To be or not to be -- famous

Did the ancient artists who painted scenes on cave walls or laboriously turned over rocks on the desert plateau of Nazca care about whether or not they were famous, if what they did would have hundreds, thousands, even millions flocking to the sites to marvel at their artistry, their vision, or were they crackpots, crazy idiots who had nothing better to do with their time?

Today, the only thing that matters is if a book is a best seller. It doesn't matter whether or not the book is useful or even visionary, if it advances literature or is just plain artistic crap selling out like meatballs at a community fund raiser spaghetti dinner or bean feast.

The latest hype is dedicated to Bill Clinton's autobiography and everyone is surprised at the clamor for the book before it even launches. Small surprise, as the On the Media article states, since the media have hyped Clinton's latest public shell game like the second coming. A 957-page journey into the heart and mind of the most self aggrandizing and unrepentant publicity hound in recent history is worth about as much as a trip to the public library to read in the stacks. But the hungry masses will clamor for their own personal copy like anxious parents stampeding toy stores for Tickle Me Elmo or the latest must-have toy. Give me a break.

When did words cease to matter? When did literature become artistic crap that sells better than gold and lasts longer?

Earlier today I pondered those ancient artists who painted on cave walls, wondering if they were visionaries, priests, or crackpots. Did they know their work would remain for all time and mark them as the voice of their age? Does it matter? Isn't the fact that they existed enough? And if so, why does it matter that a wealthy parasite, who will feed off the bodies of the masses and take a percentage of their earnings for his own comfort for the rest of his life, has found yet another way to dip into the dwindling well and gather more wealth at the country's -- and the world's -- expense?

That time and circumstance made it possible for those ancient artists' work to endure doesn't mean we should be bilked into buying into yet another media hyped book with the staying power of dandelion fluff in a fire storm. How do we want to be remembered when our time is past, by the egotistical sensibilities of a Freudian wet dream or by the vision and words of true artistry? I guess in the end only time and circumstance will determine what will be saved and what will be lost to the ages. Of course, Clinton's book stands a chance of outdistancing everything worthwhile of words, thoughts, and deeds since there will be more of his books left behind for time to attempt to swallow. After all, it is harder to digest a dinosaur turd than it is to swallow a hummingbird's tongue.

High

I'm high. Not on drugs...on books. I found this incredible web site called Book Slut and have spent countless hours reading reviews and info on books and magazines and horror and erotica and so much more but I have to take a breath now. *deep breath* The site has been out there for two years, but I am new to the whole blogging thing and LJ and Dead Journal, and now Blog Spot and just getting around to what most of you probably already know.

In the parlance of Book Slut, I'm a research slut, a reading slut, a slut for all things literate and wordy and wonderful. I admit I'm a bit behind the times, but I've been working and traveling and making my way thru the world and didn't have time for anything else, other than some of my own writing. I have a stack of books on the bench at the end of my bed I have yet to get to read, but I'm getting there. I have boxes of books back in Ohio in storage and I have read all those, some of them more than once, and you should have seen the hundreds of books I sold off before I hit the road and ended up in the glorious Rockies. And that isn't even the half of it. I have been reading since I don't know when. A description from To Kill a Mockingbird is apt. Scout is talking about when she learned to read, sitting on Atticus's lap and watching his finger move across the page until the words began to make sense and she could read. I don't remember sitting on my father's lap while he read the newspaper or a book, but I do remember the moment when the words made sense and I was pretty young.

I was born with a love of books and now I have lots more to investigate and read and catch up. Oh, if I only had a hundred lifetimes and could read everything written: good, bad and indifferent. The feel, the scent, the touch of a book on my mind and heart and emotions, the way I feel when I read a really stellar piece of writing or laugh out loud with the really witty parts, even the groans when something really awful has been written. I am constantly amazed at the wondrous (and sometimes really bad) ways that people can take the basic plots and turn them into stories. I want to hold and caress and read and re-read every single book, but funds are a bit tight now. I need Helene Hanff's bookish and oh-so-British Frank Doel's help to find those inexpensive and wonderful volumes slotted on dusty shelves at 84 Charing Cross Road, although Hamilton Books does a really good job with the $1.95 remainder specials. You can find almost anything, but not everything, and I need everything. I want everything. I want to be fed intravenously and just read. I don't want to sleep or walk or do anything but read and then write what strikes my mind, stirs my passions, moves me. I want to be entertained, appalled, frightened, and transported to worlds of imagination and reality. I want more books.

In the meantime, in my temporarily (I hope) embarrassed financial circumstances, I will have to settle for my first taste of Salman Rushdie and A. S. Byatt from the public library's plastic encased volumes. And I am going to have to revisit Douglas Adams's Restaurant and Hitch Hiker in borrowed volumes. I may even take a quick foray back to the Known Universe with Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson among those crowded and public shelves instead of pulling a well loved copy from my own boxes and shelves. But read I will until my eyes can no longer see and my ears no longer hear and I must learn Braille to get my literary fix.

Time to go dress for the trip and pick up my public copies so I can rush back here to read and wallow and explore yet another adventure, discovering new faces and places and ways to write.

I don't need proof...

I sit here in the semi-darkness, the computer screen the only light in the loft and a small light on in the kitchen downstairs and beneath where I sit, pondering a phone call from my mother. It was past midnight in Ohio when she called and we picked up our usual half-argument about calling late and wasting money calling so often. "Didn't I just talk to you yesterday?" I asked before she could say it to me, although she called yesterday and tonight. "Well, if you don't want to talk to me..." At this point, I give in and our hellos are finished. It's a hold over from all the years of arguing and there is love in the exchange and a bit of laughter within the mock battle.

"Your father got your letter today," she said, her voice soft and almost secretive.

"I thought he might've and I was going to call but I know you would have a fit so I waited."

"He didn't say anything. You know how he is. Then he gave it to me to read and said it was nice."

Nice is my father's highest praise when he says anything at all, which is rarely. He doesn't read books. He reads the newspaper and watches television, but he doesn't read books and that is something I didn't realize until a little while ago. I can't ever remember seeing him read a book.

"Then your father started talking about growing up in that log cabin and how poor they were when his mother died. He said he wanted to give his children everything he never had and then he cried. In 54 years of marriage I have never seen your father cry."

"I saw him cry once at his father's funeral," I said, pushing the words past the growing lump in my throat and the rising tide of tears.

I wrote a poem for my mother for Mother's Day and she keeps reading it and tells me she still cries. I cried when I wrote it and she tells me I will never understand how much it means to her.

I don't have a lot of money and my father has a tendency to kill Bonsai trees, so I decided to make something to give him for Father's Day. I tried to write a poem, but nothing seemed right. Nothing came out the way I intended. Poetry isn't easy for me most of the time and other times it flows out of me like water from a hole in a dam. But my father loves to write letters so I decided to write him a letter.

"Your father put your letter back in the envelope and put it in his desk. He went into his office to write you a letter."

I am a writer and my gift is words. Lately, it seems my gift for words makes people cry, specifically my mother and father. I don't mean to make them cry, but I want them to know without a doubt how much I love them and cherish all the memories we share.
I have been plaguing my parents to sit down with a tape recorder and record all their stories and memories about their life so the stories, those bits of history, will not be lost when they are gone. I have had to face the fact that my parents won't always be there, that they are not the immortals I believed them to be as a child. They still see me as a child and I still see them young and strong and eternally there. We all have our illusions. But I do not want the illusion to include any doubts about my love and affection and respect for my parents and for the journey we have shared. I want there to be no doubt in their minds or mine about how precious and special each moment we share really is, and that includes all the fights and misunderstandings and mistakes, because without the path we have walked together none of us would be who we are at this moment.

My father has always feared letting those he loves know how much he loves them because early in his life everyone he loved disappeared. I think he now knows I understood his love even without the words.

This is what I wrote:

Dear Dad:

I wanted to send you a card, but funds have been tight. I thought about writing a poem, but wasn't sure if that was something you'd enjoy or even read more than once. Then I thought about just writing, knowing how much you love to correspond, and giving you a taste of my memories.

Most of all I remember dancing with you, my pudgy little hand in your strong giant hands, so gentle and yet so protective. Spinning me around and making my skirt fly out in a circle while you held Carol or Jimmy on your hip. I remember having to go to bed by myself while you carried Carol, telling me I was a big girl and too heavy to carry, but I went to my room and laid on the floor, pretending to be asleep, so you would have to pick me up and put me in bed, hoping I wasn't too heavy for that short little trip. I remember your smell of sunshine and after shave and the feel of your hands and fingers as you combed my wet hair into long curls and ringlets just like Shirley Temple. I remember the deep etched dimples in your cheeks and the crinkles around your eyes when you smiled and the sound of your laughter that tickled my heart, my ears, and my soul. I remember a green clad Santa carrying an olive drab duffel bag up the snowy sidewalk when Carol and I were making snow angels on the front lawn, your shoulders covered with falling snow and the unmistakable vision of you walking toward us.

