Is it worth it?

Hold onto your seats and your hats. I'm going to make two posts in one day. That hasn't happened in a very long time and might not happen again for a while. If you need to go to the bathroom, get something to drink or stretch your legs, do it now. This might take a while. Then again, it might not.

As I sent another ham club newsletter to the printer I thought about what I've done and how hard I've worked to maintain a position that gives me more grief than pleasure. When I was first approached about the newsletter I was congratulated for taking over. No one bothered to inform me that I had been chosen or that the entire ham community in Colorado Springs had already decided to hand the reins to me. I went to a board meeting to find out what exactly was going on and was asked my credentials, something I found very surprising since, to my knowledge, no one before me had had the professional writing and editing experience I have. I answered the questions and offered a copy of my resume. Then I was asked to pay the membership fee in order to take over the job, and I did.

Getting information from the outgoing editor proved difficult and it was only after the first of the year he sent me a garbled email with even more garbled instructions and said, "Here you go and good luck." I didn't know how much I would need the luck. Emails for help went unanswered as if they had floated off into the cybervoid and gotten lost. I soldiered on but was unable to get the January issue out. No one was available to answer my questions, but one person did offer to pick up the newsletter from the printer, except they had forgotten to tell me who the printer was or where they were located, not to mention in what form he wanted the newsletter sent to him, mailed to him or hand carried to him. I still didn't know where the printer was located a year later when the same helpful member told me I'd have to start picking it up myself. I found out in a hurry. The past two years have been just like that rocky beginning, except twice a month every month I send out an email to the membership asking for news, articles, notices, ads, columns or even just a joke that isn't copyrighted to no avail.

Every month I pull together the ragged ends of whatever I can find, rewrite the misspelled and grammatically horrific articles I blackmail members to get to put out a 12-page issue. Sometimes I have cut the issue to eight pages just to get by since there's nothing else I can do to fill the pages without spilling blood and abasing myself for a single paragraph of content. People have made comments on my monthly nag and beg sessions in email as if it's a big joke, and I signed on for this gig.

After the first month, I put together a newsletter for the second month only to be told I would have to audition before I would be allowed to take over as editor. I faced down the president with what I had learned. They had never had a professional writer or editor to do the newsletter and no one wanted the job until it was thrust on me. The previous editor begged for two years to get someone -- anyone -- to take over. And he was requiring me to audition. He backed down and I got the job. Last year when the new officers were elected and another board chosen, I was attacked once again by one of the brand new members who was taking over everything he could get his hands on. I defended myself with no input from the board although the attack was carried out in public through emails to the board. One lone board member said my attacker should remember we are on the same team. I offered to step down and the board got together and gave me a vote of confidence. Like I said, I signed on for this. Now I wonder why.

This afternoon I wrote the president and gave him my notice. He has until December 2008 to find someone else to take over as editor. I'm done fighting for something no one wants and most people complain or joke about. I have no doubt that the same two or three members who always publicly thank me will do so again, and probably offer to pay for my dinner at the annual Xmas dinner, just like last year. Or they will finally break into the dusty vaults of the bank and vote to give me a plaque to thank me for my hard work and service over the past three years. I don't want their thanks but if I were going to give a speech in thanks, this would be it.

I'm supposed to thank you all for recognizing my contribution over the past three years and tell you that I am reluctant to step down. I'm not. I look forward to no more deadlines, no more begging and hounding and no more newsletter to put out for people who don't care except to complain. The time for your thanks is past. The time for your thanks was during the past three years when I asked you to get involved, to send in articles, pictures, jokes and stories for the newsletter. That is the thanks for which I've waited the past three years.

In various forms I have explained what it means to be a volunteer and how your input is needed to keep the lights burning and the newsletter full of something other than dry meeting minutes and a short presidential message that never fills a full page. I have changed the format and made it more colorful, easier to read, more accessible. I have added content to the email and web versions to entice you to get involved, all to no avail. I have spent hours of my valuable time giving you for free what other associations and professionals have paid me to do, and I have done it without your help and input only from the same one or two people. I have answered your complaints and fixed whatever was wrong. I have gone through endless web sites and begged local amateur operators to tell me their stories and send in the pictures, and I have had some success, but not nearly as much as I would have had if you had cared enough to get involved. I have watched the board put together programs and events that few people attended, stretching their own personal resources and time to cover the jobs that no one would take, and the same people kept showing up all the time. I have watched as board members begged for someone to take over as chairman of the Megafest or just show up to set up, take down or even take tickets, but the only ones who answered are the same small group of people who always step up to take your place. I know they must be as tired as I am right now and just as frustrated. So, no, I am not sorry to step down. I am eager to let someone else find the right words or twist the right arms to make you all care enough to get involved in your own club. Were the past three years worth my time and effort and the fight I put up to keep the job? Right now, I don't think so.

Goodbye and good luck. You are going to need it.

I think that goes over pretty well. Don't you? At least it isn't screw you and the horse you rode in on.

That is all. Disperse.

Secret abuse

I'm on another bug hunt. This time it's something that has bothered me for years, something I grew up with, something I have researched and come up empty-handed. It's verbal abuse. Ah, but you'll say. There are plenty of books and articles about verbal abuse, how to recognize it, how to stop it. No, I tell you there aren't, at least none that are focused on men being abused by women. There's the rub.

Men, those big, strong bastions of protection for women are being abused by women and no one seems to want to talk about it -- least of all the men. Why would they want anyone to know that some fashionably thin virago torments them, screams at them, denies and denigrates their feelings? They wouldn't. That's why all the books on verbal abuse are for and about women with barely a side note about men. And so, dear reader, that is why I've decided to write about it -- not here, but in a real mainstream magazine article, and maybe a series of articles or possibly a book.

I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or even a counselor, except of the ad hoc variety, but I am a writer and I have access to many knowledgeable sources. I will just do what I always do: interview, research, listen, learn and write. I've watched too many men in relationships being abused who had no one to tell them their partner wasn't just a screaming, nagging bitch but that there was a bigger problem; they were being abused.

From what I've already run into, it may be a hard fought battle, even with professionals, because they want to focus on women being abused and not the men. That's feminism for you. This morning I found one counselor (the right one) who told me about several women in the area who work with abused men and he would be happy to introduce us. He and I will meet next week and begin the interview and collecting sources. His colleagues will provide me with more material and case studies and introduce me to some of their clients. I have put an ad in the Writers Weekly forum for men who want to tell their stories and will put together a questionnaire based on what I get out of my meetings with the counselor and his colleagues. They may even have a questionnaire I can use to help gather and collate information for a statistical database. I am on the hunt and this will be consuming what few free hours I now have. I guess I'll have to give up my wild social schedule in favor of research and writing. What a shame . . . NOT.

If any of my readers are currently involved in or have been involved in a verbally abusive relationship and would like to tell their story, contact me at fixnwrtr at gmail dot com (I'm sure you know the drill). Initials only will be used for stories that are used in the article(s) and the information gathered from those who don't want their stories used will be included only in the statistical database. A release of information must be signed in order to be included to protect all concerned.

What it comes down to is this: no person, male or female, should be overlooked or ignored when they are in pain, even when they don't see it themselves. Since the established psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist/counselor authors have not addressed this issue, I will. It's about time someone did.

That is all. Disperse.

Procrastinating no more

I don't have a writer's block problem so much as a procrastination problem. I like to avoid unpleasant things, such as not having anything to say when I have a couple of pages to fill. Then I get going, writing off the top of my head (Gram always said that was the fertile part) and finally pull something together. No one is more surprised by what comes out than I am.

This time I started with a discussion I have been having through LJ with about the environment, global warming versus cooling, sunspot numbers, Maunder Minimum and the sun. He's a self professed information junkie and I'm just plain curious. As a non-engineer type ham radio operator I have a basic knowledge of how the sun's radiation affects high frequency, which we use to make the radio work by riding the frequency waves (so to speak), but not much beyond that. I do have a good bit of historical knowledge, but after talking with I knew I needed more information. I was intrigued and in bug hunt mode. For those of you that are just tuning in, bug hunt mode is my term for being in research mode to satisfy my greedy curiosity. Okay, back to the issue after I get another spoonful of peanut butter. Yummy.

The whole global warming issue, as put forth in An Inconvenient Truth (something I've written about before and recently) is that because of the excess of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and the way it keeps in the sun's rays, trapping them in the Earth's atmosphere (like a greenhouse), we are headed for a greenhouse effect. The polar ice caps will melt. Coastal areas will flood. Arable land will turn to desert as the water supply dries up and we will live in the land of Soylent Green where people may become the next item on the menu when plankton sources die from the heat as the seas evaporate. (I always did wonder what would happen to all that water if it evaporates. It has to go somewhere. Even greenhouses trap moisture, which is why you raise the windows to vent things or you end up with a steaming jungle. But that's another topic for another time.) That is the premise that Al Gore sold to the people and to the Nobel prize committee. Turns out the inventor of the Internet might not know as much as he wants the rest of the world to think.

Yes, the movie was awful -- or so I heard -- and it showed polar bears clinging to melting ice floes as the polar ice caps shrink and fall into the sea. Greenhouse gases (CO2) abound in the air. We are polluting ourselves to the edge of extinction where a nuclear war will finish us off as countries battle for the last sources of food and water before turning on their own population for food. Bullshit! Yes, you heard it here. Bullshit! And I don't apologize for what I say. If I say it, I mean it.

