I'm baaack

I know. I've been gone long enough to be forgotten. It happens when you find yourself in the midst of a real life, and that is where I've been with a certain country gentleman who has been taking up the lion's share of my time making me laugh, making me cry, and sharing so many good times I haven't had time to do more than the top of my regular list of To Dos.

We went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, hereinafter referred to as HPOP. I have heard good and bad things about the movie but held judgment until I'd actually seen it. Despite putting in my contact and arriving at the movieplex without it, I still managed to see well enough sitting down front to enjoy the movie, despite my date snoozing through a small part of it. Nothing against the movie; he's just the kind of person who usually snoozes through a part of every movie since he's forced to sit still for more than five minutes. (more on that later) I was disappointed not to see more of Kreacher since he is an integral part of the story and continues to be in later books, but overall the movie was very good. It's hard to boil down an 870-page book into a two-hour movie, but I do feel the director and writers got the basics of the book very right. The characters, as always, were well played by a formidable cast, among them, Imelda Staunton and Helena Bonham Carter as Dolores Umbridge, the voice of the ministry for all things medieval and "all's right with the world", and Bellatrix Lestrange, the deranged Death Eater who has been locked up in Azkaban these past fourteen years. Watching such amazing talent living those parts makes the movie a must-see.

Yes, there are lots of things missing, among them the fascinating Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black, but for someone who hasn't read the book since it was originally released or knows the story only through the movies the loss is small. I would have loved a longer movie, even with the country gentleman's snoozing through it (he's quiet about it), but I was definitely satisfied with what I saw and want it for my collection. It's a A- movie that could only have been better. I'm looking forward to more of the same.

My date took me to dinner afterward and then back home and I had a lovely time. Unfortunately, I had to cancel our plans yesterday in favor of work, but we rescheduled and that gives me the certainty we'll be seeing much more of each other, which is a good thing.

Another definite hit on the radar is Californication with David Duchovny that Peter Pan of the airwaves who just keeps getting more and more gorgeous. This time he is a blocked writer who begins to blog for his arch nemesis, the man who is living with his ex-pseudowife and plans to marry her. Hank's one saving grace, outside of his love of all women, literally and figuratively, is that he doesn't lie -- ever. He is, as his ex so aptly puts it, a walking id. Whatever's on his mind is what's passing through his lips, not a bad thing at all, but it does land Hank in some trouble here and there and mostly everywhere.

The part is a huge departure from Duchovny's X-Files persona, Fox Mulder, but much closer to the real Duchovny: womanizer (before Tea Leone) and wild man about town. The show is also a big hit as far as I can see as long as they maintain the current values and writing and another one of those guilty pleasures that will soon make its way onto DVD in the very near future as more episodes become available and are downloaded to my hard drive, which brings me to another reason I have been so scarce of late: burning my own DVDs.

I have been burning all the episodes of shows I like and have downloaded onto DVD for myself and Beanie. For Beanie, I've been burning the third season of LOST, and creating art work for the cases and the DVDs so they look good enough to eat -- or at least marvel at before being shoved into the player to watch. They look lovely and professional on the shelf and I've been told the contents are high quality, too. Once I get all the shows on DVD I will have more time and will only have to do maintenance burns every few weeks, but I have a very big backlog and that takes time when anywhere from 3-7 hours is needed to burn a quality DVD properly and that means not being on the laptop because nothing else should be running in the background to maintain maximum quality. More RAM would help and I have my eye on 2GB for the laptop and maybe getting a switch so I can run the desktop along with the work computer with the flick of a switch. So much to do and so little time to do it all, especially with the country gentleman taking me places and ensuring that I stay in the mainstream of life.

What can I say but oh, yeah?

That is all. Disperse.

The Compleat Friendship Garden

Friendship is a hard business. It seems easy at first and things go along smoothly as you get to know each other, but like anything worth doing and keeping it takes work. Friendship is like gardening.

You plant a seed in the moist, fertile earth, water it in, and let the sun do the work of coaxing it from the darkness into the life-giving light. The seed responds with all the energy in its tiny heart by springing upward and unfolding its leaves to catch all the sun's warmth and heat and energy and it keeps growing, quickly at first and then slower and slower as it exhausts the nutrients in the soil and battles for its life against drought or too much rainfall, too much or too little heat, always hungry and needing more, fending off weeds and grazing animals that want to takes its life before it's even full grown and able to produce seeds of its own to carry on while it's still fresh and green, a tasty morsel for avid feeders unwilling or unable to wait. That's where the work comes in: fending off hungry predators, weeding, feeding, nurturing, loving, making sure it gets enough and not too much sun and water, protecting it, growing it, standing by to see it to maturity when it's stronger and more capable of seeding and reseeding the ground to allow others to grow and share its life and resources.

New friendships are intoxicating and joyful as two people get to know each other. There are bound to be a few rocks in the rows, a few aphids on the leaves, and a few predators lurking and waiting to pounce, but overall it is a good time, a time for blending and sharing and growing. It isn't necessary to forget or prune the past to make yourself look more palatable to your new friend but it is a good idea to share things slowly, allowing each new revelation to sink in, to acclimatize. The kinds of relationships that last are when two people allow each other their foibles and flaws, mistakes and errors without judgment, and to keep expectations reasonable. A mustard seed will not produce a rose and a rose bush will never produce an oak, but each is important and necessary in its own way. However, one must be careful not to forget to prune and nurture other, older friendships in the euphoria and adventure of the new friendship.

Some plants, like some friendships, are not made for your growing zone or for the nutrients and resources available. It is nearly impossible to grow lime trees and coconuts outside in Alaska and cacti don't do well in the rain forest. In order to take a plant from the tropics to the arctic it is necessary to provide a suitable environment; the same is true whenever you transplant something from its native habitat into alien soil. The plant may adapt, but it will never grow without the proper encouragement and resources and environment.

In the end, it's about keeping expectations reasonable and adapting to each one's needs and quirks, but in the end it's worth it because you can never have too many plants or too many friends -- unless it's kudzu. Even then, they have a beauty and uses all their own.

That is all. Disperse.

All the stage is a world

The consummate actress stereotyped and playing the same role countless times until she knows the outcome from the first words. There are variations; there are always variations, but essentially the script is written. When they meet she is the most wonderful woman he has ever met, so challenging, bright, intuitive, and giving then things deteriorate slowly until she is no longer top of his to-do list, no longer the first thing he thinks of in the morning or the last thing he kisses goodnight in his mind, no longer the bright spot on his horizon, the cherry on his sundae, no longer the one person he cannot imagine his life without. She becomes an emotional millstone around his neck, the clinging vine that refuses to die and let go, kudzu that pops up wherever he forgets to rout it out and even where he remembers to dig its roots from his soul. He cannot move away far enough or fast enough. She gets the message but cups a tiny spark of hope between her praying hands even though she knows he won’t come back for more than a moment, the hot memory of sweat and kisses and breathless anticipation and the soft crash of wave after wave of unbelievable passion too soon over and best forgotten until the end when neither can handle even the aching touch of regret and goodbye. She goes on through a veil of tears and he moves back into the comfortable depths of his old life or moves on to someone new, always with the niggling thought that he is giving up more than he should until the memory refuses to drown, bobbing to the surface over and over, haunting his dreams and pricking his numbed heart until he comes back only to find she cannot go through another roller coaster ride. They both lose but promise each other never to forget.

End scene. Cue credits. Curtains close. Audience shuffles blinking in the sudden light to the exits and out into the darkness back toward home, the story fading slowly at first and then faster, swallowed by their own lives and chores and bills and regrets and choices.

The actress prepares for the next role, needing no study for what comes because she has played it all before. She was a professional. She always hit her marks, said her lines with conviction, making the audience believe what she believed. Another day to live, another role to play, another brief respite of happiness before the descent into another poignant and painful farewell until the script allows her to find happiness at last or she fades into the oblivion of silence for a while or forever.

In the darkness

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She is now 77 years old and it is doubtful how long she will remain on this earth as she tugs and yanks on the cord that binds her to this existence. She is anxious "to go home" she says but twice she has released her hold and twice been shoved back. Home is not ready for her it seems. She struggles against the ties that now bind and gag her instead of accepting the decree and living what time is left to the fullest. Maybe that is why she has been denied a one-way ticket home, because she chooses not to live.

Life is a creation of moments and memories, a creation made by each person, a creation that begins in the excited fires of discovery that soon palls into a deeply rutted road in which we trap ourselves, blaming everything and everyone around us for our failure to enjoy what we have: not enough money, not enough time, not enough joy, not enough things, not enough, never enough. Complaints become the norm and the excitement of discovery and greeting those friendly elements that meant home and safety to us we forget or think ourselves too mature, too adult, too far above to appreciate any more, finding fault and creating the first stirrings of a darker horizon with what we cannot do instead of what we can. I am just as guilty. Once burned, twice shy is the old saying.

