It was then that I realized that each person has their own style. I couldn't write like Andy Rooney because I wasn't Andy Rooney. I needed to write like me. I needed to figure out how to do that. And I think I have. I'm not a supreme egotist about it, because I know there will forever be something for me to learn about writing, but I'm satisfied so far with where I am.

My dreams are still here, even though I don't live in Florida now. I am a Floridian, forever and beyond.

"What If They Lived?" by Rory Leighton Aronsky, for Rory Leighton Aronsky - Part 2

The doorbell didn't ring. The dogs barked, and even through that double noise, I heard someone put a package near the door. And there it was. A smaller box than I expected, but my publisher sure knows how to get the most use out of smaller spaces. I opened the box more carefully than I would a package from Amazon or from one of the booksellers who must think me one of the family now, and there it was. My book. Five copies of my book, per my contract.

I wasn't as overjoyed as my mom, my dad or Meridith was, because I had spent so much time with this book. I read so many books and took so many notes and transcribed all those notes in order to write these essays. I spent days on word choices and sentence structure alone, determining what I wanted to say and how it could best be said. There were times when I wondered if a period would be more suitable than a semi-colon. Was there too much in this paragraph? Should that one sentence at the end actually be the beginning of a new paragraph?

So much to think about, so much to write, though I've no complaints about the journey. I was surprised when Phil Hall, who spearheaded this project, invited me aboard. I couldn't believe it. My first book could happen without the struggle of dealing with the peripatetic publishing world. My name could eventually be on a book and all I had to do was write what was required in this project.

At first, I didn't want to do it. I had no confidence. Sure, I had written movie reviews and some of my own work, but this was too big. Too scary. Too much to do. Mom told me that I had to do it. I would never find an opportunity like this again. Most people have to deal with rejection after rejection from publishers and go through that struggle right at the start. I had to do this. So, reluctantly, I told Phil I'd do it.

Then came the books. 20 or so of them, plus solid articles online, and interviews with people I found who I considered experts on the actors I wrote about. It was hard, tedious work, and I hadn't even gotten to actually writing the essays. That was its own struggle, too.

But now it's done. I remember in middle school hearing about how I should become a writer, but I assured those who suggested that that I didn't have any ideas. Well, you have to write in order to have any ideas, but first you have to read, and I've been doing that since I was two years old. And after this book was done, after I lost 60 pounds (and am still losing more), and after I rethought my priorities in my life, I began to have more ideas. I thought about my love of the American presidency and vice presidency, the history, the personalities, the people surrounding those great positions of power. There are at least two or three books for me to write within that passion. Some weeks before I received my five copies of "What If They Lived?", I had a dream, and a piece of it led me to the idea for my second book. All I will say is that it will be fiction, and the frame for it is my love of book-length reportage, of which I seem to read more than novels and other fiction. I know there will be a struggle this time. Since I don't intend to pursue my ideas yet for books about two of my favorite actors (I have to see if there are significant stories in their lives, first), there's no chance of this book being published by BearManor Media. So I have to steel myself, and I'm ready. I know how harsh the publishing world can be. I'm grateful that Phil Hall basically protected me from those realities by this ready-made idea, the second book in his contract with BearManor Media. But I'm prepared. All I know is that I want to finish this book and see it published by the time I'm 30. That's it. The rest is an adventure just like my first book was.

So when those five copies arrived yesterday, I was pleased at what I had accomplished, but not overjoyed. I had done everything I could do for this book. It's in the hands of the readers now. Naturally, I hope for the best, but I've already moved on to the research for my second book. Last night and this morning, my mom joked that I was reading the wrong book (I'm finishing "Travels with My Aunt" by Graham Greene). I told her that I read my book enough times while I was writing it, and therefore have no need because I know it so well already. The only things I did do when the book arrived was to make sure my favorite sentence remained intact (It's in my essay on Marilyn Monroe, about one guy she knew that wanted more, but Monroe "didn't want that kind of more."), as well as my favorite speculation (John Gilmore on James Dean. And I only wrote brief sentences to help connect those thoughts). Once I was satisfied, that was it for me with this book. I only involved myself with signing copies for Mom, Dad and Meridith, with appropriate inscriptions. I have the other two copies, and I will see about a hard plastic covering to protect the covers of all five copies. But other than that, I have no reason to read it again. I've long been thinking about what I have to do for this second book, what I have to read, what literature I have to reference to see how those authors did it and figure out how I want to do it. I've determined that once I answer all the questions I have (and I know there will also be questions that crop up during the research), then I will begin writing this book. Only then.

