I can't really bring myself to grieve too much on the page, in public. But I needed to put something here to commemorate this day.
I miss you already, Andy.
I've got a candle lit for you.
I hope ... so much,
But that hope has no answer.
It just sits, not disappointed, not fulfilled
In limbo, not quite hell
I'm so tired
I don't want to sleep
I, I, I ... this shouldn't be about me.
But there's no you within reach
I can't decorate you with my care
(Banners that say I love you)
The care falls to my feet
Shredded, rumpled
From trying to hang it where you can see
I have to pick it all up
And carry it around
Hoping you can still read it
And that it comforts you
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Meeting in Hell
I went to my second worst meeting ever. It missed first place because the worst had all the problems of this meeting *plus* I had some data I needed at the worst meeting and they skipped me over, so at the end I had to pipe up and say hey, my department needs this info please!
They scheduled three hours of meeting. I thought no way will this meeting go three hours. Ha. I was such a fool.
People went on and on. People had no clue what they needed or wanted to say, so they talked about what they had done and what they planned on doing, in great detail. I wondered, between bouts of contemplating social suicide and holding in giggles while the person next to me wondered aloud 'why doesn't he shut the fuck up?' if the chair, who ought to be in control of the meeting, thought that filling three hours of agenda free meeting was a good thing. If this was a pleasant way for her to spend an entire afternoon. If she liked the meeting chairs, found them comfy and homey, if she didn't have a stomach to grumble and growl for a meal.
I don't contemplate my navel much. More interesting to contemplate people. Wondering how it could be that someone could appear to listen very intently, and then say "What?" Not once. Several times. Soon a chorus of people volunteered themselves to repeat things for her. I wondered why I didn't wisely arrive late, like the chair, or not show up at all, like the asst. chair. I did learn valuable things, but I wondered if I might not have learned these same things in email. As it was, half the info I wanted to gather was not available because the people with that info didn't make the meeting. Most of all I wondered why the person running the meeting thought that calling on people for reports was the sum of her management responsibility. I thought that the lack of attendence might be an indication that people found the meetings a waste of precious time.
I also thought fondly of my friend who pressed a can of ginger ale into my hand as I left to go to the meeting. The coolness and sugar helped me survive the first half of the meeting. Had I managed to ration that ginger ale so that it lasted the entire meeting, perhaps I would have ... nah. I would have still wondered if slipping quietly into a coma might not have been a blessing.
They scheduled three hours of meeting. I thought no way will this meeting go three hours. Ha. I was such a fool.
People went on and on. People had no clue what they needed or wanted to say, so they talked about what they had done and what they planned on doing, in great detail. I wondered, between bouts of contemplating social suicide and holding in giggles while the person next to me wondered aloud 'why doesn't he shut the fuck up?' if the chair, who ought to be in control of the meeting, thought that filling three hours of agenda free meeting was a good thing. If this was a pleasant way for her to spend an entire afternoon. If she liked the meeting chairs, found them comfy and homey, if she didn't have a stomach to grumble and growl for a meal.
I don't contemplate my navel much. More interesting to contemplate people. Wondering how it could be that someone could appear to listen very intently, and then say "What?" Not once. Several times. Soon a chorus of people volunteered themselves to repeat things for her. I wondered why I didn't wisely arrive late, like the chair, or not show up at all, like the asst. chair. I did learn valuable things, but I wondered if I might not have learned these same things in email. As it was, half the info I wanted to gather was not available because the people with that info didn't make the meeting. Most of all I wondered why the person running the meeting thought that calling on people for reports was the sum of her management responsibility. I thought that the lack of attendence might be an indication that people found the meetings a waste of precious time.
I also thought fondly of my friend who pressed a can of ginger ale into my hand as I left to go to the meeting. The coolness and sugar helped me survive the first half of the meeting. Had I managed to ration that ginger ale so that it lasted the entire meeting, perhaps I would have ... nah. I would have still wondered if slipping quietly into a coma might not have been a blessing.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Songs in my head
My other blog is down again, so here I am. I shouldn't think of this as exile, though. Maybe more like a vacation opportunity, the kind where your flight has been cancelled and you agree to be bumped and spend two days in a foreign country with only the clothes on your back.
A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound, the sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!
(Paul Simon, from You Can Call Me Al)
We're hoping to get out for my daughter's birthday. Our last several vacations were fun, but they weren't very ... natural. Much more touristy. So we're going to eastern Oregon and bum around in caves, hike, maybe do some fishing, be outside critters. We haven't been to Eagle Crest so I'll try to get us a room, but if I can't, we can camp. I love camping. During the season in the Pacific Northwest the campgrounds are so overrun, though, it's an uncertain thing to be able to get a spot without a reservation. This summer we'll go wild camping, though. No facilities, no other campers twenty feet away from us, only the woods and what we bring. Just drive somewhere beautiful. Sometimes we talk about if we had only six months to live, what would we do. Our answer has always been, just the same as now, we love our lives. But lately we haven't had time to even go to a park. Well, we haven't made time. Visiting a friend with acreage in the woods recently, I got another taste of that beauty I used to tromp in as a child so often. This time we're going to the desert where my husband grew up, the clean air, the clear skies, scent of sage and juniper and volcanic dust, away away from traffic with people driving like angry monkeys in 2000 pound death machines and grocery store politeness.
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom
(nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time
(Eagles, Take It to the Limit)
My dear friend, after years of struggling, finally had her baby. Talking with her and her husband on the phone last night, it struck me how radically different people occasionally end up with the same experience. There are core human traits, and I don't imagine I would get along well with someone who didn't have at least one of them.
As glorious as having a new baby is, it's a lot of work on less sleep than you're used to. Babies have different cries for different needs, but each one vocalizes differently so it takes time to learn. Not to mention those different cries aren't as easy to distinguish in a newborn as they are in an older baby. You have to just take it one night at a time in baby boot camp. Your life changes so radically, it's unreal. Life without a baby, even when it's hard, is relatively calm. Adults reason with each other, talk things out, make compromises, and ask when they need something. Babies don't reason. They don't wait. They demand, and you have no choice but respond to those demands as given. You can't train an infant to only cry when it really, really needs something or to stop crying until you can get there or to sleep in or hold its bladder until you can get more diapers. But the baby grows up, becomes more self-sufficient, less demanding, more giving, and that's exquisite, to share the world with someone you've raised who has your spouse's eyes and your nose and an emotional connection unequal to any other in the world. I love my children, and as hard as it's been, through the autism diagnosis, problems at school, late nights and early mornings, I wouldn't be as happy without them. I don't understand why I didn't feel lonely before, without children in my life. It's hard to explain. Rory and I did great on our own, but it's not the same sort of togetherness as it is with a family of our own.
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold
(Sting, Fields of Gold)
It's past time I get out to the barn and deal with goats, chickens and all their ilk. I think I'm of that ilk too. I love the pasture and the sunshine, the scent of alfalfa and grain, the garden and warm wind and clean water with no ice. I like eating blackberries fresh from the vine, that dark, rich sweetness, and look up with curiosity at the barn swallows as they swoop through the narrow opening into the barn to their nests. Scooter especially likes watching them, craning his head over his back. It's a good life. Moving here has been one of the best things for me, for the children, and hopefully my husband too. I love this. Here, you can really feel the wind.
The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth
The wind is the hand of our father the sky
The wind watches over our struggles and pleasures
The wind is the goddess who first learned to fly
The wind is the bearer of bad and good tidings
The weaver of darkness, the bringer of dawn
The wind gives the rain, then builds us a rainbow
The wind is the singer who sang the first song
The wind is a twister of anger and warning
The wind brings the fragrance of freshly mown hay
The wind is a racer, a wild stallion running
The sweet taste of love on a slow summer’s day
The wind knows the songs of the cities and canyons
The thunder of mountains, the roar of the sea
The wind is the taker and giver of mornings
The wind is the symbol of all that is free
So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers
Follow her summons when she calls again
In your heart and your spirit let the breezes
Surround you
Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind
(John Denver, Windsong in it's entirety)
A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound, the sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!
