Alison's Journal

I'm so impressed with Austin! We went to the Care for the Coast donation drive at the grocery store Friday, & they already had huge trucks and containers FULL of donated water, food, & diapers, with people driving up to bring more all the time, & that was only one of multiple donation sites. Meanwhile, several thousand hurricane evacuees have come here (including a new boy from Louisiana in my son's first grade class today), and an apartment complex opened some units to house evacuated families rent-free for a while. They were soliciting donations of basic living supplies, furniture, cookware, etc., for that complex and possibly some others. We took over some donations on Saturday, & planned to take another van load on Sunday, but they reported they were FULL for the time being, with nowhere to store any more donations! We figured we'd donate another load to the city's official donation drop-off location this week, but today the newspaper reports that the whole 400,000 sq. ft. warehouse is also full! So they're only taking cash for now (Austin residents--check the Austin Freecycle forum for updates on where to make non-cash donations). My local SCBWI group is also collecting book donations for evacuees this Saturday, my son's school is collecting necessities, there's a benefit concert planned with Willie Nelson headlining, and there's a city job fair for evacuees here this week. I'm sure it's not just Austin...I've heard such stories all over the net, and seen people on all my online groups just looking for ways to help. With all the negativity and blame being passed around, it's heartening to see this kind of response! (And props to celebrities like Macy Gray & Sean Penn for actually volunteering in person, instead of just criticizing relief efforts from a comfortable distance.)

For most of the past week I was too horrified by the hurricane to even think about writing, or to read anything but news and message board posts. For Labor Day, I decided to take an escapist break and finally read David Lubar's novel Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. I really, really enjoyed it! I'm glad I took a chance on buying it instead of waiting to check it out at the library. When Cynthia Leitich Smith blogged about this book, she mentioned she'd never been a high school freshman. Same here--my high school started with 10th grade, and I don't recall a class caste system as such, so I didn't really relate to the freshman experience aspect. Yet on another level, just being human and having lived through high school, I related to so much of it! And special kudos to David Lubar for mentioning Dorothy Parker's excellent, snarky story "The Waltz," one of my favorite short stories ever. I once did a reading of it at a speech tournament. David Lubar also has some hilarious humor on his web site, including a Young Adult Novel Kit I just saw yesterday that made me laugh so loudly that my 7-year-old asked why I was laughing and I couldn't explain.... I also love his guide to literary fiction (a must if you've ever tried to write it, as I have!) and his aptitude test for potential book reviewers for "Carcass Reviews." (He's also got a daughter named Alison, so that's got to count for something!)

Anyway, the book was a welcome diversion, as well as thought-provoking and even somewhat educational. But as I got to the end, it brought me right back to reality with a passing reference to New Orleans on the penultimate page (penultimate being one of the narrator's favorite words). Who could have imagined that the mention of a concert in New Orleans would sound jarring enough to send a shudder down my spine, mere weeks after the book's release? So strange. I hope it doesn't sound jarring this time next year. I only went to New Orleans once, for the World's Fair in 1984. My souvenir of New Orleans was a pair of ceramic comedy & tragedy masks I bought in the French Quarter. It seems almost eerie now, thinking of that tragedy mask as a symbol of New Orleans. But comedy and tragedy are interwoven, and in the city where, as Rick Bragg wrote so eloquently this week, death has long been faced with music and humor as the saints go marching in, I hope the smiling comedy mask comes out triumphant, as the people of the region rebound and have the last laugh.