Hot cha cha

I have seen it all now.

While researching markets for my writing I read an essay about a 50-something mother of two children. Her bio at the end stated she had a lucrative business writing love letters. Aha! I said, I must google. I came up with The French Rabbit love letter generator. Because I am an extremely perverse person, I decided to follow the steps, tick the boxes, choose a stationery and came up with my own love letter. The names have been changed to protect the guilty, the guilty being me at this point.

Percolating in the back of my mind is an idea, a very perverse and mischievous idea. I have three websites on hold and I get paid in a few days. I could activate one of those websites and create my own love letter writing business. I have written a few love letters in my time, not all of them residing in the dusty and cobwebbed recesses of a box being stored back in Ohio along with all my paintings, cookware, favorite and rare books and clothes that would now look like potato sacks in slimming earth tones (the TV is probably still in my brother's possession, who didn't even have the decency to carry it to the car for me when I last wrenched it from his greedy and acquisitive paws). After all, freelancing is about finding a niche and filling it with flair and words -- lots of words -- and I can finally stop writing all those fake letters to Penthouse and Oui.

Come on. You guys didn't really think a pair of hot co-eds wearing nothing but bottle caps and Band-Aids on their taut, tanned, toned and Brazilian waxed bodies would really need you to warm up their lonely nights, did you?

See? I am a lot better than you thought. Love is just the romantic flip side of those Penthouse fantasies without the sex -- yet.

On the fly

I have VE sessions this morning and I just finished my usual breakfast (can't believe I didn't think of freezing the bananas before they went all brown and icky before this) and I have news. For three years my book reviews for Author Link have been reprinted at The Celebrity Cafe so I have a track record with them. Yesterday I got the bright idea to contact the editor-in-chief and see if they would be interested in me writing original book reviews for them. I also thought, since I was on the topic of hiring me, they might be interested in a weekly column. Long story short, I am now the newest staff book reviewer for the site, which averages 4.9 million hits a day and is frequently picked up by MSNBC, CNN and other news services (it is a news magazine), and I will be working on a new column. It isn't the one I pitched but a consumer targeted security column tied into current events and concerns. The editor-in-chief called me last night to discuss it and I now have another publication to add to my credentials and a much wider reader base. This should be interesting and a lot of fun. I haven't had a new column in over a year and I'm looking forward to the challenge. I might even be able to work in my ham radio credentials and interests to capture a little interest and do one for Marconi.

Anyway, I'm off to get dressed and get out of here to watch a bunch of guys wolf down donuts while we wait for amateur radio operator wannabes pore over their exams until it's my turn to grade and give them the good/bad news. Have a great Saturday.

That is all. Disperse.

Down and dirty

I don't know why I had a dream of waking up and finding my sofa, tables, lamps and television gone. I do know that what woke me up in the dream was someone knocking on the door and it turned out to be the thief. My panties and bras and clothes were hanging over the banister and onto the stairs, dripping silk, lace and polyester. He stood there with gloves on his hands and a sweet smile and when I asked him why he was taking my things and if he would bring them back he smiled and walked down the stairs and outside, leaving me devastated and crying, not over the loss of the things but the invasion of my privacy and my peace. I followed him outside and he got into some kind of huge SUV. I stood there waiting for him to drive away so I could get the license number. The front plate was gone and the back plate was crumpled and folded so that all I saw were the middle three letters/numbers: 3MB. Then I ran after them yelling, calling for the landlady and the neighbors to help me stop that thief. Jump forward to me back in my apartment surveying the wreck. I wondered why they didn't take the chaise or go into the bedroom where I lay sleeping while they took my things or why I didn't hear them. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I could help the police since each of the things they took was marked with my social security number and name in indelible ink that shows up under black light. I even had papers to prove I owned them. Finding them was just a matter of time.

At that moment of triumph nature screamed in my ear to wake up and take care of business.

I did.

It could be my worries that every time I settle down and settle into some kind of stability I end up having to move, thus keeping me mindful of never being too comfortable, but I don't think that's the case now. Maybe the dream's message will come clear in time and I will understand what I'm being told. All I know is that this is one time I don't want the dream to be prophetic -- as many of my real life dreams tend to be. I don't want to wake up and find my living room gone -- at least not until I finish painting and hanging art work.

Doctor Who predicts the future

On an alternate world in an alternate universe Doctor Who and Rose Tyler landed in a world where her father was alive and wildly successful, almost a household name/face, and in the sky above them were blimps. According to the latest news, you can own your own blimp and sail quietly over your neighbors' homes on your way to work. You can always dock in someone's garage.

It's cold this morning, but not winter cold, merely rain and breezy cold. Ever since my thermostat went wonky I have felt like the light switch some smart aleck kid keeps turning off and on to bug his parents, one minute hot and the next cold with very little time in between. I can go from needing two sweaters to keep warm to wanting to dive into an ice bath in the space between heartbeat and breath. Makes working interesting. One minute my fingers are blue from cold and the next they are sticking to keys because my hands are sweaty. Should be interesting this winter. I have, however, decided to stay inside despite the call snow banks exert on hot, sweaty, naked flesh and thus avoid tickets for indecent exposure, although I doubt the police would be able to find me amidst the clouds of steam caused by jumping naked into snow banks.

My mother told me about her passage through the Mother Nature versus Father Time battlefield. One winter during the siege she was driving down the street swathed in winter clothing (stockings, woolen pants, sweater vest over long sleeved blouse, heavy fur trimmed coat, etc.) when she stopped for a light, jumped out of the car and began ripping off her coat and sweater sweating as though her car were a steam bath. Throwing her clothes back into the car, she demurely got inside after rolling down the windows on the driver's side and drove away when the light changed to green. She said people looked at her as though she were insane. Having lived with her during this period of time I can tell you with the merest hesitation she was indeed insane. She was also evil incarnate during this period of time, evidenced by the fact she spoke in screams one moment and whispers the next and we, her long suffering children, never knew which one it would be. Of course, we didn't know which personality would emerge from one moment to the next or when we would be assaulted with belts and switches or drowned in a torrent of tears. It was a lot like living in the midst of an active mine field and no one has the map to guide us safely through and out of danger.

