Ethan gets his blue belt!

Fiction Friday: Lifelong Dream

This Week’s Theme: What is your character's lifelong dream? Why did she not pursue it? I've decided to take a character from a Fiction Friday from over six months ago. The room had the musty smell of old bath towels and once-flooded carpeting, that vaguely sour odor of mildew that even the hardest scrubbing with bleach won't eliminate. I didn't bother looking at the bathroom yet, preferring to sit on the edge of the stiff, double bed and stare at the telephone. The table-tent sign next to it said fifty cents for local calls, a dollar plus long distance charges for toll calls. At least the HBO was free, according to the perky night clerk at the front desk. It was just before midnight, and part of me wondered why I'd wasted thirty dollars on a motel room. My bus was scheduled for seven a.m., and no way in Hell would I be able to sleep with Dustin's last words still ringing through my thoughts. "Thanks, mom. For everything. Write to me." While Jimmy and the boys watched their football, Dustin saw right through me and knew, in some way, that I'd already left. He would love California, I tried not to tell myself. He'd thrive on the different foods, the different languages, the different people. He'd find his true self instead of languishing among all these meatheaded, testosterone-soaked men here. But I couldn't support him. And if he came with me, he'd get lost and I'd get lost, and I'd never be able to break away, truly break away. All these thoughts tumbled around me on the bed, just as they had orbited my head on the six miles from home to the motel, just as they were bound to linger next to me on that long bus ride to Los Angeles. God, how I needed to call Dustin, to explain it all to him. To tell him I had actually been discovered, once, by someone other than his father. It was the dress rehearsal, the night before we were going to open Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Sitting on the bed now in this motel room, I still remembered the line I was on when that producer from the big stage in Dallas, Frank I think his name was, walked in and started listening. I whispered it in the quiet hum of the electric window heater: "I don't mind making a fool of myself over you." That next day, I said those very words to Jimmy in his car out by the lake, and five months later I was engaged and already showing and off the stage for good. "Feel embarrassed? Well, I can't live on this way." That was my next line that night, and I whispered it over and over to myself now as I sat in the room with the stifling, electric-blanket air and the occasional rumble of a truck on the highway. Closing my eyes, I thought back to last night when channel eighteen aired that old movie. Elizabeth Taylor in the fifties, beautiful and elegant and sexy... all those things I'd known I could be on the stage when I was nineteen. What had happened to me? Where had I gone? Age and loneliness was all I really had now, and an empty sense of regret. And an entire roomful of terror. I'd left my husband tonight, my boys. Dustin. In my small suitcase next to me on the bed hid a Greyhound ticket to Los Angeles, four outfits, some makeup, two books, and six hundred dollars in cash. Seventy two dollars that ticket cost. So that was the price of resurrecting a dream, reviving a life that had once been worth living. Lying back on the bedspread, I spoke up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Jimmy, but today is the day I stop sharing that cage you call a home." But in my heart I was already composing the first few lines of the postcard I'd write when I got to California: "My darling Dustin..."
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haiku wednesday

This week's words are
awkward
kitchen
obsessed

---

perfection-obsessed
she concocts in her kitchen
awkward failed taste test

---

obsessed stalker lurks
awkward lunge through kitchen door
kitten and sunlight

---

kitchen remodel
obsessed owner, lax builder
awkward schedule slip

---

in kitchen I weep
awkward email left on screen
she's obsessed with him

jar full of pennies

jar full of pennies
1/14/2008

It's only a penny,
the grownup, he mumbles,
and walks away counting his dollars.
But we all know better,
the dreamers in us,
the little boys, toddlers, and crawlers.

We study it first,
and then pick it up
for we know the old rhyme and its meaning--
if heads up, it's good luck,
but tails is no worse,
if bright or in need of a cleaning.

It could be a rare one,
some infrequent mint
or an old one with wheat on its rear.
and maybe it's worth
ten thousand or more--
the only one left from its year!

If not, we don't mind
to exchange for a wish
by tossing it into a fountain,
or keep it perhaps
in a jar by our beds
for dreamin' and rollin' and countin'.

In hundreds they add up
in long snaky lines
as landscapes and roads for our Hot Wheels,
or fifty together
roll up nice and neat
to finance unlimited dream deals.

