Hair today...

...and not gone tomorrow.

It worked. All my herbal concoctions and nutritional changes worked and my hair is no longer thinning. I have lots of curly dark new hair and you can no longer see my pink scalp shining through. I'm so excited. It worked!

In my middle thirties I began finding silver hairs, so I yanked them out. In the back of my mind I thought pulling them out would cause two more to grow in their place, but I didn't care. I was too young to go gray -- unless of course it happened overnight and I ended up with Marilyn Monroe platinum. I could live with that. But, no, nature decreed the platinum would creep up slowly, making my dark brown hair look like I had walked under a low arch covered in fresh paint that coated selected strands that hid until I wanted to look especially nice. Then it would pop up like a coiled steel spring and refuse to be tamed.

For the longest time the silver popped and I plucked. I didn't realize I was thinning my baby fine hair until a friend and I had a fight and she slashed me in the face with the news. "Well, you're going bald!" she shrieked. We started discussing her work mistakes and she ended the discussion by attacking me. I resisted the impulse to run, hands covering my head. I smiled, excused myself and walked to the restroom -- to see if she was right.

She was.

I had missed the changes. Shining through the now sparse strands was my clean scalp, pink and grinning up at me with a triumphant gleam. I panicked, but I waited until I got home to collapse in tears. I was going bald. Thus began the drain on my finances.

I bought Rogaine for women in the pink bottle. It smelled bad and I hated having my hair look flat and oily. That didn't last long. Next came vitamins and biotin and shampoos, anything and nearly everything. I stopped short of the spray paint I saw on an infomercial one dark and rainy night, my hair wrapped in a steaming towel while the oils and store bought goop worked into my hair-deficient scalp. I cheered and celebrated every new hair, mourned the ever increasing gleam of my bare scalp.

For a while I gave up, finally allowing myself to be talked into coloring my gray hair and letting it grow. More money down the tubes. I shudder remembering just how much money I spent each month. Enough for a new car or top of the line loaded SUV. And all the while I dined on Budget Gourmet microwave dinners and patched my worn clothes. After all, I worked from home. I really didn't need nice clothes just to parade my balding mane.

When I moved into the cabin I discovered herbs, and not just for cooking. I always knew about that. I discovered that herbs could cure illness and maintain health. And then I discovered the miracle of rosemary. Before I washed my hair, I boiled water, steeped dried rosemary and climbed into the shower while the tea cooled. After I washed and rinsed my hair, I poured on the warm tea and massaged it into my scalp. My head tingled and smelled faintly medicinal, but I was certain this would work. Besides it was cheaper.

Now, nearly two years later, while I was focused on work, moving, decorating, painting and all the various and sundry demands on my time and attention, I noticed a change. This morning I washed my face in front of the mirror and little curly wisps of dark brown hair curled and winked around my previous near naked hairline. I definitely need to do my roots, but my scalp no longer grins up at me. It's hidden by a rich growth of curling and wavy strands. Finally, I have something to celebrate -- the return of my hair.

I guess it's time to get rid of the box of clip-on hair I bought and resisted dyeing to match my hair. I can take the fishing line halo of hair and the various lengths of clip-on mane, box them up and take them to Goodwill or Arc for some poor balding soul who can't afford Rogaine, Biotin or the million other shampoos, rinses and slimy gels that hide their grinning scalp. After all, no one should sink to spray painting their skull --

-- unless they're rabid sports fans supporting their favorite teams.

No good deed...

...goes unpunished -- or so they say.

I wondered who they was until last night. I volunteered to put together the local ham radio club's newsletter and have had nothing but grief since then. I'm working with -- or rather besieged by -- a bunch of guys who have no idea how to work with a real editor. The president is doing his best to micromanage me and I'm getting fed up. That is, I was fed up until I talked to a friend -- the only person in the entire club who took the time to Google me and read my writing and about me. He has become my advocate and keeps a ready supply of ear plugs for when I get emails like the one I got last night.

Suffice it to say that after a few phone calls, talking to the Evil One (who, I might add, calmed me down considerably and offered his point of view -- and a bit of salacious rumor) and deciding how best to work out a resolution with the dunderheads, I have calmed down considerably and am nearly finished with next month's issue of the newsletter. Of course, I don't have a lead article and I don't have all the material that must go into the newsletter (club and board meeting minutes, president column, membership report, and various committee reports), but the hard part is done and I have all the monthly changes made. I had to impose a firm deadline for the people who absolutely must have their article, news item, changes in the issue and I will not bend on that. The rest of it is calling the printer to make sure he got the emailed issue and when I can expect to have the issue finished and ready to be picked up, calling the people who pick it up, put it together and mail it out, and wait for another month's worth of bitching and moaning. What amazes me most is that the issues I have seen in the archives that span the past 3-4 years are amateurish, have some missing issues (they weren't published) and were late month after month and they're griping because the membership had their printed issues three days before the club meeting.

The Evil One told me it was way too much pressure and grousing for a volunteer position that no one else wanted in the first place. I know there is no one warming up in the bull pen anxious to take over as editor because the previous editor couldn't give away the job for two years -- and I know he begged, pleaded and offered his first born if someone would. Oh, well, I'm not the type to cut and run when things get tough. Instead I take the political jerks head-on until one of us is bloodied and bowed. So, for the nonce, I am here to stay.

That message rather took the joy out of my dinner date last night. After a sleepless night, scrambling for work and another long night ahead of me, I have finally regained that sense of peace and relaxation I had after dinner last night. The conversation was good, the laughter flowing like a placid stream and the company definitely a keeper. Of course, being with a boy scout is no camping trip, but you just never know. I think I have a new pagan friend with leanings toward Celtic Druidism.

Looking out my windows as the afternoon glides toward evening, I am finally able to breathe calmly. A playful breeze tickles the ends of my hair, which still smells like Aramis, and brings me the scent of BBQ and mesquite from my favorite restaurant. The scent is a combination of wood smoke and bubbling honey and spices that reminds me it's time to pop dinner in the microwave and settle down in front of Brokeback Mountain. I have heard good and bad and mediocre things about the movie, but I want to make up my own mind.

I always do.

Night before last I was transported to a world of subtle mystery and beauty as it walked side by side with jealousy, vanity and sadism with Nitta Sayuri as she became a celebrated geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha. Surprisingly, the movie is based on a book by Arthur Golden. The screenplay is an interplay of lush color and subtle darkness and intrigue that shows a hidden world that is misunderstood by most westerners. Geisha means artist, not prostitute, and geisha are the "wives of nightfall," half a wife to men of power who followed tradition and familial expectations to marry the women chosen for them.

"Remember, Chiyo, Geisha are not courtesans, and we're not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty."

Makes me wonder about the sanctity of marriage, but that is a topic for another post.

What? Again?

How can anyone ever get tired of such beautiful days? I certainly don't.

The tree I look at every day I sit at my computer, the one that was "pruned" last year into a two-fingered salute, is blossoming with frilly, ferny leaves like yellow-green feathers at the end of the spindly branches. The confused little squirrel who spent most of last year humping everything that passed his way, and getting smacked around for it by the other bigger male squirrels, and especially Chubby Squirrel, has been rubbing his furry cheeks against the cut where a strong bark covered arm once pointed to the mountains in the distance. Today the sky is so clear I can see the lodgepole pines on the upper reaches of the mountains beneath the arching canopy of a Wedgewood blue sky. A few translucent puffs of clouds are caught on the canvas of the sky without a wind to push them along. The clouds slowly drift into new shapes, massing briefly and then dissipating into wispy flares of white, as they hover near the horizon.

The once bleak winter landscape has exploded with color and sound. A bush on the other side of the Lon Chaney house next door is loaded with bittersweet orange berries and little spears of green thrust up through the soft turned earth in the flower beds in the front yard. A few brave bright yellow tulips cup a cluster of velvet black stamens, mirroring and following the golden ball of the sun as it tracks across the heavens. The chill breeze of this morning has warmed with the rising sun and stirs the furry branches of the tree across the way, waving and bowing gently with the wind's whims and games.

I wish I had a digital camera, or any camera, so that I could capture some of this transient beauty on film. But then I'd probably have to get a bigger place just to keep all the pictures, or a bigger hard drive for my computer to hold the digital images. At least I can still capture them in words to keep the memories in my mind fresh.

The clouds have drifted away like an ambling herd of white deer. All that remains is a faint sketching of white above the mountains. The street is weekday quiet and most of the cars are gone. Time for me to get back to the grind for a while and then my lunch date with the park.

Deep sighs and signs

unwrapped my lunch and uncapped my water bottle I looked around at the empty park where a couple of women sauntered along the pathway beside the tennis courts and just breathed in the warm, fragrant air. Cars whizzed by and soon one car stopped, parked and disgorged a troop of squealing preschoolers who raced for the playground. The adults followed with a somewhat relieved sigh, taking their time. Across the street on the front porch of a neat little yellow cottage with a dark blue door, a stoop-shouldered little old person (couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man) lovingly watered the hanging plants, swept the porch and disappeared inside.

