Falling stars

I'm up but hardly awake yet. I am smiling because of a message I received from my sister this morning. She wanted to know about falling stars. She saw one streaking across the sky last night, a burning arc of fire, and thought about where they come from, so she emailed and asked me about it.

It seems my family always comes to me for answers to their questions. My mother calls me a walking encyclopedia. When I lived back in Ohio I seldom saw any of them except at family dinners during the holidays, a command performance that I usually left early or failed to attend because I worked nights, 3-11. I felt like an encyclopedia or some other book, like the PDR or a big dictionary, left on the shelf to grow dusty and brittle with time until someone had a question they wanted answered. Down from the shelf, showering them with dust and bits of air borne debris that lodged between the fragile pages crumbling around the edges, to answer their questions and be placed dutifully back on the shelf until the next time. I had a function. I responded to queries with knowledge. I had little else they wanted, or so it seemed, except to Beanie. She took the time to visit me and her boys called me to help with homework or just to come over to watch a movie. We ate meals together. I read books to the boys with them perched in my lap or sitting beside me as they grew older and taller -- and heavier. Beanie and the boys came to my house to visit or talk or when the boys stayed with me during the summer and I played math games with them on the computer, games that rewarded them with fireworks, bells and whistles when they go the answers right. And the boys asked me questions, like: why does a star fall and does another star replace it when it falls?

Yesterday, a friend asked me if I thought he should teach math at one of the local colleges one or two nights a week? I didn't understand why he asked me, but I told him what I would tell anyone contemplating such a decision. "If you think it's something you would like to do and would be good at and it would make you happy, then you should." His question was like a falling star, a brief tracery of light in the darkness. I asked him why he asked me and he told me it was because he was making conversation.

I asked Beanie last night why she thought he asked me. She said it was because he wanted my opinion.

Those are obvious answers but provide little illumination, kind of like a falling star even on the blackest night when the moon is a silver sickle of reflected light.

Rambling nose

I belong to Tribe and am part of a few communities that have sparked my interest. Through one of the discussion threads I evidently sparked an interest from a young woman who recently moved from Finland to Pennsylvania. On her bio she states that she lives in the old way, eschewing mass produced goods and making her own, everything from mead to cloth to felt, etc. I do find it interesting that someone who says she lives in the ancient Viking traditions has electricity, a phone and a computer that lets her tell people about her life and livelihood. Of course, she could just nip off to the library and use their computer, but that seems to me at first glance to defeat the purpose of living in the ancient Viking traditions. I don't think the Vikings had computers or electricity or telephones, or broadband for that matter. Talk about bringing the best of the old to the rest of the world by the best of the new.

What makes this particular juxtaposition of ancient ways and new is the latest Doctor Who episode I just watched, "The Girl in the Fireplace". I have to admit that I am beginning to see charm in David Tennant, the latest incarnation of the Doctor. At this rate, I may end up liking him quite a lot. The real charm, however, isn't in whoever is playing The Doctor this time around, although that is a big plus, but the writing. The current team of writers on the show have taken bits of old episodes and crafted a new and visually stunning body of work that is going to be hard to beat anywhere else. I do so enjoy Stephen Moffat's writing as he combines intelligence, style and an attention to the details that is quite wonderful, and is so readily apparent in the latest of The Doctor's trips into time and space.

To give the exquisite and intelligent Madame De Pompadour a sensibility about time and space and the wonders of the universe is not quite as far fetched as it may seem. She was truly a marvel of her age, a true priestess of the goddess, who was queen in all but name, and worthy of the title and the fame. She was and remains a model of intellect and beauty that would still capture any man's heart and soul were he flesh and blood, and that includes time lords.

There is a lot of interesting and titillating writing coming out of the UK these days that makes me wonder what is in the water or the food or the air that fosters the likes of J. K. Rowling and Stephen Moffat. On the lighter side, a came across a little of the wizarding world while trawling among the muggles and found quite a bit of titillation that explains a thorny Rose's interest in Severus Snape. She must have known ahead of time that he was carrying a substantial wand. I'm certain it's just photo shopped, but it's very, VERY well done.

I like this new sensibility that blends the old and the new, preserving the best of both and creating a new harmonious symbiosis that changes the ideas of what is and isn't worthwhile. It may seem that Harry Potter and Doctor Who have little in common, but look again. The ancient beliefs and practices of the wizarding world, which in a way legitimizes alchemy, which gave rise to science and medicine, and placing it all in the midst of a blind modern world is quite allegorical in its views. In some ways, we in our technologically fueled reality devalue the work of the ancients, believing we have reached the height and power of man's intellect in our mechanical technology, while all around us, though we seem not to have eyes to see, there exists another world fueled by the strength and discipline of the mind, a world of magic and wizardry where the boundaries are only hampered by imagination. In many ways, technology is the externalization and mechanization of imagination that may well stunt the growth of the mind and diminish its power and reach, but with characters like Harry Potter and Doctor Who it is possible to see the correlation and maybe even reach a point where the two become one in a special and lasting symbiosis that will propel us through time and allow us to see that there is really nothing new, just the original truths and realities in different packaging.

It is time to take a new look at the old world and see what we have been taught to disregard with unseeing eyes and narrow minds.

Nosy neighbors

Reading through my Friends list yesterday, I topped, as always, at 's and read yet another food related post. I love her take on food and, having recently read both of her New Orleans-based books, Liquor and Prime, was shocked to see Whole Foods has jumped on the PETA bandwagon. I decided to check things out.

