Where Are You in Your Mind?

Last night, while trying to get to sleep, I fretted about having so many ideas for nonfiction books and adult novels and YA novels and picture books and still more, and yet I haven't made much headway on any of them. Not out of laziness or ambitions being bigger than my abilities, but I guess it's the paralysis of choice. At least in the way I saw it before thinking about it more this morning.

I wish I could live in a library. Not necessarily a public library. Probably a college or a university library on a sprawling campus (the best kind), with enough space for regular exercise, walking and perhaps eventually even jogging, and a supermarket nearby, maybe some fast-food joints, a bookstore here and there (not only on the campus) to see what's being sold in the area based on what's continually in stock, and perhaps a movie theater or two. In this, I think about Lied Library on the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) campus, which is all on Maryland Parkway, which I consider the most vibrant corridor in Las Vegas, which, if continued to be developed properly, could be one of the great hopes for the city perhaps being known a little more for something else than what it already is and always has been. Further down is the Boulevard Mall, which includes 99 Ranch Market, Goodwill, Ross, Seafood City, which is the local Filipino supermarket, and a Wing Stop Sports bar which, if you know Wing Stop, is much larger than your average Wing Stop, with lots more individual tables, TWO soda dispensers, an honest-to-god bar with alcohol, which is considered amateurish by Vegas standards, and big flatscreen TVs all around. I would have wanted to live at Lied Library, if not for the extreme desert heat and cold that I endured for five years. But that library, my god. Not only was there always more than enough room to walk the UNLV campus, but in the two times I was there as a substitute library aide at Paradise Elementary, which is also on the UNLV campus, I got lost on my way back from Lied Library to the school, before starting work there at 10:30 a.m. Both times, I didn't think I'd get there on time.

The stacks inside Lied Library are so massive that they're located on three successive floors, four if you count the serpentine design of the Leisure Reading section on the first floor, which I never noticed until the final time I was there, as part of our family's farewell tour of Las Vegas, which was cut short at the Wynn on another day when the movers called and said they were going to come to move us out on Sunday, and it was Friday. I was impressed by the sheer number of interesting titles in the Leisure Reading section, which, being in a university library, was far more extensive than Ventura College has in its Leisure Reading section, but it's no less interesting here.

The stacks with call numbers A-HJ are on the third floor, HM-PR on the fourth floor, and PS-Z on the fifth floor, all under the jurisdiction of the Library of Congress classification system. And with what they have, with all the presidential history books I could ever want, translated novels from different countries, every subject that could pop to my mind on a given day (from architecture to music history (especially 1970s music) to various biographies and memoirs and still more), I could easily spend the rest of my life there if such a thing were possible.

And yet, there are other libraries throughout the country, too, such as the New York Public Library (the main, famous one) and other university libraries which very possibly hold as much, if not more as Lied Library. Chances are many of them do, though. It would serve to make me indecisive, but there are considerations which limit me, such as weather. Nothing on the east coast since it gets too cold in winter. Same with the Midwest and in the Great Plains, tornadoes and such, so I wouldn't want to root myself there either.

But that's what it comes down to: Roots. I don't have any. We moved so many times throughout Florida, twice in Santa Clarita (although we did end up in Saugus for eight years, after our first year in Valencia, but there wasn't much in Santa Clarita that made me feel rooted, although I do miss Stater Bros. supermarket), and five times in four years in Las Vegas, owing to various bleak circumstances, such as neighbors next to us and above us smoking constantly and the smoke seeping into our apartment, which caused us to move out after that year), as well as last year at Via Ventura here in Ventura, which ended with our dogs having a massive flea problem because they never properly treated the grounds, and now at the new Island View Apartments, behind the Ralphs supermarket. It's interesting, what with a fourth-floor rooftop deck that takes in a lit-up view at night of Oxnard and Camarillo, further to the west, that's far more impressive to me than the Las Vegas and Los Angeles skylines.