Did you know vegetables look brighter and more colorful in the sunshine? I didn't realize that until I started eating. And I decided that from now on, rain or shine, I'm going to make my lunch and walk to the park to eat. It's not far, but the exercise and the fresh air will do me good. It might even make me more willing to come back and work if I can look forward to that brief idyllic respite every day.

Why in the rain? There is a covered shelter and I don't mind getting wet. Thunderstorms are exciting and exhilarating and I love them. If I'm really wet when I get home I can change clothes, but a little rain won't melt me. So, the parks and I have a date every day for lunch and I might even get some productive work done in the afternoons instead of longing to be outside. Sounds to me like a win-win situation.

I might even get a bit of a tan. You just never know.

And the blog goes on

From an Internet idea about giving people space to talk about their live and loves, frustrations and triumphs, poetry and prose, and everything from politics to religion to sex comes a young man with a red paper clip that he is determined to trade for a house. Think it can't be done?

That's the power of the blog.

News and plugs

The trees outside my windows are bursting with deep green and creamy pink blossoms, greenish-yellow leaves and singing birds. Squirrels romp among the branches, stopping to catch up tasty morsels and rub their cheeks against the bark, marking their favorite dining spots. The arching canopy is a hazy aquamarine dusting the upper ridge of the mountains in the distance and the air smells of fresh promise.

It's quiet in the neighborhood streets, the occasional car drifting past on Sunday errands or just for a drive. I can just catch a whiff of fabric softener as Nel does her weekly laundry. Other than the whistling and twittering birds and the odd dog woofing the news down the street, there is a laid back easy peace.

The sun woke me with a sharp reminder the day was moving on without me and for a while I curled up with my latest review book. Friday night I mapped out the week, losing my way somewhere around noon Saturday between the last few pages of A Secret History of Lucifer, something that crossed my search a few weeks ago and has fascinated me since I picked it up, ignoring everything but work and revisions on Past Imperfect since Beanie has hounded me with flaws, errors and changes -- most of the name confusion kind. (That's what I get for doing a global name change using common names.) I spent a good part of yesterday cleaning up the last of the changes and adding another scene, which isn't quite done yet. The total word count is dangerously near 70,000 and may even top 75,000 by the time I'm finished with it. For some reason, Beanie's enthusiasm for the book, despite it not being her type of novel, has fired my enthusiasm for getting it ready to make the rounds of the various publishing houses. Good thing I have a job now since I can afford to print out several copies and pay the back and forth freight for manuscript and rejections, otherwise it would continue to sit on one of my blogs indefinitely.

I indeed finished The Secret History of Lucifer, made a couple of posts, drafted out a post for another of my blogs and began the new spy thriller between watching Dark Water, which was surprisingly good, and browsing past a few movies on cable while fixing and eating lunch and, eventually, dinner. Here I am, back at the computer pounding out another chapter of Anything For Love and realizing this might take a while, especially since I need to put in some time on my regular job, fold and put away the laundry and cleaning the kitchen in between readings of the new review novel. Suddenly, I feel like putting on some clothes and taking a long walk in the sunshine with my paper journal, a pen and a bottle of water just to get away from all the things I have to or should do. This is one of those days when I don't want to be responsible and adult; I want to be adventurous and follow the call of sun, wind and spring. Time for me to wrestle the options and decide which one is going to win today.

In the meantime, go enjoy and celebrate your particular holiday or just celebrate life.

That is all. Disperse.

They just go together

Like rice and beans and springtime and flowers, boys and dogs go together. That's what I call a no-brainer.

This is what marriage is all about. One woman, one man, financial benefits for all. Think it's time the government started paying their employees better?

Expectations. Everyone has them and no one more so than a parent. On a day when part of the world celebrates a time of joy, we should all be thankful for life in whatever form it takes.

The latest

If you're interested in something different, check out Instinct.

Dichotomy

Nearly ten years ago I left Columbus, Ohio and set out on the road. Behind me I left the journals I kept for nearly ten years. That was seven years ago. I gave them to Beanie and made her promise to keep them safe from our mother, not because there was anything in them I was ashamed of or afraid for anyone to see, but because they were my declaration of freedom. Those journals were proof that I could still write.

I kept a diary when I was a teenager. In it I revealed my innermost being, my secret thoughts, longings and dreams. I hid my diary, afraid for my mother to find it. She always found it anyway and I was punished for my thoughts and my longings and my dreams. "Nice girls don't think about such things. How could you feel that way? Why would you do such a thing?" Every time my mother found my diary she punished me. I quit writing.

Twenty-three years ago writing is what kept me sane at the darkest point in my life. I wrote about what was happening to me and to the people around me -- and I kept writing. I wrote on legal pads and scraps of paper until one day at a Half Price Bookstore I found a journal and began to write. I wrote every single night right before I turned out the light and went to sleep. I wrote about my thoughts and longings and dreams. I wrote about what excited me that day, what I learned, what I agreed/disagreed with in what I read, saw, heard and experienced. I wrote poetry. I wrote plots for stories. I wrote about my family. Mostly, I wrote about me: who I was, what I felt, what I knew, and every question that came to mind about anything and everything.

In the back of my mind I still felt like that teenage girl hiding her innermost self from her mother because I was afraid I'd be punished. That's why I made Beanie promise to destroy them if anything happened to me. She didn't destroy them.

My mother got hold of the journals and, certain they were all about her, she began to read...

...and read...

...and read...

...and read.

She didn't find what she wanted. My journals weren't all about her. There were some things about her, but mostly the journals were about me, the me she didn't know and had never wanted to know. She was stunned.

When my mother told me she had read my journals, the cold icy hand of fear clutched my heart and I held my breath, some part of me waiting for the pronouncement of my sentence. "You ought to have these published," she said. Her voice was filled with something I had never heard: awe? surprise? shock? disbelief?

That's when I began to keep my journals on my computer and then allowed myself to be talked into putting my journals online, finally coming here. This journal is much like what I wrote on those pages over more than ten years, much like what I still write -- although not every night before I turn out the light and go to sleep. But now my mother isn't quite so supportive and she doesn't like what I am "publishing" from my journals because there are things in here about my family. I guess she didn't want me to publish my journals after all -- or at least not the parts about my family. That's not for public consumption. After all, what's the use of having closets if you don't fill them with skeletons?

So, here's the skeletons that will come dancing out of the closet from time to time. I believe closets are for clothes and linens.

How about you?

You look but you do not see

A couple weeks ago the trees were bare spindly branches scratching wildly in the wind, their trunks dark with rain and melting snow. They were silent. The birds chirped and sang with the rising of a red-gold sun that barely warmed the chill breezes. It seems but a few days ago that I noticed buds on the slender branches, studding the brown and gray with indeterminate color. When I looked out from my windows I saw the golden forsythia waving from slender whip-like branches thrusting up out of the dusty and anemic ground, but I didn't see what was happening right in front of me. I was wrapped up in work and family problems and everything else. I didn't really see my corner of the world until this morning until the sunlight stabbed my eyelids and forced me to stumble out of bed for another day of seemingly endless work.

As I squinted in against the harsh glare a hint of pink swam into view, pink cradled in deep verdant green like a forest in shadow. Light pink, dark pink, radiant pink against a backdrop of yellow green feathering the topmost branches of the trees, and a multitude of buds bursting open as I stared open-mouthed waking up for the first time in two weeks. When had spring arrived? I waited for it, prayed for it, coaxed it with warmth breath on the forsythia, that sun-bright harbinger of returning life. It was here and from the breathless warmth that barely whispers through the open windows of my bedroom at night, summer is not far behind, reminding me that the clock is ticking, the sun moving closer in its celestial dance, just as it will move farther away and bring with it darkness and cold and the snowy sleep of winter, passing quicker and quicker every year. Passing so quickly sometimes that, if we are not careful, we will look and not see the moments that burst like pink buds from the dark green cup of what were once buds.

She hates me? Again?

Every week my mother calls to see if I'm still alive. I think she does it for my brother because he wants my collection of signed Andre Norton books. "What will happen to your Andre Norton books when you're dead?" he asked with a gleam in his eyes. And he is Mom's favorite son. But back to last night.

To forestall my mother's calls to see if I'm still alive, I make weekly calls at my convenience (if I don't answer the phone she'd be on the first plane out here to "collect" my things) to see if it's time to pry the Ziploc bags of jewelry from her cold hands (or the hands of my jewelry and status hungry sister) and sell them to pay off all their debts. Last night I made such a call. As we chatted about Omar Sharif (who she says has not aged well but what a hunk he was when he was younger -- I agree he was and is still a hunk) and the latest remake of The Ten Commandments she suddenly stops talking. With a voice full of venom she says, "I hate you." Completely out in left field when this pop fly bangs me in the head, I say, "What??!?" "I hate you," she says again with equal vehemence.

"What did I do now?" I asked. (She gets like this sometimes)

"It's all your fault. I can't get them all and I ran all over the place, searched high and low, and still couldn't find them all."

I think I know where she's going with this.

I'm wrong.

"If you hadn't forced those books on me..." she sputtered.

"What books?"

"The Children of the Lion."

