Rich is hard

One of my favorite movies is Black Widow with Debra Winger and Theresa Russell about an FBI agent, who is more of a geek than a field rep, and a woman who changes her appearance to trap and marry wealthy men and then kill them without leaving a trace. Her favorite poison, I believe it was methadone, is injected into bottles of liquor they would drink and they shuffled off their mortal coil in their sleep. Only one victim was murdered with penicillin; he was allergic and she was in a rush because she knew Debra was onto her.

What really struck me is what she said to Debra when they were together. "Rich is hard." I suppose anyone who is rich would think that rich was hard, but it doesn't seem like that to those of us outside the 6-, 7-, and 8-figure bank balance club. For us, rich would be very easy. No worries, able to buy what you want when you want, the ability to help friends and family, and live lavishly. Rich is easy for us -- until you get there.

The whole trickle down theory of economics was based on the idea that when you're rich you employ people, putting money into the economy and filled jobs on the roster. You have money that you spend so that other people can have money to spend and the economy booms. Not so with the current class of the wealthy who seem to want to find every possible way to keep their money while still buying whatever they want through tax loopholes and shell companies and all sorts of financial shenanigans. They aren't playing the game the way it is supposed to be played. After all, "Where is the noblesse oblige?" one friend asked me. That's what I'd like to know.

I believe in the idea that when you're wealthy you spread it around. There is no sense in having millions or hundreds of billions if you don't spend it. With that kind of money, it would be a major task to spend even the interest on the principle and still not have millions or hundreds of billions left. You can leave some of it to your children, but the best way to immortalize yourself and your money is to put it back into the economy. That's what it's for -- spending.

I'm of the opinion that should I be worth millions, I'd still live simply, but with some help around the house, and a little bigger house than the one I live in now. A housekeeper would be necessary and a gardener for the yard, and a handyman to take care of things around the house and grounds (and by grounds I mean a fairly substantial yard, but without the hedge maze, trout stream, and haha). A couple of cottages on the grounds to house the help if they want to live on the premises, someone to come in when there are guests and tend to their needs, and people on tap in the town nearby to service cars and do maintenance on any number of things that need taking care of. I would spend prodigiously on books and be able to help friends and relatives and still live comfortably. I'm not the ostentatious type and wouldn't need bodyguards, but I would need first class accommodations for travel and I would be traveling quite a bit. I have places to go and the world to see so I can have something to write about.

The point is that the people who have millions and hundreds of billions are stingy with their wealth as if they're afraid of spending too much money. They don't stint with paintings by masters and the finest food, furniture, and clothing, not to mention the odd Lear jet and fleet of cars, but they do stint with putting money back into the economy -- the U.S. economy. They wriggle and writhe and manage to get more than they spent back from the government that allowed them a bit of latitude in order to urge them to put money into the economy. How much of $200 billion dollars could they spend in a lifetime, really?

Trickle down economics doesn't account for stingy and greedy people who are determined to keep making their wealth grow because they're not sure they're really rich unless they can buy and sell a senator or two and buy options in presidents and governors, and buy mayors and judges, all so they can keep their money -- and some of yours, too.

What happened to noblesse oblige? They obliged themselves of more of our money and decided to keep it for themselves by buying homes in foreign countries and keeping their holdings in Swiss and off-shore banks so they don't have to report it. They fund few business and no manufacturing and strangle the economy with their morning coffee and croissant over the Wall Street Journal and coffee while planning a day of golfing and a trip to Ibiza with the latest mistress they have showered with furs and jewels, who is busy bedding the cabana boy while waiting for the fatted calf to arrive.

Instead, they should be buying up failing businesses and making them run again, hiring Americans to work on their various properties, and funding medical research, or even helping NASA to realize their goal of sending up something other than probes to Mars and the outlying planets in search of mining and terraforming opportunities. They should be funding shuttles to the moon and building space stations and finding a way to make the land grow food and support the poor instead of living it up on your and my dimes while we languish for lack of jobs and opportunities, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They should be shoring up the middle class and spending some of those hundreds of billions of dollars on something other than themselves since they didn't make the money without the help of billions of people in the first place.

Rich isn't hard. Nor is greed, selfishness, and self-serving meanness. Rich is easy. Spread it around and make yourself and the world around you richer. Trickle down economics works, but only when the wealthy stop hoarding all the money and sending it offshore to hide their worth. Put it back to work and send the economy booming again. It's not hard. It's easy.

The problem with being rich is that when things get really hard, the rich fat cats are first on the poor's menu. The hard part will be saving your life when the ravening hordes come crashing through your gates for a day of the locust.

Review: Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung

There are few things more confusing, awful, and wonderful than family, few places more dear than home; Chung brings them together in a heartbreaking tale made memorable by its simplicity.

Janie and Hannah have been at odds at some point in their adolescence, but when escapes Janie. They are Jeehyun and Haejin, the Americanized Korean daughters of expatriates forced to leave their home by their father’s actions.  Janie was born in Korea and Hannah in America, but their lives, colored by fairy tales of their homeland, are unmoored from their traditions and roots as they become more and more American.

Hannah disappears without a word and Janie, who was supposed to look after her so her sister would not die as her mother’s sister had died in Korea. One daughter from every generation is at risk, but Janie’s mother never said why or what happened to her. Janie must find Hannah and bring her back; it is her duty.

Catherine Chung writes simply about Janie, Hannah, and their family caught in a complex web of half told stories and family traditions that have lost their power in America. Forgotten Country carried me like a fast moving freight train through the lives of the characters, drawing me toward a conclusion that was brief and jarring. It was a seven-course meal with some of the courses left out, but does not suffer too much by the loss. The sparkling narrative carried me through my momentary questions.

Some of the mysteries were not explained fully, but what Chung does brilliantly is write the minutiae of life and give it power and presence. The clash of Western and Eastern sensibilities is as central to the story as the break between Janie and Hannah. It mirrors the struggle of sisters separated by loyalties, Janie’s to her parents and her filial duty and Hannah to getting as far from her family as possible.

While there were some questions left unanswered, Forgotten Country stays with you in the unique characters and the stunning depth of emotion, the lyrical descriptions, and the all too human emotions offered like priceless pearls. Forgotten Country will become an oft read treasure.

Tilting at Windmills

I've been dealing with a claim against my former employer for unpaid vacation time. The telephone hearing was today, a hearing my employer attempted to stop on several occasions and was denied. I won the claim, not for as much as I should have had, but I was willing to give a little to get my point across. My ex-boss also has to revise her handbook, which was the crux of her case, because the NJ Dept of Labor rep saw it as I did. Vacation time earned/accrued is vacation time that must be paid. I see an overhaul in the future.

I didn't fight this claim to get anything back, other than the money owed, and I'll never see the tens of thousands of dollars I lost on the account I was stuck on, but to win a moral victory. I got that.

My mother always told me to take what I was given and not squawk about it. I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut when moral issues are at stake. I've been fired on a few occasions because I chose to take on the company, but I won my point and the policies were changed. I urge anyone who is faced with a similar situation to fight for what they believe, no matter the consequences. I also fought the IRS and won that, too, saving myself untold grief and several thousand dollars.

You can fight city hall -- and win. You may not win everything, but if you change a bad policy and it helps others, it's worth the fight.

Mom also told me that I should fight against the big guy, that I should knuckle under and keep my head down so that I was less likely to end up with a target on my back or my forehead. I wasn't good at following that advice either. There is really no point to living if living under despotic rulership or being afraid of speaking up is all you can do. Nothing get changed unless someone stands up and says loudly and clearly, "NO!"

What this judgment in my favor cost my employer is a pittance compared to what they owe me and what they owe every other employer they've cheated this way. She didn't like it, and she has 45 days to appeal, but I doubt she'll go that far. She doesn't want to have to pay her attorney only to lose again. Her own words tripped her up.

I could go after her for the double standard when it comes to page and an account that I worked on for 4-1/2 years, but dealing with this issue was strain enough and I know she'd fight harder to keep me from getting the $50,000+ she owes me on that score, just like she fought to keep me from getting unemployment, a case she won by default because I didn't receive the notice of the appeal hearing. I've made my point and will continue to make my point whenever I -- or anyone else -- is being cheated. I will not live my life in fear. I spent nearly 7 years at a company keeping my mouth shut about this issue, except for complaining that I was not getting paid for vacation time I had earned, because I was afraid she'd fire me, and a job in the hand is worth five on the proverbial bush, especially if there is no guarantee I'd get one of them.

