Beyond these waters lies success...DANGER!

As elementalmuse pointed out in her journal, there is a tempest in a teapot that has garnered the attention of at least one major newspaper. Anne Rice has answered her critics on their mostly anonymous reviews of Blood Canticle, the last of the Vampire Chronicles. Like many another successful author, she has dared to end a beloved group of characters that have become legend. If you're looking for the review, don't; it has been deleted. And yet with the power of the Internet it is here: Anne Rice's response

Being a writer is a double-edged sword and sliding down the razor blade of life (as one close friend calls it) is no picnic for even the most famous. In many senses writing a book is like birthing a child that you give your best and send out into the world to be greeted, hopefully with praise and kindness, but more often than not with catcalls and jeers.

As a reviewer, I bring my experience, taste, and sensibilities to what I read and try to point the way to what I consider good and bad books and stories, but reviewing is a subjective art...and art it is. It is one person's opinion, my opinion. Even Poppy Z. Brite has taken on the anonymous and often vicious reviewers of Amazon.com in the name of striking out on a new track, one that does not involve horror or boy love or anything that is remotely close to what made her a recognizable name in horror. Writers evolve. They take chances. They move forward. And to be trapped by the words you write into yet another book about the same characters when you may or may not wish to continue them is to create the very scenario that Stephen King envisioned in Misery.

Writers become trapped by successful characters and worlds, places that no longer offer them creative freedom or a place to build, remodel, or even imagine any more. So many writers, yes, and even actors, have been trapped by personas they created that took on a life of their own. Unfortunately, without the man behind the curtain or inside the character's skin, the creation dies. It is like being an indentured servant for the rest of your life, forced to perform the same act over and over when your relish and joy are gone.

That being said, good and bad reviews are better than none at all because they generate sales. If you cannot stand the heat, stop standing in the fire. Writing requires strength and a willingness to risk yourself and your literary children, and both must learn to stand on their own and suffer, as Shakespeare once wrote in Hamlet, "...the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..." or find some quiet and safe a/vocation where you will not be challenged.

Is there a story here...?

I'm not counting, but time stretches between us, separating us even when we are close enough to touch. I am constantly aware of you, my mind reaching out to touch you, find some sense of what you're thinking, feeling, experiencing. And in the meantime, I pour those emotions into the writing, making love to you with words since I cannot make love to you with my body.

You infuse my body, my mind, and my soul with a conflict of feelings, first searing me with passion and then filling me with contentment and peace and love. It's disconcerting and exciting and loving and pain all rolled into one.

So, today I wrote more scenes of passion flaring between two people, the scenes building in my mind from a word or a thought, growing from the core of emotion and passion that burns me in unquenchable flames. I immerse myself in you, call you by different names, and yet they are all you. The clear hazel fires that burn in your eyes between the dark fringes of your lashes. The crooked smile that sparks my nipples erect and races along my skin and into the deepest chambers of my heart. The open honesty of love that spears my heart and holds me prisoner. All of them, from the touch of your skin against mine, your touch setting fire to my nerves and body, starting the fountain that opens the way to join us and bind us in pleasure that is so much more than mere pleasure. Through it all, you are here, your hands on mine, your lips a fiery line from my neck to my shoulder and trailing down my spine. I reach for you with words since I cannot reach for you with my arms.

I seek you in dreams and sleep, connecting with the warmth and love I feel every time I taste your name on my lips and feel your heart beating in time with mine. My body aches for you and my soul yearns to be joined with yours. But I know I must wait and wait I do, impatiently at times, but ever hopeful.

Reading Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, I read one of the little vignettes of the small town of Green Town about an 80+-year-old woman and a young 20-something newspaper reporter. He fell in love with her picture before he realized it was a very old picture, but they became friends, sparking town gossip because they sat and talked over tea and biscuits every day for weeks. On his last visit to her, she signs and seals a letter in a blue envelope and tells him when he gets it she will be dead, but for him not linger more than 20 years and to make sure he dies in his early 40s of pneumonia so that come 1985 or 1990 they can get the timing right and be together as they should have and seemed to have missed the second time around. she says he will order some exotic flavor of ice cream and a girl just the right age will comment. They will talk and it will be their time because they have come around again, gotten the timing right, and they will have their time together without age or circumstance between them. That begs for a story. That screams for someone to take the story to its conclusion and bring these star and time-crossed lovers together where they should have been all along.

Don't you agree?

Electricity off...

Last night, very early evening actually, the lights went out. They flickered and came on and went out again without warning. A blue-white light flashed in the back yard. I picked up the matches I keep near my desk, took a candle from my cabinet, and lit it. Predictably, it was a black candle. Fit my mood last night.

I came face to face with an end to dreaming and a snap back to reality. I tend to forget sometimes that my life is simple because I've chosen to keep it simple and that not everyone is able to do the same. My life has been complicated more times than I care to count, but I always reach for the simple answer.

Today someone asked me if I didn't see gray or did I only see black and white. The answer is that gray is a color, too, but it has become an excuse. Yes, there are extenuating circumstances from time to time, but that does not change things all that much. That is not a gray area. That is an exception to the rule of black and white, but the black and white remain.

Someone else said I was an action oriented person, which is true, but it was not always so. I have been hampered by indecision, by procrastination, and by not wanting to confront a situation head on and it has always ended up creating more problems than the original problem. You can't help avalanches, but if the river is slowly rising, cutting new trenches in the levees and you don't shore up the foundations, you can be sure the river will come crashing thru the disintegrating barrier and take away your house. There's a great line in Cold Mountain.

Ruby Thewes is talking about the insanity of the war. Basically it boils down to: everybody's complaining about the rain, but they made the weather and then they go outside and stand out in it and yell, "Shit! It's raining!"

I usually save my personal rants for my paper journal because writing helps me think and sort thru things. But this is my journal, too, and something I'm going thru might help someone else sort something out or get a different perspective. Writing in my paper journal helps me talk to me, but I'm not much good for interactive feedback...not without someone sending for the white coats with the wrap around jacket and the big net.

So you're all guinea pigs in my evil plot to make the world a simpler place. So quit kicking and fall in line. Make your life simpler. Follow me right off the cliff and into the sea like the good little lemmings I know you all are.

But seriously, we all tend to make things more difficult than they are. We worry about next year, next decade, and about things that haven't even happened. I've done it. You've done it. And it paralyzes us all. You don't know what will happen until you make a move. Think of the absolute worst that could happen (and I don't mean important parts falling off either) and if you can face that you can face anything.

I've had some interesting adventures in my life and things have not always been easy, but one thing I know that few people ever find out is that I can face anything and live thru it. I have walked thru the fire and walked out the other side intact. I wouldn't suggest anyone follow in my footsteps, but if you never take a chance, if you spend the rest of your life being afraid of what might happen you will never move far enough away to find out that you just missed out on the best part of your life.

Life is about risk. Take a risk, even if it's only doing something you've always wanted to do but were afraid to try. Go to a mall and sit and watch the people if you're afraid of social situations. Tell someone you love them even if they don't say it back. Be honest with yourself and put yourself out there. Sometimes you will fall down and get dirty and sometimes...more times than you realize...someone will offer you a hand and help you up. And then there are the times you try something completely out of the ordinary and find you like it so much you want to do it again.

My grandmother always said we weren't allowed to not like something unless we tried it first. Gagging, coughing, and various disgusting sounds followed sometimes, but at least we knew what we did and didn't like. And sometimes we got a surprise and something we were sure we'd never like turned out to be something we loved.

In the meantime, here are a few lyrics:

I got crazy yesterday and I called her to say,
"Please, baby, won't you come home tonight?"
I can't even trust my brain to get my heart in from the rain
I know that girl's a hurricane in her own right.
Then, early next morning after she was going I sat there in my chair all alone
I called my friend a cryin', asking him why that girl was always doing me so wrong.
He said, when the gates are all down and the signals are flashing
and the whistle is screaming in vain,
if you stay on the tracks ignoring the facts,
well, you can't blame the wreck on the train.

No, you can't blame the wreck on the train.

Well, how many times have I promised myself
not to do the same thing as before?
I swear I will leave it alone and believe it
and then I'll turn around and do it some more.

Well fool me one time it's shame on you
Fool me twice it's shame on me
That's what my best friend warned me
when he called me this morning
then he reminded me...

He said, when the gates are all down
and the signals are flashing,
and the whistle is screaming in vain,
if you stay on the tracks ignoring the facts,
well, you can't blame the wreck on the train.
You gotta quit blaming that train.


Believe it.

You're not safe...

These past few months I have read a lot of journal postings by people enmeshed in untenable relationships. They complain. They moan. They gnash their teeth, but they do nothing about it. They might send a link to a web site or a journal post or even write a letter, but nothing changes for more than a minute. Nothing happens. And still they complain, still they moan and gnash their teeth about their horrible situations.

Guess what? It's time to do something about your situation. No one can do it for you.

If you're unhappy and not getting what you need from your relationship you have two options: get out or shut up and put up with it.

Your friends want to be supportive, but you should not expect your friends to be tolerant and supportive forever unless you do something to change the situation. It's in your hands. Whining about the same situation post after post is the same as standing out in the rain griping about getting wet. Get out of the rain or enjoy being wet. There is no middle ground.