Okay, now I get it. Yes, it is my fault. She didn't want to read the books because she doesn't like the kinds of books I like. Of course, I like a lot of different kinds of books: fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, biographies, autobiographies, journals, mainstream fiction, women's fiction, horror... Well, you get the idea. But I am guilty here.

When I first picked up Peter Danielson's Children of the Lion I fell into a world I didn't know existed. I've always been fascinated by ancient history, but Danielson made the world of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia come alive. All the biblical heroes and heroines I avidly absorbed as a child were there in such wealth that I eagerly awaited the publication of the next book and the next and the next -- until I finally gave up waiting because the chronology of events had become, in my opinion, less panoramic. Of course, as my mother so aptly said, who would stick around for 400 years of bondage before Moses came to lead the Israelites across the Red Sea and into the desert for another 40 years? I would, but point taken. I might not live to see the whole series. I certainly didn't stick around after the 8th or 9th book anyway.

At least I understood why she hated me. She takes these things so hard. She doesn't let go and walk away as easily or as quickly as I do. I've had lots of practice. She was born in Alger, Ohio and didn't leave there until she married at 20, and although she did travel out in the world with Dad, she always came back to Ohio and settled down where I picked up and left and kept moving, especially in the past 10 years. They lived in Hilliard for over 20 years. I haven't lived anywhere more than two years at a time even when I lived in Columbus.

Yes, we're very different and I did indeed set her up for a fall. But I made up for it after she whined and complained that she couldn't find the whole series, some of which hadn't been written when I addicted her to Danielson's rich prose. I went online as soon as I pried the phone away from my burning ear searched and found all 19 books and ordered the first ten. She should get them in about a week. At a penny a book, it was a bargain. Too bad I had to pay for shipping though. It was still cheaper than buying all the books at cover price, so I got off fairly easily. She'll be happy for a while.

At least until she decides she hates me again for something else.

The last time it was because I live in Colorado and she doesn't. The time before that it was because I lived in a cabin in the mountains without people crowding my back step. The time before that it was -- well, you get the idea. She always hates me for something. At least this time it was fairly inexpensive to cure.

Just in case you're wondering, my tongue is stuck firmly in my cheek. Basically, my family envies me because I'm the spontaneous gypsy rebel and they wish they could be.

The audience

It's a good thing the wasp was trapped between the screen that doesn't quite fit in the window near my desk and the closed window or I'd have been out of here with the first sighting. I'm allergic and I don't feel like digging out my Epi Pen or going to the hospital today. I don't feel much like working either when the sun is warm and the breeze is a soft kiss on the skin that brings the scents and sounds of springtime through my window. It's hard to sit here most days but even more so today. I'd rather be doing anything that typing up doctors' dictations today.

Ive been taking short little breaks to check email and chatting briefly with the Evil One, and I read a post about the fact or fiction of blogs. That started me thinking about writers and their audience. Blogs/journals offer writers a way to interact with their audience in much the same way authors like Mark Twain did when they went on lecture tours. Authors and poets read from their books, poems or essays and basked in the warm glow of laughter, tears, outcries of commiseration and even boos and hisses. They connected with the audience and got immediate feedback. That is what is so seductive about blogging -- when people take the time to read what is written and stick around for more than a nanosecond.

Writers and poets need to write, to express their opinions, to vent their anger or display their sorrow, elation and emotions, and to interact with the rest of the world. Any writer who says they write strictly for him/herself and doesn't care if anyone reads is lying. We all want to touch at least one other person, one soul who understands what we have to say, or even one individual who disagrees with us. We are actors on a stage who pray for an audience. Even Emily Dickinson wanted people to read her poetry, although she hid it away in an attic because she couldn't handle rejection. Some writers and poets never develop a thick enough skin to take the criticism with the adulation. They are probably the ones saying they write for themselves and don't care if anyone ever reads them. But I'd bet that deep in their secret hearts they believe that some day someone will find their work, be impressed and make sure the rest of the world knows they existed.

Whether we write fiction or faction (fictionalized fact), we invest a great deal of who and what we are in those words. Think alternative universes or fairy tales or any matter of science fiction, fantasy or horror is devoid of the author's experience? Think again. Even in the most macabre and alien worlds you will find at least a piece of the writer and his experiences.

A friend and I talked last night about a young author who has written three books now and whose first book has been optioned by a movie company. She said he has a very vivid imagination and that his fiction is interesting, but the characters lack depth. He's 19. He hasn't had a chance to develop any depth. Experience and living is the only cure. Depth comes with time, circumstance and age.

I look back on what I wrote as a teenager and even in my 20s and 30s and I see the difference in the texture and life of the characters. They are more real, have more facets, more dimensions than they did when I first began writing at eight. After all, what did I know of life and living at the age of eight? I still have a lot to learn and my writing evolves as I experience more. It is inevitable, as inevitable as change. But I also crave an audience. I need to know that what I wrote touched someone somewhere -- whether they liked it or not -- that what I wrote meant something to them, sparked an interest, an emotion, an idea.

Writing is like any other form of art. It is about touch and touch is necessary to our continued existence and to our happiness. We need to be seen. We need to be known. We need to be a part of the world. To quote Susan Sarandon in Shall We Dance?: "We need a witness to our lives."

Sunny Sunday

It's Sunday and I feel like going outside into the clear cool spring day and not coming back until dark. I want to get lost on the streets and avenues and bask in spring.

The clouds look like a stippled watercolor wash of white against a cerulean sky. The mountain are purple and green and pale gold full of mystery and welcome. Squirrels are gnawing at the buds on slender branches dipping toward the green sprigged ground from their weight. Crows flicker between the trees, skimming the rooftops with an ebony flash. I need to get Walkman, throw my backpack in the laundry and get lost for a few hours.

I don't want to think about the laundry, but my backpack won't get clean any other way. I don't want to think about the dishes or vacuuming or cleaning or doing the work I know I should do today. I have paid my dues. I made sure the newsletter was finished, printed, picked up and mailed out and the PDF version has been emailed to the webmaster for uploading. My reviews are written and I have caught up on my correspondence and LJ reading. I finished Prime this morning and I wrote something for my other blog, complete with picture. I'm catching up here and getting back into the writing groove on LJ. Yes, I have paid my dues. Okay, so I still need to get the groceries and get everything ready for the work week running towards me at cruising speed. But spring calls me, spinning a siren's song that no wax can silence or mute.

Love is in bloom and the forsythia gilds slender whip-like branches throughout the neighborhood. I have movies to go back to Netflix and I don't feel like just putting them out on the porch. I want to walk them to the post office and take my time getting back home. I want to wander through art galleries and soak up the sights, sounds and smells in my little corner of heaven. I would like music to take with me but then I'd just forget I am out in public and sing along, scaring the tourists and having the area declared a disaster area when the cars crash from the cacophony. Still, the desire is there.

Okay, time for me to get moving. I have my music on, the shower is waiting and I have clean clothes. The sooner I get started the sooner I get back and disappear into the promise and wonder of my awakening world.

Says who?

Two of my favorite series, both now over, are Queer as Folk and Sex and the City. Both series have something in common even though the shows comes from different perspectives: sex.

Sex is used to sell everything from Viagra to car parts . . . and sex indeed sells. In QAF and SATC the characters talk about, agonize over and indulge in sex. Each character portrays a different sensibility and perspective, but my favorite characters from both shows, Brian Kinney and Samantha Jones, are straight forward, honest and uncompromising. They make no apologies for who and what they are. Sometimes they seem cruel but they remind me of the old saying "cruel to be kind".

Many people complain that Samantha and Brian are promiscuous whores, but those are the subjective kinds of labels that are meant to be negative, a moral judgment. That is the kind of limited perspective that has brought Americans to this pass in history where the righteous moral majority are systematically destroying our civil liberties and freedoms. You don't think honest and open sexual expression is a civil liberty or a freedom? Think again.

Every time we label people we move closer to the kind of narrow-minded thinking that gave the world Russian pogroms, Germany's final solution and Balkan and African wholesale genocide. But it doesn't stop there. During the Korean Conflict bi-racial children left behind by their soldier fathers were murdered unless left anonymously at Buddhist monasteries. Some Islamic countries (Iran and Iraq come to mind) murder and torture the unbelieving population in the name of Allah. Palestinians ring Israel with fire power and suicide bombers taught from their first breaths of life that taking out Israel one school bus or one neighborhood at a time will earn them a favored place in Paradise where their desires will be served by beautiful houris for eternity. Everywhere you look someone is labeling someone else and being different is not all right; being different is a target on your back and there are too many people ready to step up for their opportunity to blast away.

Labels help us identify things as good or bad, but labels are a dangerous way of looking at the world. Labels keep our minds closed and our lives empty.

I am just as guilty as the next person of labeling. I am a professional book reviewer and anyone reading my journal has been treated to my opinion of movies, books and music. However, I still keep my mind open.

For instance, Poppy Z. Brite hasn't impressed me much.

Until now.

I have read some of Brite's horror and short stories. Some have been interesting and some incomprehensible. Since joining LJ I have become a constant reader of docbrite's journal. Talk about opinionated? She is. But then everyone who has an opinion is opinionated.