I am luckier than most people because I have highly marketable skills and decades' worth of experience at the top of my field. When I was fired, I had a new job within 2 weeks, although it took nearly 6 weeks to get my first paycheck. It was worth it getting away from the stress, hassle, and lies I had to deal with every single day, and to not have to pick up the phone after a long shift and work another 2-3 more hours at regular pay as a favor. I cannot tell you how many times I had to do that, and there was no appreciation from my boss either, just more demands and more expectations for little or no remuneration.

Yes, I am glad I won the claim and I'm even gladder I thanked her for firing me, a thank you she actually used in the case in evidence against me. She missed the whole point. My stress level has dropped considerably, and even more so since the end of the telephone hearing this morning. I don't know how long I could've continued working for someone like that without doing something about it, something more than keeping records of how much money I was losing by being stuck on this one account. I understand why the company has such a high turnover in transcriptionists; it's issues like this one.

It's over now and I can happily take my check and cash it when it comes, hopefully before the 45 days in which they have to appeal. If they appeal, I'll know how to handle things the next time and we'll get this done with a whole lot sooner.

I've always believed in tilting at windmills and my favorite song is The Impossible Dream. What else would it be?

Review: Strong Vengeance by Jon Land

Texas Range Caitlin Strong has a new job. She’s working a desk at the Ranger office because of a high school shoot-out where an innocent boy will never play football again. Caitlin had a choice. Shoot the boy in the shoulder and get the one with the machine gun or let more people be shot.

That the shoot-out happened at Dylan’s school has a lot to do with why Caitlin was there in the first place and it is a moment she will regret and will color her actions throughout the rest of the book.

She’s responsible for Dylan and for Luke while Cort Wesley Masters is in jail in Mexico. Caitlin is all the boy have to protect and care for them, and she does care, so much she takes them on a fishing trip down in the Gulf that ends the way most of Caitlin’s life ends—in death. What she and the boys find on that jack-up rig will force Caitlin to face the inevitable changes in her life and what means most to her. She gets to help solve a murder that happened 30 years ago that her father and grandfather were forced to stop investigating and uncover Jean Lafitte’s legendary treasure. Just another day on the Texas Rangers.

Caitlin continues to evolve and grow in Jon Land’s latest episode of Caitlin and her gun in Strong Vengeance. At the end of the case and the book, Caitlin decides what’s best for her now and in the long run and makes a big decision.

In a family of Texas Rangers with a legacy that dates back to the beginning of the Rangers and her grandfather raising her to know and respect justice and guns, what else could Caitlin be but the first female Texas Ranger. Being good with a gun is second nature, and Caitlin is often accused of shooting first and asking questions later; readers know differently. Caitlin doesn’t have to ask the questions because she knows the answers ahead of time.

The strength of Strong Vengeance is in its characters, not the least of which is Cort Wesley Masters and D.W. Tepper. History and chemistry are strong motivators. What really motivates Caitlin is not just her sense of justice but love. She loves what she does and isn’t happy about being tied to a desk, but Captain D. W. Tepper has to leash Hurricane Caitlin somehow. D. W. is willing to let her loose when the situation demands and the dire situation in Strong Vengeance makes it necessary for Caitlin to reach beyond category 5. How else can the Texas Rangers deal with the massacre of a jack-up oil rig’s crew and the potential for long term damage to the ecology and death and lingering disease for every American when a home-grown terrorist plot is uncovered? The murder of three fraternity boys on Galveston Island Caitlin’s father and grandfather were ordered to stop investigating makes it doubly interesting and even more necessary for Caitlin to solve.

Strong Vengeance shows Caitlin going up against another high powered female law officer and in softer moments with Dylan and Luke that show the wide range of emotions and characterizations that demonstrate just how far the Caitlin Strong novels are ahead of the thriller series pack. There’s something for everyone: mystery, gunfights, terrorists, clock ticking down to the end of days, history, buried treasure, and Caitlin at her best and worst in what may be her last gunfight. General Paz makes a few well chosen appearances and offers his philosophical take as well. What more could you want?

I've been reading and reviewing the Caitlin Strong novels since the beginning and I wonder if there will be any more. I have a strong hope that circumstances and Caitlin's need to get to the bottom of whatever conundrum needs digging out will bring her back, but the stage is set for a graceful exit. Caitlin's father and grandfather quit the rangers eventually and so must Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong. Time passes too quickly to focus all energy on one thing when there is so much more to life, a fact that Caitlin realizes.

If this is farewell, it has been a great ride and Jon Land has given me hours of pleasure and a trunk load of thoughts to ponder. Well done, Jon.  

Strong Vengeance won't be released until July 17, 2012. Be sure to reserve your copy early. This one will disappear quickly.

Behind the Buzz Words

As a child, the most thrilling part of being an Army brat was moving around the world. I spent my early life traveling in Europe when Dad was based in Idar-Oberstein, going to Patton's tomb, walking the streets of Paris, visiting cemeteries and national monuments, and playing the part of a citizen of the world, or at least the child of a citizen of the world. I played in the jungles of Panama and hide-and-seek and pirates in the fortresses left behind by Spanish conquerors and pirates of legend. I lived through riots in the Canal Zone of the 1960s and with fear of snipers every night for weeks after the riots were over. I traveled from the east coast to the west coast of America and continued to travel on my own when I married an Air Force NCO, camp follower to my military husband, making a home wherever we were sent, except for Iceland and Thailand where I was not allowed to go with him.

I never thought about medical or dental insurance because the military took care of us. We had enough food, good (if elderly) lodgings, and a safe community where my children played and wandered the community without fear as I had done wherever we lived. Movies were a quarter when I was a child and not much more than that when my children were young and we went to the movies on base. They were more expensive when we took the kids to the drive-in, but the kids were free. It was a good life for me and a good life for our children. It's hard to say that now.

When politicians invoke the words "military budget cuts" everyone thinks of missiles, battleships, and the hardware of military government used to make war on our enemies and our allies and protect us from the rest of the world. Military budgets do not remind us of the men and women, or their families, who serve day in and day out for less than minimum wage sometimes. Well, you might say, they get dental and medical for free and the cost of their groceries is less than ours. True -- to a point. Cutting the military budget doesn't mean that no more battleships or missiles or arms will not get built and used; it means that families and servicemen and women will have fewer services and more will end up on food stamps. Of course, that does not affect the big brass, but it does the rest of the men and women who serve to protect our country and freedom.

Buzz words seem to be all people hear and no one wants to look further than the emotions those buzz words invoke to what's behind the words. Do you really think that $700 screwdrivers and $2000 hammers will not still end up in the budget? Think again.

This has become a world where the men and women who serve in combat areas often have to beg for money from their families to buy body armor because what's available is out of date and stressed by continuous use to the point of being no more protective than the cardboard shields and armor I wore as a child while playing soldiers as a child. Their families often need food stamps to get enough for their families. Cut the military budget again as is being discussed in Congress now will not end waste, but it will affect the families, men, and women whose lives are bound up in military budgets and who will be the first casualties of budget cuts.

I agree that budgets need to be cut, but it needs to be the precision cutting of a laser and not the butchering of necessary services to the NCOs and their families. These people are the one who do all the heavy lifting and all the work. You can be assured that no civilian employee or contractor to the military will suffer from those cuts. The cuts will come from the people who should be supported and aren't.

Budget cuts will mean that military families, already stressed in the current economy, will have to pay for medical and dental care. The poor on Welfare get better treatment than the military families who give up their lives and their homes to protect this country and keep it free.

Next time you hear the buzz words "military budget cuts" ask what will be included and don't stop asking until you hear the full story. Military budgets include a lot more than you realize and the effect of those cuts on real people, the people who wear the uniform of American soldiers in every branch of the service will be affected. Forget the buzz words. Demand the truth and then let your voices be heard.

The world I grew up in is very different from the current world. I have enough because I work, but I remember the days of travel and living in modest accommodations in exotic locales while my father served over 22 years in the Army. It's a sad world where the poor get more than the people who give their lives and their time to protect us and keep us free.

Childish Dreams, Adult Reality

It was 1963 and I was living in Panama, or at least that is how I remember the moment. I suspect it happened long before that, but I can't remember anything but coming home and finding my dog Tippy gone and visiting him at some secondhand furniture store owner's shop and the Easter egg-colored chicks my sister and I got as Easter gifts or the time the cop from a town a couple miles away brought me home to my parents carrying my little suitcase. I had run away.

Mom had told me it was all right. I don't think she thought I'd actually do it, but that was the first of many surprises she got over the years, like telling me if I didn't like the way things were done to peak up. I did and often and often got smacked for speaking up.

The point is, I remember reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and traveling to the center of the earth and to distant places with H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs and being so excited I wanted to do the same thing -- not travel to Mars, although that is on my bucket list, but to write. I wanted to spin stories people would read and talk about. I wanted to speak up and keep speaking up even when I might get smacked -- or worse. And I did speak up -- and write -- and I often get smacked.

