“A dog is a tube, with teeth at one end,” my father observed as we watched the family beagle (named Penelope after she unraveled a rug), taking care of business.

This came to mind as I read Mary Roach’s book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.” It’s an informative and entertaining (two things that are not combined often enough) jaunt through the human digestive process.

She proves that “the human equipment–and the delightful, unusual people who study it–are at least as interesting as the photogenic arrangements we push through it.” Well, there’s one way of describing a chef’s hard work and what happens to it.

Roach concludes: “The great irony is that in the beginning, the gut was all there was.” She goes on to explain how the “food processor had to have a brain attached to help it look for food, and limbs to reach that food. That increased its size, so it needed a circulatory system to distribute the fuel that powered the limbs. And so on.”

She nails the point by quoting one of the experts she interviewed: “‘People are surprised to learn: They are a big pipe with a little bit around it.’”

Well, that certainly snaps things into perspective, doesn’t it? If you want to have some fun with your insomnia, ponder that Bible bit  re: how we’re made in God’s image. The almighty is a giant … tube? And hey, the universe looks like a big dark void … (Seizes lightning bolt amid clap of thunder) Have I finally united religion and science?

Back to Gulp. In addition to prompting fond memories of canines past, the book raised not-so-fond remembrance of some, er, colorectal surgery. (Don’t flee. I won’t get earnest.) It provided friends and family no end–whoops–of opportunities for merriment.

Before the surgery my husband recounted an immortal episode of Seinfeld, in which Kramer mistakenly receives a doctor’s vanity plates. He explains that you should plant yourself by a proctologist at a party because “you will hear the funniest stories you’ve ever heard.”

Afterwards (See? I’m keeping it easy for you.) there were the expected calls and visits of hushed concern (“How is Charlotte doing? Can we do anything?”), then the gloves were off and it was a free-for-all of wretched puns (“Hey, do you need any ASSistance?”) and not-so-innocent questions (“Can I have your leftover Percocet?”).

My in-laws, both in their 80s, brought over some molASSES cookies and gave me a card with a donkey on it that wished me a “Big Ass Valentine’s Day.” They roared. My father mused on how proctologists in the UK are called “rear admirals.” When I got back to work colleagues quipped, “Well, at least that’s behind you!” then yapped like coyotes and congratulated themselves on their cleverness.

I recovered and life was inestimably improved. Lessons learned? 1: Never take your guts for granted;. 2: Expect puns rather than sympathy, and ASSess them for their creativity. and 3: Read Gulp and give your innards the respect they deserve. Like that beagle of yore, we are, after all, “a tube, with teeth at one end.”

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Did you know a jar of Marmite is useful for crushing zombie skulls? No? Then let me introduce you to a clever little fitness (stay with me here) app called,  Zombies, Run!

It is a superb example of good writing, clever programming, and how both professions can work together to create something wonderful.

The hook? The app presents a story that stars you. Apocalypse has hit, zombies are everywhere, and you are holed up with a couple other humans trying to save the world. You earn your keep by running missions: you leave the compound and run around gathering supplies and weaponry, all while dodging the un-dead.

A moment of clarity here. I hate working out. Not for me the refreshing run after a day at work–I’d rather do a cannon-ball into a vat of tortellini. But this app is so engaging and smart that the story keeps me distracted from my dislike of exercise.

I looked up an interview with the creators. Besides being funny and articulate, they embodied two key elements of great creative production: 1) good writing and story-telling; and 2) close collaboration between the artists who work in words and the artists who work in code. 

First, the value of good writing and its impact:

” … a game like Zombies, Run! can be extremely easily utterly ruined by bad writing. And if you think you have a “good story” but cannot tell me the hook for it, you do not have a good story.”

Zombies, Run! has wonderful hooks–every mission is different, beginning with a “last time …” recap and ending with a “next time …” teaser. The characters are diverse, engaging, and occasionally suspect. An additional hook for me: the actors use words such as “escutcheoned” and “dulcet,” and, being a British production, ample deployment of the afore-mentioned Marmite.

The second part of a powerful creative production: a strong relationship between writers and programmers. You could call them both “creatives,” in ad agency parlance. The app’s writer observes:

“Writers, make friends with technologists. Technologists, make friends with writers. We two breeds are not so different. We can make wonderful things together.”