I remember the wonderful smells that came from the kitchen when you cooked and the times you decided to teach us all the value of a dollar by making the meals from your childhood: cornbread and beans with fresh onions and fried cornmeal mush. You thought we'd feel sorry for you but all I felt was glad because the taste and smell of those meals linger with me still. I even buy cornmeal mush to fry and simmer beans in a pot all day just to be closer to you when I am far from home. I remember sharing secrets with you and learning about your childhood, scenes that have never faded from my imagination. I remember the log cabin sinking into the ground among the tobacco fields behind Great Grandma Cornwell's house in Cynthiana and the smell of the barn where tobacco leaves dried in the shadowy darkness. I remember riding roller coasters and exciting rides with you at Cedar Point and how much joy you got from just being alive.

I remember watching with pride as you marched in parades on base in Panama and other Army bases, knowing you the moment I saw you by the twinkle in your eyes and the distinctive way you walked. I remember purses you sewed from banana leaves when we lived in Panama and how you enjoyed the snakes as much as I did. I remember you lying on the tin casing of something or other in the back yard on our house on Terrace baking and broiling in the sun with your own concoction of baby oil and iodine, and the way you smelled of apple cider vinegar. I remember the way you worked with the German Shepards we raised and the way you played cards on weekends with your friends.

I remember the letters and pictures when you were posted to Korea and other places we could not go and the excitement and happiness I felt when we saw you again, not to mention the stories and tales of your adventures while you were gone.

But most of all I remember wanting to find a man as good, kind, devoted, loving, and wonderful as you to marry and spend the rest of my life with. I wasn't successful because you are a one of a kind item that has never been reproduced or can be replaced. It doesn't matter that sometimes you have a short temper or love to gossip because you are the best father a girl could ever have. You are a constant reminder that there are miracles in the world and I see them every time I look at you and remember and each time I hear you tell me you love me. I can still remember the first time you said those words to me and I never tire of hearing them. I love you now. . .

As always...

Free music

It seems that while I was sleeping the government, specifically Orrin Hatch, Rep senator from Utah (somewhere I used to live), is helping to draft a bill to curtail music theft on the Internet. I read it at News.com.

The article says, "Proponents argue that the bill focuses on curbing illegal activity on the Internet. "In the film 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,' the leering 'Child Catcher' lured children into danger with false promises of 'free lollipops,'" said Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Tragically, some corporations now seem to think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal; that they can legally lure children and others with false promises of 'free music'."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't music that comes over the air waves, AM & FM, free music? And can't you copy the music from the air waves, just like copying a movie on VHS, onto casette tape or burn that onto a CD? Can't you even make copies of that music and give it to your friends or copy your tapes and CDs and give them (or sell them) to your friends, relatives, etc.? Doesn't that also make music that you can listen to over the Internet air waves from Internet radio stations fair game?

That's not to say there isn't some free downloading and burning going on, but we aren't talking about people pirating music to make and resell CDs at a much more reasonable cost, but people listening to music over the digital air waves and burning a copy.

I'm not against making a profit -- and the music companies have made an obscenely large amount of profit at the expense of the consumer and the artist -- but doesn't this begin to smack of another loss of freedom? Think about it. If you can't download music from the net and burn it onto a CD or capture it on your MP3 player, then legally, with this bill in place, you also will not be able to do the same with music on the radio, television, or tapes you currently own or have borrowed from friends. It may seem like a big leap from a bill to shut down theft of music on the Internet, but it's really not. Give them an inch and the government will soon take a mile -- or much more.

A lot of this comes from the music industry who are down in the mouth about low bottom line profits. They are matching current sales since the advent of Internet music theft and piracy with sales in the recent past that show a distinctinly downward trend. Let's face it, the music industry has made us dance to their tune, like the mice in Hamelin dancing to the Pied Piper's tune, every time a new innovation in listening pleasure hits the market place. Old 78s gave way to 45s and LPs, which gave way to 8-track tapes, which gave way to casette tapes, which gave way to CDs, which gave way to MP3s and personal players like iPod. Every time a new way to listen to music comes out the consumer has to buy their favorite music on the new format, thus producing a very big spike in music sales, which the music industry execs believe should continue.

But let's be realistic. Even if a bunch of kids burn copies of their favorite music from Internet web sites, how much does that really amount to in dollars and cents? It's just like Bill Gates and Microsoft so upset about people sharing computer programs and causing them to lose a few hundred thousand dollars in a multi-billion dollar industry, so they made the new program CDs single use, which means you can't share files or programs and you can't even use the same program on more than one computer in your own home unless you either buy multiple programs or multi-user programs, which cost a great deal more.

What bothers me most about this, other than the beginning of the end of personal freedoms, is that the major American past time is no longer baseball, football, or even tennis and soccer, it's making money no matter how many people you have to step on or kill in the process. It doesn't matter that these corporate executives and bean counters make more money than they can possibly spend in their own or their offsprings' lifetimes for a good ten generations, but that it has all come down to money and the acquisition of money no matter what.

These wealthy piranhas talk about money as if it was the American dream, but that's not so. The American dream was a home of your own, a family, and a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. But watch out, folks, because that has been change, irradiated by greed and inoculated by selfishness to the point that the American dream has been perverted into wealth at any cost...and that includes the little people who make these people wealthy in the first place.

I'm not advocating theft, but I do believe there has to be a limit to what the greedy can take away from us. The question is whether or not we will continue to let the wealthy make policies that open the way for more loss of the freedoms we have all taken for granted or if we will all rise up and show them they can no longer climb to the top on our backs.

You don't realize it yet, but you and I are the ones who put the coins in these greedy biscuit eaters' pockets. We have the control and the money and if we keep it in our hot, grimy little fists they will not be able to take anything more away from us. We outnumber them and, as Rome found out in a very costly and dangerous campaign against an untrained band of slaves and gladiators, we can end their tyranny. Question is when will you get enough and put a stop to the greed and the parceling away of our freedoms bit by sneaky bit.

The Child Catcher indeed lured children with lollipops and treats, but this time it's the people who are being caught and sold a prison for the price of sugar candy.

Behind Friendly Lines

Several years ago I was given an assignment to interview a woman for a front page article in a local newspaper. I spent a lot of time with the woman as we talked about her past. After backing up the interview with a great deal of reading and research I wrote the article only to have the lead watered down, politically dampened, because the publishers didn't want to be controversial. That has always bothered me. When I sent a copy of the article to the woman I also sent her a copy of my original article, which I do not have here (it's in storage in Ohio). But the thought of how my lead was killed continues to bother me. So I offer the original lead here and a new lead closer to what I originally wrote. You decide which is more powerful and more telling.

Summer camp is a childhood institution in America, but for one Columbus woman, contemplating photos of herself as a child at "camp" brings back bittersweet memories of those times.

Here's the rewritten version:

While Hitler and the Nazis rounded up and confined Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and dissidents in concentration camps throughout Europe, America, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, rounded up Americans and confined them in camps. Their only crime was a Japanese heritage.

As American pundits debate the merits of demanding an apology from the Japanese for their role in the war that concluded with an atomic blast 50 years ago this month, Karen Jiobu looks back with mixed emotions on a childhood spent in part in an American internment camp.

In March of this year, Jiobu and her husband, Robert, their son, Eric, and other relatives and friends, gathered at the former Butte Camp internment site in Arizona to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their liberation, and to remember a family member who had died at Hiroshima.

In a halting, trembling voice, Karen Jiobu said in a recent interview: "I really never thought about camp until after I went to the reunion and took a communications class. I had to give a speech. I decided to talk about my experiences. I didn't have many memories. As I gave my speech, I started to cry. I didn't realize I felt such deep emotions." She smiles slowly, eyes bright with unshed tears.

Karen, now in her mid 50s, is an executive director of a medical laboratory here. She speaks willingly, but in a soft voice, of her experiences as a Japanese-American child growing up in a nation filled with fear. Her brothers and sisters tell their stories as though the happened to others; her mother and father never talked about their internment.

Robert Jiobu, a professor of Asian-American studies at OSU, declines to discuss his experiences at Amache, Colorado, where he was imprisoned on an isolated Indian reservation. Many more Japanese-Americans also prefer to remain silent.

Karen was three years old when she "went to camp." Her father, mother, grandfather, three brothers and three sisters went with her. Another brother was born at the camp, she said.

Karen's father, Mr. Yoshimoto, was a second-generation Japanese immigrant, a Nisei, born in Hawaii and educated in japan. Her mother was a first-generation immigrant, an Issei, from the west coast. Karen, a Sensei, or third-generation immigrant on her father's side, and Nisei on her mother's side, call herself "Nisei-and-a-half." She says she is American-, as was her father.

Karen describes her father as "a strict man who sought only to make a better life for his family." Before the war, he provided camp housing for laborers he contracted with for local grape growers.

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, catapulting U.S. forces into Word War II, Karen's father worried about his family's future freedom. He feared repercussions.

In the meantime, U.S. officials, themselves fearful of Japanese involvement with Germany, had been keeping a wary eye on the japanese-American community on the west coast through FBI investigations. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had been changed from the protective jurisdiction of the Department of Labor to the punitive control of the Department of Justice, and an Alien Registration Act was enacted in June 1940.