It was that feeling of having discovered that it was possible to put words on a page and change someone's life or thoughts or give them an adventure they'd never forget. I obviously didn't forget mine since I'm still talking -- and writing -- about it almost 50 years later. I haven't lost the feeling of excitement, the love of adventure, and the endless possibilities that I find in books and in writing. I'm not a really successful author because few people know about me, but I keep writing. That is the one constant in my life -- writing.

I went through the usual changes, as most children do as they grow, evolve, and experience more. I wanted to be an archaeologist, a lawyer, and a Supreme Court justice, but the one thing that remains constant is the desire to be a writer. It was archaeologist/writer, lawyer/writer, and Supreme Court justice/writer, although the writer should come first. Although I never went to college to be any of the other things, I have continued to write and, as you can see on this blog and in the bookstore, I am a writer.

It was that first brush with words and dreams and adventure that sealed my fate. Whatever else I have done and will do in the future, the 8-year-old me wanted to be the one telling the stories and exciting new generations of people to write stories of their own. I don't worry about the competition because other writers give me something to do when I'm relaxing -- read what they've written.

Put All Trash Here

I've an acquaintance online I've known for years and she is quite the business person and blogger. I don't know how she does it, but between Washington D.C. business, traveling all over the world for work and fun, and maintaining a home in D.C. and one in Florida, she is a success -- in everything but her relationship. That is a mixed bag.

I wonder what drew them together in the first place. They have their fun moments, and their fights and differences, but it seems most of it is good -- at least as far as is reported. Nothing is ever what it seems.

We look to the past and say that there were fewer divorces. That's true. There was the Catholic church to consider and ex-communication was not something too many people were willing to face if they divorced, providing the church allowed it, and there were lots of hoops to jump through (and money to be paid) to grease the wheels of ecclesiastical favor. There were also financial issues to be considered, as well as the destabilization of countries if marriages were annulled or the parties divorced. King Henry VIII comes to mind; he had to create his own religion as a result, despite being a devout Catholic, and Harry took it to the limit, marrying 6 times before he died, and producing 2 females that lived to rule. His only sons died young.

Marriages were more about benefits for financial reasons, lands, property, and power, and less about love and fidelity. That was relegated to the lower classes. They could afford to marry for love since they were unlikely to be able to marry for property and power. No wonder the divorce rate as so low. No one wants to give up land or money, and power even less.

Things today are simpler. Fall in love over Cosmopolitans, have the big fairy tale wedding that cost a few years' salary, and divorce before all the thank you cards have been written and sent. Disposable. The real reason was the fancy fairy tale wedding after all. An entire industry was created to service that particular excess of eccentricity and narcissism, which is strange to someone who put together a wedding in 2 weeks and paid for most of it from my savings.

I managed a nice ceremony with 5 attendants, 2 flower girls, a ring bearer, and 5 groomsmen (maids of honor need escorts), and a lovely and almost rowdy reception afterwards, followed by a honeymoon at the local fancy hotel in the honeymoon suite, which turned into a rush for clothes when Mom and a cop came knocking on the door. The cop was my cousin and Mom was carrying my overnight bag, which I had forgotten in the rush to get away from the people trying to overturn the car we were in because it wasn't the one they had decorated (and mined with exploding and embarrassing devices). That marriage ended, but not until after 3 boys, 7 years, and a load of grief from the typical mother-in-law and various and sundry infidelities from the male side of the relationship.

Not that I have a great track record, having been divorced twice, the 2nd time from an abusive spouse, but I do know what counts and what I want. One is not to go down the aisle again unless there are some pretty powerful benefits, none of which I've seen yet.

Every relationship is different. Some people marry young for love and stay together happily (mostly) for the rest of their long lives. They're the ones 75th anniversaries were created for. There are also those who get into marriage at the drop of a hat, usually worse for drink or other substances, and some actually stay together. There are still liaisons that come out of board rooms and social registers where the main focus is money, property, and/or power (usually all three), and there are the regular people who marry in haste and repent as soon as the divorce decree is signed a hot New York second after the ink is dry on the marriage license. Disposable and not recyclable, although sometimes the excuses and the people are as disposable as they are interchangeable.

Disposable is defined as a product designed for cheapness and short-term convenience rather than medium to long-term durability, with most products only intended for single use. The term is also sometimes used for products that may last several months (ex. disposable air filters) to distinguish from similar products that last indefinitely (ex. washable air filters).

Disposable is also defined as the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for. Disposable personal income is often monitored as one of the many key economic indicators used to gauge the overall state of the economy.

I think the last definition is the most apt here, disposable meaning what is left over after all the bills and income taxes have been taken out of the net income. In other words, what is available for saving after obligations have been met.

I don't think that children should be part of the equation, unless martyrdom is the main point, because children do not thrive or end up whole and undamaged being brought up in an abusive relationship that is little more than a war zone, but the needs of the children should be weighed in and out of the relationship against what is gained or possible to gain.

All these fancy words come down to one thing. Is the relationship/marriage worth saving? How many people stop to ask that question when they sober up or come down of the high of a fairy tale wedding and honeymoon while the 5+ carat rock is still shining on their finger and the glow of nonstop sex and excitement still glimmering in their eyes?

Marriages come from all sorts of reasons, but the usual reason for divorce is boredom. Marriage wasn't quite what they thought it would be. It's drudgery, staying up all night with newborns and sick children, emptying the dishwasher and arguing over who takes out the trash, cooks dinner, or does the laundry, paying the bills, repairs on house and vehicles, and the cost of living together. It's not always cheaper with two people, especially not in the current economic climate when 2 incomes are often not enough. Spouses/partners with no children have to deal with potential crashes between personal and business issues and which house to live in, whose friends are more important, and a thousand other details that end up being a tug-of-war over whose life and needs take precedence, and then there's the sex issue. I don't know why it is, but partners always seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum, one likes sex and the other doesn't, which is really code for I like sex but not so much with you. Soon, the relationship is on the rocks, which is where it began and remained beneath the haze of wedding festivities, alcohol, and vacation bliss before the real work began. 

Marriage and relationships are work because the people in them keep growing and change, or not growing or changing at all. The old saw about a woman seeing possibilities and what she can do with the raw material in front of her and the man believing the woman will stay exactly as she is, frozen in amber. The same goes for gay and transgender couples, too. One person wants stasis and the other sees potential.

Until marriages and relationships are seen as living things that grow and change and evolve, for better or worse, and until people realize that, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, the commitment is real, people will come together willy-nilly and separate just as haphazardly without realizing that the most important part of their life is finding a way to fit with another human being and work together.

I don't have all the answers. Life is too complex to boil down into a simple blog post that offers enlightenment. All I can do is shine a light into the murk and hope that someone gets it. The "it" is that people are not disposable. We are complex entities with flaws and potential and we need other people, not to make us whole, but to make things interesting -- and lasting. Future generations depend on us and, if all you ever do is bring children into the world or help raise children and teach them that people matter, you've done a good thing.

Some Day When I'm Old and Grey

"They say it's your birthday. Well, it's my birthday, too."

I've always wanted to use those lyrics in something other than a song, and now I've found a way. It's a little self-aggrandizing to mention that it's my birthday today, but all my friends and family live far away and I work at home so there are few chances for me to stumble into a surprise party and be surprised. On the other hand, if I stumbled into somewhere and a bunch of strangers jumped out and yelled, "Happy Birthday!" I would be very surprised.

I know a lot of people here in Colorado Springs, but they are amateur radio operators and mostly men. I doubt they even remember I have a birthday, let alone think to throw a surprise party or even email to offer their wishes for a happy birthday. They seldom remember their own children's or wives' birthdays. I can't expect them to slot me into minds overfilled with electronics, waveforms, and oscilloscope readings. It's too much for them to handle and they might just blow a gasket or three. I wouldn't want them to hurt themselves.

That's the thing about birthdays. As Poppy Z. Brite, also known as Billy, reminded me a couple days ago, things are always better when you're a kid. I was talking about getting Valentines in school because he is down on Valentine's Day, but it is apt for today, too, the anniversary of my debut into the world 57 years ago. Then again, birthdays weren't always so great when I was a kid either, but that's a story for another time.

I have ordered tiramisu and Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream for my own little celebration, which will be consumed during my lunch break since I have to work today, and nothing else will change in my daily schedule. I'll shower and dress, pull up the recycling bin and break down boxes to recycle, check the mail, send some mail out, and put away the groceries, all before I start working. My only hope for a day off is for the Internet or the lights to go out so I have no means to work. I can still eat my tiramisu and ice cream by sunlight and spend some quality time with my Kindle finishing off Terry Pratchett's "Unseen Academicals" and get back into "Black" by Ted Dekker, which is beginning to get very interesting. I might even sit outside if it's not too cold and work a little more on another Xmas stocking for one of my grandchildren or try out the new stretcher frame and stand I got yesterday for the needlepoint. I can't roll that up and work on it like I can with cross-stitch. It requires taut framing so the stitches come out even and the stocking looks right when it's done. I think it's going to be the only needlepoint stocking I will do. I prefer cross-stitch right now.

