Here are the things I don't write about here:

My son's colds and coughs

Chores, like vacuuming up the fur, dust, and sand that accumulate pretty quickly in a house with three cats, a dog, and three humans

The laborious process of rewriting my novel (well, I may mention this in passing, but not in great detail, since that would send all of you to snoreland, but it is indeed laborious, like work-on-the same-three-paragraphs-for-six-or-seven-hours laborious)

The difficulty of writing something that is long-term, of continuing through it without the instant feedback of blogging

Cooking dinner whether I want to or not

How we're figuring out where the kid will go to school for kindergarten in the fall

Tips and tricks for keeping one's sanity after weeks of rain and afternoons inside with an energetic four-year-old

Coping mechanisms I use to see us through one of Mr. T's business trips

My political views

Natural disasters

The pros and cons of having another child

The perhaps impossibility of having another child

My anxieties about the quality of my writing and the wisdom of my current career choice

RIght now I'm stuck smack dab in the slog and drag of the humdrum. The novel is taking precedence over the blog and I don't feel like I have enough time to really shine up any of my short pieces of fiction for this space. I'm not sure that many people want to read the fiction anyway. It seems that most readers are interested in my personal pieces, either angst from the past or my depressive musings on current life. Not that my current stuff is all darkness, exactly, but I think my views are cloudier than the average person's, cloudy with a little patch of blue sky that expands as I examine it, which can make the whole process hopeful, I suppose, in a Jennifer Trinkle sort of way.

It feels as if my mind is preoccupied, that it is working on something. I just need a few hours with a keyboard to find out what it is. But who has the time? I'd rather work on the novel or maybe that just feels like the right thing to do right now, a necessity, a way to lose myself in words and justify my existence.

So I'm not sure what to put in this space at the moment, but I know my mind will crack open again and offer itself up for material. In the meantime, I may be posting more short writing prompts, or perhaps reposting some of the oldies but goodies. We'll see.

Image: Everyday me, as recorded by my computer.

Tags: blogging, writing, preoccupation, NaNoWriMo, preschooler, sick kid, school, National Novel Writing Month

Before I get all honest with you, I have some acknowledging to do. I've been neglectful. For well over a year, various kind bloggers have passed on awards and I haven't done a thing about it.

The most neglected of these good people is Dori, who writes a fine expat blog A Yellow House in England. She has given writing to survive several awards, including the Neno Award, the Most Inspirational Blog Award, the Friendship Award, and the Butterfly Award. It's one thing that that Dori has received all of these awards herself, which is a sure sign of her writing prowess, but it's also another that she has taken the time to pass them on, which is a sure sign of her kindness. Thank you, Dori, and my apologies for letting these awards slip away.

One of the perils of not acknowledging these things immediately is that they disappear into the Great Internet Beyond and my own memory's sketchy storage system. So I remember that Svasti passed on an award. And Robert. I know I'm missing at least one other blogger. If you are out there reading, leave a comment and I will add your blog to the list.

Which brings me to the latest award. La Belette Rouge, memoirist, humorist, spot-on writer and all-around great blogger, has passed along the Honest Scrap Award. One of the fun things about this award is the requirement to list ten honest things about oneself. A daunting task. The award also requires that I pass it on to ten bloggers. Here is where I always fall down on the job. If you would like to take this award and run with it, on your own blog or in the comments section below, feel free.

So. Gulp. Here I go.

My parents, all gussied up for the 1968 Senior Prom. Oh, if I could only still hold you two responsible for my neurotic ways! Instead, I will use you as photographic filler.

1. I find this task terrifying. Why? On one hand, I am pretty boring. On the other, I have all these worries that I am used to keeping mainly to myself. I am neurotic, for lack of a better term. So I find myself thinking of writing things here like "I am pathetic and antisocial." or "If you met me in the flesh, you'd be questioning whether I was really the person who writes this stuff." OK. Let's just say I'm insecure.

2. To continue in the same vein, now that it is possible that a lot of people from my past, childhood friends, old high school buddies, people who knew me in college, read this blog, I wonder what they think about these stories of mine. Did any of them know this stuff already? Do they look back at me with kindness or do they judge me? I'll never know, so I think I'll go for the kindness angle.