There were much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere during the age of dinosaurs and the world was a hot house, a jungle, a rain forest -- if you will. There were much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere during the early 17th century at the advent of the mini ice age, about which I have written before, and the levels continued to rise as people burned more coal and wood to keep warm. The levels now aren't quite so lethal. Of course, that doesn't address the issue of polluting our rivers, streams, lakes and ocean or the pollution that is poured into the soil to make crops grow better and keep away the weeds that soaks into the water table.

The inconvenient truth is that we may very well need the CO2 in the atmosphere in order to maintain the airy envelope that surrounds Earth and keeps us from frying up like Venus or turning into a frigid world like Mars. The real interaction between solar radiation and CO2 is not as well understood as scientists -- and Al Gore -- would have us believe, and messing with the balance, even to bring it down, may put Earth on the road to Venusian Hell or Martian Ragnarök.

What some scientists -- not the popular ones screaming the sky is falling -- now know that the sun has been hotter over the past 50 years than it has been in recent memory and that is what has caused the temperatures to rise, the weather to be wildly erratic and the winters in the Midwest to be milder than previously. Since the sun is hotter and much more active, it bombards the Earth with higher levels of radiation that could have turned us to a cinder by now if not for the cushioning effect of CO2. Since December when a new solar cycle began (the sunspots changed direction and polarity), we have had very few sunspots, going for days without any activity, which is probably also responsible for the very cold winter we have had worldwide, the complete opposite of Al Gore's claims. It is doubtful we are headed for another ice age -- yet -- but it is possible, far more possible than a runaway greenhouse effect and cries of "Soylent green is people!" It may be that the sun has been having hot flashes or just a temper tantrum for the past 50 years and will return to more normal operations soon, although the solar scientists (the ones Al Gore doesn't talk or refer to) believe we are in for a very busy period of sunspot activity once this cycle gets cranked up. That means more solar winds headed towards Earth, longer period of Aurora Borealis activity that will be seen nearly to the southern United States, more cosmic radiation bombarding the Earth and a probable increase in skin cancer if we don't have sufficient CO2 to protect us from the effects.

In effect, the inconvenient truth is that we may be doing ourselves more harm than good because we don't have enough experience or knowledge or understanding to know how much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will hurt -- or help -- us. We're like children with a little bit of knowledge: we are dangerous to ourselves and to our planet. As it stands, we are more likely to be faced with another mini -- or full blown -- ice age than we are of becoming food for the masses when we die and are ground up into soylent green, and then the CO2 levels will climb as we burn whatever we can to keep warm. I know what you're thinking, I write too much. You're probably right.

That is all. Disperse.

Take a nap

It's Saturday and I'm going through my usual Saturday morning ritual: reading email, responding, catching up on news and views, reading articles and trying to latch onto the words, phrases and stories racing around like screaming children after eating an entire basket full of Easter candy. The one thing that has latched firmly onto my synapses and creating a data loop is heart, or rather writing to/from the heart, reminding me that the newsletter has to be finished this weekend and uploaded even though my heart isn't in it. I'm back to asking why I fought so hard to keep doing this when I had an out last year.

I've decided this is probably my last year to do the newsletter and I've been resisting (with the help of my work schedule) going to a meeting so the members can thank me for taking over the newsletter and doing a good job, something I wouldn't otherwise know if they didn't hand me a piece of paper or an insulated travel mug. All the thanks I ever wanted, and still want, is for them to thank me by submitting material for the newsletter so I don't have to spend 40-60 hours every month reading and looking for articles and information to fill out twelve pages, 11-1/2 if you discount the mailing label on the back page. It isn't that I don't like the opportunity to write what I'm thinking about, but most of the time what I'm thinking about is how I can read, absorb and write about electronics and radio in a new and different way so that the same people writing the same old stuff don't fill the already boring pages full of cub and board meeting minutes or the single column of hastily penned thoughts I pry out of the president every single month that lands on my computer the day after the deadline. No wonder editors begin to dislike the writers they need to fill their pages and resort to advertisements and coupons and articles by pharmaceutical companies on the values of a drug-driven life.

I'm tired of working so hard for no one to notice until I'm gone as they hand me an insulated travel mug with the club logo imprinted on it as I walk away having left not a single ripple in their quietly stagnant pond. Don't get me wrong, it's not why I write anything, or why I edit, but it's why I want to quit so much and why I have to flog myself to get the blasted thing done so I can go back to pleasanter pursuits, like reading another book to review or writing my own books, articles and stories.

Although this seems like a rant (yes, it's a little tiny rant), what is really on my mind is heart and doing only what comes from the heart and reaches others' hearts. It's the difference between telling a joke and getting a polite don't-poke-the-hungry-lion-in-the-cage laugh or telling a joke that makes people laugh until their sides hurt while tears stream down their faces and they can't help but repeat it. Human experience can be bleak enough, stuck as we are in our own deep, high-walled ruts as we plod from moment to moment, day to day, hoping and praying for a holiday or vacation day when we can just loaf, but to drag it even further into the mire by making what we read and write onerous is, in my estimation, criminal. Life is too short.

Even Seneca (that would be Seneca the Elder, not the tutor of Nero who burned while fiddling Rome) wrote about the perception of life being short. Even a 102-year-old man who had gained wealth and prominence, fathered children, made and broke careers and generally lived life to the fullest (even when he stepped on the necks and backs of others to get there) will bemoan the short length of time to do everything he wanted to do on his death bed, bargaining with Death for just a little more time. Life is not worth living without some happiness, some pleasure that lightens the dark corners of existence, even if it's a gift of love, the birth of a child, a good meal or glass of wine, or doing what defines you. Life is too short and so much of it is sucked down the abyss with work and bills and discord and anger and enmity and silence.

I don't think I realize how much silence has sucked away the enjoyment of life than when I picked up the iPod Beanie sent me, put in the earphones and turned it on. Music filled my ears, my mind and my heart and my body responded as it always has with movement. My voice that had been silent for so long carried me away on a wave of music and words. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast and I have had a very savage breast for a while. Like the bear I was caught under the bridge but I didn't think to simply take a nap and let things sort themselves out and bring me safely out of danger. I kept hoping and struggling, looking for a way out, for a way to make things better and not much changed as I wandered in a foggy daze.

Somewhere along the line I must have taken a nap because I woke up. The problems are still there and the obligations still pinch like a bad pair of shoes, but I can breathe and I know there will be an end to the pinching because I'll simply take off the obligations and do those things that make life worth living for the short time I am here on this earth this time around. Music helps. Fresh air. A good meal. A glass of crisp wine that fills me with the scent of cool breezes and fresh pears or a dark ruby-filled goblet that exhales a breath of raisins, earth and sunny days. Cooking a meal for friends or a dessert for a friend who's ill. Diving back into the well of words and coming back dripping with stories and possibilities undreamed of while I struggled. And love.

It's out there

The weather can't make up its mind if it's winter or spring. One or two days of warmth and deep blue skies and then it snows and the temps drop like a plummeting bomb. I went out to the store to pick up some groceries and the cold slapped both my cheeks until they were pink. I didn't feel that cold when I had the window open in the sun room most of the day, but the sun was still up. After the sun goes down the warmth leaches out like a thunderstorm on a sidewalk chalk drawing. Oh, well, it is still winter for another couple of weeks and it is March: in like a lion and out like a lamb. It's too much to expect spring before the first week of March has had its say.

One of the surprising things is that this is considered global warming. I guess it's one of those inconvenient lies people are jumping onto the bandwagon to shout about before they even know what the shouting's all about. That is not to say that we shouldn't be careful of the environment; we should. But Mother Nature isn't as fragile as current fear mongers would have us all believe and they suppress or slant the evidence to shore up their positions.

Centuries ago the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, Toltecs, etc. held sway in what is now South America. They built cities and cut down the rain forest to slash and burn for more space to plant more crops and put up more buildings until they had devastated the rain forest and Mother Nature slapped them silly, devastating their great civilizations, refusing to grow sufficient crops to support the population explosions in the cities and eventually took back the cities and monuments and pyramids, forcing the people back into what was left of the rain forest to live a hand to mouth existence. There was more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at that time, according to ice cores from the Arctic and Antarctic, from burning all those trees and brush and the result was a mini ice age during the 17th century. It was in all the history books. Every time civilization goes too far and takes too much, Mother Nature (Gaia to pagans) steps in and resets the balance.

All those pictures of polar bears clinging to melting ice floes were taken during August, sometimes known as summer even in the arctic. Check it out. There has been a population explosion among the arctic polar bears, something the global warming group doesn't want you to know about. There couldn't be more polar bears if the polar ice caps were melting because the polar bears need the ice to survive and sustain life. In fact, you'll find out if you look in the right places that the ice is much thicker now than it has been in decades. Couldn't happen with global warming and yet it is happening. Did someone get their data mixed up or just want to push their own agenda?

The problem with all of these fear mongers is that they thrive on misinformation and have a tendency to slant the information their way to make their point and keep all of us off balance and scared. Most people take the news at face value but I think by now most of us have learned that the news is and has been slanted to fill a lot of agendas, none of which are in mankind's best interests. Yes, we need to rethink our energy position and begin to find other sources of energy. Yes, we need to quit dumping chemicals and hormones and antibiotics into our food supply and find a more sustainable way of farming. But most of all, we need to keep an eye on the media because they will not tell us the truth. They prefer a grain of truth in a great big old inconvenient fairy tale (or lie) because someone or some group is lobbying for more money and more of a hold on our minds by using the goad of fear. Most of what we have been told is either exaggeration or outright lies. The only cure for fear is information. You might have to dig but it is worth it. The more people dig and the more people willing to dig and tell the truth, the more we will control our own destinies and lives. After all, that's what free will and freedom of information is all about, not to mention the free exercise of speech.