And now I'm all grown up,
I have to admit
that I still make a wish now sometimes,
and next to my desk
sits a jar full of pennies
it's just a small jar
my jar full of pennies
but I wouldn't trade it
my jar full of pennies
for thousands and thousands of dimes.

One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse every week in addition to my haiku wednesday and fiction friday posts. I will try to do this on Mondays.

Fiction Friday: departure

This Week’s Theme: Write a scene that ends with your character saying, "I never want to see you again." "But what does it mean?" Crystal could be so dense sometimes. I'd been sitting on the corner of her bed, and as I stood I saw her profile in the dresser mirror. Long, blond hair; petite, upturned nose; those infuriatingly natural eyelashes framing her deep, crystal brown eyes. I looked away from the mirror, out the window. I didn't want to catch her eye until I composed myself first, so I shrugged. "Debbie..." Crystal knelt on her bed and grabbed the pillow to her chest. It had been a mistake to read the letter out loud to her, but she'd helped me so much in the past week. Ten days ago we were not much more than school friends, chem lab partners who hung out at free period so boys wouldn't bother us. This morning before the letter arrived we had become temporary roommates, and her mom did all the mom sorts of things for me--made my lunch with Crystal's before school, picked me up from the drug store each evening when my shift was over, set a place for me at the family table every night. I leaned against the frame of the window, feeling the deep bruise in my ribs and my arm and savoring the dull pain. Ten days and I still didn't go to gym class because I couldn't bear changing in front of everyone with those huge blue bruises yellowing around the edges. "Deb..." I breathed deep and turned to Crystal. She'd been such a good friend. "Does it say anything else?" I had stopped reading my mother's letter out loud at the point where it said, "and I'm moving to Houston with Jimmy." Crystal had gasped out loud because she knew what Jimmy had done to me, that the bruises were from his big hands and his empty vodka bottle. She knew I'd told my mother what he'd tried to do, that it was only because he was so drunk I got away before he could do it. For ten days Crystal had been preaching faith to me that my mother would kick the bastard out of the house, knowing I wouldn't move back in until she did. Crystal reached out and took my hand. I could see tears forming in her eyes. "Debbie, does it say anything else?" "Yes," I whispered. It says, "I never want to see you again."
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lunch in the plaza

I am a big fan of hawks in the city. They keep the pigeon population in check. This guy was just chowing down outside the Rincon Center in San Francisco at lunchtime today.

haiku wednesday

This week's words are
gossip
naive
station

---

train's left the station
gossip fuels naive losers
election's over

---

hissed gossip frightens
naive fret and station guards
wind in the branches

---

slander, gossip, hate
am I naive to want that
station off the air

Write Stuff Poetry

Write Stuff Poetry Contest Rules
Vote Here (starting January 11th)

Here is my entry into the Write Stuff poetry contest for January, 2008. The theme is "cold, bitter," which seemed like a cheery and fun way to start the year.

One Day As We Grew Old
Said Miss Cold to Mr. Bitter, "I have known you all my life.
You humph, garumph, and moan about like all your days are filled with strife.
You kick at dogs and yell at children, Your angry wit is like a knife.
You've never had a single sweetheart! How come you never took a wife?"

Mister Bitter to Miss Cold replied in even-tempered tone:
"The only girl that ever mattered always chilled me to the bone.
Her icy stares did not impel me to call her on the telephone.
Her frozen shoulder did not make me want to make that girl my own.
Through years of cheerless drudge I foundered as I grew and aged alone,
but this one and only girl I longed for turned my heart to icy stone."

Miss Cold let loose a little sniff and wiped a false tear from her eye.
"Why, Mister Bitter, your tale's so sad I think I might lie down and die.
For years I hoped for the attentions of a certain handsome guy.
I tried to flirt but when I winked he said I had a screwy eye.
One day I tried to bake for him and made a special apple pie.
I made it sweet, with lots of butter-- he said that it might make him die.
So what's there for a girl to do but pine away and moan and sigh?
I thought that love was to be sweet, but not for me--oh why, oh why?"

The two of them just stood and gaped
for neither could the other bear,
but which is Cold and which is Bitter,
and is love ever really fair?

