But I was sleeping...

At least I was trying to sleep. No, I was sleeping and having a wonderful dream when the phone rang in my dream, slowly pulling me away from the center of the action, from the wonderful dream I was having, but it was real. A faint bell ringing. The phone again. I stirred in the darkness, caught between waking and sleeping. The phone was ringing. Who would call me in the middle of the night. Sudden flash. Trouble. I got up and stumbled to the living room, but the phone had stopped ringing. Maybe I was dreaming after all. I picked up the phone and looked. The number was still lit up. elementalmuse's number was on the phone. But my phone card has no more minutes and I couldn't call her back.

Something must be wrong for her to call me at 2 in the morning. She didn't call back. I fretted, tossed and turned courting sleep, fretting over what could be wrong. Good news? Bad news? Should I go upstairs and check my email? No, I want to go back to sleep. I want my dream back. But something could be wrong. What should I do? Sleep, some part of me whispered in my ear. If it was important she would have called back. Sleep, yes, sleep. But no, something could be wrong. So go online and check your email. But it's cold out there and it's warm here with a lovely cold breath of mountain air seeping thru the open window. Sleep and don't worry. Everything will work out all right.

I checked my email. Nothing. I went back to bed and finally managed to fall asleep. Usually, I have no problems. I can sleep any time anywhere and in just about any position.

Sweet dreams followed and I plunged head first into the deep warm well of Morpheus's making. Until...

A siren? Up here? In the year I've lived here, and when I visited for two weeks, I never heard sirens. I hear trucks and cars going by below my hilltop perch, but I don't hear anything else. No sirens. No screams. The occasional gunshot. But no sirens.

Someone or something is determined to disturb my sleep, forcing me to open my eyes and crawl from my cocoon of warmth and peace. The siren was coming closer and closer. It has been so long I can't tell an emergency vehicle from a police car. The siren was definitely coming closer, the sound caroming off the rocks and trees, waning, getting louder as it wound around the curves up the hill closer and closer. Then the sound seemed to fade a little at a time. He must have turned off on Elkdale and wound down the other side.

And then it hit me. The world outside my window, usually green and gold and suffused with morning blues and whites and pastels of the rising sun was wrong. It didn't look right. It was all white. Snow? Yes, it's snowing. Little salt shaker falls of white sifting onto everything. It's actually snowing. White world, green and gold and browns peering thru the thickening cover of white.

My plants! I'll lose my plants!

I got up and got dressed. Didn't brush my teeth or my hair. Didn't take a shower, just pulled on my clothes and shoes and headed for the deck where my plants were bowed beneath the growing weight of snow. Wet, heavy, water laden snow quickly obscured my plants.

Carrying the hummingbird feeder, I hung it on the bar and went to my plants. Were they dead? Frozen? I took the dill stalks and shook them. Snow flew everywhere and the scent of dill rose in a grateful cloud. Dill. I carried it inside and placed it in the wan sunlight in front of the doors near my telescope. One by one, I shook off the heavy enveloping frosty blanket and carried my plants inside. I'm sure some will die, but at least I won't have to water them today. The snow fast melting in the warmth inside the cabin will take care of that for me.

This has been the most freakish year, full of rain and cold and snow. Snow until June and now snow in September. At least the ski runs, if this continues, will open early, intoning their siren's call to snowbirds and winter seekers, those who circle the globe following the Snow Queen, fearing spring and summer and the warmth that drives her dripping into the northern latitudes far from the punishment of sun and heat.

At least my headache is gone. I thought it was just another big thunder storm forking the sky with vivid fireworks of lightning flares and flashes and strikes on its way, but it was the herald of the Snow Queen. Now I know I have to get the wood pile cut and stacked and clear out the ashes from the stove. Winter will be early this year.

Squirrels and chipmunks leap and cavort and chase across the deepening white, enjoying the snow day. I wonder if they have foreseen this and have raided my plants and crops to store for their winter snacking comfort.

My warm dreams are gone in the wake of the cold awakening. I am awake now, but I'm not really happy about it. At least I saved the plants and my eyes are open, but I don't guarantee anything else. I can't. My functional mind hasn't caught up with the animal instinct yet.

If it doesn't find me, maybe I can slip away and slip back between the sheets to seek those warm dreams again.

Hide Me

I'm avoiding work. I want to get the rest of these articles done this weekend so I can start on and finish the next 50 and get this job out from under. I'm up to my gray roots in vitamins, amino acids, minerals, weight lifting diets, and exercises.

I did take a little time out to visit with someone I knew in high school, Sara. Everyone knew her big brother, Bart, who was very hot, not to mention rocket scientist smart, friendly, gorgeous, and an all round favorite with students and teachers alike. Now he's a pediatrician in Tennessee and has a book for sale on Amazon.com on preemies. Sara is struggling thru her Master's and having major doubt problems, the bane of all writers. She doesn't claim to be a writer, but she is obviously good enough to have made to the graduate program. She needs confidence in herself and a big dose of procrastination STOP. I gave her all mine so I could keep procrastinating.

The sky is a slatey blue-gray and it has rained off and on all day. In fact, a rain-laden breeze swirled thru my bedroom window this morning and woke me up, calling me to come dance with the raindrops. I tried to go back to sleep but the clean, rainy breeze just wouldn't let me alone and I had to get up and follow the call.

Once outside, while hanging the hummingbird feeder and saying good morning to all my plants still out on the deck, I felt more like taking off and exploring the woods and vales and just walking until I couldn't walk any more, but I went back inside, said good morning to all my plants inside, watered them, pollinated a few new pepper blossoms, and picked a couple carrots to take upstairs with me while I answered my email and started working.

All day I've been antsy, wanting to get out of here, go dancing, pull a Maria and wander the alpine meadows under the sun and rain and dance among the rocks and trees. I feel far too good to sit inside and research more information about nutrition and body building. But I have to be good. I have to earn a living. I have to finish this so I can move onto something else that might pay a few more pennies and give me time to go back out and enjoy the sunshine or rain or whatever the weather sends. I'm stuffed full of information and it needs to settle before I ingest any more, but I have to work.

So, instead I'll think about Nona since she's been on my mind since yesterday.

Thinking back to Salt Lake City and rooming with Nona is a mixed back of bad and really, really bad. She was a flake of the first order, but she was cousin to a friend of mine back at Hill AFB. He thought he was doing me a favor when I was separating from Dave and waiting for the divorce hearing to come up. So I decided to move in with Nona. We had separate bedrooms, except at night when she crept in to watch me sleep. I didn't know it at the time...or at least I didn't know about it until I woke one night to find her about to plunge a very big and very sharp shiny knife into my chest. When I woke up and caught her she pretended she didn't know where she was and tried to pass it off as having multiple personalities. "What time is it? Where am I?" she asked without one bit of sincerity. Oh, she would have sounded sincere to someone who wasn't the target for her midnight plunge, but not to me.

Nona also had a thing about men. She couldn't leave them alone. I wasn't kidding when I said she should have had a revolving door on her bedroom and a parking meter by the bed. Men were in and out of the apartment so much we should have hired a doorman and a waiting room the size of an airport hangar, but it would still have been crowded. At least she was consistent and she had a lot of fun. I had fun just watching. I used to sing, "Cain't Say No," Ado Annie's song from the musical Oklahoma, to her all the time whenever she mentioned a new guest for the nonce.

Whut you goin' to do when a feller gits flirty
And starts to talk purty? whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at yer lips're like cherries
Er roses, er berries? Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at you're sweeter 'n cream
And he's gotta have cream er die?
Whut you goin' to do when he talks that way
Spit in his eye?

That's just part of the song, but she was true to song. Couldn't resist a guy with a gleam in his eye and a line a mile long. Didn't matter. He was it for the nonce.

Our apartment had a balcony that faced a drive-in theater. One of her fellers rigged up a receiver for us, found the frequency, and we'd sit out on the balcony and watch/listen to the movies for free. We were up high enough to see over the big fence.

Cheap entertainment: Movies every night and Nona's fellas.

Wonder what happened to Nona.

I'll shut up now. Enough nostalgia even for me and I really should get back to work, but I think I'll turn the stereo up really high and sing and dance for a while. Gotta get rid of all this energy.

News from the mountains

Okay, I'll make a real post.

Things are looking up and down for me.

The down part is a paycheck that was not deposited and it looks like I'll have to wait for them to work it out. I hope my landlords don't kick me out of my happy cabin in the mountains in the meantime. They probably won't (just yet) because I have been a good tenant who paid on time and in full for a whole year.

As a matter of fact, today is my anniversary or birthday or celebration or something. Today I have been in my secluded cabin in the Rockies for exactly one year. Talk about a great way to celebrate. Thank the god/desses I have plenty of water in the well and enough masa to make tortillas for probably another year. LOL It's not that bad, but nearly that bad. That's what happens, kiddies, when you give all your money to help someone start a television program and they never pay you back. That money is looking real good right now, but it ain't coming over to this side of the Divide for sure.

