This is the test

I have been promising you a test. Here it is. Answer these two questions honestly and completely. You will be graded on grammar -- and neatness DOES count.

1) What do you consider Internet stalking? Include all examples.

2) Who is your journal about?

That is all. Disperse.

One of the best things about being a writer...

...is when your writing touches other people's lives and changes them or their situation.

Since I have mostly settled into my new apartment, I resumed working on the writing biography of Andre Norton. My ad in Gila Queen Guide to the Markets came out last week and people are bellying up to the virtual bar to share their stories and their correspondence with Andre. Reading such glowing tributes from writers who have gone on to publish their own books and stories, writers who owe their success and the belief in their writing to Andre is a wonderful way to spend any day. I knew her personally. Many of these people never met her in person, but she was the strong stalwart support standing behind them with her hand on their shoulders, someone who was as real to them as she was to me.

If there is any epitaph I would like to leave, that would be it: She made a difference.

Blame it on Wang...

...because it is his fault.

In reading through my F-list he mentioned seeing The Phantom of the Opera on DVD last night. I recommended he get the book a certain friend loaned to me: Phantom by Susan Kay. So I check out Amazon.com for a link and found out that my friend's pristine paperback book is worth more than 10x what he paid for it. The book has become a collector's item. No wonder. The story is riveting and the writing flawless, which is saying a lot coming from a hard-nosed and not easily tempted book reviewer.

Wang, what does it say about me that every time I thought I had it in my bag to give it back to him it wasn't there when I gave him back the rest of his books? I found it when I packed up my books and things to move to the Springs. From a psychological standpoint, of course.

It's just past 8:30 and cars are cruising the blocks looking for a parking spot while brightly summer clad people carrying canvas and shopping bags with fanny packs about their waists are headed south to the Farmer's Market. Some of the eye-searing colors are even brighter on this clear, cloudness Rocky Mountain morning and the trees are shifting restlessly in the light breeze. The dogs next door keep up a constant tirade at the Market-minded pedestrians behind the high palisade fence on the east side of the house. This morning is bright and beautiful and cool, just waiting to be enjoyed after a night of tossing and turning and sweating even with all the windows open. It's on a morning like this I truly wonder if George Malley in Phenomenon was right and the trees really do talk to each other in rustling leaves and swaying limbs.

My friend, by the way, got a clean as a whistle bill of health from his lizard with the long lighted tongue. He was, however, having trouble formulating coherent thought after the narcotic cocktail that kept him quiescent and relaxed while they delved the back forty, but he is otherwise his usual punny self. That is a very good thing.

Another friend tagged me while I was playing endless games of Mah Jong on Yahoo yesterday, surprising me. I haven't heard anything from him since he started his post Army retirement job as a tech writer. He had some ulterior motives evidently. told me I need to move to New Mexico and ply my technial writing skills because companies there are going begging. I might consider it but only for a heartbeat. I told him there was no way I'd leave my paradise to move to the desert heat. Nice try, but no cigar.

So then he suggested taking a closer look at Manitou Springs and see if I could find all the springs that give Manitou its last name. According to him, there are/were seven springs. Makes me curious for sure and that will be a trip to take with my visitors from KCMO next week who are bringing KCMO BBQ sauces and rubs with them. I smell BBQ wafting on the summer breeze already and I can hardly wait. Six days and counting.

The visit also brings with it a first time meeting with LJ friends. That is also a first because I have not met any of my LJ friends to date. I'm looking forward to it and to them. They have this strange habit of looking up Buena Vista in any state they visit to see if they are alike in any way to the first Buena Vista they visited among the Blue Ridge Mountains back east. Virginia, I think it was. Since I am acquainted with two transplanted residents, I'd say the chances are good, but now I want to see for myself, and to visit Winslow Pass which is said to have a spectacular view of the Collegiate Peaks. I have seen the view from a much different perspective, atop Ute Lookout in the Collegiates, and I can well imagine how beautiful the view will be. I might even take them over to Hartsell Springs and see if I can finagle a peek at the huge roaming herd of buffalo in that area.

A couple of years ago, on my birthday no less, when I was still working for the TV show that brought me here, I spent a few days at Hartsell Springs Ranch and drove a Ford 250 4x4 up and down the muddy slopes and valleys into the midst of a huge herd of buffalo. I then proceeded to get out of the metal behemoth where I was safe and walk right smack dab into the middle of the milling herd. You cannot imagine how big full grown buffalo bull and cows (not to mention the yearling bulls and cows) really are until you're standing nose to horns with them. It was thrilling and exciting for me, but less so for the people cringing and hiding in the back seat of the truck. The only thing I missed was the buffalo chase and hunt (that never happened) the next day. I was heartbroken until I heard how the rogue buffalo bulls played the erstwhile hunters armed with bow, black powder rifle and state of the art hunting rifles of staggering firepower. Anyone who is opposed to hunting because it pits superior man against Bambi, should see and hear how a real hunt progresses. You'd finally see that the animals are much smarter than people think and it's the people who need the protection, not the animals.

Buffaloes are especially wily. The Native American tribes knew that, which is why they would get together and drive entire herds off cliffs and pick them off at the bottom, leaving whatever they couldn't dress and carry for the carrion eaters. They knew buffaloes learn at a staggering rate and wouldn't be caught twice by the same trick. The tribes didn't know how to change their hunting tactics, so instead they left no survivors.