Considering how it was for my mother, I am very glad I only have to deal with that rotten kid playing with the switch.

And now it is time for me to get up and get a shower, get dressed and get to work. I have a maid to support now and he comes this morning. The only thing not La Cage Aux Folles about this situation is that I'm not a gay man living with another gay man over a nightclub that features drag queen acts, but nobody's perfect.

Wasted time

The other night I got a phone call from Mark, he of last year's November weekend visit. I haven't heard from him in six months but he has been busy with his new girlfriend. He told me the news that she wants a long term relationship and doesn't believe in sex before marriage even though she flew him to Dallas to be with her and jumped him five minutes after he got there. I'm not surprised. I told him she might say that it's all right to keep things light and easy and that she won't pressure him but deep down (and not so very deep in most cases) she wanted him to fall for her and want to marry her. To believe anything else is just plain naive. He didn't believe me. Six months later he tells me I was right. I didn't gloat. No need. I didn't win anything or do anything special, other than understanding women and passing that knowledge on. He didn't listen. Now he wants to come visit again and spend another weekend, or maybe a week, and help me build bookcases and a desk for my office. Good thing I have the sofa and chaise, huh? He can sleep out here this time.

I know men, too. Well, I know some men, the uncomplicated ones like Mark. He wants the same accommodations he had last year. Too bad I'm not interested. I like Mark and I enjoy his company and it's nice to know he's available if I want to avail myself of his time and energy, but I'm still not interested. At least I'd have someone to drive crazy during one of my hot flashes but even that's not good enough incentive.

I said I understand some men, and I do. There are, however, men I do not understand. I'm seeing one of them this weekend and it has taken me a very long time to figure him out. He's very much into denial. He denies his emotions and his needs and desires, and he denies anything that makes him feel good. I'm sure he is a little nervous about seeing me after two months, especially since our last major contact was less than genial, but he needn't worry. What's past is past. Neither of us could change what happened even if we wanted to, or had a time machine to take back what has been said. It doesn't really matter. I understand why he acted the way he did and I'm not about to waste precious time dredging it all up and making him explain when I already know what happened and why. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff. I want to enjoy our time together and see him smile again. I wonder if he will feel the same way or if he will be so apprehensive he will be unable to put the past and his fears about my reactions behind him. He should. I have.

I don't get angry very often and I never really learned how to stay so angry at someone I would ruin the good times by being vindictive and mean. Don't get me wrong. I could do it, but it would take an enormous amount of energy and time that could better be used enjoying each other's company. I don't need or want that kind of negativity in my life. If talking about what happened and why would make things better, it might be worth the effort, but it still wouldn't change anything. I don't get to see him often enough to want to ruin what little time I will get to spend with him by demanding answers.

People make mistakes and say or do things that might possibly be misconstrued and can lead to arguments or misunderstandings. When a lot of time has passed and friends are finally seeing each other for a few precious minutes or hours, is it really worth wasting the time to go over past events when you could be enjoying the time together? I don't think so. It's all part of living in the moment. Bottom line? I enjoy spending time with friends and I don't get to see some friends often enough, so I'd rather leave the past in the past and simply move forward. Some people will be left in the past, along with the drama and problems, and some people will always be a part of the present, and hopefully the future. He needn't worry about how I will act or what I'll say. He should know by now what that will be.

"Hi. How have you been?" and "I am glad to see you."

We can move on from there. Time and good friends are too precious to waste over things and words you cannot change or take back.

Sunshine companion

In the winter I wake when the sun rises, shining through the naked branches right through my bedroom and bathroom windows and into my eyes like a soft caress. If I burrow deeper into the covers, the winter sun comes and finds me, rooting me out of bed as effectively as a blaring alarm clock or a drill sergeant banging the metal rails of my bed. If I dropped the blinds and closed the slats I could sleep a little longer, but I'd rather watch the sun rise from its bloody overnight grave and flare to molten gold as it journeys up and overhead changing the quality of light and the colors of everything I see.

The mountains get the same treatment. They are a dark craggy mass against the night sky that flushes with returning blood as the sun crests the horizon, deep purple and then violet, shading lighter and lighter through blues and reds until the bare ocher face above the tree line and the pine needle green of the forests can clearly be seen. Even on misty gray days when the clouds hide the Colorado blue behind dirty, bunched cotton batting and the mountains are a shadow in the mist, I can still see the furry lines of the pine forests and the chiseled face of the mountain top. Each day is different but edged with the familiar, the sun my constant companion urging me up and out and into the daily stream without tentatively testing the water with a reluctant toe.

Today is another such day but the light cannot reach me through the leafy branches and so I wake later, sometimes sleeping peacefully until eight when the trees in their full green skirts can no longer shut out the sun's strong gaze. "I'm up. I'm up," I murmur as I move slowly about my morning rounds, joints popping and cracking until they find well oiled grooves and give up protesting. Sunlight glancing off the rain wet edges of the leaves sparkles and shimmers like joyful laughter. I'd rather be up and about and yet something inside me reminds me that sometimes its nice to lie in bed and enjoy the show in comfort, completely aware of the bright day chariot's passing touch instead of oblivious with my nose to the grindstone. "Some day. Some day," I say and jump into the stream.

I'm almost there

I received the memory card for my digital camera today. All I need now is batteries that last longer than 30 minutes and I'm going to take lots and lots of pictures. Think the store gave me used batteries? Hmmm.

Incorrect grammar could cost you millions

Browsing through my friends list when I should be working just paid off and proved what I've said all along, grammar matters.

That is all. Disperse.

