Letters to Jenny (22 page)

Dear Jenny
,

Growl! Things have been aggravating me at the rate of about one a day, and just now another. No, it wasn’t having to write to you; this one was because last week—the same day I last wrote to you—I wrote to a fan in Texas who is supposed to be me for a day. I sent him my “Author” sheet and recommended
Bio of an Ogre
for more, as it is coming out in paperback momentarily. So today I get a letter from him saying he needs just a few more bits of information, and has a list of 17 questions, most of which can be answered by the references I already gave him. He’d rather waste my time than bother following my advice. Well, he is about to learn something about the way I respond to those who ignore what I tell them, and perhaps it will help him personify the Ogre.

What else has been aggravating me? Why do you want to know? Maybe you should tell me what’s been aggravating you. Come on, you can tell me! Oh—the wheelchair chafes what part of your body? Maybe you’re right; it’s not a fit subject to get to the bottom of.

Okay, what aggravates me is that last Sunday I had to take two hours to go out and sweat myself to death hacking out sandspurs from my running path. Sandspurs are the Mundane equivalent of curse burrs; they stick in my socks and ouch me with every step, so I have to stop and take them out, and then they stick in my thumb. Ouch! By the time I hacked them all out, swatting swarms of biting flies at the same time—the burrs and flies are in cahoots—I was so soaked in sweat that I had to change all my clothes. Next day my legs were tired and I had a slow run—and some more sandspurs reached in from just beyond where I’d hacked and
still
got me. Today it was worse, and I had to stop several times to dig the #$%&*!! things out, sticking my thumb several times. Then yesterday morning I was eating my breakfast, which consists of a bowl of cereal, rolled oats, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, nuts and milk—the rolled oats swell up later and keep me from getting hungry before lunch, see—and reading the newspaper (which I tend to pronounce nudes-paper, but there aren’t any nudes in it), when my hand came down and just caught the edge when I wasn’t looking. Flip! The thing landed upside down in my lap. WHAT’S SO FUNNY!? I had to change my shorts. Another morning they were to have Arnold muscleman Schwarzenegger on the morning TV program, and I wanted to see that because he’d probably say something about
Total Recall
, which movie I novelized and is just now in print in hardcover, so a mention might help sales. But I forgot. I never turn on the TV myself, you see; I just don’t tune it in. My wife came down after an hour and turned it on, but wouldn’t you know, they must have run it in the first hour of the show, and we missed it and now will never know. Growr! And the publisher forwarded reviews of
Man From Mundania
with comments such as “junk-food fantasy” and “loose ends” (by that they mean it’s part of a series) and “another Xanth potboiler.” A literary potboiler is material a writer just grinds out because he needs the money. I never write that way. You don’t see why I’m so touchy? Well, just wait until they review
Isle of View
and say that Jenny Elf is the stupidest character ever and the Author’s Note is too boring to read. Then let’s see who is touchy! So you see, it’s been exactly the beastly kind of week your mother specializes in.

Speaking of whom, I got two entire letters from her this week, which I’ll have to answer. Don’t let me forget. So I’ll have to keep this letter reasonably short, so I can get everything done, because there’s also a collaborator to answer, and that fan, and another woman who wants my comment on a chapter of her novel and won’t be pleased when I tell her what’s wrong with it. Sigh.

Meanwhile I completed the first draft of
Tatham Mound
and now am adding in ceremonies and legends. This morning I did the one about how tobacco came to be and am part way through the one about how the world was made. Do you want to know about that? The world is a flat island suspended from the sky by four ropes anchored at the four directions—North, East, South and West—and if they ever break, it will sink into the ocean and everyone will drown. Aren’t you glad you found that out in time? Yesterday I did the one about the rolling heads. No, I can’t retell that here; it’s 4000 words long! Let’s just say that in Indian mythology, when someone’s head is cut off, it may roll back and tell off the one who did the foul deed.

We got an ad for about an 18 volume series of field guides, starting with
Peterson’s Field Guide
to the Birds. We’re not buying, partly because they are leather-bound and partly because we already have the volumes we want and don’t need to pay $35 for duplicate volumes. My experience with Peterson’s goes way back. When I was in high school I knew how to identify only one bird, the cardinal, because it was red. My roommate, a birdwatcher, taught me the slate colored junco, and I still know that one today. My great aunt gave me the field guide, and the summer after I graduated I used it to identify every bird I saw in the Vermont Green Mountains. It was about fifty birds. Today I know all those fifty, and almost no others. Fortunately some of those are here in Florida too, like the wrens and woodpeckers, though the species differ slightly.

