Exciting Times

Masks has taken a strange turn thanks to a book I'm reading.

I love it when that happens.  And I love strangeness, especially when it feels familiar despite the fact that it's bizarre.  Stuff like this encourages me to play with my brain.  

I'll review the book that upended Masks and sent it spinning into unforeseen directions when I'm done.

In other news, the boy is home for a visit.  I'm always happier when he's here.  He has a project he's working on and I'm hoping to guide him through the process of creation.  I know how hard it can be to begin something creative.  When we face a blank page, we're really facing ourselves.  It's weird but true that when we're faced with ourselves, we don't feel up to our own challenge.  You'd think that hey, it's my challenge and I want to do it, what's the harm in trying?  And there is no harm ... just terrible, nasty doubt and that doubt knows all your buttons and switches because it's you.

Anyway, I have to go to work now.  I wish I could stay home, but I'm just too darned ethical to call in sick, even when I'm feeling sick-ish, since my malaise is entirely my own fault.  It's not a cold, it's not a broken bone or a severed artery ... it's called insufficient sleep after a huge day and then waking up before first light to take my DH to the airport.  Thank you to all the folks who turned out for my DH's first-ever book signing and reading at Cedar Hills Powells last night.  I had a ton of fun before, during and after, and I'm all right with feeling dragged out, headachy and feeling like I want to eat nothing all day today because my tummy is unsettled.  It was totally worth it.  

Totally.

Bits

Just a quickie before I head back to work ...

I've been writing on Masks again. My writing process changes all the time, and sometimes that scares me. I think a lot of writers are afraid of doing it wrong. Change doesn't always mean you change for the better.

I have to keep writing and not judge myself. I'll let others judge me. It's better that way.

Also, I'm getting closer to putting House of Goats up for those who'd like to read the kind of stuff I write but aren't into fantasy/sf. I'll make a big announcement when it happens.

Lastly, the girl is working on finishing those critical senior year requirements before she graduates. The pressure is up but she's hanging in there. I'll try to get her to send out her graduation announcements soon. I think she's a little worried about jinxing herself, when she has time to worry!

Proud to be a Mom

Wow.  It's a whole new month!  

Here, at last, are pics of the girl just before she went to the prom.  The extra string by her neck is from her purse--I couldn't get her to hang out for pics very long because she was in quite a hurry to get out the door.  I think I may have overdone it in the fussing department.  

She had a wonderful time, and even danced with a boy.

I don't know who will look back on this night more fondly--the girl, or me. 

The boy is visiting for Mother's Day.  I sure miss having him home.  I love having him here on Mom's day, and I feel totally pampered.  He helped me a ton around the garden.  The girl helped too, but not much.  Rain and thunder drove her off and she never came back.

Peas are in, artichokes and cardoon (hardened off seedlings that are under a protective cover until things nice'n up) and the onion sets which couldn't wait any longer.  I think the onion sets will be fine, since some onions that overwintered have plenty of green on them.

Cake, gardening, crystalline gifts, and a good talk with my mom this morning.  Awesome day.  It'll be hard to go back to work tomorrow after being spoiled rotten all day.  I'm so proud of my kids, and spending time with them was a huge treat.  

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!  I hope you had a good one.

Waiting

Still @ McMenamin's, waiting for my daughter to call us to pick her up from the prom.

Happy, excited, apprehensive, watching the minutes tick closer to when the prom is officially over. Can't wait to grill for details.

I'm such a mom.

The Milestones are Getting Bigger

My youngest child is at her senior prom. I'm at a local pub not drinking, eating good pub food and I'm desperately hoping she's having fun.

She'll never know how beautiful she is, not just to me but to everyone who sees her. I wonder if it scared her a little to see herself in makeup, with her hair up, in a formal floor-length gown. It didn't scare me. I see her as a incredible young lady whether she's dressed up or she's in grubby jeans and a stained sweater.

Meanwhile my eldest child is finding out about the work world in a way that no one likes to learn--through the frustrating process of endless job hunting in a bad economy, where people with no experience are forced to compete with people who are overqualified and desperate for any kind of income. And he's met someone his age. A couple of years older, actually, but how different she must seem from his high school friends. She has a job, is old enough to drink ... yeah.