It's all about fear. How long are you going to listen before you start asking the tough questions and looking for answers? As Fox Mulder always said, "The truth is out there," but you have to go find it for yourself and refuse to take no for an answer.

That is all. Disperse.

Orphan no more

My Common Ties submission found an artist to render it and is an orphan no more. It went live this morning in their new 20 questions format. Just to preface, I didn't lie but the guy who chased me down and held a gun on me thought I had.

The question: What was the most terrifying moment in your life? The answer.

That is all. Disperse.

Spring's busting to burst

You can tell when spring is near because men lose their minds -- and so do some women. I've not lost mine yet but I think a couple men may drive me in that direction.

I decided to do a bit of spring cleaning early this year and get rid of some pernicious suitors, specifically some men who have lately come out of the woodwork, so to speak, to change my mind and my heart. I also cleared the way of a man who wouldn't make up his mind. I have little patience with fools and schmucks. But to think one guy would think my brush-off feisty and a come-on is proof he's either lost his mind or is deep in spring rut before the rut begins. Ye gods!

On Saturday, one year ago, my father died and as the time gets closer I feel sad and miss him. I also feel that I don't want to waste any more time because I may die tomorrow or on Saturday or some day soon with fools and schmucks sucking the very life and excitement out of me. That's why I decided to make my feelings known. There's nothing like remembering a loved one's death to remind you how much there is still to be lived.

So today I went to the east side of town, a place I venture to visit only once a month when I pick up the ham club newsletter at the printer's, and met a few guys for an afternoon of ham radio exams, cookies, and coffee (I don't eat cookies and I don't drink coffee). Out of the group, only one failed to get their license and I met a gentleman from Columbus, Ohio, my hometown, who graduated from Eastmoor High School. He wouldn't tell me which year, but I'll bet it was at least 1960 or thereabouts. His name is Rick (just what I need, another Rick in my life) and the corporation he works for offered him twenty thousand dollars to put together a radio station and ham radio classes for licensing. Now that's what I call corporate intelligence. The radio station is state of the art and not quite done yet, but I did get pictures and a bit of video. Of the two women there, one got her license and plans to go on to get her General license now that she has her Technician's license. We definitely need more women in amateur radio and I'm glad they're both determined to keep going.

It was a beautiful day today full of good friends, pleasant acquaintances and even a lovely drive -- even if it was to the east side of town -- with the air freshened by a cool breeze and full of clear Colorado blue skies and sheepish clouds meandering across the sky in front of Pike's Peak's snowy face, the kind of day that reminds me what it's like when the sap begins to rise and makes me glad I live here. Can the forsythia be far behind?

That is all. Disperse.

Wired for sound

For my birthday Beanie sent me her old iPod since Ants gave her a brand new one for Xmas. I asked for it and I got it. I finally got around to getting a battery (she sent it with a dead battery) and ear buds (no ear phones either) and last weekend I plugged it into the laptop (she did include the USB cord), figured out what was on there, what I wanted to keep and then downloaded some audiobooks and music and copied them onto the iPod. I'm ready to rock and roll and I figured out what has been missing for so long -- music. Music motivates me to move and dance and even clean house. That's my line and I'm sticking to it. Music lifts my spirits and makes me feel as energetic as watching a movie with dancing when for a few minutes (or several hours) I feel like I did when I used to go out dancing during the disco years and before when I danced in musicals. And all this time the only thing wrong was that I needed a soundtrack. Go figure.

In this morning's emails (I took the day off so I'm taking it slow and easy today) I received my usual fare from AltReligions and was surprised to find out that The Golden Compass bombed at the theaters and the other two movies in the trilogy will not be made and all because of right wing Christians who conducted a smear campaign. An article that cites Mike Nichols disgust and dismay at the mob censorship and misinformation on the Internet was an eye opener. On the one hand, as a democratic country (less so as time goes on) we all should support free speech even if the speech is counter to our desires and beliefs. It's the exercise of free speech that keeps us marginally democratic. But does that mean anyone has to right to ruin the chances of a good children's adventure movie just because it might show religion in a bad light? Yes.

What is really specious is the claim that the film "...was a covert plot to advance the cause of Satanism..." Give me a break. Satan is a Christian idea and construct and not part of most of the world's religions and the movie is a very toned down version of the books. The books do not espouse Satan in any way. It's like the furor over a scene in the third book, The Amber Spyglass that supposedly promoted adolescent sex. Of course the woman who made the complaint had never read the passage she was complaining about and decrying. Sound familiar? It's another case of misinformation like the woman who wanted the Harry Potter books banned from the library because they promoted Satanism and taught children witchcraft. It's amazing how these religious zealots see Satan everywhere undermining their plans to spread the message of Christianity and Jesus to the darkest corners of the earth. Too bad they don't turn the lights on in the dark corners of their minds, especially when it comes to politicians like Mike Huckabee.

As an American I have a big problem with anyone who wants to lead this country and puts their personal religious agendas ahead of their job as head of a country founded on religious freedom. Just like a have a problem with any candidate that uses their sex or color as a platform or a stick to bash their opponents. For instance, Hillary's new campaign slogans: "'We Want Experience, Not An Experiment and The White House Is No Place for Training Wheels." I've got news for Hillary. Some of the best presidents have had little or no experience in politics wheeling and dealing and undercutting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anyone ever hear of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln?

Both men were failures. Washington fought in the French and Indian War and failed miserably, losing nearly his entire company in a battle that he should have won. The first few engagements of the Revolutionary War were also big losers with Washington leading. The tide did turn and he came out victorious, but not without a lot of help. As for being President, he didn't have a clue but he wanted to do a good job and lead the people of the nation that had put their hearts and trust in him. Lincoln was a failure at many businesses before he ran for office. When he was elected President, he had no experience, but he led this country through the difficult years of the Civil War and paved the way to heal the wounds of the war that split our country and families apart.

Right now, in this political climate, I think we'd do better to elect someone who doesn't have the stench of political glad handing and power brokering on them. We might get a fresh perspective and a better deal with someone who is willing to work for us instead of for themselves. Come to that, we should abolish the electoral college and the two-party system. Then we'd see changes and people who will work for us and not against us instead of millionaires who want to feather their own nests and push their own agendas. We might get another Washington or Lincoln or someone even better. Or I may be a dreamer who still believes in a Republic and a nation of the people, by the people and for the people and I should just eat my poisoned mushrooms.

In the meantime, music take me away and bring me peace and life.

That is all. Disperse.

Is that all there is?

After seeing The Golden Compass I had to get the books and read them, especially when there was such furor over the way the movie changed the basic themes of the books. Now I get it and I wonder why the trilogy were sold as children's books, other than that the main character, Lyra Belacqua, is a young girl. The themes are much deeper and more complex than a simple fantasy or adventure story, which is not to say that children wouldn't enjoy the books simply for the story. In a way, it's ironic that such a weighty subject is classified as children's literature when the basic theme is that religion, Christianity, and the Catholic Church specifically, is based on the belief that we should remain children in order to be rewarded with heaven.

I read two of the interviews referenced on Philip Pullman's website and Christianity Today focused on the subject of Dust and the religious themes in His Dark Materials. One thing that Pullman brought out is that Christianity is based on the idea that the only good comes from being Christian and that the idea of morality, generosity, sacrifice, honesty, happiness, and ethics can only come through the church and thus through God. All other instances of virtue are tainted by the association of humanity unsanctioned by belief and faith. So what did humanity do before God came and made all virtues holy? How did humanity exist, prosper or even act morally and ethically until they were "saved"?

More and more it seems to me that religion seeks to put humanity back into the Garden of Eden naked and dependent on a Master to feed and house them and that to religious leaders free will is another name for giving up sovereignty over existence. You have a mind, but unless you allow God or the church to tell you how to use it you will misuse it. You will question and that isn't allowed. And look where that kind of thinking got western civilization during the Dark Ages. It's like Svengali has grown to infinite size and proportions with an infinite appetite for control. The very idea demeans the whole of human existence. Are we merely puppets?

There has been a rise in movies and on television of the idea that this existence, this mundane, sometimes banal existence is something to be cherished and enjoyed, but religion would have it otherwise. Build up your treasures in heaven not on earth where moth and rust corrupt. Give up your life destroying another religion or people and you will live in Paradise waited on hand and foot by virgins. Sublimate your desires, your pleasure in life, your very mind and you will be rewarded. (Isn't that just another name for slacker?) If that is the case, then why are we here? What purpose do we serve except to exalt a disembodied Creator whose roller coaster moods seem more bipolar than holy? Why bother to exist at all if our only function is to worship and turn our energies, our minds, our very souls over to the church and God so they can enjoy living on this earth in their bodies? Are we slaves or are we missing the point? Have we been led down the garden path blindfolded to be slaughtered so that it is as if we never existed?

Is that all there is?

Yesyesyesyesyes

I am stunned. It's not like I haven't done it before; I have. I've done it lots of times. And I still remember how afraid and daunted I was the first time. I had a vague idea of what to do, and I certainly wasn't afraid to ask for help -- and even instructions -- but I was still nervous and afraid. What if I did it wrong? What if it went in wrong? What if...? That's when I stopped wondering, took a deep breath and just did it.

Okay, get your minds out of the bedroom, or off the kitchen table and counters, out of the sink and shower. I'm talking about installing my first RAM chip. For the non-geeks who read this, that is the little chip that is your computer's memory and allows your computer to work faster and more efficiently the more you have.

