Riva's Blog
an excerpt

Thursday, November 1, 2007
Hello, readers. My name is Riva Hakon, and this novel is all about me and my family and all the people I know, real and fictional. For starters, I’m 48 and pre-menopausal. I have a husband, Sawyer, who is an economist at the University of Florida. When he’s not writing papers against socialized medicine, he likes to drink California wine and watch Star Trek reruns. We have three daughters, aged 16, 19, and 24, which is why I’m in therapy. Our oldest, Malca, is in graduate school in California, the middle one,Daisy,is an undergrad at UF, and the youngest, Carma, is in high school.
This year, 2007, I joined NaNoWriMo, which is this crazy online organization based in California, the Loony Land of the world. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is for members or whatever we are to write a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days, specifically in the month of November which just started about forty minutes ago here in Florida. I’m going to write a novel about fairies, the kind with wings, not the other kind, though I’m certainly not prejudiced. I just don’t know anything about that kind of fairy. I’ve tried writing short stories, but all I get are rejections from The New Yorker. I thought they’d like stories about how university wives relate to psychologists.
Anyhow, last Sunday there was a kickoff get-together at Maude’s downtown, and yours truly went. Maude’s is a funky restaurant where you can order weird sandwiches, assorted coffees and teas, desserts, and other calorie laden items. Well, let me tell you that there are going to be some fascinating characters coming out of Gainesville this year! I met this gorgeous creature, Christmas Joe, who’s an origami nut and made a big bat out of tin foil. Oh, I do think artists are the only real people in this world. Economists’ wives may have better rugs on their floors, but you just can’t imagine what breakfast conversation is like. I just might consider an affair with this hunk. People tell me I look much younger than 48. Why a sales clerk at Macy’s mistook me for my daughter’s sister last month! Christmas Joe has a girlfriend, but I’m very seductive and probably know a lot more bedroom tricks than she does. Then there’s Dezi, who reminds me too much of Malca except Dezi’s more petite. She’s into search and rescue, and I can just picture my daughter quitting grad school and signing up to save boy scouts lost in the Nevada mountains if she ever meets this girl. I’m a bit leery of Dayan, who’s a pyrotechnic. Thankfully, he’s Victorian. Finally, there’s Claire, an alcoholic who helps the elderly. I’d worry that she might meet up with Daddy, but as he only goes for rich widows, I don’t have to break into the Prozac over that one.
One of our liaisons emailed us yesterday that 120 people signed up for NaNoWriMo in the Gainesville region this year. About twenty of them crammed into Maude’s Sunday afternoon, and we each introduced ourselves, munched the candy the liaisons brought and delved into our NaNoWriMo goody bags. I guess the other 100 writers couldn’t find parking spaces.
I get a star on my NaNoWriMo calendar for each day I write at least 1667 words. My therapist will be so excited. We also have a big idea crock that we filled with plot ideas for anyone who’s down with writers’ block. There are two write-ins Saturday, one for the people who don’t go to the homecoming football game, assuming they can get through the football mobs to the bookstore hosting the write-in. The second one takes advantage of the time change that gives us all an extra hour that night. If we can stay awake, we meet at Weylyn’s at ten p.m.for group suffering. This goes on until we drop or she kicks us out. But it just occurred to me that this takes place the night after the big homecoming game, and there will probably be drunk drivers all over Gainesville around two a.m. or whenever, so maybe I’ll just curl up with a glass of Chablis and work on my novel at home while I’m tying my hair in knots wondering what Daisy is doing.
I just finished reading one of Daisy’s English Lit books, The Book of Daniel, by E.L. Doctorow. It’s all about the Rosenberg family, except he calls them the Issacsons so he won’t be sued. The real Rosenbergs were executed, fried in the electric chair, way back in 1953, when the whole country was paranoid about the Soviets and thought the Rosenbergs were conspiring to give atomic secrets to their Commie friends in Russia. Anyhow, the book is mostly about the two innocent kids these dopes had. Doctorow did a sex change on the younger one, so he could make her convincingly weak. I wonder what the two real kids thought about this book.