Basically, Whole Foods told one of their suppliers, Grimaud Farms, they either had to stop selling their ducks to Sonoma Foie Gras or Whole Foods would stop buying ducks from them. PETA strikes again. They seem determined to police the food industry as well as the fur, medical and every other industry where animals are involved, even to the point of destroying equipment and anything else, including people, that get in their way.

I wanted to know how foie gras was really produced so I checked it out. One such farm producing foie gras (in France of course) is a model of how things are run. It is a sizable operation, but by no means the kind of corporate conveyor belt operation that currently -- and nominally -- passes as a farm in the U.S. where veal, chicken, pork, beef, etc. are grown and produced. After all, it's all about the money. By that I mean it is all about THEIR money and not saving money for consumers, which would be us.

My curiosity took me a lot further than just the foie gras issue and onto the track of waste in England where corporate farms throw away literally tons of good edible food because it's isn't cosmetically pleasing enough. The peppers are too red when they should be yellow or the green-yellow peppers don't have the right blend of both colors, and on and on and on. I have seen films where piles of fruit and vegetables are dumped to rot, thus creating breeding grounds for rodents, insects and disease, just because they weren't good looking enough or had outer leaves that were wilting or damaged, and this despite the fact that the food wasn't destined for grocery produce shelves but to be used in cooked foods that will be canned, frozen or freeze dried, as if the way the food looks makes any difference. However, we all know it's about how something looks and not how nutritious, edible or useful it is that counts.

Instead of throwing away the outer leaves or selling the produce anyway, or donating the fruits and vegetables to orphanages, homeless shelters, nursing homes or a thousand other places where the food would be consumed, it is dumped and left to rot. I guess since fruits and vegetables are less cuddly and adorable than animals they don't deserve to be protected -- nor does the consumer. Talk about your nosy neighbors.

I have always believed nosy neighbors have their uses. They provide salacious gossip (although seldom accurate) about the people around them and they are a lot cheaper than alarm systems, and much more reliable, as they don't tend to go off in the middle of a thunderstorm, nor are they susceptible to the ravages of squirrels and other rodents gnawing on them. Nosy neighbors can also be a major pain who cause much more trouble than they are worth. For instance, PETA.

If PETA were so interested in the welfare of animals they would offer their services and time to over worked inspectors at airports, customs houses at ship yards, and border check points to make sure exotic and restricted animals are not being brought in. PETA would spend their time and money stopping cock and bull dog fights if they really cared about animals. PETA would stop throwing paint on people wearing mink, sable and other furs and get their long and celebrity conscious noses out of private business and use their clout to do some good with legislation and consciousness raising if they were honestly interested in the welfare of animals. But those things don't garner them sufficient press or influence and awe the public. PETA wants everyone to be vegetarian and treat food animals as pets but that poses an entirely different problem.

Although some people have Vietnamese pot bellied pigs as pets, how many people would want to own a cow or pig or buffalo or any number of food animals and keep them in the house or their suburban yard? I'm sure the nosy neighbors of the Homeowner's Association would have something to say about that -- and it wouldn't be good. By getting rid of all food animals, PETA would thereby be consigning several species of animals to extinction because they would no longer be needed, and I don't believe PETA cares or has even thought of the consequences of their actions, but it's probably better that food animals not be born and be allowed to become extinct rather than eating them, that way food animals wouldn't be mistreated. And then PETA would be out of a job and a job unless they could find another cause to attract attention and keep them in the news side-by-side with the celebrity of the month...which would leave what? Insects?

I do believe that food animals should be treated with respect but that means policing and regulating corporate farms whose only rule of thumb is the bottom line of profits. Humane treatment doesn't mean eradication of an industry or pogroms; that's like throwing the baby out with the bath water, and all that does is cause more harm and promote bad feelings. PETA has a right to speak their views; they do not have a right to shove their views and agenda down the throats of the public or anyone else. They do not have the right to damage property or interfere with anyone's livelihood. They also do not have the right to silence their opponents.

PETA controls the way we see things with regard to animals, choosing what they want the rest of the world to see in order to promote their agenda and shine the most favorable light on their actions. It has come to be called spin but it that is propaganda. PETA's tactics, like Nazi German's tactics to make their Final Solution palatable to the people, are dangerous, and their tactics have filtered down to Whole Foods and their ultimatum to Grimaud Farms: stop selling your ducks to a company we don't like and won't patronize or we will shut you out.

At this rate, stores will not allow someone to purchase food or sundries if they think that person might use the food or sundries to make a bomb or poison the rodents that are gnawing through their alarm system wiring.

"I'm sorry, madam/sir, but if you are going to take the food we allow you to purchase from us and eat
it yourself and not give any to your children, then you will have to purchase your food elsewhere."

"Sir/Madam, it has come to our attention that you take our organically grown food and mix it with food that is not organic. That is not acceptable. You must take your trade somewhere else."

"Madam/Sir, we hear that your son/daughter is working on a project for the school science fair and will be using the products purchased in our establishment to [fill in the blank]. You are hereby banned."

Think it couldn't happen? There are nosy neighbors all around you and they are more than willing to tell what they know to anyone and everyone. The second biggest nosy neighbor in the country is PETA, and if they have their way your thoughts will be held against you -- and there is no court of law or board of appeals.

Sunshine through the window

I didn't see the dawn this morning, too many dark grey clouds menacing the horizon. As I sit here on the bed and write the room is suddenly filled with light. The sun shines through the windows and glances off diamond bright raindrops on the leaves sending rainbow prisms like jeweled shards in all directions. I'm cold but my fingers are warm from the heat rising off the laptop base. So are my legs where the case rests on them. After so many days of mist shrouded horizons and claustrophobic gray cloud cover, the sun is a welcome sight.

