Don't take it personally

Nothing like a steam bath when you're fully clothed and there's nowhere you can take off your clothes without the police getting involved. So much for public places, especially the back patio at Poor Richard's.

I got a surprise when I arrived for lunch. Nancy Jo and Cathryn were there. I hadn't seen them since the Gay Pride Parade and I'm glad the boys surprised me today with the extra company. I had planned to have a quick lunch with the boys and spend the rest of the day in the air conditioned comfort of Rico's Internet cafe sipping a fresh fruit smoothie (called a Liquado at Rico's) and letting my fingers do the racing over the keys and get more of the new novel done, and maybe even finish the editing on last year's novel. Best laid plans and all that stuff.

Over great salads and sandwiches, we plunged into the conversational abyss. We talked about philosophy and religion. I'd always heard that was like setting off an atomic bomb in a tropical paradise. Everyone will hate you for blocking out the sun and moving the white sand beaches into a smoking hole in the middle of a devastated coral atoll, killing all the fish and food for miles around. Good move, Fix. Not good. Cathryn took the conversation personally when we moved into a comparison of different religions outside of Christianity. Nancy Jo, also Christian, was more tolerant. Cathryn wasn't. She got very upset and went inside for a while. When she came back out, she was still so incensed she said she was leaving and asked Nancy Jo to choose where she wanted to be -- on the back patio with us or going with her. Nancy Jo, ever the diplomat, suddenly remembered she was late for a celebration.

Religion in the midst of a friendly conversation? Not a good idea without a flak jacket and a bomb shelter in the middle of an iron mountain.

The boys and I finally moved inside to Rico's, dripping with sweat and hot (not in a good way). We sipped. We talked. We laughed a lot. I didn't get much writing done -- at first. Bear looked at the novel I'm editing and suggested more drag queens and a lot more melodrama, but I nixed that idea. He did say that anything that kept his attention for five whole pages and made him wait for a cigarette was good. He's not a big reader.

After a while, they left for home and I stayed and wrote for another hour or so. I got a lot done, fleshed out a few more scenes, did a little pruning and even wrote some new scenes in between clarifying old ones. I won't end up on the Harlequin shelves, but then I never expected to be there. I'll end up somewhere between romance and mainstream with a hint if the literary and I might even make it past the mid list. Besides, I have a deadline to meet.

More writing tomorrow and a trip in the country with Nel and Michael should round out an otherwise fun and interesting weekend. No talk of religion, although it won't matter tomorrow. We're all pagans.

Friday night frights

Friday night and I'm watching Candyman. Reminds me of when I was growing up and watched Night Owl Theater or Theater of Blood on Friday nights. The movie isn't as frightening as I remember, but none of the movies were. The horror came later when the lights were out and everyone was sound asleep. Through the darkness a blowing curtain looked like a vampire's cape or the swirling darkness dancing with shadows out of which coalesced demons and murderers, a smoky void that seeped into my fertile imagination during sleep and became monsters that chased me away from the light and into grasping arms that folded me into their bloody embrace. Amber lights in the darkness leering between the wind tossed skeletal branches of malevolent trees that hinted at safety and once close enough to bask in their protective gaze turned baleful eyes that promised death or worse.

Those movies were seeds planted in the fertile ground of my imagination, seeds that grew into unspeakable horror. Even the lamest and campiest of films were but fodder for the horrors laying dormant within my mind ready to spring to slavering life to rend and tear my innocence and slash my security and feelings of safety to bloody ribbons.

As bad as Candyman is, it still has the power to awaken hidden horrors and disturb my sleep.

Guess I'll work tonight.

It just keeps getting better

Well, the ball is rolling down a very high hill and gaining speed on the situation with the doctor who refuses to release my mother's records without being paid. The Ohio Medical Board called her the day after I called them and today I received a phone call from her regular doctor who just retired last winter. She called to get a copy of the fax I sent to the greedy doctor and and the letter I sent to her old doctor. I realized that if I sent the letter to his office the post office would forward the mail to his new address, probably the only time the post office will work with me and not against me.

That brings me to the latest edition of anal retentive mailman. I schlepped to the post office again to pick up my packages from Amazon and authors who want me to review their books. This is the third time this week. It isn't that I have an aversion to going to the post office or walking but it's a hassle that isn't necessary.

I asked for the supervisor and was told she was in the other building and one of the mailmen gave me the phone number. I ran a couple of errands and came home, put out a package and some mail I forgot to take with me to the post office and called the mailman's supervisor. Well, I called the number and it rang about a hundred times over the course of three hours and no one answered. I decided to give it another shot and got -- gasp -- a real person. He told me the supervisor was back at the local post office but would return to the annex shortly. He'd give her my message.

In the meantime, the anal retentive mailman drove up and parked his truck. I gathered some plastic bags and a book for the landlady and raced down the stairs to catch him, a fist full of plastic bags and the book when I caught him on the porch. "No mail for you today," he said with a smile.

"I would like for you to leave my packages on the bench here on the porch from now on. I was told at the post office you could do that if I told you directly."

"Oh, no," he said. "You have to put it in writing."

Reining in the desire to bludgeon him with a fist full of plastic bags and a paperback British romance, I said, "I'll leave it in the mailbox tomorrow." After that I turned and walked back through the front door not realizing I had been holding my breath and gritting my teeth until the air exploded from my oxygen starved lungs when the landlady opened the door, holding tightly to Pastor's collar. She must have seen murder in my eyes because she said I thought it was a good idea to stay out of the way when I saw him on the porch. She knows about the difficulties I have had with the anal retentive mailman. I gave her the bags and the book and took a piece of banana bread one of her clients, Ranger Rick, made and gave her. Then I raced back up the stairs because my phone was ringing.

It was the mailman's supervisor. She was not helpful. At all. I explained the situation and that he told me he wouldn't leave my mail if I didn't show him ID and all she said was, after she checked the route, "Oh, he's very meticulous." That's one word for it. I explained again that I wanted my packages left on the bench on the front porch and that I understood about not leaving mail that requires my signature. I told her the anal retentive mailman said I could leave him a note and that I would leave it in the mailbox for him to pick up tomorrow. "Oh, you can't do that," she said.

What now? I wondered. Has the entire world gone crazy? I'm not some terrorist getting C4 in the mail or the tools and material to make an atomic device. I just want my mail.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Anything you put in your mailbox has to have a stamp on it."

I'm certain she heard the exasperation and the twanging of the taut and my last nerve about to break. "Is a typed letter good enough as long as it has my signature?"

"Just address it "To Whom It May Concern" and make sure to put a stamp on it." Then she hung up.

In all the years I have been getting mail I have never had this much trouble. I expect to have to go to the post office when I am not home to sign for a piece of mail or a package, but all this for packages none of the other mailmen, and there have been a lot of them over the past year since I live on a training route, had any qualms about leaving nor did they make me prove my identity. I notice he didn't ask my landlady for ID or Nel, but they don't get a lot of packages either. I'm surprised he's willing to leave my Netflix DVDs since he won't leave anything other than envelopes in the mailbox.

Is the heat getting to me or does this sound like bureaucracy gone crazy to anyone else?

Put to rest

That's what I should do with myself -- put myself to rest.

It has been a rough week. Not much work and working at all hours of the day and night. Makes it rough to get some sleep or even eat on any kind of normal schedule, but it's the slow period of the year when doctors are goofing off, playing golf, going on vacation, doing anything and everything but dictating their reports. That means little sleep for me and not enough work to make more than minimum quotas. Not a good time of year. Oh, the doctors will make up for it this fall and winter because the hospitals won't pay them until they catch up their reports. Feast or famine. Right now it's famine.