I seldom thought this far ahead when I had kids, and I only could think that way in unfocused abstracts, especially since we had autistic kids. I think that turned into such a blessing in so many ways. I was never tempted to pigeonhole them or force them onto a track. Everything was up for grabs. Would they go to college? That was nothing--I wondered if they'd be able to make friends. Would they participate in team sports? Let's just worry about whether they would be able to stay in a mainstream school.

I don't think I ever set the bar low, or decided that they couldn't do anything they wanted. They did surprise me a lot, but that doesn't mean I didn't think they were capable. It was always about what they wanted to strive for, and I was never sure what they would want to do with the resources they had within themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.

My kids taught me how to be a supportive parent by unveiling the difficulties and exceptional capabilities given to people born with autism-spectrum stuff. If they'd been born 'normal' I wonder if I might not have turned out to be a crummy parent, that terrible combination of helicopter and controlling that only allowed them to be all they could be as long as that being was within the realms of my vision for them. I did too much of that as it stands. But they didn't, and I had to immediately let go of any kind of planned future for them.

And that turned out to be a very good thing. I'm not going to stress about my daughter going to the prom without a date or a gaggle of friends. She wanted to go to the prom, and she went by herself, and I did everything I could to make her prom night special within the context of her desires. Just between us, I'm proud of her, because I wanted to go alone but I chickened out and went with someone I didn't like so I could conform. Unlike me when I was her age, she is a true individual, and her high school class is full of like-minded kids. Amazing. I doubt they will bat an eye at her showing up by herself.

I'm not going to stress about my son not finding work either. He's taking a community college course on his own dime and looking and learning and discovering so much about what happens to a plan when it meets up with the real world. There's time yet to learn about how to work at a real paying job. Right now he's in the middle of plenty other lessons, and I can see his mind spinning and working and going into overdrive trying to figure out how to make things work. Part of that learning will involve trying to hold onto or fall back onto old habits that made life comfortable for him at home, and figuring out how well those habits serve him now.

None of this is about me, of course. But I'm going through a process too, not so much of letting go but seeing my children in a whole new way. Not as independent beings--they've always been that--but as rapidly changing beings. Like seeds growing into trees, they stay little for such a long time, and though they're growing at the same rate on a cellular level they seem to suddenly explode into so many branches and leaves that it's beyond counting.

I finally get to see them as the trees, and not just an assortment of leaves and twigs that I feed and water and nurture as best I can.

And that's a very awe-inspiring thing.

Good Friends Gone

These weren't the pics I originally planned on posting.  I've been going through my pics and I found these.  I'd forgotten that I took them.  The top one is of our beloved Nikita and goofball Beast, and the lower one is of our sweet girl Dakota who passed away so recently.

Good days, gone but not forgotten.

Day Two in Chickville

We still have six baby chicks.

The kewl thing about chicks is that no matter how wound-up you are when you get home from work, they're reliably themselves.  They live their lives under a warm red light eating, pooping, and sleeping.  Oh, and peeping, of course.  They peep in a similar fashion to sparrows, a very sweet, uplifting sound that relaxes me unless they're peeping in my bedroom at 2am, but we're not raising them in the master bedroom this year.  I do vaguely remember how that peep cut through layers of blankets and pillows like well-aimed bullets.  In a sweet, uplifting way, of course.

I'm still concerned about their health, but the fact that they made it through the night and they're all active is encouraging.  They're also all eating.  And eating.  And eating.  I think they're in a race to see who doubles their weight first.

I'll post pics soon--possibly tomorrow.  This may be as cute as they get, though you never know.  They may turn out to be very beautiful birds despite the rather plain-looking pictures I found on the web of their adult forms.

The new flock

We have chicks.

We got three black sex-link chicks and three barred rock chicks today.  No ameraucanas this time, but they may have some next Friday, at which point we may pick up three more.  We'll see.  We didn't pick out the prettiest chickens in the universe, at least to my eyes, but they're tough, reliable breeds and they'll be good layers.  Not that we need a gizillion eggs.  

I still miss my original birds desperately, especially Cleo and Hero, and Henry, and that may be why I didn't decide to wait for ameraucanas and get only that breed.  I don't want to think of these as replacements--they're their own birds with their own lives.  