The country gentleman reminded me last night as we spoke in the darkness that I color my view of the future with darker colors, avoiding pain and anything that might lead to pain. I seemed to have forgotten that there is pain in birth, that we emerge from a safe, warm, and nurturing environment, thrust into a shockingly harsh, bright cold that borders on madness. We are briefly abandoned, blind and seeking, handled roughly, our protective coating ripped away, until finally we hear the voice that soothed and comforted us in the darkness. We learn to cope and as our eyes and our bodies adapt to our new environment we learn to explore, getting stronger and surer, finding treasure and pleasure we never dreamed possible while we lay suspended and warm and safe in the darkness.

As we grow older, we learn to fear the dark, forgetting how it once was, and we learn to hide in the darkness, but we seldom find comfort and safety in the darkness as we once did. Last night, I remembered how it was, a comforting voice laughing in my ear, while in the background we were wrapped in darkness while crickets sang in the grass and stars popped out in a sweeping spray of winking light and shimmering colors on the edge of awareness. I remembered how much I missed the simple sweep of a night sky full of stars and the music of crickets and friendship and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and grateful to share my memories and my dreams, and even my fears. The country gentleman was right. I spend too much time weighing the future against the past, expecting pain where none has been offered, and wary of a sheep in wolf's clothing when I should just give in and enjoy the excitement of discovery and the peace and calm that come with every new experience, every single creative thought, and each and every moment of sharing.

Trouble will come soon enough and each moment's absence is precious. Home is here and not in some far off dream of paradise. Swords of fire guard the gate, but they are no more a deterrent than a hot August day when the merciless sun glares down from a brassy sky. There is shelter and calm and home in the darkness and a joyful voice as guide and companion when the sun goes down and the cool silver orb of the moon rises in a black sky full of soft, shimmering, colored lights where the crickets sing in the darkness.

Preventive health maintenance

The landlady has talked of nothing but getting Direct TV and getting rid of Comcast/Adelphia for months. She finally had the dish installed a week or so ago and has complained about it since then because it wasn't aimed in the right direction. She asked me to lean out the window to see if I could push it into the right position but that failed since the dish is bolted into position. Then came the two or three times daily bang and squeak and metallic slide of the extension ladder being slammed against the side of the house while Marius, the landlady's new very young friend who watches TV all night long, calls for the landlady to hold the ladder while he climbs up and "fixes" the dish again and again and again and again until I find myself enclosed in darkened rooms with the shades drawn against Marius (or whoever) peering into my bedroom window when I'm asleep or coming from or going to the bathroom in less than modest attire. It is, after all, my apartment and it has been hot and I'm sweating so modest attire is no longer an option. This morning Pastor barked wildly and the landlady went to the front door to let in the Direct TV repairmen, the men I suggested she call last week when all this ladder climbing and shouting and interminable adjusting of the dish began.

The real reason for the dish is because Marius was not happy with the dearth of available channels. He is the one who spends the most time watching TV and hanging around all day and all night with the sound up high enough so that I can tell what he's watching and what is being said (or played). Marius is maybe 30 years old; the landlady is older than I am, but she insists he is just her friend she picked up at the gym. Marius doesn't drive a car -- he doesn't own one. Marius is here all the time -- but he's just a friend. Marius doesn't seem to have a job but the landlady keeps him busy and supposedly pays him for his "chores". It's an interesting situation to watch even though she complains about him, too. He watches too much TV. He leaves the TV on all night. He didn't stick around long when he found out the regular cable would be out until the dish was installed. He wasn't happy because the dish wasn't aimed right. Seems like an awful lot of trouble for a friend, but then again . . . maybe not. She's German and Marius is from some middle European country. Maybe this is how things are done in Europe.

Meanwhile, my friend doesn't demand nearly as much of me. Instead, he provides me with laughter, lousy jokes that are actually punny, and an emotional closeness I've not found in anyone for very long or all that often. His wife died more than a year ago and we bumped into each other looking for the same thing -- a friend. He owns his own house and about 40 acres, a pond he built for his wife (a really BIG pond with a waterfall and common goldfish the size of a Cooper) and a gentle and infectious sense of humor. He also has hair almost as long as mine and a Yosemite Sam mustache that brackets a very nice smile. His dog is named Rowan and he is a true country gentleman, a product born and raised in Colorado, who has a love of archeology and a curiosity that almost equals mine. He does not, however, have my quick recall so he compensates by writing everything down on Post-It. I have a feeling that he either owns stock in the company or is its most notable consumer.

I've always believed that things happen for a reason. The people we meet, no matter how strange the relationship seems from the outside, are people we have either known or need to know and they appear at a time when we have thought ourselves out of the human loop. They bring us back into life and infuse our narrow world with a much needed injection of fun or insight we desperately need. I know my country gentleman's purpose in my life at this time. He is a vaccine against romantic notions and testosterone poisoning that usually leads me to wanting to take men permanently off the menu. So far, he is working better than expected and I'm glad he's here. I'm sure the landlady feels the same about Marius.

That is all. Disperse and find your own vaccine.

White feather

We rarely know or understand ourselves until we face what we fear the most and realize it wasn't as bad as we though it would be.

The Four Feathers is a remake (again) of the earlier 1939 and 1977 versions that were remakes of the same movie in 1915, 1921, and 1922 with the same characters and the same premise. A young man, Harry, resigns his commission on the eve of being sent to the Sudan to fight the Mahdi, a piece of history that was made into a movie with Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier: Khartoum. The British do love their military history even when history remembers them as complete colonial failures, but they never flinch, keep a stiff upper lip, and Hollywood continues to recycle their history over and over and over.

That being said, The Four Feathers is a very good remake and less maudlin and stiff upper lip than the previous versions and it still says the same thing: what you fear may not be the worst in store for you. In this case, Harry travels to Egypt and bribes an unsavory character to take him to the Sudan to give the four white feathers his friends gave him as a token of their belief in Harry's cowardice. Harry ends up nearly dead in the desert when About Fatma, this time played by the wonderful DJimon Hounsou, picks him up and takes him to a British encampment, brings him back to life and spends the rest of the movie helping Harry to save his friends and return their white feathers. The fourth white feather came from his fiancee, Ethne, who also believed Harry to be a coward. It's a story about friendships and love and courage and determination in the face of terrific odds. Harry realizes he doesn't want to live life with the knowledge that everyone thinks him a coward. In a very noble way, the movie is a long, involved and grand dramatic interpretation of playing chicken.

We all have our moments of fear and sometimes back away from what we face in an effort to save ourselves, often putting our foot into something far worse. What we really fear is the unknown. Those of us who ran from our fears into the dark and shadowy realms of drugs or prejudice or any number of ways look back and see mistakes and feel ashamed. It is needless. We cannot change the past and when all is said and done we shouldn't change the past. I've said it many times before and I'll doubtless say it again. Change one moment, one heartbeat, one single hair, and you change who you have become. Like tempering metal in a forge and added coal and heat and force, a smith takes a lesser metal and creates a new and stronger metal able to withstand the shuddering shock of blade against blade or blade cleaving bone in battle or even in a dark alley. It is that same metal put to another use that took chariots and carts into the age of automobiles and airplanes and the same support that puts marble, glass, and concrete onto the strong skeletal framework of skyscrapers and buildings that soar into the clouds again and again when they have been struck down. Change the mix of coal to metal and heat and force or the amount of gravel and water and sand in concrete and the structure falls. We are the sum total of our experiences, the simple metal that has been forged into stronger stuff. Sometimes we learn from our mistakes and sometimes we repeat them over and over (like remaking a bad movie) but even our mistakes help forge our character and our presence in this time and place. Nothing bad that happens is without its good, and so with life.

That is all. Disperse.

Do you see what I see?

How much do we see without actually registering what we see? I just noticed that the spider plant Nel gave me two years ago this week has four babies (that part I knew) that are pointing in four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. I just now noticed that. The plant has spawned a couple babies over the past two years but this is the first time it has spawned four babies at the same time. Nel gave me two spider plants and the one in the bathroom has spawned only one baby in all that time, but it doesn't get nearly as much light as the one in the living room. I'll have to move it to the sunroom/office so it can get more light but I wonder if it too will spawn babies in cardinal directions.

It's hard not to see the clutter because it's all around me and in every room. I choose between work and cleaning every day and work usually wins. I shovel things out occasionally just to keep from being buried alive, but the clutter remains: books, boxes, papers, magazines I've not read, DVDs I've just burned and into which I've inserted art work.

I just received an email from Colleen Sell of Cup of Comfort books and she asked me to make a change in my contract that I saw and didn't register. She left the name of the last story she accepted in the new contract for the book for cat lovers and asked me to change it. I hadn't printed out the contract yet because I had to buy an ink cartridge so I made the change, printed out the contract and an envelope (after much fussing about with ink and aligning pages and realigning pages and reinserting the ink cartridge to get it just so) and suddenly remembered I had seen something about watermarking pages. Instead of scrawling COPY across the page in my dubious handwriting, I decided to check out watermarking, found what I needed, and printed out my own copy (and new copies of the other three contracts) with COPY watermarked across them. Now that's professional looking. I'll have to get them into folders and slide them into the cubbyhole in the desk until I get my new filing cabinet and desk (one that isn't falling apart and jerry rigged just to keep it upright) so I will be even more professional.