Green bananas

Mom says she likes her bananas green; I cannot imagine why. I usually buy a bunch of green bananas every few days and they ripen quickly to brown on the outside and sweet and creamy on the inside. The bananas I bought last week are still green and they are not sweet at all. In fact, they don't taste very good but I have soldiered on and used them in my morning soy protein smoothie all the same. I don't dare leave it for any length of time because it becomes a thick, gelatinous glob and I end up adding more water just to thin it out so I can drink it before it solidifies again. Might be great for Lynn since she hates the smell and taste of bananas since both smell and taste are completely absent.

As promised, I took some more pictures this morning since Beanie said she likes seeing what I'm talking about. I quickly vacuumed the sage that fell on the floor from my smudge stick first, so the floor would look clean. Anyway, we'll start with the sofa where you can see my laptop open on the pillow I borrowed from the love seat that used to be here in the living room as the only piece of furniture, and the camera case that protects my new digital camera. The door in the background is supposed to be bare because the landlady didn't want the beautiful solid oak door covered in paint. Yes, in the background through the doorway you can see the clothes I haven't hung up lying all over the love seat in the bedroom. The chaise is my favorite piece of furniture in the living room because it makes me feel like a courtesan or demi-mondaine waiting for her lover reading a book and looking seductive. I usually lounge there with a book and cover my legs with a lap robe when I'm cold or feeling chilly and I'm usually dressed in less than seductive clothes, but it's the thought that counts.

The south wall is where you'll find the windows that look onto the mountains that look so misty this morning, the TV (yes, it is a little tilted because the floor is a little uneven there) and the relationship corner. On the west wall I hung the three framed drawings the landlady loaned me a month after I moved in so it looked a little more like I was planning to stay instead of leave in the middle of the night. This place was very bare until this year because money was scarce. The other picture is one of my mother standing next to a Lucky Dog hot dog cart like I used to push when I lived in New Orleans about 23 years ago. And that ends our pictorial tour for today.

I was talking with a friend this weekend who was complaining his wife had just spent a huge amount of money just before going on a rather expensive vacation next week. His predicament made me think of what I spend, which is more than I spent when I lived up at the cabin, but still less than most people spend. Part of the reason why I buy green bananas and waited so long to buy any furniture is because I didn't have the money and because I decided that I wanted nice things this time around. The living room painting would be done and I would have my built in book shelves with a sturdier place for my television, new carpeting and a console table behind the sofa instead of the hutch that goes to my desk in the office if I had more money or were willing to go further into debt. I'm not. The only things I owe on right now are the sofa and chaise, laptop and digital camera, but like everything else here they will be paid off before the end of the year, and will have to be paid off before I get the built in bookcase in the living room and bedroom and the modular L-shaped desk I want to put in the sunroom/office. They will have to wait because I need to fix the wonky wiper blade on the car and have the brakes checked out soon.

I live on a budget and I don't have credit cards or accounts all over town. In fact, I just bought my first set of dishes and silverware a couple weeks ago. Bill and Bear gave me a partial set of dishes, saucers and bowls for Yule and I bought four cheap place settings at the dollar store that looked cute but fell apart, leaving me with one fork, two spoons and four knives. The two tablespoons I bought for a dollar lasted longer because they didn't have those cute plastic handles or the fake silver that washed and rusted off of the handles just before the cute plastic handles fell off. I guess the glue couldn't take being washed. I bought four glasses at Goodwill and the boys gave me a bunch of mismatched cups and glasses that I put into the cabinet next to the beautiful Pikes Peak mug Chuck and Lynn bought me when we drove up to the top of Pikes peak last year.

I want nice things but I don't need them right now. I can wait. I have lived out of a suitcase and in furnished places for the past seven years, owning nothing I couldn't pack into the trunk of my car within 15 minutes before getting back onto the road. I have acquired a thing or two but I left them behind me for people who needed them more, selling off or donating to the library books I couldn't fit into the car and didn't really need, always traveling light. I have beautiful glass and metal tables now but until a few months ago my tables were empty boxes and the only places to sit were my office chair, the love seat, the bed or the floor. There is lots of floor space to sit on. I'm not faulting my friend or his wife for spending money. If I had more money I would spend more. I'd buy some land and have a cabin built in a secluded grove of trees with rich land for an herb and kitchen garden where I would be lulled to sleep by the wind whispering through the trees and a nearby lake, river or stream tripping and gurgling over the rocks. I might even buy a jeep or a kayak or canoe to travel paddle in the water for fun or to fish. I don't have the money and I have learned not to spend more than I make or go too far into debt because climbing out is a lot harder than getting in and I have seen the strain debt places on relationships.

So I'll keep buying green bananas and soldiering on despite the lack of taste and sweetness and my apartment will stay largely unfurnished until I can pay off what I have and afford to buy more a little at a time. I'm not going anywhere. This is home and I want my home to be comfortable and furnished with a few nice pieces that will last. I don't need much because I'd like to leave a little room for visitors and one other person to share the space and help put their mark on our home.

Is this what you call freedom?

Snagged from Doc Brite's journal is mention of an article that led to this link. Since when are American citizens no longer allowed to speak to the press?

Do you know?

During my daily email reading and deleting I came across a post on the herbal tribes community about Abraham Cherrix , a young boy being forced to abandon an alternative treatment for his cancer and take the chemotherapy he doesn't want to take. The article is about their fight and about what is happening in our country to people determined to eschew "approved" medical treatment in favor of alternative methods. It's not the first time the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), American Medical Association (AMA) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) have separately or together set out to demonize and/or hound alternative methods of treatment to extinction or emigration. Reading the article reminded me of Dr. Death, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who has gone to jail many times because he supports a person's right to die with dignity, and Sister Kenny, the Australian nurse who found a way to minimize the effects of and even cure polio and was censured time and time again by the medical establishment.

Like the Kenny method of treating polio and Dr. Kevorkian's dignified deaths for the terminally ill, I'm certain the Hoxsey method of treating and curing cancer will not die out as long as there are thinking people who aren't afraid to find the back door.

