Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

Last night, I enjoyed a traditional British Christmas dinner at Café Cordiale as I listened to Lord Arux and his caroling group entertain the restaurant goers. Being no fan of carols whatsoever and truly a Grinch in general, I'd always assumed that a group of roaming Christmas carolers would be the most annoying thing possible in a restaurant where you're a captive audience, but they were so entertaining that I had to quickly revise my assumption. It wasn't just their colorful Dickens costumes and mannerisms but the musical arrangements themselves were surprising and fun. In the final act, the entire restaurant sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas," with certain tables assigned to sing a particular line. Of course, everyone assigned to "eight maids a-milking" had fled the restaurant before the finale, leaving me, The Lone Milking Maid, to belt out the line. (Lord Arux said it was cute, but I think he's heinously biased.) The restaurant owners -- an incredibly sweet British couple, David and Margaret May -- both came up to me afterward to congratulate me on my "pipes." They took lots of photos. Once they post them on the website, I'll link to them.

As soon as I got home, I dropped into bed early with exhaustion. But I'm awake today to wish you all a very merry Mithrasmas and to continue the tiring task of unpacking. Although I complain, between all the Bengal love, Lord Arux, and my new place, I'm feeling pretty damned lucky as the year draws to a close. May the feasting continue this Yule and through the New Year!

Merry Mithrasmas, everyone!



(Cute kitties can turn the ugliest blanket on earth into something wunnerful, can't they?)

Moving was brutal.

The movers underestimated my move time by 4 hours, which was problematic to say the least, especially since it was at least $400 over budget. Not only was I utterly exhausted, I wound up writing them a check almost as big as my old rent. I was pissed. Somehow, although I'm not the punitive sort, I forgot to tip them. I think the same part of my brain that cuts me off before I drink too much coffee or alcohol also kept me from giving them any more money.

As I was managing the movers, two people from the HOA stopped by to try to convince me to come to the Annual General Meeting being held that evening so that they could get a quorum to vote in new officers. Methinks none of them remember what it's like to move. I had holes in my brain, I was so tired. And I still needed to run back to Montrose to buy more Feliway from Petco and pick up the kitten babies who'd been locked in the bathroom since 6:30am that morning. In fact, when all was said and done, I was too tired to even drink champagne. That is a new kind of tired, my friend.

Speaking of the devils, Robie and Saphron quickly adjusted to the space. My first night was fitful, as worn out as I was, mostly because they were running around at all hours. They'd discovered the frictionless wonders of Pergo and how it can rev up ordinary toys like, say, jingling balls and fuzzy mice until they sound like power boats. And then Robie decided that jumping up into my bedroom window was especially rockin' because of the way the vertical blinds exploded with clattering. Around 6:00am I kicked them both out so that I could at least rest a bit.

I really resented the price of moving. I then realized I've moved four times since 2006. The cost for me to have decent movers has doubled in that time. It's so not like me to move at all. I lived in Hollywood for nearly 10 years, perfectly content in my little 1-bedroom apartment. I just hope I don't have to move for a very long time.

The good news is that, when I pulled into my parking space in the garage, I discovered to my vast amusement that my next door neighbor had arrived home and had already parked in the space next to mine. His license plate frame says:

You Matter to God
Saddleback Church

My license plate frame says:

I'd Rather Be
Mocking Jehovah

(Not to mention I have the "No Jesus, Know Peace" bumper sticker.)

This is so great, I can't even tell you. Actually, I need to tell Dan Savage...

If you've all been intrigued by my proximity to raging fires, mysterious mountain ranges, and the occasional bobcat, it's because almost exactly 1-1/2 years ago I moved to Montrose. It's a sleepy little town just north of Glendale on the lip of the Angeles National Forest. The main drag is Honolulu Street, a scenic strip that's the heart of a quaint shopping district and home to a charming farmer's market I've walked to almost every Sunday morning.