Buffalo look stupid, but they are far from it. Never underestimate the wily buffalo -- the even wilier roadrunner. Wile E. Coyote figured that one out. Mother Nature didn't raise no stupid children -- except for maybe humans -- mostly the males.

That is all. Disperse.

Sick call

A friend sent me this email this morning:

SUBJECT: Off to see the lizard...

...and have him stick his long tongue somewhere dark and deep. The
drano went fine yesterday - no vomiting or issues. Updates later.

I didn't expect an update this morning, but I'm glad he sent it. He took the day off to have a group of people light up the inside of his bum and videotape it. Fun, fun, as he would say.

And then last night...

The landlady called me (it's the easiest way to reach me when I'm working and plugged into the headphones) and asked if I'd like some polenta and marinara sauce. I said yes. Then she suggested I come down for dinner and I said yes again -- with a big smile on my face. I had been smelling the herbed polenta and marinara for a while and it was making me hungry for more than whole wheat crackers and fresh avocado. So we had dinner together and talked about my friend's pending procedure this morning. She came up with lighting up his a**hole, which I thought was funny, but not for prime time viewing. In some ways it makes me think of methane and lighters and the funny look on someone's face when it singes the hair off their rear exit like some of the boys in high school did to another hairy high school boy just before they were suspended. Horrible thing to have happen to the popular athletic elite. Broke a lot of cheerleading hearts that day who then went to protest in Mr. Huckaba's office. Didn't work. Their hero boyfriends still got two weeks free unpaid and unsung vacation at home.

Back to dinner.

The landlady surprised me with an addition to the sauce -- SHRIMP! Herbed polenta with cheese melted through it and a lovely thick and rich marinara sauce with shrimp. Now that's eating.

After dinner we drifted outside to the deck after Pastor stood still for me to pet and hug him. He's such an attention hog. (I love it) Out on the deck wailing saxes and smoky brass played low and dirty serenaded us. Birds dipped and swirled on rising warm air currents and squirrels played tag and hump in the trees, slender branches dipping and flailing as they leapt from perch to perch. As the music ended we went inside because landlady had something she wanted to show -- and give -- me: art. She dug into the heavy Spanish blanket chest muttering about getting rid of it because it's so heavy (me, me, me!) and pulled out three simly framed drawings of plants: cattails, tulips and some kind of blue daisy. The drawings were done in ink and colored, the heavily accented and shaded lines brightened by primary colors on a yellow-brown sketch pad sheet. She said she has had them for over 40 years. The framer's label is in German and it didn't take me long to figure out buchbinderei is book binder.

So, with a Gladware container of polenta, sauce and shrimp, several packets of flower seeds so I have an excuse to dig in the dirt today and the three prints, I said good night, thanked her for the lovely dinner and the conversation AND the food and prints (she really worries because I have so few things in the apartment or on the walls) and walked upstairs.

Every single day I live here, whether I see the landlady or not, is pure joy. Listening to the music on the deck last night made me feel (and say) it was like living in a movie about simpler times. I'm a character in the universe's movie about simpler times with live music accompaniment. Who says life isn't like that has never spent any time in my neck of the woods. They're missing a lot: generous and friendly landladies, dogs who bask in attention, soft rich earth to plant and weed, music in the air, and friends with weird and wonderful senses of humor about proctological examinations involving metal poles with lights. It doesn't get much better than this.

AWOL no more

Okay, so I've only posted a couple of memes over the past few days and I haven't updated anything about my date Monday night or the picnic on Tuesday, but I figured no one really wants to know about my boring days and nights.

Then again...

I really shouldn't call Monday night a date. I had given a close friend a ticket for the Michael Johnson concert for his birthday last month and Monday night was the night. I also got a ticket for me because I missed him in March due to the nasty flu that nearly turned into going through death's door, but I finally got to see and hear the man.

Well, my friend came over after work, tired and worn out, and went directly into my bedroom where I'm still sleeping on a feather bed on the floor. (A bed really isn't high on my priority list and it is his fault since he said I should get used to sleeping on the ground for when we go hiking overnight.) So he sat down on the love seat in the front room, my other piece of furniture, leaned back and snoozed a little while I finished getting ready. When I was ready we talked for a while and then left since we didn't want to have to stand in a long line. Instead we just stood at the head of the line for a while. (what is the difference again?) Jimbo's is an intimate little setting with the front of a real house as the backdrop for the stage. Normally there are couches and lots of antiques and a few tables and chairs, but Monday night there were nothing but a few small round tables (outdoor cafe sort of tables)and chairs in front of the small stage.

While we waited outside, we heard Michael Johnson tuning and warming up his vocal cords. I must say it was really good.

Back inside, an older woman (very pretty) and her daughter (a roofing contractor) asked us if we were from Ohio. We told them we were. They were from Ohio, too, and from the west side of Columbus where we are both from and where we grew up. The daughter went to Hilltonia and Franklin Heights and West High. My friend went to Hilltonia and West and I went to Westmoor Jr. High and West. It was like old home week. We talked a little longer about things back in cowtown, Ohio and then Jimbo got on stage and warmed up the crowd with some rockin' blues and a few silly tunes thrown in. Then the big moment...

Michael Johnson took the stage, talked a little about how people sometimes confuse him with the other Michael who sings and jumped right into the music. He played one of my favorites, Bristlecone Pine. I have to admit his rendition isn't as good as Hugh Prestwood, but it was good Monday night. He played a lot of my friend's and my favorite songs and a few we had never heard, like Emilio, which is a new song for MJ. The crowd was friendly and attentive and the venue intimate, but nothing could match MJ's artistry on the guitar. He plays guitar with a Spanish classical rhythm and fingering and it is beyond good.