I'm tired and achy and feeling like the rough side the sandpaper. It could be worse. I could still be scrounging for work with one eye on the clock and the other on the program that brings work from New Jersey to my computer, hoping there will be enough to make quota.

I am not going to sit around here this weekend. I need to get outside in the fresh air and sunshine that has taunted me through the windows all week long with promises of rest and rejuvenation. This morning when the work ran out I climbed back into bed. The air was cool and I wrapped up in the sheet and the blanket for the first time in weeks. I fell asleep to the sound of rain drumming on the roof and whispering through the leaves and woke to glistening trees and leaves, the streets wet and cool beneath a cloud shrouded sun. As the sun climbed in the sky the dirty gray turned to a clear and bright Colorado blue. For once working wasn't torture with my hands so sweaty my fingers were sticking to the keyboard making too many mistakes and the air like breath from a dragon's maw.

Back to this weekend. I'm going to pack up my sketch book, pencils and laptop and go to Poor Richard's and have brunch in their Internet cafe. Then when I've had time to unwind and recuperate I'm going to get in the car with my backpack and some water and snacks and head for the hills. I need to walk in the mountains and breathe fresh air and walk down dusty, needle cushioned trails until I find a river or stream to have a late lunch and sketch what I find, but mostly I'm just going to enjoy being away from work and telephones and people for a few hours.

Maybe it's worth all the work to increase the craving and hunger for open spaces and unspoiled vistas that drives me from my comfortable and cluttered hermit's cave and back into nature. I do miss the quiet and solitude of the cabin but I don't miss not being able to find company and enjoy the excitement and diversity of the city.

No more

Mercury has been retrograde and it is more obvious today than it has been during the whole cycle. Thank goodness it goes direct on the 28th.

In addition to the situation with my mother's records, and while I was taking a nap after having worked all night and most of the day, the mailman who refused to give me my mail unless I showed him ID was back today. The landlady was downstairs and he rang the doorbell, which I keep unplugged because every doorbell rung within a two block radius sets off my doorbell, so unless I know someone is coming over it stays unplugged. He rang the door bell to give me my packages, more books from Amazon.com. Because I didn't answer the door he left receipts for me to take to the local post office to pick up my packages. It isn't as if I had to sign for the books but he wasn't going to leave them unless I took them from him. Now I have to schlep all the way to the post office tomorrow to pick up my books. I will also talk to the supervisor at that station and ask them to please inform this particular mailman that unless the packages he is to deliver specifically ask for a signature or are COD he is to leave them on the porch like all the other mailmen who came before him and will undoubtedly come after him.

As if that isn't enough, an Amazon.com purchase that was delivered was the wrong item. I contacted the seller and was told he would refund my money and to send the movie back. I wrote back and explained I would prefer to have the movie I order and which he advertised instead of the refund. He replied, I OFFERED A FULL REFUND AND YOU HAD TO GET ALL CRAPPY WITH ME.PLEASE KEEP YOUR MOVIE AS TO AMAZON RULES...NO REFUNDS AFTER 30 DAYS.THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND HAVE A NICE DAY.

His next email to me was:

BUYER RECEIVED MOVIE AS ORDERED.HE HAD 2ND THOUGHTS AFTER PURCHASING MOVIE.I OFFERED FULL REFUND,HE DID NOT WANT TO RETURN MOVIE.BUYER SHOULD ASK ANY QUESTIONS "BEFORE" BUYING MOVIE.I'M SORRY HIS MOMMY IS NOT HAPPY WITH HIM.OTHER THAN THIS "PERSON",i HAVE MAINTAINED 100% FEEDBACK & VERY PROUD OF MY SERVICE ON AMAZON.PLEASE ENJOY YOUR MOVIE!!

HAVE A NICE DAY.

It isn't as if I ask much: courtesy, professionalism, some sense of decency and intelligence. Evidently, I am asking too much. The seller, who is sgtkevin170, sells his wares on Amazon.com and they have been apprised of the situation and his responses, which I included in my email to them. I have also let sgtkevin170 know that I have contacted Amazon.com about the situation, sent them copies of his emails to me and that all I want is the movie I paid for that he advertised. In addition, he cannot count since it has been less than 30 days since I ordered the movie and didn't receive the movie until 10 days ago. I don't think that is too much to ask, but I am obviously wrong about that, too. So, now I am urging everyone who reads this to think twice if you buy anything on Amazon.com from this seller.

I am very tired of people who cannot do their jobs without acting like jerks or making things difficult when they need not be difficult. I am tired of greedy people whose only interest is in money and to whom customer service and Hippocratic oaths mean nothing. Unfortunately, I can't blame all this on Mercury retrograde because these people are like this all the time and it is only during this trying time of miscommunication that brings their nastier traits to the light.

That is all. Disperse. I certainly will.

Hot under the collar...

...and it isn't because of the weather.

I spent part of my day attempting to reason with an office worker in a physician's office and found the doctor obstinate. The short version of the story is that my mother has requested copies of her records numerous times from this doctor who bought out my mother's primary physician's practice (and files evidently) and refuses to release the records until my mother pays for them. You'd think it would be illegal to charge for medical records, and it is, but Ohio passed a revision to the Ohio medical code that states a physician may charge for copying a patient's records and lists caps on those charges.

My mother was a patient of the original doctor since 1969 and her medical history is complex and extensive, covering 36 years. According to Sharon, the new doctor's secretary, a ball park estimate for copying the chart is in excess of $100 and probably closer to $200. Not only that, but when I requested the doctor call me back when she returned from lunch and gave my phone number Sharon said the doctor would not call me back because it was a long distance call. I told Sharon to have the doctor reverse the charges.

After waiting a considerable amount of time (three hours) I called the doctor's office and asked for Sharon. When Sharon came to the phone she said she received my fax, containing my letter to the doctor, the letter from my mother's new doctor's office saying they were unable to obtain her records because of the charges and the signed consent to release her records, and had dictated a letter to be sent to me. In effect, the doctor still refuses to copy the records without being paid first but would be glad to talk to the new doctor and answer any specific questions he might have, despite the fact that she was not my mother's primary physician and knows nothing about the medical history. I suggested that since the original primary physician, from whom the doctor bought the practice, is now retired and since she was never my mother's doctor she should box the records up and send them to the new primary physician. That suggestion hit a steel wall at 100 mph. "By law we must keep all records for five years," Sharon said.

I did some more checking and Sharon is indeed wrong. There is no stated time limit for retaining old records and a retiring doctor may appoint a custodian for his patient's records. Considering the fact that the doctor has never treated my mother and is not her doctor, and since the original doctor may name a custodian, I wrote to the retiring doctor and suggested he make my mother's new doctor custodian of her medical records and request Sharon's boss box up my mother's files and send them to the new primary physician. Since I am not allowed to talk to the Sharon's boss directly (Yes, I asked) and since I cannot find a current address for the retiring doctor, I did the next best thing. I wrote a letter to the doctor, attached copies of my fax and the information I sent Sharon's boss and sent it to his old address. I'm sure the U. S. Post Office will be glad to forward his mail to him. It will take a little longer but I'm certain he will get the letter and the attachments. I also sent a copy to Sharon's boss in which I mentioned that I had contacted the Ohio Medical Board and the U. S. Dept of Health and filed complaints and that I have also contacted The Columbus Dispatch and been approved to write an article about what patients don't know about their rights and the costs doctors won't tell you about. In fact, the editor at the Dispatch was glad to hear from me and work with me once again. We do have a history.

I am perfectly willing to be reasonable and have offered several solutions, all of which have been met with immediately negative responses. I even called the doctor's Hippocratic oath into question and mentioned malpractice if something happens to my mother because she refused to release my mother's records without payment first.

