A day of surprises

After the furor of controversy this week, it was nice to get an unexpected surprise.

Beanie told me Uncle Bob (Mom's younger brother) called her yesterday and was going on and on about the birthday card and letter I sent him last week. I'm sad to say I didn't remember his birthday until Mom mentioned it, but I'm not certain I ever knew when it was. It was October 16th and he is now 75 years old. Uncle Bob told Beanie, "That Pearl can really write." He has copies of a couple of anthologies with my stories in them because I signed and sent him and Aunt Lois copies at Mom's request, but I guess he didn't really know how much I've written -- other than the articles my mother has kept and made sure all the Mays read. (It's a years' long competition of sorts about whose children are the most accomplished and talented.)

At any rate, I was deep in the latest book for review (another thriller) and had the ringer turned off on the phone. It was still on the bed because I used it earlier to make some calls (yes, I'm cocooning). I happened to glance at the phone when the light on the Caller ID lit up. The call was from an Ohio number and something seemed familiar about it so I picked it up. Lo and behold, my uncle's exuberant voice answered my hello. "Do you have time to talk to your old uncle?" he asked.

"Of course I do. I always have time to talk to you," I said.

He started right in about the lovely card I sent, and the letter, and how much he liked them. "You really know how to write." He gushed and went on about the letter, telling me he had to call Mom to get my phone number so he could call and thank me. And then we just talked: books, J.K. Rowling, reviewing, writing, and Lee Iacocca. Uncle Bob prefers nonfiction, especially autobiographies of successful people, just like Mom who has a thing for royalty and castles and a raging case of obsession with the Biography Channel on cable. He asked me how much Rowling was worth and I told him, "One billion American."

"Imagine that. Well, Pearl, when you get rich and famous I hope you'll remember your poor old uncle."

My poor old uncle owns several properties in Ohio and Florida. Poor, my foot. I should be so poor. But he worked hard for the money and bought and fixed up old houses that sold for tens of thousands more than he paid. He's worked hard all his life and he earned every penny the hard way.

He wanted to know if I skim books I have to review and how I get through books I don't like, and how I remember everything the way I do. "It's my job and I'm a professional," I told him. "I couldn't write a review if I didn't read every word, although I've been tempted to stop at the first or second chapter of a book that is sucking the very life out of me and damaging brain cells as I read." He laughed.

When we said goodbye I called my mother to tell her about the call and the first thing she said was that he had called her wanting my phone number and going on and on about my writing and how good I was. I should hire him as my publicist. He's good advertising. When Mom reminded him I have several books coming out next year, he said he was going to buy them all. Too bad I don't get paid royalties for anthologies.

Mom suggested I send him some of my stories. I can do that. I never considered it before because, like all families these days, we have grown apart and gone our separate ways. That wasn't always the case. I used to spend a month every summer in the country with them growing up and holidays and celebrations, and a lot of Sunday dinners, were shared in our home, theirs, or at Grandma and Grandpa's. We were close and, except for twice in my whole life, Uncle Bob has always called me Pearl (Pearl Bailey or Pearly Mae). It was Grandpa's nickname for me. Grandpa never called me anything but Pearl. He gave me the nickname when I was a baby because he said when my teeth came in they were like tiny perfect pearls. Grandma said it was because I was the precious pearl in Grandpa's oyster. I miss seeing Uncle Bob and being close with my cousins.

I won't move from Colorado because this is my home, but I have a reason to go back and visit again -- my uncle -- who was so knocked out by a simple card written to tell him happy birthday and a short one page letter to tell him how much I enjoyed talking with him last week.

It's unfortunate but true that people don't take the time to say thank you any more or to acknowledge cards and gifts. I was brought up in a time when it was unbelievably rude not to acknowledge even a small gift or card. It's a small sign of respect and kindness and it doesn't cost very much, but it certainly leaves a smile on my face and a warm glow in my heart to know that sometimes people do remember and appreciate the thought.

Step aside

I can't believe it's nearly 8 a.m. The sky is just beginning to lighten and the morning breeze finally woke after a stuffy night. It's going to be a thin autumn day.

Want to know what people think of your work? Tell them you're considering stepping aside and letting someone else do your job. That's what I did yesterday after a week of defending two years as editor of the ham club's newsletter. During the past two years I have had very few comments about what I did -- right or wrong -- and even fewer questions about what to put between the pages. I have been grilled and cross questioned, checked up on, and asked the same questions again and again as though I were suspected of wrong doing or just not doing my job. That's what happens when a new administration comes on board, especially when there's new blood on the field. I'm tired of it being mine.

The only thing that's funny about this situation is having one of the board members email me privately to say he felt I was a little upset. What is there to be upset about? Not a day passes (at least this past week) that I'm on the hot seat and none of my answers are taken as truth but have to be checked out and verified, which is unnecessary considering the questions wouldn't have been asked if he'd taken the time to read back issues of the newsletter. It's in there. (I told him that on one occasion.) He in turn chastised me for telling him to do his research and read what's available before asking his questions and that I should have been forthcoming when he asked his questions. I did answer his questions, several times in fact, but he evidently didn't read my answers or didn't believe what I wrote. Upset? Me? Why would I be upset after being treated like an idiot child who has been caught stealing?

I can't believe all of this started because I didn't want to be singled out during the Xmas party and have the club pay the $6 or $8 for my dinner as thanks for the job I do and have done for two years. Honestly, if they want to honor me, all they need do is tell me what they like and don't like about the newsletter I've put out. Feedback, I want feedback. I don't want a coffee cup or a piece of paper that says I did the job. I want to know what people think, even if it's negative, because that way I can make the newsletter better.

I mentioned stepping down to my inquisitor and he promptly backed off and said I had a "talent" for the newsletter then told me he's the kind of person who jumps in and gets things done and that's why he's been hounding me all week, but someone else started it. I also mentioned stepping aside in January to one of the people who has promised me a series of articles since he approached me in March. He said he doesn't understand why because the newsletter is so much better than it was pre-Jackie. Pretty high praise coming from someone I have dogged for months to write the article he asked me about. And it's the first time I have heard what people (other than the two guys who keep telling me how much they like the newsletter) think about what I've done. One guy told me he didn't read the newsletter much before I took over as editor but now he reads it every month. I'm not sure if it's because he likes what I've done and how I've changed things or because he started reading because he knows me.

