Why I won't leave California, reason #134

...the hawthorns which blossom in winter.




Strangely enough, this is also the state flower of Missouri (but good luck finding it there now!).

Meandering in new directions

The first two posts of 2012 were quite different, weren’t they? One was a “word doodle” about the possible unintended consequences of a unisex definition of “actor,” and the other was practical, specific writing advice.

You may see more of the latter this year. I plan to become more of a wisdom broker as I tell stories about how we can act to bring more happiness, satisfaction, and thought to our daily lives. After all, as I wrote in the very first post, I don’t just want to bleat out rants of insignificance.

What is a wisdom broker? A wisdom broker is different from a teacher or a guru. A teacher will show you how to do practical things, such as assemble a shoe or figure out what x means. A guru – in the Western world – gives wisdom but demands loyalty above and beyond his due (yes, this type of guru is almost always a “he”).

The wisdom broker shows you how to love life, but never pretends to stand above you. The wisdom broker shows you the way not just to a better life, but to a happier life. You feel joy after encountering a wisdom broker (whether in person or through a book or recording), not guilt or inadequacy. You come out knowing that yes, you can do it too.

I admire the wisdom brokers – visit this link, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, for starters.

Why shouldn’t I be one, too?

The most important writing advice

What do you believe is the most important writing advice?

All of us who are writers have, at the very least, one shelf reserved for writing how-to books. All of us who are writers know that most of these books contain a variant of this advice:

“You’ve got to write every day if you want to call yourself a writer! I mean it – every damn day!”

I agree that it’s important to keep the butt in the chair. Sometimes. But I know something that is even more important than writing every damn day. No, really – I mean it.

It’s called finishing what you start.

Whatever you write – whether it be a book, article, essay, short story, stage play, screenplay, blog post, review, press release, etc. – needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Successful writers get this – whether success means writing multi-million dollar blockbusters or being the most-viewed writer on a Twilight fan fiction site.

If you don’t end your work, it’s not going to satisfy the reader – or any middleperson who’s going to show it to the reader. It’s like putting half a bra in the window of Victoria’s Secret. That thing won’t get the job done.

We all have notebooks and/or Word documents filled with pieces of writing – a hastily scribbled plot, a sentence as cool and dainty as salmon sashimi, an essay about an idiosyncratic idea that petered out before concluding. (I have all of these, including a piece called “Respecting Your Bowls.” Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is. And yes, I finished it and put it in this blog.) Some of these are potentially publishable – but only if they are complete. The only writers who can get away with having unfinished work published are dead legends, like Ralph Ellison and the incomplete Three Days Before the Shooting. (Even that book would have been better finished.)

Getting back to those every-damn-day writers, if they don’t outright boast about their fortitude, at least they smirk with Puritan pride at their work ethic. But mere output is not what counts. We shouldn’t write to be an example for other writers. We should write for our readers.

Readers who do not care whether or not you write every damn day.

They are not going to read you because you get up at 6 a.m. and write non-stop until midnight (with a giant-sized bag of Lay’s on your desk and a bedpan under your chair). Readers do not care if you write eight hours a day, four hours a day, an hour, half an hour, or fifteen minutes. They do not care if you write every day, every other day, twice a week, or on Saturday afternoons only. They do not care if you write 1000 words a day, or 250 (the average amount of words on one double-spaced, Courier New font page), or a paragraph, a sentence, or even a single word a day.

Readers do care about endings. Your works had better have them.

Just finish what you start, please. If you just can’t pull it off with one idea, toss it and finish another one. But finish.

Once you’ve finished, you’re more than halfway to your readers.

I don’t think I will ever get used to…

…the word “actor” being applied to females.

It stops me cold every time I see it in print. It just feels weird…like putting the left shoe on the right foot.

I would find it strange if I read the word “aviatrix” or “doctress” in a current newspaper. Why, then, is “actress” so acceptable to me?

Maybe it’s just the word I grew up with.

Years ago, I read a review of a play based on the Delaney sisters’ story – remember them? – in OC Weekly. The reviewer was peeved that the Delaney sisters used the word “colored” instead of newer, more socially acceptable words. Well, “colored” was the word they grew up with – why was that so hard to understand?

I am also concerned about an unintended consequence of “actor” becoming unisex. If anyone can be an “actor,” why not have just two acting categories in awards shows – “Best Actor” and “Best Supporting Actor,” open to both males and females?

Sometimes, there might be more males than females nominated – and, sometimes, the guys would take both awards.

If you are the kind of person who insists that everyone is an “actor,” you will probably not like that scenario very much.

