Spanks?

While reading The Weekly Shriek (one of my guilty pleasures) something caught my eye. Who ever thought of calling a pair of panties Spanx? But what else would you call a pair of form fitting panties to cover your backside?

They look too sheer to be the heavy laced, boned and often sadist garments my mother used to shimmy, slide and wiggle her way into when she and Dad were going out to the NCO club on Friday nights to play Bingo, and the name was a lot less BDSM -- they were called girdles -- but they amounted to the same, a way to strangle, sculpt, squeeze and otherwise force flab and fat into a less objectionable and, hopefully, more appealing shape. Of course, back in those days, no one thought about sex or having to extricate themselves from the torture garment and let their wobbly bits droop free just to watch their would-be sex partner's eyes go from lust-glazed eagerness to terrified right before they made the sign of the cross with their index fingers and frantically searched for the nearest exit. However, the need for something to trick someone into believing you work out, diet and/or have kept your figure is obviously still strong -- and still worth making money on. I will never understand how showing how smooth and slim and trim the panties/girdle make a lovely, fit and sexy young figure look has anything to do with what it actually looks like on a calorically challenged body, but advertising is all about sex -- or so says Brian Kinney.

I wonder if make-up, Spanx panties, Wonderbras, contacts to make your eyes more appealing (or alien) and all the rest of the special effects, tricks and camouflage that passes for fashion for those interested in attracting a mate, date or sex partner is actually worth it when you have to take most of it off to achieve your goals.

Okay. I'll shut up now.

No surprises here

I started my morning early today before the sun was even a glimmer on the horizon. I watched the mountains outside my windows bleeding in the coming dawn and then covered in golden light as the light brightened. The sky is a clear Colorado blue with a few wispy mare's tails and cotton puffs drift lazily overhead. It is chilly in the sunroom and the streets are finally quiet since the cars whizzed by on their way to work. A few scattered neighbors saunter to their cars and back out of their drives into the street before slipping away. Crows and blue jays chase each other around the trees where the branches are pregnant with green buds. Squirrels quarrel and wrestle, tumbling over and over in the crooks of a couple venerable old trees twisted and curved by the winds. Across the street one of the long time resident trees has grown up and around the black spindles of a Victorian black iron wicket fence, encompassing the cross bars and hinged wickets in its climb towards light and sky. It's a typical day.

That is, it was a typical day until I read this. I am not surprised, which is a crime in and of itself. I should wonder why government agencies exist, outside of their drain on taxpayer dollars and a place for some people to work, but I can only shake my head and remind the naive soul who passed along the information that we no longer have a government of, by and for the people, but a government steeped in collusion, graft and greed that has become of, by and for whoever has the most money to keep the officials in the style to which they have become accustomed.

What I wonder is what this will do to those people who live by milking the system with the kind of law suits that brought us warning labels on McDonald's coffee reminding us that hot means hot, child proof caps that people with arthritis cannot open but children can, and a field of endeavor looking for ways to blame obesity, heart disease and every modern day ill on someone else's products.

Yes, it's just another day in the neighborhood and I thank my lucky stars that I can stay here in my quiet room and make enough money to keep the roof over my head and the car in the parking lot instead of facing corporate America every day of the working week.

That is all. Disperse.

Morning?

Purple and violet and the heart of a fiery furnace low down on the horizon, the clouds and sky a pink haze. Across the road my mountains hunch beneath a slate blue sky, charcoal drifting across like the suggestion of clouds. The birds are singing and a woodpecker rat-t-t-t-t-t-t-tats somewhere nearby, stuttering against its perch looking for breakfast and some sleeping grub or bug huddled inside his bark bed. A few cars whisper by and another crow arcs across the rooftops. Morning crept up on me while I was reading and researching, sent into the cyberworld by a notice that Tor Books is looking for paranormal romance manuscripts. They are also looking for sf/f but the paranormal romance angle piqued my interest. Names and books were mentioned, hence the desire to research and read and check things out, increasing my list of holds at the library, which should keep me busy walking back and forth and getting some much needed exercise after three days of doing absolutely nothing but reading, eating, sleeping and catching up on my movie watching. (I was supposed to be painting this weekend but decided I needed a vacation, albeit a short one -- I'll take what I can get)

Outside of responding to Beanie's emails and phone calls, I have kept away from the computer and all things responsible for three days. I needed, as one friend calls it, a mental health break before my mental health breaks. If I have neglected you, I'm not sorry. I would understand if you needed to and did the same. That's just how I am.

Anyway, here I am up at dawn for the first time in three days and utterly in love with everything I see. Color, light, sound, life just as I left it before I shut the windows of my mind to anything outside these walls. Nice to know there are some things I can count on. Doesn't mean I will not continue with my current plans to hide away for one more day, but I am surfacing for air before I dive back between the covers and run back into the world of Lucifer, Leto, Rickey and G-man without a backward glance. Or maybe I'll take them on a walk to the park or some quiet restaurant where they don't mind if I sit and read and nosh very slowly for a couple hours.

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo

This is one of those days when working in this sunlight room where the soft warm spring breezes through the windows bring the music of chimes, wind and bird song and make it difficult for me to sit here. Silver white branches at the tips of the trees beckon me outside and away from this computer. Cars, buses, trucks and people rush by in the streets below and the cotton cloud patchwork blue sky make me ache to run down and hitch a ride on a motorcycle or bike.

Here there is a phone people call to entice me with the latest telemarketing can't-miss buy or another company wanting my opinion about radio shows and television sitcoms I don't want to watch. Outside I can lose myself in the scents and sounds and feel of the sun warm on my skin and the fresh breeze whisking away the cobwebs and stresses that lie in wait here ready to remind me of responsibility, work, bills, money and the endless demands on my time and attention that I wish I could ignore.

The Evil One told me many times he wants to be a hobo. Ever time I see someone walk by outside with a backpack on their back, I know what the Evil One means. Right now, I want to be a hobo, too.

Just when I get comfortable...

...all hell breaks loose -- or a reasonable facsimile of hell.

Yesterday was difficult enough without my father having to go to the hospital, after dismissing two EMS vans, because he had a heart attack. It could have been worse. The last time this happened he was in the hospital for more than a week and had one of the valves replaced in his heart. The valve had exploded and he was drowning in his own blood. They don't seem to know what is wrong, except that he didn't have a myocardial infarction, which is medical speak for damage to the muscle of the heart. The problem is that he has a stent in one of the arteries and a prosthetic mechanical valve in his heart and blood tests won't show if there is damage to the valve or he has had a blockage of the stent. The fact that his color was bad, he had trouble staying conscious, and his heart was beating wildly irregularly should have clued them in that the valve or the stent were involved and the only way to tell what was going on was to do an echocardiogram, but what do I know? I'm not a cardiologist nor do I work for the VA hospital in Chillicothe. I guess more than two decades of typing up medical dictation and continually researching what I type up so I can be completely accurate hasn't helped me to understand anything, nor do the literally tens of thousands of abnormal and normal blood test results that have passed beneath my fast fingers and onto my screen.

To top all that off, the day shift nurses won't give me any information because I'm not my father's next-of-kin. Being a couple thousand miles away doesn't help when I threaten them either because they can't see my face or feel the anger and frustration rolling in waves off me. I had to call my father, who didn't know the name of the VA doctor and couldn't pronounce it if he did because the guy is Indian, to tell him to sign the forms so they can talk to me. I had much better luck with the male nurse on duty last night.

Here I am sending down roots and decorating my apartment, buying furniture, making plans for the future here and my family is falling apart back home, making me wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea for me to move back to Ohio if only to make sure things are done right and the rest of the family doesn't forget to give the right medical information to the people who need to know. The rest of the are pretty much hopeless and they forget the important stuff that I deal with every day.

Then again...maybe it's time they figured all this out for themselves. Meanwhile, back at Casa Victoriana, I'm having trouble focusing on work and resisting the urge to get on a plane and fly back to there kick butts and take names.

Every time I get comfortable something like this happens. Well, it could have been worse.

And I was looking forward to painting the woodwork and trim and finding just the right stencil to use as a border in the living room this weekend.

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Read at your own risk.

Lazy Saturdays

Sometimes I need a break. Time to relax, rewind, unwind, and recuperate from a busy and demanding week. Yesterday was that day. In fact, I didn't even change out of my Victoria's Secret gown. Instead, I lounged around on my new sofa, watched one hour of television, and read a great deal -- between naps, of course.

I jockeyed back and forth between Historical Deception and Asking For Trouble -- basically between a heavy meal of meat and junk food. I'm still plowing through Egypt and finding much I didn't know and some things I did know. Always an interesting proposition. The junk food, however, was quite tasty and went very well with the fat free orange sherbet that failed to last as long as the laughs and tears.