When it gets right down to it I just do not understand what happened to people. This doctor, who makes far more than I do, won't call me because it would be long distance. She is more worried about the money and time involved in making medical records available to a patient who has asked for them and gone through the normal channels several times over the past few months (even going so far as to say she never received a signed consent for release of the records even though my mother signed one in their office and her doctor has sent several signed and dated consents over the past months) than in whatever misdiagnosis or lack of treatment a patient receives. How did we get to this point where money is more important than people and doctors can no longer be trusted to care for the people they got into medicine to help?

Any wonder why I'm hot under the collar?

Chilling

One of the great things about living here is the sense of community and even family that I have moved into. Neighbors talking together over the fence, sharing an impromptu barbecue, getting gifts of Russel Stover chocolates and doing favors for each other without any agenda other than being friends.

Our house is being painted and the colors the painters came up with are not the colors they are currently painting over. The colors are brighter and calmer and very nice. All this painting and plastering and making the outside of the house look good means taking some of the old things down and putting them back up again. Such was the case with the mailboxes out front. The painters put them back up in the correct order instead of the previous order. Problem is that now the weathered plastic sleeves and penciled labels look decrepit. I have a printer and ink and some photo card stock so I designed new labels for the mail boxes: a German Shepherd for the landlady, a tabby cat for Nel and a quill and ink pot for me. Our names are in bold Copperplate Gothic and the apartment number is directly beneath. The shiny new color labels go with the new paint job and I was glad to stretch my creative skills even just that little bit.

That is one of the lovely things about living here, the sense of family between Nel, the landlady and me. For instance, tonight I was outside sitting on the sidewalk outside the laundry room waiting for my clothes to wash and dry, the latest two loads anyway. The landlady asked me if I'd like to join her for sausages and grilled vegetable medley. How could I say no? We took turns watching the food on the grill and talked and laughed while she drank her glass of red wine and I drank my water (I have to work tonight). A neighbor brought over a one-pound box of Russell Stover chocolates and the landlady shared them with me, pressing me to take half of them with me, which I in turned shared with Nel and Michael (who used to live here).

When Nel picks up the mail before me, she brings it up, and vice versa. We share utensils, dishes, bowls and food back and forth but no one feels their privacy at risk. All three of us share a need for some privacy and the boundaries, as blurred as they seem to outsiders, are clear for all of us. The landlady will go on vacation and I keep Pastor for her, which is a wonderful treat for me. Nel watches my plants and checks my mail when I'm out of town and I do the same for her.

There is an open and friendly atmosphere in our neighborhood that extends outside this house and into the surrounding houses and streets, an atmosphere that is peaceful and calming when I've had a bad day or need to take a breath of air in the middle of the night. Here, I am safe and happy and our neighbors feel the same way. Whatever spirit or energy or luck led me here more than a year ago I thank. When I lived at the cabin in my solitude I needed to be there to regain my connection to the earth. Living here, I am regaining my connection to people -- and to ghosts. I can't forget George.

More good deeds punished

I cannot believe some people. You take the time to post a new market listing on a writing community that has seen little if any action for months and all you get are complaints. Complaints about the amateurishness of a paying market. Complaints about their editorial choices. Complaints about the code on their website.

My first reaction was to ask them when they (the complainers) had last posted any market at all and ask if they were disappointed by the amount of money or just that the publication was amateurish and needed editing. I changed my mind. Pearls before swine.

I deserve their complaints. I took the time to post a speculative fiction market that, granted, only pays 1/2 cent per word and that is a new market. What was I thinking?

Guess that will teach me.

I think I'll just quit while I'm ahead and go do laundry.

Seared

This morning the sky was a burnished blue enamel beneath a blazing brass sun. The cool air heated up quickly as the sun rose in a fiery ball above the horizon burning more and more of the cool away until the breezes were warm exhalations that did little to keep me cool. The blinds in the bedroom and bathroom shut out the light but the sun room is full of blazing yellow that touches off the sweating, panting flush of fire that radiates from me like a radioactive cloud. My hands sweat and my fingers stick to the keyboard so that I can barely type without an error even with my macros set and functional. I still have to type the right few keys to get the rest of the sentence or paragraph and I cannot seem to manage even that. My temper is short, frayed by the constant rasp of hot fitful breezes and the scratch and scrape of the painters as they prepare the house for painting. I want them gone. I want the windows open. I want to work without feeling like a goldfish in a glass bowl. I want...

The sky is grumbling, threatening rain but holding back the torrent. A momentary whisper of cool brushes my cheek or my arms, a cruel promise never fulfilled as the sun fires the cooling breeze. Lightning flickers and dies and the leaden sky with its mauve tints and cool cream colored underskirts near the horizon rolls ponderously over. A few spatters of rain drop through the leaves and disappear into the dry ground. Rain spits and spats and moves on, unable to make good on its promise, at least not here.

Even as I lie down on the bed in front of the fan perpetually moving hell through the breathless air, I cannot sleep or rest or find comfort. I keep reminding myself it could be worse as a few splashes of body temperature water dry on my fevered skin leaving a patch of cool quickly swallowed by summer's heat. I cannot concentrate. I cannot sit still. I cannot focus and work. I cannot ... move.

And the dog days haven't yet barked. Antarctica is looking really good right now.

Kudos

I know most of you aren't interested in ham radio or the projects some of us like to build, me included, but I thought you might get a kick out of the ingenuity of one of my friends. He backpacks (not as much as he used to but more and more as the itch desperately needs scratching) and he likes to take his radio rigs along and "play radio". He's really just a little boy who loves the magic and excitement of being able to talk to people all over the country and the world on a length of wire.

When you make your first QSO (contact) it's not like talking to someone on the telephone or emailing them. It's so very different and a lot more exciting, especially when the QSO is made on a rig you've built and a wire you've cut and strung in a tree or out a window. Then you know the magic and you're hooked.

At the board meeting on Monday night the treasurer talked about his first experience with a radio he built when he was a young boy. He climbed up on the roof of the barn to put up his homemade antenna. When he turned on his homemade radio he got a little static. He patiently and carefully turned the dials, holding his breath until he forgot to breathe, and through the crackle of static he heard a voice. As Jim talked about that first experience his eyes sparkled with excitement, still feeling the magic of that first voyage into the world on the air waves. Jim is well into his sixties and at that moment he looked like a little boy carefully clutching his rig and antenna as he climbed onto the roof of the barn. You wouldn't think he could still be so excited when he has a big antenna tower with a huge beam antenna on top in his back yard. I've seen it because last year I helped him and a bunch of the hams in the area bring down the tower to change out the rotor that moves the antenna around to just the right angle to talk to whomever he wants anywhere in the world, depending of course on atmospheric conditions, sun spot activity and a whole lot of other factors that affect radio waves. But I digress.

John finished his little rig some time yesterday and posted the pictures of his mini backpacking rig built into two Batman pencil tins. It is a thing of beauty and a work of art.















Yes, you can talk to people all over the country and the world on something as small as that. He's taking his rig out on the Colorado Trail soon with another friend and I hope Steve isn't bringing his goats this time. That's a story for another time.

Congratulations, John. I am so proud of you and so happy you finally finished your rig. It's beautiful.

Bad, sad and glad

The Gay Pride parade yesterday reminded me of a 4th of July tradition in Columbus, Ohio called the Doo Dah Parade. It's the anti-parade parade that celebrates the freedom and liberty to satirize anything and everything in as flamboyant a manner as possible. One year I marched in the Doo Dah Parade as a coloratura soprano with the Columbus Mime Opera. Photos do exist, as does a video tape, but they are all in storage in Ohio. I'm not certain my mother would know which box to paw through to find the evidence, but it's there.

