We interrupt our regularly scheduled program

      My sincere apologies to everyone who is waiting for the concluding installment of "An Unattended Death." My cold moved from head into my chest, and I came home and went to bed and didn't wake up until 11:00 last night. Then I took meds and went to bed again. Hence the early rising this morning.
      I've left something out in there. I might have tried to get the installment up, but in my mail was yet another blamed rejection, once again personalized. Whee. This one is interesting. Let me quote:

Dear (TECH):

We enjoyed Murder by the Acre. The characters are lively and funny, and the plot interesting and well-crafted. However, the book seems likely to be a midlist book. Currently (our company) is trimming back on our midlist. I suggest you might consider sending it to (someone) at St. Martin's Press. This seems to me to be the type of book he's looking for. Good luck with your writing in the future, and keep us in mind for your future projects.

Sincerely,

(Yet another editorial assistant)

      Now here's the interesting (distressing) part: That someone at St. Martin's Press is the one who recommended I send it to her. Sigh.
      I know I should take comfort in the rejection. I mean, it's a nice rejection, but I get a lot of nice rejections. A LOT. I have 30 or 40 sincere, meaningful and generally kind rejection slips. I'm ready for a rude acceptance.
      Anyway, the thought of writing just seemed a bit too much, so I retreated to my bedroom, a turtle going back into his shell.
      I intend to complete "An Unattended Death" today or tomorrow at the latest, but I'm sure you guys have it figured out anyway and are just waiting to get your hunches confirmed. I also intend to try to go see the doctor today and get some medicine. I'm tired of being sick in a major way.

An Unattended Death, Part 6

      I stared at the man behind the huge black mustache. The mustache was new, but the face wasn't.
      "C.J.?" I asked.
      "Be quiet!" he snapped. "What are you doing here?"
      "I ... come here all the--"
      "Try again," he commanded.
      "I--"
      "Never mind," he said. "I want you to leave right now. Go outside. Get in your car. I'll be there in a few minutes. Don't try to run off. You're going to answer my questions here or at jail. I don’t care which."
      I rose and walked outside. I passed by Marlene. She never looked up. So much for questioning her.
      As I sat in my car, I began to wonder what the penalty was for interfering in an investigation. Great, I was probably going to be arrested. Apparently curiosity not only kills cats, but it puts people in jail, too.
      C.J. jerked open the car door, startling me out of a year's worth of hair growth.
      "Okay, let’s hear it," he commanded.
      "I like the look," I said. "Sort of a Village People. And the mustache looks real. Did you put it on with spirit gum?"
      "I'm in no mood for a smart ass," he snapped. "How would you like a ride to jail?"
      "Sorry."
      He shook his head impatiently.
      I took a deep breath. "I was here to talk to Marlene."
      "About what?"
      "I wanted to ask her about Aaron."
      "Why are you so interested in him?" he asked. "What is it to you?"
      "I don't know," I said. "I just think there's something more to it."
      "Why?" he asked. "What are you holding back?"
      "Nothing," I said. "I don't know anything more than what you told me, but I keep feeling like there's something more, something I should ask you, but I can't figure out what that is."
      He looked at me a long time and then said, "Okay, I can buy you being nosy, but you're out of this. There are things going on here that can get you killed. We don't need some amateur mucking things up. You're out, understand? If I catch you nosing around this again, you'’re in trouble. Trouble with a capital T."
      I wanted to say, "Right here in River City," but I doubted he'd appreciate the quote from The Music Man.
      "Okay," I said, "but I wanted to tell you that I saw Marlene taking money in there and giving them little packages. I figure it's drugs."
      He sighed. "Figure that out yourself, did you? Besides me, there's at least four other officers in there, not counting a couple from the OSBI. Somehow we've figured it out without your help."
      "So you’re going to arrest Marlene," I said.
      "She your girlfriend?" he asked. "Otherwise why is it any of your business?"
      "Look, you were the one that told me you thought Aaron's death had more to it," I said.
      "Yeah, and I'm sorry I did," he said. “Keep your mouth shut about this. Marlene worked a deal. She’s narcing on the others. She knows she's being watched. We going to let it run for another day, and then we're going to gather them all in."
      "What about Aaron?" I asked.
      "What about him?" he echoed. "Look, he was a junkie. He died. People do that when they take drugs. Let it go." He got out of the my car. "Just go home. Go home."
      So I went home.
      Later that night as I got ready for bed, it finally occurred to me what I should have asked, the question that had been sitting on the tip of my tongue for the past few days. It might not mean anything, but if it did, it cast Aaron Brody's death in a whole new light. It would also mean someone lied.
(To be concluded)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

An Unattended Death, Part 5

      The oil boom brought a lot of fast money and outsiders to western Oklahoma. It had also brought more vice as adult bookstores, adult video stores and "gentleman's clubs" sprang up near the oilfields.
      After the bust, most of them went out of business as oil field after oil field shut down. Counties and cities, notably Oklahoma City, zoned most of remaining ones out of existence. But the Stuttering Rooster survived. On I-40 near Elk City, it catered to truckers, college students, roughnecks, rednecks, bikers, anyone with cash and a desire to see REAL LIVE GIRLS.
      I had driven past it before but never stopped. No, really, I hadn't. It intimidated me, all those trucks and the bright neon that outlined the building. And with images from TV shows running around in my head, I could only imagine what went on inside.
      In the half hour that it took me to drive there, I tried to figure out why I was going. It was my only lead to Marlene, but even if I found her, what would I say? And why should she talk to me?
      One thing at a time, I thought. I'd first just check and see if her car was in the parking lot. If not, then back home. If so ... I'd make that decision then.
      It was just about six or so, but the parking lot was already half-filled. I drove around, trying to see her car. I found a couple of red ones that could be hers, but I couldn't be certain. There was only one way to find out.
      They charged $10 to get through the door. The bored over-blown blonde who took my money explained there was a two-drink minimum. Yikes. This wasn't going to be cheap. I could hear a country-western party song booming.
      I stepped through swinging doors. A huge man sitting on a stool glanced over at me. He didn't look friendly. The floor had sawdust scattered around. I made my way to the first booth I could find, almost stumbling in my haste to find a corner. The cigarette smoke made my eyes water. I sneezed several times. Yeah, I was Mr. Cool.
      On a small stage an insanely flexible woman danced around a pole. Her pasties were white stars, her thong was blue, and her high heels were red. A patriotic lass.
      A waitress wearing a cowgirl miniskirt and a red hat came to take my order. I ordered a Coke.
      "You still have to pay drink price, honey," she said.
      "That’s okay," I said. "Go ahead and bring me two of them." Might as well get that two-drink minimum out of the way.
      "Ooo, I’ve got a hot one here," she said, flashing a smile that revealed a gold tooth.
      I smiled back. What was I doing here? I looked around for Marlene. I didn't see her, but if she was a performer, maybe she was on break.
      The waitress brought my Cokes. I handed her a twenty. She gave me a ten back. Ouch. Rockford apparently had enough money for this kind of stuff.
      I raised my Coke and on the edge of the glass was the unmistakable print of someone’s lips. Okay, I wouldn't drink anything. And as my eyes adjusted, and I began to be able to see the Rooster clearly, I realized I would need to burn all my clothes as soon as I got home. I would have to bathe in bleach.
      Several girls wandered around the tables, asking men if they wanted to buy them a drink or wanted a lap dance.
      A redhead asked me. I just shook my head no, not trusting my voice not to squeak. I needed to get out of here. This was no place for--
      Marlene stepped out of a door across from me. She was dressed as a waitress, but she didn't carry a tray. Instead, a large leather purse draped across her shoulder. Two men followed her out and left without looking back. She wandered around the tables, stopping to talk to three or four men scattered around the room. I couldn't see her clearly due to the crowd and smoke, but it seemed that men were giving her envelopes that she placed in her purse. She would take something out of the purse and slide it to them. I couldn't tell what it was, but it had to be drugs. She wasn't really making much attempt to hide it. Obviously she felt safe in this place. So the management had to be in on whatever was happening.
      I caught a tough looking guy looking at me. He had on a leather cap, leather vest, leather pants, and leather boots, all in black. His eyes gleamed above a huge black moustache. I hunched over my Coke, but couldn't bring myself to actually drink it. I glanced up. He was heading directly toward my table. Either I was about to get killed or have a really awkward date proposal. This was the reward for being too curious.
      He sat down and thrust his face toward me. I shrank back.
      "What are you doing here?" he growled. "And I'd better get a good answer if you know what's good for you!"
(To be continued)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

