Camping!

I went camping from last Thursday til yesterday.  It wasn't RV style-we roughed it.  The fanciest things we had were the fold down back seat of the van to sleep on and a small, portable, Coleman stove.  There were no porta potties and no trash receptacles, we had to use trash bags to dispose of our trash.  It was pretty primitive as far as camping goes.  But aside from several backpackers on Saturday, it was nearly silent.  I would sit or lie and listen for the different bird calls.  There's a pair of crows that bicker back and forth and several I couldn't identify.  Truth be told, the crows were the only ones I identified.  Oh! And I saw a pair of small falcons too!

A short ways from the campsite is a beautiful creek going under a bridge and coming out of the other side to flow over huge stones that have been eroded for who knows how many thousands of years.  The erosion looks like tiny steps on the rocks slanted at an angle.  We played a game called stick races: you place a stick or leaf in a spot on the creek where it cannot be immediately swept away but which can eventually be swept into the stream.  I found myself mesmerized as I followed the progress of my little twig hoping it would get swept into the stream before my ex's did.  If it gets stuck for too long or permanently stuck... disqualified! 

And a little sunburn and a lot of bugs!  There were mosquitoes, small black ants, large black ants, noseeums, fireflies and bees of various sorts.  There was even a beetle with a metallic outer wing in orangish pinkish greenish blue.  Yeah, like that made sense.  I got bit up by bugs in spite of using skin so soft, or else the sun gave me a rash (like my ex claims), or both.  I think it's a mixture of bug bites and maybe contact dermatitis from a plant.  At least it didn't get on my butt!

There were short walks.  My ex knows those woods like the back of his hand so he took me into the woods to see where the small stream that comes out of the mountain meets up with the main creek.  Always always take a walking stick with you!  My ex has navigated steep inclines using two sticks (two-stickin it he says) like they were two extra legs.  I tried it once but you really have to have some strength anyhow.

Anyhow, we had a great time and it was so peaceful.  As long as it remains a little known secret, it will stay that way.

A Walled In Sim

NoFor those not familiar with the series, there's a game called The Sims.  There's four versions now.  In this game, you create a digital person; you determine their looks, give them a wardrobe, assign traits and a life goal, and then you plop them on a starter lot to live out their little lives.  It's really fun.

As the game progresses, they have wishes you can either help fulfill or you can ignore them.  They have careers, fall in love, fight, fish, and fuck.  They even have some free will thrown in for good measure, so you may occasionally find them chatting up a stranger rather than doing the shopping you sent them out to do.

There can be dark elements to this game.  Let me explain.  The first edition I played was a console version called Sims: Bustin Out.  Or something like that.  I let my sim flirt with one of the pre-made Sims.  They fell in love.  I had mine propose only to find out she was already married.  Bummer.  So... I went into buy/build mode and built four walls around the competition then unpaused from build mode.  This is called walling in a sim.  Over time the little sim starves to death and dies because it has no door to walk through and no way to get to food. 

So I played and watched and waited for this sim to die so that mine might marry the girl he wanted.  The thing is, is that these little digital creatures turn around and look at you.  They point at their mouths to let you know they're hungry.  They get lonely and cry.  They lose control of their bladders and end up wallowing in a puddle of their own piss.  I could only take this for so long before I was bawling my eyes out and going into build mode to tear the walls down.  He ate, cleaned up, peed and socialized and slept.  All was made right at last.

"So where are you going with this?" you may be asking by now.

I'm talking about a human being as a walled in sim.  I am a walled in sim.  That is to say, I feel trapped in my home and sometimes unable to perform even the simplest of duties like bathing or washing my hair.  Sometimes the terror I experience just thinking of leaving my house is intolerable.  And I don't feel like I'm in control of any of this.  I feel programmed to be this way to the point that I sabotage my efforts to lose weight (my programming seems to dictate that I can't drop below 205 pounds.) When I apply myself with determination to get even one pound below 200 just to prove I can, the programming kicks in followed by weight loss fail, or even a rapid gain to punish me for my audacity.