As I was looking for links and current information on the Doo Dah Parade these days, I received an email that a local ham, George Lockhart, died yesterday morning. He was on my mind yesterday morning and I wondered if he had died. He did. Another interesting and generous person who gave of his time and talent and resources is gone, having lost his battle with cancer. He is another silent key (ham speak for ham who has died) I will write about in the newsletter, something that is becoming increasingly necessary for me to do.

But I have something to be thankful for. I received an email today that has solved all my problems and proved my mother right, as I'm sure she already knows. The clothes spilling out of the hamper, the things piled in my relationship corner and the lack of pink in my house are the reason I am still single. I thought it was just because the dysfunctional men who pass in and out of my life are in fact dysfunctional and unable to make a choice about the future or be sincere about having a relationship and all the time it was because my feng shui is out of whack. And it's so simple to fix. All I need to do is hang pictures and buy statues of couples, paint my bedroom pink and either keep the clothes in the hamper or do laundry more often and my perfect mate will walk into my life and stay. My tendencies toward clutter and leaving stacks of books in my relationship corner keeps me from letting my perfect mate know that the nest is feathered and ready for him to move in. Something is wrong with this picture.

First of all, in the avian world it is the male bird who most often builds and feathers the nest to attract a discerning female willing to mate and lay eggs. Somehow or other humans got it backward somewhere along the way. Could it have been during the sixties that the human male of the species stopped wanting or needing to provide a secure and cozy home to attract a suitable and willing female? Could this be due to equal rights? Don't get me wrong. I am all for equal rights: equal pay in the work place, equal treatment in the political arena, equal numbers of women running and occupying political offices and certainly equal sharing of household chores. I'm not, however, for feathering the connubial nest just to attract a mate. I'm past the mating age to begin with and I don't see how feathering my own nest and letting some lazy and opportunistic mate come in and take advantage is a good thing. Who needs a mate or a man if I can do it all for myself? I had the idea that two people coming together was to blend the best of both of them into a cohesive and productive whole that allowed them to share the burdens and the joys, but if I have to do it all myself I might just as well get BOB* out of the trunk of my car to keep me company.

The whole feng shui method of bringing a relationship into my life sounds an awful lot like geisha training. I can't let Bill and Bear know or they'll makeup rape me again and keep doing it until some lazy, hapless and most likely dysfunctional male oozes through the door and makes himself at home. I know someone else who will be laughing her tuchus off when she finds out the one color I refuse to use for decoration is the one color guaranteed to bring love into my life. I hate to tell you, but blush and bashful still look like Pepto-Bismol to me. Pink is watered down hot and sassy red. If red is passion and pink is watered down red... Well, who wants watered down passion? I can get that from BOB for free and I don't have to worry about clothes not properly placed in the hamper.

In order to prove this whole thing wrong, I am going to have to grit my teeth, close my eyes and give it a whirl, but I absolutely refuse to paint my bedrooms walls pink. Wonder if the gods and energies of feng shui will go for peach instead of pink?


*BOB = Battery Operated Boyfriend

No pain

The gay pride parade downtown was a hoot. It wasn't as big as the one in Denver, or so I've been told, but it was fun. They started and ended with DOB (dykes on bikes) and there was even a drag queen on stilts. I got a necklace thrown from one of the floats and made a friend when someone stopped and asked me if Poor Richard's sold Arizona teas. I said yes and handed him my spare. He thanked me a couple times and then came back after the parade and thanked me again. He was cute, sweet and a bit of a flame, but he was nice. We sat outside Poor Richard's for the parade and lunch and afterward went inside and sat in the shadier and cooler patio for a while. We sent inside in the back to soak up a little A/C but they asked us to leave because Otis was not allowed to be there. Otis is a near toothless Pekingese who is just as adorable as he can be. He's is Bill and Bear's son and he decided I was okay, begging to be picked up and lying at my feet whenever I was near. He has this one little bottom canine sticking up out of his mouth that makes him look like a furry redneck (and much cuter version of Dallas Dave).

Braving the heat, we all went down to Acacia Park. On the corner of Platte and Bijou a group of thumpers (bible thumpers) harassed everyone walking past. One guy was dressed as a monk and the rest were garden variety nosy Nells spewing hate and the message of damnation. Went well with the sky of brass and the breathless heat. The thumpers weren't just harassing gays, transsexuals and the people who accept and love them but Muslims, Buddhists and every other faith and religion but their own and they were very vocal about it. Bear looked at them, smiled and said, "Jesus loves everyone." They responded with, "Jesus doesn't love you and God will see you in hell." I thought Satan would be the one greeting sinners in hell, but I guess I was wrong. Bill argued with them and the rest of our group didn't even see them. I was later told it's a mind trick that helps you walk past a manure pile without seeing or smelling it.

Colorado Springs' finest were stationed at all the corners around the park and manned the barricades as we walked past them and into the park. Acacia Park was a seething sea of people, color, sights, delicious scents and music. Everything from leather and chains to frillier concoctions waving in the hot fitful breeze decorated booths and people. Goths tattooed and wearing black clothes and easter egg hair color in everything from rigid spikes and multicolored wisps and feathers walked side by side, and sometimes hand in hand, with Rocky Horror doubles and rainbow clad run of the mill people. Lesbians of every persuasion, drag queens, trannies, Native Americans, gay men, straight men and women and families with children talked, laughed, smiled, ate, drank and enjoyed themselves. The atmosphere was pure Mardi Gras without the Hurricanes and 500 flavors of Daiquiris. Music thumped and swirled in eddies on quixotic furnace breezes under a sky of pure Colorado blue burnished by a blazing sun. Food and drink, laughter and excitement, happiness, and acceptance wrapped us all.

Bill and Bear towed me from booth to booth looking for a booth with the tools and pigments for another makeup rape but that didn't last long. We stopped at the Stonewall Democrats booth and when I looked for them after talking with a knowledge and passionate young man about politics they had disappeared. I later found out they were drawn by the irresistible lure of hand fans decorated with Joan Crawford's Mommy Dearest best. I found a seat near the stage and watch several acts and a rainbow of people from every walk and situation in society. The air was an intoxicating mix of the heady scents of food, exotic and familiar, and sound. From hip hop and ballads to Rocky Horror and Native American dancers jingling with bells, every musical persuasion was represented. A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll and a whole lot of shakin' and fun going on.

As things wound down, Bill and Bear appeared from the west side of the park through a sea of faces, Otis trotting dutifully alongside, and laughing and talking with a woman. Her name is Pru, short for Prudence, and she was originally from Vermont before coming to Colorado. Pru follows the Red, or Native American, path and she is a serious minded and fascinating woman. We headed back toward Poor Richard's for drinks (water for me this time and lots of it) and conversation in the patio. Bill came through a little later after a trip inside for refills with news that the oh, so elusive Cathryn and Nancy Jo, an elegant, graceful and true Southern Belle of the Old South, were out front and wanted us to join them. It was cooler out there and shadier so Nancy Jo's alabaster skin wouldn't be assaulted quite so viciously by the hot ogling glare of the sun. We joined them.

It was interesting to watch the group come together. Eddies and swirls of conversation rose and fell around the three tables with pushed closer until the conversational tides carried us to two separate tide pools. Nancy Jo, Bear and Pru were discussing fashion and clothes (had to be since I definitely heard the word "shoulder pads") and it turned out I wasn't far wrong. They were discussing younger days and drag fashions and experiences. The other tide pool was awash in talk of science fiction, cars, edged weapons, old movies and science fiction television shows. Turns out Cathryn and I have a whole lot in common, which resulted in our spread out group becoming two groups of three when she joined Bill and me to discuss our passions. We nearly talked the sun down and finally headed toward home around 8:30, the boys dropping me off at my place and ferrying Pru home before they took Otis and his traveling water dish back home to Grazie.