What surprises me is that this mentality exists and is being sold to the American people by the establishment. What really surprises me is even now in my fifties I am as anti-establishment as I was when I was a teenager, choosing to think for myself and not take the party line as gospel because it is not the "good news" it is purported to be. Many Americans are lazy, choosing to let others do their thinking and choosing for themselves instead of exercising their brains and their right to choose, and that, constant reader, is how freedom is lost without a shot being fired or anyone being aware it was even in danger. The more constraints and controls we accept in our lives and on our freedoms, especially in the name of security, the fewer freedoms we will have and enjoy.

Are you free to think and express yourself as you see fit if you are hounded and jailed and punished because you spoke out? Are you free just because you can get in your car or on a public bus and go where you choose when you choose? Are you free just because you can cross state lines without having to prove your identity and your purpose to a border guard? Are you free because you can choose the car, life or health insurance you wish to avoid being fined and/or being imprisoned? The government is slowing eating away out our freedoms and few seem to notice or to care. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

For instance, the organic food industry is taking more and more hits from the FDA and the AMA when they demand that items previously considered food or health related but not medicinal come under governmental control. What you may once have been able to purchase without a prescription will soon become a controlled substance because it circumvents traditional methods of medical treatment. You will no longer be able to handle your own medical and health issues by going to the health food market or co-op grocers and these businesses are vanishing slowly but inexorably because of the high cost of doing business and more and closer government scrutiny. Those shelves of tinctures and herbs and supplements might not be there for long if things continue as they do and people patronize Wal-Mart and grocery stores because their prices are cheaper.

The same people who refuse to buy their produce and food from health food markets and co-op grocers who support local organic farmers and ranchers think nothing of spending hundreds of dollars on eating out at places like McDonald's and Arby's and KFC and the rest of the fast food chains who have jumped wholeheartedly on the health food bandwagon by offering salads and low fat food. The chains still buy their produce from corporate farms that use pesticides and toxic chemicals that leach into the healthy food that is processed and sold and inject their livestock with hormones and antibiotics and pen them in filthy stalls and cages, feeding them with processed food tainted with feces and animal viscera not used at the processing plants. Still think the food is healthy? It is cheap food and it's easy to get while taking the time to buy organic produce and free range, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, naturally grazed or wild caught meat, eggs and fish means going to the store, buying the raw produce and meats and slaving for a whole 30-45 minutes over a hot stove or microwave to produce a meal that you can order, buy and eat in less than 15 minutes. Is it any wonder America has become the land of the obese and the home of the lazy?

Don't think I'm immune. I'm not. I give in every once in a while to a craving for a subway sandwich and a bag of Sun Chips and when I'm short of cash I go to King Sooper's and buy my produce from the organic food aisle there. I'm not rich and I don't have a lot of disposable income, and I do have a tendency to rate books and digital cameras and laptop computers so I can write above food. I don't get enough exercise and I do skip meals, but on the whole I eat healthier than 80% of the population and I drive my car maybe once a week. But this isn't about me. It's about our eroding freedoms and control of our bodies.

As I have written many times, here and in nationally syndicated articles, the current pandemic of immune diseases stems from profligate use of anti-bacterial and anti-viral cleaners that keep bacteria, germs and viruses out of our way and allow our immune systems to get weak and flabby. Our immune systems are like muscles that need something to work against, an attack of germs, bacteria and viruses to learn to recognize and fight, so, too, our freedoms. If we no longer exercise our freedoms, we will no longer have them and our ability to recognize when they have been taken away will have atrophied to the point we will no longer notice or care. Like our health, we must guard our freedoms, especially and most importantly our right to choose our destiny, the protection and maintenance of our health and our right to die with dignity. Doctors no longer understand that just because they can do something doesn't mean they should. Every surgery, every new treatment for cancer or warts or even an ingrown toenail puts us at greater and greater risk from super viruses like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), the super bug, retained instruments and sponges, the spread of cancer throughout the body via the blood stream, and a host of other seemingly minor complications and "reasonable risks". Nature holds the answers we need, but a nature not controlled by corporate farming and ranching methods and governmental agencies bent on retaining power and control of our lives and our choices. Every time we give in and take what the medical establishment offers without looking further and searching a little more, we hand over control of our lives and our bodies to the government and their agencies, and alternative choices diminish or are driven out of the country.

Who's going to control your life and your rights, big brother or you?

Remember one thing, you have as much right to choose established medical and corporate farming and ranching methods as you do to choose organic and free range, and you choose every time you hand over your hard earned money.

Pictorial lunch

The boys called me and asked me to join them at Poor Richard's and I decided to go -- for a little while. I gathered up my laptop, digital camera and bag and drove over, passing Monument Valley Park. Every time I pass it's hard to drive on because the spot is such an idyllic space with weeping willows trailing their branches in the water and a cool breeze from the fountain in the center of the little lake. There's a little ornamental garden but I didn't get pictures. I will next time.

While waiting in line to order at Poor Richard's Bill came up to ask for the avocado missing on his sandwich and waited to walk back to the cafe with me. Bear was already enjoying his lunch and I plugged in my laptop only to find I couldn't get a clear Wi-Fi signal; there was something affecting the strength of the signal. I put away the laptop and finished lunch and then we walked over to find our regular booth near the bar was free. Bill plugged in my laptop and we settled in. Bill and Bear decided on cappuccino and coffee, respectively, while I settled for more water and lots of lemon. I showed Bear my ideas for inexpensive business cards for his housekeeping business from Vista Print and talked about some other marketing items that will keep his name and his business in front of clients and prospective clients. I came up with a tag line that pleased Bear, "We're all about the details," but I may have another idea or two.

We also talked about my plans for redecorating my home and talked about next week's spate of house cleaning. Bear even left me with Bill for a while to go out for a smoke, but he eventually returned and began mugging for the camera.

