The Kalamazoo Gazette is doing a series on The Writing Life in the Sunday Arts section, a local imitation of the New York Times series about the writing life and they asked me to write one episode, which will run one of these days. Here is a version of it.

A Day in the Writing Life

My writing life starts around eight a.m., when I pry the cat off my shin, where he sleeps, and hustle the dog outside before he pees on the bedroom floor. I write until noon, at which time my darling Christopher and I have lunch, including, on a good day, bread from MacKenzie's. Then I do the dishes and pull noxious garlic mustard out of the woods or plant strawberries or study this new orange cat, Paw Paw. He's a jumpy creature, probably because he was a stray, and I think he might be reincarnated from my old circus pal Red, who taught me how to sell snow cones from a tray on my shoulder. Red didn't have many teeth, and each night he got drunk and sad. When we first adopted him, Paw Paw used to hump my leg, which also sort of reminded me of Red. My old dog Rebar gets jealous of the cat's youthful vigor. Rebar recently had a stroke which makes him tilt sideways, which is especially hard on a dog with only three legs to begin with. Early afternoon, Christopher goes off to Building 41, which used to be Upjohn but is now Pharmacia. I 'm not currently employed, because Scribner's has given me an advance on my unfinished novel.

But I don't like to write in the afternoon - I like to run around, to the downtown library, Miller Road post office, the farm store. Last week I visited the foot doctor for an infected ingrown toenail. Dr. Spears hacked away, then bandaged my toe. "Stay ahead of the pain," she concluded as part of telling me to take Tylenol before the local anesthesia wore off, and her advice seemed wise. I stayed ahead of the pain a couple days later by wearing my steel toed work boots to my mom's, where I caught up the two donkeys and tied them to trees in anticipation of having their hooves trimmed. The female Jenny has mellowed in her old age, and, despite her ingrown hooves, she allows Scott the farrier to hack away at one after another deformed feet. The boy, however, brayed and extended his manly part and dangled it obscenely. He yanked against his rope until Scott tied his nose right against the tree bark. He kicked a lot, rolled his eyes back, and finally he threw himself onto the ground, nose still against the bark, and wouldn't get up. After a while Scott sat on him and said, "Listen, fella, this doesn't have to hurt."

Scott learned the trade from his father Drew, who, my mother says, used to quote Kipling and tell stories about Texas. Before Scott left, I told him the story of my old 4-H horse Sparky who died a few years back. Sparky was the kind of horse that used to bust down the fence whenever he got bored, and he threw me off his back sometimes just to be funny. By the time we found a guy with a backhoe to dig Sparky's grave, he'd been dead thirty hours and he was getting stiff. Normally you buried a horse curled in the bottom of a grave, or maybe upside down, but when the backhoe driver pushed him, Sparky slid in feet first and then stood there fifteen hands high, magnificent on his rigid legs, his neck held high and proud. The last things I shoveled dirt over were the tips of his ears.

I assured Mom and Scott that I'd made an appointment with the veterinarian to get the boy donkey fixed. It's funny that women like me and Mom refer to castration as "fixing,"as though natural males are malfunctioning and need repair.

After freeing the donkeys, Mom and I discussed my grandpa's grave stone which we haven't ordered yet. Though my grandfather was the patriarch of a big family, though he was admired by scores of people with whom he was in regular contact, he expressed unbearable loneliness in the months before he died. We are a cheerful family, however, and we remind ourselves that the man was healthy until he was 91, that he traveled extensively, enjoyed his bacon each morning and sherry wine in the evenings, and drove his car until two weeks before he died. Grandpa built bridges and transmission towers, and quoted often the mathematical truth: e^(pi* i) = -1. This equation was his way of affirming that the world made sense and was beautiful, which is why we'll probably engrave it on his headstone.

I like to eat dinner at home by myself, and afterwards I exercise or write for a few hours, or read, or critique a story for a friend, or, less often, clean house. As my family will attest, I don't answer the phone, but you can leave a message. Recently I agreed to write a blurb for the back cover of a little book of poetry, and I grumbled until I figured out what to say. Afterwards I sent an email to the poet: "Jeff, I'm just tweaking your blurb." That cracked me up, once I thought about it. Tweaking his blurb, indeed!

A pal of mine, Rachael, has been constructing my web page, and every few days she adds something wonderful; also, her name is the same as the rifle-toting heroine in my novel, the first hundred pages of which my editor tells me are "a little slow," though she says she likes the rest. At times I am gripped by terrifying thoughts: that Scribner's will dump my novel, that the boy donkey will kick me and knock my teeth out of my head, that I will get the equation wrong on my grandfather's stone, or that my husband will be harmed in an industrial accident involving a mobile-home-sized vat of Kaopectate. Or that I will never write anything remarkable.