My laptop came with 512K of RAM (Random Access Memory). That is more than my first computer had years ago, but not enough for my computing needs. When I had more than one task running the slow down was obvious. Not any more. Although I haven't opened up a laptop before, I bought 2 Gigabytes of RAM for my laptop and they arrived this morning. I opened the panels on the back of the laptop with my handy dandy tool kit, the one I keep in my purse (similar to the one Security took from me when I flew to New Jersey three years ago), and opened up the panels on the back to find where the RAM chip was. I found it, took a few moments to puzzle over how to get it out, removed it quickly and easily, and inserted two brand new 2 Gigabyte RAM chips. I screwed the panel back on, popped in the battery, plugged in the power cord and started the computer. Voila! Speed and efficiency. It took one-third as long to boot up and be ready for use. It's early in the morning and I didn't want to startle my neighbors or I would have yelled, "yesyesyesyesyesyes," instead of typing it here.

Not allowing fear to control me has taken me all sorts of places and I have learned a lot since the first time I nervously asked the salesman for assistance in how to install a RAM chip. This time, I researched the best prices and found I could get two RAM chips for less than it would have cost me to buy one a few months ago. I only have two slots, but they are full and they work like a dream. I'm happy.

Of course, my mother would chide me -- if I told her -- for messing around with something I could break or destroy, "And then you wouldn't have a computer," she'd say with a certain sense of eager relish with that I-told-you-so tone in her voice. She is certain I'm going to ruin my computer by downloading programs and shows, but she doesn't understand and fear controls almost all of her actions. She has not had to fend for herself or live alone in the whole course of her 77-year life. She doesn't know how to be self sufficient or to dare to fly in the face of fear and figure something out. She still has a fit over me driving a moving van and towing my car from Cleveland to Columbus in an snow and rain storm. I wouldn't have missed the experience. Come to that, I wouldn't have missed the experience of opening up the panels on the back of my laptop and installing the new RAM chips with my handy dandy fold-away tool kit. I bought it so I would never be without a few tools in an emergency, although I'm sure the FAA has me listed as a terrorist who was determined to take over the Delta 727 with my little tool kit, manicure set and antique embroidery scissors. Then again, had I set my mind to being a terrorist, I am sure I would've found a way to hijack the plane by using what was on hand. Airplane food in the hands of a determined terrorist can be lethal.

In the meantime, if you know anyone who would like a 512K DDR RAM chip for a 533MHz laptop, let me know and I'll send them the one I pulled this morning. That's my idea of recycling.

That is all. Disperse.

Alas for celebrations

Yes, I'm procrastinating about writing tonight. I'm hot and uncomfortable and tired and just can't seem to rev up the engine enough to tackle the three reviews I need to write tonight. It happens sometimes. I'm find once I get going, but getting going is difficult without the right kind of juice. No juice tonight.

Or maybe I'm still a little too relaxed from yesterday's veg out with books and movie and more books. I started and finished three books yesterday and they weren't little books either, but healthy and thick books. I napped and answered the phone (for a change) to thank all my family and friends who called to wish me happy birthday (yes, that was yesterday, too), enjoyed a catered dinner and flowers, and opened a few gifts from local friends. I didn't get dressed all day, just lounged around reading and relaxing, dozing and enjoying the day, knowing I'd have to get back to the real world today because hospitals don't close for holidays. That's okay, I have a vacation day coming next Monday and I intend to make full use of it.

Thinking about my birthday yesterday I was reminded of a conversation I had with my Uncle Bob a few weeks ago when he told me he didn't remember his wife's birthday or their anniversary and Aunt Lois didn't seem to mind. That put me in mind of the usual hullabaloo about Valentine's Day and the premium placed on gifts of love that seem more like emotional arm twisting for giver and receiver. Don't get me wrong. I like Valentine's Day and enjoyed the big red heart filled with candy an admirer left on my doorstep on Thursday. It was a lovely thought, but I wonder if romance can be confined to a single day or if a single day should be used as pressure in a relationship to perform romantic duties. Romance has so many faces and facets that we tend to forget it isn't all about flowers and candy and jewelry and gifts. It's about respect and loving someone enough to let them know in small ways every day. That's romance.

My Uncle Bob isn't big on cards and gifts, but he does appreciate them when they come his way. Instead, his idea of romance is taking care of his family and making sure they're safe and secure. He takes care of the cars and the houses and makes sure there's enough of whatever is needed, including antifreeze in the radiator and air in the tires. It may not seem like romance, but it is very romantic. Romance isn't -- or it shouldn't be -- all about gifts unless the gifts are from the heart. Having a day for romance is cheating in a way because it lets people off the hook the other 364-365 days of the year. They can point to February and say they did their duty. But did they really?

Fixing dinner and making (or buying) a special dessert out of the blue or taking out the trash to save your weary spouse a few steps; that's romantic. Romance doesn't need to be a big production. Sometimes it can be as simple as doing the dishes or drawing a bath, rubbing someone's weary feet or massaging a few kinks out of their neck and shoulders without being asked. It's the little things that count, the things you might not find in a romance novel or on Valentine's Day -- or maybe you will. That's the thing about romance, it can pop up at the most unusual and unexpected times, like a catered dinner and a vase full of fresh tulips or a heart full of candy left on the doorstep. Birthdays come once a year, but romance happens every day a little bit at a time.

That is all. Disperse.

Pride and Prejudice

And I don't mean the books by Jane Austen either. I'm talking about the pride and prejudice that skews historians' and scientists' views.

I used to get a lot of flak from the entrenched historians and scientists that refused to believe in the theory of diffusion as the reason behind why there are pyramids (for instance) all around the world; they stood four-square behind the theory of parallel development and consider stories about Mu or Atlantis or Egyptians and Phoenicians traveling the entire world and bringing cultures from one place to another and yet the more we uncover the more wrong historians and scientists turn out to be. For instance, Mystery Hill, the American Stonehenge, is rife with hieroglyphs that have been traced back to the sea-faring Phoenicians and there are Celtic symbols and petroglyphs in southeastern Colorado that predate the Spanish conquistadores. The most recent information coming to light proves that crops grown in South American 10,000 years ago are similar, and even the same species, as crops grown in Mesopotamia, which is considered the cradle of agrarian civilization. Now isn't that strange?

I never could understand how a might sea-faring nation like the Phoenicians would limit themselves to the Mediterranean when artifacts from their civilizations are found all over the world or how they could have missed the great land masses of the Americas and Antarctica, among others. It's impossible that mankind, being the curious and adventurous type, would stop traveling over the next hill because it was too far away.

Too often, scientists and historians take their modern prejudices and ideas and push them off onto earlier civilizations and call it understanding the primitive societies, societies that rivaled our own with technological marvels we still have not been able to duplicate or explain. One such example is the belief that Hatchepsut, the God King of Egypt, and a Pharaoh in her own right, was murdered by her stepson, Tuthmoses III, because he chafed her under her rule. Looks like the Egyptologists and historians were wrong again. Hatchepsut has been discovered and her mummy shows that she died of natural causes -- if you can call an abscessed tooth on top of diabetes natural. She was 50 years old and she was not murdered, as has been written. The fact that most Egyptologists, and those who fabricated the story of Tuthmoses III's assassination of his stepmother, wrote that Tuthmoses III wanted Hatchepsut dead because she was a woman who had no right to rule or control him says more about the Egyptologists' male chauvinism and their personal issues than it does about the truth of history. Scientists and historians continue to look down on the past with a jaundiced eye and have missed seeing the truth beauty and grandeur of a world not caught up in the need to denigrate and belittle powerful women or the mythologies that have become little more than a way to prove ancient civilizations were simple and unsophisticated.

It looks as though mythology has more to offer than quaint and simple stories about gods and goddesses and their involvement with mortals and more about how the Universe was created. Mythology is religion, but only on the surface; religion was a way devised to keep the information intact for future generations. What mythology is really about astronomy and the beginnings of the Universe. I can't understand how all those scientists and historians missed what was right in front of them -- like diffusion and globe sailing Phoenicians and the Creation of All. Guess pride and prejudice blinded them and got in their way.

That is all. Disperse.

Of bills and bears

I've been catching up on movie watching since I finished and filed my taxes and am now waiting for the money to be deposited in my account. Money is also on my mind, but in the sense of paying bills and remembering annual dues that have to be paid. Dues seems like such a small amount of money until they all hit at once. If I don't get to them immediately, I put them on my mental To Do list and promptly forget about them until they nag me over and over, which does no good unless I actually have access to money at the same time they're nagging. It's not a good example to set to be a board member and the newsletter editor who reminds people to pay their dues when I forgot mine. At least mine are paid now so I can safely nag others.

For the first time in years, there is real milk in my fridge right now. I usually buy almond milk but this time I splurged and got real milk. Very strange indeed, but I wanted to make real hot cocoa with real milk, but it's organic milk. I don't like hormones and antibiotics in my meat or eggs and I know that if the hormones and antibiotics are being injected into the living cow it's going to show up in the milk, cheese, and butter, so I buy organic. I have enough hormones circulating in my system so I don't need external help and I don't want to confuse my menopausal status now. It's just too hard to go through all those hot flashes again just when things are settling down, although some hot flashes would be good right now since it's so cold. People who have lived here a lot longer than I have say they thing this winter has been the coldest they can remember. I don't disagree. It has been quite frosty, although there hasn't been much snow down here in my little west side neighborhood. However, there has been quite a bit of snow in the higher elevations and that means good snow pack and lots of melt water coming in the spring -- if it ever gets here.