I still haven't decided whether or not to step aside, but it would certainly simplify my life. I do the job as a volunteer so I don't get paid. They couldn't afford me anyway. Even at a base rate of $500 a month (and I put in 20-30 hours a month), they're getting a bargain, since they only pay for printing ($70-90) and stamps ($8-9). At my regular rate, the newsletter would cost them at least $1300 a month for the hours I work, and that time doesn't even include picking up the newsletter, putting on stamps, labels, and mailing disks, and sending it out, or the time I spend culling addresses from a database of local hams to send extra copies of the newsletter in hopes they will become members. I'm a professional writer and editor -- the first the ham club has ever had as newsletter editor -- and I had to audition and provide a resume of qualifications for a job no one wanted and the previous editor could give away. He got stuck with it because the editor before him just up and quit.

The road has been rocky and full of pot holes and I have put a lot of hard work into making the newsletter something people look forward to reading. Am I upset? Yes -- and no. But I do keep wondering why I want to hang onto something so unappreciated and taken for granted when I could use the time to do my own writing, writing that pays. Guess I have to think about that one before I make the final decision to step aside.

That is all. Disperse.

First snow

There's something special about the first snow of autumn with the soft fall of crystals glinting when the sun peeks down from the leaden sky, the flakes getting bigger and bigger until it looks like a celestial pillow fight with the sky full of downy feathers. I don't know if it's the cold air rushing through the open windows or the watery sunshine or just the smell of freshness in the air that makes my synapses fire faster and with more creative force, but whatever the reason I have been on a writing roll the past few days. I'm not getting much reading done, but the writing is going so well words invade my sleep in a tangled, twisted heap and wake me with a nearly finished article or story I can't wait to fire up the laptop and write. Makes it a little tough getting any rest, but the flurry of words will die down just like the rain that turned to snow and then to big downy clumps yesterday and I will be able to huddle beneath my blanket, warm and snug and breathing snow-freshened air while surrealistic dreams whisk me away into fantasy lands.

This morning, a metaphor about the electricity going out and the people who keep the lights on kept swirling through my mind until I had to write it down. I've been thinking about writing an editorial in the ham club newsletter about the people in the PPRAA who keep the lights on -- so to speak. These people have suffered two major defections by past members who took a big chunk of the membership with them and the remaining core of hard-working people kept things ticking along -- and no one noticed the lights flickered and almost went out. And all of this rumination started because the retiring treasurer wrote a message to the board members about paying for my dinner at the Christmas party because of all the work I do to get the newsletter out every month, a task I have done for nearly two years. Then he said they should also pay for the membership committee head's dinner, too, because no one notices what we do or how much time and effort it takes to do our jobs.

Let's face it. Buying me dinner is a nice gesture -- as far as it goes -- but it's not really that big a gesture, and there are other people who have been keeping the lights on for years that go unnoticed and unrecognized, people who step up to the plate every year and do the work. I do one small task; I edit and put out the newsletter. It's not the same. I suggested the club spring for plaques (really nice plaques like the ones they gave away for the recent nationwide contest) for the retiring club officers: president, VP, secretary, and treasurer. A cold wet fish in the face would have been received better. The counter proposal came that we could give them coffee mugs or a certificate -- and then the debate started. Coffee mugs were useful and didn't cost much, paper certificates even less. (Did I mention these people tend to go for the cheap?) I said coffee mugs were nice, even with a little printing on the side (about $5.99 in bulk), dinners would be eaten and forgotten, and certificates (even framed by the recipient) didn't really say how much a person's efforts were appreciated, and I don't drink coffee and already have a very nice mug for tea. Yes, but you can't take a plaque or certificate to work and hang on your wall because it would be showing off (what's all that wall space for?) and a coffee mug used every day at the office might excite a little curiosity and offer a chance to talk about the club. Yeah, right! Like a plaque or certificate wouldn't get more attention and even more questions. It always comes down to dollars and cents. No wonder no one wants to help out.

And that's the thing, people don't volunteer because they expect a reward; they do it because it's in the nature. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be rewarded in a significant way. A coffee cup or piece of paper isn't all that significant, but it sure says (at least to me), "Thanks for your help. It means so little." Even with a person's name and call sign or "thank you" on the side, it still screams, "Oh, yeah, thanks," in the same tone a cashier or salesperson says, "Have a nice day." It's insincere.

Things did get a little out of hand when it was suggested we thank everyone who does anything with something. That would cost too much. I countered by saying only those people who went above and beyond the call of duty (like the club officers) should be honored and a simple thank you was enough for the rest of the people. At least they embraced that idea quickly (it's much cheaper to thank four or five people than it is to thank ten or more).

My idea was to get the focus off me, but that didn't last long. One person thought a plaque for marking five years of service as newsletter editor was too long (no one has lasted that long yet) and then he went on to talk about all the things the editor does quietly behind the scenes (I prefer the quiet) and that more should be done. There I was back in the spotlight again -- not that I mind the spotlight (I've done many a turn on stage and love the spotlight), but that made me uncomfortable. If I say nothing, they'll do something stupid -- like buy my dinner at the annual Xmas party -- or, worse yet, they'll force me to go to a meeting and miss work, just to give me a coffee cup. I guess they don't understand what it's like to be a single woman with no support other than what I make (and I could certainly use a raise). I really hate that idea. The club will give everyone a chance to win a gift card from Wal-Mart, so if they really want to honor me, give me a $100 gift card or pay for my time. If I had a choice, they could pay me for my time. At $65 and hour (even at $55/hour), that would cost them a whole lot more than the gift card or a plaque, and I don't see them going for that, but that would say, "THANK YOU," in a meaningful way. I could afford to take time off work to go to the Xmas dinner or the membership meeting for that kind of recognition and that would let me know how much they really appreciate me helping keep the lights on.