In the end, birthdays aren't always about presents, although I did get a couple (from Beanie and Mary Ann), but about celebrating another year in the life, which is always better with friends. I have loads of those and they spent a few seconds this morning reminding me of that on Facebook where they typed out their birthday messages to me. One of my sons even remembered I have a birthday; that is a first. Birthdays are also about reminding us that time doesn't wait for us to get with the program or figure out what we're going to do. Time keeps moving no matter how many plans we made for some day. As far as I am concerned, some day is today and I have a lot I'm looking forward to getting done. There will be no boxes, bags, and storage cases with my some days in them. I'll have done them all today.

Happy birthday to everyone who shares February 17th as their natal anniversary. Make it a good one.

Personal Touch

I had forgotten how much fun (and frustration) cross-stitch can be. Since I decided to make Xmas stockings for my grandchildren for Xmas this year I've rediscovered both, and the joy I get sitting down and focusing on something that blooms with color and shape and beauty with simple stitches.

I find myself looking at cross-stitch kits and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the different styles and pictures, wanting to buy them all and lots of frames to hang them in. I see them in different rooms and groupings and want to do them all, but I have a job and while it pays for the necessities and a few luxuries (one at a time), it's not enough to buy them all so I can make them all, not and still have a job.

That excitement and rush to get back to stitching is what I miss about writing. I schedule time for stitching and for writing but for a long time the writing hasn't been enough to keep me excited and looking forward to the next day. At least it hasn't been until recently. I feel that same sense of excitement and I'm anxious to get to the next sentence, paragraph, page, chapter. It's a good feeling and one I miss and didn't realize was gone.

I started cross-stitching seriously about the same time I start writing professionally. In the meantime I have finished may cross-stitch projects that became gifts, some of which are still hanging on walls and decorating Xmas trees and mantles with toys and fruit and nuts sticking out of the tops of the stockings. I wrote hundreds of short stories and a book I couldn't finish because it didn't really have a middle, few of which were published. I gave up writing books and short stories for a while and concentrated on articles, which I continue to write. The cross-stitch was easier and the results less prey to chance.

When I began a cross-stitch project, I knew I'd finish it fairly quickly and that whoever received it would enjoy having it. Not so with writing. I got lots of (long) encouraging rejection letters, but few sales, and one sale died on the vine when the magazine stopped publishing. I'd have to go back through old archived files to find the story, but it might find a home today. There's not telling with writing.

When I started moving around the country, taking my job with me, I gave up cross-stitch and put my organized plastic boxes full of threads, needles, and blending filaments in storage next to the old stories and files full of rejection letters. When I picked the writing up again I didn't pick up the cross-stitch until now, although, five years ago, my mother gave me back the 18" x 36" framed and matted King Tut and Nefertiti I cross-stitched for her about 20 years ago. She wanted to make sure I got it back when she was gone. My dad died a week later, but King Tut and Nefertiti hang on the living room wall, still framed, still matted, and still as beautiful as the day I finished them. They will last long after I'm gone and I'm not sure where they will end up. I'm not ready to go yet, so I haven't decided that yet either.

My stories are different. They will last (I hope) long after I'm gone and they will belong to the people who bought them and kept them to read again and again. At least I chose two creative endeavors that have legs on them and will keep going and making people smile or laugh or simply marvel at the good and bad in both areas.

Life is about change from our first breath and although my dreams of writing and art, in this case the cross-stitch, remain, the way in which I approach and execute them are very different than when I began. My work in both now is nuanced and mature and will continue to gain more subtlety and maturity as I keep working on both, as long as I keep working.

My birthday is tomorrow and, if I have one wish, it is to be able to continue writing and stitching until my last breath. I want to die in harness, so to speak, and will gladly expire quietly knowing that my work has no expiration date. That is a gift I can enjoy every day of the year because it bears the personal touch.

Not a Hero or a Leader

The flags are flying at half staff and I wanted to know if the President or Vice-President had died. I suppose a hero from Afghanistan or Iraq wars could have died, some young woman or man who saved a battalion or captured an insurgent camp and was wounded could have died and warranted the flag at half staff. No, the flags are flying at half staff because of a drug addict.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Whitney Houston's performances and her singing, but the woman who died this week was no longer than stunningly beautiful goddess of song and theater but a drug addict. She was a famous drug addict, someone who fought with her husband, Bobby Brown, in public (he was a philandering so-and-so), and was often caught on camera as a ranting mad woman, but she was a drug addict just like the homeless drug addicts doing their business in the street (heeding nature's call and scoring more drugs). She was not a hero and she died because of her addiction to drugs. That is nothing worth celebrating.

Celebrate her life, not her death or her slow decline into drugg addled madness and social and personal suicide. Remember her accomplishments, but there is no need to celebrate her death because she died a drug addict.

I don't think many people get that. She was a drug addict and drug addicts eventually get their wish and they die. All this boo-hooing and national mourning for an entertainer is on one hand admirable and on the other a travesty of what it means to be a hero.

Whitney was born talented and privileged and wasted both in her quest for more drugs, better drugs, and more better drugs. Everything she was and could have been were wasted because she couldn't handle success, or for whatever reason committed slow suicide.

Where were the half-staff flags for John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Guy Williams, and dozens of other actors who fought in the wars and came back to Hollywood to play heroes -- and a few bad guys -- and died as a result of cancer, old age, and myriad other diseases and complications? Where are the half-staff flags for the men and women who died of AIDS before it had a name and was thought to be a plague against homosexuals? Where are the half-staff flags for the thousands of quiet heroes who make a difference every single day to uncounted millions of people? Where are the half-staff flags for mothers and fathers everywhere who worked hard, gave their families the best lives they could, and died?

There are none because those people haven't been valued enough. I can see the half-staff flags to this day when Dr. Martin Luther King died. I remember seeing phots of the flags at half staff when John F. Kennedy died that November day in Dallas. Those men deserved the flags at half staff; Whitney Houston does not.

The world has turned upside down because an entertainer died a drug addict. Yes, she was a wonderful actress and singer and she was a beautiful woman. Too bad she didn't value herself enough to stay away from drugs. Whatever demons drove her to the oblivion of drugs, they should not be honored or celebrated. Remember her life and remember that she died a drug addict, a wasted life that should be honored quietly and with humility, but not with the flags at half staff. The death of a drug addict is the death of hope and life, its ugly tentacles dragging the person down to the depths of despair, lost to the promise of what they could've been.

Mourn Whitney Houston quietly and remember it didn't have to be this way. She could have used her talent and her beauty to go with dignity like Audrey Hepburn, who gave her life and her talents to the children of the world and succumbed to cancer. There was someone worth celebrating.

Knowing When to Get Help

There was no help for it.

It has been nearly a year since I published Among Women and the sequel needs to be told. First, it has to be written. Ideas have been plaguing me for days -- since I realize how much time I had left if I was to publish the sequel a year from the first novel -- and I couldn't resist any longer.

I do have two other books to finish, but this seems more important, more time sensitive, and so it goes. I began writing the sequel this morning -- a few moment ago, actually. The bet part is that it feels good and the writing is going moderately well. I should have a chapter or two done today before I have to start my day job. That has to be counted as a plus.

That's the thing about writing. Time lines and such are for people who work best under those kinds of guidelines. I'm not one of them. I write what speaks to me at the time, putting aside other works to get the words down on paper while they're still burning their way through my dreams and waking thoughts. I know I'll work on the other books, too, but this one seems more important, has first priority right now. After all the time it has taken me to get as far as I have on the other projects, a few weeks won't make a difference.

It's not exactly what I should do, but writing isn't always about what you should do -- outside of proper grammar, good sentence structure, 3-dimensional characters, and a solid plot. Those are essential no matter what else goes into the mix. I just don't have the knack -- or the desire -- to hamper the work. I write and devil take the hindmost.

Outlines don't work for me. I begin with good intentions, but along the way the muse, or creativity, or some perversity inside me takes the outline for a ride, usually into the bush or some other wild territory and ending up somewhere near the proposed ending, but often somewhere completely different.

Preplanned and written chapter-by-chapter synopses make me feel constrained and strangled. I throw them out, keeping a copy in case I want to refer back to something that I think might work.