Like I silly fan (something I have never been accused of in my life up to this point), I asked MJ to autograph a couple of my CD inserts -- the ones my friend has given me. I have interviewed and spoken with presidents, governors, politicians, criminals, movie stars and foreign dignitaries, but meeting MJ for the first time made me feel shy all of a sudden. And he's a lot shorter than I figured. I'm about an inch or so taller than he is.

Anyway, MJ took a break, we talked with the mother and daughter from Cowtown (Mother is 77 and her BF is 49 and she's known him since he was 13 and her daughter is married to a man 12 years younger -- it runs in the family). The mother is very pretty and could well pass for much younger -- not so the daughter, although they were both very charming.

After the break, more music and amazing guitar playing, an encore and it was time to go home. Unfortunately, Jimbo's is closing their door at the end of the month, so if you like live jazz and blues in an intimate and small club atmosphere, check them out before they close their doors.

My friend drove me home and we talked about the concert. He came up for a couple minutes to pick up something and I walked him back downstairs. Neither of us wanted the evening to end, but we both had to be up early for work. Besides, we had a picnic in the park planned come rain or come shine. When it rains and thunders and lightning forks through the sky we get fireworks with our picnic.

He IM-ed me the next morning and said he was in the mood for Cobb Salad for lunch, so I picked up the ingredients, came home, made the salad, cut up some fresh watermelon, tossed it all in a canvas bag with some bowls and plastic utensils and met him at the park for our picnic. He was there ahead of me. I think he was hungry.

Spending time together is difficult and wonderful -- wonderful because the time flies by and difficult because the time just flies by.

Anyway, after he ate some of the watermelon he tells me he is allergic. Just a little allergic he says. I wanted to smack him, but those dimples, that sparkle in his green eyes and the laughter kept me from hitting him. Besides, he buys and eats watermelon, too. It's a summer tradition. Some things are definitely worth risking a little swelling in the throat.

There is more, but I'll save it for later.

I'll shut up now.

No Farmer's Market for me

the first day of the summer Farmer's Market in Old Colorado City but I was in my car and on the road headed for Monument, Colorado for my first experience as a Volunteer Examiner (VE) for a hamfest (Ham Radio Amateur Swap Meet). I remember the first time (who never updates his journal) told me he was going to a hamfest near me and wanted to come to the cabin to visit. "Hamfest?" I asked. "At 8:00 in the morning? I thought actors didn't get up until after noon." He laughed and explained it was for amateur radio -- hams. Okay, I get it, but the only other thing that came to mind before he explained was a celebration of pigs. I know differently now.

A hamfest is a gathering of geeks, nerds and technophiles devoted to buying, selling, trading and talking about radios, computers and everything that goes with it. It was interesting and fun.

We wandered around together and separately, caught in the tides and eddies and whirlpools of people and equipment and talk until we both needed to sit down and just talk to each other for a while. When it was nearly time to get set up for the examinees, we made our way back into the building and to the room to set it up for testing. The rest of the morning and the first part of the afternoon were a blur of activity, explanations, instructions and people as we handed out, took back, graded and informed people of their scores. The whole examination process is fairly simple, but the grading, checking, rechecking and formalizing of the paperwork is a bit of work, work that I thoroughly enjoyed. He called it my baptism by fire and said I did very well for my first exam. I caught a few mistakes (his) and clarified some rules and regulations and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

We had a long walk back to our cars and the rest of the afternoon was taken up with lunch at Bear Creek (where they have the most decadent and scrumptious raspberry cheesecake and Reubens and an okay, but limp, Caesar salad) and the dollar movie theater where Sahara with Matthew McConnaughey, Penelope Cruz, William H. Macy and Steve Zahn was playing. The movie is based on Clive Cussler's Sahara, which is the only one of Cussler's books I was ever able to get all the way through, and it is a funny, adventurous and wry tale that is a whopping good tale. However, at the end the playful romance between Dirk and Eva is contrived and heavily staged and Ms. Cruz is definitely not up to the task. She was a lot more convincing as a dedicated WHO doctor than as a woman who has fallen in lust/like with Dirk Pitt. It didn't play well at all. The movie is still a good time for a Saturday afternoon or any evening when you need to laugh and sit on the edge of your seat.

After the movie it was home for me where my pale moss green sweater was folded neatly atop the newel post at the top of the landing outside my door. The landlady found it between the wall and the dryer where it had fallen and was invisibly camouflaged with the bags.

Once inside, I unpacked my bags, kicked off my shoes, made a bowl of granola and milk and settled in with Dorothy Parker until I dozed off on the love seat in the living room. All in all, it was a really good day.

This morning I'm a little sore and my left heel cord is tight, but I'm happy and looking forward to finally getting a call through to the friend whose call I missed by one ring and whose phone was busy for quite some time afterward. I did go to bed early with Stephen King and a bottle of Colorado Spring's finest water to the sound of a long soaking rain storm that sang me to sleep with its gentle lullaby.

Acceptance

Yesterday is the first time in weeks I have seen and spent lots of time with John. It was wonderful. I was a little worried that he might bring his daughter, but I needn't have worried. He was alone...with me...in the midst of hundreds of other ham radio operators and geek toys and frills. It was a good day.