A whisper of wind tickles the leaves on the trees, shaking the raindrops in all directions. A car whooshes by in the street sending the rain in fountains up and over the curbs. The water will be gone soon and so will the sounds of another light spring rain, the ground and streets, roofs and trees drying in the sun, feeding the thick puffy cottonball clouds drifting lazily past to empty themselves on another part of the world.

Today is a day of work and chores, catching up on writing and cleaning the kitchen -- my least favorite task. I wish I could find some way to cook and bake without having to clean the kitchen afterwards. Disposable plates only work to keep the dishwashing down, but I am concerned about how much waste is generated. I have at times eaten right out of the pots and pans, but the pots and pans must still be washed. The counters still have to be cleaned up, the floor swept and mopped, the dust bunnies trapped and exiled, windows cleaned, utensils put away, inside of the microwave wiped out, the garbage sacked and taken to the alley, and on and on and on...

When alchemists were busy turning lead into gold they should instead have been focused on finding a way to create a beautiful meal with their minds, set it on a lovely set table, the remains dispersed and the kitchen left sparkling. Of course, making, serving and clearing a meal by using the mind means you wouldn't really have to have a kitchen, but it helps to have a place to keep the refrigerator to store the food. Somehow I don't think a refrigerator will ever become a must have item for the living room or the bedroom, although it might be more convenient getting food during a movie or in the middle of the night without barking your shins on every surface between the bed and the kitchen. Still, with the power to materialize and dematerialize food and serving dishes you wouldn't need to buy or store food, thus rendering obsolete the need for a kitchen.

I received an email from another one of my cousins the other day. Reading her words made me remember a time when our families were so close. We spent holidays and summers together, shared countless family meals, tragedies and triumphs and visited back and forth so often they seemed more like sisters and brother than cousins. We shared so many adventures and experiences and they all came rushing back to me as I read her email. Like the time Ellen's dad, Uncle Bob, yelled at me for putting a plastic jewel in her navel one summer when we were putting together our annual beauty pageant. I made her an "I Dream of Jeannie" costume from a frothy yellow tea dress my mother found at Goodwill, complete with gathered hem at the ankles and a sort of tiara of cardboard covered with cloth and sequins to go around her beautiful long golden ponytail. The jewel was part of the outfit but my uncle just didn't get it. That year Ellen represented Iraq and to me Iraq was the land of genies and magic and jeweled navels, so much different than the Iraq that comes to mind today where soldiers huddle in grave-sized trenches in the sand under a sky of brass and glare ever mindful of the stutter of gun fire or the arcing laser flare of tracer fire or missiles that light up the night sky, a place where your enemy could be a child or a woman huddled over her bundled child only to pull out a gun or set off a belt of plastic explosives beneath her voluminous robes, a place where death is a bloody-eyed, dry mouthed demon nourished by destruction.

It is difficult to remember those simple times when our summers were full of planning our annual beauty pageant, scavenging glass jars and containers from the local dump to clean up and use for awards, practicing singing, dancing and baton twirling for the talent competition, or commandeering the basement and, eventually, my uncle's garage for dressing rooms and a stage. We didn't worry about Vietnam because we were focused on living and creating happy memories. The only death that brought us to tears was the dog lying by the side of the road where it fell after being hit by a car. The only blood we saw was from a paper cut or scrape when we got too rambunctious. The only heat the warming rays of a summer sun that kissed our skin with golden bronze.

It has been close to 20 years since I saw my cousins. They have had children, married and divorced, welcomed grandchildren into their lives and moved on, but once in a while we all return to the memories of those pageants when all that mattered was turning the beauty in our imaginations into lasting memories of golden summer days when my uncle yelled at me for putting a plastic jewel in Ellen's navel the year she represented Iraq in an "I Dream of Jeannie" costume made from a frothy yellow tea dress my mother bought at Goodwill.

Those days seemed as far away as my family, as far from me as Iraq is from peace, but Ellen's email brought them back to me just as the sun breaking through the clouds brought back the warmth and light I have missed these past few days.

Debut

There are some days when nothing surprises me and some days when every moment brings something new and exciting. The past two days have been like that.

The weather cannot make up its mind, swinging from warmth and sunshine to the giant shaking up the snow globe until the mountains and every vista outside my own little corner of the neighborhood was veiled in fog and mist. The mountains were a memory and the ground was covered with tiny green tinged yellow disks like drifts of snow that didn't melt. The roof tops and streets were dark with recent rain and the sun a hint of light behind the dirty gray cotton batting sky not warm enough to call the moisture back into the clouds. The winds whistled and moaned around the window frames, chilling everything within reach, including my plans for a friend's birthday.

Just as I gave up and went back to work after talking with my sister, the phone rang again. The news was good and there were plans to be made and checked. The original date for the celebration wasn't going to work. Alternates dates were suggested. After a few more phone calls everything was set and would work out better than I originally planned. The party was back on track.

When I checked my email this morning another piece fell into place. I had the recipe for the best cheesecake in the world. It's a bit unorthodox but the birthday cake is a cheesecake, a scrumptious dream that just melts in the mouth and leaves behind sighs of delight -- and groans of sadness when it is all gone. It is the same cheesecake that greeted me when I moved here nearly a year ago and the birthday boy's favorite.

