This reviewer left such a thoughtful review, I feel they understood my objective.
My book, "Craving Normal," available on Amazon.
Tag: Growing Up
While promoting Craving Normal at the Brand Library in Glendale, I set up my books next to a tray of Twinkies. Below them, I put a sign saying, “Why Twinkies? Read the back of my book…” I did it as a “conversation starter.” I put that in quotes because the last time somebody used that term with me was when I asked my accountant why he had a silver streamer draped across his office door. His answer: “Conversation starter.” I nodded, and the conversation ended.
But yesterday, I got all kinds of talk when people inquired about my tray of Twinkies. Either they read the back of the book, or I told them, “Well, as a kid of health food freaks, I watched all the kids at school devouring Twinkies at lunch. So I craved them. That’s what I thought ‘normal’ kids with normal parents who lived in normal homes ate.”
A tall, older woman with a Boston accent came by and told me, “In the 1970s I used to give Twinkie tours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they were made in the same factory as Wonder Bread.”
She began her Twinkie tour spiel, pointing toward an invisible conveyor belt above her head. “And over here, the Twinkies are being filled.”
After she quit the job, she became a health food eater and never touched Twinkies. Oh, and she added this Twinkie fact. “Another woman I worked with, who used to give Twinkie tours, went on to become a Playboy playmate and then became a cop in Boston.”
I only contributed, “Wow.”
She looked down at my book. “I’d buy your book. Sounds interesting. But I’m 86 now and decided to stop buying things. Don’t want to leave my kids with a bunch of crap they don’t want.”
And the conversation ended.
My book is available! You can buy it here.
Sex! Now that I have your attention… I will talk about that, but mostly this thought spew may only interest personal essay writers/readers, memoir writers/readers, editors/agents/publishers, English lit academics, parents of kids under 10, kids who feared the VD man (explained below), and my daughter, to whom I wrote a personal note. Anyone else is welcome to read, of course. See, I know you’re scrolling by, notice too many words to deal with on a Sunday morning, and wonder if you should wade in to check out this post, so I’m telling you: Scroll on by! (This made more sense when I posted it on Facebook.)
Here goes: Writing academics, publishing experts, English lit types have defined story as ALWAYS FICTION. Always. A nonfiction story is called a personal essay. It’s that simple. Final. But for the last fifteen years or so, I’ve read my STORIES at bookstores’ open mics. Nobody asked me to get up and spout my personal essay. I go to theaters to hear other storytellers, like The Moth from NYC, which is nationwide now. There’s a growing STORYteller movement. People get up and tell personal STORIES; they call themselves storytellers.
In my book, “Craving Normal,” here’s how I’ve been thinking of the pieces in my collection – Some are stories where I’m the protagonist. There’s a beginning; what my character wants; conflict as my character tries to get there, and resolution. An example of this is my story “Suicidal Santa.” Within the story I do mention what’s going on in my community and the world, to give context. But it’s not the focus.
Meanwhile, in my book, I do have personal essays, where I wrote commentary on societal subjects, with personal anecdotes. I am not the protagonist in a story. It has a thesis statement, ending in a personal anecdote to back it up.
For example, there’s “My Barbie the Slut,” where my focus is one subject: SEX, the message I, at nine years old, received about sex. Sex as filtered through my kid mind and how I perceived what I was being told via TV, movies, songs, books. I’d pluck books from my parents’ filled book shelves, read Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying,” and Michael Medved’s “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” Wow. Lots of teen sex (Hey, I thought those early 1960’s kids waited until they married?). My nine-year-old brain spun. Eye-opening! (I’d like to read that now as an adult.)
While adults thoughtfully gave me educational talks, those were in conflict with the messages all around me. So, in “My Barbie the Slut,” I storify my essay with my nine-year-old moments: beginning with my friend and me playing Barbies. Now, as often as I heard Helen Reddy sing “I am woman hear me roar,” and my mom gave me nice talks supporting women… Please! Barbie was all sex – big boobs, tiny waist, legs that could go behind her ears. AND! Accessorized with mini dresses and a sports car. That, plus the messages I got from movies: “Hi. Nice to meet you! Would you like to get naked and go to my bedroom? Or should I just tear your clothes off here in the doorway?” – no wonder I had my Barbie and Ken humping so hard, I scuffed their smooth plastic crotches.
Watch out, tangents ahead!
Parents of young kids – Be alert. Your kids sure are -> TV. Movies. Racy magazines found. Those nice talks adults gave me with healthy messages? Totally drowned out by the loud outside messages coming from a variety of sources. Hey, I was an observant little human (as most kids are). I paid more attention to the world around me than listen to lectures. Even though my parents limited my TV viewing, what little I saw I absorbed. I’d seen enough “Love, American Style,” episodes to dream of becoming a foxy stewardess with a guy in every city (Oh the conflict! Having to remember not to mix up boyfriends… flabby formulaic sitcom fodder). Hey, I was no dummy. I knew what Bob Eubanks on the “Newlywed Game” meant when he said “making whoopee.” His smirk gave part of it away. And then the way the contestants giggled and gushed, “Oh, Bob!” as they blushed, confirmed whoopee was about “It.”