About this time, Jude Law look-a-like Chris mused about why his latest girlfriend decided they should see other people. It seems she thought him a very nice guy. The waitress and I told him that was the kiss of death. But if any of you girls between 20 and 30 are interested in a very intelligent, good looking and available young man who likes to clean but needs someone to teach him how to cook, head down to Rico's cafe and ask for Chris. Rico's cafe is part of the Poor Richard's group of bookstore, cafe, restaurant and toy store on Tejon and Boulder here in Colorado Springs. I'd ask him out if he was twenty years older, but he's younger than my own sons and so not old enough for me. I'll leave him to some smart young lady who knows how to win a good looking young man with a little home cooking. I'm sure he'd even be willing to provide the wine. Rico's has a very extensive wine list and boasts quite a few good vintages.

The boys bought a pizza and we shared dinner together and then it was time for me to walk over to the public parking garage on Cascade and go home, but before I left the boys were kind enough to tone it down just a little and show their normal faces. I had to take one last parting shot of Rico's Internet cafe where the band was setting up to play. I didn't get much work done, but I did have a very pleasant afternoon with good friends and I really didn't want to sleep tonight anyway. Work is better for me.

Sacrifices

I slept late this morning: 7:45. I'm usually up between 5 and 6 AM, but this morning I slept so good I didn't get up every hour or so to visit the bathroom. Of course I did have to sit in the bathroom longer, but that's a small price to pay to sleep deeply and wake refreshed. I balked at my usual morning ritual, a new one I started this week. I don't know if it will work but it did heal the rough spot inside my cheek where I have a tendency to bite down every once in a while. In fact, the ridge that causes the problem by sticking out is almost gone, so who knows? It doesn't hurt to attempt new things and I learn so much from the people on the herbal medicine tribe I joined. I even get to share some of what I've learned over the years. There are so many different tribes I'm sure you'll find at least one that suits your needs or sparks/shares your interests. If you do go join up, you'll find me at fixnwrtr, as always.

I've so much to do this weekend I don't know where to start. One thing I do want to do is take a walk to Bancroft Park with my camera and my canvas bags and pick up some fresh produce from the farmer's market. I haven't done that in a long time because I've either been gone or too busy working to even think about venturing out. I also need to finish some painting and get some writing done before I jump back into the working fray so the squirrels can flash and entertain me with squirrel porn. Not the first sighting and certainly not the last.

I am tempted to turn on the lamp because the morning sun doesn't really hit this room, but at least it stays cooler than the sunroom where I work. Maybe I should consider using the sunroom as the living room and the living room as my office, except I'd never get all the furniture in there and still be able to move. I'd have to settle for the couch or the chaise. No, the sunroom is the best place for the office for right now.

I showed the landlady the pictures I took yesterday and she was ecstatic about the picture of Pastor. She said she didn't have anything recent and due to an interesting bit of happenstance at Office Max a couple weeks ago I bought two packages of 4x6 photographic paper (buy one get one free) and this morning I cropped Pastor's picture and will print out a couple copies. It will be my first chance to print something other than mailbox labels that can withstand the weather, look good and be a little hint of who and what the tenants here are like. I'll take pictures of the mailbox labels and post them later after I come back from my trip to the farmer's market. I'm craving fresh organic produce and a walk in the sunshine even if it means getting caught in the coming thunderstorm brewing over my mountains now fading behind a thickening veil of fog and clouds. It's hard to believe this sun spangled view can be so suddenly obscured by rain and darkness as the clouds hide the light behind charcoal slashed puffs of gray and white but it will happen and the oh-so-green that last year was a pale burnt out reflection of green will be brighter and cleaner with leaves bowing heavily with pregnant seeds about to burst their yellow pods.

The neighborhood is far from quiet but the sounds are soothing and familiar: children playing with and chasing each other and questioning their parents, horns beeping, couples talking, cars shushing by, squirrels scrabbling along the trunks and branches, the wind rustling the leaves and delivery truck doors banging. Girls walking up the street laugh together with the particular teenage glee at the belief in their immortality and the eternity it will take to reach old age while chafing at the bit to be 18 or 21 and free to come and go as they please, feeling they are being denied their rights by adults who have forgotten what it is to be young. I haven't forgotten.

I haven't forgotten the time either, and it's time for me to put on some clothes and saunter over to the park before all the produce is gone.

That is all. Disperse.

For Beanie

Beanie complained this morning that I didn't take any pictures today and especially no pictures of Pastor, so this little photo display is for her.

While the landlady went on a hike with her friend Rui to the crags, I had Pastor. He hasn't been feeling well and didn't want to come upstairs even for a cookie, which means he really isn't feeling good. I needed to get some fresh air, so I rousted Pastor from his cage and forced him outside using the German commands the landlady taught me. He is, after all, a German Shepherd. While outside I decided to take some pictures of the front of the house and a close up of my office up there on the right next to the squirrel porn tree now demurely dressed in heavy foliage, at least from this angle. I also decided to take pictures of the house on the corner and the new house built just last year and now occupied by the Evans family that I see every day out of my office window in the sunroom.

That's it for today since my memory card has not yet arrived and I am limited to six pictures at a time. For Beanie, I promise I'll take at least a couple pictures every day so you can see where you'll be visiting come October.

That is all. Disperse.

Plug time

My latest review for AuthorLink is out and is a translation of Guillermo Arriaga's The Night Buffalo.

That is all. Disperse.

A place to call my own

It has been raining off and on for the past few days, deluges that slow down into steady falls of rain that have cooled the summer heat so much I actually wore a nightgown to bed, closed the living room windows and turned off the fans -- for a while. I had to turn the bedroom fan back on because I had another of those center of hell flushes. It's cool and damp this morning and I have a date with a very sweet fella today. The landlady is going to the crags with a friend and since Pastor has been ill he's staying with me. Of course I have to put up the trash to keep him from nosing through it and strewing it all over the clean kitchen floor but that's a small price to pay for such loving companionship. I get to have him next week, too, and again in a couple of weeks when the landlady is out of town. I'm looking forward to all the cuddling and petting and even the walks together. I'll have a companion for a little while who wants to spend time with me and will show it in no uncertain terms. Dogs are so uncomplicated.

