Lethe's blog

Aurelio Madrid Drew My Portrait

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:51:00 +0000

It's not every day that a person you've never met before tells you they want to draw your portrait.

And then, two days later, they send it to you.

On a daily basis I engage with an assortment of multi-faceted individuals via Twitter.

There is a conception that the Internet dis-connects us as well as connects us. But I am interested in the ways it draws us closer to our social nature.

Composing art for someone--especially a stranger--is like a mystic tie. Now that Aurelio has drawn these pictures of me, I'm curious about him.

Aurelio Madrid's blog, "Luctor et Emergo", fuses paintings, drawings, interviews, and topics as diverse as coin-collecting and Buddhist metaphysical thought.

What is most striking to me about Aurelio's blog is that he reminds me of myself. Having meditated for five years and studied Buddhist philosophy, I am in awe of his meticulous writings on karma, cause and effect, and the nine consciousnesses.

Aurelio goes so far as to diagram aspects of Buddhist philosophy in a colorful and mystical representation. I love the intermingling of art, philosophy and religion. It reminds me of some of the mandalas that Carl Jung painted.

The artist uses the diagram to explain the concept of "Fundamental Darkness". He writes:

Fundamental Darkness is many things, including not recognizing our own Buddha nature & not recognizing the Buddha nature in others. A key difference from a traditional/western notion of evil, is that we Buddhists acknowledge that fundamental darkness is latent in all of life (including our own), rather than occurring only in specific individuals/groups exclusively. The theory is that we can use it as a motivation, a catalyst to improve, & as an impetus to strive for enlightenment.

Is this a sign that I should go back to studying Buddhism? Or maybe just pick up meditation again?

While I'm not a Buddhist, I can identify with Aurelio's passionate interest in the philosophy. Furthermore, I know something about the kind of person he is for creating these portraits. He longs to connect with strangers.

Nothing brings me more joy than communicating with the unknown. I love the diversity of humans on earth, the bottomless source of individuals and personalities. There are so many gifts that each of us have to give away. We hold so many secrets inside and are dying to reveal ourselves to each other . . .

The Artist and His Museum (of Links)

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:04:00 +0000

"The Artist and His Museum" by Charles Wilson Peale

Cabinets of Curiosities, or Wonder Cabinets, according to Wikipedia, were:

encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern science would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities. "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater."

I've decided to create my own Wonder Cabinet from the links I've found on the Web. My thanks to all those people who told me they enjoyed these links and encouraged me to take it one step further to collect and organize them.

My categories are sometimes accurate, sometimes not. These links represent the microcosm of the Internet that I have discovered, in all its dappled, variegated, heterogeneous manifestations. If you have a link that you think belongs in this Wonder Cabinet, please send them to @lethebashar on Twitter. And do let me know if any of links aren't working. :)

Lethe's Top Picks

Sad, disturbing and beautiful photography

Hyper-Realist Sculptures that will blow your mind

Notebook Animation. Very Convincing.

Controversial Essay about J.K. Rowlings

Celebration of Colors

Kanuai--The Most Beautiful Nature Photography in the World

Blu Walls--Impressive Online Sketchbook

They Didn't Study . . .

Reader gives 95 reasons why she hates Twilight

19th Century Pregnant Dolls

Scientists May Have Cured Cancer Last Week

100,000 Toothpicks--Ryan Huston

Illustration Art

Silke Werzinger, great illustration artist in Germany

The Works of Matei Apostolescu, Romanian genius illustrator

Ronald Kurniawan, Los Angeles Illustrator, surreal

Keith Thompson, Gallery of Robots

DQ Books

Audrey Kawasaki

Jean Babtiste (children's book illustration)

Kukulaland (illustrations and paintings)

Verabee! (storyboard Artist from Russia)

Maricormaricar--team of illustrators

Jen Wang

Fun

Virtual Cat (Flash)

Bomomo--"I'm not even going to describe this link"

I Think That You Are . . .

Cat Bus

Ten Most Fascinating Mazes

Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun

Sandcastles from God.

Alan Watts on South Park

The Museum of Bad Art

A corner of a cabinet, painted by Frans II Francken

Art (General)

Adolf Wolfii, Outsider Artist and genius

Book. Sketchbook. Collective Art. Random Art.

Martin Hoffmann, brilliant artist from Germany

Maggie Taylor--Magical Fine Art

Kutiman "This is What it Became"

Incredible Ball-Point Pen Art (Crooked Brains)

Ten Works of Art Inspired by Super Mario Bros.

100 (Really) Creative Business Cards

3D Sidewalk Art. (Optical Illusions)

"but does it float" Design and Art Blog

BOOOOOOOOOOOM! Art! Design! Music! Film! Projects! Photo!

Ice Sculptures of Melting Men by Nele Azevedo

Art in Cities

Hope and Fear, photography and sculpting

Art made out of folds in paper

Wikipedia Art

Contemporary Art Blog

Joe Feliciano plays "Flight of the Bumblebee" on Guitar

Artcyclopedia--Guide to great art on the Web

Art can be cryptic

Vladimir Kush

Interesting and Frightening Mixed-Media Sculptures

Self-Representing Artist's Community

James Jean--Divine Art

Animal World

Amazingly Unique Pets, Insects, and other Animals

Photography

100 Gorgeous Wildlife Photos

Fire Breather

Invisible Man--Jeff Wall

St. Petersburg by A. Petrosian

Hot Library Smut (The Nonist)

Close Call

Infinite Wisdom Spring from Infinite Love

Catching Waterdrops

Liquid Sculpture

Creative Photos by Chema Madoz

Goat Jumping over Notch

Eugenio Recuenco

Arizona Canyon

Arizona Desert--Is it real or just a dream?

The Stata Center at MIT -- Frank Gehrey's Mind

Wicked Photography--Chris Anthony

Anatomy, anyone?

Google Office Pictures

Twenty Stunning Panoramic Landscapes

Books/Literature

"Catcher in the Rye sequel published, but not by Salinger" (The Guardian)

Amazon Supplier Abandons Warehouse: Leads to Mass Chaos

Archive of Book Cover Designs

Stephen King's Real Horror Story

David Foster Wallace: The Death of a Genius

Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" adapted by Peter Kuper

Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine (The Guardian)

Planet eBook: Free Novels

Books that will induce a mindfuck

e.e. cummings poems

"Believe" Lewis Carroll

Postmodernism is Fiction (contemporary authors)

100 Best Graphic Novels of all Time (Time magazine)

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Alternative Culture Magazine-Blog

Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities, from'Museum Wormianum', 1655.

Society

Universities will be 'irrelevant' by 2020 (Deseret News)

Sex via Text Message (New York Times)

Downward Spiral--what a life of drugs and crime will do to ya

"Zombies: Do They Exist?" (Time Magazine)

Founders of Pirate Bay come up with Ingenious Scheme

Three Year Epic Prank on one Stranger (Urban Prankster)

100 Illustrated Horror Film Posters (Part One)

100 Illustrated Horror Film Posters (Part Two)

Micro-payments won't save journalism

Conjoined Twins, Abbey and Brittnay Hensel turn 16

Horse Legs for Humans

Face Transplant: "I'm not a monster"

Fish Found in Boy's Penis

The White House Scam.

Blago Inspires "Bleep n' Golden" Hair

Blogging/Social Media/Twitter

Very Talented Cat has a half-million followers

How to Publish your Blog on Amazon Kindle (Mashable)

Real-Time Streams (TechCrunch)

Twitter Etiquette

Wanna see the Twitter Bird on Drugs?

Nine Twitter Tips for Business

How to Twitter: A Beginner's Guide

Online Tools for Radical Collaboration

Twitter Wants Distribution Deals Not Buyout (New York Times)

17 Ways to Visualize Twitter Data

Social Media vs. Institutions

5 Terrific Twitter Tools for Research

10 Twitter Tools to Manage Your Followers

County to Pay 70K for a Twitter/Facebook Guru

The Man Who Made GMail Says Real-Time Conversation is Next

The Art of the Tweet

Philosophy

Alan Watts--Meaningless Life

Squashed Philosophers--Condensed Philosophies

Ayn Rand--Faith vs. Reason (Interview)

Harry Frankfurt-- "On Bullshit"

"Is the Internet Killing Culture?"--an essay I wrote (thought I'd sneak it in)

Salman Rushdie predicted the Webstream

Polytopia (the emergence of)

Psychology

The Psychology of Attention

Psychiatric Help $5

Reading Test

Why We Do Dumb or Irrational Things

Wisdom

Toltec Wisdom (video)

Alan Watts--Is it Serious?

"If We Loved Time" by Charles Van Doren (Forbes Magazine)

The Pursuit of Emptiness by John Perry Barlow (lyricist for the Grateful Dead)

Lee Li Xian

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:51:00 +0000

Self-taught illustrator from Singapore who studied Apparel Design and Merchandising at Temasek Polytechnic. Her works are incredibly original.

On Behance, a creative portfolio network, Xian's collections are arranged by thematic title, such as “My Machine Pal” (sample above) and “Color me and tell me I’m Colorful”. These unassuming works have a striking originality. Evocative of children’s book art, and done mainly in watercolors, there is a subdued, non-aggressive quality to the illustrations, but the themes are often complex and thought-provoking.

Right now I’m looking at “My Machine Pal” and Xian's art has so many connotations with our modern age of technology and gadgets. It doesn't take a leap of the imagination to realize that many of us are “closest friends” with our machines. Take away my cellphone or MacBook and watch all hell break loose. I'm emotionally connected to my machines. Xian's work captures this reality so well--and it is her unfeigned, guileless style which makes me smile at my own absurd behaviors. Her work brings me closer to myself and my own reflections. It is not an overt conceptual statement; it is merely suggestive and light-hearted, though pointing to a deeper truth.

In the collection "Color me and tell me I'm Colorful," Xian goes further with coupling an adult motif and a guileless, childlike style. The grotesque and bizarre enter the picture. A creepy, big-bellied man with one black pupil and one blue looks up at us. Presumably dancing a jig, he bounces (the curlicues are shown) on wooden shoes as if on a pogo-stick. His ragged mustache, hanging down like seaweed, adds to the overall creepiness of this water-colored leprechaun. What a wonderful sense of style Xian has--to put a tightly-wrapped argyle shirt and knickers on him!

He may be winking at us or he may be leering upwards. This half-menacing, half sweet depiction frightens while at the same time evokes a latent sympathy for the character. The rest of the illustrations in the collection seem to depict lonely characters, either monstrous-looking, crying in panic, or staring into the back of a mirror and appearing in the opposite end.

I love the white space around the illustrations. The watercolors are brought out by that white space, and the overall effect is one of incomplete beauty. Like a child's notebook where each page has one sparse drawing on it, Xian's art mingles innocence and emptiness while conveying an original intelligence.

LEE LI XIAN'S WORK

This post is the second in a series of illustration art reviews. This month Escape into Life, Arts and Culture webzine, will become a permanent hub for illustration art reviews. If you would like to write reviews for us, please contact me.

What is it to be an artist?

