A bright new day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is it summer yet?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll shut up now.

...while you still can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who decides?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cobalt skies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you love?

One night in cyber hell

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

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

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

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

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

That is all!

Disperse!

Cool and comfortable

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

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

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

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

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

Loose

I am feeling at loose ends like a revved up race car at the starting line and they won't drop the flag. And so I sit.

I handed in my notice to the editor in chief of The Rose & Thorn almost a week ago, but I'm still here. It's as if something is holding me back, keeping me from moving on. First it was all these changes to the staff issue and then more changes to the web site, none of which would go thru because the host is screwy right now. I finally called them today and asked what was going on and how soon I could expect it to be fixed. Six to twelve hours. In the meantime, the EIC is bugging me about canning the contest and the staff issue "if it's too much trouble", which basically means she doesn't want to deal with it anyway, especially since I won't be there to carry the load.

I don't feel like I can move on until this last issue is safely up and working properly. I'm just tired of trying to get it right because I am ready to move. If I don't turn my back on R&T soon it will seem like I was just trying to get some attention, which is the least of my worries or needs at any given time, but most especially now. I need to get back to writing and submitting my work. I can't until this is done. Oh, well, maybe tomorrow. As Scarlett always said, Tomorrow is another day. Like there was an option for tomorrow to be another week or month or year or elbow.

I know. I'm being a bit sarky right now. But I itch and nothing seems to help, which means I'm am tense and unsettled. My body reacts to my inner turmoil by itching.

On another note, there is a thieving raccoon climbing up on the deck railing and spilling what he doesn't drink of the hummingbirds' syrup. Two days in a row I went out on the deck to find the syrup was all gone. I didn't think the birds could go thru four cups of syrup, but I couldn't figure out what else was happening. And then I saw the shadow and white rimmed eyes of a great big old raccoon. And I do mean big. He's about the size of a German Shepard. Of course it might be a she raccoon, but the result is the same. Thief. I brought the feeder in last night and the hummingbirds scolded and circled and buzzed and whistled at me. It was nearly dark and the coon shows up just after the sun goes down. I didn't want to forget and leave him with more of their food. Tonight when I took it down they scolded and whistled at me again, so I stood on the deck holding the feeder while they flitted and sipped and landed for a good long drink. I didn't think they'd do that but I was wrong. Guess they're getting used to me being out there.

My plants are in various stages of growth and I had to heavily water my pole beans because the leaves looked a mite withered and dry. They perked right up and I noticed I had quite a few two-inch long beans. I guess they're going to grow after all. The one test pea I planted is also growing and sending out tendrils.

I did one quick writing project this afternoon while I was fussing with the R&T web site and trying not to scream and throw things. (It's rare, but it does happen when I'm really frustrated and something still isn't working). I wrote a quick 230-word essay about writing -- But I'm Doing it Right. It comes from the sudden realization that I'm spending a lot of time sending out clips and resumes and looking for markets, but I haven't really written anything of note for a couple of weeks. Not a good thing at all. In order to be published one must write. I did think it was funny--not in a ha-ha way--that market searches and clips and organization can be a way to put off writing. So here it is quick and short.

But I Did it Right



I just don't understand why I'm not getting published. I did everything right, but let me go over the check list again.

I bought plenty of paper and ink to print out my submissions. I invested in a good computer and spell check program to make sure errors don't get past me.

I have all the books on characterization, dialogue, formatting, and markets and I have read and made detailed notes. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent going over markets and updating my files on editors, agents, and publishers, but it's safe to say I spend at least 30 to 40 hours a week making sure my submissions don't go astray. I even have plenty of SASEs of all sizes typed and stamped, ready to send. I have been very thorough and organized.

I thoroughly read and research my target markets and magazines, making sure I know exactly what they publish, but I'm still not getting published. I'm doing everything right, but nothing's happening. I must have left something out.

Supplies, organization, research, marketing, studying, reading, and keeping updated copies of my files. There's nothing missing that I can see. Stamps, SASEs, right size envelopes, and a quiet room of my own to write.

Oh, yes, I see. All the marketing and organization and preparation don't matter if I don't write.

Well, I did almost everything right.

Gum on my Shoe

I should have known my second marriage was a mistake the morning after the wedding when I discovered my husband dressing for drill with the Ohio State Naval Militia (which I called Ohio's Mickey Mouse Navy) at 5 a.m. Everything pretty much went downhill from there.

I understood when he wouldn't take off even a half day so we could get married. I half expected it when we ran into one of his old girlfriends at the Kahiki, a Polynesian restaurant on the east side of town, where we had our wedding supper, but leaving me at 5 a.m. to go play soldier for the weekend was too much. After one divorce seven years behind me, I decided I had to make my second marriage work no matter what. I didn't realize I was fighting a losing game.

Valentine's Day was one month before our first anniversary and I wanted to make it special. After saving the money for weeks, I booked us into a really nice hotel in Worthington for the weekend, a special Valentine's weekend complete with champagne, room service, and steak dinners with all the trimmings. I went to the hotel after I got off work and arrived before Nick. Two hours later--two very long hours later--Nick showed up carrying his drill clothes.

“Nick, this is supposed to be a romantic weekend. I thought you were going to call off for drill.” I was surprised and hurt and angry.

“I have a perfect attendance record. I'm not going to ruin it now. I'm up for promotion.” He carefully hung up his uniform and gear in the closet.

“We're late for dinner,” I said and gathered my purse, slipped on my shoes, and went to the door to wait. “Let's go.”

“I need to change and take a shower.” He was still in his work clothes and at that point I didn't really care. I was hungry and angry and I didn't feel like waiting an hour while he primped and fussed and went through his usual routine of staring at himself in the mirror while he brushed his teeth, shaved twice, and powdered, perfumed, and deodorized naked.

“You can take a shower after dinner.” I opened the door. He took off his clothes and headed for the bathroom. Once Nick started into his routine, nothing short of death would stop him. I went to dinner without him.

Our first and second anniversaries were pretty much the same, fatefully falling on drill weekends or simply forgotten. The harder I worked to pull our marriage together, the more I realized Nick was still a single man who happened to have a wife at home and it wasn't going to get any better. I realized Nick's father and Larry had been right. I was marrying the wrong member of the family; I would have been better off—and happier—had I married Larry, Nick's gay brother. So I determined to get another divorce.