Think about it as movie awards season begins this Sunday (the 15th) with the Golden Globes on NBC.

Why I don’t buy year-end issues anymore

Year-end magazines – they bloom like poinsettias at this time of year. From Time to People, editors feel a need to eulogize the ebbing year – even though the year doesn’t actually end until 11:59:59 p.m. on December 31st (so there’s still time for major news to pop up – it’s like writing a book about a television series before the last episode airs).

These issues used to mean much more to me. When I was 14, I was really excited about the end-of-year issues. I remember buying this issue of the newly revived Life magazine in December 1979 – which was not just the end of a year, but the end of a decade.*



When I was 14, I was just becoming aware of the parade of progress – and it was exciting, like riding a sailboat and feeling the splash of the ocean. I felt that I was a part of history, even if my participation only consisted of buying year-and-decade-end issues.

Thirty-odd years later, however, the parade of progress has lost some luster. It’s not that I don’t care about news anymore. It’s just that I am seeing a truth that doesn’t come to light until you’ve ridden the merry-go-round a certain number of times: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

What is going to happen in 2012?

• Crimes will happen that will shock and disgust us.
• Stories of personal triumph will bring tears to our eyes.
• Famous people will die.
• People not previously famous will become so.
• Celebrity couples will get together, marry, have babies, and break up – and some of those breakups will shock us.
• Politicians will unleash their inner fools (especially in this election year!).
• New words will enter the lexicon (and be so totally out by next year).
• A public figure will say something outrageous and then quickly give a P.R. apology.
• Disasters, natural and man-made, will bring upheaval to thousands of lives.
• A few sports fans will have good reason to cheer – but most will not.

Check back here on December 31, 2012 (at 11:59:59 pm!), and tell me that not all of these have happened.

My days of collecting year-end issues are long over (which is a blessing, because the amount of paper already in the Hakim household has passed the “sufficient” category). Now it’s time to keep an eye on my personal parade of progress – to make some history of my own!

* Yes, I know that 1980 was the technical end of the decade – but come on, nobody thinks of it that way. Not even mathematicians.

What's the true meaning of Christmas? It's the gifts after all

This week, most of us will hear well-meaning newspeople and pundits lecture on the “true meaning of Christmas” – which is as amorphous as a fast-moving cloud. Is it the birth of the man most people know as Jesus Christ? (No one really knows when “Jesus” was born; his birth is celebrated in late December because Christianity needed a celebration to compete with pagan solstice rituals). Is it getting together with family? (That is where many problems start.) Is it a feeling of warm fuzzy goodwill towards all? Maybe.

At the bottom line, though, it’s all about the gifts.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at any given Christmas television special. In the plots of so many of these, the distribution of Christmas gifts (almost always from Santa Claus) is endangered by one threat or another (snowstorm, toy-hating baddies, Santa just being tired of it all) – but lo and behold, at the last minute the gifts come through as they are supposed to in this materialistic nation.


One of the key case studies is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a special near and dear to the Hakim household. You know the story – a mean green Grinch tries to “steal” Christmas from the Whos down in Whoville by taking away all of the gifts. However, Christmas comes anyway, personified by a gleaming star that takes the place of the town Christmas tree.


Now, if the true meaning of Christmas was something other than gifts, the special would have ended right there. But, no – the Grinch is so moved that his heart grows three sizes and he brings back the Whos’ gifts – so they get the warm fuzzy goodwill and the material goods.


What if the Grinch had not brought back the gifts?

I’ll bet that CBS would have shown this just once, instead of thirty-five times (and counting).

Do you think that Walmart, Target, Sears, Best Buy, Home Goods, Old Navy, ad nauseam would sponsor a Christmas special which celebrated the “true meaning of Christmas” – without gifts? How would they feel if even one-quarter of Americans decided to just give warm fuzzy goodwill this year?

All I can say is, I’d hate to be inside their underwear.

At this point, I don’t put too much stock in the “true meaning of Christmas.” I am content to enjoy the holiday lights and the egg nog ice cream and the gingerbread latte and, yes, the warm fuzzy goodwill.(The crappy songs, such as “Jingle Bells” – not so much.) Hey, it’s a holiday, after all – how much meaning does it really need?

Speaking of holidays, enjoy yours - whatever one you celebrate!

My first picture

Long-time Meandering Mouse readers know that I share lots of photography here.

It's only proper that I share the very first photo I took - the Fort Pitt Bridge that crosses the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. Not bad for a ten-year-old mouse!