Asking For Trouble is the basis for last year's The Wedding Date with Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney. The movie bombed but it wouldn't have if the director had stuck faithfully to the book. He threw out anything that wasn't Hollywood enough: a heroine obsessed with her "wobbly bits" and fearing that everyone, including her hired date, saw her as desperate; an escort who wasn't a hooker; the reason for needing an escort in the first place; her friends' collusion and help/harm; and everything good about the book. The bride became a self-absorbed, vapid blonde who sees herself as the center of the universe instead of a confused, naive girl doing what everyone expected of her. Gone was the mystery, the suspense, the absolutely hilarity of Elizabeth Young's dialogue and convoluted situations. All this in favor of a less than satisfying, much less than mediocre piece of tripe that had little worth watching outside of Mulroney's cynical smile and six-pack abs and Messing's dithering and ill-timed spasms. It worked for Will & Grace certainly does not translate well to the big screen. It makes Messing seem a one-note wonder. The book, as always, was far better.

My one hour of TV was taken up by George Carlin's You Are All Diseased. As always, he made wonderful and salient points with his careful rapier-point wit and intelligence. Nothing and no one was spared, not even soccer moms and involved fathers who believe their children are all geniuses warranting special treatment and unfettered attention.

Reminds me of Arthur Miller's plays, specifically, The Man With All The Luck, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman. The fathers in all three plays had the same problem: giving too much to one or two sons and ignoring the others, thereby ruining the sons who got all the attention and making certain the ignored sons lived productive and rich lives. Puts a whole new spin on the way things are done today when parents have been shamed and forced into living their lives for their children and forgetting they also have lives to live, lives they put on hold for children who have become the conspicuous and stellarly spectacular consumers of today who let nothing and no one stand in their way to gather material possessions.

I don't mean that parents should ignore their children, but rather provide guidance and support and let their children become independent, productive individuals ready to fly the nest and build nests of their own. It is definitely time to take another look at Miller's plays, not only because of the human truths they portray in such vivid and uncomplicated language, but also because there are some lessons that have been forgotten and ignored.

Now it's time for me to tuck in and do the chores I left undone yesterday so I can face the work week with a clean plate and a healthy appetite.

The birds are singing...

...outside and there is an ice dagger growing down from the eaves outside the window in front of my desk. I wonder how long it will take before it finally snaps off and how long it will grow. The mountains are behind a sheer white veil and the sky is blue behind the grey-white haze. Sunlight peers weakly through the clouds gaining strength as the day grows older. Day is perfectly balanced with night for this moment and the hours of daylight grow stronger sending curls of anticipation shooting through me, coaxing me outside into the cold with promises of warmth and sun and growing things. That's what the birds are singing about.

The birds were silent yesterday morning as the snow storm moved closer, but the squirrels still raced up and down the trees, probably keeping warm. I worked night before last so I could finish work early yesterday. My new tables and a microwave were delivered. The delivery driver was late, but that gave me plenty of time to finish touching up the walls where the color looked a little thin. Up and down the ladder until my legs ached, repositioning the ladder, painting, touching up and generally getting a lot more exercise, I hustled to make room for the new furniture. I was too fussy and didn't get done, but the driver was nice enough to take away some boxes for me since he was so apologetic about not being here on time. Ben, the driver, was sweet and I told him it wasn't a problem waiting and not his fault. He got caught in traffic. He smiled and thanked me and drove off whistling. Makes me wonder how other people reacted when he was late.

The landlady came up to look at the paint job and said it looked like it belonged in the bedroom, but my bedroom will be Wedgewood blue with gold accents and sheers. I'm not sure if I like the green yet, but when I got the furniture moved around and the pictures back on the wall it began to grow on me. I suspect once I get the trim and woodwork done, the stenciling along the ceilings in place and some area rugs in there it will look fabulous. It's looking good now. I need to get bulbs for the lamps but the candy apple red of the bases is just the right touch. I can't wait to put up the red wine sheers and maybe give in an buy a couple sofa parasites (that's pillows to the rest of you) in bright primary colors.

Well, back to work to earn enough to pay for this smorgasbord of decorating. Enjoy the day.

Minding my own business...

...doing my work and the Evil One decides to send me a provocative message and a link for watching a man playing with his balls. How can I be a productive worker when he's sending me stuff like that? Between the jokes and quips and puns and the general enjoyment of chatting with him, I have a feeling it's a good thing I worked last night.

But now here comes hypatia360 and a guy with real balls. Stick it out to the end and you will be rewarded with even more balls. I'm never going to get any work done today and I have a microwave and tables being delivered this afternoon.

That is all. Disperse.

Oh, the pain...

The spring-like weather is gone and it has been snowing steadily since yesterday. The snow is so heavy with moisture it can't even drift on the winds whining past the windows. It falls to the ground like a beer swilling, barrel-bellied Super Bowl Sunday, pizza and snack machine drops into his favorite recliner in front of the TV. Everything is mounded and drifted with white and the air is heavy with sheets of falling crystals. My mountains are invisible behind the white out drapes of a winter storm on this day before spring and the cold battles with the meager heat from my space heater. The landlady turned off the furnace when the weather got warm.

And now there's work to do and my fingers and hands and every muscle attached to those muscles and attached to every other muscle in my body are throbbing and aching from painting this weekend. I have to put the living room back together before the new coffee and end tables arrive tomorrow afternoon and the laundry is still humped on the bed because I didn't have enough energy to fold and hang and put it all away. Needless to say, there is also work to be done and I will be focusing on that since this weekend I have to focus on putting together and putting out another issues of the Ø-Beat newsletter for the local ham organization. My plate is full and my cup runneth over. There are worse things in the world. Like...

I'll think of something when the rest of my brain wakes up. For now, I'm off to bring the space heater closer, put some breakfast in the oven, and take a long hot shower before tackling the day and evening's work. I may even get to bed by 1 AM tomorrow morning -- and I still have Ostara to plan for and celebrate. I was hoping for daffodils and tulips and crocuses and amaryllises and...well...spring.

So that's how you do it...

I knew before I crawled into bed last night that a day of painting had affected every single solitary muscle in my body -- and not in a good way. But that was just my first impression. My second impression was that I was still alive because everything hurt like a chronically aching tooth all over my body, except for my jaws. I didn't talk much yesterday because there was no one to talk to and because I was resting my vocal cords from the strain I put on them a few days ago when I sang for over six hours (my version of spring fever) without warming up first.

But how do you warm up for painting?

Wax on-wax off? The Miyagi painting method with a brush?

Wouldn't work. I was used a roller and an edging pad. Different set of muscles altogether. I did find I prefer the two-handed method of using the roller, which is a good thing because my triceps (that part under my arm that hangs and sways heavily in the least breeze or with movement) are equally sore. Somehow I managed to even work the muscles above my glutes. My back doesn't hurt, but the muscles on either side of my spine and along my sides definitely took notice of the activity. My feet, legs, knees, shins, calves, thighs and hamstrings definitely got into the act, as did all the muscles from my fingertips to my shoulders and back. Strangely enough my neck isn't sore either, just pleasantly relaxed. Must be all those years of holding my head up. I have not been this tired and sore or felt this energetic, despite the sharp reminder of yesterday's activities, since I lifted weights six hours a day six days a week in my twenties.

Suddenly, a light bulb goes off in my head as I argue with my body about staying in bed and rest my battered body instead of getting up and adding insult to injury. I worked out with weights and machines, swam, walked, sweated, grunted and groaned for thousands of hours and didn't get this much of a workout. I don't think it was because I was in better shape back then but because painting is more of workout. Instead of doing a three-day split working upper and lower body alternately, going from machine to machine, free weight to free weight, painting is much more efficient. Even taking breaks and not working quickly, I have found the secret. Painting is how to lose weight, improve muscle tone and increase lung capacity (by gulping fresh air with your head out the nearest window to clear the lungs of paint fumes).

There are other benefits to the painting workout. More people doing the painting body tone program would need rooms and houses to paint. The increase in painting would mean a boost to the painting manufacture industry. More color. More tools. More business. You could set up a gym in the nearest derelict house or building and paint, thus giving the neighborhood and the property a boost in look and appeal, making it more attractive to potential buyers looking for an affordable property, which would also drive out the criminal element, scurrying from the color and light like roaches in the kitchen when the light is turned on, thus bringing down the crime rate, raising property values and giving new life to old neighborhoods. I imagine once all the houses and apartment buildings are painted, you could start all over where you began because you'd be tired of the old color. Everyone wins. Healthier, fitter bodies and profound social and urban impact. What more could you want from an exercise program?

Okay, who wants to write the book and pose for the photographs? It's a billion-dollar industry just waiting for some far-sighted entrepreneur. I'd offer, but I have to go finish painting the living room, move around the furniture and collapse for as long as my bladder holds out.

Who knew...

...the world would turn into a self serve automat where there's no one at the controls? Wal-Mart at 8 AM is full of shoppers but the clerks and cashiers are absent. All the self serve check out stands are operating with helpful instructions in English and Spanish and a touch screen for those really hard choices -- like how you're going to pay for your purchases. Self serve gas, check out stands at grocery and retail stores, and salad bars (which really aren't too bad since you get what you want). Does no one care about personal contact any more?

