Burned up

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ham radio craziness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all. Disperse.

It's all about love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all. Disperse.

I sold another one

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

That is all. Disperse.

Psychic Viking Attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all. Disperse.

For Father's Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Screams in the night

For about a week now there have been screams, but they don't sound as though they come from a human throat, unless the human throat could contort in such a way to give this soul wrenching howl of torture. In some ways it reminds me of peacocks but there are no peafowl anywhere nearby. Foxes bark and crows and ravens have a raucous throat rending caw, but this is different. I've heard parrots squawk and birds of all kinds give their melodious and strange cries, but never anything like this. The screams haunt my waking hours and intrude into my dreams, leaving a sense of other worldliness that borders on the fantastic, and not in a good way. For some reason, I recognize the screams but can put neither name nor face to them and yet they stir something I thought long dead and asleep within that wakes and reaches from the bleak darkness toward the light, wanting to be reborn to enliven horrors left dormant and silent within.

The screams have finally stopped, but the effect lingers like the the slime trail of a subterranean slug, glittering and shimmering foully whenever light illuminates the path, except there is no stench, no scent, no effluvia but mental chaos.

I'm going to go back to sleep and when I wake maybe the screams, like the wakening darkness, will be gone, just a fever dream or nightmare from too much chastity or too little . . . something.

That is all. Disperse.

Cycles and worry stones

Most people have a cycle of behavior, a sort of emotional journey that brings them back to the same point over and over as long as there are unresolved issues. Sometimes they talk about the issues but they never really settle anything, constantly hashing and rehashing the same old territory as though telling their beads, working them through their fingers over and over until the stones or wood is worn and shiny from constant use.

A long time ago one of my aunts gave me a worry stone. It was flat and polished and had a depression in the center about the size of the pad of my thumb. She told me I should keep it close to hand and whenever anything bothered me to rub my thumb in the depression, give my worries and anxieties to the stone. "You'll run out of worries before you wear down the stone," she said. She was wrong. I wore a hole through the center of the worry stone and wore it on a thong around my neck for a long time and I still had worries and anxieties. That was in the days before I became confrontational. Don't get me wrong; I still have worries and anxieties from time to time, but instead of wearing down a stone I face the problem head-on and deal with it. Took me a very long time to get there because I spent most of my life being a doormat and apologizing for things that weren't my fault just to put an end to any conflict or disagreement, pleading guilty and taking the bitter medicine of injustice with a spoonful of sugary smiles. I don't do that any more, but back then I had my cycle, too.

Someone would hurt me (usually someone I knew really well) and I would get angry and cry through the pain, endure the silence as long as I could (usually less than a week and most times less than a day), swallow my pride, hang my head, and, with tail tucked firmly between my legs, apologize and accept the blame just so the person would talk to me again, recognize me, accept me back into the fold so they could ignore me and use me and hurt me whenever they felt the need. It's a cycle I repeated endlessly into my thirties. Then a man I was seeing stole my car and all my possessions and stranded me in New Orleans without money or friends or help. I learned that in order to survive I'd either have to grovel and beg for help or I could face my mistakes and make the best of it. I didn't grovel and I didn't beg--ever again. I found out I could survive without help and I learned to do things that previously I would have thought beneath me. No, I didn't become a prostitute; I became a strong survivor who was no longer afraid to let go of whatever didn't work and whoever couldn't see this tree for the forest. For the first time in my life I began to see my own value.

I stumbled along the way and fell briefly into old habits--they do take a lot of killing--but I picked myself up and moved on. What doesn't work, what doesn't make me happy, whoever thinks my welcome smile is an invitation to wipe their feet on me because they have mistaken me for a doormat ends up finding out what my tail lights look like from a growing distance. I refuse to suffer fools lightly or at all.

In some ways, this attitude has isolated me but it has also freed me and given me the strength to walk away from toxic situations and people. It isn't about holding a grudge or not being able to get over the past, but about not repeating the past. It was a hard lesson and one I've tried to teach by example, but it's a lesson that takes study and practice, practice, practice. People think I'm uncompromising and hard, and maybe in some ways they are right, but I'm not; I'm vulnerable; I choose not to let it show. Life is too short to spend it making holes in worry stones and wasting the body's water in in the desert of despair. It's better to confront the situation and simply walk away.