I received another call this morning from the main attraction and we ended up talking for about an hour. We talked about religion (he's a recovering Catholic), quantum physics (they do have a lot in common) and music. He agreed to a special gift I have planned for the party and we will have lunch the day after the party and I'm bringing the Evil One along. In fact, if I have anything to do with it (and the weather cooperates), the three of us will meet in the park and share a picnic lunch. I might even have a little cheesecake left to share. If not, I'll make another one.

So much to do but I do have some time to maneuver. I'm so looking forward to this celebration. I've even decided to invite a surprise guest or three. I love planning parties like this: a little unorthodox and hopefully memorable. It also looks like I've made a new friend, which I hadn't expected. After all, he's a medium sized fish in a large pond and I'm a small fish in a rain puddle. Still, he has a brain, a sense of humor and he's creative, the basis of a very good friendship.

I guess what I need to remember is that when something is meant to be, even when I think it can't be done, when I step back and let go everything will fall into place.

Just like the past two days.

No real destination in mind

A certain friend and I have been planning our joint vacation next month and I found out some interesting tidbits as we talked about food.

She hates bananas, even the smell and sight of them. Her wife loves tzatziki sauce -- the yogurt-cucumber-dill sauce that goes on gyros and Greek salads -- and will worship me if I make it. I told her to tell her wife to exercise the knees because I want the display of worship at my feet to be a smooth transition from standing to kneeling. I plan to make my decadent, guaranteed to slam your arteries shut bleu cheese-butter-cream-shiitake mushroom sauce for a night of grilled steaks. We also discussed what to put on an everything bagel: roasted red pepper hummus, chopped tomatoes (she likes hers toasted with a bit of butter) and my favorite cream cheese and smoked Cajun salmon. Other combinations were mentioned, but I want to try something I read about recently: everything bagel with the soft insides scooped out and filled with fresh chopped tomatoes -- and my twist -- Celtic sea salt and fresh dill. (better get the dill planted this weekend)

I definitely want to make something I've been working on, too: vegetarian lasagna with finely chopped shiitake, portobello and porcini mushrooms, ricotta-Parmesan cheese and medium sliced English cucumbers in place of lasagne noodles. There are other things that go in there, like my homemade marinara sauces, but you get the idea. I should also get busy making dilled cucumber salad and will probably make my baked Greek chicken and a Spanish frittata or two. I might even break down, if I can find some really good apples, and make open faced apple tarts with honey-apricot glaze on phyllo dough and I can't forget the vanilla bean vanilla ice cream as the topping right out of the oven.

Do you get the idea that I haven't had a chance to cook for someone other than me for a long time? You'd be right. I really enjoyed cooking for and with my kids when they were young. Sometimes we made a mess but every time we had fun before, during and after the process. One thing I am certain of is that my boys knews how to feed themselves, and not just with a microwave and a Budget Gourmet nuke-able meal. One of my sons wanted to become a chef but got sidetracked when he was told getting a good job was nearly impossible, so he became a mobile home salesman.

When I was at Mountain Mama's the other day talking to the new guy in the deli who was making my vegetarian artichoke-Parmesan spread wrap, who also happened to be from Ohio (born in Cleveland and moved to Columbus before coming to Colorado), I learned he wanted to be a chef and was saving to go to school. I told him he had the touch; the way he made my vegetarian wrap was beautiful and artistic, as well as tasty. He reminded me a little of my son, except for his deep brown eyes, tattoo, long wavy dark hair and earring. I will keep an eye on him. I've already given him my tuna salad recipe trick: I chop up fresh avocado with the chopped celery, boiled egg, Celtic sea salt, pepper, wild caught tuna, mayo and spicy mustard. Gives it a whole new taste. I like the wild caught tuna because it's not mushy.

Food is on my mind. I'm thinking about a birthday party that I didn't think was going to turn out that is turning out better than I thought, if only on a different date, and the special cake I want to make for the birthday boy -- if I can talk the best cheesecake maker out of his recipe.

As for my tandem vacation, there are recipes to plan, ingredients to scope out, movies to sort through and separate and fun to be contemplated. In fact, I'm going to ask my boss to extend my vacation by two days so I can enjoy the sun and a good book and even better company for more than a couple days. We'll probably get sick of each other by the end of the vacation, but at least we will be well fed, full of new sights and sounds and floating on a cloud of movies based on Jane Austin books. What better way to spend a vacation?

I guess I'll figure that out on my next vacation when Beanie comes to visit. To make sure she doesn't change her mind, I'm going to dangle my New Orleans style gumbo and crab cakes. I know that will do the trick.

I have now officially crossed over into...

...crazy lady territory.

I listen to a country station and every time I hear them advertising their station I cringe with that fingernails-on-the-blackboard, biting-on-tin-foil feeling. The offending sentence?


We have less commercials.

LESS!?! ARGH!!!!

Today I had had enough and I called the station and asked for the advertising manager. I explained why I was calling and that the line should be: We have FEWER commercials. He told me that it's a nationwide promotion that goes with their "Less is More" promotion and that "fewer is more" doesn't work.

Excuse me? It isn't about what goes with an advertising tag line. It's about correct grammar. In addition to the degradation of the English language now the language is under attack by advertising execs who change grammar to suit their campaigns. ARGH!!!!?!?!!!

Right before he hung up the phone I heard his heavy sigh and the snarky smirking laugh when he told me he would pass my suggestion along. He didn't sound as old as my own children.

I didn't intend to venture into crazy lady territory but their web site didn't give a link, suggestion box or email for me to use and I was forced to call and speak to a real person because I couldn't stand hearing the commercial one more time without saying something.

The older I get the more I realize that life is too short to live with regrets and things not done. I may seem like a crazy lady (anonymously since I didn't give and he didn't ask my name) but I'm glad I called and said something. That call is one less thing for me to regret.