Of that original flock we still have Beatrice and one of the Wyandotte roosters.  They're doing very well, although they're a bit perturbed about not being able to roam around the garden freely like they used to.  Beatrice lays one lovely pink egg every day, despite having a mere quarter of an acre on which to roam.  She's good at making due.  The rooster seems more surly lately, and attacks me when I start to leave.  I figure he's trained himself not to attack when we come in, because that might deter us from providing treats ...

I'm really anxious about introducing our babies to the older birds.  In theory they'll all be hens (the feed store changed companies after customer complaints about having too many roosters) so the rooster probably won't object to them, but still.  Fortunately that's a long ways away.  They have to get all their outdoor, grownup feathers first.  They'll still be peeping, though, when they move into the big coop, and I hope that will help the adult chickens look at them as non-threats.  They'll look almost grown-up, but they won't really be mature birds until winter has come on, at which point they should be completely integrated into the flock.

They're fast asleep right now.  Why is there always one that has to sleep with her head over the edge of the waterer?  Her beak isn't dipped into the water and she's breathing fine, but still.  Sheesh.  That can't be comfortable.

We have a better chance of having all females this time around thanks to the change in company, but I don't know if the quality of bird overall will be better.  I'm having my doubts.  I've had to clean up two pasty butts already.  I had only one sick bird last time out of the seven, and she ended up doing famously.  I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that these all survive to become big, healthy, happy biddies.  It's not all hope, though.  We'll take the best care of them that we know how.  So far, so good.

Writer's Block

I think I've got writer's block.

I'm not sure, because as far as I remember I haven't, at least, not a full-blown-can't-write-squat.  That isn't to say I haven't had writer's block before.  I just don't remember.  My mind is like a sponge that way.  When it gets full of water stuff drips out the bottom.

The best cure for writer's block is, of course, to write.  So I'm going to be taking down notes today at work and really try to put myself into that opening that I want.  And then, tonight, I'm going to write.  Even if it's crappy.  Even if I'm sure it'll never see the light of day.  And I'll keep going.

I know I've got something going on because the last few things I've tried to write were short stories and I didn't finish them.  The idea of working on novels ... I put them off.  I make excuses.  But I know intellectually that I've written more words into novels than anything and it's novels that keep me writing, so novels should get me writing again.

In the meantime I'll try to write some articles and maybe have another go at short stories or whatever.  Whatever keeps me occupied when I put my butt in the chair.  The only rule is that if I start a short story or an article, I have to finish it.  All the way to the end.

The End

Tis the Season of the Goaty Worms

Recuperating from a long week.

The goats were looking kinda wan, so I decided to worm them even though the weather hasn't warmed up much.  

Springtime is worm season, and we've gone through worm overload problems before.  Anemia, bottle jaw, hypo-proteination ... yeah, I've learned it all the hard way.  But do I remember worming itself accurately?

Hell no.

I bought the wormer goop in an appealing-sounding flavor.  Apple cinnamon.  Sounds great, right?  And I head out to the barn.  Here goaty goaty goaties!  I waved the no-needle syringe in the air.  The goats come running.  Oh yeah, way easy.  I squeeze out a little and wave it in front of Scooter's nose.  His nose wiggles, then wrinkles.  Aw, come on!  You know you like it ...

Five minutes later I'm winded and astride Scooter, prying his mouth open with one hand while trying to push the syringe in his mouth with the other while squeezing the stopper.  White goo, scented pleasantly of apple-cinnamon, drips onto the ground and foams in his mouth.  I get most of it in and let him go.  

And he was the easy one.

The white goat won't even let me get near her.  I lure them into the barn with grain, and then the rodeo begins.  She's good with her horns ...

A couple of minutes later I walk out and they follow me, bleating for more attention.  I've got goop on my pants, on my hands, on the grain bucket, and I've stepped in some.  Fortunately I got close enough to a full dose in each of them that they should be safe.

Next month, maybe it'll be as easy as I remember it being.  You know, as easy as trimming hooves.  The way I recall it, hoof trimming isn't so bad.  

I have no idea why I keep putting it off.

Farewell, Dakota

On St. Patrick's Day, we had to put Dakota to sleep.  This morning, like yesterday, my first thought was to get up to let her out.  Every time I hear something like a dog panting, I assume it's her needing attention.  And I still try to step over the barrier to the staircase that's no longer there.