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:14:00 +0000

What is it to be an artist?

I admire art. I'm writing reviews of illustrative artists right now and my heart sinks when I see mastery, true mastery.

One of my major conflicts in life is this.

I want to create, but to create freely.

But ultimately. I want to be myself. I want to be myself in everything I do, every sentence I write, every gesture I make, every person I speak with.

Herman Hesse, a great, self-realized artist, wrote:

I only wanted to follow the promptings of my true self, why was that so difficult?

That statement conveys my entire existence.

My mother was an artist. She never reached her peak however. She had a disease which robbed her of the years it would take to reach a level of mastery in her art. With enough time, my mother would have become a great artist.

She struggled. She was like me. She had a compulsive drive to create. The compulsion comes from a deep, wrenching desire to express; and at the same time, the inability to fully express. This is the conflict inside of every artist.

It is the struggle that won't let me fall asleep. Because I have to write. Something. I don't know what it is yet. But it's there inside of me, barking, screaming, crying, aching, swearing.

Even the illustration artists whom I revere like Yuko Shimizu, the ones who appear to have mastered their art, they still struggle with the inability to fully express. Because full expression goes beyond skill, beyond talent.

It is the spiritual side that eludes the artist, no matter what their powers may be. It is the novelist who, after writing twenty-five novels, still feels like a beginner.

And for those artists who overwhelm us with their talents, Nabokov uses the expression "the dubious splendors of virtuosity". Meaning, those who flaunt their powers are suspect.

Art is a deeply personal thing. We must connect with the artwork. It is not about the artist. It is about the connection.

It's 4:22 in the morning. I cannot sleep. The wrenching, agonizing desire to write, to express something, has kept me awake. Until I write this, I cannot shut my eyes in peace.

Maybe this sounds overly-dramatic of me. But it is true. On most days, the day is half over before I even get out of bed. I was writing the night before.

What I want is driving me, it's a Morpheus-like god. Subtly forming and transforming in dreams. Never concrete enough for me to take hold of it.

My ex-girlfriend came over the other day. Having lived with her for almost a year, I'm familiar with her struggle--the particular troubles her character lends itself to.

Heraclitus: Character is fate.

Her struggle is transparent to me; just as mine is opaque. I don't see my own struggle. She sees right though me. I am transparent to her.

I told her that I believed each of of us were married to our own struggles. And we can't escape them because it is who we are.

I don't think she was listening. She may have been listening to her struggle.

But I'm a philosopher and I like to think about life as if I were looking down over the whole perplexed human drama and adding my commentary.

Maybe there is no connection. Maybe some of us really don't have "struggles" as I like to think of them in the grand and over-arching sense.

Right now I consider myself successful in one area of my life--my business. But no matter how successful I am in that one area, I will always look at the part where I feel I'm not successful.

"There must be something wrong. I've got to fix that."

But what is success? And what am I not successful in?

Maybe I'm not the artist I imagine myself to be. The artist I want to be. Maybe I expect myself to create more then I do. Or maybe I should be creating something else.

No, that's not it. I'm a prolific writer. I regularly update my blogs and I write long essays that maybe some of you are familiar with.

But that is not enough. Nothing is ever enough.

I hunger after what most people hunger after. Fame, wealth, power, women to desire me.

Phantoms. They are phantoms because, at least on a material level, I have more possessions, more comforts, more luxuries then I will ever need and these material things don't make me happy. So I know that by analogy the others won't make me happy either.

The Internet has sucked me in whole. I spend a lot of time on the computer, for work and personal use. What am I searching for? "Fans." "Friends". "Followers."

Maybe lovers.

How do we conceive "the Internet"? It's like this vast jungle without any demarcated boundaries. There's no organization. The closet thing to organization is a search function called Google.

The millions of users, on millions of blogs, websites, Facebook, Twittter, leaving comments, making posts, adding links. I don't know where to enter. There are too many doors. Too many exits. Too many tunnels. And too many signs. I need to conduct research simply to find something I like, a group of blogs I can read regularly.

It's a small miracle that people are even reading this right now, a small miracle that they have found me.

ARTWORK BY YUKO SHIMIZU

More Essays . . .

Vanity, Insecurity, and Shame

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:28:00 +0000

There are things I want to say.

I'm done with my dating phase, which lasted a brief month and a half. Most of it, I'm guessing, was spurred on by that phenomenon called "the rebound". But there was some genuine interest and excitement in the opposite sex. At one point, I said to a friend that life was, at it's core, terribly dull and monotonous, and the only relief from such an unbearable existence came from the charms of a woman and her mysterious ability to distract us men.

While this may be true, I have no desire to entertain the notion any longer. I've enjoyed the time I've spent with women, but I'm prepared to not have to rely on their attention to keep me fully engaged in life.

You can read from my last post that I seemed to have fallen into a state of dissolution. This state threw my father and my ex-girlfriend into a panic about my welfare. Was I using drugs again? Was I drinking?

I candidly told my father on the phone that he had to let me make my own mistakes. "I'm turning thirty years old in July, Dad. Don't you think it's time to let go." But my father worries, like all fathers, and plus, he has seen me through a serious drug addiction.

That was ten years ago. So, not to get off the subject, but I had fallen into a state of dissolution--not unlike that of a depressed person who sleeps for two weeks straight, or an over-eater who binges on ice cream and Twizzlers every night before bed.

I flirted with toxins. I drank cocktails at night, and smoked cigarettes. Nothing more, nothing less. It may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but it sure ain't a crime.

Now, as I was saying, I don't want to date anymore and I also don't want to go out of the house unless I absolutely have to. The truth of the matter is I can't bring myself to seeing anyone right now.

For about four months, I've had a certain routine. I wake up (at whatever time of the day) and I drive to a local Borders to have my coffee and read the newspaper. I read the Sunday New York Times and I read the sections all throughout the week, which generally breaks down to about one section per day. After this ritual, I return home for breakfast if I've not eaten yet and then I begin my work. I work as a freelance writer and Internet marketer for several companies and individuals. I'm proud of my work. I love what I do. And frankly, it keeps my life in check. Even during my dissolution, I got my work done. I never drank while I was working.

After about four hours of work, I eat dinner and then return to Borders for an evening coffee and more New York Times. When I'm fully satisfied with my reading, I go back home, where I work for another four hours or so.

So there you have it. That's my life in a nutshell. The dissolution and the dating occurred on the side, either on the weekends or after my work was done.

The reason why I suddenly cannot go to Borders anymore may then seem a mystery. This was my routine; nothing could tear me from it. Bars and women, I could survive without, but the New York Times, Borders, and a fresh cup of industrial strength coffee was my lifeline.

I don't want to be seen in public now.

If I must go out, such as to get groceries every week, then I will. But I already bought a bag of Breakfast Blend coffee beans from Starbucks which should last me approximately twelve days if I have exactly four cups each day.

If I tell you why I have this sudden urge to stay at home and not go out, you will undoubtedly think it is the silliest thing you've ever heard. And to be sure, it is. To anyone who has lived outside of my world, and to everyone else in this world who is not me, it is indeed the most deplorable, ridiculous, need I say, pathetic reason to not leave the house.

A good portion of my history as a human being has been pathetic and so I'm not discovering anything new. Nevertheless, I will say that my insecurities are not abnormal. I've just taken my insecurities to another level. Well, I only have one insecurity that really dominates my life and has since I was sixteen.

I will reveal my insecurity to you in a moment--the insecurity that is baring me from leaving my own home. But first let me say that I'm not depressed, I'm not angry at the world or myself. In fact, I feel a great amount of self-possession and even contentment right now. I'm at peace.

It is almost as if I needed this poor excuse to escape from the world and to be alone for awhile. And not even "alone". Alone suggests that I want people to leave me alone, which I do not. I welcome people to call me and talk with me. If a friend wishes to stop by, I will not prevent him or her from coming in the door.

But, as I said, I do not want to go out in public unless I absolutely have to. And so, I will conduct all of my business from home, which I do anyways. But I'll also confine myself to my home, which means no coffee runs, no late night drinking at the bars, no meeting friends for dinner.

Whether I should try to give up smoking during this interim is a good question. I might want to take advantage of that. Because it's one less place I would have to travel outside of the house--to pick up cigarettes.

It gives me great satisfaction to think that I can do everything I need to do from my home. An incredible self-sufficiency. If I need to shop for groceries, I'll do so at a later hour, when not many people are crowding the aisles, and at least the ones who are in the aisles look scarier than I do.

Like I said, I'm content, marvelously content, even exuberant at times being here in my house. By not rushing out the door for every little thing, I will have the opportunity to read in abundance. In addition, I will write. I've already gone back to my novel, Lethe in Spain, and expanded the second chapter.

I'm starting to think about the Spain novel again because the illustrator Gerar Gonzalez is swiftly moving through my second novel, Lethe in Vegas, and he will soon be taking up the pages of "Spain" to translate them into graphic form.

But beyond that, I'm experiencing a transformation in my poetry. The poems tumble out of me every couple nights and I have a renewed interested in the literary arts webzine I edit called, Escape into Life.

None of these items should distract you from my original purpose of writing this blog post, which is, to illustrate the state of consciousness I'm currently absorbed in.

I truly look forward to being banished from the public eye, albeit a form of self-banishment but banishment nonetheless. And where I would typically have been bored to my eyeballs by the prospect of not leaving the house; instead, I'm giddy and consumed with my own fantasies. Of course, this might also have something to do with the caffeine I drank only an hour ago, but it couldn't have everything to do with it.

I have no lofty goals for this period of banishment. I suppose I'll write more poems and make more progress on my novel. But I do know for certain I won't be drinking because drinking saps my appreciation for the New York Times and literature in general. It also fogs my mental eyeglasses when writing.

No, I'll stay home until the pimple on my face completely disappears, which, I assure you, will not be any time soon. See there, I've slipped my insecurity in between the lines; probably when you were least expecting it. This saves me some embarrassment because if you are still reading this essay then you are probably willing to know a little bit more about the source of my constant anxiety.

There are no high and noble aims behind my self-banishment. Only a pimple or two or three. I even have a plausible explanation for these tiny, imperceptible whiteheads which have chosen to conglomerate on my bottom lip, right under the lip line. I used Chapstick, many Chapsticks, all winter. I abused the balm and now I have to deal with this buildup of balm. Indeed, the pimples are small. But a couple of them seemed to have joined forces under my lip and formed a somewhat larger pimple.

This to me was a traumatic experience for the last month and a half--because it has been there that long. But I strengthened my resolve and would not give in to such petty preoccupations. That is, I left whatever it was alone and I went out in public as normal people do.

Not only did I go out in public, but I dated, and not only did I date, but I enjoyed a season of illustrious love. This, then, is terribly ironic, because during a time of heightened insecurity, I was actually wooing women. The most beautiful woman I have ever been with, adored me, in spite of my blemish. Until one night I brought it to her attention, for perhaps the second or third time, although surely not the fourth, at which point she called me "selfish". I jumped from my spot on the couch, as if I'd been pierced in the gut. For the rest of the night, we hardly communicated.