Beanie emailed me yesterday to tell me that when she comes in October she may bring my mother and my other sister. That should be interesting. Mom has been threatening to come for "one last trip" ever since she left her nearly two years ago. My place is much smaller and I don't have the extra bed I had at the cabin, but if it was just Tracy she was going to stay with me. We've slept together before -- about 100 years ago. We'd have almost a whole week of catching up and talking and laughing and probably her begging me to make gumbo and crab cakes. Every fall she reminds me how much she misses that. I don't mind cooking and I certainly don't mind making gumbo and crab cakes but she's going to have to reciprocate by making her oatmeal cake. I'll probably gain fifty pounds, but I can lose it again and at least my bagging and sagging clothes will fit once again.

But having Mom and Carol along will change everything. They'll have to stay in a hotel because there is definitely not enough room for all of us here unless I move out and go to a hotel. Beanie said it was Mom's idea to bring Carol and I don't think she's informed Carol yet. I guess we'll see.

I'm planning a leisurely weekend of work, work and more work, fitting in time to do a little laundry on Saturday and reorganize and shelve all my books. I need to separate them into my books and review books and weed out the books I've read and reviewed and donate them to the library. I almost have everything organized and put away but some of the clutter remains. It's hard planning to spend my weekend working when I know it's going to keep raining in between glorious blazing sunshiny hours like now when the morning sun is shining on newly washed leaves, creating a shimmery halo effect that's just a little bit out of focus like a fairy tale dream. The view out my bedroom window as I sit on the bed writing is of a peaked red roof, rough brown bark reaching toward the sun between, behind and spearing through a forest of variegated green sparkling with rain and lit by a hidden sun. Except for the intermittent sounds of traffic whooshing by and the clank and sweep of the city truck cleaning the streets, I might be hidden in a forest with no one around for miles. The busy street cleaning truck brushing up the accumulated wind blown dust and storm debris reminds me I should be up and working not sitting here in this calm and peaceful reverie happily tapping out the letters and words that give some reality to this dreamy existence.

I could easily sit here for hours, nudged into action only by the demands of my body, and simply write, but in order to be able to write I must work to make the money to keep me in this comfort and stability like I've not know before. For the first time in my life, I don't feel the urge to pack the car and get moving to another city, another country, another life. I have finally found my home and not even a threatened invasion of relatives makes me uneasy and anxious to get back on the road. I need little more than I have: friends, a pet I can borrow from time to time and the peace that comes with having found my place in the world.

Playing around

My maid arrived today and began the monumental task of cleaning my cluttered and box filled apartment. He did a wonderful job, but there is still so much to do. He only had a few hours and didn't want to move in to finish. While he worked (yes, I decided on a male maid) I worked. I also took a little time off to play with a new toy and catch some impromptu shots of the views out the sunroom windows where I work every day. They aren't quite what I wanted but the tree out the side window is almost visible that overlooks Lon Chaney's one time house. Because of the angle you can't quite see the squirrel porn tree, but I got a great night time shot of the relationship corner in the living room and the new paint job. Here's a close-up of the corner.


I am psychic. I can see the future. Right now I see a future playing around with the new digital camera and catching better shots that will require me to take the screens out of the windows and wander around the neighborhood so I can show off what I've been writing about for so long. The camera was a necessary expense that I will be paid for over a little bit of time but will come in handy when I go up to St. George, the most haunted spot in Colorado, to take pictures of the Hayman fire, now four years past, for an article with a major magazine. I get extra for pictures so I have to do a lot of practicing. Hope you're all up for a very boring time while I play.

Cheap dates and good times

Monday was Nel's birthday. Yesterday I took her to Front Range BBQ for dinner to celebrate. At first she was a cheap date, but that changed once she caught a whiff of my dinner and decided to eat two dinners.

When I got home after running some errands, one of which was taking money out of my account to pay the rent, it was raining. It had been raining harder but slacked off a bit just before I reached home and parked the car. Good thing it didn't rain harder. Ever since the last big hail storm when I had to go to the PPRAA board meeting one of my wiper blades quit working. It took a hit from a big hail stone and weakly fidgets in place while the other wiper blade does it's job. Yesterday, just before the rain really cut loose, I snagged it with the long handled purple ice scraper and pulled it up to the side of the windshield. Luckily, it was the driver's side wiper blade that took the hit, making it really interesting driving while I'm leaning toward the passenger side to look out and see whose tail pipe I'm about to climb up.

When I switched the wipers from pulse to full run, the fidgety wiper blade fidgeted it's way off the windshield to hang pulsing and fidgeting over the outside mirror. I still had the window down, so I pushed it back up onto the windshield where it fidgeted and fretted and jumped off onto the mirror again. After pushing it back up onto the windshield twice more, I gave up. It stopped raining. I need to take it in to be fixed.

Anyway, it was spitting a little here and there when Nel and I walked over to the restaurant. We went inside and I felt closed in and too warm, courtesy of Father Time and Mother Nature's intermittent battling over my fretting and pulsing hormones, so we decided to sit outside on the porch and eat dinner. We were the only brave souls for a while, but as soon as we sat down the rain cut loose, pelting and pounding the streets with unrestrained wet glee, the wind driving some of the rain towards us. Nel hitched her chair around closer to my side of the table and I stayed put, enjoying the cooling splashes.

Our waitress, a cute young thing with a pale streaked cap of soft blonde hair took our orders. I decided on the elk burger with smoked cheddar, bacon, the works, and extra pickles with a side of cucumber, onion and roasted tomato vinaigrette. Nel chose the Front Range salad. I told her to enjoy herself and called her a cheap date. Should have kept my mouth closed.

