The Power of Imagination Under Fire

In my mind, I can, and have, sat in the Nevada Room of the Boulder City Library, with only the lights in that room on and all the other lights off.

I have walked back and forth through the half-bowl-shaped park beneath the Bureau of Reclamation building in Boulder City during the day, at sunset, and well into the night.

I have walked the UNLV campus many times and have gotten lost at least twice. I keep forgetting which way the bookstore is.

I have walked all around the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas in Primm, on the exact state line between California and Nevada, when it's completely empty. I've played Galaga in the small arcade tucked away from the food court, which was also totally empty.

I have found where the pigeons of Las Vegas go at night, and have talked with them about their lives here, as well as asking if they have any cousins in New York City, and if they ever have the chance to compare notes.

I can change things in my imagination. That's the whole point of being a writer. I can do in my mind what I can't do in my life. I don't think I could speak pigeon well enough. But what's most frustrating to me is when something is totally immovable, when nothing I think about can turn it into its original spirit, before it became what it is. Some things don't have an original spirit. What they are is what they always have been and that's never going to change.

I have an odd interest in business, and maybe that's because I'm not in business. I'm not part of a corporation, or a growing company, and I don't know any corporatespeak. I don't know how to shift a paradigm, nor would I want to learn. I'm happy as I am. Yet I'm always curious about business trips, what's involved in them, who those people are that take them, what in their lives is interrupted when they take them, or if their jobs are their lives. Part of it is indeed inspired by watching Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, but the rest is wondering about how various businesses operate, how they approach various situations every day. Is there still humanity inside some of those businesses or has it been snuffed out by corporate monoliths that are so sure that the bottom line is the only line? Moreover, who are the people in these businesses? Where did they come from? Did they want to do anything else before they came to the business world or were they the kind so organized in elementary school, so good and quick with numbers, and later so full of ideas to further interests outside of their own that the business world just seemed natural? I'm tempted to read Bloomberg Businessweek once in a great while to see what those people in business are like. Back in Florida and California, my dad was a middle school business education teacher, so while I didn't pay a great deal of attention to his work because I was either also in school or pursuing other ventures, some of it seeped in. I don't like the sterileness of OfficeMax and Staples and Office Depot, but I do like standing in front of legal pads and binders and pens and paper clips and other business products, happy that they're useful to someone. I don't like how some businesses can destroy lives, can widen the gap between rich and poor, can harm the environment, but I'm still curious. I'm not as interested in the top as I am in the inside, those who work on the lower levels of a company to make it look impressive to investors and the media and others.

I bring all this up because last Friday morning, I was sitting in a wide room, at a large round table, one of many large round tables that clustered together in the length of the room, listening to the head of substitute services of the Clark County School District tell us what we needed to know. I kind of understand making meeting rooms bland because you don't want to emphasize one thing over another and therefore run the risk of offending everyone and making business life even more difficult.

This particular room, inside the Curriculum and Development Building on Pecos and Flamingo, off the main entrance, has a slightly raised platform, demonstrating why substitute services uses this to introduce new substitutes to how the SmartFind job system works, what the pay rates are, what you should do when you arrive on the job, etc. The head of substitute services seemed aware of how plain the room is, and in introducing herself, immediately made herself more personable by giving a few details of her life, including being an enormous fan of the University of Alabama football team. She had obviously done this orientation so many times before because she stuck to the serious details, while handing off other matters, including discounts offered in Las Vegas by having a CCSD ID card, to another woman in her department, whose name I unfortunately forgot. Both made an admirable tag team for giving the necessary information.

But the room, oh that room. I got a Brave New World/1984 vibe. While I listened to what Dr. Byrd told us that we needed to know, graciously scaling some of it back since much of it we had already picked up from the online training, I also looked at the dais she was on, the podium on which she had her papers and her bell to get our attention at the beginning of the orientation and after the break we got in the middle, the screen on the left, the screen on the right, and the two projectors embedded in the ceiling, pointing at both screens, showing Dr. Byrd's PowerPoint presentation.

Could anything else be made out of this room? What about a play? Unfortunately, Glengarry Glen Ross was the only one that came to mind, a more low-budget version.

Maybe improv comedy classes. The dais was low enough to at least be accessible. Dr. Byrd may have been taller than us during that orientation, but she was with us. She was there to help us.

I then thought about those trust exercises I've heard about in meetings, in retreats. That seemed to be the only other thing this room could become. Even the cabinets in this room looked plain. But even so, I still wondered about the history of this building. Does it only exist because the Clark County School District wanted a separate location for curriculum and development? Certainly I understand that because the main district office is its own maze, but doesn't have a great deal of room. There, you do what you can with what you have and it works. You also get great exercise from walking throughout it, which was ok with me when I went to get the TB test done, give the money order for the background check, get my photo taken for my ID card, and get my fingerprinting done. Unless you're working there, it's not the kind of building you spend a lot of time in.

Later on, as we reached the end of the orientation, I got a slightly different vibe. Former medical building? Maybe this room had been a meeting place for an HMO company that previously occupied this building? Probably not, because when you walk to the Pecos/Flamingo intersection from the building, as I did after the orientation was over, and cross to Flamingo and begin walking toward the Strip, to the Clark County Library, for example, you pass by medical row, which includes a few buildings stocked with medical practices and dentists, as well as Desert Springs Hospital. Just like car lots gather close, so do medical facilities.