When he saw me standing beside the line his eyes lit up and he smiled like a kid who just got what he wanted for Xmas. He waved and came over to me. I told him he needed to get into the shorter line to pay and he came back with his raffle ticket and ubiquitous canvas bag. I took the bag while he filled out the raffle ticket and we chatted. He kept smiling down at me and clenching the handle of his bag when I handed it back, clenching it like he needed to keep his hands occupied because they wanted to do something else, something they can't do in public, especially around people who have known him for so many years and know he's married -- and not to me. Soon the line started moving and we moved with it down the hall, through the door and into the gymnasium, doubling as an exhibit hall. We circled and talked, looked and touched, asked and answered questions, riding the tides of people along the aisles, separated at times and close together at others. We saw some people we know and he introduced me to some people he knows and we drifted and floated with the tides until both of us had seen all there was to see and we needed to find sunlight and a place to sit.

Outside we bumped into more people we and he knew and he introduced me again. Footsore, I wandered over to the shade and sat on a bench while he chatted with his friends. Then he came up to me and asked if I'd like to sit in the sunshine, so we did. I sat and he stood until I told him he could sit next to me. He did. We sat on the edge of the cement pylon, close but not touching, keeping a careful distance between us, chatting and talking and teasing each other with smiles and laughter. Then an older woman came and sat down across from us. She talked about her husband and his call sign (ending with UOH which she turned into Ugly Old Ham) and their travels as missionaries. She kept looking at us and smiling as we jibed and teased each other as we talked with her. Just before she left she said something unimportant, but her last words were to us as a couple. I suddenly understood her looks and smiles. They were the same smiles a person who is part of a happy couple, a couple who is comfortable with themselves and each other, gives another happy couple.

Before the missionary came to sit by us there had been a white-haired old guy who leaned heavily on his cane sitting beside us and caught part of our conversation on antennas. He jumped in with suggestions of what antennas to use and we talked about antennas for a while before he smiled at us and said he'd leave us to enjoy the sunshine together.

Together.

Even though most of the people in John's radio amateur club know he's married, there is the sense of them looking at us and treating us as a couple. Maybe they think I'm his wife. They haven't ever seen her. She never comes to the ham functions. Some of them know I'm an old friend, but I still get the impression that they see and think of us as a couple because that is how they treat us.

Such was the case with Mike Anderson.

Mike even asked us if we were married when we were teasing each other sitting in the testing room before the examinees got there. John looked at me and smiled but then he said that we were just old friends. I said we had known each other since sixth grade and John amended that we had a big gap in our friendship of 30 years. Mike said the gap didn't show.

More and more I notice that people do treat and see us as a couple, a harmonious pair who have rubbed along happily together for years. In some ways we have but in another sense we are just getting to know each other's history and lives, getting to know who we are as opposed to who we were as children and teens. Still, there is a sense of easy familiarity that strangers and friends see and recognize even though we tell them we are not married.

It is only a matter of time before what people recognize in us becomes reality for us. We live for that day. But for now what we have and what we share is acceptance of us as a couple.

The Quality of Light

As the light fades and colors deepen, I look out my window at my tree. The squirrels are settling in for the night, climb into their warm nests, and the sky is gray, but the horizon is a luminous white. The edges of the vista blur and the mountains dim and darken, growing larger, a backdrop of rock and trees and stability. The view softens with the coming of night but the tree outside my window is solid and clear and the details are sharply defined. The rain today settles into the cracks in the bark. The tree breathes in the moisture, forcing the alligator skin bark into painstaking relief.

The horizon glows with the sun's descent and the wind picks up rattling loose branches from their connections, twigs and leaves dipping and ripping from their moors and floating to the ground. Darkness closes in and everything right outside the window is delineated and defined.

There is a quality to dusk that blurs the edges of the view as it creeps closer, settling in like a lover's arms in an intimate embrace. Color flees and silhouettes take solid form out of the riot of daylight.

Dusk.

And soon night...

...when the stars flare and fly across the vault of heaven, and the moon's pale silver face lightly blues the darkness.

Fast and dirty

If you're interested in biographies and people, check out The Story of My Life about Farah Ahmedi, a survivor of the Afghan wars.

That is all. Disperse.

Dinner dates

I finished work early today because I had a date tonight. I needed clean clothes (underwear) and it was time to do the laundry. I was running out of everything and didn't feel like taking the tags off my 10-year-old formal gown. Dinner was not a formal affair tonight.

Downstairs the Psycho was talking to the landlady on the deck in the sunshine. He said hello and I said hi. We're such conversationalists. Then unlocked the door and disappeared into the laundry room. The landlady came through from her massage room to check her towels in the dryer. She told me I didn't have to go back upstairs around the outside of the house; I could go through her apartment. When I came back outside Psycho (the landlady's name for her psychic friend) was working on the cement block retaining wall, the one I had planned to work on Sunday. We talked while he worked, getting to know one another, swapping esoteric views. He's a very intelligent and interesting guy, and he didn't hit me upside the head with the shovel when I offered help and suggestions on fitting the cement blocks together. I'd say that's tolerant.

Psycho and I are about the same height, but I'd say he's probably a tad older. I'd also bet he was a redhead at one point in his life. There are a few cinnamon strands in his beard but the dead giveaway is his green eyes and freckles. Add jeans, blue chambray shirt and a ball cap and you begin to get the picture. There is humor sparkling in his eyes and clearly evident in the crinkles around his eyes and the aura of joy around him.