Oh, yeah, the good news. I got two more clients today. It's not much money, but if they like my work it could turn into a permanent slave position for below slave wages. I need lots of those. It's not like I have a social life. I've heard of them, but I don't have one. Someone is going to have to remind me what that is beyond the words. I understand the concept but I sure don't remember how it goes. Sort of like doing the two-step. I can see the steps, but my feet and legs can't seem to get the rhythm down. Too many years between Urban Cowboy and me.

Yes, kiddies, I actually used to go to Country & Western bars and dance my boots off.

I remember this one bar in Salt Lake City. It was called The Westerner Club. I used to go there on the weekends with a friend, and sometimes during the week. During the week the bandstand was pushed up until this huge hangar-like bar dance hall was about one-third the size. They had four or five bars and a huge dance floor when it was opened all the way up. There were the regulars and girls like me and my roommate, Nona.

I haven't thought about this in centuries.

Anyway, Nona was the kind of girl who had a revolving door on her bedroom and a parking meter by the bed. She loved men -- constantly. She worked as manager of a hot dog stand in Trolley Square. Her stand was like a trolley car and it looked out over the whole trolley garage. But I digress.

We'd go down in my company car, a Volkswagen Rabbit with the stick shift and the diesel engine. In fact, I learned to drive stick on that car in the midst of traffic on the hills and freeways around Salt Lake City. It was an interesting excursion, but I learned fast. Good thing. I can still remember thinking I'd end up like Bill Cosby in his first stick shift on the hills of San Francisco -- starting my own parking lot at the light.

Wednesday nights at The Westerner Club were the most active during the week. There was one guy, a runty little guy with muscles in his eyelids that bulged like he'd been doing clean and jerks with his lashes. He was so muscle bound his arm stuck out to the side and he couldn't pull them close to his body. He made his circuits of the dance floor winking and nodding to the women hoping someone would take him up on his offer to dance. Only the newbies did. It only took once to figure out he couldn't dance and that all those muscles kept you from getting too close, which was a very good thing. His cologne was enough to gag a mountain goat.

There was another guy, the kind we called a goat roper, a sort of cowboy who had the clothes and the walk down, but you were quite sure if he could ride a horse, break a Brahma bull, or even knew where the open range actually was. He was kind of cute with his starting ZZ Top beard and his crumpled ten-gallon hat. There was some talk that he was wearing it on the wrong head, but I'm sure he was ambi-headed. He used to wear the neatest slides on his spiffy string tie. He made them himself, or rather carved them himself. One was my favorite. It was a beautifully carved and painted pair of breasts with nipples that didn't point up. I asked him about it and we ended up becoming dance partners for a long time. He knew how to dance and could two-step better than anyone on the floor. We had a lot of fun in those days after I split from my first husband and lived in Salt Lake for a while. Truckers, dancing, good music and The Charley Daniels band and the Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Celebrate

Today is my father's 77th birthday and my parents' 54th anniversary. Dad is a smart man. He'll never forget his anniversary as long as he remembers his birthday.

There was a time when I couldn't imagine my father staying with my mother this long. But despite all appearances to the contrary they really love each other. My mother constantly says she doesn't love my father and that he doesn't love her, but it's a Shakespeare line: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. My mother is oftentimes full of sound and fury signifying nothing, but she does have a good heart even if she is easily distracted. She is ruthlessly possessive at times and completely loyal to those she loves, but she just cannot stand not having the last word. Her favorite trick is to hang up when a conversation or discussion is going her way on the phone and she doesn't apologize for it either. She may cool down later and call back asking if you're ready to listen, but she will still have the last word. It took more than half my life to figure out that sometimes it isn't necessary to win an argument or have the last word, especially with my mother. So I keep some of my opinions to myself, nod and smile, seemingly in agreement with her, but we both know the truth.

My father is the quiet type and scatters praise like a miser scattering coins to the masses. If he says anything at all it's, "It's nice" or "That's nice," and nothing else. I've learned to read between the lines. Dad came from a dirt poor family and his mother died when he was ten years old. His father liked booze a bit too much and when Grandma died went in with a couple of friends and ran a still. Well, the revenooers found the still and my grandfather on duty and he went to jail for two years rather than give up his buddies. There's a strong loyal streak on both sides of my family.

Dad is friendliness personified and if anyone wonders where I get my gregarious nature you don't have far to look. It's a Cornwell trait. We never met a stranger, just friends we haven't met. Dad, like most of the people in my family, true to their Cherokee heritage, is stoic and would rather go to work half dead than stay home in bed. He can cook, sew, and curl little girls' hair into ringlets and Shirley Temple curls. He has an artistic and generous soul and the most incredible open smile. He wasn't demonstrative when I was growing up, but I've broken him to the hug at last.

Mom's histrionic at times and Dad's quiet and prefers the path of least resistance to an argument. They are an odd couple, but they're both interesting and loving people. And they're my parents.

What?

I missed three days of posts. Can that be possible? Have I completely lost track of the time or did I just have nothing to say? Me, nothing to say? Perish the thought.

Endless games of Mah Jong, writing in my paper journal, trying to get thru another book that could be wonderful if it weren't for the lousy grammar and even lousier word choices, and fending off rodents who are determined to eat my brand new tender plants, and bidding on jobs, two of which I didn't get. But I got one of them this morning: One hundred 200-300-word articles on weight lifting, body building, nutrition, and health for a whopping $100. Gotta start somewhere. The guy is looking for someone who can do the job quickly and use some key words and asked me to give him a sample. I wrote a 625-word article on working the biceps, using the phrase working the biceps once in the title and twice in the article. I did it. He was impressed and now I have 100 very short articles to write, which comes out to about 33/100 of one cent per word. Big pay for a writer of my caliber, but you gotta start somewhere. He says he will have more money for more articles later and wants to build a relationship with a good writer. I have, however, figured out how to snag these Rent-A-Coder assignments--give them a sample up front and dazzle them with your writing skills. That's how the other jobs were cut out from under me. Well, that and quoting really, really, REALLY cheap prices. Gotta pay the rent and buy food somehow.

After reading the good news, I decided to go downstairs to go to the bathroom again (thanks to elementalmuse who seems to have somehow attached her diet to my bladder -- she calls it sympathetic peeing) and stopped outside on the deck to check my plants, give them a drink and just drink in the clear mountain air and sunshine for a few minutes before I came back upstairs to rent myself out as cheaply as possible. While I was enjoying the view and the air, a little female hummingbird flew over me and perched a mere four inches from my hand and just ruffled her feathers and whistled at me. Lesbian bird, I thought at first, but I think she was just saying hello. She knows who feeds her. I talked her to her and she inched a little closer before finally flying away, circling my head once and whistling as she darted into the trees. It was a remarkable feeling having her so close and so unafraid of me. I just wish I could scare away the chipmunks and squirrels who have developed a taste for my flat leaf Italian parsley ever since I covered the new seeds in the covered tray so they can grow uneaten.

I noticed that mentalfuse finally made a double appearance when I was reading the journals I missed over the weekend and wrote some pretty interesting stuff about books and authors. About time he showed up. I was about to send out the blood hounds to find him and bleed him dry.

In the meantime, I'm going to shut up early. I just realized it's dark outside and I left the hummingbird feeder on the deck where the ravenous raccoons are sure to plunder the syrup and spill it all over the railing and deck to attract ants and keep the hummingbirds away. So, disperse.

Whores moaning...

According to Merriam-Webster Online a whore is:

1. an adulterer
2. a woman who engages in sexual acts for money (sort of like a married woman)
3. a prostitute
4. a promiscuous or immoral woman
5. a male who engages in sexual acts for money (gigolo and every guy who ever married Joan Collins)
6. a venal or unscrupulous person (advertising execs, sponsors, most of Congress and government at all levels)

In this puritanical society sex has become something to fear, to point fingers at, and to engage in in secret. Sex has become a sin and anyone who has ever enjoyed sex and pleasure tainted by association. This has not always been true, but it certainly makes things difficult for those of us who simply enjoy the feel, touch, scent, taste, and sensation of being intimate with someone. When did pleasure become so negative?

A friend recently mentioned they thought I was much more experienced sexually than I actually am, partly because I am very open and honest about sex and completely uninhibited about discussing sex. I am chaste now, but I have not always been. I have been married and I have also indulged in one or two intimate encounters out-of-wedlock (I'm being modest of course). I am an unashamedly sexual and sensual woman, not that I have exercised my pleasure options with anyone for a very long time, but I still love everything about sex and men and sensuality.