After all, when the electricity goes out, the electric company pays their workers very well for venturing out in the middle of the night or in the teeth of the storm that dumped the first (and every subsequent) snow to makes sure the lights get back on, and they get noticed for every five years of service.

The first snow of autumn made me anxious to start writing, but I wonder how anxious the members will be to thank me when they read what I wrote with all that fresh air blowing through the galleries and halls of my mind.

That is all. Disperse.

Hard times

And I don't mean by Dickens either, I mean by me. Okay, so I didn't write a story about hard times, but I did have hard times writing a story. What can you say that is positive about Alzheimer's? That your mother/father/brother/wife/fill in the blank no longer nags or yells or screams or jumps down your throat? That you enjoy changing adult diapers and taking care of bed sores when they become bed bound? That you don't mind waking up in the middle of the night scared out of your mind because the door is open and they're gone? That isn't not difficult and embarrassing and sad when you find them naked in the middle of the street?

It's hard remembering the good things when they come so few and far between and make them not only positive but uplifting and worth reading when you need something good to cling to in the midst of the hard times. It's even harder writing about them and not making them sound like Pollyanna on fairy dust and just as believable. I've thought about it, chased around ideas and images, and scribbled two or three thousand words without coming up with anything that moved me enough to write. I know, I should just keep writing until something finally gels, but it doesn't work like that for me. I read and research and play with images and words and ideas like puzzle pieces until I figure out how they go together. No wonder people think I'm odd when I talk to myself. They probably think I'm either someone with multiple personalities or used to live in a mental hospital before I was dumped on the streets. I don't care. It works -- or rather lately hasn't worked -- for me . . . until today.

I had a few hours left before the deadline and I really wanted to see this story published, so I started writing, using my notes and scribbles, arranging and rearranging sections, adding bits I had forgotten and some that still stand out clearly in my mind. I already had the title, The Bed; all I needed was to pull it all together, and writing like this isn't as easy as putting together an article from interviews and research and a ton of reading when all I need to do is pull the right thread so it all falls into place. I was still editing and rearranging and spell checking right up to the deadline, then I held my breath -- for two hours, figuratively no literally. I'm good, but not that good.

The word just came. I made it just in time and a decision would be made by November 1st. Suddenly, it's not such a long time to wait, almost two weeks. I have things to do in the meantime, but this story is written and off my list. I have another story to write for Chicken Soup for the Runner's Soul and I know what I want to say but not quite how to say it. I'll get there. I usually do. Then there are stories about suicide and relationships and monsters and so many others, some of which are already giving me trouble. Like, what can you write about monsters that hasn't already been done to death and doesn't involve romanticizing?

I sat down last night and listed all the things that scare me, but it's a really short list. My life has been full of things that one time frightened me but have been faced and I'm no longer scared. Most anything can be -- and has been -- dealt with and I'm still here. They've lost their power over my imagination and my life. I can imagine a lot but when you've faced what I have, nebulous fears seem so . . . nebulous. One thing that doesn't scare me is running out of words or ideas, and I am not really afraid of not being able to write or even capturing them in some way. Some may never see the light of day beyond my journals and others . . . well, that's what blogs are for.

One thing I know for sure is that we make our own hard times and we can unmake them, shine the light into the closet and under the bed, face down the bullies, and heal from nearly fatal wounds. Nothing is impossible, not even finding something positive in living with Alzheimer's disease.

That is all. Disperse.

Over the river...

...and through the woods, but not to grandmother's house I go. I'm planning a holiday vacation for the week between Xmas and New Year's to a secluded cabin near the river with a fireplace amid plenty of trees and open spaces beneath a deep blue Colorado sky, and plenty of snow, of course. I've been pining for the quiet and seclusion of the cabin and it suddenly occurred to me that I could have all that for a week or so just to recharge my batteries -- at least until I can afford a secluded cabin of my very own.

Usually when I go on vacation I end up going to a funeral or being sick or spending the whole time sleeping late, reading lots of books, and not venturing too far from my own front door. That's not a vacation. It's just a weekend at home where the phone could ring and my office reminds me that I could get in a few extra hours and do some more work. No. I want a real vacation far from the madding crowd where I can look forward to nothing but long walks in the woods or near the river and longer hours of the solitude I need to write. No phones. No Internet. No communication with the outside world except to go into town to buy food or check my email at the local Internet cafe or library. I miss the quiet. And it's what makes me happy.

Happiness. I forgot how that feels sometimes. Not the transient happiness of a moment or two, but the deep down sense of contentment and happiness that comes when I'm at peace with myself and not worrying about paychecks and laundry and bills and all the thousand little things that weigh down on me and press in from every side.

There have been times when I didn't think I deserved to be happy because I didn't measure up to some ideal vision of me or what other people expected of me. I was wrong. Yes, you heard it here first -- I WAS WRONG. It's not that the Constitution guarantees me the right to the pursuit of happiness; I've been pursuing it a long time. As a human being I deserve to be happy because that is -- or at least should be -- the essential nature of being human. Happiness without guilt or shame or someone else's expectations beating at me until I'm not sure if I deserve to live let alone be happy. Simple, easy, no holds barred happiness. I can barely remember the last time I felt that way and I miss that feeling.

It suddenly occurred to me while I was writing in my journal last night before I went to sleep that while I have missed the time I was in jail in New Orleans, it wasn't jail I missed. I missed the quiet and solitude (no, I wasn't in solitary confinement), the lack of responsibilities and duties and expectations (other than staying out of the guards' ways and following their orders), the freedom to set my my mind and soul free from everyday concerns to sit down and just write. I've had that same sense of contentment at other times: at the cabin, when I first moved to Hudson, Ohio, and a few other times. They all had one thing in common -- I wasn't plugged into the neighborhood or the community. I was new and didn't know anyone and there was plenty of quiet. It was during those times that I wrote a lot. I started and finished a book in two weeks and it was bought by a publisher. Of course, it was a work for hire but I finished it in two weeks and it was good and still sells quite a few copies.