I had planned to go back upstairs and bring down another load of clothes to wash when the first load was ready to go into the dryer. Didn't work out that way. We ended up sitting on the deck talking about spirituality, definitions of reality, Nostradamus, quantum physics and truth just for a beginning. We also talked about writing and history and people. It could have lasted for days at the rate we were going, but we scratched the surface. It's a beginning.

Psycho needed to discuss something with the landlady and I had to get ready for my date. I didn't want to be late and I still had to fold and put away the dry laundry, get a shower, do something with my hair and get dressed. That would take a good half hour and I didn't want to be late. My date was set for six.

I went back upstairs, laid out the laundry and headed for the shower. When I got out I couldn't find the top I laid out. I still can't find it. I ended up wearing something from the closet (no, not the gown). The phone rang while I was still naked and wet. It was my date wanting to know if I was almost ready. I was.

Downstairs I knocked on the landlady's door and she was ready to go. We were going to walk up to ront Range Barbecue. A light mist drifted through the cool air as we walked toward the restaurant past the park where yesterday groups of older couples were picnicking in the last warm rays of the sun. The carriage driver and Rusty were clip-clopping past us up 24th exchanging small talk and hellos. It was a beautiful evening, cool, soft and perfect.

At the restaurant we settled into a table, ordered drinks and talked until the busboy came up, red-faced, blushing and hesitant. "Would you mind if we moved you?" he asked tremulously.

The landlady and I looked at each other and smiled. "Not at all." We picked up our drinks, he picked up our condiments and led us to a booth with a window seat -- right where I wanted to sit when we got there, but it was already occupied. It was also quieter with no one shouting into their cell phone.

Dinner arrived: hamburger and a tomato, onion, cucumber salad for the landlady and BBQ ribs and brisket with green beans, corn muffins and the same salad for me. She had some kind of honey wheat beer and I had a margarita (no, not the sissy slushy kind) and water, lots of water.

Dinner was good, really good, but the conversation was the best part of the meal. I found out the landlady is a chocoholic -- but I already suspected as much.

After dinner we walked back home past the park in a light drizzle. There was music. A band was playing 40s and 50s music with a bit of swing and jazz and a little burlesque music for the novelty acts. Both of us were dancing to the music and would have stayed but SOMEONE had to go to the bathroom and couldn't hold it. Good thing we were close to home. I unlocked the door and the landlady raced for the bathroom. When she came back (a decidedly relieved look on her face and her eyes no longer swimming) we went out on the porch and listened to the music and talked while Pastor took a bio break.

The sun was hidden behind gray clouds and the light was fading slowly, the neighborhood wrapped in hot horns and brass, pulsing drums, and seductive woodwinds while the saxes wailed. The air was cool and laden with the scents of misty flowers, fresh cut grass and fertile earth. Good food, good company, great conversation and music.

This is living.

Denizens

Yesterday was a good day. I got money. I spent time with the landlady and Pastor. And I met someone new: Eddie.

Eddie lives in the old Victorian behind us. He has three trucks -- that are out of the garage anyway -- and he is a grizzled fella who always wears faded and worn overalls.

Yesterday he was cutting the grass on his lot when I was backing out of the driveway to go to the movies and see Star Wars. I needed a break. I stopped for a moment as he stood at the whitewashed corral fence that separates his side yard from the alley and introduced myself. He already knew me -- and quite a bit about me.

"I know everything that goes on," he said.

The way his eyes glinted with intelligence and mischief, I had no doubt he was being honest.

He told me he started working as a water meter reader in 1970 and had been in every home within a 30-mile radius not built in the last 11-12 years -- that's when he retired. He knows all the stories and the secrets, not to mention that he knows where all the bodies are buried and which closets have skeletons. He was born and raised just 10 blocks from his house, which he bought about 30 years ago. Eddie is definitely a good source of information if I need to know anything about anyone or the history of the area.

"I remember when [Colorado Springs] was just a cowtown."

I know about cow towns. I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and that's another cowtown -- no matter how many malls and fancy restaurants come and go.

Eddie's front porch is decorated with a trailing string of CDs hanging from the ceiling of the roof. They swing in the winds and cast rainbows everywhere.

"What CDs did you use for your decorations?" I asked him.

"AOL."

I had a feeling.

"I'd go down to the post office, grab a few of them free AOL packets, drill a hot nail thru them and string them together and hang them up," he explained.

"Why?"

"I kept having trouble with birds making nests in the porch light. Someone said as how if I'd hang somethin' shiny they'd stay away. I got me them CDs, hung 'em up and the birds stay away. Works real good." He grinned through the neat silver threads of his mustache and his green eyes glinted. "Probably some other kind of disks up there, but most of 'em's AOL."

The landlady was waiting to back out of the drive and I was blocking the way, so I said goodbye and headed down the alley to 24th.

Slowly but surely I'm getting to know the denizens of my little corner of the Springs. You can tell he knows something from that mischievous glint in his eye. The landlady told me if Eddie likes you you're in. Eddie likes me. I'm in.

So, wth one tree-hating orc wench on the east side, a house full of college age guys and their revolving door girlfriends on the west and Eddie across the alley, I'm beginning to find my footing here -- and it's getting more interesting every day.

Squirrel porn, disappearing woodpeckers,sky diving nuthatches and a Farmer's Market starting this weekend, I really lucked out.

Lifting weights

It's hard to see the trees when you're looking at the forest. It's even harder to let someone go when they've been a part of your life for a long time. Sometimes you have to let them go.

A heavy weight has been lifted from my life and it took me a while to understand what it was and why it was. After a long talk with two friends (one old and one new, but very wise), I realize that I was still collecting masks. Not mine. Others' masks.