Frustration

I am not a fan of frustration. Who is? Yesterday I was very frustrated. I know the deadline is arbitrary and only exists because I chose it, but it's all part of being a more productive writer. The deadline was for a book on divorce.

Suddenly, a country song pops into my mind, "My D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today. Me and little J-O-E will be going away."

I am divorced. Twice. The first time was harder and I nearly changed my mind and asked my ex if we could try again, not just for the boys but for me. I was scared. I wasn't certain I could shoulder the weight of raising three boys alone and working two jobs or handle all the other weights that would be added just so I could walk away from what I thought I'd wanted seven years before. Ours was not an idyllic marriage and I certainly couldn't write about how I became physically allergic to him and broke out in hives and started itching like my skin was crawling with fire ants; it's not all that uplifting. I even called Beanie to ask her what uplifting and positive story she'd want to read if she was contemplating, going through, or had been divorced. She couldn't think of anything either. The months and years after the divorce were difficult and sometimes I felt like I'd never get through it all intact, but I did. None of it was pretty and, except for the boys, I didn't have a single positive thought that would uplift anyone. I thought I'd have to pass on writing the story, but I didn't want to give up. I had a deadline, arbitrary as it was, and I was going to find something to write about, something true and honest and uplifting and . . . well, you get the idea.

I fretted and worried. That didn't work. I freewrote for a while. That didn't work. Then I thought I'd step away from the problem and give myself a break. I couldn't read more than a few chapters of any of the books I'm reading or pay attention to the movie I decided to watch even though it was good quirky Ed Wood fun. I started the story, hoping and praying that some spark would ignite and I'd have the story I wanted, but it fell short. Still, I had a few hundred words written and it was something. I decided to go to bed.

I read a little more of the book I have to review but couldn't really focus, reading the same passages over and over and not making sense of any of it. It wasn't the book; it was me. I gave up, turned out the light, and went to sleep. At 2 a.m., in the midst of a really great dream about Doctor Who I woke up. It was partly my bursting bladder but mostly because I wanted to finish the story.

Reading over what I had written, I added a little flesh here and some muscle there and got caught up in it. By the time I got to the previous ending, I changed it and wrote a new ending. It was better. I read it over, nipping here, tucking there, adding a bit of something more, and it was soon finished. I had a story I was proud of and that actually was uplifting. I didn't gloss over the hard part or how I sat down to talk with my ex about maybe not getting divorced. It's in there. Mainly, I focused on the boys and the song I sang when I tucked them into bed nearly every night. It's a song I sang for Beanie when she was little. The story is called Lullaby. I sent it off at 4 a.m. this morning and I'm happy with it.

The more I write, the more I find I want to write, even when I have arbitrary deadlines. I have my To Do database and everything is sorted by deadline and publication. I know I'm putting pressure on myself, but I need goals, some kind of finish line, to keep in mind and work toward, a sort of reward for the effort.

Yesterday, I found some new markets that pay fairly well and posted them to one of my writing groups. Then I got busy, studied their guidelines and themes and I checked through what I already had on hand, adding them to my database. I edited and wrote and the end result was four stories being accepted for four themed issues. Not a bad haul, especially when you consider I'm getting paid for all of them. But it's really not about the money. For me, it's about writing the way I used to write with joy and happiness in the process and the satisfaction of having written something of which to be proud. I even managed a little something sensual and erotic and sent it to a friend who said the heat index was just right. She also said if it was even semi-autobiographical she was jealous. It was completely autobiographical. When it is published, I'll provide a link.

At any rate, every day is a journey and I'm learning a lot about myself and my writing by plumbing the depths of my past -- and present -- to write. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I can't say I left my husband to be with my soul mate or that that was even a concern. I can't say divorce was easy or that my children were not marked by the experience; we are all marked by the experiences of living whether such times be good, bad, or indifferent. I do know I did the right thing, finally, when I walked away from my marriage because it wasn't good between us. We were destroying each other and our children bit by bit and word by word, our anger ripping deep wounds that, if we had allowed it to continue, would never have healed and would have hurt our children even more. I do know, despite the difficulties and the sacrifices, that my children still believe in love and happiness and marriage, and that is something positive. They haven't avoided marriage because they didn't want a marriage like their parents had, and I know far too many people like that. I'm one of them.