Though FBI agents failed to find any evidence of subversive activities among the Japanese-American population, they continued to watch-and wait.

The future that Karen's father dreaded became reality on February 19, 1942 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, which forced more than 100,000 Japanese-American families to be incarcerated in hastily constructed wood-and-tarpaper barracks in the desolate, arid, harsh interior of America on Indian reservation lands.

"I was only three years old when a stranger came and told my father we had three days to pack. Many things were sold or left behind," Karen said. The Yoshimotos were taken to Stockton, California and housed in animal pens on the fairgrounds. They had to clean out the horse stalls at the Santa Anita racetrack stables where they lived while waiting for other internees, who were being assembled, processed and assigned.

Karen's family was sent to Gila River, a bleak expanse of scrub, rocks, and desert just outside Phoenix on the Pima Indian reservation.

"I had never seen so many Japanese people in one place before," Karen recalls.

Freedom could be obtained-but at a price. Draft age Japanese-American males could secure the freedom of their families by signing a loyalty oath.

The price was too high for Mr. Yoshimoto. "My father refused to sign," Karen states. "He was an American, born in America, raised in America, and treated like a criminal because of his race. He was hurt and angry. It's like being the victim of rape. Everyone wonders what you did to deserve it. We did nothing; we were just different."

At Gila River, Karen's entire family was housed in half of one barracks building. Her aunt and her family lived on the other side. A wall separated one family from another. "There was a pot-bellied stove, and mother always told me to watch out for Gila monsters," poisonous lizards common on the Arizona desert. "I played and had fun. I don't remember much," Jiobu commented.

"My older sister Bev was 16 when we went to camp. She graduated high school there." Karen has Bev's high school yearbook. It shows the haunting faces of young men and women playing basketball, baseball and attending meetings, school and dances at the camp. "I can remember running up a hill to see movies at the amphitheater the government built," Karen recalls, with a smile. She points to a photo of a large, flat-topped hill. "The water tower was on top of a butte. That's why the called it Butte Camp.

"When we went back to the camp in March [of this year] I picked up a piece of barbed wire and kept it. I shouldn't have; it's probably illegal. I thought it was from the camp, but my brother, Bob, told me they took the barbed wire down after six months and put up chain link fences."

Karen has two albums full of pictures of Block 30 where her family lived. "Not everyone had to go to camp. Bev had a friend who lived near the camp. She was Japanese-American, too. Her family wasn't interned." Karen's voice breaks.

"Once when Bev wanted to visit her, she had to write to Washington, D.C. to ask permission. Even when she wanted to spend the night with her friend, she had to write to Washington for permission."

Some Japanese-Americans were never interned because they lived outside what the U.S. government considered the "danger zone" on the Pacific west coast.

"When Bev graduated from high school she left. If you were old enough, you could leave early if you moved to the east coast and had someone to sponsor you. Bev's sponsors lived in Michigan."

After the war ended, Karen stayed in camp because her father refused to sign the loyalty oath. "He was angry and hurt. He was American. He shouldn't have had to sign." Eventually Karen's family was freed, though her father never signed the oath.

When they returned to California, the Yoshimotos settled in Woodbridge in a house on two acres. It was very different from the home they had left in 1943. They had to start over. "Before we went to camp my father had just bought his first new car."

While striving for some normalcy in this post-war world, the Yoshimotos suffered a serious setback. News finally reached them from Mrs. Yoshimoto's family in Japan, where two of her sisters owned a slipper shop. One sister had left the city and asked the other to stay behind and mind the store. That day an atomic bomb destroyed their home in Hiroshima, killing one of Karen's aunts. "My aunt always blamed herself for leaving her sister at home. My mother was devastated. She never went back to visit.

"After the war I saw the Hiroshima maidens. They were young women disfigured in the blast who were brought to the U.S. to have plastic surgery. They visited all the Japanese-American communities and spoke. I can still remember seeing their veiled faces."

Karen has no picture of the Hiroshima maidens, but she has an album full of photos, souvenirs, and memories from a recent visit to Japan. The blasted, broken carcass of a building sits like a stark monument amid modern Hiroshima's cars, people and temples. The shadowy figure of someone caught in the hellish atomic blast is darkly etched on two marble stairs. A children's memorial rises through flowering trees where it is decorated with heaps of thousands of brightly colored origami chains. "It is so beautiful," Karen whispers.

"When I talked to Bev, she reminded me about what happened after we moved back to California. My father saw someone coming up the road and ran out to look. He said it was a stranger. He called to mother and told her to pack. Mother didn't questions him. She began to pack. I hadn't remembered that until Bev told me.

"Father always lived with the fear that the government would send us away again. I don't understand what [the government was] afraid of. Most Issei were too old to fight the Nisei and Senseis were Americans.

"I just wish my parents could have lived to see President Bush personally apologize to all the Japanese-Americans who were interned. A couple of years ago the government gave each survivor $20,000. The apology was enough; I was very touched, but the money made it real for [the rest of America]."


What's your verdict?

This article originally appeared in Columbus Alive!, an alternative newspaper.

I don't know

In going back thru all the files and emails I save on acceptances and rejections, I discovered I've been busier than I thought. I missed a few in the first go around, but hopefully I have caught them all and now I can keep better track of what I write and submit. I do keep copies of everything, but I like to have them in a couple places just in case. One thing is certain, the new program will keep me from shuffling papers. I tend to forget to write things down and by the time I get around to it I forget half of what I should write down. I love my new program, although it is a bit difficult to handle right now. I'll get better and I feel much more organized and in charge of my writing and submissions.

Submission. That word conjures so many different thoughts, most of which should like in my memory and not be expounded on here. Like a certain private joke with someone who is gone from my life. If he ever wandered over here and read this he would know exactly what I mean and might even smile. You just never know. I keep hearing about how the world is getting smaller and smaller and the degrees of separation are shrinking. Personally, I'd rather have no degrees of separation in this instance, but what I want usually has very little context in reality. C'est la vie.

My mind flits and flutters from thought to thought and there have been few people who can keep up when I'm thought hopping. One of those is elementalmuse. We share many attributes. Don't worry. They're mostly good ones. There are many parallels in our lives and I see myself ten years ago in her, and not just because she is nearly 10 years younger than I am. See us together and you'd think we were either sisters or very good friends. In many ways we are both.

Back to thought hopping.

For some reason, writing and how much space we take up popped into my mind.

I was watching Hearts In Atlantis and the difference in how we write and how much space we take up was right there while Brautigan was writing on the inside of a matchbook cover. Have you ever noticed how much space you take up as a child? When you first learn to write, the letters are sprawling circles and lines written with pencils that small hands clutch with a death grip, just trying to hang on. The awkwardness of untrained muscles and ligaments and tendons forced into an unfamiliar exercise that becomes easier with time, the lopsided and disjointed circles and loops coming closer together, merging, taking on a reality that conforms to the letters banding the top of the blackboard. As we get older and learn more, the pencils are smaller and the letters corresponding smaller to fit the smaller lines on the paper. When I was a child, we progressed to cursive and then to ink pots fitted into the strange and incomprehensible metal banded holes in our desks and the first scritch-scratching ink-bloody letters from a metal nib on a tooth-marked and gouged wooden pen. No, it wasn't in the 19th century, but just a few decades ago back in the 1960s. I'm not as old as you think and I'm older than you know, but that's another topic for another time.

Then the advent of ink pens, usually blue capped Bic pens (black for the rebels), and theses and themes and papers written in ink to be handed in. The letters are smaller, more precise (for most of us), and they acquire character, a reflection of who we are. Just as the big circles and lines made with tree trunk pencils on gray-brown big lined paper when we were children, we took up more space as children -- not physically but really. We were short (most of us anyway) and grownups towered over us, but we were important, special. Our shouting and dreams and wishes and emotions took up all the space and air around us...just like the letters we fashioned.

As we grew taller and older, our letters were smaller, conforming to the world around us as we conformed to the rules and expectations of parents, relatives, friends, and society. Some of us kept writing in big bold letters, topping Is with hearts or smiling faces, precisely placing cross bars on Ts, drawing big loops to take up more space. Those were the school rulers, the elite, the beautiful and athletic, the rulers of our youth. Occasionally, some wallflower made their letters big and bold, a bluff, a wish, a desire to be more. The rest of us wrote smaller, some with precision and style and others almost to disappear into the lines and flesh of the page. Left handed writers' words slanted oddly, the letters thin and cramped like their fingers as they fought to train their muscles to perform right-handed tasks with left-handed minds.

Then came typing. Pica fonts at first to better able to see our mistakes and then elite fonts for a precise small look, taking up less space, letting the words speak for themselves. But the size of our letters and the space we take up is already indelibly etched in the curves and whorls of our brains. Our personalities, maturity, dreams, wishes, and thoughts revealed in signatures and handwritten secrets laid bare to the knowing eye. Even our moods can be traced thru our writing. Nothing is secret if you have the key.