It is through Brite's journal that I first found out about Liquor and Prime, her departure from vampires and the dark underside of horror. Brite has been blasted for turning away from horror and toward food and restaurants and the real life world of Rickey and G-man, a world she writes with sensitivity, humor and passion.

I read Liquor a few weeks ago after reading about it in Brite's journal for more than a year. It took a bit of time and finagling to find Prime through an interlibrary loan and I'm nearly finished -- and a bit sad. I don't want the story to end. I want to remain a fly on the wall in Rickey and G-man's corner of New Orleans.

I am not a foodie and have not eaten in the better restaurants of the world -- or at Hannibal Lecter's table either -- but Brite's taste sensations made my mouth water and wonder if I should save up to take a culinary tour to indulge my senses instead of buying furniture, paint and curtains to indulge my nesting instinct. But there is so much more to the boys. It is an intimate glimpse of a rich world of subtle romance, charcoal shadowed agendas and uncompromising honesty that neither needs nor offers apologies told with simple truth and humor.

You can't tell the players without a score card.

Gay. Straight. Rich. Poor. Pagan. Heathen. Religious. Liar. Martyr. Old. Young. Sick. Healthy. Whore. Virgin. Married. Single. Optimist. Pessimist. Fat. Skinny. Smart. Stupid.

Labels tell you what is what. But labels should be neutral. They should be sign posts telling us how to go and not what to think. It's like believing you can tell what's between the covers of a book by looking at the title. The only way you're going to know for certain what it's about is to open the cover and read -- with an open mind.

Power to the blog

It had to happen sooner or later -- and it did -- in Canada.

What was once confined the pages of diaries and paper journals is now out and proud on the Internet 24/7. One senior citizen living on a fixed income chronicled her dealings with her landlord, one of the biggest property owners in Ontario, and the landlord sent her an eviction notice after they were unable to keep her from blogging even when they had her original blog taken down. She copied it onto a U.S. blog site through Google and refused to be silenced. She fought back in cyberspace and finally at a tribunal -- and she won. The landlord claimed libel and lost.

I have to wonder whether such specious claims and law suits based on stronger libel definitions, like those they have in Canada, will also migrate to the U.S.

As if we didn't have enough people looking to play victim and get over on the system.

As for me, give me blog or give me cyber death.

Spanks?

While reading The Weekly Shriek (one of my guilty pleasures) something caught my eye. Who ever thought of calling a pair of panties Spanx? But what else would you call a pair of form fitting panties to cover your backside?

They look too sheer to be the heavy laced, boned and often sadist garments my mother used to shimmy, slide and wiggle her way into when she and Dad were going out to the NCO club on Friday nights to play Bingo, and the name was a lot less BDSM -- they were called girdles -- but they amounted to the same, a way to strangle, sculpt, squeeze and otherwise force flab and fat into a less objectionable and, hopefully, more appealing shape. Of course, back in those days, no one thought about sex or having to extricate themselves from the torture garment and let their wobbly bits droop free just to watch their would-be sex partner's eyes go from lust-glazed eagerness to terrified right before they made the sign of the cross with their index fingers and frantically searched for the nearest exit. However, the need for something to trick someone into believing you work out, diet and/or have kept your figure is obviously still strong -- and still worth making money on. I will never understand how showing how smooth and slim and trim the panties/girdle make a lovely, fit and sexy young figure look has anything to do with what it actually looks like on a calorically challenged body, but advertising is all about sex -- or so says Brian Kinney.

I wonder if make-up, Spanx panties, Wonderbras, contacts to make your eyes more appealing (or alien) and all the rest of the special effects, tricks and camouflage that passes for fashion for those interested in attracting a mate, date or sex partner is actually worth it when you have to take most of it off to achieve your goals.

Okay. I'll shut up now.

No surprises here

I started my morning early today before the sun was even a glimmer on the horizon. I watched the mountains outside my windows bleeding in the coming dawn and then covered in golden light as the light brightened. The sky is a clear Colorado blue with a few wispy mare's tails and cotton puffs drift lazily overhead. It is chilly in the sunroom and the streets are finally quiet since the cars whizzed by on their way to work. A few scattered neighbors saunter to their cars and back out of their drives into the street before slipping away. Crows and blue jays chase each other around the trees where the branches are pregnant with green buds. Squirrels quarrel and wrestle, tumbling over and over in the crooks of a couple venerable old trees twisted and curved by the winds. Across the street one of the long time resident trees has grown up and around the black spindles of a Victorian black iron wicket fence, encompassing the cross bars and hinged wickets in its climb towards light and sky. It's a typical day.

That is, it was a typical day until I read this. I am not surprised, which is a crime in and of itself. I should wonder why government agencies exist, outside of their drain on taxpayer dollars and a place for some people to work, but I can only shake my head and remind the naive soul who passed along the information that we no longer have a government of, by and for the people, but a government steeped in collusion, graft and greed that has become of, by and for whoever has the most money to keep the officials in the style to which they have become accustomed.

What I wonder is what this will do to those people who live by milking the system with the kind of law suits that brought us warning labels on McDonald's coffee reminding us that hot means hot, child proof caps that people with arthritis cannot open but children can, and a field of endeavor looking for ways to blame obesity, heart disease and every modern day ill on someone else's products.

Yes, it's just another day in the neighborhood and I thank my lucky stars that I can stay here in my quiet room and make enough money to keep the roof over my head and the car in the parking lot instead of facing corporate America every day of the working week.

That is all. Disperse.

Morning?

Purple and violet and the heart of a fiery furnace low down on the horizon, the clouds and sky a pink haze. Across the road my mountains hunch beneath a slate blue sky, charcoal drifting across like the suggestion of clouds. The birds are singing and a woodpecker rat-t-t-t-t-t-t-tats somewhere nearby, stuttering against its perch looking for breakfast and some sleeping grub or bug huddled inside his bark bed. A few cars whisper by and another crow arcs across the rooftops. Morning crept up on me while I was reading and researching, sent into the cyberworld by a notice that Tor Books is looking for paranormal romance manuscripts. They are also looking for sf/f but the paranormal romance angle piqued my interest. Names and books were mentioned, hence the desire to research and read and check things out, increasing my list of holds at the library, which should keep me busy walking back and forth and getting some much needed exercise after three days of doing absolutely nothing but reading, eating, sleeping and catching up on my movie watching. (I was supposed to be painting this weekend but decided I needed a vacation, albeit a short one -- I'll take what I can get)

Outside of responding to Beanie's emails and phone calls, I have kept away from the computer and all things responsible for three days. I needed, as one friend calls it, a mental health break before my mental health breaks. If I have neglected you, I'm not sorry. I would understand if you needed to and did the same. That's just how I am.

Anyway, here I am up at dawn for the first time in three days and utterly in love with everything I see. Color, light, sound, life just as I left it before I shut the windows of my mind to anything outside these walls. Nice to know there are some things I can count on. Doesn't mean I will not continue with my current plans to hide away for one more day, but I am surfacing for air before I dive back between the covers and run back into the world of Lucifer, Leto, Rickey and G-man without a backward glance. Or maybe I'll take them on a walk to the park or some quiet restaurant where they don't mind if I sit and read and nosh very slowly for a couple hours.

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo

This is one of those days when working in this sunlight room where the soft warm spring breezes through the windows bring the music of chimes, wind and bird song and make it difficult for me to sit here. Silver white branches at the tips of the trees beckon me outside and away from this computer. Cars, buses, trucks and people rush by in the streets below and the cotton cloud patchwork blue sky make me ache to run down and hitch a ride on a motorcycle or bike.

Here there is a phone people call to entice me with the latest telemarketing can't-miss buy or another company wanting my opinion about radio shows and television sitcoms I don't want to watch. Outside I can lose myself in the scents and sounds and feel of the sun warm on my skin and the fresh breeze whisking away the cobwebs and stresses that lie in wait here ready to remind me of responsibility, work, bills, money and the endless demands on my time and attention that I wish I could ignore.

The Evil One told me many times he wants to be a hobo. Ever time I see someone walk by outside with a backpack on their back, I know what the Evil One means. Right now, I want to be a hobo, too.

Just when I get comfortable...

...all hell breaks loose -- or a reasonable facsimile of hell.

Yesterday was difficult enough without my father having to go to the hospital, after dismissing two EMS vans, because he had a heart attack. It could have been worse. The last time this happened he was in the hospital for more than a week and had one of the valves replaced in his heart. The valve had exploded and he was drowning in his own blood. They don't seem to know what is wrong, except that he didn't have a myocardial infarction, which is medical speak for damage to the muscle of the heart. The problem is that he has a stent in one of the arteries and a prosthetic mechanical valve in his heart and blood tests won't show if there is damage to the valve or he has had a blockage of the stent. The fact that his color was bad, he had trouble staying conscious, and his heart was beating wildly irregularly should have clued them in that the valve or the stent were involved and the only way to tell what was going on was to do an echocardiogram, but what do I know? I'm not a cardiologist nor do I work for the VA hospital in Chillicothe. I guess more than two decades of typing up medical dictation and continually researching what I type up so I can be completely accurate hasn't helped me to understand anything, nor do the literally tens of thousands of abnormal and normal blood test results that have passed beneath my fast fingers and onto my screen.