It may seem safe in that little hell away from paradise you have constructed and it certainly is familiar, but it is not safe. Dying by inches is not safe. You might as well climb into your grave and pull the dirt in over you because you're dead. No situation is safe--not love, not hatred, not living. But hell can be really comfortable when you trade happiness for it. After all, who cares about the heat and the darkness when it's something you know?

What does it take for you to do something about your situation? Guts? A fire under your fence? Hope?

You're not safe. Living is not safe. Happiness is not an easy road and it is not safe either. You have a choice and making no choice is still a choice.

If you're unhappy, find what makes you happy and go after it. If you're afraid, forget it. Everyone is afraid. If you're dying by inches, either climb into the grave and die or get up off the fence and live. There is no middle ground. You cannot eat your cake and have it, too. So, get out or shut up and crawl back into the hell you created with a smile on your face and a shovel for the coal to keep it nice and hot. Life will not wait forever. Sooner or later it will give up and move on.

Masculinity 101

If you haven't read wordweaverlynn's post or aren't on her friends list, check it out. I've said the same thing for years, garnering lots of unwanted attention from the feminist front.

If you don't read the comments, read this: Just because the grass is greener on the other side doesn't mean it isn't over the septic tank.

Be smart. Check it out for yourself and learning Masculinity 101. You owe it to the rest of us to see things from the other side.

Hold onto your husbands, girls...

I'm back.

Which is apropos of nothing. I just like the line.

Anyway, I have nothing to say so I will say it and make it as long and pointless as possible.

My resurrected friend from Israel, the retired journalist, chastised me today for being an elitist piggie about writing keyword crap. Now, this come from a kosher vegan Jew who recently urged me to give up that filthy meat (piggy) or I'd never meet a nice Jewish accountant or (sorry had to double check the verbiage) nice Muslim beheader. On that note, I am proud to say I finished all six of my little erotic scenarios with some help from a very uniqueluddite who helped me write the last one where girls were kissing. I felt it was time he stretched his wings and tried something new. He did very well, by the way, and I'm pleased with the results, although the 300-word limitation meant I had to cut out some of the really good stuff. So, thank you very much, uniqueluddite, for your views and your prose. Maybe you are right and you're turning into a woman. Guess I'll have to become a lesbian, huh?

It seems that while I was working erotic magick, my friend (for the time being anyway) elementalmuse, has been blackening my name around the LJ communities by exaggerating my selfless devotion to her well being in helping her change her eating habits, but saying I have been *itching her out over not eating. This is a horrible and completely false piece of information. And the next time she forgets I'm going to remind her much less nicely with my foot up her bum. I owe it to her since she has already blackened my name and my gentle personality.

And now for the good stuff -- or semi-mediocre stuff, as the case may be.

Please remember the follow are only vignettes not meant to go beyond a certain point. There is no graphic sex or violence (quit whining...next time there will be), just the beginning. The rest is up to your imagination.

For the first and last time, I present whoring for dollars:

1/ Kiss

"No!" Darla pulled away from Scott. "You haven't called or come by for a week." Darla spun around, pushing Scott away as he moved closer. Her first instinct was to scratch the smile off his face. How could she have believed him? She shook her head and backed away.

"I called."

Tears glittered in Darla's eyes as she clenched her fists at her sides, rigid with confusion, anger, and hurt. "You didn't leave a message."

Scott took a step closer. Darla threw her hands up. "No! I meant it."

"Honey, let me explain."

"So you can tell me more lies?" Darla sidled past Scott, keeping as far from him as possible, and opened the door. "Just go. And don't call me again." Darla looked at the floor.

Scott's hand brushed hers on the door knob. She jerked back. Scott caught her hand. "I did call."

Tears slid down her cheeks.

Scott brushed away the tears, pulling Darla slowly closer. "I got called out on an emergency run into the bush. It took longer than anyone expected."

"I thought…."

Stroking the back of her neck, Scott urged Darla closer. Shivers trailed down her spine like the drip of fiery ice. Scott's lips were warm against her ear. "I missed you."

The hard knot in the pit of her stomach uncurled.

The clear green of Scott's eyes glittered with passion. Darla's body throbbed. Hot kisses rained down her neck and across her shoulders, sparking her nipples erect. Rising on her toes, Darla slid her arms around Scott's neck, acutely aware of the growing bulge against her belly. Scott's fingers slid down her back and cupped her buttocks.

"Please," Darla whispered.

Scott devoured Darla's lips, sucking her tongue in and out, peeling the straps from her shoulders as she reached for his zipper.


2/Sheila/Jonathan -

Nearly jumping out of her skin when the doorbell rang, Sheila straightened her skirt, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Jonathan was an old friend who happened to be in the area. He's probably married with ten kids by now. We're just saying hello and catching up, she reminded herself.

As soon as Sheila opened the door she nearly fainted. His voice over the phone had been deep and masculine, but she wasn't prepared for the tall, handsome man standing on the steps. The memory of the chubby boy in his Boy Scout uniform dissolved as they hugged.

Jonathan's hand was warm against Sheila's arm and goose bumps pebbled her skin as they stood together on the deck.

"Cold?"

Sheila shook her head, closed her eyes and took slow, deep breaths to calm her racing pulse.

Turning Sheila around, Jonathan cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward. Amber fire burned in his eyes and a ribbon of desire exploded in Sheila's belly. "This can't be happening," she protested weakly as she pulled away.

Jonathan caught Sheila's hand and gently turned her around. "Not this time, Sheila." Tasting Sheila's lips, Jonathan ran his tongue over her bottom lip.

Fingers twining in her thick chestnut curls, Jonathan tilted her face up, looked deep into her violet eyes. He kissed her again, coaxed her tongue with his own, molding her body against him.

"Why now?"

"I'm tired of waiting." Jonathan picked Sheila up and set her down on the table, moving between her legs. He pushed her skirt up her legs, caressing the smooth skin of her inner thighs.

Sheila gasped.

Jonathan pressed his hot, hard length against her sensitive mound.

"You certainly took your time," Sheila said as she wrapped her legs around Jonathan and scooted closer.


3/ Couple on beach

"Peace at last," Trevor said as he slid his arm around Elena. "The kids are finally off to college and I have you all to myself."

The sun gilded the steel trusses of the bridge across the bay, lowering into the gentle swells and foam. A breeze, scented with the promise of autumn, tickled the hairs away from Elena's cheeks. Trevor kissed the side of her neck. Elena snuggled closer. "That tickles," she said.

"I know something else that tickles, too." Trevor slid the sweater off her sun bronzed shoulder and traced a line of liquid fire with the tip of his tongue.

"Don't!" Elena pleaded. "Someone might see." She looked around at the empty beach, sighing as Trevor's cool fingers grazed her flushed breasts.

"Never bothered you before." Trevor slid the sweater lower, exposing the tops of full soft breasts. He lowered his head and mouthed her nipples through the fabric.

Elena arched her back and leaned against the picnic table in the fading light. Stars winked on above her and she sighed when Trevor cupped her breast and pulled her closer, his other hand slipping beneath the waistband of her shorts, dipping into the hidden honeyed warmth.

Giving herself over to the moment, Elena reached beneath Trevor's shirt, fingertips barely touching his sun-warmed skin, tracing circles and swirls across his belly and up his sides. Trevor shivered at her touch. Elena slid her hands up the length of his back.


Trevor kissed Elena softly, searching. Elena's teeth caught his lower lip and sucked it. A deep moan escaped his lips as Elena thrust her tongue into Trevor's mouth, sliding along the length of his tongue, suckling his tongue. She writhed in his lap, wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Please. Now," Elena said as she unbuttoned Trevor's jeans.



4/ Embrace

How do you tell your best friend you want more than friendship? Lilia wondered while she opened the refrigerator and took out vegetables and meat for the dinner she and Johann were making together.

Johann stood behind Lilia, his breath warm on the nape of her neck, sending a fever of desire through her that she fought to ignore. He reached around her, his body so close to her she was afraid to breathe.

With a quick peck on her cheek, Johann took the steaks from Lilia and strode to the counter. Lilia breathed slowly.

She didn't know how or when it happened, but somewhere during their five-year friendship, Lilia fell in love with Johann. She watched women come and go, the silent and faithful friend in whom Johann confided all the details of his relationships.

Oh, if only Johann would take Lilia in his arms and search out the heated wells of her desire with his long, strong fingers, kneading her heated flesh until she was ready to accept him deep inside.

Closing the refrigerator door, Lilia took the vegetables to the counter and began preparing the salad. Johann heated the grill and finished rubbing dry marinade on the steaks, kissing her cheek as he bustled past.

Lilia shuddered at his touch. She knew she could not go on like this, not any more.

Pushing the salad bowl aside, Lilia walked out onto the deck and stared into the jeweled sky, whispering a prayer.

"Lilia?" Johann walked onto the deck and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. "Why so quiet tonight?"

Tears glistening in her eyes, Lilia turned and put her arms around Johann's neck and kissed him.