Therefore, to be connected to a place? To know it intimately? To feel a sense of civic pride in it? I don't know how that works, nor do I think I'd want to learn. Not that I think we'll move again so quickly, although I hope we don't, as it would be interesting lately to be in one place for more than one year, and by that I mean one apartment complex, but we didn't have a choice from Via Ventura to Island View. We had to get out of Via Ventura, which looks progressively worse and more desperate to bring in tenants since we left. Maybe there's a chance with Island View. There are a lot of problems within the apartment, which are actually much better than what we came from at Via Ventura and before that in Las Vegas. But they do take their sweet time in addressing them. When the Santa Ana winds howled through recently, an incredible draft blew through the gaps in the front door, which made the vertical blinds in front of the sliding patio door billow and I really felt it, since I sleep in the living room, my bed there and my bookcases nearby, towards the back door (it's a two-bedroom apartment, so my parents have the master bedroom, and my sister has the other bedroom). I like it because my TV serves as the living room TV and I've got the kitchen right there. What more could I want for a room? But that front door, which is actually considered the back door by the complex, since what is actually our front door, with our number on it, faces a hallway that leads to doors that open into garages also for rent by residents, needs weather stripping. I'm guessing right now, even though the manager of the complex came with the head maintenance guy last week to look over exactly what we needed adjusted and repaired, they'll run out the clock leading up to Thanksgiving and then let it sit until after Thanksgiving. Hopefully they'll address it afterward, but it's been sitting for so long. Even so, still better from all that we came from, including a bungalow in nearby Henderson, Nevada that had shoddy, stringy carpeting, black mold behind the washer and dryer, and a leaking air conditioning unit from the ceiling that not only required us to put a bucket underneath to catch the drops, but which broke down before the hottest day of the year that year, after a few times in which the shitty maintenance crew there insisted that nothing was wrong with it. It seems to me that matters of shoddy maintenance, as well as delayed maintenance, seem to only exist in the western United States. Never had that in Florida. Can't go back, though, what with hurricanes getting worse, and as a native Floridian away for so long, I've most likely lost my immunity to the humidity.

Anyway, through all of this, it took many years to realize that books, and moreso libraries, have always been my home. I seriously considered a career in aviation, first as a commercial pilot, and then an aircraft mechanic, and then a mechanic for Air Force One, before then trying journalism, which, even though I'm proud of what I did there, I left because I didn't want to live on an ulcer farm. And it was afterward that I realized how much libraries have been there for me. I started reading when I was two years old, and I particularly remember, before Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida in 1992 (we lived in Coral Springs, and only got the feeder bands, but they were fierce), worrying about not being able to return The Little Mermaid soundtrack on audio cassette to the Coral Springs Library, since they had closed right before it was due, and any fines that might accrue because of that. Fortunately, I don't think there were any after they reopened. I also remember ignoring my math homework from Broward Community College on Friday afternoons when I was in the Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines, diagonally across from the then-tiny campus, in favor of looking for movies to watch on the weekend, which was how I discovered The Fabulous Baker Boys, starring Jeff Bridges, one of my favorite actors, which became one of my all-time favorite movies. In fact, since my dad dropped me off early at BCC before he went to work as a computer and business education teacher at Silver Trail Middle just down the street, I was always there before the library opened at 7 a.m. and spent my entire semester there before we moved to Southern California. Subsequently, I failed that college Algebra course and had to retake it when I registered at College of the Canyons in Valencia.

There are lots of other stories like that, and libraries have always been my one true home like that. Oftentimes, in my head, in my imagination, I go to those libraries I've loved. I spend time in the stacks at Lied Library, I walk through the Whitney Library on Tropicana in Las Vegas, proud at how they always consistently met the needs of that at times-downtrodden community, and reluctantly ignoring the awful, distracting tile flooring at the main Clark County Library on Flamingo, also in Las Vegas, to admire their paperback collection, as well as their eager interest in so many other subjects in the hope that others will be interested, too. I also look at photos on Yelp of the New York Public Library, as well as photos from inside other university libraries and imagine myself there. In each one, I feel like I'm home. It's why I like living in Ventura. The Ventura College Library is my favorite place in Ventura and between that and the holds I always have from various locations in the Ventura County library system, I'm never short of books.

All this helps me to not panic so much over all that I want to write and haven't begun yet. Those works can be a second home for me. Characters to meet and follow, ideas to expand on. Places in my imagination to explore, unusual things I've thought about that I wonder if others think about, and the only way to find out is to write them and see who reads them. It's more difficult, more challenging than simply opening up a book and reading, but I want to try. Our main computer here in this apartment doesn't feel as much in a dungeon as it was in that apartment at Via Ventura, so that's a start. Plus there's a lamp next to it and it actually becomes cozier at night. So there's some encouragement. Just try. Get up and try. And with enough effort, these stories I want to tell can come to feel like my life with books and libraries. Another place in my life to fondly call home. And I know it will never move.