An Unattended Death, Part 4

      There I stood, my eyes fixed on the big black gun in Marshall Brody's hand. It was large enough to fire rockets. It was pointed at the ground.
      "What are you doing here?" Brody asked again, his voice rising.
      My friend Thomas was nowhere to be seen. He was still looking for deer sign somewhere. I hoped a maddened buck trampled him.
      "Don't I know you?" Brody asked. "You work for the radio station? I've seen you at remotes."
      I nodded, my voice apparently having left my body in search of someone who didn't the brains of gravel.
      He nodded and slipped the gun into his front pocket. I couldn't understand how that honking huge thing could fit.
      "What are you doing here?" he asked.
      "My friend and I are looking for deer sign," I said. "He's around here somewhere." Naturally Thomas didn't appear. Get him, Bambi, I thought. Kick him for me.
      Brody nodded. "And I guess you saw this." He motioned toward the tape. "And you just had to see." His face twisted.
      "I was sorry to hear about your son," I said. "I can't imagine how terrible it's been for you."
      He sighed and looked at the ground. "Thank you. What's your name?"
      I told him, and he nodded absently.
      "I was just trying to look around," he said. "I thought there might be something that they missed. Pretty dumb, I guess, but a man's supposed to take care of his family."
      "No, it's not dumb," I said.
      "He was clean," Brody said. "I know everyone thinks he started again, but he was clean. Someone forced him to do it. Then they left him here. They left my boy here."
      He stood there a long time, looking at the fluttering tape.
      Finally he moved off, giving me a sort of wave.
      I went back to Thomas's truck and waited. After a few minutes, the brave white hunter returned.
      "I found a lot of deer sign," Thomas said excitedly. "Oh, it would have been hard for most people to see, but if you pay attention and keep your senses finely tuned, you can see it. You've just got to be aware of the total environment. Why are you looking at me like that?"
      After Thomas dropped me off at my place, I sat on my couch, petting my dog Bo.
      "Bo, I think I've finished playing Rockford," I said. Bo just wagged his stump of a tail. "I'm done."
      But I wasn't. As I sat there, something nagged at me. Something about the trip out to the woods. Or maybe the funeral. It sat there, like some word on the tip of my tongue. Perhaps I was flattering myself, but just like C.J., I thought there was something more to Aaron Brody's death. But really what could I do?
      I kept thinking about how small and sad he looked in the coffin. I thought about his father and his mother. I thought about Simon. And then I thought about Marlene Postwain.
      Marlene was bad through and through, they said. I'd seen her little red car around town, but I'd never seen her or noticed her before. I thought about what the gossipy lady at the funeral had told us. She had said Marlene worked somewhere ... Where was it? Oh, yes, I remembered. I got my coat and car keys and left before I could change my mind.
      And that's how this Baptist, small-town boy ended up at the Stuttering Rooster, western Oklahoma's most infamous strip bar.
(To be continued)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

An Unattended Death, Part 3

      I ended up in the woods with a gun pointed at me as follows. Four days after Aaron Brody's funeral, Assistant County Sheriff C.J. Turner came to the station to record voice-overs on new public service announcements. Usually the PSAs were tapes of some kids driving fast in a car and then you'd hear a young man shout, "Give me another beer!" You'd hear him open it and then there'd be a car crash. Then C.J. would say, "The County Sheriff's Department reminds you to not drink and drive."
      Our station manager set up C.J. in the recording booth. As I walked down the hallway to deliver an advertising run to our programmer, I saw C.J. behind the glass wall and remembered him being at the funeral and leaving so quickly. I was curious about that.
      I delivered my run and then waited until C.J. finished recording. I went in the booth and helped him pull the tape.
      "So, how's it going?" I asked, putting a new tape into the cart machine.
      "Can't complain," C.J. said. He looked tired. "You?"
      "I would complain, but who would listen?"
      He smiled and rubbed his eyes.
      I equalized the levels on the tape and then said, "I saw you at Aaron Brody's funeral."
      He looked at me, and I swear he became alert like a dog on point.
      "Yes," he said. "I was. What were you doing there? Did you know him?"
      "No," I said and explained about our station manager.
      He sighed. "I thought maybe you'd know something."
      I looked at him. "Is there something that someone should know about? I thought he overdosed."
      "Yeah, he had enough heroin in him to kill a herd of horses," C.J. said.
      I laughed at his pun, thinking this was some of the dark humor that the police use to deal with the stress of their jobs.
      He looked at me like I had lost my mind.
      "Uh, I thought you made a pun," I said.
      "Pun?"
      "Uh ... Heroin was originally called 'horse' back in the sixties," I said.
      "Oh," C.J. said. "Okay. Funny."
      "Were you watching Aaron's girlfriend?" I asked, desperate to move on.
      "That's a curious question," he said. "What do you know about her?"
      "Nothing," I said. "She just made quite an entrance at the funeral. Everyone was talking about her. If half of what they say is true ..."
      "More like two times what they say is true," C.J. said. "Marlene Postwain is rotten to the core and back."
      "Did she kill Aaron?" I asked. "Is that why you're watching her?"
      He looked at me and cocked his head. After a long pause, he said, "There's nothing to say that it was a murder. No marks on his body like he had been forced to shoot up. He was an addict." He shrugged.
      "I thought he had stopped taking drugs," I said. "Simon Williams told me that he had."
      "Addicts rarely make it the first or second or even third time they try to stop," C.J. said. "He finally fell off the wagon for the last time. Marlene says he'd been talking about how hard it was. She saw him drive off. Said he was upset at his father because the old man wouldn't give him any more money. Brody says his son had asked him for a loan, but he turned him down. Probably that was enough to push him off the edge."
      "Then why are you watching Marlene?" I asked, sure that he was although he hadn't said so.
      "I have this feeling at the base of my neck," C.J. said. "Something's not right, doesn't fit." He paused. "Maybe I've been watching too much TV." He looked at me. "If you know something, you should tell me. If not, you should stay out of it."
      C.J. left the station, but I kept thinking about Aaron and his death all that week. That Saturday, I decided that I decided to play detective. Yes, I was curious to the point of stupidity, but I wasn't totally stupid. I didn't want to go to a murder scene alone; I talked Thomas Owell into going with me.
      I'd been friends with Thomas for years. He was a good guy, but divorced twice because he loved hunting more than his wives. He owned more guns than most army units. I suspect some of the guns weren't strictly legal. Or maybe it is okay to hunt deer with a fully functional machine gun.
      Aaron had been found in the woods near Watts Ridge. I didn't know exactly where he'd been found, but since the newspaper article said the road had dead-ended, I didn't think we'd have much trouble.
      Thomas drove us in his pickup. It had a strong, strange odor that at first I attributed to Thomas, but he explained that he had dropped a bottle of deer musk. I rolled down the window.
      The road took lots of twists and turns, at first blacktop and then gravel and then finally dirt ruts. I was completely lost and about to suggest to Thomas that we go back when the ruts ended.
      "Over there," Thomas said.
      We got out of the pickup and walked toward fluttering yellow police tapes. The tapes had been attached to wooden stakes, but the wind had pulled it loose from a couple of them.
      There wasn't much to see. Just a patch of ground with some leaves on it and a few rocks and sticks.
      Thomas was plainly disappointed. I don't know what he expected, but he started looking for deer sign.
      I started walking around the area in a spiral pattern, something I had read in a book or maybe seen on TV. After about 15 minutes, I stopped and felt foolish. What exactly did I expect to find? The police had searched this area, and they were professionals.
      I heard someone behind me. "Thomas, I'm ready to go," I said, turning to face him, but it wasn't Thomas.
      At this point, the whole thing stopped being interesting and exciting and became scary. Marshall Brody stood before me. He held a big black gun.
      "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
(To be continued)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

