Happy New Year!

Here's to a healthy, joyful, loving, prosperous, peaceful, creative and flower-filled year!

I'll be eating popcorn and watching movies tonight, and tomorrow I'll be eating black-eyed peas and cornbread. What are you doing to celebrate? Any new year traditions you care to share?

Vishnu is a star!

Vishnu made his debut on Galleycat (Dec. 26). As did Amy's pal Babe (Dec. 26) and Bella's Max (Dec. 28). I hope it doesn't go to his head!

The humans in our household just returned from a Christmas trip to Seattle. I'll post pics after I recover from our 10-hour trip back home (which included 4 hours at Sea-Tac, 2 hours sitting on the runway and an icy drive from DIA) and shoveling the foot of snow that greeted us.

Holiday Hiatus

The Pajama Gardener is taking a little break for Christmas. Yesterday, I turned in my page proofs for Walk Tall to iUniverse and gave a draft of my novel in progress to my beta-reader to read for me. Whew! So I am taking some time off.

I have received 2 wonderful blogging awards of late that I promise to post about...it just may be next year.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy Kwanza, Happy New Year and Joyful Everything to you and yours!

Dance Dance Revolution!

For everybody on deadline or stressed out from the holidays.

This first song has been getting me through for almost 20 years now. (I do have a thing for James Browns' spiritual godsons, especially the ones who like to change their names. I'd include a video from His Purple Badness, but I'd get sued.) Best lines: "It ain't easy. Giving up is the easy thing to do. Time is on your side, but you just watch the clock and let it tick for you."




This song has only been getting me through a few weeks, but I can tell already that I'm going to listen to this whenever I want a boost. Best line: "Feels so good when you're doing all the things that you want to do." Yay, Mary J. is back!

OK, back to work!

Blacks History Month every month

On Saturday, I went to a holiday tea for the Read Aloud Program, which was held at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. I had never been there before. Drive by it all the time, but I had never stopped in. The third floor features a museum about Denver's black history and the history of blacks in the West that was fascinating. For example, Madam C.J. Walker, this country's first female millionaire, got her start here in Denver.

One of the exhibits includes the manumission papers of Robert Smith. It's a handwritten letter that documents "that the Negro slave named Robert" has been "manummitted, emancipated and set free." The letter also describes Robert Smith as a "man of yellow complexion, about five feet five inches high and lame in the left ancle [sic]...and is about thirty years old." Robert Smith went on to open a barber shop in Five Points and purchase his family out of slavery.

This exhibit was especially moving for me because one of the characters in my current novel believes in communicating with her ancestors. This exhibit reminded me that "the ancestors" were once living, breathing individuals, not a faceless, nameless mass. I believe it will give my story more depth.

It could be a good exercise for writers to explore your history and let where and who you come from influence your work.

On another note, artist Raymina Mays, who emailed me this lovely picture of collards in her garden, and Paula Johnson are working on a project to photograph black women in their gardens. If you're interested in participating, shoot me an email (carleenatcarleenbricedotcom)and I'll hook you up with Raymina.


Raymina also forwarded me this link to the the Anne Spencer Garden. And a link to this video about folk artist LV Hull, also known as "the shoe lady."



Much food for thought here!

Holiday round up

Yesterday was my last day for this semester's Read Aloud program. This was a great class. The kids were very eager readers and really loved stories. That's me buried under (from left) Jayla, Nakia, Sean, and Danisha. I believe we start up again sometime next month. Next semester, at the teacher's request, I'm going to work with the kids to write a book.

I just got home from the Ladies Literary Luncheon white elephant gift exchange and boy did I get some stinkers (though I gave as good as I got-hee hee Kristin)! I'd like to thank Rebecca and Debra for some truly "special" gifts.

Seriously though, Robin Owens (who's book Keepers of the Flame comes out next month), handed out lovely cards. I selected Magnificence. On the other side it says "Own your magnificence. The world needs your brilliance and grace." Nice, huh?

Look for LLL's Andrea Cohen's signing at the Lodo Tattered Cover on January 29th and Debra Fine's signing at the same store on January 30th.