I received another story to edit for another anthology and I have ignored it for two whole days. I guess I'd better go over it, dispute or accept the editing changes, and send it back so I can check something else off my To Do list. I have been very productive this week, although not as productive as I should have been. Still, I finished and submitted my taxes, paid my dues, worked like a dog, bought groceries and put them away, forced myself to read the current review book and finally made a blog post, so I'm not doing too badly. I also watched a couple of movies: Sweeney Todd, which has a very interesting literary history, and The Golden Compass. I wonder why Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig figure so prominently on the movie poster since they have very little screen time.

Did you catch how thick Nicole looked? Was she pregnant when the movie was filmed? I know they're setting things up for the sequel, but I cannot find anything that shows when or if the sequel will be made. They sort of have to go through with it since they went to all the trouble to set it up, but the movie is no Harry Potter. I haven't read the books but the movie was interesting and fast-paced. Lyra is quite a handful and a very determined little girl, a real firecracker. I enjoyed the movie but feel it should have been either longer or more involved than it was. It felt like it skimmed the surface, although there was plenty of action and lots of explanation and the special effects were magical. I especially liked Ian McKellen as the armored bear Iorek Byrnison. I immediately recognized his voice and style. Should be interesting to see what -- if anything -- happens next. I definitely want to read the book so I understand all the hullabaloo about how much the Magisterium was toned down. Should be very interesting.

That is all. Disperse.

Minutiae

I finally saw I Am Legend with Will Smith. I enjoyed Will's performance immensely but I have to say the special effects and CGI weren't nearly as riveting and frightening as the 1971 version, Omega Man with Charlton Heston. There wasn't much interaction with the plague victims and all they did was roar and bite and climb up walls like they were monkeys on acid. The CGI effects were too visible and not sleek enough to make them anything but paltry next to Anthony Zerbe's menacing and intelligent leader of the "Family". Still, Will Smith's acting was very convincing and quite impressive, but it wasn't enough to erase the obvious computer generated effects. Sorry about that. Sometimes, the simple way is the best.

I have my taxes done and filed, but unfortunately, due to making a considerable sum of money from writing last year, I cannot e-file my federal taxes. At least the package is in the mail and I'm way ahead of most of the pack so it shouldn't take six weeks to get my check and they will deposit it directly into my account. I still could e-file the state taxes and it's a nice enough chunk of money that it will keep me in new geek toys at least until the feds come through. I'm just glad all the hard work is done and I can rest until next year while the rest of you wait it out until the last few hours before April 15th. I like getting the hard stuff over and done with as soon as possible.

I also got a notice from Adams Media about the first of the eight books coming out this year. It was from their publicity rep and it looks like I'm going to be doing interviews and book readings and signings for the next year or two. The nice thing, especially since stories in Cup of Comfort and Chicken Soup, both of which are owned by Adams Media and F+W Publications, is that even though the stories were work for hire and I got a one time payment, I am also being paid to do the publicity. As much as I hate doing publicity, I'll grit my teeth, read and sign books, answer questions, and send in my invoices to be paid. Even if I have to go out of town, if I have enough notice, I can schedule a book signing or two and Adams Media will stock the place with books and make sure press kits are sent, and I will be paid promptly. Since I have plans for next year that require a considerable amount of money, those events will definitely help out. The only thing is that my mother wants to come out and watch me do readings and signings. I think she thinks it will be some kind of media event and that's not the case. She's been watching way too much television. I'm not Patricia Cornwell or even John Cornwell, just one author among many who contributed stories to a few books. She'll have to wait until I'm on the NY Times best sellers list for what she wants to be a part of.

In the meantime, there are more books to read and review and more checks to cash, stories to write, reviews to post, articles to research and write and ham club newsletters and exam sessions to keep me busy. Life could be better. I could be living in a little mountain cabin high in the Rockies around 10,000 feet with a stream burbling close by where trout jump and swim and the wild life treks through my door yard and stays out of my garden. Life could also be a whole lot worse. There's always room for improvement -- and that's a good thing.

That is all. Disperse.

Casualties of war

Everywhere you turn these days the government, and quite a few people, have declared war: war on terror, drugs, cancer, etc. But what about the prisoners and casualties of these wars? What happens to them?

We have a vast vocabulary for war but not many words for peace and even less experience with peace. Our economy works best during war, when we are producing the materiel and foods to sustain war. During peace time, our economy flounders and founders after the first few years of prosperity in the wake of war reparation, leaving the sick and wounded and their families and friends bereft. I wonder if it's genetic or if we are addicted to the adrenalin rush and, like junkies, we crave action and discord. Whatever the cause, we need to establish and maintain a vocabulary and mind set for peace otherwise we will continue to go to war to ease the tensions of living at peace when everything inside us aches for the return of adrenalin-fueled violence.

One friend has been deep in the midst of a crushing depression because of such a domestic war. She was beaten down when she stood up for what was right and responsible and fought until she could fight no more. But her opponent was stronger and had many more years of experience with battle, having won for so long because of my friend's lack of desire to fight. It was easier to allow to step aside or lie down and stay quiet until the storm passed. Now she's dealing with the knowledge that she made a bad deal, that she put the idea of family ahead of everything else in her life even though there is no real sense or fact of family to protect. That's the way it is with children who are the products of alcoholic parents. If they don't turn into alcoholics themselves, and that fear is paramount in my friend's life, they become pleasers and caretakers who put themselves and everything they are or wish to be at risk. The end up with abusive spouses in most cases and feel they are the ones to blame because they're not generous enough, not quiet enough, no helpful enough, no loving enough, simply not enough. They carry the burden of the relationship emotionally, mentally and sometimes even financially struggling to maintain the illusion of family. A spouse and children do not make a family just like a house does not make a home. The intangibles are missing. The feelings of family and home aren't there. They go through the motions of family and home like children with bank accounts playing house but the real feelings, the very essence of home and family don't exist, and there is no way to create it because there is no love with which to create it.

When families fall apart after a death or divorce they aren't falling apart; they never existed in the first place. No amount of glue will hold them together. They might seem to be together, but the sense of common values and needs and the fact of love were never there. They were individuals who agreed to eat and sleep and visit and live together, but they were never a family, not really. Distance and personal concerns do not destroy a family; nothing destroys a real family.

When people, like my friend, get their emotional needs met from others in such a way that allows them to continue in an abusive and dysfunctional relationship, they miss the point. They are not doing themselves or their spouses and children any favors. They simply perpetuate the lie and the facade of being a family and they give the abuse spouse more power because they have given up their own power to stay. Unfortunately, I know far too many people like that -- people who stay in dysfunctional relationships for the kids or because they think they're too old to start over -- and as much as it pains me I have had to learn to walk away. I offer a hand up and advice, but most people don't want assistance, they want somewhere they can go, someone to whom they can go to get their emotional needs met so they can stay for the sake of appearances. They use their friends and the ones they love like copper top batteries, feeding on their energy, not to harm, but to exist, to stay, to feed the power hungry abuser to whom they cling. Being a battery for such a relationship is draining and it only makes things worse, but it's hard to walk away from someone you love.

I've learned to think of it as a friend who stepped into quicksand. I will keep holding out a hand while I'm anchored to solid ground only so long as they are willing to stay calm and help themselves out. If they continue to flail and sink deeper and deeper, as much as I love them, I have to let go or go down with them. I will miss them and I will grieve for them, but I will not let go of my own life to commit suicide with them. It's a hard decision to make -- the point at which you walk away -- and it never stops hurting, especially when you have to watch them sinking deeper and deeper in the muck, but they have a decision to make, too. They must either save themselves or continue to commit slow suicide. I choose not to watch.

Some casualties of war never recover, locked in nightmares and flashbacks of horrors beyond imagining. Some casualties of war make it halfway back and some make it all the way back only to give their lives and their resources over to greedy exploiters who never lost the taste for war while they consume all the resources and energy around them in every way possible. We need to learn to live with peace and find the strength inside us to cut off the resources and energy to the greedy hordes -- or even to one single greedy person bent on exploitation -- or they will destroy us all and there will be no one left standing to mourn the lost and dead.

That is all. Disperse.

Mud slinging before breakfast

It's too early in the morning for political mud slinging, but it arrived in my email box from a very good friend so I looked. Jeez, will these people ever get down to basics and business and leave the mud slinging out of it? Probably not. It's politics we're talking about. All this hullabaloo over whether or not Barack Obama is or is not a Muslim and whether or not he holds his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. My whole family are fundamentalist Christians, but I'm not and yet I went to church and was once very active as a Xian during my teens and early twenties. That does not change the fact that I am a pagan and that is what I will remain. Get over it, people. I don't put my hand over my heart during the singing of the National Anthem, but you'll find tears in my eyes and my pulse racing. Does that mean I don't respect the flag or the national anthem? No, it means I put my hand over my heart during the Pledge and stand at attention during the Anthem. I guess that means, according to the current mud slinging, that I am an enemy of the U.S. and like to go terrorist at the first opportunity -- or when I get into office. I knew when I read the part that Obama refused to take his oath of office on the Bible that they had mixed things up with Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison. These people do what they do best, seek to inflame public opinion with half truths and misdirection. It's like putting whipped or shaving cream around a dog's muzzle and beating him then shoving him out into the street and yelling, "Mad dog!" Yeah, I'd be mad, too.