But time marches on and the space we take up changes, expanding and contracting with changes in our personalities, our dreams, our lives, until in old age we are back to gripping larger pens and pencils, some with rubbery centers to accommodate arthritic fingers unwilling to obey mental impulses, our letters growing in size as we diminish in height and importance. At last, we are back to big circles and lines that may or may not connect as flailing arms and wide based gaits help us balance and move thru life taking up more space for our shrinking forms. Life comes full circle. The little flat chested pot bellied forms of childhood revert to sagging breasted flat chested pot bellied forms of old age. We end where we began: uncoordinated entities taking up much more space than our size seems to need.

Like I said, thought hopping.

I'll shut up now.

Books for soldiers

There is a certain sense of trepidation in writing to someone you have never met and know nothing about. I have had pen pals in the past, but always knew a little something about them before I wrote. As I looked over the listings of service men and women who wanted and needed news from home, books, hygiene supplies, and to know that someone cared, I was caught by the overwhelming response and wondering where I could fit something in, give a little something back. I don't have much and lately I have had a lot less, but I feel a kinship with these people who are so much like the men and women among whom I grew up as a child of a career Army NCO. I know how much they miss their families and how difficult it is to get thru the days without news from home or news from anyone.

I found one order for books unfulfilled and offered a hand, but I kept looking, half afraid that I would not be equal to the task of corresponding with a stranger. Not that talking (or writing for that matter) has been a problem for me before, but I really know nothing about any of these people. I finally chose a staff sergeant (laughing as I did at an entry to the call for letters asking what SSG stood for) and hopefully he will find something to give him a smile or just a moment to know he is not alone.

On another tack, I am faced with a clear slate at last -- well, mostly a clear slate. I find that the editor in chief of The Rose & Thorn has not publicized the staff issue or the contest, thus making sure there will be very few entries to judge and my last official act will die ignobly. So I'm asking all my LJ friends to get out there and buy a copy. Surely you can afford $3.00 for a superb and beautiful magazine you can read at your leisure during those long hot summer days while you bask by the pool or gobble ice cream and iced tea, water, or coffee, something shorter than a novel and sometimes even short enough for a quick read before you head to bed or to the beach or wherever. You don't have to enter the contest, but you could buy the issue and send the entry information to a poor writer friend who would like to enter but cannot afford the modest entry fee. I guarantee you will enjoy at least some of the issue, dependent upon your tastes and proclivities (there's even a bit of erotica between the otherwise PG-rated chaste pages) and an incredible three-way interview with three of the best known, award winning writers of science fiction & fantasy of our generation: Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. So you see there is something for everyone's tastes: a little romance, a bit of horror, some poetry, a taste of tittilation, and some really great illustrations, which I chose personally.

So, if you love good literature, funny and poignant stories, or poetry of every stripe and you don't mind a bit of high brow pedantic writing, go check out the staff issue and make me proud. Make my swan song one that will echo for a while and not go unheard and unremarked.

That is all.

I'll shut up now.

Another day, another review

I just looked out the window. The sky is a back lit pale blue, white around the edges, and it looks like someone has smeared dirt in swaths up and down above the trees in the north. Some of the dirt is paler, almost cream-colored, from the light of the sun going down. The pine trees are bending in the wind and the day is nearly gone. A sudden flash of lightning is followed by a crashing boom that reverberates beneath my feet in my loft office, but the sky is a bit lighter still out the office window and darker thru the windows at the south of the cabin over the deck. Another storm on its way.

This has been a week of violent thunderstorms, sleet, hail, and electrical outages. Three mornings I have awakened to the clock radio at my bedside blinking 12:00. After checking the time on my watch I see that anywhere from 7 to 9 hours have passed while I slept soundly. This feels more like spring in Ohio than summer in Colorado, but then again I'm not sure what summer in Colorado is supposed to be like. Somehow I doubt there will be another drought this year and the forests will be safe yet again from fire. Last summer I spent in a basement apartment with my nose pressed to the screen of a computer either designing and maintaining two web sites and doing my regular job. I came out of my hole in the ground to buy groceries and follow thru on appointments, but little else. When I came up here at the end of last July it was warm and sunny and clear with only one day of rain and electricity the whole time. So, I'm not quite sure what to expect. One thing is always certain, change is inevitable and constant.

Despite the late start and inability to get online -- and getting kicked offline by the thunderstorms running thru here off and on all day -- I managed to finish a book and a review to go along with it. A book about organization, which I sorely need, but which I have been lax about since I came to Colorado. Back home in Ohio in storage my filing cabinet, files, and organization waits in the dark. I began traveling without it and I miss the comfort and security of knowing exactly where everything is, from interview and research material to paid and unpaid bills, manuscripts, and article ideas. While the book was interesting and somewhat helpful, it gave me what I've been meaning to design for myself -- a database for submission tracking. I have one at Writer's Market Online, but I seldom use it. Too cumbersome and I get out of the habit. Today, I changed my laziness and downloaded a submission tracker and took most of the afternoon and evening inputting all the data I had written out on a homemade sheet that was difficult to read. (I have a tendency to scribble when I'm in a hurry) At least it's all down there, even though I discovered that some places where I submitted poetry or stories are either missing. I've probably written down the wrong website or not enough information to find it again. Oh, well, if they accept me they'll let me know; if not it will sit on my tracker like some of the stories I sent out about four years ago I've yet to hear about. Oh, I've contacted the publishers, but they have no record of having received my submission. Considering how many submissions they get and since they don't know me from the rest of the slush pile, it's not all that surprising.

I did realize thru all this that I have had a goodly number of acceptances and some of my work will be published this summer and followed by checks. I do need to get on the ball and get more of my work out there, but this had to be done first so that all I need do is input one submission instead of 100. Getting things like that together are much harder than keeping them up once they're set up.

I also had a program for inputting expenses and income, but that is on a computer I can no longer access because it just makes funny noises when I boot it up. I'll get it back eventually, but in the meantime I need to get hold of some of the software stored in Ohio so I can put the programs on these computers and get back on track. I prefer a certain amount of clutter, but not when it means I will have to pull out my hair come tax time. I like having hard copies and backups. It's the only anal retentive part of me, but it worked for me in the past. And I'm sure none of this is important to anyone but me.

In some ways I have been tentative about putting down any deep roots because I never know from one year to the next where I'll be. I admit to wanting to stay here for the foreseeable future and I am fighting to stay here, but if I can't generate a sufficient income I may have no choice but to go back to Ohio or get a regular job and drain all my creative energy into someone else's business instead of my own. Maybe if I had a regular queue of students for my online course on characterization, I wouldn't worry so much, but there are so many online courses out there given by people who have been teaching them longer than I and they have better publicity. I guess I'll have to work on that.

Another reason for getting things organized today is that I want a long peaceful day to work on the next phase of hoops I need to jump thru in order to be chosen as acquisitions editor for a publishing house. They are impressed with my qualifications and background, but I am one fish in a teeming pond -- or so they say. After this hoop, supposing I actually get thru it without getting stuck or falling on my duff, I have one more hoop to jump thru. I wonder what new torture they will devise. The review sheet is detailed enough and they expect me to be able to do 3 to 4 submissions an hour, including the review. Thank Providence or Talent or someone/something that I type very, very fast or I would be in trouble.

Anyway, I could use a break and I should fix something to eat, but I'm not really hungry and I feel energized. Don't know why, especially since my left shoulder is a bit sore. I guess I'll dive into the market listings and see what kinds of stories and articles and essays I can turn out before tomorrow, always supposing I can actually write something worthwhile. In the meantime, I'll play a little Pyramid and take a deep breath before the plunge thru the hoop.

One more thing . . . have you seen Big Fish? I didn't think I was going to like it, but after I got into it (about two minutes) I found myself walking the fantasy road with the characters. I love Albert Finney and Susan Sarandon, although in a very small part, was quite ingenuous and sweet. It was the story of a many with big dreams and the ability to spin stories around the simple facts of his life that make them magical and special. His son hates the stories and his father's "lies" until he finds out everything he has believed about his father was a mistake. At the center of each story was a big kernel of truth and at the center of the fantasy was the constancy and love of his family who, to him, were reality while everything else was fantasy. Sorry if I'm giving away the plot, but it is a wonderful story. And there have been so many wonderful stories lately, like Life as a House, which I believe should have won more acclaim from critics and the Academy. Kevin Kline has never been more on his game and the story is just wonderful. A simple story of life and fear and estrangement and redemption wound in and around the building of a house and a gift. Made me realize that I don't want to wait until (or if) I'm diagnosed with a terminal illness to realize my dreams or tell the people I love how much I love them. Life is about living and loving and regrets are for never.

Despite coming to Colorado under false pretenses and being cheated and lied to, I have no regrets. I have a wonderful, if quiet, life and I'm happy even with the sword of Damocles hanging over my head. I can either live my life and forget the sword is above me or I can waste my life testing the hair and worrying when it's going to fall. I may die tomorrow or next week, but for now, for this moment, I'm going to wallow in life and live my dreams. I don't want to wait until I'm too old or sick to enjoy them. No time like the present to live. To me, that's what living is for -- living.