At least that was the idea. When I told Nick he told me the way it was going to be. “I asked you to marry me. I'll let you know when it's over,” he said.

For three years I tried to get Nick to see our marriage was a mistake and we should just end it. He didn't agree. He liked having someone take care of the bills and the house and earn a good living. “I can't afford to live alone since I lost my job at the University,” he said. He had been fired for incompetence. He was a truck driver.

But I wanted a still wanted a divorce.

“I can't afford to be single,” Nick said. “I don't make enough.

His next job was working at Sears two days a week. “Why don't you go out on interviews on your days off?” I suggested.

“You're trying to make me have a heart attack,” he accused. “Besides you make enough money for both of us.”

And so it went for three years. I finally decided to move into another apartment, but while I was out buying blinds, Nick convinced my father and brother to help him move into my new home. I was stuck again.

Nick, still a bachelor at heart, began bringing his girlfriends home while I was at work. I doubt I would have noticed had it not been for the two bodies blocking the door one night when I came home a bit early. I sat on the couch and watched for twenty minutes while Nick and Joyce, one of my friends, kept having sex. They didn’t even break stride.

I knew I had to do something soon or I was going to do more than Super Glue his penis to his belly like I did the night after I caught him with Joyce.

He was sleeping around and stuffing my hard earned money down G-strings up and down Westerville Road, but I warned him about bringing them home. “I'll Super Glue your dick to your belly if I ever catch you screwing one of your girlfriends here.” Nick never listened to anything I said. While I reminded him of my promise, I used nail polish remover with alcohol to help him get unstuck. He didn't go out to be with any of his girlfriends for two weeks, something to do with swelling and soreness.

Figuring that would be the last straw and he would finally give in, I tried again. “I want a divorce.”

"When I can afford to be single.”

He could barely afford to be single when we met. Nick's father kicked him out of the house the day of his mother's funeral. He was 33 years old and hadn't left home yet.


I tried everything. Hoping one of his girlfriends had fallen in love, I called around. None of them wanted him that much. The gilding was definitely off the lily.

So, one car, two jobs, and a housewarming cat later, I asked again for a divorce. Nick got more comfortable on the couch. “When's dinner?” No go.

Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer gave me an idea. I'd gaslight Nick.

Bombarding him with images of women killing and getting revenge on men, I pulled out all the stops: Basic Instinct and She-Devil. Nick hated both movies with a passion, but mostly he was afraid I'd get ideas. A friend in forensics with the Columbus City Police Department came to the house to discuss toxicology screens and the perfect murder. We focused on men killing husbands and boyfriends and their motives.

With another anniversary on the way, I decided to make it memorable because I was determined it would be our last.

“Nobody expected us to stay married this long,” Nick said. “Larry would have been closest in the family pool, but he can't collect from the grave.” Nick snickered. “Serves him right.”

Larry died the year before of AIDS-related pneumonia and I missed him terribly, hating Nick for his attitude about how Larry died.

“Well, I have a surprise for you this year.” I smiled. “You’ll never guess what it is.”

“Doesn’t matter. You always give me such great gifts.” One of my major flaws—generosity; my other major flaw is stupidity.

“This year is different. I'm going to collect the money in the pool because you're going to die this year.”

Nick's face blanched as Sharon Stone reached for the knife underneath the bed. “A friend who works in biogenetics has made a special virus just for you. He encoded it with your DNA and the day after our anniversary you are going to die.”

He didn't know whether I was joking or serious, but during the days before our anniversary he refused to answer the door or talk to anyone, whether we knew them or not.

The day of our anniversary the door bell on the back door rang. I was in the shower. “Someone's at the door,” he said.

“Go answer it.” I was washing my hair.

The doorbell rang again.

“It's probably for you.” He wasn't budging.

“Just get the door.”

The stairs creaked as he slowly walked down the stairs, a condemned man.

Bart told me later he peered through the kitchen window trying to see who was at the door, but he hid out of sight. Nick cracked the door but, unable to see, he ended up opening the door all the way. Bart, dressed as a clown and in full makeup, holding a bouquet of balloons, jumped out at Nick who nearly fainted. After singing “Happy Anniversary”, Bart handed Nick the bouquet of balloons and popped one, then ran off the porch laughing.

“That was really nice,” Nick said unconvincingly as he showed me the bouquet of Mylar balloons. Taking a pin from the nightstand, I popped the black balloon with the skull and crossbones. Nick fell across the bed and broke it.

All night long, Nick paced the floor, checking his pulse and blood pressure every five minutes. It was worth the loss of a night's sleep watching him mutter and pace, count his pulse, and then pump up the blood pressure cuff and check the numbers.

Come morning he was still alive, but we were no closer to divorce. Gaslighting Nick wasn't going to work.

Six months later, after a particularly bad fight during which our next door neighbors pounded on the door and threatened Nick with calling the cops, Nick opened the door and I raced past him to the safety of our neighbor’s home. Nick had just come back from dumping the vacuum cleaner and three chairs he destroyed when the police arrived. They suggested strongly he leave and I warned him to get his things when he left because I was changing the locks. The apartment was in my name.

I woke up at 4 a.m. to find Nick rummaging through the bureau. “I said to get your things last night. I'm changing the locks today,” I reminded him.

“I need clothes for work,” Nick said and took his clothes into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard him turn on the shower and resisted the urge to get the water pitcher from the refrigerator and pour it on him just to hear his pores snap shut.

An hour later he was gone, but I knew he didn't believe I would change the locks.

When Nick came home he tried his key in the lock. It didn't work. He tried again. No luck. Fifteen minutes of trying his key and the door wouldn't open, so he pounded and shouted and threatened me through the door for another thirty minutes. I guess he missed the pile of his things on the doorstep next to him.

Since I couldn't move into my new apartment across town for two weeks, I was forced to listen to Nick come home every night at six, try his key in the lock for about fifteen minutes, and then curse and pound on the door for another fifteen minutes when he figured out his key still didn't work.

The day I moved he brought the police with him so he could get his things. Both officers were very nice and quite polite as they watched Nick struggle to move his desk and the boxes of junk he had collected over the years. My things had just been picked up and I was making a last check when Nick and the officers arrived. They knew Nick from high school and didn't seem to like him very much. After five years of marriage, I didn't wonder why.

Nick loaded the last box in his car and I handed him the key to the apartment. “The rent is paid up until the end of the year,” I said.

”You could have told me that before I packed up all my stuff.”