At eleven-thirty, Christopher gets home and we share a bottle of wine, usually red.

And that's an ingrown toenail sketch of my writing life: animals and ancestors, love and friends, bread and wine. As you can imagine, with all this, there's plenty to write about, and it's easy to stay ahead of the pain.

News and Letters January-May 2001 Local news: Tom Campbell is finishing his new deck, which is bigger than either of his neighbors' porches, and perhaps bigger than his house. In the last few weeks, I have earned the rank of blue belt in weapons training and purple belt in karate. Christopher had 30 species in his April bird count. Sister Sheila and Matthew are awaiting the arrival of the twins (Heather and Heidi) from South Carolina as soon as they finish their school year. The girls may be living here in Kalamazoo for a year. Bro Mike is living singly again, in his trailer; send him email at michrad@aol.com. Bro George cut himself badly enough on a mower blade to require nine stiches. Kayla Campbell sold over 600 boxes of girl scout cookies and so will be going to Camp Merrie Woode this summer. Jamie Blake has folded up the awning on her home chef business, and has found the money and hours far better at Pharmacia (formerly Upjohn) where she's working as a technical writer. Jack the donkey is castrated. For your information, they do use general anesthesia, though the donkey isn't entirely knocked out. To my surprise, the veterinarian does not sew up the gaping wound, and in fact leaves the fellow with a bloody gash and leaves the donkey owner with instructions to make the animal trot for ten minutes a day. Jack is so stubborn and strong that the only solution I've come up with is to tie him to the bumper of my truck and drive. The neighbors find this highly entertaining.

Laleli L. Lopez sent postcards: (from Paris) "I saw a truly beautiful ballet in one of my favorite city. Next month I hope to do my 1st half-marathon. To train I ran along the Siene." and (from Cabo San Lucas) "This diving trip has been updated with Baja cycling and running the beaches. Lem even joined us from Tokyo on his way to Prague and Amsterdam. We're with ex-pat New Yorkers so we drink and talk about Sex in the City vs. sex on the beach". Patti Kellermann writes from Cuba: "Here I am again in Cuba. Very hot even if it is the winter. Lots to eat on this trip and very beautiful by the ocean." Rachael Perry is on the move in Germany: "I'm off to Schweinfurt (pig town; pleasant name, isn't it? and they don't even farm pigs, they make ball bearings)" and later, "We're loading granny and her rocker in the back of our Opel and heading down to the birthplace of Western Civilization, religious persecution and ungodly oppression--ROME! Then a little jaunt over to Venice, wethinks..."

From Charles "Nipper" Guest: " I think the reason I was able to make the hills (in Tibet) without walking is that we live at 4100 ft. here at the west side of Calgary so the altitude was not quite such a change for me. The others all came from near sea level. Clean living and a pure mind probably played a role too. Also I took it easy from the start as I had been to Tibet several years ago and had a notion what to expect. Do you have a last name and an address for Bill who was on our marvelous trip in Eastern Europe?. The best summer of my life I call it. I believe Bill came from the Portland area. Margie and I keep in touch as well as with Ginny. I haven't heard from Abby for about for years. She has a child, lives in Cologne and teaches there perhaps at a campus of the University of Maryland or some such. I also am correspond with JilI Johnson and used to see her occasionally on visits to Toronto but she now lives in Georgetown, Ontario and is married with at least one child. I presume you and Mary Szpur are still in contact. If so pass along my warm regards and email address. Managed to get a bit of cycling in Russia about two years ago. Will they ever get their act together? I spent three weeks cycling in Sri Lanka with the Cycle Touring Club from England last month. There were two of us from Calgary and 25 Brits. It was a lot of fun. For all their formality the Brits in general have a great sense of humor and express themselves so well. No plans for my next ride but I have three weeks sailing in the Gulf Islands ahead.