An Unattended Death, Part 2

      I didn't know Aaron Brody or his family so my involvement in his death should have ended there. They didn't know me from Adam so it was a strange twist that I attended Aaron's funeral.
      Not that I really wanted to, but our sales manager, showing that compassion that made us call him Hitler behind his back, decided that the entire sales staff of the radio station should go. His reasoning: lots of our customers would be there so we should be just in case any of them needed to discuss their advertising. No, I am not making that up.
      Thus, I found myself in a car with three other salespeople. We enjoyed ourselves on the way to the funeral, comparing our sales manager to various animals. (He drove his BMW to the funeral.) The other three were holding out for a skunk, but I happen to think skunks are fine animals, perhaps a little smelly, but they didn't deserve to have our sales manager lumped with them.
      Hundreds of people turned out for the funeral. Marshall Brody was well known and well liked. I saw Simon Williams and several of my other clients. None of them, strangely enough, approached us to discuss advertising, a fact that Charlie, our morning DJ and afternoon salesperson, said he was going to make sure our manager knew.
      Dozens of flower bouquets lined the front of the church. I counted at least 98 different sprays. The florists in town were making money. I wondered if they gave a special discount on funerals ... And would it be too tacky to advertise it if they did? How could you word the radio spot so that it didn't sound ghoulish and macabre? It's an absolute joy to live inside my head sometimes.
      "Wow," Charlie breathed.
      I looked and saw a young woman in an extremely short black dress walk by. Her hair was that bright blond that only comes from a bottle, and she was thin to the point of starvation. All in all, a hottie by the current accepted definition. I prefer women that don't look like they need anchors in a breeze.
      She sauntered down the aisle and set in the pew reserved for family. After a few moments, one of the attendants hurried down the aisle to her, and there was a sharp whispered conversation. I couldn't hear what was being said, other than a few words from the woman ... And they weren't words you'd want to repeat.
      She got up, pushed past the attendant and strode toward the door. She paused, then turned and looked at all of us already seated, and loudly said, "Take a picture, creeps. It'll last longer."
      With a contemptuous flip of her hair, she exited, leaving a lot of scandalized conversation behind her.
      "Who was that?" Charlie asked, his eyes bright with excitement. Nothing like a bit of bad behavior to stir everyone up.
      The lady in front of us turned and whispered, "His girlfriend."
      Charlie leaded forward, and he and the lady (using that term loosely) exchanged a few minutes of gossip. To hit the low points: the girlfriend's name was Marlene Postwain, she was thought to have started Aaron on drugs, she had been arrested several times but let off because her uncle was a state senator, Aaron's mother Margaret hated her, all in all, she was basically naughty. Charlie and the woman had a good time.
      A few minutes later, the family entered. Marshall Brody looked terrible. He walked as if he would fall at any moment. Several friends hung close to him, but I never saw him let them help him. His haggard face would haunt me later. His wife Margaret was wearing a hat with a black veil, the only time I had ever seen that except on TV. About two dozen other people made up the rest of the family. I recognized a couple of them from events around town.
      The funeral was fairly short. A prayer, a couple songs, the eulogy, another prayer, and it was over. Aaron didn't leave people with much to say about him. As I stood in line to view the body, I wondered how he had managed to mess up his life so bad.
      Aaron looked young and small in the coffin in a suit that didn't seem to fit him. I turned and hurried out of the church.
      Outside, the other radio station people and I stood around, waiting for the parking lot to thin out. Our car was blocked in. A lot of people were in the same situation so little knots of people talked and laughed. While the mood was somewhat somber, most seemed to treat it as an occasion to catch up with friends. Isn't it strange that people can treat funerals like social events? Perhaps it is a comfort of some sort to renew our friendships, catch up on family news.
      Charlie told our station manager that we hadn't sold any commercials. Our manager said, "I didn't say we would. I said we had to be prepared to sell some."
      "We're just like the Red Cross of the advertising industry," Charlie deadpanned.
      Our manager nodded as if that made perfect sense. His car was free so he left.
      The family finally came out of the church. Margaret Brody stumbled on the steps, and Marshall reached out to steady her. She jerked away from him and made her way to the car. He stood there for a moment in the harsh sunlight, looking at the crowd. For a weird moment, it seemed like our eyes met, and then I realized he was looking beyond me. I turned. A county sheriff's car was parked across the street under a tree, Assistant County Sheriff C.J. Turner leaning against the car. I looked back at Marshall. He entered the family car. People formed the procession, turned on their headlights and left.
      I knew C.J. He came to the station once a month to record public safety messages for the sheriff's drug prevention program for kids. I had helped write a couple of spots for him and set him up in the recording studio. I started to go over to him, but he got into his car and left. He didn't join the procession, instead turned and followed a little red car that had been parked on the other side of the parking lot. I stood there for a moment, shrugged and went to our car.
      That was that. Or it should have been. But not even two weeks later, I would be in the woods where Aaron was found, looking for clues like some real world version of Scooby and the gang.
(To be continued)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

An Unattended Death, Part 1

(This is based on actual events. Names, location and some details have been changed to protect the innocent. Ryton doesn't exist.)

      I never meant to get involved with a murder. I like reading mysteries, but in real life, it's an entirely different thing. In real life it's scary, strange and sad. My only explanation is that I'm curious beyond what is safe.
      I was living in Ryton at the time. If you're not familiar with that town, it's out in western Oklahoma. The wind blows all the time. In summer the red dirt fills the air so that you get a lovely red necklace every time you go out. I wear contact lenses, and the heat and dust gave my eyes fits. I had taken to wearing wrap-around sunglasses that I hoped made me look cool, but I'm afraid made me look like the Bug-Man From Beyond.
      I sold advertising for the local radio station. I basically went door-to-door to various businesses and begged for their money. Sometimes they were kind and bought a run of commercials; other times they set their dogs on me.
      The oil boom had busted, and lots of people were living hand to mouth. I guess it wasn't surprising some people were looking at filling their mouth with what was in other people’s hands. Robberies were up, mostly break-ins when people were gone, but a few convenience store hold-ups, too.
      I dropped by one of my accounts on that day, a local men's clothing store. I intended to squeeze this particular customer out of some money that he owed the station. He was three months behind in his advertising bill. Since I didn't get paid my commission until he paid the station, I was determined to get some cash. (I tried to get my creditors to collect directly from my accounts, but they seemed reluctant to do so, the lazy bums.)
      I walked in the store, checked out the overpriced clothing and looked at a suit that would cost me a kidney to buy. My client Simon Williams was on the phone. I expected him to make me wait. A lot of customers did that, got on the phone or called a staff meeting, hoping I'd get tired and give them another day to hold on to the station's money. They soon learned that I was quite willing to settle down and start life anew in their store if I had to.
      So I sat on a chair in front of a TV, grabbed a remote, flipped to County Music Television and made myself comfortable. But for once, I didn't wait long.
      He hung up and motioned me over.
      "Hey, Simon," I said. "Hope you're having a good day. Just thought I'd stop by and see if you wanted me to take a check to the station. Save you a stamp." Better to get what you wanted right out front. Otherwise, some of them would never give you an opening.
      He nodded, reached over and got his checkbook. "What do I owe?"
      "I think I just happen to have a copy of your bill," I said, digging into my briefcase. I 'just happened' to have every slow-paying customer's bill with me.
      I handed it to him. As he wrote out the check, I noticed that he looked pale. His shoulders slumped, and his hand shook. His designer shirt looked rumpled.
      I took the check. "Thanks. Hey, are you feeling okay?"
      He nodded and then shook his head. "I just found out they found a good friend of mine dead this morning."
      "Oh, I’m sorry to hear that."
      "My dad called me a couple of hours ago, and I'm still dealing with it."
      "Maybe you should take off work."
      "No," he said. "I'm better at work."
      "I understand that," I said. "Keeps your mind off things."
      "I just don’t understand," Simon said.
      "What happened?" I asked.
      He sighed again. "I shouldn't be talking about it, but it's going to be in the paper anyway. It was Aaron Brody. He ODed on heroin."
      "Wow," I said, showing that gift for eloquence I was known for. Marshall Brody owned a lot of businesses and real estate in Ryton. A nice, honest, hard working man whose great disappointment was his only son Aaron. Aaron had started on drugs in his teens, been in and out of trouble with the law ever since.
      "He had a drug problem," Simon said. "But he had been doing so well. I had lunch with him last week, and I swear he was as clean as I am."
      "Drugs are hard to kick," I said. "Sometimes people can’t."
      "I just don’t understand," Simon said. "I could usually spot when he was using. He would be really nervous and his eyes would look huge." He laughed sadly. "He used to wear thick glasses in high school before he got contacts. After he stopped wearing them, he always had that owl look, you know. I guess I just got used to seeing those ugly things on him."
      I didn't comment. I come from a long line of folks who wear glasses and/or contacts, and I don't find glasses particularly ugly. Privately, I thought Simon was a yuppie snob. He had always worked for his father, who actually owned the store. They had been rich a long time.
      The Brodys, on the other hand, had been dirt poor and only became wealthy during the oil boom. Marshall Brody had been smarter than other people and invested his money in stable investments. As a result, the Brodys were still wealthy. Maybe having money too quick had led Aaron to dark places.
      Boy, he loved that old car," Simon said. "It was a red ‘73 Mustang. Aaron restored it by hand himself." I listened politely as he shared some memories of him and Aaron picking up girls and getting drunk in that '73 Mustang.
      Finally I said my good-byes.
      "I'm going to miss him," Simon said. "I'm going to miss him."
      The evening paper didn't give much more information, other than Aaron had been found out in the woods, near Watts Ridge, by some hunters. Apparently he had driven his car there because it was found near his body. He was lying on a blanket, some heroin vials near his body, and too much heroin in his body. He'd been dead for at least a day.
      Everyone talked about how sad it was, that he had killed himself with drugs. There were even whispers of suicide. The county sheriff’s office called it an "unattended death due to the deceased's actions." Sad, but no mystery.
      But they were wrong.
(Continued tomorrow)
© 2005. All rights reserved.

