First of all, thank you so much for all the kind words on the first installment of my piece on homelessness in Costa Mesa. I’ve received many letters of praise and, better yet, requests on how we can all help. I have some ideas on that, so stay tuned. In the meantime, of course, the most obvious thing is to send a few bucks or whatever you can spare to the area nonprofits who help out like Share Our Selves, Catholic Charities, Serving People In Need, Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, etc. Their biggest problem right now is money as donations and grants go down and the demand keeps rising.
As for why it’s a two-parter, well, you see, that’s my fault. I’m a riff writer. I can’t help it. Like the crappy guitarist who works up to the crowd-pleasing solo there are a few off-notes and a lot of riffing before I hit the groove. One of my favorite writers is Fred Exley and, although I don’t share his unfortunate predilection for libidinous profligacy (if you’re familiar with Ex you’ll get the joke there), I am sometimes undisciplined and worship more efficient writers like Nabokov (English wasn’t even his first language, how fair is that?).
I got started writing the piece Friday evening, ducked out to see a friend for a spell (and thank God for that because she and her friend helped me focus my thoughts on the piece with really thoughtful questions about my project) and then I returned to the office to finish my stories. I didn’t get done until 4:30 a.m. Hoo boy. Like I was digging my way to China. Once I started I couldn’t stop. Our copy editors the next day realized they would have to halve the piece to make it fit in Sunday’s paper so the decision was made to continue it for a week. Hope you don’t mind.