What really interested me was that the email said they got their news from Snopes.com and that's where I went to check it out. Despite the standards of some journalists, I actually check out sources to be sure. I wonder how many of the people who forward that email will do the same thing -- probably very few judging from the long list of people who actually forwarded it to me. I think with Obama's diverse and multicultural background he will make a good president and I'd vote for him over Hillary in a hot New York second. We have had enough Clinton for the next two or three millennia and don't need Slick Willy and his co-dependent wife back in the White House for another term. Get real people. She is an option just because she's a woman? If that was the case, why didn't she run before and not Slick Willy?

My views on Hillary are based on years of research and ferreting out tidbits of news from the gossip, but they were fixed forever when I checked out a story about her following 9/11. Hillary was invited personally to a memorial service for several of the 9/11 victims. The first thing out of her mouth was whether or not there would be press at the memorial. When she was told there was no opportunity for a photo op she said she wouldn't be there either because it wouldn't boost her career. She needed to be seen mourning for her fellow Americans not actually mourning for them. To her, the aftermath of 9/11 was a chance to win points for her bid for the White House and nothing more. She is a political animal and her tears after the Massachusetts primary were crocodile tears. I don't believe she cares anything about America or Americans except where it can further her own political aims.

Let's face it. Men and women like those who fought for our freedom from tyranny over 200 years ago are not going to be voted into office because they lack the money or the political savvy to do the job. The presidency is a contest based on who has the most money, the best policy spinners and is the best at mud slinging. It's not about duty or honor or leading the country any more. It is more about power and being able to further a career of graft and privilege at the expense of the American taxpayers and gathering the proceeds of $200 a plate dinners where you talk about crap and BS and pander to the money men and political machine. It's a sin and a shame that leading the country has become a rest stop on the road to power, fame and riches instead of a position of honor.

That is all. Disperse.

We're off and running

Actually, this is all because of all the writing I submitted last year, but I received two notices just a few moments ago. One is an article for national magazine, a profile, and the other is yet another story bought by Cup of Comfort books. Colleen Sell added, "You did it again !!!" in the subject line. We're getting to know each other quite well. So that is three sales altogether and this is just the 7th day of January. I can live with that and just in time for Elvis Aron Presley's birthday if he was still alive (that's tomorrow).

That is all. Disperse.

Poison pens

I turned in early last night after wrestling with the keyboard on my laptop that suddenly decided it needed to be cleaned. I pried a few keys off but it took a lot longer to get them back on again. Good thing I have so much patience or I'd have thrown in the towel, gritted my teeth and took it in to be serviced AGAIN. Not going to happen. I'm not afraid of taking things apart -- or putting them back together.

Instead, I went to bed with the founding fathers and found them infinitely amusing and thought provoking. In recent years, they have all come under fire for their various mistakes and foibles, basically, for their humanity, and being a middle-aged or aged white man was not a good thing. Christopher Columbus, it was decided, was a thief and a pirate who destroyed civilizations as if on a whim in order to get gold and find a western route to the Orient. All of Western civilization's men of vision and adventure were, in short, nothing more than evil men greedy for gold and fame, so I found the book I'm reading to review, Virtue, Valor, & Vanity a delightful surprise in so many ways. Yes, the founding fathers were human and all too human when their vanity and pride were -- they felt -- under siege, but they were also intelligent, interesting and visionary men.



John Adams, Washington's vice president and eventually the second president of the U.S. under the new Constitution (Washington was not the first president, since there were a few before him under the Continental Congress and before the Constitution was ratified by all the colonies) was jealous of nearly all his colleagues, most especially with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, although he intensely disliked Alexander Hamilton, who Adams felt was a preening peacock bent on fame at any cost. Adams didn't like his politics either. Franklin was too lazy as far as Adams was concerned and altogether too interested in fame and vain to the highest degree. Adams served as Franklin's associate in France during and after the Revolutionary War when Franklin was Ambassador to France.

Franklin's rustic clothing, fur hat and easy manners made him the darling of the French people and he made friends and conquests wherever he went. The French, those weather vanes of fashion, gave up their gaudy show of fashion to copy Franklin's rustic style, even to the point of copying his fur hat. Women swooned and vied for Franklin's attention and the men were just as captivated. Adams saw Franklin as a know-it-all and exceedingly pretentious and envied him with a keen and bitter jealousy. Franklin, more than thirty years older than Adams, had done a great deal during his 70+ years for the colonists and in pursuit of knowledge. Adams, by comparison, was prissy and jealous of everyone, hiding his contempt and anger in his journals and in letters to friends.

Adams and Thomas Jefferson had been very close friends until they clashed over politics during Adams's tenure as VP when Jefferson was Secretary of State. He considered Jefferson a threat to his position and a political enemy since Jefferson was a Republican and Adams a Federalist. Adams envied Jefferson's abilities and fame and railed against him whenever and wherever he had a chance, even to the point of blackening Jefferson's professional reputation in fit after fit of pique. Jefferson considered Adams's jealousies not at all and left Adams to himself, but Adams would not let the enmity die, carrying his jealousy nearly to his grave. He finally gave in and sent Jefferson a note wishing him a happy New Year and Jefferson, delighted to have his friend back, responded effusively, carrying on a correspondence with Adams until Adams's death.

Adams even envied Washington his fame and his figure, as he envied Jefferson's, because he was a short man by comparison. Standing next to such elegance and composure, he was eclipsed and felt as though he lived always in their shadows.He felt everything he did was tainted by association. Despite his bitterness and jealousies, Adams had a good mind and did a great deal for the furtherance of the American cause.

Reading the private thoughts and correspondence of men like the founding fathers, put me in mind of other more literary enmities and jealousies, some of which have spawned very creative tales and books, like Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter that he wrote because of his enmity with Dr. Wesselhoeft, a disagreement that included Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The annals of literary history are full of enmities of people who were once friends and more often than not came to literary blows based on jealousy, envy and betrayals, and then there are those who attacked their colleagues to protect their secrets, calling the ones who held their secrets liars and attempting to blacken their professional reputations in order not to be found out. Most often, their attacks were based on the feeling that because they were assisted by someone they perceived to be more talented or knowledgeable, they could not truly call their successes their own, that everything they did was tainted because they had not succeeded alone and could not enjoy their success. Their jealousy ate them alive until it poisoned nearly everything they did because they were not content to see things in a more realistic and honest light. The anger and desire to destroy their colleagues crept into everything they wrote. Some of these literary feuds remain as fascinating and humorous tales.

It is said there is none more dangerous than a woman scorned, but I think such a woman is far less dangerous than an intelligent and talented person full of spite, envy and jealousy in pursuit of fame.

That is all. Disperse.

Time to vote

It's that time of the year when the Preditors & Editors nominations become the talk of the Internet -- at least for the writing community. There are lots of articles, e-books, editors, authors and wannabes vying for their spot at the top of the writing food chain. Until Tuesday, January 5th, you have the opportunity to nominate and vote for your favorites. Forget about all the hype and people begging for your votes and vote for what you like. You might even discover some new venues where you can submit your work. P&E brings them all out in force. Take a minute or two over the next ten days and see what is out there, what you like, who you like and what's available. There's no such thing as too much information.

That is all. Disperse.

Hot start to a cold new year

I was getting ready to unglue my backside from the chair at my desk and get something for dinner -- probably homemade hummus and raw vegetables. Mmmmm I checked my email and got a wonderful surprise. Common Ties new category of personal stories, 20 questions accepted one of my answers. They shortened my answer, but I don't have a problem with that since it means they're paying me $3 a word -- or thereabouts. With a start like this to the year, everything's going to be golden.

I had given up on them accepting any of my answers (I sent a few) because it has been a few weeks. First lesson of the year: Never give up no matter what.

Now, go and write and enjoy yourself. That's what it's all about.

That is all. Disperse

Pure camp

It has been some time since I read all of Jane Austen's novels and watching Persuasion and The Jane Austen Book Club again reminded me how much I have missed reading the stories. It's not that the movies aren't good, but I miss the language and the full scope of Austen's vision. I find more and more that I miss language and the exercise of reality and fantasy while I lose myself in a good story -- or even a mediocre one. It's like coming home tonight from running errands and the landlady asking me if I've ever heard of the movie, Barbarella. Of course I have and it's one of my favorite very campy movies, right up there with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Flesh Gordon. Movies like that you can't find in a novel -- at least not that I've found, except for Motel of the Mysteries. Then again, one of the books I recently read and have yet to review borders on camp while maintaining the pretense of being a serious look at a historical personage with religious significance. Puts me in the mind of David Niven telling a cab driver who wanted Niven's honest opinion about his play about Abraham that he made Abraham sound like a butcher from Queens. Can a writer flout historical accuracy in order to make a point based on religious significance without pandering to accepted history or wounding religious cattle? Camp has its place but camp that pretends to be revelation of the inner working of ancient minds misses the point.

It's a fine line to walk, much like the tightrope that stretches between real friendship and sycophantic pandering.

That is all. Disperse.

I'm baaack!

And I'm rested but feeling the pinch of the coming weeks of work before I can take another day (or week) off. The snow was a beautiful sparkling expanse of endless white and the banks of the river edged with ice while the river rushed by in frothy spangled streamers of liquid light and dark. A stand of white pillared aspens naked in the pallid light marched off into the distance and I wandered among them swishing through the snow-covered drifts of seasons of leaves after a breakfast of fresh fruit and hot chocolate delivered to my door every morning. Another cabin stood nearby with a gravel walk that ended at the main house a half mile up the path and no one stopped by during my stay except to deliver breakfast and silently whisk the empty tray away while I walked.