From my brother Thomas: I just got back from Mexico. It was a last minute thing but oh what a good time I had. I spent my first morning doing a refresher coarse on diving and the proceeded to do eleven more dives over six days. It was spectacular: sharks , barracuda , sea turtles, sting rays, manta rays, eagle rays, and the most beautiful coral in the world. My first dive they took me down 80 feet holding my wrist. On another dive our dive master was pulling on this tail sticking out of a cave, then all of sudden the shark exited the cave and took off. I almost had a panic attack but I was too scared, though it turns out that nurse sharks don't bother you. You could see hundreds of feet, including the 80 feet to the surface where you could see the waves, and down off the wall where dropped 2000 feet and was a deep blue. When you are weighted right, you are perfectly balanced--with a breath in you rise slightly, and when you exhale you drop. It is almost a Zen type of breathing thing. The place was an all inclusive resort that came with all the food and booze you could drink. A huge pool was the central focus of the place with a swim-up bar. The rooms were gorgeous, with a hammock on each porch and grass and bamboo roofs and stone tile floors. The meals were wonderful with every kind of seafood you could imagine. The only thing that was lacking was Budweiser . There must be a problem in that area of Mexico with the distributor. I can't understand how I lost 6 pounds there, except the fact that the scuba diving wears you out. I would wake at 6:30 eat breakfast, and the dive boat would pick me up at the end of the dock at 8:30. I would do my two tank dives, which happened to be all within a mile of the resort, and they would have me back by lunch, and then I would consume mass quantities. In the evening, the place was dead by 11:00. from all the daytime excitement.

From Margie Coles: I've been cycling some, but not too much in the past year. In summer '98 and '99, I did the California AIDS Ride (7 days, 550+ miles, SF to LA in June) and trained LOTS to be able to survive each of those years. Lots of wet, cold training rides...brrr...! But for the millennium 2000 and summer 2000 I was in South America, traveling with a friend of mine who lives in Santa Cruz and her daughter. Was in Brazil all of Dec_Jan visit, but hit Brazil(again) and then Bolivia and Peru during the summer. South America is huge and fascinating. I like Brazil, but Bolivia was exotic as all get_out and Peru's Andes were incredible, especially Machu Pichu and surrounding environs of Cuzco. Had quite a few unexpected adventures visiting Aymaran villages, and even attended a women's meeting in a small village that had no running water, no electricity, no unmarried woman over the age of 16, and elaborate traditional costuming (including those bolo hats for the young women). Very sheltered place...our "sponsors" for the event had to apologize for our weird appearances (to them)...in Spanish. No one was speaking English that day, so it was all rather hit_and_miss for what I picked up, but fortunately everyone was speaking Spanish as a second language...which means it was slow enough for me to understand some of it. My friend, Carrol, was in LaPaz to provide workshops and seminars (Democracy in Education) for which the US Embassy was a partial sponsor...so that added yet another layer of interest to the Bolivian visitation! Anyway...was planning on a cycling trip in northern Spain during May until the technology bloodbath here in Seattle, and now I am busy looking for work and saving my pennies for the mortgage. Got invited to visit Bill and Julie (Martin) in Puerto Rico (Bill's working there this year__teacher exchange thing) in May...and I just may have to do that if I continue to twiddle my thumbs through April!! (Hopefully NOT!)

From Alicia Conroy in Connecticut: I was at my cousin's for a Mother's Day brunch yesterday, and her psycho kitty (big and luxurious looking, but we believe his neural circuits were fried during a kittenish illness with high fever--), anyhoo, hawked up the biggest furball I've ever seen. It was three furballs worth. I'll spare you the exact description of volume. Maybe that'll improve his mood ... Heidi Bell writes from Aurora in February: I put jokes inside the Valentines I made for the kids at work, so I have a big backlog of them in my brain. Q: Why did the bees go on strike? A: They wanted more honey and shorter flowers. In May Carla Vissers, sends an email titled "Evil Weeds": First, Bonnie, I had a dream the other night in which you and I were getting a tour of some woman's garden, and when we came around to the front of her house, she proudly pointed out a border of garlic mustard that she had planted and nurtured. You were standing to my right, just outside my direct line of vision, and I suddenly became so fearful of your reaction to the woman's ignorance that I couldn't even turn my head to see the expression on your face. I was paralyzed. Second, I did something to my back yesterday for which the dandelions thriving in my backyard are directly responsible. I was bending over (I know, I know, I should have been bending at the knees) trying to uproot dandelions with my environmentally friendly dandelion up-rooter, when I felt an occurrence in my lower back and immediately lost both the ability to straighten up and the use of my legs. I managed after a few minutes to get inside and on the couch, but it hurt like hell for the rest of the day. This morning it's better, though I still feel a twinge. I don't want to get any older. Jesse Green writes from Lansing: I won a Wade McCree Award for the Advancement of Justice for some of my legal reporting. Kinda cool. But I'd rather be writing my book, or maybe some fiction. Big award ceremony over at the Kellogg center in a couple of weeks. Mostly free PF for my corporate overseers, but it is something to put on my writing resume. Goodness knows it needs help.