When I arrived home, the landlady was sitting on the porch with one of Elizabeth Young's books drinking a glass of beer and laughing out loud while Pastor lounged nearby. We chatted for a few moments and I took the stairs back to my cozy and still breathlessly warm home.

After hitting the bathroom and feeling lighter by a few pounds and a gallon or two of water and Arizona mandarin iced tea, I called my mother and told her where I'd been. (She worries when she doesn't hear from me frequently, thinking I've died or disappeared for good) After a short harangue from her about never accepting "those people" and how I was aiding and abetting their sinful choices by being friendly and tolerant, we agreed to disagree and said goodbye. At least she didn't hang up on me as she has done uncounted times in the past.

What amazes me most is that anyone can still be so close minded and prejudiced. Like I told Mom, I like people because of who they are, not because of whom they choose to love or what they do behind closed doors. It's none of my business what they do or with whom they do it. I can't hate a person without cause and being different and out of the Moral Majority Religious Right mainstream isn't a good enough reason. I saw people of every size, height, shape and color enjoying themselves and having a good time. I'm glad I was part of it.

But what I'm really glad about is that after all the walking and standing and being on my feet for the better part of nine hours, there was no pain. My legs didn't ache and my feet didn't feel like they were buried in white hot spikes and coals. This morning I expected to pay the price for my excessive exercise but when my feet hit the floor nary a winkle of ache or pain did I feel. I really need another pair of these Nike running shoes.

ADDENDUM:I forgot to mention that my arms are a little darker due to the sun and my face has a healthy pink glow. No, that doesn't mean I have a sunburn. However, it does mean my blue-grey eyes are more turquoise this morning. I also discovered that exercise does indeed help with the battlefield Mother Nature and Father Time have made out of my body and I feel surprisingly good. Of course, it could also just be that it's cooler today and I'm wearing fewer clothes despite the painters who are climbing their ladders and peering in my windows today.

That is all.

Zombie days

It's hot and about to get hotter and I'm going to venture out in an '88 candy apple red Mercury Cougar for the gay pride parade downtown but I'm still sitting here pondering what I've just done.

Editing.

A writer with a novella that needs to be edited contacted several editors, me among them, and asked for resumes and references, which I promptly sent. She returned with a test. She wanted each of us to edit the first chapter of her novella as a test of our abilities, deciding from that which one she was going to hire. My first response was, "No way!"

I provided her with enough information to make her choice, including quotes and emails from references. I didn't give her the whole list, but enough to make an informed decision. I wrote and told her that I would not submit to a test and if she wanted a sample I would consider one page an adequate test, and one I was reluctant to do. I am a professional and my time is valuable.

I evidently wasn't the only one who questioned her test because I received one page this morning and an introduction to who she is, none of which I need or want to know. Sound callous? Probably. But I don't really care how many children she has, how many organizations she belongs to or how many articles she has written. All I want to know is if she wants to work with me or not.

After reading the first page of her steamy novella, I wonder if her credentials would bear checking out. I don't know about her nonfiction but her fiction basically sucks. It is the worst kind of amateurish pseudo-romance style formula I have ever seen.

And her grammar isn't good either.

For the last hour I edited that first page, wrote out a summary of what she should be doing with her book and a whole list of questions based on what little I have seen. That was $55 of my time for a job that seems more like a cheap way to get her book edited for free -- and against my better judgment. However, it's Sunday and I'm feeling generous.

The feelings of generosity have worn off and I have given her my professional opinion. Now I need to find some clean clothes and get dressed for the parade. Good thing we're standing in front of Poor Richard's where there is food and water and blessed air conditioning.

Sounds of life

It is difficult for me to understand why people who are miserable choose to stay miserable when all they have to do is get up and leave. Many of my friends have been in loveless and even abusive marriages. I don't mean physical abuse. I'm talking about emotional and mental abuse. Their spouses treat them with contempt, often demanding to know where they are at all times and raising hell when they can't account for every single second of the time they're away from home. Their spouses are emotionally cold and verbally abusive. Sex is almost always an issue, either in not getting enough or being forced to have sex on a set schedule every week just to keep the peace. My friends and their spouses seldom talk as friends or even indifferent acquaintances, limiting their conversations to demands, bills, expectations, arguments, complaints and lists of chores. There is often a lack of touch, even so much as a hand on the shoulder or reaching for a helping hand. They live separate lives that just happen to take place within the same walls. They might as well be boarders in a rooming house or co-eds in a dorm the first week of the semester for all the contact and communication that takes place. So why do they stay?

It isn't always about the material things they would lose, although for some that is the most important consideration. It's about the background sounds of their lives that keeps them in the marital trenches, and the fear of what the future would hold for them.

This morning one friend and I talked about this. She has never lived on her own, going from her parents' home to a home with her new husband. Another friend lived on his own for about four years, but they were difficult years spent in a different state where he didn't know anyone. He doesn't make friends easily for all his friendliness and smiles and joking. Those years were miserable. He had just lost his high school girlfriend and was far from home. He moved back home for a few months and moved out again, eventually spending most of his adult life married.

As I talked with my friend this morning I realized that although I have lived alone for most of my adult life, I am not alone. It's probably why I often chose to live in an apartment instead of a house, although I have had a couple of houses. It's the sound of life.

When I moved into my first house alone I had trouble sleeping. It was too quiet. There were the usual sounds of appliances humming in the background, but there were no voices, no sounds of movement. It was quiet and I mean QUIET. I missed the sounds of people walking overhead, talking in the apartments on either side of me, and even arguing and partying. I had taken the sounds for granted because I was used to them and it took time to get used to the quiet, time for my hearing range to extend enough to pick up the sounds from the houses around me through open windows and back yards. As I noticed the sounds and allowed them to recede into the background I became comfortable with my surroundings and was able to sleep again.

I had the same problem when I moved to the cabin a few years ago. Not only was it really quiet but it was very dark, a dark so complete it was palpable. The background sounds that kept me from going mad were the sounds of nature: raccoons prowling, deer and elk moving through the woods and calling to each other, squirrels and pine martens running up and down tree trunks, woodpeckers tap-tap-tapping for insects, whirring hummingbirds, bird songs and rain and wind tip-toeing or clumping across the roof. I have no such problems here in my haunted converted Victorian apartment.

During the week at 4:30 AM I hear Nel in the bathroom getting ready for work, the front closet door sliding open and closed when she gets out her work shirts, the muted sound of the television or the stereo while she has her breakfast, the murmur of her voice when she talks to Miss Kittysocks and Iggy as she feeds them and the glass door sliding open and shut when she leaves for work. Downstairs at the same time, the landlady grinds coffee beans and soon the scent of French vanilla coffee rises and wafts through the open windows. Not long after, the landlady calls Pastor and they go for their morning walk, the remote control unlocking the car door when she leaves and locking the door when she returns. Then there is the sound of her clients coming and going all day mixed in with the sound of the neighborhood coming back to life after a night of silent sleep. Dogs bark, kids call to one another or laugh and argue in the streets. Cars whoosh past, garbage trucks clank and chew, aluminum cans bang and big rubber cans thump as they are emptied. Wind whistles and whispers and crows caw and chatter while squirrels chatter and race through the trees. These are the sounds of my life, sounds I hear every day that anchor me and remind me I'm home.

Even in the most dysfunctional and silent marriage there is sound of life. Whether you're working in the basement or your room or the home office and seldom speak to your spouse you aren't alone. Children have their own special orchestra of sounds and the simple passage of people through rooms, the clank and shuffle of daily chores and cooking, telephones ringing, televisions, radios, music and conversations barely heard and often ignored anchor you to your world.