Alzheimer's, yearning and sex

I'm struggling between cudgeling my brain to remember things I shouldn't have forgotten so quickly and longing for a trip to Spain as an exchange student. I was chosen as an exchange student when I was in high school but was told my parents couldn't afford to send me. There are times I wonder what would have happened had they allowed me to go. I don't allow those thoughts to surface often, but I was looking for a translation program for a writer who needed to translate English dialogue to Spanish and stumbled across the exchange student site. The translation program, if anyone is interested, is Babel Fish, aptly named of course.

Aah, Spain, home of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and one of my favorite literary characters: Don Quixote. I shouldn't forget Dulcinea or Sancho Panza either. I read Don Quixote in Spanish when I was in school but I had already read it in English many times. I've seen the play with Giorgio Tozzi as Cervantes and Don Quixote and the movie with Peter O'Toole (Man of La Mancha and starred Sophia Loren as Dulcinea). Peter O'Toole reminds me of My Favorite Year when he played Alan Swann, which was written by Dennis Palumbo, who also wrote one of the books I'm reading now.

Writing from the Inside Out has turned out to be a very valuable writing book about the psychology of writers. I'm barely into it and already I've learned quite a lot about myself and my writing relationships. I bought the book and am waiting for it to arrive in the snail mail but Amazon offers a new service. You can download the book for a nominal fee and begin reading and highlighting and sticky noting the text on your computer right away. It keeps the hard copy clean and it fills that need for instant gratification that is sometimes so difficult to ignore.

Right now, everything has taken a back seat to writing and reading about writing and reading writing. I've no time for anything else and I even begrudge the need to work every day. I don't mind getting up before dawn even yawns near the horizon since it means I have that much more time to write and make notes and edit and read.

It's a good thing I'm not seriously involved with anyone since I wouldn't have the time to spend with them anyway. With a book coming out, two books in the works (both from the same information), coordinating Q&As with writers for the two books, and dealing with the changes necessary on one book, I just don't have the time for romance.

Unfortunately, my moaning whores can't seem to get that through their hormone-laden brains and keep plaguing me with lurid dreams that leave me aching and sweaty come morning. Nothing like sleeping in the wet spot alone, especially when it covers nearly half the bed. Well, the whores will have to keep on moaning because I can't hear them since I bought noise canceling headphones, which don't actually work for the whores' moaning, but work and writing help to tune them out, just not when I sleep. Oh, well, it could be worse and I could be trawling bars and singles' hangouts looking for meaningless sex. Still, I could take one gentleman up on his offer of no-strings attached sex, as long as he could fit his libido into my schedule. Something to think about, but for now . . .

That is all. Disperse.

Yippee!

It took a little while but at least I got the check last week.

Here, in all its glory, is my short article for Writers Weekly

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Never give up

This is beautiful morning. Everything is going right.

I woke at six because I just couldn't sleep. Don't remember the dreams, but I felt a sense of urgency even though no place I need to go today was open at that hour. Bathroom, throw on a long T-shirt and check my email, all the time deciding whether or not to buy a new multifunction printer since my HP died. I checked online for deals and steals and found quite a few, but as my finger hovered over the enter button I hesitated--a lot. I checked more places, more sites, and even went to some auctions to find even better deals with add-ons, but as my finger hovered over the button I couldn't bring myself to send my money and my request into the cyber ether. What if I could fix the ailing HP? I closed the browser and went to the HP's side and took it apart.

Lo and behold, there was something wrong and it was a simple fix. Getting my tweezers, I removed a sticky label stuck in the gears of the paper feeder. One tiny piece eluded me because my tweezers didn't bend (they are after all for eyebrows) and weren't long enough, but just maybe... I fed in a sheet of paper, stuck a book on the copier bed, pressed copy, OK, and start and held my breath. It worked. The gears didn't clash and grind. The paper fed through and disappeared. Message said: out of paper. But where did it go? I looked around and noticed a clean sheet of paper on the floor. I forgot to put on the back of the machine. One more time into the breach.