There are a few people on my friends list who know about my uninhibited past as a very successful and well paid phone sex operator. I'm not talking about the cinematic equivalent who sits in an office or in a cubicle and pretends to have sex with callers, but someone who worked from home and spent a great deal of time enjoying myself along with the callers. I have a very vivid imagination and an even more insatiable appetite for pleasure in many forms. Surprisingly, most of the men who called on a regular basis just wanted someone to talk to them, to acknowledge their existence and listen to them.

During my time on the phones I learned a lot about what makes men tick and what makes them hot and makes them squirm. I also found out that even jerks want the same things the rest of humanity want -- to be loved, cherished, and enjoyed. The shyest guy you will ever meet has his fantasies, too, and some of them are pretty wild.

The most common fantasy is being with a woman who enjoys giving oral sex and the second most common fantasy was being with someone who enjoyed sex as much as the guy did.

It's funny, an old friend told me that he thought of marriage like a meal with the dessert at the beginning of the meal. Personally, I like dessert before, during, and after the meal, but, like I said, I'm insatiable, especially when the dessert is so delectable.

So why do people with high libidos invariably end up with partners who don't care for sex or just lose their taste for it? I know opposites attract, but not that opposite. Both my husbands were more interested in sex with others, but then they didn't have to worry about that dessert cart that stays during the whole meal. They could get what they wanted and never go back for seconds because there was always a different meal at another restaurant to sample. Nick spent all of his time in adult bookstores shoving quarters into narrow, confined, and smelly booths watching grainy porn flicks and then shoving dollar bills into G-strings down the road before he finally came home drunk and unable to perform getting out of his clothes before passing out on the bed. My Romeo of the titty bars.

My first husband spent some of his sperm at home, but he didn't last longer than a couple minutes at a time and I was just getting up to cruising speed. No wonder I missed the orgasmic train until I was in my forties.

Despite being married twice and having two lovers in between my marriages, I was still fantasizing about sex and enjoying the sensual pleasures alone. That changed and I was changed. I finally understood what all the shouting was about and it only took me 44 years. At least I got it before I died.

But what is all this about? Why am I rambling on so and forcing you down memory lane? Because I still can't figure out why any woman should be afraid to enjoy herself with whomever or why she should be anathematized for her uninhibited enjoyment of pleasure.

I doubt we'd have as many wars if everyone was having a good time exploring all the pleasures available right here on earth. Sex is not a dirty word and pleasure is not a sin.

Humans are curious and want to try everything they can. I didn't mind my husbands sleeping with other women as much as I minded them not sleeping with me. And I don't understand women and men who have partners willing to give them every pleasure imaginable and ignoring them. Folks, if you won't jump into the pleasure orgy or find some time to be with your partner, someone else will. Marriage is a fine institution and keeping yourselves until yourselves is fine when it comes to the paternity of your children, but don't let the every day worries, work, and mundane details take the pleasure out of your life. The trash, the dishes, and the laundry will wait. Give up a couple nightly television programs, go to bed early, get up early, take a shower together, but don't forget the pleasure and excitement you knew when you first got together. If you forget, you will regret it. Pleasure isn't hard (unless it's a man). Enjoy it while you can and enjoy it at every single opportunity you can beg, borrow or steal.

On this subject I will not shut up. I will be back. Until then, disperse and go find someone to share your pleasure. Take the phone off the hook, get a sitter for the kids, sit in the back of the movie theater or your SUV or car and make out. Go have fun.

Quick ramble

thru the swirling thoughts in my mind. I know I'm being really posty today, but my mind has been whirling with tornadoes of thought and emotion and music. Always music. Like scent, music puts me in a frame of mind to evoke memories and engender thoughts and even author dreams.

Lately my dreams have been a jumble of sex and more mundane things, and yet they are not quite mundane. A vampire romance given to me last weekend created a dream of vampire sex, deep penetrating, dizzyingly orgasmic, and strangely fantastic vampire sex. I don't have a problem with sex or vampires, but I haven't ever been the recipient or the participant of such a strange conjunction of libido and desire. I know where the sex dreams come from and they are quite new. I had almost eradicated them from my repertoire, except for brief forays into momentary need quickly and efficiently relieved . . . that is until my whores started moaning when I came in contact with a very real and very potent sexual attraction. Call me shocked and hungry.

But to follow the sex dreams with dreams of taking over an English class because no one else can be found is something else again. Someone talked me into taking on an English class and gave me no idea of what the students (juniors in high school) would be studying or what was expected of me. I decided to have weekly spelling quizzes to expand the students' minds and vocabulary, especially since there are about 5000 words in the English language and most people barely use 250 of those. Even the more erudite among us use barely 1000 words, one-fifth of the total vocabulary. New words are adopted and used all the time and medical, legal, and technical language have expanded our vocabulary exponentially, but really, one-fifth of the usable language in semi-constant use? Sounds like parsimony to me. Would you believe most of those words are monosyllabic entries and comprise more than 60% of all communication? Check over this post and the posts of friends, neighbors and enemies and I guarantee you can figure out the 20 words that everyone uses most.

Anyway, I decided to base one-quarter of their final grade on the vocabulary and spelling quizzes each week and devised a way to make them thing without just reading off the words. The test would be comprised of definitions and the student would have to spell the word correctly and get the right word. Points would be deducted for spelling the word correctly but failing to put it with its correct definition.

I also decided to have the students keep journals of their thoughts about the class and their learning expedition and had begun to make lists of words I would use for vocabulary tests when I woke up with the urgent desire to find the bathroom and enthrone myself for a good long while. In fact, I was on the throne when the dream woke me. That's always a signal for me to wake up and tend to more immediate business than the dream. Reality intruding in the dream world and yanking me back thru time and space.

Could be my dreams are telling me I am in a teaching situation -- or about to be -- and it is tangled up in and among the sex, but it really doesn't matter in the long run.

Another thought has been nagging me as well--my next Grammar Goofs column: the preponderance of Os in certain words. I won't unveil my column yet, but if you go to Scribe & Quill you can sign up before the rush and get your free copy of the monthly newsletter, which is very late this month. You won't have only my column to read; there are lots of other poems, stories, articles, and information in which to wallow. My column is only one small part of the whole thing. And if you're really brave and interested in all things writerly and pagan, you can check out Pen & Pentacle and see what's up with the witchy set. Yes, I have a column there, too, but it's mostly history of the pagan holidays and a little bit of herbology in the form of incense making. Of course, the poetry and prose in P&P is worth the look-see and you might just learn something if you stay clear of my column, which is only for those who are not the faint of heart types. Wouldn't want to burn your virgin senses with too my information or history.

I guess it's time for me to shut up since I seem to have run out of things to say.

And no comments from the peanut gallery or I'll befriend you and put you on my list.

"I'm in love with a voice...

...Plaza oh, double four, double two." Judy Holliday sang that in Bells Are Ringing as Ella Peterson, aka Melisande Scott, and she was talking about playwright Jeffrey Moss, played by Dean Martin. This was also Judy Holliday's last screen role. She died of cancer five years later and we lost a beautiful, talented, funny, and wonderful actress and woman.

Although some critics say Bells Are Ringing did not translate well from stage to screen, I have to disagree. The luminous and brilliant colors, Judy's voice, and Dean Martin on screen was a treat for the eyes and the ears . . . and for the heart. Jean Stapleton played Sue of Sue's Answerphone who was taken in by J. Otto Prantz, a crook and bookie played by Eddie Foy, Jr.. You remember Jean Stapleton; she played Edith Bunker opposite Carroll O'Connor during one of the longest running TV shows in history: All In the Family.

It is strange when you look back at cultural icons like Archie and Edith Bunker and realize they were once young and coming up thru the acting ranks without a clue of what was ahead of them, focusing only on making it one more day, one more show, one more chance to own their hearts' desire. I always wonder what their lives were like, how they were able to put their own emotions to good use in making the characters they played realistic even when they were confused or distraught or just unhappy. But acting teaches you to lie and acting teaches you to dig into your well of emotions and pull one out to use for effect. I know. I did a lot of acting in my youth, on screen and on the boards, but I have lost the knack.

There have been times when my emotions ran me over like a Mack truck and I was helpless in their grasp, so I learned to shut up and suck them down into the well and cover them with a heavy lid. Living up here has changed my ability to cover my emotions and bury them deep in the well. Luckily, when my emotions are tangled and bursting out of me in great sobs or cries of frustration, fear, or pain, I am alone and only the animals hear me. I am safe in my mountain aerie far from civilization and people who can look at me with pity and concern or disgust at my outbursts.