We had dinner with the fabulous screenwriter, Joe Reinkemeyer, the other night. He lives, here, too. We ran into him on Honolulu one night, just strolling. He agreed that it's not on anyone's mental map. He said that the usual reaction he gets is along the lines of, "Montrose. Is that, like, in Bakersfield?"

Although perilously awash with Prop 8 supporters and hippies who vaguely protest something or other on a regular basis at the Vietnam memorial at the Honolulu and Verdugo intersection, it's a beautiful, quiet place vibrant with both the "local color" and mountainous scenery. Best of all, it's just a few minutes from Downtown Los Angeles, Glendale and Pasadena. I picked this place precisely because it doesn't look at all like Los Angeles. It was the perfect place to retreat, regroup and rethink my life. And, man, did some thing come together while I was here, both in my writing and in my perspective.

When I decided to trod on the backs of the less fortunate and get into the real estate market during the downturn, I quickly discovered that you had to be stinkin' rich to infiltrate the housing here. I was willing to buy a cracker box if necessary and shoehorn myself into it. I absolutely didn't want to leave. But leaving was precisely what I had to do in order to get my foot in the door. So, I found a sweet condo out in the Valley turned out to be my ticket to the next level of investment.

After 7 months of swashbuckling in a crazy market, I seriously thought towards the end of my search that I was going to have to poison or take out a contract on some of my competition. (I still wish I'd gone Femme Nikita for that on one place I lost that I was really in love with.) Buyer's market? Yeah, it's a buyer's market -- if you're a freakin' investor with wads of cash lying around begging to be thrown at every random condo in Pasadena. (Pasadena was the biggest bloodbath of all.) The rest of us little people were scrambling in the face of massive competition. Every damned property was a bidding war. Buying a home was never nuttier, from what I hear. Once I found this place, the sellers turned out to be the nicest people you could ever hope to deal with, especially considering they weren't leaving under the best of circumstances. I really lucked out. (The biggest downside has been that this prolonged house hunt has eaten into my writing time in a major way. I plan on recouping that time mightily once I get into the new place.)

Montrose, I love you, but you can't marry me because we are socio-economically ill-matched. So be it. But let's not say this is "goodbye." Maybe it's more of a "so long for now." When I build my fortune, I'll sweep back like Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights and position myself to inherit all. Bwahahaha!

Or something like that. Anyway, here I go...

I dreamed last night that I was on a train that stopped. I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was time for me to disembark. In fact, I'm pretty sure I got on with no intention whatsoever of leaving in the first place. But leave I did. A lot of people had left the train and there I was, standing in the aisle as the mighty iron dragon roared forward. It fled quickly, eating through landscape voraciously. I worried about how I'd get back to where I was. Rental car? Train? Not on foot, that would be crazy. And certainly not bike. But I didn't have much money. The landscape looked progressively more forlorn. I spoke to a kind-looking man. "I'm not supposed to be here. I should be back there. In Ullele." He said, "Then pull the rope. Talk to the engineer. He can take you back."

And so I did. I reached up and tugged the white rope strung across the wall as if it were a bus. The train slowed to a stop. I then walked toward the engineer's compartment and they let me in. One was a middle-aged woman with very short steely gray hair. The other was an older man with trim black hair and a grayish sweater. I sat with them. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't supposed to leave from back there." They didn't look happy, but the man replied, "It's no problem. We can go back."

The train started moving in reverse. I didn't hear anything from the other passengers but I imagined they were not happy. And then entered the engineer's compartment. She sat beside me, smiling. Her hair was bobbed. It looked cute.

"Hi!" I said. "Are you mad?"

"Well, I wasn't happy about this, but it's okay," she said. Then, more coyly, "Besides, I want you to sign my books."

I grinned. "Of course!" And I hugged her.

And now I'm awake. I don't know if the train made it back, but I feel more like I'm moving forward this morning. Fast. Goodbye, Ullele! 'Til we meet again!

I'm in a hotel room in Borrego Springs after sledding down a 3-hour luge of treacherous freeways, having landed farther south of Coachella than you'd ever care to be without being in Mexico.