3. I will listen to a song over and over again when I have it stuck in my mind. Recent selections include Finish What You Started, All Come True, Funk #49, and Hot Sauce. Oh, and Ball and Biscuit.

4. While I am a good cook, some might even say a great cook, the only things that my son will eat in my presence are noodles with butter and cheese, packaged macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza crusts, and rice and beans from Chipotle (yes, he even refuses my rice and beans). Pasta with cream sauce? No. Soothing, buttery polenta? I don't think so. Anything with a green fleck or two in it? You must be joking. This would drive anyone crazy, but I had an epiphany the other night about why it was driving me murderously crazy. I have "meal issues," probably from a childhood of bad dinner table experiences, from being made to stand at the table as a three-year-old on a regular basis, to being totally ignored or berated by my former stepfather at mealtime, to finally being rejected as a dinner partner by my mother and Kevin when I was fourteen. My son's unhappiness with my food offerings felt, well, deeply personal. Once I realized this, my irritation level at his dietary preferences went down several notches. Though I still find them maddening.

5. You know that I don't drive, right? But did you also know that I don't bike, skateboard, scoot or Segway? It's a wheel thing, I suppose.

6. I really should be working on my novel. On my good (or is that "crazy"?) days, I have these grandiose notions of the brilliance of my writing. On my bad (or is that "realistic"?) days, I think my writing will never amount to anything. So blogging keeps me going while also distracting me from the larger purpose.

7. I hold on to people in my mind, keep crushes for decades, never really forget a friend, even if I haven’t spoken to them directly since middle school or even earlier. These attachments keep me plugged into the world, gossamer threads from my mind to yours. All it takes is a little tug -- a photo, an email, a similar name -- for me to conjure up the smells, the meal, the pains and joys, that awkward conversation we had fifteen years ago.

8. It could be that three cats, one dog, one child, one husband, a two-story house, and a backyard is too much. So I don't vacuum nearly as often as I should, the toilet needs scrubbing, and I finally stopped watering the impatiens after six months of careful attention.

9. My only regret is that I should have kissed him when I had the chance. Just to get it out of my head. This was years ago, when I was so focused on doing the right thing, on keeping a tenuous hold on my first marriage. But that kiss will never happen and as time goes by, the moment and its importance feel more and more distant. Still, I think about it sometimes and try to console myself with the fact that it would have been destined to end badly and my desire would have gone the way of most, shot through with sadness and regret.

10. I talk to my mother on the phone almost every day. Sometimes more than once a day. I worry about whether this is healthy, not because of our conversations or how I feel afterwards (I feel fine), but mainly because I think it can stand in for interactions with other people, like people on this coast or friends I haven't spoken to in ages. Maybe it gets in the way of potential friendships. Maybe I should pick up the phone and call my father every once in a while. Or maybe I'm just neurotic and worry too much.

There you go. Another morning of novel-writing gone. But this was more fun.

Tags: Awards, blogging, Honest Scrap Award, La Belette Rouge

Ah, La Belette Rouge! She has tempted me with her language, with posts that are witty and thoughtful, where the words seem to flow effortlessly. Whether it's post- or pre-mortems of her Thursdays with Igor or talking up her apartment complex, I find that once I start reading La Belette Rouge's blog, I have a hard time stopping.

She has also tempted me back to blogging by asking me to write a guest post for her August series on the concept of home. It's a rich topic and I gave it a very writing to survive twist.

My post, Home in objects, is here.

Tags: blogging, blogging break, guest post, home, the things we carry, La Belette Rouge

The title of this post has nothing to do with anything. It's a song by a band called Morphine, mellow with erotic undertones (to listen, click here), that makes me think of the summer of 1998, when I was in the middle of a divorce and a new romance with Mr. Trinkle, and Mr. Trinkle's mother was dying of cancer thousands of miles away and my mother was living with me in Takoma Park, having kind-of-sort-of left Kevin. I still had Loudon the dog, and Sidney and Zoe were young and acrobatic cats. The song has been going through my head and now I offer it up to you.