Give me a scuff mark, a discolored tile that Maintenance will soon replace, a chip in a doorframe, something to show me that there is life in a building. Or even a shine to a floor that hasn't seen a shine in a while, almost a mirror that reflects the back door when it opens and closes. But I think there is life to the Curriculum and Development Building in a different way. When tourists come to Las Vegas, if they're first-timers, they think that the Strip is all that there is. I did, but then learned otherwise very quickly. Or if they're coming back for a third or fourth or 583rd time, either they do want to explore the rest of this valley or they never want to know the valley, only in Las Vegas for their favorite hotel, their favorite restaurant, their favorite show, their favorite nightclub. But this building, this is us. We live in Las Vegas. We love and hate and fight and strive and work and do all the things that anyone does in any other city. This building, invisible to you unless you either work there or need to go there as I did, is part of the fabric of this city. We have a school district. We have hospitals. We have restaurants that aren't on the Strip, and we have supermarkets, libraries, gas stations, and movie theaters, all part of what helps us live however we want to live every day. We do have a lopsided reputation because of what the rest of the nation thinks about us or how they use us, but this is us. Every building is important. Everything we do contributes to the present and the past. We walk into Sam's Town to gamble, or go to the bowling alley, and we follow those who came before, but we also can see artifacts under glass from the life of Sam Boyd, whose Sam's Town was but one casino in his portfolio.

The Curriculum and Development Building, in the context of contributions, does the same thing. We new substitutes follow those who came before. And we fan out to our different schools and meet new people and students and get acclimated to these schools and know which ones we want to sub at more than others, but it all started in that Curriculum and Development Building. That is its contribution to our city's history. A school district grows because of it. Yes, Dr. Byrd has a great hand in it, being the head of substitute services and knowing exactly what we're thinking and the questions we have by the experience she has had in guiding so many of these orientations before ours, but this building had to be there in order for this to happen.

History isn't readily apparent in Las Vegas, but it can be found and it is available. It's in books in libraries, it's in museums, and you can even find a little bit of it on the Strip with the Mob Museum at the Tropicana. To some, we are America's Playground, but away from the Strip, we're living day-to-day like anyone else. Even though it was hard to imagine anything of that room other than what it is, other than how plain it was, it's still part of this city, still doing what it can to contribute to what makes us Las Vegas. I like that, at least. It's difficult at times for me to understand that not every building can feel comfortable or allow me to use my imagination to consider it differently, but I am proud of what we can do. That's good enough for me, to feel that after nine years of feeling nothing. I'm home.

Someone's Domestic History Tucked Inside a Book

I've been reading Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister, about a timid, famous film critic guided to improve her life by the ghost of Dorothy Parker, who lives inside a guestbook signed by the entire Algonquin Round Table. When it's open, she can eat and drink and opine like the rest of us, the latter only the way Parker can.

I like the central conceit, Violet is worth watching grow a little from the beginning, and I should read the rest, being that I have three ghost-related novels in mind, and I should see how Meister plays with Parker being a ghost. But I think I've seen all of it at the beginning, when Violet feels Parker's spirit in her, and later inadvertently swipes the famous guestbook while at the Algonquin Hotel. Plus, I'm on page 92 and the story still hasn't moved much. I see that it's 301 pages, and I'm not sure I want to see it through. And when Meister presents quirks in characters, it feels like she's saying, in parentheses, "LOOK! THEY'RE QUIRKY!", with more exclamation points than that. Maybe I've already decided to move on, but I want to give it a few more pages. It's an advanced reading copy I bought from a seller at abebooks.com (it comes out on the 21st), and therefore I paid a little more for it, but I'm not going to continue read it simply because I spent more.

I've picked out my next book if it comes to that: Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body by Jennifer Ackerman. I'm curious about so much in the world, not so much about how bodies work, but this one has followed me for a while. Tracing one's body processes through an entire day sounds appealing to my mind.

Tucked inside the early pages of this book was a sheet of ads and coupons for Woolite and Endust. On the other side, ads and coupons for Bic multi-purpose lighters and Purell. Before looking at the back, I thought the person who might have read this book before me, or long before me, might have been a domestic sort. Perhaps they had these coupons already and used this extra sheet as a bookmark, as seemed to be its obvious purpose. Or maybe these were just coupons they don't use, so it should have some use another way. As long as the words are there and all the pages are there, and it's not marked up so badly, I don't mind finding things like these coupons tucked in books. It shows me that someone else read this book, that I'm part of a chain of readers who has read this book, and will read this book. The most noticeable evidence I received of someone having read a book before me was when I checked out a large-print hardcover edition of Whispering Rock by Robyn Carr, the third in the Virgin River series not long after we moved here, and it smelled like a chain smoker. I couldn't get through it because of that, and returned it the next week. That's evidence I can live without.

But little pieces of paper, lists, coupons, notes, some markings, such as passages underlined in pencil in this book, I like all of it. I get a bigger sense of a book's existence, how far it's come, which is one of countless benefits of libraries. Books are meant to be read, and little things like that show that they are. I appreciate that the most whenever I find a sheet of coupons or markings or whatever other kind of evidence.