We adopted Dakota as an (approximately) eleven year old geriatric Irish wolfhound/lab mix.  For many years she lived with a homeless man, but the man died and she ended up at a shelter. Another family adopted her, but discovered that their daughter was highly allergic to Dakota.  They tried everything else first--meds for the daughter, ripping out all their carpet, keeping Dakota out of the daughter's room--but to no avail.  The little girl's allergies got worse.  The last thing they wanted to do was take Dakota back to the shelter, but they asked everyone they knew and found no one willing to adopt a geriatric dog.

A friend of ours heard about Dakota's plight and knew we were looking for a dog for our girl.  I was envisioning a small dog that the girl could have sleep on her bed in the room.  The first time I saw Dakota, though, my first thought wasn't 'too big.'  She was funny-looking, to put it politely, but her extremely calm demeanor won me over.  More importantly, she stole the girl's heart.  We took her home.

Dakota had some serious allergy problems from the get-go, but once she settled and her stress-level dropped, those allergy problems eased and she led a normal, if sleepy, happy doggy life.  It took her a long time to accept us as family.  Her deep sense of loyalty had been wounded by the loss of her first master, and then being adopted for only a short time by a second family, only to be let go ... I wasn't surprised that it took her a while to get used to us.  But she did learn to trust us, maybe even love us.

At first we tried taking her on walks with the other dogs, but we learned that although she loved the walks it was too hard on her joints.  So instead she walked herself around outside in the garden on sunny days, and in the dog yard whenever I had delicate seedlings in the veggie garden.  She was able to make her way up and down the carpet-covered stairs inside and even made it with ease up and down the deck stairs.  We trusted her not to wander, and she never went too near the road when she went on her walks.

Whenever we came home after being away for a few hours, we could see her in the front window, smiling, and often she'd let out a little, girly 'woof!' of delight.  After months of stress-panting and anxiety-related allergies, it made me so happy to see her experience joy when we came home to her.  She always came to see me when I came home from work, and I often took her with me when I worked in the garden in summertime.  She sat in the shade and made sure I wasn't attacked by evil squirrels.

Those joyful years passed too quickly.  

About six months ago she started having accidents in the house.  I also had to bar the way on the stairs because she took a couple of bad falls while going down them.  We tried different medications to keep her hips flexible.  Some of them worked for a while, and she'd have several great weeks, and then she'd be worse again.  Mostly, though, she was just stiff and not in any serious pain.  Every so often she'd get stuck in a hole that one of the puppies had dug, but we'd get her out and she'd hobble into the house on her own legs and sleep it off.

Then a little over a week ago she could hardly get up, and she couldn't bend one of her hind legs very much anymore.  She started pissing herself in her bed.  I had to give her daily baths just to keep her relatively clean, which dried out her skin and made her hips sore from the stress.  We took her to the vet, changed meds one more time, but she rapidly got worse instead of better and started to vomit and have serious bouts of diarrhea.  When she stopped eating for two days we made another appointment.  It was to be her final one.

We'd hoped there would be one more possible route to go, but the vet, a vet I trust, gave us the 'maybe it's time to let her go' talk.  We could have given her maybe another 24 hours with a steroid shot, but that shot could have also given her more complications and caused her more pain, not less.  And it was clear to the vet that Dakota's atrophied hind legs were not numb like they are in many cases, but causing her a lot of pain.  Despite our care and washing and everything else, she was getting bed sores on them, and the joints were very inflamed.  One joint was completely frozen.  She would never walk again.

The vet warned us that Dakota might hang on for a while, but Dakota let go surprisingly fast.  We held her and stroked her and told her what a good dog she was.  And she really was a great dog--loyal, gentle, protective ... so much more than I can describe.  

Maybe she'd seen her old owner and had run to him.  I know she felt safe and happy with us, and she had some really beautiful days with her new pack, but I'm sure to her last breath that she missed the man who'd raised her from a puppy, who'd taken care of her and died with her by his side.  I hope that if that was her heart's desire that she's found him and is with him again, living a gypsy life on the Long Road.

It still doesn't feel like time to put away her dog food bowl.   I know I should.  Maybe tomorrow.

The Other Side of the Hill

Just so you all know ...