Fiction Friday: be it resolved

This Week’s Theme: What is the first New Year’s Resolution your character breaks? How soon? Why? Laura Tiffany Tate McSmother had it in for her little brother. She'd punch one arm and then the other and run away when he'd tell mother. Oh, She was cruel and she was sly. She'd pull his hair and make him cry, then pour Tabasco in his eye, and whisper "Joey, Mamma hopes you die." When Christmas time approached this year, and Santa asked if she'd been dear, she said, "You bet your big, fat rear," and grinned all toothy, ear to ear. But Santa must have seen her soul cuz in her stocking he left coal. She wept into her breakfast bowl and vowed herself a New Year's Goal. "I won't set Joey's hair afire or call my little brother 'liar' or wrap him up in fishing wire or tie him to the pickup's tire. I won't paint his favorite teddy green or switch his juice for gasoline or force him to eat lima beans... I will no longer act so mean! I will be kind, I will be sweet! I'll say hello to those I meet. And I won't stomp on Joey's feet. My resolution is complete." On New Years Day she tried, she did. She really, really, really, really, really, really, really did. It helped a lot that Joey hid. By nine a.m. she'd tried to smother her incessantly annoying brother, and lied about it to her mother. Poor Laura Tiffany Tate McSmother.
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Blogger's new layout

I finally upgraded to the new Blogger layout. It's been fun playing around with it, and it's always nice to have a fresh look. Not sure I like this look as much as I should, but. Whatever.

haiku wednesday

This week's words are
button
luck
pretend

---

search button, dumb luck
please pretend you like my site
comments ease winter

---

button press, bad luck
pretend fairy patterns lost
windshield ice erased

---

I press The Button
I pretend it isn't me
good luck, humankind

New year!

Thank goodness 2007 is over. There were highlights like meeting with White House advisers and the administrator of the Small Business Administration and a record year in the charitable giving campaign I help run, but there were also a lot of awful things and challenges.

2008 started on a high note, though. When I got to the office today and opened my mail, I found I had received a Service Excellence Award. Woo hoo! But it's probably all downhill from here.

New car!

The other car was officially deemed a total loss. We had a great experience with Livermore Subaru in buying the new one.

Fiction Friday: merry axe-mas

This Week’s Theme: Your adult character just got a guitar for Christmas–a gift very out of character. What changes, if any, does this cause in her life or personality? "Is the man sick?" I knew Cara was only trying to help, in her typically brute-force, tactless way. I handed her the note that had come threaded between the guitar's metal strings. I watched her eyes scan across the dozen or so hand scrawled words, watched the revulsion grow in her grimace. "Oh my God," she said as she handed the note back to me. "Hope you get better soon? Motivation for your recovery? Holy crap, Dan, your dad is one sick jerk." "Not sick," I replied, "just... misguided." I swallowed back my desire to let the tears flow again, but it would only get Cara on another rant. "Still a jerk," she murmured, her fingers fiddling with the needles on a miniature Christmas tree she'd brought to cheer my hospital room. "I mean, didn't you tell him--" "Yes, I told him." I did not want her to say it out loud, again. My left hand throbbed enough under its club-like, white bandage to remind me every few seconds of what I'd lost. I kept trying to remind myself of what I hadn't lost. I hadn't lost my life. I hadn't lost my sight, or my entire arm. And if I worked hard at therapy over the next hundred years or so, I might find I hadn't lost my sense of humor. But that was unclear. What I had lost was three of the fingers on my left hand. "Sorry," Cara mumbled. She looked down at the fake, little tree, eager and sincere amid the austere, sterile room. Two books in Christmas wrap sat under it on my little side table. The TV behind Cara's head showed some claymation reindeer in silence. Somewhere, children were watching this show and experiencing the wonder of Christmas and the magic of Santa Claus. Here, I lay recovering from a drunk driver's selfish indulgence. A tear fell from Cara's face onto my sheet. She shook her head slowly. "Doesn't he realize that you'll never play again?" She looked up at me, a deep pain swelling inside her. "That your dream is gone? That our dream is gone?" I wiggled my phantom fingers, the ones that had been crushed to pulp when the SUV slammed into the door of my car and crumpled it into my side. I breathed deep, as deep as I could before the pain in my chest became unbearable, and let it out. I looked at the guitar leaning against the wall in the corner. A beauty, it must have set Dad back nearly a thousand dollars. "One dream is gone," I whispered as I reached my one complete hand across and put it on top of hers. "But we still have others." She did not look up at me but let a few more tears fall from her eyes onto the back of my hand.
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CHOQUE!

