Month: September 2016

What I’m Watching

We’re in a near television desert. I call it television but I mostly stream my joy. Most of the joy derives from selected television series.

The desert began with Game of Thrones ending. Then we finished off the latest year of The Vikings. The Great British Baking Show helped ease my withdrawal. We’re still waiting for Orphan Black and Grace and Frankie to come back. We’ve watched Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Wolfe’s Hall. Alpha House. Raised by Wolves. Jessica Jones. Stranger Things. Orange is the New Black. The Walking Dead. Fear the Walking Dead. Dead Set. iZombie. Dark Matters. Misfits. Gavin and Stacey. Miranda. We attempted The Man in the High Castle but it left us thinking, meh.

QI provides some diversion. So does stand up – Tig Notaro, Amy Schumer, C.K. Louis. Tig’s show, One Mississippi, is entertaining, but there are few episodes. All the Happy Valley, Cuckoo, Foyle’s War, Longmire, Wallander, The Wire, Doctor Who, River, Scott & Bailey, Nurse Jackie, Last Tango in Hallifax, Ray Donavan, Inspector George Gently, Bletchley Circle, Sharp’s Rifles, Justified, Jack Taylor, Jack Irish, Bosch, Miss Fisher’s Mysteries, and Rake have been consumed, along with multiple TEDs. The Killing and The Top of the Lake were watched yonks ago. While friends love the American version of Shameless and House of Cards, the aged Brit series make the American editions wilt. Watched The Bridge, Fortitude, Crossing Lines, Spiral, In the Line of Duty, Inspector Lewis, all the Holmes, all the Cranford, Downton, Larkrise, and Doc Martin. The Republic of Doyle is okay but not compelling. People recommended The Boss but we disliked it. We tried Flash, Green Arrow, etc, and different other Marvel output, but they did nothing for us.

It’s tough out here in the desert. Hot and dry. The Secret Agent is coming. Boomers. Then There was None, with a terrific cast. We’re hopeful that we’ll be saved. Otherwise, we’ll just need to keep reading.

Which isn’t a problem. There’s never a reading desert, for me. Reading tends to stimulate my writing so I’m not a fast reader, unlike my wife. (It’s amusing to watch her trudge through The Secret Magdalene, because she doesn’t like it, but it’s the book club selection, so….) I’m still turning pages in the second book of the Neapolitan series. Two more books remain after this one. Then a pile of other tomes await.

Television, though? It gets very dry.

11

My 9/11

My wife always wondered why I was up then.

I was three months into a new job, living in Half Moon Bay, California. And for some reason, on that day, I did things I didn’t do on other days. For some reason, I awoke at 5 AM. False dawn was leaning in the windows. I went downstairs. I turned on the television. Settling myself on the sofa, I turned on CNN.

All those things are contrary to my usual routines. I rarely watch TV before 6 PM, and don’t typically watch CNN. But there I was, lying on the couch, watching history. The first aircraft had struck one building. I realized the second plane had struck before the commentators as I watched the live feed.

My wife asks me, “Why were you up? Why did you turn on the television, and CNN? That’s totally unlike you.”

And I answer honestly, what I thought that morning, before turning on the television. “I didn’t feel well.”

I didn’t feel well, but I wasn’t sick. I couldn’t identify what drove me awake and down. I can’t classify my sickness to this day. Some will jump on it and call it out as a psychic empathy for the death and disaster happening on the other side of the US. Others will judge it as coincidence.

For me, it’s just a vivid memory of a shocking day.

 

13

Never

Never is a big word, easily used. “I’m never going to Texas,” she said. “It’s full of racists and rednecks.”

I have family in Texas. They are somewhere on the spectrum of both of those things. Reliable Republicans, they think whites are getting a raw deal and distrust the M&Ms of Mexicans and Muslims. They’ve never actually experienced deprivation, never went hungry or without a roof, but still, they hear stories.