Since more of my work is contracted and bought I thought it would be a good idea to at least begin to look at all this in a more professional manner, especially since the IRS will insist I file and pay self employment taxes this year. I have far exceeded $600 from several publications and companies, so I'll have to bite the bullet, which also means I will have to buy more equipment to offset some of the income and limit how much I will have to pay in self employment taxes and to keep everything more organized than it is now. I have most of my expenses organized and keep a good handle on those, although I am a little behind, but it won't take more than a weekend to get everything in order so all I have to do is transfer the figures from my computer to Turbo Tax when I do the taxes online. It seems odd to be thinking about filing taxes in August, but as things become more complex and my income increases exponentially I'll have to think about filing quarterly taxes just to keep ahead. I didn't see that coming, although I knew at some point my writing would get to the point where I would be able to quit my day job and focus wholly on writing and that means focusing on the business of writing: taxes, expenses, equipment, organization, paperwork.

The up side of all this is that the laser printers I eyed this weekend online will have to move up in my wish list queue and become a reality before the end of the year to offset income and that's a good thing. I'm beginning to see a time when I will have fewer losses and more gains and that means paying more taxes because there are only so much equipment and supplies I can fit into my humble abode. However, there will be business lunches, advertising, marketing, travel expenses, postage, and so much more to offset at least a little of the income and reduce my tax debt so that I move from the peon class to the robber baron class, at least literarily speaking. Not such a bad thing and I'm sure most robber barons who were once peons feel the same way.

It's a little like underwear in a way. My mother and grandmother always told me to make sure I wore clean underwear so that if I was ever in an accident I wouldn't be embarrassed. Beanie and I talked about that the other day when I mentioned I might have enough money to splurge and buy new underwear. She reminded me about clean underwear and accidents and I said there was no way I was going to buy brand new undies, especially of the variety I prefer (any new undies really), just for an accident. I joked that I supposed I could carry the new clean pair in the glove box and when the medics cut off my pants ask them to slip the new ones on to satisfy my mother and grandmother's sensibilities. Then I thought about it.

In a serious accident you're more likely to soil your underwear or, worse yet, have them cut off of you and I'm not willing to sacrifice a brand new clean pair of undies just for the sake of appearances. Better to let them cut off the holey undies with the little rips and worn elastic that should have gone to the trash a while ago but feel so comfy and familiar I can't part with them. I can attest to the undies being clean before I was in the accident and anything that happens because of the accident I'm sure the medics and doctors and nurses have handled before and won't be surprised.

Beanie didn't see that coming and, like my preference for being torched at death, she came over to my way of thinking. It was right in front of us both but I caught it before she did, just like I noticed the four babies on my spider plant growing in cardinal directions and watermarks and self employment taxes and laser printers and new desks and maybe even curtains or shades for my office. It's all connected. I see that now.

That is all. Disperse.

Hot and dry with possibility of good news

It was dark at 5:20 this morning, a signal that the days are definitely dwindling down, no longer as light or as long, as night takes over for its turn at the helm. The sun is coming up now and it's bright and clear, washed clean by the rains last night, but not cooled down, not for long. A cool breeze whispers through the windows pushed here and there by the ceiling fan, but the higher the sun rises, the more its rays heat and twist the cool into something breathless and close, pressing down until its weight is palpable, breathing down my neck and washing like a fiery kiss over my cheeks, drawing the moisture from my lungs and body and leaving me limp and spent. Summer. Dog days. Heat.

Soon, I'll close the windows and trap what little bit of cool I can find here inside with me, pushed to and fro by the ceiling fans until it, and I, rest in the shadows away from the merciless touch of the sun before this vehicle I cling to swings out and away in its yearly celestial do-si-do and I can leave summer and dog days and breathless heat and pollen up my nose behind. I relish the cool, smoky scent of the coming autumn, the swish and crackle of brilliantly colored leaves, the crisp air, the slowly yawning mornings, and the light touch of frost as winter nears nearly as much as I look forward to the soft, scented breezes of spring when the air is filled with the perfumes of earth and budding trees and rising sap and gentle rains. It is only the brass furnace of deep summer that chafes and chars I pray will be cooled by long, hard rains that beat back its smothering, hovering, over solicitous attentions. I will crave its attentions more when my blood is sufficiently thinned and my skin chilled by anything other than tropical temperatures, but for now, since summer does not bring vacation and lazy days of wandering and lolling about, I will look to the other three seasons for relief and endure these horse latitude hours that stretch before me in seemingly endless ranks and parcel carefully out what energy I have in tasks that help me to lose track of the clock's molten drag.

I can focus on things like emails from Colleen Sell of Cup of Comfort books who bought another one of my stories. Yes, Mr. Hyde the cat will live between the covers of Cup of Comfort for Cat Lovers next year and for all the years to come and I will see another little check add zeros to my bottom line. That definitely makes the day seem less brazen and more welcome, just as fighting the IRS and winning did when I was told the news earlier this week.

After three years of back and forth discussions, and me nearly giving in and signing away a piece of my hard won income, I decided to take a weekend (and it took a whole weekend) and fight the IRS on its own terms -- and I won. They decided it was too long ago to give me the money they owed me, but they swallowed their interest and penalties and will now leave me and my refunds alone . . . until they can find another reason to rake me over the coals. They won't find me quite so willing to go to the auditor's block the next time. I am so glad I do my taxes online and they save all my returns. Beanie couldn't find the files for the tax years I needed, but they were there online, safe and sound and free from mice and jumbled files. So, no big payday from my efforts but the IRS doesn't get a big payday either and that's worth the effort.

Now, it's back to burning my shows onto DVDs, courtesy of a country gentleman who lives out in the eastern plains who gifted me with eight rewritable DVDs and cases and a brand new DVD burner (he won't bet with me ever again). I will design artwork for the cases and a little something for the disk (other than the usual felt tipped marking pen legends) so it looks good enough to stand on a shelf in plain view. I might even design a little some for the DVDs an old friend made me a couple years ago and get rid of the pink Post-Its that show what's inside. Although I really appreciate the fact that he made me a copy of The Doctor Who Movie that debuted here in the U.S. in 1996, I downloaded a brand new copy, complete with bonus features and no commercials, and I'm going to burn that to DVD, too.

As the sun rises higher in the sky and heats the fresh, cool air until it wheezes in and out of my parched lungs, I'll stick to the shadows and write more stories for Cup of Comfort and Chicken Soup to buy, design a little art work, and work in a little work to pay for a few more blank DVDs. The day will be hot, but life is good.

That is all. Disperse.

Respect

I watched Blast From The Past with Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone yesterday. It's a cute little fable about communism and fallout shelters and paranoia and the nature of respect that reminds me so much of how things were when I grew up.

Respect is a word that gets tossed around a lot these days but people just don't know what it really means, just like gentleman and lady. In the movie, Alicia Silverstone's roommate explains what Brendan Fraser told him about the definition of gentleman and lady: someone who makes everyone around them feel at ease. Those words have come to have such different modern connotations and, unfortunately, not for the better. The same goes for respect.

I was taught that everyone around me from the creepy old guy who watered his lawn in the middle of the night to my far flung relatives deserved respect because they were my elders. Even the jerk who persisted in calling me names every time he saw me deserved respect, not for how he treated me but because he was another human being. His actions did not and should not determine mine. Respect was a form of social grace, a courtesy, in essence nothing more than simple politeness. It was all part of the idea that no matter how another person acted or what they said, it was up to me to set the tone and give decency for evil. I haven't always allowed that rule to govern my actions, but for the most part it is how I treat others. Titles like mister or ma'am, aunt or uncle, grandmother or grandfather weren't earned, they were facts I didn't question and I used them out of respect for others, out of respect for my parents who taught me how to behave, and respect for myself.

Because my father was in the Army, we moved around a great deal and seldom saw our far flung relatives. Mom's parents traveled with us once and we saw them more often than any of our other relatives, but Dad's parents, or rather parent, his father, we seldom saw. I vaguely remember him as a leather-skinned old man with a quick smile and eyes that twinkled like my Dad's. There are home movies of him waving from a train engine (he was an engineer who worked for the railroad) and pictures of him holding me in his arms and waving while he stood in what I thought was the same engine. He was simply Grandpa.

Mom's family seemed endless while Dad's family was clustered around the small town of Cynthiana just down the street from the general store that also housed the post office and two-pump gas station. It was a wide spot in the road and nothing more. Dad's grandmother, my great grandmother, was an elfin woman with sparkling blue eyes who smoked a corncob pipe she stuffed between the arm and the seat cushion every time her daughter Helen came into the room, mischief turning up the corners of her lips and making her eyes dance. She never gave me gifts or sent cards on my birthday or for the holidays, but she was Grandma just the same, Great Grandma. It was a term of respect and a matter of fact. It never occurred to me to withhold my love or honor my relatives any less because they weren't around all the time and they didn't send cards or gifts to mark special occasions and I still remember them fondly.