(Paul Simon, from You Can Call Me Al)
We're hoping to get out for my daughter's birthday. Our last several vacations were fun, but they weren't very ... natural. Much more touristy. So we're going to eastern Oregon and bum around in caves, hike, maybe do some fishing, be outside critters. We haven't been to Eagle Crest so I'll try to get us a room, but if I can't, we can camp. I love camping. During the season in the Pacific Northwest the campgrounds are so overrun, though, it's an uncertain thing to be able to get a spot without a reservation. This summer we'll go wild camping, though. No facilities, no other campers twenty feet away from us, only the woods and what we bring. Just drive somewhere beautiful. Sometimes we talk about if we had only six months to live, what would we do. Our answer has always been, just the same as now, we love our lives. But lately we haven't had time to even go to a park. Well, we haven't made time. Visiting a friend with acreage in the woods recently, I got another taste of that beauty I used to tromp in as a child so often. This time we're going to the desert where my husband grew up, the clean air, the clear skies, scent of sage and juniper and volcanic dust, away away from traffic with people driving like angry monkeys in 2000 pound death machines and grocery store politeness.
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you’re looking for your freedom
(nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time
(Eagles, Take It to the Limit)
My dear friend, after years of struggling, finally had her baby. Talking with her and her husband on the phone last night, it struck me how radically different people occasionally end up with the same experience. There are core human traits, and I don't imagine I would get along well with someone who didn't have at least one of them.
As glorious as having a new baby is, it's a lot of work on less sleep than you're used to. Babies have different cries for different needs, but each one vocalizes differently so it takes time to learn. Not to mention those different cries aren't as easy to distinguish in a newborn as they are in an older baby. You have to just take it one night at a time in baby boot camp. Your life changes so radically, it's unreal. Life without a baby, even when it's hard, is relatively calm. Adults reason with each other, talk things out, make compromises, and ask when they need something. Babies don't reason. They don't wait. They demand, and you have no choice but respond to those demands as given. You can't train an infant to only cry when it really, really needs something or to stop crying until you can get there or to sleep in or hold its bladder until you can get more diapers. But the baby grows up, becomes more self-sufficient, less demanding, more giving, and that's exquisite, to share the world with someone you've raised who has your spouse's eyes and your nose and an emotional connection unequal to any other in the world. I love my children, and as hard as it's been, through the autism diagnosis, problems at school, late nights and early mornings, I wouldn't be as happy without them. I don't understand why I didn't feel lonely before, without children in my life. It's hard to explain. Rory and I did great on our own, but it's not the same sort of togetherness as it is with a family of our own.
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold
(Sting, Fields of Gold)
It's past time I get out to the barn and deal with goats, chickens and all their ilk. I think I'm of that ilk too. I love the pasture and the sunshine, the scent of alfalfa and grain, the garden and warm wind and clean water with no ice. I like eating blackberries fresh from the vine, that dark, rich sweetness, and look up with curiosity at the barn swallows as they swoop through the narrow opening into the barn to their nests. Scooter especially likes watching them, craning his head over his back. It's a good life. Moving here has been one of the best things for me, for the children, and hopefully my husband too. I love this. Here, you can really feel the wind.
The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth
The wind is the hand of our father the sky
The wind watches over our struggles and pleasures
The wind is the goddess who first learned to fly
The wind is the bearer of bad and good tidings
The weaver of darkness, the bringer of dawn
The wind gives the rain, then builds us a rainbow
The wind is the singer who sang the first song
The wind is a twister of anger and warning
The wind brings the fragrance of freshly mown hay
The wind is a racer, a wild stallion running
The sweet taste of love on a slow summer’s day
The wind knows the songs of the cities and canyons
The thunder of mountains, the roar of the sea
The wind is the taker and giver of mornings
The wind is the symbol of all that is free
So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers
Follow her summons when she calls again
In your heart and your spirit let the breezes
Surround you
Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind
(John Denver, Windsong in it's entirety)
Monday, March 06, 2006
Shoobeedoo
Miscellaneous stuff.
Ostara is getting closer. It's a day of fertility, an egg day, a bunny day, a day to celebrate the gradual lengthening of the days. One fun thing about being pagan is that the holy days fall at regular, predictable intervals so you don't have to wait too long to party. One tough thing about being pagan is that the holy days fall at regular intervals so you don't have much of a break between holidays. There's always something to clean up house for. In my case, this is a good thing to get me off my butt, or the house would be a year-round disaster instead of a wave function of near and falling away from disaster.
Tomorrow is our tax day. I get to see what we made, what we lost, what we'll gain, and what we'll have to eat. It's all good. I'm glad we have someone else do them simply because I want all the tax breaks we can get and I could see it taking days and days to sort through everything. And I'm not sure my poor machine can handle the latest tax program. Poo.
This time around there's been less rain than I remember in March. It's easy to daydream about big crops and a long growing season. It's as much the rain and soaked soil that keeps me from planting early as it is the rain. In my mind the snow peas cover their trellises, and the artichokes form dense, fern-like mounds with several huge chokes on long stems. I see the grape arbor up and covered in grape leaves, large clusters of grapes dangling underneath. I see tromboncino squashes, and walking egyptian onions, columns of brussel sprouts and the rhubarb taking over a whole row. A random assortment of flowers spring up from a huge bed, seeds from last year shaken up together, scattered and covered up first by soil and then by a net to keep the birds off until the seeds have germinated. Stalwart corn. Rampant tomatoes. Twelve foot sunflowers stalking through the countryside, creating havoc and panic wherever they go! Mwa ha ha!
The Beaverton Art Media store is out of yupo. It's outrageous. Can't they see that people need their yupo? I'm wringing my hands at the terrible yupo shortage. Roz wonderfully gave me four sheets of the precious stuff. I refuse to hoard it. I'll paint on it, and then I'll go on yupo raids.
Or maybe just the next time I end up downtown I'll pick some up.
Yupo is an artificial paper for watercolor. It has the unique ability to both hold the color on the surface (after it's dry) in a permanent fashion while also wiping clean if you wet the watercolor again. So you can do things like make random patterns with a big puddle of watercolor, dry it, and then cut out a shape around the random area. Also, if you really mess an area up, you can clean it back down to almost pure white, and you can, if it's totally not salvageable, wash the paper under the tap and start over. I have more fun with yupo ...
That's it for this installment. Buy yupo. Grow plants. Be happy.
Ostara is getting closer. It's a day of fertility, an egg day, a bunny day, a day to celebrate the gradual lengthening of the days. One fun thing about being pagan is that the holy days fall at regular, predictable intervals so you don't have to wait too long to party. One tough thing about being pagan is that the holy days fall at regular intervals so you don't have much of a break between holidays. There's always something to clean up house for. In my case, this is a good thing to get me off my butt, or the house would be a year-round disaster instead of a wave function of near and falling away from disaster.
Tomorrow is our tax day. I get to see what we made, what we lost, what we'll gain, and what we'll have to eat. It's all good. I'm glad we have someone else do them simply because I want all the tax breaks we can get and I could see it taking days and days to sort through everything. And I'm not sure my poor machine can handle the latest tax program. Poo.
This time around there's been less rain than I remember in March. It's easy to daydream about big crops and a long growing season. It's as much the rain and soaked soil that keeps me from planting early as it is the rain. In my mind the snow peas cover their trellises, and the artichokes form dense, fern-like mounds with several huge chokes on long stems. I see the grape arbor up and covered in grape leaves, large clusters of grapes dangling underneath. I see tromboncino squashes, and walking egyptian onions, columns of brussel sprouts and the rhubarb taking over a whole row. A random assortment of flowers spring up from a huge bed, seeds from last year shaken up together, scattered and covered up first by soil and then by a net to keep the birds off until the seeds have germinated. Stalwart corn. Rampant tomatoes. Twelve foot sunflowers stalking through the countryside, creating havoc and panic wherever they go! Mwa ha ha!
The Beaverton Art Media store is out of yupo. It's outrageous. Can't they see that people need their yupo? I'm wringing my hands at the terrible yupo shortage. Roz wonderfully gave me four sheets of the precious stuff. I refuse to hoard it. I'll paint on it, and then I'll go on yupo raids.
Or maybe just the next time I end up downtown I'll pick some up.