Because of "What If They Lived?", I now have the confidence to be the writer I hope to be. But, to be a proper writer, you have to keep writing, you have to keep thinking, you have to keep reading. And I've moved on to doing just that.

In Las Vegas, There is Hotel Room Food (Not Quite Room Service)

"I felt glad that I had not lost my temper, but nonetheless I was shocked and needed a little time for reflection, so I climbed down on to the platform and began to look around me for food. It was the last chance before Belgrade next morning. I bought six ham rolls off a trolley and a bottle of Chianti and some sweet cakes--it was not so good a meal as Chicken would have provided, I thought sadly, and what a dreary station it was." - Henry, narrating in "Travels with My Aunt" by Graham Greene

"It seemed at first another and a happier world which I had re-entered: I was back home, in the late afternoon, as the long shadows were falling; a boy whistled a Beatle tune and a motor-bicycle revved far away up Norman Lane. With what relief I dialled Chicken and ordered myself cream of spinach soup, lamb cutlets and Cheddar cheese: a better meal than I had eaten in Istanbul." - Henry, having returned to the security of his dahlia-centered world.

Chicken is the dinner delivery service retired bank manager Henry Pulling relies upon after a day of tending to his dahlias, the only real claim he has to an identity in the world. (He's not that retired, though. Think of it as ordering up pizza delivery.) If anyone should know him, they would likely know his dahlias more, that is until Aunt Augusta sweeps into his life and sets him on a course with her on a trip through parts of the world, which includes the Orient Express. But that's not why I've got these words here.

I read that above passage, and I didn't think of Henry Pulling dialing Chicken for his evening meal. I thought about the rooms my family and I have stayed in at America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas, comfortably removed from the Strip, which is very convenient when it's 11 p.m. and you just want to get back to your room to bed, ahead of a day full of future hopes and hopeful house hunting. I thought about the binder in each room with information on the property itself, the emergency exit plan on the back of each door. Then my memory's attention went straight to the menu for some company that provided salads, hamburgers, desserts and wonderfully greasy appetizers such as mozzarella sticks to these rooms (I can only assume that they're wonderfully greasy, as most mozzarella sticks tend to be). Oh, there were also pizzas on that menu, and I imagined not only the usual delivery car with pizza boxes inside that delivery bag, but plastic bags with styrofoam containers holding all the victuals one could strangely want, when there's a diner just a few steps (or a few hundred steps, depending on which room is yours) ahead of the Best Value Inn rooms. But I suppose it's a matter of privacy then, of tiredness, of not waiting to journey back to the Strip or surrounding areas just to have something. (By the way, $8.99 for mozzarella sticks? It had better be mozzarella I can't readily find at Smith's in Vegas, or Ralphs here in the Santa Clarita Valley.)

When we drive past the California state line, into Nevada, I see the casinos that make up Primm Valley. I see the smallish rollercoaster (smallish compared to others I've been on in Florida and California) on the grounds of one, and the outlet mall near another, and I think about those employees. I think about the dealers, the pit bosses, the waitresses who live nearby, who may be hoping for something better, but being that this is such a tightly-knit area, at least in past construction of these casinos, it's not a huge dream at the moment, just something to help gradually get to that big dream. Little steps first.