To top all that off, the day shift nurses won't give me any information because I'm not my father's next-of-kin. Being a couple thousand miles away doesn't help when I threaten them either because they can't see my face or feel the anger and frustration rolling in waves off me. I had to call my father, who didn't know the name of the VA doctor and couldn't pronounce it if he did because the guy is Indian, to tell him to sign the forms so they can talk to me. I had much better luck with the male nurse on duty last night.

Here I am sending down roots and decorating my apartment, buying furniture, making plans for the future here and my family is falling apart back home, making me wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea for me to move back to Ohio if only to make sure things are done right and the rest of the family doesn't forget to give the right medical information to the people who need to know. The rest of the are pretty much hopeless and they forget the important stuff that I deal with every day.

Then again...maybe it's time they figured all this out for themselves. Meanwhile, back at Casa Victoriana, I'm having trouble focusing on work and resisting the urge to get on a plane and fly back to there kick butts and take names.

Every time I get comfortable something like this happens. Well, it could have been worse.

And I was looking forward to painting the woodwork and trim and finding just the right stencil to use as a border in the living room this weekend.

Shameless promotion

I have a new blog -- no surprise there -- but the content is unexpurgated and unapologetically Carlinesque. Wanna peek?

Read at your own risk.

Lazy Saturdays

Sometimes I need a break. Time to relax, rewind, unwind, and recuperate from a busy and demanding week. Yesterday was that day. In fact, I didn't even change out of my Victoria's Secret gown. Instead, I lounged around on my new sofa, watched one hour of television, and read a great deal -- between naps, of course.

I jockeyed back and forth between Historical Deception and Asking For Trouble -- basically between a heavy meal of meat and junk food. I'm still plowing through Egypt and finding much I didn't know and some things I did know. Always an interesting proposition. The junk food, however, was quite tasty and went very well with the fat free orange sherbet that failed to last as long as the laughs and tears.

Asking For Trouble is the basis for last year's The Wedding Date with Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney. The movie bombed but it wouldn't have if the director had stuck faithfully to the book. He threw out anything that wasn't Hollywood enough: a heroine obsessed with her "wobbly bits" and fearing that everyone, including her hired date, saw her as desperate; an escort who wasn't a hooker; the reason for needing an escort in the first place; her friends' collusion and help/harm; and everything good about the book. The bride became a self-absorbed, vapid blonde who sees herself as the center of the universe instead of a confused, naive girl doing what everyone expected of her. Gone was the mystery, the suspense, the absolutely hilarity of Elizabeth Young's dialogue and convoluted situations. All this in favor of a less than satisfying, much less than mediocre piece of tripe that had little worth watching outside of Mulroney's cynical smile and six-pack abs and Messing's dithering and ill-timed spasms. It worked for Will & Grace certainly does not translate well to the big screen. It makes Messing seem a one-note wonder. The book, as always, was far better.

My one hour of TV was taken up by George Carlin's You Are All Diseased. As always, he made wonderful and salient points with his careful rapier-point wit and intelligence. Nothing and no one was spared, not even soccer moms and involved fathers who believe their children are all geniuses warranting special treatment and unfettered attention.

Reminds me of Arthur Miller's plays, specifically, The Man With All The Luck, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman. The fathers in all three plays had the same problem: giving too much to one or two sons and ignoring the others, thereby ruining the sons who got all the attention and making certain the ignored sons lived productive and rich lives. Puts a whole new spin on the way things are done today when parents have been shamed and forced into living their lives for their children and forgetting they also have lives to live, lives they put on hold for children who have become the conspicuous and stellarly spectacular consumers of today who let nothing and no one stand in their way to gather material possessions.

I don't mean that parents should ignore their children, but rather provide guidance and support and let their children become independent, productive individuals ready to fly the nest and build nests of their own. It is definitely time to take another look at Miller's plays, not only because of the human truths they portray in such vivid and uncomplicated language, but also because there are some lessons that have been forgotten and ignored.

Now it's time for me to tuck in and do the chores I left undone yesterday so I can face the work week with a clean plate and a healthy appetite.

The birds are singing...

...outside and there is an ice dagger growing down from the eaves outside the window in front of my desk. I wonder how long it will take before it finally snaps off and how long it will grow. The mountains are behind a sheer white veil and the sky is blue behind the grey-white haze. Sunlight peers weakly through the clouds gaining strength as the day grows older. Day is perfectly balanced with night for this moment and the hours of daylight grow stronger sending curls of anticipation shooting through me, coaxing me outside into the cold with promises of warmth and sun and growing things. That's what the birds are singing about.

The birds were silent yesterday morning as the snow storm moved closer, but the squirrels still raced up and down the trees, probably keeping warm. I worked night before last so I could finish work early yesterday. My new tables and a microwave were delivered. The delivery driver was late, but that gave me plenty of time to finish touching up the walls where the color looked a little thin. Up and down the ladder until my legs ached, repositioning the ladder, painting, touching up and generally getting a lot more exercise, I hustled to make room for the new furniture. I was too fussy and didn't get done, but the driver was nice enough to take away some boxes for me since he was so apologetic about not being here on time. Ben, the driver, was sweet and I told him it wasn't a problem waiting and not his fault. He got caught in traffic. He smiled and thanked me and drove off whistling. Makes me wonder how other people reacted when he was late.

The landlady came up to look at the paint job and said it looked like it belonged in the bedroom, but my bedroom will be Wedgewood blue with gold accents and sheers. I'm not sure if I like the green yet, but when I got the furniture moved around and the pictures back on the wall it began to grow on me. I suspect once I get the trim and woodwork done, the stenciling along the ceilings in place and some area rugs in there it will look fabulous. It's looking good now. I need to get bulbs for the lamps but the candy apple red of the bases is just the right touch. I can't wait to put up the red wine sheers and maybe give in an buy a couple sofa parasites (that's pillows to the rest of you) in bright primary colors.

Well, back to work to earn enough to pay for this smorgasbord of decorating. Enjoy the day.

Minding my own business...

...doing my work and the Evil One decides to send me a provocative message and a link for watching a man playing with his balls. How can I be a productive worker when he's sending me stuff like that? Between the jokes and quips and puns and the general enjoyment of chatting with him, I have a feeling it's a good thing I worked last night.

But now here comes hypatia360 and a guy with real balls. Stick it out to the end and you will be rewarded with even more balls. I'm never going to get any work done today and I have a microwave and tables being delivered this afternoon.

That is all. Disperse.

Oh, the pain...

The spring-like weather is gone and it has been snowing steadily since yesterday. The snow is so heavy with moisture it can't even drift on the winds whining past the windows. It falls to the ground like a beer swilling, barrel-bellied Super Bowl Sunday, pizza and snack machine drops into his favorite recliner in front of the TV. Everything is mounded and drifted with white and the air is heavy with sheets of falling crystals. My mountains are invisible behind the white out drapes of a winter storm on this day before spring and the cold battles with the meager heat from my space heater. The landlady turned off the furnace when the weather got warm.

And now there's work to do and my fingers and hands and every muscle attached to those muscles and attached to every other muscle in my body are throbbing and aching from painting this weekend. I have to put the living room back together before the new coffee and end tables arrive tomorrow afternoon and the laundry is still humped on the bed because I didn't have enough energy to fold and hang and put it all away. Needless to say, there is also work to be done and I will be focusing on that since this weekend I have to focus on putting together and putting out another issues of the Ø-Beat newsletter for the local ham organization. My plate is full and my cup runneth over. There are worse things in the world. Like...

I'll think of something when the rest of my brain wakes up. For now, I'm off to bring the space heater closer, put some breakfast in the oven, and take a long hot shower before tackling the day and evening's work. I may even get to bed by 1 AM tomorrow morning -- and I still have Ostara to plan for and celebrate. I was hoping for daffodils and tulips and crocuses and amaryllises and...well...spring.

So that's how you do it...

I knew before I crawled into bed last night that a day of painting had affected every single solitary muscle in my body -- and not in a good way. But that was just my first impression. My second impression was that I was still alive because everything hurt like a chronically aching tooth all over my body, except for my jaws. I didn't talk much yesterday because there was no one to talk to and because I was resting my vocal cords from the strain I put on them a few days ago when I sang for over six hours (my version of spring fever) without warming up first.

But how do you warm up for painting?

Wax on-wax off? The Miyagi painting method with a brush?

Wouldn't work. I was used a roller and an edging pad. Different set of muscles altogether. I did find I prefer the two-handed method of using the roller, which is a good thing because my triceps (that part under my arm that hangs and sways heavily in the least breeze or with movement) are equally sore. Somehow I managed to even work the muscles above my glutes. My back doesn't hurt, but the muscles on either side of my spine and along my sides definitely took notice of the activity. My feet, legs, knees, shins, calves, thighs and hamstrings definitely got into the act, as did all the muscles from my fingertips to my shoulders and back. Strangely enough my neck isn't sore either, just pleasantly relaxed. Must be all those years of holding my head up. I have not been this tired and sore or felt this energetic, despite the sharp reminder of yesterday's activities, since I lifted weights six hours a day six days a week in my twenties.