Yupo is an artificial paper for watercolor. It has the unique ability to both hold the color on the surface (after it's dry) in a permanent fashion while also wiping clean if you wet the watercolor again. So you can do things like make random patterns with a big puddle of watercolor, dry it, and then cut out a shape around the random area. Also, if you really mess an area up, you can clean it back down to almost pure white, and you can, if it's totally not salvageable, wash the paper under the tap and start over. I have more fun with yupo ...
That's it for this installment. Buy yupo. Grow plants. Be happy.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Wait
A flock of robins flies over the house, red breasts glowing in sunset's salmon light. A ladybug wanders across my windowpane until I capture it gently and let it out into the fresh day. I deliberately overdo it, digging in the wet ground to get some bulbs and plants in, pruning roses and grape vines, clearing out the collapsed arbor, weeding. My arms are bare so the sun can caress pale skin. It feels like spring, actually, feels like an Oregon February, when the weather inexplicably clears for a pair of weeks and teases us with the promise of endlessly good weather ... soon. I hope we get this in February too. This is day two of blue sky, soft air and a glowing sense in the world that tomorrow we'll see big blooms and leaves open up. That would be bad, unfortunately. January, even the end of January, is too early. We'll see frost again, maybe tonight since the sky has misplaced its gray blanket.
The dogs basked together by the fence in sunlight, their fur gilded by warmth. The cats are on a killing spree, bringing in at least one vole a day, and blood stains the deck. Everyone is overdoing it. Spring fever, or more like spring festival, with the rushing about and the smiling and the anticipation of revelry.
So it comes as no surprise that I want to work on projects non-stop. But it's getting dark, and it's time to settle. I'll sit with a glass of wine that holds the memory of fresh fruit inside it, and try to remember the meaning of patience.
The dogs basked together by the fence in sunlight, their fur gilded by warmth. The cats are on a killing spree, bringing in at least one vole a day, and blood stains the deck. Everyone is overdoing it. Spring fever, or more like spring festival, with the rushing about and the smiling and the anticipation of revelry.
So it comes as no surprise that I want to work on projects non-stop. But it's getting dark, and it's time to settle. I'll sit with a glass of wine that holds the memory of fresh fruit inside it, and try to remember the meaning of patience.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Stress Muffin
I think I'm the main stressor in my husband's life. He claims to be mine, but he'll have to settle for the bronze at best. Ahead of him are:
My son, who ties him for the bronze. These past few weeks Orion has made great strides, and so he may be taken completely out of the running. But I doubt it. I'm his mom. I worry about his grades, college, the day he'll be on his own, succeeding enough in life that he's happy. Some days I worry about him surviving at all. So even when he's doing well, I'll still worry about him.
My house takes the silver. I love my house. I don't take good enough care of it. Sometimes the chores are overwhelming. It needs work, too. Mice are building nests, once-damp areas have the remnents of mold. It has slightly off-white carpet that hasn't looked good since a few months after we bought the place. I sometimes have the feeling the place is half-patched together at best. It's my duty to make it ship shape, and when I fall down on it, I have a lingering sense of failure and inadequacy. I have major things on my list to do, and the financial part of it falls to Rory. I recognize I'm creating a constant drain on him, and that he feels its his responsibility to provide the financial ability to do everything I hope to do in this house. It's not fair. We used to be fiscally equal partners, or close to, and I want to shoulder the burden of maintenance and upkeep of the house. It's not possible right now. Someday, I'll write a best selling novel and ... oh yes, baby, yes!
And the gold goes to: Money. Not the lack thereof because we're doing very well, but my budgeting of it and failures thereof. It's stressful for everyone. It was, once upon a time, less stressful when I could work more hours to indulge myself with or cover my mistakes. I don't mind living within a budget, I'm just crappy at it. I think I'm getting better, but it keeps getting away from me and bill paying time are the most stressful times of the month. It's my most critical job, one I'm lousy at. I used to be good at it. Maybe some focused energy here will save me a lot of stress, and give me a sense of pride. I'd really like to go back to school, and then to work again. Or sell a novel or three. Or do it all. Why not? Life is but a dream? Nah. Life is but a striving, and the fulfillment of dreams.
My son, who ties him for the bronze. These past few weeks Orion has made great strides, and so he may be taken completely out of the running. But I doubt it. I'm his mom. I worry about his grades, college, the day he'll be on his own, succeeding enough in life that he's happy. Some days I worry about him surviving at all. So even when he's doing well, I'll still worry about him.
My house takes the silver. I love my house. I don't take good enough care of it. Sometimes the chores are overwhelming. It needs work, too. Mice are building nests, once-damp areas have the remnents of mold. It has slightly off-white carpet that hasn't looked good since a few months after we bought the place. I sometimes have the feeling the place is half-patched together at best. It's my duty to make it ship shape, and when I fall down on it, I have a lingering sense of failure and inadequacy. I have major things on my list to do, and the financial part of it falls to Rory. I recognize I'm creating a constant drain on him, and that he feels its his responsibility to provide the financial ability to do everything I hope to do in this house. It's not fair. We used to be fiscally equal partners, or close to, and I want to shoulder the burden of maintenance and upkeep of the house. It's not possible right now. Someday, I'll write a best selling novel and ... oh yes, baby, yes!
And the gold goes to: Money. Not the lack thereof because we're doing very well, but my budgeting of it and failures thereof. It's stressful for everyone. It was, once upon a time, less stressful when I could work more hours to indulge myself with or cover my mistakes. I don't mind living within a budget, I'm just crappy at it. I think I'm getting better, but it keeps getting away from me and bill paying time are the most stressful times of the month. It's my most critical job, one I'm lousy at. I used to be good at it. Maybe some focused energy here will save me a lot of stress, and give me a sense of pride. I'd really like to go back to school, and then to work again. Or sell a novel or three. Or do it all. Why not? Life is but a dream? Nah. Life is but a striving, and the fulfillment of dreams.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
The Beach
Going to the coast has changed over the years.
As a child--Great Lakes or the Bay Area, almost always suffering a sunburn, sometimes stripping so I was naked. There's a picture of me on a raft, with a California bikini tan, with my great aunt holding on so I wouldn't drift off. I was maybe five years old, my hair bleached from sunshine so it was white on the ends and blond underneath and growing in.
As a teenager--with my friends in a tent or sleeping in the back of a Jeep. Never brought enough to eat or drink, no cash, spent most of our time beach combing or sparring on the driftwood, unarmed or with bokken. I had better balance then.
As a quasi-adult--climbing, running, frisbee, teaming up with my friends against Rory in martial arts play duels. We'd split the cost of a room by the coast or stay at a friend's house in Philomath and make the last of the commute to the coast from there. When Orion and two years later, Andrea was born I'd spend most of my time under a sleeping bag on top of a blanket sheltering them from fierce winds, supervising their play or keeping them from eating sand. Pictures of holding a toddling Orion's hand into the shallowest parts of the surf, big with Andrea. We tried to keep the dining out to either lunch or dinner and picnic the rest.
As a maturing adult--Inexpensive hotel rooms on credit card, eating out for pretty much every meal. More kite flying. Rory climbed with Orion, making my heart go pitter pat, but I trust them both. Andrea and I find creatures in tidepools. We window shop and scour through our favorite used book stores. The kids always get taffy and trinkets.
Today--We're going to a resort, part of a flex time share we bought into. We're bringing dry goods because there's a full kitchen, and we can make our own meals. Cushy two-bedroom place, three swimming pools, two hot tubs, tidepools and stormy waters, the must-stop-pirate-shop. The kids want to go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium *again* and the grownups want to go to the Rogue Brewery afterward *again* as a consolation prize, although secretly I love the aquarium. Too windy to kite fly. We'll take off our shoes and freeze in the cold sand but the water feels warmer than it does in summer. Planning to see Narnia at the coast movie theater, but we may end up somewhere watching the sunset or finding treasures in the surf. Art gallery and wine shops on the way home.
It's different, but the same. I like having enough to eat and not being cold at night. I like the fireplace to warm my socks. But I feel most alive when Rory and I climb over some dark rocks and the surf is spraying on the other side. The waves shake the rocks and we kiss, our mouths cold and salty.
It's all good.