“I forgot,” I said, using his favorite and most often used excuse. The officers turned their backs on Nick and laughed while they walked to their cruiser.

“What's your new address?” he asked.

“You don't need to know,” I answered. “You can contact me through my lawyer.” I handed him the lawyer's business card and got in my car. The officers waited until I pulled away before they pulled out and followed me.

Two months later I quit my job, paid off the attorney, stopped divorce proceedings, and took a lower paying job with another company, telling them not to give out any information about me to anyone. Nick had counter sued me for alimony and support. Supporting him for three years was enough so I waited.

Two years later my mother called with a message from Nick. He agreed to a do-it-yourself divorce. He was engaged and planning to get married on New Year's Day.

Three months later I was free of Nick. I have celebrated my independence day every year for the past twelve years, a reminder that sometimes independence doesn't come cheap.

He's still engaged to the same woman, but she keeps changing the year of the wedding. The day is always the same: New Year’s Day. But having been married to Nick, I think she's just too smart to fall for his black Irish good looks and piercing blue eyes. Or maybe she knows getting a divorce from Nick is like getting gum off the bottom of your shoe on a hot August day—the more you scrape, the more it spreads.

I'm done

With just three hours to spare, I decided to revamp my post on my little dead hummingbird and sent it in to the Power of Purpose contest. I won't know the results until September, but I am okay with my entry. It is more important that I did it than that it wins first prize, although even last prize would be nice. I could handle an influx of $10,000 any day of the week.

So here it is...and without any further ado.

Little Wings



I found a dead hummingbird on the deck. It was a male, and most likely the sassy bold little male who determines who does and does not get to share the feeder. He lay on the bench, little wings outspread, tail feathers splayed as if soaring on the wind.

I took his tiny body in my hands, marveling at the still brilliant iridescence of his ruby and gold throat and his dragon scale feathers shimmering in the sun. His bead bright black eyes were flat and empty, his tiny claws curled as if still on the feeder perch. I stroked his wings and soft little body, amazed at the softness and perfection of each little feather. His thread-like tongue stuck through his needle beak, hard and unyielding, not the pliant whip made to sip nectar and sugar syrup.

The other hummingbirds darted and whistled about the feeder, seemingly oblivious to their silent friend. As I picked him up, hummingbirds descended from everywhere, squabbling and whistling and knocking each other off perches. Maybe they noticed their companion after all and out of fear or respect or animal intelligence curtailed their usually frenzied quarreling over sugar syrup.

Planning to repot some seedlings, I gathered a new clay pot, my trowel, two peat pots containing butternut squash and cayenne seedlings, a flat of 72 cells full of flowers, herbs, and food plants, and took them outside. At the foot of the stairs to the deck, I picked up two pieces of pink marble to cover the drain hole and began to fill the new pot with rich, loamy organic soil. Once it was halfway full, I gently placed the perfect tiny body of the hummingbird and covered him with more earth. To fling him into the woods or bury him in the yard seemed wrong, unfair. Instead, his little body will go back to the earth and nourish the seedlings and plants while the other hummingbirds arrow down from the deep blue sky to drink a little nectar and spread pollen to each new flower, giving him a new purpose.

I found a dead hummingbird on the deck, a ruby-throated male that once carried pollen and seeds from flower and tree to ensure the next generation. Bright colors and sweet nectar called him from his busy rounds to visit and take a little of their essence with him as he buzzed and darted throughout the day. He gave me joy and beauty and laughter, but he still has a purpose. He fertilizes my seedlings and plants, ensuring they will flourish and provide me with beauty to see and food to eat. Although he no longer brightens my view with his sparkling feathers and whistling cries as he darts through the sky, little wings ceaselessly beating, he will always brighten my heart and my home as he returns to his place in the cycle of life. With each new leaf, flower and fruit that grows from his grave, he reminds me it is the small purposes that must be fulfilled first. They serve as the bedrock upon which all is built and without which nothing is possible.

Memorial Day

This morning dawned gray and cold and I stayed in bed much longer than I normally do -- until ten. Normally, I'm up and out of bed by eight. I take my vitamins, drink my glass of water, snag a piece of fruit and a yogurt (or whatever else I've decided to have for breakfast), check on and water all my plants and seedlings and take the hardier plants outdoors for what little sunshine peers thru the clouds these days, and climb the steps to my loft office. Up under the high pitched roof I have windows near my desk and computers and windows on the opposite wall where light streams thru when it decides to visit. Lately, it has been a capricious companion, but even the sight of the towering pines I see out all the windows, the pines that completely surround my little mountain haven, is heartening because it is a daily reminder of the wonder of actually living in a cabin in the mountains, a dream I have held since I was a child.

Right now the wind is roaring thru the trees and they shake and shiver and bend in its wake. It is cold out there, but he sun is bright today, herding the vast puffy white lakes overhead, pushing them thru a light cobalt blue sky.

Did you know a cloud is really a lake suspended in the air above you? Think about it. Clouds are water vapor and lakes are composed of water. Hence--lakes.

There was ice on the BBQ grill cover on the deck and a puddle of melting water waterfalling down to the boards. Hummingbirds were busily fighting the heavy winds to perch on the feeder and drink despite their feathers blowing about them like Marilyn Monroe's skirts over the subway grate. Mountain chickadees with their peach-tinted breasts fly up from the ground to the deck and walk around picking up seeds and insects, hopping here and there rather than fly against the freight train whoosh of the wind. Chipmunks skitter like tan and brown striped New Orleans roaches from tree to tree up and down the mountainside on chipmunk errands, probably prizing open fallen pine cones for their seeds and looking for early mushrooms peering from roots and deadfall. More new birds I have yet to identify zip past the deck, scattering the hummingbirds that quickly come back to the feeder to rest and relax. A harem of does crossed the ridge in their daily trek to feeding grounds on the lower plains, huddled together and ready to bolt, although they tolerate my presence.

And I have work to do, an essay I have put off because I'm afraid I don't have anything to write important enough to be noticed, let alone win. But it is these small moments, these times when I feel in tune with the little world around me, when I can walk out onto the deck and feel the brush of hummingbird wings, coax the does a little closer so I can see their eyes and hear their gentle snuffling, or feed the three camp robbers who swoop in to peck seed from my hands that anything is possible -- even having something worthwhile to write.

Happy Memorial Day to all and to all a good BBQ or reasonable facsimile thereof.