However, food must be bought and dishes must be washed so I can cook a meal so whatever evil hand hovering over that big mouse in the sky finally puts me in build mode (which I must not be conscious of)and builds a door or window of time, I can temporarily get a few things done.  I don't fool myself into thinking this is free will anymore.  It's all fear driven.  As soon as I get home I feel relieved and just want to slunk down the front door. 

Whatever hand hovers over the mouse in the sky must be owned by something that really hates me and enjoys tormenting me.  I see people who's lives seem to be lived in the sun and their sim angel or whatever, loves them and blesses them.  Mine just likes to get my hope up and then snatch my hope away.  Any time something starts looking promising, I wait for the other shoe to drop.  Most of the time I don't even look any more.  I'm just waiting for my sim angel to grow bored enough to delete my file. Hey, rearrange the letters in file and you get life!

In Heathen beliefs it could be said that I was born under the dubious auspices of an ill willing Norn.  Perhaps I was an assignment someone didn't want so I get tormented.  Who can say?

Not me.

I don't know if I really believe any of this or not, it sort of smacks of The Matrix, but it's the best analogy I have to describe my frustration.

Suffer In Silence

My ex surfs YouTube, seeking heart rending songs.
He finds a few.
I hear the tremble in his voice as he barely sings along-he stifles his passion to make it manageable.
I hear all this and remain silent.
I cry quietly, politely,
with my back turned so we don't have to acknowledge the obvious vulnerability that screams from our souls.
We suffer in silence because we fear the rain and the flood should one or both of us speak.

A Year To The Day

It's been a year to the day since Sage reached the clearing at the end of the path.  I miss him and Dusty so much.  I need them and I can't have them.

April Fooled?

I just noticed that I wrote and posted that prologue on April Fool's day. Maybe I was fooling myself.
I've been depressed, and depression doesn't help creativity at all.
Add to that a dash of lacking in confidence and you have a recipe for writing not getting done.
I didn't even want to write a blog entry but it's been over a week since my last one and I don't want to neglect it for about 9 months like I did last year.
Aaaaannnd,
That's all I have.
Eyup.

Swoopers and Bashers

I have a couple really bad writing habits.
One of them is editing as I go along and making too many changes as I go along.  Why risk the heartache of all that hard work being for naught if big chunks need to be edited out when the book is finished?

In my defense, Kurt Vonnegut said there are two types of writers: swoopers and bashers.  Swoopers go in like a storm and write the whole thing then make changes later.  Bashers hammer it out word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and chapter by chapter, and edit as they go along.

I guess that makes me a basher, like Kurt Vonnegut.  He said most men are bashers and most women are swoopers.  Maybe someone aught to look into that.  Anyhow, I've bashed out about 8 pages and I have a coyote hangover, but some good ideas are begining to surface. :-D

Cultural Appropriation My ASS

[Previously posted on another blog I no longer run]

In response to a "Dear White People" open letter by an angry Hispanic-American who doesn't want person's of European descent to celebrate The Day of the Dead:

everyone's entitled to my own opinion.... xD
I just wish people that have ancient traditions to celebrate would be grateful they have them and kindly climb down out out of the “white man’s” ass for a nanosecond and shift some perceptions.
I grew up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses since age two. Being a JW means:

No Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza
No New Years (Eve or Day)
No Easter
No Birthdays
None.
NOOOTHINGGGG!!

At Halloween we shut out the lights so no one would knock, and got TP’d by neighbors.
At Valentine’s Day (oh hell, ALL the Hallmark Conspiracy holidays!)sit awkwardly in class trying hard to be above my own embarrassment and awkwardness while everyone exchanged cards.
The never ending questions, hating, and ‘Boy I feel sorry for you” bs.

Estrangement from relatives because we didn’t go to the family holiday gatherings.

Imagine growing up in a family that has NO ROOTS.
Nothing to mark the passage of time-not even birthdays! No sweet sixteen or other coming of age. (No school dances, no after school activities)

I’m 51 now and don’t know where many of my living relatives are or how to find them. Why? I don’t know most of their last or maiden names. I can't recall many things simply from lack of exposure.  Normal exposure you'd expect to receive from your parents and extended family. The family bible I inherited had no weddings or military service recorded. No family tree filled out.