Dakota, our Irish wolfhound/lab mix (a 'mini' wolfhound at 75 pounds) is very ill.  Mainly, it's old age.  Arthritis is kicking her butt, and her incontinence is getting worse.  Also, something is messing up her digestive system.  She's gotten sick a few times (even before we switched meds to try to help her) and things are not good at the other end either.  

For now we're waiting and hoping that the new medication will help her.  If not ... her quality of life has plummeted.  She can still walk on level surfaces, but she needs big time help on the stairs, often wets herself in bed, and needs a hose-down bath every day, which she hates, because she can't squat even when she makes it outside.  She just sits in the muck and ... yeah.  If that was all, I'd just deal for an indefinite period of time, but she's having more and more trouble getting comfortable.  She gets up and wanders and tries to lay down and gets up again, stress-panting.  Unfortunately it's impossible to ask her what her pain level is like.  Fortunately, once she does settle she seems to sleep very deeply and peacefully, so I'm guessing/hoping that it's low enough still that she can get good rest and isn't in continuous pain.  From what I can gather, it's very bad after she's gone outside, and then eases up enough after about a half hour to an hour that she can settle and relax.  As long as she can get good rest for the majority of the day and isn't actively complaining with whining or crying (though I wonder if she ever will) or reeling with severe pain, I'd rather wait than act too soon.

It's so hard to judge these things.

The girl adopted Dakota when Dakota was already eleven years old.  Adopting a geriatric dog has been a wonderful experience so far, and I would highly recommend it.  From the very beginning, Dakota has been loyal, sweet, obedient, and very well-heeled.  We never had to go through the chewy, messy, rowdy, destructive (although cute and yes, I love puppy breath too) puppy stage with her.  I hope Dakota will be with us a while longer, but at this point it's not looking very good.  We still have some good times of the day, but those are getting shorter.

Where do I get my ideas? Customers return them to me.

I got a new story idea joking around with my coworkers today, and another (partial) chapter idea for the Financial Guide from the Retail Side from customers being weird.

If I ever have to give up my day job, I'll miss these sorts of days.  Sure, there are lots of ideas that come to us through dreams, conversations with friends, travel, walking through downtown, etc. but they're not quite the same as the ideas that come from work stuff.  Whether work means sweating under a hot sun or shivering under the blast of a cranked-up air conditioner, you're in a very different (but still creative) headspace than when you're doodling.  

Although they suffer from being overdone, some of our richest stories are about writers because the people who write those stories are writers laboring with their fingers and hunched spines in seats that become increasingly less comfortable over the course of a long work day.  

That state of working as a physical body is a source of real richness that complements and enhances their stories.  

When a story is all pure imagination without that inclusion/acknowledgement of the sweatiness of things, there's something missing.  I can't always pinpoint stories that are lacking in that element.  They feel flat, but there are lots of reasons why a story can read flat.  Lack of life experience is another big one.  Anyway, writers that write about someone who is a writer can sometimes tap that physically-engaged labor monster within them even if they haven't had work experience beyond writing for a long time.  It's neat when that happens.  The writer's work feels more real to me.  I like that sense of realness whether I'm reading about early fifteenth century soldiers, waitresses solving murders or unicorns rampaging through moth villages.

I think that when both kinds of states of being--the doodle, and the labor monster--are employed in story creation, the story is much better than stories that are spun entirely from one side or the other.  

Naturally there also exist stories that are entirely labor-induced and have very little doodling in them.  A classic situation is where a doctor or lawyer or somesuch writes fiction as a thinly-disguised vent about the day job.  But I don't see as many stories that lack doodling as I do stories that lack that element of work in them.  Maybe that's because work is something we do to survive, connecting us to our flesh and bone and blood, and there are more writers who neglect that physical connection to the world than there are writers who embrace and even incorporate it into their writing.  Maybe they consider that aspect of existence lowly or unimportant, or maybe they just don't give it enough importance in their lives.  Isn't working an eight hour day at the diner, after all, getting in the way of their writing?  Well yes, but ...

Doodling is dreaming, and that connects us to our souls.  Souls are cool and all, but I like sensory detail, and danger, and victory.  For a story to really connect to me, flesh and bone and blood have to be a part of them.  Like a building, I need both the concept and the materials to come together before I can step inside and marvel and what human beings have engineered.  I won't just congratulate the architect, either.  That building wouldn't exist without the people who poured the foundation, pounded the nails and joined and wired and plumbed the thing.  The architect may be the artist, but the workers are the heroes that make hopes into reality.  The best writers are both artists and artisans, and their stories shine because of it.