And don't get me started on schedules. The only schedules I've been able to keep are the ones they set for me at work. The threat of poverty and homelessness keep me toeing that line no matter what, thrashing, kicking, and struggling until I'm back in the saddle, pull up the reins, and get it done so I can get back to my less structured life where things happen more organically -- meaning when the mood strikes me.

The mood strikes me often to read, eat, and write, and I write quite a bit, most of which does not end up online or in a book. I enjoy writing . . . letters, journal posts, blogging, and books. Without those, even when the going is hard, I would shrivel up and be a shell of a person tramping through the rut of life never seeing the sun or being able to breathe deeply and dream. Without dreams, I wouldn't want to think.

And so I began a new book with two books already more than halfway finished, because it's time to get the rest of Pearl Caldwell's story out. Maybe it was getting a perfectly formatted for Kindle copy of Among Women and realizing that I can delegate a bit more of the self-publishing task to someone who knows more than I do. Don't get me wrong, lots of people know more than I do, but I know when to delegate and when to keep the tasks for myself.

For instance, I am a fairly good artist, but I'd be an idiot if I didn't recognize the talent that Michael Reighn exhibited when he designed the covers for Among Women, Whitechapel Hearts, and the 3 short stories I published. He did -- and does -- a much better job than I.

I'm also smart enough to know that no matter how good an editor I am, I am not a good editor when it comes to my own work. Myopia is the problem. In laymen's terms, I'm too close to the project to be objective or see what a neutral eye could easily pick out. For that, I have an excellent editor in Mary Ann Peden-Coviello. She is ruthless with the virtual red pencil and points out tics that I have missed or cannot see. I do the same for her.

Now, there's Rik Hall, who formatted Among Women for me, and gave me a template so I can make it easier on him the next time around. Yes, I'll hire him again. His prices are reasonable and the turnaround time is very fast. He even throws in fixing typos if they're found.

All of this means, I now have staff. I even have an extra artist's hand in Aubrey Ayala Boneau, another really wonderful artist, who helped with a couple of the covers for Among Women, and designed 2 beautiful covers that I've used on other versions of the novel. I think I have it covered, at least until I can afford someone to do the PR, something else at which I know my considerable limitations.

Although I prefer to go with the flow when the muse is leading the way, I have enough common and business sense to get help when I need it. I've sent the first few pages to Mary Ann and have alerted Michael that a new cover will be needed by May 2012. In the meantime, now that the business end is in place and working -- or ready to be put to work -- I can concentrate on what I do best -- write -- knowing that I can write without the usual hassles and problems that crop up along the way. All of that kind of planning makes what I do so much easier since I'm not gnawing myself out of the mood and into some serious writer's block. After all, if I've nothing written, there's no need to have staff, and I like having staff. It feels almost like I've arrived.

Oh, and the title of the sequel? Among Men.

Filling the Page

I'm nearly to the end of the current journal I'm keeping and already I'm excited by the prospect of the first blank pages of a new journal. All those possibilities and space and I feel anxious about starting something new with pages and pages of space waiting for me to put words to the paper, cover it in inky words and sketches.

Why isn't it that way with the blank computer screen waiting for words -- or for me to continue where I left off? I don't know.

There is something more daunting about a blank computer screen, cursor blinking, waiting for something, anything to fill up the space, preferably words that form sentences and paragraphs and end in stories. The computer screen, even what you can see, feels endless. A journal is finite, so many pages bound and waiting.

Writing in my journals is fairly easy and few days over the past several decades have gone by without me writing something. There are times when I am pressed to fill a whole page and other when fifty pages is not enough, yet there is always something for me to write. It's often incoherent to the casual observer because I use a kind of shorthand when writing, a combination of short cuts I use for the day job and shorthand symbols I remember from years ago. It's my way for my hand to keep up with the churning thoughts that spill onto the page. There are blots and words crossed out when my mind went too fast for the pen, but mostly it's legible, and a handwriting expert, or anyone who knows me well, can tell my mood by the slant of the letters and how neat they are. When I'm on a roll and the words are flowing, the letters are uniform and very legible. When it's coming rough, not so much, but they're there on the page in mostly black, although sometimes other colors, purple being the favorite. Pages and pages and shelves full of journals of all types and sizes, filled with words and ideas, bits of stories, ruminations on what I've been reading or some question that popped into my mind at random. An idea peeks around the corner while I'm writing and before long I've grabbed it and taken it for a spin.

I work out plot points and character details in the journals. Those are marked with metal clips, a trick I learned because I didn't want to go back through nearly a hundred journals. Dates don't really mean anything except for a way to put the journals in order; they certainly don't pertain to a specific book or character or story because I don't put them by dates. A story may germinate and grow over ten years or ten minutes. There's no way to tell. I do know when the story is ready to commit to paper and I often have to hold back and finish a book or story I've already started. Not so with the journals. I can pick them up at any time and go for hours or jot down a few lines that take an hour or so.

No matter how hard it is to write some days, I always come back and write some more. The journals are my truest voice and my proving ground, my place to discuss things and pour out my anger. In those pages, I am naked and angry, hopeless and hopeful, full of rage and full of joy. Sadness, pain, curiosity, philosophizing, ranting, and wonder are on all those pages.

I watched Any Human Heart, a Masterpiece Theater series based on William Boyd's book of the same name and realized that Logan Mountstuart, despite being blocked in writing another novel, Octet I think he called it, considered himself unsuccesful because his books hasn't sold tens of thousands of copies and he wasn't rich. He even had a few years of living on dog food and wrote about how it was edible with the right condiments -- a lot of the right condiments.

All the while, Logan wrote in his journals, stacks and stacks of journals. He even managed to keep a journal during the year he was imprisoned in Switzerland during World War II, hiding his pages in a hole he dug in the wall and making ink out of what was available, writing with the pointed end of a stick. But he wrote and he continued to write, keeping an account of his musings and trials and tribulations on those blank pages, beginning when he was at university and continuing to the end of his days.

Those journals, the account of his life, was published posthumously as a novel, a best selling novel, though there was no heir to collect the royalties, all of them having died long before he did. He never realized how important his journals were and how successful he was as an author and a writer who chronicled the decades through which he lived.

I have no such delusions of grandeur and it isn't why I keep journals. They are for me, although there have been times I have shared one or two journals with someone so they would know me better, be able to see the real me collected on those pages.

No, I doubt my journals will be published when I die, especially since I have left orders to have them all burned -- or buried -- when I'm gone. I don't keep journals to be published. I keep them because the blank pages beg to be filled and covered with my variable scrawl and because they are my truest self, the one I know the best, the one that changes and evolves, the one I look back on to see how far I've come.

Now, if only I can translate that to the blank screen with its blinking cursor waiting for brilliance -- or even mediocrity -- waiting for me to get busy and be as faithful in writing books as I am in keeping journals. The journals are my life's blood poured out in organized inky scrawl, my yawp and howl that I am here, that I existed, that I write.

 

 

Trickle Down Socialism

A utopian paradise is possible as long as there are no people. The Shakers had it, but they all died out because sex was not an option, not even for procreation. No sex = no offspring = oblivion for the sect.

Thomas More died for his utopian beliefs, and because he wouldn't agree that King Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was not his real wife, that the marriage was a lie because Catherine had been his brother's wife first and was not a virgin when Henry married her. That belief set the religious and spoiled Henry on a tear that resulted in a religious schism and strenthened the protestant movement away from the Catholic church.

Utopias begin with the idea that if everyone has enough and takes care of his neighbors everything will be light and happiness. That's not the case. Where there is a way to cheat the system, or the idea, someone will find a way and exploit it. Now politicians bent on saving the rest of the world and humanity cry out against poverty and want. Everyone should have enough to eat, a doctor to care for their needs, and money to fund it all. Share and share alike is the motto as politicians and do-gooders prey on the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens.

Share and share alike was at the heart Marx's utopia. Everyone works and everyone eats. No one gets more than anyone else. Cuba embraced it but Russia embraced it first in the wake of World War I when the Tsar's family was ousted, imprisoned, and murdered. There was no need for royalty or a ruling class. No more ostentatious wealth stolen from the middle class and poor. No more haves and have nots; everyone would have. Except that's not the way it worked. The Soviets had a ruling class and they were ruling from the top in the tsar's palaces and the homes of the ousted royalty and very rich. The ruling class was the government built on the backs of the poor who still didn't have enough and worked for their share of the profits, except none of the profits trickled down. The poor were still poor and the rich and privileged were just as rich and privileged. They wore uniforms and suits, and kept the ermine, jewels, and fabulous art hidden from view.

Prick a liberal and they bleed and the blood trickles down.