Writing News: The German edition of Women and Other Animals exists, with the title changed to Gorilla Girls and my last name misspelled on the front cover. Though Schneekluth is a division of the largest publisher in Germany, "Campell" slipped by them on the first printing of the book jackets. They will correct the cover for additional printings, so get your collector's item now from the German language section of Amazon.com. You should so check out my website www.iserv.net/~bonniejo. Thanks to Uber-Webmaster Rachael Perry, it is up and running and almost finished.

As part of her (final?) analysis of prison life, Mary Szpur sends the following missives:

COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY
It's happened--I have identified with my captors. I have really come around. I see nothing weird at all about working in a prison. It seems as familiar and comfortable as any of my office jobs used to be. I am at ease with my coworkers; I like them and they like me. We joke, and we learn from each other. I like my boss very much. Our patients, the inmates, overall seem no different than people you meet at any clinical workplace. Truth be told, I like working in a prison.

Now that I'm leaving, I am feeling nostalgic and misty-eyed toward the place where I did my time these last two years. I gave six weeks notice,and couldn't sleep for several nights before. I felt conflicted. I wanted to return to Chicago with all my heart. Still, I felt I had invested a lot of myself, certainly a lot of emotion, into my job at a state penitentiary.

It was my first full-time job in medicine. I had to see really sick people, some of whom died, on a regular basis. I had to start from square one in terms of touching people's bodies to try to figure out what their problem was (if they had one). I grew close to several nurses and docs who were kind enough to teach me. I became very loyal to and protective of my boss, the Medical Director of the prison, who has always been supportive, fair to employees and inmates, kind, and good humored. I have defended him to inmates. I have met with other inmates as almost-colleagues in our roles as members of the prison hospice team, a rewarding experience. I lived through the time of the female inmates, a sort of Dark Ages in my tenure at DCC, full of screaming, rude hussies wanting, wanting. I have lived through lockdowns, seen the teary reunions of inmates with family members when they leave the gatehouse, been the object of hateful stares of family members, developed an easy relationship with some inmates whom I like and respect. I have had to endure the wrath of inmates who were incredibly furious at the correctional system (ergo, me)--an anger that is difficult to bear. I have heard male and female inmates tell me stories that in the space of a few seconds could break your heart. I have been furious at inmates. I have made mistakes.

PRISONER COMPLIMENTS I have received:

• "You look like you could have seven or eight babies."
• "My favorite doctor! I don't know why you haven't been married three or four times."
• "Let me know where you set up your private practice in the future."
• "I prefer you plump."

INMATE EUPHEMISMS FOR ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION

• "Tell the nurse I can't get my money."
• "I can't pop my cork!"
• "Hey doc, my shit's fucked up!"

OBJECTS THAT HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM INMATES:
Among our inmates is a small society who habitually, over and over, insert objects into the urethra--the narrow tube that carries out urine and semen--of their penises. Theories as to why they do this range from "for fun" (meaning arousal), to manipulation (the inmate will get out of his cell, and possibly get a trip to the local hospital, which can be an exciting change in the routine, and is also where, as my boss put it, "he may escape").

My supervising physician, the Medical Director, has demonstrated a remarkable facility and steady hand for removing objects from penises, other body cavities, and all body parts in general. If I'm at the prison, he will summon me to assist in these and other procedures. It's always interesting. As he said after the last procedure, "I just saved the state a lot of money."

The men who do insert objects into their genitals seem, on the whole, strangely impassive during the removal procedure. They receive local anesthesia, but nevertheless it must be an uncomfortable, painful process. Yet they usually bear it without grimace or remark.

Objects removed from penises have included:

• The inside workings of pens ( these seem to be a favorite)
• Staples
• Chicken bone
• Zipper that was really, really stuck into this guy's penis in an arrangement that on first glance looked hopelessly inextricable; yet with patience, time, manipulation, and a tool called a ring cutter (usually used to cut a ring off a swollen finger), the penis became unattached from the metal.

From Rectum:
Razor blades wrapped ingeniously in the soft plastic outer shell of special "segregation pens" given to inmates in segregation. The inmate who hid the razor blades in his rectum often mutilated himself by slashing himself with a sharp edge, so he took special precautions when he landed himself in segregation. The physician rounding in segregation that day was suspicious of the inmate's medical complaint and ordered an x ray, and voila! Two razors found. The inmate removed them.