Johann smiled tenderly down at Lilia and kissed her again. "Dinner can wait," he whispered as they embraced.


5/ Girl in field

"Marcy, wait." Peter ran across the field, jeans swishing in the tall grass. "Where are you going?" he called.

All Peter could see was Marcy's short blonde hair bobbing above the tall grass before it disappeared altogether.

Peter kept running, casting about on all sides, looking for some trace of his girlfriend. Marcy was as exasperating and wild and exciting as she was unpredictable. He wasn't sure what she would do next, but she promised today was the day.

"Marcy!" Peter called as he tumbled to the ground nearly on top of his elfin-featured girlfriend. Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she laughed at him sprawled in the grass.

"When I said you could jump my bones, I didn't mean it literally," Marcy giggled.

She leaned back on her hands, eyes closed, face turned toward the sun like a beautiful flower. Peter sat up. "Here?" he asked.

"Why not?" Marcy kicked off her shoes and took off her jacket. Peter watched mesmerized while she quickly shed her clothes, revealing inch after inch of rosy hued skin until she was as naked as a pixie of the field. He was too stunned to move or press his advantage.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked, tugging off his jacket and pulling his shirt over his head.

Embarrassed, Peter stood up and turned his back on Marcy's greedy stare. He pushed his jeans down and stepped out of them, skin prickling with goose flesh.

He heard Marcy stir behind him, taking his hand and urging him down onto the ground next to her. Peter scooted around. Marcy looked up at him, eyelids lowered, suddenly shy. "I always wanted it to be you," she said in a faint whisper as Peter lay down in the soft warm grass and pulled Marcy to him.


6/ Girls kissing

The scent of smoke and the clear crisp days of autumn followed Sarah and Rebecca as they walked across campus, leaves swish swishing around their feet.

"I can't believe Hardman gave me a B. I worked really hard on that paper." Rebecca kicked up a fountain of gold and scarlet leaves.

"He's hard on everyone. I had him last semester and barely squeaked by with a C." Sarah smiled up at Rebecca, marveling at the deep brown of her eyes. She shook herself. Rebecca could never be interested in her. "Come on. Let's take a real hike for a change," she said as she started up the steep trail under the shadow-dappled canopy of scarlet maples.

Rebecca hesitated. "I'm not sure about this."

"You can make it." Slender coltish legs gracefully maneuvering the jutting rocks and roots, Rebecca climbed up the slope, stumbling a little at the top, then slipped and fell into a pile of leaves at the side of the narrow trail, pulling Sarah down on top of her.

"Just call me Grace," Rebecca said with a tinkling laugh. She pulled a leaf from Sarah's burnished curls, brushing her cheek with a lingering touch.

Sarah smelled the warm sweet scent of jasmine as Rebecca kissed her softly on the lips. Green and gold flecks shimmered in the deep brown depths of Rebecca's eyes, a slow smile playing at the corners of her full coral lips.

Breathing unevenly, Sarah caressed the soft curve of Rebecca's cheek and kissed her, tingling with anticipation and excitement. Rebecca sighed softly.

Like a butterfly, her fingers stroked and darted away down Sarah's neck to her shoulders, teasing down over Sarah's breasts. Sarah, usually more aggressive, lay back and arched against Rebecca's touch. She gasped once as Rebecca's slender fingers dipped toward the blazing center of heat. Sarah pushed against Rebecca's hand.

"My place or yours?" Rebecca whispered.


Now about that cigarette...

Something old is new again...

More than 20 years ago I had an adventure in New Orleans, some of which I have alluded to. My mother found a piece I wrote about it immediately after the adventure and sent me a copy. If you're interested in new old stories...

Vacation can be such an ugly word when you're stuck in a strange city with no money, very few clothes, and no transportation. In fact, vacation isn't really the word I would use. The word is nightmare. No, that isn't exactly right either. If you're stuck in a nightmare all you have to do is wake up. When you're stranded in New Orleans for the first time in your life waking up won't help. Maybe I should get right down to cases and tell you about my most memorable vacation.

New Orleans conjures visions of Mardi Gras, parties, dancing in the streets, parades, and, if I'm to be totally honest, drunken revelry.

I arrived in New Orleans with a knowledgeable friend across a bridge of light. I thought I was on the road to a romantic adventure. It was an adventure all right, but I'm still not sure what kind.

We stayed at the YMCA at Lee Circle, so named for its geometric configuration and the fact that a bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee astride a horse decorates the center of a cement circle amid a beautiful floral display.

If you're ever in need of neat and inexpensive accommodations, the YMCA in any town is ideal.

My room was comfortable and clean, if a bit Spartan. Downstairs was a restaurant specializing in healthy cuisine, a swimming pool and an exercise room all available for use very cheaply. My friend and I were quartered on different floors, which is where my trouble began. When I awoke the next morning ready to see the sights, he had disappeared. Checking at the desk I discovered he had checked out. This wasn't a major problem unless I add that when I checked on my car it had checked out with him, along with most of the money in my wallet. To be fair, I must admit that he did leave me $50, most of which I spent in a pay phone trying to locate him. I should have saved my cash.

My vacation had begun in earnest.

As I said before, staying at the Y is a really good choice. It's economic and they house an agency known as Travelers Aid, a fact I didn't know until I converted most of my money to quarters and dumped them uselessly into the public telephone. Indeed, Travelers Aid is a miraculous agency. They called all around Florida, where my friend and I had been living before the vacation, and Indiana, where his parents resided, to assist me in tracking him down.

Our friends in Florida were very helpful. They told me he had sold all the furniture in my apartment, which they were in the process of removing, and gave notice to the landlord that we were moving out. This was bad news enough, but I also discovered that he had mentioned that after dropping me off in New Orleans (a fact of which I had been completely unaware) he was heading west.

The next step was contacting his parents in Indianapolis who were kind, but of no help at all. They had disowned him several years before. The Travelers Aid representative smiled understandingly and asked me if I had anyone else I wanted to call. My first instinct was to phone my parents, but being the proud, upstanding, and thoroughly bull-headed individual that I am, I decided to tough it out alone.

Travelers Aid offered me an option. If I would like to stay in New Orleans they would offer me two weeks of help in finding a job, give me some free coupons for local fast food restaurants and allow me to use their phone and address in order to make job contacts. The hitch was that I would have to find a job. I also had to find a place to live. The YMCA wasn't free.

If I had been a man, my alternatives would have been better, but as a woman there were few choices. I could sleep on the street, in the McDonald's restaurant on Canal Street (as long as I continued to buy something to eat) or I could go to the Baptist Mission on Magazine Street, which was the rub.

As a woman I would only be allowed to stay at the mission every other night since their policy forbade women staying two nights in succession. Had I been a man I would have been allowed to stay every night for a small charge or I could rent a lounge during the day. I guess women didn't need accommodations on a regular basis. There were other options, but I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel yet.

Food wouldn't be much of a problem with my small supply of coupons ($5.00 a day). When the coupons ran out I could also go down to the monastery on Tchoupitoulas, which only housed men, and get a free meal from the monks. This involved waiting in a very long line with a motley group consisting of winos, street people, and the like. Being a woman was a bonus-finally. Being of the female gender meant I went to the head of the line. (I guess the monks were afraid of the influence of feminine wiles being used on their parishioners if we stayed out there among the men too long.) If you had a male friend you could pose as a couple and get ahead of the line together to enjoy a filling meal of bland variety and taste.

The Baptist Mission was my first stop since I must vacate my YMCA room in a couple of days-we had prepaid several days in advance. I got down to the business at hand and began pounding the streets, and the YMCA's free phone, for a job-to no avail. Every interviewer I contacted asked the same question: "Why did you decide to move to New Orleans?" I couldn't very well tell them the truth. Could I?

"Why, I moved here to enjoy the scenery?" No, that didn't sound quite right. "I have friends down here who recommended it highly." Well, that was closer to the truth, but it still didn't get me any jobs. Finally, I gave in after uncounted rejections and near misses and walked down into the French Quarter, the tarnish pearl of New Orleans.

Walking into the Vieux Carre, as it is called by the residents, was like entering a foreign world. The sights, sounds, and smells that assail you there are at once delicious and pernicious. Little red lobster-like creatures were piled high on many a platter in vivid display while inexperienced visitors smiled weakly while patient waiters and waitresses educated them in the proper handling, disposal and enjoyment of the native delicacies known as crawfish (or mudbugs to the unknowing).

At other tables in diverse establishments practiced patrons downed quantities of raw oysters on the half shell garnished with myriad combinations of chili sauce, hot sauce, lemon juice and horseradish, either directly from the shell or on saltines with expressive relish. The usual fare of hot dogs, hamburgers, and cafeteria-style menus were also represented alongside places that offered pizza slice or whole pies and a local staple-the muffaletta.

The muffaletta is a large round of hearth-baked bread which is split in half and topped with meat slices and cheese and grilled in pizza ovens. When the toasted concoction is removed from the oven it is opened once again and a salad of marinated olives, onions, and secret spices is deposited. Once the top is precariously in place it is cut into quarters and served. Only a person with a hearty appetite and a disregard for his gastronomic capacity should attempt to eat an entire muffaletta. While it is an enjoyable feast, it is nevertheless a feast which could easily feed four, or two with good appetites.