And now a word from the FDA

Cherries.

According to the latest news from the FDA (Food & Drug Administration with the emphasis on DRUGS), cherries are on the verge of becoming labeled as drugs and therefore subject to FDA approval, testing, etc. What's next? Broccoli, cabbage, bananas and every other natural fruit and vegetable in your grocery aisles?

At this rate, the only food you will be able to buy will be processed, devoid of food and health value and capable of making middle-aged white Americans even less healthy than the British. Makes me wonder if the FDA is part of the problem promoting chemical and drug treatment over natural whole foods. Or is this just more proof of a government for, by and of the drug companies and corporations?

That is all. Disperse.

Just sayin'

In the mornings when I make my soy protein shake and add fruit I see Shirley MacLaine from Postcards From The Edge putting vodka into her protein and fruit smoothie.

This morning I added frozen raspberries and a banana to my chocolate soy protein powder but instead of vodka I added water.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reading.

Death

I was watching Catwoman while eating Mexican chocolate ice cream and waiting for Nottinghill to come on when I noticed something. Catwoman starts out with the lead character saying that she was about to die. That reminded me of The Jacket which I saw last night. That led me to Kevin Spacey's monologue at the beginning of American Beauty where he begins the movie saying that in one year he was going to be dead.

Although the endings are far different, the simple fact they began each of the movies in question with the main character about to die. American Beauty seems to be the first to use the device of the main character talking about dying as a major event in his/her life as a beginning or culmination of some change, a catalyst that drives the action. However, it seems to me to be more a trend, a way of thinking about death that is less an ending and more a beginning. Is this a sign of the times or is there a different message being offered.

In American Beauty, the main character is fired from his job and finally gets the message that life is passing him by. In that sense, being fired is like dying and Spacey uses his knowledge of his boss's peccadilloes to leverage a better "retirement" package. Thrust naked into the world, he decides to shake up his already shaken, not stirred life to change from a spineless worm who takes it on the chin with his wife, his daughter and his job, unwilling to straighten up and look life directly in the eyes, into a strong man who reaches out and takes life by the throat. All his changes, physical and mental, lead him eventually to his death, his second and final death.

Patience in Catwoman begins the same way, saying she is about to die and that is when she began to live. Jack Starks in The Jacket begins the movie saying that the first time he died everything was white. He is shot in the head by a Muslim child in the Iraqi desert.

In each movie death is not the end but a beginning, a chance to turn their lives upside down, cast off the shackles holding them to an unrelieved and endless round of quiet desperation and begin to the live the life they should have lived from the beginning. Death has become, at least in these visions, the catalyst for change instead of a final ending. Is this Hollywood's attempt to Hollywoodize what most people fear in the darkness; could it be that positive? Or have the philosophers slipped through the Hollywood cracks to offer a message of hope that death is not the end, that there is no real magic about death, but that death is a catalytic transition point between the mundane and unsatisfying into the reality of dreams and wishes and the secret desires we hide from the light of discovery?

Could this be a trend or simply a coincidence that as we move into the twenty-first century we refuse to be held to a dire future where we avoid the specter of death but rather embrace death as nothing more fearful than change, like a caterpillar seeking the safety of a cocoon in order to accept death in order to move from pain into a new and better life?

I'm late, I'm late

Where does the time go? Here it is the beginning of May and I barely remember January. No, I haven't been indulging in mind altering drugs, but at this point I'm not sure that isn't a good idea. At least the time would stop flying by like pages flying off a calendar in some movie denoting the passage of time. Last year was fast enough, but this year, too? I don't know where the time goes.

Oh, yes, now I remember. Work, work, more work, and still more work again. It seems I barely get to sleep and it's time to get up and work again while the laundry piles up and the dishes go unwashed because I am chained to work. Now that the doctors are goofing off again, having taken Passover as carte blanche to forget dictating reports, the work load is slow and I'm working whatever hours I can to get enough dictations so I have a decent paycheck. It's getting harder and harder to meet my personal goals with this dearth of work, so now I have to find other ways to occupy the time while I'm waiting for my computer to tell me "you've got work".

And I have found a solution -- of sorts.

I'm writing more.

I have 16 stories listed to write and sent to Chicken Soup because they want more from me. I can do that. Then there were manuscript submission packages to put together for a few publishers interested in what I sent them about a couple novels.

I do not understand why all publishers can't stick to the same submission guidelines so I don't have to rewrite everything. One wants a chapter by chapter synopsis and outline, another wants a running narrative synopsis -- Just hit the highlights and who gets who in the end. One publisher wants the first three chapters and another wants the first three and the last chapter. (I'll bet they're related to Harry whose dark side demands he reads the last page before he gets through the first chapter -- in case he dies) Then there are the fonts. One wants Times Roman in 12-point and another Courier New in 12-point. One wants 1.5 spaces and the other two spaces. And then there is the publisher who wants it all single space with indentations on the first line with the manuscript but not in the first three chapters and synopsis sent with the initial query letter. Details, details, details. They all need to standardize their guidelines so I don't have to rewrite, redo and reformat the same manuscript again and again and again and...well, you get the idea.