Suddenly, a light bulb goes off in my head as I argue with my body about staying in bed and rest my battered body instead of getting up and adding insult to injury. I worked out with weights and machines, swam, walked, sweated, grunted and groaned for thousands of hours and didn't get this much of a workout. I don't think it was because I was in better shape back then but because painting is more of workout. Instead of doing a three-day split working upper and lower body alternately, going from machine to machine, free weight to free weight, painting is much more efficient. Even taking breaks and not working quickly, I have found the secret. Painting is how to lose weight, improve muscle tone and increase lung capacity (by gulping fresh air with your head out the nearest window to clear the lungs of paint fumes).

There are other benefits to the painting workout. More people doing the painting body tone program would need rooms and houses to paint. The increase in painting would mean a boost to the painting manufacture industry. More color. More tools. More business. You could set up a gym in the nearest derelict house or building and paint, thus giving the neighborhood and the property a boost in look and appeal, making it more attractive to potential buyers looking for an affordable property, which would also drive out the criminal element, scurrying from the color and light like roaches in the kitchen when the light is turned on, thus bringing down the crime rate, raising property values and giving new life to old neighborhoods. I imagine once all the houses and apartment buildings are painted, you could start all over where you began because you'd be tired of the old color. Everyone wins. Healthier, fitter bodies and profound social and urban impact. What more could you want from an exercise program?

Okay, who wants to write the book and pose for the photographs? It's a billion-dollar industry just waiting for some far-sighted entrepreneur. I'd offer, but I have to go finish painting the living room, move around the furniture and collapse for as long as my bladder holds out.

Who knew...

...the world would turn into a self serve automat where there's no one at the controls? Wal-Mart at 8 AM is full of shoppers but the clerks and cashiers are absent. All the self serve check out stands are operating with helpful instructions in English and Spanish and a touch screen for those really hard choices -- like how you're going to pay for your purchases. Self serve gas, check out stands at grocery and retail stores, and salad bars (which really aren't too bad since you get what you want). Does no one care about personal contact any more?

Okay, I shop online because that way I don't have to fight the crowds or wait interminably in line, and I don't have to carry it home, just up the stairs from the front porch. And I can shop while I work, but when I get out into the world I like to know I'm not Neville shopping the dust-covered, debris blown aisles for canned food that isn't bulging before the sun goes down and Matthias and the Family come out of hiding. It isn't that I mind being alone, just that once in a while when I venture out into the world I want to see the faces and hear the voices of other people, especially the customer service type that answer questions, blend paint, and handle the cash register at the check out stand. After all, 8 AM isn't that ungodly an hour, especially in stores that stay open 24/7/364. Is that too much to ask?

It was helpful though that the local liquor store was open at 9 AM so I could buy my burgundy (that ended up being Bordeaux) so I can make boeuf bourguinon with an assortment of mushrooms (portobello, Shiitake, crimini), pearl onions, and a deep earthy gravy spiked with porcini mushroom powder and hazelnut flour. First time in the store and the clerk greeted me at the door and offered helpful suggestions, in addition to guiding me around since I'd never been there before, as well as being quite knowledgeable and friendly. Now that is customer service. Too bad the rest of the retail world hasn't figured that out yet.

I'll shut up now.

Off to see the wizard...

...of paint.

For the first time in my life I am not going to live in a house or apartment with someone else's idea of what constitutes a good color scheme. You could say that white is a good color, but I am tired of institutional colors. Since this is my home I have decided to make it my home. Luckily, the landlady is amenable to my plans. She said my attitude is more like a European's. I can live with that.

So, I am showered, combed and nearly dressed (need to put on a top over my lacy bra). I'll get something to eat (already cooking in the oven) and I'm out of here. I'll spend my weekend perched precariously on a wobbly ladder cutting in at the ceiling and around the door frames before I haul out the paint rollers and turn my living room from a featureless landscape of white decorated with carefully positioned cardboard box tables into a colorful background of light sage green, baseboards and wood trim accented in a white touched with just enough sage green to look like the glossy wood reflects the walls, and where jewel bright primary colors accent windows, floor and the new end tables that arrive on Tuesday. I had some help picking out the tables from the Evil One who is still probably shaking his head as to why I asked his opinion. Simple, I want him to feel comfortable here and like he's a part of the process that changes me from an itinerant wanderer passing through town into a deeply rooted denizen.

Too bad he doesn't have the time to come do the teetering ladder climbing. He has a much better head for heights than I do. But I will do as I always do, grit my teeth, take a deep breath and climb.

I certainly hope the man behind the curtain is truly a wizard of paint and not a lost charlatan with a few technological tricks up his sleeves.

That is all. Disperse and do something nice for yourself.

Just nothin'

I can't sleep. Well, I was asleep and woke up and can't get back into sleep mode. So here I am at the computer in the middle of the night reading LJ and wondering if I'll be able to sleep a couple more hours before I have to get up and work. Probably not. I'm in reading and writing mode and sleep mode is offline for the nonce.

The moon is a glaring white disk in the black night sky criss-crossed with twisted black branches just like in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Looks like a backdrop instead of the real thing. Some night owl U-Hauled past the house a few minutes ago, appearing briefly in the orange sodium vapor light at the corner and dissolving into the darkness after he turned. Only Venus winks in the distance, a single bright pinpoint of light in the black.

I can't understand why I'm unable to get back to sleep. Things are going so well for me right now. The week has been full of surprises and opportunities and the rekindling of excitement and amorous possibilities. Things haven't been this good in ages. Maybe that's the problem: everything is going good and I can't believe it. Someone could die, someone I like. Someone could land a plane in the sunroom and keep me from working so I'd have to finally do the laundry. Someone could tell me it's all a dream like Bobby Ewing the season he came back from the dead via the steamy shower. Or maybe I'm just anxious because I'm putting down deep roots and painting the living room this weekend (and, yes, finally doing the laundry). Or maybe it's all just nothin' more than a reason to get up out of a warm bed where I rested happily in Morpheus's arms and the usual sounds and smells of this hour of the morning I'm missing intruded on the peace and harmony of a normal Friday. Or could I just be tired and unable to find escape from deciding not to live and work as a journalist in Antarctica for seven months and the toe-tapping, foot jiggling, antsy and can't sit still eternity of waiting to be enfolded once again in my lover's arms.

Maybe I should just crawl back between the now cold sheets, take matters into hand, and drift back to more exotic shores where I can cadge a couple more hours of erotic bliss before the flames of dawn burn away the darkness.

Hands up! Spread 'em!

Saturday morning I didn't feel like doing the laundry I needed to get done in order to not have to drag out the really fancy undies to keep from going kamikaze until I could drum up enough enthusiasm to make the trek downstairs, outside in the cutting winds, across the ice-rimed paving stones arranged so artfully around the side of the house, through the gate and around to the laundry room door with an unwieldy basket of clothes. So I stayed in bed with a few books. I didn't even venture into the eye searingly bright sunroom to check my email or gaze in rapt awe at the mountains outside the window over my desk hidden behind the gray wall of mist and clouds until past ten. When I finally shielded my light sensitive eyes and walked into the light I expected to see the quiet Saturday street preserved in winter white. What I found was a teeming mass of people bundled up against the harsh winds and flying shards of sleet weaving between cars cruising for a parking space in the packed parking lot my neighborhood had become. I was still immersed in Arthur Miller's play about The Man Who Had Too Much Luck and hadn't landed back here in my quiet, predictable world. It took me a few minutes to realize everyone was battling the cold to see the St. Patrick's Day Parade and 5K run (I just found out about the 5K). I briefly considered putting on a sweater and jacket and braving the cold for hot dogs and excitement before climbing back into bed with Miller.

The rest of the day crept slowly along in a haze of plays and movies I hadn't had the time to see and considered sending back to NetFlix unviewed, basking in the warmth of the space heater next to the new chaise where I lounged with my books, paper journal, pens, and ever present bottle of water for the rest of the day. I finally roused enough to check my email only to find the street outside deserted except for four police cruisers and a K-9 unit circling the block again and again. The cruisers looked like giant's toys scattered haphazardly on the street where the giant's child dropped them at his mother's call. There were no cops in the cruisers so I edged closer to the window and looked up and down the street looking for them like some nosy old woman scenting gossip on an errant wind. I'd have peeked through the shutters or drapes if I had any, but my windows are bold brazen eyes staring down onto the neighborhood without even a veil strategically draped, which accounts for me wearing more clothes when I work -- that and because it's also a mite chilly in the sunroom even with double-paned windows in vinyl frames.