“I’m never riding on trains. They’re so dangerous.”

This was brought on by a train wreck in Spain that killed four. Wrecks happen. They’re never riding on trains because of an accident. What does that leave? Cars, bikes and planes? Because no one has ever been killed using those. People walking are killed, as are people in bed, suffering from nature’s attacks (quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes) to human events (gas line explosion). What are you going to do, hole up so you don’t die, with a plan to live forever?

I’ve jumped on the Never train many times (oooh, like that as a title for something, “The Never Train”), irked by Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, IBM, Comcast, HP, United, Delta, AT&T, Geico, McDonalds, Hillary, Trump, Republicans, Democrats, the NFL, the Senate, the House, the SCOTUS, Obama, Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Monsanto, police shootings, mass shootings, terrorist bombs, drone attacks…. Never comes easily but it’s rarely forever.

“I’m never going to stop drinking coffee,” I say, but with the rust disease, who knows? Yesterday, I bought a quad shot mocha for over five dollars, a bottle of wine for six dollars, and a pint of beer for six dollars. The QSM was purchased on the road in another town. “Too much,” I said, with a grimace, but held back from loosing the N word. “Six dollars for a bottle of Pinot Noir?” I asked. Seems too good to be true but I refrained from saying, “You can never get a good wine for six dollars.” It was hard to not say. Six dollars for a pint of Ninkasi Sinister Black Ale? That seemed steep, too. What is my Never point, I wondered.

My wife illuminated the never point in later conversations. While the prices of coffee, wine, beer (and gas) were striking, we have money that provide us a large comfort zone. The prices are noted and shrugged off. Sure, the comfort zone experienced a little nibble on the edge, but it’s a broad space, and that makes strides of difference.

We remembered when a car repair would mean a budget analysis to see what we would do without or reduce to save enough money to fix the car. Pennies were hoarded to purchase a treat, like ice cream at DQ. We didn’t drink wine, rarely drank beer, and our coffee was bought for fifty cents a cuppa. We never thought any of that would change.

But life is full of nevers. We never imagined video games being such a massive business, with their primary demographics being adults. We never thought Ashland would have the country’s record high, 108 degrees F. We never thought we’d track and study wildfires and El Nino and La Nina, never thought we’d quit subscribing to cable television, never thought a friend would do the things she had, never thought violence would come to our neighborhood. But it all happened.

So, I think, as I write like crazy and work, saying never rarely holds. I don’t think I’ll never say never again, but I will be more mindful about it.

At least, I’ll try, because always is a lot like never.

5

Tachyon Cat

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends… – Saki (H. H. Munro)

Cats have been referred to as moons, planets and gods since they first deigned to allow humans to see them. I, however, ascribe to the theory of a tachyon cat.

Like the tachyon particle, the tachyon cat is hypothetical. It must exist, because no law or principle prevents its existence.

Tachyon cats display bizarre and contrary behavior. They are there and not there. Look for them and you don’t see them. Call them and there is no response. Yet, suddenly, they’re upon you, gazing and waiting, “Yes?” written on their whiskered expression. “There you are,” you exclaim, rewarding the tachyon cat. “Where were you?”

But they were right there, seen and unseen. Tachyon cats gain energy as they acquire mass, and gain speed as they gain mass and energy. They never travel slower than the speed of light, even at rest, and gain more mass when you try to move them. Their eyes reflect the gaze of distant black holes, which they alone have seen and visited.

When tachyon cats are detected in your presence, it seems like they’re coming and going. Although they can traverse walls without flinching, they like to assert their mastery over humans, so you see them always at the door, asking to be let out, in, out, in, out, in, out, until you’re reduced to puzzling, “Again? But didn’t I just let you out?”

Tachyon cats eat nothing and eat everything. They eat more and less than other cats, and sleep more and less than their feline peers. They play more and less than other cats, and they’re more loving, aloof and cuddly than other cats, while being the same as other cats. They’re a different species than other felines, but they’re the same species.