14,000 things to be happy about. by Barbara Ann Kipfer

Saturday was a banner day for this book lover at the Deseret Industries Thrift Store on East Flamingo Road, not so much for this book lover who's moving in a few months.

Therefore, I found four Indiana Jones novels to join The Peril at Delphi, which I hadn't started yet, but I knew I wanted to read more after this one. I also found Not Quite Dead Enough by Rex Stout, one of the Nero Wolfe series, and Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein. At the same time I found the Heinlein book, I was also holding James Herriott's Dog Stories, but the paperback copy looked deeply aged, and to me, it's the kind of book to possibly bump into at one of the three bookstores in downtown Ventura. Either that or the library there.

I had also spotted a fat paperback called 14,000 things to be happy about. by Barbara Ann Kipfer. I flipped through it, found various things that have made Kipfer happy in a list on one page after another, 14,000 in all obviously. An amusing idea, but not much use to me, it would seem.

Then today happened. We went back to the thrift store because Dad had found a blue desk he wanted, but hadn't been very vocal about it until yesterday. That's what determined that we would go back today, and after Dad got home from work (I'm free, by the way, practically finished at Cox Elementary as its library aide. I cashed in the rest of my vacation days and my personal days, and the only day I have to show up again is the last day of school for students and support staff. I will use these coming weeks wisely in reading, writing, and movies I've wanted to see for a long time, as well as preemptively throwing things out, donating others, and arranging the rest for packing when it comes time), we went back.

14,000 things to be happy about. stuck in my mind when we got there and I went looking for it after we found out that the blue desk was gone, another desk in its place. Items at Deseret Industries pass through Las Vegas quicker than people do. Fortunately, the book was in the same place that I put it back, and I looked closer at that. Kipfer's introduction essentially states that this book is a product of 20 years of first writing down in a "tiny spiral notebook" things that made her happy, through larger notebooks and finally to personal computers, from sixth grade to 1990, when this book was published.

I flipped the pages again, looking at what had made her happy in very few words: A white-gold sunrise. Late Sunday breakfast. Loud radios. Night lights. Eating the right food. And still more. 13,994 more.

In my permanent book collection is a copy of The Best of McSweeney's Internet Tendency, which is to me today what Andy Rooney was to me when I was 11. Andy Rooney taught me that you can write about anything so long as you make it interesting enough. Woodworking, the interior design of fast-food restaurants, his experiences in World War II all were fascinating to me because he made them interesting to read. The Best of McSweeney's Internet Tendency touts on the cover "On the Implausibility of the Death Star Trash Compactor" and "Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)", which teaches me that you can go even further, twisting a famous work to another perspective to make people laugh and also say "Hey, I never thought of it like that!"

So I bought 14,000 things to be happy about., surprisingly the only book I bought at Deseret Industries today, but I couldn't find anything else I wanted as badly as the Indiana Jones novels, the Nero Wolfe novel, the Heinlein novel, and the first volume of Dwight D. Eisenhower's memoir of his White House years, from 1953 to 1956. Plus, looking over the paperback shelves again, I saw that I cleaned them out of all the Indiana Jones novels they had.

The Best of McSweeney's Internet Tendency is my Bible, for inspiration on how I should approach my work, thinking about other ways in which a story can be told or which a blog post can be written, looking for the way that suits me. In that vein, 14,000 things to be happy about. will be my second Bible. Sure it's one person's epic list of what makes them happy, but many of these things make me happy, too. But for me, it's not about reading the list and being happy about those things. Whenever I look through this book, it will be to find something to write about, most likely for this blog. For example, overdue library books. I don't know why that makes Barbara Ann Kipfer happy, but I can write about my experience with them as a public library patron, and also working at Cox Elementary, where overdue books weren't such a factor, so long as students returned them some time, preferably before the end of the year, although with the librarian I worked with, it became an unnecessary federal case every time. After all, most returned their books so that they could get more, which was the policy there.

Or railroad stations. There's the one in San Juan Capistrano that you walk past to reach that dirt road with those small houses lined up at the side, acting as either souvenir stores, tea houses, or historical societies. With those overhanging trees across the road, it's where part of my soul lives. I could write about that some time, too.