It is always so peaceful and quiet here on the west side of town, so peaceful people think twice before locking their doors at night, certain there is no evil in the world we share here, so it is doubly unnerving to see a cadre of cruisers parked on our quiet streets with no cops inside. In other times, other places I wouldn't have looked twice, knowing they were after some drug dealer or fleeing felon (especially once having had my home invaded by cops in pursuit of someone as they burst in through my front door, racing past me as they jerked open the back door and jumped off the back porch), but here such a show of force in the absence of a donut sale at Dunkin' Donuts raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

I scanned the houses and streets for some sign of the cops while the K-9 unit circled the block every two minutes. Nothing. No cops. No shots fired. No crackle of unintelligible cop speak through the open windows as I shook with cold and waited...

...and waited...

...and waited...

...and stared as four cops burst through the tangle of winter bare weeds and piled branches between the brand new house and the modest Victorian across the street. The K-9 unit paused briefly as they trampled through the crystal powder swirling across the brown and yellow grass then drove on. The cops got into their cruisers and drove away, leaving behind an uneasy sense our peace had been irreparably shattered. The mountains hid behind the thickening gray wall of mist and clouds and shards of ice ticked against the windows. Evening closed in and the yellow light of the street lamps wavered through the thickening night beneath skeletal branches scratching wildly in the rising howl of the wind.

I locked my door and crawled back beneath the warm lap blanket on the chaise, flicking through the channels before finally turning off the TV and diving back into Miller's Brooklyn world where an old salesman faltered and fell into brighter memories of the past where the cruel harshness of the present intruded indiscriminately.

Can't get back on track

I woke up really late this morning. Not a good start for a busy day. I did, however, work a double shift yesterday with three hours' sleep, which is probably why I overslept, but I still have a lot to do and just can't seem to find my pace. Good thing for the Evil One because he reminded me the furniture guy was coming today to fix the chaise: two split legs and a split and bent cross piece. I hadn't showered or eaten and I certainly wasn't dressed. In short, I looked like I just got out of bed after a long rough night. Good thing though.

The furniture guy (very cute in that rugged, athletic, sexy, manly smelling way) put my ticket in the paid file because his company sent the guy out to steam clean the furniture on Wednesday and would have missed the appointment had I not called in a panic to find out when he would be here. Worked out for both of us. I got a shower and he came by to expertly repair my brand new chaise.

I will never understand why furniture makers no longer take pride in their work and make it to last. At these prices, they should have used something much sturdier as a stabilizer than 1/4" plywood. That's a job for solid wood -- like the 2x4 the furniture guy put in place. Now when I sit down on the chaise it doesn't sound or feel like it's about to collapse and I'm not afraid to put up my feet, which is why I bought the chaise in the first place.

So, thanks to working a double shift with very little sleep, an intelligent body that takes over and makes sure I get enough sleep, the Evil One for reminding me I had someone coming over today, and my sense of self preservation and panic to make sure I wasn't caught looking like a wild-haired hag who had been rode hard and put up wet or there would be stories floating around town about the wicked old witch with snakes for hair that lives over in Old Colorado City.

Here's to the happy accidents that surprise us and keep us on our toes.

Hell hath no fury

It is obvious that I need to be careful around the Evil One or he will corrupt me even more than he has already. A simple conversation or him telling me about some movie or book that had him riveted with laughter or whatever and I'm off and running to see what the shouting is all about. This time he dangled another bit of winning bait before me.

No doubt about it, Kurt Russell is still the hottest commodity around and the most versatile and believable actor. The Evil One's latest dangling bait concerns Breakdown about a yuppie couple moving from Boston to San Diego in their brand new fire engine red Jeep Cherokee. Amy and Jeff are living on their credit cards because they have both quit their jobs and are moving to San Diego to a new life and new jobs. One moment Jeff wasn't paying attention and he nearly crashes into a mud splattered truck fitted for driving around in the desert and crosses over into a reality where nothing is as it seems. And thus the adventure begins and doesn't let go until the very last moment when Amy has her revenge.

The Evil One was right. This movie keeps your interest every second of its run and doesn't let go. Heaven help you if you're catching it on a movie channel and not on DVD or on commercial TV where you can get up and go to the bathroom once in a while because you're not going to want to get up and miss a single nanosecond. Blink and you will definitely miss something crucial.

I guess I'll just have to put up with his insidious dangling bits of bait because he is usually right and knows me so well that he gets me every time in his diabolical traps of sharing ideas and dreams and succulent tidbits.

Besides, the Evil One is cute, too.

That is all. Go find Breakdown and settle in for a wild and hair raising ride.

Blue days

I am so used to seeing dogs on leashes with their owners following behind or to the side with plastic bags around their hands to scoop up the droppings. Not today. A beautiful two-year-old German Shepherd found a little square of ragged yellow-brown grass at the corner across the street, turned, assumed the tail-up position and let nature run its course. He took a quick sniff and bounded across the street. I watched for his owner to scoop the proof but all that followed was a black mutt with a white blaze on his nose, bounding across the street like an excited puppy seeing his family in the doorway. The evidence the dogs existed is still across the street in the little pie slice of green and brown surrounding by cement curbing. I can just hear the buzzing of interested flies in between the trilled warbles of bird song drifting through my window on the rising breeze. The sky is an impossible heart wrenching Colorado blue where the bare trees scratch the air with skeletal fingered twigs.

The weather has been beautiful the past few days and every time I look out the window I expect to see green buds lining the twiggy ends of tree branches just like the bright green spears of crocus and tulips thrusting up through the black soil in the yard downstairs. The grass is brown, but the promise of spring and the end of winter's sleep is in those bright green spears ripping through the cold and silent ground.

There is the faint scent of dust on the wind mingling with the clean fresh scent of rushing breezes busily sweeping streets and windows and air and my mind clear of winter's must and dust. I am anxious for more of these beautiful bright blue days but I know winter is struggling with spring and winter will win a few more bouts before spring's pastel flags and green spears are victorious. The mountain outside my window will be softened and shadowed by buds and leaves before long, but like the impossible blue Colorado sky it will remain a constant reminder of the strength and beauty right outside my door beckoning me ever closer.

More satanism

woke this morning to a molten copper horizon that lit bands of clouds with fiery orange light as the sun rose. The first thing that popped into my mind was the old sailor's poem: Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor take flight. Of course the sky wasn't quite red but it was obviously a warning that this day would be full of something akin to danger -- the idea that Harry Potter leads children to satanism.

I don't know where the Vatican gets off saying that Harry Potter leads to worshiping the devil, but I would have chosen a much more suitable focus for my claims, like The Ninth Gate or anything that glamorizes working or being an advocate for the devil, but since The Ninth Gate didn't make nearly as much money as J. K. Rowling's books about wizards, witches, and the honor, strength, responsibility, and growing friendship of three children battling evil in all its forms. Declaring Harry Potter is the road to satanism and a sure need for exorcism is like saying taking an aspirin for a headache is the next step to mainlining heroin or snorting cocaine. Maybe doing more than 3000 exorcisms in 20 years has something to do with it? Or then again, maybe he hasn't heard about the first satanic bedtime story called The Little Satanist. Only on eBay.

I wonder what the Vatican has to say about the wars in heaven.

That is all. Disperse. There are lots of red skies ahead of us morning and night.

Another day in paradise

The week began fitfully. I nearly forgot Beanie's birthday on Monday. Not something I usually do, at least not since just before I turned 10 when she was born that Saturday during The Jackie Gleason show. I sent her card just under the wire and I called to make sure she knew I hadn't forgotten her. She told me she got a call from Jimmy and Carol that morning but not from me and wasn't going to call or email to see if I really did forget. She was being a brat again, which is normal for her. I'm sure this year will be fodder for future reminders of the time I nearly forgot her birthday.

The rest of the week was full of work, work, and more work, as well as a meeting with the board of directors of the local ham radio group. I went loaded for bear because I had every intention of fighting for my position as newsletter editor. I rehearsed what I would say and remind them of their checkered history with past newsletter editors who hadn't done their job at all and that, despite deciding in September to appoint me to the position of editor-in-chief and not telling me about it until December, they had not given me the information and tools necessary for a smooth transition by January 1st, and that I refuse to do a half-assed job just to put out something. I don't work that way. Turns out I didn't have to do anything. They nearly begged me to take the job. I guess they figured out quickly that it was not the walk in the park they thought it would be, especially since they have not had one person volunteer to step into the position over the two years the previous editor begged to be relieved of the job. I'm satisfied and I can save the big guns for later.

I have a growing stack of books to be read and reviewed and authors send me more requests about twice a week every single week. I did, however, get a plum assignment from Author Link to read and review Arthur Miller's collection of plays put out by the Library of Congress. The book is beautifully bound with a ribbon bookmark on crisp thick paper and one I will definitely keep and not donate to the local library system, as I do with most of the books I read and review.

And speaking of reviews, my latest review is available for those of you who read such things.

Valentine's Day left me with only a heart-shaped box of candy from Nel next door and tired fingers from pounding the keyboard all day. Wednesday and Thursday were nothing special because I was waiting for Friday so that friends, family, strangers, and establishments could make it up to me for my birthday. I wasn't disappointed.