As a child--Great Lakes or the Bay Area, almost always suffering a sunburn, sometimes stripping so I was naked. There's a picture of me on a raft, with a California bikini tan, with my great aunt holding on so I wouldn't drift off. I was maybe five years old, my hair bleached from sunshine so it was white on the ends and blond underneath and growing in.
As a teenager--with my friends in a tent or sleeping in the back of a Jeep. Never brought enough to eat or drink, no cash, spent most of our time beach combing or sparring on the driftwood, unarmed or with bokken. I had better balance then.
As a quasi-adult--climbing, running, frisbee, teaming up with my friends against Rory in martial arts play duels. We'd split the cost of a room by the coast or stay at a friend's house in Philomath and make the last of the commute to the coast from there. When Orion and two years later, Andrea was born I'd spend most of my time under a sleeping bag on top of a blanket sheltering them from fierce winds, supervising their play or keeping them from eating sand. Pictures of holding a toddling Orion's hand into the shallowest parts of the surf, big with Andrea. We tried to keep the dining out to either lunch or dinner and picnic the rest.
As a maturing adult--Inexpensive hotel rooms on credit card, eating out for pretty much every meal. More kite flying. Rory climbed with Orion, making my heart go pitter pat, but I trust them both. Andrea and I find creatures in tidepools. We window shop and scour through our favorite used book stores. The kids always get taffy and trinkets.
Today--We're going to a resort, part of a flex time share we bought into. We're bringing dry goods because there's a full kitchen, and we can make our own meals. Cushy two-bedroom place, three swimming pools, two hot tubs, tidepools and stormy waters, the must-stop-pirate-shop. The kids want to go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium *again* and the grownups want to go to the Rogue Brewery afterward *again* as a consolation prize, although secretly I love the aquarium. Too windy to kite fly. We'll take off our shoes and freeze in the cold sand but the water feels warmer than it does in summer. Planning to see Narnia at the coast movie theater, but we may end up somewhere watching the sunset or finding treasures in the surf. Art gallery and wine shops on the way home.
It's different, but the same. I like having enough to eat and not being cold at night. I like the fireplace to warm my socks. But I feel most alive when Rory and I climb over some dark rocks and the surf is spraying on the other side. The waves shake the rocks and we kiss, our mouths cold and salty.
It's all good.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Cold rain
The edges of my fingernails turn lavender and blue. Transitioning from cool weather to the heat of summer? No problem. Transitioning from moderate fall to winter? My internal thermostat protests.
In the winter there are just as many things to do as in summer, but it's harder to actually do them. The chill slows everything down. Molasses in January. Wanting to stay under the covers in the morning. Snow or cold rain outside to slog through during chores. It's even harder if there's a warmest place in the house situation. The living room with the big fire going is tidy and welcoming, while the cold office in the downstairs on the north side of the house gets worse and worse and worse.
So the pile begins, and by spring, that first flush of warmth inspires a rush of all that accumulated work. The dark corners get flushed with light, dusting and scrubbing. Garbage gets hauled out. Until then, there's the dreary build up like dirt on a car's dashboard. Unless it drives you crazy (har har) it just keeps getting thicker and thicker, and you try not to put your hand on it because once you leave fingerprints, it starts talking to you telepathically. Clean me, Kami! Look, there's a clean spot the size of your hand. Just wipe it off. Five seconds.
Inevitably those little voices grow into a chorus in wintertime. I huddle inside my clothes and pointedly ignore them until the sun can loosen my frozen joints.
Some things can't be neglected, though. Out we go into the cold rain, and when we return, hot chocolate.
In the winter there are just as many things to do as in summer, but it's harder to actually do them. The chill slows everything down. Molasses in January. Wanting to stay under the covers in the morning. Snow or cold rain outside to slog through during chores. It's even harder if there's a warmest place in the house situation. The living room with the big fire going is tidy and welcoming, while the cold office in the downstairs on the north side of the house gets worse and worse and worse.
So the pile begins, and by spring, that first flush of warmth inspires a rush of all that accumulated work. The dark corners get flushed with light, dusting and scrubbing. Garbage gets hauled out. Until then, there's the dreary build up like dirt on a car's dashboard. Unless it drives you crazy (har har) it just keeps getting thicker and thicker, and you try not to put your hand on it because once you leave fingerprints, it starts talking to you telepathically. Clean me, Kami! Look, there's a clean spot the size of your hand. Just wipe it off. Five seconds.
Inevitably those little voices grow into a chorus in wintertime. I huddle inside my clothes and pointedly ignore them until the sun can loosen my frozen joints.
Some things can't be neglected, though. Out we go into the cold rain, and when we return, hot chocolate.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
After a long hiatus
Every so often I think about abandoning this blog, because I hardly ever come here, but my reaction is always "Noooooooo!" So rather than let it languish by default, I'll just have to visit more often.
Every so often I get the 'I'm *that* Kami' feeling. It's kinda nice, if disconcerting. Rory tells a lot of stories about me, most of them good. I think. So he tells me.
Okay, so I know they're good stories. But how can I create any tension in this story without hinting at a dark underbelly?
Oh yeah, this isn't a story.
In any case, as I was saying, every so often I meet someone who realizes I'm *that* Kami. I think for the first time in a long time, if ever, I introduced a friend of mine as *that* (privacy protected friend) and I'm really not sure what she thought of that. Hopefully the same complex mixture of sensations I get, like the layers of yum in a really good mixed drink.
People have a strange coexistence with their reputations and the way their friends see them. Those shadows remain for awhile after we're gone, and sometimes they become more concentrated. My father has been refined and concentrated to brilliant engineer, devoted husband and stern but very loving parent. All the other parts of him have evaporated with history. It's a terrible loss, one that happens daily. And yet those parts that remain become stronger, more focused, and they can last for generations if they're strong enough. I don't worry about immortality in most senses of the word. However, if I were to be remembered well beyond the span of my immediate descendants, I'd hope it would be for art, or writing, or something I'd done that I'd be proud of.
And this of course ties back to being *that* Kami, or in your case, *that* you. We won't be around to modify *that* self after we're gone. So while we're here, it's good to find out what *that* self is like, and if it's who we want to be. Not important, just good. Not everything good is important.
Every so often I get the 'I'm *that* Kami' feeling. It's kinda nice, if disconcerting. Rory tells a lot of stories about me, most of them good. I think. So he tells me.
Okay, so I know they're good stories. But how can I create any tension in this story without hinting at a dark underbelly?
Oh yeah, this isn't a story.
In any case, as I was saying, every so often I meet someone who realizes I'm *that* Kami. I think for the first time in a long time, if ever, I introduced a friend of mine as *that* (privacy protected friend) and I'm really not sure what she thought of that. Hopefully the same complex mixture of sensations I get, like the layers of yum in a really good mixed drink.
People have a strange coexistence with their reputations and the way their friends see them. Those shadows remain for awhile after we're gone, and sometimes they become more concentrated. My father has been refined and concentrated to brilliant engineer, devoted husband and stern but very loving parent. All the other parts of him have evaporated with history. It's a terrible loss, one that happens daily. And yet those parts that remain become stronger, more focused, and they can last for generations if they're strong enough. I don't worry about immortality in most senses of the word. However, if I were to be remembered well beyond the span of my immediate descendants, I'd hope it would be for art, or writing, or something I'd done that I'd be proud of.
And this of course ties back to being *that* Kami, or in your case, *that* you. We won't be around to modify *that* self after we're gone. So while we're here, it's good to find out what *that* self is like, and if it's who we want to be. Not important, just good. Not everything good is important.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Games
A friend's blog had the following two games in it. I thought I'd give them a try.
Ris wrote: Holly Lisle posted this fun little exercise, similar to the game I did below:
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
First exercise I used the 23rd post from my other blog, the May 5th entry: http://www.nanopubye.org/forum/weblog.php?w=8&month=5&year=2005&day=5
Where is the light coming from?
It makes me think of inspiration. I've been reading James Herriot again. His work is inspired by his own life and the people and animals he's known and loved. I think when I'm writing at my best, I do the same. Without that sense of warmth, and fragility, without the fear of someday (or immediately) losing the precious things in your actual life somehow getting transmitted onto the page, the work is without soul. There's no risk. The writing (or art) is too safe, and the inspiration is just a shadow on the page. It might still be interesting, but it's not compelling.