Two years ago was only my second Halloween. I had plastic stickers in the window and a plastic pumpkin wreath on my door. I’m disabled and they were a buck a piece, all I could afford. I bought a real pumpkin to carve and never did it. I put it off because I was stressed and nervous I’d do a bad job. That and lingering guilt and fear.

Thanks so much for the WalMart jab and inflatable lawn decorations.  Tacky?  Maybe.  But also none of your business.  Nothing is being taken away from you simply because someone else decided to celebrate and decorate differently than you.

How many kids in Africa died of starvation while this was typed do you think?

When I pass our four cockatiels on my way to the bathroom, they hiss at peck at EACH OTHER. Why? Because I’m too big to mess with.
And this is all people do.
We can’t fight an economy. Maybe if we all had private little caves in Tibet, but for now all we have is each other and we’re all blowing it over shallow and pedantic bullshit like “don’t do what I do and don’t wear what I wear”

I’m English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, French, “Cajun” Seminole and Cherokee. So, who am I supposed to not culturally appropriate? My blood was colonized and appropriated long, long ago. Many nations war in MY blood, you think?

Get a gentle perspective, light a candle, and pray for all those JW kids who have no family or national traditions to root them to the brotherhood of Life.

How Dry I Am

Me and my big mouth.  Here I had to shoot my mouth off about writing a book and I can't conjure up more than three pages so far.  I keep asking myself, "How in the HELL are you going to churn out something novel sized from this?"

I decided I really suck at writing descriptions of scenery unless it's to set a dramatic scene.  I have a difficult time writing about the nondescript hospital waiting rooms, different types of trees, whether or not there are hills, etc. 

But for something to be a book it has to have 'filler'.  It's not all action, inner dialogue and dialogue.  It's a lot easier when there's a writing buddy, like a role play.

Guess I'm just spoiled. 

I've spent the last few days reading an old role play from four or so years ago and I'm feeling very nostalgic.  I'm also wondering how I can ever live up to that again.  It was some of my best writing!  My main character was pretty stereotypical in many ways but then he'd turn around and do something surprising.  Then there was the creepy character who was fun to write and had different dimensions.  I was going to use them for this 'book' I'm trying to write but I've changed my mind.  I'm saving them for something better and renaming the current characters.  It wouldn't be like Zack to be annoyed and callous about a body on the side of the road anyhow.

Sneak Peek!

I decided to post my book prologue since I'm too damn excited to keep it under wraps.  It's just the prologue.

My working title is Rope A Dope, lol.

     Rope a Dope

  

     Nothing about this day was right.  He’d like to say it’d been wrong from sunrise to sunset but that would imply sunshine, and it’d rained all blessed day.  The windshield wipers squeaked like a couple on a cheap mattress and the low beams on his red Dodge Ram truck were still too high; they refracted off the raindrops like tiny mirrors, making night vision near impossible.  He scanned through the channels but the  radio stations played nothing but static so far out in such bad weather.  He couldn’t even find a decent AM station to check on road conditions.  Oh well, he could see that much outside his damn window. 

   Zack  was so distracted by the deplorable  driving conditions that he nearly missed seeing the crumpled heap on the side of the road
     Almost
     “What in the name of…” he mused aloud.  The heap was human shaped; he’d have to stop and help.  Zack groaned and swore under his breath as he pulled his truck off the road and onto the muddy shoulder.  He mashed the black Stetson onto his head, opened the door and hopped out to perform his duty of human decency.  He was soaked inside out before he was halfway there and could only imagine the pitiful shape this person must be in.  Which begged the question, “Just what shape is this person in?” he wondered.  Well, he’d find out soon enough. 

     A woman.  A woman lay there in the mud and rain.  He hunkered and felt for a pulse.  He couldn’t find one and knew he wouldn’t.  This woman was dead as a doornail and probably had been for quite some time.  She was cold and rigor mortis had begun to set in.  It disgusted him to think of all the people who must have passed her up, just going on their merry way to engage with life.  Was he the only decent human left in this town?  It made him shiver to imagine all the people he knew in town who took this road.  Good people. Civic minded people.  Or so he thought.  Then again, someone may have dumped her here pretty recently. Who could say?  Not him.  He walked back to his truck and fetched his flashlight from the glove compartment hoping to find a purse or other identification.