Okay, I shop online because that way I don't have to fight the crowds or wait interminably in line, and I don't have to carry it home, just up the stairs from the front porch. And I can shop while I work, but when I get out into the world I like to know I'm not Neville shopping the dust-covered, debris blown aisles for canned food that isn't bulging before the sun goes down and Matthias and the Family come out of hiding. It isn't that I mind being alone, just that once in a while when I venture out into the world I want to see the faces and hear the voices of other people, especially the customer service type that answer questions, blend paint, and handle the cash register at the check out stand. After all, 8 AM isn't that ungodly an hour, especially in stores that stay open 24/7/364. Is that too much to ask?

It was helpful though that the local liquor store was open at 9 AM so I could buy my burgundy (that ended up being Bordeaux) so I can make boeuf bourguinon with an assortment of mushrooms (portobello, Shiitake, crimini), pearl onions, and a deep earthy gravy spiked with porcini mushroom powder and hazelnut flour. First time in the store and the clerk greeted me at the door and offered helpful suggestions, in addition to guiding me around since I'd never been there before, as well as being quite knowledgeable and friendly. Now that is customer service. Too bad the rest of the retail world hasn't figured that out yet.

I'll shut up now.

Off to see the wizard...

...of paint.

For the first time in my life I am not going to live in a house or apartment with someone else's idea of what constitutes a good color scheme. You could say that white is a good color, but I am tired of institutional colors. Since this is my home I have decided to make it my home. Luckily, the landlady is amenable to my plans. She said my attitude is more like a European's. I can live with that.

So, I am showered, combed and nearly dressed (need to put on a top over my lacy bra). I'll get something to eat (already cooking in the oven) and I'm out of here. I'll spend my weekend perched precariously on a wobbly ladder cutting in at the ceiling and around the door frames before I haul out the paint rollers and turn my living room from a featureless landscape of white decorated with carefully positioned cardboard box tables into a colorful background of light sage green, baseboards and wood trim accented in a white touched with just enough sage green to look like the glossy wood reflects the walls, and where jewel bright primary colors accent windows, floor and the new end tables that arrive on Tuesday. I had some help picking out the tables from the Evil One who is still probably shaking his head as to why I asked his opinion. Simple, I want him to feel comfortable here and like he's a part of the process that changes me from an itinerant wanderer passing through town into a deeply rooted denizen.

Too bad he doesn't have the time to come do the teetering ladder climbing. He has a much better head for heights than I do. But I will do as I always do, grit my teeth, take a deep breath and climb.

I certainly hope the man behind the curtain is truly a wizard of paint and not a lost charlatan with a few technological tricks up his sleeves.

That is all. Disperse and do something nice for yourself.

Just nothin'

I can't sleep. Well, I was asleep and woke up and can't get back into sleep mode. So here I am at the computer in the middle of the night reading LJ and wondering if I'll be able to sleep a couple more hours before I have to get up and work. Probably not. I'm in reading and writing mode and sleep mode is offline for the nonce.

The moon is a glaring white disk in the black night sky criss-crossed with twisted black branches just like in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Looks like a backdrop instead of the real thing. Some night owl U-Hauled past the house a few minutes ago, appearing briefly in the orange sodium vapor light at the corner and dissolving into the darkness after he turned. Only Venus winks in the distance, a single bright pinpoint of light in the black.

I can't understand why I'm unable to get back to sleep. Things are going so well for me right now. The week has been full of surprises and opportunities and the rekindling of excitement and amorous possibilities. Things haven't been this good in ages. Maybe that's the problem: everything is going good and I can't believe it. Someone could die, someone I like. Someone could land a plane in the sunroom and keep me from working so I'd have to finally do the laundry. Someone could tell me it's all a dream like Bobby Ewing the season he came back from the dead via the steamy shower. Or maybe I'm just anxious because I'm putting down deep roots and painting the living room this weekend (and, yes, finally doing the laundry). Or maybe it's all just nothin' more than a reason to get up out of a warm bed where I rested happily in Morpheus's arms and the usual sounds and smells of this hour of the morning I'm missing intruded on the peace and harmony of a normal Friday. Or could I just be tired and unable to find escape from deciding not to live and work as a journalist in Antarctica for seven months and the toe-tapping, foot jiggling, antsy and can't sit still eternity of waiting to be enfolded once again in my lover's arms.

Maybe I should just crawl back between the now cold sheets, take matters into hand, and drift back to more exotic shores where I can cadge a couple more hours of erotic bliss before the flames of dawn burn away the darkness.

Hands up! Spread 'em!

Saturday morning I didn't feel like doing the laundry I needed to get done in order to not have to drag out the really fancy undies to keep from going kamikaze until I could drum up enough enthusiasm to make the trek downstairs, outside in the cutting winds, across the ice-rimed paving stones arranged so artfully around the side of the house, through the gate and around to the laundry room door with an unwieldy basket of clothes. So I stayed in bed with a few books. I didn't even venture into the eye searingly bright sunroom to check my email or gaze in rapt awe at the mountains outside the window over my desk hidden behind the gray wall of mist and clouds until past ten. When I finally shielded my light sensitive eyes and walked into the light I expected to see the quiet Saturday street preserved in winter white. What I found was a teeming mass of people bundled up against the harsh winds and flying shards of sleet weaving between cars cruising for a parking space in the packed parking lot my neighborhood had become. I was still immersed in Arthur Miller's play about The Man Who Had Too Much Luck and hadn't landed back here in my quiet, predictable world. It took me a few minutes to realize everyone was battling the cold to see the St. Patrick's Day Parade and 5K run (I just found out about the 5K). I briefly considered putting on a sweater and jacket and braving the cold for hot dogs and excitement before climbing back into bed with Miller.

The rest of the day crept slowly along in a haze of plays and movies I hadn't had the time to see and considered sending back to NetFlix unviewed, basking in the warmth of the space heater next to the new chaise where I lounged with my books, paper journal, pens, and ever present bottle of water for the rest of the day. I finally roused enough to check my email only to find the street outside deserted except for four police cruisers and a K-9 unit circling the block again and again. The cruisers looked like giant's toys scattered haphazardly on the street where the giant's child dropped them at his mother's call. There were no cops in the cruisers so I edged closer to the window and looked up and down the street looking for them like some nosy old woman scenting gossip on an errant wind. I'd have peeked through the shutters or drapes if I had any, but my windows are bold brazen eyes staring down onto the neighborhood without even a veil strategically draped, which accounts for me wearing more clothes when I work -- that and because it's also a mite chilly in the sunroom even with double-paned windows in vinyl frames.

It is always so peaceful and quiet here on the west side of town, so peaceful people think twice before locking their doors at night, certain there is no evil in the world we share here, so it is doubly unnerving to see a cadre of cruisers parked on our quiet streets with no cops inside. In other times, other places I wouldn't have looked twice, knowing they were after some drug dealer or fleeing felon (especially once having had my home invaded by cops in pursuit of someone as they burst in through my front door, racing past me as they jerked open the back door and jumped off the back porch), but here such a show of force in the absence of a donut sale at Dunkin' Donuts raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

I scanned the houses and streets for some sign of the cops while the K-9 unit circled the block every two minutes. Nothing. No cops. No shots fired. No crackle of unintelligible cop speak through the open windows as I shook with cold and waited...

...and waited...

...and waited...

...and stared as four cops burst through the tangle of winter bare weeds and piled branches between the brand new house and the modest Victorian across the street. The K-9 unit paused briefly as they trampled through the crystal powder swirling across the brown and yellow grass then drove on. The cops got into their cruisers and drove away, leaving behind an uneasy sense our peace had been irreparably shattered. The mountains hid behind the thickening gray wall of mist and clouds and shards of ice ticked against the windows. Evening closed in and the yellow light of the street lamps wavered through the thickening night beneath skeletal branches scratching wildly in the rising howl of the wind.

I locked my door and crawled back beneath the warm lap blanket on the chaise, flicking through the channels before finally turning off the TV and diving back into Miller's Brooklyn world where an old salesman faltered and fell into brighter memories of the past where the cruel harshness of the present intruded indiscriminately.

Can't get back on track

I woke up really late this morning. Not a good start for a busy day. I did, however, work a double shift yesterday with three hours' sleep, which is probably why I overslept, but I still have a lot to do and just can't seem to find my pace. Good thing for the Evil One because he reminded me the furniture guy was coming today to fix the chaise: two split legs and a split and bent cross piece. I hadn't showered or eaten and I certainly wasn't dressed. In short, I looked like I just got out of bed after a long rough night. Good thing though.

The furniture guy (very cute in that rugged, athletic, sexy, manly smelling way) put my ticket in the paid file because his company sent the guy out to steam clean the furniture on Wednesday and would have missed the appointment had I not called in a panic to find out when he would be here. Worked out for both of us. I got a shower and he came by to expertly repair my brand new chaise.

I will never understand why furniture makers no longer take pride in their work and make it to last. At these prices, they should have used something much sturdier as a stabilizer than 1/4" plywood. That's a job for solid wood -- like the 2x4 the furniture guy put in place. Now when I sit down on the chaise it doesn't sound or feel like it's about to collapse and I'm not afraid to put up my feet, which is why I bought the chaise in the first place.