Paper in the feeder, hit copy, OK, and start and . . . wonder of wonders I heard the printer element sliding over and over the sheet as the paper emerged from the bowels of the machine with . . . an image on it. It worked. I got my laptop, hooked up the USB, and got down to the business of printing everything I had held over the past month. I'd meet my deadlines and I didn't need to buy another multifunction printer.

However, I am still going to spring for the flash drive. It will save me so much time when it comes to getting minutes from the club secretary who waits until the last minute. Maybe I can even convince the president to write his monthly column by the date of the board meeting and kill three birds with geek fix. Anything is possible right now.

I have been sad and frustrated for about a month since my printer died, especially since some publications refuse to take articles and stories by email. I received a much needed and anxiously awaited substantial payment for my writing yesterday and paid up all pending accounts, with a little left over for a new printer, I had waffled about actually spending the money. A friend offered to give me a printer but I just didn't want to let go of the HP. It was a Yule gift to myself four years ago when I moved up to the cabin, bought with an unexpected windfall, that made my life so much easier, and it has helped out friends and neighbors when they needed copies or to fax something.

I haven't scanned anything recently, but I've decided to make use of all my resurrected machine's functions. I have a lot of clips to document and store. Now I can even afford to buy that DVD burner I've been eyeing for so long. Life is good, especially when I'm going to get paid for an article that will be received well ahead of deadline. Life is very good.

That is all. Disperse.

Just breathe

The greens are brilliant this morning and the sky a perfect Colorado blue. Sunshine lightens everything and shows up the rain-washed clean, warming the lilacs and spreading their scent everywhere while the breeze wafts it through the open windows. It's cold but not a sharp, bitter cold, rather a blunt-edged cold that hints at the warmth to come.

Time moves so quickly, the soft yellow-greens swelling to the brilliant growing green that will soon darken in the sun to a deep verdant green like sun-dappled pools where light is a stray fiery diamond shaft softened by its passage through the heavy canopy of the forest. This is one of my favorite times of year, when the air is soft and fragrant with new growth before the blaze of the relentless summer sun sears away the fragrance of earth and bursting seeds and spring petals that emerges only when rain releases what hides from the sun's brazen glare.

A few months after I moved here, I got caught in the rain. As I passed a towering full-figured pine in the middle of a parking lot, I caught the scent of spicy green. I stood and just breathed, surprised and pleased. As the sun burned away the clouds, the scent faded, going back into hiding until the rain would bring it out again.

There are moments like those, surprising moments when a sound or a scent or a flash of color, movement or light, remind me what a wonderful life I have. Some days, when the work seems endless and I've been hard at it until my eyes burn and a sharp pain bores relentlessly into my head, I'll catch a glimpse of a bird with scarlet feathers warbling on a branch in the squirrel porn tree in front of my desk or see the tarball twins--most likely the offspring of the female black squirrel that disappeared last fall--tumbling and carousing along slender branches or see birds and squirrels dining together at the now open all you can eat gutter buffet next door, and I am reminded there is something in life other than work . This is one of those days, a gift that makes me want to just breathe and enjoy the flowering wealth of earth, air and sky before I turn back to the necessity of work.

It isn't as though the days aren't full of these moments--every moment holds the same promise--but rather that I get so wrapped up in what I must do that I forget to pause and just breathe. I need these reminders and I'm glad they land in my trees or whisper through the open windows to catch my attention. Those moments are my little vacations, moments that make it easier to survive the seemingly endless working hours and just breathe.

News and views

I have created a new blog to document my experience with publishing my first romance novel. If you're interested, toddle on over to Eyes On Publishing and take a look. It may not be pretty, but it will be, as always, brutally honest. After all, someone needs to mark the trail and I'm fresh out of urine.

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And now this...

It seems freelance journalists in America are no longer good enough--or cheap enough. Think I'm kidding? Check this out.

It isn't bad enough that writers are consider the bottom of the creative food chain, but now they're outsourcing writing jobs to India. What's next? Having your children watched on nanny cams by a nanny in India?