Strangely, it was that same woman, who, the first time I pointed out my pimple said, "It adds character."

I want to know why trivial things occupy us human beings.

We have the ability to scale such heights with our dreams and ideals. Just as easily however we plunge into a miasma of the silliest fears and preoccupations.

What are your preoccupations? I want to know. Are they like mine? Are they pimples? Or perhaps you have much more serious matters to deal with. That was Sarah's issue with my bringing up my pimple. It angered her that I was fussing about a blemish when she had far more important worries on her mind.

How does a pimple elicit the same wave of intense emotion as news that a friend has cancer or that you're on the verge of bankruptcy? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's wrong of me to suggest it could. But emotions don't discriminate. And often, they arise from something superficial. But buried beneath that superficial symptom is a history of trauma.

I've received a variety of reactions to my obsession. Another woman I recently met-- Well, before we met, we talked on the phone and I told her that I couldn't meet her. You see, we had a date.

She asked why we couldn't meet and I struggled for an answer, when at last I broke down and told her about my insecurity.

"Unless it tries to talk to me, I don't care what it is," she replied.

It took me a couple seconds to get the joke, and she had to remind me to laugh. But then we met and everything was fine.

The dating is over. I can't date in my condition. I can't leave the house. For over a month, that conglomerate of whiteheads haunted me. I checked the mirror every morning to see if it had gone away, but it hadn't. It never budged. It remained buried in my lip line like a determined foe.

One side of my underlip is now red from the marks I made.

I left the house once--to pick up coffee for the week. I drove to the opposite side of town because the Starbucks has a drive-thru. When the cashier handed me my change, I turned my cheek to hide the other side of my face.

More Essays . . .

ARTWORK BY THE GOOD MACHINERY

Aphorisms and Meditations

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:40:00 +0000

We use toxins to regulate our emotions.

I use toxins to regulate my emotions.

I vacillate between knowledge of my own condition and boredom.

There is a chamber I retreat to. I have learned to live with isolation, not in it.

My friends are important to me but they exist at a certain distance.

Meeting new people is exciting at first, but later less so.

Your primary world is small, and in that world is you and nobody else. Your friends exist like rings around Saturn.

You want to understand yourself, but you also want the world to understand you. Sometimes you want the world to understand you before you want to understand yourself.

You want to be safe and yet you carelessly endanger yourself.

You want to be loved and yet you create walls between yourself and others.

Loving is something you do because you want to be loved.

Your world is rootless, floating like a city beneath water; your world is rooted only in an illusory sense.

Everything you find inside yourself, you find inside the world.

Your reality is a hallucination that has been rehearsed so many times it appears fixed and stable.

Nothing can be stated with any fixed meaning. Meanings will remain personal and therefore subjective.

Your experience is whatever you say it is. Your experience is--after it happens--only a record of your experience. Told by you, this is any story you choose to tell, in any way you choose to tell it.

Your friends reaffirm your stories; your parents always do not.

As I grow into adulthood, I recognize the need to preserve my father's illusions about me. For his sake, not mine.

The past weighs on my father's mind.

Stories weigh us down unless we are continually revising them and my father is done revising his ideas about me.

I like to think of myself as someone who is re-drafting and re-drafting his life until it makes sense. Life, being irrational, never fully makes sense and so I am continually making up new stories about myself in a creative and naive way.

But this is how children think. Nothing is absolute. Everything is provisional for a child. Tell the child one story, she will believe it, because any story to a child has the possibility of being true.

Adults on the other hand conform to a rigid set of beliefs, true or untrue only according to their own reality.

I write because it is a door I once opened and I continue to go back and forth through that door. I explore the byways and the tunnels of myself.

Whatever I write always has the possibility of being true--at least to me--and to write down my reality is satisfying.

The question of whether what I do is art or not. Sometimes I am intentionally creating art and sometimes I am just writing. The best writing comes out when I am not intentionally doing anything--in fact the best writing comes out when I don't know what I am doing or saying. But I think I like to write because it feels like someone is listening. It feels like what I am saying is not only true to me but true to others as well.

In a way, I am a compulsive writer. I will write because it's a drive.

Maybe I should stop.

Sometimes I do. But when I stop writing, I read a lot and reading activates my imagination and soon I am writing again.

Whatever I've been saying in the last couple pages, I'm not aiming at anything. I'm circling around the mood and the moment of my experience, gladly touching the borders and playing with the edges.

Things are going to change.

For example, I am going to quit smoking. I bought a carton of cigarettes a week ago and it's almost done. I have one pack left.

After smoking for two weeks straight, my verdict is I feel like shit. My body aches, my lungs can barely breathe, and I feel dirty. Worse I feel paranoid about being dirty. Maybe "paranoid" is too strong a word. I feel obsessive about cleanliness. I brush my teeth fifty times a day; I wash my hands twenty-five times a day.

Right now my cat is sleeping and my notebook is resting on his midriff. The official time is 5:03 in the morning. I'm going to step outside for a cigarette, again and again, until I decide to go to bed. I will not go to bed until I am finished writing this.

I'm back from smoking. I learned nothing new, only that I have to quit.

Everyone has their own secret life. We all have minds which are islands--between those islands flow the rivers of our hearts, but the mind itself is lonely. Which is strange, because we retreat into our minds so often. We retreat into our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, and we find solace in them even though they are ridiculous.

But there is safety in one's private mind, the thoughts of which no one can read. Because they are private entertainments of the self.

If you have pets, then you know the comforts of having non-human company. The human-animal connection is unique, and for obvious reasons, animals are incredibly loved by humans.

Ultimately, I think what we are stuck with is habit. Whatever habits you cultivate within your lifetime, those are the heavens and hells of your existence. Many habits fall between these two extremes and for that reason our lives are pretty mundane.

Most of our habits are mundane in the everyday sense. We go to work, we eat meals, we tend to our homes and our families, we do chores. Perhaps that's why novelty is so interesting and stimulating.

I seek novelty. If I am not seeking novelty in dramatic and bizarre ways, I am seeking novelty in the miniature sense.

I do appreciate a well-ordered life, everything manageable and in its right place. This stems from the pure gratification of a sense of control. But as far as I can tell, control is something that most people try to exert over themselves and their environments.

My habits are deeply fulfilling mundane rituals that I carry out, such as going to Borders every morning to have my coffee and read the New York Times. To me, the New York Times is my mainstay to a normal, functioning adulthood. I am not saying the specific paper has the same magical effect on everyone. But for me reading the paper is very soothing and it reaffirms my sense of self.

I admire the quality of the writing in the New York Times and I believe it improves my own writing. But there is something else about the ritual which stabilizes me.

And yet, I seek novelty.

Women provide men with an immediate burst of novelty and distraction. If you are ever bored, start a romantic relationship and you will find how interesting your life gets.

But I believe that I ultimately retreat back into my own private mind, and that shared space between me and another person gradually lessens or dries up and dies.

I believe in long-term relationships, I am cynical towards permanent ones.

Right now I don't know where I am in terms of the opposite sex. Do I want to get married? Do I want to have children? Would I prefer to stay single?

The opposite sex is delightful. Loving can also be a doorway to a higher potential for one's being, but in most cases, we are not mature in love for long enough. We stop loving and I cannot explain or understand that.

Love gets degraded over time, diminished, and terribly distorted until it is not even love but something representing its opposite: hate.

Now my cats are quiet. The heater has stopped humming and the only sound in the room is of my keys clicking.

I think about my past life, my life in Spain and in Las Vegas. I think of the adventures I once had and now being here in this moment of early, untainted adulthood.

I'm making the right choices now. Thank God. I am rational about things. I am aware of habit and how it has the power to lull me into a state of unconsciousness.

We grow ourselves. We grow our personalities and our behaviors. Like a garden, we grow ourselves--and once we were sick gardens but now we are growing healthier. Once we were patches of weeds over a dusty mound of dirt, but now we are seeking wholeness and fruit.

We want to bear fruit. For ourselves, for others.

We learn in time to survive, and even better, we learn to thrive.

It is the unfortunate fact of being human that we are constantly working against ourselves. We like to be our own enemies. And I think it is better that we just accept this as a matter of fact, that we accept the demons inside of us which want to destroy us, even if that destruction is a slow-going poison.

Because, ultimately, we must die and we know we must die. So the destructive force inside each one of us is familiar and close. We know the destructive side as much as we know the creative side. We know when we do good to ourselves and our bodies, and we know when we do bad.

Good and bad are only relative to our own individual experiences. Doing wrong to others is doing wrong to oneself.

But it is almost impossible to escape the cloud of unconsciousness that hovers over each one of us. And in an ironic display, we can see everyone else's flaws but not our own.

It is like the inability to smell one's own scent. The smell is palpable to others, but not to yourself.

I don't repress the mystery about myself; I form it.

I also celebrate it.

I have been called naive before, and after all, one of my blogs is called "The Blog of Innocence."

We are all innocent in life. We are innocent to the radical mystery of it.

No matter what we do, what errors we make, what horrors befall us, we are all human, we are all innocent.

ARTWORK BY MOLLY BRILL

2:35 am

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:44:00 +0000

It's late but I wanted to write something. My girlfriend left today. I was gone from the house when she moved with her friends.

I'm in a weird transition right now because my girlfriend and i are not together anymore. I'm living in my house alone although I'll be inviting a renter to stay in the upstairs bedroom. This too will be an interesting experience. Not sure what to think.

I started talking to a girl on Facebook who I knew in my childhood. She looked so different in her pictures that I didn't even recognize her. Her lifestyle is totally different from mine but it's fun to imagine what it would be like to live her life.

I'm being purposely vague. You know what I thought about tonight? I thought about the moment when you realize (in life) that you're dreaming. It's like this. I've been thinking about all these potential adventures and imagining them, thinking they're real but they're not. They're just dreams. Daydreams.

You almost can't have a fixed way of thinking or looking at things. If your life is anything like mine, it unfolds and you cheer when it unfolds in the way you like and boo when it unfolds in a way you don't like. But you don't really know how it's going to unfold.

Most people--I'd guess--want life to unfold in a certain way. I have lots of things I try to do over and over just to feel like I'm in control.

How did this happen with my exgirlfriend? Not sure. It just happened.

I can't say.

How many people are subscribing to this blog? Twenty. I don't think I have any regular readers. That's because I don't write enough. But this is like my journal. I'll tell you what i think about my life right now.

We say "my life". What is it? Just a memory and an anticipation of something to come.

i have all these desires. Such as. I would like to take a vacation and relax. but i tend to stay in Normal (the name of my town). Or. I was invited to go to the city tonight by this girl from my childhood. Or . . .

There are real and imagined possibilities. Real possibilities are the ones that can come true but you don't let them. Imagined possibilities can never come true and that's why you keep entertaining them. They're so distant and so elusive they're beautiful to think about and ponder.

Daydreams are like opium.

But I'm much more likely to stay home this weekend. I have to clean the house for one. And for two I want to be alone for awhile and enjoy being alone.