The Ghosts of Boulder City

Last Saturday, a friend of mine, a resident of Boulder City, my favorite city in all of Southern Nevada, showed me around. We went to TuTu's Books, which you have to climb stairs to get to, and I learned from Mom later that the block that TuTu's is on is actually houses that were divided for businesses to move in.

I want to move into TuTu's. The next day, I thought about where the biography section was, overlooking another block of stores, where I saw a man and a woman walking a dog below, and I wanted to replace the biography section with a bed for myself. I wouldn't need as big a TV as I have now. Just one to bring in Jeopardy!, The Big Bang Theory, and How It's Made, along with a DVD player for my movies. But being that I would have not only the books in TuTu's, but also my own collection, plus being within walking distance of the Boulder City Library, I don't think I'd watch TV all that often. Not that I do now anyway. For example, I Tivo'd Monday Mornings on TNT last night, which I want to see because it's based on a novel by Sanjay Gupta that I really like. I still haven't gotten to it.

We went to Goatfeathers, which is the largest antique store I've ever seen, with two upstairs areas, one of them for dishes and mugs and other kitchen supplies. And we went to another antique store where they've got a good handle on furniture, armoires and sturdy squat bookcases that I'd be hard-pressed to find in such good condition at the average furniture store. Later, we went to the Boulder Dam Brewing Co. for dinner, where I had an excellent blue cheese burger and the fries were pretty good, too.

But all that paled in importance, though refocused itself later, in comparison to the parking lot behind the Bureau of Reclamation building, where I was led to see the view of Lake Mead from there. I saw houses stretching to the lake, mountains cradling the lake, and I found the meaning of life. I felt such inner peace that I don't think I've ever felt before, not like this, not as pronounced. The other time I did, though it was far less than this, was every Friday in Pembroke Pines, in our development at Grand Palms, when I came home from school, and the sunlight through the trees, golden on the sidewalks, made it feel like the universe was aligned.

Then came the biggest discovery of all: Finding peace on Earth. We had bumped into my friend's former co-worker at that Bureau of Reclamation building, and she took us up to her office to see the view of Lake Mead from her window, which was also spectacular, but I always need the air around me in order to appreciate that view. I chatted with her for a few minutes, and then it was time to go, since she had work to do, even though it was a Saturday. But she had the right idea since there was no noise in the building, it was totally quiet, and certainly you could get a lot done that way. I told her that when I was in middle school and my teachers made us get in groups, I hated it because I always knew I could get the work done faster on my own. Ironic that those teachers were promoting socialization, yet would always tell us to be quiet and get to work.

We walked downstairs, back to the entrance/exit of the building, pushed the door open to the outside, went out, and went down the short stairs that rise to, and fall from, the building. In front of us was the half-bowl shaped park for dog walkers, joggers, and people like us, just strolling and looking around.

We started down the lip of the half-bowl, down that hill, and even though I couldn't see the sunset happening at that moment, I could feel it. The streetlights had come on, no sickly orangish glow here. Pure, gentle white lights. I looked at those lights in the park, and across the street at other buildings, and I felt peace on Earth. As my friend's former co-worker reminded me when I exclaimed my love of Boulder City, it is a unique situation. And she's right. Boulder City was created by the government to house the workers building Hoover (then Boulder) Dam, because they didn't want them living in Las Vegas, getting caught up in that debauched (their perception) lifestyle, and proving unreliable. A city manager was appointed in Sims Ely of Arizona, who ruled with an iron fist while sticking to the strict letter of the rules (no madness for power in that head), and there was no liquor, no gambling, and no prostitution allowed. I'm not sure yet if there was a curfew on the reservation, but there must have been. Actually, I think there was, because workers could go to Las Vegas, where they invariably did to spend their paychecks and have fun (those without families, of course), but if they were late getting back, they weren't allowed back on the reservation until the next morning, and I'm sure Mr. Ely had a few words for them.

Long after Boulder City passed from government to municipal hands, some of the same rules have stayed. There is alcohol now, but there's no gambling and no prostitution. That's mainly what helps keep the peace in Boulder City, that and the overwhelming friendliness of its residents and those who work there. I'm not sure if I would move there yet. For one, I'm close to becoming an employee of the Clark County School District as a library assistant, but I need to establish myself, and I could only get there if I know of a vacancy in the elementary school library there, and that I could transfer into it. But I need to accrue time working in the district.

Not only that, though. There is TuTu's, and there is a Vons supermarket at the edge of town, and restaurants, and those antique stores, and the Boulder City Library, but if you need socks, or shoes, or jeans, you have to drive to Henderson, or Las Vegas if you want to go that far. But it's not that difficult because my friend's former co-worker lives in Las Vegas on Windmill Lane, and commutes to Boulder City. It's much calmer there, which is probably what attracted her to it. However, you're obviously using gas to get to where you need to go from Boulder City, 14 miles out, however many miles it is to where you want to go (and there's also no movie theater in Boulder City, but the nearby Hacienda Hotel and Casino has a two-screen theater. For anything more extensive, there's Henderson or Las Vegas), however many miles back, and then those 14 miles back into Boulder City. But I'm gauging it based on where I currently am in Las Vegas. In Henderson, which we're moving to in September, it's closer to Boulder City. Five or so miles are shaved off of the drive. It may not be for me for now, but I'm still considering moving there when I retire.