Aside from the visible victuals of the French Quarters, there are a host of more fashionable restaurants that tantalize the passerby with edible curiosities possessing names out of fiction novels from days gone by. There are gumbos, etoufees, French cuisine of infinite variety and name, and the more standard fare of mainstream enterprises. Nothing is left to chance in the Quarter's offerings. All tastes and novelties are represented in an astonishing array of cuisine.

If you have the urge to partake of liquid refreshment, there too the French Quarters outdoes itself with selections of the more pedestrian type as well as a Baskin-Robbins-style place where you can buy daiquiris that span an entire spectrum of taste and visual array unequaled anywhere. You may take your libation anywhere in the Quarter, or the city for that matter, and quench your thirst as you stroll among the shops, restaurants and sights. In some locations you may even buy a souvenir glass named for your particular cocktail, such as the Hurricane, that was first invented and distributed by Pat O'Brien's on Right upper extremity St. Peter-named for the famous actor Pat O'Brien. Don't misunderstand, you can purchase the Hurricane in any locale in Louisiana but its birthplace is Pat O's, as it is affectionately called by the denizens.

There are the usual assortment of tourist traps and scams that abound in areas where money flows freely from vacationers-or conventioneers. Racy lingerie and accessories, feather masks, Mardi Gras loot, Voodoo toys and sundry souvenirs can be found in any number of shops. If you prefer a more expensive remembrance you need only walk over to Right upper extremity Royale and browse the antique, jewelry, crystal and Civil War emporiums that sedately announce their presence in authentic storefronts dating back to the Quarter's colorful and roguish past.

Above the hustle of commercial fanfare in the cobblestone streets of the Quarter perch the wrought iron balconies where, during Carnival time, revelers drop tokens, beads and other festive trappings on celebrants in the streets. In calmer times, the balconies perch above the spectacle like decorous structures of an age gone by.

Chief among the architectural wonders of the French Quarter is the St. Louis cathedral, its gothic presence a brooding counterpoint to the riot of kaleidoscopic chaos that reigns in its very shadow. The verdant plaza that fronts the cathedral is known as Jackson Square, so named for the fenced-in sanctuary that boasts a bronze statue of General Andrew Jackson mounted on a rearing stallion.

The chief attraction of Jackson Square is not so much the converted structure of Jax Brewery, now honeycombed with eateries and shops, the Café du Monde, where the airy sugar-dusted confection of beignets hold sway, or the moonwalk, that lover's lane along the banks of the Mississippi River where you can purchase a ride on one of the paddlewheel steamers that make scheduled stops there.

The main attraction is still the conglomeration of artists who have earned the right to set up their easels to display their talents for all to see and buy. Only the most persistent and most gifted artistic geniuses may pitch their tents along the wall of Jackson Square's marble and wrought iron fence.

Many other sights and delights await the earnest traveler and the milling throngs that inhabit the reaches of New Orleans and the Vieux Carre, but they are still waiting to be discovered. Brochures and catalogs hint at the mystery and beauty of New Orleans, but only a personal trip along the city's cobbled streets among its throngs will truly satisfy the senses.

Transportation choices abound in New Orleans and the French Quarter. If you have the money, you can rent a horse-drawn carriage and see the sights beneath a fringed canopy while the driver points out the salient points of interest. Walking, of course, is the main form of transportation on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter since the only cars allowed within its confines are public or delivery vehicles, thus making it easy for pedestrian traffic. If you venture outside the Quarter you will find one of the best public transportation systems in existence, which includes the St. Charles street car, still in operation.

Even in the midst of my curious misadventures I found time to stroll those historic boulevards and drink in the ambience around me. Lack of money shouldn't be a deterrent to enjoying the carnival atmosphere of New Orleans.

If you wish you can hire on at Lucky Dog to push a hot dog-shaped cart and hawk your wares to the multitudes for a percentage of the sales. If you are of a more adventurous nature you can also opt to pass out literature or try your hand at acting in any one of the local pitch shows. If you possess a commercially artistic nature you can purchase a vendor's license inexpensively and, with a few pigments and glitter, paint faces for a fee. If you're willing to undergo a little weakness, you can sell your plasma at one of the donor centers every other day for $15 or $20 to get you through the rough times. (Since they only extract the plasma and give you back your red corpuscles, you can replenish your plasma stores with a large drink-of any kind.)

There are also the street performers who dance, juggle, sing, perform magic and mime or acrobatics, tell jokes, or just entertain you for tips and spare change. Shoe shine boys are an institution in the French Quarter. For a handful of change or a couple of dollars they baffle you with their riddles, tap dance on homemade taps made of bottle caps or bits of metal, or, if you really want to polish your image, shine your shoes. Free enterprise is the name of the game and many transients, indigents, and unlucky people find their way to the Quarter to make enough money to live, eat and bolster their dignity for just one more day.

Truly, in all the world there is no place I would rather be homeless than in New Orleans where the poor and the affluent stride side by side in pursuit of their dreams.

* * *

Amazing how someone's writing can change in a few years.

Will wonders never cease...

Just when I thought I had it all--peace and contentment--my past comes looking for me. First it was a friend from high school and then two more guys came looking for me. One is a friend from Ohio. He and I used to meet at Starbucks every Saturday morning to chat and trade jokes while he told me how he was getting along with his flying trials. You see, he told me he could actually fly and not with a plane, but he never actually got around to showing me he could fly more than a few feet.

Well, a few weeks ago Duke emailed me and told me he was going in for heart surgery. He came out of it just fine, but he surprised me by asking me if I had ever considered him as a boyfriend. I told him no. I always considered him as a friend, a good friend. He was a little sad about that. Seems he misses those Saturday mornings eating muffins and showing me how far he could fly.

A couple of days ago another surprise arrived in my email. A retired reporter from New York living in Israel emailed to ask how I was doing and where I was. I haven't heard from him in at least three years, but being the good reporter he is he tracked me down. I must be leaving trails of radioactive bread crumbs or something. Anyway, he's still in a kibbutz in Israel running his little B&B and he is about to be joined by an Australian lady who has a thing for retired Jewish reporters who just can't stay away from typewriters or peanut butter. Surprisingly, he informed me that all his previous attempts to get me to Israel were not just for my patronage of his private B&B but for nefarious purposes of hedonistic pleasure. Go figure. I thought he was kidding all this time.

A bigger surprise is that he has read my journal and told me, and I quote, "I forgot what a good writer you are." High praise indeed from a syndicated investivative journalist of his stripe, even if he is retired. Imagine that.

He also chastized me for my self destructive low self esteem in getting involved with married men, but I don't quite see it that way. Of course, he does have a personal prejudice since he is a single, retired, naturalized Israeli kibbutz living B&B owner, but he did have a point. I explained that I was closing some doors to the past and getting rid of the self destructive tendencies and low self esteem by living in this mountain cabin alone sans male companionship eating pork. To which he replied, "You ain't never going to find a nice Jewish accountant or fanatical Muslim beheader eating that filthy stuff." Pork, he means. Like I can afford pork. Besides, no Jewish accountant or Muslim beheader is going to be happy up here in the back of beyond without numbers to crunch and people to behead, so it's a moot point.

At any rate, I need to find those radioactive bread crumbs and sweep the trail for tracks or I'm liable to end up over run by men and there goes my peace and contentment. I mean, really, men and me in a secluded cabin? What are the odds?

joke or truth?

Snatched shamelessly from minnalavendar.

A guy sat in a corner hitting himself in the head over and over with a ball peen hammer. His friend came up to him and asked him why. "Because it feels so good when I stop."

What does this have to do with anything? It's a message, folks. It's time to stop.

You never know...

...if there will be a tomorrow. There are no guarantees.

Mom called yesterday on the way back from a funeral. There are a lot of older people in my mother's church, so this is nothing unusual. In fact, they recently buried a woman I knew years ago, someone my parents had known for over 20 years. But I was wrong. It wasn't one of the older parishioners; it was the 40-year-old sister of my foster sister who died. There is some confusion over who had the knife first, but she was stabbed to death by her husband in front of their 11-year-old daughter.

I am stunned and shocked. So much death in people so young and full of life recently, senseless deaths that hit like a lightning strike on a clear summer day in a sky full of nothing but blue. Reminds me there are no guarantees on tomorrow.

We plan for a future that may not be there, not because of nuclear holocaust or plague or war, but because of the instability of life. Makes me wonder why we all do it. Do we keep planning because we are programmed from the egg to do so or because to give up and live each moment as if it is our last makes us feel like we're standing on shifting sands and the tide's going out?

Too many people I know are waiting for the right time to have a baby, launch a career, get a divorce, or change their lives, but there is no right time. Holidays come at the same time every year and will continue to do so whether you wait to make that change in your life or not. Birthdays and special celebrations, the next pay check, the next scheduled vacation, retirement, school, going grocery shopping, or having enough money are all excuses we use because we know there will be another month, another year, another decade, another 20 years, but there are no guarantees. We might not have more than a moment or two. What we do with the moments makes a big difference in how we live and what we make of our lives.