It is a shame that there have to be poor who don't have the money to get good dental care and cannot afford doctors and hospitals. It's unfair that they cannot have as much food as anyone else. The cry goes out and laws are passed. Welfare is born. Food stamps are distributed and Welfare gives money for families with children; they need help the most. Food stamps don't cover toilet paper, Kleenex, and household products to keep the house and family clean, just food, and not food that is already prepared. They must cook the food themselves, although chips and dips are perfectly acceptable. They can buy a lobster if they like, but they must cook it themselves or food stamps won't cover it.

The madness continues and the cost trickles down.

The poor are still poor, but for a few days or weeks in the month they eat as well as anyone else -- until the food stamps run out. They trade food stamps for money to buy cigarettes and drugs and booze, or just trade for cigarettes, drugs, and booze without the money. One way or another, they get what they want. They go to the doctor and the dentist on the taxpayer's dime but don't get the same level of care that someone who can afford it gets. It's enough. One finger in a hole in a dike is sufficient for the area it covers. Someone else will have to cover the other holes in the dike.

Socialized health care is a good idea, but it's not workable. If the disease is too chronic or the illness will cost a great deal to heal or manage, take a number and wait in line. At least you're covered. When isn't important. You're covered.

Where does all the money come from? The taxpayers. The fast disappearing middle class. It certainly doesn't come from the richest citizens. They don't pay taxes, not with all the loopholes and government worker palms they cross with silver or gold. Pay for a junket, pass along an envelope full of cash, or a suitcase full of stocks or gold, and th law works in your favor. The rich are still rich and getting richer and the middle class, the engine of the country's economy, gets poorer and join the growing hordes of the poor. They're honest, hard-working people and don't have generations of living on Welfare to know how to work the system, how having more kids means more money and how to turn inadequate food stamps into luxury items and fund their vices. They'll learn.  They have time to learn as jobs dry up and the economy falters.

In the twilight of one of the greatest nations on earth, the rich will still have money and they won't care what happens to the poor who are so much unwashed, lazy people unable to work their way up the ladder. Wouldn't matter if the did. The rich don't given countenance to the nouveau riche or the social climbers, except to use them until there is nothing left to use.

The demands for more trickle down from above and stop in the middle class where the money is made, sucking out the life blood, while the benefits trickle down to the poor. Panhandlers pop up everywhere, and not just the drop-outs and recently poor, but the con artists that doff their rags and wash off the dirt before they go home to their well appointed homes to eat roast beef and ice cream and play with their children in comfortable homes where the roof never leaks and the plumbing always delivers hot and cold while flushing away the debris.

A seesaw works on a fulcrum. A long board goes up and down depending on the weight and thrust of each end, pivoting on  strong center. If the center is weak, the board falls to the ground or it breaks and casts the riders to the ground. It doesn't hold. It won't work.

And the money keeps trickling down.

All the social services come from the working class, the middle class, not from the wealthy and privileged, and the poor benefit. Some poor benefit. The rest eke out a meager existence little better than what they had before Welfare and socialized medicine, but that's all right. Consciences have been salved and the poor are taken care of -- barely. What happens when there is no more middle class to fund the social services? Will the rich pitch in ? Don't count on it.

The top 1% will never pay a dime and most of the rest of the rich will pay as little as possible. The middle class will sink under the demands of a liberal and utopian society while the grafters and grifters will skim off the cream and send the rest to trickle down to the poor, most of whom live better than the people working for a living -- the poor's living. Utopia once again dies like a sinner under the weight of rocks piled on his chest, crushing the heart and leaving the blood to trickle down.

I'm not against providing assistance to those that really want to better themselves, but I refuse to pay for the theft and fraud that the rest exact as their brutal toll on the sensibilities of the working class. Immigrants come to our country and work their way out of Welfare and socialized assistance, working hard and bettering themselves, and become part of the middle class. They won't be there for long, not at the present rate of self-destruction. The poor remain as they have always been and will always be.

Sharing out the profits of a hunt when man lived in caves was workable, but not when man moved together to build towns and cities and countries. The difference between rich and poor was well defined and some went hungry. When we lived in caves, someone who was broken down by ill health and old age was cast out or left to die along the road. The tribe's resources would not stretch to carrying dead weight from those who could not or would not work and they were left to their own devices, or to be preyed upon by wolves, hyenas, and other predators, becoming a part of the cycle of life, a titbit in the food chain.

When we became civilized, it was no longer right that the sick and old should be cast out. There was room and as long as someone was willing to feed, clothe, and house them, they would live until death took them in the course of time. Caring for the sick, the old, and the helpless is still a good idea, but at what price? How long must others bear the burden of caring for them? How much must be taken from someone who has worked hard to give themselves and their families a good life? How much must they be forced by legislation and guilt to give up?

Socialized medicine is a good idea, as long as the money to fund it comes from those who can really afford it, the people who live in one of their many mansions and throw away money on parties for their friends and supporters, vacations in exotic lands, fruits and vegetables and meat and seafood flown in from around the world at the peak of freshness. People who think nothing of buying a jewel-studded toilet seat or paying millions for art that no one will ever see in their private collection vault. Let them fund the programs for the poor since they helped to make and keep them poor. Let the ultra rich oligarchs put their money to use funding factories and businesses that employ the poor and pay for health, dental, and eye care for their employees. They will still have more money than they can spend in 10 lifetimes, but they will do some good.

How much money can one person or one family spend? What good does it do to have such fabulous and obscene wealth except to say you have it? It would be better to own factories, businesses, and stores than piles of cash and the result would be  strong economy that employs more people than anywhere else on earth and gives them a living wage. The middle class have paid all they can stand to pay. Lower their taxes and give them the kinds of breaks the poor get in colleges and universities and businesses and watch them flourish.

Charities get more money from working class people, from the middle class, than from the oligarchs. When times are tough, the charities get less because there is less to go around. That doesn't mean that some rich don't fund charities, and not just for the tax break. That kind of funding won't make a dent in their overall assets.

It's time for the wealth to trickle down, which does not mean I hate the rich and blame them for all the ills on earth. Governments handle that quite nicely on their own. Absolute power and absolute corruption. The rich need to pitch in. After all, how many Rolls Royces and Jaguars can one man drive? Let the funds for socialized guilt trickle down from the wealthy -- legislate it if that's the only way to get it done -- and let it trickle through the middle class and down to the poor. Let the money build a strong middle class and lift the poor, but not at the cost of no more middle class. Kill the engine and the vehicle stops and will move no further.

I don't think we need to get to the point of casting out the members of the tribe unwilling to work to maintain their position, but I do think it's time to be realistic. We cannot save everyone and we cannot abolish poverty. Someone will always get lost in the shuffle. What we can do is be smart and realize that nothing trickles down where nothing remains. If we don't get this right, there will be a revolution of the poor and unwashed, the disenfranchised members of a dwindling middle class, and they will tear down the palaces of the rich and set them against the wall with guns blazing. The fall of the tsar will be nothing to the bloodshed that will follow the collapse of the middle class as prey becomes predator and set their eyes on the wealthy. Chaos will follow and eventually a new wealthy class will arise from the ashes of the old to oppress the people not quick enough or unscrupled enough to get their share. All that will be left is blood trickling down and the argument begins anew.

That is not a world I want. Do you?

Cut Out the Middle Man

As I work on the latest story fighting for head space, I take a few moments to read the news and am appalled by what I see. I've known about the fight in the UK to keep libraries open and a world where libraries cease to exist because of budget cuts is not a world where I want to live.

Yes, I can afford to buy books on digital and in print, but can the community afford to let free access to books end? Not if they want to maintain literacy or informed people. Not if they want to fund a place where poor children can go to learn to read and be introduced to new writers and books. Not if they want a place where even the poor can go to learn and dream and become more. It's not an option in a sane world.

The UK has socialized medicine, but they can't afford -- or won't pay for -- libraries? What is wrong with this picture?

Fighting for attention is the Susan G. Komen organization's decision to stop funding mammograms for poor and indigent women through Planned Parenthood. They can donate their money wherever they choose, but their reasoning is specious and faulty. Mammograms through Planned Parenthood aren't done on the premises? Okay, so why not make funds available to buy the equipment so the mammograms can be done in-house? End of problem and better use of resources. The $700,000 a year for mammograms previously granted to PP wasn't enough to buy the equipment and provide trained technicians to do the exams. The choice in how to spend the funds was up to the people making mammograms available.

Of course, machines and technicians for detailed exams and ultrasounds would also have to be purchased since that is the next step if a suspicious nodule is found on mammogram, but that could be shunted off to the local hospital or clinic and the funds could follow the patient. It's a hack's way of doing things when SGK could erect their own buildings and buy the equipment, pay the staff to do mammograms in a SGK funded facility, but why waste the money when there are facilities already available.