But that isn't the point of this post. I want to apologize for being an absent presence in the blogging world. I haven't been up to visiting or commenting on blogs. Updating this one has become increasingly time-consuming. Because of the software I use, every time I have a new post I must export the entire blog and then upload it onto a server, a process that take about half an hour or more. It isn't simple or quick. Writing the posts takes a long time, too, sometimes five or six hours. I have limited writing time and have to start pursuing freelance work. There are a few reasons for this, including the fact that my husband is about to take the equivalent of an 8% salary cut through 21 furlough days in the next year. (Ahhh, California!) I would also like to chip away at longer stories and to deepen my writing which just isn't possible in the blog format.

I'll be a more present online presence soon, one way or another. In the meantime, please don't take it personally that I haven't been by. I'm trying to be present in my own life, figuring out a way to get beyond the longing to immerse myself in deep narrative. To move beyond the longing, I have to leap in or give up. I have no intention of giving up.

Image: Rainbow in Berkeley, June 2009.

Tags: Morphine, blogging, rainbow in Berkeley, writing, storytelling, blogging break, Pets, rapidweaver, california

I was tentative at first, hid myself behind veils and a false name. Over time, the veils slipped away, I walked out from behind the curtain, showed my face to the light, revealed my name and purpose. And being seen is ok. It's good. I want people to know me for who I am, for who I was, to keep the secrets from defining me.

Because the secrets don't define me. Even better, after seeing the light of day, after being transformed into stories, they have become almost irrelevant, forming and transforming experiences, important ones, but not the core of who I am.

Visitors to this Web page, however, may have a different impression. In the interest of shaping writing to survive to better reflect reality and also to bring a more professional feel to the page, I have made a few changes. They're subtle — a new tag line, slightly different selections in Excerpts from Life, a more complete look to the food writing page, which I've renamed Kitchen Detour. Most of the old stuff is still here, stories of angst, secrets revealed, but you have to dig a little deeper to find it.

Next post: Crumbling beneath the Formstone. Or something along those lines, with a departure from post titles derived from pop music.

(Image: Mirror, Little House by Jennifer Trinkle, 1986.)

Tags: blogging, self-promotion, secrets, anonymity, emotional striptease

Nora, researching a blog post.

The writing to survive household is traveling this week and next, from DC to MD to DE to NJ and back. In the meantime, Nora, our Russian Squirrel Hound, will be filling in. Or something like that. Expect a photo post or two.

P.S. -- People googling my name: You are freaking me out.

Tags: Nora, dogs, Washington, dc, canine writers, blogging, vacation

So. The blog will stay put.

Thanks to washwords, Koe Whitton-Williams, tricia, Dori, Karen, Bobby Revell, Jennifer D., Melinda, Lorenzo, Candy, Ashe.Selah, lydia, timethief, SmallWorldReads, John Folk-Williams, and Jim for your encouraging words and comments. Your support makes the difference.

Here's a bit of writing inspired by the prompt "Alright, fine. Let's hear your explanation." Well, inspired by that and by reading my grandmother's burn notebooks, written during my grandfather's long hospitalization, where her anger over his vices and infidelities comes through, clear and Mercurochrome-bitter. I couldn't bring myself to change the names; they are too good to be fictional.



I just went to the track to look at the horses, to watch them ripple around the oval, to see their hooves beat the dust into red clouds. But once I got there, the action sucked me in. Before I knew what my feet were doing, I was standing in front of Les’s booth to place my bets. The air was heavy with money and I was feeling lucky. I’d win enough to pay off the rest of Atlee’s mortgage or maybe just enough to buy a smooth fifth of whiskey. Or even score a downpayment on a new washing machine for you, Vi.

Then I ran into Williard, who had a full flask and offered me a swig or three. Maybe the alcohol clouded my judgment. Maybe I couldn't see what an amateur that jockey was, but I think the race was rigged, that somebody paid him out to fall off the horse. Or maybe they slipped the little guy a Mickey, I don’t know. The end result is that I lost. The flask made a few more visits to my lips and I didn’t feel like going home just yet anyways.

You and the girls were at the cottage and I was planning on sleeping at the empty Tuxedo Park house, but then I remembered Molly. Molly with the blonde hair and long legs, Molly from the Tip Top Club in Salem, a nice easy-going girl. The Mustang knew the way from the track to the bar. It’s no coincidence that they call that car a Mustang. It has all the bucking power and smarts of a horse. It knows where to find the watering holes, knows the trail back home, too.