They’re as dark and mysterious as the dark side of the moon, and as bright and sunny as our star. Some say tachyon cats do not exist, but I know that’s not true. One lives with me, when it suits his desires.

Otherwise, I live with him.

1

Sat Down to Write

I sat down to write today after a pleasing session yesterday. The baristas had gifted me an extra espresso sized serving mocha in addition to my standard QSM. I sipped it down, delighting in the melange of mingling flavors, and I remembered —

A new character’s name is Ckyl. Came to me last night.

A scene I wrote in my head about the starship, River Styx, and its occupants and description.

And more details about tachyon syndrome.

Changes to Chor. I’d focused on sex and sexual preferences and choosing or accepting sexual identities, but I’d not considered some of the other matters available to my future people. So I’d overlooked that Chor is a cat person.

And Pram wonders why becoming a cat person is a popular choice. People don’t want to be dog or bird people, although he’d encountered some of them. He knew of a few who went the centaur route (with one also managing to incorporate a unicorn appearance). A small society of humans had transgened themselves into dinosaurs, and another group into dragons, and there are small knots of gnome, fairy, demon, and leprechaun peoples, but cat people were far the most popular and most frequently encountered. He was pleased, though, because he remained unique. There were a few Titans out there, and a cyclops, and a couple of Hercules pretenders, Minotaurs, Hulks, and Avatars, and super-heroes from ancient comic books, but he was the only Colossus, even after all these years.

Pram had not asked Chor about why she was a furry human Siamese with diamond blue eyes and a lazy, busy tail. Asking people about their choices is impolite.

Okay, now that I remember those things, my imagination is fired up. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

5

Counter Points

It’s a quiet Labor Day Monday. Labor Day has always been on Monday in my lifetime. My adopted state, Oregon, was the first state to establish Labor Day by law. I’m not always so proud of Oregon and its history, especially up in Portland, which was yugely racist.

The Atlantic points to Utah as a powerful swing state for this US presidential election, emblematic of the larger problems voters face, that their candidates aren’t popular and most are voting the lessor of evils in their minds. I felt the Bern, myself.

Even though it’s been argued that fracking has nothing to little to do with Oklahoma’s quakes, because the fault lines weren’t mapped before the quakes started, Oklahoma shut down thirty-seven fracking wells after the 5.6 quake. Hmm, wonder why?

Atlanta recorded its second hottest summer on record. San Francisco regarded its coldest August in seventy-four years.

Poor Brock Turner, right? People are pretty pissed at the convicted rapist who spent only three months in jail. Poor guy, who would think that his fifteen minutes of fame would ruin his life after an act of violence his father blamed on a culture of alcohol and partying. Consider me one of those pissed at him.

Only one Howard Johnson restaurant remain open in the United States. They were once as ubiquitous as GC Murphy, Woolworths, Sears and Montgomery Ward. I think I ate at one once. I know I ate more often at GC Murphy, where $1.00 bought three subs. I also ate at Woolworths, as my local town had one with a daily blue plate special.

Of course, computer games were once the province of children.

What were once treats are now normal. We rarely ate pizzas when I was growing up. Pizza places were small, family owned businesses with a few tables, never anything fancy. Now, wow.

And I never had a taco or burrito while growing up. Mom made spaghetti with meatballs for dinner regularly and lasagna once in a while, but it wasn’t normal to go out to dinner for pasta.

The food thoughts are triggered by dark chocolate salted caramels a house guest presented us. Wow, are they delicious. I’ve heard of salted caramel for a few years now but when did they become a thing? Speaking of chocolate, I didn’t discover dark chocolate until I was older. I’d always preferred Mounds bars but never quite realized it was dark chocolate that so attracted me. Now, fortunately, dark chocolate is as available as, say, lattes, mochas and beer. Once upon a time, growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, I thought Stroh’s, Miller, Hamm’s, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Rolling Rock and Old Milwaukee were the only beers available, and that Rolling Rock was the best! I haven’t had any of those beers in yonks, at least since visiting family in America in 1988. Fortunately, I returned to the US from overseas when the micro-brew craze was striking in 1991.