IT. Doing IT if it feels good. Getting IT on. IT was piped into my head as if on a corporate Muzak loop. But do I want IT? When do I want IT? What if I don’t want IT?
And then cut to a commercial break for, say, Summer’s Eve. Those ads totally confused me. What in the world made these women so happy they would run through fields of wildflowers, huge smiles and flowing hair?
Even the choice of boogie monster we San Francisco State University student housing neighborhood latchkey kids feared made it clear how influenced we were by our sexually-charged era and society. We created scary neighborhood lore, the way other kids might say the most dilapidated house on the block is haunted. It started with the older teenage boys on our street. They told us about a naked man running through the eucalyptus groves near the handball courts of San Francisco State University. To enter the grove area we had to go through a hole in a chain link fence below a sign that said, in large red letters, “Danger!” So we appropriately called the land where The VD Man supposedly lurked, Danger.
NOTE TO MY DAUGHTER: If you read this, now you know why I was so on top of what movies and TV shows you watched, so much so that little you would ask, “Mommy, is this appropriate?” And why teenage you thought I was such a nagging bore. I know from my own experience being a kid, how messages are absorbed and how it’s confusing. Heck, soda and beer companies don’t pay hundreds of millions of dollars (or whatever it is) to advertise during the Superbowl because TV messages DON’T work. (Remember this if you become a parent. TV as a babysitter is like leaving your kid with a whacked out crackhead who also likes to sell you lots of pharmaceuticals and fear. Fear is a great manipulator. But it does sell drugs and insurance. Would you leave your kid with that crackhead?)
Anyway, my point is this: “Suicidal Santa” is in story form vs. “My Barbie the Slut,” which is societal commentary with personal anecdotes has some storyification, and what I call a personal essay.
Because I will be publishing under my own Exotica Gooch Publishing, I can do what I want. I will continue to blend my genres. *Exotica Gooch is my alter ego (There’s a story behind it, but I’ve yammered enough.)
If you got this far. Thank you.
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As a child I had a large imagination, which led to confusion. Why? Well, I believed flying dust particles were fairies and thought little people in the TV box spoke to me. I also believed giants existed. Mom read me Grimm’s Fairy Tales in which giants ate children, trolls lived under bridges, and old women stuffed kids in ovens. To me, giants were as real as that man named Walter Cronkite Grandpa watched on TV. I never met Mr. Cronkite, but I believed he was real, too. So when I heard an announcer on the radio say, “The Giants will be returning to San Francisco,” I ran through the house, screaming, “Mommy, giants are coming! Giants are coming!” imagining they were the kid-eating kind of giants. Then Mom calmed me by explaining they’re San Francisco’s baseball team.
What did you once believe as a child? Were you disappointed or happy to find out you were only confused?
Photo: I loved Grimm’s Fairy Tales so much I “read” (pretended to read while I made up the story) to my little sister. She seems riveted.
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As a delusional and untalented child, I mangled many songs of the 1970s: Olivia Newton-John’s Have you Never Been Mellow; Minnie Riperton’s Loving You, and so many more, including (as I mention in this Los Angeles Daily News piece of mine) Debby Boone’s You Light up My Life.
Yes, it’s true. I sang out in public without shame. See this photo above? I’m dancing and singing, as I often did. And from the big hand gestures, I’m guessing the number I’m assaulting everyone in my vicinity with is Age of Aquarius.
And if I had more room in the Daily News piece, I would’ve included how I, as a Freshman (who should have known better by then), sang Linda Ronstadt’s Blue Bayou to my entire high school. Yep, it was just me singing a capella – standing in the middle of the auditorium during a school rally.
So, yes, I was truly delusional… I say in the past-tense, while typing about my life into cyberspace as if anyone gives a damn. Some things haven’t changed.
The dawning of the Age of Aquarius; yet my lack of talent did NOT dawn on me –
I did NOT sound like Linda –
Jug wine was to the 1970s what Scotch was to the 1950’s Rat Pack crowd; what Martinis were to 1960’s cocktail parties or what Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers were to the 1980s. Yep, jug wine is just as ’70s as mood rings, shag rugs and Pong. The combo just somehow went together – like Sonny & Cher, the Captain & Tennille, Shields and Yarnell… Okay, I think I’ve taken that whole thing too far, haven’t I? (*Don’t know what a mood ring is? See the 1970’s mood ring commercial, bottom of this post).
