Tuesday, December 06, 2005
I spoke to my Mamka (Mom) this morning it was 5:30 am in seaside Sydney and evening in the High Tatra Mountains. The temperatures also could not be more different as it is nice and warm here whereas it is freezing in my old home country. At 89 ( in February next year) Mamka is bright and alert and can recall so many childhood stories I have forgotten. My sister Gitka is her guardian angel keeping her company as they share stories and sew or knit together. They are an amazing couple of friends - so alike in appearance and temperament - so much more than daughter mother relationship ... Both cannot get over that we have moved again as neither my sister or my Mamka ever left their place of birth and are still living where they were born. I am glad that they have always provided for me with a sense of stability, a place and home to call whenever my heart desired ... My sister and my Mamka seem to agree with the sentiment expressed in the sweet sixteen points below
16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 40 YEARS TO LEARN
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings."
3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person.
(This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
'On The Importance of Telling Stories'
My grandmother often told me the story of her father-in-law who found out just before Christmas that he was going to die. Determined to live through the holiday to be with his family, he died right after the new year. She and my grandfather, then very young newlyweds, took that rapid loss as a lesson to live for the day and be happy with what they had - a lesson they truly followed. When she became old and my grandfather died, my grandmother thrived on telling old stories to keep herself going. It wasn't so much that she was living in the past, but the telling of the stories made the past alive and relevant It is that same sense of the need to live in the moment while telling stories of the past that Joan Didion has infused through her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking.
If I had a million dollars, I would slap it all down on the table in front of any jackass that said they could write a fabulous book if only they had a big fat advance, and tell them they could have every single penny if they could bang out a genuinely salable book in six months ... because your basic loudmouth non-writer is no more capable of writing a salable book than I am of piloting a 747, and roughly for the same reason—it’s a skill you have to learn, baby, and one generally learns the writing skill by writing most days of your life (and generally—alas—you’ll be doing that for little if any pay).
– Whatever
Publishing, Writing, Getting Published