So, thanks to working a double shift with very little sleep, an intelligent body that takes over and makes sure I get enough sleep, the Evil One for reminding me I had someone coming over today, and my sense of self preservation and panic to make sure I wasn't caught looking like a wild-haired hag who had been rode hard and put up wet or there would be stories floating around town about the wicked old witch with snakes for hair that lives over in Old Colorado City.

Here's to the happy accidents that surprise us and keep us on our toes.

Hell hath no fury

It is obvious that I need to be careful around the Evil One or he will corrupt me even more than he has already. A simple conversation or him telling me about some movie or book that had him riveted with laughter or whatever and I'm off and running to see what the shouting is all about. This time he dangled another bit of winning bait before me.

No doubt about it, Kurt Russell is still the hottest commodity around and the most versatile and believable actor. The Evil One's latest dangling bait concerns Breakdown about a yuppie couple moving from Boston to San Diego in their brand new fire engine red Jeep Cherokee. Amy and Jeff are living on their credit cards because they have both quit their jobs and are moving to San Diego to a new life and new jobs. One moment Jeff wasn't paying attention and he nearly crashes into a mud splattered truck fitted for driving around in the desert and crosses over into a reality where nothing is as it seems. And thus the adventure begins and doesn't let go until the very last moment when Amy has her revenge.

The Evil One was right. This movie keeps your interest every second of its run and doesn't let go. Heaven help you if you're catching it on a movie channel and not on DVD or on commercial TV where you can get up and go to the bathroom once in a while because you're not going to want to get up and miss a single nanosecond. Blink and you will definitely miss something crucial.

I guess I'll just have to put up with his insidious dangling bits of bait because he is usually right and knows me so well that he gets me every time in his diabolical traps of sharing ideas and dreams and succulent tidbits.

Besides, the Evil One is cute, too.

That is all. Go find Breakdown and settle in for a wild and hair raising ride.

Blue days

I am so used to seeing dogs on leashes with their owners following behind or to the side with plastic bags around their hands to scoop up the droppings. Not today. A beautiful two-year-old German Shepherd found a little square of ragged yellow-brown grass at the corner across the street, turned, assumed the tail-up position and let nature run its course. He took a quick sniff and bounded across the street. I watched for his owner to scoop the proof but all that followed was a black mutt with a white blaze on his nose, bounding across the street like an excited puppy seeing his family in the doorway. The evidence the dogs existed is still across the street in the little pie slice of green and brown surrounding by cement curbing. I can just hear the buzzing of interested flies in between the trilled warbles of bird song drifting through my window on the rising breeze. The sky is an impossible heart wrenching Colorado blue where the bare trees scratch the air with skeletal fingered twigs.

The weather has been beautiful the past few days and every time I look out the window I expect to see green buds lining the twiggy ends of tree branches just like the bright green spears of crocus and tulips thrusting up through the black soil in the yard downstairs. The grass is brown, but the promise of spring and the end of winter's sleep is in those bright green spears ripping through the cold and silent ground.

There is the faint scent of dust on the wind mingling with the clean fresh scent of rushing breezes busily sweeping streets and windows and air and my mind clear of winter's must and dust. I am anxious for more of these beautiful bright blue days but I know winter is struggling with spring and winter will win a few more bouts before spring's pastel flags and green spears are victorious. The mountain outside my window will be softened and shadowed by buds and leaves before long, but like the impossible blue Colorado sky it will remain a constant reminder of the strength and beauty right outside my door beckoning me ever closer.

More satanism

woke this morning to a molten copper horizon that lit bands of clouds with fiery orange light as the sun rose. The first thing that popped into my mind was the old sailor's poem: Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor take flight. Of course the sky wasn't quite red but it was obviously a warning that this day would be full of something akin to danger -- the idea that Harry Potter leads children to satanism.

I don't know where the Vatican gets off saying that Harry Potter leads to worshiping the devil, but I would have chosen a much more suitable focus for my claims, like The Ninth Gate or anything that glamorizes working or being an advocate for the devil, but since The Ninth Gate didn't make nearly as much money as J. K. Rowling's books about wizards, witches, and the honor, strength, responsibility, and growing friendship of three children battling evil in all its forms. Declaring Harry Potter is the road to satanism and a sure need for exorcism is like saying taking an aspirin for a headache is the next step to mainlining heroin or snorting cocaine. Maybe doing more than 3000 exorcisms in 20 years has something to do with it? Or then again, maybe he hasn't heard about the first satanic bedtime story called The Little Satanist. Only on eBay.

I wonder what the Vatican has to say about the wars in heaven.

That is all. Disperse. There are lots of red skies ahead of us morning and night.

Another day in paradise

The week began fitfully. I nearly forgot Beanie's birthday on Monday. Not something I usually do, at least not since just before I turned 10 when she was born that Saturday during The Jackie Gleason show. I sent her card just under the wire and I called to make sure she knew I hadn't forgotten her. She told me she got a call from Jimmy and Carol that morning but not from me and wasn't going to call or email to see if I really did forget. She was being a brat again, which is normal for her. I'm sure this year will be fodder for future reminders of the time I nearly forgot her birthday.

The rest of the week was full of work, work, and more work, as well as a meeting with the board of directors of the local ham radio group. I went loaded for bear because I had every intention of fighting for my position as newsletter editor. I rehearsed what I would say and remind them of their checkered history with past newsletter editors who hadn't done their job at all and that, despite deciding in September to appoint me to the position of editor-in-chief and not telling me about it until December, they had not given me the information and tools necessary for a smooth transition by January 1st, and that I refuse to do a half-assed job just to put out something. I don't work that way. Turns out I didn't have to do anything. They nearly begged me to take the job. I guess they figured out quickly that it was not the walk in the park they thought it would be, especially since they have not had one person volunteer to step into the position over the two years the previous editor begged to be relieved of the job. I'm satisfied and I can save the big guns for later.

I have a growing stack of books to be read and reviewed and authors send me more requests about twice a week every single week. I did, however, get a plum assignment from Author Link to read and review Arthur Miller's collection of plays put out by the Library of Congress. The book is beautifully bound with a ribbon bookmark on crisp thick paper and one I will definitely keep and not donate to the local library system, as I do with most of the books I read and review.

And speaking of reviews, my latest review is available for those of you who read such things.

Valentine's Day left me with only a heart-shaped box of candy from Nel next door and tired fingers from pounding the keyboard all day. Wednesday and Thursday were nothing special because I was waiting for Friday so that friends, family, strangers, and establishments could make it up to me for my birthday. I wasn't disappointed.

A phone call at 12:01 AM woke me from a satisfying dream of designing the winner signature gown that put all the Project Runway remaining four contestants in the dust in season two. The winning gown will be worn by Iman. It was a simple gown that was well constructed, but back in Ohio when I designed costumes for various organizations, like the Columbus Metropolitan Opera, Columbus Light Opera Society, several theater groups, and plays at The Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center, I did far riskier and more interesting work. In fact, most of my private clients wore gowns and outfits that put them square on the society pages in The Columbus Dispatch, the local politically correct rag. Anyway, back to the phone call.

It was a new dating prospect who wanted to be the first to wish me happy birthday -- and he was. We had plans to meet for dinner at my favorite restaurant but he called later in the day with car trouble and would be stuck in Pueblo overnight, so we changed our plans to meet for dinner tonight instead. I have to say he is one persistent insurance salesman determined to take up all my free moments and dating time, although he didn't manage to wish me happy birthday 51 times as he promised.

However, I did manage to gather a little loot yesterday in celebration of the anniversary of my birth. A lovely and exotic kalanchoe with lightly greenish tinged white flowers was delivered yesterday afternoon while I was relaxing with dye on my Pepe Le Pew roots. It came from Mark in Cleveland and is the first plant to take up residence here, but not the last, I can assure you. I have plans for this haunted set of rooms in this old Victorian. Beanie called and sang "Happy Birthday" to me and my favorite person in the whole world greeted with me an effusive birthday greeting that kept me smiling all day. He's stopping by today with my gift, so I get two days of celebration this year. My landlady called me and sang "Happy Birthday" as well and told me she was sending up a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as a gift -- and she included two helpings of a baked tortilla casserole that was out of this world. I might not have had dinner out last night, but dinner in was really great. Lynn called with birthday wishes and her wife, Chuck, (funny story) wished me well, too. I received a lovely e-card from my oldest friend back in Ohio and my parents added their greetings when I called to check on my father's preliminary prostate biopsy results report (there was none and we have to wait a week). Nel next door gave me a gorgeous card and told me my gift was back ordered and in the mail. All in all, a very good celebration.

I also received an 8 x 11 picture of my mother standing next to one of the smaller Lucky Dog carts (I pushed a much bigger cart) in New Orleans. I have to have it framed, but I may have it matted and framed for my bare walls.