Now I wrestle with my emotions for the page, pouring out my heart and venting my spleen onto the virtual page or the printed page and sending my emotions, dreams, beliefs, and pain into the world as fiction. Then along comes someone who gives me music that touches my soul and my heart and wrings tears and smiles from me. I can't believe I am developing a taste for country and western singers. I was taught better than to fall in with the truck-driving-crying-into-a-beer-drinking set. Gods forbid. But he knows me so well and doesn't realize how well he knows me because he is showing me his heart and his pain in the lines of the music, touching off emotional fireworks I have so carefully sealed in the well.

I enjoy looking back thru my life from time to time to figure out what I've learned and where I should next head down the path in front of me. I have stirred the emotions at the bottom of the well from time to time so I can let them out into the light and let them go. So why does this gift of music and emotion come now? I haven't stirred the well, but he has plucked off the lid with deft and gentle fingers to show me we are not so different and that our hearts have traveled a parallel path. So much between us and circumstance keeps us at arm's length like males and females at a Civil Air Patrol drill when the genders are not allowed to get too close. I ask again: Why now? He is in pain and I have been thru the fire. I can help him find his emotional footing and support him when he makes his ultimate decision and every time I want to reach out and put my arms around him I have to be careful because he is not free to accept what I want to offer.

My heart and mind scream, "DANGER," and I know I'm walking directly into the heart of the fire and yet I would not change the happiness I feel connecting with the shared moments of our past.

There is a scene in The Thorn Birds when Father Dane is swimming in Greece and has a heart attack. At first he thrashes around, postponing his death and avidly seeking survival and then he becomes calm and realizes that if he is true to himself and his god that he will accept the judgment and allow the sea to take him. He drowns with a smile of peace and contentment on his face, the water filling his lungs and pulling him into the depths. He knew his fate and gave himself willingly to it without fear or struggle.

I don't know my fate, but I have a good idea where this will lead and I'm willing to accept that fate and drown. Being this close to happiness and being unable to clasp it openly is hard, but the alternative is to walk away from these moments and I will never do that again. Whatever fate has in store is still partially hidden, but if these are the rules then I will follow them happily even if I drown or end up impaled on the thorn trees like the birds for which Colleen McCullough's book is named. I have taken much in my life and it's my turn to give something back.

Down for the count...

I'm still reeling from the past weekend and from my embarrassing show on Saturday night. No, I did not take off my clothes and dance naked on the kitchen table . . . there were children present. But I did give elementalmuse and her daughter a shellacking in Monopoly even though they teamed up against me. Her son sat out the Monopoly game but came and played iMAgiNiff and we were laughing so hard I wet myself. There, I said it. I embarrassed myself. I can't say when I laughed so hard before Saturday night . . . and it wasn't the mud slides or the strawberry margaritas. It was just a fun game. We used some of your names in the game to fill the spaces: impropaganda, drjeff, mentalfuse, and a few others who shall not be named. I guarantee we had a good time deciding what kinds of things you were likely to do and I think we did pretty well, otherwise I wouldn't have ... well, you know.

Last week was a very full week for me and I haven't had so many guests in all the time I have lived up here. I could have happily accommodated many more. There's plenty of room. And I can guarantee a good night's sleep the likes you haven't known in a while. Even elementalmuse with her insomnia couldn't believe how deeply and easily she slept. I'm telling you, the air and atmosphere out here is conducive to a good night's sleep, but you'll never know unless you come to visit.

My old friend came up on Sunday and we spent a few hours chewing on old fat and reminiscing about the good old days in school. He told me some things I didn't know and I told him things he didn't know, which is part of the magic of old friends with different friends and perspectives. I would certainly love to hear Sara's version of the hiking trip from Hell and I'll bet it's funnier than my old friend's version, especially since Sara is the one who feels she was in danger.

There is a warmth and comfort that comes with someone you have known for years and not seen in decades, an instant familiarity even when you have drifted apart. I found myself wondering why I couldn't have been bolder and told my old friend I thought of him in that way before we were battered and beset by time's winds and fortunes. But neither of us can change the directions we took away from each other and I'm just glad we found ourselves in the same place at the same time this go-round. I didn't realize how much I missed home and of course you can't tell my phone bill. I talk to my mother and father once or twice a week just to let them know I'm still alive and kicking around. They should know by now I'm not going to fall off the edge of a mountain or die too soon, but they still worry. Parents!

But having someone with whom I share so much history and happy memories is a gift I never expected. He has promised to come visit again and I hope he makes it soon. We still have a lot of catching up to do and a lot more to learn about each other. I will say he has turned into a remarkable and wonderful man who is sensitive and honest and honorable. He had the glimmers of those attributes so long ago, but it is so good to see how they have flowered and I hope to take the rest of our lives growing together instead of apart. Friends like him are hard to come by and too precious to waste.

In the meantime, it's back to the grindstone and cranking out some real writing instead of spending all my energy telling all of you, my friends, what you already know. Life is a grand journey and I'm glad to share it with all of you.

I'm baaaack

...just before you can all string me up for being MIA again. I have been here and there, but I haven't kept up with everyone's posts and I'm guilty of throwing you all over for a guy. Oh, well, might as well admit it. You've been axed for a man in my life. Satisfied? I am. And he's not just any old Internet guy I picked up in some sleazy chat room but someone I've known in a past life. See? It's more cerebral than . . . oh, get your minds out of the gutter.

Actually, the man in question is an old friend from high school and someone I've known since the sixth grade at good old John Burroughs Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio where I attended only that year, and only half of that year. I was at another school the first half of the year in a combined 5th/6th grade class where I taught all the kids Spanish, having just come back from Panama a couple of years previous to that. Oh, yes, the man in question.

Well, he was a boy scout at the same time I was a girl scout and we attended meetings at the old church on the corner of Burgess Avenue and Sullivant Avenue kitty corner from the elementary school. We were both in the same class at JB and both of us were safety patrols (until he got kicked off for some reason) and I had the corner where he crossed to come to school and to go home every day. He ended up at Hilltonia because he was on the north side of Sullivant and I went to Westmoor because I was on the south side of Sullivant, which was the dividing line for such things. We didn't see each other again for three years, one of which I spent at North Olmsted Jr. High School because my dad was still in the Army and for his last tour of duty he was sent to Parma Heights Depot and we lived in North Olmsted, which is a suburb of Cleveland. We crossed paths again at West High School, although we had no classes together that I remember. He introduced me to John Denver when he brought his records over to my house and played them for me. We were always friendly, but moved in different circles . . . or that is to say I moved in most every circle, but wasn't a part of any of them. I was a floater. He spent most of his time with a group of guys interested in science and rocketry and I can't believe they didn't even think to include me, but you know how boys can be at that age.

Actually, I didn't think he liked me very much so you can imagine my complete and total surprise when he emailed me a few days ago when I was talking to my mother on the phone. Mom was very peeved at me because she had to hold the phone at arm's length in order to keep her ear drums intact from my squeals of surprise and delight. As soon as I saw who the email was from I got an immediate picture of a be-spectacled young man in his boy scout uniform with a very impressive sash full of badges from hip to shoulder and over onto the back of the sash. He was wearing shorts as I recall and sensible boy scout shoes, but he was smiling that shy smile I remember so well. Like I said, I liked him and thought him intelligent and honorable, if a little shy.

Over the course of the past few days we have discovered a great deal about each other, not the least surprising of which is that he had a crush on me in high school but thought me out of his reach. Knock me over with a feather. We have since found out we have been, over the course of our adult lives, in the same places at the same time and never crossed paths. We have lived in some of the same areas and been to the same functions and yet we remained oblivious of the other's existence in our sphere of influence and travel. To make things even more interesting, he is in Colorado Springs and I'm here in Tabernash and he didn't know I was so close when he emailed. He found me on Classmates.com of all places. When he emailed the old address there he received an autoresponder message that told him the new email addy and there he was in my queue. What a coincidence life can be sometimes -- if I believed in coincidence that is.

He is married and has just celebrated his 27th year of marriage and has a ten-year-old daughter.

We have been swapping life histories and doing the do-you-remember him/her/this or that for almost a week now and he is coming to visit on Sunday for a couple of hours because he'll be in Jefferson County outside Denver for a hamfest. No, it has nothing to do with pigs. I already asked that. He is still into ham radios and the hamfest refers to that. It's sort of a swap meet for radio parts and a chance to get together with on the air buddies in the area. Personally, I thought it was some kind of actor's get-together because of the ham reference, but when I found out what time they met (8 a.m.) I knew they wouldn't even be awake at that hour let alone up and running around Jefferson County Fairgrounds, so it had to be the pig thing. Okay, so I was wrong. I'm entitled. I'm not wrong very often.

So, a blast from the past (which is what he put in the subject line of his first email one week ago today) is coming to visit and reminisce for a couple of hours. We are so completely different now and yet we really aren't all that different. Physically, experientially, we have changed, but the essence of who we are remains the same and always has.