I've always said I don't want to look back from my death bed with regret at what I didn't do but with joy at what I did do. But there may be no death bed. Life could end at the flashing point of a knife on the front porch of your home in front of your loved ones. There may be no time to regret anything.

If, as my grandmother always said, bad news and deaths come in three, I sincerely hope my threes have passed with the deaths of Tassos, Beth and Mrs. Pelfrey. And if there is another death to come and Mrs. Pelfrey wasn't the third in my life, I pray it does not find me or those I know and care about before they have anything they've left undone or before they realize where their hearts and their futures lie.

The Letter

I found a letter in the printer tray that I was sure I had sent. It was a letter to Don, a letter of thank you and goodbye. It was dated 8/10 and contrary to my usual habits there was no envelope. I print up envelopes when I finish writing letters so they are ready to put together and send.

Anyway, I read thru the letter and was conceitedly proud of my writing, but the tears were gone, dried up and taken by the winds because my heart was healed.

I have been re-evaluating my life and choices, getting perspective on my past so I can move into the future without all the baggage that has weighed me down for so many years. Reading the letter now I know I don't need to send it. Don won't read it because it's from me and it was really for me and not for him. He gave me so much and I wanted to let him know how much and to thank him for his gifts and apologize for my blindness and insecurities. I will always be grateful to him for showing me that I am worth loving and that I don't have to settle for being used or allowing myself to be taken advantage of. I will always be grateful for showing me what love really is and how it is supposed to feel because he paved the way for happiness and opened the gate to the cage I built around my heart and myself.

A friend recently gave me a book about writing letters as a way to make peace with the past. I haven't read it, but I am pretty sure I know what is in the book because I have been doing that for the past year. I have looked at my life and the beliefs I held as true, turned them around in the light to see there was so much more there than I knew. It's not that my memories of events are false, but that there is another side to the story, a side I couldn't or wouldn't see.

I sent a letter to my mother a few months back and showed her what I had hidden inside me so that I could also show her that I understand what happened and why and that she didn't really mean to push me away. My enemy has become my friend, and a very close friend at that. I have put the pieces of my past into order and the picture I see emerging has very little of the darkness left in it. The shadows are no longer nebulous and frightening and forms have emerged.

So many times I have said that I wouldn't change my past because if I take away one moment, one experience, good or bad, it alters who I am at this moment. There are much straighter and quicker paths to enlightenment, but the path I chose was dark and full of detours and difficult stretches. It has been a long and arduous road at times, but it has always been an adventure and I am glad to have traveled it all the same. I am lucky. I know more about myself than most people ever discover and I know that I am only limited by my fears.

There may be one more letter for me to write, a letter that will be difficult, not because I am holding a grudge but because I doubt that she will understand or accept what I have to say. She has never looked past the surface at anything and she is not likely to in this life. But I will write the letter all the same. I may find it in my printer a month later or I may send it. Whether I send it or not is not the issue. Getting rid of that last frayed and battered bit of baggage is the issue because until I unload all the old baggage I cannot replace it and move on...and I want to move on.

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living and on some levels he was right. The one thing he left out is that you have to live life before you can examine it and that means taking chances and being willing to make that leap of faith even when you land in the dirt or slide into a mud hole. Endlessly examining every moment as it's lived leaves little time to live and grow and change. Socrates also forgot that once you examine life you still have to keep living and moving forward or you will get lost, paralyzed like Narcissus who became lost in his own reflection and died.

So this is what it's like...?

Ever want something so bad until you get it? Something you were willing to sacrifice for, prayed for, maybe even offered the devil a deal for? Me, too. Not what you thought it would be, huh?

I love writing. It's my favorite form of communication, next to person-to-person interactions and the telephone. I've been writing since I was eight years old with a very derivative Edgar Rice Burroughs type girl lost in jungle finds lost civilization kind of story. I won a few awards in my school years and even kept a diary for a while until the contents of that diary landed me in grounded hell far too many times. Then a totally new experience gave my writing back to me and I haven't stopped since.

All I ever wanted to do was write stories and articles and interviews. Now I can. I thought I'd paid my dues, but evidently someone raised the fees because I'm paying more dues in the form of keyword-rich advertising writing, which is about a step above writing punishment on a blackboard about 1000 times every day for weeks. This is what I wanted. The writing life.

But there is a glimmer on the horizon. Seems a fellow writer (although a tech writer) in Brussels likes my romantically twisted mind and hired me to write some soft erotica for him. He's even paying me in advance when I deliver the whole story to the piece I sent as a sample. And there is more work on the horizon from that quarter, which makes me very happy. But there's a catch. Not a big catch, but a catch all the same and he is willing to let some other writer do the task who feels more comfortable with it.

I have to write about two women, take it to the edge and don't spare the erotica. News flash. If you haven't already guessed it because of my chaste and celibate status, I'm straight. Yes, folks, I'm what the gay community calls a breeder...and I have done my share of breeding.

It isn't that I haven't had my fantasies about what it is like to be with a woman, but the key word here is fantasy. I have a very vivid imagination and I know basically where all the parts fit and what accessories can be added...sort of like Barbie and Midge go to San Francisco kind of thing. (Yes, I know it's a stereotype) But I have no actual experience. I know what turns men on and I know what turns me on, but I have no clue what turns two women on to each other since I prefer a partner with are more prominent type of plumbing. I don't know if I can write about two women who are attracted to each other and take them to the bedroom (or kitchen, living room, loft, bathroom, whatever) door and make someone believe it.

I can write about anything under the sun, even things I've never done or tried because I'm a great researcher and interviewer and I have a modest technologically advanced background, but lesbian love? I'd be more comfortable taking two guys down that primrose path. I know what men like and I have lots of gay male friends. We talk. And since we have the same interests (men) I can write about what one man finds attractive about another man.

It wouldn't work for me to try it from the female perspective because I know so little about what turns a woman on about another woman. But I guess I'll give it my best shot and wait for the lesbian community world-wide to shoot me down and tell me to stick to men. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I should learn a lot from this experience. Who knows? I might even learn something about myself. You just never know.

Someone has been spying on me...

Someone, who shall be nameless, has mentioned that I seem different. Now I am familiar with psychic phenomena and intuition, but am I being transparent or something? Even my parents are acting strangely. Well, strangely for them.

Got a call from my mother out of the blue today. She is going on and on about wanting to come back here to visit and she and my father have decided my idea of taking the train, especially since there's a station about 10 miles from here, is a great idea. Mom wanted to go on the Silverton train when they were here last year, but time and my father would not permit. Besides, it was snowing in that area and Dad was driving the motor home, which is not a good idea when crisscrossing the Divide. Well, the motor home is at Raper's being raped and slowly demolished, but not being sold. It's a $16K motor home and Dad is giving it away for $2000, which sounds like highway robbery to me. I told him he should get at least $7K or $8K out of it, but at least don't let it go for less than $5K. But I'm just a daughter and no one listens to me, except about taking the train to visit. Well, one out of a thousand isn't so bad.

My parents also mentioned they have more chickens, guineas like divineneutrino's, which came by way of Beanie and her husband who got them from his boss. More chickens. I did not know, however, that guinea fowl were so fragile. Guess two of them had dislocated hips and that can happen pretty easily. Too bad neither Dad nor Beanie are on LJ so they can contact divineneutrino personally and find out more about this kind of fowl.

My folks also found out, but I didn't tell them, that I don't have a tape player so they sent me one along with a little note attached to a little ten-dollar bill. How sweet. When I picked up the mail (it has been a bit longer than usual) my box was nearly empty except for four long yellow cards that said I had packages and mail. Come to think of it, there was only one package and lots of mail, but there should have been more packages. I guess I'll have to go back to the post office sooner than planned. No big. Anyway, I got to take home a nifty little carrying tray full of mail. No checks from clients, but that should be remedied soon. No checks from writing contests I've won, but a lot of good wishes and concentrated energy from any quarter who'd like to participate could remedy that as well. I'm hoping for big five-digit news on Monday.

In the meantime, someone is trying to convert me to country & western music and has hit the right chord with me. That does not, however, mean I am giving up rock & roll or classical or any of the other head banging metal I enjoy, just that my tastes are expanding. Grandma always told me you should never say you don't like something until you've tried it. How'd I know I'd be eating those words? In fact, I tried tofu and found out it's not so bad either and eat it occasionally, mixed, of course, with fresh dill, arugula, fresh scallions, nopales, leaf celery, and dandelion greens, among other things, but it still could use some spice. I've added dill seed and hope to soon be able to use my very own home grown peppers from my very own pots in my very own living room. (too many very owns?) Well, my plants are growing like crazy in here and proving me with much needed oxygen, so I'm proud of my pale green thumb.

Still, I feel like I'm being watched. Guess I'd better stop sunbathing nude and nearly nude on the deck. Who knew trees could be so nosy and mouthy at the same time? I thought that was the wind, not the trees whispering.

Innocence is found not in the face, but in the heart.