I'll shut up now.

Sundays

I feel sort of slow and cold and not much good for anything, as if in the grip of cold silence.

Most of the snow is gone, but the sun cannot break thru the heavy dirty wool of the clouds overhead. One line of blue, at first deep azure and now pallid and pale blue, peers thru the thick grey-white haze, but no sun. The tall Ponderosa pines bend in the wind, bowing to a superior force, as I sit up here in my aerie looking out on a winter world caught in the bubble between spring and summer.

I have gone thru all my emails, edited a sample of text and posted it in hopes of finding more work and generating a regular income, and I need to finish the staff issue of R&T and work on my own essay about the power of purpose, but somehow I cannot urge myself closer to the words. Perhaps it is because my fingers are cold and a little stiff or perhaps I need a break, a few moments outside so the wind can blow the cobwebs and silence from my mind. Or perhaps I just need to go downstairs and get something to eat, something warm and spicy or sweet and warm or just warm and filling.

I want to crawl back into bed with The Speed of Dark and Elizabeth Moon's spare prose, slip back into Lou Arrendale's autistic mind and wonder along with him what is truly normal and what is supposed to be normal and isn't. Or if normal is a catch-all term that defines nothing more than a generality.

A ray of sun just lit up the golden caps on the wooden posts punctuating the deck railing and now the view outside the windows on the living room wall is all golden and bright. High up above the mountainous clouds a washed out cobalt blue sky reaches its fingers downward into the thick covering and the band of pallid blue is gone. The clouds are thick like curdled milk, but there is no watery whey washing thru the curds.

I guess I'll go downstairs and get something to eat, take a hot shower, and walk out into the wind to see if there isn't something I can find at the grocery story to tempt my seedling thoughts into full bloom. Then again, maybe I'll just keep writing and see what happens, what peers from between the nonsense and the dreams.

Once more with gusto

I started writing many hours ago when the lights flickered in time to the rumble of thunder and the crackle of lightning outside my window. The computer rebooted and just as it reached cruising speed I decided to shut it down and unplug it because forks of lightning split the sky closer and closer to the cabin. The sky was white with a deep dirty wool gray closing fast so I put on some shoes and brought in my plants from the deck, filled the hummingbird feeder with the syrup I cooled in the fridge and picked up my gloves and wood sling. I haven't cut up the logs in the woodpile yet, but there was some wood on the ground so I gathered it up, some of it crumbling in my hands. Beetles raced for cover and desiccated bits of wood crumbled and drifted to the ground, but I got a good load and took it into the house. The idea of a crackling fire in the stove and oil lamps glowing in the window was too much a siren call for me to resist.

The golden glow didn't lighten the room because the sky was a brilliant paper white. Then the snow and sleet and rain hit in horizontal driving sheets. Surprisingly, my littel hummingbirds continued to quarrel and dog fight, scrapping and knocking each other off the perches on the feeder, even in the teeth of the storm. Nothing seems to keep them from the feeder, especially with a full bottle of fresh syrup.

I wrote a long letter to my parents in long hand and finished House Arrakis from the Dune series. Then I picked up Elizabeth Moon's latest, a Nebula winner no less, The Speed of Dark, which has been a revelation. The story is told from an autistic man's point of view on the eve of a discovery that would make him normal. Elizabeth has an autistic son and the book is dedicated to him. But the idea that even autism is a source of someone's identity, without which they would no longer exist, is an interesting take. When you get right down to it, all our experiences, good and bad, our histories, our friendships and loyalties and disagreements, everything that has happened to this point is part of our identities.

I thought about turning my back on my history and family and becoming someone new, someone who no longer fought the demons of the past, but I realized that changing my name and wiping out my experiences would wipe out who I was, would wipe out me. I have to wonder if the forgotten men and women and children who walk away from their lives and become bums or prostitutes or just wanderers don't feel the same thing, that they are blank empty canvasses from which the paint has been scrubbed and to lay claim to anything they know or have learned is to lay claim to an identity they no longer want or care to own. Even if you change your name and deny your past, it is nearly impossible to deny your identity without eradicating every moment of your life up to that point. Maybe that's why they take drugs and drink themselves into oblivion, so they aren't able to remember anything but the moment they're living. It's like being caught in limbo.

I haven't finished the book yet, but it is fascinating and I recommend it to everyone who would like to know a difference face of normal.

I entered Bulwer Lytton's Dark and Stormy night competition with the following:

It was a dark and stormy night when Beryl Beefeater, closely swathed in hemp and linen trench coat over the sumptuous polar bear fleece Ye Old Maritime T-Shirt with matching baby seal-skin trousers, snuck into the health food restaurant and into the darkest booth at the back in order to indulge her secret vice-avocado burgers and organic salsa.

Check out their site. There is still time if you'd like to try for a prize by writing the most atrocious prose you've ever written. It pays to write purple prose once in a while.

I also tried to write my essay for the Power of Purpose contest. I know the dead hummingbird I found yesterday is part of the equation, but I think chenowyn gave me the final key with her comment about giving the hummingbird new purpose. My idea has always been, since the moment I read the rules, the power of the small purpose upon which everything is built. Not the architects of Stonehenge or the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris or the Wright Brothers or even the architects who built the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, but the little purposes -- getting up every morning to go to a small job for small money and back to a small home with small dreams for the future and being completely happy. People like that are the bedrock upon which all else is built and made possible. But taking it to the hummingbird and giving him to the earth to nourish my future plants goes even further and it may be just what I needed. The essay is finally taking shape in my mind. Thank you chenowyn.

The lavender sky has gone deep blue edged with a lighter blue that is seeping into the white. Night is nearly here and I am wrapped in darkness and warmth. The night is not nearly so dark and the stormy has passed, but there is peace in my sanctuary here at the top of the mountain.

Purpose

I just found a dead hummingbird on the bench on the deck. It was a male, and most likely the sassy bold little male who determines who does and does not get to share the feeder.

I found a dead hummingbird on the deck, his wings out as if soaring on the wind.

I took his tiny body in my hands, marveling at the still brilliant iridescence of his ruby and gold throat and his dragon scale feathers still shimmer in the sun. His black bead bright eyes were flat and empty, his tiny claws curled as if still on the feeder perch. I stroked his wings and soft little body, marveling at the softness and perfection of each little feather. His thread-like tongue stuck thru his needle beak, hard and unyielding, not the pliant whip made to sip nectar and sugar syrup.