But also, looking at these things in this book, I can also wonder why these things make Kipfer happy, perhaps even what they were since I don't know what many of them are, and I can also reach as far back in my memory as I can for some of them.

I'm not sure if I'll use the book title to mark these posts, but if you find more than the usual number of posts per month in this blog, you'll know why.

At First, Disappointment, and then Realization and Contentment

My subscription to New Mexico Magazine began today with the arrival of what I thought would be the Valentine's issue, but turned out to be the March issue. I was disappointed because I wanted to read about what's considered romantic in New Mexico. It would be the logical thing to get the next issue after I subscribed in January, but I guess I didn't subscribe early enough. I'll either see if a newsstand around here has it, or I'll order it from the website, as I did with the 90th Anniversary issue I bumped into at the Boulder City Library that introduced me to New Mexico Magazine.

Then I looked at the March issue: "25 Reasons to Love Taos." And it came to me: When I was 11, a confluence of events made me become a writer. It must have been brewing since 1992, when I was 7 years old in Casselberry, Florida, and copied by hand onto a sheet of posterboard an Orlando Sentinel review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids. That also eventually made me a film critic, but seeing those words come alive after each letter was attached had apparently made a deep impression on me.

That 11th year, in South Florida, I found in a thrift shop a huge book called The Most of Andy Rooney, bringing together his previous books A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney, And More by Andy Rooney, and Pieces of My Mind. I had seen him on 60 Minutes, when I knew the show to be a magnet for car commercials. There were a lot of those during the broadcasts. But reading Rooney's commentaries, about restaurants, woodworking, tools, winter, how cold it gets at night, I was amazed. I didn't know writing could involve all this! I thought you simply go to restaurants, you eat, you enjoy whatever of the experience you like, and leave. But to write about it? To dwell in corners, to notice decor, to see whether it's food or atmosphere that's most important? I never thought writing could be like that! I wanted to do it and after reading that book, I tried writing like Rooney did, but learned quickly what writing style is, that his voice isn't my voice, that my voice can be anything that I feel I am.

Then came Natalie Goldberg. I was gradually learning more about writing, and at my local library, I found Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. Here was a writer telling me to be playful, be bold, be daring, be free. Remembering some of the books I had read up to that age, including bringing John Grisham novels with me to class to read in 3rd grade (and I could read them, which made my teacher actually call my parents in for a conference, concerned that I was reading on a level far above my classmates, which never made sense to me), I thought writing had to be mostly formal in execution. You had a viewpoint, you pinpointed that one story you wanted to tell, you wrote all you could about it, and that was it.

But here was Goldberg, telling me to write about home, to go back there in my mind, to read my writing aloud to understand the rhythm of words, to write about spiritual experiences. Still surprised at what Andy Rooney wrote about, Goldberg made me want to write about everything on the planet, to discover who I wanted to be, to think, really think, about my life and what made up my life.

I checked out Wild Mind a lot. I wanted to absorb her book in my body and know it without picking it up, always guided by it, always prodded to do my best and my worst in my writing, and make that my best too.

Goldberg wrote about New Mexico, about Santa Fe, about Taos, because she lived there, and in other books of hers, it was noted that she lived, and possibly still lives, in Taos. I didn't think about it much at the time. I only knew she was the spirit I wanted to follow.

And then, in September 2011, came The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal, who wrote How to Bake a Perfect Life, which I had only read because the front cover had a blurb by Erica Bauermeister, author of the deeply felt The School of Essential Ingredients, and that was enough for me. I loved How to Bake a Perfect Life and wanted to read everything else that O'Neal wrote, starting with The Lost Recipe for Happiness which was wonderful, detailed, emotional, vividly realized. But The Secret of Everything was it for me. It cracked New Mexico wide open. It is the reason I want to travel throughout New Mexico. I learned that the fictional Las Ladronas was a combination of Santa Fe and Taos, and I want to visit both. I fell hard for the beauty, the peace of New Mexico through O'Neal's descriptions, and out of everywhere I want to travel, I want to know New Mexico the most. I want to see every inch of it.

Reading it a second time last year, I realized that Natalie Goldberg started me on this path, but I hadn't known it yet. The Secret of Everything sealed my fate.