If I leave the day job (and I won't be doing that on purpose any time soon!) I'll run the risk of losing that meat-and-bones force in my life (again.)  I'll have to find it in other ways, like putting in extra time with the garden and livestock, or start losing it gradually over time as my work experience fades into increasingly pastel memory.  In the meantime, I'll enjoy playing with my new ideas.

The Other Kind of Painting. In the Office. With Stencils.

I'm back to working on the office.  For a while it housed a very special house guest, and so the office got moved into the family room.  This turned the family room into a bit of a mess.  As accustomed as I am to messes, I don't like them to hang around forever.  Spiders (eeee!) like to make nasty little spidery nests in undisturbed, messy areas.  The ick is icky and creepy--a bad combination.

First, I have to finish painting.  I could have opted for plain walls and a plain ceiling--the condition in which it existed as a guest room--but nooOOOoo, I had to start looking through books.  Of course I found a great paint scheme which involved stencils.  I have a laser to help me mark straight lines, so putting stripes on the walls was only somewhat arduous.  

Stripes and stencils?  

It gets better.

Because of course stenciled leaves (I had to pick something with delicate details, naturally) within broad, widely-spaced stripes wouldn't look as nice without some sort of border highlighting the closet and window.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  For now I'm just going to go into that darned office so I can start stenciling the stripes I've got on the wall so far.  I've got about half (maybe more) of the stripes filled with their background so I can put some of the furniture in its proper place.  I only want to do that so that I have room to set up the laser so that I can stripe the rest of the walls, but getting the office furnished even that little bit more will be an added bonus.  I might even go a little crazy and put some books on the shelves.

Clearly, life is one big adventure.  Now, to have at, with paint brushes, sponges, and latex.

One step forward, unknown # of steps back

@ McMenamins w/the girl and DH. Love.

I worked out really hard today, so naturally I had to have a big piece of cake after my salad lunch (I was all puffed up with virtue until I ate the cake) and then I had a pint of hard apple cider.

Getting in shape balance ... I figure I'm about even, but only because I sweated extra hard.

Actually, my waist measurement has improved, even if my weight hasn't budged.

That's enough whining for now, I guess. I'll try being good again tomorrow, maybe by eating another salad for lunch. This time I won't have cake.

Maybe.

The milestones, they are ganging up on me

We had the boy overnight for the first time since he moved out to the big metro area (to look for work.) So of course he gets his first call for an interview ...

First real interview.  How kewl.  Wish him luck!  If he gets this job it'll be a great entry-level one that will teach him a lot about working and wages and all that good stuff.  It's a huge step, even bigger than living someplace other than home.  There's so much stuff about working for someone that I take for granted that he's going to have to learn for himself.  

Assuming he gets the job, of course.  I'm really proud he even got an interview, considering how the economy is these days.  I don't know how many places I applied for and got nada, even though I have quite a bit of retail experience.

Another milestone.  They're coming in faster these days.  And soon now, the girl will be graduating.  Eeeeeeee!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One

I just saw the latest Harry Potter movie in a second-run pub theater.  Great company, good food, but the movie didn't work very well for me.  I'd read a little about pacing issues, so I didn't go in with high expectations.  Even with that in mind, though, I had serious trouble with the way the story moved.  The elements were mostly there--fine actors, beautiful special effects that didn't distract from the story, etc.  But I kept wondering what happened to the dialogue, to the ideas, and most of all, to the charm.

I was charmed by the books, and I was charmed by many of the movies.  I don't think it was a case of no-surprises.  I enjoyed watching the story I knew come to life on the big screen in the other Harry Potter movies, as well as other movie-from-book films I'd seen.  But life is precisely what was missing here, at least for me.  

For example, I delighted in the derigible plums.  At that point I reveled in that little taste of what had been omnipresent in the books and most of the other films--the color, the environment, the quirky things that belonged there despite their often unusual character, and the sometimes awe-inspiring beauty.  These things convinced me of the existence of another world as marvelous and complex as the real one we live in every day.  I had little to nothing except those plums to convince me of another world this time.