And the “technologist” follows:

“And by ‘make friends’ we don’t mean ‘go to a 1 hour speed dating event,’ we mean that you should really try to immerse yourself in what constitutes good storytelling in a range of media and to seek out interesting practitioners, and likewise, to understand the capabilities and limits of popular tech like smartphones, and to understand how the development process works.”

Many an earnest creative project has foundered on the shoals of technical development or dreary copywriting.  It takes effort to understand each side, to get humble and learn how the opposite profession must work to realize what you both are envisioning.

This isn’t often discussed in marketing blogs . Encountering it made me explore the app’s interface, which revealed thoughtful engineering (I signed up for the virtual race with a fingerprint) and more fun writing (in the supplies list, under baseball bats: “Try to resist yelling ‘home run’ every time you take a head off with it.”)

What I love most about this little app, however, is its smart recognition that there are those of us who want some fun encouragement, without onerous score-keeping or boring bragging. The creators know they’ve found a niche:

“When Zombies, Run! was launched, I figured we had maybe six months before someone like Nike or Adidas ripped off the concept wholesale. Almost three years later, and still no-one else has even come close. It’s like other companies have absolutely no interest in making fitness more fun for normal people; or if they do, they think everyone in the world is either a hardcore running fanatic who wants to crush their friends into the ground, or an uber-nerd who’s only motivated by points and progress bars. It’s baffling.”

Baffling indeed. Why wouldn’t Nike and its ilk want a piece of this market? Maybe they don’t want to make the effort–it’s easier to just trot out the old “points and progress bars” and assume we all want to be ripped athletes. Maybe they don’t know any great writers. Maybe they haven’t required the writers to party with the technologists. There’s no story.

Oh well. Every time I fire up Zombies, Run! I am the valuable, the speedy, the mysterious Runner 5. Now that’s a great hook.

 

 

 

So it’s taken me a few days (almost a week, my good woman) to figure out how to wrap up this Vermont caper. Excited plans for a woodworking project? Fulsome review of power tools available at Lowe’s? Mooey love letter to the state of Vermont and promise to join the “Bern Unit” (Bernie Sanders’s campaign)?

Enough pondering and procrastinating. I’m just going to let this rip, like an eight-foot board through a table saw.

When my husband saw me on the last day of the course, he told me that he’d seen “a new Charlotte, or maybe the real Charlotte.” My Carhartts were covered in sawdust, and I was thrilled to show him the tiny house and its babbly brook. He noted that I “was joyous and never apologized once.” (The customary call of the Furtive Short-legged Morford is, “Sorry, I’m sorry, I am so sorry.”) He said I was confident, independent, and full of hope and ideas.

The class ended with hugs and a nifty certificate confirming my completion of the course. As the hours brought us closer to departure, I wondered how I would keep that fierce, friendly soul that my husband was so delighted to find when he arrived.

The last time I’d taken myself away for a week was almost 30 years ago, a trip to Sanibel Island that began after a judge in the District of Columbia ended my first marriage. Going away after the divorce was an escape–but also a conscious choice to be alone with myself, since alone-time was what I seemed to have been determined to get.

I flew to Florida, rented a car, and deposited myself in a condo on the beach. Every day I read by the water, bounced in the waves, looked for nice shells, and ate alone on the condo balcony. I strung it with twinkle lights, drank wine, and ate shrimp.

Now I was decades older, somewhat softer (or a lot softer), but happier and more content. I was going home to a house I loved with a husband I adored and a crazy show-up dog and a crazier show-up cat. I could never have imagined, back on that twinkle-lit balcony, that I’d be sitting in Vermont with my feet in a brook and a book about joinery in my lap.

I’m fond of a poem called, “If My Glasses Were Better I Could See Where I’m Going” by Charles Wright. It reminds me that  we actually do know where we’re going–sooner or later–and therefore to make the most of these few days that remain. To be the person I was on these trips. To stay humble by learning new things, and at the same time welcome my truest self. I hope you will want to do the same.

“As for me,

I’ll put on the pilgrim slippers some of these days

There, where all things are forgot.

Till then, I’ll see that the grass gets mowed.