When I took my shower today I sang “It’s a long time, girl, may never see you, come let me hold your hand.” That song has a long history for me, including serious trouble with a publisher. So if I ever see you, I’ll tell you all about it, and sing it to you, and maybe hold your hand. Don’t wrinkle your nose; how do you know you won’t like it until you hear it? Oh, you mean the hand business? Oh.

I saw some fashion items on TV. I know I said I don’t turn it on; my wife does. Fashion designers know nothing about decent dressing. These ones all thought that women’s hair should be boyishly short. Yes, I do wonder about the sexual preferences of that ilk. Meanwhile, you can just ignore them and concentrate on growing your hair back long.

I read an item about the poor way history is taught. Amen! I’m interested in history, but I nearly flunked the high school course in American history. I took the text home for the summer before, read it, and loved it. Then I took the course. It did not address the dynamics of what the white man did to the natives, or the significance of things as I saw them. I still remember the first question on the first test: “Name the man who made the maps that influenced Columbus.” Notice it doesn’t ask about the concept of the round world that motivated Columbus to try to find a shorter passage to India by sailing around the other side of the globe when others thought he would fall off the edge of the world; it wants a name, as if that’s what counts. Names and dates—that’s what they think history is. Gah!

My wife brought home rental video tapes the past two nights. The first was
Rain Man
, which is a quality story involving a partially autistic man, well worth seeing. The second was
Her Alibi
, which is straight entertainment about a writer and a beautiful girl. See it when you can; you’ll love it. But the critics rate it mediocre and call it “witless.” Well, “critic” is a six letter word for a four letter concept. Critics seem to think entertainment is sinful.

Here’s another magnolia seed or two; I hope they aren’t crushed by the thought of traveling.

The computer said my letter was 122 lines long, which fits on two pages, then later said 124 lines, which won’t. I deleted my address.

SapTimber 22, 1989

Dear Jenny,

Did I ever tell you how I set up for your letters? I have you on the glossary, so that I just type “jenny” and controlF4 and it puts your address on. Well, I was checking something for my daughter Penny, and it pretended there was no such. So I checked the list of glossary entries, and Penny was there. Don’t tell
me
these programs can’t get whimsical! Now it agrees that Penny is there, along with Jenny.

We’ve been getting rain. It’s a tag-end of the outflow from Hurricane Hugo. Let me tell you about hurricanes. Right, here comes one of those patented Anthony explanations; let go of your nose. It’s this way: every hurricane forms in the warm tropical ocean and takes aim at Florida. It’s like a pinball game: there are all these barriers in the way, like Haiti and the Antilles and Cuba, and the trick is to get by them unscathed and into the Gulf of Mexico, then curve back and catch my house. One hundred points if any succeed in blowing off our roof. We are hidden where it’s just about impossible for a storm to find us, but every summer season they just have to try. So here was Hugo, and he set out well, but then drifted off-target and saw he couldn’t make it to the Gulf. Also, he had lost some power. So he said “If I can’t huff and puff and blow Piers' house down, I’ll go for Jenny’s hospital instead.” So he veered north, which had the advantage of restoring some power over the open water, so he got back up to top winds of 135 miles per hour. That’s respectable. But again he misjudged it, and wound up crashing into land halfway between us, at Charlotte, South Carolina. That was a secondary target; I know an editor at TOR BOOKS who lives there, Harriet MacDougal, former senior editor. Her husband is Robert Jordan, author of several Tarzan novels, but don’t judge him by that; he’s about to get into major fantasy, and will be one of the leading figures in the genre. I know. What do you mean,
how
do I know? Can’t you take it on faith? I read his first huge fantasy epic in manuscript; it hasn’t been published yet. Now shut up and let me continue: she came down to see me here several years ago, and we discussed my novel
Shade of the Tree
, and I revised it and TOR published it and has done well enough with it, and your mother will no doubt read it in due course if she hasn’t already. So that’s why Charlotte was on the list. Hugo scored directly on it, and just about leveled it. Poor Harriet! Next hurricane begins with I, and then there will be J. Just wait until next year, or whenever, when Hurricane Jenny comes. I don’t know whether you ever quite understood my pun about Spinning Jenny; it’s an early form of sewing machine. But it may also be that hurricane, when. So remember.