After I left the Tip Top, I was exhausted, so I took a snooze in my ride. That’s where I was last night, sleeping in the Mustang.

You can ask Molly if you don't believe me.

Tags: The long goodbye, writing prompt, blogging, Joe Jackson, faction, blogging break, grandfather, grandmother, burn injuries, friends in the blogosphere

You think you know me.

Let’s look at the facts as revealed here: I’m a stay-at-home mom with a preschool-aged son. A former librarian, I went to culinary school and from there decided to be a writer. My family is relatively new to Northern California, having moved from the East Coast almost two years ago. I’ve told you my name. Given my birthday (oh, those worries about aging, forcing me to seek comfort on the web).

And if you’ve been here for a while, you know about the defining story of my life, the lifeless premature baby I gave birth to at home when I was sixteen.

But what do you really know?

Jennifer recovering from a late night, 1988? Or another photo to continue the ruse?

How would you feel if I was actually a 25-year-old male advertising copywriter from Peoria? What if I really lived in Buffalo, NY? Or if I was pushing 70, mother to a multitude of now middle aged children, grandmother to teenagers, a Brit using the blog to flesh out a character? This "Jennifer" person you think you've been reading could be someone I’ve been keeping in my back pocket for years. writing to survive might be some kind of grand fictional experiment, an attempt to create a flesh and bones person out of ethereal imagination.

And my stories? What if these were figments, scraps from my mind, absolute fiction masquerading as angst-ridden past? It could be that you've been reading full-blown literary lies à la Margaret B. Jones, the wannabe memoirist who made up a gangland childhood. Turns out my parents have been married for forever, I waited until marriage (or at least love) to have sex, and I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol. Oh, and that isn’t my son, he’s a nephew (never mind that I have no nephew).

Would you feel betrayed?

Don't worry. I don’t have it in me to lie like that, though you'll mainly have to take my word for it and trust your gut. There were times in high school and college when I was a serial liar, self-serving and hidden. My mother believed the stories about my solo nights, even when my boyfriend's car was parked right outside the Little House ("Oh, the car? Dirk leaves it there when he goes to the Cassady's. Sometimes he's had too much to drink, so he stays at their place for the night." "That's exactly what I thought, Jenna.") Later, I hid my unfaithfulness from my college boyfriends, created a protective distance by pursuing empty hopes with relative strangers.

Living a life of lies is a dirty business. I was becoming unrecognizable, murky, untrustworthy, a bad friend. So I stopped lying and regained a hold on fidelity. And while those old kinds of lies are no longer tempting, I still struggle with my tendency to exaggerate minor facts or to deny my feelings. Attempting to be good is a life-long process.

There is a difference between making things up to avoid punishment and creating stories to entertain. Stories aren't lies (and sometimes the lies we tell in our life stories aren't fibs either). If the blog tale is well-told, the characters believable, the created world tangible, so real you can taste it, does it matter if it actually happened? How would you know if it did?

We’re taking it all on faith in this blogging world, want to believe that everyone is who they present themselves to be. For the most part, I think people are genuine. Yes, we have plenty of time to shape our online selves, but we’re generally real. Still …

There must be bloggers, perhaps ones you read every day, who have created fiction under the guise of truth. Their blogs are ostensibly about their day to day existence, may even include some pieces of fiction or poetry or personal essay, but some of the facts have been turned inside out.

Maybe the writer doesn’t want to be identified, or is playing, having fun being someone else. The character that demanded life is finally born in a blog, fully realized, solid, interactive (the fresh-eyed college graduate moving back to her hometown; the landlocked fly fisherman reminiscing about his days of streams and trout; the tech-savvy doting grandma with an herbal tea obsession, a minor character in a SAHM's life). Or they add a totally fictional detail, erase a husband, gain a Weimaraner, make a virtual move from Asheville to Albany.

And what of it? Readers are entertained, the writer has an enthusiastic, satisfied audience. These are tenuous connections we have, the lengths of spider's silk stretching across the ether from blogger to blogger. Many of us have never even spoken. In these circumstances, does the truth matter?

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Tags: blogging, truth, lies, fiction, faction, facts, fictional characters, trust, memoir, openness, storytelling