People are so stupid and so easily frightened. Today it’s Arab terrorists who lurk in every American airport waiting for the opportunity to blow us all up. Meanwhile, we’re our own worst enemy as our freedoms disappear one by one because the scaredycats can be persuaded to agree to just about anything if they’re scared enough. Maybe some of those people who were whisked off to Guantanamo Bay are really guilty, maybe not. I don’t think most have ever been tried, at least not in a public courtroom. Sawyer would say that they must have been taken there for a reason. The police don’t just storm into anyone’s home and march them off to Cuba. Do they?
Well, I mustn’t dwell too much on the plights of non-Americans who get themselves into trouble in the states. It makes me nervous. And, besides, a catalog from the Art Institute of Chicago came in today’s mail. I’m looking at it right this minute and I’m wondering if Malca might like the Joseph’s Coat Menorah in breathtaking rainbow colors for only $228. If only we were Jewish. Would it be offensive for a goy to display a menorah in her dining room? Of course, Malca doesn’t have a dining room. Housing is so expensive in California that she’s sharing a three bedroom apartment with five other girls. Although I’m sure she called one of her roommates Matt the other day when we were on the phone. They eat in the living room because the kitchen is so tiny only one of them can work in it at a time. The menorah is so pretty, but maybe the Hula Vases at three for $115 would be a better choice. These vases ‘can rock gently without tipping’ according to the product description, though it’s not clear to me why anyone would want to rock their vases. On the other hand, Malca is out there in earthquake country, so I suppose God might be the one who does the rocking. I know it’s only the first of November, but Christmas Joe got me to thinking about the holidays and all the shopping I’ve got to do before then. I thought that when the girls grew up and left home, I’d be a writer-artist. Of course, the two younger ones are still here, and Malca comes back during the Christmas holidays and summers so she doesn’t have to cook for herself. As I mentioned, my writing efforts to date haven’t paid off. In fact, they haven’t paid anything at all. If we hadn’t inherited a million in oil stocks from Sawyer’s father, I don’t know how we’d pay our bills. Why I might be working in dentist’s office or selling picture frames. We certainly couldn’t live decently on just a professor’s salary! Carma alone spent $467 on clothes and shoes last month. And I’m not counting make-up, hair cuts, or driving lessons.
Now I haven’t yet told you a thing about my artistic side. I joined this international art exchange group last month. There are 25 people in the group. What we do is to create art postcards and send them to each other. I finished my first one last night. I cut a chicken out of a chicken fabric and fused it to a pond fabric. Then I added a few beads and a green ribbon and called it ‘Laying Eggs in Water.’ The ribbon is an abstract touch. Then I quilted this to a piece of cardboard, stuck on a Forever stamp because it costs more to send real art, though we are finding rates vary by post office, the most expensive so far being some Florida island. This card went to an artist in Wisconsin. It will be so much fun to get their cards. And I can rightly claim my art has an international audience when this exchange round ends in January, because some members of the group live in Canada. I don’t know the postage to Canada for art postcards, so I’ll just add another stamp or two and hope they get there. It’s just too much trouble to stand in line at the post office. I’m already thinking about my next card. I think I’m going to be a wild woman and try painting on fabric. I bought this phallic, gold metallic paintstick and can hardly wait to try it on something.
Good heavens! Here it is almost five o’clock and I haven’t done a thing about dinner. If I get myself out of here right this minute I can make it to Publix before Sawyer gets home. They always have something delicious you can pop in the microwave. Add a couple of bags of salad and a bottle of wine and dinner is a snap. Carma and Daisy can finish the pecan pie I got at the bakery yesterday. I really don’t know how women made it through their days in olden times without microwave ovens and pre-prepared dinners. Can you imagine fixing a chicken from scratch? Why it would take all afternoon to do that and wash the vegetables and bake a pie. How anyone ever managed to read books or paint in those days I’ll never know. Naturally, Mother and Daddy had a maid, so that’s how they managed, but you simply can’t get competent household help these days. I mean I suppose you could if you were willing to pay a queen’s ransom and provide health and dental benefits as well, but that’s so unrealistic. Women would rather be unemployed and take welfare than do honest housework.