I have a friend who dreams of being a hobo and I finally understand why. He longs for the solitude and quiet of wide open spaces without the constant racket of civilization or the pressing demands of being a member of society, a cog in the neighborhood wheel, an ATM dispensing cash and paying bills with a hundred or more items on his "honey do" list.

This must be what it's like to be a telepath, to have all those minds and thoughts crowding out your own thoughts until you can't think, let alone be productive.

This morning I took steps. I looked at several properties and rates and started sending out emails and filling out forms. I know the dates I want to go and I know where I want to go -- higher into the mountains near running water with lots of trees, wild animals and solitude -- and I found a few. They're not perfect because I want a small rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere but still close enough to a little town for supplies and amenities, but most of the places are for families and groups. I'm still looking but I have a plan for a real vacation and for the first time in a while I feel happy; it's a happiness I know I deserve. I don't doubt that now.

One thing I have figured out, besides what I need, is that happiness is not a prize for being good, making your bed, and eating all your vegetables, it's not a treat for swallowing your anger or making nice with people who don't care about you and probably never will, it's not even a bonus for doing a good job and being kind to animals and strangers (or your own family). Happiness just is and everyone who takes a breath, whose heart beats, and who is willing to reach out and take hold of it deserves it. Criminal, murderer, wife, husband, mother, father, kid, adult, good person or bad, everyone deserves happiness. I know where mine is.

That is all. Disperse.

The biology of love

One of my friends sent me this video to illustrate what is now understood about love.



Enjoy.

Coping with pain

It's hard to see someone you love in pain. Sometimes, it's even harder to be around them when they are in pain.

I've been working on a story on Alzheimer's and how it affects families. How do you get past the tedium and frustration of dealing with an illness that progressively gets worse? How do you not resent someone who takes up so much of your time and resources as they slide further and further into the abyss of pain and the oblivion of their minds disintegrating and being unreachable more and more each day? It is as if they are mentally and physically moving backward through time until they are as blank and unfocused as a newborn child. The big problem is that they are still adult-sized but must still be cared for as if they fit into the crook of your arm. They don't and the emotional wear and tear can take an enormous toll on everyone around them. Taking care of them, dealing with them becomes a burden, a black hole that sucks the very life and soul out of you until you wish for the release of death. That is the extreme. Figure into that equation all mentally and physically debilitating diseases like cancer, dementia, para- and quadriplegia, and traumatic brain injuries, just for a start.

When you get right down to it, all chronic illnesses (fibromyalgia, spinal pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.) exact a heavy toll on those around them until the people closest to you tire of hearing the complaints, the moans and groans, the constant aches and needs until the only thoughts that remain or getting as far away as possible, whether that be physically, mentally and/or emotionally. It's difficult. No one says it isn't. So how do you cope? It all comes down to compassion and love.

Love. Compassion. We say the words easily and often but they have lost their meanings. The words are as disposable as the emotions most of the time because they are nebulous and tied to happiness and joy and feelings of euphoria and elation. Love and compassion are, and have always been, as costly and as elusive a high as the finest designer drugs: easier to obtain and harder to maintain. And how do you love someone who is always in pain and needs more attention, more time, and more care than you are willing to give over the long haul? You just do.

Love isn't just about sexual fulfillment and the feelings of euphoria and floating on clouds. Love, true love, is being with someone day in and day out and sharing the mundane every day tasks like preparing meals, cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, taking out the trash, changing the sheets, and keeping up the yard (if you have one). It's the million little things that can get in the way if you focus on them too closely to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, but it's also caring for and living with someone in pain. It's easy at first to be compassionate when someone you love hurts. You tend their fevers, wipe their noses (or any other dripping or leaking part), clean up their messes, change the sheets, and listen to their woes and wailing and it's usually over before you get to the point of grabbing a baseball bat or an axe and ending their suffering (and yours). Ailments have a fairly short course and you can always see the light at the end of the tunnel or the dawn just over the horizon, but what if you can't?

If you can't, you begin to ignore their complaints, snipe and snap at them when they aren't feeling well, begrudge every single, solitary moment you have to listen to them or watch them decline, and you become hardened and unsympathetic. Compassion has flown the co-op. You want out and you want them to go away -- permanently. You have things to do, a life, a million tasks that you may end up having to do alone, and you do not want to hear or see or smell or feel them any more. The person in pain cannot help what's happening to them, but obviously they are to blame. But they're not.

My father took care of my grandfather when he accidentally shot himself in the face and he took care of him after his stroke when my grandmother was at work and my grandfather messed his bed when he had diarrhea. Dad stripped and stripped my grandfather and hauled him on his back into the shower to clean him up while I changed the bed. Grandpa wasn't Dad's father; he was Mom's father, but she couldn't handle him. Grandpa was six foot four inches tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds. Dad was five foot ten inches tall and weighed about 165 pounds, but he took care of Grandpa, cleaned him up, and got him back to bed.

When one of Mom's great aunts, Ann Curry, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Dad took care of her. As she slowly slid down into the dark abyss of Alzheimer's, forgetting who she was and everything and everyone surrounding her, she still smiled innocently up at my father as he fed her, changed her diapers, bathed her, combed her hair, and took care of feeding her. She, like her brother, my grandfather, was well over six feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds (at first), but my father cared for her as if she were his own flesh and blood. It wasn't his job but he was a compassionate man who loved his family. He didn't say the words but his actions shouted his feelings and his heart. Dad did the same for Grandma when stroke after stroke left her demented and diminished and for Aunt Joan, Mom's younger sister, who was dying of emphysema -- for years. Dad took care of them all with love and compassion and an open heart. Dad didn't complain and he didn't speak about it; he just did it.

I've heard so many people say when they ask how someone is -- an acquaintance, a friend, family -- they don't really want to hear how they are; they are just being polite. They don't care. It's understandable. They want someone to listen to them when they're ill or in pain, but they don't want to be bothered by anyone else's illness or pain.