Disrespect is a commonplace word that has become a shorthand version of "what have you done for me lately". There is no real respect in the word any more; it, like so many other words and civil addresses, has been devalued. It is a commodity with a price tag that far out stripped the national debt and inflation. Even the word itself is diminished: diss.

While Brendan Fraser's demeanor and childlike decency are at times comedic in contrast to the people around him, his actions should serve as a reminder that it costs nothing to be polite and respect should never have a price tag. People treated him badly at times and he responded with civility, not because they paid him or could do something for him but simply because they existed as fellow travelers on this planet. His manners made those around him think he was a serial killer or simply deranged. That's a sad commentary in a world where everything has been reduced to dollars and cents and when it should simply be a matter of sense -- common sense.

That is all. Disperse.

Another one bites the dust

I only had two emails this morning. One was from the publisher of the Bylines Calendar and the other was from the publishers of Chicken Soup for the Soul. My story, Love is Enough, has been accepted for publication in Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul due out March 2008. That means my stories will be in seven anthologies coming out next year. I also got the publication date for my novel, Past Imperfect; it will be available January 2008. The Bylines calendar story is a little bit different.

I sent my submission to Bylines and it bounced three times, but I'm a determined writer. Instead of sending the submission again through the right channels, I emailed the publisher directly and included the submission and the bounced email headers. Her email to me this morning was to let me know she was glad I was so persistent and would let me know about the acceptance after the submission deadline, which is February 2008. I can wait, but I guarantee my name will stick in her mind and that will help when it comes time to choose the authors whose stories go into the 2009 calendar.

Publishing is a lot of hurry up and wait, but it's definitely worth the effort, and effort is what you have to put into it. Don't let the dust cows graze on your keyboard or your word processing programs. Write and keep writing. Write every day even if what you write seems lame and not worth the effort. Writing is a muscle you must exercise to keep fit and trim and working at its best. Nothing you write, however lame or silly or stupid it may seem to you at the time, is a waste of time or effort because out of all that writing something magical begins to happen; you learn and grow.

Once you get the writing muscles warm and tingly and working at full power, don't forget to submit. Polish your work, edit it, prune those clunky sentences and over written paragraphs and phrases, check it again, and send it out into the wide world for publishers and editors and agents to read. You first crop may be rejections, but don't give up and don't become complacent. Keep submitting and don't ever stop. Eventually, your work will be accepted and you will be published. For some, it will happen almost immediately, and for others, it will take some time, but don't stop and don't give up. Keep writing. Keep pushing the envelope and learning new forms and styles. Keep submitting your work. Most of all, keep reading. Out of your reading will come insight and tips and new dimensions for your characters and your own writing. It's all connected. Don't give up. If seeing your writing in print is your dream, never give up. Editors and publishers will come if you write it.

That is all. Disperse.

These are the times that fly men's souls

I received an email from someone I know who lives in Dallas. He emailed to let me know he had quadruple bypass surgery in February and to say, "Not that you care...". Like most people who have been part of a difficult breakup, he assumes things about me that are completely wrong. I have neither the inclination nor to personality to hate or dislike anyone regardless of our history and, yes, I do care, the same way I care about every other human being on this planet. I'm no longer personally involved in their lives but that is a choice one or both of us made and I have left the hurt and anger and confusion in the past. I have moved on with my life. If I saw them on the street, bumped into them at a store or party, or even received an email or letter or phone call from them, I would be cordial and interested to hear what they have to say.

People tend to believe everyone acts the way they do, and sometimes that's good. I like to believe that people are basically honest and decent and don't hold a grudge even though I know more often than not the opposite is true. People with small and narrow souls believe that when they have hurt someone that person will act the same way they do -- with malice and anger and bad feelings. They may say they do not, but their actions prove the lie, just like the guy from Dallas who decided I didn't care about what happens to him even though he expects validation. He thinks he hurt me but he didn't. He freed me and I'm grateful. Because of him, I moved to Colorado, which is where I've wanted to be. It's the old saying about the wind from one door closing opens another door.

Each action, like the butterfly in China, is part of a chain of events that leads to this moment, whatever that is going to be. For me, the events have led to a point where I no longer feel lost and without a home. I have a home here. I have a job I can tolerate without too much effort that provides me the funds to pursue writing and keeping a roof over my head near to friends who have become more like family, and I am getting more and more recognition for my writing. All of this is possible because the guy in Dallas changed his mind about the future. Other people have had a hand in my life, creating events that pushed me out of my safe zone, shook my foundations, and made me reach further for what I want. To all of them I say, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without your influence in my life, even if it seemed negative at the time, I wouldn't be here celebrating happiness and freedom and the contentment that comes with knowing I am where I should be right now."

After one of my boys read the essay about my wedding he asked me if I regret going through with the marriage and having my oldest son. I didn't have to think about my answer and I didn't hesitate. No, I don't regret anything. It's something I've said many times and will say many more times, but every moment in my life, good, bad, and indifferent, is part of who I am now. If you take away one moment, even if it caused pain and scarred my soul (and there were a few of those), I no longer exist; I would be someone completely different. Sometimes it feels like getting past the pain is impossible and every moment is torture, but the pain passes and we move on to live another day, another year, another decade, or just one more moment. Life is about change and pain comes with change sometimes, but it is how we know we are still alive and able to choose the next step and the next turning in the path. It's all part of life and, if we're lucky, a part of living in interesting times. Hard as it is, it is worth it because there are days, like yesterday and today, when all the pain and sacrifice and hard work are worth it.

I know I won't always be happy or contented and I will lose more people from my life who mean a lot, but I don't worry because we will meet again, maybe not in this life but in lives to come, and maybe next time it will be easier.

Genesis

I am a spider spinning webs of words and fantasy in the forest of dreams across a vast fertile space anchored by two twigs: truth and observation.

Just as I cannot remember the first word I learned to spell or the first book I read, I cannot remember when I could not read and write. I do, however, remember the first book I wrote living at the edge of a dark jungle that I believed held a lost city overgrown by time just waiting for me to venture away from the trimmed lawn around the apartment building on stilts where I lived to rediscover its secrets.

I was eight years old when my father gave me a perfectly square slab of blank paper contained between red cardboard covers and stabbed through the spine with a steel fastener. I filled the pages with black spider webs spun of words on sunny days at the edge of the jungle and on rainy days in the carport a few yards away.

Drunk on Homer and Edgar Rice Burroughs, I plunged into the jungle down the bloody clay banks next to the cage built to house Chico and Chica, my pet marmoset monkeys. That is where the everyday world ceased to exist. I unlocked their cages, took their tiny hands and lifted them onto my shoulders. I climbed and slid down the slimy blank, getting its sweaty red blood on my hands. I took my father’s machete from its worn leather scabbard belted at my waist and plunged into the steaming leafy green darkness to find the city and chronicle my adventures.

Long decades lie between those dreams beside a Panamanian jungle and now, but I still spin webs of words and dreams. I am a writer.

Doesn't anybody read any more?

Or should I ask: doesn't anyone comment any more?

I know this is a holiday and people are on vacation and taking advantage of the beautiful weather, especially now since it rained here yesterday, but I'm not feeling the love for The Five Stages of Wedding Grief, not that I expect everyone to drop everything just to read what I write. Oh, yes, I guess I do.

One of the things I like most about the Internet is immediate gratification and notice that comes with being published in the virtual world. So, consider this your wake up call and an invitation to check out yet another piece of my life sold to further the cause of writing and art and buying me a brand new DVD burner and USB enclosure. I am a geek writer, after all.

That is all. Disperse.

It is in the firing process

A friend recently wrote that she didn't like what she saw in herself, all the faults and flaws and cracks inside that made her less than lovable, and that she could not see why her husband, or indeed anyone, would love her. So many people I know, including me, have felt that way--and still feel that way. I don't think she'll mind me sharing here what I wrote to her today.

"One of the most beautiful pieces of art I have ever owned (and I own a few) is a raku vase. It is small and ugly to some people because the color is uneven with a dominance of black from kiln fired soot. Within the soot and unevenness is a shimmer of colors, different colors that show differently in differently lights. The vase itself is a solid and simply piece of pottery. What makes it special is the firing process that bakes in the soot and the unevenness, cracks in the glaze, and the elusive shimmer of colors. Without those imperfections, it is just another vase, an ugly vase many would say. To connoisseurs and artists, it is quite simply one of the most ethereally beautiful pieces of art."

The same goes for so many things -- and people -- that others dismiss out of hand because they aren't pretty enough or without flaws. The Grand Canyon is a flaw in the earth, a fault enlarged and gouged deep within towering cliffs of layered colors and dirt, grit, and stone hardened by heat and time into rock with a timeless beauty that can bring some people to their knees in awe. Old Faithful is nothing more than a crack in the earth beneath which pressure mounts until steam and boiling water fountain up into the sky at set intervals. The Himalayas are the result of an island banging into a continent and pushing its rocky innards high so high up into the sky that it is covered over by snow and clouds and absolutely magnificent in its grandeur. A volcano on the island of Akrotiri exploded in ancient times, destroying people and a flowering civilization, preserving the remains in ash and molten rock until the time when someone would uncover its beauty. In the meantime, Akrotiri is a beautiful island with a sheltered bay, the remains of that ancient volcanic explosion, where bright blue Mediterranean waters filled in the wound and provided a home for animals and fish and a place for ships to harbor during storms.