It was difficult leaving but a growing sense of longing for the familiar confines of my own walls and books and furniture brought me back with a sigh of relief. The silence here is not as deep or as all pervasive but it's home and I'm comfortable here. I'll return to the cabin next year, maybe in late spring when the scents of warming earth and budding aspens are as intoxicating as the smoky smell of golden aspens quaking in a faint wind like Midas's coins, and will probably be just as glad to return home as I will be to arrive at the secluded cabin. There's nothing like travel to remind me of how much I enjoy being here among my things and sleeping in my bed where books lie beside me in tumbled disarray.

The silence was soothing and I luxuriated in a candlelit bathtub full of scented foam rising on wisps of steam with a mug of hot chocolate and a book or lying back in the warm waters while music swirled through the air to soothe and excite me in turns. It was a dream vacation that I will dream again and again, looking forward to the long nights and solitary walks as much as to the writing and reading without limits or restraint, often falling asleep with a book in my lap to awaken and pick up where I left off. There is so much to look forward to experiencing as though it is the first time and it will be a first each time.

That is all. Disperse.

Secret Santa

I was so anxious to begin writing this morning I turned on the wrong burner. Nothing like radicchio and micro greens in melted plastic for breakfast when all I really wanted was boiled eggs. The smoke and stench will clean in a week or two.

Santas past are on my mind, but especially the year I played Secret Santa for the vice-principal of Westmoor Junior High. For one week, I made, bought and creatively appropriated gifts for Mr. Spivey, but on the fifth day, the Friday before Xmas break, I was out of ideas. I had painted two pictures of English sailing ships for my mother: one in oils and one in watercolor and the watercolor painting looked the best, so I took it, wrapped it up and slipped it into Mr. Spivey's in box in the office. I also included a tag with my name on it, since that was the day we were to reveal ourselves as the Secret Santa. Mr. Spivey loved his gift. He had made ships in a bottle and loved sailing (I didn't know that) and he had the painting framed and hung it on his wall. Many years later (a couple decades or so) I was told it hung on his wall until he retired. But he isn't the only one who cherished that painting, so did Mom, and she has never let me forget that I gave her painting away. Reasoning with her that she had another one didn't cut any ice with her. She said it wasn't as good.

Well, I knew that, but didn't figure it would matter since she loves the paintings I didn't like. For instance, the large 3/4 length portrait in acrylics I did of Beanie. That's her favorite painting and she has decided that the painting will go to Beanie when she dies because she can't trust me not to burn it.

Still, the experience of being a Secret Santa was a lot of fun and I've enjoyed carrying on the tradition without ever revealing my identity. It's more fun to give a gift anonymously and let the person believe they are special if only for that day, and it doesn't have to remain solely a Yule province either. Throwing a Scrabble game to a game partner on New Year's Eve after they tried for a year to beat you isn't such a small thing to do and it makes them happy. Finding an inexpensive computer -- or putting one together from excess parts -- for someone who doesn't have one is a nice gift. After all, every writer should have access to the Internet if only for the research. A gift certificate for a manicure or massage for someone who needs a little pampering or a food basket for a family who has had a rough year are also nice. Or simply giving a few months of pictures, extra storage space or a paid LiveJournal account are also gifts, and don't forget to check out the virtual gifts.

At a time of year when the days are so short and the nights so dark and long and cold, a little anonymous cheer is a great way to help someone feel special, and it works the same for the other eleven months of the year.

So much of the time we think about all the experiences and people who have scarred us for life, the ones who broke our hearts and betrayed our faith. I prefer to remember the people who, in their blundering and insensitivity, also did me a favor. I can think of quite a few. I think of it as the silver lining to every dark cloud, even though I love dark clouds because they bring rain and snow and cool breezes on blistering summer days.

That is all. Disperse.

Telling tales

A stranger who obviously read my post about Imelda and her clueless husband sent me a link and I followed it to The Story of Stuff. It's not another version of George Carlin's A Place for My Stuff, but the story of a linear system. If you're not interested in the environmental side of the story, skip down to the Consumption tab and start from there. The video takes 20 minutes but it's definitely worth the time to get a good look at what American consumers are doing to the environment, the world and themselves. Don't worry. It's not one of those boring, Green Peace videos. One thing is certain, the stranger who sent it obviously got the message. Nice to know someone reads my posts from time to time.



Tomorrow is the winter solstice and my nephew Cody's 17th birthday. He's Beanie's baby. He's also a regular teenager who's doing all the things most teenagers who collected edged weapons, love fantasy and wear black and long nearly white blond hair do. I wish I could be there to give him a big hug and celebrate his birthday but I'm leaving on Saturday for mountain solitude for ten days. I met someone who wants to help me celebrate Solstice so I said yes and we're getting together to do the Yule holiday up right. Looks like this is the beginning of a really great friendship.

I also decided to send out thank you cards to all the people who contributed articles to the ham club newsletter. It was a last minute thought and my hope is that they will feel better about contributing next year and for however long I decide to keep editing the newsletter. Nothing like a little timely holiday graft. It goes along with the email I received from a major national magazine interested in publishing one of my articles. Hitting the big time is always a great present no matter what time of the year it lands in my lap.

This holiday season has been hard for my family because of Dad's death earlier this year and they don't seem to be able to muster up the energy or the enthusiasm to celebrate the way they did when Dad was alive. Dad would hate it that they're missing the holidays he loved so much, but they all have to grieve their own way. I miss Dad, too, but I don't feel like he's gone. I feel him close to me most of the time like he's been freed from the limitations of his body and can be wherever he's needed and wanted most, like earlier this week when I opened an email from a plant nursery.

The ad offered free upgrades to expedited delivery and discounts on holiday gifts. The magnolia was beautiful with its glossy black leave and creamy ivory petals so I clicked and followed the link. Magnolias, decorated miniature live Xmas trees, holly bushes and a gorgeous Xmas cactus that took me back thirty years.

Dad had just bought a Xmas cactus with beautiful yellow blooms. Eddie, my middle son, was about three years old and he wanted to give me pretty flowers for Xmas, so he plucked all the blooms off Dad's cactus. Dad caught him and went ballistic. Dad was even tempered and calm most of the time, but messing with his plants was grounds for slow torture and a long, painful death. Dad was afraid the cactus would never bloom again and I don't think he ever forgave Eddie. Two years went by and the cactus didn't bloom but Dad never got rid of the cactus. Then, one year at Xmas, the cactus bloomed with gorgeous yellow flowers and it continues to bloom even though he is gone. All the plants he loved and tended and cared for are still alive and part of him lives on in every one of those plants and trees and tales like Eddie and Dad's Xmas cactus.

Dearth and death

I just received Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past in anticipation of nine days of peace, quiet and books, both read and written. For me, reading and writing go together and having no demands on my time and no technological intrusions, other than my laptop, is a long awaited mental retreat.

Proust arrived in a battered and retaped box from Amazon that UPS hadn't managed to destroy. The book was sealed in plastic on cardboard and rested safely within the bulging and opened box about to burst from its hastily applied cellophane tape reinforcement. I fondled the weighty book while reading about much lighter book technology, namely Kindle, also from Amazon (I do hope they protect it if it's going by UPS, especially since it costs $400). The debate from technogeeks, literary Luddites, and everyone in between has been interesting. The geeks decry it's price tag and antique (if anything from 1980 could be considered antique) functionality while the Luddites scream about the death of books and the sensory experience of knowing the heft, tactile sensation and intoxicating scent of dust and cloth and leather bindings embedded between pages that rustle when turned and are marked in the margins with notable quotes and passages. You can't have that with the Kindle. I haven't seen or held one but I do admire the concept of having hundreds of books available anywhere, any time just by touching a few buttons. I'm in the wait and see camp although I do understand and admire the Luddites' position on books while I cringe at the thought of tens of thousands of trees razed and made into books, although no one ever mentions how many trees it takes to made matches or toothpicks or toilet paper.

I want to go back to a time when rag pickers pulled discarded clothing from the streets and alleys and sold them to bookmakers to make the pages on which the classics (and not so classics) were written and survive intact and white as the day they were created instead of the crumbling, yellowed pages of paperbacks that eventually will succumb to the destructive power of the light and the noxious vapors from avid readers whose sticky and salty fingers eagerly turn the pages from chapter to chapter and so to the end. Even the printed word, depending on the quality of paper used, is temporary at best while the impact of the words remain in the mind long after the book is dust or landfill or wrapped around the detritus of life. Kindle may be onto something if it, as some believe, makes reading more accessible to those who prefer the cyberworld to the real world. Reading comprehension test scores, we are told, are declining in the schools and businesses are rife with ignorance. Good thing we have all these tests and measurements of literary ability nowadays so that we can decry the death of literacy publicly and flash the news around the world. Was it so different in the not so distant past?

While it seems the golden age of literature is behind us, I doubt there is that much difference. Children in rural communities went to one-room schoolhouses with the same children from their earliest days until they were released from winter imprisonment to work their families' fields. They could read the Bible and do sums but very few had the literary comprehension of a fifth grader in today's world of standardized tests and variable curricula. Yes, more people go to college today than in the past, but there are also more people in the world now than then. Businesses employed clerks (clarks in Olde England) who could add prodigious lines of sums and get them right every time, poring over crabbed lines of numbers while shivering at their elevated desks perched on tall stools reading by candlelight, but few of them wasted their precious light to read at home and lunch hours were unknown at the time. Some of the people went to lectures and symposiums, but they were either hungry for knowledge or wanted to seem fashionable in a world obsessed with class, caste and fashion. The centuries before the nineteenth were even more ignorant. Most people had a rudimentary education at best and only the middle classes could afford tutors for their children. More people read, but probably with average or below comprehension. And yet, the book did not die.