That is all. Disperse -- and purge.

At last

I was at the post office yesterday and the line was nearly out the door. The two people at the counter didn't go anywhere for nearly 15 minutes while everyone in the line chafed and shuffled and fretted. I was a little worried since the parking meter only had 26 minutes on it.

A very pretty young blonde with skin like new cream, black mascara ringing her pale blue eyes, and wearing a sarong and flip flops and a very short older woman, eyes deep brown nested in a wreath of smile lines, with short, wavy helmet hair threaded with silver and I stood at the end of the line. A short cranky bear of a man with a beard checked his watch every 15 seconds as we three women chatted and joked. The bear finally grumped off to go to "another post office where they aren't so &*$%*#*@ slow". We three looked at each other and smiled and then encouraged the people in front of us, one by one, to go to a faster post office, providing them with directions if they hesitated. Slowly we made our way to the head of the line.

"Why are they raising postage rates?" Blonde asked.

"Because they can," I said.

Silvered-hair and Blonde laughed. "Besides,"I added, "they need to be real snails to carry the mail. It's faster than using carriers." Everyone in the post office laughed.

We came to the head of the line and Blonde frowned. "He's so slow." She was about to get Papa Smurf, the guy with the blue fingers. "He's efficient," I said. "He's sloooow."

Silvered-hair got Terry, the lady whose husband died a year ago and I got Ed who is always smiling and glad to see me. Then I was out of there and to my car in record time with one minute still on the meter. And I thought it was going to be a quick trip.

The point of all this is snail mail (now with real snails). I just received an email from my publisher. After six weeks of waiting, my contracts finally arrived. That's priority mail for you. I now have lots of instructions and information and will soon meet my editor (virtually, of course) and we will begin the process of getting my book up and ready for bookstores everywhere, and I do mean everywhere because we already have an international tie-in, which means my book will soon be available, once it's edited and packaged, in Asia and Europe. I can hardly wait. My publisher said he was sending my copy of the contract and I should have it in about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks. I think he's being overly optimistic about those snails. Of course, where he lives it's much warmer than here and the snail tend to get frozen in their slime trails from time to time.

He also said the artist has been given my suggestions for the cover art; I was pretty explicit and detailed. I have a vision. They asked if I had any ideas . . . and I did. Now, whether or not they follow it is something else again. I'll just have to wait and see. Now for a question.

Do you like characters more who are vaguely described or intricately described?

We now return you to regular programming.

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Shameless promotion

I just received word from Angela Hoy who edits and puts out Writers Weekly that my success story will be in the next issue. She's also publishing a letter I wrote to her in Letters to the Editor. She is also buying an article on freelancing, but the date of publication is still not determined. So keep an eye out for the Writers Weekly newsletter. It comes out on Wednesdays and if you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for. WW is a great resource for marketing and freelancing. Angela also runs Booklocker one of the premiere Print on Demand publishers.

And speaking of determined, the good news keeps coming. Byline has selected two of my articles for future issues and there may be another article in The Writer.

It helps to shake up the ant farm from time to time to keep them from their ruts becoming too well worn.

That is all. Disperse.

Keep the irons hot

Did you ever look through market listings and get an idea but thought you could hold onto it until you finished looking through the listings? You finished and got out your writing tools and . . . nothing.

It's happened to me a lot. I've missed deadlines that way by being unable to think what it was I had planned to write. The clock ticks on relentlessly and the deadline passes. No one noticed because no one was expecting my submission. There are always other books and contests down the road; so what if I missed one or two or an uncountable number of opportunities to be published?

I've found a solution.

When I go through the marketing listings I have pen and paper or my laptop close by. That way when I get an idea or something sparks (hopefully, without actually catching fire to the books on the bed or sofa or table) I make some notes or just write the piece. I can always edit it later, but I might not get the spark again. It also helps with getting ahead of deadlines. Nothing like being weeks or even months ahead of deadline so you can move on to the next deadline and the next market listing that strikes a spark.