Now a note from hubby's and my friend T.M. who always writes a hell of a Christmas letter. He always includes a round-up of his favorites from the Harper's Index of Harper's Magazine. A couple of relevant stats:

Minimum number of different books sold in the U.S. last year, as tracked by Nielsen BookScan: 1,446,000.

Number of these that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000.

Number that sold more than 100,000 copies: 481.

And FINALLY as I was scouring for links for my LLL friends I happened to notice this little open secret on Amazon. Guess the cat's outta the bag. Check out the emblem on the cover: It's for the Essence Magazine Book Club, which has named Orange Mint and Honey as an upcoming selection. Merry Christmas baby!!!!!

Meme-of-the-Month

Tayari Jones (check out the best-dressed writer I know here) has tagged me for a fascinating meme. You post the first line of the first post for each month of 2007. Let's see what I was going on about this year.

January. I don't really make new year's resolutions.

February. Stay tuned for the Pajama Chat with Stephanie Rose Bird. (better late than never!)

March. Got cabin fever?

April. Hubby took this group of pictures today.

May. On April 24, my grandfather, William Oliver Melton, passed away.

June. "Boldfaced Lies," a self-published first novel by Charlene Porter has been nominated for a NAACP image award. (A Denver writer I've never met, btw.)

July. "Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni just to name a few."

August. Happy Birthday Yuh Yuh! (my middle brother)

September. Last Labor Day I was in a completely different space physically and mentally.

October. I finished No Place Safe yesterday, turning the pages as quick as I could.

November. Extreme Cover Make-over

December. Snow Miser vs. Heat Miser.

I guess this shows a little of what this blog is about: books and family. Not one of the first lines was about gardening though.

So, on to tagging. I will tag: Ms. Peri, Iyan and Egusi Soup, Sage and Thyme, Judy Larsen, Sustenance Scout. Have fun!

Upscale Magazine calls OMAH "gripping"!

Whoo hoo! The December/January issue of Upscale Magazine has a great review of Orange Mint and Honey:

"Daughters strive to either be just like their mothers or the exact opposite. Shay has every reason to avoid imitating her alcoholic mother, a habitual street wanderer who left her home alone for days and one long, scary week that the now 25-year old still can't forget.

After moving back home to tortuous childhood memories and an Alcoholics Anonymous-enthused mother ready to make amends, Shay refuses to forgive until her own misstep shows her a glimpse of life from her mother's perspective in Carleen Brice's gripping Orange Mint and Honey."

This review makes for excellent discussion questions: Do you think daughters strive to be just like our mothers or the exact opposite? If so, which did you go for? Is the same dynamic true for fathers and sons?

I tried for opposite for a long time. After my mother died, I was able to allow the parts of myself that were like her to breathe. Now I'm grateful for them.

In the spirit

It's snowing here in Denver. Last night, Hubby and I packed up 6 fruitcakes to mail to family. Every year, my husband makes fruitcakes. It is a major production. Six pounds of fruit. A pound of butter. A pound of pecans. Fifteen eggs. Wine and brandy. I thought he and his brothers and father were the only ones on the planet who liked them, until I found out Grandmama LOVES fruitcake. So he started sending her one. Well, my father and brother heard about this most delicious fruitcake so now THEY get one every year. And it turns out our families aren't the only ones who adore fruitcake. There are the Fruitcake Sisters and the Fruitcake Anti-Defamation League (you have to scroll down). Who knew?

Anyway, between the snow and the fruitcake (which I enjoy from afar since it's loaded with sugar), I am definitely in the holiday spirit. So here's a little Christmas wish from the Pajama Gardener to you.

Let it go, let it go, let it go

"Let go and let God" is a saying from 12-step programs. To help one do that, people in 12-step programs sometimes make themselves a "God box" and write down their problems and put them in the God box for their higher power to take care of. It's a a way they can symbolically, ritually turn their problems over to God. Often, God boxes are hat boxes or shoe boxes with a slit in the top or a paper bag. (Here's a great essay by Anne Lamott on her own God box rituals.)