When we get to Las Vegas proper, near the Strip, past the MGM Grand and the Tropicana, I think about the dealers there, and the pit bosses on the Strip, and the cocktail waitresses at Caesars Palace, who, depending on what hour you get there, wear these wonderfully short white outfits that remind me why I love and will forever love this rarefied world of gamblers, of dreamers, of imaginative chefs in high-priced restaurants, of parking garages where it's guaranteed that you'll find at least one out-of-state license plate as soon as you pull in, the product of intrepid travelers looking for life that truly cannot be found elsewhere.

But, looking at that menu in those rooms at America's Best Value Inn, I think about the people who make the food for delivery to these rooms, and I'm fascinated. I hear the planes take off from McCarran, I look up into the night sky, and I know not only are there obviously the pilots on board as well as the passengers either going back home somewhat victorious or totally devastated, but there are also those in the control tower monitoring the plane's progress from gate to runway to sky before handing the plane off to the next air traffic control center, those who cleaned the plane before its departure, those who man the ticket counters, those who sell the books and magazines and candy designed to distract people from the fact that they're now in a metal tube hurtling faster through the sky than they ever could on the road in their own cars.

To get to the point, while perusing that menu, I wonder where that building is located, when deliveries are made of lettuce, of mozzarella cheese, of dough for the pizza. I wonder how the people who work there got to these jobs from wherever they were before. Do some of them work for this small company because they want to feed weary and excited travelers who might not yet be ready to explore the Strip but still need something to eat? Do they work there because there's quite possibly less pressure to perform and deliver than there would be in the buffet kitchens and other prestigious kitchens on the Strip? Or is it just a stepping stone for some who eventually want to work in those kitchens?

Las Vegas is seen by many to be a transient land, where people don't stay long enough to form lasting and meaningful connections. Yet I am looking forward to becoming a resident and finding a connection like that. Despite the cynicism surrounding Vegas regarding its transient nature, I think it can be done. There are natives there. There are people who have moved there 15 years ago, who hopefully have daughters within their families who might be beneficial for me. There are hundreds of thousands of stories to be found each day. And, being a writer, I need that kind of place. Sure I'll have my full-time career as a campus supervisor at a school there, because money is nice in order to live comfortably enough, but all those stories. Getting all of that just from one menu in my room near Hooters Casino Hotel, can you imagine the other stories that are waiting? Just in the Pinball Hall of Fame alone, off the Strip, across from the now-closed Liberace Museum, there are at least 100 stories amidst those machines and the guy who lovingly maintains them. This is what I've been waiting for. And thank god for Graham Greene for indirectly bringing those thoughts back to me.

"What If They Lived" by Rory Leighton Aronsky, for Rory Leighton Aronsky

Five copies of my book, per my contract, arrived today via UPS in a box smaller than I expected, but no less anticipated. More on my impressions once I get past being stunned that I'm now an author.

Do I Want That Copy of "Travels With My Aunt"?

Maybe it was last year, or the year before, when I wrote about my love for the book "Subways are for Sleeping" by Edmund G. Love, about the every day creativity of New York City's homeless population in surviving. I discovered the book most likely out of curiosity after I had put it on hold and picked it up at the Valencia library. It stayed with me through all the time I spent at College of the Canyons. I checked it out often. I decided one day, some time after I had graduated, that after all it had been through with me, all the times that I read it, that it belonged with me. So I told the library I had lost that copy (I knew which one it was because it was a greenish cover, while the only other copy from another branch was an aqua blue), paid $34, and it was mine. I still have it, in a stack of favorite books that includes "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow, "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck, "The Music of Your Life" by John Rowell, and now "Two Gentlemen of Lebowski" by Adam Bertocci. "A Week at the Airport" by Alain de Botton, which I haven't finished reading yet, and which I bought from abebooks.com today, will soon join that stack because I want my next book to feel just like how de Botton writes. I don't intend to copy his style exactly, but that's part of my research, to see how others handle book-length reportage, since I love it more than fiction, even though this book is going to be fiction.