And I still have more writing to do. I finished chapter two of Anything For Love but I can't write anything else on it until I finish what I've already been contracted to write -- and been promised payment for. Then, there's the PPRAA newsletter I have to finish formatting, editing, checking and send out to the printer (with a copy for my favorite anal retentive control freak) and redo some of the newsletter to be transferred to PDF and uploaded to the PPRAA website with working links so those members actually living and familiar with 21st century technology can click and surf for further information. And formatting the newsletter is a bit of a nightmare when I have lots and lots of articles and only 12 pages worth of space, most of which is already ear marked for club and board meeting minutes and the president's monthly column (which is also available on its own page on the PPRAA website and makes no sense to me), leaving me with very little actual usable space, especially with all the disclaimers, advertisements and boiler plate that MUST be in each issue. It's a lesson in logistics just to figure out a font that is readable by the older members of the club without using a magnifying glass and still allows me to fit everything in. Talk about needing a shoe horn.

But I'm not unhappy or even discontented. I have lots to keep me busy but I'd rather have more time to get into trouble. Everyone needs a little trouble now and again just to keep in practice and to shake up the ant farm. Don't want the ants getting too comfortable --

-- or too boring.

The landlady told me last night as we sat on the front porch that changes are coming. First, my windows are about to be papered over. She is having the house painted in two weeks and they have to cover the windows to keep them from being painted over. I guess that means they won't be using brushes or rollers and that noisy air compressors will be forcing the paint into concentrated arcing sprays and their aim with the spray guns is probably about as good as their aim with their own fleshy spray equipment. At least it won't smell nearly as bad when they miss the target and we don't notice until we step into a half dry puddle in the middle of the night -- not that it's something I have to deal with. George is a very tidy and considerate fellow who gave up bodily functions when he died and decided to remain here in my part of this house. Sometimes a male ghost is all the male companionship I can stand and other times...

Well, I just got that "you've got work" message and it's time for me to make a few more pennies to add to the ones I didn't have to spend yesterday at the parking meter near the post office because some lovely generous soul leaving the spot ahead of me let me know there was still time on the meter. Bless thoughtful people everywhere.

That is all. Disperse.

Just another Sunday

I'm still getting used to the keyboard and keys on the new laptop, but I have written more in the past 24 hours than I have in months. This is just what I needed to kick off my creativity. After all, writing doesn't have to mean sitting in an office chair for hours until my butt is numb and feels like it's made of lead or my legs are so swollen from pressure edema that they look like balloons and my feet like they belong to a cartoon character. I can sit comfortably on the couch or chaise or even be comfortably naked in bed with the laptop on a pillow or between my legs on top of the covers and write to my heart's content, pouring out all the thoughts I struggled to write longhand with pens that skip and fail to work consistently until my hands cramp. I have to work 8-14 hours a day transcribing and some days it is more than I can face to sit another 2, 3 or more hours to write out what is in the fertile soil of my brain. I feel like I have been given a reprieve and I'm running out the door before they figure out it was all a mistake.

Can I just say ... I LOVE MY NEW LAPTOP!

I am willing, nay eager, to get used to the keyboard and the function keys, and I can do without the numeric keypad. I am content.

While I was on the phone to Qwest to learn how to turn on the wireless function on my DSL modem and waiting for Steve to find the password to open the administration website, my eyes focused and I noticed lilacs blooming across the street. Lilacs. Beautiful lilac-colored lilacs blooming. Delicate pale blue violet clusters of star-shaped flowers budding and bursting open in ripe profusion. Lilacs. I hadn't noticed them before, but I have been otherwise engaged in mourning the death and dismemberment of the pink blossoms on the tree next door and the flagging sunshine gold of the forsythia.

The yard across the street is sere brown and rises in tan puffs when the pack of children attending the day car there romp and scamper across the yard. Grass no longer grows there and it seems the mother and daughter who own the house have decided not to bow to the suburban convention of perfect emerald squares of lawn treated to within an inch of its growth with chemical soups and stews that leach into the water table and poison the earthworms and bacteria that comprise an important part of the cycle of life and decay. There is no homeowners association in our neighborhood and, from talking to the Evanses ,who are sporadically moving from their suburban hell to our corner of Old Colorado City still caught blissfully in the 1950s, no Nazi Stormtrooper guardians of cloned mediocrity who need to spend their time monitoring their neighbors' hive conscious display of perfectly stationed and retrieved trash cans, parking skills and independent thinking. We here on the west side live oblivious to our neighbors' householding skills, focused instead on really getting to know them. Here the gossips are more concerned with what you do than what appearance you maintain.

Even though most of the neighbors disliked the tree-hating orc wench's pretensions to suburban thinking and her aggressive displays and complaints against the suburbanites who trekked here every Saturday morning during the Farmer's Market, intent on keeping them from parking anywhere around or near her possessive and clearly marked NO PARKING zones (despite the fact that she was marking territory already claimed by the city and thus public), they knew more about her private life than probably was good for anyone. The tree-hating orc wench never let anyone outside of her family (and eventually perspective owners when she and her husband were posted to Pueblo) inside the house. Even her "best friend" and partner in crimes against Farmer's Market visitors was never allowed inside the house. The windows were covered with heavy drapes and contact paper that kept out prying eyes and sunlight. No one found out the why and wherefore until Mike and Michelle, the young married couple who bought the house, moved in and began building friendship ties with the neighbors, dropping a pebble in a pond and letting the story spread in ever widening ripples that although the tree-hating orc wench tended lovingly to the yard and flowers and bushes, in comparison, the inside of the house was the black hole of Calcutta. Garbage stuffed into closets and corners, walls, ceilings, woodword and windows black with filth, grease and cigarette smoke and festooned in cobwebs more like what to inspect inside a crack house or abandoned derelict than in the house of someone who looked cleaned and neat, but who seldom ventured out in the light of day.