The same thing works for reading the newspaper, magazines, hear a snatch of conversation, or see something that simply must be recorded (you can keep a camera handy for this--make sure you have batteries just in case). Keep a little notebook you can stick in a pocket or purse and a pencil and a pen (never know when the ink will cut out on you). Stop whatever you're doing and jot it down. It won't take long and the results are definitely worth it. Making a note or taking pictures helps capture the moment, but they also help set the information in your memory so it's less likely you'll forget. The boy and girl scouts had it right: always be prepared.

I also write stories and articles and then look for markets, but when I have nothing pending and I'm cruising the listings and contests, this method works really well. I have chalked up ten stories/articles/essays in the past two weeks. Being productive helps keep you productive and the ideas flowing. I've also landed four assignments, which means there will be checks in the mail upon publication or receipt. And none of this gets in the way of my regular work or reviews I already have slated.

In a way, it's like exercise, keeping the writing muscles and energies high and very flexible. Nothing wrong with filling the pipeline and keeping it filled. The end result is good for you and for your bank account.

What is your method for being creative and keeping creative?

That is all. Disperse.

Bruised egos

When a writer lashes out at a reviewer or has a review deleted it never works out. Case in point: Anne Rice lashing out at reviews on Amazon won her no new fans and showed a side of her that was monumentally embarrassing--for her. I wonder sometimes if that is why she shelved her Vampire Chronicles and not because she hid her scars and dents in the bosom of Mother Church.

The truth is that not everyone is going to like a writer's work. Granted, people will buy or not buy based on a reviewer's opinions and sometimes a review will create a few tempest in teacups like the one over Specfic Floozy's recap and column on the recent Hugo awards (that's science fiction for all of you who don't know).

Critics abound and, in a country where a Jewish lawyer defends the Ku Klux Klan in front of the Supreme Court, will and should have their say without censhorship. It takes a very small mind and an overweening ego to believe that their work is above criticism and cannot be improved upon. Too bad so many of such people are adept at hiding the truth and casting others in a negative light, especially when people refuse to listen or open their minds or see they are being used. Such has always been the case and, I'm sure, will always be the case. It is as common as geese drowning in the rain because they haven't figured out looking away from the rain is all it takes to save their lives.

That is all. Disperse.

What you don't expect

Birthdays have always been special to me, probably because my own birthday has been so ignored by most of my family and some of my friends. After so many years of being ignored, I have become used to the silence because the silence has become my friend. It's something I can count on. It's always there, wrapping me in soft folds of comfort and stability.

A young friend was pretty upset when a party she threw for her own birthday was a bust. No one showed up. She later said that she realized she hadn't spoken to or seen some of the people for six months or more. She was surprised.

Time gets away from us so quickly that we seldom recognize its passage. Caught up in chores and deadlines and demands made on our time by those around us in our families, at work, and even demands we impose on ourselves, we focus on getting everything done and not on what we're missing, like friends.

Someone once told me that a friend is someone who would give their life for you and everyone else is an acquaintance. Friendship is a stormy sea but if death is the only criteria for being a friend, it's no wonder no one shows up to celebrate the anniversary of our births.

Friendship takes tending like rare orchids and temperamental roses. It does not grow like weeds or crab grass, although some people are as just as determined to insinuate themselves in our lives. Some friends need less work than others and some demand every second of our time: free or not. Friends are as varied as snowflakes and as rare as a true blue rose, but they can also be as common as dust on the wind and just as hard to pin down or count on.

Someone can be as close as a twin sister and suddenly be as dangerous as a bear wakened too soon from its winter hibernation and there are those who stay at a distance and yet are as close as a shadow, appearing and disappearing with the passage of the sun and time. There is no rhyme or reason, only the vagaries and inconsistencies of life in an all too busy world.

The next time you look around for a friend, make certain you haven't been so caught up in your life you've forgotten to tend to theirs. Sometimes it is only a matter of listening when they need to talk or calling to say hello and remind them that you remember they're there. Nothing is so important and so earth-shattering that you can't put it off to spend a few moments chatting or send out a note to remind them you think they're special and are glad they stuck around. Friendship is like a smile; the more you offer yours, the more often someone else will offer theirs. It only takes a few moments, but it's worth the effort.

That is all. Disperse.