Where we grow unhappy is between our daydreams and our reality. We fall into the gap. I dream of many things, wishing they will happen and at the same time not really wishing for them because i know they will never be as I imagine them.

how will they be? What will life be in the future? well i suppose it will be overall the same as it is now. with the same overall flavor of pleasure and pain. And of course the spectrum in between.

And. The unforgettable fragrance of your own being. You never escape it.

the best moments in life are surprises. I remember once when my aunt came down to Normal with my father and sister for my birthday. They visited me here at my house. It made me so happy. Just that. Not knowing.

I want to live a different life--or at least i think I do. Not that my life is bad now. It's just predictable. Why? Because I made it that way.

Which is a contradiction. Because I just got done telling you life is unpredictable. But i think it's also predictable because we're desperately afraid it will change as often as it does. And it does change. And then we have to accept it. But sometimes the change is good. Like breaking up with my girlfriend is a positive change for me.

Or. I would like to live in Spain. I don't even know this girl from my childhood but I want to ask her "hey, would you like to go on a vacation for awhile or would you like to live in Europe?"

That would sound so outlandish if someone--you haven't talked to in fifteen years--asked you to go on a trip or to live somewhere with them. But i daydream. Oh well.

That's the beautiful thing. Imagining how different life could be. In a second. It could be so different. And you can make it change too. Or can you? Is that one of those real or imagined possibilities? I don't know.

This is why life is really elusive. What the mind tells itself it wants is a smoke screen. You can't trust it. Because the mind wants so many things. And wanting is just a motivation to act. Beyond the motivation there is no reality. What i mean is wanting, wishing, they are empty impulses most of the time.

Is there a genuine desire?

Different has its appeal. that's why I wanted to be on my own. No girlfriend. I loved her but I couldn't stay her boyfriend. Another era, another stage of life. And what is this stage. Emerging. I think it has to do with exploring and. . . maybe letting myself experience new things, things I haven't experienced before.

I'm groping toward some answers tonight. That's what we do right? Try to understand the shifts, the sea all around us. I don't know if I'll ever feel completely at home, but I would like to. I would like to . . .

ARTWORK FROM ERIC CARL'S PHOTOSTREAM

Hopeful despite the circumstances

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:50:00 +0000

(Image Credit)

The economy is tanking. My girlfriend is thinking about moving out. My father told me he's pulling the plug in April; I have to support myself from now on.

There are problems in the world and in my world. But do we ever wake up to a life free from conflict, free from existential worry and the complexities of human relationships?

Problems don't go away. They change shape and pattern like the colored glass in a kaleidoscope.

Right now I'm in the Wesleyan College Ames Library. I have been coming here--as a retreat--for nearly five years. Before I even met my girlfriend I used to come here to read and relax.

My fascination with reading and writing has always fortified me against the harsh realities of the moment. So here I am, casually turning the pages of a newspaper, glancing up from the pages occasionally and then returning to my peaceful place between the lines of a column.

The stories of the day, Sunday, February 8th, do not bode well for our little planet. "Death tolls in Australian Fires climbs to 108," "In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures," "In Japan, New Jobless May Lack Safety Net".

Depressing news in a depressed economy.

I will have to come up with $500 to $1000 more a month. But my problems are not overwhelming me. I've laid the foundation for an SEO business. It took me ten years to figure out what I wanted to do to support myself. Like most young people I started out with dreamy ideals. I wanted to be a writer, an artist.

I thought I would work a minimum wage job and "follow my dream." But I didn't make enough money--even though I clung to the dream.

Entering adulthood, I have slowly come to realize the necessity of supporting myself. I am no longer transfixed by the artist's syndrome. I need to earn a living.

There is a demand for what I want to do and for that I am lucky. Most website designers I talk to are interested in hearing what I have to say. Two designers are already working with me to provide SEO for their clients.

How is hope possible--despite the circumstances?

I believe I will make money. As far as my relationship to my girlfriend goes, I believe we will overcome these issues we are having right now.

I want to examine my attitude of hope. I don't know whether my girlfriend and I will be together forever. Who can say?

I have hope because--despite the circumstances--I can be happy. That doesn't mean that I don't love her. That simply means I accept the outcome, either way.

I know how to be alone.

My hope resides in these stupid blogs, which give me purpose even though they may seem trivial. My hope resides in imagining a future for myself, of making money and supporting myself based on my interests and what enlivens me.

I even have hope for my art. I'll never give up the Novel of Life. The Novel of Life is a life-work. Each chapter of that immense jungle of personal history is something I return to, looking for answers. I contemplate it as I clarify it. I reconsider it as I sharpen it.

I will always strive to understand the forces that created who I am today. And for that, I am hopeful.

An addiction to blogging?

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:07:00 +0000

(Image Credit)

I'm doing a little remodeling around here. What started as a Novel of Life is now my life--whether you read this as a novel or just a reportage of events is ultimately up to you.

Thank you Karlo for writing a review of Lethe in Vegas.

Thank you everyone who read my novel and thank you everyone who stopped by.

The Novel of Life lives on Wordpress.

Currently I have eleven blogs and I intend to keep them updated--to the best of my abilities.

Here is a list of my blogs and a short description.

1.The family history of Lethe Bashar, my alter ego. You could say the Novel of Life began with Family in Decline. I wrote it about five years ago. It reads like a soap opera of divorce, teenage angst, and a parent's disease. Uplifting.

2.Lethe runs away from rehab and takes a Greyhound bus to Vegas (reviewed recently by Karlo at the literary site "Mis-readings" but I told you that already; it's not everyday I get reviewed). There is a graphic novel based this section of the novel. Gerardo Gonzalez is the epitome of talent.

3.Lethe drops out of school in Spain. I lived in Spain when I was sophomore in college, and while it's true I did drop out of school, some events in this novel are the work of my fertile imagination. In fact, if you look back in the archives of this blog you'll find the rough drafts of my novel. The novel is buried under the dust and debris.

4.The audio podcast for Lethe's adventures in Spain. Recording these chapters has added a dimension to the novels, for me, at least. I get to give dramatic readings of my own work!

5.
I call this blog "The Blog of Innocence". I post personal essays on this blog and when I'm too tired to write essays I post lengthy quotations from the books I read. Sometimes I talk about the quotations.

6.The audio podcast for the Blog of Innocence. Lately I've been reading my poems. Along the same lines as reading my novel--I get to perform.

7.Literary Critic is a video blog or vlog in common parlance. Speaks to my fascination with the audiovisual buffet of the Internet. I still put up videos, I just don't read as many books as I used to. The Internet has done a number on my concentration. Lately I've been constitutionally incapable of finishing a book. I think I'm just going to sit in front of the camera next time and talk to it, YouTube style.

This is not an addiction. Blogging is a way of life.

8.And then there was my love affair with the micro-blogging platform Tumblr. Very low maintenance. You can post whatever you see on the web--or rather re-post it. If any of you read my introspective essay on Net plagiarism, now you'll know where all that guilt is coming from.

(I don't consider twitter a blog, but if you wanted to know my twitter address . . . )

9.My poetry blog. I only post poems. Live Journal is good for rejected poets. We console each other. Like in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and I post a poem to all my friend's pages.

10.My latest invention. This is my professional blog about corporate blogging and SEO. SEO: Search Engine Optimization. I get paid to tell people how to improve their website/blog. For example, you may have noticed, if you visit my blog often, that I removed all the external links on the sidebar. This is not out of malice. In fact, I spent a long time acquiring relevant links. But it's not good SEO. External links will send people away from your site. If you want them to stick around then keep things simple. Less clutter. More conversation.

11. I almost forgot "Lethe's blog," the blog you are reading. This used to be the Spain section of my Novel of Life. I imported the entries to a Wordpress theme. I originally thought I would put the rough drafts of the novel on this blog and the final drafts on the Wordpress blog. But after researching SEO, I understand that duplicate content negatively impacts your blogs. So I've decided to make this blog, the one you are reading, to be a simple, straightforward account of my life. Not a fictional account. But the real life of me.

I also run a literary arts webzine called "Escape into Life". You may have seen me advertise it on the sidebar where it says "Submit your work". I would like to create a community where writers and artists gather side by cyberside.

Am I addicted to blogging? More than likely. But I'm addicted to so many things. We'll leave that for another post.

Jeeeez, I was talking about coffee.

Tom Drake: Consumer Anti-Hero

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Note: This is an online novel review I wrote for the Web Fiction Guide.

Very rarely does a writer capture both a character's emotional depths and the culture that produced them. Seth K. succeeds at both. He succeeds at drawing a realistic portrait of our celebrity-addled culture and conjuring a remarkable representative for that culture.

When I first read the novel, the beauty of the language carried me away. Ironically, this very language is being contested within the WFG forums; see Eli's criticism. But to me, Seth has an incredibly light hand at prose, his paragraphs flow seamlessly from one into the other, and I admire the sharp observations and consistent voice.

But quality of writing aside, what drives a good story is often a good idea. What we love about Anna Karenina or 100 Years of Solitude or Fahrenheit 451 is the vision--the potential space it offers our imagination.

The Tom Drake Experience takes a couple dominant themes in our contemporary culture and explores them through the rampant desires and addictions of a single character. Self-image is everything to Tom Drake. Fashion is his narcotic and his ego is as gigantic as it is pathetically small. We read "power swelled within Tom after every purchase." We read, "I'm never satisfied. I'm the eternal consumer."

In TDE we have the intersection of image, self-improvement, capitalism, consumerism, fashion, corporate life, and manhood. The author adroitly weaves these strands into what is--on the surface--a simplistic story.

Tom Drake is a bachelor who resigns from his low-paying job to accept a position in so-called Corporate America. He has an immense love of fashion, and in the beginning we don't understand the full implications of this talisman.

Fashion is the pivot point around which novel's entire representation of culture and individual revolves. Why fashion? When you think about it, fashion is the perfect symbol for our times. Fashion combines individualism, self-image, identity and consumerism into one idea.

As the novel progresses, we learn a little more about Tom's past, which throws his present self and situation into relief. The scenes alternate between the uncool Tom of the past and the fashion savvy Tom of the present. The author must walk a fine line in describing Tom in the present, and here is where some reviewers, I believe, are mis-reading the pathos of the novel.

The first reviewer, Grace McDermott, missed the second level of meaning entirely. And it's easy to do, so I'm not blaming her. As a text, TDE is vulnerable to Grace's cursory reading of the novel as the glib portrayal of a shallow, superficial Tom.

What I'm saying is--there is another level to this writing.

I can even see why Grace interpreted the novel the way she did. Tom Drake is cocky, self-obsessed, and typically male; and the prose teeters on the misogynistic, which to a female, I could imagine is disarming. But this reading of the novel overlooks the fact that Tom relies on his expanding wardrobe to provide himself with security and confidence--especially in the highly competitive world he's about to enter. He is intoxicated by his delusions of grandeur and when they wear off he's just as miserable.