A mask can be a weighty object, not just for the person who wears it to hide who and what they are, but for the people who care about them and fall into the trap of believing the mask is the truth. A mask can also hide an outer ugliness that obscures the truth of the inner beauty. Masks are distractions, a beautiful, and often flashy, sleight of hand that keeps us from seeing the truth.

To quote Ben from The Truth About Cats & Dogs, "You know how someone beautiful can become more and more ugly as you get to know them and someone you wouldn't even look at twice can become more and more beautiful?"

It is not about the beauty of the words or the face or the smile that appears so genuine, but about those little moments when little by little the adhesive fails and the mask slips to show a glimpse of such darkness and ugliness that you doubt what you have seen. You wrestle with what you think and what you saw, telling yourself it was a trick of the light, but eventually the truth wins out and the mask comes off. A very close friend saw the truth and tried to warn me, but I wasn't listening. He was right. I was wrong. The mask is gone and so is the heavy weight I've struggled with these past months.

Here's to lifting and losing the weight of the mask. I just lost a whole lot of it.

Monday afternoons are not for headaches

Have I mentioned how truly talented and wonderful my landlady is? She is -- in spades.

I went downstairs on my way to the grocery store to return the bowls from the strawberry dessert and stuffed peppers I took home Saturday night and stayed for a few minutes to talk and sit out on her deck in the glorious sunshine. My arms pinked up quickly and I will have color tonight -- no burn, just color. I tan very quickly.

Anywho, I was rubbing my right temple where lately I get these headaches besides and behind my right eye. She asked if I minded if she played with me. (No, I did not say the first thing that came into my mind.) I said, "Sure," and she started by pinching my right shoulder. She said since I work on the computer I might be tight there. I'm not. Muscular but definitely not tight. She asked if there was any more pain in my head when she pinched my shoulder and I assured her there wasn't. Then she went to work on my right temple and eye.

I felt nice, but nothing was happening -- at first. I closed my eyes and breathed and suddenly the dark red behind my eyes started lightening up and became blue and then lavender and the pain started to dissipate. she did a little energy work on me, telling me there was some brown crap in there and asked if I was angry at someone. Couldn't think of anyone right at first, but later I remembered I was ticked at a certain brother-in-law who is a jerk. She kept working on my head, put her hands on my forehead and the back of my neck, did some more energy work and the tension and pressure beside and behind my right eye started to go away. The light behind my eyelids got brighter and brighter and she said, "Ooh, a rainbow." I'm going to believe that was good news.

Then she got a call from her best friend in Germany and I petted Pastor for a few moments then decided I should sneak out and let her talk in private. By the time I got in the car and belted up, the headache was completely gone. Now, if I can just keep it that way.

I do think it's time I scheduled an appointment with her for a massage and some energy work. After all, what's the use of having a certified neuromuscular therapist in the house if I don't patronize her? Good thing I get paid tomorrow,huh?

And if you live in or near Colorado Springs, let me know and I'll pass your information along.

That is all. Disperse in an orderly fashion.

Sunshine glancing off leaves...

...and clouds swimming by overhead, there's nothing better than a brand new day.

The neighborhood is quiet right now. Once in a while kids pass in the street or cars slip quietly down the street between the tree-lined curbs, barely noticed. Cats criss cross the streets and squirrels play tag along the branches, daring even the slenderest twigs bending beneath their scanty weight before diving through the air. Birds and bees dart and dance in the sun dappled shadows and trees wave and nod in the breeze. It's a peaceful Sunday, the kind of day to sit and read with the windows open. I'm half tempted to put on some clothes and go for a walk down to the big park on Uintah, pick out a picnic bench and lean against the table reading my book, which has turned out to be very surprising. You can read about it at The Celebrity Cafe when the review is posted. I'm not going to give you so much as a hint yet.

Yesterday I got my hands dirty pulling dandelions and weeds and planted some nasturtiums and baby's breath. The squirrels got to the sunflowers, but I'm going to get them back. I'm sprinkling cayenne on the sunflowers I'm planting this week. Besides, it's time to put the Xmas ornaments back in their boxes and unearth my seeds from the African carry basket so I can have it ready when the Farmer's market starts next weekend. I usually carry canvas bags, but I thought that would be more fun.

Time for me to get back to the book if I expect to finish in time to post my review by tomorrow morning.

That is all. Disperse.

Not just another day

I'm listening to DOA on my computer through Movie Flix and there is some hot, pulse throbbing jazz and some deep soulful blues. I just got off the phone with the landlady. She called to see if I was still up here and if I liked stuffed peppers. I thought it was only Italian ladies who tempted and seduced with food. I was wrong. Bavarians do it, too, and they do it with Swiss chocolate and marzipan, homemade vegetable soup and BBQ chicken and fresh made polenta. I know I'm going to like it here. People to talk with, laugh with, discuss subjects high and low and share food with. Now that's home.

The other day while cashing a check I was talking to the manager and updating my information in their system and she surprised me with a welcome to the Springs gift -- a color TV. She said there was a TV in their garage gathering dust that worked just fine and since I didn't have a TV I could have it if I wanted it. We had been talking about me volunteering as a ham radio license examiner (VE) and she said that since I give back to ham radio someone should give a little something to me. A TV. She also invited me to come to dinner some time. The people here sure are friendly.