Till then, I’ll check out the cloud’s drift, and the season’s drift,

And how the days move, one at a time,

always at night, and always in my direction.”

Now I want you to put down that wine glass and walk to whatever drawer–furniture, people!–is nearby. Pull out a drawer and look at the corners. Feel how it glides (or lurches) out as you pull on it. Push it back and see how it closes … And give silent thanks to whatever machine (likely) or woodworker (less likely) put a bunch of boards together so you could have a nifty wooden box that slides out–smoothly, we hope–to offer itself to You and Your Stuff.

“Joinery” is the business–my definition here, highly unexpert–of making one bit attach to another. It is far more complex and artful than I ever realized. You can whack two boards together so they’re perpendicular and say, “Whatevs, I’m bored,” and that’s a “butt joint.”

Or you can grab your chisel–your fine furniture one, thank you–and spend the next two days chinking out “dovetails” and “pins” to create a gorgeous corner that no one will notice except you and the bemused archaeologist who someday digs up your crib and wonders why you spent so much time joining two bits of wood.

I’d file joinery under the category of “it ain’t necessary but it proves we’re civilized,” like braids (just stuff that hair in a rubber band), food garnish (why bother with squiggly sauce decorations, just throw the hash), and music (let’s grunt around the campfire and be done with it).

The varieties of joinery are infinite: dovetails, finger, rabbets, dadoes, scarfs (not scarves), laps, bridles, and more. Then you can pile ‘em together and make joints that sound like those excruciating ice-skating jumps that make me turn from the TV and hide my head in the fridge so I don’t see some nubile teenager taking a big leap and crashing into the camera pit: the “full blind rabbeted dovetail” or the “through tenon with a plunge router.” (Cue the sports announcer, in hushed tones: “Now comes the moment in this skater’s program that will either clinch the gold or send her back to Toledo,” etc.)

In class we made finger joints (crazy automated fun), dovetail joints (tedious but beautiful), and straight-on, get ‘er done butt joints (best). Then we sanded the drawers for what seemed like hours, the drone of the orbital sanders and the roar of the exhaust system drowning out any hope of conversation.

That done, it then took an hour to hang the cabinet doors using innocent-looking hinges from the hardware store. We chiseled out the space for the hinges, set them in place, put in the screws with a good deal of cursing, then found the doors–so carefully measured and cut–didn’t close cleanly. In fact, they crashed over each other. It was ugly.

So out came the screws, off came the doors, and the table saws were fired up to skim another fraction of an inch off so the doors would meet together in harmony. It kinda worked–they closed on pressure but drifted peacefully apart once you let go. The teacher gave up and slapped some blue masking tape on them, saving the fix for tomorrow.

So admire your doors, how they swing open and close, and your drawers (furniture, people!), how they pull out when you ask them to, and retract into their parking place when you’re done. There’s far more work–and art–in all that than you realize.

The second day was better. I’d had a night with my trusty companion, the lizard brain that whispers, “Your suckiness is beyond all suckitude ever” and I realized–”You again?”– I didn’t want this coming on this vacation with me. So I plowed into Day 2 determined to muscle my way to the power tools, to charm these strangers, and generally throw myself into the experience.

I ripped eight-foot boards of plywood (cut them on a table saw, running the saw along the wood’s grain), whacked boards to the needed length using the chop saw (cut them across the wood’s grain), and rocked the router (groovy little hand-tool that carves little gullies into the back of the cabinet so the backboard can fit in all nice and snuggy). I measured and measured and wondered if all those school fractions from a hundred years ago would come flooding into my brain and help me out. (They didn’t).

At lunch time I offered that I was going to walk across the road to see the swimming hole mentioned at orientation. Two classmates came with me, both Vermonters well-versed in the ways of this particular country. A “private property” sign greeted us, so Classmate Greg went to find the owner and see if it was OK for us to look around. He waved us over to meet a couple sitting in lawn chairs under the trees and wearing pink shirts.

When I got there I saw that the couple was naked. The woman was well-fed, her ample bosom calmly cascading over her gut, while her hirsute mate got up, his man-bits bumping between his legs, to leash the dog. We followed their directions to the swimming hole, where half a dozen nude people lounged on the rocks in the flowing river.