Lazer razor

      Through no fault of my own, I finally purchased a three-blade razor. For years I had used a two-blade razor and been perfectly satisfied with its performance. It cut my beard, left my face smooth and spend the rest of its time quietly in the bathroom drawer. What more could I want or need from a razor?
      But recently, after twenty years of daily use, my two-blade razor handle broke, and not a single store in town had one. Instead they had triple-blade and even four-blade razors. Shaving technology had taken a huge jump and left me behind. The modern razors use "monofiber handles" and "laser polished steel" and even "titanium structure bases." The space shuttle should be built by razor companies.
      According to the box in which it came, my new triple-blade razor will "deliver a shave as smooth as a baby's bottom." Not being around babies that much, I didn't even know they had to shave their bottoms. Live and learn. It does explain why they cry so much.
      The new multi-bladed razors promise "a super smooth face that women will love to touch." Apparently they will just wander up on the street and stroke your face. I hope their hands are clean, but I guess your face will be so smooth that nothing will stick to it.
      I examined a four-bladed razor during my shopping. They had four blades stacked on top of each in a configuration that reminded me of pictures of World War II biplanes. It also weighed a ton. It might be a way to combine exercise and shaving, but it seemed dangerous to me.
      In a four-blade razor, the first blade pulls the whisker up and cuts it off, then the second blade cuts the whisker at a lower point before the hair can pull back and then the third blade cuts the whisker off at the root while the fourth blade digs deep into the bone and threatens your face if it EVER even thinks about growing whiskers again.
      You'd think that the shaving companies would be content with this, but right now, they're working on a five-blade razor in their laboratories. It will split the atoms of your whiskers to give you a closer shave.
      On the drawing board are plans for a six-blade and even a seven-blade razor. They will be so sharp that you will have to be licensed with the FBI, CIA, NRA and the Red Cross to own one. They will be capable of cutting a hole in the space-time continuum!
      You think I'm kidding about that, but a group of scientists have actually modified a laser to give shaves. It delivers a close shave (to the six-thousandth of an inch) and only costs a little over a million dollars. But with mass production, the price will surely drop to a couple of hundred thousand. I can't wait. A word of caution: You definitely don't want to cough while you’re using it or you'll make an ash of yourself.
      This leads us -- well, me -- to consider those laboring scientists. They went to college for at least eight years to get that Ph.D. in engineering or physics or thermodynamics. They probably figured they would be investigating the secrets of the universe, but instead they're working in a secret shaving laboratory. Don’t you think they say they panhandle for a living?
      A friend of mine says we're spoiled these days. He's old enough to recall shaving with a long-handled straight razor. He said it delivered a close clean shave, but you lost a lot of time making out your will each morning and then, of course, the necessary blood transfusions. He says his face looks like a road map, and that's why he has a beard.
      Anyway, I now have a triple-blade razor. When you women see me and have the overwhelming desire to rub your hands on my face, don't. Unless we’re alone, of course.

Clarification

      A couple of people told me that yesterday's entry gave the impression that my back is hurting now. It isn't. It's better now. I hurt it in May. I was doing my back exercises yesterday and thought about posting about it. I do still carry my cane in my car, but it's just in case I need to park in the handicapped parking spaces. No, it's in case my back goes out. (The only car I've ever keyed in my life was one driven by a college student who I watched get out of his sports car and run into the post office. I've always felt bad about doing that ... mostly.)
      Not much went on today. Work and then writing (500 more words). I tell you that it's hard sometimes to come up with something to post. Well, not hard to find something, but finding something interesting, there's the rub. Truthfully a writer doesn't have much time to have adventures. I do the best I can, but I need some mysterious, beautiful wealthy woman to sweep me away on some exotic adventure that leads to true love -- or lots of money. I'm not particular. But instead I have to make do with my various small adventures. Tonight I'm tired for some reason so I'm going to close now. Night!
      Oh, thank you for all the nice comments on yesterday's entry. It makes me feel good to know my strange way of looking at the world is appreciated and even enjoyed. And hey, Susan2, good to see you!

Baby got back trouble

      Everyone has back troubles. If you don’t believe me, just quietly say, "My back is hurting me." Immediately a crowd will gather and fight among themselves to be the first to say, "Oh, that happened to me, but I was really in pain. I was totally incapable of movement, and a team of nurses had to feed me for four months using a block and tackle hoist, and a specialist was going to operate, but I went to a chiropractor who popped my back, and then I was as good as new, other than spells of blinding pain."
      Occasionally you will hear a variation in which the back troubles happened to their aunt or uncle who had a spinal operation and is now either in a vegetable state or died horribly on the table because the doctor got a phone call on his cell phone and didn't clamp off a major artery, and then of course they lost the body and had to bury an empty coffin, but that is another story.
      Don’t you just hate people like that who complain about their petty problems? I mean, you have a real back problem and they're basically talking about just a twinge, more like a hangnail, really nothing to complain about compared to, for instance, my back problems. 'Cause I had real back troubles. I'm talking about flat on my back, agony shooting throughout my whole body, arms and legs flailing like some sort of huge, whiny turtle.
      I hurt my back the first of May while rushing into the street to save an elderly lady who was about to be hit by a bus. When I picked her up, I felt something give in my spine. Luckily I made it to the curb just before my back gave out. The lady suffered a heart attack, but fortunately landed near me so that I was able to give her CPR until the ambulance arrived which was driven by a brand new EMT so I had to give him directions on how to get the hospital by the fastest route and thus saved her life twice. I am in her will now.
      Oh, all right, I hurt my back just by bending over to pick up my shoe. That's right. I bent over and heard something in my back go crack. Are you satisfied? Nothing exciting; just years of back neglect and lack of exercise. A joint in my back decided that it was tired of being overworked and went on strike.
      It wasn't much fun. That is an understatement along the lines of "Jerry Springer is a bit annoying."
      First was a week and half of bed rest, popping powerful pain pills like candy, and then some physical therapy (torture) and then some exercises (more torture but at least at home so that I could weep freely instead of pretending to be brave). Then a wheelchair, walker for a couple of weeks and finally a cane. Whee!
      I rushed past one of the hardest aspects of this: that week and half of bed rest. I take enforced rest somewhat badly. Of course, I am known for my cheerful, long-suffering disposition -- shut up -- and thus I endure pain stoically, particularly if you define stoic as loud complaining mixed with spats of irrational anger.
      People told me that a week of bed rest sounded wonderful, but they stopped saying that after I strangled a couple of them. Bed rest is good if you choose it instead of having it chosen for you. I was bored, bored, bored. I couldn't watch TV since I couldn't raise my head and had never had the foresight to install a television on my ceiling which, by the way, has 123,084 bumps on it.
      I read 10 books and twice that many magazines. I stopped when my eyes began to burn. I repeatedly called everyone I could think of until they began to avoid my calls. I had one wrong number beg me to hang up. I even talked to telemarketers just to have someone to talk to, and let me tell you, after you've talked to them for an hour and half and still don't buy anything, they get surly.
      Anyway, I got better. It was a big deal when I was able to tie my shoes and not faint. I'm continuing to lose weight, and I'm doing the stretching exercises for my back regularly. The next time back problems come up as a topic of conversation, it is my firm intention to have nothing to say.

Clouds again

Clouds again.
© 2005. All rights reserved.

Waking Up On Another Planet

I woke up on another planet today
and found myself believing strange new things:
Broken hearts can heal stronger than before,
We don't have to purchase wisdom with pain,
An open hand holds more than a closed fist,
We all bleed red whatever our color,
Only fools think violence will cause peace,
And we can learn to love ourselves at last.
Perhaps you think I do not understand
the gravity of our situation.
I know the list of disasters stretches
longer than Orion's arm. Nonetheless,
I woke on another planet today
and planted a bright flag and called it hope.