Uprooted

Friday night I was knocked offline and my phone service was down for a while due to high winds and lashing rains. Couldn't get any work done, so I went downstairs and read a book, watched a movie, and listened to the fury of the wind and watched it bend the pine trees nearly horizontal. (got that, John? HORIZONTAL not vertical)

I finally went to bed to the hum of trees creaking and rain thundering past the windows. The wind was stomping around on the roof and lulled me into fitful sleep, which had nothing to do with Mother Nature's temper tantrum. I rather enjoy her tantrums because they make me feel energized. The only thing missing was the sizzling ozone crackle of purple forked lightning flaring in the black sky to make me feel aroused and excited, but that would not have helped me get to sleep...rather the contrary.

The next afternoon, I went out on the deck for some rain-washed, sun-warmed air and just to feel the sunshine on my bare skin and suddenly noticed one of my pine trees in front of the deck was missing--or rather down. It lay at full length, tangled, ripped roots pointing up at me, obviously uprooted forcibly by the winds. Luckily, it fell away from the deck or I would have noticed it sooner when it scratched against the windows when it fell onto the deck.

Nature has been fickle this year. Summer never really made more than a cameo appearance, sneaking away just when you were sure it was here to stay. Spring snuck in under the radar and stayed close to the ground. Now autumn is making her appearance, gilding the aspens and setting them quaking like gold coins on their slender branches in the wind. Winter will be here all too soon, softening the skeletal fingers of the aspens and freezing the colored leaves from the beautiful purple, gold, and bronze branches of the scrub that now fill the gullies and vales with green shadows, hiding the deer while they graze and mate.

All my plants are inside and have decided summer is here safe inside the thick log walls, leaping for the high pitched ceilings in an attempt to make the best of the warmth and filtered sun thru the deck door windows. The pepper plants I brought in a month ago are full of blossoms that spread their gold and rich orange throats waiting for the fine yellow pollen to hit the shy stamens and begin the pregnant pepper pods that suckle the remaining color and energy from the blossoms as the green pods swell, bloat and push thru the withered colors like babies pushing against a mother's womb.

This morning I found a new blossom, a squash blossom full of golden promise. I looked for the last cannister of film, but they are all full of pictures and my camera is empty and waiting for one more chance to do what it was meant to do--chronicle the birth of another life in my secluded aerie.

Dill seeds are ripening and turning brown, almost ready to pick, as the new dill shoots reach fragrant green feathers into the spaces between and waver toward the warm fingers of the sun beyond the windows. Chamomile flowers are changing and growing and sending the scent of apples on an errant breeze when the windows are open. Tomato plants will soon blossom and offer little green globes to ripen and mingle their juices with the ripening lentils in the next pot. Flowers and greens and life blooms along the wall of windows, safe within the thick log walls and away from Nature's tantrums, winds and capricious winter-tinged moods. And the air is rich with the scent of ripening among earth and sunshine.

Sunday morning mists

So much of my life is under the cut right now, which leaves me with a quandary about what to say and what not to say. Strange for me since I just let everything spill out onto the keys. I'm not one to hide my life, my thoughts, or my whining about whoring my writing or finding ways to be creative about the same old crap. However, there is good news on that front and a creative challenge as well.

Friday I received the incredible news that my bid had been accepted, along with my sample, to write low key erotica. What is that? Erotica that sets the stage but stops before things get too graphic so the reader can finish the story in their mind. You might call them pre-masturbatory fantasies. I set them up and the reader takes the story from there. I hope I can remember how it all works. Might need to scare up some volunteers to answer questions and allow me to pry into the shadowy recesses of their intimate lives and mine their fantasies and realities for my art. Sounds like a good deal to me. I ask the questions, the volunteers answer the questions and enlighten me with their fantasies and romantic activities. They don't have to go into the really intimate details, but the foreplay should be fascinating.

This place is beginning to look like a visitor's haven for a change. Had another visitor yesterday who arrived fairly early (for me) and we spent the day reminiscing and talking and getting to know each other better. We also watched a movie they brought to share. October Sky, which is based on the Homer Hickam, Jr. book, Rocket Boys about a Coalwood, West Virginia boy, Homer Hickam, to be exact, who gets out of the future planned for him under the ground mining coal and into the skies on a rocket. The movie & book are also about the people who inspire us and families.

The actors are a mix of seeming unknowns and one or two semi-notables, like Laura Dern, who plays the schoolteacher who inspires Homer, and Chris Cooper, who plays John Hickam, Homer's father. True to Hollywood though, they took the name of the book and changed it for the movie. At least they used an anagram of Rocket Boys and turned it into October Sky.

The movie is very well made and a wonderful treat to watch. The ending should have you in tears, unless you're a soulless, hard-nosed unromantic. October Sky is a movie for the whole family and definitely one to watch with someone close to you.

Now I need to get the book and read the rest of the story. I hear it's better than the movie, which, in this case, is going some. I wonder how Homer Hickam feels about seeing his life become the stuff of dreams, legend and fantasy.

By the way, Homer Hickam, Jr. works for NASA and worked on the space shuttle. Not bad for a boy from Coalwood, West Virginia who had two choices for a future: a scholarship for football or walking into the Hades of the coal mines, before a teacher inspired him to look to the sky.

Bring on the pain...

Hit me with the whips and chains. Beat me. Hang me upside down. Something. Anything. I'm tired of writing.

I never thought it would happen that I would get tired of writing, but the very idea makes me feel tired. I'm avoiding it like an old boyfriend marrying my sister who's afraid I'll spill the beans that he said she's the homeliest woman on the face of the earth when he dated me. I'd almost rather talk to a bill collector right now, not that I have any money to give him, but it would be preferable to the mountain of junk that faces me.

I'm tired of writing about body building and exercises and nutrition and food/drug supplements until I am about to go ballistic. I like my old life where I wrote what I wanted instead of what I had to write. So this is the copywriter's life. I wish I'd known and married some rich old geezer with no relatives, one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave in a high wind on the side of a mountain. Sex with his wrinkled, toothless almost-corpse would be better. Not even Viagra will help me write this crap.

Okay, so someone point me in the direction of said geezer. I want out. Of course he has to agree to separate residences and I'll agree to conjugal visits, preferably with a blindfold and a cigarette waiting (and I don't smoke). Enough whining.

At least there are one or two bright spots on the horizon. I just finished an excellent book, about which I will write a review tonight, and which should be posted at The Celebrity Cafe by next week. It's a mystery set in good old decadent Cleveland, Ohio and points south and a real page turner. There is a mediocre book with more medical sensibility than Naked Lunch and a bit of an eye opener about the medical profession and who gets to be a doctor. Then, last and least, a funny little self-published book called Chowder: The Server's Field Manual, which was somewhat amusing and opened my eyes about what really goes on with the people who smile when they serve you the soup they just spit in. It even comes with a card game designed to give servers something play instead of your food. However, the game is aimed at making servers happy and customers embarrassed and put-upon. As a one-time waitress, I'm still not sure whether I like that, although some customers definitely deserve the moron treatment.

On top of all this, I got a phone call from my mother, the second in two days. She also called me again a few minutes ago to ask what of my exercise equipment and wicker furnishings I wanted her to sell. (Hey, Mom? Sell anything that isn't nailed down for whatever you can get!) She also asked if I was serious about selling my paintings. Yes and no. I can use the money, but I love those paintings. It took many years and a lot of sacrifice to accumulate my treasures and I can't even hang them here because it would cost too much to have them shipped and I don't think my parents will be making any more cross country trips. They certainly won't fit in my car if I end up having to decamp here either. *sigh* C'est la vie. At least she didn't ask if I wanted to sell my books. She knows better.

The first of two calls tonight was to let me know Mom had found one of my stories--her favorite--about my "vacation" in New Orleans during the last days of the World's Fair. She even read it to me. I haven't seen it since I gave her my last copy after it had been rejected by nearly every magazine in the country. (word of warning: if you ever decide to visit my parents, be prepared to be forced to read said story)

I haven't heard anyone read the story to me although I had read it countless times and I did live the actual events. I was stunned. I'm a much better writer than I knew.

I know. That sounds conceited, but it is true. NOLA came alive again for me and I remembered walking the streets of New Orleans and the French Quarter as if it were yesterday. It's a homeless person's travelogue. I wonder if a publisher would be interested in a travelogue from the homeless point of view? COuld be interesting.

Anyway, I surprise myself that I was ever that good. But not any more. My writing skills are deteriorating as I write this. Soon I will begin to start using keywords endlessly to make my journal come up higher in the search engines, writing pointless, repetitive drivel for money.

Someone save me!

Have you considered...

...how technology has changed us?

Not in the usual way of making things easier, but in how we communicate and our level, or lack, of patience?

We expect immediate answers, constant communication. Patience is almost a lost art. Want dinner in a hurry? Nuke it. Most microwaves don't go above 15 minutes for the cheap ones and digital microwaves have a quick feature that doesn't go above 6. Writing letters is nearly a lost art, give over to the business letter that serves as hard copy proof in a court or for a file. Penmanship has gone down the tubes for most people and isn't even taught in schools any more. Lovers, family and friends...and even enemies...are connected by sound at the speed of light through microwaves, satellites, and fiber optics.