The second reviewer, Chris P., gave the novel a higher rating. Having discovered the element of Tom Drake's self-hatred, Chris argued that there was depth to the main character and thus the narrative was an effective one. I agree. However, TDE is more than a good character study. Yes, it presents a full, three-dimensional character with serious inner conflict and real emotions, but it reveals something else too, something about our culture and us.

Now before I move on to my thesis; let me discuss the latest review of TDE by Eli James. Eli writes, "But Tom’s view is also vastly under-utilized. Let us ask ourselves simple questions: what does Tom work as? Is Lexi his wife? If she is (and I believe the writer says she is), then why are vast swathes of their shared lives together not explained to us?"

Tom is a corporate slave; he probably works in an investment firm. Lexi is his friend and confidant. Ginger is the woman he falls in love with. These seem like such basic questions to me; I'm forced to wonder why Eli gets tripped up here.

As much as I love to read Eli's writing (I'm a huge fan of Novelr), I don't really think he gives a thorough critique of the novel itself. His strongest point is his attack on the style of the novel, which he argues is forced, awkward, too "careful" and lacking "creative heat". To convince us of his point, he takes us through an interesting discussion of what a Steinbeck Statement is. He says that TDE is full of these sorts of literary general statements. He interprets the tone, then, as false. He also interprets the character as "repulsive" and false. Which is to say, Eli falls into the same trap as Grace.

The narrator is purposely ambiguous as to what Tom's goal is. We know he wants to be a "superstar" and have "hot chicks" but that is hardly a worthwhile explanation for a character that I believe is a contemporary archetype.

Tom Drake has adopted a persona. He has internalized the projected ideals of a society, society's "standard of perfection". The countless references to exact types of clothing, the brands, and the realistic description of them demonstrate one irreducible fact: Tom Drake is trying to create a perfect self through material objects.

In a capitalist culture, consumer objects are of the highest value. Tom Drake has his sights fixed on the holy grail of consumerism, the most expensive brands, the top name labels, the independent designers; this is the cream of capitalism, Ladies and Gentleman.

Now if only Tom Drake can clothe himself in these rich robes then--and only then--will he become "more than a man."

What does that mean? What does it mean to become more than a man?

If you think it means nothing, then you're absolutely right. It's an utterly meaningless statement. Because to be "more than a man" is to be no man at all. It is to be some monster of perfection. Some unhuman being.

This novel is a rare event. Read it and then think about its implications. Don't be swayed by the reviewers who only see the surface; the surface is misleading.

Stumble this Review

Last evening with the Senora

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:54:00 +0000

You might think that Lethe grieved over the news that he would have to leave the Senora's apartment, but he didn't grieve at all. Their relationship had become strained over the last couple weeks. Lethe continued to come home late on the weekends and it was still not clear whether the Senora heard him enter her apartment at night. Sometimes he stayed up nearly an hour afterward with the lights burning in his smoky room. Noises rattled from underneath his door. The sound of his chair moving back and forth on its wobbly legs and the grating of his mother's credit card probably aroused some suspicion. A VISA card with silver lacquer shimmered, cutting into the night.

On these horrible nights, one part of him was drunk and hungry to commit small crimes. He didn't care if she found out or not. The Spaniards had introduced him to a beautiful thing. And slowly the abundance of moments he was sharing with this substance gave him the sweet, solitary pleasure of a hobbyist absorbed in his craft. He loved cutting it, pressing it, and staring at it under the desk lamp.

The other side of him had a full memory of his interactions with the Senora. It seemed like they had shared a special bond together and he owed her respect. After all, the Senora brought Lethe out of his misery with her suggestion that he quit school. From the beginning, she passionately protected him and never denied him anything. If she was skeptical toward his recovery, she never showed it.

But the strain was there and it was hard to ignore, especially when Lethe was committing these petty crimes in the night.

On the last day, they exchanged gifts. Lethe had gone to the commercial center, el Corte Ingles, earlier in the afternoon. He wanted to buy the Senora a cordless phone; she'd complained so many times about tripping on the long wire that extended between the rooms. The idea to buy her a cordless phone was magnificent and he knew that whatever strain may have existed between them in those last couple months, the new telephone would erase everything.

But he didn't expect to receive a gift from her. The Senora's face was livelier that day, as if she had been outside getting some exercise. There was a flush of pink above her eyelids and her normally coarse expression blossomed into sudden happiness.

The color of her eyes remained the same, however, bluish green, like the glass in an aquarium. She handed him a long, flat box. "She bought me a tie," he thought. But then, upon opening the box, he discovered it was a scarf. He ran his fingers over the gauzy fabric and lifted it to his face. Autumn-colored, the most beautiful scarf he'd ever seen.

The door opened abruptly and Donte appeared with his hemp purse hung around his shoulder.

"Are you leaving today?" Donte asked, interrupting their gift exchange.

"Yes, after dinner I'll go."

"Have you found a place to live?"

"I found a pensione in el Plaza del Sol. A small, one bedroom for under a thousand pesetas a night."

"Plaza del Sol, that's where all the parties are, right?"

"I guess so. Most hotels are in that district."

"It's a good place, he'll like it there." The Senora said.

"Well, don't have too much fun," Donte added, walking toward his bedroom.

The Senora let out a shriek. "Ah caramba, nino, you shouldn't have!"

It was a generous gift, but he felt it was necessary. He felt he had to make up for something. Like he was in debt.

"Do you like it?"

"I love it. And now I can get rid of that wretched cord. I was so worried I was going to inadvertently strangle myself one of these days. But now you've bought me a cordless. How thoughtful of you, nino!"

She held the box in the air, turning each side and studying the glossy pictures. "Let's set it up!"

The Senora seemed tired from cooking and cleaning, as if her obligations to these young men were wearing her down. Right when she took her seat for dinner, however, she grew lively again, and said a small prayer, which she never did. Lethe and Donte knew her to be an agnostic. But tonight she prayed.

"Dios, please take care of Lethe while he's living here in Spain, not under this roof but protected in an apartment in plaza del Sol. Watch over him Lord, and keep him safe."

They began eating. The bread was passed and Donte broke off the first piece. Lethe carefully ladled the vegetables onto his plate and offered some to the Senora.

"I assume you finished the Spanish Bible while you were here," she remarked peremptorily.

Lethe leaned back in his chair, so as to see the Senora's full figure against the curio cabinet. Food stuck between his teeth and he pretended he was chewing. "No," he said. "I stopped reading the book."

"You stopped reading?"

"I made it to the second volume, but then . . ."

"I know, I know," she lowered her eyes on her soup. "Let me tell you how the story ends. So you will know the message behind it."

"I thought you said there is no single message to the book, that everyone comes to it from a different place and learns something different as a result."

"I did say that, nino. But don't be smart. I want you to know the message that is important to me."

Donte and Lethe put aside their food for the moment. Both craned their necks over the table and hung their heads in curiosity.

"Volume 2, Chapter 74. Don Quixote comes down with a fever and he's lying in his bed at his home in La Mancha. All the characters are there who were there from the beginning, the priest, Carrasco and Master Nicolás. Don Quixote tells them, 'I am in my right mind, now, clear-headed and free of the murky darkness of ignorance, brought upon me by my continual, bitter reading of those abominable books of chivalry.'"

"We think he is saved. We think he is better now."

"But Cervantes will not concede to our wish. We all want to see Don Quixote better. We all want to see him sane. We want him to recover from his madness, his addictions, his fantasies. If he dies in a state of ignorance, then it means . . . nothing was learned from all of these violent episodes, from all the death along the way."

"So does he die?"

Donte smirked, as if holding back a secret.

The Senora fixed her gaze on the balcony door. It was the first time Lethe had ever seen her confused.

"What's wrong, Senora?" Lethe asked.

"Nothing nino, nothing."

All three of them glanced at each other, pretending to know what was going on.

"I forget, nino. That's all. I forget how the story ends."

End of Part One

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Hammer and Nail

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Depending on how you look at it, my Novel of Life has either degenerated into a regular blog or assumed its true colors for the moment. Quite frankly I can't see myself writing any more chapters for the Spain story any time soon. But conventional wisdom has proven to me that usually when I declare my intentions to stop writing, the very opposite occurs and I'm suddenly enthralled by visions.

Last night fiction blogger Seth K. came over to my father's Loop condo in Chicago. I'm convalescing here after a major surgery to my arm. Seth and I began fiction blogging about eight months ago and I've been following his work ever since. I wrote a review for his online novel and he said he wanted to meet me, so I set it up. You don't usually meet your online acquaintances and so this provided for an interesting experience.

Seth is much like I thought he would be like; except more so. Having read his novel, I knew that he had close contact with corporate culture and fashion. The Tom Drake Experience has a fascination with labels: clothing labels, alcohol labels, job labels. But the novel wants us to see beyond this glamorization and hyper-capitalism. In person, Seth seemed intelligent, frank, and with great ambitions to become a full time writer. We shared our goals and aspirations.

I told him that I quit my job working front desk at the Hampton Inn, and that I'll launch my web marketing consulting company as soon as my shoulder heals. As you can see, I'm already typing. In fact, I've put up a presentation of my consulting services on LinkedIn and I am already talking to several prospective clients. If you are looking to expand your business on the Internet, please contact me at escapeintolife (at) yahoo.com. Okay that was a shameless plug, but you're allowed to do that on your own blog.

Having taken it upon myself to promote others and learn the tricks of the marketing trade, I naturally want to incorporate this knowledge into my own sites. Currently I am running six blogs, a literary arts webzine, and an online comic book. If that sounds like a lot, I'm also writing a literary biography of Richard Stern, the celebrated Chicago novelist.

Most important however is that I dedicate myself to web marketing. Now it's become my regular routine to comb through classifieds on Craigslist. You would be surprised at how many computer and writing "gigs" there are in the major cities. I could dedicate my whole day to responding to these jobs. If I'm not taken up by a client in the next week, I plan to do a couple "writing/editing" gigs which generally pay $10 an hour.

So there you have it. I've cut myself free from the traditional job market and am courageously exploring the many Internet-rich avenues available to us now in 2009. According to a New York Times article, SEO marketing is one of the hottest jobs on the market. I feel as though I'm re-positioning myself for a sea-change in employment and business practices that will soon arrive and transform our old, battered economy if that has not happened already. Virtual companies are sprouting up everywhere. Web marketing is an essential part of any growing business. There will be a need for online shamans and social media gurus to travel between the corporate world of widgets and the blogosphere of conversations. Working as a web marketing consultant and a freelance writer just may give me the satisfaction of personal freedom.

Because I always like to point my readers to cool sites, here are a couple I found. I've mentioned before that I like to listen to music off the net. Eight tracks is a site where you can upload your favorite mixes and listen to free mp3 mixes. Also here are some wicked art sites: Silk Werzinger, Creative Time, and Audrey Kawasaki.

Cheers and don't forget to Stumble me!

I quit my job today . . . yeah.

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:05:00 +0000

(And I hope my Dad is not reading this. But if he is--don't worry Dad, I found another job. I'll be working with Nick Eldred, the guy who designed my websites. I'm going to handle the marketing for his company.)