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

Greeneyed

      I've tried to live my life without jealousy. Another person's success doesn't diminish me. The only person I'm really in competition with is me. I strive to be genuinely happy when one of my friends makes it good.
      This is part of my moral code. And I do okay with it. It took practice, but now I don't see another person's success and immediately think That should have been me. This is harder for an aspiring writer than you might think. Oh, I'm okay with those excellent writers like Tad Williams, Sara Paretsky, Lois McMaster Bujold, Holly Lisle, Mercedes Lackey, Carolyn Hart, Stephen R. Donaldson, just to name a few. I read their books, and I think Okay, this is good writing. They deserve every bit of success they can get. No, I'm okay with them. It's those bad ones. It's the ones that I read that make me cringe at their ridiculous plots, terrible dialogue and endings so implausible that deux ex machina doesn't begin to cover it, and I see them on the bookshelves or even on the best-seller lists, and I wonder How did they do it? Who did they have blackmail information on? Those are hard to swallow.
      And I'm okay with people making more money than me. I have several friends who have great jobs. No, they actually have careers. And sometimes I feel a twinge when they talk about their new cars, their large homes, their fantastic vacations, but for the most part, I do okay. I love them, and I want them to be happy. If I could go back twenty years, I would choose something different than my useless degree and make some money. But I can't, and looking backward is not productive. I can only go on from here.
      I'm sharing all this because I'm struggling with a particular incident. As most of you know, I've had some financial difficulties over the past few years. My fault for the most part. I've only in the past year finally started to understand how to handle money. And you also know that recently I took out a loan to pay off some high interest credit card debt. The loan didn't help my monthly money crunch as basically I replaced four payments with one large payment, but it does mean that in five years, I should have that debt paid off, God willing. I'm okay with that. I put myself in this hole, and now I'm going to get myself out.
      So ... I have this friend. He's a good friend, but he's had money his whole life. And I mean significant money. His parents were well-off, and now he and his wife are well-off. He has a fantastic paying job as does his wife. He swims in stocks and bonds. Beautiful house, new cars, new boat, etc. And I'm okay with that. He has a different life than me. But the other day -- and I'm ashamed to admit this -- he started talking about going on an island vacation. This vacation will cost roughly $10,000, what with the plane trip, the rental car, the resort rooms, the fishing trip, the jet skis, the meals, the overnight winery side trip, the souvenirs, the photos, the clothes, etc. Oh, he didn't brag about the money, but I could add it up. And during the conversation, he mentioned that I and a girlfriend of mine should come along. Told me that it would only cost three or four thousand if we watched our budget.
      He was excited about the idea of us going along, and I know I should feel pleased that I have a friend that enjoys my company that much. But ... it also made me realize that he truly didn't understand my budget problems. He has had money so long and in such amounts that three or four thousand didn't seem like a lot of money to him. Well, it's a lot of money to me. A lot. Five thousand dollars would significantly reduce the time I'm going to spend paying off my debt. It's not hyperbole to say that an extra five thousand dollars would come close to changing my life. I swallowed my resentment, told him that maybe someday I'd do that and changed the subject.
      May I rant? I know it's wrong, okay. I know I should just be happy for the blessings in his life. He's my friend. But. BUT. When someone is walking in the desert, don't be telling him about your swimming pool. It's small of me to even think it, but give me a break. I can endure my reduced situation, I can survive, I can even flourish. And I do have so many blessings that many people in this world do not have: a warm house, food on my table, clothing and so on.
      So I know better, but I couldn't stop from myself from feeling angry, from feeling resentment, from wanting to cut him down to size. I'm ashamed to admit it, but there I was. It took me a few hours to get over it, but later that afternoon I called him and told him that I would print out some maps from the Internet where they were going so they'd know how to get around. He's computer illiterate and acted like I was doing something amazing. I also told him about a really good buy on a video camera I'd seen. I'm going to go Saturday and help him pick one out as he and his wife have wanted one for a while.
      I don't know what this makes me. A better person wouldn't have felt envy in the first place. Or maybe someone else would have taken it as a personal challenge and redid his or her life. I don't know. I'm just rowing my boat as fast as I can, bailing out the water as much as I can and looking to the misty horizon.

This and that and a few other things

      Other than getting my 500 words (actually 1,000 this evening) and working on my family newsletter, I spent the rest of the time updating the web page for the local community theater. I added a photo, cleaned up some links, fixed the scrollie, added a counter, and then played with various color schemes. I've decided that I will update the page only once a week, usually on Wednesday. That way I can train people to get their material to me -- always supposing they will ever submit any.
      On this blog, I added a few more blogs on my Blogs of Interest, including Event Horizon, Narcissusworks, Rantings and Ravings for Twilight (Hi, Jean!) and Smith & Stephenson. I particularly like Rantings and Ravings for Twilight and Narcissusworks. Check them out! (I used the linkdomain: command to discover who was linking to me. I didn't know these were. Imagine my delight to find them and also to find that they all featured good writing. Cool.)
      I finished one of my meds tonight and have just a few more days on the others. I'm feeling much better. My IBD doesn't like the meds, but I can deal with that.
      I appreciated the nice comments on my little poems of yesterday's entry. When I teach one of my poetry classes, I always assign three haiku. Students find them easy, and it makes poetry less intimidating. I love poetry, completely and foolishly, even though I know it will never make me much money. With one article to OKMagazine, I made more money than I've ever made in my poetry.
      This lack of financial rewards turns a lot of writers off poetry. In fact, I had once thought about teaching a poetry class at Forward Motion. Some people seemed interested until we started talking about the no pay part. A couple members gently explained that writers at FM wanted to make money. I certainly understand that, but I think poetry is a way of playing with language, of learning how to make every word count. It benefits everyone from novelists to journalists, even if it doesn't directly bring in the coins. I know I'm preaching to the choir. Most of my readers write and/or read poetry. Y'all are simply top notch, but some of you need to blog more. You know who you are ...
      And on that nagging note, I'll say good night.

Cleaning house

      Been cleaning house. I guess you know what that means in terms of the book. Sigh. I got my 500 words, but I don't like them. They're okay, but they don't have the thrust that they need to have. And I had to drop the well scene for now. I haven't remembered what I intended. Yet.
      I hope everyone is doing okay. I'd like everyone to blog more, but I think I might have to just endure. That or find more blogs to read. No, y'all just blog more.
      A few changes to this blog that I haven't had a chance to mention. I added Holly's Silent Bounce to my blogs of interest, and below that, I added a new section of links that feature various cartoons I enjoy. I hope you will, too.
      My foot is doing much better. The week of bed rest -- however uncomfortable the illness made it -- helped it a lot. And I'm mostly over my illness, still taking my meds, but doing okay. Not quite healthy, but near enough to see daylight. And I appreciate feeling better. It's something you take for granted until you lose it. Something to remember in all sorts of things.
      And now for something different.

Haiku Us

Bare skin in moonlight
moves in patches of shadows
leaving me breathless.

One day I will sit
bold at your table of love;
crumbs won't be enough.

When we said I do,
you really meant you didn't
so I don't either

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

ACK!

      I don't have my 500 words yet so I can't write much here. I haven't written since Sunday last week, and the words refuse to flow. I have my characters staring into a well. Yes, a well. I don't know why. I had an idea back before I got sick, and now it's gone. My characters found this old mossy well in the Wilderness near an abandoned farmhouse. The water is clear and cold. But they don't need water. What was the point of this sidetrip? What? My characters think I've lost my mind. My characters might be right. They're staring at me. I think they'd snicker at me, but the last time they did that, I had them attacked by Haunts. Don't mess with the author. But I sure wish I could remember what I intended to do with that well. Gotta get back to it.

Fever dreams

      It's been a strange week. It's been years since I've been as ill as I have been these past few days. I'm doing better now. Not right, but much better. I won't have to go to the hospital unless I take a downward turn, but I haven't had a temperature since noon yesterday. Well, I obviously have a temp, but a normal one, I mean.
      Those days of fever induced a weird state in me. I just huddled in bed and thought of nothing, staring at the books in my shelves, their titles carrying no meaning, their stories no attractions. Sometimes I can get sick, and it's a time to read books, watch old movies, and generally pamper myself like a French king. This wasn't one of those times. Instead, I watched the ceiling until I'd fall into fever dreams.
      Dreams are important to most writers I know. An amazing number of them seem to suffer from night terrors or they sleepwalk or they have incredibly vivid dreams, ones that have plots and invoke emotions. Many times I've woke up feeling hurt by something a loved one said in my dreams. Or angry or sad at events that only happened in nighttime fantasies. And sometimes I've awakened terrified by darknesses made tangible.
      Fever dreams affect me differently, though. They last longer, but they have no plot, no story. I drifted through images of my past and different presents and maybe a few dark futures. Dead people appeared and talked to me, including my grandfather on my mother's side, a man I never met in this life. Not zombies, but as if they were alive, somehow all jumbled together in an old country house that I've never been at but know down in my bones. There was sunlight that was too bright and deep cool shadows and an endless summer. A table and Southern singing and kids that shot through the rooms like blurs. Like a family reunion except it went on all the time. I drifted through this, untouched, an unresponsive observer, burning with heat. Sometimes people spoke to me. Sometimes they hugged me or touched me. Most of them I didn't know.
      Whatever wisdom they might have told me didn't stick; unlike my regular dreams, these faded, leaving only snapshots, like old black and white photos. I was there and yet not there, watching me and being me at the same time. Eventually I'd wake up and be sick or take my medicine or stare at the ceiling some more until the dreams took me again.
      I don't read much into dreams at the best of times, certainly not when I'm sick. Dreams, for all their energy and life, are not indications of the future. Most of the time, they don't mean anything. A few times, they can indicate fears or an overflow of stress. I use images from them in my novels, plays and poems, but I don't expect them to be more than a source of creativity.
      Last night, I had regular dreams. The usual jumble of images and actions, the nonsensical plots that only make sense while your eyes are closed. It's a sign I'm getting healthier, helped by your prayers and well-wishes ... and those Victoria Secret models that Joel sent.