Some of my friends have chronic illnesses and live with pain and pain after being healthy and able to move without it saps not only the body and the energy, but the soul and the heart. I listen to their families complain about them, gripe about their constant neediness, the eternal complaints and moans and groans, having to deal with them day in and day out and I'm sad for them because their love isn't worth the words they speak. The words are as hollow as their hearts and I wonder how they will feel when they're on the receiving end, when they are chronically or fatally ill and need someone to care for them. They'll forget how they felt and expect to be treated with love and compassion. I hope they are, but I doubt they will. I've seen too much of human nature to believe they will find the compassion and love they cannot find and do not have inside, but I hope.

I know how difficult it is to be waked out of a sound sleep to massage a Charley horse out of someone's calf, to shoulder someone else's responsibilities and chores because they're having trouble managing, to reach out with compassion and care and love to listen, to soothe, to offer a comforting shoulder or hand, to rub ointment into sore muscles, fix a hot and healing bath, gently soothe lotion into tissue paper thin skin when the caress of a butterfly's wing causes pain, and endure when someone sinks further and further into pain and the oblivion of a failing mind. It's difficult to watch and even more difficult to hold back the tears and the anger. As strange as it sounds, I hope and pray to be there for those I love no matter how dark and hard the road becomes because they're worth it.

PSA

It's that time of year when the leaves are changing, the air is crisp, cool and smells of wood smoke, and the Boobie-thon is back, so donate to the worthy cause of breast cancer research and take a peek at the male and female boobies in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Give generously.

Oh, and PSA stands for Public Service Announcement and not prostatic specific antigen (at least not in this case), although they both refer to cancer. Here's a little preview.



That is all. Disperse.

Death takes no holidays

Five years ago I left Ohio to move to Dallas -- not my favorite place in the world -- and closed the door on a part of my past that should have been closed a long time ago. That move brought me closer to where I wanted to be -- Colorado. Things here have not always been pleasant or happy, but it's not because I'm here. Trouble happens everywhere. I have had some ups and downs and sometimes it seems like the downs outnumber the ups, but, in the end, life is what you make it.

I received an email from someone out of my past who said I didn't care that he had quadruple bypass surgery and nearly died. How could I care when I didn't know? He wrote to me in May by way of Classmates.com and I wrote back to him in July. He just responded yesterday and this morning I received another email detailing the background of his brush with death. He wrote that being faced with the possibility of his imminent death changed his perspective. I don't see any change, other than his need to contact me and upbraid me about not caring whether he lived or died, but I'm sure he feels he has changed. So far, it's only words, the kind of words you expect from someone who has seen and faced their own mortality, but merely words all the same. He did quit smoking and he did contact me (with his usual touch of sarcasm and asperity), so I guess there are a few changes, but nothing really significant.

The problem with a change of perspective, is that it doesn't always translate into action. Some people continue to do all the same things, hurt all the same people (sometimes adding others to their list), and generally talk a good game, but little in the way of substantial active change shows, except in the mind. Just because you see an obstacle doesn't mean you will avoid hitting it. People get too mired down in their comfort zones to allow any changes, however small, to last, continuing to repeat old patterns as though caught in a video loop: same crap, different day.

We say change is constant, but what we often do not realize is that, while the world changes constantly, people seldom change appreciably or are able to sustain the change. Hair color changes. Clothes and styles change. Age changes. The body changes, mostly at the cellular level. People's attitudes and actions seldom change past a certain age. The rut is comfortable and safe, a place where things rarely or conspicuously alter -- for very long -- and we get lost in the details. We forget what we owe to ourselves as we gorge ourselves on the needs and view of others. Selfishness becomes a bad word and anything we do simply because we want to do it gets lost in an orgy of self sacrifice because we don't deserve or cannot afford to think of ourselves at the cost of others or the budget or the common good. I have news for you all. The act of breathing and living and continuing to life is selfish. Survival is selfish.

In the truest sense of the words, self sacrifice means sacrificing the self, climbing up the steps to the altar and plunging the dagger into your own heart to make room for someone -- for everyone -- else. You quit taking up space so someone else can have your space. There's nothing noble about self sacrifice. Don't believe me? Look at life at the microscopic level. Look at bacteria, parasites, viruses, and germs. They feed off the host or each other in order to continue their own existence. Charity isn't an option. Sacrifice isn't an option -- unless it's the cell next to you. Life is selfish and exists for itself and no other.

If you think this means I advocate plundering the environment or natural resources, forget it. I don't. It also doesn't mean feeding off those around you: their energy, their time, their resources, their money or their emotions. What it means is that we owe it to ourselves to take a good hard look at what we have and decide whether or not it's worth having and to forget all the artificial obligations we impose on our lives and ourselves and choose what we really want -- and what we really don't want.

Feel like a jerk when you spend a little time or money on yourself, especially when those around you are busily using up all your resources, financial and material? Don't. Be selfish. Spend a little something on you. Take time for you. Stop worrying about what everyone else thinks or needs. Get out of the rut. Get away from parasites and sycophants and breathe a little -- or a lot of -- untainted air. Get rid of what doesn't work in your life and get what will work. Stop complaining. Stop fighting. Stop bickering and arguing and discussing and compromising. Do something for yourself. Life is too short and tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Chances are your friends won't wait for you. The man or woman you love isn't going to come or isn't going to keep waiting while you figure things out. The book you've always meant to write isn't going to write itself. The dream you've held in the most secret part of your heart isn't going to happen unless you make it happen.

The guy from my past may be finally realizing what he almost had and how badly he blew it. He had a close look at the Grim Reaper and didn't like what he saw and what he had left undone. I hope he uses that knowledge to make better choices in the future and stop allowing his family to make his choices for him. I hope he learns to be selfish and stops worrying what other people will think. Most of all, I hope all the people I know (and those I don't know) finally understand that life is meant to be lived and that being selfish isn't a bad thing, especially when it means doing something good for yourself. Spend a little money and take that trip, write that book, live that dream, and take a chance on whatever you're afraid to risk that takes you out of your comfortable rutted comfort zone. There are no guarantees -- except these: life moves on without you and death is closer than you think.