Instead of responding to diatribes in the newspapers, making them a much more interesting read, people flame each other on the net, which still makes for some interesting reading even if the respondents are Neanderthal idiots who can't form a complete sentence. Net-speak is sufficient to be understood. Graffiti of the nuclear age.

Letters once took months to reach from one party to the other, often getting lost when ships went down, mail trains were attacked by bandits or Indians or simply went off the rails due to some natural (often unnatural) disaster, or pony express riders just didn't make it to the end of the trail intact. Letters are buried all around the world, moldering, decomposing or waiting to be found by someone, but not the someone who waited for word about some important event.

With telegraph, telephone, and now computers, we don't have to wait so long. We are not bound by the vagaries of natural disaster, unless you count electricity, computer viruses, and hard drive crashes. Even when natural, or man-made, disasters occur, there are other options: telephone, cell phone, or someone else's computer. Smoke signals of the nuclear age and easier to read.

What does this do to the art of patience? Destroys it. Why should we wait with so many technological marvels at our disposal to communicate. Someone must really be in the back of beyond where there are no cell towers, no computer access, and no telephones to be unable to respond in some fashion. The miracle of instant communications is that we have any patience left at all.

All this technology also give us another problem: far too much information. We need to say something to fill up all that white space, keep a conversation going, especially since the time is unlimited with unlimited dial-up/DSL/cable service at one low affordable price. After all, we can't spend all our time working or cruising the net for porn or research or whatever. Or can we?

Communication is a shorthand speak of symbols and letters that stand for words. We are moving backward, devolving. How will the archaeologists of the future decipher our codes without a Rosetta stone?

Historians, scientists, and archaeologists believe communication in the ancient world evolved from symbols and single letters to take the place of the spoken word to spelling out words, but what if they are wrong. What if their hieroglyphic shorthand was the devolution of communication and the ancient world's net speak? Are we the living proof? Fully formed and spelled words and sentences devolving into letters, emoticons, symbols, and shorthand to make communicating even faster at the speed of light. Is it possible. Are we reliving a past that has played out over and over millennia after millennia for time out of mind? Do we have things backward?

But I was sleeping...

At least I was trying to sleep. No, I was sleeping and having a wonderful dream when the phone rang in my dream, slowly pulling me away from the center of the action, from the wonderful dream I was having, but it was real. A faint bell ringing. The phone again. I stirred in the darkness, caught between waking and sleeping. The phone was ringing. Who would call me in the middle of the night. Sudden flash. Trouble. I got up and stumbled to the living room, but the phone had stopped ringing. Maybe I was dreaming after all. I picked up the phone and looked. The number was still lit up. elementalmuse's number was on the phone. But my phone card has no more minutes and I couldn't call her back.

Something must be wrong for her to call me at 2 in the morning. She didn't call back. I fretted, tossed and turned courting sleep, fretting over what could be wrong. Good news? Bad news? Should I go upstairs and check my email? No, I want to go back to sleep. I want my dream back. But something could be wrong. What should I do? Sleep, some part of me whispered in my ear. If it was important she would have called back. Sleep, yes, sleep. But no, something could be wrong. So go online and check your email. But it's cold out there and it's warm here with a lovely cold breath of mountain air seeping thru the open window. Sleep and don't worry. Everything will work out all right.

I checked my email. Nothing. I went back to bed and finally managed to fall asleep. Usually, I have no problems. I can sleep any time anywhere and in just about any position.

Sweet dreams followed and I plunged head first into the deep warm well of Morpheus's making. Until...

A siren? Up here? In the year I've lived here, and when I visited for two weeks, I never heard sirens. I hear trucks and cars going by below my hilltop perch, but I don't hear anything else. No sirens. No screams. The occasional gunshot. But no sirens.

Someone or something is determined to disturb my sleep, forcing me to open my eyes and crawl from my cocoon of warmth and peace. The siren was coming closer and closer. It has been so long I can't tell an emergency vehicle from a police car. The siren was definitely coming closer, the sound caroming off the rocks and trees, waning, getting louder as it wound around the curves up the hill closer and closer. Then the sound seemed to fade a little at a time. He must have turned off on Elkdale and wound down the other side.

And then it hit me. The world outside my window, usually green and gold and suffused with morning blues and whites and pastels of the rising sun was wrong. It didn't look right. It was all white. Snow? Yes, it's snowing. Little salt shaker falls of white sifting onto everything. It's actually snowing. White world, green and gold and browns peering thru the thickening cover of white.

My plants! I'll lose my plants!

I got up and got dressed. Didn't brush my teeth or my hair. Didn't take a shower, just pulled on my clothes and shoes and headed for the deck where my plants were bowed beneath the growing weight of snow. Wet, heavy, water laden snow quickly obscured my plants.

Carrying the hummingbird feeder, I hung it on the bar and went to my plants. Were they dead? Frozen? I took the dill stalks and shook them. Snow flew everywhere and the scent of dill rose in a grateful cloud. Dill. I carried it inside and placed it in the wan sunlight in front of the doors near my telescope. One by one, I shook off the heavy enveloping frosty blanket and carried my plants inside. I'm sure some will die, but at least I won't have to water them today. The snow fast melting in the warmth inside the cabin will take care of that for me.

This has been the most freakish year, full of rain and cold and snow. Snow until June and now snow in September. At least the ski runs, if this continues, will open early, intoning their siren's call to snowbirds and winter seekers, those who circle the globe following the Snow Queen, fearing spring and summer and the warmth that drives her dripping into the northern latitudes far from the punishment of sun and heat.

At least my headache is gone. I thought it was just another big thunder storm forking the sky with vivid fireworks of lightning flares and flashes and strikes on its way, but it was the herald of the Snow Queen. Now I know I have to get the wood pile cut and stacked and clear out the ashes from the stove. Winter will be early this year.

Squirrels and chipmunks leap and cavort and chase across the deepening white, enjoying the snow day. I wonder if they have foreseen this and have raided my plants and crops to store for their winter snacking comfort.

My warm dreams are gone in the wake of the cold awakening. I am awake now, but I'm not really happy about it. At least I saved the plants and my eyes are open, but I don't guarantee anything else. I can't. My functional mind hasn't caught up with the animal instinct yet.

If it doesn't find me, maybe I can slip away and slip back between the sheets to seek those warm dreams again.

Hide Me

I'm avoiding work. I want to get the rest of these articles done this weekend so I can start on and finish the next 50 and get this job out from under. I'm up to my gray roots in vitamins, amino acids, minerals, weight lifting diets, and exercises.

I did take a little time out to visit with someone I knew in high school, Sara. Everyone knew her big brother, Bart, who was very hot, not to mention rocket scientist smart, friendly, gorgeous, and an all round favorite with students and teachers alike. Now he's a pediatrician in Tennessee and has a book for sale on Amazon.com on preemies. Sara is struggling thru her Master's and having major doubt problems, the bane of all writers. She doesn't claim to be a writer, but she is obviously good enough to have made to the graduate program. She needs confidence in herself and a big dose of procrastination STOP. I gave her all mine so I could keep procrastinating.

The sky is a slatey blue-gray and it has rained off and on all day. In fact, a rain-laden breeze swirled thru my bedroom window this morning and woke me up, calling me to come dance with the raindrops. I tried to go back to sleep but the clean, rainy breeze just wouldn't let me alone and I had to get up and follow the call.

Once outside, while hanging the hummingbird feeder and saying good morning to all my plants still out on the deck, I felt more like taking off and exploring the woods and vales and just walking until I couldn't walk any more, but I went back inside, said good morning to all my plants inside, watered them, pollinated a few new pepper blossoms, and picked a couple carrots to take upstairs with me while I answered my email and started working.

All day I've been antsy, wanting to get out of here, go dancing, pull a Maria and wander the alpine meadows under the sun and rain and dance among the rocks and trees. I feel far too good to sit inside and research more information about nutrition and body building. But I have to be good. I have to earn a living. I have to finish this so I can move onto something else that might pay a few more pennies and give me time to go back out and enjoy the sunshine or rain or whatever the weather sends. I'm stuffed full of information and it needs to settle before I ingest any more, but I have to work.

So, instead I'll think about Nona since she's been on my mind since yesterday.

Thinking back to Salt Lake City and rooming with Nona is a mixed back of bad and really, really bad. She was a flake of the first order, but she was cousin to a friend of mine back at Hill AFB. He thought he was doing me a favor when I was separating from Dave and waiting for the divorce hearing to come up. So I decided to move in with Nona. We had separate bedrooms, except at night when she crept in to watch me sleep. I didn't know it at the time...or at least I didn't know about it until I woke one night to find her about to plunge a very big and very sharp shiny knife into my chest. When I woke up and caught her she pretended she didn't know where she was and tried to pass it off as having multiple personalities. "What time is it? Where am I?" she asked without one bit of sincerity. Oh, she would have sounded sincere to someone who wasn't the target for her midnight plunge, but not to me.

Nona also had a thing about men. She couldn't leave them alone. I wasn't kidding when I said she should have had a revolving door on her bedroom and a parking meter by the bed. Men were in and out of the apartment so much we should have hired a doorman and a waiting room the size of an airport hangar, but it would still have been crowded. At least she was consistent and she had a lot of fun. I had fun just watching. I used to sing, "Cain't Say No," Ado Annie's song from the musical Oklahoma, to her all the time whenever she mentioned a new guest for the nonce.