Now that Mark is temporarily unemployed, he mentioned coming back to visit for a few days and said he might even drive out and bring his tools to help me build an entertainment center for the living room, book shelves, and a desk for the sun room where I work every day so I can put my ham radio rig and my computers on one sturdy surface and have a more convenient place to work. Mark said he'd also help me put up window treatments and paint, so he must be considering sticking around for more than a weekend. Could be interesting.

The best present I received this year was watching the tree-hating orc wench's hunky husband and sons packing up their house and putting everything into a big truck to move out yesterday. The new tenants for Lon Chaney's old house are Mike and Michelle, a newlywed couple. How's that for a birthday gift?

Well, I have to do my Saturday chores (cleaning, laundry, dishes, changing linens) and pick out what I'm going to wear this evening at dinner, so it's time for me to shut up.

That is all. Disperse.

Between work and my family...

...I may just tear out every strand of my hair.

All vacations have been canceled because we're behind. Couldn't get work for months and now we have more than we can handle. I've been working like a mad woman, but it didn't take long to get there. And then there's my family.

Mom, queen of the exaggeration, vomited up blood. I thought it was more like a stake through the heart kind of flood of blood, but it turns out it was probably more like an irritation in her throat because she'd been vomiting for days after spending time with my sister Typhoid Carol and catching whatever yarg she managed to sneeze, cough, and breathe into the air around my parents. I told my parents to stay away from her. They wouldn't listen. Anyway, they put my mother in the hospital, so she must have been convincing. A few days later, after many, many tests and being served meals in bed, they kicked her out knowing no more about what was wrong with her than they knew when she was admitted. I can tell them what is wrong with her, she's a medical phenomenon.

She has had colon cancer twice and had 18 inches of small bowel removed because of adhesions and strictures. I think she also had rectal cancer, too. She has one kidney left and it is filled with tumors. Her liver has tumors, too, and they're called hemangiomas. Think of blood blisters that keep growing and growing until they pop and fill her belly -- but the doctors can't figure out why she needs to be transfused with 2-4 units of blood every 3-4 weeks. Dad also has to give her B12 shots in between the fill-ups. (I always said she was a vampire but no one believes me) She had a hysterectomy when she was 35, turning her into a more concentrated version of the eternal witch on wheels that made growing up so much fun with her crying jags, banshee screams and the usual inability to live with someone who has suddenly tilted off her rocker and can't get up. She has had several mini strokes (no one knows for sure how many) but she still manages to remember her credit card numbers (all 50 of them) and scan outspend Imelda Marcos, Elizabeth Taylor, and Martha Stewart on their best days. Given the chance, my mother could easily bankrupt Queen Elizabeth in about 20 minutes. But the best news was yet to come.

Dad announced on Wednesday, the day before the hospital released Mom, that his prostate cancer is back. They biopsy him on my birthday but they can't do surgery (figure that one out -- I thought a biopsy was surgery because I type operative reports for biopsies all the time) because of his mechanical heart valve, which is the same reason they can't do chemo. Radiation is out because he had radiation the last time and he still has to wear Depends because the radiation damaged the healthy cells along with the cancerous cells (but evidently not all of them because they woke up again) and the muscle and tissue of his rectal sphincter so that he can no longer control his bowels. He said the doctor told him that prostate cancer comes back in 7-10 years; it has been a little less than 7 years since he was first treated. If they do nothing he might have 4 years -- I wonder if their estimate is as accurate as their estimate of the recurrence of the cancer -- before the cancer metastasizes to the brain and he dies. Dad said four more years would make him 82 and that's good enough for him. It's not good enough for me -- even if he keeps to our agreement and takes Mom with him when he goes. (The agreement is that he takes her or he's not allowed to die because I will get stuck with her -- more on that later) I really believed my parents were immortal. After all, Mom is still here no matter what the Universe throws at her. She's like a cockroach or a moth. When the bomb is dropped and all humans are dead, she will still be here screaming and chasing the cockroaches and keeping the moths out of her wool suits.

Every bit of bad news travels with two partners. Mom went into the hospital and Dad's prostate cancer has returned, but I just knew there was another shoe waiting to fall on my head.

I was right.

It fell.

I was informed that I have to pack up here and move back to Ohio to take care of my parents. Obviously, they are unfit to take care of themselves if they can't stay away from Typhoid Carol or keep from burning parts of their new house down with too much incense. After all, I'm not married, I don't own a house, I can take my job with me because I work from home, I don't have any family here, and no one here would care if I left. I am the obvious choice.

I thought they were joking, so I emailed back and told them that since Typhoid Carol is retiring this year she could take care of Mom and Dad. Beanie lives five minutes away and, from what Dad told me the night before, she and her family get Mom and Dad's house when they're gone, so she would be protecting her inheritance so Dad can't burn down the whole house and leave them with a meager 6.5 acres, a two-car garage, big barn, and brand new chicken house. And if Ants's new job turns out to be temporary, he can help with Mom and Dad during the day. Not to mention, my brother also lives 45 minutes away and he could help out. Besides which they don't have DSL and can't get it because they're so far out in the boonies and I need that for work. Dial-up ain't gonna get it. Not to mention that my mother and I can only tolerate each other when there is lots of distance between us. Why else do you think I live nearly 2000 miles away? Our relationship improves with distance. To be really great, I would have to move to Mars -- or better yet, Pluto.

Another shoe landed on my head, spike first. I was being selfish and hateful because I wouldn't give up everything (not that I had much in their estimation to give up) to take care of my parents. The discussion got uglier and uglier and I realized they weren't joking. This was for real. They expected me to give up my life to take care of our parents and then find somewhere else to live when Beanie and her family come to take possession of the house and land. I'll pack the car right away and be on the road by Saturday.

Not going to happen. I love my parents but there are three of them and one of me and they live a whole lot closer. Chances are I'd die before Mom does because I'd probably walk out onto the road and lie down until a car ran over me and then where would that leave them? They'd probably find a necromancer to revive me and keep me alive until she dies in about four million years.

But now it's time for me to get back to my portable job and make some more money. I have to save for that ticket to Mars where I might be able to get a shuttle to Pluto.

Facts of life

Some people say that men get better as they age. A little gray at the temples or even a full head of silver hair and they look better than they did in their 20s and 30s. Of course men do take longer to mature and are a lot like gin made in a bathtub -- lethal when you drink it too soon after it's made and had a chance to age and mellow. Not so for women. We mature quickly but when it comes to aging we get a bad rap -- until now.

This is for all you girls 40 years and over.... and for those who are turning 40, and for those who are scared of moving into their 50's...AND 60's and 70's.... and for guys who are scared of girls over 40!


Andy Rooney says: As I grow in age, I value women who are over 40 most of all.

Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?"

She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it.

She does something she wants to do. And, it's usually something more interesting.

A woman over 40 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom.

Few women past the age of 40 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 40 are dignified.

They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant.

Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 40 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends.

A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women.

Women over 40 couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won't betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. They always know.

A woman over 40 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one!

You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal.

For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 40+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free", here's an update for you.

Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.

Amen to that!!

That is all. Disperse and spread the word.

God is dead

Last night I watched The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson who live in a perfect world far from the outside world that is now contaminated. The entire population hopes for one thing -- to be picked to go to THE ISLAND, that last contamination-free zone on earth.

The world is one where the act of going to the bathroom monitors the levels of vitamins, nutrients, sodium, etc. in your body and your food choices are limited by what your instant urinalysis reads: like lay off the bacon, buddy, you got too much salt in your urine.

There is a psychiatrist/Father figure who helps you with your emotional problems and cameras everywhere to log your moods, talk, and body postures so that you can go to the psychiatrist to be adjusted and to talk about your problems. The population is not all younger than 30 and carries a good mix of people of all ages -- adult ages that is. There are no children, although there are a few pregnant women scattered here and there throughout the population, which is a surprise since the black clad guards monitor proximity between the sexes -- they keep them from touching, standing too closely together, or looking at each other too long. Everyone has a job, but it is nothing more than mindless assembly line drone work that doesn't stretch the imagination or the skills too much. Calm and stress free surroundings and jobs, three balanced, healthy meals a day with an eye towards good health, clean clothes and shoes, and people who care about your welfare constantly watching you. So what's not to like?

Everything.

The environment is a special hatching ground for clones, walking, talking, feeling, thinking spare body parts for the rich and famous. Okay, so the feeling and thinking parts are blunted by the psychiatrist's programs and agenda, but some of the clones do begin to think and feel, touching off a hunt for the reason why and then a hunt for two escaped "products" determined to see the world and find their sponsors, leaving a trail of fire, death, and destruction in their wake as the hunters become the hunted.

One of the most interesting premises is that the United States would under write and sanction such an operation without having anyone on the premises to make sure the rules are followed or that the facility never undergoes periodic inspections by the government, but that is what keeps them operating under the radar in an underground military bunker in Nevada. Of course it doesn't help that the president also has a clone who has waited for 7 years to go the THE ISLAND and is still the unluckiest person there. The rules and morality are turned upside down in the clones' world but they are unaware there are rules or morality, just what they have been told and what they have been trained to do -- mindless work that keeps the rest of the percolating clone population alive.