Did you ever...

really listen to classical music, especially Rachmaninoff?

I spent the day lost in a fog of music and thunderstorms that made my phone connection unstable. I kept getting cut off. But I listened to the music, really listened, and was transported to a place where emotions had touch, sound, taste, feel, and view. A storm raged outside the windows, lashing the deck with fury at being kept back for so long. Thunder exploded in bursts like roars of joy and exaltation while lightning, purple and white jagged tridents, split the steel gray sky and torrents of fresh ozone scented rain battered the dry ground. All the while Rachmaninoff with his lyric notes wound in and around a deeper more intense and darker background bass thunder, matching the story outside and inside me, coaxing and then ripping emotions to the surface where they were washed in the lash of chorded notes and pummeled with deep rumblings until I was washed clean and bright and new.

I don't know what made me choose Rachmaninoff or why I chose Mozart to follow, but the music I thought would help me focus on writing and the changing nature of my life changed me. I remember reading something by Laura Equivel, a story set in the near future when certain music is banned from public consumption because of the emotions and memories it triggers. Music is used only by trained professionals and only as prescribed by the medical conventions. Some music is outlawed completely and even the professionals are not allowed to listen to it alone or outside clinical constraints.

It always seemed strange to me that people who love new music (new age, hip hop, dance music, pop, rock, etc.) never took the time to really listen to classical music. Maybe they were afraid they would be changed. They were right. Music does change us, especially when it is more than background noise in elevators and on hold lines. The same notes I learned to play as a child, single simple notes, EGBDF, FACE, all of them, sharps, flats, naturals, and all the different times and paces, are just notes, simple, single notes that in the right framework and in the hands of a master can turn us inside out or spur our mental faculties to undreamed of heights. I guess that's why I love musicals so much, because life is better with a score. No words are needed, just the music.

When movies first came out, organists played special scores to go with the action on the screen, wringing tears and emotions, laughter and fear, and even amazement with the sound. The words didn't get in the way. There was only the music and the scenes unfolding before your eyes in a black and white world full of adventure, love, diversity, poverty, happiness, everything you could imagine. But always there was the music, weaving a spell in and around the scenes, and transporting you to another world that left you blinking and straining to see back in the bright sunlight outside the womb of the theater.

So today, and tonight, I bare my emotions and my thoughts and prepare the inner ground for a new day, a new life, a new way of working and writing, hoping the music will cast a spell on me and magically change my mundane words into something more, something as much like the music I love as it is possible.

The past is gone, a tear stained memory of what might have been, and the future is here, a lover reaching to take my hand. I accept.

cool meme

Yoinked from Sarah, the divineneutrino



Which Extremity of the World Are You?
From the towering colossi at Rum and Monkey.


And since I'm trying to conserve energy and space (I'm about to embark on a day-long writing fest), I'll add my quickie here.

Nothing much to tell. Got a great night's sleep (when I finally went to bed) and woke up to a beautiful blue cloudless sky and my plants flourishing in the sun. Didn't have to water anyone this morning since they had a drink sometime during the night and seem to have enough of the life giving liquid. Didn't have to deplete my Nile capacity, so to speak.

I had a wonderful idea for a Cup of Comfort story on love that is due today. For some reason, I had the overwhelming urge to call my Mom well past the last call time (that's 10:00 p.m.) and told her I wanted to make sure she knew I loved her. She said she knew. I felt better after that. Don't know why.

But here's the schedule today:

1. Write story for Cup of Comfort for Love
2. Make card for Father's Day and write poem for same
3. Write inspirational story for Byline Magazine
4. Write paranormal column
5. Write Grammar Goofs column
6. Write P&P column for Litha
7. Write last book review due
8. Take mail to post office
9. Get something to eat NOW!

So, later, folks. I'm going to be writing. Email if you'd like just to give me a break now and then and in the meantime -- ENJOY THIS BEAUTIFUL DAY wherever you are.

I choose happiness

How can anyone be sad when there is such beauty in the world?

My little sister emailed with such feelings of sadness and pain that it hurt to read her words. I know she is having a very rough time just getting back to work and into the swing of things and she is unhappy with her life and the rest of the world. I know how that feels, how you feel there is nothing but clouds and rain and pain in your future and it will never end. No homily or bromide, like "tomorrow's another day" or "things will get better" or "time heals all wounds" and such, is going to help. Of course tomorrow's another day. What would it be? Another month? Another week? Another yesterday? Things do get better but they also get worse. And time doesn't heal ALL wounds. Sometimes the wounds get worse and never heal or you die. How's that for reality?

Pain is inevitable. It is inherent in the process of living. So we have to hang on, with our fingernails and teeth if necessary, to every bit of happiness we can find. Pain only lasts as long as you give it space in your mind. Drugs don't help; they just postpone the pain and make it worse when the drugs aren't available any more, adding the pain of withdrawal. Using drugs is like wearing thick socks and heavy shoes to protect your feet and then taking them off and walking over gravel or thorns. If you're not used to it, you're going to be in pain until the calluses form and protect your feet. Why do you think they call it tender foot?

Someone once told me love is a choice. I believe happiness is a choice. Like today, for instance.

I drove down to the post office to mail my DVDs back to Netflix and pick up my mail. The sky was clear and blue and in the distance between the trees the mountains were frosted with snow. The scene was perfect. On the side of the road a doe grazed sweet green shoots and watched me drive by and stop. She grazed on, pricking her ears from time to time, and moving into the shadow of a bush when I didn't move on. A little red fox raced across the road and slipped into the shadows of a low bush. Gary Puckett sang to me and I sang along as I drove. A breeze tickled the loose hairs around my neck and ears and the sun was warm on my skin. Yellow and white flowers spread along the side of the road and aspen tree leaves, lime green now, shook as I drove by. On the way back home, heavy cotton puffs clumped above me, piling up and turning gray, but were unable to cover the sun for long or block out the deep blue of the sky. A foaming surf of cloud horses race toward the blue shores, mares' tails whipping in a wind I cannot feel high above me. Hummingbirds greeted me when I got out of the car and butterflies of all colors flit floated on an errant breeze. The ground glitters with sun struck bits of gold, fool's gold, and the air is warm and redolent of the deep musky scent of pine trees almost ready to let fly with their green pollen.

Inside, the laundry is ready to go into the dryer and it smells clean and fresh. A bunch of yarrow and some yellow lupine-looking sprig go into water in a window to root and another bigger bunch of bright white yarrow with its tiny yellow centers are banded and hung upside down in the bedroom closet to dry and scent the air. On the deck, hummingbirds scold and dog fight, spiraling up into the sky until they are pin point specks of black. At the top of their flight, they jackknife back down to the earth whirring so close I can feel the breath of their blurring wings. I chitter at them and they gather closer, racing in for a quick sip and then back out again, whizzing and whirring by me in all sides like bees around a busy hive. Little white topped weeds straggle along the rocky ground beneath the deck and butterflies dance on the breeze. And I'm happy.

Music greets me inside and there is work to be done, but I can focus happily because I know all this beauty will await me when I am ready to look up and greet it again.

I don't have a lot of money and it will be weeks before I have any more. I don't know where the money will come from, but it doesn't matter; it will come. It doesn't matter when or from where because at this moment I am happy and at peace. I have a wonderful, if spartan, life and I have everything I need. When I need more it will be here.

For today, for this moment, I choose to be happy.

Nerve

I just don't believe it. I have done everything possible to make my leaving The Rose & Thorn as painless as possible. The only thing that remains to be done is something I started last week, which is dealing with tech support about the bulletin boards. I started the contact and feel I should continue with it until everything is done and I have left the website better than I found it. It's just a character flaw. One of many, I assure you.

This morning I received a message from the Editor in Chief letting me know that my services were no longer required and I should let the new coders have the access codes so they can get on with the fall issue. I've already given the coders the access codes (I sent them last week), but I asked they not mess with the Cpanel until I had the boards' problem resolved. They said they would leave it untouched. Evidently, the EIC didn't get THAT message either. She gets so few of the messages I, and some of the other staff members, send unless it's something she wants to know or see.

In her message to me this morning, she also notified me that SHE would contact the host and change over ownership of the site. I explained that's sort of like me going to her bank and telling them I would handle all her checking and credit card accounts from that point on. I believe that is considered theft or fraud or something equally illegal and un-lovely. She just can't wait to get rid of me, so maybe she did get my message about her attitude, micro-managing, and stealing ideas she had publicly decried two weeks or so before she decided to send them out as her own. The tone in her email is dismissive, rude, and disrespectful. She is done with me and she wants control NOW!

I wouldn't have a problem with it, except that once I start a project I like to finish it. That's the way I am.

Her last email told me she was contacting the new coders and would let me know when they had finished contacting the host to change over ownership. So I have emailed her backup copies of the boards and I am now on the phone with the host to change over ownership. I should just let her try to change over ownership and see what happens when they tell her they can't and then conveniently not get her email messages demanding I give her ownership.