While going through slides for my book, “Craving Normal,” I discovered a theme in many photos from the ’70s involving my parents and their friends: the ever-present (or nearly always present) jug wine – there it was at house parties, diving days, beach outings, camping trips… and even at a kiddie party at the San Francisco zoo. No wonder whenever I see memories of the 1970s in my head, those bottles always seem to be clanking around there somewhere.
Hey, let’s play find the Jug O’ Wine (I guess the “wine” in each photo might give away the answers, huh?)
Maybe adults were trying to run away from home as this 1970’s Mateus ad reflects –
Mood rings –
Life experiences, one huge reason I devour memoirs and biographies. Again and again, I’m fascinated by what other people have gone through and how they use those experiences as they’ve grown. Did their bad experiences make them stronger? Or were their easy childhoods a detriment? An advantage?
Last night, I started reading Amy Poehler’s “Yes Please” – and, boy… can I relate. Middle school (or as it used to be called: Junior High) was brutal on my self-esteem. Mean girls and boys name calling and pointing out my flaws. Sad to read how much these little creeps hurt Amy. But look at her success!
In my book, “Craving Normal,” (available soon!) I share a story called “My Place in The Sun.” In it, I tell about the summer between 7th and 8th grade where I morphed from a chubby kid with a metal front tooth into a slimmer version of myself with a new white capped tooth. The boys who once made fun of me did a 180. Creeps!“When I returned to school for eighth grade, instead of my old husky-sized jeans and embroidered smock top, I wore Ditto pants that fit my butt just right and a purple satin baseball jacket. Now the boys who once teased me with “Michele Miles, I wish you were miles away,” and taunted me with “Michele, Michele, the Liberty Bell!” smiled and squeaked, “Hi, Michele,” which made me want to scream: “Hey, you idiots! I’m the same girl you teased only a few months ago!” But I ignored them and joined the cheerleading squad.”
Amy Poehler’s “Yes Please” on Amazon.
“Craving Normal,” my stories as a child growing up in the 1960s and beyond, will be available soon. Here’s my nearly complete book cover. Think I’ll keep “Enthusiastic quote goes here.”
“Craving Normal,” by Michele Miles Gardiner – back book cover text:
Living in a rock hut on a nude beach, staying in a religious commune,
facing an angry man with a gun, riding camels, hiding her freaky health
food lunches from lucky Twinkie eaters – Michele didn’t experience any
of this when her family lived in the suburbs of San Francisco. Then came
the counterculture revolution. Her entire life changed: Michele’s young
parents sold their home, bought a car and trailer over-seas and took her
and her little sister to explore the world.
We know a lot about the “flower children,” but what does an actual child
growing up in that era have to say? While many tales about that revolutionary time
are on record, few come from the perspective of the children who lived it.
This collection of stories are from one child’s perspective – tales of
becoming a young adult whose brain, and life, transformed from her early
experiences. Rebelling by cheer-leading, eating junk food, attending honor
roll parties, dreaming of being a foxy stewardess/actress? Lame, sure.
But how else does a child of young parents of the wild Sixties generation
rebel? By countering the counterculture.
Michele’s collection of stories – in which she rarely takes herself too
seriously – span from her earliest memories of the suburbs (her idea of
“normal”), through growing up trying to find a place where she fits in, once
again. Does she find it? Is Hollywood a sane place to search for normalcy?
“Craving Normal” trailer here: https://youtu.be/Z0M1BTXK20Q
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The reason life is like dating is if everything went smoothly, just as we plan, all the time – no awkward experiences, no “get me outa here!” moments – it would be much harder to appreciate the pleasant moments. Life can be like people we may date: Awkward, odd, horrifying… but then, along comes a good one. After all the bad dates, you appreciate him/her all the more.
Here’s one blind date I experienced:
Right when we met and got into his car, the guy started making goo-goo eyes at me, trying to hold my hand, not taking the hint from my don’t-touch-me body language – arms folded over my chest, body pressed into the passenger door, and nervous laughter. At a stop light, he stared at me for an uncomfortably long time and said, “You remind me SO much of my dead sister.”
Nooooooooooo!
Oh, and it only got worse. The entire night he stared at me with a creepy reverence, as if I were an angel whom he’d never let go. Hence my physically wrestling him all night until I finally fled.
Still talking to myself on this blog, but if you happen to read this share one of your “date from hell” stories. I’m not the only one, right? We’ve all endured crappy dates. I know. Tell me about it.
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You can take the child out of the wild, but not the wild out of the child… apparently. This may explain many of my stories. When your brain is formed a certain way – on freedom, travel, adventure – makes it hard to be happy sitting in a cubicle, or locked up in school, following bells, rules and clocks. It’s a huge reason I’m self-employed. And why I’m still wild today.
Photo: Nude beach, Mykonos, Greece. I’m second from left; Little sister, far left, with beach friends.
I write about living in a rock hut on this nude beach in my book, “Craving Normal.” The story’s called, “That’s Not An Eel!”