Note to self: write real
For the second game I grabbed a Writer's Book of Days. It's so easily at hand at my desk I would have had to move it to reach for something else. It happens that page 123 is a chapter break.
August
"Anyone can become a writer. The trick is staying a writer." -- Harlan Ellison
That's okay, I guess, but I like the actual sentences on the next page:
Tell the Truth. Every time you write you have an opportunity to tell the truth. Sometimes it's only through writing that you can know the truth, which may be one of the reasons we write in the first place.
I haven't read up to this part in the book yet. I'm behind by several months. If I do the exercise for today, I'll be writing about a pillow. I like that.
Ris wrote: Holly Lisle posted this fun little exercise, similar to the game I did below:
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
First exercise I used the 23rd post from my other blog, the May 5th entry: http://www.nanopubye.org/forum/weblog.php?w=8&month=5&year=2005&day=5
Where is the light coming from?
It makes me think of inspiration. I've been reading James Herriot again. His work is inspired by his own life and the people and animals he's known and loved. I think when I'm writing at my best, I do the same. Without that sense of warmth, and fragility, without the fear of someday (or immediately) losing the precious things in your actual life somehow getting transmitted onto the page, the work is without soul. There's no risk. The writing (or art) is too safe, and the inspiration is just a shadow on the page. It might still be interesting, but it's not compelling.
Note to self: write real
For the second game I grabbed a Writer's Book of Days. It's so easily at hand at my desk I would have had to move it to reach for something else. It happens that page 123 is a chapter break.
August
"Anyone can become a writer. The trick is staying a writer." -- Harlan Ellison
That's okay, I guess, but I like the actual sentences on the next page:
Tell the Truth. Every time you write you have an opportunity to tell the truth. Sometimes it's only through writing that you can know the truth, which may be one of the reasons we write in the first place.
I haven't read up to this part in the book yet. I'm behind by several months. If I do the exercise for today, I'll be writing about a pillow. I like that.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Visitors
My uncles came to visit from Prague, just in time for my birthday. We met them at the airport. They're not as tall as I remember, and uncle Petr complained about how fat he'd gotten (not that fat). It's so good to see them. They have warm smiles and crow's feet wrinkles by their eyes from laughing all the time. They were the last two passengers released into the US, due to some sort of trouble in immigration, so they kept us in suspense for an hour and a half past their arrival time.
They'd probably disagree, but they haven't aged much. I expected frosted, even white hair. They're still healthy, vital, big men, men you'd expect to be ex-football players, with heavy jaws and meaty shoulders and big hands. My mother is very small between them, but she's the eldest of the three, though not the oldest sibling. Her sister is in South Africa. I've never met her, my aunt, but I've seen pictures. That part of the family is far away.
The Czech Republic is far away too, but they managed to find their way here, and we've managed to visit them. I'd like to take Rory and the kids sometime.
My mother's side of the family is originally from Moravia, specifically, Polna. Polna is a simple place (mentioned briefly in the link on 'day 6' of the bike tour). When I went there last, someone was still using a horse-drawn cart. It's not exactly a tourist town, though it's a stop for some folk of Jewish faith, as there's a very old synagogue there, an interesting ghetto, as well as a grave of a Jewish girl murdered in the forest outside of town. That should tell you something ... that although the murder happened generations ago, people still talk about it, still feel it as something shameful that never should have happened. Well, that may be my idealized view of it. My family still talks about it, and what an awful thing it was that the poor girl was killed by some creep passing through, and when they go mushroom picking they have to stop there to place wildflowers on her grave. When we visited just before the Velvet Revolution, there were already fresh wildflowers there. That probably explains why we didn't find much in the way of mushrooms.
It's hard for me to explain 'different culture' in the depth that I'd like to. You can see a different culture, maybe even intellectualize about the whys of a different culture, but I've *lived* in two cultures and it's hard to express the Czech feeling my uncles inspire in me when I see them. Because I wasn't raised in the country in which I was born (past age 1 1/2, anyway) there are a lot of mysteries, as well as a sense of being shipwrecked on a tiny island surrounded by native born Americans. We were always different, and by learning to be more the same (though never wholly the same), I am missing key nuances to Czech life. But the stories I grew up with were Czech, and when I go back to the 'home country' I don't feel like a foreigner. I feel like a dummy, but not a foreigner. We speak the same language. Not in words ( have the halting vocabulary of a four year old), but with our hearts. We like to sing and dance, we create art without a sense of shame, inadequacy or without being raised to believe that if you aren't a professional artist your work is crap. There are a lot of differences between individuals, huge differences, but we're more alike than we're unalike.
So imagine, if you can, a very small country of people like you. Is it a good place? If you go there, would you find yourself at home?
They'd probably disagree, but they haven't aged much. I expected frosted, even white hair. They're still healthy, vital, big men, men you'd expect to be ex-football players, with heavy jaws and meaty shoulders and big hands. My mother is very small between them, but she's the eldest of the three, though not the oldest sibling. Her sister is in South Africa. I've never met her, my aunt, but I've seen pictures. That part of the family is far away.
The Czech Republic is far away too, but they managed to find their way here, and we've managed to visit them. I'd like to take Rory and the kids sometime.
My mother's side of the family is originally from Moravia, specifically, Polna. Polna is a simple place (mentioned briefly in the link on 'day 6' of the bike tour). When I went there last, someone was still using a horse-drawn cart. It's not exactly a tourist town, though it's a stop for some folk of Jewish faith, as there's a very old synagogue there, an interesting ghetto, as well as a grave of a Jewish girl murdered in the forest outside of town. That should tell you something ... that although the murder happened generations ago, people still talk about it, still feel it as something shameful that never should have happened. Well, that may be my idealized view of it. My family still talks about it, and what an awful thing it was that the poor girl was killed by some creep passing through, and when they go mushroom picking they have to stop there to place wildflowers on her grave. When we visited just before the Velvet Revolution, there were already fresh wildflowers there. That probably explains why we didn't find much in the way of mushrooms.
It's hard for me to explain 'different culture' in the depth that I'd like to. You can see a different culture, maybe even intellectualize about the whys of a different culture, but I've *lived* in two cultures and it's hard to express the Czech feeling my uncles inspire in me when I see them. Because I wasn't raised in the country in which I was born (past age 1 1/2, anyway) there are a lot of mysteries, as well as a sense of being shipwrecked on a tiny island surrounded by native born Americans. We were always different, and by learning to be more the same (though never wholly the same), I am missing key nuances to Czech life. But the stories I grew up with were Czech, and when I go back to the 'home country' I don't feel like a foreigner. I feel like a dummy, but not a foreigner. We speak the same language. Not in words ( have the halting vocabulary of a four year old), but with our hearts. We like to sing and dance, we create art without a sense of shame, inadequacy or without being raised to believe that if you aren't a professional artist your work is crap. There are a lot of differences between individuals, huge differences, but we're more alike than we're unalike.
So imagine, if you can, a very small country of people like you. Is it a good place? If you go there, would you find yourself at home?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Quickie
My eyes are closed, and I'm writing by feel. Rory, Ris and I killed two trees today. Well, more like euthanized them. They were dying from fireblight, a particularly nasty disease that really does a number on pit fruits, especially cherries like the ones we destroyed today. We left large stumps where a bird bath, bird feeder and birdhouses will perch someday. The sky is strangely empty where they once stood.
It's quiet now, and my body is tired and very heavy. I'm hypnotized by a chemical cascade that says keep your eyes on the watch. Now your body feels like it weighs too much to hold up. You're getting sleepy ...
The wine didn't help.
Speaking of wine, I'm late in taking care of my wine. It probably won't hurt anything, but tomorrow at some point I really have to take out the giant tea bag of plums, stir things up, and even decant into secondary fermentation containers. I also said I'd volunteer for the SW Humane Society tomorrow. I'll go, but maybe not all day. There's just too much to do, and I'm so beat. Not defeated beat, but battered, tattered, worn threadbare. Committing a whole day, even to a worthy cause, will shuffle aside too many other worthy things that have to happen, like laundry so my children have clean clothes to wear.
So I'll leave this blog short. Sleep fast, everyone.