The sky is full of clouds that are alternately grey and ominous and sunlit moving pictures out of fantasy. The sun works its way through the clouds every now and then to remind me I'm missing a beautiful day -- even if it might rain. It's a siren call that I'm not going to be able to ignore for long. I think a walk to the library to pick up some books, a round of pulling weeds in the yard and spending time with nature and friends. I have to fit a few hours in this weekend to make up for lazy doctors who are ruining my financial bottom line, but I have other options. I have a book to read and review by Monday, the winner of the Simon & Schuster Tell Me a Story Contest Farah Ahmedi, the tale of an Afghan girl. My landlady has also offered me some of her art work for my bare walls and I may talk to her about doing a little painting and personalizing. Then there are roots to dye and laundry to wash, dry, fold and put away. But the way the sky looks I doubt I can resist much longer.

Every day like this is another reminder that no day is just another day but a chance to live fully and completely.

I'll shut up now.

News Update

The emails and calls are coming in from writers who have known and worked with Andre Norton. They're all on board. Guess it's time to call Anne McCaffrey and take her up on introducing me to her agent and publisher and get the rest of this nailed down. How can they refuse with such a great list of authors?

The book is off and rolling.

That is all. Disperse.

Hit and run

Just a quick post because I cannot work and concentrate if I don't get the news out NOW!

This morning I found out I passed my exam to become a Volunteer Examiner (VE) for ham radio licensing and my badge was sent out yesterday. That means I will be attending my first hamfest (ham radio swap meet) on June 11 and I will also be a VE at my first licensing exams -- the first of many.

Now that I'm settled, I have sent out the advertisements and calls for those writers who have been touched by or written books with Andre Norton. I have a lot of heavy weight help backing me up on this and once the information is processed I will be a new associate member of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), which will go a long way towards helping me get the word out. It also means I will begin compiling the information and getting hold of all the letters, etc. I need to write the book...

...which means I have to finish my Victorian novel (and it's nearly done). From all accounts, there may be an auction for the Victorian novel and there has been some talk of movie tie-in, but that isn't nailed down yet. And you know how the Hollywood types like to talk. I'm in the "I'll believe it when I'm holding the check in my hot little hand" phase. But it does look good. So don't tell anyone. I don't want to jinx it.

That is all. Disperse.

Waving the white flag

In voodoo practice it is commonplace to invite the loa, or spirits, to possess you, especially during the dance. The loa are not always benevolent spirits but contain aspects of both the dark and light, like nature. And, like nature, a snake can be poisonous and even deadly, even though they are also powerful totems. They signify wisdom and renewal/rebirth.

I've always liked snakes of the reptile variety. I can't say the same thing for the human variety.

A 'friend' recently contacted me waving the white flag, saying they realized that there will be times we don't agree and that it doesn't have to wreck our friendship -- the same words I had been saying all along but which were ignored and treated as negative until they said them. That seems to be the usual route they take -- ignoring my words and ascribing negative and hurtful ulterior motives...until the words come out of their mouth.

Someone told me this morning that maybe it's because the person lost a friend recently and is reminded of the precious value of life and what they could be missing being around me. Then they warned me to keep my distance. I've accepted the apology in the interest of fairness, but I intend to keep my distance because I don't trust this person's motives. I cannot afford to trust them when I see the same pattern repeated over and over, just as it was when they waved the white flag the last several times.

It's hard to accept and trust anyone who uses every opportunity to take digs and throw in little zingers, like mentioning that people in a group, to which I no longer belong and which they do, had issues with me from the first but refrained from saying so out of deference to them and their friendship with me. This from people who have stabbed others in the back the moment they left the room. "I don't think she really belongs with us" and "He abuses my hospitality and takes advantage of my friendship without caring or realizing that he's doing it" are just two of the comments made about people they are supposedly so close with. I was also informed that the group is far from meltdown now that I'm gone and that they have continued to meet socially and ritually.

Like I said, always the zinger and the dig with the apology.

A comment they made about jealousy was also admitted, but it was put off on others and they then went on to say they didn't understand jealousy, citing an example of a world traveling and very successful person of their acquaintance, as if that made it so simply because they didn't want the same things. I have to wonder if the fangs are not indeed coated with venom. It wouldn't be the first instance of a foe or once-friend waving the white flag just to get close enough to press home the final attack.

That doesn't mean I distrust all white flags, but I do tend to distrust white flags with obvious splotches, blood and dirt on them. One thing I am certain of is that they blow hot and cold depending on their own needs and desires. The 'friend' is nearly finished with a project and needs a professional with excellent skills and a good sense of the markets to work with them. I'm sure they'd be willing to meet my price, but I'm not willing to sell out. Just as I am not willing to take anyone's views of my life and my situations at face value, especially someone who masks himself and gives the exact same view to two other people when it runs counter to their own personal code.

I cannot believe anyone who lurks in the shadows gathering information and evidence and spewing it out like venom for their own personal agendas. I am too wary and wise for that.

It does seem strangely interesting that the friend's MO remains the same: quarrel, deride and denigrate, obsequiously apologize (never forgetting to get in those digs and zingers) and then crawl back for more of the same -- until the next time the moon is full or they're on the emotional rag. I'm no one's punching bag and I have too much respect for myself to allow that loa to ride me or that venomous viper to get close enough to drive in the fangs.

It's one thing to accept an apology from someone; it's another thing entirely to believe they have changed and mean well when the venom is still dripping from the virtual pen. Let's just say that is one dark loa that will not be possessing me -- during the dance or otherwise.

Summer timed ill...

...this year. And last year, come to that.