There's an important lesson here for storytellers everywhere.  The 'telling' details often mentioned in writing courses and critiques and in criticism are really important.  They ought to be called the 'showing' details, though.  Because they show us so much, without saying a word.

Bravo to actors, special effects folks, camera men, makeup artists, costumers ... and bravo to the writers, director, producer, etc. for all the hard work, but alas, I can't recommend this movie, and I'm likely to buy it only on discount in order to complete the set after the next movie has come out, assuming this next, and last, movie doesn't do the same or worse as its brother.

Would You Like Some Help Out?

Sorting through paperwork.  Zzzzzzz ...

Today I had a customer buy a bunch of stuff ...

"I'm going to need help to carry this out," she said.

"Yes ma'am.  There's C right now."  C ambled over.  "C will help you carry this stuff out."

"I want those things from outside.  I'll need help to carry that."

"Yes ma'am.  C will take care of that as soon as she takes this out for you." 

"Where is that help you called for?  I need help carrying this."

"She's right here, ma'am."

She looks right at C.  "Can you get someone to help me with the things outside?" she asked C.

"I can take care of that," C said.

"Thank you.  Can you carry this?"

C accepted the thingy.  "Where is your car?"

"First I need help with those things outside."

Realizing I'm spinning my wheels ...  "C can take care of that once you're out there."

"Where is she?"

"She's right there."  C already had the one thing that needed to be carried and had started to make for the door.  "She has your things, and she can carry the rest to your car."

"Yes, but I need help with those things outside."

"Yes, ma'am, C can do that.  She's on her way now."  C, meanwhile, edged closer toward the exit door.

"But I need help carrying those things outside."

headdesk

I noticed C had given up edging and had bolted outside.  "She'll meet you outside."

"Shouldn't she go out this way?  It's closer."  She headed for the entry door.

"If you'd like to, you can go out that way."  Even though it's narrow, awkward, and the door opens the wrong way because it's the entry door.

The customer proceeded to wrestle her way out the 'closer' way, hauling the cart along with her.  She expended so much effort it's a wonder she didn't hurt herself.  

Closer is not always easier.

And I thought that was the end of it.

But guess what?  She came back.

I saw her park in the fire lane.  She got out of the car and started to wrestle about half the things she'd just bought less than an hour before.  I went over and held the door, as she had things well in hand.  You know, the things she needed help carrying out before.

"I need to return these."

Mmm hmm.  "Was there anything wrong with them?"  I carefully accepted them.

"They're not what I wanted."

headdesk

I started filling out the forms.

"Can you just put this back on my card?" she asked, setting her credit card on the counter.

"Certainly.  I just need your help to fill out this form and the cashier can take care of you."

"I'm illegally parked."

Yes, we know.

"Will it take long?" she added.

"Not long.  Hopefully it'll be fine.  We're not responsible for the parking per se.  As long as a fire marshal or policeman doesn't see, I think you'll be okay.  If you're worried about it, you're welcome to move your car.  I can work on this return in the meantime."  You define entitlement, madam.  What makes you so special that you can park in the fire lane rather than a handicapped spot?  Oh, and fyi, I have a customer who really ought to be in a wheelchair who parks in a normal parking spot and painfully, slowly, makes himself walk to the store and shops all by himself.  Granted, you don't have to do the same thing he does to prove anything to anyone, but would you mind not parking in the fire lane?  Please?  Do you think you can achieve that?  Is it within your ability, considering that you walk without the cane that you tote around and that you carried all that stuff you made C carry out for you all by yourself?

Meanwhile, I scribbled on the form with a customer-service-smile on my face.

"My daughter-in-law is insufferable," she told me.  "She's such a snob.  Do you know what she said to me?"

I had to admit to myself that I was interested in an awful, uncivilized way.  "What did she say?"  I was also a little worried that she had taken exception to the manner in which I suggested that it's okay to park in the fire lane (sort of) and will now tell me how I, er, I mean how her daughter-in-law is terribly snobby about people who do that.

She went into detail about how she was invited to a party, not by the snobby DIL but by her brother, who likes her, no, adores her, and how it was on a house boat.  And then she told me about how the handicapped parking was too far away from the dock and she would have never made it, so she parked illegally.

Meanwhile, I handed her the form and had her fill out the proper lines. She stopped the narration briefly to ask me what her address is.