Yesterday we went to our old house, because storms had brought branches down on the roof and punched a couple of holes. We went up and put big spoonfuls of tar on them—it looked like chocolate pudding—and of course it got on our hands. No we didn’t touch it; it just magically jumps from the can to your skin, and then won’t come off. We used pieces of roofing shingles over the tar, and that should do it; we’ve done it before. Just as well, because we’ve had over an inch of rain today. While we were there, I checked my old study in the pasture, looking for my notes on the sixth martial arts novel, because TOR is interested in republishing the first five if I do one more. No, they aren’t for you to read; it just explains why Hurricane Hugo marked the TOR editor down as a target. I was struck by the way the property was overgrown, and how the little cedar trees we planted by hand are bigger now. There’s just so much nostalgia; after all, about eleven years of our lives are in that property. When you go home—I have it on good authority that eventually that will happen—you’ll probably discover it is smaller than it was when you left it, and some of the cats don’t remember you, and there are rooms it has sprouted since you left, and it will be terribly reassuring and saddening at the same time. That’s just the way it is, Jenny.

I remembered another one of those trick math-type riddles. Get your fingers out of your ears—I’ll give you the answer too. (How come you’re so ornery?) If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will three hens lay in five days? Now here’s how you tackle it: first you simplify it. If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a given period, then one hen would lay one egg in that time. Doesn’t that make sense? So it’s one hen, one egg, in that day and a half. That means two thirds of an egg in a day. Okay so far? Now it’s just a matter of multiplication. Three hens, each laying two thirds of an egg in a day, would lay six thirds, or two full eggs in a day. So we have a production of two eggs a day. In five days it would be ten eggs. That’s your answer. Now you can adapt it: if a girl and a half eats a chocolate pudding and a half in a day and a half, how many puddings will Jenny and Cathy and a therapist eat in five days?

Sigh. I don’t eat many puddings, because they have too much sugar, and I stay clear of extra sugar. This week I read an article in SCIENCE NEWS about a syndrome related to diabetes they have discovered, and it seems to be what I’ve got. You see, most diabetics are fat, but I’m not. Sure I watch what I eat, and I exercise, but I never did put on weight even when it was otherwise. Well, now they call it Syndrome X, which is obviously an abbreviation of Xanth: thin diabetics. It seems we have high blood sugar, but also high levels of insulin in the blood, because our body cells just don’t use insulin very well and it piles up. Now they think we are at risk for heart attacks, because that extra insulin causes trouble in the blood vessels. Then they clog, and blood pressure rises, leading to—Oops, I don’t like that! But don’t worry; not only am I thin, I have low blood pressure. I think my exercise keeps my blood vessels clear, so I shouldn’t have any problem. But it was a disturbing article, and I think I’ll continue to stay clear of sugar and to exercise vigorously, if it’s all the same to you.

Today when my wife came back from town she reported half a dozen baby water turtles trying to cross our drive. They hatch out, and are supposed to find their own way to water, but sometimes they do get lost, and of course evolution never prepared them for fences and asphalt roads. So we went out to help them, but found only two: one alive, one dead. Apparently the ones my wife helped across the road had gone on toward the lake. I took the one down to the lake, and it was plowing through the thick weeds toward the water when I left. It’s nice living in the wilderness, and we plan to keep it this way forever.

I received my first copy of Xanth #12,
Man From Mundania
. The next one is yours,
Isle of View
, in a year. Can you keep a secret? Okay, don’t tell anyone: Richard Pini of Elfquest is considering whether to make
View
into a graphic novel. You see, he has expertise exactly where it is needed: in the elf aspect. We hope to get together one of these months and work it out, and if it seems feasible, we’ll sign contracts and things and get the project rolling. What’s that? You want to be there when we work it out? Now look, Jenny, it isn’t that easy to—I mean, it’s really pretty dull stuff, deciding whether to do small black/white comics first, or jump immediately into a massive expensive color edition, and what artist to use, and what it will cost, and my agent Kirby McCauley, who by coincidence is also Richard Pini’s agent, would have to figure out what terms are appropriate, you know, who gets what when the thing goes on sale and the money starts coming in, so it’s all pretty technical, and—I mean, you want us all to pile into your hospital room and lay out charts and things across your bed? It would never work; your room’s too small. So—will you stop that? I just explained how impractical it is. Just because it’s Jenny Elf we’re talking about, you don’t have to—Sigh, okay, I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though. (You can be as bad as your mother, when you get set on something unreasonable, you know that?)