I cannot believe this week. I have lived in solitary seclusion for nearly a year and I have had more visitors this week than I have had the whole time I've lived here. First, Emma and the girls, and tonight I get to see my favorite elementalmuse and her two wonderful kidlets, and the next day after the muse leaves one day too early for my taste, my old friend will be here to spend a couple of hours.

So, if any of you have teenagers who are weeping and wailing over not being noticed by any of the opposite sex in school, let them read this or tell them about it. Just because someone isn't confident enough or bold enough to ask you for a date or tell you they like you doesn't mean they really don't. I have been surprised on several occasions, especially at my 20th class reunion, by people I didn't think even knew I existed telling me how much they liked me but didn't think I'd be interested in them so they kept quiet. Some of the boys were even part of the most popular group in school. So you never know.

Of course, it's too late to do anything about it now, but it's nice to know anyway.

I didn't mention the gentleman's name I threw you all over for, did I? It's a simple honest name. John Evans. And we have a lot more in common than we ever knew.

As much as I love living in my secluded cabin in the Rockies, I didn't realize that I was a little homesick, too. I have several friends here and all around the country, but there is something special about having a friend from back home that makes me feel a little less lonely and a little more connected to my past. One thing I have learned is that no matter how much you want to turn your back on the past, on your home, your heartaches, your sorrows, fears, and horror stories, Dorothy is right. There is no place like home -- and no friend more special than one who knew you when.

We are the sum total of our experiences, good and bad, and without those we would not be who we are at this very minute. People who create themselves anew, give themselves new names and new identities, can never completely erase the past because it is woven into the very warp and woof of every fiber of your being. We need not be trapped by the past, but we are all products of our past.

We can't go back and change anything, but we can learn from it all. And we can use that knowledge to forge ahead into a brighter future. It's nice to stroll down memory lane as long as we don't get lost or tangled up in the vines of regret and feelings of if-I-had-only-known. The past is a benchmark, a reminder of where we have been, but it doesn't have to be a stumbling block in our paths.

I will share some poignant memories with John and I will also relive a few shared moments, but what we build from this point on is a future friendship that is flavored and spiced by our common past. That's always something worth having.

Time for me to shut up. I've given you enough to make up for my absence and if you don't agree, write something and I'll fire back a pithy response. If you do agree, write something anyway just so I can think up a pithy response to fire back. This is a volleyball game of connections and reconnections, so let's play.

Bald rhetoric

Why is that when someone makes a statement and points to proof that is bald rhetoric to someone else who points to his proof and says their proof is incontrovertible evidence?

For two days now, I have been discussing the possibility that the universe just might have a consciousness. (it's an idea for a story) I have been blasted by many students of physics and one in particular has been hounding me by saying I'm giving him bald rhetoric instead of proof. I point him in the direction of the evidence that convinced me and he still maintains I am hitting him with bald rhetoric even while he admits that scientists have been wrong and continue to be split on the what makes up the universe and why it works. Sounds to me like mathematics with holes in the equations more like rhetoric than an Orientalist and historians deciphering of ancient documents that claim they knew more about the solar system than we currently do.

I'm sorry. I cannot get behind the theory that there are pyramidal structures all over the world because each separate race and culture developed pyramids at the same time, especially when archaeologists and historians show the diffusion of the different races of man spreading out from a single point in Africa but then stopped at the Atlantic Ocean because they couldn't get across even though they could build megalithic structures with multi-megaton blocks of finely dressed stone that they carved and shaped with stone and copper tools and fitted with a precision unparalleled even today. Yeah, you can build monoliths and transport dressed stones over vast distances, over mountain, rivers, and seas, but you can't sail across an ocean to a continent that you do not know is there. How stupid do you have to be to forget Occam's Razor? The simplest answer is usually the right one.

The ancients wrote about the planets in the solar system and knew about Pluto, which wasn't discovered until the 20th century, but they were making up stories. It's all mythology. That's some pretty spectacular fantasizing if they knew more ten thousand years before NASA began exploring with the Voyager probes in the 1970s. But that's all allegory and conjecture. That's bald rhetoric. That's not proof.

What do these people want, blood?

The Olmecs carved massive statues, which they brought from over 80 kms away, that clearly show Asian and African faces. So, because I have been told my logic sucks, I have a logical progression for you.

If all life began in the Rift Valley in Africa, and all races developed from that original race, and all races moved outward from that point (we'll forget about Noah for now because he's myth at this point despite the evidence of a world wide flood and the existence of people after the flood, not to mention the countless flood stories in every single culture on earth), it is impossible that anyone could have migrated from Africa to the Americas and diffused their culture throughout the American continents. The Olmec statues are anomalies, fantasies dreamed up in the fertile brains of the ancients and not portraits of themselves and the people who lived in the Americas. The people in the Americas migrated over the land bridge between Russia and Alaska and diffused outward from there a relatively short time ago (even though their megalithic structures (that's really, really big stone buildings) date to the same time as similar structures in the "known" world, and the supposed migration happened much later, but they didn't bring their culture with them or their architects, builders, religion, etc. Those were all left behind and they created their civilizations without any pre-conceived notions, abilities, or techniques and decided a pyramidal structure was the most stable because they saw it in nature all around them, and even though they built most of their structures in more rectancular and square cubic shapes, and even though they all used the pyramidal structures as religious centers (and tombs) and for viewing and measuring the heavens.

Of course that doesn't explain why the oldest civilizations in the Americas show up along the coastlines and move inward and not the other way around. The ancients would never have even considered passing up all the fertile land along their route because, after all, the seaside was so much better for their health. The ancients weren't capable of navigating the Atlantic Ocean and landing on the seashores and moving inward as their colonies progressed and prospered. That just does not make good common sense because historians and archaeologists say it doesn't make good common sense. Remember Occam's Razor?

Scientists can calculate pi to the Nth degree, but they can't see what's right in front of their faces. Give it up, folks. The truth is right in front of you and Occam told you how to recognize it . . . it's the simplest answer.

How can historians and scientists take the numerous tablets that listed legal documents, food stores, and Hammurabi's Code of laws at face value and completely deny the veracity of their astronomical, historical, and religious documents, even to the point of calling the Sumerians' religion mere allegory, fantasy, and mythology? There's Occam's Razor again.

Scientists, historians, and mathematicians, you cannot use Occam's Razor to prove your pet theories and deny what you don't agree with in the same breath using the same standard. As I've written before, Occam's Razor cuts both ways.

Open your eyes. The truth is out there.

I'll shut up now.

Hallelujah!

I found a way to make money writing. It's throw-away writing, but it pays all right and with enough of these little jobs I can afford to buy food and the necessities--like books.

I subscribe to a lot of writer's newsletters and one of them paid off this morning because it was about job bid sites. Rent A Coder isn't just for web coders but also for writers, or at least they have a few writing jobs, most of which consist of writing key word rich one page articles for web sites so they place high in search engines. Lovely. Throw-away writing. And the pay sucks, but you have to write so many of these throw-aways for one client that I might make enough to make it worthwhile.

It seems strange, but I am a little nervous--as I am at the start of every project I take on--about my ability to write the same crap over and over and make it fresh and different. I mean, really, how many different and fresh things can you write when you have to repeat buy female Viagra online 6 to 12 times per article? Oh, well, it will be a learning process for me.

I also got my first acceptance of my bid and I bid pretty high. The buyer said I was the most qualified person who submitted. Must be my way with words and salesmanship. Or maybe he recognizes talent and ability when he sees it. Of course talent and ability just mean I can string coherent sentences together and still maintain a credible English grammatically correct manner. Go figure. Which reminds me, I still have an article to write for Scribe & Quill. I have been so busy marketing myself and trying to make money I forgot. Oops. I hope elementalmuse will forgive me for not putting her and S&Q first.

Speaking of the Muse, has anyone seen or heard from that talented wit of a fast car lover, mentalfuse, lately? The Muse asked me and I haven't seen or heard anything from him in weeks. He's MIA again. Go figure.

This morning I also received an e-mail from a wealthy entrepreneurial friend in Texas who asked me about the lucrative possibilities of a government contract he heard about. It's for medical transcription for a VA medical center. He doesn't have the facilities, staff, or software he'd need to start up the business, or the staff, managers, and tech support personnel, but I gave him my assessment. He would lose some on the first year because of the initial outlay, but for the duration of the contract he should make a tidy sum. I have a lot of experience in that arena since I did medical transcription for seven years for one company and for twenty years overall. I think he has the idea of footing the bill for starting the company and letting me run it, but there is no way I want to go back into that world. It takes too much time and energy and effort for too little money, even if he offered me $100,000 a year to run the company because I would have to be on call 24/7/365. There's no way. I'd rather do a bunch of piddling throw-away writing jobs than to give up my life for anything other than writing. If I took on that magilla I would never have time to sleep or relax, let alone write. So, thanks but no thanks. I'll consult for a tidy fee, but I won't manage the company or set it up. I wonder what I could get for consulting? Interesting thought and a better idea if I can put in a little brain power and end up with a nice little check that paid the rent here for a year and gave me a little left over for books -- and food, of course, but books first.