Our vacation to visit my mom began with a real bang. Three bangs, actually. On I-15 approaching Primm, NV (at the state line) last night, traffic came to a sudden stop in front of us. I managed to stop in time as I had left an adequate cushion between me and the Mercedes in front of me, but as we came to our quick stop, I saw in my mirror that the guy behind was not going to be so lucky. I called out to the others in the car, "We're gonna get hit, we're gonna get hit." And then we got hit. That was the first bang. The second was when he plowed us forward and under the bumper of the Mercedes. The third was when a girl behind him bashed into him, moving the whole pile like an offensive lineman pushing his running back into the defensive line and into the end zone. Thank goodness it was not worse than that and that no one was seriously hurt. (Whiplash does not count as "seriously hurt," does it?)

Anyway, as you can see the front of our Subaru wagon now looks a little... rearranged. Claims adjusters are on vacation until after Christmas. What a year 2007 has been. Sheesh.

Fiction Friday: solstice celebration

This Week’s Theme: What happens when your character gets dragged to a solstice celebration? I knew I was in big trouble when I saw the "Wicca for Dummies" book poking out from under Saturday's newspaper. Pushing aside the paper, which once again screamed about slumping home sales, I gathered a breath and readied for the coming inanity. "Mom?" "Mm hmm?" Mom did not look up from her cookie spritzer as she squeezed out another perfect little dollop of... wreath, or maybe camel. No, it was a Christmas tree. Or maybe a star? "What's this?" "What's what, honey?" She pried the cookie dough off the tip of the spritzer, mauling it into some other unrecognizable shape. At least the cookies would taste good. She licked her fingers, wiped them on her green apron, and then plunged them into the bowl of dough to fill the spritzer again. "This, Mom." I held the book up and raised my eyebrows. I knew what it was. It was the latest in Mom's quest for meaning since Dad died so suddenly two years ago. She had tried Buddhism (fortunately I convinced her not to shave her head), escapism (in four months she hit every roller coaster in California), and even Church. I sighed. At least she was trying. "Oh!" No pause in her cookie work. "You should read that. It's fascinating. I've only read the first two chapters, but I'm hooked. By the way, I hope you brought your boots." She hummed a few bars of "Let It Snow" to herself as green sprinkles skittered over the blobs of dough on her cookie sheet. "I'm afraid to ask..." "Didn't Jake tell you? Oh, that boy. I made him promise to tell you." "Tell me what, Mom?" I tried to keep the frustration and apprehension out of my voice, I really did. "We're celebrating the Solstice today! I've picked out a lovely spot out in the back woods, some beautiful trees and after last night's snowfall it should be just like Heaven." She seemed not to notice the irony in her choice of simile. "Though," she frowned at nothing in particular, "it might be cold even in the sun." A glance out the window and a quick shrug, and she was back to her multicolored dough blobs. *** "Where is your brother? He's always late." "I don't think he's coming, Mom," I said, not admitting out loud that had I known her plan I'd have stayed away, too. "But my whole knitting group is going. Liz is bringing her new gentleman friend, and Peggy has invited her children." She had come down the stairs with her long overcoat already buttoned, a thick, black scarf wound round her neck and Dad's old hiking boots on her feet. The gap between Dad's gray wool socks and the bottom of the coat showed bare legs where I expected slacks. "Mom, are you wearing a dress?" I wasn't sure she even owned dresses any more. "Mmm. Now, where is your brother? Well, we'll just have to go. I've left a note for him with directions to the spot. He'll just have to show up when he shows up." She popped open the door and bustled out into the sunny but chilly day. "We need to get there by noon or they'll start without us." I followed, shaking my head at her naive exuberance. We listened to her Nat King Cole CD of Christmas songs on the way down the highway, pulling off at a trail head mostly frequented by teenagers looking for a good place to drink beer on Friday nights in the summer. I followed her up the trail, neither of us talking. The day really was astonishingly beautiful. My breath hovered in wisps before me, and the new snow sat on the naked branches with grace and serenity. One tree near the top of a rise had frozen into a crystal wonder and glistened in a way that no artist could ever have recreated. Mom trudged ahead with purpose and resolve. After a few minutes, she followed footprints off the side of the trail, and I heard a murmur of voices. We emerged into a clearing where a dozen people loitered, chatting with each other. Mom turned to me and said, "Oh, good. We're not late." I saw Peggy and Liz, her reluctant boyfriend hovering behind her with a blue beret on his bare head. He wore a suit as if dressed for Christmas Mass, and his eyes darted from woman to woman like a cornered animal looking for an escape route. I tried not to give the same impression. I recognized them all. My mother's friends from the past thirty years--women who changed my diapers. Women who brought meals to my mom and sat with her late into the night after Dad died. Women who had come to my high school graduation, who had sent me generous gifts when I graduated medical school. Women who had come to my E.R. with fake ailments just so they could be treated by their friend's daughter. I smiled to see them all supporting her once again, even this nutty idea of a solstice celebration. Peggy came over to us. "Oh! Wonderful! Now we can get started!" She turned to the group. "Ladies! And Ken, of course." She winked in his direction. "It's time to start the revelry!" I started at the resulting whoop from the other ladies. Then my eyes went wide and my first thought was that they had all been drinking. I glanced at Ken to see his reaction mirrored mine. All at once, the ten old ladies, every one of them at least sixty years old if they were a day, threw off their overcoats. And every one of them was naked except for wool socks and heavy boots. They leapt about and formed a circle in the middle of the clearing, and they started dancing about. Some twirled, some bounced up and down--which was not flattering from the front or the rear--and others pranced around and around the circle. Every now and then one of them would whoop or shout something subtly Christian like "Praise be!" or "Hallelujah!" I stood rooted, unable to move. I could tell my mouth was agape. The doctor in me started worrying vaguely about frostbite and heart conditions, but the daughter in me was nothing but mortified. I couldn't stop myself from looking around to make sure no one but us saw this. I glanced at Ken, who seemed to feel as I did. Then, suddenly, his face changed. He shrugged at me, smiled, and threw off his coat. As he started unbuttoning his shirt, I turned to leave. "Where are you off to?" demanded someone's voice behind me. "I'm going to wait in the car." And if Jake shows up, I thought, I'll keep him busy so he doesn't have to see this.
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Ethan leads the karate class.