Getting to the title of this post, there's always a hullabaloo in city history about ghosts living in the Boulder Dam Hotel, and it's likely true. My friend said that when she stayed there for six weeks to learn a new job within the Bureau of Reclamation after two years with the Bureau in Yuma, Arizona, she heard noises all around, and it wouldn't surprise me because the Hotel has changed ownership so many times and gone through so many iterations that it's never able to rest. But when my friend and I walked through Boulder City, I felt like there were more ghosts than just those in the Boulder Dam Hotel. I noticed them there, too, when I was with my family, going to the Boulder Dam Museum on the second floor, way in the back. I didn't hear the noises, but I could sense that the building was steeped in enough history that there were more figures wanting their stories told. I would be more interested as to why they ended up in the hotel. What keeps them there? Is it a kind of purgatory unknown to us? Or do they feel most at home there? I don't have a hardcore belief in ghosts, but I think that with some towns' focus on its history, like Buena Park where Knott's Berry Farm is, where its history hangs so heavily, there is a better chance that ghosts are around, wanting to be noticed, wanting their stories to be told.

Goatfeathers is where I began sensing those ghosts. Not sensing like ghost hunters do, but a feeling about it. I know that antique stores are fertile ground for ghosts anyway because of all kinds of things left behind either by death or by not needing them anymore. They all have stories. Sitting in front of me is a model of a 19th-century Victoria house in Charlotte, North Carolina. I bought this because it's the kind of house I wish I had if I didn't mind, and could afford, upkeep, and I had more money than God on a Wednesday. It's not only that this house was of the 19th century. It's that this sat somewhere in someone's house, maybe someone who collected models of houses like this one, who explored the different styles of houses, tracing them through history, trends based on the time period, perhaps.

In fact, when I looked around in Goatfeathers, I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to tell stories about so many items there. Take, for example, some of the glasses I found. I could write a short story about the glass, either in a cupboard, or where it might have come from, or who used it. If I could find out where it had been, it would be eerie if I found out that the short story I wrote was accurate. It's not only that Goatfeathers encourages you to look around, but it also invites you to sniff out potential history of all that it stocks. We'll never know what the history was, but we can tell stories from what we feel about the history of those objects when we look at them. I think there are ghosts of sorts in Goatfeathers. They want their stories to be told. I don't think they care if those stories are accurate, which they're not meant to be. They just want to be noticed.

Down that hill, into the park, the ghosts were there, too. An old turbine from Hoover Dam sits in one section of the park, and it's part of it, but it's the same thing with those ghosts in the park, too, the ones who have lived there as humans, who have loved it: Find the story you want to tell, and that's acknowledgement enough for us. Even if it's just the atmosphere, that's good enough.

The history of Las Vegas is there, but you really have to dig for it. In my mobile home park, I sense its history only when it rains (as it will on Friday), and the sky remains gloomy with the threat of more rain. Otherwise, you have to dig. The Strip doesn't offer any time for reflection, but then, that's not the point of it. At least there are books that reveal all. But in Boulder City, the present and the past co-exist as peacefully as the landscape.

It's 4:49 p.m. The sun is getting ready to set here. But in my mind, I'm back in Boulder City, in that park, waiting for the streetlights to grow brighter as the sky gets darker, feeling so at peace that that's where I want to be forever. We're going back on Saturday, during the day, so Mom can see what Goatfeathers is like, and to eat wherever we're going to eat. There are so many restaurants in Boulder City, that while I thought of Mel's Diner because they have patty melts, which I love, Mom bookmarked the tripadvisor list of Boulder City restaurants, and I spotted Boulder PIT Stop, which also has burgers. So that's another one to consider. And Dad and Meridith haven't seen the list yet, so they may have other ideas too. It's great to have these choices again! But no matter if we decide on something that's far off from my original thought of Mel's Diner, I will have the Boulder City I love. It looks even more beautiful at sunset, but during the day, there's that same peace. No tension. Just history and the possibility of so many stories to explore. And the ghosts. They're always happy to know you're there. They want you there. So come in and wander. The peace will touch you too.

I Locked Myself Away Until It Was Done

So I think I could rank last week as one of the least fun I've ever had. I spent nearly all of it editing the memoir of Sy Richardson, character actor, after he contacted me, asking if I knew any editors that could do it for him and not charge him like they were agents taking commission (my phrasing, not his). I sent him my resume and he hired me!

His manuscript wasn't the torture I'm talking about. He's got quite a story to tell. It's just that when you go line by line and go deep into a sentence, to take care of punctuation and grammar and sometimes the way a sentence reads, you do lose sight of the rest of the book. You have a vague idea of what the book's about, what the author's after, but each sentence becomes its own valley and the pages crawl, because that's the thorough job an editor's supposed to do. I hope I did. I have to make one more pass at it tomorrow, to be sure I've edited all that's necessary and to gather my suggestions for what should be added, especially more about his guest-starring roles on Cheers and Wings.