                                                   ~°~°~°~

     He grimaced as he riffled through the dead woman’s pockets to search for a wallet or cell phone.  Nothing turned up on her body at all.  His flashlight failed to turn anything up around her as well.  It was just rain, mud, and a dead woman in a plain t-shirt and yoga pants.  She didn’t even have shoes on for God’s sake.  He was no crime scene investigator but it didn’t take a genius to see that someone had strangled her.  Well, he’d done his part, he’d have to go back and fetch Gabe, the sheriff.  His cell phone got no signal this far out regardless of the weather. 

     As it turned out, he was spared the trouble; the automobile that crested the small hill was Gabe.  He pulled behind Zack’s truck and got out.  “What we got here, Zack?”

     “Come see for yourself.  I only just now found her.” He said, almost defensively.

    Gabe Cleghorn walked up, stood there arms akimbo and looked down at the woman, then at his cousin Zack, then back to the body.

    “Well shit.” He said.

Sunday, Sunday

For some reason, Sundays make me feel blue.  I think it's because I feel guilty for not going to church.  Church bores me, so I stay home and sleep instead.

Nobody wants to be bored.

I feel uneasy when the speaker talks about the undeserved kindness of Christ.  Or Grace.  I just hear 'undeserved' and want to walk out.  Been hearing that happy horseshit my whole life.  Time to move on.

I tried Heathenism and the short explanation is that I had a nervous breakdown last autumn and found yet another religion that doesn't meet my needs.  Needs.  I has them!

Sometimes I feel ridiculous trying any form of worship.  It feels uncomfortable to me, although this wasn't always the case.  I used to have faith but I seem to have lost or misplaced it somehow.

Maybe religion isn't for me.  Perhaps I'd make a better atheist or agnostic.  I do believe in intelligent design but I also believe in evolution.  The two can coexist peacefully if given a fighting chance.  I see too much that looks like intelligent design to believe it's random and yet I don't put much stock in holy books anymore.  I don't see the point.  They're full of repugnant acts and show mankind at his misogynistic, xenophobic worst.  Murder, rape, slavery.  It's all there: The best and worst of human civilization.  But I've grown weary of it over the years.

I have a pair of Mormon missionaries who call on me weekly trying to get me back in church.  Loneliness alone almost drives me to go.  But then what?  It'll be expected each week and, oh God, I just wish I'd blown those young boys off sometimes.  They seem to enjoy the visits as much as my ex does.  He's always trying to teach them something or show off a mechanical project or another.

I wish I could just go be a happy Mormon and hang out with them and avail myself of their weeknight project meetings.  They teach practical skills like cooking and canning and food storage.

I wish I could just be a happy atheist and hang out with intelligent people I can learn from and we could all do science together and perhaps watch Neal deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos series.

I wish I could make up my mind and make a decision instead of a resolution.

I | Alive

when the day can coalesce without crowding,
when the mind can wander, simpatico, with it’s companion soul
when the feeling is mutual in being, becoming
when the moment arrives,
I, Alive
am free.

Book?

I haven't posted in a good long while.

Why?

Nothing much to say, really.  The death of my kitties closed my mouth with a seal of grief: It comes off when it comes off and not sooner.

I'm starting to get some of my voice back I think.  I feel the urge to write a story out of something I started a few years ago with two characters I ended up role playing with: Zack Dakin and Gabe Cleghorn.  Perhaps it's time to work the fallen angel angle.  From the fall til the flood as book one.  Then a tour of history as these two weave a tapestry out of their lives as men and women, princes and paupers, rich and poor. 

How will it culminate?  Depends.  If I get that far, I'd like to collaborate with another who's character is named after a cigarette brand.  I always did think some sort of homoerotic novel could be gleaned from the RP and fleshed out into a novel.

Only time will tell.  I've only written The Fall after all.  It's an ambitious project but I'm bipolar so I'mma just allow myself to dream today and believe today that I can write a book.