haiku wednesday

This week's words are:
clumsy
fire
overlooked

---

overlooked lantern
hot time in the old town now!
fire clumsy milkmaid

---

overlooked nerd girl
clumsy bookworm, thick glasses
oh, she lights your fire

---

teen kid's clumsy fire
overlooked embers tumble
Malibu ashes

Ten on Tuesday: New Year's Resolutions

[link]

10 New Year's Resolutions
I am not that big on resolutions, preferring to opt for a more "continuous quality improvement" approach to my life. Resolutions tend to be of the "oh my god I need to make huge changes" variety that last a few weeks. I think my life is pretty good, and I just tinker with it here and there constantly to adjust it to current conditions. All that said, here are 10 things I resolve for 2008:

1. Vote.
   I usually wait until election night to read the voter pamphlet, which means I'm voting on my mood. Instead, I resolve to read the pamphlet at least one day before I vote, hopefully more.
2. Write.
   Whether they get published or not, I will write three new short stories in 2008. I managed only one in 2007 because work became overwhelming.
3. Submit (#1)
   I have a number of completed stories and plan to write three new ones. I want to see them in print, so I need to submit them.
4. Call.
   I am supremely awful at keeping in touch with friends and family. I resolve to call and write them more often.
5. Stretch.
   I have suffered a series of nagging soccer injuries in the past year (yes, I'm getting old), so I resolve to stretch and warm up properly before soccer games and when I go to the gym.
6. Get trained.
   Although I don't expect ever to be a uniformed Scout leader, my older boy is bridging to Boy Scouts this year, and I want to go on camping outings with them. That means I need to be trained. Even though I don't have time for it.
7. Revise.
   The Gold Miner's Daughter first draft is complete. Now I need to revise it. Early reviews on the first draft are very positive.
8. Submit (#2).
   Once revised, find an agent for Gold Miner's Daughter.
9. Tell people I care about them.
   In the past 18 months I've lost three friends, and another person close to me is diagnosed with a terminal illness. None of us knows how much time we have left, and at the most recent memorial (a friend died suddenly, without warning) many people lamented not telling the guy how they felt about him and how much they liked him while he was around.
10. Carpe Diem.
    Keeping in mind #9 above, I plan to worry less and enjoy more. (My friends might snicker because I already don't worry much and enjoy a lot, but the truth is that I hold back from doing some things I want to do, and I resolve to break that.)
    