The other hummingbirds darted and whistled about the feeder, seemingly oblivious to their silent friend. As I picked him up, hummingbirds descended from everywhere, squabbling and buzzing around the feeder. Maybe they noticed their companion after all and out of fear or respect or animal intelligence curtailed their usually frenzied quarreling over sugar syrup.

I found a dead hummingbird on the deck.

Planning to repot some seedlings, I gathered the new clay pot, my trowel, two peat pots containing butternut squash and cayenne, a flat of 72 cells full of flowers, seedlings, and seeds, and took them outside. At the foot of the stairs to the deck, I picked up two pieces of pink marble to cover the drain hole, and began to fill the new pot with rich, loamy organic soil. Once it was halfway full, I gently placed the perfect tiny body of the hummingbird and covered him with more earth. To fling him into the woods or bury him in the yard seemed wrong, unfair. Instead, his little body will go back to the earth and nourish the seedlings and plants, giving him a new purpose.

I found a dead hummingbird on the deck. A ruby-throated male that once carried pollen and seeds from flower and tree to ensure the next generation. Bright colors and sweet nectar called him from his busy rounds to visit and take a little of their essence with him as he buzzed and darted throughout the day. He still has a purpose. He fertilizes my seedlings and plants, ensuring their growth and flourishing. And although his beauty and perfection no longer brighten my view, he will always brighten my heart and my home as he returns to his place in the cycle of life, fulfilling yet another purpose.

Disclaimer

I have spent most of the day working on the staff issue of The Rose & Thorn--doing a little editing and putting it all together with illustrations and a few fancy fonts to make it look really special. But one thing has been on my mind as I worked on the profile of three really great science fiction & fantasy authors (Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and Elizabeth Moon), that some people have taken my personal views on honesty in communication and politically correct language as a law for everyone.

That's just not so.

The views are my own. Like anyone who keeps a journal, even online, personal views are just that -- personal views. Whether you disagree or agree with my take or stand on an issue is up to you. It won't change my views, unless you have some pretty good evidence to back up your divergent opinion, but you are just as entitled to your views as I am to mine.

There are also some misconceptions about what I wrote. I find PC language empty and divisive because it gives polite and empty labels to things and people in an attempt to mend some imagined wrong. But calling someone vertically challenged instead of short or differently abled instead of handicapped does not take the sting out of the facts. Fancy words without the obvious truth. If you're short, you're short. If you're fat, you're fat. If you're bald or tall or skinny or stupid, live with it. You can't change being short without platform shoes or inserts or being tall without slouching or really readical surgery, but that does not make you any less a person or any less useful, viable, or special. Our differences make us special. If the world was composed of human carbon copies without any differences, there would be no need for journals or life as we know it. Perfection is stagnation. Normal is relative. Life is about change and change is constant.

If you are not comfortable saying what you feel, then say nothing at all, but be honest with yourself. You help no one, not even yourself, when you are dishonest about what you think, feel, and say. If you find it uncomfortable or difficult to say what you feel, maybe that is something for you to change . . . or not. It's your choice. But if people misunderstand you, who is at fault, the person who misunderstood or you for not being clear?

We are who and what we choose to be, and, as I have said before, not choosing is still a choice.

I have friends who are afraid to confront their fears or anyone else and they feel they cannot change that fact of their lives. That's their choice. They're still my friends. While they may not be able or willing to be forthright and open about their feelings, their thoughts, their dreams and hopes, or themselves, they have a right to their silence, just as I have a right to my open honest and sometimes confrontational manner.

I understand how they feel. I spend the biggest part of my life silent, afraid to say what I thought and felt because of being criticized, ostracized, and just plain hurt. I don't like pain, but I can and will endure it. There finally came a time when silence wasn't working for me. Being afraid someone would not love me or would hate me or walk away from me or just ignore me made my life more difficult. I finally understood that if I didn't ask for what I wanted, if I didn't speak out when someone hurt me, slighted me, or ignored me, it was my fault not theirs. It took an even longer time to break out of the prison I had built and throw caution to the winds and speak my mind.

Not everyone is built the same way. Not everyone learns a lesson at the same speed -- or sometimes at all. What I write, what I believe is what I have learned thru trial and error -- a lot of error.

I do not expect you to like me because of what I write, or even agree with me, but I hope you understand or are at least willing to ask me to explain. If not, that's your choice.

A journal, at least for me, is a place to chronicle my thoughts, conjecture, questions, and revelations--no matter how small or insignificant they may be to others. Ultimately, this is for me and for anyone who thinks they might like to take a peek into my mind without the vivisection. I have nothing to lose by being honest. I am nearly 50 years old and I have lived an interesting and, at times, difficult life. This is all part of the journey and you are welcome to walk alongside for a while or for the rest of the trip. It's your choice. My choice is to tell it as I have lived it and how I have come to understand it. Nothing more and nothing less.

At least you don't have to wait until I'm dead and someone inquisitive someone decides to make a little (very little, I'm sure) money out of my rambling thoughts. You get to see the journey unfold as it happens -- or not. Maybe you'd rather wait until one of my greedy children decides to sell my thoughts, dreams, aspirations, questions, and insights. That's fine, too.

In the meantime, thank you for jumping in and commenting when you don't agree--and even when you do. You all make life enjoyable, whatever your choices. I do not expect you to change because of me, but maybe you'll change in spite of me and allow me to come along and share your journey as well. Whatever you choose, thanks for sharing these few moments with me.

Five more days

I'm starting my work day with an entry instead of waiting until I have something to say, so just be warned.

As I was writing yet another message to the EIC of Rose & Thorn (one of the last few I shall ever have to write) that I stop when I'm about to say something iffy. I've noticed it before, but today it dawned on me that I have to do that less and less these days.

While editing some time ago I was correcting yet another author's constant use of passive voice and writing another note to the effect that passive voice slows the pace and makes ponderous what should clip along like a high speed monorail. I thought, that's what I should do with my own writing, not the fiction, but in communication with people. Too often, especially in the current all pervasive atmosphere of politically correct and viscerally absent language, we couch our phrases in terms of I think or maybe when we know exactly what we want to say but we are so fearful of stepping on someone's toes. Being blunt and honest and straight to the point has become something to fear instead of a virtue. At that moment I realized I was tired of being careful and just wanted to say what I thought, the things and feelings I hid deep inside like some fugitive from Nazi Germany.