My biggest beef is calling Planned Parenthood an abortion facility. That is not all that Planned Parenthood is about and minimalizes what the facilities do. Education is a big part of their services, as is providing condoms and doing pregnancy tests. There are also training classes in safe sex and parenting and counseling on options while pregnant. STD testing, psychological counseling, group therapy for parents and would-be parents, a place to go to fill out forms for WIC and Welfare and a host of other groups and services, and, yes, a place to go for an abortion if that is a choice. Planned Parenthood is about choices -- all choices, not just approved choices.

On a positive note, donations to Planned Parenthood have gone viral and, at last count, were up to $400,000. It's a beginning.

Did I mention that prenatal care is also one of Planned Parenthood's services? Check-ups and risk assessment?

The spokespeople for Susan G. Komen say their decision wasn't based on politics and yet it looks political. It sounds political and it smells political. What do people say about something that looks, talks, sounds, and smells like something? 'nuff said.

We live in a world of political expediency where what looks like a money-saving issue is really anything but. The UK is supposedly trying to save money by shutting down libraries. Susan G. Komen is supposedly intent on spending their money where it would do the most good. Neither situation passes the smell test.

The people who donated their hard earned dollars to the Susan G. Komen Foundation should find a better place to donate their money, like directly to Planned Parenthood.

As for the UK, as an American anything I say would be ignored because I don't live in the UK, but in a country noted for its social programs and the home and birthplace of many literary stars, you'd think that politics wouldn't be the deciding factor in whether or not to fund libraries. It must be hard to close libraries with such a legacy, but it certainly doesn't look hard from here. 

Put your money and your votes where they will do the most good. Speak in a way that politicians understand -- with votes and dollars. Go directly to the source.

Planned Parenthood 

British Libraries

Somewhere in Time

The fantasy of time, its limits only solid when looking at it from a day-to-day perspective, has been a popular element in fiction and movies. From H. G. Wells's The Time Machine to the modern day Map of Time by Felix Palma, it's all about time, where you can go, and what is found when the boundaries of time are crossed. Time travel was an element writers like Andre Norton and Stephen King have employed, King in his last 11/23/63, which I have not yet read, but look forward to whenever I unearth it from the cracks it feel between a month or so ago. I may have to tear down a wall to get to it, but that's what happens when reading in bed and falling asleep with it still in my hands.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could think or dream ourselves to a different time and walk the streets of Venice or watch the Battle of Waterloo from a mountaintop neaerby? Or find that perfect love, the one who was made with us in mind, and find that happily ever after?

It was a portrait of an actress who appeared at a theater after the dawning of the 20th century that drew Richard Collier to the past. Richard Matheson wrote Richard's love story in Bid Time Return, which was made into the movie, Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve as Collier and Jane Seymour as Elise McKenna, a woman of beauty and talent appearing in a theatrical production. That has to be my favorite story and movie, although I saw the movie before I read the story, which is the way I find many books that have become favorites.

It wasn't so much the longing and excitement of that One Love that drew me to the story but the feeling that tim is a barrier only in the mind. To be in a room so steeped with time that the past bleeds into the present so seamlessly and to be able to walk from this time to that is an exhilarating possibility. Walking around in that time, knowing that you have been there before and can be again is a marvel of invention and relies only on the heart and mind of the traveler to make it so.

Although the story does not end happily ever after, the power of love and longing that reaches through time and connects two people is romantic and the sadness of the loss makes it that much more romantic and poignant. It is the delicate balance between romance and self-destruction that makes the story so memorable. Was it madness that drove Richard to reach through the veils of time or was it love, that most powerful of emotions? Truth be told, there is madness in love that so single-mindedly drives us to assault the hurdles that prevent us from being with The One. Maybe that's what makes it so compelling, so intoxicating.

There is also a sense of wondrous possibility and hope that permeates the story as Richard strives to find the connection between himself and an actress he met just once, an aging woman who leaves him with a gold watch and a cryptic message: Come back to me. Who would not have remembered and, given the opportunity, follow, no matter the risk? There is hope in such madness and madness beyond words that fills the soul with love and possibility.

Each time I read the story or see the movie I wish again that Richard and Elise had found a way to stay together, but then there would be no story and neither would have reached the pinnacles of their arts. It is the conundrum of time -- and love -- that what burns hottest and brightest is too seductive to resist and is still more worth the having. Who would not risk all to find even a moment of perfect happiness and to know that what was once found can be found again somewhere in time?

He Likes Me

Chili Bob called me yesterday morning to chat. Aside from his ankle issues, he mostly talked about his youngest daughter and her first boyfriend. She has commented on her Facebook page that she's feeling wonderful. That can only be the whores moaning -- in the vernacular, hormones talking.

Beth is in the first flush of love, her first love and she's nearly out of high school. He likes me rings through her mind as she mentally plucks the petals of a mutant rose or daisy filled with petals that tell her 'he likes me, he likes me, he likes me...' There are not petals so perverse as to whisper 'he likes me not,' not at this stage of the flush. The world is brighter and the colors more spectacular. Food has no taste because the words 'he likes me' taste so good nothing can compare, not even her favorite deep fried turkey and sweet potato souffle.

Nothing tastes as satisfying as those words, probably because Beth has come to love so late in her teenage years and, for the first time in her life, she knows how it feels to be liked -- by a boy -- a cute boy. It's the same feeling that Sally Field set the movie industry snickering over and Stephanie Meyer turned to box office and literary gold -- the late bloomer overwhelmed by endorphins and questionable judgment. He likes me.

I remember those feelings. Doesn't everyone? I came to them early, before I started school, and felt them often whenever a new boy cast his eyes my way and smiled right before he rushed over to ask me to go steady. Parties where we played kissing games were extra sweet when THE BOY had to kiss me amidst titters, teasing, and tinges of red in my cheeks.

Beth didn't have those roller coaster times. She has spent her time playing basketball and auditioning for leads in plays all over the northwestern part of Ohio -- and getting most of them. She played ingenue and romantic leads opposite men and boys, feigning those emotions she never had the time or the interest to try on for real. It was all make-believe until HE came.

It's probably not that surprising HE was someone she knew from auditions and plays they acted in together and this time life imitated art. That they share the same passions (acting and singing and dancing, and a little bit of basketball) helps the romance along, but it's really just two teenagers getting together for the first time as they bounce around on endorphins while their whores keep moaning. Loudly. Often. He likes me.

None of us are immune to the power of 'he likes me,' not even as adults. Once the endorphins ping and the whores moan, we are lost -- unless we're too jaded and experienced to even notice. Not even money and stock options can take away that thrill. He likes me. The most secluded and antisocial of hermits will come out of their caves smiling, eyes twinkling when they realize -- he likes me. It's human nature. It's biology. It's the thrill of new love when everything is limned in golden light that blurs imperfections and hides flaws and inconsistencies.

Those first golden days, weeks, months (however long) allow carte blanche for mistakes, blunders, errors, and outright lies. The whores are moaning too loudly for anything else to get through. He likes me. It's no wonder that love turns to hate when the cracks in the foundation appear and all beings to crumble into the relentless sea of 'but he liked me.' From there, the rapid slide into pain and disbelief and outright stalking with intent to maim, torture, and punish drown out the last vestiges of 'he likes me' until there is only an infinetessimal skoch of hope. Even that little flicker of fading light will flare up again when the realization dawns that 'he likes me.' All hatred dissolves until all that is left is that all encompassing golden light and smiles ride the waves of endorphins and whores moaning once again. The subsequent crashes are more spectacular -- and far more dangerous -- until 'he likes me' whispers once again. No wonder people prefer the roller coaster to the carousel where there are no highs and lows, no depths of despair and volcanoes of anger and betrayal to counter the dizzying heights of 'he likes me.' But who can live on such titanic emotional struggles for long?

'He likes me.'

Remember how that feels, but be wary. Few loves can last such frustrating and delirious emotions for long before burning out and leaving the taste of ashes.

I hope Beth enjoys her first boyfriend and finds her passion for acting, singing, and dance as a balance for her first flush of love. It's safer when you fall if your feet are flat on the ground.

 

King Tut, Bequests, and Cross-stitch

Beanie called yesterday to see how I was doing. What she really wanted was to talk, something we haven't done in a while. The connections seem filled with static with broken trunk lines.

We chatted, but what interested me most was a all she told me about. One of the boys called her a day or two after the funeral to apologize if he was inappropriate and ask if he could have the death mask of King Tut that I had cross-stitched and given to my mother. Beanie told him she couldn't do that because Mom gave Tut and Nefertiti back to me a few years ago. They hang on my living room wall. He never called and asked me about them and it has been nearly a week. I guess he'll wait until I die, take them down and take them with him when he goes after my funeral, except I am not planning on there being a funeral and I've considered donating them to a museum. The frames at least are worth something and I put a lot of work into both pieces. Mom always said I should have them appraised, but where does one go to have cross-stitch appraised and how would they be valued?