There have been few moments in my life when I felt as satisfied as I did today. I'm reminded of John Updike's famous short story, "A&P".

"Christina, I'm not coming into work today."

"You're--"

"And I won't be there next week or the week after. I quit. But before you say anything, I want you to know--and I'm not directing this at you specifically--but is it any wonder that so many people quit customer service jobs? In fact, I think it's a pretty good reflection of how they're treated and how poorly they're paid."

"Goodbye Chris, have a nice day."

A lot of people hate their jobs. A lot of people hate their bosses. I feel compassion for the ones who can't quit because they need the 8 dollars an hour to survive. Luckily, I have another skill: blogging. I'm not kidding. Here is the letter I sent to Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, asking them for a job:

Hello,

I have significant experience in the following areas: journalistic writing, editing, website maintenance, social media sites, blogging, and viral self-marketing.

Having graduated from DePaul University in English, I went on to aid teachers and students at Heartland Community College, proofreading papers and giving writing instruction. During this transitional period, I also started my own editing/tutoring business and worked on independent writing projects.

In the last year, I've devoted almost constant attention to blogging and social media. I have a preternatural grasp of Web 2.0 and publishing on the Net. I run six blogs, a literary arts webzine, and an online comic. I also maintain a vast network of connections with website designers, bloggers, writers, and illustrators. My in-depth knowledge of the social media environment on the Web, along with my skills as a writer and editor, could be an asset to your company.

Chris Al-Aswad

You might think I'm kidding with this, but I'm not. I've gained more skills in social media and blogging software than I think I've gained in anything else in my entire life. The reason for this is I have spent the last six months working on blogs 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. It's to the point where I can't stop. I'm addicted. And I also have a horrible habit of checking my blog statistics constantly. Any suggestions?

With the economy the way it is, I feel like I'm just joining the crowd. I sat in Borders drinking a coffee after I quit, too afraid to go home and tell my girlfriend.

So I wanted to write something before my surgery. I know this rant doesn't sound beautiful but sometimes you have to be awkward and plain.

Let me mention a couple other things. I recently wrote a review for an online novel, The Tom Drake Experience. If you're into fashion and the decadence of the American consumer, then this novel is for you. After reading the review, Seth contacted me and asked if I wanted to meet him in Chicago. Hopefully, we'll set something up while I'm there this week, recovering from my surgery.

The other thing I wanted to mention was a really sweet art blog I found, and some other music blogs on tumblr that kick ass. The art I chose for this post is by Hope Gangloff.

Stumble Me!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Gerar Gonzalez, a comic book artist and illustrator from Argentina, has been working with me for almost a year now to create a graphic novel based on Lethe in Vegas. From the moment Gerardo sent me the "first page", I couldn't believe how intuitive he was about the character of Lethe. It was like he captured the essence of the story in his pictures. We've recently submitted our work to Zuda comics and it won't be long before we submit to larger publishers such as DC and Marvel. Gerar writes, "Take this as a humble sign of how grateful I am. I wish you a very happy Christmas and a great New Year. I hope 2009 brings a lot of success for us, and for Lethe. I`m working really hard on next page. I`m really excited and I can`t wait to see it done..."

The Difficulties facing the Online Novelist

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Online novelists are a fairly new breed. There are those who use html pages and those who make their blog into a kind of novel. When I first realized that I could present my novel to the world, I was thrilled. For the next eight months I did everything I could to get people to read my novel, but what I didn't understand was (A) my novel wasn't finished yet and (B) just because you put up your novel doesn't mean the world is reading it.

Regularity vs. Revision

Now there are some significant difficulties facing the online novelist. To begin with, online novels are not blogs but sometimes they're forced to conform to the standards of blogs. Blog standards are regularity of posting, lax spelling and grammar, and most importantly currency. When the online novelist attempts to use her blog as a medium for fiction, she may feel the pull to follow this format. I know I have. For one thing, you lose readers if you don't post regularly. And while it's great to have a bunch of unique viewers, most of those one-time visits are people who glance at your page and whiz on by.

Online novelists want to develop a readership or a fan base. And the only way to do that is to publish frequently. Conventional wisdom says, "Fine, if you want to blog your fiction, then prepare the chapters ahead of time." But who does that? A small minority, I'm assuming. My experience in the last few months has been one of lots of output followed by periods of drought. And this is a common experience for any writer. Artists can't be expected to be productive all the time, like maybe a journalist or a blogger would.

I'm the type of writer who will go back to each chapter and revise it until it's perfect. I have a vision for my novel and if it doesn't roughly follow that vision--or let me say, if I'm not surprised by what I'm creating--then I keep going deeper with the material. When I first write a post, I make it the best I can and then I publish it. Here I suppose I could sit on the chapter and wait a couple days. But usually I'm so excited I actually wrote something that I immediately want to share it.

So should the online novelist favor frequency or revision? Is there a way to strike a balance between the two? I am proposing there is.

Blog clutter vs. Clean presentation

The second main difficulty facing the online novelist is blog clutter. Blog clutter is what happens when too many widgets, too many words on your sidebar, advertisements, etc. begin to distract your readers. Anyone who keeps a blog knows that clutter builds of its own accord.

As I said, online novels are not blogs. This entails the presentation side as well. The most effective layout for a fiction blog is single column. I've seen more options for this layout in wordpress themes than blogger ones. You can compare this site of "Lethe in Spain" to the new site I created on wordpress. What a difference!

Single column blogs streamline the presentation of a novel. Without a sidebar to distract an audience, readers can focus on the writing itself. Therefore, clutter can be eliminated. But this still doesn't answer my first question: regularity of posts or revision?

My answer: both! Online novelists can use their old multi-column blogs to post first drafts, and then a new single-column blog to post final drafts. This may seem like a lot of unnecessary work at first; but in the long run, it frees up the writer and I'll tell you why.

Using two blogs for their fiction, writers can use the "blog blog" to post drafts along with posts such as this one (on writing, etc.) and use the "fiction blog" to post the revised chapters. Readers who want to read the novel in full can be directed to the single-column site; while window-shoppers can buzz around the old site. But wait, what about your faithful readers? They can read the latest posts and/or see how the novel evolves on the new site. Keep all the clutter you want on the old site. In fact, I suggest beefing up your blogroll, as this is a significant source of traffic. Advertise if you want and add as many widgets that suit your fancy (within reason).

Which leads me to my concluding statements about "Lethe in Spain". I have decided to do just what I've said in the above paragraphs. I will post rough drafts to this blog as I've been doing for the last six months. In addition, I will add a blogging component, where I write whatever is on my mind, usually having to do with writing and fiction. For those who want to read the novel, they can click on the top bar which says, READ THE NOVEL.

What I love about online fiction is that I can shape the narrative in real-time as people are reading it. It allows me to post a rough draft, and then look at it more objectively (b/c it has been presented to the world). Because it's public, I'm also more motivated to improve it. And most importantly, readers can give me feedback, which is one of things that makes blog fiction unique.

I don't know if this solution will work for everyone. But I'm going to test out the idea. My readers can read the latest chapters on this blog and turn to the other site to read the full story.

Recently, a couple commentators have mentioned about my novel that the work evolves. I consider this to be the highest complement. An evolving novel is always better than a dead (print--he, he) one.

Chris

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Welcome to the Novel of Life

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:13:00 +0000

Lethe Bashar is on study abroad. He moves into an apartment with a sixty-five year old Senora. Within two weeks, he undergoes an extreme form of culture shock. Between quitting classes, falling in love with his Senora's maid, smoking hashish, and meeting a group of native Spaniards, an innocent study abroad program turns to living dangerously.

To begin reading the novel click here.

Author Post

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Hello Readers,

After some deliberation, I've decided to take a break from online posting. With the hectic month of December, along with a possible surgery in the next month, I think it would be best if I paused here temporarily.

This story will go on, it must go on. But every blogger knows the reality of burnout and it seems I've been working on my six blogs now for eight-months solid. I love blogging my fiction but it takes a lot of mental energy, especially when you revise as much as I do. In my time off, I'm going to read more and perhaps even continue my Book Chat video blog. You can visit me there for book reviews.

I also encourage you to check out the literary arts webzine I recently launched called Escape into Life. If you are a writer, a poet, an artist, or an essayist, we are looking for submissions.

The Novel of Life runs on three separate sites. Visit Lethe in Vegas and Family in Decline to get the full arc of the narrative.

Thanks again and Happy Holidays,
Chris A.

The Director calls

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:16:00 +0000

The Director called the next morning when Lethe was still in bed. The Senora was slicing vegetables in the kitchen, full of anxious vigor. "Si . . . si . . . un momento."

Lethe crawled out of bed and came into the kitchen. He looked like a ball of melted wax; expression hadn't seeped into his face yet. He took the phone from the Senora's hand and pressed his ear against the garlic-smelling receiver. The Director's gruff, commanding voice greeted him: "Good morning, Lethe."

"Good morning, Director."

"Sleeping in again?"

"I had a late night last night. Hanging out with the Spaniards, you know."

"The Spanish don't take partying lightly, do they?"

"No sir, not at all. But you'll be glad to know that I've mastered the Spanish language."

"Is that true?"

"I'm perfectly fluent thanks to my native friends."

The sparkling conversation was beginning to wake Lethe up. The Senora handed him a glass of orange juice.

Lethe continued, "It's because I left the Institute, I know it is."

"Of course, your wise decision to leave the Institute advanced your learning. School is backwards, after all. Why should anyone have to attend class?"

Lethe hesitated, unable to translate the Director's last couple sentences. "Did you hear from my new Senora?"

The Director's mustache scratched against the receiver. With a muffled sigh, he said, "Okay then. That's why I'm calling. Senora Raquel de la Tristeza cannot be your senora."

"What? Why not?"

"She says it's too late in the year for her to take you in."

"But I thought you said you were going to help me find a senora?"

"I said I would try . . ."

"You said she owed you a favor--"

"Yes, but that was many years ago and now it seems like she's forgotten."

The Senora's kitchen suddenly became hot. The bubbling pots on the stove produced an unbearable, seething humidity; and the Senora's flighty housekeeper, Catalin, kept rushing through the center of the room with her thousand and one tasks.

"I'm sorry Lethe, I tried."

Lethe was sweating; he had to take a shower.

"Don't forget what we talked about."

"I've already forgotten."

"You have to leave the Senora's apartment by tomorrow."

After hanging up the phone, Lethe ran into his bedroom. The tiny, besmirched room with the wrought-iron balcony and the stupid poster of the clown on the wall was his. The room felt more his own than the sanitized, anonymous bedroom he'd grown up in.

He fell down to his knees and began crying. He never cried, not even when he was trying to kill himself. It was all because of his new Senora. She inspired these tears in him, a woman he would never meet, a woman he would never know. He would never know if she looked the way he imagined her to look, with nut-brown skin, a buxom chest and flowing black hair that covered her shoulders and back. The visions came to a halt before him. She was supposed to be young and beautiful. She was supposed to coddle him and have sex with him. She was supposed to cook for him. Now what was he going to do?