Whut you goin' to do when a feller gits flirty
And starts to talk purty? whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at yer lips're like cherries
Er roses, er berries? Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at you're sweeter 'n cream
And he's gotta have cream er die?
Whut you goin' to do when he talks that way
Spit in his eye?

That's just part of the song, but she was true to song. Couldn't resist a guy with a gleam in his eye and a line a mile long. Didn't matter. He was it for the nonce.

Our apartment had a balcony that faced a drive-in theater. One of her fellers rigged up a receiver for us, found the frequency, and we'd sit out on the balcony and watch/listen to the movies for free. We were up high enough to see over the big fence.

Cheap entertainment: Movies every night and Nona's fellas.

Wonder what happened to Nona.

I'll shut up now. Enough nostalgia even for me and I really should get back to work, but I think I'll turn the stereo up really high and sing and dance for a while. Gotta get rid of all this energy.

News from the mountains

Okay, I'll make a real post.

Things are looking up and down for me.

The down part is a paycheck that was not deposited and it looks like I'll have to wait for them to work it out. I hope my landlords don't kick me out of my happy cabin in the mountains in the meantime. They probably won't (just yet) because I have been a good tenant who paid on time and in full for a whole year.

As a matter of fact, today is my anniversary or birthday or celebration or something. Today I have been in my secluded cabin in the Rockies for exactly one year. Talk about a great way to celebrate. Thank the god/desses I have plenty of water in the well and enough masa to make tortillas for probably another year. LOL It's not that bad, but nearly that bad. That's what happens, kiddies, when you give all your money to help someone start a television program and they never pay you back. That money is looking real good right now, but it ain't coming over to this side of the Divide for sure.

Oh, yeah, the good news. I got two more clients today. It's not much money, but if they like my work it could turn into a permanent slave position for below slave wages. I need lots of those. It's not like I have a social life. I've heard of them, but I don't have one. Someone is going to have to remind me what that is beyond the words. I understand the concept but I sure don't remember how it goes. Sort of like doing the two-step. I can see the steps, but my feet and legs can't seem to get the rhythm down. Too many years between Urban Cowboy and me.

Yes, kiddies, I actually used to go to Country & Western bars and dance my boots off.

I remember this one bar in Salt Lake City. It was called The Westerner Club. I used to go there on the weekends with a friend, and sometimes during the week. During the week the bandstand was pushed up until this huge hangar-like bar dance hall was about one-third the size. They had four or five bars and a huge dance floor when it was opened all the way up. There were the regulars and girls like me and my roommate, Nona.

I haven't thought about this in centuries.

Anyway, Nona was the kind of girl who had a revolving door on her bedroom and a parking meter by the bed. She loved men -- constantly. She worked as manager of a hot dog stand in Trolley Square. Her stand was like a trolley car and it looked out over the whole trolley garage. But I digress.

We'd go down in my company car, a Volkswagen Rabbit with the stick shift and the diesel engine. In fact, I learned to drive stick on that car in the midst of traffic on the hills and freeways around Salt Lake City. It was an interesting excursion, but I learned fast. Good thing. I can still remember thinking I'd end up like Bill Cosby in his first stick shift on the hills of San Francisco -- starting my own parking lot at the light.

Wednesday nights at The Westerner Club were the most active during the week. There was one guy, a runty little guy with muscles in his eyelids that bulged like he'd been doing clean and jerks with his lashes. He was so muscle bound his arm stuck out to the side and he couldn't pull them close to his body. He made his circuits of the dance floor winking and nodding to the women hoping someone would take him up on his offer to dance. Only the newbies did. It only took once to figure out he couldn't dance and that all those muscles kept you from getting too close, which was a very good thing. His cologne was enough to gag a mountain goat.

There was another guy, the kind we called a goat roper, a sort of cowboy who had the clothes and the walk down, but you were quite sure if he could ride a horse, break a Brahma bull, or even knew where the open range actually was. He was kind of cute with his starting ZZ Top beard and his crumpled ten-gallon hat. There was some talk that he was wearing it on the wrong head, but I'm sure he was ambi-headed. He used to wear the neatest slides on his spiffy string tie. He made them himself, or rather carved them himself. One was my favorite. It was a beautifully carved and painted pair of breasts with nipples that didn't point up. I asked him about it and we ended up becoming dance partners for a long time. He knew how to dance and could two-step better than anyone on the floor. We had a lot of fun in those days after I split from my first husband and lived in Salt Lake for a while. Truckers, dancing, good music and The Charley Daniels band and the Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Celebrate

Today is my father's 77th birthday and my parents' 54th anniversary. Dad is a smart man. He'll never forget his anniversary as long as he remembers his birthday.

There was a time when I couldn't imagine my father staying with my mother this long. But despite all appearances to the contrary they really love each other. My mother constantly says she doesn't love my father and that he doesn't love her, but it's a Shakespeare line: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. My mother is oftentimes full of sound and fury signifying nothing, but she does have a good heart even if she is easily distracted. She is ruthlessly possessive at times and completely loyal to those she loves, but she just cannot stand not having the last word. Her favorite trick is to hang up when a conversation or discussion is going her way on the phone and she doesn't apologize for it either. She may cool down later and call back asking if you're ready to listen, but she will still have the last word. It took more than half my life to figure out that sometimes it isn't necessary to win an argument or have the last word, especially with my mother. So I keep some of my opinions to myself, nod and smile, seemingly in agreement with her, but we both know the truth.

My father is the quiet type and scatters praise like a miser scattering coins to the masses. If he says anything at all it's, "It's nice" or "That's nice," and nothing else. I've learned to read between the lines. Dad came from a dirt poor family and his mother died when he was ten years old. His father liked booze a bit too much and when Grandma died went in with a couple of friends and ran a still. Well, the revenooers found the still and my grandfather on duty and he went to jail for two years rather than give up his buddies. There's a strong loyal streak on both sides of my family.

Dad is friendliness personified and if anyone wonders where I get my gregarious nature you don't have far to look. It's a Cornwell trait. We never met a stranger, just friends we haven't met. Dad, like most of the people in my family, true to their Cherokee heritage, is stoic and would rather go to work half dead than stay home in bed. He can cook, sew, and curl little girls' hair into ringlets and Shirley Temple curls. He has an artistic and generous soul and the most incredible open smile. He wasn't demonstrative when I was growing up, but I've broken him to the hug at last.

Mom's histrionic at times and Dad's quiet and prefers the path of least resistance to an argument. They are an odd couple, but they're both interesting and loving people. And they're my parents.

What?

I missed three days of posts. Can that be possible? Have I completely lost track of the time or did I just have nothing to say? Me, nothing to say? Perish the thought.

Endless games of Mah Jong, writing in my paper journal, trying to get thru another book that could be wonderful if it weren't for the lousy grammar and even lousier word choices, and fending off rodents who are determined to eat my brand new tender plants, and bidding on jobs, two of which I didn't get. But I got one of them this morning: One hundred 200-300-word articles on weight lifting, body building, nutrition, and health for a whopping $100. Gotta start somewhere. The guy is looking for someone who can do the job quickly and use some key words and asked me to give him a sample. I wrote a 625-word article on working the biceps, using the phrase working the biceps once in the title and twice in the article. I did it. He was impressed and now I have 100 very short articles to write, which comes out to about 33/100 of one cent per word. Big pay for a writer of my caliber, but you gotta start somewhere. He says he will have more money for more articles later and wants to build a relationship with a good writer. I have, however, figured out how to snag these Rent-A-Coder assignments--give them a sample up front and dazzle them with your writing skills. That's how the other jobs were cut out from under me. Well, that and quoting really, really, REALLY cheap prices. Gotta pay the rent and buy food somehow.

After reading the good news, I decided to go downstairs to go to the bathroom again (thanks to elementalmuse who seems to have somehow attached her diet to my bladder -- she calls it sympathetic peeing) and stopped outside on the deck to check my plants, give them a drink and just drink in the clear mountain air and sunshine for a few minutes before I came back upstairs to rent myself out as cheaply as possible. While I was enjoying the view and the air, a little female hummingbird flew over me and perched a mere four inches from my hand and just ruffled her feathers and whistled at me. Lesbian bird, I thought at first, but I think she was just saying hello. She knows who feeds her. I talked her to her and she inched a little closer before finally flying away, circling my head once and whistling as she darted into the trees. It was a remarkable feeling having her so close and so unafraid of me. I just wish I could scare away the chipmunks and squirrels who have developed a taste for my flat leaf Italian parsley ever since I covered the new seeds in the covered tray so they can grow uneaten.

I noticed that mentalfuse finally made a double appearance when I was reading the journals I missed over the weekend and wrote some pretty interesting stuff about books and authors. About time he showed up. I was about to send out the blood hounds to find him and bleed him dry.

In the meantime, I'm going to shut up early. I just realized it's dark outside and I left the hummingbird feeder on the deck where the ravenous raccoons are sure to plunder the syrup and spill it all over the railing and deck to attract ants and keep the hummingbirds away. So, disperse.