Suspense builds slowly as you begin to realize along with Lincoln 6 Echo that something is missing from this idyllic world. He questions authority and has dreams that alert the sensors that something is definitely wrong. It is the beginning of the end for Lincoln 6 Echo's time in Eden and the beginning of his rapid descent from grace. Curiosity will not be tolerated -- or excused.

Despite the numerous and spectacular crashes, explosions, and death defying stunts, the movie still holds together and the characters could be living in a decommissioned military bunker beneath the hot sands of Nevada as I write this. Scientists and psychiatrists have always believed that they are GOD as they search for the Holy Grail of immortality and absolute control. The rest of us are merely lab rats in an endless maze drawn forward by the cheese of wealth, power, freedom, success, and/or fame. Along the way we check out the cul-de-sacs of career, family, fidelity, and infidelity, but basically we are moving toward a time when all our hopes, wishes, dreams, and desires will be fulfilled, providing scientists and psychiatrists with fodder for their experiments.

Who knows? Maybe Adam and Eve weren't expelled from Eden. Maybe they escaped out of curiosity and/or from boredom. And then there's the whole not having sex part of it. Lincoln and Jordan, after being in the world a few hours, discover kissing. One of the best lines in the movie is when they kiss for the first time, decide they like it, and Lincoln wants Jordan to "do that thing with your tongue again," to which she replies, "Open your mouth."

However, human nature being what it is, we soon chafe at the sameness of the corridors of the maze and seek to climb over the wall. Every time we end up killing GOD and trampling on his scientific data with a perverse and final glee, setting the rest of the rats free in the process. After all, we rats have to stick together.

All in all, The Island is a good movie that makes interesting points and makes you wonder just how far away 2019 really is.

So THAT's what's wrong

If there are men in your life you've noticed that something with them is just plain wrong. You've matured, but they don't seem to have done the same. This is a disease and it has nothing to do with their Y chromosome. The Evil One sent me the info. I think he's trying to tell me he has MHS


The American Male Hobby Syndrome (MHS)

(aka Boyz and Their Toyz)

by Robert Bean (a victim)

I have a theory regarding what I believe to be a common, but as yet not formally recognized social phenomenon. In the spirit of the times, this phenomenon needs to be identified and studied, so that its victims can recognize their affliction and take counteractive measures. Although I do not yet have anything more than limited empirical evidence, that evidence is compelling. I am convinced that a non-trivial subset of the American male population is prime breeding ground for what I will call the American Male Hobby Syndrome (MHS). You, or someone you love, is bound to be infected.

MHS progresses through 5 easily identified and relatively well defined stages during the course of the typical attack. But before it can attack, the syndrome needs fertile breeding ground. The necessary ingredients are:

1) A (chronologically) adult male. I am sure that a Y chromosome is not an absolute requirement, but as I look around me, I cannot deny the fact that most women of my acquaintance are relatively immune to this affliction. I don't know why this might be so, but in the large, it clearly is. Perhaps the answer lies in the perennial adolescence that many women think many men are stuck in.

2) Spare time. Busy men don't have time for such foolishness. MHS flourishes best in the idleness that is the devil's workshop. Men busy with school or families or jobs (or all three) have real lives. It's the man who is settled in a relatively comfortable job and family situation whose roving eye begins to wander.

3) Discretionary income. For reasons we will see in a minute, MHS strongly selects for those with a few bucks to waste, and always leaves the victim with fewer bucks still.

4) An addictive personality. Those that have an addictive personality know it, and are prime raw material.

5) A magnanimous Significant Other. When in full force, MHS will try the patience of Job; only saintly loved ones will permit the cycle to run its course.

Stage 1 is short and sweet - Initial Exposure and Infatuation. Somehow, somewhere, perhaps at the behest of a friend, you try whatever it is, and find out that it's quite entertaining. You think "hey, this could be cool...". So you try to find a way to do it a few more times, usually with some urgency (MHS is not a slow growing, simmering thing. It attacks quickly, hitting you between the eyes), and the activity continues to intrigue. You can see the potential; the activity excites and fascinates, but most of all is FUN. But you are frustrated by your inability to perform the basics of the activity, and the frustration leads to Step 2 - the decision to Learn How.

Stage 2, the Learning How phase, is marked by a deliberate attempt to learn the fundamentals of the task at hand. It usually involves instruction: it may be informal (hanging out with someone who knows how and who will teach you), but it can often involve formal instruction (Park and Recreation evening classes, or lessons at the local shop, or seminars, or open houses, or how-to books, or whatever). Stage 2 is often marked by seeking out a local club, attending a few meetings, perhaps even joining. You outfit yourself with a basic set of gear, usually at the low to middle end of the cost spectrum, following the recommendations of a salesman at the local shop who patiently (and condescendingly) tells you what you need and why. Since you don't know any better, you buy what he sells you (not top-of-the-line, but not bottom either), and put your new gear to the test. If you are lucky, the enjoyment will not fade, and with persistence, a minimal competence will come your way. You get to a point where you can recognize somebody who is really good at this, and you are frustrated because although you can mostly do it, you still don't do it all that well. Look out, because if you are still with it at this point, you are a prime candidate for the worst phase of all - the dreaded Stage 3 - the High Tech phase. And don't kid yourself - every hobby, no matter how simple it might otherwise appear, can be and is turned into an incredibly complicated high-tech endeavor by merchants and participants alike.

Stage 3, the High Tech phase, is the killer phase - it is the longest, the most expensive, and the most intense. Stage 3 is the total immersion stage where you become obsessed with the details of the hobby, convinced that the answer to your ever-frustrating under performance lies in the fact that you don't have the right equipment. All your spare time is spent studying, thinking about, talking about, and doing hobby-related activities. When you are not doing this, you are at the store exploring the latest gadgets, schmoozing with other Stage 3 victims. All your money goes into the latest gear ("If only I had gizmo X"), convinced that with that 7th pair of skis, or that 6th pistol, or that graphite set of golf clubs, you could shave .5 seconds off your slalom time, score that elusive bull seye, or lower your handicap by 2 strokes.

There are several telltale signs of Stage 3. The victim subscribes to several periodicals devoted to the hobby (and reads every word of every article in every issue, and all the advertisements to boot - how else are you supposed to follow the latest and greatest equipment developments?), and has several books devoted to the most arcane aspects of the endeavor. His talk is laced with technical jargon that only another Stage 3 aficionado can understand. His loved ones have long since been bored to tears and wishes he would get a real life. Our victim has multiple different sets of gear, each specialized for a specific micro-optimization ("one racket for rainy days, one for cold days, one for doubles matches, one for clay, one for grass" etc.). If the hobby is practiced away from home, the gear bag weighs as much as our intrepid hobbyist - he is never without everything he might possibly need. If a club was joined in Stage 2, it is often abandoned in Stage 3 - the other members just aren't intense enough (there is a reason for this which we will learn later, but our intrepid Stage 3 hobbyist does not know it yet). All other symptoms not withstanding, however, there are two absolutely undeniable, incontrovertible signs of Stage 3. The first is numbers - the Stage 3 hobbyist is always tallying things - success rates, scores, number of times he did "x". Our Stage 3'r measures success by the numbers, always striving to better them (because he still believes it matters). The second sign is the worst - the shopkeeper of the local shop that specializes in this hobby knows you by your first name. He does this not so much because he likes you but because he sees more of you than he sees of his own family.

Stage 3 is so long, so intense, and so expensive that most people burn out during this Stage. If burnout occurs, our hero drops the hobby rather quickly and moves on to other things. This happens so often that there are even stores here in town that specialize in reselling the used hobby equipment discarded by burned out Stage 3ites.

If by some miracle you survive Stage 3, you might actually pass on to Stage 4. Stage 4 is the Mastery Stage. Despite all the junk you acquired in Stage 3 (which is actually more impediment than help), diligence, practice, and perseverance makes you actually somewhat capable at your chosen avocation. You begin to shed the trappings of Stage 3. You let your periodical subscriptions expire (although you might keep one for nostalgic reasons, but you only skim it, rarely read it). Of your umpteen equipment outfits, you find that you have a favorite one or two that you use all the time. You have learned what times and places give the most enjoyment, and you arrange to indulge your hobby only when and where the doin' is good, rather than every time and place you can. The most important sign of Stage 4 is that the numbers stop. You stop counting and keeping score, because you no longer have to prove to yourself or anyone else that you can do this thing (whatever it is).

An important aspect of Stage 4 is that if it is going to happen, it will happen in spite of Stage 3, not because of Stage 3. It is a gradual thing that sneaks up on you. There is certainly nothing in Stage 3 that contributes to reaching Stage 4, save the fact that Stage 3'rs spend so much time doing the hobby that they can't help learning something despite themselves.

Stage 5 is the Doing It For The Sheer Joy of It stage. Transition to Stage 5 is marked by two events. The first is the time you spend a day doing the hobby activity, and afterward honestly can't remember how well you did (you didn't count and you didn't keep score). I don't mean "pretend" not to. I mean really can't remember because it didn't matter and you didn't pay that much attention. The second marking event is the day where conditions are perfect for a hobby session, but you decide you'll do something else instead because you'd rather do that something else today, and there will be other good days when you can do the hobby.