New wrinkle. I just talked to the host and in order to transfer ownership of the site I have to fill out papers and send them in. She's not going to like that at all. Gee, that's too bad. Should I take my time filling out the papers and sending them in? I don't know about that, but one thing I do know is that I can't wait to email and tell her.

Sorry, another character flaw. I like to made rude, dismissive, and otherwise disrespectful people wait. Don't you?

Wonky

Yesterday was full of wonky weather. I woke up to snow, which quickly melted, and then was assaulted off and on all day with rain and ominous gray skies that promised more fury but passed on without unleashing it here. Until about 6 when a tremendous crack of lightning announced a hail storm. I ran downstairs as fast as my screwed up knee would allow and brought all my plants inside sustaining very little damage to them but ending up looking like I had some mutant form of chicken pox all over. I have extremely sensitive skin and every exposed surface was marked in red by the hail that hit me. I'm sure there were red circles all over my scalp, too, but I didn't think to check. Seeing my arms, legs, and cleavage was enough. Later on that evening, just before sunset, the skies let loose with their promised fury and rain lashed the deck and everything in sight, the trees bending nearly horizontal in the face of battering winds. I'm not certain, but I may lose some of my seedlings. I hope their root systems are strong enough that I will only lose the leaves and some flowers and they will bounce back, but I'm not sure at this point if I will ever be able to leave my babies outside in this unpredictable weather. Oh, well, at least that means more oxygen and cleaner air for me in here.

Today the sky is full of dirty gray rags bunched up to let loose more fury, but to the south the snow capped mountain peaks are gleaming white in the sun and a patch of blue like a perfect aquamarine winks thru the trees. I guess I'll see.

In the meantime, I'm off for a shower and to do a little laundry so I have something to wear to go to the movies to see Harry Potter before he's gone. I'd rather not brave the screaming kids on a Sunday afternoon, but there's only one showing on weekdays and when it lets out the roads are blacker than the pits of hell and not even high beam cuts a clear path very far ahead. At 65 mph that's asking for an accident, especially with jerks screaming by on the two-lane highway or riding my bumper. I'm not a nervous driver, but I know my car's limits and I don't exceed them (unless absolutely necessary) because I have a particular fondness for continuing my existence.

Anyway, off to the shower to bask in chamomile scented lather and douse my scalp with rosemary tea and more scented lather. Must be working. My previously silver roots are going back to my original brown. I can live with that.

I'll shut up now.

A bright new day

Can you belive it? I woke up to snow. It didn't last long, but my plants were outside (and have been for weeks) and I was worried they would be dead. I lost two tiny tomato plants, but I have seedlings in the house that are just the right size to transplant . They're tall and strong and not likely to die from shock. I have lots of seedlings I wanted to plant in the half whiskey barrels this weekend, but I'm not sure I should take the chance if it's going to continue to snow. I'll have to wheel the whiskey barrels into the house and grow my little garden inside.

I'm not sure what changed between yesterday morning and some time last night, but I feel wonderful. I feel light and airy and happy, which has been a foreigner in these parts for a couple weeks and very unlike my usual blithe nature. I'm not sure if it was severing ties with R&T or having a very sexy and young sounding Mexican gentleman flirting with me on the phone -- and thru email -- but something has changed for the better. Last night while I waited for elementalmuse to get back to me for the next Scrabble play, ideas started whirling around in my head--ideas for writing and stories and promotion. I feel positively rejuvenated and ready for action. Suddenly, all the work I needed to do in writing columns, articles, etc. has turned back into the writing I can't wait to do. Lately, it has seemed a chore, almost a burden with everything else I had to do, and now everything seems possible again. I can't wait to fire up the screens and put all these buzzing ideas down on virtual paper and send them out because I know they're winners and they are the answer to my financial distress.

I had the greatest idea for promoting my Jekyll & Hyde book, but I'm not telling it here because I'm afraid all you hungry and avaricious writers will want to borrow the idea before I can use it. I'm not sure it is something that can be used more than once, but it will definitely make a big splash when it works. Just think, I get to be the first one to devise a new marketing strategy -- finally. I've been the first before, but it has always been for someone else. This time, I get to be the first for me. Yippeeee!!

And I have a couple of really great article ideas, one of which I intend to pitch to Playboy magazine. Yes, drjeff, Playboy actually publishes articles as well as sex and cheesecake. It comes from past experience, but how many married or involved men do you know whose girlfriends/spouses have cut them off from their friends and families so the only friends and families they communicate or interact with are the spouse's/girlfriend's? This is a form of abuse. It's a silent form and I doubt it has received much press and no one has ever done a made-for-TV-movie about it either. I'm thinking about calling it Silent Eunuch or Silent War or something like that. Don't know for sure, but I think this is something that needs to come out of the closet. Besides the fact that Playboy pays a lot for feature articles, since men are the target audience, it's a great way to disseminate the information and reach the right people. Playboy may not go for it, but there are lots of men's magazines and, if nothing else, I can hit the major market magazines if that doesn't work. Somehow, I think Playboy will snap it up. I just have to find the data and interview some men, but I know where I can go for that, and it wouldn't hurt to get an expert opinion from, say, a sociologist or perhaps psychologist. Know any who might be interested?

The thing is that most men either don't recognize what has happened, that they've been systematically cut off from their supportive friends and family, or they do know and aren't going to come forward with the info because it's emasculating and demeaning. They have been turned into virtual eunuchs guarding a harem of one and it happened so slowly and methodically they didn't notice until it was too late.

I have lots of other ideas, but I'm not leaving them out for you vultures to work over, so you will just have to wait until they're posted as fait accomplis.

Did you know that you can translate words and phrases and sentences from English to French, Spanish, etc. and vice versa? I figured it out yesterday when I was trying to decipher my Mexican gentleman's quip about writers without pens, who, btw, is named Juan (that's John to all you gringos). He was nice enough to tell me about the best possible tequila on earth -- Don Julio -- and he told me I was witty and intelligent and someone he enjoyed talking with. I have been on a non-male diet for so long I forgot how good it felt to flirt and be flirted with. I don't think that is the sole reason for my emotional turn-around. I think there is magic in the air and I have finally put paid to R&T and walked away. It just took a while to take effect.

So, happy days to all and to all a goodbye -- for now.

You didn't think you were getting rid of me that easily, did you? Perish the thought.

Is it summer yet?

I got up this morning to find snow melting on the roof of the portico. I got dressed and ran outside to check my plants, but they're still alive, albeit with a leaf or two missing. The green beans and peas are fine. They were out of the sharp teeth of the wind. I thought this was June, but I could be wrong. Someone told me it had actually snowed here during a parade on the 4th of July. I think I'll believe them.

Today is blustery and cold and wild with screaming wind and the sky overhead is a curdled mixture of gray and white ominous clouds where occasional eyes of blue peer thru the murk. I think I may have to go get the chain saw, put on some warmer clothes, and cut up some wood for the fire. I thought I had more time, but evidently not.

I got a call from Mexico this morning to let me know where my corn flour for tortillas and all the rest of my Mexican groceries from Mexico are. Evidently, they have ended up in Silverthorne at the UPS and they refuse to let them go until I either go get them (where is Silverthorne from here) or I give them a change of address. I just don't get it. I live in a rural area where the post office does not deliver and everyone has a P. O. Box, but companies won't deliver to P. O. Boxes unless you put down the physical address of the post office and give your box number, which they treat like an apartment number. It just doesn't make sense. If you can deliver to the post office address with a box number disguised as an apartment number, you should just be able to deliver to the P. O. Box. Doesn't that make logical sense? But, no, UPS (a friend who once worked for them called it OOPS) doesn't deliver on Saturday (unless you pay a lot more) and I will have to wait until Monday, which is one more week for something that should have been delivered by now. *stops for throat searing primal scream* Oh, well, life goes on. Thank goodness I still have some corn flour from the last order or I'd really be livid.

I have been officially no longer on the staff of R&T for more than 12 hours and yet they still keep coming to me for changes, whining and asking questions I have answered and answered and answered until my fingers are sore from beating the same answers into the keyboard to send ONCE AGAIN. I wonder if they even read the emails I send detailing issue launches and contest pages up and running or if they just ignore them so they can keep asking me stupid questions. And writers are sending me submissions for reviews and interviews and, well, submissions when it is plain I am not the editor in chief -- as I have been sharply reminded many, many, many times. And yet they still come to me because they read my work (and compliment it) and think since I'm all over the site I must actually have a more important function than whipping boy and scapegoat for the REAL EIC. Oh, well, that is behind me now. Maybe I should send a note to all subscribers and let them know. But that probably won't work as long as they are reading the website because that is where they get their ideas. At least they're reading the web site.

I woke up in such a good mood and I'm going to recapture it shortly, despite having to write six paranormal columns by Monday, one grammar column, one herbal magick column, and three more reviews. I still have to read two of the books, but I plan to veg out this weekend and garden. I doubt I will spend much time online since I end up listening to Joni Mitchell (just discovered her thanks to Love Actually) or playing games of Euchre and pyramid instead of writing or reading or doing all the things I should be doing. So off I go.

I think I have finally exhausted the frustration and griping that have been my constant companions for the last few weeks and I get can back to being simple, plain, uninteresting, and smiling me.