So there it is. Not so very remarkable, huh? What are your resolutions?

Fiction Friday: we're not all perfect, you know

This Week’s Theme: What is the skeleton in your character's closet? For this exercise, I am using one of the minor characters from my new NaNo novel. This character will become a major character by the end of the third book in the series, but now he appears as an honorable, courageous father figure. Below is a scene from his not-so-distant past in rural Virginia, a scene leading up to his decision to join the Gold Rush and move to California. "Cold night." The stranger's drawl oozed from his mouth in an exhale of pale steam and hung in the moonlit darkness. He wore a floppy, bumpkin hat and a thick, woolen coat that was two sizes too big for him. Bill Mitchell couldn't see the young man's shoes, but he was sure they would have holes in the soles. "That it is," Bill replied. The young man stood in the middle of the road, unmoving. His hat shaded his face from the moon's light, creating deeper shadows. Bill watched and waited, unable to spur his wagon forward with the man standing there. Becky, the horse, seemed content to wait and rest a while. The man coughed once, sniffed, rubbed the coat of his sleeve once across his nose. Neither man spoke for an uncomfortable time. Finally, Bill broke the silence. "If you don't mind making way, I've got a ways to go tonight before I'm home." The stranger waited a moment more, then spoke in his long, drawn-out words again. "Neighborly thing would be to invite a man in for some warmth." Bill felt himself tense. The man had said it in a kind enough tone of voice, but it was a challenge nonetheless. Had this stranger appeared at Bill's door, perhaps he would have invited him in for a meal, offered that he could sleep in the barn for a night, given him food. But here on this remote track still miles away... "I'm sorry, son," Bill said, "but I've got nothing to offer you tonight." "Ain't that a shame," the man whispered, but still he did not move. Bill climbed down from the seat atop the wagon, lifting his rifle as he went. "Son, I don't mean to be inconsiderate," he said as he stepped in front of the smaller man, "but I'd appreciate you moving on so my wagon can get past." "Something good you got there? In that wagon of your'n?" "Never you mind. Just step off the road and I'll be on my way." The night closed in around him, and he raised the gun barrel, pointing it at the stranger's chest. "Now, that don't seem neighborly neither," the man said simply. "We ain't neighbors." The man still did not move, and Bill waited two minutes, then three. His throat was dry, and his hands were shivering in the early November night. Clouds were moving in across the moon, covering the sky, and the snow would come soon. He needed to move on. This stranger, a young man of perhaps twenty years, stared back at him from his ragged coat and threadbare pants and motionless boots. Bill felt the cold in his bones now, and the weariness that had been settling on him all evening now weighed him down. "Please, mister, just step aside and let me pass." "No." Bill did not mean to do it. It must have been the shivering, the exhaustion, the cold, the darkness. But his finger squeezed the trigger on his rifle, and the shot cracked out in the silence, the bullet thudding deep into the man's chest. Bill dropped the rifle as the man crumpled to the road without a sound. Confusion and despair spread through him as he ran to the fallen stranger. The man was dead, there was no doubt even in the darkness of the thickening night. Who he was, or why he chose that remote road on that night, Bill would never know. Quickly, Bill grabbed the man's feet and dragged him off the road and into the woods. Only a dozen yards in was a deep thicket, and Bill shoved the body under it. Within minutes he was back atop his wagon, riding quickly for home, his hands still shivering, but no longer from the November cold.
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