I wonder if the fear of walking away from a long term relationship is so much about losing things or status or even an ingrained and well known habit but rather a fear of getting used to different sounds, the fear of not recognizing the background sounds of life that anchor and define us. Like Beethoven's discordant crashing crescendos and dissonant harmonies, even the most dysfunctional relationship has its own comforting sounds, the sounds of home.

The could engine

Remember that book about the engine that could? I read that story many times as a child of five and many more times to my boys and nephews when they were little. I graduated to Homer and Edgar Rice Burroughs at the age of six and left that little engine behind me. The lesson stuck. Walking for what seemed like days in freezing weather coming home from my piano lessons in the early dark of winter or from one side of Columbus to the other when my feet were screaming at me to stop, beg a few coins from passing strangers and get on one of the seeming thousands of buses driving past, I repeated that litany in my mind, "I think I can. I think I can. I know I can." Stubborn to the last.

That applied to so many things in my life where I found myself in the middle of something I didn't want to finish or really didn't want to do. I pushed on in spite of everything, feeling a sense of accomplishment when I completed whatever task I'd set myself. I also heard my mother's voice telling me how I never finished anything I started as I stitched the date and my initials on a complicated cross stitch piece, wrote the last word of a story or even put away the laundry, smiling at the knowledge that she was wrong about me.

I've found I do better with things when someone tells me I can't do something -- like making Extra six days after I began to study the material for an exam when I had only planned to take code to make General or writing a novel or keeping a journal. For more than fifteen years I have written in a journal, paper or computer or online, every single day/night. I have written enough to fill small libraries over the years and continue to write and I continue to feel like that little engine struggling up the hill -- until I hit the top and I'm flying down the other side oblivious to the struggle to get to the top of the hill in the first place. For me, starting is difficult. I procrastinate with all kinds of time stealers: chores, books, paying bills, working my regular job just another hour or two or another five jobs, watching a movie that has to get in the mail before 5, etc. Once I get going and struggle up that first ant hill, the one that feels like Mt. Evans in the midst of a long hard winter, and reach the top I fly down the other side, racing up Mt. Evans like it's an ant hill and coasting through the plains over the long hours as though they are mere seconds.

I will probably always find it difficult getting started on any project, or even going on a trip, procrastinating those first steps that lead to the journey and once on the journey oblivious to the rest of the world as I race along in a world of possibility and endless tasks that suddenly don't seem so interminable and are finished far too quickly.

Wheeze

The cooling rains ended last night and I have the ceiling fan in the living room and the little fan in the bedroom going, neither of which help alleviate those center of hell moments. Luckily, they last mere seconds instead of minutes, which is a good thing since I cannot remember to take the pills I bought to alleviate my symptoms. This day has not gone quite as expected and I am faced once again with customer service (what a dead language those words are) issues. With all the technology available you'd think someone would actually be able to fix a minor problem without costing me more time and wasting more of my time, but, alas, that is not to be. There is no service in customer service, just an archaic word from a much older and now forgotten time when people solved customer difficulties, thus giving them a job with something more to do than sitting on the arses and answering phone calls just to tell people they cannot help them. Sort of like a help desk run by no one.

I talked to my mother today and she was appalled to find out that her records are the property of her retired doctor and she must pay $27 a page to have her file copied and sent to her new doctor. Evidently, no one at that office ever bothered to read the HIPAA regulations or even consulted common sense. The files may be in the doctor's office but they are the property of the patient and as such are to be released to the patient when requested by the patient or by a referring doctor, as long as the bill is current and the proper paperwork has been signed and submitted. I am feeling a little hot and cranky and I offered to talk to the doctor's staff at his office. They were gone for the day. I'll get them tomorrow morning bright and early and I did leave a message, which they will either ignore or not get, depending on their Machiavellian machinations.

I was in a good mood despite the lack of cooling rain-washed breezes until I was faced with more garbage like this. I was even enjoying a discussion on books and inscriptions and autographs and how much I learn and get from the people on LJ whose journals I read. I was also promiscuously offering advice on gift giving and charity.

I like the idea of buying a second hand book that someone has loved and thought about, reread and written in, and even perhaps given as a gift to someone else, noting their gift by an inscription. That brought up the negative side: death, spurned gifts and gifts that were left when the relationship grew cold and died. I prefer to look on the brighter side of things. Whatever the reason for the book ending up in a second hand shop, it gives me the chance to share a moment with the previous owner (or buyer of the gift) like a time capsule of sentiment and thought. You learn so much about a person through writing in the margins and where the book opens on an often read and reread page or where they stopped when they put down the book.

This led to a discussion about giving a book to someone who cared so little about your inscribed gift they gave it to someone else or threw it in the trash or sold it at a second hand store. I asked whether the person was angry because they had been spurned and if their only intention in giving the book was to be recognized and thanked and, in a sense, enshrined.

Gifts are like charity, or should be like blind charity, giving a gift because you care about someone and want to show that but without expecting anything from them -- even a thank you. When you expect a gift in return or some gift of thanks and/or affection you diminish the gift and make it a trade. I'll give you a gift if you give me what I want -- attention, acceptance, acknowledgment, love, etc. (wasn't trying for alliteration, it just happened) Charity should be blind -- if given at all -- because when you put a name and a face to the gift you build expectations of being acknowledge and accepted and even thanked. If you don't get what you're expecting you end up angry and hurt and/or just plain sad and blame the person. Gifts are like love -- you love because you want to give someone something special, but you put limitations on love and on relationships when you expect -- and even demand -- reciprocity. If you truly love someone, it shouldn't matter whether or not they respond. The gift of love needs no acknowledgment. It simply exists for itself, for the sake of love.

I know. It sounds sappy and sentimental, but all too often we all build expectations in our minds when we offer a gift or charity or love about what we want in return. That's not a gift. That's an exchange of one thing for another. I give you love and you give me back love or I won't love you as much. Love then becomes a transaction instead of a gift. You are buying a response, a feeling, acknowledgment, acceptance, attention, etc. with your love. That's not love.

This is why I have such a problem with laying up treasures in heaven. It's a transaction. I agree to be a moral person and do what's right because I expect you (deity, god, goddess, etc.) to reward me with paradise. Giving money to a church is the same thing. When any entity supposedly doing good and asking for your donations to help with the work expects you to pay them for their job it becomes a decision of whether or not to employ them or loan them the money with the expectation of a return of some kind. You become an employer who is paying for a service (in this case placing a bug in god's ear on your behalf or buying a seat on the expressway to heaven) and that defeats the purpose.

When we learn to love with expectations, without the usual quid pro quo exchanges and disappointments, we will have truly evolved. When we can say we love someone and want their happiness even if it doesn't include us and mean it, then we will have truly evolved and we will find few angry, disappointed and hurt people in the world.

I'll shut up now.

What happened to us?

A friend told me about a dream. She said a man and woman were standing on either sides of a door and the door closed between them. When the man saw the door closing he ran to stop it but was too late. He hung onto the door knob and cried and begged for it to open and then the door knob disappeared and he really lost it. He said he wanted more time and that he felt lost and alone without her. He crumpled to the floor in front of the door and cried because he had waited too long, taken too much time. Each night the dream repeated. Sometimes he was quicker getting to the door than other times but inevitably the door shut and without a door knob he couldn't open it.

Then one night the dream changed. A box with a glass front appeared. On it was written "For Emergency Use". When the door closed that night, he broke the glass on the box and found hinges, screwdriver and what he needed to "fix" the door so it would open again. He said he wanted to talk and he asked, "What happened to us?" The door closed but he stuck his foot in the door and refused to let go, asking his questions over and over while the woman on the other side cried. He was more in control than on previous nights when he couldn't open the door with the door knob gone, but he was still distraught, unable to understand what had happened.