It's quiet now, and my body is tired and very heavy. I'm hypnotized by a chemical cascade that says keep your eyes on the watch. Now your body feels like it weighs too much to hold up. You're getting sleepy ...
The wine didn't help.
Speaking of wine, I'm late in taking care of my wine. It probably won't hurt anything, but tomorrow at some point I really have to take out the giant tea bag of plums, stir things up, and even decant into secondary fermentation containers. I also said I'd volunteer for the SW Humane Society tomorrow. I'll go, but maybe not all day. There's just too much to do, and I'm so beat. Not defeated beat, but battered, tattered, worn threadbare. Committing a whole day, even to a worthy cause, will shuffle aside too many other worthy things that have to happen, like laundry so my children have clean clothes to wear.
So I'll leave this blog short. Sleep fast, everyone.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Bloop
Pip. Pip. Pip.
The champagne yeast is doing its work in a 3 gallon jug of sugar and plums. It's the sugar plum fairy, yay! The steady rhythm of pip, pip, pip as bubbles of carbon dioxide flow through the air lock fascinates my daughter and myself in the morning as we go to check and see if the airlock was blown off by the pressure again.
Meanwhile, next to it, the five gallons of plum cuvée has an entirely different rhythm. Bloop-bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop-bloop-bloop. In threes, twos and fours, it bubbles in a mad rush and then is quite for a breath. Yesterday, when the champagne popped its airlock, sometimes complete with cork (sterilize, grumble, replace) three times, leaving splashes of bluish purple on the walls, the cuvée didn't offer a single comment. It sat there with a thin layer of gooey foam and sulked. But apparently now it's happy.
So the liquid yeasts do start faster. Maybe too fast.
Meanwhile, Beast, our airedale, is whining and limping around. I called the vet and it's okay for him to take Nikita's arthritis med, Rimadyl, for any pain and inflammation. It may go away, she said. Let him limp around for a couple of days, see if he improves. She's really good about not wasting our money. So I have to watch to make sure he's still putting weight on it (he still is) and try to figure out if he's getting worse or better. He got a bath (he had such a cute, bummed out look in the tub!) and got dried off (and had way too much fun playing with the towel), ears cleaned, toenails trimmed, and while I was down there I checked each pad and between the toes. Nothing. Nada. Looks gorgeous and whole, no hot spots. I felt some heat along his leg while bathing him, but it might have just been him working that muscle trying to balance on the slippery tub floor.
Hmm. Maybe I should get one of those no-skid mats for when I bathe the dogs.
Kami envisions Beast having the ability to brace on said no-skid mat and vaulting out of the tub, soaking wet.
Maybe not.
That'd make one helluva bloop, though. Or maybe more like a SPLOOOOOSH!
The champagne yeast is doing its work in a 3 gallon jug of sugar and plums. It's the sugar plum fairy, yay! The steady rhythm of pip, pip, pip as bubbles of carbon dioxide flow through the air lock fascinates my daughter and myself in the morning as we go to check and see if the airlock was blown off by the pressure again.
Meanwhile, next to it, the five gallons of plum cuvée has an entirely different rhythm. Bloop-bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop. Bloop-bloop-bloop-bloop. In threes, twos and fours, it bubbles in a mad rush and then is quite for a breath. Yesterday, when the champagne popped its airlock, sometimes complete with cork (sterilize, grumble, replace) three times, leaving splashes of bluish purple on the walls, the cuvée didn't offer a single comment. It sat there with a thin layer of gooey foam and sulked. But apparently now it's happy.
So the liquid yeasts do start faster. Maybe too fast.
Meanwhile, Beast, our airedale, is whining and limping around. I called the vet and it's okay for him to take Nikita's arthritis med, Rimadyl, for any pain and inflammation. It may go away, she said. Let him limp around for a couple of days, see if he improves. She's really good about not wasting our money. So I have to watch to make sure he's still putting weight on it (he still is) and try to figure out if he's getting worse or better. He got a bath (he had such a cute, bummed out look in the tub!) and got dried off (and had way too much fun playing with the towel), ears cleaned, toenails trimmed, and while I was down there I checked each pad and between the toes. Nothing. Nada. Looks gorgeous and whole, no hot spots. I felt some heat along his leg while bathing him, but it might have just been him working that muscle trying to balance on the slippery tub floor.
Hmm. Maybe I should get one of those no-skid mats for when I bathe the dogs.
Kami envisions Beast having the ability to brace on said no-skid mat and vaulting out of the tub, soaking wet.
Maybe not.
That'd make one helluva bloop, though. Or maybe more like a SPLOOOOOSH!
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Autumn
The season is flowing into the extra layers of clothing time, the hot chocolate time, the shivery morning time. Yesterday Rick and I made must for plum wine. The plums and sugar and honey made an incredible hot fragrance. Tomorrow, assuming the pectic enzyme did its work, the yeast goes in, Champagne and Cuvée. The ash trees are already yellowing, giving up on the long dry and heading into winter early. The garden is past its fullness but not rotting yet, like Dumbledore's phoenix really needing to go up in flames so it can return with spring's youth.
It's seed collecting time: nasturtium, echinacea, sweet peas, poppy, honeymelon sage and lion's tails, oregano and gentian. While I tap the monarda heads, bugs fall out. They love the seeds, and there aren't many left.
If you're a short story writer, now it's time to write about spring. The chill in spring's air is different, and the rain is a too-ardent lover. The novelist is lucky; s/he can jump ahead or revisit what's happened, impregnating the scent of air at first light into the setting.
It's also the wandering, time to explore. The migratory birds aren't the only ones that want to fly. The horizon is someone you see from behind who might be a friend. Tap them on the shoulder and even if they're a stranger, you may merrily meet.
Time to write.
It's seed collecting time: nasturtium, echinacea, sweet peas, poppy, honeymelon sage and lion's tails, oregano and gentian. While I tap the monarda heads, bugs fall out. They love the seeds, and there aren't many left.
If you're a short story writer, now it's time to write about spring. The chill in spring's air is different, and the rain is a too-ardent lover. The novelist is lucky; s/he can jump ahead or revisit what's happened, impregnating the scent of air at first light into the setting.
It's also the wandering, time to explore. The migratory birds aren't the only ones that want to fly. The horizon is someone you see from behind who might be a friend. Tap them on the shoulder and even if they're a stranger, you may merrily meet.
Time to write.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Getting it right
Sometimes you just have to get it right.
I opened up my laptop this morning expecting to make a few entries and balance my books. When I was 'done' I called the bank to take care of a clerical error they made to the tune of $8. That amount wouldn't break me, but hey, I'd done more work clipping coupons to save less.
Our bank is on an automated system, so before I could talk to a person I had to sign in and jump through the hoops. I'd done this often enough that I was through them lickety split. I got my balance, as usual--and almost dropped the phone.
What do you mean zero?
Adrenaline bled into my bloodstream. Thankfully it's a relatively slow build up and hopefully I would calm down as soon as I figured out what happened and fixed it. I went over my purchases over the weekend in my head. No ... no ... not all of them combined and doubled could zero me out. So what happened?
It's almost 11pm locally and after phone calls, more bookkeeping, and finally succumbing to the necessity of online banking, I have a non-zero balance and a new commitment to daily bookkeeping. This once every month is not cutting it.
Sometimes you just have to do it right.
I learned a lot at the convention I just came from, Cascadiacon, as well. After talking to editors and professional writers, I found out that doing it right was exactly as I'd been told ... sort of. There were subtle details that opened my eyes to what I'd been doing wrong and were quite likely partly responsible for why I hadn't been published yet.
The reason you don't mention your lack of publishing credentials is because as far as the editor knows, you could have all kinds of publishing credits and choose not to mention them. Because of this, I now fully realize that putting in minor publishing credits really is a bad idea. If I spell them out, they know that's all there is.
Mentioning that you're tight with famous writers or editors, again, only makes you look like you're coming from a weak position and need something to make yourself look like a pro. A real pro doesn't mention who s/he hangs with, even if it's a professional relationship. Duh. [Kami bangs her head against a wall]
If there's already lots of it out there, don't bother sending it unless they request it. If your character is a vampire, a ghost, an alien, a hot shot pilot or whatever favorites you've seen, don't pretend that character is special. It's about the story. The more 'specialness' you can strip from a character, the better. They're not kewl because they suck blood or because they're the best. Their purpose is to struggle, to succeed on the page by the barest margins, or fail but keep fighting until they've met the ugly end you've devised for them. The more bells and whistles they have, the harder it is going to be to get the readers to care, and to worry.