At any rate, this has been a productive day and now I'm off to do a quick net search for some info on anti-virus software, or maybe one of the other topics, and write a press release for a new software application from a dummy company. Fun, fun, fun and it just keeps getting better.

Time to shut up and do some actual work, but I think I'll get some food first. Need fuel.

That's it. Disperse.

Save yourselves.

It's official. I might as well throw in the towel and retire to the shadows. I am old. Oh, my friends will rush to tell me that it isn't so. They'll tell me I look like I'm still in my thirties, that my mind is still young, but it's their fear talking. I never had the fear. It passed me by and I went right into ancient old age. Oh, sure, I had pain, but pain is your friend, the first one to remind you you're still alive; if you hurt, you're not dead. But the words, those slippery, eel-like words, the ones waiting in the darkness to grab you by the throat and take you down into the dust and cobwebs of old age, those words that, ever vigilant, creep up on you and take possession of your mind and your mouth, they're out. Luckily, I wasn't speaking, but writing to someone younger. Thank all the gods for a back space key so I could take the words back from darkening my screen. But they're out.

Had I said the words aloud the age police would have found me and taken me down, kicking and screaming, protesting they had the wrong person. I looked in my mirror yesterday and I was but a child. There were a few wrinkles, but that is to be expected when you smile and laugh; they are the tracks of happiness, joy, abandon, the signs of youth. I hadn't said the words; still haven't said the words, but they're there and I must be ever more vigilant, posting guard on my mouth 24/7. And if they can get me, you can't be safe for long. You're next. You know it and I know it; that is why you protest I am not old.

I'll have to move so the age police can't find me. Or disconnect from all living humans and crawl deeper into the mountains and forests near my home, become a hermit in truth to save myself from their Argos-eyed gaze.

The words are out. They're hanging like the sword of Damocles above my head waiting for the hair to fray or stretch so it can fall and cut me off in the bloom of youth. I am no longer safe and neither are you, my friends. Don't tell me the fear isn't there now. The words are out.

When I was your age...

I love learning

new things. Every day brings something new for me to enjoy and use. Today brought more information about my mother and my grandfather.

I remembered a story about John Dillinger's mother living down the street from my mother when she lived in Alger, Ohio where she was born. I saw a submission call for an anthology about small towns and I think this story would be perfect for it. And there is a neat twist.

My grandfather was mayor, chief of the fire department and sheriff (not all at the same time, I don't think) of Alger. He was involved in a stake-out to capture Dillinger when he was in Alger visiting his mother. They missed him but caught him and put him in jail in Lima, which is about 20 or so miles from Alger. Four men purported to be from the FBI came to the Lima jail to transfer Dillinger to Indianapolis, but they were Dillinger's friends and ended up shooting and killing the sheriff and putting his wife and deputy in Dillinger's cell before escaping with Dillinger.

A small footnote to history, but my family was involved. It's exciting and fascinating. I called my mother to ask her everything she remembered and she said she had some newspaper clips about Grandpa and Dillinger. This is almost as good as the story about Grandma catching Grandpa with one of his floozies on Main Street in Alger.

My grandmother was a sweet and quiet lady who never used a curse word in her life. She was short and plump when I knew her, but at one time her waist was so tiny, my grandfather told me, he could span her waist with two hands.

Anyway, Grandma was downtown (Alger is a very small town and downtown would have been the main street thru the center of the business district--about 10 or 15 buildings in all)--and she saw Grandpa with another woman. He was carrying a bottle of whiskey, which must have been before Prohibition. She went up to my grandfather and snatched the bottle from his hands and poured it out right in front of him. Mom said Grandma later said she should have hit the floozy with the bottle. That must have been in her more militant years. The idea of my short, plump grandmother facing down my great big 6-foot 4-inch grandfather would have been something to see.

I didn't know my mother's family was so prominent. I knew she was upper middle class, but she told me both my grandparents's families had money, lots of money. It must have missed us because I sure haven't seen any of it. Oh, yeah, my cousin took it all when she was my grandmother's guardian, but that's another story.

I remember my grandparents owned a tree farm when I was born and I knew they always had a comfortable home, but I didn't know there was so much money and history in my family. I guess the Mays had a right to be proud of their heritage, especially since they descended from middle European immigrants.

Isn't it fascinating what you find when you start asking questions? Do you know much about your parents' history and family? Seems most people today don't know much about their families at all. I knew a little, but I am learning a whole lot more. History is indeed in the details and some of the details may be in your family's cupboard. Have you looked?

Nothing in particular

...except that I really shouldn't read anything by Dan Brown because once I pick up the book and start reading I can't put it down. Deception Point is another thriller and it's really good . . . better than a death defying roller coaster or the slickest ride at the biggest amusement park. My pulse was racing thru most of the book and normally I am a very calm person, except during sword fights and battles in movies. Can't help myself, the blood lust just does things to me and I get all tingly and . . . enough of that. I'm getting excited again. LOL

Anyway, the story is about an embattled president who has taken French Leave during his re-election campaign to oversee a discovery of universal proportions and is based on Clinton's little faux pas with the life on other planets press conference that resulted from a mistake in identifying an extraterrestrial rock. Both sides are playing for keeps and four civilian scientists and the front running senator's daughter and her intelligence community boss are caught in the middle, their lives on the line because they have figured out the truth. Talk about your hell rides. Death, destruction, special ops groups, and high tech weaponry that just makes me giddy and fluttery inside. Rifles that can make bullets from sand, water, and even snow right on the battleground -- or killing field. Ingenuity is wonderful. There are planes that fly six times the speed of sound and clean burning slush hydrogen fuels that can take us to Mars or the rest of the universe. It's the kind of story that you just cannot put down -- or at least I had trouble putting it down (Just one more chapter, one more page, one more book) until about four o'clock this morning. I had the same experience with The da Vince Code and Angels & Demons. He has only written four books and I have Digital Fortress on order at the library; someone else has it out. But I certainly can't take much more of Mr. Brown's writing or I'd never get anything done.

I should be reading the books I need to review and cleaning the house instead of reading until all hours, but I just can't help myself. Even Philip K. Dick and Edgar Allan Poe can't keep my interest with Mr. Brown in the house. I only have a few more chapters to go and then I'll be finished -- until the other book comes in and then I'll be back reading till all hours. Well, there are worse ways to go.

One thing is certain, I have learned more about the intelligence community than I ever thought possible and I want to get out there and play with the new high tech weapons, although I will always return to the low tech swords and daggers I collect and use. Speaking of which, I can hear my sword calling me to play with it. I have neglected Excalibur of late and I really shouldn't. So, I'm off -- just downstairs not off my nut. What could you be thinking?

I'll shut up now.

Disperse and go play with something sharp and pointy.

Dusting

Did you know dust collected in the cracks and niches in your mind? I knew about the cobwebs, but not the dust. Like furniture, if there is a thick layer of dust on everything, you can't see the beauty of the wood or the craftsmanship--not that there is beauty or craftsmanship in my mind, but you never know. At any rate, since last week I have been clearing out the cobwebs and dust and finding me underneath.

I didn't start out to dust my mind, but my nephew's incredible good fortune with a trip to Europe for twenty days next year began the process and I'm still clearing things up. Music has helped (or hindered) a lot. I'm with Shakespeare in wondering how sheep's guts and instruments made of metal and wood and cork can hale men's souls from their bodies--and stir the memories.

I wrote my mother, who should receive my letter today, asking some pointed questions. Just the act of writing the letter and asking the questions blew off a huge layer of dust that has accumulated over many decades, dust I didn't know was there. Last night I blew off another layer of dust, not a lot of dust because it hasn't been there for very long, but more difficult to remove. Tears help a lot.

I wrote Don. He may never read the letter, but I needed to write it all down and send it to him. He's still so angry and hurt and it's my fault. I know that. I was a coward and turned my back on him when he needed me the most. It took me two years to realize that and admit it. I am a coward. Faced with a lifetime of happiness and love, I ran away because I thought I was helping him, saving him from pain and grief. What a martyr I am . . . not. I made a pre-emptive strike because I thought he was losing interest and I didn't want to see that deadness in his eyes when he looked at me, the deadness all the men in my life have had right before it ended. So, before he could hurt me I hurt him. The real kicker is that he probably had no intention of hurting me, but was intent on his own problems and I couldn't wait to help him figure them out. Aah, the things you see when you look back with your eyes wide open and get rid of all the dust and fears.