Oh, and I really liked talking to the gentleman from Mexico about my groceries. He also gave me a lovely little Mexican proverb: En casa del herrero, azadon de palo. In the house of the blacksmith, a wooden hoe -- which also works for writers without pens, doctors without stethoscopes, etc. Cute, and it reminds me of how I describe my family -- palos con pelo -- Sticks with hair.

I'll shut up now.

...while you still can.

Crap will continue to be served. Who determines what is crap?

Movies are on my mind now that Ronald Reagan has passed. Although he had a definite presence and boyish good lucks, not to mention charm, on the screen, he was not a good actor -- at least not as far as the big screen was concerned. He had the good sense to get out of the movies before it was discovered he had zero talent, which turned out to be an excellent judgment call. He had some facility as a comic actor, but all in all he was really nothing special. Looks, charm, poise, and sense. That's what Reagan had.

Think of all the actors (and singers) who went into politics: Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, and a few others. Those are just the ones that popped quickly to mind. They had no talent. They were one note wonders, but they had enough sense to stop milking the acting teat and get into something they did well. Of course, there have been good actors who also transitioned to politics, like Clint Eastwood and Fred Dalton Thompson, but they are not the point. The point of all this is whether or not we are all being bilked by a multi-billion dollar industry into supporting crap.

Tom Cruise is on my mind and he is the crap to which I refer. Let's face it, Cruise hasn't really done anything since Risky Business. He was cute and enterprising and nice to watch. He was the quintessential teenager and he played that role well. But what has he done since then that is so noteworthy he should command the kind of dollars he earns for showing up on the set? He is a promoter, a modern day P. T. Barnum and he proves Barnum's belief that a sucker is born every minute. We, my friends, are the suckers and we are smiling while we eat crap.

I finally saw The Last Samurai and it was a wonderful movie, but not because of Cruise. The movie was wonderful because of Ken Watanabe. Would the movie have been just as good without Cruise? I'm willing to bet the farm it would have been better. Cruise added nothing to the movie but his name and fame. Name any Cruise film within the last ten years and tell me in which one of them he gave a stellar performance, something worthy of an Oscar. Don't give me Vanilla Sky because I haven't seen it, but one movie in the entire line of movies Cruise has made in the past ten years, or even since Risky Business, doesn't count. Even in Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman stole the show and Cruise was just along for the ride -- as usual. When you pare it all down to basics, Cruise is crap and cruising on his fame and looks.

What bothers me most is that the really great actors are dying and we have no replacements of the same caliber. Name any tabloid favorite and tell me what they have done that is so wonderful. Brad Pitt has good looks and he was interesting to watch in Troy, but it was Eric Bana that showed the power and presence of a real actor. Even pretty boy Orlando Bloom was not that interesting to watch. He flashed his pearly whites and proceeded to disappear from the screen. He is pretty background, a stunning landscape, but nothing special. And the list of wannabe pretty boys continues without so much as a whiff of real meat. It's like expecting a juicy broiled steak in a vegetarian restaurant. Not gonna happen. If you're counting on Ben Affleck or the cast of friends to take up the slack, keep your money in your pocket.

I will agree that there are some stand outs, like Harrison Ford, John Malkovich, Diane Lane, and Cate Blanchett, to name a very few, but mostly what you will find on the screen is crap. According to one theater owner, the money isn't in the movies it's in the concession stand -- that over priced bastion of pre-processed and sugar/chocolated coated crap. See? More crap. So when does the crap train end? When the public says enough and refuses to be served crap.

Who decides?

You can't count on the critics. They are in it for the perks and the chance to give us their oh-so-important opinions. I don't rely on critics. I make my own choices. I may agree with them once in a while, but it is rare. If you want to know how fame and fortune and having people hanging on your every syllable affects the choices a critic makes, check out Please Don't Eat the Daisies and watch David Niven turn from an intelligent professor into an egomaniacal, self important, critic basking in the glow of lots of front page press.

You can't even count on my opinion because it's mine. I'm entitled to it, but you are entitled to your opinion, too. This is supposed to be a democracy and the majority vote wins, but when the majority is numbed and dumbed by the constant service of crap, can you trust their taste buds? Probably not.

What is the end result? The continued, uninterrupted service of crap, crap, and more crap. I'm beginning to think the bomb is our last chance, getting rid of crap and crap makers and the crap that feeds on crap. That's a lot of crap. We'd have to rely on movies already made and available in bombed out cities in the movie houses just like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man or use valuable generator power to keep our DVDs and VCRs running, but at least we'd have company and we wouldn't have to subsidize the fabulous lifestyles of the purveyors and sycophantic leeches of crap. We would all be on a more or less equal footing, back to the basics.

Maybe we lost it all when Hollywood and actors lost their mystique and became fodder for tabloids, topping even their own greed in creating havoc and forgetting the simple fact that they owe everything to the poor suckers who financed their vices, their lifestyle, and their continued existence. Maybe we deserve actors as politicians, especially when the politicians are out for more money, more perks, and everything they can stuff into their pockets, Swiss and Cayman Islands bank accounts, and libidos.

Let's face it. We created the monsters, but the monsters have turned the tables and they are in control. Maybe there is no solution, except for Mother Nature to slap us all with an IRS audit and take it all away.

Do I sound pessimistic? Probably, but I'm not. I just find it hard to accept that real style and taste is a rarity in a world gone mad for publicity and their fifteen minutes of fame when they have nothing to crow about. Maybe I'm just getting old because I long for better times when substance was more important than looks and flash. The stalwart pillars of society are dying and that puts me closer to the fires and I wonder what legacy I am creating to leave for those behind me. I feel much like Peter Finch in Network when he yelled out a window, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more," or Peter Sellers as Chance, the gardener, in Being There whose life revolved around television and his utterances, in the same way the Rain Man's non-sequiturs, were taken for profound wisdom.

All true wisdom is found within, but if you haven't looked there in a long time, maybe it's time to check it out. Don't accept crap because crap will continue to be served as long as you and I and everyone else make it profitable.

Cobalt skies

I got it licked, except for the boards. The Rose & Thorn Summer 2004 issue is now online and I think I've outdone myself with the staff issue, but you'll have to pay $3.00 to see that. I wish I could see the staff issue in print, but I have to conserve my ink. I'm on my last cartridge and I can't afford to buy any more until next month. Funds are tight right now until I can (finally) get some writing done and generate some income that I might see in six months or so (probably a year).

I have let the house go to pieces while my butt has been welded to the seat of this chair focused on two computer screens that scroll out endless lines of code with the occasional word or URL I actually recognize. My feet and legs are swollen from so much sitting, but I'm getting out of here shortly. I have a few things to write, like reviews and some messages, not to mention a story or two, but for the most part I am going to spend this day outside looking up at the lakes floating overhead, ominous with another deluge. It rained yesterday and everything is fresh and bright...including me. I might just make it thru this little sink hole of hassles.

I forgot to bring in the feeder until 10 last night, but bringing it in the previous three nights may have discouraged the persistent thieving raccoon who has decided my place is the best place for sweets. I'm still bringing it in. He may try his luck again, although not tonight. Tomorrow is trash day for some of the local residents and he'll be busy trying to get into the juicy yuppie offerings.

I am sad for a friend, too. I read her journal this morning, wondering where she has been the past two days, with the intent of scolding her for cheating on me at Scrabble. She has been in the depths, blaming herself and her job for her husband's death. I'm not a fatalist, but I know one thing for sure, there is a predetermined time for our deaths and no matter what we would have done differently, our friends, enemies, and loved ones will still die when it is their time. Not being home to prevent his actions would not have mattered. He would have died some other way...or even the same way. You don't know. It's like having a child. You can't watch them every single moment of every single day and eventually they are going to get hurt, get sick, and even die and nothing you do will change that.

T, my best friend and my sister, went to the babysitter's to pick up her first son, picked him up from the crib, and he was silent and cold. He was dead. She still remembers putting her lips on his cold, blue lips and trying to give him CPR. The cold hard touch of his tiny lips against hers haunts her even now over 18 years later. If she had come a few minutes earlier or not gone to work that day, would she have been able to save him? Would he have died? Probably. As hard as it is to understand for those of us left behind, the fact is that we cannot change the past and beating ourselves up over it doesn't help. I know that is small consolation and it doesn't make the pain any less, but ultimately when we mourn we are sad for ourselves and not for the person who is gone.

I miss having someone to hold and share my thoughts, dreams, and time with, but I realize it is not in the cards for me. I have had love, great love, but it is gone and I have to look forward because I'll stumble and fall, unable to move, if I keep looking backward. I miss not being able to share every moment of my children's lives, watching them grow up and grow into their adult lives, but I can't change that either. I miss my youngest son, but I cannot change what happened or why. I wish I had more money and could have given my children the lives I feel they deserved; I still do. But I am poor and I'm barely making it right now. What I do know is that change is constant and though I am poor today and may be even poorer tomorrow, I will survive. I will find a way. In the end, if the world was destroyed tomorrow or someone dropped a bomb and you remained, could you still be happy without all the trappings and conveniences of civilization or would you spend your last days and hours mourning what you've lost? If you do, you'll die. Survivors carry the guilt for those who no longer care or even worry that they have moved on to the next plane of existence.