In effect, by kowtowing to PC language we have given up the right to be forthright and honest and to let people know what we really think and feel. No wonder our world is in such a mess with everyone tiptoeing around everyone else afraid to give offense and no one really saying anything.

So I decided not to use wimpy words to soften the blow of what I have to say about anything. That doesn't mean I don't employ a little tact. What it does mean is that I say what I think even if you're not going to like it. I'm not abusive or rude, just definite and clear. I still keep some things to myself, but not because I'm afraid to say them. I just prefer to take the time to figure out the right time. In other words, I don't burn a bridge until after I cross it.

Stop and think how many times you write "maybe you should" or "I'm not quite sure, but..." in emails and letters and even when you speak to someone. Be bold. Take the world and your words by the horns and say what you really think and what you really mean. If everyone was truthful and didn't worry about spin or telling a jerk that he could win the Olympics with his vulgar mouth and crass attitude, I doubt we'd have as many problems as we do here and abroad. Granted, some people aren't going to like you for bucking the system, for using clear, concise and razor sharp words to say what you mean instead of the inflated, pompous, high sounding, but full of hot air and devoid of meaning words that pass for truth in politically correct circles, but you will have a clear conscience and everyone will know where you stand. Honesty isn't a license to be rude or hurtful. Honesty is a license to stand up and be counted.

Personally, I'd prefer bald to follicularly challenged if my hair were absent from the crown of my head and shones like a brand new billiard ball. I don't even mind being called fat. I am. But I am also voluptuous, sensuous, sensual, and, most important of all, unforgettable. So is the Venus de Milo and the Statue of Liberty. Get over it. Stop hiding behind empty words and say exactly what you mean. Don't let the politically correct faction take the beauty, strength, and power of simple, direct, honest words from you. If you do, you will end up with . . . an empty world full of prickly oversensitive people who are just looking for a chance to call you out, take you to court, or just cause trouble. If you're going to get slapped in the face at least be slapped for something you did say instead of something you almost, but not quite, really weren't sure you said.

So every time you start to write or say, or even think, possibly, maybe, might, could be or the like, stop, rewind or backspace, and say what you mean, what you're thinking. Take the IF out of your language. You either mean what you say or you don't. Life IS or it ISN'T; there is no in between.

I just realized

that as of the end of next week I am going to have lots of time on my hands, lots of time to just screw around, clean house, dig in the dirt, and cut down trees and cut up logs for the fireplace with the chainsaw. I am also going to have a lot of time to write, read, and research. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm going to be able to write.

A friend told me last year that I could write 12 books a year, or at least 6 books a year if I took my time. At the time I thought he was nuts, especially considering everything I had on my plate, but I think he could be right. I could actually have a minimum of six books making the publishing rounds in a year, and two of them I know are good. I don't know about the other four because I haven't written them or even thought about them.

I will also have time to finally put together a consumer security column for syndication and a print magazine is already interested and wants a sample column for their launch. I could actually make my writing pay. I'll have time for marketing and sending out queries and manuscripts. I will even have time to write to my heart's content. No more art work to find to illustrate someone else's stories. No more niggling, nit picky little changes to make for control freaks and PITAs. No more attitudes that need adjusting or whiny authors complaining that I trashed their stories or didn't notify them first that I changed a comma without telling them. No more long hours, hard work, draining of my talents and resources to make everyone else look good. And most of all, no more people taking credit for my thoughts, ideas, and work while they smile and say thank you to the people who think they are the creative force.

Free at last. Free at last. Thank the gods I am free at last.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that freedom. Any ideas?

Thoughts of Grandpa

and Grandma, come to that.

A long time friend back in Ohio sent me a cute little joke about Grandpa's wisdom. Of course it had a funny ending having to do with women with small hands and the relative size of a man's pump handle, but that's not what put thoughts of Grandpa in my head.

You see, my grandfather was a big man, about 6' 4" tall, stocky, and he looked just like Lyndon Johnson's twin, except he had a big mole on the left side of his chin. He had silver hair and he always smelled of hair oil (the old fashioned kind), tobacco, and horehound candy. Grandpa smoked Camel unfiltered cigarettes, but he didn't die of lung cancer or even get emphysema. he died of an aneurysm and he went in his sleep, quickly.

I used to sit on my grandfather's knee and light his cigarettes for him. I'd fish the pack of cigarettes out of his starched and ironed white shirt, pull one from the pack and put it between his lips, then get his silver lighter from his pocket, flip open the top, flick the ball, and light his cigarette. He always put the lighter and his pack of Camels back in his left breast pocket, but I got to light his cigarette. Everyone in the family smoked, except my father smoked rarely--usually when he was drinking.

Mom and Dad would go to the base commissary once a month and they had a special card so they could get lots of cartons of cigarettes. Pall Malls for Aunt Joan, Camels for Grandpa, Winstons for Mom, and Kools for Grandma. I think it was Kools for Grandma. The cart was loaded with those long slender cardboard cartons, right alongside the food, most of the time heaped in the seat when we were too old to sit there. We usually got two carts and pushed them up and down the aisles in the warehouse-like commissary.

Mostly I remember Grandpa when I was a teenager. He always wore charcoal gray trousers with knife-edge creases and crisp, starched white shirts. He kept the sleeves rolled up to mid forearm and his top collar button open so you could see his bleached white T-shirt. He was a giant to me, but a gentle and loving giant. Mom told stories about Grandpa's rules, like not coming to the breakfast table in your pajamas or gowns, and his strict curfews, but to me he was a gentle giant who loved me completely and let me sit on his knee to light his cigarettes.

And he taught me about Bluegrass music. Not the crossover country rock they play nowadays, but the good old fashioned mountain Bluegrass music full of mandolins, fiddles, and guitars -- the acoustic kind. I can still see Grandpa sitting by the big bay window in the dining room on his corner sectional couch smoking Camels and listening to Flatt and Scruggs, Merle Haggard (before he got famous), and Tex Ritter, among others. The twang and almost whine of the music and voice and the feeling of sitting in the front parlor of some old shack on a cold night with the pot bellied stove warming the thin linoleum overlaying the board floor all the way to the clapboard walls, the heat fading slightly as you got close to the doors and windows where someone stuffed old newspapers to keep out the wind. Thinking of Grandpa reminds me of listening to his father, Great Grandpa May, playing the banjo so fast his fingers were a blur while he picked and sang while the kids sat on the floor, silent and entranced. I don't remember Great Grandpa May saying much, at least not in a regular conversation, but I remember his music and his flying fingers that never missed a chord or a string.