So what have I learned from all this dusting? That I have been my own worst enemy. That I have been a coward. That I don't have to be that way any more.

I know love like I shared with Don will never come my way again, but having known that kind of love I know I will never settle for anything less. I have actually known love--the real thing, not the infatuation and lust that passes for love--and anything else is a pale, anemic shadow by comparison.

Some internal changes are going on. I can feel myself shifting, clearing, shaking off all the dust and cobwebs. Where I will end up and what I'll find beneath the dust is anybody's guess, but I am sure it will be a purer and more resolute and productive me. That will be an improvement.

I'll shut up now.

That is all. Disperse.

Legend Update

Okay, thanks to Who Represents?, I will be interviewing Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for the proposed article: Saving Private Ryan: The Man Behind the Legend.

I interviewed Tom Hanks before for an article I did on the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, of which Hanks was a part before he made it big in television. In fact, my brother-in-law, Larry Sherwood, used to end up with Hanks's costumes because they were the same size and had no butt. Just a little factoid. However, the interview with Hanks was about 10 years ago and by telephone, as will this interview, but Steven Spielberg is new and exciting.

Of course, the interviews are contingent on selling the article, but I have confidence in the idea.

I'll shut up now before I really begin gushing. Can you tell I'm excited?

The man behind the legend

Six years ago, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg came out with Saving Private Ryan, which was based on a real life situation. The man in question was not Private Ryan but Sgt. Fritz Niland and he was the first man to be sent home from the war because two of his brothers were killed at Normandy on D Day and one other brother was reported MIA in the South Pacific. Roosevelt felt it was wrong to deprive a family of all its sons and enacted a law that sent Niland home.

The story is not at all as it is portrayed in the well known movie, but fantastic nonetheless.

I had the good fortune to know the nephew of the man who really saved Sgt. Fritz Niland and interviewed the gentleman in question. I also have a copy of a memoir the gentleman wrote detailing his sometimes hilarious adventures before, during, and after Normandy as one of the first recruits of the 101st Airborne, the screaming eagles.

Don't know why I waited so long, but I have spent the morning putting together query packages, e-mail and snail mail versions, to write this remarkable story behind the movie.

Now, I'm just curious if any of you ladies and gentleman would be interested in such a story, so give it to me straight and bare your soul. Does the story intrigue you? Would you like to know more? If so, let me know. Just consider this market research, especially since all of you comprise a varied cross section of American readers.

Light bulb moments

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. William Hazlitt

Ain't that the truth?

Stop thinking about the rules and regulations, forms and formats of writing and let the writing come as it will. Maybe that's why my journal entries flow so well; I don't think about it when I'm writing; I just write. It's the reason I decided to join elementalmuse on DJ and then LJ, because it gave me the freedom to just write the way I write in my paper journals. I don't think about all the forms and rules and wherefores and whats; I just write. Whether that translates to something worth reading is another thing all together, but I'm pleased with what I write. It is also the way I talk. When you hear me holding forth on religion or history or writing, art, movies, whatever, it's the same as talking to me. Of course, in person you would get it at a much faster pace and you should see it when I type it out. It's probably better to read me than to listen to me ramble in person.

And speaking of rambling, I watched Living out Loud and it was better than the reviews made it out to be. There is a bit of confusion as to what is being acted out from her thoughts and what is real, but the confusion lasts only for a second. I was amused (read: laughed out loud) after Judith, played by Holly Hunter, gets up out of bed and jumps out her window and the television reporter says she jumped out her window and fell on top of her ex-husband and his new wife, killing all three of them. Now that would be the way to go, especially if you can take your husband and his floozy with you. I have to admit I had a moment of fondness for the new wife because I like the actress, but when she began talking about how she was a good person and had been brought up in a Christian home that honored and revered families and she would never have broken up a marriage . . . and on and on until Holly Hunter cuts her off, I wanted to slap her silly. She knew the man was married (and a lecherous jerk to boot) and she went with him anyway, falling in love and taking him from his loveless marriage. I understand the story is about Judith and her feelings and her husband is as seen thru her eyes, but she does an admirable job of taking half the blame when he refuses to take any of it. She tells him she doesn't blame him for leaving her because she left her long before he did. Personally, I don't have as much of a problem with men who cheat, but men who cheat and act superior and moral give me the urge to grab a sharp filleting knife and skinning them alive -- literally. At least be man enough to admit you're a jerk or that you were looking for more than you could get from your marriage, but don't try to take the moral high ground because there ain't any. I should know; I've been on both sides of the equation and I fell in love with a married man I knew was married before I got involved. I don't claim any moral superiority; it is just a fact of my life that I am neither ashamed or proud of.

I was struck by the fact that once again a movie is centered around the human need to be touched. Judith stopped touching her husband and he stopped touching her. She stopped touching the world and everything in it, rather existing in a state of limbo where emotion and touch were half remembered things, ghosts of reality. That has been a theme for me lately. The lack of touch. I'm not talking about the virtual touch of mind to mind or heart to heart, but the actual physical act of touching another human being and being touched in return. Or touching any living animal for that matter. Did you know that the SPCA donates dogs and cats to the residents of nursing homes and senior living facilities and that the act of petting the animals lowers the blood pressure and gives the people a sense of comfort? Why wouldn't it? You're touching another living thing and they are touching you: licking you, rubbing against you, being the very essence of communication: touch. It's probably why single women, especially old single women, who live alone have so many animals; they need to touch and be touched.

In a way, I think touch anchors us in this reality, makes us more real. Why else do you think men and women cheat? It isn't because of the sex, it is because of the need, the biological, deep down, gotta have it or I'll die need to touch and be touched. I'd be willing to bet that if you polled married couples you would find that their relationships began to fail when they no longer touched each other . . . and I don't mean the usual kind of touching, but the kind of touching that actually anchors us in reality and to each other. The kind of touch that signals the person is completely involved, communicating with you on a deep emotional level. I'd also be willing to bet that sex, while it feels good (incredible sometimes), isn't really about sex but about that deep emotional touching that comes with it.

There is a scene where Judith comes home drunk, disappointed that she has been stood up. She is angry and hurt and she needs something. Danny DeVito (who knew he could be such a sensitive and caring person when he played Louie DePalma in Taxi) tries to talk to her but she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want him. She wants someone who takes her breath away and makes her feel real. She calls a male masseur, who only massages women (says so in his ad), and he comes and sets up. He is a cute and beefy hunk who sets up his table and strips off his clothes down to his jockeys, but he is more than willing to take them off, too. Judith asks if she can decide later. He begins touching her and encouraging her to touch him, even to the point of putting one of her hands on his oh so firm and touchable cheeks. You can almost feel the silky smoothness of his skin, the play of muscles under the skin, and the warmth and scent of him warming and rising and filling your mind and your senses. HIs pulses quickens, his breathing is faster as she touches him while he's massaging her, giving her what she needs, and she slips her hands into the waistband of his shorts. It's sexual but it's not.

Touch is luxurious, it's elemental, it's a staff of life. It really isn't about the sex; it's about the touch, the need to be anchored in this world and to someone who touches you back, who lets you know they are an inextricable part of you and you are an inextricable part of them. You can live without food and you can go a long time without water, but I am beginning to see that we cannot live without touch and yet we do. We brush past each other, impersonal strangers that are as nebulous and ghostly to us as we are to them until we touch and the touch is echoed in our eyes, our breathing, our connection, our communication between each other. It's all about the touch.

Are we so busy making money and going about our daily ruts that we fail to notice that we have stopped touching, that we have stopped communicating on the most basic levels? Is that what is really going on?

Books, books, books

$1000 in books. How could I resist? Like elementalmuse I cannot understand anyone who spends $250K on clothes in a year, but I could happily spend (and read) that much on books. One of my favorite quotes is one I heard many years ago: I budget my money very carefully. First I buy books and with whatever is left over I buy food. Is it any wonder I am on every second-hand and first-hand bookseller's e-mail lists? Like Powell's Books?

Powell's is running an essay contest about your most memorable moment with a book (or books) in the last ten years to celebrate their tenth anniversary. I couldn't resist . . . obviously.

I am surrounded by books. I sleep with books. I work with books. I live with books. No matter how often I have moved in the past ten years (and I have moved a lot) books and I gravitate toward each other like comets toward the sun. I'm not sure whether I am the comet or the sun, but the attraction is irresistible.

Every time I vow to pare down my reading collection, and give away, box up, or sell books, I am struck by moments of joy, fury, excitement, horror, anxiety, the full gamut of emotions, all of which have come from private moments with books. I carry them in my bag, sometimes two at a time, to keep me company at restaurants in strange towns, hotel rooms on the road, or just for moments when I am drawn to an idyllic spot under a tree by a stream or some sun-struck spot at a weathered and aged rest stop picnic table.