The list of the earth's faults and cracks and flaws is endless and there are always more to be found, like when Mt. St. Helen's erupted, raining ash and fire down on the land around it, and where now the ash has provided rich ground where flowers and plants and food crops flourish in abundance. It is the same everywhere. Faults, cracks, and flaws are arbitrary designations, words that in the grand scheme of things mean nothing. They are labels but they only hurt when we allow them to hurt, when we fail to see that everything has worth. From king to maggot, everything has a use and is useful and everything, even the lowly maggot, is worthy of love . . . if only to another maggot. Eventually the handsome prince who won his princess and became the king will die and his remains will rest in the earth to be devoured by maggots who will turn his flesh and bones and his royal clothing to useful earth that will supply nourishment for crops to sustain the next generation and the generation after that until it is their turn to become nourishment for the generations that follow.

In science, the law is that nothing is lost or destroyed. It merely changes form. Faults and flaws are evidence of change. They are the clay feet of the idol that reminds us that it is only a statue, a representation of the Infinite. They are the lessons of our lives by which we grow in wisdom or turn to pain, but either way they are useful.

The most beautiful diamonds in the world carry flaws (inclusions), some piece of the coal from which they sprang before time, temperature, and pressure changed them. On another world, to another species, the coal is more valuable than the diamond. Even here, coal that provides the means to light and heat our homes is more valuable than diamonds in the cold dark of winter, but we lose sight of the maggots and the coal because we are dazzled by the diamonds. Maybe it's time to look away from the blinding brilliance of the diamond and consider the lump of coal or the wriggling maggot.

That is all. Disperse.

Are you ready...

...for the future because it is already here and for a mere $250,000 you can strap on a pack and be Rocketman or Rocketgal. Nothing like a few hundred thousand dollars stashed in petty cash in the bureau drawer, huh?

Russia has decided to put their mark on the landscape with a jeweled diamond tower that will reportedly dominate the landscape and use the sun's light to illuminate the structure with faceted panels. I have to say the artist's renderings are beautiful and I would not mind living near this solar tower. I also like the idea of using solar energy in a more innovative and useful way.

If only the short-sighted people who live in the plains states, and anywhere there is sufficient wind rippling vast fields of grain and grass, would reconsider their position on wind power. I agree that a field of beautiful wind turbines is vastly superior to the current method of generating electricity with smoke stacks belching black (or even white) clouds of smoke or the smell of a trash burning power plant like the fiscal disaster that dominated the south side of Columbus, Ohio. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but fell far short of everyone's expectations, especially those people down wind of it. The south side always had an interestingly fetid odor when the wind was just right and the sewer ripened to fetid perfection, but the power plant added something more--a stench thick enough to chew.

The future is indeed here and it's time to focus on making it sustainable for generations to come, even if you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed to take your turn with a small rocket engine strapped to your back.

That is all. Disperse.

Breaking barriers

For months I have written and submitted essays to Common Ties. Today, I got my reward for all the hard work. They bought one of my essays.

Many of the essays and stories I have written and submitted to them have been the product of a lot of hard work and emotional mining. They ignored me. Since they receive so many submissions they don't have the time to respond to everyone. Being ignored is the equivalent of a form rejection. I've been having some difficulty coming up with something to write for their latest topic: weddings. I didn't have anything good to say about them, although I've been in several weddings, designed and made dresses and gowns for weddings, and even appeared in two and the deadline was looming fast. I didn't have anything to say. Imagine that (and no comments from the peanut gallery, please). Tuesday morning I still didn't have anything but I kept freewriting and thinking on paper about what I had to say about weddings. I find it difficult enough to pull out the sad emotions or even be inspirational on purpose, and I couldn't even rely on that. Then something hit me.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief. I finally had a hook, time to bait it. And so I wrote and wrote and wrote and edited and wrote. I was late starting work Tuesday morning but I felt what I was writing was more important than earning a paycheck and I could make up the time (and I did until 2 a.m.) I came up with The Five Stages of Wedding Grief. Common Ties bought the essay. Then came the fun part, and I don't mean contracts and details.

I have a small keepsake album that turned up in the things I brought back with me from Ohio in February when I went to visit my father. It holds pictures of my first wedding when I was young and innocent. For the first time since I bought it, I used the scanner on my HP 4-in-1 and scanned all the pictures in the album and a few more that I also found in the Ohio things. I won't post all the pictures of the wedding until Common Ties decides which picture they will use to illustrate the essay on Tuesday, July 3rd (did I mention that's the day my words and picture will hit the web?), but I thought you might enjoy seeing some other pictures I found, including one my mother sent me by Priority Mail a couple days ago that's part of a Xmas card I made when I was six years old and in the first grade. Yes, I actually wrote what's on the front of the card and, yes, I actually did know how to write in cursive in the first grade. I scanned a few other pictures and they are here.

At the ripe old age of five months, just two days after my husband was born.




My parents and me when Dad was stationed at Fort Hayes and before we went to Germany



My husband-to-be and me on New Year's Eve 1973



My mother's brother, Bob, and his wife, Lois. I'll bet they don't remember being quite so young.



Beanie and my groom's sister, Jenny. Beanie is eight years old and taking her duties very seriously



My maid of honor and sister, Carol. I wanted my best friend, Connie, to be my maid of honor, but I lost



The bride



Bridesmaids and flower girls



The grandparents



The Hatfields & McCoys Cornwells & Woodards



The getaway vehicle. It's not the car the wedding party and assorted pranksters decorated, just the one they nearly tipped over with us in it




Yes, I'm excited, more so than you can imagine. Common Ties is a hard market to crack but I cracked it and I'm getting paid for my work. It was interesting calling my ex-husband. His wife was home, but he wasn't so I left a message. I need to get his permission to use his name or I have to use a pseudonym, something I don't want to do, even though I do have one (or two).

Sometimes it's a matter of hard work and editing and struggle to get published and sometimes, at the very last moment, something clicks and magic happens. The thing about magic is that it happens more often when hard work and editing and struggle come first. Writer's block happens, but there are ways to get past the block even if you have to tunnel around and through or just simply take another route. The trick is to keep writing even if it seems like pointless gibberish because out of the dross and dirt will shine diamonds and pearls that sparkle and gleam with magic. The words are there. All you have to do to break the barrier is never give up looking for them.

That is all. Disperse.

Stop struggling

Every once in a while I get stumped for something to write. I've been stumped for a couple of weeks, but yesterday I had a break-through. I was reading The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock when it hit me that I didn't have struggle, just let it happen.

I felt stymied by the subjects. What did I have to write about weddings? I've been in a few weddings, helped out with several others, designed and made wedding gowns and bouquets, and I've been married twice, but I didn't have anything to say -- until this morning. My wedding, a shotgun affair that I pulled together in two weeks, despite wanting to run to Florida to be with someone I loved who had just lost his mother, was an exercise in frustration. Suddenly, I remembered Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief and I had my theme. Now that I've written the essay, I have other ideas popping around in my head like pumpkin seeds in a hot pan. I had forgotten (although how I don't know) about the night before my cousin Laura's wedding when I had five frilly, gathered, pinafores dumped in my lap to make. I still hate the sight of that particular material and I refuse to invoke its name for fear it will appear on my door step once again. If I can carve out another hour, I'll write about that fiasco, too. I'm sure I can talk my cousin into sending me a picture of the wedding party or at least the bouquet I was supposed to catch as payment for my all night sewing fest. Some athletic, half-grasshopper fiend in drag snatched it from the air before it got to me. And then there's the problem with pink.

I hate pink, insipid, fluffy, frilly, baby-talking pink. I'm supposed to write about it for Underwired Magazine. Considering my feelings about the color pink, what positive thing could I write? Maureen Murdock came to my rescue. I don't have to be positive. I can be negative and funny when I write about pink. And that's what happened. The editor rejected the last piece I sent her, but she said she'd like to see more. I'm grateful she's becoming a fan of my writing, but it's payment I want and thinking pink may just get me there. I'm ahead of deadline, too.

The creative process is sometimes difficult, but it's not limited to writing, as a close friend reminded me yesterday.

He emailed me with pictures of his new acquisition, a 1983 VW Rabbit GTI, which is about to undergo drastic metal surgery. It's being converted to an electric car. The car isn't very pretty and has been wrecked, but it runs and he's so excited about the project, as he always is whenever he starts something new. The simplest things give him that wild-eyed look that some people mistake for insanity. He got the look with book binding and building a trailer from a kit and he always gets it whenever electronics are involved. I'm excited for him because he's the most fascinating person I know.