That is all. Disperse.

Thief of Joy

Have you ever known someone who just cannot stand to see you happy, when every time things are quiet and you find that smile creeping back into your heart and mind that person starts a fight or contacts you out of the blue just to make sure to ruin that feeling of joy? Then it's time to wise up and pay attention because you're giving them leverage and way too much power in your life . . . and it is about power.

Every time you allow someone to turn your heart and your life inside out, you give them power. Is that what you really want? Wouldn't you rather feel the joy bubbling inside you or do you want to feel guilty all your life? Then wake up and smell the latte because it's not too late. Pay attention to the signs and either get wise or get out.

I have a friend whose life is a mess. Whose isn't these days? She spends her time up on the mountain one moment and down in the valley of fears and tears the next and all because of her husband, but it's also because of her; she can't see what she allows him to do. She does not realize the power she gives him every time he turns her inside out and upside down.

For instance, my friend decided to take some time for herself. She went out with friends and had a wonderful time. She also had plans to see another close friend a day or so later. She came home happy and excited, anticipating a few hours with her friend, someone she hadn't seen in months and missed terribly. Her husband doesn't like her friend so she limits her visits to keep him from blowing up. This time, to be on the safe side, my friend didn't tell her husband she was going to visit her friend, but he knew something was up because he knew the signs so well. Without realizing it, my friend would smile for no reason, a happy secret smile that told her husband everything he needed to know. My friend doesn't realize how much her attitude changes when she plans to go see her friend or how much her happiness and anticipation of a few hours of joy shows on her face and in her demeanor. All she does know is that he planned to turn her world upside down -- and he did. He decided to make plans and corralled his wife into believing the plans could not be changed and she must be there. She knew what would happen if she didn't give in -- arguments, shouting, fighting, anger, and repressed helpless rage -- so she let her friend know she wouldn't be able to show up. The friend was understanding -- she always is -- but the friend knew what my friend didn't; my friend had been set up. Now my friend's husband is making her pay for even wanting to have a small bit of joy that takes her out of his control and away from him because whenever his wife is with her friend thoughts of leaving her husband creep into her heart and she believes anything is possible -- anything, even happiness.

People like my friend's husband creep into our lives like thieves of joy. They cannot stand for anyone to be happy because thoughts of freedom steal into their imagination. They are slaves to unhappiness, slaves to the thieves of joy, who live for brief moments of freedom and then, like good slaves, go back to depression and fear and desperate unhappiness. It doesn't have to be this way. Recognize the signs in yourself and anyone who steals your joy and either shut them down or get as far away from them as you can because if you don't you will be a slave for the rest of your life. The thief of joy doesn't have to be a spouse, the thief can be a friend or acquaintance or even a neighbor, anyone who stomps on joy whenever and wherever they find it.

The thief of joy lives to make everyone around them miserable, including themselves. The thief of joy may seem happy to outsiders but there is a deep, dark well of rage and helplessness inside them that shows itself in many different ways. The thief of joy fills their emptiness by surrounding themselves with people (the thief may call them friends but the thief of joy doesn't really understand the concept of friendship), by shopping, by filling their time with activities, by obsessing about their children, by addictions, by living on a perpetually moving emotional roller coaster, by any number of activities and things that put a smile on their face for a day or a week or even a month, but eventually the darkness seeps out like a creeping fog that taints everything and everyone around them. They cannot allow themselves or anyone around them to be happy for long and true joy brings out the worst in them. The thief of joy will start an argument or create drama and the cycle begins again. The thief of joy anesthetizes their pain but the pain, because it has not been handled, always comes back and devours the sun of joy and everyone around them until only regret and anger and depression remain and the thief of joy is certain their mark will not venture too far for a while. Things settle down after the thief of joy has a belly full of your joy and, like a sated bear, goes to his cave to hibernate for a while. Beware! The thief of joy is not gone, he is merely digesting his meal. He will get hungry again and come rampaging out of the cave looking for another satisfying meal of your joy.

Will you be there or will you take your joy and force the thief to steal from someone else?

Preaching to the choir

If this doesn't bother you, nothing will.

A religious war, no matter who's starting fighting it is no good news for anyone.

Never fade away

I had a moment of panic this morning while using my laptop; one of the key caps came loose on the keyboard. Typing in the dark, as I usually do, I could not figure out how to fix it even though I pressed and jiggled and maneuver it into position over and over. I decided to finish typing and take a look later when there was more light and I wasn't so focused on everything but fixing it. After all, it was the V and I don't use it nearly as much as the other keys; it does still have its little V decal firmly in place -- unlike the other keys that are rapidly vanishing. If necessary, I could get along without it. When Nature inevitably shouted at me and got my attention I took the key with me to puzzle over while I was otherwise occupied.

I figured one thing out almost immediately; the cap had a collapsible underside. I was onto something and the tiny metal brackets on the bed of the keyboard began to make sense. (I probably would have made a good engineer -- or maybe not.) I thought I could fix it.

After washing my hands, I took the cap back to the living room and fiddled with the cap a few moments, unsure how to keep the collapsible platform open long enough to engage the tiny metal prongs. I needed more light. Back to the bathroom where I fetched my mini Maglite only to find out it was dead. I needed batteries. To the kitchen where I keep the spare batteries (I'm getting low and must put it on the grocery list), popped out the old, popped in the new, and there was light. First in my mouth and then lying on the keyboard shining in the right direction -- after removing little strands of hair and dust -- I managed to keep the collapsible platform open long enough to fix the cap onto the tiny metal prongs and voila! it worked. The keyboard was restored. Now I could type -- and, as you see, that is what I did. I no longer feel the spongy squish of the little rubber plunger that hid beneath the cap and worked the V, something I was prepared to live with if things didn't work out as I hoped.

I love fixing things: food, electronics, machines, whatever is broken. I don't even mind the occasional home repair; I even enjoy the respite from living in my head so much of the time. But I do sometimes forget that nothing lasts forever. I keep plugging away, doing spot maintenance whenever necessary, and forget that nothing is built to last -- not people and not bad luck, as evidenced by my recent string of good luck.