Update

      I'm sorry I've been gone so long. I have been and continue to be terribly sick. The doctor thought it was the flu at first, but today he told me that he thinks it is something else, although he's not sure what as my lab tests are coming back inconclusive. I got new medicine and am hopeful that it will make a difference. If I'm not better by Monday, the doctor said he would have to put me in the hospital. I appreciate your well-wishes and thoughts. Please continue to keep me in your prayers.

Miserable

      Miserable sums up my day. Looks like this illness is going to linger a bit, but I do think I felt a little better today. I didn't get much sleep last night due to coughing, but I've got some new drugs so I hope to get decent sleep tonight. I think that would go a long way to making me feel better. Thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes and gave me medical advice. I've taken most of it, particularly the chicken soup with garlic (tasty, too) and the vitamins. I barely got my 500 words, but I got them. So good night all!

Cold

      My cold has stripped me of my voice, and my swollen throat hurts like blazes. I staggered to the computer, got my 500 words and then staggered back to bed. That's pretty much my whole day except for a bit of email and instant messages this afternoon. I'm popping Vitamin C like it's candy. I'm going to do a shot of NyQuil and call it a day. Night!

A bridge to cross

      I spent the evening working on the new web page for the drama group only to discover that the server wouldn't let me upload any of the changes. Sigh. I saved everything on my hard disk and will work on it tomorrow afternoon.
      I have developed a sore throat and lost my voice almost completely. I've gargled with warm, salt water and wrapped my throat with a scarf. Do you know of any other home remedies that work? Please share.
      A friend of mine brought up an interesting question the other day. He wanted to know how I would react when I lost my anonymity on this blog after my book was published. Hmm. Of course, a lot of people who comment on this blog already know me. Crystal and I have known each other since the fifth grade, ER and I almost as long. I went to college with Randall, Powersleeper and Amberclear. I met CJ and Texan Susan when I moved to my town, although Susan has since moved to the Gulf of Oklahoma. Thus a fair number of people already know my secret identity of Bruce Wayne ... I hadn't thought much about it before he mentioned, and I told him that I would worry about it after I sold the book.
      But his point is well taken. Authors have to promote their work. It puts their names and their lives out there. Most fans are cool, but you always have those trolls and weirdos. Authors have to put up with a lot, including folks asking for their publishing help. I figure authors have enough on their plates as it is. I don't attempt to contact published authors. I've gone to book signings to get their books signed, but I don't attempt any conversation more than that. I think it's rude and pushy.
      Some authors do help others to get published. It's major cool when they do so, but it should be their choice. They shouldn't be hounded into it. Just because they write a book we like, doesn't mean we own them. I've read horror stories on many authors' sites, including one Oklahoma author who had to contact the FBI for her safety. Some people are just plain weird.
      But how will I react when that time comes? Well, according to my nature, I guess, and to the best of my ability. But that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it and not before. Night!

Time don't mean a thing if you got that swing

      As most of my regular readers know, I chose to cut back on many of my other activities to concentrate on my writing. That meant saying no to the various groups that asked me to be on the boards or be a member. There are only so many hours in the day and night. To reach my dream, I need to write now, right now.
      But no man is an island, no matter how big our thighs might get, so I kept my memberships active in a few groups, once of which is a theater group. I serve on the board, not much of a hardship as we only meet once a month. And the group has performed two of my full-length plays, giving both much needed shakedown performances. I hope they will perform my new play Figments this summer or next fall.
      The board has been talking about creating a web site for a few months, and finally I volunteered to do it. This is where you shake your head and think, He's just not very bright, is he?
      Working with a committee or with any group of people is harder in many ways than doing it on your own. In this case, I mostly had free rein, but getting an account for the group seemed to take forever as we negotiated back and forth with local providers to get our access donated for us.
      Finally this Monday, we received our web space, although it took until yesterday to get our space registered with the service. Last night I put the page online. Whew. Truthfully it's a fairly simple page, mostly because I'm a fairly simple person, almost a simpleton even (just wanted to beat you to the punchline). But I can already tell that it's going to take some work.
      Oh, not the page itself, but getting the content from the various people to put on the page might be a bit rough. Fortunately the president of the theater group is a no-nonsense, let's get it done person. So I have an ally.
      The curious thing about this is that my writing has improved while I've worked on that page. I mean, I'm getting way over my 500 keepable words. Somehow working on the web page woke my creativity back up. The works have flowed. I've been able to meet my goals and go beyond them. When that jazz touches you, writing is like swing dancing. For me, nothing touches that feeling when words come out gold and you feel like you can go on for hours. It's rare enough in my life that when it happens, I try to write non-stop, giving up sleep if necessary.
      All of this is just to tell you why I didn't blog last night. But I will twice today to make up for it! Gotta to get ready for work now. Talk to you later.

Paper chase

      One of the reasons I'd like to have a larger house is so that I could have an office. Currently I occupy a small corner of my small living room. But I'd like a space where I could spread my book out in nice neat piles. Even though my current book is a fantasy, it's amazing the amount of research and notes that it requires. I lose a lot of time as I shuffle papers, look for things and generally drive myself batty as I chase paper around my living room.
      I try to keep research on the computer as much as possible, but that leads to ten or 11 or more documents open at one time. Yikes. I sometimes get lost.
      Which is where my characters are -- lost in the Wilderness. Notice the capital letter on Wilderness. I want it to be wild, to deserve that capital, to deserve the fear it creates in most people. So far, I have ghosts, tribes of wild wandering elves, deserted farmhouses and lots of bodies. But it needs more. I thought of wolves but rejected that as a lot of fantasy books have wolves, and I can't think of a new wrinkle for them. So we'll see what happens next. Sadly enough, I'm confident in my subconscious's ability to produce a few more nightmares.
      Gloria asked yesterday how I know what words are "keepable" of my writing. I thought about that a lot today, and I don't think I really have a definite answer. I guess I'm guided by instinct and logic. Logic tells me if it makes sense, and instinct tells me if it's interesting. The second part is most important. As a reader, I will forgive a bit of illogic, but if you bore me, I'll put the book aside and move on. There are too many good books in the world for me to waste my time on a boring one. I figure my readers will be same. They don't want to be bored. Of course, I'm hoping my writing will be both logical and interesting, but my readers will make that determination.
      Speaking of readers, I will be looking for a few first readers when the whole blamed mess is finished. Crystal has already volunteered herself, and I hope to find a few others (hint, hint, hint) who will read the book and catch those inevitable errors before I send it off to another agent and/or publisher. Now, don't worry; you have at least until July to decide if you can do it. And this reminds of one of the nicest compliments that I have received on the book. Crystal was reading an early version to help me during my mad scramble to get it to the interested agent. She told that she kept getting caught up in the story and forgetting to look for errors. That was major cool to hear. Thank you, Crystal. Night!

A few things that actually work for me

      IBS/IBD has been around for a while. Long enough that they've collected their share of dubious home remedies. They range from pinching your left earlobe with a spring clamp to having mineral water enemas daily to smoking marijuana. All of these apparently work on the idea of giving you something else to think about: pain, bathroom proximity and the new terribly close friends you'll make in jail.
      Over the years, I've found a few things that actually work for me. As far as I know, none of my regular commenters or visitors have either illness, but I thought I would share what I found since they might work with any upset stomach.
      Chamomile tea: That's right. The darling of herbalists and old ladies everywhere really does calm my stomach. I'm sipping a hot cup of it now. One teabag per cup with a teaspoon of honey or sugar. Just call me Emily and hand me a finger sandwich.
      Peppermint oil: You can find this at your local health food store in expensive tiny capsules, but I prefer to buy cheap candy canes, break off a small piece and drop it into my chamomile tea. Peppermint has been given to people for centuries to calm their nerves and stomachs. You can also find peppermint tea, but it hasn't worked for me. (A friend of mine once tried shots of Peppermint Schnappes to settle his stomach. He woke up three days later in Mexico. Married. But he and Rosa Maria Isabel Lucita Pilar are very happy together. True story.)
      Environment CDs: Stress influences IBS and to a lesser extent IBD. I've found that ten or 15 minutes a day of what I call drifting helps cut down on the frequency and duration of my IBD flares. To aid in this, I listen to compact discs of recorded nature sounds. One of my favorites is a tape named Bayou, but I also enjoy Echoes of Nature, which features ocean waves, morning songbirds, tropical rainforest, wilderness rivers and so on. (I've also used these to simulate the enviroments that the characters in my books adventure in. Sound is often neglected in books as is smell. Adding both makes descriptions more vivid.) The point of this drifting is to think of nothing but the sounds. Let your mind be unfocused and empty. Just imagine you're a Congressman and it will be easier.
      I hope these are helpful for you. They have been for me. Night!