The last time I did anything as extensive as this in words was when I wrote reviews for Screen It!, and those reviews sometimes took as long as this editing job did, or at least it felt like it. But I know that no matter how tedious it sometimes felt, I got to learn more about how he was hired for Pushing Daisies, and his role in Repo Man, and how genuinely nice Tom Hanks is, by what he did for the cast of Larry Crowne during filming.

But the editing wasn't entirely part of how taxing the week felt. While I was editing, the forms I had to fill out and sign, and the training I had to do for the substitute services department in the Clark County School District in order to be brought on as a support staff substitute so I can eventually apply to be a full-time elementary school library assistant, were sitting heavily on me, nearly crushing me. They have to be in no later than a week from today, otherwise my file will be destroyed two days later and I'd have to start the application process all over again. Every day that I would edit, because I wanted to read more about Sy's life, I'd have it weighing on me that I also had to get those forms done and the training done and go to the Substitute Services office to hand it all in. I'm going in person. No one's going to tell me that something's missing after I've handed it to them right there.

Today, I got it all done. I filled out the forms, I went through what must have been well over two hours of online training, and I printed out the applicable certificates at the end of the session, showing that I passed everything. Tomorrow afternoon, Dad's going to take me to the district offices and I'm going to give them all the forms and the certificates. After that, I wait. They check that I did everything and then once the background check is complete and they're satisfied, they'll send me an e-mail giving me details of when and where to go for my half-day orientation for substitutes, for which I'll only be paid after I complete my first day of work, wherever that might be.

How to celebrate? I don't do Snoopy dances. And the bigger celebration is reserved for when I get that full-time job. I know! I've got a few movies in my Amazon video library that I rented, that I still haven't watched yet, that are nearly all expiring later this week, save for Littlerock and Beasts of the Southern Wild, which expire next week. I don't want my money to go to waste, and fortunately, A Bird of the Air, The Village Barbershop, and On the Bowery are 7-day rentals, which begin when I activate them. Littlerock is a three-day rental, Goats is a 48-hour rental, and Beasts of the Southern Wild gives 24 hours.

I'll start with A Bird of the Air, even though I haven't read The Loop by Joe Coomer, one of my favorite novels, again, as that's what's A Bird of the Air is based upon. However, I do remember a great deal about The Loop after that first reading (yes, it became a favorite after just one reading), so it'll be fun to compare and observe what the movie changes around or compresses or doesn't use. I don't expect the movie of any book to be slavish to the book. I'll be happy if they get the tone right. That's all that matters to me.

Time to celebrate. I'm relieved, and I finally feel more relaxed for the first time in a week. I have to remember this when I embark on whatever writing project is next. Writing is difficult, no doubt, but it doesn't have to feel like a three-brick bowel movement. Maybe if I had done the forms and the training first, the editing would have not felt as difficult, but to me, Sy's work takes priority. And I got all the other work done anyway. So it all works out. But now, as Joel and then Mike always exclaimed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, "We've got Movie Sign!"

A Crate of Wonders

During our first year in Santa Clarita, at the apartment in Valencia, I took the garbage to the dumpster one evening, opened the massive white metal door, and faced yet again the choice of throwing the garbage into the dumpster on the left or the dumpster on the right.

I've long forgotten the choice because I didn't see the dumpsters when I opened the door. I saw a squat chest of drawers to be picked up by those working the garbage truck, whenever that would be. I didn't want the drawers, but I wanted to see if they were empty or if whoever had gotten rid of this chest had left something behind.

I opened each drawer and my jaw dropped and rolled. In two of these drawers were books!

I immediately went on the hunt. Was there anything I wanted to read, any author I had not read yet who might interest me because of the copy on the back?

I distinctly remember two books I chose: An anthology called Closers: Great American Writers on the Art of Selling edited by Mike Tronnes, and Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley. I also chose a few others, but in nine years, those titles have long disappeared from my memory. I think I gave them up when we moved from the apartment to the house in Saugus.

I never read Little Green Men, giving it up alongside those other unnamed books, though I have read Buckley's Boomsday, No Way to Treat a First Lady, and The White House Mess. Little Green Men may come by one day, but not lately and not in the near future.

Out of all the authors I read in Santa Clarita, outside of Charles Bukowski and a few others who are part of my permanent collection, Mike Tronnes has been with me the longest time, when I checked out his other anthology, Literary Las Vegas: The Best Writing about America's Most Fabulous City out of the Valencia branch of the then-County of Los Angeles library system, before the Santa Clarita City Council broke off the three Santa Clarita-based branches from the system to form its own library district. I didn't get all the way through the book then, most likely distracted by other books, but a year before we moved, I bought a copy for myself and read it in preparation for becoming a resident of this indeed fabulous city.

In fact, before I began writing this post, inspired after coming back from walking the dogs, I thought about Closers, and realized that I hadn't read that all the way through either. And I had moved from Valencia to Saugus with the copy I picked out of that chest of drawers. I gave that up, too, when I realized later on in Saugus that I had way too many books in my room, a product I realize now of hating where I was living, of having nothing to do in that cursed valley. So a little while ago, I bought a paperback edition of Closers to finally read all the way through.

