Jen Interviews Cog!

When I signed up to participate in Citizen of the Month's grand interview project, I was, admittedly, imagining the thrill of being the interviewee. Someone else would have to wade through my blog, separate the interesting from the self-indulgent, and pretty much take care of that day's entry for me.

Instead, I'm the interviewer and it is, as I predicted, work.  But what I didn't anticipate was the fun of meeting someone new, reading a blog I may have have never discovered, and then, asking all sorts of personal questions under the guise of following the assignment.  Cog of Driving the Flies was a fascinating subject and, I might add, a very good sport.  Read his interview below, and then go read his blog.  All of it.

1) I was positively giddy when I found your entry bemoaning common writing mistakes, especially--my personal favorite--the apostrophe cropping up in possessive its, and I get the feeling you could riff on this subject for some time.  Please, riff.

It started out as a riff on the Finite Comma Theory, but most of that got pruned away except for a brief mention as I got caught up in the rest of the stuff. But yeah, the idea that there are degrees of exclamation is pretty funny to me, as is that somehow a question is more of a question if you repeat the punctuation several times. Where did this start?

Something I didn't mention in that piece is the relatively recent use of "could of" in place of "could have," which is just lazy. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stand on my porch, waving my cane and yelling, "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!"

2) I admit that I had never heard of Ankylosing spondylitis before  reading your blog, and my knowledge of it is limited to the wikipedia link you provided.  However, I feel safe in assuming it's painful.  How does living with chronic pain influence your writing?   Or does it?

I think sometimes it subtly colors my attitude, which can show up in a piece, depending on the subject. To explain, in a lot of what I write I try to let the subject and tone of an entry exist independent of me. If I'm not feeling especially well, I have to monitor how it's affecting my word choice, rhythm, whatever. If it's too much, I usually put the piece away for a bit and write something else.

The few times I mentioned it directly were because it was kicking my ass.

3)You've mentioned in a few memes that you were thrown out of a university or two.  Care to share a few specifics?

Well, it's not like I slept with the president's wife or occupied the admin building and seceded from the Union or anything. Usually it was because I was such a poor student, from an attendance standpoint. I could hold my own academically, but I had problems showing up for class.

I did end up in the center of a campus controversy over some constitutional issues at one university. It raged on for almost a year, and the situation left me with some decidely grim views on the
relationship between administration and students.

The irony of all this is that I ended up marrying someone who would become a professor who is well-regarded in her area of study.

Was that vague enough?

4) One of the first entries I read on your blog mentioned your having received an Indie blogging award.  I spent the next hour or so assuming that meant you lived in Indiana, and humming John Cougar Mellencamp to myself as I read.  Would you mind telling us what general area you're in, and how it contributes to the stranger-in-a-strange land quality of your blog?

I've lived all over the South, the last seven years in Kentucky, in a smallish town much like the one where I grew up in Arkansas. It's full of the stratification and gossip of any Southern town, and even though I am reminded regularly that I'm not from here, I still have access to the local grapevine, and when I write about things around here, it's from the vantage point of being an informed observer. I think that's what you're seeing, that I'm in but not of the environment.

5) When I first saw your blog's title, I assumed it had something to do with those pesky little passengers that find their way into your car when the trunk is full of bodies.  I read the blog entry about killing the fly for your son, but I'm still hazy on the meaning of the blog title--where does the driving come in?  Could you explain it further for me?

Figured me for a serial killer, huh? Nice. I guess I've been called worse. Actually, I do have a post about the title, more or less: here.

Let me add: When I first heard the phrase, I fell in love with it for being such an apt metaphor. It had to do with nightly rituals in the hills and hollers of east central Kentucky, in the dirt-floor cabins
that were boiling hot in the summer, so they left the door open all day for a little air movement, and of course, there would be flies.

Now, there are so many things to think about, from work or family or whatever, the scheduling, the transport, all the million things that buzz around your head when all you want to do is get a little sleep.

Same with the blog. I'll have something I want to say, or even just a feeling that needs to be expressed, and I can't really rest until I'm finished driving the flies away.

6) How did you meet your wife?

We were in rehab together. No, wait. She hates when I say that.

Her family used to own a cabin in North Carolina, and her sister had  invited some members of my church group to a retreat at the cabin. My  wife met two of my friends and me at the church to ride with us and  show us how to get there.

She was still in college then, out of town, so when she was around we all hung out together, and after graduation we eventually decided to go out together on a real date. Five years later, after she got her Ph.D., we got married.

7) On your meme of things you've done, the one that jumps out at me is Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild.  What were the  circumstances of this?

um, different group, different trip. (cough)

I was young, impressionable, with a mind full of Castaneda and an absolute conviction I would not live to see 25, so I was willing to experience alternate forms of perception. Repeatedly. This was during a period of time my older sister refers to as The Chemical Dependency Years.

8) Ah!  This I understand.  I was thinking you were making spaghetti sauce and decided to wing it with some back yard fungi.  When did the CDY end, and, if I may be so bold, was it voluntary?

Hey, they didn't say there would be math involved. I guess the major phase of it stopped when I left my hometown for good, in 1983. There were a couple of times since then that I backslid a little, but I never really got back into it.

Now, of course, I have to take/inject multiple drugs to keep me  ambulatory. Ah, sweet irony.

9. Does your wife read your blog?

Nope. She doesn't know it exists. The subject of blogging has come up in conversations with friends, and her take is that it's a whole bunch of people telling us what they ate for breakfast. I see little point in arguing otherwise.

By the way, I had Pop-Tarts today. Apple Strudel.

10.  You mention Vonnegut as a major writing influence.  Any others you'd care to mention?

This is such a cop-out answer, but pretty much everyone I've ever read, even the bad ones.

That's so lame, I want to write more. What kept me going through many hard years was a series of manual typewriters that I'd cart from town to town. When one would wear out or if I couldn't find a replacement ribbon, I'd find another one at a yard sale or somewhere. Always manual, because I'd frequently have to live without electricity, like in my car, and I could still type that way.

Anyway, I'd sit and try to capture whatever I was reading at the time. I wouldn't do direct transcription, because, hello, it was already printed and ribbons weren't cheap. What I'd do was attempt to replicate rhythms, tones, the whole musicality of writing, to see how it worked, or why it didn't.

If I couldn't afford new books, I'd fall back on my collection of high school and college lit books, Norton Anthologies and such, so I'd have Shakespeare, Poe, Thurber, Welty, all the poets, et al, to admire and copy.

All this has served me well, for example, when I've had editing gigs I've been able to replicate voices pretty easily if something needed a few more paragraphs, and now, either on the blog or in the writing I do at work, I can write different character pieces and not have them all sound or read the same.

Swallowing and digesting all these writers has also given me the nutrients that helped me grow my own voice as well.

Comments

[Lo]

Great interview, Jen. I'm looking forward to reading Cog's Blog. Sounds like he gets cranky about the right things. And to think-- you both met your spouses in rehab!

[Susan Easley]

Wow, that old saying is right--time is fun when you're having flies!

[cog]

Thanks again for the excellent questions. Some of them caught me off-guard. Way to go.

Neil gave me the go ahead this morning to interview you, so prepare yourself.

[Irma Perlman]

I'm waiting for his questions and your answers.It took me awhile to understand what you were both doing.But now I got it.Remember, I do like and understand Borges.