Recently, I've become enraptured again by "Travels with My Aunt" by Graham Greene, which was published in 1969. In 1972, it became a movie starring Maggie Smith, which I checked out of the library yesterday in widescreen, on VHS tape. I must be one of the very few in the nation now who still owns a VCR. I was planning to finish reading the novel today, in order to watch the movie properly tomorrow morning, but it's late now and it's been a busy latter half of the day with a few errands.

Same situation as "Subways are for Sleeping": Do I want this copy, too? Do I want to pay however much it would be after I said it was lost? I think this is the same copy I checked out last time, but that was the first time. This is the second time. It's not the 13th, 14th, 15th or 16th time. I feel a kinship with this copy, but really not as closely as with the other book.

It's not a question to be answered by the time I return this hardcover copy, which is pink, with illustrations of a bird inside a curved glass encasement, next to a black urn with a dahlia sprouting out of the top, the dahlia being the main character's favorite flower, which he maintains in his garden. I answered the question a few days before. Yes, I love this copy. But I think it's because of the sense of discovery of this story, and that I love it for bringing this story to me. But it's not the same as the deep connection I have with my acquired copy of "Subways are for Sleeping." Not only did I feel that I had truly discovered a writer like Edmund G. Love to enjoy, but he kept providing me with more to explore each time I read the book. And how unassuming that green cover is, just with the title on the spine and "Love" below it, I know what's in the book every time, but I always get that thrill every time I pull it from the stack. This copy of "Travels with My Aunt" is slightly more obtrusive. I may get the same thrill, but it would only be from the words. I don't mind that this book apparently began its library life in 1988. I don't mind the aging smells coming from it. It's part of why I do and will forever love reading, for smells like that, which also reveal its history, maybe just a bit of each person who reads this particular copy. But it doesn't feel like it will fit as well in my collection as that copy of "Subways are for Sleeping" does.

So I went to abebooks.com the other day and ordered the Penguin Classics edition from 2004. I can begin my own history with that copy. And, save for hopefully a passionate female book lover, it will never pass through anyone else's hands. It will be mine.

Sam Mendes: 007's New Boss

I was watching Annette Bening in "Mother and Child," marveling not only at the seamlessness of storytelling esteemed writer/director Rodrigo Garcia embodies in his films (and why I was stupid to give up "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her" when I was getting rid of an excess number of DVDs), but also at the gradations of Bening's career. I realized how actually over the top her Caroline Burnham was in "American Beauty", which I knew was the point when I first saw the film at then-Muvico Paradise 24 in Davie, Florida (It's Cinemark now, though I've learned that that company has not changed any of the Egyptian theming, and it's nice that one thing I remember from living in South Florida has not changed drastically in the years since I've become a former resident), but I didn't know the extent of it.

And then, by extension, I got to thinking about Sam Mendes, the director of "American Beauty" and one of my favorite filmmakers (Garcia is another, and Barbra Streisand is probably the third). I'm still amazed, and very happy, that he's directing the next Bond film. It's pure joy to me, and one of the personal benefits of having been a Bond fan all this time. Some say that the Bond director is just the worker bee, just the one to answer to the producers, but with Mendes, that seems to be just a quarter true. With Mendes, and with his prestigious filmography (including "The Road to Perdition" and "Revolutionary Road"), I imagine this film will be an equal partnership, and Mendes will no doubt make his mark on this next Bond film. It will be in his style.

The Day's Plans - Conclusion

I got the bananas, and the gala apples, and the Bartlett pears, and the carrot chips, and the Yoplait Greek strawberry yogurt, and the hummus (Sabra spinach and artichoke, until I get to Trader Joe's, because there's a hummus there I want to try, though I forgot which one it is. I'll know it when I see it), and the Cheerios, and the library books (among them, two Nigella Lawson cookbooks just to read, and a huge book on ghost sightings. Time to begin research for my second book), and I love my mp3 player even more now.

No pita bread, and I don't mind. I do not think of the Sara Lee brand at all when I think of pita bread, and that did not look like pita bread. That looked like a pita bread philistine's idea of pita bread.