I'm not making this up.

So she arrived at the party and mentioned that she hoped the police wouldn't ticket her.  And her (apparently) snobby DIL told her not to worry, that they own all the surrounding land.

Either she has just equated me to being snobby because I'd figured the chances were low that she'd get a (well-deserved) ticket just like her DIL did, or I've missed the point.  Entirely.

"I can't stand her," the woman added.

I'm sure she's not terribly fond of you either.

"I'm sorry," I told her.  I couldn't think of anything else to say.  "You're all set.  Thank you for coming in."

I'm done ranting now.  Vent over.

I really like most people, and I enjoy my job, even when I have challenging customers.  Sometimes I enjoy my work especially when there's a challenge, because often I can fix things and make everything better.  Sometimes, though, things bug me, not because they're not fixable but because they're easily fixable only if the person could just see themselves clearly.  The problem wasn't so much the carry out or the DIL.  This customer got in her own way and it obviously made everyone around her crazy.  I only had to work with her for about twenty minutes.  What would it be like to be related to her, to associate with her all the time?

At least I get paid to help her.  Maybe she just had an off day.  We all have those.  But damn ....

Writing as Therapy

I believed, and still partially believe, that writing for entertainment shouldn't be mixed with writing for therapy.  I'm slowly changing my mind.

I wrote about what happened with my birds during a marathon writing session late the night before last.  It wasn't easy.  I was still grieving.  I think, though, that what came out was some pretty powerful stuff.  

Part of me wants to defend my original position, or parts of it, by saying that the entertainment portion of writing gets left behind when a person turns their writing into a pulpit, or a confessional, or whatever.  But I should have been the last person to say such a thing.  After all, I'm one of those sad cases that turns to the advice column in the newspaper.  I'm entertained, sometimes enthralled, sometimes appalled by the drama.  

And when I griped about one of my favorite authors turning his fantasy series into a venue in which he explored his divorce, what I ought to have realized was that although it wasn't my thing, it may well have been great for someone else.  Maybe there were heaps of people in the midst of ugly divorces that liked the way the series went.  Since my gripe about that series, my favorite example of how not to include your life experience in your writing, turns out not to be valid, I can't really hold any kind of writing-as-therapy work as a mistake.

I do think that it makes the writer vulnerable.  Sometimes opening the soul publicly can be good and fine thing, but it's not something I could undertake lightly.  Rape victims who write rape scenes ... what would criticism of that book, especially that scene, do?  On the other hand, writing about trauma might help people own it.  I know I felt better after I wrote.  It might even help someone else in a similar situation feel better too.  

So maybe it just boils down to this:  recognize the level of exposure, and remember that once the story is published, it really isn't the author's anymore.  It belongs to the reader.  If the story is too personal to be given to someone else to do with whatever they want to do ... then maybe it needs to remain private.

There's definitely a skill to it, though.  I've heard that editors and agents dread 'divorce novels.'  That's just a rumor, but I do think that it's a valid caution.  In order for a story to be emotionally satisfying for the reader, they have to be allowed to connect.  I think that's why the fantasy series ultimately failed for me.  The author wrote it in the midst of something I had never experienced, and interjected all kinds of stuff from his life I couldn't identify with.  If he'd set me up from the beginning, maybe it would have been brilliant.  But I came in at the middle, or maybe even toward the end of his personal drama, and he poured out those personal feelings in the middle of a series to boot.  With no groundwork, with nothing explained, all I knew was that the characters I'd loved started to go crazy for no apparent reason.  

I think it would be easy to over-think and doubt and all that--and that can destroy a story too.  So I've thought about it, and in time I'll internalize it into my writing.  The one thing I hope I won't do is start worrying about it every time I sit to type.  In the end, it's all about the story, whether its the story of my dreams, or the story of my life.  I hope both will be rich and wonderful things.

Sometimes Farming Hurts. A lot.

We are down to two chickens:  Beatrice and the Wyandotte rooster, who now needs a name because we'll be keeping him.

A coyote, we're pretty sure, did the deed.

I've learned how to clip wings.  Our chickens are restricted to the lower goat pasture until further notice.  I hope the coyotes don't dig their way in.  

This has been a really awful day.  Tomorrow will be better.  My DH will be coming home.