Handsome little Mikey in his church clothes.
© 2005. All rights reserved.

The real enemy

       It might seem that the enemy of my writing is other books. Tad Williams, one of my favorite fantasy writers (I like him so much that I have all his books in hardcover), just released a new book. Shadowmarch comes in at 656 pages. They will be exciting, good pages, but it takes a time to read a book of that size. Also waiting on my shelves is Jack McDevitt's Polaris. McDevitt writes the best space opera out there. Of course, it's only 370 pages, but that takes a few hours, too. And let's not forget Stephen R. Donaldson's The Runes of the Earth. Sigh. So many good books, so little time.
      Writing takes time. This is only a surprise to those people who watch Jessica Fletcher cross the nation, solving murders right and left, and who believe she still manages to write a bestseller every two months. (Most people don't realize that Jessica is actually a serial killer. No, seriously think about it. Isn't it suspicious that at least one person dies everywhere she goes? I sure wouldn't invite her to my house for the holidays.) In real life, what with all the trials and traveling, she'd have no time to write.
      I have a goal of 500 keepable words a day. That takes me on a good day about an hour or so. On a hard day like today, two or three hours. Oh, the words aren't hard, but getting them right is. I realize that 500 words doesn't sound like much, but try it sometime. It's harder than you think. But 500 words a day will add up to 182,500 words a year. That's two books or about seven plays.
      Naturally if I didn't have my day job, I could write more. For a while. Until I starved.
      So the real enemy of writing is anything that takes time away from it. Oh, I'm not saying you shouldn't read good books (because you need to if you're going to learn) or that you should write and ignore everything else in your life (because you end up lonely and sad) or that writing should be the most important thing in your life (because it shouldn't be if you're going to make it through this world with love and some sort of grace), but it should be high on your list of priorities. If it's not, you're not going to write. Because we all have a limited amount of time to spend. And how we spend it will determine what we accomplish. Nothing else will.
      That's daunting, but also encouraging. Daunting in the realization that time is all we have, but encouraging in that we get to decide how we want to spend it. I want to spend as much as I can of mine writing. What about you?

Woohoo!

      Have I mentioned Holly Lisle before? She's the author of several fantasy books that I like a lot. (The World Gates series is my favorite, and I'm hoping more will be written soon. It has an interesting and intelligent approach to magic and lots of excellent plot surprises.) Her website is in my Authors links. She also founded the writing community Forward Motion (in the Writing links), although she has retired from that to concentrate on her own writing.
      Holly Lisle has a blog called Silent Bounce that you can reach from her website. I stop by there every couple of days. Her blog (which doesn't allow comments for good reasons) shares the thoughts and trials of a working author. It's worth stopping by if you're interested in the creative process, and I think all writers are. We want to understand why we do the things we do and how to do them better.
      Anyway, somehow -- and this is what has excited me -- I missed that she added 51313 Harbor Street to her links! I noticed it a few minutes ago. A link to 51313 Harbor Street on her page! My little blog got listed by a real published author. Listen, I'm going to have the big head about this for days. I'll have to walk sideways through doors. I'll have to buy hats from a blimp company. I feel faint; I might swoon ... Okay, maybe not, but it's major cool, and it gave me a much needed boost today.
      And now I should take this time to plug Forward Motion, an incredible free resource for authors, particularly if you like discussing writing and its many aspects. It offers writing articles, discussion boards, writing challenges, critique groups, chat and lots more. (A word of caution: While I'm a member and read the boards two or three times a week, I'm not active in it because I found that chatting there took more time from my writing than I was willing to give up. If you're more disciplined than me [and who isn't?] you might not have a problem with that.) The people there work at being supportive for the most part, and FM polices trolls and other no-do-goodniks. You can spend days reading all the boards and good advice contained therein. Stop by and take a look.
      More later! But woohoo!

A ten-minute post

      I have ten minutes before I need to go to bed so that's how long I'm going to type. Let's see how much I can tell you in that amount of time.
      I spent most of the weekend taking care of Mikey. We had a great time. He's a funny, sweet child. It's such fun to watch him learning things and figuring out the world. There's also something bittersweet in it as I hate for him to grow up. He wore his first tie to church today just like his Papa's. I told him that he looked handsome. He smiled and said, "I do."
      My roommate took him home to his mother this evening, and then I spend the rest of the time putting away his toys, doing dishes, doing laundry and getting ready to go to work tomorrow.
      My computer is functioning. Some programs need to be reinstalled still, and the system is still having problems. But Word, Publisher, AOL and Internet Explorer are working, and they're the ones I need for my writing projects. I'll start saving, and maybe by summer, I'll have enough saved to buy me a new one. That's the plan.
      I had an ugly confrontation with a credit card company that I had paid off with my loan. They send me a $79 bill for finance charges. I called them up and asked, "I paid my balance and paid long before it was due. Why am I being charged this?"
      Their answer was that the balance didn't take into account finance charges that were added after they sent the bill to me and before I paid it off. And here's the kicker: If I paid the balance on the new bill, I'd get another bill because once again, the finance charges would be added.
      So how do you pay them off? I quote the account rep: "You send us more money than the balance and then we send you a refund if there hasn't been any charges on the card for three months."
      I hit the roof and went through two account reps and finally got a supervisor. He told me, "I'll remove the charges, but you shouldn't expect us to do this in the future. Your account has no grace period." I thought to myself, don't worry, buddy boy, I won't be using that card ever again. As soon as they remove the charges, I'll be canceling that card, something I had intended to do all along.
      I've been doing quite a bit of editing on Dragons Gather. I've fixed a lot of the plot problems and have a better idea on how to proceed. The basic problem was that I hadn't made it tough enough on characters. They need more perils, more dangers, more arguments, more tension in their wild race to escape their foe. I think I know how to provide that.
      Time's up. Good night all.

Of halibut and other things

      Been sick, been having computer problems, been baby sitting, haven't been blogging. But I got told tonight that when I don't blog, it worries people. So I'm blogging so you won't worry. I'm only thinking of you. What a considerate guy I am. Just a saint or something like a saint but with none of that inconvenient goodness and morality.
      Ahem.
      Recently someone asked me how I consistently came up with these hilarious, intelligent, wise, heart-warming, inspiring, cheery and witty posts. (I'm just quoting.) I will tell you right now that I am simply gifted. If you buy that, then I will also sell you some expired lottery tickets.
      Truthfully I suspect my output -- such as it is -- is connected to the warped way I look at the world. My mind is given to literal fantasies, if you can follow that, but if not, don't give up. An example follows so just calm down.
      For instance, suppose someone tells me that his or her heart raced like mad. For most people, that would simply mean that the person speaking was excited. But my mind instantly imagines a heart riding on a horse, the reins held by its little veins and arteries as it spurs its horse to the finish line. Then I have to wonder what it's wearing its spurs on. And what weirdo would make the spurs for a heart, anyway? And spurs need boots ...
      I can while away hours doing this, hours that I should be spending losing weight, cleaning my car, stalking Lucy Lawless, cataloguing my ear wax collection, etc., all the fairly normal activities of someone who was dropped on his head just a few too many times when he was a baby by his jealous siblings, but that is another story and is neither here nor there, but somewhere around Albuquerque.
      Another factor is that I like language, particularly funny words. Like halibut. Now, that is a funny word. Just say it over and over to yourself. Halibut, halibut, ha-li-but. Come on. You're not doing it. Halibut, halibut ... We're not going to continue until you do. Okay, that's better. Isn't that a great word? Next week at work, just say, "Good halibut," instead of "Good morning," and when people ask you how you are, just answer, "Perfectly halibut." Your whole day will be filled with humor, topped off by getting a nice, white coat that will button in an odd way.
      It also helps that we live in a funny world. Well, peculiar is probably the word I should use there, but funny works, too. You can find humor in most things non-Republican, and even Republicans have been known to crack a smile when an endangered species finally croaks. I find that you have to laugh at some things or you will spend all your time weeping and wailing. Frankly, sackcloth itches, and ashes only get in your eyes, and you can quote me if you are so inclined and wish to send me money since this post is copyrighted 2005.
      As for the number of ideas, those come because I read a lot and am interested in almost everything that you can legally be interested in. Right now, I am reading a book on hyperspace, a Southern Sisters murder mystery, a computer book, a book on Biblical archeology and a book on how to have a second date when the police got called on the first one. This gives me a lot of fodder for humor cannons.
      I am also somewhat a klutz in the way that President Clinton was somewhat a liar. I can trip over lint in the carpet and have even stumbled due to the pressure of air molecules. This leads to those wonderful experiences that make great stories afterwards -- Remember the time I fell on the large nun who has holding her pet cat and she threw it in the midst of all those pre-schoolers who were eating chocolate ice cream? -- but are painful when they happen.
      I also have the rare talent of being able to insert both of my feet in my mouth and occasionally have needed to borrow the feet of passing strangers just to fill up that cavernous space that persists in embarrassing me. And no, I will not print any examples. There are enough stories wandering around about me as is.
      And finally it helps that my family is made up of such strongly individualistic people. Not only do we march to a different drummer, but we have often marched to an entirely different band than the rest of the world, a band made up of flutes, kazoos, tubas and perhaps a halibut or two.