If you are ever lucky enough to reach Stage 5, you might actually have found a lifelong pleasure. Something you can do competently every now and then for the sheer joy of it, having fun in context. If your family is still with you by then, they might even encourage the occasional indulgence because of the obvious joy you get from it, and because you no longer bore them to tears with the details. At this stage, if you are social, you might gravitate back to the club you left in Stage 3. But now you understand why most of the club members were not intense enough for your Stage 3 tastes - they are mostly Stage 4 and 5'ers, and participate in the non-competitive manner symptomatic of the later stages. The club is as much about being social as it is about the hobby, and at this point that is just fine with you too.

So now you know.

A little plug

My latest review is up for those who are interested in reading such things. Sometimes the review is better than the book.

That is all. Disperse.

Jumping on the Harry Potter bandwagon

It looks like the religious right have decided to take Harry Potter for their own and have cast Voldemort as the prodigal son? Evidently, Rowling was writing about more than magic and kids. Wonder if she knows yet?

As if that isn't unusual enough, there have been Jesus sightings -- or is that just Maitreya?

Don't Hollywoodize it

A year or so ago I read Nevile Shute's On The Beach written in 1957 at the height of impending nuclear holocaust after the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. The world is being slowly destroyed by radioactive fallout that is inching slowly toward Australia, humanity's last stand. One lone American submarine, captained by Commander Dwight Towers, has made port there and will wait out the remainder of humanity's time under the command of the Royal Australian Navy. The book is an intelligent treatise on the way we handle life in the face of utter destruction and the characters are finely drawn and complex.

Then, in 2000, Hollywood came out with their version of the story and turned it into a movie with Armand Assante, Rachel Ward, and Bryan Brown and turned it upside down. I saw it yesterday.

I didn't mind the story being updated with computers and updated cars, technology, etc., but I do mind that they turned the story upside down and completely missed the point -- as usual.

The relationship between Commander Dwight Towers and Moira Davidson was all wrong. Yes, Moira was still on a self destructive man and alcohol binge counting down the hours until she either asphyxiated on her own vomit or killed by some stranger she bedded until she met Dwight, but Dwight was not the same. He had been turned into a sap. In Shute's book, Dwight was an honorable man who kept his wife and two children alive in his mind, even though he knows they are most certainly dead in a ground zero blast. He knows humanity is doomed but he is going to go down with it into the arms of his family and nothing is going to change that. In Hollywood's version, he sees his family around him, envisions them as they were and as he prefers to believe they still are -- waiting for him to come home -- but it is short lived when he meets Moira and falls into her voracious arms. He is changed by her and not the other way around.

In Shute's vision, Moira is pulled back from the brink of self destructive madness by Dwight's honor and his unshakable belief in his family and his marriage. She stops drinking and realizes that he is an honorable man, the last honorable man on Earth, and that changes her. She helps him gather gifts to take home to his children when his job in Australia is done and even has one made for his daughter. She is in love with him, but she doesn't suborn his honor or his fidelity to his wife. At the end, when Dwight takes his sub and crew away from Australia to sink her at the bottom of the sea with the gifts he is taking to his wife and his children, Moira looks on from the cliffs above the channel where the sub sails past to be close to him when she takes her pill and dies. Hollywood had other ideas.

Dwight goes mad when he realizes his family is really gone, blames himself for not being there when they die, and goes back to Moira when he returns to Australia after one last mission for the Admiralty. He's already succumbed to Moira's wiles and bedded her at her farm after she seduces him with Glen Miller and dancing, but he's going back to the woman he loves. Hollywood gives a slight nod to Dwight's fidelity and honor and makes him a patsy for Moira's self destruction, giving in to her on nearly every point. This Dwight is a man led by his hormones and not by honor, except when he stays with his Executive Officer and best friend while he dies from radiation sickness in the naval hospital. In the end, he forsakes his boat and his crew and his allegiance to America and comes back to Moira in dress whites to die with her, thus gutting the Shute's vision and the honor and decency of the characters just to show a little sex and romance.

Even Jules's death is not as it should have been. Jules died in a car crash during a race and didn't just go to the track, rev up the Ferrari, take it around the track at blinding speeds and then drive it at top speed through a billboard and to a fiery death. Jules didn't commit suicide, but he courted death with every race and death won. That's a huge difference.

While checking out the information to write this review of the 2000 version of On The Beach I discovered there had been another version of the movie made in 1959 with Gregory Peck as Dwight Towers and Ava Gardner as Moira Davidson. I haven't seen it but I have ordered it from Netflix and I will see it, but I'll bet that they have it wrong, too, and they have gutted Shute's core relationship and theme for sex and romance. The one thing Hollywood has yet to understand is that life doesn't always end happily ever after and that there is more to life than neatly tying up the loose ends with sex and romance. Life is messy and it is difficult at times, and sometimes it ends with honor and not with happily ever after -- even if only for as long as it takes to swallow poison to die before the radiation gets you.

Oh, and by the way, I would have chosen an actor to play Dwight Towers with a bit more steel in his spine who doesn't keep his lips pursed all the time who is a bit younger than Armand Assante. And whoever told Rachel Ward that she looked good should have given her a pizza and a sack full of double bacon cheeseburgers from Wendy's first.

That is all. Disperse.

You gotta raise them right

My parents need a keeper and it isn't going to be me because I feel like they need to be on leashes.

A week ago Friday Beanie called me to tell me my father had set his den on fire. She was very sanguine about the news and softly chuckling as she told how Dad nearly set the house on fire with incense. I asked if they were all right and she assured me they were and the proceeded to tell me more. It seems my father has been roaming around New Holland in his boxer shorts. Okay, so they have a button fly and he wears a T-shirt and sneakers without socks, but they are still his boxer shorts. Impish memories of people with Alzheimer's getting loose from their keepers and running riotously naked in the streets and boulevards around home taunt me.

Beanie continued. She called Dada to help her with one of the horses that was caught on the fence. Dad and Mom now live five minutes away from Beanie's house and Dad made it in record time. When he got out of the truck his hair was sticking up in every direction, obviously he just got out of bed and hadn't taken the time to comb his hair, his hair that is a beautiful glimmering silver among the blond that has always been carefully and neatly combed into a wave at the front and smoothed neatly, no hair out of place. Okay, he was worried about the horse, a feeling he and Beanie share -- a deep love of animals. When he got closer and spoke to Beanie it was evident from the flash of his one remaining tooth in the middle of his bottom gun line he didn't even put in his teeth. He didn't put in his hearing aids either and my normally neatly dressed father was disheveled. Beanie said he was trying to traumatize her. I know what she means. Dad traumatized me a few years ago without thinking twice about it.

I was visiting for the holidays and up working late on my computer when he came out of the bathroom. Well, Dad didn't come out of the bathroom. It was someone who vaguely resembled my dad but he was really old with puckered lips and one single tooth in the middle of his bottom gum line. It was a huge shock to see the man who hasn't changed in looks (outside of the silvering of his beautiful blond hair) in all the years I have known him to walk in one door his usual self and out the other door an old man. I managed to bury the memory until that call about nearly burning down the house.

I called my parents to find out what happened. Mom said Dad just doesn't understand more is not better, but as she griped about Dad's over use of incense I kept wondering how a curtain could have caught fire from the tiny little glowing ember at the tip of a stick of incense. Either the curtain was flimsy (it wasn't) or the tip was on fire (it wasn't). I flashed back to forest fires started from a spark that burns down hundreds of acres of trees and untold numbers of wildlife when most people can't manage to light a campfire without the big box of big matches and a six pack of Bic lighters.

The curtain caught fire and flashed up to the ceiling, sending roiling smoke and soot throughout their newly decorated and painted house. Dad grabbed the first thing within reach to battle the flames -- Mom's favorite coat -- while she ran to fill a bucket of water. I can just see the two of them, thin and frail, puckered lips without dentures, Dad's hair in spikes and Mom's in curlers, beating at the window while it cracks from the heat and the air fills with oily soot and smoke. "We'll have to repaint the whole room and the ceiling," Mom told me with that little note in her voice that means she gets to warm up the credit cards and spend more money, her favorite past-time.

My parents spent the entire weekend cleaning every surface and steam cleaning the carpet, drapes and upholstery now painted black with soot and smoke, their faces flushed and silvered hair unrecognizable beneath smudged fire black, Mom haranguing Dad about using too much incense and Dad surreptitiously turning his hearing aids off and shooting verbal barbs at Mom.

When my parents moved to the countryside near Columbus, their old farm house was surrounded by soy bean fields. Columbus sprawled closer and Dad put up a wooden palisade fence to maintain a little privacy and protect his plants, trees, bushes, and roses from the now busy two-lane country road fronting their house. Dad had an above ground pool behind the garage and at night he would slip naked from the house and swim in the darkness beneath the bright sparkle of stars and the changing face of the moon. No one saw him. It was a hedonistic pleasure that, with the spread of the urban strip mall disease, he had to give up. That's part of the reason they moved farther out into the country away from town to where soybean and corn field surround their six acres of land and the neighbors aren't close enough to see much of anything unless they pass down the two-lane country road or get out their telescopes and binoculars. So, it's not that surprising that Dad mows the lawn and goes to the end of the drive to pick up the mail in his boxer shorts, but going to the hardware store in town with my brother-in-law is really pushing it. Are my parents losing it?