I drove in the dark. (Although the 15 South is not a lovable freeway in the light, either, I'm sure.) It was stupid. I should have left much earlier rather than risk that endless 76 South, which reminded me of those scenes in the movie IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS.

Sometimes I have more guts than brains.

I normally love being alone, but here I've not felt so keenly lonely before in my life. I suppose that's part of the pilgrimage. I'm here to see an amazing gentleman whose books have been teaching me astrology for the last 16 years. I've decided to have a reading with the master astrologer.

I gave up on readings a long time ago. Too many astrologers looked at my Mars/Neptune conjunction* and babbled on about how I must be addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or sex. Because most modern astrologers don't know shit about addiction and associate it with "weakness," which is the supposed domain of Neptune. It's not that astrology doesn't work. It's that their brains don't work. They know nothing about psychology. Like any tool, astrology is limited in effectiveness by the person doing the reading. So if they're ignorant about personality, the reading is going to be crap.

When I found out that this man and his wife had moved to California, I knew I'd have to make the pilgrimage because they are the most intelligent, lucid writers and teachers of this esoteric practice. I didn't know when I booked months in advance that it would land smack in the middle of buying a condo and moving. Ah, life and its challenges!

And now the current challenge: to sleep.

*Since then, another very perceptive UK writer, Bernadette Brady, has written extensively about aspects and more correctly notes that the Mars/Neptune conjunction is the signature of "The Pinup" -- someone who glamorizes sex in some way or plays with illusions. I think that is far more accurate for me and others I know with the aspect.

**In my experience with the charts of alcoholics and even the adult children of alcoholics, Pluto is more aptly associated with addiction, as it's about compulsions and subconscious drives.

I stopped writing letters to Salon years ago because I was worn out by the trolling. This time Salon doesn't even offer a letter section. I'm thinking it's a good thing they didn't.

Back on March 22, 2004, they printed an article called "The confessions of a semi-successful author." It told the sob story of an author whose first sale drew a whopping $150,000 advance, only for her career to spiral downward from there (that is, if you consider awards and critical acclaim with $35,000 advances "spiraling").

Salon reprinted this same article on December 7, 2009.

I realize that it's a sobering look at publishing and all that, but we would have been better served as readers with an update on said miserable writer. Five and a half years is a long time. Things have changed even more dramatically since she whined the first time around, what with the market crash and all the tweeting of the Intertwats. (Her daughter, by the way, wins for wisdom. Her comment about making the NBA was true. I hope her mom truly took it to heart.) And -- GASP! -- she had to take a job! Has this changed her attitude and given her any perspective? That's the real follow-up. (Although, Charlie Simpson does a bang-up job of dissecting the original piece and explains what really happened. Thanks to Bel Wilson for the link.)

Reading the article again, it sent me back to Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." Writing is a vocation, a potentially thankless calling, and expecting a fiction writing career to support one is unreasonable. Some talented -- and many completely untalented -- writers get hit by the comet, but a great many worthy writers don't. Too many stars have to align and it simply doesn't happen for all of us. I know many talented writers who have to do side jobs to stay financially afloat, or who, like me, have another, steadier career that's more lucrative to support the less lucrative one. I have less time to write but I can do so comfortably with a pension in my future.

In fact, I have two writing careers. I'm a well-paid, award-winning writer in my day job for one of the best-known and best-loved brands in the world. In my other writing career, I'm a talented smart ass who makes very little and hasn't won a Stoker. I'm not sure where the snobbery came in that says the less lucrative job with the iffy awards is somehow better, but I think I'm doing just fine.

I love writing fiction. And I'll keep writing, even if bitches don't give me a damned Stoker, a steady income or anything else. I do it because my love of words overflows my heart and the ideas hammer their way out of my skull. (Or they use dynamite. Usually in the middle of the night.) I'm truly fortunate to do it as well as I do.

And here I go back to doing it.