Husbands and lovers have disappointed me, but never books. Even bad books have their moments of surprise, a sudden burst of brilliance in an otherwise dull trip. Each moment with a book is memorable, but the most memorable moments are those in the company of a new book or revisiting an old friend and discovering something previously missed. Such is the case with Lawrence Grobel and Helen Fielding.

"Endangered Species" by Lawrence Grobel was a peek into the thoughts and whys of writers like Saul Bellow, J. P. Donleavy, Norman Mailer, and so many other writers among whom I had yet to spend more than fleeting education-forced moments. I chose the book to read about Alex Haley and Ray Bradbury and was irresistibly attracted to the unread pages where I found new universes to explore, and a whole new crop of books to buy even though I promised myself I would keep things simple and patronize the library more often. High on Grobel's intriguing and wonderful interviews, I decided to eat less and buy more books--not a difficult choice.

More recently--this morning in fact--while re-reading "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" by Helen Fielding I broke into gales of laughter. Fielding had taken yet another book out of my reach, re-writing Jane Austen's "Persuasion". She beat me to the punch again. If I am not careful, she will steal "Mansfield Park" for Bridget Jones's adventures and I will be forced to find something new to write about and another book I must have.

Grobel and Fielding, and so many other writers, have shown me the errors of my ways. Books and authors I was forced to read in school take on new glimmer, a shimmering comet's tail that draws me onward into undiscovered country, providing me with more memorable moments and more companions for idyllic spots along the road or just because I cannot resist the gravitational force of a book I have not read or one I must own to read again and again like a comet drawn through a solar system of words and images and writers I have known and have yet to discover.

Are you game? I can stand the competition.

Words, words, words

I'm not sick of words like Eliza Doolittle who seemed to be angry at Professor Higgins and Freddie Ainsford-Hill and their words, words, words. Words fascinate me. They always have. If only words had a physical form I would be in heaven and the most promiscuous of all females who ever walked the earth, falling all over myself to lavish my attentions on words, words, words.

Last night, as I was writing in my paper journal (there are just some things I can't write here because my butt has already spread to cover my ergonomically correct desk chair) and noticing I had very few pages left and no new journal in sight (and no spare funds to buy another) to fill with musings, meanderings, and incoherent thoughts in my own personal shorthand, I was struck by the word catholic. Catholic has come to mean the Roman Christian church that grew out of Paul's teachings and an inability by the Roman empire to stamp out Christianity, but it original mean broad sympathies, tastes, and interests. Catholicism, and indeed Christianity, grew out of those catholic tastes, the Roman ability to conquer and absorb all religions, cultures, and societies in much the same way Christianity (as it is practiced today) grew out of Constantine's pagan roots and background, and indeed Rome's pagan roots, roots that continued to grow and flourish in foreign soils. For years I have said that the Roman empire did not fall, but changed its focus from military might to religious might and continued right up to the present day, just as the Vatican continues to control a very healthy percentage of the world, New and Old.

So many words; so little time to learn and internalize them all.

On Merriam-Webster Online, which today gave me the joy of conquering the dictionary devil, the word of the day is causerie, which is an informal conversation or chat and/or a short informal essay, such as my ramblings on LJ. Causerie makes me think of causeway, a raised way to get across water or wet ground, a dry path, much like the paths that crisscross in my mind from thought to thought and synapse to synapse. So, a causerie is a mental or verbal causeway.

And then there is static. Static can be the crackling chaotic sounds of radio transmissions, snow on your television set, or that little electrical shock that zaps people when the air is dry and you drag your feet across the carpet and touch metal or another person. A jolt that flashes sparks and miniature fireworks that can jump start a heart or fry a hard drive or generally interfere with smooth electrical impulses. But static also means stationary, unchanging, without variance, such as a static astrological sign, a sign that shows little variance or change, stasis, frozen in time and space. One more word that has completely opposite meanings, but such is the wonder and magic of words and language and meanings.

Words have given me much over the years, but right now, besides giving me food for thought and essays and pleasure, words have built a causeway to my father and his mysterious past. His past is not mysterious in the sense of secrets, but in the sense of not knowing as much about him as I think I should. One of the most important people in my life and it has taken me nearly fifty years to find out the truth behind the hints and stories. I spoke to him earlier after my mother informed me he had just finished writing me another long letter. I can hardly wait to read his small narrow script, decipher his handwriting and learn a little more. I feel like a trail blazer, an adventurer pushing back the frontiers where be monsters. Like an uncharted territory, the mists are being burned off by the sun of interest. Okay, so a little flowery, but this is how I feel.

So many mysteries are mysterious because no one has ventured close enough to walked thru the obscuring mists into the strange lands and build the causeway and join in a causerie, braving the static shock of recognition to remain static long enough to find all people have catholic tastes in one way or another.

Oh, well

I have been immersed in music and magick and all sorts of reading, but not much updating on my journal. I am fast becoming MIA like mentalfuse. I will do my best to write more frequently, but when I get on a track like finding out the real story of a woman who lived and died before I was born and where the biggest Teflon pan in the country can be seen, you can see my dilemma.

I subscribe to a lot of literary magazines and sometimes I can't quite understand why those stories are published rather than some of the stories I submit. It isn't that I don't get some sort of recognition, but I'm getting really tired of long personal rejections. I'd almost rather have an impersonal form rejection because it feels like get an F+ or an A-. It's a mixed message. Almost a D and not quite an A or a B. Personally, I'd rather see concrete, no nonsense grades and responses. I know editors don't have a lot of time and need to streamline their correspondence, but if an editor takes the time to type out a three-page letter, either consider personal correspondence or tell me simply what is wrong and I'll fix it. Something to work on when I am inundated with submissions and queries for my own magazine.

Did it ever occur to anyone, other than me, that Madonna did a good job of portraying Eva Peron in Evita? Of course, it could just be that I love the music and the songs. I have a thing for Andrew Lloyd Webber and I don't care if that makes my tastes pedestrian, but I can see how I would choreograph the musical numbers and the stage placements. Some of my past coming up to bite me in the butt. There was a time when I seriously considered acting, before pregnancy and the decline of my physical form into a breeding cow instead of a strong, curvy, corn fed female. Ah, well, life holds many surprises. I danced in several plays, The Music Man among them, and acted several leading roles before an unplanned and completely surprising pregnancy played havoc with my body and my life. I wanted to write screenplays and plays and indeed even rewrote the second act of A Christmas Carol (the musical version of Dickens' story) when I was in junior high school. I've played several pretty interesting roles, all of which came rushing back at me when I was at the checkout counter of the grocery store this afternoon.

I passed a bin of DVDs sale priced at $4.99. I didn't expect to find anything good, and mostly I was right. I did manage to find one gem, Our Town with a very young and innocent looking William Holden and a fresh-faced Martha Scott, who starred opposite Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur as his mother. I played Emily in Our Town in high school and some of the motifs and themes remain with me today. I had to watch the DVD as soon as I got home, but had to respond to the two calls I noticed on my Caller ID from Beanie earlier today. She's taking an English class in college and I'm helping her with a How-To essay.

Needless to say, my dark chocolate chunk ice cream was melting and I hiccuped my way thru some fried chicken livers while she read what she had written so I could give her my editorial opinion. I was a bit vague and confusing, but my mind was on other things at the time: melting ice cream and my new movie.

When I finally got to see the movie (having pushed OK on the remote several times to keep from having to watch the animated DVD egg bouncing all over the screen), I was greeted with fresh visions. I forgot how young and eager William Holden looked or that Emily didn't die in the movie as she did in the play. I remember dying in the play and sitting in the graveyard near Mother Gibb and Mrs. Soames who enjoyed my wedding to George Gibb. I don't remember having a choice to fight back the specter of death and come to with a new baby in my arms and George looking thru the door to make sure all was well. Still, it is one of my favorite plays and now I can watch it whenever I need a fresh perspective or just a walk down memory lane.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything and nothing. The whole thing is a mental train that keeps stopping at every little station along the way. Literary stories have some deeper meaning and I thought of a family going on vacation with a daughter in college who just graduated, guilted into the trip by one last family trip together, and having to go see the biggest Teflon pan in the country. The thought occurred that the manufacturer gets more out of each little tourist who stops to see this technological marvel than if they had taken the same amount of material and made a lot of smaller frying pans. You can sell a normal sized frying pan once, but you can sell the country's biggest Teflon frying pan forever. It isn't good for anything but giving something for people to stop and gawp at when they're on pointless family vacations just so they can be together for a few days or a couple weeks. More mileage for the manufacturer and a family's relationship with growing children. Makes sense to me, but I wonder if it will make sense to an editor with money they need to part with.

Oh, well, I have run on long enough and it is time. I'll shut up now.

That is all. Nothing to see here. Disperse.