Walking back to our house from getting the mail, I quickly got over my disappointment of not getting the Valentine's issue when I saw "25 Reasons to Love Taos." As I learned just now from her Wikipedia page, Natalie Goldberg no longer lives in Taos. She lives in Santa Fe. But when I discovered her books, when she made me want to write and write and write and write, she lived in Taos. It's appropriate that "25 Reasons to Love Taos" is one of the stories of this issue. Goldberg gave life to the beginning of my writing life. This issue marks the beginning of my eventual travels to New Mexico, my desire to read the literature of the state, its history, its poetry, its desert, and its other landscapes. This subscription and this first issue is when I get serious about going there, moreso than before. Taos is here again, as it should be, another introduction, another path to begin.

This is Why I'm a Writer

I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter called The Toilet Paper, which publishes every five or six days, unless there's a holiday such as Valentine's Day, in which case a special exception is made and a newsletter appears.

It's worth the wait because those behind the newsletter know write well, with subtle humor.

Today's issue was called "Stupid Skool Roolz", about edicts put in place by two states that could very well turn off future teachers from either those states or the profession entirely. The quote in the issue was from English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

I've written about Andy Rooney influencing me in my writing by me trying to write exactly like him, finding that I couldn't, and learning what writing style is. I've briefly mentioned Natalie Goldberg, whose books, including Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life, made me excited to write because I could write about anything! I have to write often in order to be effective, like any writer does, but Goldberg showed me the fun in it, the freedom that comes when you go through any topic, any memory, in words. Her living in Taos, New Mexico also likely planted the state in my mind when I was 10 and 11, and that was a process that exploded with The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal, which makes me want to visit New Mexico. But Goldberg started it.

However, teachers on paper only go so far. In 11th grade at Hollywood Hills High School in Hollywood, Florida, I had exactly the kind of teacher Lytton describes in that quote.

Her name was Roberta Little, an English teacher, but one different from what English teachers are generally known for with grading essays to the point of nitpicking and a host of analyses of books and plays that make you wonder if the teacher in front of you actually enjoyed the book or play. Shouldn't they be analyzing dramatic effectiveness or exploring the motives of characters in order to illuminate those not-so-clear parts?

Mrs. Little did all that and much more. I had her for the latter half of 11th grade, and in that one semester, she presented Julius Caesar, A Raisin in the Sun, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, The Glass Menagerie, The Crucible, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, and Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight!. She showed the 1970 movie version of Julius Caesar (with Jason Robards as a zombielike, utterly passionless Marcus Brutus), the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby, A Raisin in the Sun, the Paul Newman-directed version of The Glass Menagerie, starring John Malkovich, Joanne Woodward, Karen Allen, and James Naughton; the 1995 version of The Scarlet Letter, the 1996 version of The Crucible, and, of course, Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight!.

It seems impossible to do all that in one semester, but Mrs. Little knew exactly how to do it: Bring the students along. Seek their opinion about what they believe to be the meaning of a work. Foster conversation that brings even more depth to what's being studied. Find out what they liked and didn't like about it, and never make them feel low about either. Give your own opinion, but don't let it be the word of law in the classroom.

I remember spending a few days in her class going over Faulkner's A Rose for Emily. I don't remember the exact discussion, but I looked at those words, absorbing the dark atmosphere of the short story. I do remember her going over it section by section, exploring motivation, descriptions of settings, character traits, and I learned that every word can be crucial to the telling of a story, and that what one writer sees, another writer may see it differently. In fact, writers beyond what we were reading weren't needed to show that. Just me and my classmates alone were enough to show that each viewpoint differs, and offers something most important to learning about this: There is no one way to interpret a story. It's going to be seen differently by being filtered through varied experiences in one's life. Certainly my classmates sitting behind, in front of, and all around me had not lived the way I lived and could always be counted on to talk about something I hadn't even considered in the story. Mrs. Little always made sure there was time for that kind of discussion. She wanted a symphony of different voices with one story or play in common, and she got it every time.