The first time I visited Pacific Islands in Henderson, on the way back to Santa Clarita after leaving the Galleria at Sunset mall, I saw that the complex had dumpsters, and I hoped that if I lived there one day, I would eventually find either another chest of drawers with books in them for me to riffle through and see what I want, or at least a box full of books with which to do the same. I wanted that Valencia experience again, that excitement of finding books that belonged to no library, that I didn't have to buy. In some respects, books should be free, and here was the best way, books temporarily left to the elements, for anyone to find who wants them. I know the flipside of it, that it's awful that books were left to the garbage truck, to be crunched, crushed, squashed, spines popped and pages torn. But there was little I could do then. I couldn't rescue all the books, and some of them in those drawers looked like they were beyond saving.

It was the same when I walked Kitty about an hour ago and saw, next to the long, red dumpster that includes a gate that's another entrance to the senior mobile home park side, a crate of books. A crate of old books in two stacks. There were a few ancient law books in there, a crossword puzzle dictionary, and novels that were hard to understand, hard to know what they were. My wish for more literary situations like this had been granted (even though I still hope for the same at Pacific Islands), but it didn't look like there was much for me.

Digging a little deeper into the stacks with one hand while Kitty's leash was wrapped around my other hand, I found a novel called Moviola by Garson Kanin, the late screenwriter extraordinaire. It's a fictionalized account of the start of the movie industry all the way through to the present day, which in this case was the 1970s, and it looks like it's about the sale of MGM through a fictional lens, the main character being B.J. Farber, who's selling his famous studio. Surprisingly, I've never heard of this one, and since it's about movies, it's for me.

Upon finding another novel I wanted to read, called C.B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murder, I began to think that I had stumbled upon a crate that was on the senior mobile home park side. I think very few people of my generation would know who Garson Kanin was, but this other novel was written by Lucille Kallen, who wrote for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. As I walked back with Tigger after finding that second novel (I found Moviola when I was walking Kitty, and went back when I was walking Tigger), I thought to myself that Anne De Salvo must have represented Kallen when she played Alice Miller in My Favorite Year, being that My Favorite Year was inspired by the production of Your Show of Shows. What other members of my generation would think of that so readily? This crate had to have come from that side because the dumpster is over here now instead of over there as it was during the holidays. Perhaps one of the seniors over there drove through the opening that separates the parks (the gate's locked at night. The entrance to the senior park is on another street) and dropped off the crate before they went out to wherever their errands took them, or maybe it was a family member who did that.

I had hoped to find more, but two is a good start and possibly presages what might come at Pacific Islands, that I might find readers there who offer treasures in boxes next to the dumpsters. I do wish people would donate them to Goodwill instead of me finding them. Yes, these two books found a temporary home with me which may be for longer depending on how they are, but what about the other books sitting in that crate? The law books might be well out of date and how old was that crossword puzzle dictionary? But different people are interested in different things, and if these books were at a Goodwill or some other donation center with a store attached, someone else might have gotten some use out of them.

I don't know how much faith to have in such a hope, though. A while ago, I wrote about returning Loser to the bookshelves in the clubhouse, and every time I've gone back to the bookshelves on my way to seeing if the mail came, it's always been there. Even today when I stopped by and picked up three books (including If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlisle, which I learned is the second in her Bibliophile series. I've got to start somewhere. After all, I learned also that C.B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murder is the second in Kallen's series), Loser was still where I returned it. It makes me wonder exactly how many people read in Las Vegas, but also makes me more motivated to hopefully instill a desire to read in the middle school students I'll see if I get that job as a library assistant. There needs to be more readers in Las Vegas. How else is the boundless creativity in this city expected to last?

Even though I'd prefer that those books be at a donation center of some kind for those who need them, I hope for more at Pacific Islands. We're going there tomorrow to begin the process of securing an apartment there before we're finished here at Valley Vista in September, so maybe, besides the train tracks, I'll see if there's anything near the dumpsters in those areas. Or maybe not. I'll stick with the train tracks because I don't want to make a bad impression. But once we're firmly established, I'm going to hunt once in a while. Sometimes when I'm taking out the garbage and recycling to one of the dumpsters (one of the dumpsters is for recycling, which I love, unlike here, where you throw out everything for the garbage truck to pick up), and sometimes just when I'm walking around the property.

My Own Train Tracks

One night, three weeks ago, in my mind, I stood at the edge of the ruins of the A building, the administration building, at College of the Canyons. I was back in Santa Clarita, lamenting this piece of campus history, which was only 20 years old. Granted, it smelled musty when you walked in, and the offices probably didn't have as much space as those working in them needed.

The new building that will be on the same plot of land is two stories, 46,000 square feet, and will have administrative offices plus the Child Development Center (sounds like someone's been reading Aldous Huxley). But whenever I go back to College of the Canyons in my mind, it's from when I was there as a student, to when Meridith and I visited for the final time last summer as part of our farewell tour of somewhat meaningful places in Santa Clarita. The only part of modern-day COC today that I mix in with my past is Hasley Hall, all metal and glass and concrete, somewhat grim in spots if you look directly at the concrete, but it's charming and aloof at the same time.