While the skies showered the streets, the temperature dropped and my flustered hormones decided to switch off and let me cool down, Nel and I talked about everything and nothing. Time passed. Another couple chose to have their dinner at the other table on the porch while I gulped down huge glasses of water, no ice, and thick half moons of lemon. Nel, unlike her usual habit of enjoying a beer or four after work before she climbs into bed at eight, drank water, too. Our waitress rushed out the door with a flustered look, dithering apologies. She forgot to put in our orders and, she looked at me like a puppy about to be hit on the nose with a newspaper, there were no elk burgers. I smiled up at her and said, "No problem." She dithered on while I changed my order to Kobe beef, promising my dinner, whatever I chose, was on the house. Dinner would indeed be cheap. She finally took my order, promised not to forget to put in the order and rushed off for water to fill my glass a third time.

Nel and I chuckled as she touched her lion's mane of blonde curls. "Just another blonde," she said. We talked and laughed until I stopped her mid sentence, struck by the perfectly clear rainbow arcing over the eastern side of Colorado Boulevard. She pointed out a couple of homeless guys hung with canteens, packs and various bulging items riding their American flag sporting bikes to the laundromat across the street. I pointed out with expensive bikes like those they could hardly be homeless and were probably touring the country and stopping off to wash some clothes.

Our dithering, constantly apologizing whipped puppy of a waitress came back and filled our glasses yet again before rushing off and appearing moments later with our dinners. Nel's salad was huge and so was my burger with it's crossed foot long antenna of bacon spiking out from the sides. We both tucked into dinner but the charcoal grilled scent of cooked Kobe beef was too much for Nel. "Maybe I should have ordered meat," she said eyeing my burger like a lion crouched in the high grass at succulent antelope on the hoof grazing peacefully within range. I cut off a piece of my burger and offered it to her, pulling back my fingers just in time to save them from disappearing like the burger. A predatory look came over her burger juice slicked lips as she asked if I'd flag down the waitress (I was pointed in the right direction). Our cheap date climbed into mid range.

Another waitress came to clear the other couple's table and I asked if she'd send our waitress back out. Moments later the blonde whipped puppy raced out with a pitcher of water and Nel ordered her own Kobe beef burger while still forking up her salad. In the meantime, I finished my burger and we talked and watched the parade of BBQ patrons, kids on scooters and skates pushing grocery carts and tourists racing in and out of the rain. Nel's burger arrived and I reminded her she said she would probably take some of her salad home. She didn't. She didn't take any of the burger home either, it having ended up a mere smear of ketchup on the plate.

All during our meal a band played in the park behind us, the music swirling in and around the sounds of pounding rain and the stop and go chorus of traffic in the street. As the band played their last song, Nel and I walked home. Nel said, "I guess I as hungrier than I thought." The rain had stopped and the air was cool and fresh. When we reached home I sat down on the bench on the porch to enjoy the last few moments of the watery sun as it sank into the purpled hills. Pastor barked and I heard the landlady tell him it was just Nel and me, but he had to check. He skidded to a stop at my knees, let me ruffle his fur just a moment, completely ignoring Nel, turned and went back into the house satisfied he had greeted me. The landlady, Nel and I chatted briefly and then Nel and I climbed the stairs. She hugged me and thanked me for dinner (she's still a pretty cheap date even with my free dinner - I hope I get that waitress again) and we parted in the hall. She may be a cheap date (sometimes) but she's always a good time.

What does it take?

I had just finished commenting on another journal where someone had posted their own pictures. When my comment posted I noticed the comment above mine. The person asked if that was her. She said it was. He commented again, saying that looking as good as she did she should be happy and with someone. That stuck in my mind. Just because she was pretty and had a nice body she should be happy and not alone. I couldn't get rid of the idea. People really believe that being beautiful or pretty, having a nice body, or money, or a better situation in life means you should be happy. The other side of that coin is that if you have a good portion of what is advertised to make you happy and you're not, what is wrong with you?

Most people keep hold of the wrong end of the stick when it comes to happiness. They believe that if you have enough money, property, beauty, clothes, toys, things, people around you and any number of material possessions you should be happy. Happiness isn't something you can buy, although you might feel happy for a little while when you purchase that big screen TV you've been wanting or a designer dress, coat, pair of boots/shoes or golden or silver jeweled bauble, but that isn't a lasting happiness. If that was all it took to be happy then people wouldn't need credit cards to keep shopping and buying for that fleeting moment of happiness that dissolves like soap bubbles in the wind. Happiness is a choice not an item.

Buying and acquiring material goods and services is an addiction, one that has grown to pandemic proportions in the past few decades. Where once it was enough to have a nice home and food on the table and to have enough comfortable clothes to wear for every day and something nice for Sundays at church or special occasions, now we must have the best and brightest and newest and most expensive advertised designer labeled whatever in order to be happy and satisfied, and we are neither happy nor satisfied. Happiness at its best is transitory even when it comes from accomplishment or achievement of a goal through struggle, hard work and study. The idea that happiness must come from outside is the problem. Happiness must come from inside.

I have been leery of settling anywhere for a while because every time I got comfortable and unpacked the last box and put its contents away something came up and I ended up moving. As I buy the things I need to stop camping here in my haunted apartment and begin to get settled a feeling of uncertainty nags at me. I was happy here when all I had to set my books and magazines on were empty boxes and I was sleeping on a borrowed feather bed on the floor. I was happy when I didn't have a television or sofa and chaise or a bed to sleep on. That doesn't mean I wasn't momentarily happy when my dishes and silverware arrived or when I assembled the inexpensive little table to put in the corner by the windows in the living room and arranged my plant and new little statue on it. I am happy every time a book arrives in the mail (even when I have to go to the post office to pick it up) or an author sends me a book to review. If I end up back on the road to somewhere else I will still be happy because I know the secret everyone else frantically consuming and buying hasn't learned. I choose to be happy.

Whether I live in a cabin in the mountains secluded from the rest of the world or here in my box filled haunted apartment I am happy because each day is a gift of possibility. As long as I have a scrap of paper and a pen or pencil to write, I am happy. I would be happy without even those things because there is joy in everything I see around me, from the ants determined to find a way in and make off with scraps of food to the oppressive heat making me sweaty and uncomfortable. If I were a hobo tramping the road or a wealthy writer traveling around the world, I would be happy simply to be doing what I want to do and being who I am.