While he doesn't write stories or articles (we won't discuss his bad jokes and evil puns), he is a very creative fellow. He's even figured out how to turn the project into a way to defray the yearly taxes he pays the state with his gas fuel to electric conversion. Like I said, he's creative. He's also pretty amazing. I wonder if he gets stalled when contemplating a new project. I'll have to ask.

The point is the creative process isn't all beer and skittles. Sometimes it's hard work and can tax the limits of creativity, but it's always worth it. Whether it's learning to sew to make your own backpack, battling colonies of deep rooted and tenacious thistle or writing an essay or story based on an editorial theme, the creative process can be a struggle. That's when it's time to stop struggling and find something else to do for a while because the answer will come to you, and when it comes it's bound to bring friends.

That is all. Disperse.

Be bold

Through the window, the leaves obscure the view. At first glance, the red looks like flowers that have sprouted overnight and hang suspended between the intense green that hides even the fissured grey-brown bark of the tree trunk and slender branches weighed down with all that heavy silver-green, yellow-green, sun browned green, and violent raucous green. The red isn't from flowers or sunburned anything but the roof top of the Lon Chaney house next door. This is the first time I've seen so little of the roof as to be fooled into thinking some exotic high canopy orchids have attached themselves to the leaves overnight.

All this green filters out the bright summer sun as the days stretch and reach towards the longest day of the year, tomorrow, June 21st, to balance the shortest day a mere six months ago that seems more and more like last week. The sky is bold and unafraid of the coming days when the sun will shine a little less like brass and the nights will creep out for longer and longer periods until once again we are poised on the other arm of the balance where day and night share the hours equally and then give way to night again. Nothing lasts forever, not long blistering days or dark freezing nights when the world is softened by the thick muffling expanse that sparkles like fairy dust beneath the soft blue of moonlight. Each day, bold as a street corner whore stopping cars and offering her favors for nickels, dimes, and quarters or shy as mice under the watchful eyes of a hungry cat, is different and full of possibility. Today is another such day.

Thoughts of the man tired of waiting for some day, make me weak with desire, stir carefully banked holocausts of passion, and send me into dreams of being kissed senseless and ravished without regret or apology. He no longer wallows in the fantasy of responsibility or martyrdom to the superficial semblance of social appearances. He hungers for fulfillment and adventure and he knows where to find it. I'm waiting.

How do you know?

I am always following the magpie part of my brain that is attracted to interesting books and articles and knowledge in any form. I'm sort of a literary magpie that way, but it also works for photos and paintings and all kinds of bright bits and pieces of knowledge that I encounter.

I'm not certain what sparked the bug hunt that brought me to Falling Water, but something rang out like a clear silver bell; this is someplace I know, some place that seems almost part of my DNA. In case you don't know, Falling Water is a house designed by architect, Frank Lloyd Wright the inspiration for Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead's architect, Howard Roark, portrayed on the screen by Gary Cooper, and one of my favorite books and movies.

I didn't know about Wright being the magpie bit that Ayn Rand chose to fuel her story about artistic integrity, but I have always been entranced by Wright's architecture and his work in glass and furniture. You'd think such hard angularity would be boring or uncomfortable but there is such a sense of style and function that defies description. The way Wright designed buildings to fit into the landscape instead of being imposed upon the landscape was not only innovative but forward thinking, almost as if he envisioned a more eco-friendly future. In form and function, in harmony with nature, Wright's buildings are still a marvel and I wonder who carries his spark of genius into this century.

But it was Falling Water that excited me because it reminds me of the cabin I designed and wrote about in my new novel, Past Imperfect. I didn't realize Falling Water was in Pennsylvania, which is where part of the novel is set, or that I had internalized some of the design in creating my fictional cabin, a cabin I hope to one day build here in the Rockies, but it is there in full flower as though grown from the seed of a past memory or a glance at Frank Lloyd Wright's work. I cannot say for certain that I didn't see Falling Water long before this and stored it away among the other magpie treasures until I found a use for it, but how can I know for certain? Does it really matter?

So much of what we are as adults is built from the magpie bits and pieces of everything we have experienced, seen, and even glanced at without immediate recognition, stored away like seeds against the winter that fall through the cracks in the floors of our mind and take root at the first hint of warmth and moisture. We are surprised to find trees and flowers and beanstalks growing up out of the cracks, unable to remember storing the seeds, but there they are in full three-dimensional life growing in the fertile soil of the mind and waiting for a chance to come back to full and vigorous life. What is germinating among the magpie bits you've collected?

This past week time and black holes and the lands of faery are working their way into a story, and possibly a book. Buying a special gift for my granddaughter, Savannah, is slowly and certainly becoming a story of a little girl who doesn't like school or reading or writing or books who is given a bit of magic that unlocks the magic inside her. Just more magpie bits added to the collection to merge and create connections that grow into hybrid life.

That is all. Disperse.

You get the cheese, fruit, and bread...

...I have the whine.

I've been dreading this day for weeks. Like the difference between the knowledge of impending death and the fact of actual death, I wasn't prepared for Dad's death. I'm not prepared for it today either. Even though I have avoided the greeting card aisle at the store, it hasn't changed anything; I still keep picking up the phone to call before it sinks in there's no one to call.

That doesn't mean that I don't wish all of you fathers a wonderful and happy day where, for this once, you come first and everyone forgets to ignore you while you fix pipes and broken toys, hook up DVD players and computers, take out the trash, mow the lawn, prune the bushes and trees, clean the gutters, service the cars, organize the garage, clear the snow off decks, porches, sidewalks, and driveways, bash your fingers plugging up holes in the siding, under the eaves and in the screens and walls where stinging and irritating insects and house hunting birds have made homes, helped with homework, carried in groceries, power washed the siding and windows (no matter how much you enjoyed it), braved the aisles at Home Depot and 84 Lumber to fix or build a new deck or buy the supplies to fix the toilet that keeps running, and do the million and one things you do around the house/apartment and yard every day. I do.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY

That is all. Disperse.

Burned up

Note to self: Use the utensils provided instead of fingers to reposition hot items. Fingers, and hands, are important in your work and must not be damaged. See into insuring hands with Lloyds of London.

Instead of eating just some fruit and a banana (I already ate those), I decided to make a hot and hearty breakfast. I didn't run into problems until I decided to reposition the organic buckwheat pancake on the plate with my fingers, a pancake I had just taken out of a searing hot cast iron skillet. Even though I touched the pancake for no more than a fraction of a second, it was enough to burn off the first two layers of skin on two fingers on my left hand. I don't have any butter, so I reached for the lavender essential oil, which is what I use on all kinds of burns (including sunburns), and mentally kicked myself for being so impulsive and thoughtless. I actually use those fingers to type. Good thing I'm no stranger to pain and that I don't whimper and cry for more than a couple years or I'd be in a world of hurt. I have to work. Even if I took the time off, I wouldn't be able to type, so it's better to endure the pain and ignore the throbbing pulse in the tips of those two fingers. I've had it worse than this, so it's no big deal. At least it is nice and cool and rainy outside and the windows are open, so the rest of my body doesn't suffer as well.

Two days ago, I turned on the brand new ceiling fan in the bedroom for the first time. It felt so good night before last when I tossed and turned in the sweaty sheets. I had to turn it off yesterday because it was cool and wet and raining outside. I didn't need the breeze; there was plenty of breezy air coming through the open windows, so much I actually shut a couple of them.

We've had so much rain this year the leaves are exploding from the trees in all directions and I can no longer see my mountains through the frame of leaves on the squirrel porn tree. I can't even see the squirrel porn tree because there are so many leaves, so many big, lush, green, and thickly laced leaves. I catch flashes of movement, but nothing else, just the squeaks of pleasure/pain, and the occasional squirrel falling past the window when they get a little too rambunctious and one of them gets knocked out of the tree. I miss the mountains, especially since I get only an occasional glimpse when the wind whips the leaves into a flurry of green froth, but I have to be quick and not blink. Blinking is bad, and sometimes dangerous.

A couple of days ago, when it was hot and a quick sun shower only made the heat muggy and moist, I wished for rain . . . and here it is, for two days running. I hadn't lived here on this side of the Divide and so near the plains before now, but I do know that this amount of rain, such as we have had over the past 10 months, is unusual. I'm not complaining. I love the rain. I love the lower temperatures like a cool kiss on the fevered brow of relentless scorching summer, but I know this isn't the kind of weather common to this area. This is closer to the crisp cool of the mountains near the cabin when the summer sun reaches down with a molten brassy hand only to be cooled by the snow-touched winds sweeping the peaks so the heat is comfortable and not the searing scalded breath of the desert. I like this change from furnace heat to mountain cool the way it has been. I almost wish I had planted some vegetables and berries; they would be bearing fruit by now instead of struggling to survive and retain some moisture in this usually arid clime. There's still time unless this year, like last year, the snows come early.