And yet, as I rack up more months as a resident of Las Vegas, College of the Canyons fades. I don't need that campus as much as I used to, grateful as I am to it for keeping me stable while I was in a whirlwind of trying to figure out what Santa Clarita was, what Los Angeles was, when we moved there nine years ago. Since I'm not there anymore, why dwell as much? Only Buena Park, Anaheim, and Baker are the clearest in my mind because I either have good memories, such as with Anaheim, cramped as it sometimes was, or I'm using them for novels or plays I'm writing, as with Buena Park and Baker, respectively.

When I go somewhere else in my mind now, my destination is one of three places. First is the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus which is massive and you can easily get lost there, like we did our first time in 2007 when we were there as tourists and I wanted to get information about their journalism program, when I was thinking of pursuing a bigger degree. I love that campus, with all that it offers, all the tree-lined sidewalks with shadows that loom over the grounds when the sun is cocked at just the right angle, the bookstore that includes books about Las Vegas and Nevada, the cafeteria with so many choices for eats, and the arcade which is at least airier than the near-dark closet that the arcade at College of the Canyons was. I didn't spot any pinball machines, but I haven't been back yet since that first time. Plus, I have to go back because that campus will be an inspiration for a potential mystery series I want to write that's set on a college campus.

My second mind destination is the Boulder City Library, which I love much more than the Whitney Library and the Clark County Library, both of which I find useful, but only as refueling stops. In the Boulder City Library, I linger, I dig, I explore, I gape, I discover. I am forever grateful to the Boulder City Library not only because of how gently and carefully it treats books, not only for the Nevada Room with all those old books about Nevada, but also because that's where I discovered New Mexico Magazine, whose featured issue, on the day I went, happened to be the 90th Anniversary issue. What a perfect starting point for my fervent desire to travel throughout the state in the years to come. Two weeks ago, I bought my own copy of that issue, and today, I subscribed to the magazine over the phone. 12 issues for $19.95. And I'm sure I'll renew my subscription when it comes time, alongside Nevada Magazine, which comes out only six times a year, but is still useful. I love to remember that moment in my mind, finding New Mexico Magazine, turning the pages and discovering that people are as interested in the state as I am. Compared to the names in this magazine, I'm still a total amateur, but I'm willing to learn.

The third place I stop at in my mind will soon become my daily reality. When we went to Pacific Islands, an apartment complex in Henderson in either October or early November last year, I immediately found my favorite spot. You stand at the low part of a wall that separates the complex from a wash, in the parking lot, and after the wash, there are train tracks. Union Pacific trains and other trains pass through here, but usually only three times a day, as someone in the front office told us. When Mom and Meridith went for their manicure appointment at Ravella at Lake Las Vegas last month, Dad and I went to Pacific Islands to find out some more information, and I stood at that wall and watched a chemical train crawl slowly past, not wanting to risk any reactions from hydrogen peroxide and other volatile chemicals which were in white tanks where the cars would be on a regular train. Yeah, it's an unsettling thought, but Pacific Islands and the surrounding areas are still here, so the train drivers are obviously incredibly careful.

I love to stand at that low wall, across from covered parking spaces, across from one section of the complex that represents all the other sections in being a lightly-shaded forest, and stare at those train tracks, imagining my future travels, wondering where those tracks stretch to, and thinking about the teenaged boy I saw standing on an empty section of a train where a boxcar or a cargo container would go, while I was walking Tigger in the parking lot of Barstow Station in Barstow on the morning that we were moving to Las Vegas. I saw him, he saw me, I waved briefly at him, and he stared at me until he was out of sight. Not a malevolent stare, maybe just wondering what I was doing there. I also think about the backpacker I saw on one of our early visits to the Smith's on East Flamingo. He walked to the produce section with his pack on his back, took one banana, and turned right around and walked to the registers. I wondered where he came from, where he was going, if he had come off a Greyhound bus, or if he had a bike, or if he got rides whenever he knew it was necessary. I wrote about him somewhere else on this blog, but I've never forgotten him.

We have to stay here at Valley Vista Mobile Home Park until September 15, as the contract that my parents signed stipulates. But after September 15, I can walk from wherever we'll be at Pacific Islands to that exact spot that I like, and look at those train tracks whenever I want. We're moving again, this time to Henderson, and actually to where Mom wanted to move the first time, but then when Dad was hired, there wasn't enough time to make the arrangements for Pacific Islands to be our new home, and we had to choose what was immediately available. Valley Vista was it, and they allowed pets.

On Tuesday, we're going to Pacific Islands to fill out the necessary paperwork and give $45 each for what is either a security deposit or something else. I don't know, but I'm sure I'll find out before then, and I'm willing to pay because this is exactly where I want to be. The pool has a rock formation waterfall that sounds so soothing when you walk near it to wherever you're going on the property or even to the pool, and there are so many trees to look at and a few flowers too. Plus, people actually walk around, unlike here at Valley Vista where the only way you know that people live here are the cars that pass by. In fact, on our last family visit, we met one of the residents who was standing outside his door on the second floor and he told us that he's lived in Las Vegas all his life, has lived at Pacific Islands for seven years, and loves it. Every resident that I saw looked calm. It's said that the resident turnover at Pacific Islands is low, so that's why we're doing this on Tuesday to be sure that there's something for us by August, so we can snap it up and have that be the only time that we're paying rent for two places. That's how it has to be so that when we're done at Valley Vista, we can move right into Pacific Islands. No more walking up four steps to get to our back door. No more of Mom, tired from a day out, having to walk up those steps to the back door. Ground floor apartment. That's what we want and that's what we'll get.