When I checked the mail a few days ago I had a surprise, a check for second place in Byline magazine's Personal Memoir contest for my story, A Helping Hand. The money was welcome but it was the unexpected win when I had forgotten all about entering my story months ago (along with the requisite fee) that stunned me. At first, I thought it was another contract for one of my articles, but the envelope was hand written and I always send a SASE. Maybe they lost the SASE, I reasoned, but, no, it was something entirely different -- money and congratulations for winning second place.

I shouldn't have been surprised since a couple weeks before I got a letter from Chicken Soup that they were buying one of my stories for another of their books, which was followed yesterday by news that they had bought yet one of my stories for another anthology, this one for the Divorced Soul. That brings the Chicken Soup total up a little more and I have more stories waiting to be judged and accepted. There are now nearly ten books coming out next year either with my name on the cover or included in the book. That's not a bad haul for the year and the year isn't over yet.

I know people think I'm a little crazy when they see me grinning like an idiot and shouting, "YEAH! YEAH!" every time I go to the bank to cash another check for my writing, but it never gets old for me. Every time is like the first time and I feel like climbing onto the highest roof or mountain peak and shouting my news out to the whole world -- at least as far as my voice will carry. For the rest, phone calls, blog posts, and email will have to do and then I'll rely on letters. I have lots of stationery. I never doubted that my words would be read and though some people have done their best to cast doubt on my abilities because there are not more books with my name on the cover, I am still very much a writer. I have always been a writer even when my words remained unpublished and unseen by anyone outside of my family. A writer writes and I have been writing for a very long time and that is something that will never change.

When the measure of a writer's success is counted in dollars and cents it demeans us all. I can name over a hundred writers and poets whose work wasn't published until long after their deaths that were writers despite their lack of credits in print. Think of the thousands of men and women who kept journals of their trek across the plains during the westward expansion whose work has only now come to light in our quest to understand our past or those whose work was consigned to trunks in the attic until someone in their family read what their words and decided to publish them. Where would John Kennedy Toole have been if his mother hadn't fought to see his work published? Dead in his car from carbon monoxide poisoning, another suicide statistic and nothing more. Was he a real writer? Obviously, you haven't read A Confederacy of Dunces or met Ignatius J. Riley.

My recent sales may seem like small victories for someone who has been writing as long as I have, but they're not. They are proof of what I have always known; I am a writer. As nice as the checks and print publication are, it does not change the basic fact that I was a writer long before I was published and will be a writer long after I am gone because my words, saved between the pages of file folders and journals, will never fade away. They will remain, a treasure for some family member or curious child who unearths them wherever they are stored and will be read, whether by one or one million doesn't matter; the words will be read.

That is all. Disperse.

West vs East

Whenever I see a movie that has been remade from a foreign movie, I like to check out the foreign version to compare how the story is different. Premonition is one of the recent movies I've seen that came from a Japanese movie: Yogen or The Newspaper of Death. The only thing the two movies have in common is knowing about a death before it happens.

In the American version, a woman is told her husband was killed in a car accident the day before and she remembers seeing him off to work that morning, except she is out of time, living her life out of sequence. Throughout the movie she jumps back and forth in time, living different endings and different events as she searches for a way to change the outcome.

In the Japanese movie, Hiroshi Mikami picks up a newspaper from the floor of a phone booth and reads about his daughter's death in a car accident before the paper disappears. His daughter dies moments later and he cannot convince anyone that he read about her death before it happened. Five years later, he and his wife are separated and his now ex-wife has dedicated her life to finding out about the newspaper that keeps appearing to predict future events. Her husband, unable to deal with his daughter's death, begins to have premonitions of other deaths and finds himself unable to stop them before they happen. The wife finds her ex-husband and together they search for answers only to discover Hiroshi's only future is not bright. He will either go mad or, if he changes the future, will disappear slowly and painfully, taking on the burden of the deaths that were meant to be.

The basic premise is changed between the two movies, but that's just on the surface. Beneath that is a fundamental difference in ideology and perceptions. In the American version, there is an underlying sense of hope and the belief that the future is not set in stone, that the Fates do not rule us, we rule our own fate. The Japanese version offers little in the way of hope unless a high price is paid, one life for another, in order to keep the Fates balanced. The I is sacrificed for another and Fate cannot be countered without madness or painful death. Fate rules.

Another difference lies in the treatment of extraordinary happenings. In the Western mind, magic is nothing more than science misunderstood and everything boils down to science. In the sophisticated and westernized East, magic and science can be mixed, but there is a deeply rooted sense of magic that underlies everything. It is as if magic is a part of their genetic makeup while westerners tend to hold magic at a distance, separating it from reality and seeking to quantify it in saner terms, in terms of science.

In every foreign movie I've seen, Fate is the final arbiter and magic is inextricably bound to the way they see and experience the world. In the Western world, science underpins everything and the only magic we accept without question is Hope, the hope that we create our own future, that we can win against Fate and predestination if we believe hard enough and fight hard enough.

That is all. Disperse.

No time like now

Alexander Graham Bell:

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

Katherine Mansfield:

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only for wallowing in.

Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

Sydney J. Harris:

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

A friend recently told me he regrets missing out on being with the one person who made his life happy and interesting. He said he had made so many mistakes he wanted to take back but didn't know how, and if he had it to do all over again... I stopped him right there. "Why," I asked, "are you wasting so much time and energy moaning and groaning over what you can't change? If the opportunity is still available, stop regretting what you cannot change and change what you can right now."

Until there is a time machine available to everyone (and wouldn't that cause a ripple effect from which we'd never recover?) and we can erase the past, we must live with the knowledge that the past cannot be changed but the future is still a blank canvas waiting for whatever we want to put on it. The problem is that we get so mired in the past we can't see the moment right in front of us or the possibilities just past the end of our noses. Learn from the past, repeat what worked, and learn from what didn't work, but keep moving forward.