Beanie said to send some rain her way and I'm doing my best, but my lungs just aren't what they used to be, especially since I'm spending so much more time breathing in and savoring the fragrance of growing green in this riot of flowers and trees. So much green makes the xeriscaped yards around here stand out in stark contrast. Yards covered with rocks and mulch, like littered forest floors, where a skinny twig of a maybe tree and silver green swords of desert grass look like an alien Martian island settled in the midst of all this lush richness, like a little respite for the eyes and a reminder that this, too, will pass as this rainy cycle turns back to the normal desert that sucks the sweat from a body almost before it forms. Everything changes and it should. Too much of the same thing makes me restless to move on and find another landscape to explore and get to know. For now, I'm happy here where the weather changes its mind as often as my sister Carol used to change her clothes.

Ham radio craziness

Yesterday was the annual PPRAA Megafest. I was up by 5 a.m. and on the road headed to Monument by 6 a.m. I promised to help with admissions. When I got there I barely had time to say hello to my friends, and there were a couple of people I really wanted to see, people I hadn't seen in about two months, but no such luck. I think I spoke to one friend for a whole five minutes the entire day.

From 7:30-9:30, I collected money, stamped hands, and gave out raffle and door prize tickets. I joked with people, held a lot of hands, smiled and had a fairly good time teasing and being teased by the guys I know from the ham club. At 9:30, as promised, Bill came and relieved me long enough to head to the VE testing room, which was empty. People were lined up along both walls in the hall leading to the room, but Dennis, the VE liaison, wasn't there. I went looking for him and found him just in time.

Unlike other testing sessions, we didn't have enough VEs and we needed at least three, according to ARRL/VEC regulations. Some guy (Rand) from Franktown sat in with us since he brought his credentials with him and, with Dennis and me, made three. We were busier than a one-armed man in a sheep shearing contest because we had 32 candidates, three of which were women, and one of which was a 10-year-old boy. Only six people didn't pass, but all the women and the boy (who was literally jumping up and down because his dad promised to buy him a radio if he passed) passed. Hooray! for the women . . . and for the boy.

Since the FCC took out the Morse Code requirement in obtaining a ham radio license, exam sessions have been packed. We had 19 at the last PPRAA session in April and 10 or 12 at the MARC session last month, and now 32 at yesterday's session. Most of the people are younger and that's a really good thing and there are usually quite a few in the sessions who are friends or relatives. Looks like taking out the Morse Code requirement has been a good thing since it probably kept people from giving it a shot. I guess when the older hams are gone, there will be a new and younger crop of hams to take their places, most of them husbands and wives, and even entire families, each with a license of their own.

By the time we were finished yesterday, it was about 1:30 p.m. and I was beat. The gym was cleared out and only one vendor was still loading his equipment into his truck. I didn't get to see who won the big prizes (not me) or if I won a door prize (you had to be present and I wasn't) or even look at much of what was for sale, but it was a good day and I'm glad I went, even though there were some disappointments, like not spending time with friends and acquaintances. I didn't get any brats or hamburgers, but one guy was nice enough to get me a bottle of water and it took a few minutes to work the kinks and stiffness out of my butt and legs when I stood up again.

I wonder how many times plans are made with the specific purpose of having the time and leisure to see someone you haven't seen in ages, someone who probably lives in the same town, but circumstances make long visits nearly impossible. Work or responsibilities or schedules get in the way and all that's left is a feeling of having missed a great opportunity. Then again, living in the same town, even with busy personal lives, you'd think one or the other could make the time to meet for coffee or lunch or even breakfast, giving them a chance to catch up and reconnect.

All too often, we are so caught up in the minutiae of every day life that we don't take the time to keep in touch and time moves so swiftly that the idea to call tomorrow gets lost in the shuffle until tomorrow is two or six or ten months in the past. Oh, there's always email, but email, unlike a handwritten letter, is not very personal. No matter how long the email or how personal the content, it doesn't replace a phone call or a handwritten letter or (better yet) sitting down or taking a walk together, a real up close and personal visit. I know people whose jobs require them to spend a lot of time on the phone cringe at the idea of spending any more time on the phone and they just want the sounds of silence, but the people on the phone at work cannot hold a candle to the sound of a friend's or relative's voice. There's something soothing and comforting in hearing the voice of someone you actually like when you can't (and don't take the time to) visit. That voice becomes like a little bit of home like a life line connecting you to simpler times or fond memories.

It sounds contrived, but if you live close enough to see someone, you really should schedule a time to meet, even if it's for 15 or 20 minutes. Take the time to reconnect and share a few minutes together even if you don't talk about anything important (or even if you do talk about something important), but spend some time together. Life is so short and regret takes a lot of energy. Indulge your senses and get the full experience of life; make a memory and see an old friend. Be part of the world and not just a bystander. Even if you're rushed off your feet, don't get to sample the donuts or the brats, and even if you don't spend more than 5 minutes with someone, make the effort. You'll be glad you did. So will they.

That is all. Disperse.

It's all about love

I'm awake and going through my usual morning ritual: bathroom, food, email, and writing. I decided to make a post and had something else in mind to write (and I may still get there), but I cruised over to Amazon to see what selections they offer me this morning for my time and button clicking pleasure. I found The Things that Matter by Edward Mendelson and read the synopsis. "In the chapter "Birth," for example, Mendelson demonstrates that Frankenstein is pervaded by fears of abandonment and death."

I've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and, although fear of abandonment and death are major themes, there are also the themes of love and keeping love at all costs, which, I guess, would also be about abandonment and death, except I see it more as retaining and prolonging happiness and love. At times, love has the birth cycle of a Mayfly, much like the attention span of someone with a bad case of ADD (attention deficit disorder). Other times it is more like a joke I heard years ago about an Aquarian scientist who was as likely to give his wife a bag of salty, fresh roasted peanuts (her favorite) for their anniversary or her birthday or a ruby necklace because he was thinking about her that day, illustrating a love that is both thoughtful and at times absent-minded when focused on something fascinating, and yet still remains fresh and strong with a memory for little details that pop up at odd moments. The scientist remembered her favorite food and the important days, but he also remembered an offhand wishful and wistful comment when they passed a jewelry store months (or more likely, years) before.

Frankenstein wants to keep those he loves around him, protect them from death and from the destruction of the peace and harmony of their little world. He wants love and happiness to last forever, never changing, always closeand, like the little girl whose fortuitous Christmas turkey wishbone wish gave her Christmas every day, creates sadness and horror instead. It isn't that love and happiness don't last forever, but they, like the ocean under the moon's influence, ebb and flow, sometimes stronger and sometimes, like the Aquarian scientist, there but not there. It isn't Frankenstein's fear and abandonment, aptly illustrated by the monster's rampaging when he is driven out over and over because of the horror of his face and form, that so deftly and pervasively provide the warp and weft of the story, but love: Frankenstein's love for his family and Elizabeth and the monster's quest and cell-deep need for love (father's love, family's love, community's love, and a mate's love). At the end of the tale, when Frankenstein's strength and body fail him and he dies, the monster gently takes his father in his arms and carries him out into the eternal frozen landscape to be forever together to be mourned and loved and remembered.

The monster will never die; Frankenstein defeated death, but in the end Frankenstein and his monster are defeated by love: the monster's love for his father and Frankenstein's love for his family and Elizabeth. The monster becomes the embodiment of requited and unrequited love, a monument to the lengths to which we all go to find and preserve, unchanging, love. And there are many kinds of love, which brings me back to what I wanted to write in the first place: love, specifically the love of books and the lengths to which I go to have and hold books.

I don't just want to have and hold them, I want to read them, some of them over and over, and at times I resent having to work because work demands time, time I could spend reading so many books (and there is so little time).

I spend money on books and never regret it, at least not like I regret spending money on clothes or office supplies (both of which are necessary but not unavoidable) or even food at times. Going out to eat is a luxury and one that I happily forego to buy books or cheap food so I can buy more books. I spend a lot of time at Amazon, Hamilton Books, Powell's, Alibris, second-hand bookstores, Barnes & Noble, etc., and a few dollars (I usually buy second-hand books, which make it possible to buy even more books). I found something better. I found book_swapping and after only one day I have traded review books for books I have always wanted or have recently decided to read. Yes, I can get these books at the library, but long waits and having to return them eventually (and usually, with my schedule, all too quickly) make getting books from the library problematic. Add to that my local library is closed for the next five months and I am forced to schedule my browses on Tuesday and Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the cramped and often crowded confines of the book mobile and you see my problem. Or maybe you don't. You don't have the desire to hold and caress and read and sleep with books as I do.

book_swapping caught my eye when I signed onto LiveJournal a few days ago and I knew its siren's call would lure me eventually. I was strong and held out for two whole days before I succumbed and followed the link to a wealth of books and people who love books and books I wanted and books I could trade and books, books, and more books. I have some packages to send today because I have made several successful trades. No more bookmobile. No more time limits on caressing and holding and reading. (Okay, so I'll still have to go to the bookmobile since the other people in the community don't quite have everything I want or need to read, but it's an alternative, and a good one.)

Check it out. If you have books you can bear to part with (many of my review books fall into that category), then you have something to trade for a book or books you've been eyeing. Do a little canny trading. It's worth the effort. After all, there is no truer love than the love of books, something I'm about to teach my grandson, Jordan, who will get a package of special books on his birthday next month.