He could call Ricky or Alejandro and ask if he could sleep over at one of their apartments. But that might jeopardize his friendship with them. He didn't want to ask too many favors.

Standing on his balcony, he lit a cigarette and stared down into the alleyway where the old men sat in the cool shadows protected from the heat. This was the last time he would see those old men lingering there, and it was also the last time he would look across the street to the apartment building with colorful bricks that faced his own. The flower-filled patios, the uniformed maids working in the windows, the junior piano player; he would miss life here.

Oh, goddamnit, it was good to be leaving this place. He loved the little ledge but he also despised himself for sucking up the Senora's last remaining spirit with his needy, greedy habits. Who was he kidding? The old Senora was no more his mother than the new Senora was his sex-goddess. He got carried away with his fantasies and now all he wanted was a room of his own where he could conduct his business of reading and writing, and maybe socializing on the weekends, perhaps having visitors during the week days, but only on occasion. He remembered Veronica from the International Institute and then searched for her number. It was hiding somewhere among the school books he never opened.

His thoughts were racing as he puffed his cigarette to the very end. It was already noon. He had to look for a place to live. The Senora once told him about the pensiones in el Plaza del Sol, a district of shops, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels and apartments for rent. Quickly, he rushed to the bathroom and drenched his face in hot water--but he did not take another shower. There was no time. He had to find a place to live. He was being kicked out of the Senora's apartment by tomorrow.

Lethe saw it in her eyes. Tired, old eyes. Despondently loving. Anger mixed with compassion. How many contradictions flickered there! She told him he could stay for as long as he wanted, whatever time he needed to find a place. But it was all too obvious. He knew the precise pain he was causing her. She wanted him to leave, to go away and never return. That's what the old woman wanted.

Stumble It!

Lethe returns to the Senora's apartment after the party

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:56:00 +0000

When Lethe arrived back at the Senora's apartment it was 2:30 in the morning. The residential street resembled nothing like the rest of Madrid on a Friday night. Whereas other sections of Madrid were clamorously alive, the Senora's street went to bed before twelve o'clock.

The irritable doorman in blue overalls was standing in the corridor. "Why do you come home so late?" He pierced Lethe with one of his angry smirks. "Don't you know the Senora's sound asleep? You're going to wake up my building. Estupido!"

Lethe shook his head and passed the angry doorman's first floor apartment. He quietly climbed the stairs.

At the Senora's door, he turned the brass knob and leaned his weight forward just as a thief would before breaking into some old rich lady's apartment. The nick knacks and antique book shelves, the embroidered furniture and wall-hangings projected an ambient aura, a ghostliness over the room. The Senora's presence lodged inside these shrunken objects; she was watching him from their various locations.

If only he could be quiet . . . Every wooden beam in the apartment creaked, the door knobs whined, and a single light illuminated the whole floor. He was afraid to make any noise, and he tried to suppress his fears, but it was like being in the classroom of the International Institute. He couldn't help himself.

He had to wash his face. Every night he washed his face.

The faucet stayed on for an extra five minutes. He was drunk. He loved the feeling of water, the inexplicable wetness of water, the incessant renewal of the ritual. He bathed in the sink, soaking his eyelashes, running the soap wildly over his neck. The shower beckoned him, but he told it "no". It was too late for a shower. A shower would definitely wake up the Senora.

He clamored down the narrow hallway and stumbled into his bedroom. His breathing was loud. His footsteps were shameful. The wooden beams creaked and cawed underneath him, telling rascally jokes; the springs under his bed squeaked obnoxiously like a thousand mice.

He moved to his desk, an old desk from a children's library, the Senora once told him. Out of his disheveled jacket, he removed the gift that Ricky had given him tonight and he held it in his hand for a long time. Then he unfolded the paper corner by corner.

Startled by a random noise in the street, he threw a nervous glance to the door. He glimpsed the Senora standing there. But he was only dreaming.

Once he could relax, it was beautiful, the light streaming from the sky at this hour. He threw his face back into the moonlight coming from the balcony. He looked out of his room up-side-down, with all the blood rushing to the crown of his head and the starry sky falling just below his chin.

The happiest he'd ever been in his life was when he was eleven years old. His parents sent him to an arts camp in Michigan for the summer. He went there every year after his tenth birthday, but this was the first year living some place besides home. He'd been at the camp for two weeks and this morning he was walking to the bookstore, on the other side of camp, the 'light side' they called it, where the girls' division was located. On his little escape from the boys' side, he was enjoying the freedom of being ten and a half.

Big maple trees lined the campus roads and tall concrete buildings rose up everywhere. Mr. Love said campers could expect a tornado soon, and these buildings supposedly protected the campers. The basements were sturdy and secure, but Lethe hadn't seen the insides yet. As he moved away from the buildings and stretched his gaze to the center of campus, the people looked like dots on the horizon.

He came to an old-fashioned lamppost. The campus had these lampposts scattered throughout. He stood by the lamppost in a sort of dazed dreaminess. He turned 180 degrees and surveyed the woodsy area and the nature trails winding off toward the auditoriums.

As he was moving, everything slowed down and a ray of sunlight broke out from a cluster of leaves, almost blinding him.

With his mother's VISA, he pushed together a second pile. Then he peeled off his smoky shirt and laid in bed. His heart was beating; he could hear it. He looked up at the ceiling and thought, "I can't stay here any longer."

Stumble It!

The Spanish Party

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:30:00 +0000

On Friday night Lethe met his Spanish friends at the end of the cul de sac. All the group was there, Carlos, Ricky, Javier, Damien and the others; but they seemed to be waiting for Lethe to arrive so they could take him off somewhere.

Javier, the fat-cheeked, jovial Spaniard, approached Lethe with open arms and ushered him toward the group . . . "My parents are gone for the weekend," he said. "We're celebrating at their condo. Will you come?"

Anxiously Lethe crawled into the back of Javier's small European car and wedged himself between two new friends. The car peeled around the circular drive, gained a steady momentum on a residential street and then plunged into the night traffic.

With the windows down, the wind kept blowing into Lethe's face and making his eyes water. Loud Spanish music, a mix of Samba, techno and rap trumpeted behind their heads. Soon everyone was talking over everyone else, sharing their favorite music styles and bands. By no means was Javier an experienced driver. He jolted the car nearly a dozen times in a seven mile radius. The five of them flew off every road bump and sunk into every dip, which further provoked their frenzied excitement. Cruising Madrid with a bunch of Spaniards, what could be better than this, what could be more exhilarating? At last Lethe seemed to have found his niche.

Javier's family must be loaded, because the building was New York City-modern, made of concrete and glass. There was no doorman in the lobby--unusual for upper-class residences in Madrid. Polished stainless steel elevators took them up to the 24th floor and Javier opened the door to a spacious apartment with an eat-in kitchen and an open view of the city. No furniture, however; just an empty condo.

The Spaniards funneled into the loft-like apartment with their whiskey bottles and Coca Cola, their cigarettes dangling from their mouths. They kept their jackets on, surveying the stark environment. Then they dispersed into the various corners of the condo and struck up conversations. Lethe expected to see some women trickle in, but Javier informed him later that his parents wouldn't allow co-ed parties in their "espacio vivo".

It seemed strange that women were restricted from this party because the next thing that Lethe noticed was cocaine on the granite kitchen table. The Spaniards gaily incorporated the white powder into their celebration. They did not hide it from the rest of the group or abuse the drug in private. Rather they treated it as a novelty, a mere toy, a party favor.

The fervid animation among the Spaniards increased Lethe's curiosity. They hunched like merry pranksters around the guy in the center who separated the substance into neat, manageable piles for his friends.

Coke was taboo where Lethe came from, but here it seemed somewhat acceptable, moderately cool. So long as everyone was enjoying it, the drug didn't arouse suspicion or incite hostility. Lethe watched Ricky, the master of ceremonies, as he expertly snorted the first bump, then casually swiped his nose clean and stepped away from the table. Carlos picked up the rolled Euro after him.

Later that evening Lethe stopped Ricky in the hallway and asked, "You wouldn't be able to get any more of that would you?"

"Sure," Ricky said. "Take this--" He handed Lethe a piece of folded-up paper.

"Whenever you want some more just ask."

Stumble It!

Another Senora?

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:56:00 +0000

They sat at the table waiting for Lethe to arrive. The meal was Spanish rice and beans; a quick meal; the Senora was tired of cooking for absent people. Donte told a story about his classmates while the Senora drank from her glass of wine. Once she enjoyed listening to Donte speak his pretty fluent sentences but now they grated on her aged ears and the more embellishment he gave to the Spanish language the less she cared to listen to him. His head had an oily sheen that reminded her of a slippery eel. She dismissed these thoughts because they were irrelevant.

"Are we eating before Lethe arrives?" Donte asked innocently.

But the Senora was inwardly possessed and thinking of something far more important than when was the proper time to eat. Donte lifted his delicate shoulders and looked into the mirror to adjust his ball of hair.

Back at the International Institute, the Director pounded his hairy knuckles on the desk in front of him. He did this to make his point heard. He had several points and all of them he stated on the phone when he talked to Lethe earlier. His first point was that Lethe should return home immediately (pound).

His second point was that Lethe should see a psychiatrist (pound, pound).

These were issues that needed to be addressed by a professional (pound, pound, pound).

"I'm seeing a professional," Lethe interjected. "I already have a psychiatrist. You can't send me home for that."

And the third? The stupid boy made him forget his third point.

Lethe angled for the Director's sympathy by bellowing a defenseless cry. These were the emotional reactions he'd been practicing while walking to the International Institute. It was not beneath Lethe to prepare for a big moment.

"I can't go back to living at home, my parents are getting a divorce and they'll want to drag me into the whole sad affair. I beg you Director allow me to stay here in Spain. Let me live with the Senora. She's my only hope."

"I can't let you live with her, it's against the rules. I've told you that already. But I may be able to find you another senora."

"Another senora?" Lethe asked naively.

"If you're dead set on staying here in Spain," the Director conceded, "then maybe we can arrange something with a woman I know."

All the tortured sadness drained from Lethe's face and he jumped out of his chair to embrace the Director.

"You don't have to hug me. She's an old acquaintance of mine and she owes me a favor."

"I can't wait to meet her."

"Slow down, she's not your Senora yet. We have to agree on a price."

Linda tapped on the glass window to her husband's office and pointed to her watch.

"Women can be so damn impatient sometimes," the Director remarked. "I better get going."

When Lethe returned to the Senora's apartment, Donte had on his usual look of perplexed happiness. The balcony door was open and the curtains blew forward and back in the evening breeze. Lethe pushed his cigarettes down to the end of the table and took a seat.

"So how many more days will you be living with us?" Donte asked.

"You act like I'm some sort of a burden--"

"No, not at all. I just wanted to know when I can move my things into the room with the balcony."

The Senora brought Lethe's food to the table. The Spanish rice had been reheated and the pan was caked on the sides with burnt beans.

"It could be two days or ten days. I'm not sure. The Director is looking for another senora for me."

"Another senora?" Donte said incredulously.

