My sister and her partner live in Marin County. While their county's collection of little villages each has its characters, my favorite is writer Anne Lamott.
All reports of Lamott by people who have met her paint a picture of a quirky, highly neurotic nutball, a 40-something white chick with dreadlocks that maybe you like, and maybe you don't. A quick Google search reveals legions of people who REALLY don't. I love her.
Writers are quirky, neurotic nutballs--as a population. Supermodels smoke. CEOs pillage. Writers chew their nail polish off and call it a manicure. It's the natural order of things.
My friend, Laura-the-travel-writer just happily settled in Washington for a few years. As such, she's looking for a regular corporate gig. I've been editing her cover letters to remove all signs of writerly tweak. In her last letter to a potential employer, she insisted again and again, that in spite of her writing skills, she's a well-adjusted individual.
"People don't know we're freaks." I said. "You don't need to apologize for it."
Her retort: "How can they not? If you've met one writer, ever, you know that there's something off there."
"People know one writer. They think that one person is weird, not all of us." It's true. "So take out the part, 'In spite of being a writer, I actually like working in a team environment.'"
"Full disclosure in the interview; Normal-n-sane in the cover letter. Check." She said. Close enough.
Myself, I have terminal-soccer-mom-face and wispy baby hair, hardly conducive to dreadlocks. Plus, my taste for handsome, short-haired men (with, you know, jobs) keeps me from fully embracing anything too freaky looking. Like Laura, I offer full disclosure in the interview, but normal-n-sane in the cover letter But, Lamott lets he freak flag fly, all the time. Here's a poem her dog wrote about her.
Spoon River Sadie Louise
My girl got me two weeks after she saw
Silence of the Lambs. She wanted a guard dog,
but tells people I'm a little like having
Dinah Shore come to live with you.
But she secretly knows I would kill for her and the boy,
her boy so lovely,
that people on the street stop us
when we take him for a walk.
She calls him "My Roommate, Cindy Crawford."
There is also a cat.
the cat has issues.
There are also two birds the girl got for her 40th birthday.
The boy named them Haddis and Paddis.
Haddis was the boy.
Haddis passed.
There were no marks on him, but
as I say,
the cat has issues.
My girl and our boy wept.
The widow Paddis drowned her sorrows in
birdseed, ostrich-like,
after Haddis expired and could not be renewed.
The next day the girl went and bought her a new husband.
The boy named him Felipe. There was a Felipe who played
for the Giants long ago, one of the great Alou brothers.
My girl loves baseball.
The boy loves me.
I was there when my girl's best friend
died last year.
The boy cried. "She has gone to be with God and God's doctor."
The girl cried forever.
The boy says Drunks drink because they miss Jesus.
My girl used to drink.
It shows: For instance. She takes me almost everywhere she goes,
on foot or in her car.
Sometimes I am there in the backseat and she is
hurrying to get all our errands done before the boy
comes home; like he is the Last Emperor;
and she ends up forgetting me in the car
and only remembers me much, much later.
I always pretend not to mind,
because she is my girl, and
there are many moving parts to her life;
and God knows
she is doing the best she can.
But sometimes I wonder,
Should she really be driving?
She lives for the boy.
Sometimes he falls asleep on the floor with me as a pillow
and then the kitty
of all people
falls asleep with us too.
The birds sing. My girl sighs, then thinks to look up, and smiles.
--Sadie Louise Lamott
VA sent me the book about writers and dogs that included this poem. Rico was so glad to know he's not the only dog who likes poetry. Oh, and today, we found out he's not Mexican at all. Rico is Bolivian. David told me. I will continue to read VA's book to see if any of these dog poets are Bolivian.
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