Since she told me that story I have wondered if he really didn't know what happened between them, how they lost what was once so precious to them. He obviously doesn't understand about how quickly time passes and how empty words are when the words aren't followed by meaningful action. If the man is like so many men -- and women -- I have know, the answer to his question is easy.

What happened to us? Fear.

Mercury days

Mercury is in retrograde again (moving backward through space) and the communication and relationship garbling I've seen over the past few days has been proof Mercury is definitely muddying signals. If you believe in the effect of the planets, stars and cosmic bodies on people, you're in for lots of communication issues until the 28th. So, if someone acts out of character or pushes your buttons, stop before you lash them with your words. You'll leave nothing but scorched earth that will be difficult to clear. Take a few seconds (count to ten if you must) and say nothing and walk away or simply give in. You can sort it all out later on.

Think of relationships like martial arts. When someone attacks you, by using their energy and strength, you can divert or direct their energy in such a way they end up on the ground instead of you, sometimes by stepping out of the way and letting their movement carry them past you or by guiding their energy away along their chosen path. Okay, so it's a lot of words but it does work. When people are angry and bent on lashing out at those around them you can engage them and get hurt, thus hurting them and your relationship, or you can let them rage on. It's like that child throwing a tantrum. The more energy you put into making them stop the more you fuel the tantrum and their need for attention. Best to ignore them until they figure out it's not working. Yes, I've said all this before.

For instance: I have come under attack in the ham radio club because the newsletter was not getting out in as timely a fashion as some people would like. The vice president of the group was the one complaining because I was too close to the edge on deadlines. The members had their issues in time for the meeting so they could vote on the board and club minutes, but it wasn't soon enough to suit the VP. I moved up the submission deadline and made sure the newsletter was emailed to the printer by the 1st of each month so it would be printed and put together in enough time for the VP to pick them up and mail them. Last week, because of the weekend and the July 4th holiday, the issue wasn't ready until the 5th. I called the VP on Monday, the 3rd, to let him know he could pick it up on Wednesday. My work schedule and other concerns got in the way and I didn't call until yesterday to make sure the issue had been mailed on time because the club meeting is tomorrow. I received and email telling me it went out on Friday, the 7th. I emailed back and asked if the newsletter had been picked up on the 5th or not, thinking somewhere along the line there was a problem. I didn't get a response back and I was getting angry.

I called the printer and he said it was picked up on Wednesday, so why didn't it get out until Friday? I didn't get an answer from the VP or his wife and I was getting angrier and angrier because of how they had griped at me behind my back in board meetings about deadlines. I wanted to lash out at the VP but not behind his back. I was going to go to the board meeting and do it to his face. How dare he!? I emailed Les to see when he got the labels and postage to the VP in case that's where the chain broke. They had the labels and postage on Monday, the 3rd. Boy, was I going to hand him his head on a plate. That's when I finally received an answer to my question. The VP wrote that between kids and other commitments the newsletter didn't get out until Friday. I had him now. Personal commitments or excuses didn't cut it for me, so they were definitely not going to cut it for him. He was going to be toast at the board meeting.

Then I stopped and thought about what I was doing. I was angry and I wanted to lash out at someone who had lashed out at me (rather they sniped and did quite a bit of back biting). What would it serve for me to pay him in kind? The newsletter got out in enough time for the members to read the issue and the minutes and be ready to vote on them tomorrow. That's all that matters. Next time I need to keep a closer eye on things and if I get my way the club will no longer use a printer but buy a tabloid printer and supplies and I will put the newsletter together here and get it in the mail without having to rely on anyone else. I might not get my wish, but I have learned something -- stuff happens. As long as the job is done and done right, it shouldn't matter if it's a little close to the deadline.

Sometimes close is a little too close. A friend of mine was in a car accident and that has occupied my mind and some of my time. Luckily, they are going to be all right but their car is going to need to be fixed. Now there are insurance issues and fault issues and transportation issues and all kinds of issues needing attention, which means more anger brewing if things don't work right or quickly enough.

Yes, folks, it's going to be a bumpy night -- probably a few bumpy nights before the 28th. Keep the A/C turned up and pointed in your direction.

That is all. Disperse.

Deliberate misunderstanding

How many times do we all deliberately misunderstand what someone has said, wanting to start an argument or a fight in order to safely vent our spleens?

When I lived in New Orleans for a brief time I lived with someone. His nickname was Cap, short for captain. He was a pushboat captain and I met him in the French Quarter when he was pushing a hot dog and getting what work he could since pushboat jobs were few and far between. I had an apartment in Gretna at the time and he lived with me. Many times he would come home angry and upset and start a fight with me. I knew enough of his habits and cycles that I knew not to get caught up in his need to vent. Of course, me sitting calmly on the couch while he stomped up and down waving his arms and shouting and answering him in quiet but neutral tones didn't help his mood at all. My calm fueled his rage until he finally stormed off in a huff.

Growing up, my mother's favorite pastime, or so it seemed to me, was arguing with me. She knew exactly what buttons to push and how to goad me into exchanging verbal blows until I was in tears and she ready to whip me. When I was older and married and living clear across the country she called me on the phone just to start an argument. That was in the old days when calling long distance was not even close to affordable. My mother's favorite tactic was starting an argument, get me going and then hang up when I had the upper hand. She did the same thing when I lived close by and the phone call was free. It was as if she needed to stir up my emotions for some need or reason of her own.

I have learned not to rise to the bait. It took me many years and I still sometimes slip but most of the time I remain calm and neutral and refuse to engage. Today was one of those days.

Every once in a while a friend, determined to be angry and vent their spleen at me because it's safe and they know my love and care for them will prevent me from walking away, takes a verbal/emotional poke at me. It's easy to remain calm and reasonable in the face of such anger -- even when the anger comes by email. I readily take responsibility for what may have seemed unclear to them but they seldom respond with sweet, calm reason. I know at such times they are going through some difficulties of their own that have nothing to do with me and I happen to be a convenient target -- the old "hurt the one you love" scenario. They don't know I understand their attach isn't personal, just convenient. Instead of facing their emotions and their anger and dealing with the reason(s) or person(s) at the root causing their need to be angry and vent they vent where and when they feel it is safe. In this case, with me. I would explain this to them if they were in a sane frame of mind and willing and able to listen and understand but that is a remote possibility. The only safe course of action is to recognize what is happening, if not why, and give them time and distance to cool off.

I know from personal experience that when I go to the calm and neutral place in the face of anger and personal attacks it seems disingenuous and almost as if I don't take the person or the situation seriously. I have even on occasion been called a martyr for such actions. That isn't the case. It's simply having learned the lesson that nothing is solved or resolved when people emotions are in the red and it's a waste of energy to discuss anything at that point. I'm no martyr but I am a student of human nature and their subtle but equally loud and clear nonverbal signals. I learned my lesson from a book called The Celestine Prophecy, which is now a movie. I have written and talked about the scene before that helped me understand what happens when people argue.

The narrator is walking down a path in a forest in South America when he hears and sees two people arguing. He sees them each sprouting flames from their heads (not real flames but psychic flames) that shift from person to person as they argue. As each person gains control of the argument the flames bend towards them and feed them, a sort of energy transfer. I realized at that moment that's what happened when I argued with my mother; she was being energized and feeding off my emotions. The same is true of anyone involved in an argument. Someone is being energized by the strong emotions being generated and that is why some people look for contention or cause arguments and emotional upheavals. Do it long and often enough and you have created a ready made source of psychic fuel for your system. People can and do become addicted to this kind of energy exchange. Some people actually use the energy to control others, especially people close to them, either physically or emotionally close. It is abusive -- emotionally and mentally abusive.