It seems strange now, but Great Grandpa May was a tall, thin reedy man and all his children were about 6' 2" tall or better in their stocking feet, even the women. I have seen pictures of Great Grandma May and she was broad in the beam and tall. The kids must have taken after her.

I remember listening to Grandpa's stories and reminiscences about his earlier days, days full of business and music and old fashioned values, but most of all I remember how he gave everyone nicknames.

Mom was Tom because she was such a tomboy when she was younger, although you couldn't tell it now because she's such a clothes horse. Grandma was Girlie, but I never knew why. I'd say it was because she was so feminine and domestic and sweet natured. Laura was Cutty or Gassy (you can figure out why). Laura begged us not to tell her brand new husband her nickname, but after having to make six eyelet pinafores with ruffles and bows the night before her wedding because the other bridesmaids didn't get them done, I told her groom. It was only fair. Bobbi Jean was Leaky or the S. S. Leakybottom, for obvious reasons. She was also nicknamed Blackie, but that was her father's doing. Mike was Pickle and Ellen was Roadhog. Aunt Lois, Uncle Bob's wife, was Hatchet Face because of a rather prominent profile. Must have been the nose. Gail was Shepherd, but I think that was Uncle Bob's name for her because her middle name was Shepherd after Aunt Lois's family name. And then there was IsinaCrab for my sister Carol, Dick Tracy for Tracy, although Uncle Bob had a much more colorful and non-PC nickname for her to go along with Bean, which is still what I call her. Jimmy was Towhead because his hair was nearly white as a child, and then there was me. Grandpa called me Pearl. He and Uncle Bob used to tease me and sing "Pearl Bailey won't you please come home" at every opportunity, sparking a little battle in which I insisted I was home.

Grandpa called me Pearl because he said my teeth were like perfect tiny pearls, but I found out that it was because he had heard the story of a Pearl of great price a man sold everything to own and Grandpa believed I was his Pearl of Great Price. Grandma called me Little One-Finger Jo, but she couldn't remember why.

Grandpa lived long enough to see and nickname two of my boys: David Scott was Buster Brown and Eddie was Little Pedro. I wish he could have given A. J. A nickname. (Btw, A. J. just turned 27 on Sunday.)

I learned so much from my grandparents: love, tolerance, charity, unselfishness, and generosity. But most of all I learned about family and music. I was adopted, but to my grandparents I was special, a gift. They were my family from the moment I drew my first breath and even though they're gone and their blood does not flow thru my veins, their memories are a part of me and we are family.

Declaration of Independence

I have decided that as of June, I will no longer work for the Editor from Hell at Rose & Thorn and I'm backing away from Another Chapter. I have spent too much of myself and my energy catering to others' demands and getting little or no respect for the work I have done. In the meantime, I have dissipated my energies and talents for people who keep demanding more. It's like pissing in the ocean.

I here and now declare my independence and offer my best wishes to the staff of Rose & Thorn and the owner of Another Chapter. I do not need their kind of attitude or their lack of respect. I need to strike out on my own and do what I was mean to do -- write. I'll still take on private editing clients, but it won't be on spec or for a promised half of royalties or advances. Cash on the barrelhead or no deal.

I have given my all to so many people, few of which have ever even noticed, let alone thanked me. I deserve better.

So, if anyone wants me, I'll be here and home writing, but I won't be at Rose & Thorn or in the trenches at Another Chapter.

I wonder what life will be like when it belongs solely to me. Should be interesting. Now all I have to do is tell the bosses they're on their own. Should I be the least bit happy if things don't work out for them? No, that would be rude and self serving.

Adios.

Ick

I am feeling decidedly icky today. Must have been all the beans I ate yesterday. Oh, well, it was a choice.

Fell asleep in the chair last night (it IS a comfortable chair) and got up about 3:30 to go to bed. I read for a while, but that is when the rumbling began and the ick set in. I usually don't have problems, but I overdid it a bit with the turkey chili and pinto beans, not to mention the Parmesan popcorn I made. Maybe I should eat more meat and fewer beans, but then again...

First thing this morning, as I usually do, I checked my email, but it wouldn't download into Outlook. I had to read it online and I wasn't happy about that -- too slow and cumbersome. Another tempest is brewing at R&T and our all knowing, all seeing, all piss me off EIC is at the center stirring the pot. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was the embodiment of Scylla AND Charybdis. She just does not want to play nice with the stronger elements on the staff. But in a few days or a couple weeks she will come back with an idea that is the same idea someone else put forth and claim it as hers. Only the parties from whom she has taken said ideas, ideas she has nixed previously, know what she has done.

I was reading about Trolls yesterday, specifically people who stir the trouble pot in any situation, and I saw several of the men I've dated and both ex-husbands, as well as my ex-mother-in-law and the current R&T EIC. Surprise, surprise. NOT. I see now why I could never win with romance. I seem to attract the trolls in life and they use my explanations and good nature against me. When I finally rise up, then I end up being the bitch. Funny how that works. Oh, most everyone has a few of these traits, but a dyed in the greasy hair troll is something altogether. You should check it out whether you're Christian or pagan. Truth is truth no matter who speaks it. Go to WarGoddess.net and take a look. There is a reference to a Christian book and you can use Google -- or whatever search engine you prefer -- to find the book. Really opened my eyes.

In addition to everything else going on, I'm considering quitting the mega editing for Another Chapter. Balancing illustrations and artists and constant editing against everything else I do is becoming a huge chore and one that provides me no real fun and no money to speak of, even after I spend hundreds of hours going over and over and over someone's work and making the same changes over and over and over and having two bosses breathing down my throat. I could use the time to finish editing Whitechapel Hearts and writing Lost in Plain Sight, as well as doing a lot of other writing to boot. I have three columns to write every month, one of which is every two weeks, and other columns on the horizon that actually pay money and provide a huge circulation, but I feel like I should finish what I started with AC. Then again... I just don't know.

In my personal life, my mother was sent home from the hospital yesterday with a clean bill of health, outside of the loss of the use of her left arm. The CAT scan, MRI, carotid dopplers, and echocardiograms were negative. I am surprised. I would have thought some lesion or white matter would have shown up on the CAT scan and MRI of the brain when she has obviously had a stroke, but what do I know? Mom has to go to physical therapy for a while to regain the use of her left hand to offset the possibility of contractures, but she's still just as sassy and opinionated as ever. She's back to normal.