"In a rare change of heart, the Director has become sympathetic to my cause."

The Senora held her cigarette in front of her face. Smoke poured out of her nostrils in small increments.

"So what's your new Senora like?" Donte probed.

"All I know is that she's a single mother with two kids. I may have to help out with the kids but I don't mind."

"You? Take care of children?" Donte laughed satirically.

"I wouldn't be that bad, would I?"

The Senora kept silent and allowed her boarders to speak their inanities. Who knew whether Lethe would find a new senora or not; it was none of her business. She needed to focus on the apartment, the cleaning and the cooking. When he was gone, there would be more work to be done. She stood up from the table and carried the dishes to the sink. Donte and Lethe continued talking in a dreamy, hypothetical manner.

Lethe lie in bed that night, imagining his new senora. She was young and strong, but old enough to be his mother, with thick, black Spanish hair and muscular arms and shoulders. She had a buxom chest and strong hands. Her exact features dissolved and morphed into a number of different faces he had seen before in the streets of Madrid. She had some resemblance to the Senora's maid, Catalin, but a more experienced, darkly erotic personality. These images of the mysterious senora tossed in his mind until the early hours of the morning when he work up confused and alarmed by his dreams.

The Director

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:59:00 +0000

The Director of the study abroad program had a shiny bald pate with a fluff of thin, gray hair around the back of his head. He smiled generously and spread his arms to welcome you into his office. Some of the younger women (his female students) stood back in terror, but the Director reassured them it was only his "personalidad espanol" coming out. When in his native land, he felt a change in himself, a return to his natural way of being.

The female students at Cranely College may have feared an older man's release from his life-long inhibitions but he was not making advances toward them; he was merely showing them how passionate one can be about life. He was encouraging them to discover Madrid and to taste the Spanish culture.

"Pero, no habla engles."

"But don't speak English" he warned them. One could be deported for such a blatant disregard of the rules; Cranely College prided itself as the Harvard of foreign exchange programs and many students from the Ivy League choose Cranely College in Spain for its rigor and strong reputation.

The Director was not merely an enforcer of the rules; he was also a doting husband who gave his wife the position of secretary in the study abroad office. The Director was a family man. He had brought his family to Madrid thanks to the benevolence an institution, that being Cranely College, where he taught Spanish year round except when he took these trips to Spain. In short, the Director tapped the study abroad fund to pay for his wife and kids' vacation.

He had vague plans to steal the money when he was only a professor in the Spanish Department. But now that Linda was helping in the office, he hardly thought of it as "stealing". After all he was getting old and needed his youthful wife to keep him company. He loved her creamy legs, her outmoded, 50's style skirts and her horrible pink lipstick.

Their offices were on the top floor of the International Institute. Linda sat at the secretary desk and played the designated role, shuffling papers, making appointments and organizing things. They worked in their separate rooms but it was futile to hide their affection for each other; Vidal and Linda were overtly sexual beings and had produced four bumptious children in a very short time. Students who came into the office to sign papers or to speak to the Director found their public displays of affection revolting.

At the height of Lethe's ecstasy over meeting the group of Spaniards, he received a phone call from the Director. Lethe was not in his bedroom inhaling endless cigarettes and staring over the balcony in despair, but instead talking to the Senora in what he believed to be lucid, intelligent speech about his recent transformation. "And now I can speak Spanish fluently," he blurted out a rapid string of vowels attempting to prove his point.

"Momento, momento." the Senora stopped him so she could answer the phone.

Lethe lit a cigarette and looked at the Senora with wild, suspicious eyes. Then she handed him the phone.

"Ola." Lethe muttered, losing his interest in the Spanish language.

"Hello, Lethe. You haven't forgotten me I hope."

"No sir, of course not. How's life?"

"Life is fine, just fine. Are you enjoying your stay?"

"Yes sir, rather nice here in the Senora's apartment."

"I'm sure it is, I'm sure it is. I hear from your teachers that you have been taking it easy these days. You haven't been to class in eight weeks, Lethe. What's going on?"

"I'm bored."

"You're bored."

"Yes, my classes are too easy for me. I wanted to really immerse myself in the Spanish culture."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I'm quitting school and I've joined a band of brothers, a group of Spaniards who want to be my friends."

"How precocious of you Lethe, but don't you think it would be better to go home, back to where you're from. Is it Chicago?"

"No, I don't live in Chicago any more."

"Where do you live then?"

"I live at college in upstate New York. If I had to leave Spain, I'd go back there. But I don't see any reason why I'd have to leave. I'm perfectly happy here and the Senora says . . ."

"It's not up to your Senora. The rules say--and I'm reading off the page of the handbook right here in front of me--No student should be allowed to stay with his host family if he is not enrolled in classes at the International Institute. "

"But I hate the International Institute. I really dread it. I can't go there anymore, I can't."

The pungent smell of the greasy chorizo rose into Lethe's nostrils. The Senora was preparing sausage for tonight's meal.

"You need to come to my office right away." The Director continued.

"Where is your office?"

"The International Institute of course."

Lethe sighed and held out the phone to the Senora as if they were done. For another minute, the Senora nodded her head and spoke to the Director in Spanish. Lethe tried to make out their words, but the Senora was speaking too fast.

"He wants me to leave, doesn't he?" Lethe asked.

She reached for her cigarettes and an ashtray nearby. "Don't worry nino I'm not going to kick you out."

Lethe meets the psychiatrist in the Park

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Lethe appeared much happier than Senorita Lorenzo recalled. The last time she saw him in her office, he was insecure and tense. There was also some awkwardness between them that caused her to consider finding him a new therapist.

Today Lethe was wearing brand new clothes and a confident grin. What caught the psychiatrist off guard was when he sat down next to her and immediately reached for her hand, as if to kiss it.

She recoiled from her patient while forcing a smile. "Is everything okay, Lethe?"

"Things couldn't be better. I've met some new friends . . ."

The psychiatrist covered up her nervousness with, "Oh, I'm so happy for you. That's wonderful."

"Do you mind if I have a glass of your wine?" He asked boldly.

"I'd prefer if you didn't." Then she looked at the half-empty bottle and said, "Fine, go ahead, but don't drink too much." She came to the park about twenty minutes ago and had been sitting here eating goat cheese on crackers before Lethe arrived.

Lethe drank at his psychiatrist's approval. He loved the fact that she was so young and vibrant. "I think I got some of your lipstick on my mouth," he said, chuckling to himself.

Senorita Lorenzo looked embarrassed. "Give me that," she said, "You shouldn't be drinking wine during the middle of the day. Now tell me about your new friends."

"I was outside last Friday night taking one of my walks and lo and behold I met a group of Spaniards my age." He reached for the wine glass again, but she held it away from him. Their bodies touched on the bench and the psychiatrist was starting to become visibly nervous. Lethe grew in confidence and felt like maybe his doctor was attracted to him.

Three pigeons plopped into the fountain across from their bench. Wings flapped merrily against the surface of the water. A busload of children was letting out by the entrance to the park.

"I don't know what it is," Lethe said, "But I've changed my perception of things."

"How so?" The Senorita arched her shoulders and placed her hands on her lap.

"Well, for example, I don't need to see a dermatologist anymore. You can cancel the appointment."

"I can?" She'd never made an appointment in the first place.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy, Senorita. But when I look in the mirror, my face looks fine. I don't see any acne anymore."

The psychiatrist smiled. Maybe he was getting better.

"You still need to find a job, don't you? Otherwise your father won't send your monthly allowance."

"I found a job. My Spanish friends want me to help them run their mini bar at a local discotheque."

The psychiatrist responded with a look of skepticism. "Do you think you're father will go along with that?"

"You're not going to tell him anything, right?"

"But that wasn't the deal. The deal was, remember, that I would tell your father everything. I made this very clear at the beginning of our sessions."

Lethe stared at his psychiatrist in juvenile irritation. Senorita Lorenzo cast a glance across the park and noticed one of her colleagues. Immediately she scooted away from Lethe and covered her legs. The colleague then looked in her direction and waved. She waved back.

"Who's that?" Lethe asked.

"Just someone I know I from the clinic," she said, watching the man disappear behind the parade of school children.

Welcome to the Novel of Life

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:45:00 +0000

Lethe Bashar is on study abroad. He moves into an apartment with a sixty-five year old Senora. Within two weeks, he undergoes an extreme form of culture shock. He has difficulty attending classes at the International Institute, and his greatest fears revolve around his appearance in the mirror. The Senora, a maternal figure, suggests that Lethe withdraw from school and see a psychiatrist.

You may begin reading by clicking here.

To skip to the next chapter click here.

Credits

escapeintolife@yahoo.com (Lethe) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:14:00 +0000

Thank you repeat commentators who have given me worthwhile feedback. Your comments and suggestions allow me to improve this ongoing narrative.

Thank you Chris Poirier. Your comments and criticism, along with your support was instrumental in shaping this narrative.

I would like to thank all of the photo/art contributors. This novella would not be possible without all of the beautiful artwork and photography.

Cover Banner: "Matt Power" on Flickr

Sidebar picture: Gerardo Gonzalez

Welcome Page: Achilles Rizzoli

At the International Institute: "nestor100" on Flickr

Donte: "haciendo clack" on Flickr

Dinner with the Senora: "McIvory" on Flickr

In the classroom: "datumax" on Flickr

Juanita comes over for lunch: "evinoryan88" on Flickr

A noise from Lethe’s bedroom: "AlbinoFlea" on Flickr

Lethe meets Veronica before class: "photonerd" on Flickr

Un Chein Andalou: "DavidFisher" on Flickr

The bedroom shrinks: "malisonian" on Flickr

The Senora comforts Lethe: Patrick Maisano

Lethe sees a psychiatrist: "NingJ" on Flickr
Lethe talks to his mother: "Justmakeit" on Flickr
Returning to the clinic: "martincho_argentino" on Flickr
A Pastry Shop and a Bookstore: "Enyad Retrac" on Flickr
Lethe's happiness: "Toby NS" on Flickr
The Senora: "alexis arnold" on Flickr
The Senora's Family Comes Over: "Manuelito" on Flickr
Hashish: "Williamthe_artist" on Flickr
Senorita Lorenzo's Red Chamber: "FrogMiller" on Flickr Lethe ventures out into the night . . . again and again: "Buck82" on Flickr
The Spaniards: Part One: "Raideres" on Flickr
The Spaniards: Part Two: "MHadburg" on Flickr An Energetic Morning: "Mouldfish" on Flickr Lethe meets the psychiatrist in the park: "R.Duran" on Flickr The Director: "Voice Within" on Flickr Another Senora?: Heynonnie on Flickr The Spanish Party: "tilaneseven" on Flickr Lethe returns to the Senora's apartment after the party: "Mcgrenner57" on Flickr The Director calls: "daniel_bristowbailey" on Flickr Welcome to the Novel of Life: "Matt Power" on Flicker
I quit my job today:Hope Gangloff Last evening with the Senora: "drewleavy" on Flickr
Tom Drake: Consumer Anti-Hero: Art by Shigeo Fukuda