A teacher like that is also made by their love for the material, and Mrs. Little had that more than any other teacher I had had in any subject. When she was preparing to show Mark Twain Tonight!, I think there was an excerpt of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the way she described Twain's time made me feel like I was there in my imagination, like I could know that river as well as Huck did. When we watched Hal Holbrook in that 1967 TV special, I admittedly laughed when my classmates laughed, not sure where I should laugh, but watching the special over and over again in the years after, even having it now on DVD in my collection, I get the jokes now and I understand Twain quite well, because of Mrs. Little. She made me want to learn more about who Twain was, what he wrote, and why he was justifiably famous.

We spent a week or two reading The Glass Menagerie. She gave out parts to my classmates and I, and then switched them around after a few pages because it was a lot to read. I remember wanting to read Tom, though I don't remember if I did. No matter who read what, this is the reason I want to write my own plays. Mrs. Little didn't suggest that we read with any kind of vocal inflection, though some of my classmates tried it, the more enthusiastic ones. That's not to say that I wasn't enthusiastic about it. I'm an introvert who can be extroverted unassisted, when I feel it, but I like my introverted self best.

I credit some of Mrs. Little's teaching for The Glass Menagerie being my favorite play. We dwelled in that St. Louis apartment for quite some time, and I loved that deep sadness and regret that emanated throughout those rooms, which is a weird thing to say, I know, but being that I find the imperfect nature of things far more fascinating than any pursuit of perfection (safe to say that I don't like Martha Stewart), I loved being in that apartment in my mind, examining what the characters were after, and why Amanda Wingfield kept dwelling on the past, trying to reach for some former glory that she could never have again.

John Malkovich is the other reason The Glass Menagerie is my favorite play. In 10th grade at Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines, my English showed the 1992 version of Of Mice and Men, which starred Malkovich and Gary Sinise, who also directed. There's that scene where his Lennie towers over Curley, the ranch hand, his hand curled over Curley's hand, nearly breaking it. That angry look that Lennie had in that scene is what made Malkovich one of my favorite actors. I guess it was destined, because when Mom and I went to that summer morning movie program at GCC Coral Square Cinema 8 in 1993, we once came out of the theater that was showing whatever animated or kids movie it was, and the paper marquee in between the two doors outside that theater was for In the Line of Fire, which co-starred John Malkovich as the assassin. I wanted to know what it was about, but since it was rated "R," and I was nine years old, I had no chance of knowing then. I've since found out and Malkovich is just as impressive in that one.

I would like to see The Glass Menagerie on stage, and have seen clips of stage performances on YouTube, but Malkovich's Tom Wingfield is the best to me because here is this man who so clearly wants to see the world, to do something more than just working in a warehouse job, but he feels stymied by his overbearing mother and his need to take care of his emotionally crippled sister Laura, brought on not only by her physical disability, but also Amanda, expecting more and more and more and never letting Laura figure out who she is. Of course, Laura could use a push into figuring it out, but not the way Amanda does it.

Malkovich gets to who Tom is right away with the opening monologue, drinking from a flask and smoking, weighed down so heavily by silent guilt, and his Tom simmers and boils until he can't possibly take it anymore. Would Tom have been better off if he had done like his father, seeming to live a detached existence and then leaving his family behind? Maybe, but being that Tom is also a writer, there are certain things in the soul that tie us down to wherever we are, a need to remain there for whatever may happen, or because that's our specialty in our work. I don't really know. I'm just letting my thoughts flutter. But because of Malkovich, I borrowed often for weekends that videotape of The Glass Menagerie that Mrs. Little used, since she had checked it out of the school library, and I had special permission since my mom worked as an assistant there.

There's no way I can aspire to be Tennessee Williams inasmuch as I can aspire to be Neil Simon. I can't. I'm not either of them. But learning about emotion in a play, about character development, about the devices used in plays, made me want to try writing my own. I want a setting like that St. Louis apartment, but of course a setting filtered through my own experiences. And it's because of Mrs. Little that I think this way, that I embrace creativity and have never let go. It's why I spent $22.98 at Amazon Marketplace for a rare VHS copy of The Glass Menagerie, since it may never come out on DVD. I've been waiting for years.

That tape sits in front of me right now, a symbol of Mrs. Little's continuing influence. I spend time in a lot of places in my head, right now the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas in Primm, at the Nevada border, but I always remember that classroom, and the discussions, and that sense of being welcome to say whatever was on one's mind about those plays and those stories. One comment could lead to an entirely different discussion about them, and that's what made it worth it. It's why I'm a writer and I never give up, no matter how hard it gets.