Now, my father is another situation entirely. He's turning into a cantakerous old coot and I told him yesterday when we talked he had used up all his cantankerous points for the rest of the year and had to be nice to people. He just growled and said he liked being a salty old dog. Thing is, I really think he does enjoy being cantankerous. Parents. What can you do with them but laugh?

Before the stampede

I have a lot on my plate today: editing, writing, more editing, more writing, and a trip to the post office. I'm a little frustrated that a transfer of money has been delayed or has not gone thru, but otherwise I am handling things.

Let's see... I have a book review to write, five books to read and review, articles and essays to write if I'm going to have any chance at all of winning (read submitting) a couple contests. You have to enter to win. I also need to pump up my enthusiasm and mindless belief that I have anything worth saying . . . or writing that might garner something other than the requisite UGH. Not really.

I went to bed early last night, 8:30. I was tired and feeling uncomfortable and I just wanted to lie down and read, which I did for about 30 minutes and then I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and I faded into the realms of sleep and rest with the lamp still on. I've done that a lot lately: went to bed to read and fell asleep with the light on. Must not have been too bad, my electric bill was only $20 last month, which is $4 less than it has been. And I'm rambling. That does not bode well for the writing day ahead.

However, I got quite a bit done on the staff issue and it is looking especially lovely. When it is out I expect everyone on my friends list to buy a copy. Everyone can afford $3.00 and it is worth the money, especially if you're a writer because it gives you what you need to know to enter our contest and win $40, or one of the other two money prizes. Besides, you get an issue of Rose & Thorn that is quite beautiful even if I do say so myself. After all, I am the designer, editor in chief, and contributor in this one. Honestly though, I was a bit scared to do the staff issue even though I suggested it. I wasn't sure I could pull it all together the way I envisioned it. I put it off and put it off, half afraid I couldn't pull it off. But when I worked on it this weekend, outside of a few coding glitches, it came together. I still have to figure out how to convert it to PDF and how to code the download, but the mechanics are already in place. PayPal buttons are functioning (finally) and I just love the cover.

Ooh, that reminds me. I have to write the editorial for the newsletter about the staff issue. I wish I could write while I sleep because words come into my mind, complete and perfect, but I lose them the moment I wake up. Still, I should be able to recreate at least most of what I dreamed. I just wish someone could invent a way to transcribe thoughts when you think them, at the moment of creation, so I wouldn't lose so much of what is in my head but stubbornly refuses to come into the light of day and spill out the ends of my fingers onto the keyboard. It's frustrating sometimes. I'll manage somehow, but what comes out of me in my dreams is so much better than what I end up writing. At least that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

In my capacity as editor, I received three possible submissions for the staff issue from kaiberie this morning. She does write erotica very well. Surprisingly, she said she respects my opinion. That makes me smile, but it is also a bit strange. Even as an editor, I do not see people respecting what I say. They like or dislike my views, sometimes violently dislike my views and editing changes, but respect isn't something about which I see a lot. I'd like to think I have learned something in my 49 years, but I will always have that confused and battered little girl inside who just wants someone to like them and approve of her existence, her work, her dreams. I keep her hidden most of the time and she doesn't clamor for release, but she's still there, even if she is a ghost of her former self.

I'm rambling again, so it's time to stop before I end up being totally stupid and writing something that makes no earthly (or other worldly) sense.

I'll shut up now.

A day of work

Today was spent with my butt planted firmly in my chair and working on the staff issue of Rose & Thorn. As I'm going thru the whole thing and deciding where to put everyone's submissions, I was struck right between the eyes that these are editors and staff members, some of which I have known (sort of) for years and their writing leaves a lot to be desired. What really amazes me is that Her Italian Highness, the editor in chief, looked over and edited some of these and a lot was left undone. I know some editors have a problem editing a published writer's work, but I don't. If it's wrong, I don't care how many publications they have to their credit, it is wrong.

On top of everything else I have to balance, now I have to go back thru and re-edit everyone's work because I will not ask anyone to pay for an issue if it is not the best it can be. One editor on the staff called me today while I was in the thick of things whining about not having anything to put in the staff issue since I shot down her essay. "But it happened just that way," she protested. I don't care. It was slow, used too much passive voice, and not as funny as she thought it was. There were moments, but they were more like nano-moments and not really laugh your butt off moments. I mean, really. "But I had two pieces in the last staff issue," she reminded me. Yes, and they were all right, but nothing to write home about. Besides, how wrong can you go when you're doing a Christmas piece and trying to tug the heart strings at a time of year when everyone's heart strings are easily pulled? She ought to try standing up in front of a hostile audience to do stand-up comedy and then come talk to me about what is and isn't funny. With that tripe, she would have been pelted with rotten tomatoes.

Oh, well, I'm sure you're all tired of seeing me complain about another R&T problem, but this is my journal and what I would write in my paper journal any way.

On another note, I popped The Last Samurai into the DVD player and finished watching it. The movie was pretty good, especially the parts in the Samurai village. The war scenes were excellent and I liked the way Tom Cruise's character compared the last battle to Thermopylae (the Spartans against the Persians if you're not up on your ancient history), but I was a bit amazed that after all of that Cruise lived. I guess someone had to take Kasimoto's sword to the emperor, especially since that sword had been in the service of the emperors of Japan for 900 years. But I shouldn't give away the rest of the ending, except to say it hurt to see all those brave and honorable men mowed down by a gatling gun simply because Omoru, the man who wanted to get rid of Katsumoto, was afraid Katsumoto would kill him with his last breath. What a wimp. He kept screaming that Katsumoto had lost and should do the honorable thing and kill himself. I don't know if I would agree with that version of events. After all, 500 Samurai killed two regiments and nearly decimated a third before they died. Somehow I see that more as a victory for the Samurai than for Western technology and guns that kill indiscriminately.

Maybe I've read too much science fiction and fantasy because I believe you should see your enemy's eyes when you kill him. Killing a man from a distance, especially from hundreds of yards away, makes the killing too impersonal, too removed from reality. When you kill someone hand to hand, your life against theirs, it has a greater impact and you cannot divorce yourself from the reality of death.

Oh, well, I'll shut up now. I could be reading something interesting.