Happiness is not found in things, as wonderful and enticing as they seem to be. Happiness is a feeling and cannot be bought and sold. There's always more to have, more to get, more to reach for, but ultimately happiness is inside you. Can you reach it? Do you really want it?

Children are acquisitive creatures. They want what they see. They want the next, the brightest, the newest, but most innovative and technologically spectacular whatever they see, like crows and magpies picking up sparkling objects from wherever they see them no matter who owns them. But ultimately having is not happiness. Remember back to when you were a child or, if that is too dim a memory, when your children were little, what was their favorite toy? Was it the big, beautiful, bright and most expensive toy you could afford or was it some ratty old stuffed animal or blanket they wouldn't give up even long enough to wash, or a big spoon and an empty coffee can (like me)? Remember the look on their faces or the feeling when you played with your favorite toy. That is happiness.

If you want more, get more. Do what it takes. Give up what you love and cherish: your dreams, your future, your free time, or whatever Sacrifice yourself on the alter of more and give up what means most to you just so you can have what everyone else seems to have. Lie, cheat, steal, if necessary, and get that fancy house, fast car, latest technologically marvelous whatever and turn away from what really matters. It's out there and no one will bat an eyelash if you get what everyone else has in whatever way you can.

I know a woman who has a big beautiful house and lots of pretty land all around her. She has mortgaged her soul to hold onto it and even has her family working to help her maintain what she cannot. She has lots of gadgets, a pool, a deck, the best of everything and she had it with a husband, once upon a time, but their idyllic life was a sham. He led a double life. He had another child with another woman and spent much of his time with her. At home, he and his wife fought over their respective children, neither liking their spouses children from previous marriages, but they had lots of nice shiny new things and they loved to tell everyone how much it all cost and how it was the best and brightest and didn't you feel cheated because you didn't have as much. Their lives looked good from the outside, but they were miserable. She was in love with him, but less than two weeks after he left her for the other woman and his child with her, she was dating someone else, weeping and wailing how he done her wrong, but she was back out there. She had a boarder for a while, but even he moved on, and yet she still lives in that big house alone, the house and dream she still mortgages her life to maintain, but it is all show. Her house is bigger and fancier and more expensive than anyone else's in her family, but she isn't happy. She will never be happy, but she'll make sure everyone knows she has the best and she still has the trappings, the illusion of prosperity and success. But illusions aren't worth anything real or lasting. She is alone. She doesn't really care about her children, except when it comes to doing her duty to them. She has always bought them whatever they wanted, took them on wonderful vacations every year, but she sold herself and her happiness to get them. When all is said and done, her life is about nothing but work. She enjoys nothing. She loves nothing but the work, the acquisition of the trappings of success and prosperity, and she is not happy. She smiles. She laughs. She buys. But she is not happy.

Another woman of my acquaintance robbed her ailing grandmother of everything she has saved and worked for, taking vacations around the world, buying a big fancy house, and keeping her family in the style to which she had become accustomed, but she isn't happy either. She has to live every day with the knowledge that everything she owns, does, and has seen was taken from someone who loved and cherished her...if she thinks of it at all. She has a family, having divorced her previous husband because he couldn't make enough money to suit her, a wealthy and prosperous husband, a big house, goes on wonderful vacations, and looks happy, but she isn't. There is a dark worm eating her from the inside, hollowing her out because of what she sacrificed to have what looks so nice from the outside. She comes from a family to whom prosperity and the trappings of success mean everything. But she is not happy.

Or would it be better to look at what you have and nor worry what anyone else has. Don't be embarrassed if you can give your children or yourself what you think you want. Two weeks from now it won't matter when you're doing what you love and being with those that matter most in your life.

What are you willing to sacrifice for the trappings of success?

What do you love?

One night in cyber hell

I spent last night until 7:30 this morning in cyber hell. The Rose & Thorn site had to be reset and then uploaded again, except FrontPage would not play at all with the server. Uninstalled and re-installed the extensions twice, but still no soap. Now, before all the computer geeks get on me about using FP, sit down and forget it. It was the only program available on this computer and I was sort of thrust into the position of webmaster. You go with what works. I've used Page Maker and I like that, but FP is easy for anyone to learn and it streamlines a lot -- if you don't mind funny symbols in place of normal things like ampersands, carets, and quotes. It all comes out in the wash.

Anyway, I have an FTP program I got with a PDF converter to convert the 2004 Staff Issue to PDF from MS Word and decided to give it a go, especially since the FREE program I downloaded wouldn't send me the key code to unlock it. And into the Mines of Moria I went without a clue it was overrun with orcs, trolls and a Balrog. I couldn't seem to get it to work and went searching for info on how and what and where to do what I needed to do. I also figured out the problem with our Poetry and Prose Boards and the cpanel telling me there were boards still listed under names that were deleted...they were still there, nonfunctional, but there all the same. I have to call the Host again and I'm getting really tired of dealing with them. They should have gotten the problem fixed the first time I called instead of making me go thru this whole thing again.

Got the site uploaded, minus a few little things like hover buttons that appear and work with their links intact (and I just can't wait to hear from the EIC and her pet troll about that), and shut down the site and my functions as I stumbled into the bedroom, scraped off my clothes, and fell into bed only to be awakened by two phone calls, both of which I refused to get out of bed to answer. They were still waiting for me when I woke on my own at 11:30. One was a call from QWest, probably about buying some new service or product I neither need nor want, and the other was an 800 number I do not recognize. If they really want me, they can call back so I can properly ignore them while I'm awake.

I also had a lovely surprise in the wee hours of my trudge thru the bogs of cyber hell. Mike actually found a way to steal the rmoatv.com website and lock me out. I own the site and Christian of my stuff, and put one page of his lying crap up there. Talk about Christian morals, virtues, and honesty. He won't pay me what he owes for my work or the website, for which I paid two years of freight and domain name, but he'll undercut me, steal my site, and have one of his Christian buddies put up his crap. Now if that isn't an advertisement for conversion to Christianity I don't know what is. And he had the nerve to tell me that as a Christian I was bound by God not to talk about him behind his back or speak of all the things he did to me, like lying about being married, like taking every last cent of my money (always promising to pay me back) and then shoving me out the door of a train at 100 mph with a smile and a reminder about the goodness and decency and honor of Christians, like being a thieving, conniving, money hungry, materialistic, son of a biscuit eater while spouting Bible verses and chastising everyone about their lack of Christianity. Give me a big fat break.

As if the last 20 hours of my life hasn't been grueling enough, someone sends me a message about Pat Boone and his letter to Christopher Ruddy, news editor at NewsMax about CBS and then I find out the head of Alfred A. Knopf publishing is giving Slick Willy in excess of $8M to write his memoirs of his time in the White House because it's a part of history. While I was battling the Balrog in cyber hell, the world disintegrated and I've ended up in the Twilight Zone of Twighlight Zones that neither Rod Serling nor Philip K. Dick could have envisioned in their wildest manic fantasies. Hillary's piece of garbage didn't earn a tenth of the advance her publishers gave her and they knew that going in. Now her sleazy, woman chasing, lying, ignorant son of a whorehouse maven gets even more money Knopf knows his book won't make back and good writers are forced to scrape up, beg, borrow, and steal enough money to get their own books published. Yep, the world has spun off its axis and the worst lunatics are in charge of the asylum. Somebody drop an atomic bomb on the whole lot of these prevaricating, vermicious knids and let me live in a kinder, simpler, more peaceful world.

That is all!

Disperse!

Cool and comfortable

I'm sitting here half naked (don't get your knickers in a twist -- I'm wearing a bra top and shorts) and the sky outside is cobalt blue with big fluffy clouds touring slowly overhead. The breeze thru the trees is deliciously cool without being cold and the sun is deceptively mild. A few minutes too many out on the deck and I'd be toast.

I left the bedroom window open all the way last night and this morning was awakened by the sound of a lark or some other warbler singing. I think spring finally made it to the mountains. The air is redolent with the scents of growing things and flowers carried on the breeze. The aspens are lime green and bursting with leaves. The stark landscape of winter is blurred by the spring dress rehearsal for summer. The deck sparkles with fool's gold dust and soon will be green with pine pollen. It is a beautiful day and I feel restless.

I want to drink all this in before the coming of winter again, which will be all too soon here in the mountains. I need the chuckle of a mountain stream tripping over rocks and the buzz of industrious bees gathering nectar and pollen. I need action and activity and a change of scenery. I want to go to the desert and soak up the dust of the ancients, walk in their footsteps and climb tumbled boulders to the summit and into the warrens of pueblo indians tending fires and life.

But I'll settle for having the R&T website working again so I can move on. Maybe that is the restlessness I feel--the need to be on about my work and my life.

In the meantime, if anyone is interesting in tapping the tree for the sap of knowledge, check out the classes at Scribe & Quill and join in the fun.