Into this world where spring is slow to ripen and winter reluctant to loose its icy grip, comes those delicately blossoming lilacs like a declaration that spring is here to stay no matter how the winter howls and spits its ice at us. Beneath that perfect blue sky and among the clattering bare twiggy branches lilacs have come back from their long sleep and burst forth with quiet triumph. Lilacs.

And where there is one bush there will be others, a sure sign on this cold morning that time moves on and even the seasons must give up and give way. We are speeding through time and it is a sight like blossoming fragrant lilacs that remind me there is so much to do that should not wait. There is no perfect time to do what needs to be done. There is only now. This moment. This breath. This second. Then it is gone to be replaced by another moment, another breath, another second that will be lost and mourned unless taken and enjoyed.

Miscellany

Every day is a new day but it isn't every day I get a new laptop computer.

Today is that day.

I'm still setting things up but I had to write something, anything to baptize my new toy. Of course I had to invite Nel over to share my joy as I opened the box, but she left before I got down to the real work of setting up bookmarks, accounts, favorite pages, passwords and registering all the software, most of which I will not be using. Evidently, Microsoft (there's nothing soft about it) doesn't just load the software on the computer now. You get a 60-day trial to play with what you already have before they pull the plug -- unless, of course, you're willing to shell out $149. I guess Bill Gates doesn't have enough money yet and he isn't making any money from the computer manufacturers who buy the software and load it onto the computers they sell, so he sticks it to the consumer -- one more time. I believe in free enterprise, but this has become onerous in the extreme. So, if I want to continue to use the program I have become familiar with and don't want to learn a new one, I will have to shell out another $149 before 6/30 to continue using the program. Just what I need, another thief picking my nearly threadbare pockets. Oh, well, I'll figure out something.

I still haven't figured out all the bells and whistles and now that I have wireless capabilities I will find someone who can help me figure it out (faster than me doing it myself with my work schedule) and take my laptop backpacking, hiking, walking and cruising restaurants and coffee shops (to drink water or juice of course) and bask in the sounds and scents of books, food and conversations. I am back in business and I'm mobile now.

The past few days have been weird in the weather sense. One day it's spring and the next it's snowing. The poor blossoms on the tree outside my window look bedraggled and sad hanging limply from their twiggy perches. The bright strawberry and cream of a few days ago has become aged and filmed over with the shadow of a capricious spring, one minute waving wildly in a screaming wind and the next drooping with the cold. The sky is a charcoal shaded blue-grey that alternately hides and reveals the mountains. The bark of the trees is riddled with wet seams like the water-dark ridges of a crocodile, the squirrel porn tree giving a craggy wet two-fingered salute to the nearly leaden sky. It is cold and quiet in the street, people huddled closer together as they fight the wind as they pass by, holding their coats and jackets tighter, pulling on gloves and hats down over their pinked ears. And there is more of the same on the way -- so says Weather.com.

I have nearly finished sending files to myself from the desktop computer to my new companion and there are still more bookmarks, links and pages to visit to store in the new bigger memory. At least now I have 1 GIG of RAM to cruise applications and Internet. I have finally arrived in the 21st century and I have a lot of writing still to do.

Now, if I can just remember not to keep reaching for the mouse...

I'll shut up now.

Connections

Hercule Poirot always attributed his flashes of insight in solving crimes to "the little gray cells". I'm sure he knew the color of brains not because he was well versed in anatomy, although he probably was, but because he had eaten enough of them to know the gray pudding that resides within the bony confines of a skull. He was a connoisseur -- of people as well as food.

One of my favorite Agatha Christie mysteries where Hercule is played by Peter Ustinov is Evil Under the Sun. One of the suspects declares that no one saw him during the time of the murder, confident in his belief and fairly arrogant about the insertion. However, someone did see him. He just didn't know it because he did not see them.

When I recently wrote about Michael Bergin's autobiography I mentioned that several people belied his reasons for writing and publishing the book. I found his story honest but it didn't strike me until my mind, doing its usual sifting, collating and matching, hit me with the finished results of its meanderings. There is proof that at least some of what he wrote is true. It's in his book and has been fictionalized in print and in Sex and the City.

Candace Bushnell, author of the columns and the book that became the HBO series, wrote about an underwear model who was managed by a close friend (in the series it was Stanford Blatch) and was called The Bone. The model was straight and his manager gay and in definite lust with the model and Carried took him home one night. They slept together -- but they only slept. The Bone was homesick and a little lost in New York and he and Carrie had some drinks and some talk and some sleep. I remember the episode vividly.

In his book, Bergin mentions spending the night with Candace talking, drinking and sleeping. He also talks about being nicknamed "The Bone" by a friend and that his is his manager's only client, who is gay. Beginning to see the picture? I certainly am, but my little gray cells saw it first.

Bottom line? It's connections. Those little brief encounters with information that don't make an impression at first until the little gray cells beginning sifting, collating and matching information with information and coming up with connections.

What does it matter? It doesn't really. It's just one of those jaunts my mind takes me on from time to time to prove to me that even when I think there are no connections I'm wrong. I may not have initially made the connection but some part of me is still working and will make the connection for me.

Of course, if I wasn't such a big fan of Sex and the City and hadn't read Bergin's book...

But I did.

A little stone word soup...

...is good for everyone.