Barbra Streisand has her 11th #1 Billboard 200 album.

Some things change more slowly than others.

2

The Cat Front

The Cat Front is a lot like a weather front without the heat, moisture, winds and barometric pressures, and with more paws, claws, fur and teeth. The Cat Front is more similar to the front lines of other challenges, like war, pestilence and disease.

On my Cat Front, our cats have been battling an illness. It’s gone from one to another. It seems like a type of flu. Boo Radley developed it first, refusing to eat for several days, vomiting and hiding out to sleep. I was doing everything to comfort him. This struck on a Thursday. Being a passive person, I tracked him through Friday and into Saturday, confirming, no, he’s not eating. No, he’s not injured anywhere. Yes, something is wrong.

But I kept trying to get him to eat. BR is a big boy so he had the chubbiness to endure a few days without eating. By late Sunday, he finally started up, and was his normal eating fellow by Monday.

I went through the same with Quinn, a small cat, whose diminished caloric intake was much more worrisome. Perhaps because he’s younger, he pulled through faster. Then it struck Tucker. Tucker, though, has a love affair with food ,so despite his sickness, he always attempted to eat. He usually eats about four and a half ounces twice a day. During this sickness, he was below one ounce.

But he, too, was only down for three days (perhaps assisted by a recent antibiotics injection to cope with his gingivitis stomatitis). Pepper, the neighbor’s cat who begs me for food and sleeps on my front porch, went down while Tucker was down. She’s a chunky girl and came back after two days, just a little lighter.

The worse was Meep.

He is the youngest of our ad hoc clowder. Meep is another neighbor’s cat. Strangely, he isn’t permitted into their home, so we take him in to shelter him during cold or poor weather. We ensure he gets fed at least twice a day, and that he has fresh water available. Not surprisingly, he hangs around our house, mostly in the back yard.

There are complications. These are cats. Boo and Meep fight. Boo and Tucker fight. Tucker and Meep fight. Those fights involving Tucker are of the “I am going to eradicate you” variety. The other cats tread warily around him. We’re working on it but meanwhile, separate but equal rules. This segregation is about as satisfying as the SCOTUS ruling regarding education.

Meep went down several days ago. And disappeared. We spent hours searching for him. After two days, he showed up again. Skinny. I tried feeding him. He made a lot of high pitched, growling, “I’m pissed off noises”, accompanied by feline demonstrations that he wasn’t in the mood.

He left, disappearing again. Two more days. The daytime temps dropped from the low nineties into the high seventies, which was a break, and humidity rose, but smoke from wildfires was filling our valley, causing breathing issues, and nocturnal temps descended to the low forties. I thought the worse about Meep and continued my searching.

He reappeared, sleeping in his bed on the back patio Friday. After drinking water and disdaining food, he ran at my approach and became scarce again. He returned last night. This time, I coaxed him into the house. He’d been enduring his illness longer than the others. I figured being outdoors probably contributed to that so I wanted to keep him in. He didn’t want that, but he did drink water. Determined that he needed food, I cradled him and force fed him.

He wasn’t happy. Again he demanded, “Freedom!” Again, I acquiesced. This time, he stayed on the porch overnight.

This morning, he approached our door in his old way. He wasn’t quite ready to eat. I offered food. He licked a little. I offered more. He licked a little. So this continued through the morning, until he finally ate several tablespoons of food on his own. Then he came by me and rubbed against my leg before wandering off to wash and sleep.

It can get tense, on the Cat Front, but I think the worse has passed.

2

Fungible

Another “Is it just me?” moment struck today.