I can't even coordinate my clothes ...

      Recently I took a trip ... a short one which ended with me flat on my back in front of the post office, listening to people ask, "What is he doing?" as if I might not have had an accident but just chose a strange place to rest.
      The story: I was at the post office, walking down the steps, looked to the side at something that caught my attention, stepped wrong and fell on the ground and then rolled over to lie on the concrete and look up at the immense sky and wonder why I was not blessed with better coordination and sharper reflexes. (This is when I fractured my foot.)
      I also wondered how long would it be before the numbness wore off and I began to feel the results of my fall. I was hoping for unconsciousness before that happened or maybe even a trip to the emergency room where they would give me pain pills and I would meet a cute unmarried nurse who would see my pitiful but brave face and fall instantly in love with my stunning blue eyes, but no such luck.
      I'm a big boy, and my falling should have happened in slow motion, like the felling of an ancient redwood that still has its leaves although it has fewer than when it was younger and now must go to a leaf stylist to get rid of that unattractive gray. Instead, I fell quick, hit hard and got up after a moment, more embarrassed by the fall than worried about the damage I might have taken. (Later of course, my foot would demand my attention, and the doctor would take my money.)
      I can walk and chew gum at the same time, but it takes concentration …chew, step, chew, step, chew, step ... and heaven forbid I encounter steps or I simply have to spit, climb and then get a new piece of gum. Depending on the terrain, a pack of gum will last about 15 minutes. When I have a real hankering for Big Red, I sit down, pull out a pack and have a nice long chew. It’s peaceful and will doubtless prepare me for my nursing home days.
      But it's not age that is sapping my coordination. I remember as a young child taking music lessons and having my teacher cover my hands with hers as she attempted to get my fingers to press the right keys at approximately the right time. After one particularly harrowing 30 minutes, my piano teacher -- sweat running down her face, hair in disarray, eyes squinting from strain -- asked my mother if my cord had got tangled while I was being born and my brain hadn't received enough oxygen.
      Not having that eye-hand link, I was dismal at sports. I could only dribble down my chin and thus was no use to the NBA. I did make a brief foray into football in the sixth grade when I suited up on a dare. The coach watched me throw, hike and kick, and then placed me on the line in front of the largest opponent out there, apparently deciding to use me as cannon fodder. This backfired on him as I have always been polite and would step aside to allow huge homicidal players past me. My team never appreciated this fine point of etiquette.
      My sports career might have ended there, except in the seventh grade, it was discovered I could run long distances and only have a small heart attack afterwards. My arms would flail, elbows would circle in strange orbits, feet were all over the place, chin would bob -- a strange uncoordinated mess that reminded onlookers of a headless chicken receiving electroshocks. But somehow speed would result. I wasn't good in short distances -- by the time I got wound up, the race was over -- but I could actually run a mile in a decent time. (This amazes me as I look back because I can't imagine running a mile now unless I was chasing an ice cream truck.)
      My school, though, didn't have much use for track since it was only used to get ready for football. Now it has track, tennis and probably space equestrian events, but back then, I was out of luck. Or perhaps not. I remember running across the pasture, from one end of our land to the other, wind whipping across my face, my body a rushing mass of motion. I felt like I was flying. Since I had enough coordination for that, I guess I should be content with the memory now.

Oh well

      Ouch. USC played great. We didn't. That's that. Well, there's always next year. That's the life lesson from football. You might lose this time, but there's always next season. Boomer Sooner!

Yikes!

      It's half-time, and things are looking bad for the Sooners. USC is playing great football, and we're not. Gotta hope our boys play better the second half. Even if we lose, I want it to be a good, tight game.
      It's amazing the number of commercials in this game. The advertisers are getting their money's worth. The commercials just keep coming. I wonder what the cost of a spot was in the game. I'm sure it didn't get close to the Superbowl's price per spot, but I bet it's up there. I Googled the question, but couldn't find any info on it.
      Game is about to come back on. Go Sooners!

BAH!

      Bah to stinking Microsoft Windows and their terrible customer support! May a thousand poxes descend upon their wretched forms and torment them mercilessly day and night until madness reigns free in their tiny, unhelpful, rude minds!
      Ahem. I am a bit upset. My computer problems continue. It does not seem to be a hardware problem, rather one brought on by those endless updates that Microsoft sends out. Or maybe not. It's impossible to tell. I'm beginning to think that my computer has been possessed by an evil spirit. I'd sacrifice a Microsoft Customer Service Rep to it if I thought it would help. (It would help my feelings!)
      I've been pricing new computer systems. Sigh. To get what I need, I'm going to have to spend $600 or so. I know that's an amazing price considering how expensive computers were a few years ago, but when you don't have money, $600 is as impossible as $1,500. And then two major software programs that I use will have to be upgraded (Another $200) as the versions I have won't work with XP. (I still use Windows ME. Yes, I know, I know, I should upgrade. Got an extra $100 you'd like to send me? No, wait, I need $300 to upgrade Publisher, Elements and XP. Arggghhhh! And there's no guarantee that XP would even fix the problems I'm experiencing.)
      Okay, enough whining. It's still continuing to limp along. It's going to last a few more months if I'm careful with it. I'll start saving now, and maybe by July, I'll have enough to buy a new computer. Or upgrade. Or maybe just run away.
      Moving on. Since the movie's been mentioned in various blogging buddies' blogs (Say "blogging buddies' blogs" fast three times. Do you do everything I tell you to do?), let me also say that Love Actually is great. Crystal told me about it first and then Three&Eight. Both raved about it. I watched it a few weeks back. A great movie. Smart, funny, well-acted and filmed. I could have done with a bit less cussing, but hey, it's the Brits, and they talk that way. Especially the Queen. She's a potty mouth.
      Speaking of my foot -- I know we weren't but we are now so keep up -- it's doing okay, I guess. It lets me know frequently that I'm not following the doctor's orders (keep it elevated and don't walk on it for a few weeks, but hey, I have a job, and they frown on me not being here) but I'm being as careful with it as I can be, and it's doing better. I have some stretching exercises and use hot and cold packs for it, and I think it's going to work out. Or fall off.
      OU will be playing for the National Football Championship tomorrow night. Naturally I will root for OU. I support OU vigorously except when they play OSU and then I want them dead. We OSU fans are loyal to our school in all cases, even when our team plays a Bowl game so bad that it makes us weep -- not that I wept the other night as OSU went down in terrible defeat. I just wandered around the neighborhood wailing and tearing my hair and clothes.
      And on that note, good night.

      I ate my black-eyed peas and my greens for good luck, but my stupid computer still crashed hard Saturday night. Sigh. At least if I have to buy a new one, they're fairly cheap right now. The nice thing is that I already have all the accessories so I don't have pay for a printer, monitor, USB hub, scanner, etc. I'm still hoping that I can keep this one going a while longer. I'm just now beginning to see some daylight in the gloom of my debts. I'd hate to have to add to it now.
      A non-computer friend doesn't understand my urgency about the computer. For her, it's just a box that she does a bit of email on. But for me, it's a major part of my life. I use it for writing, producing my monthly newsletter, for music, for my digital camera, etc. Without it, I can hardly function. I don't want to borrow trouble, though. Maybe the system reinstall will fix the crazy thing. (Does anyone out there have an AMD processor on their computer? I can find an AMD-based machine for about half what the Intel systems are, so I'm interested on how well they work. Let me know your thoughts on them.)
      In other news, there's not much. I made a few resolutions, the usual: lose weight, write more, get out of debt, etc. We'll check back with me on them in February. Tomorrow I return to work, in some ways a bit depressing because the holidays are over and I dread the piled-up work and the irate customers, but it will be nice to get back to a routine. (This feeling will only last until I'm yelled at by a customer. An important thing that I've learned: Not only is the customer NOT always right, many times they're completely crazy.)
      Speaking of resolutions, one of them is to focus more on my writing. Thus I need to close this and get to typing. Adios!