From Frenulum:
Tooth of a comb, placed in the inmate's tongue to help keep patent a tongue piercing. The plastic tooth worked its way under the tongue to the frenulum, the delicate membrane connecting the tongue to the base of the mouth. The sensation was very uncomfortable for this young fellow. Removing the piece of plastic was a difficult and long process, and the guy lost all color in his face, cried silently, and sweated profusely. After it was done (I had, as usual, long given up hope it could be removed at our under-equipped "emergency room" and couldn't believe how long my boss worked on removing this object--almost an hour, I would estimate), my boss said cheerfully to this guy, "So you think you will do this again?" The inmate balefully shook his head no.

Never Removed, but Still Lodged in a Belly:
We have an inmate who lives at the X-House, the nickname for our maximum-security psychiatric unit, who has a certain infamy at our facility for all of the objects he has swallowed over the years. He is a smart fellow with a number of health problems, including HIV and diabetes. For some reason, the way he has dealt with the awful stresses of incarceration is by eating metal. He has done it for years, and still threatens to swallow more when he is unhappy or frustrated with events. His abdominal x-rays are wild, showing huge twisted clumps of white metals that change location from one x-ray to the next. They tell me he has swallowed many paper clips, staples, the frames of his eyeglasses, and the corners of desks and other furniture in his cell.

It may not surprise you to learn he has chronic abdominal pain. We have seen him in the infirmary many times for this and other complaints. One time in the infirmary he kept complaining of pain in his upper left abdomen, which after a few days became red and hot, then soft, and then to my disbelief, he developed a huge abscess on his belly, which we had to incise and drain (I had never seen one in that spot before).

As an aside, my boss claims we had an inmate once who ate his entire eyeglasses, frames, lenses, and all.

ANDY, A MUSICAL

Dixon Correctional Center has a substance abuse program for inmates who have had a history of abuse. These inmates live in a special dorm, and they spend most of their days in intensive, in-your-face therapy sessions. They are mandated to go to gym every day. There's a waiting list to get into the program--a contributing factor may be because a person gets good time credit for participating, which moves up that person's release date.

Every year, members of this program, called the Pathways Program, put on a public show, open for viewing by employees. In years past, the show consisted mostly of personal testimonials of inmates, but in the last few years the show has been a musical, adapted from a well-known work to suit the goals of substance abuse principles. The same inmate has served as the musical director for years, writing new lyrics to old songs. I'm not sure who writes the dialogue. This year the inmates chose to adapt "Annie" (a musical about a red-haired orphan adopted by a rich man named Daddy Warbucks) and renamed it "Andy." The production was mounted on a stage in an assembly room on the premises of the substance abuse program.

The inmate playing Andy was a last minute replacement (the original caught the flu), very emotive (lots of waving of his arms to and fro) and reading off of index cards (as did a few of the other actors). Andy played an inmate "orphaned" by his addictions, a new arrival at Dixon Correctional Center (which introduced the song "D.O.C."), in a substance abuse program which happens to be very similar to the Pathways Program. The program is headed up by a fellow named Sargent Warbucks. We follow Andy through his AM and PM groups at the program, and we see him struggle to resist the temptation to follow a "bad seed" inmate who wants Andy to chuck all the principles of the program. We hear a number of songs about all these events.

It was so hokey! The dialogue was full of recovery mantras. The acting was wooden but charming, the singing was enthusiastic, occasionally on-key (no hidden musical greats here), with a few decent tries at harmony. Jokes were made about prison rumors: "Is it true there's going to be steak and lobster at chow? That the ladies are coming back? That everyone is getting two months of good time?" and about sports--out of nowhere: "News break: the Cubs are beating the Sox and the Bears are beating the LA Rams!!" (Followed by loud applause and shouts.)

The group songs were amusing, with these large linebacker-type fellows, some shy or embarrassed, some enthusiastic, swaying out of time to the music. Imagine large black and white fellows, in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, singing loudly (to the tune of "It's a Hard Knock Life"): "Here in prison we get tricked, here in prison we get kicked. No one care for you a smidge, When you're in an orphanage!" (while awkwardly sweeping brooms, just like in the play and movie!)

Afterward, there were long introductions of the warden, assistant warden, program supervisors, every inmate who did anything at all, no matter how small, on the play. Everyone clapped a lot. I got teary--somehow the event had became a good thing, sincere. I took a tour around the room at the end, looking at the artwork posted by program members, full of the slogans of recovery: "You still think you can drink, Be cool, fool, You played yourself." "Recovery is a journey, not a destination." "If you continue to drink, You'll stay in the drink." "Be wise, Take this advice, Don't use." Drawings of car wrecks, guns, Jesus Christ and other religious subjects.