In Orange Mint and Honey, the mother, Nona, is a recovering alcoholic in AA. She uses her garden as her God box. She writes what she wants to release or let go of and buries the slips of paper in her garden. Over time, the papers break down and serve as a kind of mulch and soil amendment. Nona says, "the best way I know to turn over my problems to God is to turn over some dirt."

As someone who can be a tad obsessive-I'll pause while I wait for hubby and friends to collect themselves after falling on the floor laughing at my understatement-having such a way to let things go is very helpful. Once when I was worried about getting an agent, I tried Nona's method. I wrote down that I was freaking out about getting an agent and buried the piece of paper in my garden. And it worked. I was able to let that worry go. (And I got an agent soon after.)

Lately, I've been getting a little worried about how my little baby Orange Mint is going to do once it's out there in the world (in almost exactly 2 months!). So I wrote that down on a slip of paper and gave it over to something greater than myself to take care of. And I feel so much better! It won't last forever. I'll get wound up again and have to release again. In fact, I may end up papering my whole yard in the next few months. It takes what it takes.

If you have something you want to release to your higher power, give it a try. Another good exercise in letting go is repeating this mantra from Life is Goodbye, Life is Hello: Grieving Well Through All Kinds of Loss, by Alla Bozarth-Campbell:

"Love Mantra for Letting Go"

I bless you
I release you

I set you free
I set me free

I let you be
I let me be

I find it works for all kinds of things.

Peace.

Lighthouse auction

Got a picky writer and/or reader to shop for this year? Lighthouse is auctioning off some very clever stories written on napkins (and nicely framed in glass). Napkin authors include: Tobias Wolff, William Henderson, Nick Arvin, Shari Caudron, Harrison Fletcher, Alexandre Philippe, Ryan Kelly, Chris Ransick, and Michael Henry.

Check them out on eBay, and, if you can swing it, bid on an item. It's for a good cause. Proceeds go to Lighthouse Writers. The auction ends Dec. 13th.

Omaha

I grew up in Omaha. I shopped, went to movies, and hung out too many times to count at Westroads. It's where I bought my prom dress. It's where my best friend, her boyfriend and I lied about our ages to see Felix the Cat. Our friend J went with us, but she choked when the time came to lie and didn't make the cut. The story on the front page of today's Denver Post from the Omaha World-Herald is written by a guy I went to high school with. The kid who entered the mall with a gun lived in the same suburb as one of my favorite aunts. Nobody I know was shot or a witness to the horror. Just the same, everybody in and from Omaha is affected. I guess we all are whether we're in or from Omaha or not.

I just needed to say this.

Things that make you go hmmm

Not sure what I think about Karith Foster, a black comedienne who is joining Don Imus on his new show. In this interview, she sounds like she's thought this through and has her head on her shoulders. But she says that Imus was just trying to sound like a young hip guy when he made his infamous comment. I listened to what Imus said at the time, and it did sound malicious to me. Not to mention completely unnecessary. And the "ho incident" isn't all that he's known for. So I don't know what to think. I hope it works out for her, but it kinda feels like signing on with the dark side to me. What do y'all think?

Rerun

In support of striking TV & film writers (and because I'm on deadline), I'm posting a rerun from the archives. From March 2, 2007:

Got cabin fever? Tired of snow and gray skies? Feeling blue? Get yourself some orange...orange essential oil that is and some peppermint oil. Then:

• splash a few drops in your bath water (though the peppermint is cooling like menthol)
  
• put a few drops on a tissue or in a bowl of hot water and place them next to you
  add a few drops to your bottle of lotion (make sure the essential oils get diluted)
  
• heat them in an oil diffuser (I use a clay pot diffuser with a tea light candle)
  
• or sprinkle a few drops on your clothes (be careful with fine fabrics) or in your hair

Will perk you right up. No calories. No side effects. (Read the directions. Don't use undiluted oils directly on your skin and keep them away from mucous membranes.)

And this is a new warning from personal experience: make sure you don't end up with an oil slick in your bath water. Your skin will NOT like it! It burns. Add some milk to your bath or add the drops of oil under the running water.

Who's your Miser?

Snow Miser vs. Heat Miser. Vote in the comments.