Today's situation was not meant as abuse. It was more like a child throwing a tantrum. There are two ways of dealing with someone having a tantrum. You can either fuel their need for attention or you can ignore them. Of the two, the latter works 100% of the time. As much as I care about my friend, I realize they are going through a difficult period and I am a safe target. Unfortunately for them I intend to ignore their temper tantrum and give them time to cool off and gain some perspective. Hopefully, they will realize what they are doing and face the root of their problem instead of aiming at a safer target. Maybe some day they'll get it.

Slips, drips and missed messages

I took a break to get something to eat and ended up with half of it all over the front of my nightgown and the sink and the floor, leaving me the pleasant task of cleaning up the spills, drips and clots of pureed berries, chocolate and coconut milk, all of which I fully expected to enjoy inside instead of outside. Oh, well, I planned to clean the kitchen anyway and at least part of the floor in front of the sink is clean. It's a start. Since I was en dishabille, more so than usual, I decided to get me cleaned up and put on some clothes. That led to a trip downstairs to check the mail and retrieve two boxes delivered by Fed Ex and UPS and a belated message from godaddy.com to renew my domain name, which I did week before last. Guess their computer didn't get the notice that I'm paid up for three years; it's more likely they want me to buy server time with them and get my magazine up and running. I have other things in mind, like contacting one of my errant children.

Yesterday I was told something I suspected but didn't want to believe, my oldest son was still using drugs, which explains why he didn't have enough money to go see his father in South Carolina when he had two heart attacks last fall. I didn't know the full extent of the problem until yesterday. I found out my nephew was sentenced to four years in the same prison David Scott lived in for several years and for the same thing as my son: breaking and entering. My nephew added a new wrinkle to David Scott's crime with aggravated burglary; the people were home at the time he broke in and stole from them. All because of drugs. My sister Carol is devastated and wonders what she did to deserve this happening to her son. She doesn't realize it's not about her, but she will take center stage no matter what.

So far my brother's kids have avoided the drug problem, but Beanie's boys have dabbled in a little herbal refreshment from time to time and her youngest, Cody, has a drinking problem. He obviously inherited the genetic predisposition from his father and from the May and Hanner sides of our family. There were several alcoholics on that side of the family, all of whom are now dead. Like Beanie said, at least Cody isn't cutting himself any more. She is worried Cody will follow his cousins, David Scott and Clint, down the road to drugs and prison, which is not only likely but quite possible. Maybe she will help Cody dodge the bullet and get some help now while he's still young and not too far down the road.

Ultimately, it is up to Cody, just as it was up to Clint and David Scott, to choose for themselves, regardless of how much they are loved and taught. It's something inside of them and not the fault of the way they were raised, although that is definitely a factor. David Scott spent many of his formative years with his father and stepmother, both of whom drink and have problems with alcohol. David Scott also spent time with me but neither alcohol nor drugs were a part of our household and David Scott was held accountable for his actions and his whereabouts. He acted in school plays, sang in the choir, ran track and got pretty good grades while he lived with me, but even if he had lived with me most of his life I don't think he would have chosen a different path. There was something inside of him that followed the call of alcohol and drugs like the mice of Hamelin following the Pied Piper. Each of us hears a different siren's call and some of us end up on the rocks.

I called my ex-husband and talked to his wife, Brenda, wanting to know where I could reach David Scott. He's living with them now and not with his brother AJ, working construction and going to church -- or at least he was going to church last night. I left a message for him: Clint was just sentenced to four years in Orient and I know about the motel room. He didn't return my call and now the phone isn't working. No big surprise there.

I really didn't expect David Scott to call me back, just like I didn't expect him to pay me back when he "borrowed" the money for a bus ticket to go see his father in the hospital last fall. At least now I know what all the delays were about. He and Clint were holed up in a motel room (and not at Clint's sister Shanna's condo as I had been told) using and selling drugs. David Scott was working for Clint and got the boot when David Scott used more than he sold. There were girls involved. That wasn't a surprise either. The money he said he was owed by Denny's in Youngstown, Ohio, where he worked training cooks and setting up new restaurants, he probably got and promptly spent on drugs. He couldn't get the money from my parents (they refused him) so he contacted me for the money, ostensibly to buy a bus ticket for South Carolina. I thwarted his scheme by buying the ticket online and calling him with the information on how to pick it up.

I'd be willing to bet he tried to cash in the ticket but found out I made that impossible for him, so he stalled for several days looking for ways to get around the system and get the money. It didn't work. When I told him he'd better be on the bus without any more delays on excuses by a certain time and date or I'd cancel the ticket, he knew he'd been had. He forgets that I am the only person, outside of Shanna and Clint who have done drugs with him, who knows who and what he really is and that I keep more than a couple steps ahead of him. His charm and lies don't work on me like they do on everyone else, especially my mother and father, but even they finally caught on. He's burned his bridges in Ohio and with me but I'm certain he hasn't burned his bridges in South Carolina yet or he wouldn't be living with his father.

I have to admit my son is bold as brass. When he called and asked me to help him buy a bus ticket to see his father, telling me his usual cock and bull story of having had his money robbed by friends while he slept, he had the chutzpah to tell me I owed him and to consider it his birthday present since his birthday was the following week. I know his birthday. I was there when he was born. I asked him if he knew when my birthday was and when I could expect a present or card or call from him. He didn't know when my birthday is and he gave the usual excuses of not knowing how to reach me. I reminded him we were talking at that moment and he knew how to get in touch with me to touch me for some money. He sputtered and stuttered and used his final resort tactic -- crying. I listened for about 15 seconds and then told him he was wasting his tears just like I would waste my time waiting for a birthday card or call or even a note or call on Mother's Day.

It sounds harsh and it is. He chose his life and chose not to include me. I am his mother but I am not his personal ATM. I told him, just as I told his brothers, that if he wanted anything from me he had to have a relationship with me. He would have to call or send a postcard on a regular basis, find out and remember my birthday, Mother's Day or just any old day if he wanted anything from me. If he chose to call me only when he wanted money, he could continue to stay away and not call, not write, not involve me in any aspect of his life. I have no guilt for the path I have chosen. I have always been here, always been available, and all my boys know how to get in touch with me when they want something -- like money. However, if they can't have a relationship with me when they don't want something other than getting to know me then they can forget they know me when they want money.

Everyone chooses their own life. It doesn't always work out like you plan. The trick is to accept your failures as well as your successes and keep going. I love my boys and I love my nephew Clint, and all my other nieces and nephews. That will never change. The paths they have chosen are theirs alone and the responsibility is theirs to accept what comes, good and bad. No matter what excuses they offer or where they would prefer to place the blame, neither their parents nor I am responsible for their lives or their choices. It's not about us; it's about them.

No matter what people do to us or how they misuse or mistreat us, what we do with our lives is ultimately up to us. My life has been interesting and difficult and rewarding at times and there was a time when I blamed my parents, specifically my mother, for what happened to me and then I realized that no one made me choose the path I walked; I did that all on my own, and I offer no apologies for what I cannot change. I feel no guilt for what I have done because I cannot change the past. I can only learn from it and move on, hopefully with a better understanding and clearer vision, just as I hope my children, my brother, my sisters, my parents, and my nieces and nephews will figure that out for themselves. Regret is a wasted emotion full of wasted energy and apologies ultimately mean nothing. People will forgive or forget or continue to blame others as long as they fail to learn that we cannot change anyone but ourselves. The best we can do is take what we can from life and give a little something back without regret, without guilt and without expecting anyone to make our lives better or worse. We already do a good enough job of that ourselves.