Mom can't remember anything any more and repeats what she tells me time and time again while I listen and remind politely that I remember what she said the day or week before. Forgetting something you've told someone -- or several someones -- isn't a sign of anything other than the creep of time that has filled the brain with so much information it's a little difficult to remember where you filed something and when you shared out the file. Parents with more than one child tend to call every child's name before they get the right one. Frustration, anger, and/or pique + multiple children = confusion. It's a normal and known equation.

Age deteriorates mental and physical functions as the body begins to run down, especially since the warranty runs out at 30 and everything past that is gravy time. (no one tells you about that or lets you know about the quantum writing, but it's accepted that life doesn't go on forever, so not a big deal) But it's difficult to watch those strong pillars of my life shrink with age until I stand taller than them and have to be careful when I hug them because their bones and bodies are frail and thin, but when they start burning down houses and appearing in public in their skivvies, it's time to start worrying who's going to draw the short straw and have to let them move in to enforce the rules they ruled our world with when we were teenagers.

Now, if I can figure out how to stop time and freeze them in a more competent state. Any ideas?

Serendipity

One of the things I've learned by being a book reviewer is that sometimes you have to look past the flaws and faults -- like bad grammar, horrendous proofing, lousy editing, and illiteracy -- to see the story. Sometimes the story is rich with humor and pathos and life and sometimes it's just a cover for the even worse problem of having a nonsensical plot, cardboard characters, and/or no story.

Like the books I read and review, sometimes I have to put aside my knowledge and experience and literary prejudices to see and appreciate the story being told. I still the editorial voice that harangues and the hand that reaches for the blue pencil and put my expectations and way of doing things on a shelf and let the all too human voice telling the story shine through, letting their story and their words speak and keeping my own voice silent, as I have always done whether I wrote an article or a profile because it isn't important what I have to say about a story or a person but what that story says about itself or the person says about himself. I have opinions and they belong in an op-ed piece, but they do not belong where I am not the focus. My job is to absorb the information and let the story and person take center stage. And when I do, I learn something, too.

The same is true of life.

Life seems to be a delicate blossom blooming in fragile hothouse conditions but more often than not it is a hardy weed growing wild in the most improbable of places without sunlight, rain, or protection from the worst the elements have to throw at it. Life clings tenaciously to wind scoured rocks, thrusts boldly up between stony cracks, spreads luxuriantly through the currents around superheated volcanic flares and tornadoes, and generally thrives when all hope has fled.

It doesn't matter what you do to it, life finds a way to make itself apparent. And so, too, with friends.

A friend is going through some rough times with family and work but she always has the time to listen to that one off note in my voice when I say nothing is wrong and that I'm fine because her heart hears what I'm keeping back. She doesn't need for me to cry or scream or rage at the vagaries of human nature to know that I'm hurting, just as I can hear the tense note of pain or disappointment in her voice when things aren't quite right with her. It seems funny that we have known each other for such a short time and have forged such strong bonds that neither time nor distance or a few days' silence can dent or nick. Through her I have learned patience and endurance and a love and gentle spirit that even the worst times cannot dim too much. Prick her and she bleeds, but she heals and she keeps on going despite the pain and the hurt. She does a job that few people could handle with such honest patience and regard and I admire her.

But my list of friends, although somewhat small in the scheme of things, includes many such people. One friend faces each morning before the butt crack of dawn and works 10-hour days at a job that she does better than anyone else and despite the fact that her personal life is a romantic and lonely shambles at times. She inspires others with her calm good will and drive to succeed. Another friend faces a daily sink of depression and disregard and still gives himself unselfishly and generously, expecting nothing in return.

Many of my friends work impossible hours or live from one day to the next without knowing whether or not they will end up alone or have enough money to buy their children what they want as well as what they need. And some friends, one in particular, despite moments of pique and anger, calm down and carry on despite disappointment and disagreement, and have been the bright stars on my horizon, forgiving me for my faults, flaws, and moments of pique.

There have been other people, those who called me friend, who never understood that being a good friend is as simple as accepting people for who and what they are and not needing them to change, not expecting them to refit themselves into another mold. They do not understand that time and distance never change real friendship and that appearances are deceiving.

These people, some I have known for what seems like forever and some I have only known for a short while, have brightened and enriched my life. Even the people who pass like nomads through my life, have taught me something. I haven't always wanted to pay attention at the time, but I did and do learn from them.

I'm learning still.

Quick finds

It's Monday again, one of those days that keeps cropping up every single, solitary week and in typical Monday fashion the news is weird, to say the least.

Monday was preceded by an interesting Saturday where I went to Woodland Park, had breakfast with my fellow VEs at the Hungry Bear (good home cooked food) and endured the usual jokes, info, and friendly camaraderie I've come to know from the MARC VEs. We had two people get their licenses and one is a brand new Extra who said he works nights and spent his evening studying code (he passed with 118 correct characters in a row -- perfect copy) and the theory for his Extra license. He has taken four months to go from Technician to Extra. I was there for all his exams.

I also took some time to read some of Paul's dad's memoirs, a book he took 1.5 years to write and put together. He wants to write another book and his wife has threatened to murder him if he does. The book is technically and grammatically flawed but it is a very engaging and fascinating read. Paul's dad has a very subtle and sneak-up-on-you kind of humor that is full of homespun views and thoughts. Paul's making a copy of his dad's book on CD-ROM for me and sending it this week. I can't wait to see the rest of the story.

What does a church sell to raise money? Angel Soft of course.

What is the hottest wedding date for 2006? Can't you guess?

That is all. Disperse.

More PC

In an effort to be more politically correct in the new year and to apologize for getting this to everyone late, I offer...

Drum roll, please!!!!"

THIS

TWELVE POLITICALLY CORRECT DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my
Significant Other in a consenting adult, monogamous relationship gave to me:


TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming,

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra made up of members in
good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union
contract even though they will not be asked to play a note),

TEN melanin deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling
class system leaping,

NINE persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression,

EIGHT economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk-products from
enslaved Bovine-Americans,

SEVEN endangered swans swimming on federally protected wet-lands,

SIX enslaved Fowl-Americans producing stolen non-human animal products,

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic incarceration,

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs,

THREE deconstructionist poets,

TWO Sierra Club calendars printed on recycled processed tree carcasses and...

A Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

That is all. Disperse.

Holiday Greetings

There is no snow on the ground outside, but it lingers in shady patches here and there. The air is cool with a faint warmth that beckons me outside to walk the silent streets past barking dogs and brightly lit windows where families celebrate and unwrap their gifts.

Laughter floats eerily up from the landlady's apartment where her family gathers for the ritual of opening gifts and enjoying their stuffed goose with all the trimmings. I wonder if there will be a flaming plum pudding carried reverently from the kitchen to the table in Old World splendor.

Upstairs in my silent rooms I sniffle and blow my nose, snuggled into the covers with books and pens and paper to while away the hours and remember holidays past. Gifts and food and family that dwindled and grew and dwindled again flit through my mind, but it is the pranks I remember most, the ones I cherish, like the first Xmas prank I played on my brother's wife, Bobbie, and which I remember here in verse.

Nothing If You Please


It was Christmas time again
and the lots had been drawn.
I took the one left over,
the joy of giving so strong.

"What would you like?"
I asked with a smile.
"Nothing if you please,"
she replied. "Nothing at all."

I couldn't believe
what she said with that frown.
"Nothing. Just nothing,"
she said and at down.

She wouldn't help me,
wouldn't give me a clue,
so I went shopping,
nothing else I could do.

I looked and I purchased
what gifts I could seize,
while in my head echoed,
Nothing if you please.

An idea kept nagging,
tugging at my sleeve.
Everyone should have
exactly what they need.

Carefully I wrapped the last
and biggest box,
decorating it with bows,
holly, bells, and curled ribbon locks.

Everyone but she knew
what was inside,
a gift like no other,
a very big surprise.

The room was silent
as she unwrapped the biggest one
where inside nested another,
everyone snickered, "What fun."

Equally beautiful
in bold red and green,
the next box opened
to one with blue metallic sheen.

Each beautifully wrapped box
carried one inside
until finally, at length
one last box did abide.

With shaking fingers she opened
the tiny gold thing.
She pulled out the cotton,
tossed aside the string.

Shifting and shaking,
the cotton lining aside,
"It's empty," she said.
"There's nothing inside."

She turned it over
and the card aloud she reads,
"I gave what you asked for,
nothing if you please."

The story is here and I will have it printed up and sent to my sister-in-law as a keepsake to remind her, and the rest of the family, to be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

Happy Holidays and may all your dreams and wishes come true.