It feels like Sunday. No cars whoosh down the road. The birds are on duty and the squirrels are playing tag up and down the trees, but people are scarce this morning.

Today and tomorrow are all that remain of the first half of the year and summer begins on Wednesday. It doesn't feel like summer. It feels more like spring, except there are no pastel flowering buds on the trees or bright tulips and crocuses cupping the sun. The green is darkening and the blush of returning warmth has reached its full potential. The Farmer's Market begins a week from Saturday and I will be out of town. Summer is here, but has timed it's arrival ill this year.

I'm still getting used to the weather on this side of the Continental Divide. Last year was rainy and cold and summer peeked in for two weeks and then disappeared in a flurry of white and more rain. There hasn't been much rain on this side of the mountains, but it is cooler than I expected from my trips here earlier in the year. That's a fascinating thing and I do love cool weather, but it's not what I expected.

The thing is, not much is what I expected most of the time. I'm still laboring under the old Chinese curse of living in interesting times. My times have been very interesting. People are coming and going in my life, which is par for the course, and life still astounds me. I'm glad I can still be astounded.

No need to shake up the ant farm when the ants have scattered and only return on occasion to borrow grains of sand and dirt or food fallen unnoticed. It's enough to see them when they crawl by, pick up a load and had back into the world, a moving speck in the corner of my eye that catches my attention for a moment and reminds me that the world keeps spinning and everything is as it should be...even when summer -- and life -- are ill timed.

Rainy days and Sundays...

...never get me down.

It was a gray day with off and on sprinkling rain, but a productive day in terms of rest and relaxation. I found a site to download movies to my computer. Granted Movie Flix has a lot of old and B movies, including some silents, but I do so enjoy all those old movies. I watched a few of my favorites and found some new ones to enjoy and $6.95 a month is pretty inexpensive.

I wanted to go to Territory Days today, but the rain kept me in -- and the movies. I had lots of phone calls to keep me company, too. I always get a kick out of friends calling on weekends just to say hello, especially when they're friends of so many decades. Deb is one of those and we always have good intellectual (and sometimes silly) conversations. Even after more than 20 years of friendship, we still have so much to talk about. My mother called to make sure I was alive, especially since her cell phone is free on the weekends, and I got calls from four other friends. Today was just the day for old friends...and one new one.

My landlady called up to say she heard me moving around up here and wanted to know if I like polenta and BBQ chicken. What can I say but -- YES! She said she wanted to make sure I had food and brought up a very tasty container of homemade polenta and BBQ chicken. We chatted and she said she finally heard me the other day. At first she couldn't identify the sound. She went all around her apartment downstairs listening, finally pinpointing the sound near a register between the floors. The sound was a soft, slightly sibilant snore and it was me. Naturally, I was embarrassed and she said not to be. It was the first time she heard it and she admitted she snores from time to time, but she snores so loudly sometimes she wakes herself up. Mine was more of a soft, ladylike snore -- if any snore can be called ladylike.

I'm getting plenty of work done on my novels despite my entrancing times with the old B movies, although I have found an old friend and favorite: Hedy Lamarr, not to be confused with Hedley Lamar of Blazing Saddles fame.

Hedy Lamarr was Austrian and one of the most beautiful women in filmdom. One of my favorite movies including Hedy is Cecil B. DeMille's Samson & Delilah where Hedy played opposite Victor Mature as Delilah. Today I saw Dishonored Lady where she played a powerful advertising art director and night time party girl who tries to commit suicide. Hedy is one of the truly great actresses and incredibly beautiful and evocative, not to mention sexy.

Another dark-haired beauty with a bit of an overbite that made the gents go crazy is Gene Tierney. My favorite movie of all time is Otto Preminger's film noir classic Laura with Dana Andrews, Dame Judith Anderson (although not a Dame yet), and the versatile, talented and handsome Vincent Price. Wonderful Clifton Webb plays the poisonous and oh-so-urbane, witty and word-wise Waldo Lydecker.

Another favorite Gene Tierney classic is The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (not to be confused with the 70s TV remake with Hope Lange), but the noir classic with Rex Harrison as the brooding, swearing and lively ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg. A very young and pretty Natalie Wood plays young Anna Muir.

When my mother called and I told her I was watching old movies on the computer, I could see her shake her head as she said, "I only need to see a movie once, but your father likes those old movies, too." Figures. I'm related to him.

There's something so rich and magical about old movies. The values were simpler, the story lines seductive and true-to-life, and Hollywood hadn't quite gotten in the way yet. To be sure there were happy endings, but they grew organically out of the story line and weren't tacked on to please a target audience or garner ratings. There were plenty of sad moments and unhappy endings, but the stories were real and rich and still hold their own even in today's world.

The actresses of those bygone days would probably not make it today because they aren't thin or emaciated enough, but they were real. They knew how to act and not just pretend. Comedy, even when it was slapstick and obvious was genuine and uncontrived. Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey with William Powell is a treat and still makes me smile at the end. Anything with Carole Lombard or William Powell is guaranteed to be classy and wondrous, deceptively simple and honest.

I see remakes today of the old classics, but even with high tech digitized color and sound, nothing compares to the originals. The acting leaves a lot to be desired and the comedy, when there is any humor at all, is more like a giant whoopee cushion in your face. Subtlety is gone. But time marches on.

Right now it's time for me to march back to bathroom and chisel the egg yolk masque off my congealed pores before I slip into bed with Stephen King -- or maybe Dorothy Parker.

You see? I swing both ways.