A phone call at 12:01 AM woke me from a satisfying dream of designing the winner signature gown that put all the Project Runway remaining four contestants in the dust in season two. The winning gown will be worn by Iman. It was a simple gown that was well constructed, but back in Ohio when I designed costumes for various organizations, like the Columbus Metropolitan Opera, Columbus Light Opera Society, several theater groups, and plays at The Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center, I did far riskier and more interesting work. In fact, most of my private clients wore gowns and outfits that put them square on the society pages in The Columbus Dispatch, the local politically correct rag. Anyway, back to the phone call.

It was a new dating prospect who wanted to be the first to wish me happy birthday -- and he was. We had plans to meet for dinner at my favorite restaurant but he called later in the day with car trouble and would be stuck in Pueblo overnight, so we changed our plans to meet for dinner tonight instead. I have to say he is one persistent insurance salesman determined to take up all my free moments and dating time, although he didn't manage to wish me happy birthday 51 times as he promised.

However, I did manage to gather a little loot yesterday in celebration of the anniversary of my birth. A lovely and exotic kalanchoe with lightly greenish tinged white flowers was delivered yesterday afternoon while I was relaxing with dye on my Pepe Le Pew roots. It came from Mark in Cleveland and is the first plant to take up residence here, but not the last, I can assure you. I have plans for this haunted set of rooms in this old Victorian. Beanie called and sang "Happy Birthday" to me and my favorite person in the whole world greeted with me an effusive birthday greeting that kept me smiling all day. He's stopping by today with my gift, so I get two days of celebration this year. My landlady called me and sang "Happy Birthday" as well and told me she was sending up a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as a gift -- and she included two helpings of a baked tortilla casserole that was out of this world. I might not have had dinner out last night, but dinner in was really great. Lynn called with birthday wishes and her wife, Chuck, (funny story) wished me well, too. I received a lovely e-card from my oldest friend back in Ohio and my parents added their greetings when I called to check on my father's preliminary prostate biopsy results report (there was none and we have to wait a week). Nel next door gave me a gorgeous card and told me my gift was back ordered and in the mail. All in all, a very good celebration.

I also received an 8 x 11 picture of my mother standing next to one of the smaller Lucky Dog carts (I pushed a much bigger cart) in New Orleans. I have to have it framed, but I may have it matted and framed for my bare walls.

Now that Mark is temporarily unemployed, he mentioned coming back to visit for a few days and said he might even drive out and bring his tools to help me build an entertainment center for the living room, book shelves, and a desk for the sun room where I work every day so I can put my ham radio rig and my computers on one sturdy surface and have a more convenient place to work. Mark said he'd also help me put up window treatments and paint, so he must be considering sticking around for more than a weekend. Could be interesting.

The best present I received this year was watching the tree-hating orc wench's hunky husband and sons packing up their house and putting everything into a big truck to move out yesterday. The new tenants for Lon Chaney's old house are Mike and Michelle, a newlywed couple. How's that for a birthday gift?

Well, I have to do my Saturday chores (cleaning, laundry, dishes, changing linens) and pick out what I'm going to wear this evening at dinner, so it's time for me to shut up.

That is all. Disperse.

Between work and my family...

...I may just tear out every strand of my hair.

All vacations have been canceled because we're behind. Couldn't get work for months and now we have more than we can handle. I've been working like a mad woman, but it didn't take long to get there. And then there's my family.

Mom, queen of the exaggeration, vomited up blood. I thought it was more like a stake through the heart kind of flood of blood, but it turns out it was probably more like an irritation in her throat because she'd been vomiting for days after spending time with my sister Typhoid Carol and catching whatever yarg she managed to sneeze, cough, and breathe into the air around my parents. I told my parents to stay away from her. They wouldn't listen. Anyway, they put my mother in the hospital, so she must have been convincing. A few days later, after many, many tests and being served meals in bed, they kicked her out knowing no more about what was wrong with her than they knew when she was admitted. I can tell them what is wrong with her, she's a medical phenomenon.

She has had colon cancer twice and had 18 inches of small bowel removed because of adhesions and strictures. I think she also had rectal cancer, too. She has one kidney left and it is filled with tumors. Her liver has tumors, too, and they're called hemangiomas. Think of blood blisters that keep growing and growing until they pop and fill her belly -- but the doctors can't figure out why she needs to be transfused with 2-4 units of blood every 3-4 weeks. Dad also has to give her B12 shots in between the fill-ups. (I always said she was a vampire but no one believes me) She had a hysterectomy when she was 35, turning her into a more concentrated version of the eternal witch on wheels that made growing up so much fun with her crying jags, banshee screams and the usual inability to live with someone who has suddenly tilted off her rocker and can't get up. She has had several mini strokes (no one knows for sure how many) but she still manages to remember her credit card numbers (all 50 of them) and scan outspend Imelda Marcos, Elizabeth Taylor, and Martha Stewart on their best days. Given the chance, my mother could easily bankrupt Queen Elizabeth in about 20 minutes. But the best news was yet to come.

Dad announced on Wednesday, the day before the hospital released Mom, that his prostate cancer is back. They biopsy him on my birthday but they can't do surgery (figure that one out -- I thought a biopsy was surgery because I type operative reports for biopsies all the time) because of his mechanical heart valve, which is the same reason they can't do chemo. Radiation is out because he had radiation the last time and he still has to wear Depends because the radiation damaged the healthy cells along with the cancerous cells (but evidently not all of them because they woke up again) and the muscle and tissue of his rectal sphincter so that he can no longer control his bowels. He said the doctor told him that prostate cancer comes back in 7-10 years; it has been a little less than 7 years since he was first treated. If they do nothing he might have 4 years -- I wonder if their estimate is as accurate as their estimate of the recurrence of the cancer -- before the cancer metastasizes to the brain and he dies. Dad said four more years would make him 82 and that's good enough for him. It's not good enough for me -- even if he keeps to our agreement and takes Mom with him when he goes. (The agreement is that he takes her or he's not allowed to die because I will get stuck with her -- more on that later) I really believed my parents were immortal. After all, Mom is still here no matter what the Universe throws at her. She's like a cockroach or a moth. When the bomb is dropped and all humans are dead, she will still be here screaming and chasing the cockroaches and keeping the moths out of her wool suits.

Every bit of bad news travels with two partners. Mom went into the hospital and Dad's prostate cancer has returned, but I just knew there was another shoe waiting to fall on my head.

I was right.

It fell.

I was informed that I have to pack up here and move back to Ohio to take care of my parents. Obviously, they are unfit to take care of themselves if they can't stay away from Typhoid Carol or keep from burning parts of their new house down with too much incense. After all, I'm not married, I don't own a house, I can take my job with me because I work from home, I don't have any family here, and no one here would care if I left. I am the obvious choice.

I thought they were joking, so I emailed back and told them that since Typhoid Carol is retiring this year she could take care of Mom and Dad. Beanie lives five minutes away and, from what Dad told me the night before, she and her family get Mom and Dad's house when they're gone, so she would be protecting her inheritance so Dad can't burn down the whole house and leave them with a meager 6.5 acres, a two-car garage, big barn, and brand new chicken house. And if Ants's new job turns out to be temporary, he can help with Mom and Dad during the day. Not to mention, my brother also lives 45 minutes away and he could help out. Besides which they don't have DSL and can't get it because they're so far out in the boonies and I need that for work. Dial-up ain't gonna get it. Not to mention that my mother and I can only tolerate each other when there is lots of distance between us. Why else do you think I live nearly 2000 miles away? Our relationship improves with distance. To be really great, I would have to move to Mars -- or better yet, Pluto.

Another shoe landed on my head, spike first. I was being selfish and hateful because I wouldn't give up everything (not that I had much in their estimation to give up) to take care of my parents. The discussion got uglier and uglier and I realized they weren't joking. This was for real. They expected me to give up my life to take care of our parents and then find somewhere else to live when Beanie and her family come to take possession of the house and land. I'll pack the car right away and be on the road by Saturday.

Not going to happen. I love my parents but there are three of them and one of me and they live a whole lot closer. Chances are I'd die before Mom does because I'd probably walk out onto the road and lie down until a car ran over me and then where would that leave them? They'd probably find a necromancer to revive me and keep me alive until she dies in about four million years.

But now it's time for me to get back to my portable job and make some more money. I have to save for that ticket to Mars where I might be able to get a shuttle to Pluto.

Facts of life

Some people say that men get better as they age. A little gray at the temples or even a full head of silver hair and they look better than they did in their 20s and 30s. Of course men do take longer to mature and are a lot like gin made in a bathtub -- lethal when you drink it too soon after it's made and had a chance to age and mellow. Not so for women. We mature quickly but when it comes to aging we get a bad rap -- until now.

This is for all you girls 40 years and over.... and for those who are turning 40, and for those who are scared of moving into their 50's...AND 60's and 70's.... and for guys who are scared of girls over 40!


Andy Rooney says: As I grow in age, I value women who are over 40 most of all.

Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?"

She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it.

She does something she wants to do. And, it's usually something more interesting.

A woman over 40 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom.

Few women past the age of 40 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 40 are dignified.

They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant.

Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 40 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends.

A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women.

Women over 40 couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won't betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. They always know.

A woman over 40 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one!

You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal.

For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 40+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free", here's an update for you.

Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.

Amen to that!!

That is all. Disperse and spread the word.