Plot twists are not a silly contrivance. They're a necessity, otherwise (duh) we're going to know what will happen, and that's boring. You shouldn't be amazed by how easily an editor is bored. All the flowery language and pretty setting in the world won't make your story interesting if it's a flat, straight road to the end. I'm not just talking about everything going as planned. I'm talking those twists that surprise the character, the reader, the editor--the plot twists that surprise you as you're writing. They should make you stop writing a second and think 'oh crap!' at minimum, and not necessarily a happy 'oh crap!'
You have to do it right.
Now I have to get a splinter out of my thumb. I'll get all the necessary tools (it's deep) and do it right so my thumb doesn't infect and fall off. Afterward, maybe I'll get some writing in.
I opened up my laptop this morning expecting to make a few entries and balance my books. When I was 'done' I called the bank to take care of a clerical error they made to the tune of $8. That amount wouldn't break me, but hey, I'd done more work clipping coupons to save less.
Our bank is on an automated system, so before I could talk to a person I had to sign in and jump through the hoops. I'd done this often enough that I was through them lickety split. I got my balance, as usual--and almost dropped the phone.
What do you mean zero?
Adrenaline bled into my bloodstream. Thankfully it's a relatively slow build up and hopefully I would calm down as soon as I figured out what happened and fixed it. I went over my purchases over the weekend in my head. No ... no ... not all of them combined and doubled could zero me out. So what happened?
It's almost 11pm locally and after phone calls, more bookkeeping, and finally succumbing to the necessity of online banking, I have a non-zero balance and a new commitment to daily bookkeeping. This once every month is not cutting it.
Sometimes you just have to do it right.
I learned a lot at the convention I just came from, Cascadiacon, as well. After talking to editors and professional writers, I found out that doing it right was exactly as I'd been told ... sort of. There were subtle details that opened my eyes to what I'd been doing wrong and were quite likely partly responsible for why I hadn't been published yet.
The reason you don't mention your lack of publishing credentials is because as far as the editor knows, you could have all kinds of publishing credits and choose not to mention them. Because of this, I now fully realize that putting in minor publishing credits really is a bad idea. If I spell them out, they know that's all there is.
Mentioning that you're tight with famous writers or editors, again, only makes you look like you're coming from a weak position and need something to make yourself look like a pro. A real pro doesn't mention who s/he hangs with, even if it's a professional relationship. Duh. [Kami bangs her head against a wall]
If there's already lots of it out there, don't bother sending it unless they request it. If your character is a vampire, a ghost, an alien, a hot shot pilot or whatever favorites you've seen, don't pretend that character is special. It's about the story. The more 'specialness' you can strip from a character, the better. They're not kewl because they suck blood or because they're the best. Their purpose is to struggle, to succeed on the page by the barest margins, or fail but keep fighting until they've met the ugly end you've devised for them. The more bells and whistles they have, the harder it is going to be to get the readers to care, and to worry.
Plot twists are not a silly contrivance. They're a necessity, otherwise (duh) we're going to know what will happen, and that's boring. You shouldn't be amazed by how easily an editor is bored. All the flowery language and pretty setting in the world won't make your story interesting if it's a flat, straight road to the end. I'm not just talking about everything going as planned. I'm talking those twists that surprise the character, the reader, the editor--the plot twists that surprise you as you're writing. They should make you stop writing a second and think 'oh crap!' at minimum, and not necessarily a happy 'oh crap!'
You have to do it right.
Now I have to get a splinter out of my thumb. I'll get all the necessary tools (it's deep) and do it right so my thumb doesn't infect and fall off. Afterward, maybe I'll get some writing in.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Sleep
Needing to sleep is an ache, an almost amorous longing to close the eyes and surrender. Too many fight this sensation. What is it they dread? Deadlines. Missing out on something fun. Getting caught. Getting killed. Losing their job. The plane taking off without them.
The price of losing sleep is disregarded. There's always another hour, or another day, to sleep. Sleep is so undervalued, until that first baby is born, or you get sick, or you work two jobs to make ends meet and nap under a desk all week. Sleep begins to mean something again when it's denied night after night. It's not the same as intentionally staying up late and getting up early. That self-inflicted slow destruction doesn't teach like an outside force suspending you from hooks, always out of reach of that full night's sleep. The body adapts, and so does the mind until sleeplessness becomes normal, but you don't feel healthy until a good long run of deep sleeps. The parched body soaks up the rest like water into dehydrated tissues and youth returns to old, tired carcasses.
So, on that note, I'm going to bed. I hope all of you get a good night's sleep.
The price of losing sleep is disregarded. There's always another hour, or another day, to sleep. Sleep is so undervalued, until that first baby is born, or you get sick, or you work two jobs to make ends meet and nap under a desk all week. Sleep begins to mean something again when it's denied night after night. It's not the same as intentionally staying up late and getting up early. That self-inflicted slow destruction doesn't teach like an outside force suspending you from hooks, always out of reach of that full night's sleep. The body adapts, and so does the mind until sleeplessness becomes normal, but you don't feel healthy until a good long run of deep sleeps. The parched body soaks up the rest like water into dehydrated tissues and youth returns to old, tired carcasses.
So, on that note, I'm going to bed. I hope all of you get a good night's sleep.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Impending
Impending. Pendulum. Suspense. Pensive. In four days they'll be here, a tremendous number of people we like gathering to celebrate the birthdays of several people we like. The roots of the first four words are linked through a concept of something about to drop, something held up that will fall. In four days we can celebrate until it hurts, but up to that point we're doing all we can to prepare.
Meanwhile, the honey watercolors call to the brush, demanding to be stroked and applied. They're so kinky.
It's past time to go back to work, back to the sweeping and weeding and mowing and laundry and dishes and all the other things that need to happen Before. I wonder what I'll do with my time After.
Meanwhile, the honey watercolors call to the brush, demanding to be stroked and applied. They're so kinky.
It's past time to go back to work, back to the sweeping and weeding and mowing and laundry and dishes and all the other things that need to happen Before. I wonder what I'll do with my time After.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Return from Hades
I looked over my shoulder many times, but my blog didn't vanish into Hades. It came back to life. I thought about just leaving this blog behind in favor of my old blog, but I figured I could handle writing on two. Sometimes writing something twice brings out new insights. Sometimes just writing more of anything opens new doors.
We're back from Cape Cod. Things are forever changed. I'm slightly different than when I left, slightly but noticeably, and it's kinda kewl. This is still home, but it has new life and new potential. All this freshness from four airplane rides, a martial arts seminar and two nights in a friend's house in Providence. So maybe nothing shattering or extravegant has to happen to make someone a better, or worse, person, to realize how good you have it, or how bad things have gotten. Maybe it's just the change of routine, new challenges, an occasional drop of adrenaline to keep the blood young and the eyes eager and alert. How many days have gone by with eyes half-closed or even shut because you know exactly where you're going? Have your feet retraced the same path so many times that you don't even have to think to do it? It's too easy to let happiness gray over into boredom. Happiness doesn't stick around in that situation; it doesn't like to be taken for granted. The shadowed side of the same world, a life of suffering, also becomes rote. Too soon it's hard to imagine doing anything else.
Time to sleep. The phone is going to ring early tomorrow. I'm looking forward to bed. I've remembered all the reasons I like it.
We're back from Cape Cod. Things are forever changed. I'm slightly different than when I left, slightly but noticeably, and it's kinda kewl. This is still home, but it has new life and new potential. All this freshness from four airplane rides, a martial arts seminar and two nights in a friend's house in Providence. So maybe nothing shattering or extravegant has to happen to make someone a better, or worse, person, to realize how good you have it, or how bad things have gotten. Maybe it's just the change of routine, new challenges, an occasional drop of adrenaline to keep the blood young and the eyes eager and alert. How many days have gone by with eyes half-closed or even shut because you know exactly where you're going? Have your feet retraced the same path so many times that you don't even have to think to do it? It's too easy to let happiness gray over into boredom. Happiness doesn't stick around in that situation; it doesn't like to be taken for granted. The shadowed side of the same world, a life of suffering, also becomes rote. Too soon it's hard to imagine doing anything else.