When we were in Boulder City on Mom's birthday, which was also New Year's Eve, she said she loves it there, but doesn't think she could live there because the novelty of it would fade and she'd get tired of it. I'm not sure how true that would be with how peaceful it is, how there's very little tumult unlike what there is in Las Vegas. Not detrimental tumult, just the usual crackling atmosphere of any major city. The only inconvenience of Boulder City is that it's a fair drive to a supermarket or a Walmart or a Target. If you need to restock the refrigerator or buy a few things for your household, you have to plan.

I don't think I'll get tired of having the train tracks available to me all the time. I can daydream more often about where I want to travel. And there are days when I feel like my writing isn't going anywhere, and all I have to do is look at those train tracks to re-energize my writing, to remind me that I can go anywhere in my writing, explore anything, make it my own. It also has the strong effect every time of making me want to reread Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America with Interruptions by Jenny Diski. Maybe I'll do that before Tuesday, before I see those train tracks again.

I Found You Again and I Wanted You Even More

I saw you two Sundays ago. You were showing your spine, which doesn't really do it for me. I need to see all of you. I had actually seen you before this, but only online. It's hard to get a true sense of anything on a computer screen, even with all the information available about you, so it was nice to actually be able to see you in person, to look at you in full and consider if I really wanted you.

I have to be honest. I only noticed you because others of your kind have interested me before. In fact, without them, without you, I can'd do what I'm setting out to do. I need to learn from you how it's done so I can try to do it.

I was surprised to find you in the same place yesterday, a week later. I couldn't have you right when I found you because I didn't have any room for you. What's worse is that according to the system that would classify you, that would organize you among those of your own kind, you don't even exist. You were with your own kind when I found you, but there's no record of you in that system. It's like the powers that be that oversee you don't want to be bothered with the extra work to make sure that you count, that you matter. To me, you exist. To me, you matter.

I don't know how much that will change soon. I only know you from the outside. I haven't explored you on the inside yet. I don't know what you hold. I don't know what's waiting for me. Will I be as impressed with you as I was when I found you online, when I was first curious about those of your own kind? Will I be more impressed than that? Or will I be utterly disappointed? I don't know. I'm almost reticent about finding out because I waited for you for a week, waited until I had seen others of your construction off to wherever they go next, until I finally had space for you. I think no matter what, though, you'll still help me. If you're great, you'll show me what I should aspire to, what I should hope to accomplish. If you're awful, then you'll show me what not to do. Mainly, I want to know your rhythm, how you present the reason for your existence.

So here we are, An Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette. Presenting a Key West food critic is what got me here, and I hope it takes me further because I'm looking for a good mystery. Maybe you're it. What disappoints me is that if you're it, if I want to then read Death in Four Courses, your recently-created sibling, then I'd have to search every Las Vegas-Clark County library branch near me. But maybe you'll be like Julie Hyzy's books. I read her newest White House chef mystery, Fonduing Fathers, and while waiting impatiently for her next one, which she probably won't start writing for a while, I remembered that I hadn't read the other two novels in her Manor House Mystery series, Grace Interrupted and Grace Among Thieves, both featuring manor director Grace Wheaton. The library district has none of that series, so I ordered Grace Interrupted. But then, being that no paperback mystery novels are catalogued (when you check them out at one of the scanner terminals, at Whitney or any other branch, they show up as "One Adult Paperback"), maybe the district actually does have copies. The only novels in Hyzy's White House chef mystery series that appear in the system are those that were large print in hardcover. I remember seeing Affairs of Steak, the fifth White House Chef mystery novel, on the same revolving racks that I found you. But I can't go to every branch in my vicinity (which would be only Whitney and the main Clark County branch, which looks more like an abandoned DMV facility with a courthouse facade at the entrance). I love libraries, but every branch's mysteries would undoubtedly be different and there's also the chance that what I might find, I might have already read. These paperbacks come cheap online through abebooks.com, so if I like you enough, An Appetite for Murder, I know where to go next. If you're worth it, I don't mind waiting for your sibling to arrive in the mail. I'm just hoping Julie Hyzy is right, since she praised you on the first page after the cover, and there's also a quote from her on the back. I hope it's like when I discovered Barbara O'Neal when I picked up her How to Bake a Perfect Life and found a quote on the front cover from Erica Bauermeister, who wrote School of Essential Ingredients, one of my favorite novels, the sequel of which is coming out at the end of the month. I haven't had that kind of excitement in books in a while and I want it back again.

You're set in Florida, An Appetite for Murder, and for me, that's an automatic plus. Food's involved and that's always fun to read about, so that's the next plus. I read food critics occasionally, namely the Las Vegas Review-Journal's, so that's a smaller plus, but still a plus. I hope this works out. Excite me, please. Make me want more of you. Make me unable to live without you, as books should. That's my standard. Let's see how you do.