Spread the love. It is all about love after all.

That is all. Disperse.

I sold another one

I am on a roll. I woke up a little while ago (happens when you go to sleep at 8:30) and decided to check email (it's instinctive). I had a message from Colleen Sell of Cup of Comfort books. She bought Apache Attack for Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers. I'm so excited. I have several other stories out for other anthologies, but this is the latest acceptance. Horse Lovers will be out in spring 2008, about the same time as Single Mothers. More money in the pipeline and more books on the shelves. I could get to like this kind of email news.

That is all. Disperse.

Psychic Viking Attack

I was working on a story when a stray thought pounced on my writing energy and strangled the muse. It happens sometimes. A piece of dialogue or a description or even something someone said a day or two ago will come back and bring friends. This particular thought brought memories of a guy I knew whose presence made people feel uncomfortable, especially, but not exclusively, women. I told him on several occasions he was bleeding sexual energy and needed to learn how to control it better so that his overriding sexual neediness wasn't broadcasting. He didn't know what I was talking about so I explained . . . on several occasions . . . in detail . . . with sock puppets. He still didn't get it. He claimed that to control his sexual energy was the same thing as being dishonest about who he was. He just didn't get it.

What was happening was akin to psychic Viking attack: raping, pillaging, and insulting neighboring people. He was only interested in being true to himself and honest about his emotions but his honesty was personally and psychically damaging to those around him and sensitive people were afraid of him. Some felt discomfort but the really sensitive people who didn't know how to shield themselves became nauseous and ill.

I'm all for being honest about who and what you are, but there are certain ways that being honest about yourself can be socially unacceptable. Bleeding psychic energy into someone else's space is like a smoker blowing smoke into the face of a nonsmoker while riding numerous floors in an elevator. At least he could have asked if he could invade people's spaces but he didn't. Instead he chose to broadcast his sexual energy to everyone around him, and he wondered why people didn't like him. Oh, there were some people who put up with it and talked behind his back, but didn't have the guts or honesty to tell him to his face he was being intrusive and obnoxious.

There are those who wear their hearts on their sleeves and whose faces give away their emotions, but they are relatively harmless on the psychic energy broadcast scale, like barely receiving a station in your own town with the antenna pointed in the right direction and optimum atmospheric conditions. And then there are those who are the equivalent of a ghetto blaster with dual quad speakers turned up to full volume in a locked closet, making your ears (and chakras) bleed. The worst part is that you haven't agreed to be locked in the closet to be assaulted but rather have been forced to endure the torture. Anger, repressed rage, pent up sexual need, depression, grief, and any number of powerful emotions unwittingly broadcast in this manner can make being in the same space (or even within a five-block radius) feel uncomfortable at best and violated at worst. I foresee a time when people entering a restaurant or business or even someone's home will be told to check their emotions at the door or be barred from entering.

Even though it seems like the guy was being real and honest and true to his emotions, sometimes it's best to shield yourself to keep from viciously violating other people's spaces. It's not a bad idea to learn how to shield your emotions, but it's a better idea to deal with them and let them go before they prove as toxic to you as they are to everyone around you.

FYI: If your energy is making someone uncomfortable, off balance, nauseous, dizzy, or physically ill, it isn't a good thing. That is the sign of negative energy. If you broadcast strong energy and people want to get closer to you, you're charismatic. It's like getting close to a warm fire on the hearth when you're freezing cold. Making people uncomfortable and ill and making them feel warm and welcome is like the difference between a raging, devouring inferno and a welcoming fire and it's easy to tell the difference. Time to balance your chakras, cleanse your aura, and get to the root of the problem.

That is all. Disperse.

For Father's Day

Father’s Day is a few weeks away, but I won’t have to find a gift for Dad this year. He died on the first day of March, the day I returned home after seeing him for the last time. He’s gone and I am just beginning to realize what that means. My father is dead.

The funeral arrangements went quickly and smoothly without too much fuss, but no one talked about what to do with all his plants. There are so many. Flowers, bushes, and trees grew for him the way they did for no one else. He had a gift, plucking a twig or a leaf and sticking it in the earth so that it grew. They didn’t just grow for him; they flourished, spread profusely, riotously, gloriously, abundantly, happily.

Dad started an English ivy plant when I was a child, pinching a few leaves off a neighbor’s plant, tucking them in his pocket, and thumbing them into moist, rich earth when he got home. The ivy sprouted and grew in a small hanging pot, racing over the edges of the planter and down in bright green garlands like the arms of a floral octopus, entangling drapes and sheers, curling around pictures and over china cabinets and chairs, and the wagon wheel chandelier that hung from the center of the room, crisscrossing and weaving in and around the spokes and rim of the wheel until it was a living leafy Rose Parade imitation. “One of these days,” I told him twenty years later, “that plant is going to wrap around your neck and pull you right into the pot and consume you.”

He stroked the variegated green leaves with one thick, gnarled, arthritic finger and smiled the kind of smile shared between mischievous fathers and impish children ignoring, just this once, discipline and rules. “They love me.”

Every one of his plants performed for him, secure healthy children certain of his approval, outdoing themselves to please him. In every corner of the house and the enclosed front porch in the winter and the palisade-fenced yard in spring, summer, and fall, a rain forest jungle of green wreathed faces followed him like bright-faced sunflowers tracking the sun, filling the air with the soft sweet kisses of perfectly blended perfumes.

Dad’s floral family of adopted and fostered plants thrived, like the avocado seed stuck with toothpicks I nurtured in a juice glass on a narrow kitchen windowsill nearly thirty years ago that now bends beneath the ten-foot ceiling like a polite giant among pygmies. Elephant ears are not nearly as wide or large as the leaves on the floral namesake standing amid the wild profusion of domesticated nature under Dad’s tender care. Delicate irises, snobbish aristocratic roses, fragile orchids, clowning day lilies, pregnant raucous peonies, humble violets, promiscuous lilacs, and seductive exotics sheltered beneath hoary black walnut, youthful peach, wide-eyed cherry, and sour-faced crabapple trees bordered by fat royal purple grape-festooned arbors and inquisitive flowered weeds. All received the same attentive care and all bloom despite their superficial differences, temperament, and abilities.

Only two plants defied Dad watchful, loving care: African violets and a five-year-old bonsai rose tree we gave him one year for Father’s Day. He embraced their uniqueness or kept close track of them among his far-flung adopted, fostered, and biological children, and yet they faded and died as though unable to live up to their idea of his expectations.

Gem-bright African violet blooms brightened and stretched when he smiled. Fuzzy leaves uncurled and reached out, spreading to fill their clay homes, eventually needing bigger and bigger pots. Then suddenly they faded. Not even resuscitative grow lights in the warmth of the enclosed and protected front porch coaxed their return. Dad was heartbroken. He didn’t give up, but tried again and again, pruning, repotting, layering sand, gravel, and charcoal, giving them every advantage. For a while, they brightened and raised their drooping hearts only to wither, weaken, and disappear. Sad and disheartened, he let them go, always ready to welcome them back.

The bonsai rose was older, a preteen full brilliant possibilities, anxiously looking forward to a stable home far from its rootless wandering life in the back of a hippie-painted van. My baby sister and I rescued him and brought it home. The bonsai rose stayed with me for a couple of weeks. I fell in love with his perfect tiny white flowers and miniature glossy green leaves. I knew he belonged with Dad. Reluctantly, I took him it to Dad’s house Father’s Day Sunday, carefully packed and dressed. Dad’s smile of childlike wonder made it worthwhile giving up the bonsai rose’s company. “Reminds me so much of Japan.”

I wondered if the bonsai reminded him, too, of his first child, the child his Japanese wife and her family took when she left him. That was long before he married Mom, adopted me, and had two more daughters and a son.

Like the memory of that marriage and the joy at the birth of his first daughter, the bonsai rose faded, leaving nothing more than a tangled brown husk of twisted branches and desiccated roots. Every Father’s Day I teased him about the bonsai rose. Dad smiled and laughed, but a ghostly shadow of sadness clouded his clear blue eyes. There were limits to his gift, limits to love. Dad felt like a failure.

Dad gave us all so much: intelligence, tenacity, an adventurous spirit, and an easy, friendly smile. We don’t share the innate gift or encyclopedic knowledge necessary to care for his orphaned floral children. Though Dad’s plants weathered the moves from the city to the country to the suburbs, where the city reached out and engulfed Dad’s palisade fenced sanctuary, and, finally, back to the country again, I wonder if they are resilient enough to withstand losing him. Without his ever-present smile, his easy laughter, his gentle touch, despite gnawing arthritis, his unfailing attention, or the way he talked with friends and strangers alike, how will they survive? We can give them nourishment and water, sunshine and shelter. We can tend them and see to their physical needs, but Dad gave them more. He gave all his children—adopted, fostered, and biological—so much. He gave us a piece of his boundless generous and loving soul. Maybe that is enough and how we will all survive, maybe I do have a gift after all.