March 31st, 2008

I have just arrived home from a 5-day business trip to Hong Kong, which was a rich and stressful experience, but for which I am extremely glad. I managed to write home a few letters to the family detailing my experience. I’ll present one here, the one with the most detail about my experience as a tourist.

With this entry, I hope to reignite my dedication to blogging and storytelling. Figuring out how to do that is  a bit of a beast, and perhaps the subject of another writing altogether.

Enjoy!

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January 17th, 2008

When I was pregnant with my daughter ten years ago, I used to read Winnie the Pooh to her. I’d make all the different voices and sing the little songs, and I’m quite convinced that not only could she hear me, but she enjoyed being sung and cooed to. Babies certainly recognize voices even in utero, and I believe that my reading to her helped create an early bond between the two of us.

I don’t have tons of memories of having been read to as a child–not by family members, anyway. I’m sure my mother did read to me, as she has many stories about “that time I was reading to you…” but I  must have been very small and I don’t remember. I learned to read very young and was a voracious reader, so maybe my mom just figured if I could read by myself there was no real need for her participation. Or, just as likely, perhaps she read to me frequently and I just don’t remember.

I do, however, remember two distinct times of having been read to by family. The first time was my father, who read The Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis when I must have been 8 or 9. I remember sitting in the garage with him, writing on my chalk board, and my dad came out book in hand and said, “I’d like to read this story to you.” My parents were divorced and I didn’t live with my father. In fact, I saw him very little, so any time spent with my father was precious. I don’t recall being overly excited about the idea of being read to at first, but as we got into the story I remember being spellbound, utterly captivated by the goings on in Narnia. My father brought reading to a different level. It wasn’t just a story, it was magic.

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January 10th, 2008

I hate Los Angeles.

This might seems strange coming form a born-and-bred Angelino, yet it’s the truth nonetheless. It is no coincidence that when I turned seventeen and went off to college I ran as far away from the City of Angels as possible. My grievances against my hometown are many: it’s crowded, it’s dangerous, it’s expensive, it’s uber trendy, it’s polluted, the people are vapid and fake, the schools are terrible, it’s on the Pacific time zone. .(Of course, to be fair, there are some wonderful things about Los Angeles, most notably the weather, bountiful things to do, and the fact that you can drive 30 minutes in any direction and land at either the desert, the beach, the mountains, or the woods. It’s all there for the taking, and within easy reach. But it’s still, at the end of the day, freaking Los Angeles.)

And yet, for all that I harbor no real love for the city, when my mother comes to visit me I do get a little homesick.

When people learn that I’m from LA I’m often asked if I knew any famous people when I lived there. It’s such a funny question to me. My father is in the music industry, and my mother’s sister was a celebrity of sorts back in the 80’s (I think she was the first black female sports-talker or something) so certainly I met a few, and I ran into them from time to time (John Goodman held the door open for my mother at a 7-11 once) but did I ever sit around and jaw with celebrities? Did I know any famous people?

Well, yes, actually. Except she wasn’t famous at the time.

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January 3rd, 2008

My cousin Shannon was the world’s greatest storyteller. Which is to say she was a phenomenal liar.

In fact, my cousin was not only was a brilliant liar, but she told so many lies that my brother and I used to joke that we should assemble and publish a collection of her lies and title the book, “The Many Lies of Shannon Jones: a true story”*. At times I did get fed up with my cousin’s incessant lying, but at other times I found her fabrications enthralling. The key was that I had to recognize that she was lying. When I knew she was lying, I could sit at her feet and listen to her spin a tale of lies with utter fascination, asking her to elaborate on key story points and taking delight either in her squirming to satisfactorily answer my questions or, just as often, in her magnificent ability to produce sensible and realistic details on the fly and out of thin air.

Of course, a natural side effect of her penchant for make believe is that I usually didn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth. Whenever she started telling me stories—even if it was just a summary of a trip to the grocery store with her mother—I assumed she was talking crap. Sometimes that crap was interesting and I’d play along, but other times I’d tell her to shut up because I’d had enough of her nonsense.

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January 3rd, 2008

Like many people, I get both nostalgic and hopeful at the new year. I begin to think about travesties overcome, battles either won or lost, things I can improve upon, blessings I am grateful for.

In terms of this blog, and writing in general, I start to think–what the fuck have I been doing with my time?!

It would be easy to say, “I vow to write at least one blog post a week for the rest of 2008″ and then it will be eight times as easy to not do it, and I am not into setting myself up for disappointment. However, what I can do is make an effort to at least consider writing in this blog. I can at least take the time to think about what I would write if I weren’t too tired to write. And then, with an idea in hand, I’ll perhaps have the motivation to pound something out when a spare 20 minutes avails itself to me.

Last night I sat down with my laptop and composed another memory-story, this time without a religious theme, but something I wanted to remember. I forgot to post it last night (I fell asleep early after a long first day back at the office) but I will post it tonight. So, here’s to more frequent updates.

Because, the truth is, what good is a writer who doesn’t write? Oh, sure, I could take the easy way out and say I’m more a graphic artist these days than I am a writer, but that would be the worst kind of lie, because I’d be lying to myself. I will never be anything more than I am a writer, and that’s probably how it should be. Graphic art only came into my life a few years ago. I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. In fact, when I was about 10 years old, I dragged my ancient, enormous, heavy-as-hell typewriter with me to my grandmother’s house in Ohio for summer vacation and I spent the summer in her basement writing a novel. It was terrible, to be sure, but it was coplete. My 10 year old self spent summer vacation writing a novel. And I would dare to call myself a graphic artist instead?

Pish posh. I can’t even draw.  There’s the rub.

I have also decided that I need to write a novel this year. I say “need” because I’m not sure it’s something I want to do so much as something that I feel compelled to do. I haven’t written any good fiction in ages. I’ve gotten out of the habit, and I’ve quite forgotten how. But it was how I began my life as a writer, and it is how I think I may continue my life as a writer, so I’d best get started. The only way to grow a muscle is to use it, and there’s no time like the present. So, whether I want to or not, there it is. And I’m sure that once I get going I’ll want to.

And that’s really all I have to say about that. Wishing everyone a splendid new year.

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