“Is it just me” that ‘literally’ no longer ‘means’ literally because it was used wrongly often enough that people accept the wrong definition as the correct one? That’s happened to many other words in my lifetime – replete and decimate come to mind. So, I guess, shrug. I should let it go. It’s history now, but , shrug, damn it.

Like, it also bothers me that people, media, and politicians (because pols and media are not people) will publish or state, “The little boy was found wandering alone, by himself, without his family.” I think they’re being a little redundant, but maybe that’s just me.

The classics of these cases still remain (‘still remain’, instead of just ‘remain’) in active use (can there be inactive use?). “At this point in time, we are currently now pursuing a new course of action.” Jesus, there are a couple unnecessary words in that statement. Or, a favorite, “I was just thinking in my head that we should do that.”

Really? You were thinking it in your head? Gosh, good for you. How did you learn to do that? I usually think in my pelvis.

It’s weird to me because I have, to the best of my knowledge (and whose knowledge would I otherwise use, and why would I use anything but the best of my knowledge?) that I’ve thought in my head my entire life. Therefore, it’s understood, and I don’t need to state where I’ve been thinking.

Is it just me or do I have I been wrong all these years? Do I need to clarify which body part was being used for which function? “I was walking, on my feet, to the store the other day….” “That bread was so hard, I was chewing, in my mouth, for literally hours.”

Okay, so my baseline is someone who growls at things like that. The minutiae others employ bothers me in some logic kernel in my brain. Communities building and developing without regard to water supplies triggers, “Is it just me, or is that stupid?” If not stupid, it seems short-sighted. “Is it just me, or is it ignorant,” to blindly allow fracking and pollute our water supplies and cause temblors and quakes? (Hello, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, I’m smiling at you.)

“Is it just me, or have we put intelligence up our collective asses when we decree that people can’t grow food on their properties because that may adversely affect property values?” Yeah, it’s probably just me. Because, you know (I’m sure you do) food is far less important than property values. If the big one drops (know what I mean?), than we want to have high property values if we’re to survive the aftermath. I know that in many zombie movies, books and television shows, survivors are frequently lamenting, “What are we going to do? These zombies are adversely affecting our property values. If only we’d done more to protect our property values.”

Looking up ‘fungible’ triggered today’s “WTF, it is just me?” outburst. Looking the word up online, Merriam-Webster defines fungible as something that is fungible.

Fungible

I’m sure I’m displaying the full glory of my tree rings when I vent, “My teachers always told me not to use a word to define it.” What a deft (or is that daft?) definition. I now completely understand that fungible means something that is fungible. Very good. Excellent!

I did like the word of the day, though: asperse. Never heard of that. Of course, dubious of M-W’s definition, I looked it up elsewhere.

Venting completed, I will now, at this point in time, write like an insane, crazy maniac, one more time.

 

 

 

8

Book Blurbs: A Quick Question

Here is yet another challenge. Once the book is finished, how do you write a blurb that’ll draw attention, be true to the book, and entice others to read it? Sometimes there are character limits, too. It’s work, and yet another skill to learn. QE has some helpful ideas and points to good resources.

Good resources are a valuable tool in the writer’s toolbox.

Corey Truax's avatarCorey Truax

book blurb problems.jpgFor those of you who were worried I was blown away by the Hurricane Hermine, I’m still here.  We weren’t forced to evacuate but we sure did get pounded by wind and rain.  There’s a little bit of flooding here and there, but nothing too extreme.  With that being said, I wanted to jump right into today’s post.  It will be a short one (I’m going to drive around the neighborhood and help pick up debris).

What makes a good book blurb?  If you can get someone to pick up your book thanks to the awesome cover art you’ve won a single battle.  The second battle comes when they flip it over and read the back blurb.  I need to train for the back cover battle.

Now thatWastelander has been drafted and I’ve started working on the other facets of the production, I’ve began to research different book…

View original post 401 more words

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