It's like that faint, flickering glimmer of hope in the farthest and darkest corner of Pandora's box that would have been lost had Pandora not looked inside and simply shut the lid to make sure nothing else evil or bad got out. Stop looking at what got away and look for what's still there.

My friend made a choice to put a relationship on hold while he made 1000% certain that he was sure of everything and he chose the perfect time. The biggest problem with that kind of thinking is that you cannot ever be 1000% certain of anything and there is no perfect time; there is only this time, this moment, and this choice. Time and tide -- and life -- wait for no wo/man. I know it all sounds like nothing more than clichéd bromides, but they are clichés because they are true.

I have made mistakes, quite a lot of them over the years, but each mistake brought me to this moment and I regret none of them because at the time they seemed like a good idea and either taught me something or simply gave me insight into myself or someone else. Those are mine to keep, like Fate's door prizes, and like some door prizes they aren't what I wanted, just what I got. I also know that my biggest enemy -- if you can really term it an enemy -- is me because I sometimes forget that as long as there is the next breath, the next moment, the next heartbeat there is still hope and I can change things. Oh, I fall into old habits and once I notice that I do my best to change what I'm doing, but for the most part I am a work in progress and I keep learning and changing and, hopefully, growing. It all sounds so Pollyanna but I prefer Pollyanna to regret and spending my life in the sloughs of despond, and it gives me a new lease on life and a new way of looking at things, and I love to look.

I don't know whether or not my friend will take my advice and stop regretting the past, but I do know that all he needs to do is look up and see that what he wants most in the deepest part of his heart is still available if he has the courage to step up to the plate and take his shot. It won't be easy because there are questions to be answered and reasons to be given, but what he wants is within his grasp if he wants it badly enough and doesn't keep waiting to be 1000% sure or for the perfect time; he's not going to get that kind of sign.

For me, it's like writing. I fret over starting but once I get started the words come and at the end I have something worth sending out and being published. The first step is always the hardest because I agonize over it so much, trying to order things in my mind and plan out what I'm going to write, but I'm stalling, spending too much time thinking about what I am going to do than just doing it. It's that way for many things that I think are going to hurt, but I usually find out I wasted a lot of energy for nothing. Pain is sometimes good because it means growth, but more often than not I find that the pain is inconsequential or nonexistent and the growth is more than I ever hoped was possible.

I hope my friend stops waiting and takes that first step and follows it with more steps because otherwise he will spend his life regretting what he could have had all along.

What do you regret?

In memory

I just finished spending hours writing and recording a piece that will be integrated into a video my brother made as a memorial to my father.

On September 2nd, my family planted a tree in Dad's honor on his birthday and my brother filmed it. He's putting together a CD of the video and asked if I would write something to use as narration, so this morning I pulled out the letters Dad wrote me about his life growing up before and after his mother died in order to use his words. When I sent what I put together my brother said it was too long and he'd have to cut it down. Then I took a nap because I've been burning the candle at both ends lately and needed a rest; it was probably emotional exhaustion as well as physical and mental exhaustion, but the nap did me good. When I woke up I knew what I needed to write and how to put it together. It took me several tries but I finally recorded a narration that sounded as good as it looked on paper. My brother just wrote back and said he cried listening to it. I didn't cry recording it but the tears are hovering on the edge of my mind like a promised storm and I know they will come sooner rather than later. At least I have the memories my father left; that is something to hang onto.

Memory is a tricky thing. We tend to color the happy moments brighter and the bad times we view from a safe distance as though through a lens covered with Vaseline and gauze: watery, faint and far less painful than when we lived them. It's human nature to look fondly on the past and see it as better than it was: brighter, golden, happier. Sometimes we're right and things were better and sometimes memory is unreliable. Even those memories we hold close, the dark and painful times that scored and scarred our minds and souls, are not quite as we remember them. The villains are more evil, the emotions more powerful, the intentions black and white and easy to understand when in fact they are more of a watery gray that occasionally shades into charcoal. Powerful emotions leave powerful memories and we work them like worry stones, deepening and softening the lines of reality so we can bear the past and the scars we carry.

We forget all the times we have failed someone, all the times we have let them down. Instead we remember our reasons or forget the incidents altogether in order to move on with our lives. Chance remarks we took as criticisms or deliberate knife thrusts to someone else's heart are lost in the ever changing kaleidoscope of time and distance and we are left with regret, stumbling over what if and if only as though they were water-filled potholes in the middle of the road at the darkest hour of the night when our headlights fail. Most of the time we move on and keep living, keep breathing, keep making mistakes and finding happiness and despair in every moment. That's life.

I am usually reluctant to move on but when I do I leave everything behind, glancing back over my shoulder less and less as life pulls me forward. In the long dark nights when I'm alone in my bed or when I'm writing some piece of my life that will be published or used, I relive those poignant moments and thank the god/dess that I have been privileged to know even a few moments of happiness as I lived in interesting times. It isn't always easy and there will always be things -- and people -- I regret leaving behind or walking away from, but no matter how long they stay away or how soon it seems they are forgotten, they come with me as I move through life and I sometimes look back at them and wish they could share the changing moments and experiences here and now. I live with the hope they will push through the mazes and thorny hedges that separate us and join me down the road, the past a hazy, watery dream colored with fond memories, the pain and disappointments and regrets forgotten. But there are some who won't join me; my father is one of them.

They planted a tree on Dad's birthday in honor of his memory and it will grow and flourish above the bench where my family will take turns sitting and remembering him. I will see the tree in the video and my family will send pictures as it grows. I don't really need them to remember my father. I have his letters and his words and a treasure trove of memories. He no longer walks this earth, but he will always walk the halls of memory and alongside me in spirit as I keep living and working, writing and remembering not what I've lost but what he planted inside of me that will continue to flourish and grow.

I'm baaack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can I say but oh, yeah?

That is all. Disperse.

The Compleat Friendship Garden

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

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

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

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

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

That is all. Disperse.

All the stage is a world

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

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

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

In the darkness

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

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

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

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

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

Preventive health maintenance

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

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

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

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

That is all. Disperse and find your own vaccine.