The value to me is obvious. I spent a great deal of time stitching the pieces, two weeks for each, working 8-10 hours a day for 14 days. I changed some of the materials, like using a 28-ct even weave cloth in navy blue instead of the Aida suggested. I don't like Aida; it's too stiff. The fabric I used feels soft and takes the thread and needle like a dream. The metallic threads that give the piece it's shine and rich look are hard to work with but worth the effort. I still have some of the thread I used for Tut and Nefertiti; I saved everything, including the metallic threads, and then I gave at least one box of the threads to a friend. Mom sent them to me in one of her junk boxes, a combination of things that belong to me and were in storage and whatever she thought I'd like.

Our tastes were so different. She preferred gaudy colors and knick-knacks and, while I like looking at knick-knacks, I don't like dusting or having them cluttering everything up. I gave up knick-knacks a while back and even then my dust catchers were different from my mother's ideas of tarting a place up with junk. I prefer crystal balls in ornate holders and porcelain statues of Erte's costume designs, and the occasional Greek goddess or god. There was a time I collected porcelain eggs, but that time is past. My shelves are more apt to be filled with books and DVDs than statues and painted marble or porcelain eggs. Fewer things I have to box up and move.

And the books are going, too. I'm donating them to the library and either Goodwill or Volunteers of America. Maybe both.

One thing we did agree on was Tut and Nefertiti, or at least my colored thread renditions of them. That's Tut's picture above. It's not a great likeness, but it's all I have right now and I cannot find my camera to take another. Maybe after I get rid of some more books it will turn up.

Since the first time I shared the pieces with her, Mom coveted them, so much she threatened to burgularize my apartment to get them since I refused to just hand them over. Neither piece was matted and framed yet, that was next on my list of things to do. I did allow her to take them to work to show people. She loved bragging and showing off, even if it wasn't her stuff she was showing about. When I got them back, I cleaned them up and took them to a framer's shop to be done. They cost $119 each, and that has been about 20 years ago. It was a lot of money but it was worth it.

I chose the mats and frames with such care, settling on a papyrus reed paper for one of the mats. The effect was stunning. I gave Tut to Mom for Xmas one year using one of my more devious methods and she nearly fell down the stairs getting to it when she finally realized it had been hanging on the hall wall all Xmas Eve. None of us had seen her move so fast, not with two knee replacements and her bad back. She clutched the large frame to her chest and ran through the house yelling, "I got it. I got it. It's mine. It's mine." Nefertiti follow a few years later, but I just handed her over once she was matted and framed without the elaborate gift-giving strategem. I had someone else to torture that year and I limit myself to torturing only one person a year -- per family.

Tut and Nefertiti hung in pride of place in the house in Hilliard and then in New Holland until the year Dad died. I came back to Ohio to spend a week with Dad and took Tut and Nefertiti home, wrapped in a faux mink throw. They -- and I -- made it safely home and they have been with me since.

Mom told me several times that she wishes she hadn't given them back. She missed having them close. Someone she knew offered to mat and frame them again, this time with glass between the work and people's hands, and did the pair for free. She didn't choose a papyrus paper mat and didn't use the same colors in the matting, but the frames are nice and the glass protects the work from the elements and people. I don't mind too much because it's not the frames or the mats that count, it's the work itself.

I'd no idea that my son had ever seen them or wanted them, but he must have seen them some time. That he remembered and coveted them still surprises me. There are so many other things to covet and ask to have. Mom had so much junk and lots of knick-knacks to choose from, but he wants Tut. Probably Nefertiti, too, if he knew about her; she did come later since it took a while to find a pattern and change the colors to match Tut's, and then the all the time to stitch and frame her. Getting either one is not an option now. I'm still alive.

And I've taken up cross-stitching again. I'm working on Xmas stockings for my grandkids. I've nearly finished the first one -- on Aida cloth -- and will hopefully finish the other four by Xmas. I don't have the time to spend 8-10 hours a day working on them and my fingers are not sufficiently callused yet so the needle doesn't hurt so much when I push it through the stiff cloth. I've a little callus building, but it's not ready yet. I'm ready though, ready to pick up cross-stitching and there are so many beautiful projects to choose. I even found some beautiful nudes that would be fun to try, almost as much fun as the 24 x 36-inch nudes I painted when Dave and I moved to Arizona after David Scott was born. I didn't work at first and on those rare occasions when my son was quiet or napping and I waited for the load of wash to finish so I could hang them out to dry, I painted by the numbers, blending the colors and changing some of the design, and created two beautiful nudes that hung on the wall.

I never had them framed and somewhere along the way they were either lost or given to someone who coveted them the way I covet colored and metallic threads and the way they change in my hands from thread to layers of light, shadow, and color to create beautiful images on cloth in some alchemical magic that delights and surprises me still. The process is calming and soothes the restless artistic spirit that overtakes me from time to time, reminding me of a time when brush and paints answered the touch of fingers and hands to bring the seeming of life to blank canvas for someone to covet and ask for -- or pay for -- with or without mats and framing -- and glass.

The night stand by the bed has a heap of tangled thread ends on it. I like to stitch in bed for a while before reading until I'm ready to fall asleep. The images on the instruction sheet come alive on the cloth as I stitch and I marvel anew that threads combined in a certain way create the subtle shading, shadows, and light that make the whole project come alive. I see the possibilities when I decide to buy the kit and it makes me want to buy other kits and make more projects. Bell pulls, tapestries, baby afghans and bibs, bits of cross-stitch for clothing, and so many other things. I imagine stitching and hanging them on the walls with appropriate frames and matting or hardware, or packing them in boxes and sending them to my sons to give to my grandchildren to enjoy. This need to cross-stitch will pass and another creative outlet will excite me for a while until only my true passion remains -- words.

Words on a page, threads on canvas, built letter by letter and page by page, a tangible reminder that I was here and left a mark for someone to covet after my death. I wonder which will endure the longest -- Tut and Nefertiti behind glass or these tangled words.

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Linh Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing in the Asian Commonwealth. She is also a cyborg and therefore a second class citizen because she is less human, about 38% human, according to the tests. With a platinum and plastic heart that pumps quietly and efficiently and a cybernetic network and visual display that keep her cool, calm, and collected, she is a marvel of machinery. A few minor upgrades, like a brand new mechanical foot since she's outgrown the old one placed when she was a child, and she'd be perfect, just not human, as her guardian and adopted mother would have it.

Her guardian was once the wife of a rich and powerful man who died of Letumosis, a contagion that began in the country and has worked its way into the confines of the city, and it is always fatal. Cinder's guardian blames her for infecting her adopted father and leaving them all destitute so that Cinder is the family's only source of income, and Cinder's guardian resents her for it.

When the prince (incognito) comes to Cinder's stall on market day to have a teaching robot fixed, she is surprised and her system warns her that she was in danger of sensory overload. The prince wants his robot fixed before the festival and Cinder agrees to give it a go, while concealing she is a cyborg, thus changing their lives forever and setting the ground rules for Meyer's re-imagined fairy tale.

In remodeling the fairy tale of Cinderella, Marissa Meyer throws out most of the conventions and strikes out into brand new territory, retaining a few of the traditional elements to give the story a magical feel. There is more science in Cinder than magic, but that shouldn't deter die-hard fairy tale fans. There is enough of the fairy tale to maintain the fantasy.

From the beginning, Meyer lets you know what is about to happen, leaving not so subtle clues and repeating them from time to time. From the first mention of the lunar princess who has been missing for more than a decade, it's obvious who she will turn out to be -- Cinderella, or in this case, Cinder. Meyer leans pretty hard on the "I'm not good enough because I'm a cyborg" element, but it's not always unpleasant and anchors Cinder within the story's emotion and social framework.

While Cinder isn't a classical fairy tale, it is still fairy tale enough with queens from the moon with the power to glamour entire populations and turning their emotions from hate and disgust to love and adoration. The fairy godmother may be a lunar scientist on the run from the current regime and not using his glamour gift, but he is certainly a fun and fascinating addition to the tale.

When a dirty Cinder limping on a poorly fitting mechanical foot in a discarded dress shows up at the ball, the ending to the night is in the bag -- or is it?

Marissa Meyer throws a few curves in Cinder and they enhance the story: missing lunar princess, a cyborg Cinderella with no feminine wiles, an evil queen with the power to glamour everyone, and a power struggle between Earth and the Moon for starters. The biggest drawback is knowing the book is part of a trilogy and it will take a while before Cinder finds her happily ever after ending with the prince.

Cinder is a welcome addition to re-imagined fairy tales with a style and shape all its own.