There will always be people who won't like me or approve of my lifestyle and choices, some of them in my own family and among my friends, but I'm not living for them. I am living for myself. This is my journey, not theirs. I could attempt to convince them that I am not who they think I am to win them over, offer them explanations and justifications for my actions and words, but inevitably in the back of their minds they would still cling to those negative impressions and trot them out the first time I had a bad day or didn't act grateful enough for their acceptance. Nothing I say would ever change their minds and would be a waste of my time and theirs. Not everyone will like me just as I will not like everyone I meet. It's a fact of life and one I'm not about to lose any sleep over, just as I won't lose any sleep over people who pass into and out of my life. Instead I choose to be happy I met them and had a chance to know them at all because even the most negative experiences teach me something about myself and about the nature of people. As in nature, nothing is wasted or useless. Everything has a purpose and an effect.

When all is said and done, I am grateful to have known everyone I have met and happy to have shared whatever time we had together. There are some people I would have liked to walk alongside for the rest of my days, but they chose to take a different path, one that they did not wish to share or one I chose not to share. Like everything I have learned throughout my life, what they shared with me -- good and bad -- remain with me, as I hope some essence of me remains with them and hopefully, in some brief flash of memory, they will smile.

What does it take to be happy?

A choice.

Notice and nodding

First of all, anyone who needs to get in touch with me, please either call or comment on here because otherwise I will not get your messages. My ISP has not allowed me into my email since Friday morning and they have promised to find and fix the problem but have yet to do so. Needless to say, I have been checking LJ where I have made comments to keep up. It's time consuming and frustrating especially in this heat. Hopefully, it will be fixed today and I'll have the pleasure of deleting hundreds of messages and responding late to others. Hope this hasn't caused anyone any problems -- other than me, of course.

I did get some writing done but most of yesterday when I returned from our country drive was spent in getting the ham radio club newsletter together and out. I admit that I thought I had to have it done this morning as I have set the arbitrary deadline (for me) of the first of every month and it wasn't until I talked to Mike last night that I realized the first was on Tuesday and not Monday. Too late. The newsletter was nearly finished so I decided to finish it all the way. I did. I finished at 11 PM last night and I was beat, not to mention sweaty, cranky, hot and cramped from sitting too long. I sent it out to the various people and the printer through another email service (Yahell) and I'm hoping for the best. I'll call and check up on the printer to make sure he received it as he is not very good about calling or emailing to let me know even when I specifically ask him to do so. No big. I'm getting used to following along behind people to make sure they do their jobs. It's not fun but it keeps me busy with silly tasks that I shouldn't have to do. But that's another story.

Against my better judgment I went back to eBay and checked out some ham radio equipment. I found a dealer who sells crystal radio kits. I decided to buy a couple (one AM and one FM) and put them together to help me understand the theory currently knocking around in my head. They have been here for a week and it suddenly occurred to me that what I should do with the kits is donate them to either a scout troop or school or somewhere there are curious kids and let them put the radios together. The idea is to get them interested in radio, and ham radio specifically.

When I talked to Mike last night we discussed ways to get some new blood into the field of amateur radio because so many hams are dying. George WØGHL finally succumbed to cancer on the 23rd and I got an email that Dr. Chuck Brady died last week. He was only 54 and an amateur radio operator who made contacts (QSOs) from the space shuttle and from the ISS (International Space Station). It had been said Dr. Brady spent a little too much time making contacts from space to earth, but I don't think any ham would agree. We're only happy when we're building radios to operate or simply operating, sending out signals all over the world and into space and receiving a return signal. It's magic plain and simple.

We take so much for granted. We are so used to the conveniences and the technology that permeates every single aspect of our lives that we forget what it took, and often who it took, to create what we use so often. It's as if we can no longer understand the dreams that became radio, television, telephone, cell phones, computers and the appliances we use without thinking twice. Even at our worst, humans are marvelous creatures who create so much out of nothing more than an idea. It takes so little to dream and not much more to reach and and take hold of a dream. All it takes is passion, desire, curiosity and a disregard for opinions other than our own. Can't and shouldn't aren't deterrents but goads to fire our imaginations and walk into the unknown. So much has been accomplished, and is still being accomplished, simply because humans refuse to be told they can't or shouldn't do something. For sheer cussedness, humans take the cake every time.

Sitting here with the ceiling fan rattling overhead as the temperature rises with the sun boiling and basting in my own sweat, all I can think of is how to keep cool. Showers and spritzing myself with water or flower water only lasts for a few rapid seconds. Climbing into the refrigerator isn't an option and I can't stay in the shower forever. Being outside is nearly as bad because there is no shade that blocks out the pervasive heat that forces more sweat to the surface, a surface covered by clothing that keeps the sweat from evaporating as nature intended. Yet it is at this moment that I experience what it must have been like for the person who invented air conditioning. That person was tired of broiling in summer's heat, most likely a creature of the cold who wished to be cool and comfortable instead of sweltering, making every movement, every task, every moment misery. Instead of praying for rain or a summer blizzard, looking forward to another ice age, that person did something about his misery and, sweating and toiling in the heat, gave us air conditioning. We complain about the fuel and electric bills when we get them in the mail or online but how many of those complainants would give up the A/C?

Dreams and the desire to walk into the undiscovered country of the future without a guarantee that what we want will be worth the effort and the sacrifice deter only the faint of heart. Nothing deters anyone whose dreams and desires will not be stilled by the voice of reason or the cannot and should not they hear from the people around them, and even from the haunting voice of fear inside them. They know somewhere inside that scary as it is they must walk out along the path and take what comes because what they leave behind may be worse. Without our dreams, without our desire to see what's over the next mountain or around the next curve we only exist; we do not live. Without our dreams we die.

Good thing I'm addicted to dreams and whatever setbacks and missteps I've known, I will still keep going -- with rest stops every now and again. I still have so much to see and learn and do and be. "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." Not me.