Once upon a time, when my family lived in Canada in the swinging ‘70s, my mother and I stumbled on a nudist beach. I remember the sight of pale pink bodies draped everywhere, utterly imperfect and completely OK with that. When you go to a “clothing optional” spot, you are not going to see Sophia Vergara and Orlando Bloom. You are going to see Santa Claus and the missus without their suits.

And I was OK with it. The classmates chatted with the nude couple, about the weather, the dog, the water temperature, and I marveled at the casualness of it all. We walked back to class, leaving these jolly folks enjoying nature au natural.

That afternoon we made “biscuit joints”–not a southern waffle house but a way of aligning two boxes using little “biscuits” shoved in tidy slots made by the biscuit cutter, a hand-held tool the size of a coffee bean grinder. It belched smoke and black dust as it dug small ditches into which we tapped the little biscuits. Then we learned about the different kinds of wood glue and the time limits they give you to get your job done before they set and blam, whatever you wrought is fixed in time whether you like it or not.

The instructor told us he’d been a student of a famous woodworker/artist who took valium before she applied wood glue, the pressure to get it right was so great. So we moved quickly, painting the glue into the divets, shoving in the biscuits, then gluing everything together within five minutes. Then out came giant clamps for the corners and the mid-section, to make sure that glue knew what it was supposed to accomplish.

At 5:15pm I was aching to go back to the tiny house, soak my tired feet in the brook, and make myself a gin and tonic. (The plan to be virtuous and treat my body like the temple it is by abstaining from alcohol, chocolate, and cheese evaporated after that dusty drive over the mountain.) And then the instructor announced that it was time to learn how to sharpen tools.

I vaguely remember something about barbers “stropping” their blades against leather bands–this is what this part of the course was about. The careful, almost holy process of sharpening a chisel, using your full body to scrape the tool along the smooth surface of water stones. My bleary brain absorbed the necessity of having “beater chisels” and “fine furniture chisels,” one for the pedestrian stuff and the other for art. Then all I could think was that my feet hurt, my back hurt, my arms hurt, and I just wanted to sit in the cool water.

That night’s dinner: roasted yellow beets and purple carrots with freekeh, topped with a poached egg. And a book.

That night the car ahead of me stopped to look at the school sign and take a picture. I saw Virginia license plates and wondered if this person could be someone to talk to. The school was alive with bearded and/or tattooed people, all friendly and casually dressed.

I waited for the Virginia car to park so I could greet its driver, a gorgeous woman who threw her arms around me and announced her name as “T” (for “Taisha”). We took a walk around the property, checking out the camping platforms, the stone oven, and the solar shower which turned out to have a zipper-themed set of doors.

Orientation began and we toured the facility, seeing the library, the dining hall, and the various classrooms. After a quick supper I reported to the woodshop, where the instructor, a wiry young man with boundless enthusiasm, welcomed the class. The room was full of machines, pipes, tools, tables and the Fun Meter:

There were six of us: four men, two women. I quickly realized I was the most ignorant of the group and Humility settled in as my lab partner. The other woman was half my age and built tiny houses for a living, along with teaching the school’s course on the subject. The men were, respectively, two native Vermonters who worked in high-tech, one of whom had been laid off and was making a living doing home repair, and the other who was still employed but looking forward to retirement.

The other two men were an earnest young man from Brooklyn who carried an enormous bag of Japanese carving tools, and a guy with a magnificent red beard below a bald head. He had most recently worked as a “large equipment operator” in the Antarctic and was a school intern, cleaning and repairing machines in exchange for room and board.

We were handed our homework: read the shop safety manual and “think about drawer pulls.” The manual was a pile of pages about woodworking machines, describing all the horrible things that could happen to you when you operated them. Severed digits, wood kicking back into your face, shrapnel of saw’s teeth spiking your eye–I wanted to run. I never got to thinking about drawer pulls.

On Monday, the first full day of class, the instructor passed out the diagram of the cabinet we’d build, which looked simple enough: shelves, doors, nice box. Then he said, “Make your cut list.”

I watched as my classmates scribbled furiously, checking their tape measures and drawing diagrams. “Cut list?” What was that?

The tiny house builder saw me frozen and had pity. She explained the drawing and its measurements, and suggested what boards might be cut to what length. I pretended to get it,  and inwardly despaired of my decision to come here.