Time to sleep. The phone is going to ring early tomorrow. I'm looking forward to bed. I've remembered all the reasons I like it.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Chocolate cake
He's about five foot nine, broad in the shoulder, with smiling, terrifyingly clear blue eyes. He keeps his hair short so that no one can grab him by the hair and slam his face into the wall or the floor or into their knee. Where he works, this is a consideration. He claims he's an ordinary, average guy, and sings the song with a sweet voice somewhat out of tune. Someday, when he starts feeling his age more he wants to be a curmudgeon, but for now he's just a brat and a warrior and a lover that romance writers invent but never believe are really real. When he travels alone, the cities sometimes seem the same because all he sees is the inside of a gym and a lot of sweaty men in workout clothes or in martial arts gear or in armor and uniforms. He trains for the things no one likes to think or worry about, keeps us safe, but blushes and denies it when someone tells him he's a hero. Tough luck, babe, you are a hero, though not the kind that rushes into a suicide charge. He's more interested in getting the job done. The bad guy in the cell, the friend back in the raft, the woman through the tight spot in the cave, the medical care to people who desperately need it.
It'd take a really long book to describe all the things he's survived and done and enjoys, and hardly anyone would believe it anyway. We've been married for fifteen years (egad!) and there's never been a dull moment, at least not for me. Despite being a fantastic father, provider, and mover of massively heavy things over long distances, he still asks me if I believe he's worthy of me.
So we had chocolate cake with his equally remarkable mother and the beloved Cajun family friend and cast sarcastic remarks around the table, laughing, grinning, wishing him happy birthday. A new oak tree shades the meadow below our house, his birthday present. Of course it was too heavy for me to manage on my own, so it was Rory, the birthday boy who had to drag it down on a heavy sled while I merely balanced it, Rory who dug the hole and rolled the tree in. I scraped fertile earth around the roots and watered it is about all. Rory dedicated it to a good friend of his in Montreal, a fellow warrior.
Tomorrow we leave early in the morning for Cape Cod. We'll watch silly movies on a portable DVD player and write and sleep if we can. No one around us will think there's anything much to notice about the handsome man just starting to go bald sitting next to me, unless they happen to meet his gaze. They'll see the strength then, the depth of intelligence and spirit, and wonder who that is.
That's Rory Miller, half Irishman, half myth. Well, I guess that makes him all myth. May the sun and stars smile upon him today.
It'd take a really long book to describe all the things he's survived and done and enjoys, and hardly anyone would believe it anyway. We've been married for fifteen years (egad!) and there's never been a dull moment, at least not for me. Despite being a fantastic father, provider, and mover of massively heavy things over long distances, he still asks me if I believe he's worthy of me.
So we had chocolate cake with his equally remarkable mother and the beloved Cajun family friend and cast sarcastic remarks around the table, laughing, grinning, wishing him happy birthday. A new oak tree shades the meadow below our house, his birthday present. Of course it was too heavy for me to manage on my own, so it was Rory, the birthday boy who had to drag it down on a heavy sled while I merely balanced it, Rory who dug the hole and rolled the tree in. I scraped fertile earth around the roots and watered it is about all. Rory dedicated it to a good friend of his in Montreal, a fellow warrior.
Tomorrow we leave early in the morning for Cape Cod. We'll watch silly movies on a portable DVD player and write and sleep if we can. No one around us will think there's anything much to notice about the handsome man just starting to go bald sitting next to me, unless they happen to meet his gaze. They'll see the strength then, the depth of intelligence and spirit, and wonder who that is.
That's Rory Miller, half Irishman, half myth. Well, I guess that makes him all myth. May the sun and stars smile upon him today.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Found My Feet
I'm already missing the old blog, but this will do until it returns. The old blog's hosting website has been down for days. My brain and my fingers are rebelling, wanting that time in front of the computer. So here I am.
After days of sunshine and heavy heat, we have morning fogs. For the first time in a month my hands and feet get icy cold, and that's with wearing the big, plush, purple bathrobe on. The plants are loving it, staying moist and cool. The tomatoes aren't having to pour all that heat into ripening fruit (unfortunately for us) and can lazily let it yellow while they rest. The cats are playful, the dogs happily nap and chores don't seem so Aegean stables-ish.
We're flying out on Thursday early in the morning. All the good and bad that comes with flying is rising up. Fear of plane crashes. Our tenth anniversary in Belize. 9/11. Seeing friends on the other shore I've seen in person only once, a year ago. Security checks. Fantastic food, training martial arts with good people, breathing Atlantic breezes. Leaving the kids and animals behind, fretting about heat spells that may wither our garden.
May. Ah ha! That word gives away what's really going on. All these things are in my head, mays and mights and once was-es. The kewl thing about getting out of town, about doing different things, taking classes and learning, is that they get all those mays and mights out of my head and don't let me lean on what I used to do. You can worry about what may and might happen or live in the past until the the seasons all pass into a blur, but it's what actually happens that counts.
When the mind is not paying attention to what's going on because what's going on is part of an expected, usual routine, the mind makes all kinds of nasty things up. Maybe it's an addiction to adrenaline. Maybe it's a symptom of a human survival mechanism, to always be worrying about what might happen and trying to prevent the worst from coming by some clever means. Well, that is worth about crap when someone else is flying the plane, and it's even worse when those made up scenarios keep you from doing all the kewl stuff that will get you out of the predictable life that allows you to come up with all the evil fantasies in the first place.
It'll be good to actually be on the plane, and even better to actually be in Cape Cod studying martial arts, taking photos, eating fabulous lobster and real Boston Cream Pie. It's one thing to plan, and another thing to let anxiety ruin every blessed moment. Just think of what our trip would be like if we started worrying about flying back home and what we'll find when we get home as soon as we end up at Cape Cod?
I've found my feet again, not just with the blog, but with the trip. Now I can walk. Sweet! Do you know where your feet are?
After days of sunshine and heavy heat, we have morning fogs. For the first time in a month my hands and feet get icy cold, and that's with wearing the big, plush, purple bathrobe on. The plants are loving it, staying moist and cool. The tomatoes aren't having to pour all that heat into ripening fruit (unfortunately for us) and can lazily let it yellow while they rest. The cats are playful, the dogs happily nap and chores don't seem so Aegean stables-ish.
We're flying out on Thursday early in the morning. All the good and bad that comes with flying is rising up. Fear of plane crashes. Our tenth anniversary in Belize. 9/11. Seeing friends on the other shore I've seen in person only once, a year ago. Security checks. Fantastic food, training martial arts with good people, breathing Atlantic breezes. Leaving the kids and animals behind, fretting about heat spells that may wither our garden.
May. Ah ha! That word gives away what's really going on. All these things are in my head, mays and mights and once was-es. The kewl thing about getting out of town, about doing different things, taking classes and learning, is that they get all those mays and mights out of my head and don't let me lean on what I used to do. You can worry about what may and might happen or live in the past until the the seasons all pass into a blur, but it's what actually happens that counts.
When the mind is not paying attention to what's going on because what's going on is part of an expected, usual routine, the mind makes all kinds of nasty things up. Maybe it's an addiction to adrenaline. Maybe it's a symptom of a human survival mechanism, to always be worrying about what might happen and trying to prevent the worst from coming by some clever means. Well, that is worth about crap when someone else is flying the plane, and it's even worse when those made up scenarios keep you from doing all the kewl stuff that will get you out of the predictable life that allows you to come up with all the evil fantasies in the first place.
It'll be good to actually be on the plane, and even better to actually be in Cape Cod studying martial arts, taking photos, eating fabulous lobster and real Boston Cream Pie. It's one thing to plan, and another thing to let anxiety ruin every blessed moment. Just think of what our trip would be like if we started worrying about flying back home and what we'll find when we get home as soon as we end up at Cape Cod?
I've found my feet again, not just with the blog, but with the trip. Now I can walk. Sweet! Do you know where your feet are?
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