This week is flying by at warp speed and I can't tell Scotty to back it off. Wouldn't help. Of course putting in a lot of extra hours to meet a personal goal and make sure I get my share of the work. The doctors have been taking it easy at the hospitals and not doing their work so it makes it tough getting my share of the work when there is little to share and lots of other people wanting to make sure they get a paycheck, too. But that's just the way life goes. So what if I have to work late at night. I get a whole lot more done because there are fewer things -- and people -- to distract me and demand my attention. So why am I writing in the middle of the night when I can't see more than the winking glitter of stars and the lighted eyes of some of the houses up and down the street? Because I'm waiting for work and I wanted to take a break. I'm not technically on the clock right now. I'm downloading work and there is no set schedule -- except the one I have to meet in the morning between 8 and 5. So I've nipped off here for a little pleasure writing.

The weather has been unpredictable and quixotic this week. Sunday it was warm and beautiful and full of the scent and color of spring, then Monday came. Monday was cold and windy with the bite of snow and ice in every gust. The beautiful tree next door with its strawberries-and-cream blossoms were ripped from their branches and flung everywhere. The few remaining yellow butterflies of forsythia clung and shivered in the onslaught, dropping their heads wearily in last night's brief dusting of snow. The pink blossoms looked as though they had given up the ghost and were sadly ragged and limp in the first flare of dawn. As the sun rose higher and the confectioner's sugar dusting on roofs melted and disappeared, the forsythia and strawberry-and-cream blossoms perked up and waved merrily from their precarious perches. The birds sang and the squirrels raced and chattered, plucking deep red berries from the trees. The mountains outside my sunroom window were brightly lit and solid once more, no longer hiding behind a thick soupy veil of fog and iron-gray clouds. Spring returned, but I won't wonder for how long.

I have lived here long enough to know that the weather is a fickle tease, first warm and inviting and then a howling frigid banshee next. My closet is not so full of clothing that I need worry about having packed away my sweaters, especially since I never know when I might need one -- like the past two days. All I need do is look out the windows or take a walk down to the park and I can bask in the wonder of Pike's Peak still clad in winter's ermine and know that whenever I need to cool off snow is not far away even in the blacksmith forge heat of summer.

I have also solved my problem with the local ham organization. I put in place a solid deadline and let the membership and board know that anything I receive after the deadline will be run in next month's issue, and there will be no exceptions. I also agreed to copy the president when I send the latest issue to the printer and to the webmaster to keep him from emailing me and asking when or if the deed was done. It was a small concession on my part, but I noticed that the president made sure I had his column today. I also had a flurry of articles and news items for the May issue, so things are definitely looking up. Everyone wants to see their words in print, which is a far cry from what I had been told before; past editors had to either generate copy or twist arms and sell babies to get copy. I'm sure the B word has passed through a few minds this past week, but I have been called worse -- and by family, too.

In the meantime, I've paid my bills, done some more editing, signed a few more contracts for freelance gigs that pay and am looking forward to painting this weekend -- and writing on my brand new laptop computer. Life is good even when sometimes I miss the bigger picture staring at the squashed bug in the lower right hand corner of the canvas. There is time for everything and I will eventually get to it all. I know that tomorrow is not guaranteed and that there will be things I didn't get to do when my time in this world ends, but I'm not worried. At least I'm enjoying my life, even the rough parts that remind me there is always sunshine and warmth after every howling ice- and snow-toothed storm.

Surprising bug hunts

I am a voracious reader and dedicated researcher -- or searcher, if you will. A bit of news or a book captures my attention and I set out on one of my bug hunts to find out what is behind the story. Interest in a lot of the books I have read was sparked by a review or a blurb or a single sentence, and many times by a movie I liked or didn't like based on a book. That's how I came to find and love Jane Austen, from a movie. I have always wanted to know the story behind the story. That's how I came to discover The Other Man, a book by model turned actor Michael Bergin.

I didn't know about Bergin and couldn't have cared less. I pay only passing attention to models, super models and actors unless they strike me as particularly interesting. I don't care about their lives, loves or peccadilloes and tabloid features barely pique my interest at the check out counter at the supermarket. I'm more interested in keeping my eyes and hands off the Almond Joys and Heath bars, not to mention the Snickers. My eyes have to have something else to look at while I wait for my turn to pay.

I would have had to be on the moon or beyond the orbit of Pluto not to have noticed John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife and sister-in-law's watery end a few years ago, but celebrities don't really excite me. I have met enough of them to know they are just as human and messed up as the rest of us. I'd rather read something more fascinating -- fiction or nonfiction about stem cell controversies and historic figures. I'm glad I read The Other Man and got to know Bergin and Carolyn Bessette through Bergin's eyes. After all, they will one day be the historic figures someone will avoid the tabloids to read about.

Bergin is no writer, but he tells his story in simple language that has the unvarnished ring of truth to it. No matter his motives, and everyone has one, I do not believe he wanted to capitalize on Carolyn's celebrity and death but to tell the truth. Had he been in it strictly for the money I'm certain the intimate details of sex would have been much more lurid and descriptive than "...the four days we spent on my red futon."

The Other Man is a chance to know history from the point of view of someone who actually lived it moment by moment instead of some rehashing scrounged from papers, secondhand accounts and cryptic diaries.

We live in an age where TV, video and tell-all books seldom tell all. We are over exposed and the stories are slanted so as to provide the author -- or those who pay the authors -- a chance to rewrite history and put a positive spin on the events. No one will ever know the whole truth of any story as long as some of the participants remain silent. Although I'm not a fan of celebrity gossip and tell-all books, I will say that I enjoyed the time I spent seeing the world and Carolyn Bessette from Bergin's point of view. True or not, at the end of any book if I feel I haven't wasted my time, I am content. This time I feel I have been given a personal glimpse of a very private and human affair, and I'm glad for the bug hunt that led me to Bergin's book.

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.