There was talk of “kerfs” and “splines,” “butt joints” and “warps.” Wood, we were reminded, was a live thing that would either cup, bow, crook, or twist, or maybe all of the above. Machines were turned on and off, plywood sheets were drawn from great stacks, tape measures snapped with authority, and I felt utterly ridiculous.

After nine hours of this the tiny house was sanctuary. I took off my closed-toe shoes and sat by the brook, watching the water burble over my aching feet. At least this part was good.

That night I did the Hotel Rumble–room too hot, room too cold, pull darkening curtains, enter womb of blackness, konk out, oversleep. Breakfast was a “western omelette”: an intriguing rubber mitten with specks of minced pepper and, oddly, potatoes. I slammed some coffee and was off.

I crossed the Delaware with considerably less elan than George Washington and headed into New York. It was gorgeous: 360 degree views of mountains, with the sun rising in the east (and in my eyes).

Then I entered Connecticut and the zen state vanished in a crush of speeding trucks and decrepit road surfaces. It was the Thunderdome–everyone out for him or herself. Forty-five miles per hour through a work zone? Lean in, Grandma! I hurtled around curves and charged up and down hills, cars chewing on my bumper as trucks roared past. Who needs thrilling roller coasters when you can drive through Connecticut?

I bounced into Massachusetts and reached Northampton, a charming town that was not so charmingly short on hotel rooms. A music festival listed as a “must attend” by Rolling Stone magazine meant every possible room was booked. I finally scored a vacancy at a drive-up motel with smoking stanchions outside every room and a parking lot full of pickup trucks and their jolly riders entering rooms with cases of beer. At cocktail hour I went to the ice machine and stood meekly behind a huge guy emptying ice into an equally huge cooler. My gin and tonic that night was an English one: no ice.

My dear father was worried about my driving to Vermont by myself. He pondered how he could accompany me, even though he’s 85 and has given up driving. He gathered his faded maps and we compared them to the Google-suggested route. He was concerned that “a beautiful young woman alone in the mountains” would not be safe. That was touching as I’m not young, not sure about the beautiful part, and completely ignorant of what mountain roads would be like.

Maps are a big deal in my family. They are how you know your place in the world, and how you find curious stopping points that have anecdotal potential. (Every time we drive through West Virginia I threaten my husband with a trip to the national fish hatchery.)  My British uncle, when he wasn’t reading train tables to calculate travel times, was opening topographic maps to confirm hill heights for country walks.

Ordnance Survey maps are more treasured than the Bible. There is a stack of them in the library where I work, neatly organized by UK county, and I sometimes go down there and look at them, knowing that few people seek them out. I am grateful to the unsung librarian who keeps them in order for those–like me–that might.

Confident in the 21st century wisdom of Google, I set out for Vermont. All was well at first: I found one of the best state welcome centers ever–beautiful views, artwork, bathrooms and free coffee.

As soon as I got off the highway, however, my father’s predictions came true. I was a) lost; b) on an unpaved road; and c) feeling like an idiot.

I plowed ahead, unpleasantly aware that I didn’t know how to fix this. Warren Mountain Road? This must be it. Up I went, as the pavement gave way to gravel and the “GPS Not Advised” and “Snow Tires Required October-May” signs appeared. Up I went, in clouds of dust, bouncing over rocks and pot-holes and wishing I’d listened to Dad. It was like a macho LandRover ad except with a Toyota Camry.

Eventually I came down the mountain, road names non-apparent despite Google’s confident listing, and plopped unceremoniously into the town of Warren, Vermont. I emerged non-triumphant, car covered in dust, 30 minutes of panic ebbing into embarrassed relief, and there, there in front of me was a Relais & Chateaux hotel. I couldn’t believe I’d endured the mountain route and taxed my four-cylinder sedan beyond what it was ever built for only to find a luxe hotel that already knew how to get here.

I turned the car around and headed to the address I had for the rental. And it was worth the pain of getting here.

The tiny house was, unlike so much on teh interwebz, exactly what was promised. Right on a babbling creek, completely private, and utterly functional. Forget a room of one’s own. Everyone needs a tiny house of one’s own.