For the first time in known history, there are more literate people in the world. Being literate doesn't mean always comprehending what is read, but for the first time in millennia the written word is available to more people. No longer is literature the sole province of religion and money; anyone can learn and everyone can own a book or pick one up at a library. Kindle is, at this point, not the printing press that freed the written word from painstaking copyists in monasteries nor is it the first working and affordable home computer, but it is the first reading machine that is easy on the eyes if not on the pocketbook. It is doubtful Kindle is saving the written word and books from death or the world from a dearth of literary comprehension, but it is at least a stab in the right direction.

People who want to read will find a way, whether that means saving money to cruise the local second-hand bookstore or buying leather bound books with gilt edges from a company that sells the classics, new and old. It isn't technology that has degraded literary comprehension or hastened the death of books, but it may be technology that makes books more accessible to those who prefer technology to lugging around their own hefty copy of Proust to read at bus stops, restaurants and breaks at work, or just in bed or on the sofa. Granted, the Kindle's hefty price is a strike against it, but the iPod and MP3 players that made it possible to download and create personal musical mixes once cost quite a bit and they're more affordable now. Give Amazon time to build up its literary database, clean up the clunky look, add color and bring down the price and Kindles may start popping up at restaurants and bus stops more and more, but whatever happens the book and reading will never die.

We may end up in an Outer Limits world where books are data easily accessed by a world-wide networked brain implant but there remain a few hardy souls visiting ghostly libraries to run their fingers lovingly along the edge of pages as they turn them and lose themselves in worlds and realms of fantasy and time among the printed word. When you get right down to it, knowledge comes in many forms and books are just one more form, a form I heartily endorse and enjoy. As long as there are people to tell the stories, they will find a way to pass them along because ultimately it's not the book that matters but the story.

That is all. Disperse.

Where Technology Takes Us

Hollywood has always been about illusion, the original dream factory, but somehow over the years people have become the illusion and Hollywood the fantasy everyone wants to make real. It has lost the quality of fantasy and blurred the lines between real and make believe. It's obvious when you look at the movie and TV stars who spend so much money and time on trainers, nutritionists and plastic surgery so they can take their fantasies into the real world. It's the story Rita Hayworth always told, that men went to bed with Gilda and woke up with her, confusing the fantasy with reality and unable to understand the difference.

In a world where fantasy is more real than reality comes Beowulf and we're back to fantasy again where talent is not forsaken in the face of cinematic beauty. That's the one thing that has been lost in the march to Hollywoodize the world, talent. That's not to say there aren't talented actors who look good (and sexy) naturally without plastic surgery, trainers and nutritionists or that there isn't value to treating your body well -- well, except for the plastic surgery -- but movies are all about fantasy.

The star of Beowulf is nowhere near the buff, gorgeous figure of Beowulf. Ray Winstone is overweight and paunchy and getting older. If Beowulf was a live action movie instead of computer generated, Winstone would not have been chosen to play the part, nor could he have done so without at least a year of intensive training and diet and a bit of plastic surgery. That's not to say he isn't talented, because he is, but Hollywood has finally found a way for talent to take center stage alongside real fantasy.

The movie isn't that good, but it's interesting because it remodels the actors' bodies into whatever the part requires (like Anthony Hopkins' huge paunch and bloated face) without the actors having to change their appearance. It is their talent that shines forth and not chameleon changes by knife. It doesn't matter that Winstone is 50 years old and Beowulf is in his early twenties. It works. Granted, the technique needs some refinement before it can take the place of real live actors, but it's getting there. Unlike Looker where models once perfected by plastic surgery were killed so their computer generated clones could take their places or The Stepford Wives where perfect robots made to order with the right bra size and figure killed their living templates, there is no need to walk blindly into the future Michael Crichton envisioned when technology replaces people. Technology can mold the physical without the use of plastic surgery or grueling training and starvation diets or Botox or any of the surface things actors do to fit the part and retain the spark of talent and genius that makes an actor worth watching. It can't be long before computer generated movies move into the realm where fantasy mimics reality without the need for fantasy to take over and supplant reality. Hollywood will have reclaimed the dream factory without sacrificing humans on the bloody altar in the name of money cloaked in the guise of art.

Bottom line? Actors can get old, can succumb to illness, gain a little weight and sport their wrinkles, stretch marks and saggy butts and knees without ending their professional lives and the dream factory can give them immortality, youth and beauty while borrowing their voice and acting talents without using them up and tossing them aside like old Kleenex. Somehow that seems like a much better and healthier world, although the gossip rags will suffer since no one will care about dimpled asses or deep wrinkles. Wouldn't that be a shame?

I'm a realist who knows that talent is not only contained in a plastic package and can be found in even the ugliest creature, as Stockard Channing illustrated in The Girl Most Likely To. Beauty isn't everything and when these plastic beauties die and their bones are dug up centuries from now by some curious archaeologist, their bones will tell a different tale than what was made from them when the actor was alive.

That is all. Disperse.

Hooked

When I discovered online bookstores like Amazon.com I was in heaven. Millions of books and all I had to do was sit at my computer and read and choose and buy, that is until I discovered the wish list and other online bookstores. I have dozens bookmarked and visit them regularly, some even send me emails about what's new and exciting and I am always hooked like a greedy catfish biting down on a chewy, misshapen dough ball hiding a double barbed hook.

The wish list is a safe way to save links to all the books I want; mine runs to several pages. I used to store them in the cart for later, but that list was getting too long and I can't search for just books or DVDs or whatever else I have put aside. You can't do that at the bookstore because they frown on you making piles of books and leaving them without paying. I would rather pay for them but that depends on my budget, especially nowadays since I became interested in buying actual food and cooking utensils to fill my empty cupboards. I figured that since I'll soon celebrate my third anniversary in this apartment -- a prodigious feat in itself -- I should begin filling the cabinets and freezer with something other than frozen dinners, which requires that I buy pots and pans and spatulas and all kinds of things to cook and serve the food. The wish list is no essential because it gives me a feeling of having access to the books I want to buy without feeling deprived and cutting into the food budget.

And now I'm going to have to fit bookcases into the budget somewhere since I can't leave all the books I now own in stacks on the floor or in boxes in the living room, bedroom and closets. I don't have that much closet space and it's time I established more than a squatting presence here now that the two-year curse has been lifted. In the past, books were more portable and didn't spoil as quickly as food and pots and pans and cooking utensils just seem sad without food and they have to be washed to be reused. Dried and fly-specked pots and dishes tend to smell up the trunk and draw vermin, not to mention how looking at them turns my stomach into a rumbling cement truck mixing gravel, sand and water just before it spits the brownish-gray slurry onto the ground. People tend to frown on dumping slurry on their shoes or all over their nice clean roads without a permit.

Nothing is more soothing or satisfying than spending hours perusing the descriptions and reviews of books that may or may not make it to the wish list and eventually to the shopping cart before they land on my front porch and all over my floors in serried ranks along the walls so they don't impede walking in the middle of the night when the lights are out. I would probably get more chores done if the books didn't call to me from their shelves and floor spaces to pick them up and dive into their pages for an hour or eight, but nothing and no one has been more faithful and more helpful than my books when I'm sad or depressed or just need to escape for a few hours at the end of a particularly grueling week of work. And they do like company. Nothing is sadder than a lone book on a shelf surrounding by knick knacks or pictures whose pages and spine are so stiff I'm sure they've never been handled, caressed and opened even once, not since they were exiled and left to stand alone and unloved simply because they looked good on the shelf and made people think the owner had taste. Sometimes a dish looks good but it tastes like cardboard sludge. Looks aren't everything and nothing is sadder than a brand new book without a little wear and tear up and down its edges or a crease or two along the spine to show it has been, like the velveteen rabbit, loved.

Winter at last

There's still snow on the ground and on the bare branches of all the trees. Smoke curls up from frosted roofs all over the neighborhood and cars whisper through the streets cutting dark pathways through the white. Winter finally arrived in a hushed whisper and I thought it would never get here. In this sheltered lee, we don't get much snow. While the areas around our little valley get pounded with drifting feet of snow, we get mere inches, but at least we finally got some inches that stayed around all weekend.

The apartment is cold and the space heater is running almost all the time, keeping the little green shoots in the sun room, otherwise known as my office, warm and comfy while they reach up through the dark, moist peat toward the sun streaming through the windows, and they are growing quickly now they've broken through the surface. I decided to plant a little herb garden so I'd have fresh herbs all the time and have anxiously watched for he first signs of life. I have not been disappointed.

Six little peat plugs with their green burdens remind me of the rows of clay pots and flats of seedlings that sat in the living room of the cabin in front of the deck windows during winter's cold that yielded all sorts of herbs and greens and pretty flowers now dried and in dark glass jars in the medicine cabinet of the bathroom. The chamomile is long gone, the honey scented blossoms still faintly perfuming the empty jar that remind me of fleeting summers when hummingbirds swarmed at my whistle in the morning to dip their darting tongues into the sugar water of their feeding station or perched on the picnic table on the deck where I ate my breakfast in golden dawns. In about a month, I'll begin to harvest some of the fresh herbs and the apartment will smell like spring and summer while outside the world is frosted in white. At least I know the seeds are still good and its time to get a planter or two and some soil to fill the sun room with chamomile and herbs and flowers growing in terra preta in the middle of winter.